What Is Wrong With You Folks?

 It’s been some time since I’ve decided to post a political blog, for the simple fact that there are many more qualified people here in the ether that are doing a much better job than I could ever hope to do. However, there are a few things I need to get off my chest, thins that I find a bit worrying. It seems as if the entire so-called progressive universe has turned itself on its ear.

 Let me start off by saying that I consider myself a fairly educated individual, and I do my best to stay informed of “news’ of the day. I am aware that the Affordable Care Act roll out has been lest than stellar, and to some extent, there really is no excuse for the shortcomings this very important program has been experiencing, but please people, the sky is not going to fall tomorrow. For example, Microsoft just rolled out it Windows 8 update after several months of previews and beta testing, well, I just spent two days updating a less than one year old laptop with all the whistles, to Windows 8.1 and guess what, it sucked..!!...Two days to update one laptop, however, what I did not do was to toss the baby out with the bathwater. Shit happens.

  The way forward, it seems to me, is to do the work necessary to bring the Affordable Care Act up to its’ potential and not do the work of the right wing for them.  The right wing noise machines are comparing the rollout to Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina, a laughable comparison if I ever saw one. Lets remember that people died in the streets and in their homes whilst Bush and Brown were whistling in dark.

 When we, as progressives take on the same argument as the noise machines, we are cutting off our noses to spite our faces. Give the ACA time to fully reach the people it’s supposed to reach. Republican governors like Scott and Jindal are doing everything in their power to derail this, but no one seems to notice it.

 Lets fix what needs to be fixed, but lets not do the work of the reactionaries, which seems to be hell bent on taking this country back to some nostalgic era that in reality never existed. The idea that access to proper health is affordable to only the wealthiest

flies in the face of logic; the healthier the populace, the more productive we all become.

 It is beyond callous to think that a family needs to make a choice of tending to a sick child or paying the rent, choosing between medicine or food, between seeking care and being crushed by a hospital bill.

 A healthy population is in the best interests of the country, just ask Sweden, Switzerland, or hell, just ask France.

 and so it goes.

The YouTubefication Of The Morning News

 It is official; I have joined the curmudgeon crowd. I am now an official member of that group of people that run around bemoaning the ‘signs of the sure apocalypse’ that are being made manifest every time I tune into AM News coverage. The first five minutes of pretty much the same across the country, first, the local station begins its’ “if it bleeds it leads” segment informing the viewers what latest inhumane act we as people have committed against each other; then it’s on to the weather where we are assured that the sun did  actually rise and barring any unforeseen accidents, will more than likely set a bit later in the day, then it’s on to traffic, and depending on where you live, only one of two things will happen, you’ll either sail through and make to work on time or you’ll sit in some log-jam and be an hour late in getting where ever you needed to be.

 Then it’s on to the network or cable AM news shows, where it also follows the local formula, if it bleeds it leads, more weather, more traffic, and then, Hilarity ensues. It seems that while I have purposely been avoiding the morning news shows like the plague, they have been racing to the bottom at breakneck speed. For instance, today I was made aware that if you are a woman who wears high heels to the office Christmas party and drinks a bit too much, you should be careful not to run in said shoes, followed by several clips of women running after busses, trains and\or planes, all the while falling rather undignified on their faces. We don’t really know whether or not these women were in fact, under the influence, but I suppose the segment producer made his or her judgments based on purely scientific criteria. Then it was on to Beyoncé, apparently, a soft drink company has chosen her to be their ‘ambassador’ by paying her 50 million smackaroos to adorn their billboards, cans, and wherever else they may find it fitting. I won’t name said soft drink company not just because I don’t use their product, they also will not pay me to hawk their wares.

 This is all going on the background while I am reading some very sobering news about the origin of the Honey Boo-Boo phenomenon when I realize I have missed the boat; not only about Honey Boo-Boo, apparently some very “serious and important” people follow her every move, but also about the very “serious and important” people themselves; I hardly recognized a name.

 That is when I realized that I have joined the “Hey…!!!...Get off my yard…!! Club, complete with ellipses and too many exclamation points…!!! I seem to have lost my point of reference in todays’ society. 

 When we should be spending more time getting to the bottom of malnutrition and the lack of opportunity for our youth, we are glorifying excesses; when we should be lifting and engaging our society to reach for the heavens, we seem to be content in appealing to the lowest common denominators.

 And the idiocy does not stop there; what used to be a two hour morning show has morphed into a morning long drudge of cooking, gossip, make-over, more gossip, topped at last by the late morning news, followed by the noon  o’clock news…Whew…!!!

 This is the part where I long for only three channels, that used to actually turn off at midnight or two in the morning, until the powers that be decided that we needed to know everything all the time no matter how mindless and mediocre it might be. There are no journalists, only script readers; there is no in-depth reporting because there is no “bang”, no hook, and no gotcha.

 When we should have been hearing about the lies and machinations that led us into at least one unnecessary and one extended war, our attention is steered towards the American Idolization of entertainment. We did not see coffins for the first seven or so years, and to some extent the American public was fine with that. No one wants to be reminded that there are real people dying in many parts of the world.

 In many cases we have been led down the road of hero worshiping that has in effect cheapened the meaning of the word. Those survivors of the many crimes against humanity in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries see themselves as people who lived and made their lives mean something other than just breathing in and out.

 Those who survived the various Trails of Tears, and there have been many, live to tell their stories so that we may learn from them. The quiet veterans of the many wars don’t puff out their chests and demand recognition; many realize that they are here because one or many of their comrades stepped forward and allowed them another day on this earth, another day to feel the warmth of the sun, and share in the birth of another.

When everyone is a hero, then, no one is.

 I believe that by allowing ourselves to be distracted by the shiny baubles presented everyday by our entertainment media and their so-called news branches, we do ourselves a great disservicer, and we learn little and opine much.

The fact that we are still waiting for the next Cronkite or Murrow, is pretty sad actually, because the ones that are coming up are learning from the Maury Povichs, the Jerry Springers, the Piers Morgans; and that is a damn shame.

Happy Holidays, Merry Kwanzaa, Joyful Hannukah, Cheerful Christmas...and Get The Hell Off My Yard...!!!

Paul Ryan (R-PoopyHead2) and The Urban Vote

 Well, waddaya know, it seems like Paul Ryan (R-PoopyHead 2) has finally figured out why the much vaunted, highly qualified pair of goofballs did not win the Presidential Elections in 2012. It's all the fault of them city-folk.

 A new theory surfaces everyday as to the reason why the Republican Party screwed the pooch during the last election cycle, and it looks like all the very real shortcomings are not apparent to rMoney (R-PoopyHead) and Ryan (R-Poopyhead2). To them it is as if some grand conspiracy from on high descended upon their heads and snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. Then again, perhaps Divine Intervention did play a hand, seeing as how often and loudly the religious right prayed and cajoled God to lend a hand, but I digress.

 According to Paul Ryan (R-DeerHunter Poopyhead 2), the election was coming along just fine until those pesky election workers started counting the votes of people who live in, wait for it, the dreaded Urban Areas. Those people who live and work in the Urban Areas and their neighbors whose vote, according to the argument by Ryan (R-Poopyhead2), beat them fair and square despite the many attempts by the Republican Governors and Republican Legislators (R-Poopyheads as infinitum) to limit their voting rights and throw every conceivable stumbling block, legal or quasi-legal in their path.

 Since Ryan is now considered to be a leading candidate for the 2016 Presidential Election, I suppose the people at Poopyhead Headquarters, aka, Faux News, his views and analysis is going to carry quite a bit of weight in the echo chamber of wishful thinking.

 People in the city and their surroundings, or what has often been called, the reality based community did turn out in numbers that put Obama\Biden over the top, but it was not because they lived in cities, but because they heard and listened to the campaigns and were able to distinguish between reality and hogwash. This oversimplification of why they lost, is one of the reasons why they lost.

 Their assumptions were based on fantasy and wishful thinking, as Senator Lindsey Graham so famously put it, "...not enough angry white guys..." The lack of diversity is not the only reason why they lost this last election, it was the message and the vitriol. As I've stated in a previous diary; when you attack the friends and lovers, sons and daughters of the people whose vote you are trying to obtain, the out come is foretold.

 When one looks at the Federal contributions made by the so-called Blue States, and the cities, their ROI (return on investment) nothing when compare to the likes of Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, etc., one begins to wonder why the Urban areas voted the way they did. If one would believe that the economy was the one and only constant, then it would stand to reason that the Urban areas would have voted for rMoney\Ryan R-Poopyheadsx2). This constant desire to justify results to square with there world view misses on the fact that even in some mostly, ahem, white suburbs, the Republican Party did not do as well as they thought they would.  Iowa, New Hampshire, two states a\that are at the forefront of not being urban, went the way Of Obama.

 So what to make of all this crapola coming out of the losing party; I hope they continue missing the point, I hope they never come to the realization, that it's not the messenger, it's the message. I believe the electorate, with some glaring exceptions are becoming better informed, that they are able to take a global view that demonstrates that austerity programs in Europe, even the Germans are taking to the streets, are not necessarily the answer to what ails us.

  I believe that people are beginning to vote their own self interest as opposed to the interests of the mega rich, and if the behavior of the CEO's, who are making real their threats of firing workers and cutting back hours, the urban vote will be the least of the worries that Republican Party will have to deal with.

 So. Paul Ryan (R-PoopyHead2), I hope you keep missing the point, you may make the next election the one where the party goes by way of the Whigs, as a footnote in history.

 Eso es Así...!!

Psst...Don't Mean To Throw Cold Water Balloons At The Party, But...

 I don't wish to rain on anyone's parade, especially now since we have so much to cheer about, bur let's look a couple of assumptions that seem to have become gospel throughout the web-o-sphere. Disclaimer: I am a Latino man of color. There are many reasons why Romney screwed the pooch, not the least of which was surrounding himself with a bunch of lying liars, people who have such a cynical view of the American electorate that they truly believe that any claptrap emanating from their candidate is going to be bought whole cloth by the public.

 For a number of people who receive the major part of their information from them Fox News and their counterparts on the AM radio dial, this holds true, since it has been shown that those folks are the lowest information voters perhaps on the planet.

 On the left, their is much celebration at the near record turnout of Latino, African-American, Asian and women that showed up at the polls and took advantage of early and absentee voting. The ability to vote early  and far from one's precinct, no doubt added to the cushion that President Obama and his campaign needed to win this thing.

 Big money made its' presence known throughout the election season, and we should be thankful that we dodged a bullet in the presidential and senate races, but its presence was felt in many of the state and local races.While we can be proud that the first openly gay woman was elected to the U.S. Senate, and New Hampshire has the only Democratic Governor who is a women.

 We can hoot and holler about the turnout of the non-traditional voter, or paraphrasing O'Reilly on his show, the non-white, non old white guy vote, but we must not be lulled by this fact. The right-wing shriek machine is already spinning their ass-kicking; Rove is quoted on Fox, that Obama won because he somehow suppressed by pointing out the flaws in his candidate. All that set aside, I believe that the singular reason that the President won this time around is the same reason he won the first time, and that reason is the message.

 The people are changing, their brothers, sisters, and their friends are gay, so they view homophobia as directly attacking the people they love and care for. Their friends are Dreamers, with whom they have shared their classrooms, an attack on them is an attack on their friends. Some of their very good friends are non-white, and they see attacks on them as attacks on their friends and lovers. And finally, they too may have had to collect unemployment, been on food stamps, are upside down on their mortgages, and are working two, sometimes three jobs to put food on the table.

 They also realized that with a Republican Administration, the health care maze would be that much harder to navigate. So, yes, the turnout by the so-called non-traditional voter may have been outstanding, it was the message that made that turnout possible. It behooves the Democratic Party to realize that not only must they continue to register new voters and get voters out to vote, it is too important a point to miss...it is the Message, that affected the the election this time around. Now we must turn that message into a reality, not only on the Federal level, but at the state and local levels where big money has the largest influence

 There are thirty Republican Governors going into 2013, the largest number ever, they are in a position to apply brakes to any progressive gains made in this election, that is the next front.

 So let's get ready for the next round...!




 

Romney and The Supremes

 It's time to begin considering the ramifications of a Romney (R-Money) administration; the results of which will continue to stink up the joint long after many in my generation have shifted this mortal coil. The obvious dangers to the republic are manifest, they include many the many steps backwards that an emboldened Republican Party may initiate, steps that are apparent in the many states with Republican majorities and with Republican governors.

 One need only to look at what is happening in Arizona, Florida, etc to see that efforts to rollback safety net provisions are moving forward at breakneck speed. The attacks on labor unions are legion; Republican legislators in Florida have written eleven out of eleven amendments to the Florida constitution, all with an eye out for special interests, they are complicit, along with in state and out of state money in trying to replace three of the Florida Supreme Court justices who are nor sufficiently right wing for their taste, they are attempting to do in Florida what they were successful to do in Iowa.

Historically, the basic differences between Democratic and Republican administrations were mostly superficial and cosmetic; the interests of the country seemed to override any petty political differences, at least at  the federal level. I believe that the post-WWII mindset had much to do with that, most, if not all, politicians at the federal level were veterans of the war and experienced first hand the horror of nations bent on destroying their best and brightest people; and still reeling from the horrific memories of what man is capable of doing to their fellow human beings.

 Now, lest anyone think my view of the past is hindered by pink gauze covered glasses, it is not; I am fully aware of the idiocy perpetrated by some during period, it had not taken on the legitimacy that we see in the Republican Party of today. Let's not forget that Brown v Board of Ed occurred under a Republican President and that efforts at integrating schools in the South were also carried out out by the Republican President at the time, Dwight Eisenhower. it is also useful to understand that the loony bin contingent of the party was pretty much kept at bay by the more sane party elders. As a matter of fact, that entire loony segment of the party was defeated in the elections of 1960, although some would say not by much.

 That brings us forward to today, and while there are good people on both sides of the aisle,  I will not ascribe the rubric of false equivalences to both sides. It is the Republican Party who is leading the country in a head long race to the bottom. it is this congress that has wasted so much time and money on thirty-three separate attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a congress better known for its absence than its presence. It is the party whose leaders have dedicated itself to blocking and otherwise hindering any efforts at repairing the economy by not approving a jobs bill and getting on with the work of repairing the infrastructure pit in place by past Democratic and Republican administrations. It is this Republican Party at the federal, state, and local level who are dismantling an education system that has served the nation well for many years. This party seems to forget the greatest among us were educated in this system.

 This is the party that refuses to acknowledge that science and critical thinking have a very important place in the national dialogue. This is the party that wants to ascribe personhood to zygote while ignoring the needs of those past the incubation period. This is a party that views, in the words of it candidate, people who believe they are entitled to food, safety, and a general sense of well being as a drain on society. This is the party of freeloaders, willing to give the most to the richest and scraps to the rest.

 I realize I may have taken a bit of a circuitous route to get to the scariest of all ramifications in a Romney (rMoney) administrations, the Supreme Court. It is without saying, at least in my opinion, the most important of three branches of government. While it has often stepped on its' proverbial dick, it has also led this nation out of the darkness of its past. It may move at a glaciers pace, it has, historically done the right thing, ruling as it has on some of the most contentious issues facing this nation, sometimes creating even more controversy.

 Four of the nine Justices on the Supreme Court are in their mid-seventies, and while I'm not praying for their early demise, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that at some point some will die or retire. It will then allow the sitting president ability to name their replacements, and if past is prologue, you can me certain that some Scalia clone or two just may make the cut, especially true with a Republican president and a Republican Congress.

 It is a scary proposition, and one my progressive friends don't talk about much, it is likely that a Romney (rMoney) may only last four years, but a Supreme Court appointed by him will last many years. He has already stated his admiration for Scalia and a Scalia clone appointment to the Court is within the realm of possibilities. This does not necessarily mean that Obama won't make some boneheaded decision to appoint someone in order to achieve some idiotic concept of  'bipartisanship', but it is up to us to make him understand that that ship has sailed.


I leave you with Matthew 25: 40

Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me...

Lordy Lordy, The Sky Is Falling...!!

 I figure it's time for me to weigh in on the televised debate between the President and a candidate; one would think that the republic is lost because the President did not use his arsenal of snark snide remarks.

I have been wondering what debate everyone else was watching, but from where I sat it seemed to me that the President did well, maybe not as well as Romney who showed a complete lack of respect for the President as he spoke over his comments as well as speaking over the moderator. My solution, cut off the mike after the allotted time and move on to the next area of discussion.

We watch the debate on CSPAN in order to avoid being told what we just heard by the network and cable talking heads, I then read about the debate from different outlets, primarily those dealing with the veracity of claims made during the debate. I make it a point to stay out of the echo chamber of those who are busy clutching their pearls and swooning over the alleged outcome.

While Romney was busy preparing for this debate, and quite the point was made about his preparation by his campaign and his surrogates, the President was busy being President; doing the job we hired him to do, and for the most part doing it well.

Now, before anyone should accuse me of being mesmerized by the halo around the President, I'll let you know that I have some serious reservation about his first term in office. I believe that he gave up the fight for a one payer system entirely too early, he honestly believed that the Republican Party would rally around solutions that they themselves, at one point or another, supported. I firmly believe that we should be out Iraq and Afghanistan by now. I think that more should be done in identifying where our food comes from and whether is has been genetically modified. I believe he should have already lifted the embargo against Cuba and promoted an exchange of ideas and goals between our two countries. I would love to see Los Van Van playing at the White House.

The Republican Party committed to a course of obstruction the day after Barack Obama was inaugurated; Senate Minority Leader McConnell has made that position known since Day One; a workable solution that had Republican support in the Senate quickly died when Barack became President. Obstruction is the game the opposition has hitched its' wagon to. Just look at their reaction to the, in my opinion, less than stellar jobs numbers. It should better, and it can be better.

Billionaires and some millionaires are crying the blues because they are being asked to pay their fair share of taxes,  while Romney hides his money in the Cayman Islands. There is even talk among the so-called progressive movement to sit out this election because we have in Obama, an imperfect candidate.

At least two of the leading so-called progressive sites are already measuring the coffin for the demise of this Democratic Administration. TPM And HuffingtonPost use poll analyses that include Rasmussen and Gallup without a breakdown of their methodology, they both skew republican, but you wouldn't know it unless one has been tracking their pie in the sky numbers; remove those polls and one sees a much clearer picture of where the race stands today.

Don't get me wrong, this race is close, and people know it. That is why every effort should be made to get out the vote. This election will set the tone for the next twenty years. Scalia, Kennedy, and Ginsburg are up in years and this next President will be able to reshape the Court to reflect the 21st century and not be mired in the "Original Intent" of the writers of the constitution. Let us not forget that slavery and third class status for women were enshrined in "Original Intent". We fought hard and shed blood in order to gain the rights that should have already been recognized by the "Original Intenders".

Look across the field at Gettysburg, look back at Harlan County, the riots in New York in the nineteenth century during the War To Preserve the Union; look to Selma and Birmingham, and then imagine a country locked into "Original Intent".

Unable to meet the challenges of the 21st century, this country has been racing to the bottom for some time now, a country known for its' ability to shoot for the stars is now known for settling for mediocrity. Instead of teaching youngsters about science and the cosmos, we are debating whether the Earth is six or seven thousand years old. Instead of electing the best and the brightest, we settle for the panderer who says what we want to hear as opposed to finding solutions for the future.

There is talk about how the Chinese are overtaking us, I have news for you, it's not only the Chinese; other countries are pushing science and technology while we debate creationism. Many other countries don't have the strangle-hold that religious fundamentalists are attempting to foist on us, and those that do are the least developed ones where women can't drive, can't vote and have no voice in their growth as human beings.

Stop listening to the doomsayers and the faint of heart, there is a movement for the common good and we should be celebrating it. Call out the bullshit whenever you can; piss off the pessimists, point out the lies told by Romney and his crew, but most of all....VOTE!!!


Here is my message to all those who are busy fanning themselves and reaching for the smelling salts; Grow a Fucking Set Of Balls...! 




















 

The So-Called progressive Media

I am beginning to notice a troubling trend in so-called progressive media sites; particularly in the coverage of both the Republican and Democratic run-ups to their conventions. Some of the coverage seems to be parroting the same lines one comes to expect from the Main Line Media such as the Washington Post, New York Times, etc.

Much of their reporting seems to border on the sycophantic and fawning styles of the aforementioned major news outlets. Misleading headlines that seem to have been culled from the tabloids, poll numbers without any explanations of methodology, stories that on their face seem to contradict  reality, all leading to conclusions that if, in fact, Obama can walk on water it is because of his inability to swim.

Now, don't get me wrong, I can list a number of ways the President has fallen short in his first term, I strongly believe that the approach to health care was wrong-headed, he should have started with single-payer and negotiated from there instead of trying to reach across an aisle that stated their position at the time to be one of recalcitrance and obstruction.  I believe he relied entirely too much on the very folks who precipitated the 2008 great recession and their piecemeal approach to Wall Street reform. I agree with Ron Suskind's and Paul Krugman;s position that a more radical approach to stimulate the economy was sadly left off the table, but at the same time I also understand that it took a long time to get where we were in 2008 and it was not going to get fixed overnight. 

 I recall an article by Sam Stein at The Huffington Post bemoaning the "fact" that while Obama "promised" a new approach to politics, he is nonetheless doing much of the same.

That one man can, with a wave of a wand, erase the mire the country found itself after eight years of free tax cuts and wars paid for on the American Credit Card is ridiculous on its' face, but if one follows some of the progressive news outlets (their words, not mine) one would think we voted for a magician, not a President.

When sites like HP and TPM, run poll numbers without the requisite disclaimers they do more harm than even the Main Line News can do, because they do present themselves as talking truth to power, when in fact they foster more of the same.

The headline throughout progressive and main line media should read "Republicans promise to continue to obstruct if the President is re-elected", instead we see a misleading headline about how "Nafta increased the flow of drugs into the U.S." with a picture of Obama underneath the lede. Having read the article I came away with this conclusion; it was the Democrats, pure and simple, their fault Suzie and Johnny are hooked on Meth.

There must be some sort of endorphin rush that comes with hobnobbing with the so-called power elite, the White House Correspondence Dinner is testament to that, the Fourth Estate in a free society must be held to a higher standard. 

I.F Stone must be spinning in his grave at the antics of some of these so-called muckrakers...

'nuff said...