Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Happy New Year!

++I thank of your faithful readers. I appreciate all the e-mails and comments on my posts every year. I've taken the editorial decision not to allow comments on the blog because I actually have other work to do and responding would become an endless task. 

++This year contains the most posts of any year since I've begun and I don't think they come up to the quality of the first few years where we were treated to the rise of nativism,the teabag phenomenon, the rise of the militias--which actually hint over 1,000 this year, and the wacky constitution arguments of the so-called "strict constitutionalists".

++This year I stepped into my own trap blogging more than helpful on the mid-terms and missing the results almost in the same proportion as 2010. I said I wouldn't but the elections get the horses running.

++I omitted my growing disenchantment with popular movements as forces that can actually spur change in this land. There are specific reasons for this, which I hope to take up next year. An exception to this is 350.org,which organized the global marches to halt climate change. I take as immediate effects of their efforts--the Peruvian climate agreement and the announcement by Pope Francis about the encyclical to 1 billion Catholics on Climate Change and the environment.

++The biggest disappointment this year was the weak campaigns by the Democrats in the mid-term, especially after their leadership promised they had learned the lessons of 2010--which clearly they did not.

++The biggest surprise was President Obama's liberation after the mid-terms to enact executive orders to spar 5 million undocumented immigrants deportation and his announcement of the normalization of relations with Cuba. 

++The fight over the Senate Torture Report was one of the most important news items but got quickly swept under the rug--for now. This sorry episode was documented in great detail in the 2009 Senate Report by the Armed Services Committee led by Senator Levin. Until we as a country come to grips with the war crimes we committed this will haunt our international affairs for years to come.

++I guess we have all forgotten Edward Snowden and his revelations of the scope of NSA surveillance on us all. Congress failed to pass the NSA Reforms which they promised after these  revelations became public knowledge.

++As for the 2016 elections, none of the Republicans so far are fit to govern in the 21st century and none have the moral vision which deserves any respect. That doesn't mean they can't win.Hillary Clinton doesn't excite me but she would be able and capable as President. Elizabeth Warren is actually the first candidate running in Iowa, even though she discounts these rumors. That hasn't stopped a Warren for President campaign from starting. 

++But let's close the year with a salute to Bernie Sanders,the longest serving independent in American political history. By March we will know whether a socialist can run in America. That was the question Karl Marx asked,"Why is America so exceptional? It doesn't have a socialist tradition." Ironically, American exceptionalism only showed up in the 2012 Republican platform and President Obama has been the only President ever to utter the phrase "American exceptionalism".  So, Bernie, to the Barricades!

++For all, a healthful, tranquil,slightly prosperous New Year and a year of mindfulness.

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