2.14.2010

Happy President's Day!

(This op-ed diatribe reflects the opinion of Drunken Politics North and not necessarily the views of the Southern office or any subscribers of this site.)

C:
Put down the weekend ad circular, the new mattress can wait. In the 21st Century, our twenty-tens, President's Day revolves around a bank and post office Monday holiday shutdown, a new sets of sheets, sandwiches and assorted random commercially-related anthropomorphized Uncle Sam characters that appeal to an elementary school remembrance of patriotism. Crass? Any more crass than squishing up a few Presidential birthdays to form a pseudo-holiday?

President's Day should be about a moment of reflection. Yes, yes, there should be a Supreme Court Day. Let's ditch that bullshit Columbus Day, the little junior high monkeys should be learning about Court cases that shifted thought about freedoms, the Constitution and little crap such as privacy, voting rights, cripple rights, choice and who gets to learn about shit, where and how. For example, Brown v. Board of Education springs to mind. Fuck Christopher Columbus and the Knights who hold sway so they can have a fucking parade. And Congress is going to have to haul water to get a day until we bring back an occasional Congressman Brooks-style beatdown of a Senator Sumner on the floor.

Here we are, 2010. An African-American is President of the United States of America. Barack Hussein Obama was elected by a minority of Americans to the highest office in the land. Minority? Yes. Given the percentage of registered voters who actually voted, the reality is just that. Potential voters who didn't vote and those who voted against him means that clearly most Americans did not want him in office. Many like myself celebrated his election as the opportunity for the Smart Guys to fix the shit that Bush and Cheney dragged our country into in a most embarrassing fashion. Intellectually, internationally, economically and Constitutionally, the GWB Administration crushed the spirit of a nation with their ideological hubris. Katrina and permanent war and privatization of the whole works, Christ. In eight short years, the damage was and still is disgusting. We celebrated a return to decency in 2008. The joy revealed during the Inauguration was genuine and inspiring for so many reasons. And perhaps that's what is so painful now for many, many people.

Why? The why and what the fuck of what is happening now is a difficult nut to crack. The Democrats control the White House, the House of Representatives, the Senate and a retirement or two from a friendly Supreme Court. It should be simple to enact a bit of healthcare, foreign policy, financial reform and maybe an employment juicebox to get the train back on the tracks. Yes? And as in, what in the bloody Hell is happening here?

The 36th President LBJ, despite screwing up Vietnam, managed to jam through the Civil Rights Act of '64, Voter's Rights Act of '65, Medicare, Medicaid,the space program and a whole slew of fine ideas that we take for granted. All this when a good chunk of the country wanted to tar and feather him. Johnson could crush a man with his will. A meeting with him would be the equivalent of a psychological beating. When he ran for Congress, legend has it he had his campaign adviser spread a rumor that his opponent was a pig fucker. He adviser said to the effect that this wouldn't be true. Johnson said all he wanted was for his opponent to deny he was a pig fucker. LBJ was feared. Hell, even Chester A. Arthur was feared.

What has changed? Where is the sausage from the sausage-making? It's easy to point the finger of the hatred of government at Nixon's Watergate and Ronald Reagan's 'welfare-queen-ing' of the Federal system. But the mistrust was solidified by Newt Gingrich. And the Christian Coalition. Congressman Gingrich's Contract eased the way for shutting down the country as a option for leadership. And the Falwell's and Robertson's jihad legitimized religion-based election strategy that still works today among the Idiot class. Throw in the Fox News faux-journalism, and you have the mutated simpleton's path to the Palin/Bachmann form of government. The so-called movement of the Teabaggers is the retarded baby of this three decade-long attack on a civil society.

This is where we stand. What is a free-thinking, decent American supposed to do? From the 2010 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama:

"The spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives on in you, its people. We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade. But a new year has come. A new decade stretches before us. We don't quit. I don't quit. Let's seize this moment -- to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more."

Happy President's Day.

2.06.2010

J: I should have expected this.

Or, from a more mainstream source:


I know it's a lot to ask, but could the Tea Party movement at least pretend to not be completely racist?

C: Tom Tancredo has always been the voice of reason and civility.



Where to begin. It's disturbing that the MSM that this frothy Tea-related collection of the Paranoid despises so greatly has now blessed the Pitchforkers with an air of credibility. Nice homework skills, Fourth Estate. Less than a thousand Father Knows Best bright pink patriots gather in the OpryLand Motel, and ta da, proof of legitimacy. Fox News, the new new MSM, hangs on every drop of spittle that the Retardocracy (thank you Rahm) blithers on and on about. And despite the Teabagger's blatant racism and xenophobia and Birtherisms and Biblical quackery, a shockingly massive number of Americans without callerID are backslapping this concept of the Idiot Patrol gone rogue. I had something else, but I wrote on my hand. My flop-sweat smeared it. Dammit. Something about the President might be 'black-ish'. Or 'Jewish' which is kinda 'Muslim-y'. Dammit. Oh, there it is on the other hand. The big question at any Convention of any kind, "Who got laid?".