oh the paranoid post

Been spending time reading and thinking, well a little bit of time reading and thinking, always a bit dangerous to do that.

This is about a paranoia trip, you know the kind that produces movies like Zeitgeist or the commercial Enemy of the State

Goes back to an article on CNN awhile back about the election. The author was talking about it would be good if one side either democrat or republican won the election handily. The author's fear was that if close it would only create even more political problems. A tight election in today's climate would only increase the political rancor going on between the two parties. I think for some of us Congress not getting anything done right now is better than what they may come up with, but that was not his point. Felt we need to have a clear victor, wasn't to concerned about which side, just a solid victor.

So... I am not real fond of either party so I don't care which side wins, but it got me to thinking what is the real choice we are facing in this election. Is it what we have always had or is it something different, so the paranoia grew.

What if the real choice we are facing is a true test of democracy surviving, what if the election isn't about the two parties, but the choice of whether the uber rich finally get complete control of the country or not. No I am not talking about Romney v. Obama and Obama saving us from the rich electing Mitt. No, under my paranoid scenario, it is the choice of continuing as we have with what we have being controlled by an economic oligarchy that grows stronger each year. Choosing Obama over Romney may at best only delay the inevitable. Congress is the real problem in this scenario. The House of Representatives is suppose to be the part of the government that is to be the most responsive to the people, general populace, but they are so controlled by lobbyists now that pulling the puppet strings on them and I do mean all of them that the control by this small group would be so easy if not already in place.

Yes I know I have gone down this path before in previous posts, but not this direct. So what is the choice, well one might say lets give up the ghost now, why waste time fighting the inevitable. Lets quit voting for people and let our elected representatives be chosen by our little group here. Why not I say, most primaries nowadays ( and maybe historically to a different degree) are just a vetting process of who the party heads want to get elected. They let people go through the ranks of a political career or choose certain business people that have the right attitude and let them be successful. For someone to really rise up and challenge the party elite would be nice, but... Some people may point to the Tea party and say they are bringing up new blood, but I say this new blood is vetted and is more beholden to the people that brought them to power than you believe. There is a very small group of power brokers behind the tea party ranks of the Republicans. There are pretty sure of who they are getting no matter this talk of grass roots movement.

an aside here:
And this little economic oligarchy group I fear is also a bit of an exclusive club as you might think. And I say this based on the obvious, but lately there may have been some house cleaning. Interesting to note the comments of one Sandy Weill. Recently he has been all over the news with his comments about maybe getting rid of Glass-Steagall Act. Now why on earth would the architect of the demise of that legislation decide that was a mistake. I can think of two reasons and I may be wrong. One is he grew a conscience, maybe just maybe he realized that it was a mistake to give too much power to a small group of people or that maybe mistakes can be made and that people need protection. Or maybe he got kicked out of the club so he is trying to build up a base of support for him to try and get some power back. Wild thoughts on a Thursday night to be sure, but since we are on the paranoid trip why not through some wild ideas out there. Anyway it was pretty obvious there was something amiss here and got to give credit where credit is due. I was going to post on this the first night out and missed the window. Then saw Jon Stewart go after it fairly well on the Daily Show. So I am left to put my brain ramblings on this post as this aside to my greater fear discussed tonight.

Going back to the point, so do we give in to the obvious, there is no hope, no time left, the whole country is floating down the Potamac into the Atlantic and the only thing left is what gets washed back up at high tide. Is there even still a choice?

I fear not because the only solution I see is a complete house cleaning of Congress and there is no apparatus to do such. I know I have hinted around that we need a new party, true new party and being a conservative and that I feel most Americans to one degree or another are at least slightly conservative that we could put together a party that really represents the majority of Americans or a large portion of us. A party that works with practical conservative solutions with an eye to planning for the future, and respect for human dignity. Yep a pipe dream.

Another aside, and this goes to the human dignity thought. Illegal immigration is a problem for this country. We do need to do something and there are practical solutions. My fear is the amount of comments on CNN blogs, Yahoo blogs, ( I read Fox, but I can never find comments on their site, and I fear what those would be) and other news/internet media sites that really treat illegal immigration with hatred and fear. And the fear is the same tool the Nazis did with the Jewish people. They blamed all Germany's problems on this group and we all know what happened there. People tend to forget there is a difference between being conservative and being a right wing fanatic. And that is growing in our country, and something my little economic oligarchy group can exploit for their benefit if they aren't already behind it (tea party). Blaming problems on one group at the expense of another is a dangerous sign my good friends. What causes problems like this: lack of quality education, economic stress, and an ineffective or manipulated government come to mind, and well that equation exists.. yes another trip down paranoid lane.

So what is the choice, my little perfect party doesn't exist, getting back on the map would take much work just to get a few Congressmen/women elected in 2014, yes 2014 and years to build. It was tried in the early 1900's and got a start, but well it kind of disappeared, helped out by the same group of people that brought you the current central bank. Most smart economic oligarchists know Americans are generally conservative so they play on it, hence the ability of the Republican party to maintain such a strong hold on the electorate. And the carrot of economic success on the individual level always works, hey their rich, I want to be rich so they must have the best ideas. So down the road could we get a responsible conservative party, well we could if we could keep the boat of democracy afloat until it can come back on the next tide to actually keep our country great.

So how do we do that, there is one crazy idea, and you have to have a crazy idea to fight the demons of the paranoid trip. And the great thing is it is not some wild anti government debacle, but just actually washing Washington with what we have now, but it would take such a leap of faith for the American electorate that it probably won't happen. Americans are too ingrained in believing that Republicans and Democrats are they way to go. But if , but if but if you could get a majority of Americans to take that leap of faith and still vote their side, ie liberal v conservative, we might get enough people in Congress at least temporarily beholden to the people of this country long enough to actually get some work done that benefits the majority of the people. And this apparatus is in place, not everywhere, but enough and that is the libertarian party and the green party. If we could wash out enough of Congress to get a majority in the house and some in the senate (enough to scare the rest or give it till 2016) we might could get some real workable compromises between the liberal and conservative element to help our country and us. Yep elect these people with a very small mandate, ie work on the economy, the budget, poverty (rebuilding the welfare program to something that works and is affordable) education (new ideas with better goals, not dumbing down of the system with standardized tests) another words real education, we might put something together that in a generation or two the rest of the world will really envy us like we think they do. We would have to give up social legislation for awhile and that will be difficult because that always brings people out more so than solving problems, but it might be better to wait on social issues anyway till we get a better education system in place to have people who can better discuss these hot button issues more rationally.

Anyway that is my choice, do we accept the inevitable slide into complete dominance by a select club of uber rich or do we find the cajones to actually put people into office that can think for themselves long enough for the people to demand to keep a better government. And boy will the uber rich fight it, yet what is funny to me is that if our country got better, stronger, democracy was healthy, they would still be uber rich and still running a huge economic machine. Yes the demise of the good ole USA really hurts the people I fear are at the heart of or taking advantage of what is happening to us. And they are so greedy they can't see they are their own death kneel. Yep they would last for awhile, many almost uber rich misguidedly following along thinking they are part of the gang, but as time goes on, greed takes over so the big fish keep eating the smaller fish till there are no more healthy fish in the sea, only a bunch of bottom dwellers that won't be enough food for the uber rich and then they will turn on themselves and we are left with something totally unimaginable in a normal conscious. Or the worst fear of the uber rich a complete totalitarian socialist state run by bureaucrats caused by the backlash of the people against them. And yet they keep going down their path thinking that they will be successful.

So we need the middle size fish to revolt and pursue economic growth in our country, two new parties that represent true conservative and liberal thinking on a practical level that can work together to put policies into place that benefit the people, rules and laws that don't let the uber rich make the rules and laws, ie another thing for my new parties would be to create laws that limit lobbyists access to elected representatives. You could never win banning lobbyists, but you could impose restrictions of when lobbyists spoke to elected officials like all policy discussions have to be on the record,,, ie in front of a committee or sub committee or some such nonsense or is it sense. no free rides or lunch meetings, ethics kind of thing or something so people know what special interests are pushing, you know fair and open government.

So that is my paranoia and the two choices that have nothing to do with the way we look at choices nowadays, ie Democrats v Republicans and the article being a moot point.

And I promise my next post will go back to believing the country is all still good and on the up and up and I will propose what I think is a practical idea to work on a couple of problems we have in this country and that is water and social security. Wow to me if we could get the right people in office. There are so many good ideas out there, I just hope some of mind might meet that ideal. The ideas are there, can we get the people in place to implement them.

Hot as hell throughout the country and we do need long term practical solutions to water in this country and as a conservative I propose it is not all up to the federal government, but a variety of interests that are competitive, but can work together to benefit all.

Anyway stay cool best you can and have a great weekend. Pray that a few tropical storms,, not hurricanes can find there way through the gulf to our country's mid section for now.