While Gaza burns, in the US we starve...

I was advising for several months leading into the general election that the key for our recovery was to watch who we are sending to our Congress... I hate to say I told you so... But reading the declarations of senators and representatives regarding what we need to do to turn around our path into a depression deeper than the one in the 1930's has irritated me to no end... the idiots we got there have no understanding of economy. They believe in what the faculties in places like Harvard had been feeding them, for years now, is the true law of economics. Hardly, first because economics isn't a science no matter what Mardi Gras costume you make it wear... It's an art, and only real artists get the feeling for it, that's why there are so few who understand the processes... There are however facts, and the first fact is that there is no profit if there are no costumers... The old Ford understood it real well... he created jobs so the people who took those jobs could become his costumers... and in that fashion he made his fortune, while his heirs are running the business into the ground... simple, but way beyond the understanding of those MBAs and lawyers that we surround ourselves in the halls of our government... Well, I'm looking forward to what tomorrow will bring to my attention hoping that I will be able to rant some more... Disgusting...

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and others like John Conyers, Kent Conrad … are showing their usefulness eroding by their pressing on power issues… The reality is that Obama can count with only 49 democratic senators plus Lieberman (anxious to be forgiven the faux-pas of endorsing the loosing McCain) and not all of the House democrats. Enough to sway some results with the help of Biden and other leaders in the House wary of Pelosi's grandiosity. Perhaps is time to rethink the leadership positions in both chambers… and send some home to rest...
The problem that democrats face (as witnessed under Carter, Clinton, and now during Obama's transition) is a complete misunderstanding of what political principles are. The business of running the largest economical structure and military power on the planet demand a clear understanding of how principles work.
It has to begin with grasping the concept that political principles are pragmatic propositions. Ideas which have shown through our history to be useful and beneficial for our society in the long run. Not statements within a political credo in a theological sense. Roosevelt and Truman and Kennedy and Johnson and Carter and Clinton accomplished many things when they exercised flexibility and blew it when choosing principled rigidity.
Actually the democratic turncoat who became the patriarch of the Republican Credo, Ronald Reagan, learned his lesson early and well. The problem was that he never had the energy to reign in on the shadowy characters (of which GHWB was the most relevant) inherited from the disastrous Nixon administration and who doomed any thing he tried to accomplish… As that the old Ronny was well spoken but terrible at carrying out his intentions… He wasn't a great communicator but a good actor able to put feeling in his delivery and capture the empathy of his listeners, although at the same time, he wasn't a seasoned commander expertly able to lead the troops...
Obama already knows the pitfalls of such approach and is learning how to overcome it… But he needs help and little is forthcoming… it is up to us to put pressure on our legislators to get anything accomplished which might go against the big interests, those which prey on our hopes and labor… and to provide a larger offset to the leftist bullshit trying to establish ownership on Obama's victory in November...

"Frank, What makes you believe for even one minute that the Democratic Congress, wants to live by 'principles'? They wanted control, they want things their way, all you had to do was listen to Pelousy rant and rave about the first bailout they tried to push through."

First at all, it is unfair to characterize Democrats as a solid marching army, they are very far from that. Second, it is unfair to characterize them as a whole by the antics of Nancy Pelosi. As a matter of a fact, GWB provoked the rise of Pelosi and Reed. In a country where the message was controlled by the White House and Faux News, the opposition needed to put up front somebody who could match the childish emotional image coming from the Administration in control of the business. At that, Pelosi and Reed were very useful. The final takeover by the fascism of the Cheney's and Rumsfeld's was prevented. There is still enough damage to be undone and that is a priority business... but now the country needs constructive leaders, not raving leaders... come to think of it, we need leaders period. Obama cannot do it himself... fortunately most of his picks are good leaders too, but they are yet to get to work... The Pelosi and Reed reactive team approach of the 2007-2008 Congress, need to be replaced by a different team approach for 2009-2010. A constructive one. A proactive and pragmatic one. In a country where almost half of the population still believe that we were in the right path with the Republican control, and where Obama won as much by mobilizing new people to the polls, as by the fact that he wouldn't have won if much less voters convinced that the country was on the right track haven't stayed home. The truth is that one in four or five voters who would have voted Republican actually didn't vote. And that made a great difference. Looking to the factors which played at keeping them at home, Pelosi and Reed, and the reaction they produced, had the biggest hand. So I am right when I said Pelosi and Reed and the likes are losing the usefulness they had for the democratic process "before the election", and now they are becoming a dangerous bump in the urgency of the time we live. We can't afford slowing down in the name of "their" principles or the BS of their rap. And, yes, I think "most" democrats act based in principles, at the same time that I see that Republicans and Libertarians act based on their patrons' wishes... As I said, I am a pragmatic kind of guy and a conservative one at that... the kind of conservative that tries to save what works for our community and fix what it doesn't work, and shy about embracing unproven and dangerous revolutionary schemes... which at the end are more of a product from the leftist fascism than of real humanistic principles...

(As for Republican principles, they were killed long time ago, thanks to Theodore Roosevelt)