Since today is Halloween, I thought I'd write something scary. The last time I posted a Halloween themed picture, I was severely chastized for inappropriate behaviour.
There has been some discussion in bloggerville about the need for more than two political parties in America. I agree. I think two more parties would help considerably to separate the sheep from the goats (or something). Two new parties, one on the extreme right and one one the extreme left.
We'll start with the extreme right as it is closer to reality than you think. Lets call it the National Socialist Party. The NSP vision for America is to turn the clock back a couple hundred years to the days when men were men and women were glad of it. They want the Constitution enforced as it was written by the Founding Fathers. Which is to say, only males of white northern European extraction with property can vote. Women are not considered persons. What law there is is carried on one's hip. Anyone who is not white northern European is either a slave or to be killed or run off.
Their economic platform is borrowed word for word from the American Bankers' Association. Regulations will be eliminated so that huge corporations can rape and pillage both the environment and the populace at will. There will be two classes of people; the super rich and the serfs. This is known as FREE Enterprise.
NSP's social platform is based on THEIR literal interpretation of King James' Little Black Book and is similar to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan. All the forces of a totalitarian police state will be used to enforce a strict moral code and create a "Godly" society.
Then we go to the extreme left. This is the Socialist National Party. The SNP is a bit of a problem to define as it is made up of dozens of single issue groups dedicated to stamping out various and sundry activities that they deem bad for environment. Or animals. Or trees. It is hard to say what its vision of America is but it will be GREEN with few if any people and lots and lots of horses which are not allowed to be killed or eaten.
Their economic policy is simple. Destroy the economy to save the environment. ALL coal, oil, gas consumption must be stopped immediately as the sky is falling uh, sorry, the earth is warming and WE caused it with all our CO2 production in the last 60 years. Only the evil rich are opposed to this as they became rich exploiting carbon based energy. The fact that all the rest of us depend on carbon based energy, for which there is no real substitute, for our jobs, such as they still are and for our lifestyle, such as it still is, is irrelevant. They are even more oblivious to science and reason than the extreme right, if it were possible.
They have no social program. People's welfare are not the concern of this party. People are maggots, to quote Dr. Suzuki, leader of the Canadian affiliate. There are too many of them and they should all leave (except members of the SNP, of course). This party will be as totalitarian as the right only their Gestapo will look for anyone burning anything to keep warm or keeping an animal even as a pet. We will all live in caves as cutting trees to make houses will be forbidden. However the usual animal skins as seen on Clan of the Cave Bear will be forgone in deference to the animals, our equals, and we will wear leaves (or grow more hair, or something).
With either group in power, democracy, even such as it is, will cease to exist as any populace stupid enough to elect them obviously cannot be trusted to govern themselves.
Happy Halloween.
Gee, Fodder, I think you have a rather regrettable misunderstanding of the American political climate.
ReplyDeleteI just know what I read in the papers.
ReplyDeleteWell, Fodder, you're getting a unbalanced view from the papers you read. For example, you are right in that there are people who are so concerned for the environment that they lack concern for human beings (or they see the two as mutually exclusive). Yet, those who are on the left typically err in the opposite direction. Also, the word socialist would be the death knell for any candidate or any political party on any side of any issue. To use that word to describe oneself would be as disastrous as to use the word Communist or atheist. Even if a politician was a screaming socialist, he would never describe himself as such.
ReplyDeleteYou have issues, old man.
ReplyDeleteSnowbrush notwithstanding, your points are worth considering. Unfortunately the US already has an extreme right party, the Tea Party, which is driving the Republicans further and further to the right, to the position of the NSP, "Nazi" for short (which wasn't socialist at all).
ReplyDeleteThe word Socialist isn't a vote getter in USA, Snowbrush? D'ya think? And yes, RB, the National Socialist Party is better known by its abbreviation "Nazi" and the extreme left (notice the word EXTREME there)is just as totalitarian in its viewpoints.
ReplyDeleteI have crossed swords with some of the folks on the extreme left (animal rights types) and they are not nice people. But they are unlikely to ever assume political power. As single issue NGO's they are far more effective getting legislation and regulation using pressure tactics.
The Teabaggers of course are crowding America ever closer to outright fascism. Can't happen? It has BEEN HAPPENING, slowly but surely for some time. Don't know what name it will ultimately go by but it will be "wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross". And Snowbrush, they will be coming for you.
Of course, they would be coming to me! Hopefully, I'll be camped in Rob-bear's yard before they knock my door in at 4:00 a.m.
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. has a far bigger problem than fascists though. We have outspent our income for all of the past 41 years, and our debt is growing at the rate of 100-billion dollars a month. Naturally, all the talk in this election is about maintaining the Bush tax cuts, although the Dems would like to raise taxes on the wealthy. So, there you have it, a debt that will soon be so large as to be unpayable, and no one willing to talk about it. When we finally do crash, I don't think you Canadians--or anyone else--will be laughing at the U.S. any longer.
I am scared of the extreme right. But, while there are people who fit your description of the extreme left- they'll take care of themselves. Aren't they the group that have vowed to not procreate? In a generation, they'll be mostly gone.
ReplyDeleteThe extreme right, however, has realized it is easier to indoctrinate children than adults. Which is why they show a whitewashed brainwashed 'reality' show about a family with nearly 20 kids.
Snowbrush, the collapse of the American economy will bring about the Fascist government of the Christian Right, same as it brought about the rise of National Socialism in Germany. It will also take down the rest of the world. No one is laughing at you. You have nukes and are itching to use them.
ReplyDeletePN, you don't understand. Too many people means everyone but THEM. Remember a developer is someone who wants to build a house in the woods. An environmentalist already has a house in the woods.
I think the Shakers were the only group that forswore procreation. All they left behind was some really cool furniture.
Unbalanced is right. In multiple ways.
ReplyDelete"No one is laughing at you. You have nukes and are itching to use them."
ReplyDeleteWell, did you not say in response to a comment I made on an earlier post that you find American politics funny? I very clearly remember this in response to a question I raised about why you spend so much time writing about the U.S. and either none or very nearly none in writing about your own country.
On the nukes question, I think a lot of Armageddonist Christians might indeed be overly eager, and I worried about both Reagan and GW Bush on this score. By the way I had rather you spoke of me and the U.S. government as separate entities (instead of referring to my government as "you" when you're addressing me) because I see myself as more its victim than its supporter. Indeed, I'm happy I don't have children because I truly don't expect this nation to long endure--I'm just hoping it will last out my lifetime. I think the difference between you and me on the matter rests not in our pessimism about the U.S. government, but in the fact that it appears to give you cause to feel personally superior--by virtue of being a Canadian--whereas it simply leaves me despondent and even horrified. The government is scarcely through fucking one thing up before it moves on to another. Believe me, there are a great many more detractors of the U.S. government on southern side on the border than on the northern. A lot of us had rather hoped that Obama would make a positive difference, but disappointment with him on the part of the left and the right could lead to his party losing both houses of Congress tomorrow. By the way, the main criticism that the conservatives make against him is that he's a socialist.
don't write much about Canada because I don't live there anymore and what happens inside its borders affects virtually no one outside of them. The rest of the world only wishes that were true for America.
ReplyDeleteI write about American politics as an offshoot of my extreme reservations about Fundamentalist Christians.
I have friends and relatives in America who attend the same organization I came out of and who confuse Christianity and Teabagger Republicanism. I like to irritate them on the off chance one of them still remembers how to think.
American politics is hilarious and beyond the comprehension of the civilized world. American foreign policy and monetary policy is no laughing matter. America is a rogue nation with nukes, somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan.
It has the most powerful and technologically advanced military in the world which is about all you get for your tax money. American imperial ambitions make Britain of the 18th and 19th century seem almost wimpish.
Social policy is made by people who think dinosaurs wore saddles and who live the motto I'm OK, F__K you. Further more if you don't like their version of America you can feel free to leave it.
Which may be good advice as your only alternative seems to be a bunch of spineless so called Democrats. Perpetual elections require perpetual money so the rich run the system.
If the Teabagger Republicans win big today, America will descend into Wiemar Republic chaos and 2012 will see the election of the first "National Socialists".
Please, America, prove me wrong. It is our only hope.
Fodder,
ReplyDelete"American politics is hilarious..."
No more than the politics of the Weimar Republic. American politics are pathetic, extremely dangerous and Insulting to the intelligence. He who has the most money usually wins, and now that the Supreme Court has recognized corporations as having the same speech rights as individuals, and has opened the gate for those corporations to contribute all the money they please, Republicans will now rule the country, and fascism will be our future.
I can't begin to imagine what amuses you about this. I don't mean to offend you, my friend, but when you're as close as I am to the action, there's not a damn thing to laugh about.
Perhaps, Snowbrush, some of us laugh in order to keep from crying. Even crying out loud. Perhaps even in public.
ReplyDeleteThe real order of the day, I think, is not laughter but lament, deep lament. Lament as in passionate expression of grief or sorrow. Something which we no longer know how to do, I think.
I say this on the eve of election day. Will I watch tomorrow night's election results? NO. I expect they will be too upsetting.
Rob-bear, when I moved to liberal Oregon from conservative Mississippi, I frequently met people who loathed the South, and who looked down on me because of my accent. When I tried to represent myself in a better light to such people, I realized that I was in the position of a black man who was trying to persuade a Klansman that all black people aren't idiots. Sometimes, I believe--rightly or wrongly--that you and Fodder so hate America that you imagine it to be monolithic, which it is not. That said, I agree with almost every criticism you make, but what is hard for me is my impression--again, rightly or wrongly--that you are so self-congratulatory in your belief that you, as Canadians, are superior that you look down, not just on U.S. policies, but on everyone who is a U.S. citizen. Of course, I look down on ALMOST everyone who is a U.S. citizen because it is the majority of Americans who elect the people who determine those policies, so maybe I'm too quick to protest what I see--rightly or wrongly--in you. I don't, however, personally identify with those policies. They are not my policies.
ReplyDeleteNo, Snow; I don't hate America. I'm just very sad at what I see is happening in and to a wonderful nation — a nation with so many resources — human and other — and much potential.
ReplyDeleteThe response to sadness is lament.
Humour of the Wiemar Republic - see this article from the Globalist: http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=8773 And while you are at it read this too: http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=8726
ReplyDeleteYou think Christine O'Donnell isn't hilarious? Or Sarah Palin? Palin/Beck Lipstick and Dipstick, the No-brainer for 2012? And the fact that people take them seriously? Though at least O'Donnell lost. If you don't laugh, what do you do? Rob-Bear hit it - you cry.
Smug (about not being Americans) is as Canadian as apologizing to automated bank machines. Americans hate smug Canadians as much as we hate arrogant Americans (and Albertans for that matter). Don't take it personally.
As to superiority, I am reminded of the Texan with the inferiority complex - he didn't think he was any better than any one else.
And "Hating America" is a term of the Right. Anyone who isn't convinced in their soul that America is the greatest force for good since the First Coming of Christ (all evidence to the contrary) just hates America and so their arguments can be dismissed.
If the world hates America (and America gives a damn) then maybe America ought to figure out why. You can start with "Freedom" and "Democracy". The words make me want to gag. We've seen how America has spread freedom and democracy in the world in the last 60 years or so.
America is like Iran, full of wonderful people held captive by the system which is controlled by the power at the top. Enough people believe the mythology preached by the powers that they continue to support it.
If you need a list of reading material I can give you URLS and authors a yard long. All of them American.
All very sad, and pretty much true.
ReplyDeleteWith the Republicans in control of the House, the US will be pretty much ungovernable for at least the next two years.