We The People are getting pissed. Pissed, I tell you!
It's not just Iraq. In fact, although a total muck-up, Iraq is just a symptom of the greater wrong here.
When I grew up, I thought America was great (I still do). I believed a lot of the crap shoved down my throat about the evil Russkies and rah-rah-God-and-Country, and I know there has always been shady, nasty stuff going on at some level, with cover-ups, from when we irradiated residents of Utah with nuclear bomb fallout (seriously, read the book
http://worldcat.org/wcpa/ow/3deb9a6979051e0a.html ), to Watergate, to Iran-Contra, etc.
Regardless, most people in high-level government offices were fundamentally true to their job, and the Constitution, and they held it in high esteem. Congress took its job seriously, most of the time, and we all respected the structure of the government, if not certain people in there. There were abuses, to be sure, like J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy, but as a rule, it worked pretty well.
Over time, the GOP started getting smart. Perhaps craftier would be a better word. They figured out a few things. First they figured out that people only know what the media tell them, so they started working to consolidate the media, build "think tanks" that would issue reports and send spokespeople out into the media. Places like the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, National Center for Policy Analysis and the Center for Tax Studies.
Names like the National Center for Policy Analysis, or the Center for Tax Studies make them sound like neutral organizations, but they are anything but. They sound official, and they get representatives on talk shows - both radio and TV - and write op/ed columns in the paper. It's not a bad strategy - when you get someone advocating some liberal policy, who are you going to believe - some liberal tree-hugger, or a representative from the National Center for Policy Analysis?
The next part is getting their message out. You and I may read DU and listen to NPR, but the average Joe gets up in the morning, drives to work, listens to Imus-in-the-Morning style commentary, mindless crap that just says whatever they think people want to listen to, and never really get any news. The right UNDERSTANDS that. The left does too, but the left likes to feel above all that - we have "discussions" and intelligent debate and make "reasoned arguments". The average Joe or Jane doesn't have the time or interest for that crap, and that's why at one point some 60%+ people thought Saddam had something to do with 9/11. The right understands the power of the echo chamber, and they're not afraid to use it.
Finally, the third capstone in the GOP strategy was understanding that it was important to control the government at every level. It used to be thought that having the Presidency and the Congress was what was needed to control the country. A governorship was nice, but it didn't really affect things at a national level. Not any more. The GOP has figured out that it is important - critical, actually - to have members at every single level of government. No level is too small. You may think a Governor has no influence on national politics, but only until a Senator or Representative from their state dies, then the Governor gets to pick the replacement. GOP Governor = new GOP congresscritter. A GOP Governor gets to pick their Secretary of State, and that never hurts because the Secretary of State is usually in charge of elections. And so it goes for judges, mayors, everyone.
While I don't agree with the GOP policy on, well, nearly everything, I can't help but admire - while still being frightened by - this massive political machine they have assembled. They acquired critical mass about the time of Bill Clinton's impeachment, and have solidified every missing nook and cranny since, which leads us to the last six years of hell.
Unfortunately they have fallen into a trap, not that it will dismantle the machine, but the trap is that by taking full control of the government, the Oval Office, Congress, everything - we all know who to blame. It hadn't been a split party arrangement - GOP White House and Dem Congress. It was GOP all the way. It was hard for them to point fingers - not that they didn't try - because no one was in their way but themselves.
The other thing they probably didn't count on when they started all this was the Internet. The Internet technically has been around a long time - I was sending email to Internet addresses back in 1980, and it really has been around since, I think, 1964 or so. It wasn't email that did them in, it was the Web. The Internet is really the network, and there are different protocols - one for file sharing, one for email, one for newsgroups, and the most revolutionary one was the World Wide Web protocol, unleashed by Tim Berners-Lee and CERN in April of 1993. It needed a little ramp-up time, but relatively little. By 1997 or 1998 the Web was a raging wildfire, and we all know where it is now.
Unfortunately for the GOP, the Web has become an increasingly valuable source of TRUE news (as has Jon Stewart) and has undermined the GOP's ability to keep all of America "on message". We now have alternate forms of information. Thank god for the Internet. Seriously. It's pervasive, ubiquitous, and easily accessed. I seriously doubt we'd have the slightest idea of what was really going on if we didn't have the 'net. And thankfully, it came along at just the right time. Another 10 years, and it would have been too late to help us.
Even better, the tide is turning. This doesn't happen easily, but once it does, watch out. There's now a groundswell of understanding. Slowly but surely the American people are finally figuring out they've been snookered. And Americans don't like to be snookered. We've figured out (although you and I knew it a long time ago) that we've been taken for a ride. Our patriotism has been subverted for un-American reasons. I love the America I knew, but I hate what we've become. However I think we can get back there. People are pissed. We The People want our country back. Enough people now seem to understand we've been used at some level or another, and we don't like it.
The GOP and what they've done is finally being seen for what it is. That said, don't underestimate them. Many of them - particularly at the highest levels - may be amoral, and acting against the Constitution, but they're not idiots (well, maybe one is - we know who that is), and they're so invested in their position now that they have to protect it. Cheney may be untrustworthy, in it for himself, and disrespectful of the Constitution he's sworn to uphold, but he's no idiot. He's a cagey bastard and won't go away easily. There are also some idealogues, and those are just as dangerous, and then there are just your basic toadies like Alberto Gonzales. Leave it to Alberto to make John Ashcroft look like a paragon of virtue.
It's sad what we've become. And yet, I actually can see the light. Nevertheless, I can't understand today's Dems in power. They are our
representatives, not our "leaders", a point made in another thread, and dammit, we want impeachment. We also want out of Iraq, but I understand we've created a situation for which there are no easy answers, so there is no simple solution for Iraq, but dammit, tell me why we can't impeach? If impeachment wasn't created for situations like this, then what the hell is is meant for?
If my son is lucky, when he grows up, the worst he'll have is a staggering debt. Hopefully he'll have a functioning democracy.
Otherwise, the America I knew is gone.
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