A diary posted earlier here on DKos, here, has finally moved me to write something I've been thinking about since at least last September.
For lack of a better, more explanatory term, I'm going to call it the American Taliban, and folks aren't going to like it. But that's Ok, because my real purpose here is to trigger some much needed discussion concerning some of the forces tearing at our civil fabric.
So come with me, if you will, to examine some of the tumors on the body politic.
Mind you, I don't have a lot of facts to back me up here. I am reflecting upon my impressions, which are wonderfully tied to my instincts and, therefore, quite often right on target. Of course, I could just as easily be wrong, but will happily entertain refutations to my assertions here; because these are, after all, simply my assertions.
My thesis is this: That there are elements in America, both left and right, who hunger for the collapse of the nation.
Of course, we've all heard something to this effect from the right for a long time: the hope that President Obama will fail. The assertion that any action by government to ameliorate the recession is socialism and therefore dictatorship. The eagerness of the right to shower corporations with subsidy dollars while at the same time impovershing individuals by the hundreds of thousands (even millions).
The surprise is that there are also quite a few on the left who, apparently distressed that after only five short months of Obama's administration, the country seems to be functioning again: roads are being repaired, health care reform is being seriously talked about, the recession seems to be winding down (according to most), and there is even a glimmer of hope for such devastated areas as Detroit and New Orleans. The partisan rancour on Capital Hill has decreased in volume, and the GOP -- in full retreat --- appears ready to think about participating in actual governing again.
To me these are hopeful signs. But many on the left seem to despair that our government still stands, our economy still functions and people may actually begin to find work again. From reading comments here, and on places such as Common Dreams, the issue seems to be that we are still polluting, still capitalist, still burning fossil fuels and participating in the world as a world power.
While the reasons are different, I find this fundamentally no different that the Limbaugh and Gingrich devotees who pray for massive failure, only so they can regain power and proceed to finish wrecking things as they have for the past generation. Both are intent on the destruction of our country, or some vital component of our society. Both, though they probably would not admit it, desire to throw even more millions of workers and families out of their homes and into abject poverty and despair. Both advocate a ruin of the economy that would leave us bereft and powerless against foreign powers. Both desire the destruction of families, adults and children alike, to serve their greater ideological ends.
Personally I find this little different from Stalin's Russia or the Taliban's Afghanistan. Each of those regimes slew human dignity, freedom and the well being of their countries and societies on altars of power and ideology. Like Pol Pot, the idea is more important than the people, and if the people must be butchered to promote the idea, then so be it.
I have a colleague that continually utters "Let it burn," hoping that the entire political, social and economic system will be eviscerated so that constitutional purity can be restored (or at least, his idea of it). I have others who are convinced the US must be bankrupted and the dollar made totally worthless in order to purge us of the poison of the Fed. These are little different than those who, here on Kos itself, express rage that the recession may be bottoming out. They see little hope of reform unless the country is made destitute and, oh yes, indivduals and families are driven into starvation.
I am ready to declare a pox on all such houses. Whether it's the religious zealotry of the real Taliban or the Fundamentalist Christians, those who leach the joy out of life are neither genuinely religious nor accurate in their reading of the constitution apart from the welfare of the people.
I don't really care for things as they are, but I sure as hell don't want to see them get worse in order for someone to impose their Jim Jones like idea of utopia on all use.
The United States is a thriving, restless dynamic nation that has demonstated endless capacity for self-correction and self-renewal. It is only those whose own ideas are so bankrupt, be they captialist or socialst purists, who must decry the failure of us to surrender to despair, poverty and anarchy.
Thank you but, no. Yours is not a prescription I am willing to take. It's kool aide I will not drink; and I urge others not to drink it as well.