Over Here

The Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming

The drums rum tumming everywhere

So prepare

Say a prayer

Send the word, send the word to beware…

(George M. Cohan, “Over There”)

The victory of a “conservative” candidate to fill the seat left vacant after the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts might indeed warrant a title and lyrical change of Cohan’s World War I patriotic anthem from “Over There” to “Over Here.”

As a devout moderate-centrist with middle-of-the-road leanings, I can’t say I’m disappointed.

I don’t believe either party is worth a plug nickel anymore, really. I think the whole two-party system is a wash, but it is so ingrained in our political culture it can’t be undone. People will instinctively ally themselves along certain lines, no matter what you call them.

I wonder what Cohan would have thought of the politics today? That great performer, writer and stage producer spent much of his life using song and dance to lampoon politics. In the classic production of “I’d Rather Be Right” by Rodgers and Hart, Cohan as a singing and dancing Franklin D. Roosevelt marveled at his newfound ability to stymie the press by declaring his comments were “Off the Record”:

My speeches on the radio have made me quite a hero

I only have to say “My friends” and stocks go down to zero

Don’t print it – It’s strictly off the record

The radio officials say that I’m the leading fellow

Jack Benny can be President and I’ll go on for Jell-O

Don’t print it – It’s strictly off the record

It’s pleasant at the White House, but I’ll tell you how I feel:

The food is something terrible – just sauerkraut and veal

If Eleanor would stay at home I’d get a decent meal

But that’s off the record…

Compared to the likes of Olbermann, Beck and such (pick your leaning) that’s a class act.

But back to Massachusetts. While I don’t think either party is worth pecan, I do still believe in the power of the American people to keep elected officials in line…if they only will exercise their muscle to do so. Ambivalence breeds corruption, not power. Certainly, politicians will just attempt to find new ways to maintain their spheres of influence, money and power, but at least this time, the voters in Massachusetts have demonstrated that it may, just may, be possible that the American people will only take so much. This far, no farther.

And I agree with many pundits that the shocker in Massachusetts is certainly a good thermometer for the feelings of the nation…not many states can claim to be as blue or bluer than Massachusetts.

Massachusetts, by the way, was the scene of the Boston Tea Party, you’ll recall, setting the stage for the Revolution of 1776. Makes the tea party scoffers and ridiculers seem a little silly now, doesn’t it? Take that, Anderson Cooper. The Tea Party movement was begun in response to Bush’s economic stimulus package, caught momentum with the current administration and Congress, and has coalesced into a wave of anger across the nation that defies categorical dismissal.

Even His Assinineness, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs admits finally that Americans are fighting mad and “that anger is now pointed at us because we’re in charge. Rightly so.”

An exit poll in Massachusetts showed more than half of those who voted for Brown did so precisely to kill health care.

The crawfishing, back-pedaling and about-facing the next day was mind-numbing.

People were pretty fed up with George W. Bush and his ilk; the groundswell had already begun, and Obama was elected in hopes of a departure from the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld and those types.

But it soon became obvious we only traded one extreme for the other; we got Biden and Reid and Pelosi and we were back where we started from.

“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss,” the Who sang in the seventies. Only the scenery has changed.

When bouncing along in a carriage, Thomas Jefferson once noted, it is often a relief to shift positions and be bruised in a different spot. That’s essentially what we did in the 2009 elections and no matter who tries to make this “us vs. them” and “good vs. bad” the simple fact is they’re all bad, none are worth a hoot and the only way they can be reformed is by a massive revolt at the polls, regularly and without relent.

It finally happened, when talk of forcing health care reform down our throats, penalties, and the notion that we should all pay for everybody else’s health coverage, put many Americans over the edge of their sleepy indifference. How dare they! These Americans – in Massachusetts and elsewhere – are saying the government at all levels are into our pockets enough, we’ve bled enough, we’ve paid our taxes through our noses, now go fix the problem yourselves and don’t come back to us for another penny. Because, in the end, government created this mess, be it health care, social security, banking, oil prices, whatever. Americans may finally be saying, “You spilled it, you better damn sure clean it up, or we’ll find someone who can.”

I’d like to think that’s what’s happening. I’d like to see reform of Washington before anything else. I’d like to see American money spent on Americans, not every two-bit country around the globe that has their begging cup out. I’m all for humanitarian aid, as in Haiti, it’s our responsibility as moral human beings…but don’t turn around and let (this is true!) the National Park Service send someone a bill for $25,000 if they break an ankle on a trail and have to be rescued, or the Coast Guard sending me a $50,000 bill because someone’s boat engine fried far offshore and they had to go find and tow them in.

We need to take control of government, throw the bums out, put in new ones, and whip them into shape or throw ‘em all out again. Congress is a wild beast, running around doing things that are not within its constitutional authority but nobody stops them. Nobody cares.

I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy

A Yankee Doodle, do or die

A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam

Born on the Fourth of July –

(Cohan)

It’s time to take back this country. It’s time to look out for our own and let the rest of the world get by on its own. It’s time for government, of, by and for the people.

I know it’s an unrealistic dream. But damn, we can hope.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 22nd, 2010 at 9:45 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.