"For every single mom who feels heartbroken when she has to explain to her kids that she needs to take a second job ... for grandparents who can't afford the gas to visit their grandchildren ... for the mom and dad who never thought they'd be on food stamps ... for the small business owner desperately cutting back just to keep the doors open one more month — to all of the thousands of good and decent Americans I've met who want nothing more than a better chance, a fighting chance, to all of you, I have a simple message: Hold on a little longer. A better America begins tonight."and bitterly observed, to the solitude of the dashboard radio;
"And in that "better America" the policies you support - every act of your Party to date - every small-town, back-bench, mean-minded, spiteful Teabagger swill you've ingested and now claim you'll swill out to the nation if elected - will ensure that her second job will pay less for longer hours, that their gas will be exhausted more quickly and profit it's producers more richly, that those food stamps will be harder to come by and more desperately needed, that the small business will be more likely to be battered and beaten, sold, gutted, and re-sold by your crony-capitalist friends' megacorporation, and that all those good and decent Americans will be further crammed down, shat upon, disenfranchised, wage-slaved to the wealthy and connected who are your primary supporters and beneficiaries"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, how huge a lie does this man, and this Party, have to tell before the American public screams "Hold! Enough!"?
And I'm afraid that we all know the answer, my friends.
There IS no lie huge enough, for the vast Gadarene herd that still gobbles up this swill.
We cannot continue in this fashion without destruction. We Are SO Fucked.
Ceterum censeo GOP esse delendam
9 comments:
Raptus regaliter.
Indeed.
Are you wearing a toga whilst typing this? It's required to make it a legally binding declamation.
No, but I had my right arm clutched dramatically across my chest, and the other hand in the air, so at least posturally I was authentically Roman...
Hold on a little longer. A better America begins tonight --
It is bilious, no? Sadly, I know people who can't get enough ... the rhetoric actually makes them feel clean. The ones I know are The Believers: The churchgoers; the people who think poor people are all shirkers; the people whose parents have arrived and believe everyone else can get there through grit and determination, and oddly, sometimes the very people whose meagre existence will be gutted by the Romney-bots.
Somehow, the conservatives have effectively made them feel as though they are in the fold by virtue of having families and struggling. It seems an effective co-opting of the Church's message that the meek shall inherit the earth. They pat them on the head, "You are god for struggling -- we see you, generically, and are glad you are vassals."
Truly I don't get it, but they seem to have a real following. Well, partly it's our parochialism, and the Republicans have effectively claimed the moral high ground for themselves. I'm not sure how they do that, aside from our own gullibility and willful suspension of disbelief.
sorry --
"you are GOOD for struggling..."
I've seen this quote several times during the past couple of weeks.
When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
Camara, Dom Helder
Now, the other side, the one that opposes privilege and wealth?
From Thomas Frank:
http://spkent.tumblr.com/post/21903864177/this-quote-from-obamas-book-explains-it-all-and
This quote from Obama’s book explains it all and Thomas Frank’s analysis nails it:
Increasingly I found myself spending time with people of means – lawfirm partners and investment bankers, hedge fund managers and venture capitalists,” reminisced the future president in his 2006 book, The Audacity of Hope:
As a rule, they were smart, interesting people, knowledgeable about public policy, liberal in their politics, expecting nothing more than a hearing of their opinions in exchange for their checks. But they reflected, almost uniformly, the perspectives of their class: the top 1 percent or so of the income scale that can afford to write a $2,000 check to a political candidate. … They had no patience with protectionism, found unions troublesome, and were not particularly sympathetic to those whose lives were upended by the movements of global capital.
“I know that as a consequence of my fundraising I became more like the wealthy donors I met,” Obama confesses a few paragraphs later. So he has. And so has his party. Today’s Democrats have their eyes on people who believe, per Obama’s description, “in the free market” almost as piously as do Tea Partiers.
Class language, on the other hand, feels strange to the new Dems; off limits. Instead, the party’s guiding geniuses like to think of their organization as the vanguard of enlightened professionalism and the shrine of purest globaloney.
As a result of their retreat from populism, Democrats have spent the last several decades systematically extinguishing opportunities to broaden the base of their support.
.
.
bb
I saw somewhere some wit expressing our situation "If Mitt is elected we're burnt toast; if Obama is elected we're toast".
The only way I see that any of this idiocy can be stopped is massive demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of Americans in the streets regularly demanding better from their country.
I'm hoping the OWS can provide that spark.
If not, at some point the proverbial straw will be added.
bb
Lisa, basil: I don't have an answer. I have many, many questions, which I have raised in the post following this one.
I honestly don't know what we can do.
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