Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Thursday, October 15, 2015

CAN THEY FIND THE WAY BACK?

REPUBLICAN CONTEMPT
   The setting is the great beyond. The card players are Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.

    "Say fellows, did you read what David Brooks said about the Grand Old Party?" Reagan reaches for a jellybean.
     "Well, I've got to say even though he works for that liberal Jew New York Times, he's a good man!" Nixon wipes sweat from his upper lip.
      "I couldn't agree with him more," Ike says.
      "How's that Mr. President?"
      "I'll tell you how Ronnie. Ever since that gas bag Rush Limbaugh got the holy, holy treatment from Republicans our old party has, as Brooks said, become 'bombastic, hyperbolic and imbalanced.' They remind me of the old John Birch society."
      "Let me just say I stand four square for Republican values, but these people are radicals. They're as destructive as the yippies and SDS. All they want to do is tear down government," Nixon pokes himself in the eye as he gestures.
      "Well, you know boys, Old Tip and I didn't see eye to eye on things but we still took time to visit and you know we got things done." Reagan eats another jellybean.
      "These damned fools who call themselves the Freedom Caucus don't know the first thing about freedom or the price so many have paid. It's like Brooks said, 'Self-expression is more valued than self-restraint and coalition building.' Think we could have won the peace if we didn't build coalitions or I couldn't find a way to work with Mongomery for crying out loud?" General Eisenhower stands and straightens his tie.
     Nixon stands and almost salutes Ike. "I just want to put it out there, put it on the record so to speak, that I believe in the practice of politics, the whole enchilada. Politics is America and as American as the flag. These people are anti political. They don't know how to make a deal."
      "Dick I've never doubted your ability to be a wheeler-dealer, so I'll give you credit on that.  Brooks says this have it their own way "anti political ethos produced elected leaders of jaw dropping incompetence." He's right-jaw dropping incompetence. Hell, all you have to do is turn on C-SPAN and watch some of these damned fools. Brooks is right, the Freedom Caucus and the tea party are "insurgents, incompetent at governing and unwilling to be governed. If I could I'd bust them all to buck privates and make em spend the rest of their life cleaning latrines."
       "Mr. President I want it clear that I am not in favor of these people being called Republican." Nixon mops his brow.
       "Leave it to these people and everything we worked for will disappear. None of the three of us could pass their litmus test. They are not the Republicans we used to be. They should be thrown out on their asses."
        The door of the card parlor opens and Tip ONeill enters,
"Hey Gents. I've been listening and all I can say is thank God that orange haired carnival barker is now calling himself a Republican. Dick, hand those cards to the General so he can cut the deck."

        Meanwhile back here-Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan campaigned on and worked for ideas the Freedom Caucus and Tea Party right wing fringe now reject. Ideas like rebuilding slums, "eradicating racism," attacking poverty, income inequality, low cost housing, expansion of social security, equal pay regardless of sex, support for the UN, closer federal scrutiny of mergers, better anti trust enforcement, better SEC policies, protection of employment benefit programs, federal funds to train doctors and scientists, low rent programs, environmental protection, fair immigration and citizenship programs and occasionally even a tax increase. 
        Surprised? Either memory fails you or more than likely the restricted and partisan atmosphere of the last few years has made old fashioned Republican and conservative ideas look liberal. The same is true for Democrats as they, with the exception of Bernie Sanders, have become more centrist and business friendly. Conservatism has been drubbed and so has liberalism.  
         In old fashioned "politics" the nation has been moving right under corporate sponsorship. Sociologically the US has been fragmenting by income, education, gender and sexual identity, ethnicity and aspirations.  It is harder to find the "old center" of the commonweal and as an aging democratic republic with a dysfunctional government and towering maintenance issues, we should find our way back to consensus, negotiation, pragmatic solutions and survival.
The first who get tossed out of my ship of state are the ideologues, zealots, numb skull egoists and narcissists.

EATING IN THE BARN





   See you down the trail.

22 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. TC -- In your correct list of policies supported by REAL Republicans you forgot amnesty for illegal immigrants --- supported by the man who understood better than any of these phony jacklegs what it means to be a conservative.
    Please watch THIS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBVX7vO7vyA

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    1. Indeed the list of policy and positions is impressive and certainly not all were highlighted. Thanks for the add and the link.

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  3. Spot on! As to finding their way back... well they had better cause this country is changing and the demographics don't begin to resemble the demographics of what the radical right remembers when they went astray. Maybe, just maybe some of them are starting to "get it." Hmmm... Nah!

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    1. Congressional elections next year should be contested mightily. Republicans and Democrats have a common enemy in some house districts. Hmmmm…maybe?

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  4. When Tip referenced "that orange-haired carnival barker", I thought at first he was talking about Ray-Gun.

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    1. I think the line Tip channeled was from Bernie about Mr. T.

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  5. The problem with political jokes is they get elected. ~ Henry Cate, VII

    We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office ~ Aesop

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  6. I don't think Ike would have been that kind to Dick and Ronnie. The General probably would have castigated Nixon for the "Southern Strategy" and Reagan for courting the Religious Right and the Family Values scum. As for playing poker, I'd bet O'Neil and Ike were both better at cards than the other two. Although I've read that Nixon made a buck or two on that supply ship in the Pacific during WWII.

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    1. Those conversations loom in another part of the ether. Ike was capable of chewing butt. A late Indiana politician and friend was a young senate staffer who accompanied his boss to a meeting in the Oval office. As they waited to go in, Charles Halleck was backing out with an angry and emphatic Eisenhower in his face.

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  7. I've always liked Ike, even told my mom to vote for him in '56. However, if you'd told me in, say, '88 that I'd look back with nostalgia or wistfulness at Tricky or Raygun, I would have said you were nuts. Whoda thunk it.

    That menu and the food, esp. the salmon, looked wonderful. Which species of salmon was it, silver (coho)?

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    1. Looking back to your comment re: '88-you are certainly right. Would never have imagined the meter would have moved as much as it has.

      I believe it was Coho though I've also referred to Coho and Silver as being the same so I could be mistaken. I recently had Sockeye out here and it was very good. It was said to be from the Pacific Northwest.

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    2. My comment wasn't very clear; yes, silver and coho are one and the same. Most Pacific salmon have at least two names in common usage...for instance chum salmon has been called 'dog salmon' in Alaska for decades, and recently been called by the Japanese name, 'keta salmon' in stores....guess it sounds better. My favorite is king salmon, or chinook.

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    3. Thanks for the clarification. I'm not a great fisherman, though my eldest daughter is quite accomplished and spent several years as a wilderness outfitter, guide, and fished from Alaska to Costa Rica. She set me up on a place on a creek off the Deshka river in Alaska where King were moving. Glacial and snow melt mingling with a creek. I got one on and it was about a 20 minute totally absorbing experience to get it landed. Beautiful big chinook. I was in waders, off the shore below a hill and there was a spot where you could see clear water apart from the silty stuff in the melt and runoff. She said to cast in that area and bingo! She was right.

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    4. Wow, the Deshka....been there a few times, Did you go by boat up the big Su, or fly in? Great trout fishing also. King fishing has been spotty in recent years, the runs up the cook inlet rivers have been reduced by quite a bit. Good for your daughter, women guides are not all that common, even today.

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    5. We jet boated up the Susitna and flew by Beaver sea plane up to a lake of the Kahiltna and on the Deshka. Loved the sound of those de Havilland engines.

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  8. I DIDN'T KNOW BERNIE SANDERS PLAYED THE VIOLIN!

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    1. There is a similarity isn't there. Both of them are in tune too!

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