I have recurring dreams of being in a country other than the United States of America, and I am looking for my friends, my family, my pets, my grocery store, my gas station, etc., and they are nowhere to be found. I have these dreams I think because I am scared shitless of not living in this country.

In my humble opinion everybody ought to have these dreams, because let’s face it. If Americans had to live in some other place other than the U.S. they would commit suicide. Without their iPods, tampons, laser hair removal, botox, viagra, and of course the 24-7 of the mainstream media purveying continuous bullshit day in and day out Americans would go mad in any other country.

I am no exception to the American dream, but let me tell you explicitly that I have the unmitigated gall and the balls to tell you that I love this country. To me America is like a drug I can’t get myself off of. I am literally hooked on capitalism, democracy, freedom, the civilian military, industry, power, and above all the use of overwhelming force in the face of adversaries and socialist losers spouting off diatribes against my country.

The one thing I have come to terms with is that America is a great place because it affords people from all ethnicities, races, religions, and national origins the ability to fit in. And yet I still retain the unwavering belief that as an American everyone who loves us and lives here has the responsibility and the right to literally crush the low life scumbags who yell death to America in the streets of Europe and the Middle East and elsewhere.

Perhaps this is why I have these recurring dreams of being far away from America and losing everything I have here. It is because every day I wake up I personally feel that I am putting on armor to go out and fight for what I believe in, which is what is right. The left can pass judgment all day long about how this country is falling apart and losing its edge and failing and this, that and the other. But I am not moved at all by this crapola. The Maury Povich’s, the Jerry Springers, and the Rosie O’Donnells can rag on and on all day long about how Americans are fucked up and hate one another for what is wrong about this country, but I say to them that they are despots and losers who deserve nothing more than a year in Iran, Venezuela or Nicaragua. Then let them tell the rest of us how they really think after they have been beaten within an inch of their lives or even simply incarcerated for no reason whatsoever such as the British teacher in the Sudan who happened to simply call a teddy bear Mohammed.

If America ignores the lessons of 9-11 and the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole and the embassies in Africa, if America decides that its one and only trusted ally in the Middle East, Israel, is the culprit because of its adherence to the principles of democracy and human rights, and if America decides that it would rather adopt a policy of policing its own people rather than extending the long arm of justice to the far reaches of the planet where it belongs, then God help us.

Don’t take that step down the path of doubting this country, because if you do you might not awaken out of your dream, but rather you might find yourself in the grips of mullahs who preach death to America as you try to make your way through your day as you have grown accustomed to it in the tradition and promise of the dream that is America.

-TDN

Driving through San Francisco you kind of get the whole thing about diversity and what the left wing is trying to accomplish. The great melting pot is alive and well and beating in the hearts of right minded people who just so happen to be misguided by the media. I say these things with all due respect to the left, for whom I have the utmost respect for having the balls to stand up for things that the rest of America just doesn’t seem to get. It’s just the way the left is going about accomplishing this that I have a problem with.

I came upon a billboard on Divisadero at the corner of Oak and there it was in all its glory, the answer to my quest for what is driving the left stark raving mad. They want to believe that perfection is achievable on earth. Hey guys, guess what. It ain’t gonna happen, so get over yourselves already. I mean, c’mon. Who is really interested in perfection anyway? Do I really have to believe that tomorrow is where the future lies? What breathes life into people is not tomorrow but rather it is today. If you believe that perfection has a price then you are likely also to believe that increasing taxes so that the government can do all these wonderful things is the way to go about achieving this end. 

This is where I have to stop myself from going off on the left because honestly I do believe that there is a such thing as perfection, however, I believe that perfection is something that is private and very personal. Frankly, the most democratic ideal ever practiced by people is not the act of voting. The greatest form of altruism is exercised when people are able to connect with their inner godliness. The bottom line on this is that not everybody can pull it off, and most everyone would agree that some succeed at self-awareness to a greater degree than others.Belief is  journey and not a destination. The problem I have with the left is that they are more concerned about postponing joy until everything is just so. I honestly just want to shake them sometimes (and you know who these people are) and convince them miraculously to begin using their mind and be satisfied about the way things are unfolding in the world. For some reason the left does not think that democracy applies to them. Everyone else has to believe their way or it’s the highway. But of course I have learned that the only way to handle these people is to stand your ground and be proud of your American ideal that says that the pursuit of happiness is what makes us special and that perfection was not part of the deal. Despite their best attempts to suck you into their world of doom and gloom and despair about global warming and the war in Iraq, the left does not have one single solution to these two problems other than to say categorically that all troops must be pulled out now and that we have to start trading carbon like it is the next big commodity futures market for them to play and make money at while at the same time trying to convince us that they are concerned about the rest of the world.

Please, I say. Spare me the bullshit of the left but do give me San Francisco and all it has to say to the world. The only reason I say this is because since Nancy Pelosi is literally two people away from being president of the United States, I urge the people of that great city to assess what it is they are trying to achieve, or better yet impose upon the rest of the world. It is one thing for one geographic region to be in control of the technology that drives the Internet,  it is quite another thing to have intelligent and aware people controlling it and the message it puts out for the rest of the world’s consumption.  I have to stop myself again from going off on the Internet too much because after all I have to remind myself that basically it has been available for public consumption for only around ten or fifteen years and already it has changed every generation past, present and probably future. Imagine the power one must feel if you happen to have lived this phenomenon from the inside out. Now imagine the possibilities if one took that experience and translated it into recommendations for the future. Trust me when I say only people with their heads screwed on tight will be able to qualify for this championship of brain power.

The world depends on some driving intellect now in order to understand the great problems of the terrorism and climate change. Notice that I did not refer to these two issues in terms of ’solving’ them, but rather I say we first have to understand them and then we will be able to solve them easier. The fact of the matter is that Islam is not functioning well in this world where communications are instantaneous and pervasive. A religion that exercises its right to censor information in this age is like the mafia opening H&R Block franchises.  Nice try, bozo. Vertical integration gone mad. Islam isn’t just whitewashing the present, it’s trying to control it and the whole message machine and about who is right and who is wrong. And so all we have achieved so far is a bunch of name calling along with a lot of dead bodies. But we haven’t converted one single solitary one of those nut jobs to stop blowing themselves up in the name of allah. Where did we go wrong? Listen up and hear me carefully. It isn’t the worst thing in the world to cozy up to the misguided and misled of the world. The true message of the left should be not just to pull the troops out of Iraq and then keep your fingers crossed nobody with a nuke strapped to him doesn’t blow himself up in the middle of Israel. There will definitely be some shit flying at that point. Why not try a different path, which is to admit that Bush lied about the war. He lied about the reason to go to war, but he did not lie that the war was necessary. My friends listen up, Iran is building nukes and they have threatened us and our allies with them. Now, what are you going to do, walk away? When Islam calls you to the fight, go. Don’t hesitate for one moment because they will perceive this as weakness and exploit it to the nth degree. As I like to explain wars where islamic people are involved, these wars are by and large pretty boring affairs. Basically much of the time is consumed by just staring them down and doing some various dirty tricks. When guns finally have to be used then if you get it under control early on then it doesn’t spread. It is a sad, true fact that somehow Islam never really got the whole community policing thing. It’s only about threats and intimidation, and in the case of Iran threats, intimidation and nuclear weaponry.

Look, you lefty scumbags, get a clue and stop pretending that everything is going to be hunky dory if we just talk about it. Talking isn’t enough for some people in this world. You cannot get people to live like you do simply by discussing it with them. There are a lot of layers of crapola to cut through to get to their soul, and yet the sad truth of the matter is that getting someone to find the goodness in their heart is really up to them not the rest of us. So instead of singing songs about how to make the world a better place while at the same time broadcasting David Crosby talking about the beauty of Tibet, share your American values with others. This requires that you actually get to know followers of the islamic faith. As much as it hurts to lower your standards to wearing a hijab and staying at home with your children instead of going to work and making money and spending it on things you like, you ladies are going to have to do it anyway. Being a feminist is really easy when you are living the life of a liberated woman, but sharing it with others is another thing altogether. This is true as well for the gay community and basically every other group that hangs onto the nouveau liberation theology of the left. Get out there and put your ideas to the test and stop hiding behind empty slogans. 

-TDN 

And then it struck me today that the reason why I hate the mainstream media so much is because they are ignoring John McCain. It seems like the media is focused only on global warming stories. Now that the once unimaginably macho Sports Illustrated has reached the bottom of the heap in the media with its story of some guys playing golf in Greenland on a course made out of nothing but ice, I am perfectly convinced that there is no responsibility any more in the media. Between the now infamous and very tired ‘Jena 6′ story has come and (hopefully) gone and stories about whales getting lost off course in the sea and winding up swimming in some river in California or Brazil, I am left shaking my head in wonderment how in God’s green creation human beings can forget who the hell they are and why they were put here in the first place.

Let me offer you a suggestion if you happen to have ever been caught up in the media’s mind boggling array of Democratic candidate debates that are nothing more than contests to see how ridiculous you can sound. You can change your life now. You can make up your mind for yourself what is important to you in the world and what isn’t. You do not need anybody telling you what to think and what’s relevant and what is an outright lie. And may I offer another tiny suggestion to anyone unlucky enough to read this nonsense I am writing, but to be honest I have to say that what is important in life is the ability to live in the first place. It’s called survival, people, and I am scared to hell and back that my life, my very being is being challenged in ways unknown in the world until now.

I have heard stories about the second world war, and I have watched movies about it on the television, but I did not participate in that war because I wasn’t even born yet. But somehow I feel like I was there because I am living breathing proof of it. I am alive because good men and women stood up and said to people who wanted to kill me to back the fuck up. In other words, people took up arms and went to the front lines and stared the actual enemy in the face and threatened their life in return for the threats they casually used against others’ lives. This is called guts. And it is also called being a liberal, because it is one thing to simply talk about freedom and liberty, however, it is quite another thing altogether to actually defend it.

People of honor defend what they say with actions not words. Successful people stand up for their beliefs and have the courage to admit in public that what they are doing is right. Tyrants like Ahmadenijad of Iran will spout out a bunch of hateful rhetoric and threaten people who are just trying to live their lives. However, when Israel bombed Lebanon to try to take out Hezbollah did it do so because its leaders went around the country spewing venomous remarks about Hezbollah? No, because that’s not the way a democracy works. In honest to God democracies, people come to their own conclusions within the privacy of their homes and then they vote for someone who will take care of the matter. In other countries like Iran it seems the face of radical religious fanatics decide for others what the leader of the country will say and do.

I don’t really know what anybody else out there in media land are thinking, and honestly I don’t really care. I get up here day after miserable day going on and on about Iran because nobody seems to get it. My God, these people are nuts. They are taking up arms and getting ready for us to come and bomb the bejesus out of them, and we may well do it. But tell me one thing, do you see this country doing the same thing? No, in fact all the candidates except for John McCain has the authority to speak about this topic in a calm and rational manner because he earned the right to do it. Forget the Democrats altogether because they have so much on their minds with their great pullback strategy for dealing with terrorism that they get tangled up in all kinds of crazy ideas about what they are going to do for us here at home once the pullback occurs and we pretend like nothing ever happened.

Folks, this is a war plain and simple. And we should stop letting the media scare us into believing that we all have to go buy a Prius and save the whales. Our very lives are being threatened again just like it was six decades ago at Pearl Harbor. Little did we suspect then that Japan was turning into a ferocious enemy of ours, but by then it was too late to ponder why it happened. We dove in and started in on what turned out to be an awful deadly mess that stretched from Europe and Asia to Africa. The war could have easily spread to the coasts of America but it didn’t. It didn’t come to America because of some miracle either. The war didn’t come to America because people saw the danger and acted.

Today the media has lulled people into thinking that our soldiers are occupiers. This is the same media that gives Jimmy Carter and Ahmadenijad air time for them to say their hate filled rhetoric about Israel being at fault for the world’s problems. In my estimation the American mainstream media is not doing its job by reporting the truth. Instead the media gives a stage to those whose hearts are filled with hate and lies. What kind of message is the media sending to us and why? I know the answer. The media is in the closet and won’t admit that Jews are fighting back and are not playing the victim card. Jews have weapons and they know how to use them. More importantly, Jews will defend themselves when it is necessary to do so. The media would rather pander to the perpetual professional victims of the world. One of the most noteworthy victim hustler is Al Sharpton, who always seems to show up at the scene of every racially explosive media event and blames the government for what went wrong.

The world’s greatest secret, however, is that the threats of war and hate and murder will be met face to face. If the United States of America won’t come to this conclusion, then rest assured that others can be counted on to do it. And I think you might have an idea who that might be. But understand one thing, America, please join in on this great mission to eradicate the world of hate and violence. You are always welcome to take a stand on the side of what is right, especially now at a time when it is perhaps more necessary than at any other time since the second world war. America deserves better than the media victim pity party it is conducting in an evil socialist plot to exploit the lowest common denominator of our citizens. Rise to the occasion.

-TDN

I watched the March Against Hate Crimes in Washington, D.C. the other day. The march was organizaed by Al Sharpton, who basically takes the position that if a black person attacks a white person then whites have no right to react angrily. Yet when white people do react then suddenly it is a hate crime worthy of a march down Pennsylvania Avenue. I like to call this extraordinary phenomenon as hatred of America by subverting its laws and perverting justice.

I have noticed something lately, and that is if you happen to be proud of what this country stands for and glad that we took on global terrorism, then you have to almost speak in hushed tones whenever you are in public. I am all but convinced that this is happening because the mainstream media gives inordinately large amounts of air time to the critics of our foreign policy and of our government that forms that policy. This is the same media that dares not criticise the hypocrisy of the ones who march against hate crimes, yet who also happen to ignore the crimes that led to the supposed hate crimes in the first place. It all comes down to one thing in my humble estimation, and that is it is somehow considered acceptable to hate America today and what it stands for which is truth and justice, and I frankly find this completely detestable.

In Iran they do not hang nooses as a symbolic gesture, rather they hang them to use for public hangings for various “crimes” such as homosexuality, drug dealing, and infidelity. By the way, Iran has declared war on us and our allies by giving military assistance, money, manpower and training to those who are sworn enemies. In Iran, the Jena 6 would be hung within days of having been found guilty of assault, yet somehow some people who support them categorically blame America’s justice system for what was basically a non-violent reaction to the attack.

What America is being subjected to today is an assault from within by those who wish to detract the rest of us from the work at hand, which is defeating terrorism and the determination by some to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction. These people are trying to subvert our system of government and laws by outright lies and diversionary techniques whose underlying foundation is contempt and hatred for the very country that gave them their freedom in the first place. I say to those who marched in Washington, move to Iran and see how long you would have been tolerated in the streets of the capitol. I also say to the kids in Jena, Louisiana, if any of you had any sense at all you would understand that we are at war against islamofascism that threatens our very existence as a free people, and maybe instead of wasting your time inciting grownups to doing stupid things in the streets you would understand the predicament this country is in and spend your time defending it instead.

Sure, protesting is easy in a country where there are laws to protect your freedom to do so. Of course, if you lived practically anywhere else you would be herded up in an instant and shuttled off into a prison and placed under custody without a trial where you would sit and be fed watery soup and stale bread and be given lashes each and every day you step out of line the slightest bit.

But of course, we live in strange times when people are acting foolishly and hating the country that gave them the rights to be strange in the first place. When will people young and old wake up and begin to organize marches against hating this country, which in simple terms is called the armed services. Maybe I’m being a bit too optimistic here, but it’s worth a try to say it anyway.

-TDN

I have a question for anyone reading this. Did Harry S. Truman ever let on to the fact that the United States of America was developing a weapon for defeating fascism during World War Two? If he had then Truman would have violated the very foundation of the war, which was secrecy.

The nuclear option that we possessed in the 1940’s is not an option today. In fact it is not an option insofar as it is a reality that must be confronted with the utmost sensitivity and confidentiality. The stakes are so high today given the fact we are dependent upon a nuclear armed country such as Pakistan that is known to harbor terrorists, that is almost incomprehensible that our national leaders can hold the truth inside themselves. The truth is we are walking a very fine line in the global war on terror, because we are having to deal with the very elements of terror themselves while we simultaneously plan to eradicate them.

Americans and the rest of the free world have not been told the truth because if they had been then the war would be lost. The fact of the matter is there are plans on the table to take out the regime in Iran and seal the fate of this last vestige of state-sponsored terrorism which has plagued the world for decades. Let there be no mistake about it, Iran is the focus of terrorism. It always was, and it always will be once the history books are finally written on the war on terror.

People can pontificate all day long about the pros and cons of the use of oil, but the fact of the matter is the world depends upon it. And let there be no mistake about the fact that the world also depends upon the United States of America for guidance in a world that always seems to be generating dictators, threats, intimidation, and fear.

In order to be relevant I must say that I watched the video of the king of Spain telling Hugo Chavez to basically shut the hell up. There is a point at which free people simply must stand up to the likes of this double-talking fanatic and read him the riot act. The terror attacks in Madrid’s subway may have changed their country’s politics, but thank goodness it did not change their sense of right and wrong.

America’s politicans may well have been briefed to disinform people of the real reason for our policy vis-a-vis terrorism, but they really are putting on quite a show a la Spain in their turn to the left. I hope they are bluffing, because America is the world’s last best hope for confronting the latest twist in fascism, which is religious fascism. It is as though these bastards thought that simply by hiding behind religion this will give them a pass in light of the western world’s advance toward tolerance. Tolerance does not implicate the tolerance of violence to further a cause.

The Russians still think of themselves as a global power even though they cannot even navigate the seas without causing an ecological disaster. The Chinese also think they are on the track toward power, while trying to convince the world that they are a free country. Free people do not turn their backs on the plight of the fellow countrymen who are killing themselves and one another with water pollution, air pollution, and negligence of standards of conduct in the production of goods that are toxic and dangerous. Both of these countries are not our friends because the Russians and the Chinese are both supporting the Iranian regime with nuclear technology and missle technology.

What will it take for America to finally annoounce its Terror Project? Like the Manhattan Project in the 1940’s, America needed a secretive undertaking to rid the world of a scourge that was bent on turning free men and women into slaves of lies and torture, deceit and death. In my mind such a project should exist now if it already does not exist already. We are at war against enemies of freedom, law and order, and respect for basic human dignity that respects life and those who defend it.

Say what you will about George W. Bush. He is not stupid. He simply cannot tell us what our friends in the Pentagon have in store for these nations and groups they support who hate us and our freedom and our laws and our dignity and our respect for one another even in the face of those who do not respect us in return. This is the Terror Project, ladies and gentlemen. This is an undertaking whose end is not public information, but it requires the utmost faith and confidence in its outcome. Like times past we will prevail, yet we have to trust the fact that there is plan for dealing with this threat.

I do not know for sure if the 2008 presidential candidates really know the truth or if they are just faking really good. One name comes to mind, which is Chuck Hagel, a Republican who openly challenges Bush’s leadership. I wonder if people like Hagel really understand that our strategy in the war on terror goes far beyond the persona of Bush. It is a national project whose outcome will be seen when the time is right. Meanwhile, it is our job to support this project and ensure that it succeeds, because if it doesn’t the outcome is far more frightening than the stories we are being told now of injured soldiers returning from Iraq and the deaths of thousands on both sides of this so-called conflict, which is the greatest test this country and the free world has faced in decades.

-TDN

Rock and roll is useless unless people honor its past. It grew out of blues singers from a dark time in America. It was in the mid south that this phenomenon took shape and grew into a world revolution that reached all the way into board rooms, recording studios, advertising think tanks, and yes, even into elevators. But the strange thing is that people want to clean up rock and roll to the point to where it is literally dying on the vine of the great plant that produced it. Rock and roll is indisputably the product of bigotry and hate, fear and hopelessness, and anger channeled into a desire to hook a guitar into an amplifier and bang on drums as loud as you can until the neighbors complain. In short, the roots of racism reach into the soil of bitterness and anger and distill it into something beautiful and palatable.

I grew up around the rise of rock and roll in the mid south. Back then the only places you could hear authentic rock and roll was in juke joints on the outskirts of little towns dotting the side of back roads. Forget about buying tickets on-line, there weren’t even computers back then, and if you called the place to make sure they weren’t too crowded once you got there you wouldn’t be able to hear the person on the other end of the phone for all the background noise.

Today I live in a virtual fishbowl with people wanting to somehow penetrate my memory and live out those days, and I can sympathize with everyone because those days are long gone and dead and buried. It is as though the coup de grace death blow to that which personified freedom for everyone regardless of their skin color and ethnicity was to have a funeral for the language that gave birth to this new thing called tolerance, acceptance, and finally harmony.

I agree that the word nigger is bad, but I use it. I agree that what Hitler did was bad, but I can’t help myself and think about it. I agree that war is bad, but I know it is inevitable. I understand that one day I will die, but I can’t do anything about it. There is an inevitability in life that is frightening and disturbing, yet nobody can do a damn thing about it. Acknowledging and accepting the ugliness in life is a requirement for anyone wanting to see the beauty of life. I know this is not something anyone really wants to confess to, but deep down inside everyone knows it and anyone who says their life is always filled with beauty is lying.

The world’s past has not always been beautiful. There have been innumerable wars resulting in millions of deaths. Bodies have been strewn on the ground, ripped apart by mankind’s only answer which is to use brute force against the evil that is fascism and tyranny. The fact is that the way in which free people lose their grip on freedom is by whitewashing their past and clinging to an unnatural belief in superiority. In short, the pathway to suffering and defeat is paved with the stones hewn from a seemingly bottomless pit of lies.

One day the lies run out. The very same lies that led free men and women to believe that others were inferior and which led to the use of intimidating language also led to the one expression of anger that inspired people to dispose of that language. I can confess to the fact that the growth of a form of musical expression grew up as a counter balance to the growth of the language that inspired it. Rock and roll and the word nigger both share the same roots, and perhaps if I were a music industry executive I would measure the potential for success of rock groups by examining the rise of intolerance and bigotry.

What the mainstream media is trying to do is to kill off both traditional rock and roll and the word nigger at the same time. They have somehow figured that if they canned rock and roll into very predictable, finely tuned and sterile lyrics, melodies and acts then they can solve the problem of bigotry that somehow never seems to go away no matter how hard people try. The fact is that the tree will simply have to grow and morph into something else leaving both the language and the music behind as a relic of the past if we are ever going to move beyond it all.

The far left of America wants to somehow hold onto the protest days of the 1960’s while at the same time demand that the object of their protest be banned. Perhaps they will see the folly of this argument, since intuitively others who did not experience this era themselves likely know what it was all about if they have ever hummed along with a song playing in an elevator or in a supermarket.

To get rid of the fascination with the word nigger the protests have to stop against the perception that the government is still to blame and is the cure for it all. The old 60’s mentality has shifted from blaming their parents generation for bigotry to blaming the government. It is as if the 1960’s has produced paranoia that has seeped into the veins of the culture and has manifest itself into suspicion of any behavior that even remotely resembles the past. Lefties still want to fight, and they are to blame for the use of the word nigger more than anyone because they need to prove over and over again what they see their generation as having accomplished. The media which is staffed by this lefty mentality pounces on every story that involves bigotry as though it were their sole job to do so.

If American democracy is to grow and mature then it needs to move beyond the protests and the suspicions. If the word nigger is never to be used again then the extremists protesting its use need to shut up. People are not as dumb as left wingers think, and Americans do not need to be led around by the hand and have their behavior policed. The media’s job isn’t to police us and shape our views by attacking people they do not agree with. If the media has its way we will continue to argue and fight over the 60’s while we waste our time and become a second rate country. In that regard the media represents an egotistical mystery tour with no end in sight. The media has entered a quest of dictating behavior rather than informing and entertaining. They have rendered themselves irrelevant in the national discussion, and at the worst the media has debased this country by holding us back.

-TDN

Think about the fact that not one single solitary helicopter or aircraft crashed during the California wildfires. Was it a coincidence, or was it just one of those things. Or maybe nobody gives a shit (the likely explanation).

What I’m trying to say is that there is a such a thing as yin and yang in life, and those of us who believe that we are being unfairly persecuted are really screwed because quite simply we are on the wrong side of right and wrong. Case in point, the fact that the California wildfires could not be put out before a thousand or more homes went up in flames is to me enough proof that all the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t do a thing about it. And so, God save the helicopter and airplane pilots who at least tried. The fact of the matter is they didn’t have a prayer until the weather changed and the fires died out on their own.

Although I abhor the media, I have to give the media credit. They tell us what the problems are in our world, however, unfortunately they do not explain how the viewers of this death and destruction should feel once they see it. To me this presents a dilemma that I write about all too often here, which is if majority of the media-consuming public does not have the capacity to understand the facts they are told then what hope is there that a majority of free people will be able to know what they are watching in the first place?

The bottom line is that education alone is not the answer. University professors tend to be on the outter fringes of the left more than any other demographic in America, which is probably why they are held in such esteem as the epitome of democratic expression in a free country. This fact alone, however, does not explain the issue I have which is what responsibility the media has to citizens of the free world to be understanding and cognizant of how facts fit together in a patchwork of what we know as our reality.

And above all, what in fact is the ‘free world’ anyway? I will be more than happy to explain what the free world is and always has been, which is a country that views itself as part of the world and which does not exempt itself from world opinion. Some might say that this idea is overly simplistic and at best idealistic, however, to be honest there are still a number of people in this world who view themselves as perpetual victims and therefore exempt from blame no matter what their behavior is.

Frankly, it is amazing to me that in this day and age there are still people who hold out for the sympathy of others rather than standing tall for themselves. There has perhaps never been a more significantly advatageous time in all of human history for those who desire to better their lives by ascribing to global norms vis-a-vis economic responsibility, the environmental world community, the global marketplace, and above all the fact that genocide and state-sponsored irresponsibility are a thing of the past. Yet, there are holdouts who believe they are exempt from the march of history. They are those who deny history and who pervert technology to further a banal cause of death and destruction and weakness.

Islam should be recognized as a religion that has run its course. After all, just because a religion calls itself as such does not mean that it cannot be exempt from scrutiny. The fact that a religion in this day and age stands firmly against the march of history, the tenets of the global community, and the advancement of technology for good rather than for evil is sufficient evidence in my opinion to declare it at best irrelevant if not despicable.

I’m not saying that everyone needs to immediately go out and purchase the latest fashions from the Nike store, eat fast food, and give one another fist butts. What I am saying is that beyond the rhetoric, beyond the hype, and way beyond the messages, the media, the hype and hysteria there is a place in each living person’s heart that desires to be told the truth about the world and the way it is organized and the way it works. Otherwise, all that such an individual or group of people can ever hope for is confusion at best if not outright degradation and hopelessness amid destruction and ruin.

I used to love to say ‘get with the program’ a while back, and the message that it connotes is that there is a program upon which this world operates. If you don’t get with it and understand it then you will render yourself outside the realm of reason and the march of life itself. It takes an understanding of the past in order to succeed in the present and the future. Pity those who are either too obstinate or too ignorant to recognize this.

-TDN