Another Must Read.....and bonus! a rant

One of the pages I follow on Facebook posted this earlier and I must say, it blew me away. Remember a while back, when I said that I don't think the Civil War ended? What I didn't do was say it nearly as well as Charles P. Pierce does in this article. 

It really needs to be spread far and wide to every one who really wants to hold us together long enough to repair the damage and the wounds of the last 150 years....hell, from the pilgrims forward truth be told.

With our corporate media rushing to blame Islamic terrorists for the recent horrible events in Norway  when it turns out he is a blond, blue-eyed Nazi-type nationalist, makes me remember all the right wing nationalist attacks on American soil that no one talks about with any semblance of rationality. It's all about who wins and who loses the media day and the ratings and the whining from the very people who encourage and support these same ideas for political gain and power and wealth. Greed basically. All these christo-facists who will reap the rewards by the people too dumb or lazy or apathetic  to really pay attention that the 'religion' they all espouse is nothing but a facade to keep or gain power and money. And here they are ready to plunge the entire fucking world back into the worst depression any of us have ever seen, worse than the Great Depression of my grandparents era, by using peoples faith.
That worldwide depression led to the rise of Hitler, a world war and a cold war. World War II may have brought the United States out of depression, but what did we get for it? A literally divided world between free people and not free people. For 50 years we lived like this. Many innocents suffered in the undeclared wars of the 50's and 60's into the 70's. Korea, Vietnam, Hungary, Germany, Romania, Czechoslavakia, Iran, Iraq (funny, that) and another fun trip back in time in Afghanistan and on and on and on.....
Then the Cold War ended. (I have to say that as a military brat, the youngest of 4 girls, during the 60's and 70's that my sisters had no idea what the Cold War was....I was and still am, astounded by that. For those of you who share my sisters ignorance, go here.)  
So what happened after that? We turned on each other. Funny thing about us humans, we have to have an enemy. I don't know why, but I wish evolution would hurry up, we'll never get to the 24th Century that Gene Roddenberry envisioned and I want. Anywho, the entire era of the Cold War, it was politically advantageous for republicans to win elections by painting the democrats as weak on foreign policy. The reason they could safely have that ground was because they would actually cross the line and do things that democrats wouldn't. But on the other hand, the dems with the Gulf of Tonkin, some dems would and could. Which may be the genesis of the 'both sides do it' meme that is so familiar today. Then Nixon came along and did what he did and got away with it which enabled people like Donald Rumsfeld, Roger Ailes and Dick Cheney to do what brings us to the United States electing a black man for President. Can you imagine? It wasn't supposed to be like that at all....they have to have been so disappointed when that happened. But then, they got together at a Koch Brothers event in Palm Springs or somewhere equally posh and thought up the wonderful world we live in now. Just writing that feels like a conspiracy theory and maybe that's by design? Because there wouldn't be people out there who would deliberately want to destroy the entire nation and economy on purpose....right?
Well, I don't really think so.....I think their motives were, and are, greed and power and money. I don't think they realized the economic situation in the country....and really, how could they? They live in a world that knows no limits, none. They don't live in the world that the rest of us do. Where people like me have to budget the $20.00 co-pay to see the doctor. They don't worry about people out there who have to wonder, should I pay the electric bill or put gas in the car? They didn't know that was there when they started I don't think. Maybe they thought it was like 1992 and all we needed was a little political wrangling to get them more. I don't know. What I think is that they didn't realize the economic situation or, and this is the important part, the level of fear that they had been fomenting for years with faux news and rush and all the others....they had control before, why would this be any different?
So here we are, on the brink of default. Yay for us.

My question then is this, what do they do now? They have made compromise of any sort impossible with their behavior during President Obama's tenure. So what happens? They give? The President gives? I honestly cannot believe they have put him in this position. And it won't matter who will 'win' this battle. The politicians win. The corporate media wins. The losers? Me, you, the entire world that isn't in the top 2%. And the people who have brought us here? Only 27-33% of the Grand Old Party of the United States of America. The people who have been shunned, rightly, by civil society. The people on the fringe. This time though, the corporations had media holdings to bring the people too dumb, lazy or apathetic a story they could accept and make themselves feel better.
That doesn't seem like a fair deal. At all.

That's it. Rant over. But go read Charles P. Pierce's article which brought us all here. :) You can read it here.

rant

I just posted this over at BobCesca,com and thought I should put it here. It is in response to a discussion about John Boehner and his job as Speaker and the upcoming fights on the budget and the raising of the debt ceiling. 

nope....what'll happen is what's happened for the last 30 years. the establishment repubs and their constituents, the corporation, will keep the debt limit ceiling from being stalled. They will do that because as we all know, all their money is overseas and they won't let anything happen that could further damage the worldwide economy.
The problem is going to be over Ryan's budget. Then Boehner will have to have dems help and if that happens, then he will be in a heap of shit so deep. I don't know if you can remove a Speaker before the session is over, someone smarter may know (and please share). but if he has to capitulate to the dems to avoid a shutdown, he's going to have to go talk to some dems. and after that, who knows.....but if they can't remove him, they can make his term miserable. preferably just his...I don't want to pay for his 20 year power indulgence. He gets that hangover. They'll play the same culture war issues and get shot down every time. it's been this way for 30 years...it's getting old and tired, sure...but they are good at it.
but what's changed are contradictory...the media has become corporate owned and operated with no regard for their prestigious position in out democracy and we can no longer count on them to do their civic duties. the other thing that's changed is that we are in the worst economic times since the 1930's and there are too many people out there who are just now waking up and realizing we don't have the status quo anymore, we did get change, just not the change we thought. I voted for President Obama and will do everything I can to see that he is re-elected by a much bigger landslide than the last one. no matter who they put up. because our fourth estate hasn't been doing their jobs for decades now, it's up to us. It's up to the American people to stand up and call liars liars and stupid people who can seem to only pay attention to 30 second soundbites our neighbors. because that's who they are. they are our families (mine anyway) and show them what is actually going on. we are on the verge, possibly, of losing our very way of life. I never thought that would ever happen. I never thought that we would be so stupid to believe and be distracted by shiny objects that we would let out troops languish in shoddy equipment over politics. I never thought of even asking the question, it seemed so remote.
But this coming election is where you sit down with the young people and make sure they know that because they didn't vote this round, we have to fight this battle again....and the stakes are higher. We have to take our country back from the corporations that have bought their way into our government and gotten themselves rewarded by taking all the money and not sharing it.....I want their citizenship taken away. If they want to show their patriotism, then prove it. take one for the team and smile about it. I want dems and repubs alike to do the same. I'm not doing the equivalency thing, of course the right is much better at mind fucking people than we are. But we are better at being the real Americans they so often mock while pretending to give a fuck about any of it. I'm a dem because for the majority of them, they act like elected leaders should. they don't act like it's junior high all over again.
wow, went on a little rant didn't I? I'm sure I left more stuff out, but that's enough for now. Thank you for your time. :)

why am I here?

I have asked myself, several times, why I have a blog. Part of it is because Facebook gave me the ability to share with people the things I believe and feel are just and true and funny and share who I am through posting youtube videos of my favorite music. And I like that. As for this blog, it's the invisibility. I like that I can do all the things I can do on Facebook, but here...only a few people know who I am. I like the invisibility.  I like that you are reading this all over the world....or you can from all over the world. And you have no clue who I am other than what I post here. I really like that. Because I think people are the same all over the world...unless you're rich....then I got nothing for you. I've never known what that feels like. :)
As I've mentioned before, I don't have a lot of close friends. I like it that way. I have always felt apart, separate from most people, and more often than not, from my family. So this is where I'm most comfortable.


So I'm over at Balloon-Juice and reading this and it occurs to me that this is one of the reasons I want to keep writing here as well. I want to record what happens before the Civil War finally ends...hopefully with the ballot box, but more likely with bullets.

I am a student of history, American history. I have a degree from a state university in history. I am getting old and have forgotten most of what I learned in school....for you kids out there, let this be a lesson, get a job in the field of study you choose. If I had done that, I'd be a better person I think. Then again, that would mean being a bureaucrat (public employee) or a college professor (perhaps a public employee, but certainly a liberal elite). I did want to be a bureaucrat in the State Department. So I would be demonized by one of the major parties in this country...I already am, so I'm good.
Anyway, I digress.....
I never, ever, ever would have thought that one of the political parties in our two party system would lose their minds completely. I knew that during the Civil War, that we lost our minds. But, I thought that the people who still felt the way the southerners who declared their independence felt were so few that I didn't need to worry about them doing anything stupid. Even after Reagan....then shrub came along and took all of the worst of Reagan and ran with it. I find it amazing that this country put republicans back into power after they had totally torched everything they could think of after only 2 years. It boggles the mind.

I said up the post that I wanted to record what happens before the Civil War ends. No, it isn't a typo. I don't think we have finished the Civil War. I think we have just been in a very long pause. I think, after living in the south for more than 30 years, that there are too many people who are the stupid and ignorant who have never forgotten. They don't only live here though, they are everywhere in this country. And now, they have a major, international media organization and our SCOTUS has made it possible for corporations to be persons...as in We The People persons. What the Fuck????
For the majority of people, those who get their news from corporate media on the networks and who don't pay attention to politics until a presidential election, it may seem that things are all of a sudden crashing down. They heard the repubs talk about jobs and instead they have seen the repubs do all the culture war items on their agenda...along with others they never would have told us about before the November 2010 elections. Just take a gander at this Google page.
I am writing here because this has to be documented. I know there are a lot of other blogs that are, and have been, doing this much better and I read them everyday. I just feel like I need this place to get out even those things that I feel are more intimate, more personal for Facebook. And the beauty part of this is that only a few people who know me in real life ever come here and mostly its people that wouldn't know me if I passed them on the street. I like that.
It's also narcisstic I think too...but we all have a 'dark side'....ying and yang and all that.

"You can't do that. Why? Because it's freaking me out"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM

Which brings me to the end of the week. We, as a country, are freaking me out. We're so outraged at the little stupid things that don't matter. Everything is about perception. Nothing has substance. We still follow a version of the Mercator Map, albeit to the nth degree of fantastical proportions. Look at the map we use, then look at the map as reality shows us. Not the same. Why? Perception and human failing.

The left and the right baggers are agreeing. The best possible outcome of the November elections was for the dems in Congress to shut up and get some work done. The spineless ones who couldn't or wouldn't call for a vote on the taxes before the election are now pissed that the President has done what they wouldn't or couldn't do. He moved forward. He knew the weasels wouldn't budge on the tax cuts for the rich and so he did what he had to do, what I elected him to do....get shit done. Then the ones who said to him, sure Mr. President, you talk to the other party and see what you can get...sure....we'll be right here ready to bash you like they do.  What the dems should be doing is going on teevee and pointing out over and over and over again, this sentence the President has repeated....

"The problem is, is that this is the single issue that the Republicans are willing to scotch the entire deal for. And in that circumstances -- in that circumstance, we've got, basically, a very simple choice: Either I allow 2 million people who are currently getting unemployment insurance not to get it, either I allow the recovery that we're on to be endangered, or we make a compromise now."

Which brings me to Senator Bernie Sanders. I love the guy, I do. I just don't like the timing of the mini-filibuster he had yesterday. This Congress has had 2 years to deal with these tax cuts.....let me say that again, 2 years! and they did nothing. They kept their mouths shut and ran away from their own agenda in the campaign and threw the President under so many buses, I lost count. (looking at you Joe Manchin (D-WV). So for those of you who think it's Obama's bad and no one else should be held accountable for this, then god/fsm/thor help you because I can't and I won't enable your feeble thinking. What should have happened after the midterms is the dems should have put up a united front and got shit done. They didn't. They should have gone about the business of governing and let the other party fall apart. Because they will. For those of you who think the President sold out and will capitulate when it comes to the debt ceiling....just wait. If you step back away from the picture, what you will see is the corporate owners of the other party will not allow the United States to default. They WILL NOT let that happen, it would cut into their profits and that's a no no.The President has always had a long term view of how the change comes and how we make it happen. He never said he would make it happen, go back and read or watch the videos....he said this would be difficult and that we would have to make it happen. But we didn't and we don't understand what he is doing, so he must have sold us out. You people are freaking me out.

If you think I'm an Obat for supporting my President for doing exactly what he said he'd do, then move along. This is one of those things I don't argue about. No one seems to remember what he has said over and over and goddamn over again since 2007 and they still aren't listening to him. sigh

We have been on this path since at least 1980, W was the logical conclusion to the Reagan years. that's 30 years.....you really think we, wait, you think that he can fix everything to everyone's satisfaction after less than 2?

You people are freaking me out.....