The Chimes of November

There's no question about it. With the possible exceptions of the elections of 1932 and 1861, the mid-term election of 2006 will be remembered as one of the most important in the 230 year history of the American republic. For many years, the possibility that the extreme right-wing might one day seize all three branches of our government was a scenario that very few people had the foresight (or the stomach) to even contemplate. That it would happen - not by means of the electoral process - but as a result of a stolen election in 2000, no one could have anticipated. The unbearable fact is that what has happened to this country and the world since that day the Supreme Court installed George W. Bush in the White House, has made what had previously been our worst nightmare seem almost like a jolly holiday in Regents Park by comparison. It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of our country is in serious jeopardy. If you think that is an alarmist statement then, by all means, vote republican in November. It will be a vote that you will regret very soon. Believe me.

During the campaign of 2000, Bush described himself as a "compassionate conservative". Had most of us bothered to read Molly Ivins' excellent 1999 book, "Shrub: The Short, Happy, Political Life of George W. Bush", I probably wouldn't be writing these words right now. Indeed, I never would have felt the need to establish this blog site. Had most of us read Molly's book, we would have had an inside look into his personal corruption and mind-numbing stupidity. We would have known the disastrous consequences his tenure as governor of Texas had on the people of that state. We also would have been given a dire omen as to the Bush Mob's methods of attaining power. Karl Rove's propaganda machine was able to win the 1994 gubernatorial election for Bush by spreading the rumor that the then governor, the late, great Ann Richards, was a lesbian. That is the way these people do business. It was a prologue for the dirty campaign they ran against John McCain during the South Carolina primary in 2000 and the swiftboating of John Kerry in 2004. The McCain story is the most disturbing. A number of years before, he and his wife Cindy had adopted a beautiful little dark-skinned girl from Mother Theresa's orphanage in Calcutta. The Bush people distributed a photo of the child and told the voters of South Carolina (some of the stupidest people on the planet, by the way) that she was the result of McCain's liaison with a black prostitute. Late night "pollsters" would call potential voters, some of them actually asking if a person was aware of the Arizona senator's "Nigger daughter". That did the trick. Bush won the primary and McCain's campaign was finished. Although he ran for the presidency as a moderate, the moment he took the oath of office on January 20, 2001, he shifted to the hard right.

The ensuing five and a half years of a Bush White House and a GOP controlled House and Senate have resulted in what can only be described as a domestic and international calamity. Starting with a reckless and massive tax cut for the wealthiest two percent that has hurt the poor and middle class beyond adequate description and ending with a war against Iraq that has destroyed American credibility across the globe, the damage that the Bush administration and their pathetic lap dogs in congress have done to this once-great nation will be with us for generations. Their ultimate goal, I'm sure, is to bankrupt America to the point where they will be able to obliterate the social safety nets that were put in place by the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt seventy years ago. That has been the dream of the republican party for decades. It's almost a cliche now but it is true: Roosevelt saved capitalism by tempering its excesses. If you want to know what it was like in America for the working class prior to the New Deal, please, by all means, read Upton Sinclair's classic 1905 expose' of Chicago's meatpacking district, "The Jungle". A world of unregulated, out-of-control capitalism where the average worker is underpayed, overworked and disposable. That's what they want and that's where we're heading. You can count on it.

Only once, between 1933 and 1995 did they control the legislative and the executive simultaneously. That was the two year period, 1953 through 1955, when the United States saw some of the worst abuses of congressional power in its history. What they gave to us was the era of Joe McCarthy and the witchhunts by the House Un-American Activities Committee. For two miserable years, they had the entire country gripped in suspicion and paranoia. On election day, 1954, when the democrats were able to take back the congress, the republican president, Dwight Eisenhower, stunned at the mindless extremism of his own political party, breathed a prolonged sigh of relief. Forty long years would pass before they would control congress again.

2006 is not the year we should be foolishly experimenting with third party candidacies. We tried that in 2000 and look where it got us! A third party only benefits the forces of darkness. Why do you think that Rick Santorum's people are financing the Green Party candidate in Pennsylvania? The sad fact of the matter is that the democrats are, at this moment in our history at least, the best hope for our country's future. One can only hope and pray that when and if (and that's a very big "if") they regain power, they'll go back to their wicked, liberal ways. But whatever the outcome, of this we can be absolutely sure: They will prove to be far more moderate, thoughtful stewards of America's future than the right wing fanatics who are now in the process of destroying it. If you think that I'm kidding you then, fine, go ahead and vote for the republican party this November. You'll deserve everything that happens to you.

Pray for peace.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net