Ichabod's Kin
A place for politics, pop culture, and social issues

Or mad women for that matter.

A great part of the electorate in this year of our Lord 2010 is described as “angry.” Oh, tell them to get over themselves. What are we supposed to do, run and hide when they show up?

Actually, that’s what some people do, to wit, stay home and not vote. To say that certain voters this year are “energized” is simply code for “mad.” Oooooh, they’re Mad Men. So what? That’s their problem. The rest of us are not exactly ecstatic, either, that George Bush mortgaged our futures, but we don’t look around for the wrong people to blame.

The past is the past and we should not allow such people to decide our future. But that’s what they’re trying to do and we should make sure they get pushback for their weird notions and zany proposals–you know, getting rid of the Education Department and privatizing Social Security, to name but two. With such rascals in office, the world will turn upside down, after which those willing to admit they voted for these weasels will be harder to find than hen’s teeth.

People who are mad should be understood as also unstable, for anger is an unstable emotion–not what you want in your leaders or those who elect them. Above all, be not afraid of them. Such crowds of misfits first showed their faces in that infamous Summer of Our Discontent when they turned citizen gatherings into Town Hall Meetings from Hell–a new version of Americans Behaving Badly–where they cursed and spat at elected leaders while old goats in the crowd wrestled each other to the floor, puffing.

No, do not fear such persons. For one thing, they run in packs because they have no real courage of their convictions and would never diss you or anyone if only the two of you were in the room. Tea Partiers who rant at us are just a pack of brats.

Let’s talk about who we should really be afraid of, like the Mortgage Bankers Association, which recently defaulted and walked out on their $79 million building in Washington, DC. and removed themselves to a resort in Texas where they granted no interviews. And this, just after the head of the MBA chastised mortgage holders nationwide not to abandon their own responsibilities by walking away from their home indebtedness.

This of course is all follow-up to the crimes of the financial sector, which is currently throwing money at the Republican Party and at the Angry People who support it.

Such Mad Men, and women, do better to direct their anger at the real sources of our economic pain: Wall Street, banks, credit card companies, all transactions involving “fees” and, yes, mortgage companies. The taxes we pay are nothing compared to those who really gouge us–namely, just about anyone who deals in money, primarily ours. Be Very Afraid also of mortgage companies and foreclosure practices, of outrageous cell phone fees and penalties.

Be Not Afraid however of polls and of Liars Who Figure: e.g., that Obama’s “approval” ratings are low. Yeah, they’ve dipped below 50% but no lower than Reagan’s, though easily impressionable people conveniently forget that, along with the fact that there was a terrible financial crisis in the Gipper’s second term when his tax-cutting chickens came home to roost and many Republicans claimed he had “lost his soul.” It was a time when his having raised taxes eight times during his two terms was fresh on the minds of all.

And not to forget Truman, whose approval dipped to the low Thirties over the Korea crisis, before tumbling into the Twenties when he sent troops there. Now of course people look back in fondness to Harry and Ronnie as if theirs were Golden Ages in national politics.
We forget that James Baker, under Reagan, also had to go hat-in-hand to foreign countries to ask for currency changes to help our recovery, just as Tim Geithner had to do of late.

So what can you do? Even if you’ve done nothing till now in this election season, even if you’ve not sent a dime to a candidate, there’s one thing that will trump all the noise and intimidation from the Mad Men–and that’s to get off your Blessed Assurance and vote! There are more people of sense in this country than there are hot-heads, and a third of the electorate have not yet decided who they’ll back next Tuesday.

Angry people only make more noise. And what all the good and better candidates need most of all, even more than money, is your vote.

Then after Nov. 2, all the Mad Men can take their anger to the nearest shrink and get some real help. I’ve downloaded a list that I’ll gladly share.