It's The Structural Deficit, Stupid

Man oh man, doesn’t any of these so called experts who bloviate on the tube get it.  Really you would think that if you were being paid to have an opinion you would least understand things.  First and foremost, the current deficit didn’t arise in past four years.  There is a fundamental teaching in Buddhism that goes, “If this, then, that.”  A simple concept to be sure and easily understood.  This follows that. 

               To hear the neocons and the blowhards on Fox, you would think that Obama created the budget deficits.  Let get with the facts, when Bush was handed the presidency by a bias court, the budget was balanced.  He then proceeded to propose and get passed a budget with a substantial tax cut.  Then his vice along with the secretary of defense proceeded to plot and plan their adventures in the Middle East.  September 11^th gave these dark and nefarious “evil doers,” the opportunity they were waiting for.  Two things about the misadventures in Iraq will illustrate my thesis.  It was a greedy grab by two disreputable curs to 1) get the oil and dump American crap like Wal-Mart on the Iraqi people and the rest of our toxic capitalism and 2) give Halliburton open access to the US Treasury.   This incursion into the Middle East was really costly, but the Bush Administration with a budgetary sleight of hand was able not to budget for the war.  How that happened is a mystery but how the Democrats let it slip by is unpardonable. 

               When you have a structural deficit, it means simply one is spending more than one is taking in.  Most states are required by law to balance the budget.  So if you hear an ex-governor, like Romney, speak of his experience of balancing a budget, remember it is the law that does it not him.  Of course, governors can fudge the law by developing authorities and other such things, but this is not a discussion of public administration.  Suffice it to say, the federal government is unique because it can print money.  So, here you have these Fox knuckleheads screaming about the deficits when it is their asinine positions responsible for the deficits.   The irony of ironies is that these collections of “No-Nothings” scream their craziness on a supposed business channel.  Only in America, well, not true, this scenario could be played out in Wonderland, because it is very, very curious.

               Where are the Democratic apologists?  Where is the President?  When talking about the deficit, they, he needs to put it to them.  Of course, the “No Nothings” never deal with facts or reality when confronted with an opposition to their inane policies, practices or acts, they merely scream some untruth or resort to name calling all the while adopting some smug know it all demeanor.  That people actually buy into this bull never ceases to amaze me.  Of course, Obama has a hand in this fiscal debacle.

               When Obama was awarded that Peace Prize he should have quoted both Gandhi and King and proceeded to effectively stop the wars.  That act would have been both a political and budgetary act worthy of his campaign.  To have bought into the military BS that a surge was needed was to adopt the policies of Bush and the nefarious characters he had surrounded himself with.  Second, he should have opened an investigation in the actions of the vice president and his cohorts and uncovered the rat’s nest that that office had created.  What I am saying is Obama’s election was a seminal event in this country and the world, his actions from day one should have rose to the lofty historical event.  Unfortunately, the wheels of mediocrity and bullshit spun like it always had.

               Once there was an opportunity to truly part ways with the so called tried and true practice of governing.  There was a window that would have allowed this country to forgo its insane jingoistic practice of economic colonialism.  We should have tarred and feathered the crooks on Wall Street who flagrantly put our economy in the throes of a recession. To employ a line from “On the Waterfront” and to paraphrase, “We could have been a contender” in the ring of a truly new order where the lives of our greatest minds and their dreams could have shaped our actions towards a world order often talked about but never seen.  Alas, the moment has passed and we are stuck with choices.  We live in a world confused and befuddled with moguls strutting about proclaiming their greatness when in fact like us they are bounded by the limits of being human.  To look into the world and not see the absolute horrors that abounds and to blithely assert that there is super class of entrepreneurs who know how to get things done is to close one’s eyes to the present and not have a clue of how we got here.  We are stuck in the bog of our past, chained to positions that make no sense, guided by forces of greed and entitlement.  That the job of president might just be a ceremonial office of bounded by an inability to do what one wants is a reality that might be at the heart of our difficulties.  J.K. Rowling on the Daily Show commenting on the state of our political system suggested that perhaps we should reaffirm our allegiance to the Queen and adopt a parliamentary form of governing.  Because, perhaps, just perhaps, this grand experiment of governance has meet its match in partisan bickering where truth is buried in ideologies, and incompetence reigns supreme, and where knowledge has no place in the face ignorance, and where high ideas are jettison in the pursuit of nonsense.

               Our political parties are merely shades of grey. 

The Bullshit Paradox

 

               My oh my, it is hard to imagine that there was ever a time when more bullshit ruled in the course of an election  then what we are seeing this cycle.   Even though the history of this country is marked by an almost pathological disposition for candidates to wallow in the mud and to lie through their teeth to get to their asses elected, it would seem in this era of television bullshit has soared to new heights.  Spin masters and the candidates themselves have perfected the art of bullshit.  In essence one simply keeps bullshiting even in the face of serious questions or facts.  There really should be no surprise when we discover we have idiots, thieves, degenerates and other disreputable characters passing laws.  To make matters worse our elected idiots then appoint their ilk to seats on the Supreme Court.  It is a wonder this grand experiment in democracy hasn’t blown up before now.  Given the fact that the news room has been converted to a beauty salon reduces our ability to get an honest reporting of the election.  For the most part, all we get are talking heads mouthing bullshit in an attempt to convey the essence of debates.  One cannot watch a single partisan spokesperson explain something without being bombarded with bullshit.  From ignoring reality to just plain lying, we see air time being devoted to bullshit.  Which leads me to the conclusion that we should have political debates conducted in a muddy pig pen and let the candidates have at each other.

               I am a Democrat, have been and will always be one.  Therefore, I find Republican bullshit more distasteful than Democratic bullshit.  I guess I like to think of myself as a man who believes in honest science.  I say honest because there are a whole bunch of dumbbells out there who think science is picking out select passages of Scripture and proclaiming truisms based on stuff written when people still believed the earth was the center of the universe. Now some will say that is a mischaracterization of the Republican Party.  Well, if you hear pronouncements from idiots, like Aiken of Missouri or West of Florida and don’t disavow yourself from them, well, birds of a feather flock together.  Sure I pity a true conservative who has watched his party taken over by folks who defy the characterization that homo sapiens are a rational species.

               This brings me to the current election and this pairing of Romney and Ryan.  With Romney we have a man who will say anything to get elected to whatever office he is running for.  If he is running in a liberal state, well, he espouses liberal positions.  If he is running for the nomination of a party taken over by crazies, well, he espouses the crazies’ position.   He is truly an etch a sketch candidate.  I don’t want to get into his religion, but the whole premise of Mormonism tends to fall into the category of all religions but with a somewhat modern twist, (modern being a historical reference).  Being a Mormon, there is creed to make the world a better place, and I might ask for whom?  What is scary is that the dude is a bishop; now shouldn’t a bishop walk around with something to signify him as a bishop.  A bishop is a serious dude with a serious vow.  I guess Mormons need to go underground or something unlike the Catholics who prance around in gowns and funny hats.  What I am asking is shouldn’t people who have this tie to a specific hierarchy identify themselves and detail his pastoral duties?  Maybe he is mandated by church cannon to turn over all of the nation’s vital statistics so the church can baptize everyone, living or dead.  The elders did do that with Jews who died in concentration camps.

               As for Ryan, he is a person who has embraced ever neocon position, every tea party tenet, and every evangelical aspiration.  He is the poster child of the “no nothings” who parade themselves as patriots, who haven’t a clue of what the world is about or if they do they choose to ignore it.

               Obama is plagued by bullshit as well.  In the second debate, he couldn’t answer many of the questions directly preferring to use the opportunity to skew his opponent.  It seems more important to stay on message than to be genuine.  That the man was at least conscious in this debate spoke volumes to how these candidates are packaged and programmed.  Hell it is like both are Manchurian candidates. 

               Well, time is rapidly approaching when the partisan bullshit will end, and the country can get back to its steady diet of bullshit offered by a whole economy designed around selling stuff, from erections to aluminum siding, from drugs to reality shows.  That a company can spill millions of gallons of oil and then tell us it is working on the environment, to beer commercials touting the benefits of alcoholism among the young, to car companies showing youth how to kill themselves driving too fast, our 21^st century society is a society functioning within an economic system that thrives in a world where truth is relegated to “positions” and it is mandatory that bullshit be given equal time.  Of course, if the folks who bullshit can afford it, they can have all the time their money can buy.

              

The Less Than Great Debate

Hubris

 

                There is a moment in a Greek Tragedy when the main character meets his disastrous fate not from forces without but from the character flaw that drives his persona.  In last night’s debate, we witnessed the flaws of the two men who aspire to be the president in the next term.  Romney is clearly a brash bully who feels entitled, a flip flopper who will say anything to win the hearts and the minds of the electorate.    Obama presents himself as the cool detached man who resides in and presides over a bubble.

                In the case of Romney, we have a man who forces his way into the issues and hammers on points either different from his previous pronouncements or based on fabrications.    He is a skilled prestidigitator, almost a shift shaper, appearing at once both your ally and nemesis.    That he ran and won a party’s nomination on the basis of being more conservative than right wing fanatics and screwballs speaks to his deft ability to appear to be whomever it is you wish to see.

                The president, on the other hand and after four years in the white house, seemed to convey the studied and even temperament of an intellectual armed with reason and civility.  He repeats points as if they are truisms that should be taken by all as gospel.  His gestures and demeanor showed that he is detached from the reality of confrontation.   He was, in short, speaking to the TV audience while his opponent was doing that as well but attacking him directly and indirectly with a barrage of concocted facts and premises, all the while, shaking the  etch a sketch.

                In the end, we got little more than a reality show, which of course has nothing to do with being real.  Fact is that if these guys need a “debate school” to “pimp” them out for a public display then I will conclude Romney had the better “paint job.”  His team took a standard sedan and made it into a hot rod.  While the Obama folks thought they could squeak by just hand waxing the Prius.

                Fact is that neither showed the vision one would expect a leader should demonstrate in these troubling times.  Romney spouted sad allusions to the great nation with the (and I hate this word) awesome military.  To be quite frank, anyone who would admit that they like Snooky of the Jersey Shore should be disqualified for the Presidency on that basis alone.  When asked that question he should have responded, “I don’t watch that shit.”  The president continues to demonstrate that he is no liberal.  He certainly didn’t bring the righteous indignation that most of us liberals harbor.  To stand across from some conservative who talks in clichés and false hoods and not call him out is tantamount to being perceived as weak.  Of course, Obama had abandoned us left wingers a long time ago.  For example, when Romney attacked “Obamacare” where was the retort with the facts to show this country supposed great health care rankings.   Hearing Axelrod the morning after is to hear the strategy, “be cool, be presidential, show the country you are a level headed operator.”  Problem is sometimes the game plan needs to be adjusted to win the game.

                I have a libertarian friend who posted “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” as his take on the debate.  That may have captured the debate from his perspective.  I believe that Romney supporters were energized because people follow bullies.  It is on the rare occasion that someone steps into the fray.  Check out the moderator, a decent man, letting the bully bully.  Underneath all this rhetoric of god and country and conservatism is an outright distaste for people of color.  As for Obama, he will continue along his path being cool and detached.  Unfortunately, I am afraid he will appear as his handlers want him to appear and that is something less than what he should be.  He said it last night when he insisted that at times one has to say no when principles hang in the balance, but where the hell was the passion to defend that position.  Problem is that he had abandoned the high road when he continued the wars, when he opted out of the fray and avoided a single payer provider in the health care law.  He has in short alluded to following the role of Lincoln but he hasn’t even come close to channeling him.