The GOP is as dumb as a box of hammers

[arendt]

The GOP is as dumb as a box of hammers
by arendt

"To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail."
-anon

Civilization, by its very definition, has in place workable solutions
to everyday problems. Only complicated, large-scale, system-level
problems challenge well-functioning technologically-sophisticated societies.

For example, we have plenty of car mechanics and gas station operators
to service our cars on an everyday basis; but the oil and gas industry
as a whole is faced with intractable system-level problems: we are rapidly
burning through our supply of oil, CO2 is creating climate change, marine
oil spills, smog, to name the most obvious.

The U.S. political parties are really two different cultures when
it comes to addressing such system level problems. The Democrats
are technocrats. They believe in letting experts study the problem
and propose well-founded solutions. They trust the scientific method.
As true stewards of America's resources, they try to plan for the
long term

The GOP on the other hand are anti-intellectual, unethical, short-term
maximizers. Furthermore, their recent power grab has revealed their
true anti-scientific mind set. They told the EPA to lie about the 911 air
pollution. They have appointed religious quacks to health care positions.
They have killed research into alternative, renewable energy. Their pollster
Frank Luntz has argued in favor of continuing their phony propaganda
campaign against the validated scientific fact of global climate change.
In short, the GOP haven't changed since the Indiana legislature of the
late 1800s declared pi to be 22/7. They continue to try to legislate Natural
Law.

Its not that they don't know this is impossible. Rather, they can't pass
up all the profits to be made by deliberately doing what is expedient,
and oftentimes, counterproductive. They figure that they can get paid
now for screwing things up, and get paid later for finally doing it right.

Case in point: the recent electrical grid outage. As Joshua Micah Marshall
has pointed out, the GOP always has plans on the shelf, which they put into
action when an excuse can be found or manufactured. So, with the blackout
as an excuse, the GOP wants to drill for more oil, remove pollution controls
on power plants, and deregulate energy prices.

This is a classic case of fixing the part of the system that is not broken,
but is very profitable to fix. (Like the car mechanic who wants to rebuild
the engine when all your really need is new sparkplugs..)

It was the transmission lines (a.k.a. the grid) which caused the blackout,
not any lack of electricity, nor any lack of oil to generate electricity. And
why did the grid fail? Because the previously-enacted energy deregulation
made power plant ownership profitable, but left transmission systems
unprofitable. Hence, the grid is in disrepair.

Yet, here is the GOP shilling for more profit-friendly, non-solutions
to the problem. This deregulation game is as much quackery as medieval
blood letting. When the so-called cure fails, say that not enough blood
was let - i.e., we need even more deregulation. Then, *if* the patient
recovers on his own, the blood-letters claim success. If the patient dies,
the blood-letters claim they were prevented from taking enough blood.
What a detestable and homicidal racket!

At a higher level, the return of voodoo economics (i.e., supply-side
tax breaks for the rich) should cause any working person with a memory
of the 1980s to run for the pitchforks and scythes. Anyone with a
brain can see that it is lack of demand that has broken an economy
where jobs have been sent overseas and sweatshop production is
a glut on the market. Anyone who witnessed the 1980s is seeing
the same scenario play out: rich get free money but don't invest in
factories because there are no customers in a jobless recovery; rich
instead put money into stocks, which rise in a bubble, eventually to
crash. No matter that we all saw this a mere 20 years ago; no matter
that economists across the board are flashing warnings about the
deficit. The GOP goes on with its tribal chant for tax breaks for the rich.

Other examples of fixing what ain't broke include:

- Building profitable prisons and even socially abhorrent private prisons,
rather than spending some money subsidizing low wage jobs that can
give marginal people a chance to lead honest lives. It costs $30-50,000
a year to keep a person in prison; and that number will only go up as
the prison population becomes older and unhealthier. It would be a
lot cheaper to subsidize a $15,000 a year job up to a living wage $30,000
job, and a lot healthier for the society. We now spend more as a country
on prisons than we do on schools. That is a disgrace; but it is highly
profitable for some.

- Mandating statewide and nationwide standardized tests for school graduation,
instead of giving teachers smaller classes and decent buildings. The difficult,
hard to quantify, and hard to profit from work of lighting the spark of learning
in a young mind is replaced by profitable, quantifiable testing. Too bad our
children will become rote-learned zombies in the process. But, hey, its profitable.
I can't wait to see if evolution will be in the standardized biology test!


The complicit corporate media enables these propaganda campaigns by
refusing to provide historical context. On the contrary, they do they
absolute best to totally deconstruct the timeline and the actual
numbers so that rational argument is replaced by a few aberrant
anecdotes, repeated ad nauseam. The GOP is a broken clock. It
is right twice a day, and wrong the rest of the time. But with Fox
News, you only get to look at the two seconds out of twenty four
hours that supports the GOP viewpoint.

Its really time to stop these hammer-swinging maniacs before they
smash up our entire civilization with their simple-minded, greedy,
absolutely ethics-free pursuit of the shortest-term profit.

I nominate Toxic Tom Delay, whose nickname is appropriately "the hammer",
as poster child for GOP ignorance, intolerance, and lack of ethics. That he
and the GOP are wrecking the country is correct 24 hours a day. We should
call the GOP the BOH - the box of hammers.

on edit: fix typos

[Bake]

1. Marvelous post

And perhaps a new way of stating what is obvious to most of us here, but perhaps not so obvious to "Middle America."

Bake

[kodi]

2. yeap, conservatives are a closed fist, progressives are an open hand

the former is useful for smashing things, the later for building things.

[SharonAnn]

3. Wow - Great article! And so true!

This is really something - can't imagine the work it must've taken to write this.

May I send it on to some Democratic activist friends?

[arendt]

5. Of course, that's why I post them. Just attribute it. n/t

n/t

[jenm]

4. radicalized neo fascists, maybe

But they've been way too successful in their damage to
representative democracy to be considered dumb.

[arendt]

8. Most crooks are dumb

I stand by my characterization of the GOP as crooked, bill-padding
car mechanics.

Is Iraq the work of smart people? its a total cockup. In three monts,
they have a full-scale Viet Nam on their hands, and everybody knows
so.

Yes, they have done a lot of damage, but they didn't need brains
to do it; just a whole lotta money. And money is their middle name.

Besides, Joe Six Pack gets crooked car mechanics. You call the
Bush Gang neo fascists and Joe writes you off as a commie, hippie, punk.

arendt

[jenm]

13. crime pays

Corporate crime pays, it's true. Are all
crooks dumb? What would John Gotti say?

I don't think the cock up in Iraq is bad news
for Bush. Maybe in pretendland. As long as
things are going badly, they have all sorts of
leverage with the people. It's how they've
been getting away with redistricting and
recalls and you know, shit like that...

[arendt]

14. There is intelligence and there is feral cleverness

Crooks count on the disbelief of the public at large
that anyone would really be that evil face-to-face.

I mean the public understands crime in the abstract,
but given that most people are at least civil in their
personal interactions, it comes as a great shock
when someone violently mugs them without a
shred of human compassion.

The GOP crimes have moved from abstractions of
finance to violent muggings of the school system,
local fire and police departments - things people
get.

The public is ceasing to disbelive these thugs. And
that will be the end of their so-called "intelligence".

arendt

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

6. Your average Republican isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer

that's all.

[ozymandius]

7. I am saving this to my HD.

This is good stuff. Well said.

In a conversation with my mother today (she's nearly 70) - she said that if anyone votes for Bush come next Fall, they need to check into Bellevue. Not only are they weighing-in on the side of profits over everything else. These Republican fanatics would have us believe that their way is correct because they say so (DAMMIT).

These are the people who say that the air is not dirty enough because profits are not bigger. The same say that convenience here outweighs any concern for quality of life overseas, mainly where there happens to be fossil fuels under someone else's sand.

</rant>

I hope you plan to flesh this editorial out and submit it for publication.

[arendt]

10. I'm not sure it can carry any more "flesh"

I tend to be long-winded and use obscure historical analogies.

For me, it is a joy when I can bang out something simple and
direct, that you don't need a history Ph.D. to appreciate.

Besides, half of the idea came from the Joshua Micah Marshall
article in the Washington Monthly, "The Post Modern President".
If you want more, google that and read it. He says it at greater
length.

arendt

[leftofthedial]

9. arendt, you rock

great post.


On the "hammer" theme, have you heard "Casino Nation," a song by Jackson Browne?

Casino Nation

In a weapons producing nation under Jesus
In the fabled crucible of the free world
Camera crews search for clues amid the detritus
And entertainment shapes the land
The way the hammer shapes the hand

Gleaming faces in the checkout counter
At the Church of Fame
The lucky winners cheer Casino Nation
All those not on TV Only have themselves to blame
And don't quite seem to understand
The way the hammer shapes the hand

Out beyond the ethernet the spectrum spreads
DC to daylight, the cowboy mogul rides
Never worry where the gold for all this glory's gonna come from
Get along dogies, it's coming out of your hides

The intentional cultivation of a criminal class
The future lit by brightly burning bridges
Justice fully clothed to hide the heart of glass
That shatters in a thousand Ruby Ridges
And everywhere the good prepare for perpetual war
And let their weapons shape the plan
The way the hammer shapes the hand

Lyrics by Jackson Browne
Music by Jackson Browne, Kevin McCormick, Mark Goldenberg, Mauricio Lewak, Jeff Young
(Swallow Turn Music, ASCAP; Eye Cue Music, ASCAP; Bossypants Music/Songs of Windswept Pacific, BMI; Bateria Music, ASCAP; Glad Brad Music, Inc., ASCAP)

[arendt]

11. Wow - great song - how old?

Post Ruby Ridge, but when?

I can't believe he used the word "detritus" in a song!

arendt

[leftofthedial]

12. last year "The Naked Ride Home" CD

Jackson has always worn his progressive heart on his sleeve, all the way back to "No Nukes."

[treepig]

15. hmm, i see the obligatory objections from the pro-hammer lobby

have not yet been noted, so for the record let me object on behalf of hammers everywhere at the indignity of being compared to the gop.

i suspect those $897 military hammers are especially offended .

[arendt]

16. Then there's Hammer Films

UK maker of classic B-horror movies.

I've got a cease and desist order from them already :-).
Seems like they already have that plot copyrighted -
evil hammers from outer space take over earth by
infiltrating our hardware stores, but they are counter-
attacked by all-American Black and Decker (TM)
Power Tools.

Sorry, I haven't had my coffee yet this morning.

arendt

[Mandate My Ass]

17. kudos

Excellent analysis. I'd only add that the media is more than complicit, it's owned, operated and funded by the same corporate moguls who profit from the Iraq invasion and dismantling of civil, workers' and consumers' rights.

More on that here:

http://www.westernherald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/02/21/3c75883ed6cf7?in_archive=1

"When you watch a news report on CBS or NBC, for example, extolling how the American military is "kicking ass" in Afghanistan and how good that is, consider thinking about the network's owners, Westinghouse and General Electric, who both incidentally have staked financial interests in government defense contracts.

"Taking news at face value, just like buying into an assumption that cannot be statistically or factually backed up -- the media just has a "liberal" bias -- leaves one in the dark. In a land of many democratic principles, as scholar Noam Chomsky has pointed out, an subtle "propaganda model of news" is the means to keeping the public pacified. With investigative skepticism and open inquiry, the truth in right-wing-slanted, corporate-saturated media news sources -- in addition to a long-lost attention span Ñ can surprisingly be found."

[slackmaster]

18. The traditional expression is SACK of hammers

:mad:

"Box of hammers" sounds like something Biff Tannen (Back To The Future) would have said.

Now make like a tree and split!

[arendt]

21. OK

I stand corrected.

All I could remember was "box of rocks", and I wanted
to use "hammer".

Sack of hammers definitely sounds better.

Just curious. Why are you mad? It was certainly not a political
gaffe. Are you the traditional sayings police?

arendt

[slackmaster]

24. I am your worst nightmare come true!

A hippie with guns.

:hippie:

Peace!

[HFishbine]

19. Superb

Should be on the DU front page!

[ProfessorGAC]

20. Very Nice, Arendt!

I liked it a lot!
The Professor

[av8rdave]

22. Great Post...

Nice job. I'm new here, btw...after reading this, I realize I'm probably not articulate enough to contribute much!

Dave

[IrateCitizen]

23. arendt, I always love your stuff

Right on, as usual. I'm reading The Politics of Meaning right now by Rabbi Michael Lerner, and I can't help but be struck by your next-to-last paragraph:

Its really time to stop these hammer-swinging maniacs before they
smash up our entire civilization with their simple-minded, greedy,
absolutely ethics-free pursuit of the shortest-term profit.

In response, we need to create this "politics of meaning" that Rabbi Lerner writes about -- a politics that speaks to the sense of disconnectedness, helplessness, and general lack of purpose that so many people on the right and left are feeling today.

[arendt]

25. That's the editor of Tikkun?

Yes, people with an honestly spiritual message get
trampled by all the religious hucksters.

Everyone is alienated and "confiscated". Susan
Falludi laid out how men's traditional roles are
now as obsolete as women's in her book "Stiffed".
The loss of social meaning lands on top of the
loss of spiritual meaning. Spiritual meaning
started draining away at the time of Darwin,
and WW2 pretty much finished the idea that we
Europeans (big tent Europe) are really moral
Christian folks.

The repsonse of the Tom DeLays of the world
to the inter-personal desert we call consumer
society is to "Praise Jesus" while stealing
as much as they can.

How can there be meaning in a country where the
news media insults logic, history, morality,
and tradition on a minute-by-minute basis?

How can there be politics when one side has
media nukes and the other side has media spitballs,
where a GOP VP can hide out for years at a time,
while Democratic candidates die in mysterious
plane crashes?

Much as Rabbi Lerner's heart is in the right place,
I am afraid he is about to demonstrate how Gandhi
would have fared if the Nazis were running India.

</despair>

arednt

[IrateCitizen]

26. I think you might be selling him a bit short, arendt...

First off, yes, it is the same Michael Lerner who edits Tikkun.

Secondly, I'll share a passage with you from his introduction. It's important to realize that Lerner is not only a Rabbi, but also holds a PhD in both philosophy AND clinical psychology. The second degree is where his ideas really begin to gain some merit.

The idea of a politics of meaning emerged from the work that a group of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, family therapists, union activists, and social theorists pioneered in Oakland, California, starting in 1976. Our aim was to better understand the psychodynamics of middle income working people, and also to ty to understand why so many of them were moving to the political Right. We set up a stress clinic that was explicitly noy psychotherapy-oriented, and worked extensively with the labor movement and various corporations to attract a range of people who might never have dreamt of going to therapy. Within our Stress Clinic we created occupational stress groups and family support groups aimed at training people to deal with the problems that any mentally healthy person would likely face at work or in family life.

What we learned from the thousands of people who participated in these groups challenged many of the beliefs that prevailed among us, and, more generally, in the liberal culture from which we researchers had come. We had thought of ourselves as psychologically sophisticated when we started this work, but we quickly learned that our assumptions about middle-income Americans were mistaken, prejudiced, and elitist. For example, most of us imagined that most Americans are motivated primarily by material self-interest. So we were surprised to discover that these middle Americans often experience more stress from feeling that they are wasting their lives doing meaningless work than from feeling that they are not making enough money.

We found middle-income people deeply unhappy because they hunger to serve the common good and to contribute something with their talents and energies, yet find that their actual work gives them little opportunity to do so. They often turn to demands for more money as a compensation for a life that otherwise feels frustrating and empty. In the Left and among many academics it has been almost a rule of reason to believe that what people really care about is their own material well-being, and that believing anything else is just some kind of populist romanticization. But we uncovered a far deeper desire -- the desire to have meaningful work, work that people believe would contribute to some higher purpose than self-advancement.

True enough, many people told us that it is just common sense to try to get as much money as possible -- precisely because most have given up on ever finding a work situation in which they can use their talents for some higher purpose. And yet what we learned was that many of these people hate living in a world governed by a money-oriented ethos, even as they simultaneously believe that it is impossible to change such a world.

Lerner goes on to talk about how the right has hijacked this desire for community, connection and greater purpose through talk of "values", "morals" and "family" -- even as they destroy all they claim to support. This is not just a bunch of feel-good spiritual mumbo-jumbo in which we are told everything will be all right. It is, IMHO, a crystal-clear analysis of the breakdown of society that has been occuring since industrialization.

Of course, the key is NOT to go back to the time in which we were an agrarian nation, nor is it to turn back the clock to 1955. Those times were times filled with a lot of racism, sexism and narrowmindedness. Rather, it is to seek out policies that help people feel that sense of community, that connectedness that they so long for but has been lost in the push of social Darwinism to establish the almighty dollar as the altar we all bow down before.

Of course, I just started the book, so I'll have to let you know what I think of the whole thing. But right now, I have already found a great deal that has spoken to me quite clearly.

[arendt]

28. No offense meant; did you miss my "tag"...

...</despair>

Its not that I think Lerner is ineffective; rather,
I just don't see how you make non-violence work in
the face of sociopathic thugs.

The snip you sent sounds very interesting, and if
I had spare money for books, I'd go get a copy.

Believe me, I certainly don't want to diss honest
spirituality/meaning of life. We have gotten to
our current predicament via dishonest spirituality.

One of my favorite quotes is from Jacques Ellul's
"Propaganda", in which he says that when religion
is used for political purposes, it loses its
spirituality and becomes just another ideology.

Peace

arendt

[Capn Sunshine]

27. Thanks for a thoughtful post

I hope the catfighting over candidates ceases for a moment as we are reminded that at least ONE DUer is still thinking about the REAL enemy.