Lessons I've Learned from the Fright Wing

Blue Velvet

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Sat Jan-14-06 03:20 PM
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Lessons I've Learned from the Fright Wing

Edited on Sat Jan-14-06 04:10 PM by Blue Velvet

aka The Unintended Effects of the Many Misfirings from the Current (B)administration

Happy New Year, all! I’m a DU newbie (a DUbie?) of sorts, who – thanks to one of the many misfirings of the Bush regime (we’ll get to that later) – has been transformed from a voraciously-reading lurker-of-two-years to someone who just began posting last month.

And now that I’m belatedly back from my holiday hiatus (one which was still slightly more abridged than the one Congress had initially allotted themselves), I just wanted to check in with y’all and share some belated New Years thoughts - thoughts that might hopefully be regarded as good food for thought for ’06 (assuming you didn’t gorge too much over the holidays!).

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Here goes: Well, in my first DU post last month, I hypothesized that the Fright Wing’s rapacious desire to legalize (and/or do it anyway if it can’t be legalized) torture, rendition, domestic surveillance ad nauseum was not, in fact, truly intended to “fight terra.” Rather, the more-likely goal of these policies might actually be designed to DOMESTICALLY TERRORIZE US and thus discourage dissent in the U.S. And the fact that we are not only potentially being listened to/monitored but can then be whisked away to Uzbekastan to be tortured for something we thought we expressed in private must certainly be giving We the People a bit of pause.

However, I went on to say that, if this is indeed the intended aim of all these unconstitutional shenanigans, then the Bush regime’s plan – in my case, anyway – has backfired. After all, I once felt the need to be confined to lurkerdom due to my fear of “speaking out” and attracting the interests of the ever-popular(?) Agent Mike. But thanks to new disclosures about the Executive’s Overreach, I now realize that - through tapping into all the major arteries of telephonic and internet communications and data-mining like mad – they’ve been getting all my info for awhile now anyway. “Hell,” I figured (and continue to figure), “if they already have and are using illegal means to discern that which I already believe, then I may as well speak my ‘private’ truth out in public now!”

So their plans for oppression and intimidation seem to have inadvertently backfired by converting me from “fearful lurker” to “outspoken aspiring activist” – ironic, no? I wonder how many others out there have undergone the same transformation for similar reasons? Because for all their talk about our dissent “emboldening the enemy,” their policies have made clear that the American people are also their enemy, and – upon figuring this sad fact out – we become newly emboldened as well.

After all, as this administration continues to put a sick and bitterly ironic twist on the lyric “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” then surely the time to act is now, while we still have a few things LEFT to lose (and the government is madly gnawing away at those, too – all in the name of “freedumb!”, er, I mean “freedom!”))

Furthermore, in a strange way, this regime has done me other inadvertent favors as well – and the more I am spurned by them, the more I am spurred to act in ways that seek to improve my life so I can, in turn, have the energy and health to (hopefully) help improve the lives of those around me.

A good example of this is the recent revelation I had (which led me to a resolution) regarding aspartame aka “NutraSweet” (which, sweet though it may be, seems to be quite lacking in the “Nutra to Sweet ratio”…)). I realized that EVERYTHING this administration (and their hovering ilk behind the scenes and on the sidelines) does and has done – not just the torture, rendition, and illegal eavesdropping - whenever they’ve had access to political power has seemingly served to undermine our potential for dissent. Let’s see here:

Take over the media so the electorate can (mostly) never be truly informed enough to react appropriately? Check. Decimate our public school system and education standards to the point where “the children who are our future” don’t even know that they have the very constitutional rights and liberties that are being overturned? Check. Oh yeah – and inundate those same kids with so many bleeping (literally) toys and gadgets that they don’t even care to know? Check!

Thus, I realized over the holidays, that perhaps all this oppression/suppression would also manifest itself in the corporate-produced, government-endorsed foods and beverages we consume, eh? So the fine Big Agra folks at Monsanto grease the wheels (and probably more than a few palms) at the FDA, and, suddenly, “Hooray – we’ve made this great calorie-free sweetener that is also totally good for you!” And of course Americans – by and large the biggest “something for nothing” crowd you ever did want to meet – ate it up (both the propaganda and the product) in their quaintly ravenous way.

Well, “strangely” enough, I’ve been fighting health problems non-stop since NutraSweet came on the market – a Diet Coke fiend, I soon was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, and about eight other maladies, some of which have been disproved and/or dismissed, but most of which I’ve continued to fight (at least the symptoms if not the actual condition) with a lot of “help” from – guess who? Come on, you know who! Did you get it? That’s right – BigPharma!

And ridiculously enough, all this time it never occurred to me that in the same way the government seems to want to terrify, distract, and otherwise dumb down the population at large, it might also have an interest in subtly poisoning the populace with help from Big Agra so that they have no energy or impetus to do anything other than slog down to the (p)harmacy to get their ever-more-expensive gifts from Big (p)Harma and then go home and plop down on the couch to watch some cable news.

Well, as I’ve been known to say around my Mormon friends – shuck that fit! I’ve finally woken up; I’ve done a little internet research on this front (conclusion: NutraSweet is scary. Monsanto, scarier), and resolved to never drink the Empire’s Toxic Cocktails ever again.

And do you know what? In the ensuing two weeks without aspartame, I’ve felt so increasingly well that I feel I can cut back on the so-called manna from Big Pharma as well!

So in conclusion: evil Bush regime, I’m on to you! As Steven Colbert would say, “You’re on notice!” And I no longer intend to continue poisoning myself while shoveling more money into your corporate coffers.

And, lastly, I have a few questions for those who’ve had the patience to make it this far into this ridiculously-long post (sorry, but it’s been awhile since I’ve been on DU and it’s all been building up!):

Do you think there’s something to my above allegations that a lot of what Big Agra, Big Pharma, and the all-new Big “Conservative” GWB “Gubmint” do is in some part designed to keep us sick, keep us down, and keep us dumb?

And – if so (or even if not) – what experiences/feelings/results have you had, if any, from weaning your way off some of the mass-produced nutrition-free empty calorie toxicity produced and propagated upon us by our Corporate Food Lords? Furthermore, what other products should I (and others) try to avoid and why?

Thanks so much to all those who made it this far into what (I hope) will be the longest post I ever type (after all – gotta worry about carpal tunnel, too!). And I very much look fwd to hearing your replies, advice and wisdom – not only on this topic but so many others – in this new year. Much love, health, humor and happiness to all – I feel we’re going to be needing as much of that as possible as we keep fighting the good fight in 2006!

edited for some semblance of brevity (yeah - I know it's hard to believe!)