{"id":2752,"date":"2008-12-29T08:04:44","date_gmt":"2008-12-29T13:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2752"},"modified":"2008-12-29T08:04:44","modified_gmt":"2008-12-29T13:04:44","slug":"not-what-were-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/12\/29\/not-what-were-about\/","title":{"rendered":"not what we’re about…"},"content":{"rendered":"
As the Republican Maelstrom discovered beginning in 1994<\/strong><\/font> when they took over the Congress ,and in 2000<\/strong><\/font> when they took over everything else, it is much easier to criticize the governance of others than it is to govern. In fact, their time in the Sun was largely spent dismantling all those things they found so odious in the years leading up to their final return to power.<\/div>\n
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Before 1994 [except for a couple of two year stints after World War II], they hadn’t held the majority in Congress since the Great Depression. And they hadn’t controlled both the Presidency and<\/u> the Congress for 46 years [and then, for only two years]. One of their complaints was taxation of the wealthy, so they slashed the tax rates. They had complained about deficit spending too, but forgot that complaint when in office – setting a new gold standard in that venue. As in much of their dealing with governing, they were arithmetic-challenged.<\/div>\n
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Their arithmetic in war was no better. They sent too few troops to fight a war effectively, spent too much on contractors, and ended up prolonging the war until it has nearly bankrupted us. While I could go on and on, the point is painfully obvious. They had spent so many years being critics without having to actually govern, they came into office with a set of nay-sayer policies that universally backfired. Worst of all, they were bankrolled into office by a business community that wanted to make more money – and did. By deregulating the economy, they created a playground for the financial raiders that diverted our resources into the coffers of the Financier Elite, and has driven us to the brink of another Depression [not unlike the one their ancestors lead us to in the last century].<\/div>\n

Truth be told, the Republicans came into power with a half a century of criticism, fomenting since F.D.R. rescued us from their last debacle. And they’re still at it, claiming that he "prolonged the Depression." And there is a slight truth to that. In 1937, he backed off of the New Deal policies in response to their criticisms, resulting in the Recession of 1937. He prolonged the Depression by doing what the Republicans wanted him to do. The inertia of the Republican criticism became a dead-end ideology that substituted for governance. In office, they attended to their ideology, but never got around to running our country.<\/p>\n

Now we, Democrats, Progressives, Bloggers are in the same boat. We’ve been out of power for a long enough time to have created a culture of criticism ourselves. I’m a part of that. I’m so full of what Reagan, Bush[s], and Cheney have done wrong that it’s hard for me to think clearly about what’s right anymore. And like most, I’ve been horrified by the infusion of bigotry and religious demagogery into our political discourse in the recent years – anti-homosexuality, pro-life arguments, anti-science, anti-immigrant, anti-other, free-market economy as rape. So it’s easy to have a Progressive inertia of criticism. I want our team to win too.<\/p>\n

But I voted for Barack Obama, in part, because he doesn’t seem to be so caught up in the divisive dichotomy that the Republican\/Conservative idiots have lived off of for such a long time. I wish he hadn’t thought that including Rick Warren in his Inauguration would bring us together. I wouldn’t mind so much if I thought it would meet his goal of trying to unite us, but I doubt it will do that. I’m not mad about it. It’s just a mistake, that’s all. I would prefer that he make that kind of mistake than the other kind – marginalize large groups of Americans. Homosexuals have been marginalized for all time and that’s a bad thing. But I don’t want to marginalize Christians Zealots either. I just want them out of control of our government. And if Rick Warren has any sense at all, he’ll give a prayer of uniting that we need to hear.<\/p>\n

I think that there is a pitfall for the Democrat\/Progressive\/Blogger Community. We’ve come into being as an oppositional party – filled with daily criticism of the "wing-nuts." We have, in some good ways, become the "Oversight" that disappeared from the government when Bush et al came into office – locked into battle with the forces of darkness. But it would be very easy for us to micromanage Obama’s every decision too – and become like the Republicans – a culture of negative inertia rather than a strong political force that actually is "progressive." Our enemy right now is not Obama. It’s still the forces of irresponsibility – Coulter, Malkin, Limbaugh, Hannity, Rove, Bohner, Chambliss – the people who are still generating negative Talking Points and filling the airways with a renewed enthusiasm. Nay-saying is their bread and butter – not ours. It’s fine to let Obama know when he makes mistakes. But to join in the critical din coming from the other side is not what we’re about…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the Republican Maelstrom discovered beginning in 1994 when they took over the Congress ,and in 2000 when they took over everything else, it is much easier to criticize the governance of others than it is to govern. In fact, their time in the Sun was largely spent dismantling all those things they found so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}