October 17, 2011
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I'm here in Sunny Florida!
After a sometimes beautiful and sometimes stressful trip down, we are back here for the Winter. The Eastern mountains were at their peak fall colors all the way to GA (where we ran out of mountains, of course).
I'm concerned about some of the directions the US political system is taking. There is far too much unidentified money involved in the process and at least in the case of the GOP, the tail very much seems to be wagging the dog. It's over a year until the next presidential election but it seems nothing of substance will or can be done to solve our serious problems until after the next congress and new [ or re-elected] president takes office.
World and national economic, political, and social problems will be much worse if we wait that long - perhaps those Wall Street occupiers are on to something - at least they are pretty loud in their objection to the status quo.
I find it hard to understand the hatred of Obama that is being expressed in Republican circles. He certainly is no wild-eyed socialist radical - actually quite a moderate in his positions - perhaps too moderate. His life's work has after all, been the struggle to develop consensus between differing groups. Apparently he did not expect the degree of open hatred among those who do not accept him - or his kind - as part of the democratic process. So much for equality in America.
Comments (2)
I'm glad you made it south safe and sound. I wish we had some fall colors here I still dream of moving to the east coast one day, but that day may be some time away at this current pace.
I have no faith in our government ever doing anything positive for our country. It seems to me it has left the original stance of being for the people that elected you to whatever the party line declares. I'm ashamed to be associated in a political party. Because most of my intentions don't go either way entirely. But I see no compromise anymore it's all on what they want to do. It's really sad that I see no real difference in who is the president, to me they don't have a lot of power anymore. I mean I know Bush got us involved in 2 wars that just keep draining our resourses. At the time I believed in what was supposed to be fought for, but now it just seems we can't win anything. There will never be a victor at a war we fight and in the end we lose because we put billions of our dollars into it and our soldiers die fighting for it but we can't win, no matter how we set up the exit. I don't know what can happen but like you said I don't see anything positive happening until after next November. That's a long spiral downward.
@rush24a - Bill. I disagree with you about there being no difference between political parties. To be sure, both more-or-less tend to try to attract as many voters as possible and are very careful about radical change but one is clearly more in tune with the needs and wishes of the economic majority of America - it's just that many of us don't like to admit that we are part of that majority - we all dream of "making it"and becoming part of that one percent at the top.
If there is a clear majority for the Democrats in November (an unlikely scenario) you can expect to see some slow creep back toward the the middle class oriented society you grew up in. If there is a clear majority for the Republicans (also an unlikely scenario) you can expect a continued move away from government regulation and assistance toward the working classes and a gradual spreading of the class structure with a few very rich and a good many very poor. the reason for this is that the present position of that party is that we should compete on the world stage and our worker's standard of living should be comparable to that of the developing countries. This is now happening in Europe with disastrous results.