Never underestimate their venality

I read in The New York Times yesterday (8 February, 2006) that the Democrats are concerned that they may have missed opportunities to take advantage of ‘certain vulnerabilities’ the Republican Party suffers as a result of the disastrous foreign and national policies they have practiced over the past five years. For example: the duplicities which have been fabricated, advanced, and maintained to begin and perpetuate the abominable war in Iraq; the rapid erosion of our civil liberties—our very freedoms upon which the country rests—promoted by the would-be King and his jesters who would be his court; the unconscionable and ultimately tragic (a contradiction in real terms but real in human terms) irresponsible response to the disaster in New Orleans; the ethical scandals that have haunted the administration since its inaugural moments; the disastrous economic policies which have reward the least needy while punishing those with greatest need; the appointment of incompetent cronies to positions which require sophisticated and complex responses to sensitive conditions; and the creation of a Supreme Court which threatens to shift the crucial balance of powers in our government toward monarchic rule. Today more than ever in American history, the United States seems run by a pack of ignorant, blood-thirsty, and greedy aristocratic power-mongers who are so brazen (and crude) as to volubly advertise their lack of ethics. And now the government submits a budget proposal which increases the military expenditures, continues the War in Iraq with consequent expenses, and cuts those programs which support those least able to support themselves, cuts the programs which supports the educational possibilities of many Americans, and reduces health benefits to those with no other possibility for care. This is a social program which borrows its motives and policies from the National Socialists in pre-war Germany.

ARE THE DEMOCRATS CRAZY? It is clear that save for a few very brave congress members (Russ Feingold comes to mind, as does Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer) the Democrats have behaved as cowardly lions in the Emerald Forest of the Wicked Witch of the West. “I’m afraid of my own shadow,” the lion cries, but the Democrats have no substance to cast a shadow. I am made physically ill when I consider the incredible silence and lack of indignation practiced by the Democrats. I am appalled.

And then, to top it all off, some absurd man—THE HEAD OF THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL PARTY—ridicules Hillary Clinton for being ‘angry.’ He says gleefully (!) that Hillary is totally out of touch with the American public, and that her far-left stance renders her completely irrelevant. “What chutzpah,” my grandmother would say! “He’s such a goniff!” It’s what I said, as well. But not in those words.

Do you recall that Baruch Spinoza turned down a tenure track position because to assume it would have compromised his freedom of thought? Do you know that Henry David Thoreau resigned his position as a school teacher because he was required as a disciplinary measure to whip his students?