Well, it happened. The Republicans, the Tea Baggers, the Neocons, and the GOP (your choice) took control, as predicted. The Senate went Republican in last November's election, alright. Danged if they didn't increase their majority in the House, too. All the campaign bucks to demonize President Obama in the last few years finally took effect. Nice work, guys. Kudos to Karl Rove and the Koch Brothers. Your dollars and best efforts worked. In spades. It was a wipeout. The Democrats should have just saved their money and sat at home. Long live the Koch brothers. It looks like the money wins again. So who wins? Corporations, especially the war ones, the Military Industrial Complex. So we better get our borrowing and spending shoes on again.
How could we know it would happen? It’s insidious, looking back. I cannot imagine how a majority of Americans would shoot themselves in the foot like that. An old friend, Jack Elton asks the question: “What has the Republican Party ever done for the working man?” Or unions? Healthcare? Pell Grants? Education funding? Or an honest vote without screening the poor man voting rosters in states like Florida or Ohio?
They’re out to undo programs that would help Americans. Just look at how they effectively they demonized Obamacare. Whatever it means to Americans, it is a long-sought after solution to national healthcare for all Americans (even those who cannot take care of themselves). But they vowed to destroy Obamacare, the first National Healthcare plan in America. Many religious groups seem to hate Obamacare and Obama equally. What a paradox for those who profess to help people. Is that not how they get their tax-exempt status? Christianity and most all of the other world religions advocate helping people: Like in, “Love thy neighbor.” Yet many churches prefer to take their tax-free income from their parishioner’s and use it to build bigger churches and more vacation retreats near Santa Fe and other high-dollar real estate investments like Florida waterfront. Many acres of Florida Intracoastal Waterway property is owned by the Roman Catholic Churches in that area. A working family of four might find it hard to get a reservation in such lavish places. Such monuments seem to exist for the church and its country club members who are “doing the work of God.”
Take Sarah Palin (please!!) who Franklin Graham of Billy Graham Ministries and the Samaritan’s Purse assisted in helping her serve God. He let her borrow the Billy Graham Ministries private jet (No kidding, a private jet now to do the work of God??) to promote her book sales. Which is a stretch of one’s rational mind, except when you pause to ponder if Palin or Franklin Graham could really help God. When I first heard about the loan of the jet, you could have knocked me over with Sarah Palin’s own brain. Really!? Did we buy into that? Were we asleep at the switch or what? Is all that is done in the name of God really the true work of God? Do we dare criticize such acts of depravity lest the heavens burst open and jolt us in the ass with a lightning bolt? Worse than that is the fear that Senators and Congressmen have should they decide to question men of the cloth who are doing the work of God (whether it is real or just a ruse to shoehorn politics into the church and tax-free dollars into the collection plate).
That the Supreme Court ruled in the “Citizen’s United” case, that corporations now can give unlimited monies to PACs. Translation: to candidates of their choice, like a Gazillion dollars if wanted. We can work out the details later. Ask Tom DeLay; he’ll tell you it ain’t no thang. He still ain’t done no time yet, and he most likely, never will, you see. Sort of points us into the direction of the big givers to these (unmentioned) candidates (I mean PACs). And you can rest assured that the Koch Brothers, in their unveiled attempt to steal America for their very own, are at the head of the line. Remember when the Tea Party was just a gleam in their eye? And Sarah Palin and Rand Paul breathed life into this dynamic new party for truth and justice and the American Way? Incidentally, what’s that smell?
What hypocrites now slink their way toward Jerusalem? Is this the new brand of Christianity promoted by Franklin Graham? With the tax-free dollars his “Samaritan’s Purse” collects from unknowing believers? Should I act dumb when I sense being used, or should I call the crooks out? I do admit that it is so hard when you do because in the mainstream of stealing from the government there are too many who will discredit you for making ripples. See, they are doing the self-professed, self-righteous work of God. And they are big contributors to the entities and people who have re-written the Bible to make war and killing okay. An eye for an eye so to speak. Jesus in a helmet as a tank commander is the latest poster child for neo Christianity, dontcha know? And a $ 1 million contribution to the conservative, wrap-yourself-in-the-flag, pro-life, candidate who promises to vote to cut off government funding for food stamps, the poor, and education loans for poor kids who want the opportunity to go to college, well, tough. To quote Rand Paul’s old daddy, we “shouldn’t expect government to help us from cradle to grave.” Such empathy. Reminiscent of Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, and Erik Cantor. Who did I forget? Oh, right. John Boehner, Lindsey Graham, Haley Barber, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, the US Senator from Texas GW Bush affectionately called “Corn Dog.”
For the time being, just give our tax dollars to General Dynamics for more war hardware, who, in turn, will make more and ongoing donations to a candidate like George W. Bush. Or perhaps his younger brother Jed. Why? So that America can borrow and print more money to make more planes and war hardware to protect us from a surprise attack by the enemy, like in those unspoken religions that wish us dead. Yeah, like in the Twin Towers attack of 911. Remember how old Cheney, and Condi and Rummy forgot to heed all those intelligence reports? Before 911?
After the first of the year John Boehner and his fellow Republicans in both houses have vowed to repeal Obamacare. And now the Senate and House have the votes to give it a go. So how would that be helping people? Isn’t that what government is supposed to do? Serve the greatest number of people for the greatest good? By returning to the not too distant past by cutting off 44,000,000 Americans from having healthcare because they cannot afford any more now than they could back before Obamacare? Too simple? Do tell.
Government has become the ultimate tool for those in power and those who seek more. Instead of existing to promote the welfare of its citizenry, it seeks to perpetuate itself. And to the money that means spending billions of dollars in political ads to change the landscape of America and reality, itself. To where 2+2 really does equal 5? Unions will become history. But who cares? Ad money from the Right has taught us that unions are corrupt. Evil. Public funding for education becomes nil. Why would those in control want to educate the masses? The masses might start to catch on. Shucks, the masses might question why government borrows Billions of dollars to add to the National Debt of 18 Trillion dollars each year so that we can buy more Tomahawk missiles from the Military Industrial Complex. What is the price tag nowadays for a Tomahawk? A quick Google search says, maybe $1.4 million. So how many did we shoot at Baghdad during the George W. Bush Shock and Awe invasion of Iraq? Relax. Who’s counting? It’s all borrowed money, right? And we ain’t had to pay the piper yet, so why worry?
I am soul-weary of bitching. About things such as the theft of government and of our future. America either does not hear, or the people have lost interest in how to care about what used to be the important stuff, the essence that made a nation great. As Ira Lieberman so profoundly observed, “Everybody lies, but nobody listens.” So I am going to try my best to save my energy for things of the light. Like simple sunsets. Lone swans that swoop heavy and down out of the sky to give you a surprise visit. Fishing in the quiet shadows of dusk with your Bichon pup, Quinn who barks commands at you to not let the big bass get away before the net swoops around his green sides in the mesh.
I have come too close to devolving into a bloody cynic! I do not think I was born that way. Nor do I relish being one. And if I have become one, perhaps I can mend my ways. Sure hope I dodged the bullet this time. Critic, I have no wish to be. Yet I bitch, bitch, bitch about what my radar screen detects as government wrongs committed against us. To wit, against us, we, the people. I wish for them to stop overspending for things that do not serve us. My candle burneth low. I cannot expect the Supreme Court to act in good faith. But I can still get out and vote. At least it’s something to have in reserve.