A Question Of Lies And Gross Indecency, But Just Who Is Responsible?

“Fight Against Stupidity And Bureaucracy”

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The election is looming. Just about a month to go in fact.

Despite his numerous gaffs, after the first televised debate Romney has pulled slightly ahead in the polls and according to news reports, is “hardening his lead”, mainly on the back of a lackluster performance by Obama.

The VP debate last week didn’t produce a clear leader either – just created a frenzy among viewers to find out who was under the desk tickling Biden’s feet.

Last evening’s bout at Hofstra University, in Hempstead, New York didn’t produce a clear winner for me either, although some media polls put Obama ahead. His performance was certainly way better than in debate one, but you could easily have written the totally predictable moron media’s “Obama fights back” headlines without even watching it.

What this all means is that it’s still all to play for and far too close to call. In the end the committed supporters on each side will largely cancel each other out and the king-makers (or president-makers in this case) will be the 5 to 10 percent so far undecided.

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Does it really matter who wins? After all, when it’s all done and dusted, the same types of people will hold the same offices as before. They will do the same things as before. And the mess we are all in will be as big as before – or bigger. I hope you have noticed that there has been a distinct failure by BOTH candidates to address the economic crisis in any meaningful and specific terms.  

But there are two other questions we need to address.

First, there is an obscenity here that no one is talking very much about. Call it the elephant and the donkey in the room if you like. It is an obscenity that has been around for far too long, but today in our current dire economic circumstances, it has been elevated to the level of gross indecency.

What am I ranting on about this time?

 

Well, if you hadn’t guessed already, the obscenity I am referring to is the scandalous amount of money that BOTH presidential candidates are wasting trying to get themselves elected.

We all know Romney is a multi-millionaire, with equally rich chums or better, so it maybe isn’t such a surprise that he is able to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for his campaign war chest.

What is more surprising is Obama. His war chest is actually bigger than Romney’s and, quite unbelievably, is about to hit and probably surpass the $1 billion mark. It may already have by the time you read this.

 

I know a billion dollars isn’t what it used to be in terms of purchasing power, but it can still buy a lot of stuff. If you are having any difficulty visualizing how much a billion dollars is, think of it this way. The median income in the United States is around $29,000, meaning half the wage earners  make less and half make more. If you make $29,000 a year, and don’t spend a single penny of it, it will still take you 34,482 years to save a billion dollars.

One Billion Dollars

 

Now you are probably having trouble visualizing what it would be like to wait 34,482 years – if you are, it’s over 400 lifetimes!

Put another way, their combined waste of money could provide almost 150,000 surgical procedures, or more than 500 million meals for the poor and homeless, either of them money a lot better spent.

homeless in winter

 

That anyone, Obama, Romney or A. N. Other can squander this amount of money for no return other than to aggrandize themselves with the title of President shows a deal of contempt for the ordinary people of the country, particularly those who are presently struggling to survive thanks to the financial mismanagement that these same politicians have presided over.

You can be sure that whoever gets into the big seat in the White House he will drown us in hypocrisy. We will get lectures about sacrifice and austerity measures, how deficits need to be cut, how taxes need to be raised, how you will have to tighten your belt for the sake of the country (whether you can still afford a belt or not) and so forth. Where was the belt tightening during the election campaign, boyz???

 

Of course, we are told that the bulk of the money in the politicians’ war chests is made up of the small $5, $10, $25 or $50 donated by ordinary folks. That may be true. But there are two types of dollars donated for election campaigns – ‘gifted’ dollars and ‘investment’ dollars. Most of the dollars donated by big corporations, super rich individuals and bankers fall into the latter category. Those people will be expecting, and will get, a return on that ‘investment’.

Thus the system – which is now so corrupt that rich executives ride roughshod over the law at will, and without fear of being punished no matter who is president – will remain largely as is.

This is a recipe for disaster. If history has taught us nothing else, it has taught us that a nation, caught between a broken political system and a populist movement of those who feel increasingly disenfranchised and undervalued, will at some stage experience rebellion against that corruption.

If you think not, think again. In fact, think tea parties in Boston and how and why the United States came into being in the first place.

 

Of course the solution to this particular obscenity is quick and easy. Put a ceiling on the amount of money a politician can legally collect and spend on his campaign. That would create a level playing field for all. Rich or poor, large party or small party, would have an equal chance of marketing their wears.

The only problem is that it is the same politicians who will have to make that law, and last reports still say that turkeys are very reluctant to vote for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

So that gets us to the second question in the title of this post, namely “Who is responsible?” In fact it is a two-fold question.

Are the politicians responsible because they lie to the people and promise one thing before an election and do another afterwards?

Or are the people responsible because they know fine well that the politicians are lying to them and won’t deliver on their promises, but still go out and vote for them anyway?

Let’s phrase these two questions another way.

Are the politicians responsible because they know that if they did not lie, not enough people would vote for them?

Or are the people responsible because they don’t really want to hear the hard truth and would not vote for a politician who told it how it is?

 

Everyone has to answer that dilemma themselves. Personally I wouldn’t vote for someone I know is lying to me, no matter what party they belonged to.

 

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Memorial Monday

Well, as I am sure you (particularly the folks in the good old US of A) are well aware, today is the last Monday in May, otherwise known as Memorial Day and the official start of summer. I hope you have been and are enjoying a long leisurely holiday weekend.

There are lots of blogs doing pieces on Memorial Day, so I’ll try to make this one slightly different.

Memorial Day was originally known as Decoration Day and was established after the American Civil War to commemorate the fallen Union soldiers.

Slight rant for a moment. I get irritated when I hear idiots talking about the US Civil War. The Civil War in America was fought between Union forces (made up of Americans) and Confederate forces (made up of Americans). This isn’t going to turn into a history lesson as to the why’s and the wherefore’s, but the point is that at the time of the civil war the States of America were anything but “united”. Use the term “American” please. End rant.

The chances are that you may already have seen Ken Burn’s fantastic documentary series called Civil War. When it first aired on PBS something like 40 million Americans tuned in and it has been distributed and shown on the BBC in the UK and in many other parts of the world since. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend that you do so. It is a gem of historical information, photography, narration, music – the whole thing is just wonderful.

Ken Burns Fabulous Civil War Series

 

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I have always been fascinated by the Civil War. I have visited numerous battle sites and know some people who have little museums and take part in re-enactments and so forth. Because it was fought in the mid 1800s and featured such well known historical figures as Abraham Lincoln and Robert E Lee the impression I had (for no logical reason, as sometimes happens) was that it was an event that happened a very long time ago. Then I discovered that the last Union veteran of the Civil War, Albert Woolson only died in 1956, not quite within my lifetime, but close enough to make me realize that this was not so long ago at all.

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So could it happen again?

In America I very much doubt it.

Civil Wars are part of the teething pains that most countries go through. They have happened in England, France, Spain, Portugal, China, Russia, Cuba, Korea, Vietnam, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and on and on; and they seem to be a constant phenomenon in one part of Africa or another.

There will probably be periods of increasing civil unrest in the US as the government ham fistedly tries to get itself out of the mess that it has caused by trying to steal more money from the ordinary people, but that’s a different thing. So I wouldn’t worry about it too much yet.

As for Memorial Day nowadays, it encompasses all Wars that American forces have been involved in, and it is a convenient marker to remind us of those who have willingly put their lives in harm’s way to protect us. The political decisions that lead to wars are not the fault of those sent to fight.

This weekend I have been remembering some of my friends who are no longer here. They are in a better place for sure, but they got there far, far too soon.

Soldier Reporting For Final Duty