No-Brainers

One reason I find it so difficult to blog anymore is that many things that seem to me to be complete “no-brainers” are apparently accepted by the MSM and others as perfectly respectable subjects for discussion. I applaud John Kerry’s recent statement that climate change is no longer a subject for debate. Of course this won’t matter to those who know nothing but continue to debate it anyway. As far as I am concerned those who deny climate change and its implications are basically trying to kill us all. Climate change denial is a true no-brainer.

Stand-your-ground laws are another perfect example of a no-brainer. If young black males are commonly regarded as intrinsically “threatening,” and if your perceived fear of that threat is all you need to “stand-your-ground” and shoot them, why should we not just shoot them on sight? Oh, I guess that is pretty much what is happening. When four black teen-agers, sitting in their car listening to loud music, can be shot, one to death, and the others shot at, apparently to try to kill them also, it  seems to me the laws have become themselves no-brainers. In this recent case it appears that murdering someone is irrelevant, whereas failing to kill the others is being punished. To me this case is a true no-brainer. I guess I need to change my attitude about loud music, get a gun, keep it loaded in my glove compartment, so that when I next hear loud country/western music, which I absolutely detest, I can shoot at will, claiming that I was being threatened by a bunch of cowboys (but only if they were Black cowboys). Stand your ground laws are absurd. People have always had the right to defend themselves. The stand your ground laws as they currently exist are little more than a license to kill young Black males on sight.

To me much of everything we do seems to be a no-brainer. Our seemingly endless, obviously failing “War on Drugs,” is most certainly a no-brainer. Our approach to Iran is a complete no-brainer, our uncritical support of Israeli war crimes is a no-brainer, our meddling in the Ukraine is a no-brainer, ditto Syria, and the many other countries we somehow think we should be able to control. Our attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan were no-brainers to being with, and trying to maintain the American “Empire” will be an ultimate no-brainer, just as Osama bin Laden planned.

Of course domestically we see the no-brainership approach to our lives and culture in a truly  pure form. Our children, whom we will depend on for our future, are being saddled with debts they cannot pay, and jobs they cannot find, so they are being economically (and probably psychologically) crippled for life. Where we should be happy to educate them for free, the banks and others have turned them into cash cows. This development is probably the most egregious no-brainer of all. Our infrastructure is obsolete, trillions of dollars behind in maintenance, and virtually antique compared to Asian and European developments, at least with respect to transportation, our schools are crumbling, our Health Care is a disgrace even with Obamacare, when compared to other advanced nations.

When it comes to politics we have completely failed what our Founding Fathers envisioned, indeed what any sentient being might envision. Our acclaimed two party system has degenerated into basically a one party system, and even that is dysfunctional as half of the one party system refuses to participate in governing, preferring instead to simply oppose whatever the other half proposes. With no plans of their own they simply refuse to cooperate thus making it virtually impossible to deal with the real problems that confront us. As long as the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, the status quo continues. But wait! We may be about to raise the starvation minimum wage to the almost starvation level, perhaps even a “bipartisan” effort that will do virtually nothing to change the obscene inequalities that currently exist. But let’s not think about that, thinking in our culture has apparently become itself a no-brainer.

 Fascism is capitalism in decay.

Vladimir Lenin