i wish you were entertaining while making a fool of
yourself. try english as a first language.

Calling anything which may be deemed to be disagreement as cheap shots and then attempting to use satire so very poorly, in itself…...seems a cheap shot to satire!

“Montana’s Republican lawmakers are also considering legislation to officially endorse catastrophic global climate change.” and I agree it is important to ignore Montana’s Republicans working diligently to eliminate education requirements for those seeking the office of state superintendent of schools all part of the Republican dumbing down program, we need to focus on the more important cheap shot issues Sirota took,...... talking about sticks and stones?

There is a kind of cloistered arrogant Leftism
exemplified by Sirota that is never ever going to
inspire popular sentiment. Native Americans in
Montana are attempting to revive their ancient lost
art of hunting with atlatls and Sirota uses that
fact to deride “Republicans” for attempting to
legalize hunting with “hand-thrown spears”. And
personally, I’d move BACK to Montana if it got
warmer there. Sirota might too if he were completely
honest about it. And therein lies the disconnect
with taking cheap shots at things you don’t
understand to come up with material for a column.

reynolds, you are making a real fool of yourself.  It is entertaining,
though.

Lee, Thanks.  I try to make connections and find precedents, so an experience isn’t as new as it appears.

FF: JMK was a dramatic, flamboyant figure, prone to dramatic statements, yet his point about the Great Depression cannot be dismissed by pointing out Panics.  The difference was the 5mph world (average transport speed) had completely ended by 1929.  This was the FIRST “Panic” that impacted globally, taking down Europe, the Americas, and Asia with it.  Its causes were clearly a laissez-faire view that ANYTHING the elite (formerly aristocracy, now the aristocracy of corporations) did was OK… “the business of the Government IS business” I believe was what Coolidge said.  As such, nothing had changed fundamentally in how the richest actors behaved in over a 1000 years…Despite Keynes’s rhetorical flash, his point needs to be re-examined.

Keynes had not yet written the “General Theory” when he made this statement, and, at the time, his most famous book was “The Economic Consequences of The Peace”.

starfish

In the summer of 1932, a journalist asked the economist John Maynard Keynes whether there had ever been anything before like the Great Depression of the 1930s; Keynes replied: “Yes, it was called the Dark Ages, and it lasted four hundred years.”

Ummm, the Panics of 1819, 1837, 1857,1873, 1893, 1907…...Now we don’t have panics, we have recessions.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Money-Banking-United-States/dp/0945466331

free download

http://mises.org/books/historyofmoney.pdf

M’thinks you are exceedingly aggressively defensive and you show
it in your recent posts directed to me.  What I noted at 3:15pm
March 19, was your “nice” observation at 1:35pm March 19, but
I said that without action is was inert.  Did that sting your conceited
mind?  Obviously we have similar views on what is wrong with this
country, I am merely suggesting that views are one thing and action
is another.  Does that stick in your craw?  Are you one of those homo
sedentarius bloggers who sit and pontificate without getting out and
“doing” something?  If not, do tell what exactly you do do!  Or is it just
doodooo?  You pretend to disseminate the “truth”?  Oh, you are
truthteller?  What a hoot.  No one who has an active brain argues that
ideas are the first motivators, unless one simply has an itch in their
Uranus.  However, it is only action that brings those ideas to life and
relieves itches.  If the founding fathers or Robespierre sat on their
asses, such as Hedges does a lot, pontificating like you do a lot, then
we would still be under the control of the Monarchy of England. 
Mouthing the obvious does not promote any progress or help the
situation.  It is merely pontificating.  The discerning minds on this
forum and all the other Truthdig forums don’t really need Hedges-like
preaching or moralizing.  You may genuflect as much as you like being
on your knees, but not everyone likes calluses on their knees.  Those
who think for them selves that is.

She
“While you have shown evidence of a vegetative state of mind”
Oh come on - Then cite the evidence beyond your usual hot air. Your diuretic stream of trite personal criticism is more to the point, not my alleged constipation of mind (whatever that means). Not to mention the fact, that it violates the rules of this forum. Ironic isn’t it?
Miss morality priss is violating the basic rules.

ITW, A little Camus goes a long ways, sometimes… I like traveling great distances!

“On the whole men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. ... the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill.”

By the way ITW, your dissertation on the Wiemar Republic was quite good and more airing and may be more appropriate here then on one deaf ear. I appreciated it for the its sobering comparative reality to present Republican/Tea Bag agendas!

Brown shirts or white sheets, I see little difference!

Oh, come on, RayLan.  You know what constipation of the mind is. 
Or maybe you don’t as often those who are so constipated are not
aware of it.  And perhaps what you don ‘t quite understand, maybe
because you are relatively new to TD, is that I have a stable of high
horses with all the horseshit included.

I suggest that if you are irritated by my longwinded, or rare short
burst posts, that when you receive notice of a comment by
Shenonymous that you simply delete it and if you visit the forum
for some reason, just glaze over your eyes and pass them by.

While you have shown evidence of a vegetative state of mind, you have
not demonstrated any capacity for being articulate…yet.  But hope
springs eternal, given that the Spring Equinox begins today.

she
“You sound like you are constipated, RayLan.  Why we appoint
ourselves, such as you do. “
Articulate maybe - constipated, not usually.
What is that supposed to sound like?  Making pretentious little moral criticisms of everbody and anybody?

You sound like you are constipated, RayLan.  Why we appoint
ourselves, such as you do.

She -
Who died an appointed you moral editor of these bloggers, passing out as you do voluminously trite sanctimonious platitudes?

”I don’t actually want to kill anybody, but if a law-maker is
actually going to propose a law stating that killing someone
engaged in a LAWFUL medical procedure is justifiable homicide,
then fair’s fair.?At this point in time justifiable homicide applies to
the use of force provided in defense of one’s person.”

I didn’t really think you did ITW.  I think it was out of empathetic
frustration you wrote what you did. And we don’t really want to get
into any distracting philosophical argument of what is ‘fairness,’ as
of course it is unambiguously clear there is justifiable homicide in
defense of one’s person.  It is at bottom an argument about when life
becomes defensible as a human being, or ends, as in the case of Terry
Schiavo.  I for one do not believe fetuses have developed in any natural
way into human status until it has achieved the operational organs to
do so, and even then it is the woman’s choice to carry to term.  Nor is it
moral to force any mechanical means to sustain life beyond what it
could ever do on its own.  So the big reason is that women have an
absolute right to their own bodies if any natural right exists.

With the atrocious murder of Dr. Tiller, I enormously agree the
Republican law maker proposing the law that killing someone
engaged in a lawful medical procedure, abortion, is justifiable homicide,
is soliciting degenerate partisan politics and needs to be emphatically
castigated and publicly rebuked.  Zealot Republican Representative from
Georgia, Bobby Franklin, needs to be named as the perpetrator of this
delirious bill.  And that South Dakotans was conscious enough not to
pass such a bill in their state

And we know that the agitation being created by this kind of attack on
women is a calculated tactic to take the attention off the Republicans
inability to come up with any program whatsoever that will create jobs.
This is a point that must be broadcasted loudly. 

Now, what can we do to effect a crusade against the heinous minded
Republicans?  Action speaks even louder than words.  Preaching to the
denizens of TD really gets us nowhere, does it?  If it does, I should like
to know.  What am I doing personally?  I am speaking to everyone I can.
But I think a united national effort is required.  Shall we start it right
here with the truthdippers?  Occasional TV news journal programs such
as what Rachel Maddow presented a month or so ago on the murder of
Dr. Tiller is an outstanding way to bring the ferocity of the Republicans
to public consciousness.  But it isn’t enough.  I would say that most
people have already forgotten that program.  The problem needs to be
made an indelible understanding through an organized campaign.

I don’t actually want to kill anybody, but if a law-maker is actually going to propose a law stating that killing someone engaged in a LAWFUL medical procedure is justifiable homicide, then fair’s fair.
At this point in time justifiable homicide applies to the use of force provided in defense of one’s person.

“Nice observation, but unless you take action to unite “us,” it will
remain an inert opinion, a hence, only a prescient possibility.  It
is you who has to take action.”

Dissiminating the truth is the first action, which is what Chris Hedges is doing. Ideas are the prime motivators. The French Revolution would not have taken place without powerful writers and speakers like Robespierre.  There is of course an irony in telling somebody on line to get off the computer and that that person should unite ???.

Yayyyyyy, Leefeller! 

Hello berniem - I was hoping you would see the “humor” in my
characterizing your comment as a rant.  As it was meant to be
read only as a teasingly accent. You have certainly provided a
comprehensive list of grievances that pretty much matches my
own.

Having hailed from SW Pennsylvania myself, I came from a kind of
different ambience where the people were mostly unionized laborers
and highly supportive of Democratic liberal values and were excep-
tionally outspoken about them. If you were on the other side of the
fence you were vermin!  I am proud to carry on the tradition, but
hopefully with more to go on than simple reaction or allergy to the
wealthy class that always, without fail, takes advantage of the less
privileged. Gut reaction sometime is a good thing when it means
immediate survival. But using the intellect to plan for a permanent
solution goes a longer way to gain what is not only wanted but is
needed for a decent life. 

And why shouldn’t the majority of the people have as decent a life as
the upper 1%?  Not that we all have to have the same balance in the
bank account for I do believe work deserves remuneration and
encouragement for individual achievement, as that provides the best
incentive for a human to succeed, which in turn helps society to
succeed.  But there is such a thing as freedom from bias, dishonesty,
and injustice, but moderate and ample income from work performed
and guaranteed affordable health care, housing within one’s financial
means, affordable and adequate education, and guaranteed
accommodation for enough food.

Ignorance and bigotry is not confined to our country.  I was incensed
the other day reading about the richest man in the world, Carlos Slim,
a Mexican and his plans to open an art gallery rather than invest in at
least a museum that would benefit the entire population and not
invested interests in the gallery. Also there are millions upon millions
of poor Mexican people that could use some social programs that drag
them up from beneath the swamp of a society in which they live!  I will
probably “rant” on this for some time to come, as it has not
processed yet in my brain.  I think Slim is the paradigm for the
obscenely rich.  Ah, such is life.

I think if we are faced with those “ironclad talking points and
buzzwords” that regularly define conservative media and tea party
drivel, then we liberals, those who really care about human beings of
the less than privileged class, will use our ingenuity to counteract the
rhetoric.

It is frustrating not to be able to openly support a candidate that
represents your own political ideology as it is a reality that some
retaliation would happen. But you should be able to vote against those
who don’t even if there’s not a rat’s ass chance in front of a rattrap with
a piece of velvetta cheese beckoning, that your candidate will win. 
Unless of course no non-Republican is running, then your rat’s ass is
cooked! and you might consider moving.  But I quite understand.  For
years I lived in such a place and it was like being in hell, or even worse,
Purgatory. The idea of gerrymandering is an evil practice. 

There are a few grass root efforts being organized, Russ Feingold,
Sherrod Brown, and Ed Schultz are three who are talking up a storm. 
Howard Dean is also rising like a Lazarus zombie on the political scene. 
Many here are talking third-party, but no one is coming forward in any
third party effort as a leader. I just read and hear a lot of third party
rhetoric bombast!  Some anarchists though, as usual, would like to be
in this huge real estate without any state organization at all and I
cannot imagine the insanity that would describe what would happen,
if, say, an earthquake happened here on a smaller magnitude than
Japan’s!  More oblivious BULLSHIT?  Might as well call a spade a spade
and drink some Tequila. Bottoms up!

A Tequila moment;

Next time someone announces with inflated relish and ego that they are ...conservative, I will not hold my tongue or me mind. For it has come to this; .....no more Mr. nice guy!  The talking anises on radio and TV have made the word liberal a dirty word. They attack unions and Social Security like they should feel guilty like gays and like they are bottom feeders. Now conservatives want child labor and to eliminate the minimum wage for workers. Damn those, conservatives make Catholic pedophiles look like compassionate ass holes! 

Why do the self righteous ass hole conservatives feel they are so frocking right and everyone who does not agree is not worthy of their Mercedes, words from Col. Gadfly in Libia, his solipsist nibs self. 

I believe liberals and anyone else who can utilize something called reason, should make the word ...Conservative the dirty word it is! No more compromising positions for me!  A very long hysterical list of conservatives supports my premise and not just here in the USA, how about the world and beyond like Republica!

Hey! No more moron Beck and call crap. Knot going to take this fat slob, Limp Jaw bull shit sitting down! Take your Adams apple Colter and shove it!  Pea brain Walker this…. Walker!  I believe in burning those fricking Bushes not burning crumbling bridges!

Look at the people in Libya, they have been taking crap from a conservative degenerate for 40 years. ...No the bottom feeders are the Conservatives, those blood sucking leeches, who take from the people, use their labor and act like the poor people should feel good being fed bull pucky and consevitive trickle downs?

Okay, ....Tequila break!

Hello She… berniem here! First off I base my “rant!” on observation of republican rhetoric, ideology, and, especially, behavior, both actual and proposed, when viewed in the context of the definition of fascism as explained in any objective political science and philosophy text, i.e., the wedding of corporate, financial, and state function, the subjugation of labor to the dictums of the state, militarism, a culture built on mythology(christian fundamentalism, divine inspiration of the founding fathers, manifest destiny, American excrptionalism,the Reagan mystique, etc.), the use of scapegoating to deflect criticism of policy, erection of a security state as protection against supposed external enemies, fostering of extremist nationalism, among others. As to my efforts to “help” supposed literate and sane voters, I must admit to a degree of frustration! Living here in that part of Pennsylvania between Pgh. & Philly better known as Alabama, its amazing to see how little the civil rights movement actually accomplished when one looks just a wee bit below the surface. The level of ignorance and bigotry is as Archie Bunker-ish here as it ever was and attempts to reason are met by the usual ironclad talking points and buzz words so familiar to anyone familiar with conservative media or tea party drivel. Especially irksome is the inability to vote for or support any candidate or movement to counter the prevailing structure as this area was nicely gerrymandered into an all republican, all the time district where even those who run as democrats do so because their egos were hurt by not being allowed to run as anointed repubs. However, I will entertain any suggestions which may help in the struggle against the forces that have made this democracy progressively more tenuous since the rise of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”, the Carter void, and the ascension of the Sainted Ronnie”!

“Unless citizens take some kind of united action against this
power grab, we will end up in a completely totalitarian state where
the only citizens with rights and freedoms are those with money
and power.”

Nice observation, but unless you take action to unite “us,” it will
remain an inert opinion, a hence, only a prescient possibility.  It
is you who has to take action.

Now let’s experiment.  Next time you can pull yourself away from
your computer, go shopping.  Walmarts are a good venue, or Targets,
or some mall somewhere.  Or wherever the stupidly poor go shopping,
the Dollar Store, etc.  Take a few minutes to look around at the people,
the stupid ones only please.  Then stop one of them, if you are
brave (course it was brave of you to even pull yourself away from
your computer, unless you have a glass of tequila, hey, did you notice
that the word tequila also starts with T? I know I know, I digress, but
bravery is not a virtue that describes many these days).  Ask this stupid
person, 1) if they went to school?  If they say no, ask why not?  If they
say yes, go on to ask, 2)if they watch the news? If they watch Fox News?
If they say no, ask what news they do watch and take a note.  If they say
yes, go on to ask, 3) if they know what is in the Constitution?  If they
say yes, take a note.  If they say no, ask why not?  Then go on to ask,
4) if they vote? If they say no, ask why not?  If they say yes, go on to
ask, 5) if they vote against their own self-interest on account of the
abortion issue?  If they say yes, punch them in the mouth.

”The new is bad simply because it is not old.”  This is a perfect and
simple definition of a conservative.

The only way to effect any change in this country is to rid the political
scene of Republicans and their depraved acts against the great majority. 
How is it we allow this to happen to us?  There is always a lot of talk
about the tyranny of the majority, but this country is assbackwards.  It
is the tyranny of the minority or the top 1% of the society who holds the
“majority” of the wealth, and hence power, that holds the entire country
for ransom in order to preserve their power so that they may continue
to increase their wealth in a vicious cycle that affects all those who are
not in the top 1%.

I would hardly call what’s going on in these states an experiment in democracy. Experiments are methods for getting information - democracy is about equality and freedom guaranteed by the Constitution.
Actions like repealing the Child Labor Act pull the state back to the ancient days of corrupt monarchies - the very thing that the Founding Fathers sought to overturn. The Rep/Dem corporate hacks are faithfully carrying out the power shift from the people to the moneyed elite. Cutting back on social services all the while keeping tax cuts for the rich and big Corps (that also get welfare) only concentrates the already uneven balance of wealth at the top one percent.
Unless citizens take some kind of united action against this power grab, we will end up in a completely totalitarian state where the only citizens with rights and freedoms are those with money and power.

Forgive me, I’m on a roll. By the way, Good Morning. At least it is here
where I am.

“The reason this country will probably go into the Dark Ages is the
extreme stupidity of huge segments of our population.“

Not sure what “extreme” stupidity means, only because “ordinary”
stupidity would do exactly the same thing.  Stupid is stupid.

Rhetorically speaking, do you personally know any right-wingers?  Since
they are the ones that need changing, don’t you think you are just too
safe preaching to us liberals?

Sharonsj, I like most of your post.  But using the inclusives like
‘nobody,’ or ‘everyone,’ is just not right.  There are lots of us who do
know what is in the Constitutiton, (yeah, probably liberals) for I keep a
copy of it and the DOI and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
on my computer table at all times.  Don’t you?

So here is what we, you and I, need to do:  In every red state, start a
campaign to rid this country of the right-wing vermin.  If you can’t get
to all of the red states, then start with your own, or if it’s blue, start
with the red one next to yours.

So anaman51, do you think a communistic society will do any better? 
Uh, name one that has.  Every one so far has had a greedy central
committee.  And they prosper with their vodka, or tequila, while the
poor continue to suffer.  It is business as usual with the politically blind.

berniem, I don’t disagree with your unsubstantiated rant (as indicated
by your exclamation point!) but what are you doing to help the literate
and sane citizens get on the right, uh, left, track?  What do you mean by
‘tenuous’ democracy?

ITW – that is a very interesting argument about fairness.  But somewhat
mildly put. Is there a way to rid this country of the “deliberately lying
fascist radio and Fox TV talk show hosts” without stooping to murder? 
Sounds like reactive savagery to me.  Maybe there is another way to
convince others by using our “intelligence” that they are lying? 
And if we can’t, then maybe we should take the hike?

The legislators in Arkansas, yeowie kazowie!  How are you going to
change the minds of the mindless?  It is Sisyphusian.

ohiolibgal ~ “It’s just all puzzling to me, why more people, a critical mass of them, can’t seem to connect these simple dots.”

The marginally informed, aided by recidivists, follow the path of least resistance. It’s too much of a bother to contest injustice. Maybe they hear of something once on MSM and then it disappears, never a follow up, into the mystifying flow of complaisance.

The new is bad simply because it is not old.

1 year, 9 months, 2 days…

ITW and all,  the only thing I am going to kill is a bottle of Tequila, but only if the price of Tequila doesn’t keep going up like the price of gas, otherwise I may be forced switching to drinking gas!

Now a fat overly obnoxious radio host,...... I could see doing some interesting and amusing things with a pineapple where his head seems to always to be.

What is going on here? I mean the Republicans seem to be over playing their hand on purpose? Does the Conservative Republican mind even have the capability to plan something more devious then what they are showing? History actually shows us they have some capabilities to do heinous things! Today one need only look at Omar Gadfly in Libya, he seems a classic example of conservative logic!

It seems to me here in the good old USA, Republicans are with the help of the Tea Bags and the libertarians working diligently to sabotage the Constitution and the Bill of Rights at the same time? The Democrats seem as enablers, with impeachment is off the table crap! Okay, I use question marks, because something is up and stinks in Washington and I do not know what it is, but it may suddenly show up on the tip of my Tequila bottle!

Any theories? All I have are questions, I cannot comprehend the thoughtless actions of the right and their blatant screwing populist song and dance routine? Are hey really as stupid as they appear or is their something lurking behind the Republican bold rape of comment sense?

Did you miss the law to make it a crime for someone receiving welfare to have
more than $20 cash on their person??

I think you’ve just scratched the surface of this….

If it’s justifiable homicide to murder a doctor performing a perfectly legal operation, shouldn’t it be justifiable homicide to do the same thing to deliberately lying fascist radio and Fox TV talk show hosts?  I mean, fair’s fair.  One’s killing unborn fetuses and the other’s killing unborn thinking and debate.

Leefeller:

By the By; if someone is willing to stand up and fight for what he surly knows is right, isn’t that how this article came up with six sadistic state proposals?

- - -

Yes, under ordinary circumstances that would be a correct observation.

But the thing of it is I believe even the evil Republicans (and other rightwingers) know that what they are pitching is pure rancid baloney; they’re just hoping no one notices.

Nice to see you again starfishy;

“What we need—but do not have-—is a president who is bold, creative, compassionate, gutsy, honest, and willing to stand up and fight for what he surely knows is right.”

Now the comment could not refer to Sara Palin, unless you hand pick out the words from the comment such as, gutsy, bold and amusingly creative?

By the By; if someone is willing to stand up and fight for what he surly knows is right, isn’t that how this article came up with six sadistic state proposals?

Continuing evidence that the US republican party is the reincarnation of unbridled fascism and that an unfortunately large number of supposedly literate and sane citizens are allowing it to overthrow what’s left of what has been for a long time a tenuous democracy!

As is always the case in a capitalistic society, greed will out. The rich will prosper and the poor will suffer. It’s business as usual in America.

There just seem to be too many US citizens who have been easy prey for dumbing down, it’s alarming.

The good news is that maybe, just maybe, this over reach by the oligarchs and their puppets may result in enough people finally seeing the light and slowly grasping what’s really what.

Everyday middle class people have been stolen blind since 1981, we just witnessed a huge all at once transfer of wealth to the top caper with the Wall Street bailout.

It’s just all puzzling to me, why more people, a critical mass of them, can’t seem to connect these simple dots.

In the summer of 1932, a journalist asked the economist John Maynard Keynes whether there had ever been anything before like the Great Depression of the 1930s; Keynes replied: “Yes, it was called the Dark Ages, and it lasted four hundred years.”

Some people have speculated that if our president and Congress do not ethically address the real and actual problems of our current recession, it could morph into The Great Depression of the 1930s.

I think that’s being optimistic.

I think, considering who our political “leaders” are these days, we are much more likely to end up in a repeat of the Dark Ages—and they lasted for 400 years.

What we need—but do not have-—is a president who is bold, creative, compassionate, gutsy, honest, and willing to stand up and fight for what he surely knows is right.

Instead we have a thug whose only concern is for himself and his own re-election. I don’t really think Obama even cares if any Congressional Democrats win election or re-election in 2012, as long as he wins!

No, that is NO exaggeration. Obama plays very well with predatory Republicans, mainly because he is one of their kind.

Beerdoc broght up Hunter Thompson, in one of his final books he referred to this generation of americans as “the New Dumb”.

We have collectively become a nation of rubes, just waiting for the next carnie or carpetbagger to blow through town with another load of snakeoil.

(BTW, anybody notice that the well fed governor of NJ went begging the federal government for disaster assistance and money to clean up the recent floods in the garden state? His pleas should have been met with a giant middle finger from president Barry. So you want to lower taxes and cut public services, fine. We’ll see what local businesses and charity organizations do to rebuild roads and bridges and schools that were literally underwater. This is capitalisms big chance. Funny thing about capitalists though, if there’s not not alot of profit to be made, it ain’t gonna happen.)

Wisconsin (!) to make it ok not to sterilize drinking water. (My previous comment disappeared, so if it reappears, my apologies for double posting - but this is as awesome as Mr. S’s 6):

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/environment/article_a716cc28-3edc-11e0-b198-001cc4c002e0.html

FOCUS ON WISCONSIN - Why dilute to all the other crazy states when WI is so exemplary? (A) Passed a law that Governor can sell any state property for any price w/o consent of ... anyone else! (B) Working on passing a law making it OK not to sterilize public drinking water (costs too much, don’t you know): http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/environment/article_a716cc28-3edc-11e0-b198-001cc4c002e0.html

Notice that every one of these abhorrent and sovereign states
show the effects of state Republican politicians even when there is
a Democratic Governor.  Focus needs to be on defeating them and
it is the liberal responsibility to stop the Republicans at every level
of politics from local elections to the national.  They are the scourge
of the American People and a detriment to our life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.  You know, those things that are held to be
sacred American values by the Declaration of Independence and life,
liberty and property guaranteed legal protection in the Constitution,
5th Amendment!

These GOPer sadists, of course, claim to be doing the work of their ‘god’. Others say that they are doing the work of The Devil. Slightly more rational folks point out that the Goper ‘god’ and The Devil are one and the same.

Remember that these warped souls are the offspring of the Thurmond, Lott, Dole, Gingrich generation. Just imagine the perversions of their tortured childhoods, the hypocrisy, the mendacity, the ignorance, the sadism they were exposed to on a daily basis. This does not, of course, excuse their behavior. If only their parents, and their ‘god’, had believed, and had ‘faith’, in condoms…

Damn that Ronnie Reagan. If he hadn’t eliminated US mental health facilities, there would be a place for these twisted creatures other than the political chambers of our nation.

“The Child Labor Act: Missouri state Sen. Jane Cunningham’s proposal to eliminate child labor laws would allow corporations to employ any kid under 14 and would terminate restrictions on the number of hours that kid can be forced to work. The legislation is proof that when tea party ideologues refer to “the ’50s,” some of them aren’t referring to the 1950s—they are referring to the 1850s.”

Well, child labor makes sense to me, especially since schools are socialistic and should be non existent with those annoying human rights. Ignorant kids develop into perfect the perfect cloned Republican/Tea Bags! 

Child Labor works well in Backslide Bangladesh, I can see the Tea Baggers slobbering over the the idea of kids working for 30 cents a day here in the USA, so when Tea Bags go down to Wal Mart they can fill their shopping carts full of crap, covered with little American flags.

Maybe Texas can catch onto Missouri’s vanguard meaning of true Republicanism!

my only issue to this piece is the last sentence when Mr Sirota writes in the last
sentence about saner minds.

these repug morons act as if they have no minds at all.

D. Sirota is right about “true legislative sadists looking to go medieval on America.”  They are sadists because they support the destructive things from older times. They are careful to stay away from advocating some of the good things from the past when the air, water, and soil were cleaner and energy was not misused at the present rate.

Sadism, as an anti-social type of behavior, is quite popular nowadays (just turn on
the TV) and there are plenty of masochists to keep it going.  And if you add the
“religious bent” the beer doctor mentions, you arrive at a perfect picture of
escapism and entertainment.

“PCBs are good for you”
“Cigarettes aren’t addictive and don’t cause cancer”
“Pollution is overstated.”
“Drill, baby, drill!”

It fascinate me just how effective the dumbing-down of America has succeeded. Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent is right on the money. When, if at all, will a tipping point be reached where the outlandish schemes of corporatism finally become so egregrious that common sense returns to the U.S. of A.?

A few suggestions:
- Manditory home-schooling (Stop teacher’s brainwashing your children)

- Use your own hose fire departments

- Rent-a-cop (if you can afford it) law enforcement

- Turnpike USA (sell state roads to private
          companies)

- Repeal the Clean Water Act

- Open state parks to mining and drilling (watch the action while enjoying a picnic lunch.) This measure is extremely important for the survival of energy companies.

- In addition to the above, frag the Hudson River Valley aquifer

- Privatize water and sewer. (It’s like you know city water is replete with methane gas. Our water will assure you of purity.

As the late Hunter S. Thompson pointed out, quite a while ago, the punishment ethic has always been at the root of the so-called GOP vision. The tea party version adds a fundamentalist religious bent to this nonsense. They not only want to defeat any democratic alternative, they actually want to smite them. A belief in a vengeful god lies at the core of their political motivations.

If Barry and the Dimmos could take one thing away from the bravado shown by these new wack-a-mole conservatives it should be that you need to strike when the iron is hot. The old political adage of “if you don’t do it your first year in office, you probably won’t do it” is in full force with the new neo-cons.

Barry, Harry, and Nancy were (are) gutless turds. And now they (we) are paying the price for their lack of vision.