Thursday, May 7, 2009

It’s definitely getting weirder out there

It’s been getting fascinating watching the GOP—politicians and pundits alike—wrestle with itself. They still insist on calling themselves “conservatives,” but their definition of the word leaves something to be desired.

Take “Teabag Week,” which was witnessed here with an even mix of amusement and nausea. The vast majority of those who were actually attending the Teabag Parties are getting tax cuts this year, for one thing. The net result was that most of the attendees appeared to be nothing more than unpaid shills for the extremely wealthy. Certainly, they were irrationally angry about the whole thing, and exercising the same slimy tactics now championed by the GOP at large (“Socialist!” “Obama is Hitler!” and such).

But it all rings terribly hollow.

Where was all the outrage during the Reagan years, or either of the Bush administrations, where our deficits soared? Now they’re upset about deficits? “Don’t teabag my grandchildren!” was one of the more idiotic signs I saw, because they really should have come out during the last administration.

Out of our national debt, accrued from 1835 (which was the last time it was paid off, during Andrew Jackson’s administration), adjusting for inflation, which was about $10,025 billion at the end of the last fiscal year (September 30, 2008), the last administration was responsible for over $5,415 billion of it. More than half of our entire gargantuan federal debt was brought to us by GW Bush, most of that with the gleeful rubber-stamping cooperation of the GOP-controlled House and Senate.

All this information has been available. Yet those attending these tea parties don’t seem to understand the origin or scope of the problem. Less than three months into the Obama administration, and they think this is something created by the new guys. Either they are being deliberately ignorant, or wildly prejudiced.

Either way, they disqualify themselves from being taken seriously.

Marketing idiocy

I also developed considerable contempt for the “horrified” GOP bloggers and pundits who derided liberal pundits for playing off the “teabagging” references—one even went so far as to say that because some of the pundits were gay, they were using a disparaging remark from “somewhere inside the homosexual subculture.” But the liberal pundits didn’t invent the usage—no, that was thanks to those in the know in the GOP, who came up with such innovative signs as these—

Charming, isn’t it? The GOP representatives orchestrating this “grassroots” protest, tittering about how cleverly they’ve mashed together the Boston Tea Party with the male scrotum, and then feigning disgust and outrage when they’re made fun of for exactly that.

The only people I have even a little pity over this marketing idiocy are the little old ladies who unwittingly wore shirts and hats and waved signs like this without knowing what the term actually meant. But really, it’s only a little pity. If you’re advocating for something that you don’t understand and haven’t bothered to ask anyone about, you’re not being very smart.

But then, that’s who the GOP is preying on these days.

False debate

The debate about torture continues, for reasons I can’t fathom. Waterboarding is torture. Putting people in a small box, or in stress positions for hours at a time, not letting them use a bathroom, freezing or roasting in confined spaces, systematic humiliation—all are torture. This is up for debate somehow?

These are war crimes. We have prosecuted others for war crimes. The only way we can claim the moral high ground in the future is to hold our own accountable—and we have at least a dozen coconspirators to war crimes in this country alone. All were involved with the previous administration. All are, so far, entirely unrepentant.

The GOP is trying to keep the debate focused just on Guantanamo and waterboarding. But they’ve lied and lied and lied about it. “Only in extreme cases,” they claimed, “and only rarely, when the information was time-sensitive.” Now that it has been revealed that just one of those prisoners was waterboarded six times a day for a month (plus a few extra, just for good measure), they’re claiming that valuable information was obtained. While I have no doubt that information was obtained, one wonders how reliable it was, and whether we could have gotten it faster through more humane means. Torture gets results, but the results are often unreliable and most often reflects what the victim thinks the interrogator wants to hear.

The interrogators, in this case, wanted to hear that there was a link between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. The administration pressed the interrogators on that point, suggesting increasing intensity of torture because the prisoners hadn’t coughed up the information the administration wanted to hear.

But Guantanamo is not the whole story. People died at Abu Gharib. At least 108 people have died—in American custody—in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most of those deaths were violent. Other prisoners have not been accounted for at all. And all of this was put in motion by the bizarre justifications and direct intentions of the Bush administration.

I don’t understand why the Obama administration is not taking a harder tack on this issue. We cannot erase what happened, but we can redeem our reputation as a humane people by bringing those responsible for this crime to justice. Let a real investigation commence, and let the Department of Justice live up to its name in a way it was entirely unwilling to do for eight long, dark years.

Oh, and for you “deep Christian values” claimants that make up the bulk of the GOP underlings who still advocate torture: You don’t remember Matthew 7?

RedState

I’ve been occasionally asked why I don’t follow extremist GOP blogs like RedState.

My usual answer almost invariably involves three words: dishonest, meanspirited, and psychotic.

This week, Justice David Souter submitted his resignation (to take place when the current Supreme Court session ends). Souter has been one of the more fascinating justices; reading his opinions is always a thought-provoking enterprise, and while I don’t agree with all of his decisions, I have considerable respect for the man.

This week, Eric Erickson, the “editor in chief” of RedState, posted his reaction—then deleted it, and reposted it with a few tags he’d forgotten the first time around. His reaction, in full, redacted for your (hopefully) gentle sensibilities, ran like so:

ewerickson: LMRM [let me repeat myself]: The nation loses the only goat f*&#ing child molester to ever serve on the Supreme Court in David Souter’s retirement. #TCOT [top conservatives on Twitter] #RS [Redstate]

Of course, there is no evidence of bestiality or pedophilia in David Souter’s past: this is just straight libel—and also yet another concise example of dishonest, meanspirited, and psychotic. As the editor-in-chief of RedState, Eric sets the tone of this extremist GOP site, and by and large, his frothing pet Sturmabteilung follows that tone in lockstep.

You stay classy, Eric.