The party of the rich, by the rich, for the rich!

Although we here a Perspective are ideologically as close to "Middle of the Road' as possible things happen on the far Left and the far Right in the United States that just makes our hair stand on end.

Lately the socialists and the far Left have had their share of ills and misnomers, but nothing on the scale of the sins perpetrated by the Right.

From illegal wars to outright contempt for the constitution the Republicans have driven that country down a slippery slope towards a police state and outright Fascism at an ever increasing rate, and God help that country if the Obama administration can't put a stop to it............ or at least slow it down!

Things have gottem so bad that even the British papers are jumping into the fray with condemnation of what is happening in the good ol' U.S. of A!

As Paul Harris of the Guardian tells it last week, things aren't too rosy on this side of the pond.

[Three wise men: the Republican party congressional leadership triumvirate (left to right) of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, House majority leader-elect Eric Cantor, and House speaker-designate John Boehner, after a news conference on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC on 30 November 2010. Photograph: AP/Alex Brandon]

Never have Republican values been so brazenly apparent than in holding the unemployed to ransom for the Bush tax cuts and rarely has the true face of the modern Republican party in America been exposed so obviously.

Just a day after President Barack Obama met with Republican leaders and came out talking of a new era of co-operation, Republican senators united around Mitch McConnell to sign a letter declaring they would pass no legislation without movement on extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

That legislation they are willing to scupper includes extending unemployment benefits for millions of jobless Americans, still suffering the terrible hangover of the Great Recession. The tax cuts the Republicans are really fired up over will benefit only the top 2% of Americans.

To put it even more simply: Republican leaders are happy to go virtually on strike in order to win a tax cut worth billions of dollars for America's most wealthy people (which includes themselves and many of their top campaign donors).

At the same time, they are willing to deny help to America's most vulnerable; standing by as once middle-class people lose their homes as their benefits disappear.

The hypocrisy is staggering and almost beyond belief.

One of the arguments the Republicans continually use to justify cutting jobless benefits is that America cannot afford such largesse because it would inflate the deficit.

Too bad, they say, but these are tough times and you just have to grit your teeth and take the pain to get the nation's fiscal house in order.

Yet, that very same deficit would also be massively boosted by saving Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy from expiry.

That, however, does not seem to bother them.

It's unfair, they howl, to raise anyone's taxes at such a time – failing to point out that "raising taxes" is very different from letting tax cuts expire on time. (As they were designed to do, not by Obama, but by President George W Bush).

It is a staggering confidence trick that the Republicans are seeking to pull off.

Except that most such con jobs at least vaguely try and disguise themselves.

This one is being carried out in plain sight.

The Republicans are fond of using tough language about Obama. They call him an extremist and a socialist and a revolutionary. Well, perhaps some of that tone should be used back at them. This Republican strategy is not about politics. It is about class war: waged by the rich against the poor.

It will be a terrible indictment of America's political system and the weakness of Obama's political will if they get away with it.

AND!

To add insult to injury we also have this story from last Friday........!

House Republicans have blocked a bill to give school meals to more needy children and to make those meals healthier. The $4.5 billion child nutrition bill—which Michelle Obama has lobbied for as part of her campaign against childhood obesity—was stalled by a procedural move that Democrats said was an effort to kill the bill completely, AP reports. An identical bill has already been passed by the Senate.

Republicans say the bill, which would give the government the power to decide what kinds of food are sold in schools, is too expensive and is an example of government overreach. "It's not about making our children healthy and active," the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee said. "We all want to see our children healthy and active. This is about spending and the role of government and the size of government—a debate about whether we're listening to our constituents or not."

This bring to mind an old saying that goes something like this.........!  "Any society is judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members!"