NOW, NOW…THERE, THERE…LITTLE VOTER

~~By Kenosha Marge

Have you ever written and/or emailed your Congresscritter or Senator and gotten back one of their “now,now…there, there” letters? A letter so condescending it makes your eyes bleed from just reading it?

As the blood rushes through your veins and threatens to blow your damn head off you wonder how you could have ever voted for this creature. And if you didn’t, you take some small satisfaction in that. You comfort yourself with the thought that at least this was one Asshat that you didn’t support among all the other Asshats that you did.

However, that doesn’t address the question, why on earth do these “elected” officials think it wise to send voters such letters? Do they really think we are that dumb? (If you answer yes you win a Kewpie doll.) Looks like Kewpie has had a close encounter with our government.

It is obvious and has been for a very long time that the people that we elect to represent us don’t represent us or respect us.

I can understand the lack of respect. After all they lie to us again and again, do more flip-flops than seen at the last Summer Olympics and they can still count on our vote. What’s to respect in that?

Politicians are well aware that for the most part we will continue to support “our” party, even when “our” party doesn’t support us. Where we gonna go?

A “good” Democrat would sooner chew his/her leg off that vote for one of those rat-bastard Republicans. And a “good” Republican feels the same way about voting for one of them Wing Nut Democrats. I guess being good human beings and good Americans comes somewhere further down the list. Much further on the good human being part if many of the scurrilous remarks made about the “other” party are any indication.

Politicians are well aware that if they can just get some talking point stuck in the empty heads of many of the electorate they have won their battle. Nothing will dislodge these bits of misinformation from said empty head. No proof, no new information, no tablets coming down from the Mountain will change their minds.

If you doubt this then the proof is in that there are a whole lot of people around that still believe that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he had something to do with 9/11. Or all the little people giving their pennies and nickels financed Obama’s campaign. These people have the cognitive abilities of a box of rocks. I may be maligning that box of rocks.

A box of maligned rocks

I  I have been disabused of the notion that our conservative/Republican brethren and sisters were less well informed than our own better, brighter, more informed people on the liberal/Democrat side. The last election and the immerging Obot Nation proves that Republicans have not cornered the market on stupid.

But I digress; let’s get back to our non-representing Representatives. They are our Representatives because we elected them. Enough of us voted for them so that they get to go to Washington D.C. and not represent the people that just elected them.

In many cases voters cast their vote without having the faintest idea what this person has done or not done for their district/state. Having that letter “D” or “R” is all that matters. And we wonder why they don’t respect us. They count on our stupidity and we seldom disappoint them.

Many of these politicians have been slurping at the public trough for decades. They are therefore now eligible for that nice little pension that we taxpayers are going to pay for. Even if we don’t have a pension plan for ourselves at least we can rest easy knowing these people that did/do such a second-rate job will have a comfortable retirement. If we can ever get them to retire.

Some of them can’t even dodder onto the floor of the House or the Senate. Some are off in rehab, for the second time and must be hauled back to vote on important bills. See:  http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/rep.-kennedy-returns-for-climate-vote-2009-06-26.html

I feel sorry for the husband of a friend of mine who has an alcohol problem. That doesn’t mean that I would vote for such a person. Sympathy from me you get Congressman Kennedy. My vote? Not in this lifetime!

Once these people are elected/re-elected, they can cozy up with their real constituency, which would be the folks with the money.

Let’s see now– talking points firmly embedded in constituency’s empty head? Check.

Little/no concern about better-informed and/or recalcitrant voters because they have nowhere to go? Check.

Send condescending letters to any voicing disapproval/concern for actions not in keeping with what they were lead to expect? Check.

Call person with the most money to donate to my/his/her campaign and assure them that I will vote whatever way they want me to so long as the money keeps coming my way? Check!

There are many reasons we as voters are not respected and represented by those that we elect to public office. Many of them are just so damn sure they are smarter and know better than we do that our outrage or protests don’t even register unless and until it threatens their re-election.

Threats to re-election means it’s time to either dust off the old talking points or get some new ones. After all, those pointy-headed little voters keep falling for the same play why change it when you are winning the game? And if they voice some disapproval, send a condescending letter to explain it to the poor rubes.

Now-now, there-there little voter, we know what’s best. Don’t you worry your silly/pretty/empty little head about it.

A Nation of Nincompoops

~~By Kenosha Marge

According to what I’ve been reading the world is watching America closely. It approves of us getting rid of Bush and approves of our new President but they are still watching our actions with a jaundiced eye. Seems they don’t trust us.

Many countries believe that the United States is to blame for the financial mess the world finds itself in. That’s the risk when you proclaim your country to be the greatest country in the history of the world and are the world’s only Super Power. People then expect you to do Super Power type things. Like fix the mess the world is in. Come on Super Power, use your Super Powers. And do it quickly. (Scanning the sky for a high-flying Super Someone in colorful garb with chiseled features, if a male, and enormous boobs if a woman.)

We have plenty of Confidence in this country, but we are a little short of good men/women to place our Confidence in.  ~Will Rogers

Some of our allies have audaciously declined to join us in our bailout binge and those that agree with our actions have governments as clueless as our malignant pols. Their governments like our government are throwing obscene amounts of money that they don’t have at the problems and hoping they can bribe said problems to just go away. It doesn’t seem to occur to many, if any, that spending more money than you had precipitated the problems.

Spending money is the Democratic mantra while cutting taxes is all the Republicans seem to know. Both mindsets are nothing new for either party. They are monotonously repetitious in their same/old, same/old rhetoric. And as usual they are far more concerned with scoring points against each other than they are in serving their constituency and their country. “Ask not what you can do for your country because it might not get you votes or money” seems to be the thinking. If thinking is involved, I personally and speaking only for myself, would require proof.

Meanwhile the President’s primary concern seems to be in being a Television Superstar. Which is probably fine and dandy with those that voted for him because they too don’t seem to be any more interested in all that boring work stuff than he does.

The only thing new from the spendthrifts now running things is the amount they seem willing to spend. Broke and dependent on the money they/we can borrow from others our government has embarked on a spending spree of monumental proportions.

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ~ P. J. O’Rourke

The Democratic Party has been waiting in the wings for years to get it’s moment center stage and now that its come they are tap dancing like nobody’s business. And I do mean nobody’s business. Cause nobody running a business could afford the things they plan without money. Get that? Without money. As in we have none. Nevertheless our malignant free-spending politicians are going to give all the people all the things they want. And we have no money.

Like the parents in this country that gave their children every silly bit of stuff that the children wanted whether their budget could afford it or not. Slap down that plastic and get it NOW. Because those kiddies will be flawed for life if they have to do with out one teensy bit of plastic stuff. When the stuff overflows your house then you can always rent a storage locker to store you excess stuff. That does really seem just a tad silly doesn’t it? Verging on ludicrous and imbecilic?

Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need. ~ Will Rogers

Houses sit empty and the pathetic plastic outside stuff that people charged so that their children could have the same stuff as all the other children are often left behind. A primary-colored reminder that there comes a time when all those bills for the stuff you charged are due. Citizens are learning, sadly and painfully that bills do come due. The Nincompoops we nincompoops elected, not yet. If not now when?

We all know, or most of us do, that the road to our recovery needs to be paved with fiscal responsibility and personal responsibility. Somewhere deep inside we all know that. But large numbers of us refuse to face that fact and no politician is ever going to tell the voters that they are part of the problem. Just as no politician is ever going to tell the voters that if they want all these programs then taxes will have to increase. No politician will tell voters the truth and so though they have every intention of raising taxes, because they know they must, they hide them in big bills and speak of taxing only the rich because after all they aren’t a large voting block and poor people can really get into hating on the greedy rich. Wonder if that has anything to do with fund-raising being down?

Whatever befalls us as a people or as a nation it is always someone’s fault, not ours. Bankers are evil because they let us borrow more money than we could afford to pay back. People actually say something that mired in nincompoopery and expect us to regard them as adults.

Politicians always reek of nincompoopery. If they were once honest, straightforward people with character and integrity that day is in past. So far in their rear-view mirror for some that it isn’t even a distant memory.

Politics, n:  [Poly “many” + tics “blood-sucking parasites”]  ~Larry Hardiman

We the people are now angry. We are talking tea parties, the Boston kind not Darjeeling, and tar and feathers and pitchforks. Congress, having no integrity or character of their own tried to jump on the People’s Tea Party and Pitchfork Band Wagon and succeed only in making bigger fools of themselves than usual. Which ain’t easy.

The House of Representatives and you in particular Speaker Pelosi passed a bill. that would tax some people 90% if you decided they had been naughty. Some citizens can be forgiven for being too ill-informed or dimwitted to know that such a plan is unconstitutional but the House of Representatives shouldn’t be. Nincompoops is really far to mild a name for those that swear to uphold a document that they evidently don’t understand. Not surprising in a bunch that doesn’t read the bills they pass either.

So merrily we roll along down a steep road headed for a precipice lead by a bunch of nincompoops. Partisan nincompoops are either end of the politican spectrum still have faith in their government. Nincompoops lead by nincompoops elected by nincompoops.

Still there are things to enjoy. I read that the President went off to the G20 in Great Britain aboard a Boeing equipped with it’s own private gym. Gotta keep those FLOTUS biceps in shape.

POTUS took an entourage of 500 people and his own chef and his own armored vehicle nicknamed the “Beast” as well as Marine One helicopter. This is for someone that tells us that we must make sacrifices and be patient. Meanwhile our tax dollars finance a Royal Court that Louis the XVI and Michelle Antoinette would have envied. Evidently if POTUS and FLOTUS are going to eat cake their own chef will prepare it.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.  ~Ernest Benn

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Hat tip to Dandy Tiger on the Traveling Royal Court info.

STANDING TALL: DECLARATION OF AN INDEPENDENT

~~By Kenosha Marge

Who are we? What is our own personal identity? What parts of that identity are most important to us? How far are we willing to go to protect the part of our identity that we most cherish?

I will always be an Irish American/Danish American/French Canadian/Ogallala Sioux. That’s in the blood and the bone. I don’t think of myself that way much. I just think of myself as an American.

I did however always think of myself as a Democrat. We were the good guys. We were the people that cared about other people unlike those evil, rotten Republicans that didn’t. Except that attitude didn’t work very well for me because ½ of my family, the maternal half, was Republican. While I didn’t always agree with them, they certainly weren’t evil or rotten. They were in most respects much like the other half of the family, the Irish-American Liberal/Democrat side. Except, to be perfectly honest, they were far more fiscally responsible.

I grew up to be a fiscally responsible moderately liberal Democrat. Voted a straight Democratic ticket, and I always voted, all the time. One slip over the years when I voted for a liberal Green candidate who seemed far more in tune with my beliefs than old Herb Kohl (D-WI) ever was.

Then came the election cycle of 2008. I learned that much of what I was and who I thought I was and who I thought they were was not true. May 31^st 2008 a day that will live in Democratic Party infamy for many others and me. The day we knew, finally, sadly, angrily knew, that the party we had been a part of and believed in was as corrupt as the other party. That was the day that I, personally, left the Democratic Party forever. Once my trust is lost it is gone forever.

Now I am an Independent. Felt very strange at first but has grown to be enlightening and giving me a whole new sense of freedom.

As a non-partisan Independent I don’t have to like some politician just because they have a “D” after their name. Right there is freedom from voting for some pinhead just cause he’s a Democrat. And truth be told, I voted for a lot of pinheads.

As a non-partisan Independent I am suddenly listening to what people on the right are saying. And sometimes, much to my surprise, I actually agree with them. Lots of times I don’t. Just like many times I don’t agree with those on the left. That’s the freedom of not being a partisan pinhead. Viva la Independence!

As a non-partisan Independent I have come to see that both major parties are corrupt, dysfunctional, and incompetent. Oh they both bluster and brag on all the good things they do but take a look at the shape the country is in, where the hell were they when it was headed this way? Some very smart people were telling anyone that would listen what was coming. Damn few listened.

Now the parties point their fingers at each other. Smart people know that this disaster is a bi-partisan mess created by elected officials that are too busy raising money and worrying about their next campaign to be much concerned about the people’s business. Too concerned about partisanship and the pecking order and who is in power and who isn’t. As a non-partisan Independent I can tell you who isn’t in power; the American People.

As a non-partisan Independent I have come to see that there is no party for America. Republicans care more about the Republican Party than they care about their country. Democrats care more about the Democratic Party than they care about America. Both parties care more about money and power than their constituency. Oh they talk the talk, rhetoric is cheap folks, takes money to buy whiskey. Damn few walk the walk. As a newly-minted Independent I am seeing this with my eyes wide open for the first time.

As a non-partisan Independent I look at issues not who is saying what. I look at the deed and not the doer. If something is wrong for one party then it is equally wrong when done by the other party. With partisanship attitudes that is seldom true. I have heard people twisting themselves in rhetorical knots defending an act they condemned with vigor when done by a Republican but are now defending when done by a Democrat. And vice-versa, hypocrisy at least is completely bi-partisan.

As a non-partisan Independent I have come to the sad conclusion that I pretty much loathe all politicians. They are a bunch of lying, thieving, bloviating, incompetent nincompoops that aren’t fit to run the Funhouse at a Carnival let alone a country.

As a non-partisan Independent I wish that we had good, honest, competent, leadership. As a non-partisan Independent I can plainly see that we don’t.

As a non-partisan Independent I will therefore have to pick and choose and be hyper vigilant when voting. I will vote for the person and not the party. I will vote for the best of the bad and hope they will grow into their job or at least see that their best interests lie with the people who elect them.

As a non-partisan Independent I hope enough people take off their partisan-colored glasses and vote for what’s best for all the people not just people that think the way they do. I also would hope people would stop demonizing every one that doesn’t belong to the same party or philosophy that they do. We have enough evil bastards in Washington D.C. running our country and our way of life into the ground. We don’t need to help them by turning on each other. They are the enemy. They are the evildoers. We the people put politicians in a position to do their evil deeds.

As a non-partisan Independent I really wish we’d stop doing that.

Empowered or Powerless? Hillary in the Box…

~~By kenosha Marge

Being a Hillary Clinton supporter I was not happy about Senator Clinton taking the position as Secretary of State. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe she would do the job well. Hillary Clinton is a competent and smart woman who works hard and would do any job well. But this was a position where she would be subordinate to a man I dislike and distrust. I thought she should stay in the Senate where she would be a free agent and able to pursue the things she found important.

An article in the New York Times on January 31^st entitled “And Now Let the Jockeying Begin” confirmed all my worst fears. I expected any NYT article to portray Hillary Clinton as a power grasping harridan. What I didn’t expect was for it to point out quite so clearly how she has been boxed in.

She is Secretary of State. And for all the silliness of some of her supporters suggesting that she will do all the work and Obama will take all the credit that isn’t how it works. High-profile Secretary’s of State, especially those hyped by the media as successful,  get credit for what they do. They also take the blame for what goes wrong. That will be especially true for Secretary of State Clinton because the media hates her and never holds Obama to account for anything.

However, before she has done much of anything other than settle in and get her staff ready she’s had much of her turf taken away to re-sod someone else’s place.

“In her first days as America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found the Middle East portfolio handed off to a special envoy.”

Is not the most important issue the Secretary of State expected to deal with the Middle East? Isn’t this diluting her power a great deal before she’s even begun? But wait, that’s not all.

Afghanistan and Pakistan were assigned to a special representative. And administration officials expect another special envoy to be tapped soon to deal with Iran.

When I was uneasy with Hillary Clinton giving up her Senate seat and becoming a part of the Obama Administration I was told by some of her supporters that I was wrong. She was smart enough and knew politics well enough not to get bamboozled by Obama. She knew what she was doing and that meant that she would have more power as Secretary of State. Some even suggested that she taking the position to protect the world from Obama’s lack of experience. “Drivel,” I said, “She’s making the best career choice for herself she can at this point in time. And, I repeated, I think she’s wrong! So there”

However I thought that she must have had some kind of assurances before she swung her support to his Oliness. “She’s too canny a politician not to do that,”  I told myself. Hillary Clinton has been around politics most of her life and thus knows that it’s about as smart to pet a cobra as it is to trust another politician. She’s got the knife scars in her back to prove it.

The NYT acticle continues with more good news. Good news if you have CDS (Clinton Derangement Syndrome) or are a member of our Misogynistic Media.

So with much of her turf already parceled off, Mrs. Clinton made a bid to take over the China file, which in recent years has been primarily the responsibility of the Treasury Department since the major issues with Beijing tend to be economic. Mrs. Clinton said the administration needed “a more comprehensive approach.” The only trick is Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has no intention of giving that up.

So where, I am asking myself, does that leave Secretary of State Clinton? Who will deal with all the problems around the world? Will she have to be content with just being a high-profile “figure head? The Secretary of State to Europe?

I confess that I don’t know. All I know is that her “job” is suddenly much smaller than her predecessor’s. Special this and special that jobs are being created faster than you can say “gotcha.”

Obama seems to have a fondness for creating “Czar” positions to take over the jobs of people who would normally be doing the job (See the full article for the details on all the “czars” now in D.C.)

More than any president in years, Mr. Obama came into office creating new White House czars and special envoys to supervise various hot-button issues at home and abroad, overlaying an additional set of actors upon a bureaucracy already scratchy about “who’s in charge”.

Mr. Obama concluded that new high-powered figures were needed to force change but they pose a delicate management challenge for a president with no real management experience beyond his presidential campaign.

Personally I was always for shrinking the bureaucracy not expanding it. I think too many cooks do spoil the broth.

I also believe that maybe, just maybe, in this instance, Hillary Clinton, for all her intelligence was hoodwinked. Even smart people get deceived if they allow themselves to believe that the deceiver will negotiate in good faith.

We don’t know, and probably never will know exactly what the Clinton/Obama deal was. We don’t know if he kept his word while playing her for a sucker with an intent to handcuff her to an empty position.

Politics is a dirty, nasty game to these folks. That’s why they can call each other names, impugn each other’s character, intellect and intent and then hug each other and work together. Some say it’s necessary to get the country’s work done that they be that type. Some people who certainly have a lack of character themselves excuse this behavior as politicians being politicians as if having people with a lack of integrity running our country is an acceptable thing.

What is acceptable to these people, this subset of humanity,  is not always tolerable to the rest of us. Those of us that think that integrity and honesty are kinda good things to have in our leaders. Not pie-in-the-sky phony-baloney rhetoric like most of them treat us to so often. The kind of rock-bottom honesty we once honored and respected in this country. The kind of rock-bottom honesty we now only give lip-service.

I think Hillary Clinton got duped. Or she deluded herself into believing that either A. She could trust Obama. Or B. That she could handle Obama. Either way, to me it looks as if she was wrong.

I think she’s been effectively boxed in and will have very little power or say in what does on. That’s a loss for all of us. A smart man would have used her considerable talents for the benefit of all. A petty little man like Obama boxes her in and makes her powerless.

I really hope I’m wrong. I really hope I’m only reading the situation through my dislike and distrust of his Oliness.

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Related post from December 6, 2008 by IA-GRL discussing MESH — Middle East Study at Harvard:

Will Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State Be Undermined by the Appointment of a Middle East Envoy? See What MESH Thinks…