That Hopey, Changey Thing Works For Me!

Last week at the first Teabegger's convention, Sarah Palin asked people if that hopey, changey thing was working for them. Naturally, like lemmings headed out to sea the rabid crowd laughed and said no. Well, if the people in the audience thought about it, they should have reversed the question and asked Sarah if it worked for her. Of course she would have have laughed and said no, but that answer is just a small part of her hypocrisy.

Of course it worked for her! Look where she is, standing in front of a podium of adoring, loving fans who didn't have a clue of who she was 18 months ago. And that is the crux of my blog, there are people who have succeeded, like it or not because of President Obama. His mantra of hope and change for better or worse has transformed people from relative obscurity to overnight celebrity and stardom.

Sarah Palin was a complete unknown until John McCain, who was losing badly to then candidate Barak Obama pulled the trigger, putting Palin on the ticket as Veep. Ever since he star has risen, appearances on SNL, Fox News, written a book that has made her millions, hell, she's everywhere, and now, she has become an spokesperson for Fox News, as well as talk as a 2012 GOP Presidential hopeful. So, how can she stand in front of a crowd and say that the hopey changey thing hasn't helped her, that's what she said and she's lying. Maybe instead of bashing our President, she needs to thank him daily for taking her out of Alaska.

The hopey, changey thing sure has helped me. Last year I was in Atlanta, Ga not knowing that my services would be terminated in a month. I was there doing well, but looking to do better. Yes, I was let go and out of work for 4 months, but it could have been a lot worse. Now, here I am in Memphis, TN and look what has happened in the 6 months since I moved here - everything! In this picture I'm standing in the middle of Nanjing Row in Shanghai. If you told me last year I'd be doing this or that my salary would increase almost 50 per cent then you would think me to be nuts, but sure enough this happened. Hopey and changey did me well, I surely not complaining.

The point is that hope and change is here, you, the individual have to recognize and take advantage when your turn comes. Don't believe people like Sarah Palin because the last thing she wants is for hope and change to come to you, Why? Because not believing in hope or change keeps her employed, that's why. Ask any Senate or House GOP member if they want hope or change, of course not, they want to keep people afraid of hope and change while benefiting from it at the same time. For all their ranting and raving about the "Spendulus Package" who's the first in line claiming credit when the first shovel is turned on a new project from the Stimulus? You guessed it, GOP senators whose districts and states are benefiting from the same program they tried to kill.

Hopey and changey are here and for anyone to tell you the opposite is a fool, so don't get fooled by a fool whose only hope for change is controlling you. The people in the audience in Nashville last week hung on every word Sarah Palin spoke or wrote on her hand. Hope and change came for her as she continues to fleece her flock.

Resilience

Resilience(n): an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change

Last night our nation witnessed something few of us who follow the NFL would have thought possible. The New Orleans Saints, after more than forty years of utter futility, won the Super Bowl. Now, I'm not disrespecting the Saints or it's fans, just stating the facts. Ever since it's inception in 1966, this team had been that laughing stock of the NFL, with Tom Dempsey's field goal being the signature "win" of the franchise. Things go so bad that fans would come to games with bags over their heads calling themselves the "Aint's".

All of that disappeared last night because in one game all the futility and ineptness were swept away forever.

This victory should be a wake up call for our nation. Four and a half years ago, the city of New Orleans was hit with one of the worst hurricanes ever. People sleeping in the streets and the Superdome. A city underwater, wondering if it would ever come back. A people turned desperate had become demoralized by their misfortune. A franchise, wondering where games would be held, playing almost anywhere not knowing if this was their last game. For a while, the Saints had become gypsies, drifting from town to city, trying to hold on.

The people however were resilient in their resolve to rebuild and get this tragedy righted. All is still not perfect, but it will be, with The Big Easy coming back stronger than ever. Te Saints asked for no quarter and gave none. They dealt the cards given to them the best they could, stumbling and fumbling along the way, but they got there, never losing sight on the prize.

Last night was a testament to a people, a citizenry who never, ever gave up. The rest of our nation should take the lessons learned and heed their call. We can get through our seemingly endless number of problems if we stick together and work for the common good. Our goal should be like those people on Bourbon Street. These people never wanted to die or fade away, they wanted to live, live to see this victory last night.

I am proud of them,
I am a Saint!!

Over Before It Started (RIP Wendell Wilkie)

Tonight, three hours north east of here, there's a party going on, a Tea Party. Seems like the people gave themselves this name had no problem in revisionist history of the original two and a half centuries ago. It is also very interesting that the first Tea Party convention had a sold out crowd of 600 which everyone is now calling a movement. Just goes to show you how much America has down-sized itself in the last five years.

The participants, mostly middle to old age white males and females are the same cast of characters we saw during the 2008 presidential election. They are a mean ornery bunch who are dead certain their views are right and that it is only they who can bring our nation out of wilderness and back to prosperity.

Naturally, this collection of odd balls, nutcases, revisionists and whatever think that they hold the keys to the kingdom while everyone else in our nation is chicken fodder. They're anti-Muslim, anti-gay, anti-multiculturalism, in other words just plain anti.

Tonight, they have found a leader to whip them into shape to take on the Obamanation in 2012. Her name is Sarah Palin. The last time we saw Sarah, she had resigned her post as Alaska's head of state, claiming that the pressure of her celebrity, the fame of heading SNL and the media wanting her scalp was too much and she had to resign for the good of the state. Funny, the people of Alaska could have cared less and were happy to see the circus called Palin Inc. leave.

So here we are in Nashville, the birthplace of country music and in the state where the KKK was born giving birth to new form of delusion. These people see it all slipping away, their America slipping away down a rough slope called change. What these Tea Partiers fail to realize is that no matter what new or revisionist plan they hatch to "take back" America, our nation for the most part has moved on. A recent CNN poll showed that at least 40 per cent of those polled don't know who or what the Tea Party is. Not a good sign for a group that has put itself front and center as an antidote to Obamanation.

There have already been cracks in the "tea bags" with differing factions already splintering into more shadowy groups as well the the GOP trying to ride on their coattails. Add Sarah Palin into the mix and you have a powder keg, ready to explode and last but not least, the same factions who put President Obama in office waiting, just waiting to have their voices heard.

Tom Candero fired the first salvo at the convention, saying the those who voted for the socialist Obama couldn't spell the word vote. Funny, there were a lot of people who couldn't spell that word and there will be even more in fall of 2010 and 2012.

The picture posted here is one of me and my counterpart, Frank Zuo, taken at the Bund in downtown Shanghai. This picture represents the future of our country, not the past Tea Partiers are so beholden too. Our communication with other countries who don't look like us are critical to our nations over all survival. Tea Partiers nor Sarah Palin are going to stop this, they will be steamrolled if try too because the world is interconnected more than ever before.

In the mid 1930s, Wendell Wilkie was a populist candidate who ranted and raved against the New Deal put forth by FDR. That election came and went with Wilkie getting his clocked clean and fading into the netherworld of American history. Wilkie however, did side with FDR later on the issue of isolationism. People change has started, there is no going back.

The original Tea Party was one of great change and was another breeze that fanned the flames revolution years later. Those Tea Partiers were visionaries, the ones sadly parodying themselves as the original are cartoon characters, just like their anointed leader.