Hank Williams, Jr.  be ridin' in the Whaaaaaaaaaambulance; St. Sarah, the Impalinator of Wassilla be griftin' her indignorant supporters and the GOPinheads' candidates be implodin' on themselves.  The true tragedy in all of this is that the aforementioned will simply be rebranded or replaced in the hearts and mindlessness of the SKKKrotalMerKKKinPatriotiKKK Front.  At best we will wind up with some piece of shit like Mittunswillard Romney doin' backflip-flops to convince the FarsideRight that he's oneathem, while, simultaneously trying to convince those of us with brains that he is oneaus.  At worst, well, fuck it, I don't even want to think about what sort of slime coats the bottom of the cesspit that the GOP has become.

The "Party of Personal Responsibility" has become almost incapable of self-grooming.  The "Base" whether it's 2.6%, 26% or 62% of the electorate is demonstrating a level of teh batshit KKKrazzee that is beyond self-parody. 

If it's not the fact that the talking shitheads parrot the demagogues'  "liberals control the media" or "George Soros is buying the MerKKKin political process", it's their reporting*  with a straight face that people like Missy Bachman or Herman Cain actually have, y'know, some fucking clue about governance.  Meanwhile the protests on Wall Street and other financial centers--worldwide--, the continuing financial daterape of the middle class by those who are in the buildings on Wall Street and other financial centers and a host of other genuine issues are conveniently ignored by the corportatist controlled media**.

The American middleclass, with whom I swam from 1998--2005 (a period when I had semi-decent pay, health insurance and some sort of retirement/pension plan) is being decimated.  This is not being done with gunz or goosesteppin'hobnailedjacknannies but, rather, by habitat destruction.   American small business is being extirpated in its natural range; not by taxes and regulation but by increasing corporate hegemony. 

The small city I live in has many of the same names on the front of the stores that I would see in San Francisco, San Antonio, Des Moines, Chicago, Boston or Tampa--and a thousand or more other cities and towns. 

When I go shopping I sometimes ask why I can't find an item at the local big box (yeah, I shop there when I have to) only to be told that they don't move enough units to make it profitable to stock the item.  I'm not talking about exotic shit, I'm talking about a plumbing fitting, electrical connector or piece of builiding hardware.  The big boxes have run the smaller stores out of business, one way or another, and they simply don't have to worry about competition.  The local Wal-Mart and the local store of regional grocer both charge more for their products than other stores in the same chain that are 10-12 miles away.  Why?  because they can.

I belong to the local Chamber of Commerce and they work their asses off to promote local businesses.  What's really bizarre is that he U.S. Chamber of Commerce does exactly the opposite. 

It's sad that, for those of you with children, the odds are not in their favor.  They will not enjoy an ever expanding economy.  They will not be able, in many cases, to live the "American Dream".  They will be living, instead, with a crushing burden of national debt that constrains or prevents economic expansion.  Jobs which used to be done by well paid U.S. citizens are now being done by people who are paid much less, people who have no unions, no labor friendly legislators, no government controls to speak of on their rapacious and insatiable employers and no benefits worth mentioning. 

It seems that the Kochsuckers and their ilk have a plan to return the U.S. to the days of the Johnstown Flood when 2,200 or more people lost their lives after a "disaster" at a privately owned dam inundated the city of Johnstown, PA; the days of the Shirtwaist Factory fire when over 125 women were incinerated in a NYC sweatshop; the days of the unregulated trucking, mining, telecom and manufacturing industries when money spoke louder than any other voice.  They wish to return us to a time when governmental social welfare was virtually non-existent and public monies were spent, primarily, to fund fire and police departments, build roads and other public infrastructure--to and from the corporatists' business properties  and damned little else.

Elections are coming up.  Once again, the DNC is dancing as hard as it can to the right, attempting to emulate the heartlessness and obdurate, willful ignorance of the GOP.  I have no particular hope that this will change.  I do, however, intend to do what I can to slow the cancerous advance of rightwing wrongheadedness.  One of the few things we can all do is to contact our pols and the media and demand that they be engaged in and honest about those things that are truly important in this country.  I wish us well in that endeavor.





*       Read, "mailing it in", "lying" or other suitable word or phrase.

**     Which seems to be most of it, above the level of your "Weekly Shopper" publication.