Party On!

I was participating in the comments at Eschaton, when I said something offensive. I argued that the Foley thing was gonna blow over, and that it was cover for the Senate Hearings on the Torture Bill.

I guess I crossed the line on some Democratic Talking Point and I got called a Republican and was told to go away.

That's not the first time I've been blasted over crossing an invisible line. I don't feel any loyalty to either party, so I don't get the memos that tell you the proper etiquette when discussing politics. To Republicans I'm a Democrat and to Democrats I'm a Republican.

To the hard core on each side, it's all about Team Spirit. It's a game and to them, their are only two teams. You're with us, or you're the enemy.

I find that to be a sad way to look at the world. You either have sycophants or enemies, and the whole world is out to get you.

But this polarization is good for the power brokers. The folks that own both parties put such divisiveness to good use. Fear brings people together against a common enemy. It encourages them to give up control. It brings about an atmosphere of self control and a self policing within the group. Both parties engage in it. But the party in power always appears to be the most evil when it engages in it.

Well heck, actually the Republicans have taken this to new levels. But they do in public, what the democratic Party's splinter groups do in private.

It's an old argument, that the Democratic Party is divisive and uses it's fear to divide itself, while the Republican Party uses fear to unite. And I don't think that will change.

And I don't see how it matters. As long as both parties are driven by fear and controlled centrally by the same corporations, they will be played by the media against each other, as some crazed 'Punch and Judy Show'.

We've had it easy for too many years. The old generation that used to fight for their rights, the ones that fought in the union picket lines are dying off. The current generation is happy to let their rights slip away while they watch TV. I believe that the American People are unhappy about these events. But we're ignorant as a people as to the means to fight back. In previous generations, if the party was doing something that its constituents didn't like, folks picketed, rioted, threw things and made their voice heard.

This generation isn't capable of doing these things, because we've never felt the hunger and the thirst that our grandparents knew.

The only way that politics will change is when both parties are ripped out of the hands of the international corporations that own them. And that won't happen until times turns and those parties can't find corporate sponsership worth having.

Some folks think I'm trolling when I call the Mark Foley affair a short term issue. They say I'm raining their parade when I say it'll blow over in less than two weeks. I stepped on some toes and bruised some feelings. They told me to go away.

This affair is exactly like all the other sleight of hand tricks we've seen come out the Karl Rove camp. Mark Foley was gonna go down, the questions was, when would it be most politically useful to stage it? And in the midst of the Senate Hearings on the Torture Bill, was an excellent time.

The amoral Republicans won't care about this event. The moral Republicans will be outraged for a time, and then after a few days of watching television, will forget and forgive.

Enjoy the party. Have a nice parade. I apologize for not getting excited.