It might be the greatest bait and switch ever pulled on the American voter. For two successive election cycles, we’ve been promised jobs, a recovering economy, attention to the Constitution. After the last one, triumphant Republican after triumphant Republican declared November’s to be an election decided on jobs.
Well I don’t know what jobs you had in mind, but I’ll bet most voters weren’t thinking axe wielder or culture warrior. But suddenly all we’re getting is tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for everyone else, and no jobs, unless you happen to be paid for pursuing abortion doctors.
Call it class combat with a nice healthy side dose of culture war. While Obama’s pursuing the Republican priorities of cutting spending, Republicans and a few of their Blue Dog buddies are attacking abortion rights. Again.
Rand Paul, the supposed Tea Party champion who ran on individual rights to privacy and liberty, has introduced the Life Begins at Conception Act to make sure that fetuses have individual rights too. No word on whether Paul considers the women who carry those fetuses humans under his Constitution.
South Dakota is considering a bill that would make it “justifiable homicide” to kill a doctor who performs abortions. That’s right, they want to legalize killings like that of Dr. George Tiller in 2009. Apparently, they’ve learned nothing from the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. Would it be okay in South Dakota to preemptively kill batterers, or employers with fetus-unfriendly workplaces? Maybe that’s on its way.
And those kinder, gentler Republicans who were going to bring back jobs to their states, like Scott Walker in Wisconsin? They’re busy threatening to call out the National Guard on workers who don’t like having their rights to collective bargaining taken away—or having their jobs slashed. That’s not exactly concern for the economy, Governor Walker.
The only job created that I can see in all this mess, is the job of finding us an electoral system that could elect some very different sort of politicians.
The F Word is a regular commentary by Laura Flanders, the host of GRITtv which broadcasts weekdays on satellite TV (Dish Network Ch. 9415 Free Speech TV) on cable, and online at GRITtv.org and TheNation.com. Support us by signing up for our podcast, and follow GRITtv or GRITlaura on Twitter.com.
Why does your article bring to my mind the flourishing putrid values of the Bush family on this society today?
Maybe this phrase from your article, “… class combat with a nice healthy side dose of culture war.” has something to do with it. “combat,” “war,” two favorite words of the Bushes who idealize war, any kind of war, but then deny that they do. Class combat: in some sort of stream of consciousness way, or in some sort of word association way, or both, makes me think about the Katrina victims; about the Bushes’ “who cares,” attitude on the plight of those victims … “class combat – culture war …” vote stealing in America along with their expression of “this is just democracy …” as expressed by both Father and Son Bush when asked about the televised Tea Partier beating of a reporter during the recent election cycle. The ascent to government power of Rand Paul and other Tea Partiers: class combat … culture war…”
Why? O, Why does my mind go to the Bushes as the initiators of tax cuts for the rich, spending cuts for the rest, and the ruination of this country?
Why does my mind sees them as the perpetrators events which have unfolded into our current socio-politcal situation which is now being continued by others and from which no politician seems to be willing or able to put a stop to?
On the Eve of the Iraq Invasion it is reported that Pope John Paul II told Bush, “you alone will be responsible for the derailment of humanity.” Little did anyone think that this derailment would touch so many of us, so far away from Iraq, in such ruinous and sundering ways.