Tag Archives: republicans

Political Rants

Contact with America.

First item: the Democrats are among the most exasperating political parties on Earth. They seem to have an innate sense of how to alienate their core voters, casting over the side any item of legislative action – the public option, Medicare expansion, don’t ask don’t tell, the fight over middle class vs. top 3% marginal tax rate reductions, etc. – that is remotely popular.

That said, let’s look at their opponents. Probably a good idea, since there’s an election coming up. And these folks look pretty grisly. Oddly, they picked what looked like a Home Depot lumber department to announce their “Pledge To America”, a lobbyist-written document full of stuff that would make, well, lobbyists very happy. (Perhaps the choice of venue is their way of telegraphing the kinds of jobs they plan to create. How do you look in an orange vest?) Rather than talking about what’s in the document, let’s look at what they didn’t put in there… but which they advocate none the less:

Privatization of Social Security. It’s no secret that most if not all G.O.P. legislators are in favor of converting Social Security into a glorified 401(k) plan with private accounts. This has long been their goal, given their hostility to the very notion of the social contract that is at the heart of that very successful program. They will, like W. Bush and others (including, amazingly, more than a few Democrats), appeal to individual greed in hopes of building support for ending this guaranteed supplemental income that has lifted elderly people from poverty for the past seventy years.

Gutting Medicare. They hate this one, too, no matter what they tell you. The Republicans want to move to something more like a voucher system, so that old and sick folks can go out and buy coverage on the open market – so easy to do when you’re old and sick. Is Medicare losing money? I would expect so, since it only covers (wait for it) old and sick people. If they want it to be solvent, why not expand it to include everybody… including those who don’t need a lot of care? I’m just saying.

Dismantling the Veteran’s Administration medical system. Same deal – vouchers instead of reliable care. This has been shamefully advanced by John McCain, whose beer-heiress wife will pay his medical bills if needed, no doubt.

Nothing particularly new in this list. And there are those amongst the Democrats who would jump right on board with most or all of it. But if the Republicans fail to gain a majority, they would never have the opportunity to do so… so let’s save them (and us) from themselves.

luv u,

jp

Uncategorized

Tea totalers.

Fast again, my apologies.

Our friends in the mass media are breathless over the primary elections this past week, particularly with regard to the triumph of certain “tea party” affiliated candidates. This is the big story, we’re told – the tea party conservatives are where all of the enthusiasm is this year. It’s a growing movement, says old Pat Buchanan, as if we’re witnessing anything new. Have any of these people actually lived in the United States over the past twenty years? I wonder.

What is the tea party movement, after all, but the hard core of the Republican party conservative base? Chris (Lambchop) Hayes made this point on Rachel Maddow’s show the other night. Think about it for a minute – even at his nadir of popularity, George W. Bush could count on the unquestioning love of 25-30% of the country. This country is home to more than 300 million people, so that 25% adds up to 75 million people. Based on their rallies and their primary returns, the tea party appears to be a subset of that block – more like Glenn Beck’s 10% vanguard. These are people who loved Bush/Cheney, supported both wars they started, ate up the tax cuts, blamed Katrina on the victims, and called Obama a terrorist during the McCain campaign. “He’s a… an Arab,” said the crazy lady at one of McCain’s rallies, searching for the right epithet.  From the moment of Obama’s election victory, these people have been screaming to “get their country back.” My question is, “back” from whom? The people who voted in the last national election? Screw that.

The simple fact is, these people have only effectively been out of power for less than two years. Sure, the Democrats took control of the Senate and House in January 2007, but they had razor thin majorities and a Republican president to work with. Bush was able to triangulate with the always-useful conservative Dems in both houses to block any progressive legislation and keep the cash flowing for both wars. So they are complaining about what amounts to the last 20 months. Indeed, their complaints would have no traction at all were it not for the horrible unemployment rate and the continuing sluggish economy – due in large part to the consistent blocking action of congressional Republicans and (again) conservative Dems, who cut the vast majority of infrastructure spending from the stimulus package and now whine that it didn’t do enough. I guess Bill Clinton did have a point with “It’s the economy, stupid.” In the absence of a draft or a war tax, nothing resonates with the American voter more than jobs, jobs, jobs. 

To paraphrase the old WWII sign about carpooling – If you stay home on election day, you ride with Boehner. Whatever else poor, working, and left-leaning people need to do to make life better in this country, they need to get out and vote. Need a ride to the polls? Call me.  

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

They did the mosque.

Would that the late Boris Karloff were still with us. Someone might be able to convince him to do a reworking of the “Monster Mash” that would fit the lunatic rantings of right-wing blogger Pam Geller: They did the mosque! (They did the monster mosque!)

Yes, Geller referred to the proposed Muslim community center two blocks from the World Trade Center as the “monster mosque.” But it’s far too easy to simply heap opprobrium upon pathetic paranoid freaks like her. No, it’s the established right-wing media and much of our political class that has kept this ball in the air for the past week. Such a remarkable nation we live in – one in which people crow about our constitutional freedoms and yet run hysterically from them whenever they are put to the test. Political figures from every corner of the country have been climbing over each other to denounce the “mosque” as inappropriate, insensitive, unacceptable, “sacrilege” (Charles Krauthammer), and so on.

What you will hear exactly none of them say is that a) it is NOT a mosque; it is a community center with a prayer space in the upper floors, and b) it is NOT at ground zero or in the World Trade Center complex; it is two blocks away in the empty former Burlington Coat Factory building. And while Newt Gingrich (Remember him? He was what was fucked up about the nineties.) likens this to opening an office of the Nazi party next to the Holocaust Museum, it is really more like… someone opening a community center in an abandoned building. Perennial New York State also-ran Rick Lazio was on cable yesterday substituting his sorry judgment for that of the City of New York, complaining that this was not a residential district but a business district. Well, hell – so this is a zoning issue, is it, Rick? Sounds like what they used to use to keep black people out of certain neighborhoods.

Honestly, this would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. And it truly is sad. While millions of Muslims in Pakistan suffer from the worst flooding in that nation in memory, all we can talk about is this non-issue. What is next? Muslims are not allowed to open a business in lower Manhattan? They won’t be allowed to walk within two blocks of Ground Zero? Where does it end?

If the national conversation is being driven by lunatic bloggers – and it evidently is – then we’ve got bigger problems than this manufactured controversy. First Acorn, then the “new Black Panthers”, then Shirley Sherrod, and now this. What next?

luv u,

jp