The Stupid, It Burns

I don't tweet, I find it stupid and a waste of time.  There is nothing going on in my life, or quite a few other people's, that needs to be posted for the world to see every other minute.  And I certainly wouldn't want to post anything that harms another person or reveals thoughts that are better left unsaid.

At 2:29 p.m. ET, UT’s Lauren E. Pierce wrote: “Y’all as tempting as it may be, don’t shoot Obama. We need him to go down in history as the WORST president we’ve EVER had! #2012.”

Pierce, the president of the College Republicans at UT Austin, told ABC News the comment was a “joke” and that the “whole [shooting incident] was stupid.” Giggling, she said that an attempted assassination would “only make the situation worse.”

That an idiot from Texas would post something like this less than a week away from the 48th anniversary of a sitting President assassinated in Texas, boggles the mind.   I, along with most people alive at that time, know exactly where I was when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot and killed.  I may have been seven years old, but like most of the people in the United States at that time, I will never, ever, forget how traumatized we were as a nation.  

Ms. Pierce's behavior is wrong on so many levels that one wonders exactly what they are, or not, teaching at the University of Texas.  It makes me wonder if anyone from the state of Texas should be allowed to hold any office with the title of President.

Saturday Morning Observations

Supposedly the first thing you should do when you find yourself in a hole is to quit digging.  Unfortunately for the Republican party, their goal seems to be China.  Not content to be the minority party they are now trying to be the minuscule party.  The dittoheads and Palinites want to purge the party of those who don't believe exactly as they do.  If this means getting rid of people who are already serving in office, well, so be it.  To the teabaggers it is better to have nothing than it is to appeal to more citizens or to be relevant.

Josef Stalin was also extremely fond of purging and millions of people died because of it.  Funny thing is he started with his own party and as his paranoia grew, so did the circle of people he considered to be disloyal.  Eventually generals and peasants alike were purged and Big Brother was officially born.

But the impetus to "cleanse" the social body rapidly spilled beyond these elite boundaries, and the greatest impact of the Purge was felt in the wider society -- where millions of ordinary Soviet citizens assisted in "unmasking" their compatriots. Frank Smitha describes this mass hysteria well, writing that

A society that is intense in its struggle for change has a flip side to its idealism: intolerance. People saw enemies everywhere, enemies who wanted to destroy the revolution and diminish the results of their hard work and accomplishments, enemies who wanted to restore capitalism for selfish reasons against the collective interests of the nation. If those at the top of the Communist Party and an old revolutionary like Trotsky could join the enemy, what about lesser people? In factories and offices, mass meetings were held in which people were urged to be vigilant against sabotage. It was up to common folks to make the distinction between incompetence and intentional wrecking [i.e., sabotage], and any mishap might be blamed on wrecking. Denunciations became common. Neighbors denounced neighbors. Denunciations were a good way of striking against people one did not like, including one's parents, a way of eliminating people blocking one's promotion, and ... a means of proving one's patriotism. Many realized that some innocent people were being victimized, and the saying went around that "when you chop wood the chips fly." As with Lenin, it was believed that some who were innocent would have to be victimized if all of the guilty were to be apprehended.

History is a pesky thing and while some might say that today's political purges aren't violent, calling for a revolution is one step in that direction.  Eventually an innocent person is going to die due to the intolerance now making its way through the country, but the teabaggers are so far gone that they will consider it a step in the right direction.  Returning this country to a McCarthy like existence with a 1984 mindset and 2009 technology enforcement capabilities.  Does anybody think this will end well?

Better late than never. Now that female Vietnam War veterans are in their sixties, it's time to investigate how the war affected their health.  As with men, a good guess would be, poorly.

Well, that was depressing.  Hopefully this should bring a smile to almost anyone's face.

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Mindboggling Anger

Wow, just wow.  As much as I disliked Bush and am not that fond of his replacement, it would never have occurred to me to call either of them a"lying, mealy mouthed pimp" as commenter #13 did.  A liar (isn't that one of the requirements to be a successful politician?), yes.  But mealy mouthed pimp?  What a racist statement.  Minds like that are closed and padlocked with emotions that logic will never penetrate and with attitudes and thought processes like the above you are fooling yourself if you think they aren't going to get more vocal or violent.  Obama and his mouthpiece Robert Gibbs may believe that people are angry over Lehman Brothers but if you read the signs and listen to what the teabaggers are saying you can see that the anger has become extremely personal and doesn't have a whole lot to do with politics.

Representative Joe Wilson made a mistake and knew he was making a mistake when he accused the president of lying during his speech.  The first thing they teach you in the military is to respect the Commander in Chief and if you can't do that then you should remember to respect the office.  I attended basic training at Ft. Jackson, SC which is part of Mr. Wilson's district so I know that concept is not foreign to him.  Mr. Wilson needs to understand that while he may have apologized to the President's chief of staff, he has not apologized to his fellow Congress critters and he should be a gentleman first and a politician second.  But I won't hold my breath.

I'm sorry that people are so angry over something they can't control. The world is becoming more homogenized and nothing is going to stop it at this point.  Unfortunately too many people didn't pay attention in biology and they definitely didn't pay attention to Gregor Mendel and his theory of genetics.  Probably because they got stuck on Darwin but whatever the reason, the United States will continue to become less melanin impaired as the younger generation starts reproducing.  Thomas Jefferson and Strom Thurmond (another Wilson foot in mouth moment) are good examples of why even with the worst best intentions you can't keep people from mingling with someone they are attracted to.  Even if it goes against everything they were taught or believe in.

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Resistance Is Futile

As advanced as we like to think we are, thee are several forces that still kick our butt and Mother Nature is the greatest of these.  Whether it is an earthquake, tsunami, volcano, tornado or hurricane, nothing is the same afterward.  Lives are lost, property is destroyed and everyone runs around blaming someone other than themselves.  The further from the event, the more likely it will be perceived to be the victim's fault.  And the more likely it is that someone will take advantage of the circumstances.

Katrina had my bells going before she made landfall.  Actually, ever since and probably for the rest of my life.  Four years later and American citizens are still suffering from the effects of both Mother Nature and deliberate criminal negligence on the part of the government.  Make no mistake, the federal government took full advantage of the opportunity to rearrange a city and state to their advantage.

Mother Jones has an article fleshing out some of the background on the situation in New Orleans after Katrina that deliberately escaped the notice of the media.  True to form most people are upset about the racial implications, which are pretty bad and more than likely to be true, whereas I find the police state aspect to be even more frightening.  All the people currently proudly strutting around with their firearms on display would be in for a rude awakening if the same tactics were used in their area as were used against the citizens of New Orleans.

It started immediately after the storm and flood hit, when civilian aid was scarce—but private security forces already had boots on the ground. Some, like Blackwater (which has since redubbed itself Xe), were under federal contract, while a host of others answered to wealthy residents and businessmen who had departed well before Katrina and needed help protecting their property from the suffering masses left behind. According Jeremy Scahill's reporting in The Nation, Blackwater set up an HQ in downtown New Orleans. Armed as they would be in Iraq, with automatic rifles, guns strapped to legs, and pockets overflowing with ammo, Blackwater contractors drove around in SUVs and unmarked cars with no license plates.

"When asked what authority they were operating under,'' Scahill reported, "one guy said, 'We're on contract with the Department of Homeland Security.' Then, pointing to one of his comrades, he said, 'He was even deputized by the governor of the state of Louisiana. We can make arrests and use lethal force if we deem it necessary.' The man then held up the gold Louisiana law enforcement badge he wore around his neck.''

The Blackwater operators described their mission in New Orleans as "securing neighborhoods," as if they were talking about Sadr City. When National Guard troops descended on the city, the Army Times described their role as fighting "the insurgency in the city." Brigadier Gen. Gary Jones, who commanded the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force, told the paper, "This place is going to look like Little Somalia. We're going to go out and take this city back. This will be a combat operation to get this city under control."

Ten days after the storm, the New York Times reported that although the city was calm with no signs of looting (though it acknowledged this had taken place previously), "New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers." The local police superintendent ordered all weapons, including legally registered firearms, confiscated from civilians. But as the Times noted, that order didn't "apply to hundreds of security guards hired by businesses and some wealthy individuals to protect property…[who] openly carry M-16's and other assault rifles."

Isn't it fascinating how some people on the right are so worried about Obama taking their guns at will when Bush had already accomplished it and there wasn't a peep from the NRA before, during or after he did it?

The poor, not necessarily black (Barry Cowsill being one sad example), people had no way to get out of town before the storm.  Not being able to drive, they're the ones who use public transportation the most, they were dependent on those who had cars or the aforementioned public transportation.  Since history seems to show that disaster plans are practiced but rarely implemented, it is no surprise that bus drivers were evacuated with the rest of the middle class and there was no one left to drive the buses that everyone later saw underwater.  After the levees broke the poor's only hope was a coordinated rescue.  And we all know how well that turned out.

Rescue and return was never the point.  Collection and dispersion was the goal, even to the point of separating children from their parents.  Katrina is a shameful chapter in American history and the ramifications will not be going away soon.  Now that the government has had a satisfying taste of martial law and seen how willing the citizens were to turn on each other, any disaster can be turned into a public relations tool to convince the citizenry that everything will return to normal as long as they follow the directions of those wearing uniforms and carrying weapons.  You will be assimilated.

Or you will die. From the elements, be they weather related or lead poisoning.


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Will The Democrats Screw Up?

Wow, how clueless do you have to be?  Of course the Dumocrats are going to screw up.  Unfortunately for the Repubs it won't be as bad as they themselves have done in the last eight years.  William Jacobson. a law professor from Cornell (I thought you had to be smart to attend there much less teach) sets out his reasons why the Specter defection will turn out to have a silver lining for the GOP.

So I'm not depressed about the long-term future of the country, although the next few years will be tough politically. The Democrats will screw up big time, as they did during the Carter years, and the damage they cause will be generational. But the clean-up is worth looking forward to, even if the mess is not.

How...kind of him.  As if the problems created by the last eight years aren't going to be generational.

His first argument is no surprise because I've been saying the same thing for years. The first duty of a politician is to get themselves reelected, preferably to higher office but staying in the Senate is a no brainer if you can't be President.  And just like any other party, if your date gets obnoxiously drunk it is better to go home with someone else.  Especially if you plan on getting there in one piece.

Now, in regard to the torture hearings, if America sits on its ass and does nothing to rectify or show shame about the situation, it will give those who hate us even more ammunition, not less.  As my father pointed out to me in 1967, the people in America have short memories and the people in the Middle East have extremely long ones.  The Turkish-Armenian situation is but one sad example.  Plus, and this is a big one, they are willing to die for their beliefs.  The majority of Americans aren't and our recent behavior more than makes this clear.

To accuse the Democrats of being the isolationist party is one of the most laughable arguments I've heard in years.  I was a Republican because I was an isolationist and a fiscal conservative until they lost their freaking minds.  Republicans ran up the national debt, like they always do, and went nuts on immigration.  If you were born brown and out of town you became the reason that everything went wrong in America.  Sheesh, get a grip.

Last time I checked we were a Republic, not a dynasty.  As history (there's that word again) has shown many times, the balance of power shifts across the globe pretty frequently.  Maybe if we hadn't spent all our resources, wasted our good will and destroyed our military in two useless wars we wouldn't be in the position of having to watch other countries pick up where we left off before we had our mental breakdown.  America is no longer a free society.  Our phones are tapped, there are surveillance cameras in almost every town, the police become more like the military every day and while the Second Amendment is in no danger, the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth definitely are.

The national debt was way out of control before the Democrats were elected to power.  It got that way while the Republicans held sway and decided that the rich needed to be richer at the expense of everyone else.  Young people aren't stupid and since recent studies show that math scores are increasing they will be able to do the arithmetic.  A simple math problem might consist of something like this.  In 2000 there was a surplus and in 2008 there wasn't.  By a wide margin.  Yes, the deficit is going to be bigger for the next couple of years but that wouldn't have happened if the GOP hadn't engaged in a reverse Robin Hood scheme for the last eight years while at the same time increasing the size of government with duplicate agencies that contained their unqualified cronies.

Human rights, that's rich.  And who says it's only three members of al-Qaeda that were tortured?  It's much more widespread than that and everyone knows it.   Pregnant women wouldn't have joined the cause to blow themselves up if they and their baby had something to live for.  They don't.  We have turned their homes, fields and farms into one gigantic war zone in an effort to get revenge on people who are already dead.  Human rights belong to everyone, even if you're brown from out of town.  Other countries, who are much smaller than us geographically, have survived terrorism for years.  We have one instance of terrorism and now the nation wears diapers and cries for mommy.  They aren't destroying us, we are doing it ourselves.

I've been buying foreign cars for years and Detroit has been the reason.  As a woman I require that my car be dependable and affordable.  As an example in 1987 my brother and I got new cars at the same time.  I got a Honda CRX and my brother got a Pontiac Fiero.  He sold his car at the end of six months because it had spent three of those months in the shop and still didn't run right.  I drove the Honda for fourteen years and was grateful every day that I got over 40 mpg.  Detroit's solution was to build bigger and more unstable gas guzzlers.  And now there's no more Pontiac.  The government certainly can't do any worse than the auto execs did.  Unless it's run by people who say their goal is to drown it in a bathtub.

Health care.  Don't make me puke.  I grew up on Air Force bases using military healthcare.  It was nowhere near as bad as going to the doctor today.  Oops, I don't go to the doctor, I can't afford it and I don't qualify for health insurance because I have a preexisting condition called asthma.  The emergency room is my fallback for when it gets out of control and I think I'm going to suffocate.  We won't even go into that dental and vision thing, they don't seem to be on the radar of the entitled so why bring up another problem that those who have everything they need would like to ignore.  Oh yeah, that argument about waiting months for a surgical procedure?  Maybe you should talk to all the people who have health insurance and been denied procedures so the insurance companies can give their executives and shareholders enormous bonuses and dividends.

I'm black, there is racism, get over it.  When you have black communities in states where local governments have built services around them and they didn't have running water like their neighbors did for the last fifty years, that's racism.  When things like education and skills are equal and blacks and Latinos are earning less (provided they got hired) than their melanin impaired compatriots, that's racism.  When you cut essential school programs in poorer districts that are predominately black and politically mrginalized, that's racism.  When prisons are filled to the brim with people of color who have committed petty crimes against themselves while rich melanin impaired executives who destroyed the lives of millions go free, that's racism.  Those are facts and they aren't going away.

The GOP is in trouble for a reason and the reason is this.  They are out of touch with the average American.  Their base consists of angry people who vote on single issues by claiming that the Bible disapproves of certain behaviors they deem immoral while ignoring the rest of the Bible teachings that encourage them to take care of their fellow man and to have compassion and pity for those who are suffering.  The elite of the party are just that.  Elite and as far removed from their base as they can get in their personal lives as they can manage and not get outed.

The party of Lincoln is falling apart and the more they scream about how unfair it is and the more rabid they are to return to a time that only exists in their imaginations, the further from the mainstream they will be.  As so many other Republicans have said before me, I didn't leave the party the party left me.

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Infotainment Instead Of News

Well isn't that just awful, the pundits have lost patience with the President.  As if I care what the pundits think.  I remember when they were relatively good (This Week with David Brinkley, Tony Brown's Journal and the good versions of Meet the Press and Face the Nation) and confined to their place voicing opinion, not making it.  I lost all respect for them during the Clinton affair.  They perpetrated and encouraged a witch hunt against a sitting President whose only results were to expose private marital discord to public ridicule and to ensure that when the bumbling idiot that is George W. Bush took over and ran this country into the ground that they could say that the country was tired and that all talk of impeachment was off the table and we must support the President otherwise we were automatically guilty of treason. One must not criticize the President.  Unless he isn't the President that the wingnuts wanted, then all bets are off.

And people wonder why today's youth are so confused and who could blame them?  On the one hand they were taught that it is okay to try to impeach a President for lying about having sex outside his marriage (like that hasn't been done before!) but it isn't okay to impeach a President for lying about nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, allowing an American city to drown on worldwide television, spying on innocent Americans without any oversight from the court system, considered the Constitution as an old piece of paper, destroyed the military and then cut benefits to veterans, gave the orders that caused the deaths of innocent civilians in two countries, let the Grand High Poobah of the Taliban live free after the most traumatic incident this country had seen in a decade (funny how the FBI could find Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols within days but the military and the CIA can't find a 6'5" man on dialysis in a country where we've been for eight years) and I'm supposed to think that pundits opinions are the word from on high?  Oh my, I'm just quaking in my boots.  And what the heck is wrong with a little patience?  Bush got eight years to screw up this country while the press was complicitly quiet and because Obama hasn't fixed everything that the press has just noticed is broken in the last four months while only being in office for two of them, he doesn't know what he's doing?

Maybe the President is combative because the press asks stupid questions.  Repeatedly.  Substance is no longer the press' forte.  If half as much time was spent on researching what the public needs to know as the news spends on letting us know about the lives, loves and tweets of today's entertainment crowd maybe the President and I could take them seriously. 

Our country is in deep doodoo and avoiding the issues is what the press does best and they are at the top of their game.  Unfortunately these guys are so clueless that it probably hasn't occurred to them that if they reported the news in an objective manner that maybe so many papers wouldn't be going out of business for lack of readership.

As Anna Z pointed out so eloquently, why is it that nothing can be done about the AIG bonuses but the government has rules and regulations in place to deal with the last dime of a Medicaid patient because it is considered government money and must be repaid by any means possible?  The rich can commit crimes and escape punishment on a consistent basis but the poor must be stripped of everything, including their dignity.

Not that the press notices these things, that would be too much like doing their jobs and they would rather be voicing their opinions instead of reporting the news.  Bloviating is their specialty which is why they think everybody else does it too.

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American History

It is frightening to me how many people who have served in government wouldn't be able to pass my high school American Government class.  From the idiocy that is Michele (we're running out of rich people in this country) Bachmann to the sinisterness of Karl Rove, the dumbing down of political discourse continues.   Mr. Rove worries about President Obama's reputation for competence because the White House only suggested $200 billion of the stimulus plan instead of line by line requests.  I guess he missed the part in civics class about it being the House's job to initiate revenue bills.  Something about them being more representative of the people since they have a smaller constituency and are more likely to understand what the people who elected them need.

While the Democrats may have tax problems, as if Republicans haven't done the same things, the Republicans have a sex problem.  They rail about homosexuality being being immoral while indulging in the same activities behind closed doors.  Or stalls.  And that shows more of a lack of judgment than not paying the taxes that Republicans are always trying to cut. And is Mr. Rove really trying to convice people that Bush didn't wing it on a daily basis?  On second thought he might not have if The Pet Goat being upside down is any indication.  Man, that's hard to watch.

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Soup Lines, Bread Lines, Unemployment Lines

What a Corker!  And the right hand said to the left hand "I don't need your help to jerk myself off, I'm going to show you how to be a fiscal conservative again.  We won't even need tissue paper."  Meanwhile, what's left of the American Automobile industry is flushed down the toilet.  And why don't the Republicans in Congress care?  That's way too easy to answer.

Because they have a salary that's way too high for the job they aren't even trying to accomplish; they have health care for when their ulcers (that they might not be reelected or any other physical problems that affect "normal" people and then the taxpayer so nicely pays it for them without ever seeing a bill to make sure they aren't being overcharged!) goes bad; because they really don't realize that it is their constituents who are the ones in major financial trouble (and who gives a flying fig about them since most of the Senators aren't up for election for the next two to four years and they know American memories are short, name the last 10 Presidents in under ten seconds) and they know that after the inauguration they will still be able to go on a junket vacation on the taxpayers few remaining dimes.  Because we all know that the solution to this problem is to cut back everyone's wages and eliminate all pensions except for those in government and the problem will magically solve itself using the free market system.  Of stupidity.  Whatever happened to making government so small it could be drowned in a bathtub?  Or did Katrina show that little plan wasn't going to work?

As I sit here and watch the country I was willing to bleed and die for, I wonder why it took me so long to realize that my country truly is apple shaped and that we are well on our way to a fatal heart attack or stroke.  Then I realized that the people currently in power think all those stories about soup lines (great link with pictures and everything!) and The Grapes of Wrath were just brilliant works of fiction to make the have nots not feel so alone and that it really was never that bad, will never be that bad and it was probably made up in the first place to give the photographers something to do.  Methinks that sometime soon the crew without a clue will finally realize what the Second Amendment was really about...and that it had nothing to do with owning guns just because you wanted to.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It has everything to do with making sure that once again the have mores will understand that the have nots have had about as much not as they can take and still call themselves men and women instead of slaves.  We may not have taxation without representation, but we certainly have had representation without repercussions to the perpetrators of our current mess.

If we all work together, we just might get both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights back into the positions of authority that they held for hundreds of years before this bunch of bozos decided to drive the Escalade over the Grand Canyon to see if it could fly.

Without wings, a pilot or parachute for anyone other than the owners.

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Hubris Usually Precedes A Fall Unless IOKIYAR

So much for  constituents having a say in who represents them.  And you thought the Daley years were bad.  At least the Longs of Louisiana had interesting accents, but Blagojevich wins the award for political stupidity this year and probably the decade.  I never thought anyone would top Bush's "heckuva job, Brownie," but I was wrong." 

It's amazing how fast some politicians end up in jail and how quickly legislators in some states try to remove them from office while politicians who have been convicted on seven counts are still out wandering around, pandering and receiving sympathy.   Of course he's not Don Siegelman  or a black guy with a fake pistol robbing a 7/11 so he's still likely to get off.

Maybe if his stance had been a little less wide somebody might have believed him.  On the other hand, Larry Craig isn't Mark Foley.

While three Illinois Governors have gone to the Big House (just not the one they were elected for) did you know that three out of four (Madeline Albright, Condeleeza Rice and more than likely Hilary Clinton) of the last Secretary's of State have been women?  I guess one could draw their own conclusion on how important the position is any more.)  And so far they have all  managed to stay out of jail even though Colin Powell (the token guy in the group who has manged to avoid most of the mudslinging about his false testimony on those WMDs that were hidden so well that the Road Runner couldn't find them.)  No matter how hard Ken Starr tried to ruin the Clintons, she's still standing.

I have a friend that lives in the area and I haven't heard from her.  I'm worried because as unlucky as I am, she has the unfortunate luck to be in the wrong place most of the time.  I really hope she's all right.

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Seven Score And Five Years Ago

One of the greatest speeches ever written was given after a battle that cost many Americans their lives.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln was wrong on only one point.  The world did note and some of us will always remember what he said.  Our job is to make sure that it wasn't in vain.

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