Recently, at an NBA game between the Miami Heat and San Antonio Spurs, a young man-made headlines for singing the national anthem. He did not forget the words. In fact, he sang them very well for a young man of his age in front of thousands of people. What he made headlines for was the reactions of some of the racists that fill our country and bring it down to levels of unintelligence not seen since the first man walked the earth.
People saying he had no right to sing the national anthem because he was not American enough subjected the young man, born in San Antonio, but of Mexican heritage, to racial slurs. Yes, you read that correctly, a number of racists that tweeted and commented about his performance did not consider him American enough about his singing the national anthem simply because of his racial background. Since when did being American equate with being White?
This rings of ideas reminiscent of the era before Civil Rights were gained in our country. White does not equal American. No race equals being American. We are Americans based on where we were born, if our parents were American, or if we were naturalized as citizens of the United States. The fact that there were people attacking this young man should not surprise us, especially since we have seen our president attacked and his being American questioned by “birthers” of the politically stupid that have come out of the woodwork in our country.
Our country is becoming less and less dominated by people who consider themselves White/Caucasian. The problem is that there are many Whites who fear this rather than embrace it as our becoming the melting pot for which our country is famous. Is this fear because there are those who are White who have acted in a racist manner toward those who are not and they fear retribution? Probably. Is it because there are too many Whites who simply do not know enough about other cultures and thus choose to fear them because it is easier than to learn about them and accept them? I think this is far truer than not.
This is not to say there are not racists of other colors than White. However, for those who are White, have you ever thought that is how they see you as well? Prejudice is the child of ignorance and fear. It knows no race, culture, or creed. If people are not willing to learn and take the chance to get to know others of differing cultural or ethnic backgrounds, then our nation is doomed to be run by racists such as those who spewed venomous words toward this young man. It should not be a case of a classy kid vs. racist jerks. Our country needs more people to realize that the only thing that truly sets us apart is our ignorance of one another. That can be bridged when one person steps forward with a smile and kind words. If enough people do that, then the hateful words and views of the few will be drowned out by the laughter and joy of friends of all races and cultures.
Tag Archives: Politics
Memorial Day 2013
Memorial Day 2013. A day for many to have off work and cook out with friends and family. Maybe even catch a movie or a baseball game or even watch some golf. However, more than all of this, it is a day that we need to reflect on the sacrifices of those who went to war or into battle as members of our armed forces. By sacrifices, we need to remember those who have died, but we also must remember those who continue to fight the war even after they return home.
Take, for example, the soldier who has, like so many of our soldiers, endured multiple deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan with little time off between them. Yes, they were trained for combat; however, the human mind and body can only take so much stress before it has negative effects. A friend of mine told me about his commanding officer who had endured multiple deployments. He was a good man who cared deeply about his troops. They loved him for it. He would hang out with them when they would go out on the town when in Germany. He made certain they made it safely back to base. This man, when he found out he was to be deployed once again to Afghanistan, committed suicide rather than face the horrors of war again. I believe it would have been his fourth deployment. It is shameful for our country to send these men and women into harm’s way time and time again without some way for them to decompress and get the help they need to deal with the psychological scars of war.
There are thousands of veterans who have returned to their homes and jobs, but within themselves, part of them is still at war. They continue to fight the battles in their heads as they cannot get it out of their minds. It haunts them and causes many of them to take their own lives to escape the pain. These veterans suffer from what was once known as shell shock, but is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is the same thing regardless of the more politically correct moniker. It is hard to treat as many do not seek the assistance they need because they fear it is a sign of weakness to ask for help. Instead, they suffer through unknown rages or even recurring images of war that haunt them as they attempt to return to normal.
Another sad aspect of this is that, since their wounds are not in the open, many believe they have no injuries. We need to remember that although the body is intact, the mind may not be. Unfortunately, there are simply not enough professionals in the military to help these young men and women with the war raging in their minds. If someone sees a veteran with limbs lost, they want to help. Yet, those who have not lost a limb still have lost part of themselves and need our help desperately. The nightmares do not end for them. Sometimes the slightest sound or scent can trigger an episode of anxiety or panic for them. We have heard past news headlines where this has led to people being killed. While that does occur, many more veterans suffering from PTSD take their own life rather than the lives of others.
These young men and women deserve so much more than to suffer. They deserve our support. They need to be put in contact with professionals who can help them. They need to know that it is okay to ask for help. It is hard for someone who has been trained to fight and keep their pain silent to open up and tell their story, but it has happen for healing to begin. Their loved ones go through it with them, yet may not even realize what they are truly going through in their minds. We, as Americans, need to demand that these veterans get the help they need. We need to urge our elected officials to provide funding for adequate mental health services for our veterans. While many veterans may not currently show their pain, it is bound to surface sometime in their lives. They need help.
So, as you sit down to enjoy your hamburger or hot dog or the game, take a moment and also write to your elected officials and demand better for our veterans. Not just those with visible wounds and scars, but those whose scars are deeper.
Happy Mother’s Day to the Fairer Sex
With Mother’s Day in only two days, I thought it fitting to focus an article on women in general. Lately, they have come under attack on so many issues. There are those in government who wish to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. There are those who blame women for being raped for the clothes they choose to wear. There are those who even still believe women are the weaker sex and are inferior to men. As a man, I have to say that there is much more to a woman than what most people, including other women, see. They are stronger than one might think regardless of their body type. However, let me get into the issues I have already addressed.
First, the governmental regulation of what women can and cannot do with their bodies. The government has no right to do this; that is unless they wish to regulate what men do with theirs as well. There are those in government who want to tell a woman whether she can or cannot have an abortion. There are also those, many of them the same people, who want to limit a woman’s access to affordable, safe contraception. It is her body, her life, her wanting to be self-empowered and responsible, so the government should leave her alone! Imagine if the government tried to tell men they could not have vasectomies or purchase condoms. Imagine if men were forced by the government to procreate all in the name of patriotism. There would be protests and riots in the streets.
Next, the excuse that a woman’s clothing caused her to be raped. While there are women who wear less than others, that is not an excuse for them to become the victims of a rape. Yes, heterosexual men are turned on by the sight of a woman’s body, but that does not give them the right to rape women. Rapists use that as an excuse. A woman wears clothing for the same reason as a man does; they like how they look in it. They chose their clothing to fit their mood, the occasion, and to accentuate their body type. Men do the same thing. A man who chooses to wear a torso-hugging shirt or no shirt at all is doing the same thing as a woman who wears a tight-fitting or lower cut neckline shirt—they are showing off that part of the body they are proud of. Men wearing tight jeans hope to accentuate their rears the same as women do when they wear the same or a similarly cut skirt or dress. It is no different except in the perception imposed upon them by cultural beliefs or customs. When it comes to rape, that is a crime of power perpetrated by a man or a woman who feels they have no power and that if they make an intimate and personal attack on someone, then they will gain power. Rape is a cowardly act regardless of who commits it. A woman does not wear clothing hoping to be raped. Men simply need to control themselves and, if they cannot, then they need to seek psychological help to overcome their problem.
Finally, I will briefly address the idea of women as the weaker sex. How can that be true? They bear children. They carry 8-10 pounds of additional weight for 9 months only to pass that out an extremely small orifice. How is that week? That is pretty damned strong to me. In addition, many women work outside the home in addition to also trying to be as traditional as they can be as mothers. That is stressful, especially if there is no support from their spouses or significant others. The idea of their being the weaker sex is ludicrous. They are physically speaking the softer sex, but not the weaker sex. However, women are supposed to look different from men; it is part of what makes them attractive. So, rather than being the weaker sex, let us all view women as the fairer sex. I will hold off what makes women attractive for another article.
Let me just end this by wishing all mothers out there a Happy Mother’s Day! If you do not have children as yet, then I wish you a Happy Potential Mother’s Day. Even if you choose not to give birth or even adopt a child, that does not mean someone may not benefit from your maternal instincts and from you being a strong woman. So, Happy Mother’s Day to you as well.
The Audacity of the Tea Party and Affiliated Groups
The audacity of the Tea Party is amazing. I cannot believe they, along with the NRA, can stoop as low as they have in the past 5 years. Last week, while traveling in Michigan, I happened across a couple who set up a table alongside the road in front of a post office. They had a picture of President Obama with a square moustache in the form of the one worn by Hitler. Their sole purpose of being there was to advocate the removal of our president and state that he is like Hitler as well as cover the standard NRA rhetoric about the government wanting to take away guns; that the government knew about the Boston tragedy, and other typical propaganda spewed forth by the politically far right. I chose not to stop, as I needed to get my errands taken care of and back home. However, I should have stopped, as it is bothersome to me and likely to many others who passed.
For one reason, it is comparing our president to one of the worst dictator/genocidal maniacs ever to live. President Obama is not a dictator. He is the president. He has not illegally invaded a sovereign nation. He has not established martial law. He has not banned trade unions. He has not forced people into concentration camps. He has not established a gang of henchmen to do his bidding. He was legally elected and did not come to power in a coup or court-ordered fashion. Besides, if he were a dictator, then the people spewing forth this nonsense would be either dead or jailed.
Next is the rhetoric that the government knew about the Boston tragedy before it happened or somehow allowed someone involved in it to escape. Why in the heck would they do that? While another president allowed the family of a known terrorist to travel back to their native country during the air stoppage after 9-11, President Obama was as much shocked by the tragedy as everyone in the United States. Possibly more as he is the leader of our nation. The President reacted as a leader and allowed the law enforcement agencies to do their job and go after the perpetrators. He added the services of the F.B.I. as well to assist.
Finally, the government does not want to take away all the guns. They want to make certain that when guns are purchased that those buying them are trained in both how to use them as well as how to keep them safe. They want to make certain that those buying guns are not mentally unstable. They want owners to register their guns so that if the guns are stolen, then reported as such that the owner is not blamed if a criminal uses their gun to kill or hurt someone else. This is common sense. It makes so much sense that one cannot understand how someone translates this into taking the guns away from law- abiding citizens. Yes, in history, there likely were dictators who required registration of weapons so that they could then use it against gun owners in a negative fashion. This is highly unlikely here in the United States as a dictatorship is almost impossible to imagine given our governing system as well as the fact that Americans cannot band together in that large of numbers to agree on anything in the first place.
American Phallic Envy Needs Stopped
I never thought I would find myself agreeing with Sigmund Freud, but I think I know what the problem is for some Americans when it comes to firearms. The reason why the National Rifle Association exists and why some Americans cling to their need for bigger guns, larger ammunition clips, and are so adamant in their wanting enough firepower to handle a small war comes down to what Freud would call penis envy. Those gun fanatics have penis envy. They want it a larger gun than anyone else. They want to be able to fire more rounds than anyone else. They want to have more and more weapons than anyone else. This is like some teenager standing in a locker room shower wondering if his is substantial enough to please a woman.
Much like little boys, according to Freud, want to take their father’s place, but fear him cutting off their manhood; the gun fanatics are so afraid that they will lose their high-caliber phallic symbols to another male, in this case Uncle Sam. It does not matter to them that those same weapons are meant for nothing but to kill other people. It does not matter to them that the research is there that says firearms are more dangerous than any other weapon aside from nuclear weapons. It does not matter to them that their guns could be stolen and either used against them or against someone else. They feel that the Second Amendment gives them the right to own any weapon made to the point that some even feel it is a God-given right to own as many weapons as possible. There is no place in any Bible or other holy book that says people have the right given to them by the Creator to harm anyone else, except for in time of war and even that is to be avoided if someone is able to do so. That being the case, there is also no commandment saying that ‘Thou Shalt Own an Assault Rifle.’
I digress. What needs to happen is some serious therapy for these phallic envying people. They need to be educated that it is okay to have a smaller or fewer guns. They need to be educated that it is okay to have less number of bullets in the magazine. They need to be educated that it is okay to register their weapons as that is a safety measure that will protect them if their weapon is stolen and used by the criminal.
That brings me to another point with this. The NRA has long used the phrase that “Guns do not kill people. People do.”They fail to mention that it is far easier for people to kill other people when they have a gun. It is impersonal. It is not like a knife or a sword where you have to get up close and possibly use it multiple times to kill. It is not like using bare hands where you also have to get close to your victim. It is not like even a bow and arrow where you have to actually pull back to release it. You load a gun and it stays loaded until emptied or shot. There are no accidental shootings, only weapons improperly used, handled, or kept out loaded and accessible when they should be empty and locked away.
What should be done? We, as citizens of the United States, need to press our Congressmen and Congresswomen for meaningful gun laws. We need to stop allowing the NRA to dictate policy. Will criminals still be able to get weapons illegally? Probably, you cannot stop every one. However, will access to weapons be easy? No, but it should not be easy to have access to as many weapons as one may want nor to the number of bullets they may want. With gun ownership, should come responsibility. It is a huge responsibility to allow anyone to have anything that can kill with such accuracy or in such numbers as firearms can. None of us should need reminded of Columbine, the theater in Colorado, or Sandy Hook to understand that. Nor should we need reminded of the countless people killed every year through the irresponsible use of firearms. However, our elected officials need reminded of all of this as graphically as possible. Gabby Giffords is talking more and more about the need for it, especially after her near fatal attack by a gunman. The parents of the slain children at Sandy Hook are speaking more about it through their pain of loss. It is time for meaningful gun reform and an end to the worship of the phallic symbol—the gun.
Treasonous Tea
We the People of the United States…. Those words that form the beginning of our Constitution almost no longer seem relevant in the governing of our country. We have, as a whole, turned our backs on self-governing and become complacent in our duty to hold our elected officials accountable to us. Instead, we have allowed them to bastardize our rights and, rather than representing us the people, they represent special interest groups and those who hold the most wealth in our county. This is a travesty and an insult to our founders and their ideal of a country governed of the people, by the people, and for the people.
For all practical purposes, the opening words of the Constitution should read something like: We the Wealthy or We the mega-corporations, or even, we the special interest groups rather than We the People. We have allowed ourselves to follow blindly the rhetorical fecal matter propounded by special interests through their purchased politicians. We have bought into the idea that the wealthy and corporate leaders have our best interests in mind as they feed their purchased politicians and media outlets with rhetoric designed to play well with the less informed or simply apathetic minds within our society. The reality of it is that those same special interests and wealthy persons have only one thing in mind—their own self-preservation and the attainment of more wealth. They tell us the dare not pay their fair share of taxes because it will stunt the economy and job growth. If the wealthy, who pay less percentagewise in taxes than the average worker, truly were in the business of job creation, then there should be no unemployment. Instead, we hear and witness their taking in record profits while there are a record number of workers who are unemployed. This is not job creation; it is the creation of more wealth for the wealthy on the backs of the poor, working, and middle classes.
What is more is that those people who we have elected to represent us rake in billions of dollars from these corporations and wealthy individuals to support their campaigns for re-election while still drawing a salary that is paid out of taxpayer dollars. So, why do we continue to allow them to draw this salary if they are not representing the people who elected them? Apathy? Ignorance? Either way, it is not right.
We the People need to organize a new revolution against the tyranny of special interest driven politicians! If our elected officials are not representing our interests and only wish to further the agenda of corporate giants and the wealthy, then we need to recall them from their offices and replace them with those who will do the will of the people. Otherwise, we are a pathetic bunch of sheep simply following the wolves to our slaughter.
The dictionary defines the word treason in three principle ways:
1. The offense of acting to overthrow one’s government or harm or kill its sovereign.
2. A violation of allegiance to one’s sovereign or to one’s state.
3. The betrayal of a trust or confidence; breach of faith; treachery.
Given the current circumstances and these definitions, then there are plenty of officials who are kowtowing to special interests and they are guilty of treason against the American people who are the foundation of our representative government. They must be impeached and replaced by people who will represent ALL people rather than a select few. We have heard news reports of these same purchased politicians make threatening references toward our President and We the People with their goals of making certain that nothing good is accomplished within our government unless their demands—that is the demands of their special interests—are met. They are holding our country hostage!
Why have they not been removed from office? The simple answer to that is that We the People have not the courage to act further than to verbally complain about their treasonous actions.
The time for words is over!
It is time for We the People to take non-violent, constitutionally sound action to remove these treasonous politicians from office! I am not calling for armed revolt, but intend for us to truly take our government back to being of the People, by the People, and for the People rather than for only a select few or for the corporate greed monsters.
It is time for We the People to hold our elected officials accountable to us rather than their corporate handlers!
It is time for We the People to stand up and stand together in solidarity to force those elected to represent us rather than allow them to continue their haughty mistreatment of our right to fair and equitable representation!
It is time for We the People to demand action from our elected officials that is in line with the betterment of our country and citizenry as a whole!
The Time is now for We the People who love our country and its freedoms to take a stand or else continue to suffer the consequences of our apathy for our generations and the generations to come!
Jay B Snyder, Writer 