The Republicans are still in the habit of whining about everything, and they have been whining ever since that tax bill was passed. Passing that bill accomplished a lot of good things because it got us past at least a big part of the revenue problem. Mitch Mc Conell was on for the first fifteen minutes of Meet the Press and kept repeating the expression of "The President has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a compromise". Actually the President has been forthcoming with a lot of deals and compromises over the past couple of years, but the republicans haven't gone for them, because of course in their minds if they agreed to any deal, it would make the President look better. They then had a roundtable discussion of the "experts" on Meet the Press. The one optimist of
that economic bunch was the only guy they had on who had his head screwed on
straight. Last Saturday I accused Dr. Levy of being an unrealistic optimists on OUR personal issues and prospects, and an unreasonable Pessimist - - on the world economy and the future. And I stated then that "there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about the future". But the tea party doesn't want to even contemplate the thought that positive developments may have already occurred in government, and that the instruments in making prudent budget cuts in many areas are in fact already in place. Gingrich continues to say that
drawing the line with the debt ceiling is not a good idea because it will only
make the republicans appear combative.
But like I say- - fifteen months ago I thought Gingrich was a total idiot, but now he looks like a freaking genious considering the other tea party competition he's had over the past fifteen months. President Obama will be nominating Chuck Hagel because he is “soft on
Isrial” and “we over-stayed our welcome in Afghanistan” going well beyond our
“mission”. Apparently Chuck Hagel has from time to time also expressed doubts about how we were conducting the war in Iraq, while it was going. The former Nebraska senator
will add a nice Republican touch to the cabinet but the Republicans in Congress
are massing in opposition. But they won't get anywhere.
There are still certain Republican expressions that grate against me. One of these is talk of "a revenue neutral tax bill". If it's really "revenue neutral" then why pass it at all? What they mean is that it will redistribute revenue from the poor to the rich, just as the vast majority of Ronald Reagan's tax bills did. On the issue of gun legislation - - - my guess is that the public pressure has now grown strong enough to get some sort of assault weapons limitation passed even in this congress, as well as closing the gun show loophole and insuring that every American's background is checked out before he is allowed to purchase a firearm. Other republicans like to moan endlessly about the national debt like those people on the Meet the Press pannel on Sunday. It used to be that talk of "economic growth solving the problem of deficets" was over-emphisized, when the republicans were in power. Now that Obama is President, this same principle is under-emphasized - - into non existance by the Republicans. They don't see how you could possibly "spend money to make money". There was an animated cartoon on You Tube I saw last week that irritated me. Because it shows this guy wanting to buy a house- - and the bank tells him they are out of money. But of course there are so many "greedy" people who want to own homes out there demanding money, so the bank has to print worthless money for them. That's such an over-simplification of the problem it's absurd. I think I'm going to strangle the next person who says "If you're the head of a household and you're low on funds you have to cut back spending to avoid mounting debt". No matter how ignorant you are you can't be so foolish as to believe that Federal Government macro spending works the same way as micro-spending by an individual householder. People who get SSI and Social Security actually do spend money and stimulate the economy and therefore create jobs. Cops and firemen and school teachers and people in construction who are employed have the capital to go out there and spend money and therefore to create jobs. The people who say that "all government jobs are artificial and should never be created" must not have lived through World War II. An awful lot of lasting "government employment" was sure created then.
In one way I've tended to be a liberal. I used to believe in the sixties that virtually all personal destiny was determined by the environment a person was raised in. Perhaps I believed this because I believed in the classic principles of psychology as it was taught then. Then along came James Dobson who said "No, a lot of it is environment but a lot of it is an individual personality that he is born with". Of course then along comes the tea party and the entire other extreme that it's somehow "white European breeding" that gives men of distinction their character. And you have to keep in mind that what they are referring to is this- - heretical- - - doctrine that the Human Soul or "a man's intrinsic character" is determined by his DNA as it was formed when his father and his mother came together. Some will even carry this so far as to say that the soul isn't what gets "saved" to begin with because after all the soul is "soulish" and that's the kind of music Black people listen to and we can't have that! The soul is DNA structure, the union of your mother and your father at tie moment you were conceived, according to Tertulian, an ancient Christian theologian. I do not subscribe to this doctrine of the physicality of the Soul. But some evangelists today and I suspect even Neil Savedra of KFI will say that "there are certain family curses and a dabbling into Satanism by ancestors which can carry over into your own walk with God that even the blood of Jesus is powerless against". Of course some would say in first glancing at this paragraph, "Well- - aren't personal actions and character determined by your own Will or decision making power at the present time"? This may well be- - but Christian theologicans don't believe in that. In fact they will often repeat the statement that "We don't have SIN because each of us individually are sinning" but rather they will say "We comit sins Because we are - by nature - - Sinners". So therefore the "by nature" part of that means that we are tied to our physical souls- - and hence to our family DNA which we are slaves to and no ammount of "Environmental nurture" will remedy that situation. So therefore you have statements about certain racial groups like the Negro - - or the Latino is by his inherent nature- - lazy and shiftless, and other statements of that bent. But they have to say that. Because if they said that by my OWN actions I could change- - then all I would have to do is DO whatever stupid thing they wanted me to DO and I'd be off the hook. But they cannot even ALLOW for the Possability of THAT happening. They want my "sin" as it were to be something they can forever finger me for- - as part of my permanent State. I'd like to say this one more thing I've said before but it bears repeating. Actually the Last thing an Evangelist wants of you - - the "object" of his wrath and yammering away- - if for you Yourself- - to cultivate your OWN relationship with God. Because the way an Evangelist looks at it- - the moment God is bigger than himself- - the Evangelist- - - then he feels personally Threatened by a situation he no longer has control of. And if you have your OWN relationship with God, then the evangelist can no longer control you. So all of these tea party people have to continue to be made to believe that their mentors such as Grover Norquist and Sheldon Addelson and the Koch Brothers- - are in fact, "God", in their lives, and must continue to be given their undying confidence and supreme Trust. (Selah)
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