The Paxton Pundit - by Stacey Youdin

Gobbled Up

For a boy who cries wolf, so the tale goes, there eventually comes a time when the truth is not believed. If 2008 is to be a pivotal election, the thirty some odd years of Republican propaganda must have a challenger. For if the wolf really is at the gate, how would we know in time, having been fooled so many times?

If you don't confuse the 'elitist' label applied to progressive thinkers who cherish a more equitable America with the actual elites who do things like meet in secret oil summits with our vice president, impact the economy with shadowy, private equity funds and such, then it would have become clear by now what their goals are and how ordinary people's concerns have mysteriously gone from enlightened self interest to the interests of hidden persuaders.

Throw your conflict theory textbook out the window. This is the age of "Romney-On, apply directly to the forehead."

There is a percentage of Democrats which is possessed of a certain pragmatism. I've even read of it described as rationalism, though I think it derives less from the intellect and more from unreasoning fears.

The net effect of so much dominance over the framing of issues (the Republicans' well practiced craft) is a kind of stringing along. Like a battered housewife, we look for the phrase that reassures us that things aren't as bad as we thought. Each new load of bull chips builds on the successful inculcation of the last.

Let's take just one old mainstay of the machine and follow it from a head half cocked president who said "well" a lot up to the present. The Democrats believe the solution to everything is to raise your taxes. Beginning with so-called Reagan Democrats, this perception has proven to have had legs.

The truth turns out to resemble the differences in people we all know. Some people go to the ATM and keep a little walking around money for newspapers and a lunch. They only use the credit card for select transactions. If funds are low in the bank account, they might put some things off or readjust. They pay off each month's balance.

Other people flash the card at every whim, failing to understand the spending part, and scrape enough together each month to keep the privilege a little longer. When the fees and fine print have taken their toll, it's like having bought one and a half of everything. Later eventually becomes now.

So while Democrats push for the worthwhile, though it does involve spending, the Republicans have been coughing up the tautology that that would be spending your (bottom dweller on the conflict theory pyramid) tax dollars.

The lie to this chestnut has been put by the increase in the national debt which Republicans evidently favor, first under Reagan who was no slouch and now by Dubbya & Co., world champs.

See how programs have been cut which safeguard consumers and protect the environment, while privatization schemes bordering on graft abound.

But they're not on the current accounts payable ledger - that's the big difference. The spending nonetheless has taken place, whether the funds came from the money clip or the plastic card. And to think the Everett Dirkson quote was about billions.

Joshua Holland wrote a piece, Friday, called "The Primary Point of the Occupation of Iraq is the Occupation Itself." He begins with Jeffrey Feldman's post at the Huffington blog, wherein the author posits a new logic. Instead of troops, leaving, creating a vacuum for God knows what all (the latest rationale for staying), he uses Basra to make the point that "troops leave, violence drops."

The history is well documented: every time the need arose for justifying continuing the occupation, the sky would inevitably be falling. Each time, it caught the Democrats up in more and more of this pragmatic rationalism.

Holland writes: "In even a nominal democracy, no policy as serious as an unprovoked attack of a defenseless country like Iraq happens with just one constituency pushing for it. And all the various goals that originally motivated different constituencies to push for the attack -- whether it was opening the Iraqi economy to foreign investment, selling the DoD gazillions of dollars in military hardware, securing our energy supply chain, compensating for the loss of military bases in Saudi Arabia, taking out a supposed threat to Israel, etc., -- they're all still as relevant today as they were in 2003. In some cases, even more so...

"Progressives need to grasp the simple fact that we didn't invade Iraq to bring peace or stability or democracy to the Iraqi people -- we invaded to advance what are known, I think euphemistically, as 'U.S. interests' -- and we're not staying for any other reason."

If a long overdue, pivotal election is in the cards, the first sign will be a Democratic candidate who will take on expert marketing and repetition, the tools of the trade for the opposition.

Howard Dean used to use the phrase "take back the White House" (even screamed it one time) but it had kind of a Raoul Castro ring to it. Surely there's a happy medium between froth and cozying up to the American people in the style to which they never should have become accustomed.

Cutting taxes while increasing total spending to the tune of carrying half a trillion or more in debt each year - does tax and spend Democrat cover you any more? Really?

You're forcing upon the as yet unborn to bear today's financial obligation. Isn't there a catchy phrase for that. How about generation-a-cide.

Compared to that, class warfare, whether you want to label it Marxist or Jeffersonian, Paulian or Gravelian, doesn't seem so inappropriate for the times. Think less Robespierre, more F.D.R.

If the eventual Democratic nominee gives the ingrained Republican talking points credit where none is due or tries to one-up them with more of the same back at them, then it will not be a pivotal election. The opportunities to combat tomorrow's loaded questions from the media are being gobbled up faster than Thursday's leftovers.

Next week: Go Shopping

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