Speculation

After 45 years of bowling,
man bowls a perfect game,
dies of a heart attack.

Wouldn’t it be funny – if what used to be the Republican party split in two? It seems to me one might argue that it has been split into two rough segments for the last eight years. The primary segment, which I have called the Brafia, the Bush/Republican cunning criminal conspiracy that has systematically robbed the taxpayers blind while transferring most of the wealth from the middle-class to the obscenely wealthy and their corporations, and another segment which, for want of a better term, let me call here the Loonies. The Loonies, of course, being the racist and homophobic, bible-thumping, evolution denying, armageddon-loving evangelical ultra-rightists that have been shamelessly used to do the bidding of the Brafia by encouraging them to vote for anti-abortion legislation, against gay marriages, and other “cultural issues” that the Brafia itself could not have cared less about and were even against their best interests. It was in interesting strategy and provided a strong enough coalition to manage to steal a couple of elections.

Now, however, the Loonies seem to have found a leader of their own, a shrill young female demagogue who obviously speaks their language and seems to be on the way to establishing them as her own “base.” Ambitious and clever, she has been increasingly independent of John McCain who rather unthinkingly picked her as his running mate. She has broken with him on some issues and has been campaigning lately in Florida with signs that do not even include his name. She once even referred to the Palin/McCain ticket (a slip of the tongue, perhaps). There seems to be little doubt where she is trying to go and admits to wanting to be a big player in the future Republican party. As the Loonies only represent at most about 25% of the voting public she would have to somehow maintain the unholy alliance that has existed between the Loonies and the Brafia. As this has now been exposed it could be difficult.

The Brafia, on the other hand, are basically leaderless at the moment. Although John McCain is their candidate for President it is obvious they are not happy with him and are deserting him in droves. This group is not going to accept Palin as their leader as she is too extreme in her views and too much affiliated with religious zealots and gun nuts. Some say that the Mormon, Mitt Romney, will become the leader of the Brafia. This remains to be seen and may or may not happen, if only because it was the Loonies who opposed him so vigorously this time (evangelicals think Mormonism is a cult and does not represent their version of Christianity). But whoever emerges as the leader of the Brafia probably could not gain enough support without the Loonies, and that would seem to be about where things stand at the moment. Assuming that Barack Obama will, in fact, be elected as our first Black and White President, these factions of what used to be the Republican party will certainly have their work cut out for them. After their terrible excesses of the past eight years they may never recover.

Obama’s lead seems to be increasing day by day, what with so many Republican defections from the McCain campaign, so many newspaper and other endorsements for Obama, the huge early turnout, and so on. I have predicted all along Obama would win with a landslide, primarily because I thought McCain was such a terrible candidate, and it looks like I might actually be at least almost right for a change. Only a couple of days now and this fantastic campaign will finally and mercifully come to an end.


Favorite short poems:

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and
bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is
called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful
stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and
be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It
answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back
again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to
Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost
on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The
forest knows Where you are. You must let it find
you.

David Wagoner

TILT:
One of my best friend’s wife died unexpectedly, after 45 years of marriage, completing her inevitable journey to the west.