Blacklidge

Latino Names, Don't Be Fooled

Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are talking about maybe running for president this time around. I know it is a bit early but it seems like everyone on TV is talking about Hillary running. I have Hispanic friends who were never convinced that Obama was their perfect choice but I argued with them about it quite a bit. Now, these two righties are going to swing into the limelight. How will this affect the people who will be inundated with messages about these two clowns being, "one of them"? I say, "Don't be fooled", they are not one of your group. They are evil people who take away all of our rights, waving a flag all the way. Ted Cruz is especially small minded, raving about Harvard liberals, all the while with his Harvard degree tucked under his arm. Hypocrite. Pure and simple. A carpet bagger who knows he is on to a good thing with his tea party gig. If they get very far in the process they are so going to play the race card. The Republicans have proven again and again that they care none for the huge latino groups across the country but they will run one of these two to try a fool the vast majority of Hispanics into voting for their side and then diustance themselves as far as possible if they are able to get one of them in. I hope they won't be fooled but after my conversations before the last elections I know that people are easily misled. 

To An Infinite Sorrow

Waking one morning last week to some very bad news from a close friend, I find my capacity for tragic events has narrowed. If I now wake every day thinking of this news, I can imagine the impact it has had on my friend. I have known for some time that this was a possibility, however, being a person with my own problems, I chose to ignore the signs of distress. Slowly drawing into myself over the last couple of years, I now find myself in no position to offer comfort or much else now to someone who has been one of my best friends. I don't say that lightly, because I have had many, many friends over the decades but like most people, the ones that truly came close and made a difference are few and far between. Almost none of them are from the latter decades but from the way back.

Addressing the sorrow. The sorrow wells up inside for someone who is now probably living in a fog of pain. There is a list that I saw years ago, it has the events in ones life that affect a person the worst. It isn't a short list but some things on it are Being Laid Off, Bankruptcy, Losing a Child.and other things like that. When one of these things happens to a person, most estimates give a two year window of recovery from it. Most items dip you deep into dispair,let you wallow in that for awhile and then, slowly, ever so slowly,you begin to inch back to feeling okay again. One day you wake up and you actually feel happy again. Time marches on, so they say. What happens to a person who has two things from the list happen in a short period of time, what about three things? Is the mourning period longer or is it just that much more intense? Hard to say. I have had some of the list occur, some deeply affected me, some not so much but never did I have more than one to deal with at once.

 

Republicans Circle the Drain-Ruin Their Legacies On The Way Out

Well, anyone who reads this blog knows exactly how I feel about Republicans anyway. I'm just writing about the most recent outrages they have pushed on us. You, of course, know about the "War on Women" they have been waging. I can't imagine how they think they came into the world without the help of a woman and I also can't figure out how there are any female Republicans. What would make a woman vote directly against their own best interests? I guess brainwashing maybe? I talk to them all the time, in real life and on Facebook and they don't seem to see the irony of voting for people who have absolutely no regard for them or their welfare. Most of them lead with their racism first, then push on to outright lies about the economy, social issues and other less savory items. They must learn this effluvient from some outlet....hmm, let me guess. Faux News, the scourge of the last decade. Not an ounce of shame do they have. One thing they do have though, is ratings that are dropping like stones, for all of their major headliners. All this while the big dogs at MSNBC have ratings that going up and up.

Another thing that appears to be cropping up in our news cycles, Republicans go on air and lie. They lie about the economy, they lie about Obama's motivations and activities, they lie about their donors. They are quite despicable. What is even more strange is the fact that our news outlets, almost all of them, let them get away with it. They don't get called on any lie they tell, with few exceptions. MSNBC is one and Soledad O'Brien is a notable exception,sometimes Anderson Cooper steps up. She tears into liars and fools, it's fun to watch.

The Violence Against Women Act was kicked to the curb this week, the aid to Sandy victims, dropped. The Republicans now say they are going to fight tooth and nail to block the increase of the nation's deficit. Can they do that? Yes. Will it cost them? Yes. Will it ruin the economy? Yes. Being driven by the rich folk of this country, they just don't seem to realize what the rest of the country is beginning to see. Even the hard core republicans will be eying their activities this year. Throughly corrupt, bought and purchased by the 2%, their legacies are failing and their credibility is slipping down.

I don't believe the Democrats are saints, they, too, are bought and paid for. They also know that without a strong middle class our country cannot go on, will not go on in the same way as before. Having almost crushed the life out of the middle class before anyone caught on, we are now faced with the fight of our lives to throw the crooks out of Congress and the Senate. Spoiled and pampered, they are all facing a wake up call. Why would the people, newly aware, continue to fund these criminals in the style to which they should never have become accustomed? Why should they get so much in benefits and wages for so little work? Why do they go into the house and senate with maybe a small personal fortune and come out multi-millionaires? I mean, we haven't really been paying too much attention until lately, but these people are leeches. They and their handlers spend millions to get them elected, for a job that pays 200k a year. Power. Power is what they are buying with that investment.

I guess it would be good to wrap this up somehow. The obstuction in our government is being fed with a pathological disrespect for a man who, in time, is going to prove to be one of the finest presidents ever. That is their excuse for being so mean and small. It's not good enough for me, I'm tired of the news of their next adventures. Remember, when 2014 rolls around that we tried reasoning with them, we tried being tough and there is nothing they respond to. Nothing except getting the boot, and some of them try to fight that!

Occupy-Alive and Well

In September 2011, Occupy Wall Street staged their first demonstration in Zucatti Park, New York City. It spread all across the U.S. and around the world. Since then, it has taken on many issues facing our economy and our society, shining a light on the inequities we have been suffering. Many cities, like Denver and Tucson sent in the police to break up the demonstrations.  A photograph of UC Davis police officer Lt. John Pike pepper spraying demonstrators spread and became an internet meme as people around the world inserted the pepper spray photo into famous works of art and popular culture. So many incidents occurred from the first demonstration through the first half of the next year that I lost track of them. The police in many cities tried to stomp the camps out, made it so hard to continue that fewer and fewer people came out.

The difference between the primarily right wing Tea Party and the Occupy Movement is mostly that early on the 1% noticed the Tea Party and decided to co-op the whole group and finance them to fall in line with the doctrines they believed in. Slight herding toward the whole idea of "Big, bad government" caused most of the people in the Tea Party to follow the ideas of the very rich men who financed them and who used them to further the agenda of the 1%. The Occupy Movement, for whatever reason, couldn't be rounded up and turned in one direction. Too scattered, too loosely organized, they just kept pointing out the way our world was heading and no one was able to organize them to do the bidding of some smaller group. They never were really organized enough to harness the people power of everyone who wanted to participate. The housewives, retirees and just general people wanted to turn out but there was never any way to figure out where to go or when. once the Once the rich guys started taking an interest in the Tea Party, they paid huge amounts of money to get everyone out and participating. After the elections of 2010, when the Tea Party was very successful, their peculiar ideas of running a country began to get a lot more attention. While it benefited the very rich in America by keeping their taxes low and attempting to open up more and more freedom for equity traders, banks and other professions that the rich were major players in, their fiscal policies and obstructionist ways did nothing for the middle and lower classes. Funny how most of the Tea Party members are retirees and decidedly middle class people. Many of them still do not see how they were manipulated. If real historians are allowed to write history books in later years, it will be interesting how the Tea Party is treated.

The Occupy Movement is still alive and well. Recently, I saw a question posed on Facebook that wondered if Occupy had actually done anything or if it were relevant at all. I wasn't able to get that question out of my mind. I participated in some of the Tucson rallies but they have long since died away. They are still in our culture though. Without them, would any focus have been placed on the inequities of the direction our country has been pointed toward for so long? Since Reagan was in office, we have slowly headed away from the American dream and we have lost so much ground. Never paying attention to slight social changes, slowly our emphasis veered away from getting ahead and moved onto just making a living and getting by. No advancements were made by the middle class, after decades of building and re enforcing our lives after the second world war, the middle class of this country  began to barely tread water and we never noticed the evil intentions of the "entitled" to turn us into a third world economy. If Occupy did nothing else from now on, they proved their value by waking us all up to the plans and plots already under way for decades.

The last election rousted people all over the country and we turned enmasse against the arrogance and lies thrown out by just one more elitist. The "Trickle Down" economic theory shoved dowm our throats for 40 years are throughly disproved. Our only hope is to harken back to the years when FDR turned us around and helped our country to heal. Whether you love or hate our current president, President Barack Obama, he has proven to most of us that he is just such a man that can heal us.

The Tea Party is fading out, their weird policies of blocking everything that comes up does no good for anyone. Their propensity of seeking out the oddest characters to run for them has bitten them squarely in the butt. They will be a blip on our national screen in years to come. On the other hand, the Occupy Movement has evolved into an organization that collects money and helps people who are hopelessly in debt. Students, mortgage holders and others have benefited from their charity efforts. When did a Tea Partier ever give anyone anything? 

Related articles

Occupy and the 2012 elections

Romney-Lord of the Flies Victim

This picture of Mittens Romney is all over the 'nets today. They are throwing rocks and making fun of him in every way they can think of. It is rather pathetic, if you think about it and it is not just the merry, ol' Democrats. Oh, no, the Repugnats are jumping right on the band wagon and deriding him and jeering at him. Jeez, didn't they love him a couple of weeks ago?  Human nature, it's a bitch.

Red Flower Day

For some reason all the flowers at my house that are blooming are red this week.

 

• 
• 
• 
• 

 

They're Always Pokin' At Him

 

 

Here we are, we got Obama re-elected and we're ready to get something done, right? Well, I've been getting this awful feeling about the next four years. After the last term, I figured the righties would have to knock it off and begin to respect Obama for the two term President that he is. Doesn't seem to be how they are playing it, does it? Anything they can think if to slander him, every small, petty idea they can think of, they are leveling it at him. I am old enough to remember how it was with Bill Clinton. If he had been able to govern as a president should, we would have been even better off when he came to the end of his two terms. He helped make our country so much better, all the while hobbled like a bad Shetland pony. Now the Republicans are winding up to do the same thing to President Barack Obama. So, every time we get a great person in, they are going to do everything they can to hamper their work. This may be how it will go, they put some oddious imbecile into the oval office and the mild mannered Democrats just sit back and wait for their turn again. After all, how bad can it be, the Dems think? Well, after that last one, (two wars, huge deficits, huge unemployment and the economy driven into the ditch), the Democrats should think again. Right now they should be putting on their boxing gloves and going right after the Republicans, who think it is perfectly okay to disrupt the  duly elected administration. As I mentioned in a previous post, they are quite simply, whiners and sore losers. We have to get meaner, we have to block every move the Republicans make to obstruct our legally elected President, Barack Obama.

Currently on deck, we have the bitter, resentful has been, John McCain. What is he up to? Just fucking with Obama for fun and profit. He lost in 2008 and he can't seem to get over that. maybe it is because he made such an utter fool of himself with that ridiculous choice for vice president. A shame really, she is a constant reminder of his bad decision making abilities. Oh, I bet that burns. So let's mess with the real winner of that challenge. He has so far ruined any legacy he had earned as a statesman and continues to make himself look more and more foolish every day.

Do the Congressfolk think we aren't paying attention to them as they start to drag their feet and try to make life tough for Obama? No, we are watching you people and you'd better believe we will remember you when 2014 rolls around. The "fiscal cliff" is going to hurt your reputations much worse than it will any Democrat. Obama can't run again so you can't hurt him on a re-election. Even if he hadn't won the last nasty, little contest, he would have gone down in history as the first African-American to be president and there is nothing you can ever to take that away from him. He won though, so he must have done something right. Back to the top, the Republicans are going to do everything they can to limit the impact of his two terms. We can't let them do it. So stand up and speak your mind. Don't let stupid, Faux-news-loving trolls get away with their filthy lies. Don't be afraid of them, they are cowards, you know. Just tell them they are wrong and walk away. If that happens enough times, maybe a glimmer will get through to them. If not, at least we have our dignity, which is something sadly lacking in the Republican bag of tricks.  

Pomegranate Secrets

 

How To De-Seed A Pomegranate with Martha Stewart 

http://youtu.be/Y_KKvqQ2QxUMartha Stewart-how to open a pomegranate

They Came, Wrapped in a Flag

Who can forget the image of Sarah Palin, wrapped in an American flag? Quoted was Sinclair Lewis,

“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” It amazes me how the Republicans in theis country seem to think they are so ultra patriotic and yet condone the cheating, voter suppression and disgusting vilification of our current president, President Barack Obama. Not just that they are patriotic but that the Democrats aren't patriotic at all. It's like there is a disconnect that they can't jump over. Most people I know are comfortable in their beliefs about America, about how we are governed and we don't need the other side to try to shame us into aligning ourselves with their idiotic political ideas. The fact of the matter is that all the efforts that the right put into this last election were borderline treasonous. Trying to send an army of grey haired thugs to the polling station with ambiguous roles to confuse and muddle anyone that they deemed the "other side" was not such a great idea. The amounts of money put in by the religious right and the non-religious right, (read wealthy, old, white people) is amazing in scope. I wonder how the morning after was for the billionaires that paid all that "black" money out and got almost nothing in return? While all of these people seem to have the same goals, in reality, the rich class are leading the religious people along to do their bidding. Fooled for years, a long running scam that keeps Americans perpetually fighting with each other. Not to forget some of the other techniques employed by the right wingers in this last outing, let's mention a few more. Sending out false information about where and when to vote. Restricting early voting in areas that are predominately Democratic. Not legally registering huge stacks, 10,000 that we know about, of people who leaned Democratic, (Mississippi). Deliberately trying to suppress the numbers of voters knowing the numbers were against them.Trying to clear the voting rolls just before the presidential election. How about publicising how voter fraud is rampant and must be stamped out, all the while working their own gambits of voter fraud. There are more of these instances but I can't think of all of them now. You get the picture. Listening to the aftermath and play by plays on the news, it gives me hope that several things may be occurring naturally. One, that the Tea Party hit its peak in 2010 and will never cause as many headaches as before again. Two, that the minority and female participation ensures that the Ol' boys party can never dominate by the numbers. Of course, they keep thinking of new ways to cheat and rile up the unfortunates that follow them but the numbers are against them. I am hopeful but this was such a bitter contest and there are so many angry right wing people now, being incited to riot and revolt ans things like that. I remember how unutterably sad I was when Shrub Bush  his second term, ( by hook or by crook!). My side wanted to move away. I know the Republicans are sad and outraged, but they threaten to do bad things to our country, to take things into their own hands, which they weren't able to do the legal way. With leaders like Ann Coulter, Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh, ( to name but a few of the most objectionable), they are goosed and prodded into outrage. It isn't pretty to watch. I say that these people and all the ones that tried to obstruct the age old voting process should be held as treasonous. Inciting people to throw over a legally elected president seems just that. Treasonous.

Sinclair Lewis quotes (American Writer, 1885-1951)

Racism, Alive and Well in Ajo, Arizona

And every other town in America. Most of them don't even try to hide it.

 

By accident, I found myself in Ajo today. Nice little place to spend the winter, especially if you get one of those cool, old houses in the historic district. Funny thing, saw a church sign when I went down the main drag. It said, "Our leaders should look like Jesus" or something like that. I meant to take a picture but I forgot. Anyhoo.....when I got over cussing at them, I started laughing because as most people know, that beautiful Jesus you see in all the literature of today is merely a composite and sort of a wish list made up of years of priests and preachers idea of Jesus. So here is depiction of modern day Jesus next to a CGI model of what he probably really looked like. It was based on the times, the area he came from and other factors like that. Hmm...what on earth could that preacher in that rundown, ratty looking church meant by his hate filled sign? I think there should be some new legislation after this election.  Tax the churches. Oh, yeah, big time. I bet they'd keep their big, fat mouths shut next time.  I could go on, but why? I am so disgusted with so many of the citizens of this country. Hey, stand up and call them what they are when they throw it out there. Racists!  Obama\ Biden, 2012