The Political "Demolition Derby"

Randi Rhodes talked about the police-nanny state.  In the New York school system there are more Cops on the campuses than guidance counselors.  When a student pulls detention he doesn’t just spend an hour a day for a week sitting in the multi purpose room.  No.  Instead it is a police matter and the student is arrested.  (apparently she kids you not)  I had Chris Matthews on for a couple of segments of last night’s program because Randy and others found the show such a rich source of discussion material.  There is that grand canyon of separation between the republicans and democrats.  What the Republicans seem to be conducting is the political equivalent of a Demolition Derby, and it’s government that the republicans want to demolish.  In the morning Rush Limbaugh left no doubt at all his sentaments saying that he “hopes that we will enter into a major economic depression, because then the President will be so distracted dealing with the economic woes he won’t have time to deal with getting immigration reform passed or deal with the guns issue.   He prefaced his remark saying “I never thought I’d ever say what I’m about to say - - “ but in truth he pretty much said it already four years ago.  Chris Matthews states that the Republicans are using the same tacticts now to “bring down a government they don’t like, aka Obama, that they once used under other Republicans to bring down the governments of Iran, and Guatamala, and Chile, and they contemplated doing with Viet Nam.  An election was scheduled there in 1956 and the concencus was the vote would go to Ho Chi Min, but some of the military brass urged Eisenhaur to bomb North Viet Nam, but Eisenhower refused.   Herman Cain says that if 51% of the people voted to re elect this president then fifty one percent must be uninformed.  But the thing is they are saying now that the President has risen to sixty percent in the latest popularity polls.  I haven’t personally seen those number.  That means the President’s popularity has gone up, rather than down, nine points since election day.   It seems Rush was discouraged today about things and he told his audience that what the conservatives has undergone is “a failure in messaging”.  Others have been saying that both FOX news’s ratings are down and that Rush Limbaugh’s numbers are way down.  Personally I would like confirmation on this.  Someone else complained that the problem with bloggers like me is that we don’t properly “vet’ our information but pass it on as gospel.  Apparently there was a guy named Jack Swaggart at a stadium in Mississippi who was preaching to a crowd howling their approval about “All of these people who have come to this country- - I don’t know who they are but they aren’t Americans and I can’t even understand their speech the way they talk”.  But the guy himself has a southern accent so thick you could cut it with a knife.  I hope and pray he isn’t related to evangelist Jimmy Swaggart.  Apparently someone from the Republican National Committee has filed federal suit and the Supreme Court is going to hear this case- - where he claims that he as an individual has the right to give any amount of money to as many of his favorite personal candidates as he pleases.  As such he basically wants the High Court to declare all campaign spending laws unconstitutional. 

There are all these other troubling racial issues in the news.  You heard the story about the middle aged white guy on a plane near a crying baby and he told the woman “Shut that N word baby up!” but then kind of fell like he was drunk, or something.  And then he slapped the baby.  Now the federal government is filing civil right violation charges.  There was a Nazi father who didn’t want his daughter in the labor room to be attended to by Black nurses, so they pulled the newborn baby out of that neo natal unit.  And at a Florida university there is a football stadium that’s going to be named the Geo Prisons Stadium, because this private Prison company owns the thing.  Of course we know the war on drugs is a war on Black people because whites very often can find a legal way of obtaining their drugs by “doctor shopping’ and the like.  Of course when Oliver North brought cocaine to south Los Angeles, they immediately passed a law increasing penalties for rock cocaine- - but not powder- - so it would affect Black people.  Randi is also worried about reality shows going too far because of some drug rehab program on a cable network- - where you are somehow secretly routing that the addicted celebrities won’t make it.

On C-Span they had an expert on the subject of “Politics and digital devices”.  It seems that liberals in general use these products to a greater degree such as Tweets and Facebook because they are urban, and educated, and probably more cerebral.  Of course these are the same demographic properties that liberals have.  Overall there may not be more Conservatives on these social networks than liberals, but a higher percent of those who ARE liberals make use of these media.  You can’t use the “drug” standard here.  Nobody is saying that Liberalism “causes” people to use social media or visa versa.  We are merely saying “Who they ARE”.  On another link there was valuable Wall Street background stuff it’s useful to review.  First of all even at this late date several years down the line, only one third of Dodd Frank has gone into effect.  Also there are still NO Wall Street prosecutions out of the Obama Administration.  In 2000 it seems that sixty percent of all banks dealt with traditional “serve the client’ and “play it safe with his money” philosophy took place.  But now they say that eighty percent of the capital going back and forth is Banker and Broker initiated “investment”.  And there seems to be a practice I’ve tagged “Information mining’ of Clients.  Rather than go to a Broker to glean information to help you invest wisely- - the Brokerage House gets information from YOU and uses THAT information to invest their vast millions in the venture themselves.  Some say it’s unfair to compare Wall Street today to a giant gambling casino.  Because there they have cameras everywhere looking for “funny stuff”.  And they have strict rules about the Casino gambling on itself.  That seems obvious.  Besides the change about allowing derivitives-  which didn’t used to be legal - betting on the success of other’s investments pro or con - - which weren’t gone into that much - - they also changed the “leverage requirements” banks had to follow.  They say it used to be six to one and now it’s thirty five to one.  The potential for major loss at that high a ratio is astronomical.  And of course - - the whole admixture of mixing the Casino atmosphere with traditional banking- - was legalized late in the Clinton Administration.

Consider these three “snap shots’ and tell me what you see.  Two teenage girls dressed fairly nicely are sitting at a park bench.  One is going on and on about a new lover of hers and everything he’s done and accomplished and how handsome he is.  And she opens up her shopping bag and pulls out expensive perfume and a fancy boxes of candy and flowers and whatever.  “Look what he gave me”.  And she opens up the candy box with a few chocolates eaten out of it.  The other girl says – “Oh, can I have one?”  NO!!! The first girl snaps.  They’re MINE!”  Here is scene two.  Two boys are in the back yard of one of them and one says to the other, “I’ve got a three headed lizard at my house.  Isn’t that something”.  The other boy says, “Well lets go over to your house and see it”.  But the other boy says “No I lent it to a friend and he lives way on the other side of town.  And the other boy says “We can ride out bikes”.  And the boy claiming to have the lizard says “Well I’d have to go with you and my bike has a flat tire’.  And the other boy says “I have an extra bike, you can ride mine”.  And the first boy says “Well my pastor told me not to use other’s things and I never disobey him.  You understand, don’t you” And the other boy says - - “Are you sure you have a three headed lizard?”  And the first boy blows up and says “You don’t believe me - - Nobody EVER Believes Me- !!!”    (I’m thinking “Gee, I wonder why that is - - - ?)  You have a good friend who died- - and when you were alive you told each other everything.  So you call up and tell Neil Savedra that you’re going to contact your dead friend via a medium.  Neil doesn’t respond “It’s physically impossible to reach the dead or for the dead to ever come back from the grave”.  He wouldn’t dare.  Instead he just says “Well - - when you’re dead you’re in such a state of drugged out euphoria you just can’t think of anybody but yourself and how bitchin your existence is now”.   There are two things wrong with “The Gospel” often tagged “good news”.  It isn’t Good - - and it isn’t News.  (Selah)