Broken Political Promises & Corruption
Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 06:06AM In 2006, a majority of voters - angry, disgusted and alarmed with our country’s direction under Republican control - swept Democrats to majorities in Congress. They were then lulled into accepting the Party’s self-serving rhetoric that if only voters delivered Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate and the presidency in 2008, they would be able to restore sanity and the rule of law to our nation.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be an intentional and cynical lie in the spirit of Lucy’s duping the ever gullible Charlie Brown into hoping that just this once she might not laughingly yank the football away at the last second, leaving him flat on his back in the dust (again).
Americans were eager to dismantle the Bush/Cheney policies, beginning from when the bogus “War on Terror” was launched and used as the pretext for fomenting mass fear and hysteria, followed by imperial “wars of choice”, ethnic and religious hatred, ideological industry-beholden flacks in charge of (not) policing Wall Street and big business, unrestricted surveillance, torture, ruinous deficits, pervasive cronyism, suspension of Constitutionally-guaranteed civil liberties, and unpunished blatant law-breaking by the President and his highest retainers.
Citizens should always be wary when politicians propose the canard called a “The War on _____”. It’s intentionally designed as an unwinnable, endless campaign declared against an intangible foe waged for the purposes of the curtailment of liberty and the long-term transfer of truckloads of taxpayer money to crony corporations and special interests (e.g., “The War on Poverty”, “The War on Terror”, “The War on Drugs” – what’s next, “The War on Hurricanes?”).
Many of their hard-working supporters and activists began to suspect the true motives of the newly-elected Democratic majority in Washington and that the “fix was in” when one of Nancy Pelosi’s first acts as Speaker was to famously declare, “Impeachment is off the table”. As it turned out, their suspicion was justified.
When the Democrats took majority control of Congress in 2006, having committed to extricating us from our ”wars of choice”, America was engaged in (only) two such conflicts: Iraq and Afghanistan. Now four years later, our nation is deep into five “wars of choice”: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, and agitating for a sixth in Iran.
Betraying a core campaign pledge, and building upon the foundation of unconstitutional powers unlawfully claimed by his predecessor, our Democratic President has seized further sweeping and unprecedented dictatorial powers to imprison indefinitely, render overseas, torture, try via kangaroo court, deny access to legal counsel, and/or kill by decree any person anywhere in the world including American citizens without charges or recourse. A vast, secret shadowy government has grown its tentacles exponentially on this Nobel Peace Prize winner’s watch. Whistle-blowers who’ve alerted us to waste, incompetence, wrong-doing and corruption are prosecuted; high-crimes and treason by political elites and Wall Street are dismissed with the patronizing slogan: “We must look forward, not backward”.
What have the Democrats in Washington produced since their 2008 victory? More war, more police state, more debt; a health insurance bill that transfers upwards of $1 trillion over ten years to the self-serving health insurance industry in exchange for a few overpriced benefits that can be capriciously revoked without substantive penalty, and which forces another thirty million of us to buy their loophole-ridden and often worse-than-useless products; a financial industry regulatory bill that’s mostly smoke and mirrors with its effective enforcement provisions hollowed out or deleted in backroom deals; and an undersized train wreck of an economic stimulus bill, riddled with one-time pork, ineffectual tax cuts and short-term local government subsidies.
Even when Washington Democrats did pass something worthwhile - student loan reform - in a craven, cowardly and shameful act of betrayal, they bundled it with an ultimately proven unconstitutional death warrant for ACORN, as the Democrats caved (again) to right-wing propaganda and lies.
As has been the case on numerous occasions over the last four years, it is also neither leadership nor courage for Democrats in particular or any elected officials in general to disingenuously claim credit for token voting in opposition to legislation, e.g., war funding or TARP, only after their leadership had already secured enough votes for passage.
Of course Washington Republicans, both before and after 2008, have been at least as destructive and dangerous to our Republic and as previously noted, perhaps even more so. Lest we forget that it was still during Bush/Cheney’s reign in the fall of 2008 – not Obama’s – and enthusiastically supported by Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mc Connell, Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner and the majority of the Republican caucus in both Houses that TARP and the Federal Reserve transferred upwards of $27 trillion to Wall Street and “took over” several big banks, investment houses and insurance companies, enriching the crooks and leaving the rest of us to rot.
Experience clearly shows that campaign rhetoric to the contrary, neither Party intends to abandon their lust for empire, addiction to unrestrained military spending, growth of the security state, pork projects and vote-buying, pandering to special interests, destruction of individual liberty, cronyism, Wall Street and corporate favoritism and largesse, lawlessness and two-tiered justice, deficit spending, secrecy and executive power.
In Roman times, emperors held the support of the common people via what was referred to as “bread and circuses”. Perhaps the only real difference between the major Parties may be that the Democrats distribute the “bread” and the Republicans the “circuses”. Pick your poison.
Present-day euphoric Republican voters are cautioned to take note that Lucy’s sport knows no favorites among the gullible.
Perhaps it's time to cast off the unconstitutional and hopelessly corrupt stranglehold this broken "two-party system" has on our Republic. A good start might be to end automatic ballot access for the major parties - let everyone qualify each election cycle on a level playing field.
Nathaniel Gurien
Kearsarge
Reader Comments (9)
Actually I'm suggesting we repudiate the laundry list of policies and practices that are destroying our Republic, and eroding our liberty and quality of life. Frankly, I thought my observations were rather unambiguous and stark.
Contrary to your assertion, I specifically advocated breaking up our disfunctional 2-party system. And from what whole cloth have you manufactured that I suggest centralized socialism?
You seem to be one of a growing segment of our citizens that simply reach for handy slogans and dog-whistle phrases and stitch them together into often grammatically-correct sentences. Did you even actually read what I wrote?
With media being what it is today, I have as short an attention span as anybody else out there. But in this case I read the damn thing a couple of times. Got lost in it...
So fine by me...you want label me as..ah, whatever you labeled me as...feel free...but when you are done, know that the piece isn't any more coherent than before you attacked me, than after...
Now, I am not the smartest guy in the world, but when it comes to reading and writing, words mean things in relation to how they are strung together. If you advocate abandoning a corrupt two-party system....say that....don't tack it onto the bottom of ?
"No thesis", "..got lost in it".."piece isn't any more coherent" - as useful, meritorious, thoughful, specific and constructive a critique as I've ever read.
Except that's it's an utterly fact-free, inspecific, name-calling attempt to disparage a viewpoint you (apparently?) disagree with for no specific reason, but since you're admittedly "not the smartest guy in the world", I guess you're incapable of discussing or critiquing with intellegence, merit, facts, or constructively.
In other words, all you have is name-calling, slogans, dog-whistles, slurs, generalities and platitudes in your repertoire. Perhaps that is your substitute for actual thinking and your idea of a constructive dialogue.
And Nathaniel, I don't think your conclusion goes nearly far enough. Yes I agree, I hate our two party/winner take all system. I would much prefer a more parlimentary system where if X party receives 7% of the vote, they should get 7% of the seats in Congress. Frankly, I'd love to see 5 or 10 major political parties.
But the other reforms I would like to see to our political system are mandatory voting and either publicly funded elections or very strictly enforced campaign finance laws where individuals (not corps, pacs or unions) can only donate a small dollar amounts like $200/per election cycle, or so.
Sanchez...perhaps, "preferred" is the right word in this context....Don't really know,,,I'll get back to you on that...Here is one constant I observe....The Republicans have far more people who think as I do than the democrats do...So if that makes the GOP preferred, then so be it.
And for the record, Sanchez...Progressives know no loyalty to one particular party...They exist as Republicans, Democrats and yes...Independents. But, I think thee are many in the Republican party who are far more willing to call them out.
I advocate for liberty. What is defined in our constitution. and Sanchez, you seemed to have overlooked one thing. Lets say we enjoy the liberty of having 5 or 10 more political parties in Congress....All that happens then is what is happening now, but instead, you have multiple parties coalescing together for some purpose....Unicameral electorates merely pave a smoother path to a progressive socialistic governing body...We already know that because that is what happens in Europe....Sweden, for example has a communist party, a conservative party, a labor party, and lord knows what else. Under the present system, all of the collective and separate political comers coalesce under Republican or Democrat parties.
What do you think this alleged "civil war" within the GOP might be about? Its the corrupt establishment vs. the grass roots folks...Some fights are better had within the framework of parties than within the framework of a legislative body.
mandatory voting? are you kidding me? what exactly does that mean? does it mean a qualifier such as, "vote or you dont get this, this or that?" or does it mean vote or else pay a fine for not voting? Putting forth such an idea would require a little expansion, don't you think? Not to mention the mere notion that making people do something they might otherwise choose not to do is in and of itself oppressive.
publicly funded elections? Good Lord! how many ways can that notion be corrupted? The Peoples Republic of Massachusetts already have so-called "Clean elections laws and they are an abysmal failure and rife with corruption.
With all due respect, Sanchez, more laws, mandates and provisos that stifle free speech and liberty, in my view only serve to worsen the situation...If you want to fix the political system, you have to find a way around the biggest flaw...and that flaw is human participation.