MINDLESS POLITICS

It would be an understatement if I said I was disappointed with Rep. Dennis Kucinich for caving in on the health insurance corporate give-away bill that passed last night. But I should not have been surprised.

Just days ago I posted a video on this blog where Kucinich called Obama's insurance corporation bailout bill weak and built on quicksand. But he has done this kind of thing before. Kucinich pulled an about face when he declared he would support Sen. John Kerry's presidential nomination in 2004. Then again this last year, after justly criticizing Obama endlessly during the primary campaigns, Kucinich supported him and urged his left-leaning anti-war and anti-corporate supporters to vote for the right-leaning party presidential nominee.

I've heard some say over the years that Kucinich eagerly plays the role of the guy whose job it is to corral the leftists and herd them into the party. He might not be doing that consciously but in effect that is just what is happening.

For me it is four times now that I've seen Kucinich pull such antics and as they say in baseball - four strikes and you are out.......I'm done with the guy.

In the end it is not so much that he joined the rest of his party in voting for the bill. After all he is a Democrat. It is more the way he wound us all up and we were hanging on his every fundamentally correct criticism of this corporate dream bill and then he gets us to the edge of the cliff and just gives us a shove and over we go. I'm just not going to follow him to the edge of the cliff anymore - I now get the picture.

I was reading some entries today on Facebook and one liberal woman was saying that if anyone wanted to criticize this Obama health insurance bill they should just "go away"....... it reminded me of the old right-wing mantra - "American love it or leave it".

I read a quote from another liberal yesterday talking about Obama's Afghanistan war and her comment was essentially this - "Obama didn't start this war and anyway our troops are over there now trying to help those people and we have to support the president." I almost fell out of my chair. But why do I still get surprised by such mindless drivel?

There are these kinds of people - Republican or Democrat - who are just intellectually lazy and they want to live in a nice tight little box where everything is easy and the world makes sense. As long as "their party" is in power they are quite content to follow the "leader" and they do their level best to swallow the pill handed to them. Put the "other party" back in power and suddenly their critical thinking seems to reawaken, but as soon as their party regains control their minds switch back to "operate only upon instruction."

It's all very sad. This is why I could never be a politician. I could not handle the sausage making process. This nonsense also makes it hard for me to feel like I could ever be a loyal party person of any kind. That kind of mindless "party first" thinking just doesn't sit well with me.

Thank goodness there are many of you out there who are also critical thinkers. In times like this we need each other more than ever.