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That’s right! We must CELEBRATE diversity in all its forms—unless you are of European heritage or Christian of course. That would be racist you see. At least that’s what the PC crowd tells me. Being UNITED is passé because today it’s all about the proverbial ME. ME, ME! (Or reparations owed, or the MAN keepin’ me down!) I think back to a conference room conversation in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the mid-1990s with Lebanese managers. They said, “We really admire you Americans because of the way you team-up to solve problems. Here today you see five of us from Lebanon. Instead of working like one group, we tend to work like one plus one plus one plus one plus one Lebanese.” How disappointed they’d be with us today. Now in America, the idea is to blame everything wrong on someone else; and (worse) everyone seems to frame their actions on whether or not they’ll be blamed for something or can blame someone else. Hey, here’s an idea: If you can’t think of anyone in particular to blame just use George Bush, the biggest fall guy since Hoover. I had trouble with the title for this essay. At first I thought I might use the 1992 Democrat Party Slogan and battle cry (seconded loudly and strongly by the media) of: IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID! It was extremely effective when you consider Bush (41) lost to Clinton in November after he had a 92-percent approval rating the previous January, mostly the result of a patriotic afterglow from the first Desert Storm campaign. Of course, Ross Perot capturing 18-percent of the vote helped the cause. Before Perot dropped out then back in again, he actually led both Bush and Clinton in the polls in June. It was Perot who said on the Larry King show, “You don’t have a government for you. You have a government coming at you!” His point was that both parties are corrupt. I agreed and voted for Perot; and as such, helped elect Clinton. Say what you will about Bill; but the man has charisma (and knows how to get the babes). I find it strange that we’re not hearing, IT’S THE ECONOMY, STUPID! reprised from the elephant team; you know, a chance for a little “in your face” back at the Dems. It’s not surprising that the media is silent because they’re so far up Obama’s tuckus that they can’t see light anyway—especially NBC and the New York Times. Instead we hear a lot of noise about Romney’s tax returns, which I don’t understand since Obama’s Treasury Secretary got away without filing or paying. That wasn’t a big deal with the press. We also hear about what a sin it is for Ann Romney to be wealthy enough to buy and ride a horse, but heard nothing about John Kerry having a $50 million yacht. Meanwhile, the American public continues to wallow in ignorance and self-delusion. Instead of paying attention to what’s happened the last four years to the national debt, loss of jobs, and the government contracting with a Chinese company to build bridges in Texas, our mental giants worry about whether or not Kim Kardashian gets a star on the Hollywood Walk-of-Fame. Now I am not a supporter of either party—I’m an equal opportunity basher—but being scientifically educated I examine data rather than the typical human pastime of deriving contemporary views from emotional sound bites. I also do my own thinking rather than letting ideologues who represent my particular political party “give” me my opinion. Here are some data for your amusement and pleasure: 1) The Democrats took over the House and Senate January 3, 2007. This was the 110th Congress. 2) On October 9, 2007 all was “well”; i.e., unemployment was 4.7-percent and steady—today it’s 8.4-percent and that doesn’t include those who have stopped looking, which makes the figure 17.2-percent—and the DOW was 14,164.53; 3) The National Debt has increased two-fold the last four years; 4) September 7, 2008 at 11:48 AM on a “Meet the Press” interview Obama said, “We as a Nation, have placed upon the nations of Islam, an unfair justice, which is why my wife disrespects the flag, and she and I have attended several flag burning ceremonies in the past.” This was reported in the Washington Post, but got no traction; and 5) health care reform began with the hiring of 16,500 additional IRS agents to determine whether your insurance coverage merits a fine; and (oh yeah) 6) Barney Frank took over Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Don’t take my word, look it up. This information (and more) is available from government sources—not internet BS—to all who aren’t lazy, self-deluded, and/or apathetic. Well, now wait a minute, strike the apathetic part because that pretty much describes me in my present state-of-mind. My lifelong buddy, Dennis from Arizona, and I have been passionate pursuers of truth and continuous improvement since teenagers. He leans left and I lean right, but we’ve always had true dialogues (versus the dual monologues of people today), have learned from each other, and have adopted the others views when logic and reason dictates we do so. In other words, we try to be focused on what’s right—whatever that is—instead of supporting whatever the ideologues spew. We have each attempted to be an aspirant not a mind-numbed robot behaving like South American and European soccer hooligans. Hmmm, actually these days in the good ol' DSA our professional sports fans are identical; maybe worse. Well, folks, we’ve given up, dropped out, and joined the 1950s beat generation. Jack Kerouac, we’re coming! HOPE AND CHANGE! (my ass) ARE YOU BETTER OFF THAN FOUR YEARS AGO? (no) YOU DON’T HAVE A GOVERNMENT FOR YOU. YOU HAVE A GOVERNMENT COMING AT YOU! (how true) I’TS THE ECONOMY, STUPID! (for sure) This will be my last article for a while. I am concentrating on a writing a mystery novel—a real page-turning, spellbinder. Yethir! So far I’m 15 chapters in and enjoying the ride. As for what happens this November? Wake me when it’s over. Copyright by Gene Myers, author of AFTER HOURS: ADVENTURES OF AN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESSMAN (2009), Strategic Publishing Group, New York, NY – a hilarious account of the author’s overseas travels; and SONGS FROM LATTYS GROVE (2010), PublishAmerica, Fredericksburg, MD - a mildly sinister, but amusing work of fiction. Both are available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and available in Amazon Kindle and Nook formats. Visit www.myersamazon.com
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diversity, united, blame, economy, Bush, Clinton, Perot, Obama, Kardashian,
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