July 14, 2008, Slip slidin' away
We're having quite a celebration of the 75th anniversary of some of the New Deal reforms that have finally, finally been dismantled after decades of fierce ideological battling (and money-grubbing... I speak of the Glass-Steagall Act's "wall" between investment banking and commercial banking and a separate package of savings & loans intended to engage in home loans...)... all of which have been effectively dismembered by denizens of both ideologically supportive Republicans and Democrats (yes, Joe Biden, I mean you) willing to sell out to the highest bidding banks and plutocrats as long as it meant campaign money and propped up local usurious business interests in places like Delaware... and so systemic redundancies meant to prevent repeat of the 1930's financial meltdowns have been dismantled in the interest of obscene profits of a few, resulting in... a possible repeat of 1930's style financial meltdowns...
Where was I going with this? Oh yes. It's 2008, and here in the United States of America, we are having bank runs. While I was thinking of writing a post I'm inclined to title "Mrs. Robinson" (you see, Michelle Obama's maiden name is Robinson, and Barack and she are all upset about that New Yorker cover), I kind of think Barack, slip slidin' away himself if the latest polling is believed, ought to be a little less concerned with trying to game things to preserve his own image (you see Barack f*cked up on the FISA thing... and the Iraq thing... and the gun thing... voters in a country with bank runs want someone who stands for decisive action, and not another triangulator... we could have picked Hillary for that...) and a hell of a lot more concerned with the handbasket that our country is rapid-fire going to hell in.
So get back on track, man, and show some God damned backbone: stand for something. Screw the New Yorker and their jack-jive cover... you've got to expect fifth columnists trying to subvert you from "our side"... as well as the other side... laugh it off. This seems to be how the game is played in 2008. You're no naif. You know this. Go back and re-read FDR's playbook from the early '30's if necessary, and stop trying to game this... those of us who desperately want to believe in you believe you are not only smart and ruthless enough to win, but decent enough to pay attention to the plight of the nation, and start showing us NOT that you are exactly the same as John McCain (only younger and cooler)... but that you are completely different from McCain, on the choices for the judiciary, on civil liberties (!), on the conduct of the war on terror (especially Iraq), on the economy, on taxes, on social programs, on the environment, etc., etc., etc.
Because if you don't... see that post title again, man.