Bad American

What a society. I’m so proud to be a member of it.

Today in the Pain Dealer, Regina Brett wrote a beautiful column (mark that one, OK? you may never again hear me describe a PD column as beautiful) about the unfortunate person who hung himself a few weeks ago at Legacy Village.

Here is the original story:

Lyndhurst — Cedar Road motorists, including children being driven to school, saw a body hanging from a tree near Legacy Village this morning.

A white male apparently killed himself. His body was taken to the Cuyahoga County Coroner’s Office.

The Plain Dealer does not publish the names of suicide victims who are not public figures.

One woman who saw the Lyndhurst police cars, an ambulance and the body described the scene. It “looked so lonely and sad.”

I’m sure that if I saw the scene, I would have described it with exactly those same words.

Some time ago during the dustup over the Wide Open Blog, the Pain Dealer blocked my user account to comment on stories. I e-mailed the two people responsible and never received a reply. To this day, I have no idea what I wrote that could have been mistrued as objectionable.

But when I read the comments on the PD stories such as this one, I’m amazed at the kind of comments the PD allows.

For this story, some morally and humanity-challenged people replied:

you might say he hung around to the end so to speak . Wonder if anybody is going to sue the guys estate for the traumatic stress they are under from the guy hanging around ??? Where are the ambulance chasers ????

Posted by supeball1 on 02/13/08 at 2:46PM

If we were to be honest about our society, we’d have to admit that we’re not exactly welcoming to the different or the people I call the misfits. And that’s a label I use to describe myself and I use it with pride.

Why do so many Americans self-medicate? Why don’t we face the truth about our capitalist dog-eat-dog society? There are so many misfits in our society who have nowhere to turn and no one to understand them.

They believe they are crazy when, in many cases, they are, in fact, far too sane for this world. They have this ‘crazy’ belief that maybe their maker didn’t put them on this earth to spend their entire lives working to eke out an existence for a society that treats people like so many disposable widgets - and to work to make a select few fantastically wealthy.

We see our society and its glorification of obscene wealth and violence and we wonder what we did to deserve a world such as this for ourselves and our children?

Many of us have worked very very hard to change that world for the better. For our efforts, many of us have been brutalized. After awhile, we get tired of fighting.

I am always reminded of Mitch Snyder. Does that name ring a bell? It should. Think back to the 1980s.

Mitch Snyder was a tireless advocate for the homeless in this country. He was very active at street level, helping people wherever he found them and marshaling others in the effort to help the homeless.

He also carried his advocacy to Capitol Hill and to many media outlets.

Noting that many of the homeless were Vietnam War veterans with substance abuse problems, he tried his hardest to hold up a mirror to America in the age of Reagan greed.

And America by and large didn’t want to look. People ridiculed Mitch Snyder.

In fact I can still remember all the times that Robert Novak jeered and sneered Snyder on CNN’s Crossfire.

And one day, it just got to be too much for Snyder and he hung himself in a homeless shelter over the Fourth of July holiday 1990.

And no one outside a small circle of friends really gave a damn. And America continued to pour its national treasure into war making and well-heeled financial types stepped over the homeless from Wall Street to Euclid Avenue.

At least Snyder has a Wikipedia page to let people know he was here and he did his damnednest.

I also remember a Channel 5 news item on a man who committed suicide back in the mid-1990s. If I remember correctly, he ran a bicycle repair shop and his wife had several children and she had just become pregnant with yet another one. Maybe they didn’t believe in contraception, I have no idea. But the poor guy killed himself.

And I remember the Channel 5 news crew talking to some people in the neighborhood and many of them basically said many of the same things the PD commenters said about the guy being a ‘coward’ and why should anyone feel sorry for him? I remember very well one guy said to the reporter “if you can’t hack it you need to pick up your marbles and go home.”

They may have forgotten about that man, but, because of those heartless comments, I never did.

Several years ago when living in Normal, Illinois, a few houses down from where I lived, a carpenter hung himself in his garage. He was a hard working man whose truck I had seen in his driveway all the time. From what I understand when I went to check it out on the police sheets (I was a reported then) he had failed to get a contract he had counted on to save his business and it was just too much for him.

And then the house and the truck was sold and all traces of this man disappeared from South University Street.

And then there was my cousin who was also dealing with both substance abuse and heat from the jackals he was buying drugs from. Seeing no way out, he also took his life.

His father, a hard working man who built the shelves for my bookstore, has never recovered from the blow.

And that’s part of why I posted all the comments from the PD page here. The PD page may disappear but I wanted to put the man’s brother’s comments here to, in some small way, memorialize a tortured soul whom we are all probably less for not knowing. I want someone to give a damn for this person. I want people to understand something very basic: YOU ARE NOT IMMUNE FROM DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE.

Is that clear? It doesn’t matter how rich or successful you are, how well you think you’re doing in the Matrix, someday it could happen to you or someone you love.

And if its someone you love, are you going to remain true to your conservative American code and tell that person that all they need is a kick in the ass and they need to stop being so selfish and pick themselves up by their own bootstraps and get their shit together?

Because if you do, I hope you’re as comfortable saying those things to a gravestone.

By the way Ms. Brett, thank you from the bottom of my heart. You may have saved some lives today.

 Associated Press

Such a splendid little war George W. Bush has given us. When I tell my oldest son to take his dual degrees in computer science engineering and Japanese and then get the hell out of the United States, this is why.

We’re currently living in a country run by a madman and his henchmen. But hey, Halliburton and all the other ‘right people’ are making money, so who cares, right?

Beyond 2008, working with “best-case” and “realistic-moderate” scenarios, they project the Iraq and Afghan wars, including long-term U.S. military occupations of those countries, will cost the U.S. budget between $1.7 trillion and $2.7 trillion - or more - by 2017.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has done its own projections and comes in lower, forecasting a cumulative cost by 2017 of $1.2 trillion to $1.7 trillion for the two wars, with Iraq generally accounting for three-quarters of the cost.

“Would the American people have had a different attitude towards going to war had they known the total cost?” Bilmes and Staglitz wrote in their report. “We might have conducted the war in a manner different from the way we did.”

It’s hard to comprehend just how much money $2 trillion is. Even Bill Gates, one of the richest people in the world, would marvel at this amount. But once you begin to look at what that money could buy, the worldwide impact of fighting this largely unpopular war becomes clear.

Consider that, according to sources like Jeffrey Sachs, the Worldwatch Institute, and the UN, with that same money the world could:

• Eliminate extreme poverty around the world (cost $135 billion in the first year, rising to $195 billion by 2015)
• Achieve universal literacy (cost $5 billion a year)
• Immunize every child in the world against deadly diseases (cost $1.3 billion a year)
• Ensure developing countries have enough money to fight the AIDS epidemic (cost $15 billion per year)

In other words, for a cost of $156.3 billion this year alone — less than a tenth of the total Iraq war budget — we could lift entire countries out of poverty, teach every person in the world to read and write, significantly reduce child mortality, while making huge leaps in the battle against AIDS, saving millions of lives.

Then the remaining money could be put toward the $40-$60 billion annually the World Bank says is needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, established by world leaders in 2000 to tackle everything from gender inequality to environmental sustainability.

The implications of this cannot be underestimated. It means that a better and more just world is far within reach, if we are willing to shift our priorities.

But we’re not. Mass murder in the name of ‘freedom’ is just too damn fun and profitable.

And for Americans it makes great TV.

But hey, the good news is it won’t be too much longer, according to Stiglitz and others, before the United States is flat busted broke and then other nations who are holding title to our children’s future, will step in and take control.

Oh, and as for the Iraqis (as if we care about the people we supposedly ‘liberated?’:

No one has tried to calculate the economic damage done to Iraq, said spokesman Niels Buenemann of the International Monetary Fund, which closely tracks national economies. But millions of Iraqis have been left without jobs, and hundreds of thousands of professionals, managers and other middle-class citizens have fled the country.

We utterly destroyed this country and slaughtered thousands of its citizens and yet, even Hillary Clinton says the Iraqi people have to ’step up’ and fix their own country. The one that we destroyed. That’s more than enough reason to never vote for her but, again, most Americans could give a fat rat’s ass about what happens to the Iraqis. Their just pawns in our giant chess game to preserve our ’sacred way of life.’

Of course, in America, stupidity rules over rationality:

Pain Dealer

Maybe some of the Hillary supporters should start asking why the GOP wants her to face McCain so badly? Or are they afraid of the truth?

Or, like Hillary, they don’t care so long as a woman, any woman gets the nomination.

Maybe they like the idea of President McCain.

Sometimes I seriously wonder why I even care anymore.

From the article:

At least one member of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections wants to investigate some Republicans who may have crossed party lines only to influence which Democrat would face John McCain in November.

Anyone who crossed lines was supposed to sign a pledge card vowing allegiance to their new party. In Cuyahoga County, dozens and dozens of Republicans scribbled addendums onto their pledges as new Democrats.

“For one day only.”

“I don’t believe in abortion.”

Maybe they should have added a few more lines:

“I lack a triple digit IQ”

“I hate democracy”

“Rush Limbaugh does my thinking for me”

Perhaps the benefit of this is that liberals and Democrats will finally realize that there is no reasoning with people who would have been cheering the burning of books in Nazi Germany. Maybe they will realize that the fascists in the fascist party will do anything to institute a more perfect authoritarian state in this country, even if that means gaming the system that so many fought and died to give them.

You are in street fight for the future of your country, your children’s country and the world they will inherit. Kevin O’Brien views it that way. So do other thugs like Limbaugh and Bob Frantz

And this is how they really feel:

Some Republicans refer to it as “the plot.”

It started a few weeks ago when conservative radio powerhouse Rush Limbaugh suggested that his Republican following cross over during the primary to vote for Clinton. Clinton, Limbaugh argued, would be easier for McCain to beat in November.

Soon, local morning radio show host Bob Frantz echoed Limbaugh on WTAM AM/1100, and the buzz began to grow.

Shitbirds of a feather, I guess.

Cuyahoga County Republican Chairman Rob Frost tried to tamp down the temptation. He contacted Republican voters and appeared on the Frantz show urging Republicans “not to heed the siren call of Rush Limbaugh and others.

“Elections are not something you should be playing games with,” Frost said last week during a telephone interview. Yet temptation was strong.

Frost at least is a Republican with some class and dignity who understands the delicate nature of our democracy and understands that once some people start gaming the system, that opens the door for all kinds of civics killing mischief. We might as well go back to the ‘vote early and often’ Chicago system. I thought we just might have evolved beyond that.

Of course not. There was Diebold in 2000 and 2004. What else should we expect of Republicans and conservatives?

But of course, Frost can’t rein in the know-nothings who care little about the integrity of the system.

North Ridgeville Republican Hazel Sferry said she was kicking herself all day Tuesday after voting for McCain.

Don’t get her wrong. Sferry supports McCain.

But after she voted, she ran into her niece who told her about “the plot.”

Her niece, Republican Sherry Newell, said she voted for Obama because she thought McCain had a better chance against him.

Regardless, Sferry said she thought it was a great idea to mess with the other party if it helped McCain win.

“I don’t mind being deceptive to politicians,” she said. “They are deceptive to us.”

Hey Hazel, is John McCain a “politician?” Or does he get a pass from Jesus because he’s on the “right” side of the political aisle.

Do you, in your little pin head, understand the forces you are unleashing? Do you understand fraud? Do you understand what the win at all costs mentality has gotten us in this country?

Of course not. You can’t comprehend any of that. Your a political thug just like your brothers and sisters who daily kill millions of what’s left of their brain cells letting Limbaugh and the other right wing know-nothings think for you.

Limbaugh, O’Brien, Frantz, et. al. should market their own brown shirts.

Here’s a moron who crossed over for Clinton:

Republican Kitty Anderson began working in voting precincts during the early 1960s and Tuesday’s turnout in the Republican stronghold of Chagrin Falls was the largest she had ever seen.

It was also the most crossover voting.

Anderson, 76, and her husband Donald, 78, both helped fellow Republicans change parties all day and when it was time for them to vote, they crossed over, too.

“We are both concerned about what Obama would do if he was president. We don’t trust him,” Kitty Anderson said. “I have five grandchildren, and I keep thinking I want this world to be safe for these kids. I don’t feel good about Obama. He just seems to be so vague.”

Yeah, boy, because George W. Bush with his illegal and immoral war, having stirred up a hornets nest has MADE THIS COUNTRY SO FREAKIN’ SAFE HASN’T HE KITTY?

And you know what else, you feeble minded idiot? Read the paper today and see the following:

Iraq Costs $12 BILLION PER MONTH

So you know, those ‘children’ you supposedly worry about? When this country is laying bankrupt and owned by the Saudis and the Chinese and those kids find themselves out on the street looking for work you can tell them how fucking safe George W. Bush’s war made this country. I want to be there when you look into their eyes and tell them mortgaging the future of their country was worth it. I really do. I want to see you tell them.

Yeah, I’m mad. I’m so tired of the idiocy and social and political thuggery in this country. We had the greatest nation in the world with almost unlimited resources and now we’re just gleefully pissing it away on war and greed. And if we continue down this road we’ll get the country we deserve.