#1: The republican front runners today are Michelle Bachman, The Donald (I know so sad) and Mitt Romney, a man who created a state wide health program in Massachutes that was the model for the national healthcare plan that Romney now wants to repeal. These are your choices today conservatives, how does it feel? Not good I hope. Donald Trump is a one man freak show and at best will provide comedians with enough material to last well into the next decade. Michelle Bachman is the new poster girl for demigods and Mitt Romney is the new poster boy for flip floppers, lets just call him Floppy Romney. We have serious issues in this country and we need serious candidates on both sides, not a right wing show of corporate greed and fairy tale believers. Obama should be feeling pretty good for right now because if this is his competition he should have no problem winning in 2012. Of course the year is young and who knows who else will step forward but let’s hope it is someone who can talk substance and has a platform that runs deeper then not cutting taxes, abortion and God.
#2: America is on a precipice, one that depending on which way we fall will shape the country and its people for years to come. Are we going to anoint the freaks or are we going to demand serious people with serious and real ideas to help us out of the mess we are currently in? The Democrats are the last fail safe we have against extreme right wing ideology. If we continue to let those like Bachman and for example Rep. Paul Ryan have a stage in politics we will continue to tread water and waste time. I find it amazing how many people came out and praised Paul Ryan’s budget, even Fareed Zakaria who I generally respect and like called his budget a good effort if not completely misguided. REALLY? What does that mean? Would a college professor tell a student well you did a pretty good job, all the words were spelled correctly in your paper and the grammar structure was good but you completely missed the entire point of the assignment, as a matter of fact you didn’t even read the right book! NO, the student would get an F. Paul Ryan and the congressional Republicans get an F on the budget in my opinion. How much time and effort was wasted trying to eliminate NPR, Planned Parenthood and other “entitlement” programs, where was the serious discussion about cutting the defense budget, continuing to reform healthcare, farm subsidies, raising taxes, oh right those don’t happen because that would just be un-American. Bill Maher has a great prop on his show, a plate of food, a large portion of mashed potatoes, chicken and some other side and then garnish, the garnish is the middle class and let me tell you, we have about one tiny sprig left on the plate, but no one touch the mashed potatoes and the chicken.
#3: President Obama, I blame him as well, not for the mess we are in but for how it has been handled since he took office. He needs to sack up and stand up to these extreme politicians, John Boehner and company to name a few. I want a president with some chutzpah who is going to put on some boxing gloves and get in the game. The conservative PR machine is excellent, so excellent it has convinced the middle class and poor that they are part of the great wealth and opportunity of this country and Obama and the Dems are going to take away from them something they have never and will currently never have, millions of dollars. Can the Democrats hire those guys because they need a restoration campaign and some lions of their own or else nothing and I mean nothing is going to change and things are only going to get worse.
#4: The American people. Here lies the crux of the issue. You – yes you, an ordinary American person, going to work every day, sipping your latte or serving that latte, driving your car, or taking the bus, listening to your iPod and twittering away, you need to wake up, educate yourself, turn off talk radio and turn on NPR, the news (but not FOX, sorry) and get in the game. This is your country, your home, your people, even the ones who look different then you and make less then you. The man on the corner with a sign, the women on the corner with a sign, the McDonalds worker and even the guy who makes more then you, the corporate CEO we are beholden to each other, a thought so totally un-American and socialist that I am sure just writing it will put me on a watch list but it is an undeniable truth, we are beholden to each other and we have to learn to help each other, care about each other and be nice to each other. We need to care about everything from the soil we eat from to the water we drink to the energy we use, to how we spend our money, individually and as a country, to every single struggling family we hear about and everything else in between. Then we need to elect serious, educated people to help solve these problems, preferable people who will not cave to lobbyists, no small feat I am sure, and who are willing to think outside of the proverbial “Washington DC” box. We need to move away from electing people on moral issues that will never ever be truly solved in the political arena and realize that it’s not God that is going to save us but ourselves. If we continue to elect people into office like Michelle Bachman who want to rewrite history, campaign on abortion and the evil EPA well guess what America you reap what you sow and what you are sowing is the destruction of the American dream, the continuation of corporate greed, you are feeding the top 1% of this country with your livelihoods, and guess what, gays are still going to be together, babies are still going to be aborted and the middle class is going to slip further and further into the abyss. Read it weep, without real change that is the future I see.
