I once was a member of the Republican party, but then I grew the fuck up.
I apologize, let me rephrase that.
I once was a little boy with mommy issues, but then I realized that I’m the author of my own life, I am the decider of what I will believe, and whom I will believe.
And I believe that I am an adult now.
By being an adult I have come to realize that there are more important things in my life and in the lives of my family, my neighbors, my countrymen than my own self-interested wants and desires.
I realized that sometimes it is good to compromise, not because I’m a mindless lickspittle who has no spine, rather because for the good of us all Republican, Democrat, Independent, homosexually active, heterosexually active, stupid, genius, idiot, sage, man, woman…whatever, I am willing to compromise on those things that are good for us all.
Compromise does not mean you agree with the other persons world view, compromise means that you are willing accept a quid pro quo of each party surrendering a desire, a want, a demand so that everyone walks away with something, not everything, but something of what they wanted.
In contrast I’ve come to realize that the Republican Party is still a spoiled little child who wants, wants, wants and will pitch a tantrum in the Senate, the House, the streets, the neighborhoods just because they have a dime and the damn Democrats have a whole nickel.
I’ve also come to realize that a lot of the Republicans have sold themselves lock, stock and barrel to their patrons, which affects us on so many different levels it is beyond…belief…I…stunned that so many people in the Republican party would choose money over compassion, would eschew their humanity rather than the plight of the down trodden.
It was said of Reagan that he would give the shirt off his back to whomever asked him of it, and yet one just has to look at how he treated his children in order to realize that if he treated his own children in such a heartless manner what chance I of ever getting a shirt from him?
So, too, one can see that despite the claims of “compassionate conservatism” that words are cheap when compared to the willingness of the marketers to actually show compassion.
I speak of women.
But not just any woman, but rather all women who have been born the brunt of spousal abuse, or abuse from a love one…this goes to the core of the health care, but I think you can all see after you read this abhorrent article from the Huffington post that this should be a no-brainer, and yet…compassionate conservatism yields once again to the bottom line of their patrons.
I leave you with this article, whether you comment on it or not is your prerogative, but I am so disgusted with my country I…yeah…I’m going to stop here before I spew to much more.
The worst part about the R's from my perspective is that their smarter leaders have made the collective decision to withdraw from government for a political tactical reason.
ReplyDeleteThey are intentionally making the US ungovernable by their actions (or more precisely, lack of actions). Needed legislation in health care, financial reform, getting out of foreign war entanglements cannot be passed without them because the D's are too splintered.
You can always expect at least 5-20% of the D's to vote against anything that has been proposed. Admittedly, these D's are voting against these bills for the best of reasons, they may cost too much or have unpleasant provisions or side-effects, but the net result is that Congress has almost completely shutdown.
The R's predicted this and are sitting back, tossing out huge quantities of mis-information to the public, waiting for the 2010 elections when the public will be so angry (mostly for the wrong reasons) with the D's that they will vote the R's back into power.
My only question is what will the R's do to stay in power once they regain it? The R's were shocked at losing power in 2006 and 2008 and I don't think they will risk that happening again. This suggests that there's a very real chance that we will face a complete dismantling of the Constitution (officially to save it from itself) and see a new aristocracy rising.
And the problem with your new "aristocracy" (I prefer the term "kakocracy" - look it up) would be that the R's have shown pretty conclusively that...
ReplyDeleteThey.
Can't.
Govern.
The problem is that to govern in a republic you have to find a way to make things work for the majority of people, or at least the portion of the majority that actively participates and votes (which is why to be poor in the U.S. is to be utterly fucked - OK, not as fucked as being poor in Uganda, but you get my drift.)
But the R's have become the Party of the Uber-rich and the big corporations and agribusinesses they sold their souls to. They will throw tiny chunks of social policy bones to their pig-ignorant minions in the religious right and the crackeristans, but on the big issues they will not dare to restrain the wealthy from evading taxes, hiding their assests and retreating into their gated communities with their private cops, private services and private privacy, nor will they prevent the corporations and agricorps from pursuing their bottom line regardless of the damage it will do the the national interests.
The Republican fools have been sold the "government is bad" patent medicine so long that they have become a self-fulfilling prophecy - they are bad at governing.
WASF.
Alas, the democrats are just the other side of the same coin. And it is the coins that determine election outcomes.
ReplyDeleteCurrently, the established regime has a information lock on both populace and politicians. (in much the same way that Walmart can determine what goods people will buy and who will make those goods).
Change will only happen when the information distribution channel oligarchy is broken.
Ael: But it won't - the Supremes are on the verge of strking down the few weak limits on "corporate speech" that will make the flood of corporate largesse make the previous whoredom of Congress and the agencies look like a chaste peck on the cheek.
ReplyDeleteGlenn Greenwald has more, as usual: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/17/acorn_hysteria/index.html
Just when you thought it couldn't get more ridiculous...
I have a draft text on the difference between the German and U.S. take on solidarity. That's in my opinion a great deal, for the effect on the political culture is apparently huge.
ReplyDeleteThis draft text fits your topic, so I'll simply drop this unfinished text here: http://www.filefactory.com/file/ah96778/n/solidarity.pdf
Here are the best and brightest of Sen. Inhofe's brood:
ReplyDeletehttp://trueslant.com/jeffhoard/2009/09/17/understatement-oklahoma-students-fail/
Not that 97% of Real Americans should be able to pass a citizenship test.
Thank you, Sheerahkahn, for pointing out the ludicrousy of this proposal. We toot our horns about endeavoring to bring women into the modern world in Afghanistan and Iraq, yet infold upon ourselves when we confront the same topic.
ReplyDeleteSpousal abuse is so little understood by the general public, and there is a great mantle of shame obscuring the reality. The victim is imagined to be feeble-minded or willfully snookered, or something other than actually being terrorized and brainwashed.
One would think with our great sensitivity to such matters on a national military front, we would be able to extrapolate the domestic application of such brutal techniques.
Alas, women are always to blame, even for their own brutalization, silly ninnies. The origin is biblical -- Eve and all that. In this brave new world of crypto-Objectivists, people get what they deserve.
And another perversity: In a local publication found in a Jacksonville (FL) gunshop was a broadsheet on local "criminals". And do you know what all of the criminals were charged with (though they were precise enough to state, "not yet convicted of")? Prostitution.
ReplyDeleteIn a gun shop, prostitutes were singled out as the worst offenders in the community. Not common thieves or abusers, but prostitutes. How does that jibe with needing to own a gun?
"The origin is biblical -- Eve and all that."
ReplyDeleteLisa,
When you get a chance, and this is premised on whether you are interested in this subject, there is a book called, "Beyond Sex roles" by Gilbert Bilezikian.
He was the one who got me to actually question the view of the whole "women are to blame" that seems to have been the norm for the all of our existence.
But that is another topic...something I may or may not address here some day.
Christianity is the identification of my faith, but my faith is centered on a man name Y'shua...and as more and more of the Republican Rightwing claims to be Christian, the more I'm willing to let that identification go and just call myself a follower of Y'shua.
Because, Lisa, vaginas don't kill people. It's vile, predatory, scary people WITH vaginas that kill people.
ReplyDeleteWhat a strange world we live in...
And I should add that the latest AM/PM/7-11 counter fare is a rag called "busted", which features the pictures and stories of a whole bunch of local lowlifes and their adventures in the local court system...real bedside reading./ Go figure.
sheer,
ReplyDeleteAs well you might, and you'll find yourself in a small group, as very few RightWing "Christians" are truly followers of the Christ. Much of Christianity as it exists today is anathema to the teachings of Jesus. "Just war" my neighbor's ass. I think that's right under the caveat to Thou SHallt Not Kill that says "unless you are ordered to."
(Hope I used that big strange word correctly!)
"Thou shall not kill" is actually a wrong translation.
ReplyDeleteIt really says" thou shall not murder".
Just like the thing about lying is really only about lying in court (being a false witness).
Jesus didn't directly revoke any old testament rules, so I guess you know what good christians of today are allowed to do to gays...and they are allowed to have slaves.
Sven makes a good point: Our understanding of scriptural teachings is only as good as the translation. And of course, it's all written by other men, anyway, so your take is as good as mine.
ReplyDeleteSheer: Yes, the biblical perception of women is somewhat ambivalent. As Chief suggests, give one a fire stick at the wrong time of month, and bad men have reason to fear.
Not to be a snarky agnostic or anything, but it occurs to me that making public policy - or any other sort of social, political, economic or personal decisions - based on the advice written down by a bunch of fairly homocidal, mysogynistic tribal patriarchs some 3,000 years ago and some 500 to 1,000 years before any sort of understanding of what we would consider elementary-school level genetics, economics, chemistry, biology, anatomy and phsiology, geology and botany is probably neither sustainable nor sensible in the long run.
ReplyDeleteOr the short, for that matter.
It's probably worth observing here that our comrade Lisa is a living refutation to the idiotic nonsense that about 99% of the Old Testament and 60% of the New says about women. The Golden Rule embodies most of what the Bible has to offer; the rest is details.
The fact that authoritarian mysogenists TODAY consider this antediluvian nonsense a Guidebook for Modern Life says more about what they consider "modern" than how appropriate said nonsense is to solving our problems...
Chief,
ReplyDeleteThank you, and as Hillel said, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary." The same idea permeates all religions, and the words look very lovely on the page.
If we believed it -- if "neighbor" were taken in the ecumenical sense, rather than the tribal -- we would probably not war.
I am in awe of the fact that so many people cleave to their guiding myths (=religions) as sacrosanct. Do they not realize that everyone else believes their myths just as passionately, and that these groups all happen to be exclusionary though they claim to believe in one God and be created in his image?
Gah :(
Actually, Chief, I think you would be surprised to find out that despite the aforemention science, a lot of those same people were very sophisticated.
ReplyDeleteWe, modern that we Identify ourselves as, are only "technologically" advanced in comparison.
However, mysoginistic...hmm, I think if you were to transport yourself to that time period, that era, you would find that women weren't all that different than to day.
I have to caution that the bible is quite a literary piece of work, and can support any bias one wishes to entertain, develope, or adopt.
Perhaps...I should write post about it...later though...and perhaps, tangentially in regards to our political climate.
"...you would find that women weren't all that different than to day."
ReplyDeleteugh...should read...
"...you would find that men and women weren't all that different than today."
the best dichotomy which highlights the abhorrent lack of human compassion and the drive to support profit over people by the REMFpublicans is the constant incitement of their followers in favor of War and against Health Care.
ReplyDeletethe only thing more ludicrous has been the Chicken Hawk REMFpublicans lack of desire to actually take part in the Wars they so loudly proclaim as World War 5 or 6 or whatever and as absolutely necessary to defend America...