On the Contrary

Town hall meetings in our minds eye are how democracy plays out in at the grass roots level.  We all imagine them as democracy in action where our representatives get down with real people and hear their real concerns away from Washington lobbyists.  So much for fantasy.  The reality is that they have become little more than a gathering place for the extremes and have little to do with real public opinion or an exchange of ideas.  In fact they are becoming a gathering place of the intolerant.  I watched one this morning and it was painful.

Some disenchanted voter gets up and spouts about how unhappy he is, how he pays too much in taxes, how he wants his country back (he borrowed that one from some lady he saw on TV) listing gross inaccuracy after gross inaccuracy and our brave politicians just takes it all in and doesn’t refute anything.  Okay, I understand listening.  But the 24/7 news morons have decided to cover these things, so if all these wild claims go unchallenged, then in this day and age, saying it is so, makes it so.

If this is a true reflection of the American voter, we are done for.  But I think not.  Most of us know what these venues are and we would not waste our breath there.  Shouting contests are not rational dialogue.  I don’t think these are totally organized conservative shows.  But I do think they are not so thoughtful people energized by what they are hearing from Republican lawmakers and conservative talk shows that are putting amazing lies out as truth.  I get Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and others who don’t mind lying for their personal gain or ratings.  But I don’t get Republican lawmakers who know what they are saying is a lie and yet repeat these lies, totally destroying any hope of a rational debate.  Case in point is Sarah Palin, John Boehner, and Newt Gingrich, who have repeated the lie about death panels in our health care reform.

What is going on here is the destruction of American democracy.  Our system of government depends on an informed electorate.  That informing comes from reading newspapers, listening to our trusted leaders, and honest debate and dialogue in the public square.  Newspapers are a dying breed and there are fewer and fewer of us who read them anymore.  Entertainment has taken the place of news on the 24/7 news outlets so covering the outrageous becomes the lead story, not an evaluation of an issue.  Who shouts the loudest gets the most coverage.  Hence we have the covering of the Town Hall Meetings.  The fact that most of these people are spouting nonsense is irrelevant to its entertainment value.

But worst of all is that leaders in the Republican Party, that party that once stood for the preserving the union and our Constitution, no longer care about honest debate.  They simply care about staying power by catering to special interests.  The Republicans were famous for labeling anyone who didn’t agree with them un-American during the invasion of Iraq.  I now label them the most un-American of un-American.  They are aiding and abetting the destruction of honest debate and civility in this country that is the very basis of democracy.

But Democrats are not helping this situation.  As I watched Arlene Specter (by the way, not a real Democrat) pander to one of these loonies, I was wondering why.  Why not push back and stand up for what you believe?  Why not set the record straight and let this be a real clash of ideas and facts?  Because he is afraid to alienate anyone in his bid to be re-elected.  Have all our politicians sold their soul to riding along with the tyranny of the mob instead of what is best for our country?  In his and others bid to stay in office, are they not destroying what they profess to love?  Or is it just the power they love and if that power comes from the mob mentality of a lynch mob, so be it?

I am afraid it is becoming the later and what I see in these mobs are people demanding a free ride and no sacrifice on their own part.  Not exactly the “Greatest Generation”.  If that is what we have become, then it is an America that I feel very estranged from.  And like the lady we have seen tearfully begging to get her country back, I feel the same way.  But I think we are talking about two very different Americas.  If our country is going to be reclaimed, it is time to start pushing back, hard.  As yet I have not seen any leadership including the President who understands the challenge we face and is willing to take us on the offensive.

Another Sunday morning getting the straight story from our tireless media, or is that tiresome?  So I watched my usual compliment of morning news shows and got filled up with a lot of nothing.  Well there is always one exception, but I will get to that.  So without further ado:

• Arlen Specter was the guest on Meet the Press and he did not disappoint.  I do have to hand it to David Gregory, he is getting better.  He asked Arlen all the right questions and Arlen did not dodge any of them.  Arlen is definitely a Republican in the Democratic Party.  Well not the new incarnation of Republicans, but even the moderate kind are still going to be a real hindrance to change.  I am not sure what the Democrats got out of this deal if he is going to vote as he always did.  The big one is health care and he is against a government single payer system along side private insurers.  This is change?  So exactly why is President Obama going to go to Pennsylvania and campaign for this guy?  The reality is that Arlen Specter is where the Republicans were back in the 80’s and I am not sure what we would gain from trying to recreate an era that isn’t worth recreating.
• The other two guests were Joe Scarborough and Ed Gillespie, both Republicans, who were there to talk about resurrecting the Republican Party.  This was also a topic on CNN with John King.  There was no new ground here.  Joe and Ed have obviously been drinking the Republican Kool-Aid.  They think that if the party gets out of the social issues, then the conservative message can be a big tent again.  They pointed out how in the 70’s the party was left for dead, and the same in the early nineties, but they made their comeback and it will happen again.   Uh Joe, Ed?   The world has changed and small government and miniscule spending doesn’t address this new world.  The social issue of abortion, gay marriage, and religion, are not the Republican Party’s big problem.  Their problem is that the conservative mantra of small government, free markets, and cutting taxes don’t address any of our real challenges.  If they did, they would have valid alternate strategies to what the Democrats are proposing. Sadly they think that present day Republicans just lost their way allowing deficits (mainly from cutting taxes) and big government (but little regulation). The reality is that the message no longer is viable.  I wonder why reporters don’t challenge them on this instead of going along with their fiction that they just need to find a new spokesperson.  Oh well.
• Then there were the endless discussions about who President Obama would choose for replacing David Souter.  I have to tell you I hate these discussions.  They are akin to metal masturbation.  No that is not quite correct, they are mental masturbation.  It is like sitting around listening to guys talk about the perfect football team.  It means nothing and it gets you nowhere.  Instead of endless what if scenarios why don’t we just let the President fill the position and then we can carefully dissect that person and ask all kinds of inane and embarrassing questions instead of wasting them on pretend candidates who may never make the cut.  Oh I forgot.  Watching the NFL draft is great drama so I guess this fills airtime.
• Let us not forget the discussions/hysteria about the swine flu.  Oh forgive me.  For the morons who think eating pigs is dangerous, it is the H1N1 influenza.  We have had one death in the United States and the way we are reacting to this, I am beginning to understand the panic around 9/11.  Thank god we have not had another terrorist attack or judging from our over reaction to this minor scare, we would have been burning the constitution in the street.  I grant you it can be scary, but in the meantime can we just stay home if we are sick, sneeze into our sleeves, and get on with our lives?
• Finally, Fareed Zackaria on CNN’s GPS interviewed Defense Secretary William Gates and this guy is one down to earth and honest human being.  We are very lucky to have him as our Secretary of Defense.  Afghanistan is a very difficult problem and listening to Secretary Gates let me know he knows what I know.  As I listened to his descriptions of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and what was really possible there, I know that we are in good hands.  He is keenly aware of the Russian experience in Afghanistan and understands that troops are not the answer.  We are in for a long ride, but our troops can be very proud of their leadership.

So another Sunday morning talking about going nowhere fast.

With Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party, one has to wonder what is going on.  Well for one thing with the Republican Party only representing 21% of the population and shrinking, the math for the primary in Pennsylvania was fairly straightforward.  He could not win the primary against a hard-line conservative, but could probably win the general election.  So from this calculation, it was the only choice for a chance to survive.  But this raises all kinds of issues.

First is how Pennsylvania would see this.  From the Democratic point of view, they had a good chance to run a more liberal Democrat to win against a hard-line conservative.  This scenario presented the Democrats with someone more supportive of their agenda. Whoever was going to run for that seat from the Democratic Party in Pennsylvania must feel like he just got his legs cut out from under him.  Is Senator Specter moderate enough to be elected?  I don’t know and this is the chance the Democrats are taking.

The press is making a big deal about getting the 60th vote in the Senate to be filibuster proof, but it is a foolish claim.  Senator Specter will vote as he always does, and that is independently.  Additionally, the Democratic Party has a large spectrum of political beliefs from liberal to conservative.  They usually don’t vote in a block.  It may help, but probably not when it really counts.

Here is the really sad thing.  There is no room for moderate Republicans in the Republican Party.  They have moved to a party of litmus tests for the radical right.  On the other hand, the Democratic Party is really a party of three camps.  You have the very liberal side, which is how the Republicans paint everyone in the Democratic Party and is actually a small minority of it; then you have the moderates who are really progressives, which is the majority of the party; and then you have the conservative Democrats who really can not be distinguished from moderate Republicans a few years ago.  No there aren’t any socialists in there.  The Republican Party is being made irrelevant by their hard-line dogma, which they refuse to examine.  More about that in a moment.

The final issue that is raised by Senator Specter’s defection is what does this say about primary elections?  If the primaries are really a function of the hard left and the hard right, the nation is not getting choices that represent their views.  If hard-line Democrats or hard-line Republicans control the primaries, the choices we all get at election time are no choice at all.  In this environment where the Republican Party is a small and radicalized party, it may be time to rethink open primaries.  California is moving in that direction at the behest of the Republicans here because they feel disenfranchised in a Democrat controlled State legislature.  But they may rue their plan when they find out that the independents will vote most of their radical brethren out of office and instead move much more to the center.  In my small mind I would like to see an open primary and top two run off for the office in November even if it turns out they are both from the same party..

Finally, what do the Republicans have to do to stem what is going to be an ongoing desertion of their party members?  First they have to understand, as well as the press, that the middle is in the Democratic Party and the Republicans are a right fringe party.  If Arlen Specter is center right and he has moved to the Democratic Party, just where do you think the center is?

I listened to Michelle Bernard, a conservative political analyst on MSNBC, tell us that the Republicans need to find their soul: “That doesn’t mean Republicans should give up their belief in limited government or free markets. I don’t think that’s the case at all. But the Republican Party needs to find a way to reach out to many, many people, not just the religious right.” The problem with that prescription is that in order to reach out to more people, their basic belief in limited government and the free market needs major modifications and just dropping the right wing and the religious nuts isn’t going to solve that because it just makes them smaller without solving the root problem.  Limited government and what they mean by free markets is no longer selling in the market place.

First, right now we are having two immediate crises, economic and medical (swine flu).  In both cases the people expect our government to be there to resolve these crises.  How does that fit into limited government?   Republicans want to starve so it will never have the resources to help anyone.  Remember Katrina?  If this argument is going to have any credibility at all in the future, then the Republicans have to stop their knee jerk reaction to government programs and understand that government is part of the solution.  Then looking at what is appropriate to government and what is appropriate to the private sector might have a little more credence.  The swine flu epidemic is a case in point.  They cut funds for the CDC and preparation for just such a disaster.  Now they see a need, but their present ideology doesn’t allow for government planning and funding of the results of that planning.  By hating all things government except the military, thinking the private sector will provide all the solutions, the are emasculating the very solutions people are crying out for and we have found we need to address many of our complex problems that face us in our future.

On the free market thing, who ever said Democrats were against the free market?  What this is code for is little or no regulation or interference in business.  Think about the economic crisis we are in and then consider why no regulation is such a jim dandy idea.  It is out of touch with the reality of what is happening around us and our changing world.  A moderate approach, which may I add many Democrats are proposing, is smart regulations.  If Republicans could get off their “No” soapbox and say that the free market needs some fixing and requires more regulations to make our economy more stable, then we can have an honest debate on what those controls should be.    But they still hold to climate change isn’t happening, regulation of the environment is unnecessary, anything that impacts business is bad, and government is bad at everything.  These beliefs make them irrelevant in today’s world.  And it is forcing moderates to move to the Democratic Party where dissent and real debate are still allowed and real solutions to our problems can be proposed.

So what have is real diversity of both race and ideas in the Democratic party on all issues from health care to stimulus.  The Republicans have become the party of the white southern bigot.  The Republican Party has made themselves irrelevant by their hard-line, no compromise positions and until they change their own ideology to reflect a changing world, they are irrelevant.  The only way they are going to appeal to a wider electorate is take this radical step to reinvent themselves.  I don’t think they can do it because it requires tolerance and they don’t have any.  It’s like giving up religion for them and they are Republican bible thumpers.  Without their dogmatic beliefs, their world would crumble.  Suprise!  It is crumbling.