Interesting times...
I'm not happy about the political prospects for this November, and I'm not at all happy when I look back on the first portion of the Obama presidency. As I look ahead to the fall election, I see two political parties in crisis. The Republicans are being energized by this tea party effect, but the tea party effect is also fundamentally changing the principles that the party stands for - look back thirty years, and you would find a party that was less socially tolerant, but that would have considered most of the economic ideas of the tea party to have come straight out of a box labeled 'crazy weasels: do not open'.
The dems, perhaps not surprisingly given some of the picks that Obama made, have tried to be Clinton II, now with 30% more governance and fewer naughty interns! The *original* Clinton policies, enacted in a time of relative prosperity, were bad for the country (very, very bad when one looks at things through the lens of workers' rights). Obama's pathetic middle-of-the-road policies destroyed any real faith that had lingered (or re-emerged) in the ability of the Democratic party to actually bring about real changes.
I suspect, sadly, that we're in for rocky years. The right is probably going to win enough seats to completely tie up the legislative system, and perhaps even implement more of its ridiculous wealth-concentrating, not wealth-creating, policies. The left will do nothing. The country will fall back into recession. I... don't know what will come after that. I *hope* that both parties will experience a revival. I *hope* that the dems will have a witch-hunt, and purge the elements within their party that are owned entirely by big business. I *hope* that the republicans will re-discover some of their values as a party, and will *actually* speak for sound conservative (ie limited and risk-averse) financial policy.
I'll end this depressing post now.
The dems, perhaps not surprisingly given some of the picks that Obama made, have tried to be Clinton II, now with 30% more governance and fewer naughty interns! The *original* Clinton policies, enacted in a time of relative prosperity, were bad for the country (very, very bad when one looks at things through the lens of workers' rights). Obama's pathetic middle-of-the-road policies destroyed any real faith that had lingered (or re-emerged) in the ability of the Democratic party to actually bring about real changes.
I suspect, sadly, that we're in for rocky years. The right is probably going to win enough seats to completely tie up the legislative system, and perhaps even implement more of its ridiculous wealth-concentrating, not wealth-creating, policies. The left will do nothing. The country will fall back into recession. I... don't know what will come after that. I *hope* that both parties will experience a revival. I *hope* that the dems will have a witch-hunt, and purge the elements within their party that are owned entirely by big business. I *hope* that the republicans will re-discover some of their values as a party, and will *actually* speak for sound conservative (ie limited and risk-averse) financial policy.
I'll end this depressing post now.