The face of America, both at home and abroad, will be decided today and everyone is going to have to live with the outcome for at least the next two years. The Republicans have made it clear they're not running to reinforce their position as official opposition but to get enough control in Congress to become the obstinate obstruction. Today's editorial from The New York Times reveals that rational Americans are very worried:
There are critically important decisions to be made about whether the country moves ahead with confidence or moves backward and becomes even more polarized.
Voting in Republican primaries and special elections showed what happens when moderate Americans stay home or react to the barrages of fear and intolerance. We end up with fringe candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware and Sharron Angle in Nevada. Establishment candidates then spout the same disturbing ideas. (Witness Representative John Boehner, the House minority leader, trying to act like an outsider after 18 years in the Washington power elite.)
Democrats have been far too timid to argue the case, but they, and President Obama, have done many important things in the last two years.
The Republicans have been rewriting history. They claim Mr. Obama’s economic policies are a failure and hope Americans will forget that it was President George W. Bush who turned big budget surpluses into huge deficits and whose contempt for regulation ultimately brought us to the brink of financial collapse. The Republicans want to go back to more tax cuts for the rich and more free passes for Wall Street and big corporations.
Tea Party candidates are particularly worrisome. Some want to privatize Social Security. Others want to eliminate Medicare. Betting on the Republican establishment to temper these excesses is a bad bet.
...We urge all Americans to think carefully and then vote, especially young voters who voted for the first time in 2008. Sitting on their hands is voting for Republicans, none of whom will protect these voters’ interests. There are clear choices to be made.
The editorial speaks for itself and for just how much is at stake today as Americans head to the polls. The United States does seem very much poised to move backward and become even more polarized, and we may all pay dearly for that.
5 comments:
I watched a bit of CNN's 360 last evening and must say it was disturbing.
The panel was mostly focused on Sarah Palin, and the tone of the conversation was what I found troublesome. They were referring to Palin in a way that one would expect a legitimate candidate to be discussed. A real Political heavyweight so to speak.
They talked about her statements, policies she has supported and how her influence with the Shadow political entity known as the Tea Party has resulted in legitimizing many of the ultra right wing crackers associated with this, movement?? I don't quite know what to call it, but I know it gives me shivers and brings to mind radical right wing elements of past decades.
Yes it does bring to mind another time in another country. These supposedly homespun advocates for corporatism and special interests have their dupes dancing on strings straight into the voting station. It's sickening.
There is nothing like a carefully measured economic beat down to bring about conditions that propagandists can make best use of.
How so many Americans can ignore the recent past baffles me. Perhaps that is a result of the ego issues that develop from seeing ones country as the most powerful of them all. It took a lot of Brits a long time to come to grips with the death throes of their Empire too.
America became what it was largely as the manufacturing leader of the world and the number one supplier of goods and war material to the last Empire. I wonder sometimes if it is even possible now for them to regain that manufacturing crown?
The detente with China is now a balance between imports and debt, so that cycle is truly challenging and I don't see how they can make major changes to favor their manufacturing future other than devaluation of their currency which opens the other cans of worms, the US dollars status in the world and all that implies.
To which most of those dancing dupes would respond, wtf ru tawkin about?
I don't really know what can be done with people who expect decades of rot to be repaired almost instantly. In time they may come to realize that economics and geopolitical maneuvering isn't the same as ordering at the drive through.
The Brits dismantled their empire more or less sensibly. As Chalmers Johnson points out they finally realized they could have an empire abroad or a democracy at home, just not both.
The Americans are resisting that wisdom and it's being played out in the erosion of their democracy and the rise of corporatism and oligarchy. This is powerfully abetted by fearful, angry and thoroughly indoctrinated citizens voting, en masse, against their own interests.
As a teenager I pondered who an educated, modern people as the Germans could be swept up to give their enthusiastic support and loyalty to a madman like Hitler? I remember at the time wondering whether we were really any different, whether, in the right circumstances, we might be just as vulnerable.
If one understands the economic realities of post WW1 Germany, the day to day life of average people, the immediate history as well as the long term, plus the overall nature of the population, it can instill a respect for what can evolve from similar conditions.
Sometimes it doesn't hurt to correlate such things in order to offer a reminder and possibly bring some perspective to the modern populations. There is a whole world beyond Don Cherry and X Box.
I think that these are things that most people can explore quite readily as they are based on fact and realities of the past.
Breaking away from that thought, I just watched Ignatieff giving a speech in Montreal on his vision of Foreign affairs and the future. Didn't get it all as I was doing other things, but heard him relate stories of meeting young Canadian travelers in airports who were going abroad to interact and some to do business. Then he went on to discuss the wonders of Canadians being members of the global community. Well, maybe his audience understood what he was trying to say and I'm not criticizing the intent so much as who he thought would relate to his vision. His number one problem really. He doesn't have the common touch. He is still lecturing and is a few years behind the sentiments of most Joes and Janes.
People have been traveling to foreign lands to interact and do business for a while now. More so after they learned the world wasn't actually flat.
I think he did stand up for Khadr, but again drifted off to defending Canadians in trouble abroad. A worthy goal, but not one that resonates with the majority. Picking around the edges while waiting for the public to turf Harper is all he seems intent on doing.
Kneel o Noble of the House of Romanov, and we shall surely lay our sword upon thy shoulder.
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