The Political Pond

A tiny toll of The Great Political Depression of American Governance

2010-02-22T05:43:00.000-08:00

You know, it really was wishful thinking in the end that somehow, some way, the lumbering, blundering, bickering bureaucracy of American Governance would change. As it turns out, it has only gotten worse. And now, I am sick of the word "change". I am sick of the kids up in the forecastle running our sinking ship with their braid pulling, towel snapping antics, as the sea rises to swallow us. I am sick of a Supreme Court shackled by party lines rather than by prudence of any kind, juris or otherwise. And I am sick of a president to whom I turned my heart over, only to discover much like the Tin Man, he had none of his own.

And finally, I am sick of a public who has become lazy by allowing political entertainers to do their thinking for them. Personalities selling propaganda like the late night, male enhancement pump peddlers they are.

It is a Great Political Depression of American Governance we find ourselves in—a hopelessness this weary optimist can believe in.

I can not believe that is where we are. But it is. And when I listen closely for some sort of hint that I might just be all wrong about this, the only thing I hear is the haunting, long cry of a fiddle string.

While home burns.

(I have nothing more to say. I'm shutting this blog down. A tiny toll indeed.)

A Mass Grave for Healthcare and anything else worthwhile

2010-01-20T08:00:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to make of it really.
I'm speaking of that unfathomable Senate seat win by Republican, Cosmo centerfold, Scott Brown.
It's enough to raise Teddy from the grave.

Well one of the many theories is that this is a wake up call for incumbents (even though Martha Coakley, his Democratic opponent, had nary a trace of incumbency blood in her).

If so, this is what voting "against" votes "for":

pro military spending/anti spending of any other kind
pro tax cuts for the wealthy/anti paying for the military spending
pro life/anti choice
pro Christian, heterosexual rights/anti homosexual rights
pro waterboarding/anti human rights
pro failed neo-con policy/anti diplomacy
pro no/anti yes

Some point!
Good job!
Just what the Liberal Lion would have wanted!

Frankly, it doesn't make any sense.
I don't buy any reason I've heard from the pundits of cable news entertainment.
What does make sense is that there are way too many voters who are as fickle as a squirrel crossing the road, and unfortunately they may just get squashed as a result.

Limbaugh's Rush to Heartless Hell!

2010-01-14T14:07:00.000-08:00

Rush Limbaugh, in his typical senseless provocation, has moved into territory I never thought even Rush Limbaugh would move into. His commentary about President Obama's rush to help Haiti to "boost his credibility with the black community", comparing our country's immediate call to action on behalf of millions of Haitians and yes, 45,000 Americans disfavorably to the three days it took before Obama spoke about the failed Christmas airline bomber with all the implication trimmings, was heartless as much as it was hell bound.

There must be zero tolerance for Limbaugh's incessant, inflammatory monologues of stupidity gutlessly spewed from his radio studio bunker! Period!

I am in the process of identifying his advertisers on his radio program. I will be publishing the list as "Companies who Sponsor Hate, Fear and Ignorance".

Enough is enough of this idiot!

and now for the usual terror and freedom illogic

2009-12-30T08:36:00.000-08:00

i will be the first to admit i don't get it.
every time a "terror" plot, no matter how big or small, succeeds, fails or is publicly foiled, we scurry to two fundamental declarations:
1. bomb the bastards who hate our freedoms
2. suspend the freedoms the bastards hate

first, i'm not a fan of either.
wiping out countries where supposed freedom haters roam seems to me to be akin to lopping off a leg to remove a supposed toe hating corn.
and this notion that "tapping private lines or searching personal property without reasonable cause is an acceptable breach of my basic freedoms as long as i have nothing to hide", might just be the most convoluted piece of logic i have ever heard.

but more than my rejection of either, how am i to make sense of them as a single, coherent thought?
that one naturally follows the other?
i can't because they don't.
it's that simple if you really stop and think about it.
a little.

if they are anything, they're the result of "beliha" logic (i.e., beck, limbaugh and hannity).
the kind of logic born from a lack of any intellectual mischief, like the logic one might extract from a high school cafeteria or gym.
oh yeah, that's right.
that's where those guys ended their formal education.

no wonder.

can't wait to hear this beaut!

2009-12-28T07:34:00.000-08:00

the fun part of listening to the limbaugh, beck, hannity, palin and bachmann party is the imagination garnered to connect dots out of mole hills.
and with all weekend to do it, i can't wait to see how they place the nigerian nudnick responsible for the failed christmas airplane bombing in the bosom of the obama secret plan to islamize america (except certain parts of new jersey).
and i bet you dollars to doughnuts it's through that dastardly kevin bacon, who seems to connect just about everyone to anyone, which always leaves me wondering why we don't just lock him up now on general principle.
but noooo ..
we let him wander about, creating networks of god knows what.

anyway, that's the fun part, which may explain why i travel in circles of one.

held hostage by the know nothings

2009-12-18T06:40:00.000-08:00

i see the polls.
i hear the arguments.
i taste the sour.
i smell the defeat.
and since i'm big with taking personal responsibility, i feel my own pain, thank you very much.

it doesn't matter what issue is at hand, the republicans are united in one objective: create doubt in anything the majority seeks.
as for the democrats, they are united as well.
they are united in their affinity to self destruct.
i'm certain now that if the democrats owned every seat in congress, they'd still be unable to pass health care.

as a result, the country is held hostage by the "know nothings", and the tea bag movement is it's poster child.
filled by organized talking points laced with lies, misrepresentations and fear, the less mindful among us clamor to decry death panels, socialism and the cooked books of global warming.
on the other side of the fence, aroused by fighting the good fights, liberals are blindly taking the progress out of progressive, leaving only "i've", as in "i've got to have this or else".

after a decade of angst, i was ecstatic at the possiblities just a short year ago.
boy was that ever squashed in short order—completely turned upside down by nonsense, stupidity and stubborness.
i'm downright depressed frankly.

my only solace is that i'm certain i'm not alone.

palin about to share some sarah science on global warming

2009-12-04T06:41:00.000-08:00

oh boy!
i'm all mashugga with ice age hope.

i can't wait to read from simple sarah's scientific facebook journal just what the state of our atmosphere is in.
guessing by the view from her alaska porch, it's going to be much better than al gore would have us believe with his climate kooky buddies global warming the books and all.
why it wouldn't surprise me if she even reveals the results from some of her own stupidiments carried out right in her frozen backyard.

oh i can't wait for this bundle of frenetic energy to run on the tea party ticket with that "great protector of any life unborn but not so much after", ricky insantorum.
that's right!
you heard it first, here at the political pond.
girl wonder and boy i wonder joining stupid hero forces as the scream team for rupert murdock's mavericky political newcomer, the tea party, currently under the leadership of glenn "mr. fabulous" beck.

ah yes, it's gonna be nothin' but brackish skies and hazeshine my friends as soon as we dispense with that ... um ... young colored family walkin' the hallowed halls of 1600 pennsylvania avenue!
after all, it is called the "white" house just in case you need some remindin'!

(wow, i covered a lot of ground in a short time there. a little scary to tell ya the truth.)

what a subtle declaration of war sounds like.

2009-12-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

"I declare here that with the grace of God, the Iranian nation will produce 20 percent (enriched uranium) fuel and anything it needs itself," Ahmadinejad told a cheering crowd of thousands in the central city Isfahan.

in other words, iran has rejected the international option to safely enrich uranium elsewhere, knowingly leaving israel with little choice but to bomb the existing enrichment sites and to do so promptly.

i give this mess to occur in four weeks, eight on the outside.
just another thing to blame on obama.
god, when will i come to understand how much better off we'd all be if palin were in charge?

about the huckabee pardon

2009-12-01T14:40:00.000-08:00

do you hear that?
that sizzling sound?
it's mike huckabee and he's cooked completely through (or at least his goose anyway).
all because he followed his christian valued instincts and pardoned a convicted felon from prison nine years ago.
a real dukakis moment by any stretch for the then gov of arkansas.

and it's a shame really.
i don't hold the righty mike responsible for this slaughter in seattle any more than i held the lefty mike responsible for willie horton's despicable post pardon crimes.
yet, i can hear the forks being stuck into mike by whitehouse wannabes while he still sizzles.

i may disagree with just about everything pastor mike may say but he is a decent man who would make a formidable and respectful presidential candidate in 2012.
and now it's over.
because of this.

and it's almost laughable when i hear neo-con nudnicks like o'reilly support his pardon while socio-lib lards like huffington bludgeon his decision.
a real reversal of fortunes from the dukakis days.
yet that's what they do.
they twist and spin everything until it no longer resembles truth.
both sides of the partisan dmz!

oh well, i always thought mike was too good for all this anyway!

about glenn beck's new book, "arguing with idiots"

2009-11-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

i look forward to mr. beck's new book coming out soon, "arguing with idiots".
finally, he will explain how it is he, hannity and limbaugh construct their thoughts and opinions.
kind of an inside look into how their brains process information and develop ideas so that normal folk might develop an understanding of how to reason with them.
that is, how to reason with idiot brains.
i mean, given the title, what else could it be about?

and i suspect it will be a quick read too.
nice.

Just In! Newsweek changes image and name!

2009-11-19T05:46:00.000-08:00

sarah palin's, "going rogue" (original title: "going rogue from facts")

2009-11-16T06:11:00.000-08:00

it goes without saying i won't be buying sarah palin's book "going rogue" (written and read by someone other than sarah palin) anytime soon, or anytime later for that matter.
why would i?
why would anyone?
well i guess i understand sean, rush and glenn buying it, but they don't count really.
i mean, let's be brutally frank.
sarah has a thing for ... um ... well ... for facts for a lack of any better term.
her latest suggestion that the new presidential coins (with the words "in god we trust" moved from the face to the edge) are just the next step in obama's godless, socialist agenda, leaves me scratching my head.
these coins she is so worried about were approved back in 2005 by a republican owned congress and republican president.

holy cow!
that's beyond "oops"!
i don't think there is a word for it on earth yet.

how could she get it so wrong?
for starters, she's plain tired of this notion about learning.
that's for elitists.
mouthing off mumbe jumbo is what real americans are hungry for.
her motto, "shoot from the hip first, spin the facts later".
her back up motto. "when in doubt, it's probably part of the socialist agenda."

it all leaves me to believe that "going rogue" is her pblisher's title.
"going rogue from facts" was her original.
what else could it have been?

oh well, it's not all bad.
i do have to give her some props.
she's growing trite at an alarming rate.
policymaker, no.
jealous katie couric sneaky bitch monger, yes.
world problem solver, no.
fox network's reality show "survivor, wasilla alaska" winner, yes.

and if that's what burps your birther in 2012, by all means sign her up, because as a slightly center of left independent, i'm begging you to run her.
it will be post goldwater all over again.
and maybe with any luck the party of "no" will become the party of "nowhere to be found" so we can get some things fixed around this joint.

the new and improved dithering idiot!

2009-11-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

dick cheney gives new meaning to the phrase "dithering idiot".
but why should i be surprised?
i guess to an ideologue of any flavor thoughtful examination is dithering.
instead ideologues prefer to do the decidering for us and simply propagandize us into their decideration, whether it be a war of choice or a healthcare bill of legos.
but when they start in on the rest of us about the dubious value of our pensive collaboration so that we might get things right rather than get things my way, then they have all proved themselves idiots of the dither.

2009 elections were about one thing: voter fatigue

2009-11-05T05:37:00.000-08:00

as the political strategists and party leaders scurry to spin the 2009 elections, i have to smile.
the results are not about the rejection of ideological conservatism, as extrapolated from the nonsense in n.y. district 23 or the rejection of obama, as republican senate and house leadership are crowing about from the fiasco in new jersey.
it was about voter fatigue.
only those of us who carry a chip on our shoulder or indulge in self punishment were up to the task to vote.
i am one of them, and i have yet to hear one political analyst explain why at the very last moment i voted for corzine.
i will not here because who cares really.
and that is exactly the point.
who cares?

in 2008, new jersey turnout was 3,910,00, and in 2009, a whopping 2,325,000.
translation: 1,585,000 voters stayed home, enough to elect me by a 400,000 vote margin over winner christie.
that is voter fatigue.
with the childish bickering going on in washington about every step barack takes and the partisan punditry issuing creative facts from their radio and cable news entertainment shows while people are scrambling to house, feed and care for their families, it's no wonder more than a third of the voters stayed at work or home.

that's the message!
but when you are paid big bucks to do nothing more than opine a couple of hours a day, you have to say something.
even if you have to make stuff up.
and that the know-it-alls are certainly doing.

boy, this is just tiring, isn't it.

nobel peace prize while we bomb the moon?

2009-10-09T04:36:00.000-07:00

it took us forty years from our first steps on the moon to bomb it.
and what a better way to acknowledge the feat than for our president to win the nobel peace prize.
if this isn't the death of intelligent design, i'm not sure what is.

beck, limbaugh and hannity have something in common

2009-09-16T05:51:00.000-07:00

i found it interesting that glenn beck, sean hannity and rush limbaugh share a couple of important life decisions.
none of them decided to get a college education, and none of them decided to serve in the military.
i guess the boys figured out that it's education that puts the "e" in elitism, and they were not about to have any of that.
but what about enlistism?
what was the deal there?
boy ... the coincidence is striking.
if i didn't know any better, i'd say there is a highfalutin psychological profile there for the studying.
just a couple of high school graduates with a lot of patriotism on their minds and no place to go, not that there is anything wrong with that.

and to think they have become the voices of "let feardom ring".

as tempted as i am, in the spirit of civility i'm not going to say what i think.
just suffice it to say, acquiring critical thinking skills and intellectual curiosity apparently only gets in the way when all you're trying to do is bring a little dread into ordinary lives.

much too little way too late

2009-09-16T04:53:00.000-07:00

we are in the midst of civil erosion and if we don't do something soon, civility will be as scarred as the high desert plains by the grand canyon.
the action taken by the house to "rebuke" Joe Wilson, poster child of fox spews and those still fighting the civil war, as wrist slapping as it might have been, had to be done.
but i worry it is much too little way too late.

thank you maureen dowd!

2009-09-13T05:54:00.000-07:00

i'm a fan of maureen dowd.
not so much for her opinions, although i agree with her more than i disagree, but for her voice.
she has a way with words.
anyway, i haven't been able to let this joe wilson episode pass and for the life of me i hadn't a clue as to why.
that is, until i read her column today.

thanks mo!

boy, oh, boy! by maureen dowd

(my apologies but you may have to bypass a dumb ad to get to it.)

let feardom ring

2009-09-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

i was on the treadmill watching c-span.
(i'm not normal, what can i tell you.)
anyway i was watching the last half hour of today's tea party freedom march in washington, the one promoted by glenn beck and the fair and balanced gang.
(not only am i not normal, but i'm a masochist to boot.)
so i'm watching and people are ranting and raving about the constitution, taxes, taking the country back and all sorts of scary stuff.
and i'm treading away wondering, what the f%#K are they talking about?
have i missed something?
has obama declared marshall law, ransacked the constitution, and upped taxes while i slept late this morning?
i don't think so.
and that is when it occurred to me that they fear all this.
none of this stuff has happened and isn't going to, but the fear of it happening is so much more fulfilling to scaredy cats than any reality.

then it hit me like bird shot on a hunt with cheney.
all their signs had misspelled "feardom".
it was a "feardom march", not a "freedom march".
"let feardom ring", not "let freedom ring".

and i felt like calling them up and telling them of their folly but it was too late.
the tea party was breaking up.
no more crimpets.
oh well, maybe next time.

sneakers and war

2009-09-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

i took a look at my sneakers label.
they were made in vietnam.
and i became sad.
i'm pretty sure i those sneakers would have been made in vietnam just the same without the war.
just gets me askin' again, what was the point?

September 11th, 2001: - A Troubling Metaphor (written 9/11/2006)

2009-09-11T05:10:00.000-07:00

At the time I watched the towers crumble from the sudden strike of the previously unimagined, I did not realize I was watching a metaphor for the great promise their soaring human achievement beaconed to the world. It is five years later, and I see the vast optimism our nation once promised the world at the tipping point.

In the day’s wake, we have strayed from a nation united with others, to a nation on the brink of wandering a lonely, isolated trail. And a great many of us don’t seem to mind. “Pre-emption is our prerogative.” “Shoot now. Ask questions later.” We no longer care how our actions, right or wrong, are embraced by the greater world. Just get out of our entitled way.

At the same time, we have slowly tightened the noose around the neck of our freedoms—willingly. “I have nothing to hide. Go ahead. Spy on me as you see fit.” It is the least we can do when under siege by the invisible—give up freedoms so that liberty might endure.

Nineteen men, a simple plan executed, five years later, and a great power is floundering. It lurches along a “war” unguided, left virtually alone to attend to a civil mess of massive proportions with no way out and of our own creation. The plan appears to unapologetically embrace the low road at every turn, rebuking every moral departure point for the chance to wrestle in the mud.

Five years later and all we have to show for all of this is a government in political stalemate. Rather than dialogue about how we conduct “the war” or how we improve our vigilance, our partisan leadership debates whether horses should be sold for human consumption, argues about the definition of marriage, writes amendments on burning the flag. And we, the people, don’t seem to care.

What has happened to us? It is as if we are the towers ablaze. Soon to buckle and collapse from the searing heat of 9/11—a white-hot heat that continues to melt the steel-like principles that made us what we were on 9/10/2001.

We talk about not being attacked again since. Some say it’s the result of policy. Some say it’s the result of luck. I think it may be that the first attack is far from over yet, that it continues to burn in ways still unimagined, that it hasn’t run its full course.

I worry that if we do not re-embrace the grand values the rest of the world once rested its dreams on, that one attack—nineteen men and a simple plan—will be, in the end, all it took.

The beacon that once illuminated a better way, is weakening fast, and like the towers, soon to crumple. The consequences of that should haunt us all.

[author's comment: It has been three years since I wrote this, and we are still scrambling: Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, economic collapse and now internal fighting much greater than a democratic family squabble. For god's sake, we are only now beginning to fill the hole in the ground where the towers once stood.]

stupid eric cantor and stupid joe wilson

2009-09-10T05:28:00.000-07:00

eric cantor was on morning joe today.
towards the end of his interview, the irascible host, joe scarborough, feigned twittering while his sidekick and future press secretary, mika, was asking eric a question.
he was making light of eric's national faux pax last night during the president's address to congress.
eric became a bit testy and charged the two with levity while he came to discuss the healthcare drama, essentially sweeping his idiotic behavior from the night before under the carpet.

eric, eric, eric!

stupid eric cantor!
you are front and center and you can't keep your goddamn blackberry in your pants for an hour.
what was so important to tweet?
"that's a lie"?
i don't get it.
we ask our kids to not tweet at the dinner table or in class, and you text away during the president's speech.
are you kidding me?
and we are suppose to believe what you say about healthcare, you aren't even paying attention.
stupid!

but as stupid as eric was, joe wilson, a representative from south carolina (what's going on down there anyway?), owns the word when he broke all protocol to the embarrassment of our political institutions and screamed, "you lie!" at the president.
stupidity is in charge and entrenched.

this is where we are.
you can not tell me that the crap going on in the town halls, the garbage gop playbook to take the president out at the knees, and the outright disregard for honest debate and bi-partisanship, is politics as usual.
it is not!
there is a fear at work here unlike any i have witnessed before.
and the tactics to tap into it are going to result in something very bad.
i was worried for barack before.
i am petrified now.
republicans need to speak out!
they need to reign their crazies in!

please, before the worst occurs.

stupidity is in charge

2009-09-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

i can't say it any more clear.
stupidity is in charge.
when folks feel compelled to bring assault weapons and guns to presidential town hall meetings, stupidity is in charge.
when folks on medicare demand that government stay out of medicare, stupidity is in charge.
when pastors are allowed to preach death to the president under the cloak of christianity, stupidity is in charge.
when vice presidential candidates make claims to "death panels", stupidity is in charge.
when a prominent news network takes aim at keeping the president of united states' address on the importance of learning and personal responsibility out of the schools, stupidity is in charge.
when schools throughout the country don't broadcast that very speech for any reason, stupidity is in charge.

it's lunacy!
there is nothing to debate.
and i am mortified that this is the gift that my generation, baby boomers, has imparted.

the mandate for moderates is never heard

2009-09-08T05:38:00.000-07:00

dubya got it wrong when he insisted he had a mandate for his conservative base.
and now obama will get it wrong if he believes there is a mandate for the liberal fringe.
it is almost always a mandate for moderation in change.
and it seems we never get it.
it is an inherent flaw in our political system.
the representatives and senators who come from base strongholds forfeit the moderates of their own party for a few years of chest pounding without fear of losing their bully pulpit.
the casualties this time around could be catastrophic.
no healthcare reform, fewer supreme court justice selections, and the likes of joe scarborough running the asylum in 2012.

the fact is, it is always about where the middle is leaning for change, and while it was clear the middle leaned left this past election, it did not leap.
let me repeat that: it was a lean, not a leap.

so when i hear the progressive entrenched yelping about "no public option, no healthcare", i wonder if they taste that extra something in their kool-aid.
and if obama doesn't take a deep breath soon, it will be he and his hopes that will in the end be dashed.

look, i don't believe the republicans will come around any time soon.
to the contrary, it is clear they are closing every window of bipartisanship in sight.
but this is no longer about them.
let them atrophe.
it is about the folks who took a chance and voted for barack on a promise of something different.
not the same old same old.

i am an optimist at heart but frankly i am worried.
we are letting a wing direct our flight, when it should just flap.

new book on sarah palin!

2009-09-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

the must have sarah palin primer for the demanding liberal intellectual!