Happy Veteran's Day or if you lived in the first half of the Twentieth century Armistice Day.
So the big military news is that the bestest general ever got caught with his pants down and had to quit his new job at the CIA. Apparently Lincoln's advice to McClellan is wrong. Generals no longer have to win wars or even battles to set themselves up as dictators. Or at least to be considered by all the serious people as the next candidate for the top spot.
I no longer comment on people's Facebook posts when they tell me that I need to thank a soldier for my freedoms. The reason being that they may have a family member who is a soldier. Probably a higher percentage around here then nationally. At least more then the Romneys who apparently are too busy with other matters like converting the heathens in Paris, I guess.
The point is that since the end of World War II, all those of us who served in the military have been are the muscle (as General Butler said in an earlier time) for our neo-colonialist corporate empire. That's it. Kind of sad really,
Ah, yes so the candidate I voted for for president (the socialist who some how managed to get on the ballot in Ohio) got less then 1% of the vote, which in a manner of speaking makes me part of a (not THE) 1 %. Fewer votes even then the Green candidate. Not that I expected that he would get many, but although I live in a "battle ground" state I could simply not bring myself to vote for one of the two corporate candidates.
So Obama won and we are now hoping against hope that Boehner prevents a "grand bargain" during the lame duck session of congress (although I'm not sure who will be able to do so in the new congress). Lucky us. I have waited a couple of days to post this, but Greenwald came out with his the day after the election. Unfortunately, I think that he is probably correct. We will of course be told by the usual suspects that whatever way we are sold out, it is all Obama and the democrats can possibly do, and also to when we voted for him we knew that he wasn't liberal or progressive, but rather a centrist, so I guess we shouldn't be shocked[?], disappointed[?], disgusted[?], or whatever.
One of the fascinating things for me is the reaction of the conservative/reactionary/christian base to the loss by Romney. It is amazing. Because my wife is a christian of the Beatitudestype she seems to have more Facebook friends who are shall we say of the crazy persuasion then I do and she has been reading me their hysterical take on this election. It is essentially "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me," or alternatively we forsaken God our traditions and christian beliefs to follow the Kenyan socialist with some variations on that. TBogg, I must admit, is fun when he deals with that sort of thing.
I simply cannot understand the incredible hatred of Obama by people who claim he is a socialist or communist Muslim who wants to introduce the homosexual agenda with Sharia law followed up with a socialist (by which I think they mean communist) program. I do understand that there is some racism involved, but then that doesn't explain why most of these people held the same beliefs concerning Clinton. If anything, Obama has it a little easier then Clinton. Neither Obama nor his wife have been accused of having a kill list of their enemies (well excepting those who happen to be poor brown people
living in various third world countries), of loading cocaine on planes in small air fields in third world states in the U.S. and having their gay lovers killed (or do I repeat myself?).
Nor do I understand the willingness of the very wealthy to spend massive amounts of money on defeating Obama, unless it is as Counterpunch suggests some sort of strange convoluted double reverse incredibly long game.
What Obama is is a "moderate" democrat which means he is conservative, which means he is to the right of both Eisenhower and Nixon and the first Bush and not much if at all to the left of Reagan. He joins a long line of democratic presidents that includes Cleveland and Carter and Clinton who really aren't all that into unions or working people. They just don't consider them totally sub human. So why is he hated with such a white hot intense hatred?
The simple answer for the very wealthy is that they always want MORE, without a lot of consideration as to where that will leave things for even their own great grand children. I generally do not like those kind of basic simple explanations, but I really have no other. Perhaps there is the added thought by the very wealthy that this time they and their descendants will make sure that the riff raff do not push them off their piles of money. Not this time. This time it will be different. And since it is only rarely that they get over thrown: think France once and Russia once; they are playing the odds.
But where do the rest come from? I've taken to suggesting that people actually look up the definitions of communism and socialism in even a cheap dictionary, but that doesn't seem to help. There is the old joke that half of us all are below average in intelligence, or the mandatory Blazing Saddles reference. Still?
To reiterate there isn't much difference between the two so why the intense hatred? Why the huge amounts of money invested? Interesting questions Guy? Why don't you provide some answers.
