If you think you may be bored, and that you have absolutely nothing to do, or if you believe you may be doing or thinking something that might be important, I suggest you go to:
http://quotes4all.net and read awhile.
Either your boredom will cease and you will sense a restlessness to become smarter and wiser. or you will realize how completely meaningless whatever you were doing beforehand actually was.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
OK. We voted.
5 November 2008
OK. This is the un-fast, the de-fast, the post-fast or maybe the ex-post fasto? Who cares? But the election is complete, there are tears of joy and tears of sorrow, rejoicing and lamenting, praises being sung and curses being muttered. Jesse Jackson is crying on TV in Chicago and Dick Cheney probably wants to shoot someone, anyone, in the face. A strong voice and message have gone out and has been heard, and the American electorate has answered. Good faith efforts have been made (mostly) all around, some scoundrels have been up to no good and there have been endorsements and recriminations. Lies have been told, along with lies about lies, and claimed truths have been revealed not to be. Outrageous charges have been made, disclaimers uttered, statements colored and false colors washed away by revelation, research and FactCheck.org. And ACORN…well, ACORN screwed up a little. At least they aren’t Muslims. Thank God. Oops, sorry. And Diebold. Anybody seen Diebold? Oh. He’s hanging out with chad in Florida.
I think I have heard every outlandish remark and claim and counter-claim I can imagine, from both sides, and I have been prompted, prodded and cajoled to either praise or condemn one side or the other, and I know as many poor souls who are delirious this morning as I do who are miserable and believe hell has frozen over and that Armageddon is just around the corner. Some of my friends fully expect me to yell “Victory!” and “Hosanna!” from the nearest available rooftop, and to roundly condemn those “evil people” who have just been soundly trounced (at least George is almost gone; that’s good for something). Still others might expect to be chastised and are perhaps awaiting some condemnation, waiting for me to say , “Ha! I told you so!” Well, I’m not here to tell anyone anything. But…
As a licensed practitioner of knee-jerk reactions, I find myself in the odd position of being able to whole-heartedly not act with complete discrimination in favor of or against anyone. I am forced right at this moment to say, “Stop it. Cool your heels. Let’s take stock before we go off wildly with any uncontrolled bursts of steam, either to the left or to the right.” Let’s take a look at what just happened, look at the risks in the front of us and the pitfalls that loom ahead if we lurch too far, too fast, without looking at whence we came and where we might be able to go…preventing our taking large knives to our noses in spiteful acts of unbridled jubilance or unrestrained hatred. Didn’t know that knives were connected to your knees, did you?
There rests little doubt that a vast contingent of US voters decided that they had had enough of what has been going on ever since Ron Reagan let “trickle down” become the national political watchword. We all caught a big break during the Clinton years, but the last eight have been killers. Put simply, the voters spoke up on 11/4/08 and decided that they were done letting “compassionate conservatism” ( it was neither) drive the nation into a broad, ugly, muddy ditch on the side of the road of humanity. Anybody remember the word “quagmire”? Or Rummy’s infamous “slog”? We have been there. We have done that. We are in that. And it stinks. The hope for many is that we have found a tractor called Obama. The hope is that we have found an exit strategy from the ditch. That would be a nice change.
Over the past many months, “enough” became more than enough and the words “change” and hope” seemed to be the words people most wanted to hear. Barbara said to me last night, “He had the message”. And “He” did. And although “He” is not “the one” (sorry Oprah), he also had the delivery methodology, the delivery machinery and the composure to make that message heard above the din and the roar of the plaintive (but sometimes vicious) yelps for more of the same. I was stunned and amazed by the steady drum beat from the right, that got even louder, as the economy crumbled, the poor became poorer and the war debt became larger. It was as if a wolf’s leg was caught in a steel trap and it was pleading, “Please don’t free me from this. After I bleed to death, I won’t remember it anymore.” (Of course what they were really saying was that if you let a black man take the helm, the white race is doomed. But you can’t say that in the New York Times.) Except for Joe Biden and Ted Stevens and few others, it seemed like the time had come to end the rule of old, white-haired men paired up with snarmy Texas swamp-rats like W and Tom Delay.
At any rate, on the day after, I have these observations:
By 8:00 AM this morning, after months and months of endlessly relentless pleas for political donations, my email box had no less than 11 requests from non-profits and lobbying groups, asking for more donations. I think I smell opportunism. Nothing has yet changed. Business as not unusual but very quick on the uptake.
Obama’s acceptance speech was well written and of course delivered in his usual, flawless manner. But he forgot to mention welfare, the need for extended unemployment benefits, the collapsing industrial base, or health care. And for what they spent on the set-up in Grant Park, we could have made damn sure no child got left behind in Chicago or maybe even all of Illinois and Indiana. Got any change left over after that blow-out? I saw Oprah there. Maybe somebody should have asked her to pay for it. That would have been a nice change. Or am I hoping for too much? Should I be surprised that he dodged some issues while basking in the limelight?
Three people have told me already today that if McCain had sounded more like his concession speech when he was on the campaign trail, he might have gotten elected. Thank goodness he didn’t: we might have elected the “real” McCain who would have been the spokesperson for the “real” America of Sarah Palin. No change there, either. Hopeless.
This election cycle cost way too much and took way too long. What took us 21 months, the Brits do in six weeks for a lot less money. The fact that Obama had $100M in the bank, going into the last week of the campaign, and that the RNC spent $150,000. on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe is both obscene and embarrassing. The carbon footprint left behind by the jets, criss-crossing the country should make Al Gore violently ill, but he said nothing. That ain’t change. Nor is it small change.
And they flew Sarah home to Wasilla to vote?
Throughout the election cycle there has been non-top talk of God, godlessness and prayer and infidels. No less than four people have asked me, just within the last week, about the Founding Fathers and their stance on the separation of Church and state: I found that curious, in the midst of all of this, but nonetheless, the Fathers fought vehemently for separation. Despite the fact that a majority of the American population believes to the contrary (and that Jonah was really swallowed by a whale and all that), this was never supposed to be a Christian nation, and “God” got inserted into the national dialogue and the Pledge of Allegiance only because it became politically expedient in order to raise money and make people feel guilty. And despite the fact that “god” and “prayer” have been invoked by every politician in front of a camera or a newspaper reporter for the past many months and years, I was extremely grateful that Obama’s acceptance speech did not mention God even once…at least that I remember. Of course, let’s not forget again that he didn’t mention health care, either. And let us also not forget that Elizabeth Dole, down in red ole’ something Carolina, managed to call her opponent, a Sunday school teacher and Presbyterian church elder, “godless”. Liz lost, incidentally. But I don’t see or smell change there, either. Same old, same old and I don’t see any hope in it.
However, Sarah Palin is gone. Poof. Good riddance and shame on us for all going gaga over goofiness. And Joe Biden had better live up to his rep. First I have to get over his being a lawyer. Like Dan Quayle. Change? Can he spell potato(E)?
I have heard the words “landslide”, “overwhelming” and “dramatic” to describe the Democratic victory. The Nobel prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, in the NYT this morning, had a short column which ended simply by saying, “Now the work begins”. The only “change” we will see, or can “hope” to see is only going to come after some damned hard work. This big ole’ truck is axle deep in that muddy ditch and it will take a lot more than Barack’s smiling face, soothing words and a shiny new tractor to pull it out. And the ditch is lined with greedy congressmen, all future prey for the next generation of lobbyists. “Oh, look! There’s Trent Lott!” (Anyone who does not believe that Obama has a battle royal to fight, just there, is not being realistic.) There is an old saying that, “Good luck and success usually come only after lots of blood, sweat and tears”. We should all caution ourselves not to be too naïve as to believe anything big will happen. otherwise.
FactCheck.org has been publishing disclosures and revelations about the claims being made by both candidates for weeks. A great deal of what has been promised is either not possible or unlikely, mostly because the economy is in the tank (Hank Paulson is with Diebold and Chad in Florida, by the way). For anyone to expect too much too soon or too fast would be a tragic mistake. Obama said on Tuesday night that he would always “tell us the truth” about what is going on. We should hold his feet to the fire. If he doesn’t stick to that promise, there will be no change. The Straight Talk Express wasn’t and we still have unanswered questions about gargantuan issues facing the nation and the world.
I am ecstatic that we have turned a corner when it comes to race relations and color barriers. But when I look at the map and see large blotches of red (as in blood) extending across vast areas of the country, or see small patches of blue surrounded by large patches of red in places like Texas (crap, that’s where I live),I realize that there is hatred and indifference there and that there are bigoted attitudes, as well. I cannot count the times I have heard people speak privately to me in recent days about their fears for Obama’s safety. And when McCain gave an almost acceptable concession speech, even within the confines of his “invite only” post-election party (just who is being elitist, now?), there came boos and the ugly sounds of sore losers and closet-racists. (Of course, he and Ms. Palin spent weeks stirring up that hostility and no one should have been surprised by its’ presence at the Biltmore.). I may be delighted and pleased and hopeful and rejuvenated, but I’m not stupid, either. And neither should you be. I may be ecstatic about some aspects of what has transpired, but I am chagrined that McCain could not have been more forthright and more true to his background. But then, he was another old, white-haired man. I guess nobody figured that into the equation. And of course it was the stupid economy. Oops.
The esteemed scholar and cultural observer/philosopher Noam Chomsky has been quoted recently as saying (roughly) that America has one political party, but with two faces, one Democratic, and one Republican. But the one party is the party of big business. We have not been mindful of the warnings of Dwight Eisenhower, who said we should be on the lookout for the onset and control of the military industrial complex. Remember POGO? “We have met the enemy and he is us”? Welcome to the Halliburton.Exxon/Mobil/ Northrup Grumman United States of America. Our offices are on Wall Street and in the Green Zone . We will take your money, now, please.
Never mind, for a moment, at least, what our politicians and elected officials tell us about justice, equality and fairness: we are a country run mostly by greed, the accumulation of wealth by the few and selfishness. We have indeed turned a corner, but unless we embrace real change, and attempt to truly understand compromise and openness, we will hit a brick wall as we round that corner. And at the moment, we don’t have either enough seat belts or air bags to survive the crash. That is why the American people voted to put Obama in the driver’s seat and “hoped” to say good-bye to business as usual. .
It is time to put our money where our mouths are instead of in a Wall Street banker’s yacht, gird up our loins for some sacrifice and struggle, put our religious prejudices aside, along with our guns, our bigotry and our “bitterness” (boy, did we get suckered by that one) and face the fact that we all have work to do. And if it does not get done by all of us together, it will not get done at all. This is the second time we have had to throw out King George. We should make the most of it.
Please be optimistic. Just don’t be cavalier about it. There is too much at risk.
OK. This is the un-fast, the de-fast, the post-fast or maybe the ex-post fasto? Who cares? But the election is complete, there are tears of joy and tears of sorrow, rejoicing and lamenting, praises being sung and curses being muttered. Jesse Jackson is crying on TV in Chicago and Dick Cheney probably wants to shoot someone, anyone, in the face. A strong voice and message have gone out and has been heard, and the American electorate has answered. Good faith efforts have been made (mostly) all around, some scoundrels have been up to no good and there have been endorsements and recriminations. Lies have been told, along with lies about lies, and claimed truths have been revealed not to be. Outrageous charges have been made, disclaimers uttered, statements colored and false colors washed away by revelation, research and FactCheck.org. And ACORN…well, ACORN screwed up a little. At least they aren’t Muslims. Thank God. Oops, sorry. And Diebold. Anybody seen Diebold? Oh. He’s hanging out with chad in Florida.
I think I have heard every outlandish remark and claim and counter-claim I can imagine, from both sides, and I have been prompted, prodded and cajoled to either praise or condemn one side or the other, and I know as many poor souls who are delirious this morning as I do who are miserable and believe hell has frozen over and that Armageddon is just around the corner. Some of my friends fully expect me to yell “Victory!” and “Hosanna!” from the nearest available rooftop, and to roundly condemn those “evil people” who have just been soundly trounced (at least George is almost gone; that’s good for something). Still others might expect to be chastised and are perhaps awaiting some condemnation, waiting for me to say , “Ha! I told you so!” Well, I’m not here to tell anyone anything. But…
As a licensed practitioner of knee-jerk reactions, I find myself in the odd position of being able to whole-heartedly not act with complete discrimination in favor of or against anyone. I am forced right at this moment to say, “Stop it. Cool your heels. Let’s take stock before we go off wildly with any uncontrolled bursts of steam, either to the left or to the right.” Let’s take a look at what just happened, look at the risks in the front of us and the pitfalls that loom ahead if we lurch too far, too fast, without looking at whence we came and where we might be able to go…preventing our taking large knives to our noses in spiteful acts of unbridled jubilance or unrestrained hatred. Didn’t know that knives were connected to your knees, did you?
There rests little doubt that a vast contingent of US voters decided that they had had enough of what has been going on ever since Ron Reagan let “trickle down” become the national political watchword. We all caught a big break during the Clinton years, but the last eight have been killers. Put simply, the voters spoke up on 11/4/08 and decided that they were done letting “compassionate conservatism” ( it was neither) drive the nation into a broad, ugly, muddy ditch on the side of the road of humanity. Anybody remember the word “quagmire”? Or Rummy’s infamous “slog”? We have been there. We have done that. We are in that. And it stinks. The hope for many is that we have found a tractor called Obama. The hope is that we have found an exit strategy from the ditch. That would be a nice change.
Over the past many months, “enough” became more than enough and the words “change” and hope” seemed to be the words people most wanted to hear. Barbara said to me last night, “He had the message”. And “He” did. And although “He” is not “the one” (sorry Oprah), he also had the delivery methodology, the delivery machinery and the composure to make that message heard above the din and the roar of the plaintive (but sometimes vicious) yelps for more of the same. I was stunned and amazed by the steady drum beat from the right, that got even louder, as the economy crumbled, the poor became poorer and the war debt became larger. It was as if a wolf’s leg was caught in a steel trap and it was pleading, “Please don’t free me from this. After I bleed to death, I won’t remember it anymore.” (Of course what they were really saying was that if you let a black man take the helm, the white race is doomed. But you can’t say that in the New York Times.) Except for Joe Biden and Ted Stevens and few others, it seemed like the time had come to end the rule of old, white-haired men paired up with snarmy Texas swamp-rats like W and Tom Delay.
At any rate, on the day after, I have these observations:
By 8:00 AM this morning, after months and months of endlessly relentless pleas for political donations, my email box had no less than 11 requests from non-profits and lobbying groups, asking for more donations. I think I smell opportunism. Nothing has yet changed. Business as not unusual but very quick on the uptake.
Obama’s acceptance speech was well written and of course delivered in his usual, flawless manner. But he forgot to mention welfare, the need for extended unemployment benefits, the collapsing industrial base, or health care. And for what they spent on the set-up in Grant Park, we could have made damn sure no child got left behind in Chicago or maybe even all of Illinois and Indiana. Got any change left over after that blow-out? I saw Oprah there. Maybe somebody should have asked her to pay for it. That would have been a nice change. Or am I hoping for too much? Should I be surprised that he dodged some issues while basking in the limelight?
Three people have told me already today that if McCain had sounded more like his concession speech when he was on the campaign trail, he might have gotten elected. Thank goodness he didn’t: we might have elected the “real” McCain who would have been the spokesperson for the “real” America of Sarah Palin. No change there, either. Hopeless.
This election cycle cost way too much and took way too long. What took us 21 months, the Brits do in six weeks for a lot less money. The fact that Obama had $100M in the bank, going into the last week of the campaign, and that the RNC spent $150,000. on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe is both obscene and embarrassing. The carbon footprint left behind by the jets, criss-crossing the country should make Al Gore violently ill, but he said nothing. That ain’t change. Nor is it small change.
And they flew Sarah home to Wasilla to vote?
Throughout the election cycle there has been non-top talk of God, godlessness and prayer and infidels. No less than four people have asked me, just within the last week, about the Founding Fathers and their stance on the separation of Church and state: I found that curious, in the midst of all of this, but nonetheless, the Fathers fought vehemently for separation. Despite the fact that a majority of the American population believes to the contrary (and that Jonah was really swallowed by a whale and all that), this was never supposed to be a Christian nation, and “God” got inserted into the national dialogue and the Pledge of Allegiance only because it became politically expedient in order to raise money and make people feel guilty. And despite the fact that “god” and “prayer” have been invoked by every politician in front of a camera or a newspaper reporter for the past many months and years, I was extremely grateful that Obama’s acceptance speech did not mention God even once…at least that I remember. Of course, let’s not forget again that he didn’t mention health care, either. And let us also not forget that Elizabeth Dole, down in red ole’ something Carolina, managed to call her opponent, a Sunday school teacher and Presbyterian church elder, “godless”. Liz lost, incidentally. But I don’t see or smell change there, either. Same old, same old and I don’t see any hope in it.
However, Sarah Palin is gone. Poof. Good riddance and shame on us for all going gaga over goofiness. And Joe Biden had better live up to his rep. First I have to get over his being a lawyer. Like Dan Quayle. Change? Can he spell potato(E)?
I have heard the words “landslide”, “overwhelming” and “dramatic” to describe the Democratic victory. The Nobel prize winning economist, Paul Krugman, in the NYT this morning, had a short column which ended simply by saying, “Now the work begins”. The only “change” we will see, or can “hope” to see is only going to come after some damned hard work. This big ole’ truck is axle deep in that muddy ditch and it will take a lot more than Barack’s smiling face, soothing words and a shiny new tractor to pull it out. And the ditch is lined with greedy congressmen, all future prey for the next generation of lobbyists. “Oh, look! There’s Trent Lott!” (Anyone who does not believe that Obama has a battle royal to fight, just there, is not being realistic.) There is an old saying that, “Good luck and success usually come only after lots of blood, sweat and tears”. We should all caution ourselves not to be too naïve as to believe anything big will happen. otherwise.
FactCheck.org has been publishing disclosures and revelations about the claims being made by both candidates for weeks. A great deal of what has been promised is either not possible or unlikely, mostly because the economy is in the tank (Hank Paulson is with Diebold and Chad in Florida, by the way). For anyone to expect too much too soon or too fast would be a tragic mistake. Obama said on Tuesday night that he would always “tell us the truth” about what is going on. We should hold his feet to the fire. If he doesn’t stick to that promise, there will be no change. The Straight Talk Express wasn’t and we still have unanswered questions about gargantuan issues facing the nation and the world.
I am ecstatic that we have turned a corner when it comes to race relations and color barriers. But when I look at the map and see large blotches of red (as in blood) extending across vast areas of the country, or see small patches of blue surrounded by large patches of red in places like Texas (crap, that’s where I live),I realize that there is hatred and indifference there and that there are bigoted attitudes, as well. I cannot count the times I have heard people speak privately to me in recent days about their fears for Obama’s safety. And when McCain gave an almost acceptable concession speech, even within the confines of his “invite only” post-election party (just who is being elitist, now?), there came boos and the ugly sounds of sore losers and closet-racists. (Of course, he and Ms. Palin spent weeks stirring up that hostility and no one should have been surprised by its’ presence at the Biltmore.). I may be delighted and pleased and hopeful and rejuvenated, but I’m not stupid, either. And neither should you be. I may be ecstatic about some aspects of what has transpired, but I am chagrined that McCain could not have been more forthright and more true to his background. But then, he was another old, white-haired man. I guess nobody figured that into the equation. And of course it was the stupid economy. Oops.
The esteemed scholar and cultural observer/philosopher Noam Chomsky has been quoted recently as saying (roughly) that America has one political party, but with two faces, one Democratic, and one Republican. But the one party is the party of big business. We have not been mindful of the warnings of Dwight Eisenhower, who said we should be on the lookout for the onset and control of the military industrial complex. Remember POGO? “We have met the enemy and he is us”? Welcome to the Halliburton.Exxon/Mobil/ Northrup Grumman United States of America. Our offices are on Wall Street and in the Green Zone . We will take your money, now, please.
Never mind, for a moment, at least, what our politicians and elected officials tell us about justice, equality and fairness: we are a country run mostly by greed, the accumulation of wealth by the few and selfishness. We have indeed turned a corner, but unless we embrace real change, and attempt to truly understand compromise and openness, we will hit a brick wall as we round that corner. And at the moment, we don’t have either enough seat belts or air bags to survive the crash. That is why the American people voted to put Obama in the driver’s seat and “hoped” to say good-bye to business as usual. .
It is time to put our money where our mouths are instead of in a Wall Street banker’s yacht, gird up our loins for some sacrifice and struggle, put our religious prejudices aside, along with our guns, our bigotry and our “bitterness” (boy, did we get suckered by that one) and face the fact that we all have work to do. And if it does not get done by all of us together, it will not get done at all. This is the second time we have had to throw out King George. We should make the most of it.
Please be optimistic. Just don’t be cavalier about it. There is too much at risk.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Breathing space required
It is seven (7) days before the election, and I am going to make Sarah Palin mad at me. And I am probably going to disappoint DNC Chairman Dean. I am going to make Sarah Palin mad (not that I really care, much) because I am going to be anti-patriotic and un-American. This will mean that I cannot, for the next seven days, at least, live in northern VA, NYC, Portland, OR, Chicago, or, from what I read yesterday, Anchorage, AK. What I will do for the next seven days will ban me from small towns in America, prohibit me from wearing a blue collar, making an honest (but meager) living or believing that any core humanitarian values are more important than having the government lower my taxes. Chairman Dean will be disappointed because for the next seven days I will not watch the news, donate money or sit with my cell phone in someone’s house to make campaign calls. I will not canvass, I will not attend a rally and I will not read any more stories on the web about anybody running for any office, anywhere.
Here are a few reasons why:
Niether presidential candidate has said anything new in many days. Every surrogate is on replay. I have heard it all, most of it more than twice. They have wasted enough of my time without accomplishing anything.
The black and white sides of every issue have been exaggerated and lied about. And everything is turning the color of mud. I am weary of slime for breakfast, smear for lunch and innuendo for dinner. Where's the beef?
America has been polarized to the point of the paralysis of reason and logic and the total suspension of credibility. Whatever is gospel one day is blasphemy the next.
I have received no less than 12 requests for additional money for the Democrats since early morning, TODAY ALONE, when I know Obama raised $150M last month and still has $100M in the bank with only seven days to go.
I am sick of hearing that Muslims are about to take over the United States and that Obama will steal everyone’s IRA accounts.
I know that huge portions of the populations of KY have been brainwashed into thinking that Obama is not a Christian by white preachers. I can’t do anything about that. And Republicans are still talking about Rev, Wright, but everyone has forgotten Rev Hagee.
I am sick of my email box being filled all day with pleas to help People for the American Way, PDA, Moveon.org and so many assorted right wing groups I cannot name, with money or petitions or letter writing campaigns.
I am tired of hearing about the empress’ new clothes. If I were a Republican donor housewife on a budget, you’d be pulling me off the ceiling.
I am tired of hearing doctors rail about McCain’s cancers and populists rail about his real estate.
I am tired of getting phony evidence of Michelle Obama’s room service bills.
I am tired of hearing about change. There isn’t any: there is only tired repetition. Let’s see you get any of this change past the Congress, boys.
I am tired of Obama being called a socialist and a communist by people who don’t even know what those terms mean. And no, Karl was not one of the Marx brothers.
I am tired of Nancy Pfotenauer’s toothy grin. Her head is full of hot air.
I am tired of Chairman Dean’s toothy grin. His head is full of laughing gas.
I am tired of late night talk show political humor. It isn’t funny, it is sad.
I am tired of hearing Joe Lieberman talk. Period.
I am tired of people who don’t understand economics lecturing me on economics. Sen. Phil is “all hat and no cattle”.
I am tired of speeches and talk show appearances by illiterate people like Lindsey Graham. They are an insult to all of us. Someone said recently that "You don't have to pass an IQ test to become a congressman". That explains alot.
I am tired of old white men making speeches and telling me what I should think, including Joe Biden.
I am sick of being called one of “My Friends”, when I am not one and don’t want to be. And Sarah's shrill cacaphony doesn't make me feel any better about it. .
I am tired of Cindy McCain’s dress-up clothes and Obama’s ugly, dark suits.
I am tired of talk about old Chicago politics and troopergate scandals.
I don’t care how long John McCain spent in Viet Nam as a prisoner 4000 years ago.
I don’t care if community organizing offends elitists.
But I do care that we are about to get George W. Bush and Dick Cheney out of office, that we might get a real Secretary of State, and someone will perhaps slow down greed on Wall Street and that we do not wind up owing everything we have to a Chinese banker.
I do care that someone may pay attention to health care, mental health care and the fact that most children are being left behind.
I do care that we need to end these two stupid wars without starting a third and I care that if voting fraud happens again in OH, PA and FL, somebody gets hung up by their ankles for it.
I do care that the privatization of government has got to stop and that we had better act quickly to save peoples homes and savings.
I do care that “trickle down” has failed and so have the conservative values that have driven it and that 760,000 jobs have vanished in America in the last 10 months.
I do care about many endangered aspects of life in America but I don’t care to listen to any more hyperbole and hype and stretched or mangled truths and untruths for the next seven days. I am tired of being lied to.
I do care that most of us have better things to do with our time for the next seven days than listen to this same old stuff, over and over.
And in the time it has taken me to write this, I have gotten seven more political messages and pleas on my computer screen.
So, by Sarah Palin’s reckoning, I am going to be un-American and un-patriotic and bow out for the next seven days. And as for you, Chairman Dean, I know this is not what you wanted to hear, but rather than be dazzled by your overwhelming optimism, I have simply become frazzled by the freneticism.
Simply put, there are no more lies to be told by either side about the other, so be quiet, already!
Is it November 5, yet?
Here are a few reasons why:
Niether presidential candidate has said anything new in many days. Every surrogate is on replay. I have heard it all, most of it more than twice. They have wasted enough of my time without accomplishing anything.
The black and white sides of every issue have been exaggerated and lied about. And everything is turning the color of mud. I am weary of slime for breakfast, smear for lunch and innuendo for dinner. Where's the beef?
America has been polarized to the point of the paralysis of reason and logic and the total suspension of credibility. Whatever is gospel one day is blasphemy the next.
I have received no less than 12 requests for additional money for the Democrats since early morning, TODAY ALONE, when I know Obama raised $150M last month and still has $100M in the bank with only seven days to go.
I am sick of hearing that Muslims are about to take over the United States and that Obama will steal everyone’s IRA accounts.
I know that huge portions of the populations of KY have been brainwashed into thinking that Obama is not a Christian by white preachers. I can’t do anything about that. And Republicans are still talking about Rev, Wright, but everyone has forgotten Rev Hagee.
I am sick of my email box being filled all day with pleas to help People for the American Way, PDA, Moveon.org and so many assorted right wing groups I cannot name, with money or petitions or letter writing campaigns.
I am tired of hearing about the empress’ new clothes. If I were a Republican donor housewife on a budget, you’d be pulling me off the ceiling.
I am tired of hearing doctors rail about McCain’s cancers and populists rail about his real estate.
I am tired of getting phony evidence of Michelle Obama’s room service bills.
I am tired of hearing about change. There isn’t any: there is only tired repetition. Let’s see you get any of this change past the Congress, boys.
I am tired of Obama being called a socialist and a communist by people who don’t even know what those terms mean. And no, Karl was not one of the Marx brothers.
I am tired of Nancy Pfotenauer’s toothy grin. Her head is full of hot air.
I am tired of Chairman Dean’s toothy grin. His head is full of laughing gas.
I am tired of late night talk show political humor. It isn’t funny, it is sad.
I am tired of hearing Joe Lieberman talk. Period.
I am tired of people who don’t understand economics lecturing me on economics. Sen. Phil is “all hat and no cattle”.
I am tired of speeches and talk show appearances by illiterate people like Lindsey Graham. They are an insult to all of us. Someone said recently that "You don't have to pass an IQ test to become a congressman". That explains alot.
I am tired of old white men making speeches and telling me what I should think, including Joe Biden.
I am sick of being called one of “My Friends”, when I am not one and don’t want to be. And Sarah's shrill cacaphony doesn't make me feel any better about it. .
I am tired of Cindy McCain’s dress-up clothes and Obama’s ugly, dark suits.
I am tired of talk about old Chicago politics and troopergate scandals.
I don’t care how long John McCain spent in Viet Nam as a prisoner 4000 years ago.
I don’t care if community organizing offends elitists.
But I do care that we are about to get George W. Bush and Dick Cheney out of office, that we might get a real Secretary of State, and someone will perhaps slow down greed on Wall Street and that we do not wind up owing everything we have to a Chinese banker.
I do care that someone may pay attention to health care, mental health care and the fact that most children are being left behind.
I do care that we need to end these two stupid wars without starting a third and I care that if voting fraud happens again in OH, PA and FL, somebody gets hung up by their ankles for it.
I do care that the privatization of government has got to stop and that we had better act quickly to save peoples homes and savings.
I do care that “trickle down” has failed and so have the conservative values that have driven it and that 760,000 jobs have vanished in America in the last 10 months.
I do care about many endangered aspects of life in America but I don’t care to listen to any more hyperbole and hype and stretched or mangled truths and untruths for the next seven days. I am tired of being lied to.
I do care that most of us have better things to do with our time for the next seven days than listen to this same old stuff, over and over.
And in the time it has taken me to write this, I have gotten seven more political messages and pleas on my computer screen.
So, by Sarah Palin’s reckoning, I am going to be un-American and un-patriotic and bow out for the next seven days. And as for you, Chairman Dean, I know this is not what you wanted to hear, but rather than be dazzled by your overwhelming optimism, I have simply become frazzled by the freneticism.
Simply put, there are no more lies to be told by either side about the other, so be quiet, already!
Is it November 5, yet?
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Foilage?
A Drive in the Country
On October 23, Barbara and I were fortunate enough to be able to take a day and half drive out into the Texas Hill Country, southwest of Austin, and northwest of San Antone. The plan was to have a nice hike through the Lost Maples Preserve area, look for turning leaves, kick a few rocks, get the cobwebs and Wall Street worries out of out heads and breathe some fresh air. On a beautiful Thursday afternoon, we fired up the GPS in the Honda and headed that general direction.
After several miles and a little over an hour or so, we found ourselves almost lost (I swear that woman whose voice is on the GPS is Republican…she lied to us more than once) somewhere around Blanco, Texas. Therefore, what ensued was classic: I wanted to follow the map and my gut, Barbara wanted to stop and ask directions. My ego was completely against the “asking directions”thing (I had fallen for that Republican voice by now and of course knew what was best), but Barbara prevailed and we stopped at a local feed/hardware store. Barbara went inside and charmed the socks off of two “very nice young men”, and we wound up turning left, anyway. I think we both agreed not to disagree about that fracas any longer and on we went.
After another 25 miles or so we had gone from “OK” about food to Barbara needing a serious protein boost and I needed something more substantial than Gatorade and cashews. And we both needed a bathroom. Right about then, we entered Boerne, a quite little hamlet in the rolling hills of Texas, where we gambled on a left turn, not only to get us to the next highway we needed, but also in the hope that we might find a place to have dinner. As matters like this develop in Texas, we found a place for dinner before we had any reassurance about the requisite highway. “Y’all come back, y’ hear?”
What we found, on Main Street (marked “Haupstrasse” on the street sign) was the Cypress Springs Café. “Fine Dining”, it said on the sign. We parked the car on Haupstrasse and went in.
A deceptively attractive and clearly underage blonde hostess let Barbara see a menu and Barbara quickly zeroed in on the rotisserie chicken and the something-crusted eggplant. We decided to stay, just as soon as we determined that we might use the restrooms (there was one of those signs on the front door about “Restrooms not open to the public”)
Dinner turned out to be quite good, despite being accompanied by our waiter/server, Chris. First of all, the hostess had apparently alerted Chris to the fact that Barbara had let it out that we were “traveling”. This, in turn, turned Chris into a one-man welcoming committee, purveyor of fine advice and grand inquisitor. If we had not ascertained this before, we were clearly foreigners, outsiders, non-local disturbances. All of this was fine, except that I must tell you that Chris was a young man who had a Texas drawl which was probably being discerned as far away as the Maryland shore, looked like he just fallen off of a John Deere tractor and was horribly, awfully and visibly uncomfortable dressed all in black: shoes, trousers and a shirt painfully buttoned right up to the neck. Just looking at him made me wince.
After asking about which part of Austin we had come from, where we going and would we like something to drink besides water, Chris actually did more an able job of making is feel welcome. (When we were safely gone, however, Barbara revealed that when Chris had asked if we had a place to stay, he might have been setting us up to be whisked off to local Bates motel, where we would be stabbed to death in the shower. Didn’t happen.) Perhaps most important of all, Chris gave us explicit directions about how to get on highway 46, west, which would eventually get us to Tarpley, though “I can’t say I’ve ever been to Tarpley, myself” (later on, we would come to discover that our young friend had no reason, really, to have ever visited Tarpley, anyway, because Tarpley is little more than a gas station with a post office, just down the road from bustling “Utopia”...and I’m not making this up). More important (but learnt too late) was that the right turn onto route 46 that we sought, was right at “the third stoplight, I think, right there at the Wendy’s”. Had we known that, we would have had chicken nuggets and fries for perhaps $7.00 instead of rotisserie chicken and eggplant for $32.00.
At this point, I should mention that all during the trips’ daylight hours, we were seeing an increasing abundance of “McCain/Palin” signs on fencepost and driveway gates, and nary an Obama sign anywhere. But when we left the Cypress Springs Café, and went to the car, to find route 46 and go on, after I unlocked the door on Barbara’s Accord, we stopped to give each other a hug, and as I looked over her shoulder, I saw it:
In the two matching display windows, in a clothing shop on the “Haupstrasse”, two doors down from the venerable Cypress Springs Café. John McCain was staring at me. A photograph of his oddly shaped (and by now familiar looking) face was gazing at me, from atop a mannequin, where it had been affixed, next to another mannequin, this one female, sporting a photo on top of Sarah Palin. A banner sprawled atop both windows proudly proclaimed:
“Behind every good man stands a good woman.”
As I urged Barbara to slowly turn and see what I had seen, I worried that she might faint from surprise, and then, simultaneously, I realized I was a stranger in a strange land and that I had left my passport and my travel papers back in Austin. We pulled away slowly, heading toward route 46, and kept checking the rear view mirror and looking over my shoulder the entire time.
Throughout the remainder of our trip, which was delightful, by the way, I could not shake the notion that, not only were those poor lost maples of Texas turning, but since someone could actually so brazenly and honestly fill two entire store windows on “Hauptsrasse” with that “good woman” beside that “good man” also turning was my stomach.
On October 23, Barbara and I were fortunate enough to be able to take a day and half drive out into the Texas Hill Country, southwest of Austin, and northwest of San Antone. The plan was to have a nice hike through the Lost Maples Preserve area, look for turning leaves, kick a few rocks, get the cobwebs and Wall Street worries out of out heads and breathe some fresh air. On a beautiful Thursday afternoon, we fired up the GPS in the Honda and headed that general direction.
After several miles and a little over an hour or so, we found ourselves almost lost (I swear that woman whose voice is on the GPS is Republican…she lied to us more than once) somewhere around Blanco, Texas. Therefore, what ensued was classic: I wanted to follow the map and my gut, Barbara wanted to stop and ask directions. My ego was completely against the “asking directions”thing (I had fallen for that Republican voice by now and of course knew what was best), but Barbara prevailed and we stopped at a local feed/hardware store. Barbara went inside and charmed the socks off of two “very nice young men”, and we wound up turning left, anyway. I think we both agreed not to disagree about that fracas any longer and on we went.
After another 25 miles or so we had gone from “OK” about food to Barbara needing a serious protein boost and I needed something more substantial than Gatorade and cashews. And we both needed a bathroom. Right about then, we entered Boerne, a quite little hamlet in the rolling hills of Texas, where we gambled on a left turn, not only to get us to the next highway we needed, but also in the hope that we might find a place to have dinner. As matters like this develop in Texas, we found a place for dinner before we had any reassurance about the requisite highway. “Y’all come back, y’ hear?”
What we found, on Main Street (marked “Haupstrasse” on the street sign) was the Cypress Springs Café. “Fine Dining”, it said on the sign. We parked the car on Haupstrasse and went in.
A deceptively attractive and clearly underage blonde hostess let Barbara see a menu and Barbara quickly zeroed in on the rotisserie chicken and the something-crusted eggplant. We decided to stay, just as soon as we determined that we might use the restrooms (there was one of those signs on the front door about “Restrooms not open to the public”)
Dinner turned out to be quite good, despite being accompanied by our waiter/server, Chris. First of all, the hostess had apparently alerted Chris to the fact that Barbara had let it out that we were “traveling”. This, in turn, turned Chris into a one-man welcoming committee, purveyor of fine advice and grand inquisitor. If we had not ascertained this before, we were clearly foreigners, outsiders, non-local disturbances. All of this was fine, except that I must tell you that Chris was a young man who had a Texas drawl which was probably being discerned as far away as the Maryland shore, looked like he just fallen off of a John Deere tractor and was horribly, awfully and visibly uncomfortable dressed all in black: shoes, trousers and a shirt painfully buttoned right up to the neck. Just looking at him made me wince.
After asking about which part of Austin we had come from, where we going and would we like something to drink besides water, Chris actually did more an able job of making is feel welcome. (When we were safely gone, however, Barbara revealed that when Chris had asked if we had a place to stay, he might have been setting us up to be whisked off to local Bates motel, where we would be stabbed to death in the shower. Didn’t happen.) Perhaps most important of all, Chris gave us explicit directions about how to get on highway 46, west, which would eventually get us to Tarpley, though “I can’t say I’ve ever been to Tarpley, myself” (later on, we would come to discover that our young friend had no reason, really, to have ever visited Tarpley, anyway, because Tarpley is little more than a gas station with a post office, just down the road from bustling “Utopia”...and I’m not making this up). More important (but learnt too late) was that the right turn onto route 46 that we sought, was right at “the third stoplight, I think, right there at the Wendy’s”. Had we known that, we would have had chicken nuggets and fries for perhaps $7.00 instead of rotisserie chicken and eggplant for $32.00.
At this point, I should mention that all during the trips’ daylight hours, we were seeing an increasing abundance of “McCain/Palin” signs on fencepost and driveway gates, and nary an Obama sign anywhere. But when we left the Cypress Springs Café, and went to the car, to find route 46 and go on, after I unlocked the door on Barbara’s Accord, we stopped to give each other a hug, and as I looked over her shoulder, I saw it:
In the two matching display windows, in a clothing shop on the “Haupstrasse”, two doors down from the venerable Cypress Springs Café. John McCain was staring at me. A photograph of his oddly shaped (and by now familiar looking) face was gazing at me, from atop a mannequin, where it had been affixed, next to another mannequin, this one female, sporting a photo on top of Sarah Palin. A banner sprawled atop both windows proudly proclaimed:
“Behind every good man stands a good woman.”
As I urged Barbara to slowly turn and see what I had seen, I worried that she might faint from surprise, and then, simultaneously, I realized I was a stranger in a strange land and that I had left my passport and my travel papers back in Austin. We pulled away slowly, heading toward route 46, and kept checking the rear view mirror and looking over my shoulder the entire time.
Throughout the remainder of our trip, which was delightful, by the way, I could not shake the notion that, not only were those poor lost maples of Texas turning, but since someone could actually so brazenly and honestly fill two entire store windows on “Hauptsrasse” with that “good woman” beside that “good man” also turning was my stomach.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
I know: Everybody hates it when I get like this
Here we are, two weeks away from election day, voting day, v-day, judgment day, whatever, and 2001 days after that W guy declared “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. And it is only days away from the onset of a cold winter for many. But the boys on Wall Street, all those well-manicured and cared-for cronies of Hank “Santa Claus” Paulson, will all be warm and snug, and able, if all else fails (and it damn well might) to burn those piles of billion dollar notes that got handed out by Congress, recently. Oh, they will be fine. In fact most of them won’t even be on Wall Street: they will be offshore somewhere in the sun, with their (our) money. What does this have to do with the election? Funny you should ask.
Anyone worth his salt, and who has any inclination to read anything at all, knows that the several hundred page “bail-out” bill is full of crap…er, pork. It was bad enough when it was $700bn, but in order to get it passed, our public servants (those slimy bastards) managed to ratchet it up to something around $850bn. After I read some of the details, I of course felt better very quickly, knowing that lots of that money went to subsidize NASCAR and native American Indian Casinos. We all realize that these are essential mainstays of our economy, supplanting the beer, liquor and tobacco industries. I have yet to find the funding for the bridge to nowhere, but I’ll bet my last Ted Stevens dollar that is in there somewhere. Next to that tax subsidy for wooden arrows. Remember them?
Now since that bill was passed, the Most Lame Duck in Chief and Paulson and Bernanke and Pelosi and every other publicly funded non-managerially qualified idiot in Washington has made announcements, speeches and proposals, and held press conferences about it on some well manicured lawn or from behind a walnut desk somewhere And they all tell us how much good it is going to do for us. And every time they make one of these speeches, the stock market tanks again in the next hour or so. They should shut the f*%# up. They are not helping. And I think all of the children are being left behind, if for no other reason that to pick up the tab. Lord only knows what that will eventually look like, but the bill will be in Chinese. And it will be insured by AIG. With our money.
You know, don’t you, that the designated administrator of the bail out bill is a Paulson crony in his 30’s who has no freaking idea what the hell he is doing with that much money? We need a guardian angel and we got Rasputin with an adding machine. As Jon Stewart would say, “What the Pf*^@k?”.
By the way, the statistics say that this nation’s constituents (that’s you and me and Joe the Plumber) called and wrote to those public servants of ours, in a ratio of about 100 to 1 AGAINST the passage of the bill. Not only did the servants not listen, they went ahead and overspent way beyond what we didn’t want them to do in the first place. “Hi! I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help you!”. But I understand this somewhat, as well. They didn’t listen because they are lawyers. Logic and reason, despite their chosen profession, mean nothing to them, because they can only hear the sound of the cash register ringing in their office. They have selective perception: it comes with the job. They also know that once they have been elected, they are on the public dole for life, and they don’t have to listen to anybody.( Funny they didn’t mention that when they were running for office and needed our vote.) Besides that, they over-spent because not one of them knows how to balance a checkbook, much less the national budget. If a Senator or a Representative or Hank Paulson or W ever was forced to sit down and explain to a real accountant what they had just done with $700bn, it would be like hearing Sarah Palin describe what the Vice President’s job is. Doggonit.
Please remember: people run for public office and stay there because they are not qualified to do anything else. That's why we have the mess we do. This is the most obvious axiom in the world, and everybody misses it. Would you let Tom DeLay fix your car? Lieberman do your taxes? I don't think so.
But back to the upcoming election. (You have probably guessed that I have this figured out, too.) The fundies, the Christian right (which is always wrong), the doomsayers and the far lefties have been predicting for decades that a Rapture of some sort was coming. The End of Days. Armageddon. Revolution. The skies would rain fire, Jerry Falwell would be President, everyone would get shit on except the chosen few, and sinners, muslims and other Jew-like non-believers would wind up on marshmallow sticks and there would finally be a worldly and universal reckoning. And we would all have lower taxes. Well, here it comes. (I always get a warm feeling in my heart when someone gets it right)
If McCain wins the election , and this is possible if the Republicans and their legions can be vile and crooked enough; (have you ever tried to vote Democrat in Ohio?; tried to get a straight answer from a retired Florida resident? Spent any time in rural Pennsylvania? Holy crap. They call that Pennsyl-tucky for a reason.) Now that the end is near (they can smell the brimstone) the Repblicans will no doubt play every dirty trick in the book and rig every voting machine that they can. It is already happening in early voting in TX and FL. At any rate, if that happens (and don’t tell me you haven’t thought of that? And why can't Democrats do that stuff?), the masses of Americans who have set their hopes and dreams on Obama and the Democrats and the new beginning and the housecleaning and all that…WILL F*%3king go Bananas! The backlash of the poor, the disenfranchised and the white, middle-class, hard-working people of Palin’s “real” America that she mocks, will stage such a revolt that no one in government will be safe. The millions from both north and south who are sick to death of lying, cheating and deaf/dumb politicians will rise up in a very loud voice. They will demand some form of justice. I don’t know if it will be a complete revolution, but there will be angry mobs in places you never dreamt of. There will, of course be a military government backlash and all of that combined will be a kind of Armageddon. The fundies will have been proved right abou the end of days, but their crummy little churches may get burned to the ground and their sanctuaries of selfishness and faux piety destroyed in the process. People simply will no longer be able to tolerate this blatant and obscene fraudulence. There could be a mandate for a national end to ignorance. Those of us who have thought this through will simply declare an end to the tolerance of stupidity. The mighty in government will fall and chaos will be the rule of the day until calmer heads prevail. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich will look pretty good. Domestic spying will become illegal and we will regain the Constitution. But it will be ugly, first.
However, if Obama wins, there will be a short-lived groundswell of rejoicing and celebration, followed by an unholy, bitter, gun-slinging period of indignation by the polarized and angry right. This will happen because, despite their heart-felt convictions that they have been right all along, they will have just been told, at least somewhat resoundingly, that they were wrong. Oooo. That’s gotta hurt. The drastic and foul polarization of the citizenry, begun by Ronald Reagan and his trickle down bullshit, and cultivated and allowed to fester for eight years by this Bush/Cheney/Wall Street idiocy and greed (and a pliant and self-centered Congress), will be exacerbated beyond any ugliness we have seen in these latest Republican election rallies. There will be expressions and demonstrations of evil and hate incarnate. The South will rise again…in Omaha, Detroit, Cleveland, and every other unlikely place you never thought could hold so much backward thinking and racial predjudice. This, too, will be the end of days, Armageddon, the Rapture, but backwards and upside down. And the right will be scratching their head, asking, “How come this happened, Elmer?” and Karl Rove and the rest of the culprits will be in Paraguay, scratching their asses and drinking rum. Yes, they will get away. But let them go, be done with them. And the Democrats will apologize and promise that it will never happen again...in an attempt to save their scrawny asses. You wanna know here the whiners are in America? Here you go.
So the end is near, one way or the other. We will either get a purloined lily-white (but temporary) extension of the corruption and callousness that has put us where we are today, lead initially by a senile old fart, then followed by an insurrection that will stop just short of pulling out the guillotine, OR we will have an honest result from the honest efforts of the many, followed by a period of hatred and raging retribution by the masses (of racists) who have been foolishly waiting for Jesus to make everything OK. A black man as President will destroy their very foundations of self-righteousness and fanciful illusion. (That REALLY hurts). All of that will, of course, be financed by a frightened Wall Street. No one else will have the money to do it. And the golden parachutes will be floating down over Paraguay soon after the money is distributed.
I could quote with some erudite elan from the Book of Revelation (it isn’t one) or hint that the scientologists might have been on to something by promoting a new mode of self-delusion, but none of that and no other form of daydreaming is going to help when the shit hits the fan on November 5.
This is all contingent upon W not managing to start WWIII between now and then, in which all bets are off. And would someone PLEASE make Sarah Palin go away? I can’t stand that level of stand up comedy on the eve the apocalypse.
Life goes on in Texas.
Anyone worth his salt, and who has any inclination to read anything at all, knows that the several hundred page “bail-out” bill is full of crap…er, pork. It was bad enough when it was $700bn, but in order to get it passed, our public servants (those slimy bastards) managed to ratchet it up to something around $850bn. After I read some of the details, I of course felt better very quickly, knowing that lots of that money went to subsidize NASCAR and native American Indian Casinos. We all realize that these are essential mainstays of our economy, supplanting the beer, liquor and tobacco industries. I have yet to find the funding for the bridge to nowhere, but I’ll bet my last Ted Stevens dollar that is in there somewhere. Next to that tax subsidy for wooden arrows. Remember them?
Now since that bill was passed, the Most Lame Duck in Chief and Paulson and Bernanke and Pelosi and every other publicly funded non-managerially qualified idiot in Washington has made announcements, speeches and proposals, and held press conferences about it on some well manicured lawn or from behind a walnut desk somewhere And they all tell us how much good it is going to do for us. And every time they make one of these speeches, the stock market tanks again in the next hour or so. They should shut the f*%# up. They are not helping. And I think all of the children are being left behind, if for no other reason that to pick up the tab. Lord only knows what that will eventually look like, but the bill will be in Chinese. And it will be insured by AIG. With our money.
You know, don’t you, that the designated administrator of the bail out bill is a Paulson crony in his 30’s who has no freaking idea what the hell he is doing with that much money? We need a guardian angel and we got Rasputin with an adding machine. As Jon Stewart would say, “What the Pf*^@k?”.
By the way, the statistics say that this nation’s constituents (that’s you and me and Joe the Plumber) called and wrote to those public servants of ours, in a ratio of about 100 to 1 AGAINST the passage of the bill. Not only did the servants not listen, they went ahead and overspent way beyond what we didn’t want them to do in the first place. “Hi! I’m from the federal government and I’m here to help you!”. But I understand this somewhat, as well. They didn’t listen because they are lawyers. Logic and reason, despite their chosen profession, mean nothing to them, because they can only hear the sound of the cash register ringing in their office. They have selective perception: it comes with the job. They also know that once they have been elected, they are on the public dole for life, and they don’t have to listen to anybody.( Funny they didn’t mention that when they were running for office and needed our vote.) Besides that, they over-spent because not one of them knows how to balance a checkbook, much less the national budget. If a Senator or a Representative or Hank Paulson or W ever was forced to sit down and explain to a real accountant what they had just done with $700bn, it would be like hearing Sarah Palin describe what the Vice President’s job is. Doggonit.
Please remember: people run for public office and stay there because they are not qualified to do anything else. That's why we have the mess we do. This is the most obvious axiom in the world, and everybody misses it. Would you let Tom DeLay fix your car? Lieberman do your taxes? I don't think so.
But back to the upcoming election. (You have probably guessed that I have this figured out, too.) The fundies, the Christian right (which is always wrong), the doomsayers and the far lefties have been predicting for decades that a Rapture of some sort was coming. The End of Days. Armageddon. Revolution. The skies would rain fire, Jerry Falwell would be President, everyone would get shit on except the chosen few, and sinners, muslims and other Jew-like non-believers would wind up on marshmallow sticks and there would finally be a worldly and universal reckoning. And we would all have lower taxes. Well, here it comes. (I always get a warm feeling in my heart when someone gets it right)
If McCain wins the election , and this is possible if the Republicans and their legions can be vile and crooked enough; (have you ever tried to vote Democrat in Ohio?; tried to get a straight answer from a retired Florida resident? Spent any time in rural Pennsylvania? Holy crap. They call that Pennsyl-tucky for a reason.) Now that the end is near (they can smell the brimstone) the Repblicans will no doubt play every dirty trick in the book and rig every voting machine that they can. It is already happening in early voting in TX and FL. At any rate, if that happens (and don’t tell me you haven’t thought of that? And why can't Democrats do that stuff?), the masses of Americans who have set their hopes and dreams on Obama and the Democrats and the new beginning and the housecleaning and all that…WILL F*%3king go Bananas! The backlash of the poor, the disenfranchised and the white, middle-class, hard-working people of Palin’s “real” America that she mocks, will stage such a revolt that no one in government will be safe. The millions from both north and south who are sick to death of lying, cheating and deaf/dumb politicians will rise up in a very loud voice. They will demand some form of justice. I don’t know if it will be a complete revolution, but there will be angry mobs in places you never dreamt of. There will, of course be a military government backlash and all of that combined will be a kind of Armageddon. The fundies will have been proved right abou the end of days, but their crummy little churches may get burned to the ground and their sanctuaries of selfishness and faux piety destroyed in the process. People simply will no longer be able to tolerate this blatant and obscene fraudulence. There could be a mandate for a national end to ignorance. Those of us who have thought this through will simply declare an end to the tolerance of stupidity. The mighty in government will fall and chaos will be the rule of the day until calmer heads prevail. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich will look pretty good. Domestic spying will become illegal and we will regain the Constitution. But it will be ugly, first.
However, if Obama wins, there will be a short-lived groundswell of rejoicing and celebration, followed by an unholy, bitter, gun-slinging period of indignation by the polarized and angry right. This will happen because, despite their heart-felt convictions that they have been right all along, they will have just been told, at least somewhat resoundingly, that they were wrong. Oooo. That’s gotta hurt. The drastic and foul polarization of the citizenry, begun by Ronald Reagan and his trickle down bullshit, and cultivated and allowed to fester for eight years by this Bush/Cheney/Wall Street idiocy and greed (and a pliant and self-centered Congress), will be exacerbated beyond any ugliness we have seen in these latest Republican election rallies. There will be expressions and demonstrations of evil and hate incarnate. The South will rise again…in Omaha, Detroit, Cleveland, and every other unlikely place you never thought could hold so much backward thinking and racial predjudice. This, too, will be the end of days, Armageddon, the Rapture, but backwards and upside down. And the right will be scratching their head, asking, “How come this happened, Elmer?” and Karl Rove and the rest of the culprits will be in Paraguay, scratching their asses and drinking rum. Yes, they will get away. But let them go, be done with them. And the Democrats will apologize and promise that it will never happen again...in an attempt to save their scrawny asses. You wanna know here the whiners are in America? Here you go.
So the end is near, one way or the other. We will either get a purloined lily-white (but temporary) extension of the corruption and callousness that has put us where we are today, lead initially by a senile old fart, then followed by an insurrection that will stop just short of pulling out the guillotine, OR we will have an honest result from the honest efforts of the many, followed by a period of hatred and raging retribution by the masses (of racists) who have been foolishly waiting for Jesus to make everything OK. A black man as President will destroy their very foundations of self-righteousness and fanciful illusion. (That REALLY hurts). All of that will, of course, be financed by a frightened Wall Street. No one else will have the money to do it. And the golden parachutes will be floating down over Paraguay soon after the money is distributed.
I could quote with some erudite elan from the Book of Revelation (it isn’t one) or hint that the scientologists might have been on to something by promoting a new mode of self-delusion, but none of that and no other form of daydreaming is going to help when the shit hits the fan on November 5.
This is all contingent upon W not managing to start WWIII between now and then, in which all bets are off. And would someone PLEASE make Sarah Palin go away? I can’t stand that level of stand up comedy on the eve the apocalypse.
Life goes on in Texas.
Monday, October 20, 2008
And Then the Mail Came
I previewed "Will somebody turn that damn thing off?" (next post below) for my friend RonnottheReaganOne (somewhere not in Texas), I got this back in the mail:
Is this the next post to your blog? I like it and agree. the sun has set on the good old USA--the credit card and car/boat loan mess is the next shoe to fall and it will land loudly.
I shared with my daughter Soros' notion that the age of consumption is over and that we will need to devote all resources to maintaining the existence of our species. Her reply was that we had been doing exactly that for most of our time as a species. Touche. Nothing new here to her mind.
Note from ed. By "car/boat loan mess" Ron doesn't mean just Hummers and yachts. It will also include all of those miserable little Hyundais being sold on every street corner and lots of flat-bottomed bassfishing boats that are sold on late-night TV. They were all sold sub-prime to people with mortgages from Fannie Mae. If you want to know what Soros said, I could tell you, but then you'd have to kill me.
Not being the one not to have the last word, I wrote this:
Yes, it is posted. Most of my teary eyed, overly devoted and naively optimistic Obama supporters will probably not speak to me again for weeks..or at least until after the election. Most have already scorned me for being a Doubting Thomas anyway. "That One" is not the Messiah and "That Older One' not only has a cancer but is one...and I am still not friend.
I was going to attempt to hold my breath until after the election, but that seems a little too masochistic and a waste of valuable energy when I could be typing something that might be incendiary, instead. Please send matches and kindling.
My son just voted early in Texas, and when he couldn't vote democrat he voted "libbie", as he calls it. He is more resourceful than I thought. Your daughter, it sounds like, has joined the choir we have been preaching to?
I have been invited to a costume party for Halloween. I think I will go in whiteface, as Colin "Uncle Tom" Powell. He must be a born-again type: he manages to say something to publicly "save"himself and try to make everyone think his past sins have all been washed away, every chance he gets. He is a Blackwaterhawk in virgin wool clothing. Or perhaps he is Tom Sawyer, hoping we will all whitewash his old fence? I wish he would go beat his feet on the Mississippi mud.
Re: On Bush buying 100,00 acres in Paraguay and what it might mean....
Not to worry:
The elder Bush will die soon. His lying no-tax lips will be sealed with CIA tape.
His ugly wife will soon follow, dead from terminal arrogance.
W will start drinking again (if he hasn't already) and his liver will fail and Laura will die from lung cancer ( all those cigarettes that the public is not supposed to know that she smokes).
Rove will be killed by an angry local tribal politician who loses a local election after taking Rove's advice.
Scooter Libby will become the regional Attorney General and declare Billy Graham the Archbishop of Latin America. The vatican will be pissed.
Cheney's heart will stop...again... after his lesbian daughter becomes pregnant...again... He will be too far from Walter Reed to get help.
The Saudis will then build a second Dubai paradise in the Paraguyan forest in order to lay claim to all the water (to replace the oil) which they will sell to the Chinese (to make won-ton soup) who will have invaded Canada by that time, because even they could not control the bitter red-neck American truck drivers with guns who will be patrolling the interstate highways, looking for nigger lovers to shoot, after Obama won the election. The 700 Club will only have 700 members left and Jerry Falwell will be the Secretary of Defense. Rush Limbaugh will be Whitehouse press secretary, and all of the foreclosed former homeowners who financed subprime will be given the old FEMA trailers to live in. Most of the Middle East will be glass: Israel will nuke Iran and Russia will nuke Israel and the UAE will all be back to riding camels for awhile The world will be a lovely place, and both Cuba and Serbia will be open to tourist trade.
I will be vacationing on beachfront property in Arizona that I bought from John McCain.
Life goes on in Texas.
Is this the next post to your blog? I like it and agree. the sun has set on the good old USA--the credit card and car/boat loan mess is the next shoe to fall and it will land loudly.
I shared with my daughter Soros' notion that the age of consumption is over and that we will need to devote all resources to maintaining the existence of our species. Her reply was that we had been doing exactly that for most of our time as a species. Touche. Nothing new here to her mind.
Note from ed. By "car/boat loan mess" Ron doesn't mean just Hummers and yachts. It will also include all of those miserable little Hyundais being sold on every street corner and lots of flat-bottomed bassfishing boats that are sold on late-night TV. They were all sold sub-prime to people with mortgages from Fannie Mae. If you want to know what Soros said, I could tell you, but then you'd have to kill me.
Not being the one not to have the last word, I wrote this:
Yes, it is posted. Most of my teary eyed, overly devoted and naively optimistic Obama supporters will probably not speak to me again for weeks..or at least until after the election. Most have already scorned me for being a Doubting Thomas anyway. "That One" is not the Messiah and "That Older One' not only has a cancer but is one...and I am still not friend.
I was going to attempt to hold my breath until after the election, but that seems a little too masochistic and a waste of valuable energy when I could be typing something that might be incendiary, instead. Please send matches and kindling.
My son just voted early in Texas, and when he couldn't vote democrat he voted "libbie", as he calls it. He is more resourceful than I thought. Your daughter, it sounds like, has joined the choir we have been preaching to?
I have been invited to a costume party for Halloween. I think I will go in whiteface, as Colin "Uncle Tom" Powell. He must be a born-again type: he manages to say something to publicly "save"himself and try to make everyone think his past sins have all been washed away, every chance he gets. He is a Blackwaterhawk in virgin wool clothing. Or perhaps he is Tom Sawyer, hoping we will all whitewash his old fence? I wish he would go beat his feet on the Mississippi mud.
Re: On Bush buying 100,00 acres in Paraguay and what it might mean....
Not to worry:
The elder Bush will die soon. His lying no-tax lips will be sealed with CIA tape.
His ugly wife will soon follow, dead from terminal arrogance.
W will start drinking again (if he hasn't already) and his liver will fail and Laura will die from lung cancer ( all those cigarettes that the public is not supposed to know that she smokes).
Rove will be killed by an angry local tribal politician who loses a local election after taking Rove's advice.
Scooter Libby will become the regional Attorney General and declare Billy Graham the Archbishop of Latin America. The vatican will be pissed.
Cheney's heart will stop...again... after his lesbian daughter becomes pregnant...again... He will be too far from Walter Reed to get help.
The Saudis will then build a second Dubai paradise in the Paraguyan forest in order to lay claim to all the water (to replace the oil) which they will sell to the Chinese (to make won-ton soup) who will have invaded Canada by that time, because even they could not control the bitter red-neck American truck drivers with guns who will be patrolling the interstate highways, looking for nigger lovers to shoot, after Obama won the election. The 700 Club will only have 700 members left and Jerry Falwell will be the Secretary of Defense. Rush Limbaugh will be Whitehouse press secretary, and all of the foreclosed former homeowners who financed subprime will be given the old FEMA trailers to live in. Most of the Middle East will be glass: Israel will nuke Iran and Russia will nuke Israel and the UAE will all be back to riding camels for awhile The world will be a lovely place, and both Cuba and Serbia will be open to tourist trade.
I will be vacationing on beachfront property in Arizona that I bought from John McCain.
Life goes on in Texas.
Will Somebody Turn That Damn Thing Off?
I think I am like many other people, right now: I just want this damned election to be over with. McCain has called Obama a ninny black muslim terrorist nigger as many times as he can, and Obama has alerted us to the fact that McCain is a barnacled old fart who can't think, walk or talk well, anymore. McCain is not my friend and Obama has too much money. They have both lied again and again about the other and they have both promised to do lots of crap that neither will be able to consummate without the agreement and cooperation of a contentious, bigoted and money grubbing congress which is full of arrogant, bigoted, falsely zealous money grubbing, lying assholes. . Biden is a distinguished and sage, but just a DVR, who constantly replays "Rock of Ages", and Palin is, well, fucking useless.
So let's cut the crap and vote now, knowing it will all not make much of any difference because the United States of Greed and Insanity is so screwed up that all is mostly lost anyway. Get Bush the hell out of office before he shits on anything else, and move onward and downward. Geezus H Christ in a basket of camel turds, I'm tired of this.
So let's cut the crap and vote now, knowing it will all not make much of any difference because the United States of Greed and Insanity is so screwed up that all is mostly lost anyway. Get Bush the hell out of office before he shits on anything else, and move onward and downward. Geezus H Christ in a basket of camel turds, I'm tired of this.
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