The Day After: Analysis 3
Today is Friday, 5 November 2010.
Part of the argument I’m making is that a very unique set of circumstances enabled the election of a Black president in 2008, but that the underlying white racism endemic to many Americans swiftly re-asserted itself, and that this was a large factor in the Repugnicant seizure of control of the House in 2010.
It’s for this reason I compared the reaction of many Americans to a Black president to the reaction I would expect of many Americans in the case of a hypothetical Jewish president. This nation is still nearly at least as saturated in bigotry as in the days when it was still socially acceptable to make publicly the claim that “Communism is Jewish”.
Teabaggerism may assert until it’s blue in the face that it’s not racist, but I won’t buy that, until the Baggerati provide a more plausible explanation of why they swooningly embraced lily-white Reagan and the Two Bushes when the latter and their myrmidons and their policies were responsible for creating 2/3 of the National Debt, and then suddenly saw the Debt as an apocalyptic threat only once a Black became president.
Another large factor was that many, and perhaps most, Americans suffer from a form of Goldfield Syndrome, the fictional memory disorder afflicting Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates. That is, they act as if they believe that, in terms of causation, the cosmos begins anew every morning. Thus, they act as if, once Obama was inaugurated President, all the economic woes of the country were his responsibility, in terms of causation. They act as if they forget that the Crash of ’08 was the culmination of decades of toxic Repugnicant economic policies, particularly those originating during the Reagan regime.
Perhaps Obama should be presented with a t-shirt: “I saved capitalism from a Second Great Depression, and all I got was this lousy Republican-dominated House of Representatives”.
The Repugnicants claim that they wish to reduce the National Debt, yet they’re hot to increase deficits by continuing the W. Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans, precisely the people who don’t need the extra cash.
This is indicative of one of the reasons that the bi-partisan approach that Obama seems to favour is doomed to failure. The economic policies of the Repugnicant elites lead toward killing the goose (the working classes) which lays the golden eggs. The policies of the Democratic elites tend toward nurturing the goose to lay more golden eggs. There can be no compromise solution between two such antithetical approaches.
History shows that Repugnicants virtually always choose the lowest of roads and take no prisoners. I believe that the pursuit of the bi-partisan chimera lulled Obama & Co. into a tepid electoral strategy. The proof of their political tone-deafness is in the crow pudding we’re now obliged to eat. It’s hard to conceive that the outcome would have been worse had a strategy of vigor and fire been pursued.
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I saw a clip of election comment by William Bennett, far-right ideologue and former Secretary of Education, who also flushed hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of dollars of his family’s money down his gambling habit. Bennett said that John Boehner would be leader of “one sixth” of the Federal government.
Hmm. Presidency, Supreme Court, Senate, House … oh: Vegas and Atlantic City.
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Yes, Oklahoma voters approved a State Question forbidding state courts from considering or using Sharia law, a practice frequently rampant. The same question also forbids considering or using international law. Seems to have slipped voter minds that much international law is made by treaties to which the USA/USE is signatory, and therefore has, constitutionally, the force of law, regardless of the prejudices of Oklahoma voters.
Sigh.
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60% of Oklahoma voters also elected Republican Mary Fallin as governor. Fallin claims to be a fiscal conservative whose motherhood was a qualification for office. (Her female Democratic opponent is neither a mother nor a "mutha".)
When Fallin was Lt. Governor, she was discovered by police, in the dead of night, on the shore of an Oklahoma City lake, parked in the back seat of her taxpayer-funded official auto, in closest proximity to her taxpayer-funded state trooper “body”-guard/driver. The latter claimed that he was “comforting” Fallin because of her troubled first marriage.
Is that what the kids call "it" these days?
Locally, she's known as “That Fallen Woman”.
Part of the argument I’m making is that a very unique set of circumstances enabled the election of a Black president in 2008, but that the underlying white racism endemic to many Americans swiftly re-asserted itself, and that this was a large factor in the Repugnicant seizure of control of the House in 2010.
It’s for this reason I compared the reaction of many Americans to a Black president to the reaction I would expect of many Americans in the case of a hypothetical Jewish president. This nation is still nearly at least as saturated in bigotry as in the days when it was still socially acceptable to make publicly the claim that “Communism is Jewish”.
Teabaggerism may assert until it’s blue in the face that it’s not racist, but I won’t buy that, until the Baggerati provide a more plausible explanation of why they swooningly embraced lily-white Reagan and the Two Bushes when the latter and their myrmidons and their policies were responsible for creating 2/3 of the National Debt, and then suddenly saw the Debt as an apocalyptic threat only once a Black became president.
Another large factor was that many, and perhaps most, Americans suffer from a form of Goldfield Syndrome, the fictional memory disorder afflicting Drew Barrymore in 50 First Dates. That is, they act as if they believe that, in terms of causation, the cosmos begins anew every morning. Thus, they act as if, once Obama was inaugurated President, all the economic woes of the country were his responsibility, in terms of causation. They act as if they forget that the Crash of ’08 was the culmination of decades of toxic Repugnicant economic policies, particularly those originating during the Reagan regime.
Perhaps Obama should be presented with a t-shirt: “I saved capitalism from a Second Great Depression, and all I got was this lousy Republican-dominated House of Representatives”.
The Repugnicants claim that they wish to reduce the National Debt, yet they’re hot to increase deficits by continuing the W. Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans, precisely the people who don’t need the extra cash.
This is indicative of one of the reasons that the bi-partisan approach that Obama seems to favour is doomed to failure. The economic policies of the Repugnicant elites lead toward killing the goose (the working classes) which lays the golden eggs. The policies of the Democratic elites tend toward nurturing the goose to lay more golden eggs. There can be no compromise solution between two such antithetical approaches.
History shows that Repugnicants virtually always choose the lowest of roads and take no prisoners. I believe that the pursuit of the bi-partisan chimera lulled Obama & Co. into a tepid electoral strategy. The proof of their political tone-deafness is in the crow pudding we’re now obliged to eat. It’s hard to conceive that the outcome would have been worse had a strategy of vigor and fire been pursued.
________________________________________________
I saw a clip of election comment by William Bennett, far-right ideologue and former Secretary of Education, who also flushed hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of dollars of his family’s money down his gambling habit. Bennett said that John Boehner would be leader of “one sixth” of the Federal government.
Hmm. Presidency, Supreme Court, Senate, House … oh: Vegas and Atlantic City.
________________________________________________
Yes, Oklahoma voters approved a State Question forbidding state courts from considering or using Sharia law, a practice frequently rampant. The same question also forbids considering or using international law. Seems to have slipped voter minds that much international law is made by treaties to which the USA/USE is signatory, and therefore has, constitutionally, the force of law, regardless of the prejudices of Oklahoma voters.
Sigh.
________________________________________________
60% of Oklahoma voters also elected Republican Mary Fallin as governor. Fallin claims to be a fiscal conservative whose motherhood was a qualification for office. (Her female Democratic opponent is neither a mother nor a "mutha".)
When Fallin was Lt. Governor, she was discovered by police, in the dead of night, on the shore of an Oklahoma City lake, parked in the back seat of her taxpayer-funded official auto, in closest proximity to her taxpayer-funded state trooper “body”-guard/driver. The latter claimed that he was “comforting” Fallin because of her troubled first marriage.
Is that what the kids call "it" these days?
Locally, she's known as “That Fallen Woman”.
posted by HH at 4:48 PM
3 Comments:
No Sharia law. And no considering international law in cases litigated in Oklahoma. I am trying to determine how lawyers and jurists in the great state of Oklahoma are going to get anything done without reference to English common law and its progeny, which constitutes a large chunk of our (the United States') jurisprudence. What about the citation of case authority which can be traced back to either English common law or perhaps the Napoleonic Code?
Way to vote your fears and prejudices, Oklahoma. Red state fever is alive and well in fly-over country.
I think the concept is, "Screw that Brit and Frog crap, we're going back to The Origin, The 10 Commandments".
Uh oh: Yahweh was a Hebrew Internationalist.
A certain number of signatures was required an an initiative petition to get this state question on the Oklahoma state-wide ballot. Since it was on the ballot, people voted on it (i.e. didn't ignore it and skip over it.) There of plenty of people who did not sign the initiative petition and plenty who did not when asked to. Just because this was put on the state-wide ballot, does not mean that Oklahoma is backward. We voted on what was presented to us, no matter how stupid.
Part of the reason that an initiative petition was circulated is that there has been at least one instance in the United States (I can't recall where) when Sharia law was used as the basis of a court decision. Please correct me if I am wrong. The purpose of this state question was to, yes, preemptively assure that such an occurance would not happen in Oklahoma. True, there are few Muslims in Oklahoma. I'm just trying to convey the reasoning behind this being on the ballot.
And, again HH, when are you moving to France?
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