(I think this reflects the mood of the country pretty well.  I was goofing off while watching a lame moment on “Covert Affairs”.)

People have been working up anger about the political situation for years now.  I’d say the real anger began building when Bush Jr. was “elected”.  I guess all the people who voted for him (twice) didn’t get upset until he got booted.  But the problems we’re all having right now with the economy began with him.  The escalating debt can be squarely laid at his door.  It takes years of abusing any system to really feel the fallout.  I felt it right away.  I knew where everything was headed the moment I found out he was going to be president in spite of the whole Florida voting scandal.  Max was about to be born and instead of being filled with hope and excitement I remember feeling that I’d done a terrible thing to bring a human being into a world like this one.  Into a country like ours.

By September 11, 2001, I knew what Bush was going to do to our country.  I’m sorry to say I was right.  I knew he was going to erode our “freedoms” and start a war the minute I heard about the Twin Towers.  I knew he was going to start a war no matter what anyone thought about it.  He did.  He started a war that the rest of the world did not want to support.  He invaded a country on false grounds and then spent shitloads of money continuing to invade it.

What fascinates me is how Obama is getting blamed for absolutely everything wrong with this country.  This is so wildly weird to me, that my countrymen are so blind and so incapable of remembering what was going on just a few years ago.  The economy crashed even before Obama was sworn in- so how the fuck could it possibly be his fault that we’re in this mess and how is it possible that no one besides me and The Daily Show get it?*

Obama has certainly pissed me off with quite a few decisions he’s made since being in office.  The broken promises suck.  But you know what?  I knew he was going to piss me off.  I’m pretty sure that I made that prediction somewhere deep in the Dustpan Alley archives.  I knew that he was going to piss a lot of people off but I also knew that the Republican party had stopped being a political entity and has become a fire and brimstone bunch of witch-hunting misogynistic gay-hating “family values” (translates to mean “Christian”) in support of big business and corporate protection all of which they like to think makes them patriotic and anyone who doesn’t support them and their agenda is “un-American”.  There are a lot of Republicans who don’t fit this profile, of course, but the visible and public ones are much louder than the reasonable and moderate Republicans.  I’m sorry for that.  I don’t care anymore how imperfect the Democrats are or how ineffectual Obama has seemed, he is so much better than Bush or Jeb or any of those super frightening group of Republican contenders who are all very scary people who want to make laws to support their spiritual beliefs that would apply to everyone-including all of us people who don’t share their spiritual beliefs.

Get “family values” out of political discussion.  The government not only doesn’t belong in the business of my womb (their interference is based on religious beliefs) nor in my home with my family and our values (“family values” is code for “following the bible”) because we are an atheist/Buddhist household and no laws written to uphold bible scripture is okay with us.  Remember in the 80’s when we had to fight so hard to get prayer out of the schools?  That was a victory worthy of this country because unless you are going to include in those prayers words and beliefs from all the religions being practiced in this country there is no way that’s appropriate.

Something that’s got my bile rising is how the people who don’t support the Occupy Wallstreet movement don’t even get what it’s really about.  Because they’re not even trying to get it.  I read a post the other day in which the writer was spewing vitriolic shite about how all the protesters are just a bunch of spoiled people looking for handouts and “boo hooing” over their student loans and as I read it I realized she doesn’t have a fucking clue.  Not a clue.  She’s angry, like we’re all angry, but she’s laying blame in the wrong camp.  Those protesters aren’t out there to “boo hoo” about having home loans or having student loans they can’t afford, though most of us do have those.  They’re protesting the system that encouraged many people to take on what they couldn’t afford by making it ridiculously easy and then when things crashed down around us those same banking institutions that encouraged us all to spend more than we could really afford got bailed out using OUR money.  So the banks are saved and go on doing business as usual while the people who bailed them are even poorer now.  They’re protesting the gross power that Wall street has over the economic system in this country and about how Wall Street doesn’t give a crap about anything but making money for itself and its wealthiest clients.  They’re protesting that Wall Street traders, banks, and corporations aren’t being held accountable while the rest of us are held to high standards of accountability.  We don’t pay our bills we lose our homes.  The banks don’t pay theirs and we pay it for them?  That’s crooked.  That’s what’s being protested.  Gross misuse of power and money with zero accountability.

I’m totally okay with people not agreeing with my point of view.  I’m totally fine if you hate Obama and aren’t going to support him.  But if you aren’t, at least do me the honor of laying blame more carefully and of making an effort to understand the real issues we’re all facing and at least understand the impossibility of any president  being able to step up and “fix” it all.  That is not going to happen.  Not while the economic systems remain as they are.  Our system is truly broken and until it’s fixed we will make no progress forward regardless of which party is in charge.

Now I’m going to take my anger and stuff it down my shirt and get on with my day because it seems my son is having a migraine, needs to be picked up, and I am way behind on my work day, and my ears are weirdly stopped up and all this anger isn’t productive.

For the record, I’m absolutely voting for Obama again.

*This is actually an enormous exaggeration as most of my friends and many people in the country DO know this.  But I make the exaggeration because there is still such a cacophony of people who are determined to blame and hate Obama for everything that’s wrong with the world.