Fair warning: this is not a synchronicity.Rob calls these posts my rants. He’s right.
It seems that some mention should be made of the fact that the U.S. combat mission in Iraq has ended.President Obama’s speech tonight should be applauded in that regard. He fulfilled a campaign pledge to pull combat troops out of that country. Never mind that troops are now escalating in Afghanistan; Obama never promised a withdrawal from that country.
We now know, of course, that the Bush administration lied from the beginning about the reasons for invading Iraq. There were no WMDs, no looming mushroom clouds. The war went on for more than seven years, killed thousands of Americans and Iraquis, and cost a trillion dollars.
Think about that, all those zeros. That money would have been better spent at home. Millions of Americans are still out of work, millions of homeowners have lost their homes or face foreclosure, the cost of health care is still prohibitive, roads and bridges are crumbling, college is so costly it lies beyond the reach of many in the middle class. With what Iraq cost us, we could have extended Medicare to everyone, so that we had true universal health care. We now know that Paul Wolfowitz’s pronouncement that the war wouldn’t cost us a penny was a big fat lie.
What bothered me most about Obama’s speech was what he didn’t say. The Bush administration, through their fancy manipulation of law through the likes of John Yoo and Attorney Generals Ashcroft and Gonzalez, made it okay to torture Gitmo detainees. It gave rendition flights and the shredding of the constitution the green light. As Rachel Maddow said this evening, Obama is a “forward-looking kind of guy, but….”
It’s a very big but. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Yoo, Gonzalez, the whole slick lot of them, will never be tried for war crimes. If one administration is allowed to slide because we must “look forward,” then somewhere up the line in history, another administration will believe they can get away with it.
And yet, I have slept better since Obama got into office. During the Bush years, I often woke in the middle of the night, panicked that we were sliding into a dictatorship or worse. Even though Obama has kept some of Bush’s policies, even though Gitmo hasn’t been shut down, even though we’re now escalating a war in Afghanistan, even though Obama seems much too concerned about being bipartisan, I no longer feel panicked. At his core, Obama strikes me as genuine, intelligent, a man whose heart is in the right place. But unless things turn around in this country well before 2012, I don’t know if any of it is enough to get him re-elected. He inherited 8 years of Bush policies. The odds were stacked against him from his first day in office.
The alternatives – a tea party president, a Republican who seeks to privatize Social Security, Medicare, education, police and fire departments, or (I shudder to even write this) someone like Glenn Beck or Sara Palin at the helm – is too horrific to contemplate. But the possibility can’t be dismissed. The paradigm shift is underway. And like anything that is dying, the old paradigm struggles for its existence. It gasps, writhes, and shakes its long, malformed and arthritic finger at the newest enemy to rally the base – gays, Muslims, blacks, the poor, the disenfranchised.The old paradigm looks to Ronald Reagan for answers, the guy who deregulated everything. The new paradigm hopes for peace, community, tolerance, harmony, true equality.
We live in interesting times. My hope is that we all live to see the dream a reality.
Its funny to read so many peoples' fear of a President Palin, because I simply don't see this happening for several reasons: (1) The Republican Party seems to prefer dimwitted presidents who take marching orders or follow the script given to them: Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush. Palin is too unpredictable and uncontrollable. Based on what several Republican operatives in the McCain camp have said about Palin, it sounds like she burned a lot of bridges. Her shopping spree on GOP donor expense also offended people in the Republican party. The old moneyed Wall Street types (the "Country Club Republicans" / Aristocrats) view Palin as redneck Jerry Spring trash that they wouldn't want ruining their garden party.
2) Historically, the VP on a losing ticket never gets the nomination, or in the rare cases that they do, its a losing campaign: 2004 — John Edwards; 2000 — Joseph Lieberman; 1996 — Jack Kemp; 1992 — Dan Quayle; 1988 — Lloyd Bentsen; 1984 — Geraldine Ferraro; 1980 — Walter Mondale; 1976 — Bob Dole; 1972 — Thomas Eagleton / Sargent Shriver. Do you see any Presidents from that list of losing VP candidates?
3) Palin quit mid-term without offering a good explanation. Her resignation speech was rambling and nonsensical. America does not like quitters. Look at Bill Clinton. In 1992, he was hit with three major controversies prior to the New Hampshire primary (marijuana experimentation as a young man, dodging the draft, Gennifer Flowers) but he did not quit. Americans need to know that the president will not quit on them. Palin has a pattern of quitting (5 colleges in six years?).
4) Her ignorance and shallow personality are going to be hard to overcome. America will have a woman president someday, but it will be with a woman who is intelligent like Hillary Clinton (not her, unfortunately). Palin reminds too many people of the secretaries in "Mad Men". She's likely not taken seriously, only expected to look pretty for the men, while the Republican men stick to one of their own: Romney in 2012; Scott Brown in 2016.
Palin is simply being used to undermine Obama's popularity and leadership, so that his presidency can be "failed" like their beloved Bush. Someone in government freaked out by the huge masses of people who turned out for Obama in 2008 all over the U.S. and in Berlin. His 2004 Convention speech about unity was inspiring and its a shame that Palin is obsessed with bringing his presidency down with her constant harping on this or that issue. Her brand is tainted. She sounds like she has a personal grievance against Obama.
What I've learned about human nature based on experience and observation, often people will give you hell to see what you're made of. Complaining or harping back doesn't actually impress people. Keeping focused on the task at hand and accomplishing your objectives will ultimately win out in the end. People are always going to gripe. But we have to remember, even though Clinton was undergoing an investigation and the Monica scandal in 1998, his personal popularity remained pretty high because he focused on his job.
This is the initiation period. Obama keeping his cool was what helped him defeat the mercurial McCain. Palin does not have this ability. She personalizes every single political argument. Its all comes back to her and that's not a winning message.
No stone left unturned, right, Oz!
Read "The Empire of the City" by E.C.Knuth (it's free to read on the internet)and you'll see why Britain is probably more to blame than the USA for the Oil/Gas wars and just where the real power is.
Cheers from Oz
I'd neglected to mention the point Mike made – British and people for other nationalities lost their lives there, too.
we gypsies could barely manage without our regular rants, so brava, trish! brava!!!
and ditto, rob, on the credit for WHAT!
great post!
Thank you for "ranting", Trish! I agree 100 %.
If Palin or some similar clone got into office in 2012, I would fall back into the "living nightmare" feeling I had during the Bush years.
As a member of Generation X, I feel like I got a bum deal. Upon finishing college in 2000 with my idealistic view of working in a Gore Administration, I watched as the wrong man got into office and proceeded to turn our government into something I no longer recognized. My dream of working for the federal government became a nightmare, as I've been in three crappy-wage, low morale jobs that have sucked the life out of me.
Will I find my dream career? Will I escape my current nightmare job? I hope so, because I turn 40 at the end of next year and want something to show for my life. 40 years is a long time to wait for a dream career to manifest itself.
In spite of the good news of our disengagement from Iraq, let's not forget that U.S. troops are actually still there – 50,000 strong, non-combat units. We got an e-mail from a young woman just last week who had read our book, and mentioned that she was being shipped out to Iraq. So it's not really over, especially for those troops. And not for the Iraqis either, who are left with a mess of a country and a barely functioning government. And the Republicans today are complaining that Obama didn't give them and Bush enough credit.
Credit for what?! – R
wv: yodogis
lol
Last week I saw my friend, Tom Greco, a revolutionary economist who wrote a book called "The End of Money", with members of something called Sustainable Tucson, speak at a panal discussion. I came away very sobered, and very glad for the privileged of the life I've had. Then I saw "Countdown to Zero", about nuclear proliferation and the absolute insanity of it all…and wept.
Powerful post! I agree with everything you said. I am definitely afraid of what is going to happen in the next 6-12 years. So much so that I probably won't be having any more children!
Yes, and British were also killed in Iraq – and are also being killed in Afghanistan (as are other nationalities). Bush and Blair have a lot to answer for. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives, many completely innocent and for what?
Palin winning the White House at the end of 2012 would give new meaning to the end of the world scenarios.
You said everything I feel. We were just discussing the possibility of leaving the country if we have another round of Paylins and tea baggers in the White House in 2012. We're keeping our options open.
Anonymous wasn't cj. Interesting WV: sectocap Synchronistic with many things when the letters are separated. cj
Well this IS a synchronicity because you wrote so well what a lot of us also think and and expressed it so much better than most could.
Keep on ranting. We need them.
I'm following your blog as a sceptic, but who tries to keep an open mind. This I could have written myself though (though not as eloquently obviously). Thanks.
Oh…and for the older bloggers who think "thank heavens I won't be here much longer",
(me included),here's some lyrics from Bruce Springsteen's "Atlantic City" to mull mover;
"everything dies, baby, that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back."
Sweat Dreams from Oz
Great rant Rob and I sympathize with you,but you already live in a quasi-dictatorship and it has nothing to do with the puppet called Obama,although I'm surprised his nose hasn't grown a couple of feet by now.The real power "lies" with the people who supposedly bailed out the governments of the world and the people behind them i.e THE BANKSTERS + elites.Look into the history of banking from say the sixteenth century onwards and you'll find some of the puppet-masters strings being exposed.
What you have in the USA is a facade of democracy where the elites play good cop,bad cop and you get to vote for whichever cop you want.In the end it doesn't matter because the Industrial/Military Complex (owned by who?…you guessed it…BANKSTERS+elites)keeps rolling right along…(look what happened to Kennedy when he didn't tow the line)…let's see next stop…could it be IRAN ???
I suggest watching the movie "W" by Oliver Stone (yes I know it's about that village idiot George W Bush…but look past that)because Oliver spells out right in the middle of it the Ind/Mil Comps plans for the next 20+ years via Cheney's slide presentation (try to stay awake during it because I believe Oliver made this whole movie for this scene alone).
Don't watch Oliver's films with your "EYES WIDE SHUT"
To quote another great filmaker whose films I suggest you watch with the above title in mind.
Even though things look grim,don't lose hope,because synchronicity is the universes' way of letting you know that there is order in the chaos and some things that even elite money can not buy.
That's what I like about synchronicity,Rob,the universe is like a clock and you won't learn anything by staring at the clock face or listening to people telling you what time they think it is or want you to think it is,you have to rip the clock face right off and study the mechanics in the clock and ask why,until you see what makes that clock run and then realize that the 11:11 staring back at you night after night is the universe telling you that there is much more behind life than just it's outer face and it's time that you started to look under that face and ask how and why?
Bon Voyage and keep those postcards comin'
Cheers from Oz
Your rants or ( Truths) are wonderful to hear…I too don't speak up as much as I should..but boy does it feel good to hear someone say what one thinks in such a clear way! Marlene
America is always looking forward, not dealing with the past, the messes it makes in the world, the strange priorities for spending and caring for it's citizens.It doesn't seem to realise or care that it has lost respect, cannot be taken at face value or trusted.The sense of entitlement is a sign of grave dysfunction.
Very sad when it has so much going for it..the music, the architecture, art, poetry, creatives and thinkers, real people doing real things.
Rant on, someone needs to!
Better out than in, Trish.
Holding the energy in only magnifies the fear.
I worry about the children too, but I trust in the grand plan. Like I said last week, EVERY person who has experienced an NDE says "It is all playing out as it should be."
We have to have faith, fear will get us nowhere.
I liked this rant, it is OK to rant when there is a shift of historical significance, like this. You're not telling us to agree, you are using your right for free speech, on your personal blog, to share.
In my perspective, I am not scared for the young, because in my belief these young came into this world from a place of higher perspective and chose to enter the fray. While in our "older" perspective the future may be tarnished (because it's different) and the present full of struggle, these young ones are creating a new paradigm and are delighted to be living life, no matter how dire we warn them it may be.
While I do not worry for my four daughters who are in their 20's, or my two grandsons, I do feel they need my awareness and knowledge of what was, so they will become the catalyst for change. So I also rant, and write, and talk, and research, and learn for a clearer perspective that I share. (I was raised under a constant rain of dire predictions for the future I would never see…)
So rant when you feel the need!
Then get back to work on those support systems (your books!) that will be the catalyst for change in Megan's generation and more.
History has a way of judging those who made a mark on the evolution of mankind. The Bush through Reagan years will be taught and dissected, but it is the "7 Secrets of Synchronicity" that will be chosen by many to read.
wv: menci (mercy!)
My life has been good, too, DJan.I worry about Megan's generation. The ones way for whom the future, right now, is a tarnished brightness.
Everything you said here could have been said by me. I don't write this way on my blog because I'm a coward, I can't take the heat. I know that about myself. But I can applaud those who stand up, and if push comes to shove, I'll line up beside you.
Being almost 68 I realize I will probably not be alive to see the worst of it. I've lived most of my life already and if I died tomorrow I would be able to call it good. I feel so scared for those being born into the world today.
best to get it out!!
What's a little rant now and then. Well said!