The Wingnut Revolution

Bob Cesca
The Wingnut Revolution

After nearly three decades of Reaganomics in which the wealthiest two percent have grown exponentially wealthier while middle class wages have remained stagnant, a growing faction of super rich Americans is seriously pissed off -- and their Wingnut Revolution is upon us.

Sure, the interests and influence of the wealthiest two percent make them more responsible than most for the free market policies that created this current economic crisis. But if there's one thing we've learned about those responsible for this recession, it's that the concept of accountability is about as foreign as their live-in au pairs. Instead, they're trying to pin this on Barney Frank and a legion of "losers" (read that: working class minorities) even though Ben Bernanke himself has debunked this myth.

But accountability (a "day of reckoning" as President Obama called it) is underway in the form of the president's housing proposal, his healthcare plan and, naturally, the recovery act. At the end of the day, ninety-five percent of Americans will benefit from what amounts to the largest tax cut in American history, along with increased access to affordable healthcare and millions of new jobs.

Though, alas, the super rich will have to pay slightly more in taxes.

Yeah, that's a shame.

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Zero credibility

(from Bob Cesca)

Rick Santelli, new president of Spazzy White Guys, Inc., on September 2, just days before the initial financial collapse, Rick Santelli said, "I think the economy is healthy."



He fits right in with John McCain, who, if you'll remember, was the GOP hero 3 and a half months ago.


How about this: if the GOP wants to suddenly declare themselves the party of fiscal responsibility and smaller government, then how about admitting that all of the Bush programs they supported were fiscally irresponsible. You know, those programs they supported such as Homeland Security, invading and endlessly occupying Iraq (at $8 bil/m). They supported Bush's $1.2 trillion tax cut for, much of it targeted to the wealthiest one percent.

Because without that admission, they're just playing political football.

Badly.

Because in case you missed it, Obama's numbers are UP among non-Republicans.

Matt Yglesias at ThinkProgress

Rush Limbaugh is a dangerous fat-ass

(from Bob Cesca)

What you don't know about Rush Limbaugh just might kill you! Film at 11.

I just listened to about a half-hour of Rush Limbaugh stammering through his addled haze about how the recovery bill is actually a "porkulus" bill. After a lot of fake hemming and hawing about whether he should proceed, he decided to list some of the spending items in the bill. Nothing alarming or ridiculous -- lots of spending on renovations to federal buildings, some green transportation provisions, and so on. All of the items he listed create jobs and save the government money in the long run.

But he and Hannity and other far-right crazy people have taken to listing these items with an outraged tone of voice that's entirely incongruous with the content of what they're reading. Put another way, Limbaugh could recite the names of childhood leukemia victims and, in that tone of voice, the list would sound like a roster of criminally insane rapists.

A staple of modern media satire involves taking mundane, unremarkable video footage, desaturating the colors and adding scary music to make the subject of the footage look evil or sinister -- like a news magazine show or prison documentary. Only, Limbaugh isn't doing this for satirical purposes. He's doing it in order to deliberately deceive his dittoheaded listeners.

The far-right will never grasp or accept the fact that government spending stimulates growth -- double the growth that's created by tax cuts. I mean, the government could allocate funds to tear down the Washington Monument and, in its place, rebuild four replica monuments made out of ham, and such spending would create jobs and stimulate the economy. Likewise, modernizing the Bureau of Indian Affairs building with green technology succeeds in creating jobs, and it reduces government spending over time.

How is that so awful? Oh yeah, because Limbaugh read it aloud in a scary voice.

Red Kitteh asks: I can has Socialism nows?

(Bob Cesca)
I wonder if Glenn Beck and the other far-right Neo-McCarthyites are willing to give up "socialist" government-run services like:

-Public schools
-Police departments
-Postal service
-Fire departments
-Roads
-Social Security
-Medicare
-The military
-Homeland Security
-The CIA
-The FBI
-The NSA
-The Alaskan Pipeline
-National Parks
-National Historic Sites

Any other pinko services the Republicans would gladly hand over to the finely honed talents of private industries like Blackwater and KBR?

(Newsweek)
We Are All Socialists Now

The U.S. government has already—under a conservative Republican administration—effectively nationalized the banking and mortgage industries. That seems a stronger sign of socialism than $50 million for art. Whether we want to admit it or not—and many, especially Congressman Pence and Hannity, do not—the America of 2009 is moving toward a modern European state.

We remain a center-right nation in many ways—particularly culturally, and our instinct, once the crisis passes, will be to try to revert to a more free-market style of capitalism—but it was, again, under a conservative GOP administration that we enacted the largest expansion of the welfare state in 30 years: prescription drugs for the elderly. People on the right and the left want government to invest in alternative energies in order to break our addiction to foreign oil. And it is unlikely that even the reddest of states will decline federal money for infrastructural improvements.

If we fail to acknowledge the reality of the growing role of government in the economy, insisting instead on fighting 21st-century wars with 20th-century terms and tactics, then we are doomed to a fractious and unedifying debate. The sooner we understand where we truly stand, the sooner we can think more clearly about how to use government in today's world.