I had a thought about Karl Rove today. You know how you always think of stuff when you are in the shower or driving? I was driving and something occurred to me. The Karl Rove theorem is many layers deep, because he is undeniably an intelligent though duplicitous and manipulative person, but the bottom line is that a lie repeated over and over again becomes true. Not necessarily factual, but true. It doesn't matter whether or not the facts back up the lie, because Rove believes (and has pretty much proven) that the average person wants to be told what to think, and we know from sociology, childhood experience, and Pavlov that repetition is the key. Anything repeated often enough will become true; anything heard often enough must be true. Rush Limbaugh laughs his way to the bank on just that strategy.
That's old news. What came to me was that Rovian political strategy is very similar to religious dogma in that it requires faith above all else. You must believe without question, because I say so. Look, I can even write it down and show it to you, so it must be true (just ignore the nasty "liberal" press). How else can one explain the hoards of "Republicans" who vote against their own best interests, and indeed against what was once the party platform, to elect the fascists that have been in charge these past several years?
Perhaps it is me who has misunderstood Republicanism. I always thought the Republican party was for small government, individual rights and secularism. A distinction must be made between Republicans and conservatives, because our current government cannot realistically be called Republicans. We have huge, pork-fed, inflated government bloat dedicated to the welfare of a tiny percent of the wealthiest citizens and corporations and a distinct lack of individual freedom for the rest of us. We have no national health care, but our health care is among the most expensive in the world. We have become a nation run by selfish bullies.
How can a party claiming to be about individual rights be anti-choice? Let us remember that conservatives lean heavily in favor of capital punishment. So much for the sanctity of life. Don't give me any crap about how abortion kills innocent children. If you are against abortion, shouldn't you be against all abortion? If the child is the product of a rape, that is not the child's fault. If the mother's life is in danger, well, so be it, let nature and science take their course, but do not sacrifice the child's life for that of the host. Mind you, once those children are born, the conservatives want nothing to do with them and have done everything possible to curtail any effective programs for their benefit. Welfare reform may have come under Clinton in 1996, but the ditto-heads can claim credit for that; it's another short-sighted, politically motivated bill pushed through by a conservative goose-stepping Congress. Sorry, this one is strictly a religious argument that blows individual rights and secularism right out the window.
As for small government, has there ever been such a group of wastrels in charge? Tax cuts are given to multi-billion-dollar corporations, the largest of which really don't pay their fair share of taxes anyway, and to the wealthiest 1/2 of 1%. People who can more than afford to pay taxes get all the write-offs. Don't believe me? Take a good look at the FSA deduction. If you work for a company that has enough employees, you can elect to have a certain amount of money deducted from your pay and set aside for medical expenses not covered by health insurance. You can use it for anything from co-pays to buying Kleenex, and it is completely tax-free; it is deducted from your *gross* salary, before taxes are figured. It's a sly tax cut. Unfortunately, if you are self-employed, or work for any number of small businesses (who employ half of the people working in this country), you can't take advantage of this program. You get to keep paying taxes on the all money you pay for medical/health supplies, drugs and co-pays. You can afford it, right? It's more important to continue to subsidize your betters.
Shrub has only very recently come around to supporting any kind of renewed GI Bill for those returning from his incredibly expensive oil company conceived campaign in Iraq, and I mean recently as in within the last 60 days. Even John McCain, who of all people should know better, was against this until his boss came around, so there must be some political advantage in it for Halliburton or some other connected company.
And now the oil companies are clamoring for drilling rights in all the offshore sites they don't already have tied up. They haven't even scratched the surface of exploration where they could be looking for oil, but they want to have exclusive offshore rights to everything else available. Is anyone really thick enough to think they mean to explore for oil in these places? Or could it be that they want the rights so they can tie up the offshore sites and lease them back to, say, wind energy companies at some grossly inflated price? Hmmmmmmm.
Where did all this come from? As I was driving, I saw a man putting up signs for the fourth of July with a flag image and the text "Proud to be an American". And I got to thinking, as lucky as I feel to be here, am I proud of what this country has become these past few years? A supposedly free country where if you are not in lockstep agreement with a band of thugs and thieves, where if you dare to challenge them (which I always thought was pretty much required of all free-thinking Americans), you are branded a traitor? A country where the religious right dictates state policy? Where freedom really only applies to you if you are fortunate enough to be able to afford it? A country where we have to prove we can be trusted, where if you dare utter the word bomb on the phone your calls can be monitored without question for an indeterminant amount of time? I wonder how many tweens are being monitored on that word alone. If you think this is all good, by all means vote Republican, and kiss your Constitutional rights goodbye. Except #2, of course; at least for now. Once the conservatives in charge figure out how to couch the words, they'll be the only ones with gun rights, and the suckers who elected them will find themselves once again financing rights they no longer have.
And where the hell is that tape of Michelle Obama saying "whitey" at the Reverend Whackjob's church? Yeah, the one that will be released "right before the election". The one that doesn't actually exist...but you got your Karl Rove memo, right?
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