LEAVE IT TO PEEVER

 

Say Goodbye, George

 

-Bumper sticker of the week: Even a dead fish can go with the flow.

 

-Quote of the week: “Reducing our carbon footprint is no different than going to a doctor and learning your cholesterol is too high, and you’re at risk for a heart attack. You have to work to lower your cholesterol and hope to get there before the heart attack comes.”  Bill McKibbon

 

-The banking and auto and credit card and mortgage companies, along with just about everyone who caused this financial crisis, are lining up and shouting out in unison: “Keep those bucks coming. Too much is not enough.” And we blindly keep tossing them our tax dollars, all the while sinking further and further into our own financial despair. I wonder who’s going to bail us out?

 

-Proposition 8 was passed this last election banning same-sex marriages in California. (It was subsequently struck down by the California Supreme Court). This was a proposition I never  quite understood. I’m guessing most people don’t like the thought of same-sex sex. The best way to stop same-sex sex is to let them get married.

 

-Say goodbye, George: We have just been relieved of one of the worst nightmares ever inflicted on the United States-George W. Bush. It’s hard to put into words how delighted I am. Our lose is Texas gain, and they deserve it. He will be described by most as the worst President we have ever had in our history. I would claim that doesn’t begin to describe the incompetence he displayed. Here are but a few of the disasters he is leaving us with:

     * We have wars going on in Afghanistan and Iraq that we cannot win. Bush clearly lied and deceived us concerning his reasons to attack Iraq. He will best be remembered for this, and will more than likely be tried as a war criminal before it is all over. I vividly remember him landing on that aircraft carrier, playing soldier, declaring “Mission Accomplished,” that we had won the Iraqi War quickly and decisively. What a joke!

     * Our economy has tanked so badly that we have forgotten about number one. As both wars near a total cost of nearly one trillion dollars, and the death toll of our soldiers at a combined total of about 4863, with tens of thousands injured, we are preoccupied with our own misery here at home, as though the spending of a trillion dollars on war has nothing to do with the current state of our economy. We are experiencing a massive dose of greed, the crowning glory of a free market, non-regulated economic system, commonly called capitalism. We get no truthful, in-depth look at what has happened, only placebo, surface pronouncements that we are a little out of wack, and everything will be alright if we just prop up the very people who caused the crisis in the first place with as much bailout money as we can possibly print. About the only business doing well in America is the money printing industry. Bush has them booming and the national debt soaring, and us left with the bill.

     * Let’s see, the environment is in shambles, thanks to complete negligence on the part of the Bush administration; our liberties have been stomped on, a result of 9/11 and its gross mismanagement; torture has once again reared its ugly head; prisoners have been held for years without due process or any formal charges; we are despised around the world; terrorist groups have flourished, multiplying tenfold; we have a right-wing Supreme Court; our health-care system is a disaster; unemployment is sky-high; repossessed homes stand at 850,000 for 2008; bankruptcies are at unprecedented levels; and it seems no one can find the constitution in Washington. Someone has reportedly stolen it. Guess who?

So if one were to ask me what I think about Jan. 20, I think it was a day of Independence  more important than the first one. I think it was a day of celebration, one where I cheered and hollered and had a drink or two in honor of our independence from injustice, cruelty, lying, secrecy, torture, and just plain and simple gross stupidity demonstrated by Bush and his cohorts. When you boil it all down, at the very least, a President ought to be able to at least speak in coherent sentences. We have such a President now. Some folks are mistaking elitist for intelligence, mainly because they don’t have any of either.