NBC and Fox News called Ohio... and the election... for Obama about 15 minutes ago. And then, to add insult to injury, Fox News immediately treated us to shots of Idiots Going Wild, like this:
I think I'll start drinking now.
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| Robyn Beck / AFP - Getty Images |
I think I'll start drinking now.
Things are pretty damn bleak. There was a book title I remember from several years ago, Ship of Fools. Seems to me like an appropriate metaphor for the country tonight. We're all on this luxury ocean liner fueled by an enormous and growing debt. And when the bill finally comes due, who's gonna pay?
ReplyDeleteBut, here's to your good health, Buck.
Thanks, Dan... and here's to your health, as well. ::clink!::
DeleteIt's a dark night.
I want to move to another Country. I no longer want to support this shit hole. Any suggestions for where I can move to? I am serious. I had loved America too much to want to be up close and personal to seeing it's final gasps. America died tonight, it may not quite know it, but it did, and I want out.
ReplyDeleteWhat Andy said. Or... Australia. Mebbe.
DeleteAnon, I don't think there is one. We were it.
ReplyDeleteWere.
It's really hard to be optimistic this morning.
DeleteI work at a Hospital (actually a part of a group of several facilities that is the largest employer in NW Louisiana...except for BAFB). The degree of depression I encountered this morning when I got to work is really hard to describe.
DeleteI mean, it was like when 'Bama beat us in the BCS Champeenship last season X 100! Worried, skitterish folks, and all saying pretty well the same thing..."I can't believe we're financially strapped to these morons. I can't believe people are so stupid. I can't believe we've fallen so far....yada yada yada..."
I've had my ear to the ground for a while on this...I look for a good percentage of the docs that have been hanging on to HOPE to shut it down (most of them I know personally are big-time Medicare providers...that's gonna be gone). I look for some damn good mid-level nurses (those that have been there a long time, and make good money...but aren't in the supervisory role) to get the axe.
I had one nurse (a damn good PACU gal) tell me that her husband was in tears last night. He works for a small trucking company, and his boss had already told the employees that if there is no hope for the repeal of Obamacare that they're just shutting it down.
I have a VERY good local customer in my part-time biz (used to be full-time before ObozO got elected) who told me a couple of years ago (after the ObozOcare bill passed), that he'd shut his two stores down (about 60 employees) if he had to deal with the regs of it. Said that he was scratching out a living, working way too hard, and getting old before his time. "Hell, Andy...I can't take one more expense (more or less what he said)." Well...Pam made a delivery to him on Monday, and they talked. He thanked her/us for being a good supplier, but warned her that this might be his last order, depending on how the election went. I don't know what he'll do. But, he's not an idiot, and I imagine he'll do what's best for himself, and his family.
Hate to lose him as a VERY good customer, but I don't blame him one damn bit, either!
This scenario is going to be repeated hundreds of thousands of times across what once was "Murica.
You write, that it's really hard to be optimistic. No reason to even try, Buck...
Yanno... all evidence to the contrary... I really AM an optimistic sort. People said we wouldn't survive eight years o' Clinton, yet we did. Somehow. I'm feelin' that way today, even though as you say, there's sufficient anecdotal evidence to convince even the most optimistic of those among us that we're goin' to that proverbial Hot Place in a hand-basket. But we've survived worse... think: the dark days and months following Pearl Harbor... and came out of it.
DeleteAll we can do is resist, and keep our lamps trimmed and burnin'.
Buck, my Grandparents, and their fellows faced the dark days and months following Pearl Harbor.
DeleteThey all knew how to work...how to skin hogs, can meat, load saw logs by hand, knit, sew, live without air conditioning, team up mules, make a garden, and had ZERO idea where the Welfare Office was, or EVER had a thought that a check from the gubmit would hit the mailbox.
That was then. This is now.
WE AIN'T THEM!
I'm glad you're optimistic. Please do the heavy lifting, and do mine for me.
I'm finished. Seriously.
I'm finished. Seriously.
DeleteWith ALL respect... I don't believe that. And there are still enough of us left that know what your grandparents knew. You may not believe that at the moment, but I see it all around me here and I believe it.
Courage.
Buck, thanks for ALL the respect. But, you can believe it...
DeleteAt least I do at this point.
I saw it all around me, too...when I lived in environs similar to yours.
Now I don't. I just live in a mid-sized city where people (even though they vote right) could not last a week in my grandparents world. And, we're WAY up on the totem pole here compared to the urban US.
Bad times coming. Tens of thousands...if not hundreds of thousands of small business guys (and, I know some) will throw in the chips. Gonna be millions more unemployed...and not one knows how to scald & skin a hawg.
Thanks for the optimism. It's a dirty job, but yada yada yada....
Time to furl the Flag...we're now living in an occupied country..
ReplyDeleteI'm still in shock, kinda sorta.
DeleteI have to say that I am very disappointed and agree with the "nation of idiots." But this still my country and God is still God and life goes on.
ReplyDeleteLife does indeed go on, but I'm not so sure it's gonna be life as we knew it.
DeleteWarren over Brown in MA. I am utterly mystified how that divisive charlatan won. Oh, wait! I know! We're a-holes in this state. I forgot.
ReplyDeleteWell, not EVERYONE. ;-)
DeleteWarren over Brown - really,, that shocks you? Scott Brown was the anti-Kennedy, not the anti-Democrat. The fact that Warren wouldn't know the truth if it smacked her in her faux-cahontas face doesn't bother the voters in MA. I grew up there and still have friends there; I had hoped that her lies would cost her the election but...she's a politician. And they all lie.
ReplyDeleteIt is now time for Congress and the President to do their fucking jobs. It's not about grazing rights, lobbyists, or anything else that lines their pockets. It's about the American people - and I know, Obama doesn't like us very much.
It's time for the populace - those of us with brains anyway - to start speaking out for TRUE reform. Term limits for Congress. If they vote in a law, they have to be subject to it as well. It is time to hold their feet to the fire and remind them that ALL of them - Work. For. Us.
If we, the people, can't fire an incompetent executive, what chance do we have to get real reform? That's a rhetorical question, btw. No answer required.
DeleteIt's time for the Supreme Court to stay healthy. Well, 5 of them anyway.
DeleteIn shock. Mentally stumbling around, trying to get my bearings. WTF, over?
ReplyDeleteWhat's next?
A little voice in my head keeps saying, "We're fucked."
A little voice in my head...
DeleteYou hear it, too? Here I thought it was just ME.
I think that little voice is in a lot of heads right about now.
ReplyDeleteI syarted drinking waaaaaay earlier than you did, Buck. Probably will again today. And tomorrow. And . . .
I might have started late but I sure made up for lost time. It was a struggle to get to the bedroom last night... the couch very nearly won.
DeleteWe're starting early today too.