Monday, September 29, 2008

Who am I?

"Ernie, you may be registered as a Republican, but in[fact] you think like a Democrat."

I’ve been accused of that before. I’m probably an “Old School” Democrat, ala John Kennedy. But I haven’t seen many Democrats that I would trust lately. They seem to want to give everybody the shirt off my back. I’m not big on funding “the arts” or many of the outlandishly liberal social programs. The democrats always seem to be shifty-eyed and they always seem to have some hidden agenda that only they and their in-crowd friends know about, but their agenda seems to be hidden from view.

I believe in socialized education, and socialized healthcare, where everyone has the opportunity to be educated and healthy to the best of their ability. After that, if people don’t do something to support themselves, they can starve for all I care. And if they punch their brains out with drugs, they can just suffer the consequences.

I don’t like the Republican idea that everybody has to tremble in the presence of God or they can’t be trusted. I believe that I, in no way, have the right to tell a woman what to do about her pregnancy, and I’m not the one to decide what might be best for her or her baby. It would seem to me that any decisions that she might have to make would be hers, and hers alone, or whoever she might trust to help her make her decisions.

I don’t like the way that the Republicans think that only big business can be good for our country.

So, I guess that I’m not a Democrat or a Republican in the true sense of the words. But to register or vote for any other party would be to throw my vote away. So I am a registered Republican, because I have a tendency to be a fiscal conservative. I don’t like the Idea that Reagan gave away America’s businesses to other countries, and I don’t like the way he busted the unions and allowed deregulation.

Bush the daddy tried to give us NAFTA, but it was Clinton that pushed it through. I’m still not sure about Bush the baby, but I’m sure I don’t like his 700 billion dollar bailout.

I don’t like the way that the Democrats and Republicans align themselves against each other like each party is going to fight for our interests, when both parties are totally sold out to the big money interests that are going to finance their campaigns. They justify selling us down the river by saying that “You have to be able to compromise to get your way the next time”, when all they really do is protect the big money people.

So, I say again, there are two parties alright, they are called “Government” and “The People”. Somehow, and I don’t know how, we have to get back to “WE the People” being the Government. It seems so far away sometimes.

In France when they were told to “Eat Cake” they chopped their heads off and started over. I advocate a simpler do-over, but I do advocate a do-over.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well I can tell you this you obviously are not a major stockholder, otherwise the 777 point drop in the DOW Jones would have you wetting your pants and sucking your thumb. I guess when they didn't get their 700 billion to pay for the foolishness of the past few years, they looked into their bank accounts and said "Sell sell sell, better to have something rather than nothing"
As for me, I am really far into debt and the only investment capital I have still needs to be counted and rolled up. Even more confusion arises when I wonder if you are a liberal or a conservative.

Anonymous said...

You're not yet sure about BabyBush? What would it take to make you sure?

Ernie Branscomb said...

There's a reason that I don't have money in the stock market. Have you ever heard of the people that didn't trust banks? Well, that's like me, only I don't the trust stock markets, and yes I lost a little bit, but nothing important.

The thing that I don't like about the stock markets is that they are designed for the rich to be able to fleece the poor. They tell you that the only way that you can come out on the market is to stay in long term. I have two friends that lost everything in the NASDEQ crash. Up until the time that they lost everything, I had to listen to their crap about how much money they were making.

Now, there is a whole bunch more people that I don’t have to listen to, about how they made a fortune in the stock market. I’m not gloating, but it wasn’t like I haven’t said endlessly that this was going to happen. If we are a country that doesn’t produce anything real, we can’t expect the rest of the world to feed us forever. Time to pay the piper is here!

We shouldn’t have sent our jobs to China.

spyrock said...

my mom who was born in covelo and spent the early part of her life in spyrock was a democrat and my dad who was born in kansas and spent the early part of his life in southern california was a republican. both of them belonged to a billion other clubs and organizations, so many that i never saw them much when i was growing up and many of my friends lost one or both parents when they were kids. so i don't try to identify myself with anything outside of what is inside me. its pretty much a gut feeling for me about who i will vote for. first you have lucas mccain, the rifleman,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RWtRUuslNw,
check this link out to see what the rifleman is all about. then you have the dolly obama, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcvbnsP2oG4
i think its a pretty close call.
spyrock is my medicine name, it indicates where i'm from, a great grand father born in marysville in 1865 who moved to covelo when he was 5 and a great grandmother born in laytonville in 1865 who moved to covelo when she was 7. i feel my ancestors and the land they lived on inside of me. a land that at one time was at the bottom of the ocean. the cells in my body, my dna, it's all been evolving for a very long time. so i see each person as uniquely themselves with every right to think what ever they think is right, or not.

Rose said...

i think the misnomer is that all Republicans go to church, or march in any kind of lockstep. My beliefs fall pretty much in line with what you just said, and the Republicans I know are a mixed bag. Thoughtful, dedicated, hard working committed people, people who truly do take care of themselves, their families and others, and ask nothing in return.

It is with a growing sense of dismay that I watch and hear the partisan divide rip this country apart.

It's never been more evident than today. Which is odd in a way - because for the first time it was a 60% one party split and 40% the other - the first time they haven't fallen along party lines almost to a man.

And the snake in the grass gets up and claims the kill before the kill was made. Couldn't put aside her partisanship long enough to let a deal be made.

I have no faith in these people. Even if I believed they cared about the People, and not the Party, I do not see how they can actually come up with a good well-thought-out plan in a period of days, when they have sat there for years letting this monster grow.

Anonymous said...

11:22- 9,29,08.
Well said Rose.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

i am not the same dolly Suzy LOL whom posted b4...but i am a reinstantcarnation of that dolly Suzy --

Suzy is the job 4 the man!

Ernie Branscomb said...

Oregon, I met Rose at the bloggers picnic. She is very, very intelligent, she is a lot like us!

We talked about the fact that we get accused of being conservative, when actually we think that we are just trying to be reasonable.

Hi Suzy, you're up early!

Anonymous said...

Suzy, I have always been able to understand you but you lost me today (9:27).
Is that cabin (rat nest) still for sale.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

Awww. Ernie, you put me in company which I don't belong. You have very intelligent people that post here. I'm not one of them. I just have roots that I stand by, family and friends that really know what is right and wrong.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

Speaking of intelligent Ernie, did you get to meet Suzy blah blah at the picnic? She is wonderful and fun.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

hey Oregon --maybe u need to imbibe some magic chrystals ;o)* * * * * and then watch spyrocks dolly linky flicky 2 be abel 2 fooly understand teh brand new re-instantcarnated Suzy. LOL but love is always perfreeable to understanding anyway --except soemtimes i think maybe theyre close to the same thing...

ooxxoo
S

Anonymous said...

Suzy, I don't seem to have much understanding or love in my life but instead of magic crystals I find beer with a touch of Wild Turkey helps. LOL

By the way, there is a secret place only one person that has this blog site knows about, it is called Rest Rock. About twenty feet away was a rat nest and I set fire to it and when the rat ran out I missed it to live to chew through the water line another day.

Oregon

Anonymous said...

Sorry here Ernie about always talking about the rats and water lines. It is something I relate to.
I know this post is about politics. I just wish the same as you no matter who gets into office. I do have strong feelings about the Supreme Court and who is nominated. I beleive Obama wants to take away the private ownership of guns and I hate taxes. This is just my say on the subject.

Oregon

kaivalya said...

In economic terms, it seems more relevant these days to label the partisan divide as Federalist and Democratic-Republicans, a throwback to the origins of the party system.

The current republican agenda was taken over by those who wish to inflate the government, while selling this to the American people with a rhetoric that is directly contradictory to their actions.

Yet none of the parties really want to strengthen states rights or the populist voice.

gb05 said...

Ernie, This part of your post bothers me a bit, "I don’t like the Republican idea that everybody has to tremble in the presence of God or they can’t be trusted."

My dear and recently departed mother was a life-long Democrat and a life-long Christian. She believed strongly in both her political choice and her religious choice. Of course, she was an FDR/Truman kind of Democrat, not the variety that has emerged in the past few decades.

Naturally she passed along her values to her offspring, but over the years all four of her children have strayed somewhat from the political and religious training, but none of us have betrayed the basic values we were taught.

Thanks, Mom! You too, Ernie.

GB

Anonymous said...

Ernie... What scares me about the Republicans these days are things like pulling all the literature at Grand Canton National Park which gave geologists estimates of the age of the canyon. Then Bill O'riley rafts down the canyon with a crew who tells us it is six thousand years old. If anyone expects me to climb on that bandwagon they are nuts. This is the propagation of ignorance, plain and simple. We have a potential President in Ms. Palin who buys creationism in school curricula. I surely believe in God, but this stuff scares the hell out of me.

Anonymous said...

P.S. You don't care for government support of the arts but how about Recycled Youth?. A fine example of several local programs that have State support. How about the artists who painted the field workers illustration in your previous post? Looks like WPA Arts work to me though I may be wrong. A little State money can do wonders sometimes.

Robin Shelley said...

The labor picture interested me, too, Ben, & I found out that it's actually part of a mural series by Charles Sprague Pearce at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It was copyrighted in 1896 by the artist so it definitely isn't "WPA art".

spyrock said...

what throws me off for a minute is when people, especially the news commentators that favor each political party, lie through their teeth. they must really think that a lot of americans out there are dumb as nails. i guess because george w. was elected twice they have every reason to think that way. but i think it goes deeper. today i saw a show on link tv about oil and our national policy toward securing oil supplies in the middle east and eslewhere which made it clear to me what the war in iraq is really all about. i mean why would so many important people be lying through their teeth. could it be money. money from big oil.
it's hard not to think so. why don't they spend the same kind of money developing alternative sources of energy that they spend daily in iraq and for bailing out wall street. i think suzy is right, its all about a big long stinking rat pipeline. and it's not water the rats are after, its oil. so spare me with the lies about converting these islamic nations which are all theocracies to christian democracy. say it. we are fighting for oil. now don't you feel better for telling the truth. whatcha gonna do when the oil runs out? buy a camel?
its time that we spend our money on creating alternative sources of energy. don't you agree?