Thursday, September 10, 2009

Maybe Mr. Spock Should Run the GOP


By

Bobbie L. Washington

Maybe there is too much reality television that’s on the air or what s perceived as reality but I’m starting to miss the fantasy world of the Star Trek TV series. This real world has gotten tougher and tougher to maintain a sense of equilibrium as common decency is taking a back burner. A young president is trying to make his country a better place for everyone by offering up health care but there are mass protests based on lies and unfounded assumptions. He wants to give a speech to schoolchildren and the unseen speech is immediately called into suspicion as the first phase in creating children of the corn. He gives a speech in front of members of Congress and for the first time in history he is shouted at with the words “You Lie!”. The look of disbelief on his face was there for the history books. What in the hell has happened to the GOP?

In that fantasy world of Star Trek, Mr. Spock, the half-human, half-Vulcan hybrid was taught the lessons of logic. Perhaps the GOP needs to take a lesson from Mr. Spock and start ruling with some logical points and stop this idiotic rants of fear and loathing for the president.

Sure, you have every right to stand up for the causes you believe in but if you have no solutions to the problem, don’t just call a press conference and whine about what is proposed without offering an alternative. The GOP leaders of Eric Cantor, John Boehner, Chuck Grassley and company have apparently had some sort of microprocessor installed in their heads to automatically reject sound design to America’s burgeoning problems that were created during the last Republican controlled administration. They surreptitiously ignore those eight years that created two wars that are still in play, the looming financial disaster that lead to bank failures, the housing crisis that fostered corrupt practices in major brokerage houses that begat the Bernie Madoff’s of the world that lead to other failures in this political house of cards. They collectively ignore these failures as they scrub their hands with anti-bacterial hand gel in hopes of leaving no trace of their party involvement.

And although the president’s poll numbers have declined, the GOP leadership’s numbers are at an all time low. What the American people are fed up with is the same old tired rhetoric from these individuals who are not providing solution of their own. John Boehner has had more face time at the microphone talking about what he feels is wrong with just about everything that has been proposed by the White House to fix the economy, remove the troops out of Iraq, repair the bailout of banks and with the automobile business and with health care. When asked by reporters as to what his solution is, he and his cronies make the claim that they have provided alternatives but where is the proof? Why can’t you turn over what you have to the news organizations so that they can review your side of the solution? Logic, Mr. Spock, is needed.

And what compounds the GOP’s problem is the number of surrogates that is draped under your wings. The lists of people representing the GOP are Michael Steele, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Fox News. Beck has become a true representative of fear and spreading of hate when describing this president. He has made up enough make-believe stories it is a wonder he hasn’t been tapped to replace Hans Christian Anderson or Mussolini? Rush Limbaugh spares no feelings as he advocate the total failure of this president right at the start of his inauguration. Michael Steele is an example of total buffoonery and plays into the caricature and stereotype from a D.W. Griffith movie.

And then there are the fringe elements of the GOP. These are the ones that are still promoting the phony birth certificate nonsense, the teabagger protesters, and the death panel lunacy. How could the leadership of the GOP fall this far to this humiliating low? You used to represent power and class. You have allowed your esteemed leaders to fall into scandal. You were the ones holding a firm grip on family values. Instead, some of your most staunch colleagues were mired in of all things, sex scandals.

You did yourself no favors by allowing the town hall healthcare debates to denigrate to the point of civil war. Citizens resorted to screaming at one another with enough misinformation about what the government does and does not do, you would have to wonder how other countries viewed this debacle of a democratic process. You sat on your hands and said nothing to dissuade these followers of the GOP from carrying weapons to these events and in one case, the vandalism of one congressman’s sign defacing it with the sign of the Nazi swastika. And Eric Cantor sat on his hand and did not condemn this act.

Why has the GOP become the party of complacent temperamental losers? They have completely lost focus on the fundamental principles of what the American people want. It is not about their needs that are apparently entwined with their egos. Their party lost the election and now the American public must suffer the slings and arrows of their misery. Should the American public become even more economically stagnant because you have a predisposed ax to grind with the opposing party? And it is not because what they have to offer is radically outlandish it is merely because it is a Pavlovian response to the conditioning. There is nothing wrong with what is being presented in any of the packages the Obama administration is proposing. It is not the GOP’s idea even though an open door policy is in place for them to offer up any viable alternative. The Obama administration intended purpose is to fix this country. Why is that particular edict such an obstacle for the GOP to get around?

It is pure and simple logic that needs to be in play with the GOP. Mr. Spock and his society lived by the rule of logic. It’s a simple concept. Rethink your base. Disassociates yourself from the radical movements of the Hannities, Limbaughs, Becks, Coulters, and Palins. The American public is not complete morons regardless of the tempest flare up from the town hall meetings in the summer of 2009. You allowed the worst of the 2008 GOP presidential campaign tactics to linger on into the New Year. It was described as political fair play and was colored in veiled hypocrisy, race baiting and fear mongering of false allegations. Now you’ve allowed continuing in the same manner. And at what price did you pay?

You’re election into was a hiring of the people to do a job. You were not hired to pay favor to the lobbyists and major corporations. The millions of people who have lost jobs, homes, and health do not have the afforded luxuries that you have with the tax dollars that pay for your salaries and health care. The GOP has moved past the point of no return if you continue to pursue this direction.

Spock tells us that time is not on the American citizen’s side in his world of logic. We cannot be placed in a state of suspended animation as this crisis continues unabated. How much time have we wasted on this? Deadlines have come and gone and what is there to show? Voices are raised in anger and for what? Just to be heard or show the folks back home that you made a point? An early diagnosis of cancer is being missed right now because you called the president a liar and you’d rather continue to fund the military complex and two wars costing billions of dollars just to carrying on the legacy from eight years in the past.

Invite Spock to the party. Live by his principles. Comport yourselves to understanding that we are not in a civil war and discontinue fanning the flames of intolerance and hate from your narrow-minded allies who are getting paid a fortune for doling out bad advice while they hide their own superior short-comings.

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