Groundhog Day 2008: Same As It Ever Was

This morning I awoke to the cackling of my clock radio informing me that we have six more weeks of winter ahead. Well, no sh#t! As a resident of Minnesota, I really didn't need the prognostication of Punxsutawney Phil to tell me that. Alot like the irrelevance of weather coverage on local television news programs, I can simply stick my head outside to see what the weather is and I am enough of an adult to figure out by myself what the appropriate outer wear for the day is, thank you very much.

Well another year has gone by but the news just seems to be recycling itself. Bombs exploding in Baghdad with horrific casulties, coups and inter-tribal murder in Africa and Republicans trying to buy another election with promises of ill-advised tax cuts and the continuation of the big lies from the Reagan era: that supply side economic theory works and that the Democrats are the party of taxation and deficit spending.

Much like Benjamin Franklin's wry reasoning well over 200 years ago, ("Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."); any American voting in the 2008 election who would sell their vote to McCain or Romney for the promise of another huge tax cut for the wealthiest among us (i.e. making the Bush tax cuts permanent) at a time when we are deficit spending on a $1 Trillion Dollar plus war of choice is neither a conservative nor a patriot.

*Originally published 2/02/08 on blogspot Prairie Fire by Plainsense c. 2008 http://prairefire.blogspot.com/