The Curse of the Bambino Ruined My Life

Person #1: “Did you hear that Bill Buckner tried to kill himself yesterday?”
Person #2: “No way – how?”
Person #1: “He jumped in front of a train.”
Person #2: “How did he survive that?!?!”
Person #1: “It went right between his legs.”

The sports moment that spawned that terrible joke did two things – first, it reminded Red Sox “nation” once more that they had sold George Herman Ruth (and most of their team) to the Yankees… secondly, it ruined my life. Instead of growing up on Long Island, New York believing the truth (that the Yankees actually were the franchise that didn’t habitually suck), as a six-year old I was duped into blindly following a franchise that would do nothing but crush my soul from that point forward. A fluke play is the only real highlight in my lifetime that my beloved/hated team has provided me.

The Mets are the laughingstock of baseball yet again this year. We needed to borrow money from major league baseball. We got absolutely screwed by Bernie Madoff and our own stupidity. Carlos Beltran is on our squad. We spent tens of millions of dollars just so that Oliver Perez and Louis Castillo wouldn’t be. Our big off-season acquisition was Chris Capuano. The Onion makes fun of us more often than it does of Joe Biden. My only way to stay positive is by thinking that maybe, just MAYBE, we’ll be able to finish ahead of the friggin’ Nationals (and even that won’t happen). Our own TV station played a clip from Family Guy declaring our season over on opening day.

I work in an environment where smug Phillies fans just smile at me on days after our bullpen melts down (usually any 24-hour period that’s name ends with “day”), and obnoxious ones regularly ask me how last place feels. The “nice” Phils fans usually just say something like “hey… our fourth best starter is pitching today. His name is Cole Hamels.” When I try to think of positive memories, I can come up with only these:

1) Having talented superstars like Darryl Strawberry and Doc Gooden… and then watching them destroy their careers with more coke than a broker on Wall Street.
2) Robin Ventura hit a walk-off grand slam single in the bottom of the 15th in game 5 of the 1999 NLCS vs. Atlanta… only for us to get eliminated the next game.
3) We made the 2000 World Series… and lost to the Yankees in 5 games. Roger Clemens threw a splintered bat at Mike Piazza – at least that was funny.
4) Sidd Finch. Who’s that? Read this: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/cover/news/2000/07/24/finch_flash/
5) Signing players like Carlos Beltran and Johann Santana – and then watching them never do anything of any value ever again.
6) Dominating the NL East for two straight years in April, May, June, July, and August. September can suck it.

I hate you, Bill Buckner.

Rick Santorum Has No Chance.

Since, as of today, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum officially announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee, I thought I would give my “expert” pundit’s point of view on his chances to a) secure the Republican nomination and b) win the Presidential election of 2012. Here are your answers:

a) He has no chance.

b) He has no chance.

“This was tried once before in America, when the liberty and happiness rights of the slaveholder were put over the life and liberty rights of the slave. But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have unlimited right to kill his slave” - Rick Santorum

Thank you for wasting Americans’ time, Rick. Thank you for convincing people to donate their hard earned cash to your campaign, Rick (although I’m sure a lot of it is from lobbyists who know you’ll serve as their mouthpiece). I guess Rick forgot that he got absolutely dominated in his own home state when running for re-election to the United States Senate. He lost by 18% of the vote as an INCUMBENT (incumbents in the United States Congress win re-election when they run traditionally over 90% of the time).

Before anyone gets defensive by saying ridiculous things to me like “Lincoln lost when he ran for the Senate”… understand that I am not saying that is the ONLY reason he has no shot at winning. I’m saying it because he’s…  wait for it… Rick Santorum!

Some of my all-time favorite things that Rick has said (forgive me for paraphrasing, but feel free to use this crazy invention called google to fact check me):
– he openly compared Democratic candidates for Congress in 2006 to the rising storm of the Nazis, and paralleled himself with none other than Winston Churchill coming to the save the day (at least he has no ego). Glenn Beck hadn’t copyrighted the analogy yet.
– he said that if the Supreme Court were to say that consensual gay sex were permissible in the privacy of one’s home, then obviously polygamy, incest, bigamy, etc. would also all be good to go.
– he said the reason we are having economic troubles and that social security is failing is because 33% of all babies that should be being born are actually being aborted… where was the effort on that statistic?! Don’t worry, though – Santorum then said that he and his wife have 7 children, so they were doing their part to fund social security. Seriously. He said that.
– he said that it was no surprise that a lot of the Catholic clergy child abuse cases were in Boston, due to it being a center for liberal thought. So the obvious parallel there that he was trying to create is what exactly?!
– he regularly drums up fear of Islam and the Koran (he’s actually quite good at this, and this scares me because I’m sure lobbyists working for businesses who make weaponry would love to see him take the reins)
– Oh… and he said the crusades were not at all a part of any “Christian aggression” whatsoever – that it was in fact “anti-historical” to suggest that anyone but the Muslims had anything to do with the fighting in the crusades. He said any perception otherwise was due to the “American left who hate Christendom.”

So, here’s to you, Rick Santorum. Congratulations on the formation of your presidential exploratory committee. Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, because your time is almost up…

Wait… you’re saying Donald Trump is tied in the polls among registered Republicans?! DONALD TRUMP?!!? Maybe Santorum DOES have a chance…

History Does Actually Matter. Weird.

Let me begin by stating that I am by no means an individual opposed to all war. There are clearly times in which a nation needs to defend itself, and there are even situations when preventative measures need to be taken to save American lives. This is not an anti-war post – I am merely trying to foster a discussion. Feel free to comment, even if you disagree. Don’t hesitate to share this with others using the tools below – the goal is to facilitate a discussion on what is, in my opinion, the most important topic in our nation’s history. Our involvement in previous foreign entanglements and wars has a direct correlation to our nation’s future due to our failure to learn and ask questions.

Students of history for some reason have no issue coming to grips with the fact that monarchs and dictators throughout Europe and Asia in the distant past used their armies to defeat foreign opponents to gain territory, resources, slaves, wealth, or even to feed their own selfish pride. What is confusing to me is why we as Americans, for the most part, believe this practice to be outdated and old fashioned. Why is that we can so readily believe that leaders in the past, who clearly were filled with enough ego and ambition to ascend to such positions of power, could do such things, yet we believe that world leaders today are so… different? The goals of warfare in many situations have changed very little over the span of human history – as has, apparently, our gullibility. One would think with the access to technology and information that the vast majority of the world is afforded would alter this, but sadly it has not.

Henry VIII waged war on France to increase his holdings and land... and because he felt like it.

William McKinley waged war on the Philippines because God wanted us to save those heathen savages from themselves, not because we wanted them as a colony.

When one looks back at our involvement in numerous of our foreign altercations, you get the sense that the American people are almost willingly duped into blindly following the tide of the times. I won’t go into great detail due to a fear of boring anyone (which again says a lot about American culture), but let’s go through some examples.

The Mexican-American War’s causes can be traced to our desire to obtain the southwest, including Texas and California. There was a dispute between Mexico and the United States over where the boundary lay – Mexico claimed all along it was the Nueces River; President James Polk claimed it was the Rio Grande (about 150 miles south of where the Mexicans claimed). Polk sent in over 10,000 troops to the disputed area. When Mexico reacted by defending what it believed to be its territory, Polk went to Congress and drummed up American outrage by saying that American blood had been shed on American soil. After a short (and by short I mean a few hours) debate in Congress, off we went to war. Americans believed they were fighting to defend our nation in the face of a bold and ruthless attack – and we just happened to gain valuable territory as a result.

In the Spanish American War, the battleship Maine was sent to Cuba to “oversee” the revolution going on as Cubans struggled for their freedom from Spain. Yes, this is the famous situation you learned about in your high school history class where a “war” between rival newspaper publishers exaggerated stories to increase support for American intervention on behalf of the Cubans. Of course, their newspaper sales and valuable American business ties on the island also helped encourage the desire for us to act. When the Maine exploded, it was the Spanish who came out in lifeboats to help survivors. This was never mentioned at the time, nor did the newspapers wait to gather evidence as to what caused the accident. The Spanish made for easy scapegoats, and the American people were eager to “remember the Maine!” Despite our cause being the freedom of Cuba, we found time to invade and “liberate” the Philippines. We also gained Puerto Rico and Guam as a result of our effort to free the Cubans. Not bad!

When the Philippines realized that we weren’t interested in their freedom and that we meant to stay, they began arming and preparing to revolt against their new potential owners. When the vote went to Congress as to whether or not we should officially annex the Philippines, American troops were ordered closer to the Filipino “insurgents” camps. It had been decided that we could not risk losing such a valuable source of resources and a colony so close to China. When a Filipino guard ordered the American skirmisher to halt, the American fired and killed him. Word was quickly sent back to Washington about the ruthless “attack” carried out upon our troops… and off we went to war. Americans were told that they were a heathen nation that needed us to Christianize them. For some reason, this war is rarely discussed in classrooms – maybe it has something to do with the fact that we slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilians in an effort to suppress this rebellion. For a country that so loves the idea of a revolution for freedom, we seemed to have no issue waging war for years on these islands. We did, however, set them free at the conclusion of World War II.

We can go on… Our entry into World War I, after years of avoiding it, had ties to a British passenger liner named the Lusitania being hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat. Over 1,000 civilians perished, including over 100 Americans. Outcry against the savage tactics of the Germans was rampant in the American press. Of course, usually no one mentions that when the war began German submarines came to the surface to allow merchant ships to evacuate before sinking them. This practice had to change when then Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill ordered hidden artillery be put on the unarmed merchant ships so they could sink U-boats that came to the surface. The Germans responded by sinking ships without warning. It is widely believed that the Lusitania was carrying weapons and munitions from the “neutral” United States back to England, thus throwing into question whether or not the passengers were unwittingly serving as shields. This was never mentioned in the press or in government propaganda that was too busy using the incident as a reason to rally support the war… nor is it usually mentioned that Germany took out a warning in the newspaper telling civilians not to ride on the liner.

Vietnam can be debated on many levels – did we really need to stop communism from spreading? Because if we didn’t, then after they defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu and earned their freedom… why interfere and divide them? And when that didn’t work, the Gulf of Tonkin “incident” was used by President Lyndon Johnson to get the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution passed overwhelmingly by Congress, allowing him to do anything besides use nuclear weapons to save South Vietnam… reports released in the last decade indicate the attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin probably never even happened at all. But hey, that happened 47 years ago. Who cares now, right?

And the War in Iraq… I mean really. They have WMD. Oops. We meant they had ties to Al-Qaeda. Oops. We meant we wanted to give them freedom so we can set up the first democracy in the Middle East.

This can only stop once the American people are willing to ask questions – questions they, by the power given in the Bill of Rights, have the right to ask. That’s one of the many reasons why this country IS better than many others. It isn’t unpatriotic to ask questions that could potentially save young American lives from being lost in wars.

Sadly, the vast majority of Americans seem to believe that is exactly the case – that it would be unpatriotic. We also have this inherent belief that America is above doing wrong. Other countries are completely capable of waging war over trumped up charges or for the wrong reasons, but not this “city upon a hill.” We’re better than that. The only question that remains is: when and where will we get involved next, and will history show us that yet again it was for a hidden cause?

By all means, comment.

Required Reading Before Traveling

“That’s not writing, that’s typing.” None other than Truman Capote had that to say about what is considered by many to be Jack Kerouac’s greatest personal achievement, On the Road. Despite this harsh assessment by one of America’s most legendary authors, On the Road today can be viewed as a groundbreaking work that inspired a generation of Americans to challenge the social norms of the day and give way to the Beatnik movement.

Kerouac’s tale of wandering America, with the now famous character of Dean Moriarty, was based primarily on his own period of rootless existence with his friends and fellow writers of the Beat generation. In it he captured the restlessness and rebellion that was beginning to simmer beneath the surface in the youth of the nation that would explode in the late-1960s. The restiveness of Sal and Dean in On the Road as they drifted across America struck a chord with the disenfranchised youth of the nation. The “hippies” of the late sixties are more famous today in our pop culture, but it was Kerouac and the other Beatniks that had paved the way in the decade before. He had a willingness to set aside a need for material possessions and many of the so-called status symbols of the day, and discussed this mindset in a frank, straightforward manner that was unlike anything in the mainstream. He needed no permanent home or permanent job to keep him rooted in one area of the country. In fact, it seemed he preferred the ability to stay in a town for a short time, and then resume his wandering. He is able to continue doing this for years due to a network of friends, acquaintances, and connections that he accumulates over the course of his travels. It seems that these are the only “possessions” that he collects, as they continued to afford him friendship, conversation, and the means to continue on his chosen course.

The inclusion of tales on the topics of alcohol and drug abuse and the rejection of accepted values was controversial, even making it difficult at first for Kerouac to get a publisher. Despite this, he can now be credited for having influenced another generation of writers with his original style, among them Hunter S. Thompson and Lester Bangs. After pressure from friends, he penned Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, where he gave a list of thirty suggestions for writing in his new method. His free-flowing style was perhaps best demonstrated in the way he actually wrote the book – he famously attached sheets of paper so that they could be fed through his typewriter with no interruption, allowing him the possibility of a near endless stream of writing. The legend, fueled by Kerouac’s response to a question asked by talk show host Steve Allen, is that he wrote On the Road in three weeks. It was this story that drew the rebuke from Truman Capote, but it was this story that also increased his notoriety and further endeared him to his followers.

He was praised by some reviews, including one by the New York Times that called the publishing of his book a “historic occasion.” But On the Road was considered “morally objectionable” by many other critics. Today, some critics debate whether it should have been considered to be a pivotal text for the beatnik and counterculture movement. They point to his disillusion with his travels that he expresses near the end of the book. The mere fact that Kerouac is still inspiring discussion and debate, while still capturing the interest of some of the youth of this nation at a time where the love of material possessions is perhaps at an all time high, demonstrates the impact he and his book have had.

Kerouac would have been uncomfortable with any praise that would have been associated with his impact on the Beatniks, and even tended to distance himself from the many admirers he had in the counterculture movement. During his service in the Navy during World War II he was honorably discharged for having an “indifferent character” towards training and the conflict, yet he then expressed support for the controversial conflict in Vietnam, stunning many of the individuals that looked to him as an inspiration.

The “never stop going until you get there” attitude of some of his characters in On the Road was reflected not just in his writing methodology, but also his lifestyle. He died of an alcohol-related liver hemorrhage at the age of 47, but not before having an impact on the lifestyle and culture of a generation of Americans.

Other good reads: The Subterraneans, The Dharma Bums, and Lonesome Traveler.

Da Bears Win (and I don’t mean the ones from ’85)

There is apparently a reason that people recommend having some sort of wilderness training before beginning an outdoor adventure in the wild. Common sense, one would think, would have told my friends and I that before we began our cross country journey last year. This trip of a lifetime would include several stays in a number of America’s national parks, including a 3-day backpacking adventure in Yosemite. This type of a voyage might have instilled in one a desire to learn about the wild, or perhaps an inherent need to learn even the most basic of survival skills. My friends and I? No chance. We prepared for this trip by spending a weekend at a K.O.A. in the outback of Eastern Pennsylvania, at least a full six-minute drive from the nearest Burger King. We prepared physically by hiking up to the peak of a 1,000 foot summit carrying one empty backpack (that we rotated among us) to simulate the weight we would be carrying. I thought reading a Bill Bryson book on his hike down the Appalachian Trail was all I needed to prepare me mentally… Really.

You ever have one of these walk towards you? Yeah, neither had we.

Our excessive amount of training came in handy on our second night in Yosemite. The three of us had hiked approximately fifteen miles from our parked car (if we were reading the map properly, which is definitely not a given) and had a camping permit from the Park Service that said we could set up a tent wherever we wanted. We, of course, sought out locations as isolated as possible… a test of manhood, if you will. Our tent was pitched and we were sitting around waiting for boiled drinking water to cool, when the sound of branches breaking could be heard about a hundred feet from our tent. We had already had our first bear sighting the week before when we were in Yellowstone. This occurred when we spotted a grizzly bear from about 200 yards away, and we reacted by pounding our chests at having tamed the wild by simply having seen one of these killing machines. This would be a much different experience.

We froze at the sound of the footsteps, and turned to see a relatively small brown bear walking parallel to our camp. It did not appear to be even slightly bothered by our presence, and seemed quite content to continue its stroll through the woods. We reacted like any well-trained outdoors-men would… by grabbing our cameras and walking towards it to gawk and take as many pictures as possible. We’re really smart.

An hour later, the three of us were sitting around our campfire reveling in the retelling of our “near death” experience we had just had with the beast, when we heard footsteps and branches breaking again. We turned again to see an absolutely mammoth brown bear walking directly for us, closer to us than Eli Manning can accurately throw a football (not far).

We had done a little reading earlier about what to do if a bear approaches you. Apparently, the suggested method of survival is to NOT run, to NOT try to climb a tree, and to NOT back away. Evidently the bear can out-run, out-climb, and out-murder any human. For all those with as little experience as we had, the suggested tactic is to stand up and scream at the bear, and grab rocks and throw them at it. I am not making this up.

Would you throw a rock at this thing?

We sat on our tree stumps staring at the approaching monster, internally debating what we should do next. I quickly decided that there was no way I had the sack to throw a rock at this thing or yell “please rip my limbs off first”, and evidently the others decided the same… because we all stood cautiously in unison and began slowly inching our way back. God must have been busy with more pressing matters at the time, because my prayers for him to intervene and make the bear change direction went unheeded. And so we continued to back up. It got to our tent, and we were about 100 feet away – huddled together as if stranded out in a blizzard, and cowering in fear. Frantically we whispered a plan of attack – what should we do? How should we make it leave? Should we just stand here and let it go through our stuff? It was decided that it was time to begin screaming at it as loud as possible. We drew deep breaths, our hearts pounding at the thought of what this thing would do if we infuriated it by distracting it from its foraging. “Ok, let’s do this on the count of three,” Dave said… we began the slow count… “1………… 2………. 3……………” and all three of us let out a barely audible gasp of “bear.” Yeah, we have huge balls. That was our one and only attempt at scaring it away. It was shockingly unsuccessful.

Anyways… it finally lost interest and just walked away, and we slowly made our way back to the tent. We were quick to call it a night. Before dawn, however, it decided to pay us one final visit. I awoke to the sound of sniffing, grunting, and footsteps immediately outside our tent. I now officially know what the expression “paralyzed with fear” feels like due to this creature being less than a yard away – I assure you, it is an experience everyone should feel at some point (as long as you survive it). I debated waking up Dave and Sam by putting my hands over their mouths to prevent them from screaming, and thus cause our instant mauling… but apparently I was incapable of any physical movement. My only option was to pray… and pray like I never prayed before. “There are no atheists in a foxhole” – that is a fully accurate statement (I now know). Being hit by a mortar round may not have been the issue I faced, but the idea of having my head snapped off by a 1,500 pound monster was equally unappealing. The longest hour (or 4 minutes) of my life went by, and for some reason the bear reached the conclusion that killing us wasn’t on his agenda.

Sadly, that same week an unprovoked bear killed a man and injured two others when it decided to go through a tent in Yellowstone National Park. What caused that bear to strike and the bear in Yosemite to spare our lives we will never know. Life is funny that way – we were three morons out alone in the woods… those people in Yellowstone were in a crowded campground. You want a moral to the story?? Life is too random to have one.

The Great Delonte West

Thought I’d take things a “little” light today – been hitting the politics perhaps a bit too hard. It’s just too frustrating for me to think about as I watch both sides continue to battle over the budget. It’s a Thursday – time for a laugh. Some of you may know who Delonte West is… NBA point guard – he has played for several teams. Currently he plays for the Celtics, and he was once the point guard for Lebron James before he took his talents to South Beach. Some of you may also remember when he was arrested for driving on a motorcycle with a guitar case on his back… and the guitar case had a loaded shotgun inside of it – Desperado style.

I also distinctly remember him being interviewed live on TV… and his response to a basketball-related question was “one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish.” The man is a genius with words. What follows below is a video that for some reason he and a friend took while waiting in the parking lot of a KFC… Might as well move it to the 30 second mark and then enjoy the show. “Hot sauce in my bag, hot sauce in my bag… baby girl, chipotle.” If you’re wondering what they are on, so am I. Hopefully you’ll be singing along in no time. The lyrics demonstrate his true intellect.

The Military Industrial Complex

With a possible government shutdown looming (and both sides balking during negotiations), perhaps it is time America make the tough choice that for some reason people don’t like talking about. With Representative Paul Ryan touting his budget and its $6 trillion in cuts over the next ten years, and the Obama administration also floating a budget with billions in cuts… why is it that no one of any major national credibility is talking about trimming our outrageously out of control defense budget? Tea Party darling Sarah Palin, in her Washington Post op-ed piece, spoke about trimming the federal budget with regards to the President’s health care plan, Medicare, and Social Security. Yet, when confronted with the issue of national defense, she referred to it as “the one area where we shouldn’t be cutting corners.” With all due respect to the former governor of Alaska, I was never under the impression that at any point in time we as Americans have cut corners with our defense spending.

Despite what defense spending advocates would have you believe about the need to maintain or even increase the military budget, they fail to tell the whole story. Fear tactics are being used to make Americans believe that Iran is a growing and dangerous threat, or that China has passed us in military supremacy. These statements mislead the public in hopes that we will continue to endorse, if not demand, increases in spending. After all, to speak out against them would be “dangerous” or “unpatriotic.”

The facts of the matter are these: America spends almost $700 billion a year on defense. As of 2008, if you were to add up the amount spent by the next 14 countries behind us, we still would surpass them. We accounted for 46% of the WORLD’s defense spending in 2009. The entire world, mind you. We have over 700 military bases in over 40 foreign countries.

Iran has been called one of the greatest threats to national security in the present day. Conservatives have even used thinly-veiled references comparing it to a Hitler-led Germany of the 1930s. Yet they spend 1/110th the amount of money on their military as the Pentagon does. Fareed Zakaria said it best in his book, The Post-American World – “If this is 1938, as many conservatives argue, then Iran is Romania, not Germany.” So, why saber-rattle with regards to Iran? The answer is easy – fear will make Americans endorse more defense spending.

China spends 10% of the amount of money on defense as the Pentagon does. They have approximately 20 nuclear missiles that are capable of reaching our shores, while we maintain an arsenal with thousands of warheads capable of hitting anywhere on earth. In fact, China’s focus seems to be more on beating us economically. They have realized that perhaps the way to undermine our global power is to make themselves one of the most powerful economies on earth. How have we responded? By continuing to increase our military spending due to our old-fashioned worldview.

I have always believed that a president’s last address while in office is perhaps one of their most candid moments. There are no votes to earn; no opinion polls to worry about. It is their last chance to use the bully pulpit offered by the presidency. I find it fitting that none other than five-star general, Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II, and Mr. Massive Retaliation himself – President Dwight D. Eisenhower – tried to warn us in his farewell address… why haven’t we listened?

http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending

The 2012 Game Plan: Forget the Moderates

Now that Barack Obama has shocked the world by declaring his intention to run for a second term, the campaign strategies from both parties will be fully on display for the next year and a half. Unfortunately, I get the impression from both sides of the political aisle that they are not really interested in reaching out to the moderates. Don’t get me wrong – they’ll say that they are, but this seems to be purely lip service.

We live in a nation that is primarily made up of political moderates. A broad consensus can be reached on a wide variety of even controversial issues – but that is not how the political strategists of the parties believe you win elections. They believe you win elections by catering to your “base”, which often times lies on the outskirts of the political spectrum… and they may be right. Why? The base of the parties is made up of the people who are willing to take to the streets in grassroots efforts to mobilize other like-minded voters, to donate money to campaigns, and to generally be involved. They are so highly motivated because they believe the opposition truly is an evil that they could not possibly tolerate being in power.

On the other hand, I get the impression that most of the moderates I know are more concerned with living their day-to-day lives, not becoming politically active. They don’t live constantly in fear of an oppressive government coming to take their money, their jobs, or their freedoms. They do not feel an overt need to get involved. As a result of this, the campaigns will continue to gravitate towards the base.

The examples of this playing itself out are countless. Look no further than at the words spoken by the party members and the portrayal of policy initiatives and candidates through the various media outlets. When George W. Bush was president, he was painted by those on the far liberal left to be a fascist dictator bent on spreading a new world order and catering to corporate greed. He was a liar guilty of war crimes who was stripping Americans of their freedoms through the Patriot Act. Now that Barack Obama is president, many on the far conservative right portray him as a socialist dictator bent on spreading the wealth and subverting the Constitution. He is an illegitimate leader due to his foreign birth, and he wants the poor to wage metaphorical, if not literal, war on the rich.

The truth is that neither representation is even close to accurate. Both Bush and Obama were far more centrist than either side would allow you to believe. How else can you explain that the Tea Party has ripped Bush for not being a true Republican? How else could you explain that many on the left have already grown tired of Obama and have begun the push for Hillary Clinton to challenge him for the nomination? I have lived my entire adult life during their presidencies, and not once did I ever feel the supposed trampling of my freedoms and liberties that both sides claim have happened. How many of us have had our thoughts and opinions suppressed? Perhaps never before in world history have we been so free to express our opinion. Through blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media, Americans now have more freedom of expression than ever before. There is no Sedition Act limiting the press or the public. No one I know (that is a moderate) lives in fear of being oppressed.

Sadly, that is not what will win the election. Motivating the base, even if takes spreading fear, is. There is a reason Rick Santorum was quoted as saying the current economic problems can be traced back to 1/3 of possible American babies are being aborted. Abortion is an issue that motivates the religious right, a bastion of votes for the Republican Party. There is a reason Bush was portrayed as a warmonger in 2004. The anti-war crowd was supposed to boost their efforts to get out the vote. How did Republicans counter the Kerry campaign? By, for example, putting a gay marriage ban on the ballot in the key swing state of Ohio. They knew that gay marriage was an issue that their base felt strongly about and that it would help rally the troops. We could go on – and I haven’t even mentioned Glenn Beck or Michael Moore yet! Convince senior citizens that their health care is going to be stripped from them or that they could face death panels. Convince the poor that the wealthy capitalists are waging class warfare on them. That is how you win elections.

This has served as a repellant to moderates – we get disgusted with politics and the system, and we stay home on Election Day. We refuse to get involved, and so we try to wash our hands of it. And it has also served to ruin any chance America has of progress through compromise – after all, how can one compromise with an opponent that has been vilified so thoroughly? You can’t make a deal with the devil.

It’s time for the moderates to realize what has been happening. It is time for the moderates to be the ones who control the policy and the elections in this country. This new Silent Majority needs to find a voice…

Corbett’s Nepotism and War on Public Education

Perhaps in addition the continued coverage of the debate over teacher salaries that is constantly being purveyed on the front page of the newspapers, they might include some other interesting tidbits about the budget crusade by new Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett. For example, in his effort to push his voucher program, funds for the 144 public schools targeted by the voucher program were cut twice as much as those not targeted. According to the Education Law Center, funds towards Pennsylvania’s poorer districts are the ones taking the biggest hit. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

Further evidence to back up that statement can be found in the governor’s newly appointed head of the Department of Community and Economic Development, C. Allan Walker. Walker, who is the owner and CEO of Bradford Energy Co. and Bradford Coal, has been reported to have given $180,000 to Corbett campaigns in the last 7 years. He also has stakes in other companies, including a trucking company and a Pennsylvania oil and gas company. Is it any coincidence that this man is now in charge of a department that could impact not only PA’s environment and economy, but where he has the decision making power to impact his own industry so closely tied to his own financial success? Of course not – the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.

This is not a rant against either political party; both can be corrupt and unscrupulous. But teachers, due to their being paid by community tax dollars, make an easy scapegoat. Citizens receive their school tax bill and instantly think of poor teachers they had in their past – it is only natural. But perhaps this is an intentional smoke screen – while teachers’ salaries make for great press, traditional nepotism in government that results in high paying jobs (in some cases of up to $200,000 a year for people like Walker, which is four times the average salary of one teacher) and the ability to sway legislation and governmental decisions in their favor for some reason bore the public. The outcry over the “exorbitant” pay for public school teachers should hopefully be mirrored by disgust for known millionaires like Walker being paid with the public’s tax dollars. But it isn’t, and my guess is that it never will be.  And that’s why the rich will continue to get richer, the poor will continue to get poorer.

The purpose of the news media is to inform citizens of all of the facts, however, it is also the responsibility of all citizens to seek the facts. Do your part.