politicalbull

My birthday is today, December 3rd. I won’t tell you how old I am (sorry) but I WILL tell you that the first time that I voted for President was in 1980.

I have seen a lot in my short life here on earth—think about it, when you consider the totality of existence, our time on this earth is just a hiccup—and I would like to go the memory lane of national events for a minute.

I was alive during John F. Kennedy’s assassination, but I was too young to remember it. I was during Bobby Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King’s assassinations, but I do not really remember those events. I was alive during Watergate, but I was too young to care.

I don’t really remember the Vietnam War protests, but I vaguely remember the Kent State shootings because it was practically in our backyard. I remember the Iran hostage crisis, and how Jimmy Carter mishandled it. I remember, well, the Challenger explosion and the emotions that followed. I remember Princess Diana’s death, and funeral, and how awful I felt. I remember John Kennedy, Jr.s tragic death, the boy that had such promise, along with his wife and his sister-in-law. I remember the ridiculous Clinton/Lewinsky sex scandal and the equally ridiculous impeachment proceedings that followed.

Recent events have added more to my memory bank—the year our nation almost collapsed from the greed and stupidity of politicians and business leaders. I fear, however, that much more will happen to our economy in 2009, much more that I will be condemned to remember.

On Monday, The National Bureau of Economic Research made a SHOCKING announcement—America has been in a recession since December 2007. Well, duh! What made them realize this? Did the banking crisis finally make them admit it? It wasn’t enough, apparently, when the bottom fell out of the housing market. Nor did it rattle them when gasoline prices went “sky high” for awhile. But how about the huge jobless rate of Amercans? Naw. That didn’t do it either.

Nor did it phase President Bush who, for the longest time, refused to admit that America was in deep doo doo. Nor did it phase Senator John McCain who, during his Presidential campaign, thought that “the fundamentals of our economy were strong.” Nor did it, apparently, overly phase either the Democrats or the Republicans in Congress, who did not seem to wake up until the banks started to fold.

But it DID phase us, the normal people of America. We knew we were in a recession when we had trouble finding jobs. We knew we were in a recession when we had to conserve gasoline. We knew we were in a recession when our paychecks suddenly did not buy as much as they once did.

If there is one lesson from this economic crisis, it is this—people in Congress lead charmed, isolated lives, no matter how often they may travel among the people. They can’t really know what it is like to be hounded by bill collectors, or to receive paychecks that don’t meet their needs, or to face the threat of job layoffs.

They CAN’T know. Therefore, it is up to us, “We the PEOPLE” of the United States of America, to make sure that our representatives in Congress DO know about our “average” lives. How? By WRITING to them regularly. Let them know how your life is going. Tell them of your problems, your concerns. Starting with the Obama administration, let’s help ring in a new era of a CARING, responsible government, by being an attentive, responsible electorate. It’s the American way.

According to the AP, more than 2,000 people have petitioned Bush to either give them a “get out of jail free” card or to commute their prison sentences before he steps down as our nation’s “leader” in January. This whole issue has made me think—I wonder if Bush would pardon himself, if he could, or does he not think that he did anything wrong? My bet is the latter. There is no person more dangerous, or one more unapologetic, than one who feels imbued with a righteous mission.

In Bush’s case, his biggest “crime” was the Iraqi War. Sure, Bush used the excuse of Saddam possessing “weapons of mass destruction” and his “terrorist threat” to convince Congress and the American people that Saddam must go. But, this was all a smokescreen. As most of us feel now, his attack on Saddam was a personal one—a point of competition and a point of pride. He not only wanted to overthrow Saddam to avenge that dictator’s former threat on his father’s life, but also to finish the job that his daddy couldn’t finish.

He succeeded. But, some five years, hundreds of thousands of deaths, and billions of dollars later, was it really worth it?

MR. Bush, you get no pardon from me.