Made It Ma, Top Of The World…

It is really easy to change that “fingerprint” inside the gunbarrel. Just scrape the inside of the barrel with something.

Thank you for good sense, Tiger99. Thanks to all for noting that it’s probably never a good idea to say, “If *I* were in charge…” because we’d screw up for sure.

I spent New Year’s Eve with two men, both successful and self-identified as progressives. They are “done” with President Obama. Why? He has not fixed everything already. One claimed, in the height of solipsism, that HE had written a letter telling Obama that if Obama did not do what the writer wanted immediately, he, the writer was simply NOT going to vote again. And then he said to me, “The President ought to be very worried about getting such a letter from me.”

I wanted to post some of this, but what the heck – replying to good sense with my rant against so-called progressives should suffice. I am not “off” Obama by a long shot despite the fact that I want Bush and Cheney to hang by their thumbs, want Gitmo closed yesterday, want universal single payer health care if not today then tomorrow, want the religious right to be embarrassed enough about their willingness to embrace The Family to slink under their rocks, want-want-want-want things done MY way. Now.

But I lobby. I work with state and federal legislators, good, bad, and mediocre, every day. With some very notable exceptions, they are good people doing an amazing balancing act among competing demands. And they recognize that, like it or not, others DO have rights even if we dislike them. Walking the line among all the people tugging on their sleeves is actually HARD.

I celebrate Obama’s bi-partisan outreach because now that he’s tried, and they have failed, he does not need to keep doing it. It’s been months since he did that, and it’s because he needed to let them either show responsibility or hang themselves with their own rope. The Reeps did the latter.

I celebrate Obama’s outreach to religious conservatives because they immediately self-exploded on sex scandals, adherence to amazingly disgusting things such as the Ugandan demand for the death penalty for same-sex attration, and for rigidity in the face of outreach that shows them up as hypocrites.

I celebrate the man’s return to the rule of law, however creaky the apparatus may be. I celebrate his return to Congress as the rule maker, to the courts as the source of review, and for having the smarts to submit the Bush Doctrine law cases on torture, rendition, and other issues to the courts that have largely shot it all down, leaving the brand on Bush, not on Obama.

And I remain a progressive wanting much, much more – and am finding that most of my progressive allies – and I apologize but this is MY experience – at least the WHITE ones – are superficial narcissists at best. When push comes to shove, it’s really only about them, NOT about ideas, cooperation, community, uplift – certainly NOT about making alliances with the amazing and wonderful people in communities of color who are actually moving things forward, making some stupendous changes in their communities, raising up what Obama said was necessary – our all getting involved together. No, for the armchair critics, it’s only about their right to be forever cranky and disaffected.

AND I AM SICK OF THEM! At the core they have NO skin in the game because it really does not matter to them who is in office – they gain and lose very little. I look at them, compared to the breast cancer victim with no insurance, the family struggling to get off welfare, the communities that lost their last manufacturing plant, the men and women who were lied to about credit card interest, given aubprime mortgages when they qualified for conventional rates – and on and on and on. I see both Obama and Congress struggling with these issues that will, I deeply regret, take TIME to resolve.

In his first year, FDR got the CCC established, but it took until 1936 for the WPA to be started (passed in 1935 two years after FDR’s inauguration but ramp up took another year.) I think it’s not lost on Obama that the one big program, National Recovery Act of 1933, was shot down by the courts. Obama is moving much more carefully – this court is still not his friend.

OK -all that said, my fury at the idiots who style themselves as progressive but who are too good to dirty their hands by working collaboratively with others, by doing ANYTHING at all, or even by voting for someone who is, in their eyes, imperfect, is one of the most grossly evil acts of our time. When push comes to shove, too many look out for Number #1, just like the Wall Street magnates, and where does that leave us?

I have met several people, ranchers and farmers, who are gun rights supporters because guns are tools for them. I personally detest hunting for sport but understand it as a protein necessity in families living on the edge financially. I have a real sense that we need to look at the gulf between Saturday Night Specials/Semi-Automatic handguns in urban areas and rifles and shotguns in rural settings. I think the solutions here are quite sensible (only the Tim McVeigh’s of the world would see this as a start of gun confiscation and deny their personal responsibility I believe) but the urban professional pseudo-progressive whiners will tell you that guns MUST be banned, MUST be confiscated, MUST be done away with. They also hate the police – until they need them, of course.

So – someone talk me down. Obviously, I need a better set of people with whom to celebrate New Year’s Eve (the rest of the group was marvelous and quite put off by these two) but I fear I see this in so many people today. My way or the highway. Easy and cheap solutions. No quick fix, no support.

I fear Obama will not be given much of a chance to fix the 40 years – yes FORTY years – of the march to the right, the destruction of our economy, and the erosion of democracy. But what galls me is that it comes largely from people for whom whining has primacy over work and even democratic ideas. And I have NO idea what to do about it.

Good sense. I can no longer call it common sense because it is not very common. I just wish it were.

I NEVER say what I would do if I was “in charge” and there are so many scenarios occurring in O’s world, I believe, which we do not now nor may never be privy to and that directly effects policy and decision making that tere we TO know, it would likely blow some of the minds here, me nothwithstanding. HOWEVER, what I would have liked to see happen was an announcement from this administration that immediately if not sooner, all troops in the middle east would be called home and as far as the US was concerned, the war was over. Simply stated, any further turrist attacks like what we experienced on 9/11 would be harshly dealt with and that could and probably would include civilian casualties and mass destruction of homelands. I would have liked to see this administration explain to the american public that continuing this war would NOT necessarily terminate future conflict with the middle east, and that going forward, our shores and homeland security measures would significantly increase and remain our focus. That we were dealing with fanatical mindsets and remaining in the middle east only placed our young in ridiculous positions. That dealing harshly and quickly and methodically with these groups as attacks occurred was in our best interest, but until such time as their own elected clergy and officials were in place who demonstrated sound thinking, we would remain on alert. But we are not in a position to demand rights for their women, remove their resources (oil) or reconstruct their economy particularly when our own economy demanded our attentions. That we were open to dialogue, but that’s about where it begins and where it ends. And NO MORE money to ANY middle eastern effort until such time as our own men and women were back to work and our economy restored.

But no one asks me anything, so I just keep my mouth shut! 🙂

Hmmm– this is real food for thought. This part year, one of my passions has become campaign finance reform. As Emerald said, it’s really crucial. I see all the corruption to our democracy from lobby money and corporate money, and I honestly feel we are in very serious danger of becoming a corporate state.

But what would be a practical reform? We must somehow get to publicly financed campaigns, and that means the campaign season should be shortened too. I actually think that most of Congress would welcome that, as I bet they hate fund raising. How we get there though– short of a referendum, I have no idea. I will be looking into that though, and this is the boost I need.

Heard a good thought on a NPR discussion this morning. Policy changes stay for years, politics last a week, a day,a month-year. The Dems need to get back to that thought.
Perhaps a little O/T. Minority Leader McConell said in his weekly radio tape today that real leaders put the country first and the party second. HUH? Is that what you have been doing for the last 2 years Mitch? How many cloture(over a hundred) votes and holds on appointments (over 30) has your party forced/had this year? All for the good of the nation? Huh?

Good points all, Tiger! But you can’t possibly expect “them” to do something that makes so much sense!! As far as guns are concerned, the genie is out of the bottle and we will never get guns off the streets. The ONLY solution is that control! But you know, as well as I do, that the republicans will come out with their hair on fire if gun control is even mentioned. “Thar goes our Second Amendment Rights”!! “See there, we told ya’ Obama was gonna’ take yur guns”! “It’s nothin’ but a gub-mint take-over!” etc., etc. ad infinitum!

If I were in charge, I would permanently and completely clean out Washington, D.C. of every single lobbyist working on behalf of ANY for-profit outfit! I would make it a felony for any Congressman or Senator to take ANY money or gifts from any for-profit company or lobbyist, or from any political action committee sponsored by a for-profit. I would immediately find a way to revoke corporate “personhood” which was the result of a clerical error to being with.
Those measures would go a long way, IMHO, to solving ALL the problems that we face in this country right now!

Very provocative article, Tiger! Good job!

First of all, I would never want to be in charge!
Heck, I can barely handle being in charge of laundry or grocery shopping!

But if I had the ear of the person in charge, I would remind him of his promise concerning corporations.
Tax corporations that outsource and give tax breaks to corporations that bring jobs home.

I’d like to suggest that corporate welfare be reviewed.
It is outrageous the number of loopholes that exist in our current tax system that allow the corporations and the wealthy to skip paying their fair share.

I’d also like to suggest that the cap on FICA be raised to help fund SSI and Medicare, since both funds have been shamelessly ‘borrowed’ from to pay for wars.