Garrison Keillor: What the Republican Revolution has wrought...

[babylonsister]

What the Republican Revolution has wrought

It's the I Got Mine You Get Your Own party, marching under a Christian banner.

By Garrison Keillor


Oct. 24, 2007 | There is a natural division of labor in politics: The Republicans fuss about the sanctity of marriage and getting God back in the schools and the Democrats about healthcare and the $8 billion that vanished in Iraq, and so far the Republicans are doing a better job. God is in the schools, the same as He is in Nebraska or even in Dallas, and marriage looks to be doing OK, since the White House is not in charge of it. Meanwhile, the Pentagon and the Justice Department are investigating fraud in Iraq, one grain of sand at a time, and we are likely to have answers in a decade or two.

I suppose that $8 billion is not so much considering that the war will cost $200 billion this year alone, and yet one is curious to know why the G-men can't find out where it went, at a time when the Current Occupant is so very concerned about keeping medical benefits away from undeserving children. Hundreds of millions paid to the gunslingers of Blackwater, but an American family with a seriously ill child has to tap-dance backward through a gantlet of government forms to prove they really, really, really are desperate.

As the old adage says, the little thieves get hung and the big thieves get richer and richer. When it comes to larceny, it pays to be ambitious.

If you were looking for a political platform, God and marriage would be a good bet, sort of like promising to make the sun rise. A part-time job with time left over to supervise the moon and the stars. It is so much more satisfying than the dreary business of investigating what happened to those suitcases full of bricks of $100 bills in Iraq during the Bremer years and tracking down the good Republicans who served over there -- the young folks with no prior experience in accounting or finance who were put in charge of the stock exchange and the national budget.

I heard a man on the radio the other day who was baying about Sen. Clinton's healthcare plan and at one point, in shock and dismay, he said, "This is taking away from those who have and giving to those who do not -- in other words, socialism." He sounded truly offended. And this is what the Republican Revolution has brought us to: No longer is there a consensus on taxation according to ability to pay. No longer agreement that it is in the self-interest of the well-off to promote a stable society by securing the safety net. It's the I Got Mine You Get Your Own party, marching under a Christian banner. But Republicans are starting to realize that if you claim to govern by divine inspiration, the voters will hold you to a higher standard. You can't throw $8 billion down a rathole and expect us all to forget about this.

more...

http://www.salon.com/opinion/keillor/2007/10/24/gop/

[rodeodance]

1. ' Where are his parents? Why don't they yell at him?'

The child has created a shrine to herself on Facebook and has a list of a thousand friends but not much is actually taking place underneath that hairdo. Just like with the Current Occupant, who represents them very well. He is a relaxed, easygoing, self-accepting guy whose old retainers love him for his self-effacing modesty, a wonderful trait, but when you are incompetent, it is not so wonderful as, say, a little more intelligence might be. He is heading for the short bus of history where Earl Butz and Spiro Agnew ride. Where are his parents? Why don't they yell at him?

(Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" can be heard Saturday nights on public radio stations across the country.)

© 2007 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

[Coexist]

2. this message brought to you the American Duct Tape Council

I love him!!

[Peace Patriot]

3. I knew something was wrong--I mean, more wrong than usual, much more--back when

they started handing out "no-bid" contracts to a corporation that was still paying the Vice President of the United States $100,000 to $1 million year in "golden parachute" bribery. Back in 2003. I remember thinking, "Wha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-at?"

But it was just this blase little sentence in a blase little war profiteering corporate news monopoly back page article. Ho-hum.

It's kind of sad how easily these multibillionaire corporate jerkoffs took us over. I don't think it will last. And I think they know it won't last. That's one reason for the frantic looting. The American people may be slow to anger, but when they get their dander up, they are capable of...well, the New Deal.

But psychologically it's been difficult. And it's my opinion that it's most of all been a psyops game of convincing the great peace-minded, justice-minded, progressive American majority that it is the minority. All kinds of rigging has been put in place to maintain this trick of light, including literal rigging of all the new electronic voting machines with 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, just in time for the 2004 election, when unjust war, torture and ripping up of the Constitution were beginning to catch up with Bush/Cheney. I mean, you gotta at least admire the audacity of that. And the sadness of it, from the perspective of the slow-to-awaken American people. They had us gaged perfectly. Just how much of our treasury and our paychecks and pension checks could they loot before we got onto it? And the answer is, quite a lot. Looted us way into the future. And just how many U.S. soldiers could be killed before dismay set in? And just how quiet could they keep the slaughter of half a million Iraqis? And so on. How much gas gouging would we take? How much crime? How much treason? And, importantly, at what point to flip on the rigged voting machine programming, and by how much?

Now we have one hell of a mess--and the corporate-run voting machines are still in place, although rebellion against them is growing. Who will pay for this disastrous junta? The little people--unless we can unrig the vote counting system. And that will take time, it got thoroughly entrenched so quickly.

I take heart from the evidence--from way early on--of the amazing resistance of the American people to relentless, 24/7 warmongering and fascist propaganda. The corporate news monopolies FAILED in their propaganda--intense as it is--although they did succeed in the one strategic propaganda victory of convincing the majority that it is the minority. (A lot of Americans thought that a lot of other Americans had gone nuts and were goosestepping to Bush, but it was an illusion.) I also take heart from the tremendous social justice and democracy movement in South America, with leftist (majorityist) goverments elected in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Nicaragua, and huge leftist movements in Mexico, Peru and some of the other remaining U.S./Bush client states. The winds of change are even blowing in Colombia, dinosaur of the continent. And I don't think that social justice and democracy in South America can be kept quiet here for much longer. It is big news--historic, mind-blowing. And it is good news. I've been watching it closely, and here are the three fundamentals of the South American Revolution: 1. Transparent vote counting (!). 2. Grass roots organization. 3. Think big.

[Fly by night]

4. One part of the "Christian banner" that the Rethugs seem to have forgotten:

“And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!' / And the disciples were astonished at his words. But Jesus answereth again, and saith unto them, 'Children, how hard is it for them that trust in riches to enter into the kingdom of God! / It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.'” Mark 10:23-25


The worst hypocrite (and oxymoron) is a Bush-supporting Christian.