Last week, Superstorm Sandy devastated the east coast with high winds, record storm surges and rain. The storm left millions without power, thousands homeless and over a hundred dead, if there was anything positive to come out of this calamity it was that climate change was finally front page news again. Unfortunately the only time climate change is mentioned by the powers that be or the media is in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster. We saw it after Hurricane Katrina and after the Tsunamis in the Indian Ocean and the Coast of Japan, but talk of climate change didn’t last a month after these events. With the general election in the US this Tuesday, I suspect talk of climate change this time will barely last a week.
Category: Quiet Mikes Mumblings
Election 2012: The Final Countdown
If the polls are to be believed (and they shouldn’t), the political landscape the day after the election will probably look similar to the day before and things will likely carry on much as it has for the past four years. However, there are some variables that these polls don’t take into account and I don’t just mean the weather.
Total Recall
Thanks in part to government imposed austerity and corporate influence over our public health officials; we no longer know what we are eating, more importantly we don’t really know if it’s healthy. Government cuts in food inspections, deregulation of industry and corporate greed are keeping us in the dark when we go to the grocery store or the butcher shop
Let the People Decide
Political debates are a series of opinions disputed between politicians. These opinions can range in topic from social issues, to economics, to foreign policy. Debates are routinely used by candidates to try and sway the undecided voters to cast their ballet for them. Undecided voters typically avoid paying attention to politics and are therefore uninformed and susceptible to the media’s influence. In close elections this makes the debates all that more important.
To Protect and Serve
No system of government has done more for the welfare of its people than democracy, but now modern day free market capitalism is threatening a new age of feudalism. The “New Deal” of the 1930’s brought unimaginable prosperity to the industrialized world; the greatest generation was given decent working hours, good wages, social security, and eventually Medicare & welfare, etc. These middle class citizens in good turn passed it down to their kids; the baby boomers, who over the last thirty years have decided to keep it all for themselves.
Refereeing the Conservatives
Conservatives are always quick to side against organized labor, unless of course their lives are personally affected. If a replacement worker in their favorite sport blows a call on the field that allows their team to lose, well then everything must be done to make sure those professional referees return before the next game no matter the cost. If only those teachers in Chicago and Wisconsin were more important than football in the eyes of certain important people.
In Romney’s Words
Leave it to a secret recording of Mitt Romney giving a speech to wealthy donors to teach us more about the man behind the Etch-a-Sketch. If what he said is to be believed as genuine thought then I’d have to say the leaders of the Republican Party haven’t grown in intelligence since George W.
Everyone’s A Crazy Critic
Hard times usually bring out the crazy in people, whether it’s economic hardship in the United States or political adversity in the Middle East (or vice versa). Religious radicals tend to thrive in these environments, but as this past week has shown, the misapplication of the freedom of speech is all that is required to demonstrate the ugliness of our societies.
Five First-Term Failures of Barack Obama
Every American general election that has taken place in my life time has come down to a choice between the lesser of two evils. Despite the first African American President’s several accomplishments, Barack Obama’s first administration has turned out to be more hype than hope.
The New Age of Political Deceit
Most people would agree that finding a politician who lies is as standard as a coming across a man who pays taxes. After all, politicians are normally bred in a law school and unleashed upon the world. But while a legislator who lies isn’t all that new, the method and rate of how they fib has changed in the last dozen years.