The Tea Party Republicans who have stormed the nation's Capitol in a venom-filled blitz against the fabric of American life have been a puzzle to many who have tried to figure out who they are. President Jimmy Carter said he thought they were racists. NPR executives were cashiered because someone suggested the same thing. Polls found the Tea Partisans were fairly well off financially.
The Tea Party freshman in Congress are the most extreme right-wing demagogues, howling daily to cripple the federal government with cuts to every department. They aim to dismantle the EPA and allow unfettered toxic pollution. They aim to disable banking and financial regulation and allow the unimpeded ransacking of every Americans' savings, pensions, and Social Security. They aim to eliminate education, health care, food safety, disaster preparedness, and a woman's right to chose. They aim to relegate persons of color to second-class status, domestic servants marginally acceptable for menial subservience.
They do favor birth control for horses.
They seem to have some peculiar ideas regarding leadership. They thought Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, and Christine O'Donnell were good candidates to lead America.
A new CNN Poll throws more light on what Tea Partisans think.
In the current Washington budget tussle, Republicans have threatened to shut down the federal government unless they get $61 billion in crippling cuts to vital government services. CNN asked Americans whether they thought an extended shutdown of the federal government would be a good thing or a bad thing. 74% said it would be a bad thing, and only 24% thought it would be a good thing. Most Americans believe a nation without a Social Security Administration, or air traffic controllers, or border patrol agents, or food safety inspectors, or any of the other myriad government functions would not be a good thing.
However, 52% of Tea Partisans said an extended government shutdown would be a good thing.
Digging further into the CNN poll reveals the twisted quirk that demonstrates that Tea Party adherents are indeed at odds with America as a whole.
Among all respondents, when asked who they would hold responsible for a government shutdown, 46% said Republicans would be the culprits, while 37% thought President Obama would be the guilty party.
Among folks who identified with the Tea Party, 63% said President Obama would be responsible.
Remember, the Tea Party said a government shutdown would be a good thing. And, they say President Obama would be responsible for it.
What does this reveal about the Tea Party? The Tea Party is on record as being in full blown hysterical outrage over the Obama presidency. They say a government shutdown is a good thing, and Obama would be responsible.
There are two possibilities: Either they would laud President Obama for causing a government shutdown they favor but most Americans oppose, or they hate the President so much they want to see a government shutdown just so people could blame him for it. Even though most people wouldn't.
Either way, the term "sociopath" comes to mind when considering a mindset that would hold such beliefs.
A group of people so hateful of America, so filled with spite and vitriol, who hold the health, safety and well-being of their fellow citizens in such disdain that they would wish to cut off Social Security payments to the elderly, that they would paralyze all air and rail traffic across the nation, that they would allow unmitigated belching of toxic effluents into our air and water, that they would allow murderers to run free across state lines poses the greatest threat to the nation's well being since the Second World War. The peril the Tea Party poses to America can only be measured in logarithmic multiples of any threat posed by beggared Mid-East terrorist cells cowering in mountain caves on the other side of the planet.
The Tea Party exists solely to destroy the United States, just as the perpetrators of the original tea party sought to overthrow the reigning British colonial authority. The Tea Party thinks a government shutdown would be a good thing, because it would be the de facto elimination of the federal authority. The Tea Party believes President Obama would be responsible for the shutdown because his very existence, whether for his race, or his beliefs, or his hope for unity among Americans, is such anathema to the Tea Party that it necessitated the destruction of the greatest democratic institution in history.
The Tea Party representatives in Congress and the Tea Party candidates for offices throughout the nation expound the most extreme, unsustainable, and sociopathic agenda ever fomented. They denigrate immigrants as subhuman menials, they disparage science and learning as useless posturing, and they mock institutions and freedoms paid for in blood by countless generations.
The Tea Party has demanded that America do away with all the services and institutions needed to keep a modern democracy functioning because their refusal to pay their fair share of taxes has left the nation with a budget shortfall. They say America cannot afford public education, health care, clean water, clean air, wholesome food, fair business practices, safe workplaces, and transparency in banking and finances.
In fact, the main thing America can't afford is the Tea Party.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Curtain Rises on Act Three of Beltway Budget Noh Play
The high-pitched whine of a Japanese flute or a manicured politician, the discordant screech of an ancient stringed instrument or an aged Lothario masked in tanning-bed orange, and the deep thud of a traditional taiko drum or a pot-bellied fixer signalled the curtain had risen on Act III of the intractably stylized posings of the Washington Beltway budget Noh play. All the players wore masks, all the movements were choreographed, and all the drama was excruciatingly monotonous.
The House passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government for another three weeks, Democrats having surrendered another $6 billion toward the Republican goal of crippling the government with $61 billion in cuts to vital services.
While Republicans preened and strutted their celestial peacock dance, and Democrats swooned and trudged in their forlorn ghost rags, the American people told a new ABC/Washington Post poll that they were sick of Republicans holding the government hostage, and they wanted the budget shortfall addressed with a combination of cuts and tax increases.
None of the Noh players listened.
Congressional Republicans categorically refuse to examine revenue reform, and Democrats mutely comply. The Beltway politicos are content to allow hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans to suffer crippling cut to education, health care, and the elimination of government business and industry oversight so their plutocrat masters can get seventy-two coats of hand-rubbed lacquer on their new private Airbus 380s.
Tired of the budget impasse, 56% said President Obama should try harder to reach an accord with Republicans. However, 71% said Republicans hadn't been willing enough to compromise with the President.
On the budget, the public stood behind the President. Americans said that should there be a government shutdown, 45% would hold Republicans responsible, compared to 31% who would hold President Obama responsible. Americans trust the President more than Republicans on handling the economy by 46% to 34%; on balancing the federal budget by 45% to 35%; and on protecting workers' rights by 45% to 39%.
47% of Americans believed the President better understood their economic problems, compared to 35% who thought Republicans did.
Most importantly, 67% believed taxes or a combination of taxes and cuts was the best way to address the federal budget deficit, while just 31% believed that cuts alone were the way to go.
Every major poll in the past week demonstrated that Americans believe that some sort of revenue reform was necessary to address government debt and deficit.
Nonetheless, the masked players on the nation's budget stage have no intention of raising revenue. Republicans will not raise taxes on their rich patrons, and they will continue to compete among themselves to show their masters who is the most loyal servant. Congressional Republicans will fight each other to be first to strip away yet more government oversight, consumer protections, and vital services and to deliver the next tax subsidy. Congressional Republicans are playing to one audience and one audience only: their GOP plutocrat masters. In this, they are no different from the white supremacists, Neo-Confederates and gun-toting militia thugs who form the phalanxes beneath the GOP's elite. On the GOP side, everyone believes in toadying up to the plutocrats. In their medieval plutocracy, each vassal commits competing heinous acts of depravity to prove his loyalty and win tokens of recognition.
So far, Democrats have willingly gone along for a chance at a few of the table scraps.
Although the third major national poll in a week showed Americans contempt for the Republicans' cuts-only, coddle-the-rich approach to governing, Republicans are barrelling full-speed ahead with their Roadkill of America plot. They will stop at nothing until they either shut down the government, or destroy it and clear the field for their masters to take their places as the new feudal overlords of an impoverished fiefdom.
The new Continuing Resolution runs out in three weeks. Republicans and Democrats have each signalled they will no longer countenance stop-gap funding measures. The screeching and posturing goes on. Everyone is still wearing their masks.
The House passed a Continuing Resolution to fund the federal government for another three weeks, Democrats having surrendered another $6 billion toward the Republican goal of crippling the government with $61 billion in cuts to vital services.
While Republicans preened and strutted their celestial peacock dance, and Democrats swooned and trudged in their forlorn ghost rags, the American people told a new ABC/Washington Post poll that they were sick of Republicans holding the government hostage, and they wanted the budget shortfall addressed with a combination of cuts and tax increases.
None of the Noh players listened.
Congressional Republicans categorically refuse to examine revenue reform, and Democrats mutely comply. The Beltway politicos are content to allow hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans to suffer crippling cut to education, health care, and the elimination of government business and industry oversight so their plutocrat masters can get seventy-two coats of hand-rubbed lacquer on their new private Airbus 380s.
Tired of the budget impasse, 56% said President Obama should try harder to reach an accord with Republicans. However, 71% said Republicans hadn't been willing enough to compromise with the President.
On the budget, the public stood behind the President. Americans said that should there be a government shutdown, 45% would hold Republicans responsible, compared to 31% who would hold President Obama responsible. Americans trust the President more than Republicans on handling the economy by 46% to 34%; on balancing the federal budget by 45% to 35%; and on protecting workers' rights by 45% to 39%.
47% of Americans believed the President better understood their economic problems, compared to 35% who thought Republicans did.
Most importantly, 67% believed taxes or a combination of taxes and cuts was the best way to address the federal budget deficit, while just 31% believed that cuts alone were the way to go.
Every major poll in the past week demonstrated that Americans believe that some sort of revenue reform was necessary to address government debt and deficit.
Nonetheless, the masked players on the nation's budget stage have no intention of raising revenue. Republicans will not raise taxes on their rich patrons, and they will continue to compete among themselves to show their masters who is the most loyal servant. Congressional Republicans will fight each other to be first to strip away yet more government oversight, consumer protections, and vital services and to deliver the next tax subsidy. Congressional Republicans are playing to one audience and one audience only: their GOP plutocrat masters. In this, they are no different from the white supremacists, Neo-Confederates and gun-toting militia thugs who form the phalanxes beneath the GOP's elite. On the GOP side, everyone believes in toadying up to the plutocrats. In their medieval plutocracy, each vassal commits competing heinous acts of depravity to prove his loyalty and win tokens of recognition.
So far, Democrats have willingly gone along for a chance at a few of the table scraps.
Although the third major national poll in a week showed Americans contempt for the Republicans' cuts-only, coddle-the-rich approach to governing, Republicans are barrelling full-speed ahead with their Roadkill of America plot. They will stop at nothing until they either shut down the government, or destroy it and clear the field for their masters to take their places as the new feudal overlords of an impoverished fiefdom.
The new Continuing Resolution runs out in three weeks. Republicans and Democrats have each signalled they will no longer countenance stop-gap funding measures. The screeching and posturing goes on. Everyone is still wearing their masks.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Americans Want Budget Compromise, But Congress Seeks Only Cuts
The vast majority of Americans don't want Congress to cut Social Security, Medicare and vital government services, and believe the Bush-era tax breaks for those earning more than $250,000 a year should be reversed, according to a recent national Bloomberg Poll. Americans do not want a government shutdown. Congress, however, remains focused on ever greater tax subsidies for the wealthy, and Republicans are threatening to shut down the federal government unless they get cuts to Social Security as a first step toward their long-coveted dream of handing the Social Security trust funds over to their Wall Street pals.
Americans would rather see cuts to defense spending than to Social Security and Medicare, but spending on defense, or more specifically, spending on defense contractors, is the only cow sacred to Congress, especially Congressional Republicans.
The poll found most Americans understood the government had to find additional revenue and opposed extending Bush-era tax subsidies for the rich. This was consistent with an earlier NBC/WSJ poll which found nearly all Americans approved of a tax surcharge for those making more than $1 million a year. In Congress, however, tax reform is off the table, out of the room, down the street and drowned in a canvas sack at the bottom of the Potomac.
Beltway politicians in their current iteration are all about coddling trans-national plutocrats by plying them with billions of dollars in taxpayer money. At every turn, Republicans want to hand over ever-greater chunks of America's wealth to corporations and plutocrats through tax breaks, loans, guarantees and subsidies, and Democrats hem and haw for a few minutes before giving in.
Republicans have demanded $61 billion be cut from this year's budget, and, having been foiled in getting the cuts in one chunk, are now holding the government hostage to a shutdown unless they get $2 billion in cuts every week. Considering the fiscal year runs another half a year, that comes out to just about $60 billion. The Republicans want to cut every part of the discretionary portion of the budget, which amounts to just 12% of total government outlays, slashing everything from Head Start to PBS to the EPA to programs for the elderly and sick. All these cuts are ostensibly to eventually balance the budget, but in fact, will just make life miserable for ordinary Americans so the very rich can continue to add to their collections of private jets, or yachts, or embroidered panties from young female private service contractors.
Americans want Congress to compromise on cuts and taxes, but Congressional Republicans seek only to cut vital government functions. By eliminating funding for the EPA, bank regulators, food safety inspectors, and every public watchdog agency, the budget cuts very conveniently benefit big corporate interests by eliminating oversight and enforcement of the rules and regulations designed to insure the public's safety and well-being. While Americans want real compromise balancing cuts and taxes, when Congressional Democrats say "compromise," they just mean they're giving the Republicans what they want.
Americans don't want to spend $159 billion this year on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and considering how American presence in the region appears to just be adding futile misery to a region roiled by new, more relevant turmoil, one can hardly wonder why. However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates can only talk of avoiding premature withdrawal, as though repeating a mantra he'd heard somewhere, perhaps in a different context.
And all of this should take into consideration that only 29% of those polled believed that deficit and spending was the nation's top problem. 43% cited jobs and unemployment as the top priority.
Of course, slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for anyone who wanted to get rid of America's ability to curb illegal, unethical, and dangerous business practices. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for those who believe ordinary Americans should suffer every indignity so the rich can cannibalize the nations' strength in favor of their own excesses. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for right-wing lunatics from the annals of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages who dream of overthrowing the United States and restoring some hazily-envisioned antebellum white supremacist regime.
Now, where are those right-track, wrong-track numbers?
Americans would rather see cuts to defense spending than to Social Security and Medicare, but spending on defense, or more specifically, spending on defense contractors, is the only cow sacred to Congress, especially Congressional Republicans.
The poll found most Americans understood the government had to find additional revenue and opposed extending Bush-era tax subsidies for the rich. This was consistent with an earlier NBC/WSJ poll which found nearly all Americans approved of a tax surcharge for those making more than $1 million a year. In Congress, however, tax reform is off the table, out of the room, down the street and drowned in a canvas sack at the bottom of the Potomac.
Beltway politicians in their current iteration are all about coddling trans-national plutocrats by plying them with billions of dollars in taxpayer money. At every turn, Republicans want to hand over ever-greater chunks of America's wealth to corporations and plutocrats through tax breaks, loans, guarantees and subsidies, and Democrats hem and haw for a few minutes before giving in.
Republicans have demanded $61 billion be cut from this year's budget, and, having been foiled in getting the cuts in one chunk, are now holding the government hostage to a shutdown unless they get $2 billion in cuts every week. Considering the fiscal year runs another half a year, that comes out to just about $60 billion. The Republicans want to cut every part of the discretionary portion of the budget, which amounts to just 12% of total government outlays, slashing everything from Head Start to PBS to the EPA to programs for the elderly and sick. All these cuts are ostensibly to eventually balance the budget, but in fact, will just make life miserable for ordinary Americans so the very rich can continue to add to their collections of private jets, or yachts, or embroidered panties from young female private service contractors.
Americans want Congress to compromise on cuts and taxes, but Congressional Republicans seek only to cut vital government functions. By eliminating funding for the EPA, bank regulators, food safety inspectors, and every public watchdog agency, the budget cuts very conveniently benefit big corporate interests by eliminating oversight and enforcement of the rules and regulations designed to insure the public's safety and well-being. While Americans want real compromise balancing cuts and taxes, when Congressional Democrats say "compromise," they just mean they're giving the Republicans what they want.
Americans don't want to spend $159 billion this year on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and considering how American presence in the region appears to just be adding futile misery to a region roiled by new, more relevant turmoil, one can hardly wonder why. However, Defense Secretary Robert Gates can only talk of avoiding premature withdrawal, as though repeating a mantra he'd heard somewhere, perhaps in a different context.
And all of this should take into consideration that only 29% of those polled believed that deficit and spending was the nation's top problem. 43% cited jobs and unemployment as the top priority.
Of course, slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for anyone who wanted to get rid of America's ability to curb illegal, unethical, and dangerous business practices. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for those who believe ordinary Americans should suffer every indignity so the rich can cannibalize the nations' strength in favor of their own excesses. Slashing the budget and crippling the government would be the top priority for right-wing lunatics from the annals of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages who dream of overthrowing the United States and restoring some hazily-envisioned antebellum white supremacist regime.
Now, where are those right-track, wrong-track numbers?
Saturday, March 12, 2011
At Noon We Slept
Japan Quake Disaster Covers GOP Sneak Attack to Cut, Privatize Social Security, Medicare
As flames and tidal surges roiled the earthquake-devastated ruins of northeastern Japan, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans' thoughts remained focused on stealing ever more money from the American people and handing it to their trans-national plutocratic masters.
By midday Friday, McConnell announced that Republicans would not accept any agreement on a continuing resolution to fund the United States government passed the current two-week extension without cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
This is a significant milestone in Republican avarice. Having drained everything else from America's coffers, they have finally officially launched their push to plunder the nation's Social Security trust funds. Republicans have long coveted those funds, but so far hadn't dared to touch the so-called "third rail" of politics. It is clear they no longer care.
Droning the never-ending mantra of balancing a federal budget Republicans have never cared for balancing, McConnell launched the assault on Americans' old-age safety net by drawing a line in the sand that unless they got Social Security, they would shut down the government. Unless billions more dollars were shovelled to their plutocrat masters, Republicans would force the government to cease operating.
Let us not forget that it was Republicans who wrecked the economy and bankrupted the nation. A decade ago, Bill Clinton handed George Bush a budget surplus, which the Republicans gleefully, immediately plundered and handed to their masters through gratuitous tax giveaways. Then, they put two costly and disastrous wars on America's tab, the only discernible accomplishment of those wars being the transfer of $4 billion a month from the American taxpayer to Dick Cheney's Halliburton Corporation. Shortly thereafter, Bush announced the Ownership Society, permitting predatory financing and exotic instruments to inflate a catastrophic bubble in the real estate market, ultimately leaving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac holding the bag while Republican cronies absconded with more of the nation's wealth. The plutocrats' off-the-books pyramid schemes crashed the world's economy, impoverishing personal savings, pension funds, and international bond markets.
Now, ostensibly to balance a budget they blew apart, Republicans take aim at stealing the nation's Social Security funds and handing the money over to their Wall Street cronies. Instead of reforming revenue by shifting the tax burden from lower- and middle-class taxpayers to their over-indulged cronies, Republicans careen full-speed down the never-ending track of pilfering ever-greater sums for their masters to devour.
Although McConnell's attack trumpet was reported by the Associated Press, none of the major corporate media reported this opening salvo in the greatest theft in history. While Republicans moved to plunder Social Security, annihilate Medicare and eliminate Medicaid, the media left the American people nearly universally uninformed of the event, allowing Republicans to steal in stealth a nation's hard-earned retirement savings and health care lifelines and leave its citizens with a handful of worthless vouchers.
Anyone who believes the GOP's Wall Street minions would be trustworthy stewards of his retirement health and well being has rocks in his head. Those GOP darlings have already lost three fortunes in the last decade, burying the world in so much debt and worthless triple-blind credit default swaps and junk portfolios that all the world's computers and all the world's CPAs can't begin to sort the mess out. There is no fraction of an inkling of a prayer that the Wall Street money gluttons would do anything but blow the whole wad on designer togs, private mega-yachts and an endless parade of twenty-year-old "service providers."
While earnest Americans stand transfixed in horror at a catastrophe half a world away, Republicans are engineering the greatest catastrophe of Americans' lives. As Americans pour out their grief and prayers and hard-earned lucre to help those struggling through the mangled ruins of an epic natural disaster in Japan, Republicans are pouring on a blitzkrieg to mangle and ruin lives in America
As flames and tidal surges roiled the earthquake-devastated ruins of northeastern Japan, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans' thoughts remained focused on stealing ever more money from the American people and handing it to their trans-national plutocratic masters.
By midday Friday, McConnell announced that Republicans would not accept any agreement on a continuing resolution to fund the United States government passed the current two-week extension without cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
This is a significant milestone in Republican avarice. Having drained everything else from America's coffers, they have finally officially launched their push to plunder the nation's Social Security trust funds. Republicans have long coveted those funds, but so far hadn't dared to touch the so-called "third rail" of politics. It is clear they no longer care.
Droning the never-ending mantra of balancing a federal budget Republicans have never cared for balancing, McConnell launched the assault on Americans' old-age safety net by drawing a line in the sand that unless they got Social Security, they would shut down the government. Unless billions more dollars were shovelled to their plutocrat masters, Republicans would force the government to cease operating.
Let us not forget that it was Republicans who wrecked the economy and bankrupted the nation. A decade ago, Bill Clinton handed George Bush a budget surplus, which the Republicans gleefully, immediately plundered and handed to their masters through gratuitous tax giveaways. Then, they put two costly and disastrous wars on America's tab, the only discernible accomplishment of those wars being the transfer of $4 billion a month from the American taxpayer to Dick Cheney's Halliburton Corporation. Shortly thereafter, Bush announced the Ownership Society, permitting predatory financing and exotic instruments to inflate a catastrophic bubble in the real estate market, ultimately leaving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac holding the bag while Republican cronies absconded with more of the nation's wealth. The plutocrats' off-the-books pyramid schemes crashed the world's economy, impoverishing personal savings, pension funds, and international bond markets.
Now, ostensibly to balance a budget they blew apart, Republicans take aim at stealing the nation's Social Security funds and handing the money over to their Wall Street cronies. Instead of reforming revenue by shifting the tax burden from lower- and middle-class taxpayers to their over-indulged cronies, Republicans careen full-speed down the never-ending track of pilfering ever-greater sums for their masters to devour.
Although McConnell's attack trumpet was reported by the Associated Press, none of the major corporate media reported this opening salvo in the greatest theft in history. While Republicans moved to plunder Social Security, annihilate Medicare and eliminate Medicaid, the media left the American people nearly universally uninformed of the event, allowing Republicans to steal in stealth a nation's hard-earned retirement savings and health care lifelines and leave its citizens with a handful of worthless vouchers.
Anyone who believes the GOP's Wall Street minions would be trustworthy stewards of his retirement health and well being has rocks in his head. Those GOP darlings have already lost three fortunes in the last decade, burying the world in so much debt and worthless triple-blind credit default swaps and junk portfolios that all the world's computers and all the world's CPAs can't begin to sort the mess out. There is no fraction of an inkling of a prayer that the Wall Street money gluttons would do anything but blow the whole wad on designer togs, private mega-yachts and an endless parade of twenty-year-old "service providers."
While earnest Americans stand transfixed in horror at a catastrophe half a world away, Republicans are engineering the greatest catastrophe of Americans' lives. As Americans pour out their grief and prayers and hard-earned lucre to help those struggling through the mangled ruins of an epic natural disaster in Japan, Republicans are pouring on a blitzkrieg to mangle and ruin lives in America
Japan Quake Disaster
The massive 8.9 temblor that struck off Sendai, Japan and sent shock waves through Tokyo two hundred miles away is the sort of wrenching disaster that brings all people together.
Thoughts and prayers go to the victims of the earthquake, tsunami, and resulting devastation. As yet unknown numbers of victims, ruined buildings, towns washed away, and an unfolding nuclear catastrophe focus the world's heartfelt anguish.
The tsunami that swept away whole communities in Japan reached across the trackless expanse of the Pacific Ocean to crush marinas and sink boats as far away as California.
Fortunately, after the earthquake, it took only twelve minutes for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue emergency alerts across the west coast of the United States. Thanks to NOAA's system of tsunami warning buoys, emergency responder and locals officials were constantly kept apprised of the timing and magnitude of the tsunami as it approached American shores.
It took only a few more hours for House Republicans to demand that $117 million be stripped from NOAA funding in their latest budget-slashing attack on America. Republicans would like to see $1.2 billion cut from NOAA. Their actions are completely consistant with those who seek to kill Americans and dismantle the nation's ability to protect lives and property.
Thoughts and prayers go to the victims of the earthquake, tsunami, and resulting devastation. As yet unknown numbers of victims, ruined buildings, towns washed away, and an unfolding nuclear catastrophe focus the world's heartfelt anguish.
The tsunami that swept away whole communities in Japan reached across the trackless expanse of the Pacific Ocean to crush marinas and sink boats as far away as California.
Fortunately, after the earthquake, it took only twelve minutes for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue emergency alerts across the west coast of the United States. Thanks to NOAA's system of tsunami warning buoys, emergency responder and locals officials were constantly kept apprised of the timing and magnitude of the tsunami as it approached American shores.
It took only a few more hours for House Republicans to demand that $117 million be stripped from NOAA funding in their latest budget-slashing attack on America. Republicans would like to see $1.2 billion cut from NOAA. Their actions are completely consistant with those who seek to kill Americans and dismantle the nation's ability to protect lives and property.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Muslim Radicalization Hearings Are Race-Baiting Opportunism
"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the world's second largest religion?"
McCarthyism is the most common charge heard from critics of Representative Peter King's (R-NY) Homeland Security Committee hearing on radicalization among American Muslims. The 1950s era witch hunt for American Communists led by Senator Joseph McCarthy ruined countless lives, fed anti-Communist hysteria, ultimately found nothing, and led to McCarthy's censure. While both McCarthy and King were shameless self-promoters, McCarthy famously having padded his war record to qualify for a medal and forged a letter of commendation signed by Admiral Chester Nimitz, the comparisons are limited.
For one thing, McCarthy had never been a Communist, or a Nazi sympathizer, or an Italian Fascist himself. King is well-known for having been a fervent supporter of the internationally-recognized terrorist organization Irish Republican Army. A judge in Northern Ireland once branded him an IRA collaborator.
To King, the IRA was not a terrorist organization. This view is shared by many, who considered the IRA to be patriots resisting the foreign occupation of their country. But beyond this, many in America view "terrorist" as a racial term. A "terrorist" is someone of Middle-Eastern descent. In this view, "American" is also seen as a racial term, meaning "white." Therefore, IRA terrorists, or German neo-Nazi skinheads, or Russian mobsters are all "Americans," while American blacks, Latinos, Asians, and persons of Middle-Eastern descent are not "Americans."
King doesn't consider neo-Nazis or white separatists to be any threat to Americans, despite proof to the contrary. This is not surprising, as white hate groups are an integral part of the GOP coalition, providing the numbers and the muscle to back the Republicans' plutocratic masters.
Whatever value there may be to hearings on the patriotism of American Muslims or the extent to which individuals have been or may become "radicalized," which we take to mean to be made to attack America, is annihilated by the legitimization of Muslim-bashing a Congressional hearing would lend to the millions of racists and haters in America.
Those denizens of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages, including Neo-Confederates, white supremacists and separatist militias, have a clear understanding that IRA gunmen, German skinheads and Russian mobsters are "Americans," while Muslims are "terrorists."
Across America, the hysterical have attacked anyone they remotely considered to be Muslim, including Indian Sikhs, who are not Muslims at all. These haters have attacked mosques and protested to block the construction of new mosques. They have beaten and fire-bombed and raped innocent people they considered to be sub-human "terrorists."
King hopes to capitalize on anti-Muslim hate and add to it. Clearly, determining the existence of real terrorists in the U.S. is the province of the FBI. His race-baiting hearing is cheap grandstanding that does nothing to add to the nation's security, and does everything to put King atop the 24-hour news cycle. His claim that Muslims don't co-operate with law enforcement in uncovering extremists plots is a bald-faced lie refuted by countless examples from law enforcement. His claim that 85% of mosques are led by radical imams out to get America is unadulterated trash.
Whether either King or McCarthy really cared about threats to the U.S. can never be known for sure. Certainly, neither King nor McCarthy cared whether they ruined innocent lives. Adding legitimacy to anti-Muslim hate will certainly result in more hectoring, more rock-throwing, and more beatings of innocent Muslims.
Of course, King doesn't really care about attacks on Americans. In state houses across the nation, his Republican party daily attacks Americans' rights to organize and negotiate wages and benefits. His Republican party daily attacks Americans' access to affordable health care, education, and fair business practices. His Republican party daily attacks America's ability to preserve clean air and water, and to fight global climate change. His Republican party has been attacking the very fabric of Americans' lives and the society in which they live every day for thirty years.
His hearings are, in fact, another direct attack on Americans. He is attacking American Muslims with lies and deceit, and promoting physical attacks on American Muslims by right-wing thugs. By inflaming hate and fear, he is even attacking the right-wing thugs themselves, who will end up in state penitentiaries if they act out as a result of King's hearing.
Republican politicians. Now, there's a threat to all Americans.
McCarthyism is the most common charge heard from critics of Representative Peter King's (R-NY) Homeland Security Committee hearing on radicalization among American Muslims. The 1950s era witch hunt for American Communists led by Senator Joseph McCarthy ruined countless lives, fed anti-Communist hysteria, ultimately found nothing, and led to McCarthy's censure. While both McCarthy and King were shameless self-promoters, McCarthy famously having padded his war record to qualify for a medal and forged a letter of commendation signed by Admiral Chester Nimitz, the comparisons are limited.
For one thing, McCarthy had never been a Communist, or a Nazi sympathizer, or an Italian Fascist himself. King is well-known for having been a fervent supporter of the internationally-recognized terrorist organization Irish Republican Army. A judge in Northern Ireland once branded him an IRA collaborator.
To King, the IRA was not a terrorist organization. This view is shared by many, who considered the IRA to be patriots resisting the foreign occupation of their country. But beyond this, many in America view "terrorist" as a racial term. A "terrorist" is someone of Middle-Eastern descent. In this view, "American" is also seen as a racial term, meaning "white." Therefore, IRA terrorists, or German neo-Nazi skinheads, or Russian mobsters are all "Americans," while American blacks, Latinos, Asians, and persons of Middle-Eastern descent are not "Americans."
King doesn't consider neo-Nazis or white separatists to be any threat to Americans, despite proof to the contrary. This is not surprising, as white hate groups are an integral part of the GOP coalition, providing the numbers and the muscle to back the Republicans' plutocratic masters.
Whatever value there may be to hearings on the patriotism of American Muslims or the extent to which individuals have been or may become "radicalized," which we take to mean to be made to attack America, is annihilated by the legitimization of Muslim-bashing a Congressional hearing would lend to the millions of racists and haters in America.
Those denizens of the Southern Poverty Law Center's hatewatch pages, including Neo-Confederates, white supremacists and separatist militias, have a clear understanding that IRA gunmen, German skinheads and Russian mobsters are "Americans," while Muslims are "terrorists."
Across America, the hysterical have attacked anyone they remotely considered to be Muslim, including Indian Sikhs, who are not Muslims at all. These haters have attacked mosques and protested to block the construction of new mosques. They have beaten and fire-bombed and raped innocent people they considered to be sub-human "terrorists."
King hopes to capitalize on anti-Muslim hate and add to it. Clearly, determining the existence of real terrorists in the U.S. is the province of the FBI. His race-baiting hearing is cheap grandstanding that does nothing to add to the nation's security, and does everything to put King atop the 24-hour news cycle. His claim that Muslims don't co-operate with law enforcement in uncovering extremists plots is a bald-faced lie refuted by countless examples from law enforcement. His claim that 85% of mosques are led by radical imams out to get America is unadulterated trash.
Whether either King or McCarthy really cared about threats to the U.S. can never be known for sure. Certainly, neither King nor McCarthy cared whether they ruined innocent lives. Adding legitimacy to anti-Muslim hate will certainly result in more hectoring, more rock-throwing, and more beatings of innocent Muslims.
Of course, King doesn't really care about attacks on Americans. In state houses across the nation, his Republican party daily attacks Americans' rights to organize and negotiate wages and benefits. His Republican party daily attacks Americans' access to affordable health care, education, and fair business practices. His Republican party daily attacks America's ability to preserve clean air and water, and to fight global climate change. His Republican party has been attacking the very fabric of Americans' lives and the society in which they live every day for thirty years.
His hearings are, in fact, another direct attack on Americans. He is attacking American Muslims with lies and deceit, and promoting physical attacks on American Muslims by right-wing thugs. By inflaming hate and fear, he is even attacking the right-wing thugs themselves, who will end up in state penitentiaries if they act out as a result of King's hearing.
Republican politicians. Now, there's a threat to all Americans.
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