Archive for the ‘Republicans’ Category

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Tea Partiers Hate Muslims, Like Strippers

September 14, 2010

The good news coming out of New York is that the counter-demonstration in defense of the community center was much larger than than the anti-Muslim protest was. You can read about it here. I found this paragraph particularly interesting:

    The right-wing rally had a quieter crowd (though a better sound system). The organizers discouraged attendees from bringing signs, for fear of embarrassment on a sensitive day and on ground that they describe as “sacred”–although the rally took place directly across the street from a New York Dolls strip club.

Hmm. So, you can’t have a Muslim community center on “sacred” ground, but it’s OK to have a strip club. So nice to see these people defending “American” values.

Posted in Racism, Republicans | Leave a Comment »

Republican Sleaze

August 31, 2010

The cynicism of the Republicans is just amazing. Not content with whipping up hatred of Mexicans, they’re now whipping up hatred of Muslims as well. They’ve decided that the Muslim community center in lower Manhattan is a convenient straw man to use as a target for people’s anger and frustration. If this means trampling on the First Amendment and inciting violence against Muslims, so be it.

The Republican strategy really is to run as the party of “no”. They don’t even pretend to have anything to offer voters. They can’t even come up with a clever gimmick, such as the “Contract with America” that they touted in the 1994 elections. So instead they’re going to appeal to all of people’s worst instincts. In a rational world, this would be a recipe for electoral disaster. Instead, the Republicans may well win control of the House of Representatives. Why? Because our electoral system is set up so that voters have no choice but to go back and forth between two parties that don’t represent their interests. Two years ago the Republicans suffered a crushing defeat because of the recession. Now, because that recession is still with us, the voters will put these same Republicans back in office. Nobody in the media bothers to point out the obvious absurdity of all this. Instead we’re told that this is “proof” that our democratic system works. Well, yeah, I guess it does work for the bankers and for Wall Street. But not for anybody else.

Update: Newt Gingrich is to the right of Mussolini on Islam.

Posted in Parliamentary cretinism, Republicans | Leave a Comment »

Defend the Fourteenth Amendment

August 9, 2010

The Republicans are talking about amending the part of the Fourteenth Amendment that says that anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen. (After the recent court ruling on Proposition 8, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to get rid of the equal protection clause as well.) This is a sinister move. After all, if being born in the U.S. doesn’t make one a citizen, then what does? This is clearly aimed at the children of immigrants, but it could have wider effects as well. If the Republicans get their way, I wouldn’t be surprised if the government starts finding all sorts of excuses to strip individuals of their citizenship rights.

By all means, we should not let this happen.

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Arnold’s Audacity

July 30, 2010

Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed a bill that would have given farmworkers overtime pay for working more than forty hours a week or eight hours a day. This would have merely given farmworkers the same right that other workers in California have.

Arnold used to get paid millions of dollars just to show up for film shoots. (No acting was required.) Yet he thinks it’s unreasonable for farmworkers who make $10.25 an hour to get overtime.

Some nerve.

Posted in Capitalism, Republicans | 2 Comments »

Libertarianism

May 21, 2010

Libertarianism is the belief that capitalists have a right to do to the rest of us whatever they please, and we are obligated to let them do it to us. It has nothing to do with any notions about personal liberty. Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Kentucky and a self-professed libertarian, says that a business has the right to turn away Black customers. (Although he hastens to add that he personally disapproves of racial discrimination. How reassuring.) He is also opposed to a woman’s right to choose. Since a woman is not a corporation, she clearly has no right to discriminate against a fetus.

Here is what Paul says on his website about immigration:

    I do not support amnesty. Those who come here should respect our laws. I support legal immigration and recognize that the country has been enriched by those who seek the freedom to make a life for themselves.

    Immigrants should meet the current requirements, which should be enforced and updated. I realize that subsidizing something creates more of it, and do not think the taxpayer should be forced to pay for welfare, medical care and other expenses for illegal immigrants. Once the subsidies for illegal immigration are removed, the problem will likely become far less common.

If I’m reading that last paragraph correctly, Paul seems to think that some immigrants come to this country so they can receive welfare and free medical care. Since native-born Americans can’t get these things, immigrants clearly can’t get them either. This raises the question of whether or not Paul has any idea what he is talking about.

Ah, but there’s more:

    I support local solutions to illegal immigration as protected by the 10th amendment. I support making English the official language of all documents and contracts.

    Millions crossing our border without our knowledge constitutes a clear threat to our nation’s security. I will work to secure our borders immediately. My plans include an underground electric fence, with helicopter stations to respond quickly to breaches of the border. Instead of closing military bases at home and renting space in Europe, I am open to the construction of bases to protect our border.

An underground electric fence along the entire U.S.-Mexico border! How libertarian! (By the way, this fence would be partially paid for by the income taxes of undocumented immigrants.) And won’t it be pleasant to observe the scenic vistas of the American Southwest with all those helicopters hovering overhead? By the way, why the hell should a libertarian care about whether or not the U.S. has an official language?

I can’t help but point out that many undocumented immigrants come from Asia and from Europe. (When I lived in Boston, I knew some Irishmen who were undocumented.) Paul says nothing about this. He treats the issue as being entirely about people crossing the Mexican border. I think we can assume then that Paul thinks the problem consists of Mexicans and Central Americans, and that therefore Paul is a racist.

People who think that leftists can make common cause with people like this are sadly deluded.

Posted in Capitalism, Immigration, Republicans | 1 Comment »

The Persistence of the Old Regime

May 19, 2010

An interesting article in the New York Times argues that there is a “generation gap” when it comes to people’s attitudes towards immigration. The article tells of studies that show that people 45 years or older are much more likely to have anti-immigrant views, while younger people are more likely to have a positive view of immigrants. As the article puts it:

    Boomers and their parents … spent their formative years away from the cities, where newer immigrants tended to gather — unlike today’s young people who have become more involved with immigrants, through college, or by moving to urban areas.

    “It’s hard for them to share each others’ views on what’s going on,” said William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution. “These older people grew up in largely white suburbs or largely segregated neighborhoods. Young people have grown up in an interracial culture.”

This dovetails with my own observations. I saw anti-immigrant demonstrations when I lived in Southern California, and the people who came to them were mostly old people. Arizona has a large population of retired people. These are the people who elected the Republican legislators who are turning the place into an apartheid police state. These are the same kind of people who support the Tea Party movement. They are angrily lashing out at an America that no longer fits their prejudices.

I grew up in an all-white suburb, and since I have no fond memories of the place, I have no sympathy for people who want to cling to that way of life. We have a generation of Americans who want to spend the final years of their lives pissing all over the rest of us.

Posted in Immigration, Republicans | Leave a Comment »

Fake Populism

April 15, 2010

Check out this article in the New York Times:

Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated.

More evidence that the Tea Party movement is not a populist movement. It is a movement of well-to-do white people motivated by hatred of Blacks and of poor people. And of course these people are receiving plenty of corporate funding.

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Republican Lite

March 28, 2010

When Mitt Romney criticized the health care bill, the Huffington Post pointed out that it’s essentially the same plan he imposed on Massachusetts when he was governor there. In their smugness over Romney’s hypocrisy, the liberals are ignoring the most important fact: Obama’s health care bill is a Republican bill. This should not be surprising. After all, Obama has continued most of the policies of his Republican predecessor. However, Obama’s election did result in change, in the sense that political discourse in this country has shifted to the right (although people’s actual views have not.) This is due to the necessity of maintaining the pretense that Obama is somehow liberal or progressive, necessary for the campaign rhetoric of both Republicans and Democrats.

The Republicans’ strategy of appealing to the lunatic right seems to be starting to backfire – just as it did during the 2008 election. Stirring up the troglodytes seems to be the only thing they can think of doing, now that Obama has taken over their agenda. As for the supposed size of the tea bagger movement, only a few hundred showed up for the demonstration during the vote on the health care bill. If that’s all they can do, then they are not truly a mass movement.

Those who think the tea baggers are a populist movement should read this article in Socialist Worker. Among other things we learn the following:

    Of those “active” supporters, 60 percent were male, 80 percent were white, and 66 percent made more than $50,000 a year. In fact, the largest income group of tea party activists (34 percent) was those making $75,000 or more per year. More tellingly, 87 percent said they vote for Republican candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives (as opposed to 46 percent of all respondents), and 77 percent described themselves as “conservative.”

This is the same section of U.S. society that in the past gave us such groups as the John Birch Society (who believed that Eisenhower was a Soviet agent). What motivates these people? Trotsky used to say that the petty bourgeoisie are terrified of being pushed down into the ranks of the proletariat. It seems to me that something similar is at work here. The idea of social welfare is frightening to these people, because they see it as somehow a repudiation of their middle class status. (Although that doesn’t stop these people from accepting Social Security checks or Medicare, perhaps because they see these as part of their middle class privilege.)

The last time we saw such an upsurge in the looney right was during the early days of the Clinton administration. That culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing. It remains to be seen where this will go.

Posted in Obama, Republicans | Leave a Comment »

One-Term Obama?

February 20, 2010

A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans think that Obama will only serve one term. This shouldn’t be surprising. Obama’s two biggest accomplishments during his first term were 1) giving billions of dollars to the banks, and 2) escalating the war in Afghanistan, two moves that were both unpopular. He made no real effort to win over voters. His stimulus plan was too timid to have much real effect, and he completely mishandled the issue of health care reform, dropping it in the lap of Congress, who, of course, made a complete hash of it. Obama is starting to look like Jimmy Carter, who wreaked his own presidency to advance the neoliberal project.

The second year of his presidency doesn’t look any more promising. He has announced government loans for building more nuclear reactors. (How about loans for rebuilding New Orleans? At least the Big Easy isn’t radioactive.) He also wants to “reform” Social Security and Medicare. These are two moves that are sure to be unpopular. That second term is looking more elusive every day.

Obama has created a bipartisan commission to review government entitlements. This is a coy move. No doubt Obama is hoping to deflect public criticism by being able to say that he is only carrying out the recommendations of a bipartisan commission (note that magic word, “bipartisan”). Unfortunately, the Republicans are not fully co-operating, much to Obama’s annoyance. Obama’s proposal for a deficit-reduction commission created by Congress was shot down by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans.

Why wouldn’t the Republicans want to do this? Bear in mind, a large chunk of the Republicans’ voter base is composed of elderly voters. You may recall that George W. Bush wanted to trash Social Security, but he had to drop the idea after his fellow Republicans got cold feet. The G.O.P. wants to get rid of entitlements, but they want the Democrats to be the ones who take the heat for it. (An exception here is the certifiably insane Michelle Bachmann, who is waging a campaign against Social Security. No doubt, she believes that Obama’s goal is to herd us all into re-education camps, where we will be forced to collect Social Security checks and receive medical treatment paid for by Medicare. Truly, an Orwellian nightmare.) I have a sinking feeling that Obama may end up doing just what the Republicans want him to do.

Good-bye, second term.

Posted in Democrats, Obama, Republicans | 5 Comments »

There’s Something Rotten in the State of Denmark

February 9, 2010

I went to the local Rite-Aid to buy some aspirin the other day. When I went to the check-out counter, there was the usual assortment of gossip and women’s magazines. However, there was an addition that I’d never seen before. It was a special edition magazine titled “Sarah Palin: The Untold Story”. It promised “100 pages of must-see photos”. Below that were the words “Faith, Family, Tradition” (Kinder, Kueche, Kirche). Below that was the question: “Can She Save America?” (Do pigs have wings?)

Experience has taught me to be wary of conspiracy theories. Still, I can’t help thinking that there is something fishy about this whole Sarah Palin phenomenon. Here is a woman who has failed to distinguish herself in any way, who was treated as a national joke when she ran for vice-president. Yet the media are constantly promoting her. And not just the right-wing media. Last year, Barbara Walters did a TV special called “The Ten Most Fascinating People of 2009”. Sure enough, Sarah Palin was one of them. Her speech at the Tea Party convention was broadcast by CNN, as if it were a major event. One really has to wonder if there is something behind all this.

Anyone, even a conservative, who thinks Palin is presidential material, must live in a cave. First of all, she’s clearly not very bright. It apparently never occurred to her that her comment about Obama reading a TelePrompTer might open her up to ridicule, since it is well known that she uses hand notes. Her lack of education is embarrassingly obvious. As a public speaker, she is just awful; she sounds like the most annoying teacher you had in grade school. What’s more, she’s prone to scandal. The real reason she resigned as Governor of Alaska is because the Republican-controlled state legislature found evidence that she abused her office. She tried to pressure the Public Safety Commissioner to fire a state trooper who was her former brother-in-law. This should have ended her career. (Blagojevich became a political pariah, even though what he did really wasn’t any worse than this.) It’s recently been revealed that she hasn’t paid property taxes for some cabins she owns.

Palin doesn’t alway seem to get along with her fellow Republicans. One of the more interesting moments during the 2008 election was when McCain criticized Obama for using the expression, “putting lipstick on a pig”. What does it tell us that he automatically assumed that Obama must be referring to Palin?

So, who, or what, is behind this big Sarah Palin push? And what are they trying to accomplish by this? We should start demanding answers.

Posted in Media, Republicans | Leave a Comment »

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