A Brand New Day

Remember two years ago, when we got a new president and a matching House and Senate and all the conservatives howled and wailed and vowed that they'd "take back the country" in the next election...if those damn liberals didn't send it to hell in a handbasket first with their socialist communist fascist nazi-ist plans?

And from that day till last night we heard the planning, tea partying, praying, complaining, bitching, moaning as this administration tried to dig us out of the mess the previous one got us into. Nothing they did was right (pun intended) and everything they did was, unaccountably, too much AND too little.

Anything done that had any effect was "Too much intrusion and stealing our freedoms" and anything un-addressed yet was "doing nothing to help the people".

From Faux News fear-mongering to Rush Limbaugh's pompous bullshit to Glenn Beck's tears of a freedom-loving clown to that whack-job from Alaska screeching "HOWZ THAT HOPEY CHANGEY THING WORKIN' FOR YA?" the entire country was pummelled with sure-fire signs of our imminent demise as the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition.

But that wasn't the half of it.

Then the campaigning started.

I'm over half a century old and can't remember the last time it was proper campaign etiquette to threaten your opponent, AND your opponent's entire party AND population of constituents with actual bodily harm.

In between the vitriol were many promises and vows to "take back the country" and "undo the damage that's been done on the road to socialism".

Two years ago, the people voted against the road we had been on- one that had plunged our nation into third world status regarding accessible health care for all and worse regarding our economy and quality of life.

All the bad things were cumulative and took many years to build up, and a sensible person would see that it would take at LEAST as many years to fix it.

But people who are jobless, hungry, homeless, sick and scared, don't have any sense to spare and want so desperately to believe that someone, somewhere, somehow can fix it NOW that they laid our fragile nation back into the giant paws of the wolves.

For safe-keeping.

And the wolves licked their chops and said "Don't worry the hair of your chinny chin chin- I'll take good care of this...just like I promised".

So...what're they planning on cutting out of the national budget to FIX it? From their campaign 'promises' looks like Social Security, VA benefits, Medicare, Medicaid...if the tea party has their way "government" will be OUT of our lives to leave us the hell alone- without schools, or roads, or any sort of unified infrastructure or protection- we'll be 50 happy little autonomous islands, free to frolic to the will of whatever corporations buy the state governments.

Here's the one thing that keeps me from going batshit insane at this point-

They can't.

They can't FIX it (even their dubious version of fixing it) in 2 years any more than the democrats could.

Because of the checks and balances inherent in our government (designed by some very wise men- the same men who fought against a national religion- even the Christians among them) change comes slowly and carefully and cumbersomely to us.

So today is a brand new day. Not a substantially different day. Not, as the republicans were crowing, the day after the democratic bloodbath when they would swoop into Washington like so many marauders and "take back America".Yes, we now have a Republican majority in the House, but the Senate and Oval office are still Democratic.

I suspect that in two years, the poor American people will still be poor, still be frustrated, still be confused and be very very angry that all those pretty campaign promises were just that- enticements of flowers and candy, dinner and a movie so the country would take THEM back.

And I'll try really hard to refrain from screeching "SO- HOWZ THAT CHANGEY BACKEY THING WORKIN' FOR YA?"