A New Round Of Political Games
The dust has settled in the struggle between conservatives and liberals and we are beginning to see the changes in our political landscape. Yesterday, the Republicans Party picked up the governor’s office in Virginia and New Jersey, even though President Barack Obama had campaigned a bit for both of those state’s Democratic nominee. Yesterday’s results may call attention to the fact that Mr. Obama is not able to overcome the rest of the Democratic Party’s inability to appeal to their Democratic base. This should be a warning to all the Democratic politicians facing reelection next year, two years into Mr. Obama’s administration, at all levels of the government from the local to the national.
It is a safe assumption that most of the Democrats have safe seats. But a good percentage will face strong competition from Republican or conservative challengers. Over the next year, these politicians will have to decide how closely they want to align themselves with Mr. Obama’s agenda and the rest of the party leadership. Their constituents are watching their choices and actions very closely.
But it isn’t all roses for the conservatives. Republican Party politicians suffered their own share of setbacks. An upstate New York district that the Republicans have controlled for more than a century went to Democrat Bill Owens won a special election after conservative activists went public with their political bickering. Staunch conservatives pressured the Republican nominee to quit the race and supported a third party candidate. Indeed, every incumbent should take note that the voting public is ready for change, any change in the political climate, if they feel their representatives, regardless of party affiliation, aren’t working for the public’s benefits. The voting public is more cynical now than ever. People want tangible, real solutions to the problems facing the country and not just hard line dogma that does nothing but inspire people to dig their heals in.
What all of us should have learned from yesterday’s elections is that issues can trump ideology. Issues like the three Gs, god, guns, and gays, take a back seat when the entire country is in a recession. In polling-place surveys, the overwhelming majority in Virginia and New Jersey said they were worried about the economy. And even though there are signs of economic recovery, good jobs have not returned just yet, and trouble looms if people are still not seeing some kind of improvement in their bottom line by the next time they go to the polls.
Yes people were ready for change last year when they elected Mr. Obama. But people are still waiting for that change and if the Democrats that were so overwhelmingly elected last year aren’t able to produce the change they promised then maybe they need a reminder that they only have so much time to dither in their political roles before they too will be replaced. It isn’t so much that Republicans can win as Democrats can lose and they can lose big. The biggest advantage the Democratic Party had in previous elections was the record of former President George W. Bush. But Mr. Bush wasn’t going to stay the albatross around the conservative’s neck forever. And as much as people might like Mr. Obama as a person, he alone does not a party make.
Today the airwaves were thick with conservative politicians and analyst and political pundits and party leaders bragging about their party’s political victories. The blue state and red state numbers aren’t really going to change that much. Numbers wise, there should be little impact to the legislative agenda. But from an incumbent who should want to stay in his or her job’s perspective the impact can be earth shattering. In order to appeal to a broader political base, Democratic contenders might try to move more to the center and abandoning their own political base. Such a move is bound to deflate their core constituents and no matter how much a Democratic candidate might try to look conservative, the Democratic can’t out conserve a conservative.
The truth of the matter is that this should be a wakeup call for both Democrats and Republicans to do more to work together for the benefit of the people. It might sound like a common sense concept. Every politician promises to work across the aisle for the benefit of the American people. But in practice, the politician that is ready to do what is best for the people is truly a novel concept. There will always be a tendency for the politician to do only that which protects the politician’s job. Sincere change for the better will always be hard when half the people in politics can benefit more by gumming up the works and keeping the status quo. Every year we hear how the people want change and the political spectrum changes because people want the bums out. This year is no different. Next year will just be more of the same.
A Simpler Way
The Republican Party has its Democratic counterpart at a serious disadvantage. The Republican Party is far more homogenous than the Democrats. Looking back at clips and glimpses of the Republican National Convention, the majority of the crowd was obviously identifiably white. While there were some ethnicity displayed on the stage with high profile appearances and commentary from people like Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal, the vast majority of conservatives are racially white.
While the white community makes up something in the neighborhood of seventy to seventy five percent of the national population, I’ve seen estimates that the Republican Party was over ninety three percent white while the Democratic Party was down in the sixty percent range. So the Republican Party can appeal to its base with broad strokes of political policies that promote the protection of institutions that can be mostly associated with the status quo and with white privilege. It is common sense that white privilege would appeal to a mostly white base.
Without all the complications associated with trying to make a cohesive, unified group with people from divergent ethnicities and cultures and historical backgrounds, the conservatives can keep their messages simple and revolving around a single theme of keeping the status quo that is traditionally geared towards white people. Indeed, for many people in the more conservative party, anything that changes our social makeup is a threat to our traditional American way of life.
When I see conservative people holding up signs saying they want to take their country back, I have to ask, take their country back from whom? As far as I know the white community isn’t in any real danger of losing control or of being minimized to the point of insignificance in America’s racial spectrum. If the racial makeup of the upper echelons of the United States government is any indication, the white community is well represented and isn’t going away anytime soon or anytime later.
The same can be true about the captains of corporate America, the representatives of state level governments, the judicial system, nonprofit agencies, entertainment from the perspective of both the people front and center and the people who operate and control things behind the curtain or behind the camera, just about any corporation’s middle management, and any other slice of America held in high regard. The white community is, by every measurable social comparison, is truly in the driver’s seat.
But nevertheless, the conservative party can appeal to the conservative base by manipulating their fears that we the minorities are doing what we can to put an end to the perpetual condition of white privilege rooted in racial discrimination built on a solid foundation of state sanctioned black subjugation. Then again, if truth was told it wouldn’t be very hard to imagine minorities working their best as a collective to end white privilege in order to make a more racially equitable society. But the moment we do anything that makes our national collective more fair or anything to make things more equitable, some people want to scream socialism, one of the main scourges of conservative principles.
Democrats on the other hand are not so lucky to have such a one trick pony core. Blue dog Democrats can appear to be just as conservative as any hard core Republican. Democrat in name only, they exist at one end of the political spectrum. These Democrats have more in common with their Republican opponents than some of their associates they share their side of the political aisle with.
And the political issues are just one set of the complex mix of subjects that make up the vast interests of the Democratic Party. Although such diversity can sound a lot more inclusive, it is the inclusion of this diverse collection of people with differing ideas, perceptions, perspectives, needs, wants, backgrounds, futures, and etcetera that makes it somewhat difficult to operate with anything resembling a unified political bloc with the same basic ideas, interests, perceptions, beliefs, faith, and all.
I guess that’s one of the inherent problems associated with having a liberal orientation that is geared towards the possibility of new ideas and new concepts and progressive ways of thinking, but in different directions, that have to come together as opposed to having the same basic orientation with relatively little acceptance for a diverging path from people who may have diverging interests.
This is not to say that the Republican Party doesn’t welcome people who think in progressive ways. I do believe the party can be very innovative. But innovation is limited to assuring that the status quo stays in place. And from a racial perspective and class perspective and economic perspective and more, I feel that keeping the status quo would seriously put me and other people in the black community at a true disadvantage if we were to chose the simpler way.
Joe Wilson’s War
Can you believe this? Republican South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson broke the rules of civility, threw decorum out the window, and called President Barack Obama a liar during his address to both chambers of the Congress. Mr. Wilson claims he was caught up in some fit of passion that he simply could not contain his emotional outburst.
Joe the Heckler immediately apologized after the address was through. At the request of Republican Party leaders, Mr. Wilson called Mr. Obama that night to apologize. A sudden rush of people going to Mr. Wilson’s website knocked out the servers and phone lines. His Democratic opponent reported nearly a half million dollars in new political contributions the next day. A hastily created web site highly critical of Mr. Wilson includes a link to donate to Ron Miller, his suddenly popular political opponent.
What Mr. Wilson has done is thrown down the gauntlet. In essence Mr. Wilson has issued a challenge to him and to the Democratic Party. In front of the nation, in front of the world, a lackey in the Republican Party tossed an insult to the leader of the Democratic Party. If this was the Godfather, the insult would have required a hit on the Tattaglia family.
For all intents and purposes Mr. Wilson was doing his part to undermine Mr. Obama’s office and called the President and the rest of the Democrats pussies. Mr. Wilson was making a bet that none of the Democrats had the balls to throw down. And even if they did decide to mix it up, the Republicans had the support from so many Americans ready to carry guns to town hall meetings where the President was scheduled to make an appearance. The President’s poll numbers were steadily falling. More and more people were deciding that healthcare reform was not what they needed since they think they already have what they need to assure and insure their health and the health of their family for the future. Mr. Wilson was feeling pretty good.
And to many people, the people who think Mr. Obama pals around with terrorists, who think Mr. Obama is secretly a Muslim who attended a Christian church intent on spreading hatred for white America, who thinks that Mr. Obama threw his grandmother under the bus because he described her as a typical white person, who thinks Mr. Obama isn’t a United States citizen and his certificate of birth from Hawaii is not legit, who thinks Mr. Obama is out to take everyone’s guns, who throw tea parties because they think Mr. Obama is responsible for the massive deficit, who thinks Mr. Obama is preparing death panels, who thinks Mr. Obama is Adolph Hitler reincarnated, Mr. Wilson is emerging as an American hero. The same people who will yell that Mr. Obama is a terrorist and “kill him” at a Republican rally will support Mr. Wilson and anybody who would scream any unruly criticism of the President.
This isn’t anything new. Glen Beck called the President a racist with a deep seated hatred of white people and he hasn’t stopped yet. A lot of people called Mr. Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court a racist with a deep seated hatred of white men. And through it all people rally around these mongers of hatred like moths to a flame. In response to all the cash contributions going to Mr. Wilson’s political opponent Ron Miller, Mr. Wilson is asking people to donate to his coffers and people are opening their wallets.
In his speech the other night, Mr. Obama said that he’s ready to call people out and it sounded aggressive. But Mr. Obama is once again ready to let bygones be bygones and turn the other cheek. Instead of calling Mr. Wilson out and holding him up as an example of the atmosphere of politics these days, he’s more likely to invite Mr. Wilson to the White House to make peace over a drink of his favorite suds. With all the talk of blister Mr. Obama has shown time and time again that he is more than ready to forgive and forget with a great deal of emphasis on the forget part.
When the Reverend Jeremiah Wright called him a politician Mr. Obama was so outraged that he formally and very publicly severed his relationship with the man. Mr. Wilson calls Mr. Obama a liar and more likely than not Mr. Obama will let bygones be bygones and open up a six pack. That’s not the way you take people to task. That’s not the way you call people out. That’s not the way you make people regret their tempting fate.
In the Godfather, to let such disrespect stand would mean that a family was weak and toothless. Well, it should be obvious how Mr. Wilson and many Republicans feel about the Democratic family. It looks like the gauntlet has been slammed down at Mr. Obama’s feet. Joe Wilson is ready for political war. But a challenge is just a challenge until somebody agrees to a dual or something. Joe Wilson is ready for war. And a lot of people who support Joe Wilson are ready for political war.
You Lie Mr. President!
President Barack Obama was trying to put the rhetoric and angst against healthcare behind him. All of us have seen the town hall meetings with people on both sides of the issue foaming at the mouth. Granted, one side has a lot more foaming people than the other, but there was rhetoric coming from both directions. But the era for civility and calm conversation will have to wait just a bit longer. In the middle of his healthcare address, South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson yelled from the floor two words, “You lie!” This was in response to Mr. Obama’s statement that his plan for healthcare reform would not cover illegal immigrants.
Now Mr. Wilson might want to explain away his rudeness as a momentary lapse of civility based on his passion for the subject at hand. Supposedly, Mr. Wilson is a firm opponent of illegal immigration. He might even try to blame his emotional outburst on his latent turrets syndrome that manifests whenever he sees an authoritative black man. But one of the television cameras in the house chamber panned over to Mr. Wilson. He was holding a sign in his lap saying, “What bill?” It should be obvious that Mr. Wilson came prepared to do his impersonation of a typical town hall foamer ready to cause a ruckus for ruckus sake and not ready to listen at all.
In response to Mr. Wilson’s outburst the chamber erupted in a wave of disapproving boos. Mr. Obama held Mr. Wilson with a harsh gaze for a moment and calmly responded, “That’s not true.” As Mr. Obama went on with his speech, both Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden continued to send eye daggers Mr. Wilson’s way. Mr. Wilson looked around at all the people giving him their own stairs of disapproval as if to say, “What?” For the remainder of the night, his attention was focused on his Blackberry.
Mr. Wilson’s actions did much to reinforce Mr. Obama’s words. As if prepared for a shameful display of Mr. Wilson’s caliber. “What we have also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have toward their own government,” said Mr. Obama. “Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long term challenge. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned. Well, the time for bickering is over. The time for games has passed,” he added, to Democratic cheers.
Well, in Mr. Wilson’s own words, you lie Mr. President. There will always be time for bickering and for lies and for mistruths for political gain. There will always be time to put self serving political agendas ahead of what’s best for the nation. There will always be a time for a politician to scream an improper comment from the safety of the sidelines. There will always be time for people to be obnoxious when there is plenty to support the notion that others are ready to support and reinforce obnoxious behavior with their own obnoxiousness.
Many other Republican Party politicians expressed open contempt for Mr. Obama by tweeting during the speech, scanning their BlackBerrys, or holding up copies of Republican healthcare reform bills during the speech. Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said that he was incredibly disappointed in the tone of Mr. Obama’s speech. He said that he found Mr. Obama’s tone to be overly combative and believed he talked in a manner beneath the dignity of his office that will make it more difficult to find common ground. The way Mr. Graham speaks you’d think Mr. Obama simply walked over to the Republican side of the House and just bitched slap them all, not that they and their Democratic associates, don’t deserve it.
So this morning, it’s clear that the speech didn’t do much of anything. People on the left are still on the left. People on the right are still on the right. If anything, the trenches just got deeper, the heights of the stonewalling has a new layer of stone on top. There will always be a time for entrenchment. It seems to be the natural order of things. If anything, it is the time that we can achieve anything that resembles reform or at the very least a bipartisan effort that looks like it might lead to reform, is what has come to past. The idea that we can set aside differences and come together for the true benefit of the American people is a bold lie.
Equally Idiotic
How often have you turned to some national news show only to see two people on opposite sides of an issue arguing with each other? Usually it goes something like this: The host of the news show will put out a hypothetical question. Coming up next we’ll find out which is more racist, the Democrats or the Republicans? We’ll discuss this question and more with a high profile member from the Republican Party and another high profile pundit from the Democrats.
Now how many people will actually tune and listen with an unprejudiced ear? It is rare to find a person in America who truly holds no opinion either way on any of these subjects and will open themselves to be influenced one way or the other in five minutes of two people throwing explicit and implicit insults at each other. Some people might call this fair and balanced news reporting. But in all honesty it’s nothing more than a slightly more civilized version of the Jerry Springer Show.
I haven’t really paid much attention to CNN lately and decided to do something different this morning. Instead of my usual of watching the local broadcast from the CBS affiliate KMOV-TV I decided to see what was happening on CNN. It didn’t take long for me to regret my decision. This morning the public was treated to a new segment where one of the whacky crazy antics of zanies from the far left is compared to a single crazy antic from one of the zanies on the right. I turned the television off and dragged my disgusted ass to work.
As I drove to work I thought of the implications of CNN’s new segment. Right now the chaos over healthcare is being ratcheted up to seriously scary levels. On the conservative side we see people holding up signs calling the President a socialist or a communist, we see pictures of the President done up in makeup similar to Heath Ledger’s Joker from one of the Batman movies or donning a mustache ala Adolph Hitler, we see people taking handguns to protest holding signs with subtle threats about shedding blood and offing bureaucrats, and we see conservative politicians easily stirring up this hornets net of fear with insinuations that the current government administration wants to employ “death panels” that will make the decision to kill the elderly and the infirm and whoever else they deem unworthy of life. On the other hand, we have the Speaker of the House saying that the over the top protests of shouting and the refusal to listen is un-American. But picking one from each side simply makes all the zaniness look even handed.
It’s a familiar tactic. It is one of the tactics that has been employed against any talk of racism. The moment somebody says we have racial disparity you can count the seconds before somebody says something like, I’m a white person and back in school a black person beat me up and stole my lunch money. But it’s a rather asinine attempt to equate racial disparity to somebody getting their lunch money stolen by somebody who’s on the other side of the racial divide. But if we follow the method of comparing a single event from one side of a wrong to a single event on the other side, we can make the illusion that both sides of the racial divide are equally wrong.
It is a fact of life that on any issue between peoples there will be jerks on both sides. But simply because there are jerks on the other side of the divide doesn’t automatically equate the wrongs of the two. Just because somebody is an idiot on one side doesn’t negate or equate to all the idiocy that occurs on the other side of an issue.
CNN continues to do a disservice to the public by doing its unfair share of fanning the embers of disorder and confusion in order to make the most out of any controversy. And instead of reporting on all the stupidity we’ll focus only on one fringe act and that way people won’t get the complete picture in order to make a completely informed opinion. So CNN reports only a small part of the story and then asks people to call in with their opinion of what’s happening. And even the reporting of the opinions won’t be an accurate picture of how people truly feel. CNN will pick two opinions from one side to read and two opinions from the other. It gives the impression that the split is straight down the middle when it may be anything but.
But controversy and a confused public and an impression that things are even is an easy formula for good ratings. It works for Jerry Springer. He started out trying to be serious about informing the public. But he quickly discovered that controversy was good for ratings. Mr. Springer gave up his show about informing the public for the current circus he is infamous for. CNN started off trying to be serious as well. But with each and every change they make to their programs they become more like a circus as well.
Sacrifice For Country
The argument over the public healthcare option is reaching a fever pitch and coming to a head. The health industry lobby is working overtime and pulling out all the stops to keep the public option from ever becoming an option for the public. The industry claims that the government plan would destroy the very fabric of the space time continuum. All would be lost for our nation if we let people purchase healthcare through a government option. These people contend that it would be better if we simply stay the course and let people lose their homes and their lives because of the cost of healthcare and health insurance. The fact that people are being denied claims under the pretense of preexisting conditions is nothing to worry about. Just pay your premiums, don’t ever make a claim, and you’ll do just fine.
In his push to make change that the people can believe in President Barack Obama is putting a serious effort behind the public healthcare plan. On the surface at least, it looks like Mr. Obama wants to provide healthcare to the people. It just might be nothing more than a push for some kind f legacy as the first black President. But irregardless of that, there is an effort by the executive branch to provide the public option to the people.
One of the claims about the public option that the healthcare industry makes was to convince the people that they don’t want a government official in between them and their healthcare. But the fact that we have so many people’s claims for healthcare coverage being denied after they have religiously paid their premiums for years for the most minor of reasons by corporate personnel who are willing to do anything management demands in order to protect their bonuses, let alone their jobs, is never mentioned. If the corporate bureaucrat wasn’t a real and immediate problem for so many people wouldn’t be clamoring for a change in the system.
The industry is fighting back and fighting back hard. The commercials to convince the public that the public option isn’t in their best interest is being complimented with claims of horrendous tax increases, the threat of loss of healthcare options (as if we have options), and a lobbying effort to leverage as many politicians and other public figures as possible. And all these efforts are wearing away our resolve to do something to change the system.
The conservative politicians are voting as a bloc to deny the public option. Whatever their individual reasons may be, these politicians are moving as a single unified group without exception. The conservative politicians know that their conservative base favor a hard stance against any social program with possibly the sole exception of an exceptionally strong military machine. These people think that the healthcare system is fine and if some people are losing everything they worked for because of a medical condition then that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. These are the same people that were working to convince me that Sarah Palin was the best choice to sit at the ready to replace the President in case of emergency.
But there are a number of politicians who have a bigger idea of what is at stake and yet are still unwilling to take the plunge and support the President’s effort. These people know that there are simply too many conservative constituents in the districts that they represent to take a chance on their political career. These politicians might recognize the fact that universal healthcare or a public option might be a good idea. But if these politicians vote to support the President and his social program, they can kiss reelection goodbye. So goes the cowardice of political office.
Right now America is embroiled in two wars. These wars have demanded the ultimate sacrifice from well over four thousands American troops. We thank these people for the sacrifice that they voluntarily make on behalf of their country and the greater good. But the American public constantly works with politicians who refuse to lay their political careers on the line for the benefit of the American people. It’s okay for us to sacrifice our children and our future and our fellow citizens. But the idea of a politician sacrificing their career for the benefit of the American people is something much too strange a fruit for the American people to pick. That should help to put things into some perspective.
We keep talking about the sacrifice our men and women in uniform make in our military services on behalf of their country. Everyday these people are dying in service to their country. However politicians can’t even think about sacrificing their job to help their country. But then again, many of us fellow Americans refuse to pay an extra dime in taxes as a service to our fellow countrymen. Way to sacrifice America.
Some Republican’s Have Some Splainin’ To Do
The three ring circus better known as the Sonya Sotomayor confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court are over. Ms. Sotomayor sat in the witness chair before members of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee for more than three days in a quest to become the first Hispanic justice and only the third woman to take a seat on the nation’s highest court. Based on her performance the question is no longer if she’ll be confirmed but more likely when she will be confirmed.
Through it all, Ms. Sotomayor ducked and dodged her way through a gauntlet of questions that focused on the single issue of her comment to a group of Hispanics saying that she hoped a wise Latina woman would more often than not make better judgments than a while male who has not had that experience. Ms. Sotomayor was very careful and methodical with her answers confounding her detractors to emerge unscathed. Wise Latina woman one. White males zero. By the end of the hearings Ms. Sotomayor even had a few conservative Republicans wishing her the best although they did not make a commitment to vote to confirm her.
Ms. Sotomayor kept her cool when more than just once she was being portrayed at her Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a hotheaded judge who is sometimes mean to the white male lawyers who appear before her. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham brought the subject to the table citing anonymous comments from lawyers who described Ms. Sotomayor as a terror on the bench and called her temperamental and excitable and prone to make inappropriate emotional outbursts. To his credit, Mr. Graham admitted that there were favorable anonymous comments as well but didn’t bother to reveal any of them.
Even the bastion of legal expertise and adherence to law, Frank Ricci, testified at the hearing in an attempt to block her confirmation. Mr. Ricci is one of the Connecticut firefighters Ms. Sotomayor ruled against as a member of a three judge panel of an appeals court that heard the arguments in a legal battle over claims of racial discrimination by white firefighters who felt entitled to promotions that no one received because the result of the test used to measure promotion merit was heavily skewed along racial lines. Because the Supreme Court ruled in Mr. Ricci’s favor, using a different interpretation of laws established by previous court rulings and incidentally changing how law is applied from the bench, many want to argue that it only confirms that Ms. Sotomayor is not Supreme Court material despite the fact that four out of the nine justices agreed with Ms. Sotomayor’s panel. Had the retiring Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall been replaced with another black man who worked hard to dismantle racial barriers instead of one who works to protect white privilege, those people would be singing a different tune.
But in the end Ms. Sotomayor remained unflappable and despite the best efforts from many high profile Republican politicians, her confirmation is in the bag. For a Republican Party that appears to have lost a great deal of its standing with the Hispanic population for a variety of reasons, like they being the champion of onerous immigration laws designed to appeal to their broad Caucasian base, the nomination of Ms. Sotomayor has spelled serious trouble ever since President Barack Obama announced her as his choice to replace retiring justice David Souter on the nation’s highest court.
With Latinos all across America paying attention to the confirmation hearings, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn does his best impersonation of Desi Arnaz as Ricky Ricardo wagging his finger at Ms. Sotomayor as if she’s a scatterbrained Lucy Ricardo and saying, you got some splainin’ to do. While Ms. Sotomayor smiled, gave a polite laugh at the gesture, many in that Latino audience were probably thinking, what the fuck? It was probably an innocent stab at some humor. But it is also an undeniable manifestation of the disregard Mr. Coburn has for this heroine of the Hispanic community. Mr. Coburn doesn’t even see the hypocrisy of him judging the racial insensitivity of Ms. Sotomayor’s comments, while engaging his own comments dripping with insensitive stereotypes of Hispanics. Make that score wise Latina two and white males zero.
Mr. Coburn is a first class example of why the Republican Party is in the difficulty it is in today. They just don’t get it. This is just the latest double standard from a party with many of its leaders, whether they are national level politicians or just high profile conservatives, have accused Ms. Sotomayor of being the equivalent of a klan member in a white sheet and a blatant bigot out to avenge the wrongs done by white people.
Despite the all but assured nomination of Ms. Sotomayor, the Republicans will want to slow the process to a crawl in order to appeal to its conservative, prone to protect white privilege base. But Ms. Sotomayor’s supporters, the Democrats, want to schedule a committee vote as soon as possible before the Senate leaves in early August for a four week long summer break. A party line GOP vote against her seems unlikely. The politics are much too dicey. What’s a party with a focus on traditional values skewed in favor of a strong white populace base with little, if any, minority participation or representation to do?
Welcome To America’s Airlines
Here’s a hypothetical situation for you: You’re sitting in an airport, waiting at the gate for a departing flight. You see the flight crew come by and they appear to be bickering. The pilot is accusing the copilot of being a dinosaur incapable of meeting the needs of the passengers or the airline or anyone else and questions his competency. The copilot calls the pilot an elitist without enough experience to fly a plane let alone command one and accuses the pilot of wanting to intentionally trying to damage the airline and take as many passengers down with him.
With the flight crew on deck, the passengers are given the go to board the plane. As you walk by the gate counter to enter the gang way to the plane, the airline staff tells everyone that she hopes the pilot fails and kills everyone. That way, it would be proven to everyone beyond a shadow of a doubt that the pilot wasn’t ready to command a plane and the airline can go back to the pilot that already crashed a couple of planes. You might be inclined to turn around and wait for another plane. But this plane is the last one that can get you to your destination on time. Maybe it’s a loved one in trouble and needs you. Maybe it’s the last plane that can get you to that all expenses paid two week cruise of the Hawaiian Islands. You have no choice but to continue onto the plane.
As you enter the plane’s cabin you pass by the plane’s cockpit. Sure enough, the pilot and copilot are still bickering back and forth. The pilot’s an adulterer. The copilot is a closet transvestite. You continue on towards your seat and hope for the best. And as soon as you get to your seat you’re desperately looking for that customer feedback card.
The plane taxis to the runway and takes off. As soon as the plane lifts off the ground the copilot comes over the air thanking you for choosing this airline and then starts to tell you everything the captain did wrong. He didn’t lift the landing gear fast enough. He strayed too far to one side of the runway. He yawned before the plane took off and doesn’t want to take an interest in the passenger’s safety. The copilot wants to turn off the seatbelt sign but the captain refuses and doesn’t want the passengers to be free. As soon as the plane hits turbulence the copilot comes on the speakers telling the passengers that they’re about to die. This happened throughout the entire trip.
Welcome to America’s Airlines, the airline modeled after the two party system. It is a system that promotes a focus on incompetence and rewards disagreement, conflict, and open rebellion. In a normal business relationship, people would actually have more respect for leadership or at least less contempt. It is unfortunate but because of this competition for political votes, the people not in charge can always sit back and nitpick and block any move of the people in charge. That way, by doing what they can to make people look bad, passengers would be more inclined to vote for a new pilot when the opportunity presents itself.
So even if the plane is in a tailspin to certain doom, the copilot always has an incentive to see things end disastrously. When that plane is going down like a jet powered meteorite and the pilot is pulling back on that yoke with all his or her strength, the copilot will have both feet pushing those controls as far forward as they can go, the left arm is busy throwing hammer blows to the pilot’s face, and the right hand is firmly around the microphone to the speakers throughout the cabin telling the passengers that the pilot isn’t even trying to save the plane.
The problem isn’t the pilot or the copilot. The problem is the American public that refuses to understand that the two party system keeps us firmly anchored in a perpetual condition of mediocrity at best and the worst can be synonymous with a plane making a crater in the countryside.
I know whenever I have to work with someone else who’s in charge and we have a difference of opinion, I have to suck it up and follow their lead no matter how poor the choices might be. I might feel like it is the wrong decision but once the choice is made my only choices are to give the choice made my all to make sure it is given a fair shot at success, or walk away. The last thing I’ll do is sit there in the middle of it and do what I can to undermine any chance of success. I would appreciate it if someone would give me the same benefit of a doubt if I am ever cursed with the position of leadership.
A Night Of Speeches
I will confess. Last night, when I saw President Barack Obama enter the chambers of the United States Congress, I had a sense of pride that I don’t often feel. I expected a great deal of applause and a great deal of bipartisanship. But I was overwhelmed by my emotions. I had to fight back tears of relief. It’s been a long time since I could fathom any sense of admiration for the man called POTUS. I had not realized how long it had been.
I watched the address on MSNBC. At the bottom of the television display there was a couple of meters that showed how people were reacting to the speech, one for the people who voted Republican, the other for people who voted for the Democrat in the general election for the President. They wavered up and down a little. But they were very comfortably in the favorable side of things. I watched as Ms. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Joe Biden looked down at Mr. Obama with an obvious sense of joyous pride plastered across their faces. I watched Michelle Obama look down at her husband with what looked like the most genuine admiration. A look that said, hey honey you did it! His glance back looked as if he was correcting her saying I think you mean we did it!
In the coming days I hope to do a bit more detailed analysis of Mr. Obama’s speech. Right now I have to say that generally speaking I received the speech favorably. If I found anything irritating was the compulsion of people to stand up and clap at anything that sounded favorable. There were a lot of heavenly things to hear but the devil is in the implementation of the details. There are a lot of people who clapped for the President with scowls on their faces and contempt in each smack of the hands as if it took every ounce of their strength to stand their and applaud.
After Mr. Obama gave his address, he was eventually followed by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal who many see as the number one contender for the Republican Party’s return to residency in the White House.
Mr. Jindal’s speech sounded like a campaign for political office where he talked about his personal history. He told the story of how his father had to work any job he could find to support his family when the future Governor was born. It was a great story of how personal perseverance can overcome certain obstacles. If the Republican Party is known for any single philosophy it is the belief that hard work can do anything. In fact, Mr. Jindal’s theme for the Republican Party’s response to Mr. Obama’s speech could be summed up as Americans can do anything.
Mr. Jindal went on and eventually got to another story about the efforts of Sheriff Harry Lee who was trying to get help to the people of Jefferson parish in the hours and days after Hurricane Katrina. Mr. Lee had assembled volunteers to come with their boats to rescue people who were trapped by the floodwaters. The boats were ready to go into the maelstrom, but some bureaucrat showed up and told the sheriff that no one could go out unless they had proof of insurance and registration. The sheriff told the boaters to ignore the bureaucrats and go start rescuing people.
Mr. Jindal went on to explain his lesson in this experience. He went on to say that the strength of America is not found in our government but in the hearts and spirit of our citizens. It was this spirit that got Louisiana through the hurricanes and this spirit will get our nation through the storms we face today.
The irony of Mr. Jindal’s example would have been funny it if wasn’t so serious. Mr. Jindal wants to use the story of a sheriff during what he could to get help to people despite the best efforts of bureaucrats to stick to rules and procedure instead of helping people. It bears a stark resemblance to the stimulus package where Republicans want to stop an effort to help jump start the economy until we have the best plan available. Mr. Jindal and the rest of the Republicans look remarkably like bureaucrats while Mr. Obama looks like a frustrated sheriff.
It was our Republican Party led government that had no problem stepping up to the plate to create an operating environment with more benefits to corporation America. When Americans were paying four dollars a gallon for gasoline, petrochemicals were earning a billion dollars a week thanks to the energy policies of a government led by two oil men. And when banks and financial institutions started to bite the dust it was a Republican led government that moved with relative lightening speed to shore up these companies coffers enough to allow them to keep the promise made to executives and handout billions of dollars in retention incentives, also known as bonuses.
Mr. Jindal continued to say that the Republicans went along with earmarks and big government spending in Washington. Went along with whom? It was the Republicans who controlled America’s purse strings with a complete government trifecta that included control of the oval office, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. Now that the average American needs help, Mr. Jindal thinks it’s prudent to say enough is enough.
As Mr. Jindal said Americans can do anything. I’d have to agree. This country can do anything when we put our collective mind to it. But instead of putting our collective mind into something that benefits the entire community, our focus is to put our minds to something that will generate profit for a few while the larger segment of the whole continues to do without.
