Sunday, November 1, 2015

What Happened to the Politics

Nothing partisan as I imagine the feeling is the same in most:  man, we really got screwed by this lot. The candidates insult us, the news networks see the debates in terms of profit margins, and the super PAC money guarantees not one word of what they say is true.

Note:  this is the one partisan aspect.  Bernie Sanders does not have any kind of PAC money behind him and that's why his name is posted in the sidebar.


The immediate point is agreement between us, here on the Socialist Mad Hatter Party and Goldwater Republicans (i.e. non-Tea People) as to the insult to the Will of the People represented by the giant piles of money they get for nothing to run for President.  We all know of the rampaging bribery because lobbyists want politicians to pass the bills they write and they are willing to pay big bucks for that.

The disagreement between the Mad Hatters and the Goldwaters is whether the problem can be solved.  We're mad so, yes, we do believe, fervently, the Will of the People is going to be heard, one way or the other.  Whether that comes from a Jeffersonian reaction (i.e. it's the duty of the people to overturn a tyrannical government) or a less emotional process but we do believe it will come ... but, wtf, we're mad.


Another point with a concensus is regarding the handling of the debates by the news networks as all want them returned to the control of the League of Women Voters.  They did years of committed and honorable work for the Presidential debates and they damn sure did not do it for money.  They did it for quality while the news networks (i.e. CNN) give us Sheryl Crow singing the National Anthem ... and (cough) not all that well.

Note:  that's not so much a fault of Sheryl Crow because the song is impossible and because CNN put her in the horrid position of making a caricature of herself.


And, get this, we have yet another point of concensus.  While we disagree on the need for war except in the immediately righteous context of WWII ... but ... we agree strongly to engage in a war without any clear reason for it and without any clear idea of what constitutes success is not to be tolerated.  It's grossly irresponsible because, once again, lots of people get killed and nothing is accomplished by it.

Note:  we can skip the editorial on war profiteering because likely you know the litany anyway.


Most people are looking for what's wrong with the candidates and it may not seem so but I'm looking for what's right with them and also what's ... well ... right with the right and we mean strictly with the Goldwater right.  We are not interested in Tea People and perhaps you see this as political but we see it as a matter of humanity.  Paul Ryan said (roughly) 'rape is another method of conceiving a baby' and the utter horror of that thinking is beyond me.  Therefore, we do not think of him in a political context but rather a problem to solve.  He is not that which we regard as a Goldwater Republican.

There is no wish for the 'good old days' because those good old days had Vietnam and you never want to experience any part of that.  We have an extended review of how much war affects music and use WWII, Vietnam and Middle East as the representatives.  WWII was the most deadly thing the nations of the world ever did and the music was spectacular.  "Sing, Sing, Sing" is one of the most rockin' tunes of all time.  Vietnam wasn't quite as big but it tore us as maybe as much as WWII tore our parents ... and we got spectacular music too.  "Machine Gun" by Hendrix may have said it best.

Note:  Jimi Hendrix was in Airborne in the Army but he was injured in a jump and that finished any military plans he may have had ... but there couldn't have been many because he was playing before he was drafted.

Today, the Middle East is a crap war which goes nowhere ... and ... what do you know, we get crap music which doesn't go anywhere.  Example:  we had Michael Jackson but today they get Justin Bieber and that is just fookin' tragic.  There's another Michael Jackson out there but the spirits aren't calling to him hard enough yet.


The Goldwater Republicans are the ones who believe in the Constitution, logic, and the rule of law.  He specifically did not believe religion should be used as a justification for the logic and he warned of the perils of doing so, all of which we can see in D.C. right now.  Congress is at a standstill and does nothing so well as going in circles.


There are additional points of agreement.  While we do not agree on the legality of abortion, we do agree on the terrible way it became law.  When Congress does not have the backbone to pass law, the modern alternative is to let it go to the Supreme Court to figure it out.  Neither the Socialist Mad Hatter Party nor the Goldwater Republicans accept this as due process for the Will of the People.

We believe as well, I am reasonably confident,  as the Goldwater Right that a matter of abortion should be determined in a national referendum which is binding and results in specific legislation.

However, we see the example of the Equal Rights Amendment and observe it was torpedoed by states' rights.  The bill had passed through Congress and went to the states for ratification.  That murdered it because the states can't even agree on ... well ... anything.

Based on that example, we see what appears to be a national referendum but really isn't because the states' rights aspect may mean an election within that state or not, we don't know how they will decide because it's the business of the individual states.  We do not view this as due process either and we're not sure if there is disagreement with the Goldwater Right on that but we do know they want interpretation as it is written and not how a drunked-up judge swings for that particular session.

The mechanism for a national referendum on abortion, reefer, equal rights, etc goes beyond the scope of the article because we don't know how it would be done ... we just know that it can.

As a card-in-my-hat member of the Socialist Mad Hatter Party, I absolutely want the Will of the People to be heard and this means everyone in the crowd.  In other words, we want democracy ... a real one.  The Goldwater Right wants exactly the same thing.  Their intentions within it are not the same but that's fair, that's what democracy is meant specifically to address and which is being circumvented altogether by the massive money contributed to PAC funds.

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