Do Republicans Want a Fedual Society?

I remember the William Blake class I took in pursuit of my Master's Degree. I took it for purely nostalgic purposes. As an undergraduate, I did most of my course work in British Literature. So, returning back to the Romantic Era was like going back to my intellectual home.
Well, Blake, at first, was extremely difficult to understand. And the professor assigned this one book, Reflection on a Revolution in France by an Edmund Burke. Reading it was like watching paint dry, and my eyes began to fill with tears of sheer boredom. Besides, I thought, we live in America, why in the Hell are we reading something a British Whig Party member wrote about the French Revolution?
Over the years, as American politics have gotten crazier and dumber, I've come to appreciate that boring book. I've come to see it, the very long letter to a colleague, as the foundation for conservative thought.
Harshly critical of Populist political movements and anti-intellectual in tone, this long letter seemingly, advocates a two-class society: the very rich who Lord over the very poor. And ironically, this long letter has everything to do with modern American conservative thought. There are many allusions to Burke's original philosophical thought. If Republicans accuse Obama of secretly conspiring to turn America into a Socialist society, all we have to do is listen very carefully to John Boehner and conclude that Republicans are secretly conspiring to turn America into a feudal society: a society in which the richest two percent control both wealth and political power.
I don't have to waste time here quoting the grim economic statistics that would support my theory. As a nation, we've been looking at and experiencing this for the past eight years. For people in lower economic classes, the American Dream seems further and further out of reach, even with extensive education. We know, as actually finishing graduate school looms closer and closer, that we will be faced with massive student loan debt, and will have to delay home-ownership, retirement savings, and childbirth for several years, yet. Thus, the birthrate continues to decline, and the average age for first-time mothers keeps rising.
As Republicans continue to cloak their secret agendas in the rhetoric of "small-business" talk, how long will we shut our eyes to their truth. They want a modern-day feudal society, whatever that may look like. I wonder if they'll want to practice Enclosure in a few years?
Reader pick up Burke, and get back to me with your thoughts.

Barack Obama, Political Chess Master II (Special Commentary)

Last night, I watched as this historic healthcare reform passed. There was much drama and action. The procedure itself has the making of a very good movie: the Tea Party members spitting on members of Congress and calling them racial/sexual epithets, Jessie Jackson Jr. having to bang that gabble and raise his voice to call for order during a very heated verbal exchange, John Boehner invoking scripture trying to shame a few more Democrats away from the "Yes" box. I tell you. I was on the edge of my seat.

The highlight came when a cool President Obama, standing in front of a very emotional and passionate Vice President Biden said, "This is what change looks like." As cool and as calm as expect any Black man to be, he looked square into the eyes of his political adversaries and he said in so many words, "Checkmate."
I bubbled over with laughter. My eyes brimmed with tears as I remembered the Lion of the Senate, a rich man who devoted almost his entire career to attaining healthcare for those less fortunate than himself. Then, I became uncontrollably angry because the public option/expansion of Medicaid for everyone is not in this bill. Why in the Hell would they take out such a huge victory for the American people? I mean, it's such a big bill that includes....

Then, exactly ten minutes after Barack Obama declared "checkmate," I realized that I don't know what is in this bill. Yes, I am a political junkie who watches at least four hours of political commentary every day, and I don't know what the heck is in this bill. I know if I don't know what's in it, all of those fanatics out there yelling about socialized medicine don't know, either.
So far, the coverage of this historic change has not been on the specifics of this bill. We saw the sausage making process, but not the ingredients of the links. Media focus has been on the strategy of the game, the coaches' game plays on each side, rather than what was happening on the field. Who wins? Who loses? Who's going to suffer at the polls? Who's going to benefit? What's Obama going to do next? How have the Republicans been so effective at controlling the message? What message? Aside from scaring the hell out of folks about death panels and "socialized medicine," there hasn't been a message.

So, the public option is out, but what's in? I don't know. The opposers of the bill don't know. This factor, including the ramping up of the rhetoric of fear and the constant referral to this bill as "Obama care", further affirms my view that this whole ordeal has been more about fear of what this Black man, leader of the free world, can do than about policy-making. Inciting violence against Barack Obama and the Democrats smacks of the jealous jouissance of Southern lynch picnics. What was that dark day in America's history all about? Power play dynamics and phallic authority. Just listen to Rush Limbaugh...you don't have to take my word for it.

Sadly, our public discourse is stil informed by white supremacy and jealous sexual projections. Sadly, those people who were out there spitting on lawmakers and taunting them probably need that help the most. Sadly, those people out there probably cannot even define the very words that very rich, white men like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh told them to use. Sadly, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh know exactly what they are doing. Sadly, those folks do not know that they are being used in a powerful class war and a fear of redistribution of wealth and elitism. They are no better than those young, poor white boys who died in the Civil War to enrich the pockets of wealthy plantation overlords, a class they could never belong to. Sadly, those people and their children will also benefit the most from the passage of such a bill, in spite of their manifest hatred.

So, even though President Obama cannot directly say it to his adversaries, I will. Check mate. "On to the next one" in the words of Jay-Z.

Some advice for all political pundits -liberal and conservatives - get used to a new, cooler style of leadership. We are dealing with a very calculated political genius, not someone prone to egotistical, masculine posture. There's actually some substance behind his exterior, and nobody can rush him. He's the chess master. You don't rush a chess master before he makes his move. He must study the board from every angle. He must study his opponent's peices from every angle, anticipate his move, and be prepared to counter it. That takes more than posturing. That takes brains. And brains is what we have back in the White House after an eight year vacuum.

Could Black Be the New Face of Red

Now that most of the ballots have been counted and recounted, Republicans are finding themselves out of power. For more than eight years, Republicans have been a driving force in Washington, and in 2000, they had the White House, House of Representatives, and the Senate. One can argue that they even had the Supreme Court.

Under Republican guidance, we are finding ourselves in two wars that seem to make no sense, in the midst of the worst financial crisis since 1929, and at a loss in world confidence.
Party leaders and political pundits are asking themselves, and the nation, what happened? Where does the party stand? Political pundits have already put several faces upon the screen as potential leaders of the party. These people include governors Sarah Palin (Alaska) and Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) as potential leaders. There were also several senators included.
What struck me the most about these shows and the potential Republican leaders, was the absence of color. Yes, Virginia, there are some Black Republicans.

For the most part, the Republican Party and the nation have taken these people for granted, often leaving them out of key decisions and debates. In one of the first presidential debates, Allan Keyes angrily pointed out to the moderator that she never allowed him any time to answer questions. African Americans have traditionally labeled these people as Uncle Toms, and threatened to kick their asses (Remember all of the death threats that Black guy got for telling John McCain to go after Obama?).

But wait one hot minute. I think that African Americans and Americans need to give these Republicans of color a deeper look. One of the main reasons that the Republican Party has fallen so low is their pandering to Evangelical and Fundamental Christians. These people, in the guise of Christ, have proved to be the most divisive and exclusivist sects of the American population. They have often embroilled and entangled politicians in pointless social debates, and have used the power of rhetoric to scare people into thinking that their "values" and "morals" were constantly under threats of obliteration. In addition, many Evangelical pastors banked on the fact that most Evangical Christians are both Biblically illiterate, and prone to voting on the heart instead of the purse.

Meanwhile, it was the African American and Latino Republicans who separated themselves from these social arguments and debates. Though I did not agree with their views, I have heard people like Shelby Steele, Bob Parks, Jennifer Carroll, Ward Connerly, Deborah Honeycutt, and others offer real Republican Conservative solutions to things that matter like: health care, equal opportunity schooling and employment, crime prevention and control, and welfare reform. Often, these people were ignored by their own national party, and demonized by the African American communities that they would like to serve.

We should stop demonizing our African American Republican brothers and sisters. They have a right to their own opinions, and thoughts. Anyway, African Americans are traditional social conservatives. We tend to vote Democratically because we often carry our empty purses with us to the voting booth. While we treasure family values as much as the next evangelical Christian, we also know that we need a strong economy with good jobs and opportunities to provide for our families.

African Americans and other minorities also need people with power on both sides of the aisle to agitate for what we want.

The national party should pay attention to these politicians. These politicians offer plausible solutions to very realy problems without becoming entangled in Evangelical Christian rhetoric. Why aren't they held up to be the Republican Standard Bearers? The fact that they are not, is one of the many reasons that African Americans have not voted Republican, and why the party has lost its way. It used to be a party of inclusion. Dr. Martin Luther King was a Republican, and so was Fredrick Douglass. Now it is the party of religious fear, ignorance, and intolerance.