Empty stomachs are stuboorn things.

Richard: I’ll be charitable, but the fact you are oblivious to the train coming straight at you warms my heart.

We have demographics on our side.

Eighteen year olds who don’t give a damn about gay marriage become 24 year olds who won’t respond to the dog whistle when used.

Hispanics who hate being called names and used as fodder for scare tactics about stolen elections will put their vote with the Democrats, not the frothing militia nuts of the far right ho have taken over immigration debate.

Gays, well sure there are self haters among every group. Blacks, we’ve been hip to the Neo-Confederate bent of the party for 30 years. You’ll never get us back.

act is every metric about where the country’s population lives, what ethnic make we have, and the general insanity of the Teabagger’s running the GOP push people away from that party to ours.

Please nominate the Moose Hunter and the Exorcist in 2012 and we’ll see what’s what.

Palin/Jindal
Moose & Squirrely/2012

Richard: I’ll be charitable, but the fact you are oblivious to the train coming straight at you warms my heart.

Nice effort but rather Cliche to call somone a coward then drag the Red Herring acroos the scent. Of Course every society on Earth at any time in any place has assissination as a factor in politics. Are the Secret Service armed with Marsmallow guns?

Are you so afraid of potential death and violence as to let it bend your whole being into quitting certain lines of thought and action.

The slow, elongated death of the Democratic Party began in earnest in 1980 and will be completed with the crushing defeat of Obama in 2012.

In what universe will the party that puts Sarah Palin as potential leader of the free world crush a siting president? I know that if you listen Glenn Beck it’s the patriotic teabaggers against Marxist enslavement, but on this side of the looking glass the GOP is still the party of a single idea — tax cuts as solution to every problem.

They’re busy fainting over actually bringing the men who inflicted 9/1 on this country to trial.

It’s the party of global warming denial. It’s the party of the status quo for health insurance, which is a principle reason we are uncompetitive with other countries when it comes to labor.

It’s the party of weapons that are overpriced and unneeded, enriching Haliburton and Raytheon instead of preparing for the real threats of the future.

The GOP has staked it’s heart and soul on trying to recapture a past that never existed, a rosy America where those with the right colored skin ran everything instead of dealing with the demographic reality of black and Latino swing voters who will run away from freaks like Palin in droves. The young are not obsessed with abortion and whether homosexuals can marry, but the GOP is, so it will not be the party of the young.

You have at best one more election cycle, 2010 where the Republicans might stave off disaster but that’s it.

So enjoy your tea, you’ll need all the calming come election night three years hence.

Palin/Jindal
Moose & Squirrelly/2012

But when something big occurs like 9-11-01, we somehow set aside our differences and come together. And then God help those who dared attack us.

The “greatest generation” fought selflessly and ferociously and did so without threat of the Bomb. Political strings have always been attached to American military commands, but the prospects of nuclear war made political calculations (and the value of world opinion) far more prominent. I wonder if Vietnam and Korea would have turned out differently had there been no Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and no Soviet and Chinese nuclear missiles.

The Bomb has been a mixed blessing. It ended the war in Japan and brought peace (and ultimately freedom) to Europe. It allowed America to shrink its military while at the same time assuring protection to its allies (who also downsized their militaries and invested in industry). WW II was a slam-dunk win for America, but once our adversaries got the Bomb, America has had to be far more cautious in military conflicts. Russia and China have had to watch their step too. The Bomb is the ultimate equalizer (which is why Iran seeks one).

While Americans tend to think of Korea as a stalemate and Vietnam as a lost war, I do not blame those who fought there. Neither in Iraq or Afghanistan. I believe the punishment inflicted on the enemy in those conflicts has far exceeded our losses.

To summarize, I think much of the ambiguous results of recent American wars is due to unavoidable geo-political constraints. It’s easy to blame politicians for unpleasant, complex problems. On balance, I think they’ve generally done the right thing. And I believe those who currently serve are as fine soldiers as we’ve ever had.

I look forward to the DVD. Hope I don’t have to wait too long.