Politics. As ancient as one caveman rising to lead the other cavemen to overtake the neighboring cavemen. With recorded history stretching from Moses to Julius Caesar to Henry the 8th to George Washington to Dan Quayle (ughh) and beyond, this is one of the most central of all man's ambitions - that is, the quest for power, the vision of someday being the gleaming leader, and, finally, the hope that as a leader you will leave some sort of legacy that you left the world a better place, like Lincoln and the Roosevelts.
So, with the end of the DNC and the beginning of traveling
stump speeches, the beautiful parade of kissing babies and asses that is the
current American political election, the great Obama/Romney battle of 2012 has
officially begun.
They opened with acceptance monologues which swerved between
what their opponent stands for and what they stand for, with a few nuggets of
facts, a couple stretched truths, and even some boldfaced lies sprinkled in for
good measure (and I won’t even get into the VP speeches, especially Ryan’s speech,
as summarized in this
article from Fox News).
For example, Romney pointed out that Obama didn’t pass the
sweeping environmental protections he’d campaigned on, nor did he “fix”
healthcare as he’d said he would. And the economy is still having some trouble.
At the same time, Romney said, in his sweeping conclusion to his
eyebrow-emotive speech (and I’m paraphrasing here) “Fuck the gays, fuck
abortion, fuck teaching evolution and other contra-faith education (goodbye,
sex ed), and fuck the environment and those damn bleeding-heart hippies.” Then
he summarized with a brilliant statement (and I quote) “That United America
will uphold the constellation of rights that were endowed by our creator (is
that Mormon Jesus or Christian Jesus – and is he the same as black and Mexican
Jesus because if so, man Mitt’s confused) and connified by the constitution.”
(By the way, what does “connified” mean?)
Obama, on the other hand, mostly uttered some liberal “we’re
all in this together” bullshit because, I mean, if there’s anything I’ve
learned from my 30 years as an American and especially my 10 years in the
corporate workforce, we’re all on our own, with the exception of maybe some assistance
from family and emotional support from friends, sure, people to commiserate with
over the shitty condition of life but Americans being in this together? This
country that was founded on the idea of equality and the rejection of European
aristocracy and yet gave way to such American royalty as the Carnegies, the
Rockefellers, the Astors, the Mellons, the Koch’s and the Hearsts? A country
whose government subsidized the finance industry many times, from S&L to the
TARP bailouts, which in turn benefitted only those wealthy enough to preside
over or own stock in or through these establishments? The very industry which
Obama himself gave bailouts to and now, 4 years later derivatives and CDO’s are
still unregulated and nobody has gone to jail for the atrocities committed
which included baits and switches and basic client manipulation – even lying in
some cases.
Every week I’m gonna do a little analysis of each side’s
talking points, from economy to health care to track record to the feasibility
of what they’re pledging to do. Yes, I’m a bit more on the liberal side,
admittedly so. But I’m gonna try to be as bi-partisan as possible and, yes,
call out both sides on their bullshit.
But to start, here’s just one website (of many) to help you
to understand and process the issues:
It even has a little survey you can take to see who you side
with. Check it out. Educate yourself. Because the bipartisanship of
inheritance – that is, people who side with their parents’ political parties
because it’s a lot easier than actually learning about the issues (dangerous,
since the Republican and Democratic parties of 50 years ago are far different
from the same parties today). And we're at a dangerous time in American history. The decline of all great civilizations begins with widening wealth gaps and specifically the disappearance of industrialism to make way for the growth of finance and trade as a country's primary GDP drivers. Do we want to be remembered as the generation that brought on the decline?
- Ryan
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