Parody is defined as "imitating and ridiculing some serious work, a comical imitation of something serious; a caricature."
What better way to describe the current goings on in the Congress, particularly the House of Representatives.
In the House madness reigns with calls from Republican tea party extremists to withhold disaster relief funds unless some other federally funded program is reduced or eliminated to offset the relief costs. Although an apparent agreement was reached (to release the relief funds) it was only for a few days as renewed calls for a second vote have been set for next week. So the debt crisis fiasco and threat to shut down the government by these House crazies a month ago was only the beginning of their threats; its' become the new normal.
One imagines if aliens from space were to arrive peaceably and non threatening, wishing only to consider friendly co-habitation with us, they would, upon witnessing the shenanigans of our Representatives at work would readily see the imbecility of the proceedings and rush off to consider another planet where sanity of the inhabitants leaders prevails.
Yet the current "imitation of government" we have isn't confined to those on the far right; there's weak kneed and incompetent Democrats and the fools errand by this president in placating and appeasing the Republicans. There's the mass media's obsession with objectivity and "appearing" non biased which gives right wing idiocy legitimacy and equal time (instead of citing their bilge for what it truly is; no nothingness). There's the Supreme Court's right wing ideological bias and corporate favoritism. And since 9/11 the endless war on terrorism, the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the secret wars in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia with drone strikes and missile attacks, the resort to torture. Let's not forget the bloated defense budget funded against an enemy that no longer exists against imagined and contrived threats that have no basis, imminent or otherwise, in reality. Then there's the bailout of the banksters and no accountability of the perpetrators that committed the abuse. What about the failure to enact real health care reform?
It all resembles a fabricated world, devoid of reality, or better an insane world, masquerading as reality.
But the fact is there is no mystery to the political dysfunction and craziness that prevails. It exists as a result of our electoral process being usurped, hijacked and thoroughly corrupted by corporate and special interests which underwrite those elected to office, the handmaidens who do their bidding.
The corporate interest's intentions are to enfeeble government, inhibit regulation of their nefarious dealings and destroy the social safety net that serves the people i.e. social security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance, food stamps et al.
To the corporate interests the people are pawns to be marketed and sold a bill of goods, just another commodity to be used and discarded.
The coffers of the U.S. Treasury and the FED are made available for their bailout (pillaging?) whenever their excesses and greed result in a type of financial meltdown that occurred in 2008.
Our representative form of government has been hijacked and sanctified by the Supreme Court's ruling in "Citizens United". The end result is the dysfunction and imbecility currently being waged in Congress masquerading as a legislative body of, by and for the people.
Unless the people, liberal and conservative, of the tea party right and the progressive left, see what's happening clearly and unmistakably and execute the corrective measures that will purge the plutocrats and oligarchs currently in charge, our decline in the world, domestically and internationally seems all but assured.
