Month: April 2011

High Priests and Warriors leading us into the dark

by digby

Here’s Dean Baker’s analysis of Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan. It should destroy him and the GOP for the foreseeable future, but the merging of the two parties on these issues is so far along, it’s quite possible that there will be little fallout unfortunately. The “pragmatists” will undoubtedly find some way to work out the wrinkles:

Representative Ryan Proposes Medicare Plan Under Which Seniors Would Pay Most of Their Income for Health Care

That is what headlines would look like if the United States had an independent press. After all, this is one of the main take aways of the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) analysis of the plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee. Representative Ryan would replace the current Medicare program with a voucher for people who turn age 65 in 2022 and later. This voucher would be worth $8,000 in for someone turning age 65 in that year. It would rise in step with with the consumer price index and also as people age. (Health care expenses are higher for people age 75 than age 65.)

According to the CBO analysis the benefit would cover 32 percent of the cost of a health insurance package equivalent to the current Medicare benefit (Figure 1). This means that the beneficiary would pay 68 percent of the cost of this package. Using the CBO assumption of 2.5 percent annual inflation, the voucher would have grown to $9,750 by 2030. This means that a Medicare type plan for someone age 65 would be $30,460 under Representative Ryan’s plan, leaving seniors with a bill of $20,700. (This does not count various out of pocket medical expenditures not covered by Medicare.)

Read on. It gets worse. Far worse. All you have to do is imagine what it will be like to be 80 years old, sick with myriad different illnesses and infirmities and unable to afford your health insurance because it costs 40 thousand dollars a year. There will be no nursing homes for you because Medicaid will be effectively gone as well — only rich people will be able to afford them for their parents. Your kids will have to bear the burden and if they can’t, you are just out of luck. What happens then do you suppose?

The fantasy that the Great and Heroic Paul Ryan relies upon is that “the market” will be so full of competition that it will magically keep prices low and profits high and everyone will live happily ever after in a capitalist nirvana. Unfortunately, the insurance industry has already proven that it doesn’t respond to normal market forces and there’s no reason to believe that it will in the future. They will make profits by covering the young and healthy and finding ways to cut corners on the old and sick. That’s how they make money. And Lord knows that Ryan and his ilk don’t expect or want them to consider anything else.

The Goddess of Selfishness herself said this about that:

Even though altruism declares that “it is more blessed to give than to receive,” it does not work that way in practice. The givers are never blessed; the more they give, the more is demanded of them; complaints, reproaches and insults are the only response they get for practicing altruism’s virtues (or for their actual virtues). Altruism cannot permit a recognition of virtue; it cannot permit self-esteem or moral innocence. Guilt is altruism’s stock in trade, and the inducing of guilt is its only means of self-perpetuation. If the giver is not kept under a torrent of degrading, demeaning accusations, he might take a look around and put an end to the self-sacrificing. Altruists are concerned only with those who suffer—not with those who provide relief from suffering, not even enough to care whether they are able to survive. When no actual suffering can be found, the altruists are compelled to invent or manufacture it.

Paul Ryan doesn’t just admire that immature drivel. He lives by it.

Irrational, erratic decision making is what logically happens when you have faith-based “it’s in God’s hands” legislators and immature Randian fanboys running a government. It tends to devolve into the surreal after a while. And it isn’t unprecedented. In fact, there’s a very famous historical example of what happens when a civilization goes backwards into superstition and primitivism:

The concept of a Dark Age originated with the Italian scholar Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in the 1330s, and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as “dark” compared to the light of classical antiquity. Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between Roman times and the High Middle Ages (ca. 11th – 13th C.), including not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary written history, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general. Popular culture has further expanded on the term as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope.

Fortunately for the human species, they didn’t have nuclear weapons at the time.

And by the way, I’m not excluding the alleged Masters of the Universe from any of this. Because they are sitting pretty one might think they are actually cunning (if immoral) rationalists taking advantage of the situation. And in the short terms, they are. Shock Doctrine economics is all about the short term. But if you step back a little bit and examine what all those whining CEOs and Wall Street frat boys who insist they are doing “God’s work” are actually saying, it’s fatuous Randian claptrap. As I’ve been saying for two years, these are people who are so greedy and short sighted that they are willing to kill the goose that laid their golden eggs for a couple of extra dollars they don’t need. They are just as backwards as the lowliest Tea Partier — more, in fact. Their intellectual and moral bankruptcy is so profound that they are knowingly sacrificing their own children’s future, which may be a first for aristocrats. (They know the planet itself is in danger — and they don’t care.)

In his widely read article in this months Vanity Fair, Joseph Stiglitz puts it perfectly:

Alexis de Tocqueville once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

Sadly, it ends up being too late for most of the rest of us as well.

The whole world is drinking a very toxic political cocktail right now, a combination of crude, soulless Randism and fundamentalist religiosity. (Maybe it’s the same thing actually, if you define fanatical market superstition as the primitive faith based system it really is.) Its components are stronger or weaker depending on the culture and economic circumstances but it’s all one big churning cauldron of human folly, at least partially brought on by massive change and global economic transition. Sadly, it doesn’t appear that the species is up to the task of managing it rationally so we’re just going to have to ride this out and hope the High Priests and Warriors don’t destroy the whole thing in the meantime.

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Poster Boys For Soylent Green

by digby

Can’t wait for someone to propose eating the poor and infirm so we can all then agree the Ryan plan is reasonable. Chris Hayes

Ever since this morning when Ezra Klein tweeted his post positing that the Catfood Commissars Wishlist would quickly be seen as the preferred compromise to the Ryan plan, I’ve been waiting for someone to point out just how likely that really is. And that’s because we are watching the White House negotiate a similar deal as we speak.

Here’s Ezra’s prediction:

Is the Fiscal Commission’s plan perfect? Not even close. But it’s a lot more reasonable, and a lot less ideological, than Ryan’s budget. And I think Ryan’s budget is going to persuade a lot of Democrats to give it a second look.

Dday explains why this is a perfectly reasonable assumption:

With respect to the current budget debate, Republicans initially called for $33 billion in cuts, and then upped the number. Democrats eventually met them “halfway” by… offering $33 billion in cuts. Republicans said no, wanting more, and now Democrats are positioning themselves as the serious people by offering an imitation of the Republican budget. You can see exactly the same dynamic at work here. The Ryan deficit reduction plan goes beyond the Bowles-Simpson cat food commission plan. So you can absolutely see the Democrats counter-offer with… Bowles-Simspon.

There is the added fact that Simpson and Bowles were appointed by the president to head his own “deficit commission.” It’s not a long walk for the president to take, particularly since he has quite a few stalwarts already on his side — including his Lieutenant, Dick Durbin, who voted for the catfood commission recommendations.

Simpson and Bowles are pleased as punch. Needless to say, they greatly admire the great, courageous, savvy, brilliant Paul Ryan as everyone must. And they see a lot to like in his plan, which includes many of the items in their own. However, while heartthrob Ryan’s plan goes a bit too far and the ridiculous liberal plan (which isn’t even worth mentioning doesn’t go far enough) it’s clear that theirs is juuuust right.

While we are encouraged that Chairman Ryan has come forward with a serious plan, we are concerned that it falls short of the balanced, comprehensive approach needed to achieve the broad bipartisan agreement necessary to enact a responsible plan. The plan largely exempts defense spending from reductions and would not apply any of the savings from eliminating or reducing tax expenditures as part of tax reform to deficit reduction. As a result, the Chairman’s plan relies on much larger reductions in domestic discretionary spending than does the Commission proposal, while also calling for savings in some safety net programs – cuts which would place a disproportionately adverse effect on certain disadvantaged populations.

Nevertheless, by putting forward a credible plan, Paul Ryan has made a very constructive contribution to move the debate forward and has put many ideas on the table that deserve serious consideration. As the process moves forward, we expect additional constructive proposals and ideas to be put forward by various Members of the House and Senate which we hope will lead to a balanced deficit reduction package that can receive broad bipartisan support. In particular, we are encouraged by discussions going on in the Senate on legislation based on the framework put forward by the Commission.”

Thank God we have this other fine plan out there to fall back on, eh? I was really worried there for a moment. And look how reasonable and thoughtful they are! Why ever did we oppose it in the first place?

Meanwhile, Kent Conrad was just hopping mad, saying Ryan’s plan is draconian, ideological and partisan and icky. He too is much relieved that we have something far more reasonable to turn to:

“I continue to believe the Fiscal Commission plan provides the best way forward. It includes enough deficit reduction – nearly $4 trillion over the next ten years – to make a meaningful change in the nation’s long-term fiscal trajectory. It takes a balanced approach, with savings coming roughly equally from nondefense discretionary spending, defense discretionary spending, mandatory spending, and revenue. And it represents a truly bipartisan approach, with Democrats and Republicans making concessions to reach an agreement. It may be as close as we can get to a middle-ground, consensus solution to the nation’s long-term budget crisis.”

There you go.

With all that reasonableness and thoughtfulness, It’s hard to recall that the Fiscal Commission non-report was a trainwreck. It’s only by comparison to the Von Ryan Express that they are able to portray it as moderate middle ground. If I were a conspiracy type, I might even think the catfood salesmen on the commission cooked this whole thing up sometime last December when it was obvious that the liberals weren’t going to sign on. But I’m not a conspiracy type so I’d imagine that this is just something they all fortuitously and individually stumbled into on their way to a big donor meeting. There doesn’t have to be a conspiracy — it’s just part of the culture. Look at how the Village greeted Ryan today. Cleopatra would be jealous.

Anything that will screw average folks and reward rich ones is automatically very, very “serious.” They love being serious. And if it happened to benefit their benefactors well — sometimes life really is fair.

If the Democrats don’t take this plan and wrap it around every teabagging Republican in the congress in the fall of 2012 they don’t deserve to win. Just on a purely primitive political basis, whether they secretly love the idea of death panels or not, their competitive spirit alone should be enough to make Paul Ryan and his cronies the poster boys for Soylent Green and decouple them from the aging baby boomers until we’ve all shuffled off our mortal coil.

From this moment on, the Democrats have the opportunity to reclaim their position as the party trusted by senior citizens. Over the next 15 years a gigantic number of them are going into the system — and they vote. If the Republicans don’t have them, they have nothing. (You know how badly they fare among younger people and racial and ethnic minorities.)

There should be a price to be paid for the kind of heartless abstraction we are seeing from the wealthy mandarins and starry-eyed Randians who are running things these days. The seniors are the ones who can make them pay it.

Stop Paul Ryan

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BFFs From Way Back

by digby

Everyone seems surprised that the first stop for Paul Ryan today was Glenn Beck’s show. but it shouldn’t be. Beck and Ryan have long been sympatico:

GLENN BECK: Nice to meet you, sir. Tell me, tell me your thoughts on progressivism.

PAUL RYAN: Right. What I have been trying to do, and if you read the entire Oklahoma speech or read my speech to Hillsdale College that they put in there on Primus Magazine, you can get them on my Facebook page, what I’ve been trying to do is indict the entire vision of progressivism because I see progressivism as the source, the intellectual source for the big government problems that are plaguing us today and so to me it’s really important to flush progressives out into the field of open debate.

GLENN: I love you.

PAUL RYAN: So people can actually see what this ideology means and where it’s going to lead us and how it attacks the American idea.

GLENN: Okay. Hang on just a second. I ‑‑ did you see my speech at CPAC?

PAUL RYAN: I’ve read it. I didn’t see it. I’ve read it, a transcript of it.

GLENN: And I think we’re saying the same thing. I call it ‑‑

PAUL RYAN: We are saying the same thing.

GLENN: It’s a cancer.

PAUL RYAN: Exactly. Look, I come from ‑‑ I’m calling you from Janesville, Wisconsin where I’m born and raised.

GLENN: Holy cow.

PAUL RYAN: Where we raise our family, 35 miles from Madison. I grew up hearing about this stuff. This stuff came from these German intellectuals to Madison‑University of Wisconsin and sort of out there from the beginning of the last century. So this is something we are familiar with where I come from. It never sat right with me. And as I grew up, I learned more about the founders and reading the Austrians and others that this is really a cancer because it basically takes the notion that our rights come from God and nature and turns it on its head and says, no, no, no, no, no, they come from government, and we here in government are here to give you your rights and therefore ration, redistribute and regulate your rights. It’s a complete affront of the whole idea of this country and that is to me what we as conservatives, or classical liberals if you want to get technical.

GLENN: Thank you.

This is the serious, gutsy, courageous intellectual who has the fatuous gasbags drooling and genuflecting.

Ryan is an “intellectual” the same way Beck is an “intellectual.They both believe that progressivism is a cancer that’s plaguing the country and that it’s really important to flush it out. I think he may have succeeded in doing that today. I’m just not so sure he’s going to succeed in killing it in the long run. It’s just possible that most people don’t see old age pensions and health care as being quite the disease on the body politic that Ryan does.

Stop Paul Ryan

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Partisan Hardball House Style

by digby

Greg Sargent reports that the House is doing its own version of Senate partisan hardball. Whereas in the Senate they refuse to allow any Republicans to vote for something, in the House “bipartisanship” now means that legislation has to pass with overwhelming support of the GOP or it won’t pass at all:

A senior Senate Democratic aide tells me that in today’s private meeting at the White House, Speaker John Boehner signaled to the President and to Harry Reid that Republicans were not willing to support any budget compromise that can’t garner the votes of 218 Republicans in the House. That would be a break from the GOP’s previous posture: Republican leaders had appeared willing to reach a deal that could pass the House with Republican and Democratic support, even if it meant losing some Republicans.

Harry Reid is expected to make an accusation along these lines today when he speaks to the press, the aide tells me, though this could change, depending on fast-shifting circumstances.

“Our takeaway from the meeting was that Republicans will not accept anything that cannot pass the House without 218 Republican votes,” the aide tells me. “That means $73 billion isn’t good enough.”

That last line means that the $33 billion in cuts as a proposed target compromise — on top of $40 billion of cuts that were already agreed upon — will not be sufficient for a compromise, if 218 Republicans cannot support it.

Hmm, what do you suppose it would take then?

This is reckless and audacious and thoroughly predictable from this crew of radical nutballs. Perhaps they think they can finesse a government shutdown this time because the economy, unlike in 1995, isn’t roaring back to life. But they really should consider the possibility that they weren’t completely decimated in 1996 for the same reason. Who’s to say that Clinton benefited more from the good economy than they did?

The lesson of 1995 was always that the Republicans overreached. But I never got the feeling that they believed that. It looks like they’re ready to test the theory.

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Brio and Guts

by digby

Uhm, did someone say that David Brooks was a truly decent guy who cares about real people?

Today, Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, is scheduled to release the most comprehensive and most courageous budget reform proposal any of us have seen in our lifetimes….His proposal will set the standard of seriousness for anybody who wants to play in this discussion….This budget tackles just about every politically risky issue with brio and guts….Paul Ryan has grasped reality with both hands. He’s forcing everybody else to do the same.

Isn’t that great? It’s “serious” because it cuts taxes for rich people while throwing the sick and elderly into the street. (And no, that isn’t hyperbole — if his Medicaid and Medicare “reforms” were to actually happen, millions of elderly people in nursing homes would literally have nowhere to go.)

Gosh it must be so nice to feel so secure in your own life that it never even occurs to you that this might be you — or someone you know and love. Most Americans used to feel that way, but I’m guessing those days are gone forever. With this kind of person considered a true “leader” a courageous man by whom all others must be measured going forward, life is about to get a lot worse in this country. This isn’t actually an abstraction.

Kevin Drum puts it well:http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Courageous. Serious. Gutsy. I imagine that within a few days this will be the consensus view of the entire Beltway punditocracy. A plan dedicated almost entirely to slashing social spending in a country that’s already the stingiest spender in the developed world, while simultaneously cutting taxes on the rich in a country with the lowest tax rates in the developed world — well, what could be more serious than that?

I think I’m going to be sick.

Me too.

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Getting Worriedhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

by digby

Charlie Cook can hardly believe what he’s seeing:

[T]alking with Republican pollsters, strategists and veteran campaign professionals recently, I now hear sounds of concern that haven’t been heard in almost two years.

Among the worries the party now has is that a government shutdown could get blamed on the GOP. Additionally, these party insiders believe that taking on entitlements, specifically Medicare, could jeopardize the party’s hold on the House, its strong chances of taking the Senate and the stronghold that the party has been established with older white voters—not coincidentally, Medicare recipients.

Yes, this is a big problem. In fact, you have to wonder if they’ve just lost their marbles.

He goes on to assure us that the Republicans leadership is “intelligent and reasonable” and are only doing all this because their voters are cretins who insist that they voted for certain things and they want them done.

But the problem isn’t just the hooligans. It seems that the vaunted “independent” voters who allegedly believed that Obama had gone way too far by passing health care and the stimulus and so voted out the Democrats are unhappy with the Republicans now — also for going too far.

Keep in mind the volatility we have seen in the three previous elections. Independent voters swung heavily in favor of Democrats in 2006 and 2008. In 2010, those same independent voters went in the opposite direction to push Republicans forward. If something happens in three consecutive elections, who wants to say that a fourth time is inconceivable?

It isn’t. There’s an epic political battle going on in this country and these independents don’t seem to get that it won’t be solved by “punishing” the party that’s in office every two years when it does what it promised it was going to do.

If people really feel that the stimulus and health care plans are as radical and destructive as shutting down the government and destroying the safety net, then there’s no getting through to them until we have a depression or worse. Until they actively engage and figure out what’s what instead of mindlessly swinging back and forth like a pendulum, this will probably continue for some time.

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Tea Party Governor Embarrasses His Party

by digby

This is unusual:

Eight Republican state senators have issued a rare public rebuke of Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R), writing an op-ed expressing “discomfort and dismay” with some of his recent comments directed at labor backers.

The controversy centers around LePage’s recent decision to order a mural depicting the state’s workers’ history removed http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giffrom the Department of Labor, arguing that it was biased against businesses and employers. When asked how he would react if protesters carried out their plan to form a human chain around the mural, LePage replied, “I’d laugh at them, the idiots. That’s what I would do. Come on! Get over yourselves!”…

Chris Hall, a lobbyist for the Portland Regional Chamber, told The Portland Press Herald that in his 21-year career, he has never seen a group of legislators write such an openly critical opinion piece of a governor who is a member of their own party. “This is extraordinary,” Hall said.

It is extraordinary.These are the bravest Republicans in the country. And the most unusual. After all, that sentiment is pretty universal among their ilk:

GROTHMAN: Well, we’re trying to keep some people out of the building because right now the building is becoming a pig sty. People are staying overnight, the building smells. We used to have nice little groups of fourth grade children walking through the building. There was something called the Senate Scholar programs that would track us around. All of that is being shut down by a bunch of slobs taking up the building. We can no longer continue to have all of these slobs in the building.

O’DONNELL: Well Senator some of these slobs in the building are elementary school students who may be learning something more interesting or valuable or real about government that’s going on there, don’t you think?

GROTHMAN: No. It would be embarrassing to me to take my child to that building today.

O’DONNELL: Cory Mason, you get the last word with us.

MASON: I’ve had my kids here the last couple weeks. I am proud to see them witness this great moment in democracy. And these slobs that you’re referring to are police officers and nurses and firefighters and people who care for the state.

GROTHMAN: No they’re not.

It’s just their way.

Speaking of Hoaxes

by digby

Here’s a heartwarming story of scientific integrity on a wingnut’s dime:

A team of UC Berkeley physicists and statisticians that set out to challenge the scientific consensus on global warming is finding that its data-crunching effort is producing results nearly identical to those underlying the prevailing view.

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project was launched by physics professor Richard Muller, a longtime critic of government-led climate studies, to address what he called “the legitimate concerns” of skeptics who believe that global warming is exaggerated.

But Muller unexpectedly told a congressional hearing last week that the work of the three principal groups that have analyzed the temperature trends underlying climate science is “excellent…. We see a global warming trend that is very similar to that previously reported by the other groups.”

The hearing was called by GOP leaders of the House Science & Technology committee, who have expressed doubts about the integrity of climate science. It was one of several inquiries in recent weeks as the Environmental Protection Agency‘s efforts to curb planet-heating emissions from industrial plants and motor vehicles have come under strenuous attack in Congress.

Muller said his group was surprised by its findings, but he cautioned that the initial assessment is based on only 2% of the 1.6 billion measurements that will eventually be examined.

Ok, this guy may have been a skeptic, but he’s still from Berkeley and therefore is tainted. On the other hand:

The Berkeley project’s biggest private backer, at $150,000, is the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Oil billionaires Charles and David Koch are the nation’s most prominent funders of efforts to prevent curbs on the burning of fossil fuels, the largest contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gases.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this. A couple of years ago I heard a lecture from an oceanographer from Scripps who admitted that he’d been a skeptic for years and that he was politically and temperamentally inclined to think that it was a bit of a liberal scam. but he was a scientist first and over time he couldn’t ignore the data that he saw every day.

All scientists are skeptics. That’s a necessary characteristic of the field. But it’s the so-called “climate change skeptics” who are faith based by refusing to acknowledge the body of evidence that’s out there, not the other way around.

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King of the Real Americans

by digby

This is from the upcoming Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone interview with John Boehner

Boehner: “Can’t pay your student loan? Face it your parents were lazy and you couldn’t afford college. The world needs ditch diggers and you were born into a family of them. Can’t pay your mortgage? Your house was too expensive and you couldn’t afford it. Your taxes going up too much? That’s what you get for electing a democrat president. Never had a job after you got a degree? You learned nothing in school and you’re lazy. I didn’t get to be a congressman by watching jersey shore or playing xbox. You think there’s no jobs for you? There used to be. There was when I was your age. You don’t have fee time because you have to work all days of the week for 16 hours a day and you don’t get paid hourly? Thank the unions. They made decent jobs so out of price range of the average American company that they can’t hire anymore people and the works’ gotta get done. These unions… I tell you they won’t be happy till no one in America has a job. And health care? Don’t get me started on health care- doctors study their entire lives and they barely make enough to live and yet Obama, who had his entire life handed to him on a silver plate wants to cut their pay. You know that’s gonna do? Increase costs- the average persons going to have to work even harder just to see a doctor. Taibbi: “With mounting unemployment what do you think is the possibility that we’ll see an Egyptian style uprising of the youth? Should we be worried?” Boehner: “It’s not going to happen in the US. The kids here are too fat, too lazy, to addicted to TV, fast food, cheap credit, and facebook. I have news for you – there are plenty of jobs out there – the unemployed don’t want them. Today’s college student feels entitled to make at least $24 right after college. When they find out they can collect unemployment they would rather do that. You know the average college educated unemployed person is collecting $60k a year? The CATO institute did a study- and I mean, you and me we’re hard workers we could just sit around and live, but these kids today- that’s all they’ve been doing their entire lives. I’m not worried for this country- there are a few of them who actually want to work, take Mark Zucker(sic). You don’t build a site like facebook out of thin air- it takes talent and hard work. I went to a community college and all I saw were people sitting in front of computers typing away, their eyes were fixed. Probably just facebooking away.

Also probably not a good idea to get shitfaced with Matt Taibbi with the recorder on.

I actually think this is great. This is how most Republicans think and it’s good to see it right out there for all to see. When you peel away all the Bible verses and the red white and blue and the constitutional gibber jabber, this is what you have — a cynical white guy with a chip on his shoulder a mile wide, just sure that the country’s going to hell in a handbasket because nobody’s quite as good as he is. (Oh yes, and the equally supercilious women who love them…)

He’s not lying. He honestly believes that wages are just too damned high, that unions are destroying jobs, that health care reform is killing people and that upper middle class professionals should be pitied for the lousy money they make. I’m sure corporations shouldn’t be taxes and neither should the wealthy because it’s punishing ‘winners” — and lord knows he loves winners. Like him. A couple of glasses of his favorite Merlot and you’d start hearing about the freeloading “minorities” and the uppity bitches too, bet on it.

When I used to listen to my Dad and his cronies go on about this crap over a couple of drinkie winkies, I could at least excuse them for the fact that they were old and had actually done one big thing in their lives that mattered — they saved the world from Hitler. What the hell has Boehner ever done to earn his own high opinion besides his seven handicap and whoring himself to every rich old bastard in Ohio?

This is the worldview of the powerful middle aged conservative. They feel they deserve what they have and more — and nobody else can hold a candle to them. They are, simply the best, better than all the rest. If they aren’t, why are they running everything?

h/t to Pam’s House Blend truthdig and rumormiller.com

Update: Hah. Apparently, this may be a hoax. If so, it’s a damned good one. It sounds exactly like every other privileged jerk out there. I saw it originally on Young Turks and then Pam had it and I didn’t check the rumormiller link, just did the polite thing and linked them. My fault for not going there.

But hey, when you’re known for your tippling and your loathing of working people, this is exactly the kind of thing people will believe of you…

Let’s face it. It really is what they believe.

Repurposing The Reverend

by digby

It seems certain now that Republicans actually believe their own revisionist history about Martin Luther King: they are squealing like stuck pigs about the labor rallies all over the country today commemorating his last speech on the day day he was assassinated as if it’s a blight on their conservative, pro-business hero’s memory. Either that or they are just jerks.

Here’s the ad that’s caused all these self-anointed King defenders to lose their minds:

“All we say to America is be true to what you said on paper..”

Seriously folks, he was in Memphis that day to support striking santitation workers, ferchristsake. You can say a lot of things about Martin Luther King but you just can’t say that he was an anti-union, free market, social conservative. If he were, you sure wouldn’t have known it by the fire-breathing hatred he inspired among the anti-union, free market social conservatives of the time.

Just for a little perspective, here’s a little reminder, from just a few years ago, about how the rightwingers used to look at this:

August 12, 1993 Dear Editor, Salt Lake City council’s announcement that they are renaming the main boulevard, 600 South, after Martin Luther King (Daily Herald, 8/11/93, p. B-3) is yet one more example of the dangerous trend to make a hero out of one of America’s most vociferous traitors. I am not expressing opinion; but fact; based on documented evidence that Martin Luther King was vigorously promoted by the Soviet-financed CPUSA (Communist Party of the USA) in order to foment a violent polarization of Americans along racial lines (divide and conquer). The subsequent raising of Martin Luther to ever more elevated hero status is only a follow-up of that initial motive. (I do not intend to address the lie that Communism is “dead,” other than to merely note that this particular case is yet one more evidence that the subversion of our beloved country is ongoing and alarmingly successful.) Here is a sample of the documented evidence of which I speak. I am referring to an essay by Evans-Raymond Pierre, a native black of New York City who earned a degree in political science and history at the University of Vermont. In it he quotes from a member (FBI plant) of the CPUSA who testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee in 1979 that “the [communist] cells that I was associated with in Cleveland were continually being asked to raise money for Martin Luther King’s activities and to support his movement…. While I was in the Communist Party, as a loyal American Negro, I knew Martin Luther King to be closely connected with the Communist Party….” Another example of M.L. King’s Communist support and ties documented by Pierre was his close association with Stanley David Levison, who “assisted King in organization matters and political strategy, wrote some of his speeches, and advised in hiring personnel to staff King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference.” At the time, Levison was “knowingly being used as a conduit for the Soviet funds” to the CPUSA, and also “assisted in managing the secret party coffers.” ‘Yet one more example of calling evil, good. Let’s see if we can’t convince the city council to reverse this decision. Anyone desiring to peruse further evidence of M.L. King’s close connections with the CPUSA is invited to request free (if you order within a month) reprints of Pierre’s essay from The New American, P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54913. (January 13, 1986.) Sincerely, Sterling D. Allan, Fountain Green, UT
and Brian Gibson, Provo, Utah

That’s MLK, there in front row.

It is a perverse sign of progress that they are now claiming him rather than turning him into a communist. But it is also a sign of their sick and twisted Manichean view of the world that one can only be a communist or a right wing conservative. Even though I know it’s probably better that they appropriate him rather than vilify him I confess that it makes me livid since I lived through the time they were calling him the most vile names in the world — and applauding his death.

Indeed, it was only a five years ago they made spectacles of themselves over Coretta Scott King’s funeral:

Here’s a sampling of their cute caption contest:

“I would like another roll with dinner please.”

“Two classy people sitting behind a pile of trash.”

Lowery: And yesim, we’s be black and we’s be proud. We’s for the gubmit but not Bush’s gubmit. Bush’s gubmit is against us black peoples…

W: “What’s that old saying, ‘Better to be thought a complete race baiting moron than open your mouth and remove all doubt.’”

“Psst…Laura, you sure that ain’t Looter Guy?”

47 posted on 02/07/2006 2:56:13 PM PST by Horatio Gates (Go Seah….uh…Mariners! Congrats to the Steelers. Well done.)

Ok. It’s Freeperland. But here we have Red State, commonly thought of as the “thoughtful” right wing community. They aren’t quite as crude, to be sure. But they share many of the same impulses:

If the truth be told, it was an extortion scam to enrich themselves. Mrs. King carried on this tradition. Anytime you wanted to use anything that was MLK, Jr. you had to pay Mrs. King.

Don’t forget who the pupils were of this scam; Jesse Jackson, Joesph Lowery, and Hosea Williams. They practiced this extortion of Corporations all of their lives and some are still doing it.

So lets be honest, praise Mrs. King for the loss of a husband and who had to raise her children by herself, but don’t latch on to a myth and try to make it true.

Bush should take back New Orleans money and force these aholes to come begging for it.

I don’t know the makeup of the King funeral attendees but you can bet a large portion were high profile Dems with an even higher concentration of race hustling poverty pimps. It was their show and if they want to defile the King legacy with no-class antics, why shouldn’t it be on TV?

Anyone who didn’t find that, or the Wellstone funeral, offensive, lacks a sense of decorum. If the Afro-American community applauds this funeral, they will make a statement about no one but themselves. And that is just what that group did at the funeral.

Back during the Bush/NAACP speech flap, I thought Bush should have sent in a third-tier official to give a speech explaigning that Bush wasn’t going to cater specifically to them since he could win elections without their vote, and catering to them wouldn’t change their vote anyway.

What is worse political messages at a funeral about a great civil rights leader or people trying to turn those messages as something that the late “Queen” would find offensive.

He was Joseph Lowery, former head of the SCLC. One of the biggest extortinist organization in the country. They used the same tactics that Jesse Jackson uses to extrort money from Corporations. You pay or we picket.

Myth buster, these were pupils of MLK, Jr.

This is Al Sharpton to Howard Dean in 2004:

“Do you have a senior member of your cabinet that was black or brown?”

Dean did not, but apparently, we can take Sharpton’s cue and refer to all non-African dark-skinned people as “brown”…unless he meant Latinos only, in which case we must deploy “sienna” and “umber” in our earth-tone rainbow coalition.

Those who follow leaders like Dr, Lowry deserve to be marginalized.

Funny, but I recall that African-Americans are losing political clout in America, as the Hispanic population increases in size.

So, explain to me again why the NAACP and other “mainstream” African-American organizations should be accorded respect, if they refuse to be respectful– or even polite themselves?

That crowd looked to be heavily Afro-American, and with their response and their applause, they showed themselves to be the same–no class! Just like the Paul Wellstone funeral–the memories of many are going to be long.

This is a crowd that as Karl Rove said, is pre–9/11. Protect the country, forget it. Every chance they get they’ll just want their political ox gored, and their handouts increased.

blah … blah .. blah blah
It’s doubtful that either Coretta or MLK will be standing up for any reason … not anymore.

Actually, I can’t wait for the unsealing of the secret FBI King files in 2027 to reveal the truth about MLK and his less than honorable life and legacy (thanks to a liberal judge and the King family they have bought time preventing their release under FOIA… hmm, you think they have something to hide?). In the mean time, the country remains held hostage to the unbalanced and intellectually dishonest legacy of this man and his family. Pardon me if I choose not to worship at their phony altar.

Also, I can see clearly why blacks just love the Democratic party for all its done for them in perpetuating their continued pride in their own sense of victimhood. Bravo!

I’ll try to work on my bad attitude.

In the meantime, I’m going to check out this AFSCME page with pictures of the rallies for inspiration.

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