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Snapshots of the Apocalypse

by Open-Publishing - Thursday 13 September 2007
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Parties USA US election 2008 Daveparts

Snapshots of the Apocalypse
By David Glenn Cox

Come gather round people were ever you roam and admit that the waters around you have grown and accept it that soon you’ll be drenched bone if your time to you is worth saving then you better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone for the times they are a changing. (Bob Dylan)

Sire, the people are revolting! “Yes, I know and they smell bad too.” Shhh, it’s a secret and the Republican Party hasn’t figured it out yet. They are way too busy trying to fly the Hindenburg party Zeppelin towards the 2008 landing mast. Many of them already have their eyes pinched tightly shut with their fingers in their ears waiting for the inevitable BANG!

Some Republican house and Senate members have announced already that they wouldn’t seek reelection. Choosing to keep the campaign funds and call it a day rather than run on the legacy of George Herbert Hoover Bush. The Iraq war, an economy in shambles, nine trillion in debt with a currency that’s lost half of its value against the Euro in five years. Now threatening Iran it is tantamount to lighting a cigar in the hydrogen gas envelope.

From the optimism that Carl Rove once spouted of a perpetual Republican dominance now the future looks bleak for them. Especially since as Homer Simpson put it President Coo Coo Bananas still has two years in office to go. Even Homer Simpson gets it, the Republicans fear it, but they don’t get it. Living by the dinosaur principle of the bigger you get the dumber you get they have now stumbled into La Brea tar pits of George of the bungle and only by having the Democrats to pull them out will they prevent total fossilization.

The Democrats have an opportunity before them that comes once in a lifetime not since 1932 has the party in power become so debased. Words fail me adjectives fall short, the Republicans have fumbled and dropped the ball and the Democrats are too timid to pick it up and run with it. They caucus and strategize, “Maybe we should pick it up and hand it back to them? Then people will see how nice we are!” The Democrats in Congress don’t get it either with average net worth’s between 30 and 600 million dollars the Democrats just don’t understand the problem either.

They live in the same neighborhoods and belong to the same clubs as the Republicans.
They attend the same functions as the Republicans and live the same lives as Republicans and the limo always take the highway to the airport. So how could they know? Until they get out of the car and talk to the people not the experts but to the people.

Chris Dodd Chairman of the Senate Banking committee wants to investigate brokers who sold sub prime mortgage securities as AAA rated and he’s mad as hell about it.
Two million families are going into the street this year with four members per family that’s eight million Americans! Ah, Chris you want to run for President? Worry about the people not the investment bankers. With a momma and a daddy in each foreclosed home that’s four million votes Bubba and you might pick up one or two more by giving a shit about the American people while you’re at it . It’s been done before but it takes something not found in the front runners of the scoliosis party, intestinal fortitude.

Traveling around prospecting for customers the other day I turned down a street like a thousand others that runs behind a shopping mall. With a hotel on each end of the street the road was vacant and every business on the street was closed. Like pictures from an apocalypse weeds grew in the once manicured properties. I wondered that if all the restaurants had closed how well could the hotels be doing? I’ve never seen anything like it this, this wasn’t a run down area these buildings were new and in a prosperous side of town.

I stopped at a store to return some items and as I approached the customer service desk I overheard the clerk tell the other clerk, “The federal government can kiss my ass! I don’t even want them to know I’m alive or where I live,” She was quite animated and I could tell this wasn’t just a passing opinion or casual feeling but passionate and sincere. I asked out of curiosity and to diffuse her anger, “What did the government do to you?”

She came out of the box a full gate with claws extended, “Those son of a bitches don’t care no more about working people than the man in the moon! George Bush and Dick Cheney got theirs and don’t give a shit about us!” I explained she’d get no argument out of me that I understood and that I agreed with her. I asked, “Did you know when JFK became President the minimum wage was $1.00 per hour and three years later it was $1.25 per hour an increase of 25% in three years.”

As she processed my transaction a supervisor appeared and hovered and she became quiet for a moment then she began again when the supervisor left. “We got people suffering, we got sick babies but can’t get no help and they sending billions to Iraq and lining their pockets as they go. God damn it! I’m sick of this, I’m ready for a revolution! You can call me what ever you want, a revolutionary a jihadist or a terrorist I just don’t give a shit no more.” I joked as I left saying “Viva La Revolution” but she wasn’t laughing and she wasn’t kidding.

I stopped to buy cat food at the grocery store, one of our cats had gotten sick from tainted cat food and has now become finicky eating only one flavor of one brand. Recently she would eat one can right up but the next can she would barely touch. I wondered if it might be the individual batches of cat food so I was hunting for an assortment. There was a woman standing in the cat food aisle when I got there and I asked, “Have you got a finicky one too?”

“No,” she answered, “I’m looking to see which one I’ve got a coupon for.”

I explained my situation and asked about a cat food with a Disney label on it. She shook her head disapprovingly “Even my dogs wouldn’t even eat it.”

“Now that’s saying something,” I answered.

“This whole cat food mess” she said, “What are they thinking up there in Washington?
We went through this whole product safety thing in this country a hundred years ago.
Why do we have to go through it again!”

I commented, “You mean maybe you can’t trust someone who works for $5.00 a day?”

“That’s another thing,” she said “Why the hell are we shipping all our jobs overseas? Why the hell are we buying wheat gluten from China? Is there a shortage of wheat gluten in America? I haven’t heard of one but now we have to worry about everything toys, cat food even our food and you know why don’t you? So someone up stairs can make a buck, they don’t give a crap about us.”

Both of these conversations took place in the space four hours in conservative Georgia with a stranger. Of course this is not a scientific poll but I’ve never run across such genuinely open public discontent and these people are not looking for George Bush light but for George Bush gone.

The Democrats want to triangulate and figure a way into the White House ignoring the obvious. The so-called front runners are as interchangeable as light bulbs, cardboard and plastic offering George Bush Light, more of the same with only half the George.
But the candidates don’t shop at discount houses and they don’t buy their own cat food and don’t prospect for customers so these things elude them. They read statistic’s and talk shop a corporate fundraisers and ask themselves, “What can I do to get more votes?”

Hillary’s answer is to be for everything, Edward’s platform is to be sincere and caring but admits we might have to nuke Iran and can’t guaranty Social Security anymore.
Obama’s is to be dignified and articulate and he’s both but he certainly isn’t going to do an about face and light the boilers to full steam ahead the other way from planet George Bush.

Seventy-Five years ago Franklin Roosevelt stepped up to save Capitalism. A rich man himself he was pilloried as a traitor to his class but he was the salvation of his class. In 1932 the Communist party in America was the fastest growing party in the country. Food riots had broken out in major cities, town’s people cheered for bank robbers and hid them from police. Pretty boy Floyd robbed banks and gave money to food kitchens and the people began to see criminals as heroes and the government and it’s institutions as the thieves. Could Roosevelt have been elected on a platform of Herbert Hoover light?

Political turmoil and parties without a passionate support of the people when mixed with economic upheaval makes for a dangerous stew. Roosevelt understood this, that a nation of poor would destroy the rich and the whole concept of “The New Deal” was meant to convey the message that yes, things as they stand now are not fair. Your lousy hand of cards could be discarded and we would start again. Can we eliminate this bitter broth we are stewing by saying, “Well at least I’m not George Bush but otherwise we are the same?”

I’m fifty-one years old my entire adult life I have been politically to the left of everyone I’ve known. I’m proud of it, I’m a liberal, not a progressive I’m a Harry Truman, Hubert Humphrey and Robert F. Kennedy liberal and I’m to the left of them as well. I’m a Social Democrat I have no problem with socialism, seems to work all right for the military and for our churches and Jesus Christ favored it in his ministry. But when store clerks begin to talk to strangers openly of revolution I fear the path that we are on, that a brush fire or tsunami of events could leave me a centrist and both political parties as wreckage.

The path for the Democrats is obvious if they are dignified and sincere and want to help everyone. But they have wandered so far from it they are disoriented so here’s a clue,

“I wonder how many times you have to be hit on the head before you find out who’s hitting you? These Republican gluttons of privilege are cold men. They are cunning men… They want the return of the Wall Street economic dictatorship.”

“ I’m not asking you to vote for me, Vote for yourself,”

“Something happens to Republicans when they get control of the government… Republicans in Washington have a habit of becoming curiously deaf to the voice of the people. They have a hard time hearing what the ordinary people of the country are saying. But they have no trouble at all hearing what Wall Street is saying. They are able to catch the slightest whisper from big business and special interest.”

“You don’t get any double talk from me, I’m either for something or against it, and you know it.

Give ‘em Hell, Harry! “I just tell the truth and they think its hell!”

Then mean it!

Forum posts

  • Dave, I’m neither a Democrat or a Republican, neither especially "liberal" or "conservative" neither really on the so called "left" or the so called "right". In fact I can’t say anymore exactly what these labels mean as IMO BOTH of these crowds simply seem to have their own favorite ELITIST charity to syphon MY hard earned money to, and that charity isn’t ME or mine. On the one hand I believe in gun rights, small minimal cost effctive government, and letting localities decide things for themselves, things that USED to be associated with the so called "right", but I also believe in privacy rights, the right of control of our own bodies, and that prohibition is causing much more damage than it is preventing, things typically associated with the so called ’left’.

    And as I scan the politcal horizon the ONLY candidate I see that seems to fit this bill is the honorable Dr. Ron Paul. So perhaps I best fit the "moderate Libertarian" camp. While obviously there is a role for government to keep us from killing and poisoning and defrauding or neighbors I would much like to see government get the hell OUT of our lives it most always seems to cause more problems than it solves. Every good intention whether from the Dem or Rep camp seems to get hijacked by ELITISTS that work only to turn the plan into a way to enrich themselves and their cronies and ENSLAVE all or the rest of us into a system that promotes unhealthy, monotonous, dumbed down, non spiritual, debased, animalistic, existances where one only lives to produce and consume to generate profit for others that live like parasites from our labor. And that is true for BOTH many on the so called ’left’ and the so called ’right’.

    Nobody that I can see in positions of ’leadership’ at the national level seems to ever be able to come up with original creative problem solving thoughts and that seems to be true whether one is a "Clinton" OR a "Bush". I will concede IMO the damage to this country that this current administration has done to Liberty is enormous, and their lust for blood and treasure seems insatiable. But is there anyone running now that is not under the thumb of The Elitists (except Dr. Paul possibly) that DOESN’T want MORE of a Big Brother 24/7 surveilance society monitoring and making every decision for each citizen treating them like a herd of ear tagged livestock bound only for the slaughter house? Tell me is there ANYONE out there that REALLY loves and promotes our GREATEST gift.... FREEDOM, and the ability to rise or fall on our OWN merit?