Tag Archives: obama

Political Rants

Over the edge.

The fiscal cliff is just ahead. Be afraid, be afraid! Are you afraid yet? Well, you’re supposed to be. Going over the “fiscal cliff” is the worst thing that can possibly happen – worse even than … I don’t know … losing your Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

Friends, this is the oldest trick in the book. Our leaders have done their best to bankrupt the government over the last decade and a half, coupling undeclared wars with massive tax cuts, crashing the economy through their vaunted hands-off approach to the financial sector, etc. Now when it comes time to pay the tab, guess who’s picking it up? Not a big surprise that they’re running out on the check. They only do it every freaking time.

Listening to the series of Republican interviews that is NPR the other day, I heard some talk of raising the Medicare eligibility age as one means of covering their failed fiscal policy decisions. That has to take the prize as the stupidest idea ever proposed. Sure, take the youngest people out of the Medicare system – the people who need the least care! That’s a surefire way to bankrupt the program, which I’m sure is their ultimate aim. The G.O.P. has always hated Medicare, almost as much as they hate Social Security, despite their claims to the contrary. If they were truly serious about saving money, they would be expanding Medicare to include younger, healthier people, not the other way around.

The thing we have to watch like the proverbial hawk is our election year friends, the Democratic Party. We need to remind them who gave them victory a few weeks ago. We need to encourage them to challenge the Republicans on their fealty to the same failed policies Milton Friedman advocated decades ago, on their determination to protect the private tyranny that is the health insurance industry. We need to encourage them to do the right thing, no less.

That is what we should be focusing on, not irrational fear.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Better than worse.

Election’s over. Dodged another bullet there. That was close … sort of… if three million human votes and about 100 electoral votes is a thin margin. Thank you, black people, brown people, and women for saving us (i.e. white men) from ourselves once again. Without your help, John Bolton would likely be the next secretary of state. You should be very, very proud of what you kept us from doing – that being, quite literally, driving this country into yet another war. Now it’s merely possible that we will have a war with Iran, not likely. A dangerous state of affairs, to be sure, but not a guaranteed catastrophe. Nice work.

Post-election used to be a time to reflect on what happened, what was decided. There appears to be some of that going on, though probably not enough. Suffice to say that the predictions on the center-left were far more accurate than those on the popular right. It was more than a little cheering to see Karl Rove scrambling for data on Fox News after Ohio was called for Obama. This can’t be right! It would mean all of our assumptions are massively skewed! Welcome to the world of fact, fat boy. Couldn’t happen to a better guy. Wish I could be a fly on the wall the next time he speaks with Sheldon Adelson and some of the other rich wing-nuts who gave him millions of dollars to crush Obama, Sherrod Brown, and others.

Right. So… what we’ve got is something very much the same as we had before, minus some very bad actors – namely congress members Joe Walsh, Allen West (it appears), and so on. The administration still has its many problems, namely targeted killing, extralegal detention, craven lack of effort on Israel/Palestine, soft commitment to expanding employment, etc. But as I’ve said many times to friends and family, same is better than worse. That’s enough reason to vote. I think many, many Americans were smart enough to see that this was the case, and many stood in lines for ridiculous stretches of time to cast their votes.

God bless them. They saved our sorry asses to fight another day. That’s something to celebrate.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

W.B.G. (We’ll be gone)

Back before the start of the financial crisis in 2008, the guiding principle of Wall Street bankers was i.b.g./y.b.g. – when the whole thing comes crashing down, “I’ll be gone and you’ll be gone.” We will get away with it. That was prescient, to say the least. They pretty much did get away from it, except a handful of bad actors that hurt the wealthy as well as the ordinary. (Bernie Madoff is one of those.)

As we stand at the cusp of another presidential election, witnessing the terrifying aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, it’s clear that for the “conservative” (i.e. statist reactionary) side of the political equation, i.b.g./y.b.g. appears to apply to the climate crisis as well. Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has adopted his party’s Luddite stance on global warming, advocating massive expansion of fossil fuel extraction, processing, and use and joining the crackpot consensus on the right that sees extreme weather as a series of unfortunate (and wholly unrelated) accidents best ignored.

That the G.O.P. standard bearer can maintain this position after a year of unprecedented extreme weather is remarkable. That he can do it in the wake of Sandy’s devastation is pathological. Madness though it may be, it has a goal: profit. Romney is fighting for his class, and fighting hard. He is the champion of short-term gain, narrowly shared.

His beloved Keystone pipeline is case in point. Romney speaks of this project as a means of “energy independence”. I’m guessing he’s not ignorant enough of global markets to think that any resulting fuel would simply be shared amongst Americans. Any oil produced in the U.S. goes into the global market. Even more importantly, Keystone would carry tar-sands sludge, mixed with toxic chemicals, down to refineries on the Gulf coast where it would be refined into diesel fuel and shipped to China. The bottom line is, well, the bottom line. Who cares if it contributes mightily to the collapse of our ecosystem? They make their money, then i.b.g. / y.b.g., right?

Trouble is, w.b.g. (we’ll be gone), too. That plainly won’t do. Do the right thing on Tuesday, and send Romney back to his mansion and his $100 million I.R.A.

luv u,

jp