This weekend I was reintroduced to the Rahm Emanuel School of Chicago Style Party Politics. That is to say, anyone who doesn’t follow the leader blindly, mouth the party line unthinkingly will be stood up against the proverbial wall and figuratively shot. I don’t know when the Democratic Party lost sight of the sanctity of free speech, particularly political speech, but then they have lost sight of so many things. I don’t know when the Democratic Party forgot that free thinking is a moral imperative in a free society. I don’t know when the party of Franklin, John and my beloved Bobby decided that the best way to win the war is to impersonate the god-damned enemy with all the vitriol, slander and cruelty that implies – questioning the loyalties, commitment and honor of people who disagree as if any s.o.b. had the right. I do know that I am sick of the Democratic Party. They look just like the Republican Party – pandering to special interests and whoring for votes. Along with many other Liberals of my acquaintance I have left the party and changed my affiliation to Independent. There is no place in the party for people like me anymore. Contrary to the blather in the media, all Independents are not centrists. Notwithstanding that same blather about the orgasmic joy of the center, one must ask the question: the center of what? If anyone bothers to read this please don’t write back and ask me if I am supporting Romney. The question is stupid on its face, and I am more than a little tired of the implication that I am a collaborator.
What bloody percentage can Middle Class people see in voting for Republicans? Why would those people consider it in their best interests to return a codependent enabler like Alberta Darling - whose only talent appears to be in knowing what to kiss and when - to the state Senate? Can these workers be delusional enough to think that when Field Marshall Walker finishes with the unions he won't begin to diminish their prospects? It is a true thing that masters seldom invite servants to take a place at the table, no matter how loyal the servant has been.
Delusion is rampant today. Take the media for instance. Every large grin, small brain pundit on cable has been squealing about Labor's great loss last night. Really? Perhaps the idiots didn't pull all the news up on the wire service. The Democrats gained two seats last night after retaining a seat in an earlier recall election and with two elections coming up next week in fairly safe districts.
Labor got two-thirds of what they wanted. In the bargain taking one-third of what the Republicans had and reducing their majority to one vote. It was a great night because meaningful change often comes in increments. The Middle Class struck a blow for fairness last night. There are at least two Republicans in Wisconsin today who wish they had never screwed with us.
Today while various members of Congress go scurrying about like rabid squirrels trying to whip up votes for the debt ceiling compromise, I am more than a little apprehensive about what these weird brothers and sisters are about to do to this country.
A trillion or more dollars in cuts, with more to come, is not the prescription that economists of any political bent recommend for a struggling economy. In 1937 President Roosevelt was advised to make spending cuts as America recovered from the Great Depression. In mid-1937 the economy declined sharply. During a thirteen month period through much of 1938 the unemployment rate jumped from 14.3% to 19.0%. Today in addition to these penny-pinching cuts, there is no revenue engendering mechanism either in terms of tax reform or job creation to help reduce the deficit – if that is what they are really trying to achieve.
Between the infantile and moronic mantra of the Right, cut spending/no new taxes, and the impotent, faint hearted and posturing leadership of the Left, the majesty of Liberal values is sliding down the toilet. These are values such as: a belief in social and economic justice; a belief in the social safety net; a belief that all people have a right to a living wage, a home, food, health care and education.
I realize that Liberals are out of fashion - so out of fashion in fact that many of us hide behind the alias, Progressive which I don't use myself. Out of fashion or no, we still have a right to our cherished philosophy and a right to expect a president who ran on that philosophy to respect, if not cherish, it as well.
In my estimation, President Obama is not a Liberal, not a Democrat. He is, as Ezra Klein said, a moderate Republican. He has been telling the Left to sit down and shut the fuck up for three years. All the while moving farther and farther Right. As if snuggling up to John Boehner would make the 86 clinically insane tea baggers in the Republican House like him. Call me out of fashion, out of date, out of touch. Call me stupid – nobody has ever dared but hey, give it a shot – the excuses for this president are wearing thin. The idea that anyone who is losing or has lost faith in him is somehow betraying a Liberalism he does not appear to share is worn-out. People keep saying that we will have a Republican president if he doesn’t win. We have a Republican president now. It is just a matter of degree.
