Just saw this today in The Independent (Raleigh) - pretty well done essay by Hal Crowther.
http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/gone-missing-the-countrys-conscience-brain-and-heart/Content?oid=1804163"The people have spoken. But what did they say? I wish that President Obama, besieged by conservatives warning him to heed the voice of the people, could summon the impudence to say what I might say, in his place, about the midterm elections of 2010. Maybe this is the way he'd answer his tormentors, if he dared: "When you can explain to me why Americans who have so little join forces against me with those who have way too much, then I might begin to understand what the electorate is saying."
snip
"The midterms make exactly that much sense unless you concede that they mark the most successful manipulation of the gullible by the cynical that this deceitful republic has yet witnessed. Billionaires and "undisclosed" corporate donors poured kings' ransoms into relentless attack ads against vulnerable Democrats. Right-wing broadcasters circulated myths and lies that would have made Joseph Goebbels blush, and every racist and xenophobic impulse threatening to a nonwhite president was exploited without apology. The secret money served it up, and the logic-impaired tea party irregulars swallowed the poisoned bait with relish. The net result of the vaunted populist rebellion of 2010 was a sharp turn toward corporate feudalism, as the House of Representatives and many state legislatures and governor's mansions reverted to a rudderless but ruthless Republican Party that has never been less deserving of another chance"
snip
"That is no country for old men," the poet wrote of another country, and soon there will be no country anywhere for old men like these. There are mornings when I'm particularly cranky, when the arthritis packs a special bite, that I can almost forgive the stubborn, self-destructive stupidity of surly codgers, facing decrepitude and irrelevance like the rest of us, who just can't come to grips with the future shock of Facebook, gay marriage and a president named Barack instead of Jim or Ed. Almost. But a greater disappointment, and a bigger surprise, is the flight to the right of so many ambitious women. To me, a Republican woman has always seemed as improbable as a black white supremacist. How strange, now, to have to deal with a virtual Limbaugh Ladies Auxiliary—in frightening cases like Michele Bachmann, more like the Brides of Beckenstein. I wrote a piece on the tea party, noting that we never hear the word "communist" in this country unless someone threatens the white man's traditional death grip on the economy. Rereading it after publication, I realized that half the far right candidates I was disparaging were female. If one of these women becomes the first female president of the United States, it's a giant step forward and 20 big steps backward."
snip
"Good grief. Another headline: "American Influence Dwindling in Iraq." And another that should have caused every American citizen to cringe and grind his teeth: "Bush Looks Back, Has Few Regrets." The wars end, eventually, and it's generally acknowledged that they were mistakes. Sorry. But the dead stay dead, the crippled stay crippled, the damaged stay damaged. Suicides mount among exhausted veterans: 162 in 2009, 125 this year with three months to go. Drug addiction, homelessness, alcoholism, crime. We've created a whole new underclass. Then we hold the most ferocious, expensive midterm election of all time and no one seems to notice the wars? The tea party indeed. Where's the Peace Party? Where's the country's conscience? Where's its heart? Where's its brain?"
It is a long article and well worth reading....one of the better summaries of where things stand....
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