Presidential choices: a waste vs. a wasteland part II.

 

 

 

There can be no arguing that Barrack Obama's first four years in office has been a waste. The same kind of waste that was predictable given his previous 11 years of elected office in which he accomplished absolutely nothing. Given the super majorities Obama had in congress in his first two years he could have accomplished anything he wanted. Instead he accomplished what he has always accomplished as an elected official - nothing. And that nothing is the single biggest reason Democrats lost their super majorities and in fact, any majority in the House.

 What could have been his legacy, a public health insurance option and real health care reform the most important piece of legislation since the Civil Rights Act in 1964, was sold out to health insurance lobbyists. In its place was Obamacare which every Democratic senator, 55 of whom publicly pledged to vote for a public option had it been brought to the senate floor, could only call "better than nothing". Nancy Pelosi, who was instrumental in engineering a dishonest 2008 Democratic primary season and DNC convention to give Obama the nomination, had to use a broomstick to whack Democratic members of the House over the head to get them to vote for Obamacare since most of them said they would not vote for any healthcare reform bill that didn't contain a public option. The list goes on and on.

 But the other choice is Romney and a Republican party which, if it had its way, would turn the country into a wasteland.

 If the country was divided into two countries -- red state and blue state, Blue State America would now be living in economic prosperity, buoyed by the multi trillion dollar surplus left by Bill Clinton, a balanced budget and a zero deficit. Unemployment would be low. There would be enough money to take care of any contingency. There would have been no 911 attack since it was Bush and the Republicans who dismissed terrorism as a real threat prior to the attack. The cost to the country in lives, way of life and trillions in economic resources including the war in Iraq, a war the country was lied into, are costs that are all the result of Republican ideology.( It is still a fact that Bush and the Republicans were the first and only government in American history to take the country to war --   an unncessary one -- and cut taxes at the same time. That did more damage to the country and the economy than anything Al-Qaeda was able to do.)

 Conversely, unlike Blue State America, Red State America under Republican conservative ideology would look like and function like a third world country. The education system under Red State America conservative ideology would be a mess. Like Texas who dropped Thomas Jefferson from their school curriculum because Jefferson's contempt for the church made it impossible for Texas to teach their students the country was founded on Christian values and principles. Red State students would know nothing of the philosophy of the man who authored the Declaration of Independence. Red State students,unfettered by liberal challenges,  would have a school system that taught creationism over evolution, and curriculums would be based on political and social beliefs and propaganda as in many middle eastern countries. Their schools would also be choked with 50 students or more to a class in order to accommodate tax cuts resulting in fewer teachers and lower teacher salaries as they want to do in Wisconsin.. The overall result would be Red State America students with inferior educations making them unable to compete globally.

 While the economy of Red State America governed by conservative Republican principles would be choking on enormous deficits, high unemployment and soaring inflation, they would be without most government services ( like Departments of Education and Departments of Transportation that conservatives want to do away with)  because they would no longer exist. There would be no FEMA so any natural disaster like Katrina, the wild fires in Texas or a disaster like Hurricane Sandy hitting Red State America would put them in a position of having to depend on the charity of other nations to help them through.

 In Red State America, governed by economic policies that have  already caused the worst economic crisis since the Depression, the differences between the assets of the wealthy vs. the middle class would deepen the divide and make Red State America no different than a banana republic.

 Socially, with abortion outlawed for the last 20 years because it is condemned by a church that Jefferson, Adams, Paine and other Founders wanted to insure never had an official say in the government of the United States, thousands if not tens of thousands of unwanted children, many of whom uncared for, some the result of rape that Indiana senate candidate Richard Mourdock thinks is a "gift",  would grow up without love, guidance or a good education with many ending up roaming the streets and resorting to crime. Under conservative Republican policies Red State America would lead the western world in prisons built and people incarcerated and have the biggest drug problem in the western world, putting another huge drain on the already depleted financial resources of a Red State America government. In Red State America, building more prisons, yes, schools no.

 With conservative ideology at the forefront, Red State America would be a society where the idea of "right to life" ends at birth since these are the same people who during a Republican presidential debate  cheered the idea of letting someone who couldn't afford health insurance simply die.

 This is what the country would be like under a strictly conservative Republican government, a government put in place by people who call themselves "values voters',  but whose values are filled with hypocrisy and predicated on what they don't want other people to have. Values rejected by most in Blue State America, and most of the western world as well and "values" that were anathemas to the Founders of the country.

This is what a Red State America would be like and the best reason to vote against and reject Romney and the Republicans and the damage they would cause in every area of American life.

 The unkindest cut of all for Romney and the most telling, is that in Salt Lake City, the heart of Mormonism, the Salt Lake City Tribune today, Sunday, endorsed Obama and called Romney "shameless" in his embrace of right wing Republican conservative ideology which they said would be bad for the country.

That the polls show a close election is a testament to the almost universal distaste among Democrats and Democratic voters for Obama's personal failures and weakness as president. It's also a the result of the underhanded tactics used by Pelosi, Donna Brazille and others in the DNC and the press who wanted to insure they gave the nomination to Obama in the first place without his having honestly earned it.

But that said, while Obama has been a waste as a president for what he could have accomplished and didn't, a man who may not accomplish much in the future ( unless Democrats regain control of congress and force Obama to actually do something) the alternative is a Republican wasteland based on values that are and always have been anathema to the country and those who founded it, values that former Supreme Court justice and Republican Sandra Day O'Connor said was " destroying the country" and would make even worse the kind of damage Republicans have already caused.