If you’ve been listening to the GOP Debates that have gone on for the past six months and/or follow the horse race that the media is trying to make you interested in over there, stop. If you’ve been reading descriptions of the GOP candidates as getting out of clown cars or thinking they’re funny or crazy or both stop. If you can’t believe that our political system is so weak, fragile and sick that it’s come to this then you are on the right track and you should be outraged with our institutions and possibly yourself if you’ve not been taking our democracy seriously for the past thirty years.

Politics is a reflection of a society’s health and a nation’s values. Political leaders are manifestations of the system’s capacity to respond to crisis. Say what you will about what needs to be done to fix what’s going wrong or has gone wrong with our system. It should tell you something that President Obama and the GOP primary are the strongest antibodies our politics can muster to deal with growing unemployment, our slide toward a police state, endless global military occupations, the avaricious and expanding corporate warfare sector’s need for more warfare and our skyrocketing economic inequality.

We know what we’re getting with President Obama, a “pragmatic”, pro-corporate, centrist who believes government’s job is to protect the “market-makers” so that private industry/the market can make everything better. Frustration with that obvious pile of nonsense is why the Occupy Movement exists. The GOP primary is giving us the kinds of choices that make one wonder if aliens are trying to undermine our capacity to defend ourselves against extraterrestrial invasion by picking our leaders. Mitt Romney is a former governor who got richer outsourcing American jobs and is on every side of many issues. Herman Cain is a corporate shill and Koch brother puppet, who hears God. Rick Perry, a secessionist governor of a broken failing state. Newt Gingrich, a serial philander who tax cheating, ethics scandal got him drummed out of the House of Representatives. Rep. Ron Paul, a hardcore Libertarian who let his campaign manager die, instead of offering him healthcare. Rep. Michelle Bachman, an extremist Christian fundamentalist who knows nothing and hears God. Rick Santorum, a radical, anti-gay, Catholic fundamentalist who got run out of the U.S. Senate on a rail and hears God. John Huntsman, an arch-conservative governor who’d hand government over to the energy corporations and radical right to lifers.

When these people get together the range of ideas shared is so narrow they would fit comfortably on an inch-wide scratch pad. These get togethers are not debates. They are a testament to a political system that is completely unable to provide for its people. If this is the best answer the GOP can come up with then America is in a WHOLE lot of trouble. Somehow political discussion in this country will let us choose between these guys and President Obama. So we’re either voting for the guy who has proven he puts the welfare of corporate people, like banks over ordinary people, like homeowners or a clutch of candidates who will unleash those corporations and right-wing extremists on us like a pack of rabid wolverines.

If you’re not seeing flying elephants angry over this state of affairs then you’re not paying attention. Still, if you are paying attention, every time you watch one of these GOP primary gathering you can’t decide if you’re watching some sinister performance art of if they really are serious. Let me solve it for you. They are more serious than a priest in the middle of an exorcism. What they are serious about is living in a world moral, economic and political fiction; which would fine if they didn’t want to be President. It would not be an overstatement to call them dreamers except what they are dreaming about would warm the cockles of Satan’s heart. Here’s a short list of what they’ve said in almost every debate. These are the things they ALL agree on: 1. Further shifting the tax burden from corporations and wealthy Americans on to the rest of us. 2. Eliminating some number of federal departments, it doesn’t matter that Rick Perry can’t remember which one because they don’t like any of them. 3. Dismantling Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. 4. Giving more power to conservative social movements. 5. Getting rid of as many governmental services and as many regulations as they possibly can.

You will note that I didn’t mention the deficit, the debt ceiling, immigration, terrorism, Social Security or gay marriage because NONE of those things are ACTUAL issues. You want to fix the deficit and wipe out the need for a debt ceiling put a 10% on just stock portfolios over 1 million dollars with no loopholes. Want to deal with immigration get out of NAFTA, GATT , WTO and reform the IMF and World Bank and you’d be shocked at what would happen with immigration issues. Funny how corporations get treated like citizens of whatever country they’re in but let a human try that noise. You want to fix Social Security just lift the damn cap and its solvent forever and ever. Tired of talking about gay marriage remember when interracial marriage was illegal and stop being a hypocrite, bigot or worse, society’s not in trouble your soul is. See, problems all fixed, that nonsense just takes political will. The real problems we face take leadership and that’s not what we’re getting from our political system because it’s too sick to save us. So we better start acting like citizens and save ourselves, one election, many movements and E pluribus unum until we get a better set of choices.