All On Board the Crazy Train!

Wonderful News!

Crusaders are now coming out of the woodwork and wormholes to save our nation! They tell us they know better than anyone else and can and will save us from ourselves. They will take us all back to a far simpler, safer time when everything is all milk, honey, roses and cash on the barrelhead. Back to the past where the world is flat and the Sun revolves around the Earth, the very center of the universe itself, where a Christian God rules everything, where the good get richer and the poor get poorer, the sick get sicker and deserve it by God. Back to a time of black and white certainties, with no grey areas and no doubts about anything at all, ever, thank you very much!

To save ourselves we are told, we will have to put our faith in these wise, determined crusaders for mom, apple pie, cold hard cash and the American Way, and let them show us the way. They are on board a wildly careening and crusading Crazy Train and stoking the fires to work up a head of steam for days to come. They have their Tin Hats all secured in their luggage and their White Horses, Unicorns and Centaurs in the baggage car and letting us know they are on their way to save us all.

‘Just who are these crusaders?’ you may well ask.

If you ever doubted the existence of the figures in those irrational fantasies we heard about and feared as children, now is the time put those doubts to rest for good. They actually do exist in the form of these crusaders who daily live and speechify amongst us. That’s the good news - but very sadly, that’s the awful, wretched news too.

So, who are they? Let’s make a list, in no particular order shall we?

There’s, the Minnesota Banshee of course, Michelle. You didn’t think Banshee’s actually existed? Think again. Michelle is a living proof, with the wail or a tormented woman and the shriek of an injured owl, who gives continuous vent to venomous outrage violating all laws of lucidity or rationality. In fact, Michelle seems to posses a strict, determined and unfailing allegiance to irrationality.

Then there’s Jabberwocky Paul Ryan of Wisconsin who recklessly swings his Vorpal Sword in noisy defense of the official Tin Hat Banner (“Don’t Tread On Me!”) and has famously been heard to mutter, ‘All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.’, and, ‘Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas---only I don't exactly know what they are! But, I DO KNOW what’s good for YOU!’

There’s Tim the Seraphim, also from Minnesota. (Is there something in the water in those regions?) Tim has eagerly climbed aboard the Crazy Train too and champions evangelical endeavors to return the Earth to its flat, pure state and America to a place where immigrants, foreigners, abortionists and gays may be securely walled off for the protection of all good Christian folk, who are the inheritors of, and the rightful owners of this great nation, thank you very much.

There’s Huck, the pious Golem, who fantasizes we need “. . . . to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.” (These are his actual words!) The contemporary view, by the way when the Constitution was written was ‘separation of church and state’. Huck sits right in the middle of the God Car on the Crazy Train along with Tim and Sarah, but running hot or cold depending on the mood of his handlers at Fox News.

We must not leave out The Donald, the comb-over Satyr who has lately boarded the Crazy Train and is now happily seated first class way up front. The Donald’s particular fantasy is that certain people are not actually born where they are born, but in fact, somewhere else, say not ‘Hawaii’ but ‘Africa’. People who believe this way are called ‘Birthers’ and are a brand new addition to Fantasyland. Alas, there are so many that most Birthers are compelled to ride second class on the Crazy Train - but certainly not The Donald whose hair we’ve been informed, actually has its very own birth certificate!!

There’s Newt the Phoenix, who’s risen from the ashes of his once commanding political career to re-board the Crazy Train anew. Newt fantasizes about a return to fondly remembered days of yore, when men were men, and women were women, and women could marry only men and vice versa. Newt himself provides three excellent examples for this procedure by having had affairs with younger women while his current wife is seriously ill, then divorcing the currently extant wife to marry the younger woman. None of that evil same-sex marriage stuff for an ethically challenged Phoenix, nosiree! Newt the Phoenix has a sub-speciality in train wrecking governments.

Sitting up front first class in the God Car on the Crazy Train with Huck and Tim is Sarah from Alaska, the Harpy/Siren who seems to so thrill the sex-subverted legions of Tea Partiers in their search for truths about God and making American safe for all good Christians, not to mention those lusting after unattainable women. Siren Sarah competes at least evenly with the Banshee for shrilling nonsense, especially when it comes to God-hollering and smacking down the less fortunate, and out does her by far when it comes to casting out demons and uncovering Death Panels.

Way back in the caboose is Haley, the Hellhound Boogeyman from Mississippi, whose main hope and goal it is to reestablish the Confederacy to an equal footing with the US Government and install the Ku Klux Klan as overseers of Social Security, Medicare and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His secondary goal is to encode the Ten Commandments as law and official policy in a Christian government.

Alas, left behind at the station is a more sanely rational, but now very lonely Mitt Romney whose sin it was to actually put in place a health care system for all in Massachusetts when governor there. This is an unpardonable sin in the view of most Crazy Train riders in the wake of the new US national health care system modeled on Romney’s, but installed by a . . . gasp! . . . black democrat! However, Mitt is not completely out of the running as he is now urgently seeking and hopes to find a suitable shapeshifting methodology to overcome his handicap.

And, you thought myths and fantasy were just make believe?

Gosh! How gullible you must be!

Republicans Hurtle Towards Party Suicide

Republicans seem determined to drive themselves over the edge of the cliff. Candidates being considered these days as actual, viable Republican presidential contenders are one big reason. The leading contender is Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts who sponsored and signed into law universal health care for all state residents - an act upon which the new US health care law is based and which Romney now tries to keep quiet - because of pressure from his far right-wing supporters.. 

Second is a Fox News announcer and Southern Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee who seems like a kind of genial uncle with some curious notions like wanting to quarantine AIDS victims, considers homosexuals sinful and aberrant and has other far-right decidedly non-secular evangelical ideas.

Incredibly, third is ‘The Donald’, a laughable, comb-over, ego-centric real estate mogul who has been married three times and bankrupt as many times as well. The Donald now ranks ahead even of that paragon of conservative ideology and obtuse pronouncements Sarah Palin, who is actually #5 behind that gleeful architect of government shutdown, Newt Gingrich. Hello? Huckabee? The Donald? Gingrich? Palin? Republicans have got to be kidding!

Democrats must be chortling with gleeful anticipation.

There are other reasons I think the Republican Party has lost it. Everyone sees the Republican governors’ war on unions and public sector workers. Tea Party GOP candidates captured governor’s seats in several states including Wisconsin, Ohio, Maine and Florida in 2010, and quickly went to work demonizing labor and unions, and cutting budgets for schools, libraries, social safety nets and programs for the poor and disadvantaged. Most moved quickly to benefit business and corporate supporters in the form of tax cuts and other enticements - all at the expense of the people of their respective states. I’m sure they feel pressured to deliver promises made in the heat of the election process, but to most people they now appear determined to destroy the infrastructure of our very culture.

Sean Parnell, Sarah Palin’s successor in Alaska wants to give a $2 Billion tax break to oil companies, no strings attached; Rick Scott who gained office in Florida with the slogan ‘Let’s get to work!” evidently meant ‘for business’ as he wants a $458 Million tax cut for corporations while the Republican dominated legislature is cutting $4 Billion from classrooms, health care for the poor and cuts in pay and benefits for public workers. Wisconsin’s Scott Walker is old news with his tax cuts for business while gutting the state’s public sector unions and cutting state workers’ pay. 

Essentially the same thing is going on in other states like Indiana, Ohio and Maine. Maine’s governor Lepage, a former salvage yard operator, had a mural removed from the Department of Labor headquarters because it is ‘unfriendly to business’. Trouble is, the mural was mostly paid for with Federal funds and the state is now being sued by the US government! Lepage is the same guy who told the NAACP to ‘kiss my ass’ when they invited him to speak at their annual meeting. But, not to worry. Lepage also said he would tell President Obama to ‘go to Hell’.

One thing these governors all seem to have in common is, even though they pledged to help their states ‘grow jobs’ their actions are having the opposite effect. In Florida for example, nearly 10,000 state jobs may be sacrificed in a state which had one of the worst unemployment rates in the country at 11.5% in February, 2011. Nearly 1 million people lost jobs in Florida in the current recession. This governor is ‘growing jobs’? Hello? Did I miss something?

The second thing many hold in common is that at least three of the new Tea Party supported governors now face general public outrage and cries for their recall; Rick Scott of Florida, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Paul Lepage of Maine. Wow! Just three months into their terms. That has to be some kind of record.

Another thing many seem to have in common is their unbearable - and often silly - penchant to dictate their versions of morality and decency, not to mention dogma. They remind me of the officious little snits some of us remember from our high school years. You remember, the person with the control complex who wanted you behave a certain way because he, or she was, you know, the official hall monitor. 

This sometimes leads to some unexpectedly satisfying histrionics. Case in point: A  Florida Democratic legislator’s wife joked to her husband she ought to incorporate her uterus since Republicans were against all business regulation. Her husband mentioned this in the legislature - using the word ‘uterus’. This caused the majority leader’s spokesperson to censure the legislator, Scott Randolph, telling him the use of the word was improper since 12 to 14 year-old pages were in attendance. The word might be bad for adolescent ears. You know, kind of like the hall monitor syndrome. Since then, the story has gotten traction and embarrassed Republicans now wish to disown it, but the Democrats won’t let them - and I’m happy to spread it too. There’s even a Facebook page for ‘Uterus’ now - with tee-shirts!  

Me, I’m calling the situation the CRUD: “Curious Republican Uterus Dread”

Who knows, maybe some bright person will incorporate abortions, or AIDS next . . .

What planet are these Republicans from today?  As one who has voted for many Republicans in my time (but NONE like these!), I am saddened. We really do need and require at least two viable political parties in this country to keep a semblance of honesty and balance in governance. I believe the so-called Tea Party is a one-trick pony with no staying power - but does have the ability to consume what is left of the Republican Party today. I am concerned since it sure seems Republicans are hell bent on destroying themselves as a party in their eagerness to curry favor with Tea Party twits. In the meantime they are doing much damage and setting our country back decades.

They themselves are very nervous too, as witness John Boehner’s waffling. Ah, well. We can still laugh - and spread the word - and unseat these anachronistic bozos.