"You have conquered, Moses.
The foot of the Dems is on the neck of the GOP."
Quite apart from matters doctrinal and faith-o-logical -- which are always two tons of fun to talk about, except with the Little Bus Christians who insist it must all be taken literally, vengefully and inerrantly -- I’ve always found there to be as much ruthless (pun intended) wisdom about the purely human nature of family, love and power politics in the Bible as in Shakespeare or Machiavelli.
Which is why, for reasons known only to holy neuroelectrician who odd-wired my synapses, this story … (h/t BradBlog)
Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr Ditches GOP for Libertarian Party
Friday, December 15, 2006
WASHINGTON — A former congressman who helped spark President Bill Clinton's impeachment has quit the Republican Party to become a member of the smaller Libertarian Party, saying he is disillusioned with the Republicans on issues such as spending and privacy.
Bob Barr, who served eight years as a Republican congressman before losing his seat in 2002, announced Friday that he is now a "proud, card-carrying Libertarian." And he encouraged others to join him.
"It's something that's been bothering me for quite some time, the direction in which the party has been going more and more toward big government and disregard toward privacy and civil liberties," said Barr, 58, a lawyer and consultant living in Atlanta. "In terms of where the country needs to be going to get back to our constitutional roots ... I've come to the conclusion that the only way to do that is to work with a party that practices what it preaches, and that is the Libertarian Party."
...
Immediately reminded me of this story…
Not perfectly, mind you. Not one-for-one. But there is something running eerily parallel between the stories of Exodus and Impeachment that I can’t get out of my head.
First let’s understand that the relentless, Puritanical seven-year persecution and eventual Impeachment of William Clinton – which was led, most notably, by Bob Barr -- set the table for everything that was to follow.
All that we are seeing now -- from the fall and rise of Al Gore, to the bloody Oedipal drama through which the Crawford Dauphin has dragged the world these last five year -- is the playing-out of all that was set in motion the moment the GOP decided to throw conscience and civility to the wind and try to bring down a duly elected (and then re-elected) President by whatever means necessary.
Decided to go for the brass ring, with Polonium 220-tipped knives out.
And in that toxic wasteland the Gingrich Congress and the Limbaugh Media left in its wake were planted the seeds of the so-called “Clinton fatigue” that made a Republican run at the White House in 2000 feasible. This in spite of the fact that the Clinton Presidency, by almost any modern metric, was pretty successful.
Future historians will no doubt wonder what in the Hell kind of moral embolism Uncle Sam had between 1995 and 2000? A period of sustained economic growth, rising wages and relative peace, and yet roiling with an anomalous and berserk partisan Republican hatred, wildly out of proportion to any actual conditions or threats to be found in the Real World.
Germans after WWI -- ruined by war, bloodied by riots, castrated by treaty and beggared by the implosion of their economy -- as they desperately rolled wheelbarrows-full of nearly-worthless currency to the bakery in the morning to buy bread before its midday value could fall any further, spoke in slightly less psychotically-enraged, aggrieved and Apocalyptic tones than the typical fat, white, privileged, dumbass, SUV-drivin’, Jebus-lovin’ Republican moron did in 1999 when the subject turned to Clinton and blowjobs.
And the press made sure it always turned to Clinton and blowjobs.
And so, in that lunatic Conservative ideological asylum where seemingly endless prosperity, peace and surpluses (Remember surpluses?) can co-existing with Hate Radio and a limitless, seething fury over...nothing...the idea was sown that, well, what the fuck?
What does it matter who’s President? So long as he talks humble, in simple, 10-word-answers, loudly professes his Mighty Love for Jebus, and isn’t an Evil Liberal.
As long as he’s not like that smartass Slick Willy. Or -- God forbid! -- boring, like Al Gore.
The word “competent” never crossed the collective lips of the GOP base, because among the Great Limbaugh/Christopath Wad, the Worst Possible Thing in the Universe a President could possibly be is Smart.
Smart isn’t on the menu, because smart = “elite” and as every obedient Conservative knows, “Elite, Bad!”
And so, in the person of George Bush, the GOP found the ultimate “Fuck You, Liberals!” candidate.
The anti-Clinton: a weak, cowardly, vicious, dim-witted fop; a failure at everything except frat-rattin’, back-slappin’, ratfuck politics, knocking down shots, and riding his Daddy’s name out of whatever dynamited-shithouse mess he had just caused and into his next cush job.
Now baste constantly with a couple of hundred gallons of industrial strength Blood-O-The-Lamb, season liberally with the Wingnut Top 100 Bible verses, set the Bush “Dynast-o-Matic” Electoral Machine on 'Sleaze' for 14 months, and serve on a bed of fake piety and hard money.
I have said for six years that the greatest gift the modern GOP ever gave to the Democratic Party is the impeachment of Bill Clinton, if they just had the sense to use it coolly and wisely.
Like vast, hastily-abandoned ammo dumps, rhe GOP left behind the million words of insanely overheated rhetoric they chose to puke into every microphone they could grab. The preposterously high standards they set for any and all future Presidents. And the outrageously over-the-top, bunker-busting precedents they set for dealing with any President for even the most trivial or imaginary of infractions.
Precedents which they now hysterically insist not be invoked now that they are in the gun-sights and the stakes aren’t jizz-stains on a blue dress, but the lives and deaths of men and nations.
The impeachment was such a singular event -- such a massive and nakedly authoritarian attempt to figleaf a coup in the language of manufactured righteousness –- that it has, IMHO, become the amniotic fluid in which all other politics now grows.
The political GABA (Gamma-amino-butyric acid) which almost subconsciously modulates how and where our nation’s neurons fire.
And as the impeachment of Bill Clinton was to be the great, Liberal-crippling Second Act of the conquest of American by the Radical Right, so the Ascent of George II was to be its Third and climactic movement.
The moment when generations yet unborn would look back and say America became an Empire.
Led by a priesthood.
And ruled by a Pharaoh,
anointed by God, whose every whim was Law backstopped by a Fundamentalist judiciary and a bottomless stockpile of holy fire in the form of stealth bombers, daisy cutters and nukes.
Getting to this place has not been an accident. It has been the Long March of an alliance of theocrats, oligarchs and racists and has taken thirty years.
Just their hard luck they got Ramses II.
End Part 1 of 2.
3 comments:
"smart=elite=bad"
I have noticed that two distinct kinds of anti-intellectualism exist, based on various things I've read.
(1) The healthy kind, which is merely a suspicion of the pretensions in which intellectuals, like any other human beings, can indulge. This kind is particularly well applied to PNAC, neocon-type intellectuals.
(2) The dangerous kind, which is a fear and loathing of intellect itself. These anti-intellectuals feel somehow oppressed by people the AIs themselves think are smarter than they are. The wrong kind of religion contributes mightily to this, though I reckon you could find plenty of secular-minded people here as well; Reagan didn't win a landslide by appealing ONLY to Talibangelicals.
The intellect provides the principal means of survival for our species [though our sheer horniness has played a strong role, as well]. ;) A human resenting the intellect is like a bird resenting its wings. I guess the non-elite Royalist voter would be like a flightless bird; it has wings, but can't use them, or can't use them well.
"The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement!" [I know, wrong holiday]
From the swamps of Arkansas, Ivory Bill Woodpecker
One thing I never understood about the whole impeachment mess...if all their dreams had come true, the GOP would have elevated Gore to the presidency. Their 2000 nominee would have had to run against an incumbent Presiident, squeaky-clean Al Gore. People would have been used to the idea of a President Gore, since we would actually have one. There's no way George beats President Gore.
I asked a Republican friend of mine. about this back during the impeachment days. "What happens if this works?," I asked. "Bill Clinton is gone!" he replies. "And then?" I asked. "Why are you guys working so hard to make Al Gore president? You lose the ability to run against Bill Clinton's loose morals. You make Al Gore president. Say what you will about him, he's not loose. You lose Bill Clinton as a target for you, but you also remove him as a problem for Democrats. Democrats don't have to get all uncomfortable and defend him, or wrestle with whether or not to denounce him. You guys got a lot of mileage out of running against the Party of Clinton. Are you sure you want to blow that? And have to run against an incumbent president?"
And he looked sort of uncomfortable. It was clear that he had never really thought about the idea of President Gore. The he sort of regained his composure, and said, as God is my witness,
"BECAUSE WHEN THE PRESIDENT LIES TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, HE MUST BE IMPEACHED. WE CAN'T HAVE A PRESIDENT WE CAN'T TRUST."
I often wonder if he still feels that way. If I had a time machine, I would travel back in time and make t-shirts with that on them, and sell them by the millions to rabid Clinton impeachers. And that way, there'd be millions of the shirts (slightly faded)in thrift stores today, for liberal hipsters to buy.
Germans after WWI -- ruined by war, bloodied by riots, castrated by treaty and beggared by the implosion of their economy -- as they desperately rolled wheelbarrows-full of nearly-worthless currency to the bakery in the morning to buy bread before its midday value could fall any further, spoke in slightly less psychotically-enraged, aggrieved and Apocalyptic tones than the typical fat, white, privileged, dumbass, SUV-drivin’, Jebus-lovin’ Republican moron did in 1999 when the subject turned to Clinton and blowjobs.
I call Godwin's law! Not that that's a bad thing. We should always be comparing the present against debacles of the past to avoid repeating them. (Or not.)
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