I feel like the United States is in a nose-diving, Presidential Vacuum. My hopes for President Obama have evaporated. His National Health Care Legislation lacked the single provider that made national health care work in other nations. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s desire to implement a national health care program was blinded-sided by her naïve failure to identify the strength of the Insurance industry and the Pharmaceutical Company vampires it would threaten. In President Obama’s venture both those adversarial groups again wormed their way to subvert the mechanisms that were supposed to provide affordable health care for the people most needing it. His promise that, if they wished to do so, Americans would be able to retain their exiting health care programs again overlooked the power of the Insurance and Pharmaceutical interests. As a result, the miserably poor planning and implementation of the current national health care program has skyrocketed costs for many who can ill afford it and imposes punitive, financial penalties for those unable to afford the health insurance options available to them. Other instances of the President’s ineffectiveness compound our escalating dilemmas. Despite the preponderance of expert evidence against doing so, he has yielded to the vested interests to recommend hydrofracking, more underground petroleum pipelines, and endorses both. I don’t hear him saying he will use his “executive order pen” to improve critically needed safety of rail transportation of petroleum and hazardous materials and waste. Neither has he supported the continuing need for additional modern, gasoline refining facilities to replace decaying, inefficient ones. Although European and many other nations have outlawed Genetically Modified Foods the President has not taken a stand to do likewise here or use his “executive order pen” to do so. His recent State of the Union address speech failed to mention and/or prioritize putting Americans to work in jobs to rebuild and improve our increasingly deteriorating roads and highways, decaying and collapsing sewer systems, and build new railroad roadbeds and lines to lower costs of mass transportation of goods. The needs to address such issues for our domestic welfare and tranquility surpass President’s suggestions to rebuild things in Afghanistan and Iraq. I believe that democracy cannot be imposed on people. They must want and embrace it. This is especially true in situations where Theocracy dominates or with tribal people. This underscores the need for problems in the Arab nations to be settled by their own people in their own culture. Despite our incursions and involvements in Arab countries over the past sixty-some years look where things are today? The exception would be our support for Israel, a democracy. So, where do my hopes for our political future lie? Certainly, they are not on the current Republican side of the aisle. It would take someone with the skills of a Lyndon Johnston to do anything with the gang of obstructionists there now; something President Obama clearly does not have. My hope had been that the Democrats could hold the Senate and re-take the House of Representatives for Obama’s last 2 years and pass some of the President’s lingering unapproved domestic agenda items. However, that now seems well “beyond-the-pale.” As for the 2016 Presidential race, the Republicans now seem as credible as the Whig Party was when the Republicans replaced them an emerging national political party in 1854. Thus, I cannot see my self-supporting a Republican candidate the party would put forth at this time. Likewise, neither am I encouraged by the tired “blue-dog” mentality I see in most of today’s Democratic leaders. The combination of those self-serving, Democratic “Blue Dog” Senate and House members during President Obama’s first 2 years and his inability to gain their support blocked passage of his domestic initiatives. Having no other suggestions for a candidate at this juncture, I include the following Political Aphorisms. At least they may provide a laugh or two, as we look possible candidates on whom we may pin our hopes. 1) If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates. ~Jay Leno 2) The problem with political jokes is they get elected. ~ Henry Cate We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop 3) If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these State of the Union speeches, there wouldnt be any inducement to go to heaven. ~Will Rogers 4) Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. ~Nikita Khrushchev 5) When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; Im beginning to believe it. ~ Clarence Darrow 6) Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you. ~ Author unknown 7) Politicians are people whom, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. ~John Quinton 8) Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.m~ Oscar Ameringer 9) I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. ~ Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952 10) A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country. ~ Tex Guinan 11) I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. ~ Georges Clemenceau 12) Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. ~ Doug Larson 13) There ought to be one day -- just one -- when there is open season on Congressmen. ~ Will Rogers
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 03:13:58 +0000
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