Posts Tagged ‘racism’

Is the United States of America is the world’s largest dealer of illegal drugs?  What about the world’s largest gun runner?  For years our government has used the CIA, NSA & other super-secret ‘intelligence’ agencies to cultivate drug harvest and distribution in SE Asia and Afghanistan.  We offer ‘aid’ and ‘trade’ to countries in the forms of weapons and ammunition.  The drugs come home to the US to poison and kill our own population.  The weapons we sell are used either against us directly by people to kill others, who then seek to kill Americans.  Did the founding fathers envision a country that would become the world’s largest debtor and blood merchant?

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="460" caption="Image courtesy of The Guardian (UK)"][/caption]

“I was born in a house my father built.” Thus began Richard Nixon’s autobiography. If he were alive, I would say “Well, Dick I was born in the house that Jack built. Jack Kennedy, that is. Until you came along and turned it into the out house.”

I’ve been thinking about something for a while now, and I just feel the need to call things out the way I see them. Namely, the near constant use of the “cowboy” persona in American politics. I find myself compelled to say something about it now, because I think that John McCain is the latest (maybe the last) but likely one of the worst performers of this hackneyed role. I’ll get to him in a bit, but let me tell you how I got to this conclusion.

As a child, I sat with my grandfather in his living room, watching westerns on TV. Bonanza, High Chapparal, Gunsmoke and John Wayne movies. He fought in Patton’s army and came home to live out his life on his farm with his dogs and his wife. He died when I was 8, but he lives on for me whenever I sit down to watch one of those old shows.