Coffee with Dad and the neighbor

This is getting to be a habit. Pretty soon I'll start posting it as a regular Kos feature weekly haha.

I had a number of ideas for diaries tonight. Patrick Swayze being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer was one. Made me drag out my DVD of "Dirty Dancing" and watch it again. That movie is like crack cocaine or catnip to women (ALL women, including old 55ish me, even women that hate the politics of it - which I do NOT). My coworkers were talking about it this week, and all the people there who have made many bad lifestyle choices for themselves were going "was/is he a drinker?". SIGH. As if you can avoid the Reaper by just being a joyless ascetic. SIGH.

But that's a rant for another time.

Today's rant has to do with the War.

My Dad and my neighbor were both over this morning. I gave them coffee and the neighbor presented us with (great tasting) sugar cookies that his 84 year old Mom baked today.

My Dad told me he's terribly worried about the economy, finally believes we're in a major meltdown, (as I have been trying to tell my parents for over a year now) and advised me to take ALL the stock funds in my 401k and switch them to money market funds. Which I promptly did, this afternoon. Totally scary.

My Dad may be a former Republican, but he's no dummie. He can see the writing on the wall.

Like he says, better to have your money earning a steady 3% than see it all lose 1000 dollars a month. And I had in mind Bonddad's recent diary.

Anyway, I digress. The discussion (over coffee and great homemade cookies) went from the economy to Katrina to the War (Dad's major objection to the War is that we can't afford it) and I kind of listened to him and my neighbor going on about various things and being very cynical and really not giving a damn about Katrina victims or the poor, but just ranting about how it affects THEIR lives, and I finally just snapped.

I said "do you two understand that George Bush's WAR has driven Iraqi women into prostitution in all the countries that the two million Iraqi people have fled to"? (I'm kinda paraphrasing here, that's not exactly how the conversation went, but you get the idea).

I pointed out very heatedly that Iraq was a country that did NOTHING to us, was no threat, and we destroyed them........that under Saddam, maybe it wasn't the most free country in the world, but that women had RIGHTS, and could go to school and have jobs and didn't have to PROSTITUTE themselves to feed their families, as they do now in Syria and Jordan and all the other countries they have fled to and no means of support. And I pointed out that Syria and Jordan have become major sex tousism destinations, mainly because of Iraqi girls living there. The human scum that frequent those websites talk a lot about how desperate Iraqi girls will do ANYTHING for very little money, because they are desperate.

Sorry. I'm ranting now like I did this morning. My Dad and the neighbor (both good ol boy Republicans really) were kind of hushed up.........I gave this rant and they both looked kind of shamefaced..........their objection to Bushie in general is that he has messed with the economy........our conversation kind of wound down, and they both sort of figuratively scraped their toes on the ground and said "yeah".

Reagan Democrat/Republican America is just beginning to feel the blistering heat of shame. I mean, I saw it today, I think they felt it. Don't know if it will carry over to the election, but I have hope.

I have the Audacity of Hope. Go Obama. But go Hillary also. If Hillary and Obama don't completely rip each other to pieces in the primary and give it to McCain (who even my Dad agrees is a creep), then maybe we can get something done to rebuild the country in 2009.