A few days ago, a friend shared a Facebook post written by a friend of hers, someone I didn’t know. Yesterday our mutual friend introduced us, and I talked him into letting me share his message here. He has agreed to let me tell you is that he’s a freelancer and a "long-winded introvert." He told me several times that he’s "a very dull boy," that he doesn’t get into politics very much, and he seldom expresses his political views in writing.
I’m convinced that the views he expressed in this piece of writing are anything but "dull" and deserve a wider audience than his Facebook connections can provide. Here it is.
TWO MEN WITHOUT A PARTY. Or how to waste a great president.
by Cj Coombes
This country elected a president that clearly represented, not only the hopes of a nation, but the hopes of a world. I remember all too well the euphoria of that night. It was as if the angels sang in drunken elation. Maybe they did, because it felt every bit like miracle.
I listened to this man's speeches long before he uttered any word about running for president, and I was blown away by the way he articulated in a gentle, non-confrontational style, his thoughtful and intelligent perspectives on social justice. I kept asking myself, why couldn't we have a man like this for a president?
Now, I am left to ask, what kind of ignorant self-destructive electorate could manage to piss away the talents of such a remarkable person?
This last election confirms my belief that I am adrift in a featureless political quagmire. I belong to no party. I have always considered myself somewhat left of center. That placed me in the camp of Democrats.
But I also stood adamant in my belief that the Republican Party is vital to our well-being as a country.
Bleeding heart liberals are like mothers. No matter what the cost, no matter if it burns the house down, the kids come first. The kids love Rover, and if it takes twenty thousand dollars to save him… then that's what we gotta do.
Conservative Republicans are like fathers. Rover cost twenty bucks. A great dog, but still a twenty-dollar dog. Two hundred bucks tops. After that let the kids learn a lesson about life. Tough love.
Parents may fight furiously over the kids, but in the end, a balance is struck, and family grows stronger.
We don't think of divorce as the means of improving the lives of children.
But is it also true, that divorce may be the result of spousal abuse.
So what are mom and dad fighting about?
For starters:
Dad says if the kids need their teeth fixed, get a job with benefits.
Mom says jobs for kids don't offer benefits.
Dad says then get a better job or deal with the rotten teeth.
Mom says over her dead body.
Dad says tell the neighborhood kids to go home.
Mom says they're good kids and they all play together fine.
Dad says they're destroying the yard.
Mom says what's more important, grass or friends?
Mom says it's time to clean up the garage before somebody gets hurt.
Dad says the garage is fine. No one's got hurt.
Mom says there's containers leaking something nasty.
Dad says put a bucket under it.
Mom says the kids need a raise in their allowance.
Dad says they're bleeding him dry.
Mom asks him if he plans on cutting the grass.
Dad says the neighborhood kids'll do it for half the price.
Mom comes home with ten bags of groceries.
Dad gets bent. He says she can't afford ten bags of groceries.
Mom says the kids gotta eat.
Dad says they don't gotta eat donuts.
Dad says we need to fix up the house.
Mom looks around and agrees, "Do I get a new kitchen?"
Dad says, "Yeah, I guess."
Mom kisses dad.
I can go back and forth on the good merits of each party. I'm centrist. I see the reasons for compromise.
As I have stated many times, I believe the main philosophical difference between the parties is that one party believes all people are born equal and should not be hindered by the community to reach their goals. The other party believes that people are not at all born equal, and it is up to a community to support them in reaching their goals.
I adamantly believe people are not born equal. I don’t believe a child born blind is on par with Donald Trump's daughter. I do believe people are equal in one respect. They all wish to better their position in life. When a man is on welfare, it doesn't mean he has no desire to better his position. It means that from his perspective welfare is his best prospect.
I believe it is blatantly hypocritical for a rich man to tell the masses to stand back and keep out of his way as he fast tracks to more wealth—until there's a war and then tell the masses to march ahead and know he'll back them with bullets an' bombs and maybe some benefits… maybe. (Bullets and bombs are exceptionally profitable, especially when paid for by mandatory taxation, but benefits... not so much.)
President Obama brought badly needed health care to the masses who have been told to stand back for far too long. Our citizens die for this country in times of war, why must they die because of this country in times of peace?
Instead of standing behind this President and standing up for good "Christian" ideals of helping the helpless, the Democrats jumped ship like the disgusting rats they became. United they might have stood, but instead, in order to save their own worthless necks, they fell one by one like dominoes.
I want to kick the asses of every spineless Democrat from Hillary Clinton on down. After failing miserably to get health care herself, she abandoned the one man who did. In spite of all her political clout, she left him to hang, she left him to wage the battle alone. Not only did the Affordable Care Act bring the spiraling costs of medical charges to a grinding halt, but it also demanded that medical institutions reveal the basis for their charges. An aspect of the law that he was never allowed to put in place. Why?
Hillary Clinton literally does not have the balls to represent me. The only thing she compares to now is another Mitt Romney, a Republican's favored contender for president, another politician who spearheaded public health care, but now knows nothing about it. Hillary or Mitt, I don’t need a replacement president who is two-faced or suddenly senile.
I want to bitch-slap every two-faced obstructionist Republican who stood up within minutes of Obama's presidential election and said on national television that they had only one aim, to bring him down. But now that they have control of the Congress, they want to work with him. In other words, don't veto the shit we're about to run down your throat. If the bottom 99.5% of the public doesn't care how bad we squeeze them, why should you?
It is excruciatingly painful for me to overhear untold numbers of people who rant about how the impoverished of this country are responsible for the lack of jobs, for the shrinking wages, or for their falling lifestyle. How they overlook the fact that it is the top 1%, our American Aristocrats, who possess 40% of all this nation’s wealth is beyond me.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, from 1979 to 2007 the top 1% saw their income rise by 275% compared to 60% of the middle class, whose income rose by 60%. By 2012 the inequality gap grew to its largest since the 1920s. Incomes for the top 1% rose by 20%. For the remaining 99% of us, an embarrassing 1%. How’s that for sucking up your lifestyle? How’s that for sucking up your health care? How’s that for sucking up your kid's chances of a college education? How’s that for sucking up your democracy?
Their incomprehensible wealth isn't what bothers me the most. The real nightmare for all of us working stiffs, is how we've been chained, destined to a life of servitude because of a few supremely wealthy individuals ability to buy our system of government from bottom to top. It is ironic that those wealthy folks who so uphold Christian values, stole from us what Abraham Lincoln quoted from the bible—that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
They say that you get what you wish for. Maybe for some. I’ve been wishing for the return of the moderates and I haven't seen a one. They also say beware of what you wish for. I didn’t wish for this.
I never expected to be standing with the President—two men abandoned, two men without a party.
Nancy's yelling at me. I gotta go take a shower.