Pre-Election Dumbing Down of America

So the latest news from the campaign trail is that now the debate between the two Vice Presidential candidates will not allow for actual debate between the two people. It will consist of moderators asking questions and the candidates only responding to the moderator. This is not a debate. This is a fluff interview designed to advantage Sarah (I know nothing about national or international politics) Palin. This woman needed six schools to get a four year degree and has spent a grand total of eighteen months as governor of a state with fewer people than one of New York City’s boroughs. The fix is in folks and America is lapping it up like a bunch of well traveled sheep following the GOP Simplistic Express to economic ruin.

This latest tactic of only accepting situations that stack the deck in their favor is yet another example of the Republican Party working to distract the voters from real issues and make the campaign about superficial, inconsequential matters that favor their solutions challenged Party. Sadly, America seems to be buying it too. People love Sarah Palin despite her obvious lack of knowledge about all of the things important to being an effective Vice President. Now, not only will she dodge the media and tough questions she is having the debate tailored to meet her needs as an unqualified candidate.

This tactic of lowering the bar is typical of the Republican method of campaigning that has become so prevalent in the last decade. By redefining what is considered success the GOP lowers the expectations of the audience to convince them that levels of failure can be considered successes when compared to one another. Forget that the war in Iraq has cost thousands of American lives over what was essentially misinformation about the threat posed to America by Iraq, the “surge” of thousands of American troops into the region lessened the amount of violence and slowed the American casualty rate happening in a region destabilized by the original ill-conceived plan that put our troops in harm’s way in the first place.

This systematic strategy of lowering expectations and misdirection is what has gotten us into a war we never needed to be in and is causing the collapse of our financial infrastructure. The markets are collapsing because of the GOP plan to deregulate the financial industry allowing predatory lending and foolish investment structuring to happen. If regulations in place before the Reagan era were still in place there never would have been a Savings and Loan collapse and American taxpayers would not be shouldering a bailout cost of $1.3 trillion dollars to keep our economy from total collapse.

In the meantime, Republicans are resisting all attempts to include accountability in the bailout plan proposed to Congress by the White House. George Bush says “There will be plenty of time” to decide who is to blame for the mess after they fix it but the truth is that if they don’t force accountability to be part of the legislation to bail out financial institutions it will never happen. Once the money is spent lobbyists will be back in control with all the assets they need to keep manipulating our system to their advantage. Right now the lobbyists have little leverage over the bill to bail out their clients. Now is the time to use this opportunity to make sweeping change to the lobbying system and kick the fat cats out of Washington. There will never be a better opportunity for change than right now. Real leaders would recognize that and jump on the opportunity that has presented itself to them.

The Democrats have the lobbyists over a barrel right now and need to take every advantage of it to clean up the mess and the cause of the mess at the same time. If Republicans try to block it they are playing politics with America’s future and will lose in the end. Now is the time to wise up and stop letting the GOP dumb down the discussion. Now is the time to stop the “good old boys network” train to nowhere and start to make things equitable for the American people. Re-regulation of the markets and common sense laws protecting consumers from unethical business practices need to be a part of this bailout of the financial industry. If Democrats squander this opportunity they deserve another four years of Republican leadership in the White House because they will have proven that they have been dumbed down more than anyone else.