I really don’t remember Ike. But
JFK, the 1960 campaign—the debates, Nixon’s jowls and five o’clock shadow,
smokin’ hot Jackie Kennedy. I
went to bed election night not knowing if Kennedy had won. (At 10 years old, I had
to get my beauty rest for 4th grade
the next day.) My Dad left me a note, at 3:00 AM, saying Kennedy had won. Off
course, he would not be declared the winner until Mayor Daly of Chicago “found”
the missing votes that put him over the top in Illinois, sometime the next day.
Camelot, Life Magazine, “…that we should commit this Nation to the task, before this decade is out, of
sending a man to the Moon, and returning him safely to earth… We do these
things, and the others, not because they are easy but because they are hard…” The bulletin from
Dallas, followed by the update later that day in school; “President Kennedy is
dead.” My 6th grade
Social Studies teacher said, “Dammit,
he shouldn't have gone to Dallas.” LBJ sworn in, Jackie with JFK’s
blood and brain matter spattered on the dress she was wearing in the car in
Dallas and refused to change out of—“I want them to see what they have done”. Followed by Vietnam, sex, drugs, rock n
roll, the 60s man. The
Civil Rights movement; Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech; the Marches,
the Dogs and water cannons, Malcolm X
and The Black Panthers. Then Chicago, the 1968 Democratic convention,
Mayor Daley and the Police Riot, “Don’t leave us CBS…” and “The whole
world is watching…” chanted by the protesters outside the convention
hall. Dick “Southern Strategy” Nixon elected President, promising his secret
plan to end the war. But still, July 20, 1969, one day after my 19th birthday, Neil Armstrong: “That’s one
small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” Walter Cronkite, in tears on
national television with astronaut Wally Schirra sitting next to him; “Whew—man
walking on the Moon.” The world united, our Country wins the Moon Race! It
could still work out for America; we could still do great things. LBJ rounds up
his racist good old boy Southern Democrats in the Senate and tells ‘em, down at
his ranch in Texas: “You know we've gotten away with this racism crap
for too long, the Negros have had enough of it. And every time the Republicans
are in a tight race, they scream: ‘Negra, Negra, Negra’ and win.” LBJ gets the
Great Society legislation, the Voting Rights Act, and other Civil Rights
legislation passed. But then comes the 1972 campaign, McGovern, Watergate, the
Senate Select Committee, The White House Plumbers, Republican Senator Jim Baker,
Committee Co-Chair to Sam “I’m just a simple Country Lawyer” Erwin: “What did
the president know, and when did he know it?” The Tapes, The 18 Minute Gap, the
Saturday Night Massacre, Bork, the unanimous Supreme Court Ruling ordering
Nixon to turn over the tapes, the “Smoking Gun” tape conversation between Nixon
and H. R. Haldeman, recorded just three
days after the break in,
where Nixon asks his chief of staff: “How’s the Cover-Up going?” Impeachment in
the House, Nixon’s resignation in disgrace to avoid certain conviction in the
Senate, Getting on the helicopter in tears, he says: “My Mother was a Saint”.
Al Haig—the Secret Deal, The Pardon. Jerry “I believe that the People are going
to say ‘Jerry, you’ve done a good job’“ Ford; the 1976 campaign. Carter asked
in a debate about Jerry Ford and morality, he answers “Pardon?” Election night,
the people say, “Jerry, you’re out of a
job!” Ford too devastated to concede; his wife, drunk on national
television, concedes for him as Jerry Ford sobs next to her on stage. (I
actually grabbed the TV and mocked: “You’re out of a job!” But four years
later, after stagflation, recession, and general weakness and ineffectiveness, President Jimmy “If you Iranians don’t
please release our hostages right now… Don’t make me hold my breath or turn off
the lights on the National Christmas Tree” Carter actually loses to an already
brain dead grade B actor, Ronald “Jimmy, there you go again” Reagan in 1980. He
may be brain dead, but his corporate cronies know how to slash taxes for the rich, stick it to The
Poor, devastate family farmers in the gleeful support of Big Agribusiness, and
demolish the Middle Class. The People are so pissed off at us Democrats—over
years of Social Programs for the Poor and Black, funded by ever higher income
taxes—that they not only elect the idiot, they enthusiastically re-elect him in
1984. Even a deep recession isn't enough, so they elect Daddy Bush--the smug
rich guy, nominally from Texas, with homes in about a dozen states—over hapless
Michael "Look at me grinning and driving a tank" Dukakis. Could
twelve years of the Corporate and Filthy Rich interests raping the Middle Class and selling the
country out to our competitors, maybe be enough?
Remember the 1992 campaign: my man William
Jefferson Clinton versus Daddy George H. W. Bush. That theme song, Don't
stop thinking about tomorrow, don't stop [Reagan-ism is Dead]. I couldn't stop, and thanks to Ross
"Here's the Deal" Perot, we beat daddy Bush big time. Ross almost
out-polled Bush. Then remember the 1996 campaign: my man President Bill Clinton versus Bob "I
remember those Democrat Wars" Dole? I remember it all: the pathetic
debates with Bill just dancing all over Bob's slow, dumb, and obsolete stupid self; the landslide victory; the
parties with Bill and Hillary. And what about hot little Monica Lewinsky? Who
could forget that thong, that smile, that beefy body and those bodacious ta
ta's? The Big Dog just had to have it, and why not, dammit. But then: the
Starr inquisition, the Republican House impeachment fiasco and the Senate
restoring sanity. Next the 2000 campaign, Al "The Intelligent but
unpleasant, sanctimonious, almost Dr. Phil-ian know it all" Gore versus
George "I got all C's at Harvard—and my daddy paid some guy to sit in on
my classes for me and take my exams while I was getting’ drunk, snortin' coke
and porking chicks. I'm a moron just like you" W. Bush. Remember thinking
to yourself; there is no way Al Gore
can blow this against a Texas moron like Baby Bush? Well, never underestimate
the stupidity of the American people and/or ability of Al Gore to blow anything
(other than Tipper, whom I'm pretty sure he never did). Ok, I'm almost there.
Eight years, a recession and then a major crash, two wars and the War on
Terrorism later—we'll just skip over the campaign of John "Reporting for
Duty" Kerry, just too painful and pathetic—we finally come to the 2008
campaign.
Our beloved, modern, post-racial
negro, Barack “Hope you can believe in” Hussein Obama and Joe “I’m a seasoned
old white guy, I’ll keep an eye on the negro for ya’ all” Biden, versus John
“Get off my lawn you damn kids” and “Sure, she’s a Wasilla Hillbilly idiot from
Alaska, but she’s so hot—and I’ll nominate her if I want too, just to show you
I don’t give a shit about the country and know I can’t beat this black guy so
what’s the difference” McCain and Sarah “I can see Russia from my front porch
so I get foreign policy right good” Palin. I felt the hope. I forsook Hillary
and my true feminist friends and fell in with the young black man. Obviously
very intelligent, articulate and competent, has the vision thing that Daddy Bush just never got a
handle on, got straight A’s, made Law Review, received Honors, etc. I worked on
the campaign. I cried and celebrated with not only my African American fiancée and her people but with lots
of white folk and every live TV news team in America save Fox News, election
night. I saved the next morning’s edition of The
Washington Post, to give to
my grandchildren in the 2030s before I die; even bought and saved the
commemorative editions of Time, Newsweek, and
the Life book—got it all in a box.
So, by way of introduction, it’s now
three years later. I’m still unemployed, now living with my son and his wife
and their one-year-old son in Boyds, MD because my beautiful and fantastic
fiancée couldn’t afford to carry me any longer. When I tried to sign up to work
at a campaign event recently, I got a robo e-mail response thanking me and
asking me for money. When I e-mailed my rage that they keep asking me for
money—which if I had some, I’d still have medical coverage or I’d buy one of my
10 prescriptions for diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol that I
can no longer afford (well, except for the five generics made in a garage in
Mexico and sold at Target dirt cheep)—and demanding that an actual human being from
the campaign call me to hear my rage before I go
Postal, I got another awesome robo response, this time thanking me for my
e-mail, and urging me to give money!
My Take on the Current Republican Presidential Race
While talking with my brother
John out on the West Coast this morning (Nov 17, 2011), he asked, “What the
hell is going on with the Republicans?” The resulting 45 minute discussion
crystalized what is condensed here.
The Republican primary voter pool
is hopelessly fractured around several mutually exclusive desires:
(1) The Tea Party nuts want the government off their backs. That is,
they want no taxes on them; they want the federal government to do only what is
in the Constitution, which they have never read but are sure supports
everything they believe in (deport all the non-white illegal immigrants
immediately, no abortions, no taxes [except on The Rich and The Big
Corporations and Banks], no rights for gays, women, Blacks, Hispanics, and Poor
People, no tax breaks except maybe on the interest on their mortgage for their
Double-wide Trailer “Home”; small government except when the Feds regulate who
can be a citizen or get married and/or have sex with whom; they support State’s
rights—like the right to bring back Jim Crow laws in The South, the right to
put abortion doctors in prison for murdering 5-week old fetuses indistinguishable
from a reptile fetus (let alone a mammal), and no social benefits, except their
Social Security and Medicare, and maybe, if they are unemployed or
under-employed, like me and the other 30-some million Americans, food stamps
and unemployment benefits.
(2) The Religious Fundamentalist nuts want to put Jesus—obviously
and indisputably the One True God—back at the center of our culture. That is,
they want it like it was in the good old days in Salam, Massachusetts, way
before The Revolution, when you could burn women at the stake for being
witches; or like it was when the Founding Fathers put all that stuff about
Jesus and our Christian Nation, Under the One True God, in The Constitution
[no, I couldn’t find it either when I read it again recently]; they want the
Federal government out of education in general and their private, religious,
Federally subsidized (vouchered) schools in particular, but in my bedroom and your womb if you are a woman; they want States Rights—like the
right to teach Creation Science as a viable alternative to the “theory” of
Evolution; the right to declare a fetus to be a “person” at the moment of
conception; the right to deny any and
all social benefits to any “out group” as they define them; and the right to
ban, persecute, prosecute, or suppress by any means, any religion that, clearly
in error, does not recognize their God to be The God . [That would be Jews,
Mormons, maybe Catholics, and certainly Rastafarians, Hindus, Muslims,
Buddhists, and all the Other-ists.
(3) The Libertarian nuts want the Federal Government to just
disappear—except maybe the Armed Forces to protect their source of Oil—(inconveniently) located in the Middle East—for
their SUVs and 4x4s. They even want State and Local governments reduced—except
for the Police, to protect them, in
their gated communicates, from the roving bands of starving, desperate people,
who might decide to come after them or their possessions in their [the
Libertarians’] dog eat dog, everyone for him or herself, utopia.
(4) The Old School “Moderate” Republican nuts, who just want to
eliminate all taxes and/or regulations on The Rich and Big Business, pretend
Global Warming doesn’t exist, and unleash the awesome potential of the Free
Market to off-shore whatever few jobs [their own excluded] are left and make
the United States truly a Third World country.
(5) And finally, the blatant racists, who just cannot stand the idea
of Barack and Michele in the White House—touching all those pretty things that,
in the good old days as recently as the Fall of 2000, were for over two
centuries only touched by White People and their non-white servants and/or
hired help. [Yes, Condoleezza Rice, that means you.] Every time they see Barack or Michele or one of their
beautiful daughters sit in a chair, or think about their black asses under the
bed sheets in the White House, these people
lose their minds. They just want the Negros out of the White House, ASAP.
[This is thankfully a small group of people, but let’s get real and admit that
they do exist.]
Mitt “All things to all people”
Romney has consistently polled at around 20% of Republican voters. That is
because, at any one time, he is assiduously pandering directly to one or another of the five factions. The thing is, from
week to week, that 20% is never the same actual people. “Global Warming is
definitely man made, unless ExxonMobel and BP say it isn’t. Yes it is, as I
said last week. No, wait a minute. I’m pretty sure it does exist, but who knows
what’s causing it? I’m just not convinced by the “science”, especially if you
include the excellent scientists owned or even just rented by ExxonMobil or BP
or trained at the likes of Liberty College. I was for Health Care before I was
against it; after I implemented it in Massachusetts, but it was nothing like
Obama Care—although Obama Care was modeled after my plan, which I now repudiate
and oppose. I’m a moron, I mean Mormon. It’s almost like being a Christian,
except for all the crazy dogma—like the stupid shit about Jesus coming to North
America to try to convert the pagan American Indians—and the actual history of
moronism, um, Mormonism. (Ever heard of Polygamy?) No, I don’t regularly read the Book of Moron,
I mean Mormon.” What’s that song, ‘If only you believed like I believe baby,
like I believe, we’d get by-y-y-y…’ Because his name and many shifting
positions, ability to pander, and total lack of shame are at least well known
and recognizable, he stays close to the top in polls of Republicans.
In turn, each of the other
Guiding Lights (Political Giants, frankly) of the race has, at one time or
another, been pushed up to around 20%—essentially tied with Mitt as the
alternative to Romney—by dumb luck, or capricious fate. Unfortunately for them,
once they get close to the top, the national news media has to dutifully
actually follow them around, ask them questions, and report what they have said
or done in the past and are saying and doing now. Let’s just review a few of my
favorites here.
Michele Bachmann shoots to the top
for a few minutes, and then says something about just doing whatever it says in
The Constitution. But then she says, “No Wolf [Blitzer], I have never actually
read it. Besides, if I don’t know what to do, I can always ask my close
personal friend, Jesus what he would do.
No Wolf, I won’t ask myself, ‘What would Jesus do?’ I talk with Him several times a day—call his personal direct line to his BlackBerry—and keep up with Him with tweets and on His Facebook
page or through my contacts with the Aliens from space who are in constant
contact with Him. He’ll tell me what
to do!” Poof: 20% today, 2% after the interview.
Ron Paul starts to inch up into
the high 1s percent, maybe even goes to about 10% in the polls for a day or
two. But, The Goddess bless Libertarians, they follow Ayn Rand and the rest of
the movement to the logical conclusions of her and its insane philosophy. To
wit: “Yes, Wolf, if someone wants to use heroin, go for it. It’s none of my or the
government’s business what drugs you use, grow, sell or buy. If someone chooses
to not buy private medical insurance and gets sick or hurt, oh well, guess
he/she just took themselves out of the gene pool—it strengthens the species
through Natural Selection and Survival of the Fittest. You know Wolf, Social Darwinism man. If grandma and
grandpa made bad investments in their privatized retirement account—or even
just got screwed because the liaise fair oversight of, or actual complicity by,
the Republicans and the Financial Sector leads to an economic collapse—well,
they have to just lie down and die, like in the good old days before FDR and
his socialist Depression Era safety net programs in the 1930s.” [When some of
the same points are made in a debate, some idiot in the audience shouts,
“Yeah!” in support.] Poof: 10.5% today,
1.5% after the interview and debate.
Rick Perry starts to look pretty
good, gets up around 20%. But then, those damn debates: “If I’m elected
president, the first thing I’ll do is shut down the three most evil agencies in
the Federal Government: (1) Education, (2) Commerce, I think—or wait, was it
Energy? W-h-a-t-e-v-e-r. (3) Oh shit, I did say three agencies. Damn, let me
just pound the front of my head here for a minute. I’ve got it. No, lost it.
Mitt, did you read my position paper on this? What’s that damn third evil—needs
to be shut down on Day One—agency?” Wow. Wasn’t there a recent idiot from Texas
who was President, not for just 4 year but 8 fracking years? Frack me! Two wars
(Afghanistan, then Iraq); water-boarding, Abu Grab, Gitmo; the greatest
economic collapse since the Great Depression; the War on the Constitution [I
mean Terror]. I don’t think we want to go back down that road. Poof: 20% today,
2.8% after the debate gaffe.
Herman Cain starts to look pretty
good. If he can run a big pizza empire, how different from that is running
America really? Herman is on fire; he’s everywhere on the TV talk shows—Black
man versus Black man, the ‘race’ of the Century (so to speak). He surges. He’s
at the top of the pack, over 22%. What, what? He’s had to settle law suits,
with several women, for sexual harassment, totaling 10s of thousands of dollars
each—Herman; you bad boy. Then that
devastating “trick” question about Libya. “Oh shit, that’s a tuff one. Libya
you say? Was that the one with Gadhafi, or what was that guy’s name, Osama? I
know I heard something about Libya on TV just the other day. Hum. Let me think
here a minute. Let me conjugate on it, think-a-size about it. Lawdy lawdy, I
got all kinds of stuff rattlin’ round in my head right now. You White Devils
got me on that one!” Poor Herman: 22% today, a hand full of sexually harassed
White women comes forward and an unfortunate question about [damn] Libya later,
and then 1.2%.
Now that all the pretenders,
gadflies, and light weights and kooks are falling away, Newt Gingrich is
surging. I am not fracking kidding you. Check it out on the Internet. Yep, Newt
“We’re going to take our Culture back, block by block, with our Irish liquor in
our flasks and baseball bats swinging” Gingrich. But why not? He’s a nut, but
he’s an intelligent, articulate, internally consistent, and persistent over
time and space nut. And with his many wives and former wives and future
wives—what can say “Family Values” better than a somewhat serial monogamous
(maybe he only porked a few women when he was married to a different one) guy?
Now it comes done to Mitt versus Newt.
My (Optimistic) Prediction for the 2012 Presidential Race Outcome
You heard it here first, a year
before the 2012 general election. The Republican Primary Race drags on for the
rest of 2011, into early 2012. Eventually, the ten or twenty filthy rich
people/corporations that really control
the Republican Party get bored and decide that the primary season is over—they’ve
picked Mitt Romney and they have to get him to shut up, stop pandering, get off
the TV and lay low until the general election campaign—so they can try to
“Repackage and Sell” him to the masses. So The
Powers That Be put the word out that the race for the nomination is over.
They buy off or threaten to have killed, and/or just ruined, anyone still in
the race. With the exception of Newt—who is a lot of thing, but no coward or
sell-out—all the other candidates withdraw and announce their support for Mitt.
[If you have any doubt about this, just remember how fast the Republican field
evaporated in early 2000 when John “A True National Hero” McCain was
reluctantly declared the only one left standing.]
Newt fights all the way to the
Republican Convention, with many awesome if wrong-headed ideas and some great
one-liners. But alas, in the end Mitt wins the nomination, with a little over
65% of the delegates’ votes, on the first ballot. When invited to give a speech
endorsing Romney at the Convention at 2:00 AM the day after the vote, Gingrich instead
lashes out at Romney and his cabal of spineless Moderates. Before they can turn
off his microphone, the damage is done.
The Fall campaign is a little
scary at times, with some unbelievable missteps and mistakes from the No Drama
Obama Dream Team, but Romney just can’t fight the constant replaying of every
flip-flop he has made since he got into politics decades ago. The Filthy Rich
and the Big Corporations spend over two
trillion dollars in Right Wing Supreme Court majority sanctioned unregulated
campaign money to try to buy the election for Mitt Romney. Sadly, even out-spending Obama 2-to-1, it’s
just a bridge too far. Romney gets close in the polls on a number of occasions,
but every time he gets within the margin of sampling error, his poll numbers
drop; as Independents and lazy, disinterested, disheartened, or stupid angry
liberal Democrats ponder the thought of another Republican in the White House
just four years after W.
On election night at CNN Campaign
Central, Anderson Cooper is at the awesome wall-sized election screen. He ticks
off each State’s returns—as the results stream in. Anderson intimates, as early
as 8:00 PM, that we’re in for an historic night. He pulls up a few exit polls
to illustrate. “OK, let’s look at Hispanic voter turn-out. It’s running at
about 86.7% of registered Hispanic voters—allow me add, Wolf, an all time record!—and they are
breaking for Obama—give me a second to bring this up on the big screen, yes!
There it is: 83.2% for Obama, another record. I guess all that anti-immigrant
talk during the Republican Primaries is really hurting Romney with Hispanic
voters. Now here’s an interesting one, Wolf. Self described “Tea Party” voters.
Wait for it, almost got it. Yes! They’re actually breaking Romney’s way, as
expected, but only about 55 to 45 percent. Will it be enough? We’ll just have
to wait and see. All that talk about flat taxes, higher cigarette and liquor
taxes, and eliminating taxes for the Rich and Big Corporations— looks like it
took a toll. Wolf; got time for one more exit pool? Independent Voters:
remember how they turned on the Democrats and deserted them in the admittedly low-turnout
off-year 2010 election, like rats on the Titanic as it sank? Well, this time they are going for Obama big time! Look at this now: 63 verses 37
percent, advantage Obama. Looks like the Republicans are really paying a price
for all the pandering they did to those Tea Party Freshmen in the House the
last two years. That 63/37 split among Independents could make this a long night for the Romney people, And Wolf, we’ve
been looking at the House and Senate races very
closely. We are not ready to say it,
if you have not voted yet please do. However [snicker and smirk at the camera],
Wolf, let’s just say that we’re going to have an historic—dare I say it, redefining—election
before the night is over. Can you learn to say Speaker Pelosi again? Back to
you, Wolf…”
It’s gonna be a lot closer in the
Electoral College tally this time, but damn if Barack Hussein Obama doesn’t
pull it off with a popular vote margin pretty close to his 54-45 percent blow-out against McCain in 2008. Obama will
lose the popular vote in a number of Border States and Southern States he carried
with small margins in 2000, trimming his Electoral College majority. But the unprecedented
surge in Hispanic voters, the repeat historic Democratic voter turn out in
general—Black voter turn out and the Youth vote in particular—the unexpected
enthusiasm of Democratic voters and the dramatic swing back to the Democrats by
Independents save our bacon and give our Party at least eight years to undo the
damage that was done in the eight years W and his Big Oil Buddies had to
destroy the economy, Middle Class, and Country.
In Conclusion
I’m just one 61 year old second
generation Italian American guy, trying to do the right thing in a world gone
mad. Just like my buddy Bill “Big Dog but now a Frackin Vegan for Christ’s
sake” Clinton, I’m beginning to think that the geniuses in the Obama
administration and re-election campaign could actually pull a Dukakis or a
Kerry here and lose this thing in 2012. I’m still trying to believe in the Hope,
but getting a little tired of President Barack “I still think I can work with
the Republicans—even if they hold a gun to my head or hold me down and shove a
turgid organ up one of my orifices where the sun don’t shine, every time. I
believe that bi-partisanship is vital” Hussein Obama.
I needed to take the blog space
in this long first posting to lay out how we got here. For younger participants
who may think that this shit all started a few weeks after Obama took office,
just a few months after you (young people) voted in your first election in
2008, it is vital to understand that
what you ignored or were bored by in your American History classes in High
School and College is not bullshit or made up or irrelevant to you. I actually
was alive and aware during those decades before you were born, or became politically
aware yesterday, or maybe two years ago. Just like my grandfather—who was a
witness and direct participant in The Great Depression, the early Labor
Movement, and Socialist Workers Party in Philadelphia in the 1920s and 1930s, and who spent many hours teaching me about
those times and the people and forces they unleashed when I was a child—helped make his time
(my History) real for me, I am trying to make my time (your History) real for
you. If your grandfather or some other elder or an incredible History teacher in
your world has already taken the time to give you this wisdom, forgive me for
rehashing it here.
This blog is intended to help
realize my optimistic prediction for 2012. I don’t have Bill Clinton’s clout,
resources, political skills, or frankly, sex appeal to women, but I do want to
do my part. If Bill wants to get together with me, over a Vegan burger or whatever,
to strategize this re-election campaign, his people can reach me via my Gmail
link. And maybe someone in the Obama re-election campaign can at least have the kid they paid $1000 to
design their awesome e-mail based fund-raising solicitation system be rehired
and paid another $100 to add some code so that it looks up the person’s W-2
Wages, as reported to the IRS and, if
they have had little or none for over three years, not ask them to donate money. Although I am a little rusty—having
not worked as an Information Technology senior systems analyst since the
Technology crash in April 2000, I think I could probably figure out how to
implement this in a few hours. (I’m a pretty smart guy.) If they want to save
the $100, I’ll implement the fix for free—or if they can spare it, $20. With
that $20 I can buy a month of my prescription Verapamil or 20 days of Glipizide
or five months of my critical Metformin or even a couple pills of Januvia (which
I had to stop taking because it costs about seven dollars a pill) at Target.
And, of course, if it isn’t too much of a
bother, maybe someone on the Re-election committee could just pick up a
goddamn telephone and call me to ask how I am doing and hear my despair and rage at the state of the Country and Obama’s timid, halting, and
ineffectual attempts to fix it and the glacial pace at which he is addressing
our continuing economic depression.
I’m not sure what happens now. You read my Introduction and then discuss
amongst yourselves, I guess. We have got to win this election. My fiancée
is already threatening to move to France
if the Republicans take back the White House—for Christ’s sake, France! Let the
discussion begin…
