New Years Resolutions

Hey Folks,

I hope you have a wonderful New Year.

Did you make resolutions? Here are mine:

1. Be nice to people who might not totally deserve to be treated nicely.

Those people might include:

Friends' children, the mentally challenged, generally decent people who think Rush is a journalist, impoverished Libertarians, Black Republicans, Log Cabin gays, and reactionary "Christians" who keep their ugliness under a bushel.

2. Be as mean as necessary to people whenever they show they don’t deserve to be treated nicely.

Those people might include:

Bullies, bigots, homophobes, sexists, liars, hypocrites, know-it-alls, unsolicited proselytizers, pontificating businessmen, politicians, Libertarians, Neo Conservatives, right-wing talk show hosts, Chambers of Commerce, Grover Norquist, and anyone who thinks the "Market” has an "invisible hand."

3. Think of other categories to add to #'s 1 & 2.

The main consideration for this is watching how someone treats (or mistreats) others. In this country, supposedly, everyone has a right to his or her own opinion. At the same time no one has the right to impose personal opinions on others without a fight.

I respect other people’s right to hold and even express opinions that might be stupid, repugnant, selfish, brutish, etc. – as well as more praiseworthy ones. Some people can’t help being fools, and if they wish to demonstrate the level of their intellect and character, they are free to do so.

They are not, however, free to – as goes the vernacular – “get in my face” or anyone else’s face with it and expect immunity, as if the certitude in which they believe they are wrapped will serve as a shielding/cloaking device - as often is seen with some so-called "Christians" who vigorously persecute gays but claim any kind of counter-punch is religious "persecution."

What crap.

I put “Bullies” first in my #2 list above because it is often a bullying nature that raises foolishness and ignorance to an objectionable level. A businessman with foolish notions about public education is one thing. A foolish person claiming that being a businessman grants him some automatic and superior authority or standing to manipulate ("bully") school policy, for example, is another.

Psychologist James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, is a right-wing religious nut and has every right to be. But we have every right as well to do unto him as he has done unto us. For example, I want to get the bumper sticker I recently heard about: “Focus on Your Own Damned Family! ”

With New Years Resolutions we resolve to do better. Some may interpret my proposed behavior as “doing worse.” After all, I’m proposing to be meaner as well as nicer.

Well, I would suggest that the insane, deadly, repressive, and ugly situation in which we presently find ourselves has resulted in large part because people like me weren’t mean enough when we should have been.

The bully-boys of the political and religious right have been crapping on us; lying, stealing, and pushing us around since the days of Uncle Ronnie the Gipper; and by not being mean enough in our response we let them get by with it.

Ask the union movement. Ask Al Gore. Ask yourself.

Well, for what they're worth, those are my New Years resolutions. I intend to make every effort possible to overlook and forgive benign/naive stupidity, but if some clod takes on the pose of authority – whether he justifies it by the large number of his similarly ignorant tribesmen, the size of his wealth or fame, what he claims God or some book has declared, or on any other irrelevant qualification; he deserves a strong rebuke.

I resolve to do my best to provide it.

- Uke Man