How a Party Tried to Wag the Dog (During Wartime)

Lawmakers Rejoice as Social Security Reform & Other Solvable Issues Fade to Black.

While Bushies brainstormed on re-direction issues in an attempt to divert the collective electorate's attention from the tomfoolery unfolding in Iraq, they knew what was needed was a real biggie to get their minds off Iraq:

• Gay marriage had a shorter-than-hoped-for attention span.
• Abortion? Hmmm. Been there, tried that. 
• Illegal Immigration.  Ahah! Just what the doctor ordered!
  

Illegal immigration - yes, we fell in love (or hate) with that divisive issue.  It's even had CNN's  unflappable anchor, Lou Dobbs doing nightly cartwheels for over two years. 

A bona fide dag-wogger. 

However, it's one of "those" issues that, when unleashed, stands quite capable of inflicting terrible harm upon our country - scorched earth if left unchecked. 

Then again, it took a big, BIG issue to mitigate the collective negativity that was brimming against the war in Iraq.  So, unleash it they felt they must. 

Kudos to Carl Rove, the master who knows real persuasion isn't about taming the American electorate. He knows it's about re-directing that collective hatred toward one or more heated issues. Since a war was already on, that dag-wogger wasn't going to work. So, their choices, in the heat of wartime were none other than 1) Gays, and 2) Illegal Aliens. 

Meanwhile, you and I look across the American bar room brawl that's now just in ROUND ONE across the country, as if they're in a fast-motion blur, going nowhere fast.  Blood's on the walls, beer bottles are flying.  You are I know precisely how much actual productive work stands a chance of getting done on issues that are truly solvable. 

Here we are, looking down, witnessing the virtual deconstruction of what makes the United States united. Our people.  Illegal immigration isn't a wag-the-dog issue; it's a country-killer.  

Unfortunately, the strategy of re-direction didn't entirely work for Carl & Company.  Unfortunately, our collective appetite for hate and disdain has grown to a point well beyond the estimates of any mere political strategist. While we've shown our ability to love our neighbors and embrace peace, we humans can hate more than the average Joe too, and we're proving it - daily. 

The illegal alien issue continues to infuriate the nation. It didn't buy the six or eight months the administration had hoped for to get their shit together in Iraq. 

Gay marriage?  Gulp, thanks for the appetizer, Carl; we swallowed that one whole, and now we need more.  Ahhhhh, Illegal immigration.  Now, that's one hell of a main course we can dine on!   Hey Carl, don't touch my Iraqi pie!  We're savoring that one; could you bring over a slice of Iranian meringue for later?

Estimates between twelve and twenty five million illegal immigrants scroll across MSNBC, CNN and FOX's news ticker. "Cost estimates" of illegals billow into the trillions of dollars, conveniently omitting the trillions in return illegals - like them or not - deliver BACK into the economy.

Re-writes of Reagan history are aflutter on the blogs when he went the way of amnesty - now treated as "the A-word" by both political parties today. Utter hatred and bigoted statements fill our local newspapers' Letters to the Editor.  It's all over an issue that we know cannot be solved in a few strokes of the pen.

It's an enormous issue, to be sure, and must be solved, but folks, in case you didn't notice, THERE'S A WAR ON.  I think you have to admit, jumping into the illegal immigration issue is quite comparable to jumping into a war without a plan.  Hmmmmm...sound like the work of familiar authors?

Folks, we need solutions, not infighting and hatred. Right now, we are without a rudder, with (OK, I'll say it, because it's true) clowns on the left of us, and jokers to the right.  Charisma ain't going to solve this problem. Neither will money. We simply don't have enough.  Patience will go a long way though. 

Can the Dagwog Issue Surpass Iraq's Miscalc?

You bet. Have you stopped to wonder whether twenty million aliens might get awfully sick and tired of us calling them f-ing bastards?  Have you wondered whether our own citizens' ruthless words and willingness to rip apart their famlies - our hate-filled degradation and demoralization might cause something far worse than dealing with the insurgents in Baghdad?

Don't kid yourselves, people have fought for less. 

Twenty million undocumented people have learned how to live off the grid - many of them for over twenty years, folks. You think for a second when our highest leaders call them "potential terrorists" and "threats to American security" that might, in fact, turn them into exactly that which we fear most? Can you say "self-fulfilling prophecy?"

Gee, let's build a fence. Let's erect a wall to combat the height of Berlin's and the thickness of China's. Let's arm it with guards; let's pull troops from Iraq's deserts, and plop them in Arizona's. Let's put Humvees and RPG's at our border patrol's control; let's use night vision technology and re-deploy satellites to give us real-time HD line of sight to zero in on those bad, bad people wanting to get in.  

So many folks are fooling themselves that a fence can do the job. Sure it can, just like marijuana and cocaine traffic has ceased to exist since we funded the DEA in the 1970's.  That's no solution.

The axis of evil has now extended to include any and all Mexicans attempting entry into our land.  Forget Canadians, as they can't be so easily identified as the Mexicans with their jet black hair, their olive skin and "funny eyes."  Sounds mighty familiar, doesn't it?    Let's erect concentration camps in New Mexico and Texas, or better yet, establish a new "no man's land" between Mexico and the United States, in "Gitmo" fashion, free of US law, to "legally" detain these bad Mexicans, and make sure they don't enter our country. If they have, let's pack them into tin buildings, surrounded by World War II era barbed wire.  You know, the stuff left over from the Japanese camps?  That's the ticket.

Are you pissed off yet, reading this? My point exactly. That's their hope, brothers and sisters - that you'll hate my point of view as much as I might hate yours, and together, we'll forget about the REAL WORK that MUST OCCUR in Washington, today, to move us ahead as a nation. 

I for one, can't remember the last time we got serious about an issue that IS solvable, such as Social Security reform.  Can you?

Is Social Security Reform on any tier-one candidate's agenda? Of course not. It's not sexy. It's another issue parties have reached an impasse upon, and surrendered to the criss-cross shredding machines populating every Legislative office on Capitol Hill. 

And guess what?  Seniors vote in droves; "Seen-yours" are barred from the election booth.  God forbid our legislators produce bipartisan solutions which directly benefits our voting citizens.  God forbid REAL, PRODUCTIVE WORK gets done within the beltway any more.

Perhaps the first fence to erect should begin and end on the banks of the Potomac.