Don’t Blame The Democrats…Yet

I have been both encouraged and appalled by the recent public outcry advocating a meaningful compromise to end the latest Spaghetti Western standoff in Washington.

Never mind that raising the debt ceiling has nothing to do with this year’s budget, but rather is simply a means for allowing the federal government to pay off the debt that the idiots in Washington had previously voted to incur.

Never mind that the crisis never should have been a crisis, but for the arrogance and stupidity of some of the newer Tea members of congress and the GOP in general, who have a real problem with a Democrat, especially a black Democrat, telling them what is right for the country.

Never mind that these folks, who are not qualified to manage their local sanitation districts have been elevated to national prominence by some pretty darned reckless, heartless, and ruthless billionaires, corporations and ideologues, who I will refer to herein as bastards.

Never mind that the blitzkrieg of proposals conceived by said bastards and advocated by those improvidently elevated nincompoops would cost jobs, increase the cost of living, and decrease the quality of life for most Americans, with the singular intent of widening the chasm between the obscenely rich and the rest of us.

Never mind that that GOP gerrymandering has created so many safe congressional districts that said nincompoops need only to play to their ultra right-wing base, in order to get reelected and therefore have no incentive whatsoever, to actually act in the best interests of the country.

Never mind that the Tea/GOP has been mounting efforts to disenfranchise the young, the old, minorities, and the working class in general, because they tend to vote Democratic.

But my title implies that I want to talk about the Democrats. I do and I will; right now.

Although not to blame for thinking up this latest cluster %&#@, occasionally Progressives/Democrats have been known to succumb to various comically embarrassing human frailties, without any poking or prodding (sorry, I couldn’t help it) from the other side.

Aside from those occasional acts of Wienerism/Clintonism, they are generally just too darned trusting of their opponents and also have a really obnoxious tendency to turn the other cheek before they have been slapped. To Progressives, Democrats especially, the words compromise and capitulate seem to be synonymous.

As an example, I once thought that President Obama had agreed to extend tax breaks for the wealthy a few months ago, not just to keep precious dollars in the hands of the middle class and the poor as well, but as a bargaining chip to be used later in budget negotiations with the nincompoops.

It had all the makings of a perfect political strategy. The nincompoops had insisted that lower taxes on the rich and super-rich were necessary to create jobs. Since the time we allowed the wealthy and corps to keep their extra cash, 2.9 million jobs were lost in the U.S., while U.S. corporations created 2.4 million jobs…overseas. I am pretty sure that the rest of us were thinking that they meant the creation of actual U.S. jobs, in the U.S.A. Okay, our bad. We didn’t specify.

But anyway, I thought that the President and the Progressives were going to pounce on the whole lack ‘o quid pro quo thingy when it came time to divide the pie, but instead, they allowed the bastards and the nincompoops to turn a routine and otherwise unrelated rise in the debt ceiling into an international financial crisis. One wonders which on-watch genius in the Progressive caucus was hugging a tree while this huge pile of dog poo was being dumped on the House floor.

Were the Progressives too busy responding to distractions such as two unfunded wars, a bloated  prescription drug program, massive unemployment, the stock market crash, the bank bailout, the largest recession since 1927, the BP oil disaster, rampant anti-unionism, wide spread voter disenfranchisement, anti-choice guerrillas, white supremacists, radical Islamist congressional subcommittees, etc?

Okay, I will give them a pass on the natural disasters and the other disasters allowed by lax government oversight institutionalized during the Dark Ages (IYL 2000-2008), but, in 2010, the Tea/GOP made it their top (and it appears their only) goal to make Obama a one-term President. In furtherance of that goal they have squelched every single piece of people-friendly legislation that came down the pike. Shouldn’t that have tipped at least one big-D person that they were up to no good? Time to rally the troops? No?

The Tea/GOP folks passed either meaningless or downright hateful legislation and the Progressives/Democrats responded with weak-kneed rants and raves and appearances on  Rachel Maddow. Progressives were so busy wringing their hands over inane crap that had no chance of passing in the Senate, (much less becoming law) that the bastards and the nincompoops insidiously took over several states and are now smacking their lips at the prospect of blowing up the country in the name of an ideological purity heretofore worthy only of Dr. Strangelove.

And what is the present Progressive/Democratic response to this patently obvious, unbridled power play for corporate hegemony?Oh, let's just give them what they want…again. We’ll get em next time!

No, dudes. Not next time. Now. Get a friggin spine and stand up to these insane thugs.

The American people are the nerds on the school playground and you are all the protection that we’ve got. Most of us understand the possible repercussions and are willing to get a little bruised and bloody. We can take it. We have taken it since 1980. The real question is, can you?

Don’t turn the other cheek. Hit back. Now. And hit them hard. Otherwise it is all on you.  

J. Brandeis Sperandeo