THE NEW COLD WAR

So what happens when an American aircraft is shot down and falls nearly whole into the hands of the enemy? It is taken apart by the 'enemy' and dissected to find out what makes it tick. This was the case when Gary Powers crashed in the USSR. They took the plane apart and held him hostage until a deal got worked out and he was traded for KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel). He was not made a hero, nor was he vilified except by some hard liners who said he should have killed himself instead of being captured. So why do I bring this up now?

He launched from Pakistan. We have just had a 'drone' aircraft launched from there that has been intercepted by the Iranians. They have refused to return it. We don't have anything to bargain with so it is similar to that earlier incident except that no humans are involved in the bargaining process.

Does this bode well? Are we to be embroiled in another 'cold war' type standoff? I say yes. I say we are trying to come up with a nuclear/evil empire to replace the USSR. We tried to do so with North Korea but they are to pathetic to be a good enemy. They don't even have running water for most of their citizens.

Iran is a comfortable enemy. They are familiar to most of the US people. They were responsible for getting rid of the sympathetic (to their cause) Jimmy Carter (if you doubt this, read some of Jimmy's books, he dislikes the way things are going in the middle east in regards to Israel and has always done so) and got the Uber-Christian leaning Ronald Reagan to be president.

I do not, to this day, understand why the Iranians thought RR would be better for their cause, but that is the nature of politics. Now they want to be still in the limelight in our press and our sensibilities so they are trying to become a nuclear power and doing things that will tick off our religious rightists and conservatives. They are getting close to that goal.

And we are letting them become more important than they should be. Why? Because they are doing the salesman thing we have all seen. They are using fear.

They are coming into our home to give us an estimate to fix a problem that we have. They are telling us that this is a really serious problem and to fix it we have to destroy the existing house and build a new one. They are, in effect, running the show much the same way they ran the 1980 election of this country.They don't have enough leverage to throw this current election but they are trying to come up with a way to do so. They just released some US citizens because they weren't numerous or important enough to catch the attention of the populace of the US.

I don't think they are finished. I think there will be another attempt as soon as they know who the Republican nominee is. This could change their goal if it is someone they REALLY don't want to deal with.

In my next diatribe I will break down who I think they would like to have win the presidency. Stay tuned for more on this.. meanwhile, have a happy holiday.. (you can have a nice Christmas Mr. Rick Perry since that is so important to your happiness to state your faith.)

Giving Thanks (Agnostic Prayer)

Thanks

To my family, for being there for me.

To my dogs, various and sundry, past and present, for being my pal. (cats too, more or less)

To my country, flawed though it be, for allowing us to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

To Mother Earth for letting us use you up.

To the scientists for telling us how it came to be.

To the mathematicians for showing us how to utilize the science.

To the historians for writing it down so we would not repeat our follies.(yeah right)

To the government..... no, never mind.

But most of all and this is meant non-narcissisticly;

To myself for believing in me.

Bruce Dalrymple 11/24/2011

REPEAT PERFORMANCE ELECTION

Remember 2004? Bush ratings were at his lowest yet, and there was an election coming up. What happened? The Democrats put up a candidate that had a great war record, and good economic record as Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor and Senator but not exciting or charismatic. Still he had more going for him than the current President. And he lost. Badly. Why?

The reason is the people we now call Tea Party members, got together and made the Swiftboat ads, making a three time purple heart and silver star medalist look like a traitor and a flip flopper. How did they do that? It is all in the sound bites. Howard Dean was killed by a sound bite as well although I am not sure who was responsible for that one.

So why do I call this a repeat performance? Well it is the other shod foot this time. The Dems have a sitting president with low ratings and the Republicans have the flip flopper former Massachusetts Governor as the probable nominee.

You had several Democrats vying for the nomination in 04 and the same is true now in the Republican side.

The difference this time is that if the economy does not recover better the Dems will lose the White House. The difference this time is that the Republicans will NOT pass any bill that the President wants done, if it doesn't benefit them more, like the recent trade agreements that were passed. This makes it more likely that the White House resident will change. The health care bill passed in Congress was a virtual duplicate of the bill proposed by that commie Richard Nixon and that socialist Ronald Reagan (and it is an exact duplicate of the bill made law by the Massachusetts governor, Romney):-; but the Republicans have made it, via sound bites, to sound like socialized medicine.

The 'bail outs' that were done were proposed by the previous administration and carried out by the current president under the advice from Bushes advisors and his own. The current guy is being blamed for ALL of them. The unemployment map shows a consistent loss of jobs from 2007 to 2009 and increases since, but the current guy is being blamed for them. Why?

SOUND BITES from the right are catchy and pleasant to the ear. Death Panels. And many others available to all who know how to surf the web.

So what is the upshot of this blog? The upcoming race between the Massachusetts politician and the sitting president really makes me have de`ja vous. The result is not as certain however.

Fall of a great power

The enemy was making us spend more than we could afford. We were still sure that we could best them in the long fight for superiority. We worked hard. We went to the Olympics, and took many metals. We spread our word about our great system of governing throughout the world. We won over Asian hearts to our way of life. We helped African nations set up for the new world order. We sent men and women into space. We built great buildings and won wars. We were one of the greatest powers on the planet. We had managed to keep our continent in our philosophy. We managed to help the poor on many continents. We built a spacelab. We were powerful.

Then the enemy made us spend money to keep up with their nuclear desires. They built instruments of destruction that could kill millions. They forced us to spend money to defend against their proliferation. They used a war of words and information and misinformation to defeat us. They were ruthless in their use of money. They finally beat us because we could not spend enough money to stop them We are NOT the USSR. That is what happened to them. Their rivals spent so much money that they could not keep up. They had to fold their hand and ask for a re deal.

The terrorists have made US spend and spend to 'keep on top' of the hill and now we have spent into oblivion. It is not too late to stop the spiraling. But if we cut government spending without realizing that cutting spending means cutting jobs which means cutting tax revenue collected, which means more money going out to help the needy unemployed former government workers which means more spending. Raise revenues raise taxes for those that can afford to pay more, collect taxes on ALL income for Social programs, not just up to a certain level. Do this and you can stop the Fall. End the wars but make sure that we have jobs for the veterans that come home. Encourage employers to hire workers in this country. Penalize the companies that send work to other countries. Do all of these things and the economy will improve, the way of life will improve and the standard of living will remain high.

Don't do it and the terrorists will most certainly do to the US what the US did to the USSR. It will bankrupt us and end our way of life. This is not an opinion this is a fact.

Chase likes Muslims

I say this because if you ever see their ads on the TV you will notice the background music is from a well known Muslim activist. Yusef Islam formerly the artist known as Cat Stevens. This means that the Chase people are multicultural.