Romney/Ryan "Go Back Team"

America’s Comeback Team? Like they are in the Olympics or something?

How about America’s “Go Back Team?” Because that is exactly what they are planning.

Back before 1973, so American women no longer have the right to privacy in their own homes, just like in many of the countries where Bain-tutored, U.S. corporations have already taken their factories and your jobs.

Back before 1965, so American women and men no longer have the right to use contraception, just like in many of the countries where the same mega-corporations enjoy cheap labor and tax havens.

Back before 1964, so American racial, ethnic, religious, and national origin minorities are still oppressed by Jim Crow laws and segregation in schools, work places, and all public accommodations, just like in many of the countries where those same U.S. corporations currently bribe local officials so they can do a brisk business.

Back before 1938, so American children can be forced to work 18 hours a day, in filthy, dangerous sweatshops for pennies a day, just like in many U.S. corporate factories overseas.

Back before 1880, so American unions do not even have the right to exist, just like in many U.S. factory shops abroad.

Back before 1863, so slavery will again be legal in America, just like in many of the countries where U.S. mega- corporations intentionally do business, so they don’t have to put up with modern American inconveniences like personal and religious liberty, fair pay, benefits, and safe working conditions.

The Romney/Ryan team intends to make all Americans Go Back as far as we will let them. How far are you going to let the Go Back Team take you?

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

A Break From The Internet

The only benefit to having my new, fancy, high-speed internet service down (for the seventh time) last Thursday was that I got to detoxify from main-lining up-to-the-minute political happenings. Once the D.T.s subsided, I even turned off cable news, so that I could sit and reflect a bit on more of an overview.

It is so easy to think of politics as a pointillist’s portrait, but the lousy wi-fi gave me a chance to sit and paint more of a landscape and with a broader brush. No, the finished work was not exactly a masterpiece, but since you asked…

Politicians will be politicians and my favorite politician sure took his time getting over the (oh, gosh, they really ARE a bunch of low-life, conniving, unscrupulous, criminal, spawn  of Satan on Capitol Hill) learning curve but, once he and his party took the not-so subtle hint from the American people and grew a spine, I grew ever hopeful that our country was yet capable of steering a safe course out of troubled waters.

But then I had to factor in the current overall state of the opposing Party. Even after 40+ years of following politics like some fanatics follow baseball, I had still underestimated the extent to which the GOP would adhere in lockstep to such a depraved, heartless, amoral modus operandi. Fed 24/7/365 on a steady diet of gin-soaked, Viagra-laced, corporate financed hot foie gras-fudge sundaes, with a way-too-generous sprinkle of right-wing mixed nuts on top, I lamented that the Grand Old Party had morphed, mutated from the party of lean, mean, fiscal conservatives, into a voracious, psychotic Jabba the Hutt-esque monster, bent upon busily and unashamedly devouring large chunks of our country.

Not satisfied to binge solely on its political opponents, this big-money behemoth has extended its viral (not like the cute video) purview onto the Beltway and into the heartland, even eating its own, purging its ranks of any moderates who still prefer political compromise to a virtual reenactment of the Crusades.

Make no mistake about it, the ultimate goal of today’s GOP is total economic hegemony, but the nuts I mentioned earlier appear to serve as both a facial disguise as well as a lure for millions of low-information, fearful, angry, needy, servile, voyeuristic, wannabes, who wanna believe that because the monster, as disgusting as it smells, still looks like them, it must represent America’s salvation.

Along the way to eviscerating and engorging itself on various local, state, and federal government competitors, the GOP (Jabba, the Blob, monster from Alien, GOPzillla, I don’t know!) doles out a few choice nuts among the more intellectually challenged disciples. The tactic being not to actually feed the ignorant masses but as part of an overall strategy to titillate as many as possible with fantastical distractions, so they don’t feel the last coin disappear from their pockets.

And so we get treated to red meat news stories such as how contraception prescriptions are secretly an affront to religious freedom and women who use them are secretly whores and prostitutes, and Hillary’s  deputy chief of staff is a secret Muslim extremist, and the gummint has a secret plan to massacre civilians so they can take our guns and our other freedoms, and the new Batman villain was secretly named Bane (in 1993)  after Romney’s company, Bain, to affect the 2012 election, and there are 78 secret card-carrying Communists serving in Congress, and there is a secret liberal conspiracy to make different people intermarry so that we are less white and less Christian, and I won’t use the word monster to describe our foreign President of the United States, but, ha, ha ,ha, you may feel free to, ma’am.

The GOP also seems to banking (and I mean in the Cayman Islands to the tune of a tax-free, $2,000,000,000,000), on the rest of us non-fringe citizens being so darned busy just trying to keep up with our own workloads (as well as loads from co-workers already laid off) to really focus on whether corporations should take over Social Security and Medicare, or whether millions more middle class jobs should continue to bleed out to Asia and South America, or whether it’s right that the new Walmart just put seventy local small businesses out of business, or whether we should/can stop the next big oil spill from flooding the ocean with benzene, or whether we should/can require the vulture capital guy who’s running for the highest office in the land to tell us how he scavenged so much capital. Wow.

Okay, so my general observations did not exactly produce the smarmy pastoral scene I had hoped for, but rather, a reasonably accurate overview, I’m afraid, even given the broad brush with which I allowed myself to paint.

Still, my short break from the media onslaught was curiously refreshing and gave me renewed perspective. I felt like I really could make some sense of it all. The next day, Friday, July 20, 2012, I broke down and switched on the T.V. at my home in Denver, to catch up on the latest news.  

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Why We Don't Let The Houses Burn

Colorado is burning. More specifically, tens of thousands of acres in the foothills and  even some of the plains of Colorado are burning. Local, state, and federal resources have been diverted to fight these blazes. Why? Because many homes are burning and many, many more are still at risk. That’s what we do in America. We look after our neighbors as best as we can.

Yet I hear some say that families who choose to live in fire-prone areas bear the sole responsibility for locating their dream homes in the foothills and so do not deserve the fire-fighting resources for which the rest of us pay through taxes. I find this argument despicably mean-spirited and just plain morally bankrupt.

But, there is a more utilitarian reason why these good people deserve our protection. They pay taxes. Many of those now so precariously nestled up against the Rocky Mountains no longer have school-age children or otherwise educate their children in private academies, but they pay property taxes that are used to educate children in public schools who choose to live in safer, cheaper, and less picturesque locales.

In turn, the rest of us pay taxes that go to all fire-fighting efforts, even though we live nowhere near the danger.

This is a good example of what is called the social compact or social contract. We take care of them and they take care of us through the workings of a neutral government.  

Americans decided that the social compact was a good idea for America at the birth of America, as the newly minted Americans rejected the “live and let die” mentality of the feudal system they left behind in England. The feudal system was based on a kind of trickle-down theory, but our founding fathers had already learned the hard way that it was just a scam to allow the rich aristocracy to get richer and the poor serfs to “eat cake.”

Okay, does this make sense? The social compact is not Communism. In fact, we would not even have a free market economy if every individual still had to depend upon their own personal resources to protect and educate their own. This social compact has freed up the teachers to teach, merchants to merch, police to police, and just about everybody else to go to work without having to worry about what is happening to the ole homestead in their absence.

Yes, it would be great if local, state, and national politicians were more in touch with our needs, faster to respond, and more efficient in the execution. But, even as you  gripe about the gummint taking money for nuthin out of your pocket, please keep in mind that you are driving on  roads built and maintained by the gummint, crossing  bridges built by the gummint, drinking water made safe and pumped into your home by the gummint, picking your kids up from  gummint-run schools, protected by gummint police and fire fighters, listening to weather reports put out by the National Weather Service, and hunting, fishing, hiking, and biking isn national parks.

You can live in a cabin and write conspiracy manifestos like the Unabomber or a cave (actually a swanky compound) and plot to subvert the gummint like Bin Laden or you can join the rest of society and accept that the social compact is a good thing or at least a necessary inconvenience. Because it all evens out in the end. Quid pro quo.

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, has upheld the Affordable Health Care Act, please think about the above argument and then consider the following:

1.     No Child can be denied coverage on her family’s plan for a pre-existing condition. This provision will extend to adults as well, by 2014.

2. No more annual limits or life-time limits for patient care, by 2014.

3. Your kid can now stay on your health insurance plan until they are 26.

4. Insurance companies must now spend 80-85% of the premiums they rake in, on actual health care and sickness prevention programs. You will be getting a rebate from your insurance company in September, 2012.

5. Insurance companies can no longer drop your coverage if you get sick.

6.     A discount for some prescription drugs for seniors, currently caught by the infamous Medicare “doughnut hole.”

7.     Free health screenings for seniors.

8.     All citizens will be required to accept the personal responsibility to either buy insurance by 2014 or pay a tax, so that the rest of us don’t continue to pay higher premiums for uninsured trips to the emergency room.

9.     Health insurance exchanges will be set up by 2014, so individuals can buy into much cheaper group plans.

Is the ACA perfect? Of course not. It was a political compromise based upon many bipartisan ideas, including the GOP idea about the individual mandate instead of the Democratic single-payer plan. Will it need to be tweaked in the future? Most certainly. Gummint programs are like new car models. It takes at least two years on the market to find the big design flaws and correct them. I suspect it will take until about 2016, to work out most of the kinks.

The ACA will NEVER equal perfect health care and I am not saying it will. Not every pothole can be filled. Not every criminal can be arrested. Not every home can be saved from fire. Not every child can be guided through school. Not every sick person will get well again. But gummint tries as best as they can, because we the people have agreed that we need this kind of cooperation and collaboration, to promote the general welfare of this country.

For those of you who still believe that private enterprise represents our sole salvation from a slow, cranky, and cumbersome government, I will borrow (and modify) a phrase from President Reagan, “Private enterprise will not solve the problem. Private enterprise IS the problem.” Sure, private enterprise might be able to get some of these things done better than gummint…if they wanted to. The problem is that they don’t care about actual people. They call us “muppets.” The general welfare is simply not the end of business. Profit is the end of business. Profit has always been and will always be the end of business. Live and let die.

That is why I’m still betting on the gummint to put out fires and now, to guarantee healthcare coverage for all.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Message from the Chair

This will be my first of several messages written from an infusion chair in my rheumatologist’s office. As I sit here during another four-hour session, with an I.V. of mouse DNA dripping into my arm, forced to contemplate my own mortality, I cannot help but think about what an idiot I have been, to let myself get so continually upset about the recent political goings-on in my country.

It’s not that I just sit around griping. Okay, I am sitting now, but usually I am out and about trying to help. I have always tried to help. I was a public defender for 23 years. Right now, I am volunteering for the Obama campaign from day to day, to the extent that I am able. I have always believed that each individual should properly both understand the bases as well as own the results of their own decisions. Too many of us abdicate, to avoid those responsibilities. Too many of us opt out completely or at most, pull the lever without bothering to vet the flood of offal that swept us into the voting booth. 2012 has already kept its promise to be a banner year for offal, thanks to a couple of buddies of the Koch Brothers on the U.S. Supreme Court. But now I digress.

I pay attention. A lot of attention. Too much attention. And so, when someone I know (or usually someone I don’t) opines, based upon nothing but fear-n-smear, poppycock propaganda, I feel an immediate and uncontrollable need to set them straight about the latest “big lie.” How stupid is that? And how useless.

I already know that most people simply cannot tolerate the discomfort of learning that their long-held beliefs are based upon absolute crap, and that most also take issue with me pointing this out to them for some reason. And that bothers me too.

But the fact that I cannot sit idly by while someone, anyone, takes a ritualized, steaming, dog-poop-bath in ignorance, says more about my own psychological state, than that of my mentally-challenged target. No, the country will not blow up overnight, if the over-privileged, amoral, vulture capitalist is elected. America has been in a steady nosedive since we elected Bonzo in 1980. That was when the corporations started jumping ship and the rest of us quit paying attention. By my accounting, if the insane win and start running the asylum, a Hunger Games scenario will not develop for at least another 20 years. We have all kinds of time.

Even if enough of us start paying attention, and the good guys win this election, the bad guys still have already wired things in Washington to go to s#!t by the end of the year in what can only be characterized as a congressionally engineered economic apocalypse. The Tea/GOP has set several fiscal time-bombs to explode at about the same time as the lame duck session convenes. And can you imagine the spirit of cooperation between the parties once all those injured fowl are armed with one-way tickets to a gig at Fox News/MSNBC? The fact that this will happen and that I can’t help stressing over it is yet another part of my pathological penchant for paying too much attention. Why do I have to know this crap and feel crappy no matter who wins the election? Not fair. Not fair at all. And I digress again.

Of course, I have legitimate, personal, practical reasons to worry about who wins the next election which are directly related to my present incarceration in this infusion chair. If the bad guys win, my health insurance gets canceled and the war between my overactive immune system and the rest of me results in my untimely demise. Okay, we all gotta go sometime, but, in a glass-half-empty state of mind, instead of feeling good about my contribution to capping the current population explosion, I’m worried about pushing daisies before I can meet my grandchildren. Some may view this angst as neurotic and selfish. I don’t know that I agree.

And so, I get my panties in a bunch and start ranting about the whole GOP/corporate-elite-SOB- hegemony thingy again and perpetuate the vicious cycle. Those bastards act like the greedy amoral sociopaths they were raised to be, and then I take it personally when other people defend the SOBs (like being a sociopath is a good thing) and smile through the tears as they are being screwed sideways with a wire brush by said SOBs.   

Practically speaking, for me it is really quite simple. If the bad guys take this one, I and 40 or 50 million other Americans get kicked to the curb to croak. And before we can croak with dignity, our pensions will be cut, and our taxes will increase, and our government services (into which we have been paying since we were teenagers) will be reduced to a tattered not-so-safety net with a rip down the middle, just big enough for me and the rest of the middle class to fall through and hit the asphalt at top speed. And there is so little that I or any one person alone can do to reduce the road-rash those bastards intend to inflict on the same folks that bought their stuff and/or their promises and made them rich. Makes a fella feel kinda helpless. So I volunteer. It helps me to feel not so helpless.

It is hard for this worry wart to just fuggedaboudit and get on with things, knowing what a personal stake I have in what happens in the next six months. Serenity simply refuses to course through my veins. I asked the Doctor to slip some in my drip, but he just laughed.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Voter’s Guide to Picking the Next President

The paid political-media wise guys have already started to analyze the $1 billion in rapidly metastasizing super-pac-attack-ads and are preparing to offer their own dubious pearls of highly distilled yet sagacious, poignant, pundifferous, prognostications to promote the proverbial parting of wheat from chaff after each and every barrage of  bumper-sticker, bromides by which we are beleaguered between ball games, ballroom bossa novas, barfing bulimic bimbos, boxing bouts, and box office blockbusters on the boob tube.

That I am offering my suspect services free of charge should only partially exonerate me, in that, and by way of disclaimer, not only am I a firm supporter of the current President, but I am also a volunteer on his campaign. Feel free to bring as many grains of salt into this short(ish) read as you see fit.

Nevertheless, the sole aim of my piece is to simply put you in touch with your own self interests so you can vote to protect them, unless of course, you are a complete idiot. If you are actually reading this, I am banking on the premise that, either you are not an idiot, or if an idiot, not such a blithering specimen so as to happily jump the cliff with other idiots who vote based upon what some big shot idiot with good hair tells them.

If you hail from the rabid fringes of either the far-left or the far-right (and are therefore irrelevant in this election), please stop now and get on another blog, or go read the National Enquirer. Alien Siamese Batboy Is Snookie’s Spirit Baby Daddy.

I should also add that I have been known to be wrong before, but this admission alone should tell you that I am not afraid to stray from the cardinal rule of punditry, which is that the pundit is never wrong.

Okay. As much fun as I have been having thus far, you may have not been, so let’s get to heart of the matter, with the simplest example first: if you are a white, heterosexual male, earning at least $250K or more, and expect your yearly income to rise even further, then Governor Romney is your man.

Since you have been entrepreneurial enough to squeeze yourself into this very small demographic, your self interests would be much better served with a candidate who has promised to slash unfair taxes even more for corporations and the wealthy, discard all burdensome banking/hedge-fund investment rules and laws preventing/punishing corporate crime, both foreign and domestic, roll back obnoxious employee health and safety regulations, and abrogate all wimpy, whiny, tree-hugging emission standards for the air, water, and soil. Wadda bunch of job-killers! Go, Romney!

Still, you might want to first check your company’s latest prospectus to make sure that your stock options have not taken a recent nose dive, or that management has not turned over the reins to Bain Capital for any mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, recapitalizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, downsizing, or any of those other businessy terms that mean you may soon join the ranks of the unemployed.

You also probably want to make sure you locate at least one of your abodes an appropriate distance from any drilling, fracking, logging, mining, refining, factory, military base, wastewater treatment facility, and/or large farm or ranch. Make sure that the payments on your private security service are up to date and that your HOA custodians are all properly, uh, equipped for their duties. Emergency shelters, escape tunnels, armored SUVs, and even man-made private islands are the smart bet for the discerning exec who has already exhausted the offerings at Tiffany.com.

Merely wanting to make a bunch of money or simply idolizing the class containing those who do, though admirable, does not necessarily make Governor Romney a good fit for you. For instance, if you are currently paying off college loans, raising kids (without the au pair) and taking a child tax credit, or making use of ANY kind of state or federal subsidy or program, go ahead and feel really guilty about doing so if you must, but voting to cut off your nose to spite your face can be interpreted as acting in your own self interests, only if your low self esteem necessitates constant, gratuitous self-flagellation.

Falling on the sword so millionaires can beef up their trust funds doesn’t make you a hero; it just makes you a chump. Tens of millions of other working families in the U.S. are in the same boat. You are not a freeloader, yet you will be regarded as such under a GOP-dominated government.

And remember, the coolest part of being in a club is being able to exclude others, right guys? KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS YOU!! Wealthy guys don’t want you to be wealthier. Fancy cars, mansions, private golf courses, gated communities, summer homes, exotic vacations, hidden assets, and trophy wives are what wealthy white men need to feel that they are somehow so special that they will not drop dead like the rest of us common folk. Just think about how many times you have seen the word exclusive in an ad for something that you will never be able to afford unless you rob a bank. Get it now?

Okay, I am already running long and am therefore violating yet another rule of punditry, so I will just make a short list of some of those folks in demographics that would be complete idiots to vote for Governor Romney or any other Republican candidate, at least until the insane stop running the asylum in that party:

1.Older/retired people: think Medicare coupons, Medicaid block grants, Social Security lite, slashed state and private pensions; think about all the sacrifice you shared already and get ready to share some more.

2.Young adults: think minimum wage (until they get rid of it), college loans (big ones), the job market (in China), home ownership (not by you), at-will-contract-labor (okay, that’s you), and the total demise of the American dream (unless you happen to live in Mumbai).

3. Women: think wall-to-wall glass ceilings, $.77/1.00, vaginal probes, contraception for males only, and get ready to be forced to have rape-babies by psychopaths hopped-up on insurance-covered Viagra and testosterone, because the GOP said that the pastor said that Jesus said the spawn of rape is a gift from God.

4. Racial/ethnic minorities: think about 1 out of 4 black males doing jail-time, papers please treatment for all brown citizens (and any Muslimy-looking people), and laws in every state intentionally designed by Romney’s current immigration advisor to keep America white. But hey, Marco Rubio may be the GOP-VP!

5. Working class/middle class: see #s 1-4, plus more frozen pay, pay cuts, speed-up-effect, unhealthy working conditions, downsizing, outsourcing, 401K toilet paper, social insecurity, government assistance programs gone. Unions-bad! Benefits-bad! State/federal jobs-bad! At-will contract piecework-good! The rich will have a green light from Mitt and Co. to keep even more wealth but will trickle down their share of shared sacrifice to you and the retired folks.

6. Immigrants: see #s 1-7, but especially #4. I believe reality show participants to be the only true aliens on this planet, so perhaps they should join this demographic. That way, terrestrial immigrants and selected citizens can have a good laugh about those inane, low-life, morons with no self respect before they are systematically rounded up by the new GOP Department of Ethnic Cleansing, caged, and “self-deported.”

7. Poor/homeless: be prepared for the “you indolent leeches” treatment to be the standard. What safety net? Loitering laws strictly enforced. The Moon, maybe? Better check with Newt first. See also #s 8 & 9.

8. Military/vets: see #s 2-7 on steroids. After the GOP thanks you for your service, what is left of your GI benefits will get you no job and $80K in debt after a degree in Video Gameology from a GOP-owned, private, for-profit “university”…and more ribbon magnets.

9. Mentally or physically challenged: see #s 7 & 8. God help you if you don’t have a $100 million trust fund like Mitt’s kids.

10. Religious minorities: as long as you are a fundamentalist Christian, you’ll be okay. Might I suggest a portable dashboard Jesus, in case of traffic stops? Consider changing at least your middle name from Jihad or Ali, to Wayne, or Lee, or some other Confederate war hero.

11. GLBTQ: Just get the hell back in the closet and shut up, and you’ll be fine until the GOP passes a law declaring that yours is no longer a protected class of citizens under the U.S. Constitution. To the GOP, it’s a choice; an evil, un-Godly choice, but you will be able to choose between many for-profit rehab centers that, for a fee, will “pray,”  “beat,” or even “rape your gay away.”

12. Artists/writers/intellectuals: find a GLBTQ friend and share the closet. Right wing, political propagandists are excluded from this demographic. Think 1984 vanilla with a little 1939 Germany sprinkled on top.

Those of you in demographics #1-12, please also be advised that 22 states (in the U.S., not Iran) currently have GOP-dominated state legislatures which have worked tirelessly on passing legislation written by the Koch brothers and designed to prevent millions of you citizens from voting at all. Just imagine what new ideas they will come up with, if they take the next election. Seriously.


J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Overdue For American Stew

Americans are not stupid. Despite what some people believe, Americans are not “muppets” who just hang around the mall, waiting to be told how to look, what to wear, what to say, what to buy; hapless victims of whatever force du jour spends the most money to get their attention. And, by in large, Americans know what is wrong with this country.

Despite what the 24/7-info-tainment-news juggernaut might suggest, most Americans really just want to get on with their lives, and laugh and love and hear their baby’s first spoken word and eat a hot dog at the baseball (here, you may substitute your favorite sport and favorite choice of junk food) game.

But Americans are also a hearty lot. They feel comfortable at the helm of their lives and personal destiny. They prefer to be self sufficient, to get ahead of their bills, and hopefully, to eventually retire knowing that they gave the kids a good start in life.

No American parent wants her children to know eviction notices, bill collectors, pink slips, bankrupting illness, or even the challenge of how to put food on the table or gas up the car to get to work.

Americans know (as most have experienced first hand) that the challenges faced by their own family are both microcosmic and symptomatic of the challenges that our nation faces as a whole.

Yet Americans have all kinds of great ideas about how to meet these challenges. Historically, we once took those ideas and sent them to Washington via our elected officials, where they were chopped and mashed and mixed and stirred and salted and cooked over a medium heat for hours, if not weeks, by way too many cooks, into a hearty stew of sorts. The final product usually ended up tasting roughly like a composite of many easily recognizable American-made recipes for making things better on the whole for everybody. And it was good.

As I may have mentioned, Americans are not stupid. Hungry, maybe, but not stupid. They have noticed that both their own family affairs and national matters once under their general control (or controlled through their elected representatives), are falling more and more outside their control and into the hands of a very few whose agenda does not require or desire input from American families at all.

Americans notice that it now takes both adults in the household working outside the home to buy the same goods and services that their parents had provided with only one adult working outside the home.

Americans notice that there is no longer mutual loyalty between employer and employee. Gone are the days when it was possible for an individual to work 35 hard years for the same company and retire with a decent pension and health benefits.

Americans now are very aware of insecurity in the jobs market that has not been seen since the 1920’s.

American parents do not enjoy seeing their children, with a mortgage’s worth of educational debt, being reduced to a band of gypsies, having to constantly pick up stakes, and move from one at-will-contract-piece-work-temp-job to another.

Many American empty nests have returned to full houses. American parents know their kids are not lazy or losers as some pundits have said, just overwhelmed by events far beyond their control. They played by the rules and somebody moved the goal posts to Mumbai.

And all Americans know that the cooks in Washington have added an “r” to their job description and are indeed cooking something, but not a dish made from the ideas of Americans, or designed to help Americans fulfill the promises made to themselves or to their children. And we can’t help but notice that the brew stinks to high heaven of graft, nepotism, and general corruption.

Who are they cooking for? Here, American opinions differ. Some believe that they are simply cooking up meth for hegemonic corporate wealth, while others believe that they are serving up king’s dishes only to the monolithic master that is big government. But what is the bottom line to my gastronomical analogy?

Simply put, Americans don’t give a damn who these criminal cookers are cooking for, but these c[r]ooks need to start cooking stew for Americans again. Americans are sick and tired of handing over kitchen privileges to smooth talking chefs de cuisine who  promise a fancy meal but deliver an empty belly.

Americans need roads without sinkholes and bridges that bridge and schools that actually train our kids to compete in a global market. Yes, we ARE smart enough to know that the world is spinning faster and we are falling behind.

Americans need water that is safe to drink and air that is fit to breath and food that is actually food and not some agribusiness lab experiment designed to enhance corporate profits by use of chemically-laced garbage.

Americans really, really don’t need to be told what they must do in their back yards, whom they must love, and which God, if any, they must believe in. Not by the government, not by the corporations, not by the churches. You work for us, your highnesses. You want our vote? You want our business? You want our devotion? Okay, start earning it again. We are done carrying your water for you.

Stop giving away the farm and start dancing with the date that brung ya  (and we don’t mean the tramp who did you on the sly in the parking lot) or you are in for a real American-style rude awakening, complete with the proverbial tar and feathers and a very real one-way trip outta town.

Americans know full well that this next election will have both sides clambering to spend more than two billion dollars to try and make us behave like lemmings at the cliff, and we know that the dubious wisdom of most of those billion-dollar-bumper-sticker-bromides will not be fit to line a litter box.

And Americans are smart enough to know who is paying for all the swill slung our way and what tastier, more filling, American dishes could be baked with all that dough. Because, as I said, Americans are not stupid, just hungry.

Americans are definitely long overdue for their stew and expect it now. They deserve it. They worked and sweated and voted and paid taxes and fought and died for that stew. They don’t want caviar, and they don’t want pink slime either. Just a decent stew will do.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Oh Crap, I Might Be A Progressive!

The way you hear some Republican politicians talking, you would think that Progressives envision the United States of America as some kind of potential atheistic, socialist utopia, where the universal values of freedom, liberty, drive, self-reliance, personal responsibility, and accountability, are all sacrificed on the altar of a “one size fits all”  Castro-colored jumpsuit of big-brother-type surveillance, intrusion, and enforced mediocrity, with the nation’s populace cowering in fear, like District 12 in the Hunger Games.

I would like to use the epithet recently used by Rick Santorum in response to this drivel, but my Google P.C. filter would probably delete the whole post, so I will just say that nothing could be farther from the truth.

Progressives tend to get lumped in with a few nut jobs on the extreme left who rant and rave and kvetch about everything and everybody and see conspiracies behind every door. The emptiest vessels make the loudest noise. These are not Progressives. These are idiots, just like the loudmouth idiots on the extreme right.

But, I am warning you right now, if you read below, you might discover that you are secretly a Progressive too. You won't have to tell your friends about it or change your status on Facebook but…

Almost every Progressive likes money and vacations in Aruba as much as the members of the Chamber of Commerce do and is willing to work his or her butt off to earn it. Progressives are all about reaping the rewards that come from personal responsibility, entrepreneurial drive, self-reliance, and motivation. Do any of you know a Progressive who actually lives on a commune? Didn't think so.

But, as with anyone else who starts their own business, getting a tax incentive for hiring vets and/or covering employees' health insurance would be nice.

A streamlined process of patents and paperwork would be nice.

Acquiring investors without a mountain of red tape would be nice.

Being able to truck products by way of an interstate highway system of decent roads and bridges would be nice.

(Readers inner dialogue)

 I feel the same way? Uh, oh. What’s happening to me! I look the same, but...

All Progressives want their kids to work hard and compete successfully for a big old slice of that global economic pie in the 21^st century.

And so, they want our public schools retooled, upgraded, and modernized, not dumbed down, outsourced, and de-funded.

Progressives want a government that is smart enough, not just to let economic events play out into a catastrophe and then sell off the pieces to the highest bidder, but a government that can anticipate those events, prevent what is preventable, and better prepare us for other circumstances beyond their immediate control.

Progressives believe in jobs, jobs, JOBS! Not in China, or Mexico, or India, or Brazil, but American jobs, right here in our own country, and they think that it is pretty dodgy that the same folks who shipped all those jobs overseas are the ones who are about to spend $1/2 billion supporting the anti-progressive candidates in the next election.

(Reader’s inner dialogue)

Oh, wait! Weren't jobs supposed to be created by letting the rich conservatives trickle em down to us? Oh right, that never worked. Oh crap, I really might be a Progressive! My Dad will be so disappointed...

Every Progressive loves their “Freedoms” just as much as Sarah Palin.

Progressives want to live, work, and love, without some government politician spying on/in the doctor’s office, forcing probes (TV monitors included) inside the private parts of women and children.

Like anyone else, they don’t want some billionaire politician-buyer telling them to hold an aspirin between their knees and then publicly branding them whores and  prostitutes, if they elect to go aspirin-free. The 16^th century has come and gone. Pleasantville was just a movie, not a blueprint. When you think of Progressives, think, uh, progress...

Like anyone else, Progressives want their personal business to be their personal business, not their boss’ business.

Progressives want to worship their own personal God, or not, without some government politician forcing some state-sanctioned religion down their throats. 

Like anyone else, Progressives don’t want some politician telling them how they must dress while walking down the street or whom they can love or hate or ignore. That's called liberty. It's an American invention.

Just like anyone else, Progressives would prefer to walk down the street in their own neighborhood to get some candy and a soda without getting arrested by the police or shot by an HOA toady.

Most older Progressives (just like in the Tea Party) want the politicians in government to keep their damned dirty ape-paws off of Medicare and Social Security. Entitlement? You bet they are entitled! They worked all of their lives for it and, by God, they've earned it! 

(Reader’s inner dialogue)

Hey, I’m all about not getting trod on by the government and I don’t like the idea of getting cheated out of what I paid for, or shot over my new JZ hoodie and a bag of Skittles.  Oh, gosh, I just know my friends will start to notice the change!..

Most Progressives are plenty conservative.

The government is supposed to collects taxes. Then they are supposed to spend that money on what Americans need, in a fiscally prudent, conservative way, without having to be babysat by their constituents who elected politicians specifically so that they could get on with their own lives without feeling like they just got fleeced. We generated a budget surplus under Bill Clinton, you know. We can do it again. The Congressional Paul Ryan Plan would add $5.4 trillion to the national  debt over the next decade. 

Progressives also think that we should conserve $4 billion of our tax dollars that Congress is currently giving away to the richest corporations on earth and spend the money instead on fixing roads and bridges and schools. No more bridges to nowhere. No more pet projects for political donors. No more pork. Period.

Progressives would have preferred to have conserved the trillions of our tax dollars that were blown by some politicians in government on wars based on made up reasons. As only one example, the administration under  President Bush/Cheney literally lost $8-billion in cash in Iraq. Eight giant pallets worth. Filled a whole C-130. Gone. Can’t find it. Oops!

Much more importantly, every Progressive thinks that we should conserve the precious lives of our sons and daughters instead of giving the government an automatic green light to make our kids fight and die overseas in wars based on made up reasons. We had a Progressive president during WWII, but we had a real reason for that war.

Progressives believe that it’s the government’s friggin job to conserve the quality of our air, food, and water, so that all of our kids and grandkids have a livable world in the future, even if it costs a little more to keep it that way. They feel it’s worth it but wonder why some corporations don't feel the same way.

Most Progressives also take personal responsibility by steadfastly adhering to the laws of the land, remaining fully accountable, even when it hurts, but wonder why some politicians let those big “corporations are people, my friend” do everything to avoid any responsibility at all.

Progressives believe that it is NOT okay to allow for billionaires to buy their own personal politicians and Supreme Court Justices. Just ain’t American. Period.

(Reader’s inner dialogue)

That does it, Brandeis! You have ruined me for life!

Sorry.

Seriously, this is not an exhaustive list, but, if you are reading any of the above and saying to yourself, “hey, even though I’m a Republican or Libertarian, or Independent, or just plain Unaffiliated, I agree with a whole lot of that stuff,” don’t be alarmed. You were probably a Progressive all along. No one will notice if you just quietly use your head, listen to your heart, tune out all that fear and smear garbage, and vote your conscience.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo