An Interesting Few Months

 

Last November, the GOPTeabaggers had a few victories and took over the House of Representatives, as well as several Governorships and State legislatures. Most of these corporatists began their terms in January. And they began their systematic dismantling of representative government.

The governors of several Midwestern states; Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Michigan and a few in the South; Texas, Georgia, and Florida, have begun to dramatically cut social services, attack unions and, in Arizona, actually let people die.

The GOPT reps in the House are passing mean-spirited bills, ridiculous bills, and downright Un-American bills.

How did this happen? How could these people get elected? It's simple. They lied.

The GOPT people ran on jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs. With unemployment at the highest levels since The Great Depression (thanks to NAFTA, CAFTA and GATT), foreclosures skyrocketing (thanks to a housing bubble and Big Banking pulling a fast one on consumers), and a general disappointment with the Democrats and President Obama among Democrats for not passing progressive legislation over the objections of the Rethuglicans (thanks to letting the Rethugs water down Health Insurance Reform and Wall Street Reform and filibuster everything else), jobs was a winning proposition and Democrats stayed home, some, perhaps, believing the jobs line and others to “send a message” of disappointment.

Well, the message was “Elections have consequences,” and the Rethugs took the House and State legislatures. So, what about the jobs? There were plenty, if you were a Rethug politician or lobbyist or campaign donor. Oh sure, they got jobs, but not the voter on Main Street.

And the State and Federal legislatures decided to repeal the Health Care law the last Congress had passed, write new laws either outlawing abortions or making them so hard to get it was the same thing, and proposing budgets that cut deficits without raising taxes on the rich.

Collective Bargaining, teachers, and unions were under attack in the States. Stalinist appointed “Emergency Managers” who could take over cities and disband elected town councils were introduced in Michigan, anti-abortion, anti-immigration, anti-gay, and anti-same sex marriage laws were being submitted, passed and signed by Governors. Public utilities were going to be sold to private corporations in no-bid deals, creationism, not evolution, was to be taught in schools, homosexuality was not to be talked about in elementary or middle schools. The radical Rethugs were up and running and passing every corporatist and Christer and birther wet-dream, fueled by hate, fear, intolerance, racism and ignorance.

But no jobs bills were introduced. Nothing about that even came up. Why should it? The Rethugs were in power, that's all that counted.

Democrats and progressives have protested these affronts to common decency. There has even been some progress on their side. But, we have only the facts and truth on our side. Those are poor challenges to the wholesale slash-and-burn policies on the Right. Democrats want debates and dialog and reasonable solutions. The Right shouts and lies and distorts everything to fit their world-view.

We have to realize something. This isn't chess. It isn't boxing. It isn't a track meet.

This is a street fight. A knock-down, drag-out, broken bottle, brass knuckle street fight. And until we wake up and realize the other side doesn't play by any rules, and adopt the same take-no-prisoners attitude, we are going to make little if any progress, and slowly.

Both Sides

Both Sides Do It - Not

In the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shootings, before the gun smoke had cleared, the right-wing hate machine was wound up and claiming the shooter was a liberal, that he was a pot-smoker, and he was a paranoid-schizophrenic.

Two out of three ain't bad. The last two.

The left-wing activists were shouting that he was a right-wing hate media fan, a pot-smoker and a paranoid-schizophrenic.

Two out of three ain't bad. The last two.

The simple fact of the matter is, at the time, no one knew the political orientation of the killer, no one seemed to know if he listened to radio, or only the voices in his head. No one knew if he watched television, or only the hallucinations from his fevered imagination. No one knew, yet everyone had someone else to blame.

It has come out since that he was a registered Repugnantcan, and he had read Mein Kampf. Not exactly a liberal tome.

All the media hand-wringers were talking about toning it down and backing off the hate and anger.

Faux came out with a statement that Roger Ailes had told his anchors to lower the rhetoric from boil to simmer, but nothing has changed. They are still telling horrendous lies and using violent rhetoric to whip up the brain-dead base. Rush Lintball is still out for blood, liberal blood, and false equivalencies fly hither and yon.

There are some angry left wing talkers, true. But the market is such that the right-wing out shouts the left by about 10 to one. The higher powered talk-radio stations are generally right-wing, and you can find three or more in any metropolitan area. If there is a liberal station in your area, try way down on the left side of the AM dial. They are stuffed into the 90's and low 100's.

Besides the difficulty in finding a liberal voice, the angry ones are few and far between. There are a few syndicated and carried by most of the stations that claim liberal views. But they are for the most part calm and informative: Thom Hartmann, Alan Colmes, Randi Rhodes; comedic, Stephanie Miller,

unapologetic anti-republican Mike Malloy. With the abrupt exit of Keith Olbemann from the television airwaves, there is yet another shutting out of the liberal voice.

The left has said, “Okay, we'll tone it down, we'll be civil.” But that won't work. Not the way they intend. Because the right has no intention of toning it down or being civil. They won't play along because they perceive it as weakness.

The few angry talkers on the left have to stay angry. There is plenty to be angry about. But these few reach only the audience they've built over the years and catch no new ears.

The right, however, is everywhere. It is not just a few off-hand comments, uttered in an unguarded moment, no. It is a constant drumbeat of hate and lies and fear mongering. It has served them well, and they will not abandon it.

The constant drumbeat of “Shoot them in the head!', “They are destroying America,” Liberals are the problem,” and on and on, demonizing half the population so a few crazies can get their guns out and assassinate Congress people and Judges and nine-year old girls.

The constant drumbeat of a right-wing “Take Back America” bumper-sticker mentality,

a Republican party allying itself with a Tea Party, birther, tenther, bircher, far right will lead to armed conflict. There may be a revolution coming. The right says the left is planning one. But we're not.

The right wants one. They want blood in the streets, insurrection, riots, dead Americans. That is their ultimate goal. If we're fighting each other, we won't have time to turn on them.

And the sickest part of all is, they do it for sport. It's all just a game for them. And if they lose a few pawns, that's okay, they're planning a killer endgame.

If you have heard or seen the Youtube video of the sad teabaggers singing the Battle Hymn of Sarah Palin, you know what's coming. I don't think those folks are ready for The Grand Ole Opry. But songs that are changed and put forth a political agenda, no matter how insane, demand a response. Here is mine, feel free to hum along.

She came out of Alaska

To run as McCain's VP

They tried hard to get elected

But it wasn't meant to be

But instead disappearing

She's embraced mendacity

She just won't go away.

Chorus:

Sarah Palin is a moron,

Sarah Palin is a moron,

Sarah Palin is a moron,

Why won't she go away?

She quit her job as Governor

Just half-way through the run.

Left Alaska and its people and

The Summer's Midnight Sun.

So she could make more money

And play politics for fun.

She just won't go away.

Chorus:

She's a polarizing influence

She sure knows how to sell

Her dumb teabag party rhetoric

and you can clearly tell

That she in it for herself and

All the rest can go to Hell,

She just won't go away.

Spoken:

Congress finally passed several bills

That the Republicans blocked for two years.

These will benefit everybody, not just the rich

The Baggers can't name a single freedom lost

And even with new government programs starting,

Ninety-five percent of us got a tax cut.

Sarah Blows

I wish she would just march home.