Don't Lose The Identity of Your Past (by Duc Luu, Jan 16, 2009.)

Saw a short notes on CNN ticker, "Joe the Plumber: Ban Media from War". (read here)
Since the hype of the 2008-Election's drama, I've long thought this guy (Joe The Plumber - aka JTP) was such as joke and put him to rest but he just kept beating the drum to get the media's attention. And his hypocracy just amuses me rediculously.
If one has not yet defined what a "rightwing nut" is all about, JTP might as well be such a perfect example.

First of all from the political perspective, JTP did not vote for Democrats because he did not want to have anything to do with the so-called "big government" as the Dems have always been unreasonably condemned to. And yet when it comes to the decision making, JTP did not for a second hesitate to ban journalists from reporting wars.
"...I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting [war in Israel]", Wurzelbacher said.
"You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, 'well, look at this atrocity,' well you don't know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it..." said JTP.
Apparently JTP thinks Americans including himself would be willing to sit still and get fed by whatever news the government wants him to hear?
Ah, that does not sound like a typical Republican sereotype. In fact if it smells like, tastes like, and obviously sounds like practicing such dictatorship, socialist, or evern worse, communist doctrine, it is dictatorship, to me.
While JTP declared on the media that he would not cast his vote for Democrats because voting for Obama "scared" him. Well, denying Americans' right to know what goes on (from wars reported by journalist) apparently wasn't scary enough to JTP, especially when one lives in the 21st century and some idiotic mind still has such radical and dictatorial one-sided thought seemed to be serious enough to be scared.

I was lucky at the time (now i know it was a right assessment to make) to be growing up and living with the communist regime in Vietnam as a teenager.
I used to "illegally" listen to the BBC & the VOA (Voice of America), which were broadcasted in Vietnamese, deep in my family bedroom at night (called it "family bedroom" if you will because that was only one bed and there were four siblings of us, two boys and two grils, jammed up in a same bed every night which was a typical thing you would see in a crowded working-class family in my homeland). As the night felt, when the lights went out, and when the curiosity of neighbors'eyes and ears seemed to be scattered away, it was the only convenient time that I could have had a meaningful and truthful moment to get news and be in touch with the world on the other side of the globe. Along with an old analog radio, as if the static noise wasn't bad enough, I had to keep the volume really low while pressing my ear on one side against my favorite radio's tiny built-in speaker, trying to catch every word out of it. It was an "illegal" act at the time under the government's law, but that did not deter us from seeking information and news from the other half of the world. That's what I would call living with a "big government" and being careful and looking out for oneself by living with "big guy".

Growing up with the Communist Vietnam from 1975 to 1986 did not seem like a lifetime once you got used to it though. In fact, it became part of life.
This 11-year span was just part of an integrated "life style" and it was good enough for me to know, hear, and even witness quite a few writers, activists, and other freedom speakers who got into trouble for speaking out their mind freely against the government's "guideline". Those events did sadden, scare, and occasionally angry me. The more one saddens and the more one keeps himself in a low-profile, the more one treasures the true beauty of freedom that the air on the other side of the globe has to offer.
Admitedly I wasn't really a good writer. I happened to write out of my personality, hobbies, and emotions just for the heck of writing. I wrote poems, short stories, and complimentaries under Vietnamese. In those days I had to be careful of what I wrote, how I chose the words, and which way I would shape the tone of the stories so that they did not appear to be so offensive to the "big government". I could easily write a story of a poor kid trying to sell some goodies in the middle of the night while the rain still kept pouring down on him; his young voice shattered and blended in with the sound of the midnight rain in a quiet neighborhood when almost everyone was still asleep. I could easily write a story of an old lady who carried a small herbal medicine bag, walked around my old neighborhood trying to do some coin-rub for the sick patients in order to exchange for a few bowls of rice or some other forms of livelihood help to carry her through the hardship of life. Revealing and representing the poor and the desperate souls in the mids of the turmoil living condition and in a chaos of a rundown society for such unfortuate ones were known for my typical writing style. It is yet also another indirect - but effective - way any freelance writer could do to trigger his readers' curiosity, hope, and question the ones who are in power.
Curiosity is the source of all knowledge. From the curiosity, one observes, analyzes, compares, and questions the inequality of life. That all trickles down to the hope, the willingness, and the determination of oneself to make things better. "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing..." Einstein once said. Knowledge is therefore considered the "threat" to the dictatorship hardliners who are in power and in the business of controlling others.
Ever wondered why the Khmer-Rouge (Red-Khmer) under Pol-Pot in Cambodia killed almost one fifth of its population (or 1.5 millions) during their time of power strong hold (1975-1979), mainly aimed at doctors, scientists, and other highly educated people under the so-called "social engineering" reform?
Ever wondered why Mao-Zedong (Communist China) launched his "Cultural Revolution" to shotdown those who spoke out against his will? An estimated of 20 millions died because of his cultural revolution. Millions Chinese had their human rights annulled, millions more were forced to be displaced or relocated to unfamiliaized places in order to build their "new" lives?
The Communist Vietnam, followed the foot steps of its radical dictatorship ancestors, lured millions of Vietnames from the cities to countryside where these innocent Vitnamese only later found out they were litterally forced to abandon their normal lives and lived under the hardship of labour.
The government proudly called these re-located people the "pioneers" of those who revolutionalized our forgotten lands. In fact those "pioneers" lived the their own lives as prisoners.
Those who managed not to be forced to participate in such "revolutions" had to escapte or sneak around from place to place like the outlaws. The same fate happened to those who once left and tried to come back to the inner cities.

Now JTP, that's what life would be like under "big government". You aint see nothing yet.

All communist regimes, from Stalin (Russia) to Mao (China), to Fidel Castro (Cuba) and Ho-Chi-Minh (Vietnam) if observed closely and carefully, would be seen having a very one basic thing in common: Killing, Burning, and Destroying anything that promotes the path of knowledge whether they were books or human beings. Anything that feeds mankind's knowledge and curiosity needed be destroyed. In other words, their radical thinking was simple: if they control as much info fed into its citizen, they could control their citizens' thinking, if they can manipulate their citizens' state of mind, they control their own power.
How silly and selffishness that might sound against the progressiveness of humand mankind.
Fleeing away from such doctrine, and now living here on the other side of the globe, landing my foot on the country that's been best known for "the land of the free and the home of the brave", yet, there are still some idiotic and radical JTPs out there whose thought wasn't much far from the thoughts of dictators such as Stalin, Mao, and other radicals alike: Banning jounalist from reporting news (in this case, it happens to be news of war).
Covering news is a constitutionally protected activity. Journalists have the right to cover such news whether it reveals an unpleasant truth or a naked cruelty of war that the beloved the government, wanted it or not, had to engaged, on both sides. The journalists' duty is to report. If news were not reported, there would not be journalists, then one wouldnt have a democratic system to speak out for those who could not voice their own voice.
So why would JTP wanted to take away that right? He is either a drunken nut (a rightwing nut), an idiot (God forgive him for not knowing what he was doing), or simply an ignorant who wants to beat the drum to get media's attention in a desparate way.

Last but not least, from the social welfare perspective, JTP did not vote for Obama because he was afraid that Obama might be leaning so close to being a socialist (or communist in that sense) in which Obama would be, according to JTP words, "...spreading the wealth around..... that is right out of Karl Marx...Webster dictionary...."
When Alan Colmes (The Fox News) pressed him that he was once on the welfare too, the JTP responded, "...Paid into welfare. It's something to be used, ....It goes against my principles..... Taking someone else's hard earned money and putting it into my pocket - That's just stealing, man."
Hmmm, a once-welfare recipient (including JTP and his own parents) seems to have a such a big and bold gut to beat the drum that loud for such hypocrite argument against the so-called "redistribution of weath." Has it ever occurred to JTP that he was once at the very receiving end of such "distribution of weath"? If Americans never engaged in such "distribution of wealth", he would have never had a dime to spare at the time, no matter how many welfare applications he had tried to fill out when he desparately needed.

JTP was the plumber for 15 years. He was enjoying the lower tax code under the poor and the middle-class groups for all those years. As a working-class citizen at the time, he wasn't too much concerning about such higher tax (if any) applied to the rich.
To be supporting such low-tax code to the working class, the "big government" might have to take money from somewhere else. It primarily aims at rolling back the tax cut and unreasonable tax break to the top 5% of the weathiest in the country; or at least from those who make more than $250K a year; and that was the plan.
Just because JTP was "ready to buy a business that makes more than $250K/year" as he claimed, all of a sudden he thought that taking such tax would be too much and that would constitute to his definition of "stealing" and "distribution of weath".
Distribution to whom? to the very same set of the welfare recipients (just like him) fifften years ago, you traitor.
(read here)
Hmm.... talking about hypocracy and selfishness of oneself who has no problem turning his back from his past and forgot where he once came from.

* For those years he enjoyed the low-tax code, would he give a darn about those who were paying taxes and "distribute" their wealth to him?
* For those times he and his parents filled out the welfare application forms, would he ever question where the "wealth" came from?
* When the thought of buying business and the possibility of making his income more than $250K a year, he started to question those, who are in his used-to-be past, as if they were "stealing" from him and that the "big goverment" was about to "distribute" his wealth around.
This arrogant and ignorant JTP got some nerve.

I came to this "land of the free" in 1986 when the "Pell-Grant" program was still good and strong for immigrants who were willing to go to college as long as they made good grades AND their parents did not have enough income (to be qualified for certain levels of help).
We had no income at the time. Mom & dad did not speak English. Not that leaving everything behind their native land was not sad and emotional enough that they had to endure the pain, the hassle, the humility, and yet the gratefulness to apply for such foodstamp, welfare, medicare, and other social help programs alike to cary them through their livelihood, and most importantly, their sickness. I myself enjoyed the "big government" "freebee" such as Pell-Grant on every year to get me through college (as long as I kept my good grades and did not make too much income.)
My life - under JTP's own term - was in heaven. I went to school full-time and did the social study work part-time to earn enough money for books and other miscellaneous expenses.
I worked as a local nursing home, a low-paying job to have a few additional income for other miscellaneous spending while maintaining my study to finish my degree which was a bigger goal at the time.
In other words, according to JTP, I did live on someone else's expenses; I did "steal" someone else's money (as JTP put it). I could have never asked for more. None. Non. Zip. Pu.

Voila, What I could have nerver asked more in those early days does not mean that I would never give back. I do not even need to wake up my conciousness or call out my sense of "love your neighbord as you love yourself" to help out my needy fellas on such programs. Just merely from a fair assessment persepctive and a fair responsibility as a struggling one who used to live on the government's help, it was a good-enough reason to pay back my due to the government, and more precisely to the American tax payers what i once owed them at time that I needed the most.
So paying back for such things to help others in needed was all that matters the most.
And if that's what fits the JTP's definition of the "big government" and the "distribution of wealth", then so be it.

Because of such generousity from the very same "big government", I got through the college, became a US citizen, got a decent job. I am now making a fair decent amount of money to support myself. I am paying my taxes (to help a very same set of people that I once used to be.) Every single tax dollar I paid I know deep down in my heart that it would go to those foodstamp, medicare, medicaid, Pell-Grants, and other social help programs that help others in need as I once used to get it.
Just because I no longer needed to take a bus to the social office on the Rockville Pike Ave (Rockville, Maryland) to help my parents fill out the welfare application does not mean that these offices have to be closed down. Just becausemy parents no longer needed to put down their thumbs (as their signature) to sign on those medicare application forms does not mean there weren't any other parents who still needed such insurance coverage and could not afford for it. Or just because I no longer needed to fill out my Pell-Grant applications on every year does not mean there weren't any other young, low income kids, but full of dreams and hope who are still in need of government's helping hand to make their dream possible. And JTP, just because you no longer needed such government' helps, you would, and should, turn your back on your past and on those who are in needed especially those are the ones that you once used to be, the "stealing" men as you precisedly condemded yourself as well.

If you want to call it "Big Governemtn", or if you want to call it a "distribution of wealth" tactic, by all means, call it so. Bu deep down in your heart, you know it was just a mere tactic name that politicians wanted to label as such to scare away the idiotic and lack-of-brain ignorants like you from making your own rational thinking, for once.
As long as it helps those who need a lift from the beginning of their struggling with livelihood, it's worth every single penny of it. It was, and it still is.
That's what Democrats should be all about. That's how a true Democratic society should stand for: "Help those who cannot help themselves."

I dont have any problem with the so-called "naturally-born" Republicans because by default they were born unintendedly rich, famous, and unintentionally got wired with Republican agendas that their family has had planned out for them. These "naturally-born" Replublicans got thrown into the so-called "Republican" basket by default. Such "Republicans by default" deserve at least benifit of the doubt because throughout their lives they might have never had a chance to witness, experience, expose, and interact to differrent walks of lives. They might have never needed to question themselves the inequality of lives. Why should they since they've been showered with good lives the day they were born? God bless them and forgive them for not knowing what they were doing, thiking, and making up their own mind.
Those who were once born in the slum, lived in the hut, struggled all their childhood and adult lives, and yet managed to climb out of all that slum should know better how rough life could be without a helping hand.
I do disrespect to those who once begged for help from others and from the "big government" but in a blink of an eye when they thought they are now successful, or dream of becoming rich, then quickly dump away their past and their very own unique and proud-identity that set them apart as the sole survisors.

That stinks!

Not to be jinxing JTP but I'll keep my eyes open to see the day he would buy a plumber business (as he once claimed he was about to be doing that).
As a plumber worker right now, how much would JTP make? $60K-$80K a year the most? (don't get me wrong of trying to offend the plumbing carreer but how many plumbers, who are not business owners yet, make more than $80K/year?). My point is that the JTP would never have to worry about making $250K/year as long as he is still working as a plumber - at least 15 years have gone by? - Unless his intention was merely to make a big fuzz for media's attention.
Despite all that, Who knows, one day JTP might be able to buy such business sooner as long as he keeps beating the drum so loud to get media's attention.
Perhaps, this might be one of the stratigic moves the JTP is calculating: advancing to a higher and upper class, by all means, even speaking out against his own old "welfare" past and his own working-class cloth that once made him unique.
Now that's what it smells like, tastes like, and surely looks like a Republican-wannabe stereotype.

JTP could be a successful business man one day. God bless him if he has a will.
But dude, be successful with decent thoughts toward others, a sense of being humble, an excellent personality, and an elegant manner as a man, not a traitor, a cheater, a go-getter type who is willing to abandon everything including your own history, your own identity, and your own working-class personality as they all once set you apart.

Do not lose your sense of your own past. Know where you once came from; and with that sense of humility it glorifies your success - and most importantly your personality - even brighter !

Otherwise, you are just still a slumdog no matter how many bones you've grabbed by your mouth.

Duc Luu