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January 30 Why Does ANYONE Even Listen to a Republican These Days?The 44th President, Barack Obama, has been in office for a little over a week, busily rushing to clean up the flaming pile of dog excrement the preceding administration has left us. And, considering the size of the challenges, doing a mighty fine job of it so far--sniping from the fringe right and the fringe left notwithstanding.
In the meanliwhile, the economy worldwide is shedding so many jobs that the numbers are beyond the ken of reasonable people to grasp. We're looking at the nation-sized credit card spending frenzy and upward-redistribution of wealth (that surprisingly never did, "trickle-down") that Ronald Reagan launched in 1980, come home to roost. The only reason this stuff hadn't hit the proverbial fan before was what I like to call the insanity interregnum, while Bill Clinton and Co. were managing the books and all got the cards started to get paid off, before George Bush came in and went on with spending-spree and upward-redistribution-of-wealth phase II, so far over the cosmic credit limit that we've successfully brought down the vast majority of the developed world with us. Well done, George!
And when President Obama reaches out to Republican congressmen for votes he doesn't need and policy advice from the folks who got us in this mess, just 'cause we should all be working together, and even takes several of their suggestions and works them into the upcoming stimulus legislation, what is the response? Not a single Republican votes for it, and traitorous partisan hacks like Rush actually publicly hope for failure. But, it's not President Obama's failure he's hoping for alone. To achieve that failure the nation would have to fail.
Reminds me of old school lifeguard training, which, after teaching all the rescue and life-saving techniques, also included the, "what to do with a panicked drowning man," lesson where you were taught the fastest way to knock them out in order to save them.
When somebody repeatedly leads you into harm's way, after a while only a moron would listen to them. Lordy, I hope America's gotten it out of its system and that we don't really have that many morons left.
Thirst for power is one thing, but these folks' thirst for power seems to have overwhelmed their common sense--after all, sinking the boat in the course of seizing control of it still leaves you drowned and fish food.
So, I ask again, why does ANYONE even listen to a Republican these days? January 13 One Week To GoIn just one week we as a country will turn the corner on one of our darkest moments as a nation.
Not a moment too soon, considering the economic blight the past eight years of foolhardy policies have unleashed on the world, the death and destruction unleashed on hundreds of thousands of innocents in the Middle East to (largely fail to) bring "justice" to the few responsible for 9/11, and the damage done to our standing as a beacon of reason in the world.
Man, George, you shall NOT be missed!
And, while I and many others might have hoped for the healing catharsis and burnt offering of penance to a world we've scarred at George Bush's hands with a nice impeachment and trial to bring the perpetrators of all this evil-in-our-name to (real) justice, I have to take real heart that, as a nation, we've responded by electing Barack Obama as our 44th president.
Man, that feels good!
About time we sent a message of hope, decency, and competence into the world we've let George wreak havoc on!
Of course, Obama and his administration have an unholy mess to clean up, and the road won't be an easy one, but thank God we have this chance!
Two days ago, I was listening to the radio and caught some reporter posing a question to President-Elect Obama, and (entirely regardless of the specific topic at hand) his response was so coherent, thoughtful, and assured that I was suddenly stunned by the realization that in one short week this man will be the leader of this nation and (trite self-aggrandizing phrase though it might be) leader of the free world. Is this what folks felt like when FDR or JFK were elected? Sometimes history seems to provide this country with just the man it needs to set a tone for a generation. What unbelievable luck. Luck in the sense of the definition luck = opportunity meeting preparedness. Obama represents opportunity, which we as a nation seized by electing him. And preparedness is personified in the amazing system of governance conceived by folks like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, where--despite the best efforts of Karl Rove and Co. to seize permanent power in a virtual coup d'état--we do have the chance to have the people's voices heard, to respond to an evident grave error and change course.
That's a freedom we almost lost site of, with a losing candidate elected president by the Supreme Court in '00, and reelected amid vote caging, voter suppression, and out and out vote-tabulation fraud in '04. But somehow the system, and--though somewhat slow on the uptake for my taste--the American people have corrected themselves. Wow!
I know it won't undo the injustice and casualties of these past eight years--nothing could. But, in the constant struggle of the warring natures of good and evil that define mankind and its entire history, I take real heart, and have real reason for hope, in this moment in history and the incoming administration of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States.
'Bye 'Bye, George!Thank you, Tom Tomorrow, and please forgive me, but as I was riding the bus this past week I stumbled across a discarded newspaper open to This Modern World and it summed up my feelings so well that I had to post it here, in the newsprint version, as I originally saw it.
Please give Tom his due and visit the color version here: http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/12/30/tomo/
as well as his site here: http://thismodernworld.com/
 November 04 Relief So Profound I Feel HealedThere're going to be a lot of people writing now about the sensations brought on by this great victory but here's one more!
I, for one, feel that for the past 8 years I have been in severe pain-- you know that kind of-- the doctor asks, "on a scale of 1-10 how bad is it" kind of pain, where you answer, "at least a 9, doc!" That level of pain. But like any chronic condition you get used to it and you live with it, even though it makes you want to scream deep down! And in some way you forget about the pain, though it gnaws at you all the time.
You don't notice it anymore though you're always on edge-- until suddenly the pain is GONE!
I honestly feel my soul as an American has just been healed, and my country has lived up to its ideals and its best angels, and I can be proud like I've possibly never quite been this proud before, to be an American.
Hallelujah!
Thank you America. Thank you Barack. October 24 A Halloween Horror Story'Twas five days after Halloween and all through the country,
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