Now that I am in......

the twilight years of my life, a euphemism for 'old', I have begun to question the country I have loved and believed in for all these years. Of course I am referring to the U.S.A. I was born in St. Louis, Mo. a long time ago when radio was the source of news for the masses. Every theater had exciting, black and white, news reels before the cartoons, and after which the main feature played. We heard Roosevelt tell us we had nothing to fear but fear itself. We watched in awe as MacArthur waded through knee deep surf to save the Philippines.

In those days America meant square jawed, no nonsense, straightforwardness the likes of which we watched portrayed by Gary Cooper, James Stewart and John Wayne. The Japs were bastards, the Germans even worse and all of them were out to dirty the spotless robes we Americans wore so proudly. I believed it and so did the majority of the country. We were, without a doubt the good guys, the one's in the white hats.

Of course, now, some sixty or seventy years later, with the Internet, Face book and Wikileaks we are seeing ourselves portrayed as somewhat less than square-jawed and straight forward. After Vietnam, Nixon, a president's assasination, the shooting of a couple of others, Enron, Cheney's claim that 'deficits don't matter, Wall Street's exposure as greedy thugs and the Bush Administrations vulgarities we must re-assess who we are. Maybe even, what we are.

Now that we know we, as a nation, are just as furtive, unjust, militaristic and self serving as the world's governments we have been criticizing for the past five decades we can take our place among them and not claim to stand above them.

The U.S. wants to say which countries can have nuclear weapons. Iran no, North Korea no, Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia and China, yes. The difference between these countries is what?

The U.S. attacks Muslim terrorists all over the world except in Saudi Arabia, where, 15 of the 19 people who perpetrated the 9/11 attack, were born. Could it be the oil connection is too good to screw with?

The U.S. wants China to stop the alleged manipulation of their currency so that there is a level playing field for imports and exports. At the same time the U.S. continues, defiantly, selling arms to Taiwan, a very sore point with China. How would the U.S. respond if China were equipping Cuba for war?

We want Russia to sign a nuclear arms reduction pact while the U.S. is supporting a nuclear defense ring around the Eastern Europe countries. If Canada or Mexico suggested a similar strategy of course the U.S. would have no objection, right?

While the U.S. pretends to want what's best for the Palestinians they have joined forces with the Israelis to sabotage the Iranian nuclear development program. I'm sure the Palestinians must feel they have an unbiased ally in the United States.

All of this is what we have become internationally. It says nothing to the failures here at home. Suspension of Habeas Corpus for foreign born prisoners , Guantanamo, contemplation on whether torture is a viable means of maintaining a democracy. The Executive branch of government mincing words to circumvent the intention of the United States Constitution. Wall Street, banks, Black Water, Haliburten, pension funds and graft. Pyramid schemes, land bubbles and outlandish paychecks to CEOs. Murderous rhetoric by fanatics, attacks on any government program which has at its roots help for Americans of lesser means. Loss of jobs, crumbling infrastructure, disrespect for one another, dwindling opportunities and a pistol for every hand.

It's a far cry from those flickering, black and white, news reels I remember showing Marines mounting the American flag on Mount Suribachi and U. S. troops parading through the streets of Paris with thousands of people cheering them on. Times when an American family was proud and grateful to be able to buy an electric refrigerator, to have a back yard for their children to play in and a car in which to take weekend trips to see their country. Families who understood that they could not spend more than they earned. An America where we parked between the lines, swept the sidewalks in front of our homes and spoke respectfully to anyone nearing our grandparents age.

We are now in a different place, one in which none of us are really comfortable.

OK, I'm too tired to go on, but, if I could I would.

As we prepare for.....

the new Republican dominated congress to begin its raid on anything Obaman or inspired by Democrats, the non-aggressive, non-rich among us begin changing the locks and pushing heavy furniture against our front doors.

Everything that lends itself to helping the lesser among us, the poor, the elderly, the physically or mentally impaired, the working poor, the homeless, victims of the mortgage crisis resulting from the land 'bubble' and on and on ad nauseum, will be attacked as heading the United States toward Socialism.

What will, however, not be on their agenda is curbing exportation of arms, which the U.S. is the leader in the world, down sizing the annual defense budget which was just shy of $ 700 billion dollars for 2010, reducing the enormous expenditure of the infamous and useless 'war on drugs'. None of the expensive confrontations we have around the world will be brought into question. Nor will the non-regulated Wall Street, self serving excesses of Banks, executive bonus's or the arrogance of mega corporations. Apparently they are what makes America great and not the backs of the people who built them.

Money for education, for infrastructure in our country, welfare for our own society, for the health and well being of our own citizens will be challenged as handouts to the undeserving and, therefore, considered candidates for elimination.

Every dollar spent sealing us off, shielding us from the rest of the world, enforcing our ideas of who should be considered enemies, which countries we should teach 'democracy', who should have nuclear capabilities and who should not, is a dollar taken away from municipal services, state's abilities to meet their financial obligations, highway building, levee construction, alternative energy experiments and the well being of Americans in general.

Defense of one's home land is important, no one is denying it. But, it is a stretch to say the United States is defending itself by losing billions of dollars and thousands of American lives fighting shadows in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be wiser to protect our country from foreign attack than to be attacking foreigners in the anticipation of them attacking us.

OK, I'm too tired to go on. But, if I could I would.

In order to blog....

certainly a functioning computer is a necessity. For the past few weeks mine has given me fits. It all started when, for some reason, I could not download an IE8 update. Things land slided from bad to awful in just a few hours of me screwing around with, what I imagined were , my options.

Done in and without any adventure left it was time to contact my techie. He, who I will call Rami, is an extremely tall and lanky man who makes one think of Dali's Don Quixote. His business card touts him as an
'ingeniero' (engineer) of computers and that was a lot more than I could claim so I opted in. Since moving to this part of Mexico and carrying with me a computer Rami has been to me, what a quadruple bypass is to bad heart, nothing short of a life saver. Without his annoying calmness and patience I might have smashed this modern convenience into a million plastic pieces.

Anyway, after completely revamping my machine and all of its programs, files, folders and other inner stuff Rami was able to put me on the road again. In the process was lost some four years of writing.

I was so shocked that from today's date back to 2007 my precious words, thoughts, ideas and general bullshit were no more I decided I will get back on the Internet and send out as much of my stuff as I can so, at least, a portion of it may last longer than if I try to save it on my computer. I and my computer have proven ourselves to be unreliable.

I will try to recapture some of the same format I was using back then. I will not be able to resist more rants regarding American politics, government inanities and how old white guys cannot understand the Mexican culture no matter how submerged in it we are.

As a footnote, I have to say how sorry I am over the events in Tucson Az.. How much longer will it be before Americans are decapitating each other and rolling the heads of their opponents across barroom floors to frighten others out of their opinions? Maybe Mexico and the United States are not as far apart mentally as we used to think.

I'm back..............

after a long absence. The absence was mainly because I ran out of things to say, at least, things I thought worthwhile. The lessor reason I remained incommunicado was that every time I tried to return to my blog I was flummoxed by a series of new instructions requiring a Google account. I am barely literate let alone computer literate which prohibited me from accessing my own blog.

I now have a Google account and have found my blog again, I think. This message has no point other than seeing if what I have just said is in fact what has happened.

If I'm back on my blog I look forward to re-establishing some of my former acquaintances and starting again with my endless rambles about politics and government and life in Mexico.