What a Difference a Day plus 43 Days Makes

Somewhat more than 43 days ago, the Republican far right under the leadership of Sarah P and her Tea Party stalwarts agitated our country. They and essentially all of the Southern states Republicans and every Republican in the US Congress were advocating refusal of economic stimulus money to aid their states economic recovery by stimulating more employment. From Florida to Texas along the Gulf of Mexico shores, the Republican state leaders were virtually universally condemning the Obama administration for their “dangerous stimulus legislation” that every Congressional Republican except one, voted against along, with about 35 Southern State Democrat members of the House of Representatives. The one Republican Congressman was from Louisiana, the state that has suffered the most so far because of the ongoing oil surge fron the failed deep sea BP well, and who voted with the Democratic majority. The stimulus bill passed much to the dismay and chagrin of most Republicans and Sarah P and her Ultra Right Tea Party. "Government Handouts" as the Republicans called the stimulus money in their calmer moments and "Government Tyranny" when they really let out their opposition to their imagined source of all evil: President Obama and the Democratic Party.

Governor Perry from Texas even advocated secession from the Union and Sarah P roared approval as Rush Limbaugh, the actual spokesperson for the Republican Party, condemned the Obama administration with nearly every vile word and description imaginable. The Southern States were also an echo chamber in which the words “Drill Baby, Drill” represented a sweet lullaby that kept Sarah P, Limbaugh, and all Republicans harmonizing and jubilantly taunting opposing Democrats and most environmentalists. The entire Republican was overjoyed about the Cheney-Bush legacy that secretly made agreements allowing oil companies to drill for oil wherever it might exist including the deep seas in the Gulf of Mexico. They were again cheering mutely when President Obama seemed to be going along with the Cheney-Bush oil drilling plans. The objections of environmentalist were subject to derision and rejection by almost all Republicans in Congress, by Republicans in state legislative bodies, and Republican Governors’ as well as many Democrats from Southern Stares who expected huge economic windfalls. How things have changed.

The one time hit song, “ What a Difference a Day Makes” originally written by a Mexican composer in 1934 and turned into a English translation hit song in 1944 hits the bull’s-eye pertaining to the changing attitudes about government subsidies for state aid. Every Governor in the Southern states who in a day plus 43 days were completely absorbed by opposition to virtually any government stimulus money is now begging for financial help and government intervention. They now are asking for to help those who are unemployed because of the BP oil disaster and the likely permanent and likely to become a very long-term economic and environmental catastrophe in their states and our country at large. The Tea Party has clammed up about federal government “unwanted” assistance just as the dead clams in the toxic marshlands have shut and died. The clams and all other sea life, along with the fishermen and fisherwomen who as private entrepreneurs are now dying literally and figuratively. Those who are dependant upon what the uncontaminated ocean water, wetlands, and marshes have provided are now without employment and income because the natural environment is dying due to toxic oil.

Have you heard a single Republican official anywhere, but particularly from the southeastern states that boarder the Gulf of Mexico, admit that they were wrong about criticizing the Obama administration concerning the Democratic Party stimulus plan? Without apology or recanting their opposition, they now are begging for Federal Government help for the people of their states’ survival through this manmade environmental and economic disaster. They rightly ask for the very help they deplored before this disaster. Will they ever understand their own shortsightedness and hateful opposition to an essential purpose of our Federal Government? I think not.

Nonetheless, the Republican and Tea Party tune has mellowed a bit as their needs for urgent help from our Federal Government expands. Their song has changed. “What a Difference a Day Makes”, or better said in the original 1934 Spanish lyrics by a Mexican composer, “Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado” that is much more appropriate for this man made disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that does not care about boundaries or nationality.“Cuando Vuelva A Tu Lado” neighbors, y hasta luego.