This is a place keeper…the idea is: why do we have to have everything tainted by politics? Why can’t we just do the right thing?When did political advantage trump doing what is best for this country?
No longer a place keeper…I’m back with a few thoughts about what’s going on in the economy and the country as a whole…can’t we agree that unemployment is a problem? That people losing their homes their lives work, and their healthcare is a problem? That the concentration of wealth in the top 1% is a problem? That the middle class as an endangered species is a problem?
Where are the solutions when we can’t even get the right and left to agree that any of the problems listed above are important? Why do we keep wasting time, money, and American lives in two wars; one that has been won and the other that can’t? And why do we keep supporting the hatred that makes even attempting to solve this country’s problem by compromise political death?
Political advantage is the refuge of scoundrels who don’t care a damn about this country and would rather see it burn to the ground than tell their rabid followers that they are wrong and we do all need to work together and sacrifice together…that’s what made this country great and could again….geez…
Well….as I said in an earlier post, I am trying to lower the outrage quotient and try to be a more reasoned voice…in fact, the name that I proposed for this site was “A Reasonable Voice” but when my son was putting it together for me, he thought the title should be “Overeducated and Unemployed” and when I got a look at the first template, I had to agree. It also made me laugh…
I know this isn’t the topic that I promised but sometimes I have to write what is in my head or I’ll lose it…I promise the one on the political middle tomorrow.
There were a couple of articles in the newspapers over the last couple of days that made a connection in my brain that I haven’t seen anywhere else so here goes….of course, you know about the Supreme Court decision giving corporations the same rights as citizens to give money to political campaigns? Then today, I read that the profitability of corporations is back to where it was before the economic meltdown and they are sitting on “mountains” of cash but no one is investing to create more jobs. This could be a leap, but with the rights that corporations have been given as “citizens”, doesn’t that mean that they have responsibilities, too? And not just to their shareholders, but to the society as a whole? I’ve talked about the flipside of the people screaming and demanding their rights; that it has to be balanced with the responsibilities to this society.
I think it also points out the fallacy of the reliance on the private sector to create jobs where there is no check on their power to do whatever they please….using the Chinese model to wrestle more and more work out of the individual; thinking only of their bottom line and of the obscene bonuses that are granted to their ceo’s while they complain about “government interference”. If they are being interfered with, why are their profits the same as when the Bushies were running the show? Geez….
Well….saw a headline in Car and Driver this morning that triggered a flash in this old brain. The title was ‘when did roads become pork?” And, in my fevered brain, that immediately became “when did everything become pork” in our society? There was a time that I can still remember where we were proud of new roads, schools, and other parts of our shared, communal infrastructure and people understood the value to our society of these kinds of projects. Now it seems that any necessary project to keep us even with the rest of the world is met by the excess tax crowd with loud cries of pork, pork, pork, and the projects are deferred by scared politicians who only think as far ahead as their next election. When did we lose our guts to take on the hard projects? And, when did the idea that we are all in this together go away?
Have we become so simplistic in our capacity for thought that slogans are the new thinking? This country became great by big politicians and big citizens who could see past that next election, that could see past the day that their kids grew up and were no longer in school, that could see that the ideal of America IS that we are all in this together and could put their selfishness aside and see that there are limited resources but didn’t mind paying their fair share of the tax burden when it is necessary for the country to go forward. Progress for the whole of the country cannot be left to the private sector whose very existence is based on the “I’ve got mine” premise….as a country we need to stop wasting time and energy on bitching and start doing again….geez….
Well…this one is another placekeeper since I’m getting ready to go out for lunch…the comments that I’m reading about the new GUIDELINES for salt intake are really showing me how deranged this country is getting. WOW….back later..
I’m back…had a nice lunch and a bike ride….I think it was yesterday that I saw an article that stated the recommendations for salt intake were being revised downward given some of the new studies that have been reported recently. Folks, these are just recommendations to help people stay healthy…just like how many calories a person should eat, whether or not to smoke, etc. but to hear the loonies out there, Obama is now going to have “salt squads” go around and arrest people and close down restaurants that put too much salt in their foods. One extreme idiot who I guess thinks he’s clever, even went so far as to say that he expects to be arrested for bringing his own salt shaker into a restaurant and using it. Really? Can anyone be so stupid?
I guess these cretins really think “ignorance is bliss” and what they don’t know can’t hurt them. I say to them, keep eating spoonfuls of salt every day, and burgers, lots of burgers loaded with bacon, and then sit on your couch and wait for the heart attack to come…it will be the best form of natural selection to let these morons die out young. Geez…
Well…haven’t been paying to much attention today and this story just appeared like a quick thunderstorm…the commanding general in Afghanistan, General McChrystal, in a far-ranging interview with Rolling Stone Magazine has shown his true colors..or I should say has re-affirmed his true colors by again being insubordinate to President Obama. This guy needs to be removed and immediately. President Obama, do not think about this, do not mull it over, do not study it…just do it. This guy is acting like Bush is still president…when they could talk a good game and not accomplish anything and still keep their jobs. And, it appears that he has the same infection that the rest of the Republicans do…that makes them do and say irrational things whenever Obama is involved. Just look at the tea partiers….
I wouldn’t be surprised if McChrystal lands a new job as the Fox News military consultant.
He’s acted like a spoiled child throughout his career when he didn’t get his way…the definition of insubordination…he has to be taught that the military is under civilian control…geez…
Well….haven’t worked up any outrage today but I do have some observations that I have been nurturing for a while….something that has been congealing is the the idea that when you pull up to stoplight, never get in line behind a Buick if you can help it. Invariably, it will be in the left lane and will take off like there is the last egg of an endangered species under the gas pedal; forcing everyone to pass on the right since the people that own Buicks think that speed limits are never to be broken…or even equaled for that matter, and they get special points in heaven if they go 10 to 15 under. Today, I pulled up to a light with the Hobson’s choice of a huge dump truck in the right lane and a Buick in the left but the two-fer was the Buick also had handicapped plates on it…never a good sign and when the light changed, the truck handily outran the Buick even though its top speed was about 25. Geez…
I can’t believe what happened today…when a man goes crazy and kills 12 people in England and the majority of comments come from idiots that want to promote their gun-owning agendas….where are their hearts for the victims and their families? I am so disgusted with people that will use any tragedy to try to make a point that I grieve for the human race in general if that is what we have to look forward to….all I can do is apologize to those families…forgive the Americans…we are not all callous idiots…..
Well…it happened again this morning, another idiot almost ran me down making a right turn while I was crossing the street (yes, with the light). What the hell is with people these days? Doesn’t anyone pay attention to anything but themselves? But it’s not even confined to me trying to cross the street…I was coming home from one of the hockey games last week and this moron in a work truck is going 62 in the left lane of southbound 131 where the limit is 70. To compound that he was marking the car next to him so they had essentially set up a rolling roadblock with 25 to 30 cars stacked up behind him forcing the people who wanted to go faster to pass all the way to the right lane. Keep right except to pass you idiots! I can understand road rage when this crap happens. And, put the phones down and drive…geez.
Well…a day in the second week of May with a windchill? I can’t remember that happening in a long time, maybe ever. So, the logical conclusion that I have to draw is that, by my observation, global warming is a fake. After all, it snowed in New England this winter and they had the largest one-day snowfall on record in DC.
So I say to all those scientists that have spent their lives trying to figure out our climate, tough luck, you wasted your life. The repubs are right again…as they always are. Yea..go troglodytes! Geez…
Well….I’ve been advised by friends to stay away from this topic (thank you G) but how can I when I feel that religion is the cause of much of the strife that occurs in the world today. The latest outrage is Matt Stone and Trey Parker getting death threats for a South Park episode that portrayed Muhammad in a bear suit (and it was actually Santa). You have got to be kidding me…then, Comedy Central censors that episode giving the Islamic terrorists, yep, I called them terrorists, just what they wanted! We let those idiots have their free speech, first amendment rights to threaten people and then CC folds up and won’t express their own. This is not an Islamic republic or monarchy or theocracy and the Islamic world has got to get used to it. I’ve really had enough of any and all religions trying to tell me how to live…and I don’t see any difference between these Islamic idiots and the Christian idiots like Sara Palin…stay the hell out of our lives! Geez….