Eight years of tragically flawed legislation, thousands dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, a broken economy, a fearful, mistrustful and intellectually hobbled citizenry: these are the fruits of Republican leadership.
And yet they would have us endure more of the same.
Make no mistake: we feel the impact of that ideology every moment. From the social division fomented by not-so-subtly coded race-baiting to the fractious, pointless "debates" and loudly bleated false comparisons, to the almost total co-opting of the media to craft insidious messages in order to tenderize and manipulate the skittish masses. The right wing has wreaked its blatant brand of havoc over the body politic with a ferocity that bespeaks both the desperation and the danger of a cornered crooked creed.
And yet they would have us endure more of the same.
Government has never been a perfectly effective entity but it has never been this besieged by those hell-bent on its misappropriation. A majority of congressmen should wear patches bearing the names of their corporate sponsors; instead of R or D before their names, chyrons of their special interest affiliations, complete with slick logos, should travel across the TV screen underneath.
But those members of Congress (like many of their neglected constituents) who do not abide by such corruptions yet are nevertheless prevented from doing the work an American citizen needs to do to enjoy the level of liberty and security promised by the Founders (men infinitely more informed and considerate than their modern right wing counterparts) are engaged in a constant struggle to disengage the teeth of their attackers from their ankles...and necks.
And yet they would have us endure more of the same.
Forget the hapless, hopeless robots who parrot their masters' commands; they are lost and really have no effect as they, too, are pawns in the game: walking, clucking Weapons of Moronic Distraction. The solution to this is to reactivate the one resource people have at their disposal: their vote.
Say what you will about the mercenary greed of Diebold, the Supreme Court's granting corporations unlimited access to funding electoral candidates and the variety of other underhanded shenanigans which accompany our flawed election process. These can be overcome by sheer force of numbers, squashed in the end by the collective wisdom of the true patriots, the people who resist the pull of a corrupted media, corrupted religion, corrupted political system, all of which make up a true axis of evil.
And yet, the world the Republicans would offer is one filled with hypocrisy, the broken and the dead.
Hyperbole? Not for the families of lost American soldiers nor the decimated dreams of Iraqi civilians; not for the people who've lost their homes and investments to the profligate schemes of the greed obsessed; not for the victims of the libertarian myth which leaves a family to watch its home burn while privatized fire fighters stand idle (privatized the same way that Social Security wold be under Republican rule). The shame of the right is that they have no shame.
And yet this is the America they would have us endure.
Once again, the battle is met. Ignorance must be fought with wisdom, propaganda with truth. The election of Barack Obama was only a first example of a wise people tired of the farce of hollow right wing bromides and bullying, motivated by hope, the first battle against all that has slowed progress to a groaning stand-still. The time to civilly engage the charlatans is now passed. It is time for action.
Lest we cease to endure.