The Climate of Fear
I read an editorial in the International Herald Tribune recently which recounted a medieval legend where a traveller met up with Fear and Plague who were headed to London where they intended to kill 10,000 people. The traveller, who must have been a very brave man or a complete fool, asked Plague if he intended to do all the killing.
Plague replied “Not a chance. I’m only going to kill a few hundred people at most. My friend, Fear, will kill the rest!”
This struck me as a very appropriate story for our times where America has become so fearful of everything that the country is almost paralyzed by it. Republicans, in particular, are obsessed with it and wield it as their only weapon as, indeed, it is the only weapon they have. Their ideas on government and the way that the country should be run are so idealistic and impractical that the only chance they have of getting anybody to listen to them is to cloak those ideas under the spectre of fear.
If you think that I am exaggerating, you only have to look at the dynamics of politics today. It is, as far I can see, virtually impossible for Republicans and Democrats, at any level, to have a civilized discussion about the issues and the merits of each side. Republicans will defend their views to the death and seem incapable of balanced thought because they, as a party, are ruled, and paralyzed, by fear.
In the halls of power, i.e., Washington, D.C., Republicans are the bullies. They shout, scream and threaten until they get their way and, when they don’t, they pout publicly, and with moral indignation, saying that nobody listens to them. To anybody with a shred of intellect and free thought, they are completely irrelevant but, unfortunately, a very large percentage of the population are, themselves, so paralyzed with fear that they will clasp at any straw, no matter how ineffectual. Those who have intellect and free thought who support the GOP philosophies are those who have everything to gain by them, i.e., corporations and the wealthy. Unfortunately, due to an utterly ridiculous and stupid Supreme Court decision, these entities can now weigh in financially to any degree they wish to influence the process and instill more fear on the populace. Who wouldn’t spend $100 million to make $1 billion?
I love the GOPs moral indignation because it is so contrived and baseless and has no morality attached to it whatsoever. How can anybody with any kind of moral compass go to the mat and threaten the entire country if the rich don’t get their tax breaks extended. They know, as well as you and I, that the rich don’t need any tax breaks; most of them have more money than they could spend in several lifetimes, while the country is wallowing in debt and people are suffering. Those are the people who need help not the ones who have their own jets and extravagant mansions in different places.
Democrats, especially those in Washington, need to develop a spine. They are the same people who were bullied as children and never fought back. Now, as adults, they react in exactly the same way as they did back then and bullies get their power from weakness. Of course, there are notable exceptions, Anthony Weiner from New York and Alan Grayson from Florida, both of whom are not afraid to, publicly and loudly, call out the GOP on their lies and obfuscations. But unfortunately they are few and far between.
I have great admiration for President Obama; he inherited the worst possible mess from the morally bankrupt Bush administration and he’s had to dig the country’s way out of it. By any, impartial, observer, his legislative achievements and successes have been truly impressive but many of them have been overshadowed, and sometimes completely forgotten, in the constant hue and cry from the far right. I am, however, disappointed in his poker playing ability; he doesn’t seem to recognize a bluff when he sees one and if he had stood firm against many of the GOP demands, they would have been the ones who folded. In life, as in poker, those who have the most guts win out over those with bluster and nothing collapses faster than a bully who is stood up to!
© Michael Rocharde, January 30, 2011
michael_rocharde@me.com
