Obama pleads for civility

That title is rather sad. "Pleads for civility." The story is here.

What's it going to take to get our government off its ass and doing something to fix our problems? Jobs. The economy. Health care. The environment. Moving to alternative/renewable fuels. Trillions in deficits. Busted bridges and roads. Decaying infrastructure.

Are the Republicans so pissed at the left's vilification of Bush, Jr. that they are going to obstruct anything and everything Obama wants to do? Or would they obstruct anyway? Their opposition is knee-jerk and mindless.

We - I - may have strongly disliked and ridiculed Bush Jr while he was in office, but it had real grounds: Bush started torturing people against the Geneva Conventions; he took steps to spy on everyday Americans with illegal wiretapping; he spent money like mad in Iraq on a war he lied us into; he gave away billions in tax cuts to the rich, without having any plan to pay for all of it. He was wild and reckless, black-and-white, good vs evil, alienating the rest of the world and polarizing our people. AND he had some Democrats that were more or less on his side. Part of that reason is surely because Bush and the Republicans would accuse any opposition of being un-American or "for" the terrorists. Ridiculous, but effective. You don't get that kind of vitriol from the left.

And what has Obama done in office? Try to forge bipartisanship? Pass a stimulus plan to get our economy moving again? Cut taxes on practically everyone? Try to cover more Americans with health care? Oooo. Isn't that just awful?! Socialist! Communist!!

What response do we get from the right? Non-stop lies and distortion on FOX, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and foot soldiers like James O'Keefe.

One big difference in the public reaction to Bush vs Obama is that, during Bush's years, we had no unified opposition voice to Bush. Certainly we had no organized opposition similar to FOX News and NewsCorp. The so-called "liberal media" was harsher to Democrats in many cases than they were to Bush. You just rarely see any criticism of any Republicans on FOX.

We had a few organizations opposing Bush, but with limited funds and limited reach. Compare MoveOn to NewsCorp. There is no comparison.

We'd better end the gridlock of our government. This country is deteriorating right before our eyes.

We're running out of oil but stubbornly resisting a move to alternative, renewable energy.

We've got a yawning, growing gap between the super-rich and everyone else, and yet labor unions keep getting slammed and dismantled.

We manufacture very little in this country except for military hardware.

We ship decent paying jobs overseas in the never-ending search for more profits and replace them with what? If anything, low-wage jobs.

Years ago, in the early days of industrialization, Henry Ford paid his automobile workers very good wages, because he realized that people needed to have enough money to buy the products that he was making. Now, since we don't make anything any longer in this country, I guess people don't need to have any jobs or decent wages.