More Brinkmanship to Come

What a year...

This election year is finally over, a small mercy at best.

Unfortunately, despite the facts that more Americans voted for Democrats for the House, by nearly a million, and Democrats gained in the Senate, and held the White House, our government continues to be held hostage by the radical Right Tea Cult fringe. 

Thanks to their 2010 wins, Republican gerrymandering has insured that the boot heel of the radical Right minority will continue to step on the will of the people for an indefinite time into the future.

And yes, although the corporate media are too cowardly, and of course too corporate, to assert, it is obvious the Republicans are the impediment to a functioning Federal Government. Watch them play the same hostage game again and further degrade our credit rating come debt ceiling time. 

The present Republican-manufactured "fiscal cliff" is just one wave of the brinkmanship mentality of the Radical Right. More shall certainly come this new year.

In the biggest unreported news of the year, two brave souls managed to speak the unspeakable in the Washington Post.

They had the courage to go beyond the lamestream media line, “Both sides do it” or “There is plenty of blame to go around”.

Here’s a sample from:

“Let’s just say it: The Republicans are the problem.”

By Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, Published: April 27, 2012

Rep. Allen West, a Florida Republican, was recently captured on video asserting that there are “78 to 81” Democrats in Congress who are members of the Communist Party. Of course, it’s not unusual for some renegade lawmaker from either side of the aisle to say something outrageous. What made West’s comment — right out of the McCarthyite playbook of the 1950s — so striking was the almost complete lack of condemnation from Republican congressional leaders or other major party figures, including the remaining presidential candidates.

It’s not that the GOP leadership agrees with West; it is that such extreme remarks and views are now taken for granted.

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.
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The other significant reality ignored by corporate media is summed up by a Republican:

“...A Republican ideology pitting the “makers” against the “takers” offers nothing. No sympathy for our fellow citizens. No insight into our social challenge. No hope of change. This approach involves a relentless reductionism. Human worth is reduced to economic production. Social problems are reduced to personal vices. Politics is reduced to class warfare on behalf of the upper class."

- Michael Gerson, head speech writer and a senior policy adviser to President George W. Bush.

Some liberals are excited about the demise of the GOP after this election. They’re fooling themselves, of course.

The Republicans are not going anywhere. They are the party of the rich and powerful and will always have the aristocratic Koch brothers' and Adelson type's "free speech" money to undermine democracy and suppress the interests of the American people.

The good news is democracy lingers, as exemplified by the sane and kind folks in Colorado and Washington who understand that having a harmless plant should not be a crime.

The not-so-good news is the Democrats will continue to be the Republican-lite party, as they too serve their Military Industrial Complex and Wall Street bosses.

The war on democracy continues...

Happy New Year!

Two Perspectives

So the Democrats won the White House and gained seats in both the House and Senate... And FOX(R) was wrong. Shocking. And although more Americans voted for Democratic, rather than Republican representation, GOP gerrymandering allowed them to keep control of the House.

This is what Speaker Boehner called a “status quo election”. Yeah, that’s it.

But that’s not even the most unhinged lunacy from Republicans. Not by a long shot.

The brainwashing cult indoctrination of the radical Right is an amazing thing to see. These are some real true believers.

We see Public Policy Polling has some interesting findings. And before anyone denounces them for having “liberal bias”, please note: The Murdoch Wall Street Journal ranked PPP as one of the top swing state pollsters in the country during the last Presidential election.

PublicPolicy Polling reveals the madness:

“Republicans not handling election results well”

PPP's first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard...and also declining in numbers.

49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found:

 that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.

Some GOP voters are so unhappy with the outcome that they no longer care to be a part of the United States. 25% of Republicans say they would like their state to secede from the union compared to 56% who want to stay and 19% who aren't sure.

One reason that such a high percentage of Republicans are holding what could be seen as extreme views is that their numbers are declining. Our final poll before the election, which hit the final outcome almost on the head, found 39% of voters identifying themselves as Democrats and 37% as Republicans. Since the election we've seen a 5 point increase in Democratic identification to 44%, and a 5 point decrease in Republican identification to 32%.

What a country! Turns out half of the Republican voters STILL think ACORN stole the election for Obama, from the grave apparently.

I'm not sure what hope there can be for a nation that is a quarter delusional. The good news is their cult is shrinking.

But they still number in the millions and American has its work cut out if it wishes to be a free and prosperous nation.

Yes, as the pundits and corporate "journalists" say, the polarization in American politics is wider than ever. No wonder. The corporate media stenographers do very little reporting of facts, while the propaganda arm of the Republican Party has duped it’s cult into believing they are “fair and balanced’.

Let’s look at the contrast between the two perspectives of a divided America. One is that of the so-called “conservative” radical Right, aka the Republican Party. The other is the opposite alternative, not necessarily that of the junior corporate Democratic Party.

"In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks." - Spencer Bachus (R) AL

And who can forget:

”There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it....And so my job is not to worry about those people—I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.” Willard (R) the Loser

Now that’s the Right attitude.

In contrast we have:

On taxes:

Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?”

But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, “Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money.”

So they brought Him a denarius.

And He said to them, “Whose image and inscription is this?” They said to Him, “Caesar’s.”

And He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” – (Matthew 22:17-21)

On wealth:

No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.- (Mathew 6:24)

On social justice for the poor:

 “From each according to his ability and to each according to his need.”

What? Too liberal, too compassionate, and too commie?

Well then, there’s this radical view:

 "All whose faith had drawn them together held everything in common: they would sell their property and possessions and make a general distribution as the need of each required."  (Acts 2:44-5) 

Verily I say unto thee, if Jesus were to come to America, he would be called a godless commie by the “real Americans” of the FOX(R) cult. If the Republicans were in power they'd want to toss the radical Leftist into Gitmo.