Wednesday, November 3, 2010

The Aftermath

Many people work up this morning...or never went to bed last night...with a tremendous sense of doom and dark clouds hanging overhead.

The Tea Party/GOP won.  Some would say it was a necessary rebalancing of power and bringing the legislation back to the middle.  I say it was the result of corporate money and deep seated national hatred of anyone who is not white, anglosaxon, protestant, male, and over sixty-five.

If my dad were alive, he would be deeply angry.  Not that Republicans won, he worked with Republicans like Kit Bond back in the day, who were sane and for the entire country.  No, he would be upset at the setback this tea party movement did for the civil rights of not just black people, but all people.

I have to give it to the GOP/Tea Party, though, they are master as message.  As an adjunct professor of marketing, I wish I was teaching the political marketing course I co-wrote.  There would have been a lot of material for discussion on how they stayed on message from the largest to the smallest election.  They crafted a slogan and stayed with it.  They are a well organized machine, as should they be, since they are shills of CEOs, wall-street and corporate giants who sent millions and millions of jobs overseas.

The thing that gets me the most with the ordinary, primarily white, middle American, is that they so easily believe the "big bad black man boogie man" stories that the WASP/The Family/Pat Buchanan/Rush/Beck started uttering the moment President Obama gained office.

See, in their wanna-be-like-England-discourse, only the "royals" of America deserve to be in the most powerful office of the land.  That is what they were talking about with all their rhetoric about "taking back my country" nonsense.  They weren't angry or upset about the deficit, jobs, or reckless spending under EIGHT YEARS of the previous administration.  No, they were upset that a man born of mixed heritage in the exotic state of Hawaii dared to be President.  They were in collective shock.

Hence, the calls for his birth certificate.  Before the Tea Party were the Birthers.  Then it was that he was a secret Muslim and the "evangelical Christian" drugged state of making everyone "born again" and disputing any religious thought that is not conservative, southern, and American Christian.  Then they tried to attack his wife and daughters, broke protocol during the State-of-the Union address, and just obstructed everything he tried to do - even enacting legislation that was GOP written and inspired.  The health care bill?  That was originally written by Mitt Romney!

It is sickening.

And the thing that is worrisome the most is that the economy is not going to get better in the next year.  Even with the secret millions (did you look at all the money that was spent by the GOP through "secret donors" during this mid-term election?) that are being horded by the CEOS (not the Wall Street record profits in 2010).  They are not for the middle class, labor, or the working man.  They just want power and more power, and more profit.  Even if it means destroying the middle class along the way.

The ones who don't know this are the seniors.  CNN and NPR both reported that it was primarily old white men (over 65) who voted in record numbers.  They never thought they would live to see a black man in office.

And the youth, under 35 stayed home.  They all need a good old fashioned trip out back to pull a switch off the tree.  They will be the ones hurt the most by this mistake.

This election was about power.  The same power that stole land from a native people. The same power that stole people from their native land.  The same power that raped adolescent girls for more property.  The same power that counted man as 3/5ths a human being.  The same power that stripped away language, customs, religion, and families so they could have more product.

I hope people wake up from this bad dream and realize this was racial hatred, pure and simple.  It is not good.

But it is not over.  We have something a generation ago didn't have - the internet, the technology, and our voices.  This happened, it will be analyzed for days, the GOP/Tea Partiers will gloat, the Dems will regroup, and for some, their lives will go on as if nothing happened.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thoughtful dialogue is appreciated.