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No, not that Joe.

Last night, I was in an online discussion at Crooks and Liars, and joedugan posted the following. I was so blown away by it, I asked if I could repost it. He graciously allowed me to do so.

Yes “Hope and Change” is a little bit of a trite act, but it sure beats what the Republicans have to offer. Honestly, what is the use of conservatives? Do you people really have anything, anything at all to offer this country? You can talk trash – endless trash – about the people who are actually competent enough to run a government, but are you competent to do anything else? Can’t catch Bin Laden to save your lives. In fact you’ve let him hide out for seven years in Pakistan, a country you refer to as our ally. Uh, if your enemy who has killed thousands of your people has found safe haven in a country, well… ‘ally’ is not the word Webster’s would probably recommend. You people can’t balance a budget – not even remotely. Reagan gave us $100 billion dollar deficits, then $200 billion dollar deficits: now with Dubya it’s $300, $400, $500 billion dollar deficits. Don’t understand simply words like ‘ally’ and can’t do remedial math: watching you people run the country is like watching a real dumb guy stumbling through an appearance on ‘Are You Smarter than A Fifth Grader?’



Supply side economics is not some new genius idea, instead its an old idea that past Presidents had too much decency to implement. For all the talk of tax cuts stimulating the economy, supply side economics basically consists of the idiotic idea of financing the current economy with huge debts to be repaid by our children: it’s economic child abuse disguised as fiscal policy. You don’t believe in regulating markets. A policy that led to the Savings and Loans Crisis, Enron, the current mortgage crisis and a little thing called the Great Depression. You deny the existence of global warming. Every scientist in the world says it’s true and you bring up the fact that the Earth’s climate has always naturally fluctuated. Well DUH! You think the pointy heads with PhD.s don’t know that? Aren’t accounting for that? I was taught that in Climatology 302 – 20 years ago. At the same time I was taught about global warming – It was the accepted scientific theory back THEN! Don’t even start with the ‘global cooling’ crap: one science magazine did a ‘global cooling’ cover in the 1970s and you guys haven’t shut up about in since. What wars have conservatives won? Liberal Wilson won WW1 and a guy 10 times more liberal than Obama, FDR, won WW2. Liberals started Korea and Vietnam and moderate Republicans ended them with a draw and a loss. Ronnie did win in Grenada – Big Woo!! George H.W. Bush was no conservative. The Cold War took nearly 50 years and a lot of effort to win, so cut the crap about Reagan winning it single-handedly: subtract Gorbachev from the equation and the Gipper’s main claim to fame is giving Bin Laden and the Taliban their start – beyond his greatest achievement, of course: enabling the global spread of AIDS, due to his thoughtful, conservative approach of doing jack shit to stop it. WW2 is my favorite, though. Our country’s greatest test and greatest triumph, and where were all the conservatives? What part did they play? Well the ones who weren’t fascist sympathizers like Henry Ford and Lindbergh, were isolationists, who were doing everything they could to prevent the U.S. from stepping in to the greatest crisis of modern times and saving the free world. Of course Churchill was a conservative but he was British, you see. Plus he was a highly intelligent man and would doubtlessly consider the modern American conservative movement to be an unholy alliance of philistines and fools. Conservatives are great patriots. Bullshit!! You people pimp Old Glory like it was a teenage runaway you sweet-talked out of the Greyhound station. The only way this country has been made great is by the high standard to which millions of its citizens have held their country and themselves over hundreds of years. If anyone today tries to hold this country to a high standard, then conservatives bitch and moan about how liberals ‘blame America first.’ To conservatives, the high standards I speak off are a limbo bar, to be lowered year after year until we become a nation of liars, torturers and crooks: despised throughout the world. Morals. Do conservatives even have morals? As far as I can see they value only themselves and money. Oh wait, they care about the unborn babies. They care, care, care oh so much, much, much about those unborn babies – and then they became BORN babies and its FUCK ‘EM – I ain’t paying no taxes to educate that kid, or give him health care, or keep him out of jail, or help feed him good NUTRITIOUS food or make sure he grows up in a good home. Make sure that all the poor, poor, poor unborn babies are born so that they can grow up unwanted and living in shit. But wait I’m not saying that conservatives don’t care about the future generations: conservatives are always willing to spend the big bucks on prisons and executions to make up for the pocket change they saved by shorting on schools and social programs. It’s a matter of principle with them: Ayn Rand and the ownership society or some such crap that most of us saw through as unworkable Utopian horseshit back in sophomore year of high school. The poor babies stuff is mostly bullshit, though. If irresponsible, self-pitying angry white males could get knocked up, abortion wouldn’t be an issue in this country. Hell, it’d be free. If some older girl had talked her way into Rusty Limbaugh’s size XXL Fruit of the Looms back in High School, and left him, or George Will, or Dubya, or DeLay, or Alan Keyes, with a bun in the oven – those turkeys would be singing a different tune. Plus, of course, they’d finally have valid excuses for why they never served in Vietnam. Here’s a big lie: Conservative leadership has kept us safe since 9-11. The success of 9-11 was due almost entirely to the element of surprise. Al Qaeda no longer has that. The shoe bomber was stopped by ordinary, alert citizens, not by the FBI, CIA or NSA. Al Qaeda has a lot more trouble working in our country simply because our citizens are, comparatively to pre 9-11, hyper-vigilant. Besides, there was that devastating attack we suffered 3 years ago. Thousands dead [or missing]. A major American city destroyed. Who was in charge of keeping us safe from Katrina but the Department of Homeland Security? They had excellent intel. They knew, days in advance, how big the attack was, the nature of the attack, where it would occur, and when it would occur. Yet they still failed to evacuate 1000s of the poorest, most vulnerable citizens of New Orleans. If they failed so miserably with a hurricane – a type of storm that we have had hundreds of years to become accustomed to – it is almost inconceivable to think what a clusterfuck they would have made of a terrorist attack. I could go on, and on, and on. Your chosen political philosophy is whack like crack.

Joe goes on to say:

Republicans don’t suck – there are still a few good ones left – it’s just the conservatives that suck. They have spent years insisting that their philosophy is the correct one and that they deserve a chance to govern. Well they got that chance, and they failed COMPLETELY. TOTALITY. Filling the Hindenberg with hydrogen was a better thought out plan than most of what we’ve seen the last 8 years.

And don’t even get me started on the corruption: these people would make Tony Soprano blush. Sure Obama is unproven, but he has a proven V.P. candidate by his side and there is lots of talent available from the Clinton administration – a successful and competent administration. McCain is old and cancer-prone. His mother and aunt are still living, but his father and grandfather died young. There is a good chance you will really be voting to elect Palin, who is ridiculously unqualified. She may be smart, and she may be memorizing those Lincoln quotes as fast as she can, but she’s got a long way to go. Angry and erratic congress? Maybe you are thinking of 3 years ago when Tom DeLay was running things. Pelosi and Reid won’t even take on Bush – the worst president in history. 28% approval. The whole country would welcome impeachment. Every now and then John Conyers sends Karl Rove or someone a sternly written letter: that’s it. Angry and erratic? If you are scared of Pelosi and Reid – the multi-gazillionaire and the Mormon – those two crazed reds, well then remind me not to tell you about Caspar the Friendly Ghost – you’ll pee your pants. You’ve chosen to turn your back on a good man, somewhat unproven perhaps, but surrounded by competent proven public servants and a man representing a proven, if flawed, political philosophy. Instead you are choosing another man, doubtlessly good, but with health issues, with a wildly unqualified V.P., surrounded by Roveite scoundrels and willing to put the country at the mercy of the flotsam and jetsam of past failed administrations. This man you choose has proven in his campaign that he is ALREADY the puppet of the far-right and will continue to burden this country with policies that have repeatedly failed and have, indeed, resulted in the deaths of many of our fellow citizens. Deaths that should never, ever have occurred. It was a very easy choice to make. Sure liberalism has its flaws, but conservatism, as it exists now in this country, is failure, complete failure on the grandest of scales. Voting to have our country led by conservatives is indefensible.

I echo what Joe said, but I have one point of disagreement. I think the Republicans of today do suck. And it’s not true conservatism that is the worst, for I am all for fiscal responsibility. What truly sucks is the neo-Fascist, neo-conservatives of today who have usurped the Republican brand and turned it into a War Now, War There, War Always, borrow and spend to pay for perpetual war, terrorize our citizens, lie at every turn, fight every political battle to the death and take no prisoners; and be damned the American populace mentality which oozes from the mouth of every one of these neo-conservatives, including the likes of Joe Lieberman. They suck beyond words.

And joedugan, thank you for your words. I remain blown away.

Editor note: I made a couple very small changes to Joe’s words. As fucking pissed as he is – and I am – at these fucking Republicans, I didn’t want the people who are fucking reading this to freak out over the word fucking. I figure if you’ve gotten this far, you’re as fucking angry as we are.

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