At some point during the trickle-down years portions of the electorate, preoccupied with abortion and gay marriage, seemingly failed to grasp the fact of stagnant wages and the huge transfer of wealth and control of capital that had become concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. People who often benefit least under a corporate umbrella that provides enormous advantages to some at their expense are the loudest proponents of a system that often shuts them out. Duped into believing that "Socialism" is the devil’s work, they are oblivious to the devil on their doorstep.
There is a level of delusion that is hard to fathom and a shamelessness on the part of the politicians who represent the deluded that is even harder to understand. Who can forget George Bush declaring, at the beginning of his second term, that he had garnered political capital and intended to spend it. Perhaps just not losing the popular vote was, for him, a sign of electoral significance, his political capital a myth in the making.
Still, many Republicans point with pride to the prescription-drug benefit, passed during his presidency without any financing and accompanied by giveaways to big pharma to induce their participation. Conservative grousing now about health-care reform is an egregious example of hypocrisy-hampering efforts to upgrade programs and foster less virulent behavior on the part of insurers. It probably shouldn’t surprise anyone that formularies in Part D plans didn’t always survive, so that people who signed up because a specific medication was covered found in short order that, too bad, it no longer qualified.
But in addition to stunning illogic about matters of import some members of Congress continue to act as if they slept with the angels instead of engaging in illicit relationships with lobbyists and prostitutes. In the dustup between Chairman Baucus and Senator Kyl at a recent Finance Committee session, Baucus attempted to move Kyl past repeating points already made, with the Arizona senator responding angrily that he was making “a very important point,” remarkable more for its attempt to delay proceedings than for its content - - a tactic the minority has devised to talk past the subject of health-care and belabor the party’s most-favored talking points.
Why not, as Nevada’s Republican Senator Ensign, has done propose an amendment to address the “czar” issue, his party having perfected the ability to wrestle non-issues into phony matters of substance. But as the ability to access information has grown and the visibility of some of these clowns has increased, the realization that our legislative bodies are filled with ignorant, stupid miscreants has added to voter disillusionment. We discover that the holier-than-thou crowd are often just offensive blowhards. In Ensign’s case his parents are said to have attempted to bail him out of a compromising sexual misadventure by paying off his mistress and her husband, as if they were just taking care of a speeding ticket for an offending teenager.
The spectacle of an odious group of self-serving bureaucrats is a constant reminder of how dysfunctional our political system has become. Senator Vitter and former House Speaker Gingrich, both of whom engaged in extra-marital relationships, supported impeaching President Clinton for his behavior in the Oval Office, insisting it was about the lying not the sex although clearly it was a politically motivated exercise and, oh yes, the prurient fixation with the subject of sex among members of Congress. Vitter still acts as if he were a fine up-standing man, having dragged his wife to a press conference where he admitted his infidelity with a prostitute to make that point.
Joe Wilson, presumably a sexually pristine fellow, is yet another disheartening example of those who seek to govern. In the Saturday Night Live send-up of his “you lie” shout-out to the President the SNL premise was that when he left for the men’s room the rest of the Republican leadership decided against calling out together, and he was distressed to find himself alone. In comforting him, his fellow party members say ‘not to worry, you must be known for something other than that outburst.’ Well yes, he concedes, I was in favor of flying the Confederate Flag over the state building in South Carolina. It was of course a comedy routine, but the part about the Confederate Flag was true.
Progressive legislators aren’t without fault, but then they don’t claim to be. And they don’t talk about honor and family values and then behave in ways that defy standards of common decency and ignore basic human needs. And you know what; some of them, including the president behave like adults and are even kind of smart.
Buzz this on Buzzflash.net
Ever notice ..... ??
Wasn't it all along the grand plan of the whole Reagan cabal to distract enough voters with homophobic bullshit, in order to quietly amass and arrogate power and wealth unto themselves? I believe so. Smart on their part? Not really, though it may seem so, certainly not in the long term; just sinister, greedy, and despicable!
The same subversive blueprint was applied during the 8-year nightmarish madness of Blathering-Idiot W. Fuck-Up 43, only exponentially worse as it was combined with rampant cronyism, runaway criminality, almost unimaginably gross incompetence and malfeasance when it came to matters of the public good, a laundry list of impeachable offenses so extensive that whole books have been written on the subject, and generally a scandal per month is really no problem for us prevailing atmosphere.
THE GREAT MYSTERY IS WHY SO MANY AMERICANS KEEP FALLING FOR THIS "TRICKLE-DOWN" PATHOLOGICALLY CROOKED ILLUSION. Didn't Carnegie, Morgan and other conscience-free barons do the same thing in the 1890s and 1920s? How many times does a too large segment of the public have to fall for it before seeing through the hype and rejecting it?
Haven't Republican administrations presided over all of these times which invariably led to acute economic disaster? HELL YES!!!!!!!
Stupid? It's well beyond that. Buying lottery tickets is stupid. Allowing the right-wing-hypers to keep selling us the same worthless bag of goods to again and again operate their bait-and-switch con games (mainly through jingoistic propaganda) to the great impoverishment of most of us is utterly imbecilic!
Stupidity is another word for
"Bi-Partisanship", but Bi-Partisanship also implies dis-loyalty, naivete, pettiness, cowardice, disgrace, evil, and filth.
Ann D's 9/29 column
I'll start voting for the Greens when they stop putting hypocritical cretins like Ralph Nader on the ballot.
Stupidity and Hypocrisy ARE our Politics
In a real democracy, the press would query Vitter if he preferred cloth diapers to pampers, first thing, right outta the box, any time he appeared in public...They'd ask for donations from John Ensign's parents. They'd ask John Edwards about the baby. Demand Larry Craig demonstrated his 'wide stance'...As they should preface every introduction of Joe Scarborough with a question about Lori Klausitis (sp?)...
If the press were the adversarial agent of the people for which it receives its constitutional protections, it would.
But 'the press' is the sole and whole possession, and wholly-owned subsidiary of the very interests which an adversarial pres SHOULD be investigating. So it won't...
"Press consolidation" was one of the great accomplishments of the Raygun era, cemented into law by the Clenis in the Comm Act of '96.
The media climate today is entirely dominated by the 24-hour news cycle, which is the absolutely perfect medium for the propogation and promulgation of the BIG LIE. The entire facade of election, legislation and negotiation in Congress is an elaborate kabuki, designed to camouflage the utter corruption, back-slapping, and reach-arounds which are the fundamental processes of serving the Owners.
We cannot afford to pretend any longer that the public face of Congress or the WhiteHouse is in any way a true reflection of any recognizeable reality, or are in any way pertinent to our lived experiences. It's all public relations and propaganda. Every word, every gesture, every press release, every letter, every bill:EVERYTHING is fixed...
Democrats are on the corporate payroll too!
All this focus on the massive corruption of the Republicans is a distraction from the fact that THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS ON THE CORPORATE PAYROLL TOO!
You reinforce the myth that the Democrats are progressive by talking about the corrupt Republicans, then in the last paragraph, changing the subject to "progressive legislators", as if the Democrats are automatically progressive. This is dishonest.
The Democrats control the White House and both houses of Congress, YET THEY'RE NOT GOING TO GIVE US A PUBLIC OPTION, LET ALONE MEDICARE FOR ALL! Some progressives.
We got into this situation by people voting for parties funded by corporations that are working against us. The Democrats know they can depend on liberal dupes to vote for them, even as they ramp up the wars, continue wiretapping us, deny us decent health care, and do virtually nothing about the Republican crime wave over the last eight years.
You sneer at the rightwing dupes who are fooled by the Republicans into voting for them, but you liberal dupes are almost as stupid. After Al Gore saddled us with NAFTA, GATT, and the WTO, which started the exodus of our jobs to low-wage countries, you liberals unconditionally supported him in 2000, instead of voting for a REAL progressive party: The Green Party.
As a result, the Democrats know they can deny us health care, and you'll STILL vote for them!
You liberals are part of the problem. There's word for people who follow the same course of action over and over expecting a different result. Hopefully some of you will learn from your mistakes and vote Green or Socialist in 2010.
It would only take a few percentage points to give the Democrats a wake-up call that progressives will start supporting progressive parties if they continue selling us out to the corporations.
Same As It Ever Was
Duh! Ann, this is hardly front page news. There has never been enough rich people to elect Republicans to national office in this country. Fortunately for conservatives, there is a huge reservoir of ignorant voters in the Good Ol' U. S. of A. And for the rest, well hell, they rig the voting machines and select Presidents by using the corrupted members of the SCOTUS. They call this Democracy!
Stupidity rules!
Stupid people elect stupid government.
Stupid people let the smarter evildoers steal elections, and install other stupid but easily directed people in the positions of power.
Stupid people don't check the facts. Stupid people repeat what they are told to say, without questioning.
Stupidity is what got this country in this mess.
What, if anything, will get this country out of it?
RE: payoffs by Ensign's parents
I've often wondered how many times his parents had to pay off young girls and their parents when teenager Ensign got a little rough with the girl next door or from "the other side of the tracks".
RE: payoffs by Ensign's parents
A bit off the subject, but talking about payoffs by Ensign's parents, made me think again how Bush having wealthy parents paid off for him. He has had someone literally clean up after his messes from the day he was born. I don't know what it is about Republicans but they always manage to convince everyone they never do anything wrong so they don't need to apologize or take responsibility. They thrive on greed and morals play no part in their lives. They're really very strange human specimens. And if it wasn't so dangerous, their followers would be utterly laughable entertainment for the rest of us.