The Republicans have tipped their hand -- spilled it all over the floor, actually -- and demonstrated beyond doubt that they are solely dedicated to crippling any idea that Americans should have hope, that Americans should be nothing less than afraid and that history and facts are merely vague, noisy complexities, not of any real use to anyone and ultimately up for grabs.
And it is now clear that anything that comes from the Right Wing purporting to be factual analyses of social and political issues is invariably propaganda, much of it a cunning mixture of outright lies with some factual details and factoids woven into the mix to give it an air of credibility. Witness Mitt's incessant lie-stream and Fox's round-the-clock trumpeting of divisive memes, pouring into the media culture like so much bilge water.
But make no mistake: the years that comprise the Obama administration will be described as The War Years, not only for the inherited wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but as much for the war being waged on our own turf, emanating from within the think tanks and daily memos distributed by the far-reaching Right Wing machine.
The war on government being waged is fundamentally a war on Democracy. It's a war that is being waged strategically and continually and is now being fought in the open, as the GOP contenders having hogged the airwaves and congressional halls for so long that there is no way for the Right Wing to utilize its prime strategy of causing knee-jerk responses to hot-button issues -- everyone and everything's been given far too much airtime.
And even the dedicated ditto-heads and loyal Rep-bots who follow their orders without question are starting to see the holes in the repeated arguments, smell the proverbial rat; the geniuses and demagogues who profess to wage this war on behalf of their patriotic and steadfast audience are being spotted for the turncoat corporate shills they actually are, and are even seeing their reviled Obama as anything but the Socialist oppressor pig the brazen propagandists have painted him as being since he was duly elected.
But hell, this is Capitalist America and they are just doing the job for which they are well paid. They have mastered the selling of America, managing to buy up all the old fashioned version, hollow it out and resell it to a now hungry and desperate demographic.
And maybe more than a "teachable moment", this is actually an "evolution moment", where the two primordial elements that determine the course taken by a civilized society clash, naked, in a battle for dominance, all subtlety stripped away. No wonder the Right Wing has made a fetish of decrying Evolution and would put all its stock in myth rather than reality.
So now, thanks to their own overwhelming thirst for power and profit, they have exposed themselves and their aims more than they ever have. From openly stating to make Obama a one-term president, to killing all legislation, to shutting down the government, to killing social services, to selling out the middle class, to deregulating industry, and on and on and on, the Right has discarded all pretense of being at all involved in the Democratic process upon which this country was funded. They have come out in the open, at last.
Good.
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War with Iran, at a time when we were already engaged in two other disastrous wars, McCain kept up his ongoing call to "bomb, bomb Iran."
The 2009 stimulus that Obama pushed through, prevented an economic collapse not seen since the Great Depression.
We know what President McCain's "stimulus" proposal was. $500 billion in tax breaks for the wealthy, and ZERO funding for anything that would have actually stimulated the economy.
There's lots more to consider as to how these two men differ in their ideas of course, but avoiding a third Middle-Eastern war along with a new Great Depression, should be enough to make anyone grateful for the results of the 2008 Presidential election.
Oh, and then there's Vice President Sarah Palin...
I have no doubt that if Hillary was president, we would be deeper in Iraq instead of out, even deeper in Afghanistan rather than organizing an exit, and at war with Iran, all to serve the profiteering oil and defense industry profiteers that brought the Clintons to power and have made them mega millionaires.
Wake up Steven (love you btw), they all work for the same people. All you have to do to see what is REALLY going on is to look at where the 2 sides easily agree:
Arrest and detention of US citizens with no trial in the NDAA. (there's a section that says the President is not *required* to use this, but the bill says he CAN which is why Obama himself said it goes against core American principles).
More union busting under the lie "free trade" (nobody noticed when in the midst of supposed partisan hatred, the most recent agreement sailed right through, including trading "equally" with Columbia where Union leaders are routinely murdered).
Both sides bailed out Wall Street, and Barney Frank was the biggest obstacle to auding the Fed, which would get people thinking about Monetary Reform HR6550 - the only way out of the debt crisis.
Obama has caved on all his anti-Bush promises to restore the rule of law internationally and repair America's image, no end to extraordinary rendition, Guantanamo's open for business as usual.
Obama/Clinton are gearing up for war with Iran with the same pseudo-information about WMD's that got us into Iraq, even as Pinheada openly admits the truth that Iran is not currently pursuing nuclear weapons.
Etc.
Great article Steve. The boldness of these new Republicans in their endeavor to protect the interests of the few only goes to underscore the fact that they no longer care who knows it.
Where has this guy been for the past ten years?
Oh brother....
They know this, and they know they are not far from getting exactly what they want - a total corporatist govt. No democracy for the GOP - they want us sheep to follow what they say. We can't let them get control of govt any time soon for it will be a long, long time before we recover.
Quick note: in your last sizeable paragraph, I think the word you're looking for is 'founded'.
I believe it should be 'the Democratic process on which this country was 'founded'. Not 'funded.
(Although in the case of Republicans, and many of the Democrats, it might be an apt Freudian slip.)
Keep it up.