Op Ed; New Gopster Attack
Cuts Food, Meds for
Unemployed Millions

Bunning Action Deprives Despairing of Lawful Benefits.

Courtesy: Capitol Hill Blue

(EUGENE, Ore.) - Despite desperate acts of wiser political persuasion from many of his Republican and Democratic colleagues, a single Gopster Senator has now “manipulated the Rules of the Senate” to block continuing fully-legal federal benefits, affecting millions of American citizens.

Senator Jim Bunning (R., Ky.) subjected a Senate measure to meanly-managed political-pandering by his potent blackmail --extracting once again only “a deal he’d dumped days-before.”

His action came at the cost of consummate fear and confusion among many million Americans now made dependent and desperate by economic chance, forcing them into bare existence on timely supporting-payments, as promised and delivered in past months Normal action to extend funding for the programs involved was already on the way, a demanded regular routine well understood and supported by both parties.

There was no question whatsoever about the full extension of the programs affected; far too much is at stake in our economy to allow any revision, much less more-radical revocation, at this time of desperate need for so many. Every citizen so affected --many in deep despair, are seeking only what their government has already fully promised them as succor by approving their appeal, on the record by the very fact of previous delivery.

That brute fact meant nothing to Bunning’s plan for his brute demonstration of distorted departure from the inherent fairness-and-rationality realistically embedded in parliamentary procedure.

He has thus equated desperate, deepening defense of a now-deflated, already-defeated political posture for the perverted promise of impure blackmail --while he still maintains his malign-intended manipulation is only his own potent defense of perfectly-pure “conservative principle”.

Later that day (Tuesday) the horrendous strong horror at his action --expressed by most still-regular Republicans and Democrats, as well as broadly across the nation-- forced him to withdraw his recognized unwise and irresponsible action, settling for precisely the “same political deal offered to him days ago.” Revealing information later published proves very potently that he did so in full defiance of precisely the same resolution for his claimed problem-of-principle he could have received last week.

He thus cravenly withdrew his painfully-proven prodigiously-provocative political pander, seeking futilely to relieve and retrieve the desperate denials he forced upon everyone else involved; in what is supposed to be true governance under democratic design, to always provide rational, reasonable resolution of differences and dissent via cooperatively achieved full consenus.

There’s only one word for that kind of perverse political-pandering performance: Blackmail --and here’s the definition: blackmail (as in "influence") v. : exerting pressure on someone through threats. That’s how far our Senate has fallen from its once-famed “summit of wise leaders working together to guarantee the good-will, good-faith consensus at the heart of democracy” --as our Founders intended. Ironic, is it not?

Now we find this Senator using the proven sensible, sensitive operational rules of the Senate in precisely the very way that leads on to damage, defeat and demise for our our democracy --despite invention of form and pattern to protect and preserve its functions by our Founding Fathers. Forced by national uproar and bipartisan contempt for his act --described by many as immoral, insane, and impossible to allow in a democracy-- he acquiesced only some hours later the very same day, thus earning the probability of creating still another classic Washington wisecrack: “Now, don’t try Bunning me!”

But its easy creation may be badly inhibited since those using it will be forced to decide whether what’s happened is ONLY Bunningism --or a simple reflection of more widely-held GOPsterish beliefs. Sen. Jim Kyl (R., Az.) laid the first stone in this new wall of continuing complete obstructionist confusion on all things Obama-touched when he pulled the same point of nothingness-now clearly into tight, tense focus on the national screen only a day earlier.

Kyl --the Republican whip !-- contended, very combatively, that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting "because people are being paid even though they're not working." Unemployment insurance "doesn't create new jobs..” Kyl insisted. “In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work," Kyl beat Bunning to first-shot insnensitivity during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.

"I'm sure most of them would like work and probably have tried to seek it, but you can't argue that it's a job enhancer. If anything, as I said, it's a disincentive. And the same thing with the COBRA extension and the other extensions here," said Kyl. “Unemployment benefits are generally so small that much of it is often used to pay for COBRA health insurance, even when subsidized. The size of the benefits does not generally cover the cost of living and it would be hard to find a single person who would prefer unemployment to having a job so that they could get subsidized COBRA“, a national report quoting Kyl made sure to explain, following immediately the statement we just cited from the Arizona Senator.

Given his powerful potency as Republican whip, one must take such publicly-pronounced statement as very sure reflection of GOPSter-cabal major and massive influence on all things leaning still further Right- wards within that once respected and reasonable party.

Two-in-a-row, rapidly rapping right out in public for national media-mainstream consumption, should as sure as shooting indicate what’s cooking on the cabal back-burners now. Senator Bunning took his stance because, he loudly stated repeatedly on national television, “now’s the time” to make clear the basic principle he claims is at stake --”smaller government and less federal support” for those whom he believes should be capable of living “on their own”.

He was careful to cloak it in the same camouflage used so craftily and continuously by many others with the same intentions --and the same depth of morality and understandings of the modern world.

But there’s simply no mistaking his massively malign intent: To exert the powerful potency of political fear and continuing futility featuring obstructionism on our already-besieged and, some will contend, bewildered Congressional participants. Given the resonance of these very revealing dual action disclosures in depth and detail by two still-potent participants in this ongoing cabal, we can clearly see that all Congressional participants are now caught in constant confrontation, continuing conflict, and very considerable confusion on how in h... to return to that absolutely essential democratic consensus.

Common sense and reasonable achievement over more than two centuries have shown us that consensus --reflecting clear wisdom-of-the-people-- is at the very heart, as well as the demanding operational controls of our increasingly tattered/torn democracy.

The greatest danger from such baffling Bunningism, coupled closely with Kylomania, may well not be the denial, delay and defeatism it is meant to engender, but rather the desperate death of what little trust, belief and thus reliance on our form of governance remains within the battered, down-beaten and now-betrayed citizenry.

Their long-trusted confidence in the competence and consensus-building skills of those chosen is proven now as not-so-wisely or well achieved, with craftily manipulated and always too-complex campaigning confusions --created by dollar-driven special-interest communications published by owner-or advertising/ subsidized mainsream media-- at major fault in our once-flourishing democratic-design form of choice for any possible trusty represention in our Congress. That should simplify and surely strongly emphasize what we must do --and what weapons we must use-- to safeguard the great legacy the Founders left for us.

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Reader’s Note: Quotes may be partial, condensed, or combined; full verbatim versions available on request with full ID and working phone. Documentation contained in some 25 national-source reports and other references, uncited here due to length demanded for full detail; available on similar request.

Hank returned to Oregon to complete M. Ed. degree at OSU, went on to Indiana University for Ed.D. (abd) and special other course-work; was selected as first Information Director for NAVA in Washington, D.C.; helped write sections of NDEA, first Act to supply math, science, foreign language consultants to state depts. of education; joined Oregon Dept. of Education, where he served as NDEA administrator/Learning Media Consultant for ten years.

He joined Dr. Amo DeBernardis at PCC, helping establish, extend programs, facilities, Oregon/national public relations; moved to Chicago as Editor/Publisher of oldest educational-AV journal, reformed as AV GUIDE Magazine; then established and operated Learning Media Associates as general communications consultant group. Due to wife’s illness, he returned to Oregon in 1981, semi-retired, and has continued writing intermittently ever since, joining S-N in 2004. His Op Eds now total over 560 written since then.