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are we finally clear on this???
most of the comments I read on election blog posts read like just another partisan slugfest.
There's a week to go-so let's clear the air folks, okay? This ain't rocket science.
Gov. Palin has adequately demonstrated two things: 1 she's in no way qualified to lead this country should that become necessary. 2. She (like most of us, I might add) has her own interests as her priority.
As for Senator McCain, have a look at this first:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c
Okay. So much for part one of the equation. But, in addition to all of THAT, Senator McCain has now demonstrated that he is no longer the McCain we thought he was these many years.
In his present form, he is clearly not fit to lead our country (and, by his own admission of the 'things' he's not well-versed in!). His campaign reached new lows in trading in outright lies and hate. Electing the man who can say "I'm John McCain and I approve these lies and tactics" would clearly be a tragic error. How on Earth could we ever expect him to tell US the truth? Or act in our best interests?
Merely saying all campaigns are dirty in order to rationalize such abhorrent behaviour and lack of integrity will NOT cut it this time. It's gone too far and, there's too much at stake.
As such, sad as that may be to some, we only have one sane/safe choice. And Senator McCain himself has already made that choice for us with his childish behaviour and sordid campaign.
THE WILD RIDE AHEAD - WITHOUT PRECEDENT, WITHOUT REASON, WITHOUT HOPE?
Well, we may really have gone and done it this time folks. For all of the turgid talk and frantic-frenetic action, it's lookin' more and more like we're starin' down the barrel of a brand new financial paradigm.
And we ain't gonna like it.
As Boris Badenov (and yes; I'm gonna recycle this metaphor even though I just referenced it in my previous post) used to always exclaim a mere nanosecond before the black bomb sphere with the sputtering fuse (that he always seemed to be holding at the wrong time), blew up in his face:
"HOOOO BOYYY!!!"
David Leonhardt's Oct. 7th NY Times blog column titled " Ignoring Reality Has A Price" quoted some interesting (and, somewhat terrifying) figures from the mouth of Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke himself. In perspective, it seems that Mr. Bernanke's statement that it's "a problem of historic proportions" is a woefully huge understatement.
Ben's "scorecard" tally:
30 billion $ to Bear Stearns
85 billion $ for A.I.G.
"Hundreds of billions, here and there, lent to various banks"
So far, chairman B says, we've dumped in about $800 billion. But wait.
He also notes that this does not yet include "the untold sum that the Fed now plans to spend buying short-term debt so that companies can continue to pay for their daily operations". And it doesn’t include any of the money the Treasury Department is laying out, like the $700 billion "bailout" fund or, the $200 billion that will be spent propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, oh yeah.. there's still that little problem of givin' the US automakers a bunch more billions to "save" them.
Anyway. he then goes on to refer to this as putting "serious money on the line". Geez, Ben - ya think? Total those and you're up to about 70% or so of our current annual budget of $3 trillion.
You and I might state this a bit, um, differently. That's right folks...pardon my French but: we're fucked. We've got a huge deficit to begin with. We've got a huge trade deficit with the world marketplace. We've got a perky but pesky little war that still costs us 10 billion bucks a month or so. The stock market is worth little more than half of what it was a mere couple weeks ago.
But don't worry, the Fed and a number of other central banks around the world announced last night that they're cuttin' interest rates and planning what they call "cash injections". But then, "OOOPS! SHIT!! DANG!!".Today's stock market apparently didn't seem to be reassured... it tanked yet again.
Okay.. so let's see... we're gonna double our annual budget to maybe prop up the world financial market a bit (or, who the Hell knows, maybe not). Other than that, we don't actually have a real understanding let alone a viable, doable 'plan'.
So, I'm'a wonderizin'... Shouldn't we be just a teensy bit concerned that we actually don't have anywhere near that kind of money to begin with? Is anyone (including our next President and his weenie and waning competitor) willing to speculate on just what else that all might cost us? If they are, I sure the heck haven't heard it.
In my newest role here as amateur bigmouth dipshit pandit/pundit, allow me to make a prognostication. All of the scrambling and wailing and hand-wringing so far is NOTHING compared to the "SPLAT" we're gonna hear in the week after the election's finally over when we hear the resounding and sickening dull thuds of how things are really hitting the fan. Hard to imagine that the horrific things we're hearing daily today are actually whitewashing and 'soft-pedaling' just how dire things really are.
Sadly though, odds are, we're still far from seeing the big picture/real impact. And it's likely to be far uglier than any of us can dare to imagine at this particular moment.
And, just for the record, I genuinely hope I'm wrong about that. I am, after all, just an ignorant bystander...
Meanwhile, I guess we wait and see.... Don't worry too much though; your family really doesn't need all those groceries. Think of how glorious all that leisure time will be when your job disappears, all the hobbies you can finally have! And your retirement fund/pension/401K/etc. was really just 'fun money', right?
Don't you think? Or don't you?
(addendum to this post, added Oct. 10, '08)
so... let's see - today the Wall Street "Wheel-of-Fortune-Doom-&-Disaster-Rodeo-Doodah-Ride" took yet another huge & surreal plunge. I shouldn't need to say this but I will anyway. First, let us remember who set the stage for this "horrification continuum" in recent years. OK. But now let us consider that even after all this malarkey that nearly half of the electorate are still considering actually voting for the perpetrators' (perpetraitors?) party's candidate. It could well be that no one person or party has the ability to lead us out of such a mess.
Nevertheless, "regime change" is our ONLY option bearing ANY hope. You know what to do.... so now, let's make sure we do our best to let everyone else in on it too.Ya wanna see even the slightest glimmer of hope? It's simple AND obvious as all get out - we need a landslide in the election. A close race would be both an insult AND a tragedy - if we screw that up, just how the Hell many more chances do ya think we're gonna get?
FROM THE ARCHIVES
(an excerpt from Admiral Pluto Krozabeeep's 2002 "State of the Kosmos" address...)
"All we really have, when it comes right down to it, is our integrity, our compassion, and our capacity to love each other. While we're continually presented with many tempting teachings, numerous poignant lessons, buckets n'barrels of cataclysmic calls for change, and the lure of many fragrant paths to help us understand this, it's something we already know internally and wholly instinctually. Reallynoshitreally.
Our ability to grasp any of this intellectually is secondary at best, in fact almost superficial or, in any case, beside the point . Sometimes, some of us ask angels to sweep down to our sides to assist the process... sometimes we pray... Or we begin yet another spiritual vision-quest-rodeo-doodah fest... An' sometimes, we just throw up our hands and go "huh?".
In any event, we're really just asking ourselves to do what is needed. Yet, somehow, by externally morphing these manifestations into various sundry hoodoo-holographic quasi-deified pantheistic polyglots o' exogenarian ectoplasmicplastic divinelight fat-free party favors, we feel the comfort of aid and can accept it because we asked for it and it arrived. And, yeah, often even, the help really does come.
Yet if we were to believe this was actually coming from within ourselves, we'd likely be unable to accept its veracity nor would we have the wherewithal to ask for it in the first place. As Boris Badenov used t'say, just a nanosecond before the sphericaloid black bomb he was holding in his hand always blew up in his face: "HOOO - BOYYY!!!"
And then there's this; just as we must be self-responsible for all that transpires in our lives, the good and the bad, we must also remain mindful that others may not always be doing the same at the same time we are. We're not all of us always on the same page at the same time, y'know. So be it I guess. "HOOO - BOYYY!!!" Again (and indeed!) And, for that matter, "So what?" we might say again.
Okay, since ya's asked, I'll tellyas what... we still gotta do it anyway. Acceptin' resonsibility fer our own stuff is in our job description as practicin' human beans. It's how we grow; the means by which we transcend the challenges that always present themselves and by which we try our resolve to live better in the first place. It ain't rocket science. It ain't quantum physics (Oops... actually it is quantum physics, now that I think about it!!). Be that as it may, our toolboxes already got what we need in 'em, but, as we know only too well, sometimes our tools get scattered, misplaced, or sometimes left out in the rain t'rust. It might be good to remember that now n'again.
Anyway, before ya think old Krozabeeep's goin' soft in his senile dementia, oh, heck, never mind...maybe I am. Or not! Guess I'll haveta leave ya's guessin' on THAT one. For now, anyway. Stay tuned n'pruned fer my next outburst t'see..."
