APATHY, LETHARGY, DISAPPOINTMENT:

THEN, BLACK FRIDAY
Death Never Takes A Holiday


(Nov.28, Chicago, IL) It had all gotten to be too much. The post election let down was virtually immediate. The President-elect wasted no time in disappointing. Nope. His first decisions were disturbing and they have only gone downhill from there. So much for change, eh, Barak. What happened to breaking from the past, changing Washington and ushering in a new era of government?

Actually the old partisan, selfish Washington that we have all come to know and apparently tolerate was back up and running before the after glow of Obama’s victory faded. Perhaps it was foolish to think there would or could be a reprieve, however brief, from all that is sickening about our politics, government and those we elect to office. In hindsight it was not only foolish, it was down right idiotic. Rhetoric is just that, expediency rules the day in our Capitol and always will.

Whatever excuses the Obama transition team puts forth regarding the composition of their nascent Cabinet and Administration, they all represent politics as usual, personalities over principals and a galling disregard for the millions who voted for change. For President-elect Obama to succumb so early and easily to the familiar brand of political gamesmanship was as clear a signal as any that he is ready, willing and able to squander his unique chance to enact profound change. All the tripe about the challenges domestically and internationally requiring profound departures from the abject failures of the past eight years had been blown away by the cold winds from Lake Michigan that rattle through Chicago in November.

The on-going economic ailments, our two fronted war, the sinking of the American automobile industry, bailouts, by outs, hand outs and hand jobs became lost in the shadows of the long campaign season. With victory in hand it was time to slap the collective electorate in the face. Trash for garbage, worse for bad, one crook for another; the transition would be nothing more than new faces all too entrenched in the insidious ways of Washington.

Rahm Emanuel, just a partisan henchman. The traitorous Joe Lieberman embraced back into the comfortable fold of those he sold out. The arrogance and defiant, smugness that he personifies set the stage for what was to come. At least the Israeli Knesset and the oppressive Likud Party still have their Jew in our Senate chairing a powerful committee. From his slimy perch atop the Homeland Security Committee Zionist Joe can continue to feed classified state secret and serve his true masters. Barak, you might as well keep Robert Gates in the Pentagon; that surely is a repudiation of Bush’s failed policies.

Some of the most contentious debate on the democratic campaign trail once it became a two person race was over the stark differences between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama. Hey, Barak, why don’t you make Hillary the Secretary of State? Having her and Bill globe trotting for your Administration is bound to be beneficial to all, right? Certainly you can find high ranking positions for hacks like Bill Richardson and John Kerry. Why not just dust off every operative, hack and flack from Bill Clinton’s era and give them all good jobs. That screams of change we can believe in, doesn’t it?

While you were busy pacifying, making amends and hiring your rivals, terrorists intruded on the world stage. Our economy continues to teeter on the brink of a depression, unemployment is at a 16 year high, the agenda you will inherit come January 20, 2009 is so laden with complex, interconnected crisis’, it is only right that you turn to a half witted collection of has-beens and never-were’s, of those with histories of failing in previous appointments.


In a Walmart on Long Island early this morning, a seasonal employee was trampled by a frenzied mob of shoppers, many of whom had literally camped out over night to be certain they could feed their greed ahead of the masses. This poor part-timer’s death was but a footnote on the day’s news. This, the day after Thanksgiving, has become known as “Black Friday” in the retail community. It marks the official “start” of the Christmas holiday season consumerism. We live in a country were a human can actually be run over by fellow humans who are going shopping. That is a sad and sorry statement of who we are and what we have become.

This isolated tragedy may seem irrelevant to the topic at hand. It may be but it serves as a metaphor for what is happening now as we all wait for the day George W. Bush goes back to his dusty ranch in Texas to chop wood or whatever such a moron does. The American people “camped out” anxiously waiting Election Day. They stormed the polls and voted in record numbers not only FOR Mr. Obama but also AGAINST Mr. Bush. They sensed change was possible, perhaps within reach. It seems as if their hopes have been trampled, their desires steamrolled by the wicked ways of our government that has forgotten their Constitutional duties, responsibilities and mandate.

It is a shame, Mr. Obama, that all along you knew that, if victorious, your real motto would be revealed. It was not “hope we can believe in”, but rather, “hope we were led to believe in”.

Maybe a trip to Walmart is in order. At least one knows what they are being there.



Submitted November 28th, 2008

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