Trite but true: to the victor belongs the spoils -- and so it begins
I just posted this thought on another thread but want to give it more exposure.
For forever in time, we have heard that saying "to the victor belongs the spoils." Not 24 hours after the election, a Republican interviewed last night on cable suggested compromises Democrats and Republicans could make in the spirit of bipartisanship. The first suggestion from his lips was the passage of the Keystone Pipeline and passage of the proposed trade agreements now under consideration.
Approval of the Keystone Pipeline would result in a 100 million dollar profit for the Koch Brothers. They spent millions of dollars (perhaps I should say invested) in this mid-term election. Ads in Maryland alone ran virtually nonstop by the Republicans reviewing all the tax increases enacted by O'Malley/Brown. Most of them were Mickey Mouse charges, but included in the ads were a host of other ridulous taxes that I personally never witnessed enacted; for instance, a tax on diapers of all things.
But it does appear that should the Koch Brothers get the rewards they have been seeking in return for their "investments" in some of the politicians we saw making acceptance speeches, the brunt bruising for some of our most prized tools, for instance, the EPA, Social Security, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act, and other salient programs will be readily apparent as talks of privatzation, reform, or cancellation commence. Remember, Ben Bernanke said in a Senate hearing aired on cable "Social Security can be repealed."
To the victors belong the spoils -- well, only if we allow that to happen. I am one who today is grieving over the loss of the Maryland Governship, as well as a number of other races, but tomorrow I plan to start to brainstorm over what we can do to protect what we have that we prize as social redemption for the benefit of the poor, the elderly, the disabled, those living in poverty, those who still are in jeopardy for having no health care, protection of the environment, crucial restrictions on the firearm goals Republicans seek to implement for the National Rifle Association (whose members the majority of which I have been told support common-sense controls such as background checks), and of critical importance, the right of every registered citizen to cast and have counted a vote in his or her elections.
I ask you to join me in brainstorming what we can do to start to implement a recovery from these losses. After all, when someone throws a rock at you and puts out your eye, you need to start looking around for boulders to fire back. (That is a metaphor, not a threat.) Our boulders can be found by cooperating with one another to develop coherent strategies we can develop to start to take our government back in 2016.
Sam
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