Repubs plead : Please save us from ourselves.

[kentuck]

It is starting to dawn on many of them that have gotten all of us into one hell of a mess, economically and otherwise. They now see that their fantasy about growing the economy and watching all those revenues come pouring into the Treasury was nothing but a pipedream. There is a crisis in government but it is not in Social Security. That is one of the few programs, perhaps the only one, that is paying its way today. In fact, the rest of the government would be in a much more terrible mess if they did not have Social Security to steal from.

Now they are looking at the monstrous deficits the way children used to look up at the Empire State Building - in awe. It is overwhelming when they take the time to look at the mess they have created. Their first impulse is to blame poor people that are taking all the government's money on their welfare programs. It's natural for them to look to blame someone else. Perhaps the Democrats should start handing out small mirrors as gifts to all the Republicans on the Hill, so they can look at themselves in the mirror and see exactly who is responsible for the present mess....which is only going to get worse.

[kerrygoddess]

1. Medicare...

Those fool hardy Repubs are waking up to the lame duck president they gone and re-elected...

Tomorrow’s Washington Post offers a revealing look at the way Bush underestimated the Medicare prescription drug benefit and suggests that Medicare “may pose a far more serious budgetary problem in the coming decade than concerns about the solvency of Social Security.”

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=342

[EC]

2. Perhaps, along with those mirrors they better start putting money

back into the economy by giving to the hands that actually spend it...tax breaks to middle class and poor, job creation and unemployment extensions...would be a start...

[EST]

11. How about a few laws that say:

1> There is no way in hell that ANY human (CEO or otherwise) should be paid over five hundred times what a laborer in the company is paid. Absolutely no way should a person be paid for his time and talents, from 8AM to noon, (assuming he even came to work on time) what another makes in an entire year!

2>Corporations are NOT living entities. In the real world, people die and their substance goes back into the system and is recycled, nourishing the next bunch. A person who lives forever cannot avoid eventually owning everything! Stands to reason, corporations must be broken up from time to time. and can't be allowed to grow indefinitely, gobbling up everything and everyone else in the process. Bring back the trust-busters.

3>Same with people-If someone of immense wealth dies, there is no way all his assets should just be handed in total to his heirs. This creates the same thing as a person who can never die. Eventually, even with a tiny increase over time, the total assets of the world end up in the "possession" of a tiny few, and those few wind up destroying billions of sentient beings and causing misery beyond calculation, trying to eat each other.

4> Incompetence and the lack of integrity must not be rewarded with an ever increasing responsibility and power. An incompetent piece of shit like that insufferable Ms Rice should be held up to public ridicule and kicked out of office. The garbage brains that can stand up in front of the millions of American citizens and insist (through some misguided sense of loyalty, I suppose) that such utter lame brains deserve promotion, are obviously too dumb to live or are driven by such a malevolent sense of anti human values that they, too, should be summarily dismissed and held to account for the misery they've caused. Jailed for life.

5> The higher you are in responsibility and privilege, the greater your accountability. I teach my kids the ultimate value of honesty, integrity, charity, respect, and square dealing. The present system that requires that politicians to lie, cheat, steal-on and on- and apparently approves of it, has to go.
If a cop killer is to be punished more severely than the killer of a private citizen, then the cop has to be held to a far higher standard.
Those who aspire to the jobs of president or congress-critters cannot be allowed to make stupid," I'm only human mistakes." With the money and talent available to them, insanity or incompetence is simply not allowed. People of power do not have a special dispensation to misbehave and be held to a lower standard of integrity than an everyday peon.

There is much more. This psychotic, out of control crap has to be stopped, right now. When I, who am normally even tempered, stolid, and down-to-earth practical start thinking that perhaps it would be better if all the crazies of the world were handed WMDs and the whole insane human race were wiped off the planet, then I know things are just too far out of whack.

[EC]

13. That too, Spitzer did bring this up,

and the news does report on this, but people don't seem to GET IT...I have noticed in the paper, every now and then some stockholders will get balls and demand cuts in CEO's wages and more accountablity etc. but not too many...

[EST]

25. I have concluded that each secretly harbors the wish

(or hope) that he may be able to wind up in the CEO's position and would not want his personal apple cart diddled with. This notion then obviates the necessity to deal with the absolute reality of right now (and what else is there) and to sink, blissfully, into the Walter Mitty world of some sort of idealized future.

Who among us, in point of fact, would turn down the chance to rule the world-or at least a major part of it, and to have the economic where-with-all to own all the advantages and none of the responsibilities? Who really doesn't want to be king, or the perception of such king hood? The more practical minded among us grasp the requirements of the evolution of society but said evolution is such a long term prospect and doesn't stack up very well against the our immediate personal needs. Societal myopia is a common disease.

[HughBeaumont]

14. I'm all for those first two rules.

Well, I'm for the other three as well, but the first two in particular. 501:1 ratio of pay and growing is freaking stupid and needs to be curtailed. The average human being does not NEED that much damned money.

I also say there should be a personal wealth cap. No more of this "he who dies with the most lettuce wins" bullshit.

[EST]

31. As one who grasps the essential unfairness

(and unhealthiness) of the current arrangements, what could you propose that would begin to uncurl such fists?
Nearly a half century ago, when I was working for IBM, there was a lot of consternation-even among the hoy poloi of us lower echelon folks-about the anti-trust marksmen taking aim at the then computer giant. (Ma bell had been broken up a few years earlier and we would say things like,"how would those idiots like a dozen little IBMs to have to compete with") Should we plan a long term approach to return to those times?

If we (meaning all us anti fascists) manage to overwhelm the current thugs in power and restart a common sense capitalism, can we still maintain a healthy cadre of unsatisfied activists that will keep us sharp and avoid the bogeyman that tempts us to sink back into the comfortable armchair we occupied so many years ago?

Who can we enroll to start (as a proposition) a school of free thinkers of good will to counter balance the always prowling denizens of sordid self hate and ill will that are so popular, currently? My own history of outrage has become, with age, more of a source of avuncular advice, rather than a seething vat of fix it right now activism. The seeds are being sown, and we need some iron-spined leaders to focus on. (Of course, one of the most visible of that sort was crucified a few years back-always a danger)

[ThorsHammer]

20. Great post

Most everything you said sounds like common sense, but unfortunately doesn't exist in the real world.

[EST]

32. Is there any rule of logic or hard reality

That totally prevents such? With the obvious surplus of bright and willing minds available on DU, alone, surely we have a few talented future historians (with apologies to Dr. Asimov) capable of plotting a course to create this real world.

We are "it." If we don't do it, the hopelessness of the thousand year fourth reich will surely descend upon us.

[Downtown Hound]

3. The simple truth is

it wouldn't be that hard to save them, and us. All they have to do is give up that lame tax cut and stop outsourcing good paying jobs. Those are what is driving America's economy into the gutter.

[Tux]

8. True

but some Republicians and Libertarians are all for offshoring/outsourcing since we will all be rich from it. It only helps the CEOs and Chairmen. I can't get a helpdesk job anymore since they're in India, can't get a spych job since it's all clinical (I did the research focus).

Hell, seems like the only ones never laid off are managers.

[itzamirakul]

22. Today's news reports that the Playtex Corp. will

ble closing plants in the U.S. and outsourcing jobs to Asia.

Whe I was a kid all they made was girdles...I forget what all plastic stuff they make now but whatever it is it will be made in some other country now while Americans line up for unemployment.

BTW: Whatever happened to those re-raining programs that Bush spoke about so much during the debates?

[itzamirakul]

23. Dupe

self-delete

[itzamirakul]

24. What's a double Dupe?

a Trupe or a Tripe?

[EST]

33. T'hoi, t'hoi!

I vote for tripe. It really gets your goat.

[thefloyd]

4. For the life of me I

cannot understand why the Cons voted for Trickle down economics twice after Reagans try. Even after taking into consideration all of the outsourcing.

[kentuck]

5. That is a puzzle, isn't it ???

Somehow they beleived the propaganda that Reaganomics was a "success". It was an utter failure, in truth.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

6. We are all victims of a cult. The Repubs need a clue and to save face.

(I had this copied for pasting into other threads so I'm popping it in where applicable. This is relevant to why Repubs are in this fix with the rest of us.)

The events of 2001 put the House and Senate in a state of terror. They found out they had no air cover when a plane was flown into the Pentagon. Then they had anthrax mailings AND a 'beltway sniper' to worry about. So they are terrorized pretty badly. In fact, they just signed a 'Doomsday Act' that allows whoever is left alive in DC after a disaster to be the legal government. This can't be good for their already cult-like state of mind.

http://news.bostonherald.com/beta/cookiePop.bg

>snip<

Congress Passes Doomsday Plan - The Boston Herald 1/9/05

WASHINGTON- With no fanfare, the U.S. House has passed a controversial doomsday provision that would allow a handful of lawmakers to run Congress if a terrorist attack or major disaster killed or incapacitated large numbers of congressmen.

Usually, 218 lawmakers - a majority of the 435 members of Congress - are required to conduct House business, such as passing laws or declaring war.

But under the new rule, a majority of living congressmen no longer will be needed to do business under ``catastrophic circumstances.''

Instead, a majority of the congressmen able to show up at the House would be enough to conduct business, conceivably a dozen lawmakers or less.

>snip<


The BBV/neocon/Dominionist alliance has us totally locked out of power. We need the help of those on the 'other side' to even have a chance against the police-state and get back the Bill of Rights.

We must eliminate rigged electronic voting, totally controlled media, and lobotomizing public schools. Only then can we MAYBE elect some leaders for a change.

We MUST RE-HUMANIZE the Repubs and cross the divide intentionally created between us by divide-and-conquer fascism. This Red vs. Blue meme is part of the scam and must be rejected. But with KNOWLEDGE, not just warm fuzzies.

What is working against us is that Americans have been lied to and brainwashed for almost 100 years to make Repubs think 'like that.'

Psychology became weaponized by the robber barons like John D. Rockefeller and used to
a) design public schools
b) sell lots of crap
c) sell politicians
d) control the mainstream media for a,b,c

Here are the details:

1) Kerry won. Electronic voting machines and voter suppression stole the election...again. Dems won the last four presidential elections.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
(Diebold, Electronic Voting, And the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy)

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KEE501A.html
(The Strange Death of American Democracy)
Someone here at DU actually found the evidence of hacking in the Cuyahoga County vote totals. It's there for all the world to see but to no avail.

2) Basic psychology has been used as a weapon against the masses for almost 100 years to hide the truth from us from the day we are born.

http://www.thedoctorwithin.com/index_fr.html?content=articles/doors_of_perception.html
(Why Americans Will Believe Almost Anything)

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm
(The Rise of American Fascism)

http://www.mackwhite.com/tv.html
(The TV Hive Mind)

http://www.tscm.com/CIA_PsyOps_Handbook.html
(1979 Army Manual 33-1 Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare)
This weapon has actually been used on the American people as though they were the enemy of the White House. They are.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0712-01.htm
(Trading on Fear)
Wars and cars have been sold to us with this basic tool.

3) Public schooling was designed by robber barons in the early 1900s with the intention of turning out obedient worker drones and cannon fodder who are afraid of each other and welcome a police-state.
It works.

http://4brevard.com/choice/Public_Education.htm
(The Shocking Origins of Public Schools by John Gatto)

http://www.sntp.net/education/education.htm
(How Psychiatry & Modern Psychology Subvert
Education, and Harm Children and Society)


4) The mainstream media has been completely controlled to create a fascist mentality that blindly follows the fuhrer for over 60 years now. That's three generations of brainwashing to get to this point where they STILL have to steal the election.

Operation Mockingbird has had the CIA massaging and working in the ENTIRE MSM for over 50 years now! This is an old old story which is being minimized into the 'Few Bad Apples' technique of damage control due to the internet.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/MOCK/mockingbird.html
(Operation Mockingbird: The Subversion of the Free Press by the CIA)

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html
(The Origins of the Overclass)

>snip<

MOCKINGBIRD was extraordinarily successful. In no time, the agency had recruited at least 25 media organizations to disseminate CIA propaganda. At least 400 journalists would eventually join the CIA payroll, according to the CIA’s testimony before a stunned Church Committee in 1975. (The committee felt the true number was considerably higher.) The names of those recruited reads like a Who's Who of journalism:

* Philip and Katharine Graham (Publishers, Washington Post)
* William Paley (President, CBS)
* Henry Luce (Publisher, Time and Life magazine)
* Arthur Hays Sulzberger (Publisher, N.Y. Times)
* Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star)
* Hal Hendrix (Pulitzer Prize winner, Miami News)
* Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal)
* James Copley (Copley News Services)
* Joseph Harrison (Editor, Christian Science Monitor)
* C.D. Jackson (Fortune)
* Walter Pincus (Reporter, Washington Post)
* ABC
* NBC
* Associated Press
* United Press International
* Reuters
* Hearst Newspapers
* Scripps-Howard
* Newsweek
* magazine Mutual Broadcasting System
* Miami Herald
* Old Saturday Evening Post
* New York Herald-Tribune

>snip<

That's why there was a blackout on election fraud again. TOTAL CONTROL.

Has anyone talked about Operation Vigilant Warrior? The NORAD exercises 'simulating' multiple hijacked planes crashed into buildings the morning of 9/11? No. TOTAL CONTROL.

http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html
(9/11 Wargames Before and During the Attacks)

The NYT just edited the transcript of Rice's damning tsunami remarks at her confirmation hearing out of the online transcript. Why? Someone at the NYT is helping out the neocons. TOTAL CONTROL.

Just before the Em-poor-er's Inaugu-urination recruiting speech TIME magazine ran a cover story about young men who still live at home with the shaming headline 'Why Won't They Grow Up?' This was intended to push them into the military. TOTAL CONTROL.

Does anyone think this is a coincidence? These MSM organs are STILL all part of the Mighty Wurlitzer of organized propaganda that shape the attitudes of Americans so they will drive around and buy crap or pick up a gun and kill on command.

Americans have no idea what is going on and most of what they think they know is wrong. This gives them the innocence of ignorance, something Ward Churchill failed to articulate clearly and got crucified over. Sad but true.

[kerrygoddess]

10. Link to Boston Herald does not work

[JohnOneillsMemory]

12. Link here is good. Thanks for the headsup.

http://news.bostonherald.com/politics/view.bg?articleid=62564
(Congress Passes 'Doomsday Plan' - Sunday, January 9 2005)

[EST]

34. How does this fit in with the suspicion

that the thugs actually "held the door open" for those attacks? Is it possible that they just underestimated the ferocity?

[thefloyd]

7. It was a dumb policy.

When will Cons realize the best way to grow the economy are not only investments in education but ALSO tax cuts for the middle class and lower class. THE WEALTH TRICKLES UP, Gov. Revenues increase, AND THE PROGRAMS CONS DESPISE WOULD NOT BE NEEDED.

[gumby]

9. Racism.

I use "racism" to include all supremist thinking; as in the Religious Right.

Racism is the bottom-line, the mother's milk of selling supremist economic voodoo. It's ALL premised on the notion that the "undesirables" are "robbing" the "deserving" of their just due.

As the Lounge Lizards so succinctly stated, it's the "teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs." (BTW, they mostly have dark skins)

[Dark]

18. That is sadly true.

My dad is one of those people, who thinks that it's the lazy poor black people who are using welfare and other social programs.

He is angry because a black person got a job instead of him like thirty years ago. I point out to him that he has a 200,000 dollar house, a wife, two sons, and two granddaughters, and a well paying job.

Why doesn't he go see what that 'thieving' black woman has now?

[EST]

35. I grew up in W.Va., in an area where the majority

of the populace existed on some form of welfare. The 'modities day each month led to some spirited trading between us-who got no such assistance-and the folks whose total aim in life seemed to be finding some additional way to milk the system. My own brother in law called me, one day, and his whole conversation appeared to be little more than a diatribe about those awful welfare queens who just wanted to have more babies to continue gaming the system and how terrible it was that he had to work hard only to have a huge portion of what he "earned" go to support such useless appendages.

Having had considerably more opportunity and willingness to study the problem than he, my ultimate answer was, "yeah, I used to think the same thing, back when I thought I knew everything there was to know about it." He hasn't called back for more than a year, now. Oh, well.

The point is, everyone wants a simple answer, or at least a simplistic one. I'm afraid this is a common human malady, and only intensive education (or a direct experience of someone you are close to in that condition) will suffice to alter easily accumulated, fallacious conclusions.

Does anyone think a two year commitment, required of all citizens, to actually assist in some program to further one's understanding of society, might have the needed impact on such preconceptions? Couldn't hurt.

I am of the opinion that a two-year public service commitment should be a requirement for franchise, if, and only if, adequate safeguards were included to prevent such demons as the neocon prevaricators from turning it into a recruitment ground for their personal armies for enforcing some sort of "universal democracy."

[ElsewheresDaughter]

15. my wish for ALL Republicans.............

MAY YOU ALL DIE FROM YOUR IGNORANCE BEFORE IT KILLS US ALL!

:grr: :grr: :grr:

[DinahMoeHum]

16. Sorry, kentuck. They made their bed, now they can sleep in it.

Throw them a mirror.

Up against yourselves, Republikkkan motherfuckers.

:evilfrown:

[kentuck]

17. If that were only true....

Unfortunately, we all have to sleep in the bed they have made.

[Skittles]

27. trouble is, we don't want to sleep in that g.d. bed with them

like it or not, the mess those incompetent assholes have created affects all of us

[BurtWorm]

19. Small mirrors campaign. That's brilliant!

It would be great if it could actually be done: 500 small mirrors made with the slogan printed on them: Which person in Washington is responsible for the mess the budget is in? All to be sent to Republicans in the House, Senate and Administration.

I wish I were George Soros.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

21. That's a great idea. Think Move-on or other group would like the idea? nt

[Steely_Dan]

28. This Must Be Done

Perhaps a new thread addressing the mirror idea. It is one of the most creative ideas I have read here on the DU.

SOMEONE MUST GET THIS ROLLING...

What can be done? How can I help.

If the republicans received a small mirror with a powerful message...I do believe that some would actually get it. If the "Look To Yourselves" Project could receive the proper plublicity...it could go a long way to wards getting the word out that a government ruled by one party is NOT democracy.

-Paige

[EC]

39. Or maybe...Look what you've become...or

Look what you have wrought...

[woodsprite]

38. We could probably do it ourselves

in a less expensive way. I bet we can get small mirrors from Oriental Trading. Or what about using old AOL CD's - tons of those lying around. Affix a piece of mylar mirror (works well enough and should be pretty cheap) and you can get CD labels that can be run thru the computer.

I think it would be doable and a great idea. We should be able to come up with something that would work.

[Gyre]

26. Yeah, sure they'lll self-police.

Just like they did in Vietnam. NOT! Repubes genetically don't have a large enough spine to swim against their own herd, regardless of morality, integrity, honesty, patriotism being compromised. Take a look at McCain if you need an example.

[EST]

36. Nor do most democrats, come to think of it.

How 'bout including in the message with the mirror some sort of admonition to the effect that it is NOT just a picture of god!
If 50,000 DUers each contributed a dollar apiece, this ought to be perfectly "duable!"
Who wants to head it up?

[Nederland]

29. Where did this come from?

Do you have a link? Who is the author?

[fertilizeonarbusto]

30. You are SO right (as usual) Kentuck

I think the nondelusional among them are scared shitless.

[tom_paine]

37. When they realize their is no saving us now, they will start looking for

scapegoats.

The only question is how severe and what specific kind of New Totalitarian Oppressions are going to be levyed against Enemies of the State.

Nazi-like? No, except for propaganda strategies and demonization.
Soviet-like? Maybe a little bit.

My guess is actually the Friendly Fascism of the book Farenheit 451 ro something like it.

[txaslftist]

40. The Republicans ARE the crisis in Washington.