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OCTOBER 10, 2003 – It is easy to claim things, but of course,
in the end, it is simple to see what is true and what is not by
judging a man’s – or in this case, a party’s actions. The California
recall election made a number of things absolutely clear:
1) The self-righteous claims of the Republican Party clearly mean
nothing.
All along, as the Republicans claimed to be the party of “family
values” and that they would, “do what Jesus would do,” thinking people
wondered if there wasn’t some inaccuracy to these claims. For
example, wouldn’t someone with “family values” value the air their
family breathes over ensuring big bonuses for CEO’s, or even over a
few jobs? What person thinks Jesus would say, “Allow some thousands
of people to be inflicted with diseases like emphysema and asthma –
even though it clearly can be prevented – for the sake of saving a few
dollars?
But the Republicans held this all together by spewing insults and hate
at “amorally” acting people, like Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky
scandal, Hollywood and its violence and sex in it’s films and
hedonistic culture.
For anyone who ever bought Republican claims to be righteous, it is
clear no one can ever be stupid enough to do so again. Even the most
mentally weak imbecile can clearly see how the Republicans – including
President Bush, who ran his campaign largely against the disgusting
acts of Bill Clinton – embrace a man who is not just the poster-child
for violence in the media, not just the poster-child for Hollywood
decadence – drug use, orgies, marital infidelity – but who is a flat
out woman abusing criminal.
Some can claim to be shocked that they turned out to be hypocritical,
but none can question that this is clearly the case – that the
Republicans are not a party that cares about “values,” but nothing
more than a party of Machiavellian, greedy, power-hungry people with
no moral code of any kind. They will clearly sacrifice any amount of
lives, the stability and economy of the nation, and, without question,
all decency and morality for the sake of getting what they want –
which in the end amounts to nothing more than money for themselves.
2) Even the supposed “mainstream” media clearly is nothing but a
bought and sold puppet and tool of the Republican Party.
All through this election, Arnold was dubbed “front-runner” even
though he never was until the last week. True “front-runner”
Bustamante was never mentioned as such, and indeed, was ignored.
Davis was never mentioned without saying “uncharismatic” or
“unlikeable” or “unpopular.”
When it was clear Arnold was not capable of answering the questions of
real reporters, he ran to hate radio and made the rounds. These
people who assailed Clinton threw nothing but praise on Arnold. And
the “mainstream” press never pointed out the hatred and lies Arnold
was endorsing by going on these shows, comments such as, “If Arnold
had slept with little boys, the Democrats would love him, but it was
women, so they are mad.” Free ride to the AM radio crew Arnold went
on, and free ride to him.
When it became clear Arnold was not competent to face a real debate,
the California Broadcasters’ Association created an unprecedented,
never-before-used debate format solely for the sake of serving
Arnold. It gave him the questions ahead of time and changed the
format to not only allow, but encourage people to talk over others.
Remember, the group that came up with this consists of all the major
broadcast organizations of California and the national media. The
event was self-proclaimed to be “WWF-like.” Yes, as we all see,
designed exactly to allow the big-mouthed know nothing Schwarzenegger
to appear in command of the issues and stifle any potential rebuttals
or criticism from rivals with his belligerent bullying, mannerless nature.
Then there was Oprah, who gave him free soft-ball airtime but no other
candidate. In the Presidential election she played “fair” by having
both Gore and Bush on. Where was Bustamante? Where was Davis?
The networks devoted more coverage to this than not only all of the
Governor’s races combined last time, but more than the last
Presidential election – and virtually all of the coverage was just
Arnold, and very positive, pushing his inevitability and fake
“front-runner” status.
Then, on election day, the press played a clear game of suppressing
the Democratic vote by beginning to claim at 4 PM, before most voters
had even gotten to go to the polls, which happens largely after work,
that Arnold would sweep. The next day, of course, the TV pundits
marveled at how turnout was high most places except in places like LA,
where, though it had been high early in the day, it fell so sharply
later that turnout for the day was lower than usual. The pundits now
speculated that maybe the early release of exit polls discouraged some
people from going to stand in the lines to vote – lines that, as the
news made sure to report all day, were extra long, especially in the
city areas, due to the fact that there where only 1,800 polling places
instead of the usual 5,000+. In the meantime, radio also ran reports
of how easy and quickly the voting was going in Republican strongholds
like Orange County, encouraging Republicans to vote at the same time they were discouraging Democrats.
3) The Republican policy platform is nothing more than disastrous
lies, designed to a) take all money possible and stick it in the
pockets of a few Republicans, b) blame the Democrats for the ensuing
economic, social, educational, health care, and national security
disasters.
We got to see the virtually inarticulate Arnold run through the same
talk radio platform that President Bush ran on, even as we clearly see
the platform does not work in real life. Listen to what Arnold
promised: he will cut taxes without cutting necessary spending for
vital services and while reducing the deficit.
Right, exactly the same thing Bush promised. Al Gore said he was
lying, that it wouldn’t work like this. We now clearly see he was
lying, that his tax cuts did, as Gore claimed they would, create
massive deficits and require much cutting of vital spending for even
the most basic services, like police and schools - not to mention put undue burdens on the states which has caused 47 to run debts, including the one that led to the recall in the first place.
All of the Republican claims – that they can not raise taxes while not
cutting vital services while balancing the budget; the reasons they
say we can not improve environmental regulation, the reason they say
we can not get more vacation at our jobs or increase the minimum wage
– all of these claims, again and again, are backed up by one
fear-inspiring claim: if we don’t give all this money to rich people
and businesses, if we improve environmental regulation, increase
vacation or the minimum wage, we will lose jobs.
We have had a great economy and a terrible economy with the current
state of regulation and vacation. Europe has had a great economy and
terrible economy while giving workers 5 weeks of vacation, having
stronger environmental regs, and taxing their wealthy at a much higher
rate. An economy is not about the taxes, an economy is not about the
vacation or the environmental regulation, an economy is not about the
amount of vacation and they know it.
As we see that clearly their plan of massive tax cuts, rolling back
environmental regs, and keeping vacation and the minimum wage
virtually non-existent has not made the economy better but far worse,
and yet they still have their candidates, like Arnold, run on the same
damned platform, we see clearly, finally, what this is all about:
they don’t care if the schools fail, it doesn’t’ affect them because
they go to private schools; they don’t care about the environmental
wreckage, they can afford to move to areas away from the problems
caused; they don’t care about lost opportunity to get ahead, because
they are already the ones ahead, and anyone else who would get ahead
would just be a threat to them; and they don’t care about massive
debts, because the debt is the nation’s, while the money that was
sucked out of the nation’s coffers to cause the debt landed right in
their personal pockets.
Their platform doesn’t change even when they see it is flawed because
they knew it was bull to begin with. When Bush or Arnold leave
office, it doesn’t matter what is in tatters, because it is guaranteed
they will have a lot more money in their pocket and can go spend their
lives in Tahiti or Hawaii or, yes, Europe.
4) The way they hold this all together is with their standard game of
“blame and lie.” Reagan wrote the rule book for this.
After they destroy the economy and create massive deficits by passing
unaffordable tax cuts that accomplish nothing but putting money in
rich Republican pockets, how do the Republicans manage not to get run
out of town or lynched? This is where all of the above lies begin to
come together. The media domination, the claims of
self-righteousness, and the adherence to a pre-ordained script of
echoing the constant lies are all used together to create a
comprehensive game of “blame and lie.”
For example, when Reagan’s tax cuts caused massive deficits, he blamed
the Democrat-controlled congress – yes, the now familiar pitch of “tax
and spend.” He said their spending was the problem, that this is what
caused the deficits.
President Bush followed Reagan’s play book to a tee. He came into
office and passed oversized tax cuts that he knew would create
deficits. That was his goal. Because then, he could fall back on the
old, popular Reagan/talk radio rhetoric of blaming the Democrats for
overspending.
Unfortunately for Bush, the Democrats lost hold of every branch of
government, and so now his numbers have finally started to plummet
because the game that holds them all together – the “blame and lie”
game – only works if you have someone to blame. Left to stand in the
actual light of day with no mirror tricks possible, Bush must now fry
in the heat of what he has done.
The one real question people have is: how can it be that the
Republicans would truly create a situation where they cut taxes so
much that spending must be so slashed that it really will destroy even
the basic functioning of things like public schools, the health care
system, and basic, vital social services? This is what many people
don’t understand, and why they believe the Republicans when they say
there is so much “unnecessary” spending that could just be slashed if
the Democrats weren’t in the way.
The reality behind this was answered above – the Republicans,
honestly, just don’t care if the public schools are destroyed, if the
health care system crumbles, if basic, vital social services are
destroyed, because they have enough money – especially after the tax
cuts they pass – that none of these things affect them. And as also
seen above, they have no true morals that make destroying these things
bother them – morality is just something they claim when it serves
them politically - they vote for a chronic sexual abuser who was the
poster-child for violence in the media without batting an eye.
Reagan single-handedly created the homeless problem by cutting
funding for mental health services so drastically that thousands and
thousands were thrown out on the street. Homeless people should just
get a job? Look at these people – would you hire them? Would you
want them working for you? They talk to themselves – loudly – we are
talking about mentally ill people who Reagan threw out on the streets
to fund his tax cut.
The Democrats on the other hand actually care. That is the
fundamental difference. They will fight to reinstate the funding for
these mental health services because leaving a mentally ill person to,
as just happened to one in my neighborhood, die of a shoulder
infection that, by the time he was found by authorities on the verge
of death, had eaten away at his shoulder so fully that the flesh was
gone, bone was visible, and colonies of insects had made a home there,
feasting on this living man. This is what Reagan and the Republicans
don’t mind letting happen, as long as their taxes are reduced. And
then when the Democrats try to restore funding so such a man can be in
the mental institution – at least bathed and cleaned – where he was
before Reagan threw him out, the Republicans say, “There
they go again, wanting to spend, spend, spend.”
5) The Republicans are not the party with the positive agenda, as the
media proclaims, while all Democrats do is whine and complain; the
Republicans, clearly, are the party of “can’t.”
We can’t have more vacation. We can’t do anything about men like the
homeless one above. We can't improve environmental regulation. We
can’t raise the minimum wage.
Can’t, can’t, can’t, can’t, can’t.
Again and again you will see, if you look plainly at the Republican
platform, that it is a comprehensive platform of can’t upon can’t upon
can’t. According to them, there is only one thing we can – indeed,
must – do, and that is give business and wealthy people, by their own
admission, money from the government coffers. Let businesses and
wealthy people get special tax loopholes and pay less taxes. That we
must do, or we will all be out of work, they say.
Doesn’t it make you a bit suspicious? The only thing we “can” do,
indeed “must” do, is let the businesses and wealthy people who sponsor
Republican candidates have more money in their pockets. See anything
wrong here?
This is all tied together by one assumption: that business owners,
CEO’s, and rich people are benevolent, kind people – in fact, virtual
boy scouts – who will, of course, use any extra money they are given
to hire, hire, hire. Never mind the fact that stocks and CEO bonuses
go up whenever they announce a round of layoffs. Never mind the fact
that we have seen time and time again, at American Airlines, at Enron,
Worldcom, Xerox, indeed, over and over, how employee wages are
slashed, jobs are slashed, while the Dick Cheneys are given a $20 million
for choosing to quit his job. $20 million, for quitting.
This creates jobs? Also, what business owner, given these tax cuts
that are tied in no way by law to the hiring of people, will use the
money to hire extra people he or she doesn’t’ need?
And then there are the simply “wealthy” people. These people don’t
necessarily own businesses or have hiring capabilities at all. But
the Republicans insist we must give them lots of extra money through
tax loopholes and cuts because they will “invest,” which will “spur
the economy.”
Can you name one wealthy investor who does anything other than try to
make more money for himself? They don’t. They don’t take the extra
money they have and use it to help other people, they use it to make
yet more money for themselves.
If you give business owners and CEO’s more money, they take it for
themselves as massive bonuses. If you give “wealthy investors” more
money, they use it to further inflate their portfolios.
That is why, as just reported yesterday, this year has seen a new
record in the number of millionaires in America, while jobs are
nowhere to be found. Yes, yet more simple, factual proof that the
Republicans are full of it and their policies just as disastrous as
their opponents say they are. Simple facts: a record number of
millionaires but 3,000,000 jobs lost; massive deficits, massive
cuts to schools, hospitals, police. Yes, the Republicans are
desperately trying to cling to their game of “blame and lie” and this
time blame Muslims. It’s Osama. No it’s Saddam. No, it’s the
Democrats. With the Republicans running every branch of the
government, of course, it is everything else out there, not the people
who have made and implemented the disastrous policies we are suffering
from.
The Republican party is the party of fear and “can’t.” They try to
terrify us into giving up everything important, whether it be clean
air to breathe or time to spend with our families, threatening if we
don’t immediately give all sorts of money to CEO’s and wealthy
investors we will be unable to put food on our tables.
How heinous. How amoral. They know this is all bunk, but, yet again,
don’t care. They only care about one thing: getting more money in
their pockets.
The California recall campaign has made a number of things perfectly
and undeniably clear. Never again can the Republicans claim to be the
party of moral values. Never again can the Republicans claim that the
media is anything other than a right-wing puppet tool. Never again
can the Republicans pretend they actually mean well and come with a
platform that will not be destructive, deficit-causing, and cause us
to live in lesser conditions, sacrificing everything important while
getting nothing in return.
President Bush will fly out to shake hands and give his support to
the Violence-In-Media Poster-Child/King Of All Gropers, Arnold. Arnold will implement the same rob-the-bank policies President Bush did in Washington. And together they
will try to do all this while convincing the electorate that the
Democrats are the problem and cause of all ills.
With all of the above things now made so clear, there is only one
thing that is uncertain: how many times will the American public fall
for the same obvious, disastrous, amoral lies? |
