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Thursday, August 23, 2012

Alice in GOP Land


Calhoun’s Can(n)ons for August 23, 2012

“When someone shows you what he is, believe him.”

            If you’re still a member of the Grand Old Party, please accept my most sincere condolences.  Yes, it is a shame.  It was only 158 years old, in the prime of its life, and now it’s dead – killed off by idiots.
            I mean, Congressman Akin?  Really?  Guy’s on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.  How the hell did that happen?   Science?   A guy who thinks women’s bodies can kill off sperm when they’ve been “legitimately raped” but not so much if they’ve only been illegitimately raped. Really? 
            Missouri, you have a lot to answer for.  Put a paper bag on your head and go stand in the corner. (Stop smirking, Oklahoma.  You’ve got “Inhofe,” the climate-change denier.  That state’s drought-riddled corn is no longer as high as an elephant’s eye because the bright golden haze on its meadow is smoke from a state that’s burning up due to global warming. Honestly, were do the Republicans get these guys? )
            O.K. I admit it’s been comic watching all the mainstream GOP bigwigs scrambling away from Akin – Noooo, don’t know that guy, never heard of him – while at the same time they were begging him on bended knee to drop out of the race --- Plueeze, plueeze Todd, you’re killing us.  For some weird reason they thought maybe voters would confuse a God-driven theocrat like Akin with “mainstream” Republicans and recoil in horror. 
            Which actually is funny since at the same time the party big wigs were trying to strong arm Akin out the door like some flea-infested loon, the party platform committee itself was voting on a plank that supported Akin’s views perfectly –  no abortion with no explicit exceptions for cases of rape or incest – legitimate or not.
            Which gives hypocrisy a bad name.  Makes people think that your party is in such philosophical disarray, or so full of liars that you can’t figure out what the hell you stand for except for one overriding Grand Old Principle:  Say anything to win at all costs by any means necessary.
            And anyway, it does no good to paint Akin as some lone-wolf, God-obsessed loony outlier.  He’s joined at the hip with Vice-presidential pick, Paul Ryan. They’re spiritual twinsies.  Ryan co-sponsored a bill that defined fetuses as “people entitled to full legal protection,” which would have to treat abortion and some forms of birth control as murder, backed bills that would cut off federal money for Planned parenthood and the Title X family planning program, voted for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and voted against a bill that would expand federal hate crime laws to cover sexual orientation. 
            In short, Akin is no outlier.  His beliefs are totally compatible with the Republican Party, the party platform and the Vice Presidential nominee, a Veep who, if elected, would be one heartbeat away from the Presidency and/or be the tie-breaker in a divided congress.
            Doesn’t get more central than that.
            As for the Presidential nominee, well, Romney noted that “His [Akin’s] words with regards to rape are words that I can’t defend.”  He made no comment on the ideas behind the words, just parsed the verbiage, then scampered for the door.
            And that’s the problem.  Nobody’s doing the follow-up questions anymore.  Like, How is it possible, in this day and age, for a man to head up a committee with the word “science” in its title, yet be so abysmally ignorant about basic biology?  Or are we meant to believe that he’s just an isolated case, some ignorant theocrat toodling on the edges of the conservative fringe? 
            That might be a pleasant fiction to be spoon-fed, but it’s hard to reconcile with this: Akin’s mind-set is clearly in lock-step with a huge number of his Republican colleagues and is aligned with the Republican party platform, so that’s the real question: Has the GOP finally become the radical theocracy it dreamed of becoming when it used Christian evangelicals as a tool to gaining more political power?
            I mean, who could forget the 1990’s and the “Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate?” [Norquist?  Grover Norquist?  Yes.  You think these people go away?  They don’t.  They get reborn and return, again and again.]  Remember the lobbyist Jack Abramoff  and the “Christian Coalition’s” evangelical poster-boy, Ralph Reed, scheming to fleece several Indian Casinos by using Reed, with his scrubbed cherubic face and publicly professed Christian piety, as the front-man? At the time, using Reed as judas goat to deliver the Christian right votes to the Republicans must have seemed like a good idea.  But twenty years later, I suspect the law of unintended consequences is becoming clear:  Theocrats answer only to God, not party bosses – the godly tail now owns the GOP elephant.
            And the tail is wagging.
               
           

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

America will decide for itself on November 7 who is to be POTUS.

One way or the other, the results are completely in the hands of the voters. America, not pundits or politicians, will decide.

Anonymous said...

you can thank evangelical christianity for the demise of the GOP. evangelicals now make up 47% of oklahoma's religious. their faith-based emphasis means that whatever the preacher man tells you is what god tells you so you better believe it or you're going to HELL.
pretty powerful argument.
evangelical christians = taliban of america.
love,
donna

Sandra Gore said...

A bunch of loonies. Our country is under threat by a bunch of loonies. It must have been the same in Germany as normal people watched the Nazi's rise. A minority of loonies took power. It can happen.

Anonymous said...

Trust and have faith in the power and collective wisdom of the American voter to guide our great county. In the vote is real power.

No need to fear the fringe elements of either party as they are only isolated annoying distractions.

Ellen said...

I wish the vote was in the hands of the voters, instead of the republican secretarys of state, and I wish there were fewer loonies out there. Unfortunately, these are ony wishes.

Anonymous said...

The vote is in exclusively the hands of the voters.

The Secretary of State (regardless of political affiliation) has no control over the electorate or the process.

As for the 'loonies', they are part of our great country too; and as American citizens have a constitutional right to express their opinions.
But the 'loonies' opinions are just words that you have the right to agree with or not.

Think of it this way...the 'loonier' ones opinions are, the larger the number of people that disagree with said opinions.

Texas Ranger said...

When you no longer believe in the devil he's won.

It's very uncomfortable but of late I have really wondered just at what stage did average good Germans watch fascism rise in Germany and yet remain in denial. The threat to our basic system is very real. Karl Rove wants a one party system. Grover Norquist wants to starve goverent to death. Tony Perkins wants to oppress women, gays, and non Christians. Paul Ryan has swallowed Ayn Rand hook line and sinker. And Romney and his ilk believe their wealth privilege religion and race are evidence of their innate God given superiority to the resr of us: average Americans, immigrants, people in developing nations, the poor, the aged, and the infirm. They don't spout Aryan ideologies but if it smeklls like a fish, it probably is a fish.

TCG said...

I don't think that faith is the dividing factor in the country politically, I think it is ethics and greed. Half of the country pays for the other half. Those bills for the non-productive half are going up, un-checked under the current administration.

The half being supported, and the politicians benefitting from that half, want to take even more from the producing half.

Issues like contraception and abortion are important to many people, but I believe that the great economic divide is what is sinking this country. If you disagree, just look at some of the countries in Europe that are a few years ahead of us on the economic slide.

Anonymous said...

We are all Americans regardless of which party you aline with.

I have complete trust in the popular vote; and on November 7 AMERICANS will decide who is to POTUS.

And who's political will shall be expressed?
Why, that of Men, Women, Black, White, Communist, Dems, Reps, Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Rastafarians, Oriental, Indian, rich, poor, etc, etc.....you get the point......
All views will be represented.
All demographics will be represented.
The majority view will prevail.

If the majority view is Democrat, FINE
If the majority view is Republican, FINE
They are AMERICAN views.

And if after November 7 you find yourself in the minority then take heart knowing that the American Revolution has never ended as you have the power of your vote to alter majority view in future elections.





Anonymous said...

To the idiot who keeps saying November 7 is the general election date...

It's November 6

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States)

Anonymous said...

Anon above,

My posts have always been polite, positive and supportive.
I have always supported everyones right to express themselves civilly.

Shame on you for your rude and uncivil comment.
SHAME

Anonymous said...

The only "shame" comes from people who fraudulently tell people to vote a day after the general election. Sounds like you're on the Ohio elections board.

TCG said...

Anonyumous 4:51--I'm with you. I appreciate the civil tone, sometimes a rarity in a Los Osos blog.

Sewertoons AKA Lynette Tornatzky said...

The Economist came out today with an interesting article:

http://www.economist.com/node/21560864?frsc=dg%7Ca