HAD THE FIRST THANKSGIVING BEEN THIS YEAR...

...it may not have happened at all! If the early Native Americans were to have had any of today's modern conservative Republicans in their ranks, it might have instead gone something like this:

Chief Cheney, upon seeing the colonists' first boat heading toward Plymouth Rock, would have gone into hiding. He would have directed Brave Rumsfeld to assemble a group of warriors to fling arrows and spears at the settlers once they got in range. OR, he would have had Brave Loudobbs erect a tall barrier to make it impossible to land or come ashore. OR, once these settlers DID land, he may have summoned the elders for a special tribal meeting which would have gone something like this:

CHIEF CHENEY: There are strangers among us. We must discredit them immediately!

CHIEF BOEHNER: Don't worry, sir. Brave Cantor and I are already on it!

CHIEF CHENEY: We need more than a damn parrot to stop these illegal aliens! Braves Limbaugh and Bexk, what are your suggestions?

BRAVES LIMBAUGH AND BECK (in unison): We will tell all our people how these palefaces will behead people on the beach and are coming to infect us with wild stories about global warming. We will even say they will try to force us to circumsize every male child!

CHIEF CHENEY: Aaaarrrgghh---my heart! You mustn't frighten me that way, braves! Say whatever you want to our people, though---the bigger and scarier the lie, the better! Sqauw Palin, what would YOU recommend?

SQUAW PALIN: I would say, I can see Russia from my teepee! And as soon as they touch our land, we should gather them up and put them in a stockade! Then we should feed them lots of free range, free market corn syrup and fatten them up before we scalp them!

Chief McConnell then hurriedly adds: That will take too long and eat up too much of our corn. We would have to borrow heap big amount of corn, and then we would have nothing left for future braves and squaws! Let me send smoke signal to Chief Issa, who is far off to the right!

The council of elders pauses as Chief McConnell sends and receives his messages...


CHIEF McCONNELL: Chief Issa say as soon as they land, he will surround them and tie them up. Then we will force them to answer many questions. With ongoing probe and inquiry like that, they will not have time to unload their boat and all their provisions will rot and decay. I agree with Chief Issa that this is good strategy!

CHIEF CHENEY: Excellent! With Braves Limbaugh and Beck telling tall tales about these palefaces to our people, and with Chiefs Issa and McConnell making it impossible for them to get anything done, that beach will soon be totally ours again! Begone with all of ye now! Begin with your tasks! And make sure of one important point...

THE ENTIRE GROUP: What is that, Chief Cheney?


CHIEF CHENEY: Don't ANY of you feed them even one damn thing!
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And so it might have been, had there been teabaggers and conservative Republicans among the Native American population when the first set of Pilgrims touched down at Plymouth Rock, or had the actual first Thanksgiving been THIS year instead of back in the 17th Century. Thankfully, the real Native Americans back then showed far more civility and heart than the far-right, free market reactionaries which plague this country today! These kind and benevolent people exhibited true Christianity without even knowing what Christianity is, and certainly more Christianity than the hordes of white Europeans who later descended on this continent and eventually engaged in mass genocide against these kindly and civilized indigenous peoples of North America.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! I hope you will indeed be thankful for what you have, and that you will examine your consciences, remember how the actual first Thanksgiving dinner DID come about, and then ask yourself if YOUR attitude toward immigrants today is as kind as was that of the Native Americans back then!

BRIEF EARLY SUMMER MUSINGS

Just a few thoughts on some of our current events:


Regarding the bp oil spill, my thoughts are multi-faceted. On one hand, I view it as a crime against nature and a crime against humanity. That the occurrence is criminal cannot be disputed. bp was criminally negligent and had no safety backup plan, it falsified safety inspections, and regulators did a horribly poor job in inspecting and ensuring the safety of bp's drilling operation. 11 workers are now dead, and entire fishing, restaurant tourist, and hotel businesses have all but been destroyed, just so the gigantic bp could save (squeeze) a few extra bucks of profit. This is proof positive of the absolute need for strong regulation and oversight of the oil industry, and ALL big corporations as well. The conservative Republican, Libertarian, and Tea Bag cry for greater deregulation of business and expanded free market activity rings pretty hollow in the face of the fact that such behavior CAUSED this horrible tragedy. My view is that all bp executives and directors, as well as the lax federal regulators, responsible for this abomination should receive long jail sentences at hard labor, and that bp itself must be made to pay huge reparations to the millions of Gulf residents whose lives have been ruined by this act of greed and resultant economic terrorism.
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Conservative Republican and Tea Bag criticism of President Obama's demand that bp reimburse Gulf businesspersons for their losses due to the oil spill has been most revealing and not a bit surprising. Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) apology to bp, in which he called the President's demand for a bp escrow fund a "shakedown", was disgraceful and showed his blatant favoritism for big oil as well as his callous lack of concern for the innocent civilians of the Gulf who have now become victimized by bp's irresponsible greed. Tea Bag favorite U. S. Senate hopeful Rand Paul's characterization of Obama's putting pressure on bp as being "un-American" also shows the underlying conservative insensitivity toward oil spill victims. But ultra-conservative Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) utterly ridiculous claim that Obama's move was to create a "redistribution of wealth fund" proves beyond all doubt that these conservaives only care about the wealthy and care nothing at all for the common laborer or small businessperson. It also proves how these teabaggers and Republicans will castigate the President no matter how preposterous or unjust their claim.
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Gen. Stanley McChrystal's interview with Rolling Stone, in which he severely criticized the President, Vice President, and the entire National Security team over their handling of the war in Afghanistan, has deservedly earned him rebukes from Democrats and Republicans alike. McChrystal's loose cannon mouth has gotten him into trouble before, but this little incident is damaging to troop morale and sends a dangerous signal to al Qaeda about discord in the American military. His irresponsible action is reminiscent of another blabbermouth general's action, that of Douglas Mac Arthur, during the Korean War. It will be interesting to see if other conservative Republican and Tea Bag voices join his chorus in catcalls against President Obama, or if for once they will do the right thing and keep their collective mouths shut...

UP NEXT: "The UNTIED States of America"

NO LONGER THE PARTY OF LINCOLN!

[Republicans] “are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.”
- Abraham Lincoln -


For many years, Republicans have loved to call themselves "the party of Lincoln" because he was the first Republican President. They revel in the fact that one of the most widely acclaimed and revered Presidents of all time was a member of their party. I always laugh and shake my head in disapproval when I hear members of today's GOP crowing about that. For if he were alive and seeking office today, Lincoln would be rejected outright by the ultra-conservatives and teabagger types who now control the modern Republican Party.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. The 1860 version of the Republican Party was far, far different than the one we see today. A look at their 1860 party platform, the one Lincoln ran on, shows this very clearly. One of their planks expresses strong support for the working man, as evidenced below:


"12. That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interest of the whole country; and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the working men liberal wages, to agriculture renumerative prices, to mechanics and manufactures an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence." This plank is amazing in that it calls for "liberal" (higher, fairer) wages for working people, but also advocates the federal government taxing imports so as to protect American workers' jobs. This flies right in the face of today's ultra-conservative, pro-business and anti-labor GOP, fully stocked as it is with "free trade" advocates who oppose nearly all taxes and who constantly push for unregulated export of American jobs and importation of foreign-made goods! I wonder how many of today's Republicans, including the tax-and-regulation-hating Grover Norquist, have ever read or understood that initial historic platform?

Months before his nomination as the Republican candidate for President, Lincoln wrote, "I was an old Henry Clay-Tariff-Whig. In old times I made more speeches on that subject than any other. I have not since changed my views." Such an advocacy for taxes and protectionism would be violently opposed by today's GOP and by their teabagger allies. In fact, Lincoln signed the bills creating the very first income tax and the IRS!

A look at the third plank on the 1860 Republican Party platform shows how completely off-base modern-day ultra-conservative Republican heretics like Rick Perry and various teabaggers are when they make threats about secession due to their displeasure with current Federal Government policies:

"3. That to the Union of the States this nation owes its unprecedented increase in population, its surprising development of material resources, its rapid augmentation of wealth, its happiness at home and its honor abroad; and we hold in abhorrence all schemes for Disunion, come from whatever source they may: And we congratulate the country that no Republican member of Congress has uttered or countenanced the threats of Disunion so often made by [southern] Democratic members without rebuke and with applause from their political associates; and we denounce those threats of Disunion, in case of a popular overthrow of their ascendency, as denying the vital principles of a free government, and as an avowal of contemplated treason, which it is the imperative duty of an indignant People sternly to rebuke and forever silence."

The rigidly ideological religious right would have little time for Abraham Lincoln today, either. "He had no faith in the Christian sense of the term," wrote longtime friend David Davis, whom Lincoln appointed to the Supreme Court. Lincoln's former law partner John Todd Stuart even wrote, "He was an avowed and open infidel and sometimes bordered on atheism...went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard, he shocked me...Lincoln always denied that Jesus was the Christ of God - denied that Jesus was the son of God as understood and maintained by the Christian church." Speaking of Supreme Court Justices, today's far-right Republicans would have a fit were Lincoln to appoint some of those he appointed during his 4+ years in office: Samuel Freeman Miller was a liberal Unitarian; David Davis (apart from his comment above) played a big hand in the Ex Patre Milligan decision, which rendered unconstitutional an attempt to imprison a civilian charged with insurrection by a military tribunal as opposed to a civil court; Stephen Johnson Field, a Democrat; and Salmon P. Chase, who wrote the platform for the 1848-1852 Free Soil Party, a group which challenged the then-existing status quo through its advocacy of forbidding slavery in the western territories. Given the intense scrutiny and vocal opposition today's Republicans gave President Obama's recent nomination of moderately-left Sonia Sotomayor, and that which they are starting to give Elena Kagan, I wonder how many of them would filibuster or oppose Lincoln's Court appointees?

Today's Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln. With some of its members talking secession, its abandonment of support for "liberal wages" or job protection for American workers, its complete and utter capitulaion to big banks and big business, and its extremely social conservative views regarding religious belief and personal behavior, the party now more closely resembles the conservative Democratic secessionists of the old Confederacy, who were, of course, diametrically opposed to the more liberal 1860 party of Lincoln. And, as a result, just like the old Confederacy, it has become a party of only a small number of fanatical and geographically-limited adherents.

LOWERING THE BAR

The two most goofball women in American political history, conservative Republican Representative Michele Bachmann and former (half-term) conservative Republican Alaskan governor Sarah Palin shared the stage today in downtown Minneapolis, MN at a rally for Bachmann's reelection bid to the U.S. House. I wasn't (wouldn't be caught dead) there, but from all accounts, it was a typical outing full of hyperbole, inuendo, and outright falsehood for the both of them.

You know, these two could be clones: they both lie; they both exaggerate; they both have immature and overly-animated personas; they are both shallow and border on naive; they both shoot from the hip and speak before they think; and both have excitable and near-hysterical modes of speaking that drive this thinking and measured man, who values truth and accuracy above all else, completely up the wall. Neither knows enough about history, geography, economics, or government to pass the second grade. Both crave attention and adore the spotlight. Both love glamour and money - LOTS of it, and neither has any time for any government effort to aid the poor, or struggling working Americans (who are all around them, (but not in THEIR district or immediate locale).

11,000 tickets were given out for the event which was held at the Minneapolis Convention Center. There were obviously a good number of non-natives in attendance: this is far from teabagger country, and, while there are a farly large number of Republicans residing here, most are quite a bit more moderate and sensible than the ultra-conservative, far-right Palin and Bachmann, or teabagger type.

Republican snake-in-the-grass Governor Tim Pawlenty pulled himself away from his constantly-outside-the-state activity of laying the groundwork for a 2012 presidential bid to come back just long enough to kick-off the proceedings. "We now live in a country where Wall Street gets a bail out, the poor get a handout, and everybody else gets their wallet out," were his warm words of don't-care-about-anybody-but-yourself Republican wisdom. To hell with the poor and the unemployed---just only think of YOUR wallet.

Yep. Now THAT'S original. Of course, he didn't say anything about free-market conservative Republicans creating this Great Recession we're in, or that he, his party, and both Palin and Bachmann all oppose tighter government regulation of Wall Street. No, he had to single out those nasty, expensive poor people. Pretty presidential, huh?

Bachmann began her flatulence with alarmist nonsense in the form of a sharp criticism of President Obama's new scaled-back nuclear arms policy. Said she: "so if in fact there is a nation who is compliant with all the rules ahead of time...if they fire against the United States, a biological weapon, a chemical weapon, or maybe a cyber attack, then we aren't going to be firing back with nuclear weapons. Doesn't that make us all feel safe?"

Of course, this silly little alarmist didn't stop to think that we a have a far wider array of non-nuclear, high tech weaponry than any potential enemy. And to suggest using nukes on a nation that launches a non-lethal cyber attack on us? I feel sorry for the poor fool who ever hacks into Bachmann's computer, or accidentally drives over her lawn---I'm sure she'd advocate an immediate guillotining of him. What an utter idiot!

She talked about repealing the health care reform bill, speaking of the "infamous monstrosity of a vote to nationalize effectively health care in the United States of America."

Yuh, right, Michele baby. There was no "nationalization" whatsoever. The last time I checked, the government had NOT completely taken over health care, was NOT putting all doctors, nurses, technicians, and medical support staff on regulated salaries on the public payroll, and Bachmann's precious private sector of insurance company pirates were still profiting handsomely and holding the overwhelming majority of our population at knifepoint, pricewise. WHAT planet are you on, Bachmann?

Palin was every bit as bad. She chortlked, "What's wrong with being the party of no when you consider what Obama, Pelosi and Reid are trying to do to our country? So be it!" She added, "Not when it violates our Constitution!"

I would argue that Palin herself knows very little about our Constitution. She has certainly evidenced very little knowledge of the constitutional roles our branches of government play. Not only that, but with her insanely inaccurate "death panels" remarks about the health care reform bill, it makes me wonder if this silly, self-centered little prima donna knows much about anything, anywhere.


At a time when this country sorely needs great, visionary leadership and statespersons to guide us into an uncertain and possibly forboding future, public figures like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin should be RAISING the bar of public discourse and political action, not continually lowering it and crawling beneath it. And that self-serving Tim Pawlenty ought to just go crawl off by himself somewhere else. ANYWHERE but the White House!

CPAC: CONSERVATIVE, PARANOID, AND CRAZY!

CPAC (the Conservative Political Action Conferencee,or, more accurately, Conservative, Paranoid, And Crazy), just wound up its annual meeting of 10,000 deluded loud fanatics, egged on as usual by the most ignorant, pasranoid, dishonest, hateful, and intolerant members of today's far-right Republican Party. There was the usual bevy of mean-spirited speakers: Dick Cheney, the man who lied and manipulated us into war in Iraq for the benefit of his company Halliburton, smirking and smugly declaring Barack Obama to be a one-term President (to thunderous applause); his spiteful daughter Liz peddling her lies about Obama being soft on terrorism; the mindless and opportunistic Sarah Palin sucking up to fanatical teabaggers and urging them to support Republican candidates this fall; the obstructionist Jim DeMint, insanely insisting that "free markets and deregulation did not wreck our economy." And then there was master conspiracy theorist and dishonest Fox "News" commentator Glenn Beck, spinning his nonsense about "progressivism is a cancer in America" and that America is being gobbled up by socialism.

Michele Bachmann didn't disappoint, either, with her fictional lie about Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt "turning a manageable recession into the Great Depression," and obscure and unexplained references to "Obama's thought police and Obama's speech police." The insane invective this woman spews forth never ceases to amaze me. She loves to parade and portray herself as a solid, God-fearing Christian, yet she constantly comes up with irresponsible, distorted, and wildly exaggerated lies for her political rhetoric. What kind of utter nonsense did they teach you down there at Oral Roberts University, Bachmann? Or were you asleep, or daydreamingly gazing out the window the entire time your professors of history, economics, political science, and theology spoke? SPARE US, O CRAZY
WOMAN!

Numerous speakers, including House Minority "Leader" John Boehner, actively reached out to angry teabaggers in attendance, promising things will be different if only they will elect a Republican Congress this fall. But, of course, such claims are patent absurdity, as are the very foundation of arguments CPAC is based on.

For Republicans HATE government. Unless, of course, it is they who are in control of it. They constantly talk about reducing its size, but they never do. The federal government GREW in size under Presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, all of whom proclaimed themselves to be bedrock conservatives. And Republicans only hate government when it attempts to regulate greedy big business interests or protect average citizens from corporate excesses. Their naive belief in free markets magically correcting themselves and turning a blind eye to the very real threat Wall Street and huge corporations pose to average, everyday, working and poor Americans who make up the overwhelming majority of our population is unforgivable. So, once in office, Republicans allow these business interests to further erode workers' standards of living, as well as reward them with huge tax breaks and subsidies - even lucrative, non-bid government contracts.And, as we have seen, the conservative Republicans now act as saboteurs, never shying away from an opportunity to stonewall or derail some woefully-needed pro-people initiatives like health care reform, economic stimulus, or environmental protection. All of which requires major investment by the federal government.

The teabagger and conservative Republican premise is a severely flawed one. To really get this country going again, what is needed is NOT "less" or "smaller" government, but a MORE EFFICIENT one. There is far too much duplicity and lack of inter-departmental cooperation to meet our needs. What is needed is NOT lower taxes, but FAIRER taxes. Our wealthiest elite pay far, FAR less in taxes than do those of comparable wealth in all other countries. Yet we have MUCH greater poverty than is found in other developed countries, and this is unjust and wholly unnecessary. What is needed is an INCREASE in top-scale income taxes and a REDUCTION in taxes for lower and middle incomes. Huge tax breaks for the wealthy have NOT resulted in largescale investment or the creation of millions of higher-paying jobs here, as had originally been promised. Instead, these tax breaks for the wealthy have only resulted in a lazy, unproductive, and speculative upper class of useless elites. Our country needs and deserves better than that! What is needed is NOT a belligerent and aggressive foreign policy which results in unnecessary and costly wars for plunder and profit, but diplomacy and interaction. In this country, government is NOT an oppressive or dictatorial force, nor will it ever be. It is THE PEOPLE, working together to solve problems and pool resources for the common good rather than greedily channeling every endeavor into something producing self-serving profit. To hate government, then, is to hate the people, and the very country itself. Such a premise is self-destructive and unhealthy, and benefits no one.


Teabaggers and conservative Republicans alike love to point fingers of blame for our nation's problems, but they never offer any pragmatic policy ideas or real solutions. Their aim is to bring the current government down so they can sweep into power and magically cure all our many ills. But this is not civilized governance. Rather, it is treasonous, self-centered subversion. As such, until teabaggers and conservative Republicans become part of a real solution, THEY THEMSELVES are the problem!

THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME?

I have long held three beliefs:

1). Nobody likes a crying rich man. (We all know the type: a person with high income who complains about taxes and spending for the poor, and then freezes his or her workers' wages or sends their jobs overseas once he gets his or her tax cut; i.e. a free market or free trade conservative Republican).
2. Nobody likes an aloof, arrogant, out-of-touch, elitist, limousine liberal. (We all know this type, too: one who believes in big government and programs for the poor [but would never be caught dead actually associating with workers or the poor], has plenty of money his or herself, and isn't the least bit hesitant about spending your tax dollars even as he or she takes advantage of a number of loopholes you don't have).
3. That candidate who most often and most enthusiastically works the crowds will be the winning candidate in an election. (Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and now Scott Brown fit this mold. Thomas Dewey, Walter Mondale, John McCain, and now Martha Coakley did not).


Tonight, far right, free trader, teabagger conservative Republican Scott Brown achieved the unthinkable: he soundly defeated his Democratic challenger Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts U.S. Senate special election to fill Teddy Kennedy's old Senate seat. The national repercussions of this (which I will get into momentarily) are huge. But three important reasons for Brown's success stand above all others. One, Coakley was a very lazy, ineffective, distant, and lackadaisical campaigner. There was little fire, desire, passion, or inspiration in her campaign speeches. She appeared comatose, and comastose drips don't win elections. Two, she simply did not get out to press the flesh as she should have. In contrast, Brown campaigned actively and was in all the right places at all the right times. Three, Coakley was ill-prepared and made serious gaffes on gut-level local topics. In an interview, she referred to former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, a Boston icon, as "a Yankee fan." THE Curt Schilling, who in 2004 helped the Sox defeat their hated Yankee rivals in the American League Championship Series, and then guided them to their first World Series championship in 86 years, pitching selflessly and courageously on a very injured, torn, bleeding ankle. Instead of door-knocking over the holidays, Coakley went on vacation. Now, if you're serious about an important political race, you save your vacation time until AFTER the election, not during the campaign. This she did not do. Perceived as aloof and out-of-touch by many voters, they vented their displeasure with her by voting against her. She and she alone BLEW it!


This has already caused unnecessary and unwise disputes and finger-pointing among Democrats. The White House is blaming Coakley and the Democratic Party for this defeat. The Party is blaming the White House and Coakley. But this blame game is pointless and counterproductive. For there is plenty of blame to go around. Coakley obviously ran a very poor campaign and thought she could coast into office in this normally heavily and reliably Democratic state. But the national Party also coasted and took this race for granted, too, not putting enough strategic and tactical expertise behind their candidate. And the White House also played it too safe, with the popular President not even bothering to go to bat for Coakley until the last moment.

Aside from Coakley's below-average campaign performance, both she and the Party failed to properly define her and her opponent. In recent years, Democratic strategists have failed miserably in this regard, whereas Republicans have excelled, even to the point of telling bald-faced, outright lies about themselves and their opponents. This campaign was no exception. While successfully painting Coakley as an aloof and out of touch candidate much like those in Washington, they successfully sold the lie of Brown as a populist, man-of-the-people type. This, of course, is blatant baloney, as Brown opposes much-needed government regulation of Wall Street and health care reform providing universal coverage, two things the vast majority of average, everyday working Americans would benefit from greatly (and wealthy special interests vehemently oppose).

It will now be extremely difficult for Democrats or the President to pass health care legislation the conventional way. Brown's election will now further embolden the wacko teabaggers and congressional Republicans, who will try to spin his election to mean a thorough repudiation of the President's agenda and a national rejection of the Democrats' "socialist" initiatives. Both of these assertions will undoubtedly be jumped on and advanced by Rush Limbaugh, Fox "News", and the Republican Party. They will also both be lies, but that won't stop them. For they have all institutionalized the lie as a political and campaign tool countless times over the past 16 years. If you thought the Republicans were obstructionist and uncooperative this past year, they'll REALLY be that way now! The net result of all this will not only be a stalling of the President's agenda, but it will also bring about a softening of his party's positions on issues. For the Democrats have never mastered Muhammad Ali's "rope-a-dope" strategy whereby one allows his opponent to dish out all kinds of blows but then finally comes roaring back with a savage and effectively victorious counterattack. No, the Democrats get pummeled and then they go cower in the corner until the next election bell sounds, when they find they are defeated by the judge's (electorate's) tally. If they're lucky, they end up with a split decision and hang onto numerical advantage. If they're unlucky, they are knocked out of office. But running campaigns like this current one will never allow them the pleasure of a knockout victory!

I painted a fearsome look at a possible near-future in my January 12, 2010 post "A Warning: How Did This Horror Story Happen?" Now I ask you: IS THIS THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME? The Republicans have successfully lied and convinced the voters that maybe Obama and the Democrats are spending too much money and are allowing too much government control to intrude into their lives and business in general. The TRUE story, of course, is that the President and Congress want to provide good and necessary change for the country, limiting the control banks, corporations, and plutocrats are exerting over us all, using the government to achieve these goals for the benefit of the overwhelming majority of the country who AREN'T wealthy or well-connected. But as long as we, the progressives, the liberals, and the true Democrats sit on our asses and don't loudly and forcefully stand up to these plutocratic conservative Republican and teabagger lies, we will see more defeats like tonight in Massachusetts. We will see a return to government totally for the rich and a Bush/Cheney style militaristic and aggressive foreign policy. But if we actively campaign for progressive candidates this fall, and, along the way, flood our newspapers and magazines with letters to the editor, and our social networking, with facts and info debunking and disproving Republican lies, this November's midterm election will not be a disaster like tonight's Massachusetts one was. And we must also hold our Democrats' feet under the fire and convince them to work on our behalf rather than soft pedalling and going Republican Lite.Our success or failure depends totally on US, so get with the program, people. Dig in your heels and FIGHT THESE REPUBLICAN LIES!


UP NEXT: "THE U.S. AND HAITI'S LONG, UNEVEN RELATIONSHIP"

YEAR-END MUSINGS, 2009

This year of 2009 has proven to be a very unique, active, puzzling, and frustrating one. It began as a year of great optimism and hope, with the hated far-right war criminals George W. Bush and DICK Cheney being replaced by our nation's first African-American, (and seemingly left-of-center) President, Barack Obama. He immediately signed an executive order closing down the war crimes torture center Guantanamo prison, pushed for and passed a massive stimulus program to provide jobs and get our very sluggish economy going again, and began a drive for (we thought) a universal national health insurance program. He reaffirmed his pledge to end our occupation of Iraq and intensify our effort to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden and destroy the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He also reached out to moderate Muslims by traveling to both Turkey and Egypt to give them a taste of the kinder, gentler, more tolerant side of America (i.e. the REAL America) which his far-right, nationalistic predecessor had all but destroyed. Now, at year's end, we have encountered some unexpected bumps in the road to progress which are confusing and unsettling...

Most of us on the left hoped that President Obama would act to rapidly wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring our brave and vastly overworked and overstretched troops home at last. Regrettably, this has not occurred. Troop levels are being reduced in Iraq, but are actually being boosted in Afghanistan, where there is now growing hatred among the local populace of our presence there. The country's government is mired in corruption; Al Qaeda is now sequestered in the mountains of neighboring Pakistan, our shaky "ally", and billions are still being spent on this conflict, with no capture of Bin Laden, destruction of Al Qaeda, or end to the war against them in plain sight. The Afghan "government" only controls the capitol of Kabul and little else. The Taliban or tribal leaders control the rest. Our Treasury is being drained daily by this war; our troops' body counts and numbers of injured are again rising. We seem to be caught in a Vietnam-like quagmire, and that is not good. It will be at least summer before we will know any tangible results from this latest troop surge, and summer is a long way off...

Our long time friend and great "liberal lion" Ted Kennedy passed from us this year. His loss means the loss of a most strong and very devoted advocate for the poor, the elderly, the handicapped, working Americans, as well as for the cause of universal health care. Thankfully, and in part due to his forty-plus year efforts on behalf of health care reform, the House and Senate have just passed an historic health care reform bill, which, if finally reconciled and passed into law, should ideally cover many millions of now-uninsured, and end insurance company discrimination against chronically sick people. It will not be a perfect bill (far from it), but it provides a toehold for further future advance. And Ted Kennedy will be sorely missed. Hopefully, a few of the newer progressive Senators like Sherrod Brown, Ron Wyden, Al Franken, Barbara Boxer, Sheldon Whitehouse, and others, will be able to rise to the occasion and carry on Teddy's great tradition of service to the people who need help most...

The rise in prominence of delusional, disruptive, dishonest, combative, shrill, ignorant, and downright stupid conservative Republicans like Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Virginia Foxx, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mitch McConnell, Jim DeMint, and a whole host of others, as well as the re-emergence of a mouthy and increasingly visible DICK Cheney on the scene is VERY disturbing. Today's Republicans are nearly universally far-right ideologues, who are committed to only two things: the total political destruction of President Obama and the Democratic Party, and the return to the complete governmental control they had from 2001-2007. Today's Republicans are no longer the "loyal opposition" (as they were when out of power in the 1960s, and as the Democrats were in the Reagan and Bush I years). Today, they are instead a combative, wholly uncooperative, obstructionist force which is not at all healthy for the country. They offer no solution to our problems beyond the failed policies they effected during much of the past three decades. They place their own agenda far ahead of the national good. With them, EVERYTHING is a calculated political move designed to self-servingly maximize their own benefit. They are obsessed with power and total control. Their prior total control of government, as we all know, led directly to the rich getting far richer at everybody else's expense, the manifestation of an all-powerful and unaccountable presidency, a weakening of individual rights, illegal imperialistic warfare, war crimes, severe damage to our prestige and credibility around the world, and an economic collapse and near-depression. WE PROGRESSIVES MUST DO ALL WE CAN NEXT YEAR AND BEYOND TO ENSURE THEY NEVER AGAIN ACHIEVE TOTAL GOVERNMENTAL CONTROL! Until this party returns to its more sensible, cooperative, and moderate previous state, it must never again control our government or dominate its agenda!

The conservative Republicans, aided by their corrupt and wealthy corporate insurance backers, as well as their unscrupulous propaganda media organ, Fox "News", were successful in creating public outrage from an extremely loud minority over mythical upcoming tax increases and a mythical upcoming government takeover of the economy and our health care system. Through repeated exaggeration, distortion, and outright lies, they succeeded in scaring hundreds of thousands of elderly and ill-informed people into actually believing the President is a Nazi (how utterly ridiculous), or, paradoxically, that he has a socialist agenda (equally ridiculous). They whipped these unfortunate people and a good number of uninformed malcontents into a frenzy of government-hatred by manufacturing "tea party" protests at the Capitol and elsewhere. They encouraged these "teabaggers" to disrupt Democratic congresspersons' town hall meetings in August, actively busing people in and giving them precise instructions on what to say as they shouted down the congresspersons and their legitimate citizen participants. The underlying theme was that Obama and Democrats wanted to take away their freedoms, which was preposterous. As we all know, the real Democratic agenda is to roll back the power of the wealthy and big business and prevent them from denying people insurance and continually raising prices. Sarah Palin and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley conjured up whopping lies about Obama "death panels" and "throwing grandma under the bus." These teabaggers, many of whom aren't all that bright (witness the spelling of "mortgage" on the protestor's sign in the picture), and especially their corporate and Republican sponsors, were subverting democracy with these Nazi Brown Shirt bullying tactics. Their actions were FAR more akin to Nazis and national socialism than ANYTHING President Obama had proposed, said, or done. They were the personnification of the great conservative Republican anti-democratic, anti-Democratic lie. In effect, these conservative Republican and corporate organizers like Dick Armey and Rick Scott were manipulating stupid teabaggers into cutting their own economic throats by getting them to argue for a preservation of the status quo in our current broken health care and regressive tax systems. Their entire aim was to derail the health care reform effort with fear and hysteria, and to weaken and discredit the President. That is not loyal opposition, my friends: that is agitation, subversion, and insurrection.


This poster at left, brandished by some of the teabaggers, is a perfect illustration of the hatred, intolerance, racism, ignorance, and total dishonesty being expressed by far-right conservative Republican elements in this country today. It is also proof positive of their anti-democracy tendencies. Again, this is not loyal opposition. This is a malevolent, power-hungry force which MUST be overcome! THESE PEOPLE DO NOT BELONG IN GOVERNMENT AND WE MUST WORK EXTRA HARD IN 2010 TO KEEP THEM OUT!
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There are many important initiatives lying ahead which must be undertaken and put into effect, and QUICKLY. We MUST get money out of the hands of huge Wall Street banks and lent out to Main Street small businesses! We MUST create more jobs, especially "green" jobs and those which repair and renew our rapidly decaying infrastructure! We MUST reduce pollution and reverse the effects of global warming! We MUST roll back Bush's insane tax cuts for the very rich and tax them more fairly and heavier, so that the majority of the rest of the country can have some much-needed tax relief! There is far too much pressing and important work which MUST begin SOON to allow it to be delayed or derailed by anti-progress, anti-democratic conservative Republican obstructionist naysayers! That's why 2010 will be such a pivotal year. The Republican forces of disruption, obstruction, and reaction MUST be turned away and thrown out of office, and a new progressive tide of fairness, justice, and vision must replace them and sweep this country! We progressives, along with our President, have been far too genteel and conciliatory with these beasts. We have allowed them to get away with constant lying and distorting. We have been standing still in the face of a fierce Republican assault for far too long. Rather than taking a defensive posture, we need to go on the attack, BIG time! We need a unified voice shouting out these conservatives for what they are: friends of the wealthy and enemies of working America. Stodgy gulpers at the public trough who are helping to deny us health care and wasting time and tax dollars on political ploys like filibusters and staged demonstrations. Bought-out shills who place outlandish corporate profit well in front of the people's need. Servants to billionaires and scourges of everyday ordinary people, who are oblivious to the true pressing needs of the country. They need to have their lies immediately and loudly dispelled, so they can be called on the carpet and exposed for the money-wasting frauds they are! Unlike them, we do not have to lie and spin to paint them as the useless and dangerous group that they are. We cannot allow Republican gains in the congressional elections next fall, period. The President has been pushed rightward off the campaign pledges he made last year which got him elected. WE must push him back leftward by relieving the nonstop Republican pressure he has been getting. WE must actively press for and support the election of more progressive, preferably progressive Democratic or Democratic-caucusing candidates to achieve this. I believe that pushing for a MASSIVE conservative Republican defeat at next year's polls will also have a ripple effect on turning some of the aggravating "Blue Dog" Democrats further leftward, too. This can only result, though, if we work hard for it - harder even than we did to get Obama elected. That is why we cannot afford to dejectedly sit on our hands and not vote come next November. The stakes are crucial, my progressive friends. As I write this today, I wonder: are we on the left up to the task?