CONSERVATIVES DO SMUG WELL

Sometimes I think reading the letters to the editor in The Fresno Bee is a little sado-masochistic. It's a page dominated by right-wing "commentators," who don't offer much in the way of real discussion. What conservatives do very well is to be smug and self-serving.

Remember when George W. Bush stole the White House and we were told the "grown ups" were in charge? Bush and company proceeded to lie us into two wars, assault civil liberties, and wreck the economy. Yesterday's Bee had another right-wing letter saying that right-wing kooks should just "laugh" at liberals. It would be easy to laugh at conservatives when you consider their general lunacy. People who flock to a nitwit like Sarah Palin don't deserve much respect.

But when you look at the horror wrought by conservatives on this country and the rest of the world you realize it's no laughing matter.

IN THE RIGHT WING WORLD OF MYTH

The Fresno Bee published a letter from a right-winger today talking about the election of centerfold model Scott Brown as the interim Senator from Massachusetts. The writer called the Obama administration "far left." It's just amazing how stupid these people are.

Obama has escalated the war in Afghanistan. If you notice, we're also still in Iraq. Many of the Bush policies that subvert civil liberties are still in place. Most of the stimulus package went to big banks and corporations. How is any of that "far left"?

I think the major message of the Massachusetts election is that President Obama has governed too much from the right. We need a government that represents the majority of us and that simply isn't happening. The latest horror from the Supreme Court just emphasizes the point that the rich and powerful run the show in this country.

I still think President Obama is far better than the alternative, but I'd like to see his administration push a progressive agenda. Stop worrying about bipartisanship with the thugs in the Republican party and pursue the agenda that got him elected.

HOLD BUSH AND CHENEY ACCOUNTABLE

MAIL FROM RUBBER STAMP RADANOVICH

I have the misfortune to live in the district "served" by Congressman George Radanovich, a reactionary Republican.

Today I got a mailing from Radanovich that was in high dudgeon about the federal deficit. Mr. Radanovich wasn't nearly as concerned about the deficit back in the days of "W" and the massive deficits he created with his transfers of wealth to the risk. Honesty is a hard quality for Republicans to come by.

HOLD BUSH AND CHENEY ACCOUNTABLE


BUSH'S DAYS OF INFAMY

President Franklin D. Roosevelt famously called December 7, 1941, "a day that will live in infamy." But George W. Bush and his gang of criminal confederates contributed several days of infamy to our history.

The Supreme Court created the first day of infamy when they used twisted and fallacious reasoning to hand the presidency to Bush, who lost the popular vote, and who undoubtedly lost the vote in the pivotal state of Florida.

The second day of infamy was when Bush was sworn in as President. Bush stood there on that day and swore to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. He spent the next eight years doing exactly the opposite.

A third day of infamy was September 11, 2001, when, due to the Bush administration's abject incompetence, terrorists launched successful attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington, D. C.

The fourth day of infamy was when an attack was launched on Iraq, a country that was no threat to us and had nothing to do with 9/11.

Robert Parry takes a look at the day Bush was sworn in as president and how the major media ignored the outrage felt by so many Americans. This excerpt is at www.consortiumnews.com:

But other Americans believed January 20, 2001, was a day of infamy for the American Republic. It was the first time in 112 years that a popular-vote loser was to be installed as President of the United States – and then only after he engineered an unprecedented intervention by political allies on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Five Republican justices had stopped the vote count in the swing state of Florida, where Bush’s brother, Jeb, was governor and other Bush loyalists oversaw the election, which then was awarded to Bush by 537 votes out of six million ballots cast.

So, on that cold January day, tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of Washington, D.C., shouting angry slogans and waving handwritten anti-Bush signs.

The protesters were convinced that Bush had stolen the presidential election and, in so doing, had disenfranchised the plurality of citizens who had cast their ballots for Democrat Al Gore.

Some signs were addressed directly to Bush. “You’re not my President,” read one. “I know you lost,” said another. One sign had just two large letters, “NO.” To these Americans, Bush’s ascension to the nation’s highest office was a travesty of democracy.

Where we stood, the protesters, many in dark-colored parkas and ski or baseball caps, outnumbered the elegantly attired Republicans.

HOLD BUSH AND CHENEY ACCOUNTABLE

CONSERVATIVES ARE TERMINALLY STUPID

Sometimes when I read a letter in The Fresno Bee I have to wonder if it's tongue in cheek. But right-wingers are so stupid you usually just believe the letter is real.

Today's example was a guy on a rant about Nazis and socialism. His argument is that Nazis were called "National Socialists." Therefore, they have to be socialists. If you consult political scientists, the people who know about these things, you will find that Nazis were fascists. Fascists are on the far political right, as far removed from socialists as you can get.

Communist East Germany called itself the German Democratic Republic Because they used the word "Democratic" does that mean they were a democracy? Of course not.

We should remember that Germany attacked the Soviet Union, who this guy would probably call socialist. Conservatives have an incredible talent for jamming personal attacks, stupidity, ignorance, and outright lies into very limited space.

HOLD BUSH AND CHENEY ACCOUNTABLE

THE WEIRD RIGHT WING WORLD

I'm watching the coverage of Senator Edward Kennedy's funeral and there is great sadness. The sadness is over the loss of Senator Kennedy, over the loss of JFK and RFK all those years ago, the loss of other great leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. We don't have leaders of that caliber or that vision left. Edward Kennedy was the torch that still burned and now his life has been extinguished.

The Fresno Bee prints snippets of letters to give you an idea of the content. Lately, when I see the usual frothing of right-wing freaks I don't bother to read the rest. Today's sampling included the assertion that liberals think we have all the answers. No, we don't. If we did, the world would be far better than it is. The hateful right-wing philosophy of greed, exploitation, bigotry, war, and hate would be shoved to the back of the closet. But right-wing influence is everywhere in the media.

For right-wingers there is never enough prejudice, never enough inequality, never enough death and destruction. It's like a narcotic for them.

I hope that we not only have leaders like JFK, RFK, and Edward Kennedy, but that we collectively become like them. That is when things will truly change.

HOLD BUSH AND CHENEY ACCOUNTABLE

THE RIGHT-WING ASSAULT ON ALL OF US

Maybe we need a new social science that combines aspects of political science, sociology, and psychology to analyze the behavior of the right wing in this country. It's a movement mostly moved by hate and paranoia. It's all emotion and no reason. Most of the knuckle draggers who fulminate against things like "socialized medicine" have no idea of what they're talking about. They've heard the talking points from the thugs who manipulate them, people like Limbaugh, Hannity, Savage, Gingrich, and Palin. They repeat those talking points endlessly. They talk about "freedom" while they busily go about denying freedom to their fellow citizens by threat and intimidation.

If we don't get national health care, it will be a national tragedy. We should have had national health care decades ago. But just as the vestiges of slavery endured for one hundred years after the Civil War--and still endures in many ways--we continue with the same broken and heartless system. Other countries have successfully implemented health care for their citizens but we, the "can do" country, can't do it because of the cruel and selfish ideologues on the political right. This editorial from The New York Times summarizes it well from www.nytimes.com:

If nothing is done to slow current trends, the number of people in this country without insurance or with inadequate coverage will continue to spiral upward. That would be a personal tragedy for many and a moral disgrace for the nation. It is also by no means cost-free. Any nation as rich as ours ought to guarantee health coverage for all of its residents.