Making America Safe for the Sheeple

[bain_sidhe]

Cross-posted on both my blog-that-nobody-reads and on my Daily Kos diary-that-nobody-reads

Ok, I’ve finally had to come to terms with the real reason for my disappointment with The Deal. I struggled to define it last night. I struggled to deny it this morning. But my inner radical wasn’t buying any of it. Here's the real source of my disappointment: What this deal does is confirm the belief by the non-extremist wing of the Republican party that it’s ok to keep voting for Republicans, even if they are extremists, because “the system” or “the moderates” or the somebody will prevent the extremists from going too far.

Guess what? Today, they have every reason to believe they’re right. They’re "safe" from having to suffer the consequences of their votes for extremists. The problem is, I don’t think they - or we - will continue to be safe. I think the Republican “moderates” just saved the village in order to destroy it - but later, and in the dark of night when nobody’s watching. Or, at least, when nobody can stop them.

Perhaps a better analogy would be the “boiling frog” parable - the water’s getting mighty warm, but the non-extremists are still too comfortable to jump out of the pot. And this deal helps keep them sitting right there, as the water just keeps getting hotter.

The rational, responsible part of me realizes that this is the same, twisted, destructive argument that I so despised when I heard it from the Naderites in 2000 - that things will have to get much worse before they can get better. That the American people will have to be really hurting before they’ll wake up and stop enabling the theocrat-feudalist-fascist alliance by voting for the extremists who support their rapacious, reprehensible reich-wing agenda. But my inner radical looks at the 2002 and 2004 elections and wonders whether the Naderites were right.

The rational, responsible part of me realizes that preserving the option of filibustering extremist Supreme Court nominees is more important for the country, in the long run, than making the non-extremist Republicans aware that their votes for extremists are putting that country in danger. But my inner radical looks again at the 2002 and 2004 elections and sees the same sense of “safety” preventing us from re-taking the Senate in the 2006 elections.

The rational, responsible part of me sees that, even with this “rescue,” some non-extremist Republicans are beginning to realize that continuing to vote for extremists means that the “system” or the “moderates” or the “somebodies” might not always be able to prevent the extremists from going too far. The best example of this right now is that western Republican environmentalists are beginning to realize that “the government” (meaning the regulatory agencies they profess to hate) will no longer prevent the polluters from going too far. But my inner radical looks at the west and sees that, in 2004 - after some of the worst assualts on the environment since the Watt era - it still remains a solid block of “red” on the political map.

So, the non-extremists are saved again. As long as we continue to save them from the consequences of their actions (or non-action, in the case of non-voters), we simply justify their belief that “the system” will continue to save them from themselves. Right up until the point at which the extremists have enough power to prevent the system from “saving” them ever again.

No, I don’t want to see “Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown” or “Supreme Court Justice James Dobson.” The rational, responsible part of me realizes that preventing those horrors is a “deal” worthy of my support.

But my inner radical wails, “what the hell is it going to take to wake these people up???

Hush, now, it’s all right. Nothing bad is going to happen. Go back to sleep…