Saturday, December 06, 2008

A gift list for Obama supporters

With a month in the books since the election of Barack Obama, how is everyone in the 'Obama nation' doing? Do you still high-five and hug every fellow Obama backer you see? Has the avalanche of email, texts, and tweets slowed to a trickle? Are you feeling a bit of Obama withdrawal?

What are you doing with all your time these days? No more sitting with your fellow Obama buddies making calls and walking precincts. No more Obama parties at your house, snacking on free-range guacamole and organic chips while you plan the 'get out the vote' drive for Election Day. No more annoying the daylights out of your friends and family with how Obama is going to stop the war, stop the glaciers from melting, give us all free health care, free college and save every one's house from foreclosure. Are you marking the days until January 20th, when the world will finally be right? It must be a bit of a let down for you.

Despair not Obama supporters, the rest of us who know and love you will try and help in these gloomy days with a few Christmas gifts especially for you.

1. A book.
Yes, I know, who still reads paper books when I can get all the latest Obama news conferences live-streamed directly to my Blackberry? Have you seen the cool official seal and podium for the Office of President Elect? Impressive isn't it? Seriously, you need to unplug yourself. Turn off all your electronic devices and actually read a book. I don't mean re-read The Audacity of Hope for the third time, I would start with The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. Wright is not a right-wing nut job, far from it, he is a Pulitzer winning author and writer for the New Yorker. The Looming Tower is the most comprehensive book written about al Qaeda, and origins of Islamic terrorism. If you want to know why President elect Obama won't be getting our troops out of the Middle East anytime soon, it because he is now receiving the President's daily briefing and finding out just how dangerous the world really is. You should too.

2. A one-year membership in the NRA.
I know, you think these people are crazy and you hate them, but if I can take someone mistakenly sending me a year’s subscription to The Sierra Club, you can handle the NRA. I learned a lot about how the environmentally unbalanced folks think. You can choose between three magazines, The American Hunter, The American Rifleman or America's 1st freedom. You won't find a bunch of rabid, Republican Nazis in these magazines, you will find your friends and neighbors. Well, maybe not your friends and neighbors, but they might be mine. You also get a free hat and sticker for your car, pretty cool eh?

3. An application for a business license.
Not that you have to start a new business, but you should at least know the process those who own our local businesses have to go through just for the opportunity to succeed or fail. Get a City or County business license application, and one for the State of California's Department of Equalization, and then just for fun, ask for a liability and worker’s compensation insurance application from your local broker. The amount of paperwork and fees it takes just to open your doors and put your financial life on the line will make your head spin. It should give you a glimpse into the world of the 'rich', you know, the ones you want to raise taxes on to pay for everything Obama is promising.

That should take you all the way through to inauguration day. It will also take you out of your Obama bubble and back into the real world, where great speeches and slogans don't amount to much. We face real challenges as a nation right now. Terrorism, a recession, and the looming crisis of entitlement spending. You need to understand all sides of these issues, both foreign and domestic. When you spend all your time talking to like minded people, it makes you intellectually lazy.

Exercise your brain this holiday season so you can explain to your fellow dreamy-eyed Obama supporters why the Utopian vision they have may need to be amended.

And yes, I am still waiting for my magic unicorn Barack Obama promised me.

1 comment:

Ericosborneo said...

This is very funny while still being genuine! I just might put a link back to it on my blog. I wish lots of BO supporters would read this and seriously try a couple of your suggestions.
But they are likely too busy gloating and, after all, keeping your head above the clouds really takes a lot of effort after all.