Hey there shiny happy blogosphere people. You're probably not all holding hands. Sorry channeling Michael Stipe there and got a little carried away. Granted it's been a while and there's not that many of you. However I will hopefully be able to provide a more consistent amount of reading material. My problem in writing has been the vast amount of information out there and not wanting to duplicate what's already been covered. I mean, when there's an entire internet as well as what's left of the newspaper industry out there what's left to cover by me.
I'll give it a shot anyway and just see what I come up with. I guess the big story of the week has been the end of the Qadahfi, Kadaphi, Gaddafi or whichever spelling everyone wants to go with this week. I swear when I did a report on Libya it was the Q version of the guy. Personally I could never figure out why as a dictator he never promoted himself beyond Colonel. This of course issues in a new era in Libya and further "progress" theoretically in the middle east. While having the Colonel out of power is obviously a step in the right direction. There's "miles to go before we sleep." Both for Libya and the region as a whole. The vast power vacuums created by the destabilization of long term dictatorships makes it easy for extremists to move in and take over. At a minimum throw a wrench in the process towards the freedom that the people have been fighting for.
Here at home the presidential election season seems to start the moment they hold the inauguration. There's also extremists here to be worried about. Though they seem to be calling themselves Republicans, Libertarians, or "Tea Party" these days. All these candidates, who if asked will tell you how much they admire the Presidency and ideals of Ronald Reagan. However if Reagan was to be running today he'd be liberal even by Democratic party standards. That's how far the political spectrum has been pulled to the right. They've gone well beyond "trickle down" economics to just plain let businesses do whatever they want. Whether that's dump a bunch of oil in the Gulf of Mexico without any penalty, or allowing banks to gamble with their clients money and making huge bonuses as those clients lose their houses.
Not that there isn't extremists on the other end of the political spectrum. Recently they've taken on a face with the "Occupy ____________" movement. What started in New York City has had offshoots show up all over. Even here in Seattle. Now while I agree with the premise of the movement. I can't say that the people who are showing up for these rally's appear to even have a clue what's going on or what the 'movement' is about. From the time I've spent in the Westlake Center area of Seattle, looking through the crowd gathered around it seemed to be made up mostly of the homeless population looking for a place to squat more than anything else. It certainly doesn't look to be made up of people likely to be filling up the ballot boxes come next November. I can hope that it raises some awareness of the issue along the way. I can hope that it gets people who have become so apathetic politically that they think nothing can ever change to wake up.
First the steps need to be taken to assure the congressman/women and senators, who are elected by the people, are actually working towards their constituencies interests instead of the interests of the corporate donors. Corporations are not people too, and a lobbyist shouldn't wield more influence than the votes at home. So that starts with closing the loopholes that allow the corporate donations to political campaigns in the first place. After that the repeal of the Dubya tax cuts for good and a return to even a Clinton Era tax structure is also a good place to start. I'd also suggest making all the corporate CEO bonuses taxable. When they can't buy the votes of congress to keep these things from happening real progress is likely to be made and the influx of money that will provide will go a long way towards making things better for everyone, not just that top 1%.
Now I'm not saying that I have all the answers or any of them really. I certainly can't do any worse than those that are already out there. I'm also not the first one to suggest them I'm sure. However, someone (most likely my mother) once told me not to complain about a problem without suggesting how I would solve it so there you have it.
I suppose that's all I've got for now. Til the next episode.
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