Thursday, September 22, 2011

Has the Republican Party Become a Religion?

If the GOP is a religion
(I do not argue the premise),
then Obama is a convert.

The only rationale for voting for Obama
is the "lesser of evils" theory. But we
have evidence to contradict this notion.
The Obama presidency has been more
dangerous than the George W. Bush's legacy.
No hope or change. More war,
job losses, foreclosures, unemployment,
skyrocketing health care costs, etc.

Obama is a dyed in the wool, right wing Republican of the most
dangerous sort.  He talks the Democratic talk so he can walk the
Republican walk. And he walks on: crushing peace, health care,
effective schools, intact infrastructure, environmental
responsibility, and progress beneath his feet. And along with these...
we lose hopes, dreams, and aspirations he does not share.

Obama embraces wars of choice, executions of prisoners,
rendering Americans, wiretapping citizens, suspending habeas
corpus, taking nonprofit health care off the table, and virtually
every other item on the right wing agenda.

The choice between Eisenhower and Stephenson... did represent
two prudent, principled, and moderate traditions. But comparing
Obama to either is a false choice. Obama most closely resembles
George W. Bush. He believes in unrestrained executive power,
misusing our military to enforce corporate ambitions abroad, and
suspension or dismissal of constitutional protections,
habeas corpus, & basic civil rights.

He is an absolutely dangerous man. Even George W. Bush did
not refer to calculated assassinations in contradiction of US civil,
constitutional, and international law as "justice." But Cheney
would be on board.

We must find a more prudent and progressive vehicle in our
attempt to take back this nation. A second term for Obama
will guarantee four more years of increasing militancy, dilutions
of personal freedom, and corporate control of our government,
military resources, and economic future. We cannot afford
another four years of Bush family rule. We are already bankrupt.
We have zero credibility. Our infrastructure is crumbling, health
care costs continue to skyrocket, home foreclosures are increasing,
our schools are failing, and wars of choice sap our economic and
military strength while contradicting our most basic values.

Now is no time for compromise. Wishful thinking will not
transform the failed Obama presidency. Obama is a zealot, and his
recklessness and pure religious ideology of hellfire, brimstone,
and vengeance... will never allow pragmatism, civility or reason.
This is why he talks the talk and walks in the opposite direction.
His temperment and tone allow him a pretense of civility, while
he engineers a devastating corporate takeover which continues to
destroy this nation. If he defeats the Republicons next year, the
war is over. Everyday people will have lost and corporate cons
will be securely in control for generations to come.

We need real change and true courage to counter the corporate
con game. There is too much on the line to compromise with
corruption, carnage, and corporatism, We must choose peace,
freedom, and jobs with justice. These are not on Obama's agenda.
He has made this abundantly clear. We have extended our war-
based economy, lost more freedom, our jobs continue to move
overseas, and while we lose our homes and our children lose
their future, our wages continue to decline.

If you want to guarantee this sordid decline, campaign for
Obama. He will deliver war, corporate hegemony, foreclosures,
unemployment, and a perverse form of indentured servitude...
while China, India, the European block, and transnational
economic cartels make us the largest third-world nation
on the planet.

We must locate and support a viable presidential candidate.
Register as a Democrat for the primaries, and afterwards
re-register as Working Families Party or some other alternative
to the corporate con game. At least this tactic keeps real issue
on the table and in the debates... Democrats Rep. Alan Grayson
(D-FL), Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), and Bernie Sanders (D-Vt)
(who refuses to run) are potential candidates who "would be far
and away a better choice than than President Obama." And other
candidates may emerge:

Keith Olbermannk, Al Franken, Sheryl Sandberg, Elizabeth
Warren, Thom Hartmann, Barbara Lee, Raul Grijalva, Lynn
Woolsey, Joe Sestak, Dennis Kucinich, Rachel Maddow,
Robert F.Kennedy Jr., Bill Moyers...  Any other ideas?

Friday, September 9, 2011

Identify the Enemy

We are now in six wars of choice to support corporate
ambitions abroad while Americans lose jobs, homes,
income, and hope.  The corporate parties are not responding
to demands for peace, jobs with justice, and rebuilding
infrastructure for a better tomorrow.  Since these clueless
legislators don't get it, 2012 will be a watershed election. 
Republicons and Demagogues have overplayed their hands. 

Corporatists in congress and the White house will be shown
the door. Everyday people intend to take back this nation. 
The delusions of the mean right wing spin machine will no
longer carry the day or deliver the votes.  And Democrats who
are willing to compromise ideas and ideals... are going to find
themselves without a shred of support.

Unrestricted Corporatism is our enemy.  We fought the good
fight against the military industrial complex after Eisenhower
warned us about the danger.  But they won.  We have to face
what has happened to America.  We are a divided nation.  All
of us know people who were foolish enough to vote for extremists
on the right. And these people are not, for the most part, bad,
or hateful people. What they are is afraid. They are afraid of
terrorists, gays, liberals, poverty, losing their jobs, change, and
a laundry list of bogeymen, ghouls, ghosts, and goblins. Progressives
and liberals are afraid for some of the same reasons, and also afraid
of big government, wiretapping, wards of choice, deteriorating
infrastructure, unending wars, bombs, corruption, and body bags.

Most everyday people just want to live their lives, according to
their own choices, and be left alone.  But more often than not, we
are forced to listen to someone else's standard being forced upon us.

Corporate media sells us Viagra, tells us Social Security is in danger,
pontificates about Muslim threats, and tells us to be very afraid. 
Transnational economic cartels move decent jobs overseas while
simultaneously accepting corporate welfare supplied by middle
class Americans. Large insurance cartels threaten to take our homes
when we cannot pay our medical bills.  And the Fortune 500
companies that deliver our "news," produce papers and magazines
which more closely resemble gossip rags than actual journalism.

And regardless of who we vote for, our government is run according
to the whims of corporate cartels.  People have lost control of our
government and of their own lives, fortunes, and future.  While we
lose our homes and send our kids to failing schools, too many of us
have turned on one another instead of facing the real enemy.

The people have lost control and they are afraid. There is a need
to blame someone. We as a people have turned on each other and
instead need to realize who the enemy really is.

The enemy is not capitalism, socialism, fascism, or communism....
The enemy is unrestrained and unregulated corporatism.
This trumps everything:  family, nation, religious beliefs,
and truth.

It's time we put hate aside, stop calling each other names
(left and right), and focus on the real enemy.
We can stand together, in courage,
and make a difference.