I posted this on dailyKos last week, under my other handle I use there.  It passed by there as most diaries do.  This morning I woke up and started my weekly dose of opposition research and MSM lunacy.  I got 5 minutes of Fox News with Senator Dorgan arguing for taking 25-30 of the already allocated 700 billion to help the car companies (responsible for 3 to 5 million jobs).  Senator Kyl and Chris Matthews countered with the same supply-side crap and “blame the poor people” grandstanding that has gotten us in to this mess.  Then they asserted that the Democrats should “compromise” with the Republicans and not bail out the car companies (just the banks).  I got so angry, I turned the channel to ABC, where Ahnold was saying that Fannie May and Freddie Mac forced so many banks into loaning to people who had no business getting a home mortgage.  As a VP in a community bank, let me tell you that this is a baldfaced lie, but it is one of the somber “explanations” that the wingnuts peddle to again place the blame on “the poor”. (It is also designed to appeal to racists, BTW) I only got through about 6o seconds of Arnold’s  crap before I turned off the TV and decided to repost my rant here.

We’ve sold all the drywall and insulation out of the house that is the American economy, along with the siding, furniture (not the tv, of course), plumbing, and the “unnecessary” parts of the roof.  We’re down to the studs, people, and winter is coming.  What is left of the American middle class is about to be pushed forever into poverty, the the long term GOP-corporatist plan of feudalizing America is about to become complete, and the Sunday morning shills are suggesting we “compromise” with these thieves.  Its time to fight back.  We must obliterate supply side economics and expose it for the insidious farce that it is, with overwhelming force and all due haste.  Now, the repost:

This rant started in a bar in a 2700-person town, arguing politics with a mostly Republican group on the night after the election.  While (thankfully) they accepted the results of the election, and generally wished success for Obama, they also wished he would continue “supply side” and “free market” policies.  Our town, like most others, has been economically decimated the past 30 years.  It started a rap that is roughly transcribed here:

There are relatively few people who have benefited greatly from supply side economics, but if you live in a small town, the numbers are ridiculously skewed against you.  Supply side doesn’t have anything for your small town, except for job losses, poor quality products, the end of locally based businesses, and the erosion of community political and economic power.  These ill effects also spur on other problems such as bad customer service, lack of pride in workmanship, and lethargy in general.

Below are some sayings compiled for no good reason, which is a pretty good reason.  Especially on a Friday.  A little night reading, I mean light reading–good because you don’t have to follow along.  These sentences only sporadically have anything to do with the ones next to them.  Or do they…?

I’ve sat down to write a followup of “The Green Desert” many times now.  My apologies that my schedule has prevented me from devoting the proper time needed to organize my thoughts.  

But a good thing has happened as a result of this delay – time has passed and our overgrown lawn is even more beautiful and/or unruly, depending on your point of view.  Many many more flowers (and weeds) have bloomed.  And most germane to the discussion, many many more honeybees have arrived.

While looking out my window in the middle of farmland in SE Indiana, I see woods at various distances from approximately a quarter to three-quarters of a mile away.  In between me and those woods are soybean and corn fields, scattered houses, their lawns, a few roads and lanes, the margins of those fields and roads, and (closest to me) our yard, that we decided not to mow this year.  It is mid-July, and in all of this very green, rural scene, the only substantial group of flowers of any kind is our yard.  A little island of “proper” flowers, and flowering “weeds”.  And it is full of bugs, namely BEES.

Across countless acres, I see nothing but fields and lawns.