September 26, 2010 12:23 AM UTC

Answering Anxiety

• 0 Comments
• by: JO

(Edited & renamed)

Can we agree that the most pressing question of 2010 is: “Who are ya gonna vote against?”

The main candidates in that race hereabouts are: “Obama-Big Government-Kenyan Anti-Colonial World View-Higher Taxes for ‘Lil Ol’ You”-Socialism,”

versus

“Teahadist-Extremist-Nut Case in the Bedwomb-All-Out Attack on the social safety net.”

For some–a distinct minority–the question is whether we are voluntarily to descend further into the corporatocracy, where candidates are supported by investments, errr contributions, from corporations, and where the “bottom line” is profits, not people. Government of the CEOs, by the investors and for the wealthy. In that contest, nowhere laid out in so many words on the ballot, in this state the Democrats have put forward a Senate candidate who spends sums of contributions assuring us: “I am a businessman” who knows all about the bottom line.

Against this, a candidate who would have us believe that further regulation of our personal reproduction is what’s meant by less government.

Anyone to the left of Genghis Khan needs to face up to a certain reality in 2010: large numbers of Americans appear to have lost faith in the institution of government to do much of anything right and/or to solve social problems–or even to bring them up for discussion!! (Energy? Immigration? Global Warming? Where has Harry Reid been in the era of Hope and Change?).

People wanted change 24 months ago, and they  still want it. Are the Democrats still running on that proposition? Doesn’t sound like it.

Instead, we get statements, press releases, advertisements that sound like they’re appealing to voters in the fine state of Jabberwock in their native tongue.

Are we seriously meant to extract meaning from any candidate who promises to fly east and “fight for the citizens of Colorado”?  Fight whom–Kansas? Arkansas? Over what–banking regulation? Kool-Aid in school lunches? Is the Senate chamber to be made over as a site for the World Wrestling Federation, the senator from the Land of Steady Habits presiding?

How are “Democrats” meant to summon enthusiasm for someone whose list of contributors with home addresses in zip code 10021 was longer — and the amounts far, far larger– than those in 80237? Does that describe an agent of change?

While I, like others on this site, may regard Teahadists to be largely irrational and inarticulate, unsophisticated and uneducated, there is no denying a strong sense of anger abroad in the land…anger at having the value of their houses drop by 30, 40, 50 percent; anger at being stuck in a job they can’t stand because there are no others available; anger at being told they have to buy health insurance when they can’t afford it now; anger anger at voting for change and, two years later, feeling like most things haven’t changed, except possibly for the worse.

When anxiety replaces hope for change, and then morphs into anger, incumbents are in jeopardy. When government is no longer trusted to tell the truth, no longer trusted to do what’s best for ordinary people rather than for corporate lobbyists, then somethin’s blowin’ in the wind. It has happened before, and it is happening elsewhere ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl… ). Suddenly every rude or indifferent clerk at the Motor Vehicles department is a campaigner for the Teahadists. Airports and bridges in out of the way places, not the Interstate Highway system, become the symbols of what government does with tax dollars. How many voters did Hillary alienate by announcing a program to spend $50 million to buy healthy cook stoves to Africa — a worthy cause, no question, and I’m not questioning it — when millions of Americans are unsure about putting food on their own state-of-the-art six-burner range that came with the house that’s worth a few tens of thousands of dollars less than the mortgage–and may soon belong to the bank?

In the midst of this, what do we hear from the Democrats? “Patience,” from the President to a self-professed frustrated supporter. “Times are tough.”

Closer to home, it’s “He’s too extreme for Colorado,” from the “I am a businessman” appointee who visited every county (how many for the first time?) not to mention every townhouse in Washington where lobbyists were handing out doughnut holes in exchange for … whatever.

Where, what, are the Democratic plans to get the economy going? (Oh, yeah, you may be unemployed, but the recession ended in mid-2009. Feel better comrade?) What about the benefits of health insurance that kicked in this month? What about a saved auto industry? What about enough stimulus to generate jobs? (Ooops, too big; “businessmen” know how to tend to the “bottom line.” Never mind.)

Specific proposals for specific problems over the next two years? Maybe it’s time to replace my hearing aid battery, cause I don’t hear any.

Could be that Dems will take a fall this autumn, maybe not. But to go down with a whine instead of a shout … almost more than I can take.