CAN THEY FIND THE WAY BACK?

REPUBLICAN CONTEMPT

   The setting is the great beyond. The card players are Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

    "Say fellows, did you read what David Brooks said about the Grand Old Party?" Reagan reaches for a jellybean.

     "Well, I've got to say even though he works for that liberal Jew New York Times, he's a good man!" Nixon wipes sweat from his upper lip.

      "I couldn't agree with him more," Ike says.

      "How's that Mr. President?"

      "I'll tell you how Ronnie. Ever since that gas bag Rush Limbaugh got the holy, holy treatment from Republicans our old party has, as Brooks said, become 'bombastic, hyperbolic and imbalanced.' They remind me of the old John Birch society."

      "Let me just say I stand four square for Republican values, but these people are radicals. They're as destructive as the yippies and SDS. All they want to do is tear down government," Nixon pokes himself in the eye as he gestures.

      "Well, you know boys, Old Tip and I didn't see eye to eye on things but we still took time to visit and you know we got things done." Reagan eats another jellybean.

      "These damned fools who call themselves the Freedom Caucus don't know the first thing about freedom or the price so many have paid. It's like Brooks said, 'Self-expression is more valued than self-restraint and coalition building.' Think we could have won the peace if we didn't build coalitions or I couldn't find a way to work with Mongomery for crying out loud?" General Eisenhower stands and straightens his tie.

     Nixon stands and almost salutes Ike. "I just want to put it out there, put it on the record so to speak, that I believe in the practice of politics, the whole enchilada. Politics is America and as American as the flag. These people are anti political. They don't know how to make a deal."

      "Dick I've never doubted your ability to be a wheeler-dealer, so I'll give you credit on that.  Brooks says this have it their own way "anti political ethos produced elected leaders of jaw dropping incompetence." He's right-jaw dropping incompetence. Hell, all you have to do is turn on C-SPAN and watch some of these damned fools. Brooks is right, the Freedom Caucus and the tea party are "insurgents, incompetent at governing and unwilling to be governed. If I could I'd bust them all to buck privates and make em spend the rest of their life cleaning latrines."

       "Mr. President I want it clear that I am not in favor of these people being called Republican." Nixon mops his brow.

       "Leave it to these people and everything we worked for will disappear. None of the three of us could pass their litmus test. They are not the Republicans we used to be. They should be thrown out on their asses."

        The door of the card parlor opens and Tip ONeill enters,

"Hey Gents. I've been listening and all I can say is thank God that orange haired carnival barker is now calling himself a Republican. Dick, hand those cards to the General so he can cut the deck."

        Meanwhile back here-Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan campaigned on and worked for ideas the Freedom Caucus and Tea Party right wing fringe now reject. Ideas like rebuilding slums, "eradicating racism," attacking poverty, income inequality, low cost housing, expansion of social security, equal pay regardless of sex, support for the UN, closer federal scrutiny of mergers, better anti trust enforcement, better SEC policies, protection of employment benefit programs, federal funds to train doctors and scientists, low rent programs, environmental protection, fair immigration and citizenship programs and occasionally even a tax increase. 

        Surprised? Either memory fails you or more than likely the restricted and partisan atmosphere of the last few years has made old fashioned Republican and conservative ideas look liberal. The same is true for Democrats as they, with the exception of Bernie Sanders, have become more centrist and business friendly. Conservatism has been drubbed and so has liberalism.  

         In old fashioned "politics" the nation has been moving right under corporate sponsorship. Sociologically the US has been fragmenting by income, education, gender and sexual identity, ethnicity and aspirations.  It is harder to find the "old center" of the commonweal and as an aging democratic republic with a dysfunctional government and towering maintenance issues, we should find our way back to consensus, negotiation, pragmatic solutions and survival.

The first who get tossed out of my ship of state are the ideologues, zealots, numb skull egoists and narcissists.

EATING IN THE BARN

   See you down the trail.

STILL VALID

 FROM THE ARCHIVE

As we dive more deeply into campaign season,

and as the talk turns to economics as it surely will

I wonder how we will hear it framed.

One part of this post puts it in a context 

that it should be put in.  

The first part of this post deals with

the fascination of what is possible.

Including a replay.

GOOD AND BAD

from root to branch

Do you find it difficult to hold opposites in your mind

at the same time?

Before you answer, here's a little ditty from

Lewis Carroll.

Alice is speaking with the queen

"There's no use trying," she said "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice." said the Queen. "When I was your

age I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I've believed as many

as six impossible things before breakfast."

 Frame this in your own sense of possible.

Stanford University has offered a free online course that has

has attracted 58,000 students. That's four times the size

of the school's enrollment.

I find this exciting and perhaps even a dawning.

 Consider this from the New York Times

The class on artificial intelligence is one of three being offered by Stanford’s computer science department and will be taught by two leading AI experts, Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig.

Thrun led an effort at Stanford to build a robotic car that drove 132 miles over unpaved roads in a California desert. Lately, he has spearheaded a Google project to develop self-driving cars, many of which have already been tested successfully on American roads.

Norvig is Google's director of research and a former NASA scientist. He has also written a widely read textbook on artificial intelligence.

The online students will not get grades or credit for participation, but they will be ranked in comparison to their online classmates.

Thurn explained that the course was part of an effort to increase the accessibility of once cost-prohibitive higher-education. “The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” he told the Times.

What amazing advances might emerge. What creative solutions could occur.

AND THEN

There is the Pentagon Budget process, another place that can't be reached or the embodiment of thinking the impossible not only before breakfast, but constantly.

McClatchy Newspapers reports it is practically impossible to get an accurate and thorough account of the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 

 Impossible to know how much we are spending.  

One estimate puts it at $3.7 Trillion or as McClatchy reports "$12,000 per American."

As we suffer a budget and economic crisis we don't even possess the tools to understand how and where to cut where we should.

These wars are THE economic crisis.

I guess our President and Congressional leaders can't hold two opposing ideas in mind.

Nor do they seem to recall the words of the highest ranking US Military leader ever. 

He was also our Commander in Chief.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

— Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961 Presidential Farewell Address

See you down the trail.

THE IMPOSSIBLE

GOOD AND BAD
from root to branch

Do you find it difficult to hold opposites in your mind

at the same time?

Before you answer, here's a little ditty from

Lewis Carroll.

Alice is speaking with the queen

"There's no use trying," she said "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice." said the Queen. "When I was your

age I always did it for half-an-hour a day.  Why, sometimes I've believed as many

as six impossible things before breakfast."

 Frame this in your own sense of possible.

Stanford University has offered a free online course that has

has attracted 58,000 students. That's four times the size

of the school's enrollment.

I find this exciting and perhaps even a dawning.

 Consider this from the New York Times

The class on artificial intelligence is one of three being offered by Stanford’s computer science department and will be taught by two leading AI experts, Sebastian Thrun and Peter Norvig.

Thrun led an effort at Stanford to build a robotic car that drove 132 miles over unpaved roads in a California desert. Lately, he has spearheaded a Google project to develop self-driving cars, many of which have already been tested successfully on American roads.

Norvig is Google's director of research and a former NASA scientist. He has also written a widely read textbook on artificial intelligence.

The online students will not get grades or credit for participation, but they will be ranked in comparison to their online classmates.

Thurn explained that the course was part of an effort to increase the accessibility of once cost-prohibitive higher-education. “The vision is: change the world by bringing education to places that can’t be reached today,” he told the Times.

What amazing advances might emerge. What creative solutions could occur.

AND THEN

There is the Pentagon Budget process, another place that can't be reached or the embodiment of thinking the impossible not only before breakfast, but constantly.

McClatchy Newspapers reports it is practically impossible to get an accurate and thorough account of the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 

 Impossible to know how much we are spending.  

One estimate puts it at $3.7 Trillion or as McClatchy reports "$12,000 per American."

As we suffer a budget and economic crisis we don't even possess the tools to understand how and where to cut where we should.

These wars are THE economic crisis.

I guess our President and Congressional leaders can't hold two opposing ideas in mind.

Nor do they seem to recall the words of the highest ranking US Military leader ever. 

He was also our Commander in Chief.

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

— Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961 Presidential Farewell Address

See you down the trail.