perfidy

I thought a lot about the election in the lead-up. I thought about the things I wanted to say to voters, figured out positions on issues, and all of that. In the end, I just decided to keep it shut and let nature take its course. I think the results were positive, and given how delicate the results were in Virginia we can all see that butterflies in Argentina influenced this election.

I'll make one general observation, though. For years now we've been hearing that the "liberal media" was distorting the truth of what's been going on in Iraq, and we've been hearing that from the very top of this administration. I think it is generally recognized now that the "liberal media distortion field" theory was BS, and that the reality distortion field was being emitted directly from the White House.

Take a moment to consider what this means for other top-shelf issues. Administration policy on environmental issues was and is being created by the same folks who brought you the Iraq war, and lied about what we really going on there (as distinct from the reason for the war). Tax policy is being created by these people as well -- we've had a massive tax cut for the wealthiest, and the numbers are in. They got a lot richer. Otherwise, median incomes are down, and Joe Average is worse off than before. And that doesn't even begin to include Joe Average's debt for the war, and for the tax cuts.

While Bush focused the tax relief "love" only at the highest income levels, he saw fit to spread the cost of the wars very evenly across all income brackets.

A tax cut for the wealthy that is not accompanied by spending cuts is a tax increase on everyone else. Period!

I can't help but think that the window for fixing some of the fundamental problems that this society has been facing is simply closed. The politically accessible surpluses that could have made headway on the real problems has been foolishly wasted on an incompetent attempt at nation-building, birthed by an untested superiority complex. The timing couldn't have been worse.