Love is Brave

A person's job is a significant part of their identity. If I trace my employment history back... oh let's say... forever, my identity seems to be a hard worker who does a good job for scumbags who see no distinction between kindness and foolishness. A common result of a corporate society. Back when I lived in Dundas I was taken advantage of by Bob Bott who gave me a chocolate milk and 2 bucks to do half of the largest Hamilton Spectator paper route there was at that time. Over 200 papers. He used me on Saturdays and I think Wednesdays when the papers were huge. It was back-breaking work and I was doing it for almost nothing. Bob, however, was making 20 times what I was! That kind of mentality is encouraged from the time we wear shorts and T-shirts and deliver papers right on up to business suits and day trading. Or whatever. No distinction is made between amoral selfishness and business savvy. Another common result of our corporate society.

I have worked for people who were busted for committing crimes three times here in Korea. And that's not counting the wife of the boss I worked for who took out a hit on one of his relatives. EVERY contract I have signed, except ONE, was broken. I have been requestd or required to break laws by the majority of my employers over here. But I just keep on trying. Because to get a good job, you have to trust someone. You have to take a chance on a company. You have no choice.

Like many other examples, jobs and personal relationships have this in common. You can't really find a good girlfriend or boyfriend or mate or whatever and not trust them.

And it's the same with love. Many say the opposite of love is not hate, but fear. It's pretty much impossible to carefully fall in love. But as we see these days, there is a need for some love to be shown for our fellow human beings that is just as fearless. It's pretty tough these days to find anything good or worthwhile that doesn't involve at least a little risk. This, unfortunately, is a message that is being overwhelmed by the fearmongers.

As I type this I hear a moment of silence at the Vancouver Canucks/ Winnipeg Jets game. It's for the victims of the France attacks. With delicious irony, the Kenyan Boy's Choir then sang the national anthem of Canada.

It's ironic because the reaction to the France attacks was huge and the reaction to the even more hideous Kenyan school attacks in April hardly registered. There seems to be a specific pinpointing of fear being orchestrated worldwide. It's not really clear to me what the exact reason for it is, but I have no doubt in the end it comes down to lust for money and power.

It's our own responsibility to view the recent Paris attacks, Kenyan attacks, the Syrian refugees and situations such as these objectively and without falling victim to sensationalistic brainwashing. But this is not an easy thing to do.

So should we listen to Allen West who says America shouldn't allow thousands of refugees into the country until they can take care of the thousands of neglected war vets? He IS a war vet himself. In Iraq he was involved in the beating and mock execution of a Muslim prisoner and released from service, but... you can conclude from that what you will.

ORRRRrrr... Maybe we should listen to Jim Wright, another war vet, when he sees pics like these:

and says,

I've seen literally hundreds of variations on this theme today.

Obama cares more about Muslim refugees than he does about homeless veterans.

The next person who says this to me? I'm likely to punch right in the fucking mouth and KEEP punching until I pound the hypocrisy out them.

Honestly, I can't think ANY other way to get through to these assholes. Threats and violence are the only thing they understand. Reason, logic, actual history, religion, NOTHING works. They've walked around the homeless and the destitute and the hungry and the poor and the sick their entire lives. They bitch and complain and whine ENDLESSLY about how terrible they have it, in fact they never shut the fuck up about how miserable they have it - and they walk around the homeless every single day without a second thought. Hell, it's not enough for them to ignore the destitute, these very same assholes pass laws prohibiting YOU from helping the homeless and they bulldoze homeless encampments and cut funding for shelters at EVERY opportunity.

They didn't give a shit about homeless veterans before Obama, they don't now, and they NEVER will.

That picture? That one of the dead Syrian child washed up on a beach? The one I asked you to stop posting? I asked you to stop posting it because it does NOTHING. They don't care. These people are the same ones whose ancestors looked at dead African American children and dead Native American children and shrugged. Nits make lice, they said, one less to grow up into my enemy. Get 'em while they're young. These are the same people, the very same people, who turn back sick starving abused children at our Southern border every single day. Who stood outside a bus full of refugee children in Southern California shouting fuck you, go home and die, pendejos. If pictures of dead children had ANY power to sway these selfish sons of bitches, we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place.

And now? Now it's homeless veterans. Wah wah wah and oh my eyes are full of tears for their sad condition. What has Obama, OBAMA, done about homeless veterans? Wah wah wah. We should take care of our own first.

Take care of our own first?

Really? Take care of our own first? I'm hip.

WHAT THE FUCK IS STOPPING YOU?

You want to do something about homeless vets? Your heart bleeds red, white, and blue for their plight? Then DO something about it, or shut the fuck up.

If these people actually gave even the smallest shit about veterans, they'd actually DO something instead of creating memes to attack whichever political party or politician they currently despise.

I'll say here what I said in reply to somebody on another thread complaining about Michelle Obama's effort to find housing for Veterans:

US Veterans have suffered the effects of war and American indifference since the Revolution. The First Lady, Michelle Obama, made veteran care and especially military families her priority since the day she moved into the White House. She's done more for veterans than all the worthless yellow magnets stuck on the back of SUVs across America and more than the majority of our worthless Congress combined and has quietly, every day for the last seven years. This woman has been a tireless advocate for military families, but she gets no credit for it and you for sure won't hear Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck mention it between calling her a "gorilla" and a "mooch."

Yes, it sure would great to see America actually do something for homeless vets - or ALL the homeless Americans those vets fought for, for that matter. But this is nothing new. This didn't happen or start on Obama's watch and it won't end with the next president whoever that may be. This isn't the President, this is US. We Americans. We've been walking around veterans on the street for two centuries. And you'll note despite all the teary-eyed patriotic rhetoric from the chest beating war mongers in Congress, they STILL haven't passed a Veterans Jobs bill and they blocked VA funding, again. Veterans are nothing more than a way to score points for both sides and Congress should be ashamed - but they don't even have the decency to do that much, nor do we have the courage and wherewithal to elect those who do.

Obama is hardly the first to welcome refugees to America. We are a nation of refugees and immigrants fleeing war, oppression, poverty, hunger, and terror and we ALWAYS have been.

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

From Irish and Dutch immigrants fleeing the Potato Famine to Europeans and Chinese fleeing the Nazis and Imperial Japan, to Cambodians fleeing the killing fields, to Vietnamese, to Somalia, and Kurds, and Cubans, and Russians, and Latinos from every country in South and Central America, Presidents both liberal and conservative have welcomed refugees and immigrants to our shores - as people like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and even Barack Obama should be able to tell you.

This nonsense? This idiotic meme? The dimwitted, booger eating, soundbite partisan mentality like that in the picture above? That, that right there, is a far, far, far greater threat to the future of this country than any refugee.

Should we believe the stat pulled out of somebody's ass like this:

OOORRRRrrrrr...



0.003%! I reckon we have a better chance of eating feces today than meeting up with a Muslim extremist, much less getting killed or terrorized by them!



It's all pretty confusing to me. And I don't claim to have the spirit of Ghandi or Jesus, but we could probably use some advice from those guys right about now, eh? Wonder what they have to say about things like this. If only there was a library or a website or some huge stash of information with about, I dunno, like a google helpful posts and stories and webpages and pics and stuff like that I could somehow tap into....






All right! Thank you, Google! I might be a bit late with this. I have seen quite a few people getting angry about fellow Facebookers posting warnings about accepting refugees. I can't help thinking about the Japanese internment camps during WWII. You know what? I have been to Japan and I've seen the powerfully implanted nationalism even modern Japan provides for its citizens. I bet it was even stronger back in the day. So, yes, there would likely have been some loyal to their Emperor. Don't forget, they didn't even consider Hirohito a human being. He was a god! Like North Koreans feel about THEIR leader. But who among us can get away with saying those internment camps were a good idea? I actually wrote a paper on them in grade school and got a zero for taking the wrong side of the story.

Surely, no matter how you vet them, there will be a person or two among the refugees who might have radical tendencies. But it comes down to a question of morality. How many people do you think are worth showing love to for every possible terrorist? Put another way, how many terrorists would Jesus abide? Or Ghandi? Put still another way, the way I, (and my 8-year-old mentality understand it best), are you scared of eating a little crap? I think people who claim to follow philisophical or religious ideals of peace and love have to consider this a chance to live up to those ideals. Sure there is danger, but it's pretty tough these days to find anything good or worthwhile that doesn't involve at least a little risk.

I have nothing to back this up, but I think it's possible that if we DON'T stop being afraid and start showing more love to our fellow man, it can only make a bad situation worse. Terrorism is called that because fear makes it stronger. Let's knock it off, okay?