They ALL Suck

We have gone through the Mirror to a new perverse American Wonderland.

The true lessons from the last two elections have been pretty clear.  Voting for “throwing the bums out” just brings worse bums into play.  Also, voting for relative unknowns hoping that will change the direction of the country because of their ‘outsider’ status doesn’t work either.  Sooner or later, they all become part of the problem.  The current crop of new faces is a pretty good indication that voters should be using better criteria than change, hope, not part of the DC establishment, and talks a good talk.  I wake up feeling like Alice who went through the looking glass into some perverse alternate reality.  The problem is that there really seems like there’s no way back.

The displeasure is obvious in the polls.  For the last two elections, folks voted for ‘outsiders’ and got even more dysfunctional government.  This latest crop of newbie politicians seems to come in with a ready-made interest group on their coattails. The interest of the general populace isn’t even in the equation any more.  We’re worried about unemployment, paying for expensive basics like food, health care, and gas at the pump while the current crop of elected officials just keep inventing surreal crises that simply feed their base’s interests and their donor’s pockets.

Right now, the majority of voters are screaming none of the above. Congress and the White House are hopelessly out of touch with the priorities of the electorate.  When the public says its concerned about the economy, it doesn’t mean they are obsessed with the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of US debt instruments.  I told you that after they got their tax cuts for billionaires through, raters would do that during the debt ceiling fight, right? 

The Tea Party and the White House seemed to be in cahoots–despite seemingly being at odds with each other– to funnel what’s left of US wealth into the Wall Street Gambling Casino by either giving tax breaks to businesses who flee the country for higher stakes or rich people that buy ‘financial innovations’ that create risk and volatility in markets . This all happens along with funneling federal projects straight to them through no-bid government contracts and privatization schemes.  These things also enrich market parasites like brokerage firms and insurance companies.  I don’t get why people don’t connect these charades with the dismal economy and vote their interests.  Maybe it’s because there’s really no one to vote FOR any more.  There are only folks to vote against.  Angry people do not make good decisions as a general rule.

President Obama has gotten no bounce from his reelection campaign announcement, with his job approval rating dropping by 7 percentage points since January, his personal popularity at a career low and 57 percent of Americans disapproving of his handling of the economy. Yet he leads the potential GOP field.

There are chances for the Republicans in next year’s elections, with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, in particular, nipping close to Obama in the latest ABC News-Washington Post poll. Economic pessimism, its highest in two years amid soaring gas prices, raises serious political peril for the president. But he benefits from two factors: personal approval that, while down, still exceeds his job rating, and substantial doubts about the opposing party’s lineup.

Forty-three percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say they’re satisfied with the choice of candidates for the GOP nomination for president next year, compared with 65 percent satisfaction with the field at exactly this point four years ago. Nearly as many leaning-Republicans are dissatisfied with the field as are satisfied, and far more have no opinion of their potential candidates: 17 percent now vs. 3 percent at this point in 2007.

If those three are my choices, I’d rather opt out of the election and the country.  This is dismal!  No one is really satisfied with the presidential line-up.  I don’t know about you but my choices at the local level have been abysmal for years.   If there’s one candidate that really looks like they could actually make a change, a group of anti-abortion nuts, businesses, or other niche interest group comes out of the woodwork to tank them.  Our political system is like the proverbial septic tank letting the worst float to the top.

Obviously, money drives races any more.  It’s unlikely we can get that changed unless every state starts a ballot initiative for some kind of campaign finance reform.  Politicians are like crack addicts that are unlikely to go to rehab and more likely to sound like Charlie Sheen and his ‘winning’ chimera.  The problem is that now we have narrow interests funneling money into advertisements–ala swiftboating–that look like the message come from grass roots movements but are they really are the same old, same old that bring the same old, same old to Washington.  It’s only a new face. It is not a new person or an agenda of real change.

I’m still amazed to find any one that doesn’t see the astroturf in the Tea Party with the now obvious funding of the Koch Brothers and the like.  I’m sure that the investigation into all those ‘little’ donors to OFA will turn out finding yet another, perverse form of bundling. As Caro from Make Them Accountable believes, it’ll probably show that a bunch of Goldman Sachs people bought prepaid debit cards and had a hey-day.  The media is so corporate any more that they won’t focus on the jobs crisis, they’re running with the political pack to funnel more public assets to their stockholders.  Only the farthest reaches of Internatlandia appear to still be on the good side of the New American Looking Glass.

What a mess!  I’m beginning to think we’re just on the verge of the collapse of the empire and there’s not much we can do about. The last ten years have been all about the wrong things.  Just today, the UK Guardian released information on the relationship between big Oil and the Blair government’s decision to invade Iraq.  I’m just assuming that there’s a Dubya/Cheney set of meetings and memos there too.  More proof to support our well-founded skepticism of any motive but obscene profit-seeking from the already powerful and wealthy. We know that entire Iraq debacle was as contrived as ignoring the policies that would create jobs and growth and actually do something about the federal debt and deficit.  The emphasis recently on tax cuts has simply exacerbated all the problems but is still held up as the panacea.  The arm waving and speeches are just distractions from the real agenda.  Sadly, some folks still want to believe that those fresh faces really are more than just masks.

It’s like we’ve all gone through the mirror to some evil wonderland.   Help, we’ve fallen through and we can’t get up or out!