A few Kossacks seem to have the view that I'm a
"Neocon Deep Throat". I can assure you I'm
not a neoconservative; those guys are ruining my party.
But I must tell you that the big money sleaze -- The Abramoff Effect, if you will -- didn't begin when that gang began their takeover of the GOP. Far from it.
I look around at 12 miners dead in West Virginia -- hard working, professionals who live lives that average college educated White Collar Americans can only imagine -- and I look at Elaine Chou and my stomach turns. Then, I look at her husband and upset is replaced by outright anger.
So, don't stop at the House, Kossacks. Don't stop with the Duke Cunninghams and the Tom DeLays -- the big fish are in the Senate.
My party -- and many in yours -- has sold out working people, the Middle Class and long ago forgot the poor. The party that was once the Party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan has become the party of Wal-Mart, K-Mart, and McDonalds. We -- and a stunningly high number in your party as well -- sold it out to the highest multinational bidder and the biggest contributor. The American worker -- the ones who developed the thriving middle class that lasted until my first few years out of college -- got a stilleto in the back from their elected "representatives" of both sides of the aisle sold out to the multinational corporations seeking to wring the last drop of profit from the sweat of exploited workers overseas. And the Senate held their coat --- for a price.
It wasn't always this way in the GOP. Reagan, who most of you despise, was true to the traditional Republican line of Economic Nationalism than any of his purported "conservative" heirs.
Jack Abramoff is more a symptom than an illness. And the stench lays beyond a few Indian casinos; they're small potatoes. Trillionsof dollars in lost wages exported overseas as a result of NAFTA, the WTO, and multiple other trade agreements that read as if they were written by multinational CEO's.
The illness is campaign finance. And if you really want to get rid of the stench,get rid of those rotting bodies in the Senate.