THE CAMPAIGN SPEECH EVERY PROGRESSIVE MUST GIVE!

It's high time Democrats, liberals, progressives - whatever - stopped pussy-footing around letting the conservative Republicans and Tea Party extremists frame and dictate the politicial discussion. This is a CRUCIAL midterm election this year - one that will determine whether the country will choose to pursue a course of progress and enlightenment or will fall prey to the forces of darkness and regression. For that reason, those candidates on the left must come out swinging Harry Truman-style, to speak truth and common sense in this dangerous era of lying and foolish, extremist crackpot nonsense. I strongly urge all progressive candidates to present their case something like this:


Lots of people say there's not a dime's worth of difference between candidates today; that they and Washington don't care about you. I AM NOT ONE OF THOSE TYPES OF CANDIDATES. I come here today to seek your vote because I DO know what you're going through, and because I want to change that and make this country better for YOU and YOU PERSONALLY!



Conservative Republicans showed us what they were all about when they had total control of Congress and the White House and ran the country all by themselves from 2001-2007, not that long ago. By the end of 2007, their economic policies had led this country to a near-depression, and jobs were being lost to the tune of 700,000 per month. Even before that, they had supported so-called "free market" policies which had sent millions of good-paying American jobs overseas to cheap foreign labor markets. That caused hardship to many of you who either lost your job or were forced to take a different one at a much lower pay rate. The Republicans did this because it was very profitable for their wealthy CEO friends. But it wasn't good for America, and it certainly wasn't good for YOU!

TODAY, BECAUSE OF THOSE REPUBLICAN-ENGINEERED ECONOMICS, ALMOST 15 MILLION PEOPLE ARE OUT OF A JOB!

Conservative Republicans have always been against any government programs that helped average working people make more money. Since the mid-1930s, they have hated and opposed labor unions, and have tried to weaken them ever since they came into being. The Republican hero, Ronald Reagan, seriously damaged unions in the 1980s, and we are paying the price for it today. Another of their heroes, George W. Bush, the WORST President in our entire history, continued this trend by encouraging the export of union jobs and the import of cheap foreign labor here. 25 years ago, a construction worker in Los Angeles made $19 per hour. Today, thanks to conservative Republican efforts, that wage has been cut by more than half. That is NOT progress. It's BAD FOR AMERICA, and it's bad for YOU!

Conservative Republicans who controlled Congress between 1995 to 2007 either voted down or tabled progressive attempts to raise the minimum wage rate for our lowest-paid workers nine times in a row between 1997 and 2006. They didn't hesitate to give THEMSELVES pay raises, though! They felt it was more important for wealthy corporate CEOs and privileged trust-funders to become even wealthier by giving them huge tax breaks than it was for our poorest workers to make a liveable wage. Like I said, Republicans hate ANYTHING that helps working people make more money and live better lives! THAT, too, is BAD FOR AMERICA and it's bad for YOU!

THAT is the type of conservative Republican record in the years 2001-2007 they want us to return to now, where corporate profits are constantly put before working people's needs. It wasn't good for America then, and it isn't good for America now. It wasn't good for YOU then, and it isn't good for YOU NOW or going forward!

The Republicans love to say "keep government out of the workplace," and "the free market will fix everything by itself." But you and I both know that this NEVER happens. Left totally alone, with no regulation or oversight, the market only takes care of the wealthy and actually steps all over working people like yourself. Their beloved "free market" is only free for THEM and the wealthy to set wages, prices, and rent wherever they can make the most money. YOU, on the other hand, have NO freedom to influence YOUR rate of pay!

Conservative Republicans love to talk about the government spending too much and taking too much of YOUR money in taxes. They cry about deficit spending, but only when THEY aren't controlling the spending, or when that spending goes to YOU rather than one of their wealthy corporate defense contractors. When THEY had control of the spending from 2001-2007 under Bush, they didn't hesitate to dole out BILLIONS of YOUR tax dollars in non-bid contracts to their wealthy corporate friends like Halliburton and Blackwater. They didn't cry one tear about deficit spending THEN, so long as their rich buddies were getting all the money. They didn't cry either when they CREATED record deficits by giving away BILLIONS in unneeded tax breaks to BILLIONAIRES! And when the deregulation policies THEY and their corporate pals were adopted, that's when you saw $4 per gallon gasoline and mortgage bank collapses. But the Republicans didn't care---the rich were getting richer, and that's all they wanted. Look who they've just nominated to be Florida's Governor---Rick Scott, whose former company, Columbia/HCA Hospitals was fined $1.7 BILLION for illegally bilking Medicare. All these people care about is more money for themselves, and they don't really care where it comes from! They don't give even one thought to YOU, and they won't after they get elected, either!

Tea Party members and conservative Republicans also love to preach family values. But what kind of value system places NO value on good paying jobs for all, or tries to block the government from creating them, or puts NO value on having a GOOD QUALITY OF LIFE in your home? These people don't understand or care about YOUR struggles! But we progressives DO care and understand! We know what it's like to worry about making the mortgage or electricity bill payment. We know what it's like to worry about paying for college or trade school for the kids! We know what it's like to worry about being stuck with high medical bills or paying ever-rising pharmaceutical drug prices! I and other progressives just like me want to use YOUR government as a positive force to help relieve these worries for YOU! All the teabaggers and Republicans want is for the rich to get richer and the government to go away!

As I mentioned, the conservative Republicans hate having the government do anything that stands in the way of the rich or that will help regular working people. They have deliberately held up unemployment extension benefits to out of work people whose unemployment benefits have run out. They have held up tax breaks for YOU because those breaks didn't include continued Bush tax cuts for the wealthy! Conservative Republicans like Senator Jon Kyl and Tea Party Senate candidate Sharron Angle say that giving people unemployment benefits is too generous and makes life so soft that they don't even try to get a job. Well, it's pretty clear that neither of THEM has ever been on unemployment, a so-called luxury that only pays you about HALF of your normal paycheck, and with no benefits! It might be a good thing for both of THEM to go on unemployment so THEY can learn that being there is no treat! You saw another perfect example of this hatred of helping regular people just a short time ago, in the middle of the disastrous BP Gulf oil spill. No sooner had the President called for BP to set up a $20 billion escrow fund to help fishermen, restaurant, and tourist industry workers whose incomes were slashed due to the spill, than Republicans Joe Barton of Texas and Michele Bachmann of Minnesota were loudly criticizing the President, siding with foreign-owned BP against the innocent Gulf victims. Barton called the President's action "a shakedown" and publicly apologized for it to BP. Can you believe THAT? A sitting U.S. Senator apologizing to a foreign-owned corporation about an action taken by his own President?! Bachmann said it was a sneaky attempt to "redistribute wealth." Republican Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour even called for more deregulation, as if government regulation were the main cause of the disaster! THESE, ladies and gentlemen, are the types of people you get when you elect conservative Republicans - people who put corporate profit way in front of human need or human suffering, and even in front of basic human justice!

We DESPERATELY need to move forward, my friends! Speaking of which, today's teabaggers and conservative Republicans are even opposed to THAT. They want the country to go BACKWARD, to a time of very limited government like in the days of Herbert Hoover. A time with no unemployment compensation, no 40 hour work week, no unions, no Social Security, no Medicare or Medicaid, no Workmens' Comp. They HATE Social Security and they want to turn it over to Wall Street billionaires, who will speculate your retirement funds away into the NEXT Wall Street crash and leave you with little or nothing! And they will succeed if you let them. You saw them all vote as a bloc against the President's stimulus package in 2009. They said and still say it was a failure, even though totals of 700,000 jobs lost each month were turned around into modest job GAINS a few months after its passage! And the truth of the matter is this: they don't care about jobs. All they care about is standing still and playing politics so they can prevent this President, whom they HATE, from getting anything done for YOU! Their standing still and looking backward is why jobs haven't been created as fast as they could be or should be! The reason more jobs haven't been created is NOT because the stimulus spent too much money, but because it didn't spend ENOUGH short-term! Because of conservative Republican pressure, President Obama has made the same mistake President Roosevelt made in 1937, during the Great Depression.

In 1937, Republicans started screaming about the possibility of inflation and this made Roosevelt cut back on spending - the very spending which had created jobs and which was slowly lifting the country out of depression. But once he followed the conservative Republicans' advice and cut spending, unemployment began to rise again. In Obama's case, this hasn't happened - YET - but it could and will if Republicans and teabaggers have their way and force cuts in spending before we're out of the mess they put us in!

Ten of the top economists in the country today say we need more stimulus right now to get our economy healthy again. But the teabaggers and the conservative Republicans loudly deny this, because they don't want the government helping YOU! Here's a PERFECT example of why we need MORE stimulus, and proof that it works! GM is on the verge of going public again! They have made PROFITS the past few quarters. This was possible ONLY because of the bailout stimulus that many Republicans and teabaggers said would never work. They were wrong about that, too! Because of that bailout, Americasn jobs are staying in America, and more are being created! A healthy GM is GOOD FOR AMERICA, and it is good for YOU! We also saw Republicans vote against health insurance for all citizens. They were afraid that eliminating insurance company discrimination and pre-existing conditions would lessen the profits of those companies. 47 MILLION OF US UNINSURED - 1 IN EVERY 6.5 OF US, AND ALL THE CONSERVATIVES AND REPUBLICANS WERE WORRIED ABOUT WAS INSURANCE COMPANY PROFITS! They lied, and stalled, and obstructed, trying to do anything they could to prevent the health care bill from being passed. But thankfully, with strong and steady leadership from the President and liberals and progressives, everybody now has access to health insurance!

Ladies and gentlemen, that is why I am addressing you today. We cannot let conservative Republicans and their misguided Tea Party allies act only for big business and the rich any longer. We cannot allow them to keep stalling progress! You must NOT elect my conservative Republican or teabagger opponent! I ask for your vote today to serve YOU and bring YOU benefit you have been deprived of and definitely deserve! I ask for YOU to make a positive step for the future by voting for ACTION from a government working FOR you instead of for Wall Street or big business. I ask for your vote so that I and other progressive-minded candidates just like me can help develop HIGH-paying work-relief jobs to rebuild our tattered infrastructure, improve our decaying cities, and create demand for new products and services! You and I both know this Tea Party and conservative Republican claim that government spending for jobs is bad because it adds to our deficit is a bunch of HOOEY, and so is their story about the free market fixing everything by itself. If the free market fixes everything by itself, why are our bridges and highways crumbling? Why hasn't the free market cleaned up our decaying cities? If the free market works so well, why are so many people unemployed, not paying taxes, and therefore worsening the deficit? Why are YOU making less than you used to? Since when did tax breaks for the rich ever reduce a government deficit? Since when did paying people less, so they paid less taxes too, ever cut a deficit or grow an economy? I tell you, this Tea Party and conservative Republican talk of support for free markets and getting government off our backs is a bunch of HOOEY, and they're insulting our intelligence with it! John Boehner loves to say that the government never created a job. John Boehner is a liar. The TVA created THOUSANDS of jobs in Tennessee at a time they were badly needed. There are thousands of beautiful parks and schools and office buildings still standing today that were built by government programs CCC and WPA in the 1930s. Look around you, people: Republican lies are being disproven everywhere!

With the job programs I and all of us progressives weant to pass, more Americans will make more money, and more will be paying taxes. Demand for products to supply these work relief programs will spur on private industry as well, And taxing the very wealthy a bit more will not only not kill them, but it WILL help kill the deficit! At the very least, these job programs we need will be paid for. And, at the very best, with enough job growth and enough wealthy people actually PAYING their FAIR SHARE of taxes, we will see job growth and prosperity like we saw 15 years ago, the last time the wealthy's taxes were increased.

I am warning you, my friends: staying home and not voting, or electing a teabagger or conservative Republican instead of me will be an absolute disaster for you! Think about it: did YOUR wages or buying power go way up after the Bush tax cuts of a few years ago? Of course not. They went DOWN. Only corporate CEOs' pay levels went up, and they shot through the roof as you or your friends' jobs and wages were cut back! Were millions more high-paying jobs created as a result of those tax cuts for the wealthy, as Bush and the conservative Republicans promised us they would? Absolutely not---the only jobs created were millions of them overseas, not here, and you probably lost yours or took a pay or benefit cut. But wealthy CEOs' incomes just kept rising. Feel cheated? You were, and the exact same thing will happen again even worse if you elect a teabagger or conservative Republican now. You burned your hands pretty badly on that conservative hot stove last time---are you going to put them right back on it again? THINK ABOUT IT!

So don't listen to any more Tea Party or conservative Republican babble about how we cannot afford more stimulus programs that put people to work, or that lowering taxes for the rich will create jobs. What we can no longer afford is more Republican obstruction and inaction! We cannot afford more tax cuts for the rich! The conservative Republicans talk about higher taxes for the rich being an unjust form of punishment for them. But, once their taxes were cut under Bush, and they sent jobs away and lowered YOUR pay while increasing their own, weren't THEY needlessly and unjustly punishing YOU? Practices like that are not good for America, and they are NOT good for YOU!

Ladies and gentlemen, I ask YOU to help build a better and more prosperous America by electing a progressive like ME. Let my conservative Republican opponent stay home and count his or her money. Voting for him or her will send you right back to the dark days of financial collapse, shrinking income, and increasing unemployment. Voting for the Tea Party or conservative Republican candidate will mean more money in corporate CEOs' pockets. Voting for progressives like ME will mean voting for good-paying jobs and FAIR TAXATION, and that means more money in YOUR pocket, the way it SHOULD be!

We cannot surge forward by taking conservative Republican or Tea Party advice and standing still or moving backward. Put your car in D by voting for progress that drives forward, not in R that goes backward! With help from YOU, we'll show these Republicans and teabaggers WE WANT PROGRESS AND WE MEAN BUSINESS! And once we put people back to work, with good-paying jobs and more money in their pockets, and with cleaner cities, new highways, new, stronger bridges, and cutting-edge technologies, THEN this country will prosper more than ever before! The teabaggers and conservative Republicans all say we can't afford to spend money on programs to help working people. I say we can't afford the teabaggers and conservative Republicans! They'll say no to every pro-worker initiative, and they'll keep obstructing and stonewalling. I say, they should get out of government where they're not doing any good, and go themselves over to private industry where they belong! Let's show all of them we know a thing or two about growing a prosperous economy, and when we do, WE'RE GOING TO MAKE THEM LIKE IT!!!

THE UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA

No, folks, I didn't misspell my title. This is no longer "the United States of America," tied together by common values and beliefs. We have in fact become the UNTIED States of America, a disunited and fractious country divided on a number of levels. Allow me to explain.

Once upon a time, this country had a common purpose. It championed free speech, and was governed by a set of laws formulated by elected representatives and passed into law with the President's signature. Along the way, this proposed law (a bill) was analyzed, discussed, and debated, until enough support could be garnered for its passage. When this level of legislative support was achieved, the bill was passed, signed, and it became law. This process was conducted in an open and honest manner, with legitimate two-way discussion. People more or less went along with those passed laws, even if they didn't like them. Those opposed to the legislation conducted themselves as a loyal opposition, going along to get along until changes could be made later. If enough people were tremendously opposed to a law once passed, they challenged it in court, or, at the next election, they elected a new set of representatives or a new President, so that the unpopular law could be altered or repealed. The country was united in the cause of free speech and the principle of compromise to ensure that all voices could be heard and that due consideration could be granted to all participants of a discussion. That was the United States. That was in the good old days. Regrettably, that country, and those days, are now gone.

This Independence Day, consider how much we have changed in the past several decades. Think about how polarized the country has become. Think about how civility in public discussion, and how a loyal opposition has completely disappeared. Polar extremes exist where civilized opposzition had existed previously. One group, the ultra-conservative far right (composed of conservative Republicans, Tea Party groups, and outright crackpots) rant and rave at those whom they oppose, hurling insults, telling blatant lies, making wild, unsubstantiated claims, and shout down political opponents rather than listening and trying to find compromise. They hoist banners incorrectly comparing the President with Adolf Hitler, Nazis, and communists. THEY STONEWALL AND DELIBERATELY BLOCK DISCUSSION AND PASSAGE OF NEARLY EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF LEGISLATION. This is un-American behavior. Is this the type of discourse our Founding Fathers envisioned? Absolutely not!

This Fourth of July, think about how intolerant many of us have become. Think about the religious right, its influence on the modern Republican Party, and its rigid, doctrinaire stances on the role of our government and the types of officials they think we should elect. Mull over how many of these people would like us to become a theocracy, with a Christian-values litmus test being required of all who hold or seek office, rather than a democracy, which is what we have had all along, with a separation of church and state. Is a Christian-values requirement what our Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote our Constitution? Definitely not.

As you view the 4th of July fireworks this year, think if our original Boston Tea Party colonists had the complete elimination of taxes in their intent, or the establishment of organized, armed militias in place to force the government they would end up creating to do their will at gunpoint? We already know this was certainly not the case.


HAD that been their original intent, why, then, did they allow Congress to pass a liquor tax and President George Washington to send troops in to quell Pennsylvania's Whiskey Rebellion over it in 1792? Some of today's Tea Party types question the federal government's right to levy taxes or enforce its directives. Are these teabaggers correct, or was George Washington and our early Congress right to establish taxes, enforce passed laws, and protect the power of the federal government? I'm quite certain most rational people know the proper answer, and they do NOT agree with today's teabaggers!!

Today's ultra-conservative Republican Party and its Tea Party splinter group are malcontents and subversives who are twisting fact and history to justify and legitimize their own errant version of what the American Revolution of 1776 was all about. They have recast the Boston Tea Party into having been a revolt against taxes rather than what it actually was: a revolt against being governed without representation by an unelected king from across the sea. Since they are in such strong opposition and even encourage insurrection against our existing government, which DOES allow them representation and IS elected, are they not being UNpatriotic rather than patriotic? Aren't Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry's threats of secession, and Republican Representative Michele Bachmann's cries for revolution, acts of treason? Urging defection from, or calling for the overthrow of, an existing government simply because there aren't enough representatives in it who vote the way you'd like isn't being patriotic, as the teabaggers claim. What it actually is, in reality, is being childish, selfish, and insolent. The raging voices of the right, spewing lies and hatred, are not offering ties that bind or a solution to our problems. They offer, instead, a breaking of ties devoid of any solution. I hope voters will take this into account in November!

Our country has become very self-centered in recent decades. Ronald Reagan and subsequent conservatives have fueled the fire of self-centeredness with constant demands for tax cuts and insinuations that the government is "stealing" our money. They say that the country is worse off for the government having acted on behalf of the needy. This, of course,is patent nonsense! The many millions of elderly helped by Social Security and Medicare, as well as the large numbers of poor who have received Medicare and even educational assistance belie this nasty conservative allegation. That these programs even came into being at all is strong evidence that free-market capitalism by itself very often fails to meet the needs of ordinary citizens and that government intervention is a definite necessity. The conservatives have also incorrectly and very unjustly characterized the underprivileged as worthless loafers who are parasites sucking everyone's personal finances dry through taxation and social programs. They have wrongly attacked and cast government attempts to help the poor and underprivileged as being actions designed to steal from the rich and middle class, which is nothing mre than a cynical attempt to make the poor even greater outcasts of society than they already are. When Michele Bachmann (and others like her) decry any attempt by government to level the economic playing field as being an undesirable "redistribution of wealth", she very ignorantly overlooks the fact that Reagan's and George W. Bush's tax cuts funneled billions of dollars upward, into the hands of the already filthy-rich. She also ignores the fact that wealthy corporations and CEOs have long been freezing worker wages and exporting jobs to slave labor markets overseas, a DEFINITE redistribution of wealth in favor of the rich who do not need or deserve any more money! People like this are turning us into a culture of "me first" and "to hell with you." There is growing intolerance for divergent viewpoints. There is growing incivility, and an increasing geographical division. The South neither understands, nor evidently cares about, the industrialized Northeast anymore, and vice versa. The Midwest views the South, Northeast, and far West with disdain. The wide-open West has no time for Washington or those in Eastern inner city slums. Fundamentalist Christians have no time for non-believers or those who don't imterpret theology just as they do. They hate Muslims, and are also demanding the establishment of a near-theocracy in government. Social conservatives have no time for libertines or those who deviate from their viewpoint. Claiming to be pro-life, some even murder abortion doctors.

I do not believe our Founding Fathers envisioned what we are becoming today: a self-absorbed, ideologically-split nation of polar opposites. Their vision was one of free, honest, and open discussion, and action being taken by means of cooperation, mutual respect, and MAJORITY RULE. They gave us a Constitution to live by, and also a Bill of Rights providing for amendments and necessary future changes to that Constitution.
Progressives through the years, notably Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ, have striven to correct injustices such as slavery and monopoly and lack of opportunity and civil rights. They have brought about much needed change which has expanded opportunity and made it possible for all, not just an elite wealthy few, to have a good quality standard of living. They did this by using the federal government as a catalyst for these beneficial changes. But such an approach is under direct attack today by far-right elements which comprise the Tea Party and control the Republican Party. This is not at all in spirit with what our original founders intended. To truly recapture and once more implement what they had envisioned, there MUST be more open and honest discussion going forward, along with more civility, less obstruction, and more understanding going. As you celebrate this July 4, remember that our wise founders laid the groundwork for a tied together, yet diverse and malleable, UNITED States of America, not the UNTIED States of America we are disintegrating into thanks to the incivility and stubborn rigidity of the far right.

MORE THAN 50 YEARS OF CONSERVATIVE /REPUBLICAN LIES

To all who may be attending their Congressperson's Town Hall meeting this month: Remember, as you encounter a packed room of people shouting out against health care reform, these people were most likely brought in from across the country by wealthy Republican conservatives to disrupt your meeting, and they most likely don't even reside in your district. They have been fired-up by conservative special interest group lies, and now they in turn will be repeating those lies, like President Obama's health care plan will force seniors into euthanasia, will provide taxpayer money for abortions, will end up killing people due to delays in getting medical treatments, will come between you and your doctor, and so on. ALL of these statements are LIES, and they fit a long, steady pattern of conservative, and especially conservative Republican, scare tactics and lies used for over more than 50 years to turn the public away from progressives, liberals, and progressive legislation. I present below a long, only partial, list of those lies.

After having caused the stock market crash in 1929 through years of free market, anything-goes, unregulated capitalism, the Republicans and economic conservatives of that era were horrified by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal" programs of active government involvement in the economy. They said fair, common-sense, and humane measures like legalizing labor unions, instituting welfare and Social Security, implementing jobs programs for the more than 20% of the work force that was unemployed, providing unemployment for those who were out of work, and regulating banks, the stock market, and big business was "socialistic", had "gone too far", and would "destroy capitalism." Oh, yes---they also said it "wouldn't work." Sounds suspiciously similar to the type of nonsense being pedaled today by conservative Republicans like Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner, doesn't it? Well, these statements were wrong then, just as they are today. They were LIES told by fearful people without vision or heart who didn't understand the situation at hand and/or didn't care about those in need all around them. What Roosevelt's measures really did, of course, was to SAVE capitalism and plant the seeds for the growth of a huge and prosperous middle class.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, ever-fearful conservatives, led by the notorious Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, were seeing communists under every bed. Many innocent people were hurt by being blacklisted for trumped-up and supposed communist activities. This LIE about alleged communist infiltration throughout government and society unnecessarily and permanently ruined many people's lives.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the big conservative LIE concerned civil rights. Fearful conservative defenders of the status quo argued that granting civil rights to minorities through federal legislation, letting blacks eat at the same lunch counters as whites and use the same bathrooms and buses as whites, was a violation of states' rights and would destroy white American culture and civilization. This, too, was a flimsy conservative LIE. Our country is immensely better off today for having allowed people of all races, ethicities, and creeds equal access to education, employment, and social and cultural activities! Another conservative lie at this time was that, if we didn't fight in the civil war in Vietnam, that country and all the rest of Asia would go communist. This lie was even adopted, adapted, and expanded by liberal presidential cabinets during JFK's and LBJ's administrations. The rest of Asia did NOT go communist after we withdrew from that war, and all it accomplished was create huge profits for the military/industrial complex and kill more than 50,000 American soldiers and countless innocent Vietnamese civilians. Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, darlings of conservative America back then, even lied about having a "secret plan to end the war." They had none, of course, and only used and manipulated the war to gain and maintain political power.

The 1980s brought us the Reagan administration, union-busting, and "trickle-down economics." This conservative lie held that, by cutting taxes for the very rich and big business, and cutting back on the power and number of labor unions, the added wealth created at the top of the income scale would trickle down to everyone else and all would prosper. That being a LIE, of course, the only ones who prospered from the policy were the very rich and big business. The "trickle down" evaporated long before it ever hit the middle class or poor.

"Free trade" was another lie foisted on us by conservatives in the 1980s-1990s, and its close cousin was deregulation. Conservative Republicans like Milton Friedman, George H.W. Bush, Phil Gramm, and Tom DeLay, as well as right-wing think tanks like the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute began their incessant chant that any and all trade is good for everybody, and that eliminating regulations on business would result in an upswing in prosperity for all. They even succeeded in fooling President Bill Clinton and other "new" Democrats into going along with this nonsense. The fact that all this led to was an export of millions of high-paying American jobs and the freezing of workers' wages here, plus a rise in energy speculation which led to record high gasoline prices, plus ever-spiraling health care costs prove what LIES these conservative policies turned out to be!

After 9/11, hardcore neocon warmongers Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld lied to us, telling us Iraq was actively involved with AlQaeda and was building an atomic weapons stockpile. These conservative LIES led us into an unnecessary, preemptive, and hugely costly war in Iraq which has weakened our economy. This George W. Bush administration insinuated that is was totally against abortion and would overturn Roe vs. Wade. But, with a solid Congressional majority, a conservative President, and a working conservative Supreme Court majority, the Republicans made no effort at all to eradicate abortion. Instead, they cynically USED the issue as a political tool against Democrats. This made them LIARS on that issue, too, and proved that they gave it only lip service to use the religious right for votes. The Bush crew also re-fed us the trickle-down economics and tax-cuts-for-the-rich LIES, and accelerated the rates of free trade and deregulation of business to the point where we slid into the worst, deepest recession since the great crash of 1929. Again, as so often before, these conservative and Republican LIES caused nothing but damage and have brought us down.

Now we are faced with another big conservative Republican LIE: that health care does not need reform, and that doing so will make it "socialist", dangerous, and actually harmful to us all. Much like their arguments in the 1930s and steadily onward, this LIE, too, should be dismissed as nonsense designed to protect only the wealthy and hurt everyone else. Remember this steady stream of conservative Republican LIES when you meet with your Congresspersons and vote in the midterm elections next year, folks. The only fear you need to have going forward is in following today's conservative Republican talking points, which are all LIES!

WORDS OF STUPIDITY, SHORT-SIGHTEDNESS, AND INJUSTICE

Earlier in the week I featured a series of thoughtful quotes by progressives, liberals, and Democrats. In the interest of fairness and providing equal time, I now feature a series of revealing quotes this time by conservatives, neocons, and Republicans. These should provide all voters serious food for thought come election time. Unlike the progressive quotes featured earlier (whose profound insight and wisdom was readily apparent), this batch requires additional explanation, which I have provided in editorial fashion following each spolesperson's quote. Enjoy!


"Capital punishment is our way of demonstrating the sanctity of life."
- Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) -
uh-huh...


"Bank failures are caused by depositors who don't deposit enough money to cover losses due to mismanagement."
- Former Vice President Dan Quayle -
and by moronic free-market deregulators like you, Quayle. Potatoes, anyone?

"As for that VP talk all the time, I'll tell you, I still can't answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly the VP does every day?"
- Sarah Palin -
if you have to ask, you'll never know, you stupid little girl!


"Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."
- Former President George W. Bush -
you'd screw up a wet dream, pal...

"Billy Graham is the chief servant of Satan in America."
- Jerry Falwell -
I guess it takes one to know one, Jerry boy...

"Trees cause more air pollution than automobiles."
- Former President Ronald Reagan -
I think that Alzheimer's of yours started long before you entered office...

"So many minority youths volunteered, that there was literally no room for patriotic folks like myself."
- Former Texas Representative Tom DeLay (on why he never fought in Vietnam) -
great example of a snooty condescending attitude toward brave minority soldiers who DID fight and die in the war, and also a big lie...

"Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war."
- Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -
in case you still haven't figured it out, Rummy, NORMAL people don't jump for joy at war like you do.

"Literally, if we took away the minimum wage - if conceivably it was gone, we could potentially virtually wipe out unemployment completely because we would be able to offer jobs at whatever level."
- Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) -
yup, and you'd be the first in line to apply for one of those marvelous $1.45 per hour "whatever level" jobs that would spring up, wouldn't you, Bachmann? What a foolish, elitist hypocrite you are. Somebody PLEASE get this imbecile some Immodium AD for that brain and flapping mouth of hers!

"God is the one who chooses our rulers."
- Katherine Harris, on George W. Bush becoming President -
and that's why you lost your Senate bid, and your party lost control of Congress and the White House, right, Harris? Stop talking like an idiot!

"The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them."
- Rush Limbaugh -
stupid is as stupid says and does, Limbaugh. We've had just about enough of your blathering, pseudo-tough guy talk. You're a cruel, cold-hearted blowhard bully, and a total WIMP to boot.

"Time for the human race to enter the solar system."
- Dan Quayle -
and what galaxy are you speaking from, Mr. former VP? I guess a guy who can't even spell potato doesn't know much astronomy either...

"President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, and President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a much broader scale."
Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -
tell us something we didn't already know, Fredo. We learned that a long time ago by watching reruns of Plato's old TV show from ancient Greece...NOT! FREDO, YOU ARE A MORON!

"I am the federal government."
- Tom DeLay -
no you're NOT, and you never were, you delusional and egomaniacal little boy!

[resident Obama has] "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
- Glenn Beck -
sure, Glenn, with Obama having been raised by a white mother and white grandparents in a white family. The only "deep-seated hatred" I see here is YOURS, Beck: hatred for minorities, for truth, and for common decency. Protozoa are more civilized than you, Beck.

"We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say."
- Ann Coulter -
by becoming the type of vicious and intolerant person YOU are, Coulter? Or by practicing your hateful, exclusionary, spiteful brand of Christianity? No thanks---I'll take Jews just as they are right now!

"I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself."
- Former President Ronald Reagan -
now THERE'S a thoughtful, forward-looking President! Sounds like Dick Cheney, speaking of whom:

"I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."
- Former Vice President Dick Cheney -
sure you did, Dick. That's why you made up for it in 2003 by starting an illegal war for profit and plunder in Iraq. Now THAT'S a patriot! An arrogant, self-serving one who cut and ran before he even got his draft notice, but a patriot nonetheless. NOT!!!

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream."
- Former President George W. Bush -
and YOUR family, buddy boy, produced nothing but a nightmare for our nation and the whole world!

"...merciless rivers rush and carve and remind us that Mother Nature wins. The big, wild and good life teeming along that road leads north to the future."
- Sarah Palin -
and some want her to become President! Palin, please do our language, rational thought, our nation, and the world a huge favor and JUST SHUT UP!!!!!

A NEW LATIN AMERICAN TSUNAMI

"People don't give one shit [about Latin America]."
- Richard M. Nixon -

"Well, I learned a lot. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries."
- Ronald Reagan -

"[Latin America] is a dagger pointed at the heart of America."
- Henry Kissinger -

Gone are the days we could smugly consider Central and South America "ours." The arrogance and ignorance which led then-Vice President Nixon to dismiss Cuba's Fidel Castro as "a communist" after meeting with him for only one hour in 1959 (and for President Eisenhower to blow off that meeting altogether to play golf), and for President Ronald Reagan to assume that Latin America was monolithic, was as fatally flawed then as that condescending attitude is today. Nixon and Reagan would shit hemorrhages if they could see the state of Latin America at present. For what was once an entire region wholly dominated by the United States is now one acting completely independent of, and often contrary to, the wishes of Washington. Nixon, Reagan, corporate America, and even Bush never realized it, but their short-sighted and self-centered policies have pushed nearly all of our southern neighbors into the varying degrees of anti-Washington frenzy they are now in. Unless we soon alter our course and apractice, we will feel negative consequences from this for many years to come.

One might assume that our current dicey scenario in Latin America is all the fault of Republican rule. That is not the case. Democratic Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson also contributed, albeit with GOP pressure and influence never far removed. The Cuban embargo, begun under Eisenhower (but tightened under Kennedy) remains in force to this very day. The ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion (another Eisenhower/CIA gem) was foolishly followed through upon by Kennedy. Both actions pushed Cuba further away from us and firmly into the outstretched arms of the Soviet Union. Johnson sent American troops into the Dominican Republic in 1965 to "restore order," but the end result was the same it has always been: The overthrow of a democratically-elected leftist government and its replacement by a military junta or repressive right-wing dictatorship beholden and subservient to the United States. There is a shamefully long list of countries in this region we have directly or indirectly interfered with just in my lifetime: Guatemala, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Grenada, Panama, and Haiti. Our business interests and CIA have also worked diligently and clandestinely in Honduras and Mexico to influence their economies and politics. These actions have not spoken well for our supposed desire to spread freedom and democracy all across the globe, our moral and ethical standards, or our credibility. For, in much of Latin America (as in Iraq) we have often attempted to forcibly install democracy at the point of a gun. In extreme cases, we haven't even attempted to install a democracy, but have instead overthrown governments we felt would threaten our business or strategic interests, and then accepted whatever new, U.S.-friendly group came in to fill the power vacuum. In 1973, for example, our CIA (with Nixon White House backing) even directed the coup in Chile which resulted in the death of the first democratically-elected Marxist President, Salvador Allende. No matter that he won fair and square, or that he was committed to democracy and a free press: He threatened our business interests and was too friendly with Cuba. His replacement? The brutally repressive and murderous military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Shameful indeed. But, at last, there are clear signs today that Latin America as a whole is finally throwing off the burdensome yoke of Yankee domination in favor of radical reform designed to greatly reduce our influence and relieve longstanding, widespread poverty.

Since 1959, Fidel Castro's Cuba had been a lonely voice repeatedly calling out for an end to U.S. domination of Central and South America. In 1999 it was finally joined by Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Both countries nationalized American and foreign-owned companies and subsidiaries and began a long series of radical reforms designed to aid their poor and end the poor's exploitation by big business interests. Regrettably, Cuba's revolution evolved into a dictatorship, with murder and imprisonment of opponents and political prisoners, as well as suppression of press freedom. But Cuba now has universal education and a literacy rate of 96%, compared with an ILLITERACY rate of 95% when its 1959 revolution began. It also has universal health care in many ways superior to that received by the "free" citizens of many other Latin American countries! Thankfully, subsequent change in Venezuela and other Latin American nations has not been as brutal or undemocratic. In the past few years, Cuba and Venezuela have been joined by a tsunami of popularly-elected leftist governments dedicated to similar reforms. Their degree of radicalism varies from Cuba's, Venezuela's, and Bolivia's to more moderate forms found in Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. The extent of this wave of change is phenomenally widespread, from Daniel Ortega's Nicaragua, to Evo Morales' Bolivia, to Rafael Correa's Ecuador, to Fernando Lugo's Paraguay, to Argentina's Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner, to Michelle Bachelet's Chile, and beyond. These are indeed monumental and exciting times south of our border! ALL of these governments are leftist, which would give both Nixon and Reagan severe indigestion. In fact, a recent conference of Latin American countries held in Costa Do Sauipe, Brazil, was attended by 33 like-minded nations and included our neighbor, Mexico. They called for a regional union of these countries (to EXCLUDE the United States), and for the U.S. to end its unnecessary 49 year embargo against Cuba. A number of these governments are now even courting direct Chinese investment. Such occurrences would have been unthinkable even 15-20 years ago!

Naturally, little of this amazing transformation has been covered in much detail by our corporatist, sensationalist media. They have been far too busy dazzling us with stories about the excesses of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, Sarah Palin's clothes and calendars, Barack Obama's beach physique and basketball prowess, and Joe the phony Plumber's attempts to secure a country music recording contract. They have severely underreported the breadth and scope of Latin American change. The overwhelming majority of Americans are as painfully ignorant about events in our own back yard as Sarah Palin is about foreign affairs generally. Unforgivable. Our media provides us with more info on the planet MARS than it does on our southern neighbors! This is disgraceful and cannot serve us well long term. For the days are gone where we can immorally prop up corrupt and friendly Latin American regimes doing our bidding and representing only the 1-2% wealthiest elite while the rest of the population struggles and suffers. Our government, media and people MUST begin developing a better knowledge and understanding of our southern neighbors. Continued ignorance and benign neglect of these countries is inexcusable and cannot continue.

We are NOT the center of the universe! Readers of this blog, and ALL Americans, can take the lead by Google-ing each Latin American country and each leader and learning more about them. Hopefully, with a new and more enlightened administration set to take office soon, our CIA will finally be directed to keep its nose out of Latin America's private affairs and will begin to aim its focus where it should, as in defeating the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. The incoming Obama administration can work wonders in Latin diplomacy right off the bat by ending the ridulous Cuban embargo. ALL of our friends and allies alike, including Canada, Mexico, and the European community, trade with Cuba. So does China. And so, at long last, should we. Our new administration can also encourage new and greatly expanded cultural, educational, and trade relations with Latin America. Properly doing so will restore good will and may also limit China's penetration and influence in our own neighborhood. We can even learn from these countries and gain from their experience, but not if they hate us or we have blinders on. Brazil, for example, took only about a decade to become fully energy independent, and achieved this long ago. Rather than fight the forces of change, as we have so often done in Latin America in the past, we now have a golden opportunity to embrace and ride the crest of this exciting new wave of Central and South American independence. Doing so will benefit all nations in this hemisphere immeasurably!

NEXT WEEK: AN END TO DIVISIVE WEDGE ISSUES!

WHY I CAN'T BE A REPUBLICAN (II)

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative."
- John Stuart Mill -

"The dread of evil is a much more forcible principle of human actions than the prospect of good."
- John Locke -

Last week I gave my economic views on why I can't be a Republican. This week I will cover other areas, such as the Republicans' inherent fear, rigid adherence to ideology, contradictory behavior, and faulty logic.

Republicans, especially those of the conservative persuasion, are a fearful, cynical, and suspicious lot. They are determined to keep things as they are (or return them to what they once were, in what they perceive were simpler, and therefore better, times). They generally support strong authority and control (EXCEPT in the area of economics, where they want absolute, unquestioned freedom to make money however they see fit). As such, in areas of economic pecking order, social mores, and the legal system, they usually always support the status quo. They are suspicious of all but the tried and true. In my view, a consistent viewpoint of that type breeds ignorance, complacency, and even regression. Republicans often cynically attack new ideas and perpetrators of such with sinister-sounding names in an attempt to convince others that these purveyors of change are bad and undesirable, and so are their ideas. Indeed, the old adage "only ants and savages kill strangers" could easily be amended to say "only ants, savages, and Republicans kill strangers." This is why they once called the aristocratic FDR "a traitor to his class" for launching innovative and badly needed New Deal reforms during the Great Depression in the 1930s. It is why they are calling Barack Obama a "socialist" today. For Republicans often prefer to do nothing, or take small, limited action when the times and situations demand bold moves. In doing so, they often fight that which is fair and just, illogically defying progress.

Ronald Reagan once advised Republicans that, "the 11th Commandment is, thou shalt not criticize fellow Republicans." John F. Kennedy once likened the party to a herd of compliant circus elephants, each perfectly content to follow the other by the tail in a circle under the circus tent. Both men illustrated a serious flaw in Republican mindset. Their rigidity and hostility to progressive chasnge has not served them well. In the 1930s, for example, they were horrified to see the federal government enact measures like Unemployment Compensation, Social Security, and permitting labor unions to come into being. They opposed ANY effort by government to aid individuals rather than institutions. In a time of great need, with the public desperately clamoring for any kind of help, the Republicans were dead wrong in clinging to the old, failed ways by opposing the new. In the 1960s, they were so glued to the idea of states' rights that it led them to oppose long overdue federal implementation of fair, just, and much-needed civil rights legislation. Their short-sighted stubborness caused them to place adherence to an abstract principle before the combatting of abuses on blacks and other minorities, or ensuring their rights as citizens! Stupid is as stupid does, I guess. In the 1990s, the Republicans fought the Clintons' desire for a fair and universal national health care plan. Even today, with fully 1 in 7 of us not insured, or severely underinsured, these same Republicans and conservatives will fight Obama's universal health care plan tooth and nail. They will place as a priority instead the need for pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and the medical establishment to continue making exorbitant profits before the need of individuals to receive equally good health care. The United States is the ONLY major industrialized country in the world without universal health care. Even poor CUBA has such a system! So once again, the Republicans are dead wrong on this issue and I cannot support their folly.

Republican and conservative paranoia has repeatedly led to violations of guaranteed citizen rights all through our history. Today's wiretapping, secret surveillance of private bank records, and illegal forced imprisonment of those suspected of "terrorism" without charge or trial are horrible overreactions to 9/11 and far exceed the similar witch hunts of the anti-Communist 1950s McCarthy period. Again, give a paranoid Republican an inch and he will always take a mile. Today's batch of conservative fools has surely confused patriotism with repression, and there is no place for this kind of mindset or actions like these anywhere in America, now or ever!

The Republicans love to consider themselves the party of morality. Time after time, this pompous attitude has led them, in fact, to IMMORAL actions of hate, bigotry, oppression, and fostering greed. They have, in their own twisted application of the book of Genesis, recreated God in THEIR own image and likeness. The Rev. Jim Wallis, publisher of Sojourners magazine, accurately and eloquently points out that "God is NOT pro-rich, pro-war, and pro-Republican." The problem is, today's conservative Republicans are ignorant of all of those truisms. They actually believe it was right for us to attack and invade Iraq without provocation, murdering millions of innocent Iraqi citizens as a result. They actually believe it was right for us to impose democracy on the Iraqis at gunpoint. In my view, aggression is aggression, and murder is murder, so this is where I definitely part company with the Republicans. Their insane economic policy of rewarding the rich and effectively penalizing the poor and everyone else runs directly counter to the Bible's repeated exhortations to look out for and care for the poor. Many conservatives' and Republicans' hatred and mistrust of Muslims, gays, liberals, various minorities, and women having abortions also runs counter to biblical teachings. The Republican inaction on abortion is a huge example of hypocrisy. From 2001-2007, Republicans and conservatives controlled most statehouses, the Congress, the Presidency, and had a working majority on the Supreme Court. Yet they passed NO laws and made NO legal pronouncements banning abortion, even though they repeatedly publicly proclaimed that is what they stood for. They didn't even TRY to outlaw abortion. Instead, they cynically USED abortion as a political tool and a weapon against social liberals and Democrats in order to gain office and maintain political power. They fired up and used well-intentioned religious people all across the country to do their bidding and cement their power. Yet their shameful opportunism led to nothing. Absolutely reprehensible!

These are more solidly good reasons why I can't be a Republican. I will lay out even more next week.