I was once part of the production of a comical theater that sought to provide a comic relief to the question of poverty eradication in Nigeria. It was at the height of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) imposed on Nigeria by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as a way to address the issues of currency over-evaluation, hyperinflation, and other economic dysfunctions that besieged that country at the time. The various policies as enunciated by the military junta (the IBB administration) had failed miserably to scratch the issues let alone solving them. Desperation became the norm, and Nigerians were looking for answers from everywhere but comedians.
On this eventful day, prominent comedians, and others gifted with the skill to satirize burning national issues with impunity got together in a first-of-its-kind summit to brainstorm over the issue of poverty eradication and try to provide remedies. Speakers after speakers drew elongated laughter and general hilarity. Chief Koko, known for his audacious and sometimes harsh approach to national discourse lived up to his notoriety. In his contribution, Chief Koko opined that eradicating poverty in Nigeria and elsewhere would mean the extermination of individuals who fall within a defined poverty range. To identify these people, Koko called on government to conduct an immediate headcount and respondents incentivized to disclose their true financial and social class.
Quite unlike Chief Koko, the Republican Party in the United States is covertly inching toward the direction of systemic annihilation of the poor. Under various dubious ruses, the GOP has mounted concerted attacks on government programs designed to cushion the fall of the poor. They brand them socialism, and entitlement. They stood resolutely against unemployment benefits, and universal health care. The GOP has not disguised its plan to privatize the social security program, the Medicare, and Medicaid. The gambit is to turn the two healthcare systems, which have worked wonderfully well for the elderly and disabled into some voucher scheme. Should the GOP succeed, only the rich would have healthcare coverage, and the poor would slowly die off. Former Congressman Allen Grayson of Florida called them out with his hilarious rant on the floor of the House. “The GOP has no healthcare plan for the country, but to ask that you die quickly when you get sick.” Perhaps that is why Mr. Grayson is no longer in the house today. Working for the GOP, the corporations threw him out in a massively monetized election.
Congressman Anthony Weiner obviously walked into the dragnet of GOP operatives whose attention he innocuously attracted with that heroic tantrum on the floor of the House, defying order and legislative decorum. Weiner was incensed by the GOP’s mischaracterization of Obama care, and the reign of lies, and half-truths that over-shadowed the healthcare debate. He described the Republican Party as a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporations, which to many Americans captures the true face and modus operandi of the GOP as a political entity. In all intents and purposes, the GOP has done a lot to ensure the corporate take-over of the American system, while systematically pushing the middle-class and the poor to extinction. For the first in decades, one political party is tying the debt ceiling extension to the deficit. The Republican Party is insisting that the debt ceiling would not be extended without significant cuts to the funding of major social safety nets (Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) that benefit the poor and elderly, but ignoring the need to raise taxes on the ultra-rich. The party conveniently forgets that Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and the result was instant budget surpluses, which President George Bush squandered with his Republican legislature.
Me thinks a pattern has emerged in the political process of our country. The Republican is conspicuous as to its agenda, and we know the party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the rich and corporations. We know the GOP is committed to defunding education, and outsourcing our jobs to Asia and South America. We know that these jobs are gone for good, but can only come back if we agree to the slave labor that was the attraction in the first place. We also know that collective bargaining is under severe attacks in the red states, and if the Republican nefarious effort succeeds, workers would work for pittance in the United States. We now know that the attack on education is a deliberate attempt to dis-empower and emasculate the society and make us mentally feeble and ill-informed to challenge the fascist government, we know the Republican Party and its corporate cronies are articulating for the country.
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