In the past I've spoken about the fact that I am a survivor of partner abuse. I know from the inside what it is like to be with someone who claims to care about you and yet is abusing you mentally, physically and emotionally. I understand how it is possible to defend that person even truly believe that they really do care, despite all evidence to the contrary. I also know with a certainty that borders on faith that if a person living in such a situation does not eventually wake up and realize the true nature of the reality in which they are living, they will either wind up dead, or so destroyed mentally and emotionally that they may as well be dead.
My question is what exactly is it going to take for the majority of American's to realize this about the Republican party?
Setting aside the history of the Republicans (the fact that they have largely been pro big business and anti worker for most of the twentieth century) and just focusing on what they are up to in the last year is enough to make it abundantly clear that they have anything but the best interests of the whole of the American people driving their agenda.
They are seeking to wholly destroy the social safety net that generations of Americans worked so hard to build in dismantling unemployment benefits, nutrition assistance, Medicaid, and disability benefits.
They are seeking to remove any late life security from people by destroying Social Security, and Medicare.
They are seeking to destroy one of the most secure means by which people might advance from the Working Class into the Middle Class, namely educational opportunity. And they are working to gut the efficacy of Unions, by either simply denying the right to Unionization to public sector workers, or making it next to impossible for private sector workers to form one.
They are lately even seeking to destroy things once thought of as unassailable bastions of life in America, such as the minimum wage, child labor laws, and public police, and fire departments.
Add to this their ongoing attempts to undo protections against discrimination based on race, gender, religion etc. and what you have is a very ugly picture of where they would seek to take this country. Namely back to the '80's and with all due respect to David Sirota I mean the 1880's not the 1980's.
All of this would be bad enough but then there is the psychological warfare that they are engaged in. A relentless assault on people's minds to convince them that any government is bad government. To convince them that the kind of people who programs like welfare, Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and such are meant to help aren't people like them. Oh no it all goes to cheats and chislers and shiftless layabouts.
And taxing the super rich? Well we don't want that now do we? After all this is America where anyone can become anything they want if only they work long enough and hard enough. And some day when you're super rich do YOU want to pay those burdensome taxes? Of course not!
It goes on and on and on. The most mind-boggling part is that people fall for it time and time again. They have been so thoroughly brainwashed against the Progressive agenda that most of them can't even begin to think straight long enough to realize that everything that Government is not doing now, some corporation is doing instead, or it just isn't getting done.
Once upon a time this wasn't too awful. The basic idea was that government secured the basics (the so-called social safety net) and everything above that was left up to businesses.
But American business is about growth, and many seemed to view what government was doing as an ideal growth area. So through lobbying they convinced many in government to give more and more of the things it was running over to business. Like prisons, and power distribution to name just a couple. This would not have been such a terrible thing necessarily if there had been strong regulation and oversight. But of course the instant that businesses came up against even the weakest of regulation they began to lobby to have them removed.
This is a bit like letting the town rapist guard your virgin daughter and then agreeing that those pesky locks on her door will only get in the way of his ability to do his job effectively.
Now we come to the point where the Republicans are preparing to through a thrilling game of chicken with Democrats see the government shut down. All because the Democrats have not capitulated to their Corporatist anti people agenda fast enough and completely enough. The Republicans are zealotous political terrorists willing to hold the country hostage until they get their own way. Compromise is a dirty word and if they can't have it all they'll make sure no one has anything. Kind of a modern-day scorched earth policy.
And as I'm seeing all this take place I have to wonder will there be a final straw? Will people continue to slumber in apathy? Or will there be a final blow that snaps people out of their fatal revery? More importantly perhaps is the question of whether or not after that blow our country will be even remotely salvageable.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!