Maher musings . . .

If you haven't seen it . . .

GO GET A COPY of “Iron Sky”. It's about a Nazi Flying Saucer invasion from the dark side of the Moon. At least, that's what the trailers show.

Set in 2018, it is actually a sizzling satire on the GOP and US presidential politics. Ya gotta see it, I don't want to tell you any more, because the MacGuffin arrives in the first 5 minutes.

Marvelous. The flick even takes a parody on the “Hitler tantrum” scene that you have probably seen parodied on YouTube, like this one, which has some delightful copywriting:

Rush to judge . . .

Perspective . . .

TRUTHOUT is a fine political site. There is a marvelous article by Mike Lofgren, "Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult". It sums up the current US situation so well.

Barbara Stanwyck: "We're both rotten!"

Fred MacMurray: "Yeah - only you're a little more rotten."

-"Double Indemnity" (1944)

Those lines of dialogue from a classic film noir sum up the state of the two political parties in contemporary America. Both parties are rotten - how could they not be, given the complete infestation of the political system by corporate money on a scale that now requires a presidential candidate to raise upwards of a billion dollars to be competitive in the general election? Both parties are captives to corporate loot.

• • • •

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.

To those millions of Americans who have finally begun paying attention to politics and watched with exasperation the tragicomedy of the debt ceiling extension, it may have come as a shock that the Republican Party is so full of lunatics. To be sure, the party, like any political party on earth, has always had its share of crackpots, like Robert K. Dornan or William E. Dannemeyer. But the crackpot outliers of two decades ago have become the vital center today: Steve King, Michele Bachman (now a leading presidential candidate as well), Paul Broun, Patrick McHenry, Virginia Foxx, Louie Gohmert, Allen West. The Congressional directory now reads like a casebook of lunacy.

It was this cast of characters and the pernicious ideas they represent that impelled me to end a nearly 30-year career as a professional staff member on Capitol Hill.

This is from FABIUS MAXIMUS, one of the finer political/military blogs around. Fabius also has an interesting post, also worthy of your consideration: "Hear the cattle bellowing in the chutes. Will they revolt?" It's a consideration of an article in The Atlantic that ponders a citizen revolt in the US, by James Fallows, 'People Are Close to Revolt'.

So people bitch and complain all the time. Why should you care? Well, because we may just be hitting a tipping-point — or not. IMHO, my guess, is that the US is more resilient than you might suppose, but there are going to be some political surprises. People are fed up, but now, it's not just The Tea Party and the GOP idiots, but, the "lamestream" are now figuring out that the sumbitch's broke. From The Atlantic:

A university librarian in the Midwest responds:

>>I've never actually written to a journalist before, but I was one of the 1,252 people arrested this weekend in front of the White House. I also live in the rural Midwest and your source is right. People are close to revolt. I think it will be a five year process of movement building, but even my very conservative staff of library assistants all cheered me on when I told them what I was doing. The people I interact with here and the ones I met in DC are all fed-up at a deep and fundamental level.

All of the people I know who are capable of rational thought also understand that the combination of (we're rural so pretty much everyone gets climate change) climate change and energy issues, lack of jobs, and the refusal of government to provide us with basic services means that a new revolutionary social movement is needed. Food prices are soaring, gas prices are making it hard for people to get to low paying jobs, and the amount of suffering because of lack of access to medical care is dire.

I sent a staff person home today (without pay since she's part-time) with a draining ear infection and a high fever. She also has a mass in her abdomen. She has no insurance and she's divorced with children and her ex also has no money. She is paying her bills with what I would call scam student loans that will eventually ruin her. These people are getting closer and closer to the point where we will have fundamental break-down of law and order.

How far does Congress think they can push before they get pushed back?<<

The problem with that, according to Fabius, is that it gives up on changing process. When you consider the obesity epidemic today, maybe most people are too lazy.

This dreaming about revolt is especially nauseating in a Republic. We elect our representatives every two years. Fantasizing about revolt is the opiate of people too lazy to work the political machinery designed by the Founders.

Revolts occur when people have political grievances and see regime change as a solution. There is nothing pointing to a solution in most of the political whining that passes for political analysis in 21st America. Nor the basis for a broad revolt in the Left’s panic about climate change and the Right’s crusade against taxes and social security.

What will the American people do?

The most likely response of the America people is nothing. How did the Romans respond to the death of the Republic? Passively, with irony, detachment, or resignation.

They let these people have firearms...

The take over of the Republican Party by the teabaggers seems to be nearing completion. Here are two separate examples.

Ever heard of Sharron Angle? No? Here, let Greg Sargent at the Washington Post tell you about her. She's the newly anointed Republican candidate running for senator from the state of Nevada.... against Democrat Harry Reid.

... the Reid operation is gearing up to paint Angle as, well, a nutjob, as a cross between Rand Paul and Orly Taitz. There doesn't appear to be a shortage of material.

And the thing is, they really only have to sit and let Angle do all the talking.

Yes... she is for real.

What's also real is the new Texas Republican party platform. You have to read Bud Kennedy's entire piece to gain a full appreciation of how loony the Republicans have become. And, they're all armed.

I know. It reads like a comedy piece, but it too, is for real.

As an added bonus, readers might want to gather in that the family-values, church-going, morality crowd that supports the tea bag revolution is also in this and still trying to sort out why their divorce rate has gone off the Beaufort Scale.

I am reminded of this quote from Peter Coyote:

... what would you call people that believe that fully automatic weapons and cop-killer bullets should be freely available; who bomb abortion clinics and advocate the murder of doctors who perform abortions; who believe that anyone who is not a Christian is doomed to Hell, and people who would elevate Creationism to the status of science? Give me a polite name and I'll use it.

Tip of the bonnet to Skippy, proof of intelligent life.

GOP goes nuts over ACORN

TPM HAS A REAL THIGH-SLAPPER — Poll: Majority Of Republicans Think Obama Didn't Actually Win 2008 Election -- ACORN Stole It! According to Eric Kleefeld,

The new national poll from Public Policy Polling (D) has an astonishing number about paranoia among the GOP base: Republicans do not think President Obama actually won the 2008 election -- instead, ACORN stole it.

The poll asked this question: "Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?" The overall top-line is legitimately won 62%, ACORN stole it 26%.

Among Republicans, however, only 27% say Obama actually won the race, with 52% -- an outright majority -- saying that ACORN stole it, and 21% are undecided.

Teabaggers and Birthers and Nutters. As MeMeMeMeMe observed in the DAILY KOS, 

This is the state of today's GOP: it counts as some sort of triumph of reason that only four out of ten of them are birthers. At this rate we'll be handing out gold stars to them for not making poopie in their pants.

One last thought: pause for a moment and ponder how they'd be handling things if they'd lost the election by, say, 500 votes. In a state run by Obama's brother.

But would he meet with the new Premier of French Columbia, Heywood Jablomi?

So Fred Thompson finally took part in a Republican Canadiates debate and it didn't make much of a difference It was all very ho-hum, though Mitt Romney and Rudy Gulliani took a few shots at each other. But what caught my eye was this bit from the CNN story on the debate:

"The former Tennessee senator survived a gotcha question, correctly identifying the prime minister of Canada as Stephen Harper."

A gotcha question? He wants to be president and asking him the name of the leader of one of the G-8 nations, the U.S. partner in Norad and NATO, the country's northern neighbour is a gotcha question? Talk about lowering the bar. What's next? Will they ask John McCain to name the three branches of government? or Gulliani how many states there are? Maybe they'll ask Mitt Romney if he can find Utah on a map or see if Sam Brownback can spell "America"?

And another thing. This is typical of the double standard of the So-Called Liberal Media. Hillary Clinton is expected to put forth a universal health care system that will ensure absolute and total coverage for any and all ailments for every single American without it costing more than a couple of Big Macs a year and the plan must be handed in to the media in triplicate, double spaced and footnoted or she's failed to live up to expectations and is considered unworthy to lead. Barrack Obama, by virtue of the fact that he is half-African, is expected to solve or at least explain any and all issues connected to race in the United States or he is dodging the issue - oh and he has to be "black enough" to win over African-American voters without being "too black" and scaring off white suburbanites. John Edwards has mentioned poverty, but he's a wealthy self made man, so unless he has a ironclad plan approved by a panel of Republican economists to make everyone millionaires by the Thursday after election day, he's just a pretty boy who pays too much for haircuts. And since they all oppose the war in Iraq, they better all have a surefire plan to win the war, bring peace and prosperity to Baghdad and release terrorist-eating unicorns that shit gold bars throughout the Middle East otherwise they are siding with Osama Bin Laden.

Fred Thompson on the other hand drives a shiny red truck, can talk tough as a crime-fightin' lawyer on TV, know the name of the country's next door neighbor and looks like every Middle American's dad. Now that's presidential!

crossposted from the Woodshed