Cartoon Villains

The Griffin Perspective is about politics.  Here's some politics for you.  I make about a third of what I made only a year ago.  A good friend of mine makes a little more than half of what he used to.  And we're lucky because we could find work.  I'm a renter, but the house I live in is in foreclosure, so I'm about to move.  In my job, I talk to people every day who've been out of work for over a year.  I think that the current statistic for applicants per job opening is about 6:1.  In some places, it's better, but in many places, it's much worse.   It is no secret that the current economic environment is quite challenging.

Meanwhile, politicians on the right are standing in the way of any real progress.  They fought Health Care Reform, bitterly, and while they were not able to stop it, their influence caused the bill to end up being less effective than it otherwise would have been.  But the left finally showed some spine and passed it.  The right is fighting Financial Reform.  They are fighting efforts to help protect the environment.  They want to protect only the richest, largest, and most powerful among us.  And if that means that everyday folks get trampled, their attitude seems to be, "Yeah... So?"  These people are "cartoon villains."

In most cartoons, there is some really evil bad guy who wants to rule the world.  He wants to rule by fear, intimidation, and absolute power, with him and his few faithful followers resting at the seat of that power.  So what if the rest of the world is a dark, joyless place filled with fear and terror?  What if ordinary people lack even the basic necessities of everyday life?  As long as he and his minions are in charge of that awful place, then, well, that'd be just fine.

Coal is cheaper than clean energy.  ("But it's destroying the planet." "There's no proof of that!" "Here's the proof here!"  "Leave me alone...I'm rich!")

Everyone deserves access to health care. ("That's socialism!" "Every other industrialized country on earth has figured that out."  "They're all socialists!  Leave me alone... I'm rich!")

We have to better regulate Wall Street and the financial sector  ("Let the free market work... it'll take care of itself."  "That's what got us in this mess!"  "There's no proof of that!" "Here's the proof here!"  "Leave me alone...I'm rich!")

"Your Highness, the people don't have bread to eat"  "Then let them eat cake!"

We are in a battle for the soul of this country.  The left is trying to bring the country back to greatness, for everyone.  The right is trying to bring this country back to 1953.  And the minute I begin the think that, as a people, we're too smart to take a bus ride back to the social dark ages, some cartoon villain shouts "Sarah Palin in 2012... MWAHAAHAAHAAHAA!"