Counting our Blessings
Prior to conjuring up things we should do but never do (New Year Resolutions), I guess it is appropriate that we count our blessings. I have in this blog bemoaned the actions of our once great president castigating him for being everything from an inexperienced boob to an inveterate campaigner. And I was quick to point out the glaring “cave-ins.” Well I guess some would say a serving of crow is in order. But not so fast. I am not ready to relent and call the recent gains great strides forward.
First, the biggest winner in the past two years were the fat cats. I am not talking about people holding a job. I am talking about those who sit on the top of this economy and continue to grow richer and richer while the average Joe struggles to make it or even hold on to his job. When you hear the president bore you with his successes, please recite the mantra “at what cost.” That tax cut was indicative of how things go in this country. They get a huge chunk of the pie and we get the crumbs. I often wonder just how much the rich need and then I thought of old Scrooge McDuck and then I get an inkling that there is never enough. So the country goes into hock with China while the super rich scour the yachting magazine for a newer model, and the average Joe gets unemployment. What a country!!
So Obama will say we got a health care program, but not with a public option. The funny thing about that result is that a public option would have canceled out any potential law suit. You have to wonder if the insurance industry purposely got that provision kicked out so they could mount a legal challenge through their emissaries. But that would mean they were devious, not those honorable folks. And we don't need a soothsayer to divine what our illustrious Supreme Court Justices will rule, do we?
The first responders got their bill, watered down, but you have to wonder if those pompous conservatives talking about the deficit were shamed into voting. Gays got their right to join the military. Big deal! It was so long in coming that it was absolutely absurd to count it as anything but something that was long over due. But not too fast, the military has to study it.
And before we get all pumped up with successes, let us remember that the wars continue. Young men die and get wounded while those we are supposedly saving plot ways to steal our money and cooperate with those who are our mortal enemies.
A recent cover of AARP had George W on the cover. He has no regrets, well maybe a few. It is amazing that in this crazy world we live in, a man can screw up royally and go on to be portrayed as a regular guy. While he smiles, the misery his policies generated continues. So on this Christmas, I will skip counting the blessings and focus on the glaring things that need attention. It seems to me we are witnessing the decline of this nation. And we the great mass of humanity who long for a better way are left with a system that continues to focus on those who don't need it at the expense of those who do. If this tax cut is such a great stimulus, how come it hasn't worked?
So my New Year's resolution is to stop being such a boob and take things at face value. I have already started. No more TV news, no more presidential press conferences, no more Obama and White House e-mails. No more BS.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Obama and Liberals
Love is so Fleeting
To hear the president's latest condemnation of the liberal wing of the party, you would think that we were nothing but ungrateful slobs who haven't the slightest idea of how hard he has worked for the things he said he was going to do. Hmmm. Do we really need to get pedantic and delineate all that he didn't do? I don't think so. It might be easier to say, he gave us absolutely nothing, nothing at all save speeches and explanations of how what he did do was the best he could do. Hmmm, sounds like a good ad.
Well, if he is so disenchanted with us liberal types, why don't he return all our contributions to his campaign no matter the amount. I promise to spend mine immediately on some useless imported junk, which should spike the gross national product, and help this dismal economy by employing another person in a substandard retail job.
The problem he is having with us liberals is that we looked behind the curtain. Suddenly the sonorous voice once so powerful and promising is little more than the utterances of a pup of a politician who pompously goes about listening to those who thought his candidacy was a joke. From the generals to the economic advisers, he followed the path blazed by W and his henchmen. For two years, the country listened and the only thing we got was what we heard. He talks of what can be done, but he didn't do anything. After two years, we still had the wars (bigger than ever), the unemployment rate higher and higher, inflation more and more, a health care law that few understand, in short, all we got was words. Then the election, which showed just what the people thought of his administration. Now, it wasn't the liberals who lost the election, hell we didn't get anything. So it must have been him and what he did or what he didn't do. Oh, it is so hard to confront one's failures.
So, I guess liberals need to re-group and find a new leader for our causes. The president is on a trajectory that will lead him to one term. It wasn't the middle that embraced him and propelled him beyond the “also-rans” in the primaries, heck they were with Clinton. If he thinks that the middle and those who follow Fox News are going to embrace this pitiful attempt at appeasement, he is delusional. The arrogance displayed in his penchant remarks about the politics of the country is but another example of hubris. The man who told us we were the ones who made a difference is now telling us we are irrelevant. Fox news and the middle, which is as amorphous and undefinable as “normal,” will jettison him and his ideas in their attempt to go back to a time that never existed.
By the by, Ronald Reagan was never anything but a B actor. It is likely that his term office will someday be judged for what it was, a period of years presided over by a man suffering from senility and Alzheimer. Obama, like Carter, will fall to the forces of his own character. He should realized that the election of 2010 was not about what the democrats did, but what he didn't do. He let the other side, which wasn't the loyal opposition, remember the “you lie” comment and the drone of a justice shaking his head, frame the arguments, and we Americans like a good explanation, even it is completely false. We must remember Mencken's observations, No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American Public. Obama has gone over to the dark side, and no amount of his rhetoric or admonishments can make the body politic anything than what it is – a reactionary world of “know nothings” who will get what they really want, his defeat in 2012. He should have stuck to his guns and gone after what he said he was going to rather than following whatever he was following. We thought we had in him a leader, one who would alter the course of history. All we go was another politician who was trying to keep his job by reading tea leaves. Perhaps he wanted us liberals to keep drinking his brand of kool-aid, but something is happening here Mr Jones, and you don't know what it is.
To hear the president's latest condemnation of the liberal wing of the party, you would think that we were nothing but ungrateful slobs who haven't the slightest idea of how hard he has worked for the things he said he was going to do. Hmmm. Do we really need to get pedantic and delineate all that he didn't do? I don't think so. It might be easier to say, he gave us absolutely nothing, nothing at all save speeches and explanations of how what he did do was the best he could do. Hmmm, sounds like a good ad.
Well, if he is so disenchanted with us liberal types, why don't he return all our contributions to his campaign no matter the amount. I promise to spend mine immediately on some useless imported junk, which should spike the gross national product, and help this dismal economy by employing another person in a substandard retail job.
The problem he is having with us liberals is that we looked behind the curtain. Suddenly the sonorous voice once so powerful and promising is little more than the utterances of a pup of a politician who pompously goes about listening to those who thought his candidacy was a joke. From the generals to the economic advisers, he followed the path blazed by W and his henchmen. For two years, the country listened and the only thing we got was what we heard. He talks of what can be done, but he didn't do anything. After two years, we still had the wars (bigger than ever), the unemployment rate higher and higher, inflation more and more, a health care law that few understand, in short, all we got was words. Then the election, which showed just what the people thought of his administration. Now, it wasn't the liberals who lost the election, hell we didn't get anything. So it must have been him and what he did or what he didn't do. Oh, it is so hard to confront one's failures.
So, I guess liberals need to re-group and find a new leader for our causes. The president is on a trajectory that will lead him to one term. It wasn't the middle that embraced him and propelled him beyond the “also-rans” in the primaries, heck they were with Clinton. If he thinks that the middle and those who follow Fox News are going to embrace this pitiful attempt at appeasement, he is delusional. The arrogance displayed in his penchant remarks about the politics of the country is but another example of hubris. The man who told us we were the ones who made a difference is now telling us we are irrelevant. Fox news and the middle, which is as amorphous and undefinable as “normal,” will jettison him and his ideas in their attempt to go back to a time that never existed.
By the by, Ronald Reagan was never anything but a B actor. It is likely that his term office will someday be judged for what it was, a period of years presided over by a man suffering from senility and Alzheimer. Obama, like Carter, will fall to the forces of his own character. He should realized that the election of 2010 was not about what the democrats did, but what he didn't do. He let the other side, which wasn't the loyal opposition, remember the “you lie” comment and the drone of a justice shaking his head, frame the arguments, and we Americans like a good explanation, even it is completely false. We must remember Mencken's observations, No one ever went broke underestimating the stupidity of the American Public. Obama has gone over to the dark side, and no amount of his rhetoric or admonishments can make the body politic anything than what it is – a reactionary world of “know nothings” who will get what they really want, his defeat in 2012. He should have stuck to his guns and gone after what he said he was going to rather than following whatever he was following. We thought we had in him a leader, one who would alter the course of history. All we go was another politician who was trying to keep his job by reading tea leaves. Perhaps he wanted us liberals to keep drinking his brand of kool-aid, but something is happening here Mr Jones, and you don't know what it is.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Time For Real History
Well, two years since that fateful election, when liberals of every stripe heralded the golden age of democracy. A man of mix races rose above the hatred and bigotry of a nation and proclaimed a new era of American politics. The faces in the crowd as he gave his first speech as President elect were painted with awe and wonder. Even an icon, such as Oprah, stood there among the masses (probably the first time in a long time) with tears in her eyes. Black and white, old and young, we were united. But as Obama's words echoed and then faded, the right with their vicious accusations, half truths, and outright lies began their spin operation. The Republicans in congress were chastised for going along with the idiotic and criminal Bush Administration. Yet they held steadfast in their belief that in the end spin not action would rule the day. They were right.
Obama with the delusion only a naïve foolish young man could harbor believed that compromise and reason would bring about the changes he so fervently championed in the campaign. Oh, Brother, he was as wrong as wrong could be.
Obama, we were told was a student of history especially Lincoln. A Team Of Rivals, a historical account of the man, was mentioned so often it was as if Obama was channeling Lincoln. But reality has a pernicious way of dashing hope and replacing it with despair. The failures of Obama's first two years is a study in the fruitless attempt to make politicians anything other than what they are– a collection of self aggrandizing, thieving, self centered ideologues whose only intent is to feather their own nests, collectively and individually. To even think, that reason, logic, and compromise can produce meaningful laws is ludicrous. Yet with all the persistence of a deranged man walking streets of a crowded New York City Street carrying a sign board, the great mixed hope continued his pursuit of the impossible. Ah! A modern day Don Quixote, suitable for a play or a novel but hell to witness when one's fate is in the hands of a mad man, as honorable as his intentions maybe.
So here we are in Chapter 2, the list of failure range from the sad dismissal of equal rights for gays to die honorably to an economy that is well in the tank. While we still squander billions and billions on fruitless wars helping both allies (which they are only in name) to avowed enemies. So, our president went to visit the troops, well, he should have had the troops visit him in the White House. And he should have singled on gays who had served honorably and awarded them a commendable service award and make it known as commander-in-chief, he honored those who served honorably. Maybe, even to trump John McCain, single out a few who had given their life. He should order the generals to obey his order that all service men and women have rights guaranteed under the constitution or discharge them. And if the McCain and the rest of those gay bashing hypocrites want to fight – he should set a time and date near the Lincoln Memorial and see if they really want to fight. Then and only then would he be reaching back into the storied pages of the history of this country. That should be the first fight, the first time the new “no compromise” president starts acting like a leader. Fight after fight should follow, maybe even a duel to get the historical context true to form.
This nation was never a bastion of logic and reason. It has always operated from the gut. There are no niceties in American politics. There is the only knock down drag them out way of doing things.
The future looks bleak. The Republicans had stated nothing will be done till the tax bill includes the upper 2 per cent. I suggest Obama call their bluff. Let the congress appear as foolish as they really are. Trying to appease this sorry coterie of reactionary fools is like trying to make sense out of Sara Palin's pronouncements. It is time, well it is well past time, to draw the line in the sand. It is time to stop this “rock star” approach to politics and get in the ditch and fight like there is no tomorrow. Because if things progress as these “no-nothings” want, there will be no tomorrow only sad yesterdays that were so destructive.
Obama with the delusion only a naïve foolish young man could harbor believed that compromise and reason would bring about the changes he so fervently championed in the campaign. Oh, Brother, he was as wrong as wrong could be.
Obama, we were told was a student of history especially Lincoln. A Team Of Rivals, a historical account of the man, was mentioned so often it was as if Obama was channeling Lincoln. But reality has a pernicious way of dashing hope and replacing it with despair. The failures of Obama's first two years is a study in the fruitless attempt to make politicians anything other than what they are– a collection of self aggrandizing, thieving, self centered ideologues whose only intent is to feather their own nests, collectively and individually. To even think, that reason, logic, and compromise can produce meaningful laws is ludicrous. Yet with all the persistence of a deranged man walking streets of a crowded New York City Street carrying a sign board, the great mixed hope continued his pursuit of the impossible. Ah! A modern day Don Quixote, suitable for a play or a novel but hell to witness when one's fate is in the hands of a mad man, as honorable as his intentions maybe.
So here we are in Chapter 2, the list of failure range from the sad dismissal of equal rights for gays to die honorably to an economy that is well in the tank. While we still squander billions and billions on fruitless wars helping both allies (which they are only in name) to avowed enemies. So, our president went to visit the troops, well, he should have had the troops visit him in the White House. And he should have singled on gays who had served honorably and awarded them a commendable service award and make it known as commander-in-chief, he honored those who served honorably. Maybe, even to trump John McCain, single out a few who had given their life. He should order the generals to obey his order that all service men and women have rights guaranteed under the constitution or discharge them. And if the McCain and the rest of those gay bashing hypocrites want to fight – he should set a time and date near the Lincoln Memorial and see if they really want to fight. Then and only then would he be reaching back into the storied pages of the history of this country. That should be the first fight, the first time the new “no compromise” president starts acting like a leader. Fight after fight should follow, maybe even a duel to get the historical context true to form.
This nation was never a bastion of logic and reason. It has always operated from the gut. There are no niceties in American politics. There is the only knock down drag them out way of doing things.
The future looks bleak. The Republicans had stated nothing will be done till the tax bill includes the upper 2 per cent. I suggest Obama call their bluff. Let the congress appear as foolish as they really are. Trying to appease this sorry coterie of reactionary fools is like trying to make sense out of Sara Palin's pronouncements. It is time, well it is well past time, to draw the line in the sand. It is time to stop this “rock star” approach to politics and get in the ditch and fight like there is no tomorrow. Because if things progress as these “no-nothings” want, there will be no tomorrow only sad yesterdays that were so destructive.
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