Sunday, August 17, 2008

All in the Game

A news article is out today which says that Democratic Party leaders in Congress are starting to waver re their opposition to offshore drilling as a response to the current spike in gas prices. Despite the fact that THEY know what almost everyone else knows -- that drilling will have no impact on gas prices for many, many years -- they SAY they don't want to be viewed as weaker on this issue than their GOP counterparts, particularly during this election year.

For those who considers themselves liberals or many of us here on the left, there is a ready -- and I believe misguided -- explanation for their steady litany of capitulations on this issue and far too many others (e.g., the Patriot Act, NAFTA, funding the wars, etc.). People will tell you that the Democrats are spineless!

The way this popular theory goes is that the Democrats too easily cave in on issues. They start out standing up for average Americans, but they give up ground too quickly in the face of Republican opposition. They fight hard for us, but only to a point.

I think that a lot of liberals tell themselves this fairytale because they don't want to have to face up to what's really going down. They don't want to come face-to-face with the fact that it's all a big charade!

Personally, I think it's all a game. It would be one thing if this scenario only played out from time to time, but this same scenario plays out over and over again on almost EVERY issue. The Democrats draw a line in the sand that is erased when the tide comes in. They stand strong just long enough for their supporters to THINK they're looking out for their best interests, only to betray those interests in the end.

In essence, it's really a sham to think we have two dominant political parties in this country! We have one dominant party -- the corporate party -- which has two popular faces. The GOP postures for the conservatives and the Democrats posture for the liberals.

The Republicans criticize almost every proposed bill as trampling on personal rights and giving away the store to bleeding heart liberals. For their part, the Democrats decry every proposed bill as serving the "moneyed interests" and not offering enough protections of John and Jane Doe America. In the end, I fear, the bill that becomes law is what the two supposed adversaries had already agreed upon initially.

So, I believe that almost all federal law isn't genuinely debated on the floor of the capital via C-SPAN, but is the result of backroom politics. The supposed policy debates are nothing more than a show to convince gullible Americans that our system is working the way it's supposed to. It IS, in fact, working the way the elites set it up; it's simply not the system most Americans believe it to be.

1 comment:

  1. i dont no you and its suprising to see some one eles with a clear understanding of the usa gov. im tired of the dog and pony show! if we elect obama we get real id card, war with iran, no troop widrawl from iraq, more medeling socilized health care, and if we elect mcain we get the same. we elected a dem congress to get out of iraq thats what thay ran on and thay got it, but thay ceep spending the money we dont have to stay there. it seems all dicided to me to.corpratizum

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