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Posts Tagged ‘ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY’

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THE MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT: PART TWO (END)

In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 7, 2012 at 12:04 pm

Oligarchy: a government in which a small group exercises control, especially for corrupt and selfish purposes.

The returns are in.

And Barack Obama has been re-elected to another four years as President of the United States.

For his supporters, it is a time to celebrate.

For his enemies–and that is exactly how they consider themselves–in the Republican party, it is a time to mourn.  And to re-group to take vengeance in the coming months and years.

For the United States Secret Service, it should be a time for the most heightened security.

Make no mistake: Republicans were counting on Mitt Romney to return their party to the heights of absolute power:

  • Commanding the White House and the House of Representatives, they would have dictated American foreign and domestic policy for at least the next four years–and more likely, the next eight.
  • And even though Democrats were expected to retain control of the Senate, there would have been enough Republicans in it to thwart any legislative efforts proposed by Democrats.
  • Romney would have been able to appoint Justices to the Supreme Court–which, by itself, would have influenced American legal and social life for up to 30 years.

And Republicans were counting on more than simply access to unlimited money to defeat Obama.  A major part of their electoral strategy called for suppressing the rights of minorities to vote.

Mike Turzai, Majority Leader of Pennsylvania’s state House of Representatives, admitted this when he outlined a list of accomplishments made by the GOP-run legislature: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.”

So there will definitely be recriminations.

Many–perhaps most–Republicans will blame Romney for not having been “severely conservative” enough.

They’ll demand that their next Presidential nominee be even more right-wing in his stands on issues.

How right-wing?  Right-wing enough to win the endorsement of classic Fascist leaders like Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco.

A minority will argue–probably in vain–that the party must reach out to youth, blacks, moderate women and–most especially–Latinos.

They will warn: “The days of depending on a whites-only electorate have passed.  And if we don’t own up to this, we, as a party, will also become history.”

For the moment, however, the smart money will be on those hard-core Rightists who control the levers of power within the party.

They will bitterly resist making such “radical” changes.  Partly because they are driven by fascistic ideology.  And partly because they know the activist base of the party is equally driven by the same ideology.

So, for the foreseeable future, they will aim the majority of their anger and disappointment at President Obama.  And so will their “billionaire boys club” financial backers.

Thus, the second threat facing President Obama could be an attempted assassination.

Think of it:

  • Right-wing billionaires were thrilled with the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which ended limits on campaign donations.
  • During the primary season, at least 32 billionaires lavished a minimum of $52 million to Restore Our Future, a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney.
  • To those losses must now be added the huge returns they expected to make on their investment–in tax breaks for their corporations and tax cuts for themselves.
  • Coal and oil companies were salivating over the coming dismantling of the Environmental Protection Agency.  Federally protected areas–such as the Arctic Wildlife Refuge in Alaska–would become prime drilling spots.
  • To greed-obsessed Rightists, the words of Niccolo Machiavelli apply with a vengeance: “Men forget more easily the death of their father than the loss of their inheritance.”
  • A number of wealthy right-wingers head private military companies employing former members of such elite military units as Navy SEALS and Army Green Berets.  Many of these companies received millions of dollars in government contracts to supply “hired guns” in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • Such CEOs command both the financial and personnel resources to carry out a Presidential assassination
  • “Money buys power,” warns Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist.  “And the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties.”
  • Access to such unlimited money–and the ideological conviction that they are doing God’s work–might convince some of these oligarchs that they could mount a Presidential assassination–and then buy the legal and/or political protection necessary to get away with it.

Organized crime expert G. Robert Blakey–the former Justice Department official who created the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act–believes that just this happened almost 50 years ago.

President John F. Kennedy had given his brother, Robert, full power as Attorney General to destroy the Mafia.

But the Mafia, Blakey believes, used its own access to unlimited money and assassins to destroy the President.  And then the mobsters used that same unlimited money to buy legal and political influence to escape prosecution.

Such an outrage must not be allowed to happen now.

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THE MOST DANGEROUS MOMENT: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 6, 2012 at 2:38 pm

If Barack Obama is re-elected President on November 6, the result will be “civil war” within the Republican Party.

That is the prediction of POLITICO and a number of other politics-following pundits, such as Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s “Hardball.”

But if he wins another four years in office, the President could face unprecedented threats to his authority–and safety.

Among the results of this Republican ”civil war” predicted by POLITICO: A clash between

  • moderates and right-wingers
  • those who are concerned about fiscal issues and those concerned about social issues
  • anti-establishment Tea Party members and establishment-order Republicans
  • those favoring amnesty for illegal aliens to expand the party base and those demanding wholesale deportation of such aliens.

If Romney fails to win the White House, there will definitely be many Republicans who call for “death to moderates and moderation.”

Or, as another failed Republican Presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, put it in 1964: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!”

But the unleashed passions of a Romney defeat could result in more than a Republican implosion.  They could also release the most dangerous types of explosion–aimed at President Obama.

The first of these threats could be an attempted impeachment. 

While this may sound beyond the realm of possibility, some Republicans have openly salivated over the prospect of railroading the President out of office.

On August 16, 2011, Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain said that impeaching Obama “would be a great thing to do.”

Asked on a conference call with bloggers why Republicans couldn’t just impeach Obama, Cain responded:

“That’s a great question and it is a great–it would be a great thing to do, but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action, because they simply don’t care what the American public thinks.

“So the main stumbling block in terms of getting him impeached on a whole list of things such as trying to pass a health care mandate which is unconstitutional, ordering the Department of Justice to not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act–that’s an impeachable offense right there.

“There are a number of things where a case could be made in order to impeach him, but because Republicans do not control the United States Senate, they would never allow it to get off the ground.”

Not being able to impeach Obama, Republicans have settled for everything else short of that.

During the 2012 Presidential race, Republicans have accused Obama of a lack of “bipartisanship.”  Romney has repeatedly promised to “work across the aisle” with Democrats if elected.

Yet it was a high-ranking Republican who gave away the game.

In an interview with National Journal magazine published October 23, 2010, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

Republicans have worked tirelessly to defeat Obama’s efforts to provide universal healthcare for those who can’t afford expensive medical insurance.

They spread the false report that the new healthcare law would come with “death panels” to direct Americans to euthanasia centers.

They also directed their followers to disrupt town hall meetings of Democratic Congressmen and Senators where the proposed law would be discussed.  Several such meetings had to be canceled due to verbal or even physical outbursts aimed at those presiding.

A number of Democratic Senators and Congressmen received violent threats and/or their offices or campaign headquarters were  vandalized.

President Obama himself came in for smears of the most scurrilous sort.  According to Republicans and their right-wing allies:

  • Obama was born in Kenya–despite a Hawaiian birth certificate proving his American citizenship.
  • He was a Nazi, and thus often depicted in posters wearing a Hitler mustache.
  • He was a Muslim–despite his having been a member of the United Church of Christ for 20 years.
  • He was collaborating with America’s Muslim enemies in Al Qaeda–despite his ordering the killing of Osama bin Laden and killing far more Al Qaeda leaders with pilotless drones than George W. Bush had.

Republicans refused to give Obama credit for anything.

  • When he ordered the successful Navy SEALS raid on bin Laden, rightists claimed: “The SEALS took out bin Laden, not Obama.”  True–except that the SEALS wouldn’t have made the raid had Obama not ordered it.
  • When the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that unemployment was high, Republicans blamed Obama’s “anti-business” policies.
  • When, later, many businesses started hiring, Republicans claimed this proved the free enterprise system could overcome any difficulties.
  • Republicans didn’t object to George W. Bush’s lying the United States into a needless war with Iraq by claiming that Saddam Hussein had been a party to 9/11–and was building a nuclear bomb.
  • When Obama began withdrawing troops from Iraq, Republicans attacked him for “losing Iraq,” as though that country was ours to lose.

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INSANITY VS. REALITY – PART THREE (END)

In History, Law, Politics on September 14, 2012 at 12:05 am

THE EMAIL:

  • …Once re-elected, Barack Obama, as confirmed by his willingness to do or say anything and his unscrupulous re-election tactics, would not only threaten government shutdowns but would deliberately withhold payments to those dependent on government support as a means of intimidating and forcing a Republican controlled Congress to surrender to his demands, thus neutering their ability to control the administration through spending constraints.

THE REALITY:

  • Republicans–not Democrats–have repeatedly threatened to shut down the government if they didn’t get their way. 
  • In 1994, during Bill Clinton’s Presidency, Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich shut down the government because he felt slighted by Clinton on a trip to Israel. 
  • And earlier this year, Republicans threatened to force the United States to default on its loans by refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless Democrats agreed to an extortionate budgetary deal–which expires in December. 
  • When that happens, Republicans will once again pull their extortion routine at the expense of the nation they claim to love.
  • Democrats have never threatened to shut down the government.
  • Further, this administration has shown contempt for the courts by…stonewalling subpoenas and requests issued by Congress.
  • The  Eric Holder Justice Department has become the epitome of corruption as part of the most dishonest and deceitful administration in American history.
  • “Fast and Furious”–to which the reference to “stonewalling” alludes– was an operation begun during the George W. Bush administration. It involved allowing guns to be bought by members of the Mexican drug cartels to trace them to the outlaw bands.
  • Such operations–whether begun under Democratic or Republic administrations–are inherently risky and have nothing to do with politics.
  • When they go right the top leaders of the cartel go to prison. When they go wrong, it’s a scandal.
  • This one just didn’t work out.  Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms lost control of the firearms–and one of the guns was used to kill a U.S. Border patrol officer.
  • In a second term the arrogance of Barack Obama and his minions will become more blatant as he will not have to be concerned with re-election.
  • Who will be there to enforce the rule of law, a Supreme Court ruling or the Constitution? No one.
  • Barack Obama and his fellow-travelers will be unchallenged as they run roughshod over the American people.
  • “Fellow-travelers” is a term used by 1950s Republicans–such as Joseph McCarthy–to mean Communists. 
  • If Obama is a Communist sympathizer–let alone a card-carrying one–this email offers no evidence to prove it.  But then, for the Right, evidence of treason isn’t necessary–only accusation.
  • Judging by his actions, words and deeds during his first term, [Obama] does not intend to work with Congress either Republican or Democrat in his second term but rather to force his radical agenda on the American people through the power he has usurped or been granted.
  • During the last three years. Obama has repeatedly sought compromises with Congressional Republicans.  But the Republicans have been the ones refusing to compromise.
  • Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who’s now running for U.S. Senator, perfectly summed up the Republican attitude: “I have a mindset that says bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”
  • That’s the sort of “compromise” Adolf Hitler understood, but it’s not the sort that’s acceptable in a democracy.
  • …We the American people also must come to grips with this moment in time and our role in denying Barack Obama his lifelong goal of “transforming” us  into his slaves working on his government plantation.

It’s hard to imagine Americans’ being enslaved when, because of President Obama:

  • They’re finally able to get healthcare insurance that was previously denied them because of a “pre-existing condition.”
  • They’re able to get such insurance for their children.
  • U.S. forces are finally being recalled from Iraq, where they never should have been sent.
  • American forces are being withdrawn from Afghanistan, where they’ve spent eleven years trying to remake a backwards, alien land into a modern nation.
  • There’s finally legislation to prevent another Wall Street meltdown because of the uncontrolled greed of corporate “leaders.”
  • A massive polluter like BP is called to account and forced to put up money to at least partially repair what it has monumentally spoiled.

But for the Right, black-and-white have always been inverted.  Thus one of the marching songs of Hitler’s black-uniformed SS offered these lyrics:

Clear the streets, the SS marches! 
The storm-columns stand at the ready. 
They will take the road 
From tyranny to freedom…. 

Or, as Ernest Hemingway once put it: “Fascism is a lie told by bullies.”

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INSANITY VS. REALITY – PART TWO (OF THREE)

In History, Law, Politics on September 13, 2012 at 12:00 am

THE EMAIL:

  • The Environmental Protection Agency on a near daily basis issues new regulations clearly out of their purview in order to modify and change environmental laws previously passed and to impose a radical green agenda never approved by Congress.

THE REALITY:

  • In April, 2010, a  BP oil rig exploded off the coast of Louisiana, spilling untold millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.   
  • Up to then the Right–led by Sarah Palin–had been literally screaming: “Drill, baby, drill!”  Then, suddenly, that shouting fell silent.    Now it’s back again–as in this email. 
  • The vast majority of scientists in the United States have confirmed that global warming is a reality and that man-made pollution is the main cause. 
  • But the Right refuses to accept those findings–or the rises in temperature and accompanying drought across the country.

The left in America knows this usurpation of power is nearly impossible to reverse unless stopped in its early stages.

  • There’s a story about a peasant in a poor Jewish village in Russia who subscribed to several anti-Semitic newspapers.  These warned constantly about how Jews ran the banks, the governments, and virtually everything else..  One day a friend of his demanded: “How can you, a Jew, read such garbage?”  And the peasant said: “I love to see how powerful I am.”
  • The same thing applies here.  The writer of this email gives far too much credit to the “power” of the left. 
  • In doing so he ignores the rise of the Tea Party movement and its power to stalemate legislation in Congress. 
  • He also ignores the truth that, economically and politically, real power lies with the Right.  But to acknowledge this would demolish his pet theory of Leftist all-powerfulness. 
  • Most of the donors backing Mitt Romney are elderly billionaires.  Their median age is 66, and their median wealth is $1 billion. 
  • In the primary season, they invested $52 million in his  Super PAC, Restore Our Future. 
  • They all expect to profit from Romney’s pledges to eliminate inheritance taxes, extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, and slash the top tax rates by another 20%.  
  • “Money buys power,” warns the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman.  “And the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties.  Support from billionaires has always been the main thing keeping those charlatans and cranks in business. And now the same people effectively own a whole political party.”

  • It is clearly the Mindset of this administration and its appointees that Congress is merely a nuisance and can be ignored after they were able to take full advantage of the useful idiots in the Democrat controlled House and Senate in 2009-2010 and the Democrat Senate in the current Congress.

  • Contempt of Congress is a long-running story with Presidents.  The administrations of Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush held Congress in absolute contempt. 
  • Johnson prepared the now-infamous “Gulf of Tonkin” resolution–giving him unrestricted right to wage war in Vietnam–before hostilities erupted.  And he got Congress to pass it overwhelmingly. 
  • Reagan ignored Congress’ ban on sending weapons to the right-wing Nicaraguan “Contras” and instructed his aides to raise money by selling anti-aircraft missiles to Iran in exchange for a handful of American hostages. 
  • Bush intended to attack Iraq from Day One of his Presidency, to “avenge” his father’s losing re-election in 1992 for “failing” to topple Saddam Hussein. 
  • He mounted a major PR campaign to persuade Congress that Iraq had WMDs and had plotted 9/11 with Hussein–even there was absolutely no evidence of either.
  • Additionally, Barack Obama knows after his re-election a Republican-controlled House and Senate will not be able to enact any legislation to roll back the power previously granted to the Executive Branch or usurped by them.
  • His veto will not be overridden as there will always be at least 145 Democratic members of the House or 34 in the Senate in agreement with or intimidated by an administration more than willing to use Chicago style political tactics.

  • Republicans dominate the House–which pushed the country to the brink of bankruptcy earlier this year.  They’re now trying to win control of the Senate, and may well do so. 
  • Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said the top priority of his party is to “make Barack Obama a one-term President.” 
  • This does not seem to be a party that’s “intimidated” by “Chicago-style political tactics.”   

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INSANITY VS. REALITY – PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics on September 12, 2012 at 12:05 am

A new email is sweeping the Internet, claiming to be from a former agent of the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

It’s aimed at voters who might vote to re-elect Barack Obama.  And it’s filled with generalizations, slanders and paranoid conspiracy theories.

Reading it is to journey into the darkest regions of the American electorate–and the right-wing organizations that seek to exploit them in the pursuit of absolute power.

Let’s take that journey.

THE EMAIL:

Obama’s Second Term Transformation Plans

  • The 2012 election has often been described as the most pivotal since 1860. This statement is not hyperbole.
  • If Barack Obama is re-elected the United States will never be the same, nor will it be able to re-capture its once lofty status as the most dominant nation in the history of mankind.
  • The overwhelming majority of Americans do not understand that Obama’s first term was dedicated to putting in place executive power to enable him and the administration to fulfill the campaign promise of “transforming America ” in his second term regardless of which political party controls Congress.
  • That is why his re-election team is virtually ignoring the plight of incumbent or prospective Democratic Party office holders.
THE REALITY:
  • It’s commonplace for incumbent Presidents to hoard their own popularity (if they have it) and not spend a lot of time campaigning on behalf of other politicians.  Or to spend as little time doing so as they can. 
  • One reason for this is they want to spend their time passing legislation or dealing with foreign affairs.  Every moment they spend on the campaign trail leaves them less time for what they consider their real duties as President. 
  • Another reason is that campaigning is a high-stress business and many Presidents don’t see much to be gained–by them–for doing it for others.
  • The most significant accomplishment of Obama’s first term is to make Congress irrelevant.
  • Under the myopic and blindly loyal leadership of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats have succeeded in creating an imperial and, in a second term, a potential dictatorial presidency.
  • If anyone is to blame for making Congress irrelevant, it’s Congress itself.  Earlier this year, Congressional Republicans pushed the country to the brink of bankruptcy simply to get their way on budgetary negotiations. 
  • They got their way as extortionists–and the nation’s credit rating fell accordingly.  And so did the job-approval rating of Congress–which, according to Gallup, now stands at 16%.
  • During the first two years of the Obama administration when the Democrats overwhelming controlled both Houses of Congress and the media was in an Obama worshiping stupor, a myriad of laws were passed and actions taken which transferred virtually unlimited power to the executive branch.
  • The birth of multi-thousand page laws was not an aberration. This tactic was adopted so the bureaucracy controlled by Obama appointees would have sole discretion in interpreting vaguely written laws and enforcing thousands of pages of regulations they and not Congress would subsequently write.
  • Congress has passed  laws running to hundreds or thousands of pages during both Democratic and Republican administrations. 
  • The tax code alone runs to 17,000 pages and 5.5 million words.  The Patriot Act–which completely rewrote the laws governing Federal law enforcement agencies–runs to 342 pages.   
  • Major spending bills frequently run more than 1,000.  The climate bill that the House passed in June, 2009, was 1,200 pages.
  • Bill Clinton’s 1993 health care plan was 1,342 pages long.   In 2007, President Bush’s budget bill ran to 1,482 pages.
  • The same is true in the 2,319 pages of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act which confers nearly unlimited power on various agencies to control by fiat the nation’s financial, banking and investment sectors.
  • The bill also creates new agencies, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, not subject to any oversight by Congress.
  • This overall process was repeated numerous times with other legislation all with the intent of granting unfettered power to the executive branch controlled Barack Obama and his radical associates.
  • The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act was passed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 Wall Street meltdown.  Its stated purpose:
  • “To promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, to end ‘too big to fail’, to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices, and for other purposes.”
  • Only the Federal Government has the power to protect citizens from the overwhelming greed and stupidity of the men who run the financial community. 
  • But to prevent the wealthy few from destroying the financial standing of the United States is, for the Right, an act of Communism.

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REPUBLICANS: HANDS OFF BUSINESS, HANDS ON YOUR SEX LIFE

In Bureaucracy, Politics, Social commentary on August 29, 2012 at 12:02 pm

Want to know the true Republican position on “smaller government”?

These two Huffington Post headlines say it all:

D.C. ABORTION BILL FAILS IN HOUSE–July 31

KEVIN McCARTHY: DOMA DEFENSEe IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY–August 1

Consider the first story:

On July 24, House Republicans voted on a bill, centered on Washington, D.C., that would make abortion illegal after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

“We will stand for a commitment to protect little babies that have no other people to protect them,” shouted its author, Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). “By the grace of God, we’re going to do that!”

The bill was defeated on a vote of 220 to 154.

And on August 1, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that he and his fellow Republicans had a duty to defend the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

DOMA is a federal law passed in 1996 that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

In March 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder deemed it unconstitutional and refused to further defend it.

McCarthy, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) then hired outside counsel to defend the law on behalf of the House of Representatives.

So far, Republicans have spent at least $742,000 doing so.

But on July 31, they marked their fifth consecutive loss in federal court when a Connecticut judge threw out the law as unconstitutional.

It speaks volumes about the priorities of the radical right generally and the Republican party in particular.

On one hand, when it comes to causes they support, Rightists demand a “hands-off” approach to government regulation.

As they see it, corporations should be allowed to

  • pollute as much as they want;
  • pay their employees as little as they want;
  • avoid paying workers compensation or unemployment;
  • pay little or no taxes;
  • churn out useless or even unsafe goods;
  • put out deceptive advertising;
  • discriminate against job-seekers and employees as much as they want.

Thus, agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Internal Revenue Service should be abolished.

And since Medicare and Social Security serve an aging population that’s not made up of millionaires, Rightists want these programs shut down. Remember the roar of approval that went up at a Republican debate over the thought of an uninsured patient being left to die?

But when it comes to causes they dislike, only the most punitive government measures will do. Thus:

  • The Drug Enforcement Administration should have its budget and agent-force greatly expanded, to go after pot-smokers and pill-poppers.
  • The FBI should declare all-out war on the pornography industry.
  • Abortion should be re-criminalized–especially at the Federal level. Doctors who perform abortions and patients who get them should be executed or hauled off to lengthy prison sentences.
  • Certain forms of birth control–such as those that prevent an unfertilized egg from attaching itself to the womb–should be criminalized.
  • The right to divorce should be sharply restricted–especially for women.
  • Homosexuals should not only be forbidden to marry, but should be rounded up and shipped off to concentration camps, where they will be prevented from “contaminating” heterosexuals.

And when Rightists call for “downsizing government,” they do not include the military. How else could President George W. Bush have waged an unprovoked war against Iraq under the lie that it held “Weapons of Mass Destruction”?

When Rightists campaign for office, they ignore or downplay the inherent contradiction between these two different sets of priorities.

It’s like the story of an ancient arms-peddler who claimed to offer a spear that could penetrate any shield–and a shield that could repulse any spear.

At first, his listeners were excited. Who could resist the promise of weapons that would make their user invulnerable?

Then an old man stepped out of the assembled mob and pointed out the contradiction: Either the spear could penetrate the shield, or the shield could deflect the spear. But one of them had to prove false.

The question was: Which one?

The same holds true when Rightists campaign for office.

A current joke neatly sums up the real philosophy of the right wing movement:

Some Republicans say they’re moving to Canada because the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare.

They may not know that Canada also has socialized medicine.

So here’s another suggestion:

A country that has:

No universal healthcare.

Few entitlement programs.

A low, flat tax system.

A deep reverence for God.

Faith-based government.

Extremely strict limitations on abortion.

Marriage is strictly defined as a union between a man and a woman.

Homosexuality is a sin and punishable by death.

Enforcement of appropriate dress codes.

Tattoos and piercings are widely banned.

Death penalty–which they relish using.

Strong private school system with religious focus.

Widespread oil drilling.

Non-existant environmentalist movement.

Growing nuclear program.

Culture that promotes the family and appropriate roles for men and women.

Where, you ask, is this conservative paradise?

Is this Heaven?

Is this Nirvana?

Actually, it’s Iran.

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THE RIGHT (WING) VS. (HUMAN) RIGHTS

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on December 28, 2011 at 2:09 pm

Texas Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul is under attack–from the Right.

The anti-abortion group Personhood USA fears that Paul is not fully committed to its goal of granting fertilized embryos the same Constitutional protections now afforded to American citizens.

Less than a week ago, Paul became the fifth Republican presidential candidate to sign a petition written by Personhood USA.

In doing so, he pledged to “support a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, and endorse legislation to make clear that the 14th Amendment protections apply to unborn children.”

When the libertarian Paul signed the Personhood pledge, he included a clarifying statement that seems to allow states to decide how to enforce such an amendment.

“A Human Life Amendment should do two things,” Paul wrote. “First, it should define life as beginning at conception and give the unborn the same protection all other human life enjoys.

“Second, it must deal with the enforcement of the ruling much as any law against violence does–through state laws.”

In an open letter to Paul, Personhood USA opposed that line of reasoning: “How exactly does Rep. Paul uggest we ‘protect rights at the federal level?’”

The group believes that allowing individual states to decide how to enforce federal laws allows states to apply different standards of enforcement.  This, in turn, contradicts the Federal nature of the protection.

In Paul’s “clarifying statement,” he had written:

“The Fourteenth Amendment was never intended to cancel out the Tenth Amendment.  This means that I can’t agree that the Fourteenth Amendment has a role to play here, or otherwise we would end up with a ‘Federal Department of Abortion.’”

Of course, a “Federal Department of Abortion” is precisely what groups like Personhood USA want to see created.

The open letter demands: “How will the rights of unborn children (our posterity) be federally protected in NY or California, where a majority of the people are in favor of the legalized murder of unborn children?”

Therein lies the fundamental contradiction–and hypocrisy–of the radical Right.

On one hand, when it comes to causes they support, Rightists demand a “hands-off” approach to government regulation.

As they see it, corporations should be allowed to

  • pollute as much as they want;
  • pay their employees as little as they want;
  • avoid paying workers compensation or unemployment;
  • pay little or no taxes;
  • churn out useless or even unsafe goods;
  • put out deceptive advertising;
  • discriminate against job-seekers and employees as much as they want.

Thus, agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Food and Drug Administration and the Internal Revenue Service should be abolished.

And since Medicare and Social Security serve an aging population that’s not made up of millionaires, Rightists want these programs shut down.  Remember the roar of approval that went up at a Republican debate over the thought of an uninsured patient being left to die?

But when it comes to causes they dislike, only the most punitive government measures will do.  Thus:

  • The Drug Enforcement Administration should have its budget and agent-force greatly expanded, to go after pot-smokers and pill-poppers.
  • The FBI should declare all-out war on the pornography industry.
  • Abortion should be re-criminalized–especially at the Federal level.  Doctors who perform abortions and patients who get them should be hauled off to lengthy prison sentences.
  • Certain forms of birth control–such as those that prevent an unfertilized egg from attaching itself to the womb–should be criminalized.
  • The right to divorce should be sharply restricted–especially for women.
  • Homosexuals should not only be forbidden to marry, but should be rounded up and shipped off to concentration camps, where they will be prevented from “contaminating” heterosexuals.

And when Rightists call for “downsizing government,” they do not include the military.  How else could President George W. Bush have waged an unprovoked war against Iraq under the lie that it held “Weapons of Mass Destruction”?

When Rightists campaign for office, they ignore or downplay the inherent contradiction between these two different sets of priorities.

It’s like the story of an ancient arms-peddler who claimed to offer a spear that could penetrate any shield–and a shield that could repulse any spear.

At first, his listeners were excited.  Who could resist the promise of weapons that would make their user invulnerable?

Then an old man stepped out of the assembled mob and pointed out the contradiction: Either the spear could penetrate the shield, or the shield could deflect the spear.  But one of them had to prove false.

The question was: Which one?

The same holds true when Rightists campaign for office.

Perhaps the easiest way to sum up the agenda–and tactics–of the Right is to remember the warning of Ernest Hemingway: “Fascism is a lie told by bullies.  Because Fascism is a lie, it is condemned to literary sterility. And when it is past, it will have no history, except the bloody history of murder.”

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THE IDEAL REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE

In Bureaucracy, Humor, Politics on September 25, 2011 at 10:05 pm

Yes, it’s Presidential campaign season again.  That special time when, every four years, would-be Republican leaders try to prove

  • Who hates liberals the most;
  • Who will suppress abortion and birth control the most;
  • Who hates gays the most;
  • Who will abolish the Environmental Protection Agency;
  • Who will build the most prisons;
  • Who will execute the most convicts; and
  • Who will most support the right of the rich to not pay taxes.

For 2012, Republican voters have embraced one right-wing candidate after another–Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann and Rick Perry. 

And, in each case, these voters have found, to their dismay, that s/he’s simply not right-wing enough. 

Thus, Republicans fear that none of these candidates is sufficiently Fascistic to win Rush Limbaugh’s nomination for President.

So it’s possible that the future of the Republican party may one day rest on the still-to-be perfected science of cloning.

Imagine how this procedure could affect the way Republicans choose their Presidential candidates. 

The top officials of the Republican party decide to create the perfect, unbeatable Presidential candidate.   

They direct scientists at the National Institute of Health to use DNA samples to resurrect several past, hugely popular Republican leaders. 
 
The first is, of course, Abraham Lincoln–destroyer of slavery and defender of the Union.  Then the scientists introduce him to a sample of Republican voters to gauge his current popularity.  
 
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://republicans-abroad.net/Abraham%20Lincoln.jpg&imgrefurl=http://republicans-abroad.net/RAIndex.html&usg=__pvybU4aLNywYHE8aeLxdR22vL5w=&h=640&w=461&sz=59&hl=en&start=197&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=u2jjFVrgmy2YsM:&tbnh=137&tbnw=99&prev=/images?q=Images+of+Abrham+Lincoln&start=180&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&ndsp=18&tbs=isch:1
 
The test-audience goes crazy–but not in the way party officials expect. 
 
“If it hadn’t been for him, we wouldn’t have all these damn civil rights laws now,” yell some. 
 
“He invaded the South and destroyed states’ rights!” scream others.
 
To head off a riot, Republican officials rush the bewildered Lincoln clone off the stage.
 
Then they bring out their next resurrected clone-candidate: Theodore Roosevelt, the trust-busting conservationist. 
 
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Theodore_Roosevelt_laughing.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theodore_Roosevelt_laughing.jpg&usg=__anr7PXKIgS2JBeAN2QDBL39wXao=&h=3474&w=2849&sz=769&hl=en&start=8&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=opyM89MlZJ2Y1M:&tbnh=150&tbnw=123&prev=/images?q=Images+of+Theodore+Roosevelt&um=1&hl=en&sa=G&tbs=isch:1
 
Again the test-audience goes wild: “Tree-hugger!  Tree-hugger!”
 
“Trust-buster!  That’s the guy who attacked the big corporations–lousy Commie!” 
 
Once again, there is a near-riot as startled Republican officials hustle Roosevelt off the stage and out of the building.
 
Then they introduce their third resurrected candidate clone: Ronald Reagan. 
 
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.science.co.il/People/Ronald-Reagan/images/Ronald-Reagan-1981.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.science.co.il/People/Ronald-Reagan/&usg=__kZLft8l0bMx6w1-8OAntu_V_GVM=&h=1000&w=780&sz=87&hl=en&start=52&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=AH9_hlsR_c_YJM:&tbnh=149&tbnw=116&prev=/images?q=Images+of+Ronald+Reagan&start=36&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&ndsp=18&tbs=isch:1
 
“Not him!  He legalized abortion in California when he was Governor!”
 
“Yeah, and his first wife–Jane Wyman–divorced him. We can’t have a divorced guy in the White House.”
 
Desperate, Republican leaders go into a huddle: “What are we going to do?  Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan were the most popular leaders we’ve ever had.”
 
“Yeah, but that was in the PAST,” says another party hack.  “We need a candidate who appeals to our base TODAY.”
 
“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” says the first one.  “But it’s a bit radical.  The guy I have in mind wasn’t actually born in the United States.”
 
“So what?  People won’t mind if he gives them what they want.”
 
“What about the Constitution?  You have to be a native-born American to be President.”
 
“Hey, you know what the oil companies say: Why spoil the beauty of the thing with legality?”
 
So the Republicans once again call in the geneticists and tell them to go back to work one last time. 
 
When the last resurrected candidate is finally presented to the test-audience, the crowd rises as one, shouting: “That’s him!  That’s him!” 
 
“The one we’ve been waiting for!” 
 
 ”The one who REALLY speaks for us!” 
 
“He’s totally anti-abortion–and he HATES uppity women!”
 
“Yeah–he hates Commies, gays and non-whites, and he REALLY believes in a STRONG military!”
 
“All right, I’ll do it–I’ll accept your nomination,” says the clone-candidate.  “But the last time I tried to lead people to greatness, they proved unworthy of me.  So I’ll do it again–but only on ONE condition.”
 
“Of course, of course!” yells the test-audience.  “Anything you want!  What is it?”
 
“This time…. 
 
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://img7.footnote.com/img/thumbnail/137396737/400/400/0_0_255_288.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.footnote.com/document/137396737/&usg=__IepuWRL72W4nNqqASFeAPbs0XqY=&h=400&w=354&sz=22&hl=en&start=106&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=HXbocM3r__PGHM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=110&prev=/images?q=Images+of+Adolf+Hitler&start=90&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&ndsp=18&tbs=isch:1
  
…no more Mr. Nice Guy!”
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