Reasoning with Republicans

I know, it is like holding back the tide. But there has to be some vestiges of decency and intelligence in their ranks. I am talking about those moderate, center-right Republicans who at some point in their lives had some degree of honesty and fairness.

But I will try anyhow. I know they don’t like what I say because I am diametrically opposed to their ideology. I also know that “selective reasoning” plays a very important role in what people read or get exposed to. The tendency we humans have is to shut out or ignore any point of view that is contrary to our own.

We could start this historically, with Nixon and his disregard for the rule of law. The Republicans never forgave the Democrats for trying to impeach Nixon, who was, by all accounts a first class crook. He showed one face in public and to those who came in close contact with, he was a different person. The man was abusive and arrogant.

Then we go on to Reagan who was by all accounts a demagogue, he used his ability to communicate to his advantage, rhetoric was his tool and there were millions who listened to his unfounded and unproved theories and solutions. To this day, we still have those who classify themselves as “Reagan Republicans”. But if you take into consideration that Regan was one of the worst Presidents we ever had because he left the country a very hefty national debt, he set us on a path of division along religious lines by empowering the Evangelicals and encouraging them to institute a theocracy; Reagan did more damage than good; as he prevented the Equal Rights Amendment from passing, he destroyed the labor unions and he prescribed large tax cuts for the rich in the form of “Capital Gains Tax Elimination”. Why Reagan said it in his Inaugural Speech: “Government is the Problem”. Yes it is, Mr. President but only when it is in the hands of Republicans.

We continued on to Bush the father who systematically eliminated critical legislation that regulated the banking industry and Wall Street. That set us on the path to the financial crisis we encountered at the end of 2008.

I am simplifying things a bit here, but bear with me, then came his son who was inarticulate, incompetent and arrogant. His blunders were many, so much so that experts say that he had over 35 impeachable offenses. George W led us into two wars, one of which was unnecessary and he lied to the American people and the world to get us into it. The national debt was already out of control when the financial crisis came down upon our country like an avalanche, yet his first reaction was to bail out his cronies in banking and Wall Street. In the meantime, no government agency was bailing out the millions of Americans who were having their houses foreclosed and those who lost their jobs.

The unemployment and crisis we are feeling today is a direct result of his incompetence and that of the Republican Party who were in power to establish the parameters that created the mess. Please don’t try to claim otherwise, don’t even attempt at blaming President Obama for this fucking mess. He doesn’t own it, you Republicans do.

But President Obama is doing his best to get us out of the mess the Republicans left. No help from them, thank very much; as they have opposed everything he has tried to get through Congress. I should think that if you fucked up so bad all these years, the least you could do is to cooperate to fix the mess you left behind. But no, no, no, it is the Republicans who have stood in the way of the recuperation of our economy and the efforts to get Americans back to work. They don’t even hide it, they have vocalized it, and they want our President to fail. This in itself is alarming considering that Republicans pride themselves as being super patriotic.

My last point is this: What do you think would have happened if Bush 43 had been faced with the same kind of demonstrations and sabotage? What would he have done about those “tea baggers” and “wing nuts”? Knowing Bush and Cheney and the whole bunch of idiots that had their hands at the helm, I can guarantee that a lot of those dissenting would have been carried off to jails, no questions asked, no lawyers, and no habeas corpus. They would have been simply been classified as “enemy combatants” and we would not have heard from them again.

So when you tell me that it is about freedom of speech, the Constitution, your individual rights and less government, and not spending the way our government has in order to salvage the economy, I say to you BULL SHIT. You left this mess and you are the ones who own it, you are responsible for it and you should try to help, not hinder.

PHOTO SOURCES: http://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/filmi_sangeet/media/1969_nixon2.jpg

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HEALTHCARE BILL PASSES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

This evening, at 11:15 p.m., the House of Representatives voted to pass their health insurance reform bill. Despite countless attempts over nearly a century, no chamber of Congress has ever before passed comprehensive health reform. This is history.

Seismographs across America went CRAZY as some places registered 3.5 and others as high as 8.2 in the Richter scale. It was not an earthquake concentrated in one geographical area, it was a nationwide phenomenon as the uproar of cheers from the uninsured and those fed up with insurance companies’ abuses burst into spontaneous clamoring. There was one secondary “after-shock” as Tea Baggers, Birthers and Republicans were banging their heads in unison as a result of their frustration. Then there was one final, loud thump heard as executives from insurance companies just fell on their asses.

By a vote of 220 to 215. One Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, crossed the aisle, while 39 Democrats joined the Republicans in opposing the measure.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called passage of the bill "an historic moment for our nation and for America's families," while Republicans warned that the bill will raise taxes, increase insurance premiums and make cuts to Medicare. An enormous round of applause broke out throughout the House chamber when the crucial 218th vote was cast to ensure the bill's passage. An even louder round of applause was heard as a roar across the nation from Americans who are either not covered under any health insurance program or are just fed up with the system the way it is.

The battle is only starting, because in the Senate is still even more difficult to have any legislation done.

It seems that I was predicting that someone from the Republican side would still have in them some vestiges of decency and honesty, one Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao of Louisiana, crossed the aisle, while 39 Democrats joined the Republicans in opposing the measure as would have been expected from the party of NO.

PHOTO SOURCE: http://upload.wikimedia.org

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Some arguments that don’t hold water

Whenever you point out to a Republican that we already have some government run programs that are socialist in nature, they will come back with “yeah, but look at all the waste and corruption, it just doesn’t work”

Take for instance the Medicare program. The Republicans are quick to point out the great degree of waste and out of control budgets that are draining the coffers. But what has to be said and recognized is that for the past decade nothing has been done to correct the problems. The waste is there because no efforts were made by President Bush to prevent them. The opposite could be said: that Bush would even subsidize the Insurance Companies through Medicare. Why you might ask? First it happens because of the greed of the Insurance Companies, second because of their influence through lobbyists and third because Republicans don’t believe in any government run programs and they want them to fail.

This concerted and systematic effort to make these institutions to fail could not be more evident than with the Veterans’ Administration. We saw all the dismal conditions at Walter Reed, we heard of thousands of cases of veterans complaining about the lousy service and the poor medical care they were getting. It grew to a scandal when news organizations exposed Walter Reed and other Veterans’ facilities. But ask yourself this question: Why was this happening? I will readily tell you it was because the Bush administration and the Republicans had no intentions to make it work. They wanted the Veterans Administration to fail so they could then turn it over to private enterprise and claim “see, they are doing a better job”

Even more evident of this effort to discredit anything that is run by the government is education. We have seen how education has declined to levels that are alarming. We are trailing nations like India and Pakistan. We have problems in our schools and we have seen the failure of this stupid program for testing where students don’t really learn anything but to pass a test. By the same token, because the Republicans were in power and they are basically Born-again Christian Evangelicals who don’t believe in science because it debunks their theory of Creationism, the students across this country have been forced to lag behind in math and science. Then again, it is the Republicans mainstay philosophy that education is better left in private hands. That is of course, preferable in particular if it is handled by religion. Republicans understand better than anybody that a religious and ignorant population is a lot easier to govern.

Then you had the situation with the United Nations. Republicans don’t like the UN and they appointed this dude named Bolton who was an ardent opponent of the United Nations as the US Ambassador. So what hopes did we have to have diplomacy and a good working relationship with other countries if our own ambassador did not believe in the United Nations?

President Bush even tried to get Social Security privatized. We fought back, and even pointed out the failure of the Chilean model. But can you imagine what would have happened to Social Security and the fate of millions of our seniors if it had been privatized at the time of this Stock Market Crisis?

Lastly, enter the issue of ecology and global warming. The Republicans just don’t believe that it is even a problem. They constantly repeat like parrots “drill, baby, drill” as if burning more fossil fuels was the panacea to all of the U.S. energy problems. We watched as Bush did not sign the Kyoto agreement and to this day Republicans don’t have this issue as a priority that is the few that believe it is a problem.

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.radisson.com/rad/images/hotels/NYNYEAST/loc4_450.jpg

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