corrente

My unindicted co-conspirators sent me this today and I sure hope that ol’ David W. Orr is a prophet. Not really a prophet, mind you—prescient. Making a true argument, and explaining the structure, nature and stench of the chicken that’s tied around the GOP chicken-killin’ dog’s neck. Because if the GOP can deny there's a stinking chicken on their collective neck, they will. It's part of their illness, remember. As good therapists, we must understand the nature of the thing being denied. Here’s a taste; the whole thing is easily accessible at Common Dreams:

Following the election of 2004, much has been made of the weaknesses of the Democratic Party, even its possible end. But it has escaped the notice of our blow-dry television pundits and political observers alike that the Republican Party, in the full blush of triumph in control of all the branches of government and large sections of the media, stands on the edge of certain extinction. The reasons grow daily more evident. Over the past three decades, the moderate, business-oriented party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower was captured by its extreme right-wing thereby becoming a party dominated by ideologues, increasingly divorced from unmovable facts. But no organization, political party, or nation can long survive by ignoring realities of ecology, social justice, law, economics, and true security. Sooner or later, it will step off the proverbial curb into onrushing traffic of events, forces, and trends that it refused to see.

It’s a comforting thought, but a little too passive. I mean, these same forces—“ecology, social justice, law, economics, and true security”—are not idle forces. They are in the hands of the people who are concerned enough about them to take action. So, it’s not a matter of just idly waiting to be a material witness to the GOP stepping off the curb in front of a freedom bus, it’s a matter of giving them a push… he goes on to note the nature of the realities in question being denied (yet another disturbing symptom!) at the peril of the afflicted:

The Republican Party has chosen to deny social, ecological, cultural, religious, and economic realities which are unavoidably complicated, complex, diverse, ironic, and paradoxical. Instead they have chosen to make their own simplistic, ideological, and chauvinistic fantasy world that has little affinity for law, science, a free and independent press, fairness, true security, ecological sustainability, and the accountability that is requisite for genuine democracy.

It is the job of us living in Free America to put a hatpin in this fantasy bubble. For more, visit The Imminent Demise of the Republican Party and while you’re there you might also check out NH WOMAN LOSES INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR HER POLITICAL ACTIVISM, the story of how being a politically active democrat can cost you your coverage. Imagine how easily a wild-eyed socialist could be denied coverage.

Pundits say that the left's positions are too complex, and the right's are popular because they're simple. But the message IS simple: it's a complex world and a complex world demands complex solutions. Like Johnson, when asked how to refute Bishop Berkeley, kicking the curb and replying "thus!" Reality is a hard object. Another disturbing symptom, aside from denial of reality is the inability to tolerate criticism. So, let’s keep pouring on the reality and the criticism of simpleminded greed. It’s a case of tough love for America.