April 19, 2008
Seated amid the clatter and chatter of a mall food court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I was reminded of the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s famous saying, “All politics is local.”
O’Neill’s observation came to mind as I was having lunch with Penny, my 39-year-old niece, a mom with a child in “Christian” day-care, a Presbyterian, a manager of an upscale jewelry store, a wife of a department store manager – and, oh yes, a Republican.
5 comments:
"the percentage of those who identify as Republican is at its lowest point since 1992 when the first President George Bush was turned out of office. "
And it was at that time that the economy and unemployment was at a disastrously dangerous level. That was one thing that got Clinton elected.
Clinton's administration corrected that economic condition despite his stupid sexual excesses, but later years showed that he too sold us out with NAFTA.
Then we were warned that Bush Jr. had ruined every business that he had ever owned or managed, yet a bunch of non-thinking people voted him into office and put him in charge of our most precious business - our country - and true to form, he has brought us to absolute ruin. Despite questions about his true claim to the Presidency in 2000, somehow he was reinstated in office in 2004. Voted in and defended by those same non-thinking people who consistently voted against their own best interests.
So when I see people who were not really die-hard Republicans anyway but jumped ship because of moral disapproval of Clinton, I am not surprised that they are willing to join or rejoin the Democrats because they are finally waking up after seven years to find that they are suffering in the same way that they hoped their Democratic neighbors would suffer. The past ten years have shown an innate nastiness and gloating on the part of Republicans toward Democrats that is appalling. But...they have ended up suffering as well.
Evidently, the author's niece senses that a McCain presidency would be an exaggerated version of the Reagan-Bush Sr. years. And would leave American citizens far worse off than they were in 1992.
At least their were still jobs in the country at that time.
When did the mass exodus of jobs actually begin?
What does continued Republican Presidency and government leadership promise niece Penny and her children? Well, nearly all manufacturing jobs are gone - steel, automobiles, appliances, clothing
tools, etc. No jobs for graduating high school seniors. Well, send 'em to college and educate them....and when they graduate as computer techs, etc, all of those jobs will be gone as most are being done in India right now. So of what good will the college education be?
Not much, unless like a couple "experts" on C-Span have said, basically "Americans will have to stop expecting to work in this country and begin to accept the idea that they may have to do their job searching globally rather than nationally. " So much for "Penny" seeing her grandchildren grow up, especially if the only place her daughter can find work is in South Africa or India. The reader needs to stop and ask him/her self: "What kinds of jobs are actually left in America RIGHT NOW? and I wonder what it will feel like to be FORCED to work for companies like Halliburton and Blackwater." That is what we are headed for.
"To Penny, a McCain administration – after eight years of George W. Bush – would mean that “I’ll never see my Social Security; I have no idea how to train my daughter for the future; or if there will be any jobs left in this country.”
Poor Penny. She sure waited a long time to wake up and smell the cappacino. Why should any Democrat cheer now that many Republicans are suddenly "beginning to see the light?" and choosing to vote for the Democratic candidate. They are doing it for themselves, not for either party.
"'...according to Alan Abramowitz, the Alban W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University.:
“There has been a shift toward the Democratic Party in the suburbs, “There is a perception by moderate Republicans that the party has been taken over by hard-line religious conservatives. Abortion and gay rights have lost their power. It’s hard to get people agitated on those issues considering the economy.” ... Though “the GOP has been able to live off 9/11 for a couple of elections, voters have moved on to other issues,” Abramowitz told me – especially those issues that resonated in the lunch with my niece: the economy and the war."
Abramowitz's excuses are just so much bullsh!t. The reasons he gives for voters' change of mind are the fodder fed to the public by the media.
For the past eight years the media has virtually silenced the voice of the loyal opposition. Anyone disagreeing with the Bush administration and the corporate lobby was banned from any public discourse. Now, for some reason, that pressure seems to have eased enough for voices of displeasure against the system and the establishment to break through and be heard.
Please forgive me if I seem ungrateful that niece "Penny" and her associates are finally showing some sense and rising up against the disasters that the GOP is leading us to. It's about damned time that they did!
well, itzamirakul, thank you very much for representing much of how I feel about this may or may not be trend ConsortiumNews has offered up. Especially, the bullsh!t part. I wholeheartedly agree.
Obama is as strangled by corporate control as Clinton and McCain. Actually, they seem to be hedging their bets slightly with him. Why aren't the alternate, independent media attacking that? I can only conclude it's either because they'll be called socialists and somehow that's worse than being called a terrorist or they are part of the pack.
Anecdotal stories are of some merit. But, considering they are usually based on reports or observations of unscientific observers, and in some cases written through a lens of bias, they're not too reliable.
But, with that said, I have an anecdotal story to tell. I know of five people who will not vote for Obama if he's the nominee because they don't trust him on Social Security or Medicare. It is their opinion that he, if he were to become president, will get much pressure from the "young voters" who support him to fiddle with SS, to the detriment of the program. Many of Obama's supporters have said they "will never need" Social Security.
Caveat emptor.
I think this latest "Obama is the One" article is a bunch of crapola.
"Penny" (if she's real) isn't on the far left, but she's now feeling left out. Well, too damned bad she didn't wake up sooner!
But...since this article seems to be claiming that Obama is more electable than Hillary, I'll remind you of Ned Lamont.
Obama is the left's new version of Lamont. The far left is wildly in love with their new Lamont, but they should take another look at the Lamont/Lieberman race in CT.
The progressive lefties couldn't stomach Joe Lieberman, so they decided to back Ned Lamont. They were successful in the primary.
Unfortunately, pro-war Lieberman, (with the support of Obama, ironically!) was able to trounce the "perceived" far-left candidate Lamont in the general election.
Obama looks like the Second Coming to many people just because he is new and different.
These anecdotal stories like Penny's do not a president make!
Frankly, I think either Obama OR Clinton could be in the Lamont position if voting irregularities are managed to rule the race.
The Democrats showed Lieberman that they did not want him and voted him out, thus voting in Lamont as their chosen candidate.
Special interest groups who value Lieberman's powerful position as the Israeli voice in the U.S. government and Senate, quickly rallied and both Democratic and Republican Israeli-firsters filled the polls.
Lieberman is not in office because the PEOPLE in the Democratic Party or the Independent Party wanted him there. He is in the Senate because Israel must have representation in the U.S. government to protect its position as a "non-declared state" in our nation and thus their leaders were able to convince enough people to keep Israel's premier supporter in the Senate. Thus Israel is able to continue to demand financial assisstance which amounts to nothing different than WELFARE (that dirty word when it applies to Americans.)
Also, Lieberman's presence allows news readers like Stephanopoulis and Gibson to ask such a question as, "If Israel is attacked, will it be considered to be an attack on America ?"
My first thought was, "Why? Why should America react since Israel has so many weapons for its defense?"
Yet Hillary promised "...MASSIVE RETALIATION" and Obama also promised reaction.
The power of the Right is the biggest myth going. It is actually no more than one of those fairy tales that warns of goblins in the woods waiting to grab you.
A small segment of rich society uses these fear tactics to make their meager numbers seem greater and their passion more aggressive. Buried and unspoken in this myth is the fear that they are "dangerous" and just might bring about another "Civil War" if they do not get exactly what they want. Look at the ridiculous lies they have gotten most Americans to believe like the so-called "Liberal Media." and the supposed large numbers of people who hate this or that group or attend this or that church.
These "large numbers" are a bare-faced lie. The greatest majority of Americans, whether native-born or foreign-born are intelligent enough to see through these lies, however for the last 8 years have had no media outlet that would allow powerful dissention including Public Radio and TV networks.
The "few" continually hammered the lie that the nation was divided 50%-50% in their likes and dislikes. Once highly-regarded Polls became whores to the few who were leading this mythology and delivered results to please the pipers.
Therefore, as long as we ALLOW these people to "get away with it," by believing their bullcrap, the longer will it no longer matter whether it is Obama or Clinton - the big bad wolf will prove that it can "blow them down."
We remove their power when we stop believing their lies.
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