Big Dumb

I don't call people names arbitrarily. When I do something childish like refer to the President of the United States as a Mental Midget, you should know that I am achingly sincere.

I really hate Stupid. And I don't mean the ignorant who lack education and knowledge because of poverty and other dire situations beyond their control.

Winnie The Pooh really annoys me because he's just a stupid marshmallow in mindless pursuit of food. Maybe it hits a little too close to home, I don't know, but he was never heavily promoted at my house when my girls were little. In a questionable moment of parental candor, my husband told them that Mommy didn't like Winnie the Pooh and why. Hostile gesture? I don't know. But they seem to have moved beyond it and it hasn't come back to bite me yet.

George W. Bush was born into it all: money, the best education that money could buy, and parents with their well-bred Eastern jaws so tight they could share DNA with the Tin Man (can you say "Oil can"?).

Somehow, George W. parlayed all this into a mediocre educational career, a questionable military career, a crony-and-oil-supplied political career, all the way to becoming a Good Ole Boy presidential candidate who could barely say his name on the debate stage. It was so blatantly obvious in 2000 that this was a stupid, stupid man, so inarticulate that you could almost feel sorry for him. His performance was such that, had he been a high school freshman on the debate team, he would have been pulled offstage.

After the debates, I would gleefully dial around to all the media pundits, anxious to hear them agree with me that Bush was an idiot. And then, of course, life and politics being logical, the debate and thus the whole presidential race would clearly go to the Democratic candidate.

You know what happened. Through some kind of mass hypnosis, even respected political pundits (i.e., those who I like) shrugged their shoulders, shook their heads, and said: "Well, you gotta hand it to the guy. Bush pulled it off. He's the clear winner." HUH?????? I punched the remote frantically--too late, they were all pod people.

The same scenario in 2004, only this time we knew the clear danger we were in. We had had 4 years of Bush, after having him crammed down our throats by the Rich, the Right and the Supreme Court (hmm, a new soap, perhaps? Starring Katherine Harris? No stage makeup needed.)

This time, aided by the requisite dirty tricks a la Ohio, it appears the American people may have actually voted Bush into office. No one to blame but our Collective Self. The Reds for sheer stupidity and voting their own $elf intere$t$; the Blues for letting it happen. For actually letting the Evils hypnotize us once again We put a bona fide war hero in the running, one who also questioned the war, but had done his best for his men. They said, "He ain't no hero," and we said "Really? Thanks for the tip!" and slapped our foreheads when they slipped another election by us again.

(INTERRUPTION FOR REAL LIFE: I'VE HAD TO ASK MY HUSBAND TO STOP PRACTICING "WHEN I'M 64" ON THE ACCORDION WHILE I VENT MY SPLEEN. IN THE SAME ROOM. HE WAS KIND ENOUGH TO STOP, ALTHOUGH HE'S CLEARLY NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT.)

While we can't account for the stupidity of the Reds, other than to say that they're finally On Top through the systematic Dumbing Down of America, how did the intellectually and morally superior Blues let ourselves be beaten, annihilated, and kept down by these, our own American-bred evil-doers?

Maybe it's not Bush who's the Big Dumb after all.

It's all about Them

There was a time when the government seemed to act a little more like a Frank Capra movie:
"Are you insane?! I can't close down the factory and put all those people out of a job. They'd ride me out of town on a rail! I'll have to screw them another way!"

It used to be that things were actually done for the welfare of the people, and decisions were made that would avoid doing the most damage to the citizenry. This is why we elected representatives to government, to speak for us and to act on our behalf when choices had to be made. Choices like destroying an entire town's economy in order to put a few more cents in a shareholder's dividend and a lot more millions in the CEO's bonus.

What the hell is that?

Why do the GM workers have to have their healthcare cut, yet the Big Guys haven't been asked to send back those unconscionable wads of cash - enough to literally feed a third world country? If the company is run in such a way that the employees have to have their benefits cut, then I would submit that the company is not being run correctly, and the penalty should be that the bonus should be adjusted to make the difference. Why hasn't anybody mentioned this? People tut-tut about the Big Money The Big Boys Get, but nobody says IT'S WRONG. TAKE IT AWAY FROM THEM.

Of course, we are living in the era of Big is Beautiful, and I don't mean Reubenesque Rocks, unfortunately.

On top of the fact that the man is a Mental Midget, an Intellectual Idiot and makes my skin crawl, George W. Bush is an OIL MAN. We are living in a petroleum age and all you Red State morons brought the wolf right into the hen house. The world isn't divided into Us and Them, meaning East and West when it comes to oil; Us is those that's got and Them is all the rest of us. And the Bushes have been wallet to wallet with their oil buddies for a very long time.

There is a layer way up high of Those Who Matter, and then, way way down here, The Rest Of Us.

I don't think those of us way down here are the priority of Mr. Bush and his regime. I think he/they have proved it again and again and again. How many times have we gaped open-mouthed as he blatantly pushed tax cuts for the richest and then threw another hardship on the spiralling middle class? Take away the last-resort life preserver of bankruptcy. Why?
To make sure we all have our debts paid when we're washed down the sewers when the rotting levees give way?

Can I really begin?

The shiny new millennium has really sucked the big one.

It brought Real Fear to our formerly Impregnable Shores. Bad things happened in the world, but not here, not until 9/11. Which was, by the way, my daughter's Golden Birthday. Eleven on the 11th - whoopee, let's celebrate! That day was supposed to be all about her, she had talked about it for months.

Quel dilemme, what to do? Do we forget the birthday and sit in stunned silence and let the little one realize that it isn't All About Her? Or do we Carry On? Fortunately, I flashed St. Jackie Kennedy, faced with the question of celebrating John John's birthday or not, immediately after JFK was assassinated. She did, so I did. When in doubt, always always Do What Jackie Would Do.

But I digress. Back to What I Need To Vent About.

There is so much to be angry about, and just to bring some order, some chronology, a beginning to this venture, I date the Birth of The Anger to the New Millennium. The 2000's brought terrorism (as defined above, the kind that counts, that is aimed at Us); brought my 50's (and it hurts like hell to put that into print); saw the ugly and excruciatingly painful ending to my 25+ year career in advertising; the attendant tumble from Privileged Middle Class (free lunches and tickets to Neil Diamond!!!!!) to Working Poor ($8/hr, no benefits).

And the best part of all: All of the above can be directly attributed to Bush!!!!!!!!! Yes, including my turning 50. I'm still working on it, but that bastard is going to pay.


This is going to be so much fun!