Today We Don't "Fix" Problems Anymore

It is said that even if Donald Trump wins on Tuesday there will be twelve million new milenials ellagable to vote in four years than there are now.  By that same logic there were 36 million fewer milenians ellagable to vote in the reelection of George Bush in 2004.  That would be 48 million fewer milenials than there will be in 2020.  That's a lot of voters!  So how is all these new demographic data working out.  We are told that America is becoming a "browner" country now with more racial minorities voting Democratic.  We've been hearing stories like this for years that "the next democratic sweep is just around the corner?"  But now it's time to face reality.  Just to refresh your memory George Bush won in 2004 in a squeaker of an election involving voting machine fraud in Ohio.  Many of us voted for George Bush on age old arguments like "let him finish the job he started" like having elections in Iraq where we presumably would be happy with whatever government the people freely elected.  We heard all these happy stories about purple thumbs.   Congress was supposed to "fix" problems such as the immigration problem with real immigration reform like the President wanted to bring minorities out of the shadows.  And congress was supposed to "fix" Social Security one way or the other, either by some privitazation, which I was open to in those days, or in some other way such as raising taxes on the rich.  But this congress wasn't popular by the standards of the day and the democrats took over in 2006.  In the mean time we saw signs that there was a progressive tide coming in such as the radio station KTLK here in Los Angeles with guests such as Randy Rhodes and Al Franken and Ed Schultz.  Bills of impeachment against President Bush were drawn up as the 35 articles of Impeachment.  This is because of the vast apperatus of mass wiretapping of innocent Americans came to light and Bush lying about having to go to the FISA court.  (You new voters take notes)  There was also wide spread oppinion that Guantanamo Bay should close down due to widespread abuses of torture.  There were also a lot of scandals of Republican congressmen tilting the tide toward the democrats.  Governor Swartzenegger held a special election in fall of 2005 where most of his conservative agenda failed, and what followed in January was one of the most progressive budgets we'd seen in decades.  "So, what's your point?", you ask.  It's simple.  People said then that the pendulum was swinging back to the left because "It had swung about as far right as it could go, and it had to happen".  Well that was then and this is now.  George Bush had a lot more political background than Trump and also wasn't as conservative as Donald Trump.  Hillary is a better campaigner than was John Kerry.  So by all right Hillary should be wiping the floor with Trump.  But since the poll numbers are within the margin of error clearly this isn't the case now.  Some FORCE (for lack of a better word) appears to have its thumb on the scales now tilting the political balance to the hard right, still.  Think about it.

Thom Hartmann relates that we have a racial problem when racism is considered “smart” rather than reactionary and backward thinking.  We had Woodrow Wilson as a racist because he was a democrat from North Carolina.  We never learned about Woodrow Wilson’s racism in our history books because all they wanted to talk about was the Fourteen Points and how the US rejected the League of Nations after WW I.  But then racism went intellectual in the 1920s with people like Margeret Sanger and other eugenicists.  Then in the thirties Hitler politicized these intellectual musings of American and British racism of the 1920’s.   Then later on we had the “thoughtful racists” like Shockley who talked about the “bell curve” and how Blacks always wind up on the lower end of it.  I myself as a youth was a strong believer in how environment is everything and genes and race mean nothing.  Perhaps I wanted to rationalize my own short comings and problems others imagined me to have.  Today I’m not a 100% environment type person.  I have mellowed with age.  But clearly when it comes to race we as a nation are still racist, which is why so many Blacks and Latinos still end up in prison with our system.  You have the “tradition” of police being the remnant of “slave patrols” the 2^nd amendment was designed to protect by the States.  And you have shows like last night’s unhappy flashback to the abuse of slaves.  Hartman fielded a caller who was a white in South Korea and he as a white tried to explain he was there to protect South Koreans, but these were maurading teenage gangs out to hassle him, and he felt helpless.  He says “I never looked at race the same way again”.

Other nations have strong Third Parties because they have the Parliamentary system of government where Presidents and Prime Ministers are elected by coalitions of parliament and not directly by the people.  The founding fathers did not trust direct election by the masses who can be swayed by mob rule, which we are certainly witnessing this year with the Trump campaign.  The majority of Americans are “repulsed” by this current campaign.  Therefore electors under the constitution are free to vote for whom anyone they want.  Most democracies of the world now came after this philosopher guy of 1860 or whenever who said that “winner take all” wasn’t fair because you could win with 34% in a three man race and 26% in a four man race.  One question that remains unanswered is how come the Green Party in Germany holds so much sway unless legislators actually WIN individual elections.  You don’t even have that here. 

People who say there is more racism and racial disharmony the past eight years aren’t lamenting a sad truth; they are BRAGGING.  Rush Limbaugh is proud that there is so much racial tension in America now.  It’s like “Mission Accomplished”.   The same goes for insurance rates for the Affordable Care Act.  These have skyrocketed in the past few years, which is just what Republicans have been WANTING so they could BRAG about accomplishing it.  It’s the old principle about sabotaging something in advance to INSURE its failure then say “We tried it your way and we failed”.   The same could be said about the economy.  They do a thumbs down on any and all economic stimulus programs Obama tried to get through congress.  Then when the economy fails to do what we’d like given today’s weak new jobs figures- - they can say “Look, we told you so”.  The Republicans WANT a weak economy so they can use it as a campaign tool to win next time.  I hope anybody reading this is wise enough to see through all these games. 

Those two cops sitting in their squad cars who were murdered last week- - were murdered because a White guy was stopped from waving a Confederate flag during a football game.  My guess is Shawn Hannity won’t touch this story with a ten foot pole.  You get the feeling there are a lot of republicans who won't want to touch the new Donald Trump administration with a ten foot pole, either.  How do Trump supporters feel about the Civil War.  Was it "The war of Northern agression?"  Sometimes it's important to remind ourselves why we fought it.  Last night they had a thing on TV about Zombies in the Civil War and how their presence tilted the balance to the Confederacy and how it was necessary to "correct" history.  So when are they going to do the episode about "correcting" the past eight years?  It was that time-warp show on slavery oppression and the Civil War.  If Blacks escaped and were brought back they would have their genitals cut off and they’d be knee-capped so they’d be permanently crippled and unable to run ever again.  It’s the Annie Wilkes doctrine of “They’re worth too much in labor just to kill them”.  This one Black guy completely forgot how slaves were supposed to relate back then.   You see Blacks can't just "forget" because there are too many White people out there ready to "remind" them, if they forget who they are?