GOP: The Party of Fear, Loathing, and Mongering

For a few magnificent moments, America seemed awash in good vibes, sunlit vistas, brotherly-sisterly love, dreams being fulfilledk ancient rivalries turning to handshakes, other cheeks being turned, kisses and hugs being given, earth looking forward to peace and change, and peace on a well-balanced albeit agonizingly slow fall towards earth. It was the Obama Moment. The greatest ushering-in of any Presidential Era in living, maybe even historical, memory. But now...

They're back. The Republicans, that is. And with them, fear, fear-mongering, loathing, loathing-mongering, orneriness, orneriness-mongering, backtracking and backtrack-mongering. They stand as one, united, to be something, anything, as long as it represents the Opposers, The Id, Defiance, Rebellion, The Contrarian, and in this case, just saying "NO!" to bailing out an economy they and their cohorts, Bushies all, trashed. They trashed the economy with their voodoo Reaganomics on megalying speed, and now that it's tanking, they say, to the last man and woman, "No Safety Net!"

Why? Because the Republicans have adopted the oxymoronic slogan "Country First, Government Last." Reagan succeeded to instill the Republican Collective Consciousness with this idea that Government=Evil, aka Big Government=Big Evil. Which makes one wonder why Republicans would ever elect one of their own to such a cabal as "Government" in order to actually run it? If it is evil, what does that say about Reagan? He was a part of what? A fishing expedition?

Ah, no, good Republicans enter government in order to supposedly "minimize" it or get rid of it. At least that's the line. The reality is the diametrical opposite. Under Republican leadership, the government has grown so big neither we, nor the combined wealth of the planet, can afford it. Of course, we're not talking about social programs. We're talking about that giant sitting Holy Bear called the Pentagon. And don't forget Homeland Security. IN other words, government has been slowly replaced by military and police functions, which are invading every aspect of life - under Republican leadership, of course. So bailing out an economy that tanked over lies and wars and more lies and more wars and more Ponzi schemes and more lies to coverup the Ponzi schemes that benefit the rich and trash the non-rich --- correcting their mistakes and rehabilitating America from the robbery, waste and con job pulled by Republican leadership and Republican government, that's not on their job description.

In short, Republicans don't do repairs. They only do destruction. So there they are, saying "no" to Obama's gigantic stimulus plan at a time when everyone who knows anything says we must take action fast, and quibbling about minutiae while ignoring their own man-eating Pentagon Bear that we can no longer afford to feed but he's devouring everything in sight anyway. There they are, representing their constituents by guaranteeing they won't find jobs any time soon in the civilian sector. There they are, counting on the Pentagon to do some hiring. Problem is, the Pentagon requires one thing they don't like to talk about - GARGANTUAN, HUGE GOVERNMENT SPENDING. And another thing: WAR. Without war, what's the point? So they want wars to get government spending to keep jobs to do what? What economy?

It seems the whole purpose of the Republican Party is to make government collapse so the people can have what they really want, a choice between anarchy (Individual Choice!) and a police state (Keep America Safe!). They do this by undercutting and deriding the whole purpose of government and the Constitution they are supposedly sworn on Bibles to uphold.

Their modus operandi is twofold:

1. Convince the public that they must be always afraid and "vigilant".

2. Show real or imagined enemies that we've got balls by acting as kickass mean and nasty as possible. At least by refusing things. Especially things that sound good. Things that sound compassionate (bleeding heart! ick!) should be refused. Things that sound peaceful (surrender!) should be refused. Things that sound helpful (liberal wimps!) should be refused. Things that relate to education or health care (socialism!) should be refused.

The GOP is the party of refusal. Why should anyone expect anything else? Let's just hope there's a post-mortem on this. Maybe some real Conservatives will come out of the GOP's well-deserved demise and do something to actually conserve things - like fiscal conservatives trying to rein in the excesses of the rich, like environmental conservatives trying to rein in excesses of the polluters, or even pro-life conservatives trying to rein in excesses of the killing machines let loose by neocons. Now that's a conservatism we can work with. Together, for a long time, and a genuine future. But where is it? Where are the conservatives? Locked up in the lies and betrayals of the GOP.

Time to say to the GOP, RIP.

How Immigration Stimulates Economy: Case In Point

This article gives a case where immigrants literally saved a town in Maine - by stimulating their economy. How?

Barely a decade ago, Lewiston, Maine, was dying. The once bustling mill town's population had been shrinking since the 1970s; most jobs had vanished long before, and residents (those who hadn't already fled) called the decaying center of town "the combat zone." That was before a family of Somali refugees discovered Lewiston in 2001 and began spreading the word to immigrant friends and relatives that housing was cheap and it looked like a good place to build new lives and raise children in peace. Since then, the place has been transformed. Per capita income has soared, and crime rates have dropped. In 2004, Inc. magazine named Lewiston one of the best places to do business in America, and in 2007, it was named an "All-America City" by the National Civic League, the first time any town in Maine had received that honor in roughly 40 years. "No one could have dreamed this," says Chip Morrison, the local Chamber of Commerce president. "Not even me, and I'm an optimist."

It's not just that Maine has a low birth rate. Why does it have a low birth rate? Lack of diversity. So it's not just people, but people of diverse backgrounds, that stimulates the economy. Think Obama. Think immigration, too.

Commerce isn't all the Somalis are reshaping. Maine has America's highest median age and the lowest percentage of residents under 18. Throughout the 1990s, the state's population of 20- to 30-year-olds fell an average of 3,000 a year. Demographers predict that by 2030, the state will have only two workers for each retiree. "In many small Maine towns they're looking at having to close schools for lack of schoolchildren," says State Economist Catherine Reilly. "It will snowball. Right now we're seeing the difficulty of keeping some schools open; in 10 or 15 years that's going to be the difficulty of businesses finding workers." The same ominous trend is seen in other states with similarly homogenous demographics and low numbers of foreign-born residents—states like Montana, North Dakota and West Virginia. Reilly adds: "If you told a demographer just our racial composition, they would be able to guess that we're an old state with a low birthrate."

Want to do something really patriotic, good for America? Encourage immigration.

Take that, Lou Dobbs!

Taxpayers Alert: Meet the Madoff Pentagon, A Money-Burning Machine

Think of the Pentagon, and you think of security, right? Think again. The Pentagon may just be the U.S. taxpayers' Bernie Madoff. It's the biggest drag on the economy, and the reason is not because we need what it burns money on. The reason is not that the "world is a dangerous place" and we need "protection", and protection costs what it costs. We need what the Pentagon is paying our lifeblood and treasure on less than we need a huge Ponzi scheme to keep our economy from totally tanking. Chalmers Johnson at Tomdispatch really turned the world inside-out on this one.

Worried about pork-barrel spending? Maybe you should worry about the defense budget.

Given our economic crisis, the estimated trillion dollars we spend each year on the military and its weaponry is simply unsustainable. Even if present fiscal constraints no longer existed, we would still have misspent too much of our tax revenues on too few, overly expensive, overly complex weapons systems that leave us ill-prepared to defend the country in a real military emergency. We face a double crisis at the Pentagon: we can no longer afford the pretense of being the Earth's sole superpower, and we cannot afford to perpetuate a system in which the military-industrial complex makes its fortune off inferior, poorly designed weapons.

A trillion a year? On what? Oh, those wonderful, wonderful wars and their flying machines.

It is hard to imagine any sector of the American economy more driven by ideology, delusion, and propaganda than the armed services. Many people believe that our military is the largest, best equipped, and most invincible among the world's armed forces. None of these things is true, but our military is, without a doubt, the most expensive to maintain. Each year, we Americans account for nearly half of all global military spending, an amount larger than the next 45 nations together spend on their militaries annually.

Equally striking, the military seems increasingly ill-adapted to the types of wars that Pentagon strategists agree the United States is most likely to fight in the future, and is, in fact, already fighting in Afghanistan -- insurgencies led by non-state actors. While the Department of Defense produces weaponry meant for such wars, it is also squandering staggering levels of defense appropriations on aircraft, ships, and futuristic weapons systems that fascinate generals and admirals, and are beloved by military contractors mainly because their complexity runs up their cost to astronomical levels.

That most of these will actually prove irrelevant to the world in which we live matters not a whit to their makers or purchasers. Thought of another way, the stressed out American taxpayer, already supporting two disastrous wars and the weapons systems that go with them, is also paying good money for weapons that are meant for fantasy wars, for wars that will only be fought in the battlescapes and war-gaming imaginations of Defense Department "planners."

So we've got an economy about to go over a cliff, and yet we spend billions on weapons systems that we will never use, to satisfy the fantasies of admirals and generals and other military-related beneficiaries? Well...yes.

So when we talk about "stimulating" the economy, maybe we should talk about cutting spending and cutting pork. Not birth control-type nickel-&-dime pork. Big, lousy, wasteful, useless, dead-weight, sink-the-national-treasury Pentagon pork.

It has nothing to do with security, but everything to do with procurement and the good ol' boy system. Oh, and PR. Lots of lies and PR. Is that really "conservative"? Sounds very very liberal to me - as in "use liberally".

What do people struggling to make ends meet need with a 6.2-billion dollar aircraft carrier designed to fight the Cold War? It was probably commissioned, like the one named in 2009 for Bush I, to pat some old political hack/warrior on the back with his outdated dream. And we put people in prison for not paying a few thousand in self-employment taxes (which are required for anyone with over $400 in income - like he can afford to pay taxes on $400! - talk about preference for the big corporation!).

It's time to think twice about those "guaranteed" Pentagon budgets, to think twice when you think that paying for anything labeled "military" means you'll be more secure. The opposite is true. By paying for way overpriced, outdated equipment, we are sinking the whole country ... and none of those fancy flying machines, etc., will be able to lift one square mile of us out of that sinkhole.

Taxpayers, unite! Screw the Pentagon, and tell your Congresspeople they'll have to think before they spend.

Messagee to Congress: Don't Let Bush Get Away With This!

The headline blares from the New York Times:

Administration Is Seeking $700 Billion for Wall Street

What was that again?
Yes, the worst Administration in US history is now asking for 700 BILLION DOLLARS TO BAIL OUT WALL STREET1

The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.

And by way of excuse, Bush says

“I will tell our citizens and continue to remind them that the risk of doing nothing far outweighs the risk of the package, and that, over time, we’re going to get a lot of the money back.”

Yeah, right. I'm sure. And this means we can watch the dollar come tumbling down, not to mention the potential for admission of wrongdoing by greedy speculators, let alone the neocons for pushing rampant speculation as the ultimate moral high ground. Didn't we hear that government was the Great Satan?

So how come we now have to pray to the Great Satan to bail out those Wall Street angels who were there saving us from government and its evil democratic regulations?

Democratic leaders have pledged to approve a bill but say it must also include tangible help for ordinary Americans in the form of an economic stimulus package.

Yes, let's give the taxpayers a rebate too. The winner in all this? The people who profit from materials provided to the US mint? Money engravers? Doesn't this whole thing smack of counterfeiting somehow?

Did somebody say it's because of deregulation? Or maybe because of the trillions going to the War Without End Amen? Whatever it is, it's courtesy of the Grand Ole Party, inherited by the forked-tongue-speaking John McCain.