Are you seeing the docked tails?

I’m getting an oppressive sense of encirclement with the Democrats now in power. There’s a famous scene at the end of Orwell’s Animal House where the farm animals look in the window of the farm house and realize that the humans and the pigs were actually the same:

Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but it was already impossible to say which was which.

Our republic is a fragile thing – that is, the powerful forces that govern are well-kept, but the democratic freedoms we enjoy are fragile. The only thing that keeps power in check is public awareness. The American public is actually the first enemy of the concentrated centers of private wealth that rule behind the scenes of elected government. And while we may be crude and uneducated, susceptible to superstition and easy to manipulate by means of fear, there is power out here. It’s just not focused.

When Barack Obama first assumed power, he made an unusual gesture, one that set me back a bit. He appointed Mike Lux “progressive liaison.” That was a clear message – progressives would be on the outside looking in. Lux only lasted a couple of months, and there is no liaison now, no pretense. The administration has dropped any progressive cloaking, and is aggressively pursuing Bush policies in every area, from monstrous deficits to aggressive war to subsidizing of favored industries. Citizens are still held in indefinite detention, secret prisons still exist, torture goes on as before. It has just gone underground again, as before 9/11.

Perhaps he will become a focal point of resistance, but political prisoner Don Siegelman, former governor or Alabama, will go back to jail for the crime of dissing Karl Rove. In the meantime, Ted Stevens walked.

It’s a dangerous time, more so than under Bush and the Republicans, as so many people who might oppose Bush policies have gone into the house with the pigs and humans to wait tables and serve drinks. Liberals are a malleable bunch, oblivious to much of what goes on under their noses. Take the health care bill: it is a crushing defeat at the hands of AHIP and PhRMA, and yet they are embracing it.

I have said to the point of obnoxious annoyance that “Democrats are the problem,” and people thought I was being hyperbolic or demonic. Those words say exactly what I mean. They are not clever. In a forced two-party state where both parties have essentially the same financiers, it is the job of the ‘soft’ party to absorb discontent and render it impotent. Obama has been harsher than Clinton in 1992 in slamming the door on us. He’s taken no quarter.

And that’s where my feeling of encirclement comes from. The pigs and the humans, they are all looking like pigs at this point.

It’s interesting to watch activities on capitol hill right now. The Democrats are lockstep behind their leader, and whatever resistance there is will be crushed. The House “Progressive Caucus” is a cruel joke, so impotent that Nancy Pelosi laughed when she heard that they would vote against a health care bill that did not have a public option. There’s no resistance there of any note.

But there’s some quibbling among Republicans. It’s not a threat to power, but is nonetheless interesting to watch. In the recent pro forma committee hearings to publicly approve Ben Bernancke for another term as head of the Fed, only one Democrat objected, and probably at great cost. But seven Republicans did.

Before we take refuge in that party, however, remember that this is minority behavior. These were genuine and honest votes, but also an exhibition of the freedom that senators have when they are out of power. They can freely speak their minds. Were the tables turned, were the Republicans in power, immense pressure would be brought to bear on these men, and their votes would have turned.

So we will see, in the coming years, who are honest men and women, and who are swine. Montana’s Tester and Baucus have already shown their little docked tails. Colorado’s Udall is an interesting man, and his family has a long and noble history of independence, but he’s shown no inclination to buck Obama. New Colorado Senator Michael Bennett was, like every appointed replacement senator after the election except Roland Burris, carefully vetted to be sure that he had no progressive leanings. He’s a dock-tailed tool.

Is this depressing? Not really. It’s kind of exciting. It’s a time for people to bolt, hopefully into activism, though many will simply go back to sleep. It was eight years of Clinton that produced the Nader surge, and I will never forget the ugly seething contempt for Nader that liberal Democrats exhibited. I never feel that kind of hatred from Republicans. It was intense. It could be that only four years of Obama will produce a new surge of resistance and threaten his presidency. There’s always hope.

Who will lead? I do not know. It will not be Nader. He doesn’t even like running. He just does it because no one else will. That’s kind of sad – not that he runs. He’s a courageous man. It’s that no one else will.

In the meantime, I’m quoting someone – I don’t remember who and don’t feel like looking it up. No linky-think today. It goes like this:

We must embrace pessimism of the intellect, and optimism of the spirit.

The most dangerous times for our fragile liberties are times like these, when ordinarily vigilant people are lured to sleep by the soft lullaby of Democrats, who rock us to sleep while holding a gun behind their back. Some say that Democrats act merely as a ratchet – that they exist to prevent backsliding after a Republican Administration. There’s something to that. But keep in mind, this awful health care bill that is going to pass and be signed could not have happened under Republican rule. There would have been too much resistance.

And remember that before the 2005 Bush attempt, the last serious attempt to destroy Social Security was set to be from … Bill Clinton. Only the chubby little tart Monica saved us.

Democrats are the problem.