Republicans (originally posted 11/18/2008)

In self-penned liner notes on his second album "I Ain't Marching Anymore" (1965), folksinger Phil Ochs wrote, "A century from now, intelligent men will read in amazement about the murder of Caryl Chessman and wonder what excuse for a society flourished in these times" to introduce a didactic anti-capital punishment song titled Iron Lady. Well, I don't know about that- putting people to death for various transgressions has been a time-honored tradition for thousands of years (Hammurabi's Code, the Holy Bible) and, 43 years after Ochs's recording (a much more upbeat anti-capital punishment song is Ochs's Paul Crump, recorded earlier), a significant segment of the American population is still fairly comfortable with a murderer getting his/her just desserts (Jesus, it may be recalled, saved an adulterer from being stoned to death. No similar passage was cited of Jesus rescuing a murderer from death. Now THAT would have been a revolutionary teaching!) However, while I believe society will still be sanguine about capital punishment 57 years from now, I hope that, "a century from now, intelligent (people) will read in amazement" that today's version of the Republican party could win Presidential elections and, even in a "landslide" loss such as 2008, could still earn over 55 million popular votes (are there THAT many people with incomes over $250,000?) For, although the leaders of and the money behind the Republican party have the interests of a very small subset of the population at heart, a large segment of the population gets duped into voting for this evil force come Election Day.

Clearly, the true Republican party platform, regardless of their campaign slogans and feigned empathy, is to foster an economic environment favoring the rich. Do not be fooled by the collapsing stock market- oil companies are turning record profits, CEO salaries and bonuses are as huge as ever, and sports teams are as valuable as ever. Of course, unemployment is rising, 401Ks are devalued, the deficit is increasing, and this affects the well-to-do how? If profits are down (NOT losses, mind you, just not as staggering an amount of profits from quarter-to-quarter) or stock prices are sinking (an occurence based upon perception, not upon actual capital), the powers-that-be cut costs not by reducing the salary ratio between CEOs and employees, but by slashing benefits, salaries, and bonuses, or by eliminating jobs entirely. And, yet, middle- and lower-class people still vote for a party quite content with these developments.

What's almost as odious about the Republicans are the conventions they hold once every four years. No, not just the us-against-them tone of all of the speeches or the facade about caring for all Americans. No, I'm talking about the video that invariably gets played every four years highlighting the grand tradition of the G.O.P. by showing past Republican commander-in-chiefs, as if to suggest that, say, John McCain, George W. Bush, et al, have some tangible lineage to past Republican presidents. The video usually first shows the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln. Well, all of Lincoln's decisions as president, first-and-foremost, were meant to reunite the country, hardly a paradigm for the divisive campaigns and policies of the most recent Republican politicians. Lincoln was in favor of the separation of Church and State and favored a progressive tax. Also, Lincoln crafted the Emancipation Proclamation, still the greatest Civil Rights initiative in U.S. history. (After signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the second greatest Civil Rights initiative in our history, LBJ told an aide "We (meaning the Democratic party) have lost the South for a generation." The Southern bigots flocked to the Republican party, where they reside to this day.) So, no dice on Honest Abe.

The next president invoked is typically Theodore Roosevelt, a shining example of the supposed Republican belief in the rugged individualism Republicans use as an excuse to widen the gulf between rich and poor. However, although TR was indeed a unique individual, many of his policies are decidely-at-odds with today's right-wing. Yes, his hunting expeditions and the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine fall-in-line with, say, the Bush-Cheney group. However, Roosevelt was also a regulator whose anti-trust measures, support for child labor laws, and support for the Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts of 1906, plus his creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903, were progressive and decidely anti-big business (but NOT anti-Capitalist). One could imagine a Rush Limbaugh prototype, if radio was around back then, disclaiming how any one of these measures would be disastrous to the economy because it would raise the costs of doing business (at least Sean Hannity sounds like he can barely keep a straight face when he regurgitates the Republican supply side s---). Even more impressive and anti-today's Republican ("drill, drill, drill!") was his preservation of over 200 million acres of forestland from development. Yes, a Republican made conservation a priority. (Oh, irony!)

The election of Democrat Barack Obama is encouraging. However, after the Republican convention in Minnesota earlier this year, reputable polls had the Presidential race within the margin-of-error, and it took an economic crisis for the country to turn Democratic, as it did during the 1932 and 1992 elections. However, after Bill Clinton left the country in 2000 with the largest budget surplus in U.S. history, the country rewarded this achievement by voting Republican in that year's Presidential election, and I have no doubt the country will do the same in the future.