Bush Wins Third Term - Keep the Change

This is not what the voters thought they were buying for their $1.

So far there has been no action on Don't Ask Don't Tell, no action on START, Guantanimo is still open, Americans overseas can be killed by our government on the president's say so without any legal findings or finding of a court (and not on any recognized battlefield). Medicare and Medicaid slowly bleed to death (where reimbursements) while robber barons and criminal financial schemers drain the public dry using the Fed and bailouts to throw the women and children out of the life rafts.

The Bush-Era Tax Cuts are now going to be extended by the administration, in exchange for a temporary extension of unemployment benefits. In exchange for a few crumbs, the multi-millionaires will be able to pull up to the banks in armored cars and stuff them with bags of money before driving-off laughing into the night.

Excuse me, but you can keep the `Change'; I'd like my dollar back.

VOID

Persuading other unhappy voters to vote out incumbents on election day is the key to improved government. Do your part!

After all if they are all thrown out of office every time they have no reason not to do the right thing.

Both Parties are the Enemies of the People

The Republicans are self interested and the party leadership cynically advances business interests and the country club entitlement mentality cynically using social and religious issues to hold together shifting coalitions of the angry.

The Democrats are the party of socialistic reform, trying to wield the power of the state to remake America into an egalitarian society by promoting federal power. They don't appear to realize that power once aggregated is never relinquished and the power once given to a central authority is seldom given back. One day that power may be wielded against them, they will not like it much then....

Both parties chuckle while excluding or minimizing the effect of all 3rd party efforts or co-opting them (the tea-parties). This situation appears resistant to change. An angry impotent and ill-informed electorate throws the bums out at every election, switching like a schizophrenic from one bad strategy to another back and forth over and over.

Many people are fiscally conservative and socially liberal. There is no party for them, and both parties of looters are there to make sure it stays that way.

There does not appear to be an end in sight.

Bob Herbert, Blaming the Victim

There was an interesting article by Bob Herbert in which he is fairly accurate in his portrayal of the Republicans. Unfortunately the nuts on the left are guilty of the same excesses which takes all the wind out of the sails of his argument.

While I agree with many of of these points, the Democrats are equally to blame for poisoning the atmosphere of political discourse. The consequence of this from both sides is the outrageous behaviour of some fringe tea party activists. What we have here is two viewpoints that are irreconcilable. Because neither side will give on any points, increases in temperature in the political discourse will result in the pot starting to boil. What we now have are a hard core remnant of Republicans facing a hard core remnant of Democrats, leavened by a handful of Democrats from swing states. Those will be swept from power in the next election replaced with a handful of Republicans from swing states. There is really no middle ground on issues like slavery, abortion or the right of women to vote. And now apparently nationalized healthcare. Americans are AFRAID.

The parties occupy the leftmost and rightmost fringes of the discourse. Everyone in the middle feels disenfranchised. The tea party people, libertarians an technocrats, even scientists are all being used as grist for the mill for one party to gain a temporary advantage of over the other party.

Disenfranchised people get angry. Angry people are easy to manipulate and angry people can become violent.

We need to re-evaluate who we are as a nation, and give those in the center a voice. Otherwise the republic will fail and our liberal democracy will be replaced with a bureaucratic dictatorship with trappings of democracy just like Rome.

Rahm Emanuel and Compromise

The left is bashing Rahm Emanuel, and lamenting that they don't have Howard "The Scream" Dean in charge. Sorry to disappoint the hard left, but I like my health insurance company thank you very much. And comparing conservative democrats to traitors, these guys are completely off the deep end. Medicare, prescription drugs, welfare reform, were all Republican initiatives (or bipartisan with Republican support).

What has disappeared in America is civility, compromise and searching for a centre as a way forward. Lieberman is a HERO for acting like a senator instead of rubber stamping what the administration proposes the way the Republicans and Democrats have BOTH done over the last two decades. Harry Truman and FDR both understood compromise. He's a real senator like Sam Nunn or Tip O'Neil.