I have a lot to do today, but consider this an open thread. I’ll plan on live-blogging election returns tonight unless it gets too depressing. Feel free to drop by if you need company.
5 thoughts on “See You Later”
I can’t watch the results.
I hope to be drunk and asleep by 9 tonight.
As a mostly self educated, semi-retired goat farmer I don’t have much business opining on the grand scheme of history and economics,… AWW what the heck,…
Submitted for your approval, a rough and condensed history.
At the risk of presenting the obvious as an epiphany, democracy and capitalism are not natural allies, but they can make good bedfellows because once in a while, they can balance out each other’s flaws and forge something remarkable, like a society that seems more equitable and “bends towards justice,†while still making it possible for a man to spend his life on an automobile assembly line and send three kids to college. (I actually know someone who did this. His two daughters are both physicians and his son is a dentist. He is also African-American, which didn’t make it any easier.) I am not a great student of history, but, It seems that the USA in the period after the New Deal and the Great Society really had something going. We were far from perfect, but, we knew it and we were intent on making things better. That was the key.
When we lost the communists bogeymen, things started to slide into the abyss. The plutocrats sniffed the possibility of becoming oligarchs and realized that their moment had come. Privatization became the new gospel. The communists were bad, but they had created an army of cheap laborers, so when Suzanne “gives you tea and oranges that come all the way from China,†that’s not such a big deal anymore, and neither are the “rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters,†come to think of it.
It seems that, given advances in technology and other factors, capitalism in any recognizable form, may have seen its moment and it may have to create its own destruction. Without a secure and prosperous workforce, the market contracts and the downward spiral begins, at least in the capitalist system as we know it. The big money boys saw this coming and they moved into the financial sector, so it’s grown like a tumor. Now, the smart money is blatantly buying political power, lock stock and barrel, from congressmen to the judiciary to the media that tells us what they’re up to. Power is a commodity that suits their opportunism. It pays a great return and it can be transformed into anything. For the moment they’re still transforming it into more power.
The rich and powerful are just making dead sure that they will land on their feet, even if that means the rest of us aren’t quite so lucky. Democracy needs free, thinking people, while capitalism would be happier with slaves.
I hate election night. They always interrupt my tv shows with updates and run a scrawl across each and every program. I used to go to the movies after work. But, since I don’t work any more, I will watch a couple of new dvds that I have. I will check the results tomorrow.
Well, the polls are closed in Florida…Let’s see if Voldemort is going to get sent packin’. Word is that his approval numbers never rose above 50%.
Nice one, goatherd. I think you have it right. The powerful do what they want, all others do what they must.
The race in Florida is tight, Scott carries redneckistan. Crist takes the blue counties.
No word on amendment 2 yet. I guess we’ll know tomorrow.
I can’t watch the results.
I hope to be drunk and asleep by 9 tonight.
As a mostly self educated, semi-retired goat farmer I don’t have much business opining on the grand scheme of history and economics,… AWW what the heck,…
Submitted for your approval, a rough and condensed history.
At the risk of presenting the obvious as an epiphany, democracy and capitalism are not natural allies, but they can make good bedfellows because once in a while, they can balance out each other’s flaws and forge something remarkable, like a society that seems more equitable and “bends towards justice,†while still making it possible for a man to spend his life on an automobile assembly line and send three kids to college. (I actually know someone who did this. His two daughters are both physicians and his son is a dentist. He is also African-American, which didn’t make it any easier.) I am not a great student of history, but, It seems that the USA in the period after the New Deal and the Great Society really had something going. We were far from perfect, but, we knew it and we were intent on making things better. That was the key.
When we lost the communists bogeymen, things started to slide into the abyss. The plutocrats sniffed the possibility of becoming oligarchs and realized that their moment had come. Privatization became the new gospel. The communists were bad, but they had created an army of cheap laborers, so when Suzanne “gives you tea and oranges that come all the way from China,†that’s not such a big deal anymore, and neither are the “rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters,†come to think of it.
It seems that, given advances in technology and other factors, capitalism in any recognizable form, may have seen its moment and it may have to create its own destruction. Without a secure and prosperous workforce, the market contracts and the downward spiral begins, at least in the capitalist system as we know it. The big money boys saw this coming and they moved into the financial sector, so it’s grown like a tumor. Now, the smart money is blatantly buying political power, lock stock and barrel, from congressmen to the judiciary to the media that tells us what they’re up to. Power is a commodity that suits their opportunism. It pays a great return and it can be transformed into anything. For the moment they’re still transforming it into more power.
The rich and powerful are just making dead sure that they will land on their feet, even if that means the rest of us aren’t quite so lucky. Democracy needs free, thinking people, while capitalism would be happier with slaves.
Welcome to feudal dystopia v. 2.0
(Cue bongos, fade to black.)
http://youtu.be/3ym5n-ZZWUs?list=PL4DFC578C9AC62C5F
I hate election night. They always interrupt my tv shows with updates and run a scrawl across each and every program. I used to go to the movies after work. But, since I don’t work any more, I will watch a couple of new dvds that I have. I will check the results tomorrow.
Well, the polls are closed in Florida…Let’s see if Voldemort is going to get sent packin’. Word is that his approval numbers never rose above 50%.
Nice one, goatherd. I think you have it right. The powerful do what they want, all others do what they must.
The race in Florida is tight, Scott carries redneckistan. Crist takes the blue counties.
No word on amendment 2 yet. I guess we’ll know tomorrow.