Is it all really real?

After argument, man spikes
wife’s tea with anti-depressant
to calm her down.

“I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I do not know if I am a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”
Chuang Tzu

I once thought I was a sane person, but now I am not certain if I am an insane person who once merely thought I was sane. Events of the past few years, months, weeks, and days have left me terribly confused. I have begun to wonder if I am sane and the world insane or vice versa. Take Afghanistan for example. Here we have a situation where President Karzai presumably won re-election by a vote that everyone recognized was blatantly stolen. So, under pressure he agreed to a new vote. But then, his opponent announced that the second vote would be just as dishonest as the first one, so he withdrew. As a result of this Karzai was declared the winner and is still President of Afghanistan, and is acknowledged to be such by the U.S. So we are agreeing to recognize and work with an illegal head of state that is not acceptable to the majority of the Afghan people. I guess as we installed him as President in the first place, and now realize he is seriously corrupt, it will be okay to work with him. Strange, no?

Then there is my pet awesomely unbelievable situation with ex Vice-President Cheney. Cheney is a known war criminal who also engaged in what was a treasonous act against his own country by “outing” a secret service operative, destroying her career, and putting her colleagues in danger. His crimes and lies are so well known that they are now being discussed on the MSM. The law and the constitution of our country would seem to demand that he be brought to justice. Not only has that not happened, he walks around free and offers his (terrible) advice to our current President. Mysterious, is it not?

The 23rd district in New York State offers still another example of some really weird stuff. There was a perfectly respectable Republican candidate who was to run against a Democrat. But members of the truly conservative right-wing of the Republican Party, like Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, and others, decided she was not conservative enough so they conspired to oust her from the race in favor of an Independent candidate who is ultra conservative. The most interesting thing about this is that their preferred candidate, Hoffman, does not even live in the district, gave an unusually embarrassing press conference during which he admitted he knew nothing of their local issues, and seems (from the little I have seen of him) to be without charisma of any kind, and virtually without even a personality. As this district has not had a Democratic representative since Civil War times, Hoffman could even win (apparently he did not). But what the Republican conservatives hope to accomplish by this, whether he wins or not, is beyond my limited comprehension.

Then there is the perennial problem of Israel and Palestine. Obama has said the Israelis must stop their settlement building. The Palestinians have said there can be no further peace talks until Israel stops. Israel has refused to stop. Obama says he is committed to an Israeli/Palestinian peace accord. So, when Israel has refused to stop the settlements, and the Palestinians refuse to talk peace, what has the Obama administration done about it? Why, naturally, they have said the Israelis shouldn’t have to stop. Now doesn’t that make sense?

The issue of health care has become about as crazy as everything else. The American public wants a public option of some kind. Their corporate opponents do not. So our Congress, elected presumably to serve the public interest, have stalled and done everything they can to stop anything that might resemble a viable public option. Why do some of our Congresspersons and Senators do this? Why, they have accepted really big bucks from the corporations that oppose any meaningful change. What is truly insane about this is that everyone knows about it. Everyone knows they are being bribed and this is apparently considered appropriate behavior for a political system that claims to be a democracy. Even individual Senators who are known to have accepted large sums and are acting in the best interest of those who are paying them, are not being castigated or punished (or expelled from the Congress). This system of bribes and payoffs is now apparently considered just a natural part of our political system.

There are many other examples of what I regard as insanity or near insanity that are nowadays just considered “politics as usual.” Watching this, and hearing about it daily, I have come to believe that perhaps I am not who I am at all, but, rather, the Alice, in Alice in Wonderland. The line between sanity and insanity has been blurred in our country, or perhaps erased.

Although I admit to having been neglectful of late, I have not given up on my latest hobby, Collecting Sex Advice for Women as it Appears on Women’s Magazine Covers. This is the best hobby I’ve ever had, it’s cheap (costs absolutely nothing), it’s interesting, it’s easy, and it stimulates your imagination (because I never read these articles). Standing in line at the check-our station, I pursued the covers of some of the latest women’s magazines. Cosmopolitan featured this captivating title, “What He Thinks While Having Sex.” On the same cover I also found, “Foreplay Men Crave.” These were both featured in the “Sexy Bitch Issue.” Cosmopolitan is not called cosmopolitan for nothing. On Redbook’s cover was another sort of provocative title that almost made you want to read it, “Could a Stripper Pole Save Your Marriage.” Glamour threatened to undermine the entire trend of sex advice in women’s magazines by proclaiming, “Finally All the Answers to Sex and Love.” They also featured an article, “50 ways to dress your body sexier.” This latter almost doesn’t count as virtually all women’s magazine contain advice on dressing and being sexier: sexier hair, sexier legs, butts, thighs, dresses, hands, arms, eyes, and just about all other parts of the body (except feet, I have never yet seen any claims about having sexier feet). This is really a great hobby as you know it will be never-ending so you don’t have to worry about running out of material or having collected everything possible, and, like I said, it costs nothing (although the clerks sometimes raise an eyebrow or two).

LKBIQ:
Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.
Nora Ephron

TILT:
I would not have liked Leon Trotsky personally.