Homeward Bound…
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the foggy island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Wednesday morning, the twelfth day of October, 2011, a much cooler start to the early morning on Cape, as the temperatures have finally fallen back to seasonal levels, with heavy rain expected on Thursday… The republican debates, hosted by Dartmouth College in beautiful Hanover, New Hampshire, went off without a hitch last night as front runner Mitt Romney looked, as noted on the fine morning talk show, “Morning Joe”, only on MSNBC, as if he were the CEO in a board room somewhere, directing verbal traffic, as he steers his way to the nomination. Rick, “I’ll kill ‘ya if I have ‘ta (just kidding, I’m really a nice guy)”, Perry, seems to be fading like an Arizona sunset, with the rest of the window dressing, by way of Herman Cain, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman and a robot named Doug, as they all, including Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, a strong attack dog, all clamor for a possible cabinet position, or, in the case of Chris Christie, a possible VP nod. When pitted against Barack Obama, a recent poll showed a virtual tie between Romney and Obama, in the upcoming November 2012 showdown, that will bode well for the folks truly interested in exposing the rigged system that is not sustainable if we wish to keep this country a real democracy, caring for ALL as opposed to some. There is no doubt that the concept of ‘capitalism’, or ‘free market” Laissez Faire economics, brings out the best in some, for it promotes competition, that, if bred in the right environment, with rules of conduct and fairness applied from the beginning, rises both boats with it’s tide, if you will, making both parties better for it. However, it is not a game that everyone can join in, as we all know, for Wall Street has taken control of the decision making process in a country wherein the PEOPLE were meant for that honor, namely the big investment banks that took advantage of the repeal of the Glass-Steagall act in 1999, a move that made the line between commercial banks and investment banks, as well as insurance companies, go by by, ushering in the highly sophisticated financial instruments known as derivatives, or credit default swaps, which are, in essence, side bets for or against the investment at hand, such as those bundled toxic assets left over from the housing bubble. As this game went on, all through the not years of this twenty first century, with huge unpaid for tax breaks, 4.1 trillion dollars worth, coupled with two unpaid for wars, as well as a giant pharma deal, creating the huge national debt WE owe foreign nationals like China, as our own infrastructure and society at large crumbles into the sea, more and more American citizens lost their jobs, went bankrupt and were shut out of the gated community, through no fault of their own. However, one cannot, as we all know, pin this on one ‘corporation’, for not all corporations are ‘bad’. The point is, that we need to address the big problems in this nation by not putting our collective heads in the sand, rather, BEND a little so that we can begin competing again on the global market and then, perhaps, we might see that some good will come back into the electorate en masse. Arresting, brutally arresting 140 people, early yesterday morning, 1:30 a.m., to be precise, sleeping protesters from the “Occupy Wall Street-Boston” crowd at the Rose Kennedy Green in that great city did not help matters, in fact, it only made them ‘worse’, for it brought forth more attention to a movement that strikes a nerve with everyone, unless you have been living under a rock. There is not a single person on these shores of the United States of America who has not felt the pain of this reckless behavior on behalf of some of Wall Street’s power players and their cozy relationship with Washington D.C., moreover, the bedroom eyes projected at their ‘elected’ leaders who were hired to do a job for their constituents, which, the last time I checked, was a job that did not include bending them over a radiator by way of putting the goals and aspirations of their corporate lobbying friends above said, the historically relevant and some would say divinely written statement, per some heavy documents, WE THE PEOPLE… Have a nice day folks and a big shout out to Franklin, Massachusetts this fine a.m., Joe, they just don’t get any better than you brother! PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
