Tricky Rick from Texas Holds Forth on the President’s Birth Certificate

"I'm really not worried about the president's birth certificate. It's fun to poke at him a little bit and say, how 'bout let's see your grades and your birth certificate." (Rick Perry as quoted in a CNBC interview; see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/25/rick-perry-obama-birth-certificate_n_1030157.html)

See, here's the thing, guv -- when you talk like that, even if you say it with a disarming Texas grin, people might just get the idea that you don't really believe a word of the birther nonsense but are willing to keep repeating it for the fun of the thing. Problem is, a lot of the rubes and certifiable cases out there who still talk this way DO believe it -- every mad-hatter word of it, in fact. So when you imply that you're not quite serious, they get upset and you lose potential votes. Even people who deserve to be talked down to don't like it when you talk down to them and snicker about it right in front of them.

Of course, there's another way to view the matter: once you reveal that you're approximately as sophisticated as a middle-school bully -- you know, someone who gets up every blessed morning 100% prepared to toss around baseless insults to hurt some other person’s feelings – or jes’ to “poke at 'im,” as y'all might put it -- you stand to gain considerably in the eyes of others who fit the same schoolyard profile. And unfortunately, being that sort of person is pretty much standard fare for the Republican base. From that perspective, I suppose, you've got both hat and cattle workin' for ya, podnah! You know, “strategery”!

A serious question -- is it possible for the current Republican Party to put its faith in anyone who is NOT essentially an overgrown middle-school bully in an expensive suit or dress?

Texas, Taxes, and Divils to Adore for Deities

"'Spreading the wealth' punishes success," [Rick Perry] said during his announcement speech on Saturday, "while setting America on {a} course to greater dependency on government." ("Texas Tax System Heavily Burdens Poor Residents.)

Please just think about that for a moment. "'Spreading the wealth' punishes success ...." We wouldn't want to go and punish success, would we! Do any of these godbotherers ever read a single word of the bible they bandy about and hide behind? Never mind who the right-wingers' Jesus would bomb, what would the more authentic figure – I mean that long-haired radical proto-hippy fellow from the gospels, with his open contempt for wealth and penchant for hanging out with sinners and speaking up for fallen women -- say about such a philosophy?

"Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" asked a ruler of the day.

And wouldn't you know it, that impertinent socialist peacenik said, "sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me." (Luke 18:18-22, KJB).

We are told that the ruler who had asked the question walked away sorrowfully. For Lo, giving away one's wealth to the rabble punisheth success.

Well, pardners, it kinda sounds like Jesus didn't have much patience with what we now call "the gospel of prosperity," and I doubt that he would appreciate its being applied at the secular level to sock it to the poor in taxes for the benefit of the rich. Verily I say unto you, too many of our modern "Christians" are surely hypocrites. I believe the Jesus of the gospels would more than blush to call them followers – yessir, I reckon he'd vomit right down in his ten-gallon hat, if he'd worn one. But commies don't wear cowboy hats, so it's silly of me to conjure it up. Well, I think I remember seeing a picture of "Gorby" wearing a cowboy hat once, and if memory serves, Karl Marx considered emigrating to Texas in the mid-1840's. Even so, I apologize.

I'm more than happy to give the Guv'nuh some refining and wiggling room and of course the snippet I referenced isn't his entire announcement (easily Googled), but as far as I am concerned, those who emphasize a principle of worldly success over the well-being of their fellows, and call themselves Christians, are in fact devotees of Mammon. And in case any of us have forgotten the Ten Commandments as handed down to Charlton Heston by God Almighty in 1956, let's recall that one of them has to do with it being a very big no-no to worship idols in place of the Lord of Hosts:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. . . . . (Exodus 20:4-5; for all the details about what you mustn't do, see Exodus 20:2-17, and Deuteronomy 5:6-21.)

Yet, the suggestion coming out of Texas seems to be that it's downright irresponsible to take a little silver from even the most impressive of personal Mammon-hoards and toss it in the public coffers for dispensation to the needy, lest the industry of the successful be dispraised and neglected and unrighteousness spread amongst the poor like wildfire in droughty woods. It smacks of idol-worship and forbidden self-sufficiency to me.

Mammon, as Milton points out in Paradise Lost, is almost admirable for his enthusiasm amongst the fallen rebel host in his determination to wrest the necessary riches from Hell's landscape and start building a rival, divided empire. He counsels infernal self-reliance: let us "seek / Our own good from ourselves, and from our own / Live to ourselves" (2.252-54). But even he was a collectivist by Republican standards, from the sound of it. Well, whatever the case, it would apparently be un-Christian to get in the way of excessive attachment to one of the most deplorable of pagan "Divils to adore for deities."

Yes, "divils." Don't you just love Milton's spelling? Even more cheerful is the thought that he and his contemporaries might have pronounced it that way, too.

Little Ricky

It seems that our friends in the media are now considering Governor Goodhair to be a viable candidate for President. Well, sure. He might be some mutant version of a "serious statesman." Why the fuck not? Hell, if Michelle "Batshit Crazy" Bachmann is a viable candidate, why not Rick Perry, right?

And, really, while I know that the media is too scared of accusations of "liberal bias" to get tough with the man, I have some questions that I'd like to hear somebody ask. Like the following:

Now, Governor, you keep hinting that Texas should secede. You never quite say "the s-word," but you come so close, because you know the crazy people love that shit.

Now, if you think that Texas should split off from America, but then you say you want to be the President of that same United States... how do you balance those two thoughts?

In fact, if you think about it, Governor, despite your rhetoric that Obama was taking us over the edge, we're still here. Haven't gone over any edge. And not likely to, either. But you felt that the American people would allow themselves, to be taken in (hell, already had been) by a demagogue. Why do you think that everybody who doesn't believe just like you do is stupid and easily-led? Why don't you believe in America, Ricky?

Of course, right after saying that government was too big and spent too much money and Texas should (consider that maybe they might, if they wanted to) secede, you told Obama that you wanted half a million dollars worth of Tamiflu, and later told Obama he wasn't sending enough troops to secure the border... a border that you would have to secure for yourself...

I'm sorry, Governor. I was having a hard time wrapping my head around that. Anyway, I hope that by this time you're aware that the whole "Texas can secede!" thing is a steaming pile of lies, right? And that the other politicians in Texas are laughing at you over this, right?

First of all, Governor, I'd just like to say that your hair looks spectacular. Of course, it always does, doesn't it? Now, there's a rumor that's been following you for several years now, that you might be gay. Although I don't believe that there's anything more than a passing resemblance between you and one of the Village People, I was wondering if you'd care to comment on that?

Recently, your college transcript was leaked to the press, and it turns out that at Texas A&M, you could barely pull a C average: couple of F's, a lot of D's, and only two A's, one of them in something called Improv. of Learning - what exactly is that, Governor? Is that a remedial course or something? Never mind; it doesn't matter. But anyway, Governor, Texas Agricultural & Mechanical University is not an Ivy League institution (seriously, somebody should look up what Texans mean when they call somebody an "Aggie"); so, if it's true that your time there "helped shape who (you are) today," and you spent that time trying to flunk out of school, who exactly does that make you?

On that subject, a Bachelor's Degree is also called a "four-year degree" - you took five years at Texas Pigs & Tractors, from 1968 to 1972, to earn your Animal Science degree. Does your leadership as governor for the last decade have anything to do with Texas now leading the nation in percentage of adults without a high school diploma?

You've been pushing the power of prayer a lot; you seem to feel that people should talk to God. On April 21, you called on the citizens of Texas to pray for rain. At that point, about 15% of Texas was experiencing what's called "exceptional" drought conditions. By August 9th, that had increased to almost 80%. What was God telling you then, Rick?

You seem very proud of Texas. You seem to think you've done great things for the state, as it's longest-running governor. And you have. Texas leads the rest of the nation in a number of areas. It has the fourth highest poverty rate; last year, it tied with Mississippi for the largest percentage of workers in minimum-wage jobs; you lead the country in percentage of workers without health insurance, and kids without health insurance (and since Texas is less healthy than 80% of the country, think about what that means).

Face facts, Perry. In the same way Bush wrecked the country during his tenure as President, he ass-raped Texas during his time as governor. The difference is, in Texas, his successor only made things worse.

Gimme that old slime and religion

The Republican circus' Big Top is beginning to fill with snarling dogs, rooting hogs and booming frogs fighting to get into the center ring -- the kind of things once relegated to side shows so as not to frighten young children and more 'sensitive' viewers.

Rick Perry is, as I write this, now announcing his candidacy from the State of South Carolina, where the First Civil War started with the booming of cannons 150 years ago. The Cold Civil War is heating up and so is the rhetoric. Rhetoric just as emotional and just as full of vain invocations of the common divinity. "It's time to get America working again" he says as though his party hadn't presided in ZERO job growth in the eight Republican years and as though we haven't had significant job growth since. Has Perry suggested anything positive or anything other than blind faith in what got us into this mess? Remember he's the guy who thinks the climate responds better to prayer than to carbon dioxide levels. So far it's still not raining in Texas.


Not all the candidates, however, are quite so willing to engage in such a pitched battle on an even field. All the likely female contestants for instance -- like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann and Newt Gingrich seem to prefer to come out slapping and eye gouging but should anyone be so unfair as to ask such inappropriate, unfair "Gotcha" questions as "which newspapers do you read" or just what Mrs. Bachman meant when she said:

"But the Lord said, 'Be submissive. Wives, you are to be submissive to your husbands.' "

Perhaps since she wears her religion, not only on her sleeve and on her shield like a crusader, but constantly suggests the superiority it gives her along with the right to make peremptory statements about how the rest of us live our lives, it's an appropriate question. It's the same Question President Carter asked of the Southern Baptist Church and not liking the answer, quit the church in which he was raised and spent his life. She'd have us believe she only meant "respect" contrary to the literal word she's so eager to worship. But she didn't say respect, now did she? Nor did the word of God she thinks she's quoting.

Suggesting both that it's offensively inappropriate for anyone to ask clarification of Bachmann and that her explanation would be far too nuanced for us heathen to understand, we have Roland Martin writing on CNN.com today.

Martin tells us she was asked by Byron York:

"As president, would you be submissive to your husband?"

Forgetting the "Billary" gambit directed against Bill Clinton, Childe Roland hesitates not a bit to be offended on behalf of Biblical literalists and for the shy, sensitive and ever-so-subtly nuanced Bachmann who brought the subject up in the first place.

I don't know how old Roland Martin is; whether he remembers the Republicans' question as to whether John Kennedy would obey the Pope instead of the Constitution or whether like the other hand-waving, special pleading, smoke and mirrors artists he can only take refuge in fog shrouded ineffability when someone asks a damned good question he wouldn't hesitate to ask of others.

It's a question asked only because she's a woman, asserts Martin rather tautologically. After all, men aren't ordered to obey their wives in the old books some people confuse with the US Constitution. Apparently he thinks men aren't even asked similar questions about the conflict between their beliefs about the the legitimacy of government, their credos and their ability to administer secular laws in a secular country they may disapprove of.

He's quite wrong of course. These questions are asked and not just by me -- and they are important questions to ask of a party that is insisting in ever louder voices that secularism is a problem and that the country rightly belongs only to those with suitable church affiliations.