I'm At A Loss For Words ( - - Sort Of)

This is Monday October 7, 2013 and it’s three o clock and at least the air is breathable today.  Cooler breezes off the ocean are blowing at last.  I am beside myself listening to the radio these days.  I guess I don’t want to hear any more.  We know that the red states are the chief “takers” of Federal money but now we learn it’s because these people in the South are so poor, and Texas has more poor people than anybody - - the economy is shot and their unemployment runs out so these people get a doctor to sign them up with SSI.  I’ve heard it called “mad money” and it’s a regular scam they’ve got going in southern states and West Virginia is the worst.  Of course half the states of the Union are opting out of Obama Care.  I don’t see why congress even left that option open for them.  So now there will be an increasing economic divide as well as a political divide.  People are waiting for the economy of California to collapse, but they need to look elsewhere for this.  In terms of the default itself, Mario is convinced that it will happen on schedule on October 17^th because John Boehner won’t allow an up or down vote.  These people on the tea party right tell the same tired lies about how the President has shut down the government.  But George Stephenopilis was lax in not telling John Boehner that this expression is “not acceptable” because only the House of Representatives is mandated under the Constitution to vote on matters of money raising initiation.  The thing is the Republicans have been planning this crisis ever since President Obama was inaugurated for his second term.   That’s because these house members live from crisis to crisis and allocate only enough money to keep the government open for another few months and ditto with the debt ceiling.  I guess it was Leslie Stall that interviewed Boehner last December and at that time Boehner knew he didn’t have the votes he wanted to have- - and so said “The people of America have affirmed Obama Care” and he was right.  But then Ted Cruz and the tea party began working him and plying him with money - - and probably booze.  Someone said the House chamber reeked of booze the other day when they were voting.  Mario says it’s because the tea party is counting on the fact that Americans value and place more importance on their video games and entertainment than they do to news based on hard facts.  The media circus is more real to them.  Mario also pointed out that Washington DC never suffered at all from the six year long recession the rest of us have been suffering through, and to some extent still are suffering through.  As such none of these congressmen have had to suffer the realities of the typical voters, who put them into office.  All they care about is putting in a few years in congress and then going off to be a lobbyist, where the real money is.  Ted Cruz may say he’ll give up his pay check but someone said only 11% of Ted’s annual income is from his salary as a Senator.  The sad news about all of this- - and what makes me and every other American just want to give up- - is that there is no prospect of any of this changing in the foreseeable future.   One thing Black people are learning is that getting a good education and being persistent and patient and not swayable from your goals in life- - - is utterly pointless, because the President as the “Negro in chief” has amply illustrated this point for all Black people and set a major precedent as to how Black people look at the whole idea of being able to achieve success.   No doubt the tea party people have had many of their goals for a long time and they are now close to having achieved every one of them.  People have become so polarized they don’t talk to each other anymore.  As Mario points out- - Logic to these people is not seen as a virtue but somehow some left wing subversive force.   Usually when you speak of the virtues of reason and logic they will invariably in time give you the example about the life boat adrift at sea and there are too many people aboard to keep them all afloat and they have to jettison one person- - and supposedly they use the evil of logic to determine who that unlucky person is.   Apparently in many places in the South they aren’t teaching “political studies” any more.  With each succeeding generation who graduates in the south more lacking in wisdom than their parents- - one wonders where and how this downward spiral will ever end.