Tag Archives: elections

Political Rants

American taliban.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that Rep. Todd Aiken is some kind of outlier or “knuckle dragger,” as Boehner might put it. He represents the core of where the Republican party is on women’s reproductive rights today. The tea party-fueled G.O.P. has been on a mission about abortion since they took power in January of last year, advancing radical anti-abortion legislation on both on the federal and the state level. The 2011 “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” act – HR3 on the docket, meaning this is literally the third bill they got to since taking power – included in its original form a redefinition of rape that established the somewhat dubiously defined category of “forcible rape”. The final version would ban federal funding of abortions in cases of “statutory rape”, meaning that rape victims would have to undergo some kind of audit to avoid bringing the child of their rapist to term.

The motivation behind this is pretty obvious. Attempts to ban abortion have always run into three exceptions that block an outright ban – rape, incest, and saving the life of the mother. Of these three categories, anti-abortion fanatics see rape as the least problematic to game. They keep trying to find ways around that exception, resorting to narrowing the definition of “legitimate” rape, junk science theories about female reproductive biology, and so on. Aiken got his theory from a crackpot preacher that served as a surrogate for Romney during the last election.  This same guy has met with both Romney and Ryan this year.

The Republicans do not want to have this conversation. But the simple truth is that they are committed to this notion of no abortion, no exceptions. They are becoming the American / Christian version of the taliban, adding a “no exceptions for rape or incest” anti-abortion plank to their national party platform just this past week. They are running away from it, but it is not going anywhere, and if you dig deep enough, you will find plenty of true believers like Aiken who will say what they believe, no matter how extreme. And this is an extreme position by any measure – the most extreme advocated by a national party on the subject of abortion since it became a national issue in the 1970s.

Extremism has gone mainstream. This should be an interesting convention, if it doesn’t get washed out by that hurricane.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Eyes wide open.

I suppose if I’m going to rant about anything this week, it’s going to be the election. Election years are always nerve-wracking, like a slow-motion train wreck. They make me feel, more than ever, that we as a nation are sleep-walking into history. The notion that we can be on the knife-edge of electing someone like Mitt Romney president – that working people of any persuasion (to say nothing of retirees) would ever consider voting for that overpaid fichus tree in a suit – is simply flabbergasting.

To be certain, Obama has not acted boldly enough on the economy, on basic issues of human rights, and so on. That’s a given. But let us not forget how we got into this hole in the first place. We had eight years of Dubya Bush, during which time he and his fellow cartoon pirates started two wars, established torture as an open instrument of foreign policy, blew an enormous hole in the federal budget with two rounds of wartime tax cuts, let New Orleans be destroyed, crashed the economy into what has turned out to be a milder version of the Great Depression, and quite a bit more. They did so with the full cooperation of a Republican led congress for six full years, and effective Republican control for the remaining two. (The Dems’ razor-thin majority 2007-2009 didn’t buy them much.)

I find it hard to blame anyone for falling into cynicism with regard to the two-party duopoly we call American democracy. In too many ways, there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two major parties. But there are enough differences to make it worth the time and effort (and in some states, it will take both time and effort – I’m looking at you, Ohio!) to cast a decisive vote against Romney and the G.O.P. congress. Not that this is all one has to do to move the country in the right direction – far from it. But the consequences of doing nothing on election day are … well, we’ve seen them. (See paragraph #2.) The Republicans get worse every cycle they hold power. If they take it again this time, they will gut the remaining social safety net (frayed as it is), throw millions out of work through forced austerity, drive us into recession, start another war, build a transcontinental pipeline to carry toxic sludge to the gulf where it can be turned into diesel fuel and sold to China, and… well, you’ve heard the rest.

I’m not asking you to ignore Obama’s failings. Resist, of course. But don’t think replacing him with a clueless millionaire won’t drive us into a deeper hole. We can’t afford to take that trip again. Vote with your eyes open … but for @$%# sake, vote.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Mitt’s excellent adventure.

Did you hear it last week, over the noise emanating from the London Olympics? That collective groan from points east? That was the world reacting to the man who might be president next January. There are, I’m sure, millions in Europe and the Middle East thinking, Really, America? So soon after Bush, you’re going to elect yet another ham-fisted idiot? Really? In many respects, our president is president of the world, if only because he (and thus far, it’s always been “he”) wields enormous power – military, economic, and diplomatic – over virtually everyone else. (They should probably get a vote in the matter, but then here in America we’re not even guaranteed that right, depending upon which state we live in.)

Though his spinmeisters have been working overtime to put a positive gloss on it, Mitt’s softball trip to friendly nations was an unmitigated (or un-Mitt-igated, perhaps) disaster, from the crypto-racist tone of the adviser referencing our shared “Anglo-Saxon heritage” with the British, to the Olympic gaffe, to name-checking MI6 (psst, Mitt: it’s supposed to be a secret), to blaming Palestinian poverty on their “culture” or lack of same. That last comment is something of a bookend to the Anglo-Saxon trope he started off with, making Romney seem strangely fixated on issues of ethnic identity. (He later doubled down on the Palestinian remark in an essay in National Review online.)

Of course, the stop was another opportunity to signal his willingness to countenance war with Iran, whether started by Israel or by the United States. In this we hear his neocon Bush-era advisors speaking, such as Dan Senor, former military flack during the early days of the Iraq invasion, who said on Romney’s behalf that the governor would “respect that decision” if Israel chose to strike Teheran militarily. No doubt. I hope everyone over here is listening closely to what Romney and his campaign are saying about foreign policy. They seem anxious to get another war started, having tasted what they seem to consider “success” in the Iraq catastrophe. And for those who say the economy is the only issue that matters, it’s worth considering what yet another pointless war would do to the federal budget.

Mitt’s got FoxNews syndrome – too much time spent with friendly media. He just doesn’t know how to behave in the real world. Ergo, his press availabilities were practically zero during this trip. I’ll bet he’s glad to be back home, in the comforting embrace of Sean Hannity.

luv u,

jp