There’s an old saying that goes something like just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean they are not  out to get you.  I heard this a lot in learning all about defensive driving. It’s sort of a way of  accepting that a certain level of paranoia is probably a good thing. It’s like fear – fear can be a good thing as it is one of those emotions that in given circumstances, keeps us awake and alert. Of course, being overcome by fear, or other emotions, well, that’s where problems arise. Paranoia is no exception. Some people see conspiracies in pretty much everything. Sometimes humorous, often sad,  sometimes insulting to ones intelligence and sometimes down right dangerous – these conspiracies and those hard case conspiracy theorists can drive otherwise logical people to the brink of stupidity and then over the edge to that abyss of irrational thinking.

Down through the years, we have seen numerous conspiracy theories. There was Joe McCarthy who saw a communist  in every phone booth and many lives were ruined during his quest to cleanse the nation of this mostly fictional danger.  In more modern times we have  what just might be the mother of conspiracy theories – the Birther Theory. This utter crap  conjured up by one Orly Taitz and fed week after week after week by the likes of Glenn Beck, Joe Arpaio and Donald Trump was simply stupid.  But there are a few which defy  the realm of rational thinking. The whole idea that the attacks on 911 were orchestrated by the government is no less than insane. I contend that the President knew that an attack was coming and he needed it to happen to kick start his Iraq agenda. But to assert that the government actually planted explosive devises in the Twin Towers, let alone the assertion that there was no aircraft involved in the attack on the Pentagon – I think the boys in the white coats need to do a sweep and clear here.  There is an equally mindless theory advanced by that total  and insufferable idiot, Alex Jones, that the tragic slaughter of children and teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School was a carefully planned hoax and the  victims were actually actors – that’s why we never saw the bodies. I won’t even comment on that level of insanity. There are  others, so many others that make me wonder just what is in the water supply that people such as Hannity,  Jones, Corsi, Beck and Limbaugh are drinking. Of course, these have all pretty much been completely debunked and while many still have some desperate hold on them as being fact, they simply are not. The DaVinci Code was fiction, people – really !

However, there is one conspiracy – one major, nation threatening, highly organized, well funded  and well orchestrated conspiracy which is real, is progressing and , if not stopped in its tracks, will bring this country to complete social and economic collapse. In partnership with its Tea Party extremists, the GOP plan is to bring any semblance of social and economic equality to an end and bring the federal government  to a complete standstill while creating what can only be described as a two tier society  controlled by the upper five per cent.This is, in my opinion, a most dangerous agenda and what is frightening is that it is gaining traction, especially in the deep red states.

On a legislative level, one has to wonder how on the one hand GOP members are howling about economic recovery but on the other, their legislative hand, they are setting more roadblocks to recovery than there are on Interstate 76 after a harsh winter.  In the Senate alone, take a look at what has been waylaid, delayed or completely scuttled by procedural nonsense and the abuse of the filibuster rules.There is the DREAM Act which a path to citizenship to citizenship top college graduates who were brought here by their parents, who may have come here illegally, but are penalized because of that. Ask the Valedictorian of Arizona State University of the Class of 2012 – a Cum Laude graduate in Engineering.There is the DISCLOSE Act, which would compel corporations to disclose their political spending. The is the Public Option portion of the Affordable Care Act, which speaks for itself. There was the American Jobs  and Ending Off Shoring Act which would have kept corporations from benefitting from outsourcing to foreign countries and receiving deferred tax benefits for profits earned overseas. There was the Paycheck Fairness Act which required fair and equal pay for equal jobs. There was the repeal of Subsidies for oil companies, the most profitable corporations in the world. And my favorites, the American Jobs Act. This Act, languishing around the Hill since 2011, would have provided a tax incentive to Small Businesses, saved almost 280,000 teachers from layoffs, provided funds for rehabilitating thousands of homes and school buildings, reformed the Unemployment Insurance structure and created an Infrastructure Bank focused on highway, bridge and rail  rebuilding. The Senate killed this effort and the House, in the person of the Speaker and House Majority Leader  went clearly on the record stating that if this Bill ever passed the Senate, it would be DOA in the House and would never come to the floor – this while the Speaker sent twenty-six bills to the Senate which he called jobs bills but in reality were deregulation bills.                                                                                             One other most recent piece of legislation must be noted here. After the tragic murder of children and teachers at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, over 90 % of people across the board wanted to see a Bill implementing universal background checks  for sale of firearms – including those sold at gun shows – to be passed. Senator Joe Manchin ( D-WVA ) and Senator Pat Toomey ( R- PA ) composed just such a bill, hammered it out across the aisle and brought it to the Senate which, in spite of overwhelming popular support was crippled in a filibuster and finally, after the Speaker of the House went on the record saying he would kill the bill  if and when it got to the House, was defeated. So much for Congress representing the people !!

Outside the beltway, the cancer continues to grow. Senator Jeff Flake ( R-AZ ) and Peter Hoekstra ( R – MD ) want all the states to band together and force a repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment which would return the choosing of the Senate to the state legislatures. Red states one after the other are trying to bar Planned Parenthood from receiving any federal dollars -specifically Medicaid – because they allegedly don’t want to fund abortions. ( One more way to cut benefits under Medicaid to pay for tax breaks for the upper 2 % ) The fact that over 90 % of what Planned Parenthood does is provide screening and general medical care for millions of low income women or that federal funds are barred from paying for abortions doesn’t seem to enter in to the conversation. And then there is the rampant initiating of what are clearly voter suppression laws and the rigging of the Congressional Redistricting process  in order to guarantee that the GOP and the Tea Party will eventually take over the government. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, no less than seven  red states have enacted such legislation and fourteen bills are active in an additional eight states. Changing polling places, eliminating days the polls will be open, ending early registration and same day registration and not allowing college students to vote in the location of their colleges are just some of the new rules of the game.                                                                                                                                                        This is convincing and compelling evidence of a widespread, well orchestrated and, as I said above, a dangerous conspiracy designed to completely remove democracy from government, return us to a Confederation of States and have the federal government become essentially a combination of a trade association and a war machine .The sole purpose of the Tea Party is to obstruct. The sole purpose of the GOP is to create wealth for their Wall Street puppeteers.  As I have said many times, it is long overdue that people need  to wake up and see the destruction being wrought by these extremist domestic terrorists. Let’s stop this lemming approach to citizenry and demand that government actually govern.