Cliff Schecter: Yes, I'll dare call it treason

[babylonsister]

Yes, I'll dare call it treason

The Republican Party no longer has its country's best interests at heart - and Americans suffer as a result.
Cliff Schecter
Last Modified: 13 Jul 2011 05:32



Once upon a time, in a land that now seems to have been populated by tooth fairies and unicorns, there was a political party that had a set of core beliefs to which they actually adhered.

snip//

This party was known as the Republican Party, and while one might have disagreed with them on their policy prescriptions to cure any particular US ill, one could at least see some logic in their beliefs and understand that they - with some obvious exceptions from time to time (ahem, Joseph McCarthy, ahem) - were doing what they thought was right for the United States of America.

Today, this once respectable organization has turned into nothing so much as a collective id the size of a David Vitter Pampers shopping spree. When facing changes to this nation that make them uncomfortable, they choose national hate. When facing ideological worship versus the greatness of the US, the former always wins the day. When facing a choice of what is good for the US or their personal bank accounts, they inevitably go with the latter.

Every. Single. Time.


snip//

Yet perhaps right-wingers' work to undermine America is nowhere as evident as it is in the everyday indicators of how we are doing as a country. Whether it is the World Health Organization's ranking the US in 37th place, our impressive 33rd place in children's ability to navigate math and science, or 39th place in our environmental quality (we're still two spots ahead of Cuba!), I simply don't understand how one can claim to love the US and blithely ignore or work to exacerbate these indicators by gutting government every day.

But then again, what should we expect from a movement whose leaders, such as that dimwitted dolt known as Texas Governor Rick Perry, openly discuss secession? Or, as I pointed out in last week's column, the blood diamond-accruing conman Pat Robertson, who has wished Sodom-like destruction on the United States, because gay couples in New York now have the right to marry?

Secession? Destruction? There used to be a term to describe people who wished these tragedies would befall their own country. Today that term is "Republican presidential candidate", whether from the recent past (Robertson in 1988) and potentially - God help us - the future (Perry in 2012).

more...

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/201171295644164740.html

[DCKit]

1. I couldn't have said it better. nt

[aquart]

2. I have called the Republican Party the party of treason for decades.

What Ronald Reagan did to our hostages held in Iran was TREASON.

[Frustratedlady]

3. Why do others' papers "get it" but our papers don't print a clue.

I say print a clue, because I know they are aware of what is going on, as are we, but you don't see it in print like you do in The Guardian or alJazeera.

I'd hate to work for a paper (or live in a country) where you couldn't speak the truth.

Oh, I guess I DO live in one.

[MinneapolisMatt]

4. HUGE K&R

[grasswire]

5. treason? or insanity?

Or treason begat from insanity? They are barking crazy.

[donheld]

7. Both

[Fire1]

6. K&R

[StarburstClock]

8. So what do you recommend doing?

When I posted that they should be held accountable you posted "uhh no". So what's your answer?

[Doctor_J]

9. So what are we going to do?

I see a lot of rec's and huffing and puffing, but zero fight. When are these traitors going to start paying the price? Here in MI the governor is just taking over cities and giving them tax money which they will then give back to him for his campaign. Yet not a single explosion has gone off in his office or any of his legislative cronies' offices. what good does it do to call them traitors and then fight back by signing petitions?

Sometimes I wonder how we could have elected such a wishy-washy leader, then I look at our own weakness and see that it fits perfectly.

[Uncle Joe]

10. Kicked and on edit too late to recommend.

Thanks for the thread, babylonsister.