The prime directive of any democracy is the vote. We have watched, slack-jawed since 2000 as the GOP has made voter suppression and possible vote-hacking its number one priority. The Florida Supreme Court understood this prime directive, and wisely insisted that the entire 2000 Florida vote be recounted — no Democratic cherry-picking, no Republican obstruction. The VOTE was what mattered.*
(* The Supreme Court infamously decided that the vote shouldn’t be recounted, using rationalizations about “equal protection” so tortured that they, themselves stated in the opinion that this was just a one-time deal, and should not be applied to ANY OTHER CASE.)
And its corollary, and second priority is to ignore the results of ANY election they don’t like — as in Clinton’s first and second term, and Obama’s first term.
Both are geared to win POWER (not elections, since these are so clearly held in contempt); both represent a fundamental betrayal of democracy and representative democracy in favor of a naked Roman power-grab. If you wonder at the coincidence of the “small airplane accidents” of Mel Carnahan in Missouri, Paul Wellstone in Minnesota and Michael Connell in Ohio — all by a unique crash short of a landing runway — you need to preserve that wondering. The USA is the greatest plum in the history of mankind, as a tool of power, and there are those who will stop at nothing to pluck that plum.
Certainly they don’t stop at effing the dumb.
This isn’t the problem, it’s the symptom:
House votes 244-185 to repeal Obama healthcare reform law
By Elise Viebeck and Pete Kasperowicz – 07/11/12 08:57 PM ETThe House voted again Wednesday to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law, a largely symbolic gesture that gave Republicans some revenge against the Supreme Court ruling that declared the law constitutional.
Republicans also see it as a way to motivate their base this fall as they fight to keep control of the lower chamber, win the Senate and take the White House.Members approved the repeal legislation on a 244-185 vote, after five hours of debate that stretched over two days….
As you have undoubtedly heard, this was the 33rd time that this vote that might have made sense 32 repetitions ago, was invoked to overturn the results of three elections:
- The election of the President in 2008.
- The election of both houses of Congress in 2008.
- The election of the Supreme Court*
[* Upholding 5-4 in a decision eerily reminiscent of the 5-4 decision in the challenge to Franklin D. Roosevelt's Social Security Act of 1935, ALSO finding the taxing authority the deciding factor, AND called SOCIALISM! by its opponents.]
Your “USA” Olympic Team for 2012
(this is not, alas, parody, but REAL)
To add to the “rebel” nature of this slow secession, this slow treason, the governors of four States seceded from the 100% federally-funded Medicaid expansion: South Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana and Texas.
Hmmm. Why do those names sound so familiar? Oh, yes: they were all instrumental in the original Secession. And, as noted idiot pundit Ted Nugent has pointed out, their view of “limited government” precisely jibes with the original Secession, save only that their slaves are not an issue, nor are they quartered within US territorial limits. (Kind of like their money.)
Here’s something for the dyslexic Tea Partier: the anger of the Colonies was at taxation WITHOUT representation. Not taxation, per se. (As David McCullough points out in 1776, his companion volume to John Adams, when the Hessian troops landed on Staten Island, they couldn’t BELIEVE anyone so well off was revolting. The American colonies, collectively, enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world — and one of the highest literacy rates.)
When you look at the utter abrogation of elections and planned suppression of the vote (and uninvestigated allegations of vote hacking, ignored by the Corporate Media Footlickers), the Tea Partiers OUGHT to be up in arms against the Roves and Kochs instead of meekly offering themselves to them: “take me, now,” they whisper breathlessly.)
The ACTUAL Tea Party was to protest a Royally-sanctioned monop0ly on tea, so that the East India Company could drive all other competitors out of the field (because of a tax WAIVER) and then charge monopoly rates thereafter.
Wasilla WalMart
Instead, the current Republican party has openly embraced the dismantling of the Public Broadcasting System, Planned Parenthood, three presidential elections, one Health Care Bill that traces its roots to Teddy Roosevelt’s 1912 Presidential campaign, and (in chronological order) the Great Society, the New Deal, the Progressive Movement, the Square Deal, the Enlightenment, the Reformation and, now, the Renaissance.
Texas, you might recall, had a representatively elected state School body expressly forbid teaching “higher cognitive functions” in the state K-12 curriculum a couple weeks ago.
The only thing missing from this secession from reason, from rationality, from civil society and the rule of law is the shooting.
Alas.
The old saying in the law is this: when the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. When the law is on your side, pound on the law. And if nothing’s on your side, pound on the table.
The table being pounded today was the floor of the House of Representatives, wasting yet more time for that 112th Congress that is notable for having done nothing notable, whatsoever to help in the worst economic reversal since the Great Depression.
Hard to believe Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican (With John Muir)
But they pounded on the table, all right. And, if you’ll watch the news over the past couple of weeks or so, or months or so, or YEARS or so, ALL they’ve done is pound the table. Quite successfully in 2010, you might recall, as Mitt Romney, the poster-boy of the Krazy Yachting Set, is now featured as the capstone in a silent coup d’etat promising to wipe a century and more’s social progress.
We the People show over and over that we profoundly disagree with that.
But, as the table is pounded, we are told to pity the poor regulated billionaires and their offshore loot(ing).
Because, elections don’t count, after all.
Only money does.
As that same Supreme Court made clear in its 5-4 Dred Scott … er, Citizens United ruling. Salon, October 22, 2010:
It’s likely that the Kochs had at least a funding role in Citizens United although no proof yet exists due to the ruling itself.
Isn’t that special?
Courage.
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A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, an honorary Texan, Clown (ditto) and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog His Vorpal Sword. This is cross-posted from his blog
