The Voice of Protest

Open letter to Michael Steele, former head of the RNC.

I saw you on "Hardball," 2/21/13.  You informed Mr. Matthews that the opinions of the American people matter only during an election year.  Sir, who do you think you are?  Are you under the impression that you speak for a ruling aristocracy?  Certainly, Senators McCain and Graham give the impression of believing that they are members of one.  My opinion and the opinions of my fellow citizens matter at all times because they are cumulative.  We are not fools, sir.  Nor do we have the attention span of small children or cooked vegetables.  We hear.  We see.  We know.  And, we remember.  I give you the last two presidential elections, not to mention a loss of seats in both the House and the Senate. 

Do not count too much on our ignorance or our distraction through overwork and increasingly difficult circumstances.  Do not count too much on our abysmal economic situation post 2008 to sidetrack us from following the idiotic machinations of that theater of the absurd in D.C.  In point of fact, such self-serving and duplicitous rubbish has much more to do with where we are today than the School Lunch Program, Head Start, Medicaid, Medicare or Social Security. 

We have every right to be concerned about people who put their ideology over our welfare and call it love of country - and we are, sir; we are concerned.  Do not rest too easy on the belief that we can be diverted and entertained by media minutia out of engaging in acquiring the perspicacity to defend ourselves against the not-so-tender mercies of our "leaders.”  We have many sources and many options, and we grow better at using them day by day.

Above all do not overestimate the security of your gerrymandered districts and persistent interference with the exercise of the franchise.  As the demographics of this country change so too can the demographics of your precious red districts.  In any case, in a country where the obstructionist Right in Congress enjoys an approval rating slightly higher than bubonic plague it is not beyond the realm of reasonable possibility that save a small, loud and ideologically isolated minority - highly distasteful to the general public – you may stand to lose your own supporters.  Finally, we will wait in line for hours and days to cast our vote.  We will use social media, protest, write and rely upon our allies like Maddow, Sharpton and Shultz, to name three, to expose interference with voting rights for what it is, elitist hubris and desperation.

Be careful sir, who you underestimate and disregard.  We are out here.  We are watching. 

This letter was sent to Steele at this Email address:  steele@wharton.upenn.edu
This is his home page: http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~steele/

People like Steele must be called on their condescension toward and marginalization of the American People.  Give him a peace of your mind.  Perhaps he can paste them all together and make one of his own. 

The Conflict

There is a phenomenon recognized by the mental health community known as Gaslighting.   It is defined as a form of psychological abuse.  The name derives from a 1938 motion picture entitled Gaslight staring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer.  Plot wise it is very straightforward.  A man attempts to drive his wife crazy by manipulating and denying her reality – object, to get her money. 

If you add power and control to money; make Bergman analogues to the American people and Boyer the embodiment of modern GOP politics, the parallel is exact. Interestingly enough many shrinks consider Gaslighting the preferred operational method of sociopaths.  Well, if the shoe fits.

Contemporary political and cultural examples of this trend abound.  For instance, the Wall Street monsters who imploded the economy – the world economy, thank you very much – received millions of dollars in bonuses; they are still doing their work in much the same way they always have, and not a single one of them was ever brought to justice.  After all to do so would result in the loss of jobs and possibly implosion of the economy.  The people they bankrupted and put out of work, on the other hand, are parasites on the state and responsible for the deficit.  They are to be scorned and penalized at every turn.

Special tax breaks for people with yachts is not an extravagance to a nation in debt.  However, school lunch programs that feed hungry children are prohibitively wasteful.  Cutting of Medicaid to the poor by states obsessed with austerity serves prosperity and economic growth.  Stopping multi-million dollar subsidies to bloated oil companies does not. 

The circumstances that sent us into an unnecessary, costly and bloody war fueled by lies and funded on thin air require no investigation, no hearings, no scrutiny – indeed can be denied with immunity.  Conversely, when a man who challenged his party and questioned that war is nominated to the president’s cabinet this requires investigation, hearings, scrutiny and an incredible effort at slide of hand.  I submit that staging a filibuster and refusing to call it a filibuster in order to block that man’s appointment is akin to entering someone’s home at two in the morning wearing a mask, cracking their safe, taking their money and refusing to admit that you are engaged in robbery.  

If you are not dizzy by now, you have an incredible sense of equilibrium.  Did I mention that many shrinks consider this behavior the preferred operational method of the sociopath? 

Who are these abominations that would reduce the American people to feeble minded children – afraid of their own shadow, doubtful of their reason and ability to perceive reality; children who must take instruction and their world view from the ever shifting fiction of their “leaders?”  They are mediocre and bitter old-white-men who lost the presidency, to a brilliant black man no less.  They are spineless Senators and House members, facing re-election in '14 and panic stricken at the thought that they will have a Tea Party primary challenger.  Accordingly, they will do anything, say anything, batter and brutalize anyone in order to prove that they are right enough and Right enough to keep their seat.  These are the gutless politicians who have pandered to so few, for so long that they now have so little opportunity or incentive to do anything on the national stage but inflict their own personal humiliation.

There is a war going on in this country.  It is not a class war or a war between workers and corrupt crony Capitalism.  It is a war between these slaves of a malignant political machine that distains free thinking and those of us who demand to own our thoughts, our reason, our perceptions, and to claim our right to live in a world we wish to live in and of our own making.  We all must choose a side and be seen to have chosen.

To paraphrase the great Benjamin Disraeli, the question is this: are we a nation devoted to freedom of thought or a nation of wretched, intellectually barren children.  I, my friends, am on the side of freedom.

Double Speak and Double Dealing

Alrighty, if anyone still doubts that the Right considers the American people, the Beltway Media and the world at large to be a bunch of sub-literate, ignorant rubes please pull your head out of your ass and pay attention.  Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) is leading the charge to demand a 60-vote threshold to end debate on Chuck Hagel’s appointment as Secretary of Defense.  This is a god-damned filibuster, but Inhofe and his humps in waiting aren’t calling it a filibuster.  They are going to call it Coca-Cola, blip-blip, popcorn or Tuesday, but not a filibuster.  So not only are we lying about the filibuster, but we are lying about lying about the filibuster.

Harry Reid thinks it is a “shame.”  I think Harry is a pathetic old fool.  When filibuster reform was possible he didn’t have to take Mitch McConnell by the dick and go skipping down the Senate’s center aisle with him singing “Kumbaya.”  But he did.  Now the small amount of reform agreed upon by a dupe and a devil is a shabby and empty promise.

 We need Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, but we need better leadership in the Senate more.