What is the Agenda?
When I get flooded with negative emotional crap, I respond by burying myself in intellectual pursuit. My most recent theme has been a struggle with and analysis of the current administration's agenda. What on earth is it?

They aren't conservatives, in spite of the fact that we often call them that. They don't mind spending huge sums of taxpayer money that they don't yet have to support their friends and their war and anything else they've a mind to. They only use the rhetoric of conservatism to push things like destroying social security and shifting the tax burden to the middle class. And what happened to letting the markets work?

They aren't libertarians. They don't mind mucking in the finest details of domestic policy including testing state run schools, medical policy including whether women can have abortions, and what folks can see on television.

They aren't liberals -- in some ways they seem reactionary, but it really isn't that either. In fact no matter how hard I try, I can discover no coherent political philosophy in their actions.

You know, I sound like a total nut case when I conclude that the real agenda is just to grab and maintain control. Each of their individual policy initiatives seems aimed at either shoring up a small segment of the electorate, removing some power or control that was previously held by the citizenry or some non-governmental entity, or undermining the Constitution.

And I sound like a paranoid nut. But I think I'm right.

Now I'm going to go find some decent reading material about the rise of totalitarianism in other societies to look for parallels. All recommendations are welcome.