Saturday, October 01, 2005

The New Republicans

Lonna posted this in comments. This needs front page treatment.

We’re Not in Lake Wobegon AnymoreBy Garrison Keillor August 26, 2004

Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned—and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poorIn the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy—the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.Our beloved land has been fogged with fear—fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them. This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger. Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.

Garrison Keillor is the host and writer of A Prairie Home Companion, now in its 25th year on the air.

Friday, September 30, 2005

Quite Excellent Obama

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will. This is more than just a matter of "framing," although clarity of language, thought, and heart are required. It's a matter of actually having faith in the American people's ability to hear a real and authentic debate about the issues that matter.........
My dear friend Paul Simon used to consistently win the votes of much more conservative voters in Southern Illinois because he had mastered the art of "disagreeing without being disagreeable," and they trusted him to tell the truth. Similarly, one of Paul Wellstone's greatest strengths was his ability to deliver a scathing rebuke of the Republicans without ever losing his sense of humor and affability. In fact, I would argue that the most powerful voices of change in the country, from Lincoln to King, have been those who can speak with the utmost conviction about the great issues of the day without ever belittling those who opposed them, and without denying the limits of their own perspectives.

Very much more, click the link

It's important to remember we are all in this together. I have a friend that thinks Mr. Obama is the greatest. I like this stuff pretty well myself.

Bush Supports Health Care For All...Just Not Americans

Well darned Donkey, they seem to know what to do. Why do you think they don't want to do it for their tax payers?

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Coffee Table

The waitress has cleaned the coffee table. Please leave a tip in the comments.

Quandry

Should we continue to hold on to these tax cuts for the very wealthy or cut back on spending for the majority of voters and tax payers? HMMMMM

The Navy Times today reports that those cuts "include trimming military quality-of-life programs, including health care." This, while troops are in battle.The Republicans have put their cutting efforts in military terms, calling it "Operation Offset" - a further insult to the men and women in uniform they are now trying to screw over. The specifics are ugly. They are, for instance, asking troops to "accept reduced health care benefits for their families." Additionally, "the stateside system of elementary and secondary schools for military family members could be closed." In the past, this idea "has faced strong opposition from parents of children attending the schools because public schools [in and around bases] are seen as offering lower-quality education."None of this, I suppose, is all that surprising. In the past, we've seen tax cuts put before making sure troops have adequate body armor heading into war - a tax/budget decision that very likely increased U.S. casualties. We've also seen Republicans vote down efforts to reduce tax cuts for the very wealthy in order to restore cuts to military family housing. And we've seen tax cuts come as the White House has refused to adequately fund a variety of other programs for troops. The truth is, the GOP has in moments of candor admitted that they care about cutting taxes for the wealthy far more than they care about the troops.As you may recall, it was Tom DeLay who said before the Iraq invasion "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes." Apparently to the Republicans, nothing is more important in the face of a war AND massive destruction to the homefront than cutting taxes.

Screw the majority. These guys have all the money, I'm stickin with them.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Civil War

We can't leave because there will be civil war. It will be a bloodbath:

CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports there is a secret, ruthless cleansing of the country's towns and cities. Bodies — blindfolded, bound and executed — just appear, like the rotting corpses of 36 Sunni men that turned up in a dry riverbed south of Baghdad. CBS News traced 16 of those men to a single street in a Baghdad suburb, where family members showed CBS News how the killers forced their way into their homes in the middle of the night and dragged away their sons and fathers. "My uncles were tortured, they even poured acid on them," a young boy told CBS News.

Doesn't sound like they are that interested in killing Americans. Sounds like they are having their civil war/bloodbath regardless.

But we will make it a terrorist training ground......need I even go into detail on how ridicilious this statement is?

But the terrorist will take over and use it as a launching ground.

And the killing isn't one-sided. An ambush in a western Baghdad suburb last month began with the execution of an entire Shiite family inside their home.

I don't think that either side is about to give up their country to ANYBODY any time soon. Let them have their civil war.
Bring our people home to their families or get them on something that resembles a real war on terror.

Monday, September 26, 2005

Jack Abramoff ,Get To Know Him

Gee, I wonder if the corporations are running our country?

Sunday, September 25, 2005

Coffee Table

Let er rip!

Links

Get the answers here.

James Wolcott is a must read to put things in perspective.

What's happening elsewhere? Mosnews has the big stories and perspective of Russia.

When you absolutely, positively have to have the correct time.

Another perspective on the "christian" movement in America.

Reading Room

Bad timing because of the hurricane left the voice of the American people without a voice. Here it is.

Where are our leaders? When will someone in the Democratic party stand up?

Looks like they need a uniter and not a divider.

Only 90 to 96% of the fighters are Iraqis. Maybe we need to go find the terrorists if this is a war on terror.

The real question is how would we expect our troops to be treated and is the enemy going to be willing to surrender or are they going to think that it is preferable to fight to the death.

I TOLD you they wanted to put the military in charge. Allow this and it's just the tip of the iceberg. Just say NO!!!

In my neverending quest to move America from the old technology(fossil fuels) to something new and better, and my love of cool automotive technology I present the truly inventive Americans doing this.

If you have it feel lucky. Love really does triumph over all.

A Week Of Comments

the problem is that we are in Iraq and he is our president so unless you plan on impeaching him all you are doing is weakining any chance we might have of success in Iraq. I felt the same way about Clinton when he was president but you know what he was my president, I was against impeachment (it was nothing but a political stunt)and pretty much kept my mouth shut during his second term. Here is a little story to show you what I am talking about I was vacationing in Ireland and we were at pub and a bunch of locals were talking about Clinton and how much they loved him( he had recently visted the area we we in) and what a great president they thought he was...a friend of mine challenged them and got into a pretty heated arguement about Clinton. Well anyway I kept my mouth shut and after ward I got in an arguement with my friend because I thought it was innapropriate to slam our president in another country. my point is I am an american we elected Clinton and he was my president. no matter how much i disagreed with him.I just think that you guys hate Bush so much that you can't see that what you are doing is making it harder for him to achieve success in iraq. wheteher you like it or not he is or president and unless he committs an impeachable offense (which he has not because trust me the dems and bloggers are looking) there is little you can do about it and in a time of war to criticize him is not unamerican but it certainly does not help matters. if anybody responds to this take it easy on me this is just my opinion I understand that answering a poll isn't the same as activly protesting the president but if I were ever called by a pollester I wouldn't answer any questions because I don't trust them. Anywho I just think there are times to protest (impeachable offense) and there are times to support and there are times just to sit quietly.Mark


Democat said...
#1 We have to keep talking about the TRUTH because it is out there even if the so called liberal media and The Game's blog don't want people to know what the truth is. Talking includes writing because as we all know the pen (or keyboard) is mightier than the sword.#2 We have to be ACTIVELY involved, writing to our representatives, signing petitions, etc. and VOTING!!!#3 I still think the pay it forward idea for convincing people to register to vote would be neat if it worked. Only a fraction of the people eligible to vote actually do so. Also, convince other people to get involved and to learn about politics, especially young people. They are the future of this country/world, but if PNAC has its way, only the children of the rich will have a future. Whatever happened to idealism? I love Harry Chapin's song "She is Always 17." because it is about youthful idealism.The young people of the 50s/60s/70s are largely responsible for the civil rights movement, rights for women/gays/the disabled, and environmental protections. Too many of today's youth are apathetic and/or brainwashed into being Republican because their parents/ministers/teachers are, and because it's not POPULAR to be a Democrat. Well, duh! Bush's popularity is in the toilet. It's not POPULAR to approve of Bush now-right? Besides that, I thought kids liked to rebel against their parents. You'd think it would encourage them to become liberal Democrats if their parents are Republican conservatives.

The Donkey said...
I am sure the Games blog is #1 in Basra. The morale would just collaspe if not for the game.

The Donkey said...
The Donkey is troubled that Ron could not remember who James Baker is.What was Ron doing in 1986 during the Iran contra hearings? Where was Ron when the Atlanta Branch of Italy’s largest bank, Banca Nacional del Lavoro, with U.S. taxpayer-guaranteed loans, gave $5 billion to Iraq from 1985 to 1989? Iraq took advantage of the loans to free up funds for munitions. U.S. taxpayers have been left with $2 billion in defaulted loans to Iraq.Secretary of State James Baker, met with Iraqi foreign minister Tariq Aziz in October 1989 and intervened personally to support U.S. government loans guarantees to Iraq.And over a year ago, Bush appointed James Baker as his envoy on Iraq's debt on December 5, 2003. Baker was to persuade heads of state to forgive the debts owed to them by Iraq.Does the Florida recount ring a bell?How about PNAC or the Carlyle Group?The Carlyle Group is a closely held corporation, its Directors include Frank Carlucci, former Reagan Secretary of Defense and James Baker.James Baker visited the bin Ladens in 1998 and 1999 with Carlyle CEO Frank Carlucci.The donkey could write for hours on James Baker. How is it that Ron can not place the name?

The Game said...
I only had to read the first paragraph to smile with glee thinking about how crazy the Left look to the average American.why?1. You can't "Bring home the Troops" AND "Support our troops"That is like standing outside a school building and demanding the teachers leave. You can't support someone when you don't want them to do the job they know they need to do. A vast majority are smart enough to understand how important they are. They know why they joined the military, they know the risks...including Casey Sheehan.2. The minute the word "impeach" comes out of your mouth it is music to my ears. You guys are sprinting to the left, so far that no one can even see you anymore.

Anonymous said...
Isn't it amazing that Clinton, a competent president, was impeached even though his popularity rating never went below 56%. His lies did not hurt this country or kill anyone.This president has proven himself incompetent in every area, has lied about everything, and, according to lawyers, there are a minimum of half a dozen grounds to impeach him. His popularity is at 40%, yet it is "loony sounding" for the PEOPLE to want him impeached!!I do not recall THE PEOPLE clamoring for Clinton's impeachment, even after the "Right" spent 60 million dollars trying to find something, anything to use to impeach him. He was investigated, initially, for Whitewater, a land deal in which he lost $60,000. Yet Bush's Harken, in which he made an additional $500,000 he would not have made had he not engaged in insider trading, is not important.Lonna

Dedanna said...
Yep, and those hurricanes ain't over with yet, either.I lean more toward the scientific, but still question a lot about the "conspiracy theories".Then again, "conspiracy theories" now, are what used to be called Freedom of Speech...Don't know if you've heard of HAARP, but...

Ron said...
Thanks Dedanna, I mentioned HAARP on the show on friday as a point of interest. At least it is something to know and stick back there somewhere for full perspective and awareness.

The Donkey said...
Bush plea for cash to rebuild Iraq raises $600Mark Townsend in HoustonSunday September 25, 2005The ObserverAn extraordinary appeal to Americans from the Bush administration for money to help pay for the reconstruction of Iraq has raised only $600. The Bush supporters need to step it up.

Wesley Clark

Ya just gotta love him. Imagine how much better off and more united this country would have been with this guy as President. We're in a hole now and it's going to take someone like this to get us out. A good communicator, an honest assessment and a uniter not a divder.