Why They are Doing This

It’s the question that’s on everyone’s lips:  why would the Republicans want to bankrupt three quarters of the American population, while sending the remaining one quarter over the moon financially?

Even taking into account the degeneration of our system of checks and balances of which we are so proud, there doesn’t appear to be a rational explanation for the behavior of the Tea Party - or, for that matter, approximately half the voters who seem to supporter their current attitude toward the budget.

I think we can assume that the voters are war weary both in terms of the Beltway and the Great Beyond (our equivalent of the former Soviet Union’s Near and Far Enemies, also taken up by Al Qaeda...).  They’re ready to endorse the Republican stance simply because it looks quick and easy, instead of quick and dirty.

What’s seems illogical, however, is the attitude of the movers and shakers the world over who affirm : “We don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.”  They want the government to receive even less money from the richest individuals and the corporations, while bleeding the wage earners who built this country with one hand and taking away any benefits they may have with the other.

The key is the phrase ‘who built this country’.  We don’t need any more ‘builders’.  And we need fewer consumers.

I hate to say this, but since we cannot intelligently assume that the radical right cannot add and subtract, we have to conclude that the policies it is persistently pursuing serve a specific goal: reducing the population of manufacturing and other workers no longer needed by our post-industrial economy.

Corporate policies have the same goal: it doesn’t matter if oil spills or radioactive material pollutes the oceans; or if fracking for natural gas ruins the aquifers; or if Alaskan caribou go extinct: the shareholders will continue having the means to live in protected, gated areas of the world, consuming its last resources, as the ‘expendable’ populations die off.

Are the Democrats really part of this sordid deal? How could they not be, when they too are financed by the corporations whom the Supreme Court has anointed as ‘persons’?  The most we can say about the Democrats is that some of them may have a bad conscience.  The few who speak out cannot tip the scale in favor of humanity.

The fight over Medicare will be their last hurrah.