A teacher friend of mine who’s incredibly passionate about her job, told me a story that - better than anything else I’ve heard or seen- illustrates what an Obama Presidency means to the black community. She told of several formerly problem kids who’d had no goals, no work ethic, kids who literally were planning to just collect welfare, who overnight became inspired to study - to try out for better programs, to strive for a real career…immediately after Obama won the election.  ” I don’t care if he knows what he’s doing. To give them that…”at which point she seemed too moved to finish the sentence.  I couldn’t agree with the “I don’t care if he knows what he’s doing” part, but I did come away from the conversation feeling like maybe electing a (partly) black President would, in itself, bring some positive changes. Not enough to make up for the drawbacks of this particular black President…but maybe more than I realized.

       According to Rasmussen, the number of African Americans who thought they had a fair shot in life literally DOUBLED the day after Obama was elected. I have black friends who honestly thought Obama would lose because of racism. I privately thought that was nuts and, as a white chick, it’s easy for me to feel like they shouldn’t have needed Obama to win to believe America offered equal opportunity, but then I remember the chills that went up my spine when saw Sarah Palin was McCain’s choice of running mate-and I could hardly believe she was really the pick. I remember the lump in my throat when I heard the deafening welcome she received at the Republican National Convention. I didn’t expect to feel heartened by Rush Limbaugh’s full throated Palinmania or to respect him more as a result, but I did. It’s not like I was sitting around consciously thinking most of the GOP was sexist- but, before Sarah Palin, I wasn’t sure they weren’t. It hadn’t been tested. I can imagine that might be how a lot of black Americans felt before Obama. Though I get the impression racial identity cuts a lot deeper and is something that - from the outside- it’s probably close to impossible to fully understand.

     Character, hard work and perseverence, faith in God- ideally that’s all you really need but it’s a lot easier if somebody has blazed a trail before you and that can propel you farther. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an innovator of detective stories but he was enlarging on an idea of Edgar Allan Poe’s and later - quite clearly, he fed the imagination of Dame Christie.  (Poirot is remarkably similar to Holmes in quite a lot of ways while still - of course- being unique).  Practically all of modern art owes some homage to Picasso who opened up new territory and permanently changed the landscape. Likewise Whoopi Goldberg was once interviewed about Star Trek and said when they cast a black women she went running through the house saying “Mommy, mommy, there’s a black woman on t.v. and she ain’t no maid!” and she knew at that moment that she could be anything she wanted to be and do anything she wanted to do.

      Bill Cosby stood on the shoulders of Dick Gregory. I was surprised to see Cosby included in a book of political comedians. “I didn’t know he did political comedy” He didn’t. Other black comedians talked constantly about race issues. It was expected. That was their niche. Cosby has the audacity to not to limit himself to that niche and he became a superstar. Not in spite of his race, and not because of it. Simply because he was **** funny. But he could do that  because Dick Gregory had already broken the color barrier - so he could move past it.  So why are we going backwards?

    I wonder. Are these kids still feeling the same optimism and motivation that they felt the day Obama was elected? Is it unaffected by months of constant race baiting? When they’re hearing that townhall protesters are showing up carrying swastikas, when they’re told that those who don’t support Obamacare are opposing it because of racism ( especially when a solid majority oppose it - and it could easily shift to an overwhelming majority)  when Diane Watson says people oppose Obama’s policies because they don’t want the “first President who looks like me” to succeed, what does that do to their newly formed conviction?

      I’d like to think that it won’t matter. I hope that the impressionable young minority kids who were (literally) moved to change their lives will continue on their new and improved path. Hopefully they’ve already  seen some rewards from their efforts: the satisfaction of accomplishment,  praise of teachers and parents, ehanced self esteem, a new inherent interest in learning, etc., etc. I hope that’s the case, but it feels a lot like wishful thinking.

       I’m reminded of the response of (at least some) members of the black community regarding Michael Steele. To them it didn’ t mean anything that he was chosen for the extremely important post of RNC chair. The jury was out until they saw how he was treated. So, it seems logical that the thinking would be about the same with regard to Obama’s Presidency and the message - loud and clear- is that Obama is being disrespected and held back because of his race.

    Democrats want to present those who oppose Obamacare as a small, fringe group - but anyone who’s paid any attention has to know it’s a majority.  So what is the message the MSM is really sending to black Americans? That America is deeply and inherently racist and the white folk want you to fail? Play the race card as much as you can and use it like a bludgeon? One thing is clear, they’re definitely sending the message that the color of one’s skin is really, really important.

    I thought we were past that.

   Earlier today I walked past a couple of signs. The first said “Capitalism We Have A Problem” and the second “Make Love Not Capitalism” and thought how typical this was of  anti-capitalist sentiment. The message is clear: capitalism is bad, evil, uncool, etc. communism/socialism is cool. It’s the romantic unexplored, rebellious, compassionate road not taken (never mind that it has been taken over and over and never with good results) but despite the hipness of being left wing in NYC I’ve never met a single person who could explain to me HOW communism would make anything better.

       I once asked a couple representatives of the “Communist Revolutionary Party” how their system would play out on a day to day basis, for instance, could I still be a clown? After a couple attempts to dodge the question the communist with neatly trimmed hair and a shirt and tie told me that, no. the government would dictate what I did for a living (apparently he didn’t consider this slavery) & the scary skinny, apparently unbathed, t- shirt wearing communist with unnaturally black hair that badly needed cutting as well as combing launched into a diatribe about how “Instead of worrying about whether (I could) be a clown, (I) should be worrying about workers in sweatshops in China town cuz that’s a **** of a lot more important” never mind that the practices of the China town sweatshops are likely already illegal, this- in a nutshell- is the most common  ”argument” given for destroying the “capitalist system” : There are people in need. Some people are rich while others are poor. This is wrong and…it logically follows that any wants/needs/desires beyond mere survival are frivolous and something we’re all obligated  to sacrifice to the ”greater good” of feeding and clothing those who are probably in this country illegally in the first place.

    I’ve noticed that card carrying communists like to talk about equality and how capitalism is the root of all evil that holds us back from a better world but they don’t generally want to talk about how this better world would be acheived. They’ll happily suggest books. Maybe that’s because it’s easier than saying “first we need to seize the wealth of all the rich people - and kill them if they resist” but actually I think, quite possibly they just haven’t really thought about it.

    Outright communism paints a revolting picture: toil and drudgery undertaken for the mere sake of surviving or for , as Che Guevara puts it “a new society in which individuals would have different characteristics: The society of communist human beings.” This bizarre notion that communism could somehow create a super enlightened race would seem to to have little or no appeal for most Americans, but looking at “The Che Reader”, Guevara seems to acknowledge this natural aversion and addresses how to overcome it:

    ” To build communism, it is neccessary, simultaneously with the new material foundations, to build the new man and woman….. Society must be converted into a gigantic school.”

    Chilling words, as I consider the many manifestation of this ”school” in our own country and particularly in my city: the “free economics” class I started to take at a school here in NY , the “anti war” rallies, the campaign against the PATRIOT Act that I was heavily involved with until I realized it’s actual agenda (which the woman who started it flat out admitted to me) factions of “the Green Party”, etc. all of which were used to promote communism. Then there are other institutions that don’t neccessarily promote communism,per se, but do lean in that direction: the MSM obviously, but also unions including- to my dismay- Actor’s Equity Association. Hollywood, public education,…the usual suspects.

    The hard truth is it seems to be working - not 100% , of course, as America has too long a history of freedom and enterprise but more and more  Americans seem to be losing their instinctive aversion to socialism. 3 illusions that are fairly prevalent in my anecdotal experience:

#1.Thinking Socialism and a Free Market are Not Mutually Exclusive:

An April 11th Rasmussen survey found only 53% of Americans still believed capitalism is superior to socialism, 20% disagreed and 27% were not sure BUT here’s the weird part: in a slightly earlier survey fully 70% said they prefer a free market economy. This would suggest that at least 17% of the population think that “socialism” and “a free market economy” may not be mutually exclusive. But this doesn’t just show itself in surveys. I have friends who enthusiastically support Obamacare in general but who passionately agree with me that it’s wrong to have an individual mandate - but, of course, they want people to be guaranteed access to insurance no matter what their preexisting condition. One friend talked about “the criminally high price” of individual insurance but likes the community rating system that causes those high rates.

    There’s a sort of consistency in that these friends don’t want to hurt the poor or middle class and individual mandates is the part of Obamacare that would raise expenses even on those making $19,000 a year (which you could barely live on in New York City even without health insurance) but they don’t seem to consider that without the mandate Obamacare falls apart. ( I expect Obama knew that during the primaries and simply lied) If insurance companies are forced to cover people no matter what - why not wait till you’re sick to buy insurance?

      Too many folks just aren’t thinking things through. It’s like they think we can create some ideal, utopian society by grabbing piecemeal, the parts of communism that they like and somehow it won’t compromise our freedom or productivity. The hard truth is, you have to make trade offs in life, to decide between one course or another. Too many Americans want to have their cake and eat it too.

 This actually ties in with the next illusion:

#2. Not Recognizing Communist Ideas as Communist in Nature

    I’ve met Green Party members who talked about how we should have a planned economy as if it was a totally new concept, not connected to anything else in history and somehow ideologically neutral “it’s neither left, nor right, it’s forward”  (which, of course, sounds a lot like “progressive”) and still others who said the tax structure should be arranged so “everybody makes about $50,000 a year”. Aside from the moral question of whether this would be right- those who support it seem not to give the slightest thought to how it would actually be acheived. “Everybody” making at least $50,000 a year would ( I assume) mean every couple gets $100K. (An income that would’ve put them in the upper 20% of American households in 2007) How they would bring everyone up to that rather comfortable (in some areas, downright well off) standard of living while removing all incentive to work doesn’t concern them and they seem to miss the next logical step … forcing people to work at the point of a gun - just as guaranteeing insurance to the already sick means forcing healthy people to buy insurance they don’t need .

#3 The Maddening and Absurdly Inaccurate Notion that Cuba is Thriving Under Socialism

This topic really needs its own diary. Briefly, as I’m sure you all know, the left loves to promote the idea that Cubans love socialism (which I guess is considered interchangable with and the more pc term for communism) they do this generally by posting misleading statistics taken out of context.

One common claim: Cuba has virtually no homelessness. 85% of Cubans own their own homes and mortgage payments can’t exceed 10% of a household’s combined income. Let’s consider these claims in light of this information from “The Housing Dimension in Cuba’s Urban Crisis: Havana as a Case in Point”

“Even a superficial visitor would be impressed by the deterioration and outright destruction that this once proud and beautiful city has experienced since 1959. The visual aspect of the older part of Havana resembles in many places the destruction experienced by cities in Europe during World War II. The complete collapse “derrumbe” of buildings, or the partial derrumbe leaving only its external structure, is impressive. Rubble from those “derrumbes” often is left in place for long periods, obstructing the streets and sidewalks. No less impressive is the generalized state of disrepair in the form of lack of paint and peeling of the external structure and the outright partial derrumbes, with buildings that have gone without adequate maintenance for decades.”

Official statistics corroborate the visual perspective. According to 1997 statistics, metropolitan Havana had over 2,200,000 inhabitants living in 560,000 dwellings. Of these, half were ranked as defective or in bad condition, while 60,000 were beyond repair and should be demolished. There are 75,000 with “apuntalamientos” and over 7,800 are waiting to be “apuntaladas” to prevent their derrumbe. (San Lazaro) According to the same source, by 1996 there were 188 marginal neighborhoods, lacking the most essential services, comprising 23,000 dwellings and 76,000 residents. Another official report indicated the presence of 1,500 (ciudadelas-cuarterias), 1000 of which were ranked in bad condition. Due to the derrumbes, a total of 6,000 families needed shelter (albergue), while only 350 had received it; also 500 multidwelling buildings were in great risk of a derrumbe and 40 were considered to be “miracously” still standing.”

If this research is accurate, then that would mean many of the “85%” who own “their own home” actually own it jointly with other members of their family and that at least half are living in horrible conditions. This carries out over other statistics as well.

  It’s better to rent a house than own a hovel.

More to say about Cuba but it’s going to need to become it’s own post.

CG

Another Bambi Diary. This one I wrote awhile back. It’s less topical now than it was - but hopefully y’all will still get it. My mom loves it - but it is rather goofy. ( I am a clown, after all)

Dear New York Times,

      I have discovered the secrets of weight loss and wellness - please publish them immediately because I know your readers are at a loss to do anything and desperately need my help.

       Back in January I started drinking milk again - I’d read that it causes weight loss and it’s true! I lost a couple pounds. So then, I started thinking: if milk is good, ice cream’s probably better. Now I’ve lost 20!

    Critics told me that eating a pint of Haagen Daz every day wouldn’t do anything to reduce my waistline and - if anything would make me gain weight and perhaps develop diabetes down the road but that’s because they’re status quo worshipping fools who are blinded by hatred, idealogical rigidity and dairy phobia. The pounds are off and you can be assured that not only did I lose 20 pounds but - more importantly - I saved myself from gaining 485,000 pounds. I’ve rescued my body and prevented what would have almost certainly been death by obesity.

    (The haters persist in pretending the weight loss would’ve happened anyway due to the 6 miles I run a day. Yeah. WHATEVER.)

     Anyway, now that I’ve unlocked the secret of rapid weight loss it’s time to rid the world of disease! Times, I have to tell ya.  Earlier this year I was sooo sick - horrific sinus infection and ear ache and like, congestion and everything. It was the worst illness in a generation and, of course, 100% the fault of President Bush and his party who have controlled Congress and the White House for the last 8 years and generated bad vibes and stuff that infected the air. Anyway, things were looking bleak and there was no end in sight until I used Netflix’s instant viewing option and watched “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”! Sure enough my pain ebbed and I started to heal.

    My mother had had the chance to impliment her method - which involved the same tired ideas she brings up every time I get sick (going to the doctor, taking medicine) that morning. I’d humored her by going to the see a man in a white coat - but I came out feeling no better than before. I took the little white thing he prescribed and it made no difference. If anything all the walking around just made me feel worse. It wasn’t until afterwards when I laid down on the couch, drank fluids and watched Clint Eastwood that I started to feel better. (My aunt has pneumonia and I’ve been desperately trying to get her to watch “Dirty Harry” but she won’t do it. Maybe if you guys publish this she’ll finally take responsibility for her health!)

     There are people who say it was actually the policy my mother instituted that caused me to get better,  but these people are stupid and they should stop talking.

      You see I’m always right.  Even if I’m wrong. Things would always have come out better if people would’ve listened to me. Take the so called “Surge” for example. People say it “worked” and - in a limited sort of way it has - ( I don’t expect lesser intellects to fully grasp the ways it hasn’t) but, you see we will never know what would’ve happened if MY plan ( playing ping pong with Osama and handing out free dental floss) had been implimented instead.

Sincerely,

Bambi

It’s really no more stupid than the “Stimulus” package.

Dear New York Times,

     I’ve never been so outraged as when that ignorant South Carolina cracker Wilson insulted our President. I could’ve bashed his head in. How dare he interrupt Obama’s speech! How dare he accuse him of lying. Obama, of course, was lying but that isn’t the point.  It’s a matter of respect . It’s a matter of decorum.

     Republicans are all bringing up  Democrats booing  George W. Bush during his State of the Union which really just shows how idiotically clueless they are! George W. Bush was a priviledged white male and so (obviously) fair game. Barack Obama is half black and therefore the hope of all oppressed peoples.

    If anybody is going to accuse President Obama of lying, it certainly can’t be an old white guy from a state that still flies the Confederate flag. It’d have to be somebody black and very enlightened (it goes without saying that a black Republican is out of the question seeing as they’re all race traitors).

      This would seem to be obvious but, as we know, this is no party of Einsteins (1)  78% of Republicans think the world is flat, only 1% are scientists and 99.999% of them are racists (though 95%  are too stupid to know it) They really need to sit down, shut up and support the black President, but being racists and too stupid to recognize his superiority, they carry on their childish antics and incite hooliganism and terrorism and stuff. It’s only recently been getting attention, but the childishness actually started some time ago. Remember when John Boehner had a temper tantrum and threw the Stimulus bill on the floor because nobody’d read it?

     Honestly! How ignorant can you get? Of course Congress never reads bills.  It’s like the “terms and conditions” thing on websites. Nobody ever actually reads it. People have lives. Besides unless you’re a paranoiac you trust that the company isn’t gonna put anything creepy in there. It’s the same with legislating. Democracy is based on trust. You trust that whoever wrote the bill did a good job and vote with the Democrats.  But the retarded wingnuts (probably mindlessly following Boehner who really needs to be censured) have all become obsessed with this idea that Congress should be reading legislation before voting it into law. This puts congress people in the awkward position of not really being able to explain. It’s like when little kids ask about things they can’t  understand yet….

      President Obama has been exceedingly patient with the brownshirted hooligans from the pants on fire party (2).  Sure he’s ignored their phone calls, given them no input on the bill, called them liars and fear mongers - but given their outrageous conduct and seeing as they’re all idiots that’s only to be expected. Rather than embarking on serious debate, they’ve used lies, misinformation and scare tactics (3) to incite citizens to go to townhall meetings carrying swastikas(4) and terrorizing (5) lawmakers with things like booing, talking out of turn, and, of course this stupid insistence that they read the bill.  Unfortunately we live in such a stupid country (6) that a majority of Americans have been sucked in by it.

      Which brings me to my point. Obama has been far to soft on the opposition. Sure he’s smeared them, marginalized them, lied about them, etc. but it isn’t enough! They’re still swaying the ignorant. We need to execute the entire GOP (7)  and we need to do it now while we still have 60 votes! These are terrible people! They hate the poor and think the purpose of our society is to indulge their own self centered jet set fantasies(8) but more importantly they don’t know how to show any respect to those who don’t agree with them.

     I know some will suggest a more moderate position and I’m open to that. Maybe if we start off just murdering just a few thousand, it will teach the rest civility.

I love you guys’s paper!

Sincerely,

Bambi

Obviously this is a bit of over the top silliness mocking the double standard Democrats seem to have in terms of conduct but many of the insults (those numbered) are from actual Democrats. How anyone acts like Joe Wilson committed some kind of unprecedented outrage is beyond me.

(1) “No party of Einsteins” is from Charles Blow of the NY Times

(2) “pants on fire party” was from some writer Lori Z wrote a diary about. She gave no justification whatever for referring to the Republican party as a whole as liars

(3) lies, misinformation and scare tactics - is, of course from Obama and - as far as I can tell - is the Democratic party line

(4) obviously it was Nancy Pelosi who said town hall activists were showing up carrying swastikas

(5) it was also Charles Blow of the NY Times who said town hall activists were “terrorizing” law makers

(6) Bill Maher said we’re a stupid country

(7) Mike Malloy said the entire GOP should be executed presumably in a desperate plea for attention cuz nobody knows or cares who he is otherwise

and (8) it was Robert Creamer of HuffPo who said Republicans thought our society exists “just to indulge their own self centered jet set fantasies”

There was some Democrat who actually mocked the idea that it was important to read the bill but I’ve forgotten who.

         Everyone remembers what they were doing when they learned of the most devastating attack in our history and how they felt in the days that followed. When  people are murdered some say their spirit does not rest. It stays earthbound and cries out for justice. I’ve never really believed that but going down to the visit the sight of the worst terrorist attack in our history - maybe it was the ash that still lingered in the air, the portion of a building that hadn’t yet come all the way down, maybe it was because I knew what had happened but I could just feel people had died there and died horribly. In that in that moment their deaths became terribly real to me, and I won’t even forget it.

     We were attacked without provocation and without cause.  It was a cowardly attack on American civilians perpetrated by terrorists because a sick ideology that exploited their poverty, their faith, and their prejudices. Terrorists who are willing to brainwash even little children.

      Being new to the city, I suffered only the general anger and grief, but for so many others the loss was much, much more personal. A friend of mine lost her father.  Other friends who worked in the World Trade Center lost nearly all their co-workers. People they’d known for years. Many felt lucky to have survived. I remember hearing anecdotes about people who were never, ever late for work but due to some fluke occurence.. they missed their normal train. My mom remembered that I’d applied for a job in the restaurant at the top of the WTC and rejoiced I hadn’t gotten it. The switchboards in the building I live in were overloaded that day as with everywhere else in the city and we swapped stories about unexpected people who had suddenly called to make sure we were alive.

        It was also today 8 years ago, that the New York Times ran its story on Obama’s friend and long time associate, Bill Ayers. He said he didn’t regret his acts of terrorism and wishes he’d done more. A few days after that Obama’s pastor quoted Obama’s early role model, Malcolm X in saying “America’s chickens have come home to roost”. Today it especially saddens me that he is our President and that as our President he sees fit to release terrorists and to possibly prosecute men who acted to protect their country following orders that were completely legal at the time.

       The question arises “How did this happen?”  and I’m not sure I know the answer.  We had a young President, one who saw his clear duty was to protect our country but who wasn’t prepared for anything like 9/11. He took bold and decisive action and wasn’t too concerned with explaining the need for it or engaging a lot of public debate before hand. The PATRIOT ACT was passed without being read and many- including myself- were alarmed at the expanded government powers.  Kierkegaard wrote something like  that “when a greater fear is present, the lesser fear disappears” and I think this was/is true for many who had concerns about the Bush Administration. They became so terrified at how Bush might presumably  abuse his power that the threat of terrorism ceased to be real. I met a Ron Paul supporter actually said “Al Qaeda doesn’t exist”.

     Ironically, for me, it was being around anti-war types that first got me thinking maybe we did need to invade Iraq (I was on the fence about it the day we invaded and still don’t have a firm opinion about whether that was the right decision -  though the question is now academic) but others went right down the road to crazy town. Perhaps it is difficult for people to balance/consider differing priorities because we so often fear or want one thing so much more than another.

        I hope this diary doesn’t come off as argumentative or anything. It isn’t meant to be. It is today, very much just a diary -  an attempt to process my thoughts on the anniversary of 9/11.

        Good government is like a good boyfriend/girlfriend, good acting, good management, even good clowning - it’s easy to take for granted… unless you’ve had the bad version.  If your head is full of goo- goo fantasies, reality has trouble competing. Sometimes trial and error is neccessary. The sexy James Dean type who sits in front of you in history class might prove a distraction until you actually go out with him and find out his biggest ambition is to go to Amsterdam for the Hemp fest, or he’s a flake, or generally just not as interesting as he seemed - and then you discover you kinda prefer the other guy who doesn’t provoke the same envy from your friends but who actually calls when he says, doesn’t have vague commitment issues, has more in common with you, gets your humor, whatever…

     Not that every guy that looks like James Dean is a loser or every girl is superficial &  obviously some people make good decisions the first time but with the rest of us…oftentimes, there’s a big difference between what SEEMS like it’d be fun, exciting, compassionate, fulfilling, or stimulating and what actually IS. The legitimate functions of government sound kind of boring to the untrained ear - protection from crime, national defense, protection of citizens rights, staying out of our way - there’s none of the grandeur of  liberal dreams: wiping out poverty, banishing disease, ending war and creating eternal peace “not just peace in our time, but peace for all time.” 

     So a majority of  Americans have chosen (figuratively speaking) the sexy James Dean type, the guy who made wild romantic promises of liberal utopia and whispered sweet nothings like ” tax cuts”, “racial healing”, “free money”, “free stuff”, ”no more war”, “no more partisanship”, “perfect harmony and bliss” the rest of us looked on horrified and tried to warn our (collective) friend  “what do you see in him?! He breaks his promises, lies to you… his best  friends are all radicals, communists and terrorists. I mean - HELLO?”  - but they weren’t ready to hear it. Now all Democrats partisan dreams have come true; they’ve got the Presidency and a numerically unassailable Congressional majority, they started out with tons of idealism and good will but - like a spoiled brat who was set up in a penthouse with plenty of daddy’s money, all the right connections and had success all but handed to him on a silver platter but couldn’t acheive it because he went for a drunken joy ride, crashed his daddy’s Porsche, blamed the other guy, and now wants the keys again - liberals have squandered their political capital and are quickly losing credibility. The question is have they lost enough? Not yet. Not as Obama’s numbers creep up backwards 50%.  America has had a moment of clarity - but will it sink in.  Will the overwhelming majority of us GET IT  - meaning recognition that “liberalism” is deeply and inherently misguided and wrong?

      Over the past 8 years Bush has made a lot of mistakes - but there’s also been a lot of things that were great. No terrorist attacks, outstanding progress in Iraq, a strong economy (prior to the Democrats taking Congress)  Why were all these things taken for granted?  Again, there are many reasons but I suspect it has a lot to do with having Republicans in power - either in the White House or in Congress - almost continuously from 1980-2008. A lot of folks didn’t realize the Democats were so far out in left field because (with the exception of  92-94) conservatives have kept them in check. For those of us in our 20’s and 30’s the “conservative interlude” is pretty much all we’ve ever known. “ Without knowing what came before - it’s easy not to recognize its contribution. Since Republicans were in power - the media can of course blame any problems on them - and suggest the fantasy that if only Democrats weren’t impeded from the good they want to do…

      People appreciate the actual, realistic and appropriate accomplishments  of legitimate, effective  government when they’ve suffered the lack of it. One of my first thoughts about NYC after moving here in 2000 was ”these people are really into their mayor”. Practically couldn’t walk down the street without hearing a testimonial. It’d be like ” Hey, can you tell me how to get to Times Square?” “Go down to 8th Ave and take a left, but let me tell you - you would’nt have even wanted to go to Times Square before GIULIANI cleaned up the city”

  I’m exaggerating, obviously, but there really was a lot of good will - cab drivers, the guys in the deli, people in my building, people I worked with couldn’t seemed to help telling me how happy they were with ol’ Rudy. Why such enthusiasm? Did he calm the oceans? Shower the city with neverending wealth? Stop “global warming”? Of course not. There may have been many reasons but mainly  ”You wouldn’t have wanted to live in pre-Giuliani New York”.

       As a newbie, I didn’t have an opinion on how the city was run - I recognized that I could walk down the street without being mugged, raped or killed. I wasn’t surrounded by porn shops, prostitutes, pimps and drug addicts but I didn’t particularly occur to me to credit the mayor or even the police force. Those who had seen New York before the crime drop had a totally different perspective. They recognized that the negative accomplishment of not having a lot of crime - was really quite important. It wasn’t “just a bunch of negative rights”  it was life without the tyranny of crime ridden streets.  
 

     Here’s to hoping that Americans REALLY “get it” as in, get back to basics and many liberals seriously rethink a lot of wrong assumptions about the role of government.

      When I read McCain’s remark “President Obama respects the Constititution” and saw there was no punch line…I momentarily understood the undying hatred he inspires in many conservatives. What WAS he smoking? And what’s gonna be the fall out if he’s caught with it right before the Obamacare vote?  I mean how can Senator McCain, who spoke with such clarity on Justice Sotomayer’s lack of judicial restraint, possibly think Obama respects the Constitution? And what is with this compulsive “Barack Obama has the best of intentions” nonsense every time he opens his mouth? Seems like everytime McCain criticizes Obama he first makes a disclaimer ” I don’t think he’s destroying our country intentionally or anything” (obviously, I’m paraphrasing)  It  starts to have a “protests too much” kinda feel.

      It ticks me off to hear McCain say “Obama respects the Constitution” because it seems to give legitimacy to the ridiculous “living and breathing document” excuse that liberals give for disregarding the clear intentions of our founders but the thing is-  as wrong as that interpretation is- there’s a large minority of Americans who think that way - and their viewpoint does, in a sense need to be respected.

      And as much as it riles me to hear McCain praising a man that I viscerally dislike, I don’t actually want to hear him talking about Obama the way Rush, myself, my friends, Sarah Palin, or most conservative writers do. (though I thank God for all the above)  McCain was elected on promises of bipartisanship and settling differences - and if the bipartisan guy starts burning bridges…

      Civility is vital to the credibility of McCain’s offer to sit down with Obama and work out a genuinely bipartisan compromise. I realize RedStaters don’t want to see that because nobody expects anything good to come of it but  there’s no real risk of it happening and consider the numbers from Rasmussen today. 71% of everyday citizens don’t think the Democrats should pass any version of Obamacare “unless there are a reasonable number of Republican votes”. 71% don’t think Democrats should try and doing on their own.  So, it would appear politically impossible to ram Obama’s agenda through unless he can successfully paint Republicans as uncooperative and hyperpartisan. That’s going to be hard to pull off when he has a high profile Republican eagerly calling for bipartisanship. McCain is calling his bluff.

    The olive branch is a political neccessity - and it’s the kinda think McCain was elected to do.  It’s fitting that he do it,

          Diane Watson’s remarksthe other day sent me into a surreal Winston Smith like moment like “Am I the only one with a memory?”  ”Think what you want about Fidel Castro” was such an utterly bizzare thing to say I actually googled Castro, brutality to make sure I wasn’t imagining the whole brutal dictator thing. Nah.  From the Miami Herald:

        “According to Amnesty International, no other country of Cuba’s size has held so many political    prisoners for so long under such inhumane circumstances of atrocity and terror…Since taking power in 1959 Castro has arrested opponents on trumped up charges, railroaded them through phony trials, and sentenced them to outrageously long prison terms that sometimes are extended without recourse. Cuban prisoners have been shot, stabbed, denied medical attention, and held in isolation for years at a time. Beatings by guards and police were routine. Some of Castro’s once close allies and collaborators have been executed by firing squads, in one case only 24 hours after the victim’s mother had been assured by Fidel himself that her son would be pardoned” (from “Castro’s Cruelty Must Be Thwarted” by Dick Capen, Miami Herald 9/21/86)

    But hey “think what you want about Fidel Castro” Cubans have health care! Who cares about decades-long imprisonment and arbitrary executions. That’s nothing compared to evil insurance companies who don’t want to “insure” people who are already sick.

    What I can’t get my head around is this: How is it possible that in a Constitutionally limited Republic we have openly communist elected officials? I mean, it’s like if you had a football team and one guy shows up with golf clubs.  It just isn’t possible for a communist to take an oath to uphold the Constitution and mean it. Vladimir Lenin had nothing in common with Thomas Jefferson. His philosophy of government “The scientific concept of dictatorship means nothing else but this:power without limit, resting directly upon force, restrained by no laws, absolutely unrestricted by rules”  is the exact antithesis of what our founders intended.

    Liberal friends of mine act like I’m some kind of paranoaic to oppose Obamacare (alongside more than half the country) “Obama’s not going to break into your house and kill your grandma”. Several things strike me about this statement. For one thing, it’s not like it’s entirely unheard of for government agents to break into people’s homes and kill them as a result of expanding government power. This has happened many times  as part of the war on drugs,  sometimes by accident because the cops were given the wrong address and a few times- unfortunately - because they were bad cops who wanted to seize the person’s property and the drug laws provided a convenient cover. (As discussed by James Bovard in “Lost Rights”.)

Secondly, they always seem to phrase it the same way. “Obama’s not going to break into your house”  as if it’s the breaking in that’s the important part of the equation. Of course he wouldn’t. Even the most brutal regimes  generally didn’t  ”break into people’s houses”, they’d  knock. ”Breaking in” is for those who don’t have authority. Thirdly (and obviously) when it comes to healthcare no “killing” is even neccessary.  Just “Sorry, that procedure has not been approved.” and you have death by bureaucracy.  Leaving aside the question of Obamacare in particular though - of course nobody expects their government to kill them, but it would be naive to think it couldn’t happen. 

     I’ve been reading R. J. Rummel’s book “Death by Government” and have come to the conclusion that communist slaughter doesn’t get nearly enough publicity. Can you name the two biggest mass murderers of the 20th Century? Maybe so, especially now that I hinted, but I got it wrong. I thought it was Hitler & Stalin but it’s actually Stalin and Mao -and, growing up, I don’t even remember learning that Mao was ever especially brutal. Everyone knows the Nazi’s killed 6 million Jews but are they familiar with the knowledge that the Soviets killed 61,911,000 people - most of whom are their own citizens? (and that’s just the conservative, mid range average) Rummel Summarizes that root cause of all the killing “Marxism + Power” if Americans really understood this, really let it sink in, I don’t think “from each according to his ability to each, according to his need” would be mistaken for part of the Constitution.

     Rummel thoroughly studied 218 regimes to look for patterns and concluded ” In each case, as the arbitrary power of a regime increases massively, that is, as we move from democratic through authoritarian to totalitarian regimes, the amount of killing jumps by huge multiples. ” “Power kills and absolute power kills absolutely”. 

      Quite a case for limited government.