hogwash

A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare
his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some
tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With
his first swallow of coffee, he takes his daily medication. His
medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought
to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer’s medical
plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for
paid medical insurance — now Joe gets it, too. He prepares his
morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe’s bacon is safe to eat because
some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing
industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo.
His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in
the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right
to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath.
The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko
liberal fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air. He
walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to
work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation
fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public
transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a
contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical
benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy
liberal union members fought and died for these working standards.

Its noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some
bills. Joe’s deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some
godless liberal wanted to protect Joe’s money from unscrupulous
bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided
that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and
earned more money over his lifetime.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at
his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His
car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating
liberal fought for car safety standards. He arrives at his boyhood
home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by
Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural
loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government
liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural
electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired.
His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some
wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of
himself so Joe wouldn’t have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk
show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and
conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved
Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe
enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our
lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should
take care of themselves, just like I have.”

STLtoday - Voting Yes on Prop Iis voting yes on the futurefor St. Louis County kids
What $150K buys

I am not sure if I live in a pro-America or anti-America part of the country here in the heart of Oakville, but I do know that when we bought our three-bedroom house in 2000, it cost $15,000 less than the Republican National Committee spent on clothing for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president, over the last two months.

Does Ms. Palin have to pay income taxes on the clothing she received? At my last job, employees were provided lunch, but we had to pay taxes on the lunches received as income (similar to how Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain’s health plan is supposed to work).

And, with the salary I received at that job, it would have taken me more than seven years after taxes to buy a wardrobe similar to Ms. Palin’s.

Of course, my husband, our four children and I would have starved and lost the house in the process.

Elaine “The Working Mom” Frank | Oakville

McCain’s Last Hope and the end of Chris Rock’s ‘Head of State.’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhPzAbOFhFc

According to most respected scientists, and philosophers throughout history, we all have an animal nature in one form or another. It is common knowledge that we are creatures of our world. Yet, because of our cognitive superiority (or spiritual superiority, as some would say) to the rest of the beasts of the world, we have developed a set of societal norms that allow us to function towards a higher calling. In a sense, what is good for most is good for one. Those societal norms change through time and the balance of “most” and “one” is in a constant state of flux.

Of course, there have been many examples or experiments by various cultures along the way. Cultures and countries come and go based on many factors. Some of those factors may be natural disasters or climate change, economic ruin, systemic superiority, pure evil, and the triumph of good over evil, to name a few. Human history, in terms of culture, rarely, if ever, stays stagnant. It is always changing. It either progresses or regresses, the definition of those two terms being subjective, and relative to who decides what is and is not progress.

The natural, animalistic side of human beings serves us well on a daily basis. We flinch for a reason, our stomachs growl for a reason, we get angry for a reason, and we love our children for a reason. The reasons are often debated, but survival is the generally accepted reason. As a result of this natural tendency to survive, we feel fear. Many times that fear can overwhelm us. And that brings us to our current situation. The anger and the hatred coming from Republican rallies, as seen here, here, and here, and as I walk door to door in my canvassing efforts for Obama, is very real. I am not making excuses for their regressive behavior, but their fear is genuine.

Each and every one of us has a way that we look at the world. We hear it expressed often as our “world-view.” And for one reason or another, certain things scare us and threaten us. They threaten our physical safety as well as our world-view. You would think the latter was insignificant, but when a person’s brain has been conditioned to believe a certain way, either through nature or nurture, many times they will shift in to a survival mode sparked by their fear. What results, in many cases, is anger and hatred.

I, as do many readers of this Huffington Post, have family members, friends, and neighbors who have outright told me that they will not vote for Barack Obama because he is black. they do not arrive at that position lightly. They genuinely are afraid of what it means to have a black man as their leader. Many of them, who feel superior to the black race for one misguided reason or another, are having their very purpose and role in life called in to question. A man with the name of Barack Obama, with a skin color such as his, is a threat to their very existence, or so they believe.

While canvassing for Obama, I knocked on a man’s door who I have known for years. He was in utter shock that I would be out working for an “Arab.” Yes. He said, “Arab.” From what I gather, he heard that from Rush Limbaugh, and that is what makes this all the worse. In a grab for power, there are leaders and celebrities in this country, who know better, who allow this behavior to take place, and some gleefully stoke the fire. I don’t know if Rush Limbaugh really knows any better, but I can tell you with relative confidence that John McCain does, and that is despicable. John McCain is a better man; at least I used to believe so, than to let such baseless accusations of Obama’s links to terrorists, and the conclusions drawn from them, go unanswered.

World-renowned psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, mentions in one of his latest books, The Lucifer Effect, that there are many types of evil. He says that there is natural evil; there is systemic evil; there is the “doing” of evil; and there is the evil of doing nothing. I believe the latter to maybe be the worse evil of all, the evil of inaction. While those who do not know any better hunker down in to their animalistic nature of survival when no real threat is apparent or at the very least, exaggerated, those who do know better need to stand up and say so. Power at the expense of good and righteousness is vile and despicable and contrary to everything this country stands for.

Rupert Murdoch, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and company have done more to bring America down and hold this country back than any one person on Wall Street can ever dream of doing, and John McCain’s deference to it is appalling. Senator McCain’s base is erupting into nasty pot of hatred which, if we are not careful, could be very dangerous, not to mention, criminal. A real culture war is not one that we want to fight. The people at the Republican rallies are totally out of their minds and have become slaves to their fears.

It is time for John McCain to call it to a halt before it gets out of hand. It is time to invoke the spirit of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who stood up at a podium in 1941 and let the American people know that the world has four basic freedoms. Those freedoms are the freedom of speech, the freedom of religion, the freedom of want, and freedom from fear. The regressives of the Republican Party have not only refused to free us from fear, they have purposely invoked it.

I know that Barack Obama carries the spirit of FDR, but it is time for John McCain to step up to the plate and be the leader that he portends to be. It is time to remind John McCain of what he was fighting for when his jet crashed in Vietnam, so he can then remind his followers of what makes America, America. Or, he can continue on his current path as a guilty participant in the greatest evil of all, the evil of inaction.

YouTube - Who is the real Barack Obama?

It is amazing how little ‘Joe Six-pack’ actually knows about the United States of America.  They know very little about where it came from, how it got here, or even what America stands for.  The hope of having any kind of conversation with ‘Joe’ that includes facts is about as likely as having Alaska’s Governor Palin on the ticket as a Vice-President.  (Oh.  Crap.  I will have to find a new metaphor for things that are unlikely.) 

Over the last couple of days, I have had one of these one-way conversations with Mr. Six-pack, and I have to tell you, if you are a fan of the great American experiment, the depth of his ignorance is disheartening if you are hoping for the experiment to succeed.  Most importantly, it is indicative of what civic leaders like Barack Obama have to face every day of their lives.

The next couple of paragraphs will sort of run like a play-by-play.  As readers of this blog continue through the text, you will swear that you know this Mr. Six-pack.  I promise you that you don’t, well, unless you actually do know him, which would be funny to me.  For the purposes of this column, I will call him ‘Benedict.’ Benedict fits, mainly because he is a classic American traitor, and you will see why as you read on.  Benedict is indicative of the halfwit that the regressive, maverick Republican brand has rounded up and caged as sure-thing voters year after year.

It all started this Sunday as I sat on my couch watching ‘Meet the Press’ on my DVR.  From my laptop, which sits next to me, a loud crash of a gong came across my speakers to notify me that I had a new email.  It was from Benedict, a Joe Six-pack that I met once a few years back when I was laid up from a knee surgery.  He was not happy with my last blog post ‘Therapists are here to ‘get’ us, not VPs.’

The following is not for respectable people who are easily offended:

“Thanks Karl (my dad) for sending this one. It just proves you and your ex were extremely intoxicated the night this one was conceived. Junior, I only met you once and I will refer to you as BLISTER because you showed up after we had finished moving your father a few years back. Just like you liberals, showing up after the work is done. What Karl should have done was wait for the government to move him, just like OSAMA’s posse did in Louisiana when Katrina hit. I have spent enough time on BLISTER, it is obvious the major thing BLISTER and all liberals are missing is COMMON SENSE. It must have been aborted on your daddy’s sheets.”

I replied with, “Typical.  When you lose on the facts you revert to personal attacks.  Facts matter Benedict, so unless you’ve got some, you’re useless to the greater debate and the larger picture.  When I get emails like this, I can’t help but thank the people who created the system of checks and balances the way that they did, or people like you would actually be running this country…or at least what would even be left of it.”

Needless to say, there have been 40+ emails sent back and forth since then.  I won’t bore you with most of them, mainly because it will probably make you a little nauseous to read most of what he says, but in general, the entire conversation has been largely one-sided as it relates to facts.  All Benedict has in his arsenal are old Limbaugh and Coulterisms, like “liberals showing up when the work is done,” and “The only difference between Obama and Osama is the ‘bs’,” and “I’m no more racist that Osama (again, meaning Obama.)” 

He didn’t deny, nor defend his racism, other than to recite a list of other African-Americans who he claims are racist, so I had to ask, “So you excuse your racism because of what you claim to be someone else’s?   Whatever happened to the conservative ideal of personal responsibility?  Or, are you a hypocrite too?  One who only applies the conservative ideals that he isn’t too lazy, mentally and physically, to deal with?”

As you might expect, he came back with, “Again other than the word Africa what did I say was racist? Nothing that is what you liberals do is throw the race card. Is Rev. Wright racist? Is Michele OSAMA racist for her speech talking whitey this and whitey that? Let me guess freedom of speech. What about OSAMA’s ties with Rezco? If that was a Republican Lord help us.”

I literally LOL’d on that one.  I about hit the floor I was laughing so hard.  After I explained to him how disrespectfully calling Obama, Osama was racist and how Michelle never said those things that Fox News falsely propagated and later recanted, and how Obama was cleared of any wrong-doing with Rezco, my laughter stopped.  It stopped because at that moment I realized just how clueless Benedict and his fellow “patriots” are.  And then, when I thought of all of the other people who willingly, and many times unknowingly believe these lies, it made me sad for my country.

Then it dawned on me, as he proceeded to send me all of the crazy viral emails that were proven false months and years ago that form the basis of his neurotic political beliefs, like the South Dakota FEMA email, and the Obama not saying the pledge email, etc., that Benedict is not a conservative.  Wick Allison is a conservative, George Will is a conservative.  My grandfather was a conservative.  This man is not a conservative.  He is a modern day American traitor. 

In his deranged, hateful world, he denies everything and anything that has made America great. Such “liberal” documents as the Constitution, and the words carved in to the Statue of Liberty don’t escape his scorn and cynicism.  They apparently are just out-dated ideas that only hold meaning for ”liberals.”  How do I know this?  I presented the Constitution and the Statue of Liberty to Benedict as evidence of how it was the ingenuity of American capitalism, restrained with common sense social maturity, and the immensely successful liberal ideas of our forefathers that has made America so strong, and this is what he had to say about it:

“That was great years ago. You liberals screwed it up. Press 1 if you want that in English and 2 if you want it in Spanish. Get the picture moron.”

Yes Benedict.  I get the picture.  I just threw up in my mouth a little bit, but I get the picture.

In typical Hogwash fashion.  McCain fails to mention when talking about his health care plan that it will also result in 1.3 Trillion in cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.

McCain Plans Federal Health Cuts - WSJ.com
John McCain would pay for his health plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, a top aide said, in a move that independent analysts estimate could result in cuts of $1.3 trillion over 10 years to the government programs.
[Barack Obama campaigns in Virginia] Associated Press

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama speaks at a rally at Victory Landing Park in Newport News, Va.

The Republican presidential nominee has said little about the proposed cuts, but they are needed to keep his health-care plan “budget neutral,” as he has promised. The McCain campaign hasn’t given a specific figure for the cuts, but didn’t dispute the analysts’ estimate.

Sarah Palin may have covered the spread last night, but it was only because the odds makers were not sure exactly how low to set the bar. For a comparison, imagine the coverage today if Al Gore, in 2000, would have acted like Sarah Palin did on Oct. 2nd, winking at America, spouting ill-timed slams on Biden like “say it ain’t so Joe,” and worst of all, essentially admitting that she was not going to answer the moderator’s questions.

Sarah Palin was typical last night, the real “Average Joe” of the evening, if you will. I understand that some people like that. I understand how some people think that having a typical, plain Palin in the White House is totally rad, dude. I understand how some people think that a lack of intellectual curiosity in the White House is a good thing. But dagnabbit people, this is America, and America is the most powerful nation in the world.

Being the most powerful human being in the free world is an incredible responsibility, and requires the attention of an incredibly qualified person. Running this amazing country is only simple in the acknowledgment of its complication; and gosh darnit, if I had my druthers, Americans would realize that.

Excuse me for a moment while I look “backwards” and ask my fellow Wasillian Main-Streeters what they think of typical leaders. What do you think was typical and “just like me” about George Washington? What do you think was typical and “just like me” about Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, or James Madison? (Yes, I know Franklin was not a president, but America as we know it would not exist without him nonetheless.) What do you think was typical and “just like me” about John Adams? What do you think was typical and “just like me” about Abraham Lincoln, or Teddy Roosevelt, or FDR, or John F. Kennedy? (While being the son of a poor frontiersman, Lincoln was well-read, philosophical and was a successful attorney.)

Now, for comparison, *wink* what do you think is typical and “just like me” about George W. Bush? Remember? People were passionate about W because they could sit down and drink a beer with him. He was just like them. He understood them. He could not field dress a moose, God bless his soul, but darnnit, he could choke on a pretzel with the best of them. I mean, because he is just like, “us” he led this country into arguably the worse eight years of this country’s previously great existence. What is more “backwards” and regressive than that?

To all that voted for Bush, not once, but twice, for Christ’s sake, are you not embarrassed about that people? Are you not willing to at least take some of the responsibility for the current situation we find ourselves in as a country? Yes, there has been a failure in leadership, but that is only because there has been a major washout in followership. Democracies and republics fail for one overriding reason.  It is the failure of society to pay attention; to educate themselves on the complexities of the governance; their utter refusal to look in the mirror and take some responsibility for the failures of those whom they pick to lead.

Now, here we sit, on three hundred million straw pedestals, ready to pick the next great (or not so great) leader of the free world, and you are telling me that the major criteria of which almost half of this country is using to pick their next President is, “Well, she understands me, she gets me, she shares in my problems. She doesn’t know her ‘you know what’ from a hole in the wall, but she can recite prepared euphemisms and doublespeak with the best of them.” Are we really going to use the same criteria to pick the next president that we used to pick the last one? Are we really a country of gluttonous fools who want to continue relishing in the repercussions of the incredible weakness of our collective decisions?

I feel compelled to remind everyone that this is what we have psychiatrists and best friends for, not presidents and vice-presidents.

Am I aggravated? Yur darn toot’n I am aggravated. I don’t think this country can handle another four years of ignorant leadership. Even if you tattoo it with lipstick and call it change, it’s still W and Dick.