It would appear to this old curmudgeon that our new Congressional House of Representatives majority party is being run by the most politically biased, ideological dishonorable, and corrupt politicians is many a year. I have personally been on this earth for over 80 years, and have seen the Republican Party devolve from a one reasonably responsible political organization into a near fascist authoritarian anti-democracy group that is hell bent on the destruction of the very platforms that this nation was conceived upon and has grown through.
I personally am, and have been for a majority of my life, been a political observer or junkie as some would call it. I have seen great, near great, average and horrible charlatans rise to the pinnacle of legislative power. Many of my early political hero types of Republicans were men and women of concern for our country and our people. They were political types who believed in political comity, in collaboration for the greater good and working toward a nation and government that benefited the working men and women of this country. They saw the inequity in wealth from the uber wealthy to the working poor and strove to identify reasonable solutions.
In the Early Days:
In the early days of my personal political awakening, the wealthy folks were taxed at a rate of more than 80% and the nation prospered, we did great things, we built things, we created decent legislative actions, we protected the people from government overreach (especially focused following the McCarthy debacle of Red Baiting). In one example of the level of taxation on the wealthy, the master comedian Bob Hope humorously lamented, ” I work for the government Monday through Saturday, and on Sunday for myself”, indicating that his taxation level was almost 90 percent. Today, he would be working for a half day for the government and the rest for himself. Things have changed.
We also did not so good things like implementing the Jim Crow legislation, the “separate, but equal” school systems for our minority populace, the whites only drinking fountains and theater sections. It was not equal in any stretch of the imagination, yet a large part of our society believed it to be the proper way. We allowed financial institutions to “redline” housing and property loans to the detriment of our minority classes. Yes Classes, we don’t like to think about that today, but oh my God, as one who lived those years, there were strict delineation of white, black, brown, yellow classes of our United States of America people.
But frankly, overall, our political system was composed of a majority of people who truly wanted to do the job of representative democracy and conduct themselves as their constituents would expect. We had good things come out of Congress and the Presidency back then. Even the Supreme Court was in a better place. We still had a strong level of discrimination and that was a sad thing to witness, but it was in the open and we were able to address those things and hopefully we were able to mitigate the worst examples of this discrimination situation.
We passed laws that protected people when possible, such as the Voting Laws to protect the rights of every American of voting age. We passed the Roe v Wade decision out of the Supreme Court to protect a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her own body and health and keep those decisions between the woman and her physician, not some jake leg political hack or pretend Christian. Or even worse, a religious fundamentalist politician, oh my God! We passed laws that ended segregation as a practice.
But Then:
Unfortunately, after the presidency of President Dwight David Eisenhower, our nation witnessed the change evolving within one of our major political parties. President Eisenhower frankly, was the last true honorable Republican President. The Republican congressional politicians began to change and the party started a slide away from legislative actions to benefit the working people, and more focus on the demands of the wealthy and the corporations. Taxes were slashed for the wealthy especially under Reagan, and corporations were given the idiotic status of the ability to be active participants in the election process. Reagan’s action in gutting the Fairness Doctrine led us to the establishment of broadcasts from people like Rush Limbaugh and others of that ilk, who provided the milk of rage and violent outburst for those Americans who were so inclined. The advent of misinformation, and frankly absolute false commentary was growing stronger, because of the loss of the Fairness Doctrine. It eventually gave rise to the “citizenship awards” to panderers of this type of false reporting, outright lies, and vicious rabble rousing through the advent of Rupert Murdoch and his publications, his broadcast venues and of course his acquisition of other publications such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. Both of those news mediums became more of a right leaning publication than a true purveyor of actual news reporting.
And Now Here We Are:
I am not totally sure of when it all came to our current political and cultural schisms. Seems there were several points of change that seems to be a WTF moment, but not scary harsh. Newt Gingrich with his sneaky “Contract With America” propaganda was one point of departure and was the final straw for a lot of Republicans. I had already given up my GOP membership a couple of years before Gingrich began his rise in the political elevator of the Republican Party. That particular drop for me occurred during the Reagan years and I decided that it would be better for my sense of moral citizenship to take myself away from a group of political actors who were moving in a direction I did not want to be a part of.
The Advent of the Gingrich years as he became more powerful in the House of Representatives, simply confirmed my original decision that the Republican Party was not where I wanted to cast my political support. That Contract with America nonsense from the Gingrich clan was the most arrogant example of a group of political characters who felt that their constituency were dumb enough to believe their pack of lies and political horse shit. Problem was, some of the Republican Party Members actually believed and supported this crock of political crap. Frankly, I do truly believe that the Gingrich period of the Republicans actually was the genesis of the GOP’s leaning toward a form of fascism. Simply in a very nascent state, but a small germination of a philosophy that would continue to grow through support of the rich and powerful, and the corporation’s influence namely millions of bribes (oops “donations”). I mean, if one were to study the initiation of the Hitlerian movement, the cooperation of the very wealthy Germans, coupled with the major German corporations were very instrumental in the start and growth through the early years of the NAZI fascism.
In our country, let’s face facts, the Corporations and the very wealthy citizens influence in our political environment are the major determination of where and how our nation is governed and the impact of the laws or Supreme Court decisions are facilitated. But we, the people, are pretty much responsible for this state of affairs. Over the years we became more and more complacent in our political activity. We simply voted for the person who showed up, rather than the person who actually wanted to work legislatively or overall politically for the American people. We passed on a great number of very qualified and energetic men and women who aspired to our political authority yet were overlooked and passed over for people with a more welcome slogan, or who cast aspersions upon those whom we didn’t like. As a result, we wound up with a plethora of revenge political hacks whose sole purpose in the electoral system was to stir up a load of rage, generate an entire level of white supremacy, and simply there to serve as road blocks for any and all legislative actions that benefited the working people and the underserved poor and senior citizens.
This unfortunately is where we are today. In the seventies, the Republicans addressed the Nixon criminal activity by informing the then president that he should resign or he would be removed through impeachment and trial. Today, the GOP is pressing forward with antagonistic activity, harsh invective and outright lies to protect a former president who is simply a criminally inclined and unredeemable individual who has acted in his own best interest and fattened bank account (taxpayer money and those who are dumb enough to hand their money over), cause damage to the reputation of our nation and people, and frankly, it is believed resorted to a traitorous act in providing aid and comfort to our country’s enemies. Some believe, and I don’t have a doubt about this, that the confidential/top secret papers were in many instances handed over to individuals in countries that are most definitely not our friends. The empty classified info folders would indicate that the documents that had been inside were certainly not in evidence during the searches and most likely in the hands of Putin or similar actors. And as we all know, those people are the heads of countries that are NOT allies of the United States of America.
So what to do? God Almighty, I wish this old curmudgeon had the answer. I have some opinions, but they first of all would never be allowed to be implemented and secondly probably wouldn’t clear out all the cockroaches in our political arena anyway.
But listen up, boys and girls! The old curmudgeon is speaking in firm voice, IF we do not step up to the plate, reverse the anti-American citizen actions by a certain political class, bring comity and compassion back into our political arenas, design and implement a taxation system that is fair, equitable and enforceable across all levels of income/wealth, additionally ensure that our dishonorable politicians, judges and SCOTUS Justices are addressed properly, this nation and our democracy will continue to slide into the oblivion of a fascist state.
We quite frankly need to pull our heads out of our collective asses, stop with the class delineation bullshit, end that pissy attitude about “I got mine and screw you” and start acting like we care about our country, our fellow citizens, our society, our political environment and most importantly the security and hope of and for our families.
Lordy, I hope that we as a society wake the hell up before it is too late. This opinion focus ain’t done yet kiddos, not by a long damn shot. More to come in later editions.
Musings of a Geriatric Curmudgeon 