Salon: Do Republicans Actually Want America to Fail?

[flpoljunkie]

THURSDAY, JUN 24, 2010 18:20 ET
WAR ROOM

Do Republicans actually want America to fail?
BY ALEX PAREENE

Tomorrow, more than a million people who've been out of work for six months or more will lose unemployment benefits, because Senate Republicans and theoretical Democrat Ben Nelson joined together to block an already too-small package of half-measures designed to provide some modicum of help for the nation's millions of jobless people.

The vote was 57-41. Oddly, the side with 41 votes actually won. Because that is how the Founders wanted things to not work in this god-blessed nation.

Hundreds of thousands of public- and private-sector employees will also soon to joint he ranks of the unemployed (and hope they don't become the long-term unemployed, because no one much seems to care about them), because the bill could not be made quite weak and ineffective enough to win the support of the only two "moderate" Republicans alive (two women from Maine who never actually act on their "moderate" beliefs).

"It's unpleasant to think about, and I really hope it's not true, but it may be time for a discussion about whether GOP lawmakers are trying to deliberately sabotage the economy to help their midterm election strategy," Steve Benen wrote.

Senator Debbie Stabenow suggested much the same thing after the vote:

It is very clear that the Republicans in the Senate want this economy to fail. They see that things are beginning to turn around. You know the numbers. When this president took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. … Now we are gaining jobs. … Unfortunately, and cynically , in cynical political terms, it doesn’t serve them in terms of their elections if things are beginning to turn around.

more...

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/republican_party/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/06/24/republicans_want_america_to_fail

[DrToast]

1. Gee, you think?

[babylonsister]

2. I'd say it's pretty damned obvious by now. nt

[impik]

3. Of course they do. Problem is, seems like most of America wants America to fail

[vaberella]

4. Yes they do. n/t

[ladjf]

6. +1 nt

[ladjf]

5. Yes, of course. But, they are too dumb, self-centered and greedy

to realize that America can fail to a point of no return. Political affiliations would then be
meaningless as we would all be suffering on a more or less permanent basis.

[girl gone mad]

7. We had our chance to reverse course back in 2008 & 2009.

Sadly, we wasted trillions of dollars and immeasurable political capital rescuing the banks and the oligarchs who control them.

[muntrv]

8. Uhhhhhhhhh YEAH!

[rocktivity]

9. They not only want it, they NEED it

because that's the only way they can get back into complete power by less than cheatproof margins, duh!

At least they're being honest--they're doing all they can to stop Democrats to provide healthcare reform, etc. But you don't hear them promising that THEY'LL provide them, do you?

Put another way, what would you rather hear: "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help" or "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help MYSELF"?

:headbang:
rocktivity

[maxsolomon]

10. the founders didn't design the Filibuster

and they didn't set the number to end debate at 60.

[depakid]

11. And there's a pretty good case that it's unconstituional to do so

[flpoljunkie]

12. The Republicans know how to play political Hardball.

Wish I could say the same for the Dems.

[Dawson Leery]

13. Yes.

[4dsc]

14. What do you expect with weak democratic party leadership

I could run the democratic party better than its being run in the Senate and so could most people with a backbone but atlas we have Reid.

[LuckyStrykes]

15. The 'Pubes Don't Want OBAMA to Succeed

He has kidnapped their country

[niceypoo]

16. Remember how they cheered when the US didnt get the olympics?

That says it all for me

[Vampire Knight]

17. No.

I don't think we should be overly dramatic about it: we're probably mostly educated, rational people here.

The Republicans seem to think that progressive policies will make America fail. That's why they oppose them. Now, as for the politicians (on both sides) I think that it's safe to say that their motivations are nearly always dubious, but saying that Republicans in general want the country to fail seems somewhat ignorant.

[live love laugh]

19. "...saying that Republicans in general want the country to fail seems somewhat ignorant."

No it doesn't seem ignorant when you look at their actions. How is it NOT treasonous that they voted in unlimited funding of candidates for public office? ...or support exportation of corporate profits and jobs to dodge taxes? Or that they are against constitutional rights such as voting (election fraud) or the financing of public education?

[Vampire Knight]

26. Treason?

They think that giving international law a more prominent place in US law is treason. They think that putting the US into debt to countries like China in order to fund HC and other social policies is treason. There are a lot of things that conservatives think are treason too.

You know what I think? I think that using language like that is, as stated before, overly dramatic.

[TwilightGardener]

29. I don't remember this worry over debt until, say, March 2009.

You know, when a different President took over and had to rescue a bad economy and lots of "little people" needed help.

[Vampire Knight]

31. Well...

the deficit did dramatically increase after that previous President left office. You act as if reacting to an increasing deficit is illogical. Now, as to what necessitated that increase, we all know what that was about: there were very specific reasons. Let's look at things as they are instead of constantly trying to cast specious villifications upon our opponents.

[TwilightGardener]

32. Where was the logic when we borrowed from China to pay for Iraq?

Where was the logic when millions of dollars on wooden pallets "disappeared", and no one cared? It's only when we spend money to keep businesses and families and social programs from going under that Republicans start masturbating about debt. And this website allows us to villify Republicans at will, so don't bother telling us not to.

[Vampire Knight]

33. It's a matter of scale, I think.

And I don't mind (naturally) if you go after them. But do we really want to sound like a bunch of birthers, picking over the stupid, pointless and ridiculous? These people are easily disproven and discredited. Why not make more substantial arguments? Is that just an awful lot to ask?

[TwilightGardener]

34. What's "stupid, pointless, and ridiculous" about suspecting that

the GOP wants Obama, the Democrats, and all of their policies to fail? That they want Americans to "feel the pain" of being denied unemployment benefits in a bad job market, to "feel the pain" of not being able to afford health insurance and go bankrupt when there's a medical emergency, to "feel the pain" when the financial industry runs amok without tougher regulation, to "feel the pain" of oil killing the Gulf (but somehow Obama owes BP an apology and we should keep on with Drill Baby Drill). They want to block Dem legislation to make Americans suffer in every possible way, keep the economy from improving, gut funding for social safety nets (while still feeding defense contractors, of course)--their biggest fear is that things actually get better for ordinary Americans, and that, IMO, is treason.

[Vampire Knight]

36. I'll tell you why it's silly.

Some conservatives think that Obama is dragging his feet on the oil spill and that he is doing it to destroy the conservative South and to drum up support for Cap and Trade. They think that he will prolong their suffering because they tend to contribute to and vote for Republicans. They think that he would sell out their livelihoods and lives for some pet legislation.


And you sound like the mirror image of them.

[TwilightGardener]

38. Don't care what the looney tunes think. I heard the GOP leader, Rush Limbaugh, declare

that he wants Obama and his policies to fail. In a time of two wars and a collapsing economy, any failure of Obama's becomes a failure for the nation and a delay to recovery, stability and peace. It's not conjecture, or suspicion, or paranoia. It's what they want--remember "Obama's Waterloo" about health care? It's the only way for them to regain power.

[Vampire Knight]

39. Seems like

a counterintuitive way to go about it. Do they want to rule the rubble? Somehow I have to have slightly more faith in humanity than that.

I'm kinda afraid that they may not have to worry much about regaining power. Without a doubt, it's been a rocky couple of years.

[TwilightGardener]

44. What's counterintuitive?

[Vampire Knight]

47. Do you mean

what does it mean, or why do I say that?

It means that it seems like an obviously stupid thing to do. Why do I say that? Because at the end of the day, the Republicans still have to market themselves as a party that would be beneficent to voters. That kind of overt, Monty Burns type evil does not do their party any good and frankly, I don't think that most real, non-2-dimensional people are capable of being that callous.

[TwilightGardener]

49. If I didn't believe they were that callous, I probably wouldn't feel the

need to belong to DU and commiserate. The Republican party is riding the Crazy Train, their last little flames of rationality and reason and patriotism were extinguished about 16 months ago.

[Vampire Knight]

51. It's easy

to totally dismiss a large group of opponents like that, but it's also intellectually dishonest. We complain when the hawks do this to our "enemies" in their various wars, but then people will turn around and do it to their political enemies. People here can seem to discern a benevolent spark in Mahmoud frickin' Ahmadinejad, for crying out loud. Why not in the loyal opposition?

[TwilightGardener]

52. Disloyal, traitorous opposition. When they stop being that, I'll stop

dismissing them as whackjobs who are intent to destroy Obama even though it means making the rest of us suffer.

[Vampire Knight]

54. They're reciprocating.

Many of them must think that this is the appropriate response given what some did to Bush. It occurs to me that the arguments of the majority and minority parties often seem to transfer with the transfer of power. Today, we'll be telling jokes that merely removed Bush's name and inserted Obama's. No one ever truly, consistently settles on what is proper or what is not. They merely pick up the arguments and tactics that were used before, invert them, and return fire.

[Voltaire]

21. What?

To think as you do would be to attribute to Republicans some human feelings and emotions. And I am not going to do that. History and logic strongly suggest otherwise. They want the country to fail. If they can't run it, they don't want anyone else to, same with any other abuser.

[Vampire Knight]

27. Scary.

HISTORICALLY, bad things happen when you dehumanize your political opponents.

[live love laugh]

35. Yes bad things DO happen when you dehumanize your opponents as the

Republicons have done incessantly with the "librul" meme. Why they have even incited murder and why do you think Obama gets so many threats? They have attempted to dehumanize him and as the ruling leader of America their incitement is----treasonous.

[Vampire Knight]

40. I'm glad we agree.

People on the left can do the same thing. It's treasonous to do it to Obama; it was treasonous to do it to Bush who occupied the same position.

[TwilightGardener]

43. Treason is announcing that you would like the President to fail, at the very start

of his Presidency, in a time of the worst financial crisis since the Depression. Note, Limbaugh didn't say he wanted Obama's plan to repeal DADT to fail, or his healthcare initiative to fail, or any number of specific policies to fail. He wanted the President himself to fail, early and often. That is an order of magnitude greater than usual politics, or disagreement with policy. That is a wish for the nation to suffer under a failure of a President, so that Republicans can be proven correct and then regain power. Had a similarly prominent Democrat stated the same thing at the start of Bush's first term, I would feel the same way--it's treason. It's hoping for the downfall of our nation for political gain.

[Vampire Knight]

48. Actually, if I recall,

James Carville said nearly precisely that in 2001.

[TwilightGardener]

50. If he did, then shame on him. And I think he's an opportunist who's 100% all about James Carville.

[Name removed]

22. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Vampire Knight]

28. I dunno.

I came here looking for rational, moderated thought. I don't want to see the kind of mindless bashing that we attribute to people like Rush and co.

FYI:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/20/goldman-a-top-obama-donor/?fbid=_6tr2FIjHfh

Things are not always as cut-and-dried as "they're the evil, soulless bad guys". We rag on illiterates for thinking like that. I for one hope that I am intellectually consistent.

[TwilightGardener]

25. LOL. They don't oppose progressive policies because they're afraid

progressive policies will make America fail. They oppose progressive policies because they dislike the benefactors of those policies, and are afraid those policies will be viewed as successful and desirable.

[live love laugh]

18. I think the more important question is: Isn't it treasonous to want America to fail and why

isn't traitorous behavior being addressed?


"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague."
--Marcus Cicero Ancient Roman Lawyer

[Blue_Tires]

24. +1000

[opihimoimoi]

20. Its obvious the Dems need 61 to 65 Senate seats to run things without GOP Terror

[RBInMaine]

23. Dems across the country need to go NATIONAL VIRAL with ads and messaging attacking the GOBP.

[Robert DAH Bruce]

30. Of course not!

So long as you define "America" as being corporations and people who are richer than God!

[Kablooie]

37. They have said so. If Democrats are in "control" they want the country to fail.

And with their constant filibusters they will insure that it does so.

[ladywnch]

41. of course they do. then they can divide us up and sell us to their corporate masters.

I can see a time (if rethugs succeed) when states will be owned by corporations and we will be indentured to them......we'll be back to 'company towns'. My home town was a 'company town' before the unions organized and put an end to it.....the company owned the general store and the grocery store......your purchases were deducted directly from your paycheck.....

Yeah, they'll sell us all like so much chattel.

[AlinPA]

42. Yes. Their leading voice (Limbaugh) stated that he wanted the President to fail. That includes a

lot of things: the war, our economy and health care, to name a few. Senator DeMint said he wanted to break the President. That means wishing for failure - the President works on behalf of America.

[Zoeisright]

45. Well, that's what they have said they want.

They don't give a flying fuck about anybody except themselves and their fat, filthy pocketbooks.

[opihimoimoi]

46. Who the fuck is Pat Tommey...."Jobs , Smaller Gov't" his ad does not mention his Party

Turns out he is a Republican wannabe...

he gonna get shit as a Pub

...he should be ashamed and resign from the PIG Party

JOBS??? Whats his ideas on "More Jobs"???

Smaller Gov't??? At a time when we need Gov;t help the most??

This man heeds rehabbinhg

[Dr Morbius]

53. Government by the people, of the people, and for the people scares the right to death.

They hate us for our freedoms, and that's the truth.