Feelin' Blue

Today’s a bad day for Wild Bill. He‘s seeing red and feeling blue.

Frankly, when the president goes out in the boon docks to sell that hokum of his on Social Security and Iraq, I feel bad. I was born during the Great Depression and came of age during the Cold War and believe deeply that he is wrong on both issues.

If there were two things that I thought might survive those bad old times, they were Social Security and collective security among the nations of the world. Obviously, I was wrong and the heroes of my youth, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and even Richard Nixon are gone and forgotten, about as relevant as passe heroes of my own youth like Franklin Pierce and William McKinley.

Clearly the reasons for passing Social Security have been forgotten. So too it is with collective security. The reasons the United Nations was deemed essential have been dumped as the venality of a few is allowed to obscure the goals and objectives of the institution.

But that isn’t what makes me sad; it’s the reaction of those good ol’ boys from North Dakota, Nebraska and wherever the hell else Bush roams among the buffalo. Those good folks lapped it up like a litter of kittens after a saucer of milk. How about that? Bush's approval ratings are rising like my blood pressure.

They’re so damned dependent on Social Security, farm subsidies, Amtrak and every other damn federal program and still they’re buying into that ownership society. Hot damn! Those boys and girls are gonna be so rich they won’t know what to do with their money.

So I’m spending my days drowning my sorrow and writing my latest Country and Western song, Cheers of Red Make My Tears of Blue. I can hardly wait for it to hit the charts so I can join the ownership society.

Blog on!

Wild Bill