Shut ‘er Down?

Tags

budget, GOP, Margaret Sanger, religious right wing, social issues, teabaggers

I read a piece yesterday by Michael Tomasky that posited a couple of theories about what the GOP was about in this budget battle. He basically saw it as two possibilities. One is that Boehner is up to his neck in poo, knowing that a shutdown will reflect badly upon the GOP. The other is that they really think that if they stop this economic recovery with a shutdown, Obama will suffer in 2012. The latter is clearly the more sinister and evil of the two.

I’m more inclined to the former. I think Boehner is being squeezed and is desperately trying to hold on to his job. He wants to make a deal, yet he is held hostage by the freshman extremists who are much like the those who went out to watch the “opening” battle of the Civil War. Sitting with tea and crumpets, they soon were horrified at the slaughter and ran for their lives. It’s just that the extremist teabaggers, haveing learned only “revisionist” history, have no clue what they are bringing about.

My understanding through days of listening and reading is that the parties are close enough on the actual numbers. One would think that enough, but the GOP, beholden to its crazies, and deeply afraid of them now, keep moving the end zone lines. What it now comes down to, is not the size of the cuts, but the actual cuts themselves.

Pense, that idiotic buffoon, demands a shut down if the PPH is not defunded. And the extremists are fanning the flames by, so  I’ve read, blanketing Boehner’s office with white sheets. This is to symbolize that Margaret Sanger, the long DEAD founder of PPH was alledgedly supportive of the KKK.

Ms. Sanger has also been charged with believing in eugenics, and from that we get the ugly billboards suggesting that PPH’s aim is the genocide of the African-American people. Forget the real reason that African-Americans seek PPH’s abortion services more often than whites.

Such nonsense is just that of course. Pense claims that his purpose is to stop funding PPH because the “American people are clear that they don’t want the government funding abortion.” Of course there is already legislation to that effect and PPH’s budget from Congress funds health care issues separate and apart from abortion, such as mammograms and cervical cancer detection as well as family planning assistance. All this to women who cannot afford these services elsewhere.

Another pet project is NPR. The GOP wants it defunded for no other reason than they think it left leaning and that’s not helpful to them. The fact that Fox Noise and all manner of other “conservative” institutions receive federal dollars is conveniently ignored. This is nothing but another means to kill the opposition, union killing and voter suppression, wild gerrymandering, being others.

The EPA is another target. Damn us for wanting clean air, and water, and support for alternative energy sources. Big Business doesn’t like pollution control interferring with profits. That is masked by idiots on committees who claim that “God has promised that the earth will never be destroyed.” Well there you have it. We can foul our nest all we want, God is our janitor! Such unspeakable misinterpretation of scripture is nothing but misdirection and slight of hand. It’s all about business.

Ryan and his silly “revolutionary” budget is aimed at only one thing–the thing the GOP always aims at, keeping money in the hands of rich people. It’s desire to destroy Medicare and Medicaid under the guise of taking down the deficit, might have some legs were it not for the fact nothing is done to address the tax cuts for the wealthy.

This is all nothing new. The GOP hates with a passion anything that smacks of “income redistribution”. In their world there would be no social security either. They did not put forth any of these social reforms, they hate them, always have. They believe they are at the top of the heap due to their own talents and frankly, my dear, they don’t give a damn about any of the masses.

Charity, to borrow from the extremist right-wing religionists, should come from the individual, which is what Jesus wanted (doncha just know). When people give of their own volition, of course, they work for their own salvation, which is all that really counts, and the “right” kind of poor are taken care of, and the rest? The rest, will either do the ditch-digging jobs with just enough to subsist, developing into a stable underclass we can count on forever. They will do it or die.

We will, they dream, build a righteous land run by God’s natural leaders–white men who with benevolence, (their version) make the US into a mighty, unassailable ruler of the world. Anyone who doesn’t like it, well, we got plenty of bombs.

And if you don’t think this is exactly what they truly want, you are deluded.

End of Rant.

Related Articles

• Shut ‘er Down! Shut ‘er Down! (talkingpointsmemo.com)
• Government shutdown, the (non) fine print | Michael Tomasky (guardian.co.uk)
• Tea party crowd, GOP congressman at rally: ‘Shut it down!’ (dailykos.com)
• Government shutdown: two theories for Republican behaviour | Michael Tomasky (guardian.co.uk)
• hunger strikes.earthquakes.impending governmental shutdown (hahayourefunny.wordpress.com)

Me Tarzan, You Jane, Nobody Knows What the Chimp Thought

Tags

American Exceptionalism, ethics, evolution, Fox News, happiness, History, humanity, John Boehner, Media, morality, Nazism, psychology, religious right wing, Sharron Angle, sociology, teabaggers, the Family

We are a dualist species. We think of most everything in either or, left or right, up or down, in or out. You get the drift.

We are red state, blue state, we are elites, average joes, we are adventurous or skittish. We define binarily, we do it all the time.

Mostly we define us, them. We’ve always done this, in fact those in the know claim they know of no society or people who doesn’t have some concept of themselves versus others.

So, are we to throw up our hands and just give up and in? Are we doomed to any real concept of unity? Are we perpetually at some level of war with anyone not like us?

No. At least so says Erich S. Gruen, in a new book called, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity. Gruen posits that we make that a choice, it’s not an imperative. Basically, he looks at ancient groups and teases out the nuances of their relationships with others. While superficially, they may appear us-them, in practicality such was not really the case.

While perhaps not totally convincing, Gruen at least points to the fact that we are not in a hopeless adversarial situation,  never to be solved. In a world increasingly divided, this is good news.

***

If you are just dying to engage in some deep philosophical thought, (and who isn’t), then pop on over to read about morality and the good life. Can you achieve happiness without living morally? Is morality a virtue for its own sake? Should it be? Now that you are thoroughly all jiggly with desire to know more, go on, get over to read more! (Whew, now I feel like I’ve done my moral duty in presenting you some uplifting material.)

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Good grief, the most funny stuff seems to be coming from Iowa these days. You better sit down for this one. It seems Sharron Angle, (remember her?) was in Des Moines, IA, no doubt for some teabaggery thing. She admits she’s thinking of running for President! Hip, hip, Hurray! Now just think. The handlers/caretakers of Bachmann, Palin and Angle gather the ladies together for a good old DEBATE. Can you just imagine the fun? Oh Please God, Oh Please!

***

Foxy Noise should leave well enough alone. Some days ago, that idiot Megan Kelly chastised a guest for claiming that Fox regularly used Nazi references to people they don’t like. Kelly said this was untrue, she watches all the shows and Fox NEVER does such a thing.

Of course this was too much for Jon Stewart, who a couple of days ago ran a montage of Fox “Nazi references, including Beck of course, but also O’Reilly. Well Billo couldn’t resist defending himself. You can read it at Crooks and Liars. Somehow, his calling Huff Po Nazis is not the same as some congressman calling the GOP Nazis. Billo—you are an idiot.

***

It wasn’t that long ago. Just a couple of years. Remember? Our foreign policy was in shambles. Bush’s cowboy diplomacy had angered most of the world. He epitomized the idea of “ugly American” and strutted around like we had no need of allies. Nobody could touch our stuff.

Yes, well it seems that most of the GOP potential presidential candidates continue in the same vein. American Exceptionalism continues to rear its ugly head.

This idea that we are the greatest, the best, the God-ordained perfection in the world is troubling. As we become more and more a global economy, and our political and security needs are necessarily entwined, boasting about our superiority is decidedly a stupid thing to do.

But morons like Palin, DeMint and others seem determined to alienate everyone. What’s worse, it’s being tied to a  religious element that is even more unsavory. A blatantly revisionist history, a call for a spiritual renew all seem aimed at reclaiming our rightful place as God’s favored.

To be so blind and obtuse as to not see how ugly this appears to the rest of the world is tragic. To not realize that every country’s people like to think well of their own homeland is short-sighted in the extreme.

Worse yet, these folks are starting to have a negative and embarrassing influence within other countries as they support groups and leaders who are properly Christian, as they see it, although they may be acting in decidedly unChristian ways.

It’s a long article at AlterNet, but well worth your read. (The Family raises its ugly head again.)

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I admit to a good deal of ignorance. I’m totally ignorant why Tunisia is up in arms. Ditto for Egypt. I think I’m supposed to be for the Tunisian uprising, but not so about the Egyptian. Anybody want to explain it in a nutshell? I’m not so much a follower of international news. My bad.

***

No one mentioned it. But I saw it. I figured John (Eye’s the SPEAKER!) Boehner was most aware that he was on camera during the SOTU. And it put him in a conundrum of sorts. I mean President Obama kept saying things that were universally good, and it would not look good to not applaud.

So John seemed, a good deal of the time, trapped into half-hearted clapping that he really didn’t want to do, but thought would look bad if he didn’t. Then there were other times that his face looked for all the world like he’d been chewing a lemon. How to keep a calm face when he desperately wanted to yell in the best GOP wacko form: “YOU LIE.”

I thought it was funny at least.