Dude, Happy New Year!

So here we are, 2011. I commented to Mrs. Dude last night how when I was a kid I never imagined what 2011 would be like (or any time after 2000). In the 1950's they envisioned world peace, people flying in individual jet packs and colonies on the moon and possibly Mars! Oh the hope, the possibilities.

But instead we are basically doing the same crap. Driving around in cars that get anywhere from 12 to 25 miles to the gallon. Conservatives are calling Liberals communists. Some dips@#t on Facebook even equated Stevie Ray Vaughan to Hitler (he offered to post a pic of his "song writing award" to show his cred to do so). We still can't cure the common cold and in some places diseases that where thought to have been wiped out are making a come back.

Plus, the more I think about it, we are really going back to a simpler time which pundits like Glen Beck, the King of the "Idiot," is striving for. Soon gold will be the only form of currency if a Republican congressman gets his way and that means the rich will be the only ones who have it. They want to take away a woman's right to chose. They want to dismantle Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and unemployment insurance. One prominent Tea Bagger even says that the only people who should be able to vote are landowners.

There is a swell to take us back to a simpler time and I have heard from Conservatives that Liberalism is a mental illness. Well if that's the case then Conservatism is a form of mental retardation. Do we really want to go back to a time when the mortality rate was high and the only Americans who got medical treatment had the finances to do so? Or a time when the loss of a job meant a family torn apart and left homeless? A time when just being handicapped or old was a death sentence? I could go on and if you have a clue, you can dig what I am saying.

2011 will be and interesting year. We will see government shutdowns, grandstanding by politicians that will play with the lives of the American public and maybe some violence. We are heading to a breaking point. A year from now will we be saying "Happy 2012" or "Happy 1910?"