E.A.R.S.: Enough already with this Reactionary Stuff

PUT YOUR READERS ON BECAUSE I’VE GOT A STORY TO TELL. WHEN CIVILIZED PEOPLE HEAR YOU’RE INTERESTED IN POLITICS, IT’S LIKE HEARING, “I HAVE AN INTENSE INTEREST IN SEPTIC TANKS.” RIGHT WING RADICALS OBSTRUCT BANKING REFORM, TAX REFORM, AND CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM, WHILE OBSTRUCTING VOTERS RIGHTS, AND HEAPING TAXES ON WORKING PEOPLE. THE STAKES FOR OUR DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM ARE HIGH. WE CAN’T PERMIT THE THEFT OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE UNDER THEIR BATTLE CRY OF “LET’S TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.”

HISTORY REVISION AND THE FISCAL TOLL OF AMERICAN EXTREMISM

A not too distant glance back in world history finds the Nazi movement formulating mythologies which square with their commonly held bigotry. They would call this newly “rediscovered” propaganda Arian history, which, not too surprisingly, justified their superiority over everyone. Through this propaganda and their ruthlessness, the Nazis enforced their pretend Arian history into their nation’s conciseness, seized power, conceived of the Holocaust, and started the Second World War in Europe. They did this to expedite Germany’s rise from the ashes from the First World War, which had left them in complete economic ruin. The conquering of Europe and killing all the Jews didn’t have the desired economic outcome. Their mindless ideology trumped their own economic interests. Lesson learned. Today Germany is a moderate Social Democratic nation and a strong ally. I believe fascism is beginning to take root in the United States. The clowns that support the tea party like Mitch McConnell say “Democracy just doesn’t work.” Tea Party pin up boy, Eric Cantor gives speeches to oil derivatives traders assuring them his party will do everything in his power to reverse Dodd Frank’s legislation. These speculators inflate gas by as much as forty cents per gallon. They are taxed on this ill-gotten gain at fifteen percent annually while their secretaries pay thirty percent. They are the MASTER RACE OF JOB CREATORS! Actually, they create nothing. Their “business” is just a big rigged casino game on Wall Street where consumers always lose. Dodd Frank’s was set up to change that. The bombastic right wing media outlets pounds out a coordinated drumbeat of lies. They seize upon others credit. They excuse themselves from all responsibility. They can embrace Reagan as a hero because Clinton’s tax policies paid for Reagan’s deficits. They’re a little torn over the legacy of the last Bush. He did all the things a good Extremist president would do but the bottom line sure looked crappy when he left office. FOX news and Limbaugh have been working hard to convince people of an alternate history. Obama actually disclosed the costs of the wars to the public and placed those costs on the books. Were we really happier and safer when George, Dick, and Rummy were lying to us? The Republican Party ceased to exist. While the name is still the same, for well over a decade they have been an Extremist movement. Nationally, their political strategy is to eliminate all social safety net programs for seniors, children and working people. Extremists fight with their political life to enrich large corporations and benefit the wealthy from general tax revenue. Everything else is off the table. Then they slander, slander, slander. I guess they think it’s the Christian thing to do. Our Nation is in a lingering economic crisis. We cannot afford extremists in our national, state, or local government. Republicans hate government. Today Extremists must believe we can build a strong economy by governing other people’s sex organs, mistreating workers, pushing legacy costs to our future generations, and having working people subsidize jets for corporate bigwigs and oil companies. The Old Sheep Herder isn’t sure what that has to do with economics, but a lot of people didn’t get the connection with Iraq and the attacks of September 11. The G.O.P.’s irresponsible and heavy handed policies have set a political tone akin to the Civil War. Their most ardent followers still don’t believe the President was born in this country. They promised you the good old days and they really delivered. In spite of our growing population, race relations had shown slow and steady improvement for many years. The Bush era ended that. Overt Birther racism poisons all G.O.P. dialog and legislation. In spite of the G.O.P.’s rigorous defense of Bush Twos legacy, they are unwilling to take responsibility for the fiscal legacy. History will show it was neither fiscally nor strategically responsible for Bush to go into Iraq. He destroyed a geo-political checkmate between Iraq and Iran. That leaves us in a position where we have to stabilize Iraq. In the meantime Iran is free from the threat of Saddam and can pursue its nuclear program. Oh well, at least Bush’s oil field company holding buddies were assured American troops paid for by American taxpayers were protecting their interests in Central Asia. Domestically, Bush and the Extremists stripped away financial regulation and oversight setting loose a torrent of greedy and corrupt housing transactions ending in the Bush crash of 2008. Its Bush’s legacy that he cast aside intense precautions that Al Queda was an extreme threat to our national security. That precaution was offered by the Clinton administration’s National Security Team to Bush’s Transition Team before he was sworn in. Its Bush’s legacy for ignoring his National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, passing on the word that Al Queada plans to use planes to attack the United States. Its Bush’s legacy for demoting Richard Clarke for insisting on bringing this to Bush’s attention personally. Bush responded “I’m not interested in swatting at flies.” Its Bush’s legacy to sit dumbfounded in front of a classroom of children as he formulated a historically foolish response to this act of terrorism. Our Air Force, Military, Marines, Special Ops and Intelligence made short work of the Taliban and had Bin Laden trapped in Tori Bora. George Bush had other work for our military. That Bin Laden thing would just have to wait. His constituents, the oil companies were nervous that their assets would be seized by terrorists. George Bush headed off in the opposite direction of the battle. Knowing that General Lee shot men in the back for acting like this, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld told the big lie about weapons of mass destruction. They are the Gas and Oil Party. Bush’s legacy is that his administration identified CIA agent Valerie Plame when she presented information that completely contradicted their lies to the public for going to war in Iraq. Do you think as commander in chief, that the Bush administration alienated the CIA by this sordid political dirty trick? Did that dirty trick compromise American security? Did it slow down our hunt for Bin Laden? Is the CIA’s job to gather intelligence or fabricate political lies? Bush’s legacy was surrounding himself with intellectually bankrupt, corporately controlled, political partisans who brought nothing to the table to compensate for his innumerable shortcomings. Bush’s legacy is that he helped Bin Laden achieve his objective on his holy war on America. Bin Laden wanted to bankrupt us. Bush put a war of choice on the national credit card. He tore down the last vestiges of regulation and oversight. He overburdened Medicare with an unfunded drug benefit to put that program in crisis status. He gave huge tax breaks to the wealthy. Those tax breaks for the wealthy have mostly ended up out of our economy and in investments overseas. Contrary to all his cowboy rhetoric, Bush was an ideal partner for Bin Laden’s holy war on America. Al Queda might be on life support, but the Tea Party which supported Bush and revises history so the amnesiac will think of him favorabl,y needs putting in its place. Bush’s legacy was saying that in 2002, Bin Laden wasn’t even a priority because he was out of Afghanistan and not in a command position anymore. He closed the CIA unit dedicated to his search in 2005. In 2005 Bin Laden started building his quaint little villa in Pakistan. Bush’s legacy is while claiming to be a small government Republican, he established and expanded multiple government agencies in order to impress the importance of future threats through his thick skull and into his dull brain. The legacy to taxpayers is The Department of Homeland Security among others. They have about 850,000 employees. Many of them focus on mass mailings to employers having employees fill out forms with driver’s license numbers and birthday. Most importantly the key questions,; are you a member of a sleeper cell?...y/n…non-member of sleeper cell?..y/n. When these are all filled out and mailed back and boxed up, maybe we could drop them on a real Al Queda camp in Yemen. Bush’s legacy is that he admits to having only one regret during his Presidency. He thinks he mishandled his initiative to privatize Social Security. Guess what would have happened to a privatized Social Security in the 2008 financial crash. At least Wall Street would have had fun gambling with it until the three lemons turned up. Since his election, Obama has begun the massive redeployment of troops to Afghanistan to finish the mission George Bush deserted. After 800 days in office he ordered Navy Seal Team Six to go in and execute the most daring military mission since our initial pursuit of Al Quaeda. While it didn’t go flawlessly (the loss of one helicopter) it was a smashing success. George Bush had almost 2700 days to accomplish or coordinate a similar mission. It wasn’t important for the oil companies so he didn’t do it. With the real mission accomplished, not a photo opportunity on an air craft carrier, the GOP history revisionists are on overtime saying, “Give credit to Bush!” History will give Bush his due legacy. Bush and his defenders pout in their infamy, too ideologically rigid to realize they are carrying on Bin Laden’s legacy of destroying our economy through class warfare. The Tea Party chafe at the handful of regulations passed over their perpetually filibustering House and Senate members during Obama’s first two years. The Republicans long for the good old days of wars off the books and Wall Street valuing your garden shed at a million dollars. Americans do not want class warfare. Americans want shared sacrifice and innovation to get us out of this very deep ditch we are in. The Tea Party is opposed to what the American voter wants.

Old Selfish Money

How do you tell the difference between a wealthy person who has accumulated wealth through hard work perseverance and creativeness and a cake eater who inherited wealth? A CAEIW (pronounced cow) hasn’t the faintest grasp of the nuances of business but knows their inherited wealth came from business activity. Their self-perception is that since they are wealthy they must be successful businessmen. People that earn their own wealth don’t quickly and easily self-define themselves. They have to do a lot of things to be successful. Their adaptability is more akin to the working class world view. Paying our Nation’s bills is beneath a CAEIW’s dignity. CAEIWs looked scornfully at the bill we owed China during the debt limit fiasco and had their Tea Party mouth pieces scream, “Let them eat rice!” and “We will only pay them the interest!” Everyone understood the devastating self- inflicted wound the extremists intended to inflict on our Nation unless they continued to extort more money from the public coffers in the deal. Can you imagine Bill Gates only paying the interest on the light bill when he was building the Micro-Soft Empire? Normal working people pay unreasonable bills every day. The hedge fund business inflates gas by as much as 40 cents a gallon. That trade group receives pep talks from Extremist pin-up boy Eric Cantor assuring them his party will help them. Unethical politicians tax these guys at 15%. These same politicians say it is unthinkable to tax these people more as they are job creators. The Old Sheep Herder is wondering if the jobs they are talking about are in the growing soup kitchen and food shelf business that serves the folks Republicans have driven into abject poverty.

What Are The Qualities Of Leadership?

What are the qualities of leadership? Does a political party that has become anti-senior, anti-child, anti-worker, anti-science, anti-education, and actively history revising with complete contempt for all but 1% of America’s population, that hate government, deserve to be in a position of leadership? John Boener and Mitch McConnell insist they are doing what is best for America. Attending to 1% of the population is not a balanced approach to solving America’s problems. Loyal Republicans have enabled Extremists to lead us into a war of choice, dangerous deregulation, the Bush recession, procedural philibuststers and slander orgies when Democrats worked at making substantial changes to help Americans get the health care they pay for. This nonsense continues. One day Boener brags that he got 98% of what he wanted, yet after S&P downgraded the U.S. credit, essentially for his party’s conduct, he wants to cut more of the safety net. DON’T WAKE UP THOSE BILLIONAIRES WHEN THEY ARE SLEEPING! They’re so cute! At what point do loyal Republicans look at their party’s conduct, see that the president’s debt reduction proposal was twice the size albeit involved taking away deductions from the wealthy that the rest of America don’t come close to enjoying, and put their nation before their party? Managing our Nation’s deficit has never been a Republican priority. Clinton picked up the tab for Reagan and Bush 1. If you desperately needed heart surgery would you put your trust in the learned surgeons at the Mayo Clinic or have the “Trailer Park Boys” cut you open for a quart of Jagermeister because they can yell louder than the Mayo surgeons? As The Old Sheep Herder reviews the Cake Eaters Wish List, or as they like to call it in D.C., the tax code, 35% of corporations pay no income taxes. Will the oil companies turn to goat farming if they lose their six billion dollar tax refund? It’s a double whammy at the pump paying out the additional forty cents a gallon the rigged hedge fund casino game adds forty cents a gallon to the cost of gas. Those folks pay 15% on the money they steal from us. Their secretaries, of course pay 30%. If socialism is bad economic policy, why are taxpayers shelling out billions in tax rebates to the oil companies? It is because of the Tea Party whose core belief is socialism for the wealthy. They believe civilization exists to service the wealthy. The most profitable business enterprise on the planet does not need socialized taxpayer tax refunds.

Household Nation?

Running our nation like a household? The simple minded Tea Party loyalists love this one. When you really think about households run, how many times did you go across town, depose a head of household you felt threatened you, that caused that neighborhood to erupt into violence so you had to stay there indefinitely while your kids went without. I’m 56 and close to owning my homestead with a quarter mile driveway. But like every reactionary anti-tax Tea Party Activist, I am completely dependent on my township, county, state, and Federal Governments for the maintenance and upkeep of the roads I drive on to work and shop. These government entities sell bonds and borrow money on taxes due them to hire the people and do the work on the roads and bridges we all benefit from. How many households do you know of who have their own personal road forged to work and each of the stores they patronize? Maybe they use those convenient tax payer funded and maintained roads like I do despite their rhetoric. Taxes buy civilization. Run our nation like a household? While I’d like more guns, I just can’t afford it now. I’ve got a 22 bolt action rife and a pellet rifle. Is that really how the Tea Party wants its beloved Department of Defense prioritized? You get your air craft carrier after the Old Sheepherder pays off his trucks new transmission. I DON’T WANT MY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE PRIORITIZED THAT WAY. Infrastructure of a nation and the upkeep of a house are parallel responsibilities. The greatest generation built us a freeway system and bridges and airports. As the time comes to repair these legacies, the Tea Party responds like the old Soviet Union Politburo. Nyet! What kind of fool would run their house that way? When the time comes to re-shingle your home, would you just ignore it indefinitely like a Tea Party genius? Let the rain seep in and mold the insulation, rot the wood, collapse the ceiling, and destroy the contents of your house. Then it would be time to variously blame your self-inflicted wounds on Muslims, immigrants, gays, and liberals. Perhaps it would be wiser to borrow money to have the house shingled. Debt is not always a bad thing. Debt can prevent a catastrophe. Run our nation like a household? Get rid of that postal system that doesn’t cost taxpayers one red cent. Without a postal service Tea Party loyalists could have their brilliant children deliver it in their family car rather than spend 44 cents on a stamp. Heck, gas is cheap now that Iraq is a democracy! It is a fool’s proposition to run our great nation like a household. The complex demands of a diverse people in a vast country is more complex than any Tea Party sloganeering would mislead you to believe. After the aptly named “Satan’s Sandwich” legislation that raised the debt limit, the senior troll and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, “Democracy just doesn’t work.” He was referring to reaching solutions on debt reduction. Apparently he suddenly forgot that all the extremists have pledged their allegiance to selfish wealthy people who he represented well by refusing to raise their taxes. Having people in a leadership position who subvert then say they don’t believe in democracy is shameful. That was apparent by their hostage taking political strategy in the debt ceiling crisis. Republicans hate government. You would never send your children to a daycare center ran by the infamous child rapist and murderer John Wayne Gacy. For that same reason, you should never vote Republican.

The Dynamics of the Tea Party Movement

The Tea Party is an extremist movement, which is a malevolent beast with six seemingly disparate heads. It's foundation are caustic and inflammatory and inaccurate broadcasters. Limbaugh is on the radio. You have FOX news. Wealthy business interests sponsor this garbage and support its goals. Bigoted and unethical clergy harmonize their contempt. "Family value politicians" who don't value family, city, state, or country lead the dissent in the sewer. If you petition the courts to not be a part of this madness, extremist judges may set aside the law in order to exercise their extremist agenda. The last head is the bullied and confused middle class who are afraid to vote for their own interests. It is little wonder that when the extremist politicians go over the air waves to protect their selfish, wealthy constituents from contributing to society in a proportion they benefit from it, their reasons all reveal themselves as ridiculous lies. Recently we heard them say we only need to pay the interest on our debts. We don't need to raise the debt ceiling. This is an impressive argument to people who make minimum payments on credit card bills but made international bankers anxious and bewildered. Why would a wealthy nation just decide to stop paying its bill? The malevolent beast of extremism led our country to the brink in the fall of 2008. Given a second chance at power at mid-term elections of 2010, they dutifully steered America directly back into the ditch.

Cowardice, lies, and leadership

We've seen enough of Extremest political leaders to know that among their peers, cowardice and amoral values are the primary qualification of leadership. In the lead- up to the Iraq war, the Bush administration was an echo chamber of the lies it fabricated to rationalize the going into Iraq at the behest of the oil companies. When Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, reported to the Bush administration that most of the foundation of their threat was false, Scooter Libby, Bush's aide, outed her as a CIA agent destroying her career. Scooter served two years. Our country is still in Iraq at a cost of 4000 American lives and trillions of dollars and counting. What did Obama think he was doing by disclosing the costs of the wars to the taxpayers and placing those costs on the books? Bush, Rice, and Powell were all too cowardly and amoral to say for the sake of their nation that Rumsfeld and Cheny seemed to be making up their rational for war from unreliable sources. We saw the same thing in the House of Representatives during the debt limit/debt reduction fiasco. Against their constituents' wishes and every credible economists recommendation, the Tea Party Caucus stood ready to disembowel America's safety net programs. Reforming them was not a consideration. When confronted with the potential destructiveness of their actions they responded like a drug crazed crack whore on COPS. "I got to kill my baby, so she can go live with Jesus".

The Tea Party 10 Commandments

As self-professed Christian fundamentalists, sometimes it is a little hard to square Tea Party activists like Congressman Joe Walsh, who walked away from $100,000 in child support, while threatening to tank our economy over the debt ceiling because he didn't want to pass this nation's debt onto his children. Why didn't he pay his child support? Did his kids have a "spending problem?" Like our country?
It is also a bit of a stretch to self-identify, as a fundamentalist Christian, when the average Tea Party activist can't even name four of the books in the New Testament, much less read any of them.
To understand the Tea Party, you need a "Tea Party 10 Commandments."

1) Thou shalt have no other gods before me, except the "hallowed job-creators," which use their 1950's tax rate to create jobs in India and China.

2) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in Heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth. Yikes! Where do I go to get my full back tattoo of Sarah Palin removed?

3) Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh hiss name in vain. Us Tea Party minions go out there and Lord it up to get elected. Once elected, most of our energy is spent protecting the interests of the wealthy. You didn't hear about Jesus doing that in the New Testament, now did you?

4) Remember the Sabbath Day, to keep it holy. Catch up on your Rush Limbaugh programming to get your marching orders for next week.

5) Honor thy Father and thy Mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. We can do this by eliminating the inheritance tax, but Medicare must be replaced with a voucher system with radical cuts to Social Security coupled with privatized accounts. Those old buzzards sure are pricey to maintain!

6) Thou shalt not kill. Outright. We believe in slow starvation through malnutrition. We believe in shortening life through the unavailability of medical treatment for multiple, simple diseases of poor people.

7) Thou shalt not commit adultery. Unless she has big hair that looks like cotton candy.

8) Thou shalt not steal, unless it is from children, the elderly, the poor, the middle class, small businesses, and the future.

9) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. Unless it is calling our president a "nazi," a "muslim," a "communist," a "terrorist," "anti-american," "anti-military," and "author of a death panel in the health care bill."

10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thy neighbor'a wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is his neighbor's. Great! We can covet collective bargaining. We can covet minimum wage. We can covet decent insurance. We'll take all these things and more away from people because the profits say so.