After President Obama’s reelection, I took a respite from commentary with a long-awaited sigh of relief, a renewed belief that all was well. Plus, I had an overdue novel to finish. However, the Republican response to Obama – prolonged disbelief, recklessness and rage – has brought my halcyon days to a regretful close.
I have decided to joyously fight back against the nihilistic posture of Tea Party elected officials and other gutless members of Congress, paralyzed by threats of reprisal from the NRA. Continued availability of dirty money provided by this organization assures that America’s death culture will continue proliferating.
To make it plain, many members of the Party of No have doubled down on their previously stated intent to destroy President Barack Obama’s legacy (having failed to thwart his reelection), by any means necessary. Increasingly, the means resembles the following:
1) Delimit the votes of persons likely to vote Democratic, or anything other than Republican (African Americans, Hispanics, other immigrants, the elderly, the young);
2) Block Presidential appointments, even though this is destabilizing for the legal system;
3) Block jobs legislation, despite continuing recession and persistent joblessness; and
4) Continue to assail big government, while making state government more invasive towards women and restricting specific groups’ voting rights.
In the Republican bubble, big government is only bad when undertaken by Democrats. As reported about George W. Bush in a 2004 Cato Institute report: “The president hasn’t vetoed any spending bills, because he hasn’t wanted to. Each spending bill that has come to his desk has represented a new vote-buying opportunity, whether it was the big education bill in 2001, the big farm bill in 2002, or the even bigger Medicare prescription drug bill in 2003.”
The contemporary GOP brings to mind Dorothy Parker’s infamous quote about Lillian Hellman: “Everything that comes out of her mouth is a lie, including a and the.”
Fiscal conservatism was unimportant when two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were started, based totally on falsehoods presented to frighten the American people into consensus with a bizarre coterie of buzzards poised to pick clean the 99 percent’s bones to make Dick Cheney’s Halliburton wealthier.
We have work to do. Follow the money – identify what politicians get from what corporations. And remember the Montgomery Bus Boycott Shuffle – don’t spend your cash with people who are contemptuous of your humanity.
Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz stated in 2007 that the richest 1 percent of Americans own 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. When 90 percent of Americans want gun background checks and are totally ignored by Congressional overseers, when voting and other rights are endangered, it can only mean one thing.
If we do not fight back, the dream is dead. America is over.
Ruth-Miriam Garnett is author of Laelia, a novel, and A Move Further South and Concerning Violence, poetry collections. A new novel, Chloe’s Grief will be published in fall 2013. Contact her at ruthm712@aol.com.
