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Charlie Pierce over at Esquire Magazine Politics Blog on-line, like The Gadfly, has pretty much reached the end of his rope as well when it comes to the good faith efforts at attempting to talk reason and make nice with these modern day, right wing conservatives:
The modern Republican party has become an authentic mechanism for political subversion, and it's not just unknown crazy people from Texas who are driving the train. A rookie meathead submarines the president's foreign policy. Rick Perry is currently running for president on a platform more suited to a campaign conducted under the Articles of Confederation. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader of the United States Senate, has suggested that governors out in the several states ignore the Environmental Protection Agency. At every conservative gathering, from CPAC on down, there at least is one panel touting the benefits of nullification and old-school states rights politics. Yes, a lot of it is about how states rights got whipped over civil rights in the 1960's, but it's not all about race. It's about a deliberate, calculated attempt by one of the only two political parties we allow ourselves to dismantle the federal union. They want the country to come apart so they can sell off the pieces to the people who run their campaigns. They are free to prove to me that I'm wrong.
That is not only subversion, but history tells us that it always has been the most fundamental heresy against the constitutional order, from the Articles to the tariff crises under Andrew Jackson, all the way through the Civil War and Reconstruction, right up to the day that John Lewis got his head busted by the side of an Alabama road. (And, yes, even the morally laudable efforts of abolitionists to "nullify" the Fugitive Slave Act subverted the constitutional order of the time. It's hard to look at the Civil War and think otherwise.) This heresy, which should have died at Gettysburg, is part and parcel of the modern conservative movement, which was born out of the flotsam left behind by the (partial) fall of American apartheid. For years, Republican politicians have accepted the money, and the support, and the cheers of nullification subversives from the League of the South and the Council of Conservative Citizens to the Wise Use people and the militia people out west, to the claque of subversives who set up camp at the Bundy Ranch. Without the support of people engaged in polite -- and, occasionally, not very polite -- sedition, the Republican party would be a bunch of rich old white guys pissing themselves in the grill room of a restricted country club.
I believe they mean it. I believe they want to carry us back not just to the Gilded Age, but to the golden era in the 1780's when you needed a passport to go from Connecticut to New Jersey. I believe that is the basis for the efforts of people like Perry and Governor Bat Boy down in Florida to poach industries from other states and to hell with the national interest. I believe that is what animates ALEC in its campaign to create little hell-states individually across the map and its larger campaign to keep the federal government from doing anything about it. I don't think the modern Republican party believes in anything called "the national interest."http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33605/how-the-gop-subverts-the-republic/
Jeebus Charlie - tell us how you really feel!
Actually - the point that Pierce is making here is a subject near and dear to The Gadfly's dirty old fucking liberal hippie heart, if for no other reason than that The Gadfly has been talking about the subject of creeping right-wing treason for years (just scan through The Gadfly's archives).
The fact that this subject is finally beginning to get some attention, even if only whispered about in polite conversation at cocktail parties or on the pages of an online magazine's political blog, is certainly a positive development, and Charlie Pierce's credentials as a legitimate, credentialed journalist only enhance that positive turn.
This past week's actions where 47 Republican senators, in an unprecedented action, took it upon themselves to bully their way into sensitive negotiations between the U.S. executive branch and it's allies and Iran over the issue of curbing Iran's nuclear programs, should send a chill down the spine of any sane American who is not pining for yet another war in the Middle East where American taxpayers are the unwitting financiers and America's youth are the never-ending supply of cannon fodder.
As The Gadfly talked about in his previous post, the military-industrial-complex has been realizing record profits these days with all of these mid-east conflicts going on. Those profits are the payoff for American defense contractors being the world's one-stop-shopping mall for wmd's -- for all it takes for a nation state to arm it's military to the teeth are a few $billion$ and carte blanche support of our CIA spooks whenever it is asked for. The U.S. defense industry is basically the equivalent of the neighborhood crack dealer to all of these fucked up mid-east countries, several of whom our government cynically refers to as our "friends" -- you know -- like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Egypt, etc. Never mind that these are all oppressive and brutal regimes, who if it weren't for the fact that they hate the same religious extremists that we do, we'd probably be bombing and invading their countries too.
But setting aside the sick irony of all of that, the bottom line is that there is a faction of our government -- mostly Republicans, and to a lesser extent a handful of venal Democrats, who are beholden, if not bought and paid for agents, of the oligarchs. And none of these people see any interest whatsoever in working towards peaceful, non-military solutions to the world's myriad of conflicts. Diplomacy and dialogue are dirty words to these simply because those words are a direct threat to their spigot of power, influence and monetary profit that is the byproduct of their investment in all of these wars.
Having said all of that however, the bottom line is that none of it would be possible without the compliant apathy of the American people. We sit back in our Lazy-Boy loungers, immersed in our little worlds of Game of Thrones, bacon-wrapped pizza, IPads, and Facebook -- all of which, when you really think about it, is the equivalent of a petulant child sticking his fingers in his ears and chanting NAH! NAH! NAH!.....incessantly to drown out the voices of those trying to communicate and reason with him.
But The Gadfly digresses -- the all too serious point that Charles Pierce is trying to make here is that we have a major political party in this country who collectively, by all available evidence, has gone off the rails on the fucking cuckoo for cocoa puffs crazy train -- and their dangerous, bordering on treasonous actions, in the service of the oligarchy and military-industrial-complex, if perpetuated, imperils the future life, liberty and prosperity of every single one of us.
There comes a time when people need to get off the fucking proverbial fence and choose which side they are on. That's the easy part. Once you make that decision, then comes the admittedly difficult task of using the tools you have -- your voice and opinion, your ability to network and ally with others who are on your side, and your choices at the ballot box to support your decision. The Gadfly his self -- well, he's been doing all of that to the extent he is able to for years. At this point, there's not much more he can do other than employ the pages of this shitty little blog to bring this stuff to your attention. It's up to you dear readers to decide what, if anything, you wish to do about it.
----TFG
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