Political Rant Coming On

For anyone who has had enough politics in the last two years to last them, feel free to enjoy the photo and not read farther today. The view is what I see when I look out the window toward the hill to the south and one reason I don't mind rainy days with how the mist creates layers and almost a mystical quality to the land around me.

It has been a volatile, heavily partisan time in American politics most especially the last two weeks as a new president steps into the power structure and the issue of how to help our economy is debated-- often heatedly. Sometimes you wonder how those from each party can see the same event so differently-- but it's in the nature of humans.

Yes, I understand how important it is to think positive, to be positive; but sometimes a person just needs to vent if they don't want to explode. No amount of trying to feel good or concentrate on other things is enough. For me this is one of those times in triplicate-- and then some.

I am not sure in which order this all came. The most irritating is where I'll start. That would be Cheney on his media circuit trying to still control the government. He defended and demanded the new administration do what he had done regarding torture, secret prisons, holding prisoners with no evidence, fighting a war with no evidence to support the need, deflecting terrorism attacks by above methods, all of which is why we (the should-be grateful citizens) were kept safe-- and if this isn't done, we will be blown away by the bad guys and it'll be Obama's fault.

Cheney, as only he can do it, explained torture worked great (he didn't add just like on the TV show 24/7 but you could tell he watches it). Do keep in mind though that these averted attacks were like the 'terrorists' with few if any weapons who planned (encouraged by someone) to attack Fort Dix. Excuse me but did they think maybe there were a few armed, warriors stationed there? Guess not. Did someone sucker them into thinking they could do it, someone who got rewarded for doing that? How would we know?

And on it went with that old man (who is basically my age but seems came from another era for how he thinks and talks), who has followed the path of Svengali (yes fictional but still good example), Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia, and any other leader who manipulated others into following their ideas. He clearly is not ready to give up his power and will continue his shadow administration from a secret location in Florida.

Then there was Representative Pete Sessions from Texas who suggested the Republicans start an insurgency following the oh so successful playbook of the Taliban. I can't even comment on that, at least not and remain a lady, but can you imagine, if ANY democrat said the same thing, what you'd hear from the right. What did you hear about this on say Fox, Hannity or Rush? Silence? Guess they agreed-- minus the car bombings I assume.

How about the ones who are up there in the Capitol still arguing the New Deal failed because it only reduced unemployment from 25% to 15%. That might be one that could be discussed with some of the elders who actually lived through that time-- although many are now gone and only their stories linger on. I don't know of anyone in my family who didn't believe Roosevelt's programs had helped their lives. These though were ordinary people and who (except 20% of die-hard Republicans) believes Republicans care about the average working person? Example: who worried that CEOs might have their pay limited to half a million dollars (plus possible future compensations if they paid back the debt) if they accepted government bail out?

Monday I was watching some news (often a mistake right now), and a Republican politician came on to debate a Democratic politician. The Republican was smug, interrupted constantly, raised his voice, didn't listen to anything anybody else said-- including the host. His mantra was equivalently that only Ronald Reagan has had a good idea in the last 100 years.

To listen to these guys, government is the only problem this country has, and tax cuts are always the solution-- especially if they go to the richest citizens. How do average citizens then repair roads/bridges, maintain police and fire services, run schools (they don't like public education so that one is easy ), upgrade airports, fight the wars they are so fond of justifying, and on it goes. It is however the only thing Republicans know to say and it explains a lot of our crumbling infrastructure given they have had power for almost 20 years because even during the Clinton presidency, they ran the Congress (more about this below).

Why this guy, and others like him, who hate government, don't retire on their fat pensions is beyond me. They usually go into the private sector as lobbyists and continue to make money off government but then they didn't have real jobs to start. That's what the new RNC chairman said. Only the private sector has real jobs and even there nobody who works on contract, which means painters, construction trades, consultants, ranchers, small storekeepers, and millions of other only have work, not jobs.

When I yelled at the television several times with words I won't repeat here but do happen to know, I thought this is ridiculous. I am a Libra. Libras are polite people. We simply don't yell at anybody-- let alone a poor dumb TV set, but I did.

Do I defend the Nancy Pelosi side? No and they make me almost as mad. For years we were told they had no power because the Republicans had the majority. Wait a minute did the Republicans have a 60 vote majority? No, they often had barely a majority of one if the Vice-President voted with them. So what is going on here? The Republicans will filibuster. Oh woe. Cry me a river! Clearly the Democrats weren't willing to take that drastic step. What does that say about Democratic wimps? You know the answer. I am so sick of both parties that I can barely type their names without growling.

Only one thing made me feel good recently in the political arena and that was Barack Obama's press conference, but the right criticized that also because he worked it from a list which had on it the name of a representative from the various media (including Huffington Post horrors). That convinced the wingnuts that he had the questions submitted ahead of time. They prefer the president to point at someone, which still is under his control, ignore other media (unless it was that guy who was actually a male escort), avoid those who ask uncomfortable questions (which prelisted or not, the president knows who those might be), and maybe nickname them something demeaning because he can't remember their real names. Speaking their real names and the media from which they came gave them an accountability that a listener could follow.

What Obama said in the press conference, to me, showed his goals for our government go farther than I had thought-- but not farther than he said during the campaign. The ones who listened to Obama's answers (no Republicans probably as likely they had their TV on mute) couldn't help but see this is a man with a concept that goes beyond job creation to a whole new government system. No, rightwingers, I don't mean back to socialism (although we have had elements of that in our culture for a long time). I am talking about going back to the original Constitutional concept for our government.

At one time it was expected that Congress would have two branches that didn't take their marching orders from the President but that were co-equals with him in devising solutions to problems facing the country. One was to be represenatives of the people with two year terms to make it more likely they wouldn't be career politicians. (that has worked sooooo well) This would be a Congress not run by lobbyists but real patriots, who worked from their different political agendas to find solutions that benefited the country as a whole. You are laughing!

I don't know when this got subverted but probably Reagan can take some credit. He is still the hero of the right and was of a mind that government was the problem, never the solution (except probably for wars) and that tax cuts solve all problems (at least that is how his theories are being interpreted today). It is his ideas that the Republicans still think will solve all problems-- big military, small everything else, and paid for by...

The first George Bush called Reagan's thinking voodoo economics, but there are a group, who no matter what charts you show them, no matter what anecdotal evidence, still see Reagan's ideas as good as he was-- and I do believe he was a good man but with an archaic set of ideas, straight out of movie sets, that do not work for the world we face today if they ever did.

More recently we had the Bushies who believed in a dictatorial presidency who told everyone below them what to do; and if they couldn't get the laws they wanted, they had signing statements and executive orders to ignore Congress. They also believed in wars-- but not paying for them.

Congress has gotten used to giving out blank checks. Both parties, working together, at least on something, managed to double our national deficit in 8 years. The Republicans only got new religion when they lost the White House and saw a possible way to regain power.

The end result has been a Congress (again both parties) with no new methods or ideas. Can they learn new ways or do we have to vote them all out to get a change? For now, maybe it's handy that they are used to a dictating president. It's what they apparently liked; so maybe it'll have to be the answer. Compromise sure isn't working.

For you commenters who love the GOP, who still think Obama is planning to sell us out to the devil, I do understand your angst. Believe me, I do.