Sea Cape Cod by Michael Mosier

Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the sunny island of Nantucket!  Great to be with you and yours on this Tuesday morning, the thirteenth day of September, 2011, a beautiful late summer day here on Cape, as the temperatures are expected to be in the upper 70’s with abundant sunshine.  A little known fact, if you will excuse the Cliff Claven from ‘Cheers’ reference, about the Cape and Islands is that during the months of September and October, and sometimes going all the way to Thanksgiving, this little sand bar created by the Last Great Ice Age over 11,500 years ago is the BEST time to be here, as the crowds have dissipated and the water is still warm, with plenty of room to swim, boat or kayak your little heart out--’so come on down, we’ll leave the LIGHT on for YA!’. Last night of course, hosted by CNN, was another republican debate to decide which candidate was more to the right of President Ronald Reagan, who, as we have seen in the past, has been evoked time and time again by republican hopefuls for the highest office in the land.  As Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis, who appeared last night on “The Last Word, with Lawrence O’Donnell”, only on MSNBC, airing every week night at 8 and 11 p.m., EDT, put it, “If my Dad were alive today, and did not have Alzheimer’s, I doubt these candidates would continue to try and mold themselves into his shadow…” The TRUTH of the matter is this, Ronald Reagan would not have been elected President in this toxic environment today, in fact, he may not have been elected Governor of the great state of California, as the shift towards ‘compassionate conservative’ has quickly devolved into ‘Republicorp of America’, where the only policy that matters is not raising taxes on the most fortunate among US, rather, giving HUGE tax breaks to those billionaires and corporations, who take that money and invest it in plants whose mailing address is either Singapore or Beijing.  As the President, Barack Obama, unveiled his “American Jobs Act” yesterday, in Virginia I believe, House majority leader Eric Cantor’s home district, directing the republicans to “Pass this bill, pass it right NOW…”, the details came to light as to how WE are going to pay for it.  Number one, ‘Limit deductions for high wage earners. Number two, ‘Close loopholes for oil and gas companies. Three, ‘Tax hedge fund earnings as INCOME, that they ARE, as opposed to capital gains. And finally four, ‘change depreciation for corporate jet owners. Speaker of the House John Boehner’s office fired back, “…this jobs proposal does not appear to have been offered in that ‘bipartisan’ spirit.” What kind of spirit was that John?  Are you for real?  Front runner Rick, “I’m gonna get you sucka”, Perry, in the meantime, made a complete fool of himself in the aforementioned debate, getting hit hard by the far right in the form(s) of Bachmann, Paul and Santorum, who spoke to his record on taxes, immigration, Social Security and a disturbing thirst for blood.  OK, I stretched the truth a little there, maybe I’m the only one who found it creepy that the only applause line from the previous debate came from NBC moderator and anchor Brian Williams who spoke to the fact that Perry has executed over 200 people during his tenure as Governor of the great state of Texas.  Yikes!  Among the criticism of Perry was, in this reporter’s humble opinion, his acceptance of monies from the giant pharmaceutical company Merck, who, in return for a mandate to inoculate 12 year old little girls for the HPV virus, gave him over 30,000 dollars–a real win-win for the gov and his lobbying friends, one of whom, was a former lobbyist for Merck, Inc., itself.  Can someone say Crony Capitalism?  Can someone get this guy a definition of that old phrase, “Conflict of Interest” ??  Please?! With Perry commanding a 42 percent of the ‘vote’ to Mitt Romney’s 26 percent, depending on the poll, it is hard to believe he will maintain that lead after last night’s performance…  But, hey, perhaps we are all wrong about Mr. Perry, maybe he is a nice guy, maybe he is, deep down inside, an environmentalist and all of this ‘tough talk’ is only an act…  “We’re going to be killed”, “killed? not killed,” …”It’s not the speed really, it’s just that,”… to quote one of our great American citizens…,“I just wish I hadn’t drank all of that cough syrup this morning…” (credit the great Bill Murray and the classic film “Stripes“).  Today, the President, who is in full engagement mode with the AMERICAN PEOPLE, as opposed to Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) “American People” talking point number 7007, will be in Ohio, hopefully EDUCATING the public as to what needs to be done in order to get this economy out of the ditch it still seems to be stuck in.   The big problems facing this nation are, among others– a) housing, b) a 2.2 trillion dollar infrastructure investment, a much needed investment, c) unfair trade policies, d) globalization of manufacturing and overall cheap labor, e) a blatant culture war against organized labor and the poor, not to mention the middle class, and, finally, f) an unfair tax code that has proved to be the undoing of the concept of fair play and ‘the American way’… (of course, the BIG problem will, for ALL of us around the world, be global warming or ‘climate change’, via the rape and pillage of our earth–PROFIT OVER PEOPLE–brought to you by, THE big polluters, such as KOCH Industries, who pump 596 deadly chemicals into OUR American soil, in their ‘FRACKING’ process of attaining ‘natural gas’, most of which finds it’s way into our drinking water, killing everything in it’s path…but hey, why worry about that right, we can always make water, am I right?).   We are not a nation, as evidenced by the ten year anniversary of 9/11, that says to her people, ‘you, your parents and grandparents, are on your own.’ No, this nation, that was founded on the principal, not the personality, of WE THE PEOPLE–the people who hire and fire the leaders who are ELECTED, fairly elected, to serve them–stands BY it’s greatest asset, the men, women and children of a once proud country, a people who are honest, hard working and eternally optimistic about that greatest country on planet earth, or used to be anyway, and can be again and will, by definition, always do so.  What planet are these guys and gals in the once proud and sane republican party living on anyway? Don’t they realize that, “This thing is ON?” So, America, and the world at large, especially those suffering in Europe right now, stay tuned, this can only get better!  Have a great day and please Google OXFAM, or savethechildren.org to help those in the greatest NEED of all, 12.5 million Somalian refugees, who are making their way to Kenya as I write these words, dying of hunger and thirst, without a nickle in their collective pockets, needlessly suffering in the worst FAMINE to hit that region, well, EVER.  Thank you.  PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M