This is an unsettling time in our country and it doesn't help that the news is freely spun from no truth. The sensationalistic spin and full-frontal dishonesty on offer has most of the audience dizzy in mimicry and mental paralysis, where thinking and asking questions just ceases to be possible. If this doesn't ring a bell, it may indicate that you are either: a) overly medicated or b) one of the bank bailout recipients.
Scanning news sites, sources, and blogs as I do to find out what people are talking and writing about is a genuinely befuddling exercise. Although there are smart, thoughtful writers out there attempting to reveal real news, more commonly there is an absence of the stubborn inquiring mind that everyday reporters used to bring to their work. This is what each of us needs to do if we are to salvage democracy. We need to ask questions, speak out about obvious discrepancies in the stories we are told, and immediately embrace the motto, It Doesn't Go Without Saying.
The ongoing "Don't Ask. Don't Tell" debate is a perfect example. If, like myself, you are not a fan of the current wars American leaders have created and lied us into supporting, then it doesn't go without saying that the latest propaganda on "gay rights" is absurd.
I do not consider the overturned discrimination that will allow gays to risk their lives in dubious wars a step forward for gay rights. The prejudice that bans gays from openly serving in the military is a disgrace and the law needs to be changed. But is that really a step forward for gay rights in the way it is being advertised? If the Jews in pre-concentration camp Germany who were forbidden to work were then allowed to scrub the sewers, would this have been an improved status or condition for Jewish people?
The very fact that gay people who are willing to die for America are deemed undesirable enough to be rejected by the military is sad evidence of the disease of hatred and fear.
Let's not buy into the notion that giving gays permission to die in American war is a vote of equality or friendliness. That news spin is a big, bright red herring obscuring the black and white world of prejudice that remains.