Author David Gerrold..."Lets Talk"

Mr Gerrolds "discussion" will be in regular font.  My responses shall be in italics.  Now...without further ado...let us begin shall we? Mr Gerrold posted this to his facebook wall which friends and fans promptly shared, and some of their friends and so on and so forth.
*Note for any new people. I'm going to be my usual uncharming self, yes there WILL be cussing involved. Probably not as much as I'm prone to usually.  If this offends your sensibilities, I understand.  I don't really care but I do understand.

I want to start a different conversation. Very different.

How different Mr Gerrold? if you mean without all the name calling and back biting that WOULD be nice.  Yeah,  I know readers...mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima fucking culpa.

Think for a moment about the current state of this nation.

Uhhhh I do. Every day. I rant about it constantly actually. Alas no one pays attention. Except of course those  by and large who feel as I do. *shrug* preaching to the choir an all that.

The majority of Americans are not fright-wing teabaggers.

Whoa! Stop right there!  I thought you wanted to have a different conversation Mr Gerrold. So pray tell me?  How is your "discussion" going to be different from any other discussion I get involved with, with those on the "left"  when you start out this way?  Seriously dude? So far, I don't see the difference.

The majority of Americans are not even conservatives, do not consider themselves republicans. In fact, the republican party is losing members. Many in the republican demographic are relocating to cemeteries. Others are losing patience and declaring themselves as independents.

Mr Gerrold? The fact that people are leaving the party is not a sign that they aren't conservative. Just a sign that they are sick of a republican national committee, that is every bit as back room dealing, back stabbing and underhanded as teh "chicago machine" inspired, democrat party.  Believe me, I was NOT happy with what was done during the last  couple presidential elections...by EITHER machine.

Nevertheless, we have a republican-dominated congress committed to obstructing the functioning of the federal government.

Whoa there Mr Gerrold.  Republican Dominated Congress?  Uhhh no. The Dems control the Senate while the Repubs have marginal control of the House. Dominated my aching hairy ass.   Verily Mr Gerrold let me ask; Do you remember why we have 3 branches of government?  I do. Calling it obstructionist just means in this case you don't agree with the Republicans.  For once...they were doing their goddamn job. Acting as a check and balance on an executive branch that's growing ever more...used to having it's own way and over exercising[to put it mildly] it's powers and reaching in ways it was never meant to.  How have they done this? Forex....Filibusters. Both sides have done it.  2 very well known ones recently...probably the only true filibusters of the last couple decades. Wendy Davis here in Texas in teh Texas state congress and Ted Cruz in the federal one.   I'll be blunt, I don't like Wendy Davis.  However...she stood up for what she believed and filibustered...in favor of a subject that makes me want to puke.  Ted Cruz did the same thing on the federal level and the reasons for his were even more worrisome...in that I wish he hadn't had to do the filibuster.  To try to get people's attention to a subject that should worry everyone.  The difference is Wendy Davis, was praised as a hero. While Ted Cruz has been cast as the ebil "obstructionist" tea bagger. *snort* hahahahaha, Oh man that's FUNNY shit right there!  NOT.



They have seized power by gerrymandering and denying voting rights. They have repeatedly lied, misrepresented, misdirected, and propagandized. They have worked to convince Americans that we cannot trust our own government -- a government that was designed to be by the people, of the people, and for the people ... and accountable to the people.

Uhhh who seized power by gerrymandering districts?  Newsflash the Dems are just as, if not more guilty than the repubs. Notice I'm not saying repubs haven't done it...just that Dems do it more. Generally along  color and culture lines.  Propaganda? ROFL  It's only in the last year or two  that some [very few] in the Progressive Propaganda Ministry have started asking questions that Fox, Breitbart and tons of other independents and bloggers and citizens have been asking since the beginning of Obama's term in 08.  Oh wait...you probably don't know what I mean by the Progressive Propaganda Ministry, or the PPM for short.  So let me explain. The PPM is what I call the Main Stream Media, The big 3 Networks, networks like CNN and MSNBC,,,, also the far left leaning blog sites like slate and Daily Kos, Mother Jones and others.  Very rarely do they question anything Obama or the Dems in congress do. They go out of their way to NOT ask questions that others are asking.  They are in short owned, used, abused and trained lap dogs for the Government. Another bunch of useless fuckwits who've forgotten what their purpose is.


The robber barons and the corporations have bought our electoral process, have seized control of our media, have distracted us with phony issues to keep us from noticing that they are polluting our air and our water and our food, crippling the working class, and punishing the poor, all while further enriching themselves and putting the burden on our backs.

Again...how is this a different conversation Mr Gerrold?  Right down the progessive bullet point list.  So far this "different conversation" is as predictable as the rising and setting of the sun.


To be blunt, we are living behind enemy lines. Our schools and libraries are being diminished, our colleges are being made too expensive for working class families, health care costs have risen drastically. The minimum wage has not kept pace with the cost of living.

Yep still bullet points.  However...how are our schools being diminished?  If you mean more and more people are electing to send their kids to private schools or electing to home school, then yes...they are to a small extent.  As far as libraries?  It's a function of technology. As a Scifi aka speculative fiction, author...you SHOULD understand this.  More and more people are going electronic. Therefore more and more of the information they need is in that medium so they don't need to go to the libraries.  I like both forms, dead tree and ebooks but...space is valuable so more of my stuff is going to ebook form. 

Being nostalgic for the fifties isn't misguided. In the fifties, the corporations paid their fair share, the richest salaries in the nation were not exorbitant and outrageous, and you could live on the minimum wage.

Generally it's "conservatives" who are supposed to be pining for the old days. Those same conservatives get ripped by the the tolerant "peace and love' liberals  for wanting to bring back segregation, no abortions, unless they were back alley ones and an end to civil rights.  Ahh but you do it and all the sudden it's not misguided it's a return to the Golden Age?  Sure it is. and horses will dance and pigs will fly, and giant birdies will shit gold bricks from the sky.   Seriously?  I wouldn't mind the latter...lord knows I, like a great  many others could use the money.  Just have to keep a weather eye on the sky so you don't get pole axed by a gold brick.

What we have lost -- more than anything else -- is the ability to curtail the power of the corporations, and those who would buy our electoral process. We cannot even depend on our news media to tell us the truth, because the ratings-obsessed media is more interested in Justin Bieber than the revolution in the Ukraine.

Oh I'll agree with you on the media in part.  I was more than a little disgusted by the lack of coverage in the PPM of the current revolution under way in the Ukraine. Hmmm I wonder if they aren't mentioning it because the government doesn't want us, We the People, to get ideas.  We might as was stated long ago...
"that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."


During the sixties, we experienced a cultural revolution. We had a powerful civil rights movement. We had a powerful anti-war movement. But the leaders of those movements were assassinated and we returned to politics as usual and the gradual creeping control of corporations and robber-barons.

We won't even go into how I feel about the 60's save to say that outside of music, they are the polar opposite of yours.

This year, these mid-term elections will be critical. And so will the presidential election of 2016. No, we're not going to get the perfect congress and we'll never get a president who lives up to everyone's hopes and dreams.

Lets talk about that perfect congress.  The Democrats have had marginal  control of it since 2007, when Nancy Pelosi took the speakers gavel. At that point things really started moving down hill rapidly.  Fast foward to the 08 elections in which with Obama winning for president and many more seats being turned over to the democrat; the democrats had uncontested control of 2 of the 3 branches of government.  Iron fisted control of all 3 houses. White, Senate and Representatives.  What did they do with those two years Mr Gerrold?  Did they pass a single budget? Which is, you know, one of their main jobs?  Nope..they couldn't be bothered because now that they had teh power they figured they could do anything they wanted.  They also figured what "We The People' wanted, mattered not one whit because they were the ones with the power...not us.  Sadly the worthless whores have forgotten who they fucking work for. 

But we do need pragmatic men and women who have a genuine vision of a future that works for all of us, with no one and nothing left out. We need a congress and a president who are willing to work together to actually solve problems and not beat ideological horses to death while collecting six figure salaries for doing nothing.

I'm guessing our definitions of  pragmatic are two different things.  There is no such thing as utopia.  It's a lie, a fairy tale told to children. There will always be those that suffer. Always be rich and poor. There will always be those that for one reason or another are as you say "left out". As far as the last half of your statement? Dude I've been screaming about those salaries for many a year.  Oh did you hear several years back they tried to vote their spouses retirement packages?!   You might have because as I recall , that one was actually covered in the PPM.  I'd like to cut their pay, alas it's covered and protected by the constitution. They also seem to vote themselves automatic pay raises every few years. Something else that pisses me off to no end.  We also need "term limits"  one, maybe two terms then back to your old regular life. "Politician" should not be a  career goal, it should be, and is to me, a CURSE  and a bad word.

In the fifties and sixties -- even into the eighties and nineties -- republicans and democrats worked together to achieve compromise and consensus. We made progress. Sometimes it wasn't fast enough, sometimes mistakes were made -- but the processes of negotiation worked. Our government worked until two things happened -- until one political party declared that "government is the problem" and allowed the radicals and the fanatics to believe that outright obstruction was preferable to solving problems.


And here we're just gonna part ways again. 1. progress isn't always a good thing...depending on what we are progressing on or in.  As to the second bit? Because frankly government IS the problem.   We are supposed to have a "limited" government. What we have now and for the last couple decades is so far from that we might as well be living on either another planet or a parallel universe.

If our electoral system truly represented what the majority of American people want, need, and believe in -- there wouldn't be a lot of republicans in Washington DC. Not because there's something wrong with conservatism, but because there's something drastically wrong with what those who call themselves conservative have become.

Ahhhh...see you started this whole thing with insults an a huge assumption. Now you're still being insulting and you're making an even larger assumption.  Remember the old saying about assumptions and where they lead?

If you're still a republican, look around -- look at the people who "lead" your party, who supposedly speak for you. Rush Limbaugh? Really? Fox News? Really?

I've covered that in part in my response involving the RNC.  Rush? You know what irritates people  so much about Rush?  Is that he can predict with 90 someodd percent accuracy EXACTLY what a liberal is  going to say or do.  Fox?  Again back to the PPM...at least Fox is a tad more honest than the PPM.

Look at the candidates. Sarah Palin? Chris Christie? Mike Huckabee? Ted Cruz? Rand Paul? Paul Ryan? Do you really think any of these people have the kind of character to address the problems of working class Americans? Really? The top echelons of the republican party are so out of touch with reality that they have no idea what's really happening in our nation.

Actually I like Sarah Palin.  I think she'd be awesome.  Christie?  You couldn't give him to me gift wrapped.  Huckabee?  I like him better on the tube as a commentator than a politician.  Cruz? He's not perfect but better than most of the alternatives, especially those alternatives on the "left".  Etc Etc.   The top echelon of the "republican party"?  Try the entire US fucking government, with bloody few exceptions...is out of touch with reality.  Which is why the government needs an  axe taken to it. Okay for my friends out there that like things that go BOOOM!...I wouldn't object to high explosives being used to do the pruning.   Daytime explosions only please lads and lasses.


Here's what we need --

We need to invest BILLIONS in education.

WE invest more than any other 1st world nation out there with the exception of...Sweden iirc; in education. Try again.

We need to invest BILLIONS in infrastructure.

That one I'll grant you, but outside of interstate highways and bridges...that one is the sole responsibility of the states and the private corporations. The latter in the case of the railroads.

We need to find ways to make college accessible for every American.


Not really Mr Gerrold. See not everyone NEEDS to go to college. This is the great injustice that is being, and has been  perpatrated on the young. People are all different. some learn different. You can't expect to shove them all in a single box labeled "college" and expect good results.  A great many can and do benefit from simple Vocational or Tech schools. Why does everyone need to go to college?   Frankly we need to bring Vo-tech training back to schools as optional courses. As for it getting more expensive...they keep getting more and more expensive as more and more gov't dollars are made available to pay for it all.  Hence pricing those who don't want to pay extortionist prices out of it.  

 
We need to raise the wages of our troops, we need to expand their benefits.

That one we agree on.
 

We need to find ways to make home ownership accessible for working class families.

Hmmm yes and no. Get the government out of the way, so the businesses come back and make the training available and you don't need to make home ownership more accessible to "working class families" via government interference.  Because the working class will be able to afford it on their own.
 

We need to raise the minimum wage.

Not only no but "are you out of your fucking mind?" No.  I have friends with family still back in the land of Oz[australia] Minimum wage for a great many jobs is at teh $20 mark. One of the sons of a friend makes $22 an hour washing dishes yet can't afford to live on his own.  He lives with 4 other people.  Another one makes $24 an hour and still can't live on his own.  This is the future you envision? 

 
We need to close the tax loopholes on corporations and bring the offshore jobs back home.

No we need to reduce the regulatory burden so it's as cheap or cheaper, or at least somewhat worthwhile to bring those jobs home.  We also need to train for the jobs that will still be with us as well as the jobs of the future...not the jobs of the past

We need the 1% to pay their fair share of taxes.


Oh for  fucks sake!  Seriously?  What would you consider fair?  I suppose you want to raise the rates for the higher earnings brackets to upwards of 70-90 percent?    Horseshit.  I got a better idea. You want to TRULY  be fair Mr Gerrold?  Fine lets toss the current tax code. I have 0 problem with that. Lets replace it with an across the board flat tax. No deductions...period. Lets keep it simple to level the playing field shall we? No unnecessary complications.  Everyone pays the same percentage every year. It doesn't get deducted from their pay checks each month.  That 10% gets paid at the end of the year out of their accumulated earnings for the year.   THAT is the definition of truly fair,  Fairness however is sometimes a vindictive bitch because that would have the side effect of raising what the lower income and middle class pay every year.   However I'll get the  true satisfaction of saying, when people complain about the very rich or even mostly rich "what the fuck are you bitching about? they pay more in a year than you'll pay in your entire life,  shut the fuck up"  It can also be applied to the just moderately well heeled, the small business owners and entrepeneurs.  "What the fuck are you bitching for dude? those people will pay more in one year than you'll pay in the next couple/several years."    Still you wanted "fair" and a way to make sure the "rich" pay their fair share, there it is.  Don't bitch to me if you don't like it because it IS fair.

 
We need to end the social security cap.

I got a better idea, get rid of social security and let people be responsible for their own planning for the future.  SS has destroyed this in a great many people the last couple generations.  Including the "younger" generations now, the 'millenials". 

We need to make sure that SNAP benefits and unemployment benefits are strong enough so that people can feed their families and keep their homes.

No. I have a better idea. Streamline the job finding process.  Oh and leave that to the states. For the states, and counties, know best what is needed job wise in their areas.

We need to deal with the immigration issue fairly and compassionately.

I am sooo not going to go there because that statement just supremely pisses me off.  If you think this issue pisses me off, talk to people who actually emigrated LEGALLY and went through the system.

We need to invest BILLIONS in research and development -- medicine, space, energy. We can do that by providing tax breaks and other incentives across the board. The return on that will be enormous.

No...not entirely.


And finally -- we need to stop vilifying whole classes of people as a justification for using the law to punish them.


I really wish you'd have been more clear here. Given more specifics rather than a general broad brushstroke. You didn't so, oh well.  Oh and with that wonderful statement about "fright wing teabaggers"   aren't you vilifying an entire class of people?  Does the phrase Disingenuous Hypocritical Douchbag hold any meaning for  you Mr Gerrold?  
 

All of these things listed above will accomplish two things -- first, it will create jobs. (Don't take my word for it, open an economics book, a history book, and see what happened every time we did that in the past.) And second, it will expand the gross economy of the nation, giving everyone a larger slice of the pie.

No, the democrats do not have all the answers, but at least they're making a sincere effort to address these issues. Right now, the republican party has yet to put forth a realistic vision, let alone a workable plan. In 2012, they campaigned on jobs. Where are the jobs bills? They voted 40 times to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act, but they didn't vote on a single jobs bill ever.

 Mr Gerrold.  A?  Creating jobs is the job of the private sector, and the people, not the governments.  B. The government can help this a little bit by keeping regulatory burdens low and staying out of the goddamn way.
 C.  When we're in a situation like now, when the Government sector provides as many or more jobs than the private sector?  The "government" is doing it exactly ass backwards to the way it's supposed to be done.  Government is inherently evil in as far as there is such a thing.  Our founders understood that, but they also understood "some" government was a necessary evil. Hence why they set it up to be a "limited" government. As I stated earlier we're so far from that it's fucking ridiculous.  Our founders are probably fairly restless and annoyed if there is such a thing as an after life.

D.  There were "jobs bills" proposed by the "republican" house. I looked at them. Some were crap. However....A couple of them actually probably would have been worth something. Guess what happened when they got to the Dem controlled senate?  They died on Harry Reids desk.  Like a number of actual proposed budgets, passed by the house.

So the rest of us have to regard the upcoming midterm election as critical. We have to make sure we get out and vote. The republicans are going to stir up their base because they want to keep control of the house and take control of the senate. We cannot let that happen. We saw what they did under Reagan/Bush and Bush Jr. They looted the national economy. We cannot allow that to happen again.

Newsflash Mr Gerrold..  Again, who held the seats in the houses when it REALLY started to get stupid ridiculous? 

We are living behind the lines. We have to be the resistance. And we have to use every weapon we have.

Yep you keep saying that, I don't think that means what you think it means.

We have to register to vote. We have to encourage our friends and our families to vote. If we can afford it, we have to donate to the candidates we care about. We have to volunteer our time and energy. And we have to vote.

By all means...talk to people about doing their civic duty, hell the personal responsibility of registering and voting and getting peripherally involved in the process that way or even more involved. *Shrug*  Makes no never mind to me. Although I'll state lack of involvement all around is part of the problem.

But most of all -- for the nine months we have to confront every lie they float. The robber barons are going to spend more money than ever on propaganda, lies, and misinformation. Every time we hear a lie, it is an invitation to tell the truth. It is more than an invitation, it is an obligation, it is a mandate.

Ahh you mean like confronting the lie that Benghazi was about a youtube video?  Calling your own to task for making truly STUPID comments, that kind of thing?

Browse through the comments here on FB and elsewhere -- and you'll see a lot of crap posted by paid shills, designed to push the national conversation, designed to intimidate those who want real solutions. Don't buy into it. Don't buy into it. Fight it. Resist it.

Hmmmm so someone who disagrees with you is automatically a paid shill?  Hmmm...interesting.

The robber barons can buy everything but our votes. And the only way we're going to break their stranglehold on our government is by speaking up.

Oh I do speak up. Although I tend to be preaching to the choir.

Note...you say you want to start an actual conversation, and then go straight to insulting the people on the other side of the argument?  FAIL.  Now if you wanted to start a conversation about what an asshole you're being...then by all means. you succeeded in that Mr Gerrold.



Okay boys and girls.

Remember TANSTAAFL and...


I now return you to your regularly scheduled inanity and insanity.