SLAVE SHIP USA?

I never understood why our supposedly loyal American Republicans want to destroy our middle class and turn the USA into another banana republic, like Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua used to be.

Why do they want to protect the income of the rich and super rich and turn the lower classes and middle classes into one giant slave class?

Apparently, they want the whole USA to be like plantations in the Old South, where we work for no wages and exist solely to serve our masters.

These Tea Party members and other right wingers give lip service to protecting the USA, and they chant "USA, USA" like morons every time we seem to win a skirmish in the so-called "War On Terror," which is not a war at all.

They want to increase the defense budget, no matter how much waste there is or how few real threats there are.

But the right wingers don't really care about the country. If they did, they would act to strengthen the lower classes and middle classes with strong unions and employee-owned businesses and policies that would help ordinary people get ahead.

Instead, they do everything they can to protect the private jets of the rich. I heard about one family where the teenage kids were always asking to borrow the family jet, like borrowing the car, driving Mom and Dad crazy. So the family was talking about buying a second jet, and hiring a second flight crew, pilot and co-pilot, so Mom and Dad could have some peace.

Boy, we need to protect that lifestyle, don't we? Chant along with me:
SAVE THE RICH, SCREW THE POOR!
SAVE THE RICH, SCREW THE POOR!

That is the mantra of the Tea Party and the GOP these days.

Paul Krugman has a good column in the NY Times this morning:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html?_r=1&hp

As Krugman says, the Republicans have taken the USA "a long way down the road to banana-republic status."

Krugman finishes his piece by writing, "...how can American democracy work if whichever party is most prepared to be ruthless, to threaten the nation’s economic security, gets to dictate policy? And the answer is, maybe it can’t."

The weird thing about the right-wing Republicans, who seem to be running the country now, is that they claim to have the USA's best interests at heart.

But their policies and their ideology don't show that.

Welcome to the plantation. We are all on it now. There are two main divisions, masters and slaves. And there are two kinds of slaves, field slaves and house slaves.

Which are you? Myself, I am a house slave. And not very proud of it.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

AI WEIWEI, REDS & TEA PARTY

I just finished reading an article in Newsweek -- which is getting better, by the way -- about the famed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, (which I guess is pronounced "Eye Way-way," rather than "I Wee-wee"): 
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/04/10/a-provocateur-finds-out-just-how-far-he-can-go.html

Here is a photo of Ai Weiwei, from the AP:

 Weiwei says his political actions are works of art. Reminds me of my old argument over whether serving a bowl of soup is a work of art. Well, I just made a work of "art" in the bathroom, if you get my drift. Getting my drift is another work of art, BTW. 

Anyway, my question is this: Which is worse, the brutal repression the Communists do in China or the ruthless capitalism the Tea Party wants to effect in the good old USA? 

Both are forms of social engineering, and I think they are both pretty bad.

It seems to me the Communists and the Tea Party are a lot alike. Both care more about their ideology than they do about people.

Both want to protect their own interests. In China, those are the Party leaders and apparatchiks. In the USA, the Tea Party wants to protect the rich.

Is either one good for their country? No.

Political activists in the USA divide themselves into two camps: those who care more about people, and those who care more about money. In this country, the USA, the former are liberals and the latter are conservatives. 

Pretty neat division, huh? That's so you can tell the good guys from the bad guys. Obviously, the good guys want to help people, more or less unselfishly, and the bad guys want to screw poor people out of their money and help the rich get richer.

In the USA, our right wingers think it's OK to screw the poor, but they don't want to screw the rich, who they think are more valuable, for some reason that I can't fathom.

In China, there are those who follow the party line and those who want to speak for themselves. The Communists think it's OK to screw anyone whom they can't control or who won't kow-tow to the party line.

Communism was supposed to help the poor, but it doesn't really do that. What it has done, in China and in the former Soviet Union, is create a social system that is just as bad as rampant capitalism. Those who rise to the top screw those on the bottom, in both systems.

So there are bad guys on both sides. Which kind of bad guy do you prefer? 

But I think both sides need reform. We need to do more to help the working poor rise up out of poverty. The Chinese need to level their playing field, too, I think.

In this country, the poor carry the capitalists on their backs, it seems to me. I wouldn't mind screwing the rich a little bit; that would help the poor a lot.

In China, the working people carry the apparatus of the state on their backs. Both systems are equally at fault, I think.

I prefer this country, of course, because we can speak our mind. Now if we could just get rid of those Tea Party jerks.

Weiwei's family was repressed, in 1958, because of his father, a poet. Today, Weiwei is similarly treated. 

Meanwhile, Weiwei is nowhere to be found. We don't know if he is in prison or what. Here is a recent update:
http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-24/detained-ai-weiwei-s-supporters-march-in-hong-kong-scmp-says.html

About China, there are two issues here:

1. Are Weiwei's political statements art? No, they are not.
2. Is the Chinese government in the right to suppress Weiwei and people like him? No, it is not.

So what should we do about all this? We should do whatever we can, short of going to war, to support Weiwei and his "art." It's about freedom of speech. We should always support that.

What should we do about the Tea Party people? Maybe if we ignore them long enough, they will go away. Or grow up.  

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

(Ai Weiwei links:)
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/heads-up-ai-weiwei-2274341.html

SARAH PALIN: QUEEN OF THE LOONS

When I first heard about Sarah Palin, I thought she sounded great: Moose hunter, outdoor woman, mayor of a small town, married, big family, lots of kids.

I'm an outdoor guy myself, I love kids, and I come from a family of hunters. My mother used to shoot rabbits out the car window, in the winter, for dinner. Those stews and fricassees were really good.

So I thought Sarah Palin would be my kinda gal.

But as I learned more about her, I realized over time that she represents the worst of America, not the best. She doesn't represent those good old-fashioned values that I grew up with. Not at all.

As I said here before, American society rewards wealth, fame, looks, ignorance, and stupidity. Sarah Palin personifies most of that. But are those good qualifications for high government office?

For those of you in the Tea Party, "personifies" means she represents those values. If you don't understand the word "values," please go look it up. I know these abstract ideas are hard for you.

Let's take this list step by step. Wealth and fame: Mrs. Palin -- former mayor, former governor (who quit the office), TV personality, former VP candidate on the national Republican ticket -- is getting richer by the day, and she is certainly famous.

But why do people admire that? Do they assume the rich and famous are smarter or better than we are? 

Sarah is beautiful, at least with all her makeup on. Have you seen her on that infomercial, "Sarah Palin's Alaska"? She looks pretty bad without lipstick and all that other goop on her face. Her face is like a blank canvas where the makeup artist does a really good job. I had a friend who voted for her "because she has good legs." 

Ignorance. Oh, man. "I can see Russia from my house." What newspapers did she read? "All of them." Who was her favorite founding father? "All of them."

I saw her Alaska TV show. She likes to talk about guns "because it wee-wees the liberals so much."

Gee, that's a good idea, Sarah. Let's make fun of people who care about their country, who care about logic and reason and truth.

Stupidity? I'm not sure about that. She seems to be a very clever politician. She knows how to rally the right-wing loons.

That Mama Grizzly bit seems to have hit home with them, although it was vapid and meaningless to me.

Mama Grizzlies don't really have to know anything. Don't confuse them with the facts. They just kinda feel when something isn't right. Then they move to kill it. Or fix it. Or something.

That "death panel" hokum was a home-run to the right wing. The real death panels were rich insurance companies who were rationing health care before Obamacare came along. Of course, Sarah hates the new healthcare legislation. It might actually save some lives.

There is a new book coming out, from an ex-staffer, Frank Bailey, that says Sarah has a dark side, "including the compulsion to attack enemies, deny truth, play victim and employ outright deception," according to the NY Daily News.

Does that sound like the Sarah Palin you know and love?

Does Sarah Palin embody the best of American values? Integrity, honesty, intelligence, knowledge? Does she examine the facts before she speaks? Does she respect truth, justice and the American way?

I can hear the Tea Party people in my head now. Huh? Sarah Palin? Hell, we love her. She's just like us. Or like we want to be: rich, famous, and ignorant.

Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle