Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Revolution in Phoenix: Indians, Giants, me & 1776

     You can't just go to a convention in Phoenix and not see the rest of the town, right?  The tourist voice in me kept crying out, "Don't just hang around the convention.  Don't just stay in your motel!"  So I went out to see some of the sights.

     In the middle of a cold winter for the rest of America, the weather in Phoenix is currently 92 degrees.  I kid you not.  But the upside of all this sunshine is that a lot of parking lots in Phoenix are covered with solar-paneled carport-like shades.  If every parking lot in America produced solar electricity this way, we'd never again have to import crappy oil from war-torn countries or frack for crappy oil at the expense of our aquifers.  Works for me.

      Then I went museum-shopping.  There is a very nice Indian museum with lots of authentic Kachina dolls, and a very nice art museum with an exhibit of French high couture designs, and a very nice light-rail system to get me there too.  And a really great public library.  And lots of professional sports teams including the Diamondbacks and Suns -- plus the SF Giants are in Scottsdale right now, working out for spring training only ten miles away. 

     And there was also a Revolutionary War reenactment going on.  Who could possibly want to miss that?  So I spent two hours on a bus to go see it, thinking it would be a bunch of Arizona right-wing zealots and survivalist militia crazies trying to repeal the Constitution (again) -- which is definitely a Must See.  But it wasn't like that at all.  It was history buffs trying to recreate the real thing.  Got my photo taken holding a musket.  Well worth the two-hour bus ride back to my motel.

      Which brings me to the concept of revolution itself.  Isn't it time that America finally had another revolution?  Can one get arrested for even suggesting such a thing?  But what kind of revolution would be best?  To start with, how about a Revolution of Truth?  Let's make it a law that if the MSM doesn't tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth on the evening news, then you go to jail.  Lie detectors all around!

     Or perhaps we could stage a Revolution of Morality -- where "Thou shalt not kill" finally becomes the law of the land and "war" becomes totally revolting instead.  And the first salvo of that particular revolution would be to cut the Pentagon budget in half and stop funding "Greater Israel".  Who needs another superpower stretching from the Euphrates to the Nile?  America can't even get the morality of its own "Superpowerness" under control, let alone pay for the birth of yet another immoral one too.  The only thing standing in the way of Bibi's "Greater Israel" dream right now seems to be a few determined Palestinian children with slingshots.

     And speaking of the revolting idea of creating another superpower in the Middle East, do we really want Israeli neo-colonialists to start living their dream of getting their hands on all that Iranian, Syrian, Iraqi, Yemeni, Kuwaiti, Gulf State and Saudi oil?  Hell, they already own the US Congress and The Bomb.  Why give them a monopoly on Middle East oil too?  Let's just tell them to build solar carports in Tel Aviv instead -- on their own dime. http://israelsinfluence.org/default.asp

     Or how about us staging an American Money Revolution?  Let's throw out the Federal Reserve and Citizens United.  Let them eat cake.  http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/02/presidential-elections-2016-the-revolt-of-the-masses/

     And also let's have an Election Revolution too.  Tired of having party bosses, big media, shady Supreme Court justices, Jim Crow voter laws and blatant election fraud determining who gets to buy seats in Congress and rent the White House these days?  The Green Party's Dr. Jill Stein is the most qualified and honest candidate for president right now -- but have you ever even heard of her?  Hell, no.  Well why not?  http://www.jill2016.com/

    Want my own opinion on the next election?  I'd much rather have Sanders face Trump than be stuck with Clinton and Cruz.  Both Clinton and Cruz represent everything I now find revolting about the American oligarchy, Wall Street and War Street.  At least Trump and Sanders are outsiders and haven't yet actually walked the "war, bankster and bigotry" walk that is so popular in government right now.  http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/2016/03/07/will-the-oligarchs-kill-trump/

     And let's not forget having an Ecological Revolution!  Yale's latest ecological performance scorecard doesn't even list America in the top five performers at all.  But America does have the dubious distinction of having invaded three out of the five countries listed at the very bottom of the scorecard.  Yeah, that too is revolting.  http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/35599-which-countries-are-the-best-and-worst-stewards-of-the-planet

     And then we also need a Climate-Change Revolution -- unless of course we are content with the thought of the human race being extinct by the year 2028.  Screw that.

     What kind of American Revolution would you recommend?