"This president can tell us it was someone else's fault. This president can tell us that the next four years he'll get it right, but this president cannot tell us that you are better off today than when he took office." Mitt Romney's convention address 8/30/2012.
Like much else that Romney and Ryan said, this statement is factually wrong. Things aren't great, but we are better off than we were when the financial system was imploding with the housing market. Further, although unemployment rose after Obama was inaugurated, it fell in response to his policies--just not far enough. The problem was that his policies were too timorous, in part because Obama made attempt after mistaken attempt to compromise with the GOP minorities in both the House and the Senate: mostly the Senate, where the latter wielded its filibuster veto.
His attempts were mistaken, because Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, had made it very clear that his party would do almost whatever it could to insure that Obama would be a one-term President.
Neither Romney, nor Ryan, nor any of the other so-called leaders in the GOP, are willing to admit it now, but they are at least as responsible for the parlous state of the nation as Obama. They blocked whatever initiatives Obama attempted to bring about a recovery of the economy their (and Clinton-Rubin's) extreme laissez-faire policies had brought to the brink.
The GOP's hypocrisy is extraordinary, so the string of falsehoods promulgated by Ryan and then Romney at the convention should not be surprising.
What I do find surprising is the lack of "message control" on the part of the most prominent participants in the Republican Convention. Only the lesser lights, like Susana Martinez and Ann Romney stayed on message: to promote Romney as their standard bearer. Aside from the disastrous "address" of Clint Eastwood, Republican stars like Chris Christie, and even Paul Ryan appeared at best lukewarm in their promotion of their putative nominee.
This leads me to wonder: perhaps Mitt isn't even the super-manager he claims, or perhaps the GOP isn't really uniting behind him, after all. Ron Paul hasn't endorsed him, Clint referred to him as "the other guy" and many others seemed to treat him as an afterthought.
Maybe, the huge financial advantage Republicans have gained from Citizens United and their billionaire "super-pacs" has made them careless. After all, Sheldon Adelson has said he'd spend "whatever it takes" to defeat Obama, so, why worry? They'll just smother the airwaves with their lies.
I hope enough people tune out their distortions, but this is a classic case of the selfish class attempting to take over what had been at best a limited democracy. If their class succeeds, the US, and the world, will look increasingly like the last, fumbling years of the western Roman Empire.
Showing posts with label Ryan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ryan. Show all posts
Friday, August 31, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Rapists for Romney-Ryan
Rapists: just think, if the GOP wins the White House and Congress, then the women who carry your babies will just have to have them, hah, hah! You can go around the country forcing women to have your sons and daughters. Won't that be fun? Oh, you might have to go to prison, but that's a small price to pay. And just think, if the nasty woman you’ve impregnated tries to "get rid of it," she'll end up in prison, too!
And think of it this way: you're carrying out God's plan to be fruitful and multiply. Maybe the GOP will pass a law that your rap-ee will have to marry you, sort of like the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Hey, as far as Afghanistan goes, the only thing wrong with their social policies, from a Republican point of view, is that they're justified by the Quran, not the Bible; it's like going back to the Fourth Century, when the Catholic Church even humiliated Emperor Theodosius the Great!
Some Republicans, like Michelle Bachmann, are worried that the US will be governed under Sharia law, if Obama is re-elected, but really, if the Republicans are elected, maybe they'll re-institute stoning: it's in the Bible, after all.
Anyone who thinks it would have been much nicer in the Dark Ages, should vote for Republicans. Just think: if the GOP swept away all the regulations they enjoy complaining about, we could be re-visited by the Black Death, since basic sanitation would have to be left up to the "Free Market," meaning no one would do anything about accumulating garbage, unless someone paid them to: What! The Government? No, no! They'll have "drowned it in the bathtub."
Now, if you’re a billionaire, you should also vote Republican because you'll get at least $250,000 more to piss away any way you want to, instead of being subjected to the indignity of having to give it to the Government. You can spend it on ermine pillow covers instead of Govmint spending it on all sorts of ridiculous things, like job training, early childhood education, or even Food Stamps so some un-enterprising slobs don't go hungry at night! Or maybe they'd spend it on those awful women, who seem to think they should get birth control for free, probably, even if they're raped.
If women don't want to be raped, they should pack an automatic, or just don't go out anywhere, unless they have an escort, preferably male and over 6 feet tall--or, or hold an aspirin between their knees.
That's why women should really stay home, you see. Again, the Taliban have had the vision to create the glorious future that Republicans are only now beginning to realize--if it's Christian, of course.
And think of it this way: you're carrying out God's plan to be fruitful and multiply. Maybe the GOP will pass a law that your rap-ee will have to marry you, sort of like the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Hey, as far as Afghanistan goes, the only thing wrong with their social policies, from a Republican point of view, is that they're justified by the Quran, not the Bible; it's like going back to the Fourth Century, when the Catholic Church even humiliated Emperor Theodosius the Great!
Some Republicans, like Michelle Bachmann, are worried that the US will be governed under Sharia law, if Obama is re-elected, but really, if the Republicans are elected, maybe they'll re-institute stoning: it's in the Bible, after all.
Anyone who thinks it would have been much nicer in the Dark Ages, should vote for Republicans. Just think: if the GOP swept away all the regulations they enjoy complaining about, we could be re-visited by the Black Death, since basic sanitation would have to be left up to the "Free Market," meaning no one would do anything about accumulating garbage, unless someone paid them to: What! The Government? No, no! They'll have "drowned it in the bathtub."
Now, if you’re a billionaire, you should also vote Republican because you'll get at least $250,000 more to piss away any way you want to, instead of being subjected to the indignity of having to give it to the Government. You can spend it on ermine pillow covers instead of Govmint spending it on all sorts of ridiculous things, like job training, early childhood education, or even Food Stamps so some un-enterprising slobs don't go hungry at night! Or maybe they'd spend it on those awful women, who seem to think they should get birth control for free, probably, even if they're raped.
If women don't want to be raped, they should pack an automatic, or just don't go out anywhere, unless they have an escort, preferably male and over 6 feet tall--or, or hold an aspirin between their knees.
That's why women should really stay home, you see. Again, the Taliban have had the vision to create the glorious future that Republicans are only now beginning to realize--if it's Christian, of course.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
What Is To Be Done?*
I despair the politics of this era, the lies and distortions that impel it, the money that drives it. Mitt Romney is its perfect symbol; Paul Ryan is the embodiment of its deceptive promises of reaction snake-oil.
The Economist asks, 'Who, really, is Mitt Romney?' I doubt he can answer, except: he's determined to win the Presidency; he has no goal, other than winning it. He's been both a moderate liberal as governor of Massachusetts, and an "extreme conservative," (his own words), while running for President, even after winning the nomination. He was pro-choice, and now, he'll run on a Republican platform in which even rape and incest are not exempt from its absolute ban. He insists, after Akin's blooper, that he'd allow abortion for either reason, but who knows whether he would, or could, given his party.
Romney even threatens a Gold Commission to investigate returning to the Gold Standard--presumably to mollify Ron Paul supporters.
Then Senator, George McGovern, wrote an awful forward to The Promise of the Coming Dark Age: McGovern touted the Khmer Rouge as a beacon! If Mitt is able to buy the Presidency--that's what it would be, a purchase, costing several billion dollars--then the Dark Age could be upon us: the Roman Senators of old couldn't match the callous disregard the elite bear today for the rest of us. Romney would cut services (Food Stamps, Medicaid) for the desperate and cut taxes for his (lightly taxed) class of multimillionaires and billionaires. He'd also increase Defense spending, possibly for fighting another war: Iran, probably, although he'd also start a trade war with China the day he's inaugurated.
Romney appears to have chosen "extreme conservative" over moderate liberal, although he's still claiming he lives in Massachusetts (there is a question whether he did, when he filed taxes and voted in Massachusetts, claiming residence in his son's basement, a possible felony). But Romney still resists political, as well as geographic, definition.
His party tries to rally natives against immigrants, whites against blacks, men against women--its absolutist anti-abortion position is only a small part of that--but all is subsumed in the general war against all who are not owners of significant capital.
Capital is the contemporary version of the gold, land and slaves controlled by Roman Senators in the fourth and fifth centuries. Unlike the wealth of old, however, capital is expandable, and radical. Roman Senators could do only a small fraction of the damage that can be done, is already being done, by our contemporary elites, from eviscerating the safety net, environmental pollution and impoverishing the non-rich, to global warming, global immiseration and buying this election.
Can sanity stop them? Even the sitting President, Obama, doesn't have the money to beat back their misinformation, smears, and outright lies: example, their claim that Obama is reviving welfare.
What is to be done?
*Lenin used the same title.
The Economist asks, 'Who, really, is Mitt Romney?' I doubt he can answer, except: he's determined to win the Presidency; he has no goal, other than winning it. He's been both a moderate liberal as governor of Massachusetts, and an "extreme conservative," (his own words), while running for President, even after winning the nomination. He was pro-choice, and now, he'll run on a Republican platform in which even rape and incest are not exempt from its absolute ban. He insists, after Akin's blooper, that he'd allow abortion for either reason, but who knows whether he would, or could, given his party.
Romney even threatens a Gold Commission to investigate returning to the Gold Standard--presumably to mollify Ron Paul supporters.
Then Senator, George McGovern, wrote an awful forward to The Promise of the Coming Dark Age: McGovern touted the Khmer Rouge as a beacon! If Mitt is able to buy the Presidency--that's what it would be, a purchase, costing several billion dollars--then the Dark Age could be upon us: the Roman Senators of old couldn't match the callous disregard the elite bear today for the rest of us. Romney would cut services (Food Stamps, Medicaid) for the desperate and cut taxes for his (lightly taxed) class of multimillionaires and billionaires. He'd also increase Defense spending, possibly for fighting another war: Iran, probably, although he'd also start a trade war with China the day he's inaugurated.
Romney appears to have chosen "extreme conservative" over moderate liberal, although he's still claiming he lives in Massachusetts (there is a question whether he did, when he filed taxes and voted in Massachusetts, claiming residence in his son's basement, a possible felony). But Romney still resists political, as well as geographic, definition.
His party tries to rally natives against immigrants, whites against blacks, men against women--its absolutist anti-abortion position is only a small part of that--but all is subsumed in the general war against all who are not owners of significant capital.
Capital is the contemporary version of the gold, land and slaves controlled by Roman Senators in the fourth and fifth centuries. Unlike the wealth of old, however, capital is expandable, and radical. Roman Senators could do only a small fraction of the damage that can be done, is already being done, by our contemporary elites, from eviscerating the safety net, environmental pollution and impoverishing the non-rich, to global warming, global immiseration and buying this election.
Can sanity stop them? Even the sitting President, Obama, doesn't have the money to beat back their misinformation, smears, and outright lies: example, their claim that Obama is reviving welfare.
What is to be done?
*Lenin used the same title.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Romney-Ryan Can Win by Losing
It's more likely Romney won't win the Presidency, having named Paul Ryan. Ryan defines Romney, clarifies that he's not some "compassionate conservative," as W pretended to be--until he was elected.
But winning appears to be less important than changing the conversation.
Radical reactionaries won't meet the fate they did with Goldwater in 1964. Then, conservatives had neither think-tank brainpower, nor the financial power unleashed by Citizens United. Goldwater went down hard, because Democrats/progressives dominated the conversation.
It wasn't until Reagan that conservatives gained a second chance, but they won only a toehold.
The reactionary, Ayn Randian ideas of Paul Ryan are far more extreme than Reagan ever dared. They represent an aspiration to turn American political society back to the Robber Barons, before not only the New Society (Medicare-Medicaid), New Deal (Social Security, fair wages, labor union power), but even before the Anti-Trust Progressive era, when governments began to regulate and tax corporate and personal excess.
If Democrats/progressives/liberals/labor are able to get the word out, a slim majority of voters in "contested battleground states" will probably vote for Obama, and maybe even for a Democratic Congress and Senate.
That's a big if, since Ryan's name has drawn over $3 million to Republican coffers in just two days. Self-interested moneybags will mobilize to send much more--not just to the GOP, but to the so-called super-pacs, to spend on bile against Obama, or anyone to the left of Attila the Hun (I wrote Attila's autobiography, which you can buy here: http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G).
Still, there are ways incumbent Presidents can get the word out. But the election is only part of the story, perhaps the least likely part. Ryan is important even if he and Romney don't win: the right wing will have succeeded in shifting the conversation far to the right in their favor.
The great failure of Goldwater was that LBJ's landslide shifted political ideals and policy leftward. But with millions to billions of dollars mobilized against Obama and Democrats by Ryan's candidacy, Obama and even other Democrats might still win, but the election will probably be close.
So, the ideas put forward by Ryan and the Tea Party, will not only NOT remain unthinkable, they will become The Alternative, if nearly half the electorate supports Romney-Ryan-Republicans.
Romney has never, until now, allowed himself to be defined in policy terms: he's run away from his one signal accomplishment as Massachusetts Governor (Romneycare), but by naming Ryan, he becomes dependent upon the Tea Party and its radical corporate base: addled activists subsidized by Robber Barons.
So, today's equivalent of Fifth Century Roman Senators will attempt to control virtually all levels of government--and, of course, their own serfs. That's why they're willing to spend (100's of) millions of dollars against Obama.
But winning appears to be less important than changing the conversation.
Radical reactionaries won't meet the fate they did with Goldwater in 1964. Then, conservatives had neither think-tank brainpower, nor the financial power unleashed by Citizens United. Goldwater went down hard, because Democrats/progressives dominated the conversation.
It wasn't until Reagan that conservatives gained a second chance, but they won only a toehold.
The reactionary, Ayn Randian ideas of Paul Ryan are far more extreme than Reagan ever dared. They represent an aspiration to turn American political society back to the Robber Barons, before not only the New Society (Medicare-Medicaid), New Deal (Social Security, fair wages, labor union power), but even before the Anti-Trust Progressive era, when governments began to regulate and tax corporate and personal excess.
If Democrats/progressives/liberals/labor are able to get the word out, a slim majority of voters in "contested battleground states" will probably vote for Obama, and maybe even for a Democratic Congress and Senate.
That's a big if, since Ryan's name has drawn over $3 million to Republican coffers in just two days. Self-interested moneybags will mobilize to send much more--not just to the GOP, but to the so-called super-pacs, to spend on bile against Obama, or anyone to the left of Attila the Hun (I wrote Attila's autobiography, which you can buy here: http://www.amazon.com/Attila-Told-his-Scribes-ebook/dp/B00855M90G).
Still, there are ways incumbent Presidents can get the word out. But the election is only part of the story, perhaps the least likely part. Ryan is important even if he and Romney don't win: the right wing will have succeeded in shifting the conversation far to the right in their favor.
The great failure of Goldwater was that LBJ's landslide shifted political ideals and policy leftward. But with millions to billions of dollars mobilized against Obama and Democrats by Ryan's candidacy, Obama and even other Democrats might still win, but the election will probably be close.
So, the ideas put forward by Ryan and the Tea Party, will not only NOT remain unthinkable, they will become The Alternative, if nearly half the electorate supports Romney-Ryan-Republicans.
Romney has never, until now, allowed himself to be defined in policy terms: he's run away from his one signal accomplishment as Massachusetts Governor (Romneycare), but by naming Ryan, he becomes dependent upon the Tea Party and its radical corporate base: addled activists subsidized by Robber Barons.
So, today's equivalent of Fifth Century Roman Senators will attempt to control virtually all levels of government--and, of course, their own serfs. That's why they're willing to spend (100's of) millions of dollars against Obama.
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