Many people I encounter these days are asking questions.

Like . . . What the “make love” is going on?

And . . . Where did this unprecedented crisis, threatening to destroy our economic future, come from all of the sudden?

And . . . Weren’t the “fundamentals of our economy strong,” as John McCain just recently, and repeatedly, said?

And . . . Who’s to blame for this “procreating” mess?

Pardon my partisanship, but eight years of Republican rule is what brought us to this point. You can flail about all you want trying to come up with an alternative excuse, but at the very root of this problem lies the Republican Party. Or rather, the neo-Republicans who now control the party. What we’re seeing is the result of a burgeoning neocon economic philosophy/strategy that gained momentum following the Reagan years.

I realize this is an impolite thing to say right now, since we’re smack dab in the middle of yet another round of Republican dodge ball, otherwise known as “Let’s Not Play the Blame Game,” where we’re all encouraged to “move forward not backwards” and are earnestly assured that “there will be plenty of time once this crisis is over to apportion blame.” But have you noticed how we never quite find the time to apportion blame and/or determine what went wrong, as we ricochet from one “crisis” to another? I’ll risk being impolite.

A popular right wing refrain is to say that it’s the Dems who controlled the House and Senate for the past two years, so therefore they’re equally culpable.

Please. Can you name one thing they did that would have contributed to this mess? Just one? They did pass a bill to increase the minimum wage slightly, but I don’t believe that had anything to do with the collapse of Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual.

“Well, then they’re at fault for not doing more to save us from ourselves!”

With this, I tend to agree. That was/is supposed to be their job. But . . . they’re a bit on the timid side (when your opponent controls most of the media, and will do or say anything to slander and destroy anyone who opposes them, you tend to get that way), and some might even be blackmailed into compliance, by way of illegal wiretapping. Besides, anything the Dems did try to pass was filibustered by the Republicans and/or threatened with a veto by Bush. However, I’ll concede that the Democrats played a small, and purely passive, role. Overall though, without a doubt, it was the neo-Republicans, and their obsequious followers, who brought us to this place.

One of the primary ‘architects’ and proponents of the neo-Republican movement (and personal liaison to Bush) is Grover Norquist. Several years ago, he summarized the overall strategy they intended to pursue by saying he wanted to shrink government down “to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” In other words he advocates bringing down the US government (taking with it programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid).

And how would he go about doing this? Starve it of funds.

As in:

• Start a couple never ending, ‘mind-blowingly’ expensive wars, wasting as much taxpayer money as possible, via no-bid contracts, massive war profiteering, unregulated and fraudulent defense spending, etc.
  
  
• Hand out huge tax cuts, especially where they will hurt the treasury the most and help the economy least - at the very top.
  
  
• Slash corporate taxes to the lowest level in 30 years, and give a wink and a nod to corporations setting up tax free offshore fronts.
  
  
• Provide tax incentives to corporations who move operations (jobs) out of the country.
  
  
• Entice homeowners and consumers to run up untenable amounts of credit and debt by keeping interest rates artificially low, encouraging sub prime lending, torpedoing the value of the dollar, manipulating oil prices, etc.
  
  
• Deregulate the financial markets to allow for an unsustainable speculation in a variety of new-fangled debt instruments (make-believe assets), creating a stock market bubble inevitably bound to burst, wiping out the retirement funds of millions of people.

Basically do whatever is necessary to collapse the economy, and, therefore, the financial resources government depends upon to operate. That’s how you shrink government down to a size where you can manhandle it into that tub, kill it once and for all, then bury it in a deep hole, where no one can ever find it (they hope).

Once that economic disaster occurs, and people are sufficiently ‘shocked and awed,’ and relatively incapacitated, phase two kicks in . . . the rebuilding of the distressed economy (dubbed “economic reforms”) into a model military/industrial corporate state, ruled by a cadre of authoritarian masters, overseeing a second tier of middle managers, overseeing the rest of us lowly serfs, whose role is to be grateful for any handouts (minimum wage jobs) they choose to bestow.

This was, and is, the plan. It’s called “disaster capitalism” (see Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”), and it’s already well underway.

So to return to the above ‘what, why, and who’ queries . . .

I guess I would ask in return: what part of “we want to shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub” don’t you understand?

That’s the thing. This hasn’t even been a stealth campaign. They’ve been pretty open about what they intended to do from the very beginning. This is why anyone bothering to look in their direction the past few years (admittedly through a swirling cloud of meaningless right-wing diversions) could see this disaster coming from miles away.

And now we’re all standing around wondering what happened?

Well, not all of us.

I know I’ve done this before, but I want to take another brief detour into the past.

This is not an ‘I told you so’ type of thing; it truly is not. I’m just trying to point out, once again, that the ‘crisis’ we’re currently in was not very hard to see coming, even for an average guy like me (with a dial up modem!).

And it’s not all that difficult to see where it’s heading either. It’s right there in front of you. You simply have to tune out the right-wing sneer and smear campaigns, ignore the diversions, and open your eyes.

Please think long and hard before you throw any more support behind the very people who have brought us to this point.

Because as hard as it’s going to be to claw our way out of the immense hole we’re currently in, that’s nothing compared to the abyss we’ll be gazing up out of if McCain and this neo-Republican crew has another four years to dig.

Memory Lane:

Oct. 2000 - The free money being offered is borrowed money, borrowed ultimately from future generations. It’s called our national debt. Giving away this borrowed money to help win an election is equivalent to skipping your mortgage payments in order to shower friends and family with gifts. Sure, they’re going to think you’re a swell guy, but it would be really irresponsible.

Feb. 2001 - Forty-three percent of the tax cut -- $688 billion -- will go to the richest 1 percent, and this will somehow stimulate the economy? Seriously, if you truly wanted to stimulate the economy and maintain fiscal responsibility wouldn’t you limit tax cuts to those who will actually spend the money in the economy; people to whom a villa in the south of France just isn’t an option right now?]

Mar. 2001 - Look, I’m only trying to do my part to help some of you avoid the embarrassment that will inevitably come when you realize you’ve been duped. When the budget surplus has mysteriously vanished, the gap between rich and poor has reached dangerous levels, and the environment is in another post-Republican era free fall, you’ll at least be able to say, “I saw it coming a mile away.”

Apr. 2002 - There’s an unbridled greed permeating our society, threatening to destroy any chance of future economic security -- at least for those in the middle class on down. You simply funnel trillions of dollars into your own pockets and those of your friends, then just put the bill ‘on the tab’ for future generations to pick up. Like zombies we listen to the billion dollar corporate media, and millionaire individuals within the Republican Party tell us that a tax cut for billion dollar corporations and millionaire individuals is just what this country needs right now. And like brainless idiots we buy it].

May 2002 - There are serious things going on in this country right now; things the Bush administration -- and the people who own it -- don’t want you to know about. They are quite literally banking on it. If they can keep your attention diverted long enough; if they can keep us fearfully focused on their new replacement for the communist bogeyman -- ‘The Terrorist’ -- they may very well leave behind a wake of environmental and economic destruction that will take decades to recover from.

Apr. 2003 - It’s like watching a vintage old train roaring by at 90 mph; the locomotive fueled with bags of money from the national treasury, and each boxcar filled with some valuable part of our country. George “Casey Jones,” Jr., is at the controls, and Karl Rove is stoking the boiler, feverishly trying to generate more steam. You watch in frustration, because up ahead, just around the bend, the bridge is out. . . . Yes, the corporate despots who have seized control of our government are driving this country toward certain disaster.