"Centrist" America

As any non-kool-ade-drinking observer would see over the past years, the US Government has drifted radically to the right. The right wing, Big Money, Neocon interests of the past three decades have given us two corporate influenced parties to run our, or should I say THEIR, government.

The present Democratic Party occupies the same part of the political spectrum as the Republicans did just over thirty years ago. And now the Republican Party is the party of Palin, Limbaugh and Cheney. Need I say more?

The shift rightward, with its accompanying recession, job losses, deficits and debt, has been moving our country to the precipice of a morally and fiscally bankrupt fascist police state. Some would say we are already there. And for some, that would be true. There’s a growing list of persons and organizations that have been illegally detained and put under warrantless surveillance.

“Whoa, there”, says the image of a reeling conservative mentality in my reality based imagination. “We have a liberal president and liberals in the majorities of both the House and Senate. We have liberal media giving the liberals a pass all the time.”

“Whoa, there, back at you,” says my reality based mind. Obama and the Democrats have been operating, from the very beginning, from a center-right position.

TARP was a continuation of Bush/Cheney policy.

The Stimulus Bill was a package that common sense conservative economists agreed was needed. Republican politicians who opposed the bill and denounced it as “pork laden” are now hypocritically posing for photo ops, with the big checks, boasting about creating jobs and stimulating the economy in their districts.

Democrats entered the health care debacle without even suggesting the liberal idea of Medicare for all. Obama has advanced Bush’s belligerent foreign policy, and bought into the insane “war of necessity” crap to the extent that even Dick Cheney agrees with him on Afghanistan.

So maybe now you are getting my point. The Democratic Party is NOT a liberal party. It is nearly as corporate owned as the Republican Party. I can easily show how less than half of the Democrats in Washington are liberal. In fact they are no more liberal than the corporate media that says they are liberal.

No wonder Americans are so confused. It all goes back to the radical Right’s successful propaganda program indoctrinating the people with the idea of “liberal media”. Right, the media is so liberal; Dick Cheney is invited over and over again to spew his evil swill as if he were an honest and credible person.

Now, that’s not all we can observe about that liberal media. I was having a perfectly good Sunday morning when I came upon an article in the New York Times. Yes, that same liberal entity that unquestioningly fed us the Neocon lies about Saddam’s WMD’s and Iraq’s ties to al-Qaeda, the same liberal voice sabre-rattling about the “threat” from Iran. As I’ve said, corporate media loves sensationalism and war is sensational.

“Well, what is it THIS time?” One may ask.

The headline read, “Wary Centrists Posing Challenge in Health Care Vote.”

Ahh, we learn centrists are the ones “wary” of the health care bill. I guess that would imply only liberals think we actually need to do something about health care.

Please enlighten me, oh great beacon of Liberalism.

The future of President Obama’s health care overhaul now rests largely with two blocs of swing Democrats in the House of Representatives — abortion opponents and fiscal conservatives — whose indecision signals the difficulties Speaker Nancy Pelosi faces in securing the votes necessary to pass the bill.

I see. Abortion opponents and fiscal conservatives are now “centrists”.

Compared to what? Just how in the hell of American politics are conservatives “centrists”? I guess that makes fiscal moderates actually tax and spend liberals.

But wait, there’s more.

Representative Dennis Cardoza, Democrat of California, typifies the speaker’s challenge. The husband of a family practice doctor, he is intimately familiar with the failings of the American health care system. His wife “comes home every night,” he said, “angry and frustrated at insurance companies denying people coverage they have paid for.

But as a member of the centrist Blue Dog Coalition, Mr. Cardoza is not convinced that Mr. Obama’s bill offers the right prescription. It lacks anti-abortion language he favors, and he does not think it goes far enough in cutting costs. So while he voted for the House version — “with serious reservations,” he said — he is now on the fence.

Cardoza is intimately familiar with the failings of the health care system, but it’s more important to kiss up to the anti-choice crowd. A fetus’ rights take priority over millions of sick and injured Americans. And not going far enough in cutting costs is better than not cutting costs at all, right?

Sounds pretty centrist, eh?

What else do we learn about centrists from the pro-war corporate media?

Representative Frank Kratovil Jr., Democrat of Maryland, is also unconvinced. He voted against the House bill on the grounds that it is too big and too costly — a view that some constituents in his Republican-leaning district share. In case he did not get the message, one of them hanged him in effigy this past summer outside his district office on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

“This system is broken; we have to do something,” Mr. Kratovil said. “But my preference would be to do smaller things.”

Gee, Frank, is it really too big and too costly, or are you just a wee bit terrorized and threatened by your conservative constituents? You don’t have to answer, I understand. I do wonder, though, if our health care system is broken, if it is so vast that it consumes one-sixth of our economy, as our conservatives like to point out; how on God’s green Earth do you fix it with “smaller things”?

This idea of “centrism” we are being fed sure sounds a lot like conservatism to me. Americans are being indoctrinated by very powerful economic forces. The corporatist media and their enablers have been shifting the entire playing field for a long time.

Is it really any wonder, even IF we had a liberal in the White House, the bought-and-paid-for US Government has become such an engine of empire and corporate profiteering?

“Wait a minute”, the conservative mentality speaks out in one more challenge. “You said you can easily show how less than half of the Democrats in Washington are liberal.”

Yes, how could I say such a radical thing? Well, it turns out there was another bit of news in the corporate media this Sunday.

The Associated PressSaturday, February 27, 2010; 9:08 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of several provisions in the nation's main counterterrorism law, the Patriot Act.
Provisions in the measure would have expired on Sunday without Obama's signature Saturday.

The act, which was adopted in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, expands the government's ability to monitor Americans in the name of national security.
Three sections of the Patriot Act that stay in force will:

-Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.
-Allow court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations.
-Permit surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.
Obama's signature comes after the House voted 315 to 97 Thursday to extend the measure.

The Senate also approved the measure, with privacy protections cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them. Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government's authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.

Let’s see. That would be 255 Democrats and 178 Republicans in the House. Even if every “no” vote was by a Democrat, 97 is far less than half no matter how the Senate vote breaks down.

And the Torture Club founders Bybee, Yoo and Cheney remain free men. We are still in Bush/Cheney’s war-loving Neocon “Centrist” America.