Barbarians In The Halls

Newly elected Republican members of Congress descend upon Washington this week like so many Visigoths, ready to shove their own version of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - their own - down our throats. They have this fantastic vision of cutting the deficit and getting spending under control that involves cutting or eliminating social welfare programs, repealing the health care law, and giving more tax breaks to wealthy people who don't need it. And although the Tea Party activists have been characterized as being mainly concerned with budgetary issues, no one in the mainstream media has bothered to point out that, by the way, they also want to criminalize abortion and they think climate change is a hoax.

I never thought I'd say this while Obama was President, but the United States has become even more of the sort of place any decent, intelligent, and sane person would want to leave more than it was under Bush. The nation's agenda is being set by gangs of bigoted, self-interested thugs who have blocked or attempted to block any initiative that would benefit someone other than themselves.

Adding to this sense of disgust are the people voters happily chose to send to Washington as a reflection of their values. Voters in Arizona's Third Congressional District cheerfully sent Ben Quayle to the House, determined to ignore his links to a pornographic Web site ("I was raised right") and an ad full of so many incoherent non sequiturs he made his father sound like Aristotle. In Minnesota's Sixth Congressional District, Michele Bachmann's constituents endorsed her for another term in office and rejected the much saner Tarryl Clark, while voters in Florida's Eighth Congressional District sent Alan Grayson packing in favor of Daniel Webster, a conservative Republican whose only commonality with the nineteenth-century legislator of the same name promises to be just that - his name. Down in the state's 22nd Congressional District, retired Lieutenant Colonel Allen West - an Iraq War veteran who famously shot a bullet past a prisoner's head to make him talk - has been chosen to be that district's voice and conscience.

The Senate has produced an even worse freshman class, possibly the worst in thirty years. It includes Kentucky's Rand Paul, an eye doctor who can't see the forest for the trees; Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey, whose idea of reviving the economy is to maximize profits and minimize production; Ron Johnson, Mr. Johnson of Wisconsin, who blamed climate change on "sunspots;" and, Rob Portman, elected by the voters of Ohio to provide remedies for an ailing industrial economy he helped ruin as Bush's trade representative.

I blame my fellow Americans for this. Only two-fifths of eligible voters voted, many young and minority voters who could have stopped this nightmare stayed home, and 46 percent of all Americans were, as of the middle of November, unaware that Republicans took over the House. Many Americans, rather than pay attention to the debate over the direction of the country, chose to go to the mall and max out their credit cards. Those who did get involved in the political discourse mainly listened to Glenn Beck. But who cares about Congress when another season of "American Idol" is coming? Why vote in the election when you can vote for a bunch of vapid hack entertainers for the People's Choice Awards and watch some hip-hop chick from New Jersey announce the results on the same day a perpetually tanned fellow from Ohio will likely announce his plan to abolish health care reform?

Again, I paint with a broad brush. Again, you get to watch me not care. I'm too ticked off to do so. Because I'm too outraged to be more even-handed. And how can I be anything but angry at a country that presents to the world a barbaric, horrific culture - what James Howard Kunstler calls a "clown civilization" - such as this one?