Why the GOP is going to implode - soon (Kos - david blue)

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/27/104057/012

The real beauty of the Republican strategy is that the two appeals {fundies and the rich} don't have to interfere with each other. The party can be all for tax cuts for the rich, a lax regulatory environment, etc., and still be pro-restrictions on abortion, anti-gay marriage, pro-funnelling money to religious organizations, and the rest of the "cultural conservative" agenda. It's worked brilliantly.

UNTIL NOW. Because now what's happening is that the agendas are starting to converge - and in a very uncomfortable way. The newly-emboldened religious right wing, no longer satisfied with making abortions and gay marriages incrementally harder to obtain, has started an all-out assault on the federal judiciary. And in so doing, they are scaring the crap out of the corporate elite, who need stable, well-functioning, independent federal courts. Remember, the corporate elite really like the federal courts - that's why they want to move as many state law tort claims into federal court as they can. A weakened federal judiciary is the corporate elite's worst nightmare. Similarly, the Bushies' assault on social security seems to be scaring the crap out of even people who ordinarily don't pay a lot of attention to economic issues - that is, people who have supported Republicans because of their stand on the culture wars, not the class wars. The Bush administration's failure to appreciate how attached the American people (particularly the non-wealthy American people) are to social security has got to be one of the most colossal political blunders of recent years, and it is threatening to turn a lot of previously-reliable Republican "cultural issue" voters into persuadables for the Democrats. No one, cultural conservative or otherwise, wants to see their grandma in the poor house, and while rich folks don't have to worry about that, a lot of other folks do.

Terri Schiavo figures into this too. The Republicans' behavior in that extraordinary case of course scared the crap out of corporate elite Republicans (who really hate the idea of government telling them how to care for their sick family members). But it also may have freaked out even some of the cultural conservatives, who while probably in sympathy with the anti-euthanasia position, were justifiably horrified by the Republican overreaching and hypocrisy.

The delicate balancing act, in other words, is starting to fail.

But maybe they won't be able to manipulate the landslide that will sweep them out of office after Congress goes Dem in 2006 and a few key Republicans get impeached and/or jailed.

(I'm thinking of the Sibel Edmonds case, the Jeff Gannon scandal, the WTC janitor's RICO lawsuit against Bush, the Plame treason...)

anymore. It doesn't counte because we are not in charge of voting - Republicans are. There are probably many Republicans and others who would care if they could know simply.

We are not in a democracy anymore....thanks to PNAC, banking, military, corporate,religious and Israeli-Sharon cabals.

The internet treats censorship as damage and routes around it.

Once enough people realize that official elections aren't counting their votes anymore, some smart computer gurus will figure out a better way for us vote.

And I guarantee it won't involve standing in the rain all day outside a schoolhouse to pull a lever on some broken-down machine.

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2005/04/little-red-state-fundy-sez.html

One day we will have to explain to the children what happened when Thurston Howell III lost his right mind and decided that for the sake of some tax cuts to make him incrementally more comfortable, his very bestest buddies in the whole, wide world were the Ultra Right Wing Gorgons down in Jesusland.

May I suggest the following?

The Story of Little Red State Fundy

Little Red State Fundy found a grain of hate.

"Who will help me plant the hate?" she asked.

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she buried the hate in the bloody ground of the Old Confederacy. After a while it grew up paranoid and ignorant and violent.

"The hate is ripe now," said Little Red State Fundy. "Who will do the mass mailings and preach bigotry from the Pulpit?"

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she licked envelopes until her bill was cracked and dry and stood up into the House of God and crowed to her flocks in their millions that God Loved Them for hating and killing creatures who were not like them.

Then she asked, "Who will help me focus this hatred politically?"

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she made databases and phone banks, and walked door-to-door with petitions that talked of Gods Great Hatred of Gays, and Gods Great Hatred of Judges that did not worship the Hate God in exactly the way the Little Red State Fundy told them to.

Then she carried the hate to steps of the Congress and the White House.

"Who will make a mandate from this hate?" she asked.

"Not I," said the Moderate Republicans.

"Not I," said the Undecideds.

"Not I," said the Libertarians.

"Then I will," said Little Red State Fundy.

So she got on the phone with her very good friend Karl Rove and with his help organized carpools to the polls, and get-out-the-vote drives, anti-gay marriage amendments and smear campaigns. For Jesus.

And Little Red State Fundy delivered the margin of victory and was featured in many, many magazines: without Little Red State Fundy, the Republican Party could never, ever, ever win anything.

And now everybody knew it.

Then she said, "Now who shall help me Rule the Earth."

"We will!" said Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.

"I am quite sure you would," said Little Red State Fundy, "but see, now you are all my bitches."

Then she called Randall Terry and Tom DeLay and Ann Coulter and Jerry Falwell and Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson, and they and the rest of the Shining Path Republicans used what was left of the Constitution as ass-floss.
And judges were terrorized into silence.
And those deemed ungodly were beaten in the streets.
And they invaded whoever the fuck they felt like, for whatever fucking reason they chose.
And the very idea of a Free and Fair press died.

And to people who had been very clear all along that they genuinely believed in a Theocratic Nanny State and thought that precipitating Armageddon and triggering the Second Coming should be the highest calling of any worldly government, were handed over the police, courts, government, treasury and nuclear weapons stockpiles of the United States of America.

And in the end -- just as they had been warned for the past twenty years -- there was nothing whatsoever left at all for Moderate Republicans, Undecideds, and Libertarians.

http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2005/04/let-slip-ducks-of-war.html

The Fundies vs. The Funders.

The money guys are getting nervous. This whole patched-together GOP Dark Tower arrangement is visibly shuddering, and those up in the penthouse on the tippy-tippy-top can feel the swaying of the edifice more pronouncedly than anyone.

Something is coming.

Might not get here for awhile, but the coming Schism is already shaking the ground. The GOP’s own internal Cuban Missile Crisis. Their own third reel of “Reservoir Dogs.” Everybody pointing guns at everyone else and nobody willing to back off. Question is, who’s gonna shoot Nice Guy Eddie?

Very dangerous game -- chicken -- and we liberals should know; we’ve been playing it every election cycle for decades, but now we seem to be slowly learning how to stand together. The Republicans, OTOH, seem to be learning how to tear themselves apart in public like a German kinetic sculpture. Maybe there’s some kind of Cosmological Political Self-Immolation Constant in the Universe that always finds a way to balance itself out. Who knows?

What we can say is the Republican party is sick, and has been for a very long time. And the Moderates and Money guys are getting really, really scared of the increasingly deranged Fundy hired help, while the Fundies are getting louder and louder about their “Apocalypse Now!” agenda.

I have friends who used to describe themselves as Moderate Republicans. With these people, I could have gotten along. Found common ground. You know: “governed.”

9/11 made a lot of them lose their right minds in a lot of ways, but most acutely, it gave them a kind of Hysterical Political Blindness. Through sheer willpower (and cranking up the Limbaugh until their ears bleed) they try to drown out the clamor of the race back to the Dark Ages that their frenzied fellow-travelers are pursuing so feverishly.

Some virulant form of Spinal Dennis Milleritis, but now the Tower rumbles, and chunks of concrete are hitting the pavement, and a few of these moral sleepers are rubbing their eyes and wondering who the hell is making all the damned racket.

It’s the Fundies, pal. And the Funders are getting freaked.

The dirty Republican Secret that they hide right out in the open is sooo simple: Without their cross-burners, their Fundies, their militia groupies and their assorted other Hate-based Civic Organizations, they can't win anything. Without them, the Original GOP Gangsters would poll no higher than 30-40% from now until the end of time...and they know it.

So the whole of the GOP Noise Machine is (and must be) devoted to pandering to the Ultras, appeasing them. Fox News and Scream Radio are the damned cheering section for these Special Wingnut Olympics: devoted exclusively to telling stupid. hateful slugdumbs that they are not stupid and hateful. That their asinine, Jack Chick cartoon “religion” is somehow not ludicrous.

It is Hungry Tiger on whose back the whole Republican Party rides. Bush 41 made the mistake of not knobbing their rotting peckers hard enough and it cost him the election: since then who’s the Boss and who’s the Bitch has been crystal clear, and the split is starting to gape wide and ugly. The Ultras aren’t backing off this time: they smell arterial blood and they're hungry.

The Moderate and Money Republicans thought they were safe. Thought they could dispatch their Fundy thugs to beat-down and demonize Democrats whenever we got too close to victory. Thought their Imperial litters would be borne into Neocon Heaven on the broad backs and pin-heads of the Red State Shining Path Evangelicals.

Unfortunately, the trouble with having a Magic, 500,000 watt Demonizing Cannon in the hands of crazy people is that they have no compunction about turning it on anyone. Anyone at all.

Shit baby, they turned their shit-hoses on to genuine War Heroes -- in your own Party -- and didn’t bat a fucking eye. So what makes you think for a minute that they’re not going to swing those big guns around and fire them right into your wheelhouse if they believe you aren’t 100% down with their whole American Fascist Theocracy program? Because they’re realists? Because they believe in compromise? Haven’t you been paying attention!

There’s an old saying from World War II that “A Jew is anyone that Hitler says is a Jew.”
And a Commie is anyone that Joe McCarthy says is a Commie.
And a terrorist is anyone that George Bush says is a terrorist.
And an America Hating Enemy of Christ is anyone that Tom DeLay says is an America Hating Enemy of Christ.

Jesus, these fucks just never, ever learn do they? Always think you can get away with being a little bit pregnant and a little bit fascist, and skip out before the check comes.

Moderate Republicans (and non-voters) is where we win. We need to talk to them. Arrange pen-pal correspondence with them. Whatever.

Have one or two fresh Fundy outrages ready to slip into the conversation. Be firm but sympathetic: Every time you pulled the lever for the GOP, you handed over power to your worst nightmare.

They ran under the idiot, jingo mantra: Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time?
You smack them back hard with: Your party, Your mess, Your fault.

And remind them they were loudly warned that this is exactly what would happen. "If you didn’t want to be held responsible, you shouldn’t have voted for them. Next time, pick a different party or stay home, but for now, what are you going to do about this?"

But most of all, we need to save our nation by helping Moderate Republicans save themselves. And when things look a little bleak, remember, this is not a battle of millions: this is all about 100,000 votes.

Fundies, OTOH, I believe we cannot save, and I want nothing from them but their political extinction. They are the shame and ruin of us all. They are proudly impervious to reason and dead to compassion, so I want only that their black hearts be figuratively carved out of their chests and dried in oasts for potpourri.

But I’ll settle for drinking a figurative victory toast out of their tiny, figurative monkey skulls.

she had bulimia and because of the vomiting she suffered potassium deficiency and her heart stopped, for 10 MINUTES.. that is only survivable in water near freezing if you are a small person.

so how many people could they have helped by informing others of this danger when there are Millions of young girls and women doing the very same thing.. well because that would have put some of the responsibility on Terri and maybe diverted the anger away from the judges..?? and what will the cost of this be in suffering..??