Why The Republicans Gave Obama The Election in 2008.

Do you remember 2008

in the U.S.A.?

(from reuters )

I do.

I remember thinking in 2008:

this economy is going to get worse before it gets better.

( from palinnation )

I also remember thinking the Republican Party made a huge strategical error:

They actually thought the American public still wanted a ticket that was at least

half good ol' boy. And half "we need a war hero

to get us out of this mess."

And they were wrong.

America wanted someone different, and

they wanted someone who could speak in a coherent sentence,

( from wikipedia )

someone who could impress middle-America

and the east and west coast as well.

Who would have believed he could be black on top of it?

I wish I could remember when I realized that the Republicans

were going to give Obama the election.

There was some kind of giddy goofy exchange

that I heard between McCain and Palin,

and I thought:

these two aren't serious about this race.

There was also a meeting,

I think it happened in late October 2008,

a precedent setting meeting,

when Obama met with 

all the living presidents,

and I thought to myself:

I would love to be a fly on that wall.

I imagined the conversation went like this:

ALL THE LIVING PRESIDENTS:  "Barack, we're fucked.  America is in

the worst financial shape she's ever been in, most of the world hates us

and doesn't trust us, we're in a really crappy war,

and there's a really good chance that

it will get worse before it gets better.

Want to be the first Black American president?"

OBAMA: (still with the audacity to hope): "yes! I think I can do that!"

And the Republicans,

who have the calculating shrewdness of the very best psychopath,

said, "We think you're the best man for the job.

 The hope you bring

will make America feel good,

and the rest of the world like us

a little

again."

(By the way, that is an imagined dialogue.

Please don't quote me as accurate

;however,

sometimes I think that's precisely what happened:

Barack Obama was offered a place in history.)

 ( from language log )

What the Republicans also knew,

and probably anyone with half a brain also knew

was that, over the four years between

2008 and 2012

 the economy would continue to tank,

the war would get bloodier,

the terrorists would terrorize more,

and

America would forget,

oh so quickly forget

how bad we were before

Barack Obama became our 44th president.

And yes, under this young new black president,

international opinion began to turn,

as the rest of the world hoped, too, that America

was back on course to living in the world with them.

And yes, even as the Obama Administration made attempts,

with no help from the Republicans in Congress,

to change America's course,

the economy tanked more,

as anything in freefall is prone to do,

and terror became homegrown.

In fact, the Conservative spin industry in 2008 knew 

that

by 2010, Americans would be wondering

why things hadn't turned around,

and by 2011, if the Republicans packaged their product well enough

they could tap into middle-America's 

repressed racism

while also squelching

any real reforms

that this upstart young black man

who was given a historical opportunity to be president

tried to initiate.

This was a theory I developed

a little less than four years ago, 

but I was reminded of it,  tonight as I watched the debates.

Who won?  Of course, 

as a person looking for substance,

I'd say President Obama won.

However, I'm not sure everyone will see that.

Nor will they see what I see when I look at Romney.

I look at Mitt Romney and I see a masked man,

and the Republican machine,

the same machine that has blocked attempts

and bipartisanship during the Obama Administration,

has been working hard to build up his mask --

( from independent agenda )

Mitt Romney is

a man who has been documented over and over

again to be a liar, with a bad temper.

He had no substance tonight;

if anything, he just repeated Obama's points.

But I give Romney credit:

he's a smooth schmoozer

when he's not being a bully.

Notice, too, he only talks about

the last four years.

He's relying,

or rather, the Republican-machine is relying

on America's amnesia.

As I say above, they are also relying, I'm afraid,

on White Middle America's

repressed racism.

It's been allowed to build up over the past four years,

and now the Republicans are tapping it,

while promoting a short public memory.

I am writing this entry because

I really feel this election is urgent.

Ultimately,

Mitt Romney,

like Barack Obama,

is a puppet for the larger

parties and interests behind them,

but unfortunately, 

they are puppets with international power.

We know what happened the last time

America voted a puppet into power

who didn't have a strong sense of 

America's place in the world:

(from whatreallyhappened )

We really need to look past

the spin

and ask ourselves:

who do we really want

in the position of president

of this nation?

Never forget.

Anything.

We need to keep our minds

and memories

crystal clear,

and try to maintain,

despite the apparent odds,

the audacity to hope.

Tweet Tweet Tweet

from: allaboutbirds

I really hate the idea that

we judge the pulse of a country

by the way it tweets.

In a recent Atlantic Monthly article about the need for reform

in writing instruction in high schools in this country,

one claim that was made is that

young people in America

don't know their own language well enough

to articulate complex ideas.

As someone who teaches and reads a lot of writing

by young people entering college

I would agree with that.

Fundamentally,

if an individual's language facility is challenged,

so too is the quality and subtlety of

their thinking ability,

and of the ideas that they can convey.

And this is the problem with tweeting.

Nothing deeply thoughtful or complex can be communicated

in 140 characters and a few hash symbols.

So I was just amazed when

the first post-debate story I heard

was based solely on the Tweets

that occurred during and after

the debate.

from: muppetwikia

Tweet Tweet Tweet ~ ~ ~

My response to the political analysts who scurry to Twitter

after

the debate to determine what America is thinking is this:

it's tweet for twat:

The real issues are very very complex,

and no one who is working within

a limited language framework

can even begin to articulate

the true nature of the issues.

And here are some points that I'd love to hear one of the 

candidates (preferably the one I support) talk about:

from: motor trend

1.  The price of gasoline in the U.S.A. today will never go back

to $2.00 a gallon.  Just say it. And at $4.00 a gallon we are still paying

substantially less that the rest of the world, which buys its fuel

by the liter,  pays to fuel

their fuel-efficient vehicles.

What we need is a reality check: and it's one in which

America is educated, without prejudice, to the very real

fact that it's past time to get rid of those fuel-guzzling vehicles,

and to seriously invest in alternative energy research and programs.

(I also tend to believe that the war in Iraq,

which we all know by now was a war over oil.

That was a political war, fought by wealthy oil people against other
wealthy oil people, and our side lost.

truly lost, and part of what was lost was America's

select standing among the oil producing nations,

and that's why we're going to continue to see the prices go up at the pumps.

And it's not going to stop.)

Tweet Tweet Tweet

from: worldengroup

2.  Barack Obama is right: some jobs will never come back

to America.  Indeed, the entire history of America can be looked 

at as a history of cheating the cheapest work force that can be found --

for awhile, we imported slaves to do the work,

and when that turned out to be problematic,

we began importing immigrants - Italians, Poles, Irish -

who thought that the opportunity to climb down a mine-hole for play-money

that could only be used in the company town

was a ticket to their freedom.  When that work force wised up,

the jobs were sent to Mexico, China, Indonesia,

anywhere where the work force didn't demand much.

And as long as a profit-driven corporate based mentality

makes all of the decisions about jobs in this country, indeed

in this world, that will continue to be the mentality.

If the Mars expedition discovered a race of red midgets

who were willing to build iPads and tennis shoes for small change,

you'd better believe corporate America would suddenly feel that

investment in the space program

was a profitable venture.

Tweet Tweet Tweet

from: adorablay

3.  And when folks talk about the deficit and the bad economy,

why don't they acknowledge that the horrible recession we've been experiencing,

so horrible I dare call it a near depression,

has not been local?  This is an economic decline that has been felt

all over the world.  This kind of economic decline cannot be bandaged over

with a few tax cuts and empty talk about bringing jobs back to the USA.

This kind of economic decline requires substantial repair

and reform, not to mention careful diplomatic long term planning,

and it requires sacrifices on everybody's part. 

It is not a situation that could or can be remedied

in four years.

When George W. Bush left office,

he truly left the economy in free-fall,

and anyone who was paying attention at that time would have recognized

that the economy would fall for a few more years before it 

bottomed out.  So yes, the national deficit grew under Obama.

It would have grown under McCain, too, had he become president.

It would have grown under you or me or anyone had we stepped into that office

in 2008.  Because that was the course that the national and world economy was on.

Which is why I think the Republicans gave Obama the last election.

They knew that who ever held the job after Bush

would ultimately get blamed for the mess the U.S.A. had become,

so they backed down, and gave the election to 

the first black president of the U.S.A.

Why won't anyone say any of that?

Easy:

you can't say it in a tweet,

nor can you say it

in two minutes.

Still we just keep tweeting,

filling the air with empty chirps

about nothing in particular,

while the true problem we are facing

remain unresolved.

Watching The Debates: Vote for Fil I. Buster

I'm getting frustrated,

and the first debate is still on.

Why, oh why,

has Barack Obama not mentioned this:

Romney keeps making himself sound like

he would be nothing but bipartisan.

( from thebigpicture )

But we know that's not true.

We know

that any democrat in Congress

in a Romney presidency

would be silenced.

Oh, that face,

( from USAToday )

that face:

I trust it as much as I would trust

Iago.

An ode to the upcoming debates

( blog.nj )

There is nothing either good or bad,

but thinking makes it so. . . 

(Hamlet  II:ii)

Words are thoughts;

thought-words, things

that build apparitions

of what might be.

Thought-words can create

possibility or

they can destroy

reality.

Hold your thoughts,

and mold them well

before you deliver them

into the air.  Those

castles built

might build despair

unnecessarily.

So may it be.

( boston.com )

coda:

Talk to me --

and not of me.

Truth is best found

in the space

of silent greetings,

and cordial meetings.

Vanity Sizing and the American Psyche

( from: madisonbootcamps )

Sometime between 1999 and 2004, a miracle happened to me: 

I shrank.

In 1999, before I moved from the U.S.A. to Turkey,

I went to the doctor, and weighed in at around 148 pounds,

 5' 10" tall.

When I went to the mall to buy some pants for my move,

I bought a size 12.  I have wide hips.

The width of my hips was always a bit of an issue with me,

and as a younger woman I did stupid things to slenderize,

but then I decided that I had to accept that

my bone structure can't be changed.

And that was that: size 12 pants,

size 10 dress.

A comfortable, but slightly tall

Medium.

Out the door, I carried clothes made of real cotton

that I still own.

And then I moved away.

In Turkey, I did not shrink,

I remained the same size,

and my skin became paler.

But the first time I bought clothes back in the States,

about a year later,

I was amazed that I was buying

size 10 pants.

A few months later, in the USA, I was a comfortable

size 8, and by 2003 or so

I actually bought a size 6 pants in the USA.

I wish I could show them to you,

but they were really flimsy and feel apart.

America, you see, is the land of miracles:
as long as I was buying my clothes in the States,
I was shrinking.

I could ignore the scale, 

which hadn't budged,

nor had a shrunk in any other proportion.

It was all perception, after all.

I was shrinking.

The closet proclaimed it to me defiantly,
on every tag declaring my new size:

my ass was narrower,

my boobs more modest,  my waist

wasting away.

( from: listxsadist )

Well, if I wanted to be delusional,

I could believe that, but

I've never been one to favor

that frame of mind.

I prefer

the raw, cold truth,

even if it means acknowledging

things like my increasing varicosities.
In the end, I feel it makes life

a little easier.
At the time,

I suspected that there was a conspiracy afoot

to maintain America's delusion

that they weren't getting fatter,

and this morning as I woke up again

to my trusty radio, 

I heard a story that confirmed 

precisely what I had been thinking.

(photo and story at 

NPR )

Vanity sizing:

the latest, greatest

American tall tale,

designed to keep the clothes

moving off the racks.
This is what one of the women said
on the radio, in her lilting, lovely
Indian accent.
When Americans kept getting fatter,
and the sizes remained the same,
well,
the clothes stopped selling.
The clothing industry, then,
came up with this brilliant idea:
make a size 6 bigger, and
make a size 6 a size 00,
and lead the consumer to believe
they were still as svelte as a model,
even if they no longer fit
into normal-sized movie theatre seats.

I guess the statement that put me over the edge, though,
was this:
the interviewer asked the woman
with the lilting, lovely Indian accent
if this was ethical:
aren't we lying to the public?
And she replied:
It's not really a lie,
if the public wants to be lied to.

Ah, indeed, the logic of it sent my mind reeling,
because,
because
among other things, I thought:
is this the attitude that the rest of the world  has
about the average American?
That we are complacent, stupid, fat people
in denial about what we really are?

And then I thought:
yes, of course.  That is what the world thinks of us.
I've lived abroad;
I've traveled a lot;
I've seen the attitude towards Americans change,
and that change began when the American public
voted George W. Bush into office
a second time.

It's not really a lie,
if the public wants to be lied to.

( from nmnnewsandviews )


Just minutes before this story,
on NPR this morning,
I had listened to a speech from Mitt Romney,
given in Ohio.  Mitt Romney, declaring
that he will make more jobs, trim down the government,
and be a better international face for America ~ ~ ~

It's not really a lie,
if the public wants to be lied to.

It's the logic of the cheating lover
as he hands his spouse some flowers
and tells her that he loves her
before slipping off to see his concubine ~ ~ ~

It's not really a lie,
if the person wants to be lied to.

It's the logic of the boss,
who gives his employees a modest raise,
telling them that he would love to give them more,
but the firm is struggling so much,
and then buys himself a new private Leer jet ~ ~ ~

not really a lie. . . 
they wanted to be lied to. . . 

In the story about Mitt Romney they interviewed
a woman in rural Ohio,
who I'll bet is a size 6 or maybe even a 4,
and she said her only gripe with Mitt Romney is that
he isn't coming down harder on President Obama:

He should be saying it more like it is, and saying it loud,
she said,
Romney's been too polite;
he should not be so polite to Obama!

In other words, she would like to hear Mitt Romney screaming
that Barack Obama has done nothing for America,
that the woes of America are Obama's fault,
that Obama was born in Timbuktu,
that his mother wasn't a white woman from the mid-west,
. . . . .
She wants to hear it again and again,
and she wants to hear it screamed loud and long,
because she wants to be lied to,
because that will help her confirm her own beliefs
that a smart black man should not remain
in the highest office in the nation.

It's not really a lie
if you want to be lied to.

And if she and all the rest of working or
middle class G.O.P. America want to believe
that a wealthy millionaire businessman
really cares for her goodwill,
she can and she will,
as she sits in front of her 48" wide
flat screen TV,
watching the Simpsons,
which she feels comes closest to being like reality to her,
and eating burgers and chips,
in her size 6 jeans.


. . . not really a lie . . . 

(Oh, Romney assures us,
don't worry; we'll still have
Medicare . . . )

Vanity sizing, in the end,
sums up what is wrong with America.
And we hear about vanity sizing,
but still nothing is done about it.
Because we want to be lied to.
Because the truth might mean
that we have to do something about it.

( from runsleeprinserepeat )

I guess there's one good thing we can say about this:
as long as people are still lying,
the world will not end
anytime soon.

Or else that's what we want to believe.


Hamlet: In the secret parts of Fortune? O, most true! She is a strumpet. What's the news?
Rosencrantz: None, my lord, but that the world's grown honest.
Hamlet: Then is doomsday near.

( Hamlet II:ii )

Geneology

via geneology.about

. . . and so, you see

I have been researching

my family tree, and when

you've lived as long as I, that can take

an eternity --

                    or thereabouts.

And that is one of the reasons you haven't seen 

too much of me.

My family tree is long and strong;

it goes back centuries.

On looking, I see a pattern

emerge, a story that is only marginally

about me.

It's about humanity.

I am, after all, just one tiny shoot

off this ambling oak, and one that bore

no progeny --

at least not in this lifetime,

so my place on the tree is like

earth in our galaxy.

via coolcosmos

Still, I'm part of the pattern, but

not without duty, or responsibility

to the health of tree.

At this particular point

in this particular generation,

without me, the tree

would not be.

via laceyville

This is the pattern I've drawn:

there is a long, strong base

that documentably links my family

to history.

It's full of soldiers, war heros, pioneers,

Admiral Perry,

and a questionable link to the wife

of our first president George.   Notably,

it's my mother's mother's ancestry.

But within that long noble trunk

it appears

every fifty or one hundred years,

someone stumbles,

drinks too much,

and looks askance

at the teaming world.  Smitten

by the beauty there,

that person beds, then weds

one who their own Society would label

risky:

An Irishman, a German, or

godforbid, a Pole,

an Indian, a Turk, or even Negro:

the whole clan mutates 

into a jumbled hybridity

that all adds up to me.

Accidental, incidental,

those periodic lusty embraces

between two so mismatched social faces

have produced a tangle of branches

that links cultures,

to the point that I can say,

with fair certainty,

that, dear reader, you and me

are kin, if only 

remotely.

via viz

CONVERSATION

Casey Anthony, Betty Ford, and Barack Obama

I have to do this:

( duckbrand )

For the past week, I have been visiting family
which has meant I have watched a heck of a lot more television
than I usually do.

The week began with coverage of

the Casey Anthony verdict -

 I actually had very little knowledge of this trial

until this week.

I guess I'm one of very few in the U.S.A. who can say that.

So, the verdict is in;

we know what it is;

folks are angry,
lots of folks have an opinion,
and lots of folks are looking for ways
to continue to make money
off of this sad case --

On the day the verdict came in,

I vowed to not say a thing on this blog

about Casey Anthony,
because
I figured every blogger in the USA
would have something to say about it.

( please see Yahoo News
for the source of this photo & obituary )

Then,

Betty Ford died.

And today,

Barak Obama held an unusual Sunday meeting

to try to keep the U.S. government
from going into default.
No decisions were made --

the government is still divided,
and can't seem to find a way
to set aside differences and realize
exactly what is at stake.

U.S.Debt Clock

~ ~ ~

I did Google searches on all three topics,

and found that there is much more being written 

still

on Casey Anthony

then there is on

Betty Ford,

a very dignified woman who had the nerve to admit her shortcomings.
As one British newspaper article I read said, if given the chance,
Betty Ford may have been a better president
than her husband was.
-- May she rest in peace -- 

And the Anthony case may also surpass the U. S. economy
on the amount of media attention it continues to receive.

This leads me to form the hypothesis that

the American public is probably more informed on the sundry details

of a very sad murder

and a case of very poor and irresponsible parenting

than it is on their economy.

As a professional educator
in higher education in the U.S. of A.
who every year meets a new crop
of the children of the average American public,
I would venture to say that most citizens here
really do not understand
the crisis the government is in,
yet,

some have the nerve

to criticize the work of our own president,

who after a mere two years has not been able
to clean up the mess he inherited

from about 50 years (or more)
of increasingly irresponsible
government spending.

But ask most Americans about Casey Anthony,
and you will get a very informed opinion.

You know,

even a search on

"duct tape"

brings up,

first and foremost,

a number of entries

about Casey Anthony.

In fact,
I'm willing to bet that I will get quite a few hits on this blog
simply because I wrote something with
Casey Anthony's name in the title.

Let's see if I'm right.

I'm only modestly sorry
if you came to this blog to read
more dirt

on Casey Anthony,

because I'm not going to give it to you.
But I would suggest you

do a search on

the U.S. deficit,

or something else

that probably has a heck of a lot more relevance

to your own life.
And when you do that search,
please make sure you read about 10 articles
from a wide range of sources -
or read at least as many sources as you have read
about Casey Anthony,
and use the same amount of care you are taking

to form your opinion on what to do

with Casey Anthony
to form your opinion about that deficit
and the best way to support our government
so we can solve it,
rationally,
and with respect for every American,
whether we agree with them or not
 .
 .
 .
.
.

Superman in the News

As usual, 

I woke up this morning

to the news on the radio,

and this is what I heard about:

boingboing

It appears that perhaps some fans

(or maybe Superman himself)

as if forced to desperate means

like Barack Obama

(

 huffingtonpost

 )

,

took it upon themselves to prove

Superman's rightful birthplace.

Someone went and stole

this plaque, from its home

in Cleveland, Ohio:

The state of this earth

is definitely a troubled one,

when even comic book heros

renounce their birthplace

and/or

it comes up for debate.

But perhaps we should take our cue

from the man from Krypton,

and recognized that national identity can sometimes limit

our perceptions of both ourselves and of others.

We are all,

after all,

citizens of the universe,

citizens of the galaxy,

citizens of the solar system,

citizens of this third planet 

from this sun,

we are all 

in this together.

The Audacity of Hopefulness

Hi.

Sorry I've been away for a little while.

The other day I was getting dressed,

and I looked down at the books that were

 holding my bedroom door open,

and this one was on top:

Audacity/Wikipedia

Audacity/Amazon

That's right,

it's been holding my door open,

for nearly a year.

And as I saw it there, I felt a pang

of grief and regret,

because I really do believe that Barack Obama is both 

hopeful and audacious,

underneath it all,

and then I wrote the following post:

I want to live in the country where

Barack Obama is president, and nobody

criticizes him for not fixing

in two years

the mess made by all the presidents we've had

for thirty years

(give or take a decade or two)

I want to live in a place where people

are only held accountable for what 

they themselves have done, 

no more, no less,

and where

they are not judged for what they haven't done,

when they haven't finished the job

yet.

I want to live in a land

of reason and clarity

and truth,

not to mention a good sense of humour,

a place where, if someone lies,

their nose turns red,

or their hair falls out,

and everyone immediately knows

they are a liar.

Sometimes I think:

the worst offense that somone can commit

in civil society 

is to lie.

wikipedia

Nietzsche "On Truth & Lying in a Nonmoral Sense

I saw a movie a couple years ago, with Ricky Gervaise in it;

it was called The Invention of Lying.

The friend who was with me really didn't like it;

as many of the critics seem

to have not liked it; but

I did like it.

It treated the whole issue of lying

like a parable, and the end conclusion

appeared to be a few things:

a) people are gullible

b) you can tell people anything, and they'll 

believe you.

Of course, it also begins in a world

where all people are truthful; 

indeed, at the beginning of the film,

no one can even conceive of someone who lies.

And in this world of comical honesty,

a character discovers the power of 

falsehood.  If you live in a world

where people are honest, and you lie, well,

they'll believe you.

The liar in the movie becomes

famous and walthy, espeically when he

lies to his dying mother

and tells here there's a heaven,

when he really has no clue

what comes after this life.

The film really celebrates

the concept of 

"what you don't know won't

hurt you,"  and that's just fine

and dandy, as long as it's something simple

like the tooth fairy.

The film is correct

on many points:

people are fundamentally

gullible and truthful,

so you can indeed lie to them

and gain power of them

to varying degrees.

And for awhile, in the world of lies,

all is fine, while the lie

maintains the impression of a perfect world,

that is,

until the lie is revealed to be a lie.

And then he or she or those

who have been lied to

is shattered,

and may even start lying, too,

and society itself becomes a maze

of mirrors and poses where

pretense is the only way to survive.

And the only way to see the truth,

is by distorting it.

I'm sorry, but I"m here to declare,

we've reached 

- and bypassed -

our critical limit of lying.

Only the truth can set us free now.

mmwindowart

The biggest lie

you can tell

is the lie you tell

to your inner self,

and the lies you tell

to the ones who love you,

and whom you love,

too.

Start by telling the truth to them.

Dream: April 3, 2010 (Why I Would Not Want to be Barack Obama, Part I)

I had a dream last night.

I was sitting on a bus, far in the back.  This was in a foreign country.  It was a crowded bus, and our route to  where we were going was very difficult.  Lots of traffic.  The passengers all got to know the driver, who was a woman.  Most seemed to feel she was a respectable woman, but I could tell several doubted her driving abilities.

We were almost to our destination, but the last bit of the trip went down a steep mountain road, which brought us off of a plateau and down to a coastline (a bit like the bus ride from Ankara, Turkey, to Izmir (the former Smyrna.)  I was sitting in the back of the bus, and I could see very little, but I knew there was another bus next to us. 

The people around me were getting very antsy.  They had to get home; they had to get on with their lives. 

Well, the other bus moved on - I couldn't see how far ahead, and my fellow passengers started getting very upset.  They took a vote: they wanted the driver to get in the passing lane and go - very fast - down the mountain pass.  As far as I could see, many of them were forming a group, and they were threatening to take the bus by force. 

They wanted my vote in support of them.

I had to speak up.  And this is what I said: 

Of everyone on this bus, only the driver knows the condition of the bus itself.  And what if she happens to know the brakes are bad?  Would she tell us?  Probably not.  There may be a very good reason for the way she is driving.  So be patient and hope that both she and this bus will get us to where we want to be.

I woke up immediately after my little speech, so I have no idea how my fellow passengers responded.  However, awake, I was thinking about Barack Obama.  I think he knows far more about the bus he's driving than anyone should have to know.  He knows the condition of the infrastructure of the U.S.A.  It would be nice if the general public would just let the man drive the bus for a year or two, before trying to take it by force, or any other means. 

Quite frankly, I don't know if anyone would know how to stop a bus as big as the United States of America, if it was hurtling down a mountain pass with no brakes.