There’s an old saying that goes something like “When your neighbor is out of work, it’s a recession; when you’re out of work, it’s a depression.” I’ve been thinking of that saying as news of the Republican governors who have “refused” “stimulus” money which was earmarked toward unemployment benefits during a time when national unemployment is approaching 10% has surfaced. And, of course, anyone who’s paid any type of attention over the years to these unemployment statistics knows that unemployment is terribly under-reported. That is, many people have already exhausted their benefits and are no longer “statistics” by the time things accelerate in the wrong direction during recessions. Also, anyone who’s less than around 80 years old realizes that the recession we’re in is the most severe since the 1930’s and the Great Depression. And, to make matters worse, we’re not out of the “woods” yet, although there are some encouraging signs – but the reality is that the federal government has pumped a HUGE amount of corporate welfare into the system – AIMED DIRECTLY AT WALL STREET – in an attempt to mitigate the reckless behavior of the large Wall Street Corporations which precipitated this severe downturn.

Another unreported “fact” about recessions is that when the unemployment figures approach 10% as they’re doing now, you can bet that the unemployment rate for Blacks and other minority groups is much higher. I’m pointing this all out because I find it “par for the course” watching these Republican governors “refusing” federal assistance for the unemployed in their states. We’re talking about a bunch of governors who have their eyes set on the Republican nomination for President in 2012 – and evidently, what’s left of the Republican party has no sympathy whatsoever for the people who are losing their jobs by the millions in this country. I guess their jobs (these governors and their constituents) are secure (although I hope I’m wrong about that – I sincerely hope that the people in their states vote them out at the next opportunity) and they could care less about the vulnerable in their states. We’re talking about Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindahl, Mark Sanford, and Rick Perry. These people are also talking about succeeding from the union – the term for that is sedition and it’s a treasonous offense (although, evidently we’ve evolved to the place in this country where if you’re in an elected office you don’t have to follow the law).

And, make no mistake about it, the backbone of the Republican party is the “Christian Right” (I call it the Christian Wrong) and the corporate heads who only believe in welfare if they’re getting it. I mean, these guys fought the “stimulus” bill tooth and nail, with nary a Republican voting for it in the house and only 3 in the Senate – after they had weakened it sufficiently for them to be able to vote yes. (and, of course, that vote brought Arlen Specter into the Democratic caucus so we now have a twin for Joe Lieberman – ughhhh!). So, these people will take government “handouts” by the trillions if it allows them to continue with business as usual on Wall Street, but they won’t give the homeowners a break who are losing their houses to foreclosure and they don’t want people to be able to collect extended unemployment benefits because of some mysterious “principle.” The reality is that the Republican party proved long ago that the only principle they have is skimming as much money out of the system as they can without putting anything back – ie no taxes! How these people get anyone who is an average person to vote for them is beyond me.

Well, now that I think about it, they’ve had a brainwashing program going on for about 25 years with the right wing “talkers” on the radio, the right wing “pundits” on TV who get their info right out of the Republican caucus (OK, I know that the Dems are guilty of this as well, they’re just not nearly as sophisticated as the republicans), and the politicians who are such incredibly GOOD (of course I really mean BAD) liars! Again, I’m not in love with the Democrats – but the Republicans take this self-serving hypocracy to another level. The biggest problem I have with the Democrats is that they are all too willing to go along with this garbage. They allowed George Bush to bully them around for 8 years, evidently afraid of what the public would think if they stood up for their own principles. And, all I can say at this point is I hope these governors (I wanted to put a descriptive adjective in front of the previous word, but it was going to be pretty ugly so I decided to let anyone who might read this put their own adjective there) are forced to publicly defend their decisions ON A NATIONAL SCALE – since they are all considering a run for President. I’m sure they are thinking that they can solidify their “base” by making some kind of “stand” which only effects poor people – who aren’t their constituency anyway.

Just for fun, let me make a suggestion to anyone out there who might be a Republican and also a Christian. LET THESE PEOPLE KNOW WHAT JERKS THEY ARE. It would be a lot better if they heard it from you. And, if the Republcans themselves, especially the ones who consider themselves Christians, actually started to act like people who believe in the teachings of Jesus, maybe we could actually have a two party system again. Stop and think about it – for eight years (and if you’re a Republican – and you have any capacity for the truth at all – you know what I’m saying here is true) we have listened to Republicans accuse anyone who wasn’t “on board” with Bush’s illegal war, his wiretapping, his torture, his outing a CIA agent, his destruction of the very government we all depend on – get called words like traitor or “enemy combatant.” In fact, I believe when the truth of what was happening during the Bush years comes out – the illegal wiretapping info will show that, just as in the Nixon years, the political “enemies” were being wiretapped without warrants. Now these people, when faced with a President (Obama) who is – and if you’ve read many posts on this site you know that I have my issues with him – trying to restore the middle class in this country – which is the backbone to our strength as a nation – they’re calling for succession from the union. UNBELIEVABLE!

When all is said and done with this present “downturn” I believe we will discover that there has been exactly what John McCain and Sarah Palin made a big push to smear Barack Obama about during the campaign and that is there has been a tremendous “redistribution of wealth.” Remember “Joe the Plumber?” You know, the guy who was really named Samuel Wurzelbacher (or something like that) who was thrust into “star status” among Republicans through one of John McCain’s desperation attempts at connecting to “the average Joe” – he made it into infamy by lying to President Obama during the campaign in an attempt to claim he would be hurt by Obama’s proposed increase in taxes for those making over a quarter of a million dollars (Unbelievable as it might seem, this guy – who is anything but an “expert,” was treated as such at actual official Republican events – NATIONAL EVENTS!). The Republicans latched onto that as a way to call Obama a Socialist (actually I heard Allan Keyes of all people referring to Obama as a Communist). I wish I could put this in a softer, gentler way – BUT THESE GUYS ARE LYING IDIOTS! Unfortunately, they have people like Rush Limbaugh cheering them on to his audience of supposedly 20 million listeners who call themselves “ditto heads” which I presume means they can’t think for themselves – so, of all people, they let Rush do their thinking for them. THIS IS SAD! The truth is that Wall Street is getting an infusion of tax dollars that I’ve heard will amount to something close to 11 trillion – so, this will be the largest redistribution of wealth in the history of the world – it will just be in a direction that none of the rank and file Republicans has a clue about (and, unfortunately, I’m aftaid not too many Democrats either).

To sum it up. Republicans are going to do everything they can to keep the unemployed workers in America from getting extended benefits – a program that, in its entirety, might amount to 30 or 40 billion dollars – based on my budget, a lot of money to be sure. But compared to the bailout of Wall Street, it – as they say – AINT EVEN A DROP IN THE BUCKET. When all is said and done, based on what I’m seeing as the direction we seem to be taking – the average American worker will be happy to get a job with a lower pay scale than the one they lost – or keep the job they have with a reduction in salary and/or benefits – while the companies who are “too big to allow to fail” will be chugging along as if nothing happened – still paying out the huge salaries for their top execs along with the huge RETENTION bonuses – because these execs are too important to lose – and the argument will be whether or not this recession was the “big one” or not. We’ll still be measuring the health of “Main Street” by the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the American worker’s wages and benefits will still be declining. The large Wall Street corporations will be able to “thrive” on the infusion of cash they’re receiving during this crisis and Republicans will be saying that Obama was “lucky” and the recovery was the result of policies initiated by the Bush administration. This scenario is too absurd to even use it as a story line for a novel – YET IT IS REPUBLICAN REALITY. And it may be too late to prevent this from becoming American reality. Sometimes I just think the Republicans are totally stupid, but then I think everything with them is calculated. So, in summary here, while all these governors are acting like idiots, while the rest of us are focused on the absurd proposals and comments they are making – The so-called “Free Market” devotees are bilking our treasury for something like eleven trillion dollars! (and getting away with it!)