Dealing with the (Oc)cult

Dealing with the (Oc)cult


North Korea’s recent artillery attack on South Korea’s Yeonpyeong Island is symptomatic of a country that is habitually a sociopathic society. One of the biggest hurdles to effecting change there is the cult of personality that passes for North Korean government. Unlike most communist nations that have some sort of plan in place, no matter how vague, for a transition of leadership, in North Korea, the power has stayed in the Kim family. Ergo, there has been little opportunity to engage anyone in the North Korean government.

But this may be about to change. The Beloved Leader, Kim Jong Il, is about to pass the mantle of leadership to a member of his immediate family, his youngest son, Kim Jong Un. And this time, there is an unprecedented chance to get inside the inner workings of the North Korean government to begin what can only be likened to putting the whole country in a decompression chamber.

Another one of the biggest obstacle to bringing change to North Korea has been the patronage afforded by their relationship with the Soviet Union and China. No matter what, the North always had these two to stand by it. But the Soviet Union is now history, and China, once a Hermit Kingdom itself, has embraced a pseudo-capitalistic economy, and has healthy economic ties with both the United States and North Korea’s arch nemesis, South Korea.

Nonetheless, China still maintains strong ties to North Korea, and it has a strong influence on that country. It is this influence that the United States and other countries in the region have been urging Beijing to use to rein in this rogue state, a move that China seems reluctant to make.

So North Korea, like a spoiled child, is able to rattle its sabre whenever it chooses, and the world seems helpless, even in the wake of overt acts of war. Any military response, it is reasoned, would lead to a resumption of the Korean War that ended in 1953 in a cease-fire, a war that would make Iraq look like a walk in the park. Seoul, the South’s capital, is within easy reach of the North’s potent artillery and a massive amount of damage could be inflicted, damage that could easily endanger South Korea’s economy and, by extension, the world’s economy.

If change is to come to North Korea, it must come slowly, much the same way a deep-sea diver undergoes decompression when returning to the surface. What with the impending change in leadership, China, working with their new allies, now has a chance to see the emergence of a new North Korea.

China must act quickly to establish close ties with Kim Jong Un. He must be made aware of the fact that the situation within his country must change. First, China, the U. S., Japan, and South Korea must pledge that the North will not be subject to any attacks. Secondly, China must emphasize its own struggle with change, a change that has seen it emerge as one of the world’s great powers. Then China must promise to help the North begin this change within its own borders.

This effort has a chance to succeed by bringing the Hermit Kingdom out of its shell and back into the community of nations.

T(SA)hanksgiving?

Considering the general dreariness of November, it isn’t any surprise that a holiday devoted to giving thanks should be scheduled at the end of this month. Contemplating that delicious meal that awaits us on the last Thursday of November gives us something to do besides complain about the weather. Not that every November is gray and awful, just the most of them.

In the days before global warming, those of us who elected to take dinner at the home of a relative had a more pleasant way of getting there. “Over the River and Through the Woods” may not accurately reflect how we traveled in days gone by, but it does evoke a pleasant image of a sleigh ride to Grandma’s house.

Fast forward to the 21st Century, and we find that getting to Grandma’s isn’t so simple as it once was. Likely, Grandma and all of her compadres have high-tailed it to warmer climes. That trip to give a hurrah for all things Thanksgiving now requires more than a “horse (who) knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow”. It also requires more nerve than a bum tooth, thanks to the “security” measures now in place at the airports, before the modern equivalent of the horse and sleigh can be boarded.

This is all necessary, according to officials of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), whose purpose is to “ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce”. We will pause briefly to allow laughter to subside. Why, you ask, displaying your wide eyes and innocence? Well, some idiot tried to blow up his underwear on a flight sometime back, and now, to protect everyone, TSA agents logically assume that everyone has a bomb in their bloomers.

And how does one thwart someone with that sort of explosive package? It would seem that this is done by randomly pulling would-be passengers aside and giving them a choice in how they would like their close encounter of third kind to go-a gentle pat-down that a subway groper would be hard-pressed to duplicate, or a full-body scan guaranteed to reveal your true personality.

By the way, the airplanes’ crews were, at first, also required to undergo these “security measures”, but the pilots demurred, and, let’s face it, if the pilots ain’t on board, no one is going anywhere, so this one group goes ungroped.

But for the rest of us? Not so lucky. TSA Director John Pistole has declared his determination to keep the new procedures in place, while at the same time promising to keep the pat downs from becoming “too invasive”. That might be hard to prove to those passengers who have what can only be described as horror stories to tell after TSA agents cleared them to board. A breast cancer survivor had to remove her prosthesis for inspection, while a bladder cancer survivor was left covered in urine after the TSA agent broke the seal of his urostomy bag, even after he was told that this could happen by his victim.

What the TSA doesn’t realize is that 99.9% of passengers are not terrorists. Nor do they see that simply being sensitive to the needs of passengers undergoing these procedures would go a long way in keeping everyone safe while we travel.

Short Attention Span Theater

What is it about the American public and its short attention span? Remember when we were all fighting mad about the mosque everyone thought was going to be built at ground zero? Yeah, the mosque that turned out to be an Islamic community center that wasn’t going to be built on ground zero, but on the site of an abandoned Burlington coat factory four blocks away? Red hot only yesterday, but can’t get arrested today. We’ve moved on.



Closer to home, a mine explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W Va. took the lives of 29 miners on April 5 of this year. No, I’m not suggesting that anyone close by has forgotten this, but you have to admit this hasn’t been in the news a lot lately. We don’t even hear much about the on-going investigation as to the cause of the explosion.



That disaster was followed up by the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig on April 20. This explosion took the lives of 11 workers and before it was over released an estimated 185,000,000 gallons of oil into the fragile ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico.



Despite the outcry from the public that demanded explanations and solutions, once the disasters were off the front page, the ardor surrounding them seems to have cooled as well. In the case of the biggest oil spill in the history of oil exploration, once that well was capped and the video cam of the leak disappeared from the internet, within a month’s time, you’d have sworn that the oil also disappeared, along with everyone’s desire to see Big Oil punished.



For instance, in the aftermath of his disaster, Rep. Joe Barton, R., Tx., a member of the House Energy Committee, actually apologized to the perceived perpetrator, British Petroleum, for what he termed a $20 billion shakedown by the Obama administration. Bipartisan outrage soon cooled, and that same Member of Congress will, in all likelihood, chair this committee, now that the GOP has been granted control of the House again by a forgetting and forgiving public.



Sadly, the same thing is true of the Montcoal disaster. Much about this has been forgotten, or is just not talked about. The first thing the public became aware of was the inordinate number of safety violations committed at that mine. And of course, everyone wanted to know was why the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) hadn’t more to insure the miners’ safety. Why wasn’t the mines operator, Massey Energy, held accountable for how they ran that mine?



Fast forward to November and we find that another Massey Mine, this one in Pike County, is also receiving an inordinate number of safety violations that, according to MSHA, could easily lead to a similar accident. Massey immediately responded with the following statement: "Massey does not believe the mine is unsafe."



So, of the two, MSHA or Massey, which of these has the longer attention span? From circumstantial evidence, it would seem to be MSHA. Instead of repeatedly citing Massey, this time it has signaled its intention to shut down this mine until it begins to operate safely.



Had this been done a little earlier, perhaps 29 miners would still be alive and still working at Upper Big Branch.

Was it something I said?

The massacre that so many foresaw took place on Nov. 2, and for once, I am speechless. I tried to rationalize before and afterwards, but I am still at a loss.

Yes, I have head the various explanations, but they all seem to be lacking somehow. Take those who say the Obama administration and its Democratic cohorts were all guilty of extending government’s reach into private enterprise and vast overspending. The one thing they had in mind was the stimulus package introduced after President Obama took office.

But there are a couple of points that need to be made here. One, even though this bill was vilified by every Republican in America, it did not keep any one of them from posing when projects made possible by this bill were in the papers. Two of those local projects are the new parking garage/office building to be erected at the Pikeville Medical Center and the building that will soon house Pikeville College’s School of Osteopathic Medicine. Both are being built with stimulus funds.

Sen. McConnell’s supported a stimulus bill similar to Obama's, Bush 43’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. He took some heat from the voters, but was around to cast aspersions against those who supported Obama’s bill.

Then there are those who cite the left-leaning legislation adopted by the Democrat-controlled Congress and President Obama; i. e., Obamacare. This, said the loyal opposition, was nothing short of socialism. Of course they said this about Obama when they weren’t calling him a Fascist or a radical Muslim.

Funny thing about taking that tack, especially when one of the chief complaints to voters about Obamacare was that it was going to bankrupt Medicare. That was the rallying cry; Obamacare was going to cut $500 million from Medicare. Almost makes you wonder if the conservatives leading this charge had any memory of what they said about Medicare when it was enacted.

Some of the Monday-morning quarterbacks are of the idea that this election was a mid-course adjustment. What happened as a result was the electorate simply ousted the liberals who were busy, well, doing whatever it is that makes us hate liberals so.

That notwithstanding, a lot of the victims of the Nov. 2nd purge were Blue Dog Democrats. Across the south, mid-west, and west, time and again, these stalwart defenders of conservative values went down to defeat to their Republican opponents.

One of these Members of Congress was Democrat Rep. Rick Boucher, from the 9th Congressional District of Virginia. Here was a Congressman who was a staunch supporter of coal and yet had to defend himself against the charge that he was joining in Obama’s so-called war on coal. Even a commercial from the founder of United Coal Company was not enough to save his job.

No, the voters have spoken. Now the GOP has its majority in the House of Representatives back, and they are free to begin their quest to restore sanity to our government. First up will be to balance the budget by responsible spending, and they hope to start that by making permanent the tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of the country, even if it does add another $700 billion to the deficit over the next ten years.

How did Einstein define insanity again?

Oligarchy or not

One of the hardest questions ever asked of me came in a political science class at the University of Kentucky. Who holds power in the U. S., the people or the elite of our society?


Of course, the majority said it was the people. Power derives from mandates given by the voters of the country. Once the people lose confidence, then power will change hands.

Plenty of evidence could be introduced to support either viewpoint, and any judgment would be subjective. Still, the question had done its job; it made us think about who wields political power and from whom it is derived.

Of course, in any election, there are any number of variables that will shape the outcome. From the time of President Clinton, for instance, we have a phrase made popular by his campaign: “It’s the economy, stupid!” Put simply, any chance of his getting elected depended on his ability to shape the country’s perception of how well off they were. By being successful, Mr. Clinton defeated an incumbent whose popularity ratings had been close to 90% at the end of the first Iraqi war, or one year prior, plus or minus a little one way or the other.

But there is another variable in any election, and that is the amount of money that is available to help make the case for any politician or party. The more of this commodity there is, the better able either is to make sure the voters see things their way.

Money has always been seen as the corrupter in politics in this country. Money once made its way into the process at precinct levels when unscrupulous politicians paid the voters to cast a ballot for them. This is frowned upon today, so you no longer see vote buying practiced as openly as it once was.

Buying the vote of the office holders, though, is another matter. Well-heeled organizations and individuals can still grease the skids whenever they choose. And it is sure that once a politician becomes the beneficiary of a large donation from a powerful special interest, that individual does not forget it when the special interest needs a favor between elections.

By special rules, though, this is not defined as vote buying. Representatives of special interests may visit an office holder and discuss how things should be done. And they can also donate money to that office holder. They just cannot do both at the same time. That is in bad taste.

There have been, at various times, efforts to minimize the effect that money has on our election process, but each time, such as was the case in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, bans on special interest money are often overturned. The result of this ruling by the U. S. Supreme Court has been to turn loose a veritable flood of special interest money.

In effect, if this tide elects a Congress that is beholden to the font of the campaign cash, doesn’t power then derive, not from the people but from contributions from the elite? We can only hope not, because that would change the very nature of who we are as a nation, from a democracy to an oligarchy, and that is not a change for the better.