Puerile Endeavors: Netanyahu’s Speech

Republicans are fond of being the first at things. The first to invade a country that didn’t attack us. The first to undermine a sitting President’s authority by inviting another world leader to speak before Congress AGAINST the U.S. President’s foreign policy initiative in the midst of negotiations…

Like most things these oversized children enact, it failed miserably. Were they trying to win the Jewish vote? They probably succeeded in the more orthodox sectors, but they already had them, so it’s not quite a win. Anyone else with open eyes and even the slightest sense of politics can see just what a disastrous idea this was. Disrespectful, yes. Damaging, dangerous and irresponsible? Absolutely.

I’ve always been liberal. Always identified as a Democrat even though my personal politics sway far to the left of today’s Democratic Party. But I can say with all honesty, that I miss the Republican Party of old. Not Abe Lincoln-old, cause that was, basically, the liberal party of its day (a fact most Republicans seem to ignore or are simply uneducated about), but the Republican Party of my youth. I disagreed with many of the policies of that party, but there was still a measure of common sense, they were still a party of the people. That changed dramatically under Reagan. Since that time, the party has moved so far to the right that Reagan’s policies now mirror today’s Democrats more than Republicans. That’s a frightening alteration.

Even more frightening is that Republicans have become an obstructionist party that appears to identify itself as the party of ignorance and petty behavior, the party of science-denial and human intolerance. Watching Netanyahu’s speech before Congress the other day was embarrassing. Not just personally, not just for Americans, but on a world stage. It is the very essence of why the rest of the world SHOULD be worried about what is happening in American government. The goings-on in the U.S. Congress and Senate play more like a scene out of LORD OF THE FLIES than the story of an “advanced” nation.

And while Americans talk about the violence enacted by ISIS as being downright “medieval,” we forget just how closed-minded, how violent, how offensive and inhumane our own cultural deportment has been in recent history. Today’s Republican Party’s presidential hopefuls, as of this day, represent so very much of what most Americans had hoped we’d outgrown. Or at least were beginning to outgrow. The maturation of America is currently undergoing a process by which we must look directly at the misbehaviors of our youth and try to see them for what they were. Like the school bully who, in adulthood, mourns the pain he caused others and can now see where his own anger and unhappiness stemmed from. Sadly, today’s GOP are behaving like frat boys that refuse to grow up, that cling tightly to their childish dysfunctions, that still regularly douse themselves in alcohol unit they are sloppy drunk, holler and fall down, spill their drinks on unsuspecting neighbors and pick fights to make up for their own deep-seated self-loathing and overall lack of awareness. They treat women like objects and celebrate the public humiliation of others, never once allowing themselves to see exactly who and what they are and what a sad, sad image they have constructed.