The Beast That Shall Not Be Named By: shep

by shep

George Will may have been right after all. He famously contended that apathetic political participation in this country may be simply because people were basically satisfied with their government and society. With the intense grassroots political giving, participation and record primary turnouts we’re seeing at the moment, it seems that may no longer be the case.

So The Village gasbags tell us that the exit polling tells us that people are sick of the partisan gridlock in Washington and they want change. I agree. Many of them claim that unity is the answer. But if this partisan gridlock represents a sort of stasis in the struggle between two diametrically opposed forces – let’s call them Republican conservatism (so-called) and Democratic progressivism – then one of those forces must give way to end gridlock and create change. Unity or bi-partisanship is obviously no solution.

We’ve had nearly thirty years of near constant progress in one of these two forces, to the point that it is now considered the political center by the entire elite class. We’ve warred, tax cut, de-regulated and politically demonized the opposing political force to the point where we find ourselves today: An unsustainable global military empire that is despised by most of the world. A beggar’s economy where we borrow our money from our former (and possibly future) mortal enemy and build their industrial might to feed the mostly mindless material consumption of our middle class, all to create grotesque wealth for the operators of the system. The ever-increasing stripping and burning the planet’s naturals resources at an ever-more unsustainable rate to feed that consumption. Health and safety deregulation that sickens and kills huge numbers of the public, many of whom haven’t the means to get help without bankrupting their families. And last but not least, a public media that isn’t the slightest bit interested in telling the public the truth about how and why we got here.

So, can there be any question as to what the people shall not be told: that one political force needs to give way to end gridlock and create needed change and that force is Republican “conservatism”? And that it is not a governing force anyway, but a set of largely disreputable beliefs, the cornerstone of which is that “government is the problem.” And that to continue more of the same and expect a different result is a form of mass insanity. And that bi-partisan unity, half consisting of Republican conservatism, cannot constitute a way forward from the mess created by Republican conservatism. But the people will not be told because Republican conservatism, the force of corporate greed and political elitism and aggressive militarism and social Darwinism and shameless selfishness is both the beast that shall not be named and the beast that does the naming.

[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]