Alarming Indicators at the Buzzer

Well we in blue California have won the battle against the tea partiers. Jerry Brown and Barbra Boxer are remaining comfortably ahead in the recent polls. That LA Times poll a week ago Sunday was not a flook. However on the national scene things don't look good. They say Republicans are winning generically over Democrats by 49% to 43%. They say this translates to picking up over fifty members in the House. Somebody said they would be more surprised if the Democrats held on to the house at under forty, then if the Republicans picked over seventy house members. Isn't that getting pretty close to a record? There are a lot of senate races where the statistics are a little alarming. The Republicans hold narrow but persistent margins in such sates as Nevada where Reid is trailing Angler by a few points. The Republicans are leading narrowly in Colorado and in Obama's home state of Illinois, and in Wisconsin where Russ Feingold appears to be going down to defeat. This is the loss of a valuable liberal. Rand Paul is pulling ahead in Kentucky, as was expected, and Joe Sestak, the Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania, seems to be on the losing end of a tea bagger assault. This is the loss of another valuable liberal. As Stephanie Miller is saying, historians will not look back kindly on this "historic" election of 2010. They will view it as a final last gasp of the reactionary right before this country finally moved on to bigger and better things. Ancient Chinese saying go, "He who routinely plays the obstruction card, one day will run out of cards". (Selah) This is how it will be with the tea party crowd when viewed by history fifty years from now.

Judy says her favorite president is Ronald Reagan. Need I remind you that Reagan didn't get this nation into any wars, but actually worked with the Soviets and Gorbechov to bring about a meaningful peace. I was not against "Star Wars". It was a bargaining card that worked. But I voted for Mondale the second time around because I basically thought Reagan had "served his purpose" in restoring the confidence of America, but now we needed a Democrat like Mondale to guide the economic ship of state and restore the tax cuts made for the rich. Ronald Reagan redistributed income from the poor to the rich. He cut their taxes but doubled FICA taxes on the working man for the first time making him fund his own retirement as well as that of his parents. Also Reagan in 1986 raised tax shelters for the working man such as eliminating cradit card interest as being deductable. But Ronald Reagan did not turn stem cell research into a political football and his wife, Nancy, and son Ron, are all for stem cell research if it can ease the ravages of certain diseases such as Parkinsons, Eplipsey, and Alsheimers.

One thing, one charge, these conservatives make is that it eliminates the incentive of people go go out and taken economic risks to earn money. I would strenuously disagree with this. These rich billionaires are for the most part born rich, and they'll die rich. They make their money not from honist "capital venture" as Judy suggests, but rather from feeding at the government troff of special prevelege and the ability to pay no taxes on billions earned. People impute such moral purity to these rich people as though they can do no wrong. Chuck Smith, in a hint of how he might "break" on this issue, once said "I've found that it's the poor people who love money and are avericious for more. Whereas I find the rich people to a large extent have transcended their need for money and they discover that it doesn't bring them happiness. Dr. Levy sings the same basic song. However there are ways of putting these assertions to the test. Are these rich campaigning to give their money away and help the poor, or are they fighting for every cent they make and trying to make the tax laws so it is even MORE adventagious to them and more averse fo the poor? Pete Richards may say that the dollar is doomed. But does Pete own any Gold in his portfolio? I don't think so. Were you to ask him he would say "Well, that is too risky and after all it might go down". Exactamundo. Of course it might go down. In that famous family argument at the Red Robin on Mothers Day 1994 I was alone in defending a Pastor whom Pete Richards had once worked for. And the issue was his propensity to take sensible risks. Of course one fact most likely left out of the story when Pete tells it is, the Pastor was RIGHT. But these right wingers are so risk averse they will say things like "The US dollar is finished" not because they actually believe it, but rather they don't want to spend one red cent on the poor but cut any programs they can in this State. Meg Whitman speaks of "taking back California" and I'm wondering from whom? Swartzenegger? Are they attacking him for being too Liberal? That's what it sounds like. Dr. Levy thinks our current governor is too liberal. So if this is any indication where Whitman is headed when she takes over, I'm going to do anything I can to prevent it, as a poor person. I'm going to keep quiet and vote Democratic, except for Cooley for attorney general. I still believe in law and order and the death penalty for the worse murderers.

You know someone might remark after watching me this week "You've been talking with that guy doing all the Christian witnessing around the place and you sound like a Christian yourself, quoting from the Bible. How come you aren't opposing his efforts?" Opposition is their game, not mine. I've been on the other side of the fence trying to witness to people and I know how hard it is. He has enough problems trying to get his message accross without adding my opposition into the mix. I still believe in the golden rule. In some of my blogs I come off as anti Christian, and I guess I am. I am anti institution, not anti people. My proclamations are based on my own experiance but I realize other people have other experiances with the Faith, and it's not my business to take away from another's experiance with God. But when these Christians say things like "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life" if given the chance to go back and relive 35 years ago, I would not make the same mistake. Because once you accept their gospel, nothing in your life changes. And I'm not speaking about money now. As some of you may know, I had a rather large bank account in the mid seventies. Money wasn't a problem. I could splurge and buy lobster if I wanted to, or take a trip to Hawaiiai and hardly notice the dent. But these Christians would not be happy if they learned how I Got all that money. And it wasn't by following the rules they make for the rest of us. But I'm talking about how the right wing and perhaps Christians are utterly devoid of Love for their fellow man and woman. When I speak of my life not "changing" it's basically getting over certain hangups that have plagued me and improving my own self image. That didn't occur. And to the extent it seemed to occurr in the early years it was undone by later involvements, such as with the Asshole from El Paso, or "screwy Louie". We won't even talk about the immense amount of damage Gene Scott did to the Faith. I don't like to play the "Love" card all that often because "they" do that so well, when you never know what their definition of "Love" is to begin with. Dr. Levy can talk about having a good self image and a healthy respect for yourself, but that's not how these Christians see you. I don't know to what extent Christians are intertwined with the tea baggers. I have seen hints of the connection, sometimes strong hints. But as I told that guy witnessing around here "I don't think the sort of politics the tea party set preaches belongs at all in Christianity. " What do you think?