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?