cuckyposs
09-03-2004, 08:15 AM
Garrison Keillor: 'How did the party of Lincoln become the party of Newt?'
We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it
was
> the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles
> who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and
> supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were
> good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party,
the
> paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the
> antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a
> genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to
vote
> Republican.
>
> He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway
> System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave
us
> a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and
letters
> flourished and higher education burgeoned-and there was a degree of plain
> decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to
today's.
> Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian
obligation
> toward the poor.
>
> In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward
> down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public
> service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against
the
> Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and
> fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed
> flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in
> World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach.
>
> The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion
of
> angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. "Bipartisanship
is
> another term of date rape," says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the
> GOP. "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to
the
> size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
The
> boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
>
> The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of
> hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based
economists,
> fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance
> racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax
cheats,
> nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons,
> hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who
> believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico,
little
> honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their
> Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow
of
> information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of
> badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the
> rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous.
>
> Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine
> crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on
a
> massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation
> to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat
turds
> in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and
> behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great
wealth
> as the sure sign of Divine Grace.
>
> Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of
> tragedy-the single greatest failure of national defense in our history,
the
> attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a
> tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep
> secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to
> generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon
of
> debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war
> against a small country that was undertaken for the president's personal
> satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen
> misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous
> transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the
> deception is working beautifully.
>
> The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death
> knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived
> this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours.
> The omens are not good.
>
> Our beloved land has been fogged with fear-fear, the greatest political
> strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered
> warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition.
> And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip
> the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies,
bring
> public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax
> breaks on the rich. There is a stink drifting through this election year.
It
> isn't the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it's 9/11
that
> we keep coming back to. It wasn't the "end of innocence," or a turning
point
> in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of
> security. And patriotism shouldn't prevent people from asking hard
questions
> of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.
>
> Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting
> off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th
floor,
> the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W.
> Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic
uptick,
> maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to
get
> some serious nation-changing done in his second term.
>
> This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as
> embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and
> communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the
Deadheads.
> They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen
> in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and
> they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.
The
> Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by
> Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln
> spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to
> death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag
> burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their
> sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS
and
> mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the
corporate
> takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.
>
> This is a great country, and it wasn't made so by angry people. We have a
> sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than
however
> we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any younger.
>
> Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in
time
> of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear
> reader. It's a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life
> than winning.
>
> © 2004 In These Times
We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it
was
> the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles
> who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and
> supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were
> good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party,
the
> paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the
> antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a
> genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to
vote
> Republican.
>
> He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway
> System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave
us
> a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and
letters
> flourished and higher education burgeoned-and there was a degree of plain
> decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to
today's.
> Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian
obligation
> toward the poor.
>
> In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward
> down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public
> service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against
the
> Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and
> fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed
> flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in
> World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach.
>
> The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion
of
> angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. "Bipartisanship
is
> another term of date rape," says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the
> GOP. "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to
the
> size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."
The
> boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.
>
> The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of
> hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based
economists,
> fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance
> racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax
cheats,
> nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons,
> hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who
> believe Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico,
little
> honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt's evil spawn and their
> Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow
of
> information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of
> badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the
> rest of the world thinks we're deaf, dumb and dangerous.
>
> Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine
> crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on
a
> massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation
> to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat
turds
> in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and
> behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great
wealth
> as the sure sign of Divine Grace.
>
> Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of
> tragedy-the single greatest failure of national defense in our history,
the
> attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a
> tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep
> secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to
> generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon
of
> debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war
> against a small country that was undertaken for the president's personal
> satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen
> misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous
> transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the
> deception is working beautifully.
>
> The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death
> knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived
> this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours.
> The omens are not good.
>
> Our beloved land has been fogged with fear-fear, the greatest political
> strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered
> warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition.
> And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip
> the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies,
bring
> public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax
> breaks on the rich. There is a stink drifting through this election year.
It
> isn't the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it's 9/11
that
> we keep coming back to. It wasn't the "end of innocence," or a turning
point
> in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of
> security. And patriotism shouldn't prevent people from asking hard
questions
> of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.
>
> Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting
> off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th
floor,
> the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W.
> Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic
uptick,
> maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to
get
> some serious nation-changing done in his second term.
>
> This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as
> embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and
> communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the
Deadheads.
> They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen
> in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and
> they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.
The
> Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by
> Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln
> spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to
> death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag
> burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their
> sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS
and
> mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the
corporate
> takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.
>
> This is a great country, and it wasn't made so by angry people. We have a
> sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than
however
> we found it. We have a long way to go and we're not getting any younger.
>
> Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in
time
> of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear
> reader. It's a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life
> than winning.
>
> © 2004 In These Times