America: An Insane Asylum Gone Ariot!

The United States of America is a nation gone insane.

We watch as poisonous puerile passions pose as political ideology; the guttersnipe trash-talk of a former Republican senator obfuscates the seriousness of protecting one of the world's most effective anti-poverty programs-Social Security; and our corporately owned news media, staffed mostly by semi-literate, shellac-haired,  "Barbie" & "Ken" clones, race each other to be the first to voice the press releases of  right-wing geeks rather than developing a story or checking for the facts; and our president vacates and placates in the face of scurrilous and dangerously provocative personal attacks from the mentally incapacitated and venomously vile and violent professional wing-nuts (the same 35% of the willfully ignorant who believe to this day that George W. Bush was just the beans).

Today, we awaken to the news:

• That the White House will not demand the resignation of Alan Simpson as co-chair of the commission on fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction.  This, despite his continued campaign of abuse and insult and disparagement of older people and retirees!
• That another member of the commission, Republican Paul Ryan, using the commission as a pulpit from which he can continue his chant for drastic cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and, which he has now added, national defense and the FBI.
•  That, according to a Newsweek poll of Republicans, a majority believe that President Obama "...sympathizes with Islamic fundamentalists and wants worldwide Islamic law".
• That a dying Christopher Hitchens has called the recent Glen Beck rally as the "Water World of  White Self-Pity!"
• That since Saturday last, 18 GIs have been killed in Afghanistan (*may I personally note that their presence in that backwater of the world serves mainly to shore up a corrupt Karzai regime and narco-terrorists).

And, I can assure you of this.  More Americans are aware of Bristol Palin's standings on some TV dance contest than they are of the above.

Yep, America has gone moon-baying nuts!

Republicans: Always Jerks, Even Back In Play-School

Yesterday we learned that the Republican Senators, having lost their effort to deny unemployment insurance compensation payments to millions of long-term unemployed Americans, engaged in parliamentary tactics to delay the bill for 30-hours.  Yep, delay the inevitable for 30-hours, Out of pique, they added a full additional day to the time that worthy (formerly employed) out-of-work Americans will go without money to pay rent, hunt for jobs, buy groceries, make mortgage or car payments, or take care of a pressing health need--or just simply get by!

What is with these people? you must wonder.  Well, if you remember former Texas Governor, the late Ann Richards' description of George Bush as a man born on third base bragging to the world that he had hit a triple, you will have some clue.

I have written before of this insane sense of "entitlement" felt by Republicans.  They are "entitled" to be in charge, they are "entitled" to have things their way, and they are "entitled" to tell the rest of us to toe the line, or else!  Or so they think.

Hell, they start early and they really are not all that hard to spot from playschool on: "Teacher, Teacher, Johnny is not coloring inside the lines, see how pretty mine is" = Republican.  Or in grade school, out on the playground, "I want to be pitcher, and if I can't be pitcher, I'll throw the ball over the fence!" = Republican  Or more simply, "I'm going to tell on you" = Republican.

What about in junior high?  Weren't they the little punks whose hands would pop up to remind the teacher, "Weren't we supposed to have a test today?"  And, in high school, weren't they the ones that got placed in the college prep classes regardless of their being dumber than a wet sack of Brazos River sand?  And the rest of us? well' that's what shop, auto mechanics and cosmetology classes are for, regardless of how bright we might be.

By college they'd developed significant social skills such as the "I am soooo superior" sniff, or the condescending nod to obvious subordinates, and my all time favorite, the assumption that the way is being paved for them and if they just play the game there will be BIG payouts awaiting them, which they will gladly trickle down to the "little people" who behave properly.

And somewhere along the way they all pick up this sense of being victimized.  Oh yeah, despite controlling most of the wealth, having access to the best educations, investment opportunities, finest homes and neighborhoods and memberships to the best golf courses, they feel somehow deprived if any of the rest of us happen to acquire a higher standard of life...somehow, they must think, that would deprive them of something!

They become peevish and worried, much in the same way fundamentalist Christians fret that someone somewhere is enjoying life, and do their utmost to stymie, stall or impede anyone else trying to advance in life.

So we need not be surprised at the latest peevish ploy of the Senate Republicans.  They have always been nasty little buggers; but now, they are just older, richer and more powerful versions of that little jerk in seventh grade algebra who invariably raised his hand on Friday to remind the teacher, "Weren't we supposed to have a test today?"

Rand Paul + John Cornyn = More Republican Lunacy

Texas (R) Senator John Cornyn presents a picture perfect image for a recruiting poster targeting well-healed, well-connected,  middle-aged, white-guys born with senses of entitlement to run things and an incipient outrage that somewhere, someone less worthy than they is getting an even break in life..  You have to grant him one thing, he makes absolutely no pretense of compassion, empathy or understanding for, and of, older people, working families and anyone not belonging to an exclusive country club.  To that extent he is true to something,  Never mind that the something is the continual exploitation of "the people" at the behest of corporate boardrooms..

But, that's the thing about "Crony" Cornyn, he is what he is, utterly and apologetically.  And all that would be fine except for the fact that he eschews his obligation to look our for and protect the interests of his constituents other than cattle and ranching barons, oil company oligarchs, and the thieves and liars of the insurance, banking and finance industries.

But, truly, none of that is news.  What is news is his nakedly open ambition to exceed his minimal ability and find a spot on the national stage.  After all, he must be thinking, if Sarah Palin can do it, then any damned fool can.  Right John, you do meet that basic requirement.  We in Texas have been watching him at this endeavor for sometime now and smirkingly tell each other that "this old boy would for sure squat on his spurs" if given a chance to Go Western.

In his eagerness to grab some national media he has come to the defense of Kentucky (R/Libertarian/Tea-Bag) senatorial candidate, Rand Paul, who over the weekend opened his mouth and allowed the vanilla pudding that takes the place of his brains to spew out as he tried to dodge a question about the Civil Right Act.

Defending Paul, Cornyn said, according to Politico (5/20), "I think it was sort of a gotcha question.  If I'm walking down the street minding my own business and somebody sticks a microphone under my nose about a law that was passed 40 years ago, without more detail--I think it probably caught him by surprise."

Later, he enlarged on this foolishness with, "Rand Paul, like every new candidate, is going to get better...Candidates make mistakes and they misspeak," according to Bloomberg (5/21).

A "gotcha" question?  Errr, Senator? Isn't that the nature of the business?  And when, at anytime in the last fifty years has a senatorial candidate just walked down the street "minding their own business"?  I've known a few, and all have had handlers, schedules, appearances and so forth---and never have I seen one just walking down the street, etc, etc.

But, beyond this uber-silliness, the issue really is the cavalier and dismissive attitude of both men toward the Civil Rights Act.  It is not merely some law passed four decades ago.  It was a hard fought (people died) landmark legislation that has made America a better place.  And even if one does not agree with that, someone running for the senate ought to be able to speak with some intelligence about such a law of transcendent transformation.

Rand Paul is really the first so called "Tea Party" candidate to capture a slot on a major party ticket and as the representative of the standing 35 percent of "nutters" who support tax breaks for the wealthy, two wars fought on a credit card, and all the anti-Constitutional excesses of that dry-drunk sociopath, George W. Bush, he probably cannot be expected to have a working knowledge of much of anything.  But, that is Kentucky's problem.

Our problem in Texas is that we already have a certain gaggle of congressional representatives who look like refugees from clown alley and a senator who is the very icon of establishment anti-union, anti-working class, anti-older persons who is doing his best to find a national platform.

Personally, I think we deserve better!

The Counter-Revolution of the Misled, Misinformed, and Misbehaving

Third & Final Part:

To understand where we are in the Reagan Revolution we might find it helpful to look to the French Revolution for our  model of Hegel's dialectic at work within the context of history.  That revolution came about as the result of the convergence of many causes, not the least of which were the hunger, deprivation, and oppression of the proletariat while the bourgeoisie lived lives of indulgence and excess. 

But what followed, the Antithesis, was bloody awful and not without certain parallels to present day America.

That which followed the revolution in France is known as la Terreur (The Age of Terror) as conflict between rival political factions and real and imagined internal and external conspiracies helped empower Robespierre, history's poster boy of Gresham's law of political morality: The bad drives out the good as everyone becomes corrupted while political life becomes like the Hobbseian war of all against all...

During this darkly sanguine period of French history the guillotine became known as the "national razor".

Now, let me quickly guide you through what I see as our "antithesis" to the Reagan Revolution.  Bad driving out good?  Well, I suggest that Enron, AIG, Lehman Brothers, the home finance debacle, General Motors could all be representative of the first leg of Gresham's law; everyone becomes corrupted.

Here, though, is what really concerns me and what goes beyond the almost predictable venality which underlies the monetarist philosophies of the Reagan Revolution---the antithesis, the bloody period of mob-rule,

Consider action/adventure TV-star, Chuck Norris, calling on the military to disobey the President's orders while avowing that there are thousands of  "cells" across America ready to rise up to resist Obama and to fight for a "return to the constitution" and that he will serve as President of Texas after the constitution is restored.

Consider the various components of an ultra-secret vigilante group of active and former members of the military calling its self "The Oath Keepers" who assert they took an oath to defend the Constitution and it is therefore their responsibility to resist "unconstitutional" orders from President Obama, who "ain't really president because he ain't got no real birth certificate and cain't be a real Amuhrican".

These people are armed to the teeth, know how to use those weapons, and because they are as crazy acting as a run over snake, should be consider extremely dangerous.

Consider Glenn Beck, Bill Reilly, Lou Dobbs, Sean Hannity and that stringy, bleached-blond, meat-market sleep-around, bat from hell, Ann Coulter.  Consider Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, Jim Bunning, Mitch McConnell, Louis Gohmert, Jeb Hensarling, and John Boehner.  Don't know these names?  Learn them and you'll find proof of the second leg of Gresham's law: war of all against all.

If we are, as I believe we are, in the early stages of a Hegelian period of antithesis following a revolution, I fear we are in for dismally dark and dangerous times.

McCain's Lies & Distractions - Let's Focus on Issues

Here’s a comment from a “loyal reader” of this blog, which I think is worthy of sharing:

“Shane...

I certainly agree with what you say, in your post about Palin. However, that is not the argument we should be having. McCain's whole campaign has been an effort to divert public attention from the issues that we face in this election. The economy! Social Security! The Deficit! The Iraq war! Invasion of our privacy! And all of Bush's assault on the working class that McCain supports.

I recommend that everyone review the positions of the two candidates. This info is available on their respective web sites:

Obama : http://origin.barackobama.com/taxes/ .

McCain : http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/ .

Our motto should be, "It's the issues, stupid!"

Name withheld….

PS: You may recall that earlier in the campaign, the McCain people made a big stink over Obama not wearing a flag pin on his lapel (to divert from the issues). Did you notice that, on the recent cover of News Week showing McCain and Palin, Palin is wearing a large, jeweled flag pin, but McCain is not? I don't think he wore one during his acceptance speech either. This a trivial point but I thought it a bit humorous.”

And, to this I only want to add that, I completely agree. The more we focus on the Palin distraction is the more we shift our focus from the McCain lies and promises to continue the disastrous policies of the Bush administration.

There’s an old political axiom that no one wins by getting into a “pissing” contest with a skunk. But, that doesn’t mean we have to back down on the issues, or the smear campaign, or the lies coming from the McCain camp. We need to stay on the issues, be prepared to rebut and challenge every shibboleth and canard and not get caught up in the distractions. We must be knowledgeable of McCain's real position. And while it is fun to make screw of McCain's nitwit running mate, we need to exercise care that we do not allow that to become our focus--McCain promises to administer Bush's third term. We do not want that.

Here’s a Obama video going after the lies!

And, issues? Here’s a look some issues driving people to vote Republican.