Still Alive

Want to thank Dr. King, Rikyrah & other contributors, readers and those who have commented.

Wish I could write everyday or even every other day. But life has gotten in the way over the past couple of years... (especially over the last year). I have grad courses that require about 12+ hours of reading a week.... not to mention a job that takes up plenty of my time. And I have one personal crisis after another... Have been dealing with a lot of crap. I can't even get good sleep... that's a luxury. Any time awake that I have to myself is spent completely stressed out/attempting stress management. Have been pretty much unable to write/contribute much of anything here.

Every now and then I can focus long enough to sneak something in. I do enjoy reading the posts as well as the comments. Try to comment when I can.
I'm a little more relieved post-election. I wrote in Jill Stein for President...and voted Democrat the rest of the way. Jill Stein supports ideas a little more in line with what I believe... and I knew Obama wasn't competitive in my red State... so I wanted to vote my heart. (But if it had been close... he would have had my vote again). If I ever find the time i'll throw my two cents in on where we're heading.

I still believe the Country is in bad shape (structurally it's not built to deal with the current problems effectively). I still think the U.S. is screwed if it doesn't do more to transform the economy, change how it deals with energy, stay out of senseless wars/stop sticking its nose in the business of other nations, extricate itself from so many foreign entanglements, fix the deficit/debt problem, do something about income inequality, make sure the healthcare works better and do something about labor rights....

I don't see any of that changing right away with Obama's re-election. But I would much rather go forward with Obama than deal with more Republican madness. At least with Obama... there's a better chance that the Country will be able to deal with all of its various problems. But it's only a slightly better chance. Too many of his policies look like Republican policies to me. For Example, if he chooses Susan Rice for Secretary of State, my head is going to explode. She is a Pro-war Democrat... what Int'l Affairs scholars call (when talking about leaders on the left) an interventionist. Basically...what that means is that she is a milder version (slightly milder version) of the Neo-Cons who we have seen on the right. I may attempt to explain this better in another blog post. But basically, while someone like a John Bolton hates international institutions and wanted to pull out of or weaken those institutions which he thought got in the way of American war & hegemony...someone like a Susan Rice loves those same institutions and seeks to use them as tools to expand U.S. involvement overseas. She uses those institutions (whether it's the UN, the EU, the senseless expansion of NATO) as a way of getting into war, or to set the stage to trigger war down the road, finding excuses to send Western troops into all sorts of situations around the world, whether it's under the guise of humanitarianism to hand out food or to train foreign troops as a way to sell the brand and to project power whenever possible... the point is she sees the use of military power..or hard power, as the answer for solving international disputes. She would be a terrible Secretary of State. (Obama's Foreign Policy is just one of a few reasons why I decided to symbolically support Jill Stein..the Green Party candidate).

My confidence in voters only improved slightly. As I thought...the election followed a 2000-2004 pattern. But he received more EV's than I thought. But with the kind of things that Romney/Ryan were running on it should not have been as close as it was.... either in the national polling leading up to the election or in the final popular vote tally. Voters came perilously close to falling for Romney's sales pitch...that included so many lies it became hard for us to keep them all straight. Hell, even Romney couldn't keep them all straight by the end. I think even he may have gotten tired of lying so much. Point is... voters gave Romney more credibility as a serious candidate and more attention than what he deserved, under the circumstances. Americans are gullible. But luckily we dodged a bullet on Nov. 6th.

... Thanks to those folks who send messages and e-mails about the blog... or about a particular commentary of mine. I read them all.... even though I don't always have the time to reply.

I want to revamp this blog... but unfortunately I don't have the time or the resources.... if my situation gets better by New Years... I may be able to get a web developer and put in a better template.

I will still use Twitter several times a week.... you can find me pretty easily there. Enjoy the Holidays (worst time of the year for me. I hate it). Call me scrooge if you want.... I don't care.

Take care...

- Brian