A cousin emailed me a while back about the horrible Obama administration and
how it is running America into the ditch.
You know the drill: deficit
spending, worst record of new debt for any president in history, elaborate
wasting of government resources like when Michelle Obama flies to Europe on
shopping sprees courtesy of us taxpayers.
I find myself awash in a sea of mud and muck when it gets heaped on so
thick that it is obvious that big money (on either side) is behind massive ad
campaigns to discredit, shame, and defame one public official or another. It wears me out. And I am saddened when thinking about how
gullible and superfluous we voters have become to the real problems in
America. Like when forgot to do our math
homework.
I told him that we agree on more than he could ever imagine; much of what he had sent me is like preaching to the choir. My faith and confidence in either party to do the right thing by us taxpayers vanished years ago. Why? Because in this age of media and instant transmission to the entire world, one can buy truth by TV ads and sway opinion, and the reality and correctness of data can be distorted according to the amount of money spend to defraud voters and annihilate the truth. It works. Millions see something on TV and they accept it as gospel (if it is well executed by a talking head who can lie real good). P.T. Barnum: “A sucker is born every minute.”
I told my feisty young cousin that his Dad I had talked a bit of politics at the dinner buffet in the church at our Uncle John’s funeral. He, too, looked me in the eye and assumed the attack position, conservative as he professed to be. He, too, must have thought I courted liberal views worthy of an awful Democrat, which I admit to doing at times when trying to figure out how to block the runaway train we call government so that it does not waste all our tax dollars by borrowing and spending to defeat Evil Empires like Russia and, of course other modern-day Biblical foes such as the Axis of Evil. Lying about Saddam Hussein having nukes trained on American cities is good. Meeting Osama bin Laden for morning coffee, is good, too, you know, the usual talking points. But the delivery must be pure and crisp. You got to get trustworthy messengers to deliver the bought and paid for talking points with sincerity. Yogi Berra said it best: “Always be sincere; even if you don’t mean it.” And especially when talking bald-faced lies about somebody who needs to be discredited and unseated from office.
I tried to tell him, too, that he was preaching to the choir, but anyway he meandered about and attacking the objects of evil as he saw them, like, you know, Nancy Pelosi and Obama’s wife Michelle, misusing government funds by taking personal plane trips. I told my cousin that both sides had their talking points and neither would consider the validity of the other side in its own bought and paid for ads to discredit. But that when his talking points are the same as his son, you got to believe that they both heard the same stuff somewhere and shared it, possibly in this case, Fox News, the heart and blood of conservative talking points.
Let me join you in condemning some of the Obama policies, I suggested, e.g., all the promises he made if elected, but still not forthcoming. Like closing down Guantanamo. Or stopping already with the blasted signing statements to bills that Bush II made so famous. Or wiretapping us Americans without FISA Court permission, looking at our bank accounts, and not restoring habeas corpus. I watched his eye. Funny thing but when someone is broadcasting talking points to damn the opposition they aren’t too interested in other points that might help them beat up on their perceived enemy. They in grand Sean Hannity fashion need to keep broadcasting their own talking points (like acres of corn kernels) ad infinitum and turn a deaf ear to a genuine conversation that could better help them demean the object of their scorn. With new ideas, new material. Go figure.
So by the time we got some dessert, I told my cousin what I thought about how the 2 parties have been raping and pillaging our Treasury for years. I mentioned the ominous cloud of Bernanke (on Obama’s direction) of printing more TRILLIONS of dollars, much in the same way a corporation issues trillions of shares of stock without adding one damn bit of value to the company or its products! What about them apples, I asked him?
I agreed that Obama and his Cabinet have promised the moon and haven’t delivered, AND that he has added to the loss of freedoms we had under the Constitution before Bush began to destroy them: you know, loss of habeas corpus, wiretapping without FISA Court approval, looking at yours and my bank accounts, torture if you were on the NSA List, the usual. Obama ran on correcting and nullifying the atrocities Bush II used to shred our rights under the Constitution yet turned around and enhanced them! Like the (un)Patriot Act. But that did not faze my cousin or give him pause to think about it. Maybe he did not know how to react to someone who was not spewing him with talking points from the other side.
Obama’s continuing to use signing statements is a blockbuster that perverts the government as defined in the Constitution. No more smooth functioning of a government that before Bush II had complete checks and balances due to the separation of powers of the Executive, Judicial, and the Legislative branches of government. Why would that be of no interest as he reiterates talking points, e.g., that Sarah Palin might just be the only politician with any real brains! Had intelligent thought been rubbed out by alien invaders in flying saucers who sprayed us all good with dumbass mist?
I mentioned to him that Democrats and Republicans are both charlatans who say one thing and do another. While picking our pockets. For instance, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Everett Dirksen were true conservatives. They believed in individual self-help, prudence in govt. spending, and conserving the resources (including the $ in our Treasury!)!! But along comes Reagan who ran on a true conservative platform of all of the above good stuff, and what does he do???? He advocates, stumps for, and gets Congress (out of fear of opposing such a popular president) to beef up the military by BORROWING AND SPENDING $3 Trillion dollars extra that got added to our National Debt (not to mention the compound interest we, you, and your children are paying and will continue to pay FOREVER). But praise the Lord, Reagan made us stronger as Americans. But not in the pocketbook.
Took my breath away, just to listen to such drivel. Reagan was my cousin’s hero. But how could that be? Reagan borrowed and spent more than all the Democrats in Congress and the White House that preceded him. How could you, I asked, support a president like Reagan who said he was conservative, but destroyed the National Treasury with trillions of dollars of new debt and massive interest that would linger until the end of time and affect the future of Americans for eons? Can’t we just do the math and forget already about the talking points?
My cousin worshiped Reagan as a conservative president who believed that we could borrow our way into prosperity and never have to pay the PIPER!!! His TV speeches made us feel good, he said, about borrowing money so we could bring the Evil Empire (Russia) to its knees! Look again. He did not hear me when I told him that Russia is still a military and economic power that hardly sneezed at our folly of borrowing and spending to neutralize them as a threat. Right now, he winced when I told him; the Ruskies have more oil than any country in the world. They are contracting with other countries (including China and many capitalist countries) to come get the oil, using our own machinery, technology, etc., while they sit back sipping Vodka! But facts are confusing. It disrupts the smooth flow of talking points, ya know?
Reagan even wanted to give away to the Russians our Star Wars ABM deterrent system, so what did he think of that? Bring them to their knees? By giving them our secrets??!! I told him that if Obama even suggested something like that he would be called a traitor by the GOP. Turd Blossum would have a blast doing his thing on that assignment. But Reagan was the great communicator. He meant well and restored our faith in god and country.
But, but, I went on. After Reagan’s folly of the Star Wars (SDI) System Geez. Some conservative. Well, the Star Wars (SDI) System was shut down and never completed, only after we spent several billion dollars (add that plus all the interest to our posterity’s well-being in the future) that we never will see again. About this time, I had to ask, hey, I thought borrowing and spending was a mark of the Big-Spending Democrats, so what gives? Under Reagan and his 8 years as president we borrowed and spent $3,000,000,000,000.00 that is still part of our present $15 Trillion dollar debt in 2012. And we were not at war. Except with Grenada! So what gives? Other than billions of dollars of talking points to defame and glorify candidates according to the side you are on? But my cousin droned on back to the talking points he began with. Do you love it?
GW Bush and his Cabinet said we needed to attack Iraq because they were in cahoots with Osama bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein had nukes pointed at American cities! Colin Powell spoke before the United Nations for legitimacy, to show the world......wait for it................artists’ drawings of proof of Saddam’s Weapons of Mass Destruction facilities and other forms of circumstantial evidence lame as a 3-legged goat. And we attacked Iraq! I never was for attacking Iraq, and now I and the rest of the world sees the awful results of what we did. Oh, and yeah, we brought freedom and democracy to Iraq, right? Yeah, right! We occupied Iraq for almost 9 years as Americans lost their lives in the combat service of their country to the tune of 4,484. A hundred thousand of our uniformed soldiers were severely wounded, and over 1.45 million Iraqis were killed.
By the time we attacked Iraq in early 2003 our National Debt was at:
6.7 Trillion Dollars!
9 years later in 2012 our National Debt is at:
$15.1 Trillion Dollars!
But one of the most popular talking points is about how Obama has bankrupted our Treasury! Holy Goebbels!
What happened? Did Obama and his financial advisors and Congress double our debt in his first term as president? No. First Grade arithmetic tells us how to add and subtract. Something else caused it, and those who are not interested in political talking points of the other side do not have to look at the long hard truth of what happened. Just repeat, regurgitate, repeat.
Next time in Part II we will meander further down the road of meaningless talking points paid for by billions of dollars from mindless people who think they are for the common good of all Americans. Except for those who know they are stealing from Uncle Sam and unnoticed by the millions of voters who have been eat up by the dumbass when it comes to the real numbers and the real facts.