15 May 2006
Getting Back to the Blog
After a hiatus of several months, I find renewed energy and focus for blogging. My absence from this blog was a consequence of several emotional missteps in the mine fields of daily life, including holidays. My joining the Veterans Health Service last year bore fruit this year. I have much better feelings about having spent 46 months on active duty in the Army (1968-1972). The VA healthcare system is the best I've encountered in this country for overall care and treatment. The Oakland Clinics operate in an amicable politeness despite some particularly stressed, emergent or abusive patient attitudes. Many a business could learn from this clinic's way of managing its programs and relating to the patients/clients/vets it serves.
The ongoing dominance of the American political scene by the Bush/Cheney junta contributed to my sense of estrangement from government institutions, primarily federal. More and more, life in the Bay Area seems tantamount to the liberal societies of the Weimar Republic 1922-1933. Starting with local jurisdictions and municipalities, the Nazis gradually became predominant among appointed officials and administrators. By 1931, Hitler was Chancellor with an aged von Hindenburg as President. In America, Bush II's appointments, in addition to their demonstrated personal and political loyalty to GWB, have been adherents to an Evangelical Christian religious fundamentalism. Within the first years of his appointment as President, the massive federal bureaucracy learned that Evangelical Christianity was good to espouse, so policy makers including Cabinet members issued rules and regulations, established or ended programs, hired new staff. The 2002 Congressional election resulted in a distinct faction of elected representatives and senators who were Evangelical Christians or held complementary views of right and wrong. Within less than four years, both the Executive and Legislative branches of government were in the control of extremist conservatives who had no qualms about defining and implementing national programs consistent with the dictates of fundamental, evangelical Christianity. A conservative dominated Supreme Court offered no significant checks on the accrual of power by the Executive over the Legislative branch.
The ongoing dominance of the American political scene by the Bush/Cheney junta contributed to my sense of estrangement from government institutions, primarily federal. More and more, life in the Bay Area seems tantamount to the liberal societies of the Weimar Republic 1922-1933. Starting with local jurisdictions and municipalities, the Nazis gradually became predominant among appointed officials and administrators. By 1931, Hitler was Chancellor with an aged von Hindenburg as President. In America, Bush II's appointments, in addition to their demonstrated personal and political loyalty to GWB, have been adherents to an Evangelical Christian religious fundamentalism. Within the first years of his appointment as President, the massive federal bureaucracy learned that Evangelical Christianity was good to espouse, so policy makers including Cabinet members issued rules and regulations, established or ended programs, hired new staff. The 2002 Congressional election resulted in a distinct faction of elected representatives and senators who were Evangelical Christians or held complementary views of right and wrong. Within less than four years, both the Executive and Legislative branches of government were in the control of extremist conservatives who had no qualms about defining and implementing national programs consistent with the dictates of fundamental, evangelical Christianity. A conservative dominated Supreme Court offered no significant checks on the accrual of power by the Executive over the Legislative branch.
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