The Weakness of Republicans

Haven't had a good rant in a bit... But leave it to clueless assholes knocking on Obama's wife for her honesty to piss me off...

They are referring to this New Yorker quote about Michelle Obama:

Obama begins with a broad assessment of life in America in 2008, and life is not good: we’re a divided country, we’re a country that is “just downright mean,” we are “guided by fear,” we’re a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents. “We have become a nation of struggling folks who are barely making it every day,” she said, as heads bobbed in the pews. “Folks are just jammed up, and it’s gotten worse over my lifetime. And, doggone it, I’m young. Forty-four!”

A sampling of the brainiac right wing commentary:

this emotionally childish woman wants to be The First Lady??

You mean the woman who claimed in her thesis four years of exposure to a predominately White, Ivy League University has instilled within her conservative values?

Not our America, Michelle. Our America doesn't live in 1.6 million $ homes, and go to cocktail parties in fancy Northside penthouses. Our America isn't mean, cynical, guided by fear, or slothful.

Our America doesn't believe that wearing a flag pin on our lapel is a cheap, maudlin trick.

My response:

You people are in far right field, pretending that there aren't some major problems in this country. Maybe like the family killed today in Tennesse, kids shot and murdered in their home, an honor student whose mom is serving in Iraq who got killed in a drive by shooting, the young woman who died because the insurance company kept denying her claim, only to FINALLY accept it, 12 hours before she died - after months of wrangling to prevent her transplant.

What's worse? For Warren Buffet and Michelle Obama to actually speak out about normal people like me who are barely getting by - or for them To IGNORE IT? You people are really full of it. She's rich. And you people are pissed off that she's NOT burying her head in the sand like the Bushes, the Romneys and the McCains.

Conservative values? You fuckwits wouldn't know a conservative value if it bit you in the ass. You are Rush Limbaugh dittoheads, with the inability to think past what you are told by these scumbags. And as for your stupid hypocritics wearing flag pins- George Bush will wear one AS he strips benefits from the troops and pays Blackwater millions. Mark Foley will wear one while he hits on underage boys. Larry Craig will wear one while he blows random men in bathrooms and Dick Cheney will wear one while he takes a shit on the constitution.

The Republican party is in tatters because of moronic people like you. Enjoy what you are sowing, cause I guarantee you, you won't enjoy what you reap.

Ridiculous.

I could take apart several more of this nuts' posts- the oppressed Israelis, forced to kill 112 people in Gaza, mainly unarmed, because they still haven't figured out that force won't solve anything. Or crying about Melanie Morgan losing her job because the entire nation is tired of the stupid whiny lies of bushbots while our troops die in Iraq. But frankly, I've had all I can handle of dumbfucks with their heads in the sand for one evening.

And speaking of Master Rants- By way of Alternate Brain , I ran into Physioprof knocking one out of the damn park.

He reminds us that RIGHT NOW is a really good time to start reminding Americans that almost every single ideal that makes America great were and are Liberal ideals.

What is A Liberal?

Liberal Values are American Values

Jesus is a Liberal

A liberal is conservative with a conscience. There is nothing conservative about George Bush ripping our constitution apart, spying on our every move, failing to stop 9-11, selling millions worth of weapons to Saudi Arabia AND Israel, financing a private army while cutting money to our troops, robbing the treasury blind while trying to give Iraq's oil to Exxon to sell back to the American people at robbery rates, ignoring the criminal actions of his cronies, and bringing the Spanish Inquisition into the 21st century!

We've gotta stop being so nice to these Republican fuckheads. They aren't Conservative to our Liberal. Not at all. They are merely piss-stained pupppets who do anything the long arm of their Fascist masters tell them to do. Reaching across the aisle is fine, but we WERE and ARE right, and those who have followed Bush have been wrong about everything. We can afford to chastise fools when their ignorance has been laid bare for all to see. And if they get up in your face, Fuck em. Kick a Fascist's ass for Jesus. Or whatever. They really are a big bunch of loudmouth pussies who will fold after one punch. Its time to STOP being their punching bag and lay them out once and for all.

More on Felons wearing Flag pins

Coming out of the woodwork

And I thought I was the only one...

Found through The Alien Trucker

I felt like that little girl in a bee costume

Cept with better Tejas muzak...



More about the - ahem -ever less reclusive Redneck Liberals out there...

I found a book (Liberal Rednecks Read!Yeehaw!)

In it, they describe the Conservative Redneck-

ill-dressed, surly... unintelligent and slinking... the sort of people that lynch Negroes, that mistake hoodlumism for wit, and cunning for intelligence, that attend revivals and fight and fornicate in the bushes afterwards. They were undiluted Anglo-Saxons. They were the sovereign voter.

Sounds 'bout right... at first flush. But with a second look, I do take exception at several things-

Making fun of the way rednecks dress is pretty elitist. They were poor and hard working. What little clothing they had was stained with the evidence of their labors. Putting food on the table came in way above "How do I look?" in prioritization. And they were not lackin' in intelligence so much as they were in education. The things that the affluent take for granted often reveal their innate bias. "Just look at them. You can tell they have no breeding." No, what they didn't have, that the "well-bred" did- was bread.

The description in italics above reminds me of how average whites often look down on black folks. The "slinking" bit in itself is particularly damning. Shit, when you are poor, grew up poor, and have been raised busting your ass and having the notion kicked into you every single day that those who had money were better than you- "slinking" sort of came natural. You weren't allowed to look a man with money in the eye. That was arrogance and jealousy, don't you know.

If that description is apt- concerning poor black people and poor white people alike- well, it seems to me that you can take the color description right out of it. Why, to the well-to-do, we are all ni**ers, that is of a certainty.

Another question comes up, in light of this - Why does the racism even get worse, louder, and more obvious, as you go down the financial food chain of white men?

Several reasons. The desire to be one of "You" the affluent- made us disregard what we had in common with the black working class and strive to adopt your own prejudices against them as mimicry. Another- was the fact that our community, within the poorest of the poor, was in direct competition with the black families. If you hired one of us, we tried to get you to hire others in our family, our extended family. Every job, every dollar that a black man got instead of one of us was one we didnt get. And vice versa.

And finally, a big driving factor was shame. We were told that blacks were less than whites. We were told by our "masters" that whites were better. We were told that is why whites ran everything. And deep inside, faced with this line of thought, we asked ourselves- how did we, white that we were, end up poor like just another black man? How worse were we, white people who were no better than our black neighbors? We were told we were innately supposed to be in a higher echelon. Yet here we were- all at the bottom. No matter what our color.

And that just couldn't be right. The rich said so. So We poor whites couldnt be at the same level as the poor blacks. It was impossible! So, armed with the knowledge of our 'betters'- we decided that the blacks must be cheating us, must be stealing from us, must be tricking us, to 'drag us down' to the same level.

And how could we prove that we were above them? The only way we could. We put them in their place. "Shit rolls downhill". We took out our misplaced anger on the black people. We pushed, we insulted, we degraded, we killed. We made sure they understood the "difference" between a poor white man and a poor black man. Which was- that our rich masters exonerated us of our crimes. They used us and rewarded us for our dirty deeds. After all, poor or not, we were still white. But, at the end of the day, our color didn't really matter to the rich, after all. We still were poor dirty white trash- must be because we were lazy and stupid. White or not, we were still subhumans to those "god had rewarded" with the benefit of good birth and good family.

This ain't no excuse for our actions. In fact, it's the opposite. It's a conviction of our ignorance. We WERE ignorant fools and in our ignorance we allowed ourselves to be divided and conquered once again.

But some of us woke up.

Some of us finally figured out we had more in common with the black man than we did the rich man.

And a redneck liberal was born.

"And if that ain't country, I'll kiss your ass"

Okay, that's all I got for now... Thoughts? This is more emotion writing for me than it is conscious thought. But its how I see things. I could be wrong.

Back to the music- On a ZZ Top kick right now...




Love the older bluesy stuff..

My Favorite late-night-hand-me-the-last-beer-and-by-the-way-shut-the-hell-up-so-I-can-hear-the-music song... (Number 136 on the Jukebox at the Sand trap...)



And with that, I think I'll call it a night.

Friends, Liberals, Countrymen

Followers of both sides of the the Democratic Civil War:

Whether you like Clinton or Obama- (or Kucinich, Edwards, Richardson, Gravel for that matter)

This is a public service reminder -

This IS our REAL (the really real) Enemy: REPUBLICANS

Try to keep this in mind, while you pimp (oops did I say pimp?) your favorite candidate

This is how Republican minds work:



This is their idea of a great leader:





They support these troops:



Not These troops...



They believe that Sept.11 is an accessory, not an atrocity



Their idea of "fair and balanced" is waaaayyyy off




Even their women don't want women to be able to vote



And here's the Republican platform. They support a whole lot of this:
Racism
Sexism
Hate
Torture
Republican fascism
Never Ending War
Xenophobia
Class War
Ancient Fundamentalist Dogma
Hypocritical Sex criminals
Ignorance

So whoever you vote for in 2008, just make sure it's not THIS Guy:


And things will be okay. Or at least you won't be entertaining hopes for the Rapture or fears of the Apocalypse on a daily basis...

Remember, back in 2000, some liberals were saying that Gore was as bad as Bush. I think, well I certainly HOPE, that we have learned our lesson. They may not be Progressive messiahs, but Obama or Clinton are light years ahead of the competition.

UPDATE: Dcup gave me some link love at American Street - Give the site a visit-
UPDATE2: Hi to all my friends visiting from C&L and Mike's Blog Round up!

Liberalism IS the best of America

ran across this via Crooks and Liars...

I'm a fighting liberal (Steve Gilliard)

I'm a fighting liberal You know, I've studied history, I've read about America and you know something, if it weren't for liberals, we'd be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren't fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.
...

For the better part of a decade, the conservatives made liberal a dirty word. Well, it isn't. It represents the best and most noble nature of what America stands for: equitable government services, old age pensions, health care, education, fair trials and humane imprisonment. It is the heart and soul of what made American different and better than other countries. Not only an escape from oppression, but the opportunity to thrive in land free of tradition and the repression that can bring. We offered a democracy which didn't enshrine the rich and made them feel they had an obligation to their workers.

Bush and the people around him disdain that. They think, by accident of birth and circumstance, they were meant to rule the world and those who did not agree would suffer.

Liberal does not and has not meant weak until the conservatives said it did. Was Martin Luther King weak? Bobby Kennedy? Gene McCarthy? It was the liberals who remade this country and ended legal segregation and legal sexism. Not the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to the old ways.

It's time to regain the sprit of FDR and Truman and the people around them. People who believed in the public good over private gain. It is time to stop apologizing for being a liberal and be proud to fight for your beliefs. No more shying away or being defined by other people. Liberals believe in a strong defense and punishment for crime. But not preemption and pointless jail sentences. We believe no American should be turned away from a hospital because they are too poor or lack a proper legal defense. We believe that people should make enough from one job to live on, to spend time on raising their family. We believe that individuals and not the state should dictate who gets married and why. The best way to defend marriage is to expand, not restrict it.

It was the liberals who opposed the Nazis while the conservatives were plotting to get their brown shirts or fund Hitler. It was the liberals who warned about Spain and fought there, who joined the RAF to fight the Germans, who brought democracy to Germany and Japan. Let us not forget it was the conservatives who opposed defending America until the Germans sank our ships. They would have done nothing as Britain came under Nazi control. It was they who supported Joe McCarthy and his baseless, drink fueled claims.

Without liberals, there would be no modern America, just a Nazi satellite state. Liberals weak on defense? Liberals created America's defense. The conservatives only need vets at election time.

It is time to stop looking for an accomodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?

Other Links of Interest:

American Hero - Navy JAG Andrew Williams stands up against Torture

Edwards 08

Man of the People

"But Edwards central theme is about us , not about him. He has a crystal clear vision of the kind of America he would like to see in 30 years and how we can get there; all of us together. It's because of the passion in his voice that you feel in your gut as he speaks. It's like going to church and hearing a sermon that has you raring to go out and do something useful. He's the candidate with a clear and powerful agenda that can be achieved. It's not about him. It's about us. He's a champion, not a rock star."

More from Montana Maven

2007 Dems Vs. Contract with America

Think Progress has my comments banned, has had for awhile- not sure exactly why. I go there almost every day regardless of their distaste for my perspective (heh), they have a lot of good stuff...

Today they had this graph - which shows how much more effective the Democratic Congress has been than Newt's "firebrands" of 1995, even considering the record-breaking filibustering of the Republican defeatists.



It's a little slow today, waiting on the traditional "Christmas Surge" of the stock market at the end of options expiration. Looks like it may not materialize. Et, tu , Santa?

But anyway, give me some cool links to waste time if you run across anything. Email em or leave them in the comments...

A Liberal's Pledge

A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

November 14th, 2006

To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,

I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.

Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.

Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:

Dear Conservatives and Republicans,

I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.

6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.

7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

Signed,

Michael Moore

Hillary's enemies?

Anna Quindlen of Newsweek waxes ridiculous in this week's edition. She describes liberal Democrats as Hillary's worst enemies. I must admit, I don't support Hillary for President at all, even though I have heard she has done some really good things for New York. I don't believe she deserves the support of liberals as far as being the next President-elect. But for Quindlen to label progressives like me as Hillary's "enemies" is just more media chaff ejected to distract the American public.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15362334/site/newsweek/

Here is my reply to Ms.Quindlen:

RE: Hillary's biggest enemies.

Anna, Anna, Anna,

Where to start? Why don't you mention "Hillary Clinton" to the next 10 random people you run into. After you hear the outlandish vitriol from the Republicans who despise her from head to toe, then you can use the word "enemy" in its proper context. As it is, your article is just so much more tripe. Hillary is unelectable for two reasons. Number 1 is because, from my dear old Fox-news imbedded Grandmother to young Republicans everywhere, she is despised and blamed for everything from "Fake" Global warming to coddling terrorists. None of this has any basis in fact, but neither does listening to Dubya tell millions of Americans that we are winning in Iraq.... It is utter manure.

That said, Reason No.2 is that Hillary Clinton is like Republican Lite- She's a pure politician who, until she stood up against Rumsfeld recently, (after she sensed the political wind shifting) has not stood strong with the Democrat party enough. She had the power to stand up a LONG time ago and speak out openly against this Administration, against torture, against wiretaps, against renditions, against Bush's failure to take accountability for 9-11 AND the Katrina fiasco. Time and time again, she has not.

In short, she's failed every Democrat, and especially every liberal Democrat out there by failing to do so. Explore the blogosphere- few Progressives OR Liberals OR Democrats desire to see Hillary on a ticket or TALK INCESSANTLY about it, like you folks in the media. She's insincere. She's just another politician, and thats EXACTLY what we don't need.

Here's some things that Liberals know that it takes the Mainstream media 3 years to figure out, and will probably take Bush supporters another 3 years after that to figure out:

1. The Iraq war is a massive Mistake.
A. No WMD existed at the time we invaded, as we screamed and protested at the time.
B. It Increased Terror and Terrorist activities
C. It has resulted in a monumental loss of life for no, absolutely NO Measurable Benefit to the average American.
D. It has bankrupted our country.

2. Hillary Clinton WILL NEVER Be the Candidate in 2008.

3. Iran is NOT a threat, but if Bush has his way, he will begin Iraq Part Deux ASAP to distract voters. (Note the wargames going on?)

4. Impeachment and immediate THOROUGH investigations on Foleygate, Traitorgate, and the 9-11 commission are the Absolute Best Way to end Political Corruption and the Pork of the Century element of the Abramoff Republican Era.

Don't believe me? Well then, by all means- please, continue writing such inanity as Hillary's enemies being Democrats.