Friday, November 7, 2008

Michigan is going to turn it around.

This morning brought sobering news to the economic status of the Great Lakes state. GM is broke broke. They say that the next 100 days are crucial to the survival of the company. I.E. They say that they will be bankrupt without a bailout now.

This is a scary thought, yet I feel better about the state of the industry as well as the State of Michigan because of the new direction of the Federal Government.

Obama is busy putting together his executive branch, and in order to help sort out the transition he has made an all star cast. This group includes the Google CEO, which is the best boss in the entire world according to recent articles on employee satisfaction, and two Michigan Democratic celebrities by the name of Granholm and Bonior.

The Governor Jennifer Granholm as well as the former House Minority whip and my very own political idol from growing up David Bonior are Michigan's voice in the very early days of Obama's administration. They are helping to advise Obama on who to pick as well as how to present a plan on fixing the economy. Without a doubt being on the forefront of the recession and dependent on a failing industry besieged by all the common economic woes make these Michigan Democrats excellent sources for information.

The other benefit is of course our problems get some much needed attention. On the short term we are more likely to receive a bailout on par with what the banks, as well as other industries, have received in the past. This of course will not really fix anything on its own, but perhaps the added regulations that could come out of the bailout deal may go a long way to ensuring the workers future and not just the managements.

Many of the things that could happen are encouraging to someone who has seen his State all but collapse while the rest of the country said the economy was fine, and now is vindicated by the illusion of prosperity disappear along with the Republican stranglehold. Though what is most encouraging is just the fact that we are no longer being ignored.

I believe the fact that Michigan has gone democrat as long as I can recall as a big reason we are now receiving attention. How much did it help Obama to be able to forget about Michigan, a one time important battleground State, because it was so securely in his pocket. I think he is preparing to return the favour to us by focusing on our industry as the epicenter of the alternative energy drive, the manufacturing industry, labor reform, corporation reform, medical reform, and educational reform.

Historically speaking, Michigan has been the place in which modern American education, industry, and medicine were all founded. We have used that to create a high quality of life for our citizens as well as the citizens of the U.S. and the World. In the last 40 years that has evaporated for us while the rest of the world continued to move forward. Now in the dark days of uncertainty where the rest of the world could plummet to the depths that Michigan holds. A place that drives away all the highly educated youth that sustains and drives innovation, could emerge on the other side as the leader again. It could come out stronger then ever before.

That is some change I can believe in.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

My election night.

So I watched Obama win amongst a few friends. It was a great experience, as you all already know. It however was subdued with the presence of one friend named Mark.

Mark and I have good discussions, but never about politics. Simple reason for that, he is very right wing to the point that he says things that I would never agree with and we simply cannot see eye to eye.

He sat in a room with liberals extremely happy to have rid of a failed brand of policies. A group wanting to jump up and down and scream in joy with hard liquor in his hands, hate in his heart, and a posture not uncommon to myself over the last eight years. He tried to keep the reigns on his views but did it poorly, more so with the booze filling him up. As we began to drink Champaign, he spoke out of ignorance, and partly out of jest, of building a fallout shelter.

We spoke of hope, excitement, of the first time we ever felt as if things went the way we wanted it to on such a scale. He would look sheepish and make comments about doom. He knows his stuff, he is very smart and correct about much of the opinon-less aspects of the system. I respect him, but cannot see how he can spin the failures of Bush and his party into positives for the conservative platforms. We all know the type so I will not go any further. The point of it was that it made me feel uncomfortable to fully express my emotions at this nexus point.

I teared up and wanted to scream a celebratory "fuck yeah," instead I spent time trying to interact with him in a tasteful matter. We sat in silence as a powerful speech flowed over us, each of his sentences like a wave of warm pleasant water over us. I was adrift in pride, so much so I could not make heads or tails of what was actually happening.

There was just too much going on as my entire world is actually flipping over. I will cover this later on but I just wish I were in a place to more fully enjoy this.
I could have easily made it to Chicago if I planed on it. Or even more likely would have been to go to Detroit and see how much things have changed. The symbolism will be talked about for generations.

These things I will write about when I organize it more, but let it be known that my book that I was writing had a seriously negative and pessimistic undertone and political messages involved. I think this event is going to radically change my entire book.


Anyways, I never fully cried in joy that night in front of anyone. I did when I got home. I have periodically since then when I think about it or see something that evokes those thoughts.

There are just so many thoughts here to expand on, I will have fun doing so when I have time. I will expand it here and eventually roll it into my book.
I guess someone might read it.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Did I vote for any republicans this year?

Oh BTW, in case you wondered. I did vote for a republican today. Karmanos. Karmanos are great people. I recommend you vote for her.

I have never voted for a straight ticket. Even though I have been so disillusioned by the GOP.

My views on the Proposals.

Prop 1 is about medical marijuana. I voted yes because I think tobacco is legal and it kills. Why should something with a such upside be banned.

Prop 2 is about stem cell research and is the hot button topic.

I really am confused about this. I am totally for stem cell research, and believe that if it can be done it will be done somewhere thusly we should be involved as the beacon of medicine and higher education we are.

I tell you that I have a huge problem with placing an amendment keeping all regulations off of it. I am more of an issue to issue type of guy and would rather not give a blank check to.
Plus there could be ethical ramifications that are extremely volatile. So I am doing something I rarely do. I abstain. I have no definitive opinion on this. I say vote however you want, I passed on it and will take either outcome.

I want no part of it.

I forgot to say.

Do not vote for Cliff Taylor for Michigan State Supreme Court.

He decides with corporations over 90% of the time.

He is one of those Grand Rapids big business republicans running for his judge seat under a "non-partisan" ticket.

I endorse Diane Hathaway.

Trust me on this one.

Why I am confused/disapointed with the record voter turnout.

Finally I just want to say to all you people encouraged by the high voter turnout, do not take it lightly. This is how bad things have to get to gain your attention? Go vote now do not wait.

Now that you hopefully voted, may I slap you in the face and ruin your feel good buzz. Where the hell were you four years ago? Eight years ago? Hell what about every 2 years? I vote every single year and honestly most of the time it is not glamourous. There are no free coffees for voting on Community College Board members.

Check this out, Obama started off as a Community Organizer. That is pretty much the bottom. All the people who think that he is amazing and are happy to vote for him, and all the people that hate his guts, should notice that at some point along the way you could have voted for/against him. I am pretty sure that if he lost along the way he would not be the candidate he is now. He is where he is because of people who vote on the small junk that most people ignore.

I cannot stress enough how much you need to do this every year.

Really, I do not care about the wait. I really hate lines, but I can tolerate them once a year. It is the only way that I know these Uber-patriots that spout ignorant love it or leave it bullshit are at least doing something besides pretending to be Uncle Sam Jr.

Now I want to say something about 4 years ago.

Bush was as bad as he ever was from day one of his false reign. He did everything you could possibly do wrong in the first thirty days. I named him the worst president ever for blowing more then a trillion dollars in less then thirty days. Money that would have come really in handy if you had to fund a war or bailout the banking system. Instead he handed out 300 dollar checks to everyone. The economy did not improve when he did it that time. So he went on to try it two more times. Except those times he did it with less incoming taxes do to the Bush tax breaks for the ultra rich (who btw became even richer until the Panic of 2008) and with more expenses due to the high costs of maintaining the most expensive army in the world in a country for no reason.

There is no doubt that the Bush Doctrine (the thing Sarah Palin doesn’t know but I do) and an economic policy based on voodoo/trickle down economics and deregulation caused the acceleration of the recession. It will get worse btw, but that is another subject altogether.

So if I could determine this, why is it that Bush is the President with the lowest approval rating to ever become reelected? Where the hell were you people?

Just imagine how much different things could be if you people showed up in lines hundreds deep four years ago? Or how about 8 years ago when Gore won the thing but did not win it by enough in one county and it caused a bunch of conservative judges the right to decide the election?

I simply cannot abide either sides’ ignorance any longer. You need to recognize the mistakes of the last 8 years. You need to recognize that we are at fault for not voting every time. We all want change, and whether or not you think it is change to a “fresh face” or a “Maverick” you need to vote and vote with intelligence every time. If you are going to vote based on the ideology you were raised in, and you are going to vote for the same party every time then please do not vote. Investigate and vote you conscious for sure, but do not vote blindly. The desire to vote against gay rights and for republican values has cause a climate so poor, even conservatives are furious. Recognize when you have to change from your values in order to stop insanity. Besides if you have any understanding of our government, you would want to put in some people you hate in order to keep the crazy ideas of your favourite red or blue puppets from becoming reality.

I have always been for balance, except this year. This year I am for a complete 180, we have to get as far away from the toxic policies of the Republican dominated branches of the government. Once things are undone I will be back to voting for balance, but until then I am voting for vengeance.

District 37 what the eye caught.

Okay I really should have skipped the coffee and went straight to voting. I arrived at about 6:38 just 8 minutes behind when I planned on getting there. I was 44 in line and was at the end of the first rotation around the lobby of Miami Elementary School. Ahead of me were exactly 3 African American voters out of 43 by 6:40 I estimate about 60 people, and about 80 at 6:45. This increased to about 100 at 6:50 and the line started moving a few minutes after.

The number of people in the lobby tended to remain pretty constant so in the roughly 45 minutes I waited in line for so about 250 people showed up through 7:45 This district mind you consists of half of our subdivision and Clinton Place apartments and the condos on the other side of Hayes. I would have to estimate less then 1000 households in this area. If only 2 voters exist per household which is pretty conservative, then a reasonable guess is that close to 12% have already voted.
The volunteers also already voted, and this pushed the number up to 53 by time I scanned my ballot.

I counted nearly dead on 8% African Voters. This is interesting because the last Census puts the percentage of population that is black at 8.58% I admit freely that first thing in the morning is a terrible cross section to use for stats, but that’s pretty encouraging. Four years ago when I was Fifth in line, there was four people behind me, and both districts used half of a gym that is fully used today, there were a grand total of zero African Americans to be seen.

I noticed that 7 of ten voters were female.

There was only one person in Camo, which I take as a sign that deep end Republicans might be resigned to lose. Again totally I am stereotyping the electorate. If you are mad, please forgive me and send all complains to your hypocrisy.

Every time I have ever voted I was not approached by anyone to be collected for poll data. This makes me of course question the validity of polling data. How can they ever get it right when my sub which is about as Middle America as one can get, is not polled?

We voters of early dawn were lucky enough to beat the annoying last second panhandler vote volunteers.

Finally I just want to say to all you people encouraged by the high voter turnout, do not take it lightly. This is how bad things have to get to gain your attention? Go vote now do not wait. I will cover more on this in the upcoming hours.

Monday, November 3, 2008

My Offical Endorsement.

Believe it or not some people actually care what I think about because some people still think that I am actually intelligent.

While I do like to prove people wrong this is not an area I feel like proving them wrong on. I do have a stellar record in getting these things right. I do not claim it to be anything special upon my end. Anyone with a brain can do it. Although you do need to know how to think, many people refuse to do this because it shatters illusions that make life fun.

Sorry for me, I have no illusions.

I knew that New Orleans was going to be wiped out by Katrina. This astounded my friends and family when I told them three days prior to landfall by Katrina that New Orleans was doomed. Why did I get this right when the "president" could not even see it coming until three days after? It happened before. In Lake Okeechobee or however you spell it, broke its man made levees almost a hundred years ago. I knew from watching TV specials, that is right TV (discovery), about the fact that New Orleans is sinking and pumps running all the time barely keep up with the water pouring in. Only an inch of rain without these pumps would cause significant flooding. Over three inches of rain in a short period of time with the pumps would cause the same problems, and a combination of the two would make the city a lake. So when a hurricane of that magnitude was headed straight on towards the city, it was apparent that it was over.

There the magic trick is ruined. Hope you’re happy to have it ruined and use it well. All you need to do to predict the future is to simply investigate when things were similar and figure out what things are different and make an educated guess as to what will happen based on these contrasts and comparisons.

So my endorsement....
Many of you know my views and are using the magic trick to figure out what I am going to say and guess what you get a gold star.

McCain is proposing taking modest corrective measures to keep the system afloat economically. He wants to improve the effort to keep the Iraq War going long enough to insure a winning outcome. He wants to reach across the isle to get people to buy into his ideas.

I answer back with these words; Hoover, Nixon, and really.

Hoover because he believed in the free market so much that when the free market stopped working do to there being no market left/ the only affordable price for anything was free, he stood there and did modest corrective measures while insuring people things would get better. They did not. In fact they got so much worse when entire cities of homeless sprung up in shantytowns they were affectionately called "Hoovervilles” He did nothing until it was so bad that he lost like no one ever lost before in an election. His successor was FDR and he did the exact opposite of what Hoover did and had his face placed on the dime after he turned everything around.

This is why Obama will win. It hasn't gotten that bad yet, but by contrast of how good it has been we are freaking out pretty badly. This is also why Obama is the person I am backing. It is the most important issue and he is going to do something, which is better then nothing. I know because it happened before and the compare and contrast leads me to say McCain would be disastrous. I could write a thesis encompassing the entire history of all capitalistic societies and talk about what socialism is and how there is nothing more or less socialist about Obama then Ronald Reagan. This is a fact, and you can stretch an argument to fit what you want to do but it doesn't mean it is functional.
There are other interesting correlations between the types of government in US history that can be used about the economy, but I digress.

Nixon is because he argued that Vietnam must not be abandoned as it would cause chaos. Needless to say that he was dead wrong and things only got worse. Iraq will get worse. Learn a lesson about how to win the hearts and minds of people from the past. Leave now. The damage has been done and sticking around won't fix anything but the profits of the Industrial Military complex.

Really? Yes, really. I am going to Maverick this answer up a bit. I am going to reach across to my conservative friends who think that they cannot stand a bleeding heart and that the left is destroying America. Hey, do you think that the false America will agree with you on these issues you think are so important? You said as much over the past eight years. Guess what, reaching across to the other party has not furthered your agenda. Your agenda was helped only by the fact you owned all the checks and balances in government. I hate any group with supreme power and the worst people to have it, had it.

Normally I root for balance to be maintained so this reaching across party lines crap would hold water and good moderate guys like McCain could get stuff done. It isn't going to happen, and all the indicators suggest you aren’t going to have any recourse as the Democrats will have congress. I could not be happier because the country will do a 180. I am not saying that this is the right or wrong path. I just am saying if you were walking toward the ultimate evil in the universe which would be the FOX News orgy, would you take a few steps to the side to try and brush by it, or would you run screaming in the opposite direction??

My answer would be the latter.

When you enter the voting booth tomorrow, which you should definitely do, I encourage you not to risk veering slightly away from Bush by voting for McCain. I recommend you run screaming as fast as you can away from the Republican Party at every level of government. I promise I won't tell Reagan.