Rational Critique

American Guns

Written by Michael Chase

The images are engraved in our American minds; all of our heroes have guns strapped to their sides. Cowboys in the Old West, rebels in post-Apocalyptic futures, and even Luke Skywalker; all of them packed heat. Some two decades ago, it was a Democratic party position to fight for aggressive gun control. Handguns and assault weapons were the most common targets, and why not? In a 2000 survey by the United Nations, the United States ranked in the middle of total homicides, a number driven by the 7th highest total in gun homicides. People may indeed kill people, but it is easier and quicker with a firearm.

By the turn of the century however, Democratic politicians had largely conceded the issue of banning firearms on the federal level. Many Democrats who lost their seats in the 1994 election attributed the defeats, not to the Clinton attempt at health reform, but the votes for the assault weapons ban. The Clinton ban ended in 2004 as the Senate voted 90-8 against a bill that would have reauthorized it. In 2007, after the Democratic takeover of the House, a measure reauthorizing and expanding the Clinton-era assault weapons ban garnered just 67 cosponsors. H.R. 1022 was introduced in February and dead by March.

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Health Care Reform: The Future Is Now

Written by Michael Chase

The final passage of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 was the ultimate anti-climax. The cornerstone of the law, its exchanges, will not go live until 2014. In addition, many of the elements of legislation promised for this year, are subject to the rules written by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The insurance industry will likely press those rules to test for weakness, and Republicans are trying to mount a campaign for repeal. No friends, passage was just the beginning of the process.

There are three issues which define the effectiveness of the law now:

1. Will the Obama Administration be able to enforce the promises for early action (before 2014) on items only loosely mandated by the Law?
2. Will Republicans gain enough seats in the midterm elections to push through major modifications or repeal; will the President veto such changes?
3. Will the Obama Administration and state governments be able to contain costs against what will be an onslaught of rate increase filings in the coming months?

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Dynamics of Divisiveness: Re-Defining Our Shift to the Right

As both sides of the narrowing and perpetually right-moving political dynamic in the United States continue to blindly and self-righteously proclaim their side as the side of liberty, the move toward the obliteration of social service and justice for the benefit of large multinational corporations has been progressing steadfastly as the divisions expand while the two political parties meld into one before our blind eyes. As rhetoric and reaction defines the political landscape and limited ideological schema of the populace devoid of historical perspective and reality, the move to the far right is already complete as every government protection granted us through our unique system of representative democracy is eroding away before our eyes, yet we continue to consume the hollow and hypocritical rhetoric by politicians and mass media who are nothing but puppets for the institutions that control the world’s wealth and resources. As rhetorical dissonance rules the airwaves and cyberspace, the perpetuation of our dwindling freedoms and liberty are a result of our own ignorance and self-fulfilling propaganda that we cling to with dear life.

To say there is no more Left and no more Right might be a bit of an over simplification of a complex dynamic of political economy, but nonetheless is an accurate one given the utter and total takeover of government by moneyed, corporate interests. This modern corporatism has created a democratic system that serves only to divide and conquer. Rather than taking constructive and historically realistic views of the state of the two party system, the two camps, Liberal and Conservative (Democrat & Republican), are engaged in a constant reactionary state, disregarding material reality in order to claim the rightness of their actions and engage in a type of verbal and intellectual warfare that lacks any depth or understanding of the past thirty years of American political and economic history, but merely repeats and regurgitates the rhetoric that they have unknowingly been programmed to believe.

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Russian Spies, Shock and Awe

Written by BT Balls

Russian Agents are anywhere and everywhere, and Balls understands that the this is no minor predicament. When one cockroach is found, you can be certain that there are hundreds more. This is a national security nightmare, and the gullible cretins in this administration are gathered on the White House lawn singing Kum Ba Yah!

Ready the bomb shelters! Stock up on SPAM and surgical masks! Let the students rehearse “duck and cover” once more! Boris walks among us! The question is not if, but when, the Ruskie nukes will fly! The only hope that stands between our beloved way of life as we know it and armageddon is a massive preemptive attack on the Russian Bear!

My friends, the defense arm of Balls International Industries is at the ready with state-of-the-art weaponry. We can knock that ludicrous fur hat off Putin’s noggin from three thousand miles away with our brand new “Skullcapper” missile! Our BALLS PROTECTOR Armor was voted best body armor by the National Armor Manufacturer/Builder Lobbying Association (NAMBLA) for the third year running! Our expertise in interrogation, re-education (currently utilized in our Company Stooge training program), and private security capabilities makes Blackwater look like pikers!

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Consume: That's What Good Americans Do

Americans need to start spending again to get us out of the economic recession. We must spend and consume. These are the words uttered by Obama’s economists; the same words spoken by the Bush Administration economists; the same message conveyed by every side during every economic slowdown over the past 50 years. It is the bankrupt idea that Americans need to start wasting what little money they have on useless junk that we do not need now and never have needed to begin with — junk to be paid for with money that we have earned or that we have borrowed from the credit merchants; at interest rates the Mafia would be envious of. As long as we spend and consume, everything will be alright, right?

Consumption has been shoved down our throats since the post WWII baby boom, in fact, my parents — baby boomers — were influenced by this idea that Americans have the inalienable right to consume and spend and work and spend some more. Coming of age during the Reagan Administration of the 1980s, I too was sold this bill of goods and I bought it: I wanted to eat at McDonald’s and buy the newest/latest/greatest toy/video game/Air Jordans, etc… This idea that we could buy ourselves into a higher class strata was furthered by easy availability of credit to everyone of every income level.

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