When Facism Comes to America
“When facism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross” Sinclair Lewis
It’s now a matter of historical record that our recent mid-term election was paid for by those who prefer the status quo and bought by those ill-informed voters influenced by the non stop fair and balanced propaganda of Fox and Republican radio who were easily convinced that this was the “change” that would best serve their interests.
That most of those who voted Republican because the Party of No convinced these morons that our national deficit was a problem is a testament to the absolute ignorance of the American voter having forgotten that when former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill raised objections to a second round of tax cuts for the rich he was chastised by Vice President Cheney who reminded him that Ronald Reagan proved that “deficits don’t matter”. A month later Cheney fired O’Neill.
Banks holding foreclosed homes. The mortgage mess affecting more people. Ten percent of Americans un or underemployed more if we care about statistical integrity. Corporation’s profits rising while big business isn’t hiring. Jobs being shipped overseas and they’re never coming back home. The rich are getting richer and the rest of us are getting poorer.
These are but a few problems that demand urgency to address an ailing economy which according to recent polls reflect that most of the public wants resolved through cooperation rather than watered down by compromise or ignored by partisan bickering. Failure to do so will have long lasting consequences that won’t be pleasing for the rest of us.
The initial responses from each of the major political parties involved is disquieting and equally disturbing. The new Speaker of the House, Republican Representative John Boehner, went on a crying jag and said that his party will not compromise their principles. Other Republican leaders, Mike Pence and Eric Cantor, were just as emphatic when demanding it’s their way or the highway. Meanwhile that sinister stone faced Senator from Kentucky, McConnell, claimed that his primary focus for the next two years would be to make Obama a one term president.
The solutions provided by the extremist Republican Party calls for tax cuts to everyone especially those earning over 250k a year in order to stimulate our economy, provide an opportunity for job growth and with the help of less government regulation the American economy will thrive. In essence they propose the very same failed policies that created our present economic conditions will now magically cure it. In addition, Speaker Boehner wants to work on repealing Health Care Reform without mentioning how many jobs many jobs will the repeal of Health Care Reform would create.
The Democrats meanwhile have already extended a hand across the aisle and expressed a willingness to compromise compelling me to think of Yogi Berra’s famous “it’s like déjà vu all over again”. Isn’t that what the Democrats did on Health Care Reform and while there are some benefits to most people we still could have had Universal Health Care like the rest of the civilized world if only Democrats weren’t so prone to appease. The process of legislation was delayed and dragged out at the expense of addressing more pressing economic issues and if memory serves me I recall when President Obama visited leading Republican to discuss Health Care Reform they told him before he arrived that they weren’t going to support it.
Given the first reactions of leaders from both major political parties a strong possibility exists that the political party that had no new ideas and obstructed those who did will continue on this path to insure there is no economic recovery and count on the sheer stupidity of the American voter so embarrassingly evident in the 2010 midterms to give their consent 2012 to be governed by a right wing political ideology ushering in a dark age where our form of government is overthrown by big business.
Indeed that the winning candidates have offered absolutely nothing to address the foreclosure crisis, unemployment, outsourcing, Wall St. reform etc. is ample evidence that Republicans are not serious about or interested in addressing the problems facing most Americans today but they are very serious and with malicious intent about making sure that when the economy worsens it will be President Obama who takes the fall and the corporate controlled media will package the lie then feed it to a nation of sheep “Bah! Bah! Bah! – god bless America – bah, bah, bah.
Today our economy teeters on the brink of another recession perhaps even depression which can, as we have seen, affect the global market. Unless the economic issues facing our nation today are resolved in favor of an America whose greatest years were those years when we had a strong middle class i.e. the 40s through the 70s the inevitable social instability and upheaval caused by the widening of the gap between the rich and the rest of us will create the fertile ground for a demagogue to take advantage of the depressed economic situation, instill fear in the people and appeal to the ignorance of the American voter.
We have an extremist political party not willing to compromise on its principles which favor the rich and a party that claims it represents the rest of us but is too willing to appease the rabble on the right rather than confront the madness of those wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross who claim that going backward is going forward.
