Enough! (Andrew Sullivan delivers epic smackdown on GOP)
There are some conservatives I think liberals should read. I mentioned Noah Millman in an earlier post (and pretty much most things in The American Conservative). Another, a highly idiosyncratic cultural critic, is The Last Psychiatrist.
But the 900-pound conservative gorilla of that list has to be Andrew Sullivan, and here's his latest.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/12/enough.html
Those of us who have warned for years about this disturbing trend toward ever more extreme measures - backing torture, pre-emptive un-budgeted wars, out-of-control spending followed, like a frantic mood swing, by anti-spending absolutism of the most insane variety in a steep recession, vicious hostility to illegal immigrants, contempt for gay couples, hostility even to contraception, let alone a middle ground on abortion ... well, you know it all by now.
...
Then there is the rhetoric. In just the last fortnight, House Republicans have asserted that secretary of state Clinton faked her recent fall and concussion at home in order to get out of testifying on the Benghazi consulate attack. And then the Weekly Standard quotes a Senate Republican staffer saying: "Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite."
Enough. This faction and its unhinged fanaticism has no place in any advanced democracy. They must be broken. But the current irony is that no one has managed to expose their extremism more clearly than their own Speaker. His career is over. As is the current Republican party. We need a new governing coalition in the House - Democrats and those few sane Republicans willing to put country before ideology. But even that may be impossible.
Raster
(20,998 posts)The GOP, in no uncertain terms, is UNFIT TO GOVERN. And it is high-time more of us stood up and loudly said the same. Kudos to Sullivan for saying what needs to be said!
I'm glad to see there's a few sane conservatives left!
Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)...that NO sound can permeate.
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Bubbles are spheres. He's quite lumpy.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)AAO
(3,300 posts)FreeBC
(403 posts)Sounds like a nice idea, but there aren't nearly enough of them.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)They just are already in the democratic party.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)CrispyQ
(36,467 posts)True liberals are barely a whisper in today's political arena.
Cosmocat
(14,564 posts)you won't find many with the simple integrity and courage to stand up to the never ending stream of extremist interest groups that tell them, yes, tell them, what to do.
how the fuck ANYONE can be a republican is beyond me, and that wonderment didn't just happen 24 hours ago ...
It has been a LONG time since the party was anything but a pure, 100 percent political machine.
Policy and governance have LONG been a distant concept to these jackasses.
BobbyBoring
(1,965 posts)I don't know what the fuck these despicable cretins calling themselves conservatives are. They would like us to revert to the Wild West era when everyone had a loaded gun or 2 and disagreements were settled on the spot.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)He's a worthy opponent, who expands how I think. That's why I think people should read him.
kimbutgar
(21,150 posts)Tuned to Fox. All this crazy stuff comes from them and the right wing radio crazyverse.
lolly
(3,248 posts)I think in the early years--Clinton impeachment--Republicans knew Fox was spewing crap, but were eager to use it as a tool to fire up their base and encourage misinformation.
Now I think they are as ignorant as the rest of the Fox viewers. Remember Romney at the debate, thinking he had caught the president in a lie about Benghazi (that he had referred to it as terrorism?).
Romney screwed up royally because he believed the Fox news garbage. If he'd had decent research and practice before the debate, he would've known not to rely on that.
This is exactly what happened and it is almost unbelievable. It's the power of propaganda being repeated over and over.
judesedit
(4,438 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Raster
(20,998 posts)Sullivan had a long-expressed desire to become a U.S. citizen, but was barred for many years from applying for citizenship because of his HIV-positive status. Following the statutory and administrative repeals of the HIV immigration ban in 2008 and 2009, respectively, Sullivan announced his intention to begin the process of becoming a permanent U.S. resident and citizen. On the episode of The Chris Matthews Show of 16 April 2011, Sullivan confirmed that he is now a United States Permanent Resident, showing his United States Permanent Resident Card (aka Green Card).
barnabas63
(1,214 posts)What makes anyone think that this will stop anytime soon? The next chance we have for change is 2014.
Hekate
(90,690 posts)This is very scary, and all too true. The reign of Bush-Cheney-Ashcroft-Rumsfeld surged us down this road so far that I felt that the election of Barack Obama was about the last chance we would get to save the nation's collective soul. (And as a mythologist by training, I do believe nations have souls, just as individuals do.)
I do not now and never have confused Obama with Jesus -- who ultimately got crucified by the Romans, let us not forget -- but rather the idea that we would have a little breathing space to start getting it right again. We've now been granted that twice, despite all the people who want Obama dead.
It always has been up to us -- that's why I keep saying we've got to have Obama's back. It's our own backs at stake, so to speak. The forces of right wing extremism are vast, getting vaster, and are allied with or duped by the forces of multinational corporatism that recognize allegiance to no government in the world, including ours.
Guns to protect us? Oh, please. We who have 5% of the world's population already possess half of all the guns in the entire world, and how has this protected us from the march of extreme right-wing fascism?
Thanks for posting this by Andrew Sullivan -- his take on things is always interesting.
Hekate
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)We are responsible to save ourselves.
We have the gift of an excellent leader, but this is an age where people must take responsibility for the rotten things going on and change at a deep level.
People don't usually change until the pain of not changing becomes greater than spiraling downwards.
Corporations are amoral but strictly in the game for themselves. Part of govt's role must be to impose rules on the game. If countries/cultures could unite against the enemy of unregulated growth, it would be a wonderful thing.
I can't help thinking that the phenomenon Cancer, its explosive increase, is a reflection of the human condition, in its innumerable facets.
world wide wally
(21,743 posts)I'm not saying how
oldhippydude
(2,514 posts)some of them just won/t drink the kool aid
Volaris
(10,271 posts)DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?
And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." - Barry M. Goldwater -- Speech in the US Senate (16, September 1981)
musiclawyer
(2,335 posts)He never did. It might big have made a difference. But it would have forced a media narrative reassessment
Can the GOP house do anything. A lot of people would have come on TV and said no!
POTUS is in control right now. Demand filibuster reform. Don't be passive
Then encourage your senate to do what the base wants.
And don't do anything with legal weed
That's how you get turnout and flip the house in '14. Because its clear nothing happens with the GOP in charge
zipplewrath
(16,646 posts)This is "no drama Obama".
It goes against the grain of his community organizing roots and his desire to change the tone in Washington. He won't seek the collapse of the party of which he considers himself (by his own admission) a "moderate" form.
Vinnie From Indy
(10,820 posts)The disease is the gargantuan right wing media. These low-life, opportunistic jagoffs that populate the GOP in Congress have as the wind beneath their wings millions of dittoheads and FOX News watchers. These guys are simply giving their voters what their voters have een told they want by Rush Limbaugh et al.
Ligyron
(7,632 posts)and,sadly, most of them have no idea who Andrew Sullivan is.
Raster
(20,998 posts)Last edited Fri Dec 21, 2012, 10:51 PM - Edit history (1)
...but EVERY Congressperson surely does, as does every employee in every major news outlet. Sullivan is wide read and oft quoted. This blog/editorial is POWERFUL and will be referenced and repeated.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)He gets accused of being "every liberal's favorite conservative", and there's probably something to that, but this whole idea that he's not "really" a conservative is a sign of how far we've lurched to the right in 20 years.
Raster
(20,998 posts)...side of batshit crazy. And it appears to be getting worse. Much worse. We haven't just lurched to the right, we've completely changed course.
rustydog
(9,186 posts)LevelB
(194 posts)Because the only thing they want from this is not on the table: Obama's resignation.
cbrer
(1,831 posts)May the GOP RIP!
Awareness of these animals and their archaic agenda is growing.
Let's hope it shows itself in future elections...
BumRushDaShow
(129,017 posts)more clearly than their own Speaker President Barack Hussein Obama".
Fixed.
The election of this literal "African-American" broke open the foul-smelling puss-filled entity that represents the GOP of today and President Obama's re-election splattered the now-exposed putrid GOP innards across this nation. The silver-tongued fringe have been exposed to the light and can no longer hide behind media-accepted talking points.
Time to clean up and dispose of what is left of them.
russspeakeasy
(6,539 posts)Who are "the few sane republicans" ?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)People we disagree with who are at least not actively insane.
russspeakeasy
(6,539 posts)Waltg
(13 posts)I was listening to Thom Hartman yesterday who had Leo Gerard, President of the United Steel Workers Union. And they were talking about how crazy to the far right the Republican Party has gotten. Leo was saying back in 1994 Joe Scarborough was considered the extreme right of his party. Today he is called a RINO by the extreme that has taken over the Republican Party. In fact, Republicans like Eisenhower and Goldwater knew and accepted that union labor groups were a necessary entity to balance out capitalism.
I will just say one thing more. I battled with a lot of angry progressives who chose to not vote in the midterm elections of 2010 has a referendum on Pres. Obama. I tried to explain to them that this would be disastrous and they need to stay in for the long game. I couldn't have been more right. The tea baggers (as I reference that term to the most ignorant people in America) has been really, really bad for this country. And that is an understatement.
As important this past election was, the midterm elections in two years is going to be even more important. We need to as a nation vote the Tea Party run Republican Party out of power. And that too, is an understatement.
EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)to unbelievable levels before. If you were to try to imagine the most
desperate move they will resort to, believe it will be attempted.
Thanks to Andrew Sullivan. I hope to see him on Realtime when it's
back from hiatus.