Sunday, October 23, 2011

Mad Children

This weekend, at a time when Condaleeza Rice's expose of the utter non-thinking vapidity of the Bush administration has come to light -- the total lack of an end game in Iraq or any thought of needing one -- the Mad Children of the Republican Party are howling on the playground, trying to drown-out adult conversation.

Image
Diane Arbus captured this image of a Mad Child, a Republican-in-the-making, with grenade in hand. Perhaps he is running for office today. Or, could he be some former Republican president?

At a time when most Americans and a majority who served there want to be shut of Iraq, Bachmann and Romney and Santori are trying to shout out the adults, saying that we should stay in Iraq beyond the first of the year.

The Mad Children seem to think the president should make clear to the Iraqis just who is in charge in Iraq, telling home truths that the Iraqi government is a mere puppet, and that Iraqis can't dictate terms to the conqueror.

And Romney, Bachmann, and Santorini think that approach would keep Iraq from getting still closer to Iran?

Noisy, violent, controlling children wanting to play in the adult world.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

My Take on Occupy Wall Street

Where you totally misscharacterize the facts, GOPer, is that the demonstrators are not Democrats per se; some are Democrats, some are independents, some have never been involved before, but will be now, in 2012! There may even be a Tea Party Republican or two.

They are demonstrating against Obama as much as against the financial-industry-friendly Republicans, and those politicians who take campaign donations/bribes from financial wheeler-dealer firms and from big corps. Obama, you ought to be aware, does that too.   Obama likes to suck up to the Wall Street mob.

Whereas the Tea Party Republicans are anal-retentives out to laager their wagons and keep other folks from grabbing their stash or disturbing their peace and quiet in their regimented Republican ghetto neighborhoods, the Occupy Wall Street crowd are more representative of the American people as a whole-- disparate in income and ethnicity, including some out of work or having trouble with finances or concerned about those who are.

The political parties would do well to address the demonstrators' concerns. I don't know if this movement will fade out in a week or continue in some form or other. But you ignore or ridicule these demonstrators at your peril.

Which reminds me of what JS wrote above. JS sounds a lot like solid well-off Republicans 40+ years ago, talking about those demonstrating against the Vietnam War. Surprise! Turned out the protesters and draft dodgers were right! The Vietnam War was a matter of a corrupt, lying government and military here trying to prop up a corrupt, lying series of governments in South Vietnam, all to the short term profit of certain industries here in the states.

You may not like the hygiene of the messengers, but you damn well better pay attention to the message. 

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Unmentionable

I like Herman Cain. He's telling some hometruths, that you don't get anywhere with a chip on your shoulder, that however strong prejudice is, YOU are more responsible for what happens to you than anybody else. Similar message to that of Bill Cosby, btw.

Huntsman seems lost, left behind. Is he still in the race, theoretically speaking?

Cain, Huntsman, and Paul can really teach us something. And between them, they can articulate the various prospective futures of the Republican Party. I wish that win lose or draw they would take the debates on the road to educate Americans of both parties, to make us THINK, as Phil Donohue liked to say. Forget the others, forget the election; Cain, Huntsman and Paul are the ones to listen to, even if you don't plan to vote for them.  *

Changing gears. I saw this -- http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/10/07/could-unmarried-woman-sink-obama/ -- on Google News links. Always hungry for tabloid fodder I clicked on the link. "Aha!, I thought, Obama's got a girl friend." Then I found out the headline was misleading; they weren't talking about one embarassing mistress, they were talking about Obama's appeal to single women, who voted for Obama overwhelmingly in 2008.

Read that article. Do you notice something? Something not mentioned? The A-word maybe?

That article fails to mention a component of Obama's and the Democrat's appeal to single women voters. Abortion. When GOP candidates start hitting on abortion, single women get nervous. THEY don't want some old fart, male, bald, overweight,** calling the shots on their reproductive rights. And hence they avoid certain Republicans like the plague.

Abortion in my opinion is a non-issue, at least at the federal level, or ought to be.

Did you notice something else? How much has the A-word been pushed around in the GOP "debates"? How much has Romney uttered the A-word? Can you guess why?

*Leading candidates you do not want to listen to.  They say what gets them votes and avoid what costs them votes.  It's the ones who trail in the polls who can afford to tell the truth, to utter the unpopular.

**  Old, fat, bald, wanting power over a woman's reproduction?   Like Congressman Neugebauer, maybe?