artbycassiday

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Age of Crazy


The Republican Big Lie strategy appears to have worked and they are on the verge of making some huge gains in the House of Representatives and the Senate, "capturing" one or possibly both Houses of Congress. "Capture" is probably the right word, too. In an all out assault on reason and truth, the party that "drove the car into the ditch," in President Obama's understated phrase, is about to get the car keys again.

The Tea Party, with all its Alice in Wonderland illogic, with backing from the billionaire Koch's and Big Corporate dollars, has been the cover for the right wingers' attempts to take back the government they so dislike and so profit from. For all their rhetoric, their message is the same as the rightest wing of the Republican Party.

The Real Republican Contract for America is "We'll cut your Social Security, Medicare, and your kid's health insurance, say lots of crazy sh**, elect really dumb people, make masturbation illegal, give tax breaks to billionaires, scrap the parts of the Constitution we don't like, shill for the highest bidder, and send your kids to Iran.....Vote for Us!"

And we appear about to fall for it again. Tea Party candidate after Tea Party candidate have been exposed as dumb, dishonest, duplicitous, extreme, and downright loony. Birthers, Creationists, ex-witches, crazy thugs, corporate shills, secessionists, racists and their heavily armed militias, and other representatives from the extreme delusional fringes are leading in their many respective races. Most decided early on not to say what they really believe -- website after website was scrubbed of their extremist nonsense -- and replaced with Republican talking points. But a few will fly into office under the radar and pursue their dismantle government agenda. A few may be even too nutty for their nutty supporters: Christine O'Donnell and that Paladino guy are far behind and that Alaskan Joe something has so many skeletons in his closet that the write-in Republican Senator he defeated in the primary, Murkowski, may have a chance. On the other hand, Sharron Angle is virtually tied with Harry Reid in spite of her far right nuttiness -- she tried early on not to say what she actually thought, but has stumbled time and time again when her actual beliefs come out.

Unlike most of these candidates, I don't believe that government is bad. Bad government is bad, and that's what we had under George W. Bush: from the failed efforts after Hurricane Katrina,to the enormous deficits, to the scandals, to the abridgment of our constitutional rights, to the invasion and occupation of Iraq which abandoned Afghanistan to become a failed drug state, to the collapse of our economy, to dozens and hundreds of other failures.

These many bags of horsesh** were placed on President Obama's White House doorstep on his first day. He's been vilified, alienized, Beckized, Hannitized, O'Reillyized, 24/7 since day one. The more bipartisan he attempted to be the more partisan the Republicans became with their strategy of Just Say NO. And it appears to have worked. President Obama's attempts to make government work better have been thwarted. His attempts to stimulate the economy have been diluted. His attempts to get America working again have been blocked.

And yet, the country is on the verge of making the same huge mistakes in judgment in November.

Maybe you don't like the current incumbents, but at the very least vote for candidates that are not demonstrably loony.



Regards,
Bud C