Tilting At Democratic Windmills

I know as I begin this, Don Quixote will be proud of this column. Also, this has little to nothing to do with Anglicanism or the Episcopal Church or even Christianity. It is about what I heard on national Public Radio today. Specifically, there was a news item in the afternoon that dealt with the democrats “reading the riot act” to the oil company executives. WHAT A JOKE! Let’s recount some of the recent democratic victories(#!?) Well, Obama’s health care plan has already been chopped down to size by this new Republican majority? The president, once claimed by almost everyone to be a socialist looks like Ronald Reagan. The budget is shot to hell because the Republicans, when handed a surplus, could not stand it so they spent us into oblivion and then bailed out the banks and the finance companies and screwed the average homeowner now want to eliminate social security, Medicare, Head Start, Planned parenthood, education, social service programs, mental health programs and just about anything else the middle class uses in favor of tax cuts for the rich. What have the democrats done? Quizzed the BP on how they could possibly let the blast in the Gulf happen. When they had finished that they decided to quiz the rest of the oil companies about the indecent profits. And when the oil execs said, the removal of depletion allowances would not reduce profits or lower gas prices could not find the guts to then respond with, “How about nationalization? Would that lower profits and reduce gas prices?” No, they just want to play patty-cake and in the meantime are outmaneuvered on the issue of the debt ceiling now being forced to give up 2 more billion dollars in social programs in order to raise the debt ceiling.
The democrats are running scared and cannot figure out what to do. They have a majority in the senate and yet get whipped at every turn. As folks said elsewhere, the 20th century is about to be repealed. And still the Republicans have time to mess with don’t ask don’t tell and a women’s reproductive rights and just about everything else that is an affront to the middle class. And what does our “socialist” president do? He gives in on all the social program cuts that the republicans want. What do the democrats in the senate do? They talk and talk and talk and talk.

When will it end?