Nowhere To Begin
I have trouble writing about politics anymore because I feel like I’ve said it all before. The Bush administration is like a broken car part. I can say it is broken today, tomorrow and everyday henceforth and it will still be just as broken. So after the first time, there really is no need to keep repeating it.
Actually, for a more apt analogy, this administration is like a used car salesman trying to sell a crushed car. This hunk of ruined metal is sitting out on the lot like there is nothing wrong with it. There is a huge price tag on it. We (the American people) stop by to see about buying a car because we need it to get to work. And this salesman insists that the crushed car is the only one for us.
Us: Dude, that car is crushed.
Them: No, no it’s not. It’s a perfectly good car. You can’t expect a used car to be perfect, of course. It’s hard work to provide good, affordable used cars to the public.
Us: But I’ve got to commute to work and this car won’t get me there.
Them: Have you tried it? You aren’t even willing to try, you obstructionist terrorist!
Us: But sir, there are plenty of perfectly good, affordable cars on this lot, can’t I look at them?
Them: Terrorist! You hate our troops and would have killed baby jesus if you had a shot at it! Evolutionist! Science lover! Extra-ultra-smelly-terrorist!
The culture of dazzling us with BS has just become far too dominant in Washington. I’m voting anti-incumbent in all Federal elections until someone shows me that they give a flying rat’s behind about the middle class.
December 24th, 2005 at 11:26 pm
The middle class are not doing so bad. Poor people are the ones who suffer. It’s interesting that a lot of poor people think they are middle class. Middle class people have more power potentially because more of them vote than the poor. The rich people vote more than any class. That’s how Bush got into office along with the religious people who tend to vote. People who go to church love Bush. That has made me think that atheists like myself need to organize more. Church groups have a tremendous ability to get out the vote. Atheists don’t meet once a week like they do. Atheists and agnostics are 12% of the population and growing. We need to create atheist schools and atheist meeting places to breed more of us like they do. Adulthood is too late for most people. They have already been brainwashed by their parents. I’m not talking about a school which is non-demoninational. There are a few of those. I am talking about being proactive. Tolerence and acceptance is not good enough anymore when the other side is “preaching” intolerance.
December 30th, 2005 at 8:29 pm
By a reasonable definition, I’m poor. My annual income is at the high end of the bottom “quintile” that you read about in economic reports. However, by any historical standard, I am filthy, stinking, disgustingly rich. I have a college degree (as does my wife), we own a house, we have health insurance, my wife doesn’t have to work, I can reasonably expect to never die of poverty or from a curable disease, we own two paid-for vehicles, and my two little girls likewise are healthy and never hunger. I’m happy, healthy, and (by historical standards) wealthy. What do I need to blame Bush for? I’m not a big fan of his, and I think his spending is horrible, but he’s not making my life hard for me.
It seems like people judge their financial state by comparisons only to their fellow citizens. But so what if the gap between the super-rich and the rest of us is slightly wider than it was during the seventies. Are we as a country better off now than we were then? Absolutely. So why the envy? It’s like the old joke about the NY Times: If everyone woke up one day with twice as much money in their bank accounts, the headline in the Times would be “Gap Between Rich and Poor Doubles”.