Anything to Please

These Republicans, they certainly know what to say to please…the Greedy Ghouls that are eager to feast on the slowly desiccating carcasses of what used to be the American Middle Class. A brief review of some of the latest Republican comments is most interesting. Newt Gingrich, who mysteriously finds himself at or near the top of the polls is a good place to start. Never one to mince words when any outrageous statement might do, Gingrich announced in his usual pompous, arrogant style that the Occupy Wall Street participants should “Take a bath and get a job.” He neglected to mention where they should apply. Maybe he should hire some to help peddle his ridiculous snake oil to more predatory corporations. Appealing even more shamelessly to corporate desires he also announced that child labor laws are “stupid,” and children should be put to work as janitors in their schools, but only after all the unionized janitors have been fired. Vintage Newt, what a guy!

Let us not overlook Representative Joe Walsh, you know the guy who refuses to pay his back child support that now totals somewhere in the vicinity of $120,000, and might well be the Poster Boy for the only marginally sane in Congress. Joe believes that the (very few, according to him) Veterans who are taking part in Occupy Wall Street just don’t understand our country. He seems to think they are in the vanguard of a great socialist movement threatening our very well-being. Hey, no doubt Joe knows best.

Good ol’ Rush has not been silent on recent developments (is he ever). He has announced to his dittoheads that Michelle Obama is guilty of “uppityism.” It seems that the crowd at Nascar booed when she appeared there as they apparently don’t approve of her attempts to tell people to eat more healthily. I guess they don’t like her working to improve the lives of Veterans either. Somehow I don’t think booing the First Lady will get them many points with the public at large.

Alaskan Congressman Don Young, whose major claim to fame up to now was waving a Walrus penis bone at the Female head of U.S. Fish and Game, has now told a Professor from Rice University that his testimony on the environment was “garbage.” Young, of course, is an avowed anti-environmentalist as well as an outspoken homophobe. And you wonder why Congress rates below Attila the Hun?

But wait! Don’t change that dial, there’s more astute Republican comments. Rick Santorum, still obsessed with the sexual behavior of homo sapiens (and other species as well, I guess), has now made it clear that Gay Marriage is going to cause the U.S. to “fall.” I’m not sure where it is he thinks we will fall to, and I’m not too sure we haven’t already fallen about as far as possible, but who knows what he thinks about other than about sex? He also has now explained that suffering is good and Americans need to suffer. If suffering is good many Americans must be piling up a lot of “good” because they are certainly suffering at the moment. Perhaps we should begin flagellating ourselves more often to accumulate even more good. I say Santorum for President, we’d certainly suffer then.

But the prize for the most idiotic comment of all, one that even dwarfs Madeleine Albright’s absurd, sadistic claim that sanctions against Iraq that caused the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was “worth it,” came from conservative writer David Frum. Apparently speaking for millions of Iraqi citizens, Frum assured us that “No price was too high for the Iraqis to be free of Saddam Hussein.” I don’t know if he checked this out with the millions of Iraqis who either were killed or maimed, lost their homes, their families, and everything they owned, and suffered miseries beyond description to the point that some wished for the return of Saddam. Perhaps he could join with Santorum and explain to them that suffering is good.

The so-called Super Committee has failed. I wonder if anyone is really surprised. Why would a committee of six Democrats and six Republicans be expected not to fail? Now, unless Congress takes some serious action to cut at least 1.2 trillion over ten years (a ridiculously small amount when amortized over ten years) the automatic cuts agreed to will eventually go into effect. This will mean large budget cuts to the National Defense Budget, already so bloated it wastes billions without even batting an eye. But McCain and his sidekick Graham are already trying to welsh on the deal, no amount of money can ever be enough for the defense budget, according to Republicans. Cuts there would make it more difficult to rip off the taxpayers without revealing the underlying absurdity of the military/industrial/political system that really isn’t much different from an ordinary protection racket, except for its fantastic size and complexity.

A country which proposes to make use of modern war as an instrument of policy must possess a highly centralized, all-powerful executive, hence the absurdity of talking about the defense of democracy by force of arms. A democracy which makes or effectively prepares for modern scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic.

Aldous Huxley