My Introduction to You

Hello, blogosphere!
Welcome to Metaphorical Politics, the blog that takes politics of the day and adds a twist of abstract, comical, sometimes cynical metaphorical comparison.

Let me begin with my comparison of the Republican and Democrat Parties (this will definitely give you can idea of my bias)...
Let's imagine that the American economy is a little girl--a very accident-prone little girl. As a matter of fact, let's give this little, accident-prone girl a name-- How about Economy?
Now imagine that the Republicans and the Democrats are pediatric emergency room surgeons (I know, I know, this is going to take a lot of effort).

Economy is playing in the park one day, and while waiting for her turn to go down the slide, she slips, falls and cracks a rib (Ouch!). For the sake of metaphor, let's call Economy's ribs the "stock market".

So, basically, you could say Economy slipped up, fell, and her stock market crashed. (See where I'm going with this?)

Economy's parents, having invested vast amounts of time and money to her growth and well-being, rush her to the hospital, where she is greeted by the two doctors, Dr. Dem and Dr. Rep.

This is where the story separates into two very distinct scenarios...

Scenario 1: Dr. Rep gets the case...
Dr. Rep takes Economy into the operating room (strangely named the Halls of Congress) and examines her cracked "stock market". It's pretty severe, and it looks like surgery is necessary. He opens her up, removes all the broken tissue, and replaces it with a material that helps speed up bone growth. Then, he stitches her back up and wraps her in a brace, to be removed once her ribs heal on their own, so she can run and play again without dealing with more doctors.
And they lived happily ever after...

Scenario 2: Dr. Dem gets the case...
Dr. Dem sees Economy in pain, but he already has a full plate of other patients he has to see. So he has Economy take a number and wait in the lobby until its her turn. Four hours later he calls her back to the examination room. First, he has a nurse (let's call her "Bureaucratina") examine the broken, accident-prone little girl. Bureaucratina somehow misses her cracked "stock market" and focuses on the bump she got on her head (let's call her head "real estate", and the bump a "foreclosure"). So the nurse gives Economy some anti-inflammatory medication to make the real estate foreclosure not look at bad as it really is, puts a band-aid over the wound to cover it up, sends her home, and completely dismisses the little girl's complaints about her chest as "growing pains".

Two weeks later, Economy's "stock market" is still cracked, but this time it's infected, and the infection is spreading to the rest of her body. Her parents, noticing that their pride--their joy--their investment--is steadily declining, take Economy back to Dr. Dem, this time going straight to his office. Dr. Dem can clearly see how damaged Economy is, and is afraid that his handing off of the problem to the grossly unqualified Bureaucratina might have exacerbated things.

(Btw, Dr. Dem refuses to fire Bureaucratina for her incompetence. As a matter of fact, he gives her tenure.)

Dr. Dem rushes Economy into the operating room and opens her up, exposing the festering "stock market". Dr. Dem remembers that the Swedes and Canadians had done a similar surgery on their little Economies a few years prior, and fixed her by screwing in a bunch of titanium rods, and pumping their patients with steroids (we'll call these steroids "stimulus packages"). So, Dr. Dem does the same. Unfortunately, Dr. Dem didn't read the follow up report, stating that in both cases, the steroids caused long term damage to the little Economies, and the titanium rods came unscrewed because of how they were hastily inserted.

The same thing happens to our little American Economy, and she develops sepsis (a severe infection, for those who don't know medical jargon). Economy slips into a coma, and Dr. Dem is forced to put her on life support. Bureaucratina is assigned to watch over her daily progress. Needless to say, Bureaucratina makes a lot of mistakes with her health care, and Economy worsens.

In the end, Economy spends the rest of her life hooked up to tubes, constantly being surveyed by Dr. Dem and Bureaucratina. Every few years her prognosis gets worse, and Dr. Dem is forced to open Economy up again and perform emergency surgery, replacing her natural bone and tissue with more and more artificial, manufactured, temporary supports.

Tomorrow, I'll bring up how Dr. Rep and Dr. Dem each handle health insurance...



***This is a very depressing first post. I promise future posts will both be lighter, both in the evoked emotions as well as in brevity.