Have a Great Holiday

I wish all of you peace and happiness over the holiday and hope you recall all of the good things in your lives. 

Enjoy!

*Pink*

Stealing the Election II

"A woman who worked for Al Franken earlier this week during the Senate recount in one county ended up counting ballots as a nonpartisan volunteer here Saturday in a recount that grew heated at times."

Nonpartisan? Heh Heh.

“I feel I can be completely unbiased,” Vertin said. “Everyone in this room is partisan to some degree.”

Ah yes. The 'everybody does it' excuse.

But seriously...WTF. Let me go into Grandpa mode...We put a man on the moon and a probe outside our Solar System. We tamed the atom and made pr0n available to all. County Clerks go after old ladies who owe ONE CENT on their taxes. Yet we cannot conduct what amounts to a 'count of hands' with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

The woman is an idiot and should have known better.

It's nutz.

*Pink*

The bad is never as bad...the good never as good.

I went out to breakfast on Saturday with some friends who are, from my perspective, extremely liberal. Not Kool-Aid liberal, but close. They are highly educated, very successful, and hell, they put up with me, so they must have good taste.

I was asked how I felt about the election. I answered that I hoped Obama would "pull a Clinton". I had to explain that this meant a shift to governing from the center as Bill Clinton did. I said Obama was a smart man and provided he chose smart independent people who were interested in governing the entire nation, he could be a successful president. I added that he faced significant challenges from the Congress which seems bent on partisanship and punishment (ala Dingel and Leiberman). I also said I was concerned domestically because the only solution I see for the economy is to cut spending, yet all I seem to hear are calls to spend more and 'more' means deficit spending. We didn't get into the argument of whether or not raising taxes reduces tax revenue. Internationally I'm very concerned about Russia and a bit puzzled by the discussion of Hillary as SoS. I think that is a complicating political factor Obama doesn't need (and watch for a purge of anyone under Hillary that failed to support her).

I thought it was a reasoned response, because I have been thinking a lot about an Obama Presidency and the challenges we face as a Nation.

But I made the mistake of asking how they felt about the election.

"We're Saved!" "Thank God Bush is out and we survived." It's been horrible!"

[Palm smack to forehead] This is the attitude that bothers me and that I really fail to understand. I said "Bush was not as bad as you seem to think, and Obama will not be as good as you believe." They didn't bite. You would think I just took a crucifix out of a jar of urine.

The election of Obama didn't bring a sea change to the political world. Nancy Pelosi is still Nancy Pelosi. Energized perhaps, but her quest for her legacy is unchanged. The Clinton's are regrouping; Rangel, Frank, Reid, take your pick...they are all still there. Franken might get to Washington but he sure as hell is not bringing peace doves. The fiscal conservancy the Republicans forced on Clinton and then turned their backs on will not be resurrected in the near future. Special Interest Groups are not closing up their shops and saying "Our job is done". The manipulation of the media and the public isn't going to stop. Take a minute and look up 'The Employee Free Choice Act' and honestly tell me if the name isn't just a fucking lie intended to deceive the non-thinking public into believing it is a good thing. You can put lipstick on a pig...

And the public has not changed. Did you know that in a recent survey less than half of all Americans could name all three of the branches of government? And shocker...in the college grad group, only 24% knew that the First Amendment prohibits the government from establishing an official religion for the United States. No wonder the Religious Right thinks they are right. And with people this ignorant...no stupid (sorry, but that one does fit)...it is no wonder Congress can get away with the crap they do.

I was playing COD W-at-W with my son Sunday morning and he made the comment "Everybody hates the Nazi's". Yeah. They were nasty fuckers. At least the leaders were. Some of the soldiers were just scared. Some were sadistic bastards. But then I started thinking about the 'Bush = Nazi' crap that is so rampant. Do the people who think that way have even the slightest concept of what the Nazi's did or what they represented? This is ignorance. Profound ignorance.

From my perspective, there are those who will blame Bush for everything, regardless of the facts. How often have we heard that the economic crisis was caused by the anti-regulation, free market, out of control Bush Administration? Chuck Schumer said "Eight years of deregulatory zeal by the Bush administration, an attitude of 'The market can do no wrong,' have led us down a short path to economic recession." The truth is a little more complex. Can anyone guess...Schumer was a leading voice for deregulation. Here is a dirty little fact...

"[Schumer] has championed the repeal of [the Glass-Steagall Act] that prohibited commercial banks from underwriting securities; [Schumer] has written an opinion piece calling for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (ed. - Wall Street regulation) to be "re-examined," and [Schumer] has opposed a bill that sought to reduce taxpayer risk in the event of a housing market slowdown by requiring Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to sell their entire investment portfolios of about $1.5 trillion worth of mortgage assets."

But no. It is Bush's fault. Even though the last major bank deregulation law was passed in 1999 by a Republican Congress (with support from the Democrats) and signed (not vetoed) by Bill Clinton. Very little major banking deregulation occurred under the Bush Administration, and what did was primarily when the Democrats controlled Congress. But we blame Bush. Ignorance.

But I'm getting off track. I don't want to turn this into a debate of 'Demon-crats' and 'Ratty'-publicans and it is already my fault for starting down that path. THAT IS NOT THE POINT. And there are too many people on this site who fly into a blind rage if they feel their pet beliefs are being challenged. The "rage-a-hol" is already flowing. I'm sure I have a thumbs down by now.

So let me state my points as clearly as I can.

1. Placing 100% of the blame on the President for the laws passed under his watch demonstrates a profound lack of knowledge as to how our government works. The President is not the leader of his party and he doesn't have power over the Courts or the Congress. He is not responsible for the actions and opinions of everyone who calls themselves a member of his party.

2. Lying, particularly as a Congressman or President, is bad. Distorting the truth to deliberately mislead the public is worse. Every day our Congress tells more lies and much more significant lies than Bill Clinton ever did. I don't forgive Clinton for lying. Why do we let Congress get away with it so easily?

3. The "Will of the People" is not sacred. We specifically give power to the President, to Congress, and to the Courts and they can properly use that power to over-rule the 'Will of the People". That is how the system works. We are not a democracy, and thank God because most Americans are so very ill-informed.

4. The Press and the Internet have great power to inform and educate, but even more power to mislead and indoctrinate. The 'Forth Estate' is all too willing to be corrupt and then the Nation suffers from the ignorance of letting the Kool-Aid flow deep.

5. America has never had a leader that was even in the same universe as the Nazis. Nazi's are bad. Really bad. Hitler was the worst in recent history. And there have been others like Pol Pot (Cambodia), Akayesu (Rwanda), or what has happened in the Sudan or Yugoslavia. If you think Bush warrants the title of 'Hitler' you are an ignorant fuck. If you think that calling Bush 'Hitler' illustrates your points about his administration, you are an ignorant fuck.

6. We are a Nation divided. And we do not have leaders. Not "A" leader. This isn't 'The Highlander' where there can be only one. We need leaders, plural. Not the likes of Jessie Jackson or Fred Phelps who fragment and blackmail and fight for illegitimate causes, but leaders who unite and calm and focus efforts, who have broad visions and reasonable expectations. Leaders who understand the pace of progress and need for compromise. Leaders who can prioritize and accomplish the most good rather than making the most noise about issues that in reality affect very few.

7. The courts work within the limits of the human condition but are subject to being corrupted. Being a Judge doesn't give you super-intelligence or pristine neutrality. But fortunately stupid judicial decisions get more press then most of what Congress does, and judicial decisions can be overturned. We need to fight for 'good' judges while realizing that there is no difference between using conserve litmus tests or liberal litmus tests...both are bad and the more one side tries, the more the other side tries, and pretty soon the entire judiciary is fucked up and the Nation suffers. So make up your mind...but understand that if you support using litmus tests, it is possible that the court will end up on the opposite side from where you want to to be.

8. Being "rich" is not the same as being evil. Not all, but the vast majority of you had the same opportunities to become one of the those dirty rich bastards that the populists want you to hate. You were only limited by your choices (ouch, that hurts), your innate abilities (sucks, but that's what life deals us), or bad luck (illness, accident, etc.). If people receiving large salaries bothers you so much, ask yourself what is it about your life that makes you so unhappy and then see what you can do about it. Because no one ever said life is or should be fair and do you want to spend your entire life pissed because Wagoneer flew a private jet to D.C.? Oh, and the Enron guys ended up in prison. The Fannie and Freddy guys won't. They have the protection of Congress. And the Congressmen won't end up in prison either. THAT should be what pisses you off and that is something you can change.

Every day I see the division widening. I see more 'absolutes' being bantered about. Shades of gray fading. We really are a 'binary society' but unfortunately it isn't a computer language. It is the language of intolerance and ignorance. I see it in the comments on this site and the thumbs downs that are not used to register a quick disagreement with the authors opinion, but instead as an anonymous and childish insult inflicted regardless of the content of a post. We call outselves a community, and I guess we reflect society. Opinions and beliefs are not respected. It's all a religion and heresy now. Soon we will resurrect boiling people in oil. Did you know that if you throw a Republican off a cliff they will fly? And toss a Democrats in a lake...they can float. And to kill them you have to burn them. Publicly. Cuz' bullets bounce right off.

That is the level we operate at now. History repeats itself.

*Pink*

If we don't teach history...

...it must not have happened.

(try to ignore the red white and blue Fox News apple pie and motherhood)

*Pink*

'Nuf said