I'm Seeing Penguins. They Don't Look Good.

I wrote this in reply to a letter from a friend....(or rather, I wrote something very much like it.)

.....I was a little let-down when I heard it was to be Biden. Actually, Biden has never struck me as the 'Khan' type, Genghis or otherwise. From what I've seen and heard of him, he seems like a garden-variety politician (species - Democrat), who usually manages to say seventeen words when two or three would have done nicely. Ah well, who knows what silliness lurks in the hearts of politicians? But I'd have loved to have seen Chuck Hagel up there. What a statement that would have made.

I'm not as interested in who McCain picks. As I've said before, if McCain is elected President, then we'll have all gotten exactly what we deserve. Another four years of corporate boondoggle and a "you can't get there from here" attitude about the road to diplomatic solutions in nations where we are militarily engaged. Also, Mr Huckabee, while seeming halfway intelligent, is determined to govern according to his religious beliefs and I will have no truck with that! Theocracy scares the willies out of me, as well it should. The Children of Abraham have pretty well fucked things up for the last two thousand years. It's time for someone with a degree in Civics and Constitutional law to sit in the big chair in the Senate. And they can leave their faith at home.

- Maggie

Or maybe I've lost interest because I'm still feeling the aftershocks of that Basevich interview. Whoever assumes the Presidency will be inheriting five decades of botched domestic and international actions, a huge national debt and the final act in the 'energy' passion play. It's going to take more than one little presidential election for us to haul ourselves out of the muck.

And that's exactly what we have to do. We have to haul ourselves out! How many more elections is it going to take for us to realize that government is self-serving, that no member of the beauracracy is going to risk his or her government salary and pension in order to do the right thing, like advocate for gas rationing or raising taxes to reduce the national debt and balance the budget? What politician or civil servant would ever say that cutting the fat and deadwood out of government would, in itself, save us untold amounts of money, and then offer to be the first one out the door?

The government doesn't run us: We run it. And we run it at our pleasure, though officialdom would like us to forget that. In order to run it right, WE have to be well-educated. WE have to be unafraid. And we have to think about the common good and our rights and responsibilities as citizens, not just of the USA but of the world. It's time we put ourselves in the other penguins shoes.

- Lois Carneiro