National - izing

Okay, I’ve got to hand it to the master. It was an infomercial worthy of the king of the world. And “world” was the last word he said. Going to change America and the world. But I'd fallen out of the spell when he mentioned national service.

I’ve heard a rumor that Michelle’s going to be the uber-mommy. She’s not going to be involved in the government, mostly she’s going to be a stay-at-home mom. No office in the West Wing for her. But her pet project is going to be putting us all to work for her husband.

Not too long ago, national was a dirty word. But no more. Now it’s a good word. You know why? Because now it’s their nation. The Obama nation.

In her spare time, Michelle is going to tell you what to do in your spare time. It’s no longer yours, it belongs to them – or at least a good chunk of it does. You’re going to have tasks, like taking out the garbage. But they’ll be bigger, and take more time. Whole days. Years, in fact. And if you don’t feel like doing it, just like Mommy, Michelle’s going to say, “As long as you live in my house (country) you’ll do it.” You don’t want to do it? Go live in a country of your own.

Pardon me, folks, but isn’t this slavery? You have to do it. It’s called mandatory volunteerism – what do you make of that? What I make of it is that it’s mandatory, and you can pick your poison.

This is entirely Un-American. Down to its core. Down to our core. Americans like to decide what they’re going to do, no matter how it turns out. If they feel like being lazy bums, they want to be left to do that. Sleep late and get fired? Their option.

And you’ll choose your work from her list. That’s the “volunteer” part of it.

Americans like to be able to change their minds. About anything. Look at our divorce rate. You think they want to be tied to an obligation they have no choice about? One where if you don’t go they’ll come and get you?

The Dems were once the party of the slave masters. We tend to forget that bit of history. They like to have people under them, and they like those people to stay there. That’s their whole approach. Make a base of felons, illegal immigrants and the jobless. Give them money so they’re yours for life. Not too much money – they might invest it and become Republicans.

I resent the implication that we only help others if we’re forced. There are plenty of people who give their time, their money, their produce, their free advice, to friends, neighbors, and sometimes even people they don’t know. We don’t need to be forced to do good. That takes all the fun out of it.

Lurking behind this is another serious promise. America can’t just depend on its military for national security, America has to have a Civilian National Security Force. Do you know what that means folks? It’s the Minute Men from Sinclair Lewis’s, “It Can’t Happen Here.” Scary title, scary book. All the young punks in town sign up to lord it over others. They’ve got guns. They’re working for the Chief.

You’re not going to have any guns. And neither is your neighbor, if that’s who you’re counting on to protect you. Obama is going to sign the United Nations Small Arms Treaty, the Senate will ratify it, and bye-bye Second Amendment. Watch out then, Buddy, because the only guns left will be illegal ones, and they’re in the hands of ... guess what ... criminals.

But back to the main man. Barack Obama. Very impressive. Would make a good president – of the United Socialists of America.

Bread and Circuses

Hey, folks, I get the idea… you don’t like rich people. Doesn’t bother me – I’m not rich. Are you? Maybe you are, and you don’t know it. If so, you’re in for it. All rich people are, because they’ve been defined as the enemy.

People, you’re making a mistake. The rich are our friends. Without them, we’d still be scratching the ground with sticks to plant our seeds. You think the poor can build a John Deere? The poor by themselves can’t do anything. It takes a gathering and growing of wealth to produce the producers of most of the products you can’t do without. Laundry detergent. Toilet paper. Without the rich, you wouldn’t even have newsprint to save your ass.

Ever hear of the goose that laid the golden egg? Yes you have, don’t lie to me. Somebody killed it out of jealousy, and that was the end of all their wealth. Folks, you’re about to kill that goose. It’s already wounded, laying an egg only every other day, and look what’s happening all over the world. Production is stopping.

Let me see if I can explain: If you take the money away from the rich people and spread it around, everybody has a dollar or two more, which doesn’t matter, and the rich people have no money to make color TVs or build Sports Stadiums, or mount television shows, or pay for them with commercials. There’s a whole big world up there, which you disdain, that provides you with your pleasures.

Well, let’s see how you like it when we’re all equally poor, when there’s no hope in the world that your friend, relative, or neighbor can bail you out, because he’s just as bad off as you are. No point crying to the magistrate, there isn’t even enough money coming in from taxes to buy him a uniform. The tax base is way low. Almost non-existent. That guy behind you on the soup line (run out of the old Starbucks) used to own the three movie theaters in the neighborhood. Now he can’t afford popcorn. The theaters are closed, the seats are ripped out and people are sleeping on the floors. They can’t afford their houses and their landlords, the banks and the feds, can’t afford to fix them up. Nobody’s got money to buy them. They’re moldering, going back to the jungle.

We’re too poor to fix our satellites. We listen to Obama’s daily oratory on little portable radios powered by a crank. Buck up, he tells us. This is only the beginning. There’s bound to be a little disruption as we maneuver the wealth from one group’s hands into another. And stop complaining, you there in the Inner Cities.

Why shouldn’t you complain? You used to be poor, but you had big TVs and boom-boxes. You’re still poor, but your TV’s on the blink and you can’t afford to fix it. You can’t get batteries for the boom-box. And you thought it was bad before! For some reason, it is no consolation to you that everybody else is poor, too.

The Olympics? Have you any idea how much corporate wealth it takes to pull one off?

But listen all you Libs who fought for this and finally got what you wanted, look around you. Nobody's poorer than you are and nobody is sticking his head up above yours.

Nobody’s offering you a job, either. Or making those shoes you fancied, or that motorcycle you just about had enough for. Or turning down your bed on a cruise ship. Luxury, my mate, is out the window. Welcome to flat land. Enjoy your beans.

Dumped by Classy Bloggess

Folks, you will never guess what happened to your old Hank. He has received a sharp blow to his sense of fairness and decency. He was blipped from a blog. Hard to believe, right? I can see the hands going up, and the jumping up and down to say, “Hey! You banned EVERYBODY from YOUR blog.

And yes, I did. Everybody. Not just people with a different opinion from mine. And I told you why. It was not your political views.

I, as you can imagine, do not comment casually. I put as much thought into my comments as I do into my posts, as those of you who write to me via e-mail, know.

So I was shocked when I went back to the blog, and my comment was gone. Removed. Shoveled up and shut up somewhere in a contaminated materials bin.

Now, let me tell you, that what I wrote was not completely devoid of insults, couched though they were in comedy. This is a literary blog. Each entry has a first part cleverly using a classic as a preamble to the second part which is a demonization of the enemy – that’s me, I suppose, because I’m not them – backed up by YouTube entries which they interpret entirely differently from me.

You’d think they would be interested in hearing a different point of view. YOU are, or you wouldn’t be here. I know I must make you feel sick sometimes, just like bitter medicine when you were a kid. But it made you better, as does this. It gives you ammunition. Information is ammunition. Knowledge of the enemy is ammunition. Don’t wait for it to come and hit you in the face; sneak in the back door and take it for yourselves. That’s what you’re doing when you listen to me. You’re a back door man, getting what you shouldn’t – somebody else’s.

I am interested in their point of view. That’s why I went to the blog. Once I was there, I found it a pleasure to read a good writer, who invited everyone to comment, and to send the blog around – presumably to anybody, which is how I got it.

Once reading, I could not help but comment on the excess of violent suggestions, the vilifying of the opposing party, the clips of people being badgered outside churches by newsmen forcing answers on them. Then there were other people, going to a rally, who while standing on line, were taunted by demonstrators whose leader has told the troops to “get in their face.”

Well, people, you know old Hank is not going to stand for that. I gave them “what for” elegantly and maddeningly. They went berserk. Called me names. Asked that I be removed. I was reprimanded personally, in a sequence of e-mails with the mistress of the blog, who finally said she did not wish to converse with me again.

By the way, in our private conversation, the bloggess told me that her people said I was an asshole. You will be glad to know I gave it to her straight; I said her friends were not very discerning if they couldn’t tell a prick from an asshole. Hank is a prick, not an asshole. If you agree, you have gotten my message. If you don’t, you have not.

Our private hook-up behind us, I read the next post, some of which I have described to you, and felt I had to warn against such poisoning of the waters. And I did.

I was immediately attacked by one of the peaceful lefties, in a comment so virulent I had to shield my eyes when I read it. I replied in the voice of a perhaps sarcastic school-master. I answered all the nasty, childish charges. Up it went.

And down it came.

No one was allowed to read this defense. It was taken off the blog. So its readers are left with the impression that horrible Hank Harwood has departed in shame, having been bested by one of their knights.

I want to warn you that war is afoot. The Democrats have declared it, and as with The Puppet Masters, it’s spreading. This blog was a window into their world. It showed me why erstwhile friends are so silent and strange with me, how they disdain me, that they despise me for what I think. They might as well be the people on this blog. And so, I am surrounded by enemies.

Everything they accuse the right of, they are doing. Promoting fear. Intense fear. Promulgating lies. Misrepresenting, editing, and now we hear, fraudulating votes.

But the worst to me, being an English teacher, and degreed in Journalism, is that they want to ban freedom of speech. We are not allowed to have a different opinion, or we will be shunned.

Is nothing beneath these people? They will say and do anything to get their candidate elected. They are strong, in community, like the thralls in The Puppet Masters. Nothing gets through to them but the "narrow" message, and that’s what they want to hear.

“We are right,” is the message, "no matter how wrong."

I have now felt personally, what is going on all over the country – the putting down of dissent. Funny, these people used to cheer free speech. They used to be the dissenters. But there’s only one difference between the oppressor and the oppressed, and that is, which one is in power at the moment.

The Democratic power is building. They are going to have the Presidency, the House, and the Senate. They have already labeled the Republicans as devils. It’s time to exorcise them. And while we’re at it, all those other cranks around, let’s cut their tongues out too. They spout nothing but lies; who will miss them?”

They have control of the Media. (The Puppet Masters took control of the radio station.) The Media has anointed Obama.

All you people out there – you environmentalists who hate corporations – Ralph Nader is your man. He’s YOU. And they never let you see him. What do you think of that? This is not a real election. A pretty man is forced down your throat, and he tastes delicious, so you don’t complain. You know things about him you didn’t know before. You’re a little put off, but you’ll never admit it. All you’ll do is shout louder, to smother the cries of those whose toes you’re stepping on.

Beware, folks, you’re going to have to live in this world. Is this the way you want it to be?

Barack Berated

Hey, little Barry got his ass whupped, didn’t he? By the Principal, no less. Get a load of this picture.

Have you ever seen a guiltier little boy? Or a sterner headmaster? I wouldn’t want to be in Barry’s shoes, would you?

McCain gave him what for on a couple of issues, but what made him hang his head in shame was the talk about the rotten schools in DC, where, in case you don’t know it, almost only African Americans live. And yet, Barack is not for vouchers, which would give the kids the money to go to a school that their parents choose, just like the Obama kids do. What schools? you ask. Folks, can you imagine a world in which hundreds of schools whose tuition exactly matched the value of the voucher would not spring up? Neither can I. Yes, Barry was beaten here.

Mr. McCain gave Mr. Obama a couple of good scoldings. And sometimes a slap with the ruler. “You don’t tell countries you’re going to unilaterally renegotiate their treaties,” he said with exasperation to his errant, young student.

But Barry took a lesson from Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin. While McCain was berating him for minor issues, he sat there looking cute. He smiled at John, he smiled at us – that big, amused, toothy grin. He laughed charmingly. In serious mode, he arranged his face into different, pleasing shapes.

And here’s another tactic I noticed. Three times – about Ayers, about ACORN, and about Columbia (the nation, not his alma mater), he seemed reluctant to talk, then suddenly gave in and said, “Okay, you want to hear about blank, here it is.” Then, all three times, he told extremely convincing stories, if you didn’t know that they were entwined with misrepresentations, or sometimes outright lies. Long, fully-prepared stories, so don’t tell me these weren’t beans he was anxious to spill. Ayers is a professor, and besides, he had nothing to do with him, really; ACORN, yeah, he did some work for them, and they for him, but so what?

Well, they did take close to a million dollars from the campaign, and get this: Obama reported the money was for staging, sound and lighting, but that wasn’t true. The campaign admitted they “made a mistake” and amended their federal filing. It was really get-out-the-vote money. And, they got out voters that didn’t exist, voters that were taken from a phone book, and in one case, the whole starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys. They fraudulated for him. But whose friends don’t?

McCain praised Obama’s eloquence, twice, and he meant it. But, he said, you have to look at the words. This is true, people. More than look. Figure out how many and what exact meanings these words have, and how they might be foolers. Mr. Obama is turning out to be very skilled in wriggling.

Barry’s good to look at and good to listen to, but I’m liking him less and less as he twitches and shrugs. Barry makes a point of not being forced into giving an answer to the specific question asked. He doesn’t want us to know what he thinks, because if you and I differ, one of us won’t like him.

I liked McCain’s attitude about a lot of things. Ayers, for instance. If Barack hung out with someone who bombed the Pentagon and is not sorry about it, pardon me if I think it’s relevant to the security of the country.

I think McCain won this round. And it was over great odds. Nobody expected anything of him, including the host. When the candidates were introduced, Bill Sheiffer, wearing Tim Russert’s chipmunk cheeks, he was so pleased, asked for a big, warm welcome for Bar-aaack Obaaama! It took a long, luscious time to sail out … “and John McCain” was dropped like an afterthought onto the carpet.

Das Kapital

So, do you feel like a pussy? You should, you coward. You sat there and watched them take away your country – put an end to the American way – and you didn’t do a goddam thing. Well, neither did I. Because it’s fucking hopeless. Do you see what we did? We elected them and let them get together, against us, for their jobs, their perks, their self-esteem. These guys need a lot of power to make them feel okay about themselves. To make them feel like they’re doing something.

You could end it in November. That’s right. End it. Do you realize, people, that you have the power to not return any of these guys to the House? Not one single one. An entire change of cast. And the same for a third of the Senate. Think maybe that would send some sort of message to the rest of them? Think maybe things would change?

But you won’t. You like your guy, he’s yours. He fights for your parks and your statues – oh, no, my demographic wouldn’t want a statue. You’re above that. Be proud of yourself. You only want the good things.

Anyway, what the hell do you think happened? Remember they didn’t pass the bail-out bill? We were all surprised. They were listening to us. We didn’t want it no matter what party we’re in, and we managed, this time, to let them know. Because we have the technology to do it. We yelled, and they heard us. We were proud of ourselves, even though we knew it meant we were all going to the poor house and the world was going to collapse besides.

It was a bi-partisan revolt against the president, the congressional leadership, and the two major party candidates.

So how come now we’ve got a bill? They got together and made a deal. Then they went before the cameras and told us that thanks to them, the bill finally did pass, which is what we all wanted in the first place, right? To save our asses. Right?

We were stunned, but we looked around, and nobody else seemed upset. Actually, they were too stunned to look upset, as were we. We merely looked bland. Blank.

At first, nobody talked about it. But now they’re starting to grumble. If you put your ear to the ground, you can hear it. We saw something happen. Some magic trick. We don’t know how it was done. But when we reached into our back pocket, hot damn if our wallet wasn’t gone!

We now have a people of the government, by the government and for the government. Just like all those other totalitarian states. But hey…there are perks for living in a glorious people’s republic. Gas prices have dropped, and we can stop fighting over how much to tax capital gains. There aren’t going to be any capital gains. Without capitalism there isn’t going to be any capital. And, very soon, we’re all going to be on vacation.

Brokaw for President

Well folks. Learned your balls off at that debate, didn’t you? Oblame-o and McLame were rife with information, eager to tell you exactly, yes exactly, how they were going to do all the marvelous things they promise. Think, people. Did you hear one thing you didn’t know?

The star of the show was Tom Brokaw. He had all the good lines. And they were impromptu, triggered by the unlawful behavior of the combatants, who refused to obey the agreed-upon rules of the war. Brokaw was the only one who wasn’t scripted. The others were like junior high school dramatists, choked full of their lines, which have now lost their meaning and so come out on their own, in all the wrong places, with words omitted or strangely out of place in the sentence.

You noticed it about the Sarah Palin machine, but did you notice it about the Barack and John robots? Let’s forget it people, these two aren’t going to give us anything. Not the truth, and not respect.

The people they pounced on in the audience must have thought they’d lost their minds. These guys don’t know how to deal with individuals. The people out there are just representatives of types. They keep getting it wrong, talking to a guy who may be a banker himself, as if he’s just defaulted on his mortgage, lost his home and is living in a sewer somewhere with his family. The only genuine moment is when McLame gets a hand on a veteran, and then you have to be afraid he’s going to hump him, he’s so anxious to show his love. It may be real, John, but keep it in your tweeds.

I hope no kids were listening. These people are lousy role-models. They don’t answer the question. Even if they can. They’re afraid if they say something off-the-cuff, in other words give an honest answer, all hell will break loose.

So instead, they settle for memorized answers that are fed into them even while they sleep. When they babble before answering, they’re searching for the right one. If it takes too much time to come, they settle for the next one that cycles up and give it to us with a straight face, as if that’s what they were asked. But part of the way through, the “right” answer to the question rolls around to the front of their heads and starts to come out of their mouths, interrupting the “wrong” answer that was already in progress. There’s where the half-sentences come, or the totally irrelevant remarks.

Are you guys buying it? How about McLame when he said he knows how to do everything, but can’t tell you anything about it because the enemy might hear. I’ll buy that for war, but not for Wall Street. And anyway, he tells us he knows how to capture Bin Ladin. But don’t you think if he really knew how he’d have mentioned it to somebody privately?

How about Oblame-o, whose generalities are so bright and beautiful you could sail across the ocean on them, but who never gave us one particular – like the fifteen billion dollar-a-year investment which will in ten years free us from dependence on foreign oil. We have no idea what the investment is, or how it will do it. However, having just spent a hundred times that much on Wall Street bailouts, doesn’t it seem if the price was that cheap it would have been done?

Let’s face it. It’s not about either one of these dummies. So which ventriloquist are you voting for?

Witchcraft

You know I’m a big fan of Joe Biden. Very personal with me. He reminds me of myself. Goodlooking old white guy, lives in the country, drives a pick-up, shoots off his mouth, doesn’t care how it’s going to affect his future.

So I was pulling for him in spite of the fact that I don’t like a lot of what he wants. There’s something that goes beyond that. It’s the man himself. How he lives, how he talks, thinks, all that stuff you see as the candidates tire.

You can imagine how shaken I was when I saw that woman in the black dress – call it a suit if you want to – I don’t and neither would Hillary – reach out her hand, touch him, and with a few words that we all heard, wrap him up like a spider wraps a fly. “Nice to meet you. Hey, can I call you Joe?”

Huh? Wha? Uh …. Yeah, yeah, sure, anything. Anything. ANYTHING. And off he went to his station, a podium, thank god, to conceal any evidence of the effect she’d had on him. Did you notice, ladies and gentlemen, that he was hardly there for the first few questions. Vacant face, no smile, just yessing along until he came to.

And found himself catty-corner to the lady who’d seduced him, right out there, in front of millions, maybe billions. Who sank him to his figurative knees and left him begging there in the dirt while she went on to captivate the audience, only now and then turning to him … and when she did …

When she did, it was with that big ole Miss America smile. Don’t forget, boys and girls, Joe Biden is a real American. Joe Biden has the heart of a Joe six-pack, whatever new Merlot he’s drinking now. Every time she turned that smile on him, he melted. He blushed. His grin, meant to hide his embarrassment, merely emphasized it.

Her attacks were like butter-cream frosting spread with a soft spatula. Like the loving “tch - tch” of a mommy who’s caught you where you shouldn’t be. You know next minute comes the hug.

And so it did. The handshake was it. It said this spell I put you under is real. It carries over to our real lives. They chatted like a man and a woman who’ve just met at a cocktail party – high-end bar these days – have noted the unignorable superiority of the two of them over other mere mortals, and will be in bed within two hours – together.

Of course these two are a little busy right now for personal flirtations, so they did the next best thing. They introduced the new loved one to the family. Up there on stage were all the beautiful blonde Bidens – so many of them, of all sizes, and the pleasingly plump Palins, all saying hello to Mommy or Daddy’s new friend.

I called it folks, when I said we should go right to the second string. These are two people of conviction and integrity. They can talk to each other with love instead of hate. You could see Biden rooting for her. You could see her appreciating Biden.

Did they have stuff to say? Oh, sure, but you’ve heard it all before. No reason to go into it here. The debate has been moved to a different level. Let’s bask in it for a while.

Bi-party Sin

You want me to say something. About the financial crisis. Why, I wonder. This is a political blog. Didn’t you hear the news? The financial crisis is above politics. Politics has nothing to do with it. It’s time to be bi-partisan. We’re all Americans. We all live in the same world; we don’t want to see it go down.

Oh, we don’t? Some of us seem to think: better the world go down than I lose my job. Others seem to think: here’s my opportunity to blackmail the world, to hold it at gunpoint so I can get my little piece of the payola – say that park with my name on it. Still others want to punish the rich guys even if the rich guys have to sell one or two extra homes, while they’ve got to go live in a box on Broadway.

It’s a joke, isn’t it, the way they keep blaming each other back and forth? Well, here, unfortunately, I have to come out on the side of the hated Republicans, for one simple reason. I’m a simpleton, I admit it; I like simple reasons. Wanting to let poor people live in houses just like all the rest of us is a Democratic concept. The Dems are the good guys, remember? The Republicans are always in there trying to ruin it for the little guy. So why should they want to pay his rent in a house he can’t afford?

But by now, that’s a big SoWhat? We have to do something. And do you know what our representatives are doing? They’re trying to squeeze their own pet bills into this overwhelmingly important one. Items they know the other guys would normally have to reject. It’s business as usual down in Washington. Oink! Snort! Snurgle! We do love that pigmeat.

Gimme, gimme, gimme. And they’re getting.

Remember when we used to laugh at Russia because there was only one candidate running in their elections? We have two. And we’ve convinced ourselves that makes it better. Yet these two parties, together, have ruined us.

Left/right, blue/red, Dems/Reps, donkeys/elephants. Two points of view. How come no more? Two points of view is a tug of war. Three points of view is a round-table discussion. You Dems, do you ever listen to Ralph Nader? The media has shut him up tighter than a … never mind. Tight. He’s been anti-corporation, anti-Wall Street, pro-people, from the start. He’s the only one with anything to say on the matter. And they won’t let him say it. Do you know the debates are run not by the TVstations, but by a commission, a joint commission of the two parties? There’s where it is, my innocent readers, right at the top. That’s where they’re braided, knotted, fused, married, in it together to get what they can, and to keep everybody else out.

If you don’t like Ralph, try Ron. Ron Paul has been preaching the downfall of the American economy… well, you heard him, didn’t you? Way back then when they let him into the debates. He gave real economics lessons. On the dangers of printing money. Hell, if it were up to Ron Paul, we’d all be carrying gold pieces in our cargo pants.

Here’s a plea, people. You don’t have to vote for the elephant or the donkey. Chances are, if you’re in my demographic, your vote does not count. Hear that? Your vote does not count. Your state is going for Obama, no matter what you think, no matter which lever you pull. So you are free. Free to do some good with your vote. Express your intelligence. Express your defiance of being put in your place and told to stay there. Express your outrage at how they’ve taken over the government and now are trying to take over America. Give your vote to somebody else. Nader if you like him. The marijuana party if you like them. The Green Party. The Libertarian party, BobBarrBeDamned.

Nobody’s been minding the store. The kids came in and divided up the inventory. They’re playing their own games with it. Things are breaking, getting misplaced. Lost. They didn’t take a good look at where things were, and now they don’t know where they came from.

We need to call in some outside help. Some grown-ups.

I came upon this note I wrote last winter. Or notes. It’s titled “Lessons from The Bible and Gibbon.” The first one is irrelevant, but to whet your appetite I’ll tell you what it is:

Prostitutes are powerful people.

Next: War, or at least the ability to wage war, is necessary for peace. (Recall the fate of those non-violent peoples in their little walled cities.)

And last: Anyone living in America should not be complaining. Anyone who finds fault –it’s not the fault of particular men, let alone of the country, but of humankind. Be glad for everyone who rises above and try to, yourself.

But I must leave you with some real help in these troubled financial times. Let me pass on something that a friend told me. Something to help you grasp the enormities. And all the zeroes. In hundred dollar bills, a million dollars will fit into a large attaché case. A billion dollars fills ten pick-up trucks. A trillion dollars is about 200 of those standard forty-foot shipping containers.