Dream On

Yesterday, I posted that the Gee Oh Pee just broke our gubment, and that, instead of even caring anymore, we should all get goldfish or get totally into Sudoku, or something.  And some people--thanks for reading!--said that, while Republicans created this catastrophe, Democrats would have to fix it and then they'd take all the blame for the hard, hard choices that will have to be made.

I like your optimism, but I just don't even see Democrats fixing this horrendous mess.

To fix it requires a lot of hard, ugly choices.  And the Democratic party has made them in the past.  But in the 80's and early '90's they did it with huge majorities in Congress.

In 93, they did it and it cost them the House.

Clinton did it throughout the 90s, but he was, without a doubt, the greatest politician in my lifetime and one of the greatest in the 20th century.

I don't see any Democrats with either his brains or his political ability.

And even if there were one, Clinton didn't have to make the hard choices  with two unwon, unwinnable, expensive and eternal wars to support.

And Clinton did it before Asshead tacked another trillion dollars of debt to Reagan's legacy.

How's anybody going to fix this?  They have to get rid of $400 billion of annual debt, while financing at least $100 billion extra annual military dollars for Afghanistan and Iraq--on top of the $400 billion regular military dollars we have to pay the Pentagon to not turn this country into a dictatorship.

And that $100 billion a year is not the true cost of Afghanistan and Iraq.  You can safely bet your Bush tax refund that the true cost has been hidden and deferred and put off in a million different ways.  The true cost of Bush's failures can not be known until the second week of November in 2008.

And maybe not even then, depending on how that shakes out.

Then there's the new Pentagon--the horrendously stupid and wasteful and pointless Department of Homeland Security.  Which will soon require as much spending as the Pentagon.  I mean, it won't really.  But politically, it will.

You want to be the Congressman who runs for re-election with a history of voting against appropriations for Homeland Security???

It'll be just like the Pentagon.  Remember the asskicking Kerry took for voting for military cuts proposed by Dick Cheney?  It'll be just like that. Congressmen and women will have to continually vote for huge ass stupid and pointless appropriations for Homeland Security unless they want to be slimed as soft on, well, Homeland Security.

So, it'll be a second Pentagon.

Then there's Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security and any number of programs originally intended to benefit Americans.  And the Gee Oh Pee has been doing everything it can to divert those dollar bills to subsidize huge corporations.  And it's a waste of our money.  And one more screwing of the American taxpayer.  But Democrats can't do much about that.

Because, aside from being anti-military, and anti-Homeland Security, the last thing they need to be is less interested in the Public Welfare than Republicans!

And, then, finally, it's a new America.  Democrats, in the past, didn't have to deal with a consolidated, conservatively owned and operated corporate media that regarded mainstream, popular opinion as "extreme" and "fringe".  In my lifetime, there was a crazy thing called the Fairness Doctrine, which provided that anytime some lunatic group like the Swift Boat Liars attacked someone on television or radio, that television or radio station would have to provide equal time for a response.

Today?  Half the FM radio stations in the country are owned by a former bidness associate of George W. Bush.  Half the Am radio stations broadcast uninterupted, unopposed right wing propaganda from your morning commute until the insomiacs call it a day and a night.

Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Liddy, Ingraham and on and on and on...

Today?  Aside from the biggest conservative corporations in the world--GE, Viacom, Disney--owning our public television airwaves, as well as our cable and satellite news, we even have an official corporate propaganda arm of the Gee Oh Pee--FOX News.

As far as print goes, well, no one reads it, and, if they do, anything that isn't local comes from a daily dwindling number of conservative news organizations, like the AP wire.  You know the one, the one that just gave Harry Reid the hot ink poker up his ringside seat.

You got fifty five to sixty percent of Americans opposing nearly everything that's happened in the last six years and it's happened anyway. 

For example, your "liberal" media keeps trying to convince Americans that Americans supported the Iraq War and that we've somehow become discouraged and lost faith--or as the Asshead in Chief likes to obscenely suggest--lost our nerve.

Is that true?  NO!  But you'd never know it.  No one I know knows it.  Are you ready?

Americans would approve of U.S. military action to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein from power, but by 48% to 27%, they say their concern is making sure that Iraq is disarmed. They are willing to give the U.N. more time to build a consensus around how to do that…

But most believe that President Bush sees things very differently -- 54% say he is more interested in ousting Saddam Hussein, and just 20% think his goal is to disarm Hussein. Even though less than half think enough evidence has been presented to justify an attack now, most believe the President has already decided to launch a military strike…

Americans remain split on whether Iraq poses an immediate threat. 43% say that while they believe Iraq is indeed a threat to U.S. interests, it is one that can be contained for now. Roughly the same number, 45%, say it is a threat that requires immediate military action…

Americans are willing to wait for the support of the international community before taking military action. The public’s desire to secure U.N. approval for action remains strong, and has slipped only slightly in the last few days…

The public also urges patience with the inspections process, as it has for months: 60% say give the inspectors more time right now…

Not only do most Americans want to wait for U.N. authorization, most also continue to believe the U.S. should take its allies’ views into account on the Iraq question…

When asked whether a possible war with Iraq would be fairly quick or result in a lengthy involvement, half of Americans say they think the U.S. could end up fighting for quite a while…

60% also think that a conflict with Iraq is likely to lead to a wider war in the region, involving other Arab nations and Israel. One-third do not believe it is a likely outcome.

That's one week before Bush kicked the U.N. inspectors out of Iraq and started his own pre-emptive war of choice.

That story, by the way, is titled:  "Poll:  Americans Divided On Iraq".  As in, "Americans are divided into overwhelming majority opposing Iraq War and small ignorant and delusional minority who support Iraq War."

Just like we were "divided" by the whole Terry Schiavo thing--with 80% of us opposed to Congress and the White House intervening and less then 20% for it.  It was very divisive.  There were two points of view.

Just like a majority of Americans favor universal health care:

In an extensive ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll, Americans by a 2-1 margin, 62-32 percent, prefer a universal health insurance program over the current employer-based system. That support, however, is conditional: It falls to fewer than four in 10 if it means a limited choice of doctors, or waiting lists for non-emergency treatments.

But you ain't got it.  And you ain't gonna get it.

Just like a majority of Americans want to uphold Roe v. Wade:

The poll found that 59 percent say Bush should choose a nominee who would uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. About three in 10, 31 percent, said they want a nominee who would overturn the decision, according to the poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs.

But that'll come up before the Court.  And it might be overturned by this Court.

And similar overwhelming majorities oppose privatising Social Security, deficit spending, and more tax cuts for the wealthiest one percent of people who have ever lived.  Majorities opposed a Moon Based Mission to Mars, and a crazy Medicare bill, and the cruel bankruptcy bill and very nearly every single thing that's happened in our gubment for the last six years.

And it doesn't matter.

All this shit still happens.

Over fifty percent of us vote against it.  A good ten or twenty percent who vote for it, are voting for shit they oppose.  And your "liberal" media, the guardians of your democracy, can't stop telling you how happy you are with things you absolutely abhor.

Christ, routinely papers like the Washington Post print editorials extolling the virtues of bills their own front pages are reporting that a majority of Americans oppose and for good reason.

And next up?  The internets are going to be reigned in.

Who's going to fix this mess?

The People are betrayed.  The People are ignored.  The People are lied to.  The People are managed.

Who's going to stand up for The People?

People, we have an oligarchy here.

Comments

[Kit E]

"The People are managed". Yep, exactly right. Which is why I am setting myself up to immigrate.

I can't imagine how bad it is going to have to get here before The People do something about what has been done to them, or if they will even have any effective means to do so. Judging by how well the Orwellian surveillance regime is being installed and implemented, I'd say the chances are slim to none.

I never entertained the idea of living out of the US permanently, but how can you avoid the obvious conclusion given the facts Ricky lists? Hell, I never even wanted to join the Peace Corp and now I can't wait to get out. I suspect that what I am feeling now is how some people felt in Berlin in 1936.

[joke]

for the record, I just want to say that ipsos suck. it's probably made up numbers

[ricky]

For the record, that's a comment by a guy who was searching the internet for the terms "anti corporate ipsos" and left this comment after spending under a minute on the page.

I don't know anything about Ipsos and I don't care much one way or the other. There are about a bazillion other polls which will tell you the same thing about Roe v. Wade and the American public.

I just think it's funny that a guy with his mind made up, who didn't even read the post, feels the need to "set the record straight".

[Kit E]

RE: the "ipsos guy"; that is how these guys work. I am sure that there is an army of paid repuglican frat boys (more wingnut welfare) who have the job of searching the blogs all day and posting their disinformation. Even if it isn't a coordinated approach, these Cheeto-stained keyboard commandoes are thrilled to feel like part of the "real government" and gladly do it for free. These are the ones who post the least logical and most adolescent responses, the paid guys are much more clever in what they say and how they say it.

It is still all lies though and anyone with a brain can see through it, and yet they persist, secure in their knowledge that this action makes them part of the kool kidz and there will be a high-paying, no-work crony assignment for them in the next repuglican whitehouse staff chart. They wish.

[Joshua A.]

Exactly what kind of award has this blog won? Most political? Seriously, all of this conspiracy theory conserv-hating is just old and boring. I can't believe anyone can stand writing (or reading) about this stuff every day. Carry on, I was just looking for a pic of Gary Busey's helmet protector protector.

[ricky]

If you're too dumb to see the awards<-----, you're too stupid to decide what's boring or not.

[Kit E]

The comment by Joshua A pretty much proves my keyboard commando theory, doesn't it?