Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Games

As I said, "let the games begin" and begin they have. Right out of the box, we now have death threats and other threats of violence coming from the right wing. Violence seems to be their preferred dispute resolution mechanism--democratic processes, like voting are not high on their agenda.  They are after all, heavily armed and, now, dangerous.
Tactic #2, after violence or the threat thereof, is patent obstructionism, of the kind practiced yesterday by senator Burr of North Carolina. He "objected" to an upcoming meeting of high level military and defense officials, many of whom traveled thousands of miles to be in Washington to present their needs to Congress. Senator Burr, deferred to his cranky Republican colleagues who wish no progress on any front. Why? Well, just because they can. The US Senate is nothing if not dysfunctional.
So, after many months of "just saying no", Republicans are now cranking up their campaign to obstruct progress toward resolving problems facing the Nation--many of which came about because of Republican strategies. Fairly clearly, Republicans care less about America than they profess. In fact, one might reasonably ask when the Republican party turned anti-American. They are yelling about "states rights", they yell about seceding from the Union, they are threatening violence against lawmakers, and now they simply "object" to formal meetings at which our hard-pressed military can discuss what they need in the future to defend America.
And on the sidelines, their cheerleaders, the Faux News Network, owned by foreign money (Mr. Murdoch as we all know is right wing Australian), scream on, with psychotics like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck urging the population to revolt.
All this because of a legislative enactment to provide health care to some 40 million Americans, and to rein in insurance industry excesses.  Apparently, Republicans are opposed to you getting decent health care that you can afford.  They, after all, have plenty of money to buy any level of health care they wish. For the rest, "let them eat cake."
Or maybe it has nothing to do with health care per se. Maybe it's that old thing that lingers in America--racism once again raising its ugly head.

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