Tag: Republicans

I’m not normally one to rant – among the scores of diaries I’ve posted over the course of the past three years, only a handful are of the “screed” variety.  The sort of diaries I usually do don’t lend themselves to soapbox-style indignation – there’s not much to be gained, legislatively or electorally speaking, from a knock-down, drag-out flame war over, say, assigning blame for the outbreak of the First World War.

Yet, as I’ve often stated, sometimes the worst thing about being an historian is that one often has a pretty good idea of what’s coming next, decline-and-fall-of-civilizationwise.  Certain patterns are discernable, and seem to play out each time a civ rises to a leadership role in human development or the exercise of might – and no civilization has ever shown itself immune to the degrading effects of time.  Since often an understanding of the events of the past can inform the shape of responses in the present, it’s here that this historian perceives a role for an historical rant.

An Idiot Wind has been blowing, it’s been blowing across America for a generation.  The Idiot Wind never stops blowing, it gusts every time the lips of a Republican start flapping, it blows harder every time the lips of corporate media hacks flap in praise of Republican lip flapping . . .

The Idiot Wind is everywhere, there’s no escape from it, there’s no escape from the damage it inflicts, there’s no escape from the Category Five propaganda it peddles, it’s unrelenting, it’s deafening, I haven’t known peace and quiet for so long I can’t remember what it’s like.  

Can anyone here remember what peace and quiet is like?  

Can anyone here remember what media integrity is like?  

Can anyone here remember what responsible journalism is like?

Can anyone here remember?  

In his Inaugural Address, President Obama told the Muslim world, “We seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”  He told leaders around the globe “who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West” that their people will judge them on what they can build, not what they destroy.  He told those “who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, that they are on the wrong side of history, but that “we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

It would have been more fitting to target Republicans with that message, Mr. President.  You’ve extended your hand to them, but they will not unclench their fists.  You’re offering a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect, but they will not unclench their fists.  You’ve given them three fucking cabinet positions, but they will not unclench their fists.  Those mouth breathers will never unclench their fists; beating Democrats, liberals, gays, minorities, and the poor and the powerless to a bloody pulp is what they do, it’s hardwired into their lizard brains.

Way, way back in the heady days of the primary, before we knew who the Democratic nominee would be, while we were still duking it out for our respective favorite candidates, I wrote the following about Obama’s “big tent” style approach to politics:

This isn’t Clintonian triangulation. It’s actually worse than that. It’s unilaterally disarming before the first shot’s been fired.

and I quoted Ian Welsh when he said:

The time for the failed politics of compromise is over.

So, you’d think I’d be the last person sitting here defending Obama’s bipartisanship to the progressive left.

But that’s exactly what I find myself doing.

I’ve got hypocrisy on my mind, thanks to recent developments in the process of appointing officials to the Obama administration. First, Timothy Geithner, appointed to the position of national tax collector in chief, turns out to have failed to pay certain taxes. Then former Sen. Tom Daschle, the nominee to head Health and Human Services, turns out to have failed to pay much more. He wriggles and squirms a while under the spotlight but makes no move to step aside until a third nominee, Nancy Killefer, withdraws on principle over a much smaller sum of unpaid taxes, after which Daschle can’t stick around without looking like an utter tool.

And all this, to hear some speak, reflects badly on the incoming Obama administration, which was supposed to have been better than all this.

Well, yes, it does reflect badly.

But at the same time, it reminds me of a passage from Neal Stephenson’s novel The Diamond Age:

Benjamin Netanyahoo thinks Iran’s invisible nuclear weapons program is the biggest danger facing the world today. Most folks think the Global Financial Meltdown and a discredited ‘free market’ theory is the greatest challenge we face. And then there’s that woman with 14 kids…enough said.

But, humbly, there is a danger facing mankind greater than any threat heretofore experienced on planet Earth: Republican’ts.

Just a whimsical post this morning. Several things of varying importance have occurred to me in passing this week. I review the importance of Flag Pins, shirt sleeves and a new description of the Republican strategy for defeating the stimulus package.  You also might want to check out the new word I found to “pin” on Republicans. I share below the Fold. Enjoy!

What a long strange trip it’s been for America.  And it keeps getting stranger by the minute.

Jon Perr at Crooks and Liars warns:

Last year, the Roadblock Republicans of the 110th Congress set the all-time filibuster record.  Forcing 104 cloture votes by October 2008, the Senate’s GOP minority easily eclipsed the old mark of 61 filibusters.  And now, fresh on the heels of “elated” and “celebrating” House Republicans’ refusal to provide a single vote in support of President Obama’s $825 economic recovery package, Senate Republicans are now suggesting they will filibuster the stimulus bill.

As NLinStPaul notes in her analysis of this filibuster threat, ThinkProgress has reported the latest in Republican obstructionism:

While Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions offered a none-too-thinly veiled threat of a GOP filibuster (“I think its going to take 60 votes to pass the bill”), Arizona’s John Kyl said he would explore “whatever parliamentary possibilities are in front of us.” Senator James Inhofe (R-OK) promised to join the effort, announcing, “I would be a part of it.” And on Thursday, Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Robert Siegel on NPR that a filibuster of the Obama package passed by the House could be in the cards.

In what cards?  These cards?

Rush Limbaugh and a deck of Tarot cards, that’s all the RePugs have left.

 

And by “they,” I mean the Republicans.

The Republicans who are vowing to oppose the stimulus bill.

The Democrats don’t need to learn to avoid bipartisanship.

The Republicans need to learn how to embrace it, and they should learn that lesson quickly.

I am currently writing a piece on the horrific killing spree of the heinously pre-meditated and viciously merciless Christmas Eve rampage of one angry white male loser named Bruce Pardo. This man is a domestic terrorist with a number of traits that would strongly suggest that he is one of the aggrieved types who is attracted to the dittohead neo-Nazi brigades.