I Would Rather Be Gardening

My friend, who possesses a greatness of mind that is consistent with the talent and perspicacity of a fine therapist, shared a profound expression a day or so ago at lunch when she said, “Not my circus; not my monkeys.”  This is a difficult principle for someone like me.  The oldest child of a dysfunction and alcoholic family I have long assumed responsibility for everybody’s everything.  A committed Liberal who has suddenly discovered that there is no place for me in my own country – the Democrats being useless pawns to their own cowardice and the Republicans stoking a maniacal rage against people like me based upon lies and fear for fun and profit – I am rapidly and with not a little guilt losing interest in the plight of my fellow citizens.

On November 4, 2014, the American people gave the worst element in this country permission to do their worst, and they are doing it.  From puffed up network executives of little taste, less intellect and no social conscience expecting the President of the United States to come hat-in-hand begging for air time to deliver a major policy speech during some bullshit called Sweeps Week and all the way into the halls of Congress where the architects of an unprecedented operation of sabotage against a sitting president, Boehner and McConnell, squat with their fists full of campaign graft and their mouths full of threats.  

I have said before and will say again, we the people through our apathy, indifference, ignorance and infantile moral paralysis have codified government by the radical, racist, rabid minority.  To my Liberal friends I say now, we need a Liberal Party.  To all the lazy bastards who didn't vote because they believe that the outcome has nothing to do with them I say, good luck with all that.  For my part, I am working on finding a new way of life.  Sixty-five years young and growing up at last. I am learning to say, it ain’t my fucking circus; they aren't my monkeys. 

Letter of Disgust

Letter sent to Senator Michael Bennett, Junior Senator from Colorado and Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, 2014

I have no faith that you will read this letter, or if you do that you will take much notice.  Still, I feel compelled to write to you as the man who was responsible for leading the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. 

This past midterm election was one of the most disturbing political spectacles that I have ever witnessed.  I am sixty-five years old, sir.  I am an old Kennedy Liberal – not a Progressive, not a watered-down Clinton New Democrat, but a Liberal.  It is beyond my comprehension that a Democratic President can be hounded, slandered, obstructed and abused into near ruin while the media stands mute – only to have his own party betray him near the end of his tenure.  It is further beyond my comprehension that a mere third of the electorate cast ballots in the midterm down from 40.9% in 2010.  Voter suppression aside there is a whole lot of apathy in this country – largely in your party I fear.  In any case we have codified government by the radical, raging, racist minority.  Well done America.

I say “your party” because there is no place for Liberals in the Democratic Party, or so many of us are coming to believe.  Indeed there seems to be but one party in this country, the Corporatists’ Party; the Republicans on the Right and the Democrats in the Center lurching right. The Left has been driven into the wilderness like Azazel’s goat.  This might be less objectionable if the American people weren’t solidly behind Liberal ideas.  To wit: the minimum wage, paycheck equity, addressing income disparity, Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, marriage equity, gun control and reproductive freedom.  It begs the question, what does your party – without the Liberals – stand for besides pandering to special interests and trying to look as much like the Right as possible? 

While the Republicans are running around celebrating their victory, squealing about a mandate, neither the Democratic Party nor much of what is laughingly referred to as the Free Press has mentioned the fact that only 36.4% of the electorate voted in this past election.  That, according to Charlotte Alter of Time Magazine, is a 72 year low.  There is no damn mandate here.  It was barely an election.  They didn't win; you lost.  The American people lost, and why?  Could it be because the Democrats have lost their guts?  Could it be because they didn’t even have the courage to run on this president’s accomplishments or their own for that matter?  Could it be because they didn't have the stones to call out McConnell and his obstructionists for making sure that the recovery reached as few people as possible; for corrupting and misrepresenting Mr. Obama’s ideas and intentions?

Clearly, between the unchallenged lies and negativity, the distortions, the resounding grief and anguish that are the residue of the Bush years the American people have given up, given in and given over to the very politicians who have stalled the government and the economic recovery.  They have stepped away from the franchise in ever increasing numbers.  Between the media personalities like Chris Matthews who bang on about their predictions as if elections are won before the campaigns begin and the overriding sense out here that our government is bought and paid for with no interest in or accountability to the people, so many Americans have given up on the process.  Others of course are just plain lazy. 

I have always voted and always will.  My grandparents came to this country at the turn of the last century.  They were poor and hungry like so many who have come to this land hoping for a better life.  The truth is, Senator, the belief in that better life is a situation of diminishing return.  Jesus may save; but cash is God.  The American Dream is a pay to play game, and most people can’t afford the entrance fees.  It is easy to believe that one’s voice will not be heard over the self righteous bellowing of the predatory Capitalism that has taken control of our politics and is eroding our institutions.  In honor of my grandparents, who celebrated the right to cast a ballot, I will always vote.  I don’t kid myself into believing that I have any more faith in this deteriorating system than anyone else.

You are my Senator, Mr. Bennett.  I have always liked you.  I liked Udall too.  Still, I have to say that I would rather vote for and be represented by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.  I know where they stand, and I share their values.  In terms of policy I have never been a stalwart supporter of President Obama’s.  Why would I be?  I am so far to the Left that I am not even in his peripheral vision.  Having said all of that, he deserved better from his bloody party then to be hung out to dry in a revolting, and ineffectually  transparent as it proved, attempt at self promotion.  He deserves better from a Fourth Estate that appears to be in the process of selling its soul to the devil.   He certainly deserves better from this ungrateful nation of selfish, sniveling children who elected him twice then stood quietly by while he was ripped to shreds by every hypocrite and charlatan with access to a microphone.

Let Us Be Clear

Let us be clear.  According to the Associated Press as reported by NPR on 11/5, only 36.6% of the electorate voted on Tuesday.*  Mandate? This isn't a mandate, it is hardly an election.  About 3.1 million people turned out in a nation of over 7 million registered voters.  Even in states where turnout was higher than usual, it was pathetic in scope.  This was many things, a temper tantrum, an exercise in apathetic self righteousness, a very stupid move, but it was no mandate.

Every person who could vote but didn't, handed this country over to the most obstructionist, dangerous, derelict bunch of self promoting fanatics seen to step foot in public office in modern times.  The no show voters cast their ballot in absentium for government by racist minority; government by corporation; government by organized religion; government by scapegoating, slander and duplicity.

Once again this was no mandate.  It was an extremely careless, idiotic thing to do and one from which this country will suffer mightily for at least the next two years and probably longer.  So believe in Santa, imaginary playmates or the Easter Bunny; but don't believe - no matter who or what “expert” tells you - in mandates born of a myopic and self indulgent electorate.

*Source material

Midterm Elections May Have Had Record Low Turnout

One in the Win Column

Bada Bing Bada Boom

This was a nail bitter. The Democrats had better stopped impersonating Republicans, read a biography of Roosevelt - that would be Franklin Delano - and stop playing nice with every Rightwing nutbag who calls them names. Gardner didn't win; Udall lost. We need to study the turn-out. We need to understand why running a one note campaign, no matter how sweet the note, is a symphony for disaster.

Obama needs to move on Immigration. If the Right threatens to Impeach him, well bring it you morons. It served you well last time. Not to mention the fact that the Left will make your name mud in every Hispanic household for a generation to come.

The days of blaming Obama ended last night.  This president has a rare opportunity to show these vile monsters up for what they are, so bring it Mr. Cruz.

Let us shove their wave up their ass and call it an enema.

Hickenlooper defeats Beauprez for Colorado governor

Hell of a Night

Chuck Todd, that blithering twit masquerading as a reporter, has just determined that the Democratic loss is merely the fault of the President and Harry Reid.  It takes some real stones to stand up on a stage as Mitch McConnell did tonight and blame Obama for the gridlock that he, McConnell, orchestrated with obstruction and obstruction and more obstruction through a record number of filibusters and all manner of unethical behavior.  It takes even larger stones to pat that same McConnell on the back for being gracious in his acceptance speech as Chris "the Mouth" Matthews did earlier.  Even larger stones are required to blame the most maligned, undermined and deliberately sabotaged president in history - with the collusion of people like Todd I might add - for tanking an election riddled with weak, unintelligent and frightened politicians many of whom will report to the Emergency Room this night for treatment of leg strain from straddling fences throughout the campaign.  

Don't get me wrong, I am no apologist for this president. In point of fact, I have had serious problems with the Democrats for some years now - ever since Clinton turned Deep Purple bleeding Red. I am no longer a member of the party. Why? Simply because Democrats no longer know what it is to be a Democrat; never mind Liberal - hell they can't spell the damn word which is why many of them call themselves Progressives. Harry Reid is a perfect example. He could have put a stop to McConnell and his rule by filibuster, but no. He went half way to goal post, then took the Republican leader by the dick and skipped across the goal line singing Kumbaya.

In my estimation, tonight they paid the penalty. Given the opportunity to vote for Democrats leaning toward Republicanism, the people voted for the real Republicans. Well put me on stilts and call me stretch, my surprise is underwhelming.

Now let us live with the mess we have made and the monsters we have created.

Nothing New Under the Sun

"... Money and position seemed all that mattered. Charity was a cold and disagreeable word. Religion too often wore a mask of bigotry and cruelty. There was no proper place for the poor or the unfortunate. ..."

If you think that this is a modern day quote, you would be mistaken.  It is part of the opening lines of the 1943 version of "Jane Eyre,” starring Joan Fontaine and the great Orson Wells. These words were crafted by writer Aldous Huxley's in his brilliant condensation of the sense and meaning of Ms. Bronte's novel for the screen. 

Charlotte Bronte was deeply critical of her society; of the abuse and mistreatment of women and children; of the exploitation and scapegoating of the poor; of the religious hypocrisy and veneration of wealth that fell out from all of the above.  As we sit today waiting to see if more of our faux aristocracy, money changers and corrupt politicians will control our Congress while retaining old and winning new governorships, it is worth noting that this moral decline isn't new.  It comes to pass every so many years in every century.  The same blind followers buy into it, supporting it even when it is against their own interests.  The same windmill-tilting idealists speak out against it and are called ungodly, unpatriotic, insane and even criminal – all in an effort to make them sit down and shut up.  As it is now it ever has been, and I pray Goddess it won't always be.  Still the more I read and learn the less respect I have for my fellow humans, the more convinced I am that it is all we deserve.  I live in the hope of being proven wrong.