To continue with a musical title, I've chosen 'Lives in the Balance' for this meditation-- and crie de coeur-- on the upcoming State of the Union speech. Lives in the Balance is sung by Jackson Browne; it is important and magnificent and relevant. It is not new. But it does not get old. Please return here after you've at least read the lyrics. Thank you.
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Lives in the Balance is what the subject of POTUS's SOTUS should be tomorrow night. It should be linked to the Progressive Dems's budget they've called The Balancing Act.
I'm sick to death of hearing about 'the economy' as if it were a brand-new topic unique to this present. While I wrote these sentences, Thom Hartman's expressing the genuine source and symbolism and value of money. That's after he read some quotes from the departing Pope. 'All are Marxist,' said Thom. Sure; no surprise: As a minister sitting across from me in a basement meeting for some volunteer event whispered across the crullers, smiling: 'Jesus was a socialist.' While I begin to write right now (5:17P), a caller and Thom agree about the great and good merits of democratic socialism. I can go on with such serendipitous support!
So, it's not just that 'the economy' should be the topic of tomorrow's SOTUS or that it was the focus of previous Presidential elections. (It's the economy, stupid, was Clinton's Carville construct,) It's that the stupid economy stupidly persists in stupidity perennially in every election since I've been conscious of these things. As Thom reiterated just now, the purpose of government is not to balance the budget nor keep a certain ratio of debt to GDP. Thom raises his voice: 'IF YOU WANT TO CUT THE DEBT, GROW THE FRIGGIN GDP!'
What does government and We The People owe to ourselves? (We are (supposed to be) the government; why can't we get that concept clear already?) Don't stress about what we owe to ourselves, dear readers, our fine founder, another Thom, wrote that answer down: It is just this: 'Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.' Very few today would have either the imagination or the audacity (of hope, indeed) to write these words together to tell US of A what We The People owe to each other via the vehicle that makes US stronger together (unionized, you secessionist putzes! Just GO already!): our democratic government.
Since there are over 300 millions of US, it's more manageable to have representatives in the House and Senate in different proportions. That's what the GOP likes to stress; that we're a REPUBLIC. The democracy, the demos, is what they con US into minimizing. That's how Rove, the Kochs, the not-so-smart ALEC's cronies think they'll steal our country from us who dare demand what our Constitution promises US: unalienable rights that make us equal by being a country of laws, not royalty by heritage nor piles of Mittens money.
Even in that Capitalist boardgame sine qua non (that was born as a Socialist game, Landlord! Yeah, they steal and twist everything. Oh, hell yes they do!) Monopoly, all the players start out with equal amounts of money. Why O Why don't we get back to basics, indeed, and reboot our entire economy? FDR did. 'I welcome their hatred!' that great rich man said concerning the jibes of the Capitalist Class (but of the 'CON persuasion) of which he was a member by birthright. But he and enlightened Eleanor knew the right wing 'CONs were wrong. Our current GOP Capitalists know themselves well in only this (and are correct): You don't compromise with THEM. FDR knew that. We need a Neo-New Deal, if you will. We need a President and Congress in 2016 who will want to do our will.
But for now: The State of our Union Speech will be presented by a Cosby kind of reassuring man. I did vote for him when I had the intense audacity of hope for real change. I voted the second time to save US from a nightmare. President O'Bama is much too moderate for me. I think he has wasted all our precious time trying to compromise with 'CONs.
They are so deluded and DeMent demented that they think they're Christians as they take food from the mouths of babies by cutting such programs as WIC. They had a big pig part in twisting Clinton into passing Welfare DEform. (The horror of being unable to find a living wage for her family of three growing girls forced my good friend then into such a frenzy of wage slavery, that she dropped dead at the age of 54, found dead on the floor of the local bookstore here where she worked one of several jobs. The coroner said it was hard to call a cause, but he went with a brain aneurysm.) I say it was a blow by the Ayn Rand RepubliCONS that are Legion...and may always be among US.
Now they want whatever's left to take from what We The People still have of The Commons and what, these 'CONS disparagingly call it all, incorrectly with pants on fire, Entitlements.
On second thought, let's take back what the 'CONS are taking from US with their Orwellian perversions, and call these rights proudly what we are Constitutionally Entitled to. These are, indeed, Entitlements of what FDR called the Second Bill of Rights: our healthcare, our education, our TV and radio and Internet waves, our heating and cooling, our clean water, air; plants, animals, and land that thrive sustainably and are accessible to all.
This should be a sustainable and democratic economy. Worker-owned co-ops should be the models, not hedgefund gamblers with golden sack sand minimal tax. The welfare that deforms US all are the billions given to Big banks, oil, pharma, and agribiz. Indeed, Mittens was correct: We do think we're Entitled to health, housing, food, 'and whatnot.' Our founding fathers were radically humane enough to include those in the Constitution. As is the USPS because they thought free speech needed the USPS to be, indeed, as free as possible. Men like Mittens are not entitled to take that from US. He can build all the car garages (if in accord with our building codes!) his tiny little heart desires. And we know what the Buddha thinks about desires.
Adequate healthcare, food, housing, education, and good stewardship of our natural world are all without which, you Robber Barren barons, we cannot have what our Constitution mandates the government, our democratic society, must provide: 'Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Then we are obligated to take care and contribute to that society when it is truly ours: the democratic government that proportionately represents all the citizens, and struggling loyal visitors, as well. Eventually the rights of our fellow creatures who are of other species will be honored. A just society would have an economy that accurately includes the huge debit that desecration of Nature subtracts from true value(s).
Poverty is the only state that our state of the union should immediately wage war upon. We must all refresh ourselves with 'The Cross of Iron' speech by a Republican who was not a crony of these 'CONs. He warned us of the stranglehold of the 'military-industrial complex' whose every armament for murder kills our very own and all children's present and future. Ike knew that the enemies are the thieves and greedy fear-mongers who keep people ensnared in poverty and this Earth in a constant state of wars, want, fear, degradation, and pollution with their depravity. For the wages of sins, like greed and theft, is death. We should not continue to allow our economy to continue to be a stupid economy. We cannot sustain such stupidity. I will note that a very stupid 'CON recently said his GOP cannot continue being 'the stupid party.' I'll leave that rare honesty just twinkle there for US all. Our very lives depend on the extent to which our economy becomes truly ecoLogical as well as equitable.
Let's support the Progressive Dems' Caucus's budget priorities called The Balancing Act. Really. You can imagine my surprised delight when i heard this after choosing my title. Most good and right Entitlements and priorities I'd gathered from diverse sources are included in this fine Act. Lives in the Balance + The Balancing Act = one happy lefty blue-green writer!
So, tell Paul Ryan and Rotten Rand Paul: Inequity, desperation, fear, social and political exclusion, bullying by a student or Rush Limbaugh is destructive to our democracy and our psyches. You souless slime are guilty crimes against humanity.
Dear readers, tell the 'CONS who are all Koched up (and their crony Dems, too): If you want to keep your corrupted crony Capitalist ill-gotten spoils, you must deal the rest of US in at the level beyond hunger, preventable disease, and homelessness. You owe US. The banks should not be too big to fail. We The People are too big and valuable to fail. And you're right, Right: Compromise with you selfish scum is not acceptable to We The People who you've left to starve, naked, Howling.
Dear fellow citizens, tell the Ayn Rand rotten Republicans (and Dems) that We The People demand and are Constitutionally ENTITLED to the minimum for all life on Earth: healthy food, adequate clothing and shelter that are the necessary prerequisites for the pursuit of happiness. Denying US these is theft, and we believe in having the punishment fit this enormous crime.
My dear brothers and sisters of this gasping Earth, tell the polluters that with our dying breath, We The People will throw you all out. Just watch US do it, you stupid 'CONs who've destroyed our economy. Just watch the US of Audacity win this new civil war. We will give the red states the blues. Minimally, we will turn you apoplectic purple.
There are lives in the balance.
