Far East Cynic

The reality of the situation is disturbing at times.

There are times, only a few, that I think that the election of Barak Obama-while quite necessary from the stand point of stopping some of the lunacy of the Bush years-may have been a bad thing in the long term. Perhaps it would have been better to plunge on into the Great Depression that Grandpa McCain and the worthless whore woman from Wasilla would have plunged us into.

Of course the problem with that line of thinking is that its nonsense, and besides which, McCain could have had a stroke and we could have had shit for brains as the first female commander in Chief.

Nope. It was the choice we made and we chose correctly among the available options.

Nonetheless, the election of Barak Obama has set into motion the largest lust for vengeance ever seen in this country since Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court house; the direct result of which is that the Republican party went insane. And when they do win a majority in Congress or the Presidency-stand the fuck by, life in the once proud United States is going to suck.

A lot. Take the altered reality of Hill Valley California in the altered timeline of Back to the Future part II, and times it by ten. That is the misery our Galtian overlords are waiting to inflict upon us.

The barbarians are at the gate-and I fear we will not be able to hold them off much longer. It might just be time to apply for that Thailand retirement Visa and drop off the face of the earth.

Charles Pierce provides us a glimpse of the trailer from the disaster movie that will be shown when it happens:

Of course, all of what he's railing against here has been going on since 2010, when the American people put their brains in a jar and elected a House Of Representatives full of Louie Gohmerts and a Senate minority for which Bob Bennett of Utah was Che Guevara. (Emphasis mine-SS) The president has paid a fearsome price for neglecting his primary duty as the leader of his party — to make the Republican party pay an even more fearsome price for rendering itself into the retrograde monkeyhouse. If he had fulfilled that duty as leader of his party, he would have been better able to fulfill his duties as leader of the country. Now, he's pushing back against a resistless tide of complete, unfettered vandalism and lunacy, as best expressed in the lead story in today's Times, in which the House majority produced its wish-list that absolutely will become law the first chance they get to enact it. They do not bluff. This was no posturing. This is what they believe good government is, and it is what they will do to the country if they ever get the power. This was the trailer for the eventual disaster movie.

The big concern that I have is that Obama is just coasting right now-hoping he can just hold on till 2014 and maybe, just maybe, he might get a favorable election result. Fat chance of that.

Meanwhile, I get stuck with a 20% pay cut-and the very real possibility of losing my job next year-because he has yet to dramatically take on and call the GOP agenda what it is: an agenda " infected by an almost pathological mean spiritedness".

The drift cannot go on -for this year or for the remaining 3 years. And much as it pains me to admit it-the President bears a part of the blame for this. His speech the other day was a good start-where in he bluntly pointed out what we have known since 2009:

"Once upon a time, in the middle of the last century, America had a thriving economy in which the middle class was at the center and everyone — poor and rich alike — did better. But then, starting in the late 1970s, a group of self-serving rich people began to sell a promise that if we took better care of them, their wealth would trickle down, and that would help everyone else prosper. The country bought that line. And for three decades both parties yielded to it. The results were great for the very rich — and disastrous for everyone else. Wages stagnated. Inequality became extreme. Mobility slowed. By 2008, things were so upside down and we had so lost our way that the economy collapsed. Out of that ruin, many began to remember the old ways: the truth that lasting growth and shared prosperity come from the middle out and not the top down. Now we are joined in a battle of ideas to see whether middle-out economics can dethrone trickle-down."

But with out execution-its nothing. It's all well and good to say it. But the crazy loons like Ted Cruz et al-they don't care, they will just wait the President out and hope they take the Senate  in 2014. Meantime-the disastrous drift would go on.

The popular viewpoint among the Teabagger set is that its all the President's fault-as witness James Taranto's latest stupid unhinged rant over at the Wall Street Journal. ( Zimmerman could have shot him instead of Trayon Martin-then it really would have been justifiable homicide).  But its not true-both sides could find a reasonable middle ground,  but they won't.

And so the slide towards my eventual unemployment will continue…………

Like I said-at this point in time, Mr Pierce may have it right:

By now, though the president is loath to point it out, it's obvious that, in terms of addressing the country's real problems, there was no particular point in having elected him twice, because there was no serious intention on the part of the opposition to recognize his administration as being possessed of a legitimate mandate to do anything, and no serious attempt on the part of the courtier press to push back against the very real danger of what that situation implies.

Anybody know of a bar for sale in Pattaya? Or what the number of that truck driving school was?

 

  1. Skippy,

    You keep posting that the GOP will do anything for revenge in 2014.  What about the Dems?  Why go through the motions of a so called "path to citizenship" when they know it will fail.  The House Dems, can go back and say that they were for the Senate bill, even though they knew the GOP would not put it to a vote in the House, that way they can do like the title of that old BBC show "Keeping Up Apperances."

    The states that have early primaries next year will tell the future.  If the Dems (the ones currently in office) see that they are going to have a hard time with their nomination process, you can bet that by the middle of the year, all of this furlough stuff would have been forgotten and we would have gotten back our lost pay (so that we can be later screwed by the tax man after the fact).  Along with other promises of a chicken in every pot that they will through out.

  2. Maurice,

       To answer your question on the immigration bill-remember it had bi-partisan support in the Senate. The House killed it because the teabag Republicans don't want to give Obama anything that looks like a victory. Like it or not we need an immigration bill-and all the delay will do is keep alienating Latino voters. There are some Republicans ( but not enough) who realize this is a losing strategy.

     

  3. Skippy,

    If we need an immigration bill, then why did I have to go through all of the paperwork and expenses just ot get my wife a Green card?  Was it just because we had no law or some person in the State Dept decided to just do it to keep themselves in a job.  We have immigration laws that are not enforced.  Both the GOP and the Dems know this, and I hold those GOP backers of this as plain stupid.  Latino voters, at least the ones that have been in the USA legally as citizens are not as fickle to go and vote for a party just because they pass a law.  We Blacks did, and look where it has gotten us.  We were solidly in the Republican camp up until the 1930's, and then we started switching to the Dems in the 60's due to LBJ, and look at the state of Black America now.  I don't think the Latino vote will vote en masse along racial lines.  Cubans don't care for Mexicans, and Puerto Ricans have no love for either of them, etc.

    Funny thing you mention we need immigration reform.  You get those who support the change citing that we need people from foreign countries to come and do the high tech work in the USA.  Many are visa overstays, people who have gone to colleges in the USA, and want to work afterwards.  So, if they are going to the US colleges, and are highly skilled, wouldn't that make the same American students who are graduates from those same schools just as highly skilled too?  So why do we need to bring in that many people.

    These talking heads and pundits who keep selling us that drivel on both sides need to understand that other countries also have universities that produce their own political talking heads and pundits.  If MSNBC, FOX, CBS, etc want to save costs, they should really push for immigration reform, and get those pundits from other countries over to the USA to work for a lower wage and help the companies bottome line.  CNN has done so, look at Pierce Morgan.  But, I don't think that they will go that far since they want to keep their jobs, yet they want to force millions more on the rest of us lower classes.

  4. Maurice, this years intake of grad students for the PhD in Chemistry where I am are 100% foreigners. Mostly Chinese and Philippino. Over the last 10 years it has averaged about 60% non-Americans.

  5. Curtis,

    If any politican, GOP or Dem wants to keep their job, then they should do what was done back in the 50's after the sputnik launch.  Start pushing for more math and sciences in the schools so that American students can be better prepared, and get rid of some of the silly fluff classes that they make students take.  I'm no rocket scientist, but I did study Engineering in college along with the other humanities, but looking at what my recent HS graduating niece had to learn it's a joke.  They may graduate with high self esteem but that is about it.

    Even with 60% non Americans, that leave 40% Americans, and with the economy and jobs as tight as it is, if there truly is a demand for these types of skills people will go to school for them.  But again, the process to get there is clouded by what the media of all types portrays as to what students should be studying.

  6. Cutis,

    One more thing, if there are that many Philippino smart students going to graduate school in those hard subjects, why is the PI a mess?  Seems like those with brains have left and left the corrupt ruling class to run the store.  Much like we see with Detroit.

  7. Maurice:

    A VERY personal question.

    You mentioned your wife and a green card. If your wife is Asian i wonder if you would tell me how she was treated by your family and friends?

    I know that Koreans, in Korea, do not take kindly to ANY foreigner dating a Korean women let alone a person of color. I was wondering if the same holds true for the US?

    No insult is intended.

  8. Richard,

    WIfe is Japanese, and the family (mine) took in with open arms.  As a matter of fact when we got married that same year we had a reunion on my dad's side and my cousins and aunts showed her how to make "kool aide" and she felt right at home.  I am sure that there were some who may have thought I should have stayed with the race, but if so they didn't say anything.  Funny thing about it though is that on that side of the family (dad's) we did a geneology trace and found that one side of the family who was a slave can be shown where the mother was black, and the father was white (owner) and he also had a family by his legal wife (white).   Also we are doing the same thing on my mother's side, with stories of some of my direct relatives who were very bright, and probably could "pass" as they say.

    So overall, I don't think that the family was too concerned about her being Japanese.  I think one of her relatives may have had some reservations about me being Black, but I also have learned that they didn't like it that another relative had married a Chinese woman, which in their minds is worse than marrying a Black.

  9. Maurice,

    To answer your question with nothing but my own opinion. A significant number of the brightest ones leave the PI and only go back to visit. When I looked at the service records for my guys all but one of the electricians on that ship were Philippino and every single one of them graduated college in PI and all enlisted in the USN. None were planning on going back to the PI.

    My deputy at my last job in the navy was a Philippino, born in PI, naturalized US citizen. He went back to visit after he retired as a navy CDR and stayed with his high school friend who retired from the Philippine Army as a general officer. He came back home to San Diego and said he still had by far the better deal and so did his kids.

    I don't think the highly educated engineers and scientists go back. The last time I was in Manila working on a contract I met a lot of very sharp Navy officers but they all agreed that the country itself was irretriebably fractured and broken.

  10. Curtis,

    Thanks for the info.  Funny, how all over the world we get "Yankee go home" but what they should be saying is "Yankee Go Home, and allow me and my family to go and with you and get benefits" instead of trying to change our laws, they should start at home first.

    Richard,

    No problems.