Save the Midldle Class...Ride a Train

President Barack Obama tonight will deliver his State of the Union message, and it's said that he's listened to the people, taking note of the drumming the Democrats got in Massachusetts, losing Ted Kennedy's senatorial seat to virtual unknown, Scott Brown. And to all you Teabaggers out there, yes it was Kennedy's seat, and your crowing about it being the People's Seat is just a bunch of empty blathering that people in need of slogans pass off for intelligent conversation, so give it up. JSYK, it IS now Scott Brown's seat, it doesn't belong to any of you people who voted for him, and he's responsible for everything that happens there now, just like Kennedy was. And if don't believe me, go try sitting in it. You won't get passed security. (This is what you get from a bunch of people who name their political party after a gay sex act.)

But President Obama is listening, he says. Jobs are the priority. Saving the middle class is the priority. Whoa. Nothing like taking a year to figure out what a lot of us have known for oh, say TEN YEARS!! Man, is it that obvious? We need jobs? With unemployment running close to 20%? (I use the unofficial number that would include the unemployed, the underemployed, and those who plain old gave up looking for work.) Is it that obvious that the middle class has been hung out to dry after holding up this country since WWII? Who says Washington is out of touch?

And he's going to start by investing $8 billion in a stimulus package to build a couple of high speed train links. Eight billion. Wow. Of course, compared to the $182.5 billion used to bailout just AIG, just one of the many financial companies our tax dollars saved, $8 billion doesn't look like a lot. BECAUSE IT ISN'T! Eight billion dollars is barely a drop in the bucket.

All right. Phew. Take a breath, Action Bob, and let's set the record straight.

The middle class was left hanging by the government, but guess what, the middle class stuck its own head in the noose as the government held it. But the middle class, more than AIG, more than GM, more than Lehmann Brothers, needs bailing out, because quite simply, without the middle class there will be no more United States. The rich will just go somewhere offshore, though not where their factories are because those countries are inhabited by poor brown people and rich, white people who inhabit Wall Street and the upper echelons of the financial world don't like being around poor brown people.

The middle class actually cut its own throat starting back in the 1980s and of course, greed was at the bottom of it. Reagan and Clinton (just to show I'm not partisan or a liberal) both deregulated the banking industry, that allowed the megainstitutions we have today like CitiGroup come to be. Banks, stock brokers, insurance companies, mortgage companies all came under one roof, and that's a lot of foxes watching a lot of chicken coops. Add a dose of greed and you've got the makings of some delicious disasters.

Corporations began manufacturing and selling offshore, negating the need for the middle class that, since WWII, bought all the crap that American industry was manufacturing with built-in obsolescence.

But here's where the middle class cut its own throat. It bought in to all this because the stock market and the housing market were doing tremendous, and that's where the middle class put all its money. So, even though prices for everything from gas to a college education were going through the roof, it seems the middle class was more focused on their retirement rather than today, and retirement looked pretty good for them. Or so they thought. Now we know that the middle class retirement years were all smoke, and that's where they all went, as in up in smoke.

Eight billion dollars for a couple of high speed train spurs isn't going to cut it to make enough jobs to save the middle class. I'll blog about this again, but it's what I was afraid of: Obama just wasn't the visionary that we needed for this country. And neither was McCain, so all of you Teabaggers just shut up. We're in this together, and the one thing I agree on is it's the people who are going to get us out of this mess. Maybe. Right now, it looks pretty grim, though, doesn't it?

Biking against the wind: Hope for this country

It's Sunday morning, traditionally a time I would plop down on the couch with a cup of coffee, put on some high-brow concert music (in lieu of church) and read the papers. At least three of 'em.

The news of late--and by "of late" I mean in the past five or six years has been pretty bad. Depressing. Abysmal. Enough to make one desire to run far, far away. Leave the country. My fight or flight reaction is really kicking in and my gut feeling is leave the country to the bohunks who seem to be gathering steam in this country (remember the vitriol from Hillary Clinton's campaign? or the rabid dogs one hears on talk radio and in the conservative press?) Just turn your back on the whole thing.

Can you feel the anger and bile rising in my voice?

Because our country seems to be lacking in some real intelligent discourse. I'm not knocking the current conservative movement. I think it's great that finally, the middle class is rising up and finally taking a real, active part in the political process. What I have a problem with is how they're being led along like sheep. And their anger, their fury seems to come from their desire to preserve the old way, as much as anything. When they rail about the tax and spend Democrats, it seems to me, it comes more from their desire to keep their tax dollars for themselves so they can continue to have their big homes and big cars and big TVs and their swimming pools. It's not from a real altruistic feeling of wanting to make the world a better place. The world is changing, the world has changed, and it seems that the conservative movement in this country is fueled by fear and the desire to go back in time, not forward.

And there are a lot of people in this world right now who cause me to just grind my teeth, because I don't see them as really thinking for themselves. When they talk their politics they just repeat verbatim what they hear Jay Severin mouth on his radio show. I know this because I've listened to him--not so much anymore because I rarely spend time driving anymore, but when I did I would listen to his show. I like to hear all points of view. And, as I said, I would hear people simply parroting exactly what he would say. And people would just repeat his words and somehow they think those words are theirs and they think they're smart, when they're simply walking, talking tape recorders on playback.

But...

There's an actor/filmmaker friend of mine who I met this past fall while performing in a play, and we'd talk. His name is Mark Vashro and he's young and smart and curious-exactly what all people should be. These qualities make it almost impossible for a human being to be angry. And he's been questioning his place in the world and everything that's been going on. So he's decided to ride a bike across the United States. To find out for himself what is going on. Not be spoonfed the answers but question and learn for himself. Yeah, it's a real hippie thing to do. But to me, it's a real American thing to do. Being independent and moving and discovering and being an individual and thinking for yourself. Those are ideals, but when I think of the United States, that's how I think of it. Not angry. Not vindictive. But smart and curious and bold.

People like Mark restore my faith and hope for this country. Because this country was founded for the rights of the individual. And individuals, right now, are few and far between.

Opinion: This country needs a benevolent dictator

Sometimes, mostly lately meaning in this period of my life running hard in middle age, I think democracy is full of it. Give me a benevolent dictator like what they have in Thailand over the option of what the current political circus gives us every four years.

Years ago I had the misfortune of knowing someone who was accused of something that eventually put him away for five years. I still don't know to this day whether or not he was guilty, but I attended his trial, and I have to tell you, if I am ever in that position, the last thing I want is a jury of my peers. There's no such thing. I don't know what the founding fathers were thinking, but if they saw what was sitting on the jury they would have just broken down and cried.

Sorry, I know this country was founded on the rights of the individual, as opposed to someplace like the old Soviet Union or Japan that favors society over the individual, but we've been dumbing down for so long in the United States that the individual seems to have been reduced to nothing but a big bag of water, which is basically what the human species really is anyway. Think jellyfish with hair.

So, I think when whatever the process is that allows states like Ohio and Texas pretty much decide who's going to be in the White House, I think that process is in dire need of fixing. What people on the east and west coasts don't fully comprehend is that there is 2,999 miles between Boston/New York/Washington and California/Oregon/Washington. And there is a very good reason that Stanford is on the west coast and Harvard and MIT and Princeton are on the east. There is a really good reason why innovation in this country comes from the coasts and not the heartland (unless you consider Wal-Mart an innovation.) It's dying out there people. People are conservative (not in the political sense, just meaning they're afraid of risk and they're just willing to let this sit and fester; I mean they are so afraid of change.) It's been going on for decades now, starting at the beginning of the 20th century. Anyone who wanted to do anything with their lives got the hell out of there as fast as they could, even with $26 in their pocket, and headed for either coast.

And now, the people who are left get to choose the president. Fucking brilliant.

Sorry, I know it sounds elitist and I guess it is. I'm not an idiot. I've been tested and my IQ runs up on what's considered very high intelligence. If I'm sitting in a roomful of people, there's a very good chance I'm going to be the "brightest." And it took me a long time to be comfortable with that. I would just dumb myself down to the rest of the people sitting around me. And I did that to great expense to myself. Finally, a very good person said to me, John, you just have to get used to the idea that you're smart. I did, and it's part of my age and experience that I have at this point in my life that I just don't give a shit anymore what anyone thinks.

And I'm not trying to brag on myself; only position myself as someone who has a right to have an opinion. Because I don't believe that, while everyone may have an opinion, they necessarily have the right to express it.

Nor, just because everyone has that right to vote, it does seem to me to be a problem that you might not want them voting for dog catcher much less president based on their knowledge base or personality.

And yeah, don't think I don't know that I'm treading on thin ice. I'm talking about an elite ruling class.

But there was a time in the United States when it seemed people were smarter, more engaged in society, better educated. I don't know what happened. The cost of education kept people out of the college? The fracturing of the family made people didn't allow us to concentrate on our children. The rise of cable television and all of its crap that slowly rotted our minds like sugar cereal did our teeth?

I don't know. All I know is, this country is going to hell in a handbag, and I don't see anyone--politicians, the voters, anyone, taking charge and by that I mean taking charge with a real vision. A new vision for the new worldwide economy and foreign policy and re-establishing the US as a true world leader and rebuilding the infrastructure of this country so there are jobs and opportunity. It's all the same old/same old and right now that's not working for us.

You gotta watch the left as much as the right

The introductory conversation around the breakfast table always includes where ya'll from. One woman, obviously a lover of oats and groats from her overall demeanor and subdued clothes, said she was from Burlington, Vermont.

It's filled with liberals, she said. It's a great place to live.

If you're a liberal, I said. Which I'm not.

Nor am I a conservative. I, quite frankly, feel you have to watch the left as much as you watch the right in this country. I've gone from being someone who used to read three newspapers a day (and write for one on a consistant basis) to someone who really can't tell a Democrat from Republican. No one seems to represent who I am, what I'm about, and what I value. I can't stand the present administration, but can't believe that Al Gore was the best the Democrats could come up with in 2004.

I'm more prone to throw my support behind people who use their influence to help the world. Say what you want about Bono and his collosal ego, but he's trying to make the world a better place. Lance Armstrong is another one, who is leveraging his money and his fame to change the world. I'm gonna get flack on this one, but Don Imus and his ranch out west is helping little kids with cancer.

Mitt Romney not for president redux

I massaged the post from a few days ago hopefully making it make more sense:

So, it’s official. Mitt Romney is running for president. Or rather, it was announced that he would announce next week that he’s running for the office. This is like some corporate dweeb who insists on having a meeting about having a meeting. Is this really what we want in the White House? Someone who complicates the simple process of telling us something we already know? Haven’t we had enough of political double-speak and public relations shenanigans?

Anyway, it doesn’t matter because the Mitt-man will never even come close to making it to Pennsylvania Avenue for four very interesting reasons.

First, American voters will never again elect into the White house someone from Massachusetts. Middle America thinks Massachusetts is the hot bed for the “L” word which stands for liberal. It also stands for loony as in loony bin which is how the rest of America sees Massachusetts. Romney, whether he likes it or not, whether it’s true or not, will be associated with the likes of Ted Kennedy (who, by the way, makes a terrific senator and should never have even considered being a candidate for the Peter Principle), John Kerry, and Mike Dukakis.

Second, Massachusetts is the state that gave the country gay marriages, and no matter that Romney opposed gay marriage the way the rest of us oppose the 10 Plagues of Egypt, he’s going to be associated with that, too. The big question he’ll be asked is, if he was so against it, why didn’t he stop it? There are some tough old eggs out in the center of the country who will ask him point blank how and why he let a bunch of liberals push him around like that, and if he couldn’t push back on them, how the heck his he going to push back on Korea?

Third, he is going to get ripped over the Big Dig, from its enormous cost overrides to shoddy workmanship to people dying from pieces of concrete the size of a tennis court falling on them. Never mind that he inherited the project. If elected, he’d inherit Iraq, too, and if he couldn’t manage a public works project, how is he going to manage that mess?

Finally, he’s too squeaky clean. Americans like their politicians a bit tarnished, then redeemed. George Jr. had his partying at Yale then found Christ. Clinton didn’t inhale, among other things, but kept apologizing like mad. Reagan was divorced, but then married Nancy. Romney is too far up on his moral high horse.

It’s clear he’s just going to be a footnote in the 2008 election. But with luck maybe in true Massachusetts’ tradition he’ll even be the source of some humorous diversions. Remember Dukakis riding around in that tank with the goofy-looking helmet?

Mitt Romney, not for president

So, it’s official. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, is running for president. Or rather, it was announced that he would announce next week. Reminds me of times in the corporate world when we’d have meetings about meetings. Is this really what we want in the White House?

Anyway, I’ll bet he never makes it. Not even close. American voters will never again elect someone from Massachusetts into the White House. That’s because Middle America thinks Massachusetts is the loony bin of the country. Mass has gay marriages. Mass has all of these liberals running around. Romney is just one more to add to the list made up of Ted Kennedy (who, by the way, makes a terrific senator and should never have even considered being a candidate for the Peter Principle), John Kerry, and Mike Dukakis wearing that goofy helmet in the tank.

Romney is going to get ripped over the Big Dig, from its enormous cost overrides to shoddy workmanship. Never mind that he inherited the project. All the screw ups came on his watch, and if he can’t manage a road project, how’s he going to run a country? And while he is so against gay marriages, again, they came on his watch. Those tough farmers out in the heartland are gonna ask him how’d he let a bunch of gay liberals push him around like that.

And is it me, or does the man look like an undertaker?

Ya gotta watch the left as much as you watch the right

I learned a long time ago that you have to watch the left as much as you watch the right.

A few years ago I was married to a woman whose sister is a radical lesbian feminist. Once, we visited her and stayed at her house for I think it was for about a week and a half or so. While we were there just as a normal course of the day her friends would stop by for visits, and as you would think they were mostly lesbians. And, as things go, sometimes she’d mention this person or that one, and once I asked if we were going to meet a particular person. Well, we wouldn’t because this person wouldn’t come into the house because I was there. Because I was a man.

Oh, I thought.

And this is what I figured: If her friend wouldn’t have come into her house because I was black or some other person of color, if I had been a Jew, or if they had any other reason like my country of origin or my age, the liberal feminist lesbian would have been all over her like a tall dog. But because I was a man, it was ok.

And that’s wrong.

That’s when I learned that the most liberal people in the world have a lot in common with their conservative counterparts. None of us, no matter how open we think we are, are immune to hate and prejudice.

I understand that politics is how we get things done in our world. But the problem is, as soon as you politicize an issue, there is the danger of polarization. AIDS becomes a gay issue. Domestic violence a woman’s issue. Crime in urban areas is seen as a black issue. These problems cease being human issues, about all of us, men, women, black, white, Jews, Christian, Muslim. Until we see things on human terms, we’ll always fight amongst ourselves.

John Prine take me home

I can feel the craziness already. I can feel it in my bones.

The 2008 Democratic presidential candidates are all setting up in the gates, and for all intents and purposes the bell has sounded and the most ludicrous joke of a horse race in our country has commenced. And they’re off.

And in my case, music most definitely soothes the savage beast. In this case, I reached for John Prine and his namesake album, CD, whatever from 1971. Prine is a poet and a troubadour who writes songs so simple they’re complex, then sings them in a twang that’s reminiscent of my homeland. He sings about the people that all of these politicians are going to woo, but I’ll guarantee don’t know the first thing about. He sings about the kind of people I grew up with, in a voice that sounds like home to me, and that’s why I know these politicians don’t understand the heartland because when I listen to them they sound insulting and a little stupid, to tell the truth.

Last time I checked my bankroll, it was getting thin//Sometimes it seems like the bottom/Is the only place I been. That’s taken from Illegal Smile, Prine’s tribute to the lower classes who need to escape from time to time.

And what man can’t identify with: Well I sat there at that table/And I acted real naïve/For I knew that topless lady/Had something up her sleeve. The singer eventually blows up his TV and moves to the country with his exotic girlfriend.

In Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore Prine sings: And Jesus don’t like killing no matter what the reason for. That’s perty plain, now ain’t it?

Prine’s beautiful, haunting Angel From Montgomery, could have been my house and my father when he sings: How the hell can a person/Go to work in the morning/And come home in the evening/With nothing to say?

When things start to get crazy the best thing to do is go back to your roots.

Why blog?

Why blog? I think the bigger question is why post thoughts and opinions on the Web?

For 16 years I wrote op-ed columns for the MetroWest Daily News, a daily that covers the suburban towns west of Boston. My first column was written from a little cabin way north in Maine where I could get only one radio station on my car radio and that was from Canada, and the only newspaper was the Bangor Daily News from the previous day. The U.S was about to invade Iraq for the first time, and I wrote about forming an opinion without the aid of television commentators and analysts, the way Americans used to do it back when the front porch rocking chair, the barber shop, and the wood stove in the general store were our society’s CNN.

Since then I wrote about everything from politics to bird feeders. But I hit a point where I just felt I wasn’t doing a good enough job, where I wasn’t able to talk about exactly what was slowly eating me up inside. There was a point, right around the Clinton administration, where I started to notice that it was getting harder and harder to tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican. I was getting older, crankier, and a bit morose, to tell the truth. I realized Clinton was someone I wouldn’t have hung out with in high school, and since then I felt myself moving farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, so today I can’t think of a single elected official who I feel stands for me and what I value.

Who am I? I’m a middle-aged man who has won and lost at love, had it easier than some and harder than others, been lucky at times, been successful at work and hit bottom and had to start all over. I’ve had dreams come true and some just fizzle. I’ve experienced the joys of my two daughters, and the grief of burying both my parents within the span of three years. Because of my Catholic upbringing, the practice of which I’ve since discarded, I stubbornly insist on the inherent good in all people despite what my eyes tell me almost daily. I believe in a Creator, simply because I see no proof otherwise. Those are the highlights, but frankly it’s the grey area in which I revel.

And, obviously, I’m a writer. I believe in sharing the experiences that we all have in this reality that we call life, feeling that we’re not alone in any of this, that we truly all are linked together somehow, and for the most part we’re all doing the very best we can, considering the circumstances. I believe we can learn from one another.

And being a writer, despite a growing cynicism that I think is simply a logical reaction to the world, I have this burning desire to write and get out what’s inside me. What eats me up. What gives me joy. What makes me smile, laugh, cry, and yell. It’s in the bible: Don’t hide your light under a bushel basket.

So that’s the reason for Action Bob Markle. Got a comment, compliment, gripe, or just feeling like shining your light a bit, leave a comment.