Comments, relating to the topic, are welcome, add a great deal to a blog, but must be in English, with no profanity, hate-filled insults, or links (unless pre-approved).




Friday, November 19, 2010

Just thinking.... a lot

If you have read this blog for awhile, you know that I have tried to keep politics out of it (recently) and moved it to another blog where since the election, I've let it go there also. The following is going to be about politics in the US, but also how writing about it impacts my thinking for the future of this blog.


Being a person who likes to understand people and their motivations, I naturally gravitate toward politics. In this last election that has led me to wonder why Americans voted as they did. To me, those (who aren't religious fundamentalists and aren't extremely wealthy) who voted for extreme right wing candidates or even those who stayed home, acted against their own personal interests. Is that nobility or a lack of understanding what was at stake and what each side was really doing versus what they were claiming.

Personally, I think a lot of people were convinced to vote as they did based on clever advertising and a media (blogs, newspapers, magazines, talk radio, cable, and network television) that swamps them with information, semi-information, and misinformation that caters to their worst instincts. THAT is what I think. There are others trying to figure it out.


So that brings it back to this blog and my own personal problem. How do I write about something like this positively? Cannot.

Well then, how do I ignore it? There's little doubt if I could ignore the news, not read the newspapers or editorials, I'd be happier probably. I mean my own life is pretty good. I am not a young person just starting out but one getting old at the end of what has been a very prosperous time in America.

So I'm okay except, how do I write upbeat pieces when inside I am sickened at what I see happening to this country I love so much. This isn't really about partisanship, in my opinion, because I see some of the same things in both parties. Can I really just involve myself with what is good for me? If people like me turn our backs and let it all go, where will it go?

The thing is though, I have this philosophy that comes down to-- only invest myself emotionally and physically in something I can impact even if only in a small way. What can I or any of us do about this right now? We can't vote for two more years, but can we do something through phone calls, letters, taking polls, forming groups, and talking to each other about it?

Surely righties and those independents, who really turned this election, can see what is happening to the middle class where so many cannot find jobs enough to support a family, where the poor are in worse shape? Do they really believe Democrats were behind that? Didn't they notice when a bill was put forth to make it less attractive, tax wise, to send jobs overseas, that it was the Republicans who blocked it?

And health care? The right wing is paranoid over the fact that there was any attempt to make sure all Americans can get health insurance. This is something they don't like but why? We just had a newly elected Congressman, who ran on getting rid of public health care, complain because his own government health care won't kick in until a month after he starts work in January. That's different. It always is.

Republicans talk about concern for jobs but then vote against things that might really help create them. They still evidently believe in trickle down which is why they are fighting tooth and nail to keep the tax cuts on wealthy Americans. We saw for eight years how they didn't worry about the deficit with that tax cut that was not budgeted and likewise two wars put on the tab. It comes down to another old saying-- talk is cheap.

Where it comes to my blog problem, another question comes to my mind-- will it all be okay if we just think positive? Does impacting our own lives count the most? If we ignore what we are seeing right now with this cultural debate, will it be too late to turn it around? Is it already and we should ignore it and get someplace we can enjoy our lives even if the country falls part?

Frankly I am frustrated with the ill informed. I am mad at those who get their information from a source that makes them comfortable but doesn't challenge their intellect or preconceived ideas. If all we hear is what we want to hear, lefties or righties, how can we be sure it's the truth?

You know, I understand the right wing leaders who are paid off by the wealthy to do what they do, to protect their real constituents, but how does that explain voters who worried that the rich might not keep their tax cuts? How do they ignore seeing the rich getting richer with more and more distance between them and everybody else? Do they really not care that some families can't go to doctors for routine care because they can't afford it but it's not them; so it's okay? This kind of deep economic canyon between the rich and everybody else has happened before and it NEVER was good for any culture when it did. Do righties still buy trickle down when the Bush tax cuts proved that doesn't happen?


Recently I got this idea for a blog where I'd look at the demographics of who watches which programs. Culturally I thought that might be interesting. I had noticed when watching MSNBC nightly news that ads seemed aimed at a certain group of people. It was mostly ads for insurance companies, investment firms, vacation resorts, from companies like Chevron informing us what research they are doing with their profits, ads selling vehicles including Silverado trucks, pharmaceuticals for problems ranging from diabetes to erectile dysfunction, movies like 'Fair Game' (the story of the outing of Valerie Plame), and pretty much advertisements that would tell me those companies assume the people watching have some money to worry about and the stress to go with it.

Next, I needed to watch a Fox news program. Eek! But I had to know who advertisers think the typical Fox viewer is. The least bad of the nighttime lot seemed to be Bill O'Reilly or so I thought. I used to actually watch his shows before that network became nothing but a shill for one political agenda.

Well I can tell you the advertising doesn't vary much from MSNBC. There were little differences like the movie was one telling us how wrong we are about global warming, but generally similar ads.

But watching that show, listening to O'Reilly, the way he ignored the lies in George W. Bush's memoir (some so blatant that anybody could check them against facts), I thought this is going to be real hard to stick it out for an hour.

On Bush, check out this link for some questions to ask yourself regarding his-- [Decision Points] and let me know how anybody defends that man, how anyone can look at the Bush years and not fear where this takes our country because Bush might be gone but the ones who elected him twice are not.

O'Reilly slanted any news he covered toward the right and smugly (I can't begin to tell you how smugly) ignored anything at all that would make the right not look good or the left seem reasonable; and finally, the last straw, how he had Glenn Beck on to talk about how he has been tearing at George Soros as the one who caused the Holocaust (yes, it's close to that bad) and how Soros has brought down good countries and now wants to bring us down.

Glenn Beck, like a mean Pillsbury doughboy, is a self-satisfied, possibly mentally unhinged, sinister, (the rest of the words that come to mind aren't fit for a public site) and after listening to him talk about what a wise man he is for trying to destroy Soros, and listening to O'Reilly saying nothing to deny it and seeming to even agree that at least Soros wants to do that, I felt sick and still do. Try this link for what Beck is doing (and this isn't his first target as Beck always has to give his audience red meat, an enemy, and Soros makes a big target):

Or this one:


It's true that [George Soros] has put a lot of money into politics in this country but in what way that benefits him personally? Has he tried to get his taxes reduced like the Koch brothers? Maybe he's gone after deregulating the financial institutions or ending environmental regulations to his own profit? No, and righties know it. He's worked for causes that won't personally benefit him financially but that he sees as deadly serious.

I read a comment from one rightie who said Soros had to be bad because being a multi-billionaire, if he was good, he'd be a Republican and donating money to their right wing causes.

How about this for Soros's motives: He saw what had happened with the Nazis and has worked to prevent it wherever he can; and for all the righties that resent the comparison, look at the signs from tea partiers with the Hitler mustache on Obama and tell me that a lot of them don't worry about the same thing but in reverse!

Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, attacked NPR using the Nazi fear: “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.” Now Ailes has since apologized but the Nazi fear card was what leaped to his mind.

Ignoring Ailes' lie that NPR has to have government funding to stay on the air as they get most of their money from viewer donations, it's clear that playing the Nazi or Hitler card registers with a lot of people. We know that Germany, mostly good people, let themselves be taken down a path that if they had thought at all surely they'd have rejected. Soros, as a Hungarian Jew, saw this happen, and worse to the Jews in his country. He knows a lot more about it than Glenn Beck.

So can I, can any of us from the left, really look the other way for a year where reports like the Simpson-Bowles apparently continue to do a number on the middle class-- [Deficit Report].

[A good example of one direct hit on the middle class from this proposal is to eliminate the home interest deduction on homes of more than $500,000 for federal income taxes. It might surprise you, if you look at the cost of homes today, to learn that isn't that much money many places like California or on the East Coast. As home values do continue to go up in many areas, this loss would hit a lot of middle income earners-- plus further complicate the income tax forms as who decides the value of a home. You know, a lot of people bought their homes with that deduction taken into account for what they could afford. We need more foreclosures? This change wouldn't impact the rich who can pay cash for their homes. It is a direct hit on the upper middle and mostly younger families as by the time you get to my age, most have paid off their mortgages.]

Should any leftie or really rightie feel good about this last election where the country went the exact opposite from two years before? Where is the security, with yo-yo voters, that it won't swing back next time when we have no idea why it happens as it does? Some say gridlock is why they did it. Evidently they want nothing to happen in Congress; except if nothing happens why exactly are we paying them and their staffs?

I haven't wanted this blog to be part of the many Ps and by that I mean pestilence, paranoia, propaganda, perdition, peril, plague, panic, promoting plutocracy, and provocation, as I see it on the news, talk radio, blogs and a lot of newspapers. What is that purpose besides stirring people up and for what? But I also am wondering can we really not be involved for the next year? Will it be too late by the time we get ready to choose a president again?

So I am taking a short break from writing this blog (other than maybe an occasional photo) to give myself some time to think deeply about this. It's not easy because when I think about it too much, I want to run around the house tearing my hair out.

I'll be back to it when I have something to say most likely with a series of blogs on evolution, global climate, science, and possible steps we can take for ourselves in case the life on this earth does take a turn toward the dire. I see these topics as all interwoven with what is going wrong with our culture today. To do that will take research and some time to pull my thinking together. As I see it now, it won't be political so much as cultural.

In the meantime if you have something to say that would make me feel better, some of your own thinking on this issue as a reader or writer of blogs, I'd love to hear it. Or if you just want to rant (on either side while avoiding personal insults), feel free. This really is a global issue because in every country there are two sides, two kinds of people, two different ways of believing that life should proceed. I know it's not unique to the United States or our times.

Oh and because spam seems to get through the blogger censors once in awhile (a lot less than what tries to get through), this blog is back on comment moderation but not to block out diverse views, just to avoid ads for escorts. Really Blogger's new spam catching system is so good (and saves me a LOT of time) but the spammers get better at writing enough to make them look real. I have to wonder what they get for their efforts. I can't believe much!

28 comments:

Taradharma said...

Rain, spare yourself next time and go to http://www.newshounds.us/ instead of actually watching FOX 'news.' I tried that experiment once and, like you, I was sickened.

You are wrestling with the exact things I wrestle with - how much to know and how much to be involved? What good will come of it, if any? How I hate ignorance, and lies, and greed. My dad, an intelligent man, is a devotee to FOX 'news' and sometimes, if I am very patient, I can talk with him and unravel the right wing story line and show him another world view (a factual world view). And he'll 'get it,' but continue to watch FOX because, as you say, it feeds into his belief system, which is miserly, frightened, jingoistic and ignorant. What to do? What to do?

On my blog I delve into politics right along with everything else. But I have had people say they just never know what to expect at my place -- they can't pigeon-hole the blog. That's fine with me. Politics is a part of life, and should be a part of your blog. No need to put a positive spin on the story - sometimes it's downright ugly and depressing. And then you can balance it with a sheep story and some beautiful photos from your part of the world.

I so appreciate all the parts of who you are and what you choose to share -- I personally would like to see them all integrated into one blog. Best of luck figuring it all out! Don't stay away too long!

Paul said...

Of late I think voting for anyone is like eating at a buffet. You tend to go with what looks good not necessarily what is healthy for you...:-)

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry that you are going to stop posting here, rain. I always stop by for a bit of beautiful sanity. I love a look at your paintings and your sheep, your journeys and your inner self. I know that it is important to stay informed, and I think it can be done without letting the worst of the bad news get the better of us. I live my life lamenting that I wasn't born 10,000 years ago, when we still lived in tribes. That long ago departure from our more instinctive selves paved the way for the confusion of the present day. I think politics and religion are symptoms of our collective insanity, but not the cause. We have forgotten who we are and I am afraid it is too late to remember. So, we carry on as best we can. Paint, plant a garden, photograph a rainbow, look over a breathtaking vista in Montana, and create your own tribes with love and consciousness.

Rain Trueax said...

I hope I made it clear I am not stopping posting here but just taking a break which many do and I have before. I want some time to think and integrating pieces on why evolution, global climate and science matter takes research as well as writing.

I think when this blog returns in a couple of weeks, it will be as Tara was suggesting with politics here as part of this blog.

I am VERY concerned where our country is going culturally and I feel like one way or another we all have to do what we can to make it be what we believe is best. It's what is true love of country. We can be right or wrong but we can't opt out because we live here and will be impacted by so many choices like the one on gay rights which even though I am not gay does impact me also when it is denying a whole group of people their right to be fully human. There is a lot like that and it inspires intense passion on both sides of what someone thinks should be done.

But I will be back :) when I have something to say!

Diane Widler Wenzel said...

Trying to make a difference in this blog may have some good effects. There was also a petition about changing laws on campaign contributions and making them transparent. I can't find where I saw it at the moment. But there are oranized groups working together on the issues we hold dear.

Ingineer66 said...

Interesting the talk about eliminating the tax exemption for houses over $500k. Why is everything in this country lately separated for different classes of people? Keep the Bush tax cuts for some but not for all. Keep the inheritance tax for some but not all. Give some colors of people free college, but not all. Give some genders and colors free this or that but not all. Give some kids free lunch but not all. Make some companies provide health insurance but not all. This is how we end up with bills that are 3000 pages long. We have become a nation of divisions and exemptions.

I say make everyone pay 16% of what they make in taxes with no exemptions. Then when Congress wants to raise taxes everyone will be affected and interested instead of the 49% that are paying all the taxes now. And make everyone pay quarterly instead of having the employers take it out. People will have ownership in the government and have an interest in what is going on with their representatives.

Fran aka Redondowriter said...

What Paul said. Thanks for your analysis and links, Rain. As you know, I'm pretty apolitical, but I do always read what you write because I think we are like-minded. You help me to solidify my thoughts.

Everything goes in full circle. People are just so darned discouraged about the economy, I think, and they took it out on the Democrats.

As for Bush, I can't even look at his face so I'm sure not going to read his book.

Kay Dennison said...

I feel your pain. I've been trying to avoid politics, too, but it's like a bad accident where you can't look away. I refuse to listen to Glen Beck but I saw the clip you mentioned all I could think was 'evil' in the biblical sense.

There's a site/organization called stopbeck.com that is working for his distruction. I think I like them. In the UK his show has no sponsors due to their efforts.

In a way this thing I have has been good because I'm trying to get better instead of reading so much. Still it's all out there and it bugs me.

Donna said...

Hello...just passing through and stopped to read your thoughts...and yes, I'm a Republican. I won't try to change your mind about Anything. We all believe in things, differently. I don't hate anyone and I love my Country...I'm a business owner and I know what it takes to run one. I'm afraid for our Nation because We The People aren't running it...

Will you please read this for me? It won't take long and you may not reap a thing from it...but this is what I see...through My eyes...

http://wwwamericanpie.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-if.html

Hope you are having a wonderful Saturday...Winter has begun to roll in here in Texas...
Thanks...Donna

Rain Trueax said...

Ingineer, we have a progressive tax system because of recognizing that if you are living on minimum wage, there is no money to eat, have a home and pay a 16% tax; and in the case of the homes, the income or inheritance tax, people would be the same for the first amount of money. So everybody would get that first reduced tax on up to $250,000-- even billionaires. But then if they had income on the next amount that was over that, that's when the rate would go up to the Clinton years. They would not pay that on the whole amount they earned that year.

I disagree with there even being an inheritance tax, as I have mentioned before. It's all about income redistribution and does not work, is very harmful to small businesses, ranches and farms where it can force a sale by the family to pay it when something happens to the owners. I'd eliminate it period if it was up to me as that money and value has already been taxed once. At this point it won't happen as we have a huge deficit problem to deal with and don't you dare blame it all on Obama who tried to help with the possible depression (which may still be coming). You know well that a lot of it was there after the Bush years due to wars and these tax cuts which nobody budgeted in.

I will check that link out later, Donna. Thanks. I try to read the 'other' side when it's reasonable and well thought out. I have written before about my personal set of beliefs; so won't again.

Incidentally while i am writing the new series of blogs, I will keep checking these comments; so if it works out to be a thread, that would be okay :)

Rain Trueax said...

Donna, I read your piece and it pretty well says what I knew as well as what I said in this blog, which is that each side thinks the other is the one taking us down the road. I won't be debating it with you right now as there will be plenty of opportunity in this blog in the future to go into who is the one to worry about, which policies are more apt to get us into trouble; but what we can agree on is that it would be foolish to ignore the history of what has happened to other nations that lost all their freedoms step by step.

I posted a blog quite awhile back now with a photo of frogs that had died in a pond because at one end of the pond was a hot spring that off and on thrust up enough water to cook the frogs. But they didn't feel the risk in time. I think left or right in this country we all see that risk but we totally disagree on from where the risk is coming.

Possibly if the blog spends some time looking at issues, which is what I intend to do, those can be discussed and ignore whether a Tea Partier, Democrat, Independent, Libertarian, or Republican is more apt to do something about it. Talk is cheap and we have heard a lot of that while people do the exact opposite...

So the blog will return and as long as people remain civil, don't insult each other, stick to the policies and leadership that is taking us the wrong way as we see it, we can have debates on what should be done about a lot of things.

When people get irate over one party of the other being the only one (who is evil or good) and have to follow that party's leadership, no matter what, there is no room for debate or thinking.

And trust no leader absolutely. That is a good way to end up losing your freedoms. We have not wanted a dictatorship in this country and we should never support one-- no matter who it is trying to create it. Some people do get caught up in hero worship which almost always ends up a huge disappointment because absolute power corrupts and it's not just an old saying...

20th Century Woman said...

Politically you and I are pretty close. (Except for inheritance tax. The level is set so high now that it doesn't affect small business, and there are a lot of ways around that) I care a lot about politics, but I seldom blog about them. This is because so many other people do, and do it so much better than I could possibly.

I hope you will keep blogging about your farm and your painting and your trips and your life. There is so much more to life than politics, and the politics are so bad (just as you said) lately. I try not to think about politics more than half the time. The other half is for living. I am almost 80, and I need to use my time more wisely than to spend it thinking about the tea baggers.

Rain Trueax said...

I pretty much agree, 20th Century woman on the problem of writing about politics and how it upsets people. I will probably end up writing about issues that impact our lives and hopefully keep it to those issues and not turn condemning but rather questioning. Always it'd be mixed in with many other kinds of issues as I am not interested in writing constantly about politics. I just am not sure I feel comfortable ignoring what I see happening right now and want to voice my concerns sometimes from my perspective which hopefully won't be part of the multiple P's.

Now with the inheritance tax, think about the typical working family ranch where there is enough income to support the family and say several hired people, it has a lot of value in land; but not huge incomes for anybody. I have known many who had to sell the land when the parents died to pay the taxes which meant the ranches went to bankers or other wealthy people; and the original owners' kids maybe work for them for a salary.

Inheritance tax should be over $3 million if it's to be on anything and should not take more than half which it will if we go back to what was. And at $3 million it will still force some businesses to sell to cover it. It doesn't impact the extremely wealthy as they often have ways around it but it does impact the upper middle who operate a family business; and since the owners already paid taxes on their income and property, it seems to me it is double taxation for one purpose-- social engineering and currently a way to pay down the deficit due to the tax cuts that weren't budgeted.

My main concern here is not that kids get to inherit big amounts of money but that family businesses can stay in business without the government driving them out. Paying 55% simply doesn't seem fair and that will come to pass if the Bush changes aren't made permanent as it was the rate.

Ingineer66 said...

I agree with you on the inheritance tax. I have known families that have had to sell their farms and others that have had to take large loans to pay the tax in order to keep their farm operations going. Like you said it is double taxation and it is not right. And in California a large family ranch that has been built up over 40 or 50 years might be worth $10 to $15 million because of the price of land here.

Ingineer66 said...

PS like you said the super wealthy like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet set up Foundations and will not pay inheritance tax. But they are all for the small business people paying it.

Mike McLaren said...

You read the posts of the period when I was concerned about the rhyme and reason for my blog. My study of my personal writing was a result, I think, of attempting to come to terms with so much flux in my life: relocation, change in vocation, the loss of familiarity, the excitement of newness. I no longer worry about my blog. I have four, and I get to each if and when I do, and as I do.

My primary blog is eclectic, no real focus, and no overriding thematic ideas—save the overriding thread of my personality. Politics enters into my writing, not in terms of punditry, but more I suppose in occasionally relating my thoughts about politics in general. As for specific political topics, I no longer care to spend much time on them in my writing or musical performances, save my anti-war and anti-corporate songs. There are too many topics for me to focus upon any particular issue with my blog, and they all make me sick to my stomach, so I do what I do in my personal life, and leave the punditry to the "political blogs."

My blog will never relate the five hundred letters per month I submit to the government of Burma, or the monthly letters that I write to Secretary Clinton and the United Nations, the occasional letters I write to the office of the President of the United States.

I suspect, at times, that I do not show enough respect for my audience, only because I don't really worry too much about what I write. I write what I do, and if I feel like posting it, I do.

Only occasionally do I consider the people who might run across my blog, but only in terms of trying hard not to say that anyone is either definitively right or wrong in a specific sense—unless of course I'm discussing politics or religion! ; )

Robert the Skeptic said...

Rain, you are a prolific and thoughtful writer... I don't always comment but I do read your blogs.

I am at a point where I almost don't think in terms of "left" and "right" any more; both parties are dependent on businesses to finance their political machines which are primarily run by professional campaign managers and operatives and policies which are usually written by the lobbyists and industries themselves.

As long as the American public is kept distracted and well fed with food and mindless entertainment, we will get the democracy we deserve.

OldLady Of The Hills said...

Rain, I understand how you feel and respect what you need to do. I will miss this blog--especially when you write about the Farm and he Sheep, and the Cows, etc....PLUS Arizona.
Personally, I am deeply depressed by the state of our country and the world, too...But, I have so many other depressing things happening with me and to me, that I cannot bear watching the news on ANY Channel.....I guess I have reached a place in my life where the Health Issues and the Life Changes are taking first place and my needs are to write about everything BUT the state of our country and the state of my Health. That's just me. In all honesty, I never thought I would get to this place----Fool that I am. But, life has caught up with me and I seek out anything to lighten the load.
You are such a thoughtful bright person and I hope you will come back soon to inspire and share everything you discover in your time away and what you have learned.

Rain Trueax said...

Naomi, I think people have to take care of their health first and foremost and what you are doing to avoid things that you can't fix and are depressing is the right thing to do. We can't do anything for anybody if we don't take care of ourselves first.

I don't like the idea of paranoia writing for anyone but what I hope to do here is discuss issues that matter for our culture. I am not too thrilled with any partisan group right now as I have seen them so often turn from their core philosophies only to defend their power. We have to have core philosophies and values that we stick to and demand our side also stick to; when we don't, we are being driven by outside forces and that can't ever be good. The catch though is figuring out what those core philosophies are and then recognizing when they are being attacked.

Paul said...

Rain, I think that Will Rogers said it best, "We have the best politicians that money can buy." To be honest, I don't trust any of them !

mandt said...

Happy Thanksgiving Rain and Farm Boss!

Rain Trueax said...

Thank you, MandT and I hope your day will be a good one also.

Anonymous said...

Hi there,

This is a question for the webmaster/admin here at rainydaythought.blogspot.com.

Can I use some of the information from this post above if I give a link back to your site?

Thanks,
Peter

Rain Trueax said...

Anyone who would like to use the information in this blog may do so with a link back to where they found it.

joared said...

Helps to take a break sometimes, so enjoy yours. I'll look forward to your returning. Am confident you'll devise an approach to blogging that enables you to comfortably continue expressing all your interests, including your political concerns and views, if that is what you choose to do. I think sometimes we must take a long view on events -- remember the tortoise and the hare.

Anonymous said...

I believe we are in the greatest technological transition ever to have taken place in history. And, true, many have taken unfair advantage of it…but things change, nothing stays the same...and I do have faith in that old-time American worker!


I'm optimistic because the world, on the whole, I think, is gradually becoming a better place in spite of all the dog eat dog. And much of it is due to American know-how and the American worker who works diligently in all corners of the globe in order to help others! Look around and you will see standards of living rising, especially in third world countries. Ours will tumble for a while...true...and we will have to rise to the occasion and pick-up the pieces left over from corporate greed, corporate greed that is in turn raising living standards elsewhere. Life is nothing if not a paradox.

I try to think of the American worker when shopping in my community. Unless I'm in an extreme hurry, I don't use fast-lane check outs or an AM machine. I go where there is a warm body on the other end to help me. I also try to go where the employed are in a union. (I'm definitely for worker's rights) However, as a global citizen, (whether one likes it or not, it is a fact) I also enjoy hearing the Indian, European, or Asian who helps me on the other end of my phone...we exchange weather and greetings as I struggle to understand them and they me. They are, as workers, also important to me.

Politics isn't sides for me anymore, and it certainly isn't Fox news, the maverick/palin debacle, or the Greek/Roman background at Obama's inauguration, it's the principle of my behavior toward humanity. I can't control others, but I can attempt to live up to my own political philosophy each and every day, if I so chose. Now the scientific Darwinists and the Darwinistic warring religions believe it's group movements that change the world,(who could sensibly believe otherwise) but when my father was in the US military, he was taught...what makes America great is its belief in the importance of the individual. I always liked that!

Your words are inspiring.
Return Soon.
A fan

Mary Lou said...

You said what I have been feeling for a few years. I cut way back on my blogging because I got tired of politics entering into everything. I am one of the ones who drank the Kool-aid and voted for bush TWICE...then got the antidote and switched sides. I am neither right nor left, but more cntral left leaning. All I know is that we are so divided and so hateful to each other's side that One has to wonder where this will all end.

I would sure like to see a Centrist Party come up with a good platform, and good solutions, to uniting this country again.

I still do not know nor understand why The Right is so afraid of Universal health care? I guess I just do not get it. ANd I have tried!

I will keep checking back, and hope you post soon.

Anonymous said...

I am planning an eco-friendly baby shower for my sister, and, trying so hard to think of different things to do. Anyway...... I came up with a wishing well where each guest will be asked to bring one organic jar of baby food, but I don't know how to present it in invitations or at the shower? I searched and searched the internet and could NOT find anything to help, hoping you ladies can!!!!!!