To summarize Part I, John F. Kennedy’s America had been “the best of times” where “we had everything before us”. George W. Bush’s america [sic] had been the “worst of times” where “we had nothing before us”. Both former presidents had been temporal bookends to recent U.S. History… and looking (left to right) at that library shelf… we can still see JFK’s bookend steadily standing… while GWB’s has toppled to the ground. (All above quotes providing A Tale Of Two Cities, Dickensian assist to my political assessment).
While in Part I, JFK took center stage… Part II will zero in on GWB… the biggest ZERO to have ever taken the presidential oath of office.
True, we can never say, with any degree of certainty, exactly how our present-day America and world would be faring had JFK been our President for eight years… BUT… the one thing we can be sure of… because bullets, not ballots had prematurely removed this great man from office, we wound up with a void of truly liberal leadership and a catastrophic, alternate timeline ensued… namely, the Republican reign of terror… to name names, these are Oafs Of The Oval Office we got stuck with:
“I am not a crook” Watergate crook Tricky Dicky Nixon, the unpardonable Gerald Ford (who had granted clemency to his X-boss, the “San Clemente Kid”), B-actor / union buster / economy gutter Ronald Reagan and the Hitler disciples, Daddy and Sonny Bush.
The Lapdog / Lip Synched W ~ By far, the most revolting of this thoroughly nasty cast of characters was, and still is, George W. Bush. Of course, there had been a de facto prez holed up in that oft referred to secret, “secure undisclosed location”… that being Dick Cheney, who got off on pulling puppet W’s strings and throwing his menacing voice to put unconstitutional, un-American words into the ventriloquist dummy W’s mouth. Indeed, the brain-dead W had become malleable nutty putty in the hands of his own manipulative, malevolent VP. That’s why I now combine them into one entity and dub it Dick/W.
Tuesday, September 11, 2001 ~ In short, because of Dick/W’s negligence, collusion or opportunism (or some permutation involving those elements) the 9/11 attacks went down / provided the perfect excuse for an Executive Branch power grab… of course, aided and abetted by the U.S. Constitution gutting, (mostly) GOP authored U.S. Patriot Act.
Our pointing the (middle) finger of blame at Dick/W is essential… as is our recognizing all of the crime scene fingerprints, which this evil entity left behind. Here’s the rundown of what this archconservative beast did to run down our nation… down into the ground…
PLEASE NOTE: While some of the charges I bring against this entity, strictly speaking, would not likely stick under the scrutiny of judge and/or jury, perhaps it is time that we do deem them crimes. It’s impossible to be eyewitnesses to the massive damages (incurred by We The People and Our Nation) and not think otherwise.
Furthermore, I’ve written about these offenses in the present tense… after all… while the Dick/W Executive Branch entity is long gone… all these crimes are ongoing… continue to be committed (on their behalf) by the Ugly Un-Americans… a.k.a. the members of the GOP dominated U.S. House, Senate and Supreme Court.
The Dick/W/Accessories (after the fact) Rap Sheet:
Crime #1: An UNfair and UNbalanced MSM ~ the FOX/FAUX News juggernaut incessantly bombards the AM /FM/TV airwaves with elitist, extremist, GOP propaganda … facilely brainwashing and subjugating the masses. Once these pseudo-journalists successfully warp a simple majority of the simpleminded, the sheeple can no longer wrap their minds around common sense thinking… and worse yet… vote accordingly. In the absence of critical thinking ANYTHING becomes possible.
Crime # 2: Big Brother Tactics ~ GPS tracking of cellphone signals pinpoints our exact latitude and longitude… ubiquitous, terrestrial security cams record and watch our every movement (as well as measure / log our facial geometry)… electronic surveillance records our mouse clicks and every syllable of our emails, texts and phone conversations.
Our computer webcams can’t be turned off and the same can be said for those spying electronic “eyeballs” surreptitiously embedded within new digital flat screen televisions. Unless you’re the exhibitionist/aspiring porn star type, you might want to rethink having that second TV in the boudoir. Even our checked out library books, which we innocently read in bed, have likely been deemed subversive… our library card activity getting unduly logged in our bulging NSA dossiers.
Crime #3: Legalized B & E Goon Squads ~ Sans any search warrants, GOP emboldened government agents still stage on a whim home invasions… whether we’re home or not. And here’s the real kicker… they’re not legally bound to even inform us that they’ve been illegally searching our drawers… where we stash our freshly laundered “drawers”.
Crime #4: The God/Government Mash-up ~ Odd that the godless, anything for a buck capitalists / the “get big government off our backs” screeching GOP would give a damn about religion… and use it to get on our backs… but… after all… throwing “god” in our faces is just one more (d)effective / unconstitutional tool to use against the masses.
True, blurring the separation of church and state is in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution / Bill of Rights. Equally true, Theocracy threatens each and every citizen’s religious freedom (inclusive of the freedom FROM religion).
Under those conditions, our two options could eventually take on the form of an ultimatum: EITHER show up for high mass each Sunday OR ELSE you’ll be stoned to death. Hmmm… kind of reminds one of the type of punishment meted out by intolerant Iranian Clerics, huh? Hmmm… now how could the GOP ever, possibly favor THAT when they claim to hate Iran with a passion? Or do they?
Crime # 5: Hatred of Women ~ Taking their cue (once more) from Iranian Clerics, misogyny routinely gets scrawled all over the GOP’s tainted with sexism legislation and SCOTUS rulings. These severely flawed laws (I have invented the contraction f’laws) all bleat out their beastly, sexist message loud and clear… “Keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant, DAMN IT!”
Under this male dominated, discriminatory system, women earn far less pay (for the same work skills, which men possess) and… as for woman losing their right to choose… well… that is one Iranian-minded, SCOTUS judge appointment away from becoming the new reality. In anticipation of that… no doubt… opportunistic right-wingers are scooping up shares of stock related to the manufacturing of wire coat hangers.
Crime #6: Ginned Up Xenophobia / Homophobia ~ The GOP does love to foment foaming at the mouth hatred among the rabid rabble. Added to the mix of seething rancor is the abundance of guns. Minorities, who successfully duck the flying bullets, can expect a prompt visit from the Republican Un-Welcome Wagon, its drivers under strict orders to boot out every minority group who clashes with the GOP’s mostly Wonder Bread™ complexions.
Hell, someday, they might even try to deport Lady Liberty / crate up the Statue of Liberty (perhaps because she’s French?) or, in lieu of that, douse her immigrant-welcoming torch with buckets of vile, archconservative bile.
Righties also embrace homophobia… after all… they do wish to project an image of inclusiveness.
Crime #7: Banana Republic Elections ~ True, the Citizens United / pro corporate citizenship ruling did occur post Dick/W but that’s because this entity had loaded up that supremely stupid bench with rightwing hacks. Emboldened Big Biz now, more than ever, bankrolls / props up figurehead puppet / ventriloquist dummy candidates.
Righties also suppress free elections by Gerrymandering districts, disenfranchising minorities, misdirecting voters to wrong polling places AND ensure unendurably long lines by limiting the number of voting booths, printing out confusing ballots and eliminating straight ticket voting.
Beyond that, there’s both low and high tech ballot box stuffing (e.g. conveniently misplacing liberal absentee ballots and by hacking into voting machine software). If all else “fails”? Well that’s where the U.S. Supreme Court’s crusty curmudgeon radical right, black robed bastards will thumb their collective nose at the voters.
Any of the above tactics will ensure the GOP candidate will be declared the winner… whether or not [s]he actually snagged sufficient votes to win.
Crime #8: Robin Hood in Reverse ~ The upward redistribution of the wealth is a.k.a. supply side… a.k.a. trickle down… a.k.a. voodoo economics. Time and time again, this proven economic policy flop has devastated and impoverished the middle class, driven the already down and out into abject squalor and tanked out national and global economies.
Adding to the average Jane and Joe woes is the GOP’s savage labor union busting and heartless perpetuation of a non-living, minimum wage.
Crime #9: The Hand Out of “Too Big To Fail” Security Blankets ~ The GOP deregulates Big Biz / financial institutions to allow them to recklessly engage in doomed to fail, bankrupt of ethics, corporate and Wall Street misconduct. Then, when these money junkie criminals wind up collapsing and crashing everything on a global scale, these crybabies come whining to Uncle Sam about their need to recoup their mega-billion buck losses. Such federal bailouts are a.k.a. shakedowns of the vastly less fortunate, average Jane and Joe taxpayers (those who can least afford to see their hard earned bucks wind up as welfare for the wealthy).
So… do these money junkies ever learn from their past mistakes? For your answer… well… just reread that above paragraph… over and over and over and over…
Crime #10: The Geocentric / Flat Earth Society ~ This is a.k.a. rightwing world’s flat out denial of nearly all time honored scientific principles… especially those which zero in on ozone depletion and climate change / global warming. To be sure, here, nearly everyone who shuns science is also clueless re the basic concept of cause and effect… cannot possibly understand that:
a. Ozone depletion causes excessive, harmful UV rays to strike the Earth, which causes cataracts and cancerous skin lesions.
b. Industrial thermal pollution spawns freakishly ferocious, killer wind, rain, snow and ice storms, which causes loss of life, limb, real estate and personal possessions.
c. Fossil fuels are linked to the buildup of excessive amounts of both atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Methane (the latter gas 84 times more damaging to our environment than CO2). In The End there will be a runaway greenhouse effect… one, which will melt our polar icecaps. And since all of that water will have to go somewhere… it will. It’ll inundate our coastlines / flood out our major metropolises… limiting our options to sink or swim.
d. Factory smokestacks belching out particulate pollution is making every breath we take hazardous to our health… sickening and snuffing out humanity all over the globe.
e. Industrial effluent (e.g. the lead found in Flint, MI’s tap water) is spilling forth into our lakes, rivers, streams and promptly filtering into underground water tables… poisoning all who consume this cocktail of nasty, body and brain damaging chemicals / proven carcinogens.
f. Industrial pollution, eventually, works its way into our food chain, severely sickening and guaranteeing early deaths for all creatures, great and small.
Crime #11: Renewable Energy… on the Fossil Fuel Fueled Backburner ~ Most righties are shortsighted… oh… what the hell… let’s just call ‘em stupid… for they fail to see how innovative, alternative green technologies would not only produce a smaller carbon footprint upon Earth’s fragile biosphere but also reduce (and eventually end) U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Their energy policy:
a. Encourages waste by discouraging the construction of green homes / offices, appliances and vehicles.
b. Domestically, fracks up everything… those fracked up regions now stricken by massive earthquakes.
c. Internationally, requires ceaseless meddling into the internal affairs of OPEC nations… just to ensure our oil “junkie” nation can continue to get its “fix”.
Crime #12: Violation of OPEC Nations ~ These Righties encourage encroachment within the Middle East… which fuels resentment and outrage… which fuels deadly terrorist acts… which fuels U.S. retaliatory strikes… which fuels endless no-win, blood for oil wars… which, in the end, only serves to endlessly recycle this vicious cycle. Around and around and around it goes… and when it won’t stop… the whole world blows?
a. Sans any trial, chickenhawk righties mete out sentences to indefinitely imprison POWs… file them away at Gitmo (Alphabetically? By height/weight? By nationality? By the Dewy Decimal System? Who the hell knows?). Then the sadistic “fun” really begins… the incarcerated are subjected to waterboarding and other forms of torture… uh… excuse me… I should’ve used that full of BS euphemism: “enhanced interrogation techniques”.
b. Chickenhawks also see nothing wrong in NEEDLESSLY putting our own courageous military personnel in harms way… maiming / mangling their bodies… messing up their minds with PTSD… sending them to early graves.
c. Once Middle East terrorist recruiters point the finger of blame westward… castigate the U.S. for its avarice fueled foreign policy… needless to say… al Qaeda / ISIS “management” can easily motivate / enrage prospective “labor”… talk them into signing up / showing up for duty… even if that duty is to blow themselves up or kamikaze jets into high-rise architecture.
Crime #13: Sucking Up to the NRA ~ Righties love this organization “loaded” with reptilian brained, knuckle-headed knuckle-draggers. The NRA has mutated our society into a road raging, Wild West, bullets flying warzone where even innocent elementary school children get blown away.
End of Rap Sheet? I must concede that, with the overabundance of Righty wrongs I may’ve overlooked a few. Since I firmly believe that we learn more while listening than while talking… I’d love to “hear out” whatever additions you may have to my list of 13. The comment box below awaits your input.
President Barack Obama’s Herculean Task ~ In Greek Mythology, the fifth task (out of twelve), which Hercules had to confront was cleaning up the Augean stables. This is an apt comparison to Obama’s cleanup of eight year’s worth of Dick/W’s eight-miles high figurative dung heap.
Our sitting POTUS, through no fault of his own, has yet to do so. That’s because (figuratively speaking) infantile Righties in the U.S. House and Senate / on the Supreme Court bench do give me (hopefully… you, too) the distinct impression that they’ve all soiled their Depends undergarments… that they DO fully enjoy sitting in the squishy warmth of their own doo-doo.
The BM / Expressionist Movement ~ Right leaning “legislators” also branch out into expressionism… i.e., resort to fecal painting all over their newly written f’laws… and like-minded SCOTUS judges do the same while interpreting them. Worse yet, they’ve been totally defying any grown up Leftie… flat out denying any grown up Democrat… even the slightest opportunity to change those loaded diapers.
Looking at this in another sense, DC gridlock is akin to a wonder drug resistant STD. I’ll just invent a new acronym… let’s refer to it as a PTD (Politically Transmitted Disease). And whether or not it’ll ever be curable depends on the American electorate.
On Election Day 2016 and every first Tuesday in November to follow (for as long as it takes) we must show the exit door to each and every sicko Republican who politically sickens our society and world. And to be fair here… we must also do the same re any Democrat who, in reality, is a DINO.
To Review and Reemphasize… Dick/W Never Really Went Away ~ I’d be willing to cut the GOP some slack if this were simply a matter of empty-headed men wearing empty suits AND/OR this involved the oblivious to reality hero worship of Reagan AND/OR was merely a case of unruly, terrible twos being trapped in adults’ bodies… after all… stupidity, fashion faux pas, superficiality, idolatry and immaturity are not actionable crimes… BUT…
There’s something far more disturbing to this gridlock than radical Republicans being Dumber-than-Dumbo white elephants in need of a circus trainer, stick-figure figureheads in need of a finishing school / fashion makeover, wildly partisan cultists in need of a deprogrammer’s intervention or arrested development victims in need of a sternly intoned “go stand in the corner” time-out. A citizen’s arrest would be more to the point. Why?
It’s the serious, perhaps irreparable damage, which Republican extremists have already inflicted (and are still inflicting) upon our nation / world. They HAVE degraded / downgraded the U.S./us into “lowercase america” and, owing to these extremists’ uncompromising ‘tude, our nation’s dismal, depressing, gray tableau isn’t likely to get repainted in any permanent, cheerful hues anytime soon. Hell, we’ll likely remain in that dismal state for countless generations to come.
As for all, which Obama has managed to accomplish… i.e., whatever bright hues he has managed to paint upon the American landscape, for the most part, this has been brushed on with (executive order) watercolors… watercolors, which any cold, rightwing torrential rains could easily wash into our nation’s catch basins / storm sewers shortly after some GOP POTUS elect takes his/her talons off the Inaugural Bible… soon after the orchestral echoes of “Hail To The Chief” fade off into the dead silence… the odd, odious coda being some impending, Republican Dark Ages redux.
Drinking Buddy Candidates Need Not Apply ~ And if too many voters lack common sense, a radical Republican chokehold over all three governmental branches could ensue. Never forget that the next POTUS likely gets to appoint several judges to the Supreme Court… lifelong term wielding judges, who could do radical Republican dirty work / damage, perhaps up to three + decades after… oh… say… a Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush would be term limited out of power.
If too many voters, ISO a new drinking buddy, fail to see these ominous, churning storm clouds looming on the political horizon, all that radical Republican Dark Ages type “fit” could hit the “shan” as soon as January 20, 2017. We could wind up with a crude, retrograde “civilization” where not one single, solitary sunray of hope could ever manage to penetrate, warm and brighten our once great land.
Folks… considering all the grotesque twists and turns during this 2016 presidential election year, our chances for reclaiming that capital “A” for lowercase america are not good.
Case in point #1 ~ I cite the GOP “size matters” debates where these male would-be rulers are practically dropping their drawers and hauling out actual rulers to prove how they’d measure up as the next POTUS. In this case, one would hope they’d not be so well endowed… at least then, they’d not be able to “big time” screw our nation / world.
Case in point #2 ~ This past Saturday afternoon, I received a phone call, (allegedly) from a Bernie Sanders campaign worker who, upon my grilling him with my own Q’s, went off on a name calling, beyond the pale tirade to diss Hillary Clinton. He even claimed he’d vote for Donald Trump if Sanders didn’t win the nomination AND adamantly maintained that Republican Trump is more liberal than Democrat Clinton and, as such, could pick more acceptable SCOTUS judges than she (methinks this rude dude is a dirty tricking, Karl Rove clown/clone).
Is there anybody out there? Sorry for re-asking that Q… but… I’m still hoping to take my Quantum Leap into the alternate reality where JFK had never traveled to Dallas on 11-22-1963… had won a second term and still lives today (as a soon to be centenarian)… where his post POTUS resume boasts of ambassadorships, being America’s elder statesman, authoring dozens of books… where he still appears at book signings, routinely speaks at political rallies and travels the collegiate lecture hall circuit.
To that end… once more… I beseech anyone out on the WWW (in possession of such inter-dimensional leaping prowess) to leave me her or his contact info in the comment box below.
Even if, in my trying to get there, I were to wind up perishing, with my dying breath I’d still echo Mr. Charles Dickens’ “Tale” ending sentiments to say…
“It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done… it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
CommonSenseTom 