BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP

Subject: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulationsof the GOP
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 11:09 AM

The New York Times reflects on the current mad capers of GOP candidates jumping around trying to find aa position -- for example, on the question of legal and illegal immigration. Their editorial, partly reproduced below, highlights the interesting trials of people who want desperately to be liked, scrambling around trying to find a position that will accomplish this to the point that they lose all sight of their human perspective. This, of course, is self-defeating in the long run, and it would be just amusing in the short run of these folks were not vying for the power to represent and steer the path of the nation.

"Sanctuary Was a Lovely Word. Then the G.O.P. Got Hold of It.
               
By CLYDE HABERMAN
Published: November 30, 2007
When they finally got down to business, after being serenaded by a guitarist on YouTube, it took the Republican presidential candidates 11 ½ minutes Wednesday night for one of them to acknowledge that illegal immigrants are human beings.

...Not bad. Nearly 26 minutes passed before any of them — New York's former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani broke the ice — got around to uttering the word "Bush." You'd have thought from the general mood that the president's name carried the MRSA bacterium.

Illegal immigrants fared better, though not by much. After a good deal of talk about how undesirable they are, Senator John McCain of Arizona chose to inject a more humanistic note into the debate. Sure, let's secure the borders, Mr. McCain said, but don't forget another dimension.

"We need to sit down as Americans and recognize these are God's children as well," he said, "and they need some protections under the law, and they need some of our love and compassion."

Those remarks practically made him a radical at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the debate was held.

Until then, the immigration discussion had turned on "so's your old man" name-calling between Mr. Giuliani and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

For months, the two of them have been in a race to see who can put more distance between himself and many of his past policies. Wednesday night, each elbowed the other sharply over illegal (or if you prefer, undocumented) immigrants (or if you prefer, aliens). God's children? God's illegitimate children is more accurate, to hear them tell it.

Their spat was about who used to give those people greater succor: Mr. Giuliani as leader of a "sanctuary city," or Mr. Romney as lord of a "sanctuary mansion," where the lawns were mowed by illegal/undocumented new arrivals. Neither man cared to be seen as Blanche DuBois in reverse, giving kindness to strangers.

This is the year when "sanctuary" became a dirty word. It used to sound so lovely, didn't it? Beats a heart that did not soar when Quasimodo rescued Esmeralda while crying "Sanctuary!" in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"? Nowadays, if you are a Republican, anyway, you don't want to be tied to that word any more than to "Bush."

Democrats are hardly having an easy time themselves. If Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton had done any more twisting on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, she could have opened her own pretzel stand.

But the immigration issue is especially fierce among the Republican candidates. Building a fence along the border with Mexico appeals greatly to them. This reflects, in part, a desire for law and order, in part economic discontent. It is also a product of security fears, although you have to wonder why no fence is being built up north. Canada has been the pathway for some Islamic terrorists, not Mexico.

There is, too, an ascendant xenophobia toward anyone who speaks English with, as Mr. Romney put it, "a funny accent" (a phrase that an unkind soul might say could apply to several of the candidates, Democrats and Republicans both).

Barely a word was said the other night about legal immigrants doing the country any good. Indeed, Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado urged an end for now to all immigration. Unmentioned was an inconvenient fact: Had that policy been applied to both sets of his Italian-born grandparents, there would have been no Representative Tancredo at the debate.

BY coincidence, a New York research group, the Fiscal Policy Institute, issued a report this week underlining the importance of immigration here in Sanctuary City and, for that matter, throughout New York State.

Legal or illegal — the report made no distinction — immigrants were said to account for nearly one-fourth of the state's total economic output. Most of them speak English, according to the study. More and more own their own businesses. Upstate and in the city's suburbs, most own their own homes.

Without them, the report suggested, the city's revival over the last 25 years might never have been.

Of course, nothing remotely along those lines was discussed at the Mahaffey.

David Rovine, the theater's general manager, said by phone yesterday that immigrants were probably among the workers who got the place ready for the debate. But their papers had been checked. "Everybody's legal," he said.

That should come as a relief to the candidates. Imagine how embarrassing it would have been to duke it out in a sanctuary theater.
..."

---

It is a quandary, friends and neighbors, is it not, when human values fall away from the discussion of policy, leaving nothing but the black charred skeleton of opportunism and hollow PR moves? Where's the humanity in this foodfight?

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulationsof the GOP
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 12:22 PM

They're all Compassionate Conservatives, Amos, with a Thousand Points of Light to help you Read Their Lips.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulationsof the GOP
From: Riginslinger
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:00 PM

There are a number of reasons why the US and a number of other countries might want to be concerned about immigration, but the Republican candidates seem only to want to address the worst of them.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulationsof the GOP
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:16 PM

The issue is not just immigration, but the subordinating of humanitarian laws and principles (themselves learned only after centuries of trial and suffering from far before Rome to long after "Strange Fruit") to the grasping appetites of the lizard brained. Torture, war, taxation, budget, economic laws, all get befouled by this rancid spattering of mindlessness, lessenign all our hopes for a better nation. Ptui, I say.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulationsof the GOP
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 01:35 PM

1957

A movie was made by the name 'A Face In The Crowd'
Starring Andy Griffiths, Patricia O'Neal


This movie faithfully shows a Karl Rove / Rush Limbaugh kind of character doing the bidding of the Republican party to help sell the eradication of social security to the unwashed masses.

I had never seen it before.
It is a real jaw dropper not just for now but for all time.

I can smell a fantastic remake in the wind.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulationsof the GOP
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:16 PM

You sure about that?

It's been a couple of months since I watched "A Face in the Crowd" on TCM, but I don't remeber anything especially political about the rise and fall of Dusty Rhodes (Andy Griffith's character). Not anything regarding party politics or government, anyway ~ there is an underlying message about commercialism and the influence of then-new media.

Anyway, I just checked IMBD to verify my vague memory, and I stand by my opinion that you've probably got two (or more) films confused with each other.

Dusty Rhodes is depicted as a performer who is expected to sell mattresses and other products on TV, not positions on issues. We rebels and bad-mouths his sponsors on the air, and gets away with it for a while because he's so popular that any mention of the product, even in a negative light, prompts his fans to boost sales. In the longer run, however, Rhodes fails to exhibit staying power and experiences a humilating fall from grace.

It's a satire and a pointed commentary on postwar consumerism in the US, which some may feel has some connection with the GOP and/or with the "Establishment" that party generally champions. But that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulationsof the GOP
From: bankley
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:31 PM

Ron Paul rocks and he said that he wouldn't support another Repug.candidate if he wasn't chosen....

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 05:47 PM

Well, Ron Paul is the only Repub that doesn't have his head up Bush's posterior...

This ought to be very interesting with all the other saying purdy much "stay the course" when "saty the course" is not only stupid policy but also a policy that the American people are very much against...

So, whomever the Repubs nominate will have 2 cloices: First, ride into November will their heads still very much up BUsh's butt or second, call for a change of course and bve called a flip-flopper...

Of course, Hillary has the same problem on her hands...

But this thread isn't about her dilemma, is it...

No matter... It's gonna a be fun to watch these folks twist...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 05:58 PM

I suggest we are missing the core point around which the thread was started -- the devolution from high humanistic principles into the grubbiest sort of mob-button-pushing and hyperreactivity.

How does this come about?

Fast food?



A

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:19 PM

It costs money, time, and effort to help others. If you aren't willing to invest YOUR money, time, and effort then you aren't willing to help others.

I suggest living the lessons of 1 Corinthians 13:1 or 10 Luke 25-37, if they hold themselves out to be Christians. In fact, the lessons contained therein are good lessons in just being a decent human being.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 09:19 AM

Today's Times comments:

"The Republicans running for president are embarrassed to mention George W. Bush. But with few exceptions — Mr. McCain's principled position on torture is one — they want to continue Mr. Bush's failed, often belligerent and sometimes sadistic policies. (On immigration, an issue ripe for demagoguery, most of the howling G.O.P. pack has sprinted away from Mr. Bush, preferring a more macho, politically exploitive approach. Mr. McCain is again an exception.)

The incessant drumbeat of brute force as the favored solution to difficult problems serves to normalize state violence to the point where we hardly notice it. Before his widely reported crack about Jesus being too smart to run for office, former Gov. Mike Huckabee talked proudly about the tough challenge he faced in "carrying out" the death penalty in Arkansas.

"I did it more than any other governor ever had to do it in my state," he said.

The Republican Party has won a lot of elections in recent years. So maybe this crop of candidates knows something about American voters that many us would rather not acknowledge, that too many of them are small-minded, fearful, bigoted and too shallow to recognize policies that are against their own — and their country's — best interests.

Or maybe that's not the case at all. Maybe this lot of Republican presidential candidates is misreading the public, and placing its bet on the wrong side of history.

I hope it's the latter. Maybe voters in the early primaries will deliver the message that a more thoughtful, insightful, inclusive and constructive style of campaigning is desired.

Maybe then we can finally get issues like torture off the table (Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney had a testy exchange over waterboarding the other night) and squarely address the concerns so many voters have about the deteriorating economic climate here at home and America's diminished standing abroad."

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Rapparee
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 09:23 AM

In my opinion, the only Republican candidate who is qualified to speak out about torture is John McCain. Before the others shoot their mouths off about "waterboarding" or any of the other things I humbly suggest that they experience it first hand.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 09:30 AM

Gail Collins opines:

..."The Giuliani presidential campaign is based on the idea that he understands that the world is a dangerous place and knows the steps that need to be taken to protect us. But his real conviction has always seemed to be that the world was a dangerous place for him. After American embassies were bombed in East Africa, his administration responded by blocking off the driveways to City Hall, barring protesters and politicians from their traditional press conference site on the building steps, and banishing tourists. Meanwhile, behind the barricades, the mayor was planning to put the city's emergency command center inside the best-known terrorist target in America.

Does this sound like a good plan, people? Do you want the next president putting a nuclear missile at Camp David while he moves the Situation Room to the Louisiana flood plain?

The conflation of the safety of Rudy with the safety of New York reached its peak on 9/11, when the entire public security leadership of the city left ground zero in order to protect the mayor in his walk uptown. And then there was the aftermath, when he tried to postpone the mayoral election under the theory that the factor most critical to our survival was his continued presence at the helm.

If the vision of city police officers cooling their heels outside his mistress's home in the Hamptons is troubling, it's not because of the moral implications. It's a reminder that Rudy is one of those people who doesn't handle power well. The more important he becomes, the more impossible he becomes...."


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 07:18 PM

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Iowa Poll Puts Huckabee and Obama Out Front

Mike Huckabee on the campaign trail in New Hampshire on Saturday. Can he convert his lead in Iowa to a lead in the Granite State? (AP).

A poll released by the Des Moines Register confirmed the shift in the presidential race over the last month, as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is ahead of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). And in an even more surprising result, former Gov. Mike Huckabee has vaulted ahead of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, long the leader among the Republicans.

The leads for Obama and Huckabee remain small, particularly given the four percent margin of error. The poll placed Obama at 28 percent, Clinton at 25 percent, and former North Carolina senator John Edwards at 23 percent, meaning that depending on how effectively they turn out voters, any of them could win. The GOP race appears a two-man contest with Huckabee at 29 percent, Romney at 24 percent and former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani at 13 percent.

The polls show what's happening in the campaign, as Clinton, who had long sought to rise above the fray, is attacking Obama more frequently, and Romney is slamming Huckabee for tax increases during his days as governor.

For Obama, the polls results have one potential worrisome trend. According to the Register, Obama dominates among younger caucus-goers, with support from 48 percent of those younger than 35, compared to 19 percent for Clinton and 17 percent for Edwards.

The under-35 bloc represents 14 percent of Democratic caucus-goers, according to the poll. Clinton is the top choice among caucus-goers 55 and older. Older people generally show up and are considered more reliable than younger and first-time caucus-goers, another group that Obama leads. At the same time, Obama also leads among those who say they will definitely attend the caucuses.

For Clinton, the poll showed her strength among women has slipped. Obama is supported by 31 percent of women polled who are likely to attend the caucuses, compared to 26 percent for Clinton.

For the Republicans, the poll suggests Huckabee is performing strongly based on two factors: Social conservatives favor him, and he's ranked as the "most principled" of the candidates.

Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, is leading Romney 38 percent to 22 percent among those who consider themselves "born-again Christians." In October, Romney edged Huckabee 23 percent to 18 percent among people in that group, which accounts for half of all likely caucus participants, according to the Register.

---

Huckabee? We're gonna turn the country ver to a retired preacher whose name sounds like a fast-food chain?

Oy, such tsuris for a once proud nation.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Riginslinger
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 09:49 PM

Both findings bother me.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 10:55 PM

My apologies for not decluttering the selection before submitting it.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 12:51 AM

President Huckabee? That would be the final blow. I didn't think the U.S. could go any lower.

You're right, Amos, humanitarian priciples have gone down the tube. Politicians are more worried about profits than human beings. Whats worse is that they don't even have the intelligence to figure out that its the human beings that have made them rich and powerful. What I can't figure out is why everybody gives them power.

I think its the bully system at work. Nobody says anything because they think if they do, they will be the next target. Narcissists are running the world and we allow it to happen. Nobody is willing to stand up for the little guy.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 09:46 AM

A vivid and impassioned rendition of a genuine neoconservative at work is portrayed by Tom Cruise, in the current film "Lions for Lambs". The film is a deeply unsettling portrayal, directed by Robert Redford, of the strange interlocking distortions of life, language, politics and thought which lead young men to lie bullet-riddled and bleeding in the Afghan hills. Quite good, really. Recommended.


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 10:36 AM

The greatest neurosis of the Republican party , other than all the gay anti gay Republican elected officials, is the fiscal conservative.

With the dollar down 38% in value and inflation near runaway proportions, the dollar will soon have the status of Ugandan currency. 12 years ago our outstanding loan debt was 1.3 trillion dollars and was coming down during the Clinton administration. IT IS NOW 9.6 TRILLION dollars due to our relentless spending for war industiries over the last 8 years.

The Fiscal Conservative wants to reduce/eliminate taxes on the rich in the midst of borrowing more money.

That is either a nerosis or a means to steal the entire Treasury of THe United States which is already always below 15th on every scale of properity, health and basic education compared to all other industrial countries.

Gulliani is the most militant fiscal conservative in the pack.

Who are the rich Republicans most afraid of? Ron Paul. All cable news moderators are told to laugh derisively if they even mention his name. He won't play the FC game.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 01:10 PM

I just heard an interview with Jan Martel (author of Life of Pi). He was discussing how books (especially fiction) allow us to explore the human condition. He said that Stephen Harper (Canadian PM) has stated that his favorite book is the Guiness Book of World Records. I think that says it all.

Politicians do not know their electorate because they don't read about others and have no idea how others experience the world. They are focussed on money and power and are ignorant of the human condition. The lives of politicians are focussed on competition. Martel also said there are two ways to understand life. You either know through religion or through the creative experience.

Makes sense to me.

We have a new social class. The political class is in a class of its own.

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Donuel
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 03:12 PM

I have always thought that mayors should at least be required to play sim city

Subject: RE: BS: The Neurosis and Tribulations of the GOP
From: Riginslinger
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 04:22 PM

"We have a new social class. The political class is in a class of its own."


                      Yeah, and they don't seem to even realize there are other people out there. Fixing the mortgage crisis is a case in point. They want to freeze interest rates as a means of solving the sub-prime problem.
                      What that means to the unemployed mortgage payer is, the payment he won't be able to come up with will only be $1,036.00 a month instead of $1,072.00 a month, so by the time his house goes into foreclosure he'll owe a few hundred dollars less than he otherwise would.