Starting to See a Few Rays of Sunshine
Is this really possible? After eight years inside this Orwellian dungeon, a few rays of sunshine are starting to poke through the walls. Little shafts of hope. Sanity. The light is almost blinding. What could this mean?
The new Attorney General-designate, Eric Holder, has said that waterboarding is
You think that’s scary? Lisa Jackson, Obama’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, said the EPA will make decisions based on
Obama’s nominee for Homeland Security secretary, Janet Napolitano, said she will “revisit” the infamous REAL ID that Shoe Man has been obsessed with since 9/11.
In Congress, the newest multi-billion-dollar stimulus package is going to eliminate billions of dollars worth of tax breaks that banks started getting last fall. And the newest round of tax cuts will go mostly to homebuilders, retailers, manufacturers and low-income families.
Ah, a little more sunlight is peeking through. It’s intoxicating. Rumor has it that in just a few days, the dungeon doors will be thrown open, and our eight-year nightmare will be OVER.
cross-posted at Bring It On!
Labels: Erik Holder waterboarding torture, Janet Napolitano REAL ID, Lisa Jackson EPA science
posted by Tom Harper @ 6:32 PM
19 Comments:
Tom, while I was reading your post, I was humming two songs:
U2 "It's a beautiful day" and
the Beatles "Here comes the sun."
Those two songs are my personal soundtrack for this long, glorious, end of the terrible error, weekend.
:)
Watch your 401K's and saving plans. They may become part of the new spread the wealth plan. I Hope not. Be hopeful, but watchful. Just my opinion.
The Bush countdown plug-in in my Firefox browser says 76 hours and 51 minutes remaining. Finally. I need to think of a nice song to put on my blog Tuesday.
Great. The terrorists have won. I hope you're happy, commie.
You are correct, indeed. I am worried about the stimulus...I fear that the result will be a compromise that will do little more than increase the already amazingly large deficit...but I'm hopeful. But remember...the great depression...it took YEARS. We can't expect results in six months. And god forbid we don't remember this come midterm elections.
Now I love the environment and think Green, with the exception of shrubs.
Bee: Ah yes, "Here Comes the Sun." "It's Morning in America." Oh wait, that one's already taken.
Kate: Hopeful but watchful, that's the way to go. I'm glad Obama got elected, but we'll always have to watch our backs.
Carlos: Yup, the countdown is sounding better and better all the time.
Randal: BWAAHAAAHAAA, us commies are gonna take over America and nationalize the entire finance industry. Oh wait, Dumbya already did that.
Paul: Nope, sorry, Obama has to have everything completely fixed and good as new in his first 2 years. Otherwise the voters will vote out those tax-and-spend Democrats and put in some fiscally conservative Republicans :)
Enemy: For the first time in 8 years, Green won't be a dirty word.
Really good post, Tom. I too was blown away when Holder gave a straight answer to that simple question about waterboarding. A sort of "dawn of a new day" feeling went all through me.
Bee, your comment is right on. It got me to act on a thought that's been percolating in my mind for adding the first-ever sound enhancement to my blog, Oh!pinion, for inauguration day. I hope you and everyone here will stop by then and enjoy — provided I can make it work properly, of course.
SW: I remember that same "dawn of a new day" feeling when Clinton got elected, ending 12 years of Reagan-Bush. Of course, we're facing much more serious problems now than we were in early '93; but I think an Obama administration will be able to handle it. I hope.
I'll check out your site on Inauguration Day.
There are parts of the economic stimulus plan that seem intriguing, but have adopted a wait-and-see outlook for the next four years.
But at least we won't have to deal with that smug and arrogant bastard any more.
Lew: Yes, wait-and-see definitely. I don't see Obama as any sort of panacea or cure-all. But I'm hopeful that we won't be invading any more countries or gutting any more federal agencies that are supposed to protect the public health and safety.
Though I still have high hopes for President Obama, I'm not at all hopeful that he'll be able to move the juggernaut that is our government very much.
Kvatch: My sentiments exactly.
I sure the sun shines in real soon. I can see the rays but I want to be blinded.
I really hope he gets this bill passed that gives average people a break with taxes.
Ricardo: You're right, in this particular case, being blinded by the sun would be a good thing.
And I hate to sound like a mooch but one of his provisions is to waive the tax on unemployment which I am on and not thrilled about. but given the disaster I went through the other night I could really use that break. I think it's rather asinine to be taxing the unemployed at a time like this. I also think that an extension of benefits may be in order given the current state of things. I know this would make Rush and the others howl with contempt as they try to paint me as a parasite but the job losses are mounting so badly that their us and them argument won't work anymore. The 2 groups are blending together. Job loss is affecting ALL of us. it's not longer a group you can point to and run away from.
Also, think about this, there are so many people on unemployment and soon to be on it that if it were to run out, there would be an all out crisis that would put us into a depression. You take the average hard working suburbanite, middle class, out of a job and then pull back all the safety nets and such and you have a crisis.
There won't just be massive suicides, there will be civil unrest as people fight to feed their families and pay for basic medical needs.
Hate to be doom and gloom but this is possible. Very possible the longer it goes on.
Ricardo: I agree, it's tacky and lowdown to tax people's unemployment benefits. It's totally lopsided. If a company pays its CEO $50 million a year, it's tax deductible; the "cost of doing business." If you buy a $80,000 SUV, you can deduct part of the cost from your taxes. But if you're barely subsisting on an unemployment check, they tax it. Go figure.
We aren't all going to be happy with some of the things Obama does, and we won't all be happy with how much he is going to be able to get done, at least not at first.
If he can spearhead a successful move to catch Osama Bin Laden, that would probably be a major feather in his cap. It might get a few more of the naysayers on his side, thinking he might not be so bad after all.
I also think he will try and govern from a centrist position. I'm not thrilled about that, but it may be the best way for the Democratic party to plant some seeds of doubt in the minds of rightwingers, and to get its foot in the door of a lot of American rightwing homes.
I am also a bit concerned about our national attention deficit problem come the midterms of 2010. I think the Dems have enough of a lead in the House and Senate chambers that a bad 2010 midterm wouldn't necessarily cause majorities to be lost... but it might not bode well for 2012.
To win in 2010, I think the Dems need to have our troops out of Iraq, be well on our way to getting Afghanistan under control, have the economy recovering by then, and have more Americans back to work... all with no terror attacks on U.S. soil in the meantime. Universal healthcare would be nice, but I don't know how soon it will happen with all the other stuff that will have to get done. Cleaning up after Bush's mess will take years, after all.
As for those rays of sunshine, it is a relief to hear Obama's appointees saying things that are simply common sense, things which we have all known all along as the way things should be said and done. After the last eight years of Orwellian garbage, I was wondering if we would ever hear such common sense things coming from officials again.
Snave: I'm mostly just happy that Dumbya is out of office. Obama will probably be a lot more centrist (out of necessity if not by choice) than most liberals would like. That's fine with me.
The problems we're all facing are staggering, and they've been building for years, decades. I think most people understand that Obama and Congress have their work cut out for them and won't have any magic solutions. The rightwing slander machine will try to paint Obama as a failure, or as a communist whenever he succeeds. But I think that group has lost most of their persuasion power. Rush O'Hannity will keep preaching to the choir, but it shouldn't have as much impact as it used to.
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