See the Pig Fly! Watch the Cow Jump Over the Moon!

The great national orgy of self-deceit goes on.

Tonight, our Commander in Chief will speak to us about "the end of the war in Iraq."

Haven't we seen this movie before?  Didn't the spoiled rich kid dress up in a smartly tailored Sojer Suit and declare "Mission Accomplished?"

How many times can one war "end" but still continue to kill American servicemen and women? We're laaving 50,000 of them over there with targets on their chests, but the "war is over?"

Why do we buy this bovine excrement?  Why do we trust the media that repeat it? Do we enjoy being gulled?  Gulling ourselves?

In November we will stage a general election.  We will tell one another that we are participating in the democratic process.

Nonsense.  A handful of billionaires, multimillionaires and the corporations they control will buy a majority of the House of Representative and half the Senate.  The "elected" members of Congress will do the bidding of the most powerful among the richest one percent of Americans.

It will be ugly.  Venal clones of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and their ilk will be governing us.  Our yoke as citizens will be the legislation of Hate. Non-Christians, persons of color, liberals and others on the hate list will live in fear of the gun-toting, bible-quoting bigots giddy on power.

Dr. Kidglove?  He has already rendered himself irrelevant by his foredoomed efforts to compromise with the devil.  Some say that when the devil rules Washington, Dr. Kidglove will be impeached.

Maybe so.  Will it matter?  Will it matter if irrational, corrupt politicians oust a weak, inept leader on spurious grounds? Our once-proud nation has become a vast political cesspool; whatever emanates from Washington, regardless of the party of origin, stinks.

But we think we're the moral compass of the world!  We tell ourselves that the rest of the world is jealous because we're free!  We ignore the suspension of our civil rights that is ironically acronymed THE USA PATRIOT ACT.  Over childishly absurd opposition by a witless minority, our elected whores manage to pass health care legislation that increases the power of insurers and corporations to withhold health care or make it excessively expensive for the poorest and most needy among us.  And we call it "reform."

We tune our televisions to a manufacturer of falsehoods, fear, lies and innuendo and tell ourselves that we're watching "news." 

We will dial up our HDTVs tonight and listen to the "leader of the free world, the head of the richest, most powerful nation on earth," as he declares once again the end of war in Iraq.

And we will believe.  We will bless the troops.  We will wave flags.  We will sing patriotic songs.

We will be Americans.  But we will still be at war in Iraq, where we never should have gone in the first place.

*   *   *

UPDATE:  See "End the wine wars" on our Blog Cousin, "The Ironist's Tool Box." http://ironitool.blogspot.com/

About Beck, Palin and Saturday's Gathering in D.C.

Two score and seven years ago, a black preacher brought forth upon this continent  the profound  dream of a new and better nation conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are riven with great civil strife, testing whether that dream, or any dream so conceived and so dedicated, can become real and endure.  Some will meet at a great symbol of that dream, there to personify the very antithesis of the dreamer and the man the symbol honors. They and the speakers they honor seek to inter in a final resting place the  ideals that Martin Luther King Jr. and Abraham Lincoln championed for this nation. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should denounce such hateful  views, even as we defend forever their First Amendment right to express them.

But in a larger sense, they cannot desecrate, they cannot dishonor, this ground.  Those who fought to preserve the union and free its slaves have consecrated it far beyond the haters' poor power to subtract or demean.

The rest of the world will little note, nor long remember, what the haters say here, but Americans should never forget the sacrilege they commit here.

It is for us the rational Americans to be dedicated to the unfinished work which he who spoke here, and he who is honored here, so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored men we take increased devotion to the cause for which they stood -- that we here highly resolve that they shall not have spoken in vain -- that this nation shall one day have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

That one day, the sons of slaves and the sons of free men, shall sit down together at the table of brotherhood. . . .

Save the Dream.  Honor the Dream.  Heed the Dreamer.

We Need a Shield for Our Real Heroes

This country has more compelling needs than I could possible enumerate here, and most of them cost money that Republicans and their ardent army of short-sighted enablers are unwilling to spend.

But there's one compelling need that wouldn't cost a dime and would make this a better nation: a strong whistle-blower protection act that applies to all government employees, including soldiers.

Such legislation would assure that the government bullying of Pfc. Bradley Manning will not deter potential future Bradley Mannings from doing their Ghandian duty of conscience when opportunities arise.

Manning (the alleged giver of "secrets" about our illegal war in Afghanistan to WikiLeaks), who should be hailed a hero, is a fish in a barrel with all the guns of the world's most powerful force, the military-industrial complex, trained upon him.  Convicting him under the 1917 Espionage Act will be easy for even the least competent government prosecutors.

As if those odds weren't sufficiently overwhelming, his chance of receiving a fair trial is zilch given that the second most powerful force in the world, the American right-wing propaganda machine, has whipped up a hurricane of vitriol against Manning and WikiLeaks.  The sound and fury from the Beckbaughcoulters is so intense you'd think Manning and Julian Assange wanted to build an Islamic center in lower Manhattan.

The Lovers of Hate are so certain that Manning's head will roll that they can  now focus their full attentions on demanding that Assange be "brought to justice" even if it means invading Sweden.  (I wonder where that bogus rape accusation was hatched.  Wink.  Wink.)

One belcher of right wing bilge was on TV the other day asserting with absolute certainty (these people are so damned sure  of every little thing crossing their tiny minds that they never bother to look for actual facts) that WikiLeaks' disclosure of the Afghanistan e-mails was an act of "murder" that has already "killed Aghans and Americans."

Even the Pentagon, that infinite font of misinformation, admits that there isn't a shred of evidence that anyone died because of WikiLeaks' actions. The right wing Noise Machine never mentioned what the Pentagon spokesman said on the subject, and most of the mainstream media relegated it to a single sentence or phrase buried deep in their so-called journalism.

The current administration, in direct contrast to its campaign assertions, has redoubled the previous administration's unconstitutional efforts to operate in absolute secrecy.  This, linked to its refusal to  prosecute plausibly criminal actions by its predecessors, may go down in history as the Obama Legacy.

Which is why genuine heroes like Bradley Manning should be praised rather than buried, why they should be protected by law. 

I am old enough to have lived in a United States where citizens could expect to be given a substantial portion of truth in their diet of information from the government.  A vigorous press, chock full of men and women who practiced actual journalism, served up even more truth.  It wasn't perfect; a citizen needed a good filtration system to sort out the diamonds in the roughage.  But it was possible.

Today we are governed by liars and receive "news" from such as Judith Miller, Glenn Beck and Karl Rove. We cling to our precarious freedom thanks only to the likes of Bradley Manning, Daniel Ellsberg, Julian Assange and Joseph Wilson.

Protecting them from prosecution and persecution is the least we can do if we truly value our constitutional freedoms.

Lay Off Lance Already and Do Something Important

Frankly, my dears, I don't give a damn about the "performance enhancing" substances that Roger Clemens, Marion Jones and Barry Bonds may or may not have ingested, or lied to Congress about.

I do give a damn that Congress -- and agencies like the FDA and FBI -- are wasting their time and my tax dollars on investigations that should be entirely the province of the organizations that govern sport.

Now that the feds have Lance Armstrong in their crosshairs it becomes a personal issue for me.  I'm a cancer survivor and regular contributer to Lance's Livestrong Foundation, which has done more in less time for cancer education and research than any other entity.

And this is what's important about Lance Armstrong: he had testicular cancer, and beat it; it metastacized to his lungs, and he beat it; it metastacized to his brain, and he beat it.  Yes, he went on to set a record by winning seven Tour de France bicycling championships, but what's important is that he used the wealth and celebrity those championships created to fight the battle against a killer disease.

For me and many of my acquaintances who are also cancer survivors, Armstrong became a symbol not just of hope, but of belief that there is life worth the living after cancer. Last year alone, Livestrong gave $31 million to work that directly benefits cancer victims.  Dr. John R. Seffrin, chief executive of the American Cancer Society, says: “Lance Armstrong has done more to destigmatize cancer than anyone.”

Soon, courtesy of Livestrong, a new "navigation center" will open in Armstrong's home town of Austin, TX.  Patterned after one in Harlem, it will help the poor, the sick and the disadvantaged to "navigate" through the health care system.  According to Dr. Harold P. Freeman, who founded the Harlem center, Armstrong  "came to see me at our center, which takes care of poor black and Hispanic people, many of whom have no health insurance. He showed a genuine interest in what I was trying to do and came back four different times. I see him as a compassionate person who cares about people who don’t have resources.”

I have questions about the genesis of the latest accusations: the dubious veracity of his principal accuser, Floyd Landis, who lied about his own doping long after it cost him his own Tour championship; the obsessive zeal of the investigator, Jeff Novitzky, an FDA agent who seems to have anointed himself to be Javert to every Jean Valjean in sport; the petty jealousies that seem to pervade professional cycling beyond the intensity of the competition itself.

Many cycling rivals, and others who know Armstrong, assert that he is a nasty man, a "control freak" and a super ego.  Others, including an ex-girl friend, say he's a really nice guy who "loves life." 

Some journalists who cover cycling, and other intense followers of the sport, insist that anyone who has had any success in the major races could only have done so with the help of some illegal substances or practices to give them an edge.

Others point out that Armstrong has been the most tested athlete in all of sport and never tested positive for anything illegal.

Isn't that sufficient?

Government has more important things to do than poke around into the locker rooms of sport.  Congress couldn't pass a health care bill to bring genuine reform  to the worst health care system in the civilized world; it couldn't come to grips with the drastic climate change wrought by our total dependency on harmful fossil fuels; it can't find a way out of the longest, most insane wars in our history; but it can bother about whether an overpaid and overweight thrower of baseballs was juiced up with steroids?

Let the big-wigs of baseball worry about the Barry Bondses and Roger Clemenses; let the track and field people police the Marion Joneses and the suspect hurdlers and sprinters; let the governing bodies of cycling investigate Floyd Landis's charges.  If Jeff Novitzky has the Bushian notion that he's on a mission for God, let him apply for a job with the international cycling organization.

Meanwhile, kick in a few bucks to the Livestrong Foundation, or at least buy one of those yellow bracelets.  Cancer victims the world over, and their families, will thank you.

It's Not How You Play the Game, It's Just to Win

The American electoral process has become a triumph of tactics over substance.

Those two facets of politics have warred throughout our history.  Tactics gave us  a B movie actor, Ronald Reagan, as president and changed our political landscape as if it were a Hollywood back lot movie set.

Here, as The Economist once noted, was a president who never had to think.  He simply had to recite his lines and play the role of president.  No wonder he could take long daily naps; the government didn't really need a wakeful Ronnie to function just as it would when he wasn't sleeping. His advisors'  "government is the problem, not the solution" tactic blinded enough voters to win him two terms and the slavish devotion of generations of right-wingers.

Tactics rose to  utterly dominate our politics, and substance became invisible, when Karl Rove, a tactical genius, created George W. Bush.  As "Shrub," the addled black sheep son of a powerful politician, Bush was the laughing stock of Texas.  Rove turned him into the the simple Christian warrior, pure of soul if utterly thoughtless. He remade Bush as the lovable alternative to those scary libruls who would have government take over our lives and so weaken the military that we'd have to take up our own arms to fight the ragheads on our streets and in our very neighborhoods.

And so rather than standing on and fighting for the principles that made the Democratic party the force that improved the lives of working -class Americans, the party of FDR and JFK went AWOL and remade itself as GOP LITE.  Go for what works, not what matters.

The ragheads are the best enemy to run against in America since the great Red Menace of the Soviet Union and Commie Ratfink China.  And so the issue of an Islamic center in a vacant building in lower Manhattan pervades political discourse.  When Dr. Kidglove actually became presidential for a fleeting moment and pointed out that Muslims have a perfect constitutional right to do this, the fruitcakes on TV and in the Republican Party went berserk. Tea Party candidates in Nevada, Colorado and Louisiana took up the cry as if the occupancy of a shabby building in Manhattan somehow had relevance to their constituencies. Alleged Democrats like Harry Reid hastened to take the Tactically Correct position.

It defies logic and the laws of chance that an administration could be in office for two years and not propose a single initiative that would be good for the people of the country.  And yet not a single Republican has broken ranks to support legislative efforts to fix things that are obviously wrong with this country; substantive things, like too many unnecessary deaths for want of adequate medical care; an economy that nearly plunged into a second Great Depression; millions of Americans without jobs or even the hope of finding one because there aren't any to be had. And yet even some Democrats have taken the Tactically Correct position to help obstruct attempts to deal with these substantive problems. This entitles them to be called "moderate Democrats" by the media.

Ah, the media.  They are utterly complicit in the triumph of tactics over substance. Willing diseminator of falsehoods from on high whether in the "justification" of the invasion of Iraq or the myth that real health care reform would kill Grandma.  Remember the early "debates" in the Democratic presidential primary?  A candidate, Dennis Kucinich, bothered to actually prepare substantive proposals to solve actual problems in this country.  One of the performers masquerading as journalists in the TV debates asked him, not to explain one of these positions, but why the hell he didn't drop out of the race because he had no damned chance of winning and he was just wasting valuable time on the podium.  Another genius asked him about flying saucers.

ACORN.  Shirley Sherrod.  Birthers.  Thank you, guardians of  freedom who perform what passes as "journalism" today.

Dr. Kidglove and his handlers would have us believe that if we elect Democrats in November, it will preserve Social Security from the depredations of the mad Republicans.  Never mind that the biggest threat to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and every other piece of the safety net for the poor and the luckless, comes from Dr. Kidglove's own deficit reduction commission, loaded with known adversaries of social security in any form.

Tactics over substance.

Getting Instruction in the New Extremism

Having just been educated by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times on the White House press secretary's bleat against "the professional left," I have been working to bring my understanding of political extremism into line with Correct Thinking.

Ms. Dowd instructs me to begin by grasping the notion that extremists of the right help the Republican party, whereas extremists of the left hurt  the Democratic party. Thus, even though she thinks nevertheless that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs  should resign, Ms. Dowd holds that  he was absolutely right when he derogated "the professional left."

Gibbs never did define exactly what it is that makes a liberal-leaning citizen part of "the professional left."  Ms. Dowd helpfully tells us that it's "extremism."

Thanks to her, I offer this revised list of illustrations of political extremism:

On the Right
(Helpful to Republicans)

 Believe that God speaks directly to politicians, instructing them to, say, rid Nevada of the Socialist evils of Harry Reid so that Social Security can be entrusted to the love and care of stockbrokers and investment bankers.

Consider Warren Harding to be an ideal whom his successors as president should emulate.

Still believe there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq -- somewhere.

Demand that the federal government recognize individual liberties by giving millions of poor Americans the right to die without having to squander precious time in hospital or doctors' waiting rooms.

Oppose "judges who legislate" but not those who rewrite the First, Second, Fifth and 14th Amendments to the Constitution.

Believe that Barack Obama is at once a socialist and a fascist and hence capable of voodoo to make pigs fly; was born in Kenya and never naturalized, hence is ineligible to be president; is a Whitey-hating racist who wants the New Black Panthers to take over Congress and give what's left in the U.S. treasury to ACORN; hates America and "real" Americans, who are mainly white, fat, gun-toting "patriots."

Want to make doctors stop killing Grandmas on orders of federal bureaucrats, while at the same time advocating sharp reductions in Grandma's Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits in order to pay down a deficit that's the Democrats' fault even though most of it was run up by George W. Bush.

Think it's just fine for corporations to have the same rights as people, including using their enormous profits to buy control of government, because business, after all, is what made America great.

Believe in freedom of religion except for Muslims, Buddhists, Rastafarians, atheists, agnostics, and other non-Christians; are particularly incensed at the idea of allowing followers of Islam to rent a former Burlington Coat Factory in lower Manhattan because it would be a sacrilege against holy ground.

Believe that unless you were born in America, as they were, you shouldn't be a citizen, except, of course, if you were born in America to a brown-skinned Mexican mother who speaks a funny language.

Think all those millions of Americans drawing unemployment benefits should just go out and get a job and stop whining.

The personification of these and other right-wing extreme notions that help the Republicans include (but are not limited to) Michelle Bachman, Rush Limbaugh, Rand Paul, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney, any Christian evangelist with a TV show, Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and that greatest of American presidents, the late Herbert Hoover.

On the Left
(Harmful to Democrats)

Believe that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a pretty damned good president whose social initiatives actually helped American workers -- back when there were American workers.

Preach the dangerous notion that all human beings are entitled to necessary health care regardless of their race, creed or financial condition.

Believe that Madison, Jefferson, Franklin, Washington and those other silk-stocking dudes really meant it when the very first amendment  they wrote to the Constitution established a wall of separation between church and state.  Some really extreme radical Democrats actually think they meant what they wrote in the other articles and amendments, as well.

Wiftily insist that among the Republican presidents, Abraham Lincoln might be a better model than Warren Harding.

Cling to the obsolete notion that a candidate who pays tribute to "the rule of law" might actually enforce a few as president.

Propound the communist idea that legitimate governments subsist by taxing their citizens to pay for the rights and services citizens are entitled to.

Actually proclaim the cockeyed notion that peace is better than war, and that money spent on munitions to kill other human beings might be better spent improving the lives of the human beings who live right here in the United States.

The personification of these and other left-wing extreme notions include (but are not limited to) Dennis Kuchinich, Russ Feingold, Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ralph Nader, Chris Hedges, Frank Rich, James Earl Carter  -- and me.

Sorry, Maureen.  I'm just not educable.

Will Progressives Answer the Call to Arms?

What does it take to make progressive Americans understand that they are unwanted in today's Democratic party?

What does it take to persuade progressives to form their own party?

If the recent bleating of the official White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, sitting in his office in the West Wing, hasn't done so, what on earth will?

Gibbs berated the "professional left," whatever that is.

"I hear these people saying he (Obama) is like George Bush," Gibbs prattled.  "These people ought to be drug tested.  I mean, it's crazy."

Mr. Gibbs, when you come down from whatever you're smoking, please tell us in precise detail how Obama's Iraq and Afghanistan policies differ from Bush's; how his position on executive secrecy, detention without trial and  suspension of habeas corpus  differ from Bush's; how the appointments of Timothy Geithner and Robert Gates to cabinet posts differentiates him from Mr. Bush; how his justice department differs from Bush's in failing to reinstate citizens' rights; how his refusal to consider what he himself acknowledged is the only true health care reform, i.e. single payer, distinguishes him from Mr. Bush; how his authorization of assassination of American citizens differentiates him from Dick Cheney. Other than skin color and hair cuts, how do you tell the difference between the two presidents?

Gibbs said the "professional left," whatever that is, is "not representative" of progressives  who organized, campaigned, raised money and voted for Mr. Obama.  As one progressive who did all of those things, I find Gibbs's remarks insulting, arrogant and obscene.

"They," he said, invoking Glenn Beck's favorite pronoun, "will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we've eliminated the Pentagon.  That's not reality."

Sorry, Gibbs, but reality is the fact that Canadian health care is substantially iuperior to ours, and less costly.  Realty is an unchecked Pentagon  spending us into the poor house and running amok with decisions and policies that should be overruled by the Commander in Chief.

"They," said Gibbsie, "wouldn't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."

Wrong again, Gibbsie.  I would be quite satisfied if Dennis Kucinich were president; I urged him to run nine years ago, campaigned for him, raised money for him and voted for him in the primaries.

The reason I join the "professional left," whatever that is, in criticizing Dr. Kidglove's performance in the White House is precisely that Dennis Kucinich is a friend of mine and, Gibbsie, Barack Obama is no Dennis Kucinich.

The United States is the only advanced democracy in the world that no longer has a political left.  Both parties in our two-party system are right of center -- and drifting further to starboard with each passing day.

If Gibbs's impertinence doesn't trigger the formation of a new, Progressive Party in the United States, (headed, I hope, by Mr. Kucinich), there will never be a viable left in this country.

When liberal ideals are forever lost to a people, democracy is dead as well.

How Feckless Freddie Hit It Really Big

Freddie Jingo was the star of the high school class reunion this year.  The very same Freddie Jingo who was the class clown, the guy who would never amount to anything, the loser.

Freddie showed up for the reunion driving a Bentley convertible, wearing bespoke threads and tripping the light in skin-thin Italian shoes.

"Did you hit the lottery?" everyone asked.

"Heck, no," Freddie replied indignantly.  "I got rich the Murrican way.  Entrepreneurship.  I spotted a need and filled it.  I'm founder and CEO of TEA, Inc."

"Wow!" everyone said.  "How rich are you?"

"So rich that the socialist administration wants to let my tax cuts expire."

"Like Blankenfein's and Hurd's?"

"Exactly."

"What is TEA's line?"

"We manufacture 'Trendy Euphemisms and Acronyms.'"

"Sounds high tech."

"Cutting edge," said Freddie. 

"What 's your market ?"

"Republicans mainly.  The people who make this country great.  But we keep expanding -- governments at every level, defense industry, consumer goods,  military.  There's even a growing market in education."

"How did you get started?"

"Well, frankly I wasn't doing all that well in sales. . . ."

"That would be when you were peddling hot knock-offs of Rolex on the sidewalks of Manhattan?"

"On Wall Street.  In front of Goldman Sachs."

"And. . . ."

"Well, one day this guy in an aluminum suit stops by and browses my goods, and finally he says, 'If you can sell these things, maybe you can tell me how to unload all the bad loans we're holding.'  Quick as a wink, I say, 'They're not bad loans.  They're credit default swaps.'  'You're a genius!' the guy says, and offers me a job working on the Chinese Wall.  Paid big bucks.  My first specialty was analyst signals.  I gave 'em the CVR II and the TRIN Thrust, among others.  Eventually, I decided to go out on my own."

"That's when you started TEA, Inc.?"

"Right.  I leveraged it with Hot Fund shares and Toxic Turtle Soup."

"Sheer genius! But what got you into politics?"

"One of the Goldman shills was laying heavy bread on his buddy DeLay and Tom mentions this dilemma.  Seems they've dusted off this old Draconian bill that repeals the Bill of Rights, but they don't think it'll pass without a catchy title. So the shill tells Tom,' I know just the guy for you.  But you'll have to repeal Glass-Steagall to get his name.'  'Consider it done,' says Tom, so the shill gives him Freddie Jingo."

"So it was you who coined. . . ."

"Yep.  The USA PATRIOT Act -- the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001. My personal masterpiece."

"And your fortunes continued to soar throughout the Bush Administration, right?"

"Right. We expanded rapidly.  Created separate departments for euphemisms and  for acronyms."

"Might you have helped Rummy on 'collateral damage'?"

"They very first product to roll out of our new DOE."

"What are you working on now?"

"Our newest client is Obama's deficit reduction commission.  They want a title for legislation to pay down the deficit by eliminating Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."

"A tough one!"

"Yes," said Freddie, "because 'Compassionate Conservatism" is already taken. They're  considering something that's a joint product of our two divisions.  'Social Conscience to Reduce Economic Woe.'"

"Love the acronym!"

You've Got to Be Taught to Hate and Fear

In college and for 50 years thereafter I didn't have to go far to find a cogent argument against my political views: my roommate and lifelong friend, the late Jack Elliott, was always there with an articulate case from the  Republican point of view, tinged with a healthy dose of Libertarianism.

Even when he pulled out the overcooked chestnuts like "tax and spend," "socialism" and "welfare state," he did so with wit or at least wry asperity; his arguments were always to the point and well-researched.

I became accustomed to ignoring voices from the Other Side that didn't meet or exceed Jack's standards of civility, integrity and intelligence.  Republicans of the Dirksen, Eisenhower, Rockefeller, Warren ilk made the cut; so, earlier in his political career, did John McCain (one of Jack Elliott's favorites).

My old roommate is dead, McCain has bartered away his last shred of credibility, and one searches in vain for a Republican voice like Jack's.  The party has been taken over by such infantile hate-spouters as Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Boehner and McConnell. Their execrative  spiels  are sustained by so-called think tanks, richly funded by right-wing capitalists, whose job is to grind out plausible lies.  The corporate media, their staffs decimated by greed-driven management, their ideologies dictated by the likes of Rupert Murdoch, gleefully render the right-wing think tanks' propaganda as "journalism." The political class of Republicans doesn't even care if the lies are plausible.

Nor, it seems, do the masses of Americans -- tea baggers, Christofascists, NRA wingnuts -- who buy the lies.  For them, the more outlandish the lie, the greater the enthusiasm it generates.

It is an enthusiasm born of fear, loathing and racism.  Forty-three per cent of Republicans, a recent poll asserted, believe that President Obama is not a native-born citizen.  The vestigial fear of Nat Turner has not faded from the white American psyche and manifests itself in  hatred of our first black president and his family -- which, whether coded (as in the case of Beck's despicable "Planet of the Apes" rant), or blatant (as is th case with MalevoFreedom.org, and other right-wing websites), shames the very notion of democratic discourse.

McConnell's latest contribution to blatant American racism is to attack the 14th Amendment, whose fundamental democratic ideal holds that anyone born on this soil qualifies for the rights and privileges constitutionally bestowed on all Americans.  We were, after all, a nation of immigrants when we ordained that Constitution, and we remain so today.

Why, then, this hostility to immigrants?  Why the new campaign against "birthright citizenship?"  Why the right-wing vitriol against "invasion by birth canal"? Why the rants about women who illegally cross the border "for the sole purpose of dropping anchor babies"?

Fear, loathing and racism.

Dred Scott.  Nat Turner.  Huey Newton.  Barack Obama.  Caesar Chavez.  Shirley Sherrod. The Black Panthers.  Sonia Sotomayor.  ACORN.

The relentless Dark Menace. 

Fear, loathing and racism.

The political fuel of today's GOP.