Dog Days: Prelude To The Silly Season

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

It was a spectacularly dysfunctional week in Washington, D.C., and everywhere else if the news is accurate. It can be summed up by the 72-hour ‘humanitarian’ lull in Israeli/Palestinian violence that lasted less than four hours. “Feel good” stories were limited to cute critters and babies found on YouTube, providing temporary respite from death tolls, disturbing results of climate studies, and fears of deadly pestilence on the move. (I’m providing a few links to the former — Google if you’re interested in the latter.) One can be forgiven for looking the other way, declaring a news fast, which is the politically correct term for avoidance.

Establishment politics did as it has accustomed the public to expect from it this week, spending taxpayer money to muddy up the waters and waste time. The Republican House behaved in dependably myopic fashion, insisting that the American people can no longer tolerate the tyranny of Barack Obama and his lawlessness, voting to sue him for overstepping his authority to regulate the Affordable Care Act, legislation they themselves have voted more than 50 times to kill off. While not much is expected to come of it, it’s the principle of the thing, according to John Boehner, who was busy tanning and drinking Merlot when George W. Bush mangled more American principle than any American leader before, or after.

As Jon Stewart illustrates nicely, Obama’s tweaking the ACA is just an echo of Dubya doing same for Medicare Part D, so going after Obama with a lawsuit is the equivalent of having a snit and pointing fingers. And using executive privilege puts the Prez in the catbird seat, at least as far as mainstream Republicans see it. The irony of expecting Obama to use his unilateral power to deal with things they choose not to — like, for instance, immigration issues and even, as was suggested by the Supreme Court in regard to contraception, the ACA — while suing him for doing so, is not lost on them. Frankly, this is one of the few times I’ve seen this party acknowledge its own tendency to hypocrisy (and, to be sure, few members, if any, would explain it in those terms).

Unwilling to give Obama the money he wants for the border crisis, House Republicans attempted — and failed — to pass an emergency bill that was pocket change compared to what had been requested. This left them with only Friday to pass something substantive before they leave for their three-week summer holiday. This again reveals the inner schism of ‘zero government’ Tea Party types who continue to threaten any traditional conservatism. As moderate Pub Representative from Pennsylvania, Charlie Dent told the New York Times:

“You have people on our side of the aisle who go through all sorts of contortions to get to ‘no’. On the Democratic side, they’ll vote for the money but not for the policy changes. In my party, we’ll vote for the policy changes but not the money to implement the policy. This is extraordinarily frustrating and infuriating for people like me. We have a crisis on our hands.”

Since John Boehner can’t get his housecats herded together to produce an acceptable plan, they seem to have settled on an unacceptable version that offers $694 million, along with stringent new laws regarding undocumented children already in the nation, not to mention additional funding for those gubernatorial patriots (Hey, Rick Perry!) who have ordered the national guard to the border to defend against hordes of little kids surrendering with their hands up.

This has little chance of being approved by the Senate or, should it be passed along, signed by the President. If you need further proof of the bill’s partisan qualities, just know it was enthusiastically approved by Michele Bachmann and that by the time you read this, the majority of Representatives will likely be on planes headed back home to tell their constituents they did everything they could to stop the dangerous, unwashed (and underage) hordes from infiltrating our borders.

(UPDATE: As of late afternoon on Friday, the entire vote had been scrapped by the GOP, which leaves those of us invested in humanistic solutions to the border problem a window of time to convince the administration that these children are political refugees, worthy of U.S. protection. Meanwhile, the crisis continues unaddressed.)

This is the typical two-steps-backwards and one-to-the-side that we’ve become accustomed to, in terms of accomplishing any national goals. Pub inability to produce anything reasonable when discussing brown people was about as predictable as the fact that Eric Cantor has only shown up to work a couple of times since being primaried last month and has now announced he’ll be bailing out early (mid-month). Sounds like the former Republican Young Gun’s fuck-’em-if-they-can’t-take-a-joke statement to the party that lifted him into prominence and then dropped him like a hot rock when he wasn’t extreme enough to suit their current palate.

So, looking for the pony in the horseshit, once again the GOP has proven itself hostile to a demographic that could provide them the presidency, well into the foreseeable future, but remain stubbornly unwilling to address the humanitarian crisis that confronts us. In other good news, on the home front your political leadership will be on their native turf for awhile — in proximity to those who want their ear — and holding meet-ups with their constituents. You might take that opportunity to have a go at them in a town meeting. I’m not much on confrontation, but when people collect six figures to NOT work, spend tax dollars on worthless legislation, and regularly try to shift blame onto somebody else, I can rise to the occasion.

I recently wrote about a ‘Talking Post’ event, where my Tea Party representative’s representative listened to her constituents (six of us showed up), promising to pass the information along. My rep appears no more reasonable in her opinion for my effort, but I did get a call from her D.C. office the other day, thanking me for my thoughts on some petition I’d signed. I have been, at minimum, entered into her “active” file. And although that probably means next to nothing, at least she’s aware that people other than the faithful are watching every move she makes. I think that’s a good message to send, considering how much some of these people are fawned over by locals (and where their wacky internal meme that they ‘speak for the American people’ is groomed and bolstered).

So now we will have a few weeks of quiet from the halls of Congress while we gather ourselves for the partisan push that will hit in September, if not sooner. If we hearken back a bit, remembering the events of last mid-term, we were just pulling ourselves out of a fiscal hole that threatened to shake the world, limping along with fortunes lost, homes snatched away, and jobs as scarce as hen’s teeth. Yes, many of us were still stunned, most of us disheartened and afraid for the future. All that discontent made the public putty in the hands of Glenn Beck and his crowd of crazies, freshly incensed over the few big changes that actually made it through the legislature to become law.

Because the party faithful on the right turn out in droves for the mid-terms, while Dems traditionally do not — and tragically, since 2010 was also the census year — the Pubs took the House along with the ability to gerrymander voting districts (based on population) with the sure and artful hand of an Origami master. You might remember that Dennis Kucinich’s district was dissolved altogether, forcing him to run against a popular favorite in an already established district and losing, while other districts were twisted like pretzels, some running invisible boundaries through lakes in order to strengthen Republican political clout.

Because of that, it will be 2020 before we are able to redraw those districts and reestablish parity between cities and rural areas, between parties (and only if we’ve learned our lesson to get out the progressive vote). In the last election, the Dems received over a million more votes than did the Pubs, but because of the way the rules were drawn, conservatives continue to reign supreme over the nation’s purse. We’re now faced with the possibility that the Senate could lose a few seats and fall into Republican hands, which would be disastrous to the few pieces of legislation we’ve managed to put through for the public good in the last six years — and even worse, in terms of what Pubs imagine the nation to be.

Think about those BIG issues that dog us, the ones that come down to ethical absolutes like income inequality, environmental issues, predatory capitalism and cultural wrangles like Roe v. Wade and gun law. Then think back to how it was when Bush was in place, every piece of legislation an assault on public protections, regulations, and commonwealth, and you’ll have that projection. Obama would have the power of the veto for another two years, but — like our Missouri governor here in the Pea Patch, facing down a state legislature of wackadoodles and zealots (remember, Aiken was ours!) and forced to issue 33 vetoes and 120 budgetary line-item changes this year alone — that doesn’t leave a legacy of anything but rescue from leaping into the abyss with the lemmings. The possibility of losing the ability to stop the Ayn Randian crowd from winning the day and the ensuing political season makes another two years of deadlock look downright attractive!

I know, I know. This doesn’t address the spying, the drones, the trade agreements, the supply of American weapons going out across the world or CIA involvement in everybody’s business but their own. It doesn’t stop drilling on the Atlantic coast, the militarization of our police force or the flood of HUGE money being thrown like a ‘cashnado’ into the PACs and political races, causing our elected officials to beg US for $3.00 here and $5.00 there as if money were the only thing that mattered in our political discourse. And perhaps from their point of view money IS all that matters, which defines our dysfunction completely.

Still, here’s the thing: there is a bit of political posturing going on over the lawsuit the Pubs have approved, whispers that it is just a precursor to the ‘whole enchilada’ of pending impeachment. Boehner has called that ridiculous, insinuating that the topic is a ploy used by Dems to activate their base and raise money. The problem is that the Tea Party doesn’t think it’s ridiculous, even those who have been recently sobered by discipline from the traditional GOP.

In fact, the Tea Party candidates running on the right, attempting to primary Pubs currently serving, are promising that, if elected, their first priority will be impeachment of the interloper in the Oval Office for “high crimes and misdemeanors.” They’re serious as a heart attack and by now, those of us who fancy ourselves part of the reality-based community should have learned that just because something is untrue, fictional and seemingly insane doesn’t mean it won’t catch fire and singe our fingers unless we stamp it out quickly. Those who remember the Monica years will attest that, given the template of the past, should the Senate turn red in November, and especially at a time when every bit of governance is urgent, nothing will be allowed to interfere with the Pubs’ ‘moral outrage’ at the object of their displeasure, i.e., the black guy in the Oval.

So, while we can’t breathe easily on an international level, Lord knows, we have a few weeks to gather ourselves as D.C. goes dark. And one of the most important things we can do, in terms of homegrown progressivism, is talk to the young folks in our lives, those who feel disenfranchised from government and don’t consider themselves part of the political equation. If we had recognized how critical the mid-terms in 2010 were and given them as much energy as the presidential campaign, the national picture would look differently today. If we fail to do so this time around, we will truly regret it. We need to turn out the vote, to lay blame for obstruction where it belongs and make clear to those who seem disinterested just how much mayhem can follow their turning away from the price of citizenship.

Being critical of government is more than reasonable when we see so much wrong with our political policy and failing systems, but refusing to value what is valuable is sheer folly. Our right to vote remains our most valuable — and just about last — tool as citizens. Thanks to the Supreme Court and its fantasy that voting rights no longer require national protection, red states have already passed laws making voting much more problematic to those that traditionally vote blue. While the nation itself is more blue than red, and the big issues of the day have more progressive support than conservative, the nation still finds itself held captive to not just a silly season of political posturing from now until November, but the whims of an extreme ideology and its self-serving politicians. Each of us who can help must examine our own conscience to see if we’re doing all we can for our common good and future.

We have a bit of time, a traditionally lazy August ahead that — given the gathering Leo energies — could provide us with creative ideas and enthusiasm for seeing them put into action. We know that coming together makes us stronger, that caring for one another opens not just our own hearts but helps mend the heart of a nation in pain. I remember a time when we could leave government policies to those elected to govern, could entrust the future to wiser heads we’d elected to lead us. Those days are gone.

We are all citizen patriots, every cent we spend representative of our ethics, every decision we make co-creating our future for the good of ourselves and our brothers and sisters, as well. This is the time to put aside the childishness of ego-driven polarity, working from our heart-chakra to combat the mental storms that pit us against one another. As grown-ups will affirm, even the little things that amuse and distract us — like this and this — require us to assume responsibility. That’s what adults do, it’s what’s on our plates right now, and that’s what we must accomplish as the Dog Days of Summer turn to Fall.