I have a couple of sisters; one is a republican, only one in the family. She stood on her head too much as a child apparently, because as we always tell her she was raised better than this. I just spoke to her on the phone for about 45 minutes, I had avoided doing so since right before McCain announced Palin as his VP pick. I didn't think I could handle the Sarah Palin lovefest, but today I had to call her. My sister is a partisan republican, she parrots talking points as well as any talking head on Faux News. Today she informed me that the economic meltdown is BILL CLINTON'S fault. Yes, you read that correctly it is Clinton's fault. I was good. I didn't go back and blame Reagan, though I was sorely tempted.
How is this Clinton's fault? He signed a banking deregulation bill in 1999. I pointed out that this bill was passed by a republican congress, and written by Phil Gramm. She completely ignored this and kept on talking. She then stated, as a fact, that the fundamentals of our economy are strong, the market ebbs and flows and the American worker is productive and industrious. I shit you not, she really said that. I bit my lip. Okay one quick jib about how while we are so productive we have fewer benefits thank other industrialized country, but mainly I bit my lip.
My sister is in the top 1% of American earners, you know the ones that Obama will tax a bit more, Her husband works in an industry dependent on a somewhat healthy economy. As she sits in her denial of what is going on in the economy, I worry about her ability to continue her lifestyle with this downturn. It will effect her much more than my family and our government jobs. I don't understand how she cannot see the real ramifications of this for her family. How she can parrot some of the most absurd things I have ever heard, with no real thought behind them and willingly blind herself to the danger they face working in the industries that they do. It is mind numbing.
I am a partisan democrat. I can point out historically that all American's do better under Democratic administrations than Republican ones. I can point out that the second coming of the Gilded Age has had the same dangerous and damning results that the first one did. I am partisan, but I can see good in some things Republicans have done in this country. I am not blindly partisan to the detriment of the country and my family. I do not understand people like my sister; in fact they frighten me. This willingness to ignore the obvious truths, no matter what they are, so they may remain loyal to a party before their country. Yet, they wrap themselves in the flag, quote the Bible and repeat the same old balderdash they hear on the boob tube and call it Patriotism. Mind numbing is what it is, well and truly frightening. Some people will never learn, or in my sister's case relearn.
And one more time BILL CLINTON's Fault..umm wtf are these people smoking?