paying-attention

I hate Republicans and neoconservatives. They seem to hate the American people, want to gleefully act as vilely as our enemies, crush the middle class with taxes, tell us what we can think and how we should live, mangle our free-speech rights, overwhelm the nation with illegal immigrants, make us distrust our own government, destroy small businesses in favor of their rich cronies, regulate our bedrooms and turn us into a bunch of Malthusian victims, human cows to be bred, held captive and milked solely for the benefit of big business.

And that’s why I now despise Democrats even more. Because of their incompetence, greed, corruption, arrogance, blind loyalty, their inability to defend themselves and communicate with the American people—because of their total bumbling—in the past several years, there is a chance that Democrats will blow the chance to take control of both houses of Congress in November.

If that happens, we’re screwed. You’ll see the greatest war against the American people—against our free-speech rights, against our financial freedom, against our freedom to eat what we want, against our security and military—there has ever been. A party that is controlled by extreme right-wingers and religious zealots will try to impose its version of a government-mandated utopia on us all, and it’ll be frightening.

And we’ll have the Democrats to blame for it.

Americans revolted in 1994 when they threw the Democrats out of Congress and gave Republicans control of both houses. They were disgusted with the corrupt, arrogant, The-Government-Knows-What-Is-Best-For-You Democrats.

They were convinced that the Democrats were the cause of ever-climbing taxes that punished ingenuity, ambition, talent and hard work. They blamed Democrats for speech codes that told us we could no longer speak our minds and that we no longer had freedom of speech. Gingrich and his friends portrayed a Democratic party that hated and waged war against the military and the young men and women to defend us and keep us free. Democrats, they decided, held America in contempt and blamed it for everything wrong in the world. The suspected a party that, in the waning years of the Cold War, seemed to prefer stability over freedom, to keep the people of Eastern Europe enslaved by the Soviets.

The American people felt abused and tormented, and they elected Republicans to rescue them from their perceived tormentors and enslavers.

With that election, with that electoral revolt, Republicans had one of the greatest opportunities to do good for a nation and its people that history has ever presented to a group of people in power. They had the opportunity to truly set people free. They had the chance to put government back into its cage and slam the door locked and shut for a long, long time. They had the chance to bring dignity, honor, honesty and a real concern for freedom, American and its people to Washington.

They had the opportunity, and they blew it.

Now it is the Democrats' turn, and they're blowing it their own way.

As a result, we stand to be returned to the control of our tormentors. And if we are, it’ll be awful.

Squandering a golden opportunity, destroying trust that people have put in you—stabbing their hope in the heart with elitist visions, greed, corruption, incompetence and the blind worship of ideological purity—is the worst crime of all.

Republicans slimed themselves up with tubby Newt Gingrich; puffy, money grubbing, Jack Abramoff; the crook, Duke Cunningham of California, slimy; plastic-haired Tom Delay; hypocrite Trent Lott; and now, I Want To Kiss Teenage Boys, Mark Foley of Florida.

They got in bed with power and greed.

Those term limit pledges in the Contract with America were deleted pretty quickly—probably after Republicans got wind of how many teenage pages there are in Washington.

They forced good candidates out of presidential primaries in favor of a rich kid who is inept at public speaking and a zero as a communicator, and they gave us a war that they never figured out how to win.

We asked for respect, decency, honor and competence in Washington, and we got arrogance, corruption, incompetence and contempt. We asked that they represent us, as freedom-loving, hard-working Americans who just wanted a chance to get ahead and keep more of the money we earn. Instead, they represented giant corporations.

We asked for true representation in Washington, and instead, we got professional politicians.

Democrats aren't Republicans. But at this point, what's the difference?

To see the original version of this column, go to http://www.zalski.blogspot.com