Stuck In The Middle With You

“…Here I am stuck in the middle with you
Yes I'm, stuck in the middle with you

And I'm wonderin' what it is I should do…
Tryin' to make some sense of it all,
But I can see it makes no sense at all…

Clowns to the left of me,
Jokers to the right,
Here I am stuck in the middle with you…”

“Stuck in The Middle With You,” by Stealer's Wheel

            While there is a wide swath of “independents” who will need to be courted by candidates for their votes in order to win the 2012 presidential election, the extremists hold hard and fast to their wingnut positions without regard to that truth.  And, their rhetoric, while offensive to most who still have a sense of reason, continues to be unbelievably, well, crazy. 

Here is Michele Bachmann on Hurricane Irene, using this tragic natural disaster to let us know why fiscally conservative CEO God is acting out as He is, presumably having explained Himself to Bachmann during one of their chats on the bat-phone:

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people, because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet, and we've got to rein in the spending."

           
            Now, call me crazy, but when Jesus went around telling his disciples that, having received their divine power to heal freely from God, they were not to take money for their acts of kindness:  “You have received without cost,” He said, “Now, do without charge,”  He was not exactly the Republicans’ ideal of the model CEO. What kind of fiscally conservative CEO would shoo away profits?  Michele, just who the hell have you been talking to?  Jesus, the Socialist, is decidedly NOT on that bat-phone talking to you.  I think you, doll, are probably confusing Him with Talky Tina. Just note this, next time you think you’re speaking to Him; it’s a good guide for knowing imposters from The Real Thing:  Jesus does not come with batteries and has no looped string in the back of His head.  Maybe you were talking to Chucky, a.k.a. Grover Norquist? You gotta get out of those chat-rooms, Michele. I don’t think Jesus trolls the web looking to hook-up with you.

Michele, you went on to say:

" If people are looking for someone with a proven track record to trust with the highest office of the land, someone who means what they say and says what they mean, I do that.

 Then why, in God’s name, did you follow your idiocy with this explanation, when you got a smackdown?

 "Of course I was being humorous when I said that. It would be absurd to think it was anything else," Bachmann said on Monday on a campaign stop in Miami. "I am a person who loves humor, I have a great sense of humor."

Michele, I’m not laughing.

You see, I do not think there is anything remotely funny about the deaths of at least 24 people, homelessness, catastrophic destruction, innumerable injuries, and YOU.  Every time you tap that bat-phone, Michele, I’m pretty sure you’re getting the wrong number.

            Yet, those Republicans just go on putting God all up in our grill. They lovin’ themselves some God, there.  He’s their campaign manager, you know?  Well, they got some contradictory words, actions, and policies that I don’t think The Big Guy would go for.  Loving your neighbor as you would yourself is not exactly a biblical maxim the Republicans ascribe to.  They are NOT into the Golden Rule, you know, the one that says you must treat others as you would want to be treated yourself.  And, it is worth noting, that the only fair trade policy Jesus was into was to sacrifice Himself for everybody else. Not exactly Eric Cantor’s position, lobbyist Norquist’s position, the Republican Party’s position, or the position of the wealthiest 1% of  our citizenry.  Here is what House Majority Leader Cantor’s position is on giving aid to Hurricane Irene’s victims:

According to Reuters: “…Cantor told Fox News that disaster aid in the wake of Hurricane Irene should not be funded with borrowed money. Instead, Cantor said Monday, all federal assistance should be offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget.”

From “The Week” website:

Cantor is putting politics ahead of victims: "Just as Republicans held the country hostage over the debt ceiling," says Michael Stickings at The Moderate Voice, "Cantor is now trying to do the same over disaster relief." Hurricane Katrina taught us that the only way to save lives and relieve suffering is to get food, shelter, and help to victims immediately. Cantor either didn't learn that lesson, or he just "doesn't care." This is "political hostage-taking with lives and livelihoods in the balance."

Distinctly different from his stance on federal aid when Tropical Storm Gaston hit his Virginia district in 2004:

From, “The Hill” website:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's insistence that federal disaster aid be offset elsewhere in the budget runs directly counter to his position in the past when the money went to help his Virginia district.   In the summer of 2004, after Tropical Storm Gaston slammed into Richmond, Cantor was on the front lines of efforts to secure millions of dollars in federal assistance to clean the wreckage and repair damaged infrastructure. Although the funding was not offset, Cantor cheered its arrival.

"The magnitude of the damage suffered by the Richmond area is beyond what the Commonwealth can handle," Cantor said in a press release at the time, "and that is why I asked the President to make federal funds available for the citizens affected by Gaston."

When you swing from one extreme to the other, purely because you are being manipulated by a highly influential lobbyist, I believe you have to do some self-reflection and find that the moderate middle ground is more sensible to just about everyone.  Except, of course, your Grover, who, last time I checked, did better as a muppet than yours is as a person.  Have you folks no discretion?  Haven’t your mothers taught you to play well with others and not talk to the strange man who might touch you in places strange men ought not to?

Here is another example of the abandonment of moderation, of middle ground taken from the transcript of last Friday night’s PBS NewsHour:

 

MARK SHIELDS:
Rick Perry comes in, in 2012 -- or the 2012 campaign, he accentuates the differences. I mean, he is for no federal role in education. He wants to repeal the 16th and 17th amendments* to the Constitution. This is take-no-prisoners kind of conservatism.

JIM LEHRER: David, does President Obama deserve any praise or credit for what happened in Libya?

DAVID BROOKS: I think he does, and a lot more than he's getting, actually.

You have to remember, when the -- Gadhafi was marching on the rebels and threatening to massacre them, a lot of people in this country wanted to do nothing. A lot of people in Europe who were more upset about it just wanted to have sort of a no-fly zone.

And Obama has pushed them more aggressively than they wanted to go, so it wasn't just a no-fly zone. Were -- we actually ended up helping the rebels. We ended up helping the goal of regime change. And people have criticized whether it is was slow enough or fast enough, whether it was more aggressive or not.

But I think, more than anybody outside the country, I think Obama does deserve a lot of credit for showing that you can do an intervention reasonably well, achieve at least the first step of your objective, and do some large good for that country and potentially the region…

But I do think, it wasn't only him being right in calling for something pretty aggressive. It wasn't only him being right in calling for regime change. I think Secretary Clinton has to get a lot of credit for what was done at the U.N., the way the NATO alliance was handled.

MARK SHIELDS: …

So, I -- you know, I don't think he's going to get a political bump out of it. But he can point to the fact that there is no Osama bin Laden and there is no Moammar Gadhafi. And it happened on his watch.

JIM LEHRER: Yes.

Why is it that the Republicans don't give him credit?  

(LAUGHTER)

JIM LEHRER: Oh, is that...

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: Do you have to ask that question?

JIM LEHRER: I can -- tell me, David.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: Well, you know, there's the obvious political thing.

JIM LEHRER: Yes…

DAVID BROOKS: And so, as usual with Obama, he was stuck there in the middle, and without anybody.

So, Obama gets no credit for Libya, according to David Brooks of The NY Times, just the most reasonable Republican around—like, what’s new???  And, Mark Shields reminds us that there seems to be no middle ground, no moderates left in the Republican Party.  Maybe, like dinosaurs, they will become extinct?  And, both see the reasonable man the president is and believe he is very much alone.
Well, Mr. President, You are not without anybody.  I declare, quite decidedly, that I am stuck in the middle with you.  Yes, there are clowns to the left of us, jokers to the right, but I am right here, stuck in the middle with you.

*A little about the Constitutional Amendments Rick Perry would like to see repealed:

16th Amendment
In 1895, in the Supreme Court case of Pollock v Farmer's Loan and Trust (157 U.S. 429), the Court disallowed a federal tax on income from real property. The tax was designed to be an indirect tax, which would mean that states need not contribute portions of a whole relative to its census figures. The Court, however, ruled that the tax was a direct tax and subject to apportionment. This was the last in a series of conflicting court decisions dating back to the Civil War. Between 1895 and 1909, when the amendment was passed by Congress, the Court began to back down on its position, as it became clear not only to accountants but to everyone that the solvency of the nation was in jeopardy. In a series of cases, the definition of "direct tax" was modified, bent, twisted, and coaxed to allow more taxation efforts that approached an income tax.
Finally, with the ratification of the 16th Amendment, any doubt was removed. The text of the Amendment makes it clear that though the categories of direct and indirect taxation still exist, any determination that income tax is a direct tax will be irrelevant, because taxes on incomes, from salary or from real estate, are explicitly to be treated as indirect. The Congress passed the Amendment on July 12, 1909, and it was ratified on February 3, 1913 (1,302 days).

---

17th Amendment
One of the most common critiques of the Framers is that the government that they created was, in many ways, undemocratic. There is little doubt of this, and it is so by design. The Electoral College, by which we choose our President, is one example. The appointment of judges is another. And the selection of Senators not by the people but by the state legislatures, is yet another. The Senatorial selection system eventually became fraught with problems, with consecutive state legislatures sending different Senators to Congress, forcing the Senate to work out who was the qualified candidate, or with the selection system being corrupted by bribery and corruption. In several states, the selection of Senators was left up to the people in referenda, where the legislature approved the people's choice and sent him or her to the Senate. Articles written by early 20th-century muckrakers also provided grist for the popular-election mill.
The 17th Amendment did away with all the ambiguity with a simple premise — the Senators would be chosen by the people, just as Representatives are. Of course, since the candidates now had to cater to hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people instead of just a few hundred, other issues, such as campaign finances, were introduced. The 17th is not a panacea, but it brings government closer to the people. The Amendment was passed by Congress on May 13, 1912, and was ratified on April 8, 1913 (330 days).

---

            So, what does this all mean?  Well, let’s look at the 16^th Amendment: the taxation of property funds public education, something Rick Perry wants to see destroyed, although some pretty smart guys, like Thomas Jefferson, thought otherwise:

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”  ~ Thomas Jefferson

“I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education.   This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”  ~ Thomas Jefferson

“The tax which will be paid for [the] purpose[of education] is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.”  ~ Thomas Jefferson

            Knowing that our democracy would choose its leaders from its citizenry, men like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Noah Webster, and Horace Mann wished to see education for all Americans.  Thus, with such impetus, the public school system came to take hold in the United States.  No wonder ignoramuses like Perry, or the paranoid wealthy—who would not like to see 98% of the masses challenge their children for jobs, positions of leadership, etc.—would be the ones most in favor of seeing to the destruction of public education. 
           
             Yes, I know the litany of public education’s critics:  I am a teacher.  I sometimes feel like the conquered of a vanquished country, who, being found by the victors, hears their leaders tell them it is just fine, just A-OK to abuse me as they wish; for, to the victors go the spoils.  So, I am abused, unconscionably abused.  People think teachers are responsible for all that has gone wrong with their children.  To those fools I say:  You are in the greatest denial.  It is you, THE PARENTS, and THE POLITICIANS, who dare not call you out for your abdication of responsibility, who wrong your children.  I am paid less than a garbage man.  Yet, I have over 300 college credits that I had to earn and pay for myself, pass national exams, put up with asinine administrators more interested in getting away from your children than hanging in there, in the classroom, and teaching them.  The tsunami I and my colleagues are up against includes, parental neglect and the ensuing hurt and anger your children feel and displace upon us, cell phones, i-pods, drugs, poverty, guns, knives, collective disrespect—must I go on? So, here’s what I think my critics ought to do: serve in an inner-city public school for a month.  Then come to me and tell me I am not worth much more than I am getting paid to do the most noble and important job of all.  Stop slinging shit and get yourselves into a high school classroom in one of the poorest districts in our country and see how you fare. Remember to bring your own supplies, because the education cuts will not provide you with what you need.  Scotch tape?  Are you kidding me?  Notebooks?  Pens?  Pencils? Rulers?  Staplers? Oh, and most of you will find there are no phones in your classrooms.  And, sometimes there is no heat or air conditioning or anything that resembles a classroom at all.  You might be teaching in a closet or a bathroom, without enough books, either.  And, a kid might be doing drug transactions on his cell phone, but don’t you dare confiscate it—he has rights.  Or, maybe one of your students tells you to go fuck yourself, or pulls a gun out in your classroom.  What you gonna do?  You are going to teach.  Yeah.  And, you are going to be judged by how well those kids do—even the ones who live on trains, get raped in group homes or by Mommy’s predatory boyfriend, or the ones whose parents tell you, “He’s your problem now.  I DON’T want you calling my house again, motherfucking asshole, you the reason nobody wants to go to school, FUCK  YOU.”  Sound like fun to you? Sound PROFESSIONAL to you?  Sound SANE to you? Sound ACCEPTABLE in the richest country in the world to you? Yeah, so, I say, go do your civic duty and spend a month or two in my shoes.  And, when you are running out clutching your bowels, don’t let that school door hit you in the ass.  Oh, and please, refuse your check because, let’s face it, you ain’t done nothing worth getting paid for.  Here me now? Oh, and don’t you forget to call your state senator and demand that funding for education be slashed because, as you have just experienced for yourself, there is just too cushy an environment in schools these days.  I mean, who do teachers think they are, demanding toilet paper and running water, safety and supplies—corporate bigwigs? Pshaw!

           Now, the 17^th Amendment is a problem to a lot of people.  It seems, to its critics, to expand federalism, and to curtail the power that they believe ought to redound to states.  You can look into it more, if it so pleases you, but I am going to give myself a reprieve here.  After what I have written about schools, and knowing that I am less than a week away from heading back to work, I think I need to go to sleep for awhile.

           As for Bachmann, Perry, and God, well, I kind of feel sorry for God, you know.  He just seems to be stuck in the middle of some very unsavory characters, and, unlike myself, can’t just shut off His computer and take a nap.  Sorry, Man, I guess that’s just the way it goes when You’re God.

As for the victims of Hurricane Irene and their loved ones:  I will fight Eric Cantor’s Un-Americanism, and fight to see Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano get the funding she is calling for to help you in your time of great need.  We, for I am not alone, will see to it that you are not stuck in the middle of bureaucratic machinations that are trying to pass for something “responsible.”  We know just what Eric Cantor, et al, is trying to do, BUT, being responsible is not the word.  It is ___________.  I’ll leave you folks to fill in the blank (the one on this page as well as the one in the middle of his head).

Paradise Lost Just South Of Somewhere, USA

           

“…Here everybody has a neighbor
Everybody has a friend
Everybody has a reason to begin again

My father said "Son, we're lucky in this town,
It's a beautiful place to be born.
It just wraps its arms around you,
Nobody crowds you and nobody goes it alone
You know that flag flying over the courthouse
Means certain things are set in stone
Who we are, what we'll do and what we won't"

It's gonna be a long walk home
Hey pretty darling, don't wait up for me
Gonna be a long walk home…”

                                                   “Long Walk Home,” by Bruce Springsteen

            Stunning acts of injustice overturned by stunning acts of justice are not usual.  Not in Midnight Express-like places, not here in the USA.  As Americans, we somehow are lulled into the belief that, despite our hold on reason, this country is the Land of the Ideal.  This notion has been tested many, many times, but never as it was on September 11, 2001.  I know my beliefs of our invincibility were so rooted in my unconscious that when we were attacked, I was tested to the point of insanity:  this could not have happened to us, TO AMERICA.  I could not wrap my mind around the enormity of that day.  Still can’t.  I obsessively watched the coverage.  I downloaded 600 pages about Osama Bin Laden the night of.  I thought Muhammad Atta was in my basement.  I shook like a leaf and my teeth chattered as I tried to go to sleep, fighter jets flying across my New York sky.  This could not have happened to us, to America, the United States, my country.  But, it did.  And, forever after that day my innocence, my iron-clad unconscious, was shattered.  To be sure, many others have been shattered by events that never, thank God, touched my life: kidnapping, murder, wrongful imprisonment, et al.  The jolt of unbelievable trauma leaves us as perceptibly different as the New York skyline without the Twin Towers. What is imperceptible, though, is even worse.

The United States of America, a true love of mine, is not ideal.  Well, to be sure, no place in the world is ideal.  There is no such reality as “the ideal.”  There is no such thing as perfection.  Scarier still, in a land more ideal than many, many others, when you look closer, you find we make pretty glaring mistakes, miscalculations, miscarriages of justice.  And, not just once in a blue moon.  This past Friday, three men who were wrongfully accused of murdering three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas, were released after 18 years of wrongful imprisonment, and only because of a virtual army of people, I among them, who fought all these years for their release.  My awareness came after watching a documentary about the case some 15 years ago or so.  Had it not been for those film-makers, I don’t know if I, or any number of others, would ever have known about the “West Memphis 3.”  Paradise Lost: The Murders at Robin Hood Hill stoked my outrage.  I am grateful for that.  At the press conference following an “Alford Plea,” whereby innocent people get to go free after they plead guilty while maintaining their innocence so an asinine state can save face and not be sued—it is very confusing and paradoxical, I know (I have included, at the end of this post, some legal information and definition of the Alford Plea*)—the men declared that there are many others who are wrongfully imprisoned, and that we should not forget that.  They considered themselves lucky for film-makers to have taken notice and have made a film that made an army that made a backwards, southern state do what no one expected a backwards, southern state to do: provide for the release of three men, who, when just boys themselves, poor and offensive to the “mainstream” hicks, were railroaded into prison, and one to death row, by a criminal Arkansas judicial system, which tampered with the jury, offered up no evidence, and suppressed evidence that could have led to exoneration.  They felt lucky.  It was this graciousness that made the long-awaited moment even more moving. 

So, now that the news abounds with stories about the West Memphis 3, more sickening miscarriages of justice are being published.  This morning, after checking out Donna Brazile’s recommendation of a story covered in The New Yorker magazine, I found myself lost in the common indecency of yet another case; only, in this one, the wrongfully accused was executed, after exonerating evidence and corrective scientific analyses were brought to the attention of one Rick Perry, governor of the state of Texas, and newly minted presidential candidate, who was the only person who could have granted a stay of execution, or commuted a sentence.  Even Dubya, while governor of Texas, exonerated a death row inmate when confronted with the awful evidence that a man was wrongfully imprisoned, and almost executed.   If you know anyone thinking about voting for Perry, they must read “Trial by Fire,” by David Grann, The New Yorker magazine, September 7, 2009.  Flames almost shot out of my head when I read it.  How can a man, who can so easily put another to death without even giving a cursory glance at the new evidence sent him, seek to be president of the United States?   This is the man who held the pray-in a couple of weeks ago.  This is the fierce, devoted Christian.  I guess Mr. Perry, you never got up to Matthew 25:40 that says, and I paraphrase, “That which you do for the least among us, you do for Me;” and in so doing, God says you get to go to Heaven … HOWEVER, if you do not do so, Mr. Perry, you get to go further south than your state, understand?  So, now if you would please just go to Hell…You know, Mr. Perry, that flag flying over the court house?   It means certain things are set in stone, like who we are, what we’ll do, and what we won’t.  Like, Mr. Perry, protecting and defending the least among us—see the Constitution, the one you want to swear to uphold, protect, and defend in some fantastical inauguration, one that should ONLY take place in YOUR fantasies…so, start walking, Mr. Perry, after what you have done, it is going to be a long walk home for you, BUT, I will do anything, everything I can to be sure you don’t lead our country any further on down the road away from justice and the tenets of the America I want to live in…

            I know bad things happen everywhere.  I do not want to offend the southern states.  I just know that the northeastern U.S. has been called the “Liberal Corridor.”  That is not meant to be a compliment.  The “L word” has long been demonized by a growing conservative movement; however, I take it to mean that we, here in NYC, do not set hard, fast boundaries around everything for everyone.  We tend to allow for more individuated opinions and positions.  I would like to note, too, that the same could be said for the “blue dot” in the red state of Texas, that being Austin.  Same for areas in just about every state.  I guess you could say, “We are everywhere.”  That gets the conservatives in an uproar. See, we “liberals” would rather do no harm than to harm by imposing our own positions on everyone.  The arguments are too numerous and tedious to get into here.  And, I do not like labels because they never adequately define.  I just know that statistics are damning evidence and the statistics on executions show the southern states, in the aggregate, have a greater number of inmates on death row, and have performed a greater number of executions than the mid-west or northern states.  That is why the policies in the south and having a southerner like Rick Perry trying for the presidency are disconcerting.  If Perry wants to preside over Paradise Lost, let him.  They’re waiting for you way down there, Mr. Perry…BUT, not in my America.

In order to keep Rick Perry, or Michele Bachmann, or any other miscreant out of our Whitehouse, I know I have to be ready for a marathon.  I invite all of you to start walking with me.  President Obama, that means you, too.

************

*The Law of Nolo Contendere and Alford Pleas

“At common law, a defendant could ask the court to impose a merciful sentence without confessing guilt and without estopping himself from later pleading not guilty on the same facts. In modern times, this became the formal plea of nolo contendere, which admits guilt for purposes of the present case but creates no estoppel. Today, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allow defendants to plead nolo contendere with the permission of the court. Most states likewise allow nolo contendere pleas (sometimes called no contest), though in many states these pleas require the court's consent.
Defendants now have another way to plead guilty without admitting guilt: the Alford plea. Henry Alford was charged with first-degree murder, a capital crime, and faced strong evidence of guilt. Rather than going to trial, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, a non-capital crime, while protesting his innocence. In North Carolina v. Alford, the Supreme Court held that defendants may knowingly and voluntarily plead guilty even while protesting their innocence. The Court noted that judges must find a sufficient factual basis before accepting these pleas, but the State provided one here. It put on two incriminating witnesses, who testified that Alford had left his house with a gun saying he would kill the victim and had returned saying he had killed the victim. The Court also noted that Alford's plea was like a plea of nolo contendere. If defendants can plead nolo contendere while refusing to admit guilt, the Court saw no reason to bar Alford from pleading guilty while protesting his innocence. The Court also suggested that Alford's decision to plead was a reasonable choice to cap his maximum sentence and that courts should honor this choice. While these pleas are not forbidden by the Constitution, neither are they required. Because defendants have no right to plead guilty, judges may refuse to accept Alford pleas, or states may forbid them by statute or rule. Most states have followed suit and permitted Alford pleas (sometimes called best-interests pleas).
Note that there are two main differences between Alford and nolo contendere pleas: First, nolo contendere pleas avoid estoppel in later civil litigation, while Alford pleas do not. Second, defendants who plead nolo contendere refuse to admit guilt, while Alford pleas involve affirmative protestations of innocence. By and large, however, Alford is simply a new extension of the age-old nolo plea. The timing of this expansion of the law three decades ago may be no coincidence. Alford fit well with the modern liberal emphasis on freedom of contract, autonomy, and informed choice.

First, the law has long allowed defendants to plead nolo contendere. This means that they refuse to admit guilt but accept punishment as if guilty. More recently, the Supreme Court has approved so-called Alford pleas, in which defendants plead guilty while simultaneously protesting their innocence. Far from criticizing these practices, Judge Frank Easterbrook and most other scholars praise these pleas as efficient, constitutional means of resolving cases. Even Albert Alschuler, a leading critic of plea bargaining generally, supports Alford pleas. He views them as a lesser evil, a way to empower defendants within a flawed system. As long as we have plea bargaining, he maintains, innocent defendants should be free to use these pleas to enter advantageous plea bargains without lying.

I dispute this conventional wisdom. Alford and nolo contendere pleas, I contend, are unwise and should be abolished. These procedures may be constitutional and efficient, but they undermine key values served by admissions of guilt in open court. They undermine the procedural values of accuracy and public confidence in accuracy and fairness, by convicting innocent defendants and creating the perception that innocent defendants are being pressured into pleading guilty.”

From:   "Harmonizing Substantive Criminal Law Values and Criminal Procedure: The Case of Alford and Nolo Contendre Pleas, " by Stephen Bilbas

(Originally published in the Cornell Law Review, Volume 88, Number 6, July 2003. Republished with the author's permission on pbs.org.)

HATER NATION

            

“I am doll eyes Doll mouth Doll legs I am doll arms Big veins Dog bait Yea they really want you They really want you They really do Yea they really want you They really want you But I do too I want to be the girl with the most cake I love him so much he just turns to hate I fake it so real I am beyond fake And someday you will ache like I ache Some day you will ache like I ache”

                                                                                  “Doll Parts,” by Courtney Love

            Michele Bachmann is indicative of an American problem. With her smart suits and good hair, she comes gliding into the presidential arena on a wicked witch’s broom, and all some see as real are the doll’s parts, working in concert, mouthing off belligerence, with a plastic smile, and eyes that roll up into her head, while an impotent wizard works behind the curtains, pulling the doll’s strings to the cheering of an ignorant crowd.  Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do…and that’s why you scare me, Michele, because I know you’re being pimped out by Master Marcus, and you aren’t much to pass for a human, let alone an American, but, hey, they really want you, they really want you, they really do…

Bachmann and company are in overdrive trying to spin the latest fall-out of the debt ceiling debacle.  Standard and Poor’s sovereign ratings department downgraded U.S. debt from our once pristine AAA rating for the first time in our history.   They cited political brinksmanship and the willingness for Tea Party Republicans, and, now it seems, some “mainstream” Republicans, to see this country go to the brink of default, with many cheering, like this is some kind of PlayStation game, for our country’s economy and reputation to go over the cliff.  What the hell is this?  We aren’t watching Thelma and Louise here.  We can’t press replay or restart and get a fresh do-over.  No.  Real adults all over the world watched in horror and incredulity as we made dangerous asses of ourselves, shaking their heads and thinking, What are they doing?  Do they have any idea of the consequences of their actions?  Well, like bullies in a schoolyard, the fight, the desire to pull someone’s pants down and lead a chorus of derision got us a smackdown, yet, the bullies try to spin this like they won some incredible victory.  I say to them, try to pull my pants down.  Come on.  Just take one step toward me and I will tear your asses apart and expose you for who you are.  We ought not back down because, we all know, at the core of every bully is a coward.  Well, I’m not afraid of you.  I wish our president and the Democrats could grow a pair and take you down.  What you have done merits an equal but opposite reaction:  tearing you and your rhetoric to shreds, galvanizing people against you, holding you accountable for the obscene folly you directed and starred in is now my mission and ought to be the mission of the Democratic Party. I know I will do my level best to put you in Thelma and Louise’s car and accelerate you into oblivion.

            To disgust and insult all of us even further, Republicans are trying to spin this crock of shit into political gold.  They are cavalierly and purposely missing the point, wishing to evade responsibility for their part in this crisis by saying Obama failed to cut spending enough, as if the guy at S&P did not say

“The downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenge.”

OR,

“The political brinkmanship we saw over raising the debt ceiling was something that was really beyond our expectations.  The U.S. government getting to the last day before they had cash management problems…there are very few governments that separate the budget process from the debt authorization process…(the Washington debacle) that is what put things over the brink…(the U.S. government) could have done a few things (to have avoided this) …the first thing it could have done is to have raised the debt ceiling in a timely manner, so that much of this debate had been avoided to begin with, as they have done 60 or 70 times since the 1960s… they could have come up with a fiscal plan… similar to the Bowles-Simpson Commission...a bipartisan agreement…that came up with a number of sensible recommendations… ”

            In Iowa, we’ve got Republican pretenders to the throne, and, they are a scary bunch.  There’s the AARP–eligible Ken doll, the “Her eyes are watching God” Barbie doll, the once sensible Minnesotan former governor who has had to shape-shift to keep up with the crazies in the Right wing—well, he has just dropped out—and a slew of others none-too-savory are still in.  Now, the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who held the pray-in last week in Houston, has entered the race, and is being called a serious contender.  Why is this so scary to me?  Maybe because I don’t want to see anybody praying, like I don’t want to see them going to the bathroom—it’s an act more honestly and shamelessly done in private.  I also have this thing about the separation of Church and State, believing as Thomas Jefferson did, that, could we build a wall between these institutions, the better we would be for it.  I think it is dangerous to “Go God” on us, when we see some states in a frenzy to try and prevent what they believe is a Muslim aim to install Sha’ria law—more about our fear of Muslims than any real movement—but accept unabashed drives to promote “Christian” social agendas in our politics and government.  Perry says he wants the government to have the least effect, be of the least consequence to our lives, but he will fight against gay marriage and women’s rights over their bodies.  You cannot stay out of our lives if you intend to fight against civil rights for all.  That puts you squarely in our bedrooms and doctor’s offices—two places I never want to see a politician.

What also scares me is that Perry is like Dubya with more brain power, seems likable, and, unlike Dubya, has the ability to articulate neatly without butchering the English language, and is not to-the-manor-born.  Coming from a little sliver of Texas, called Paint Creek, the son of a cotton farmer and a farmer himself in his early years, Perry is the kind of hard-working, make-of-yourself all you can kind of guy who, I believe, will resonate with some very important independents who are angry at Obama and Congress, but who might find a record of jobs creation—albeit mostly minimum wage jobs—comprising nearly 40% of all U.S. jobs growth while accounting for only about 10% of overall population something to recommend the man.  I listened to his announcement having to agree that he speaks with the kind of direct strength the nation has been hungry to hear.  We like people who talk tough.  Remember Reagan, “Mister Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”  We like that kind of stuff.  Now, let’s try, Mrs. Bachmann, shut your ignorant mouth.  Ok, that might not resonate so well.  Let me see… how about, Mrs. Bachmann, Jim Crow is dead, even for gay people.  Not doing it for ya, huh?  Well, give me a little time to think.  I will come up with something.  Umm…how about…Mrs. Bachmann, stop letting your husband pimp you out for his cause…(We all know Marcus wants to be First Lady, but the only Michele I want in the Whitehouse is the one already there).  Anyway, I gotta work on it…

Speaking of Mrs. Bachmann…

            Michele Bachmann is scary.  Yeah, Michele, you fake a love for America so real you are beyond fake.  Unlike Sarah Palin, Bachmann is a more serious contender, better at political spin than Palin could ever wish to be, and an obedient Republican the establishment knows won’t “go rogue.”  That sort of acquiescent behavior translates into dollars--lots of them, and buys the support of the biggest Right wing players.  In other words, she knows how to play the game, and a dangerous game it is, indeed.  It opens the coffers and gives her political cover as somehow legitimate, even though her rhetoric is astoundingly divisive and delusional.  When confronted on Meet The Press with her anti-gay pronouncements, Bachmann deftly, and without waivering, kept to her talking points and responded, “I am running for the presidency of the United States; I am nobody’s judge.”  Here are the quotes with which she was confronted, from a speech she made in 2004 at the National Education Leadership Conference:

"We need to have profound compassion for the people who are dealing with the very real
issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders," Bachmann said in a 2004 speech.   "It's not funny, it's sad. It's part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It's anything but gay."… "If you're involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it's bondage. Personal bondage, personal despair, and personal enslavement. And that's why this is so dangerous."

Without missing a beat, Congresswoman Bachmann stuck to her script and repeated her refrain.  Here is the actual dialogue of the exchange on Meet The Press:

"That is the view President Bachmann would have of gay Americans?" NBC's David Gregory asked Bachmann Sunday.

"Well, I'm running for the presidency of the United States," Bachmann replied. "I'm not running to be anyone's judge."  "But you do judge them," Gregory noted.

"I don't judge them," Bachmann disagreed. "I am running for presidency of the United States."

"Congresswoman, do you think that anyone who hears that thinks you haven't made a judgment about gays and lesbians?" Gregory wondered.

"That's all I can tell you. I am not judging," Bachmann insisted.

The candidate added that she would be willing to appoint a gay cabinet member if they shared her views.

Yeah, Michele Bachmann wants to be the girl with the most cake.  And, I would like to see her starve.

 When Gregory confronted her about the debt ceiling debacle, Bachmann answered that we must listen to the people, who, she says, did not want the debt ceiling to be increased.   When reminded that such a course of action would have caused U.S. default and subsequent cataclysm, she said we must listen to the people.  Ok, there was a time people believed that an African-American slave was three fifths of a human being and ought not to have rights.  People once went psycho to keep Jim Crow laws in place, fighting against civil rights, and fire-hosing the skin off of black people.  Michele, if you are going to play to the cheap seats, appeal to what is basest in the American populace, promote homophobia, and drive the economy over a cliff just becauses asses who don't understand the consequences coo in your ear, then it is time to take out your battery,  cut the string with the loop in back of your head, put you in Thelma and Louise's car, and send you and your repetitive loop of nonsense crashing and burning.  And I'm wishing, "Yea, someday you will ache like I ache...Someday you will ache like I ache..."

Her views also include the following:

"You have a teacher talking about his gayness. [The elementary school student] goes home then and says 'Mom! What’s gayness? We had a teacher talking about this today.' The mother says 'Well, that’s when a man likes other men, and they don’t like girls.' The boy’s eight. He’s thinking, 'Hmm. I don’t like girls. I like boys. Maybe I’m gay.' And you think, 'Oh, that’s, that’s way out there. The kid isn’t gonna think that.' Are you kidding? That happens all the time. You don’t think that this is intentional, the message that’s being given to these kids? That’s child abuse."*

*Uh, Michele, most perverts and pedophiles are heterosexual.

"It isn’t that some gay will get some rights. It’s that everyone else in our state will lose rights. For instance, parents will lose the right to protect and direct the upbringing of their children. Because our K-12 public school system, of which ninety per cent of all youth are in the public school system, they will be required to learn that homosexuality is normal, equal and perhaps you should try it. And that will occur immediately, that all schools will begin teaching homosexuality."*

*Just like everyone wanted to be black after the successes of the Civil Rights Movement, and teachers were teaching…what?  Blackness?    

       Hmm.   Want this in the Whitehouse?  At a time when common humanity and decency have been severely lacking, can we afford to have this woman lead what has been the greatest nation on the planet?  At a time when it is critical to have truly bright and intelligent leaders, we have this baffling idiot in effect saying, “Don’t listen to what I have said that might make me vulnerable to attack in this race.  I am running for president of the United States.  Don’t try to make me own up to my awful, dim-witted judgments.  I am running for president of the United States.  I know homosexuals are perverts and pedophiles, but I can’t admit that because I AM RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  Like this is her chance to press restart and get a do-over.  Well, truth is, any serious contender for the presidency of this great country MUST be held accountable for what he or she says.  Your statements, beliefs, convictions MUST be known, for the “buyer” must beware.  In no other position are these things more critical.  To evade responsibility for them is to be disingenuous and undeserving of the position which you seek. You said these immoral and untrue things.  You advance hatred, stereotyping, and discrimination. BUT, you are running for president of the United States.  Oh.  Sorry, I didn’t get your point.  So, let me get this straight:  you do not have to own up to the most heinous rhetoric you have spouted because you are running for president of the United States.  Michele, you speak with forked tongue.  Like that of a serpent. I know you dig those Bible references.  That shit about being submissive to your husband, and all that.  Too bad you never got to the New Testament.  The one with the loving God, not the hypercritical, insecure nut of a God in the Old Testament.  The one who really commits child abuse when he tells Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac.  And, Abraham wins God’s approval when he ties his kid down and is about to off him.  Think that did any damage to Isaac, Michele? Come on, now, you can get that answer for us, can’t you?  You’re the one with the “bat-phone” to God, aren’t you?  Well, with the maniacal shit you spew as “divinely inspired,” you can talk to God all you want, Michele, but, realize, it is Satan who is answering you.  Any time you choose to discriminate against any of God’s children, it isn’t Christian.  To promote hatred is not Christian.  To be an ignorant ass isn’t either.  And, more to the point at this juncture, it is Un-American.  You do, however, talk the talk of the most ignorant and intolerant of our populace, and that is a fearful and unfortunate presentiment. 

See, we, as a country, cannot seem to appreciate a person who really does respect everyone and wants everyone to have guaranteed civil rights.  We tend to see that person as weak, misguided, un-Godly, as if you have to be a hater to get anywhere in this America.  We like our hate.  We want to be able to hate freely.  We want the last group we can legally hate to remain hate-able.  What would we do with all that negative shit we have if we can’t hate?  I mean, come on.  Don’t take away our last bastion of hatred.  We are a Hater Nation.  We can’t call African-Americans niggers anymore.  We can’t openly discriminate against them or women.  Now, you wanna take away the gays, too?  Shit.  Ain’t there an amendment somewhere in that there Constitution that allows me to keep my niggers and faggots at the lash’s end, just like I can keep my guns?  This country needs a good lynchin’ is all.  I think we gotta start with that there high yellow nigger in the Whitehouse.  How the hell he get in there in the first place?  We white folk been sleepin’ too long.  Look what you gone and done here. Look what they done, Bubba.   They  done put a Arabic Muslim negro man in our Whitehouse.  That ain’t no place for a black man, in the WHITEHOUSE.  There’s reasons why we named it that.  Don’t anybody know American History?

       If “No Drama Obama” can’t make political hay out of Bachmann’s bullshit, and reinforce this nation’s unequivocal stand on civil rights at the same time, he is in trouble.  He is also, unfortunately, taciturn as ever, and cannot continue to speak derogatorily as “the adult in the room,” when the walls of said room seem to be closing in on all sides.  Being “the adult” won’t do much for you in a dysfunctional “family” where the kids beat up their parents. He does not, perhaps cannot, make bold pronouncements of any consequence after he gave away the store in the devastating budget battle.  But, I say he MUST.  Who will champion sanity, if not him?   And, just how do you get those goddamn crazy people who believe Bachmann to be sane or be attracted by it?  I don’t know if you can.  Anyone who believes the kind of crap passing for acceptable, even presidential, convictions is so far from ok in the head that I fear them and the fact that they live in the same country that I do.  President Obama must do some re-tooling. Can he reinvent himself, and, if he can, would he turn voters off rather than inspire them as he did in 2008?  I think, however he presents himself, he has weakened his image as president sufficiently to erase the stature the office would give him, and is, therefore, a real target for getting bloodied up.  So, how can he duck and cover and pounce?  I would start by acting like the Republicans: you have to have a short memory, or, pretend not to have one at all.  Start acting like the president of the United States and forget that you once forgot to. Then proceed to get rid of your whiny advisors and take a savvy, smart set of speechwriters and talking-point mavens from across the political spectrum.  I would not start saying that God told you to replace your reelection team, or do a reprise of “Kumbaya,” since your last attempt at it went so well with the many self-styled Christians, who resembled Roman Emperor Diocletian more than they did the Christian “lion-feed.”  Remember, these folks are only Christian when they campaign in the Bible Belt or the Mid-West.  Other than that, they are Philistines.  

       David Axelrod’s bad comb-over, and his weary, whiny voice make me cringe, but also make me understand what a bubble the president is in.  I want him and his to burst that bubble, start a campaign of shock and awe, or get in the back seat of Thelma and Louise’s car, because, Barack, baby, you will be driven over the cliff and take your place in political oblivion, with the likes of Jimmy Carter as company.  Get yourself some help, man.  There is only, uh, the leadership of the greatest country in the world on the line.  I don’t want to live in a Hater Nation.  Anyone else out there who doesn’t, please throw me, and the president, a line.  Right now, the very essence of our country, what it means to be an American is on that line.  And, I want my country back, yeah I really want it, I really do…

The U.S. Civil War of 2011: Social Darwinism is NOT the Answer

"Money
Well, get back
I'm all right Jack
Keep your hands off of my stack
Money
It's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit
I'm in the high-fidelity first class travelling set
I think I need a Lear jet..."

                                                                                      "Money," by Pink Floyd

            It is an anxious, oxymoronic strain running through our politics that ought to have all of us worrying about who will decide the type of government and society we want in the United States of America.  Those who both claim God as their paradigm of virtue and natural selection as their tool for doing God’s work are dangerous Social Darwinists who will, like the Nazis, decide who are the “useless eaters,” those unworthy of resources to live because they cannot serve society in the way the splinter group, and its growing voice, believe they should to earn such a keep. They are the far right evangelicals and Tea Party Republicans whom we allowed to shape our critical and damaging debate over the debt ceiling.  They held our economy hostage until they could guarantee that Darwinist natural selection was put in place as the measure by which we would give less to those who have less, and more to those who have more, as what?  A reward for a better stock portfolio?  A reward for bank accounts—here and offshore—with many more zeroes after their first numbers than 98% of us have?  A reward for making out better on an unlevel playing field, as if this were some kind of grand, respectable, and somehow fair achievement?  Or, for the 98% of us not as well off as the top 2%, as a punishment for not being as financially favored or fortunate or born that way?  You acted in the ugliest manner possible, and, Congress, no one likes ugly.  God don’t like ugly.  And I, most decidedly, will not make it easy for your ugly, brutish tactics to hold ultimate sway over how MY America is going to be. 

You acted like terrorists, some said.  I think President Obama should have held to the Reagan doctrine on this, “We will not negotiate with terrorists,” and invoked the 14^th Amendment that provides for the national debt to be honored, paid, without question or impediment.  Some say Obama was afraid of being impeached.  Like his immediate predecessor, I would have said, “Bring It On.”  And, I would have taken away your talking points and forced you into a new debate that you would not be able to win.  I would never have allowed you to make such fascist demands and get away with it.  I would have grabbed back the narrative and beaten your asses in with it.  You disgust me.  You, Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin share preferences, philosophies.  Survival of the fittest is fine in the jungle, and natural selection, what Hitler practiced with “inferior” humans, is fine when planting, but we are supposed to be the civilized, and we have savages for elected officials.  You are Un-American.  You neither live your principles (see the Tea Party’s Congressman Walsh and his child support payments in arrears over $117,000) nor uphold those you swore to uphold in that document, maybe you remember it—The Constitution—yeah, that one.  And don’t you go off half-cocked and scream, “Socialist;” for, your God, the one who talks to your Michele Bachmann, is a socialist (and please note that her closet case of a husband takes Medicaid to “pray away the gay” in his counseling practice).  Well, that God who speaks to Michele and Marcus is a socialist.  Yeah.  That’s right.  The guy with the beard, long hair, not into materialism, who said it would be harder for a rich man to pass into the kingdom of heaven than a camel through a needle’s eye.  Yeah.  Jesus.  The one who promised a lot when he delivered His party’s platform in his Sermon on the Mount.  See His talking points.  You will notice a little problem:  none of you is on the same page with Him, although you claim to be guided by His principles.  I say, stop your bullshit.  You want to keep the masses stupid and wanting, polarized, and showing their worst instincts.  Well, many got an unexpected education.  Yes, I know knowledge as a democratic commodity scares the hell out of you, but you bullied and preened, and crowed, and showed enormous belligerence, while playing out the deadly sin of pride, and, guess what?  Some of those “sheep” who follow you found out that as “shepherds” you would rather drive the flock over the cliff’s edge than protect them.  I am not one of your flock.  I am middle class, and a fierce one among the beleaguered of the population.  I am smart and therefore dangerous to you.  Be afraid, be very afraid.  I am far from a lone, fierce voice.  And, after the debacle you staged at the expense of our stature and economy, our People, I hope to be a member of a swelling chorus before long. 

You have any idea what would happen if the U.S. dollar, the world’s reserve currency, were to tank or be replaced? You should since it was a risk you were willing to take.  It would mean sky-rocketing interest rates at a time when businesses need to borrow at the lowest interest rates, people need the lowest mortgage rates to help restart the housing sector (which would fall even more precipitously), and outrageous inflation—making those responsible for 70% of our GDP growth—consumers—less able to spend, which would cause less demand across the economic sectors, and higher unemployment. (IMF managing director Christine Lagarde was asked about such a possible scenario, and made it clear that we could not envision the cataclysm, nor should we speculate on such a topic as it would throw global markets into further tumult, and, ultimately, no such step could be made quickly or lightly).  Look at the turmoil caused by a prospective default of Greece, whose economy is small change next to ours—the biggest and richest in the world.  It would be unimaginable horror on an unimaginable and unprecedented scale.   Ignoramuses.  You and K Street  and that disappointment in the Whitehouse are in for some more bruising yourselves. You may have polarized us even further in the short run, but I believe there will be a backlash that waylays your future plans.  I will work toward your definitive and collective endings. I am fired up and I will not capitulate until I get everybody in my sphere going.  Understand?  Consider this little time you have left, and use it to contemplate how 9.2% of Americans feel, because we are going to fire you.  You have not served us, you have shamed us, and for that there is no forgiveness.  I’ll leave that up to Jesus.

You want to cut entitlements, the social programs, as you preserve tax breaks for the corporations, the wealthiest—who, by the way, have trillions of dollars in cash on their balance sheets but are not spending it to create jobs, as you continue to lie about these facts.  I don’t know; maybe it’s me, but I would rather see Americans fed, clothed, able to get their needed medicines than keep tax loopholes for corporate jet owners.  WE ARE NOT A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY!!!  I know, I know.  Silly me.  Needs before greed.  Can’t have that be a guiding principle in the greatest land in the world, whose image as such, by the way, has been severely called into question while you used our greatness as a bargaining tool to shine a light on a president’s flaws, and wanted to shore up your re-election bids by looking less like the Founding Fathers, who sought to provide for the general welfare, than an apoplectic German tyrant who would have seen the fall of his country—had he not killed himself in a bunker—after he, like you, got all and more of what he demanded, categorically ignoring treaties and alliances made to make our world safer and more civil, and still strove on to decimate people, until a lethargic world roused itself from torpor and said, “No more.”  That caused a World War.  Perhaps you are presiding over the next Civil War in the United States.  For, as England might have slept in 1938, sacrificing Czechoslovakia in an appeasement to a madman, we Americans are more awake than we have been, and we are determined not to have our elderly and needy be your Czechoslovakia. 

You say only spending cuts without revenue-raising can cure us of our malady.  Less money in the economic system leads to higher unemployment, greater social devastation, and a blighted land of plenty for only those, a certain few, allowed to reach the common table.  But, even the Chosen will not benefit; for, who will buy their products?  Who will employ their services?   In the last week of this July, the CEOs of Wal-Mart, Kimberley Clarke, PNC-Sierra Semiconductor Manufacturing, and CVS testified before Congress to say they were willing for all their corporate loopholes to be put on the table, to work toward a more competitive America, keeping more jobs here by working with Congress to alleviate the tax burden they now must meet—topping out at 35%--25% paid in foreign taxes, and a 10% sur-tax on top of that when they re-patriot (bring home to the U.S.) funds.  They said the tax credits they get would be much less appealing if we, working together, could find ways to make a lower corporate tax possible.  It isn’t oh so simple, nor is it unquestionable nobility, but they sounded more patriotic than the fools who piss themselves to get the donations these CEOs might give them for re-election campaigns. BUT, to get those donations, the pissing reps will need to preserve those very loopholes and credits that these Americans are telling us to put up on the chopping block.

Remember, or learn of, what got us here.  It is not so simplistic that partisan arguments, like that of democratic strategist Paul Begala, can adequately explain.  We know the litany: tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, the funding of two wars on the national credit card, a Medicare prescription drug benefit with no way to pay for it, etc.  What really got us here, though, are older wounds, never properly attended to:

Thirty years of financial deregulation started under Reagan, and galloping through Bush II.  Banks bundling mortgages (the good and the bad), student loans, all kinds of loans, bad debt, and selling them as AAA rated collateral, “securitized” debt.  It, like asinine and dangerous ignorance, was all based on lies.  So, a deregulated industry, allowing local Savings and Loans to bet customer’s savings on just about anything—from the weather (I kid you not) to how much a stock could spike, as a result of unethically pushing it on unsuspecting buyers, then lose, thus “making a market,” was an acceptable form of making the game. It caused the Savings and Loan failure of the 80s, led to power accruing to a few giants, making CEOs obscene amounts of money while they would be overseeing the melee believing that, on a smaller playing field, they would now be “too big to fail.” So, they played fast and loose, and when they failed, guess what happened?  We bailed them out.  First under George W. Bush, who I must say, was reluctant to do so.  That was a time he should have stuck to his guns.

Now, you, Republicans, want to fight Wall Street reform because unfettered crazy people did so well without it, and we just didn’t notice it, because we are all idiots and we should give compulsive gamblers our money and let them do with it as they please:  give themselves bigger compensation packages, new Rolexes, another home, yacht, or corporate jet, keep their employee rolls down, their salaries and bonuses up.  Yes.  That is your answer, Republicans:  Screw history.  Screw truth.  Get those low-lives off the dole and make middle class lackeys pay. Yeah.  Tell constituents that lazy folk are the greatest drain on our economy, and let them go savage at each other. Never go after our true masters—the wealthy.  Never let them foot a bill, correct a wrong, be jailed for unethical behaviors.  Kowtow and kiss up:  this is how we will keep power.  And, if you don’t give us what we want, we will just allow the wealthy to buy us, senator or congressman, and do their will.  Or, if you don't give us our way, we will just take some federal agency hostage, like the FAA, and, if that isn't enough, maybe we'll just eat your young.  Any way you want to try to approach this, here is our deal: no deal.  We must allow our benefactors to take what they want. This alone will ensure our hold on power.  And, ultimate, unchecked power is All we want and All we will settle for.  That bullshit is the kind of strong-arming Larry Summers did when he threatened the head of the very agency that would see regulations in the credit default swaps market.  Larry Summers belongs in jail.  Alan Greenspan, too.  And, if I were to have been the one going after Clinton for impeachment, it would have been for his part in this debacle, not for a blow job.  Suck on that.

Here is Thomas Jefferson on banks:

     "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs."

This is a guy who understood greed.

            I know very few want to read about this, which is exactly why you should.  If we remain ignorant, we remain powerless.  I have a problem with the raiding, the unchecked greed.  I have a problem with the cries to cut entitlement spending until the elderly bleed, not because I am a socialist, but because I am an AMERICAN.  Pre-election 2008, the same year Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, highest paid CEO in history (from Goldman Sachs), told us there was nothing to worry about in the psycho-leveraging going on at every investment bank, we, the taxpayers, were called upon to bailout investment banks and AIG to avert a global meltdown.  And, not one of the top officers of these firms paid in or put out, although they were the lying, character-disordered freaks who made it all come down.  Now, their mouthpieces say, let’s go back to that same pool of people and make them sacrifice again while we banshees scream and distract.   Nothing like making some stupid folks believe that they are paying for little black babies being born out of wedlock, abortions, and a path to survival for all those irresponsible creeps out there, while those lesbos and homos think it’s ok to marry, and those darn teachers ain’t doin’ a thing with our little angels.  Yeah, to HELL with them.  Cut it all away—just don’t cut mine.  ‘Cause I ain’t like that.  I am God-fearin’ and good as my mama raised me to be.  Yeah, me too, and I don’t abuse my girlfriend, I pay my taxes, and tolerate peaceably your existence in our nation.  Happy to do it for ya, Bubba.  Now, go put down your beer, fix your teeth, and take your head out of your ass because your proctologist called, having just located it.

Just what is necessary to protect rights, let alone accrue power?  Justice and equitability won’t do it for us.  As Sojourner Truth said in her famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, in the context of fighting for equal civil rights for women—being fought against by men who quite naturally believed women to be inferior in the head, and therefore not worthy of equal rights—

“What's intellect got to do with women's rights or black folks' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?"

In other words, are we not to be considered equal, and, therefore, equal under the law?  Are we not all to have rights and privileges accruing to us as citizens of this great nation, despite disparity of intellect, income, age, anything? Well, Ms. Truth, truth is that intellect is not the only criterion by which worthiness to live a decent life with rights and services protected will now be decided:  age, illness, injury, long-term unemployment, and tragic circumstance can and will be held against us, although the wantonly rich will easily take the Social Security check when it comes, and the Medicare coverage when it is available, and the wantonly stupid keep singing “We Shall Overcome,” with decided derision at our first African American president.

Here are some facts we should consider.   According to the IRS estimates for 2010, income NOT subject to Social Security taxes is as follows: individual income in excess of $102,000, and $106, 800 for the self-employed.  The Republicans do not want to raise this limit.  I believe we should.  And, as for the tax rates, the top earners in this country pay the SAME as the working poor:  18%.   How’s that for fairness, for equitability?  And, as for intellect, Ms. Truth, there is still a deadly dearth of it in our elected officials and many of their “sheep.”  Not so much has changed in that area in the last 160 years, I am sorry to say.  

If we are going to continue this grand experiment of ours, I think we should do some natural selection at the voting booths.