"Bullshit! Get your bullshit! Hot steamy smelly bullshit!" |
Less than 24 hours after an Election Day whose results hinted at an out of touch Republican party, the 2012 GOP hopefuls took the stage in Michigan to stay a course that continues to alienate them from the rest of America. Ten minutes of the debate was all I needed to see before I rubbed my hands together with glee and turned it off. Those ten minutes were filled with the types of misconception and attempts at mischaracterization that will help Republicans lose in a year from now.
Focusing on economic issues, the troupe maligned the Occupy Wall Street action as “anti-capitalist.” They tried, within the time allotted to praise the market against all the anti-market forces out there as many times as they could. The Gingrinch went so far as to say Occupy should be grateful because if it wasn’t for corporations, they wouldn’t have a park to protest in. Profound.
Where Gingy, and the rest miss the point is that the Occupy movement is not an attempt to bring down the free exchange of goods and services for money. It is a protest against the fraud and abuse committed by financial companies that crippled the economy. They did it with impunity and with bonuses while average people lost their retirements. The crash happened because of a standard that allows the most powerful to get away with far more than what the average American can. That dynamic is partly responsible for an ever-increasing disparity in income that is retarding the expansion and financial power of the middle class. That is what is happening and that is what most Americans are mad about.
Instead of acknowledging the occurrence of fraud and abuse, Team Dubya trumpeted the need to let business do what business wants. According to them, that’s what makes us all successful. As far as the recession, well that was caused when the government forced banks to make loans to irresponsible borrowers as they tell it. The recession was the government’s fault. End of story. The reason why our growth is sluggish is because Obama invented uncertainty. Before Obama, there was no such thing as uncertainty and all businesses did was plan on making money. Now, because of this new thing we call uncertainty that has never been a part of every business cycle, businesses are paralyzed, powerless, and afraid to do anything.
By hauling the water they have on their backs, these Republicans are essentially cheering the actual fraud and abuse that tanked the economy. They also took as many shots as they could at the idea of regulation. So when a firm wants to reduce any uncertainty on their part in their transactions by selling crap to their clients and then betting against that crap, that should be okay according to our GOP hopefuls.
There was a period where the American public was far more accepting of Republican distortion and general BS. They ate up the idea that Republicans were stronger on national security. They ate up the idea that the deficit was not important when Republicans ran it up. They ate up the idea that the deficit was the most important thing ever when Democrats ran it up. They ate up the idea that what was good for big business was good for everyone else. It got to the point where Republicans began thinking they could get away with whatever political arguments they wanted, no matter how ridiculous (abortions are 90% of what Planned Parenthood does, death panels, voter fraud committed by voters is rampant). Perhaps their arguments had to evolve into such inanity before people began to wake up.
Here’s a question they should have asked in the debate tonight: “What happens to a bunch of peddlers in a marketplace when everyone stops buying their shit?”
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