When I woke this morning, - Honestly, I woke and it was morning! - I was full of ideas. The pain blog is serving its purpose in getting me the exposure that I want. Now, I miss the anything goes, no restrictions online journal format. Barometric Man is the name I should have chosen instead of Blahthings. I didn't have high hopes for the project that started off as my project to document a brief convalescence before I'd return to work and make lots of money in the Clinton economy with my computer skills. Of course, those skills were becoming obsolete just as I got sick.
You can expect to read a lot about politics whether local, national or even family. I'm a political animal and have been since I could talk. Once upon a time, I thought I had quite a future as a diplomat but then the teachers got tired of this precocious kid getting lippy with them trying to negotiate. It was a small taste of how I learned to deal with failure. If I could do anything if I put my mind to it, I wasn't putting my mind to enough things.
Right now, I've got my mind on getting out of some financial trouble and just a little bit on the Democratic Presidential Primaries. To the extent that I'm paying attention, I'd like to deal with this the way you would a collectible card game or maybe fantasy sports leagues. I would like to see Hillary Clinton get elected with Bernie Sanders' political priorities and see Joe Biden retire to some sort of special honorary title recognizing his decades of public service. Call him the President Emeritus or Presidential President Pro Tem.
We have a nearly ideal set of characteristics among our Presidential candidates this year. President Hillary Clinton has the political will, toughness and moxie to drive a set of priorities. They will not be pristine when pounded through Congress. Words like "sausage grinder" or "pounded" even do not make for original goals coming through intact much less pristine looking. As long as you move the policy ball forward to the goal line, I'm okay with tossing in a few bennies for the right. If a tax cut could deal with a major problem that I believe better served by a tax increase, you can cut that tax and I'd sign the bill myself.
Let me give you an example of a relatively small scale problem that should appall us all into action. An impoverished area in rural coal country has a large population of children who get subsidized school meals (breakfast and lunch) as their primary form of nutrition. Here's what I want. I want kids all over to be able to eat and not be hungry afterward at least three times a day over 365 days a year. Right now, if not for volunteers, these kids would not eat between lunch on Friday and breakfast on Monday. They eat only sporadic meals over the summer. Nevermind the effect on their education. These are suffering kids.
We're a rich nation overall. There is no argument for making kids suffer so that some line item in the budget gets checked off. I don't give a flying whatever coming out of my wherever (Thank you, Mister Trump and one best forgotten afternoon in college spent watching ...ummm... blue(?) movies for that image.) if we can fight two and a half wars somewhere, if children are suffering. I'm not anti-military. Soldiers, sailors and airmen protect this country from outside tyanny. How can the next generation of stealth weapons matter when our most likely potential foes are low tech and ready to fight a battle on their own turf where they have a huge head start in the hearts and minds battle while children are hungry.
Kenucky children going without good for long periods of time is something that I can wrap my head around. On the scale of the nation, this should be an easy problem to solve. The refugee crisis that has spawned from our misadventures in Iraq has killed thousands beyond the hundreds of thousands killed in the actual fighting. Why not kill a few birds with one stone while we're at it? Let's start by dropping ethnically appropriate MREs (meals ready to eat for the less militarily inclines) by the thousands into the areas where the fighting has died down and the problem is mostly lack of food. Our European allies are doing a decent job of taking in a lot of refugees but these people have been forced to travel through dangerous, lawless areas where their homes used to be only to arrive in some nations where they are abused by right wing gangs encouraged by anti-immigrant politicians.
Why are there not convoys of US Navy escorted ships (substitute other NATO nations where they would be more welcome) rescuing these refugees on the beaches of these horrible places? Why isn't there a process in place to get these people adequate food, water, shelter and medical care (and that includes vaccinations for those who fear disease riddden foreigners) to a place where they catch their breath for a few days? Let's follow Pope Francis in his call for Catholic families to take in at least one family per parish and extend the model outward even to the secular world.
We have too much unemployment in this country. Let's get some construction companies busy building starter houses and apartments to settle these people the right way. Once the new housing boom gets absorbed, it will most likely produce a second wave of building as these people will want shops and permanent homes in their new communities. We might even get enough momentum going to build a 21st century infrastructure built by current Americans and new Americans alike.
The solution might not look exactly like what I'm describing but I ask you to show me how our nation can lead the world through this new world crisis. There is truly no reason to believe that these people will be terrorists out of proportion with the ones who are already here. I'm talking about right wingers who are willing to murder their fellow Americans over good old fashioned bigotry and the bigots who support them. I fear those crazy bigots out there supplied by the NRA financers who realized that there was a decline in hunting starting with a decline in areas. Profits were to be found in military style firearms sold to a new market of domestic terrorists with names that are way too likely to have Constitution somewhere in their name.
I went a little far afield there but my goal is simple. I want to show how far afield those who wish to ignore starving children in their objections. Some say that we should ignore the foreigners who happen to be our fellow human beings. They claim that these different people hate us somehow no matter how good and pure we are. We have turned our backs or attempted to exploit the Middle Eastern people for centuries. It may take centuries for the bad rhetoric to go away .Yes, I am horrified by Arabs and Muslims committing mass murder. I am every bit as horrified by supposed Christians doing the the same thing.
Let us take steps in the right direction. Let's feed the kids in Kentucky and then let's try to live up to the words I can't remember but involve the world sending us their poor. Let's build things and build them now.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Friday, September 11, 2015
Delaware's Joe Biden
I am a Delaware resident with the hope and sincere belief that, as such, I'm one of the many with a special tie to Vice President Joseph R. Biden. I'll be concise at first. Mister Vice President, please do not run for President of the United States again. While I believe that you would be a great President but getting there is a whole different story. We Delawareans do not have the political muscle to help push you into office. Our three mighty votes in the Electoral College do not exactly form the basis of a great political movemment. Even our small size has failed to present the advantages that it should.
You hear jokes all over the place about what life in Delaware must be like. You must know Joe Schmo! He lives in Delaware like you do. This should be a political advantage for us but it isn't possibly due to the strong differences between the poles of New Castle (Philadelphia media market) and Sussex (Baltimore media) counties. Traditionally, they are very rural with conservative politicians while those of us in New Castle live in high population density areas. There is a sign near where I live proporting to lead toward the Metroplex which turned out to be the city of Wilmington and all its associated sprawl. It's not a complaint, much less an exaggerated one when I buy into the theory that all of the land from New York City to Baltimore are becoming one giant city. What does a resident of that area have in common with a Sussex county farmer beyond some traditional American values? I write this to remind Vice President Biden of his lack of home field advantage and not to make fun of our Southern neighbors yet again.
I tend to look at candidates to see what natural constituencies each candidate might have. On the Democratic side, I'd like to start off with Hillary Clinton whom I believe would make the best candidate. I'm also start starting here to make a point against stereotypes. When I say that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has women among her natural constituents, I am not implying some sort of electoral sorority. What I am saying is that the choice between two candidates may be 50/50 on the issues but that a woman's gut instinct is more likely than not to choose another woman. Thus, 99% of women voters will most likely choose based on those issue stances that they believe in. The others will have that decision come down to the shared experiences they have based on their matching chromosomes. I'm only forced to make a weak joke about it because I am not a woman and I do not presume to tell women what experiences they share that will be important.
Clinton's political constituency includes a considerable portion of the coalition her husband formed to win the Presidency twice. He neutralized advantage of the so-called Reagan Democrats by bringing some working class white men back to the Democratic side. Some say it was a matter of policy including those who dismiss it as triangulation and others claim it was pure charisma including those who repeat, "I feel your pain," with more than a touch of sarcasm. Even in 2008 with an extremely gifted African-American politician who became one of our greatest Presidents without regard to the hue of one's skin, Clinton remained formidable with African-American voters. First her husband and now she will keep the South in play for Democratic candidates.
Moving on to Senator Bernie Sanders, I count the Northeast as his natural territorial constituency. He also has the support of intellectual liberals who have supported his policies for as long as we've heard of them. Sadly, we've hit a generation gap here because today's digital media was born while I was in college. Senator Sanders had to garner support through word of mouth, knocking on doors and coverage from a few lefty magazines out there. Despite the claims of Faux (sic, of course) News, the mainstream media was very center-right. Niche mediums tended to go even further to the right except for comedy which the absurdity of the right wing forced into the center-left. In other words, you cannot equate the impact of a Howard Stern with that of Rush Limbaugh and his host of imitators.
Now, you have the blogosphere and Twitter among others that balance things out a little. Unfortunately, the generational gap continues there. Comedy mixed with journalism and academic achievement have given Stephanie Miller, Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow a louder voice but its impact fails to reach voters born before 1970. (I chose that year because it was a nice round year before I was born in 1974 and I tend to be a late adopter.) Thus, it will be difficult for Senator Sanders to reach outside his natural territory in my honest opinion.
In my honest opinion, neither Martin O'Malley nor Lincoln Chafee have a political constituency worth describing. Vice President Biden has his geographic political base in the Delaware Valley which includes New Castle County in DE and the Philadelphia region of PA. Honestly, he may be able to lay claim to Western PA as well but those voters tend to be far more conservative. The mainstream media likes Biden but it falls short of what I'd call political support as they split between Biden and Clinton. The slightly left of center media support Bernie Sanders except for feminists who support Clinton over Sanders for reasons of identity politics. The vast right wing media machine recognizes no difference among Democrats who are all part of the "Socialistic Democrat Party." Calling us the Democrat Party instead of the Democratic Party is an insult going all the way back to Roosevelt.
The good news is that most Sanders supporters will support Clinton or Biden in the general and so on. I simply do not see a path to the nomination for my greatest political hero, Joe Biden. We love you like a favorite uncle and wonder what your detractors are talking about when they go on about gaffes. You would make a great cabinet member and coming from the second smallest state won't hamper you there.
You hear jokes all over the place about what life in Delaware must be like. You must know Joe Schmo! He lives in Delaware like you do. This should be a political advantage for us but it isn't possibly due to the strong differences between the poles of New Castle (Philadelphia media market) and Sussex (Baltimore media) counties. Traditionally, they are very rural with conservative politicians while those of us in New Castle live in high population density areas. There is a sign near where I live proporting to lead toward the Metroplex which turned out to be the city of Wilmington and all its associated sprawl. It's not a complaint, much less an exaggerated one when I buy into the theory that all of the land from New York City to Baltimore are becoming one giant city. What does a resident of that area have in common with a Sussex county farmer beyond some traditional American values? I write this to remind Vice President Biden of his lack of home field advantage and not to make fun of our Southern neighbors yet again.
I tend to look at candidates to see what natural constituencies each candidate might have. On the Democratic side, I'd like to start off with Hillary Clinton whom I believe would make the best candidate. I'm also start starting here to make a point against stereotypes. When I say that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has women among her natural constituents, I am not implying some sort of electoral sorority. What I am saying is that the choice between two candidates may be 50/50 on the issues but that a woman's gut instinct is more likely than not to choose another woman. Thus, 99% of women voters will most likely choose based on those issue stances that they believe in. The others will have that decision come down to the shared experiences they have based on their matching chromosomes. I'm only forced to make a weak joke about it because I am not a woman and I do not presume to tell women what experiences they share that will be important.
Clinton's political constituency includes a considerable portion of the coalition her husband formed to win the Presidency twice. He neutralized advantage of the so-called Reagan Democrats by bringing some working class white men back to the Democratic side. Some say it was a matter of policy including those who dismiss it as triangulation and others claim it was pure charisma including those who repeat, "I feel your pain," with more than a touch of sarcasm. Even in 2008 with an extremely gifted African-American politician who became one of our greatest Presidents without regard to the hue of one's skin, Clinton remained formidable with African-American voters. First her husband and now she will keep the South in play for Democratic candidates.
Moving on to Senator Bernie Sanders, I count the Northeast as his natural territorial constituency. He also has the support of intellectual liberals who have supported his policies for as long as we've heard of them. Sadly, we've hit a generation gap here because today's digital media was born while I was in college. Senator Sanders had to garner support through word of mouth, knocking on doors and coverage from a few lefty magazines out there. Despite the claims of Faux (sic, of course) News, the mainstream media was very center-right. Niche mediums tended to go even further to the right except for comedy which the absurdity of the right wing forced into the center-left. In other words, you cannot equate the impact of a Howard Stern with that of Rush Limbaugh and his host of imitators.
Now, you have the blogosphere and Twitter among others that balance things out a little. Unfortunately, the generational gap continues there. Comedy mixed with journalism and academic achievement have given Stephanie Miller, Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow a louder voice but its impact fails to reach voters born before 1970. (I chose that year because it was a nice round year before I was born in 1974 and I tend to be a late adopter.) Thus, it will be difficult for Senator Sanders to reach outside his natural territory in my honest opinion.
In my honest opinion, neither Martin O'Malley nor Lincoln Chafee have a political constituency worth describing. Vice President Biden has his geographic political base in the Delaware Valley which includes New Castle County in DE and the Philadelphia region of PA. Honestly, he may be able to lay claim to Western PA as well but those voters tend to be far more conservative. The mainstream media likes Biden but it falls short of what I'd call political support as they split between Biden and Clinton. The slightly left of center media support Bernie Sanders except for feminists who support Clinton over Sanders for reasons of identity politics. The vast right wing media machine recognizes no difference among Democrats who are all part of the "Socialistic Democrat Party." Calling us the Democrat Party instead of the Democratic Party is an insult going all the way back to Roosevelt.
The good news is that most Sanders supporters will support Clinton or Biden in the general and so on. I simply do not see a path to the nomination for my greatest political hero, Joe Biden. We love you like a favorite uncle and wonder what your detractors are talking about when they go on about gaffes. You would make a great cabinet member and coming from the second smallest state won't hamper you there.
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