Tfgray’s Weblog

Well, the busses have left DC, and it’s safe for Liberals to go out now. I noticed an interesting glich in the videos of Michelle Bachmann’s event yesterday. Never mind that John Boehner got his Constitution and Declaration of Independence mixed up…I noticed the rewriting of the Pledge of Allegiance to read “…one nation, UNDER GOD, [their emphasis] with liberty and justice for all.”

Perhaps you noticed that those ultra-America-lovers removed the phrase, “indivisible.” from the pledge. Interesting.

I also read a piece on Sarah Palin’s run-hard-to-the-Right strategy, wondering if she really “sees things that others can’t,” or is truly, deeply out of touch with reality. I thought about it, and realized that her “strategy” isn’t a strategy, at least not in the sense of being a logically thought-out series of steps. I believe that we’re looking at Palin’s Faith in action. I’m somewhat familiar with the teachings of her church, and her actions make perfect sense within that context.

On the rightward verges of Christian Fundamentalism, you see, you are the boss of God. You Decree what you want, and God provides it. So strategy, in the conventional sense, is not needed. “The Abundance of The Lord Descends upon the Righteous,” as one of my born-again friends used to tell me constantly, so paid invitations to blather in Hong Kong and Iowa are a sign of God’s approval. To the uninitiated, it may seem like crass opportunism, but, according to the theology of such groups, if you’re doing it for Jesus, it’s okay. Whatever it is. Presumably, if it wasn’t God’s will for you to want it, then you wouldn’t, so there you have it. Sanctifed all around.

I read that she’ll be speaking to a small group of anti-abortion activists soon, and has forbidden the Media, cellphones, and all recording devices. It reminded me that her initial support, back in Wasilla, came from the Alaska Independence Party,a secessionist group with ties to Right-wing and racist organizations. Any guesses as to her topic or why it’s so hush-hush?

I suppose she’s tired of the media being mean to her by quoting her words exactly, but (tinfoil hat warning) isn’t the anti-abortion movement the part of the Right with the strongest record of violence  in recent days?

Ah, to be a fly on that wall.

After my last post, it occurred to me that perhaps the grown-ups in the Republican Party would put the kibosh on this primary-challenge-from-the-right strategy. Well, a couple of them have made noises in that direction: Newt and Phil Graham, to be precise, but it appears that, to the rightward edge, these guys are as much the enemy as any Dem. It seems pretty obvious, if you check polls and dig deeply into the nature of yesterday’s races and their results, that the right wing shattering of the Republican Party is highly unlikely to win elections for them.

But what if this is deliberate? Stick with me here, it’s loopy. So many of their statements invoke violence: Michelle Bachman’s “whites of their eyes” and “armed and dangerous,” Limbaugh’s comment that a global warming activist who said that global warming is man-made should save the planet by killing himself, that much-photographed tea party sign about being unarmed “this time.” Not to mention, of course, the actual shootings: of Dr. Tiller and at the Holocaust Museum. Their electoral strategy is the political equivalent of lemmings running off a cliff. One has to wonder what Mr. Koch, funder of tea parties and charter busses to DC, has in mind.

After their political strategy reaches it’s predictable conclusion, will he then advise his followers to take up weapons?

Okay, taking off my tinfoil hat now, and hoping that I am totally, totally wrong.

Everyone is poised to take their own lessons from last night’s election results. On the left, we have Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos:

GOP turnout remained the same as last year, but Democratic turnout collapsed. This is a base problem, and this is what Democrats better take from tonight:

1. If you abandon Democratic principles in a bid for unnecessary “bipartisanship”, you will lose votes.
2. If you water down reform in favor of Blue Dogs and their corporate benefactors, you will lose votes.
3. If you forget why you were elected — health care, financial services, energy policy and immigration reform — you will lose votes.

In the middle, we have John F. Harris and Jonathan Martin over at Politico who state:

The off-year elections were, in two big races, an unmistakable rebuke of Democrats, reshuffling Obama’s political circumstances in ways likely to have severe near-term consequences for his policy agenda and larger governing strategy….

Obama now faces a much tougher challenge persuading these mostly moderate Democrats to put themselves further at risk by backing such liberal priorities as expanding government’s role in heath care or limiting greenhouse gases.

I haven’t check the rightward edge yet, but stand by my prediction that they see the results as an endorsement of their views, despite the fact that both gubernatorial candidates presented themselves as moderates and the unabashedly conservative candidate lost.

Update: the ousting of an RNC-approved candidate in favor of a conservative is apparently now the standard for “victory,” even if the conservative loses the actual election. At least according to Dick Armey. Somewhere, Rahm Emmanuel has just fallen down laughing. Hopefully, Rahm will make the case to the Blue Dogs that any step toward getting the progressive base to the polls will work in their favor. Not holding my breath, but not writing off the possibility, either.

For the record, I’m with Kos, but regard Politico’s warning as valid advice, although I think they are being disingenuous by ignoring the fact that Corzine was an unpopular candidate (the White House initially tried to dissuade him from running) and the flabby nature of Creigh Deeds’ campaign. Still,the Blue Dogs will most likely respond by becoming less willing to support a liberal agenda, which means that the Obama Administration will need to respond to the desires of their base in order to increase the pool of voters and make future elections repeats of 2008. Will they see it that way, or take the easy, downhill road of cutting their jib to fit the prevailing winds from established power brokers and cash cow lobbyists? We’ll see. And speaking to the critique from the right, those disaffected with business as usual are as fertile a field for the Democrats as for the Republicans, providing the Dems can resist the siren song of Washington.

New prediction: there will be plenty of primary action in 2010 in both major parties, but the conservatives will be more likely to pick up their marbles and run as spoilers if their primary battles are lost.

I would like to add one comment to my previous post. As a history buff, I’ve noticed that any movement that becomes obsessed with ideological purity–the Jacobins of France, for example, or the SDS of the 60’s–is on the road to self -destruction. Also, apologies to Creigh, not Craig, Deeds for my misspelling.

I’ve been away, watching, but not commenting, on the 2009 elections. Events in the 23rd District of New York, in particular, appear to confirm my earlier prediction of Republican schism. So far, there are two sides to the split: the moderate, centrist flavor and the Extra Spicy conservative. I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that the Extra Spicy will itself split into the religious and libertarian factions, most likely just after the 2010 elections. (In a power struggle if they win; in a toxic fume of recrimination if not.)

The results are not all in yet, as I write, but so far Corzine and Deeds have succumbed, Bloomberg has held on in NYC, and Owens leads in New York State. Expect the Republicans to blame the losses on Obama. (Side note: Rep. Joe Wilson, who voted against funding for H1N1 vaccine production, is blaming his wife’s Swine Flu on Guess Who?) I think that Rachel Maddow and Jane Hamsher had an interesting take, however: that Corzine’s loss and Bloomberg’s fairly tight win had something to do with their association with Wall Street wealth. They both outspent their opponents massively and got a loss and a squeaker to show for it. This election is about the electorate turning away from a business-as-usual model that has benefited The Few to the tune of taxpayer billions.

Uncle Pat was on with Chris, claiming that this turn from business as usual would benefit his favorite brand of right wingery, but I have my doubts. I can see where the Right would turn away from the Republican Party, which consistently enlarged the national debt and instituted policies favorable to the wealthy. Unfortunately, the policies favored by the Right will exacerbate the concentration of wealth and pull the support system out from under everyone else. I disagree with his assertion that this is what the American people really want.

Meanwhile, despite Virginia’s amazingly consistent record of voting for a governor of a party opposite the president’s, despite Craig Deeds not particularly good campaign, despite Corzine’s personal unpopularity and so-so record, despite exit polls showing that about 60% of voters didn’t let their feelings for or against Obama affect their vote in the least, with the remainder being split fairly evenly for and against, there will be those only too willing to attribute the state-level losses to the president.

If Hoffman takes the 23rd, expect to hear nothing else for the next year.

This just in: Hoffman has conceded. Gazing into my crystal ball, I see the Extra Spicy crowd coming to the conclusion that if they’d just started backing Hoffman a little earlier, they’d have pulled it off. Chris Matthews was just on with a radio personality I’d never heard of, who announced that “all” Republican leadership must go, although he refused to mention anyone by name.  (Mostly he stuck with the buzzwords “Obama” and “Pelosi.”) Maybe I’m alone in this, but the way I see it, the Republican Party had a safe seat in upper New York State until Palin and Armey stuck their big noses in and dragged in some out-of-towner to hand the election to the Democrats. Encouraged by this turn of events, they plan to take it national, gunning for every Republican incumbent to the left of Attilla the Hun. Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

This should make for an interesting couple of years.

David Souter hasn’t retired yet (not until the end of the Court’s season, next month.) Barack Obama hasn’t nominated anyone yet. But boyola, are the Republicans opposed to his choice.

I have a simple suggestion that will end this partisan rancor while elevating someone entirely appropriate to Judicial Heaven, a person who is skilled in the practice of law, has government experience at the highest level, has very publicly put his regard for the law and the Constitution above his own career, and is, by God, a Republican.

John Dean.

How could they possibly object to him? Actually, it might be amusing to watch the Republican Party fall all over themselves complaining that Obama’s nominee was neither a woman nor a person of color.

(If you’d like to see what Mr. Dean has been up to lately, click here.)

After watching a TV clip re Obama’s little gift from Chavez, learning that the book is now #2 on Amazon.com, and that #1 is Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, I went and checked out Mark’s book. I already have decades worth of reading under my belt re El Norte’s not too shining historical relationship with our fellow American nations.

Levin begins, of course, with the ringing words of the Declaration–well, actually, that comes a page or so later, after he defines Conservatism as “…a way of understanding life, society, and governance.” He then goes on to cite a number of Enlightenment figures as having given birth to Conservative thought. Locke, Montiesque, Adam Smith.

I looked at that, and it occurred to me that those men were the radicals of their day. They proposed ideas that were utterly opposed to the European hierarchical world view and allegedly “divine” right of kings to rule. They bolstered their argument against a divinely-sanctioned rule of the masses by the nobility with the assertion that God, indeed, was on their side. In fact, the “Conservatives” of that day, those who wished to “conserve” the existing social order, were staunchly on the side of the King, “For God and King,” as they proudly put it.

Maybe the problem is that the Conservatives need a new name, at least those who wish to parade under the banner of Enlightenment philosophers. Was it not American Conservatives who instigated Jim Crow laws and resisted the dismantling of segregation? Was it not American Conservatives who opposed Roosevelt’s opposition to the rise of Nazi Germany and his support of Britain under the Lend Lease program? Was it not Conservatives who opposed–violently–the right of American workers to peaceably assemble and freely associate in unions?

Maybe this is the real dogfight in the Republican tent. The intellectual heirs of those noble Liberal philosophers (which is what they called themselves) are somehow trapped in bed with the intellectual descendants of those who burned witches and homosexuals at the stake. They are in bed with those who never found a war they weren’t willing to send someone else’s kids to fight. With those whose allegiance to their right to property transcends any other consideration, such as other people’s lives, liberties, and property. Those who voted to deregulate interest rates and restrict debtors’ access to bankruptcy. To dismantle environmental protections. To grant no-bid contracts to war profiteers.

You can go to the above link to the book and read the first few pages. He segues pretty quickly from his noble definition of Conservatism to equate Liberal philosophy with”Statism,” or a blind belief that the bigger the government, the better, by which definition that Conservative darling, Mr. Bush, must be the biggest Liberal of all. I also could not help but notice that he did not quote a single liberal or cite a single source to back up his claim on that topic. Liberals, he maintains, are just gung-ho to destroy the individual in their quest for the perfect state. We are imperfect human beings, he asserts, but Conservatives understand that, and don’t get too bothered by it. Which somehow explains why prison populations ballooned under the Bush Administration and Republicans were able to win elections by such tactics as calling triple amputee Max Cleland a coward and that whole thing about John McCain’s alleged “black baby.” 

After eight years of warrantless wiretapping and torture under Bush, it’s the Liberals who are trying to destroy our Constitutional underpinnings. (Okay, I’ll admit Obama has me nervous on that point these days.)

But still, yikes!

Although I give him credit for his historical references to Locke, et al, I find him engaging in the usual Right Wing game of attributing every evil to The Other, and all virtue to one’s co-believers.

Here’s my definition of Conservative, “One who wishes to hold onto current structures, because one finds an advantage in the existing structure.”  For example, Jim Crow kept Blacks from obtaining decent wages and equal treatment under the law. While I grant that abortion opponents sincerely believe in the sanctity of unborn life, lack of choice regarding the number and spacing of one’s children does put women at a disadvantage in the work force, giving men an advantage when it comes to hiring, promotions, and raises. Discrimination against gays likewise diminishes their earning potential. Environmental regulations, their opponents freely admit, gunk up the profit machine by insisting that they clean up after themselves and leave at least a couple of stones unturned now and again.

If the vision of the Founders was truly enacted, there would be no discrimination against anyone. Period. The notion that the Founders were religious men has been disproven over and over. They were Deists, Freemasons, for god’s sake, believers in God as Reason, not as a spiritual being. The notion that the Bible is the source of all morality is likewise ignorant nonsense. While Social Conservatives do sincerely believe that they have cornered the market of Moral High Ground, the agenda of the Republican Party has long been the protection of a wealthy minority by means of an appeal to anyone who will turn a blind eye to their own self-interest in order to further their own hobbyhorse: ending the right of a woman to choose; diminishing the right of blacks, gays, or anyone defined as “other” to compete freely in the workplace; ending those pesky laws protecting air and water; secession from the United States.

High-flown rhetoric aside, this is the working definition of the current Conservative movement, and its near total dominance under Bush has sown the seeds of its destruction. As people are forced by economic events to notice that their own interests have been damaged by Republican policies, they leave. Of course, a parallel trend will take place, as the number of those who feel that they cannot compete in the workplace unless the deck is stacked in their favor will rise, as well.  Not a good trend, that one.

Today’s prediction:

What passes for the Republican Party will become increasingly shrill, as those with any degree of moderation will become alienated from it. If the pronouncements of Hannity, Beck, Limbaugh, Malkin, Bachmann, et al signify a trend, the Party is looking to the militant fringe to bolster its numbers, pulling them in from the smaller parties to the Right, including the secessionist movement. (You’ll notice they’ve been making a full-court press for that constituency the past few months.) If you’ll read my earlier posts on Authoritarianism, you’ll find that such control freaks generally despise their followers as easily-manpulated idiots, and assume that they can, with a combination of smoke, mirrors, appeals to traditional belief systems, and cold hard cash, extend their control indefinitely.

Just like the Saudis fund the Jihadists, thinking to channel their religious beliefs to turn their aggressive instincts outward, toward the Other, in order to protect their own status and wealth.

Ask anybody. The Saudis are very Conservative.

Well, I wondered when this would come along, and didn’t have to wait long. Rush Limbaugh wept crocodile tears for the deaths of  ”black, Muslim, teenagers” on the order of President Obama. And referred to the pirates as “Merchant marine organizers.”

Scroll down to yesterday’s post, to the link to the Foreign Policy magazine article, “The Pirate Economy.” Oh, heck, I’ll save you the trouble of scrolling.

Where to start?

Words fail me,  so I will turn the blog over to my evil right-wing twin, Rhonda Rayguns, to explain.

“Pirates are the coolest example of pure lassez fair capitalism out there! No rules! What could be better? You see, it’s the way of nature that the strong should suceed and the weak get eaten, right? I mean, it’s a business. You’ve got wealthy Somalis without jack shit to invest in, I mean Somalia’s practically a desert.  So they look at this great profit opportunity, all those big freighters and oil tankers cruising past and they see an opportunity. They finance starving fishermen , buy them guns so they can attack the ships and hold them for ransom. This is called “job creation.” How could anyone in their right mind be against creating jobs for poor fishermen? I suppose we’re just supposed to send them free food? And it gives further stimulus to the global economy by all that money moving through insurance companies, and then, of course, there will be future job creation as the merchant ships arm thenselves and hire mercenaries. See, it’s a win-win situation!”

If you don’t believe me, read Frank’s book, particularly the chapter, “The Bantustan that Roared” about Saipan, a beautiful tropical island that has become one of the sweatshop hellholes of the world. (Part sweatshop hellhole, part horny tourist mecca, actually.) Well, Somalia’s not quite up to Saipan’s level. You see, Saipan actually has a government. One controlled by the businessmen running the sweatshops, and it has a police force, which it really needs. Otherwise, who would go out and beat the snot out of those uppity guest workers when they ask for decent working conditions?

When you look at the rhetoric coming from the Right, about secession, about protesting Obama’s tax cuts, about the general hatred and loathing of all things Government, right down to public schools, you really have to wonder what their goal is.

So long as you are looking at the guys out in the street, nothing makes much sense, unless you figure that just by getting pissed off you can bring back a job for hubby that will let wifey stay home and homeschool the kids. Okay, maybe you have to click your heels together three times, or something.

Never mind that American corporations massively increased their profits by outsourcing better-paying manufacturing jobs. Never mind that $100 billion tax dollars each year sit tidily in off-shore bank accounts, running up tax bills for all those guys with tea bags decorting thier hats. Never mind that American post-WWII prosperity rested upon the bedrock of cheap oil prices and abundant domestic supplies, which increased drillling will not restore.

“We’re running out! “

“I know how to fix it! We’ll use it up faster!!”

Obviously, at least according to these guys,  the reason they’re feeling the squeeze is: Taxes!

However there’s another way to look at all this. it’s a concerted effort by the biggest of businesses and their owners to eternally and infinitely increase profit at the expense of everyone else. And the consequences of that, which history has shown over and over, (including the society contemporary to our original Revolution) is tyranny, the rule of the many by the few.

In this brave new world we live in, all this talk of destroying the rights and the very livelihoods of Americans is now called Freedom, and ripping the country into a collection of sovereign states, Patriotism. Let’s hope the dittoheads wake up to how they are beig manipulated soon, before they get what they ask for.

It’s been a fascinating few weeks. Mexico is pretty close to a Feds vs. Heads civil war, armed by us, Iraq continues to be a dangerous neighborhood, Afghanistan gets worse, and prepares to add us to the list of empires that ended their existence by invading them, screwy things continues to go on on Wall Street, with the screwers being paid handsomely by the screwees via the magic of the Bailout.

The Right has lit a major firestorm over Obama’s use of the teleprompter, which is sort of like criticizing him for being able to read. Michael Steele has declared  that his feud with Limbaugh, and subsequqent groveling was a deliberate strategy to “discover who the enemy is and who’s inside the tent.” I’m not sure whether he ascertained that Limbaugh is the enemy or “inside the tent,” but I sure wish that the interviewer had asked. Michelle Bachmann is determined to protect us against our dollars not being the world’s default currency, by writing a bill that prevents us from doing something that has nothing to do with creating a worrld currency. House and Senate Republicans unveil their budget  outline  template, or, in the words of Captain Barbossa, “More like guidelines, actually.” I really like the part about how we will get out of debt by reducing taxes by 30% on the taxpayers who allegedly pay 87% of all income tax. Palin’s high schoolish V.P. debate performance was due to her not being able to get anyone to pray with her beforehand, not due to any lack on her part. Glen Beck wrapped a dead fish on his show [I could not, for the life of me understand the point., but he seemed to think he was pretty funny naming it Larry and talking to it.] Oh, and Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurtzelbacher is horny.

 It’s sad to watch a once, or at least occasionally, great party (Lincoln, Eisenhower) fall into babbling incoherence. It’s even sadder to realize how much power they still wield. It’s frightening to think that there are 16 nationally elected Democrats who are willing to stand with them against President Obama’s budget.

Poltico just outed the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy known as Journolist. OMG!OMG! Liberals talk to each other!!!! How evil!!!  Where do I sign up?

Apparently the fact that some reporters and bloggers get story ideas from other reporters and bloggers, as opposed to, say, reading about them in the newspaper or seeing them on TV, or hearing them on the radio, or–god forbid–in person is evidence of Nefarious Doings.

Apparently, this is also proof that the Bush White House memo-fueled Right Wing Echo chamber never existed. (I’ts apparently falling apart without those daily faxes. Within the last week or so Bill O’Reilly announced victory in the War on Terror while Sean Hannity announced surrender in the same alleged war.) Or that Sun Moon never funded the Washington Post, or that Reagan’s White House Office of Public Diplomacy never threatened journalists and editors who strayed beyond the Spin Zone.

This is the classic Right Wing excuse for everything. They’re doing it! They did it first! When they do it, it’s evil, but when we do it, it’s good! Because we’re the Good Guys! And they’re the Bad Guys, so everything they do is Bad! Go ahead, substitute any word you want for ‘Journolist”… How about “torture”…”suppression of human rights”…”teenage pregnancy”…

Just because they are morally and politically bankrupt, don’t expect them to go away. Hell, AIG’s still in business.

ps–if you google “journolist” you will find this excellent site on internet skills for journalists (and anyone else interested in research.) This is a great resource and worth bookmarking.

Just a note pertaining to a previous post, Their Pork, Your Pig Farm, My Porkchop:

Pig odor is not just about aesthetics. Eau de Hogfarm is linked to a host of ailments including depression and asthma. You can read about the scary details here. Kudos to Salon.com.

Like other environmental issues, it’s a public health issue. Why do Republicans think that’s so funny?