Erection Day: What the Phantom Doesn't Know

Today the Republicans will, by every pundit's prediction, sweep back into control of Congress, on a promise of cutting taxes, getting the government off your back, reducing the deficit (while reducing taxes for billionaires) all by cutting spending, (although exactly where they will cut they are vague about--certainly not anywhere you care about) repealing Healthcare, or Obamacare as they call it, and repealing the estate tax, or the Death Tax, as they call it.

What joy. Wow, what those Republicans can do, or promise to do.

And that mythical beast, "The American People," are buying it. A neighbor told me about a friend, homosexual man she knows, who is voting Republican. How can a gay man vote Republican? Well, he hates the "Death Tax." He calls it the Death Tax, so you know who he's been listening to. He is outraged, outraged he will be taxed twice. When pressed about who he intends to leave his estate to, having no children or much in the way of family, he says, well, he really doesn't know, but he wants the government off his back, taking his hard earned estate away from him and giving it to the undeserving slackers who the Democrats always give money to.

The Democrats have been in power, (which in the case of the Democrats is a phrase to use advisedly,) for two years and apart from avoiding a Depression, passing a law to limit the power of health insurance companies, they haven't done much.

 In fact, to listen to the Democrats, you'd never know they'd done anything.

When the Democrats say they want to cut taxes for the middle class and keep the rates for the billoinaires, the Republicans huddle and come up with the phrase, "Class Warfare," and the Democrats go into a dead faint and when smelling salts revive them, they apologize for the whole idea.

If these are the Democrats, well then they do not deserve to rule. You've got to be able to come up with a phrase to parry whatever phrase the Republicans use.  Maybe something like, "It's not class warfare, it's called "Eat more, Pay more," or something like that. Think on it, maybe you'll come up with something better, but when you do get every Democrat using that phrase, just as the Republicans all use the same phrase until to becomes TRUTH, because, well, everyone's saying it and nobody's denying it, so it must be true.

The problem is, you can only feel sad. You see the Confederate States of America, fighting for slavery, economic oppression and moral smugness and winning, not because of the justness of their cause but because they have better generals, and you cannot feel anything but sad.

And so it is now--the might of the Republican Party, is not made right. They've got Carl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, John Boehner and Glenn Beck. They win because they are smarter. They are smarmier, and oh so sure. "Why is it the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubts?" I forget who said that. Some Englishman. But it sure holds true in our country.

Thus do once great nations decline.

Oh well, the English have declined for similar reasons and it's not so bad living in a second rate world power. You can still go to the pub, root for the local football team and find a mate. And in England, if you get sick, someone will take care of you.