Edmund du Lac - The Emperor's New Clothes
Our healthcare system could be fixed by smart public-spirited people in a weekend, but in our current democracy it is very hard to budge the blockade, and things may need to get much worse and Republicans be boosted back into power and they can propose the very same legislation they are adamantly opposed to now and the system will change a little bit.
Unreality remains pretty much the same, and its appeal in politics is as strong as ever. Look at the recent powwow of the conservative choir in Washington. Their goal is to reduce government to where it was in Coolidge's time. They are sticking to this, though their presidents, Reagan and Bush II, only succeeded in enlarging government. As for their foreign policy, it's the old Flag In Your Face, Nuke The Whales, Talk Loud, Walk Tall, Proud To Be Dumb; Who Gives A Rip Anyway, Republican bravado that's all for domestic consumption and makes perfect sense if you're a shut-in and your TV is locked on Fox News but not if you are ambulatory and able to read English.
Meanwhile, our president, who is more or less forced to live in the real world, has seen his numbers drop alarmingly because unreality is so beautiful to so many people, such as the tea baggers. The conservatives should, in all decency, lie low for a few years. When you've driven the car into the swamp -- up to our eyeballs in debt, fighting two wars on behalf of shaky regimes, trying to keep a lid on Iran, Congress in a frozen stupor -- and then you throw mudballs at the tow-truck driver, you are betting on the electorate having the memory of a guppy. You can parade up and down stark naked and pretend it's very fine silk and fool a lot of people, but eventually word will get around.
Garrison Keillor
Read the full text HERE.
Keillor is a genius.
ReplyDeleteAnd isn't it all our jobs to stand on the street and shout, "But he's naked!"?
ReplyDeleteI think so. I think so.
Or in this case- "THEY are naked."
The whole thing is a joke. And you know what? The joke's on US. Cause all those folks in the beltway KNOW THEY'RE NAKED.
ReplyDeleteBut they don't care. Cause they know when they catch a cold from exposure they all have REALLY GOOD HEALTH INSURANCE.
i don't really like to talk democrat v. republican. i don't think it is that cut and dry.
ReplyDeletethough i have heard the argument that the republican party, as opposed to the democratic, tends toward the longer term in their strategy; this four year term will be spent pinning every past sin onto the hide of the present administration and sending that scapegoat off the cliff just in time for the election of 2012.
and it saddens me, but i don't think betting on the general public's short term, foggy memory is a longshot.
Great column, thanks for posting it. It's hard to understand why people think that EIGHT YEARS of chaos can be turned around in one.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the bit about throwing mudballs at the tow-truck driver.