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I currently find myself at a loss for which of the two major political parties in the United States currently disgusts me more.[*] The Republicans are evil bastards... but astoundingly effective. Meanwhile, the Democrats, whilst quite the lesser evil, cannot actually manage to get anything done anymore. Despite holding both houses of Congress and the Presidency. Oi! With significantly slimmer majorities -- including a 50/50 tie in the Senate -- the Shrub was able to accomplish far more with far less effort.
Honestly, I am utterly astounded at the fact that a Republican minority can hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to giving more money to billionaires. Cuts that, I might add, are favoured by a majority of Congress and, according to polls, the public. Amazingly enough, they can even do this all whilst loudly proclaiming themselves to be fiscally responsible deficit hawks. Indeed, the audacity of the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, blew me away when, after defending tax cuts for billionaires, he then goes on to talk about what spending cuts will be needed to offset the cost of extending federal unemployment benefits!
Honestly, people voted for these jokers? I find it difficult to even take them seriously!
Yet somehow, after creating a major recessions with their economic policies, these are the people being brought back to power. I certainly don't want them to have it, though goodness knows that the Democrats sure don't deserve it because they don't have a clue how to use it! Unable to pass popular legislation with double majorities? Incompetent. Not to mention being stupid enough to wait until after the midterm elections to even tackle an issue that could have easily won them political credit going into the midterms. Imbeciles!
Considering the current political landscape in the United States, I find that lines from the poem The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats spring readily to mind:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Not that the Democrats are "best" in most things... but at least in the context of a two-party legislature they are. Leave it to the US Congress to remind me how good, relatively speaking, things in the UK still are -- even with the accursed Tories doing their best to run everything into the ground.
As things fall apart, I can only hope that another of Yeats's predictions from the same work will soon come true: "...anarchy is loosed upon the world..."
[*] As an Anarchist, of course, I strongly disapprove of the entirety of the US political structure and would dearly like to see it overthrown. That said, for the purposes of this post, I am accepting said structure as the reality of 2010.
[ETA: I love Paul Krugman! I really really do! His editorial on the above sums up exactly what I have been hoping against hope will end up happening. Thank you, Paul! I want to marry you and have your babies! Seriously, why is this man -- a Nobel Economics Laureate, no less -- not the Secretary of the Treasury??]
Honestly, I am utterly astounded at the fact that a Republican minority can hold tax cuts for the middle class hostage to giving more money to billionaires. Cuts that, I might add, are favoured by a majority of Congress and, according to polls, the public. Amazingly enough, they can even do this all whilst loudly proclaiming themselves to be fiscally responsible deficit hawks. Indeed, the audacity of the Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, blew me away when, after defending tax cuts for billionaires, he then goes on to talk about what spending cuts will be needed to offset the cost of extending federal unemployment benefits!
Honestly, people voted for these jokers? I find it difficult to even take them seriously!
Yet somehow, after creating a major recessions with their economic policies, these are the people being brought back to power. I certainly don't want them to have it, though goodness knows that the Democrats sure don't deserve it because they don't have a clue how to use it! Unable to pass popular legislation with double majorities? Incompetent. Not to mention being stupid enough to wait until after the midterm elections to even tackle an issue that could have easily won them political credit going into the midterms. Imbeciles!
Considering the current political landscape in the United States, I find that lines from the poem The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats spring readily to mind:
Are full of passionate intensity.
Not that the Democrats are "best" in most things... but at least in the context of a two-party legislature they are. Leave it to the US Congress to remind me how good, relatively speaking, things in the UK still are -- even with the accursed Tories doing their best to run everything into the ground.
As things fall apart, I can only hope that another of Yeats's predictions from the same work will soon come true: "...anarchy is loosed upon the world..."
[*] As an Anarchist, of course, I strongly disapprove of the entirety of the US political structure and would dearly like to see it overthrown. That said, for the purposes of this post, I am accepting said structure as the reality of 2010.
[ETA: I love Paul Krugman! I really really do! His editorial on the above sums up exactly what I have been hoping against hope will end up happening. Thank you, Paul! I want to marry you and have your babies! Seriously, why is this man -- a Nobel Economics Laureate, no less -- not the Secretary of the Treasury??]
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