Once again, the political pendulum has swung. A mental midget has replaced a legislative giant. His knowledge of baseball has qualified him for public office. The politics of ”I’ve-got-mine” matters more than citizenship. A former nude centerfold is the new Republican poster boy. It’s a wonderful life!
Now let us sing ...
I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this. On the one hand, Coakley won her primary in a landslide. Don't know a thing about who her opposition was but the Dems of MA picked their candidate.
ReplyDeleteAs for this being a referendum on healthcare reform, I'm more dubious. Massaschusetts has a state healthcare system that is already superior to what the federal healthcare bill would pass. So from what I"ve heard, the healthcare bill really doesn't apply to them.
I think if anything this election just shows that voters want change, and seats long held by Democrats might go to Republicans and vice versa. People are tired of status quo.
To me it's just another victory for the bullshit machine. Democracy is simply a fraud and becoming more so every day. They can make false true, create history or make it disappear. They can make the starving reject food, the kind reject mercy, the just reject justice and the reasonable reject reason -- all in the name of freedom.
ReplyDeleteAnd they get better at it all the time as we hurl ourselves, smiling, into the abyss.
Someone should tell Scott Brown to enjoy that Senate office while he can. He won't have for long.
ReplyDeleteSoBe, I am not blaming Coakley for the loss (although everyone seems to agree that her campaign was lackluster). I do blame the voters of MA who sent this message: "I've got mine ... so up yours."
ReplyDeleteIf MA did not offer a health insurance plan (superior to the one proposed in Congress), the outcome might have been different. There is no message here ... just greed, self-interest, and a callous disregard for the 47 million who don't have health coverage, and the 44,000 who die each for the lack thereof.
Thus, I reserve my ire, not for the candidate who lost, but for the voters who demonstrated NO CITIZENSHIP whatsoever.
As Captain Fogg says, we are hurling into an abyss ... a moral abyss of self-serving greed and the ingrates who pander to it.
A Boston Globe columnist, Brian McGrory, has a right, IMO, (and sadly humorous) take on the Brown's victory.
ReplyDeleteMass. "exit" polls:
ReplyDeleteMassachusetts voters who backed Barack Obama in the presidential election one year ago and either switched support to Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown, or simply stayed home, said in a poll conducted after the election Tuesday night that if Democrats enact tougher policies on Wall Street, they'll be more likely to come back to the party in the next election.
A majority of Obama voters who switched to Brown said that "Democratic policies were doing more to help Wall Street than Main Street."
A full 95 percent said the economy was important or very important when it came to deciding their vote.
In a somewhat paradoxical finding, a plurality of voters who switched to the Republican -- 37 percent -- said that Democrats were not being "hard enough" in challenging Republican policies.
It would be hard to find a clearer indication, it seems, that Tuesday's vote was cast in protest.
The poll also upends the conventional understanding of health care's role in the election. A plurality of people who switched -- 48 -- and didn't vote -- 43 -- said that they opposed the Senate health care bill. But the poll dug deeper and asked people why they opposed it. Among Brown voters, 23 percent thought it went "too far" -- but 36 percent thought it didn't go far enough; 41 percent said they weren't sure why they opposed it.
For voters who stayed home and opposed health care, a full 53 percent said they opposed the Senate health care bill because it didn't go far enough; 39 percent weren't sure and only eight percent thought it didn't go far enough.
Elizabeth, I have turned off cable news and am staying away from blathering pundits.
ReplyDeleteThe commentary today: Obama not tough enough, too tough, not engaged enough, too much political capital invested, the House should pass the Senate bill, 2-4-6-8 reconciliate, too far left, too far right, too this, too that. Cramer predicted the Dow will go up; the Dow is down ... over 200 points.
Noise, noise, noise.
Time to get drunk and ink the aquarium. Nuff said.
I was most interested in your statement that "The politics of ”I’ve-got-mine” matters more than citizenship."
ReplyDeleteI lived in Massachusetts while I was in graduate school, I found that the spirits of the long-vanished Puritans still hang heavy over the people of that state, with their attitude of exactly what you described here.
Anyone that can remember Ed King, a former Mass. governor who just radiated corruption, or so many other corrupt political figures from that State, like the legendary James Curley, who repeatedly won elections as Boston mayor and Governor despite an endless series of crooked dealings, knows that there is a real perversity in the electorate there that goes back a long way. So I wouldn't make too much of it that they fell for it once again.
Green Eagle: " I found that the spirits of the long-vanished Puritans still hang heavy over the people of that state, with their attitude of exactly what you described here."
ReplyDeleteSome terse verse for your reading pleasure ...
The pilgrims increase
Boasting they are led by peace [grace]
They gut huts with gusto
Pillage villages with verve
War does what she has to
People get what they deserve.
- Henry Cow -
(An Octo note: I would like this ditty even more if one substitutes the phrase "led by peace" with "led by grace" as shown.)