I would really like to move on from my seemingly endless diatribe against Republicans, and remember, I’m talking about the Republicans at the top of the “food chain.” I’m convinced there are many unsuspecting Republicans out there who can’t even imagine what their leaders are doing and saying. For example, I have friends who are Republicans who I believe in my heart are not racists. However, to listen to the leaders of the party and to see some of the stuff they put out in support of their positions, it’s hard not to call the republican leadership not only racist, but overtly racist. I mean where is the long line of disgusted Republicans responding to the “cartoon” (I put cartoon in quotes, for those of you who are a little dense – and possibly Republican – because cartoons are supposed to be funny) in the New York Post depicting Barrack Obama as a Chimpanzee which has just been shot by two policemen with a caption coming from one of the policemen’s mouth, “They’ll have to get someone else to write the next stimulus bill.” I haven’t seen that GOP line objecting to this, in fact what I’ve seen and heard are a bunch of Republicans who actually think it is funny and don’t “get” why anyone would be offended.

It is this kind of vile stuff that has motivated me to encourage President Obama to not only allow, but to encourage, investigations of the Republican leadership under George W Bush. Many of the thugs who are in leadership right now whould be eliminated from the political scene. The Republican party would be forced to find some fresh faces and if they come up with some more racists who believe in welfare for corporations but not for individuals then we know it’s time for a different party to challenge the Democrats for control of this great nation. If you haven’t seen this cartoon, you have got to look it up. I doubt if it’s still on the Post’s website, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find elsewhere. The fact that Republicans are using a monkey to depict Obama is nothing new. The fact that the outrage is limited to the left wing of the Democratic party is also nothing new (remember, a lot of the so-called “Blue Dog” democrats aren’t far from the Republican “lair”), but the fact that the monkey has been shot dead is the most alarming part to me.

Just remember the heightened rhetoric of the recent campaign when Sarah Palin (mostly) and John McCain were calliing Obama a “terrorist” – by association – a socialist, and other names that stirred up their crowds to yell things like “Kill him” with not even a whimper from either Palin or McCain to talk sense into the fervent “nut jobs” who were spouting this kind of hateful rhetoric. I remember several people besides myself feeling that McCain/Palin would have to accept “ownership” of anything any of the “crazies” at their rallies might do after some of the unbelievable stuff was said. You have no idea who you’re talking to in that instance, and selling a paper to – in the instance of the Post’s editorial cartoon. I truly hope the people of New York not only stop buying this paper (or anything else under the control of Rupert Murdock) but also take the time to call the advertisers and tell them they will purchase no more of their products as long as that advertiser continues to support the Post.

My last post outlined five “Red Flags” I am feeling after President Obama’s first month in office. It is easy for me to see that I’m not going to be totally happy with him, and quite possibly I might be asking for my money back – depending upon some of his pending decisions (re: Iraq, Afganistan, wiretapping, prosecutions of the Bush administration, and more) – but this country can’t withstand one or more of these right wing nuts to try to fulfill the intent of the “cartoon.” It was just about a year ago that one of the “faithful” to this message of divisiveness and hate broke into a church or school and killed a buch of children because he couldn’t kill the ones he wanted to kill – the 100 liberals mentioned in a book by Bernard Goldberg (a nut job himself) – or all the Democrats in the House and Senate who are turning this into a “Communist” nation. The guy (James Adkisson) had a massive amount of “hate propaganda” spewed out by O’Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh, and the other right wing “talkers” who are playing to the worst side of every American who might happen upon their shows piled up in his room when he committed these horrible crimes.  To just assume that this “cartoon” in the post is “funny” and look the other way, is preposterous thinking – all it will take is one crazy fool to put the message of this cartoon with the rhetoric of the Republican leadership and we could have a national tragedy of HUGE proportions. Combine “cartoons” like this with rhetoric like what came out of Alan Keyes mouth shortly after the “cartoon” was published – saying Obama is a socialist and he’s not an American citizen; saying he was born in Kenya and isn’t really our President – is indicative that the Republican party has gone over the deep end.

One right wing Republican after another is berating the so-called “stimulus” package – with nothing better than “we need more tax cuts for corporations and investors” as a response. In fact, some of the more ridiculous Republican governors were first threatening to “not take the money,” and now have “tempered” their disgust with the plan by saying they might not take some of the money. Personally, I think their first inclination was the best – don’t take any of it – and those of us with either Democratic governors or “moderate” Republican governors can split up the money these other guys don’t want. I would really like to see their chances for re-election should they turn the money down. The reality is that most of them will end up taking the money, and like their brethren in the Congress, travel around their state taking credit for the benefits of the money that they “wanted” to turn down – it’s called blatantly wanting to “have your cake and eat it too.”

I will sign off for tonight by saying that the other night I actually heard a Republican leader say that he felt another eight years just like the previous eight years would be better than the “stimulus” package passed by the Congress and signed by Obama. It is clear that these guys are living in another world than the rest of us. I would have preferred that Uncle Sam hadn’t “bailed out” the Wall Street banks which participated in creating this crisis. I was all for them going “under” and being opened by the Federal Government and sold to new management. That, in my view, is the only way to weed out these people who are putting themselves into a class which no one in this country deserves – these banks are operated on the theory that the successful “risk managers” will become almost instant millionaires – and they get caught up in a lavish lifestyle causing them to think they are actually worth the millions they’re pulling from their banks each year. I was OK with the loans to GM and Chrysler because I believe the saying “As GM goes, so goes our economy” is still a truism – we need an auto industry, we need to be making things in this country, and we can’t afford to lose the millions of jobs tied to the auto industry, especially at this time (despite the right wing claims to the contrary, most of the jobs which will be saved by keeping GM afloat are blue collar jobs – middle class working “folk”). I would have preferred that the “stimulus” bill had less tax cuts and more spending on infrastructure, but it was a step in the right direction and I truly hope it at least stalls the downward spiral we’re in right now.  What we should all want to see is more of the same – legislation designed to create jobs.  What I don’t want to see are Republicans encouraging racism and violence – which is what the NY Post editorial does. This should be unacceptable to EVERY AMERICAN at this point in our history. While I will defend free speech to the bitter end, something should come from this heinous editorial – some substantial consequence. In my mind, a fitting reward for the New York Post’s editorial “cartoon” would be repealing the waiver allowing Rupert Murdoch to own multiple media sources in the New York market. Maybe that would get his attention, and the cronies who suck up to him.