Hello again my Brothers And Sisters. Today I've been musing on the hypocrisy that we so often see from the Right Wing of American politics. Now one of the best hypocrisy busters out there is Rachel Maddow. She along with Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, and Stephen Colbert, are routinely pointing out the number of things said by specific Republicans out of one side of their mouth, only to later be contradicted by what they say out of the other side.
However there are on occasion examples of hypocrisy that are not necessarily attributable to any one specific individual, but rather to Republicans as a whole. Today I want to discuss two recent examples.
The One About The World Republicans Want To Hand To Our Grand Children.
Recently a lot of Republicans have claimed that their objections to things like offering health care to millions of Americans, or extending unemployment benefits to those that in this incredibly harsh job market still have not been able to find work, is based on principle. They worry about what kind of a country will we be handing to our children and grand children if we increase the deficit to enact these programs. The most recent person to proclaim this concern was Senator Jim Bunning. He stated it was his reason for blocking the bill that would have extended both unemployment benefits, and COBRA, which allows people to keep the health care plan they had at their previous employment if they quit or are fired. Another notable who has used the future of our kids and grand kids as their reason for objecting to pretty much any even remotely Progressive legislation is Senator John McCain.
Now if I were the kind of person who enjoyed shooting fish in a barrel I'd go for the easy hypocrisy and stop there. You know things like the fact that Republicans didn't seemed to terribly worried about the deficit and it's impact on the future when they were passing everything on Jr.'s wish list with absolutely no attempt what so ever to pay for it up front. With no concern at all for how they were growing the deficit. Or there's the hypocrisy of their part in growing military spending with nary a concern for the domestic situation. But no I’m not one to shoot fish in a barrel (It shreds the fish and you keep having to pick bird shot out of your filet) rather I’m going to talk about an even larger hypocrisy.
Republicans are wringing their hands now worrying about the state of the countries future finances, but the state of the livability of the planet, not so much.
That’s right I’m talking about that old bugaboo "Climate Change."
I know that this is a hotly debated topic, even amongst many on the Left. And I certainly am open to debate about how much effects humans have, and what has the worst effects etc. And I do not doubt that some of the things we are seeing are at their core natural, and cyclical in nature. Having said that however, human beings in the last hundred and fifty years, have been doing an awful lot of polluting. And it's really only been in the last fifty years that we started to make any efforts at all to clean up our act. And that's just in the industrialized "First World" nations like the US and Europe. There are places like China and India that are starting to catch up to us, and there are many so called "Third World" nations that are beginning to head toward being part of the problem, usually not of their own accord but because a corporation has set up a factory or ten there, because there are few if any standards of any kind that can't be gotten around with money. Given all those facts to proclaim that there is no climate change, and to further proclaim that even if there is humans have nothing what so ever to do with it, is frankly ludicrous. I'm no ecobiologist, but as I understand it the earth is a sealed system. That means that nothing comes in or goes out except for radiation. So all that pollution? It's not going to magically disappear. Pollution from the beginning of the Industrial Revolution might conceivably still be having some kind of an impact. So even if things aren't as dire as some predict, why wait until they are that dire to do something about it? Here, let me offer you a little joke to basically sum up my feelings on the situation.
"Charlie decided to go and have a night out with the boys which he hadn't done in a long time. So he went out with four other friends and they well and truly tied one on. Having drunk up most of their money they had pooled to share a cab to his house as it was the most centrally located figuring they’d sleep it off and worry about getting to their respective homes when they woke up. Finally sloshing home at four in the morning Charlie cautioned everyone to be very quiet as they walked in the door. After being shushed for the fifth time one of Charlie’s friends said in exasperation, ‘Jesus Charlie what do you keep shushing us for?’ Blearily Charlie replied, ‘My wife hates it when I drink and if she catches me coming home at four in the morning drunk as a skunk she’ll never let me hear the end of it.’ The friend looked at him quizzically, ‘But Charlie your wife has been dead for three years now, we all went to her funeral.’ Without missing a beat Charlie said, 'I know. But I’m not taking any chances.'"
Well that pretty much sums up my feelings on Climate Change. Why take chances? Why not enact policies now, that start to get the problem under control? If things aren’t at the total catastrophe level why wait until they are?
But the Republicans don't seem interested in doing anything at all. Primarily because some of the solutions of necessity would have to involve more closely regulating corporations and their many processes especially manufacturing. It would also mean accepting that we are one part of a greater whole and adopting some policies that would benefit the whole world not just us. Republicans are categorically unwilling to do that.
So while they fret and worry about the financial state of the country, they apparently are not the least bit worried about whether or not that country will exist on a planet that is capable of making human life bearable or sustaining it at all.
I can just picture little Pizza Delivery Boy Jr. choking out his last as the two hundred degree summer temperature gives him his final fatal heatstroke. And as he dies he thinks to himself, "Thank God that my grandparents generation didn’t burden us with national health care."
Keep Reading My Brothers And Sisters!
The One About In The World In Their Head That The Republicans Live In Breaking The Senate Finance Rules Or Calling Someone A Bad Name Is A Far Greater Wrong Than Torture (Which Isn’t Wrong At All.)
Apparently Charles Rangel of New York has been a naughty Legislator. It seems that he went on trips, paid for by corporations without disclosing where the funding for the trips came from. Amongst a great many other things. The Right is of course having a field day with this. They dearly love it when a Democrat is proven to be as corrupt as many Republicans have been proven to be. I suppose it makes them feel less alone.
Then of course there was the recent flap around Rahm Emanual showing his incredible lack of class, or sense by referring to Progressives who disagreed with Obama as "Fucking Retards". Well Sarah Palin who is raising a child with Downs Syndrome was outraged. She proclaimed that anyone who used that term should be summarily dismissed from their position.
Now I could point out the free pass she just a day later gave to Rush Limbaugh. But that’s already common knowledge.
What I don’t understand, is how do the Republicans think that they have any authority, any high ground from which to expound about matters of morality when members, not just members but leaders of their own party, namely George W. Bush and Dick Cheney committed crimes of the highest order? From the theft of the 2000 Presidential election, to involving this country in a war in Iraq, based on lies, to approving the torture of suspected terrorists, the things that were done under Bushco. were not just ethically questionable, they were flat out criminal.
Now I’m not saying that what Rangel and Rahm did wasn’t wrong. And in Rangel's case certainly deserving of some kind of punishment. But to get so het up about things that have not even a fraction of the moral debt that Bushco. accrued? Further more to have gone to incredible lengths to make certain that there is not any kind of investigation, that no responsibility or culpability is assigned, let alone actual litigation, and then to carry on about acts that did not involve us in a war, did not result in people being tortured, did not result in people being killed?
Perhaps you Right Wingers should pause briefly from thumping your bibles and actually open them and read. Because there’s this whole thing about motes and beams and getting the latter out of your own eye before worrying about the former in everyone else’s that you might do well to pay attention to.
Keep The Faith My Brothers And Sisters!
(This article originally appeared at The One About...)