There is something quietly pleasant about watching the Tea Party Ignoramuses lose their grip on the Republican Party. A democratic nation or, more precisely, a republic needs sensible debate about the issues before it. You cannot have a sensible debate when one of the debaters believes that the republic itself is a waste of time. I am thinking, of course, about Grover Norquist's infamous dictum that his goal was "to cut the government in half . . . to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub".
We have been slogging--No, that is an inadequate word!--wallowing in an ugly and foul-smelling sty of bitterness for several years, coming to focus when Barack Obama was elected to the presidency. There he was: everything that was wrong with America! A Black man in the White House! You could almost see the rage roll in like a dark cloud.
As has happened so often in the lamentable racial history of this country, much of the anger focused in the South where slavery had been most obvious and economically powerful. (Never underestimate the raw power of economic interests to assert themselves: even here in Arizona, the business community simply told the bigots in State government that the proposed law to allow fine religious people to deny goods and services to gays and lesbians would ruin the economy, as it almost did when the State said it was not interested in endorsing a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. "OK!", the money said. "We will take our conventions and tourists and conferences and investments to less savage places!") Three of the State Senators who had voted for the bill ate crow instead of cake, and the Governor found Jesus. Just like that!
Nearly the whole Republican establishment said they weren't going to do a damned things for so long as Obama was President, and they are a party of principle, as it turns out. The right wing of the Republican Senate has produced a series of demagogues. Even laughable House Majority Leader, John Boehner, cannot convince his own colleagues to do anything.
Right-wing religious zealots have marshaled their troops to take the New Holy Land and establish the Kingdom of Righteous Fundamentalist Christendom which, as it happens, looks a lot like a blend of creationist ignorance, Catholic sexual morality, and a stupid, wooden boat in Kentucky.
The siren call of the Wild West has been heard, again, and cowboys and mountain men bought fahr-arms and climbed up into their urban assault vehicles. They took up positions along the border and stood their ground. Trayvon Martin went to the grocery store and bought some Skittles and iced tea.
The assault against women has been amazing! Do they not know what god constructed them for? Have they no sense of servitude and seductiveness? Are their no more good wars? Is there no oil to be found and piped somewhere? Must the rich forever endure the scorn of the poor? Will the poor forever require food and health care?
"We the People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
That is what the Preamble to the Constitution says. Not that the point is to starve government into frailty, and drown it, but to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, and so forth.
There are faint, and still troubling signs that the political and social madness that has soiled us in recent years may be crumbling. I do, for instance, wish those three State Senators well who voted to protect their cupcake constituents from having to bake for gay marriage receptions, and soiling their aprons, but what were they thinking in the first place!? (Interobang, Interobang!)
Oh, I hope! I hope! Maybe all this absurdity and madness is just a symptom of change, and the turmoil it engenders.
We have been slogging--No, that is an inadequate word!--wallowing in an ugly and foul-smelling sty of bitterness for several years, coming to focus when Barack Obama was elected to the presidency. There he was: everything that was wrong with America! A Black man in the White House! You could almost see the rage roll in like a dark cloud.
As has happened so often in the lamentable racial history of this country, much of the anger focused in the South where slavery had been most obvious and economically powerful. (Never underestimate the raw power of economic interests to assert themselves: even here in Arizona, the business community simply told the bigots in State government that the proposed law to allow fine religious people to deny goods and services to gays and lesbians would ruin the economy, as it almost did when the State said it was not interested in endorsing a Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. "OK!", the money said. "We will take our conventions and tourists and conferences and investments to less savage places!") Three of the State Senators who had voted for the bill ate crow instead of cake, and the Governor found Jesus. Just like that!
Nearly the whole Republican establishment said they weren't going to do a damned things for so long as Obama was President, and they are a party of principle, as it turns out. The right wing of the Republican Senate has produced a series of demagogues. Even laughable House Majority Leader, John Boehner, cannot convince his own colleagues to do anything.
Right-wing religious zealots have marshaled their troops to take the New Holy Land and establish the Kingdom of Righteous Fundamentalist Christendom which, as it happens, looks a lot like a blend of creationist ignorance, Catholic sexual morality, and a stupid, wooden boat in Kentucky.
The siren call of the Wild West has been heard, again, and cowboys and mountain men bought fahr-arms and climbed up into their urban assault vehicles. They took up positions along the border and stood their ground. Trayvon Martin went to the grocery store and bought some Skittles and iced tea.
The assault against women has been amazing! Do they not know what god constructed them for? Have they no sense of servitude and seductiveness? Are their no more good wars? Is there no oil to be found and piped somewhere? Must the rich forever endure the scorn of the poor? Will the poor forever require food and health care?
"We the People of the United States,
in Order to form a more perfect Union,
establish Justice,
insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defence,
promote the general Welfare,
and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
That is what the Preamble to the Constitution says. Not that the point is to starve government into frailty, and drown it, but to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, and so forth.
There are faint, and still troubling signs that the political and social madness that has soiled us in recent years may be crumbling. I do, for instance, wish those three State Senators well who voted to protect their cupcake constituents from having to bake for gay marriage receptions, and soiling their aprons, but what were they thinking in the first place!? (Interobang, Interobang!)
Oh, I hope! I hope! Maybe all this absurdity and madness is just a symptom of change, and the turmoil it engenders.
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