Gleaning Facebook: Today's GOP

 To protect them and the republic he loved from authoritarians, 78 years ago, my father left the young wife and two little daughters he loved with all his heart to risk his life half way around the world on tiny islands in the middle of the anything-but-pacific-ocean. The least I can do is speak out and vote to stop the authoritarians at home.

 

"Stating plainly that one of America’s two major parties, the party putatively devoted to advancing the ideas and ideals of conservatism, has now fallen into autocratic disrepute is unnerving for a magazine committed to being, in the words of our founding manifesto, 'of no party or clique.' Criticism of the Republican Party does not suggest an axiomatic endorsement of the Democratic Party, its leaders and policies," Jeffrey Goldberg writes. "Substantive, even caustic, critiques can of course be made up and down the Democratic line. But avoiding partisan entanglement does not mean that we must turn away from the obvious. The leaders of the Republican Party—the soul-blighted Donald Trump and the satraps and lackeys who abet his nefarious behavior—are attempting to destroy the foundations of American democracy. This must be stated clearly, and repeatedly." - The Atlantic

 

Gleaning Facebook: Last Night's Republican Brawl

 Good lord! These [undignified and deeply unsettling men, Trump, Cruz, & Rubio] are running for President of the United States.

Once again, I am thankful that I am a member of the Democratic Party. These Republican candidates are a disgrace.

(edited from my off-the-cuff, immediate, and, OK, undignified initial reaction to the brawl last night)

Kathy Cannon Rogers Yes!!! These people are giving me the creeps. Would we really want someone like Trump to represent our country??

Laurie Craw The Republican Party has lost its dignity. Sad for America.

Terrell Shaw So are you a Trump guy now Jonathan?

Melinda Rohr Jeffers I'm sorry you feel that way, but some of your "friends" think anyone of these creeps would be better than the criminals you want in the White House.

Laurie Craw Good people whom I consider friends on and off FB have different opinions about the needs of our country, the best solutions to our problems and the character of individual candidates for office. That's OK with me. I didn't call any candidate a "creep" and never will label them with slur words. There is entirely too much disrespect and name-calling in our politics and I won't add to that. I'm looking for ways to lift all of us up, not tear down. There are no perfect candidates. All are flawed human beings like us. Happy Valentine's Day, Melinda!

Laurie Craw Terrell, all the creeps, idiots, losers, takers, liars, buffoons, weirdos, warmongers, baby killers, grumpy old men, Bible thumpers, cowards, girly-men, man-haters, hypocrites, bleeding heart do-gooders, communists and pervs accept your editing apology and promise (I am sure) to refrain from using any of these disrespectful terms for you. LOLOLOL

Gleaning Facebook: Time for a Fix

I love many Republicans. I despise what their party has become.

From the days of Lee Atwater through the present Republicans have become increasingly obstructionist. Liberal Republicans are, and moderate Republicans are almost, extinct. The far-right coordinates their language to an incredible extent, carefully characterizing their opponents and disfavored programs with the same negative language and their friends and favored programs in the same glowing terms. They have filibustered even measures they have previously supported, obviously just to stymie the Democrats. They actively suppress voting. They champion Gerrymandering to the extent that our House of "Representatives" is no longer close to representative of the people at large. (The Senate, of course, has never been.) It is well documented that Republican leadership made the decision to obstruct President Obama from Inauguration Day 2009 on.

Their policies are doomed by demographics, but their ever more bitter tactics seek to delay that fall by limiting democracy and empowering plutocrats. Their devotion to "trickle-down" is impervious to the overwhelming evidence that that approach only deepens the divide between the ever-more-powerful one-percent and the rest of us. And economically, environmentally, socially, we edge closer and closer to tipping points.

This graphic is several months old now but the pattern is clear. Republicans want Democrats, especially President Obama, to fail and will allow the United States to suffer to achieve that failure.

I love many Republicans. I despise what their party has become.

Comments

Terrell Shaw

There's a good argument for that Denis. Like the Ivorybilled Woodpecker, Moderate Republicans' mournful calls have occasionally been rumored to be heard deep in remote forests. I choose to hope pocketed populations still exist. 

Neal Brackett
And of course, nothing that has passed the house has made it out of committee in the the senate... Washington is broke.

 

Gleaning Facebook: On the GOP Contenders

Newt for Horn Tooter In Chief of the Moon Colony. Mitt can become CEO of the Cayman Islands. Ron can be Head of State in a Randian alternate universe. Rick would make a great missionary to, I don't know, Puerto Rico maybe?

Brief Post -- lotsa comments:

_________________

Dan Bolton
Mitt reminds me of Damien in the Omen III movie

Jackson Williamson
Please don't let Rick represent Christianity anymore...can we just let him be a garbageman?

Dan Bolton
He is better than Mitt

Jackson Williamson
Santorum's a coward who hides behind his archaic interpretation of the Bible. He is a bigot and unworthy to run for dogcatcher.

Lydia Simpson
Although perhaps he could run in front of one...one with a really big net...

Dan Bolton
Dogs and Mitt doesn't mix either. He just straps his dog to the roof of his car

Christy Davis
We can't seriously think these yahoos are the best and brightest in the GOP. I don't have a lot of love for Republicans but I do have a lot of hope for humanity...

Howard Smith
sounds like a plan

Dawn N Luke Andrews
But most joyous of all will be the Obama moving caravan heading back to Chicago Jan 2013.....our country cannot wait for that day to come. We can then begin to repair the damage .....

Jackson Williamson
*facepalm*

Lydia Simpson
Since when were American politics based on the "best and brightest"?

Lynne Crothers Williams
Would love to move to the Randian universe. Why is it that no one pays any attention to the one person who predicted the collapse of the housing market years before it happened? Instead, policy is being made by the same people who walked around shaking their heads and saying, "Well, no one could have predicted this."

Christy Davis
Lydia, well it sure as heck shouldn't be based on "least restrictive environment."

Terrell Shaw
Wow! Some of you folks get busy on my Facebook wall when I desert it during the school day. What fun!

On being called "Politically Correct"

Those who rant against the building of the Islamic equivalent of a YMCA in lower Manhattan have enjoyed accusing those of us on the other side of "political correctness". In fact, of course, if one side can be fairly accused of being motivated by "political correctness" it would be the ranters. They have repeatedly used sensibility to the feelings of some (not all by a long shot) 2001 terror survivors as their main argument in discouraging free expression among actual residents of lower Manhattan -- who were also terrorized in 2001.

My objection to the use of the term "politically correct" is that, rather than dealing with the core issue of whether or not Muslims in lower Manhattan have every right to speak and worship and assemble as they please*, opponents attack civil libertarians' motives by accusing us of only worrying about ruffling the sensibilities of the Muslims. Hogwash! That is an ad hominem response , in my book. I have Muslim friends. I love and admire them. But I think the beliefs of their religion, as I understand them, are wrong and definitely not the loving faith of the New Testament as I read it. That's why I choose to be a Methodist instead -- though I disagree with some other self-styled Christians about as vehemently. I have no problem telling anyone that.

I believe those who are ranting about the erroneously-labeled "Ground Zero Mosque", have every right* to do so, but are tragically mistaken in doing so. In practical terms their actions are totally counter-productive. I believe their actions are also analogous to calling for Japanese-American internment in WWII, calling for segregation of African-Americans, calling for posting of "No Irish Need Apply" signs, calling for Native-American removal, etc. I believe, eventually, they or their progeny will be embarrassed by their actions and statements. Newt Gingrich, for example, has permanently soiled his own biography with his extremism on this issue.

I hope I would, if it came to it, be willing to die for the ranters' and the Muslims' right as Americans to be royally wrong and believe, preach, worship, assemble*, to their heart's content for their wrongheaded beliefs.


* under the law, of course -- please don't anyone give me another lecture on extraneous issues like zoning.

Editing Note: spelling corrected in title, 8/25/08.