I’ve started blogging again here at Systems Savvy and needed to do some research on my history doing so. I came across the following blog post on another, now defunct blog site, The Cranky Curmudgeon, which I wrote on October 29, 2008. I entitled it “Talk About Your Angst! I forgot I wrote it and I’m somewhat amazed that my characterization of the Bush admin sounds quite similar to my characterization of the Trump admin. We’re doing something wrong . . . bigly!
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Well, here we are . . . what is it? . . about six days out from what I’m thinking is the most important election of my lifetime. Any election involving Nixon, Reagan, or either of the Bush gangster family was, of course, important, but this one – whew! After eight years of so thoroughly screwing up everything they touched, I am on pins and needles waiting to see if we get a brand new start at fixing things, or if we get something possibly worse than George Bush.
I think I need to explain something too. Although I take the position George Bush and his administration screwed up everything they touched, I think it’s important to note they did exactly what they had planned to do all along. The failures were not truly failures, as they fit into the general plan. Don’t think for one moment these criminals weren’t working toward the dream so famously articulated by Grover Norquist when he said his goal was to shrink government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
I have no doubt that is exactly what has been going on, especially when government means services for the people, as opposed to handouts for the well-connected. We have witnessed the most massive re-distribution of national wealth, certainly in my lifetime. Now, perhaps, we can see some of that bleeding stanched.
Six more days! I am on pins and needles. We so desperately need to take this nation in another direction; to back away from the arrogant unilateralism and the move toward the so-called “unitary executive”; the use of torture and the spying on our own citizens; and the outright flaunting of the Constitution when it serves the narrow interests of the administration.
Obama has created one of the flattest campaign organizations ever, thanks in large part to his team’s understanding and use of information technology. Let’s see if they can translate this knowledge into a new politics of engagement and involvement . . . and – dare I say – democracy.
When I returned from a two-month working journey to Cuba in 1973, the FBI showed up at my door with questions about my trip. I had been a member of the sixth contingent of the 
