Friday, January 27, 2006
It is the GOP that is beholden to special interests...
What are the Democrats so afraid of that they will not unanimously stand behind a filibuster? Are they afraid of looking obstructionist? Are they afraid that they will look like extreme dare I say it? Liberals?! Are they afraid that they'll lose their bids for reelection if they're in a red state?
Republicans are gleefully anticipating a Democratic filibuster because they claim that it makes Democrats look obstructionist and beholden to left-leaning special interest groups as if the only special interest groups are left-wing. Of course the characteristic that best describes the Pharisee and the hypocrite is throwing stones from glass houses. The Republicans are the ones truly beholden to special interest groups, which obviously they would like to hide because if the public were truly informed about the GOP's connections, they would not vote Republican or against their economic interests.
Take for example, West Virginia. 14 miners recently died there due to shoddy conditions in the coal mines with numerous safety violations. Guess who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Bush 2000 and 2004 campaign. I'll give you a hint. It wasn't those miners or their families. It was the coal mining industry. Now, that's a special interest group if you ever saw one. What was the industry's reward?
The Bush Administration claims that protection for workers is an unnecessary burden on Big Business and drives up the cost of operation and makes corporations non-competitive. They claim that "oppressive" environmental and safety regulations have been placed on business while ignoring the financial cost that comes with them. Regulation by the government is nothing more than the promotion of a nanny state which bloats government to the point of no return. The private sector should be able to do what it wants and it is the fault of regulations and rules that corporations have to cut jobs. Now, most of their new laws like the Clear Skies Initiative seem like they have been written by the very industries that the laws are supposed to regulate. Coincidence? You tell me.
John Graham, the “regulatory tsar” who runs the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget claims that it's not pro-regulation or even anti-regulation, but rather "smarter regulation." Regulations will be judged on their cost-effectiveness and put into practice according to that standard. Smarter regulation is another one of those Orwellian terms that does not mean anything at all. It appeals to the average American citizen in that he/she still gets the sense that the administration is looking after their best interest, after all, who wants to eat rotten sausages and breathe polluted air? It works for the corporations who know that Bush is fooling the sheep and that they're free to do anything they want as long as they pay pittances for fines such as the $878 the Sago Mine paid.
If you want to see the numbers, I'll link you to a site where you can then access a pdf file showing all those dirty numbers the Litterbox Administration doesn't want you to see. To put things in perspective, there were 416 Rangers and Pioneers who helped finance Bush'sre- election campaign in 2004. 374 or over 90% represented you guessed it, corporations and of these, 73 from the Financial Sector (Wall Street, etc.) Now if those aren't special interests, I don't know what is. How did Bush reward them? For the financial sector, he reduced the "double-taxation" dividend tax from 38% to 15%, he tried to ram Social Security Privatization down our throats, and is working on permanently repealing the ESTATE tax (not the Death tax). For the coal mining industry, he relaxed regulation and fired any whistleblower. For the real estate industry, it weakened regulations on building homes on wetlands. For Big Pharma, it rammed the Medicare abomination of a bill which prohibits the government from negotiating with the drug companies for lower prices. If the Drug industry didn't write that bill, I don't know who did. Do you see the pattern here? Special interests > the average American citizen in the eyes of the Bush Adminstration.
I would rather have our Democratic Party be beholden to groups like MoveOn and the Center for American Progress than to be beholden to corporations and the Rapture Right with nutcases who desire a conflict in the Middle East to escalate into a religious war so that the bodies may pile up which would then mean that Jesus would come. The GOP does not want the American voter to know that they are beholden to those who would want to pontificate their piety upon everyone else and their standards of morality on everyone else. The GOP is beholden to those fundamentalists who believe that every American child no matter what his/her religion should be taughtIntelligent Design Creationism and pray in school, who believe that homosexuality is an abomination and that homosexuals should be "cured" of it, aka Dr. Mengele style (see reparative therapy), that it is alright to discriminate against gays and lesbians and deny them civil rights while piously proclaiming that they love the sinner but hate the sin, and believe that a Second Holocaust would be justified as long as it is done in the name of the establishment of Jesus' Kingdom on Earth.
Someday, the house of cards will come falling down when the evangelicals realize that they are only second at the trough of goodies the Bush Administration is setting aside. The corporations will get the lobster and the spicy fish which you can find at some Chinese restaurants while the Religious Right gets the ummm lobster sauce with some rice to eat it with. What will the American people get? maybe some lobster shells with bits and scraps or maybe the fish sauce mixed in with tiny fish bones which we'll choke on. The Bush Administration will tell us that it's nourishing and that we should eat the lobster shells, but we'll choke to death.
To the Democrats: If you want our support in the 2006 Elections or the 2008 Presidential Election, show some damn backbone and filibuster. Otherwise you have just told us to go Cheney ourselves and when it comes to Election Day, we'll say,"Screw you, I'm staying home!""You only earned our vote because you are not a minion of the National Litterbox."
Now I'm not saying the Democrats are not beholden to special interests, but I'm saying that it's hypocrisy to attack them for being beholden to left-wing special interest groups (which they aren't compared to the same corporations *cough Joe Biden *cough) while being beholden to special interest groups like corporations and the Religious Right.
Republicans are gleefully anticipating a Democratic filibuster because they claim that it makes Democrats look obstructionist and beholden to left-leaning special interest groups as if the only special interest groups are left-wing. Of course the characteristic that best describes the Pharisee and the hypocrite is throwing stones from glass houses. The Republicans are the ones truly beholden to special interest groups, which obviously they would like to hide because if the public were truly informed about the GOP's connections, they would not vote Republican or against their economic interests.
Take for example, West Virginia. 14 miners recently died there due to shoddy conditions in the coal mines with numerous safety violations. Guess who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Bush 2000 and 2004 campaign. I'll give you a hint. It wasn't those miners or their families. It was the coal mining industry. Now, that's a special interest group if you ever saw one. What was the industry's reward?
The Bush Administration claims that protection for workers is an unnecessary burden on Big Business and drives up the cost of operation and makes corporations non-competitive. They claim that "oppressive" environmental and safety regulations have been placed on business while ignoring the financial cost that comes with them. Regulation by the government is nothing more than the promotion of a nanny state which bloats government to the point of no return. The private sector should be able to do what it wants and it is the fault of regulations and rules that corporations have to cut jobs. Now, most of their new laws like the Clear Skies Initiative seem like they have been written by the very industries that the laws are supposed to regulate. Coincidence? You tell me.
John Graham, the “regulatory tsar” who runs the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget claims that it's not pro-regulation or even anti-regulation, but rather "smarter regulation." Regulations will be judged on their cost-effectiveness and put into practice according to that standard. Smarter regulation is another one of those Orwellian terms that does not mean anything at all. It appeals to the average American citizen in that he/she still gets the sense that the administration is looking after their best interest, after all, who wants to eat rotten sausages and breathe polluted air? It works for the corporations who know that Bush is fooling the sheep and that they're free to do anything they want as long as they pay pittances for fines such as the $878 the Sago Mine paid.
If you want to see the numbers, I'll link you to a site where you can then access a pdf file showing all those dirty numbers the Litterbox Administration doesn't want you to see. To put things in perspective, there were 416 Rangers and Pioneers who helped finance Bush's
I would rather have our Democratic Party be beholden to groups like MoveOn and the Center for American Progress than to be beholden to corporations and the Rapture Right with nutcases who desire a conflict in the Middle East to escalate into a religious war so that the bodies may pile up which would then mean that Jesus would come. The GOP does not want the American voter to know that they are beholden to those who would want to pontificate their piety upon everyone else and their standards of morality on everyone else. The GOP is beholden to those fundamentalists who believe that every American child no matter what his/her religion should be taught
Someday, the house of cards will come falling down when the evangelicals realize that they are only second at the trough of goodies the Bush Administration is setting aside. The corporations will get the lobster and the spicy fish which you can find at some Chinese restaurants while the Religious Right gets the ummm lobster sauce with some rice to eat it with. What will the American people get? maybe some lobster shells with bits and scraps or maybe the fish sauce mixed in with tiny fish bones which we'll choke on. The Bush Administration will tell us that it's nourishing and that we should eat the lobster shells, but we'll choke to death.
To the Democrats: If you want our support in the 2006 Elections or the 2008 Presidential Election, show some damn backbone and filibuster. Otherwise you have just told us to go Cheney ourselves and when it comes to Election Day, we'll say,
Now I'm not saying the Democrats are not beholden to special interests, but I'm saying that it's hypocrisy to attack them for being beholden to left-wing special interest groups (which they aren't compared to the same corporations *cough Joe Biden *cough) while being beholden to special interest groups like corporations and the Religious Right.
