Winning by default—
Is there any honor in such victories?
Democrat Hochul: Swept to victory after GOP implosion
JUST ABOUT EVERYONE in progressive circles is wildly cheering the recent upset victory for the Dems in a heavily brainwashed district of Western New York (the 26th, formerly Jack Kemp’s political pasture), one of the state’s most reactionary precincts. They should sober up quick, in fact, prontissimo, and look squarely at what this triumph really means, and what it portends for the future of ordinary Americans.
• For starters, although it may be bad manners to point it out, as noted by Patrick Martin in his Republicans lose House seat in special election, the celebratory rhetoric (obligingly amplified by the libmedia) is,
“entirely bogus, since the congressional Democrats supported huge cuts in Medicare last year, as part of the Obama health care program, an issue that was used against them by the Republicans in their 2010 election rout. Today, both big business parties support cuts that would effectively destroy this critical entitlement program, while seeking to disguise their real intentions from the voters with demagogic declarations of their determination to “preserve and protect” Medicare.”
The warning is perfectly opportune because the victor, Kathy Hochul, supposedly overcame her opponent, GOP plutocrat Jane Corwin, by repeatedly promising to protect Medicare from any and all menaces, which, if recent history is any indication, should now definitely include her very own party. As Jimmy the Greek used to say, “Keep an eye on the hands, folks, the lips can only swear, but the hands can kill you.”
• Second, the nonstop gloating by the rabidly centrist Democrats since the first tallies were revealed, an explosion of exultation comparable to the chest-thumping we just observed in Obamaphile ranks upon the assassination—or shall we say, mafia-style rubout?—of Osama Bin Laden, is plainly misplaced. Even though the fount of genuine glory has long dried up in this confused republic, and that in such climate people are far more prone to be grateful for small favors, progressives need to start looking more carefully for their heroes and sources of vicarious gratification.
• Third, when it comes to Medicare and the Dims circumspection is absolutely necessary. Prominent Democrats are already making noises to the effect that Medicare needs some kind of reform “to strengthen it”…(haven’t we seen this movie before?), not in the Republican battle-ax style, but supposedly according to more benign Democratic formulas. Don’t fall for it, pal. As even the Prince of Fuckhards once said, “fool me once..you cain’t fool me again!”…it’s undeniable that such statements—clear and sinister enough for those who understand establishment code—are signals to the Dims’ paymasters throughout the oligarchy, a down payment in Beltway rhetoric for the coming offensive to reopen a national debate that is as bogus as it is urgent. This insider yada yada about America’s most important bastions of working class security is rendered more ominous by the silence of the Great Bloviator himself, yes, the Man from Destiny at 1600 Pennsylvania, who has yet to pronounce all tinkering with Medicare off the table.
There’s another element in the Hochul triumph that deserves more attention and less jubilation. The Democrats, as Churchill once charitably said about the United States, “always manages to do the right thing after trying everything else.” Fact is, even assuming the Democrats (I’m talking about the party’s leadership here) wanted to do the right thing and truly preserve and enhance Medicare instead of handing it over to the Wall Street wolves, a huuuge assumption given their well-documented treachery, it’s clear that in this special election the smug invocation of Medicare was a gift from above. Considering their suspect track record, and willingness to compromise with the Republicons every inch of the way, methinks they literally bumbled their way into this winning slogan, the tardy epiphany coming courtesy of sociopathic Randian follower Paul Ryan’s meltdown, coupled with the instructive spectacle of watching dozens of Republican scoundrels running for dear life and as far away as possible from the radioactivity of the Medicare issue, a program justly supported by most Americans.
SUMMATION
The Democratic party is useless, the graveyard of progressive impulses, the venting valve for revolutionary pressures, and an instrument that aptly reflects the decomposition of mainstream liberalism in our time and its scandalous inadequacy to offer solutions commensurate with the national and world crisis, both of which call for radical solutions. (“Radical” as in going to the root of a problem, fellas, not “extremist” which is entirely different. Remember that all good doctors practice radical, not liberal, medicine, or they would be being sued by the thousands out of business.)
It’s been a long long time since the Democratic party won a single vistory on its own merits and not as a result of public revulsion at the criminal overreach of the Republicans. Indeed, all major Democratic victories in the last four decades have resulted directly from Republican impudence and off-the-charts criminality, plus blind luck, not from any beneficial or principled action —an Oxymoron in the case of both parties.
Since LBJ’s days there’s been no real substantive progressive agenda, only hot air. The vacuum has been cheerfully filled by the primary “party” of the nation’s permanent government, the superrich, but, alas, even benighted America has its limits. As it’s bound to happen periodically, the Republicans can’t seem to avoid “shitting on the Virgin’s milk”—Spanish for going too far—and the Democrats get in by default, like a clueless Claudius, under the fraudulent yo-yo rules of the so-called two party system.
What to expect now
With their putative opponents on the run, in pathetic disarray, babbling all manner of idiotic excuses, will the Democrats have the requisite political intelligence to—at last—exploit this enormous advantage and drive a stick through the heart of the ghoulish GOP? Ah, a party with some recognizable remnant of integrity would do that, but we all know that intelligence has nothing to do with such choices. The huge victory of 2008, with the nation clamoring for change, and giving the winner a mandate for far-ranging reform by an almost 11-million ballot plurality, should have settled that question permanently. But what did the Dems do? From the moment Obama and his team assumed power they’ve been busy restoring and conciliating the GOP instead of finishing it off, not to mention extending the prior regime’s notorious policies to the point of richly earning the appellative of “Bush Lite”.
So let’s face it: no matter how imprudent, criminal or suicidal the GOP will act, the Democrats will never knock it out of the ring. They can’t because the GOP—utterly repugnant as it is—is their partner in crime, or, to be more anatomically precise, their Siamese twin. You kill one, you kill the other. They need each other for their exquisitely choreographed Kabuki, which apparently still fools most Americans
I doubt that the preceding facts will deter many true believers from pulling the lever for Obama in 2012. In fact, even many of those who fully realize that the Democrats under Obama have become “the More Effective Evil” will dutifully register their support for the Dems come next election cycle. It’s hardwired, the inevitable offshoot of a thoroughly rigged political framework and the force of habit. As Tom Paine himself warned us,
“Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”
Reality will ultimately triumph, that much I believe, but I am not sure the world can afford to wait that long.
Patrice Greanville is The Greanville Post’s Editor in Chief.
Tweetios®-TM Patrice Greanville
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