Thirty-five days to E-Day... Sandbox politics.

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Interesting day. Palin in seclusion preparing for the debate Thursday (yay)
Stock market actually went up with no Wall Street Bailout.
Bush spoke again urging a bipartisan buy/bail out package to save the economy.
Democrats blamed the republicans for the bail out failure while the republicans blamed the democrats.
McCain directly blamed Obama and for the life of me I don't get the possibility of that no matter how it's explained.
I know both these men want the presidency but it's starting to seem like McCain wants it so bad he'll say anything.

I can see why there isn't a consensus on the bailout as it stands but still no real great answers or fantastic alternatives.
Ain't politics grand?
Philosophy: ignore things and they will go away. Voting against stuff makes it go away.
You know things like global warming, alternative energy, economic meltdowns...

Not a call to arms but to negotiation.

I’m going to go a bit off track for a bit here. The problem here isn't why or how we got into this economic mess it’s how we can get out of it and change the rules for the future issues. This really isn’t about who caused it either. I’m a democrat so I could spend endless (and fruitless) hours blaming this whole crisis on the republicans pointing back to Reagan and to both Bushes. And then the republicans can point and howl that it’s the democrats because of Carter or Clinton or… and on and on into eternity we shall all go. We’re so busy blaming each other for the mess we don’t ever get that fact that both parties have their fingers in the pie.

It’s so sad to think that we could unite and work together but we choose to finger point and name call. No one explains to the public the truth… because neither side lives by it.

I’ve mentioned it before this childlike version of politics is asinine.
The “We must win/You must totally lose” version of negotiation is not negotiation at all. You can see it often in the “I’m right therefore whatever you say to the contrary makes you totally wrong on everything else you might have an opinion on too” debate strategies.

No one is totally right or totally wrong and if we don’t start working together towards understanding and addressing differences in opinion while looking at the facts we’re going to blow the whole thing eventually. It seems winning is more important than the facts. We don’t serve the truth, we serve up sound bites taken out of context to illustrate our side and if that doesn’t work well… we outright lie. “Say it enough times and it must be true.” This is delusional. Everyone says dumb things on occasion, everyone makes gaffes, everyone makes mistakes; it doesn’t make everything they say or do bad. It’s the volume of inconsistencies we make that tells whether or not we might be trustworthy. Everyone will be inconsistent on something. The important factor is how we react to being caught in that moment because that shows our real merit and mettle. If we deny responsibility having been caught red or empty handed, lie through our teeth to defend our position, always blame someone else, then we should not be surprised when we find no one trusts anyone anymore.

I haven’t yet found a politician I felt comfortable would really represent my best interests or truly put the country first at all times. All we get is just a lot of lip service to get elected... then business as usual. Remember Bush 1 “Read my lips: no new taxes?” All we get are useless platitudes and slogans: “No child left behind, Say no to drugs, Abstinence only, we won’t police the world, the war on terror, the candidates of change,” and my favorite one: “I'm a uniter not a divider.” It’s like they’re advertisers selling us some product we don’t need because they'd never make a profit on the real thing.

Someone recently told me that they didn’t care about the “wall street thing” or the economy. The only thing they cared about was their personal situation and how it all might effect them. While this is true for all of us on the gut level, it’s also what’s wrong with the system. Those at the top only cared about their gains, homes, golden parachutes, and their job security, not anyone else’s. Get what you can get for as long as you can and then run like hell out the door taking with you as much as you can manage theory of capitalism. Doesn’t work for the middle or lower class though does it?

Perhaps there is a way to blame anyone we don’t like for anything in Washington. We could play some crazed political game of seven steps to a republican/democrat involved in some scandal (along the lines of the Kevin Bacon game.) Though I think you’d only need 1 or 2 steps for the most part in DC because this is a relatively small group and they all seem to be dysfunctional members of the same tainted family tree no matter which “side” they’re on.

This constant barrage of nonsensical political posturing all around of course negates the value of any honest politicians that actually do go into the field to actually work to help this country and represent its citizens fairly. There must be a few truth telling representatives though I’m cynical enough to believe that they would have enormous difficulty getting to Washington in the first place unless they towed party lines and then once there would not last too long if they went against party lines very often.

We keep hearing about “bipartisan” bullshit. It’s so phony yet it’s served up over and over again when obviously they’re promoting agendas above true bipartisanship. This ignores the possibility that people can work out compromises on issues if they put aside their differences instead of blaming each other for everything under the sun.
It’s when differences are exploited, that a wedge issue becomes a defining point that nothing else gets resolved, everything comes to a grinding halt and nothing gets done in good faith. Throw in quite a bit of corruption, lying, and a desire to have more money/stuff than anyone else and you get our current economic/political stew. Yummy.

Who would want to be president walking into this god awful mess?

G'night.

Laura

Rest in peace Paul Newman.
If everyone gave back to the world as he did, the world would be a much better place.


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