Where are we headed?
As a supporter of Obama from the moment he announced, I always recognized that this candidacy was something of a Hail Mary pass. Like most of us, I was enticed (up to a point) by the "change" rhetoric, but I always feared that it might be a crock. And so it turned out to be.
My main concern was to block the appalling and sinister John McCain, for with his psycho buddies at his side (read Lieberman and Palin) we would be plunged into: a) endless warfare in the service of Israel (Lieberman); and b) fundamentalist knownothingism (Palin). We avoided those traps--or did we?
In my more sober moments I felt that the matter boiled down to a choice between a third term for Bush or a third term for Clinton. With considerable misgivings, I opted for the latter.
Now it looks as if I was wrong. What we are getting is both: a third term for Bush (Gates and the idiotic Paulson, whose folly will linger for a long time) and a third term for Clinton (Rahm Immanuel and John Podesta, both eager to pay back old scores--not to mention Hil herself).
Long ago, my radical parents instructed me that whomever one votes for, be it Republican or Democrat, one always gets the same policies. Tweedledum and tweedledee. How right they were! For a time, in their different ways, Ralph Nader and Ron Paul charted out a different path. But most people were (and are) still hypnotized by the old D vs. R shell game.
Now we are going to have endless war (in the hopeless Afghanistan mess AND Iraq) and endless ("stimulus") spending, which will mortgage the country for generations to come. Thank goodness I have no children.
The preposterous handwringing over the auto manufacturers (which ought to go immediately into Chapter Eleven) shows that the unions will be increasingly calling the tune. That charlatan Barney Frank admitted as much. Union domination, always the solf underbelly of the Democratic Party, was something that Bill Clinton was able to avoid--up to a point. The obstinacy of the teachers' unions remains, however, the biggest problem in getting this country moving. Obama will not, cannot do anything about that vested interest. And so the United States will sink ever lower in the competition among the nations of the developed world. Trust me: I'm a teacher myself.
My main concern was to block the appalling and sinister John McCain, for with his psycho buddies at his side (read Lieberman and Palin) we would be plunged into: a) endless warfare in the service of Israel (Lieberman); and b) fundamentalist knownothingism (Palin). We avoided those traps--or did we?
In my more sober moments I felt that the matter boiled down to a choice between a third term for Bush or a third term for Clinton. With considerable misgivings, I opted for the latter.
Now it looks as if I was wrong. What we are getting is both: a third term for Bush (Gates and the idiotic Paulson, whose folly will linger for a long time) and a third term for Clinton (Rahm Immanuel and John Podesta, both eager to pay back old scores--not to mention Hil herself).
Long ago, my radical parents instructed me that whomever one votes for, be it Republican or Democrat, one always gets the same policies. Tweedledum and tweedledee. How right they were! For a time, in their different ways, Ralph Nader and Ron Paul charted out a different path. But most people were (and are) still hypnotized by the old D vs. R shell game.
Now we are going to have endless war (in the hopeless Afghanistan mess AND Iraq) and endless ("stimulus") spending, which will mortgage the country for generations to come. Thank goodness I have no children.
The preposterous handwringing over the auto manufacturers (which ought to go immediately into Chapter Eleven) shows that the unions will be increasingly calling the tune. That charlatan Barney Frank admitted as much. Union domination, always the solf underbelly of the Democratic Party, was something that Bill Clinton was able to avoid--up to a point. The obstinacy of the teachers' unions remains, however, the biggest problem in getting this country moving. Obama will not, cannot do anything about that vested interest. And so the United States will sink ever lower in the competition among the nations of the developed world. Trust me: I'm a teacher myself.
posted by Dyneslines at 9:56 AM
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