Morning

Just got in from a very long walk, it was to the bagel shop and back. Anything that helps to wear the dog out is good. The walk took about 1.5 hours. On the way back the temperature started to drop and all of a sudden we got a decent snow squall. A few minutes later and the sun is out. I must admit right about now I am overly ready for spring. Even though its been a very moderate winter, by the end of February I've had enough.

I was thinking about the politics of Santorum, it's the politics of exclusion. It boils down to his platform being about who and what he wants to exclude in America. Contraception is now to be excluded. Gays are excluded, of course. Women's health care is excluded. Where does this come from? What human frailty is responsible for the development of an entire political system that is predicated on the need to keep people out. When you put it that way it sounds like racism but its not exactly that is it. Its racism and more spread out over a panorama of people and ideas. I feel compelled to mention once again that the authoritarian personality needs to exclude people. From the authoritarian point of view this is a good thing just as hierarchy is a good thing and democracy is not. Democracy is as we know socialism, from the authoritarian perspective.

Given the present political landscape, at this juncture I believe Obama wins re-election. There's a ways to go and change is inevitable, but the GOP is out of gas right now and the majority of the electorate is not pleased with the politics of exclusion. Only a few extremists are happy with it and given the extremism found in FOX News, exclusion is being media dumped on the many like it or not. I do not like it, and in fact I am pretty sick of it as well. I'm tired of reading about Santorum's latest misery pronouncement.