Typical, big-government, spend, spend, spend, socialist, stealing from future generations, deficit-creating, LIBERAL, welfare state, give to the poor, steal from the rich, wah, wah, wah, wah, blah, blah, blah...
Now that this is out of the way, we can proceed to the heart and withering soul of our argument.
It's about time! It is about time that someone elected into power by the nation's sufferers has proven himself brave enough to completely buck a system whose DNA was designed by that oh-so capable team of magicians that came to Washington in January 1981. The madness must be stopped and President Obama with his courageous budget is demonstrating that he does not seek power for power's seek--if he fails, he will not be re-elected and he knows this and he still went ahead with the most brazen and bold attempt at stemming the tide of angry, Christian, White, Southern opportunism.
Barack Obama has said it: for too long, way too many Americans have been thrown into poverty or near-poverty because of our obsession with making the rich richer via ridiculus tax cuts which had absolutely no hold in practical economic reality. The notion that the increased wealth would eventually trickle down to "employees in waiting" is unadulterated nonsense!
Trickle-down My A..
There may have been a time when that theory in practice had legs; but, any economist with a frontal lobe will tell you, when an economy is percolating along and making widgets and competing with the world for the wigdet market, an added buck or so will be invested into operations to make the given company more competitive.
However, when a economy has entered the post-industrial phase and so many of the players who have been truly enhanced by the massive corporate welfare doled over the last 28 years are already creamy rich, that added buck or so is NOT invested because their widget market (which is now not a widget but a super, high-tech widget splicer) is a) their monopoly already; and b) a market greatly affected by the elasticity of supply and demand-meaning should they make more then they will actually start to lose money!
So, the money is not invested for an increase in productivity will throw the supply and demand elasticity off-balance. What could and should be done, according to those whacky supply-siders, the owner of corporation A would ideally take that extra buck he received as the result of the corporate welfare program and invest it in medical insurance for workers; or, maybe invest it in R&D so as to make his product not just more competitive today but even more competitive tomorrow! Instead, he divies up with his cronies and shareholders and they all say "The Lord's Prayer."
And this leads us to the crux of our argument: tomorrow. President Obama's right assessment that we have NOT been planning for tomorrow since the coming to town of the Reagan Train, has led us to the moral and economic collapse we have today. Bill Clinton tried to get us on track but he was so restricted by a Republican Congress which did everything it could to distract him from governing and leading by abusing the powers of the independent council (which was actually begotten at Clinton's behest); by persecuting the President and by the near bankrupting of our government as a result of the massive debt passed on from Reagan to Bush to Clinton--which so wonderfully restricted any real investments in our society.
Anyhoo!
I will wrap this one up by commenting on the latest Ponzi scheme which was reported in the NYTimes on Saturday. The Stanford Financial Group, a Memphis-based, really sickly Southern company run like a tight-knit mom and pop shop in some backwater of a town in a state where the Confederate flag is still the preferred flag and Reagan is a god, was accused of stealing billions of dollars. And, one of the owners, James M. Davis, would open company meetings with a prayer to a light-haired Jesus with blue eyes and an ivory complexion.
Yes, I blame them. I blame the red states with their "god" and their fake patriotism. I blame the two-faced, sweet as rhubard pie smiles and "hey y'all..." for the troubles, for evils that our nation knows today. Sadly, though, when I blame them, because so many of them are so poor, I lose my class argument: when we get into the swamp that is southern society today, we are not dealing with just arrogant, despicable rich Southerners but also all of those moon-pie eating, RC Cola-drinking Gomer Pile's who think think that "white is right" and W. was like having "Jaysus in the Watt House".
The Southern slant of our national politics and its taking hostage of our economy has been an attempt by the defeated confederate states to regain much of what was lost when the war ended (and, if you say "war" to them, they still know which one you are talking about--the Civil War, only we Northerners are so naive to believe that the issues of this War are long gone).
We won that War. Now, it is time to remind them and all who are listening that we too can play some of that sappy country music, wave a flag or two and talk about a god who is good. However, what seperates our words from the words of these sickly white and religious and mostly Southern pretenders is...we love our America and we respect our Constitution. A-f.....g-Men!
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Reagan is Dead
I really want to know what is wrong with trying to make our nation a better, safer and healthier place in which to raise families? I really want to know why so many people, and they are usually people who are doing financially "ok" (unless they are dumb and white and from the South), think it is wrong to want to make our nation truly better?
America used to have limitless resources. America used to lead the world in pretty much everything. We were usually on the right side when fighting a war outside of our national borders. For long periods we have tolerated policies that were not in any society right ones; that were not in the bible right ones, that were morally very, very suspect (slavery, hangings, no justice for blacks, segregation, anti-immigrant laws, corruption, etc.); yet, we have always somehow righted the clock's mechanism and time would go ticking onward, taking us from the past and present and into an ever brighter future.
However, I can honestly say that after Ronald Reagan came into Washington, despite his mild-mannered way of whispering sweet-nothings into our living-rooms about an America that conjured up visions of Capra-esque Anytown, USA, America's lost vision of herself, thanks to a drawn-out and lost war in Vietnam and a run on the Constitution by Nixon, was restored. Sadly, however, that vision was more like the one that D.W. Griffith silently laid out before aghast audiences in "The Birth of a Nation" in 1915.
My genuine dislike for Ronald Reagan stems not from the fact that he did do some good by bringing the Soviets to the table (although, most of Reagan apologists know nothing about the man Mikhail Gorbachev and had Reagan not had Gorbachev those troops cuts would never have occured); but, from the fact that Ronald Reagan finished the conversation that Richard Nixon began with the silent majority--and, he gave them the right to be really, really noisy.
And, with that boisterousness, came school-yard bullying of anyone and all not in agreement with those who fell in awe of Reagan's masterfully painted vision of small town USA: a place where whites were the kings and the upidy blacks knew their place; where taxes were minimal and charity was supposed to cover all of the gaping holes in a social safety net (charity is good but when it is THE system, it will keep the givers always economically and socially above the takers); where women were supposed to be at home and pregnant and where "girls were girls and men were men"; in a society where even the "old LaSalle ran great."
Much of what Reagan painted for us, in a very Seurat meets Rockwell way, sounds really nice; but, in that same fantasy, I am walking in from church to the smell of baking bisuits in the kitchen, the electric knife is slicing off pieces of roast beef and my Uncle Albert is sitting in a haze of smoke reading the Sunday Press. My grandmother is wiping her hands on her apron, my dad takes his chair and my grandfather offers up a cranky greeting to the five kids that have just invaded his house for another Sunday dinner.
In other words, the lovely scene that Reagan gave the US, and to which his followers still cling today is of an America that a) is no more; and, b) an America that never was. America has been a place of bigorty and greed and close-mindedness and hatred but at the same time, the principles inherent to our national experiment have always forced someone, an American, to challenge those with hatred and greed and bigorty and eventually, goodness has always won. The Reagan freaks hang onto that America that did not right itself and still honors bigotry, deception and even theft of our common resources.
The Reagan cult, not unlike personality cults in other nations of historical relevance, is so against any kind of government support for the expansion of the American dream to all corners and walks and races of life, that they have sought (and continue to seek) the complete bankruptcy of our nation.
They make up enemies in every corner of the globe; talk about how dangerous it is to travel outside of the US (I recently heard a hard-core republican say that it was too dangerous to travel to Rome because of all the terrorists!!); if any money is spent by the government on anything other than tax cuts or military then they go crazy and start shouting about socialism; they would rather see a city with the cultural richness of New Orleans wither away than support it rebirth (probably because most of those who would have received help were again, "from the other side of the tracks in their Reaganesque world-view"); despite their so-called fiscal conversvatism, they advocate the accumulation of massive societal debt so as to enrich those who resemble themselves and to build bigger armies and more secure gated communities; and, they advocate extreme lassez-faire economics which has led us to the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
In their small town, "we are always on the right side of the moral issue", they can justify the invasion and occupation even of other nations. The consequences of Iraq, the lies by their president, the abuse of the Constitution and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people including soon to be 5,000 American soldiers, on our economy will be felt for generations; and, then today, when a president comes to town, a man who is truly leading our nation like it has not been led since the time of the Roosevelt cousins, they can only pull out their tired and worn out visions of Reagan's anti-America.
We are a better nation than the one that Ronald Reagan gave them. We do not hate those who don't look like us. We don't hate foreigners or immigrants; we don't believe in Church and State mixing; we believe that everyone should be allowed to be who they want to be, with whom they want to be; we believe that in any market based economy NOT EVERYONE can be wealthy so society MUST provide a safety net for a substantail minority who will end up below the poverty line.
In Bedford Falls, big business lost and the little man won. The bastardized, flag-whipping ways of Reagan's followers are anachronistic. They too have become irrelevant and so now, so soon will their politics.
America used to have limitless resources. America used to lead the world in pretty much everything. We were usually on the right side when fighting a war outside of our national borders. For long periods we have tolerated policies that were not in any society right ones; that were not in the bible right ones, that were morally very, very suspect (slavery, hangings, no justice for blacks, segregation, anti-immigrant laws, corruption, etc.); yet, we have always somehow righted the clock's mechanism and time would go ticking onward, taking us from the past and present and into an ever brighter future.
However, I can honestly say that after Ronald Reagan came into Washington, despite his mild-mannered way of whispering sweet-nothings into our living-rooms about an America that conjured up visions of Capra-esque Anytown, USA, America's lost vision of herself, thanks to a drawn-out and lost war in Vietnam and a run on the Constitution by Nixon, was restored. Sadly, however, that vision was more like the one that D.W. Griffith silently laid out before aghast audiences in "The Birth of a Nation" in 1915.
My genuine dislike for Ronald Reagan stems not from the fact that he did do some good by bringing the Soviets to the table (although, most of Reagan apologists know nothing about the man Mikhail Gorbachev and had Reagan not had Gorbachev those troops cuts would never have occured); but, from the fact that Ronald Reagan finished the conversation that Richard Nixon began with the silent majority--and, he gave them the right to be really, really noisy.
And, with that boisterousness, came school-yard bullying of anyone and all not in agreement with those who fell in awe of Reagan's masterfully painted vision of small town USA: a place where whites were the kings and the upidy blacks knew their place; where taxes were minimal and charity was supposed to cover all of the gaping holes in a social safety net (charity is good but when it is THE system, it will keep the givers always economically and socially above the takers); where women were supposed to be at home and pregnant and where "girls were girls and men were men"; in a society where even the "old LaSalle ran great."
Much of what Reagan painted for us, in a very Seurat meets Rockwell way, sounds really nice; but, in that same fantasy, I am walking in from church to the smell of baking bisuits in the kitchen, the electric knife is slicing off pieces of roast beef and my Uncle Albert is sitting in a haze of smoke reading the Sunday Press. My grandmother is wiping her hands on her apron, my dad takes his chair and my grandfather offers up a cranky greeting to the five kids that have just invaded his house for another Sunday dinner.
In other words, the lovely scene that Reagan gave the US, and to which his followers still cling today is of an America that a) is no more; and, b) an America that never was. America has been a place of bigorty and greed and close-mindedness and hatred but at the same time, the principles inherent to our national experiment have always forced someone, an American, to challenge those with hatred and greed and bigorty and eventually, goodness has always won. The Reagan freaks hang onto that America that did not right itself and still honors bigotry, deception and even theft of our common resources.
The Reagan cult, not unlike personality cults in other nations of historical relevance, is so against any kind of government support for the expansion of the American dream to all corners and walks and races of life, that they have sought (and continue to seek) the complete bankruptcy of our nation.
They make up enemies in every corner of the globe; talk about how dangerous it is to travel outside of the US (I recently heard a hard-core republican say that it was too dangerous to travel to Rome because of all the terrorists!!); if any money is spent by the government on anything other than tax cuts or military then they go crazy and start shouting about socialism; they would rather see a city with the cultural richness of New Orleans wither away than support it rebirth (probably because most of those who would have received help were again, "from the other side of the tracks in their Reaganesque world-view"); despite their so-called fiscal conversvatism, they advocate the accumulation of massive societal debt so as to enrich those who resemble themselves and to build bigger armies and more secure gated communities; and, they advocate extreme lassez-faire economics which has led us to the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.
In their small town, "we are always on the right side of the moral issue", they can justify the invasion and occupation even of other nations. The consequences of Iraq, the lies by their president, the abuse of the Constitution and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people including soon to be 5,000 American soldiers, on our economy will be felt for generations; and, then today, when a president comes to town, a man who is truly leading our nation like it has not been led since the time of the Roosevelt cousins, they can only pull out their tired and worn out visions of Reagan's anti-America.
We are a better nation than the one that Ronald Reagan gave them. We do not hate those who don't look like us. We don't hate foreigners or immigrants; we don't believe in Church and State mixing; we believe that everyone should be allowed to be who they want to be, with whom they want to be; we believe that in any market based economy NOT EVERYONE can be wealthy so society MUST provide a safety net for a substantail minority who will end up below the poverty line.
In Bedford Falls, big business lost and the little man won. The bastardized, flag-whipping ways of Reagan's followers are anachronistic. They too have become irrelevant and so now, so soon will their politics.
Monday, February 23, 2009
What does it say about the direction of our nation's economy and industrial base when the "Buy American" clause in the President Obama's stim does not really scare any of our foreign trade partners? There is a stipulation in the stim which says that if the item cannot be purchased in America, then it can be bought overseas--creating a job not for an American but for an Indian, a Chinaman or a Belgian.
Were those really the "days"?
"Boy, the way Glenn Miller played. Songs that made the hit parade. Guys like us we had it made. Those were the days."
In 1971, with a tumultuous decade of change slipping behind us, Archie Bunker was given life by Norman Lear. In the sweet and cringing round face of that white man who had served his country during the "big one, WW II", America's "silent majority" was given a voice.
In 1971, with a tumultuous decade of change slipping behind us, Archie Bunker was given life by Norman Lear. In the sweet and cringing round face of that white man who had served his country during the "big one, WW II", America's "silent majority" was given a voice.
Archie Bunker, love him or hate him, demonstrated to most people, at least to those who were listening at least, that the argument of social conservatives of the day was a flawed one. Although, he usually commenced his tirades against people not like "guys like us" with the power and amusement that comes with name-calling and backwardness, he almost always brought his argument around full-circle to the point where he was just wrong. Archie usually argued the causes of evolving and changing America better than Mike Stivic (his son-in-law) ever could.
"And you knew who you were then. Girls were girls and men were men. Mister, we could use a man like Herbert Hoover again."
The young men who had fought in WWII and their young wives who had supported them were now the fathers and mothers of a generation seeking new frontiers, expanded horizons. They were people who were openly gay, who dated out of their "color schematic" and they were young people wanted progressivism from their government so that poverty, crime and other social ills could be, if not eliminated, than at least addressed by their government--and, not just by the building of more prisons.
Herbet Hoover, arguably one of the most qualified men to become president, was unfortunately caught off guard by the collapse of the stock market and the ensuing depression and so his presidency was ruined. However, by harkening back to the days of Herbert Hoover, social conservatives are misreading American history. Herbert Hoover was one of the most active men in politics at the time. If he wasn't trying to build dams then he was saving the homes and communities of those flooded out by the Mississippi, all using the purse of the federal government. He was a continuation of Teddy Roosevelt; the severity of the depression led us to the extreme activism of FDR.
"Didn't need no welfare states. Everybody pulled his weight. Gee the old LaSalle ran great. Those were the days."
America was a different nation then: population 121 million. The world was a different place then: population 1.8 billion. The US was exporting to the world in roughly the same proportion that China today exports to the world. Things were considerably less complex than they are today. First of all, America is not a welfare stae
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
They Boggle the Mind
As the dust settled on lower Manhattan and the nation shook off the effects of the worst attack in our history, the democrats in Congress, having appreciated that the moment called for unity and not politics, joined their president in finding a response.
After our failure in Afghanistan, and despite it, the democrats, still fearing that any disagreement with the president would be contrued as heresy, despite reservations by some, supported this same president as he led us into the tragedy that has become Iraq.
Over time, we would learn that he had lied to us. He used lies, fear-mongering and propaganda in the most sacred of speeches, the State of the Union Address, to again make it political suicide should any democrat not agree with him. We invaded and America lost its innocence in what would become the worst quagmire since Vietnam: torture, abuse of presidental powers, obstruction of justice, lying under oath, dispersing state secrets to punish the disloyal and more.
Having won a majority in Congress, the democrats, for the sake of reuniting our worn and weary nation, chose NOT to seek the impeachment of George W. Bush. They chose not to pursue the vice president. And for the same reason that motivated Gerald Ford, in what historians still consider to be one of the most faithful and loyal acts by a public servant when he pardoned Richard Nixon (and absolute political suicide), the democrats knew that a long, drawn-out impeachment proceeding would do more harm for our nation then the short-term polical gains it would give them.
Democrats and Republicans are different. Let's forget about their differences like so-called spending versus fiscal conservatism; abortion versus anti-abortion, etc.; let's just look at what the Republicans have made their most effective and more heinous strategy for maintaining power for power's sake: they always attack and never put the good of the nation first if they feel that the democrats will reap any of the benefits of that so-called "good".
In 1994, when the Republicans backed by the pharmaceutical lobby and AMA fought tooth and nail to destroy the Clinton healtcare initiative, we paid 11.8% of GDP for health care. 15 years later, we are paying 15.2% of GDP (expected to increase to nearly 20% by 2015).
Had the Clinton healthcare initiative been passed (an internal memo then sent by Newt Gingrich laid it out very simply "if Clinton passes this thing, we lose seats at the mid-term elections so we must unite to defeat it"), we would today be paying around 9% of GDP for health care and all Americans would be covered!
The Republicans, however, decided that their interest lie not in the health of Americans, not in the strengthening of the economy in the long-term but rather in their ability to obtain and maintain power. At the end of the day, our economy today would be sounder if universal healthcare had been passed in 1994. No economist, who is not a hack to the GOP, would dare say that this is not so.
What they also felt was of the utmost of importance at the time (and somehow in the interest of the nation) was to relentlessly attack President Clinton. They ran non-stop indepedent councils until eventually they caught in him a lie (which happened to be under oath) about whether or not he had cheated on his wife. Any sane man would lie about an infidelity.
Was Clinton stupid and reckless? Yes! But, was his crime worthy of destroying a president and thereby politically tainting one of the tools available to the Congress that can punish a president who abuses his power? Not in a million years! However, the republicans again felt that for the sake of retaining and maintaining power, something as trivial as the office of the presidency and abuse of a little thing called the powers to impeach were much more aligned with their interests and the interests of the nation.
So, here we are again, gleeful over the big, fat zero they gave President Obama and "his stim", Republicans again chose inaction; they put the failed policies like tax-cutting ahead of the interests of America. Our nation today is in more danger than it was on September 12, 2001, and all they can think about is lying (they were shouting about $50 million that would be spent on protecting mice in California--this just didn't exist in the Stimulus Plan put to them!); obstructing the process of making our nation sound again.
They again prefer to pander to the big money men who will end up financing their re-election campaigns. They know that Joe, who has lost his job as a result of the economic crisis, cannot give them donations anymore. So, guess what, if Joe cannot keep them in power, then they don't need Joe and they don't give a "mice's" ass about Joe's woes!
Our nation has been humbled by the arrogance and mismanagement of a Republican president and a Republican Congress. Barack Obama and the democrats are trying to make our nation whole again.
And, while they govern and while Obama leads like we have not been led in nearly a decade, the republicans will continue to proudly vote "no" to anything he does to make us better. When does the rest of American realize that republicans just don't give a damn about America? Honestly, and this is not rhetoric, the modern-day powers that be in the GOP are simply corrupt, anti-American and fascist in the way of Hitler.
Enough (basta)! I just hope that the effects of unemployment will motivate the inbred bible-thumpers from the Southern states who think that all that is republican is America, to wake up soon and turn their back on the ignorance that ruins our nation.
Sadly, I don't think this will happen. So, I guess now we have only one choice and that is to get used to their obstructionist and anti-American ways.
America, with them, without them and despite them!
After our failure in Afghanistan, and despite it, the democrats, still fearing that any disagreement with the president would be contrued as heresy, despite reservations by some, supported this same president as he led us into the tragedy that has become Iraq.
Over time, we would learn that he had lied to us. He used lies, fear-mongering and propaganda in the most sacred of speeches, the State of the Union Address, to again make it political suicide should any democrat not agree with him. We invaded and America lost its innocence in what would become the worst quagmire since Vietnam: torture, abuse of presidental powers, obstruction of justice, lying under oath, dispersing state secrets to punish the disloyal and more.
Having won a majority in Congress, the democrats, for the sake of reuniting our worn and weary nation, chose NOT to seek the impeachment of George W. Bush. They chose not to pursue the vice president. And for the same reason that motivated Gerald Ford, in what historians still consider to be one of the most faithful and loyal acts by a public servant when he pardoned Richard Nixon (and absolute political suicide), the democrats knew that a long, drawn-out impeachment proceeding would do more harm for our nation then the short-term polical gains it would give them.
Democrats and Republicans are different. Let's forget about their differences like so-called spending versus fiscal conservatism; abortion versus anti-abortion, etc.; let's just look at what the Republicans have made their most effective and more heinous strategy for maintaining power for power's sake: they always attack and never put the good of the nation first if they feel that the democrats will reap any of the benefits of that so-called "good".
In 1994, when the Republicans backed by the pharmaceutical lobby and AMA fought tooth and nail to destroy the Clinton healtcare initiative, we paid 11.8% of GDP for health care. 15 years later, we are paying 15.2% of GDP (expected to increase to nearly 20% by 2015).
Had the Clinton healthcare initiative been passed (an internal memo then sent by Newt Gingrich laid it out very simply "if Clinton passes this thing, we lose seats at the mid-term elections so we must unite to defeat it"), we would today be paying around 9% of GDP for health care and all Americans would be covered!
The Republicans, however, decided that their interest lie not in the health of Americans, not in the strengthening of the economy in the long-term but rather in their ability to obtain and maintain power. At the end of the day, our economy today would be sounder if universal healthcare had been passed in 1994. No economist, who is not a hack to the GOP, would dare say that this is not so.
What they also felt was of the utmost of importance at the time (and somehow in the interest of the nation) was to relentlessly attack President Clinton. They ran non-stop indepedent councils until eventually they caught in him a lie (which happened to be under oath) about whether or not he had cheated on his wife. Any sane man would lie about an infidelity.
Was Clinton stupid and reckless? Yes! But, was his crime worthy of destroying a president and thereby politically tainting one of the tools available to the Congress that can punish a president who abuses his power? Not in a million years! However, the republicans again felt that for the sake of retaining and maintaining power, something as trivial as the office of the presidency and abuse of a little thing called the powers to impeach were much more aligned with their interests and the interests of the nation.
So, here we are again, gleeful over the big, fat zero they gave President Obama and "his stim", Republicans again chose inaction; they put the failed policies like tax-cutting ahead of the interests of America. Our nation today is in more danger than it was on September 12, 2001, and all they can think about is lying (they were shouting about $50 million that would be spent on protecting mice in California--this just didn't exist in the Stimulus Plan put to them!); obstructing the process of making our nation sound again.
They again prefer to pander to the big money men who will end up financing their re-election campaigns. They know that Joe, who has lost his job as a result of the economic crisis, cannot give them donations anymore. So, guess what, if Joe cannot keep them in power, then they don't need Joe and they don't give a "mice's" ass about Joe's woes!
Our nation has been humbled by the arrogance and mismanagement of a Republican president and a Republican Congress. Barack Obama and the democrats are trying to make our nation whole again.
And, while they govern and while Obama leads like we have not been led in nearly a decade, the republicans will continue to proudly vote "no" to anything he does to make us better. When does the rest of American realize that republicans just don't give a damn about America? Honestly, and this is not rhetoric, the modern-day powers that be in the GOP are simply corrupt, anti-American and fascist in the way of Hitler.
Enough (basta)! I just hope that the effects of unemployment will motivate the inbred bible-thumpers from the Southern states who think that all that is republican is America, to wake up soon and turn their back on the ignorance that ruins our nation.
Sadly, I don't think this will happen. So, I guess now we have only one choice and that is to get used to their obstructionist and anti-American ways.
America, with them, without them and despite them!
Friday, February 13, 2009
Gloves Off 2--The Developing Irrelevance of the GOP
"Our stimulus plan would have cost two times less and we would have created twice as many jobs." These were the words of some idiot republican on CNN today, 13 February 2009. My initial thought was, "ok, if you are such a pro at governing and doing things that are great for the nation, where the hell were you 5 months (let alone 8 years) ago when this crisis melted our economy and turned it into a puddle in the driveway where just yesterday 2 feet of snow stood?"
But, then again, when I saw the "republican" descriptor beneath his name, I realized that those words were empty, meaningless, party-created, anti-frontal lobe, he didn't believe what he was saying himself, etc., etc., etc.
My poor, ball-less dems, they try so hard to fight for what is right for America; they try to be civil and to keep emotions out of the battles; and, really they usually succeed at doing just that: debate remains on a sane and rational level. What they fail to ever understand is that the repigs NEVER use facts or rational argument to win a debate. They abuse emotion, hearsay and just plain lie so as to obfuscate, obstruct and obliterate our nation's chances for recovery, for greatness.
So, rule number one for dems, in order to even give yourself a chance, you must learn to lie. Just blantantly, out and out lie to anyone and everyone about everything. You like coffee, tell people tomorrow you hate coffee; but, when you tell them you hate it, be really, really passionate about it! At the same time, and this is the beauty of being a repig, you can order a coffee! Get yourself a big 20-ounce from Dunkin Donuts--heck, get the Babe Ruth 3-D cup--and pour some half and half in their whilst ranting about the wonders of tea!
Let's go to the repig playbook; in this case, the coffee is a tax-cut and tea is being fiscally conservative; and, at the same time, that they are wailing about being fiscally conservative--in other words, hating coffee--they are screaming for and pushing through Congress massive tax-cuts!!
Now, what is a tax-cut? Some, the repigs, will say it is money not taken from the business owner or the consumer, usually a wealthy person who doesn't really consume as much as the average Joe (hard to phatom, well, not really, Joe buys local and Rich Bob buys not local and quite often internationally); the idea, as simple and genius as flying a kite with a key in a lightning storm to power a city or rubbing two sticks together to heat the house, is that Rich Bob will take this windfall of money and invest it into his business; he will buy more machines so as to make more widgets.
Well, first of all, we stopped making widget years ago because Bob, realizing he could make more by producing in China, moved his production facility off-shore (to China). Secondly, with increased savings from producing in China, because he is paying them $1 an hour, he takes that money and buys real estate in other countries, fancy boats, planes, baseball teams, etc. Guess what, though, he isn't investing that money in anything that is in the long-term interests of America. How much trickled down? Some tips here and there are distributed to the white guys holding open the doors to hotels he is paying $15,000 a night for--where he is probably staying with some call-girl running around $10,000 a night (yes, true trickle down, supply side economics).
A tax-cut is lost revenue. A tax-cut for a lack of any better word is SPENDING! It is welfare for the rich!
Then, the repigs, John McCain, so stupidly called the economic stimulus package a "spending bill"--and our very astute President (it is so nice have a president who speaks fluent English) says "um, what do you think a stimulus bill is [what he left out was "you stupid, tired, old, walking-corpse!]?
McCain goes onto the call the stimulus "generational theft." 8 years of Bush and Republican control has financially broken our nation's back. Our position in the world is more tenuous than it has been since just prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution; our military is so over-stretched that we are probably more vulnerable today than we were 8 years ago. Yet, the repigs have what the dems lack, and they are made of brass and real big, and so they just pretend that none of that was real. You know, this is the one area where they have something in common with the rest of American for there are probably 200 million Americans wishing that the last 8 years weren't real!
McCain made yet another completely mind-boggling accusation, he said that the president should be ashamed for having so blantantly lied to the American people about his desires for working with the republicans. McCain said the blatant partisan approach by Obama was simply crass and should be condemned. He offered to sit with the president today and truly work-out a new plan that is more bipartisan.
Did old-sack-of-dust's "clap-on" not work resulting in him lying on the floor of his office suffering the effects from a massive concussion while Obama was bending over backwards to appease the repigs? 12% of the stimulus plan is lost to tax-cuts! Yes, that is generational theft, I agree!
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky railed that the "taxpayers of today and tomorrow will be left to clean up the mess" of the stimulus plan. Unreal. And, what is his solution for making the stimulus better? What do you think? More corporate welfare, more tax-cuts. They truly have simply lost sight of what works and what obviously does not work. 8 years of supremely failed policies, based on the bogus economic formula of their king and the belief that his tax-cuts made us so strong so more of the same would make us stronger, have left us empty, struggling and simply frozen in the headlights of fundamental, across-the-board, economic turmoil--and this is only the beginning.
If tax-cuts are so good at creating strong economies, why did this crisis tumble us like a house of cards? Yes, mistakes were made along the way by both dems and repubs but, to admit any wrongdoing by a dem, assumes that we are talking with level-headed, educated republicans who too can admit that a) no Reagan was not a king and a genius and his bankrupting of the federal government has come back to bite us in the ass big time; b) that W. and republican abuse of our Constitution and destruction of balance of powers has left us weaker than we have ever been; c) that FDR did lay the ground work for a sound and dynamic economic foundation (to be completed by LBJ); and, d) finally, that Janet Reno could whoop Condoleeza Rice in a fight!
Anyway, thank you Republican party for making it so easy to see you guys fade away into the sunset of redunancy. You attacked FDR for his New Deal and by 1935, there were 17 Republican senators left in Congress; keep up the good work in attacking President Obama while Americans keep losing their jobs, soon there will be 100 dems in the Senate!
But, then again, when I saw the "republican" descriptor beneath his name, I realized that those words were empty, meaningless, party-created, anti-frontal lobe, he didn't believe what he was saying himself, etc., etc., etc.
My poor, ball-less dems, they try so hard to fight for what is right for America; they try to be civil and to keep emotions out of the battles; and, really they usually succeed at doing just that: debate remains on a sane and rational level. What they fail to ever understand is that the repigs NEVER use facts or rational argument to win a debate. They abuse emotion, hearsay and just plain lie so as to obfuscate, obstruct and obliterate our nation's chances for recovery, for greatness.
So, rule number one for dems, in order to even give yourself a chance, you must learn to lie. Just blantantly, out and out lie to anyone and everyone about everything. You like coffee, tell people tomorrow you hate coffee; but, when you tell them you hate it, be really, really passionate about it! At the same time, and this is the beauty of being a repig, you can order a coffee! Get yourself a big 20-ounce from Dunkin Donuts--heck, get the Babe Ruth 3-D cup--and pour some half and half in their whilst ranting about the wonders of tea!
Let's go to the repig playbook; in this case, the coffee is a tax-cut and tea is being fiscally conservative; and, at the same time, that they are wailing about being fiscally conservative--in other words, hating coffee--they are screaming for and pushing through Congress massive tax-cuts!!
Now, what is a tax-cut? Some, the repigs, will say it is money not taken from the business owner or the consumer, usually a wealthy person who doesn't really consume as much as the average Joe (hard to phatom, well, not really, Joe buys local and Rich Bob buys not local and quite often internationally); the idea, as simple and genius as flying a kite with a key in a lightning storm to power a city or rubbing two sticks together to heat the house, is that Rich Bob will take this windfall of money and invest it into his business; he will buy more machines so as to make more widgets.
Well, first of all, we stopped making widget years ago because Bob, realizing he could make more by producing in China, moved his production facility off-shore (to China). Secondly, with increased savings from producing in China, because he is paying them $1 an hour, he takes that money and buys real estate in other countries, fancy boats, planes, baseball teams, etc. Guess what, though, he isn't investing that money in anything that is in the long-term interests of America. How much trickled down? Some tips here and there are distributed to the white guys holding open the doors to hotels he is paying $15,000 a night for--where he is probably staying with some call-girl running around $10,000 a night (yes, true trickle down, supply side economics).
A tax-cut is lost revenue. A tax-cut for a lack of any better word is SPENDING! It is welfare for the rich!
Then, the repigs, John McCain, so stupidly called the economic stimulus package a "spending bill"--and our very astute President (it is so nice have a president who speaks fluent English) says "um, what do you think a stimulus bill is [what he left out was "you stupid, tired, old, walking-corpse!]?
McCain goes onto the call the stimulus "generational theft." 8 years of Bush and Republican control has financially broken our nation's back. Our position in the world is more tenuous than it has been since just prior to the start of the Industrial Revolution; our military is so over-stretched that we are probably more vulnerable today than we were 8 years ago. Yet, the repigs have what the dems lack, and they are made of brass and real big, and so they just pretend that none of that was real. You know, this is the one area where they have something in common with the rest of American for there are probably 200 million Americans wishing that the last 8 years weren't real!
McCain made yet another completely mind-boggling accusation, he said that the president should be ashamed for having so blantantly lied to the American people about his desires for working with the republicans. McCain said the blatant partisan approach by Obama was simply crass and should be condemned. He offered to sit with the president today and truly work-out a new plan that is more bipartisan.
Did old-sack-of-dust's "clap-on" not work resulting in him lying on the floor of his office suffering the effects from a massive concussion while Obama was bending over backwards to appease the repigs? 12% of the stimulus plan is lost to tax-cuts! Yes, that is generational theft, I agree!
Mitch McConnell of Kentucky railed that the "taxpayers of today and tomorrow will be left to clean up the mess" of the stimulus plan. Unreal. And, what is his solution for making the stimulus better? What do you think? More corporate welfare, more tax-cuts. They truly have simply lost sight of what works and what obviously does not work. 8 years of supremely failed policies, based on the bogus economic formula of their king and the belief that his tax-cuts made us so strong so more of the same would make us stronger, have left us empty, struggling and simply frozen in the headlights of fundamental, across-the-board, economic turmoil--and this is only the beginning.
If tax-cuts are so good at creating strong economies, why did this crisis tumble us like a house of cards? Yes, mistakes were made along the way by both dems and repubs but, to admit any wrongdoing by a dem, assumes that we are talking with level-headed, educated republicans who too can admit that a) no Reagan was not a king and a genius and his bankrupting of the federal government has come back to bite us in the ass big time; b) that W. and republican abuse of our Constitution and destruction of balance of powers has left us weaker than we have ever been; c) that FDR did lay the ground work for a sound and dynamic economic foundation (to be completed by LBJ); and, d) finally, that Janet Reno could whoop Condoleeza Rice in a fight!
Anyway, thank you Republican party for making it so easy to see you guys fade away into the sunset of redunancy. You attacked FDR for his New Deal and by 1935, there were 17 Republican senators left in Congress; keep up the good work in attacking President Obama while Americans keep losing their jobs, soon there will be 100 dems in the Senate!
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
The Price we (oh, yeah, and those pesky little Iraqis) Paid for that Invasion
Like the morning sun stretching its arms across the horizon, sending probing shards into bedrooms, rousing an occasional sleeper, energizing an inactive leaf or two, the end of the occupation of Iraq is taking form in a distance that no longer seems so far, far away.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Comm--(sic) Republican Propoganda
The Grand Old Party, the party of Lincoln resurrected by Reagan has truly lost its relevance, if not in the American two-party system (although, we are multi-party, only two parties can truly play), then at least as far as concerns America.
During the battle for our own independence, Republicans would have been Tories--those who were for remaining a colony of Britain (could you really imagine someone like Franklin, Paine, Jefferson or Adams being as emotive and name-calling as today's Republicans?).
Up until and during the Civil War, the violence, the emotion and the hysterics of the Democratic Party--which was mostly backed by Southerners--were symbolized in their belief that the hated "negros" should remain enslaved; the Southerners demanded "State Rights" (which meant, if we want to keep our colored enslaved then the Federal Goverment should have no say in this matter).
After the great compromise of 1877, which resulted in the Federal Government removing its troops from the occupied southern states (immediately ending black independence in those states and throwing the entire march toward civil rights off by literally 100 years!) Southern Democratic Senators agreed to give the White House to the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes (for more on this controversy/betrayal read http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h396.html). Over the next few decades the modern Republican Party was hatched.
A party that began to blindly support big business interests--the Republicans tried to ban Upton Sinclair's Book "The Jungle" which led to the creation of the FDA (which under W. has been so underfunded that eating in America is liking playing Russian roulette--spinach, tomatoes, peanut butter, milk, etc.all can kill you nowadays); the Democratic party, at the onset of the Industrial Revolution and America's transition from being a regional power to a world one, suddenly started defending the interests of farmers, small businessmen, workers, the poor and all of those who were being victimized by the barons of industry who openly owned politicians!
Except for Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican Party has had a really stained past beginning from 1901 to 2009: they were against entrance into WWI; they were against entrance into WWII; they were against everything Roosevelt did or tried to do; they launched the endless destruction of the cold war--the Eisenhower Doctrine said "if the USSR pushes, we push back", which led to 40 years of "containment" as laid out in the misinterpreted article of the great statesman George "Mr. X" Kennan (see his "Sources of Soviet Conduct" Article in Foreign Affairs in 1947) set America off onto a long and violent journey during which our nation was not ruled by domestic interests but by chasing the "Communist devil" into every corner of the earth.
Vietnam (launched by Eisenhower in 1954 when the French army was crushed at Den Bien Phu) was a useless war that resulted in nothing but 58,000 dead young Americans and millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians. Then along came LBJ who enacted sweeping government change by passing Civil Rights legislation, Social Security, etc.--Republicans were against this also and so were may southern Democrats who as a result switched parties (thank God!).
The ignominious history of the GOP then led us to the lies, deceit, surveillance, Constitutional-crisis of Nixon--need I say more (oh, illegal bombings of Cambodia, anyone?)? Also, who can forget the oil embargo, the double digit inflation of Ford?
Carter, a mere blip on the radar screen (like a large flock of seagulls), had so little effect on anything that really, he was just a national sigh at the disbelief being expressed after Nixon's run on the constitution and the near bankrupting of our nation then! Along came their god--the mild-mannered, well-spoken and really partisan, Ronald Reagan.
Mortgage rates went through the roof, and except for a few years of economic growth, to be soundly ended by Bush Senior, the largest deficits in our history were racked up under Mr. "goverment is the problem (the government grew larger under Reagan then under all of the presidents combined prior to him)/fiscal conservative (gee, where did those deficits come from?)" himself. (Oh, yes, whilst we were removing government regulators or denying them funding, we were letting Savings and Loans be set up by anyone with a calculator, this mess is still being paid for by the taxpayers!)
Let's forget Clinton, 8 years of prosperity, balancing of the budget (which the Republicans will shamelessly say was done by a few of their breathren who weren't tyring to destroy our president over the fact that a) he made investments prior to coming to office and b) that he cheated on his wife); the federal government was shrunk (responsibly) back to a level that it had been just prior to the launch of the Vietnam War in 1954; and, on the horizon for our nation were trillion dollar surpluses.
So, what did the republicans do? First, they stole an election; they governed as if they had a mandate; they threw away all work that was done by the Clinton Administration on the prevention of terrorist activities and then when we were attacked on 9/11--after our wonderful president had spent a month clearing brush in Texas amidst increasing reports that an attack was imminent--they blamed Clinton! (Note: Clinton kept us safe!)
And, throwing economics out with the bath water, the republicans started pushing tax cuts for everything while invading two nations and trying to bully about 12 others. Suddenly, the hysteria, the fear-mongering and emotive namecalling of the Republican Party, 300 years of just plain juvenile, schoolyard tactics ("P.U., Kenny stinks"--and so it would be, clean little Kenny would be ruined by that moniker for the rest of his days thanks to one big mouth on the playground) were suddenly validated because our government, the constitutional process of checks and balances had been taken hostage by "God" and Republicans.
2009--we are bankrupt; Reagan-era deficits are the good old days; our military is so over-stretched, our troops, many of whom are on welfare(!!!) are not properly armed or protected because...um, taxes were being cut and there was no money left--except for really expensive things the troops didn't need (and, also, because the companies that Cheney ran weren't making things the boys in harms way really needed).
Iran is a year away from having nuclear missles-8 years ago, they had just started using flashlights! North Korea is going crazy; Russia has again become a belligerent and unpredictable regional power--more unpredictable than ever in their history because they are really tired of being treated like "stinky Kenny"; the 2 billion Muslims in the world who used to like us, now hate us--those attacking extremists used to be the vast, vast minority.
And, now, the only thing they can do today, as Americans are thrown out of work in droves from the same big business (and now even small business) that is so loved by the GOP, is keep harping about the need for still lower taxes! Oh, and they yell about the need for guns, the need for outlawing abortion, the need to arrest and deport millions of illegal aliens (where do we get the money for this, we just cut out $40 billion that had been earmarked for the State use?).
You know what...screw the Republican Party. They are obstructionist. They don't love America but love their ever-shrinking little white communities in which everyone looks alike, talks the same, eats at the same Applebee's and even though worship in the same churches, they hate the same minorities.
The Republican Party is now officially historically irrelevant. They have nothing new to offer; they don't/cannot solve the problems at hand because like in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, membership in ranks of the GOP is given to those who deny free-thought and celebrate emotive, group-shouting.
The GOP is about stealing our nation's wealth and denying America its rightful place in the world--we should be stronger, wealthier, healthier and friendlier. We are not a nation of bitter, whiners who hate everyone that doesn't look like us (especially considering that we are EVERYONE). In 2009, we should not be celebrating our first "black" president. Had they not subverted our nation from the path to desegregation in 1877, we would not have the black-white issues we still have today! Obama should just be called our "new president" but we are still so hung up on color!
8 years was lost in the battle against global warming; 16 years was lost in battle for universal health care. History always shows that the emotive attacks of the GOP are wrong (They bomb abortion clinics!!)! My fellow Democrats, PULL YOUR CIVILIZED, PC HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES AND TELL THE REPUBLICANS TO SHUT THE HELL UP!!! THIS IS OUR NATION! DON'T LIKE IT, GET THE HELL OUT.
To Be continued...!
Glove off. Bipartisanship my ass. The enemy has been identified and now we must deal with him the way our boys did when they stormed the machine-gun nests on Normandy 65 years ago!
During the battle for our own independence, Republicans would have been Tories--those who were for remaining a colony of Britain (could you really imagine someone like Franklin, Paine, Jefferson or Adams being as emotive and name-calling as today's Republicans?).
Up until and during the Civil War, the violence, the emotion and the hysterics of the Democratic Party--which was mostly backed by Southerners--were symbolized in their belief that the hated "negros" should remain enslaved; the Southerners demanded "State Rights" (which meant, if we want to keep our colored enslaved then the Federal Goverment should have no say in this matter).
After the great compromise of 1877, which resulted in the Federal Government removing its troops from the occupied southern states (immediately ending black independence in those states and throwing the entire march toward civil rights off by literally 100 years!) Southern Democratic Senators agreed to give the White House to the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes (for more on this controversy/betrayal read http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h396.html). Over the next few decades the modern Republican Party was hatched.
A party that began to blindly support big business interests--the Republicans tried to ban Upton Sinclair's Book "The Jungle" which led to the creation of the FDA (which under W. has been so underfunded that eating in America is liking playing Russian roulette--spinach, tomatoes, peanut butter, milk, etc.all can kill you nowadays); the Democratic party, at the onset of the Industrial Revolution and America's transition from being a regional power to a world one, suddenly started defending the interests of farmers, small businessmen, workers, the poor and all of those who were being victimized by the barons of industry who openly owned politicians!
Except for Teddy Roosevelt, the Republican Party has had a really stained past beginning from 1901 to 2009: they were against entrance into WWI; they were against entrance into WWII; they were against everything Roosevelt did or tried to do; they launched the endless destruction of the cold war--the Eisenhower Doctrine said "if the USSR pushes, we push back", which led to 40 years of "containment" as laid out in the misinterpreted article of the great statesman George "Mr. X" Kennan (see his "Sources of Soviet Conduct" Article in Foreign Affairs in 1947) set America off onto a long and violent journey during which our nation was not ruled by domestic interests but by chasing the "Communist devil" into every corner of the earth.
Vietnam (launched by Eisenhower in 1954 when the French army was crushed at Den Bien Phu) was a useless war that resulted in nothing but 58,000 dead young Americans and millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians. Then along came LBJ who enacted sweeping government change by passing Civil Rights legislation, Social Security, etc.--Republicans were against this also and so were may southern Democrats who as a result switched parties (thank God!).
The ignominious history of the GOP then led us to the lies, deceit, surveillance, Constitutional-crisis of Nixon--need I say more (oh, illegal bombings of Cambodia, anyone?)? Also, who can forget the oil embargo, the double digit inflation of Ford?
Carter, a mere blip on the radar screen (like a large flock of seagulls), had so little effect on anything that really, he was just a national sigh at the disbelief being expressed after Nixon's run on the constitution and the near bankrupting of our nation then! Along came their god--the mild-mannered, well-spoken and really partisan, Ronald Reagan.
Mortgage rates went through the roof, and except for a few years of economic growth, to be soundly ended by Bush Senior, the largest deficits in our history were racked up under Mr. "goverment is the problem (the government grew larger under Reagan then under all of the presidents combined prior to him)/fiscal conservative (gee, where did those deficits come from?)" himself. (Oh, yes, whilst we were removing government regulators or denying them funding, we were letting Savings and Loans be set up by anyone with a calculator, this mess is still being paid for by the taxpayers!)
Let's forget Clinton, 8 years of prosperity, balancing of the budget (which the Republicans will shamelessly say was done by a few of their breathren who weren't tyring to destroy our president over the fact that a) he made investments prior to coming to office and b) that he cheated on his wife); the federal government was shrunk (responsibly) back to a level that it had been just prior to the launch of the Vietnam War in 1954; and, on the horizon for our nation were trillion dollar surpluses.
So, what did the republicans do? First, they stole an election; they governed as if they had a mandate; they threw away all work that was done by the Clinton Administration on the prevention of terrorist activities and then when we were attacked on 9/11--after our wonderful president had spent a month clearing brush in Texas amidst increasing reports that an attack was imminent--they blamed Clinton! (Note: Clinton kept us safe!)
And, throwing economics out with the bath water, the republicans started pushing tax cuts for everything while invading two nations and trying to bully about 12 others. Suddenly, the hysteria, the fear-mongering and emotive namecalling of the Republican Party, 300 years of just plain juvenile, schoolyard tactics ("P.U., Kenny stinks"--and so it would be, clean little Kenny would be ruined by that moniker for the rest of his days thanks to one big mouth on the playground) were suddenly validated because our government, the constitutional process of checks and balances had been taken hostage by "God" and Republicans.
2009--we are bankrupt; Reagan-era deficits are the good old days; our military is so over-stretched, our troops, many of whom are on welfare(!!!) are not properly armed or protected because...um, taxes were being cut and there was no money left--except for really expensive things the troops didn't need (and, also, because the companies that Cheney ran weren't making things the boys in harms way really needed).
Iran is a year away from having nuclear missles-8 years ago, they had just started using flashlights! North Korea is going crazy; Russia has again become a belligerent and unpredictable regional power--more unpredictable than ever in their history because they are really tired of being treated like "stinky Kenny"; the 2 billion Muslims in the world who used to like us, now hate us--those attacking extremists used to be the vast, vast minority.
And, now, the only thing they can do today, as Americans are thrown out of work in droves from the same big business (and now even small business) that is so loved by the GOP, is keep harping about the need for still lower taxes! Oh, and they yell about the need for guns, the need for outlawing abortion, the need to arrest and deport millions of illegal aliens (where do we get the money for this, we just cut out $40 billion that had been earmarked for the State use?).
You know what...screw the Republican Party. They are obstructionist. They don't love America but love their ever-shrinking little white communities in which everyone looks alike, talks the same, eats at the same Applebee's and even though worship in the same churches, they hate the same minorities.
The Republican Party is now officially historically irrelevant. They have nothing new to offer; they don't/cannot solve the problems at hand because like in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, membership in ranks of the GOP is given to those who deny free-thought and celebrate emotive, group-shouting.
The GOP is about stealing our nation's wealth and denying America its rightful place in the world--we should be stronger, wealthier, healthier and friendlier. We are not a nation of bitter, whiners who hate everyone that doesn't look like us (especially considering that we are EVERYONE). In 2009, we should not be celebrating our first "black" president. Had they not subverted our nation from the path to desegregation in 1877, we would not have the black-white issues we still have today! Obama should just be called our "new president" but we are still so hung up on color!
8 years was lost in the battle against global warming; 16 years was lost in battle for universal health care. History always shows that the emotive attacks of the GOP are wrong (They bomb abortion clinics!!)! My fellow Democrats, PULL YOUR CIVILIZED, PC HEADS OUT OF YOUR ASSES AND TELL THE REPUBLICANS TO SHUT THE HELL UP!!! THIS IS OUR NATION! DON'T LIKE IT, GET THE HELL OUT.
To Be continued...!
Glove off. Bipartisanship my ass. The enemy has been identified and now we must deal with him the way our boys did when they stormed the machine-gun nests on Normandy 65 years ago!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
If it Ain't Broken then Don't Fix it!
When a car is running low on gas, you fill the tank.
When it needs oil, you put oil in it.
When a person has gained a lot of weight, to the point where it makes living difficult and dangerous, he sets out a plan for himself to lose this weight. Excess weight, caused by a sedentary lifestyle, poor eating habits, etc. usually lead the person in question to make changes, major ones, if they are serious about shedding the pounds and getting back to a "fighting weight."
An obese person will not lose weight by putting two sugars instead of three into his coffee; he won't lose that weight by cutting down on intake of carbs; say, instead of eating all of the fried potatoes with his omlette in the morning, he will only eat half; or, instead of white toast with butter, he will eat wholewheat toast with butter.
If he is serious, he should, perhaps, eat organic muesili with freshly-squeezed carrot, apple, celery and pumpkin juice for breakfast--and that's it! He should take apples and celery to work and munch on them when he has a craving for some cake, cookies or other "treats." For lunch, a nice vegetable soup with no bread and water should replace the Chili's salad, turkey club and fries that he would normally eat.
After work, he should add to all of the walking up and down steps that he had done over the course of the day (to include walking to lunch, work if possible, furthest parking spot from the Chili's of diner or cafe, etc.), he should commence a serious (but doctor advised) workout regimen. Dinner: a salad of lettuce, spinach, celery, carrots, tomatoes and some olive oil with balsamic vinegar to be followed by some nice salmon and some long-grain, brown rice (with no extra sauces extra for maybe some tabasco).
Over the course of a month or so, this person's body, and mind, will get used to these new eating habits. The cravings for sugar will become less; the calls from cheesecakes and cheeseburgers and juicy steaks with nice fries will grow dimmer and eventually, the pounds will start to drop; the workouts will become more intense and the man happier, healthier and thinner! He will have made a structural change to his own personal/biological "infrastructure."
When a nation's economic infrastructure is bankrupt, it needs infrastructural investment; when it's banks, medical industry, food-producing industries, financial industries, military and private industry that provides that military with its arms are completely unregulated, the nation needs government oversight; when one of the most cultural cities in the world is allowed to drown and rot for 5 days in the world's "wealthiest" country, we must ask ourselves: has not obesity affected our ability make ourselves healthier? Have we not lost the ability to compete in a world with fitter, healthier nations?
Obesity is greed. It is gluttony. Bankrupting our nation is greed, gluttony. Cutting taxes in the hope that our economy will be revived is similar to our fat-friend from above, eating only half of the potatoes at breakfast (but otherwise making no other changes in his life) and then being shocked when he doesn't lose any weight.
Like our friend, we too must make across the board structural changes; make improvements to our infrastructure in order to kill the cravings for greed, gluttony, sedentary living.
We need change, we voted for it, we got it and now we need to lose the habits of the Republicans that have so blatantly put the interests of the few ahead of the interests of the many: we are today the fattest, most out of shape, most in-debt nation in the world. And now, those cravings for ever more food have led us to start canabalizing the very system which served us so well for so many years: DEPOLITICIZE THIS ECONOMIC RECOVERY FOR THE SAKE OF AMERICA, NOT THE SAKE OF THE GOP.
We have been living with a short-term mindset for the past 25 years--had we passed universal health care in 1994, American taxpayers would not be paying tens of billions today for the uninsured. If we invest today in our nation, we will be fitter and healthier tomorrow.
Sadly, the Republicans don't care about tomorrow, they are only concerned about where they will eat their next meal.
When it needs oil, you put oil in it.
When a person has gained a lot of weight, to the point where it makes living difficult and dangerous, he sets out a plan for himself to lose this weight. Excess weight, caused by a sedentary lifestyle, poor eating habits, etc. usually lead the person in question to make changes, major ones, if they are serious about shedding the pounds and getting back to a "fighting weight."
An obese person will not lose weight by putting two sugars instead of three into his coffee; he won't lose that weight by cutting down on intake of carbs; say, instead of eating all of the fried potatoes with his omlette in the morning, he will only eat half; or, instead of white toast with butter, he will eat wholewheat toast with butter.
If he is serious, he should, perhaps, eat organic muesili with freshly-squeezed carrot, apple, celery and pumpkin juice for breakfast--and that's it! He should take apples and celery to work and munch on them when he has a craving for some cake, cookies or other "treats." For lunch, a nice vegetable soup with no bread and water should replace the Chili's salad, turkey club and fries that he would normally eat.
After work, he should add to all of the walking up and down steps that he had done over the course of the day (to include walking to lunch, work if possible, furthest parking spot from the Chili's of diner or cafe, etc.), he should commence a serious (but doctor advised) workout regimen. Dinner: a salad of lettuce, spinach, celery, carrots, tomatoes and some olive oil with balsamic vinegar to be followed by some nice salmon and some long-grain, brown rice (with no extra sauces extra for maybe some tabasco).
Over the course of a month or so, this person's body, and mind, will get used to these new eating habits. The cravings for sugar will become less; the calls from cheesecakes and cheeseburgers and juicy steaks with nice fries will grow dimmer and eventually, the pounds will start to drop; the workouts will become more intense and the man happier, healthier and thinner! He will have made a structural change to his own personal/biological "infrastructure."
When a nation's economic infrastructure is bankrupt, it needs infrastructural investment; when it's banks, medical industry, food-producing industries, financial industries, military and private industry that provides that military with its arms are completely unregulated, the nation needs government oversight; when one of the most cultural cities in the world is allowed to drown and rot for 5 days in the world's "wealthiest" country, we must ask ourselves: has not obesity affected our ability make ourselves healthier? Have we not lost the ability to compete in a world with fitter, healthier nations?
Obesity is greed. It is gluttony. Bankrupting our nation is greed, gluttony. Cutting taxes in the hope that our economy will be revived is similar to our fat-friend from above, eating only half of the potatoes at breakfast (but otherwise making no other changes in his life) and then being shocked when he doesn't lose any weight.
Like our friend, we too must make across the board structural changes; make improvements to our infrastructure in order to kill the cravings for greed, gluttony, sedentary living.
We need change, we voted for it, we got it and now we need to lose the habits of the Republicans that have so blatantly put the interests of the few ahead of the interests of the many: we are today the fattest, most out of shape, most in-debt nation in the world. And now, those cravings for ever more food have led us to start canabalizing the very system which served us so well for so many years: DEPOLITICIZE THIS ECONOMIC RECOVERY FOR THE SAKE OF AMERICA, NOT THE SAKE OF THE GOP.
We have been living with a short-term mindset for the past 25 years--had we passed universal health care in 1994, American taxpayers would not be paying tens of billions today for the uninsured. If we invest today in our nation, we will be fitter and healthier tomorrow.
Sadly, the Republicans don't care about tomorrow, they are only concerned about where they will eat their next meal.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Flash
Flash--President Obama told Matt Lauer in an interview for The Today Show that he has no illusions about trying to make Afghanistan a democratic nation. That comment, that one little comment shows just how far, in the matter of 3 weeks, we have come from the blind, obdurate, childish, even ridiculus beliefs that W., Mr. Potter and the bulk of the Republican Orgy had/have: you cannot make a purse out of a sow's ear (but you can make a tasty little meal out of that ear). Thank you, President Obama for bring reality back to the Oval Office.
Flash--If your watch doesn't work, do you replace the watch glass? No, you get it repaired at a shop so it starts ticking again. Republican Orgy calls for yet more tax cuts (to quote their demigod, Ron Reagan, "here we go again") are kin to changing the watch glass; or, it is like trying to hold water in your hands. Our economy needs to be rebuilt. Increased consumption, the purchasing of more crap from Wal-Mart, eating out more at Chili's (I do like their black bean burger) will not help our economy; we need to be rebuilt (where is Oscar Goldman--$6 million man fame--when you need him?)
Flash--The repiglicans, now guided by their Uncle Tom (but man, is he an uppidy UT), are so happy that not one single republican voted for President Obama's stimulus package. Now what does this tell us? It is more important for them to keep the American economy (and the world's) in jeopardy so that they can get their tax cuts passed rather than join with a mandated President who is REALLY trying to be BI-PARTISAN. He even brought a Repig into his cabinet!!
Dems have voted with the Repigs in the past and they will in the future; the dems are for governing and for America; the Repigs are truly out for one thing--the destruction of our nation. And, while they are bankrupting us, they are ensuring that they get wealthier and everyone else--including so many of their own--get poorer. This greed broke the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and it too will break them; but, not before it completely obliterates our own chances at recovery.
The world is waiting for us to show responsible leadership. Our president is trying to be responsible and to lead but they are just doing everything they can to ensure he won't/can't succeed--and then they will blame him. Mancur Olson, in his book "The Rise and Decline of Nations" writes about the common good being sacrificed for the good of groups close to power: or capable of preventing power from being wielded for the benefit of all--the republican party is no longer a political party but an interest group strangling our nation and denying us a future.
We are at a juncture as critical, and even more so, than we were on September 12, 2001; why can't they join with our leader, the way the dems did then, and vote for his stimulus package? Vote for our economic recovery? Why? Because they are so greedy that they fear much of this investment will slip past the hands of their friends, their own pockets and they will not get the benefits promised them when they became elected officials.
The Republican Party has now become Amway.
Flash--If your watch doesn't work, do you replace the watch glass? No, you get it repaired at a shop so it starts ticking again. Republican Orgy calls for yet more tax cuts (to quote their demigod, Ron Reagan, "here we go again") are kin to changing the watch glass; or, it is like trying to hold water in your hands. Our economy needs to be rebuilt. Increased consumption, the purchasing of more crap from Wal-Mart, eating out more at Chili's (I do like their black bean burger) will not help our economy; we need to be rebuilt (where is Oscar Goldman--$6 million man fame--when you need him?)
Flash--The repiglicans, now guided by their Uncle Tom (but man, is he an uppidy UT), are so happy that not one single republican voted for President Obama's stimulus package. Now what does this tell us? It is more important for them to keep the American economy (and the world's) in jeopardy so that they can get their tax cuts passed rather than join with a mandated President who is REALLY trying to be BI-PARTISAN. He even brought a Repig into his cabinet!!
Dems have voted with the Repigs in the past and they will in the future; the dems are for governing and for America; the Repigs are truly out for one thing--the destruction of our nation. And, while they are bankrupting us, they are ensuring that they get wealthier and everyone else--including so many of their own--get poorer. This greed broke the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and it too will break them; but, not before it completely obliterates our own chances at recovery.
The world is waiting for us to show responsible leadership. Our president is trying to be responsible and to lead but they are just doing everything they can to ensure he won't/can't succeed--and then they will blame him. Mancur Olson, in his book "The Rise and Decline of Nations" writes about the common good being sacrificed for the good of groups close to power: or capable of preventing power from being wielded for the benefit of all--the republican party is no longer a political party but an interest group strangling our nation and denying us a future.
We are at a juncture as critical, and even more so, than we were on September 12, 2001; why can't they join with our leader, the way the dems did then, and vote for his stimulus package? Vote for our economic recovery? Why? Because they are so greedy that they fear much of this investment will slip past the hands of their friends, their own pockets and they will not get the benefits promised them when they became elected officials.
The Republican Party has now become Amway.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Sometimes you feel like a nut...and sometimes, just like a politician!
Here it is, the first blog about our beloved president that is not as appreciative as the others I have written.
Negative, I will not call it; rather, it is a realistic and practical comment/observation: Mr. President, stop it now or else you will undermine your entire mission for making our nation better, faster, stronger, able to leap tall buildings...."we can rebuild him..." (dew-dew-dew-dew--that was the noise you heard when Major Steve Austin was looking with his bionic eye).
I never liked Biden. I still don't. Taking the train all of those years to work in Congress was cool. His mother seems nice enough. He was like a little boy with a new bike on Inauguration Day: smiling, shaking hands, greeting everyone including a few squirrels on the White House lawn that very special day not too long ago.
Our hearts were filled with joy and expectation. Despite Biden's blind support of MBNA--housed in his home state--while they commenced their aggressive lending which got so many Americans (who believed that they too were wealthy and deserved to consume beyond their means because it was the "American thing to do") into trouble, debt and then bankruptcy, he was chosen to be the "saviour's" VP.
Then we had some cat (name escapes me) over at the Pentagon, who although a lobbyist just last year, was being chosen for a position because "he was the best man for the job (to paraphrase)." Then along came Geithner and despite having not paid some taxes, he was offered a nice job in the Administration; and, he even brought along a friend who had recently lobbied (Mark Patterson); now, we have Daschle, who I like as much as Biden, and he too is as described by the president as "the right people for important jobs."
I don't doubt that they are probably right but I sincerely doubt that among the 10,000's of CVs, there was no one with the credentials of a Barack Obama--clean, new, fresh, honest. I, for one, would gladly go and do the work that Geithner is being charged to do; I probably couldn't do any worse than he has already done (although, I do like his approach from what I have seen).
The republicans want Barack to be clean and pure and bipartisan simply because, in their weakened state, it will permit them to prevent him from tilting our teetering nation back onto is axis. They would prefer him to fail or stagnate so that they can reclaim much of their lost power; afterall, it is about them and not us. America is not our nation but their job; and, unless our president can refocus on the marvelous vision he painted in such Magritte-esque strokes on that day so, so long ago, they will finally accomplish the job commenced by W. (God, it's so nice knowing that he is safely tucked away in Texas emailing friends not in power any more), Mr. Potter and the other neo-cons.
Governing is not easy. Swimming also is not easy when amongst sharks. Washington is a shark-infested sea and our president is in danger already. He will succeed but at what cost? Will victory result in us having lost our last, great, coffee-with-cream hope?
Negative, I will not call it; rather, it is a realistic and practical comment/observation: Mr. President, stop it now or else you will undermine your entire mission for making our nation better, faster, stronger, able to leap tall buildings...."we can rebuild him..." (dew-dew-dew-dew--that was the noise you heard when Major Steve Austin was looking with his bionic eye).
I never liked Biden. I still don't. Taking the train all of those years to work in Congress was cool. His mother seems nice enough. He was like a little boy with a new bike on Inauguration Day: smiling, shaking hands, greeting everyone including a few squirrels on the White House lawn that very special day not too long ago.
Our hearts were filled with joy and expectation. Despite Biden's blind support of MBNA--housed in his home state--while they commenced their aggressive lending which got so many Americans (who believed that they too were wealthy and deserved to consume beyond their means because it was the "American thing to do") into trouble, debt and then bankruptcy, he was chosen to be the "saviour's" VP.
Then we had some cat (name escapes me) over at the Pentagon, who although a lobbyist just last year, was being chosen for a position because "he was the best man for the job (to paraphrase)." Then along came Geithner and despite having not paid some taxes, he was offered a nice job in the Administration; and, he even brought along a friend who had recently lobbied (Mark Patterson); now, we have Daschle, who I like as much as Biden, and he too is as described by the president as "the right people for important jobs."
I don't doubt that they are probably right but I sincerely doubt that among the 10,000's of CVs, there was no one with the credentials of a Barack Obama--clean, new, fresh, honest. I, for one, would gladly go and do the work that Geithner is being charged to do; I probably couldn't do any worse than he has already done (although, I do like his approach from what I have seen).
The republicans want Barack to be clean and pure and bipartisan simply because, in their weakened state, it will permit them to prevent him from tilting our teetering nation back onto is axis. They would prefer him to fail or stagnate so that they can reclaim much of their lost power; afterall, it is about them and not us. America is not our nation but their job; and, unless our president can refocus on the marvelous vision he painted in such Magritte-esque strokes on that day so, so long ago, they will finally accomplish the job commenced by W. (God, it's so nice knowing that he is safely tucked away in Texas emailing friends not in power any more), Mr. Potter and the other neo-cons.
Governing is not easy. Swimming also is not easy when amongst sharks. Washington is a shark-infested sea and our president is in danger already. He will succeed but at what cost? Will victory result in us having lost our last, great, coffee-with-cream hope?
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