BARAK OBAMA – PROMISES TO KEEP

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The night Barak Hussein Obama was elected President of the United States put faith in America back into the hearts of many people here and abroad. To say he offered hope and the possibility of positive change does not adequidately describe the emotions that filled the air that night. The pride and sense that the people had, after eight long years of the monstrous presidency of George W. Bush, finally overcome the forces of unbridled lunacy and shrugged off what Hugo Chavez aptly called the “smell [of] sulfur.”

But, that was then and now is now. And the man who early on in his political career was called the black JFK has only proven that hope is fleeting and that so far, the business of government is just the same old tune sung in a different key…“Meet the New Boss…Same as the Old Boss.”

The war in Iraq continues. In Afghanistan, troop levels are increased. At home the economy is in shambles. Unemployment is higher then it has been in recent memory. The golden spike in Obama’s pre-election platform, Universal Health Care, has been brushed off the table along with Obama’s potential for greatness. He can not even control his own party to give the people what even some third world countries provide. Mr. Obama couldn’t even bring the Olympics to this country.

In many ways though, he is eerily similar to JFK. He is polished, smart, well spoken and physically attractive. He also shares the same effectiveness in office with JFK. Kennedy never got anything done, his one shining moment…the Cuban Missile crisis put on balance with the feeble joke of the Bay of Pigs.

Obama has seventy-five percent of his presidency left. Maybe, in that time he will live up to his promise to himself and his promises to the American people.

But, I’m not putting any money on it.

Guest Comments

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It isn't often that I get an e-mail from a reader. But here is one I got from Jon that I'm sure everyone will like...Jon says -

"I’ve got the answer! I’ve got the solution that will, once and forever end the circular abortion debate that sadly, has been going around-and-around in this country for decades.

Look…the anti-aborting camp has fundamentally this position:

Abortion is bad, because God…Speaking through the voice of religious teaching, (Because no one; at least no one that I know of, has heard God speak. And we don’t even know that, if he can speak, can he speak English well enough to get his point across) …Abortion is bad because Gods says so.

The pro-aborting position is essentially:

Abortion is good, well…because I want one.

Okay, now we’ve got the conflict defined. We can come up with a solution. And this being America, the only lasting and unassailable solution to any problem, has to be religious in nature. So, we are going to have to find a spiritual solution. And I’ve got it….

The Church of the Most Sacred and Holy Blood of the Aborted Lamb! The C.M.S.H.B.A.L., in which abortion not only is accepted, but it is encouraged. And in some cases, at least for the church hierarchy…Mandatory.

You say you want an abortion there sweetheart? Well first, you’ve got to be baptized into to the Church of the Most Sacred and Holy…well you know the rest. And then, you can have all the abortions you want and no one will ever try to block your way into the clinic or super-glue-in-the-door-locks keep you out or even shoot your good, university trained, Board Certified doctor.

Your abortion will be sacramental…An engagement of your fundamental, Constitutionally protected rights to do just about any damn thing you please on purely religious grounds. Now, you pro-aborters have a religious argument. You’re good….On even ground with the God-is-Awesome, Biblically inspired and supported anti-aborters. You can even ask your doctor for an abortion in Topeka, Kansas or Colorado Springs, Colorado for that matter…And get one, all the while preserving our long tradition of religious freedom. There you go honey.

Debate over.

He's Not Heavy...

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In David Lean’s historic motion picture, “Lawrence of Arabia,” a fictional T.E. Lawrence says to the character Sheriff Ali – “So long as the Arabs fight tribe against tribe, so long will they be a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous, and cruel...”

He could have been talking to the American public, nearly a century later. How different are we; bickering and name calling; each of us clawing their way to an advantage over someone else; all the while cloaking our selfish motives in principle and high mindedness …“a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous and cruel.”

There is a scene toward the end of the film, in which the united tribes in the form of an Arab Council try to govern a captured city. There is a meeting of the Council in which each tribe’s fractional interest destroys the unity that allowed the Arabs victory in the first place.

Once again, how different is Rep. Joe Wilson’s unprecedented outburst during a joint session of Congress when he called President Obama a liar. The difference is of course, that we have a chance we have a chance to stop being “a little people, a silly people - greedy, barbarous and cruel.”

We can show the world that we are not a nation of savages and pass Obama’s health care bill and move in line and in pace with the rest of the civilized world. And as a nation start to make the right choices…Humanitarian choices…At least when it comes to each other.

AMERICA....VOICE OF THE FURNITURE

People in Europe have got to be shrugging their shoulders in that continental “what-the-fuck” gesture and asking themselves what’s going on in America when they hear the news coming out of the U.S. these days.

I’m sure they might have thought of us a bit differently when we elected Obama and put aside George W. Bush, that shining star in the pantheon the asshole presidents.

But, with the start of the health care legislation and the accompanying mad-house Town Hall debates; complete with proud members of the N.R.A. carrying guns alongside there Blackberries; for no reason other than they can; the rest of the western industrialized world must be rethinking that vacation trip to the Grand Canyon.

I mean…I don’t really care what a “dining room table” has to say to Barney Frank. The problem is what these dribbling idiots say into a microphone at a Town Hall meeting affects…me. I live here too. But, unlike these crazies, at the end of the day, I don’t go home and play with the cat shit in the litter box.

Now, with the latest rioting in the streets over the Presidential address to school kids, the Europeans surely must think we’re nuts. And they should.

Well…some of us anyway.

THE LAST TRUCK

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If you want to see a movie that shows what it’s like to be an American at the beginning of this century, you should see the HBO Documentary, “The Last Truck.” The film chronicles the last days before the closing of a GM plant in Ohio and the effect it had on its workers.

I’ve never seen a movie so sad. And I’ve never been prouder to be an American while watching one. It has been a long time since I worked in a factory and then for not very long. But, I’ve worked with and knew people like those men and women featured in that film. And really, I’ve never known any better.

Those people, not the gangsters that closed the plant they worked in, are the real America. It’s about time those sons-a-bitches on Wall Street and the elected crooks in both the Democratic and Republican parties realize it.

Have a good Labor Day…And watch your back America!

YIPPY KI YAY…PLEASE GO!

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I hear there’s a movement on in Texas to succeed from the Union. (Yes, again.) It didn’t work out to well for em last time. But the pointy-boot-fellas down there in the Lone Star State don’t seem to learn too well from experience…if that tells you anything.

They want out. And I at least would say, “Cowboy…get to packin’ your saddle bags” while pointing the morons to the door. The Mexicans now, for a long time, have had an eye on reclaiming Texas for themselves. Let those long, tall, drawling, Texas dimwits see how long Texan independence lasts after they leave the U.S.A.’s umbrella of protection.

Better start learning the words to El Rancho Grande boys. Cause your day in the sun, just might not last a full day. But shit, I wish em well; the goofy sons-a-bitches…Succeed from the Union! Go ahead and have your own country. Better yet, have your own goddamn planet why don’t ya. Get the fuck as far away from the rest of us that you and you pinheaded brethren can…Go!

And once you and your kind of stupid evaporates from the American scene, maybe; Just maybe, we can start building a country free from the corruption and decay that hangs on ya’all like the smell of that dead skunk you hit a half a mile down the road.

Vaya Con Dios motherfuckers…Ya’all don’t come back now, hear!

FREEDOM’S JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR…OH HELL, I FORGET!

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So, America is the greatest country on earth! Oh yea? Well, let’s talk about that for a while shall we?

Just what is that makes America so all-fired great? What gives us the edge on the rest of the industrialized western world? Why are we better?

Ask that question to anybody on the street in Anal Fissure, Kansas or anywhere else in Heartland America for that matter and the likely answer is gonna be, “Well, cause we’re free…stupid!”

Just what exactly “free” is can be a little more complicated for them. Free like how?

“Well, you can say and write anything you want,” our imaginary Kansas Republican will answer.

Sure…You mean like that asshole Ward Churchill maybe? You know what happened to him, right? Or maybe you mean you can scribble any bullshit onto a blog that nobody gives a shit about and won’t even threaten the smallest gopher on the snob-ass golf course where the gangsters that run this country go to lower their cholesterol. (Of course, I’d trade Freedom of Speech for health insurance any day of the week, but that’s just me.)

“Worship,” our man on the street shouts. “Worship…We can practice any religion we choose in these here United States, the greatest county on earth!”

Okay…so? That and $3.75 will get you a small latte. Go out and worship a tree if you want Mr. Druid, for all it will get you.

“Okay crap-bag,” Mr. Middle America there (getting mad now) shouts! “Guns…the Right to Bear Arms. God, Guns and Guts! There in our holy Constitution. Written down forever, so long ago. One of our most inalienable cold-dead-hands-down rights!”

Sure, you and your neighbor on the next farm down the road, with his deer rifle or semi-automatic version of an M-16 is gonna keep the government honest and working for you under the threat of your sacred Right to Revolution. Oh yea!

Yes sir! You bet!…You and Bubba and Billy Bob can suit up in your woodland cammo solider outfits, paint your faces to look like an ad for one of the Rambo movies and stand up to one of (I have to admit) best trained, most well equipped, seasoned, fighting forces in the world; who can bring to bear heavy weapons, ordinance, air support, artillery and all the ammunition there is. (How many rounds you got stored up in the basement there Bub?)

Yup partner. A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do! You can stand up all right. But, you’re better make sure you kissed the kids goodbye and your old lady’s got a black dress.

We can go on with this nonsense forever. And I suppose some backward tribesman with a bone in his nose and hair all done up in cow shit, sitting on an atoll in Micronesia somewhere, would argue that his country is the greatest in world too.

Not that I’m saying he’s wrong necessarily. But, I kind of have to think that some of those places in Europe that we singlehandedly saved; without any help at all from the Brits, Canadians, Aussies, Russians, Kiwis or anybody else for that matter; from the fascists in the forties…Those places. Well, they seem to be doing pretty well, all-in-all, and would be okay places to live.
And the people there are free….And hell…they all have health insurance too.

And so would we, if that cretin we’ve been talking to out there in Kansas would just get the fuck outta the way. And quit pretending to be the Marlboro Man standing in the dust of the past, in the center of the street in some frontier town that never existed; feverous, cancer-ridden and consummative; holding in one hand his Bible and in the other his trusty .45 with one shot left; just standing there, blocking the way forward for the rest of us.