Brutal Crackdowns and GOP Second Thoughts

In The Middle East the dictators would seem be be killing away and in the United States the GOP is having second thoughts about its recent overreach.

Here are some issues that surface for me.

1. President Obama had some fun recently but became sober at the end of his speech. He he spoke out for speaking truth. Then why does he not pardon Bradley Manning?

2. The Paul Ryan excursion into fiscal genius contention has been nipped in the bud. Largely because he has transparently exempted the wealthy from a sharing the pain.

3. Unless the GOP wants to go down in flames, it will find a candidate who is not a Birther or communicate via Twitter. That might give voters a real choice in 2012.

4. Continued laxness in regulating the banks is a huge risk. Banks borrowed money for nothing and then loaned it back to us at interest. This was unpatriotic usury. They must be regulated.

5. No one can run for office any more. I have never felt a political career was less possible because of the money it takes to enter. Talk of the President raising a billion does little to suggest that there will be much leadership to favor the small and the poor.

6. I hope the democratic revolution takes a deep breath and continues its growth into a massive wave of nonviolent assertion of democratic rights that does not stop anywhere, not least in this country where we are as much a part of the global problem as a solution to it.

And I hope that the media begins to do some serious analysis of things to substitute for a year or more of silliness and extraneous chatter.

Brutal Crackdowns and GOP Second Thoughts