Opening the Wash Post this a.m. brought the usual lousy war news, with the only good being that for a while the "furriners" will have to listen to our C.I.C. (Chimp-in Charge) and we are left in the good-shooting hands of Cheney. The Polls are disappointing and I hope they are not a trend. We've lost 10 Congressional approval points since April, and I attribute this primarily to the vote on funding, which gave the other side lots of ammo that could have been better used by our troops.
I can't see for the life of me how this Democratic party will convince local level and State voters to cast their lots with our party when our party leaders act, in so-called wartime, like a bunch of wimps, bowing to a Prez with an approval rating lower than Robert Reich's belt buckle.
Most of the country consists of political know-nothings, Dems and Repubs, who vote for reasons incomprehensible to one who at least reads one good newspaper a day. They don't get their info from books, newspapers like the 2 Times, N.Y. and L.A., and the Wash Post, and good political commentary on TV, such as The Lehrer Newshour, Bob Scheiffer, Wolf, etc. Rather, they are ditto heads, O'Reilly camp followers, acolytes of Laura Ing. and Dr. Laura, and ardent listeners to the leaders of their churches of choice which, in the main, it seems, teach them that God is a Republican. A joke on Leno or Lettermann stays in their minds as guidance. Here's why they vote for a party or candidate, as heard over the last 14 years from callers on CSPAN, as well as callers to Rush, Sean, and the other usual suspects:
"The Democrats will say anything to get elected."
"I would never vote for Hillary, she's loud, aggressive, no self-confidence, we'd get Bill back (take your choice)."
"Bush was sent by God." (Well, if God Is a Republican, maybe it's true).
"Bush should be on Mt. Rushmore." (I agree, but staked on an anthill with honey on him).
"Rummy should run this war, he knows more than the generals" (Yeah!).
"Bush is like one of us." (A deserter? Less than sober half his adult life?)
And so on.
But the best is this, as repeated by Rush, Sean and all the others of like ilk: ""The Democrats want to see our economy destroyed to show they were right and Bush wrong." "They'd get on their knees and surrender if the Taliban invaded us." This argument has been repeated by so many callers on CSPAN and other call-in shows for the last 6 years, and in other varying forms for 14 years, that I feel that I, a life-long liberal, a leftist Democrat, and a wartime veteran must hereby provide the definitive answer to that charge:
Yes, I do want to bring this country down and I want to see the economy collapse under Taliban rule. Here's why:
I am in retirement and I am fed up with receiving my monthly Social Security checks of over $1,000.
I want to see General Electric, IBM, General Motors, and the Certificates of Deposit system fail so that I won't have to receive my dividends any more.
I want to see my government collapse so that my Medicare is gone and I can pay huge amounts for medical care out of my savings.
I am bored with my 4BR, 4 bathroom, designer kitchen, 2-car garage home on a landscaped 3/4 acre.
I want to see all my sources of income disappear so I can live in a cardboard box, or on a subway grating.
I want garbage can food, not some yuppie sushi or tiramasu.
So, this is what we'll face in 2008, these incredibly absurd arguments that try to define us as what we are not, and many times they succeed in doing so. The leaders of our party, to succeed, must roll up their sleeves like old-time Dems and show some muscle. If they let the Right define them, as they've just done in the funding vote, our leaders will again lose, as they unbelievably did in 2000 and 2004, to the C.I.C. Time runs out quickly in the propaganda wars, and we had better Move On!