I was reading ncyeve's excellent diary last night--If You're Scared...--and it got me thinking. Thinking about what could have been, what should have been...and what I see now.
I started to type a comment, but it got away from me and I ended up with something a lot longer than. The scroll bar goes a long way. I needed to vent. So here we are. I don't know what we're calling the squiggle thing, but my 'comment' is below that...
I see that Keynesian thought in the alternate universe known as the DC Beltway Pocket Continuum no longer exists, except in the minds of the marginalized and neutralized liberals there.
I see a Wall Street that has gone back to its usual gambling, waiting for the next bubble, reaping the rewards, and begging for bailouts when the bubble eventually and spectacularly bursts. I see them laughing as they get away with wrecking the economy time and again.
I see a corporate media catering to their true audience, the wealthy, while their dogma and their wishes are spewed out to the real world and barely any liberal voices actually call out the propaganda for what it is. All we've got are Olbermann, Maddow, and Schultz. But aside from Maddow and Krugman, liberal voices are barely on Sunday Morning or anywhere else. And if they are, they're outgunned and outnumbered by alleged moderates and blowhards like Thomas Friedman, David Brooks, and Cokie Roberts spouting centrist nonsense while tools like David Gregory referee it like a rigged WWE match. With one huge difference--on the DC Talk Circuit--there's no ring, there are no tights (thankfully), and most importantly...the heels always win. The Villagers always resort to their bosses' bidding, no matter what, "Each side is equal. Both sides do it. No matter if one side insists on detonating the world economy for all the world to see."
I see the solid Republican Base, with a lot of money from some insidious fellows, have managed to once again rebrand themselves as the Tea Party (thanks to the power of consolidated and necrotic Corporate Media and Republican think tanks). They're more insane than ever. They cannot be reasoned with--yet they swept up the House and even Moderate Republicans are afraid of the tiger they unleashed once again.
I see a Democratic Party completely co-opted and infected with corporate dogma as the leadership--desperate for unlimited money--sold out to Wall Street, the MIC, Big Energy, PHARMA, Insurance conglomerates, and other groups too lazy and too wealthy to be bothered with paying their fair share in taxes...and have willingly opened the door to messing with the Social Safety Net.
I see a growing, potentially powerful Liberal-Progressive Netroots, Grassroots, and Labor locked out of the Democratic Party, only called upon to be the foot soldiers and water carriers for a platform that is only referred to, but never actually adhered to in any reasonable fashion. The liberal groups that actually sit in the room take orders, and have no say in the goings-on or strategies...they are handed talking points from the top down, and if they rebel--their access is severed.
I look out on my apartment's patio, one end of the street shiny clean, new, and nice...and on the other end, the ghetto--where the tendrils of gentrification continue to push out the poor. I wonder if the homeless shelter a block away will be pushed down the street further. I wonder if the homeless that wander the streets of my city at night will get the help and charity that they need without the police harassing those who have the means, time, humanity, and passion to help.
I see a struggling and dying Middle Class being ignored by the Elites. I see the desires of the Elites destroying what was left of a vibrant Working People. The Working People, without any voice (save a vote for the least likely to screw them over and out) hoping for help that will likely never arrive in their lifetimes. The only hope they have is to hold on to what little they have left, and hope that their families will help them when they cannot help themselves.
Turning back to the DC Beltway Pocket Continuum, I see a House that has been taken over by a party of Doomsday Dominionists, homophobes, racists, xenophobes, misogynists, serial philanderers, shameless hypocrites, unrepentant liars, corporatists, oligarchs, neofeudal lunatics, cowardly sadists, sexists, willing idiots, and deliberate ignoramuses.
I see a Senate where everything is broken--where obscure rules, open corruption, outdated customs, hilariously absurd stagecraft known as comity, parliamentary mischief, and egotistical old men from states with far too much power than they should wield in proportion to their population systematically kill any legislation that could help Working People, women, the elderly, children, and the poor--all in the name of ALEC and the ruling corporate dominion.
I see a Supreme Court ruled by a cabal of corporatist ideologues, straight from a right wing think tank's wet dream. I see Justice Thomas and ask myself how someone could be so wrongheadedly ignorant. I see Justice Scalia and wonder what could make a human being so heartless. I wonder how much money and power it would take to make someone that way.
I see a White House occupied by Wall Street and its minions. I see a President who is a cipher--who sees himself as a broker for any deal, no matter how wrong. I see a President who isn't a liberal, whose policies and economic worldview resemble that of what used to be moderate Republican in saner days. I see the White House's excuses and shake my head in disbelief and disappointment.
I take a look at Al Jazeera English on YouTube, back to the days of the Arab Spring, protests in Israel, turmoil in Greece, bedlam in Tottenham and elsewhere in Britain, uprisings against austerity, dictators, and governments not doing their job.
I wonder why that isn't happening here more, and what would it take for the docile American to finally wake up from the culturally indoctrinated slumber, to unplug from the umbilical cord of the mass corporate media and Poptopia, to take their places among their neighbors...to protest. Wisconsin, Verizon, our LGBT brothers and sisters victory in New York is the match.
The match has been struck. I ask myself one simple question, where is the gasoline?
Because by now what I see isn't good for this country.