Democrats are helpless. They are unable to respond to republican accusations that democrats always want more government, higher taxes and control over the lives of Americans. Millions of conservatively inclined Americans nod in agreement, and take up the chorus that government is to blame for all of the nation"s ills. Wall Street crashed the economy as soon as government withdrew from its regulatory oversight role, and so far, it has cost taxpayer's a few trillion dollars. It was during Reagan's Administration that government regulations overseeing the Saving and Loan industries were repealed, causing an almost immediate meltdown of the S&L's, at a cost to taxpayers of over $600 billion. California's Power and Utility Commission was delivered from government oversight resulting in a $91 billion loss to California's State Treasury. Corporations are joyous that so many Americans are still falling for Reagan's old line, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."
Obama and the democrats seem completely blind to the ever increasing evidence that the American dream is fast becoming a nightmare. Ignoring double digit unemployment, rewarding the banks for wrecking the economy and cobbling together a health care plan that no one wants is not what Americans thought they were getting when they elected Obama. Bush Jr. gets a free pass for the eight years of wreckage he left behind, while Obama has somehow managed to convert the republicans into populists. The democrats are now the scapegoats for the nation's ills, and the republicans never miss the slightest opportunity to reinforce their message that democrats want to spend the taxpayer's money on more government.
Obama continues the Bush policy of handing the failed banks blank checks with no strings attached. Since 2007 the engineers of the financial meltdown have been compensated with bonuses worth over $300 billion. Obama blusters at the terrible injustice of it all, but doesn't do a damned thing. He refuses to point out that George Bush Jr, and the grossly irresponsible republicans, are the direct cause of the nation's pain. Imagine a republican giving a pass to a democrat who brought such ruin down on the nation. Unwashed tea party hordes mill about angrily protesting government's intrusion into their lives. The triangular hats that cover their empty heads are proof against the abundant evidence that it's not the government, but the corporate plutocracy that is making the decisions that effect their lives.
When Bush stole the presidency, with the full cooperation of the Supreme Court, his first order of business was unraveling whatever progressive policies Clinton had brought. Never mind that it was Clinton who left the nation in better financial shape than he found it. By contrast, when Obama took office he kept many of Bush and Cheney's hirelings, and even appointed a few right wingers to his cabinet. Obama is continuing the Bush policies of imprisoning suspected enemies of the U.S, and holding them without charge or legal representation. He is also inordinately fond of Bush's penchant for secrecy. Obama's republican Wall Street appointments have been very helpful in leading Obama to the cliff's edge, where Obama eagerly jumps off
The U.S. Constitution, and the American people it protects, are being pummeled from so many directions that democrats have given up rather than attempt a defense. Like ostriches, they bury their heads in the sand, so they can't see the insidious rot creeping up on them from the corporation's wholly owned and subsidized republicans. Obama, after being elected, immediately set about reassuring his corporate contributors that he didn't mean all those ugly things he said about them, but it was necessary if he were to win the election.
Republicans have successfully out maneuvered the democrats for decades. Democrats allow them to frame the issues, and the republicans know exactly which buttons to push to incite the nation's anger. Thus have the republicans reinvented themselves from greedy, pro-corporate and fiscally irresponsible troglodytes, to credible alternatives to democrats. The democrats, holding all the aces, folded early in the game and the republicans, always ready and able to exploit an opportunity, became fiscally responsible overnight, and have now pronounced themselves the true guardians of the nation's economy. The democrats, like an inanimate punching bag, have again allowed themselves to be painted as big spending liberals who want government looking over the shoulder of every American. This is no easy trick, and needed the cooperation and intense effort of the democrats, to pull it off.
Obama, upon being elected, owed every American a duty to ask for those Supreme Court Justice's resignations who participated in the 2000 coup d'etat that installed Bush in the White House. Obama, of course, hadn't the backbone to do any such thing, and now the Court has enabled corporations to buy congressional seats, and even the presidency itself. This is not new. The only difference is that now corporations don't have to pretend otherwise when they're buying a congressman or president.
Corporate lobbyists, or more accurately, corporate extortionists will buy the vote of any congressional member by threatening to spend a million or so on negative T.V. advertisements that will make the uncooperative congressman look like a garden variety serial killer. The right wing element of the Supreme Court acts with the full knowledge that its traitorous acts are grounds for impeachment. The Court's right wing also understands that democrats, led by Mr. Marshmallow Obama, are not going to do a damn thing to protect the U.S. Constitution from further damage and eventual annulment. Obama whines pathetically that big corporations drown out the voices of everyday Americans. He says the Court's decision allowing corporations to buy elections is just terrible. Oh, wow. He really let 'em have it with that one! What a guy!
Obama knows he's a one term wonder, and he knows that unless he can find the courage to lead he will be presiding over the death of the Democratic Party. But leadership is not as much learned, as it is a natural talent, and Obama could not lead a horse to water if it were dying of thirst. Progressives are going to have to get used to another crushing disappointment, just as right wingers told them to "get over it," when the Supreme Court ignored the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, when it stole the election from Al Gore in a 5/4 majority.
Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court Congress will soon be comprised of Joe Lieberman types who can always be depended upon to abandon, at the slightest nod from their corporate masters, any position that may inhibit the wealth and power of the corporate plutocracy. The right will continue blaming the government for the severe problems that must inevitably arise as corporate control squeezes the U.S. Treasury for its last dime. Americans will scurry away to the polls on election day, and celebrate democracy just as if it were real and alive. Some far right republican will bump Obama out of the White House in 2012, and the U.S. Constitution will be reduced to a meaningless scrap of old, crumbling paper. It will exist only as a reminder of a time when Americans believed in such nonsense as a free democracy.
It is very difficult to imagine a way in which democrats can survive as a party. The republicans, and indeed the nation, know the frightened and submissive democrats can be kicked in their teeth, and the democrats will apologize for getting their blood on the republican's shoes. It doesn't take a genius to recognize that democrats are being given their last rites. For the remainder of Obama's one and only term progressives will continue being outraged by his betrayals, and in 2012, Obama will run again knowing he hasn't the slightest chance of winning. Progressives are never going to see a candidate that will represent their ideals. They are going to have to face the fact that their support is taken for granted, and those who win office on that support, are never going to promote a progressive agenda.
Progressives should be glad that such an era of democratic cowardice and ineptness is almost over. They should also remind themselves that expecting a democrat to lead, if one should turn up who claims to be capable of such a thing, will only result in another profoundly disappointing waste that may have kept a genuine leader from coming forward to take up the progressive cause. The democrats, in 2008, were given a Carta Blanche ticket to lead. In one short year they managed to completely destroy the hope and confidence that Americans invested in them. The democrats will find a plethora of excuses for why they lost the mid-term elections, but they will never consider themselves as the root cause of the neoconservative ascendancy, and their corporate masters further rise to power.
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