Why the GOP is losing the battle for America
There was a pundit expounding on television this morning…can’t remember who or on which network, but that really doesn’t matter. What does matter is what he said, and it was probably the most prescient and, for Democrats, most encouraging thing we’ve heard in a long time. Granted, it was only one person’s opinion…but it really struck home.
During a discussion about the long-awaited Health Care Reform bill that had finally been put forward by the Senate Finance Committee, talk turned to how the Republicans would react…and what their next move might be. This pundit said that we should expect more of the same kind of scare tactics and negativity the GOP has been trotting out since the Health Care Reform debate began, and that if he were a Democratic strategist, that’s exactly how he’d be hoping they would respond.
After thinking about his assessment for a moment, what he meant by it suddenly became quite clear…kind of like a light had just come on. Since Barack Obama took the oath of office in January, the Republicans have been of one mind in focusing on a single, self-destructive strategy… namely bringing this President down. They don’t care how, they just want to topple his administration…and like a drug addict, their obsession is slowly but inexorably consuming them.
What the GOP is doing…and has been effectively fixated on ever since the Democratic primary season ended last summer…is somehow returning their party to power. They have demonstrated consistently that they’re not concerned about the needs of the country, or the needs of the people who vote for them. Their only concern is their party…and how to restore it to what they believe is its rightful place atop the American political pyramid.
Obviously, to accomplish that they must first get rid of President Obama, so they’ve put the bullseye squarely on him. As a result, they seemingly spend all of their time either thinking up or giving credence to ever more spurious ways to discredit him and his administration… think Bill Ayers, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, birthers, death panels, socialized medicine, ACORN, government takeovers, etc., etc.
Unfortunately, they’re not spending any time coming up with alternatives to the ideas that the President and the Democrats are offering for things that are so critically important to the well being of this country and its citizens…things like meaningful Health Care Reform, financial recovery, and job creation. That’s why the Republicans have come to be regarded as ‘the party of no’…as in, no, we don’t and won’t agree with what you’re proposing…and no, we don’t have a better, or even another idea.
If they can’t somehow push through more tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and they can’t figure out how to funnel more health care industry and financial services industry money into their PACs, then it’s all about destroying Barack Obama, all the time. They’re totally bereft of ideas and concern for the needs of this country and the majority of its people. Their only concern is for the well being of the GOP.
It doesn’t seem to have dawned on them that even though the approval ratings for the President and the Democrats have gone down…as they always do during the last half of every new President’s first year in office…Republican approval ratings have, for the most part, either declined along with them or remained stagnant. That’s what’s so unusual about the current climate in Washington…and why, if the Democrats aren’t encouraged, they should be. The GOP simply haven’t taken advantage of the normal change in the political tide.
So basically, as long as President Obama has thick skin…and it would appear thus far that that is indeed the case…the Republicans’ Obamacentric strategy is not going to work. In steadily increasing numbers people are beginning to see their obstructionist tactics for what they truly are…unproductive, self-centered nonsense. The party of me…the party of us…the party of no…they’ve been reaching out to the fringe for so long now that they appear to have moved in with them.
This doesn’t mean the President and the Democrats can coast…far from it. People aren’t exactly thrilled with them right now either. But as long as they continue to work towards a better America for all…proposing legislation that will ultimately benefit the entire country rather than just their corporate benefactors and the privileged few…people will see and understand that. And even if they occasionally take their eyes off the road ahead, they’re more likely to be forgiven so long as the opposition is stuck in park or driving in reverse.
And so it goes.
SC
Showing posts with label Barack Obama's America. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama's America. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
The Take On America: How We Look From The Outside
It’s Monday, so we’ve all had plenty of time to figure out how we feel about President Obama’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York and his appearance at the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh last week…all of us…and as usual, the rest of the world has been watching our reactions with interest.
Predictably, it’s the loudest voices that are getting heard…and the vile and venom from the right is coming fast and furious, just as it has ever since this President took office. No matter what he says or does, Republican politicians will tell all who want to listen that he’s wrong… then their media mouthpieces will set out to vilify him...and the people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Faux News will once again work themselves into a rabid lather. It’s a repeating cycle that has our friends and neighbors from around the world shaking their heads in dismay at what we have become.
Following is a column from Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Canada’s National newspaper, about the ‘Joe Wilson’ phenomenon. It illustrates what people in other parts of the world are thinking about what we say and do…what their perceptions are…and it’s typical of what you’d find nowadays in any country in the Western world.
From the Globe and Mail, Saturday September 26, 2009 :
By Sonia Verma
West Columbia, S.C. — Roxanne Wilson answers the door in a white T-shirt, aqua-blue shorts and a pair of pearl earrings. This morning she meant to mow the lawn, take in the trash cans and wash down the aluminum siding on her sprawling, ranch-style home. Instead, her thoughts hover on her husband, whom she drove to catch his flight to Washington just a few hours ago.
To much of the country, including former president Jimmy Carter, Congressman Joe Wilson's heckling of Barack Obama during the U.S. President's address to a joint session of Congress betrayed the ugly, possibly even racist side of his Southern heritage.
To his wife, though, Mr. Wilson is just “a typical Southern gentleman.” And here in Lexington County, the heart of South Carolina's overwhelmingly white and Republican second district, he is nothing short of a hero. The Wilsons have received hundreds of letters of support and even a few personal cheques. At their church, the First Presbyterian, Mrs. Wilson was applauded.
Their home, nestled on a street of towering pines, is hushed, unfussy and full of cluttered charm. The sitting room is scattered with grandchildren's toys and Ali G DVDs. Family photos, including some posed with Republican presidents past, crowd the shelves.
“I know Joe's upset, but for good reason,” explains Mrs. Wilson, who revealed in a campaign video last week that she was shocked at first by her husband's outburst herself. “He thinks we're just going down a road that we are never going to be able to recover from. There's plenty of people who agree.”
Across this county of Baptist churches and barbecue joints, Mr. Wilson's supporters feel galvanized by their unlikely new voice in Washington and their shared opposition to big government. And almost all of them say what Mrs. Wilson does: “Race has nothing to do with this.” Yes, the Wilsons did fly a Confederate flag on their front lawn before Mr. Wilson was elected to Congress, but “that was about heritage not hate,” Mrs. Wilson says. (The rebel banner still flies in front of the South Carolina state assembly building in Columbia.)
Mr. Obama won a surprising victory against Hillary Rodham Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary, but the state is now emerging as a significant hurdle to his policies. Mr. Wilson's “You lie!” has become a rallying cry not only among a lunatic fringe but in Main Street America; indeed, at least in Lexington County, the line between the two is getting blurry.
Joe Wilson's heartland today is a place where everyone from Tea Party Patriots to state-governor hopefuls are uniting over fears of the deepening reach of the federal government.
“The changing of America is what we're talking about. We're fighting for our freedom,“ says Ron Parks, a 53-year-old construction worker who for most of his life stayed far away from politics. Today he is a local organizer in the anti-Obama, cross-country Tea Party movement; he objects to everything from the economic-stimulus package to seatbelt laws.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wilson, previously an undistinguished backbencher, has become someone people here talk about as a future contender for the Oval Office.
“Throughout the course of this nation's history there have been extraordinary events which have lead to extraordinary acts of defiance,” says Larry Grooms, a long-time Republican state senator. “People are beginning to understand that some of the basic rights that most Americans hold dear are quickly being eroded.” Without men such as Mr. Wilson, he adds, America is destined to become like North Korea.
High passions
In a rundown strip mall next to an indoor shooting range, Mr. Wilson's campaign office has been inundated. It raised $1.5-million in the week after the incident; cheques and letters are still pouring in from across the country. “Glad to know you're not apologizing again. Stay strong,” reads one letter from Arizona, taped to the office's bathroom door.
“It's just been overwhelming,” says Preston Grisham, Mr. Wilson's 26-year-old campaign manager. “The most common call I get is from people who say Joe said what they have always wanted to say.” Which is what, exactly? After all, he spoke only two words. “I hear a lot of different things,” Mr. Grisham says hesitantly. “Before this, they really didn't know Joe, so everyone's just taking their own interpretation of what he actually said.”
The passion of the support for Mr. Wilson often seems to run deeper than its logic. In Lexington, residents express suspicions of Mr. Obama and policies such as health-care reform, but they are equally angry at the cost of their insurance. They believe his economic stimulus package will bankrupt their country, but many of them have lost their jobs, with South Carolina posting double-digit unemployment last summer. They think Mr. Obama is a liar, but can't explain why.
Two miles down the road from Mr. Wilson's campaign office at the Southern Restaurant, former Vice-President Dick Cheney's picture hangs on the wall alongside the Sept. 12, 2001, front page of the local paper. Here emotions run raw.
“I don't trust [Mr. Obama]. I think a lot of his ideas are too far out in left field,” says Wyman Abstance, celebrating his 57th birthday with two friends from work, over $7.50 plates of steaming fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. Which ideas does he mean? “I can't name a specific one,” Mr. Abstance says. “But he loves to spend money too quick, and money isn't always the solution. I think he's going to get this country to a point where we could be taken over by another country.”
His friend Kenny, who also works at the local utilities company, is riled up about the health-care bill, which he says he doesn't understand. “All I know is it's going to cost a bunch of money … one way or the other,” he says before taking a sip of “unsweet” iced tea.
Richard Freedman, sitting across the table, couldn't bring himself to watch the President's speech. “I don't trust him. He lies every time he opens his mouth.” Mr. Freedman doesn't distrust all Democrats, though. “I guess I don't feel as uncomfortable with Bill or Hillary as I do with President Obama,” he says, though he can't say why.
John Gissendaner, a 67-year-old retired official with the department of interior works, is much clearer on his reasons: “Obama's ruining our country with all these social programs and giveaway programs. I hate him. And it's not 'cause he's black. It's 'cause he's a Muslim socialist.”
That's the kind of statement that outside observers use to dismiss these voters' sentiments as mere cover for cultural prejudice. But others say the resentment here arises from more nuanced, legitimate and lasting causes. “South Carolina has a long history of spitting in the face of federal authority,” says Walter Edgar, Director of Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. “Now people are losing their homes and their jobs and can no longer afford to send their children to the right schools. For them, the federal government is a good whipping boy.”
Prof. Edgar says the rest of the country should heed the undertones in all the noise around Mr. Wilson's words: “This is not a fringe movement,” he says. “It speaks to a growing uncertainty, a growing unease, and Washington should take stock. This is not going to die out.”
Sonia Verma is a Globe and Mail reporter.
So there you have it. Apparently we’ve become a kind of third-world political joke that, to our friends and neighbors, is really much more sad than it is funny. We can blow it off by saying we don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks…but we should care. We’ve got to stop carrying on as if Americans are the only people in the world who can think, or who’s opinions matter.
We need to once more become that ‘shining city on the hill’ that every other country looked up to. But after eight years of the blustering, bullying Bush administration, and the hate-filled political grandstanding and rhetoric that has badly sullied our national image since Barack Obama became President, we’ve got some work to do before we can climb that hill again.
SC
Predictably, it’s the loudest voices that are getting heard…and the vile and venom from the right is coming fast and furious, just as it has ever since this President took office. No matter what he says or does, Republican politicians will tell all who want to listen that he’s wrong… then their media mouthpieces will set out to vilify him...and the people who listen to Rush Limbaugh and watch Faux News will once again work themselves into a rabid lather. It’s a repeating cycle that has our friends and neighbors from around the world shaking their heads in dismay at what we have become.
Following is a column from Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Canada’s National newspaper, about the ‘Joe Wilson’ phenomenon. It illustrates what people in other parts of the world are thinking about what we say and do…what their perceptions are…and it’s typical of what you’d find nowadays in any country in the Western world.
From the Globe and Mail, Saturday September 26, 2009 :
By Sonia Verma
West Columbia, S.C. — Roxanne Wilson answers the door in a white T-shirt, aqua-blue shorts and a pair of pearl earrings. This morning she meant to mow the lawn, take in the trash cans and wash down the aluminum siding on her sprawling, ranch-style home. Instead, her thoughts hover on her husband, whom she drove to catch his flight to Washington just a few hours ago.
To much of the country, including former president Jimmy Carter, Congressman Joe Wilson's heckling of Barack Obama during the U.S. President's address to a joint session of Congress betrayed the ugly, possibly even racist side of his Southern heritage.
To his wife, though, Mr. Wilson is just “a typical Southern gentleman.” And here in Lexington County, the heart of South Carolina's overwhelmingly white and Republican second district, he is nothing short of a hero. The Wilsons have received hundreds of letters of support and even a few personal cheques. At their church, the First Presbyterian, Mrs. Wilson was applauded.
Their home, nestled on a street of towering pines, is hushed, unfussy and full of cluttered charm. The sitting room is scattered with grandchildren's toys and Ali G DVDs. Family photos, including some posed with Republican presidents past, crowd the shelves.
“I know Joe's upset, but for good reason,” explains Mrs. Wilson, who revealed in a campaign video last week that she was shocked at first by her husband's outburst herself. “He thinks we're just going down a road that we are never going to be able to recover from. There's plenty of people who agree.”
Across this county of Baptist churches and barbecue joints, Mr. Wilson's supporters feel galvanized by their unlikely new voice in Washington and their shared opposition to big government. And almost all of them say what Mrs. Wilson does: “Race has nothing to do with this.” Yes, the Wilsons did fly a Confederate flag on their front lawn before Mr. Wilson was elected to Congress, but “that was about heritage not hate,” Mrs. Wilson says. (The rebel banner still flies in front of the South Carolina state assembly building in Columbia.)
Mr. Obama won a surprising victory against Hillary Rodham Clinton in the South Carolina Democratic primary, but the state is now emerging as a significant hurdle to his policies. Mr. Wilson's “You lie!” has become a rallying cry not only among a lunatic fringe but in Main Street America; indeed, at least in Lexington County, the line between the two is getting blurry.
Joe Wilson's heartland today is a place where everyone from Tea Party Patriots to state-governor hopefuls are uniting over fears of the deepening reach of the federal government.
“The changing of America is what we're talking about. We're fighting for our freedom,“ says Ron Parks, a 53-year-old construction worker who for most of his life stayed far away from politics. Today he is a local organizer in the anti-Obama, cross-country Tea Party movement; he objects to everything from the economic-stimulus package to seatbelt laws.
Meanwhile, Mr. Wilson, previously an undistinguished backbencher, has become someone people here talk about as a future contender for the Oval Office.
“Throughout the course of this nation's history there have been extraordinary events which have lead to extraordinary acts of defiance,” says Larry Grooms, a long-time Republican state senator. “People are beginning to understand that some of the basic rights that most Americans hold dear are quickly being eroded.” Without men such as Mr. Wilson, he adds, America is destined to become like North Korea.
High passions
In a rundown strip mall next to an indoor shooting range, Mr. Wilson's campaign office has been inundated. It raised $1.5-million in the week after the incident; cheques and letters are still pouring in from across the country. “Glad to know you're not apologizing again. Stay strong,” reads one letter from Arizona, taped to the office's bathroom door.
“It's just been overwhelming,” says Preston Grisham, Mr. Wilson's 26-year-old campaign manager. “The most common call I get is from people who say Joe said what they have always wanted to say.” Which is what, exactly? After all, he spoke only two words. “I hear a lot of different things,” Mr. Grisham says hesitantly. “Before this, they really didn't know Joe, so everyone's just taking their own interpretation of what he actually said.”
The passion of the support for Mr. Wilson often seems to run deeper than its logic. In Lexington, residents express suspicions of Mr. Obama and policies such as health-care reform, but they are equally angry at the cost of their insurance. They believe his economic stimulus package will bankrupt their country, but many of them have lost their jobs, with South Carolina posting double-digit unemployment last summer. They think Mr. Obama is a liar, but can't explain why.
Two miles down the road from Mr. Wilson's campaign office at the Southern Restaurant, former Vice-President Dick Cheney's picture hangs on the wall alongside the Sept. 12, 2001, front page of the local paper. Here emotions run raw.
“I don't trust [Mr. Obama]. I think a lot of his ideas are too far out in left field,” says Wyman Abstance, celebrating his 57th birthday with two friends from work, over $7.50 plates of steaming fried chicken, mashed potatoes and collard greens. Which ideas does he mean? “I can't name a specific one,” Mr. Abstance says. “But he loves to spend money too quick, and money isn't always the solution. I think he's going to get this country to a point where we could be taken over by another country.”
His friend Kenny, who also works at the local utilities company, is riled up about the health-care bill, which he says he doesn't understand. “All I know is it's going to cost a bunch of money … one way or the other,” he says before taking a sip of “unsweet” iced tea.
Richard Freedman, sitting across the table, couldn't bring himself to watch the President's speech. “I don't trust him. He lies every time he opens his mouth.” Mr. Freedman doesn't distrust all Democrats, though. “I guess I don't feel as uncomfortable with Bill or Hillary as I do with President Obama,” he says, though he can't say why.
John Gissendaner, a 67-year-old retired official with the department of interior works, is much clearer on his reasons: “Obama's ruining our country with all these social programs and giveaway programs. I hate him. And it's not 'cause he's black. It's 'cause he's a Muslim socialist.”
That's the kind of statement that outside observers use to dismiss these voters' sentiments as mere cover for cultural prejudice. But others say the resentment here arises from more nuanced, legitimate and lasting causes. “South Carolina has a long history of spitting in the face of federal authority,” says Walter Edgar, Director of Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. “Now people are losing their homes and their jobs and can no longer afford to send their children to the right schools. For them, the federal government is a good whipping boy.”
Prof. Edgar says the rest of the country should heed the undertones in all the noise around Mr. Wilson's words: “This is not a fringe movement,” he says. “It speaks to a growing uncertainty, a growing unease, and Washington should take stock. This is not going to die out.”
Sonia Verma is a Globe and Mail reporter.
So there you have it. Apparently we’ve become a kind of third-world political joke that, to our friends and neighbors, is really much more sad than it is funny. We can blow it off by saying we don’t really care what the rest of the world thinks…but we should care. We’ve got to stop carrying on as if Americans are the only people in the world who can think, or who’s opinions matter.
We need to once more become that ‘shining city on the hill’ that every other country looked up to. But after eight years of the blustering, bullying Bush administration, and the hate-filled political grandstanding and rhetoric that has badly sullied our national image since Barack Obama became President, we’ve got some work to do before we can climb that hill again.
SC
Friday, September 18, 2009
Inciting The Lunatic Fringes: When does responsibility kick in?
At the risk of offending some people…as if this blog might actually have followers amongst the ‘Ditto Heads’…Rush Limbaugh is about as disgusting an example of the human species as we can imagine. This pathetic excuse of a man has sunk to a low that we didn’t believe even he could find…all to the end of building even more audience to further line his already overstuffed pockets. And damn the consequences of his words!
We’ve all seen or heard any number of these Christian Evangelists on TV and/or radio over the years…some of them quite reasonable, but others so ridiculous that their routine is actually laughable. Well, in a way, that’s what Limbaugh has become… although there’s nothing either Christian or laughable about his act.
Rush Limbaugh is a ‘Hate Evangelist’. His core audience is the lunatic fringe of what has become the extreme right, extremely white wing of the Republican Party…the party of Abraham Lincoln for crying out loud. And this blustering, offensive man has these crazies in his pocket, lapping up all the vitriol and divisiveness and anti Barack Obama, anti Democrat garbage that he consistently vomits out of his pie hole.
His latest proselytizing concerned that incident that occurred on a school bus a few days ago, where a white student was, unfortunately, beaten up by some black students. Limbaugh described it as just another example of what it’s going to be like for white people to live in Barack Obama’s America. Nice…as if something like this, or the reverse of it, had never happened before he became President. And even though the police who investigated the incident said they found nothing to indicate it had been in any way racially motivated, that apparently wasn’t good enough for the odious Mr. Limbaugh.
He indignantly said of the police, “…they’re wrong”. That’s because he wants his listeners to believe IT WAS a racially motivated attack, and they will. Most of them believe whatever he tells them… and far too many of them, if so directed, would act on whatever he tells them too. And therein lies the very real problem with this alarmingly dangerous, hate-mongering, fear-mongering sack of crap… and every other bloviator of his ilk that’s on the air today. They’re dangerous, and they shouldn’t be allowed to spew their venom on our public airwaves.
To inflame the passions of his listeners and viewers even further, Limbaugh also opined, we can only hope jokingly, that perhaps we should return to segregated school buses for the safety of the country’s white students. Right, and then what, Rush…segregated schools, segregated neighborhoods, separate water fountains and public rest rooms, whites only restaurants and hotels. Pretty soon we’ll be back to the way it was before the Civil Rights Act…or is that actually what you want? It sure seems like it!
Much of the impact of broadcast trash such as Limbaugh, the frighteningly psychotic Glenn Beck, bullying blowhard Bill O’Reilly, self-serving apologist Sean Hannity, and the increasingly xenophobic Lou Dobbs, could be neutralized if someone from the GOP had the guts to stand up and say “Enough! These people and their paranoid, hateful disciples don’t speak for or represent me…and I don’t speak for or represent them. What they say and do bears no resemblance to my Republican Party”.
That’s what we’d like to hear, somebody in that party willing to take the first step towards bringing civility and sanity back to our political discourse and debate. But sadly it’s unlikely to happen because truth to tell, their de facto leader is Limbaugh...and there isn't one of them who'd be willing to risk the ire of Java The Hutt by speaking out against him or his herd.
Republicans decided over 40-years ago that no price was too high to pay in their quest for power…not even if it meant embracing Richard Nixon’s soul-selling Southern Strategy. It began with their courting of the Christian Right, and has evolved into this mélange of fanatics and extremists you see the GOP pandering to today…the people who show up at Town Hall meetings, and events such as the recent 9/12 assembly, brandishing guns and carrying those vile, racist, threatening posters you’ve seen so often in the news lately. The GOP has become so locked in, so beholden to this extreme right wing of THEIR party, that they likely couldn’t extricate themselves even if they wanted to…which, obviously, they don’t.
Republican political leaders claim these people are motivated by patriotism, not racism…and that their posters and guns and threats are just a way of expressing concern about America’s future. But that dog ain’t gonna hunt. They may not all be racists, and they may not all be dangerous, but with Limbaugh and the rest of the enablers and encouragers, politicians and broadcast trash alike, fanning the flames of fear and hatred, they’re rapidly assuming the mentality of an angry mob.
The GOP rails against anyone who dares suggest that their extremist followers might be racist, but they’ll gladly toss the race bomb in the other direction whenever it suits their purpose...as Limbaugh clearly showed when discussing that school bus fight on his radio program. The very next day, when former President Jimmy Carter said that he believed much of the venom directed at President Obama was racially motivated, the big man almost lost his lunch on the air.
“Jimmy Carter is America’s hemorrhoid”, Limbaugh mockingly proclaimed.
To which Keith Olberman adroitly responded, during his show on MSNBC, “…Well, I’ll have to defer to Rush on that…because who would know more about hemorrhoids than America’s asshole”.
Oh snap! Apparently civil discourse must await another day.
And so it goes.
SC
We’ve all seen or heard any number of these Christian Evangelists on TV and/or radio over the years…some of them quite reasonable, but others so ridiculous that their routine is actually laughable. Well, in a way, that’s what Limbaugh has become… although there’s nothing either Christian or laughable about his act.
Rush Limbaugh is a ‘Hate Evangelist’. His core audience is the lunatic fringe of what has become the extreme right, extremely white wing of the Republican Party…the party of Abraham Lincoln for crying out loud. And this blustering, offensive man has these crazies in his pocket, lapping up all the vitriol and divisiveness and anti Barack Obama, anti Democrat garbage that he consistently vomits out of his pie hole.
His latest proselytizing concerned that incident that occurred on a school bus a few days ago, where a white student was, unfortunately, beaten up by some black students. Limbaugh described it as just another example of what it’s going to be like for white people to live in Barack Obama’s America. Nice…as if something like this, or the reverse of it, had never happened before he became President. And even though the police who investigated the incident said they found nothing to indicate it had been in any way racially motivated, that apparently wasn’t good enough for the odious Mr. Limbaugh.
He indignantly said of the police, “…they’re wrong”. That’s because he wants his listeners to believe IT WAS a racially motivated attack, and they will. Most of them believe whatever he tells them… and far too many of them, if so directed, would act on whatever he tells them too. And therein lies the very real problem with this alarmingly dangerous, hate-mongering, fear-mongering sack of crap… and every other bloviator of his ilk that’s on the air today. They’re dangerous, and they shouldn’t be allowed to spew their venom on our public airwaves.
To inflame the passions of his listeners and viewers even further, Limbaugh also opined, we can only hope jokingly, that perhaps we should return to segregated school buses for the safety of the country’s white students. Right, and then what, Rush…segregated schools, segregated neighborhoods, separate water fountains and public rest rooms, whites only restaurants and hotels. Pretty soon we’ll be back to the way it was before the Civil Rights Act…or is that actually what you want? It sure seems like it!
Much of the impact of broadcast trash such as Limbaugh, the frighteningly psychotic Glenn Beck, bullying blowhard Bill O’Reilly, self-serving apologist Sean Hannity, and the increasingly xenophobic Lou Dobbs, could be neutralized if someone from the GOP had the guts to stand up and say “Enough! These people and their paranoid, hateful disciples don’t speak for or represent me…and I don’t speak for or represent them. What they say and do bears no resemblance to my Republican Party”.
That’s what we’d like to hear, somebody in that party willing to take the first step towards bringing civility and sanity back to our political discourse and debate. But sadly it’s unlikely to happen because truth to tell, their de facto leader is Limbaugh...and there isn't one of them who'd be willing to risk the ire of Java The Hutt by speaking out against him or his herd.
Republicans decided over 40-years ago that no price was too high to pay in their quest for power…not even if it meant embracing Richard Nixon’s soul-selling Southern Strategy. It began with their courting of the Christian Right, and has evolved into this mélange of fanatics and extremists you see the GOP pandering to today…the people who show up at Town Hall meetings, and events such as the recent 9/12 assembly, brandishing guns and carrying those vile, racist, threatening posters you’ve seen so often in the news lately. The GOP has become so locked in, so beholden to this extreme right wing of THEIR party, that they likely couldn’t extricate themselves even if they wanted to…which, obviously, they don’t.
Republican political leaders claim these people are motivated by patriotism, not racism…and that their posters and guns and threats are just a way of expressing concern about America’s future. But that dog ain’t gonna hunt. They may not all be racists, and they may not all be dangerous, but with Limbaugh and the rest of the enablers and encouragers, politicians and broadcast trash alike, fanning the flames of fear and hatred, they’re rapidly assuming the mentality of an angry mob.
The GOP rails against anyone who dares suggest that their extremist followers might be racist, but they’ll gladly toss the race bomb in the other direction whenever it suits their purpose...as Limbaugh clearly showed when discussing that school bus fight on his radio program. The very next day, when former President Jimmy Carter said that he believed much of the venom directed at President Obama was racially motivated, the big man almost lost his lunch on the air.
“Jimmy Carter is America’s hemorrhoid”, Limbaugh mockingly proclaimed.
To which Keith Olberman adroitly responded, during his show on MSNBC, “…Well, I’ll have to defer to Rush on that…because who would know more about hemorrhoids than America’s asshole”.
Oh snap! Apparently civil discourse must await another day.
And so it goes.
SC
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