JWL.Freakwitch.net

Dental surgery, or, the difference between Democrats and Republicans

Well, I had some minor dental surgery today. And as I told a friend, a day including dental surgery is not likely to be included in your best days. Everything went fine, thanks for asking.

Last night, I told another friend that "I can't wait to laugh sardonically at the euphoria that will sweep (sleep?) the land when the Dems regain Congress...." Turns out to be true. The Democrats regained the house, have a majority of Governorships, and are presently up 50-49 in the Senate, with only the outcome in Virginia left to decide the balance.

And to top it off, Donald Rumsfeld "resigned."

Whee. Cue the chorus of midgets singing "Ding, Dong, The Witch Is Dead!"

The most interesting statistic on cnn.com's front page, when counting the number of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents in Congress, was that there are ZERO independents on the list. This reminds me of when Nader ran in 2000, and I was convinced that there wasn't a difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Turns out that's not the case. My view back then was not nuanced enough.

I am now convinced that my mistake was in terms of how each party serves the power structure, which generally I prefer to call Empire. I saw clearly that both parties serve Empire as their prime function, and mistook this fact for a complete equivalency among the two parties. That's what my mistake was.

But the difference between them is in how they serve Empire. And in general, I know believe that the function of the Republican is to push the bar of Empire, to seize, consolidate, and concentrate as much power as possible while they are in power. Then, the function of the Democrats is to maintain those newly-drawn lines of power for Empire, helping to normalize them and assimilate them into popular consciousness.

So time will tell. In the coming months, we're going to hear a lot about "partisanism" and "party politics"... and while in general I prefer a government doing nothing because it is in a state of gridlock to the behavior of the BuShites over the past 60 years, I seriously doubt that all of a sudden the US government will become committed to ending its global waging of low-intensity warfare, its commitment to torture, its blatant servitude to corporatism, and its general disregard for the poor of the world.

I need to stop typing, I can feel the novocaine starting to wear off....

posted by JWL at 5:47 PM |