11 posts tagged “politics”
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-4-2009/chuck-grassley-s-debt-and-deficit-dragon
What is going on in American politics? It seems to be a childish fight to see who can scare more people into agreeing with their party’s lunatic fringe. President Theodore Roosevelt told us that every movement has its lunatic fringe and the parties are definitely no exception.
The problem is not that these extremes exist, the problem is that these extreme segments of both of the major parties are dominating our politics at every turn. A never-ending assault of scary statements and end of the world “if we support this” or “don’t support that” prophecies and on and on.
I have been wondering, in this era of so much media and information, how this could be so effective and not repulsive to most. Then I realized, that there is a large portion of the country that is elderly and concerned (for example) about health care who tend not to use as much internet etc. and would only have the words of someone they trust to believe as the facts. This gloom and doom, it’s the end of the world greatly impacts that group and any others that may not be as apt or able to do more research beyond what someone they perceive as an expert says. So there are really people who believe our Hanitys and Moores are the gospel (depending on which lunatic extreme is more comfortable to you)
There is so much childishness going on that is becoming stupid. This weird thing where people are being told to just disrupt town hall meetings with random yelling etc. talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. All any smart politician would do in the future is simply record a message, control who is in the crowd, or just not have them at all. Does one party not think if you do it now, they will do the same thing later.
The real trouble is that terribly ill informed people are believing things that are not factual and starting fist fights at political events and ultimately completely dividing the country.
To some this division is desirable, but for those of us who live in California we know there are only two possibilities.
A one party system where the lunatic fringe of that party can easily overtake our politics or a system where both parties get so angry at the other that everyone drifts toward their lunatic fringe and refuses to compromise on anything which in the end means absolutely nothing can ever get done. Everything ends in a stalemate.
The whole idea of our government is that there are different sides that negotiate and agree at some point on any issue that comes up even if that means that sometimes they agree to just put off an issue here and an issue there.
Now, whenever a politician says he or she will make a compromise with the other party that person is a traitor, and is punished in the media, by his or her party, and by voters and constituents who are told this person sold them out. If compromise is punished on either side, how is anything supposed to get done? This is the mindset and techniques used by the extremes of our party system that are gaining more and more control of our country and media.
As far as I am concerned I have a new term for this. Accidental terrorism. This is an inadvertent attempt to destroy or entire political system just to prove a few idealistic points.
The politicians are not the ones who will be punished when this all plays out. The so called experts on television and in our media will not be the ones who suffer. The people who make over $200k or over $250k who are so concerned about paying more taxes are not the ones who are going to suffer. It is the average person who although gullible when it comes to this sort of information, we all just want to live peaceful lives with the opportunity to support our families and better ourselves with hard work.
I attached a link to a clip that I hope you can access. It is not to say that one party is better than the other, it is to show how stupid the whole thing is.
This childish war to have one or the other extreme’s way is really a war against democracy and more specifically the average middle class person.
Everyone knows (for example) that there is a terrible health care problem. One side is fighting any sort of solution saying things should stay the way they are (Einstein – Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting the same results) and the other side is coming up with a plan to insure everyone while secretly using it as a Trojan Horse to sneak in a bunch of stuff such as money for abortions. In the meantime the American people suffer and pick a side to protest with while still losing healthcare by the thousands daily.
Ask yourself, if you were a terrorist who wanted to destroy America would your money be better spent on blowing up some airplane here or there or on some politicians on the lunatic extremes who will invest that money and the money of other Americans to make sure our entire government is in a stalemate.
I know all of us have our deep personal commitments, but there has to be some kind of compromises for our system to work. We have to get the lunatic fringes out of power and elect people with our individual values who know how to compromise and when to so that our government will not get stalemated. Especially since in the last election one party almost gook over completely. NO! Everything will not be perfect and everything will not go your way (no matter which party you prefer). But, the truth is this country will never get everyone to agree on anything and if you are waiting for your party to take over so you can have your way, you are really a part of the problem. An involuntary tool of those who wish to destroy our political system and our government!
Welcome to sunny California, world renowned for its tall palm trees, beautiful beaches, wineries, movie studios and one the worst Elementary, middle, and high school systems on the face of planet earth. The reason: playing politics and weird experimentation with the children has overridden any care for the education of them.
Every one of us who lives here (particularly those of us with children) have heard stories of large numbers of people graduating who cannot read or pass simple exit exams on what they were supposed to have learned and on and on. I remember on story I heard years ago where the children in one area were failing a pretty standard high school exit exam miserably so the proposed solution………..make the test easier?
A quick story to help you understand my disgust:
After I graduated high school I left for military service and went to travel the world. I came back on leave to visit my old high school and the coaches and teachers who I had built a bond with. I arrived at the school to find that all of the teachers I had considered (and still consider) to have been the good teachers had left the school. There were no coaches as the school which had n illustrious sports history had eliminated all sports.
The weirdest part about walking the campus was that while I was wandering the campus confused many if not most of the students seemed to be wandering the campus looking just as confused as I was. This was midday in the middle of the school year. I heard different bells ring and saw some of the kids going to classrooms. In the classrooms there were small pockets of teenagers who seemed to be doing there own thing while some person in front 9I assume to be a teacher) lectured.
I finally asked one of the students what was going on. The answer was ridiculous. The school was an experiment to see if children learn better in an environment where they have no books, no mandatory class attendance, no homework, no sports, and very few tests. I asked if this was working and in the words of one kid, “It was cool at first, but this really sucks. I want to transfer.”
As a side note, I have a relative who graduated from the same high school, who has a diploma that looks just like mine, who could not read or write any better than the average kindergartener until as an adult his wife taught him.
This brings me to my point. In Alameda California there is a controversial proposal creating a huge disruption among the parents. The proposal is to add curriculum about sexual orientation and gender identification to the curriculum.
So let me get this straight: the school systems in California can’t get reading, writing, English, math and science right, but now they are qualified to teach my child sexuality. That ought to turn out well. I told you that little story a above to set the stage for one key point I think is being missed. I PAY TAXES AND SEND MY CHILDREN TO SCHOOL TO LEARN TO READ, WRITE, GET EDUCATED, AND PREPARED FOR COLLEGE IF YOU CANNOT DO THAT RIGHT YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS TRYING TO ADD A WHOLE BUNCH OF OTHER STUFF OF ANY KIND.
All over California strange experiments have been done for years with our children and all kinds of weird ideas have been voiced al because our school systems and our teacher’s unions want to use our children as political ping pong balls instead of just doing what we (I) pay them to do. STOP EXPERIMENTING WITH OUR CHILDREN AND JUST TEACH THEM ENGLISH, MATH, SCIENCE, AND SO ON.
There is this ongoing list of things that they always want to add that clearly are politically motivated and that would be a discussion if we already had reasonable results. The California school system is the laughing stock of the whole planet. HOW DARE YOU TELL ME YOU ARE BETTER QUALIFIED TO DO MY JOB AS A PARENT WHEN YOU ARE FAILING AT YOUR JOBS AS TEACHERS?
The entire reasoning for this addition to the curriculum has been defined as an attempt to stop bullying through a gained understanding of sexual orientation and gender identification.
Another short story, my son was new to one of California’s illustrious public schools and was stabbed in the forehead with metal scissors by an angry 9 year old. As far as I or anyone know my son is not homosexual or transgender and was only guilty of being the new kid having an encounter with what turned out to be the class bully. The school investigated and discovered several such incidents with this bully and other children that had gone unnoticed until now.
I was obviously concerned and spoke to the principal whose response was that they had spoken to the parents of the child. SPOKEN TO THE PARENTS, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? I suggested possibly separating the child from the other children for a while to undergo some kind of counseling until such a time it was safe for the rest of the children and then reintroducing the child to the school as I thought that was the least that should be done in light of all of the children that have been wandering into schools and killing everyone.
I tell this story to illustrate that the school system has no clue about what to do about bullies. Those of us who experienced bullies in elementary, middle and high school (or possibly were the bullies) have a pretty good idea that lack of information and understanding was not the problem. Usually the problems are far deeper than education about one group or other would solve. I am also quite sure that information about sexual orientation and gender identification would not have saved any of the children from this bully because as far as anyone can tell at this age, none of the children were bullied for this reason. The problem with bullying lies in the inability of the schools to properly deal with the bullies until after the bullets (or scissors) are flying and the bloody bodies of our children are being carried away.
All this to say to our governments, including school boards and our teachers: I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT ANYTHING BUT HOW WE ARE IMPROVING MATH, SCIENCE, ENGLISH ETC. UNTIL YOU GET THOSE SUBJECTS RIGHT. I UNDERSTAND THERE ARE BAD PARENTS OUT THERE THAT ARE NOT DOING THEIR JOB, BUT DON’T NEGLECT YOURS TO DO OURS. SPEND ALL THAT POLITICAL ENERGY TRYING TO REFORM THE AGENCIES THAT ARE SUPPOSED TO BE HOLDING THE PARENTS ACCOUNTABLE TO DOING THEIR JOB AND STICK TO YOURS!
“A typical vice of American politics is the avoidance of saying anything real on real issues.”
“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”
“Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe.”
“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.”
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”
“It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.”
“The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”
“The most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.”
“The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.”
‘When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer "Present" or "Not guilty."’
“THE THINGS THAT WILL DESTROY AMERICA ARE PROSPERITY-AT-ANY-PRICE, PEACE-AT-ANY-PRICE, SAFETY-FIRST INSTEAD OF DUTY-FIRST, THE LOVE OF SOFT LIVING, AND THE GET-RICH-QUICK THEORY OF LIFE.”
The person quoted here is my favorite president of all time…Theodore Roosevelt. Strength, intelligence and straight forward, while also a man of honor and integrity and decency. (the decency is the biggest thing missing from all of the presidential campaigns of recent years.
Why are people and the media portraying the Republicans as the crazies or giving more positive press time to the Democrats? Is it possible that the Republican party has had such a string of ridiculous, over the top antics that those of us who are not diehard Republicans actually are beginning to view the party that way and the media is actually simply reflecting what people are starting to believe.
Here is an example. On the Sacramento (capitol of California) GOP website there has been this page tiring to tie Senator Obama to Osama Bin Laden and going so far as to talk about waterboarding Senator Obama. There are people like this guy in Virginia I wrote about the other day making repeated comments about race and that person who prayed the other day and tried to convince us the a victory for Barack Obama would somehow show the world that God is weak.
Of course, there is this Sarah Palin person who keeps crying about Liberal media not wanting her to speak and only taking interviews with the most right wing media possible. Then we have the people at the political rallies yelling out racial epithets and “kill him” etc.
I am an independent voter although I cannot remember the last time I voted for a Democrat for President and I was and remain a big fan of Ronald Reagan. Yet, the more I see of this campaign, the more I am beginning to sound like a far left wing liberal.
Think back to high school and homecoming. I was lucky enough to play football for a school that was relatively dominant in football so our homecoming rallies and games were pretty crazy. But, I always remember paying attention to the other mood of the people in the schools we were playing against.
When we had games at other schools and it was their homecoming (often schools we knew we could easily beat) they had the same kind of pep rallies, and just as much energy. People always had these (so called) “facts” that demonstrated that clearly they had the better team. They would argue and scream how their team was better. They would boo when we arrived and throw things at us. We even had people attack our team coming on to the field.
Then when we would score a symphony of boos and excuses would fly. Their cheerleaders would break into a cheer of “it’s alright, it’s okay, we’re gonna beat you anyway!” A few scores later the crowd would still be riled up and a little more angry. When we would leave (in victory) we left to boos and people talking about how we cheated and did this and that.
This is not my personality. If I know my team is terrible I will say “My team is terrible!” My response to having a terrible team is not to ratchet up the attacks on the other team and throw things at them call them names and so on. (I know that sounds absolutely crazy coming from a Raiders fan – and by the way MY TEAM IS TERRIBLE)
This is how the Republican party seems to me. Their team is doing terrible and it is looking like they may lose (Emphasis on the word may. There is still lots of time). Rather than focus on how to win, the McCain campaign is having pep rallies and bad mouthing the opposition and getting the supporters in an uproar. Now the supporters scream angry things even when the opposition is mentioned. They may throw things and threaten the other team and so on.
I if anyone understand the mentality. The problem for those of us who are not diehard Republicans is that we have a pretty good idea that people like this are not the kind we want running our government. We are in a time that demands leadership that is deeply grounded in reality and we are getting this partisan nonsense. In part the McCain campaign is doing this, but it would seem relatively normal if the rest of the party wasn’t going so far over the top.
That is the difference as to why the general population is developing a far better view of the Democrats as opposed to the Republicans. When people who support Senator Obama go crazy, the campaign goes out of it’s way to denounce the action and then steer completely clear of what was stated.
The McCain camp has been silent on many of these egregious acts including the ones the occur publically at their rallies. Even having manipulative prayers opening a rally right when it seemed that Senator McCain might be trying to calm things down. Then the bloodthirsty fans of this whole thing (in spite of the evidence that this will cause them to loose) is steadily calling for more attacks and such.
The truth is the attempts to scare the American population about Senator Obama do have that effect. The problem is that the way the Republican party acts in trying to get us scared of Senator Obama is actually more scary.
It’s like having a guy with a chainsaw wearing a “Leatherface” mask (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) screaming at me telling me to be scared of the “boogie man” that might be in my closet.
I desperately want to have two choices for president but this sort of behavior only can leave us with one choice unless you are a diehard Republican. I sincerely wish the McCain camp would do something to stop all of this madness.
I received a strange message from someone trying to describe Senator Barack Obama's position on abortion and i was not even sure why I received this message.
I am sure the person who sent it had good intentions and wanted to help
me understand something I did not know. This person has set up their
profile in a way that it cannot accept return messages so I decided to
post my response here and I hope it clears up whatever misunderstanding
seems to have been formed.
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I think whatever our stand on this topic is, it is absolutely still not
the hill I want to die on. There are so much bigger fish to fry right
now that arguing over the possibility of one having an abortion should
be put aside for a moment and the real issues at hand need to be
addressed.
People are so angry and polarized over this one issue that all common
sense has been thrown out of the window and our government has become
absolutely paralyzed.
It would be so nice if our whole nation could put this whole thing on
hold and deal with the families that are alive right now loosing their
homes, starving themselves to be able to afford gasoline, hit by
disasters all over the country with no help in site (even from the
insurance companies they paid to help in these circumstances), living
adults (that are somebodies children) that are being killed all over
the planet because they volunteered to serve, fight, and die for us to
even be able to have this discussion. I think whether or not a person
has the right to do something that some believe to be evil and some do
not is an important discussion to have, just not right now.
I am not convinced that I want to sacrifice the lives of any of the
above named people or groups of people to win on this one issue. It is
a prevalent focus on both sides of the party lines that seems to be
setting principles above the lives of the people we have here with us
and seems to serve no master except whatever one is seeking to divide
and conquer our nation (on several different levels).
I cannot help but feel I received this message in response to one post
or another that you may not have read fully from beginning to end.
Plus if you are under the assumption I support either one of these candidates, you have definitely missed the point that "I
thoroughly think that both of the 'serious' candidates for president we
have are absolutely terrible choices and I am simply trying to figure
out which apocalypse I will be more comfortable living through" (which is the lesser evil in the broader sense).
The idea of voting for on or the other candidate on this one issue can
only leave me feeling that a person has a deep hurt of some kind that
has not been healed or that someone has led that person to believe that
is the biggest issue in politics and our current world and a simple
stepping out of the emotional content of all of this would make that
clear.
I have huge questions (particularly related to voting records) on both
candidate's stands on abortion, particularly relative to how I feel
about it, but again there are far more pressing issues. I am not
willing to sacrifice the lives of my children by picking a terrible
candidate just because we agree on this one issue. I am not willing to
sacrifice the lives of the men and women who I served in the military
with just to win a war of principles. I am not willing to sacrifice
the entire nation on this one issue.
If a person shows him or herself to be a good candidate for the job and
agrees with me on this issue that is another point in their favor.
But, if this person is terrible and all we have to agree on is this one
issue, only those suicidally committed to ideology would still vote for
this person. I just find it selfish to want to martyr the rest of us
in that pursuit.
I posted this as a response to a thread of comments on a blog and felt that I wanted to share this response with all who read my blogs, because I think this shares the struggle I have within myself. I suppose I am saying, in the words of that great american philosopher, Rodney King (kidding of course), "Cant we all just get along?"
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Not to put anybody down, but we all have to find a way to take the
intensity of the partisanship down several notches. The strength of
this nation has always been the ability to come together in the fact of
great challenges. Since about a year after 911 (and in reality since
the sixties) the American public and especially those involved in
politics (even those of us who blog) has decided to split ourselves
into two terrible extremes.
In the past the nation has come together and even when we had made
terrible mistakes in some knee-jerk reaction we simply made the best of
what we had all committed to do.
In the last year and a half the country has become the most divided
racially, politically, in terms of class, and any other demographic
that one could come up with since the late sixties/early seventies.
Now that we are near to our political civil war how do we intend to
overcome anything else in the world including terrorists, Russian
invasions of allies, Iranian nuclear bombs, and so on. Our current
politicians can't even unite their own parties unless they play on the
hatred that the people of their party have for the other party.
I am astonished how people do not see that terrorism in twenty first
century is not about guns and bombs. The war is fought with fought with
video cameras, cellphone videos, websites, and the battlefield is the
television in our living rooms.
In this kind of "Gorillavision Warfare" we seem to be very poorly
equipped and poorly trained. This is where we are loosing in Iraq (no
matter what happens to the insurgents the whole planet now thinks we
are this crazy and reckless empire) and in Afghanistan (the rest of the
planet is beginning to think of us as the crazy Americans who kill
woman and children and don't respect the boundaries of sovereign
nations). The reason we are doing so poorly is our absolute inability
to present a united front. If the goal of those seeking to destroy us
is to use the tacktic of "divide and conquer" we are in desperate
trouble!!!!!
We began our presidential primaries with a tremendous showing of how much our country has advanced. We had a female candidate, an African American candidate, a Mormon candidate, an actor as a candidate, a candidate who is advanced in years, and a bunch of other people.
But, somewhere our great nation took a left when we should have taken a right (not the revered of course).
There was the issue of Senator Barack Obama’s former pastor that brought out this huge race issue and revealed to the world that as a nation we have ignored and never closed the door on our ongoing race issues dealing with people of African heritage and/or their deep resentment of their treatment at the hands of the laws and people of this nation from it’s inception.
Then we revealed to the world that with all of our pious talk of equal opportunity for women in our country and how advanced we are in terms of gender equality there was suddenly a rush of both accusations and some demonstrations of chauvinism and hyper-feminism. This showed the world that we are clearly not as far along as we let on.
Then we decided it was time to demonstrate to the world that we had no dignity or class at all. We suddenly saw images of members of our senate who were realistic hopes for leadership of our nation using such things as bowling, taking shots in bars and chugging beer, and describing our nation as people who cling to religion and guns because we are angry used as serious campaign strategies.
On the Republican side there was this McCain fellow, another prominent member of our Senate, stating that the American people were basically on their own and the government would do nothing to help (probably not exactly what he meant, but that was what came out of his mouth) and that the solution would be a “Gas Tax Holiday” which was immediately reamed by economists and the media worldwide.
And, let us not forget the images we saw on Martin Luther Kings birthday of Senator McCain somewhere in the south in front of a largely African American crowd apologizing for having fought so diligently against any official acceptance of the Martin Luther King Holiday and trying to explain why he did with the background being a huge chorus of boos.
By this point, people the worldwide laid their only hope in the American public and the media to sort this all out.
Then the statistics and interviews started to pour out that either clearly stated or hinted to the fact that much of the population of our nation that votes, does so for the most ridiculous reasons imaginable. One of the most important positions a human being can hold on this planet and this person is chosen because he or she is: a woman, not a woman, is African American, is not African American, is like movie stars (such as Paris Hilton), is a “maverick” (which is synonymous with the word reckless in the minds of many the worldwide), a member of the party the individual is loyal to (no matter how ridiculous or idiotic the individual may be), and so on.
Now the entire planet is concerned with our election. Not only because it is definitely the best reality show on the planet, but I suspect that there is such concern because many around the world recognize the influence this position has in the world and there is a genuine concern that this years vote will be so screwed up that it may mark the beginning of the Apocalypse.
Then just when it seemed it could not get any worse, the conventions proved that to be just the beginning of the stupidity. There were great speeches and suddenly this woman shows up and describes herself as being like a pit-bull wearing lipstick (the hokey mom that said the only thing between hockey moms and pit-bulls was lipstick). Within a weekend the direction of the votes of the American people (according to the coverage) shifted into the direction of the person who is in reality only running for Vice-president.
I receive emails and responses to my blogs and from people around the world that show a deep concern and interest in our elections this year and the scary part is that the people in this nation are not that deeply concerned.
Over the last week the most important political conversation and coverage that was consistently heard had to do with putting lipstick on pit-bulls and pigs. Seriously folks, have we collectively lost our minds!
The conversations and correspondence I have had with people here has greatly discouraged and almost angers me. People here are acting like we are voting for who is the better football team. I am loyal to my team because they are from my area, they have more people like me, they have better media coverage, because they play a little dirty, they don’t play as dirty, they have better fans, etc.
Although there has been a lot of calls for the facts and less campaign nonsense the truth is when different forms of media have offered both the facts and the nonsense people have drawn in droves to the nonsense. No matter what people say as a group, the fact is that the nonsense and negative tactics have once again shown that they work as evidenced by the polls.
In one conversation I had, someone made a very good point: “You have to vote for someone so I guess you are going to have to do the best you can and vote for the lesser evil.”
At that point it hit me. It is like asking me to vote for the Apocalypse I would be more comfortable living through. Or maybe like the guy in the mafia movie about to be killed and asked by the guy about to kill him if he would rather be shot in the front of the head or the back.
The truth is that the entire planet is deeply interested in and can watch our government in action and we are blowing a great opportunity. I am not the only person who thinks we have a pool of the worst candidates we have ever had, there are many prominent members of the media and political community that agree. And have we all not seen the petty and childish actions that have been the basic normal operation of our government as a whole for the past few years. These things have doubled during this election.
If you are American, please take a second and imagine how all of this would look if you lived somewhere else. Is it any wonder that over the past few months all of the nations who hate us have ramped up the rhetoric and worldwide less and less people like us?
Our government is caught up in elections, partisan politics, and all other kinds of political blah, blah, blah. The problem is that there are no plans to help American Citizens with the troubles we are having now and our government on all sides is caught up in ridiculous distractions that do absolutely nothing for what is going on with American citizens here and now.
President George Bush did his best with the stimulus package, but by the time the checks are getting to people gas is well over four dollars a gallon and the massive amount of people that are unemployed or in fear of soon being unemployed cannot afford to spend their stimulus checks shopping on frivolous knick-knacks simply to stimulate our economy. This stimulus package was not a great idea and many of us knew it wouldn’t work the way that was planned, but at least it was some attempt at doing something.
President Bush today placed the blame for no other plans squarely on the shoulders of the “Democratic Congress” for not passing his other ideas such as making his tax cuts permanent.
The problem is that the parties are too busy with, ending primaries, preparing for presidential elections, global warming, fuel alternatives that will not be feasible for the average American citizen for five or six years, and so to be worried about such trivial matters as all of us loosing our jobs, spending every dime we have buying gasoline, and loosing our healthcare benefits.
This week we discovered that wealthy people who had good loans (as opposed to a sub-prime loan) were loosing their homes now also (the poster child for this is Ed McMahon of Publishers Sweepstakes and Tonight Show fame), unemployment is again breaking records (at 5.5% according to the Labor Department), the Dow Jones dropped over four-hundred points today, the NASDAQ dropped more than seventy-five points, oil prices broke the one hundred and thirty-seven dollar barrier but is now expected to go over one hundred and fifty dollars a barrel by the Fourth of July, houses are being foreclosed at record levels, the U.S. dollar is hardly worth the paper it is printed on and on and on.
I think I have figured it out, if everybody looses their houses and cannot afford to drive their cars, global warming will be reduced at record levels. The American Public as a whole will be homeless and angry but at least Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize will not have gone to waste.
Our government officials don’t have time to be worrying about what “drama-queen” Hillary Clinton is going to do. We are all eagerly awaiting the moment that she informs us that she has lost a race that we all know she has already lost (all except her and her advisors).
There is endless partisan bickering and finger pointing.
The Democrats are spending all of their time on global warming and trying to prove that the Bush regime did all kinds of secret evils. If he did or didn’t how is that going to help the economy or price of gasoline. The guy is in his last few months, the country is going to a place very close to hell (I suppose partially due to global warming) and more than half of our government is focused on being a lynch mob.
The Republicans are busy having President Bush blame the rest of the government for not pushing through his half-baked ideas (but I have to admit, at least there are some ideas) and the rest of the party is busy separating themselves from the President to try to get Senator John McCain elected.
Senator McCain first said that we should do nothing to help anyone, then he said to do mostly the same stuff that we are doing. Then his party comes out and says; “Well, the economy is not his strength.”
It is beginning to cost more to go to work than people are making, and after these people loose their homes and file bankruptcy, there will really be no need to spend more getting to work than you make when you get there and these people are going to start quitting and looking for government assistance (and unemployment that will be charges to the people they were working for). What then.
I don’t care for or about the parties. I do not care which one of these lackluster candidates becomes president. I don’t care quite as much about what is going to happen five or ten years from now when I have to be concerned if my family and I will survive this year.
I guess in Washington we are simply numbers and statistics unless you are a person running for office. When that is the case we get attention (in the form of lip service) for a few months and then we are again reduced to pawns in a huge game of numbers.
Both of the main candidates are Senators. I think the real race is to see which one can come up with something that can be done now (before that person is elected president or not) to help the American people.
Iraq is a war and clearly is not going anywhere in the next few months. Global warming is the evil to end all evils; I get it! But, it is going to be much more evil for me and my family if as the planet warms I am homeless. I understand that we want to preserve the wilderness and the beautiful places and protect these places from all of the evils of drilling. What is going to happen as the state and federal governments begin to loose funding to protect and maintain these areas because the gasoline is to expensive for their vehicles and they lay off the employees that didn’t already quit because it cost too much to get to work.
All of the stuff they are worrying about are lower on the priority scale and both the Democrats and the Republicans area doing nothing. The Democrats keep saying the Republicans are doing nothing about the economy, while they are doing nothing also. The Republicans are finger pointing because their harebrained ideas are being held up by the Democrats.
It doesn’t matter who is to blame, the question is who is going to actually do something sensible about what is going on here and now.
Imagine a person on a treadmill in workout clothes with a towel around his or her neck. That person has on fancy designer running shoes and has a fancy pants MP3 player. The only problem noticeable when the person is about to turn the treadmill on is that the person is facing the wrong direction reaching backwards to turn the thing on. What is going to happen?
I have been looking at and listening to commentary on statistics and trends in the United States and heard something I have heard before, but hit me differently this time. There was a call for and evidence that there is a push for more sex education in schools.
I live in California and anyone who knows the state the school system in California knows that when measured by results and abilities after graduation from high school we have one of the worst performing school systems in the world. Apparently we are lucky if the average graduate from high school in our state can read or write.
There is this huge push in the politics of California to pour more and more money into this system and not to have any testing as a measure of success or failure. Whenever there is suggestion of disciplining or requiring improvement from teachers that under-perform there is a huge push against it.
All that to help you understand my next question. If we cannot get our kids to read or write properly while enrolled in our school system, what business do we have discussing the addition of anything else? An even deeper question is: If, for whatever reason, (too many students per class, lack of appropriate training, less parental contribution, teachers that do not know what the heck they are doing, whatever) the teachers in this system cannot seem to be able to teach the children to read and write properly, what business do they have trying to teach my kid about sex or any other touchy issues?
I have a child in this system and I don’t want to hear about the adding of anything that will not improve reading, writing, math, science, etc. That is the reason I pay the taxes and send my kid to the school. I am not paying for anyone to fail at or do a poor job at those tasks (no matter if it is the teacher’s fault or not) and to start experimenting with teaching my child sexuality, politics, and all kinds of other topics.
I don’t want to sound anti-teacher. There are wonderful teachers who go above and beyond and are just a blessing to the entire planet. I can think of two or three as I sit here. I also understand that there are huge challenges in the current system we are using, etc. The fact is that there are third world countries and states without the resources California has that produce far better outcomes that California does. No matter what the reason is, those are the facts. Blame does not fix that when a grown man, married with a diploma, has to learn to read and write from his wife (this happened in my own family). Who cares who or what is to blame, it may well not be the teachers etc.
The problem I want to address is not blame; the problem is focus on fixing the real problems!
To be blunt (and possibly a little rude) those other things, such as sexual education and politics are my responsibility to teach to my children. Please do your job right before telling me how to do mine!
I mean if whatever system we are using fails to teach math, English, and science properly how can one be so convinced that the same people trained in the same systems, in the same circumstances will teach subjects as delicate as sexuality and politics any better.
I am absolute amazed at the amount of time that is spent trying to program our children politically and socially when we fail completely at achieving what the kids are there for in the first place.
I find the idea that these things are even on the table in front of the actual learning not only grossly negligent, but a misuse of our tax money to overstep the boundaries of my home and ignore the failures of a broken system.
In sports, I have always learned that when a person drifts into the occasional slump, the key to breaking out of that slump is to “go back to the basics.” Stop doing anything fancy or special and just focus on the basics. In sports this has always worked for me. I wonder if the same would be true of a school system overrun with all kinds of complicated experimental ideas and terrible results.
I could go on and on about the experience I have had with the school system here as a person who graduated from the school system in California, with the family and friends who graduated from this school system, and with my children now, but I will just say that the system is terribly broken and getting worse. The government needs to focus on the basics and we as a people need to stop letting ourselves get so easily diverted into less relevant stuff and force the governing bodies to focus on the basics.
When I think of the words to the Pink Floyd song “The Wall” the words “Hey teacher, leave those kids alone!” finds new meaning. I think if written today the lyrics would be: “Hey teacher, leave those kids alone and stick to your job!”
The big oil company rhetoric has ramped up over the weekend. As usual the party lines are drawn and nothing is going to get accomplished. The Democrats want more tax money and blood from the big oil companies and the Republicans say it is just how business works and good for our 401k retirement plans.
Watching what is going on capitol hill is like watching people on P.C.P. trying to fly or people taking acid trying to fight with the air. Lots of strange activity, but no real accomplishment except when they hurt themselves.
I have to admit however, in hearing both sides of the argument, that both sides were partially right, but the truth is that again partisan politics overrides simple reason.
First off, making record profits by the destruction of our economy and whole industries (such as the airline industry that will be completely destroyed if the price of gas does not go down) is never okay and I am not sure that a tax break or giving such organizations more money for research is not rewarding those that are damaging our great nation.
I am not convinced however that public flogging is the answer, but some sort of limitation on what profit margins can look like might be in order. Look, you are free to do pretty much whatever you want to do in this country until you start to abuse the privilege or severely damage others. At that point you become the enemy of every American.
As a person who is severely opposed to our current party system, I have to say that I was put off by the rhetoric of both sides on this one. But, the argument that I have heard several times of the past few days that it is okay because many of our 401k plans benefit from the profits of the big oil companies is flat out stupid.
How does five or ten dollars a month in interest into my retirement balance out doubling what is costs to put gas in my car every fill up? How does that compensate the truck drivers who have doubled what they pay in gas (or more)? How does that compensate the rising cost of things that are shipped by truck? What does that do for those who don’t have a 401k plan (maybe he or she is one of those statistics we keep hearing denoting the jobless)?
It is sort of like dividing the country into classes and saying it is okay to steal from those at the bottom and some of those in the middle to help those at the top with all of the big investments.
I live in an area where most people have long commutes and most people can barely afford to live here even though when compared with other parts of the country incomes are higher (everything simply costs more). In my area, gas is already over the four dollar a gallon mark which means that there has been a huge cut in our individual economies.
I am not saying that there may not be some good explanation for why the price of gasoline is so high (it rose a lot faster than the price of barrels of oil did), what I am saying is that this explanation is stupid and an insult to the intelligence of everyone on the planet.
On the other hand, where I do agree with the Republicans, is that we need to drill in our own oil fertile areas and stop protesting, filibustering, or anything else to oppose such measures. When the price of gas was a dollar and some change we had such a luxury. Right now, the price of gas and the other factors that are influencing this bad economy are going to strangle those in poverty, those at the bottom levels of our income brackets, and a bunch of those considered currently to be “middleclass.”
The idea that we are sitting on huge solutions to our problem and a large segment of our society wants to fight those perceived to be causing the problem while fighting against the obvious solution is ridiculous.
The plan in the works is to invent cars that will not be available to the public for 4 years or more, that will run on these new fuels that you will not be able to get anywhere.
I agree that something needs to change, but first the partisan hogwash has to be done away with. There is an old saying in my family: “If you are not a part of the solution you are probably part of the problem.” I don’t know if all of the folks on capitol hill have noticed their approval rating lately, but the American people are convinced that they are a part of the problem along with all of their rhetoric.
I am middle class. I have a retirement plan. I pay taxes. I served my country honorably in the Marine Corps along with three prior generations of serviceman. I work and contribute to my society and to charity. I commute to work and fill the tank in my tiny commuter car at least once or twice week (my 12 gallon tank now takes almost fifty dollars to fill). I am also one of the victims of the record profits that I am supposed to think is okay because I will get something like fifty cents more income monthly toward my retirement.
I am old enough to remember the last time something like this happened. The siphoning of gas (which has started again), the fights at the gas stations as people went to gas stations on alternating days depending on if the first number on their license plate was odd or even, etc. This is worse as there are several other contributing factors that are taking us down fast. I do not think that allowing large segments f the population to suffer to bolster some political stand is acceptable from either party and I am angered by this whole thing.
