You don’t have to read many of the posts in this blog (if that’s what it is – to me, it’s my online journal where I “vent” my …….?) to know that I’m very disappointed, dismayed, frustrated, angry, worried, – pick a word – about the direction of this great country that I love.  I’ve been watching for the past 30+ years as, from my perspective, the greatest nation on earth has evolved from a “we” nation to a “me” nation and, in the process, seems to be following the path of previous world powers who have self destructed due to “man’s” seeming inability to curb the natural tendency toward GREED. I, like many I’m afraid, took for granted that the circumstances we seem to find ourselves in now, based on the past, were “off the table.”  The idea that our government would become a benefactory for the rich while looking the other way from “the least of these” seemed an impossibility to me.  Being a lifelong independent I never conceived that I would get to the point where if I saw an “R” after a politician’s name it would rule out my support for them.  If you know anything about the Pacific Northwest, where I’ve lived my entire life, Tom McCall was a republican.  He, I’m sure, is “turning in his grave” at the actions of his party today.

After George W Bush arrogantly invaded Iraq, on what were obviously convoluted premises – that were “bought – hook, line, and sinker” by America’s “liberal” media – I realized that in some small way I had to, at a minimum, educate myself on “what’s going on here.”  Subsequent to that invasion I started looking for – and finding – books, and other information, written by people of varying degrees of bias – but understandable – about the true “going’s on” of our government and the “powers” that are influencing it.  What I have discovered has been startling to say the least and is what has motivated me to write.  I’m also no longer simply sitting and listening to people, who speak as if they’re informed, giving out what I’ve discovered is misinformation – leading to a few “heated debates.”  The level of LYING that has permeated our press and is coming from the mouths of our elected officials – who, I believe, don’t think twice about it because there are NEVER consequences for their LYING – is beyond belief.  The result is bad from just about any way you want to look at it.  Many people still believe that those in positions to have influence are telling the truth – hence, I run into situations such as the one I wrote about in my previous post, where a grown, educated, retired successful businessman – who happens to watch Fox “news,” and listen to Rush Limbaugh – believes that President Obama is responsible for HALF of the nation’s national debt.  This is propaganda and BRAINWASHING at it’s scarriest and most damaging level.  It is what has resulted in the radical right wing “tea partiers” who are attempting to destroy America’s economy and the severe partisan divide created in order to prevent the nation’s first Black President from succeeding.  That is one place they have been honest – in saying their TOP PRIORITY is that President Obama FAILS!

I think that what’s bothering me the most about all of this – because, I do believe eventually American’s will figure out what’s happening and take the action necessary to correct it, is that these radicals have been so obstinate and voiciferous – and, so willing to make OUTLANDISH and ridiculous claims and political “stands” that they’ve maneuvered the dialogue completely away from reason.  This morning I was reading an Op Ed in the New York Times by Joe Nocera who was apologizing for calling the “tea partiers” in the House of Representatives “terrorists” (which I had called them as well – with no apology!) and, in the process, stated – almost as if it’s becoming part of our collective self conscience – that “entitlements are fueling the deficit.”  To me, unless you would qualify that to say that our “entitlements” to the large corporations – such as their tax loopholes, the support for them sending their manufacturing plants overseas, their foreign “tax havens,” along with HUGE tax breaks for people earning amounts of money that someone such as myself can’t even imagine – is what you’re talking about, the statement is absurd.  Of course, what Nocera was referring to were things like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment insurance, Head Start, School lunches for impoverished children, public education, and on and on.

Do you remember a couple years ago in some midwest state – where fire departments were “privatized” and some poor sap didn’t pay his fee (whatever it was – something like $75), and the result was a fire department which watched his house burn to the ground as his punishment for not paying the fee?  Is that what we want America to be like for our children and grandchildren?  We’ve allowed a concerted conspiracy to brainwash the so-called “low information voter;” that is, the person who reads the headlines, watches cable “news,” and doesn’t have the time or inclination to fact check what he/she hears.  The word “liberal” has been turned into a “dirty word” by the Limbaugh’s, the Hannity’s, the O’Reilly’s, the Savage’s, the Boehner’s, the Bachmann’s, the Palin’s, and everyone else who does the “bidding” for the secret right wing cabal which is orchestrating this disaster from behind the “scenes.” 

America was turned into the envy of the rest of the world through the courageous acts of the Roosevelt “New Deal,” plus the 40 years which followed, and there seem to be MANY ordinary Americans who have been somehow led to believe that the New Deal (and Great Society of the Johnson years) is the problem – by the very people who’ve been against the New Deal since the days when it was enacted.  I’ve said this before on this site – it’s not the worker’s rights gained from the New Deal that’s the problem with our economy – it’s REVISITING the days of the ROBBER BARONS which everyone should be concerned with.  Presently, the result of the “tea partiers” managing to turn raising the debt ceiling into an “issue” is a stock market which is now teetering up and down  just like it did in the late 1920’s.  There are so many parallels today to what happened back then that people’s “alarms” should be on “high alert.”  However, what we have are politicians who are attempting to figure out how to place the blame on the “other guys” so that they can be re-elected.  It has been apparent to me since before President Obama took the oath of office that the republicans are willing to take our economy into the “abiss” if that’s what it takes to defeat him in 2012.  Unfortunately, the president and his advisors apparently haven’t picked up on this.

Should we go into another depression, how can I say this?  The BUCK STOPS HERE!  That’s my message to President Obama.  I honestly don’t know if it’s too late for him to “turn it around,” but – as they say – “there’s no time like the present.”  This idea of being the transformative democratic version of Ronald Reagan was absurd on its face from the gitgo.  Something like 20 MILLION Americans who want to work are unemployed or underemployed and the president is arguing with republicans over the debt ceiling.  He continues to allow himself to get drawn onto their “turf.”  If he could somehow (and, again, I believe it may be too late) bring himself to realize that the American public wants their “leaders” to be figuring out how to spur on the JOB market – and FOCUS on that, he may be able to salvage some of his presidency.  I personally believe that he should have refused to even get involved in the argument over the debt ceiling.  It was congress’ responsibility to raise it – Obama should have been speaking ONLY about job creation – and, then if they didn’t agree to raise it there could be no question where the “fault” would lie.  Congress has been routinely raising the debt limit for over 90 years – it was a fabricated and STUPID argument!

One thing the debt ceiling “crisis” did accomplish was to uncover the TRUTH that the stock market continues to be a shell game with the day traders and hedge fund managers making HUGE amounts of income (that’s taxed at ridiculously low percentages) based on GAMBLING (I guess a better word might be speculating – but, to me, they’re the same).  That was one of the first, and biggest, frustrations I’ve had with President Obama since he was inaugurated.  He surrounded himself with Wall Streeters right from the beginning so it was no surprise that Wall Street flourished in his first couple of years, because they went right back to doing the same CRAP that they got bailed out from at the end of the Bush/Cheney regime.  We continue to have a nation where corporations are more beholden to stockholders than they are to their workers.  Until that conundrum is reversed America will continue its downward spiral toward becoming a second rate nation.  What our “leaders” in Washington apparently fail to understand is that what made this nation great was a flourishing middle class.  Until it thrives again, this country will continue to be unhealthy and its economy will continue to be shakey.

There is hope, however.  Just a few days ago the “masses” in Wisconsin demonstrated to the rest of us what is possible if the “grass roots” organizes and pulls together to actually FORCE the politicians to take notice.  In the now infamous “Wisconsin recall elections” two previously strong republican districts recalled their state senators and replaced them with democrats.  It’s true the democrats came up short in their attempt to take back control of the Wisconsin state senate, but the accomplishment was significant when you look at the “total picture.”  There was HUGE amounts of corporate money spent to defend the republican positions which saved the senate majority for the republicans, but there were HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people from all over America who participated in the hurculean effort to send a STRONG message to people like Wisconsin’s governor who has made a full throttle attack on workers collective bargaining rights – rights that, as mentioned above, I had taken for granted were an integral “right” for America’s workers.  Obviously, if “we the people” are unwilling to defend those rights, there are “those” who would take them away.

The good news about Wisconsin, and what I believe either has or will have the attention of republicans, is that these recall elections were ALL in strong republican districts.  The clear momentum of where Wisconsin’s people are would have clearly given control of the state to democrats had this been a statewide election.  Therefore, I believe Scott Walker – Wisconsin’s “Koch Brothers” governor – is in a very tenuous situation.  I’ve already given my first donation toward the effort to recall him once he’s been in office for a year.  That is the REAL message that’s going to come from Wisconsin.  And, I hope that President Obama is watching.  The Wisconsinites are “fighters.”  They are saying “enough already” to the republican assault on our basic worker’s rights.  The recall of Walker is going to be exciting (I’m really hoping that Russ Feingold – one of my favorite US senators who was victomized by the “tea party” movement ends up running against Walker in a recall election) and I believe there is no doubt that Wisconsin voters who are angry with Walker will have NO TROUBLE gaining the signatures to cause a recall election.  The good people of Wisconsin are demonstrating to the rest of America what is necessary to combat the republicans and Citizens United.  People like me are sending money in $10 to $20 at a time – but, as one person said, “there’s more of us than there are of them” – speaking of the corporate interests that are funding people like Walker.  Koch industries generates income in the BILLIONS, so this is going to be a difficult FIGHT – because the “right wing” has control of the Supreme Court which gave them a HUGE benefit in the Citizens United decision (giving coporations the right to spend UNLIMITED amounts in our elections – ughhh!).  As I’ve been saying for several years now, the REAL war Americans should be focused on is the one right here at home – where the republicans and their corporate benefactors are attempting to gain a stranglehold on our government.  If they succeed, what people like Scott Walker in Wisconsin or John Kasich in Ohio are doing is just the “tip of the iceberg.”  I’m grateful for the people of the state of Wisconsin who are leading the “fight,” and I’m just praying that working class Americans across the country will “take note.”  I’ll end this post by saying the person who I believe is the MOST important person to take note of what’s happening in Wisconsin is BARACK OBAMA!