newsforreal.blogspot.com/2005/08/august-1-2005.html
News For Real News With Nuts Tuesday, August 02, 2005 August 1, 2005 It's Over. These days I watch Washington from a safe distance, roughly 3000 miles, g ive or take. No longer tethered to specific story assignments, my field of vision has broadened. Occasionally an individual event is just that, a complete story, the whole picture. But most of the time individual eve nts are clues that lead to a much larger and significant story, or "the big picture." Reporters that have to produce stories like short-order co oks, ("One shallow story on CAFTA to go, hold the details,") more often than not miss the real story of which the their story is merely a fragme nt. Over the weekend a lot of those pieces came together and it occurred to m e that something huge has unfolded right under our noses. It all happened while the Democrats and the media spun their wheels on ho t button issues like the war in Iraq and whether or not Karl Rove will o r will not be frog-walked out of the White House in handcuffs. While we were all otherwise occupied, George W Bush and the neo-conservatives in his party put the final touches on the neo-conservative revolution. Even as Democrats and political pundits rubbed their hands declaring Geor ge W Bush a "lame duck" the important work rolled on: A pro-big energy, energy bill CHA-CHING! A free hand to appoint conservative federal judges CHA-CHING! John Bolton is US Ambassador to the United Nations CHA-CHING! Organized labor, its ranks decimated by a decade of out sourcing, has bec ome a shadow of if former self -- no longer Mohammed Ali but Mike Tyson. Threats to strike that once could force the most powerful companies to the bargaining table, now elicits a shrug. Employers now reply in essenc e, "go ahead, make my day," eager to replace highly-paid union workers w ith cheap affordable generics. Then last week Big Labor the AFL/CIO fractured under the pressure and, while the split may revitalize the lab or movement in the long run, it further cripples in the short term. In Washington neo-con revolutionaries have had similar luck. In fact, for all intents and purpo ses, the Democratic Party now exists only in name. Like the AFL/CIO, Dem ocrats lost their groove years ago. There are the old machine Dems, (Bob Schrum, Hillary, Kerry... Th ey've paid their dues, played their roles in their party's power-pecking order. These princes and princesses of the party worked hard carving ou t their fiefdoms and will not be denied the right of further accession. Then there's ordinary Democrats out here in the real world disgusted by t heir party leaders. I call them the great and growing Democrat Diaspora -- political nomads, homeless, powerless, adrift, in search for who they were or what they are; One by one Democrats lost grip of all the three branches of government, f irst Congress, then the executive branch, and now the judicial branch. B eginning with the GOP's Contract With America, conservatives have slowly , stubbornly and systematically disemboweled the opposition. An ultra-co nservative omelet was on their menu and they were ready to break as many eggs as necessary. While Democrats made jokes about the dim IQ of the newly elected George W . Then th ey went to work chipping away at the anything that empowered ordinary pe ople -- "litigation reform" gutted the power of consumer class action su its against wayward manufacturers and corporate boards. "Bankruptcy refo rms" now protects big banks and credit card companies from bankrupt borr owers who now become virtual dentured debtors, forever tethered to usuri ous lenders. And last month the Patriot Act became a permanent stain on the Bill or Ri ghts. Step by step, piece by critical piece, a non-violent neo-conservative rev olution in slow motion made steady headway. Now the final pieces are rea dy to be cemented in place two Supreme Court appointments. When Chief Justice Rehnquist steps down (or dies,) Bush will promote Associate Justice Antonin Scalia to Chief Justice and fill his empty seat with one of the two neo-conservative women he passed over the first time in favor of Roberts. After that the US Supreme Court will in the neo-conservatives bag for dec ades -- the capstone of the neo-con revolution. After that it matters le ss whether a conservative occupies the Oval Office or if conservatives h old majorities in both houses of congress. The Supreme Court will always be there to reverse any "counter-revolutionary" legislation. Governance in the US will mirror that of Iran where an elected president and legis lature can pass whatever laws they want, but unelected mullahs of the Su preme Council have the final word. When liberals complained that Republican policies benefited the< rich conservatives would shake their heads and cluck how awful it was that Democrats had to resort to "class warfare." Well, the y were right about one thing, there was class warfare being waged, not b y the liberals, but conservatives. Maybe we'll get lucky and discover the neo-cons are right. Maybe progressives like me are just a bunch nervous Nellie, hand wringing girlie-men. Maybe when you let the rich get richer they really will share, use their surplus m oney to create good jobs, pay fair wages, provide affordable healthcare to their employees. I've never seen them do it before, but maybe we just never let them get rich enough. Maybe the neo-cons are also right that bombing the crap out of undemocrat ic countries and occupying them is just the medicine they need. That tel ling the other members of the United Nations they are losers will straig hten them out. And, if behaving like that causes people in other countri es hate us including the ones we are trying to "help," -- well, so be it. That's just another one of those eggs that must be cracked to make a tasty omelet. Maybe supply-side economists are right that "deficits don't matter." And, that financing our mushrooming budget and trade deficits by selling US bonds to China and Japan, is just fine -- borrowed eggs, so to speak. Maybe they are also right when they council that out-sourcing American bl ue and white-collar jobs to cheap-labor countries is good for Americans, that those lost jobs will be replaced as the US transforms into a new " service" economy. Nevertheless, they are going to be calling the shots now for a long, long time. What Democrats curre ntly think is the light at the end of the tunnel come 2008 is just anoth er illusion. Bush will be gone, but his legacy will control our lives fo r decades. Ooops, I almost forgot to mention that in January Federal Reserve Chairma n Alan Greenspan's term ends. And, while he is expected to stay on for a nother six months, sometime in 2006 President Bush will appoint a new Fe d chief too, putting national monetary policy firmly under conservative control as well. Washington Democrats will tell you the worm has turned, that they finally have Rove on the run, that Bush is being dragged down by his war in Ira q, that they have beaten George Bush on Social Security.
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