Fustia

Dear Sarah

You are a beauty pageant queen. You have as much knowledge of the world as the average beauty pageant queen who has depended on looks to get by.

About 25% of the world gets by without knowing how to think. They are proud of that lack of skill. They find “thinking too hard.”

They are likely all fine, decent folks, but don’t expect much, or any, depth of understanding from them.

And they are your “base” in your forthcoming run for the Presidency.

Fortunately, they are a minority, and cannot, by themselves, elect you.

This is hard for you, and them, to understand, but the world is a complex, nuanced (look it up) place, and requires more than simple platitudes. It requires at the very least, leaders who can actually -think- and not just repeat simple sayings, with the same level of understanding and sophistication as the average 14-year old.

I’d like to suggest that you are in WAAAAY over your head, and that just because others who think the world is simple like you do, will support you, is not enough reason, by a long shot, to think that you’re qualified to take the most powerful office in the world.

We had 8 years of leadership that was “simple” and look where that got us. And those people went to Yale, not the Miss Junior Beauty Queen school of hair and makeup.

On the other hand… and come to think of it… please DO run. At least that will assure us of -someone- (else) who actually -can- think for at least 4 more years.

Don’t get me wrong from reading my previous posts… or if you do read them, read all of them.

While Republicans are fearful, terrified, irrational and childish, and have done more damage to this country in the last 10 years than any foreign attack or terrorist could have even dreamed of doing (like trashing our rule of law; eliminating the checks and balances of our government; shredding our Constitutional rights; giving the President the powers of a dictator; spying on our citizens and splitting us in half instead of uniting us) they certainly did it with the full aid and acquiescence of the Democrats.

The House and Senate Democrats are weak, sniveling cowards who are far more interested in their own re-election than supporting this country, and fighting for the Constitution. They protested mightily about everything… and then went ahead and passed on our demise anyway. Absolutely no BALLS! Start with a fight, and end with a whimper.

Those in Congress on both sides of the isle are ONLY concerned (with a handful of exceptions on both sides) with getting re-elected. They are NOT concerned about this country… or certainly not as much as they are with their own political careers.

Where the Republicans “win” is their outrageous, irrational fear-mongering hysteria. All that yelling and screaming, no matter how childish and patronizing, is at least yelling and screaming, as opposed to the whimpering Democrats.

I’m a veteran. Luckily I’m still alive, but a lot of friends and family are not, having given all for the principles this country was founded on.

I am DISGUSTED by the cowards we have in Congress. These people DIED for you! Have enough balls to do the right thing!!!

Shit! Nothing changes. Government now is the same as government throughout history.

Jerks.

Barack Obama: “I am a citizen of the United States and a citizen of the world.”

Ronald Reagan: “I am a citizen of the United States and the world.”

Newt Gingrich: “I am not a citizen of the world.”

(Which is also why you’re not President of the United States, Newt. But thanks for point out the downhill, fearful and isolationist direction of your party.)

——

Republican leader Bohnner: (referring to trying terror suspects from Gitmo in the US. (We already have done this, and they were convicted and put in federal prison in Colorado.) “This is the first step in the Democrats plan to release terrorists on our streets.”

Once again the Republicans are saying that “Democrats want the terrorists to win.”

That is simply INSANE. Not rational. Hysterical. Childish.

Does the Republican party -really- believe that? To they -really- believe we are all so stupid as to buy that transparently childish, school-yard hysterical accusation?

The longer they make up outrageous fantasies, outright lies, and accuse their neighbors of them (just as grade-school children do) the the more and more obvious it becomes that they are not mature enough to govern, and the deeper and deeper they will slide into irrelevancy.

“Think back on the utterances from the Republicans. Can you easily distinguish them from what a 14 year old would say?”

At last, an understanding of the Republican adventure of the past decade has come together for me.

I watched the Rovian politics; listen to Sarah Palin; listened to calls of “He’s a Muslim; he’s not American; kill him” from their crowds. Watched Republicans simply make up things; outright lie to their audiences; saw doctors being murdered … and now I’m watching their party disintegrate, as more and more people flee. Only about 25% remain, and the vast majority of them are on the extreme fringe.

Bohner’s 30 page US Budget; Cheney’s incessant pounding on the fear card… talking heads taking things out of context, and using them to go on irrational rants.

What on earth is going on? And finally it struck me. Carl Rove (and no doubt others in the party) figured this out long before I did, I am ashamed to admit. It’s very simple.

That 25%? They are the 25% of the population that self-admittedly “don’t like to think,” so: they don’t. They are intellectually at about the same level as 14-year olds, with the same level of understanding as your average immature teenager.

Don’t brush me off here - I’m not being allegorical… I’m dead serious. These are the Jay Leno sidewalk interview folks; the ones who cannot find Canada on a map. The ones who find life much easier if someone will just tell them what to do and when to do it.

Think back on the utterances from the Republicans. Can you easily distinguish them from what a 14 year old would say?

For far too long, the rest of us have been embarrassed to say this openly, but the simple reality is 1 out of 4 of us simply do not think.

And they are the delight of advertisers: they buy “faux” pearls because they think that means “French.” They buy a car because there’s an American flag decal on it. They are the infomercial targets. Life is -very- simple for them: they listen to simple explanations, because more nuanced ones are far beyond them. They do and believe as they are told. For them, “fetus” equals “baby” equals “child”, so ipso fact, “abortion” equals “killing children.” The mother never even enters their thoughts to begin with, much less to be considered.

And because they (often with great pride) don’t think “too much” they truly believe that “Democrats want the terrorists to win” without even the ability to realize that means that 3 out of every four people they pass in the street must therefore be traitors, a patently insane and childish conjecture.

These people are mentally children, and all it takes is an authority figure to tell them what to do.

Cheney and Rove know this… and know that the votes of these people count just as much as the votes of people who learned the skill of thinking, and grew beyond a 14 year-old’s thought patterns.

This 25% are the votes that the Republicans can count on. The Limbaugh’s, O’Reilly’s, Cheney’s and Rove’s of this world found a simple, easy, and in fact -lazy- way to “rouse the rabble” and did so to great effect and many votes.

And that easy, childish bullying works… and worked for years prior. But now the problem has come home to roost: the adults have taken over, and the school-yard bullies can’t figure out how to deal with a voter who isn’t 14.

For years, like all children, reality was something you made up in your head. Simple stories. And when reality clashed with those childish stories of our youth, we’d cry or swear that our parents just didn’t understand… and we’d go back to living our fantasy world.

Bush/Cheney/Rove/Palin never outgrew the belief that reality was something you moulded, and “just wishing” was enough to make it so.

The Republican party is devoid of ideas now because serious and real problems need people who can think; people who can recognize reality; people who know that the stories are remnants of childhood.

There are no ideas from them because you have to be mature and thinking in order to be introspective enough to see your real current state, and work with it.

It’s not that there are no mature Republicans, of course. It’s that the leaders have for so long had the luxury of feeding childish stories to their base, that they are now struggling to come to grips with the changed reality: most of the public (thank God) are actually capable of thinking… and are asking for rational things to consider.

The Republican Right’s line has for too long been too easy, and they have fallen into believing as their target 25% do: that their childish stories are descriptive of reality.

That 25% who proudly don’t think, and proudly love to be lead - they will be around forever. No amount of adult talk will ever work with those children, precisely because they are still children. And children don’t listen to adults.

Will the Republican party make a comeback? Only when they start talking like, and to, the adults in their midst, and give up wooing the children.

January 9, 2009

Madam Speaker

Vice President Biden says that he wants to “look to the future” instead of investigating the previous administration for crimes; not only war crimes, but crimes against our own laws and international laws as well.

That is a HORRIBLE idea.

We got way off base in the last 8 years, and the _entire world_ knows it. We were once “the shining light” and now the light is out.

If we ignore that; ignore the last 8 years, then the light remains extinguished.

We owe both our own people and the people of the world, redress. We need a mea-culpa.

We owe -that- to the future, and our children’s future. We need to get back our moral authority, and the -only- way to do that is to honestly confront our mistakes, and correct them. _Show_ the world that we know we did wrong, and will fix it.

Failure to do so literally endorses the past, and signs our obituary.

Yes: it hurts. Yes, we’d rather not do it.

Those are not reasons to avoid our moral, ethical and legal responsibilities. Those are how cowards respond in times of need.

If you want “to look to the future” do it by taking responsibility for the past.

“Look to the future?” No American tourist -anywhere- in the world will be safe if we don’t take responsible action.

There is simply no excuse whatsoever for not dealing with our failures promptly and honestly.

There is a fork in the road of the future of the U.S… and it’s _right now_.

How we respond to transgressions IS our fate.

PLEASE!

Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child

Does Grandma love your child more than you do? “More?” you’d say. “Of course not.”

But Grandma never corrects little junior. Little junior is “perfect” in her eyes. She can recount every cute little memorable moment of his life. So can you, of course, and your love for junior is “perfect” regardless of what he ever does… but do you see him as really, absolutely “perfect” like Grandma does?

Well, at first, maybe, but then you realize you have to prepare junior for life. You have to caution him against running out in the street without looking. If you catch him stealing or lying, he has to be punished.

Why? So that he doesn’t get hurt; doesn’t get into worse trouble later on in life.

It’s often called “tough love” - love that is for his own good.

In fact, while Grandma certainly loves junior, it’s hard to say that “more” applies. After all, junior is your baby, not hers, and if you had to assign “more” love it would likely go to you, not Grandma.

Why? Because you love him enough to stop him from making mistakes.

And even if one could measure love, when Grandma see you punish her “perfect” little junior, you’ll hear “Was that really necessary? Don’t pick on him. Don’t you understand how perfect he is?”

And you know that yes, it was necessary, and that you are not picking on him… you’re trying to make him even better.

You’re not saying that junior is bad. You’re not “blaming” him. You are putting junior’s well-being first, regardless of how it makes them look to Grandma.

Tough love: it’s every parent’s joy and bane.

You do it because you love him enough to want the best for him. To give him strength and wisdom. To help him survive the reality he will soon enough have to face alone.

This is pretty obvious to any parent… so where am I going with all this?

Here:

Tough love is what Democrats do for their country: love it enough to try to help it grow and be strong. Love it at least as much as Grandma’s blind “perfection” - and just enough more to insist on tough love.

So, when Republicans say Democrats are blaming the country; say that they “don’t understand”, they are being like Grandma, and seeing junior as “perfect” and not like mom and dad, who know that the best thing is some tough love. This is a rugged world, and we need our country strong and wise… and just like with junior, we are doing it out of love, and pride and care.

Perhaps Grandma needs to be reminded of that.

Let me see if I got this right:

your every phone call and email is monitored by the government;
you can be whisked away in the dead of night and thrown in prison until hell freezes over, with no notice to anyone, even your family;
you can be tortured;
your home can be seized by local government for any reason they like;
we are at war in two places, and our military cannot respond to anything new;
your retirement funds have been wiped out;
the economy is in the worst mess in our history;
unemployment is soaring;
most American businesses are owned by the Chinese and Arabs;
it costs $75 to fill your gas tank;
you have been lied to for eight years by your government;
your children will be paying higher taxes all their lives to pay off the national debt;
jobs are being shipped overseas;
in natural disasters, you’re on your own;
corporations are making windfall profits, while Americans starve;
returning soldiers are living on the streets and fighting for benefits;
health care is beyond the average American;
millions of people have lost their homes;
food prices are rising…

… and you want to re-elect the Republicans!!!???

You want to elect the man whose “senior economic advisor” is the very guy who got us into this economic mess in the first place?

A man who can’t use the internet?

A man who thinks we can and should stay at war for 100 years?

A man who thinks “the economy is strong.”

A man whose campaign even Karl Rove says “is lying.”

Let me ask you one question:

HOW DAMNED STUPID ARE YOU?

(Do I seem more than a little hot under the collar? Yep, I am. I LOVE this country and what it stands for, and the Republicans are TRASHING it! Voiding the Constitution; taking away our rights; selling it off to foreigners; eliminating the middle class. Our Founding Fathers would be ASHAMED! So yeah: I’m pissed off.)

There are people on the right of the political spectrum whom I admire and respect. I disagree with them, but that’s what makes life interesting. This little rant is aimed at the right-wing nut jobs out there.

Boy! If I had a nickel for every time a letter to the editor appears in the local newspaper beginning: “Don’t those lefty liberals know we’re at war? The Democrats are supporting the terrorists. They want to see the terrorists win. They don’t support our troops.”

This is a person who is responding hysterically, having been terrified by Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and George Bush.

Let’s take a look at those statements.

“Don’t those lefty liberals know we’re at war?” That’s got to be the most ignorant comment ever. There is likely no one in the entire United States over the age of 10 that does not know we’ve got troops on the ground in the Middle East, and that there is a group of terrorists out there trying to kill everyone in the world who doesn’t hold to their religious beliefs.

So: yes - we are just as aware of that as you are.

Such an author always then goes on to suggest that the war is “protecting us from terrorists.”

Aha! So it’s a matter of your own personal safety then. You’re afraid of dying, and for some reason you think members of the opposition party are, what? unafraid of death?

Er… no. I’d like to live out my life, just like you.

So next, it goes “No, no. It’s not me. Our troops are protecting our country… our way of life.”

Finally: you’re beginning to close in on it. So what actually is our way of life? It’s our rights and freedoms. And exactly where is that spelled out for us, our children and the generations to come?

In our Constitution and our laws.

In fact, the oath for federal office, from President on down, doesn’t say anything at all about protecting people or property; it says “… support and defend the Constitution of the United States… so help me God.”

That’s the part those hysterical people don’t seem to realize: while those of us on the left are just as aware of the dangers of the modern world; just as afraid of death… we are actually willing to put our own lives on the line to protect and defend our way of life: the Constitution.

You see, I actually did serve our country in a time of war…unlike George Bush, Dick Chaney, Donald Rumsfled, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reiley.

And, no: it was not my job to protect you… it was my job to protect the Constitution, which defines our way of life.

Which is why it gripes the hell out of me to see those people that have never even served, start breaking our laws and revoking the protections in the Bill of Rights, which they took an oath before God to “support and defend.”

And I’m only one of the literally millions of Americans who have gone into military service since this country was founded to “support and defend the Constitution.” To protect our way of life… only to see in our time, a bunch of dilettantes start crushing it under foot.

Do you think supporting this country is easy? Do you think being a citizen of this nation is easy? Not in the least. It takes courage to defend our way of life, to defend the Constitution precisely because it is hard to do so when we are in fear of physical danger.

THAT is courage: being scared to death and doing the right thing anyway; not cowering behind actions which break our laws; not hiding behind changing our Constitution for a moment’s security… that’s nothing but yielding to the terror.

It makes me sick to my stomach to see our “leaders” using the terror card to scare the American public into destroying our Constitution, and trampling all over the rights so many brave Americans actually died to protect.

You want to see who has done more to damage this country than any bomb-throwing cowardly terrorist could possibly ever do? Go look in the White House; the Supreme Court and the chicken-hawks on both sides of the isle in the Houses of Congress.

“The Democrats are supporting the terrorists.” Oh, my Gawd. Does the writer of these words really believe that over half of the population of the US is against this country?

What kind of world must that be for you to live in? Your neighbor wants to see you dead! Do you stay locked in your closet, armed to the teeth?

That is so outlandishly paranoid as to suggest the writer be committed for observation.

“They don’t support our troops. They want to see us lose.” This gets crazier by the second. Half of those troops over there are Democrats. Are you actually saying that they are traitors?

Those troops are our sons and daughters. Are you seriously suggesting that half the parents in the US want to see their children die?

Look: here’s the real difference between you and me -

I’m willing to die to protect our way of life…

… and you: you’re willing to let me.

Go take a civics lesson. Learn why this country is so important in the history of the world. (Hint: think “Constitution.”) Understand why it’s difficult in times of fear to make the right choices.

“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

Can you not see the great disservice done to the US by a President who intentionally spreads fear? Instead of asking for our help; instead of telling us to be brave, he instead insists that we are all going to die unless his pals in the huge corporations are made immune from breaking the laws we have; unless the Constitution and Bill of Rights are re-written.

Where the hell did his oath to God Almighty “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States…” go?

Those are our leaders?

And finally, just because this is, somehow, beyond you to understand; because you are slightly hysterical from fear, do not wildly accuse those around you, (who understand why we need to protect the Constitution) of cowardice… they are the heroic ones.

Who would you want next to you in the foxhole: Rush? BillO? George? or the real heroes who have already put their lives on the line for you, and to protect unto our own death, your right to say the most incredibly stupid things?

And then there’s this: if you start trying to change our Constitution; start trying to remove the rights granted by it; start saying the law doesn’t apply to friends of the President or powerful corporations… then it is you, sir, who is the actual traitor here… not me… and it will be my sworn duty to protect our country from you!

So, before you write another letter to the editor which only displays your ignorance of what it really means to be an American, go take a look in the mirror… a long, hard look.

Then be thankful that some of us out here actually do understand, even if you don’t.

God bless our troops and our citizens… and even the letter-writers who apparently never learned how their own country actually works. And while you’re accusing me of being a traitor, I’m not accusing you of anything except fear and hysteria, born of ignorance. While you want me locked up, I just want you to get a grip, and learn how our country works.

Because, apparently unlike you, I still believe that we’re all Americans here, and this country, and its Constitution, is worth saving.

ALL OF THEM! Democrats and Republicans alike.

None of them had the balls to protect our country and our Constitution from the fascists in the White House. Their own jobs were more important to them than our country.

Congress FAILED the American people in the most craven way. The media, which was supposed to be our last defense FAILED the American people in the same cowardly way.

The American People… failed the country in the most craven way.

Stand up for your country, you jerks! Defend the Constitution. Since you don’t have the balls to impeach these criminals, then try them for war crimes when they are out of office!

Where are the PATRIOTS?

I’m glad I old, and going to die sooner rather than later. The Great American Promise died with this administration, and it died with the full blessing of Congress and the American People: pure apathy.

Shit: you deserve what you get.

How pathetic.

I cannot find words to describe how low she has sunk.

(Later, after some thought:)

Some of the talking heads said Bill & Hillary were “masterful politicians” and others called them “quintessential politicians.”

“Quintessential” - yes; “masterful” - no.

Over the last few months, I’ve watched her dissolve under the pressure of an all-out need to win.

I’d -love- to finally have a female President - it’s been too damned long that this country has gone without one. (For those that don’t know me, by the way, I’m a (old) guy, despite my first name.)

I’d love a woman as Commander in Chief… but as I noted here months ago: just not -this- woman.

If she were masterful, then perhaps, but she’s not - she’s just a quintessential practitioner.

A master of the art will wait; a practitioner will forge ahead. A master would not have spoken the “under fire in Bosnia” bit; not have referred to her “white working-class voters” nor, in a final act of despair, brought up assassination.

A master politician would have seen to it that those words, designed to instill doubt in the public, were spoken by others… and a true master would have seen to it that the others were in the opposition party.

A master would not have changed the goal posts after every defeat; he’d have seen the writing on the wall, and retired to regroup… and if necessary, simply retired to fight another day.

Hillary has been slowly collapsing under the weight of the campaign; under “old inside the beltway politics” against the new hope; under the vaporization of her dreams… and it has been interesting, painful and, at last, sad to watch.

Her dreams no longer mesh with reality, and clawing and scratching at them will not bring them back. Part of her knows that… and has known it for a few weeks now. But the other part of her slogs on, which unlike the pundits I do not see as a “warrior spirit” but instead as an increasingly pathological need to win at all costs.

Look at her face; her posture. She is no longer “firing on all cylinders.” Perhaps it’s exhaustion, but I think that’s only part of it.

She is holding out for a miracle, even if that miracle is the darkest and most horrible kind.

George Bush has the same kind of split from reality.

We don’t need another President who cannot handle things as they are; who is willing to destroy his party and his country in search of the fulfillment of his own fairy tales.

At least we got to Hillary’s meltdown before she became President.

I’m all for a woman President… but it’s not the shape, nor the color of the body: it’s the person inside. It’s the kind of judgements he or she will make.

Hillary’s judgement is not up to the task.

I can’t vote for a person who tries to win by changing the rules as she goes along; uses sexism, racism and pandering to the national horror of assassination.

8 years of the national tragedy that was George Bush is 8 years too much. We teeter on the brink of disaster. We need a better person in the White House… not “just a woman” and most certainly, as she has proved, not this one.