Some how this cartoon reminds me of our current politicians!
I have many different things on my mind today so don’t think I’m nutty when my thoughts hop around. I watched a few minutes of the Chris Matthews show last night and Chris was bemoaning a recent poll from Michigan. In the poll, if the election were held today, Mitt Romney would beat President Obama 46 to 42. I guess that means that 12% of the people refused to pick either one in that poll. Chris has always acted like Michigan will vote for Obama. He obviously doesn’t realize that we have a Republican House, Senate, and governor. He thought it was just because Mitt’s dad used to be our governor many years ago. There is a lot more to it than that. I’m one of “those people” that are still smitten over my stolen vote during the 2008 Democratic Primary. Matthews and other political pundits seem to be blind to the fact that there are a number of people that are not happy with the direction this country is going. The Tea Party is like the antithesis of how I feel, but when you put both the far right and the far left together, that’s a lot of ticked off people.
When Senator Obama ran for the presidency he talked about “hope and change”. My problems with Obama started early on when he spoke glowingly about paying those math and science teachers more money than other teachers. That is union busting language that just serves to divide teachers. I figured he was secretly a Republican and I knew I couldn’t vote for him. That was in July of 2007. Now that wasn’t my first exposure to Barack Obama. The first time I had ever heard of Barack Obama was during the Kerry nomination. I really liked Obama’s speech at the 2004 convention. I guess that line about red states and blue states but the United States really got to me. I thought this guy could be president some day, you know like some time off into the distant future, not four years from then. Then of course I heard the speech in 2007 where he spoke in front of the National Education Association and I was unimpressed. It seems to me for being a “no drama” president; we have had nothing but drama since he became president. Right now I feel that the American people have been whipped into frenzy over the debt ceiling debate just to get us bent to the will of both parties. I don’t believe either party is innocent in this debate. It almost feels like the only innocent people are the American people. Just like the time when banks and corporations were just too big to fail, it seems like we are being brought to the edge of a cliff and told you must get down off the cliff and you have only two choices, now both choices are bad. The Republicans want us to jump off that cliff and the Democrats want us to fly off that cliff. Either way we pick to get off that cliff is going to end up with a similar result. I feel there is much fake outrage about all of this. I was over to Black Agenda and Bruce Dixon has written a piece that just says it all for me as both parties have been in cahoots for years in their “drama-o-drama” machine playing good cop to the other guy’s bad cop. You must read this piece! http://www.blackagendareport.com/obama-fake-debt-ceiling-crisis_smarter-than-you
Now this is a guy that has supported Obama. I probably would have supported him in the last election, if he hadn’t stolen my vote, because I have always been a lifelong Democrat. However, after the election was over, I wanted President Obama and still want him to be a successful “Democratic” president. He just hasn’t been that! He has continued the Bush policies and even extended them into another war in the Middle East. Most people, even Republicans, should be able to see that he is nothing more than an extension of GW, from policies to vacation taking.
We are being told he is a Centrist. That is only true if the “Center” has shifted dramatically right. Some people think he is like Reagan. While I think he admires Reagan much more than any other president, I think he is more like GW. He speaks better than GW, but the policies are the same which makes you wonder who is really pulling the strings in this country. It certainly isn’t the American people because he doesn’t seem to care about us. He can’t even get the “feel your pain” speech down like President Clinton could always master. In President Obama, I am often left wondering just what the Republicans are holding over his head. Is there something they could let out of the bag at any given time, some dark secret that we haven’t already heard? Does he secretly wear tiger costumes and exhibit inappropriate behavior like Representative Wu? I’m at a loss as to why President Obama acts the way he does. He certainly hasn’t lived up to the rhetoric of what his promises during the campaign suggested to the people that voted for him. I never believed him, so I don’t exactly feel betrayed. However, those that believed in this guy have to be wondering what’s going on with him? Did he change or is it a reality that the job of the president is just so overwhelming that us “little people” just don’t and couldn’t possibly understand what it means to be president?
Anyway you look at it the American people are always taking a back seat to the corporations and the wealthy in this country. I don’t want to hear how I am pushing “class warfare” because the truth is the people in power have kept this war going for years. The Republicans have fed their people the line about “personal responsibility” to the point where many on the right look down with disdain at the guy that isn’t making it in this country. If it is their own kid, they are getting on the phone and calling in favors to get their kid employed the old fashioned way, not based on merit, but on nepotism. They can’t stand the look and feel of affirmative action, but they love the fact that they can get their kid “in” because of who they know. The poor have never had this advantage in life or politics. The poor don’t have someone they can call when their kid can’t find work. There is a divide in our country between the haves and the have nots, but most people are in denial about it. They secretly know they make those calls but they pretend that their kid did it on his or her own merits. I always find it so interesting when I watch TV pundits and discover that many of the young people getting their feet wet are the sons and daughters of those earlier figures. It isn’t what you know but who you know that counts in this country. If you know someone powerful, you probably will get what you need. However, if you’re like most people you don’t have some sugar daddy just waiting to give you a job. You must create your own life based on what you can get and what you can strive for. Back in the fifties and sixties after WWII many people surpassed their parents economically by going on to college. They benefited from low school loans, to the low cost of college, to even the GI Bill. When they got out of college, they could live the American dream. Some of them didn’t even have to go to college to live that dream. They built automobiles. The point is there was a dream that most Americans could grasp. Now, after forty years of Republican and Democratic political failures, we have reached a point where some of our children may not do as well as their parents. That American dream is becoming a nightmare of student loans, no job prospects, and even forced moves of hundreds and thousands of miles away from family just to find a job! It is no wonder that if you have the means to help your child find work that you will pull in that marker that someone owes you! The point I’m trying to make is that the current economic situation is very much related to the constant bickering between the two political parties and their need for greed. While the politicians are busy shuffling the chairs on the deck of this sinking ship, they don’t deal with the reality which is jobs and job creation. They only care about making businesses more comfortable and keeping the wealth in the hands of the wealthy. Truthfully, businesses can go anywhere for their labor and that is what they’re doing. Our governmental policies favor this. Neither political party cares enough about our country to remember that our best asset is our people. They care more about their own political careers than anything else. They will continue to build their careers off the backs of the middle class and the poor. They will continue to ask the American people to squeeze one more dime out of their crappy pension, Social Security, or college fund so they can give it to corporations and those wealthy “job creators” to piss away on anything but creating real jobs. I’m disappointed in the politics of my nation. I want the students that I teach to be able to have real dreams for their future. I don’t want politicians that play these stupid games representing me. If this is the best that we can do in our country, we’re in real trouble!