Smoke and mirrors

From: Brady Ernst, Dassel (formerly Lester Prairie)

A lot of people are talking about what to do about Iran, Sotomayor, Honduras, the economy, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

The Democrats are even kicking around the idea of a second stimulus. I wonder if that is because the last one was such a success. Maybe that sarcasm is misplaced – I guess if you forget about the 9+ percent unemployment heading to 10 percent, sinking stock market, and additional deficit, it is soaring right along.

Yet, everyone seems to have forgotten the big change that was coming to Washington.

Republicans will say that the spending has skyrocketed.They’d be right. It’s been skyrocketing since about mid-January 2001. Yes, faithful Republicans, I mean 2001.

Democrats, on the other hand, would say that our nation has been more compassionate and accepting of other nations. Again, they would be right. Never before has America been so open-armed when being slapped around by Third World despots.

What about all the other big topics of the last couple years that both parties said they could fix?

Let’s just use Guantanamo Bay and Iraq.

For a good chunk of the election, Obama spoke about how he would close down Guantanamo Bay immediately after the election and make the world think we were all neato again.

Yet, when it came time to do it, the very people that howled about it the most – Pelosi and Reed – would not give him the funding to close it.

Nobody wanted these people in their districts. All in all that is ridiculous, if our prisons are that incapable of detaining people we may want to address that. Just maybe?

Guantanamo Bay is not going to close. It would be political suicide for the Democrats. It was a typical campaign promise – a lie.

Then we had Iraq. Wow, that was a big one. Obama said we would be out in a year, 16 months, 18 months, whatever. Who really cares about the time frame? It will never happen.

McCain plainly stated we would be in the Middle East as long as we need to. Obama said we would be leaving. In truth, they were both lying. McCain said we would leave when we are done. We will never leave. The reason? We will never be done as long as we are there, they attack us because we are there.

Something far too many people forget, ignore, or they just do not cover it on “American Idol,” we still have tens of thousands of troops stationed in Germany, Japan, and Korea.

If we are still defending Europe from the deceased USSR, when do you think we will be done “defending” the Middle East from Muslim extremists?

The point of that is that the European countries and South Korea do not mind our presence on their soil. After all, our tax dollars and soldiers are defending their borders, so why should they have to pay the cost of defense?

The Arabs, on the other hand, absolutely detest our presence. Their land is sacred and to be for their people only, not our “infidel” boots.

So, the two biggest talking points will not change under the “new” administration. What about everything else?

Neither side will do anything to replace lost jobs on our shores.

Someday, there is a chance, our economy will produce jobs, but these will not be the jobs our economy needs. The high-paying manufacturing jobs are gone, and will not come back under current policy.

Government may grow and hire more people, but last time I checked, the government gets their money from our over -taxed wages. Our ever growing service sector will likely create jobs, at eight bucks an hour with no benefits. Go buy a house with that, buy a car, have a child.

Our schools will continue to decline, because our education system will have to be dumbed down to accommodate the illiterate masses that flood their hallways after being raised by reality television and pop culture, because both parents have to work just to tread water.

Higher education admittance tests will have to be simplified to accommodate the ever-declining intelligence of our inner cities, coupled with our porous borders. After all, our new motto is “diversity at all costs.”

This brings us to the border. Everyone knows why neither party will do anything to stop the Third World invasion of our country.

Republicans get too much money from big business, and Democrats get too many votes from the poor, uneducated immigrant electorate. So, our electorate will change. Soon, instead of only making sure our foreign policy takes Israel into consideration, we will have to appease Mexico, India, Somalia, and Lord knows where else.

Lastly, our money will continue to decline in value. No, Republicans, not because of runaway spending. It will lose value because the (non)Federal (non)Reserve is our source of money. It prints money and then borrows it to us – with interest. Only it does not print the money to pay the interest, so the presses have to continue to print more and more money.

Do you wonder why every generation is amazed at how the price of everything goes up? Because it has to. Our money source can never stop producing money or our economy would grind to a halt.

Neither party is going to fix these problems, because they are the problem. Like I said in the lead up to this election, it makes no difference who gets elected, they are the same person.

What do you get if you put Republican in front of a mirror? The same thing if you put a Democrat in front of a mirror.

Demand change for health care reform

From: John Deitering, Buffalo

There is a battle raging in America that needs the attention of every citizen. Seventy-six percent of the American people want health care reform, and corporate health care is spending $1.4 million dollars per day to make sure that we don’t get it.

The system we have now – dominated by insurance companies – has given us health care that excludes 47 million Americans, has doubled our insurance premiums in the past eight years, costs us more per capita than any other country in the world, limits our choice of doctors, creates profits by denying treatment, delivers a health care that ranks 37th in the world, and blocks consumers from buying cheaper name-brand drugs from countries like Canada.

Health care reform will not be freely given to you; you must take power away from corporate health care, and give it to the American people.

We must demand a universally available public healthcare option that will compete with private insurance.

Call your senators and representatives. We have been waiting a lifetime for health care reform. Now is the time to demand real change.

Crying wolf puts everyone at risk

From: Michelle Bekkala, Cokato

While going for a walk with my friend the other day, I received a text message on my phone that said, “Amber Alert! A three year old girl taken by a man in a silver truck, plate number 72B381 near Cokato, MN. Put the word and some prayers out.”

Being a mother myself, I began to worry. I also began to pray for this little innocent child that someone had swept up from playing in her own yard. Like any honest and caring human being, the message bothered me a great deal. I did find some positive in the idea that the message could reach so many people so quickly, and hopefully the girl could be found.

Approximately 15 minutes later, I received another message saying, “My dad called dispatch, and that message was a hoax. He said to let ppl no.” I was overjoyed to hear that there was no little girl taken near my home in Cokato, MN.

But I was also furious that someone could be so thoughtless to start a false message, crying wolf so this great method of fast communication doesn’t work next time. If my little girl was taken, I would want every single person in the county looking for her, not wasting time wondering whether or not they should believe the text.

This did bring up a scary scenario, and it has reminded me that as neighbors we should be looking out for one another, especially in our small town. May God be with our little ones.