I agree, but I really feel the need to take this out a notch. I do believe that the Clintons (never forget; there are two of them and they are a team) have cut a particularly ugly and deadly path through the American political landscape. However, IMHO, this is just one symptom of a far larger self-destructive dynamic at work in the world today.
I grow more and more frightened every day, not of Clinton's machinations, but of the partisan liberals' vitriolic defense of him. This was, of course, most clearly (and disturbingly) demonstrated by Alec Baldwin on Conan. And make no mistake about it, I sincerely believe that that genuinely horrifying scene marked a transitional point in American politics. Scoff if you must, but I believe that our world changed for the worse in that moment.
Has anybody else read Toynbee's A Study of History? Do. He explains why throughout history all great civilizations have fallen. And that is exactly what ours is doing right now.
Ah, but it honestly has been for quite some time now. At least since Kennedy was shot. Or since the Civil War. Well anyway, for a long time now.
BTW, who was the first corrupt president?
George Washington! ah..hahaha
Anyway, back to the task at hand...the politics of self-destruction. Here comes another, in my eyes, scary thing...
The Republicans potentially have, as the partisan Democrats are so rabidly claiming, self-destructed in this scandal. So if any of the screamers in Sanity Check want to come over and throw this in my face, please feel free to do so. But while you may be right in your analysis, your motives are destructive. And while destruction is indeed the mode of the day (not ot mention, the topic at hand), it is what I'm feebly trying to prevent, or curb, or at least avoid, so please keep it in SC.
Now, in order to (hopefully) deal with and be done with impeachmentgate; I present you with my analysis of the situation:
The whole sordid story begins when a sexually-maladjusted, potentially criminal, yet still likable politician named Bill met up with a modern American notion known as The Sexual Harassment Lawsuit. Should Paula Jones have been allowed to file that suit? Absolutely. As I've posted repeatedly (to mostly closed minds) on other threads; we cannot allow our leaders to ignore laws that we must follow. That is a step on the road to dictatorship. If you don't believe me, read Animal Farm, or better yet, study the original...the 1917 Communist Revolution. One of their first steps on the path from Marxism to oligarchic dictatorship was the exemption of the rulers from the laws that governed the ruled. Besides, if the lawsuit was genuinely without merit, I seriously doubt that it could've harmed Bill, and, by giving him a chance to play martyr, would probably have helped him in the long run. Ah but it seems, the lawsuit probably did have some merit. I believe he probably did drop trou, or wave Little Billy in her face, or some such thing, and he was afraid that if it did go to trial his goose would at least be scorched a bit. It is of course possible that no such thing happened and he believed that a trial, in and of itself, would do too much harm to his legacy, but I kind of doubt it. I think Bill's too crafty of a politician to not recognize the enormous advantages of properly playing and winning the martyr game. But it really doesn't make any difference. The point is that he decided on a different and more perilous strategy.
See, the hitch was that this Paula woman had some powerful and wealthy backers with some important contacts. And they had heard of another woman that Clinton had apparently diddled; a bubble-headed ex-intern named Monica. And she' d been telling the wrong people about it. So, wholly within their rights, Paula's lawyers asked Bill, in an attempt to establish a pattern of behavior, if (cloaked in embarrassing legalese) he had indeed had a sexual encounter with this Monica. And Bill responded (cloaked in tortured and convoluted legalese) that he had not. This was, after all the legalese is stripped away, a lie. This was a serious mistake. And, unfortunately for everyone, a crime. Once again (say it along with me); we cannot allow our leaders to ignore laws that we must follow. However, our founding fathers wisely decided that if the president committed a crime that the Congress deemed to be sufficient, the first and most important step would be to remove that president from the most powerful position in our entire political system. This was never intended to be a genuinely democratic process because we do not live in a democracy. We live in a republic, and the notion behind a republic is that, rather than the people making all the decisions, we elect people to make decisions for us. We can try to affect their decisions, but ultimately (unless you have barrels full of soft-money, but that's another post), the only thing that we can do with the representatives that disagree with us is to try to replace them, at the next opportunity, with someone who does agree.
And we're back to destruction: personal, self, and institutional. Because what happened is that both parties reacted (probably not surprisingly) in a wholly partisan manner. Rather than a debate on the issue of a presidents responsibility to obey the laws he's sworn to uphold versus his right to live his private life however he chooses, we got a passionate game of "You're a big fat poophead!" "No I'm not, you are!" "No you are!" "No you!" "No you!" etc. And, since the opposing party had the numbers, Bill's partisans lost. Sort of. Except that the Republicans lost. Sort of.
But, no matter what, the real losers are We the People. No matter how this turns out, a really bad thing has happened and nobody's ever going to be able to go back and make it not happen. Of course, in a lot of ways it's just another symptom of the downhill slide we've been on since Kennedy was shot, or the Civil War, or something.
And as a special bonus to those of you who have made it all the way down to here, probably the only time this will appear in print:
Yours: BobLao-Tse
-Just your everyday working class zen philosophizer.
P.S. This name is (obviously, I would have thought) not my real name. I have no intention of posting my real name. If you don't understand why, then you need to look up the word intelligentsia.
P.S.S. Just previewed this. Boy I sure do go on don't I, and I only really dealt peripherally with my stated subject of destruction, personal and otherwise. Oh well, I had to try to get the immediate example out of the way. Maybe we can take this on to cultural entropy, or educational void, or who knows, maybe even the politics of personal destruction. And Solomon: Thank you for the use of your thread and I apologize if my use of it for my own purposes has offended you. And if you want me to just go away...well...I might. :-) |
