My letter to Olympia Snowe, (R), Maine

 to the Honorable Olympia Snowe,

    Thank you so much for your recent vote against the Blunt bill in senate this week. I want to also thank you for your service to our country, esp. in light of your recent decision to not seek re-election to the Senate. I am a staunch Democrat, but though I may differ from your views on many issues, I value your contributions to patriotic civil debate, so vital to our survival as a nation... I hope many decent, fair-minded and idealistic Americans, both Republican and Democratic; conservative *and* liberal Americans follow in your footsteps.... having said that, I do wish you'd reconsider... We need SO many more like you....

Godspeed...

 -m


that is all... hopefully, more to come soon.....
-m

...a first impresion of an infant revolution..... an open letter...

To my brother and sister Libyans, 

                I speak to you not as a brother in the literal sense, nor as in the 'countryman'  sense.... more as a brother who, in a historical sense, understands the sacrifice and courage it takes to throw the yoke of oppression off of yourselves and fling yourselves into the void of the unknown... as my country did two-hundred and thirty-five years ago...

                Shit.. we didn't know what we were doing.... it took us 12 years to really get the words right, and it has taken us the rest of that time up to now  to tweak, modify, and ratify even a semblance of what we call a just society... fraught with arguments, assassinations, turmoil, bigotry, hatred, ... even a civil war... the fight's not done, and it will never end.... revolution is a constant in a free society, and it may be rough for y'all, especially in the next few years... 

                But somehow.... some-way... my country has come back together... and has preserved a union that can listen to its citizens and not ended shooting each other in the streets... revolution after revolution... Though our's was much less bloodier than many others in the modern era, it doesn't mean that it has any less cost...

but god help us.... my belief in my neighbor, and a belief that a government that represents ME... and looks out for me... shit.. is made UP OF ME (i.e. of the people, by the people and FOR the people) compels me to keep believing in it... even if the Idea is that is all that's left....

      Just keep striving for it.... That's really the only chance ANY of us have got... remember; we're all in this together.... and if we loose that idea (i.e. develop an "us vs. government" mentality),  then we are done.. and are thus subject to the powers that you have just freed yourself from... 

LORD knows, we still have a long way to go.....as do you.... My heart is truly with you all, and I wish you the best.... Your blood was not spilled in vain; it flows in the hearts of all free men/women, and always will...

Sincerely,

Sydmatt....

What happens when the 1st amendment gets into a rumble with the 2nd?

... and how does "A well regulated Militia" factor into it? (the first phrase in the second amendment)..... was Mr. Loughner a part of said militia?

    I guess I don't really understand why in the realm of a whole bunch of people being " strict constitutionalists", why the whole "well regulated milita" thing is ignored..... not that I'm against it, mind you.... maybe we could benifit from say, neighborhood drills, in the community park.... or straight-out conscription in state national guard units.... or even community service in leiu of military-type service....

... but what is offered... honestly.. intellectually.... in reflection of that clause in our constitution?...

I''d like to talk about guns...

that is... firearms... and because of recent events, maybe a request.... or not... I haven't decided yet...

    a brief history of me and firearms....

   I grew up with them.... one of my fondest childhood memories was going to the gun range with my dad... I must have been like, 8 or 9 , the first time..... man, he had a pretty cool arsenal... an old Kentucky flintlock.... a Hawken percussion-cap rifle... a civil war era black powder revolver..... a .22 cal Irma ( a Luger replica)... a .22 revolver... a .22 lever-action rifle... a 9mm Rueger Semi... pretty much running the gamut of the last 300 years of firearms.. (man, I even out-shot the rangemaster at RTC great lakes with his own .357 at the pistol range there!..).... I still contend that I'm a pretty good shot, and even though I've not held a chambered one in over 20 years...

       What my dad had instilled in me though, is a healthy respect for not only what they are, but for what they can do.... He taught me to point one only at what you intend to destroy.... not only put a neat/clean hole in, but to utterly destroy [i.e. kill]; that is, to respect a firearm...***

      My point though is this... firearms are not as romantic as American culture would lead you to believe.... they are a means of putting a hole into something using ignited gas and a bit of metal... they can be a source of recreation...They can get you dinner... they can  help you survive, yes... they can even help win wars!..... but they are nothing more than a tool... not sexy and not  romantic by any means...

      if I could do one thing, it would be to strip away the image of say, John Wayne, fanning a six-gun salvo of shots, or Dirty Harry taking out a bad guy w/ his .44 mag, and instead replacing that image w/ a long-assed video of what those rounds actually do to human tissue....

     Maybe replacing a 4 second quasi-cool-imagined/romanticized movie shootout with the 4 hours of surgery reqiured to replace a semblance of a face that was shredded with said bullet might bring some perspective... That's the real cost, man....

I wanna talk more, but I gotta go to bed.... I hope Congresswoman Gifford recovers okay, and I hope the rest of the survivors make it as well.... the whole situation makes me wanna barf....

namaste, bitches...
-m

 






  ***  [ a side note--- This topic goes much deeper with me.... if you wanna know more, please write me, esp concerning things like self-harm and mental illness... it is much more personal than what I want to post here, but if you want to know, please write me individually... it's important, but very dark.. If you want to know and are sincere, I will share... if you'd rather not know, please don't ask....]***

Letter to my new republican congressman... Write one too!... (if you want)

In it's entirety...:

The Honorable Congressman Stivers,

       I feel compelled to write and urge you not to stand w/ most house Republicans and abandon the attempt to repeal the new Health care reform law. I feel that it is the first step an important path to a sensible and socially responsible attitude towards the general welfare of our citizenry and building an important institution that we all can be proud of.

At the very least, I ask for an honest debate and a full disclosure of what is in the law to us, and not the horrible distortions and catch-phrases that have been used to describe it since its introduction.

So much has been said about the "will" of the American people, and how "we have spoken." .... now I have, and I know I'm far from alone...

Respectfully,
-m

John Boener (R. Ohio) is a hampster...

      Stay tuned, my dear friends for an honest-to-god letter (versus an open letter) to our soon-to-be third-in-command... He's been a petty annoyance over the last few years, but as he's set to take the gavel in a month or so, I need to send him a quick note... (he's from my state after all.. but not my district).... I'd like to share it w/ you all, if I could....


   In short... (i.e. what makes me feel compelled to write him)... He can talk all he wants about political theory, and how the Dems are hellbent on a welfare-nanny state... and How Obama's a Socialist... or how the "drive-by/liberal media (!?!?) is the downfall of democracy as we know it....

    I've heard that song before (and have been hearing it for a good 30 years now)....

What I cannot ignore is... that fucking sonofabitch has the NERVE to blubber over the death of the American dream!

If anyone... ANYONE has a single grain of intellectual honesty, it's HIS ilk who is pretty much SOLEY responsible for both the demonetization of the labor movement, the shrinking of the middle class, the perversion of the 4th estate, and the most imbalanced wealth distribution this country has ever seen in its 233 year history!...

... yet they level an accusation of "liberals" wanting to start class warfare....

.........Lemme tell you  buddy... that war's already started, and has been on for many years now..... and most of the American public is on the loosing side...

     ... so weep... weep,  our soon-to be orange overlord.... if it's a show.. then shame on you... I can take you to some places here in downtown Coloumbus at say, 4am, that 'll make you really weep for the suffering of your fellow man (that assuming that the vaccuous black cavity in your chest contains something close to a heart....)....
... If you're being sincere, I'd advise trying to direct your sorrows/empathy to a more appropriate placeand towards more appropriate people,  and perhaps seeking a counselor and/or medication..... As a fellow human, I'm concerned w/ your stability..... seriously, man!..

More to come....

I've decided to stop using the word "Nazi" loosely... you should too...

here's why.... IMHO..

if you are a right winger, call your enemies "Communists"... This is the extreme left.... (i.e nobody owns nuthin!; everyone owns everything)

If you are a  left winger, please call your enemies "Fascists"... this is the extreme right (i.e. business know best and will tell you what's best for you)

Nazis are their own beast.. nazis are nazis...they built a society over 10 years on the premise of superiority, racism, fear, and hatred under a brilliant but psychopathic man, who convinced a highly educated but very confused populace to commit (or, at least, turn a blind eye)to the mechanized slaughter of one-out-of every 3 Jews on the face of planet earth...(and gays, gypsies... et.al)... in the name of  De Großgermanisches Reich....

Guy Raz, a comentator from NPR convinced me.... he spoke on NPR's show "All things Considered" tonight, about Roger Ailes...  in his words:

"Abraham Reiss was born at the end of the 19th century near the city of Lviv in modern-day Ukraine.  The details of his life are sketchy, and it'll become clear why in a moment. But from the little I know, he lived in a village then called Stanislav.
Abraham owned a small brick factory. He and his wife, Esther, had three children. The youngest was Aryeh.
By the time he became a young man, Aryeh left the village to settle in Palestine.  He had witnessed too much hatred and saw what was coming for the Jews of Europe.
For the next four years, he urged his mom and dad, brother Reuben and sister Bronka to join him. But they decided to stay.
Now I wish I could fill in some more details here, but I can't.  All I know is that in 1945, Aryeh Reiss received a letter in the mail. Everyone was gone. Killed by the Nazis.
Aryeh was my grandfather, Abraham and Esther my great-grandparents.
For Aryeh's generation of Jews — those who escaped — the stories were similar.  Aryeh's wife, Clara, my grandmother, last saw her parents, Menashe and Adela, in the early 1930s.  She never found out the name of the concentration camp where they were killed, never had a chance to touch their ashes or visit a mass burial site where their anonymous bodies were tossed with hundreds of others.
I have never seen a photograph of Abraham or Esther or Menashe or Adela. I don't know if my son's blond hair and infectious smile come from any of them.
The details of their lives were wiped out.
What I do know is that they were killed by people motivated by the most extreme and hateful ideology mankind witnessed in the 20th century.
I tell this story because this past week, some of my colleagues here at NPR were called that name. Nazis.
The president of Fox News, Roger Ailes, made those remarks.
I remember when I was sent to Berlin to take up my first foreign posting as an overseas correspondent more than a decade ago. I was at a party with young Germans, and I thought it might make them feel more comfortable if I made a joke describing a hotel clerk I'd run into as a "Nazi."
No one laughed.
And it was the first time I realized that that word — Nazi — means something very real to the millions of Germans who have courageously struggled to come to terms with that legacy for 65 years.
It also means something to the estimated quarter-million Holocaust survivors still alive today with numbers tattooed on their arms.
Nazism was unequivocal. It was depravity. It was bodies buried one on top of the other. It was deliberate, mechanized killing. It was a movement that seized the minds of a segment of humanity.
Just 65 years ago, within the lifetime of many people still alive today, the Nazis killed 1 out of every 3 Jews on the face of the Earth. They destroyed a world and a way of life for millions of people — Jews, Christians and nonbelievers.
That word, Nazi, means something. We are all free to use it as we please. It's our right, of course. But when its use is stripped of any of its real meaning, I just ask you to remember the story of Abraham Reiss."

 This story really hit home with me.... I do however, need to go to bed now.... more to come in the near future...

My requst to everyone right now though.... Keep your political wits about you, and for CHRIST'S sake, be mindful of the past.... As a very serious student of social/political history, I'm staring to see some scary parallels...

again, more to come soon...

<3
-m