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I don't mean to ring the 'sour' note in this band, but the very fact that someone like Bush is Pres. should clue a few Dems into the fact that the rw is a long way from being hammered.
Indeed, they have been very successful in alternately dismantling and looting the basic institutions of this country and redefining the meanings of most American values to suit their machinery of greed in ways that would have been unimaginable a few decades ago. Some of the finest school systems in the world have been trashed; the surplus's created by democrats have been looted and transferred into the pockets of power and wealth; health care has been transferred wholesale to the insurance industry; the 'war' on drugs continues to bloat the coffers of domestic police and enlarge their program for shredding the U.S. Constitution (& is now allied with the declaration of a perpetual state of terrorism); and the program of 'privatization', begun some 50 years ago under the banner of 'deregulation', is nearing a completed form in some sectors such as energy, communications and other for profit industries to the point complete severance from the reach of the people.
The very idea of liberalism has been pushed so far to the right that it resembles something more like the centerest position of the rw 30 years ago. The rw has pretty much managed to capture and define almost all the terms of issue debates, from abortion to capital punishment, and if they seem to be screaming - it is a ploy. The scream just as loud no matter how much the left capitulates. Taking the 'shrill note' has been a very successful tactic for the Republicans. On thing to their credit is they have an agenda, even if much of it is kept hidden from their own constituency. Don't kid yourself, Now owning one branch of govt. outright and most of the other two, their right on target, using up most of our energy in going from election to election, trying to find ways to look more like them.
Did we find a way to answer, in realistic and effective terms, their 'tax & spend' charge? No. We just tried to copy them by cutting into the bone of the most vulnerable and exploited. Did we point out that 'social-engineering' is what is done by passing laws that compel social behavior? No, we just looked the other way when a surgeon general said maybe we should study what our anti-sexual polices really do to our children's lives and the adults they become. Did we challenge the obscene exploitation of the working poor. No, we let them call its centerpiece a 'welfare reform bill' and helped them pass it. Again we've capitulated on a so called 'Medicare reform' that paves the way for further "privatization" and dismantling of the health care system under the guize of 'competition'.
Who said that government finance was supposed to resemble the personal finance and checkbook management of your family? In the first place, the government undertakes projects which are meant to last and improve the lives of generations to come. Surpluses are there to respond to emergencies and maintain and update the country's infrastructure. Why do we simply cave into these lethal soundbites that would equate some years of surplus with money that must be immediately given back as a tax-payer rebate, thus completely deflating its power as a lump-sum piece of major capital? Of course the $300 return stimulated the economy temporarily -- the private economy. Imagine, correctly spent, what it might have done for the public economy? Better as a pay down for the national debt; or, as a microwave, beach towel and six-pack from Wall-Mart?. Depends on whether you want to inflate the top of the private economy, or improve an underfunded public economy.
The point is, our party is a half-century behind on having a viable vision or mounting a successful challenge to those for whom 'more' isn't ever enough. When are we going to be paid back for the work our machines do for us?
If you think Republican yelling indicates any real fears of the opposition or that we are about to topple their kingdom, think again. It is a very effective theater-of-pain that they have learned how to milk for all its worth. To the average voter, the perception is that even the most timid liberal proposal that the government can and should act for the public good or common welfare is an indictable treason; an unAmerican act to deliver us into the hands of a marxist state. As long as we have no answer but to look more Republican, the average voter will figure they are correct.
sorry for the sour notes, but that's how it looks to me.
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