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Diaryland
RE: Fictions January 31, 2006 @ 3:18 p.m.
According to www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/a/andyrooneycommentary.htm, the 'Andy Rooney Commentary' is a compilation of comments from at least a couple of sources including an eRumor that has been circulated as having been written by either Ted Nugent or George Carlin. The actual origin, we have not found. It is not from Andy Rooney."
Like most of the political crap being forwarded these days, this is nothing but lies and propaganda. But if Andy Rooney really had written such bullshit (and not, as is usually the case, some narrow-minded, bigoted, hawkish, reactionary columnist from the Midwest), I would respond with the following (and its about time I did respond to all this):
Being a minority means you constantly have to deal throughout your life with the pain, prejudice and discrimination that comes from the current majority knowing almost nothing true about you, your family, or your group's background and history, or what its like to live your life and deal with hardships that the majority could never CONCEIVE of. Those who have it easier take it for granted in countless ways that everyone else has the same oppertunities they do. Because the 'majority' are themselves suffering and disappointed by the broken promises of their own culture, they need to find an outside source to blame. European Americans can't seem to look in the mirror and past the facade to realize they are being manipulated by those who actually have the power and the money and are determined to keep their fat guts and pocketbooks growing. And, because the majority usually don't bother to learn much about their own country's history and the peoples in it (outside of whitewashed culture and the sad excuse for history taught in high schools), they are amazingly uncritical and tend to swallow whatever they hear through conservative, corporate media, and end up getting PISSED OFF AT THE WRONG PEOPLE.
1. What little tidbits of consolation and prryic victories we achieve to offer what measly help we can to those already scarred and destitute by systemic abuse - which you can't see because you keep sticking your heads in the dirt like ostriches, waving your flags and thinking that if you just keep working hard, being patriotic lemmings and kicking the rest of us while we're down, God and America will eventually set everything right - you scream and fight tooth and nail.
While some might reach the somewhat reasonable conclusion that White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, Straight Men already own everything and thus do not need assistance trying to overcome systematic handicaps to reach an equal footing, I recognize that White people screwing over other White people is nothing new, and encourage you to form whatever organizations you need to stop the destruction of your country and livelihood at the hands of those who you trusted the most. Of course, that might lead to the startling conclusion that you should be working with us to stop the rape of America instead of using us as red herrings. Those of you who are women, from a country of origin other than England, have religious beliefs other than Fundamentalist Christianity, have or who have ancestors who have sacrificed and worked hard to get what prosperity you have, or are closet cases in any number of ways, might realize that in a sad irony, you are actually helping to make life more miserable not only for others, but for yourselves.
2. Its true - guns don't compel people to kill. Its also true that there is no good reason for ordinary citizens to own semiautomatic and other weapons that are obviously designed for warfare and are superfluos for self-defense - which for the most part are the guns being banned. In addition, it is true that if you insist on having to have a gun to appease your own 6 O'Clock news paranoia, enhance your machismo, or kill an innocent animal for sport (all of which themselves are debatable), it is perfectly legitimate to ensure that before your family and fellow citizens can depend only on your honor, safety, intelligence and sanity for their LIVES, you wait a little while for background checks and proper instruction, get a gun with safety locks and secure it in a place out of the reach of curious and/or naive children.
3. The United States is the only remaining country in the world where Scouting is segregated by gender. This ensures that girls in our country that want to get involved in Scouting can be confined to traditional, sexist conceptions of proper activities for girls, and miss out on all the fun things the guys do and the useful skills they learn. Of course, given that the Boy Scouts are themselves becoming more and more hypocritical to their own Scout Law, perhaps Scouting is not the answer after all.
4. One of the drawbacks of democracy is that peopled are not required to have educated opinions and are free to be as ignorant as they want. They can rely on acid-tongued demagogues preaching medieval interpretations and basic misinformation about gays, lesbian, bisexual and transgered PEOPLE. They are free to ignore the Constitution, scientific research, and the suffering of fellow human beings for living true to who they are in forming their opinions about queer people. What they are NOT free to do is force their narrow-minded, backward views on the entire country, and use secular American law as a tool for enforcing their private stupidity.
5. Again, you can be an asshole and assume like a 4-year old that the whole world revolves around you and whatever you believe is THE truth, but you cannot use that as a basis for legal discrimination
6. The reason why crime is so high among African Americans is simple desperation. People are born and held down in dire poverty through the economy and the law. They have few legal oppertunities to escape it, and when they try to create them and revise the system, you scream and holler, because apparently that money needs to go to more tax cuts for the rich - not people who actually need it. I am not saying crime is justfiable - I'm only saying that when there are no legal options giving for getting out of poverty, sometimes even surviving, its no surprise that people will turn to illegal means to ensure their livelihood. The answer to this problem is systemic, and racial profiling only makes the problem worse. I understand this might be difficult to understand, given you may have forgotten about those "innocent until proven guilty" and "reasonable cause to search" clauses in the law. Let's put it this way: imagine what it would be like for you if the cops pulled you over every time they simply saw your the color of your face. Whether you've ever commited a crime in your life doesn't matter, because you got unlucky when it came to statistics of your city. A correlates to B because of C, but people in charge refuse to deal with C so they fallaciously assert that A causes B. Or is that too logical for you?
7. Let's forget for a moment that English is probably the most difficult language in the world to learn, given that it has absorbed several different unrelated languages, has inconsistent rules and grammer, and has hundreds of different inconsistant variations in its spelling. We'll also forget that historically, it wasn't until long after the revolution that English became spoken by a clear majority of American citizens; it might have been the language of government, but Ben Franklin and others argued that German should be too because it was such a widely spoken language in the United States. In all likelihood, you probably had ancestors that had to work very hard to learn English in order to be allowed into certain jobs, and who still were shamed and discriminated against for their lingering accents.
Most immigrants work very hard to learn English, but it is difficult, time consuming and requires access to good education, which - private or public - is usually hard to come by for immigrants because of lack of funds and good programs. Which is ironic, considering it is mostly immigrants providing most of the unskilled labor in our country which keeps prices lower and prosperity for the rest higher. Laws forcing people to speak English would not only be unconstitutional - they would be devastating to the economy.
8. Assuming that the people in question aren't Native Americans, who were massacred by us and had their land stolen, or African Americans, who were forcibly enslaved and brought here, immigrants usually come to America out of desperation. In most of the world (heck, its still this way in the Midwest), people do not like to leave the lands of their birth and set up a new home in a totally alien country unless its a last resort. Poverty, along with political and/or religious persecution, are the top reasons why people come to America, often risking their lives to get here. When they do arrive here out of desperation, they are constantly reminded how unwelcome they are through legal discrimination, limited economic viability, manipulation by their employers, and social ostracism. Is it really so shocking they might get tired of being treated like second-class humans?
9. The police are understandably jaded from having to deal with the criminal consequences of all our systematic problems. Like you, they may not be aware of the bigger picture and reach premature conclusions about who's to blame. Given they keep having to deal with the consequences while the causes go unaddressed, and the racism and language barriers addressed above, and being overworked and underfunded, they lose it time and again and shoot first, asking questions later.
10. Most of these loans are privately, not publically funded. They're a good investment in the economy, but like education, its a long-term investment, which I know is a difficult concept for conservatives.
11. Historically, the United States is isolationist, and only steps in help other countries with their problems if under intense pressure or if we can get something out of it. When we do, we seem to think that from there on in, for the rest of history, a country is somehow obligated to agree with whatever current administration we have on everything and never disagree with us, even when what we are doing threatens the rest of the world. We also seem to think the United Nations should only exist for the enforcement of our will, and that if other countries censure us for abuse of power or try to hold us accountable to our own hypocritical notions, then the institution has therefore become corrupt and meaningless.
12. I don't hate the rich either. I actually pity sometimes because the irony is amidst all this insanity and materialism, they often lead very hollow lives. I do blame the rich when they are responsible for what comes down to theft from people unable to defend themselves. I can pity the poor for dealing with so many different kinds of institutional crap every day of their lives, but more than that, I respect them for what dignity they are able to show.
13. I completely agree with this one. I think so-called professional wrestling should be avoided for its own stupid lack of merits, regardless of its reality. But this has nothing to do with politics.
14. Bill Gates has every right to reap the benefits of his own hard work, PROVIDED he does not use illegal intimidation tactics against his competitors and defy anti-trust laws.
15. Peers and other adults have a huge impact on children, just as great as parents. So while exceptional parents can negate negative influences from outside on their children, its a lot easier when they have community support. Reasonable limits are important, as is discipline to enforce it. Whether hitting children is really necessary is still a matter of debate among social scientists.
16. I don't know where this email originated, but I sure hope the Midwest or the South are not giving fashion advice to the rest of the country.
17. 'Political Correctness' was a term created to demean the efforts to try to address people and situations with more truth and civility, rather than with the insulting names given to them by outsiders. The old terms carry all the history of abuse that went with them, and evoke that history when used. That's why, even when terminology seems ackward, we strive to use better terms. Its not a matter of being politically correct - just a matter of simply decency. The same idea applies to wishing people Happy Holidays - you don't make the assumption that they are Christian, and you recognize that Christianity is not a state religion.
Also, just because you or your family cut all ties with your culture and heritage doesn't mean everybody else should be expected to do the same. America is the melting pot - it always has and still is made up many different cultures. If you want to forget about your European background, that's your choice - just respect the choices of others, and realize that America does not belong only to you. Even if you have or ever belonged to a dominant majority.
PS: "One Nation Under God" was only added to the pledge and the coins in the 1950s in the height of the cold war communist scare. The Founding Fathers, if you read any critical history and not right-wing pseudo-history, wanted a seperation of church and state. The people of the United States were not even that religious until about a century later when the second Great Awakening began. Even after that, religious fervor went through upswings and downswings.
What makes America great is not only its majority rules, but its minority rights. Our Constitution and laws protect the majority from forcing the minority to comply with them when it comes to essential freedoms, and guaranteeing the minority an equal footing when it comes to oppertunity. If there were only one atheist living in America, it wouldn't give the rest of America any more right to silence him or her.
We are not going to shut up - this is a democracy, and our voice counts too. You can't understand why the dominant people shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they want because you obviously don't respect democracy. We are not going to get in line. We are not going to lay down and let you step all over us so you can feel better about yourselves.
We too, are America. And that "Liberty and Justice for All" line means much more to us than you can imagine.
David Stolowitz
San Rafael, California
January 31, 2006
If you don't forward this, you won't be afflicted by some horrible curse. But you might give someone food for thought.
"Details in the Fabric" - May 31, 2009
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The Morning Stars - Lords of the 15 - April 9, 2009
Sincerity and Faith in Magic - April 10, 2009
Not So Quick Questions (2) - April 14, 2009
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