Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense because at the time Revolution was the most "sensable" and prudent thing to do. Clearly you and I have been in intollerant situations that can't continue the way they are forever. Often we would mortgage our soul for any Exit or Opportunity, an Option we could exercise- - to just "End it" whatever it is- right now and try something New in a completely different direction. John Dean wrote "Broken Government" an awful lot of years ago. And today you just don't see the political books you saw ten years ago. People have stopped thinking and people have stopped reading. Apparently, except for me, they have also stopped writing. Now you have a Supreme Court Justice that doesn't even attempt to hide that he's an espoused Racist, and presumably always has been. You have a whole Political Campaign last fall made up entirely of lies and imuendos and polarizing rhetoric. You know what a bad opening line in an argument is "Now - - Don't get Mad - - but - - ". I don't like being Ordered to do anything- - and if the issue merits my getting mad about something, then I will. I think the whole bit has played itself out as portraying the very rich as the "victims" of President Obama's policies. People have but to look at the latest stock market averages to see that indeed, much as the President said, "The private sector is doing just fine". But unfortunately the democratic left can't do what the "tea party right" did five years ago. We cannot have our own "Revolutionary grass roots movement". What has become obvious that we need some Radical as in root change- - in the entire structure of government. Because the old system is no longer functioning. Not when congressmen get paid for taking week after week of paid vacation. Instead of going off to raise more funds to they can get re-elected, a BETTER way of proving to us voters that they are deserving of getting another term is to Do Their Job right Now. But the thing is Words won't work any more. We need to apply some kind of Pressure on them that causes them Pain- - we need some sort of "Big Stick" to back up our words, and we don't have that. Malcolm X knew that "words" would get you only so far. What you need is for the Other Side to be brought to a "teachable moment" if you will. Like Nick Fallon on Days of our Lives- - we need to back up our words. Don't be content with the other person saying ":OK, I'll think about it". You need to take Steps to Insure that they Indeed - "Think About It". It's a strange thing indeed to know that there were more actively liberal writers and advocates for various causes eighty years ago than there are today. The sort of Politics people like Judy and Rush Limbaugh advocate is at least ninety years out of date, and I'm being kind. I think we as liberals need to come up with some kind of means of "Pointing facts like this out". As Captain Queeg once said by say of summation "These are things we are going to begin Noticing again".
You know there are
times when a person can be pushed only so far and no more. I think the President has found himself in
such a situation with John Boehner. In
his mind he has made every concession to him that he knows how. John Boehner is nurturing thoughts that
perhaps these budget cuts will slow down the economy so much that next year the
Republicans can once again try to label the President’s economic policies a
failure just like they did in 2010. In
point of fact the deficit is coming down now, and large segments of the economy
are rebounding- - led by housing. There
are only a fraction of the homes on the market now as their was a year
ago. The stock market doesn’t mind the
sequester one bit but it anything rather likes it. There is all sorts of money big business is
sitting on- if they want to invest it in people and in jobs. But still they won’t. This whole business of the tea party of
portraying the ultra rich as somehow “victims” of Obama’s policies is wearing
very thin about now. On the soap opera-
- - Jennifer has really “had enough” of Clowie’s machinations. There comes a point where any sane person has
to walk away from a relationship, even one they are fond of. When Daniel Jonas won’t lift to finger to stop
Clowie’s attacks, which have now extended to Jennifer’s daughter and recently
deceast husband- - and it almost seems as though Daniel is bothered less by
what Clowie did, then the fact that Jennifer is complaining about it. In Daniel’s mind- - if Clowie were just left
free to attack and taunt Jennifer any time she wants and Jennifer never
complained to Daniel about it- - this would be an idea world for Daniel and he
could have the best of both worlds.
Daniel shows no inclination to want to pull away from Clowie at all but
increasingly seems to be helpless to get out of her emotional web. We then have the whole Nick Fallon saga and
Will Horton at long last signed his name on the dotted line. There is one thing Samantha is getting wrong. She seems to think that this signature
“comitts” Nick to keep the Horton family out of the baby’s life. The document doesn’t commit Nick to
anything. But what Nick wants and needs
is the option of blocking the Horton family out should it become necessary so
that the baby is not raised in some sort of dysfunctional gay circus
atmosphere. That little “deal” Samantha
offered to Nick is no deal at all, and were I Nick I wouldn’t have given her
audience alone. This in itself was an
act of “forbearance” I would not have granted Samantha. First she vows - - as she so often does- -
never to do this or that- - a vow she’s broken a dozen times before. And somehow this time Nick is supposed to
take her seriously? Then when her
“offer” is turned down- - she turns and lashes out of him calling him an unfit
father who should have the child taken away from him (just as she attacked
Gabriel last week) and all Nick has confirmed that “if this is the way she
really feels about me then of course she’s not going to let me and Gabriel
raise the child in peace”.
Nicole Sandler was in
for Randy Rhodes. It seems as if Randy
is gone so often these days. It seems
that this Latino democratic senator- - who was accused of being involved with
two prostitutes on the Carabean islands- - was indeed a completely faboricated
story by the two women. They were reading
from a script and getting paid by some shadowy attorney to do so. The Republicans will stoop to any level to
fight dirty and try and get someone out of office. They have absolutely no moral compass and no
respect for either the institution of Congress- or of traditional American
decency. One caller was mentioning how
World War I began with the assassination of the Austrian arch duke Ferdinand- -
who was not that popular to begin with.
The caller kept repeating the term of “bad contracts and bad investments”. World War I cause an awful lot of trauma and
death to be a matter that more civilized people might have cleared up with a
few phone calls and perhaps minor reperations..
We as a society and the Republicans as a party are addicted to
everlasting war. I don’t see how this
mindset can continue to go on and on unchecked without it causing major
problems for us down the line, as it did with Germany. People hold Ronald Reagan to be this one heroic icon President of the tea party. Yet we did not have any wars while Ronald Reagan was President, but we did have lots of amnesty for illegal alians, tax raises on the middle class, and lots of record budget deficets. Pat Buchannon a few weeks ago corrected one "myth" if you will, that Reagan and Thomas O Neil would have a drink after hours and resolve all their legeslative differences. The truth is that there were still a lot of southern Democrats in the party back then- - who tended to vote with the other side. The process of idiological separation of the political parties was not yet complete thirty years ago.
I watched the John Boehner interview by David
Gregory on “Meet the Press” and I am rather kinder to him than the Stephanie
Miller crowd was this morning. Gregory
pushed the issue about as hard as he could within the limits of normal
civility. All Boehner could say is that
“We already gave the President his revenue hike”. He also said that loopholes could be closed
but ONLY within that dreaded “revenue neutral” stance, where corporate taxes
are lowered still further in exchange for a few glairing loopholes being
closed. After this it was the usual
roundtable. After two I watched the
morning show of “Face the Nation” on CBS with Bob Sheefer in its entirety
except maybe for the last minute or
two. John Mc Cain and Lindsey Graham
were more reasonable than the Boehner- - as far as sitting down and actually
having a civil conversation. Lindsey
seems sincere in his desire to get his lingering questions answered about
Bengazi- before the new CIA chief is officially confirmed. This to me seems like a reasonable
request. John Mc Cain apparently rejects
the argument that there is so much as one ounce of extra fat in the Defense budget. Breakfast with the Beatles
gave Lennon and Mc Cartney compositions equal time this week. “You’ll be Mine” from early 1960 is the
oldest known original recording of a Lennon Mc Cartney song- - and they had to
play both Decca tracks on Anthology that are Lennon Mc Cartney- - before they
got an answer. Saturday it was a bit cooler and moister- and
Sunday morning we got light rain in the morning but in general- - it wasn’t
exactly the blast of cold they predicted.
What struck me about these scams on old people where they tell you "You need to pay a thousand dollar processing fee in order to get your million and a half". The logical response would be, "Oh that's OK, just take it out of my winnings". In fact I'll go you one better. You can quintupple my processing fee- - just put something in writing that I've won and we'll have it notorized and I'll sign my John Hancock. You know the Rev Harry Green's words are true. "now is all you have". Even that religious sheister C S Lewis wrote that "Now is the most Real of the three tenses- - and the Future is the LEAST real". You know - - people say that somehow you suffer, and suffer often at the hands of your Christian overlords, but they will tell you "You are just adding jewels to your heavenly crown". My response to this excessive talk of trials and tribulations is "Just take it out of my winnings. If I have half tghe Christian inheritence coming to me that you claim I have, I need the blessing now a whole lot more than I'll need it later". This is an old and time worn phrase - but any time a person with more 'trading experiance than you" wants you to make any kind of exchange- especially if he's pushy about it- - what you give UP is worth more to him than anything you'll ever get from HIM. There are times when you'd be willing to pay up, just to insure that you don't walk away from the dining room table still hungry. We had beef Strogenoff for
dinner with green beans with “apple” bread pudding for desert. Seconds at long last began on our side and I
got seconds on the main dish from Laura.
It was the usual ABC network news and “On the Red Carpet”, which is
informative and “seems to be required knowledge now”. Then it was the hour of America’s Funniest
Home videos. Snow White’s name was
“Snow” and this scene was about the only one I could watch in “Once Upon a
Time”. Show as a little girl was arrayed
in a nice dress being prepared for a birthday party where she was scheduled to
receive her birthright crown. But then
one of the servents was caught trying the crown on without anybody’s
permission. Rather than rebuke the hired
help, the Mother instead rebuked Snow for speaking harshly to the servant her
rebuking her. Then the mother said “The
crown is not yours Yet”, which almost sounds like a not so veiled threat. And then she goes into this lecture about the
common people and euqlity and all. If I
were Snow I’d be tempted to quip “Oh, does that mean I don’t have to listen to
You?” to which the mother would most likely respond, “Hell no I didn’t mean
that”. So you have this mother going all
“Joan Crawford” on her daughter doing this lecture “The birthday party is NOT
to honor You but rather for YOU to honor the common people”. Then there’s the other lady suspected of
being a Communist - - Josephine Baker.
Then we have the sage saying of the day coming from The Simpsons. It does “If everybody wants you Dead- - you
know it’s the very thing that will guarantee that you remain alive”. I happened to think of the Rev Chuck
Smith. You know at this point Chuck’s
remaining alive is counter-productive for the Jesus Movement. How much better it could be if he would just
Die and then they could do a wing of Calvary Chapel in his honor and set about
the business of myth making making him seem bigger than life. Also for every day Chuck Smith remains alive
a little more of the “nice guy opening his church to hippies’ myth gets eaten
away, not that it hasn’t been already.
Because had Chuck died five years ago Chuck would have been spared the
moment of siting with the tea party and the most extreme of the Obama birther
crowd saying he’s a communist born in Kenya and all of that. And it’s one more day Chuck has to live with
the knowledge that it’s another day he’s wrong about his prediction of the
Rapture. The episode itself was pretty
good I guess with Granda and Bart Simpson engaged in some kind of a “bad guy”
tag team wrestling match tournament sponsored by Mr Burnes. Then it was “The Cleveland Show” and the
worst thing about this show is the the opening theme really sucks. Then at nine it was a rerun of that Neilson
ratings episode I’d missed the first part of before, where the Dad steals all
of thest Neilson boxes and sabotages the entire entertainment industry, along
the same vein that Boehner and the tea party have hijacked the whole apperatus
of government and getting anything done.
Sometimes I think God himself has been corrupted in the brain by
software gone bad or “someone having stolen his powers” like that lady Ardra
character in that Star Trek episode.
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