what seems to be the republican message? it's always the same ... tough on defense, anti-gay, anti-abortion ... they even throw in pro-family for good measure ... oh yeah, and all that prayer in school stuff ... and, of course, smaller government ...
it's all crap ... and yet, Democrats never seem to be able to break through to the American people with the REAL republican agenda ... and i know why that is ... they just aren't even trying ...
we hear republicans going on and on about smaller government ... you know why they say that? because they want to weaken the image of government with the American people ... and why do you suppose that is? ... it's easy really; government should be the check and balance on corporate excesses so they see government as their "enemy" ... this, of course, doesn't mean that they want to reduce the federal budget when it comes to runaway corporate welfare ... they just want to weaken and gut the oversight functions of government and create a cynicism about using government to solve our national problems ...
so, what's behind the smaller government message? why greed and money of course ...
and tough on defense? well, if "tough" means just keep fighting endless wars and pumping up defense spending for the military-industrial complex, then they're real tough ... gotta have that Star Wars system ... gotta keep giving out those no-bid defense contracts ... if we are fighting "terrorists" and fighting "insurgencies", our defense spending should be going mostly to personnel and not to bloated weapons systems that are little more than corporate welfare ...
so, what's behind the tough on defense meme? you got it; greed and money of course ...
and there's all this talk about "activist judges" ... note that these are mostly republican appointed judges ... they're activists all right ... they're helping the big money boys erode our rights to protect ourselves against corporate abuses ... labor is weakened; consumers are weakened; environmental protections are weakened ... and big business? they're very happy thank you ... Molly Ivins hits the nail dead on in her column about activist judges (see below) ...
some of us on the left see the Democratic Party as being too corporate ... we have a vision of the republican party as the giveaway party to fat cats ... we see our defense budget, our foreign policy, our courts, the abuses of lobbyists and campaign laws, all of it as being boiled down to money and greed ...
do Democrats allege that our foreign policy is predicated on greed? i just am not hearing it ... are Democrats, as a party, alleging not just "wasteful" defense spending but rather a conspiracy to exploit legitimate defense concerns for profit and greed? i'm just not hearing it ... we hear marginal arguments from Democrats that just don't go far enough ... we hear about tax cuts benefiting the top 1% ... we hear about possible windfall profits taxes on oil but we don't hear those same profits being cited as a motivation for war ... i'm afraid that the war against a corporate takeover of the US is not really being fought at all by the Democratic Party ... all we seem to get is nibbling at the edges ... all the big money and all the corporate power is destroying what's left of our democracy and we are in desperate need of national leadership to help us turn the tide ... it's been way too quiet out there for my tastes ... how about yours?
here's Molly Ivins' latest column on activist judges serving their big money masters ...
source:
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0824-30.htmThe conservatives are in a snit about "liberal courts" because of money. <skip>
"This is the richest business term in recent memory," Mark Levy, a Supreme Court litigator, told The Wall Street Journal, which has stopped quivering at last.
Moving right along in the long-drawn-out battle to deny ordinary citizens access to their own courts, the justices closed down the right to allow class-action securities cases in state courts. The court also kept out of a lower-court decision preventing taxpayers from suing to stop tax breaks that states and municipalities use to lure big business, a notorious example of raging bad policy.
Meanwhile, what a nice gift from the federal bench to the insurance companies when a federal judge in Mississippi decided that hurricane insurance policies excluding water damage are "valid and enforceable." As many of our fellow citizens had an opportunity to learn during Katrina, it’s a challenge to sit around in a class IV hurricane, trying to figure out which is wind and which is water damage. "Ooops, there goes the roof, probably wind, followed by a huge run of waves rolling over the house, could be water."
Insurance company stocks went up across the board after the decision, while the industry kindly advised its clients to "keep your eyes wide open when buying new homeowners’ insurance."
Money, money, money is the motif of the “New Activist” federal judges, but they have also been busy, busy limiting congressional authority and individual rights. As People for the American Way notes, federal appellate courts—effectively the court of last resort for most Americans—are working on: questioning the constitutionality of the Endangered Species Act, overturning the National Labor Relations Board rulings against anti-union discrimination and other unfair labor practices by employers, allowing the Bush administration to keep secret the records of the Cheney energy task force, and rewriting by court order a state law on First Amendment activity.
Other Bush appellate judges have ruled to deny protection to workers who file claims of race and disability discrimination, made it harder to protect the environment, and issued other decisions that will affect our lives and liberties for decades. Activist judges, indeed.
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