Notes on the day after History

-Today I saw a homeless man selling copies of the Chronicle for $3.00. I am just guessing here, but I think he took a bunch from a rack when they came out early in the morning. What a smart thing to do! The front page declaring Obama's win will be a collectors item. If you tried to find a Chronicle in a rack after the election, then you know they were empty pretty early.
Sure enough, one by one I watched Marina Chicks, Castro boys, Button down business men and Hipsters all willingly purchase a copy for $3.00.
See. Obama has been elected President and already he's putting people back to work.

-Listening to Air America radio in my car, a conservative caller still arguing after a landslide victory about "Obama's socialism" commented, "...it's capitalism first and if you can't make it on your own get out of the way or you will get rolled over."
I think thats why they lost.
Another conservative was quoted on CNN as saying, "I don't know how we lost."
Your shitting me, right?
I don't know, maybe it was the 10 Billion dollars a month occupation of a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. Maybe it was the economic melt down created by the conservative delusion that all business should have no rules or regulations placed on them to maximize profit. Perhaps it was the choice of a nearly brain dead X-beauty queen whose every public utterance made George Bush seem like a professor of linguistics. Maybe it was John McCain, a millionaire with 7 homes and 12 cars saying, Obama was a bad candidate because he wanted to "...spread the wealth." Maybe it was the failure of hunting down and bringing Osama Bin Laden to justice. Perhaps it was the lack of any weapons of mass destruction ever being found or maybe it was the arrogance of a man who spent precious minuets in one of his few press conferences stuttering a "no" to the question of, what mistakes have you made and what would you do different? Maybe it was the idolization of Joe the plumber; a guy who lied about his name, lied about making the money he said he did, lied about being a dues paying union member with a licenses to be a plumber in the state of Ohio, and on top of it all- hadn't even paid his taxes! There is a lien on his property. Or wait, I know! It was probably the home mortgage industry bankrupting America and the predatory lending unleashed on us under the guise of creating "The Ownership society."
Any one of these things might have been the reason why the Republicans lost. Take your pick sore loser.

-History gives rise to phrases that slip into the mainstream as metaphors. My fathers generation had, "If we can put a man on the Moon then we can..."
I predicted ours will become, "If we can put a Black man in the White House, then we should be able to..."

-Fox TV gave new four year contracts to its pool of loud mouthed ass holes. They are sharpening their knives and taking aim at Obama just as they did with Clinton. They will be the persistent buzz of an annoying fly by your ear. They will say outrageous spiteful untrue things like never before because their world, the world of old rich arrogant white men is ending. These are the same people whose morality allows for the public shamming of a President who got a blow job in office but cheered for a war where millions are dead. Yet, they will tell you with a straight face that they are pro-life.
Seriously, guys?

-Got news for everyone.
As long as we remain the richest empire with the deadliest military in the history of the world, we will have enemy's. A lot of enemy's. Irony is, most of our enemy's are of are own making. Saddam Hussein was as much an American creation as Coke. Our homeless are relatively rich if you look at what most of the worlds population calls life. We are resented and admired, held up as a beacon of hope and renowned for the devastation it requires to keep this luxury life style going.
And we are a nation that loves to party.
75% of our money holds enough traces of cocaine that drug sniffing dogs have to be taught to ignore it like back ground static.
To the majority of the planet, everyone here might as well be Paris Hilton.

-Truth is, to keep us living the American dream, a great many people in a great many nations have to do a lot of the heavy daily toil the statue of liberty promises to free people from.
So you can see how we might look silly in the eyes of the world when we talk about human rights and freedom.
America has a national flag, a national bird, and national holidays. But we aren't a nation.
Were an irony.

-If America was started in defiance of the established powers that be so all people could be free and equal, then asking tough questions about our country cannot be un-American. So stop with the ra-ra were number one bull shit for a moment and see things as they are, not as we want them to be. On the list of things like live births, murder, educational standards, life expectancy and our own quality of life surveys, America consistently comes in behind countries most of us only know as punch line's. Question is, do you want to accept things as they are or do you want to change them? If you want to change then lets agree on what work needs to be done. Also, lets stop making private matters of morality into things that are legislated. Wasting time arguing over gay people and the legality of them having the same basic rights as any other married couple isn't useful. Besides, what are you preserving with so called, Traditional marriage?
An institution that fails 50% of the time?
What else do we hang onto in society that ends up not working half of the time?
A gun that worked half the time wouldn't be acceptable. A condom that worked half the time wouldn't be useful either. Let gay people have the same opportunity to fuck up each other as you or I have.
If its a religious issue allow me to point out that if you insist on following social laws write down in a 2,000 year old book that has been edited, transcribed, rewritten and translated incorrectly at times in history, then you can't say, we don't follow the rule about stoning people to death anymore because thats barbaric, but were still following the one about gay people.
What we need, what we all want is the dignity of a job that allows us quality of life. How do we insure everyone actually does get what their promised by the constitution? You know, Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The black and white, Democrat or Republican approach to this has been either, less government is the way or more government is the way.
They both miss the point.
The right question is, where should government be involved to better the quality of its citizens lives and where can that promise best be served without government involvement?
I heard a man say, "Good government should function so you don't notice its even there." Government for the people and by the people implies the people have a duty to be informed. That means participation beyond casting a ballot every few years. It means paying attention and yelling Bull Shit when the government says something like, we are invading a country for your protection.
The last eight years of George Bush were a monument to petty personalities, primitive beliefs and staggering greed. He told us we were at war but asked nothing more of us other than to go out and shop. He told us we were in danger of having our way of life and liberties taken away, yet it was Bush and company that removed civil liberties and manipulated us with fear to do it.
They made war into just another business and waged business like it was a war. How else would you explain oil companies record breaking profits and the complete collapse of the banking industry?

-I bought a copy of the $3.00 Chronicle and put it in a box in my room. It is a time capsule now. The real reflection of the times we live in is not the front page with a beaming proud Obama claiming his landslide victory, it is the news stories between the pages that tell us of our days. Those are the pages that will remind us more than anything else why Americans voted for hope this year.