Saturday, June 17, 2006
Why Not Cut and Run?
“When you call me a ‘liberal,’ you son-of-a-bitch, smile.” That’s about how I feel. The liberals want most things to continue on their well-trod paths. Let’s not explore new ground, please, oh please, don’t make any waves... They’re as involved in the current mess as the conservatives; and, I think most of them hope to maintain their profit margins—certainly the ones in Congress, anyhow.
The Republicans have, for as long as I can remember, tried to corner the market on macho. When you look at most of them—bozos like Hastert, bewigged crooks like Tom Delay, dough-balls like Rove—”macho” is just about the last word anyone would ever use to describe them. “Stupid,” “arrogant,” “greedy,” “liars,” all those words fit fine. But “macho”?
I guess that’s why they try harder. Or they try to act like it’s harder. The majority of them, like, yeah, the majority of Democrats when you come right down to it, are simply old overweight farts with all the integrity of used-car salesmen or three-card-monte dealers.
So the Republicans are good at projecting liberals as being weenies. Always have been. Always will be. Both the Republicans at name-calling and the Democrats at behaving like weenies.
this is from Pizzo’s News For Real blog, for today. It’s good! —However, I think that asking for a careful retreat from Iraq, in order not to make things worse, is about like it would have been in 1939 to ask Hitler to pull out of Poland. Nobody would have said, oh, you have to fix the problem you created before you leave. No: the idea is to get the hell out of there, NOW, make many apologies and offer as much non-military aid as they want. And prosecute the lying SOBs that got us in there in the first place! Lesson Number One: when you find you've dug yourself into a hole, stop digging. Now.
Cut & Run Liberals
I want to be perfectly clear about this. We liberals really do want to cut and run.
I admit it. We are cut and run liberials, just as Karl Rove alleges. More than that, I am proud of it and encourage more Americans to join us.
We are liberal/progressives and, damn it, we want to cut and run:
We want to cut and run from the borrow and spend, borrow and spend economics of the GOP that have piled an additional $4 trillion in debt onto our children, grand children and great grand children.
We want to cut and run from the unholy alliance between the GOP and energy companies that have left us at the mercy of a bunch of medieval Islamic tribal leaders who run their own countries like feudal states and treat their people worse than Americans treat farm animals.
We want to cut and run from a national health care system designed by and for giant health care and pharmaceutical interests, that enriches a few while leaving 45 million tax paying Americans without affordable health insurance.
We want to cut and run from a government which, over the past six years, has become not only increasingly closed to public scrutiny and accountability, but overtly hostile and suspicious of citizens who insist on either.
We want to cut an run from a style of governance that not only plays on fear and petty prejudices, but cultivates and exploits them for cheap political gain. The cynical, dishonest purposeful pitting of majority populations against minority groups on the grounds that they don't share “American values,” and then later deny responsibility for the entirely predictable destructive consequences of those tactics.
We want to cut and run from policies that view science and scientists as adversaries whose findings must sometimes be suppressed, while embracing, even endorsing, religious dogmas that have no basis in fact whatsoever.
We want to cut and run from GOP economic polices that have handed the already wealthy a couple of trillion dollars in tax cuts while leaving working Americans payroll tax virtually untouched.
We want to cut and run from GOP economics that argue – with a straight face – that the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour should not be raised to a still unlivable $7.00 an hour because doing so would “hurt low wage workers.”
We want to cut and run from policies that scoff at mandating substantially higher fuel millage standards, even as the fossil fuels run out and the effects of global warming become more apparent with each passing day.
We want to cut and run from policies that justify turning “the land of the free and home of the brave,” into place where none of us can any longer feel sure that the government isn't listening to our private phone calls, reading our emails or isn't keeping an eye on us from a pole-mounted camera on the corner.
We want to cut and run from an administration that wraps inconvenient truths in the opaque blanket of national security while justifying selective disclosure of classified information for purely political reasons -- such as the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, and the now discredited disclosures that Iraq had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger.
We want to cut and run from policies that allow religious extremists to determine what medical procedures or family planning medications women will be allowed access to.
We want to cut and run from policies that allow our government to decide which American citizens will be allowed to enter into legally recognized committed relationships, and which will be banned by law from doing so.
We want to cut and run from policies that encourage counseling and treatment for Americans suffering from alcohol addiction, but incarceration for those suffering drug addiction.
We want to cut and run from cynically selective policies that treat some dictators as friends of America and others as enemies requiring a deadly dose of regime change.
We want to cut and run from policies that are increasingly militarizing entirely domestic matters, such as internal terrorist threats, border control and domestic law enforcement, particularly the gathering of intelligence on political groups and movements.
We want to cut and run from policies that allow industries government is supposed to regulate for the public good, to write the very rules under which they will be regulated.
Do we want to cut and run from Iraq? Wish we could. But that fat is already in the fire. Liberals understand we can't cut and run. And whose fault is it that? Not ours, that's for sure. We would like to see US troops leave Iraq ASAP -- but not in a way that would make matters worse than our invasion already has.
In the meantime we are not about to let the very neocons that got us into that mess shift the blame onto liberials who oppose the war. You guys started it and that dead chicken is hung around your necks, not ours. So, Karl, stop the blame-shifting and wear it like man.
But Karl is right when he calls us "cut and run liberals." As you can see the list of things we do want to cut and run from is a long one.
We are cut and run liberals. And proud of it.
Have a nice weekend
The Republicans have, for as long as I can remember, tried to corner the market on macho. When you look at most of them—bozos like Hastert, bewigged crooks like Tom Delay, dough-balls like Rove—”macho” is just about the last word anyone would ever use to describe them. “Stupid,” “arrogant,” “greedy,” “liars,” all those words fit fine. But “macho”?
I guess that’s why they try harder. Or they try to act like it’s harder. The majority of them, like, yeah, the majority of Democrats when you come right down to it, are simply old overweight farts with all the integrity of used-car salesmen or three-card-monte dealers.
So the Republicans are good at projecting liberals as being weenies. Always have been. Always will be. Both the Republicans at name-calling and the Democrats at behaving like weenies.
this is from Pizzo’s News For Real blog, for today. It’s good! —However, I think that asking for a careful retreat from Iraq, in order not to make things worse, is about like it would have been in 1939 to ask Hitler to pull out of Poland. Nobody would have said, oh, you have to fix the problem you created before you leave. No: the idea is to get the hell out of there, NOW, make many apologies and offer as much non-military aid as they want. And prosecute the lying SOBs that got us in there in the first place! Lesson Number One: when you find you've dug yourself into a hole, stop digging. Now.
Cut & Run Liberals
I want to be perfectly clear about this. We liberals really do want to cut and run.
I admit it. We are cut and run liberials, just as Karl Rove alleges. More than that, I am proud of it and encourage more Americans to join us.
We are liberal/progressives and, damn it, we want to cut and run:
We want to cut and run from the borrow and spend, borrow and spend economics of the GOP that have piled an additional $4 trillion in debt onto our children, grand children and great grand children.
We want to cut and run from the unholy alliance between the GOP and energy companies that have left us at the mercy of a bunch of medieval Islamic tribal leaders who run their own countries like feudal states and treat their people worse than Americans treat farm animals.
We want to cut and run from a national health care system designed by and for giant health care and pharmaceutical interests, that enriches a few while leaving 45 million tax paying Americans without affordable health insurance.
We want to cut and run from a government which, over the past six years, has become not only increasingly closed to public scrutiny and accountability, but overtly hostile and suspicious of citizens who insist on either.
We want to cut an run from a style of governance that not only plays on fear and petty prejudices, but cultivates and exploits them for cheap political gain. The cynical, dishonest purposeful pitting of majority populations against minority groups on the grounds that they don't share “American values,” and then later deny responsibility for the entirely predictable destructive consequences of those tactics.
We want to cut and run from policies that view science and scientists as adversaries whose findings must sometimes be suppressed, while embracing, even endorsing, religious dogmas that have no basis in fact whatsoever.
We want to cut and run from GOP economic polices that have handed the already wealthy a couple of trillion dollars in tax cuts while leaving working Americans payroll tax virtually untouched.
We want to cut and run from GOP economics that argue – with a straight face – that the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour should not be raised to a still unlivable $7.00 an hour because doing so would “hurt low wage workers.”
We want to cut and run from policies that scoff at mandating substantially higher fuel millage standards, even as the fossil fuels run out and the effects of global warming become more apparent with each passing day.
We want to cut and run from policies that justify turning “the land of the free and home of the brave,” into place where none of us can any longer feel sure that the government isn't listening to our private phone calls, reading our emails or isn't keeping an eye on us from a pole-mounted camera on the corner.
We want to cut and run from an administration that wraps inconvenient truths in the opaque blanket of national security while justifying selective disclosure of classified information for purely political reasons -- such as the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, and the now discredited disclosures that Iraq had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger.
We want to cut and run from policies that allow religious extremists to determine what medical procedures or family planning medications women will be allowed access to.
We want to cut and run from policies that allow our government to decide which American citizens will be allowed to enter into legally recognized committed relationships, and which will be banned by law from doing so.
We want to cut and run from policies that encourage counseling and treatment for Americans suffering from alcohol addiction, but incarceration for those suffering drug addiction.
We want to cut and run from cynically selective policies that treat some dictators as friends of America and others as enemies requiring a deadly dose of regime change.
We want to cut and run from policies that are increasingly militarizing entirely domestic matters, such as internal terrorist threats, border control and domestic law enforcement, particularly the gathering of intelligence on political groups and movements.
We want to cut and run from policies that allow industries government is supposed to regulate for the public good, to write the very rules under which they will be regulated.
Do we want to cut and run from Iraq? Wish we could. But that fat is already in the fire. Liberals understand we can't cut and run. And whose fault is it that? Not ours, that's for sure. We would like to see US troops leave Iraq ASAP -- but not in a way that would make matters worse than our invasion already has.
In the meantime we are not about to let the very neocons that got us into that mess shift the blame onto liberials who oppose the war. You guys started it and that dead chicken is hung around your necks, not ours. So, Karl, stop the blame-shifting and wear it like man.
But Karl is right when he calls us "cut and run liberals." As you can see the list of things we do want to cut and run from is a long one.
We are cut and run liberals. And proud of it.
Have a nice weekend
