People, people, people…

PEOPLE!

There are some truths that we must recognize and stop talking about so that we can move on to the good stuff. Luckily, you’re all primed to hear about them because they have to do with THE ISSUES – which you love – and that’s what this election in November is going to be about.

Right? Right.

Abortion

It’s pretty obvious to anyone paying attention at this point that Roe v. Wade will not be repealed without some kind of voodoo on the Supreme Court. It would be a travesty to the American Way of life, but not because it goes against our values, necessarily. Roe v. Wade has become like Fenway, like Thanksgiving, like Drive Thru’s, like Labor Day Sales, like hot dogs and watermelons and like frivolous lawsuits. It’s an American Institution. You can’t get rid of Roe v. Wade. What the hell would we bicker about pointlessly in presidential races?

So, seriously, shut up about abortion. It’s legal, and besides, the President of the United States is just about the least powerful peg on the totem pole when it comes to changing the constitution. Even Franklin, Adams and Hamilton agreed on that. Hell, even Ahnold has more sway with that document than does the Prez. The best chance the chief executive has is to stack the deck, and that’s only if you get lucky like W. and have 2 freaking seats give way to you. In a matter of months. Weird.

National Security

It’s pretty obvious to anyone counting the ciphers at the NSA that National Security has been mostly an efficient way to make my tax dollars go from one magical place to another magical place as inefficiently as possible. We could’ve been more efficient in wasting so much money as what we spend on the TSA: we could’ve put it all in a pile in the middle of the desert and taken a match to it.

Furthermore, the disaster of national security, aside from the poor planning, poor execution and poor response, is really the fact that the mentality of people has now changed to one that more closely resembles frightened hamsters than Americans in pursuit of their life, liberty and/or happiness. Seriously. You can cause panic, fear and a total disruption of commerce simply by putting an empty briefcase at a street corner. Or you can hang a circuit board with wires hanging from it on electrical wires around a city. Or you can leave a note in the seat back pocket of an aircraft saying that there’s a bomb in the airport.

Watch how people react. It’s insane. Frightened rats make more sense in their flee tactics and threat assertions. We suck at that kind of thing.

Health Care

It’s pretty obvious to anyone that has lived abroad or been injured abroad while traveling that American health care is the shite of the civilized world. Embarrassingly complicated, impossibly expensive and totally overrun by insurance companies and staff infections, and god help you if you use Kaiser Permanente. I mean, you may as well just amputate your own head.

Ideas float rampantly in political campaigns, but if you pay attention, no one has ever really got hold of one of these “ideas”; not really. Promises are made like it was an algebra problem, but it always falls short on explaining anything. It’s not impossible, I’m sure. But with 300 million people, nothing’s really easy. Obama’s new plan is no different, though the man can sure tell a good story, eh?

I feel like buying some health care already.

Foreign Policy

It’s pretty obvious to anyone looking out instead of just looking in that the world is a big place, and that America doesn’t fill up anywhere near enough of it to behave the way it does. Being abroad has shown me that if there’s such as thing as “stark contrast” it’s what you see when you put the “typical” American image that the world has come to have next to the image of an American who has traveled. The world seems to think (mostly rightfully so) of bumbling idiots that are as loud as they are rude, unrefined and totally despicable animals of no taste or class. But American’s who travel, who have a chance to look back as they leave borders behind are almost unanimously disgusted by their brethren. They think very much like Europeans, that America is doomed and there’s nothing the world can do about it. Which is too bad, I should say, because the place had so much potential.

Economy

It’s pretty obvious to anyone paying a mortgage or taxes or dividends or just about anything that the economy has tanked. And I don’t mean like, a cycle, where if you just sit tight this thing will get figured out in 5-6 years and we can all go back to day trading while at work, shopping on amazon while driving down the road and checking out the nicer rims on the other Explorers who all pay the same $1.40 for gas.

No, no. This was a bad time for the US to fall flat on its face and drag the civilized world with it and the consequences will be more than just the sum of its parts. We have finally gotten past the Chinese Olympics (which everyone has already forgotten by now) in which China came out of the economic underground flashing the ownership title of all of our debt in its left hand and a fisted up can of whup-ass in the other. And everyone knows China is right handed.

While we distract ourselves and spread what little worth our economy has throughout the middle east in pointless ventures that haven’t had a hope of success in 5 years, China, India and Russia are being smart and silent. Europe can’t protect America because it’s got its own problems. Last week in Edinburgh I saw a comedian from the Isle of Mann poke fun of the housing market and those in it. How much more “rising of the proletariat” can you get? I mean, the Isle of Mann! Who’s ever heard of that place and they’re taking the piss out of the entire rest of the continent for getting swept up in this mess.

By the time this is done, not only will America be paying at least what it is now at the pump, but we won’t even have gallons anymore. Ever heard of the metric system? I suggest everyone take a steep course in Mandarin and look up the word “meter”. We’ll all be seeing it a lot more very soon with the learning curve that is around the corner.

Iraq

It’s pretty obvious to anyone paying attention at this point that Iraq will not have a pretty ending. Or even a clear one. And won’t somebody stop this shit about it being about supporting the troops? Wars aren’t about supporting the men and women you send to die. War is about something else. What do we do to mitigate a war? Do we provide equipment and healthcare for the fighters? Do we provide proper funding to the cause? Sure. If this were actually a war and not a terribly mis-guided joy ride on the taxpayer’s grandchildren.

How about supporting them by saving their lives and bringing them home, not by saving the egos of their leaders. Do I REALLY have to be the one to say that?

Global Warming

It’s pretty obvious to anyone paying attention at this point that we will not reverse this carbon problem. We should’ve been doing something about it in 1993. And only now are we even having discussions about it, and they’re not even productive. It’s still a talking point. That’s it, man. We’re fucked. The republican’s refuse to even use the term, “global warming” and the democrats are too incompetent to make the issue visible beyond some powerpoint slides and and green posters. Polar bears are melting (because, you know, they’re made of ice. I bet you Michelle Bachman would buy that) and we have people who think that unrestricting industry is more important than maintaining a sustainable growth. And no action.

You can have the congress set out resolutions upon resolutions about 50% of cars produced in the US must have 20% fewer emissions by the year 2156 or whatever, but that’s not action: it’s theater. You know and I know that nothing will happen except that there will be more hybrid commercials. And don’t even get me started on those damn things.

The End

It’s pretty obvious to anyone paying attention at this point that the options are limited, like always. John McCain is either a habitual liar or else that he has his memory systematically erased by Karl Rove every night before bed. Unofficially, of course. The corollary to that is that everyone in the mainstream media seems to have no capacity for short term memory. Don’t you people record the shit he says and then contradicts less than 24 hours later? Weren’t you there both times he said diametrically opposing things?

Yes, yes you were. So why don’t you stop him and point out his contradiction on the spot? Why don’t you get him on track when you ask him about his 7 houses and he replies with a POW story that sounds more like Abe Simpson drolling on about an incoherent and unrelated story? And why stop just because he gets visibly angry? Why don’t you just warn him before the interview that if he tries anything funny that we’ll put a stink bomb under his kitchen table, but that we won’t tell him which one it’s under?

What Else

It’s pretty obvious to anyone paying attention at this point that…

Oh, what the hell? Screw this shit – let’s have the hope. Sure. Have it. Fill your mouth with it like whipped cream or Velveeta from the bottle. Roll around in it like bushels of hay and make all the love you want, or don’t want. John McCain is either an idiot or a lying bastard and we’ve had enough of both for too long. Obama is not perfect, and he’s fucked up big on at least one occasion that I can think of off the top of my head (I’m looking at you, FISA Bill). And Biden… he ain’t perfect either with his big mouth and politician’s smile that I’ve so learned to distrust. But an Obama-Biden ticket… that’s some sweet sugar we’ve been so long without. We’ve been putting up with the bitter taste of Zombies and Frankensteins and recoiling in the sour shower of corruption and lies and outright thievery that we’ve forgotten the taste of real honey.