Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

The 2014 Midterm Election - A Towering Testament To Monumental Stupidity

The objective eye of history is undoubtedly going to look back upon the 2014 Midterm Election as both validating the concept of divide and conquer, and, as a towering monument to the stupidity of contemporary American society.
.
In spite of the fact that the most pressing issue in American society today is to create jobs and complete the nation’s recovery from the Great Recession of 2008, the American electorate delivered a repudiation of the president who save the nation from descending into a second Great Depression, and provided a sweeping victory to the GOP, the very party that’s directly responsible for its current misery, and has a vested interest in ensuring that the nation remains miserable, hungry, and divided for the next two years.
.
How could that possibly happen? Well, there’s enough blame to spread around almost evenly, but let’s start at the top and work our way down.
.
While President Obama is a dedicated, accomplished, and highly skilled chief executive, he seems to have two personality traits that would ordinarily be considered commendable in a private individual, but must be considered a flaw in a politician. First, he’s the consummate gentleman, so he meticulously avoids ugly confrontation if at all possible, and that’s a serious shortcoming when you’re dealing with greedy, lying, and ugly people. Secondly, he also meticulously avoids tooting his own horn, which is also a serious shortcoming when dealing with people who specialize in denigrating his accomplishments, and padding their resume regarding their own. A perfect example of that is how the GOP has obviously convinced the American people that their unconscionable obstruction to the nation’s recovery was done in the best interest of the country.
.
Back in February of this year, I wrote an article, and sent a copy to the White House, with the presumptuous title, "Dear Bro. Obama"  (I hate that title, and I wish I could go back and change it), in which I addressed the above issue with the President:
.
"So while I think you, personally, should continue in the mode that you’ve established, at the same time, you should create a staff - housed right next door to the Oval Office - whose sole purpose is to debunk Republican disinformation. Then, whenever any Republican appears on the news to distort reality, he or she should be able to look forward to the next day’s news cycle being flooded with information not only debunking his or her words, but also, examining every action that he or she has engaged in during their career that tends to be in conflict with their current position. In short, you should parade their hypocrisy before the American people.
.
"If you would take that simple action, Mr. President, you would not only drive home to the people the GOP’s hypocrisy, but you would cause individual Republicans to run away from the cameras instead of stumbling all over one another to be the first one to present the latest Republican assault on reality. In addition, it would appease the thirst for blood among the people in your base, provide writers like myself with grist for our mill, and also give us an indication of what areas of investigation would bear the most fruit."
.

Since much of the GOP’s popularity and success is based upon the complete ignorance of a sizable percentage of the American electorate, I’m convinced that if the President would have followed my advice and educated the people to what they’re actually dealing with in the GOP, he could have done an end run around what we witnessed last night.
.  
But the President’s failure to confront the GOP’s manipulation of the people is not the only thing that led to last night’s result. Another huge contributor to last night’s GOP victory was the activities of the self-serving and hypocritical so-called "progressive" lip-flappers like Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and Boyce Watkins, who spend all of their time attacking President Obama and the Democratic Party regarding what they’re NOT doing, while at the very same time being as quiet as church mice regarding GOP obstruction to voter rights, any form of job creation, extended unemployment insurance, women’s rights, gay rights, affordable health care, and anything else that might provide the least bit of relief to the American people. The collective and individual behavior of these so-called "Black activists" is far too defiant of logic for it to be either by accident or mere stupidity.
.

These three individuals, and others, have done a grave disservice to the very people that they claim they wanted to protect by convincing these people that they should be so upset with the "Bogeyman" that they should leave the backdoor unlocked for the Devil. As a direct result of their activities - and directly implying, in the case of Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, that the people should be so upset with Barack Obama that it would be understandable if the people decided not to vote - they have now placed the very people that they’re supposed to be so concerned about in, literally, the worst situation of their lives.
.
So to use a term that Tavis likes to sling around so "liberally," the people should hold them directly accountable for their behavior by relegating them to the ash heap of Black history. Considering the heavy and horrific price that Black people have paid for the right to vote, the mere suggestion that Black people not turn out to vote, alone, should be considered sacrilege for ANY so-called Black activist - and they've made a living off of undermining the Democratic agenda and enabling the GOP for, at least, 14 years, when Cornel West played such an integral role in helping to get George W. Bush elected President in the 2000 Election.
.
These people don’t make it a point to time the release of their books to come out just before every election for nothing. That gives them the opportunity to help the GOP by bad-mouthing the Democratic Party under the pretext of being on a "book tour." I've been trying to warn the people against the activities of Tavis Smiley, Cornel West, and later, Boyce Watkins'. It wasn't hard to predict the possibility of it leading to the Republican blowout that we witnessed last night, because Cornel West has done it before.
.
There's two ways of delivering a victory to the GOP, either directly advocating that the people vote Republican, or through the backdoor like these three, by making the people so angry at President Obama and the Democrats that they don't turn out to vote. Because what many people don't realize is, there's no such thing as not voting.  They're failure to vote is a vote for the side they dislike most.
.
For just that reason, I wrote two articles, back-to-back, just last month warning the people about these individuals - "The ‘Black Prophetic’ Mouth of Cornel West is At It Again - And As Usual, Just In Time To Sabotage Democrats In The Upcoming Election," and, "Is Cornel West A Judas Goat - When Was The Last Time You Heard Him Attack A Conservative Republican?" In the latter I point out the following:
.
"After Ralph Nader was rejected for the 2000 presidential nomination by the Democratic voters, instead of acknowledging his rejection and falling into line to help defeat the Republicans, Nader went into a petulant snit and ran as a third party candidate. It was clear that he purposely ran as a third party candidate with the mean-spirited intent of sabotaging the Democratic effort, because third parties never win; the only purpose that third parties ever serve is to help elect the people that you like least, because they divide the vote of like-minded people.
.
"Cornel West joined Nader in this foolish - or treacherous, you make the determination - campaign, and as a result, George W. Bush won the election over Al Gore by winning Florida by a mere 537 votes. The Nader/West coalition peeled off 97,488 votes from Gore in Florida alone. So when I say that Cornel West is more than a little responsible for George W. Bush becoming President of the United States, and thus, your current economic condition, don’t take my word for it – you do the math.
.
"Most people, if they were sincere, would look at the disastrous results of their activities and be devastated. After all, causing Bush to be elected was the worst possible outcome for everything West is SUPPOSE to represent. So most people would conclude that they had made a grave error, and that they would never do anything to divide the progressive vote again. But not Cornel West, he teamed up with Ralph Nader yet again in the 2012 election against Obama, and tried do the very same thing that they'd done in the 2000 election that resulted in Bush's presidency. The only thing that stopped them was, this time the people weren’t buying it."
.

The third element that contributed to last night’s election disaster is the people themselves - they are so grossly uninformed that they fail to realize that they’ve just cut their own throat (Fellow Americans, Don't Let Our Ignorance Destroy Us).
.
 Many of the poor and middle class social conservatives who are undoubtedly dancing in the street with jubilation over striking a blow against Obama fail to realize that the fiscal, or corporate conservatives, whose win they’re celebrating, don’t care any more about them than they do Black people, Hispanics, women or gays. They don’t even share their agenda. The corporate conservatives have merely been catering to the social conservative’s bigotry and hatred to keep the poor and middle class divided, so they could be conquered. So what the social bigots are too dumb to realize is, they’ve just voted themselves into the status of "the new niggas."
.
What the social bigots should have been asking themselves is, when the corporatists started shipping jobs overseas, were they just eliminating Black jobs, or did their jobs go too? And during the housing crisis, was it just Blacks, Hispanic, and gay people who lost their homes, or did they lose their homes as well?
.

The corporate/GOP alliances ultimate goal is to transform America from a democracy, to a corporate feudalist society, where corporations control every part of our lives. We may still get to vote, but our votes will be meaningless, because they’ll have so much control over our lives that we’ll know that if we vote the wrong way, we’ll be punished. They’ve already started the conditioning process. They’ve already conditioned many of us to believe that organized labor - historically, the best friend of the poor and middle class - is evil, they cause us to lose jobs; they’ve also conditioned many of us to believe that the minimum wage is a bad thing, because it causes us to lose jobs. So they using the withholding of jobs to slowly lower the American middle-class standard of living to conform to the global economy, where many workers make less a week, than American middle-class workers spend on lunch a day.
.

And another thing, if you social bigots think the corporatists are going to conform to your desire to keep undocumented workers out of the country, you’d better think again. The corporatists have a vested interest in allowing as many undocumented workers into the country as they can get, because they make you have to compete for lower paying jobs, which again, lowers the middle-class standard of living. Thus, you’re determined insistence on remaining a bigot, has led to you cutting your own throat. It’s ironic, isn’t it?
.

Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
[email protected]
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.