Card Carriers and Sympathizers

Remember, back in the Cold War days, the Communists had something called a "card carrying party member"? Well, every political party has that, even unto this day. I think anybody can join a political party, at least I've never heard of anyone being refused membership. You just pay your dues and they issue you an ID card that says you're a member. I was a card carrier with the American Independent Party for some years back in the 70s, with the Libertarians for over a decade around the 90s, and with the republicans for one year in between. If you want to join the Democrats, I'm sure they will welcome you. Look them up in the phone book and give them a call. With the Commies, they also had something called a "sympathizer", and another thing called a "fellow traveler". I'm not sure what the difference was, but they both applied to someone who believed in the cause, but never officially joined the party. I think you would fall into one of those categories with the Democrats, but I'm not sure if I would qualify as one with the Republicans. I generally vote Republican as the lesser or two evils, but I really wish there was some other choice, kind of like the Libertarians were before they pissed me off.

I never really was down on the Russians, it was the Communists that I didn't like. I read somewhere that only 10% of the Russian people were card carrying party members, and many of them just joined for the benefits, like preferential treatment in employment and housing. I assumed that the Russians would be rehabilitated after they abandoned Communism in 1990, but maybe not. It's probably still only a small fraction of the population who cause most of the problems, which is not unlike the situation in the U.S. and other countries. I don't think we should give them the Ukraine because, as far as I know, the Ukrainians are decent people. At least I never heard of them chopping people's heads off or setting off bombs in the marketplace. Truth be known, most of the Muslims are probably decent people too, but they aren't the ones you see on the 6:00 news.

I remember the oil embargo of the70s, and I said at the time that we should cut off all aid and trade with those people, but nobody listened to me. I still don't know how those goofy sheiks in their bathrobes got control of the oil wells. Weren't they drilled by American or British companies? I could suppose that the companies and the sheiks were all in it together from the start, but that would be just paranoid. I know an American guy who works for a Japanese auto parts company in the States, and they have sent him to Red China several times to work on something or other. He says that the Red Chinese government owns a controlling interest in all the private companies who operate there, and that they could just kick the Americans out and take complete control any time they wanted to. Maybe something like that is what happened in the Middle East. In one way, I think that would be just what those companies deserve for dealing with people like that. In another way though, I suspect that any losses they incur would be paid for by you and me, one way or another. The best scenario would be if our government wouldn't even allow our companies to form such alliances with the evil doers, but that's not going to happen because the government and the companies are all in it together. Whoops, there I go talking paranoid again!

You know, the only reason one candidate is a front runner and another is on the fringe is because people say so. I don't know who starts it, the news media or the poll takers but, once a candidate has been officially declared the favorite, most of the sheeple fall into line. I don't know why they bother to have elections at all, just let the experts choose the winner. They will anyway. When I go vote, it's just a symbolic act of defiance to let those bastards know that they don't have everybody hornswoggled.