It seems the GOP is finally coming into its own.
Both its numbers and rhetoric reflect that it is rapidly becoming more of a cult than a political party.
Recent polls indicate that now only 20 percent of the American people will even admit to being Republican, down from 32 percent last November. If current rate of decline continues, after the 2010 election there won’t be enough Republicans left in Washington to throw a card party.
With good reason.
History doesn’t lie, at least until Republicans get hold to it. With their desperate attempt to regain power at any cost, the current crop of GOP “leaders” have inadvertently betrayed their true agenda, to promote the interest of big business at the expense of the American people.
Every initiative they champion is transparently designed to do that.
This is not a new agenda. It’s just that the present group is so inept and blinded by greed that they’ve allowed their animus to be revealed.
Alexander Hamilton, the father of Republican thought, advocated that the poor didn’t even have sense enough to think, and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to govern. The Republican attitude towards the average American hasn’t changed.
Hamilton said the following:
“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and well-born. The other, the mass of the people…
“The people are turbulent and changing. They seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second. And as they cannot receive an advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.” (Debates of the Federalist Convention, May 14-Sept. 17, 1787).
Children, Behave
Thus the GOP literally treats Americans like mindless children without the capacity to remember what took place the day before. Many well-educated and thinking conservatives are falling over one another as they leave the Republican Party. The reason: They have been given a front row seat to witness how under-educated Republicans and wing-nuts are being manipulated through use of the “isms” and xenophobic fear by the Republican leadership to act against their own interest.
They’re beginning to recognize that internal American politics is no longer driven by race or ideology. In the new world order, the GOP leadership no longer sees any profit in such nonsense. The GOP sees America’s eternal fight for freedom in terms of dollars and cents, their freedom to make a dollar. In short, it’s all about class, stupid.
A perfect example can be found in the case of Jamie Leigh Jones. She had the ridiculous idea that she wanted to do something for her country. She went to work for KBR, a subsidiary of Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton. As soon as she hit the ground in Iraq, she was drugged, gang raped, and thrown into a shipping container under armed guard for 24 hours by KBR employees. She was only 19 years old at the time.
What Justice?
Now Ms. Jones is seeking justice, but she’s being blocked by a stipulation in the Halliburton/KBR contract indicating that her only recourse is to go through arbitration, a kangaroo court designed to protect the contractor. In response, a newly elected Democratic senator, Al Franken of Minnesota, drafted an amendment to the Senate Defense Appropriation bill to reverse the policy preventing Ms. Jones from seeking legal recourse. The amendment passed by a 68 to 30 vote, and all 30 votes against the amendment were cast by white Republican males.
This is only one of thousands of votes routinely cast in the Senate, but it holds particular significance. The vote should go down in the annals of political infamy.
It clearly demonstrates the Republican Party has crossed the line that separates their advocacy of a thriving business environment, to a position that promotes the primacy of business interests over the justice and welfare of the American people. No wonder true conservatives are leaving the Republican Party in droves. The GOP has embraced a philosophy blatantly, un-American.
While this has been the case for some time, only now are Americans beginning to believe their lying eyes.
If the American people ever started looking back through history, they’d notice that the same policies, the same names and the same corruption are recycled by the Republican Party every generation. As I've pointed out in a previous articles, as far back as Oct. 29, 1929, the Republican Party ushered in the Great Depression under President Herbert Hoover.
It took Democratic president, Franklin Roosevelt, to bail the nation out.
On Oct. 19, 1987, under Republican Ronald Reagan, the stock market fell 508 points due to the excesses of Reaganomics. Again due to the continued freewheeling fiscal policies of conservative Republicans, between 1986 and 1989, spanning the presidencies of Reagan and Bush Sr., the FSLIC had to pay off all the depositors of 296 institutions with assets of over $125 billion.
In 1988, Silverado Savings and Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $1.3 billion. It was headed by Neil Bush, brother of George W. The investigation alleged that he was guilty of “breaches of his fiduciary duties involving multiple conflicts of interest.” The issue was eventually settled out of court, with Bush paying a mere $50,000 settlement.
In 1987, there was the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal, involving Sen. John McCain. The scandal was similar to the current one playing out on Wall Street. He was one of a group of senators involved in the “Keating Five” scandal.
In 1976, Charles Keating moved to Arizona to run the American Continental Corp. In 1984, shortly after the Reagan era push to deregulate the savings and loan community, Keating bought Lincoln Savings and Loan and began to engage in highly risky investments with the depositors' savings. The parent company Keating headed went bankrupt 5 years later. This resulted in over 21,000 investors losing their life savings. Most were elderly. The losses were about $285 million.
Having received over a million dollars from Keating in illegal campaign contributions, gifts, free trips, and other gratuities, the Keating Five —Sens. John Glenn, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConcini, Alan Cranston, and McCain —attempted to intervene in the investigation into Keating's activities by the regulators. Later, they were admonished to varying degrees by the Senate for attempting to influence regulators on Keating's behalf. Charles Keating ended up being convicted of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy, for which he received 10 years by the state court, and a 12- year sentence in federal court. After spending 4 1/2 years in prison, his convictions were overturned. Prior to being retried, he pled guilty to a number of felonies in return for a sentence of time served.
Even at this writing, Sen. McCain is involved in a bill that would allow telecommunications companies to partition off the internet for profit. Dick Cheney is pressuring President Obama to go off half-cocked like he did in Iraq, yet again: “Come on, wimp, let’s get this war rollin’. You must be scared.”
Of course, I’m sure Cheney’s hurrying to get it on has absolutely nothing to do with Halliburton’s profit line.
These are the people who want us to turn our backs on President Obama, and place our faith in them: “Just trust us . . . again.” Yeah, right.
Mr. Wattree is a writer, musician and poet who may be contacted at wattree@verizon.net
You may learn more about Mr. Wattree at wattree.blogspot.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everybody who doesn't look, think, and act like me. It's just that God does.
