THE GREEDY AND THE NEEDY!

It is clear that what is mainly left of the Republican Party are older, rich white men in positions of political and/or financial power, and the rural, uneducated working poor. The latest census tells us that, as does the demographic of the elections of 2006 and 2008. (Read today's FRANK RICH column in the NY Times for more)

At first blush, that might seem an odd combination, since it would be obvious to any objective observer that the second group is being exploited by the first group. But throughout history, the greedy have always been revered and adored by the needy. Each tend to see their station in life as God-given in some way, and so the abuse is taken as a matter of course. The genocide of Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, the suppression of civil rights for any group other than white men, the canard of "trickle-down economics" that proclaims the benefits for all of benefitting only the rich, the despoiling of the environment everywhere except where the rich white men's families own vacation homes - these actions are all somehow accepted by the poor and ignorant. In fact, those same poor folks will often gladly give their lives in wars for those rich exploiters whose own children never go to war.

The greedy and the needy actually operate on the same distorted principle psychologically, and that is the glue that binds them. Both believe that "there isn't enough." The needy, often with oral character structures, respond to that belief by giving up, collapsing, and hoping for hand-outs. The greedy, with mostly psychopathic character structures, are always fighting off the vast emptiness that comes from the gutting of one's self endemic to this personality type by trying to gain and accumulate more and more. But again for both, there can never be enough. The greedy and the needy are kindred spirits, in a twisted way.

And the greedy and the needy are all that's left of the GOP, and so, power is seeping away from the once proud Party of Lincoln. They are becoming the party of Palm Beach and Palm Springs, Appalachia and Dixie and, because they have nowhere else to go, all the lunatic-fringe hate groups who fear and loathe anything unfamiliar.

Electorally-speaking, boys, that's a wash, so you know what I say...

SEE YA!