Morning

I attended a nice gathering of bipartisan friends last night. Politics did not really enter into the conversations except for a general agreement that the volume of the rhetoric needs to drop down many notches. Here in New York it is clearly understood that this is a blue state and so the quantity of negative advertising and such is slightly reduced. However people noted that in the swing states the intensity and quantity of negative ads is overwhelming. In a sense we are at the threshold of the super charged negative advertising political message era therefor one can only imagine how much lower that bar will drop in future political campaigns.

It's been another rough week with more outrageous shootings and violence in the US. In a way the hatchet attacks of the politicians seems to mirror the anger and hatred that is palpable within our society. On the fringes we have more and more groups that are interested in civil wars, shooting abortion providers, murdering innocent minority religious people, and on and on plus their messages of hatred are now more visible and present in the news. Bless the MSN's jaded little heart for recognizing the country's insatiable need for car wreck equivalent news. Fear and contempt still sell.

One item that caught my attention was Limbaugh's recent rant about the intelligence level of the country. He noted a poll that showed 52% of voters believe Obama will be best suited to helping the interests of the middle class, while only 39% believe Romney is more suited for that particular task. This naturally made Limbaugh furious and the 52% are a gaggle of idiots. I think what is surprising for many of us is that as many as 39% believe that Romney will actually help the middle class. This is a victory for the FOX News sector that has turned propaganda into a sacred art. How could so many people possibly believe that cutting even more taxes on the job outsourcers while raising taxes on the middle class itself would help their lot, let alone completely removing the last vestiges of a social safety net along with privatizing SSI and eliminating medicare. I don't really have a plan for the Romney presidency and how to personally make economic adjustments, but I am working on it.

All in all, politics is depressing or rather it is definitely in a depressing state. I don't know how this bitter effervescent division in this country improves. The right has become intractable by abandoning any tiny willingness to negotiate. The time of the moderate approachable conservative is long gone replaced with a shrillness that is sickening as in nauseating. I am out of ideas on this knowing full well that authoritarianism does not compromise, it's all about take no prisoners victory. We know that there is more contraction in the global economy meaning that the stresses that provoke outrageous and often violent behaviors in people are increasing.

We are open to suggestions.