Some years ago, a wag offered that he spread marijuana on his breakfast food. I thought he was both loony and hilarious. Now in sorrow I’ve forgotten his name and can’t apologize for my reaction to his wise insight.
In truth, I’ve discovered how to make myself a fine dinner guest, a great companion, a raconteur without malice, a wit without a cutting edge, and a pleasure to know. The answer is simply to write a new posting on my blog; it’s the greatest combination of tranquilizer and stimulant ever developed.
Years after one of my more unusually successful self help programs - quitting smoking, I learned that nicotine was the greatest and most fearsome drug available to man as it took care of whatever chemical hit was needed at the moment. Anxious, drag on a butt and you’ll find the world a better place. Hyper, no problem, just inhale; calmness is on the way. But I know now that blogs are better than cigarettes.
In this modern world of good health, I’m limited to two – large – cups of caffeine to jump start me each morning and at least two twelve ounce cans of alcohol to settle me at Happy Hour. With a chemically dependency like that every day, is it any wonder that I had become a social pariah at dinner parties; properly primed, I thought everyone wanted to talk about politics, religion and sex.
A technical cretin, I was unable to master any modern technology until a few months ago when I stumbled into the wonderful world of blogging. Like any addict, I started slowly. My first forays into insulting politicians, artist, actors, and authors were mild and those absorbing the blows could only have smiled had they ever read my commentaries.
Like every addict, over time my need for fixes grew more frequent and far more deadly. President Bush became the Emperor, neo-conservatives became complete simpletons; you see where I’m going with this.
Then I made my first major discovery. After a particularly barbed zinger into a political idiot, I found that I could go to dinner and feel no need to embarrass my hosts with vitriolic emanations about the puppet in the White House or just how stupid neocons really are. Invitations – mainly because of my socially adept wife – became more common and there was no hesitancy in pairing me with a woman whose ideas just weeks earlier would have forced me to explain just why she was an ignorant Neanderthal. Life became good again. It had to be the blog.
Within weeks, my technical capacity reached new heights and I reached the zenith of blogdom, a counter was placed on my blog. Within days I was able to scream out my window, “Eureka! Nobody cares! Nobody reads my crap!” Can you imagine the joy? I was free to heap my bile on any and all public figures. There was no limit to the dosages I was able to self prescribe. Do you know just what a stupid s—t ------- is? Just insert the name of a public figure from any sphere. I, in my new nirvana of wisdom, know just how stupid, venal, evil each and every public figure in the world is. It had to be the blog.
Blogs are completely secure. Unless you’re a total idiot and write good stuff, you’ll never be found out. Blogs are far more private than diaries locked away in attics. No one – NO ONE in his right mind would read one. Just scroll blogs and see what I mean. You’re my first reader and the first to know - I blog therefore, I am. I write down my most wicked thoughts and insults, and I feel good. Then I go into the phone booth and emerge as Super Guest. Want me over?
Sunday, November 28, 2004
Friday, November 26, 2004
Sugar Plum Fairies
In case you’ve been on a planet far, far away, I gotta break it to you; dreams of an American Empire are on hold, maybe forever.
On May 1, 2003, the empire reached its zenith of hubris when the Emperor landed on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. Since then, dear reader, even if you have been on inter-stellar travel for the CIA, you must be aware that the `Mission Accomplished’ banner posted high above the cheering sailors has become the enduring symbol of a major league dream gone bad.
By now you’ve heard that Secretary of State Powell’s fabulous dog and pony show for the Security Council clearly marking all those weapons of mass destruction and chemical and biological laboratories has won him the Academy Award for the best original screen play of 2003.
Just weeks after the end of fighting in Iraq – is there something wrong with that phrase? – nasty little questions began to arise. Where have those biological and chemical agents gone? How about all that yellow cake uranium from Africa? It was about that time we began to hear the fairy tale that the weapons went to Syria; in the neocon storybook, weapons mysteries all end in Damascus
Sad, but the Emperor and all of his neocon brain trusters have been bailing water ever since. We knew that Saddam Hussein was bad guy, but just to be sure we have been reeducated on just how evil. Even out there way beyond Pluto you must have heard just how mean this cat, Saddam, was. Were you shocked to learn that he gassed his own people? Really! The Emperor also allowed as how Saddam had “tried to kill my Dad.” It must be nice to be an emperor and use the state army to avenge personal wrongs. But that phrase quickly made it to the cutting room floor.
Well after all the bailing, the USS Four More Years stayed above water – barely - until after Election Day 2004. Now Iraqi elections are coming right up so we can turn our attention to the other arms of the Axis of Evil, Iran and North Korea.
The original plan was to march up to the Iraq/Iran border and advise the Mullahs that if they didn’t fly straight, they’d be sitting in something akin to Abu Ghraib and playing cribbage with Saddam while we rebuild Iran and install that nice Pahlavi boy on the Peacock Throne. And after that stomping, we’d be off to Pyongyang for another victory celebration. Actually, neither of these scenarios was supposed to play out. After seeing how we’d changed the regime and delivered democracy to the thankful residents of Baghdad, there’d be no need to shoot. The Mullahs and Kim Chong-il would simply welcome us as liberators without a fight.
Sadly, it appears that many Republicans – not just those wimpy Democrats – think that our adventure in Iraq was a devastatingly bad idea that is hurting us in the War on Terror, so they’re beginning to give the Emperor fits and calling for the heads of the leading neocons. Can you believe it?
Where was I? Oh, yes, the neocons were snug in their beds with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads and some guy in a red suit was yelling out something that sounds like, “Merry Christmas to oil and to oil a good night.”
Sadly, on awakening, those smug little neocons, the smartest kids in their class, find that the neighbors don’t want to come over to help us celebrate and our sugar plums have turned to lumps of coal. But there’s a bright side, clean coal technology will permit our dreams of energy independence to flourish.
So, “…to oil a goodnight!”
Wildbill944
On May 1, 2003, the empire reached its zenith of hubris when the Emperor landed on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln and announced that major combat operations in Iraq had ended. Since then, dear reader, even if you have been on inter-stellar travel for the CIA, you must be aware that the `Mission Accomplished’ banner posted high above the cheering sailors has become the enduring symbol of a major league dream gone bad.
By now you’ve heard that Secretary of State Powell’s fabulous dog and pony show for the Security Council clearly marking all those weapons of mass destruction and chemical and biological laboratories has won him the Academy Award for the best original screen play of 2003.
Just weeks after the end of fighting in Iraq – is there something wrong with that phrase? – nasty little questions began to arise. Where have those biological and chemical agents gone? How about all that yellow cake uranium from Africa? It was about that time we began to hear the fairy tale that the weapons went to Syria; in the neocon storybook, weapons mysteries all end in Damascus
Sad, but the Emperor and all of his neocon brain trusters have been bailing water ever since. We knew that Saddam Hussein was bad guy, but just to be sure we have been reeducated on just how evil. Even out there way beyond Pluto you must have heard just how mean this cat, Saddam, was. Were you shocked to learn that he gassed his own people? Really! The Emperor also allowed as how Saddam had “tried to kill my Dad.” It must be nice to be an emperor and use the state army to avenge personal wrongs. But that phrase quickly made it to the cutting room floor.
Well after all the bailing, the USS Four More Years stayed above water – barely - until after Election Day 2004. Now Iraqi elections are coming right up so we can turn our attention to the other arms of the Axis of Evil, Iran and North Korea.
The original plan was to march up to the Iraq/Iran border and advise the Mullahs that if they didn’t fly straight, they’d be sitting in something akin to Abu Ghraib and playing cribbage with Saddam while we rebuild Iran and install that nice Pahlavi boy on the Peacock Throne. And after that stomping, we’d be off to Pyongyang for another victory celebration. Actually, neither of these scenarios was supposed to play out. After seeing how we’d changed the regime and delivered democracy to the thankful residents of Baghdad, there’d be no need to shoot. The Mullahs and Kim Chong-il would simply welcome us as liberators without a fight.
Sadly, it appears that many Republicans – not just those wimpy Democrats – think that our adventure in Iraq was a devastatingly bad idea that is hurting us in the War on Terror, so they’re beginning to give the Emperor fits and calling for the heads of the leading neocons. Can you believe it?
Where was I? Oh, yes, the neocons were snug in their beds with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads and some guy in a red suit was yelling out something that sounds like, “Merry Christmas to oil and to oil a good night.”
Sadly, on awakening, those smug little neocons, the smartest kids in their class, find that the neighbors don’t want to come over to help us celebrate and our sugar plums have turned to lumps of coal. But there’s a bright side, clean coal technology will permit our dreams of energy independence to flourish.
So, “…to oil a goodnight!”
Wildbill944
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
Bush, a Lame Duck President?
Even as this is being written on the day before Thanksgiving in 2004, barely three weeks after George W. Bush was triumphantly reelected president, the question has arisen, is he a lame duck? Of course not; there just some inflammation in his joints. Being the leader of the sole hyper power in the world just ain’t easy.
As I type, two House of Representatives committee chairmen are refusing to roll over and pass the intelligence reform legislation being pushed by the 9/11 Commission and at least nominally supported by the president. This legislation has broad support among the voters and in both houses of Congress, but the military objects to it and the Chair of the House Committee with oversight responsibility is digging in his heels. The other Chairman objects that the legislation does not defend our porous borders and that, as a result the bill is a sham.
The Secretary of Defense states that he is on board with the president’s position on the legislation and that the military is acting independently, as required by law. Yeah, right! The president didn’t want this legislation and his tepid support reflects it. This bill will require his active support and the use of some that political capital that he was bragging about just days ago.
The Republicans on the Hill are moving away from George Bush. The wartime president has too much power and the legislature is moving to reclaim some of its power. The Executive has had its way for a long time, and the Congress – both parties – is moving to cut it down to size. Too bad, George!
So I guess the Prez is just saving his energy and capital for those major items that he’s been jawing about so happily for months like Social Security reform and permanent changes in the tax code that will favor that great Ownership Society of his. If the skirmishing on the intelligence bill is any indication, the going on his major interests may resemble the slogging in Iraq. Holy cow! This president stuff isn’t so easy or nearly so much fun as it looked the day after the election.
My guess is that George W. Bush will soon set his mind on becoming a statesman. Like most second term presidents since passage of the twenty-second amendment to the Constitution that limits Mr. Bush to two terms and which has weakened all two term presidents and has turned them outward to seek success, this president will soon turn to being his own Secretary of State.
Oh, but I forgot, he’s got many of our friends and a goodly number of our opponents and all of our potential enemies in a dither. He’s also got a few problems with his back. The invasion of Iraq has severely undermined the credibility of this administration both at home and abroad. Where are those WMDs that Colin Powell so clearly demonstrated to the Security Council? They weren’t there? Goodness.
At this moment, we face the other two elements of the Axis of Evil without the credibility to seek international or domestic support to prevent their loading up with WMDs. Can we sell the citizenry that we should overthrow the cruel mullahs of Iran? Not likely. Besides, even the neocons seem to have had enough swashbuckling for a while – a generation at least.
Then Mr. Bush has the problem of budgeting for defense. Everyone agrees that we are in a war with the terrorists and that we have to gear up to destroy them. But with what he’s already wrought with his tax cuts, the less than completely robust national economy, our massive trade deficit, and the War in Iraq means that our war on terror will call for some reprogramming of the defense budget.
Clearly, the idea of the neocons and the Defense Secretary that we can deal with situations like Iraq with fewer `boots on the ground’ is badly tarnished. Only the stubbornness of the Administration prevents an admission that we didn’t have enough troops in Iraq.
`Boots on the Ground’ create lots of problems. Troops cost money, lots of it. Troops provide very little in the way of big bucks and pork for defense contractors. Missile systems produce billions in revenue. The same goes for other high tech solutions to keeping potential national adversaries at bay. But whipping al Qaeda calls for `boots on the ground’.
`Boots on the ground’ create the need for many things in the defense budget. But military payroll, boots and shoes, small arms ammunition, body armor, and meals ready to eat are hardly the things to warm the cockles of the hearts of the military industrial complex. Sorry, George.
So what have we here? A newly elected president with a mandate to pursue all of those things he talked about in his winning campaign faces his second term. Karl Rove got you elected – you said it. Your tax cuts have worked and will continue to work after you make them permanent. Supply side economics will solve the budget and trade deficits – you said so.
Everyone is behind you now. Well at least they’ve all stepped back. Whew! Good luck to you, Mr. President. You might want to check with your doctor about that heat and the creaking in your hips and knees.
As I type, two House of Representatives committee chairmen are refusing to roll over and pass the intelligence reform legislation being pushed by the 9/11 Commission and at least nominally supported by the president. This legislation has broad support among the voters and in both houses of Congress, but the military objects to it and the Chair of the House Committee with oversight responsibility is digging in his heels. The other Chairman objects that the legislation does not defend our porous borders and that, as a result the bill is a sham.
The Secretary of Defense states that he is on board with the president’s position on the legislation and that the military is acting independently, as required by law. Yeah, right! The president didn’t want this legislation and his tepid support reflects it. This bill will require his active support and the use of some that political capital that he was bragging about just days ago.
The Republicans on the Hill are moving away from George Bush. The wartime president has too much power and the legislature is moving to reclaim some of its power. The Executive has had its way for a long time, and the Congress – both parties – is moving to cut it down to size. Too bad, George!
So I guess the Prez is just saving his energy and capital for those major items that he’s been jawing about so happily for months like Social Security reform and permanent changes in the tax code that will favor that great Ownership Society of his. If the skirmishing on the intelligence bill is any indication, the going on his major interests may resemble the slogging in Iraq. Holy cow! This president stuff isn’t so easy or nearly so much fun as it looked the day after the election.
My guess is that George W. Bush will soon set his mind on becoming a statesman. Like most second term presidents since passage of the twenty-second amendment to the Constitution that limits Mr. Bush to two terms and which has weakened all two term presidents and has turned them outward to seek success, this president will soon turn to being his own Secretary of State.
Oh, but I forgot, he’s got many of our friends and a goodly number of our opponents and all of our potential enemies in a dither. He’s also got a few problems with his back. The invasion of Iraq has severely undermined the credibility of this administration both at home and abroad. Where are those WMDs that Colin Powell so clearly demonstrated to the Security Council? They weren’t there? Goodness.
At this moment, we face the other two elements of the Axis of Evil without the credibility to seek international or domestic support to prevent their loading up with WMDs. Can we sell the citizenry that we should overthrow the cruel mullahs of Iran? Not likely. Besides, even the neocons seem to have had enough swashbuckling for a while – a generation at least.
Then Mr. Bush has the problem of budgeting for defense. Everyone agrees that we are in a war with the terrorists and that we have to gear up to destroy them. But with what he’s already wrought with his tax cuts, the less than completely robust national economy, our massive trade deficit, and the War in Iraq means that our war on terror will call for some reprogramming of the defense budget.
Clearly, the idea of the neocons and the Defense Secretary that we can deal with situations like Iraq with fewer `boots on the ground’ is badly tarnished. Only the stubbornness of the Administration prevents an admission that we didn’t have enough troops in Iraq.
`Boots on the Ground’ create lots of problems. Troops cost money, lots of it. Troops provide very little in the way of big bucks and pork for defense contractors. Missile systems produce billions in revenue. The same goes for other high tech solutions to keeping potential national adversaries at bay. But whipping al Qaeda calls for `boots on the ground’.
`Boots on the ground’ create the need for many things in the defense budget. But military payroll, boots and shoes, small arms ammunition, body armor, and meals ready to eat are hardly the things to warm the cockles of the hearts of the military industrial complex. Sorry, George.
So what have we here? A newly elected president with a mandate to pursue all of those things he talked about in his winning campaign faces his second term. Karl Rove got you elected – you said it. Your tax cuts have worked and will continue to work after you make them permanent. Supply side economics will solve the budget and trade deficits – you said so.
Everyone is behind you now. Well at least they’ve all stepped back. Whew! Good luck to you, Mr. President. You might want to check with your doctor about that heat and the creaking in your hips and knees.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Ask Not What Your Country can Do For You
The legacy of John Fitzgerald Kennedy is alive and well. “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Millions of Americans went to the polls this month with that spirit in mind and reelected George W. Bush president of the United States of America.
On November 5, 2004, The Washington Post ran a feature story by David Finkel that clearly describes how tens of thousands of hard working people appeared to vote against their best economic and political interests to support the Republican nominee. In one case, the paper relates how a resident of rural Ohio was earning about $55,000 in September of 2001 and on Election Day was earning about $20,000 less and yet he is pleased with the result.
That man did not blame President Bush for, “…anything that’s happened to my income.” Rather, because the president believes in “personal responsibility”, he voted for Mr. Bush.
The article made the point that this man is far from unique especially in rural parts of the country. Mr. Finkel’s article tracks many other newspaper pieces and television news stories that ran during the election cycle.
What are we to make of this? At its most primary level, I find this attitude to be as admirable as any that could be imagined and an affirmation that good honest people from across the land would willingly sacrifice for the good of the nation and note that it is completely in accord with the sentiments expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the defense, promote the general Welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United Sates of America.”
However, after many years of public service, I often find myself in tune with the wag who described the purpose of government is to determine “who gets and who pays.”
In the 1960s when the Kennedy administration was celebrating its tax cut victory on Capital Hill, the Republican Party was on the ropes and being beaten to within an inch of its viability. So how did the Democrats fall into the sorry state that the party finds itself today? Of course the Vietnam War was very high on the list of reasons. But it is more than that.
As most know, the Republicans were the dominant party from the Civil War until the stock market crash of 1929. At that juncture the people lost confidence in the G.O.P., its president, and Congress all of whom were simply unable to cope with the social and economic devastation, and Franklin Roosevelt, a political genius, put together a program and political apparatus that is in some ways still recognizable.
Over a period of many decades, the parties realigned themselves. The Democrats, in the New Deal and for some decades thereafter, were the champions of the downtrodden and disadvantaged. From the perspective of the upper classes the equation as they saw who gets were the unemployed and those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder and they were the who `who pay”.
Long after the Great Depression and W.W.II, the disadvantaged diminished relatively into a smaller slice of the society and the coalition of the Democratic Party was a grouping of large interest groups seeking to become the recipients of federal largess and support. Thus, for example, educators developed arguments that siphoned money from various other parts of the coalition to their sector. Labor leaders sought protections for their members. The bottom line was that many of those perceived to be victims during bad times had been broadened and the need to fund the new initiatives had to come from a broader coalition on the other side of the question.
The Republicans came back to power with a vengeance after the excesses in war and peace during the Great Society initiatives of President Lyndon Johnson.
In my judgment, the equation of who pays got too big for the coalition of who gets and tipped in favor of the Republicans, and during the last four decades they have been better at framing the debate between getters and payers and how much of the national wealth should be redistributed.
John F. Kennedy was fully aware that the government’s share of the gross national product was becoming too great, and his tax cut was stimulating to the economy. But the Democrats were unable to win their own internal struggle on this and related arguments, and Republicans gained greater success at the polls.
While the Democrats were not shut out in elections, it is very clear that only when bad things line up, do they have good shots at controlling the federal government. But the battle lines are still quite even, and it is the Republicans who have built to successful coalitions of the last generation.
But the Republicans have pushed the pendulum a very far in their direction, and, while they appear to be riding high, I think that they are in a position to suffer great reversals at the polls in just a few years. The Democrats have successfully defined the economic policies of George W. Bush as greatly in favor of the wealthy minority, and while the Republicans made much hay on questions such as national defense, their coalition does not look nearly so solid as it might.
The new Republican Party is dependent on large corporations and other groups successful at the federal trough such as farmers. But as these groups shrink as a percentage of the electorate, the party has had to mine votes elsewhere, and the mother load has been conservative Christians, those to whom the party championed itself as the protector of the nation’s moral values.
The Republicans made much of moving to support its hard right base. Naturally, this caused its moderates to find themselves in difficulty with other elements of the party. Thus while the party finds itself doing very well at the polls, it has yet to find a way to pay off one of its key coalition members. Obviously, the leaders of the party and President Bush recognize the debt and have given much lip service on values and have moved to pump funds for social services to religious organizations to promote social services, but the financial rewards are not great for the fundamentalists and values oriented individual voters.
Were some of the initiatives promoted by the religious right such as overturning Roe v. Wade to come about in their favor by means of the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, the reaction of the other side would be very extreme. But if little of their agenda ever succeeds why should people who are being largely ignored by the real nuts and bolts government continue to support politicians all the way to the top who just give lip service to their concerns? A few jobs in religious social organizations and getting their entitlements through friendly institutions hardly compares with their need for health insurance and jobs to replace those lost to other countries.
Even in the wake of this election, the Democrats are moving to assure the religious among us that they are loved and respected and that the party is not entirely secular. Over a not too long time span, it is likely that if the Democrats can find a way to convince sizeable numbers in that block of voters that they are being used by the Republicans without much real return in the form of the values argument, the Democrats will be able to troll for votes in what at this moment looks like such a solid group.
Gay marriage serves an example. The Christian right was very successful in striking a blow to the societal movement of better treatment of gays and lesbians. When all of the laws are passed defining marriage as between men and women, how much will the values people have won? While the real or psychological damage done to the gay community is great, surely, the trend toward greater legal and social equality of gays will continue and some among the hard right of the G.O.P. will see their victories at the polls as not much more a distinction without a difference except for a single word, marriage.
In the meantime, a number of the successful economic groups in the Republican coalition such as large corporations, defense contractors and farmers will be seen as greatly profiting while the Christians got one word instead of real reform. How long will the Evangelicals turn blind eyes to their true plight within the coalition? Billions for farmers, billions for defense contractors, billions in tax cuts for the wealthy and very little for those who may have worked the hardest for the Party, somehow even those most dedicated to values and the welfare of the nation will begin to question their loyalty to a party that uses them rather rewarding them.
Thus, as the parties succeed in luring members of the opposing coalition such as a greater share of Hispanics voting for President Bush, surely the Democrats will find ways to cherry pick within the religious portions of the Republican body. While the faith based Christian right is very solid, even monolithic appearing, there may well be chinks in the Republican armor. Tens of thousands of the Evangelicals judge themselves by their faith, but millions more are willing to add good works to their identity.
As the members of the Evangelical portion of the Republican coalition see little coming from their hard work in electing politicians who bask in their values, many members will begin to reassess the situation in which defense contractors make billions from weapon systems suited for Cold War type adversaries rather than the conflicts likely to occur in the War on Terror, the rich are given huge tax breaks and groups such as farmers prosper and the reward for Evangelicals is often little more than the word marriage.
Many of these Evangelicals could be moved by the prospect of actually doing good, and, if the Democrats are not idiots, these good people may be lured by the programs proposed by Democrats to actually assist the downtrodden in our society in the form of economic development and health care, and, at the same time find themselves the recipients of some good old fashioned pork in the process.
So like Lyndon Johnson, President Bush is taking his election as a mandate to implement his programs that are as far from the norm in one direction as the Great Society’s were in the other.
The War in Iraq is George W. Bush’s war as few other conflicts can be pinned on his predecessors. Even if he is successful in removing our troops, how long can the newly elected government survive? The budget and trade deficits will not go away, and the tax cuts exacerbate the president’s ability to do anything curative. This is President Elect George W. Bush’s world, and as he rides high on his way to inauguration, surely a little bird must be whispering a sad song in his ear.
The Democrats lost, but I sure like their chances in the future. They should not despair too greatly. They must convince a large number of good people that the Democrats are not the lions. Rather they must convince them that they are being herded into coliseum by lions in sheep’s clothing. It’s daunting but far from impossible.
On November 5, 2004, The Washington Post ran a feature story by David Finkel that clearly describes how tens of thousands of hard working people appeared to vote against their best economic and political interests to support the Republican nominee. In one case, the paper relates how a resident of rural Ohio was earning about $55,000 in September of 2001 and on Election Day was earning about $20,000 less and yet he is pleased with the result.
That man did not blame President Bush for, “…anything that’s happened to my income.” Rather, because the president believes in “personal responsibility”, he voted for Mr. Bush.
The article made the point that this man is far from unique especially in rural parts of the country. Mr. Finkel’s article tracks many other newspaper pieces and television news stories that ran during the election cycle.
What are we to make of this? At its most primary level, I find this attitude to be as admirable as any that could be imagined and an affirmation that good honest people from across the land would willingly sacrifice for the good of the nation and note that it is completely in accord with the sentiments expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the defense, promote the general Welfare, and to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United Sates of America.”
However, after many years of public service, I often find myself in tune with the wag who described the purpose of government is to determine “who gets and who pays.”
In the 1960s when the Kennedy administration was celebrating its tax cut victory on Capital Hill, the Republican Party was on the ropes and being beaten to within an inch of its viability. So how did the Democrats fall into the sorry state that the party finds itself today? Of course the Vietnam War was very high on the list of reasons. But it is more than that.
As most know, the Republicans were the dominant party from the Civil War until the stock market crash of 1929. At that juncture the people lost confidence in the G.O.P., its president, and Congress all of whom were simply unable to cope with the social and economic devastation, and Franklin Roosevelt, a political genius, put together a program and political apparatus that is in some ways still recognizable.
Over a period of many decades, the parties realigned themselves. The Democrats, in the New Deal and for some decades thereafter, were the champions of the downtrodden and disadvantaged. From the perspective of the upper classes the equation as they saw who gets were the unemployed and those on the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder and they were the who `who pay”.
Long after the Great Depression and W.W.II, the disadvantaged diminished relatively into a smaller slice of the society and the coalition of the Democratic Party was a grouping of large interest groups seeking to become the recipients of federal largess and support. Thus, for example, educators developed arguments that siphoned money from various other parts of the coalition to their sector. Labor leaders sought protections for their members. The bottom line was that many of those perceived to be victims during bad times had been broadened and the need to fund the new initiatives had to come from a broader coalition on the other side of the question.
The Republicans came back to power with a vengeance after the excesses in war and peace during the Great Society initiatives of President Lyndon Johnson.
In my judgment, the equation of who pays got too big for the coalition of who gets and tipped in favor of the Republicans, and during the last four decades they have been better at framing the debate between getters and payers and how much of the national wealth should be redistributed.
John F. Kennedy was fully aware that the government’s share of the gross national product was becoming too great, and his tax cut was stimulating to the economy. But the Democrats were unable to win their own internal struggle on this and related arguments, and Republicans gained greater success at the polls.
While the Democrats were not shut out in elections, it is very clear that only when bad things line up, do they have good shots at controlling the federal government. But the battle lines are still quite even, and it is the Republicans who have built to successful coalitions of the last generation.
But the Republicans have pushed the pendulum a very far in their direction, and, while they appear to be riding high, I think that they are in a position to suffer great reversals at the polls in just a few years. The Democrats have successfully defined the economic policies of George W. Bush as greatly in favor of the wealthy minority, and while the Republicans made much hay on questions such as national defense, their coalition does not look nearly so solid as it might.
The new Republican Party is dependent on large corporations and other groups successful at the federal trough such as farmers. But as these groups shrink as a percentage of the electorate, the party has had to mine votes elsewhere, and the mother load has been conservative Christians, those to whom the party championed itself as the protector of the nation’s moral values.
The Republicans made much of moving to support its hard right base. Naturally, this caused its moderates to find themselves in difficulty with other elements of the party. Thus while the party finds itself doing very well at the polls, it has yet to find a way to pay off one of its key coalition members. Obviously, the leaders of the party and President Bush recognize the debt and have given much lip service on values and have moved to pump funds for social services to religious organizations to promote social services, but the financial rewards are not great for the fundamentalists and values oriented individual voters.
Were some of the initiatives promoted by the religious right such as overturning Roe v. Wade to come about in their favor by means of the appointment of Supreme Court Justices, the reaction of the other side would be very extreme. But if little of their agenda ever succeeds why should people who are being largely ignored by the real nuts and bolts government continue to support politicians all the way to the top who just give lip service to their concerns? A few jobs in religious social organizations and getting their entitlements through friendly institutions hardly compares with their need for health insurance and jobs to replace those lost to other countries.
Even in the wake of this election, the Democrats are moving to assure the religious among us that they are loved and respected and that the party is not entirely secular. Over a not too long time span, it is likely that if the Democrats can find a way to convince sizeable numbers in that block of voters that they are being used by the Republicans without much real return in the form of the values argument, the Democrats will be able to troll for votes in what at this moment looks like such a solid group.
Gay marriage serves an example. The Christian right was very successful in striking a blow to the societal movement of better treatment of gays and lesbians. When all of the laws are passed defining marriage as between men and women, how much will the values people have won? While the real or psychological damage done to the gay community is great, surely, the trend toward greater legal and social equality of gays will continue and some among the hard right of the G.O.P. will see their victories at the polls as not much more a distinction without a difference except for a single word, marriage.
In the meantime, a number of the successful economic groups in the Republican coalition such as large corporations, defense contractors and farmers will be seen as greatly profiting while the Christians got one word instead of real reform. How long will the Evangelicals turn blind eyes to their true plight within the coalition? Billions for farmers, billions for defense contractors, billions in tax cuts for the wealthy and very little for those who may have worked the hardest for the Party, somehow even those most dedicated to values and the welfare of the nation will begin to question their loyalty to a party that uses them rather rewarding them.
Thus, as the parties succeed in luring members of the opposing coalition such as a greater share of Hispanics voting for President Bush, surely the Democrats will find ways to cherry pick within the religious portions of the Republican body. While the faith based Christian right is very solid, even monolithic appearing, there may well be chinks in the Republican armor. Tens of thousands of the Evangelicals judge themselves by their faith, but millions more are willing to add good works to their identity.
As the members of the Evangelical portion of the Republican coalition see little coming from their hard work in electing politicians who bask in their values, many members will begin to reassess the situation in which defense contractors make billions from weapon systems suited for Cold War type adversaries rather than the conflicts likely to occur in the War on Terror, the rich are given huge tax breaks and groups such as farmers prosper and the reward for Evangelicals is often little more than the word marriage.
Many of these Evangelicals could be moved by the prospect of actually doing good, and, if the Democrats are not idiots, these good people may be lured by the programs proposed by Democrats to actually assist the downtrodden in our society in the form of economic development and health care, and, at the same time find themselves the recipients of some good old fashioned pork in the process.
So like Lyndon Johnson, President Bush is taking his election as a mandate to implement his programs that are as far from the norm in one direction as the Great Society’s were in the other.
The War in Iraq is George W. Bush’s war as few other conflicts can be pinned on his predecessors. Even if he is successful in removing our troops, how long can the newly elected government survive? The budget and trade deficits will not go away, and the tax cuts exacerbate the president’s ability to do anything curative. This is President Elect George W. Bush’s world, and as he rides high on his way to inauguration, surely a little bird must be whispering a sad song in his ear.
The Democrats lost, but I sure like their chances in the future. They should not despair too greatly. They must convince a large number of good people that the Democrats are not the lions. Rather they must convince them that they are being herded into coliseum by lions in sheep’s clothing. It’s daunting but far from impossible.
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