Why The Kit Gloves, Mr. Sulu?

I am back after a long absence, and have much to say about the current course of society and the world. First thing's first, though. We'll start with the State of the Union speech recently delivered by the Commander in Chief.

In all, the speech left me wondering still, "Well? What have you done about it?" To be fair, President Obama has indeed only been in office for a year now, and I am not one of those gun-ho types that think the sort of economic and moral struggles can be fixed overnight. It took eight years to decimate this country, and it will probably take twice as long for it to recover.

Unfortunately I have not seen a lot come to fruition. I have seen trillions (yes, trillions!) of tax dollars spent on...what? Infrastructure? I hardly see it anywhere. Education? Our school systems are shutting down all across the nation. Bank bailouts? PLENTY of those...but more of OUR MONEY lines the fat cats at the top then they do rebuilding the failing financial institution our economy is built upon.

That's why during Obama's speech I had to agree: slap a fee on big banks. The ones we had to bail out. This was the excerpt:

"Our most urgent -- our most urgent task upon taking office was to shore up the same banks that helped cause this crisis. It was not easy to do. And if there's one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans -- and everybody in between -- it's that we all hated the bank bailout. I hated it.

I hated it. I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.

But when I ran for president, I promised I wouldn't just do what was popular, I would do what was necessary. And if we had allowed the meltdown of the financial system, unemployment might be double what it is today. More businesses would certainly have closed; more homes would have surely been lost.

So I supported the last administration's efforts to create the financial rescue program. And when we took that program over, we made it more transparent and more accountable. And as a result, the markets are now stabilized, and we've recovered most of the money we spent on the banks.

Most, but not all. To recover the rest, I've proposed a fee on the biggest banks. Now...

Now, I know Wall Street isn't keen on this idea, but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need."

This comes on the heels of reports, such as:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3f9b1f4e-0b4e-11df-9109-00144feabdc0.html

In truth, I trust Geithner about as far as I can "spit a rat". I think he was a poor choice for Secretary of the Treasury to begin with because of his past affiliations with some of the major stock holders and bank landscape of NYC in the past. And now, with the AIG fiasco under his belt and other lashbacks from the American populace who are demanding to know why their bail out went to banking bonuses rather than resurged into the economy [stocks], Obama's plan to recoup the funds by placing liens on banks is a highly welcome thought. I am all for personal success...but NOT when you're caught with your hand in the cookie jar of American tax dollars!

Obama's controversial plan to freeze spending while re-evaluating programs in place throughout our governmental system is a welcome relief as well. Working in the type of office that I do, I know how easy it is to put policy and programs in place that, through time, become obsolete, ineffective, or new programs are developed to keep up with the times that they run in tandem with the old initiatives, thusly becoming redundancies within the system. I believe that a spring cleaning of government programs is in order every once in a great while. I am still wary of this, however, because I doubt anyone really knows how many obsolete or redundant programs actually exist. While a breath of fresh air, it hasn't gotten my vote until I see something develop from it.

Then comes the Supreme Court smack-down. I agree wholeheartedly with this rare breach of political ettiquette. You can see coverage of the incident here:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/28/alito.obama.sotu/index.html?iref=allsearch

President Obama called out the Supreme Court as a result of their decision in a landmark case: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which "removed long-established legal barriers preventing corporations and unions from spending unlimited sums of money to influence voters in political campaigns."

THIS IS NOT FREEDOM OF SPEECH. It is exploiting the American People for the purpose of electing officials which will act in the interests of COMPANIES, and NOT to People for whom they were elected!

It is not in the interest of the common people that big business can influence policy making with the many billions of dollars they can spare for the purpose (hence the reason why I think the system for lobbying the government should be abolished). Not only would that possibly open the door for big business to influence the very people we elect to act on OUR BEHALF, but it could quite possibly be a stepping stone for other things...say, lax laws on outsourcing to foreign countries, while denying Americans jobs and other benefits. MONEY should NOT be the blood running through the veins of government, (yet, alas, it is), but it should be the desire to act on behalf of the People and their interests which define policy. Money is power, and absolute power kills absolutely.

Senator Leahy said it best in his rebuttal video:

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/politics/2010/01/28/leahy.alito.precident.senatetv

So to wrap up politics, I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop and are as yet wary of the Obama Administration. They make a LOT of promises that have not yet come to fruition, but I am not yet ready to write it off as failure. As an aside, many people claim that this administration is very socialist when it comes to dealing with "sharing the wealth" and perhaps creating a government owned medical program (a topic I am not yet willing to dip my little fingers into...let's just say I DO believe a program should be in place, however), but I rather like to think that is people were more Christ-like in their behavior and share of their hearth and home of their own accord, then perhaps we wouldn't have need for government mandated anything.

Which steers me from politics to more moral issues. Avatar. [WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!] Absolutely FAN-TAST-IC movie! Of course, right out of the gate, conservatives and mainstream religious groups attacked the movie, stating it had a "far left-wing agenda" and taught people to "worship nature", according to the Vatican. Personally, I am rather offended. Conservatives are so upset that we paint the military as being war-hungry mongrels, and mankind as locusts driven to destroy any other race or culture for the purposes of materialistic persuits? Like that's never happened before?

For those of you who actually stayed awake for American History, the 1800's is often referred to as the Westward Expansion (and if you didn't stay awake, you can read about it here), during which the concept of "Manifest Destiny" was born. The concepts put for in Avatar (and Fern Gully, and Disney's Pocahantas) are not original by any stretch of the imagination. The human race has one of the bloodiest histories of conquering other lands and peoples that the universe has probably ever known. It is written deep in the sinful nature of man to want to take (hence, Eve eating of the Fruit) and keep to themselves. In the past, alien races have been depicted as materialistic locusts, planet hopping in search of new worlds to decimate and devour (Independence Day, War of the Worlds, To Serve Man). While is has been effectively countered that there have been a number of times when alien life forms are portrayed in a positive light (Star Trek, Star Wars, The Day the Earth Stood Still, human beings have not often been labelled agressors on foreign planets. Even Star Trek portrayed us a peace-loving people who finally found a way to set aside our racial differences and rely on the "Prime Directive" when dealing with other lifeforms. But Avatar's take on us and how our ignorance runs rampant...that we in our infinate wisdom would rather destroy first and ask questions later, or mock the cultural and spiritual beliefs of others because they are not our own...in this, not only does the movie echo truth about the sinful nature of man, it reveals in its guise the true essence of the human spirit...in that we are always seeking something worthy of fighting for.

Diregard the nature-worshipping Na'vi and the hardened tin-soldier. Focus on the movie for the human spirit (not to mention kick-arse visual effects), and you're in for a real treat.

Ugh. It's late. 11:10. Gotta run. Oh. Here's a shot of the Skink looking ferocious. Must be the bushman in him. Why, yes, that IS a bladed boomerang strapped to his hip. Goodness knows what he is fighting this time. Probably his girlfriend again. When are those two going to get hitched, anyway? We are so not pulling a Mickey and Minnie here...