Thursday, January 13, 2005

Making myself sad

A few weeks ago I was taking a shower and thinking about the sorry state this nation is in, and I tried to cheer myself up with the thought that we were now on the downward slide of the Bush term in office (until the next Bush decides to buy, lie, cheat, and steal his or her way into the White House.) Suddenly I realized: The second Bush term hadn't even started yet. We weren't even at the halfway point. And this realization made me sad.

Coronation Day* is next week, and already the stratospherically wealthy are lining up to celebrate their complete victory over the American people. I'm beginning to think that if you can't beat 'em, you should profit from 'em, and I'm trying to dream up business opportunities that would help to redistribute the wealth of the nation in a a manner beneficial to the nation - like, say, draining some funds from the wealthy Republicans and donating them to non-Republican candidates who have a fighting chance of winning Congressional and Presidential elections. I'm thinking something along the lines of the "star registry" companies, which have managed to convince people to exchange their hard-earned cash for a certificate that is essentially meaningless. Hmmm...for a nominal fee of, say, $10,000, you too can be listed in my registry of "America's Most Influential People"...

Such schemes aside, it's not too early to begin thinking about the next elections. The major loss for the Democrats - and the nation - was not the loss of the Presidency. No, it was the shift of the Congress even deeper into the pit of Republicanism**. I have always mused that if Gore had won (or rather, if Gore's win had been officially acknowledged) in 2000, we would have seen non-stop impeachment hearings and obstructionism from the Republican-dominated Congress - and possibly a coup in the days following September 11, 2001, the blame for which would have been laid squarely on Gore's shoulders. If Kerry had won in 2004 it would have been the same but worse, as this Congress is far more radical and far less experienced than the ones we have been graced with these past few sessions.

So radical and so rancorous is this new Congress that it seems to be turning upon itself and its idiot God-King, like a mythical snake gone mad and swallowing its own tail in its writhings. Or, perhaps, more like a cartoon vacuum cleaner sucking up itself, and like that vacuum cleaner it will consume itself entirely and be gone.

But we can't count on it. So even as we watch the bitter spectacle of Coronation Day, we must hold onto the glimmer of hope: we still technically live in a Democracy, and the next elections are always just around the corner. Even when the end of George W. Bush's reign is still more than four years away.

*This would normally be considered Inauguration Day, but word on the street is that the preparations are so elaborate and opulent that the event will be far more like a coronation. Somehow it seems fitting for, to paraphrase Don Henley, "this tired dumb man that we (and by we, I mean they) elected King..."

** Not to be confused with The Pit of Republicans, a level of Hell not yet constructed when Dante dropped by for a visit. It is located directly below Satan's bowels.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Echo,

I've got a good friend going to the Inauguration to smooze with a client. (She doesn't have to pay anything and frankly I'm jealous). I was happy to hear the story though, because he had been trying to squeeze us with a sob story that I can now reject with a clean conscious.

Tom Delay beat you to "star registry" with his "Small Business Council" and some award his staff used to call me with from time to time. I'm sure for the right price, your name too could be listed in a column in the NY Times (or whatever paper) if you just listened to "this message from Representative Delay." Just this week I got a RNC membership card in the mail too. I resisted the temptation to mail them back my donation form back in the pre-paid mailer. (No, I haven't figured out who gave them my name. I suspect it IB Bill).

The next four years are going to be a long four years, but I'm hoping Bush will eventually move towards lame duckism. The hottest Republican these days is Arnold and he's even called for the GOP to move left a little. Though even he isn't up to the California budget.

Also, before you get too concerned about the future of the country, remember to follow the dollars. Wealthy people's fortunes are undercut by big deficits and trade imbalances just like everyone else's. Big GOP donor companies are making bucks off of porno movies in hotel rooms and other stuff like that. Aside from active discrimination against gays, I'm not sure things will get too much worse on that front.

In the end, when privatization of Social Security proves a failure for large enough numbers of people, our kids and grandkids will step up to the plate and set things right.

This is their hey day and Bush is our king. So repeat this new pledge of allegiance to Bush:

"All hail King Bush. All that he sees before him is his. Give him your gold and let him sacrifice your sons. Give him not your old, your tired, your sick, your poor, or your uneducated. Their fate is not the interest of the Republican federal government. Republicans want it this way and so will their will be done."

Super G

Anonymous said...

whew! bitter, bitter, bitter.

IB Bill

D.B. Echo said...

Damned right.

Over the next four years, I think you can expect to hear the phrase "I told you so" rather a lot. Also "Idiot God-King".

Super G said...

IB Bill --- I don't really think it was you -- of course.

SG

Super G said...

Actually, let me further extend my sincerest apologies to IB Bill for referring to him (even if that is just his screen name and I don't personally know him). It was entirely inappropriate. Without a doubt my name was bought on some mailing list from some place. There is no way he would do that OR do I expect anyone would waste their time doing it. At the time I probably thought it was funny - but it is not funny at all.

Sorry. SG

Anonymous said...

You don't need to apologize, SuperG. I thought you were kidding. It was funny.

As for the larger point, Harry, you're all ready for the "I told you so's." Does that mean you're hoping our chief executive fails in improving the economy and in the war on terror just so you can be right :)

IB Bill

D.B. Echo said...

No, I'm not hoping that Bush fails as miserably as I expect him to fail, although I expect such accusations to be the party line. In fact, a poll released today that indicated 60% of respondents were "hopeful" about a second Bush term was inwidely interpreted as "60% of respondents support the President." It could just as easily br read as "60% of respondents hope the country survives another four years of this moron."

I don't seem to remember a hell of a lot of Republican support for Bill Clinton. Remember the war on a genocidal regime that many in Congress wanted no part of? Or the assults on Al Quaeda training sites that were considered by these same fine folks to be a distraction from the critical Monica Lewinski investigation? He was their President too, wasn't he? But (in Congress, at least) many of them were actively working for his downfall, when they should have been paying a little more attention to other things.

As for the War on Terror - well, it's about time we get started. Iraq did not have WMD's when we invaded (Bush finally admitted that we aren't going to find any - you can count this as an "I told you so" from the U.N. Weapons Inspection team), and now, despite massive expenditures of American gold and American blood, it poses a far greater terrorist threat to the U.S. and to global and regional stability than it did before we invaded. Maybe it's time we rethink our strategy. But that's unlikely with this dumbass still in office.