On The Verge

When George W. Bush was President, there was a while there when I very seriously wondered whether he would step down when his final term was up. Maybe it had to do with that remark he made, "....just as long as I'm the dictator". Maybe it had to do with the first time in my memory, a man being installed as US President who did not win an election or get there through any legitimate means. (Gerald Ford was never elected either but got there through normal means in an unusual situation.) There was some relief when I did not see tanks in the streets as Obama prepared to take office.

I either did not know yet, or had forgotten, that who sits in the Oval Office has no more bearing on the nation's policies than who will replace Katie as anchor at CBS. Democrat or Republican have been the only "choices" allowed since Millard Fillmore in 1850. Not even if you have your own billions to spend on a campaign can you be elected if you are not Dem or Pub. The Agenda rolls along, unfazed, either way. I don't know whether Obama was part of the plan from the start or whether he was just naive. Perhaps he didn't know either until he was actually elected and then given his orders.

In any case he now seems fully on board with the Agenda. He finds reasons why he has not closed Gitmo. Finds reasons why he cannot fully and unequivocally support the LGBT community. Finds reasons why he must (at least claim to) spend time with the Big Daddy in the Sky - on his Blackberry, even. Now he says he cannot guarantee that the eighty plus million checks that the government is supposed to send out next month for SS, disability, etc., will be sent. There might not be enough "money in the coffers". Imagine tens of millions of Americans having ZERO money for food, rent, etc. If this happens do you really think it will be very long before there ARE tanks in the streets here (never fear, there is always abundant "money in the coffers" for that kind of thing).

How long until some of the poor start to push back? How long until some of "our service men and women" who are "keeping America safe" from horribly threatening military powers like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, Libya, etc., are also called to "maintain order" in American streets? Can't have starving people raise a ruckus, now can we? Why, that would be unseemly. Just die quietly and all will be well. It's going in in small scales now. In Florida you can be arrested for feeding homeless people.

Much of the state of Minnesota is officially shut down. The latest "official" national unemployment rate just went up to 9.2%. Of course, most of us know the REAL unemployment rate is far higher than that, some saying it is well over 20%. Luckily, many of our corporations are stepping up and saying the unemployed need not apply. Wait...what?

The "debt ceiling" is now being hailed as the huge CRISES in Washington. There may well be a crises for many millions of Americans if this "ceiling" is not raised. Raising it is not a big deal. Not raising it could result in civil war. The debt ceiling has been raised over 70 times since JFK. Republicans raised it SEVEN TIMES just while Dubya was president. They actually might not this time because they, in particular, seem hell bent on driving our country literally into the ground. Read more at Mother Jones.

If you are on a "fixed" income, or Food Stamps or Welfare or any such program, that rumbling noise you hear may be your stomach growling...for now. When it gets very loud it may be tracks on pavement. That rhythmic sound you hear may be your heartbeat...for now. When it gets much louder, it may be the sound of thousands of boots marching in unison. Perhaps it is nearing a time when all Americans will be reminded, again, that without the Second Amendment, the First, indeed all the others, are meaningless puffs of air.

STOP! Children, what's that sound....Everybody look what's going down.

TRB