Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Election Returns


Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me


I can almost hear Buck Owens and Roy Clark singing this dirge from the TV show Hee Haw. If you don't remember the show, it featured lots of actors and singers dressed up as bumpkins and simultaneously performing and lampooning Country Western music. Most of it wasn't very funny.

Today the bumpkins aren't just singing and acting. They're governing. And though I still don't find it amusing, I can hear the sounds of laughter emanating from executive suites and board rooms everywhere. The unprecedented infusion of corporate money into this election bought exactly what was intended: freedom from taxation and regulation for the richest of the rich and more power for the powerful.

The bumpkins are singing this morning. They think they've claimed a people's victory. But as been true so many times before, they've been used. And unlike the dems, who seem really reluctant to use their power to accomplish anything other than improving their standing in the polls (which did not work, again, by the way), the bumpkins will act to reduce taxes (on the wealthy) and reduce government (which might regulate the powerful). With another election victory or two the Right might just reach their goal of establishing a Christian Nation.

I'll try to be magnanimous. Maybe the bumpkins aren't stupid. Maybe they're just acting that way.

My gloom, however, is not feigned.