The Exploding Pipe Dream

I defer today to Charles M. Blow on the New York Times op-ed page. Be sure to take a look at Bottom of the Heap, the chart he links to at the end of his piece. It's a shameful state of affairs that reflects (I'm making a wild guess here) a four-decade long decline in this country's social justice--and the rise in the power and influence of America's wealthiest few. It also reflects our country's increasingly conservative attitudes and the stubborn, wrong-headed belief in an economic system that demonstrably led us into our current crisis and keeps us there. Republicans have shown themselves to be blindly loyal to these false beliefs. All the more reason to vote for Obama in the next election.

IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE...

... to help me with this blog? It needs entries from voices other than my own, and I'm open to any suggestions as to how that might be achieved. I grabbed the URL a few months ago, noticing that it was as yet untaken and thinking that it might become another rallying point for those of us who continue to support the President. Watching the ill-informed, self-serving madness of the current Republican slate of candidates and their absurdly irrelevant and pusillanimous debates, I feel more strongly than ever that the election of any one of them would be a disaster for the country. And yet... I have little faith in the wisdom and discrimination of a significant number of voters, who seem entirely willing to be led by the nose to vote against their own interests. This President needs our support. I respond as I can to appeals for donations, not only from the President but for all Democratic races and causes. But I still feel that's not enough. I'm no millionaire; nor am I a corporation. VO2012 is a way for me to do what I can to support what I believe to be right. I know there are many who agree with me, good writers, who could contribute to this effort. I'd be grateful to hear from them.

Good Marks, Bad Marks.

I take issue this morning with Matt Lauer, of NBC's "Today" show. Not only does he choose to interview that great sage, Donald Trump, about his view on the current Republican candidates for the presidency, he allows to pass without comment Trump's assertion that the Obama presidency has been "a disaster." You would think that an interviewer, confronted with such a blanket condemnation, would pause to ask what he meant by that description. Lauer, however, did not so much as blink, let alone challenge the remark. It was as though the point was inarguable. His meek acceptance of Trump's absurd charge allowed his millions of (equally meek?) viewers to pass over it as an accepted truth. Bad marks for Matt Lauer.

Switching channels, I found myself watching Michelle Obama doing a great job with a military audience, announcing a new program which she and Dr. Jill Biden have spearheaded. Called "Joining Forces," it has brought together American companies, large and small, in the effort to provide employment for returning veterans and their spouses. Following his wife, Obama took the opportunity to once again slam the Republican-led Congress for inaction on his jobs bill. The couple spoke with intelligence, grace, and not a little humor, and with genuine concern for the most severe and pressing of issues the nation faces today. Good marks for them.

BACK TO WORK

Okay, it's time to get back to this blog. It has lain idle for a couple of months, in the doldrums of the summer. Fall, I note, resurfacing, is pretty much doldrums too. In Washington, the same fractious inaction in the US Congress, the same bickering, the same obstinate refusal to even consider or debate what's needed for the country. In the media, an obsession with what's going to happen a year from now.

Meanwhile, President Obama has produced a credible plan for addressing the country's direst problem: not the deficit, but jobs. Nothing will happen to solve the economic crisis without them. I credit him for persisting, despite all obstacles. I'm glad to see him focusing on the problem with appropriate intensity and unsparing criticism of those who seem to embrace inaction as a political strategy. The single issue worthy of Republican attention, it now seems, is to defeat Obama next November.

I watched with incredulity as candidate Rick Perry's wife whined to the media about the ill-treatment of her husband, even while happily joining the chorus of those heaping scornful blame on the President. It would take, she lamented, forty years to undo the damage that Obama has wrought. As I see it, he has only just begun to work on undoing the damage Ronald Reagan wrought--and that was quite a number of years ago. It's my belief that a second term would allow him to continue that work; and, if given at the same time a more powerfully Democratic Congress, to set the country back on the right course.