Sometimes You've Gotta Laugh

I think Canada will decide to build a wall and Mexico will pay for the wall we wanted between us. Need to keep us out.

Up is Down

In 1857 the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott case that people were property. In 2010 the United States Supreme Court ruled in Citizens United v FEC that property is a person. 


I feel a little dizzy.

hmmmm............

So we are going to double exports from the US in two years. Please, tell me what are we going to export? Don't we need to make something to then export it? Perhaps we can export shifty financial capers. Or lazy intellects. Or maybe it will be doubling what we have been doing as we strive toward third world status; more raw materials out so we can import cheap finished goods. That must be it.

How Hard Is It?

All of the tax credits in the world will not help our unemployment problem. Until we deal with the trade imbalance and the flow of jobs out of the country we will not have an employment recovery. Thus we will not have an economy to recover.


That's all I have to say.

Money Talks

According to five members of the Supreme Court, literally.


Citizens United v. FEC. 



The decision has come down. Overturning a 102 year precedent, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that corporations may funnel as much money as they want directly from their bank accounts into political campaigns. Money is speech. They also reaffirmed the personhood of corporations, something which was established during the brutal days of greed and abuse from the railroad barons.


How can a corporation be a person? Obviously it can't. All of the privilege, none of the consequences. 


I don't want to hear anything from the right-wing about judicial activism. This is legislating from the bench.

Down The Rabbit Hole

I'm not surprised. Disappointed. Disappointed for the memory of Ted Kennedy. But not surprised.


Promises have not been kept. Hope has been extinguished and replaced with cynicism, anger and despair. We, the American people, realize that once again the emperor has no clothes; that we have been used and then cast aside like so much garbage. So there is a backlash reaction.


If you listen to network and cable news you will be treated to the wisdom of those who got us here. Obama is too far to the left. The Democrats need to move to the center. Frankly if this administration and its' Democratic Congress took one more step right it would land on the Republican side of the aisle.


This has nothing to do with left or right. It has to do with doing something. It is very much rooted in the seething anger toward financial institutions which flip the American people off, all the while reaping benefits beyond our imagination. At our expense. Under the very nose of the President who told us this would not happen on his watch. The President who couldn't get Wall Street into his inner circle fast enough.


I know what happened because I feel my own cynicism, anger and despair. I feel my own sense of direction slipping. I know why progressives stayed home, why independents decided to go for the 'other' guy. There is a feeling that it doesn't matter. And so far, it hasn't. Not where it counts.


We don't need to move to the center. We need to move toward doing the right thing. Too bad it is unlikely to happen.

And So It Goes

When did President Obama decide to be a lightweight? Was it the moment he stepped into the Oval Office and felt the enormity of the office he sought and won? Is that when the "urgency of now" and the "audacity of hope" morphed into "let's all get along"?


I hate to regret my vote. I regret my vote. The man who seemed to offer so much promise has shown himself to be an empty suit. Bush with a brain. Actually this is worse. He has a brain, a very good one, but seemingly he lacks conviction and heart. We bought the smoke and mirrors act.


Now we see a healthcare reform bill that is a big wet kiss to the insurance companies. Mandating everyone buy insurance as well as paying public funds into private hands to insure about 30 million people. AND subsidies for those already insured. No cost restraints. Reform, American style.


This has peeled back the layers and shown how broken we are. Our democracy seems to be in name only. If there ever was a doubt that we are a corporate-ocracy, it should be dispelled after watching this dog and pony show. I don't see any way out of this, short of campaign finance reform, which is about as likely as catching and holding a whiff of smoke. The very people owned by the power-brokers would need to enact the reform. Get the sad picture?


So I spent some time calling elected officials urging them to vote against a bill I had been lobbying for only a short time before. Habit is hard to break. Our duly elected officials know they are dealing with a low information society, so they know very few of their constituents will have any idea what just happened.


Maybe the few with true convictions will stop this disaster from moving forward. I deeply hope so, not only for my own sake, but for Obama's. Perhaps it will be the slap he needs to wake him up. I know, grasping at the smoke again.