Go Go Power Dems! Republican Zord is destroying the health care bill!

Eric Hill

Opinion Editor

Political parties have a startling similarity to the Power Rangers. They do a lot of theatrical fighting, puff themselves up, damage just about everything they touch and then declare a victory when they use a heavy handed method to solve a problem. They also both take direction from giant talking heads (Zordon does look like Rush Limbaugh), who seem to know a lot about problems they created but never managed to fix.

The first major “battle” that occurred this past week was the election of the Republican Scott Brown to the late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s U.S. senate seat. Winning by just 5 percent, about 100,000 votes according to Boston.com, the only reason this was even possible was because Democrat Martha Coakley campaigned like a piece of Chinese drywall. It more or less consisted of “I’m here, vote for me.” Meanwhile Brown’s election removed the 60 percent majority the Democrats had in Congress, allowing his party to transform from a small gang of villains back into a filibustering behemoth. This is very much like when the green ranger plays his magic flute and a giant lizard monster rises out of the ocean to rally the forces.

The second major “battle” of the last week is the announced “spending freeze” that the Obama administration is seeking support for in Congress. It what can only be called a dunce-cap move, President Barack Obama announced he would like to freeze domestic discretionary spending for about 3 years, amounting to about 250 billion dollars in domestic spending savings over a decade, according to the New York Times. Republicans laughed hysterically at this and rightfully so. Democrats have blown trillions of dollars this fiscal year on bank bailouts, auto bailouts, stimulus programs and suggested billions more in entitlement programs, operating under a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit. They have also failed to put effective banking regulations in place, allowing for errant bankers to suck bonus money out of stimulus funds in the form of stock options based on market performance.

Obama has not proposed cutting back on defense or Homeland security or any of the other expensive government departments because he doesn’t want to look weak. These departments are the ones that need to be shrunk; they waste money and spend it on nefarious purposes like designing more destructive weapons, or selling arms to other countries like the recently approved sale of missile weapons to Taiwan.

Similar to how lord Zedd once foolishly designed his Z-troops with their weak spot in the center of their chest, so too are the flawed mechanics of our current political system. Using “big guns” like bailouts, spending freezes and omnibus bills will not fix any of our problems–they just look flashy. If the Democrats had used the filibuster override when they had the chance, they could have passed a simple health care bill with vision under a rightful majority and could have instituted regulations that don’t allow bankers to pull cash out of people’s pockets by threatening a financial meltdown. Now we will have an entire year of filibustering by the Republicans until midterm elections happen, when they will campaign viscously to regain their popular footing. Already the television stations are firing up their election broadcasts for nine months of “he said, she said” until voters get a chance to pick between two bloated dullards who will propagate the same dogma their predecessors did.

The point of this long and drawn out metaphor is that like the Power Rangers, political parties are not really fighting evil or injustice or fixing social problems. They are making a television show, filled with plasma cannons, cactus monsters and a lot of dramatic, hollow words. If the Power Rangers were really serious about killing Lord Zedd, they would have launched their zords to the moon and kicked his alien ass in a surprise attack. If the Democrats were really serious about passing health care, they would have used the filibuster-proof majority, if they were really serious about balancing the budget they would cut defense spending. If the Republicans had a clue they would stop trying to use the same old tricks to accomplish their goals, like when Lord Zedd only sends one evil crab monster to destroy California instead of using something truly devastating, like an earthquake.

The larger statement that needs to be made is that these politicians are acting like teenagers dressed up in shiny tights with powerful weapons. Naturally, they never actually complete anything, they simply squabble and ask for more powerful weapons. The markets are not going to fix themselves, health care is not OK by a long shot, we are an imperialistic and selfish society led by egotistical and uncooperative businessmen and “public servants.”

So what are we going to do about it?

We take their stinking tights and weapons away, and vote independent. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this year that corporations can now spend unlimited amounts of money on supporting or deriding candidates. This means that this year we will be bombarded by advertising funded by fat cats who have all of your “public servants” in their pockets. Why doesn’t anything get done? Because that’s what they want to happen, keep us fighting so we won’t actually accomplish the mission in front of us, to make a better and more peaceful society.

We can make an impact at the state level right now. The Virginia legislative session has just begun and several bills are in committee that will have a serious impact on the course of state governance. Go to www.richmondsunlight.com to review all of the bills before the state delegation and contact your delegate to show your opinions on the course of these bills. When November comes, do your research and support a candidate who doesn’t dance around the issues and won’t make fighting inequity a children’s game.