Shredderfood.Com

A while ago I posted the following to Twitter:

“If you surround yourself with people who think exactly like you, you’ll never learn anything.”

Apparently the concept was fairly well received, it got Re-Tweeted at least 4 times that I could count.

I live in North-Central Virginia. A little to far north to be hicksville, a little too far south to have actual culture.

What I’ve found, being surrounded as I am by republicans is this. People vote republican for the following reasons.

1. Self Interest – Most republican voters I’ve met are concerned with how government affects them personally. Not them as a neighborhood or them as a species, but them personally. They all want to see stuff done, but to a one, none of them wants to put ten cents into the pool to do it. These are the people who are against universal health care based on the cost to them. Never mind the benefit of having a healthier, more productive, less-expensive-to-maintain population. They’re fine with that so long as a dime doesn’t come out of their pockets to make it happen.

2. Theology. The Republican part has done a pretty good job of aligning itself with the Religious among us. Which is funny because the whole notion that is put across by the party that “This country was formed on a Christian foundation” is complete fabrication. This country was founded by a bunch of Diests, among these, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and some guy by the name of George Washington.  (They were also Freemasons)

It’s hilarious to think that the *ONLY* reason the republican party caters to the religious is because there isn’t a snowballs chance in hell they could win an election without them.  It’s pure pandering, and the religious conservatives sell out cheap.  All you have to do is throw gay-marriage or abortion into a speech and they’re all over it.  Nevermind that everything ELSE they believe in goes against everything that religion is supposed to stand for.  You know, like bombing women and children back to the stone-age.

2. Committment to “Small Government” – This is where the conflict comes to light.  Republicans are comitted to “Small government” but yet the l influence of corporate interests and the military-industrial-complex on the republican party forces it in exactly the other direction.   When National Defense is included (as it should be, it’s the largest government orginization there is) the size of our government actually shrank during the clinton years, In fact, the last two major Civilian Federal departments were created during republican administrations.  The EPA was created in 1990 by George H.W. Bush, and the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002 as a reaction to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. *

3. Committment to “Minimal Government Intervention in Citizens’ lives” – This is another place where the rhetoric doesn’t match the actions.  This would preclude the government from getting involved in causes like Abortion & Same-Sex Marriage, where this time the religious right push the party off it’s true message.  Abortion and Gay Marriage should be up to the states to decide, but more and more often you’re finding idiot “republicans” calling for constitutional amendments to solidify their palce.  Now this annoys me because the Constitution is really a remarkable document, and it was truly a great set of rules 200 years ago when this country was first formed.

To introduce such idiocy into such a remarkable document would forever make us a laughing stock. (the mere suggestion of consitutionalizing a ban on gay marriage has ALREADY put is on that path.)

* Federal spending actually rose at adramatically much slower rate during the Clinton administration (1992 – 2000).  (Federal Spending actually went from 1.4 Trillion to 1.7 Trillion during the Clinton Administration, but went from 1.7 Trillion to 3.1 Trillion during the bush years.

Ok, I’m Scottish/Irish.  Therefore i can say I’m almost the whitest white-person on the planet.  (Ok, I carry some Italian blood but we don’t talk about the asshole who raped my biological mom when she was 15 – that’s a different post altogether.)

I was born in Kailua, Hawaii and lived there until I was 15.  And while there, I was quite solidly in the minority.

And not “Apartheid” minority either.  I’m talking “Jasper, Mississippi” minority.

I recently said something this effect on twitter:

“@bwlight – anyone who comes away with a trip to hawaii with positive memories wasn’t paying attention”

I said this because in my quest to find out if this person was follow-worthy (they had quite rudely requested a follow by simply @’ing my name, instead of using actual words like “hello” or “I’d appreciate it if you’d follow me back” or even “Hey Fuck-Nut” (which ironically would have surely earned them a follow-back) I found out that this was simply another idiot trying to capitalize on the perceived popularity of Twitter to make a few bucks.)

Hey Mrs. MBA – give you a hint.  You missed the boat.  Twitter peaked some time ago and is now either late into the plateau or starting the downward spiral to follow such giants as Myspace and Napster.

As this person fancies themselves a travel writer I guess they found it offensive enough to delete the entire exchange. (which is why I had to paraphrase the message.)

Anyone who comes away from Hawaii thinking it would be a wonderful place to move to missed a few things, and in deferance to the Hawaii dept. of Tourism, I’ll point some of them out here.

First of – they missed the neighborhoods where the American flag is flown upside-down.  The seperatists, the natives who blame the white-people for the overthrow of their land, their government, their culture, and the decimation of their gene-pool.  They view the Americans as occupiers and would just as soon throw them off the island.  (Preferably into shark-infested-waters)

In truth, and a large part of my second point, they’re probably right.  The Hawaiian culture is all-but dead.  What was once a proud people was all but killed off when Captain Cook brought the first Missionaries to Hawaii, along with the initial plagues that killed off large percentages of the population.  What passes for culture these days is nothing but such white-washed bullshit as the “Polynesian Cultural Center” and the stupid fake-luaus they put on from the tourists in a (very successful) attempt at seperating the tourists from their money.

I grew up in hawaii.  To understand my point of view you have to understand that growing up in Hawaii I went to an elementary school where I was one of three white-kids in a class of almost 30.  Once a month the ritual of “Kill-Haole-Day” was instituted, and since my parents didn’t bother to pay enough attention to me to realize it was happening, I was the unlucky one who didn’t get kept home on such days.

As I got older this didn’t change.  From 1st grade pretty much through middle-school this was the case.  I got lucky in High-School because my parents moved us to a neighborhood next to a military base, so my odds improved greatly…or so I thought.

There I got a new experience.  I got to see *WHY* they hate us so much.  The military brats (and in some cases the marines themselves) were 180 degress in the opposite direction, to the point that they had simply swapped places.  They treated the locals like shit, excluded them from just about everything (except sports because nothing says “winning football team” like a 16 year old 280# samoan linebacker.) and pretty much every day life.

Now at this point I had *ALMOST* become a part of the “local culture” and was considered “Kama’aina” (loose translation = not-quite-local) I guess because I spent my childhood dodging fists it was worth something in their sick-twisted way of looking at things.  So now what I got to see was people I more-or-less identified with getting beaten down (sometimes literally) by the US Marines.  And I got beat down right along with them.

It’s no wonder I’m as fucked up as I am…

Truth be told, it comes down to this:

Hawaii is a shit-hole covered in a thin veneer of spit-polish and perfumey-flowers.  If you go there as a tourist you can be almost certain that at least once during your stay, someone has spit in your food – I know this because I’ve known enough people working in the “hospitality industry” who have told me as much.  They smile, say “Aloha” and take your money, which of course, is all they want.  The “culture” there is as manufactured as Disneyland. (and true Hawaiian food is awful – if you like it it’s probably AmerAsian or white-washed with enough sugary sauce to make it palatable for American tastes. )

If you’re looking for a sunny beach vacation, Cozumel or Cancun are probably better, cheaper choices, closer to your time-zone, and with more travel options so flights are a world cheaper.

I used to go to Rocky-Point “Puerto-Penasco?”) Mexico – beaches there are *WAY* nicer than anything Hawaii has to offer.  During the peak season you could rent a condo *ON THE BEACH* for about $500/3-day weekend.