A MESSAGE TO CJ GOODE III, KANYE WEST, AND ALL OTHER BLACK BIGOT-HUGGERS

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

EXCELLENCE IS THE KEY TO BLACK EQUALITY

A MESSAGE TO CJ GOODE III, KANYE WEST, AND ALL OTHER BLACK BIGOT-HUGGERS

TRUMP IMPEACHMENT PLACES CONSERVATIVE HYPOCRISY ON FULL DISPLAY

There’s an age-old axiom that says that one should ignore what people say, and watch what they do. The truth of that axiom is on full display during this Trump impeachment effort. In spite of the fact that conservatives have a long tradition of wrapping themselves in the flag, wearing flag pins on their lapels, and claiming unfettered patriotism and loyalty to our Constitution, now, when push comes to shove and their self-interest is on the line, the truth of their grossly flawed character has come to the fore, and that truth is, their only true loyalty is to the maintenance of their power, bigotry, and greed. 
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The very word “conservative” in a political context means that a person is dedicated to “conserving” past traditions, and in America, that means the preservation of White supremacy at any cost – and that’s exactly why conservatives are fiercely loyal to Donald Trump. Many of them don’t even like him personally, because they know that he’s neither conservative nor liberal. His one and only philosophy is promoting Donald Trump. But the GOP and over 81% of White Evangelicals have entered into an evil alliance with him to protect Trump, as long as he protects them from their waning power due to the rapidly changing demographics that threatens their grip on power over the country.
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That explains the fanatical fixation that conservatives have on so-called "security" on our Southern border. Their fixation is not on national security at all, it’s actually about White security, and disallowing any more non-White people into the country. If their concern was actually about national security, why aren’t they just as concerned about our Northern border, where hordes of White people cross into the country illegally? It doesn't make sense. Why put bars on your back door and leave your front door wide open?
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And if White Evangelicals are actually following the teachings of Jesus, how could they possibly turn a blind eye to Black people being murdered by rogue cops on the street, and in their homes, and be completely accepting of the atrocities being committed against non-Whites on our Southern border? If they truly viewed America as "That shining light on the hill", and truly followed the teachings of Jesus Christ, they wouldn't tolerate the abuse of another human being. They'd rise up in protest. Melania Trump protested her son, Barron's, name being even brought up in the impeachment hearings, while she hasn't said a word about her husband literally tearing the children from the arms of immigrant mothers and putting them in cages - and she's an immigrant herself, but she's a White immigrant.
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Melania got into the country on an "Einstein Visa", the EB-1, reserved for people who are highly acclaimed in their field - the government cites Pulitzer, Oscar, and Olympic winners as examples - as well as respected academic researchers and multinational executives. Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but I fail to see any special talents that Melania possesses, other than the talent to maneuver her way into bed with a billionaire, which probably wasn't very hard with Donald.
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So the fact is, so-called Evangelical Christians and patriotic conservatives only adhere to their highfalutin Christian and patriotic values as long as it’s convenient. When it becomes inconvenient they revert back to the selfish and animalistic nature that allowed them to enslave and brutalize millions of Black people and commit genocide against 10 generations of Native Americans. So the gullible and/or self-serving Black people who either collude with these people, or just sit back and refuse to vote, are literally suffering from a mental illness at worst, or gross stupidity at best.
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And poor White conservatives are no better, because the people who lead the conservative movement don’t care any more about them than they do non-Whites. Poor Whites are simply manipulated as “useful idiots” whose anger, fear, and votes are being used to promote the rich and powerful, or the conservative agenda.
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When conservatives first arrived on these shores, they brought with them the European notion of class distinction. They have always suffered from the distinctly undemocratic attitude that the only inherent value of the average American is as servants to cater to the whims of the upper class.
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Alexander Hamilton, one of this nation’s conservative founding fathers, believed that the rich and "wellborn" should be given a permanent share in government. He said:
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“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people…. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”
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Hamilton supported a lifetime appointment of the President (after being selected by congress, instead of the people). Can you just imagine that, Donald Trump FOR LIFE!!!?  But America dodged that bullet during the Federalist Convention that took place between May 14 and September 17, 1787.
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Since most of the founding fathers came to America to escape the aristocratic class system in Europe, Hamilton’s desire to preserve the class system was resoundingly defeated in favor of an unfettered democracy, but that didn’t mean that people of Hamilton’s point of view would quietly go away. Instead, they became the conservative coalition, and lowered their profile as blatant aristocrats, and continued to pursue their agenda by using their wealth, power, and various other strategies to divide the people to achieve their agenda, and that’s what we see today.  That accounts for why conservatives tend to be specialists in obstructionism and division, and why the American people ALWAYS suffer under conservative governance.

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The Great Depression

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In 1921 -- eight years before the great depression -- Republicans took over the helm of this nation for 12 years. During that time there were three Republican administrations, the first of which was the administration of Warren G. Harding. History remembers Harding's administration for one thing more than any other -- scandal. It was during Harding's presidency that the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. His administration was considered the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States -- until Nixon's (Watergate), then Reagan's (Iran\Contra), and finally Bush's (Iraqi War).
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Next, in 1923, came Calvin Coolidge, the president that Ronald Reagan is said to have most admired. Coolidge's policies of large tax cuts, allowing business a free-rein, and his encouragement of stock speculation contributed greatly to the impending stock market crash and the great depression that was to follow.
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In 1929 during Republican, Herbert Hoover’s administration, the stock market crashed - much like under the Bush Administration - starting the Great Depression, but back then there was no Barack Obama to come to the rescue or mitigate the damage early on. So in spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, the Republican, Herbert Hoover, just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. Much like Republicans of today, Hoover and his Republican Party had absolutely no compassion for either the plight of the American people, or America’s veterans who had put their lives on the line for this country.
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During Hoover's administration, 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property.
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The conditions were horrific. During the Great Depression there was no such thing as Social Security, so when a person became too old or weak to work they had no income, so they had to depend on their children for support. That meant instead of a husband and wife only having to support themselves and their children, which was tough enough during those times, they also had to support their parents. So three generations of a family could be living in one household - and in many cases, the parents of both the husband, and the wife lived with the family.
.

In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of grandparents became ill the medical costs would devastate the entire family. These conditions kept lower and middle-class families in such dire need of funds that they had to accept whatever crumbs the business community chose to throw at them - and remember, at that time there was no Fair Labor Standards Act or unions to protect a worker’s rights, or a minimum wage, so businesses could treat the worker anyway they wanted, and pay them whatever they wanted.

They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no overtime, and They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 and no paid vacation. In addition, since there were no child labor laws, if your boss didn’t think you were being productive enough, he could insist that you bring your children in (as young as 9 years old) to assist you if you wanted to keep your job. Then if you protested, he could fire you on the spot, in which case, your entire family - sick grandparents and all - would be thrown out on the street, because there was no such thing as unemployment insurance.
.
As a result, in many cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal minds and the like, which in many cases led to the death and/or maiming of young children. So, in a very real sense, Great Depression era workers lived under a form of slavery - the one difference was, they had to go out and find their own housing.
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Think back to the "Little Rascals" we use to watch as kids, and how ragged they were, or the cartoons we use to watch, where a landlord would come to the door (always portrayed in a black suit) and tell a begging and crying mother that she had one more day to come-up with the rent or she and her family would be thrown out in the snow. That was an accurate portrayal of the way people lived in those days, and those are the conditions that the conservative Republican agenda would restore in America today. At this very moment the Republican Party is attacking Social Security, Medicare, Education and many other programs to force the poor and middle class to pay for the huge deficit created by their $1.8 trillion tax cut for the rich.

THE NEW DEAL

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But finally in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal democrat, was elected overwhelmingly. He immediately surrounded himself with a group of the finest minds in the country, including Columbia professors Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Rexford G. Tugwell, and Raymond Moley, known at the time as the "Brain Trust." After assembling these men and others he went about the business of developing a" New Deal" for the working- class people of this country.

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The New Deal had two components - one, to help the economy to recover from the effects of the great depression, and a second component to give relief to the American people and to ensure that they would never be placed in a position of total destitution again. To help heal the economy Roosevelt created programs that regulated business, controlled inflation, and brought about price stabilization; to bring relief to the people he signed The National Labor Relations Act which guaranteed workers the right to collective bargaining, and he created the Social Security Administration to guarantee workers some sort of income once they became too old to work. He also signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which protected worker’s rights and set a minimum wage for workers, and all of these programs are under brutal attack by the Republican Party as we speak.
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With his New Deal in place, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this "bleeding heart liberal", not only led this country out of the worst, Republican-generated, crisis that this country has ever faced, but went on to lead the free world in victory over Hitler in WWII. He then ushered in the most sustained era of prosperity that the world has ever known.
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One would think that conservatives would have seen the light, but their passion to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the lower and middle classes seemed to transcend all logic. Thus, from the moment the New Deal went into place, conservatives have been determined to dismantle it. The closest they've come to succeeding started during the Reagan administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics", which led directly to the Great Recession of 2008 under George W. Bush. Then Barack Obama came along just in time to prevent the world from going into a second Great Depression. So like everything else Donald Trump likes to brag about, he actually inherited his “great economy” from President Obama.
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Thus, the economy is doing great in spite of Donald Trump, not because of him – and as we speak, the GOP is attacking Medicare, Social Security, and other safety net programs put in place in order to help to protect the average American so they can pay down the tremendous national debt created by their $1.8 trillion tax cut they gave to the rich. So in essence, we're currently living on a credit card, just like during the Reagan era - a credit card with a bill that's going to be sent to the average American. So once again, Trump and the GOP are taking from the poor to feed the rich.  

Our grandparent’s generation - the generation that experienced the Great Depression, fought WWII, and who we refer to as "The Greatest Generation" - wouldn't let a Republican anywhere near the White House.  During their era, Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to office four times, and finally died in office on April 12, 1945. The Republicans had to promote the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution limiting the president to two terms in office just to have even a remote chance of getting into office.
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But finally in 1953 they managed to elect the hero of WWII, Republican, Dwight Eisenhower to office, but even he was a Republican in name only - in 1957 he sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate a segregated school after Gov. Orval Faubus tried to prevent Black students from entering, and as his final act in office he warned America about the Military-Industrial Complex, the very people that Donald Trump and the Republican Party represent today.
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So here we are 243 years later and the conservatives are still at it - attacking our educational system to keep Americans dumbed down, trying their best to destabilize or destroy any program that prevent the average American from being totally reliant on them, and stirring up hatred, fear, and animosity among the people to keep them divided and from thinking clearly.
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Nevertheless, the average brainwashed Republican will say, "But we’re the party of Lincoln. It was the Democrats who created the KKK and engaged in lynchings during the Jim Crow era". But that’s a gross manipulation of the facts. In order for the facts to be made clear it’s important to replace party affiliation with political philosophy. While it is true that the old Democratic Party was filled with racist conservative “Dixiecrats”, during the Civil Rights movement under moderate Republican Ike Eisenhower, and later, Democratic presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic Party came out for civil rights. As result, the conservative Dixiecrats migrated to the Republican Party, and Republican liberals moved to the Democratic Party. Thus, the two major parties completely changed their previous political polarities. Therefore, if the Civil War was being fought today, the Republicans would be the Confederacy.
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So the facts are clear – conservatives have always been this nation’s bigots, both racial, and class bigots - regardless to what party they were in.

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THINK ABOUT IT

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com

BLACK WRITERS, INTELLECTUALS, AND INDEPENDENT THINKERS
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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CONSERVATIVES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE ENEMY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Contrary to popular belief, Black people don’t have a moral obligation to be stupid.

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CONSERVATIVES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN THE ENEMY OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

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Conservatives have always been known for walking around with flag pins in their lapels and spewing their "bone-spur" brand of patriotism. Going all the way back to the very founding of this nation they’ve always used false patriotism and deception as weapons to promote a self-serving agenda to undermine the interests of the average American.  As a result of that attitude, they have always been the most insidious enemies of American democracy. That’s why when our founding documents speak of American enemies it uses the phrase, “Both foreign and domestic.”

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When conservatives first arrived on these shores, they brought with them the European notion of class distinction. They have always suffered from the distinctly undemocratic attitude that the only inherent value of the average American is as servants to cater to the whims of the upper class.

.

Alexander Hamilton, one of this nation’s conservative founding fathers, believed that the rich and "wellborn" should be given a permanent share in government. He said:
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“All communities divide themselves into the few and the many. The first are the rich and wellborn, the other the mass of the people…. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom judge or determine right. Give therefore to the first class a distinct, permanent share in government. They will check the unsteadiness of the second, and as they cannot receive any advantage by a change, they therefore will ever maintain good government.”
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Hamilton supported a lifetime appointment of the President (after being selected by congress, instead of the people). Can you just imagine that, Donald Trump FOR LIFE!!!?  But America dodged that bullet during the Federalist Convention that took place between May 14 and September 17, 1787.
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Since most of the founding fathers came to America to escape the aristocratic class system in Europe, Hamilton’s desire to preserve the class system was resoundingly defeated in favor of an unfettered democracy, but that didn’t mean that people of Hamilton’s point of view would quietly go away. Instead, they became the conservative coalition, and lowered their profile as blatant aristocrats, and continued to pursue their agenda by using their wealth, power, and various other strategies to divide the people to achieve their agenda, and that’s what we see today.  That accounts for why conservatives tend to be specialists in obstructionism and division, and why the American people ALWAYS suffer under conservative governance.

.

The Great Depression

In 1921 -- eight years before the great depression -- Republicans took over the helm of this nation for 12 years. During that time there were three Republican administrations, the first of which was the administration of Warren G. Harding. History remembers Harding's administration for one thing more than any other -- scandal. It was during Harding's presidency that the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. His administration was considered the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States -- until Nixon's (Watergate), then Reagan's (Iran\Contra), and finally Bush's (Iraqi War).

.
Next, in 1923, came Calvin Coolidge, the president that Ronald Reagan is said to have most admired. Coolidge's policies of large tax cuts, allowing business a free-rein, and his encouragement of stock speculation contributed greatly to the impending stock market crash and the great depression that was to follow.
.
In 1929 during Republican, Herbert Hoover’s administration, the stock market crashed - much like under the Bush Administration - starting the Great Depression, but back then there was no Barack Obama to come to the rescue or mitigate the damage early on. So in spite of the fact that by 1933 the unemployment rate was at 33.3% with 16 million people out of work, the Republican, Herbert Hoover, just sat, thinking that the economy would eventually rejuvenate itself. Much like Republicans of today, Hoover and his Republican Party had absolutely no compassion for either the plight of the American people, or America’s veterans who had put their lives on the line for this country.
.
During Hoover's administration, 15,000 WWI veterans marched on Washington demanding that they be paid what they were owed by the government. Hoover responded by calling in federal troops to throw these ex-servicemen off government property.
.

The conditions were horrific. During the Great Depression there was no such thing as Social Security, so when a person became too old or weak to work they had no income, so they had to depend on their children for support. That meant instead of a husband and wife only having to support themselves and their children, which was tough enough during those times, they also had to support their parents. So three generations of a family could be living in one household - and in many cases, the parents of both the husband, and the wife lived with the family.
.
In addition, there was no such thing as Medicare or Medicaid, so when one of grandparents became ill the medical costs would devastate the entire family. These conditions kept lower and middle-class families in such dire need of funds that they had to accept whatever crumbs the business community chose to throw at them - and remember, at that time there was no Fair Labor Standards Act or unions to protect a worker’s rights, or a minimum wage, so businesses could treat the worker anyway they wanted, and pay them whatever they wanted.
.
They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 days a week, with no overtime, and

They could work you 16 hours a day, 7 and no paid vacation. In addition, since there were no child labor laws, if your boss didn’t think you were being productive enough, he could insist that you bring your children in (as young as 9 years old) to assist you if you wanted to keep your job. Then if you protested, he could fire you on the spot, in which case, your entire family - sick grandparents and all - would be thrown out on the street, because there was no such thing as unemployment insurance.
.
As a result, in many cases the entire family, including the children, had to work long, hard hours under sweatshop-like conditions in coal minds and the like, which in many cases led to the death and/or maiming of young children. So, in a very real sense, Great Depression era workers lived under a form of slavery - the one difference was, they had to go out and find their own housing.
.
Think back to the "Little Rascals" we use to watch as kids,   ragged

they were, or the cartoons we use to watch, where a landlord would come to the door (always portrayed in a black suit) and tell a begging and crying mother that she had one more day to come up with the rent or she and her family would be thrown out in the snow. That was an accurate portrayal of the way people lived in those days, and those are the conditions that the conservative Republican agenda would restore in America today. At this very moment the Republican Party is attacking Social Security, Medicare, Education and many other programs to force the poor and middle class to pay for the huge deficit created by their $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich.

THE NEW DEAL

.

But finally in 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a liberal democrat, was elected overwhelmingly. He immediately surrounded himself with a group of the finest minds in the country, including Columbia professors Adolph A. Berle, Jr., Rexford G. Tugwell, and Raymond Moley, known at the time as the "Brain Trust." After assembling these men and others he went about the business of developing a" New Deal" for the working- class people of this country.

.
The New Deal had two components -- one, to help the economy to recover from the effects of the great depression, and a second component to give relief to the American people, and to ensure that they would never be placed in a position of total destitution again. To help heal the economy Roosevelt created programs that regulated business, controlled inflation, and brought about price stabilization; to bring relief to the people he signed The National Labor Relations Act which guaranteed workers the right to collective bargaining, and he created the Social Security Administration to guarantee workers some sort of income once they became too old to work. He also signed the Fair Labor Standards Act which protected worker’s rights and set a minimum wage for workers, and all of these programs are under brutal attack by the Republican Party as we speak.
.
With his New Deal in place, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, this "bleeding heart liberal", not only led this country out of the worst, Republican generated crisis that this country has ever faced, but went on to lead the free world in victory over Hitler in WWII. He then ushered in the most sustained era of prosperity that the world has ever known.
.
One would think that conservatives would have seen the light, but their passion to further enrich the wealthy at the expense of the lower and middle classes seems to supersede all logic. Thus, from the moment the New Deal went into place, conservatives have been determined to dismantle it. The closest they've come to succeeding started during the Reagan administration with Supply-Side Economics, or, "Reaganomics" -- and the battle is currently raging in Washington D.C. as we speak.
.
Our grandparent’s generation, the generation that experienced the Great

Depression, fought WWII, and who we refer to as "The Greatest Generation", wouldn't let a Republican anywhere near the White House. 
During their era, Democrat, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected to office four times, and finally died in office on April 12, 1945. The Republicans had to promote the Twenty-Second Amendment to the Constitution limiting the president to two terms in office just to have even a remote chance of getting into office. But finally in 1953 they managed to elect the hero of WWII, Republican, Ike Eisenhower to office, but even he was a Republican in name only - in 1957 he sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate a segregated school after Gov. Orval Faubus tried to prevent Black students from entering, and as his final act in office he warned America about the Military-Industrial Complex, the very people that Donald Trump and the Republican Party represent today.

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So here we are 243 years later and the conservatives are still at it - attacking our educational system, trying their best to destabilize or destroy any program that prevent the average American from being totally reliant on them, and stirring up hatred, fear, and animosity among the people to keep divided and from thinking clearly.

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REPUBLICANS LYING TO COVERUP RUSSIAN 

ATTACK ON AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
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Rep. Goetz, you're lying. Trump was not exonerated, and you know it. Read the Mueller report. Mueller said he couldn't “ESTABLISH” evidence of a Russian conspiracy due to witnesses lying and the destruction of evidence. But he did prove over 140 Trump campaign contacts with the Russians and at least 10 cases of Obstruction of Justice.

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REPUBLICAN DECEPTION

THINK ABOUT IT.

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com

Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
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Religion: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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RE: You’re White and Marched With Dr. King: So What?

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

RE: You’re White and Marched With Dr. King: So What?

To Imani Grandy,

My name is Eric Wattree.  I'm a writer, musician, poet, and old school revolutionary from the 60s (Google me). While I understand your passion, as a former Panther associate (I was never a joiner), I've seen unbridled passion before, and it's ALWAYS counterproductive.
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Your position in this matter not only misrepresents the position of Martin Luther King, but also the realization that Malcolm X came to just before he was assassinated. What made Martin effective was he didn't run off angry and  half-cocked like many of us. He didn't allow his anger to circumvent his intellect.  He understood that Black people couldn't win the civil rights battle alone. He recognized from the outset that he needed to form a coalition by changing the hearts and minds of the American people, and then using the clout derived from that change to apply political pressure on our government. That's how things are changed in the United States.
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Yes, there was a lot of noise and commotion going on during the civil rights movement, but don't be misled. America wasn't afraid of Black people during the sixties, just as no one is afraid of us now. The powers that be have enough experience with Black people to know that all they have to do is call out the national guard and all they'll hear are crickets by nightfall - and besides, no battle has ever been won by flappin' lips anyway. So essentially, all the Netroots stunt was, was somebody's dumb and self-serving idea for a personal photo op.

Again, battles are won by forming political coalitions - yes, political coalitions with White liberals like Bernie Sanders, who you so cavalierly flipped off - and also, inspiring people of every walk of life to embrace the cause of justice - justice for ALL.  Martin understood this, and later, so did Malcolm. But due to Martin's resolve in this matter, and his refusal to see us slaughtered en mass by taking to the streets in violence (as many young hot headed idiots like myself were determined to do), we started calling him Martin Luther "Coon." You see, we were too young and dumb to realize that we couldn't out-scream injustice, and we couldn't out-fight the military. You must out-think injustice, and all those who insist on relying on anger over thought are a liability to both the people, and the people's cause.
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More people are turning out to hear Bernie Sanders than any other politician in America. So all you've done is managed to antagonize thousands of people who you should be trying to gather as allies. So there's only one word that adequately describes such an action - STUPID.

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We're In A Class War - Open Your Eyes

We must never forget that God made birds to fly, fish to swim, and man to THINK, not to act in reckless stupidity. Thus the attack on Sen. Bernie Sanders was unwarranted, and just that - and act of unmitigated stupidity,  and it was exactly the kind of political stunt that's giving the 1%ers and social manipulators the upper hand against the people. NEVER ATTACK YOUR ALLIES!!! By doing so you only lend legitimacy to the allegations, distortions, and propaganda of your enemy. So if whoever came up with the idea of organizing this stunt against Sanders and O'Malley didn't have sense enough to recognize such a  fundamental reality, neither do they have sense enough to lead the people
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Considering the content of the Republican clown car, and everything that the GOP has been doing, and saying, to undermine and divide the American working class, I find it next to impossible to believe that anyone acting with legitimate intent could be so politically naive and out of touch with reality that they'd believe that staging such a counterproductive political stunt would be in the best interest of either Black people, or the American working class. So I believe that stunt was staged by either a GOP ringer, or a political operative of one of the Democratic campaigns.
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It's my personal belief that Bernie Sanders' long record of civil rights activities - that go all the way back to when he was in the trenches with Martin Luther King and before many of his current critics were born - is clearly resonating with the people, and somebody's been caught off guard, because the people are beginning  to realize that what Bernie's been saying for decades is absolutely true. We're in the middle of a class war, and we can't out-fight the 1%ers, because they control the military, we can't out-scream the 1%ers, because they control the media, and we can't out-spend the 1%ers, because they control 90% of the nation's resources. But here's what we can do - we can out-organize and out-vote the 1%ers hands down, and that's what we must do if we're going to survive as a free nation.
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So the working class needs to wake up and stop dividing itself into factions. ALL LIVES MATTER, and the working class in this country needs to come together and embrace that message. Black people, Hispanics, women's groups, and gays need to understand that none of our various groups can prevail alone. The 1%ers have established a solid front, and we'd better do the same or we're doomed, because our division is their most effective weapon.
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On the other hand, if the people come together as a solid front, we can trump money. No matter how much money the 1%ers pour into their campaigns, if the people stand firm, the 1%ers can't win, because the only thing that money can buy in politics is votes, and we OWN the vote, if we would just wake up and recognize that.
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And finally, I would be remiss if I failed to mention your grossly unappreciative and cavalier attitude toward the White liberals who believed so passionately in EVERYONE'S right to justice that they were willing to give up their lives so YOU could have one.  Those were very dangerous times during the Civil Rights movement, as evidenced by the fact that John and Robert Kennedy, Martin, and Malcolm are no longer with us. So I'm simply going to assume that what I can only refer to as your disgustingly cavalier attitude toward the sacrifices of those heroes is a direct response to a gross ignorance of that era on your part.  During that time, White liberals who fought for civil rights were considered traitors to their race. They were hated on a par with Osama Bin Laden, and many were kidnapped in the night and subjected to the most horrible forms of torture and death. Yet, you say, "So what!!!?"
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But today it's about much more than just the hatred of Black people. Today, they're simply USING the various hatreds - of Black people, Hispanics, Muslims, women's rights, and gays - to entice social bigots to keep the working class divided, and to vote against their own interests, and for their own enslavement. It's about dollars, and a lack of sense. It's a class issue, and you're playing right into it. The 1%ers don't care any more about poor and middle-class White people than they do Black people or other minorities.  So it's imperative that we ALL come together on EVERY issue as a CLASS, and stop trying to fight little skirmishes as individual factions. That's a losing battle.  That's why we're still fighting Martin's battle fifty years later, because we have yet to learn that lesson. But it's a lesson that conservatives have learned well:

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SCOTT WALKER: DIVIDE AND CONQUER

Eric L. Wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does. 

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Republican Campaign Strategy - Division and Distraction

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Republican Campaign Strategy - Division and Distraction

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The Republic Party has only one agenda during this political campaign , and that’s to keep the American people distracted from clearly looking at the facts. But the bottom line is this:

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1). The GOP was such an unmitigated disaster for eight years under George W. Bush that they’ve had to keep him in hiding.

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2). We haven't had but one successful Republican president in nearly 100 years. That was Ike Eisenhower nearly 60 years ago, and as his very last act of office he warned America to beware of his very own Republican Party - or the Military/Industrial Complex.

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3). Under the Bush administration the nation was hemorrhaging 800,000 jobs A MONTH. Under Obama the nation has now gained over 5 million jobs - and that's with the Republican Party fighting him tooth-n-nail.

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4). Ronald Reagan, the hero of the Republican Party, and the one who first floated the economic plan that Republicans are pursuing, tripled the national debt. Ronald Reagan was the most prolific spender of all of the presidents before him - COMBINED.

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5). One of the reasons that we're in this economic mess is because the GOP used the "search" for Osama Bin Laden as a pretext to soak our national treasury and attack the middle class safety net, which they've been after for over 70 years. Then Obama came into office and got Bin Laden with a handful of men and two helicopters.

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SO AMERICA, DON’T ALLOW YOURSELVES TO BE DISTRACTED FROM THE FACTS. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IS DEDICATED TO LOWERING THE STANDARD OF LIVING OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS IN ORDER TO HELP BIG BUSINESS TO COMPETE WITH THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES - PERIOD.

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IF YOU LOOK BENEATH EVERY ONE OF THEIR POLICIES YOU'LL FIND THAT THEY ALL HAVE ONE THING IN COMMON - THEY PROMOTE THAT AGENDA:

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* Citizens-United allows big business to control our political system.

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* Their attack on teachers and our educational system chips away at the middle class and makes us more manageable. They want to keep us uninformed about the kind of things that I'm telling you right now. 

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* Their attack on labor unions takes away the voice of middle class workers.

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* Their attack on science, safety, and environmental regulations protect the profits of big business - never mind what it does to the environment or our health.

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* And their constant effort to promote division prevents the people from coming together to fight back.
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These are the tactics employed by third world countries against their people, and it has now become the new business strategy supported, and promoted, by the Republican Party - WORKERS BE DAMNED! 

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THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAS WRITTEN OFF 47% OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE AS DEADBEATS.

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THINK ABOUT THAT!
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Related Article
The GOP: A One Hundred Year History of Swindling the American People
 

Eric L. Wattree
Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
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Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Scott Walker Recall: A Referendum on American Democracy

Beneath the Spin * Eric L. Wattree

Scott Walker Recall: A Referendum on American Democracy

The effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker in tomorrow’s Wisconsin election will undoubtedly have repercussions far beyond the boundaries of the state. Walker has come to be seen as the point man in the GOP’s concerted assault on the American middle class. All across the country GOP governors and Republican-controlled legislatures have launched aggressive campaigns to obstruct voting, bust unions, make draconian cuts to the police, fire departments, education, and social programs, all in the name of deficit reduction, only to use the resulting revenue to give huge tax cuts to large corporations and the top 1% of the population.
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In August of 2011 ThinkProgress.org reported that Walker turned away more than $9 million in grants from the Affordable Care Act. The funds were intended to address the state’s problems with drug and alcohol abuse, assessing the impact of public policies on the health of its citizens, and for signing up residents who qualify for state health programs. According to the article, health commissioners were "outraged." Reportedly, Walker indicated that the funds "duplicated existing efforts." This, in spite of the fact that Walker had "slashed $500 million from Department of Health Services and instituted a $1.6 billion reduction in public school funding." In addition, "Wisconsin is also near the very bottom of states for public health funding, ranking 49th in the nation for state funding of prevention services per capita."
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And according to an article in "Labor Notes" written by Eleni Schirmer and Lenora Hanson,"When Walker entered office in January 2011, the state had a budget surplus of more than $120 million. Walker made quick work of creating a budget crisis, allocating $140 million in corporate tax write-offs and giveaways during his first weeks in office." Thus, the GOP’s ostensible concern over the deficit appears to be nothing more than a pretext to redirect funds to corporations, the top 1% of the population, and to make absolutely certain that the poor and middle class remain miserable, angry, and divided until after the next election.
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Did I say this is a concerted effort on the part of the GOP? Absolutely.
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The Republican Party has done everything in their power to ensure that the American people remain miserable, divided, and angry until the 2012 election every since Rush Limbaugh gave them their marching orders early in Obama’s presidency. Limbaugh said, "I don't want this to work . . . I hope he [Obama] fails." And the Republicans have been on a single-minded mission to ensure Obama’s failure every since - which also means America’s failure. Thus, the GOP has, literally, been on a mission to sabotage America.
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From the moment Rush Limbaugh gave the Republican Party their marching orders, every initiative that President Obama has put forward to improve the economy and create new jobs has been met with fierce Republican opposition. They could care less that America is suffering. In fact, they want America to suffer - the more the better. All the GOP cares about is making absolutely sure that President Obama doesn’t succeed in bringing relief to the misery they caused the American people under eight years of George W. Bush..To that end, the Republicans in congress have engaged in a record number of filibusters in an attempt to block every initiative that Obama has put forward to rescue the American people. Their determination is so fierce in that regard that any Republican who fails to go along with their strategy is in dire jeopardy of being banished from congress. The attack on Utah Republican Orrin Hatch, who has spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate, is clear warning to all others who fail to fall in line.
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And even those initiatives that did manage to miraculously survive were being blocked from implementation by Republican Governors across the country, under the pretense that rescuing America constituted "wasteful spending." But their concern over the budget deficit didn’t prevent Republicans for a minute from holding the unemployed hostage to extend the Bush tax cut for the rich which, to a large extent, is what brought us to this point in the first place
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The Houston Chronicle reported Texas governor, Rick Perry, as saying the following regarding federal money allocated for Texas to assist the unemployed:
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"The money would come with too many strings attached. Taking the half billion would require the state to assist qualified out-of-work residents seeking part-time jobs, an idea that Perry said the state has rejected before, partly because it could discourage them from seeking full-time employment. The federal money injection would also make Texas extend benefits to more low-paid workers, and Perry said the overall expansion would force business to make higher unemployment insurance payments."
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Perry neglected to point out that the money would also be used by the unemployed to purchase goods and services. That would stimulate the economy, and the Republicans can’t have that. Yet, after initially turning down federal money targeted at creating jobs, Perry eventually took the stimulus money. But instead of using it to create jobs and bring relief to the poor and middle class, he used it to plug his budget shortfalls and save his "rainy day fund." CNN Money reports the following:
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"Texas, which crafts a budget every two years, was facing a $6.6 billion shortfall for its 2010-2011 fiscal years. It plugged nearly all of that deficit with $6.4 billion in Recovery Act money, allowing it to leave its $9.1 billion rainy day fund untouched . . . Now that the stimulus money has dried up, state lawmakers last week unveiled an austere budget for the 2012-2013 fiscal years that cuts $31 billion in spending. Schools, colleges, Medicaid and social services for the needy will be hit especially hard."
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So while Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has undoubtedly done his part to promote the GOP obstructionist agenda, in terms of symbolism he pales in comparison to Scott Walker. Walker’s shamelessly blatant assault on the rights and livelihood of the poor and middle class makes him the walking, breathing, embodiment of the Republican effort to lower the standard of living of working-class America. That’s what makes it essential that he’s recalled in tomorrow’s election. He represents the GOP’s trial balloon. If Walker survives, the Republican assault on the rights and livelihood of the working class will go into high gear all across America.

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Related Article:
THE GOP: A ONE HUNDRED YEAR RECORD OF SWINDLING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Eric L. Wattree wattree

Http://wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
.
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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Is the GOP Really America’s Domestic Enemy?

Beneath the Spin*Eric L. Wattree

Is the GOP Really America’s Domestic Enemy?

Many of my conservative friends are advising me that by implying that the GOP is a domestic enemy of America that I’m being unnecessarily divisive, and I’m doing myself a disservice. One particularly good friend said, “Contrary to what you and Gordon love to espouse, the GOP is not the 'devil incarnate.' It may be politically convenient and divisive for you to call it that, but it is just not true.” Sorry Tom, but I beg to disagree.

The fact is, I’m neither implying, espousing, nor equivocating. I’m stating a demonstrable fact. The GOP leadership is un-American, period. And they specialize in holding the American people hostage. Their total disregard for America is made quite evident by the fact that every time the GOP wants to push one of their unpopular initiatives they begin to strangle a segment of the American people for leverage. Two of the most recent examples of that are the way they held unemployed Americans and first responders hostage in order to push through the extension of the Bush tax cuts to benefit the wealthiest 2% of the population. Thereafter, they threatened to shut down the entire government in an attempt to push through initiatives that would have brought severe hardships upon the poor and middle class.

Both the methods and propaganda of the GOP are not only un-American, but right out of the Nazi playbook. The GOP leadership has calculated that the more miserable they can keep the American people, the better chance they have of regaining power. That, in turn, would allow them to get on with the business of totally enslaving the American people. So they routinely employ tactics from right out of Joseph Gobbels’ handbook on the effective use of propaganda to keep us so angry and divided that we’re blind to their concerted effort to keep America ignorant, distracted, and miserable.

The issue doesn’t even require debate, because the facts are indisputable. But unfortunately, in politics, just like religion, people tend to close their eyes to any and all facts, no matter how revealing, that tends to contradict what they want to believe. The same is true in both parties and across the political spectrum. Many of President Obama’s supporters also suffer from this ailment. They close their eyes to Obama’s tendency to engage in collusive “compromises” just like Republicans are closing their eyes to the horrific Republican conspiracy against America - and in the case of both, that’s in spite of the fact it’s a direct assault on the quality of life of their own family and children.

But the GOP is enabled by being allowed to hide in plain sight behind Godwin’s Law, which asserts that whenever you bring up Hitler or the Nazis as a metaphor to define others you automatically render your argument meaningless. But Godwin’s Law doesn’t take into account that there are times when the comparison is not only appropriate, but unavoidable - and this is one such time. So I seriously reassert, without hyperbole and in all candor, that the modus operandi and goals of the current GOP leadership come right out of the Nazi tradition - in fact, so much so that it inspires a sense of deja-vu.

Adolph Hitler pointed out the following in Mein Kampf :

“The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward . . . Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side.”

This is exactly the tactic employed by the GOP. They assume that the people are stupid so they all constantly repeat the exact same script, and conspicuously avoid any vestige of truth that is unfavorable to them. That’s why on any given news cycle they all trot out the same mantras: “Tax and spend Democrats,” “Government controlled healthcare,” “Death panels,” “Obamacare,” “Job-killing policies,” etc.

Joseph Gobbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda, also felt that it was essential to gain control over the media, which the GOP embarked upon during the Reagan administration when they abolished the Fairness Doctrine. The doctrine allowed for equal time for opposing points of view, and the GOP couldn’t have that. Then afer the doctrine was abolished, conservative interests began to buy and take control of television and radio networks across the country. The rest is history. If the Fairness Doctrine hadn’t been abolished, every time Limbaugh, Beck, or Fox News made a ridiculous statement on public policy, the network would have had to give equal time to any qualified person or group espousing the opposing point of view.

Gobbels also advocated limiting the people’s access to information. It is this prescription that accounts for the GOP’s thirty-year assault on our educational system and their current attempts to revise history. It also accounts for their assault on the National Public Broadcasting Network. So now it isn’t enough to simply lie to the people, now they’re also trying to prevent them from hearing the truth. Now, as a direct result of this thirty-year assault truth, many young Americans don’t realize that it’s un-American for the government to torture prisoners, or for Gov. Rick Snyder to fire duly elected local officials.

Gobbels also discussed the tactic of accusing your opponent of the assault on freedom that you’re actually committing. This tactic has also been clearly demonstrated by the GOP. Every since Obama has been in office, the GOP has been accusing him of promoting big government and trying to take government control of our lives. But now it turns out that all over the country Republican governors are not only trying to install big government, but initiate totalitarian policies that completely strip the American people of all of their rights of self-determination.

That brings us to the Nazi device of creating a crisis as a pretext for initiating unpopular policies. The GOP contends that their assault on the poor and middle class is absolutely necessary to address the nation’s deficit. But what they don’t tell us is that they created the deficit through Bush’s reckless spending in the first place. John Dyer of MSN Money points out that Bush alone cost the nation $11.5 trillion, and I suggest that it wasn’t purely due to incompetence.

The GOP has been on a single-minded mission for more than 70 years to reverse New Deal initiatives that President Roosevelt put into place to rescue the American people during the Great Depression. Thus, over the years the GOP’s determination to abolish social security, the minium wage, and the Fair Labor Standards Act has been even more virulent than their current determination to abolish President Obama’s healthcare reform. But these programs have been so popular among the American people that they haven’t been able to go after them legislatively, so the GOP has purposely spent us into a ditch in order to manufacture a crisis as a pretext to initiate policies that they wanted to pursue in the first place.

That explains a lot. It perfectly explains why the nation is now in such dire straits even though President Clinton left Bush a $150 billion surplus. It also explains why Bush couldn’t put forth a rational explanation for why he was so anxious to invade Iraq that he sacrificed the lives of American troops by sending them to war without the necessary gear to protect their lives. In addition, that’s also why he made the supremely irrational decision to pursue two wars and a huge tax cut simultaneously and put it all on a credit card, costing the nation $5 trillion. Bush had to take out a loan to cover just the loss of revenue created by his tax cut for the rich, and the interest alone on that loan cost the nation $265 billion.

But that’s not all it explains. When we take into account the fact that the GOP has been purposely spending America into a ditch as a pretext to attack the poor and middle class safety net, it also explains why in spite of the fact that the GOP bills itself as the party of fiscal responsibility, they not only applauded, but lionized Ronald Reagan after he came close to tripling the national debt. It also explains why even though the poor and middle class had nothing to do with creating this economic disaster - including the estimated $6 trillion cost of the Wall Street bailout - the burden of resolving the crisis is being placed squarely in the lap of those least able to pay.

But the most unconscionable example of the GOP’s attack on the middle class is with social security. They claim that social security is in a crisis situation so the poor and middle class have got to prepare themselves to take a hit. But the only reason social security is in crisis is because the government has borrowed $2.5 trillion from the program and they don’t want to pay it back. So the GOP solution to the problem is to make us bite the bullet to absorb the cost of money that they borrowed from us.

Now, in spite of the Republican claim to be against big government, Republican governor, Rick Snyder of Michigan, has signed a bill into law that allows him to declare a state of budgetary marshal law which allows him to take over the cities and municipalities in the state of Michigan and appoint “Emergency Managers” with the authority to fire duly elected officials, rescind municipal contracts and labor agreements, and ignore any and all rules of public accountability. So in essence - no, in fact - he’s installed a dictatorship in the state of Michigan, and other Republican governors across the country are following suit.

In addition, the GOP judiciary, who was supposed to be so big on a “strict constructionist” interpretation of the constitution, not only ruled that international corporations were equal to American citizens in addressing our political system, but in the 2000 election disenfranchised American voters to appoint the president of their choice. Then to add insult to injury, they ruled that the judicial jujitsu that they engaged in to circumvent the will of the people could not be used as a precedent in future cases.

So the GOP has but one step left. If they can gain control of our national government and establish the same rules that now exist in Michigan, America’s beautiful experiment in democracy is over.

So yes, Tom, the GOP is indeed the Devil incarnate - and worse.

Eric L. Wattree
http://wattree.blogspot.com/
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)

Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

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