Romney, the Robbinsense projected winner of the Republican nomination, further states: “I believe we are an exceptional country with a unique destiny and role in the world.” It is noteworthy that there is zero Biblical citation to support such a claim. This, by default, comes from a “de facto,” “third testament” of The Bible, which only people like Republicans seem to grasp. Or maybe this would be straight from the writings of Joe Smith (LDS founder), who claimed to have “found” ancient writings, and who also happened to be an American. Well people always find reasons to believe that they are the chosen. But Romney goes on to state that those who don’t subscribe to his Third Testament are ready to “wave the white flag of surrender.” As such, they would be presumed to be unpatriotic. Sorry, Mitt, but a true patriot, is NOT in denial as to the transgressions of his loved ones, including his country; he assumes responsibility for their faults and errors. We expect, we demand this of our president!
God’s chosen are not bound by the rules of other mortals; certainly they need never admit error: “I will never, ever apologize for America,” he goes on. “When America is strong, the world is safer.” Vietnam notwithstanding, even a peek at world history since the fall of the “Iron Curtain” makes a mockery of this statement. This is precisely the dangerous attitude in a president that has launched three wars in the last decade!
The issue of Romney’s Christianity (as a Mormon) is moot. The significance here is that he openly subscribes to “faith-based” statesmanship. And virtually no prominent Republican will gainsay these assertions.
You can see, there is no “logic” or rational argument being forwarded here. This is pure “sentiment,” a notion to be taken on faith…faith, the issue that drives religion. We’re not supposed to operate our government on this element of human frailty, much less our country.
Today in a poll conducted by The Hill, 69% of Americans believe we are in decline. Yet even President Obama, in response to the drumbeat, is reluctant to buck the sentiment in an election cycle. He posits that “the 21st Century will be another American century.”
Growing up in the ‘50s, politicians didn’t make pronouncements like this. There was no need to. We were that country, and the whole world knew it. Now this sentiment is central to the essence of the Republican Party, and its campaign buzz. The reason they trumpet this cause is that it is no longer true. But they will say it over and over again. We are bludgeoned by oh so many lies, leading us to irrational wars, irrational election decisions, over and over again, because they know that if they repeat a lie often enough, people will come to believe it.
In the action films of the ‘50s, the sheriff, Gary Cooper or John Wayne, was a normal person, with the courage to stand up for the weak and prevail against odds. This was accepted as a metaphor for our country. After our prestige and integrity were destroyed in Vietnam, Rambo emerged to signify our national will. Our new heroes were pumped up with artificial muscles and bristling with overwhelming firepower, like our pumped-up military. Rambo was a creature of American defeat.
The politicians who trumpet this cause are stand-ins for Rambo. Our government seduces us with: “Support Our Troops” to distract us from looking closely at the wars being waged in our names. When we had real wars and normal, conscripted Americans fighting them, our sons and neighbors, we were not distanced from the fighting. The “professional fighting force” gives us separation from war. Our politicians no longer ask us to pay for wars…more separation. They can wage their economic and political battles in a vacuum, away from our surveillance.
Today our heroes return from war to a country that has lost its nerve, lost its spirit, lost its prestige, and has no jobs to offer them. Does anyone wish to take on a rational discussion of American Exceptionalism?
Congratulations to President Obama on a daring and successful raid upon what turned out to be the headquarters of Osama bin Laden. In this country and abroad there is relief at the dispatch of a renowned terrorist. The president has been duly rewarded by plaudits, pundits and polls. Republicans, with their thunder stolen, are in confused disarray.
Is this, however, good? Is the threat vanquished, or is the many-headed hydra of international terrorism moving to reappear?
In the face of seemingly universal approval at home and abroad, the editorial staff at Robbinsense is ambivalent, but we have bemused consensus.
The United States of America has been struggling with a persistent disease for many scores of years. This insidious disease, like a narcotic, seems to make us feel good until we break out in a cold sweat, with eruptions of rage, violence, trauma, a festering sore. It remains hidden while migrating below the surface and leads to insanity.
The latest significant eruption within our borders occurred on 9/11/01 in New York, leaving a gaping pock on the land. While the sore has healed, we are burdened by PTSD and fear of recurrence. Has the killing of Osama bin Laden cured our trauma? We think not; bin Laden will be replaced by another zealot, filled with hatred and driven by revenge. Our ship of state is the mighty eagle, too cumbersome to strike at a swarm of robins, pecking in flight…she must attack from a vantage point.
For a persistent cold, your doctor may prescribe drugs, likely a placebo, to ease your symptoms while your cold runs its course. Colds are that way. But with a serious disease do we ask our doctor to treat our symptoms, or do we look for a cure?
Osama bin Laden, friends, was a symptom of our disease. We can salve our wounds by killing him, or his successor, but this is no more significant than taking an analgesic to cure a runny nose. It sates blood-lust and generates political capital. In a sense, bin Laden was a palliative, a distraction, an evil face that our leaders used to avert us from facing the true demon: the motivation for 9/11.
Our disease is a collective mental disorder; it’s the notion of “American Exceptionalism.” See June, 2009. AE is the idea that our nation is not constrained by the rules of international conduct which govern other nations. AE is perpetrated by our own unscrupulous leaders who want to pursue ill-conceived, political objectives; it is ignored by our “liberal” press because our press is not liberal; it’s accepted and applauded by us because it’s fun to think we’re special and it’s a convenient excuse to hide from responsibility for the misdeeds of our government. AE is so pervasive in our culture that a raid such as this in Pakistan doesn’t even raise eyebrows. AE is so “accepted” that a significant group of our (Republican) presidential hopefuls raise it as campaign strategy---claiming its legitimacy, that is!
This is Sarah Palin’s opinion? Mike, Mitt: you want on board with that? Who are we that these candidates think they can extol as virtue that which infects our culture to the core?
You might say, “Yes, but OBL was a really bad guy---a terrorist, an international criminal. Ok, but our government harbors such people in this country. We know of one living openly in Texas with a record of international crime, torture, terrorism, with the blood on his hands of 100 times more innocents than OBL could imagine. Would it be ok if one of our “allies” launched a paramilitary attack on our soil to remove this menace? We say, “No.” If you agree, then how can we claim that the raid in Pakistan is ok?
Our action in Pakistan, a sovereign nation, a “presumed ally,” is an expression of American Exceptionalism. AE is the disease that invites OBL and all of his successors to wage war on us, at home and abroad.
We need leadership in the political sphere to pull us back from the abyss. We need leaders who will take us into the heart of the international community as a constructive and respectful neighbor.
Given the scope and success of his raid, we applaud President Obama for his dignified bearing in the wake of the attack. We cringe at even the thought of the speech that President Bush would have delivered, filled with smirks, snickers and bravado. But with political capital in hand, we ask the president now for good leadership. There is clearly no hope from the other side of the aisle.
Not exactly a “founding father,” Thomas Paine is considered by many the “patron saint” of American patriotism. His lofty rhetoric was famously inspirational in its day, and still inspires. Beyond stirring the blood of revolutionary ardor, he rallied the fighting spirit of colonists horrified by the grotesque carnage of war. “These are the times that try men’s souls.” “The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
By the time Paine was writing The Crisis, it was clear that a sustained ordeal lay before the revolutionaries, opposed not only by the crown but by Tories, “elitists” of the day, who were busy cashing in on the war by over-charging for goods and services. Paine believed that the chief measure of patriotism was willingness to sacrifice “in proportion to means.” “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it” (1777). For those of means, that meant sacrifice in proportion to their wealth. “Patriotism” meant putting the collective good before private profit.
We’ve come a long way. The mantle of “patriot” has been assumed by our right wing. Republicans, buoyed by the “Tea Party,” stand behind flags and lapel pins, demanding freedom from taxes and promoting homeland security from the immigrants that fuel our economy. While calling themselves “patriots”, they spread lies to justify a collective philosophy of greed that brings riches to themselves as the nation wallows in daunting problems. While millions are without homes, jobs, healthcare, decent education for their children, the rich demand excuse from even the most trivial of patriotic sacrifice. “Freedom” to them means preventing the government from placing any restrictions upon their prerogatives to siphon resources up from the lower classes. Balancing the budget for this constituency means financing our endless welfare for the rich programs by cutting welfare for the poor and middle class.
The Republican plan, which ignores the needs of the poor, will deny them the resources necessary for a decent life for themselves and will lead to a rising tide of crime, or anarchy. This will be well-armed by they guns that these same Republicans champion the rabble’s right to amass. Meanwhile, the plan assures that our moneyed class will continue to accumulate staggering fortunes.
In the last fifteen years, and leading into the crash of 2007-08, the “financial services” sector has become our fastest-growing and largest industry. What exactly does this industry do to “earn” its enormous profits? This industry does not generate wealth. It’s not like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, creating things that drive our economy.It produces essentially nothing. These “industrialists” redistribute wealth. While income (adjusted for inflation) over the last 30 yearsamong the bottom half of wage earners has increased by about 11.5%...(that’s less than 0.5% per year), income among these financiers has skyrocketed. Recent stats for California are much more alarming. In any case, these people control vast sums of monetary assets. Individuals and groups within the industry from time to time devise investment instruments such as credit default swapsand co-lateralized debt obligations, which come down to little more than complicated insurance schemes. These people are essentially salesmen, selling portfolios of insurance to back up risky investments. And who stands behind these policies? The public. Our government. The tax payer. Our children and descendants. The public assumes the risk! These financiers agree among themselves to create assets, sell them to each other and naïve investors, including foreigners, generating huge commissions. Then they reward themselves with extravagant salaries and bonuses, fueled by stock options that don’t appear on profit and loss statements. This money, my friends, is all siphoned from the economy.
We chortle and call Robert Rizzo, City manager at Bell (California), a crook… He is minutia in the big picture. Our financial sector has been fleecing this country for decades in the same manner. Government regulatory agencies are supposed to protect us from this kind of thievery, but they have been emasculated---by deregulation of the eighties, by apathy during the boom times of the nineties, then in a conspiracy between government and industry during the bubble times of the last ten years.
But the problem goes far beyond one of neglect. We have one party---half of our government---operating in tandem with these thieves. And this is the essence of the Republican platform. The GOP opposes all efforts to prevent the financial services industry from “doing their thing.” Beyond that, in return for paltry investments into the political system (bribes), they insist that these crooks shouldn’t even have to pay taxes on their booty.
Do you think this is an exaggeration, or the problem is confined to the financial sector? Our entire economy is riddled with such schemes. For example, the endless drug ads that foul our airwaves every night are for drugs, most of which don’t work. “Even a glance at medical journals shows that once heralded studies keep falling by the wayside.” Pharmaceutical companies now have the enormous resource of the “human genome,” available for research. By taking an active agent and sort of scatter-shooting at the genome in a laboratory they can find positive results somewhere. Oh sometimes they may have to invent a disease, but hey, that works for us. If they can work some test results to show efficacy, then the government gives the manufacturer fast-track approval. Advertising produces demand for these expensive, new drugs. But when subsequent, control-based studies prove a drug to be ineffective, which they usually do, it takes two years longer to get it removed from the market than it took to get it approved in the first place! During these several years, the drug companies continue to pilfer money from our healthcare system, driving up health costs. We could save $200 Billion annually from expensive, ineffective drugs by spending $50 Million on manufacturing placebos in a variety of colors and shapes, which would work just as well. Government should protect us from such schemes but it has been put to sleep by politicians, party to the conspiracy.
The vitality of a nation, friends, lies in the partnership between informed citizens, willing to make an honest contribution to society (patriots) and good government. We now have a significant, controlling faction in the government which uses lies and deceit to get out its message. Through its propaganda arm, Fox News, the GOP leads a campaign of misinformation that sabotages our system. It renders effective political integration of the public impossible. It uses our ignorance, naiveté and anger to manipulate us. The Republicans have forsaken “the people” on behalf of the moneyed elite which fuels the propaganda campaign that keeps them in power. And the health of our society has gone into freefall.
They’ve taken over our judiciary (see Bush vs. Gore, Citizens United). The Republicans have scuttled our legislative process with filibuster. And now we have recently rewarded their treachery by returning them to legislative majority! Republicans used the political strength of unions as rationale for Citizens United. Now we see in Wisconsin that once in power (for two months), they will try to destroy the unions. Two months!
And who are “they?” The GOP’s constituency is an unlikely partnership between an angry middle class that can be mobilized by their clever propaganda and ironically, the moneyed elite that preys off of them. The GOP champions the very concepts which they attack: “family values,” “morality” (whatever that is). They mobilize their angry constituents with fear: “terrorism”, illegal aliens, homosexuals. They pander to us with promises to reduce our taxes while their moneyed elite cheat us blind, depriving us of the income and property that they have promised not to tax! Meanwhile, the rabble has been convinced by the propaganda that “liberals” are responsible for their plight, rather than their own “partners.”
Aside from sabotaging the system from within, the GOP uses a “scorched earth” policy obstructing all legislation proposed by Democrats. It doesn’t matter how sound the policy is, or even if (inconveniently) they used to champion it. The full force of the right-wing propaganda arm is thrown against the legislation, in total disregard for the benefaction of our country. Power is the objective of the Republicans, not effective, public policy.
The current GOP legislative target, “Obamacare,” is a perfect example. In 1993, the Clinton Administration tried to push through comprehensive healthcare reform. Republicans did all they could to derail that effort, in part by proposing two alternate bills. Senator John Chafee (R RI.) introduced the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act, co-sponsored by such influential Republicans as Bob Dole, Richard Lugar, Chuck Grassley and Orrin Hatch. Republicans also proposed the Consumer Choice Health Security Act, supported by Jesse Helms and Trent Lott. Both plans included an “individual mandate,” as does Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts plan. Everyone needs healthcare eventually; the system won’t work if people are allowed to buy in after they contract significant illness. Neither of these bills went anywhere, of course, because the Republicans weren’t serious about the issue; they only wanted to de-rail the Clinton effort. But it tied individual mandate to Republican healthcare thinking.
As recently as June, 2009, Chuck Grassley told Fox News that Republicans favored individual mandate. After all, individual responsibility is a central theme of Republican sloganeering. President Obama, who first opposed this provision, was encouraged to endorse it to enlist bi-partisan support. But once the Democratic bill was on the table, Republicans saw this very issue as the handle to challenge it. It doesn’t matter that it’s rational policy, or even if it’s a bastion of Republican ideology. The CBO has calculated that Obamacare will save the government over $200 Billion over the next ten years. Isn’t that a Republicans priority? Well, no; Republican strategy is to block all legislation coming from Democrats. (When a Democrat does this it’s called “flip-flopping,” and that’s grounds for sending that Democratic offender to political oblivion.)
On the environmental front, the GOP has completely repudiated its heritage of environmental responsibility (Theodore Roosevelt, even Richard Nixon). They are the party of “No,” No to science, No to any kind of restrictions on industry, their wealthy benefactors.
Nature rewards collaboration, my friends. Generally, the waste products of every species provide nutrients that foster other life. Species that don’t co-operate end up extinct. Of some 50 million species on this planet, our greatest transgressor, by far, is man! Republicans tell us that “God” gave us this world to exploit, and that God will keep it healthy. Combine unspeakable arrogance with laughable stupidity and unlimited greed and we have the Republican formula for---disaster. Here again, with lies and clever catch-phrases, they combine greed from the industrial polluters with bitterness and despair of the lower classes who care not about posterity, to muster support.
One half century ago a charismatic president invoked the true challenge for a patriot: “Ask not what your country can do for you---ask instead what you can do for your country.” The nation stood in awe and approved. How far have we descended? The Republican Party panders to us for votes and money. They tell us we need give nothing---that being a good citizen means buying guns and resisting any drive to support your neighbor or your community. It manipulates us with fear and hatred---enemies in our midst: aliens, poor people, liberals! Then they hypocritically plant “fascist” labels on their opponents! Their objective is to keep us so ignorant that we will continue to vote for them…It’s sort of a national invocation of the “Stockholm Syndrome.”
Our next election cycle promises to be one of the most fascinating, if not pivotal in our history. Beyond the fate of the Obama Presidency, we will discover the fate of this circus: The Republican Party.
Throughout history a succession of nations have risen to the pinnacle of power and influence: China, Greece, Rome, Carthage, Spain, Netherlands, Britain… We are only the latest in the line-up. The longevity of these successive empires has grown shorter as the centuries have passed and the pace of civilization and technology has accelerated. There is a familiar course that leads empires to their demise. Arrogance, complacency, laziness, declining industry and the assumption of the inevitability of dominance lie its heart. The mantle is passed on to those people with enough industry and discipline to assume power. For the last 30 years our government has imposed its will by military might. As successive “rogue states” achieve nuclear power, our options dwindle. And as we allow each successive president to continue pouring mountains of resources into weapons instead of education, innovation and research, we doom ourselves to the dustbin of empire.
In March, 2010 Cesar Ulloa, a care-giver in an upscale, Calabasas (CA) nursing home, was accused by a co-worker of brutalizing several patients to the point of physical trauma, even death. Ulloa was seen leaping from a chest of drawers onto the chest of an elderly man. He had also been seen striking the head and face of a wheelchair-bound patient with the hands of another patient in an effort to promote a fistfight between the addled, helpless men.
On Apr 13, 1919, a British occupying force killed two to three thousand Indians in Ahmedabad, leading to active resistance to British rule. Mohandas Gandhi organized the resistance, using peaceful obstruction of the brutal government. Hundreds of thousands were killed in the struggle which lasted over 25 years, until the British finally retreated.
In 1955, Martin Luther King, Jr. organized the Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott. This brought King to national attention in the civil rights movement, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1965, and his assassination in April 1966. The hallmark of Dr. King’s movement and strategy was non-violence---passive resistance in the face of brutal and centuries-old aggression and suppression. He was pilloried by the right as a trouble-maker and “Communist.” Party lines at the time were blurred because the vestiges of segregation, most prominent in the South, were still carried by the Democratic Party. As a result of Lyndon Johnson’s civil rights policies, then the presidential campaign of George Wallace, white racists first fled the Democratic Party, then went to the welcoming arms of the Republican Party, where the still reside today.
Over the decades, committed, non-violent resistance has proven to be an effective, even galvanizing tool in promoting social change, but one that has been repulsive to our political right wing. What we see in our political culture now is a right-wing movement, led by Republicans, to undermine a progressive, social trend in response to the “conservative” movement started by Ronald Reagan and brought to its excessive demise by George W. Bush.
It would appear that the overall strategy hashed out behind closed doors in the Republican National Committee is anything but “passive resistance”. Rather than “working within the system”, or presenting a viable alternate program, their strategy is to foment noisy, even violent discord (essentially anarchy) to the extent that operation of the government is not possible. In so doing, presumably, voters will come to realize that a Democratic administration is incapable of effective leadership. Propelled by what is essentially public extortion, we will return Republicans to power, though they appear to have no credible platform, nor candidates with education, character and history of national service, merely to stop their noisy rabble from disrupting our political process.
Republican strategy appears to be the same as that of our young friend, Cesar Ulloa: conduct and promote violence and discord. Through filibuster in the senate and a sustained program of lies, deceit and manipulation directed at their small group of angry, noisy supporters, Republicans have brought our political process to a stop. While Republicans compare our Democratic president to Adolf Hitler, their noisy, gullible rabble of demonstrators is being encouraged toward violent acts directed at government officials.
Rush (Limbaugh) speaks of “Democrats planning to kill you” (“death panels” (?)) and calls the White House “the enemy camp”. Darling Sarah (Palin) posted on her Facebook site a map of the United States showing a list of House Democrats who voted for healthcare reform, with gun-site crosshairs pointing at their districts, and the comment: “Don’t Retreat, Instead---RELOAD!” RNC Chairman, Michael Steele publicly wished for house majority leader, Nancy Pelosi to appear on the “firing line.”
When brought to task, these politicians do not retreat from their attack, or make any attempt to undermine the groundswell of violence and anger that they’re fomenting. Rather than disavowing it, Palin rationalizes her comment by calling it “just a figure of speech.” We wonder if she knows what that means. “Secular-Socialistic Regime”, now a partisan favorite catch-term, is also a figure of speech, carrying connotations far beyond those that might be carried by using the usual term, “The Obama Administration.”
These techniques: fomenting anger, hostility and violence, impel a boisterous, sometimes gun-toting rabble to pursue the Republican agenda. Assembling an apparatus to disrupt government process, intimidate politicians and silence opposition voices harkens back to the Sturmabteilung (S. A.) in Nazi Germany. These groups make up what are essentially our Republican storm troopers or “brown-shirts.” Yet their provocateurs point at the president and invoke Naziesque images of socialism and dictatorship to describe his policies.
Irony extends beyond that. Our Republican darling in Texas, Governor Rick Perry, describes ex-president Bush as a “very, very excellent president”, largely because he “kept us safe”. Kept us safe from what? 9/11? Everyone but our government in denial seemed to know that was coming. ---kept us safe from foreign terrorists after 9-11? OK. But what about domestic terrorists? What is our Republican Party doing to keep us safe from domestic terrorists? They all but endorse bombings and assassination of abortion providers…they wink at right-wing wackos flying airplanes into government buildings. Gun-toting skinheads get front-row attention; they encourage people to take up arms to intimidate or kill our political leaders. How far are we from another Timothy McVeigh, killing hundreds with a truck bomb? Apparently we should only worry about foreign terrorists, while domestic terrorists are advancing the Republican agenda with its gun-slinging rhetoric.
Influenced by the right-wing noise machine, 24% of Americans now consider themselves part of the “tea party’ movement. Two-thirds of Republicans believe our clearly-centrist president is a “socialist” (an obviously pejorative term that means what?), 57% believe he’s a Muslim (so?), and one forth believe him to be the “anti-Christ”. (Evil incarnate?) This is largely generated by irresponsible and harshly partisan misinformation that is being accepted by a shockingly high percentage of our unsophisticated public. When one party is successful in casting its opposition as “evil”, rational discourse is shut down. The “other side” cannot simply be mistaken; it must be evil, selfish, racist, unpatriotic, immoral, or just stupid.
It’s easy to conclude that the Republican Party has crossed the line between loyal opposition and reckless provocation. We might think that responsible politicians would label some recent excesses as deplorable. Rather, on the floor of the senate, after Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus called for civil discourse, his fellow Ohio senator, Republican John Boehner, said Driehaus could be a “dead man” if he voted for healthcare reform. This staggers the imagination, and harkens back to fist fights on the floor of the senate in the mid-19th century.
The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that with the departure of George W. Bush in 2008, there were 149 “patriot” (or militia) groups. This number has ballooned to 512 in 2009 with hard times and an African-American president. These groups, along with the “tea partiers” are almost exclusively white. “Serious” threats to members of congress have tripled from 15 in the last 3 months of 2009 to 42 in the first 3 of 2010…this supposedly fueled by anger over a healthcare bill? We think rather not. It’s fueled by bilious lies misrepresenting the nature of the legislation and the Obama administration.
To find an historical parallel, we must go back to the ‘60s when radical, left-wing groups such as the Black Panthers and the SDS (Students for Democratic Society) dominated the discussion over civil rights and the Vietnam War. The Democratic Party of the day denounced this radical fringe. Republicans now foster violent groups and fan the flames of their passion.
It’s difficult to fathom where the GOP thinks this strategy will carry them. At what point do rational, (true) patriots abandon the party, leaving it to its noisy, fringe element? In a recent development, former Republican poster-boy, Charlie Crist, governor of Florida, has abandoned the Republican Party because he won’t go along with politics of discord. He’s now running for senate as an independent.
But the alarming part of this scenario is that bolstered by the Supreme Court, the Republican Party may continue to dictate dialogue and policy even in the face of national rejection. See On the Supreme Court.
It is not, and has never been the design or intent of the editorial staff at Robbinsense to present a political screed, joining the cascade of partisan noise that dominates our national dialogue. We have made every effort to see issues from all angles. But the intensity of the political noise that’s consuming our political dialogue during what is perhaps our greatest crisis since WW II cries out for inspection.
“Politics of discord” is about the worst elements in our body politic, and it’s generated by a dysfunctional election system, driven by money. Of our two major parties, common knowledge tells us that both are guilty of the same elements of dysfunction. But to this observer, the Republican Party has taken the politics of discord to a level that threatens our nation.
Even after our financial melt-down, Republicans continue to sing the praises of the free market: lower taxes, shrink government and let the market guide us. When in power, however, rather than shrink government, both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush emasculated it and expanded it to a bloated mess. Market forces are not capable of guiding us upon a path of an equitable society. Market forces, like corporations are directed by people---rich, powerful people for whom five, fifty or even a hundred million dollars is inadequate. Free-market forces have turned these people into billionaires. Our enormous economy has been commandeered by the powerful to funnel money from the poor and middle class toward themselves. Inflation-adjusted wages for the middle and lower classes are significantly down since commencement of the Republican "conservative" movement in 1981, while accumulation of wealth among the prosperous classes has skyrocketed. There’s no end to the greed.
Our last three decades have been dominated by “conservative” government and guided by a drive toward deregulation by the likes of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, Alan Greenspan. Even Bill Clinton to some extent participated in the deregulation mania. These policies have brought us to the brink of financial collapse and social disintegration. The heart of our democracy lies in the middle class. But as our disparity in wealth soars and our wealthy class amasses fortunes, our middle class is sinking into poverty.
The irony of our present situation is that the voice of this sinking, angry middle class has been commandeered by the Republican Party to do its bidding, even though it advocates continuation of all that is causing this mess and intends to do nothing to change course! The Republican right wing, along with its media stars (Rush, Bill, Ann, Glenn, Sarah, etc.) direct our national course with brilliant manipulation of ignorant people through the use of lies, smoke and “defining the agenda”. Such catch-phrases as “death taxes”, “liberal media”, “death panels”, “socialism”, and now “secular-socialist regime” capture the fancy of our great middle classes, which have been softened up andconditioned for manipulation by advertising gimmickry.
For the Republicans this is not about assembling good government; it’s about causing, then denouncing bad government. This party has made an art-form of manipulating misinformed people to elect them to office from which they unravel the very structure of government. It’s about getting elected---using our stupidity against us. It’s about power and the monetary rewards of holding office in a dysfunctional system.
Evidence abounds that the Democrats are largely guilty of the same abuse of this system, but their apparatus and focus is second-rate. We may tell ourselves smugly that the politics of discord doesn’t work---Republicans will self-destruct and fall from grace. But evidence shows otherwise. During the Clinton years, senate Republicans blocked all “reasonable” nominations to the Supreme Court. This tactic continues today, leaving President Obama wary of nominating anyone left of center to the post. Republicans justify stonewalling highly-qualified nominees by pointing out that Democrats blocked or opposed the nomination of [such pathetic candidates as] Robert Bork, Anton Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Harriet Miers and John Roberts. This tactic has been a major success! With a combination of stonewalling in the senate and refusing to nominate decent candidates when holding the presidency, Republicans have stacked the court with political hacks. In so doing, they have the Supreme Court, one third of our government, locked up for years to come---elections notwithstanding.
The strategy to control the presidency is the same. Republicans justify a coordinated attack on President Obama by recalling the public ridicule and lament directed at George W. Bush during his eight-year tenure. But the chorus of criticism directed at President Bush was a spontaneous, grass-roots response to blatantly bad government and his embarrassing lack of grace. In contrast, Mr. Obama is an eloquent and dignified man…a centrist by any rational measure. The harsh criticism directed at Obama is not a spontaneous outcry from the people---it’s being orchestrated by the Republican Party. It’s come down to the appearance of undignified senators standing on the balcony of the capitol, waving their arms to fan the ardor of passionate protesters. (Even the Nazis refused to stoop this low. Neither Hitler’s lieutenants nor the SS had any public contact with the SA, led by Ernst Rohm. After Hitler assumed total power, he killed Rohm and disbanded the apparatus of the S. A.) Our protesters are not responding to Mr. Obama’s policy proposals or stupid remarks, they’re responding to the lies and distortions of brilliant demagoguery generated and repeated over and over from Republican Party apparatus.
It’s possible that Republicans will succeed in stymieing President Obama’s leadership to the extent that our country will wallow on for three more years. Mr. Obama seemed to have learned the lesson of his “bi-partisan effort” during the healthcare debate. We at Robbinsense suggest that he abandon gestures of bi-partisanship and move directly toward the change that we need with the resources that stand behind him. We hope that the American people will stand up and shoulder some of that load. Among other things, we must start a citizen movement to reverse “Citizens United” and get serious about campaign reform.
We still get chills when hearing Mr. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But it appears that “…government of the people, by the people, for the people...” has perished from our land. Today we have government by Wall Street for the corporations and moneyed elite. Take a stand.
Hi, I'm Mark Robbins and this is my blog. I enjoy writing and sharing my thoughts with others, regarding politics, music, wine, golf and news of the day. Enjoy---and hey, I hope you'll join the discussion with comments.
This is my alter-ego, Jackson Dave. He's a Robbinsense staff writer and as a young man, he sees through a broader lens. I hope you'll enjoy his columns.
Poor Mexico, The violence will never end 'til they stop the flow of drugs!
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Newt Gingrich
"I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in politics."
