On the Contrary

The Greek Archimedes was said to exclaim “Eureka” (I have found it) when he stepped into his bath and saw the water rise and realized that the volume of the water displaced was equal to the volume of the body displacing it.  He could now solve the intractable problem of calculating the volume of irregular shapes.  Well I am having my Eureka moment.  The other day a friend of mine, who is quite conservative, came into my office (I was off on one of my consulting forays) and was quite excited about hearing the T. Boone Pickens advertisements that are flooding the airways right now about developing alternate energy, especially wind and solar.

T. Boone looks the camera right in the eye and says, “I am a Texas oil man and I am telling you we can’t drill our way out of this problem.”  My friend was quite excited about this revelation and agreed that government even had a role in creating the infrastructure to transfer the power across the country (build the grid system).  Now I was thinking environmentalists have been proposing this for years, but now from T. Boone, it must have validity.  I was thinking only Nixon could go to China. Of course he wanted to limit the role of government to providing tax incentives to develop the equipment and of course obtain the land and build the transmission system.  On this one I was thinking Enron and that government had a role in regulating this new power source, but that is not really my point.  Why after all this time are some of them starting to get it?

If you read my blog then you know that I try to lay out the “facts” as best I can and my assumption is that two rational people can come to the same conclusion with the same facts in front of them.  We think rationally.  The problem with that theory is that an objective mind will tell you that almost everything the Republicans have done for the last 12 years has hurt this country, but about half of us don’t have the same objective mind as I do.  Is it possible that my assumption about rational thinking is wrong?

Then along comes George Lakoff (author of “Don’t Think of the Elephant”) with his new book, “The Political Mind”.  The basic tenant of this book is that we have an eighteenth century view of rationality which says that all you need do is give the people the facts and figures and they will reach the right conclusion; that people will act rationally to maximize their own self interest, they know what their interests are and they will act on them;  that if you appeal to their rationality, the facts will speak for themselves; and emotionalism only gets in the way.  And as George thinks, you are dead wrong.  He says we are ignoring our cognitive unconscious where 98% of our thought goes on.  He says that you can’t separate emotionalism for rationalism because how we see the facts depends on the emotional frame they are, well, framed in.  And much more.

Now to tell you the truth, I don’t want to believe this.  I want to think that we are rational people who make rational decisions.  Or as George described me:
“You will believe in polling and focus groups; you will believe that if you ask people what their interests are, they will be aware of them and will tell you, and will vote on it…You will not have to frame the facts; they will speak for themselves.  You just have to get the facts to them:  47 million without health care; top 1 percent receiving tax breaks; no WMD; ice caps melting.  Your opponents are not bad people; they just need to see the light.  Those that won’t vote your way are mostly just ignorant.  They need to be told the facts.  Or they ‘re greed, or corrupt, or being duped.”
And then George tells me I am totally wrong.  Well that is my Eureka moment.  It is clear to me that the frame for which I see the world is entirely different from that others see it and it has to do with both their hardwiring and more importantly, the way the message or fact was emotionally framed and processed subconsciously.  I have argued on and on about how each person seems to selectively pick out “his” facts to support his political philosophy.  I have assumed that it was faulty reasoning skills, laced with self interest.  Well maybe I was only half right.  There is this whole emotional side that George contends the Republicans have understood for years and have use it to tip the scale in their favor, and we had better figure it out.

Well I have got a lot more to read, but I know he is on to something because smart people have very divergent views about the same facts and rational dialogue has no impact on it.  My only concern is that I do believe that reality is not subjective.  So if understanding my opponents emotional side helps me to convey my point, okay; but if it only allows me to manipulate their emotional reaction so that they buy my argument much as the Republicans have used fear to propagate their policies that are bringing us down, then I want my eighteenth century brain back.  More to come.

Remember the flap about Michelle Obama’s “This is the first time I have been proud of my country” comment?  Well, I continue to find things that should make us all ashamed.  Let’s start with our treatment of illegal immigrants.

In the last two years Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Oklahoma, and now South Carolina have decided to deny in-state tuition to illegal immigrants brought into the country as children that are now enrolled in their colleges and universities.  If there was ever backwards, selfish, mean spirited, and counter productive thinking this is it.  I am sure their citizens asked, “Why should we give those illegals a break on tuition when they are law breakers.  You know when they were 6 months old and their parents brought them into this country, they should have thought about that.  If we reward those law breakers, hoards more will come and enroll in our colleges for the super deals.”  First of all, most of these kids have been here so long they know no other home.  Second, and are you following this, they are going to college.  They want to be productive members of our society.  They want to get good jobs and pay taxes.  But I can understand your fear.  Here are a group of people who want to work hard and get ahead.  They could become a real threat to those of you who didn’t have their focus on getting ahead and now want to blame your troubles on them.  When did we become a nation that thinks it’s okay to punish children for the behavior of their parents?  Five more states on my list of “I will never live there” because their citizens are so small minded and selfish. Maybe Congress will stand up and finally pass the Dream act.  I am dreaming.  Isn’t it interesting that we get this kind of selfish and small minded behavior from segments of the country that consider themselves born again Christians? USA Today

Adding insult to injury, Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and Spanish-language court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of a huge immigration workplace raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville Iowa, finally broke his silence and wrote about it.  Dr. Camayd-Freixas wrote how the courts were tilted toward finding everyone guilty, with the rights of the immigrants trampled on by making sure they didn’t understand what was going on.  Instead of simply finding them guilty and deporting them, they sentence most to 5-month sentences in prison, with few understanding this was the result of waving their rights.  They were charged with identity theft but apparently there is no room in our passion to blame immigrants for everything for the thought that stealing one’s identity to rob them of their money and possessions, and stealing one’s identity so you can get a job are two entirely different things.  These are mostly men whose families depend on their income for a living.  So instead of deporting them quickly, we are tying up our already over burdened prisons with these poor souls and putting their families in abject poverty.  Sounds like something to really be proud of or as Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas put it, he was so offended by the cruelty of the prosecutions that he felt compelled to break his silence. As he said, “A line was crossed at Postville”.    New York Times

Then there is the seamy EPA affair where after the Supreme Court told the EPA that if CO2 is harming people then EPA must regulate it, their scientists found that it was in fact harming people through climate change, and Dick Cheney and his boys went into action to prevent EPA from making this finding.  The end result is that EPA will kick the can down the road and do nothing.  It will await action by the new President.  Aren’t you just proud as a peacock of our country and the way they get out front on issues?     New York Times

Meanwhile in Washington the Democrats and the Republicans point fingers at each other for the high price of gasoline with the Republicans wanting to use this as an excess to open up some of our preserves to drilling, while the Democrats want to drain the strategic oil reserve.  Neither will help.  In the meantime they can’t seem to pass the bill to give alternate energy the necessary tax breaks to keep them going nor do either one have a plan for our energy future.  They are both to blame because all these years they have thought small and never invested in our energy future even though the writing has been on the wall for years.  Aren’t you proud of the people who lead us that they are focused on who is to blame instead of working out a realistic plan for our future without the lobbyists ghosting the effort?    CNN

Finally here in my own state of California which is on fire and creating a huge budget problem, the Governator has suggested that we add a small property tax to help fund these fire fights.  And what is the response of some of our good citizens?  “Why should I have to pay for people who want to live in the country?”  Little minds are everywhere.  I could respond with why should I have to pay if your city gets leveled by an earthquake?  Because, you morons, we are all in this together.  When San Diego was on fire, or the Oakland hills you weren’t singing this tune.  These are the same people who don’t have children so they see no reason why they have to pay school taxes.  Common good is not in their selfish little vocabulary.  Most are called Republicans.  No I am ashamed of this kind of thinking in my home state.  l  Sacramento Bee

I could go on, including the vote on FISA, or the ever growing story about the war crimes we have committed in the name of the War on Terror (The Real Life “24” of Summer 2008) but you get the idea.  For the last 30 years we have thought small, we have had no big ideas, and we have lived in a world of self gratification and me first, and we are now reaping what we have sowed.  I blame this mostly on the Republicans and their belief that government is evil and what is good for the stock market is good for the country, but the Democrats went right along with them thinking small and getting fat.  Well it is diet time as the country spirals into a recession and the problems we have ignored come home to roast.  The only saving grace is that these problems have gotten so big they are impossible to deny anymore.  Our choice is to go on thinking small and squabbling among ourselves about who is to blame, or making the sacrifices to make the really big changes that are necessary.  In the meantime, I am not so very proud of my country that can’t ever seem to get out of the batter’s box.

Are some of us over reacting to Barack and the Democratic Congress compromising on FISA and other issues?  I hesitate to use the term liberal or conservative because I have a hard time understanding what these terms mean any more.  The press likes to say that Barack’s liberal supporters are outraged at his “apparent” flip-flop on the issue, but I think people who don’t want to see our constitution watered down use to be called conservatives, but I digress.  The conventional wisdom among the press and apparently political advisors is that the nation is tired of the partisan fighting and that we need to tack to the middle and find compromises so that the nation can move forward.  But that brings me to my title of this piece, the middle of where?

Yesterday in the New York Times Gail Collins wrote and interesting piece about Barack called The Audacity of Listening.   She wrote;

“Think back. Why, exactly, did you prefer Obama over Hillary Clinton in the first place? Their policies were almost identical — except his health care proposal was more conservative. You liked Barack because you thought he could get us past the old brain-dead politics, right? He talked — and talked and talked — about how there were going to be no more red states and blue states, how he was going to bring Americans together, including Republicans and Democrats.

Exactly where did everybody think this gathering was going to take place? Left field?”

She makes a valid point but one that ignores the roots of our problems.  We have basically been under the sway of Republican philosophy since Ronald Reagan.  Any open minded look at how we have become a much more conservative country will see that the Democrats have gone right along with this drift.  And today you have to wonder where it has gotten us.  Republican’s want to believe that less government is better; that when there is little or no regulation, businesses thrive; that the lower the taxes the more the revenue will increase in our treasury because of the stimulus to businesses.  This view colors every reality they see.  Global warming doesn’t exist.  The mortgage crisis is just a swing in the market and it will be self-correcting.  The energy crisis will be solved by the oil companies drilling more and tax incentives for those pesky alternate energy companies.  Don’t worry about the infrastructure, the private sector will build toll roads. Private schools will fix everything I could go on forever, but the point is it hasn’t worked.  We live in a complicated world where we are ever more interconnected and the consequences of not managing this interconnection has been our downfall.  You can argue philosophy all day long, the reality is what we are doing is failing and most people want change.

Now ask yourself, is compromise change?  Many of us feel that we have gutted our Constitution under the Bush Administration, but is only semi-gutting it under the new FISA law change?  Climate change is happening and if you compromise and only take small measures to deal with it, what is the point?  We are facing a monumental energy and healthcare crisis that right now, assuming you have a job, are the two things that are most impacting your decreasing standard of living.  If we compromise and only do half measures like tax incentives for alternate energy, are we ever going to get there?  For healthcare there is only one solution, and that is a single payer system.  The rest of the world has figured that out and although they also have a problem controlling their costs, they pay half what we do and in most cases get better care.  Compromise and half measure are not going to get us there.

This, I think, is what those who rallied around Barrack Obama understood and why they responded to his message of change.  But change isn’t baby steps in compromises that don’t really alter our course.  Accommodating the Republicans may make sense in some cases, but they have dragged so far to the right with anti-government rhetoric that most compromises won’t right the ship.  Newt and the boys stood up for what they believed back in the 90’s, and too bad it was the wrong path.  Now Democrats need to stand up for what they believe and quit selling that belief down the river with compromises that negate the original purpose.  I don’t care whether you get along or not.  I want change that will make a difference in my life.  That won’t happen if we keep compromising our values.

I am leaving the Democratic Party today.  No I am not kidding.  They made me ashamed with their vote on the FISA bill today.  And they should be ashamed.  We still had Chris Dodd and Russ Feingold who understood that this is where you draw the line and don’t compromise and they fought against it, but the rest are gutless wonders.  Surprisingly Hillary voted against it.  Now that she doesn’t have to pander to the middle maybe she can stand for something.  I may start liking Hillary if she finds her backbone that most Democrats have had surgically removed.  Many were afraid to look weak on terrorism in an upcoming election year.  But this was about our Constitution and honoring all those who have died protecting it and they sold us out and weakened its protections so they could look good trying to protect the nation and finding compromise with the other side.

There are two issues here.  The first one I have railed about before and that is the amnesty portion of this bill which gives the telecommunications companies that violated our rights without a warrant a pass, and by the way, several companies did not cooperate and asked for a judges order.  What does that say to them?  The real damage here is that since the court cases (civil) will be dismissed, we may never find out what the extent of what was done was.  That added to the fact that the message is that the President can violate the Constitution and Congress will pass retroactive legislation to protect him says that the Constitution is a hollow document.

The second issue is that this law does not really restore our protections.  “It would allow the government to bypass the FISA court and collect large amounts of Americans’ communications without a warrant simply by declaring that it is doing so for reasons of national security. It cuts the vital “foreign power” provision from FISA, never mentions counterterrorism and defines national security so broadly that experts think the term could mean almost anything a president wants it to mean.”  The details are in an editorial from yesterdays New York Times, Compromising the Constitution, and I won’t bore your further.   My point is simply this.  We are electing people to run our government who don’t understand the great document that established that government.  Would you trust you pastor if he did not know his bible?  Well that is probably a bad example because I happen to believe that document has great deal of nonsense in it, but you get my drift.

Every day that we move further away from our basic principles we become a smaller people.  And today we saw how shallow, corrupt, and self serving are our elected officials are.  The Constitution is the one thing that sets us apart from all other countries and we tore a page out of it today.  They did it because they lacked the courage of their convictions, if they had any convictions.  We should all be ashamed.  I do not expect better from the majority of Republicans who have tattered the Constitution and their role as a check and balance against the executive branch for the last seven years to buy power.  But I expected better from the Democrats and Barack Obama and they failed me miserably.   Next time we vote for a candidate maybe we should simply ask them if they have even read the Constitution.  I bet most haven’t.  I know this.  My representatives that voted for this abomination will never get my vote again and the Democratic Party just lost one member.  It’s a small step for man, and a large step for mankind.

We are facing some of the toughest and most challenging times in our history.  Our country is in real trouble and our candidates are offering us very little.  John McCain promised to balance the budget today by cutting taxes.  Barack Obama said that we need to help out hurting families.  Both positions are gross pandering to small thinking.  Maybe it is what it takes to get elected, but it won’t solve the monumental problems we are facing.  Let’s review:

The dollar is at an all time low against currencies in Europe.  The number of jobs in this country is shrinking.  Our standard of living for the average American is falling mostly due to stagnant wages and the high cost of healthcare insurance and energy.  We have entitlement programs that most Americans support, such as Social Security and Medicare that are on the road to bankruptcy.  We have a growing national debt which is funded by borrowing from the Chinese.  We are involved in a war without end in Iraq, while al-Qaeda has returned to health in Pakistan and the violence grows in Afghanistan.  Our infrastructure is crumbling and the cost of college education continues to soar.  And we are going to solve these problems by more tax cuts or some voluntary service program for all Americans?  We are on the precipice about to go over and all these two can offer us is pabulum to appeal to the middle?

To say I am less than enthusiastic is an understatement.  Obama wants to talk about his faith and John McCain wants to talk about his war record and I want to talk about possible solutions.  Right now it is much more important for us to know where they want to take us than where they have been.  For each one of the above listed issues we could have a rational debate.  Take simulating our economy.  Is it more productive to cut taxes or to invest in government spending that creates jobs and improves our infrastructure?  What we get is crap like Obama will raise the taxes on all Americans and the 24/7 media repeats it over and over instead of asking if raising taxes on some to pay for some investment in our future might be worth it.  Even on Iraq we could have a rational discussion about where we go from here instead of the endless fear mongering that each side employs.  “You will be more likely to be attacked by terrorists if we elect Barack.  We will be in Iraq for 100 years if we elect John McCain.”  Neither is true.

I would have hoped the media would raise the level and quality of the debate, but their lack of preparation and never ending repeating one or the others claims instead of in depth fact finding along with their partisan food fights to get “two different viewpoints” is less than informative and drives the debate away from substance.  We don’t need the “best political team on television” Wolfe, we need policy experts who can educate us on the issues and possible solutions without the partisan edge.  But we can’t blame this all on the media when neither candidate has stepped forward with anything remotely resembling a bold new plan.

Let’s take energy.  Can we drill our way out of it?  Would it make any difference and if you believe that global warming is real, not just a transient spike, does continuing to pursue and burn oil just increase our problems?  So what are our two candidates’ energy solution?  Tax incentives for alternate energy, and some increased spending on R&D is what they have offered us.  Did I mention a prize for a nifty battery?  When the Russians launched Sputnik was our solution tax incentives to rocket companies?  Did we offer a prize for the first man on the Moon?  No, we formed NASA and put the best minds in the country working on our space program.  So why hasn’t either candidate said, “Let’s do something big”?

Somehow we have gotten lost in the Republican babble over the last 30 years that Government is the problem.  Even the Democrats are afraid to stand up and say, it is time for Government to step in and get things rolling.  Barack at least has indicated that he can’t promise to balance the budget (using voodoo economics and accounting like John McCain), when he thinks we might have to invest in helping working families.  But it is small thinking.  We need a twenty year plan of investment in our own country that includes investment in energy research and development, infrastructure, and education.  We need to restructure our debt so instead of give away programs to corporations we are investing in our future.  We need to rethink what we have been doing because it is not working.  We have been cutting taxes and letting our own country deteriorate while we have made a very small minority very rich on the backs of the poor and the middle class.  Somehow we got lost in thinking that when the stock market is doing well we all benefit.  It did well for almost all of the 90’s and 2000’s and our bridges are crumbling and we can’t afford to fill our gas tanks.  Maybe that wasn’t such a good measure of our economic health.   We have not invested in our future and it is now looking bleak.

I am looking for some courage here.  Someone to standup, tell the truth about where we headed, propose real change, and major programs to address our problems.  What we are getting is did Wesley Clark disparage John McCain’s Military service?  No he didn’t, and the issue was valid about whether John McCain’s service record has any relation to his ability to lead the country, but that is beside the point.  The point is we are facing the abyss and we are still humming, “Don’t Worry be Happy”.

Here it is the 4th of July and we are flying flags and spouting words about patriotism.  But what I find most interesting is does anybody know what that word means?  Love of country?  Reverence for the Constitution?  Love of the Land?  I heard it all this week on NPR’s Talk of the Nation when they had a call-in on the meaning of patriotism.  And some of the calls were down right scary.  You know, the love it or leave it, support your government or get out kind of talk.  I am proud to be an American because…..  What is the difference between patriotism and nationalism and when are both destructive forces?  Understand that I served almost 12 years in the military and I fought in the Viet Nam war.  I think I get ask these questions if your definition of a patriot is someone who served their country.

Saying that you are patriotic is kind of like saying you are a person of faith.  It is something one has to be these days to be anywhere in public office, but I have no idea, nor do you, what these mean in the abstract.  That is why they are so powerful and useful for tools of manipulation.  They mean what the hearer (not the speaker) thinks they mean and that can be anything across a broad spectrum of ideas.  When you say you are patriotic and wave your flag does that mean you are incensed that the President has violated our rights by ease dropping on us and you want the supremacy of the Constitution re-established or does that mean you support our President and whatever it takes to keep us safe?

That is why the lapel pin flap to me is so disgusting and even worse, that Obama caved in to join the undefined.  “I wear one because they want me to and it makes them feel good, but deep down I know it is pandering.”  Well he didn’t say that, but that what I think it is all about, conformity.  The funny thing is my conception of patriotism is nonconformity and the freedom to be a nonconformist.  It is the protection of dissent and minority rights.  It is our Constitution and the basis of the document which is to carefully guard against the tyranny of government and the majority.

I can relate to Michelle Obama’s statement that this is the first time I am proud of my country referring to her husbands candidacy.  We have had great moments throughout our history to be proud of, starting with the founding.  But we have had many instances where we should be profoundly ashamed, probably the most being in the last eight years.  I am not proud of a government or a country that condones stifling liberty and freedom by ignoring our Constitution and our laws in a fear based reaction to terrorism.  I am not proud of a government or a country that condones denying our basic right of habeas corpus to anyone, even if they are not a citizen.  I am not proud of a government or country that thinks the basic rights of man only apply to our citizens.  I am not proud of a government or a country that condones torture and abuse as a means to an end.  If being patriotic says I can’t decry these then I am not a patriot.

I was watching the Olympic Trials last night and I had this irreverent thought:  Since the days of Jessie Owens we celebrated our black athletes because they could win for us, and then we treated blacks as second class citizens when they are out of the lime light.  You only have value when you can produce for me and make me look good.  I am not proud of that.

So on this fourth of July what I will celebrate is the Declaration of Independence and in these immortal words:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among those are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  I will hope that eventually Americans will understand that this is about all men and women, not just Americans, not just right believing or heterosexual Americans, but all people, because when that happens, we will truly be a community of the world that is worth admiring and to be proud of.  A country that stands up for the rights of all men and a belief in dissent and minority rights is a country to be patriotic about.  Until then I am simply troubled by what patriotism really means to most Americans.

It is Saturday and given that this is a day hardly anybody reads this blog, I thought it would be a good day to be irreverent on some sensitive topics.  If you are trapped in your house and have nothing to do but surf the web and stumbled on this site, I humbly apologize.  But being who I am, I just can’t help myself.

I watched the memorial service for Tim Russert and have to admit I shed a few tears.  It was a wonderful memorial with some really funny and thoughtful eulogies.  Religion does permeate our society and it was nice to see that their faith in God (“Tim has gone on to a better place, Tim has gone home”) gave his family and friends great comfort.  It’s their faith and it is sustaining them in this horrible time.  What I really respect about Mr. Russert was that he had a strong belief in his faith, but it was his faith and he never used his public presence to push it on others.  It never crept into his political discourse.   Our religious conservatives could learn a lot from him as they try to legislate their beliefs on the rest of us.  I don’t want to take anybody’s faith away from them, I just want them to keep it to themselves.  Nobody is forcing them to get an abortion or marry a gay person are they?  Tim was a Catholic and his views on his religion other than having a strong belief in God were unknown to most of us as it should have been.

Meanwhile in the floods in Iowa I have listened to people say their faith in God and his purpose has sustained them during this difficult time.  I wonder when Pat Robinson will find some gay issue to blame this catastrophe on?  Maybe there was some gay parade in Podunk, Iowa we didn’t hear about or maybe God is punishing California for allowing gay marriage, but his aim was a little off.  It always amazes me that God, who according to most Christians, is all knowing and all powerful gets credit for saving them, but is never blamed for the catastrophe itself.  From my perspective you can’t have it both ways.  But it is all in his grand plan and clearly I just don’t get it.  Did it ever occur to anyone that maybe sometimes shit just happens?

Oh my God! Oh my God! Fuel prices are out of control! Let’s drill everywhere!  This is fear tactics at its most basic level to lock in oil leases for big oil so they can continue to gouge of us for many years to come.  Here are the facts which have been sadly lacking in this rush to reward the oil industry:  First of all we are a country that uses one-fourth of all oil produced in the world yet owns only 3% of those resources.  You do the math:  How could you drill out of this problem?  Of the 36 million barrels of oil thought to be available in the Rocky Mountain West and Alaska almost two-thirds are available under existing leases after environmental and land use reviews.  Of the 86 million barrels thought to be available off shore, more than four-fifths is available to industry, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico and off the Alaskan shore (Federal Mineral Management Service).  Roughly three quarters of the areas leased for oil is not being used at this time.  The oil industry doesn’t need more land/water to drill in, they need to drill in what they have.  But why should they?  For you really slow people, why produce more oil so you can lower the cost and raise your cost.  And even then if they did the price of oil is not expected to have any impact until maybe 2030.  Yep lets destroy our environment and make rich people richer while doing nothing for our energy crisis.  Don’t you love the logic?  By the way, a couple of really smart Democrats have proposed that if oil companies don’t use the leases they have, they should have to give them up.  Where do you think that bill will end up? (New York Times).
NPR Talk of the Nation did a piece on women in the military who have seen combat (even though  by law they are in non-combat roles, that is the reality of the conflict in Iraq) and that we need to recognize their contribution and sacrifice as we do for men.  Now who could disagree with that?  Did you read the title of this blog?  Actually I think they are as worthy as the men.  My problem is that our worship of their sacrifice, men or women, makes heroes out of people who are simply doing their duty.   I also wonder that when we are thanking them so much are we really saying we are glad you would do it because we won’t? If we really go to war shouldn’t we all be part of it instead of creating a hero atmosphere so we can get volunteers to do our bidding?  If we all really had to pony up, would we be so quick to start voluntary wars?  Oh I know, I am just being contrary.  But I do wonder…

Campaign financing has become a political football because Barack said over a year ago that he would accept federal campaign financing and now he is bowing out and the Republicans and the 24/7 news media thinks this is a big deal.  First of all less than 20% of voters must think this is important because that is the number who actually contribute on their tax form.  Secondly this is not a broken promise as portrayed by the 24/7 news morons, it is simply seeing the reality of the independent money out there both for and against him and responding to that reality.  It would be irresponsible not to recognize reality and change your position to deal with that reality.  If George Bush could do that we would have a lot less trouble in our world.  As Tim Russert once said, “I can’t figure out why politicians can’t just say I was wrong and I have changed my position.”  Well Barack did just that.

And finally gays are marrying in California and unless you assume the flood in the Mid-West was God punishing the wrong party, the world did not end.  In fact it is becoming ho-hum.  Quite frankly who cares?  Well that is not quite true.  One woman wrote into the paper saying that this is the greatest challenge to our way of life.  I don’t know about you, but this does not make me lust for another man.  I have no sudden urge to divorce my wife and find some man who will take me away from all this.  And most of the gay people I know don’t care for my “type”.  What in the world is wrong with people who are living together and wanting to formalize this relationship into a lifetime commitment and give legal certainty and stability to their lives?  I have no idea.  I really think most people either don’t have a life or they don’t really see our problems with torture, civil rights, the erosion of our Constitutional rights, the economy, energy, infrastructure, and healthcare as a big deal.  For them the most important thing in the world is what two consenting adults do in private and they are going to make laws so everyone else has to conform to the way they believe.  Thankfully these types of morons are being displaced by younger generation that have bigger hearts.  Hopefully Californians will reject a constitutional amendment that will enshrine disenfranchising a minority and forcing the religious beliefs of a few on the rest of us.  I could never figure out why if you have strong objections to something, you could just refrain from doing it instead of making sure the whole country can’t do it.  What are they afraid of?  Themselves?