[ohio]

This editorial is one of the best reads I've found that tears apart the false dichotomy of both parties being equally self-interested and evil, just in different directions. It explains why the Republicans I want to vote for (yes, there are some) never make it to a ballot, and how we keep creeping to an off-kilter right even while right-wing voters believe the world is going to hell.

Highly recommended that you get over the TL;DR and read it in full.

But both parties are not rotten in quite the same way. The Democrats have their share of machine politicians, careerists, corporate bagmen, egomaniacs and kooks. Nothing, however, quite matches the modern GOP.
...
Everyone knows that in a hostage situation, the reckless and amoral actor has the negotiating upper hand over the cautious and responsible actor because the latter is actually concerned about the life of the hostage, while the former does not care. This fact, which ought to be obvious, has nevertheless caused confusion among the professional pundit class, which is mostly still stuck in the Bob Dole era in terms of its orientation. For instance, Ezra Klein wrote of his puzzlement over the fact that while House Republicans essentially won the debt ceiling fight, enough of them were sufficiently dissatisfied that they might still scuttle the deal.
...
While Democrats temporized, or even dismissed the fears of the white working class as racist or nativist, Republicans went to work.
...
Whatever else President Obama has accomplished (and many of his purported accomplishments are highly suspect), his $4-trillion deficit reduction package did perform the useful service of smoking out Republican hypocrisy. The GOP refused, because it could not abide so much as a one-tenth of one percent increase on the tax rates of the Walton family or the Koch brothers, much less a repeal of the carried interest rule that permits billionaire hedge fund managers to pay income tax at a lower effective rate than cops or nurses. Republicans finally settled on a deal that had far less deficit reduction - and even less spending reduction! - than Obama's offer, because of their iron resolution to protect at all costs our society's overclass.

 

[MMike]

This editorial is one..... l.

That's as far as I got

 

[Dogboy]

Posted in the "austerity measures..." thread too, but still a great read IMO.

 

[Toshi]

I read it. The problem, as I see it, is that this kind of fire and brimstone, anti-intellecual garbage that candidates like Perry spew forth is what a large part of the populace wants. We are that stupid, collectively.

 

[jimmydean]

Some of the comments are also very valid points. Thanks for posting, it was long as hell, but well worth the read.

Comment:

The Republicans love to quote Ronald Ray-gun; the Democrats need to go back further, and start praising Eisenhower, and watch the current GOP try to disown him. The Dems' new slogan should be: "I liked Ike." Maybe even make his birthday (Oct. 14) a national holiday, as a pre-election-day reminder of what the GOP once was.

 

[jimmydean]

I read it. The problem, as I see it, is that this kind of fire and brimstone, anti-intellecual garbage that candidates like Perry spew forth is what a large part of the populace wants. We are that stupid, collectively.

Both sad and true. I owe you rep, btw.

 

[Silver]

I read it. The problem, as I see it, is that this kind of fire and brimstone, anti-intellecual garbage that candidates like Perry spew forth is what a large part of the populace wants. We are that stupid, collectively.

You saw the cheering yesterday regarding the death penalty.

We might just be 20 years away from full blown fascism.

 

[Toshi]

I didn't watch any of that ****--no cable TV, no care--but I did read about it, yeah.

 

[jimmydean]

We might just be 20 years away from full blown fascism.

Would that be better or worse than the rapture?

 

[Silver]

Would that be better or worse than the rapture?

The rapture sounds like heaven to me.

At this point, I'm willing to consider lions as a viable solution to the Christian problem if God doesn't get off his ass and do some rapturing. What's Jesus doing, anyways? Maybe he got his hands on a pre-release copy of Battlefield 3?

 

[jimmydean]

 

[Pesqueeb]

I read it. The problem, as I see it, is that this kind of fire and brimstone, anti-intellecual garbage that candidates like Perry spew forth is what a large part of the populace wants. We are that stupid, collectively.

None of us are as dumb as all of us.

 

[MMike]

None of us are as dumb as all of us.

you have blown my mind

 

[-BB-]

None of us are as dumb as all of us.

+ Rep

 

[Andyman_1970]

The rapture sounds like heaven to me.

It sounds like heaven to me also. Get rid of these ultra conservative evangelical types that are more worried about what you're doing in bed than thousand of brown kids dying of stavation every day. Once they are gone we can go about making heaven on earth a reality..........like a Rabbi taught a long time ago.........

 

[MMike]

It sounds like heaven to me also. Get rid of these ultra conservative evangelical types that are more worried about what you're doing in bed than thousand of brown kids dying of stavation every day. Once they are gone we can go about making heaven on earth a reality..........like a Rabbi taught a long time ago.........

Hippy

 

[X3pilot]

I bet only dogs will be raptured.

They're probably the only creatures that really deserve to go to a heaven.

 

[jimmydean]

I bet only dogs will be raptured.

They're probably the only creatures that really deserve to go to a heaven.

That was decided in 1989.

 

[MMike]

 

[stevew]

thousand of brown kids dying of stavation every day.

what has soul brother #1 done for them lately?

 

[Silver]

what has soul brother #1 done for them lately?

He's sent a bunch of them in Pakistan and Afghanistan on the express drone-powered explosive train to meet Jesus early.

That's gotta count for something, amirite?

 

[mandown]

you have blown my mind