Am Not...Are Too!

Earlier this week, President Obama went head to head with a Tea Party organizer named Ryan Rhodes.  Ryan, a leader of the Iowa chapter of that grass roots organization met up with The President as Mr. Obama was finishing an appearance at an open air town hall meeting.

Reminding the President of his call for more civility in American political discourse, Rhodes asked if Vice President Biden’s apparent branding of the Tea Party and its members as “terrorists”, met Mr. Obama’s own threshold of civility.  His question referred to media reports, initially sketchy, but just this week verified by “Politico” that Biden had made just such a remark in a private meeting with House of Representative Democrats during a meeting about the debt showdown earlier this month.

In responding to Rhodes, The President said “I absolutely agree that everybody needs to try to tone down the rhetoric”.  He then went on to say, “In fairness, since I have been called a socialist who wasn’t born in this country, who is destroying America and taking away its freedoms because I passed a health care bill, I am all for lowering the rhetoric”.

So if I’m reading this right, an average, American, perhaps a little more involved in the political process than most, exercising his right to free speech, asks The leader of his country if it was acceptable for his second in command to brand certain citizens “Terrorists” simply because they were more vocal than others in their disagreement with his policies; and The President of the United States essentially said… Well you call me names too!  Is this what we have come to?

On the same day that the Rhodes story made headlines, Albert Brown, a retired dentist from southern Illinois, quietly passed away in his nursing home.  Brown was 105 years of age.  What makes the loss of “Doc” Brown noteworthy was that he was the oldest survivor of the infamous Bataan Death March in which 78,000 American prisoners were driven like cattle, 65 miles through the scorching jungles of the Philippines without water, food, or medical care by their Japanese captors.  Nearly 11,000 died or were slaughtered along the way, and those that survived the trek, were forced to endure another three years of tortuous captivity.

Brown’s story has been marvelously chronicled by author Kevin Moore in “Forsaken Heroes of the Pacific War”, and has offered an encouraging road map for today’s Veterans recovering from their own wounds.  I mention the loss of Doctor Brown, and the day’s earlier loss of Colonel Charles Murray whose passing five days earlier left us only 84 living recipients of the Congressional Medal of Honor, in the hopes of shinning a light on just how far down the trail of trivialness we have traveled as a nation.

It was Tom Brokaw, the former NBC Anchorman and author that reminded us of that phrase, “The Greatest Generation”.  And while defending the freedom of this nation and winning back that same freedom for much of the planet was in itself a task worthy of the monocle, I believe it was that generations underlying character and moral base, forged in the furnace of the great depression, that gave our Parents and Grandparents the strength and perseverance required to reach the heights they did.

To better understand the generation that brought such pride to our nation, one only has to take a trip to Washington D.C.  There, in the shadows of Washington and Lincoln, one the eighteenth century Founding Father, and the other the nineteenth century preserver of our nation, stands the World War Two Memorial, a monument not only to those who fought on the battlefields, but to every home front hero and heroine that drove a rivet, polished a shell, or packed a parachute so that the cream of our youth could be sent halfway around the world in defense of our freedom.

While we today look back at those years with the verdict of history in our pockets, for many months, there was no foregone conclusion that we were to ultimately be victorious.  Just weeks before the attack at Pearl Harbor, the United States Army was actually ranked 17^th in the World! But as Author Walter Lord said, “They had no right to win, yet they did, and in doing so…even against the greatest of odds changed the course of history”.  He said of that generation, “…There is something in the human spirit, a magic blend of skill, faith, and valor that can lift men from certain defeat to incredible victory”.

Can the same be said of the alphabet soup of generations that make up the youth of our country today?  Have the “X’s” and the “Y’s” been so indoctrinated by the Rosanne Barr’s and the Rosie O’Donnell’s, that Rosie the Riveter is just one more example of the exploitation of women by a repressive male culture?

Have the antics of the late Ryan Dunn of “Jackass” fame, or Snooki and “The Situation” at the “Jersey Shore” truly become the role models of the generation, that if G-d forbid a global crisis would emerge, would be the ones called upon to step into the same shoes their Grandparents wore, 70 years ago this December.

As the war in Europe ended, and the guns in the Pacific fell silent, President Harry Truman said “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid”.  Were he here today, I’d have to say Mr. President; this is one time you just didn’t get it right. 

If the generations that follow so historic a shift to freedom and liberty, don’t forever remember and thank those that made our very being possible, then we are lost for sure.  If we have fallen so low as to find news in a “who called who a name” argument between an average American and The President of the United States, then simply finding a solution to the debt crisis will not be enough to save this great land.

I still believe in Ronald Reagan’s vision of a nation, whose best days are yet before it, but only if those that live, work, protect, and defend that nation are worthy of its bounty.

Why the Long Face?

The other day I was tuned into one of the cable news channels (OK, Fox) and watched as poll data was shared, and after thinking about it, found it hard in a real world sense to understand. 

The poll alleged that 49 percent of Americans are unhappy with the direction the country is headed, and 51 percent of the country is unhappy with the performance of the President.  In essence, half of the citizenry just ain't happy and want a change.

So with a Right Brain and a Left Heart, I started thinking, ''What are we so unhappy about?''

Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?  Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter?  Could it be that 91 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?  Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time, and see more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?

Maybe it is the ability to drive from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers as we move through each state, or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the way that can provide temporary shelter?

I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around the world is just not good enough.  Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and Provide services to help, and even send a helicopter to take you to the hospital if needed.

Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch equipment to extinguish the flames thus saving you, your family and your belongings. Or if while at home, watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.

This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs, or militias, raping or pillaging, and where 90 percent of teenagers own cell phones and computers. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy that are the envy of everyone in the world?  Maybe that is what has 49 percent of you folks unhappy.

Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has such a great disdain for its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate about the country instead of thanking the good L-rd we live here.

I know, I know. What about this President who couldn’t lead his way out of a paper bag with a flashlight and scissors? Or that the President has tried to shove everything from Socialist healthcare to same sex marriage down our throats whether we like it or not. Or the Congress, who on any given Sunday make Ali Baba and his band of thieves look like a bunch of amateurs.

Well when last I checked, no Congressmen was waiting at my door this morning, keeping me from going to work, and no U.S. Senator hid the keys to my car when I was out looking for work, I was by right as an American citizen, free to make every effort I had the strength for, to better my own lot.

So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 49 percent of Americans?  Say what you want, but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds, it leads; and they specialize in bad news.  Everybody will watch a car crash on a “dash-cam”, but how many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media knows this, and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them in one way or another. If you don’t believe me, let me suggest the following:

On May 24, 2011 Attorneys for Casey Anthony offered opening arguments in their successful bid to defend their Client before Judge Belvin Perry.  42 days later, a jury of her “peers” found Ms. Anthony not guilty of a crime that most in America believed she committed.  As tragic as that verdict was to many, what I find more damming of us as a people is that in those seven short weeks, 73 American service men and women lost their lives in the deserts of Afghanistan, and while the names of Casey, Caylee, and Jose Baez will linger through the year, I doubt if any of you could name just one of those fallen heroes.

Stop buying the negativism you are fed everyday by the media. Shut off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom of your bird cage.  Then start being grateful for all we have as a country. There is exponentially more good than bad.

Yes we will change the President.  Yes we will climb out of this slump.  Yes we will bring America back to a time when hard work, character, and patriotism was what made this country a success.  We will I pray, do it this time without the racism, segregation, bigotry, and anti-Semitism that so pervaded the underbelly of our Parents America, but we will do it.  We are Americans, and that’s just what we do!

We are among the most blessed people on Earth, and should thank G-d every day for being born in this, the greatest country ever.  Chin up and chest out America, we’ve done it before, and we can do it again!

It's starting to remind me of the old joke about two fellows who went into the roadside tomato business.  Every morning they would drive down to the farm and fill their pickup with tomato's at a dollar a pound, and every afternoon they would set up on the highway along where the city folk drove home to sell their tomato's for, you guessed it, a dollar a pound!

Every evening they sold out their stock, and impressed with the success they were having, did it again every day for a week.  By Friday , all they had to show for their efforts was a couple of dirty t-shirts, sore backs, and empty tank of gas in the truck.

"What are we doing wrong" said the first rocket scientist to the other?  "we've worked our cans off all week and haven't got ten cents to show for it"!  After some long hard thinking the answer came to them like a bolt from the blue. " We need a bigger truck"!

This old joke from my Dad would still bring a chuckle to my face were it's implications and logic not so eerily familiar in our Washington body politic today. 

To suggest that the Tea Party has somehow brought us to the brink of this political and financial black hole in just the 7 months they've held a key to the congressional bathroom, is a little like suggesting that the coming of the British was all Paul Revere's fault simply because he got on his horse.  No.  The fix we are in has everything to do with politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, thinking that stepping on the spending accelerator till the pedal went to the floor board would through some Einstein like time warp, bring us back to the beginning of this great Chutes and Ladders board game they call Government.

On some level (power), I can understand nearly a hundred Senators and 400+ Congressmen ( I have excluded the few lone wolves in the pack) remaining completely blind to the mood of the nation, yet the facts and depth of the problem we are in has to strike them like a pair of cardiac paddles in an emergency room, it is apparent however that their ideology will drag them, along with the rest of us, right over the recovery cliff.

What's truly amazing, is that with all the bickering, fighting, name calling, and juvenile delinquency being demonstrated by our elected federal officials, all little Johnny President had to do was step up to the plate, and bunt the ball to third to be the winner in this debate.  

Some say he is still too self absorbed, others, that he is prevented by his constituency from acting, but if you ask me, the man frankly looks defeated and that's why with no one playing the field, and the ball on a tee in front of him, he struck out! 

My friends, whether you recognize it or not, the paralysis at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue represents more than just an extension of our fiscal crises, but one of overall leadership that given the mood of the country, and the apparent abdication of Presidential guts, could bring to these shores more pressing matters than just overwhelming debt.

I'll share more with you in a few days, but for now; for those of you who forgot or were just too young to remember, the video below should give you just a small taste of what true leadership in a crisis used to look like before it became politically incorrect to love this country.

Marty Mabe

The Wizards of Washington

This year, the Wizard of Oz turns 70 years young. I am convinced however that if today, Dorothy were to encounter men with no brains, no hearts, and no balls, she wouldn’t be in Oz…She would be in Congress!

After having months, and then weeks, and then days to accomplished their task of in some small way, bringing sanity to the Country’s fiscal house, they took the game into overtime, and then punted for a very short lived and rather ugly win. As evidenced in the 500 plus point sell off in equities, followed by the smack in the teeth that was the Standard and Poor’s downgrade, nobody with half a brain was buying their last minute fix.

What’s truly amazing in all of this, is that were you to take a poll of every member of Congress, with few exceptions, you would find virtually all of them preaching to you about how much they want this fiscal nightmare to be resolved. In echoing a fellow blogger Charlie Reese from Florida I agree; Politicians are the only people in the World who can create a problem…and then campaign against it!

If both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, why do we have deficits? If all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, why do we have inflation and high taxes? The Republicans Blame the Democrats, the Democrats blame big business, big business blame s the cost of entitlements and regulation, and everyone blames the administration for the programs and social welfare that are choking the working class. It’s a good thing we have over the years relaxed our public indecency laws or some folks would be in a lot of trouble right now for publicly and royally screwing 300 million people!

For anyone who has graduated from even a mid-sized high school, attended a Broadway play, danced at a large family wedding, or traveled to the beach on a holiday weekend, 535 people all in one place is not necessarily a sight to take your breath away, yet it is exactly 535 living breathing people that hold the fate of over 300 million in their hands every day.

Those people are; one hundred Senators, 435 Congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court Justices. You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations, the House of Representatives does that. You and I don't write the tax code, and we sure don't set fiscal policy. Every one of the responsibilities I have just outlined is held tightly in the hands of the 535 Americans I have listed above.

In August of the year 480 B.C. (approx) the Battle of Thermopylae pitted nearly 300,000 Persians against a mere 300 Spartan warriors. Nearly 20,000 Persians died before they were able to subdue the small Greek force. Believe me when I tell you that those three hundred couldn’t hold a candle to the grit and determination our current political class has when it comes to holding on to their power and fiefdoms.

Ultimately, it is we the people who have the power every now and then to shake the cage and pull the rug out from some of the more egregiously incompetent of the lot. We did it in 2010 when 60 incumbents got the boot from the House, 10 new fiscal Conservatives, including one Democrat, took their seats in Governorships, and the Senate nearly tipped to the Republican Party.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted, if only by present facts, of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists, is what they want to exist. If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. And if there is an underclass in this Country that decade after decade still struggles to break free of the bonds of government handouts and social support, it’s because those same 545 privileged people of power want them right where they are.

I share a friendship with a very successful Wall Street financial advisor who also happens to be a congregational Christian Minister. As a practicing Jew and a Lay Leader in my own community, she was instrumental in bringing me back to “The Book” during a difficult time a few years ago. Despite that, she and I are about as politically compatible as pastrami would be on white bread, with butter and a tomato! I share this because I believe that even she would agree that a working pole with some line and bait beats a fish in the hand any day.

If those 545 self absorbed Ambassadors of failure would truly care about those they were elected to serve, the issues facing us today would be solved quickly, and with less pain than all of us choose to realize, but bear this in mind;

It is The Constitution, the supreme law of the land, which gives the responsibility to the American people for choosing those that lead and represent them in this, our republican (small “r”) form of government. If those 545 people are to be held responsible for the power we have entrusted them with, they must be reminded and held accountable by the people, who are their bosses, every chance we get.

If you are an active participant in our political process, good for you. If you are not, or worse, don’t even take the time to vote (nearly 50% of registered voters sit home every November), than in plain English, shut up! Sitting home and leaning to the right side of the couch while you watch FOX News does not entitle you to complain, and reading the New York Times while sipping your tea with your left hand does not make you a sensible Liberal. Like it or not, Veteran’s for the better part of the last 235 years have fought and died for the right you have to complain today, and I might add in deference to that great generation, to complain in English as opposed to Japanese, German, or Russian!

Write to your local representatives, attend a Town Council meeting, join a political social club, or better yet, actually participate in an election. We are where we are because we all fell asleep. WAKE UP AMERICA!


Martin Mabe