Down Mexico Way

ABC's World News Tonight reports that a war is going on just South of the border between Mexican police and criminal drug cartels. The news report alleges that 2,000 police officers have been killed within the last year or so in these escalating hostilities. 95% of the guns, mostly automatic weapons, used to inflict the casualties on Mexican law enforcement officers were allegedly from the U.S., smuggled into Mexico after being purchased from an American gun dealer or gun show. The report also claims that some 12,000 gun dealers are in the states bordering Mexico. We can surely surmise that the vast majority of these gun dealers and gun traders are NRA members. It makes one wonder if the Mexican drug cartels are indirectly, and possibly directly, supporting the NRA through dues paid or other contributions. It takes a hefty treasury to support an effective lobbying program like that of the NRA. Maybe, because of the money involved in gun sales to the Mexican drug cartels, that's why it's so hard to get legislation restricting the sale of automatic weapons. Anyway, it's something to ponder.

Letter from Lubbock

There is a letter, allegedly from a lady from Lubbock, circulating on the Internet which claims that as a tourist in Egypt and Israel she was told by both Arabs and Jews that Barack Obama is a Muslim. As the story goes, "Once a Muslim, always a Muslim". Well, I won't go there. We know that thought is crap. The only person who would believe that is an ignorant, Islamic religious fundamentalist. Whoops! Perhaps, I should broaden my reference and drop the word, Islamic.

CNN's Compassion Forum

"Compassion Forum" is a misnomer. Rather than asking the Democrat presidential candidates questions about caring, just, humane behavior toward those in need, the topics queried were about the religious views of the candidates vis-a-vis current social, economic and political issues. Since when does religion have a lock on compassion? The news media is resplendent with ignorant persons who postulate catch phrases like "Compassion Forum" without a full understanding of its implications. Atheists, agnostics, and secularists who are believers in a higher power or unbelievers, as the case may be, have the same ability to claim compassion as a personal virtue as does a religious person. The odd thing about the media's interpretation of compassion is that somehow they involve it in issues like evolution, abortion, secular government, and literal interpretation of the Bible, all hot button items for fundamentalist voters. So, would CNN please tell us why, other than to reveal their lack of scholarship, they chose to call their grilling of candidates about religion a "Compassion Forum"?

Bitter, Economically Hard-pressed Americans

What's wrong with what Obama said? Hillary says he is elitist and out-of-touch. Bull! If anything, what he is did was speak the truth, by pointing out the social stratification that exists in the U.S., and that those who are not blessed with the largess of the information economy are not happy campers. But, to say that is taboo. The approved line is that America consists of a big pool of middle class citizens who are successfully reaching through hard-work and perseverance for the American dream of a better life for themselves and their off-spring. Dissatisfied people don't exist in the preferred version of our culture, only upward-bound, hard-working folks are allowed.

Well, Barack didn't lay on the B.S. He told it like it is. Hillary needs to realize that there are people who are bitter, people whose jobs have been sent to India, people who live where job opportunities no longer exist by out-sourcing our economy to foreign shores, where hopes for economic development in the form of new base industries is dashed by this same corporate practice, where what jobs do exist often require a distant commute, using ever more costly fuel, from a hometown where their investment in housing is locked in, while decent housing is hard to find because of an aging housing stock and spiraling home construction costs, where age discrimination derails plans for a comfortable retirement and helping children with the mounting cost of higher education, where racial discrimination prevents the realization of the promised results of an education, where health care options are not readily available or terribly expensive, and where a war in Iraq forces a disproportionately small number of families to bear the brunt of death and hardship caused by this ill-conceived and ill-managed war.

Somehow, the fiction that the folks who have experienced the calamities I have described should suffer in silence, keep a stiff upper lip, be proud and faithful in the American system, etc. trumps the truth. If all Hillary and others can do is fault Obama for telling the truth, then they are pathetic. Is change needed? Yes. Is Obama talking about the reasons change is needed? Yes. How ridiculous!

Hiatus

For the past 4 months, I have not made an entry into RealKansas. I have been otherwise occupied. Due to recent events, I am inspired to share my opinions about the treatment of Barack Obama by a news media that mindlessly parrots the statements of those in opposition to him, be they Hillary's Hangers-on or McCain's Misfits. But, wait, is the news media actually mindless? I suspect those who raise spurious, picayune issues about Obama are, in fact, supporters of either H or McM. And, it is possible that they merely reflect racist views. CNN is definitely in the Hillary camp. Fox News is certainly against Obama, although I'm not sure they support McCain. MSNBC is the most inconsistent: their pundits are cautious and their anchors simply read their producers' cue cards, as the latter attempt to fill air time with vacuity. The attacks on Obama, for whatever reason, deserve item-by-item analysis.