A new poll conducted by Dartmouth government professor Benjamin Valentino found that 63 percent of Republican respondents still believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the United States invaded in 2003, even though this assertion has been thoroughly debunked. In comparison, only 27 percent of independents and less than 15 percent of Democrats believed in the misinformation. Additionally, 64 percent of Republican respondents believe that President Obama was born in another country. As the Huffington Post’s Dan Froomkin notes, “this latest poll result seems to indicate a refusal — unique to the modern Republican Party — to acknowledge facts.”
I once worked with a little boy who went around telling all of the other kids in the camp that HE was the fastest runner in the world. He was an arrogant little shit who came from a wealthy family and liked to bully smaller children.
I finally got tired of the little snot and, since this was a gymnastics camp, I decided to put a up a chart with their times for the 40 yard dash with the idea that they would then try to beat those times in subsequent attempts.
As you may have already guessed the so-called "fastest runner in the world" finished very near the bottom. And in later attempts, due to his poor participation in the training portions of the camp, he did not improve hardly at all, while others made significant improvements.
However this fact, which was on clear display for the entire camp, did nothing to dissuade this son of privilege from continuing to brag that he was the best athlete and the fastest runner. As it turned out his ego, and need to be the best, overshadowed anything as insignificant as mere facts.
And so it goes with the majority of the Republican party. That poll referenced in the above data was conducted in April through May of this year, but it is unlikely that the number has changed one little bit.
Which begs the question, how do you work with the party behind failed policies and unnecessary wars, if they refuse to recognize that the policies did indeed fail and that wars were not necessary?
In other words how do you make reality based compromises with a party that lives within their very own reality?
They know Iraq did not have WMD's by now (most knew it at the time). THEY WILL NEVER ADMIT IT. They are liars. They will say anything to support their position.
ReplyDeleteThey know where Obama was born and what religion he is. However, since they can't publicly call him a Ni**** Muslim Kenyan will do.
The mean racist GOP liars will never be honest on a poll. They hate too hard.
You don't.
ReplyDeletePeople like that do not change without having very serious and significant life experiences that motivate them to change. For the vast majority of them, this will not happen.
What we do is gather the greater fraction of us who are reality based, come to some common ground acceptance on how these people are and move on without their direct participation.
Yeppers. They don´t want to change and will get left behind again. And again.
DeleteThe right wing has a very mean contrarian/devil's advocate streak that links very strongly with their need to feel as though they are persecuted. You can see this clearly in what happened with all the global warming nonsense. Global warming was a non-partisan accepted fact for a few years. You had carbon taxes being touted as the right wing market-based solution to the problem...until Al Gore got involved in the 90's.
The same thing happened with Romneycare. It was based on a Heritage Foundation plan from the 90's, and was accepted as a right wing market-based solution to the problem...until Obama decided to use it as a template for Obamacare.
“I recently heard a term of derision applied to an NFL team that I think is more deserving of the Rethuglikan House, "Gang Green". There is a rot, in the House, as is exemplified by the death of legislative "tissue" of the Rethuglikan Party in the existence of the Tea Party and their hard line Conservative/Evangelical supporters. These people,in spite of how they would couch it, are truly the implementer of the Corporate Will. Their continued obstructionism will hopefully be met by a resolve, on the part of the President, whereby their destructive tendencies can be blunted.
ReplyDeleteLet us hope.”
Like hard-nosed Christianists, they THRIVE on opposition. It only proves to themselves they are even more right.
DeleteWhen religion and politics are interwoven, the religious "inerrant" only pollutes their political ideas and those become "inerrant" as well.
It is hopeless trying to negociate as they seethis as weakness & it only makes them stronge). Obama & his Dems take have to ramrod anything through if they intend to make their second term different than the first. By executive order, if necessary.
It is time in America to stand up to the bullshit of regressive politics/religion, like the stand made against witch-hunting & McCarthyism. It was and still is terrorism. If a man can be put in prison for a year because he will not swear he believes in GOD... how different is this from the Spanish Inquisition?
Right-Wing Catch Phrases Translated
ReplyDeletehttp://samuel-warde.com/2012/07/right-wing-catch-phrases-translated/
Right-Wing Blames God For Romney Loss And America’s Descent Into Socialism
ReplyDeleteThe Republican Party has been suffering debilitating and very public seizures produced by the results of the election a couple of weeks ago. They are desperately attempting to find explanations for how they could have lost on such a grand scale an election they presumed was in the bag. After spending unprecedented amounts of money, Republicans still had to wake up Wednesday morning with Obama returning to the White House for another four years, two more Democrats in the senate, and nine more in the House. Even with the propaganda power of Fox News, the top rated cable news network, and its frothing companion web site Fox Nation, conservative fanatics were unable deceive enough citizens to vote against their own best interests.
...Now that we know whose side God was really on, Republicans are expressing their bitterness and disappointment with the Lord. That doesn’t seem like a particularly good way to get back in His good graces. But then the GOP was never very good at humility or admitting their mistakes. So what we see now is an escalation of apocalyptic doomsday scenarios that thrust the weak-minded into fearful panics.
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=8499
No Soul-Searching for These Republicans
ReplyDeleteWith Stickers, a Petition and Even a Middle Name, Secession Fever Hits Texas
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/us/politics/with-stickers-a-petition-and-even-a-middle-name-secession-fever-hits-texas.html?smid=re-share
Saw a movie last night in which a character "back-travels" to our time from the year 2456.
ReplyDeleteHe is asked, "What about God?"
"Oh, that all ended when the scientists found the gene for fear."
Enough said.
I really think the idea that conservatism is based around fear is spot on. Economic conservatism, in thinking that if we give too much to the poor then literally everyone else will be broke and starving, is maintained by fear, as is social conservatism, with the idea that all minority groups are evil people who have some insidious plot for the country. People say conservatives are racist, but I really think that's a bad description, because almost all conservatives I know are really and truly terrified of minorities. It's not hatred, it's fear. The conservatives I know are genuinely scared in the presence of black people, homosexuals, muslims, etc. This is also why right wingers get enraged at the very mention of the "r-word" racism, because in their eyes someone calling them a racist is effectively belittling and insulting them for being frightened by Black Panther criminal thugs who would probably rape his or her daughter if left alone for a second. Same with the gays, muslims, "women's libbers", etc, etc. The sheer terror and anguish that drives these people really can't be described.
DeleteWe can already do this with drugs:
Deletehttp://www.futurepundit.com/archives/006033.html
After Thanksgiving dinner, a bunch of us watched the Ben Affleck movie Argo (the hostess used to be with the Nevada Film Board, so she gets review copies). In it, Jimmy Carter bungles badly. One republican became so incensed; he ran screaming from the room. The rest of us were upset with Carter, but we knew those things were complicated.
ReplyDeleteLincoln, Liberty and Two Americas
ReplyDelete...But even putting secession aside, it is ever more clear that red states are becoming more ideologically strident and creating a regional quasi country within the greater one. They are rushing to enact restrictive laws on everything from voting to women’s health issues.
As Monica Davey reported in The New York Times on Friday, starting in January, “one party will hold the governor’s office and majorities in both legislative chambers in at least 37 states, the largest number in 60 years and a significant jump from even two years ago.”
As the National Conference of State Legislatures put it, “thanks to an apparent historic victory in Arkansas, Republicans gained control of the old South, turning the once solidly Democratic 11 states of the Confederacy upside down.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/opinion/blow-lincoln-liberty-and-two-americas.html?hp
What caused the little boy to brag was a shortage of self esteem that he was trying to make up for. And then your really fixed that up didn't you. All because he was from a wealthy family.
ReplyDeleteOkay that was an extremely clumsy attempt at an attack.
DeleteIn fact the program had many participants whose parents were quite wealthy, including members of the Carr-Gottstein family, so that had nothing to do with it.
The real problem was that the boy was a bully and liked to dominate other children. He may very well have suffered from self esteem issues, which indeed my program had great success at helping with. (Everybody improved physically and there was a great deal of joy in accomplishing difficult gymnastics techniques.
This little boy, when confronted with the reality of his level of athleticism as compared to others, did not attempt to improve, but rather stuck to the previous assertion of his superiority. It is THAT similarity with the Republican party that I was stressing with his post.
However since you brought it up let me tell you how this fellow finally achieved his attitude adjustment.
He got his ass kicked.
Actually he got his ass kicked by my daughter, who was a year younger than he was and also a member of the camp. Unlike the other kids who suffered his pushing and hair pulling without retaliation, he made the mistake of pulling the wrong hair and got knocked on his ass.
I was forced to punish her for several days for striking him, but in fact it was the best thing to happen to him. He became a much more likeable young man after that, and he and my daughter played together often.
Perhaps something similar needs to happen to the Republican party. Oh wait, it just did!
How fighting income inequality became Obama’s driving force
ReplyDelete...Now, in negotiations over the fiscal cliff, Obama has vowed to follow through on his campaign pledge to push for higher taxes on those same wealthy Americans, and to ask the next 1 percent to pay more as well. Unlike previous presidents, however, he wants lower taxes for everyone else. If that happens, it will raise revenue to lower the debt — but it also will narrow the income gap that made such an impression on him in his youth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/how-fighting-income-inequality-became-obamas-driving-force/2012/11/23/ab375434-3256-11e2-9cfa-e41bac906cc9_story.html
The Republicans have one of two choices; they can either batten down the hatches, pray really hard and hope Obama messes up terribly in time for 2016, or they can attempt to moderately reform themselves so that they become more appealing to independents and slightly leaning Democrat voters.
ReplyDeleteI'll give you a guess which one they'll choose!
The problem for the Republicans is that their current political views don't really sit well with an America that is progressing beyond the xenophobic jingoist viewpoint that the Republicans like to have. It's like the grumpy old uncle in the room who calls your black husband a n*****, thinks the Chinese are evil and slaps some girls behind while telling her to get in the kitchen and make him a sandwich. A Republican finds this funny and adorable. The rest of America cringes in embarrassment.
What I saw in the political campaign this year was an America struggling to identify what it wants to be. One side wants to progress America into being a better nation, improving welfare and state and still being a key leader within world affairs. The other side meanwhile thinks that returning America to greatness involves resorting back to the glory days of the Cold War and everything that meant.
The GOP has no choice but to cooperate if it wants to survive as a viable party.
I remember Rick Santorum (back when he was still a senator) calling a press conference to announce that weapons of mass destruction had been FOUND in Iraq!
ReplyDeleteUh..no, no they weren't. What was found wasn't weapons. He's such a doofus.
Bushco knew there were no wmd's and very likely Colin Powell knew too. Whether or not Powell had to lie to himself is questionable. But what's the big deal on this war. The first war against Iraq, the Gulf war by Bush senior was contrived by Hill and Knowlton too. That war was totally for Iraq's oil and had nothing to do with iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Anyone interested in uncovering the lie can do so easily. It's just not going to sit well with American consciences. And it's easier to write off the slaughter of over a million Iraqis to the truths of the propagandists. Your turkey will digest much easier that way.
ReplyDeleteO/T
ReplyDeleteGryphen, I enjoyed this timeline so much, perhaps at some point you can share it with your readers. What amazing growth has happened before our very eyes! From cute and adorable little girls to drop dead gorgeous young women.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/whitneyjefferson/sasha-and-malia-obama-aging-timeline
What cute, age-appropriate little girls. We don't see that much of them, and when we do, they're dressed nicely and well-behaved.
DeleteThat timeline is wonderful. Adorable girls, beautiful young women.
DeleteMSNBC re-ran a special this weekend about the 911 attacks and the war in Iraq. Amazing how much I'd forgotten about the evildoers and their eight year regime, the lies they were allowed to get away with were mind blowing!
ReplyDeleteThey showed some of the 911 comminssion hearings, Condolezza tried to baffle them with bullshit, but when Kean and others, refused to bite, she switched to the "I don't recall what the heading of the memo four months before the attacks said" (paraphrased from memory)
"Well, we've had them declassified, would you like to read just the title line?"
"You don't understand, this was early and there was no direct evidence..."
"MME Secretary, please just read the first line"
"High risk of hijacking planes by muslim extemeists...led by Osama Bin Laden... and using them as missiles in the United States"
Where was the GOP's "outrage" and Fox News's "outrage" now over Susan Rice and BenGhazi???
War wasn't the "last resort" in Iraq, it was planned and executed on purpose with no evidence whatsoever.