First of all: Depublican may look like one of those Republicrat chimera words, combining the two party names, but it is not (even though the percentage of Republican vs Democrat would accurately reflect the current balance of power).
Depublican refers to anti-government sentiment, the desire to de-public the nation. Always a Republican ideal, but adopted by their pliant alleged opposition. Democrats, who as a party once allied themselves with the working class and disadvantaged, have assented to too many assaults on the populace to claim that they believe in serving the public.
The debt ceiling deal just revealed to the public illustrates this. The GOP paraded it's most radical wing again and again during negotiations, while "liberal" democrats (defined as anyone who wants to maintain a shred of social safety net) were silenced and marginalized as the main party engaged in its usual waltz to what is called the "center," but which by any 20th Century definition would have been pretty far right. The "compromise" that emerged consisted of known cuts to domestic social spending, further cuts to be determined, and no rollback of the Bush Dynasty's give-aways and tax breaks to wealthy individuals and corporations.
Follow the money, and what is it doing? Flowing from the pockets of the working class into the coffers of the investor class, not back to the general public benefit. Pieces of the government are starved as a result. Depublicans are glad to see this, never having liked government, and in the few areas where their dim minds did see some benefit, they feel that privatization of government functions is always the answer: replace public education with charter schools (and if that fails, throw them kids in a for-profit prison), continue replacing military functins with security contractors, and so on. Depublic the gummint.
Depublishing helps smooth the way. Dumb down the 5th estate until all it does is repeat press releases, and make sure it presents both sides of the story, no matter how vacuous or harmful one side may be (if you must skip one side, let it be the "liberal" one). Steer away from facts in black and white, and toward "perspective" on a screen, ready to be deleted and replaced as the situation demands. Replace critical readers with products of an education system geared toward standardized testing and vocational placement. Decrease the percentage of coverage that deals with matters of import, and increase (un)Reality TV and entertainment news.
Why do all this? Why wreck the country? Being from the South, I recognize part of it as simple racism. Richmond VA and Washington DC are examples. African American majorities elected their own leaders, and whites left, depleting property tax revenue to the point that the new leaders faced financial crisis (sounding familiar yet?). In both cases, whites maintained leverage over what happened in the cities, in DC to a ridiculous and colonialistic extent.
But the real reason to wreck it is not to make white people better off than black people. At least, not all of them. Follow the money, and you will see that a large portion of Euro-Americans get screwed by Depublican policy. Like most everyone else, they are becoming worse off, while the oligarchs (mostly white, for sure, but the main qualification is a heart of pure greed, and that knows no color) are rolling in the cut. The Tea Partiers, the lumpen mass of idiots who heed the commercials and skew the polls ever more to the right, they wll end up just as bad off as the rest. Poor dupes.
The way to mobilize this idiotic army of voters (a necessary evil to the Depublicans until they find a way to eliminate voting) is not all that much different than what Goebbels did during the mid-century German experiment. Cover the airwaves with the Big Lie. Repeat until True. If possible (and it was, thanks to the Bush Dynasty's ever-handy Supreme Court), present the propaganda as free speech, have them open the doors to unlimited corporate spending in a case called "Citizens United," a master stroke of doublespeak. Let the people vote, but make sure they are not actually deciding anything.
This has gone on long enough that the US now represents the corrupt 3rd world regimes I was told about as a kid. A few rich people run things, fair deals are few and far between, and the great majority of people are kept in place with whatever combination of destitution, drugs, disinformation, and disharmony can be delivered.
Can it be reversed? Sure. It usually is. The Depublicans are protecting themselves by amassing all the wealth, but even the big hedge can fall to the small axe. The problem is that the process can get difficult, ugly, even bloody. And it requires the public to take action. No leader will lift us out. Look at how quickly our president went from Hope and E Pluribus Unum to handing over the keys to the Depublicans. There can be no Of the People, By the People, and For the People if we sit and wait.
Depublican refers to anti-government sentiment, the desire to de-public the nation. Always a Republican ideal, but adopted by their pliant alleged opposition. Democrats, who as a party once allied themselves with the working class and disadvantaged, have assented to too many assaults on the populace to claim that they believe in serving the public.
The debt ceiling deal just revealed to the public illustrates this. The GOP paraded it's most radical wing again and again during negotiations, while "liberal" democrats (defined as anyone who wants to maintain a shred of social safety net) were silenced and marginalized as the main party engaged in its usual waltz to what is called the "center," but which by any 20th Century definition would have been pretty far right. The "compromise" that emerged consisted of known cuts to domestic social spending, further cuts to be determined, and no rollback of the Bush Dynasty's give-aways and tax breaks to wealthy individuals and corporations.
Follow the money, and what is it doing? Flowing from the pockets of the working class into the coffers of the investor class, not back to the general public benefit. Pieces of the government are starved as a result. Depublicans are glad to see this, never having liked government, and in the few areas where their dim minds did see some benefit, they feel that privatization of government functions is always the answer: replace public education with charter schools (and if that fails, throw them kids in a for-profit prison), continue replacing military functins with security contractors, and so on. Depublic the gummint.
Depublishing helps smooth the way. Dumb down the 5th estate until all it does is repeat press releases, and make sure it presents both sides of the story, no matter how vacuous or harmful one side may be (if you must skip one side, let it be the "liberal" one). Steer away from facts in black and white, and toward "perspective" on a screen, ready to be deleted and replaced as the situation demands. Replace critical readers with products of an education system geared toward standardized testing and vocational placement. Decrease the percentage of coverage that deals with matters of import, and increase (un)Reality TV and entertainment news.
Why do all this? Why wreck the country? Being from the South, I recognize part of it as simple racism. Richmond VA and Washington DC are examples. African American majorities elected their own leaders, and whites left, depleting property tax revenue to the point that the new leaders faced financial crisis (sounding familiar yet?). In both cases, whites maintained leverage over what happened in the cities, in DC to a ridiculous and colonialistic extent.
But the real reason to wreck it is not to make white people better off than black people. At least, not all of them. Follow the money, and you will see that a large portion of Euro-Americans get screwed by Depublican policy. Like most everyone else, they are becoming worse off, while the oligarchs (mostly white, for sure, but the main qualification is a heart of pure greed, and that knows no color) are rolling in the cut. The Tea Partiers, the lumpen mass of idiots who heed the commercials and skew the polls ever more to the right, they wll end up just as bad off as the rest. Poor dupes.
The way to mobilize this idiotic army of voters (a necessary evil to the Depublicans until they find a way to eliminate voting) is not all that much different than what Goebbels did during the mid-century German experiment. Cover the airwaves with the Big Lie. Repeat until True. If possible (and it was, thanks to the Bush Dynasty's ever-handy Supreme Court), present the propaganda as free speech, have them open the doors to unlimited corporate spending in a case called "Citizens United," a master stroke of doublespeak. Let the people vote, but make sure they are not actually deciding anything.
This has gone on long enough that the US now represents the corrupt 3rd world regimes I was told about as a kid. A few rich people run things, fair deals are few and far between, and the great majority of people are kept in place with whatever combination of destitution, drugs, disinformation, and disharmony can be delivered.
Can it be reversed? Sure. It usually is. The Depublicans are protecting themselves by amassing all the wealth, but even the big hedge can fall to the small axe. The problem is that the process can get difficult, ugly, even bloody. And it requires the public to take action. No leader will lift us out. Look at how quickly our president went from Hope and E Pluribus Unum to handing over the keys to the Depublicans. There can be no Of the People, By the People, and For the People if we sit and wait.
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