Politics as Usual

R. Landridge

1995

Published in:

The Northwest Technocrat 2nd quarter 1995, No. 339

If people were to take the hoopla seriously that is coming out of Washington these days, they would be led to believe that a major event in the political history of the United States had taken place. The strident hyperbole that is boiling out of the republican party seeks to portray the last election as a significant turn in the political direction of the average American. After close to 40 years of Democratic control over the house, the Republicans are now set to unleash their idea of the type of action that is needed to ensure a continuation of this system that is so dear to their hearts.

Their "Contract with America", an approach to all the problems that is in tune with the nineties, is being touted as the cure that the average American has been breathlessly waiting for. That it is more in tune with the thinking that typified the 1980s, seems to be lost on the media that is supposed to be the arbiter of honesty and integrity in public affairs. While most people would not consider a change that was effected by a small percentage of the eligible voters to be of great significance, you wouldn't know it by reading a reading of the American press. But, actually, how much change has actually taken place?

Leaving aside the more notable of comments by Gingrich and company, such as those regarding single mothers on welfare, a tax cut for the middle class, and a balanced budget coincidental with an increase in defense spending all of which are of course designed to distract the public from the real problems: what if anything, is so new about the Republican approach? The answer of course is, nothing.

The glib mouthing of the newly elected notwithstanding, everything is of course a rehash of the same lack of strategy and vision that has typified both parties for as long as anyone can reasonably remember. In their attempt to continue this overextended, overlived, and utterly useless social non-system that has plagued us for the past 60 or so years, no previous statement that can be unearthed and reused in some recycled form of newspeak will be left untouched. The apologists of the DemRep's (if when you look closely at their activities you can't really tell them apart,) will try to use these statements to ensure that the general public has no idea of what is happening, a condition that surely mirrors their own condition as well. But wait! What if the lack of action by the majority of the electorate is actually a reflection of their understanding that the elected politicians not only do not have any answers, but in fact, have no idea of the real problems in the real world. Could it be that this large percentage of the non-voting public is actually far more informed that those who actually went out and voted?

If they indeed have this knowledge, why are they sitting back allowing these conditions to continue? How many of them, frustrated by their inability to bring about the changes necessary to improve their condition, are waiting for their frustration level to rise to the point that they will become a Force Majeure that will not be denied? As the tinkerers in Washington and Ottawa continue to interfere with the technological social structure that now exists in North America, to the detriment of the general population and the enrichment of a few, social conditions will continue to exert increasing pressures that sooner or later will have to be addressed. When this dam of social ills breaks, the resulting torrent of pent-up human needs could result in a wave of such proportions, that the very existence of a structured society may be imperiled. It is too much to expect that anyone deeply involved in the political process will have the insight or intelligence to bring about the changes necessary to ensure a peaceful transition to the type of social structure dictated by the needs of this technological society. If they can't function, they had better get out of the way!