1) Why playing fair, when Mitch McConnell breaks the Geneva Convention on Government, should not happen.
Subtitle:
Gas Warfare does not get a Pass.
As President Obama and Secretary Clinton call for calm, unification and healing, I respect their appeal to our better selves. But reject it nonetheless.
There are mindfields (sic) laid, and poisonous gasses let loose that change the face of war we fight on this new political battlefield.
Mitch McConnell and the ideal of disruption of civil government (e.g., not giving hearing to the President's nomination of Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court, etc.) is a template for despair, and the schoolyard bullying of the stupid over the Nerds.
It is an odd call for someone throwing sand into the gears of our political machine, who hobble opposition horses, who rig the starting gate and move the goal posts, to say, '
we won, now play nice... after we poison your humble pie'. "
We lost the popular vote by a couple of million, so we have a mandate to take our electoral victory and smother you with it." There is sense in this. It's called, 'Non-Sense'.
The mindfield is different. The two-party system (tea-party system? Two-Part-Tea and one part Bile system?) is broken. I must agree with The DTs assessment that the election is, and has been, rigged for far too long. But not in the direction he asserts. The counting of the ballots (in ~3,000 counting houses) is fairly un-impeachable due to their non-uniformity. But the voter suppression, War-on-Drugs get the black vote in jail, and - my favorite - the pre-Revolutionary War practice of Gerrymandering (thank you - NOT - Elbridge Gerry) skews the voice of the people, and allows representatives to safely ignore their varied constituency for the voting block of one ideology. Get rid of Gerrymandering and you remove a most offensive block to the digestion of political discourse. Remove it, and the flow of the edible is bettered and politicians will have to appeal to a broad based electorate and they will - if they want to be re-elected - have to appeal to a true majority and - to do that - head to the center, rather than the edges.
But that's not going to happen. Not any time soon. So until then, we disrupt. Lawsuits. Vigilance. Defiance. Unrest. We shout. We yell at the Media for focusing on Trumps claim of being a great baseball player vs demanding to see his tax returns, or at least an 8th grade grasp of world politics and something other than jingoistic 'I will fix it! Build the Wall' Tweets. What, in simple terms, is his grasp of the reality he will face? Newsfolks: He is the Celebrity Apprentice - at least Job Interview him to see if he has any qualifications beyond, "I can bluster like a hurricane."
We demand his secret foolproof plan to end ISL. We demand to know how the hell he expects to give those relatives of his - who will be running his multi-billion dollar businesses - top secret access to government information and NOT call it a conflict of interest.
A proposed strategy: We dog this man, and his kennel of associates. We do not let his business interests turn the White House into a Clearing House for their jewelry or shoes. We do not let The DTs select a head of the IRS who will back off on their investigation of The DTs' taxes. We watch, and weigh in, and dig up the mines and neutralize the gas pots.
We scrap, and bring Science into the arena.
We lost our Republic when government lost the ability to be civil. So, we are in a Bear Pit. We need to fight this new battle with new tactics, and not be hampered by the bully who demands we now play fair after shoving our head into the toilet. We take Karate. And Kendo. And Ju Jitsu. And Jeet Kune Do. And work up good ol' Haymakers. We cut the chain that holds us to the post, and we beat the dogs that are howling at us to shut up and take it like the b***hes we are.
We will have civil government again. And that will bring us to a Republic again. But it's going to be when the bully realizes that the Nerds can kick ass as well as work a slide rule. Think John Wayne's 'The Quiet Man'. Beat up the Bully. Make up with the Bully. Get Drunk with the Bully. Then you become civil - because you are - after all - in the same family.
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(c) 2016 by GregRobin Smith - with thanks to my editor, Mr Joe Scheets. All opinions expressed are solely those of Mr Smith, and do not necessarily reflect the views nor opinions of any of his sponsors, the Washington Shakespeare Festival, Benjamin Franklin - LIVE!, or anyone else.
