The Guns of August

Is a great book by Barbara Tuchman, explaining in detail August 1914, the beginning of WWI, and how that war was almost lost before it really began.

The term also describes the perilous American political quagmire, which has become so dirty and ineffective that Democrats and Republicans might as well be shooting at each other.

What has happened to create this gridlock? Are we, the American, people really dumb enough to elect people who cannot or will not compromise? Or, are the people we elect, really dumb enough to think that by refusing to make our country better, they can serve their own interests and the interests of their political party?

Fortunately for America, it's the latter. While we've made some bad choices, the people we've granted power have absolutely refused to wield it responsibly. It was once possible - I've heard - to disagree amicably, cooperate, and compromise. I've seen flashes of it: Democrats incorporating Republican ideas into the new health care law and Republicans crossing the aisle on important issues like alternative energy. Unfortunately, those were just flashes. What we're left with is a paralyzed system in which those who refuse to do what is best for our country are rewarded, and yes, I'm talking about the Republican party.

The unfortunate reality is that the Republican party - and I'm lumping them all together though there are notable exceptions - just doesn't care about America. Their refusal to act legislatively is no less an example of it than the "ideas" that too many of them champion.

Among these ideas you will find: Profiling Hispanics; Undoing the 14th Amendment; Refusing to aid unemployed Americans (simultaneously refusing to create demand in an economy in which there is not enough demand); and, of course, railing about a budget deficit that they created with an unnecessary war in Iraq and tax cuts that they now want (hypocritically) to extend.

When asked what they would do to improve America, especially the economy, Republicans offer tried and true ideas like, "not raising taxes." It's true that Republicans won't raise your taxes (especially if you're filthy rich), but they will take the unprecedented step of trying to fund two wars while cutting taxes. The end result of this "idea" is nine years worth of fighting in two countries and a surplus turned deficit.

Another great idea being championed by Republicans is the repeal of the new health care law. Many seem to have laid off this lately since they realize that the law - which is full of Republican suggestions (and good ones at that!) - is helping the American people. But still, John Boehner and his ilk - whose primary goal seems to be ruining our great country - still talk about repealing "Obamacare," as though that would somehow benefit America.

Armed with these lies, and in near lockstep unison, the Republican Party has waged war against America. So far, they've been mildly successful, preventing Democrats from doing what is best for America, while simultaneously making themselves appear good because Democrats can't get anything done. It's a strategy that could hurt America and Americans, but it's helping Republicans, so to hell with the rest of us.

Democrats, for their part, are, as usual, cowering under the pile of crap that Republican fear-mongering has heaped upon them. If I could donate one thing to the Democratic Party, it would be a shovel to help them dig out of the BS that Republicans have been spewing. While Republicans come out guns blazing, Democrats fire back gingerly, often afraid, it seems, to poke their head out of the trenches. The people with the ideas to put America back on track are being bullied by the hypocrites who I wouldn't trust to pet sit my goldfish. These are the people who have, in the last decade: turned a surplus into a deficit; lied about a war in Iraq that has cost hundred of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives; and fought tooth and nail to prevent a money-saving health care law that extends benefits to millions of Americans from being passed.

And yet, in November, we may very well declare that we want to give Republicans another shot. Yes, that's right John Boehner, I left you with my goldfish for the weekend while I was out of town, and you not only managed to kill it, but you dumped the fish tank water on my pillow, shattered the empty tank on my bathroom floor, and rubbed the dead fish all over the food in my refrigerator, but I'm leaving town next month too, and I'd like you to watch my new fish.

WHAT ARE WE THINKING?

The good news is that in August 1914, the Allies stemmed the German advance and stopped the Germans from capturing Paris. August is nearly over, but maybe the Democrats will figure things out in September and start firing back; there's still time to fight the lies and reverse the trend. Because if the gridlock remains and the paralysis gets worse then we'll be peering over the tops of our trenches just like Europe was in 1914, and that's not what anyone wants. Unless, of course, it makes them look good politically.

What's in a Mosque?

From what I know, the inside of a mosque may have an imam, and probably Muslims worshipping. I think the artistry is ornate, but in a geometric manner, rather than like a cathedral.

The truth is, I don't really know what's inside a mosque. But I do know that in America, mosques are allowed, even if they're built in unpopular places. A lot of people are very frustrated, even angry, that a mosque is being built near Ground Zero in New York. I live in New York now, and I hear about it all the time.

Many people think it's insensitive of the mosque's builders to place it so close to Ground Zero. And it makes sense that people may feel that way. But it's an attitude based mainly on fear and ignorance. Muslims were responsible for the worst terrorist attack in history, and the worst attack ever carried out on American soil. Those people were and are reprehensible, and America is, and must continue to do everything in our power to combat them.

The problem is, those Muslims represent a VAST MINORITY of the world's Muslims. There are after all, a billion Muslims in the world. If all of them were out to get us...well that would be a much bigger problem. It's important for Americans to understand the differences between different types of Muslims. After all, if Southern Baptists started committing atrocities, we wouldn't blame or fear German Lutherans. Those two groups of people are different.

We need to keep that in mind when we talk about the mosque. Perhaps there are better locations. There very well may be, but at the same time, maybe this mosque isn't about insulting our American sensitivities, perhaps it's about healing. Given that most of the world's Muslims are not terrorists who are actively seeking to destroy our country, maybe those building the mosque are trying to promote peace. Maybe they want to show us that Islam can be a religion of peace as well as a religion of hatred. Maybe the site near Ground Zero is symbolic because it represents the blending of two cultures rather than a slap to America's face. Maybe Osama Bin Laden's "America is at war with Islam" recruiting line won't go over so well if there's a mosque next to Ground Zero.

Maybe. But I don't know. I don't know what's in a mosque.

Picking the right Path

It's probably silly to say that America is facing a do or die moment in our history. In the past, we've faced numerous problems and dangers, and every time we've overcome them. This is America, a country of doers. We are faced with problems, and we solve them.

Today, America is faced with many problems, and although there may be many solutions, there are really only two paths for our country: moving forward or staying in place.

The last decade wasn't the brightest in our great country's great history. We suffered the worst terrorist attack in history; engaged in two costly wars when we should have only been fighting one; turned a budget surplus into a deficit; and saw failed economic policies lead us into the worst financial crisis we've faced since the Great Depression. Oh yes, and we suffered the world's worst environmental disaster.

But this is America, and none of these things are going to stop us...if we make the right choices about our future. And although I don't think America is on the precipice of oblivion, I do think we are in danger of making choices that will leave us rooted firmly in the present, which, of course, will soon be the past.

Perhaps America's present course isn't perfect, but then again, what is? And if the present course isn't perfect then the alternative being proffered by some is downright terrifying. If we think the current recession is bad, imagine what will happen if we fail to start producing and investing in alternative energy. When coal and oil become the energies of the past, we'll still be addicted to them, and producing outdated equipment. When other countries are opening their doors to the best and brightest people from all over the world, we'll be throwing Mexicans out of Arizona, that is if people still believe that America is a beacon of freedom after we refuse to allow Muslims to build a mosque because it offends us. When other countries are investing in their infrastructure we will still be cutting teaching jobs because we want to control a deficit problem created by two wars and simultaneous tax cuts.

This is only one vision of America's future, and it's not the one I believe will happen. On the contrary, I believe we will get our act together and take the steps to prepare America for the future, instead of keeping us rooted firmly in the 2010.

Let's make America better today and make the tough choices that will put us on the road to a beautiful and bright future. Let's elect the people who will make those choices, and let's give them the opportunity to make a real difference. After all, Rome wasn't built in a day.

WWAGD?

What would Alan Greenspan do?

Alan Greenspan, an unabashedly open Republican, would repeal all of the Bush tax cuts. While GOP politicians call for extending the tax cuts that would cost American hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars over the next decade, Alan Greenspan says maybe that's not the best idea.

Greenspan thinks it's important to repeal the taxes because of the deficit. It's eerie how many smart people are obsessed with deficit, but Greenspan still has a point. The government does need that money to supply basic services, the kind that we're currently lacking. State governments are literally so broke that they're turning off street lights, but the GOP (goofy old people) doesn't want to repeal tax cuts that are costing us billions.

Now, to be fair - because I'm all about fair - raising taxes might hurt the economic recovery - if that's what is happening. The economy eats money, and we need money so we can spend money. That's kind of how the whole thing works. So perhaps raising taxes everyone isn't the best idea. But there's something amusingly ironic about about a bunch of people running around screaming deficit who don't want to take the obvious first step towards fixing said deficit. Actually, it's not amusing. It's scary, because the future of our country is at stake, and a bunch of goofy old people don't want to make things better.

Oh boy Boehner!

Remember when I explained how John Boehner hates America? Well let me explain how John Boehner "protector of the Constitution" is trying to undermine it. I could also have entitled this post "Why Lindsey Graham is (sort of) a jerk," because, despite his fortitude on issues like alternative energy, Lindsey Graham is a jerk on the topic of immigration.

Together, these two men are attempting to get rid of the the 14th amendment. That's right, the noble Constitutional defenders are attempting to dismantle the Constitution. The 14th amendment was passed after the Civil War in order to make former slaves citizens. Yes, Lindsey Graham and John "I model myself after Ken doll" Boehner are actually trying undo the amendment that made former slaves citizens.

Why you may ask? Well partially because they think they can benefit politically by advocating xenophobia and narrow-mindedness. It's sad that America has reached a point where Graham and Boehner might be right. But apparently, that's how low our great country has sunk.

Boehner and Graham postulate that immigrants (read: Mexicans) are running across the border to have children. Yes, illegal immigrants have children when they get here. No, pregnant Mexican women don't make the arduous trek across the border at 8 months to make sure their child in born on American soil, and, most importantly, Mexican immigrants are not invading our country with their newborns.

There are a few things to keep in mind here. First of all, the citizen children of illegal immigrants can't sponsor their parents for citizenship until they're 21. Maybe these illegals are good long-term investors, but it's a little far-fetched to think that they're looking 21 years into the future. Still, even if we think that all Mexican immigrants are running into Arizona just to make babies, we must still remember that people born in America are, according to the Constitution, American citizens.

Apparently, Conservatives like to pick and choose their amendments. The 2nd amendment, protects the right to "keep and bear arms." To the right, this means, assault rifles, although any mention of the types of arms is noticeably absent. Yet, the 14th amendment, which states that "all persons born and naturalized in the United States...are citizens of the United States."

That seems pretty straightforward to me. But if you're Lindsey Graham, and that awful excuse for a politician John Boehner, then apparently it's ok for you to choose which amendments you like, and which you don't.

It's a travesty that people on the right have chosen to embrace the amendment that allows people to own assault weapons, and reject the amendments that grant people basic human rights, but that's what it means to be a Republican in America today.

In fairness to Republicans, that's not entirely true. Many notable Republicans, including aides to former President Bush, and his scummy veep Dick Cheney (I have very little good to say about that chump) have come out and publicly condemned the movement by Boehner to strip Americans of their rights. Those aides have pointed out, correctly, that the 14th amendment is party of the legacy of the Republican Party. Back when Republicans cared about helping their fellow human beings, and Democrats were racist, Republicans did some notable and good things for our society. If only the Republican party now could remember and embrace the good that their party did 150 years ago instead of fear and xenophobia. This country was made great by the people who came here looking for a better life; we'd do well to remember that.

Feeling good about myself

Because Paul Krugman has a Nobel Prize and I don't, but yesterday, I beat Mr. Krugman to the punch. On Thursday I chose to pick on wascally wepublican Paul Ryan, a man whose math or integrity is being called into serious question. Mr. Krugman is taking it a step further.

Apparently, Paul Ryan has some folks fooled. His latest attempt to grapple with mathematics (check out my last post to see how accurate his previous attempt was) has produced a budget plan that would cut taxes and spending. It sounds nice...but it isn't.

According to Krugman, Ryan's plan to cut taxes means what it always means when Republicans talk about cutting taxes, rich people wouldn't pay as much. Everyone else, however (95% of us) would pay more. How you can finagle raising taxes on 95% of the population into "tax cuts" is beyond my reasoning skills, just as mathematics is beyond Paul Ryan.

It's true, that Ryan's plan to cut spending would lower the deficit, but all of that would be immediately offset by the loss of revenue from his tax cuts on the wealthy, leaving America with a projected deficit in 2020 that is exactly the same as what it is currently projected to be. In other words, Paul Ryan's plan calls for America to stop spending money, and still somehow not manage to save any money. THAT is impressive.

What many people perhaps forget about when they get scared by the big bad deficit monster, is that Big Brother (as my friends on the right like to call him) gets his money from us via taxes. Big Brother then spends this money on things we may or may not want. Sometimes, Big Brother spends unwisely - war in Iraq, a welfare system that's leakier than a sieve, aid money to Pakistan that ends up buying bombs that kill Marines, and brand new fighter jets that can run circles around those pesky Soviet MiGs. Sometimes, though, Big Brother is smarter with his money - Medicare, Social Security and (smart) education spending. Either way, Big Brother needs our money to operate. We can disagree on what Big Brother spends his money on, but even if your fiercely advocating for those new MiG busting planes, you acknowledge that Big Brother needs some dough.

Which is why Paul Ryan's plan is asinine, because he wants to deprive the government of 4 trillion dollar dollar bills over the next decade. Repeat, 4 trillion monies. That's a lot of monies that Paul Ryan wants Uncle Sam not to have. So tax cuts aren't really going to solve the deficit problem, unless of course you believe in Reaganomics, but intelligent folks stopped believing in Reaganomics when it proved to be a huge failure...while Reagan was president. Maybe Paul Ryan still believes in that, because he's 0 for 2 in the "figuring out how America's deficit works" department.

Let me reiterate my call for an understanding of these issues - the economy and the deficit. They're linked, but separate. We can fix one and watch the other work itself out, or we can focus on the wrong one and make the other worse. Some people may think we can fix the deficit and make the economy strong again, and perhaps so, we'll ask the Irish.

Boo Paul Ryan. Hooray Paul Krugman. And one pat on the back for me because I wrote, one day ahead of Krugman, that Paul Ryan is doofus.

The lies they told

Paul Ryan is a Republican House Member from Wisconsin. He may or may not be intelligent; he may or may not be a good guy. I'm not here to pass judgement on Paul Ryan...ok, that's not true, I'm going to judge a little.

During the fierce and heated debate on health care - remember that crazy law that was going to ruin our country, but since its passing has only limited the ability of insurance companies to screw you - Ryan was busy calling the then-bill a recipe for "fiscal armageddon."

So I'm judging Ryan a little, because that was a lie. Perhaps it was just dumb, but I'm ready to think it was a lie. Far from "fiscal armageddon," the new law is going to make Medicare solvent for an additional 12 years since the previous estimate. That's great news, but it's also funny news, because Ryan and his ilk were telling us that Obama was going to destroy Medicare. I even had an old woman in the airport tell me in March that she was against the bill because it would take away her Medicare.

I forgive her for being confused. The lies Republicans told were...well they were lies. Disappearing Medicare? Not exactly. The fact that this "information" was either an absolute lie or a gross miscalculation doesn't matter. In America, we can and should elect people that can figure out the numbers, and then tell us the truth about those numbers. You know, people like the ones who passed the law.

Let's make America better today and vote for those people in November. Then let's vote for them again in 2012. They're not all going to be Democrats, but they do need to be honest and smart, and we can now safely say that Paul Ryan does not fit that description.

America's fearful fascination

This is why being on the right puts you in the wrong. Ted Nugent, though he may not be a good politician, or a smart person, or a nice guy, certainly knows how to spew some BS. Dumb as he is, Ted is actually the unfortunate epitome of the far right, and an example of why groups like the Tea Party are - perhaps despite their intentions - moving America backwards.

Ted criticizes any Obama supporter as being history-devoid. But it's actually Nugent himself who is using out-dated, fear-mongering terminology, sprinkled, of course, with a little hate speech. He calls the president Marxist (who cares, we won that fight), socialist (I'd bet Ted Nugent has no idea what the term even means, given that America is already fairly socialist - see: SOCIAL Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc). Of course, Ted Nugent is...well he's Ted Nugent, so he probably knows nothing about those programs.

Just for good measure, Ted accuses Obama of being anti-gun, and, even better, anti-hunting. Because it doesn't get any more American than guns - especially big ones that can kill lots of people (we need them to protect ourselves from the terrorists!) - and hunting. Ted likes guns; he hunts. Obama doesn't. Ted is an American. Obama isn't. The logic is clear and easy to follow.

America faces a lot of problems, but Ted Nugent and his ilk represent the most dangerous ones: hatred, fear, and ignorance. Ted hates the idea of progress, he seems to fear anything and anyone who isn't a white, gun-toting hunter, and, well you can read the article, he's a complete idiot. And yet, this is where we are. Ted Nugent, a man who seems to know literally nothing, can influence thousands of people with his ignorance and hate speech. And those people will tell their friends. So slowly, terrible, ignorant and dangerous ideas are spread. And America suffers. And that, friends and readers, is why being on the right, puts you in the wrong.

Let's make America better today and shun ignorance, hatred and fear. Let's make wise and rational decisions, embrace a changing world, and enact policies that will make us the leader in that world, not the country that was once great. Ted Nugent wants you to love a past that is gone. He want's you to love the values of the past, and he wants you to fear people that are different than you. What Ted either forgets or doesn't know is that America is the world's most diverse country, and the world is changing around us. We can keep up, or we can cling. Ted wants us to cling. I want us to embrace a bright and beautiful future as the world's leader and greatest country.