GOP legislative “house’shit and ‘man’ure (NSFW)

I was totally disgusted yesterday by the puritanical and prudish actions of the male-dominated Michigan House leadership for silencing two female legislators. As the War on Women has been raging for nearly two years, Representative Lisa Brown (no relation) expressed satirical appreciation to all those legislators who were “concerned about her vagina.” She was silenced for that statement.

Representative Brown

Meanwhile, Representative Barb Byrum was silenced for protesting that she was not being allowed to speak on another bill. Once again those stalwarts of liberty and freedom proceeded to silence her as well. My, how Kabul on the Grand River is so delightfully charming and civil in June.

Representative Byrum

I don’t know about you folks, but the actions of these right-wing GOP (a.k.a. Grand Old Pricks) zealots in the Michigan House is getting out of hand.

I am also curious why these women were silenced when earlier this year Representative Rick Jones was not  for using the word “hooker” to describe a female public relations executive. Oops, I forgot. He’s a man, so stupid, idiotic, prudish, puritanical, asinine, and archaic rules written by other egotistical, etc. men do not apply to him.

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Indiana votes to give itself the chaff

My home state of Indiana continues to confound me. Incumbent U.S. Senator Richard Lugar was defeated yesterday in the Republican primary. While I am in no way a Republican and do not agree with him on many issues, I respect and admire Richard Lugar. Why, you might ask?

Because he is a good person and has his heart generally in the right place most of the time. Unlike hollow Tea Party and neo-conservative politicians whose only goal is self-serving, vain, uncompromising rigidness, Mr. Lugar was willing to cross the aisle to find common ground. That is an admirable quality that should be respected and revered not chastised and ridiculed. It is what civics and civility are all about, folks!

I will tell you another reason I admire Richard Lugar. When he was Mayor of Indianapolis, I was in high school. He was kind enough to meet with me in his office on a Saturday morning for several hours to answer questions for my Government class term paper. Not every politician is so gracious and kind. That is what sets him apart from the chaff.

A leader seeks solutions and will resolve disputes through discussion and compromise. A coward imposes their uncompromising will on others because their arguments are too weak to be convincing. Where Richard Lugar was the wheat, I am afraid what voters in Indiana did yesterday was to give themselves the chaff.

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A game of GOP “bait and switch”

Thought this poster found on tumblr.com was particularly telling. Didn’t the GOP run in 2010 on jobs and the economy ?  Huh, guess its a case of bait and switch. Don’t waste your vote in 2012 on the GOP’s false advertising and hollow promises. They’re full of more b.s. than most sewers.

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We “Won’t be fooled again” (I hope)

Continuing with this week’s theme of using famous song titles to express discomfort over the state of affairs in our nation, this song title comes to us courtesy of another British rock band, The Who. It was recorded in 1971. It seemed like an appropriate title for April Fool’s Day. However, my question is the following; “Is today really April Fool’s Day?” Compared to what happened back on November 2, 2010, today is more like April WTF Happened Day.

Many Americans, including myself, are shocked at the cold-hearted recklessness by conservatives since the first of the year. Such actions do not depict a kind, caring, and compassionate nation, they are the work of selfish bullies and thugs.

Needless to say, there are a lot of Americans who are wishing they could go back in time and change the votes they cast five months ago. Unfortunately, in political terms, five months is ancient history. So, instead of wallowing in our bitter tears, all of us progressives, liberals, independents, and other like-minded, empathetic voters need to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off,  and shift into high gear for the ongoing recall efforts and 2012 elections. It is time to kick some butts.

I, for one, hope and pray that after the ongoing debacle in Congress and in far too many state capitals, none of us will ever be fooled again. Cast a wary eye on those who claim to have private sector solutions to all our nation’s problems. Far too often they are wolves in sheep’s clothing, just blowing smoke, selling snake oil, or have a terrific deal on a bridge in Brooklyn.

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Emphasizing the “con” in conservative

Yesterday, all of the Republican lemmings from the House of Representatives made good on a campaign promise to big insurance companies by voting to repeal health care reform. Not a single one of them could actually think for themselves or care for their non-business constituents. Instead the entire sorry lot strolled right up to the edge of the precipice and leapt off at their lobbyists command.

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Though a largely symbolic move, it is also very cynical. Why? Because these same conservative representatives have no qualms with keeping their own “Wall Street version” of  federal health insurance coverage while at the same time they were voting to eliminate our “Main Street version.” Talk about a sick double-standard (pun intended).

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Hypocrisy is too kind of a word for what took place yesterday. Cowardly deceit is a more appropriate description. Most of them should be working for Burger King, because they were telling some real whoppers.

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One thing these Republicans did accomplish yesterday was to put renewed emphasis on the “con” in the word conservative. The con of misstating the facts,  the con of spreading misinformation, and the con of deceiving the American public for purely selfish reasons.

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We are all being framed!

Since the 1980s, wealthy conservative funding sources have plowed huge sums of money into creating think tanks to promote the radical right political agenda. The result of this seed money has been a seismic shift in how news and information is disseminated in the United States. It ain’t no liberal media anymore, folks.

By framing the debate with conservative catch-phrases, progressives, moderates, and liberals have been put on the defensive. In addition, by using or repeating conservative catch-phrases, the media, progressives, moderates, and liberals are actually doing the conservatives’ bidding for them. Through conservative tools like Fox New Channel and talking head pundits everywhere on talk-radio and television, these catch-phrases are repeated over and over again until they are part of the national lexicon. Here are a few examples of their recent catch phrases and why they are deceptive:

War on terror – by defining those despicable acts that took place on 9/11 as acts of war instead of heinous crimes, conservatives took advantage of the nation’s collective grief, shock, and outrage to pursue an authoritarian agenda. It also made it easier for them to push the more onerous and covert portions of the Patriot Act through Congress. Retired General and Secretary of State Colin Powell had argued at the time for the tragedy to be classified as a crime, but he was overruled by neocons in the Bush administration.

Defense of marriage – if there ever was a quick way to stir up religious conservatives, regardless of party affiliation, this catch-phrase would be it. For some reason radical conservatives think love and commitment can only be found between a man and a woman. Sounds awfully closed-minded, but consider the source.

Obamacare – by referring to health care reform as “Obamacare,” the conservatives are framing the debate based on the President’s image and popularity instead of the positive goals of reform itself. Not only does this alter the talking points, but it is sickly and subtly racist.

Partial-birth abortion – got to admit that this term does sound nasty, but that is because radical conservatives made this catch-phrase up to frame the debate in their favor. Technically, the proper term is “late-term abortion;” a rare, but necessary medical procedure, especially in those instances where the life of the mother is in jeopardy. Funny how those opposed to abortion in any manner claim to be on the side of life, except if you are the mother. No one is claiming these decisions are easy, but if you support life, then it should be at all stages.

Pro-life – how can you be pro-life, but then support capital punishment or sending our nation’s sons and daughters off to far-flung and continuous wars? That’s the great inconsistency. Secondly, why is the infant’s life more important than the mother’s life? Isn’t everyone’s life supposed to hold the same value? The proper term should be “anti-abortion.”

Death panels – to this author, no catch-phrase is more deceptive or inaccurate than this one. It relies on fear, especially senior citizen fear, to frame the debate. Never mind the positive attributes of health care reform or that private insurance companies have been making life and death funding decisions for decades, conservatives are framing health care reform as an economic development tool for the grim reaper.

Tax relief – considering the average tax bite in 2009 was the lowest it has been in almost 60 years, what is it exactly we need relief from? Personally, I would prefer relief from radical conservative lies and misstatements.

Needless to say, opponents to the radical conservative agenda had better get on the ball and pronto. At the very least, they need to take pages out of the conservative playbook and learn how to frame and/or re-frame the debate. More specific guidance on debate framing is also available in two fascinating publications written by University of California (Berkeley) Cognitive Science Professor George Lakoff. They are entitled The Political Mind and Don’t Think of an Elephant. To ignore this issue and allow radical conservatives to continue control of the framing will put many of the freedoms we know and love in deep peril.

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A rational conservative

We do a lot of criticizing of conservatives around here, so for a change of pace I’d like to highlight a member of a disappearing group: a rational conservative. Bob Inglis is a conservative Republican from South Carolina who was voted out during the primaries and replaced by Trey Gowdy, who ran to Inglis’ right.

Inglis has a 93 rating from the American Conservative Union, but he was replaced for not being conservative enough, if you can believe that. He strongly disagrees with President Obama, but Inglis refused to call the president a Muslim or a socialist because he’s not. He told the truth and stood by his principles and was voted out of office. If that’s not a sorry commentary on the state of politics today, I don’t know what is.

So here’s to Bob Inglis, whose sane voice I imagine we’ll miss when the new House is seated in January. I have a lot more respect for him at the moment than I do for any of the leaders of his party.

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Conservative Cruelty

Two million Americans are about to lose their unemployment benefits during the holiday season and the start of winter. That is cold (literally and figuratively), cruel, completely heartless and unconscionable! And who do we have to thank for resurrecting the Charles Dickens era? Conservatives, especially fiscal conservatives. Typical examples of uninformed and heartless conservative statements follow below;

Rep. Dan Heller (R-Nevada): “Is the government now creating hobos?”

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Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah): “You know, we should not be giving cash to people who basically are just going to blow it on drugs.”

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Republican Sharron Angle, who ran for Senate in Nevada:

“[W]e have put in so much entitlement into our government that we
really have spoiled our citizenry and said, you don’t want the jobs that are available.”

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According to recent figures, there are currently five jobless Americans for every available job. You do the math, because apparently conservatives cannot. To deprive the unemployed of benefits is cruel at anytime, it’s sick and pathological to do it in winter, and a twisted irony during the holiday season. One hopes Santa has lots of extra lumps of coal this year for the naughty conservatives, because he is going to need them.

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It is not just the unemployed that feel the sick reality of conservative policies; so do immigrants, minorities, gays, the poor, the uninsured, and the homeless. One could sarcastically call it “equal opportunity cruelty.”

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Far too many Americans have lost their empathy for their fellow human beings, whether it be immigrants or those suffering  from disease or famine in other countries. Sadly, some of the nastiest actions are taken towards their fellow, less fortunate citizens.

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What kind of brain thinks it is okay to cut off assistance to the most at risk among us? What kind of heart is so empty, that it lets one follow through with such actions or supports them with votes and monetary donations? Cutting off assistance to the least fortunate and the suffering  is a wholesale and direct rejection of the Beatitudes, let alone the Ten Commandments. When exactly does the love thy neighbor stuff apply to conservatives? Only if you are rich…powerful…famous…a fellow conservative? When?

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The following is a fan made video for a beautiful song entitled “Love You All,” by the Minnesota-based band, Cloud Cult. It is emotional tribute to all humans residing on this planet. The rich, the poor, the haves, the have nots, the young, the old, the powerful,  and the weak are all included.

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We were all born onto this beautiful sphere with the same universal emotions, including, but not limited to, love, sorrow, happiness, joy, and grief. Unfortunately, one emotion that is rapidly disappearing in the United States, especially among conservatives, is empathy. For a person without empathy, there can never be true love, because true love requires sacrifice, and sacrifice requires empathy.

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Practice What You Preach

A lot of conservatives routinely complain about government being too big and too intrusive. These are often the same people who have no qualms about additional monitoring of our daily lives, a greater loss of privacy, as well as bloated defense budgets to maintain nearly constant wars overseas. But, when they are asked what government spending and programs they would specifically cut, all that comes back are vague generalities and a whole lot of hyperbole.

No one is saying that there are not programs or departments that could be run more efficiently or effectively. But, to only say cut, cut, cut is trivial at best and amazingly selfish at worst. What exactly would you cut? The following link shows how one conservative candidate won’t even give specifics to their unofficial mouthpiece, Fox News.

Pretty easy (and cowardly) to say you will cut social programs for example, if you do it by press release or post it on your website. Let’s see you actually look into a recipient’s eyes and tell them they are going to have to fend for themselves. Is cutting social programs to the needy really what America is really all about? Is that an example of the golden rule; of morality; of cherishing and valuing life? Or do conservatives only care about bringing more lives into the world, but from that point onward, sorry, but it sucks to be you. Sure comes across that way, whether intended or not.

If you think government is too big, have you as a conservative actually practiced what you preach by:

• Not driving on the public roads.
• Not calling the police or the fire department if you have an emergency.
• Using well water and a septic field instead of public water and sewer.
• Paying the added cost for sending your kids to private schools and colleges.
• Not accepting your Social Security or Medicare payment.
• Refusing to get a government backed loan.
• Not buying government or treasury bonds.
• Advocating less funding to the military – I would like to see conservatives embrace that one – Good luck with that.
• Not going to the airport, using the bus, or taking a subway/train.
• Not visiting any public parks.

My guess is that conservatives are a lot of talk and little follow through. Conservatives in Congress may have complained about the stimulus, but many were also right there at the head of the line for the handouts. Practice what you preach may be an old cliche’, but it is also very accurate. Much the same as not voting and then complaining about who is in office. If conservatives are going to continuously state that the size of government is too big, then they should either:

• Give specifics of what they intend to cut and how; or
• Opt out of the programs and initiatives that they disagree with and not use the services they feel should not be funded or operated by the public sector.

Otherwise, put a cork in it, because the hypocrisy is tiresome.

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