On being anti-choice

Note to self … when in Thailand, eat Thai food. They are pretty good at making it. I had a craving for something different at lunch today, and so had lasagna at a place that offers European food in addition to Thai. It had the meat, noodles, cheese, but Thai cooks were not aware of spices. Imagine Italian food without spice. It’s been repeating on me for the last hour.

Anyway, a few more days here and then home to Colorado. I’m ready. The heat is hard on me, one of the reasons we live at 7,800 feet. I grew up in Billings, pre-air conditioning. I used to hang my head out the window at night gasping for air until finally it cooled off at like 2AM. My mother had the same internal thermostat, so I sweated and she perspired all summer long.

Here’s what’s interesting going on now: Candidates. Ryan Zinke, John Bohlinger got the usual suspects all up in a lather.

That is all these party people can think about – winning elections. Are any of them aware of what their Tester, Baucus, Obama are up to these days? No. They follow Steve Daines like hawks, but let their own people escape accountability.

That’s why we’re better off with Republicans in office – Democrats are then paying attention instead of asleep at the wheel.

The US is corrupt and defective, and the Democrats the worst of the two parties because they are fear-based voters. They let their own people get away with murder, literally (I’m looking at you, Barack Nobel Obama) because they are so damned afraid of the Tea Party.

Those are the spooks that Obama uses to keep them in line. He knew he could do anything he wanted his first term because Democrats would support him out of fear. Millions of us who supported him in ’08 begged out in 12 because he was Bush III.

He needed the Tea Party, and they came through for him.

When a Republican takes over the presidency in 2016, the TP will cease to matter and will die on the vine, its purpose (making Obama look moderate) having been served.

Democrats don’t get that. They don’t see that the system is dysfunctional, and dammit, here we go again.

Is Bohlinger pro-choice (wedge politics at its best)?

Did Zinke speak out of turn about Seal Team Six?

They take the most inconsequential of issues and hammer us with them. It’s all election talk, and all goes away quietly after the voting.

Meanwhile, money works quietly behind the scenes, writing bills, crafting policy, bribing and pressuring to get its way, the party faithful blissfully unaware. Behind closed doors in DC, there are no parties. Only interests.

Man I hate American politics.

Here in Thailand, there is real grassroots politics going on. There’s an amnesty bill before their congress – there was turmoil in preceding years and some crimes are punishable, but it is largely a bill to grant immunity to Thaksin Shinawatra, a corrupt billionaire forced to leave the country or face jail. He was the older brother of the former PM, and took advantage.

Yingluck Shinawatra, the prime minister elected in a landslide in 2011, promised to clean house if elected. She then turned around, Obama style, and pushed through an amnesty bill in the dead of night.

She’s paying now, as the streets of Bangkok were full of protesters and the amnesty bills are poison.

That’s how politics work in real democracies – people are held accountable.

Nepal is a different story, dysfunctional, but not as much so as the US. There are 120 political parties there, but the most prominent are Democrats and Maoists, if our guide on our trek is correct.

The latter have been the source of violence and were responsible for overthrowing the monarchy after a ten-year conflict. All the country is trying to do now so write a governing document, and it hasn’t gotten done. So there’s another election on November 19 to elect a new body to write a constitution.

Maoists are split over whether to incite violence or merely boycott, as other parties are doing.

If they boycott with others, and the resultant election has a light turnout, they can then claim that the election result is illegitimate. Then follows violence.

While we were there police were in training, loudspeakers mounted on cars went up and down streets, large assemblies of people listened intently to speakers.

We’re in part of the world where politics is more than just for show. That’s refreshing.

Back home it’s a circus with no influence on public policy (except at times at a very local level). Nothing could matter less than Zinke or Bohlinger getting elected.

But that will consume all of the band width for the coming months.

(Oh yeah, and I guess you could say that the Nepali Maoists are anti-choice, in a place where choice really matters.)