Saturday, September 10, 2011

Ruining the Nation for Corporate Greed and Religious Fervor

hat tip: Mom!

Majia here. Normally I do not attack political parties because I feel that the Democrats are as corrupt as the Republicans and that both parties have compromised our nation with their policies.

However, this essay is worth reading because it demonstrates conclusively how broken our political system is and the role played by the Republican party in producing this situation. The essay was written by a former Republican party member. S/he also takes appropriate pot shots at the Democrats as well.

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult
http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

[Excerpted] "Republican Party would use the debt limit vote, an otherwise routine legislative procedure that has been used 87 times since the end of World War II, in order to concoct an entirely artificial fiscal crisis. Then, they would use that fiscal crisis to get what they wanted, by literally holding the US and global economies as hostages....

It should have been evident to clear-eyed observers that the Republican Party is becoming less and less like a traditional political party in a representative democracy and becoming more like an apocalyptic cult, or one of the intensely ideological authoritarian parties of 20th century Europe. This trend has several implications, none of them pleasant...

When pressed, Republicans make up misleading statistics to "prove" that the America's fiscal burden is being borne by the rich and the rest of us are just freeloaders who don't appreciate that fact. "Half of Americans don't pay taxes" is a perennial meme. But what they leave out is that that statement refers to federal income taxes....

All of these half truths and outright lies have seeped into popular culture via the corporate-owned business press. Just listen to CNBC for a few hours and you will hear most of them in one form or another. More important politically, Republicans' myths about taxation have been internalized by millions of economically downscale "values voters," who may have been attracted to the GOP for other reasons (which I will explain later), but who now accept this misinformation as dogma.

....It is the apocalyptic frame of reference of fundamentalists, their belief in an imminent Armageddon, that psychologically conditions them to steer this country into conflict, not only on foreign fields (some evangelicals thought Saddam was the Antichrist and therefore a suitable target for cruise missiles), but also in the realm of domestic political controversy...

read the entire article at the link above

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