The appointed hour has arrived.

Of course, this is not the "appointed hour" in any

but a cosmic sense. No committee composed of responsibility non governmental
organization officials have, sitting in an emergency ad hoc body, set the day and the hour.
But, it is really way past time. Since no one else will do it, it is left to me.

I always get the crap jobs. It is me who has to take the garbage out. It is me who
has to unplug stopped drains in sinks and toilets. When the children were young, it was
me they waited for to get home and "deal with it." When my youngest daughter was still
a toddler, I was the one made to clothe her in the one-piece jump suits she loathed. Made
to do it by her mother, who thought the child looked "so cute" in them. Never mind that
every damn morning I would force my darling daughter into these hateful garments. (I
know for a fact, though now twenty-one, she's never forgiven me.) Never mind that my
efforts went daily for naught as the angle child would go downstairs and pitch such a
bloody hell fit that her mother would bring her back upstairs, while I was in the shower,
and change her into a blouse and skirt.

Like I said, I always get the crap jobs.

It is happening again. No committee of responsible NGO officials is stepping up.

All our elected officials are hopeless whores and/or ideological dimwits. Religious
leaders occasionally do take a run at this from time to time but they are so discredited
form years of blather and superstition, not to mention pedophilia scandals and such, that
no one can pay any attention to them.

So, God help us all, we are down to me.

Here goes.

We need a National Reconciliation and Atonement Day. We need a NRDA and

we need it badly. Like a teenage couple on a hot summer night by the lake, we need some
relief. A little bit of instant gratification would not be out of line. Our broken, beaten and
busted nation deserves a bunch of apologies. Our public and private sector leaders and
our media moguls need to apologize. "We, the people," deserve some healing. The
specific healing we need is an acknowledgement that damn near everybody that was
supposed to be watching our back was sticking it to us instead. We need those
responsible to own up to it, accept a little public humiliation and retribution so we can
correct the course and move on.

Where to start? I suggest that every President of the United States from McKinley
forward, excepting John Kennedy and Gerald Ford, be made to publicly apologize for
"free trade." I mean it, living or dead, if dead dig the bastards up, they should apologize
for destroying, systematically destroying, the most vibrant and creative economy in world
history. This policy was pursued by well meaning men, men like Carter, the first George
Bush, Bill Clinton, long after it was obvious the pursuit of this policy was destroying us.
There is no excuse for it. They sold us out and they should apologize.

The members of the "permanent" Democratic Congresses that held sway, almost
uninterruptedly, from FDR's first election through 1994 need to apologize. Toward the
end, though out the seventies and eighties and into the nineties, they were all a bunch of
arrogant jackasses and they conspired against the American people with the real
permanent government of federal bureaucrats. They went for decades refusing to listen to
anybody who had no government title and created such anger among the people mediocre
officials like Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay and the ilk were given power. This anger lasted
through the nineties and into the new century and bequeathed us more mediocre officials,
less than mediocre officials, like the second George Bush, and criminal and venal
officials like Cheney and Rumsfeld, men who cannot now leave the country for fear of
arrest.

Again, thankfully, many of the leaders of this Democratic hubris festival are now
dead, so they too will have to be exhumed. Never the less, it is necessary. They willfully
created an environment where horrible people could be elected to govern us and they
need to apologize.
 The entire Republican Party needs to apologize. What the Republicans have done
to America and the world since the rise of Reagan is simply criminal. Who knows how
many millions of people, mostly perfectly innocent people, have lost their lives, been
murdered, raped, butchered, tortured, etc., due to the reckless, cowboy military and
economic policies of the Republican leadership over the past third of a century. The wars
they have had us fight are bad enough but these pale in comparison to the civil wars
caused by their unfailing support of international corporations' extraction efforts in
"nations" like the Congo, Anglo, Nigeria and Bolivia. The civil wars are particularly
horrible but these too pale in comparison to the lose of life and the lose of liberty and the
diminished lives hundreds of millions of people have suffered and continue to suffer due
to our nations' support of multi national corporations' desire to secure various natural
resources cheaply and "efficiently." No human sacrifice, as long as it is not their human
sacrifice, is too great to secure corporate return on invested capital. But, this is an
apology they owe the world. Perhaps they owe us an apology for claiming to facilitate
these crimes in our name.

The Republicans need to apologize for destroying the public education system
everywhere but specifically in California. When Reagan became Governor, the public
education system in California was the light of the world. From K through Ph. D., it was
the golden door, the real golden door. Reagan set the wheels in motion to destroy it and,
using its glorious destruction as an example, Republicans copied the model to destroy
other such systems throughout the entire nation.

Not satisfied with this bit of dark science, Republicans have also presided over the
destruction of the middle class and the concentration of wealth in to the hands of the top
one percent of wealthy Americans. There is no longer any doubt about the outcome of
Republican tax policy. There is no longer any doubt about the outcome of Republican
policies of deregulation. There is no longer any doubt about Republican policies
regarding "privatization." There is no longer any doubt about Republican social service
policies. These policies are destroying the social and economic fabric of the nation. These
policies are turning us into a third world nation, killing the middle class and making the
nation and the world unsafe. These policies are damaging and stupid. Republicans need
to quite pretending otherwise and apologize for them.

Every elected official, excepting a couple from out west, since J. Edgar Hoover,
needs to apologize for the "War on Drugs." This is a failure, a farce and a forced
fornication perpetrated against the American people and the poor people of Mexico,
Columbia and other producer nations. It is wrong and stupid and an apology is owed. (I
would not want to see J. Edgar exhumed for this purpose even though he is primarily
responsible for the start of the "War." Even so, it took so long to get rid of the son of a
bitch I would hate to risk his rising from the dead and continuing where he left off.)

Media poobahs need to apologize for pretending that all policies proposed in
public are neutral and must be treated with respect. Indeed, if anything they need to
apologize for assigning the "serious" label to policies that were, and are, obviously stupid
and destructive. They need to admit that they no longer identify with average folk
because media people now make so much money they "see" the benefit to lowering taxes
for the wealthy. Hell, they are the wealthy. Hell, they just need to apologize and shut up.

The finance industry needs to apologize for being such greedy bastards. They
need to give most of the ill-gotten bonuses and outrageous salaries back to the taxpayer.

Big time CEO's need to do the same. They need to admit they do nothing worthy
of being paid hundreds, sometimes thousands, of multiples in salary and bonuses above
what the average worker in their companies make. They simply aren't worth it. It is theft
and they need to apologize.

Barack Obama needs to apologize for being a dweeb and for refusing to lead the
nation. Hell, Biden asleep is a better leader than Obama awake. While Obama is at it, he
needs to apologize for running against Hillary, a person who knew how to be President
and would have done it right had he not assuaged his ego at the nation's and world's
expense.

John McCain needs to apologize for picking Sarah Palin as his running mate. Had
he picked Romney he would have been elected and we would have Obama up there
trying to "organize the community" in lieu of being President.

There you go. That is a start.

So, when should we set National Reconciliation and Atonement Day (NRAD)? I
suggest July 14th, Bastile Day in France. That day is internationally recognized as a day
when people rise up and throw off the parasitic and the criminal elements sucking the life
out of the body politic and social entente.

So, I have done it. I did not enjoy it. I would prefer someone else had done it.
However, it needed doing, still does.