Republicans are the Used Car Dealers of American Politics

Hello Papamoka Bloggers! I will admit the time will come when the Republicans become acceptable to the majority of Americans again, but I'm hoping - and praying - that time will be far into the future.

Why? The most important reasons are probably trust and past performance. They do not deserve our trust after discovering so many ill-gotten gains and broken promises, and their poor past performance proves they adhere to principles and policies that are clearly detrimental to the American middle-class.

What may shock most of you is that I may vote for them someday again, just like many of you, if I see them return to their roots and dedicate themselves to help ALL Americans, including average middle-class Americans. I do believe in a two-party system, however, I'm not holding my breath.

That is not the case today. Without a doubt, despite their rural, earthy American "red state" support, they are the party that represents the top percentile, or the richest and least vulnerable in our society. Until that changes, I will continue to fight them, going so far as to believe they are the party that lies to, and cons, average Americans into voting against their own best interests.

Why am I talking about the subject now. It's because of all the Republican hubris that has been polluting the airwaves lately. The minority opposition has been out there swinging at everything and anything that comes into its path. They seem to thrive on being the angry opposition. It's obvious to most observers they love it.

Anybody who listened to Dick Cheney's speech this morning could tell he loved criticizing without having to support any of his darkest points with real evidence. He proposed nothing new. It was more of his-way-or-the-highway crap! Thanks, you're so helpful DICK!

What I'm saying is that there are healthy and unhealthy forms of opposition, and I think today's GOP specializes in the unhealthy. Their passions seem almost narcissistic, unproductive, and misplaced. They seem to like screaming into the wind, whether we're there to listen or not.

The GOP can say we were the same as the opposition all they want, but it's not true. I remember Democrats making valid arguments against most of Bush's policies, and it turned out we were right. Our opposition was credible, unlike the discredited, GOP broken record of today.

There is no doubt in my mind that their lack of compromise, stick-to-their guns while fighting for outdated solutions approach, gets in the way of making real progress on real issues.

They are more and more vocal about opposing everything that President Obama and the Democrats are trying to fix/achieve than anytime I can remember. They are ignoring the people, the mood, the trends away from the dark side, and the past poor performance of their own record. The whole thing is amazing to watch. It's also very sad.

Notable examples this past week involved people like RNC Chairman Michael Steele talking about it being the end of "Republicans apologizing" for mistakes of the past. Well, I don't know about you, but I don't ever recall them apologizing for anything. A matter of fact, I'm pretty sure they ALL pretty much claim their past performance to be successful, despite all the facts to the contrary. It's crazy, but overall it's true.

The idea they apologized for anything is both shocking and downright deceitful. In the end, it's simply another example of GOP message manipulation that has little basis in fact.

Other examples involve that fat-cat of Republicanism, the least "humane" human being on the planet, Rush "that lying sack of crap" Limbaugh. He has been out there daily dishing-up all kinds of lies in his usual gross attempt to manipulate the masses. He's like the proverbial demon in the wilderness, working hard to tempt the innocent into making bad choices. For him today, it's all about socialism, socialism, and more socialism.

He talks non-stop about longing for the good-old times when Republicans were in charge, the economy was good, and America was safer. His deceit is only surpassed by his lack of morals. He's right up there with Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld as a GOP poster-boy of illegal war, torture, corporate greed, anti-middle-class values, and anti-American policies and principles.

His "ditto-heads" can believe whatever the hell they want, but the the truth - the facts - speak for themselves. The man's an anti-American PIG!

The other cocky culprits of today's GOP involve the vast and equally out-of-touch right-wing-media and blogosphere - featuring FOX "News" and other "conservative" networks - who have been spewing propaganda in an attempt to undermine Democratic efforts to solve real problems for weeks/months now.

Most of their so-called alternative ideas/proposals - most that I took seriously and studied - have been nothing but propagandistic, rehashed versions of their old, discredited crap. Their sole purpose is to create the illusion of new ideas. Trust me, after careful review, it's repackaged BS! They remain deaf and dumb about the need for new approaches.

You know it's bad when that pinnacle of bi-partisanship, President Obama, begins to say - out loud - that Republicans can't seem to move beyond their own discredited, outdated, broken principles and policies of the past. The bottom-line is he's trying to find/create new solutions to big problems, and they're not.

There can be only one reasonable explanation as to why they are so stubborn about admitting past mistakes and looking at new alternatives. It is because they are BOUGHT-AND-PAID-FOR by special interests, corporations, and other forces that have no desire to help the American people - or even the American nation. It's obvious to me. What about you?

I'm not naive, I know there are bad apples in our Democratic community (especially the Senate), but for all intents and purposes today's GOP today is a compromised political movement/party. They are the used-car-dealers-of-American-politics, trying to get us to buy old, refurbished junk. They do not represent the best interests of the American people or nation. They cannot be trusted, and unless they begin to demonstrate real change, they should not be considered an equal voice in either government or the court of public opinion.

Michael Boh
Papamoka's Left Coast Contributor
from Our Rants & Raves Blog

The Audacity Of DoubleTalk

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

The area of North Carolina I live in is used to be an area with large numbers of textile and furniture jobs. Several years ago I had to visit a local machinist to have some work done. While in his shop I noticed this huge machine sitting on the floor. He told me he was contracted to getting the machine in shape before its shipment to Mexico. With no pride in his voice he said that was the last textile machine in the county.

Several weeks ago I was in the local Walmart. I'm not making this up; it actually happened and the multiple ironies compressed in such a short time made me wonder iif some force was trying to tell me something. First, while browsing in stationary I hear on the official Walmart P.A. system a Bruce Springsteen song. "My Hometown" of all things. As I threw the graph paper in the cart I heard the lines that could be the anthem for this area:

Now Main Street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain't nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain't coming back to your
hometown

Then at the checkout I'm delayed because the couple in front of me is tossing some kind of form on the counter. They are not speaking English and presumably were from Mexico. They had a small infant in the cart. Finally, the cashier did whatever she was doing (they had multiple transactions). Upon asking the cashier what that was all about, I was informed that the transactions involved W.I.C.

So, someone who is presumably in this country illegally (and don't even TRY to convince me of the odds that they are not), working illegally, and yet is receiving government assistance. By the way, one of the REASONS there are immigration laws is to prevent people from coming into the U.S. and receiving government benefits. Try sponsoring or marrying a foreign national and doing things legally. Been there, done that....got a bunch of T-shirts.

To top the whole shopping experience off, I passed this same couple coming out of the Walmart Money Store, where I presume (again, and correctly I believe) that these folks used the savings from their W.I.C. benefits to send some money back home. Yep, that's what welfare benefits are all about....propping up the sagging economy of Mexico.

As a human being I cannot condemn people for trying to take advantage of circumstances to better their lot in life. My problem lies in the fact that NAFTA is the keystone that supports a bridge of false promises, both to Americans AND Mexicans. Let us not forget that while successful in engendering corporate profits, NAFTA has succeeded in eliminating Mexican livelihoods far more efficiently than American jobs.

Yesterday I read an article by Jake Tapper of ABC News, Obama Knocks Clinton, But Wouldn't Ax NAFTA:

Appealing to union voters in a dry wall manufacturing plant in this crucial primary state, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Sunday afternoon said that even though he has repeatedly said the passage of NAFTA was bad for the country, he would not try to repeal it.

"I don't think its realistic for us to repeal NAFTA," he said during a town hall meeting on the economy.

He argued arguing that because the trade deal had been passed more than a decade ago, it was entrenched in the economy, and any attempt to repeal it "would actually result in more job loss ... than job gains."

In the fierce fight for votes here in Ohio, where NAFTA is not popular among many blue collar Democrats, Obama has repeatedly attacked Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for the trade deal pushed by President Bill Clinton and passed in Congress in November 1993.

If one assumes that NAFTA has caused, shall we say, an allergic reaction in the U.S. economy, then it seems rather disingenuous to condemn it while at the same time emphasiing that doing anything about it would be too painful.

Senator Obama can make a talking point out of Hillary's husband and NAFTA. He can make a valid point about Sen. Clinton praising NAFTA in the past while condemning it now......

But what is the point if Sen. Obama is going to throw up his hands and say there's nothing he'll do about it since it's so "entrenched" into our economy? Tapeworms are entrenched too, but any expert will agree that getting rid of it is much healthier than living with it.

Bill Clinton got my vote 1992 based upon the notion that he would also bring "change." It meant a swing away from the worshiping at the feet of Wall St. and concentrating on the greater mass of people who actually live with the consequences of their own actions, let alone those of others in higher places.

Is Obama like Bill Clinton?....great at getting elected but suffering political amnesia as soon as he takes the oath of office? If that's the way it is, then so be it. The nation cannot afford it, but SOME level of honesty and promise-keeping must return or the whole thing is a joke.

And very few are laughing.
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com

Back To The Future: The Economic World Of Hunter-Gatherers

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

The story of human social evolution goes roughly as follows: for eons people were hunter-gatherers, collecting food while moving from place to place. Such a life was VERY in tune with nature, resulting in very short life spans. Nature, after all, is not that friendly.

Then people discovered they could grow their food in one place. This was called farming. This method lasted to modern times, although in a very mechanical and corporate form.

The industrial revolution, starting in the 19th century, led more and more people to forsake farming for an urban existence. This also created a complex co-dependency between industry and those who worked in them.

Today in Bloomberg.com, Rich Karlgaard has this piece, THE DEEPER ROOTS OF ECONOMIC ANXIETY. I highly recommend the article, as well as the comments left by readers. They are quite revealing.

The U.S. economy is in better shape than the pundits, polls and press say it is. I don’t believe America is in a recession now. I don’t think one is coming. After eight months of anxiety and stock market turbulence, if the bad event hasn’t happened by now, I doubt it will happen at all.

The Fed is on the case. Bargain hunters like Warren Buffett are moving in, signaling a bottom. Small business is curiously robust despite the credit crunch. Employment is strong. Every commercial flight I’ve taken this year has been oversold.

Much as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would like us to believe 2008 is a trap door to the 1930s, they’re wrong.

So, there IS no recession, there is not GOING to be a recession, and all it takes is one man...Warren Buffet...to signal the bottom of something that isn't happening. Unless, of course, one considers Wall Street as the American economy. With all due respect, rather than Senators Clinton and Obama wanting us to believe 2008 is a trapdoor to the 1930's, it could also be said that Mr. Karlgaard's words could have been written by Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover. In the economic funhouse that set up its tent in the 1970's, lip service is paid to the vast pool of unwashed consumers. The REAL decisions; the true engine of the economy, are those of the "investing class" who are better-educated, and therefore wiser, than a bunch of chocolate cherry-chomping chumps watching TV.

Cheap production technology combined with vast pools of talent, capital and consumers around the world guarantee a world of “extreme competition” (to borrow a McKinsey phrase) and ever-accelerating business-model evolution. What could slow it down? Nothing I see. Not even war.

What goes for companies goes for careers. Your career and mine can be disrupted more easily than before. The best personal career strategy is to assume that our jobs will be disrupted. Everyone needs a Plan B.

If you and I face up to these facts and trends and likelihoods, the world will look scary but thrilling, and full of opportunity, too. If we cover our eyes or imagine that politicians can protect us from change, the world will look scary, period.

As my MIT Sloan School host on Wednesday, Howard Anderson, likes to say: Welcome to a world where you will eat well or sleep well, but not both.

Question for the day: Economic populists such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton call for "change," yet ironically claim they can protect Americans from change. In a world where ideas and capital can move anywhere in the world at the speed of light and flock to cheap production technology and talent, what protections against the future can politicians give us?

If one is to accept the premise that this "new" economic mold is to be unquestionably adapted to, there lies a problem right on the surface. Hunter-gatherer mentality requires cooperation, whereas capitalism requires competition. As Herbert Hoover liked to say, "A man who builds a factory builds a temple. And the man who works there, worships there." Certain forms of capitalism require slavish devotion from labor. And slavish devotion TO the concept that all taxation is evil; that spending is good as long as it's not paid for, and acknowledgment that certain well-educated experts know all the pitfalls of capitalism. Of which there are none, of course.

It is amusing to hear the phrase "creative destruction" in the context of economic activity. If such were applied equally across the board it might make sense. The problem is, some destruction and creativity is more equal than others.

As regards Mr. Karlgaard's Question of The Day, economic populist is synomous with communisim to the investing class. There is great offense taken at "class warfare," even if it's been going on forever and it doesn't take an Einstein to know who has been winning. Senators Clinton and Obama offer some form of change....their policies do not differ all that much. However, they DO differ from the status quo, which as we all know is Latin for "the mess we're in." The protections that government can give us against rampant unchecked corporate supremacy is the only hope the 95% of the population have for a future that MIGHT be brighter.

Welcome to a world where you will eat well or sleep well, but not both. This is a credo for hunter-gatherers. There is no stability, only uncertainty. In a Sim-City economic theory bubble it sounds so exciting, so dashing. It prompts me to ask why some people get so incensed at "big government" (which they should) but bow to illusory "market forces" when it comes to big corporations. At least with big government you have SOME rights as a human being.

I believe that this nation cannot withstand another four years of Bush economics (a contradiction in terms anyway). Should a Democrat sit in the Oval Office with the same fealty to large corporate donors then we're confronted with the choice this November between a moderate Republican and a moderate Republican.

In 1942 a Japanese general warned that they were suffering from "victory disease." Everything was going too smoothly; every goal was met and all opposition crushed. Such can be said for dedicated adherents to the status quo.

As regards making a choice between eating or sleeping, it's best to be reminded of an old saying, "The castle is safe as long as the cottage is happy."
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com
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This post kindly featured at MemeOrandum

CANDIDATE FATIGUE

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES



When I first learned of the term "semantic fatigue" I brought myself to a level of mental fugue after repeating the same word over and over until it had no meaning. It had become just a sound, like "Blah blah blah blah blah, etc." Take any word and try it: you'll be left a little dizzy with the feeling that you've swallowed a pillow or something.

Or......you can follow the presidential go-kart race as closely as you can.

Having just finished David McCollough's TRUMAN, I was hit full-force by the inanities of this so-called race. In fact, in his later years Truman expressed a lot of skepticism about presidential primaries, and more importantly, the effect television would have on future races. Also, he observed that if the Democratic Party ever became the mouthpiece for millionaires only it would be a sad day.

And it IS depressing when you read about Harry Truman while aware of the current plethora of people wanting to be President of the United States. "To err is Truman" someone said during his presidency, and that was a fact. He made blunders, mistakes, you name it.....but overall he did very well. He had, like many people did then, and many do NOW, an internal compass that guided him on most things. Polls he abhored, and ignored.

Today, polls are everything. Candidates are so aware of the camera, and the pseudo-message it sends, that they are not what they appear to be. So we seek the real person, the one who would be president, and come up short-handed. Those with that "internal compass" don't seem to bother to run.

Too many people bank heavily on what are referred to as "policies" of the candidates. Policy positions are nothing more than vague promises, totally useless if the core character of the candidate is not known. We are sold packages of images, which is a far cry from what we get AFTER an election.

This may be an old refrain, but it does not serve the republic well when the greater good of the nation is forsaken in order to provide relief for numerous complaints. Said complaints having been institutionalized through organizations whose focus is extremely narrow. And in many cases damaging to the republic, and what is stands for. Or used to, anyway.

Back in the days when Lyndon Johnson promised that he would not send "our boys ten thousand miles to do the fighting that Asian boys should be doing".....back when American boys were dying doing exactly THAT....the nightly news itself became semantic fatigue. If memory serves correctly, every Thursday evening Walter Cronkite would list the number of helicopters shot down that week. And of course the numbers of men killed.

After several years of this people lost sight of any real goals; they just wanted it to end. I mustn't forget the thousands of young men at the time who were all for the war but just couldn't get around to enlisting because of deferments of various sorts. Such types are always in favor of war....it's the image they cherish of hardbitten warriors bound helplessly to a chair somewhere.

Indeed, President Bush is passing on a mess to his successor. In 2008 any candidate running against Bush is a total waste of a vote. We all KNOW what Bush is leaving us; we need to see clarity in direction, not a re-arranging of chairs at the exclusive "club of rulers."

Having done away with the "evil" of old-timed "city bosses" who controlled conventions and greatly influenced elections, the election system has devolved into a contest for the attention of those with the advertising money. Nothing beats that "image thing."

The number of people who actually call the shots in presidential elections can be fit into the end zone seats of a small high school stadium, with room to spare. The candidates are not debating each other, but rather jumping for the attention of that end zone.

All us peons are asked to do is crown the king/queen on election day.

It's quite fatiguing.
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Cross-posted at Michaellinnjones.com

HEY TRENT, THANKS A LOTT!

BY MICHAEL LINN JONES

So Senator Trent Lott is resigning before the end of the year. What an odd bit of timing, I first thought.

But, silly 'ole me. I have to be educated the hard way about how Washington really works. My first reaction was: do voters have a CLUE as to how the future-soon-to-be-former senator will get along?

I know that the rumor mill started off immediately with a bit about some kind of gay escort service and all that. As if that is a scandal compared to what is going to happen. Congressional salaries/pensions/etc. are a scam; a sham, and a rip-off.

Both parties do it; this is not an indictment of one political party so much as it is a glaring example of how much chutzpah exists among the so-called "servants of the people." Where else in America can one work a job for 5 years and get 80% of their pay for the rest of their lives? Oh, and don't forget the COLA's (Cost of living adjustments) that can (and DO) raise a retired congressperson's income ABOVE what they were earning while in office.

To add insult to injury, the royals elites have devised a scheme known as "ethics," which is always good for a laugh in Washington. See, it might appear to us rubes down on the farm that leaving Congress and then going right to work for the people who were buying lobbying you for all those years as a little questionable.

But not to worry. Currently, those leaving office have to survive one entire year on their pensions, which is 80% of $175,000. Some bright spark decided to increase that to TWO years! What is going on here, folks? Two entire years on such miserable pay? I think such a scenario is more than most millionaires (and their minions) can take.

BUT.....if Trent Lott resigns before the end of 2007.....hooray!, he is limited to only the one year in the poorhouse before signing on to millions in compensation from some lobbying firm. The two-year requirement starts after the new year. It also explains why Dennis Hastert is resigning, too.

I've come to the sad conclusion that the only hope for the future of representative government in the U.S. is a radical change from our current system. Members of Congress should serve just like anyone else does in a jury. You're summoned and you have to do it. One term and you can go home, but in the meantime you'll have to sacrifice your normal life for a while for the greater good of the country.

You know, like those 150,000 odd people in Afghanistan and Iraq right now. Of course it won't ever happen. Like Senator Clinton says, we can't afford to have the U.S. government be a learning center for newbies. No, we need professionals like herself, her husband, Mr. Hastert, Mr. Lott, ET AL.

They've done such a fine job so far.

The question is: for whom, though?
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Cross-posted at Michael Linn Jones.com

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