INSANITY REIGNS

It seemed like just yesterday when the chattering class couldn’t get enough pundits on their shows to subject the Republican Party to ridicule and derision after their demise during the 2008 election.

They were too busy laughing at the leaders of the lunatic fringe of the Republican Party like Limbaugh, Beck, Palin and that crowd of know nothings except knowing how to appeal to the fear and hatred of the frightened ignorant mob who wanted their country back instead of focusing on the dynamics of a dysfunctional Democratic Party that won.

To be sure the ideology of the Republican Party and its sheer incompetence at governing has resulted in more misery for the American public but they do stick together to preserve the status quo which just also happens to benefit their economic status at the expense of everyone.

In the real world life is in a state of constant flux yet the Republican Party remains in lockstep against “change” and for the same failed policies of the past. That these “regular guy” false prophets of pseudo populism manage to define themselves and their message then convince the public like the pied piper to vote for them and in the process vote against their best interests in the face of a historical record reeking of hypocrisy and rich with discredited policies is absolutely astonishing.

While the Republican Party stands together against “change” the Democratic Party stands for nothing and doesn’t really seem to have the spine for power preferring to split into factions that pick and choose from a Chinese menu of party platform issues. Conservative Democrats aka Blue Dog Democrats are indistinguishable from Republicans, moderate Democrats look for a common ground with their opponents that does not exist. That they have no shame is evidenced by their predilection toward the politics of appeasement and progressive Democrats are always counted on to compromise and sacrifice their values for the greater good of the nonexistent middle.

In 2008 the appeal to populism was made with the golden oratory of a new vision for America but in less than a year the ideology of the Democratic Party’s populism that played so well a year ago was now reduced to empty rhetoric well before the special election. The moderate Democrats managed to frighten the Blue Dog Democrats and alienate the progressive wing of the party by seeking the pretense of bipartisanship.

For 8 years we were willing to put up with gross negligence and incompetence beginning with a fraudulent election in 2000, a terrorist attack that occurred on 9/11 because a briefing the month before was ignored by a president on vacation, a fabricated basis for an unjust, immoral and illegal war in Iraq and the willful deceit and deception of the people and Congress to support it, the war crimes committed at Abu Ghraib, Katrina, tax cuts for the wealthy, the ever widening gap between rich and poor, an economy in a state of collapse nationally and globally and for all of this not one person was ever held accountable. Where was all the anger at government for the last 8 years?


Meanwhile after 1 year of a Democratic Congress and a Democratic President the people are outraged enough to send a message to Washington to not take them for granted and to fix the economy or the voters will not only elect the same people whose policies got us here in the first place but the same people who offer the same failed policies and obstruction to anything else.

In fact given the strong likelihood that Scott Brown would win the special election in Massachusetts earlier today Wall St. reached a 15 month high when the Dow rose 116 points propelled by an increase in health insurance stocks with the increased probability of a logjam occurring in DC that would further delay, dilute and defeat any semblance of even the present day watered down version of health care reform.

The angry mob has been manipulated by those who have a more cohesive grasp on their message even though it is nothing more than doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Insanity reigns. As if in a drunken frenzy the mob celebrates their role in perpetuating the politics as usual and the preservation of the status quo. Now that the inmates are clearly running the institution who they will blame when nothing gets done, when the economy doesn’t improve, when other problems facing this nation go unanswered because when solutions are proposed this self described independent Republican they’ve anointed as their voice votes no?