Noted Republican Blasts Party

[_Roger Morrison]

Coggins, in particular, might find this article interesting???

July 23, 2008

The Greatest Threat America Has Ever Faced: the GOP?
The Mother of All Messes

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Republicans are sending around the Internet a photo of a cute little boy whose T-shirt reads: “The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess Democrats will make of this country if they win Nov. 2nd.”

One can only wonder at the insouciance of this message. Are Republicans unaware of the amazing mess the Bush regime has made?

It is impossible to imagine a bigger mess. Republicans have us at war in two countries as a result of Republican lies and deceptions, and we might be in two more wars--Iran and Pakistan--by November. We have alienated the entire Muslim world and most of the rest.

The dollar has lost 60% of its value against the euro, and the once mighty dollar is losing its reserve currency role.

The Republicans’ policies have driven up the price of both oil and gold by 400%.

Inflation is in double digits. Employment is falling.

The Republican economy in the 21st century has been unable to create net new jobs for Americans except for low wage domestic services such as waitresses, bartenders, retail clerks and hospital orderlies.

Republican deregulation brought about fraud in mortgage lending and dangerous financial instruments which have collapsed the housing market, leaving a million or more homeowners facing foreclosure. The financial system is in disarray and might collapse from insolvency.

The trade and budget deficits have exploded. The US trade deficit is larger than the combined trade deficits of every deficit country in the world.

The US can no longer finance its wars or its own government and relies on foreign loans to function day to day. To pay for its consumption, the US sells its existing assets--companies, real estate, toll roads, whatever it can offer--to foreigners.

Republicans have run roughshod over the US Constitution, Congress, the courts and civil liberties. Republicans have made it perfectly clear that they believe that our civil liberties make us unsafe--precisely the opposite view of our Founding Fathers. Yet, Republicans regard themselves as the Patriotic Party.

The Republicans have violated the Nuremberg prohibitions against war crimes, and they have violated the Geneva Conventions against torture and abuse of prisoners. Republican disregard for human rights ranks with that of history’s great tyrants.

The Republicans have put in place the foundation for a police state.

I am confident that the Democrats, too, will make a mess. But can they beat this record?

We must get the Republicans totally out of power, or we will have no country left for the Democrats to mess up.

I say this as a person who has done as much for the Republican Party as anyone. I helped to devise and to get implemented an economic policy that cured stagflation and that brought Republicans back into political competition after Watergate. If I could have looked into a crystal ball and seen that under a free trade banner, Republicans would enable corporate executives to pay themselves millions of dollars in “performance pay” for deserting their American work forces and hiring foreigners in their place, thus destroying the aspirations and careers of millions of Americans, I never would have helped the Republicans. If a crystal ball had revealed that a neoconned Republican Party would launch wars of naked aggression against countries that posed no threat to the United States, I would have shouted my warnings even earlier.

The neoconned Republican Party is the greatest threat America has ever faced. Let me tell you why.

How many Republicans can you name who respect and honor the Constitution? There are Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and who? The ranks of Republican constitutional supporters quickly grow thin.

The reason is that Republicans view the Constitution as a coddling device for criminals and terrorists. Republicans think the Constitution can be set aside for evil-doers and kept in place for everyone else. But without the Constitution we only have the government’s word as to who is an evil-doer.

This would be the word of the same infallible government that told us that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction that were on the verge of being used against America, the same infallible government that told us that Guantanamo prison held “770 of the most dangerous persons alive” and then, after stealing 5 years of their lives, quietly released 500 of them as mistaken identities.

Republicans think the United States is the salt of the earth and that American hegemony over the rest of the world is not only justified by our great virtue but necessary to our safety. People this full of hubris are incapable of judgment. People incapable of judgment should never be given power.

Republicans have no sympathy for anyone but their own kind. How many Republicans do you know who care a hoot about the plight of the poor, the jobless, the medically uninsured? The government programs that Republicans are always adamant to cut are the ones that help people who need help.

I have yet to hear any of my Republican friends express any concern whatsoever for the 1.2 million Iraqis who have died, and the 4 million who have been displaced, as a result of Bush’s gratuitous invasion. Many tell me that the five- and six-year long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are due to wimpy Americans “who don’t have the balls it takes” to win. Killing and displacing a quarter of the Iraqi population is just a wimpy result of a population that lacks testosterone. Real Americans would have killed them all by now.

Macho patriotic Republicans are perfectly content for US foreign policy to be controlled by Israel. Republican evangelical “christian” churches teach their congregations that America’s purpose in the world is to serve Israel. And these are the flag-wavers.

Those of us who think America is the Constitution, and that loyalty means loyalty to the Constitution, not to office holders or to a political party or to a foreign country, are regarded by Republicans as “anti-American.”

Neoconservatives, such as Billy Kristol, insist that loyalty to the country means loyalty to the government. Thus, criticizing the government for launching wars of aggression and for violating constitutionally protected civil liberties is, according to neoconservatives, a disloyal act.

In the neoconservative view, there is no place for the voices of citizens: the government makes the decisions, and loyal citizens support the government’s decisions.

In the neocon political system there is no liberty, no democracy, no debate. Dissenters are traitors.

The neoconservative magazine, Commentary, wants the New York Times indicted for telling Americans that the Bush regime was caught violating US law, specifically the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, by spying on Americans without obtaining warrants as required by law. Note that neoconservatives think it is a criminal act for a newspaper to tell its readers that their government is spying on them illegally.

Judging by their behavior, a number of Democrats go along with the neocon view. Thus, the Democrats don’t offer a greatly different profile. They went along with the views that corporate profits and the war on terror take precedence over everything else. They have not used the congressional power that the electorate gave them in the 2006 elections.

However, Democrats, or at least some of them, do care about the Constitution. If it were not for Democratic appointees to the federal courts and the ACLU (essentially a Democratic organization), the Bush regime would have completely destroyed our civil liberties.

Some Democrats are “bleeding hearts,” who actually care about suffering people they don’t know, and who think that we have obligations to others. Have you ever heard of a bleeding heart Republican?

Traditionally, Democrats objected whenever policies resulted in a handful of rich people capturing all of the income gains from the economy. There might still be a few such Democrats left.

Looking at the Republican mess, I doubt that Democrats, try as they may, can equal it.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

Comments? Roger

[_Gazelam]

I personally can't stand the thought of either party returning to power.

I really really wish a strong third party candidate would rise up in the next couple of months and steal everything away.

I voted for Bush both times, and it sickens me. He has got to be the worst President we have ever had.

[_bcspace]

The Republlicans have become liberal Euro-pleasers. However, they remain the best bet to stem the hateful enslaving socialist tide of political liberalism.

He has got to be the worst President we have ever had.

He got the war right but not the initial troop strength necessary. He got the Supreme Court Justices right. He's been terrible on everything else. However, considering the importance of the first two, he's been better than any Democrat president over the last century, real or imagined.

[_Boaz & Lidia]

I personally can't stand the thought of either party returning to power.

I really really wish a strong third party candidate would rise up in the next couple of months and steal everything away.

I voted for Bush both times, and it sickens me. He has got to be the worst President we have ever had.

With those feelings, are you glad Mitt was forced out, given he is a Republican?

[_Roger Morrison]

I personally can't stand the thought of either party returning to power.

I really really wish a strong third party candidate would rise up in the next couple of months and steal everything away.

I voted for Bush both times, and it sickens me. He has got to be the worst President we have ever had.

Gaz, I can't help but respect your honesty. You're on the way to a higher level of consciousness. Congrats Bro! ;-)
However, wanting/wishing/hoping/praying for a leader to "rise up...and steal everything away," I respectfully suggest is to abdicate personal responsibility to be realistically informed and to act accordingly.

But Bush has served the purpose of waking folks to the fact that "Leader" ego and dysfunction must be seen as a most significant motivator of that, or any, leader's response to the challenges of leadership, whether in their home or of the nation.

Time will prove Obama, as it has GWB, but as I look, watch and listen, he holds out more hope for the recuperation of America than does anyone else, at the moment. Warm regards, Roger

[_Gazelam]

Porter,

With those feelings, are you glad Mitt was forced out, given he is a Republican?

Mitt kind of let me down in that he wasn't very clear in his campaigning. He never really got his message out. "I'm for change" really doesent tell me anything. I thought he was at his best in his "Meet the Press" interview. He spoke about how he would go about changing things and what his real plans were, and he sounded good doing it. But I would have to say that that was the only time I ever really saw that.

[_Gazelam]

Roger,

However, wanting/wishing/hoping/praying for a leader to "rise up...and steal everything away," I respectfully suggest is to abdicate personal responsibility to be realistically informed and to act accordingly.

There was a recent article in Time magazine where they went around to various members of the Libertarian party and interviewed them. There are alot of former republicans in that bunch who feel their party has left them and like they are having their freedoms and land sold out from under them. The problem is that the party has no center and no unified goal.

When they do I think we will see the GOP sink like a rock. They had 8 years to do whatever they wanted and achieve whatever goal they aspired to. Instead they sold us out to the highest bidder, namely the Kingdom of Dubai and the Chinese.

[_Brackite]

I personally can't stand the thought of either party returning to power.

I really really wish a strong third party candidate would rise up in the next couple of months and steal everything away.

I voted for Bush both times, and it sickens me. He has got to be the worst President we have ever had.

Hello Gazelam,

I don't know about Mr. George W. Bush being the worst President in history. However, Mr. George W. Bush is most certainty the worst Republican President in the history of this Country. George W. Bush has been a very awful and a horrible President for our Country. I definitely do like Senator John McCain a whole lot better than George W. Bush, and I am definitely Planning on Voting for John McCain this General Election.

[_ajax18]

The Republlicans have become liberal Euro-pleasers. However, they remain the best bet to stem the hateful enslaving socialist tide of political liberalism.

He has got to be the worst President we have ever had.

He got the war right but not the initial troop strength necessary. He got the Supreme Court Justices right. He's been terrible on everything else. However, considering the importance of the first two, he's been better than any Democrat president over the last century, real or imagined.

As a working, white, middle class man, George Bush is hands down better than any Democrat. I was disgruntled with his unwillingness to secure the border. I also think that when you go to war, you have to be as brutal as necessary. It's not a time to hold back, especially when your own men are being killed by terrorists, in other words, soldiers claiming civilian status to avoid anihilation. I would rather we had just taken the oil, instead of putting on this charade of setting up democracy when it's just not possible. It's not like the rest of the world can treat us any worse. Yes Bob Dole would have been a better example of true Republicanism, but it takes money to win an election, so you have to accept some elitism if you don't want to be enslaved to Hillary.

We need a nation where true Republicans can retreat to and practice true Republican principles and shut out the rest of the world. I hope that when Obama gets elected, reverse racism. bending over to Islam, and the futility of hard work and sacrrifice created by high taxation on the middle class will become painful and apparent enough, that more Repbulicans will see that secession is in order. Unless we create that nation, we'll always be forced to be enslaved to a thankless and hateful ever growing mulititude of different minorities and factions, coming up with a limitless number of ways to say and enforce, "You owe me."