Tuesday, September 1, 2009

BEWARE THE CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN PIRATES!






"AAARRRGGGHHH! I'M A
CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN,
AND I HATE ALL DEMOCRATS, PROGRESSIVES, LIBERALS,
AND ESPECIALLY OBAMA!"


------------------


Ahoy, mateys! If you thought the only pirates left in the world today were those harassing ships off the coast of Somalia, you're dead wrong. There are a whole boatload of them operating alongside and within today's pathetic, far-right, conservative Republican Party.

You know the type. They noisily force their way on board the ships of progressive legislation and good governance, and then they hijack the truth, carving it up and turning it into distorted lies to suit their own purpose. You've seen them in action numerous times: Pirate Queen Sarah Palin spitting out lies about how President Obama's national health care reform agenda would create "death panels"; Cap'n Rush Limbaugh and his bumbling parrot, First Mate Glenn Beck, spewing venomous lies about President Obama being a fascist racist and his health care plan being "socialized medicine"; and other ships' mates like Senator Charles Grassley and health insurance lobbyists making irresponsibly false, rabblerousing statements about how a public option for health care would "pull the plug on grandma." Yet other reckless sword swingers like Mitch McConnell, Eric Cantor, Jon Kyl, and John Boehner have put their "NO!" Oars into the water in an effort to stall the vessels of progressive legislation and good governance altogether, so as to drive them into a Sargasso Sea of big money dominance, where allied corporate, special interest pirates can sink the vessels completely. Yeah, these conservative Republican pirates are all baddies, but they're not the worst of the lot. The worst pirates are those shadowy, far-right front groups which are set up and funded by secretive ultra-conservative multimillionaires and who create misleading ad campaigns to confuse and scare the public into rejecting the progressive agenda completely.

I saw a print media ad a couple of days ago from one of these sinister pirate groups called "U.S. Citizens Association." This is another in a long list of far-right front organizations set up by lobbyists, corporations, and wealthy ultra-conservatives to look as though it is composed of average, everyday Americans who oppose progressive legislation, and somehow sprung up out of nowhere to voice their concerns. Nothing could be further from the truth. The persons behind this group are deceitful liars. It turns out that their predecessor organization was called "Better Government Association." This was a direct name rip-off of the Chicago-based Better Government Association, Inc., a reputable nonpartisan watchdog group which has been targeting government corruption since 1923. This REAL Better Government Association filed suit in Federal Court against these rip-offs and the Courts sided with the authentic, original group, forcing these new conservative phonies to adopt their name change. The new "U.S. Citizens Association" which resulted is now actively engaged in fundraising, as was evidenced in the ad I saw. It purports to be a nonpartisan group of regular citizens, but a visit to its website reveals no information about its financial backers, officers, or founders, and it obviously has enough money to publish ads in suburban newspapers all over the country and defend itself in court. No loose-knit group of average citizens could possibly be THAT well funded---smells VERY fishy to me!

The ad in question is titled "Barack Obama and the Democrats did not inherit the bad economy; they caused it and made it worse." (Of course, only uniformed idiots would buy this junk. After all, the economy tanked in December, 2007, 13 months BEFORE Obama took office, and, as a result of his stimulus effort begun this spring, unemployment is now starting to ease its rate of climb, housing starts and home sales are up, and the stock market is rising). The subheading goes on to say "They now want to bankrupt the nation with socialized medicine and socialized energy taxes." As if that weren't enough, these charlatans then have another subheading stating, "This will greatly increase your income taxes, property taxes, utility bills and you will be denied health care." (Obvious bull, because the President has constantly pledged to NOT raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 per year, and the aim of his health care plan is to ensure that EVERYONE has access to affordable, quality health care. The only ones denying anyone health care are these conservative Republican pirates and their bankrollers, the health insurance industry)! Then, as if in a wanted poster, they picture Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, Franklin Raines, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, and Barack Obama under a headline reading "These are the leading culprits who actually caused the subprime mortgage collapse which then caused the worldwide deep recession." The ad, which is formatted to look like a legitimate news article, is a twisted lie from start to finish.

No mention at all is made of the huge role played over the past 11 years by former Texas Senator Phil Gramm and other congressional ReRepublicans to greatly reduce regulations on banks and energy speculators, and how this set the stage for years of sloppy lending practices and $4 per gallon gasoline. (Conservative Republicans were in total control of Congress and the White House for the overwhelming majority of that time. If they were such great gatekeepers of the economy, how then did this irresponsible economic tampering come about, and how, then, are Democrats responsible)? No mention at all is made of Republican-instigated efforts to enact unrestricted free trade deals that have caused millions of jobs to go overseas, depressing wage scales and job levels here at home. (They reveled in the booty they got for keeping the minimum wage frozen for ten full years, too)! Not a word is uttered, either, about how Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush all but destroyed labor unions in this country, and how that has further depressed wages here and lowered our standard of living. And no mention is made at all about how gigantic tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, initiated and passed by conservative Republicans, has all but bankrupted our government. Nor is mention made that it was the Bush, and not the Obama White House, which overspent wildly in Iraq on a war that did not need to be fought, or that it was Bush, and not Obama, who instigated the first gigantic corporate bailouts. Instead, all these dishonest pirates do is blame Democrats and "liberal socialists." Their selective and jaded memory is disgusting.

The body of their ad contains one crazy far-right allegation after another: that Obama and the Democrats are on the verge of changing the U.S. from a capitalist country to a socialist one "more like Cuba and North Korea"; "during the past 8 years, the Democratic party political action group ACORN pressured banks to give mortgages to people who could not afford them"; under a public option health care plan "senior citizens especially will be denied healthcare, including those on Medicare"; "the United Kingdom and Canada, both of which have socialized medicine, are overwhelmed with cases of people dying waiting for treatment"; "the Obamas throw lavish parties on a regular basis at the White House for their socialist friends", "in capitalist countries only 10% of the people temporarily live in poverty. In socialist countries, 99% of the people live in poverty permanently."

None of these allegations are footnoted or referenced with verifiable fact, and ALL of them are patently absurd.

I don't see Obama shutting down newspapers and TV networks or setting up camps for political prisoners, or redistributing land and putting everyone in the country on a government payroll like what has occurred in Cuba or North Korea, do you? Of course not. ACORN, a group devoted to registering poor and minority citizens to vote, has no influence whatsoever over banks and is NOT an organ of the Democratic Party; senior citizens will NOT lose medical coverage under a public option; Canadians, Britons, Danes, Swedes, Dutchmen, the French, Australians, and New Zealanders are NOT dropping dead on the streets of their cities due to delayed medical care under their "socialized medicine" systems; the Obamas' parties are no more lavish than were the Bushes' (either of them), the Clintons', the Reagans', the Fords', the Johnsons', or any other of their predecessurs' parties; the U.S. Census official poverty rate was 12.5% in 2007 and rose to 12.7% in 2008, so that esposes another of this ad's blatant lies. And many of those people in that unfortunate category are NOT there "temporarily" but permanently. And I'd love the U.S. Citizens Association to tell the citizens of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, or France that 99% of them live in poverty. The USCA would be laughed at hysterically and met with deserved catcalls, for none of those countries has income extremes or abject poverty levels anywhere remotely approaching ours, and the USCA would certainly consider them to be socialist economies. The U.S. Citizens Association, like nearly all of its far-right counterparts, is simply long on allegation, innuendo, and hyperbole, but fatally short on fact. They are full of excrement.


You won't ever see the full truth presented in any of these far-right, conservative Republican pirate ads. These thieves repeatedly steal from all of us, blatantly siphoning money from the poor and middle class, and then funneling it up to the very wealthy in a sordid form of reverse income redistribution. They scream "class warfare" when the government lowers taxes on the middle class and poor but raises them even slightly on the piggish ultra-rich. Then they lie about, and blame somebody else, for the vast income shift from bottom to top that has occurred in this country for the past 30 years. Liars like this U.S. Citizens Association ought to be made to walk the plank at knifepoint for the myths they've perpetrated and the people they've scared and brainwashed. So be sure to warn all your friends and fellow seafarers to watch out for this filthy little deceitful bunch of scalawags. Meanwhile, I again call out to everybody everywhere from my perch in this crow's nest...

BEWARE THE CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICAN PIRATES!

10 comments:

mud_rake said...

Pirates! Yes they are and just as nasty as those Somali pirates. And just as ignorant, I might add.

They, like the pirates, have but one driving concept that rules their lives- the need for power.

Your analogy to pirates, however, actually does a disservice to the grand and glorious pirates of our history books. At least they wore the pirate costume so that all could see their actions.

What about suggesting the GOP change the flag pin to a pirate's flag? I'm just saying...

Jack Jodell said...

Good points, mid_rake! You're right about the classical pirates more honestly dressing themselves in recognizable pirate costumes. The U.S. Citizens Association truth assassins, in contrast, hide their faces in cowardice, like snipers. I see Vigilante of Sozadee, CA is now referring to the hard core right wing as the "reich-wing". I like that, too.

Dr. Douglas said...

Scientists Discover A Cure For Low Libido (impotence) which Is totally natural
--------------------------------------------------------
The use of Butea Superba compared to sildenafil for treating low libido & erectile dysfunction

Published Friday, 21 August 2009

• Karolinska Institute, CKK Urologic Oncology Group, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Urology Service, University Hospital 'Dr José E. González' UANL, Monterrey, NL, México.
To evaluate the effect of an extract of Butea superba (BS) compared to sildenafil for treating erectile dysfunction & Low Libido.
THE OBJECT OF THE TEST-
An open label study was carried out among 32 men with organic erectile dysfunction (ED) to evaluate the response on the International Index of Erectile Function 5(IIEF-5) to Butea Superba, a 'natural health' product (50mg), compared to 50 mg of sildenafil (a phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor). After a 1-week wash-out, responders to Butea received either 100 mg starch or 100 mg of another batch of Butea (double-blind).
Of the patients in the Butea group, 27 (84%) responded positively, compared with 26 (81%) in the sildenafil group. When assessing the score alone, 12 (38%) had a better score after taking Butea, compared to seven (22%) after sildenafil, and eight (25%) had the same score. The results were surprising. A 'natural' health product containing Butea Superba was more effective than sildenafil in the study.
Written by:
Cortés-González JR, Arratia-Maqueo JA, Gómez-Guerra LS, Holmberg AR
Butea Superba can be obtained online at http://www.healthyed.co.uk The Butea in HealthyhED pills is supplied direct from Thailand where it is grown and distributed under government control. This regulation ensures a high potency and guarantees the maintenance of an international standard.

Max's Dad said...

The ads are laughable to anyone with the capability for linear thinking. Of course, that's my concern. Is it just me or are people getting dumber?

Jack Jodell said...

Dr. Douglas, I presume you are commenting on my previous post, not this one.
------------
Max's Dad,
I've had that same thought, especially when you see morons at Town Hall meetings saying stuff like "keep the government out of my Medicare!" There are an awfully large number of half-baked people out there, I'm afraid.

Jack Jodell said...

mud_rake,
For some reason I can't access your blog anymore. Have you "uninvited" me for some reason? Thanks.
Jack

Marc McDonald said...

Not only is the U.S. not moving in the direction of "socialism" (unless you count socialism for the rich), but the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, even under Obama.

I can't find the URL at the moment, but there was just a new story released that said that the gap in pay between CEOs and rank-and-file workers has continued to widen under Obama and is now the widest in history.

CEOs now make something like 300 times what the average worker makes. By contrast, this multiple was only around 30 back in the 1960s.

Even the Robber Baron J. P. Morgan once remarked back in the 1800s that if the CEO/worker pay gap exceeded 20, that the U.S. could face serious social unrest.

Jack Jodell said...

It is indeed criminal, Marc. Unfortunately, this is becoming a worldwide occurrence. Class warfare has been declared on the poor and middle class by the wealthy elite and their corporations, and now they're carpet bombing us non-stop with economic atom bombs. If that's not piracy of the largest order, I don't know what is! Also, if not instigating it, today's conservatives and Republicans are aiding and abetting this very unhealthy and undesirable phenomenon!

Marc McDonald said...

re:
>>>Unfortunately, this is becoming
>>>a worldwide occurrence.

Yes, thanks to the rabidly pro-"globalization" efforts of the likes of the WTO.

However, having said that, believe it or not, I'm not necessarily against all corporations. I think that there ARE good corporations out there---but they are ONLY doing good things for society, because they are forced to.

There's a number of good corporations in places like Continental Europe and Japan. They are actually a force for good in society. They don't do massive layoffs of thousands of workers. And their CEOs are paid extremely modest salaries (often only around 10 times what the average worker makes).

However, what makes these corporations "good" is that places like Continential Europe and Japan heavily regulate corporations and FORCE them to behave in society's best interests.

The ironic thing is that intelligent regulations can actually make a corporation more competitive globally. A company like Toyota or Daimler faces vastly more regulations than the likes of GM. And yet while the former two automakers continue to thrive, GM is a basketcase.

I always laugh when I hear the NeoCons say that the unions are responsible for GM's woes. They seem to overlook the fact that unions are vastly more powerful in places like Japan and Europe. But then, these NeoCons are truly ignorant about what goes on in the rest of the world.

Jack Jodell said...

Amen, brother!