Maybe We Should Just Hope the Republicans Win This Thing...

By Dave Lindorff

If the direr warnings about the US economy and the general state of
the world are correct, maybe we should be glad that Obama’s
presidential campaign is in failure mode (see Loserville).

Two terms of the Bush/Cheney administration have pretty much
destroyed the dollar, wrecked the US industrial base, emasculated the
US military, undermined public faith in the legal system, wrecked the
educational system, bankrupted working people, fired up many labor
unions, bankrupted the government and threatened the retirement and
Medicare systems.

Do we really want to now hand this mess over to a Democratic administration and a Democratic Congress?

All that will do is ensure that Democrats will end up having to
confront, and in the end get the blame for the whole looming
catastrophe, allowing the otherwise thoroughly discredited Republicans
and neocons who created this disaster to come back claiming it was the
fault of the liberals and their pinko friends.

A better idea might be to let the Republicans win it, and then have to deal with it and take the consequences.

Imagine President John McCain trying to invade Iran. Half the US
armor is broken and waiting for repairs in junkyards of Iraq and
Kuwait. Meanwhile, the Chinese might at any time just up and say
they’re unwilling to finance another US war.

Imagine John McCain trying to balance the budget, or better yet,
rescue the dollar! He could raise interest rates, but that would tank
the already stumbling economy. There’s nothing he could cut in the
budget that wouldn’t cause a national riot. But on the other hand, if
he lets the dollar keep sinking, we get massive inflation, because
America doesn’t make anything anymore; it’s all imported.

Veterans are increasing in number, while their health services are
being slashed, and the number of homeless vets is soaring. It won’t be
long before President McCain would be faced with a new bonus-march
assault on Washington by angry vets, reminiscent of the one that
followed WWI. Would he want to send Gen. Petraeus in, ala Gen. Douglas
McArthur, to confront them? Would the federal troops open fire on their
wounded and hurting brethren?

I can certainly see some merit to the idea that maybe now that
Republicans have almost completely destroyed the America I grew up in,
they should have to take the heat for what they have done. And there is
going to be a lot of heat.

The only problem I have with this tantalizing notion is that there
is also some real heat to worry about—global warming heat, and that’s
getting to a point of no return. Another four years of Republican
no-nothingism on the environment could be fatal not just to America’s
future, but to humanity’s future itself.

But then, it’s probably too late for pro-active measures on climate
change now anyhow. A thorough collapse of the US economy, with people
no longer able to afford cars and gas to drive them, might do more to
slow the global heating cycle than any measures that a Democratic
Congress and administration might pass.

So that could work out for the best too.

America is a land founded upon greed (for all the grant rhetoric
about inalienable rights, the revolution was basically about not
wanting to pay taxes, after all, and that obsession appears not to have
changed much down the years), developed through greed, and it looks
like greed may ultimately destroy the place. Who better to deliver the
coup de grace to a national economy than a guy who is so stinking rich
he doesn’t remember how many houses he owns? Who better to run the
American Titanic into an iceberg than the Navy veteran son of two
generations of admirals (especially one whose antics caused one of the
biggest non-hostile disasters on a US aircraft carrier in history)? Who
better to have to face the wrath of a nation than a guy who couldn’t
even stand up to a pantywaist bully of a president who had
sucker-punched him repeatedly?

So I guess we can watch Obama channel Kerry and Gore with
equanimity. The Republicans are going to get what they deserve anyhow,
and we Americans, who bought the Kool-Aid for so long, will get ours
too.
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DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006).
His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net