Sen. Obama, Meet The Establishment

Barack Obama has been getting ripped the last couple of days for some comments he made about "small towns." Here's what he said: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Well, of course, McClain and Clinton jumped on their out of touch with reality but sure as hell online in Washington high horses and immediately condemned the comments. They called them "demeaning," and "elitist." All, of course, for a lack of any real ammunition to use against Obama.

The problem is they ignore the truth at the core of his statements in favor of simplistic attacks. They feed right into the Government machine.

Of course, all the uproar is unfounded. I can clearly see what he meant. Perhaps it is Clinton and McCain who are being demeaning by believing that people can't understand the deeper meaning of what he was saying. A negligent parent (our government) leads to resentment and anger which leads to other outlets. The government does everything it can to get rid of American jobs by giving incentives to businesses to outsource, etc. So, of course, the problem must be with immigrants taking our jobs. Anger. Misplaced anger. And don't think the government doesn't do its part to encourage this mindset. Why won't they do anything about illegal immigration? Because it's a great scapegoat. If the people can't blame the poor brown people they might start looking at the Government! Heaven forbid!

When people are struggling, either personally, emotionally, or financially, they historically--and throughout the world--find deeper bonds with religion, mythology, and other "philosophies" that lead them to believe it will all get better if I simply pray and believe harder and go to church/mosque/synagogue/sweat lodge, whatever, more often. The Government loves this, too, because the problems aren't with the Government they are with the moral shortcomings of the
people. It's our own fault we don't have food and jobs because we just don't believe in God enough. So what if this world is a mess? We'll put our trust in the next one. Who cares if we're destroying the planet? Heaven will be waiting. In fact, the more I suffer in this life the greater my reward in the afterlife. This mindset works really well for the Government's use.

This is the type of sentiment that Obama was referring to. It's just a shame that the small minded and ignorant will continue to cast blame in the wrong direction instead of seeing the real problem and doing something, anything, to help solve the problem. It's so much better to blame the voices who are trying to reveal the real source of the troubles people seek comfort from. It's so much easier than actually trying to fix something.

Joan's a Star!

Joan shot a PSA with Mayor Bob Walkup of Tucson, AZ, regarding the upcoming American Heart Association Start! Heart Walk. Check it out! She was really nervous, but she looks great! Mayor Bob is kind of tall so I think they had her stand on something. The night before we had a practice reading and I was Mayor Bob. I think I was just as good as he was! This was filmed at the KMSB Fox 11 studios here in Tucson.

Books

Why is it so hard to write a book? I've had ideas. I've had one idea kicking around for a couple years now but it's only been started about five times and has never really gone anywhere. I mean, think about it--if you simply write a single page a day within a year you'll have a 300 page novel. Sounds simple, right? I mean, have a good day or two and you can take a nice long break (i.e., abandon the project for a few more years).

So why don't I have a single book? I'm not looking for a dozen novels. I just want one. One. I read stuff all the time and say, "This is crap. I could write this." But I don't. I suppose that's the crux of it. I don't make myself do it. That and my overdeveloped sense of hokey crap. It is far too often that I write something that would be more than acceptable (based on most of the published stuff I see) that just screams at me, "This is C.R.A.P.!"

I need to get over this. I need to write the damned book. And on top of it all there's a script I want to write, too!