Back to the Future

The latest Gallup Tracking Poll, released today, has Republicans winning generically over Democrats in the upcoming midterm Congressional elections by 10 points, the highest margin ever for the GOP. Although polls are only a snapshot in time and something unpredictable could happen between now and November, the gap has been trending upwards for the GOP all summer.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I’d say that this is the result of a nefarious plot hatched by Turd Blossom, aka Karl Rove, to return the Republicans to power permanently. After all, it worked like a charm when he helped Nixon devise the Southern Strategy.

It would go something like this: Take the budget surplus you inherited from Bill Clinton, start an unnecessary, immoral and expensive war in Iraq, belatedly do the same thing in Afghanistan, “reform” Medicare to enrich Big Pharma at taxpayer expense, cut taxes for the richest among us, and drive deficits through the roof.

Reward companies that move offshore, crippling the manufacturing base and destroying the jobs that built a strong middle class. Sit back and watch unemployment skyrocket. Take a short-term loss in one election by putting up a half crazy old coot who chooses an unknown bimbo from Alaska as his running mate.

Turn the whole mess over to the Democrats and wait for the fur to fly when a raging, impatient and financially devastated electorate turns on them in less than two years because they haven’t fixed the mess you made in your eight-year reign of terror.

But no conspiracy theorist I! That’s the realm of the kooks who bay at the moon and think the black U.N.helicopters are coming for their AK47s. So it couldn’t have been a deliberate trashing of the country for long-term political gain. It’s probably just a coincidence.

Whichever, if the numbers hold, we’ll be turning the keys back over to the irresponsible teens who wrecked the family car. And we’ll surely be going Back to the Future.

We Need a Zenyatta in the White House

I’ve always loved horses, and in recent years, horse racing. I’m not a gambler by any means. In fact, I hate wagering my husband’s hard-earned money on anything, whether it’s the lottery, a penny slot machine, poker, or the ponies.

Despite my gambling aversion, my husband and I have been eagerly joining our good friend and horse-racing aficionado John at the races at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar for the last two years. I’m bravely wagering $2 on each race, hoping I won’t lose more than $2 for an entire afternoon of entertainment.

Along the way, I’ve discovered the new love of my life. Her name is Zenyatta. She’s big, and she’s smart. She entertains the crowd with a prancing routine rivaling anything you’ll see on Dancing With the Stars,. She lays back early but surges from the back of the pack to overpower anyone in her way. She’s won all of her 18 races.

Also, she happens to be black.

Zenyatta is a metaphor for what I had hoped a President Obama might be. Zenyatta has never let me down. Alas, Obama has disappointed not only me, but countless of his supporters, including many political neophytes who worked their butts off to bring about REAL hope and change. The younger generation’s disappointment with Obama’s lack of meaningful reform could result in them never voting again.

Even worse for the future of our country and the possibility of having any productive discourse on solutions to real problems is Obama’s lack of backbone, which has allowed a dingbat like Sarah Palin to spew nonsense like “How’s that Hopey Changey thing workin’ for ya?”

If Obama wasn’t going to come out of the gate and take charge of the race from the beginning, why isn’t he using those long legs to take down Mitch McConnell and John Boehner now that they have demonstrated that their only goal is obstructionism? Does he not understand that the GOP wants nothing more than to lay blame on him for eight years of Bush/Cheney idiocy? And to ensure that he won’t have a second term?

Is Obama really more naive than a classy racehorse???

Why I Play Frontierville

Who would have thought I would get hooked on a Facebook game when there is so much more important work to be done, like saving the planet and countering the Fox Propaganda Machine?

Alas, I am a Frontierville addict. I play daily and waste more time than I care to admit clobbering groundhogs, scaring bears and harvesting eggplant.

I’ll lay the blame on my 28-year-old comedienne daughter, Alexis, who left Philadelphia six months ago and moved in with us to try her hand breaking into the Big Time Comedy Scene in Los Angeles.

Alexis caught me more than once playing Bejeweled Blitz, another Facebook game that is less addicting than Frontierville, but a time-waster nevertheless.

“Don’t be embarrassed Mom,” was her reassuring counsel. “I play Facebook games too.” Including Frontierville. And the rest is history.

So what’s the appeal of that silly game?

For me it harkens back to a time when we as a people in this United States of America were more collaborative than competitive. We helped our friends and neighbors. We were there for them in a pinch.

Barn raisings and quilting bees were routine. If a hungry neighbor needed a chicken to eat during the Great Depression, we looked the other way when she stole one from our coop. We might have been down to our last loaf of bread, but when someone needier than us came along, we gave him the center, not the heel. We had no money and couldn’t buy goods or services, so we bartered.

I don’t think politics or religion really mattered to a homesteader desperate to get his crops harvested before the winter ice storms. Any philosophical differences were put aside until the firewood was chopped, the crops were stored and the animals fed.

And so it is with Frontierville. I have many new friends who have become my neighbors just to play the silly game, and these “strangers” are some of the most incredible people I’ve ever meet.

My new friends Rod, Crystal, Nicole, Jill, Kelly and Michelle would give you the shirts off their backs in virtual reality.

And I suspect they would do the same in the Real World when the shit hits the fan.

I’m keeping them close, along with my old friends.

Tea and Sympathy

I understand the anger of the Tea Party Crowd. I’m angry too. But I’m frustrated with their inability to understand where the responsibility for our problems lie, and their failure to direct their anger toward the real culprits.

Lest you think I’m partisan, let me say I blame ALL administrations over the past 30 years for our current morass, beginning with Reagan. That includes Bill Clinton, the Best Republican the Democrats ever elected. Clinton was responsible for NAFTA, elimination of the Glass Steagall Act (with help from Republican Phil Gramm), and the elevation of dicks like Robert Rubin, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.

NAFTA created that giant sucking sound that Ross Perot presciently warned us about, offshoring the good jobs to Third World countries where labor can be hired for $2 a day, and toxic pollution is rampant.

Elimination of Glass-Steagall allowed the banksters to operate casinos, which created the housing bubble and nearly brought the world economy to its knees. If it weren’t for the TARP program, instituted NOT by Obama, but by GW Bush, we would now be in the Second Great Depression. Unfortunately, Obama did too little too late to generate a real recovery.

I was adamantly opposed to a Hilary presidency because I knew it would be Bill Clinton Redux. William Jefferson Clinton set in motion the policies that led to the complete rape of our country as we know it, paving the way for GW Bush and his henchman Cheney to finish the job.

The USA is approaching Third World Country status, not because of Obama. He is no socialist, by the way. He appears to be bought and sold by the same entrenched oligarchy that the dear leaders of our country have swooned over for three decades.

Obama is not your enemy. At least not in the way you think.

So dear Tea Partiers, can you begin to have an open mind, and look to sources other than Fox, Beck and Rush and David Limbaugh?