My last rant before 'ascending'

You know how hard it is to come to this blog every freakin' day and try not to succumb to the temptation to comment on Rome as it burns? To bitch about this or moan about that? It's so antithetical to who and what I perceive I am. And yet, it's easy to do when you see the country collapsing around you and watch fellow citizens desperately digging their nails into the sides of the slippery slope that angles steeply downward to the abyss below them. That pit that is becoming increasingly populated by people losing their grips.

There are folks all around us trying desperately not to become the next 27 year United employee losing 1/2 their retirement. Trying to avoid being one among thousands of job loss statistics of Kimberly-Clark, DuPont, Gateway, EDS, Alcatel, General Motors, etc. You know, those little stories in the financial pages of the Wall Street Journal that make the price of investor's stocks surge upwards on such news?

People are trying not to be one of those on the outside of locked (forever!) mid-west manufacturing plant's or southern garment shop's doors. Or there's grandmothers and unsuspecting consumers being gobbled up by those glamorous CEO's like Kozlowski, Ebbers, or Lay whose bottom feeding corporations Tyco, World Com, and Enron afforded 'em obscene multi-million dollar glamor parties and showers behind a $6,000 curtain! (How many month's rent or meals for your kids could that shower curtain have provided your family?)

And then there's the 670,000 fewer women, infants, and children who won't be served because of future WIC budget cuts. Or the 300,000 fewer children in low-income working families who won't be provided child care, or 370,000 fewer families and elderly and disabled individuals who won't receive rental assistance vouchers, and nearly 120,000 fewer children that would've been served through Head Start but now won't be.*

Reminder: These are Bush's budget cuts that run through 2010. Many of us won't really get pissed til it actually hits you or me. By then the Bush gang'll be long gone, living luxuriously and safely on the French Riviera, soakin' up the rays, pondering when his war'll ever end over a platter of catsup soaked freedom fries with Jenna and Barbara.

Bush's discretionary cuts in the budget will increase while the needs of a growing American population is increasing. Simply put, there'll be more need, less help. Yeh, yeh, statistics are a drag. Until those statistics jump up and bite us on our own asses. And trust me, they will.

Here's a few boring stats of what to expect between now and 2010. If this part bores you, skip it. But trust me, these stats will sneak up behind you. Bush's cuts will include 15% less for Education and Training; minus 23% for the Environment (who the fuck needs clean air and water, right?); minus 14% Health (who the fuck needs health?); 11% less for Income Security; minus 10% Justice (who gives a tinker's damn for justice, right? -- see permanent cuts in your rights under the "Patriot" Act being renewed); minus 16% for Veteran's (as veteran's needs grow rabidly by our government's permanent war for permanent security). Those are just some of the areas cut. Not affected? Read on.

I love my friends, The Conservatives, who are at the front of the line down at the tax assessor's office each year when their new property tax estimates are released. You know, I talked about him and his family previously under "Dining with friends, playing with matches." He's the guy whose Christian driven ideology and the consequences of that ideology under the leaders he chooses to elect has him squealing like a bleeding pig every time his tax statement arrives. The guy who doesn't connect what's happening 'down here' to what's being cut 'up there'? That guy? Well, the cutting of over $70 billion in the next 5 years of federal Aid to States* already financially strapped may kill him before it's over. And it's sure as hell gonna bite the rest of us on our collective ass as well.

But I try to calm myself by repeating my mantra of the past four and a half years. I just keep saying, "It's what the people want, it's what the people want." I don't actually believe it, but I keep trying to convince myself. Okay, so it's "what we want."

Well, today is my birthday. So I'm going to practice a little transcendence over the weekend--that quality I'm sometimes chided for lacking. So if you notice any posts I make the next couple of days are mellowed out, know my consciousness has ascended to a higher plane. Or maybe another Universe. I'm gonna drive over to my favorite little college town. To my favorite little microbrewery there. To revel a bit. Try to forget for a few hours, maybe a couple of days.

I'm gonna celebrate another year with some really good beers, maybe a wicked and devilish green chile cheese burger. You know what I love about that place besides great ales? The crowd! There's something about people who appreciate good microbrews. There's a spirit of freedom from the industrial Big Three Auto-brewed beer makers. Inevitably, a guy walks in with a shirt from another microbrewy and, inevitably, that starts a conversation. And you know what else? Most the beer drinkers there are university refugees. You know, from that breeding institution of revolutionaries and communists just down the road? (Ooooh, I know, that's some scary shit to our conservative friends, huh?)

Maybe it's just testament left wingers still have taste buds, i.e. are sensitive to tasteless, thoughtless things. Hence their appreciation for good ale and their diminishing civil rights. And know what else? They know who to really blame for their rapidly rising local taxes.

Or maybe that's all bullshit. Maybe it's just a brief interlude, sitting in an air-conditioned ambience populated with like-mindeds who enjoy really good beer while Rome burns.

*Center on Budget and Policy Priorities based on OMB data.