Tuesday, October 30, 2012

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?


It’s an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning. FEMA, created by President Jimmy Carter, was elevated to cabinet rank in the Bill Clinton administration, but was then demoted by President George W. Bush, who neglected it, subsumed it into the Department of Homeland Security, and placed it in the control of political hacks. The disaster of Hurricane Katrina was just waiting to happen.

The agency was put back in working order by President Obama, but ideology still blinds Republicans to its value. Many don’t like the idea of free aid for poor people, or they think people should pay for their bad decisions, which this week includes living on the East Coast.

Over the last two years, Congressional Republicans have forced a 43 percent reduction in the primary FEMA grants that pay for disaster preparedness. Representatives Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and other House Republicans have repeatedly tried to refuse FEMA’s budget requests when disasters are more expensive than predicted, or have demanded that other valuable programs be cut to pay for them. The Ryan budget, which Mr. Romney praised as “an excellent piece of work,” would result in severe cutbacks to the agency, as would the Republican-instigated sequester, which would cut disaster relief by 8.2 percent on top of earlier reductions.
What's wrong with the Republican Party?   I live in Louisiana, and I shudder to think what it would be like here to be on our own. Our governor, Bobby Jindal, one of the bright stars in the Republican political firmament, is in the process of privatizing or dismantling as many of our public institutions as possible before he moves on to what he hopes is a prominent role on the national scene. He will leave wreckage behind that will require decades to rebuild, if there is even the will to rebuild.  The most recent havoc is in medical education, the training of doctors, which, because it is in such a state of disarray, is causing consternation amongst doctors, hospitals, and anyone in the state who cares and is paying attention. 

The Republicans of today are ruthless social Darwinians with a dog-eat-dog mentality and no concept of the common good, no conscience for a government that cares for those amongst us who are in distress.  If you are poor, or sick without health insurance, or trying to recover from a disaster with little or no resources, then you are on your own, because your plight is your own fault, and you don't deserve to be helped by the government.  

What I don't understand is that many Republicans profess themselves Christians and claim to be pro-life.  From what I see, many of them are pro-life only for life in the womb and to hell with you after that.  Oh, and when you're at death's door, and your illness is terminal and irreversible, and you have left directives not to be kept alive on machines, they just may take up your cause in Congress and pass a law ordering that you must be kept alive at all costs, despite your expressed wishes.

What is wrong with these people?  Do we want their leaders, Romney and Ryan, running the country?   

21 comments:

  1. I've given up on believing that one can appeal to Romney voters heads or hearts. They Just.Don't.Care. About truth. About facts. About other people.

    They tell me "Oh, Mitt will moderate once he's elected. He's just saying all that stuff to get past the Tea Partiers." So--in other words--they know he's a blatant liar and has no integrity, and they are okay with that.

    Members of my own family *who are on SSI* talk about Barack Obama as a "socialist" who will destroy the country by giving aid to "leeches." They are completely oblivious to the hypocrisy of their lives--and to the fact that Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Grover Norquist will be no more merciful to them than to the poor black/Latino people they are REALLY talking about.

    Mitt Romney is white. That is enough. He can lie. He can change his policy positions as frequently as he changes his underwear. They do not care, because he is white and he tells them the lies they want to hear. It is easier to believe that it is all the black guy's fault, than to admit that the people you've been voting for all these years have manipulated your prejudices to get you to vote against your own interests.

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    1. They tell me "Oh, Mitt will moderate once he's elected. He's just saying all that stuff to get past the Tea Partiers." So--in other words--they know he's a blatant liar and has no integrity, and they are okay with that.

      Doxy, people who say such things are knee-deep in bullshit and don't even smell the stench. I have no patience with them. The truth is that we don't know what Mitt will do, because he will not give details of his policies, and he changes his statements by the day, and sometimes by the hour. Why should we trust Mitt? He appears to have no character, no moral center, no qualms at all about lying. Why in heaven's name would anyone vote to put the country into the hands of a proven and habitual liar? I'm no psychologist, but it appears to me that, Mitt's lying is pathological.

      A good deal of the opposition to Obama is racist. I see it; I hear it. As you say, many who oppose Obama are part of the federal government's (socialist?) entitlement system and don't realize that Mitt would cut them off with no second thoughts.

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  2. There is an evil part of me that wants to see them get the kind of government for which they are clamoring.

    But my better nature keeps thinking about all the people who will suffer if the Koch brothers and their cronies have their way, and I can't bring myself to wish that kind of pain and suffering on anyone....

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    1. Doxy, there's a part of me that agrees with you that the people who will vote for Romney, and I'm not taking about the 1%, should get the sort of government they vote for, because otherwise they will never learn the consequences. And then I think about those who will suffer.

      If nothing changes, if the deep divide in the country continues, and perhaps even in this election, the Romneyites will win a national election and what we see will be far worse than the 8 years under the maladministration of George W Bush.

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  3. I hope for all your sakes that sense prevails and the Rep.s don't get the Government that they THINK they want. It happened here in 1979 when Thatcher came to power and didn't so much declare war on the working classes, she set out to systematically destroy us - and damned near succeeded. By the time she finally left office this once-proud industrial and manufacturing nation had no mining industry, no steel industry, ditto shipbuilding, textiles and cars; unemployment was higher than it had ever been, state education was a joke, the NHS was on its knees, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that she brought this country to the brink of civil war.
    It was announced a couple of years ago that Thatcher would get a state funeral when she dies, news which prompted a friend of mine, one of the tens of thousands of miners thrown out of work by her into a country with no new jobs, to suggest that instead the Government should give the ex-miners a shovel each, and they'd be happy to dig a hole deep enough to hand her over to the Devil in person.
    Please do all you can to make sure that you don't get your Thatcher.

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    1. Acolyte of Sagan, I do what I can to keep the destroyers out, but it's precious little. I thought Thatcher's good friend Reagan was bad, but the Republican Party has moved so far to the right that Reagan would now be considered a Blue Dog Democrat.

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  4. Agree with all the comments above. You have to wonder if they have ever really, really contemplated what "with liberty and justice for ALL" actually means.

    The pictures are devastating.

    "Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give thine angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for they love's sake. Amen."

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    1. Thanks for the prayer for all in distress and for all who work to relieve distress.

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  5. I think many GOP voters suffer from the handicap of being white.

    For most of its existence, white Protestant males were not only the ruling elite, but the ideal, the Platonic Idea of an American; and to the degree that a person differed from that ideal, the more problems that person faced; success was determined by how well one could acculturate/assimilate/hide behind the facade and seem to match the ideal. The ideal gradually expanded to include Catholics and then European ethnicities in general, including Jews--but the process was really assimilating, not expanding the boundaries of the ideal. Then came the Civil Rights movement, which essentially said No to assimilation--that the Ideal had to expand for real. But that is still only half realized, if that. And most white males have no idea what it means to be a minority--not necessarily what it means to be the victim of discrimination, but to be unable to succeed because you aren't the ideal. So they think that anyone can "succeed" without needing to worry about institutional and systemic barriers, and without access to the good old boy network that they could avail themselves of for two hundred years. In their minds, a black kid in the ghetto whose father is in prison and whose mother can hold her family together only with the aid of multiple government programs will stay poor only because he hasn't tried enough, and not because of how hard it is to get anything better in life that what he has now.

    It's not so much that Tea Party folks are racists; it's that they don't think racism (and other forms of supremacism) really exist, and that people who point out racism are fabricating it.

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    1. kishnevi, I agree with much of what you say in your first paragraph, although I grew up in heavily Roman Catholic New Orleans, outside the single Protestant, Anglo-Saxon ideal, with a heavier French and Spanish influence.

      If what I hear and see in my area in the form of comments, jokes, and pictures, and not only where I live, but in other areas, too, is not racism, then the Tea Partiers are right, and there is no such thing as racism in our society. But I don't buy into that idea. Racism by any other name is still racism.

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  6. The Republicans of today are ruthless social Darwinians with a dog-eat-dog mentality and no concept of the common good, no conscience for a government that cares for those amongst us who are in distress. If you are poor, or sick without health insurance, or trying to recover from a disaster with little or no resources, then you are on your own, because your plight is your own fault, and you don't deserve to be helped by the government.

    Well, that's the whole Republican platform in a nutshell, isn't it? Which they have managed to delude the working people of this country is God's Will for them - so they keep voting, gladly, against their own best interests.

    How sad is that?

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    1. The working people who support Romney baffle me more than I can express, Russ.

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    2. Being working class doesn't make people immune from selfishness, greed, and racism. The Romney supporters of all social classes are those who don't want to see their tax dollars putting food into the mouths of the poor and under-priveleged or paying the medical expenses of the unemployed and homeless. Of course, when you see the dispropotionately large ratio of ethnic minorities on benefits or homeless, it makes their objections easier to justify...at least to themselves. Of course, they're gambling that THEY will never hit the skids but hey, it'll never to me, right?
      Right, until it does, of course. And then you'd better be damned sure your insurance is as comprehensive as it's going to need to be, because do you remember those people you voted for? They took away your safety net!

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    3. What I don't understand is that the selfish amongst the working class vote against their own self-interest. And folks on Medicare vote against "socialized" health care. Who do they think provides their health insurance?

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  7. They live in an echo chamber, Mimi.

    My mom used to be one of those people When she lived in Mississippi, you couldn't tell her anything. She voted Republican--against her own interests. She watched fundagelical preachers on television. She got her news from the local paper and her neighbors. (This was before Fox News slithered on to the scene.)

    Then my mom moved away from MS and married a British gentleman--an outspoken leftist who carried her back to England. All of a sudden, she was daily exposed to multiple news sources. (He's something of a news junkie.) I began to get phone calls in which she railed against the right-wingers she had championed before.

    According to her, what changed her mind was being exposed to NEWS. Not propaganda, but real, honest-to-God reporting.

    She has remarked to me more than once, "I had to come to another country to really learn what was happening in my own."

    I suspect my mother's story is common. If you are never challenged in your beliefs, why would you change them? Particularly when your pastor is telling you what "God wants" and your neighbors are all comfortable in their agreement?

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    1. Doxy, your mom's story is intriguing. What it says to me is that people can change, but look what it took for your mom to change.

      Sadly, the so-called news fails to do the job in most cases. The equivalency policies of the mainstream media, in which a lie is given as much air time as the truth in the name of fairness, in the name of giving both sides their due coverage, are so much to blame.

      During the run-up to the Iraq war, Judith Miller's stories on WMD, which turned out to be fiction, were placed on the front page of the New York Times, while stories by James Risen and David Johnston that challenged the US government propaganda, were buried in the inside pages. News stories by Walter Pincus which questioned the administration's spin were buried in The Washington Post. I used to joke back then about the real stories of WMD being p. 17, but one of Pincus' best stories was actually on p. 17. Both papers were then part of the so-called liberal media.

      The policies of the media have only gotten worse since then, as only recently, late in the campaign, after many people have already cast their ballots, are the MSM calling out Romney's lies. That this election is so close is shocking to me. How any woman or any man with half a brain can vote for Romney is beyond my understanding.

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  8. Have you heard of Horatio Bunce? And the famous story that Davy Crockett tells? I suggest you look it up: "Not Yours to Give". 'Congress has no right to give charity' etc.

    http://www.fee.org/library/not-yours-to-give-2/

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    1. Span Ows, I had not heard of Horatio Bunce before I clicked your link. I am not persuaded that the concept of the common good is unconstitutional. The Preamble to the US Constitution includes the words "promote Justice" and "promote the general Welfare". Now you and I may interpret the words differently with respect to their implementation, but by any measure of being a civilized country, governed by civilized leaders, a government that stands aside when its citizens are in desperate situations is in no way commendable. Common human decency calls for our leaders and for all citizens to work to relieve suffering when possible. I am not convinced by your Mr Bunce, nor your Mr Crockett, that aiding citizens who have been struck by disaster is unconstitutional.

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    2. Thanks GM, no worries and of course it would be awful if no help were given after such events but it does not change the truth that the money is not theirs to give.

      Also, living in Louisiana you'll know all about disaster relief and about Republicans getting the blame when they shouldn't have!

      P.S. I believe if everyone agreed all the time the world would be a sadder place!

      P.P.S. Best burger I've ever eaten was in New Orleans! :-)

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    3. The money does not belong to the government. The money is ours to give for disaster relief if we so choose.

      The Republicans were to blame in Louisiana, as were Democrats. There was blame enough to spread around, but FEMA under Michael (Heckuva Job, Brownie) Brown was a spectacular disaster. In the end, the buck stopped with Bush who had appointed a bunch of hacks to run the agency.

      The world would, indeed, be dull if everyone agreed all the time. Was the burger from the Camellia Grill?

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  9. GM, your first sentence is what Horatio Bunce was on about: if the people agree to give money (however much and to whomever) them it is fine; but for the politicians to do it as if it (even though they are the people's representatives) were their grand gesture then that isn't constitutional (OK, he was on about a situation and a time that was way different from today).

    I bow to your superior local knowledge re the blame, and yes the buck stops at the top.

    The burger was in a small bar right on the corner of Perdido St. and Charles Avenue (across the road from the Intercontinental)...mind you I was drenched from a torrential shower (road was flooded too!) so anything would have been goods but I remember the burger clearly! :-)

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