The GOP Zombie Party

Movies and TV shows about zombies have been popular for some time now.  And why not? Who doesn’t love to see soulless, brainless creatures attempt to consume the brain or intestines of the living?  What car to buy next year, whether to mow the yard Sunday, what to cook for dinner tonight and other side issues don’t matter to zombies.  They are single-mindedly obsessed with just one purpose: consume the innards of the living.

As I examine today’s political climate, I notice a striking similarity to the Grand Old Party. The rank-and-file of the party are single-mindedly obsessed.  Their one overwhelming desire is to vote for the Republican candidate no matter what.  What that candidate stands for, his (the majority are white males) morality, his stance on issues all mean nothing to the GOP voter. What matters is the symbol “R” next to the name.

For example, most Republican officials want to dismantle Social Security.  They disparage the popular program constantly. They attempt to pass legislation that will curtail payments almost every session.   

They attempt to destroy it internally by trying to lessen the amount of money paid into the system by reducing taxes on corporations or the rich.  However, the rank-and-file of the party love Social Security and are working back-breaking jobs and long hours with the belief that when they hit the right age, they’ll be able to enjoy that added retirement income. 

Of course, they’ll also still vote for those same candidates that will do everything in their power to kill it. Because they have an “R” next to their name on the list of candidates.

The vast majority of Republican voters are working class people, who toil tirelessly day to day in difficult and exhausting jobs. From coal miners to farmers, they put in a tough, long day of work. However, even though their representatives want to raise the retirement age for those seeking Social Security, they’ll still vote for those candidates and gladly build up more calluses on their own hands because, hey, the candidate has an “R” next to his name.

Everybody loves Medicare. Although sometimes the system can be balky, they still love that most of their medical costs can be handled by this program when they reach that magical age. Often, it saves them from having to worry about Mom and Dad’s medical bills too. It means they don’t have to bail out their folks.

So it seems rather odd that the Republican rank-and-file voter will still vote for the Republican candidate.  The party consistently attempts to destroy Medicare. They try to pass legislation that will weaken the benefits or, change it completely from its current system to one of vouchers. Vouchers would mean that your 90-year-old folks would get a set amount of money to pay for their medical costs. In other words, they’d have to wrangle with insurance companies. So even though it would be tough for Grandpa to go toe-to-toe with that insurance agent, the rank-and-file GOP voter will still vote for the candidate that desires to see that outcome.

Just like zombies fixated on that nice brain over there, the average Republican will zero in on that candidate with the “R” beside the name. They stagger into the voting booth, arms outstretched seeking their prey, grunting and moaning scarily, drooling as they approach their target and then strike. Making a mark by any candidate with an “R” next to the name.

It doesn’t matter that their 12-year old daughter was raped by Uncle Ted and the candidate believes she must bring the baby to term.  They’ll vote for him.

It doesn’t matter that the city will have to lay off more policemen because the GOP implemented tax cuts for the rich and it took money away from cities. They will vote for the guy with an “R.”

It doesn’t matter that they feel sorry for that out-of-work veteran begging for money at the stop light.  Even though the GOP party voted in unison to defeat the veteran aid bill, the zombies will vote for them.

It doesn’t matter that women GOP voters believe women should be treated fairly and equally.  Even if the candidate votes against equal pay bills or anti-domestic violence legislation, the zombies will still vote for them.

So if you see a crowd of them chanting that they want to go out and get haircuts even though there’s a raging virus in the country, roll up your windows and drive by. Protect yourself from their infection. 

Don’t even try to explain to your Republican father that his party wants more tax cuts for corporations, which means he may lose his pension. He won’t listen, he’s a zombie. 

And your right-wing brother who avoided the draft so he didn’t have to go to Vietnam, but now supports any GOP candidate that proposes war?  Well, just turn up the TV and hope he’ll ignore you. He can’t help himself, he’s a Republican zombie.

 Ahhh, James Thurber

Set Your Soul On Fire

Back in the 80s, AIDS protestors (protesting lack of funding/concern by the government) took to the streets across the country. Police were so afraid they might get the disease—even though the protestors may not have it and ignoring the science that stated you couldn't get it by mere contact—that they wore gloves in case they needed to touch one of the demonstrators.

Obviously, this enraged the protesters even more as it showed how they were treated as less than human. I remember seeing newscasts about these and the image stayed in my subconscious. When I thought about a follow up to my book TAX BREAK, these images came back. My mind played around with it all and finally suggested to me “what if these protestors decided to kick it up a notch?”

So SOULS ON FIRE tells that story. These activists decide to resort to terrorism to make their point. They embrace the Viking belief that it's better to die fighting for your beliefs than whither away in bed. They attack banks to get money to support themselves and attack the police to get revenge.

In a way, it also reflects the mindset of the people in the Warsaw ghetto during WWII. The people knew the Nazis would inevitably kill them, so they might as well fight back to the best of their ability.

 AIDS is a major theme of the book, but a more subtle one, albeit just as important, is PTSD.  I modeled the story a bit like “Soldier's Home” by Ernest Hemingway. An engrossing (and depressing) story about a young man who returns from WWI and is drastically changed from his prewar self.

This doesn't hit you in the face, but you can begin to see it in the character by the flashbacks he experiences. I won't say much more about this as I don't want to spoil it for you (and it's important when you read any book that you discover what the author is saying) but when you read it think about whether anything is odd or if his judgement has changed.

This book also delves more into Austin then the previous book. I'm in love with this city and you get to learn about its politics, environment, well, the nature of the city. Of course, I also had to mention a great musician who graced the city (and one of its great music venues from the day).

A writing point about the book: it's really short. According to one book seller you should be able to read it within three hours. As I wrote it I kept having this weird internal battle that on one hand said go into more detail, but on the other said, well, the kids today have an attention span of five seconds, so keep it short buster. Okay, I admit that even I sometimes skim books these days so I can get to the grist. So it was for me too.

On a personal note, this took me a long time to write.  I began the project in 2008 and slowly worked on completing it over the next 10 years.  I could blame that because a few years before beginning I got hit by a car while biking and my house burned down, but I am not sure those still weighed on my thoughts. 

It might have also stemmed from being depressed about lack of sales for my other books or how difficult it had been to get short stories published (I have quite a few that succeeded).  However, I have a feeling it’s more likely that it’s that I seem to get distracted easily these days.  Oh, is there a football game on right now?  Maybe.

I hope this insight into SOULS ON FIRE intrigued you enough to give it a try.  Think of it as a great distraction you can complete reading on your next long flight.  Or that you believe you’ll be dragged into this action-packed novel because it delves into important social issues. Whatever your reason, I hope you enjoy it and that it does more than entertains you, but also causes you to pause and think.  It sure did that to me as I wrote it.

Ahhh, James Thurber

 A short description of SOULS ON FIRE:

In 1985 AIDS activists slaughter police and terrorize Austin in the new blockbuster mystery SOULS ON FIRE.  Buy it now to discover if a movie-addicted police detective and his former CIA agent and bar-owner friend can stop the violence that engulfs the city.

FaceBook page:

https://www.facebook.com/SoulsOnFire.JayW/

Our Defenses are Offensive: A Brigade Sidestep

In ancient times (the 80s), I used to always wear some button on my shirt.  This was partially to prove to the world how cool I was, but also often to make a statement of some kind.  My favorite button, which I wore most often, was a small version of the #6 button worn by Patrick McGoohan in "The Prisoner." That could, and might be, a blog all in itself.

Other buttons were one that said "question reality" one was the symbol yin and yang, and one said "our defenses are offensive" and had a picture of a

missile on it. This latter one implied that not only was it offensive that we had enough nukes to blow the world up dozens of times, but also that we used supposedly defensive weapons offensively. 

I bring this up in a sidestep because Trump has succumbed to the military's wishes and agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan.  I'll get to that war shortly, but I think it's important to bring up some topics about our military.

For example, we spend more on our military then the next 12 high spenders combined.  This in itself is outrageous, but that Trump, for some reason, believes we need to spend even more is goofy.  I have some doubts he really believes the US needs to spend more, he sees his statements as just sound bites to appease the masses.  This unending pushing of money onto the military is undoubtedly attributed to the "military-industrial" complex Ike warned us about (but which congress/presidents love).

The "industrial" part of this evil alliance is easy to understand.  They want to make boatloads of money.  The military is a little more complicated.  Part of it is money because we see a ton of generals who retire and begin to lobby for

weapons manufacturers.  As a former enlisted person (note that none of us are ever recruited by weapons companies) it always chafed me that the military/generals loved spending big bucks on fancy and expensive weapon systems, but always bought the cheapest equipment for us grunts in the trenches.  Guess the companies can't make money off of things like boots, backpacks, tents, etc.  So they'll spend billions on a new jet, and about 69 cents for a rain poncho.

The military has an added incentive though for large spending excesses: they have a military mindset that big militaries win wars.  Oh sure, sending a military after another big military might be good when it's against a country.  It doesn't work for smaller insurrections and guerilla wars.  The military brass doesn't accept this.  A military solution doesn't work against a belief/ideology.  Ask the French about Algeria; the British about Ireland; the Soviet Union about Afghanistan and us about Vietnam (and now Afghanistan).

I’d add Iraq into the latter, but that might really set folks off.  Too many believe we won the war in Iraq.  Sure, we ousted Saddam Hussein, but even when we left there were still countless attacks going on including bombings by insurgents.  They had subsided a little, but it wasn’t due to “The Surge” as the military will tell you.  If you look at the record, you’ll see that after the surge we had higher casualties and more attacks against our forces.  It was only after the “Sunni Awakening” that things calmed down.  In other words, the people who lived there finally did something.

That’s related to Afghanistan too.  For some reason, many Americans think we drove out the Taliban.  However, when the Taliban were driven from the country, we had at best 1,000 troops there.  No, the Afghans drove out the Taliban.  The Northern Alliance and other warlords did it, admittedly with our logistical support as well as air and artillery firepower. 

It was only after the Taliban had been cleared out of the country that we began to infuse massive numbers of ground troops.  The military kept insisting we needed more and more troops, and different presidents listened.  However, what the military didn’t stress when asking for more troops was the actual number of enemy troops. 

I’ve heard non-military affiliated analysts claim that there may only be a total of 15-20,000 Taliban fighters.  So we increased our troops up to 100,000 at one time (2010) to face down a mere handful of fighters.  Our troops have some impressive weapons, body armor, night-vision goggles, etc., while the Taliban dress in robes and fight with 60s-era AK47s.  Our troops get to a battle in million dollar helicopters, they get to the battle by riding in 10-year old Nissan pickups. 

We finally wised up a little and have begun to let the Afghans do the fighting, with our troop level now at 8,000 (although recent reports state the military lied and we really have 11,000), but now the military says they want more.  So this never-ending war will continue.  I should point out that Iraq War featured a similar overwhelming level of troops versus the enemy.  Some estimated the insurgents in Iraq only numbered about 30,000 while we had at one time over 150,000.  But that’s a whole different can of worms.  The main point I’m getting at is when you listen to the military, they’ll always say they want more.  More troops, more equipment, more money.

We need to get away from this unbridled spending on the military and nation-building adventurism.  We have military personnel in 148 different countries.  We have actually bases in 38 of those nations.  How about spending equal to only the next top five other countries and investing that savings in things like universal healthcare and infrastructure improvements?  Let’s bring our troops home from half of those countries (if not more) and let those countries spend their own money on defense instead of using our resources.

People often say their son or daughter is fighting for our freedom by serving in the military.  No they aren’t.  They’re serving our country, but our freedom is not threatened by most of the countries where we have our troops stationed (or do you believe the Taliban is going to load troops onto ships and send them over here?).  So bring the troops home so they really are defending our shores and not someone else’s.  Let’s try to make our defenses defensive, not offensive.

"Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness."

Ahhh, James Thurber

The Thurber Brigade once again apologizes for this sidestep away from the usual "War Between Men and Women" (relationships), but as usual the author got annoyed and so, ta da, sidestep.  Annoyed that some military experts say we must send even more troops into another endless war.  Well, what makes an expert?  The author served in the military as a grunt, has researched the military for articles and books, has read over 100 books on the military and various wars.  Because he was a lowly enlisted person and not some high ranking general itching to send more troops into harm's way, he is not consulted about these things.  So at least he is able to get this off his chest.  The Thurber Brigade will get back to the straight and narrow next time. Maybe.