POLITICS-You know the drill, and Einstein's quote: Insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. You know, dogged adherence to party over country, telling the majority to go "stuff it" while marching to your own beat (and living in your own universe) and calling that same majority "crazy"? Well, maybe those proclaiming the rest of us crazy will discover that such "crazy-talk" is a dog that just won't hunt:
1) So congrats to the President and the Democrat-first-American-second Senate minority, and their cunning, gushing, and fawning media supporters for ramming a financial giveaway and treaty down the throats of an opposing American majority to arguably one of the most dangerous nations on earth: Iran.
And after enduring Iranian weapons and forces killing our troops in Iraq, and opposing them in Yemen and seeing them kill our allies in Egypt and Israel, we're supposed to pretend that WE are crazy, and that the ayatollahs running Iran aren't crazy?
(And it's not like President Obama has ever called for that theocracy to be replaced by a secular democracy.)
Again, congrats ... and now those Democrats in the Senate who gave the middle finger to their constituencies (including most Democrats, especially those who've ever picked up a history book) own this stinking bowl of excrement that we're supposed to all swallow and smile about.
A treaty with all sorts of hidden details that probably no one has read or knows about about, with lots of surprises that we'll only learn after it's passed? Hmmm...where have we heard that one before?
And from the most transparent Presidency in history, of course. With an endlessly-forgiving support-cult, to boot. But then again, there was a third of the nation who mindlessly supported former President George W. Bush to the end of his Presidency, so why the surprise, here?
2) What IS a surprise is that--despite suffering more than anyone during the Bush-initiated, Obama-extended Great Recession (now a Second Great Depression, like it or not, which continues to smash the suffering middle class)--the majority of black Americans still support our President.
Now maybe that majority of black Americans just love the taste of their own fists, because as the pro-cop-killing Black Lives Matter (which decidedly does NOT represent the opinions of most black Americans) and the small holocaust of young black Chicago residents goes unabated, taking a swing at "the man" inevitably lands back in the mouths of that portion of America suffering the worst economic misery: black Americans.
And as the most radical of the "black activists" (who are helping WHICH group of black Americans, now?) consumes their own traditional allies, it's anyone's guess as to when the majority of the nation will throw up their hands and proclaim, "This is NOT why we twice elected a black President!"
A President who rightfully decries the execution of police officers by deranged but self-righteous youths, he has yet to show the temerity to decry Black Lives Matter, or to show to the temerity of supporting those who proclaim that "All Lives Matter (including, and of course, Black Lives).
3) Yet when one mentions these very true-but-unpleasant facts (another "Inconvenient Truth"?), one is labelled CRAZY. Meanwhile, we're supposed to accept the "fact" that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party was responsible for the near-death of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, while all the copycat shooters breaking out all over the nation (mostly Democrats with no GOP affiliation whatsoever) is the responsibility of those gun-totin' conservatives.
Whoever "those gun-totin' conservatives" are...because most of the blaming is done by those living in their own universe, and who wouldn't know a conservative, a Republican, or a libertarian from a tree or lamppost, because in their "open-minded" reality they choose to demonize and marginalize all of "those people" without even so much as a dialogue.
I'll admit to having some reservations about hard-core right-wingers, but at least I'll want to talk with them...and they'll want to talk with me or anyone else who'll listen to them. In contrast, the hard-core left-wingers are in favor of not talking WITH anyone else, but rather AT everyone else.
Because THEY can talk and do crazy stuff, but if we protest or decry them, then WE are the ones who are "crazy".
4) So while many of the GOP (and Democratic Party!) base are desperate enough for a "hail-Mary" pass in politics by supporting "The Donald" in a surprisingly bipartisan fashion very few (even on the far right) have a problem with Bernie Sanders, whether the far right agrees with him or not, because he's doing his own desperate "hail-Mary" entry into politics for the 2016 presidential election.
Bizarre though it may be, a Trump vs. Sanders election might very well be seen to be more intellectually and morally honest than a Bush vs. Clinton election--and not merely because we're sick of political dynasties, but because Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton have said and done enough things to make the bases of both parties sick of looking at them--let alone hearing any new things they have to say.
Because Americans are NOT doing well, and are NOT happy, by and large, except for that sliver of Americans thrilled and in denial of the plights of others under this President (and who are just as thrilled and in denial of the plights of others as were the die-hard supporters of former President George W. Bush).
While the rest of us really and truly are NOT crazy...but we're sick of being called "crazy" merely for claiming the right to vigorously disagree and protest with current Presidential fiats and bad policies, no matter how unconstitutional or hurtful they are to the economic and cultural fabric of the nation.
And we're not stupid, either. And some of us have even picked up a history book or newspaper from time to time to know what the hell we're talking about.
And we do vote.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Board member of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected] He also does regular commentary on the Mark Isler Radio Show on AM 870, and co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us. The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
