I’m sitting here tonight trying to figure out how any forward thinking American could call themselves a Republican these days.  Well, I think I have an idea based on the fact I’m married to one.  WE DON’T TALK ABOUT POLITICS.  I know several other people who call themselves Republicans, and each and everyone of them tells me they don’t like to talk about what’s going on in the “World,” and they’re too busy to worry about politics.  In their minds Republican stands for “Pro-Life” and that’s the end of the story.  They don’t like Barack Obama because they view him in the light of all the vile emails that have circulated in the circles of anyone associated with conservative Religion in this country.  I love many of these people (most importantly, my wife), but I’m concerned that if they don’t start paying attention to what Republicans are actually doing and saying, they will have to take some sort of accountability for what is happnening in our society (in the unlikely event that the Republicans can some how resurrect themselves.

Here’s what’s bothering me about Republicans.  First of all, many of the so-called “leaders” are inciting the fringe elements of our society – with trajic results already, and this is going to get worse unless ALL OF US – DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, AND INDEPENDENTS (like me) – demand a stop to the hateful rhetoric.  Calling our President a muslim “who took his oath on the Koran” is despicable, not because I have anything against Muslims, but because it’s such a ridiculous lie.  As is the claim that Obama is not an American citizen.  These kinds of comments are racist at their foundation and all of us need to stand against this kind of crap.  Also, President Obama is not a socialist, communist, or fascist (In fact, the closest thing to a fascist that I’ve seen in my lifetime of following politics in the US is Dick Cheney – the definition of fascism is ” a radical and authoritarian nationalism for a political ideology – and a corporatist economic ideology.  Fascists advocate the creation of a single party state” – hence the “Permananent Republican majority”).  Much to my dismay, President Obama is, I guess, what must be called a left-leaning centrist.  He’s making WAY TOO MANY OVERTURES TO THE RIGHT for my liking.  The fact that he’s trying to stimulate our economy with government created investment in infrastructure should be something we all chear after the Bush disaster left our economy in a state of ruin.  That’s not socialism, that’s pragmatic common sense.  And, from my perspective, there should have been a lot more “stimulus” and a lot less (none actually) tax cuts.  So, to the Republicans, stop with the racist, dishonest, vile rhetoric that could increase the sense of tragedy we already feel due to the acts of violence committed already by nut jobs on the right who listen to Republican propoganda on the radio and Fox “News.”  This is reducing your ranks, not increasing them.

Next, it would be nice to hear something resembling ideas coming from Republicans – instead of a constant barrage of “No’s” regarding anything the government is trying to do at this point in time.  Rush Limbaugh has clearly stated that he hopes Obama “fails.”  Any thoughtful person understands why he would say this.  He’s concerned that if Obama succeeds, the Republicans could be a minority party for another 40 years, just as it happened after the crash of 1929 (they really screwed things up during the Bush years).  Well, based on the way him and the others at the “helm” are speaking, I believe he could end up being right.  I mean why would anyone want the President of the United States to fail.  I didn’t want President Bush to fail (even though I loathed each day he was in office).  What I wanted President Bush to do was to change his approach to governing and focus on the “least among us” (see my post from a few days ago).  I wanted President Bush to stop listening to my phone calls (well, data mining isn’t exactly listening to my phone calls, but it could be depending on what I say, and it’s a clear violation of the FISA law and the fourth amendment to the constitution), get our troops out of Iraq – the largest foreign policy blunder in the history of this nation, and to stop bankrupting our nation with tax cuts for wealthy people while our troops were stuck in a quagmire with insufficient armor and equipment – just to list a few of my objections to what he was doing.  I actually wanted President Bush to succeed, he just wouldn’t listen to my suggestions.

Considering the mess we’re all in because of decisions made during the Bush years, can you imagine how bad it could get if Obama does fail.  Is power that important to these Republicans that they would undermine our own government in an attempt to be able to say “I told you so?”  It almost sounds as if they are rooting for another terrorist attack.  Now, the Bush administration destablized the middle east to the point that I can’t imagine how difficult it will be for President Obama to turn things around and President Bush installed incompetent people to run the department of Homeland Security – but I guess Limbaugh and the others are counting on Americans having a short memory should something bad (which they seem to be rooting for) happen.  In addition, by inciting the fringe crazies who live among us, it seems as if they’re trying to make it as difficult as possible for our own security forces – ie the FBI, police, and the aforementioned homeland security department – to prevent these tragic murderous attacks on people associated with President Obama – rightly or wrongly associated.  (I mean there’s a rumor going around that Obama’s going to take everyone’s guns – I know several people who I consider good people who absolutely believe that – and I have not been able to convince them otherwise).  Along these lines, the other day I actually heard (with my own ears) Rush Limbaugh suggest that the 88 year old white supremist with a history of right wing lunacy (should have had his guns taken away) of being a “LIBERAL.”  Limbaugh, with the possible exception of Alberto Gonzales, is the biggest liar I’ve ever heard (and, as a 6th grade teacher, I’m sorry to say I’ve heard a lot of HUGE liars in my day – you don’t get as concerned when it’s an 11 year old kid).  The problem, as I see it, is that Limbaugh has a few million (dwindling, according to the reports I’ve heard) “ditto heads” who actually believe he tells the truth – unbelievable (but true) to me!

OK, that gets me to my final point – the lying.  I know that it seems to be an accepted “fact of life” that politicians lie in our country (after following the recent election in Iran and other international news, I don’t think we have a stranglehold on this problem), but these Republicans have pushed this disgusting reality WAY TOO FAR!  Yes, we all see things from our own perspectives, and we are all hypocrits to a certain degree – I get that.  But, these Republican leaders seem to have no conscience when it comes to lying.  The impression I get is that the only thing important to them is their agenda which was derailed by the incompetence of GW Bush and company.  They seem to be having a hard time accepting that they brought this obscurity which seems to be closing in around them on themselves.  In fact, they just seem to think that they can continue their “plan” as if nothing happened – and their removal from office MUST BE TEMPORARY – because they were so close to fulfilling Karl Rove’s dream of a permanent Republican majority (see the definition of fascism above – isn’t it ironic that he was instrumental in upending the “plan”).

To summarize – the Republicans (and Bush) got us into the Iraq occupation which threatens to bankrupt our nation (and, thank God, it appears that the Iraqi’s themselves may be the ones to get us out of this mess by voting to “move up the date” for departure to July of 2010.  I can only hope this is true, because I’m not too impressed with President Obama’s commitment to getting our troops home).  To listen to Republicans now, The US involvement in Iraq is  still a good idea and we should “stay the course” until the Shia and Sunni become allies – in direct contradiction to the Bible that many of these Republicans profess to read. 

Dick Cheney is going around saying that President Obama is making us less safe by closing the Guantanamo torture center and by rejecting torture as an “enhanced interrogation technique.”  That, in itself, should marginalize these thugs from any moralistic leaning American (especially the ones who take the time to read even the smallest part of the torture memos – explaining what we were doing) – but the Republican “faithful” seem to be like a heard of sheep, and go along with this kind of criminal behavior without question – of course, all of what Cheney is saying is lies, I don’t have enough time to go into the details, but suffice it to say that President Obama should be encouraging prosecution of Cheney and anyone else who participated in this reprehensible policy – a policy which only accomplished turning billions of people around the world against the US while gaining not a shread of evidence to stop the so-called “war on terror.”

Republicans, en masse, are criticizing Obama for the Wall Street bailouts – and while he deserves a measure of criticism because he was a Senator when the original policy was enacted – the reality is that it was put in place by President Bush via Treasury Secretary (at the time) Henry Paulsen.  They continually criticize Obama, as if the government is taking over every business in the country.  Well, I was never a supporter of the bank bailouts (you can check my posts from the time to verify that if you think I’m lying :o), but at least President Obama is not giving the money away “Carte Blanche.”  Paulsen was dishing this money out as if throwing money at the problem would solve it.  Obama and his “team” are putting “strings” on the money which I believe is what the Republicans are really complaining about.  That’s, to them, government interference.  They are happy to get the money, they just want to be able to do with it as they please.  It will be interesting to see how the “loans” from the Obama administration to GM and Chrysler turn out.  I mean some Republicans have already been quoted as urging people NOT TO BUY AMERICAN made cars!  Can you believe that?  Now, that in itself, is a good example of where their interests lie.  Paulsen gave about 30 Billion to Chrysler and GM, while Obama is forcing both companies to “re-invent” themselves before they get a “handout” (really loans) from his administration.  The Republicans will now want both of these corporations to fail, because otherwise it will look as if President Obama has succeeded.

So, these bailouts are a good example of how Republicans twist things with no regard for the truth.  The problems leading to the “bailouts” were caused by them, the original “bailouts” were conceived by them, and now they want to blame them on President Obama – again trusting Americans to have an incredibly short “attention span.”  I don’t think this is going to work, and, unless a real leader emerges from their ranks, someone who can tell something at least resembling the truth, someone who’s willing to admit that they’ve been screwing up for years, someone who rejects the idea that tax cuts for the wealthy is the “best policy,” someone who respects the constitution and those who enforce it, and someone who’s willing to take on the inciteful thugs like Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Beck, Savage, Boehner, Sanford, Palin, and essentially the rest of the “leadership” as it exists today, the Republican party is headed for the history books.  And, if a respectable leader can’t be found who can call himself a Republican (remember, Cheney himself said he would prefer Limbaugh to Colin Powell as a leader) – then, as Americans, we are in desperate need of a third party.  I am no more comfortable with a permanent Democratic majority than I would have been with a Republican one!