Monday, February 16, 2009

Only Pragmatism will Save Us Now

Polarization of all kinds now likely could bring extinction of mankind.

Let me give you an example. I live in California and the Democrats and the Republicans can't agree on the budget and haven't for at least 6 months. Before our present Governor Enron and several other energy distrubutors hijacked the electrical grid into California and manipulated the prices of Electricity and blackmailed California and several western states out of about 100 billion dollars or so. The Federal Government did nothing. The Federal bureau that regulates electricity prices did nothing. But Californians and western states had their revenge. We brought down most of these blackmailing companies like Enron and drove them out of business.

However, the damage had been done. Governor Davis at that time subsidized these outrages electricity prices with the California state funds which drove the state toward bankruptcy but saved many little old ladies from starving to death in their homes. Then as a reward Davis was driven from office by Schwarzeneggar who only inherited this mess caused entirely by corporate criminals.

Now, California is 42 billion in the red and democrats and republicans still can't agree on a budget because the democrats want to raise taxes and save many entitlement programs and the republicans want to cut all entitlement programs and not raise taxes. However, if they can't agree all police, firemen and women, teachers, and all state employees will not get paid even if they come to work because the state has no money in its coffers at all. When the Department of Motor Vehicles(where one obtains driver's licenses and auto and truck license plates) was closed for two regular work days this was the last straw for most people in California.

And because 2/3 vote is required for passage of a budget and because democrats don't quite have 2/3 of the members of the state legislature things are still bad. The legislators were forced to sleep in their chamber until they agreed but that didn't work so far either.

Part of the problem as I see it is that Republicans all across the nation generally are very very conservative. For some reason almost all the liberal and moderate republicans have been voted out of office. Now everyone sounds like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Hannity which in their own way sound like George Wallace and Lester Mattox of bygone years who championed segregation. However, it is not that all conservative causes don't have merit, it is just that without some pragmatism all our ships of state are going to sink together.

It is like each boat is a state and we have two captains per boat, one republican and one democrat. And one says go to one port and another says go to another port and the crew gets punished by both captains for not obeying their commands. It is just insane. Neither will give in and because of it democracy in the United States may be over. And if this is true can Anarchy be far behind?

Who will benefit the most from this present disarray? Criminals and wrongdoers. God Help Us!

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