Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, openly campaigns on the fact that his number one priority is not fixing the economy or getting jobs for the unemployed; no, his only focus is making sure that Barack Obama is a one-term president.
Eric Cantor, the House Majority Whip, currently leading the talks to prevent the economy from completely tanking, is proud of having shares in a fund that will only pay off if the economy gets worse. And nobody considers this to be a conflict of interest.
The leading lights of the party are currently pushing the 2012 Goat Rodeo: a collection of ego-driven misfits and losers so actively insane that if you can remember to pull your dick out of your pants before you pee, you're considered a front runner. (And yes, I'm including both Sarah "Undefeated" Palin and Batboy Bachmann in that metaphor.)
Since Obama was sworn in as president, the best description of the Republican "strategy" is "Deny, Delay, and Do Nothing," in the hopes that if things get worse, Obama gets the blame.
And there's a significant portion of Republican voters who buy into that theory, because they're openly stupid. Oh, and because of brain damage caused by interesting chemicals that Republican policies allow to enter our food supply - you know, paint thinner, mercury, that kind of thing...
The GOP openly lies or obfuscates about every issue, and yet, despite the unwillingness in the press to call them on it, they consistently refer to the "liberal bias" in the media.
Remember death panels? What about "Obama is a Muslim"? Or "...socialist"? "...communist"? Or even "...terrorist"?
Does anybody remember James O'Keefe? Lied about ACORN? Tried to break into a congresswoman's office and bug her phone? Yeah, he's still at it. Still not in jail. Go figure.
Despite overwhelming evidence that birth control prevents abortion and teen pregnancy, when birth control is offered through the new health care law, what’s the right-wing take on it? "Obamacare will force insurance companies to pay for abortion!"
And it's not just at the national level. Here in New Mexico, we have Teabagging governor Suzanna Martinez, who (in a move completely at odds with the standard GOP theory that rich people are happiest when you throw money at them) made an effort to slash film industry subsidies, where moviemakers have a percentage of their in-state expenditures returned to them, and one of the only requirements is that they hire 75% of their crew from New Mexico citizens.
The State Legislature only agreed to cap subsidies, which is still a disincentive to filmmakers, who have brought billions of dollars and thousands of jobs to the state. And the plan still backfired.
New Mexico will shell out an estimated $20 million to $30 million more than expected in film rebates – around $95 million overall – after film and television projects rushed to beat a July 1 effective date for a new state cap on the subsidies.So, where other Republicans are simply doing nothing to improve the economy, our governor is losing money, driving out industry and destroying jobs. So this is what "winning" looks like?
We are a nation tenaceous in its beliefs and facts are only satanic temptations to be denied.
ReplyDeleteDenial is thus a virtue.
Getting hotter out there? more floods, tornadoes, droughts, floods -- just like the climate change scenario predicted? Just repeat the chant: liberaliberaliberal with your hands over your ears.
So no, condoms don't prevent disease, birth control doesn't work, commerce doesn't need to be regulated, food doesn't need to be inspected, climate change is a hoax, there will always be more oil if we dril for it, tax cuts bring prosperity, science is all about conjecture, evolution is a fraud and anything else can be dismissed by calling it socialism.
In principio et nunc et in saecula saeculorum Amen.
I hate to use the word faith again, but I have to point out that every item of faith requires an equal item of denial.
Long ago (in Internets time) I realized that pointing out the shameless duplicity and hypocrisy of conservatives has no effect on their behavior.
ReplyDeleteLook at the inestimable greatness of TDS and Jon Stewart, he skewers them on their petard of two-facedness every night and yet Republicans and conservatives feel zero compunction in engaging in these tactics because no matter what their brain dead duped battered supporters will back them no matter what they pull...
I couldb't have said it better!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you!!!!
ReplyDeleteNameless,
ReplyDeleteI think it comes down to entropy or some other sciency theory that simple dinos like me are too simple to understand.
The way I'd put it is that smart people eventually just get tired of arguing with really, really stupid people who are utterly immune to the force of reason or the sway of fact, so the assumptions and language of the stupid becomes ascendant and paradigmatic. I guess that's why -- in the middle of a serious downturn -- we're all somberly nattering about the need to slash our federal budget's throat until nothing of it remains but a pale, bloodless corpse, the husk of a once-civil society's commitments to the sick, the young and the elderly.
The GOP congresscritters and senate-dwellers, I suppose, are a notch or so cleverer than il popolo -- just clever enough to manipulate and benefit from the blithering idiocy and latent cruelty of those who follow them. And as the Right-Pols know, whenever such folk get wind of something good and decent, they set off running after it like the pitchfork-wielding peasants who chase the hapless "Creature" to fiery destruction in that old Frankenstein movie.
That's how.
Well, it looks like everything's going to be fine. See, now they're floating this wonderful idea about a "Super Congress" that can fast-track legislation through for an up-down vote. I think there are twelve of them, six from each party, and they get to wear really cool capes, or something like that. And the important thing is, it would be MUCH easier to, say, gut Medicare and Social Security and maybe even trip grandma while she's trying desperately to make it across a crowded intersection. Wouldn't THAT be a hoot!
ReplyDeleteSeriously, this Super Congress is just what we need: a new legislative body that's even less accountable than the ordinary one, the better to speed the work of turning America into a neo-feudal dystopia in which the top one tenth of one percent of the people have 100% of the wealth and the rest of 'em are scooped up to make delicious, protein-rich people-patties. Good work, fearless legislators, good work!
Of course, if anyone who's in the know wants to point out why this Super Congress is actually a good idea and I'm a foolish lizard, I'm all earholes and expectant upturned snout. Just look up "Super Congress" on the Internets and set me to rights.
Winning - they must have pulled a page from Charlie Sheen's playbook.
ReplyDeleteOf course, the current situation is the result of all the idiots that thought that shaking up the mid-term voting would somehow be a good thing for our country.
I wonder if everyone gets it now - the GOP doesn't have a plan, they just want Obama to fail and then take over the White House.
Rocky,
ReplyDeleteWe critters (extinct and non-extinct) know better than to buy that old saw about "common sense." The humanoid idiots you mention are just the sort of commonsense-mongers who get us into so much trouble. Their minds apparently shut down as soon as they reach some commonplace like, "What we really need to do is send those politicians in Washington D.C. a message!" My favorite is the one that goes something like, "If only those politicians would get together and be reasonable, split the difference...." Sure! Since our national political spectrum begins at conservative Democrat and ends at just-short-of-Brownshirt Republican, that demand yields us nothing but right-wing "solutions" to all our problems. Yep, it's the very same sort of common sense that tells us that the sun circles the earth, which by the way is obviously flat since we don't fall off.
Dino - I keep wishing for a real place somewhere over the rainbow where we zoner types can go and live in peace. I am so very tired of ignorance, hate and deceit. The most compelling problem we face is there are just too many people in the world.
ReplyDeleteFor as much as the Tea Party dolts rail about the "Founding Fathers", the framers of our founding documents would be HORRIFIED were they alive today and realize that the common folk were allowed to vote!
ReplyDeleteThe only thing dumber and more frightening than the Republican party today is the overwhelming morons in this country who put them in office. I'm told the AVERAGE IQ of Americans is 98.
What I keep wondering are where are all the "intellectuals" in this country? Why don't we hear from them? What are they doing and why are they silent? Maybe the shit-canning of our Manned Space Program is the canary in our coal mine.
Rocky,
ReplyDeleteWell, I may have to make room for a few mammals in my upcoming Million Lizard March on Washington....
Robert,
I think very few listen to intellectuals these days. The relatively free exercise of intellect seems to be a highly specialized, marginalized activity. I don't mean to sound like Matthew Arnold, but there you have it. We do some "free intellecting" here in our limited way, but how many people listen to us? Thanks to those who do, I should add.
Nothing much seems up to the task of counteracting the weak-brained, morally bankrupt commonplaces we hear as a pre-fed public response to major issues. At the moment, I hear litanies of ordinary citizens telling us that both parties should act like adults and make a reasonable compromise, split the difference, blah blah blah. They're saying that, I suppose, mainly because they heard some shallow pundit say it on the Sunday talk shows, and the mild-eyed melancholy lotos-eating sound of it appealed to them, so they repeat it.
I think we know how the compromise game they're calling for really goes:
Republicans: We're going to cut off your dog's tail. Oh ho ho ha ha HA! That'll be fun!
Democrats: That's not very nice. How about just cutting off the tip of his tail?
Republicans: What? No! All of it! And one of his ears since you're being so difficult! Or I'll burn your house down, cowards! You and your mangy worthless dog!
Democrats: Okay, off with the tail and one ear, then. But you'll have to agree not to cut off his nose.
Republicans: Agreed. Well, maybe just the tip. We can be reasonable, you know….
So they make an outrageous, mind-bendingly rock-stupid and cruel set of demands, we counter timidly, and "split the difference." The result is policies that put us on the fast track to a More Perfect Idiocracy. Yet millions of Americans resolutely and regularly call for precisely this sort of thing, and I suspect that if the Democrats actually took a stand on anything, their reward would be to get lumped in with the Republicans as "childish" and "refusing to compromise."
This about sums it with republicans.
ReplyDeleteIt is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.
It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers.
It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.”
It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation.
It is wrong to blame government regulation and (as yet unimposed) tax increases for the severity of the recession.
It is wrong to oppose job-creating infrastructure programs.
It is wrong to hesitate to provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other forms of income maintenance to the unemployed.
It is wrong to fetishize the exchange value of the dollar against other currencies.
It is wrong to believe that cuts in marginal tax rates will suffice to generate job growth in today’s circumstance.
It is wrong to blame minor and marginal government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial crisis while ignoring the much more important role of government inaction to police overall levels of leverage within the financial system.
It is wrong to dismiss the Euro crisis as something remote from American concerns.
It is wrong to resist US cooperation with European authorities in organizing a work-out of the debt problems of the Eurozone countries.
It is wrong above all in its dangerous combination of apocalyptic pessimism about the long-term future of the country with aloof indifference to unemployment. This is whats wrong with the republican party.