Friday, November 9, 2012

Politics, Politics

It is two days since the November 6, 2012 national election. I would feel remiss if I didn't comment, not that it matters much. Obama won. I am neither happy nor sad. I voted for Obama. I voted for Obama more because the Republican party did not seem to stand for anything that I could get my mind around. 

A Senate candidate in our neighboring state of Missouri made a comment that if a woman were raped her body could prevent contraception. In Indiana a Senate candidate said if a woman is impregnated by rape it was intended by God. They were both beat and should have been.

We have the religious right, evangelical Christians who were against Obama and got our over 70% of their base to vote for Romney, problem is their base accounts for less than 25% of the eligible voters. They alienated much of the other 75%. Smart huh?

A map of the U.S. showing voters densities is almost all red, Republican. The population centers of the U.S. are all blue, democratic. What did Sam Kinison, the abrasive comedian say, "It's where the fucking people live." Don't visit North Dakota, that's not where the people are. 

What happens when large groups of people live near one another. They come to see the value in diversity. It stretches the imagination, it pushes your mind to new possibilities. When you and forty others gather in church on a blustery windswept prairie guess what, you all have the same issues and feed one another the same solutions, nothing new there. So guess what, people in large cities are more tolerant of extremes like abortions and women in positions of authority and power. Guess what, smog and the environment are an issue when your government services are handling millions of contributors to the sewage system and choking the highways with auto exhaust. It is hard to imagine why the environment should be of such concern on the lonely roads of Wyoming. 

Why should the government spend a bunch of money. Look what we do in society.  When we go to far we go bankrupt, no big deal. Start the program all over. We demand outstanding health service that only the employed and well of get. You ought to go visit a county health department and see who is sitting there waiting to try and get their kid into a clinic someplace. We have to drive cars that call home for us, phones that whisper in our ear, and devices that connect us with the world 24/7. We listen to get rich quick schemes of "flipping" houses and Wall Street comes up with financial products that are based upon huge leveraged investments in huge mortgage bundles whose contents can't even be ascertained. 

Then when the whole thing falls in the shitter we ask the government to bail us out. When we have to generate cash into society to get people to spend we run up a deficit and guess what, when the government starts to live like we do as a society we don't like it. 

So now we find ourselves in an interesting position. In a month and a half we hit a wall and huge spending cuts will be mandated and a large tax increase will fall upon our heads. Guess what, it is the old Congress that has to fix it, not the new guys. The American people reelected BO by 2.5 million votes, not an overwhelming margin considering about 110 million votes were cast. About 2%? Not a margin a President can hang the mandate handle on. The Republican goal of taking over the Senate was thwarted. So now we have the old boys in Congress who dragged their feet, who said NO to all that Obama tried now will be blamed for the biggest ride back downhill if they don't get off their collective asses. I find some comfort in that, the bastards.

The people have said yes to Obamacare, they've said we must have a check and balance system but most of they have collectively told our political men and women, you figure it out now. Get along, put your heads together. This is not a Republican problem, nor is a Democratic problem, it is an American problem and we expect you to rise above petty politics and do something amazing for a change. Solve a GODDAMN problem!!! If I were Obama I'd hold their feet to the fire and say come up with something because I am not signing a "kick the can down the road" bill. You've till December 31, 2012. AMEN.



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