Polianiac

Wednesday night, not 24 hours after Obama took the stage in Grant Park, a group of graduate students met in Washington, D.C. to share reflections of Election 2008. It was an informal gathering; but opinions and perspectives could not have been any more diverse. In my lifetime, which admittedly is twice the average “life” of those gathered, I have never seen a president-elect confronted with such extraordinary demands. However, I am the first to state, live and learn; just when you think you have seen it all, human beings find a way to amaze you — not unlike electroshock therapy.

Suddenly, there was a call for “accountability” in government; as if this were some brand new idea that had just been conjured by the latest, greatest, political phenom  the world has seen since Rover, the “boy genius”. I felt the gray matter welling up through my skull as I fought to keep my head from rotating clean-off my shoulders. The mental picture of my newly detached cranium bouncing off my body and onto the table in front of me provided the comic relief necessary to actually take the next breath.

Accountability, ya’ think?  It amazes me that we are now talking accountability. A subject many of us have been screaming about for the past six years! Amazing — after eight years of a “unitary executive” who consistently flaunts the Constitution as some worn out piece of nostalgic fluff, a decade and a half under the idea of “permanent majority” which honestly stands counter-intuitive to republican rule, and almost thirty years of neo-liberalist influence which has led to the United States of America owing every major foreign power in the world trillions of dollars: we the people are going to hold our government accountable… Based on what standard? By what standard is this new-found-need-to-control going to be measured? Why wait for Barack Obama, why not start today, by holding the Bush-Cheney administration accountable for the last eight years?

Or, is it possible this accountability campaign is merely the Smoke and Mirrors Lobby announcing the birth of the 2012 presidential campaign… We are going to need a really strong stomach for what comes next… it is going to be the best Free Market Politics money can buy!