I was out grocery shopping today. After I loaded my stuff in the car, I struck out for home. Where the parking lot entrance empties onto the street there was a gal about 30 or so with a dog and a sign that read: We're hoping for a miracle.... There were other smaller words I could make out. I buzzed past her and dove for a hole in the speeding traffic, but her sign and her obvious plight tugged at me. Next light, I took a right and doubled back. I got a ten outta my wallet as I worked my way to that exit again. This time, I had the passengers window down as I pulled up to the curb and stopped. I told her I didn't believe in miracles and that there's only us to help each other or look the other way. I also gqave her the extremely short version of my own times of hardship - where I lived outta my truck. She allowed as how "they" ( I took that to mean she and a companion besides the dog) had weighed trying to sell the truck that had stranded them in this blood red district of California. I allowed as how tghey'd picked a bad place to have a breakdown - what with my having lived and seen what folks are like here for 20-some years.
She took the ten-spot and thanked me dearly. As I drove off, I felt like a chump for not giving more. I sure to hell hope they make their destination of LA. They'd have a better chance of making it there than here.

It should have felt good - handing her that 10 bucks. But it nagged me that I hadn't handed her a 20 or whatever. I could have.

I opened yet another e-mail from the DCCC today. This one uses Biden's image and proxy plea to donate quick - before the deadline of midnight, March 31st. Of course, there's those ever ready wealthy benefactors who're anxious to match whatever meager amount we can ante up - as an incentive to do so. Who ARE these folks anyway?

The other day I got yet another one of those "Survey/Donation" questionaires with Tim Kaine's signature on it. There's about 20 questions aimed at stirring liberal blood cells to the point of hypertension. Real intellectual stuff like - would you like to see Republican or Democratic ideals pursued. And you just KNOW damn well that whatever answers you choose or write in - no one every tabulates them and give them consideration. It's ALL about getting you to check the suggested amount and providing your credit car number. I really DO wonder how much is spent on mailing that crap out. And how effective is it as getting a return?

Now, I'm not deluding myself into thinking that VP Biden will EVER see my reply to the auto-generated plea that was in my e-mail box this AM. But I wrote a reply anyways. More for myself than the VP or the DCCC.......


"Joe, tell those generous gift-matchers to match the $2K I'd give if we had it to give. We're too busy trying to figure out how to survive on the shrinking income we're having to contend with. It's shrinking - in no small part because there's NO "comfortable shoes" action in the states where our guvamint jobs are under seige. Between THAT betrayal and wondering how many more SS checks are gonna come my way, we're holding onto whatever pennies we can.
The Democratic Party is NOT what it advertizes itself to be these days. And frankly - we're tired of succumbing to the sales hype - signing a contract to buy a new car - only to be delivered a tricycle with no pedals."

The one in my head that is. Yes, I have understood the sub-topical forces at work in Wisconsin and on other "fronts". But those fronts have kept me from focusing on what the real goals are. I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the brave protesters in WI see this as a black & white issue of them retaining their rights to a union. Same with agnry folks in other locales.
What's REALLY at stake is something WAY MORE sinister. It's something I started to get a vision of when Clinton was "treating" us to what were avant garde (for us) manuvers in the global markets. Who wouldn't think that free trade was a good thing? That international flow of goods would benefit both side of each exchange? I wasn't even a Democrat at the time - not a Republican either. But to my simple-minded powers of perception, I had this nagging wonder as to how trading with backwards nations - nations that could turn out hand-made sandals, say, as a primary product - could afford the high-tech and highly priced products made by Americans???
Instead of giving it an honest go, the old standards of US industry just closed up and went overseas. There they made the same stuff we used to and sold it to us still - at the same (now much more profit-bearing) prices as we'd happily paid before. Sure, Billy-boy left us with a "surplus". And wasn't that a nice thing for him to do. But REALLY - he fucked us. He used the same charm that seduced Monica Lewinsky to stick it to the American people.
Assess how you will - the two torturous terms with a guy you'd drink a beer with. He was different from Bill in that he was up front about what he was doing to us. The money that bought him time in the oval office was money well spent if you were thsoe who spent it.
NOW...... All Hail the Great Black Hope. Even Rachel Maddow couldn't hide her disappointment in him last night. The same Rachel Maddow who'd only recently laid out in numbing detail - all the great things that have happened on his watch. That Rachel Maddow was in disbelief that our President seems almost ignorant of the struggles of the little folks as tea party marionettes dingle-dangle their way to the goals of their super-wealthy masters. And we're almost there - to those goals. We're almost to us equalling the Chinese in freedoms and voice. Is it TOO LATE to reverse things? Money - especially when it's concentrated in the hands of merciless, wanna-be Monarchs - is a weapon more powerful than firearms.