Eden Hill Journal

Ramblings and memories of an amateur wordsmith and philosopher

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Location: Maine, United States

Friday, January 02, 2009

Nothing Much to Say

Here it is, wow, the second of January, 2009. 2008 is long gone now although it seemed yesterday that everyone was doing the 2008 in review thing that the news people always do. Were they a day late doing that? Isn't it usually the last day or two of the year that they do that?
Well maybe they're like I am right now, frustrated with all of the nonsense of the 2008 campaign but afraid to say much about the new administration which won't seat itself in Washington for another 18 days. We're all clinging to whatever remnants of hope remain that Bush won't screw up any more of our future before he heads out the White House door for the last time.
I don't know about the rest of all you people out there but I'm beginning to wonder if Obama can pull this thing off. Things are a lot bleaker now than they were a year ago. I mean things couldn't be worse if we were actually trying to make it worse. Things couldn't be worse if the wealthy among us deliberately were trying to make the Obama revolution go away empty handed. That's how bad it is now. It's like if we really wanted to identify and imprison America's enemies, we'd begin by shipping all the wealthy Republicans to jail. That's how bad it is.
But the other side of the coin is that the old boy Democrats are in control of both houses of Congress and they are itching to spend money. I wish it weren't so but it is. Instead of focusing on America's future and the success of the American workforce, instead of focusing on job creation through sustainable energy, food, and industrial production, instead of finding ways to beat back down the absurd price of healthcare services and medicine in this country, instead of enabling unencumbered grass-roots industry among the people, these old-boy Democrats want their socialism. I'm with Sarah Palin on this one. Thanks, but no thanks, guys. Well I'm not sure I'm entirely with her on that. I'm not like give me the money but forget the socialism part. I'm more like hey, we can't afford this! Stop all this ridiculous spending! Plug the dike!
Of course Republicans see this with glee. It tickles them pink that the federal budget is now on a runaway train whose engineer is the Democratic Party. It's especially OK if the money is being dumped with no strings attached into unknown bank accounts all around the world as it probably is. Some people are still getting rich off this screwed up economy. And when the day of reckoning does come as it surely will, Republicans will say it's all because of those old-boy spend-happy Democrats and you know, they'll most likely be close to the truth there.
The only hope is that Obama will have some hat trick that he hasn't shown us yet, that the magic Super-O will deliver us to safe haven before the economy actually collapses and that we will see an economic recovery beginning soon. That's the hope despite the fact that Obama himself is telling us it's probably going to get a lot worse before anything gets better. That is something he and the old-boy Democrats and the obstructionist Republicans surely can deliver. But the hope, the dream, of some sort of sustainable and affordable economic growth, the hope of alternative clean energy delivering us from this absurd need to dominate the planet, it isn't looking like Obama has much of a plan there and if he did, the forces in Congress against him seem overwhelming.
On the other hand, though, the notion on the Left that Obama is a man of peace is beginning to seem a bit strained now. It would appear that Obama's promise to go after al Qaeda taking up where George W. Bush left off back in 2002 seems to be happening now. American troops will soon "surge" into Taliban-held areas in southern Afghanistan. Followers of Islam are enraged by Israel's ruthless attacks in Gaza while at the same time they are bracing themselves on the east from the threat posed by India. Pakistan - long the host of the Taliban and al Qaeda and with strong government ties to international terrorism, the CIA, Mossad etc. that nobody likes to mention - is the hotbed of Islam. It is the only nation in Islam armed with nuclear weapons. Its western border is Iran, an enemy not just of the US but of Israel and of Pakistan itself. On the north lies the mountainous border with Afghanistan soon to be swarming with US troops under the leadership of President Obama who is determined to wage war against terrorism. To the east is India, also nuclear armed and possessing a suppressed minority population of Muslims. Above all this you have the wealth of the Jews who feel threatened by virtually every aspect of Islam and wealthy industrialists and oilmen who want access to the energy resources of that region to further the wealth of the West, to Hell with Islam. If this isn't a recipe for disaster nothing is. Nowhere in the mix is there any strain relief. The Jews aren't going to give up on Israel any time soon. Alternative energy doesn't seem close. Americans are still thirsty for oil and they are being increasingly joined by the Chinese and the Europeans. The Mossad and the CIA have vanished from the radar screen, which can only mean they have penetrated and are messing with everything and the media is cooperating in suppressing the truth about that.
Good luck there, Barack. You say energy independence is the key? I agree but do you actually have a plan that you can get past Congress?
And then there's Social Security and nationalized healthcare insurance. With the National Debt already at $10.5 trillion and climbing at over $3 billion a day - that's $3,000,000,000 a day or in other words $10.00 per day per American citizen (times 365 days that's $3,650.00 per year per each of us in America, men, women, retired people, the unemployed, mothers, and babies, $3,650.00 a year apiece - where will the money come from to pay for Social Security once the worker contributions fail to meet the commitments? I mean, do we just borrow more money to pay off Social Security's claims on the debt? Or do we just type a few strokes on some IBM keyboard somewhere and the money magically appears backed by the full faith and trust of the United States Federal Reserve Bank... which has been very busy recently giving huge sums of money away to wealthy banks.
Sigh...
Good luck Barack. They've got us all by the balls, you included. What's the plan here? How are you going to get us (We the People) to overpower the old-boy Congress and start doing something right? George W. Bush sure wasn't the solution, him and his shoot first look later VP and Tom DeLay and Bohner and Wolfowitz and Pearle and Stevens and all the rest of the big-spending Republicans. Ted Kennedy isn't going to save us from this. Hillary? Are you kidding me?
So I just don't have anything to say about this. It's just too early to say anything. Obama hasn't even taken office yet. Bush is still stirring the overheated pot. I'll just hold my breath for awhile and wait for someone to begin to show signs of leadership. I'll try not to think about retirement. I'll try to forget what nobody ever talks about anymore with respect to deficit spending, namely just how much debt service can the US budget endure. We used to wonder about that back during the Reagan years when we were first getting adjusted to virtually uncontrolled deficit spending. Now it never crosses our minds. So I'll forget about that too. I'll just keep my mouth shut and see what the leaders say next.

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