13 Benghazis That Occurred on Bush's Watch Without a Peep from Fox News

The Republican inquisition over the attacks against Americans in Benghazi has never really gone away, but it appears as though in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing and the House Oversight Committee's Benghazi hearings this week there are renewed psycho-histrionics over Benghazi.

Lindsey Graham and Fox News Channel in particular are each crapping their cages over new allegations from an alleged whistleblower, while they continue to deal in previously debunked falsehoods about the sequence of events during and following the attacks. Fox News is predictably helming the biggest raft of hooey on the situation -- turning its attention to Hillary Clinton in an abundantly obvious early move to stymie her presidential run before it even begins.

So I thought I'd revisit some territory I covered back in October as a bit of a refresher -- especially since it appears as if no one, including and especially the traditional press, intends to ask any of these obnoxious, opportunistic liars about why they're so obsessed by this one attack yet they entirely ignored the dozen-plus consulate/embassy attacks that occurred when George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were allegedly "keeping us safe."

The Benghazi attacks (the consulate and the CIA compound) are absolutely not unprecedented even though they're being treated that way by Republicans who are deliberately ignoring anything that happened prior to Inauguration Day, January 20, 2009.

January 22, 2002. Calcutta, India. Gunmen associated with Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami attack the U.S. Consulate. Five people are killed.

June 14, 2002. Karachi, Pakistan. Suicide bomber connected with al Qaeda attacks the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 and injuring 51.

October 12, 2002. Denpasar, Indonesia. U.S. diplomatic offices bombed as part of a string of "Bali Bombings." No fatalities.

February 28, 2003. Islamabad, Pakistan. Several gunmen fire upon the U.S. Embassy. Two people are killed.

May 12, 2003. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Armed al Qaeda terrorists storm the diplomatic compound, killing 36 people including nine Americans. The assailants committed suicide by detonating a truck bomb.

July 30, 2004. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A suicide bomber from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacks the U.S. Embassy, killing two people.

December 6, 2004. Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda terrorists storm the U.S. Consulate and occupy the perimeter wall. Nine people are killed.

March 2, 2006. Karachi, Pakistan again. Suicide bomber attacks the U.S. Consulate killing four people, including U.S. diplomat David Foy who was directly targeted by the attackers. (I wonder if Lindsey Graham or Fox News would even recognize the name "David Foy." This is the third Karachi terrorist attack in four years on what's considered American soil.)

September 12, 2006. Damascus, Syria. Four armed gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar" storm the U.S. Embassy using grenades, automatic weapons, a car bomb and a truck bomb. Four people are killed, 13 are wounded.

January 12, 2007. Athens, Greece. Members of a Greek terrorist group called the Revolutionary Struggle fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy. No fatalities.

March 18, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Members of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Jihad of Yemen fire a mortar at the U.S. Embassy. The shot misses the embassy, but hits nearby school killing two.

July 9, 2008. Istanbul, Turkey. Four armed terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate. Six people are killed.

September 17, 2008. Sana'a, Yemen. Terrorists dressed as military officials attack the U.S. Embassy with an arsenal of weapons including RPGs and detonate two car bombs. Sixteen people are killed, including an American student and her husband (they had beenmarried for three weeks when the attack occurred). This is the second attack on this embassy in seven months.

A few observations about this timeline. My initial list was quoted from an article on the Daily Kos which actually contained several errors and only 11 attacks (the above timeline contains all 13 attacks). Also, my list above doesn't include the numerous and fatal attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad during the Iraq war -- a war that was vocally supported by Lindsey Graham, John McCain and Fox News Channel.

Speaking of Graham, I ran a search on each attack along with the name "Lindsey Graham" in the hopes of discovering that Graham had perhaps commented about the attacks or raised some questions about why the administration didn't prevent the attacks or respond accordingly to prevent additional embassy attacks. No results. Of course. Now, this could mean the search wasn't exhaustive enough. But one thing's for sure: neither Graham nor any of his cohorts launched a crusade against the Bush administration and the State Department in any of those cases -- no one did, including the congressional Democrats, by the way.

This leads us to the ultimate point here. Not only have numerous sources previously debunked the Benghazi information being peddled by the Republicans and Fox News (for example, contrary to what the Republicans are saying, yes, reinforcements did in fact arrivebefore the attack on the CIA compound), but none of these people raised a single word of protest when, for example, American embassies in Yemen and Pakistan were attacked numerous times. Why didn't the Bush administration do something to secure the compounds after the first attacks? Why didn't he provide additional security?

Where was your inquest after the Karachi attacks, Mr. Graham? Where were you after the Sana'a attacks, Mr. Hannity? What about all of the embassy attacks in Iraq that I didn't even list here, Mr. McCain? Do you realize how many people died in attacks on U.S. embassies and consulates when Bush was supposedly keeping us safe, Mr. Ailes? Just once I'd like to hear David Gregory or George Stephanopoulos or Wolf Blitzer ask a Republican member of Congress about the above timeline and why they said nothing at the time of each attack. Just once.

Nearly every accusation being issued about Benghazi could've been raised about the Bush-era attacks, and yet these self-proclaimed truth-seekers refused to, in their words,undermine the commander-in-chief while troops were in harm's way (a line they repeatedover and over again during those years).

So we're only left to conclude the obvious. The investigations and accusations and conspiracy theories are entirely motivated by politics and a strategy to escalate this to an impeachment trial. In doing so, the Republicans have the opportunity not only to crush the president's second term, but also to sabotage the potential for a Hillary Clinton presidency.

Even if they never arrive at that goal, they have in their possession a cudgel formed of horseshit -- a means of flogging the current administration with the singularly effective Republican marketing/noise machine, including the conservative entertainment complex. Very seldom does this machine fail to revise history and distort the truth. Ultimately, they don't even need a full-blown impeachment proceeding when they have a population of way too many truthers and automatons who take all of these lies at face value -- not to mention dubiously sourced chunks of "truth" proffered by radio and cable news conspiracy theorists who, if nothing else, are masters at telling angry conservatives precisely what they want to hear: that the probably-Muslim president is weak on terrorism. And so they'll keep repeating "Benghazi-Gate, Benghazi-Gate, Benghazi-Gate!" without any regard for history or reality. Like always.

AMERICA IS A CONSERVATIVE COUNTRY.

 America was born in its day as a radically liberal experiment, and has only become progressively more liberal over the past 230 years.Let's always keep our fundamental definitions of the political ideologies of liberal and conservative in mind:



• Liberal: favorable to progress or reform, open minded, tolerant, creative, promoting ever greater liberty, equality, justice and pursuit of happiness; generally opposing aristocratic and unequal hierarchies.
  
  
• Conservative: fearful of change, inflexible and unimaginative, disposed to conserve traditional hierarchies, institutions and traditions.
It is true that many Americans consider themselves religious, as well as prudent and frugal, and so they may think of themselves as "conservative." So this is how the big myth that "America is a conservative country" seems to have the ring of truth, and remains popular. But these are not exclusively conservative traits by any stretch. One can be extremely liberal and still be religious, prudent and frugal. The majority of Americans may be a lot more liberal than they think. And as a whole, keeping those standard definitions in mind, America is way more liberal than conservative.
Anyone who wishes to expand liberty, equality, justice, pursuit of happiness, and love for one another is a liberal. If you really believe in the equality and capabilities of the common person; if you believe we are all in this together, as in "We the People," and "Love One Another", then you're a liberal. It's as simple as that.
On the other hand, if you distrust others who don't look like you or believe like you, and you'd really like to impose your will on them or exploit them; if you long to return to some mythical America that existed sometime in the past; if you actually like the old unequal traditions, hierarchies and institutions and wish to conserve them... if you really think white people are superior to brown or black, males are superior to females, and rich are superior to poor, this is the way it has always been and always should be... hello, you are a conservative!
Conservative social ideology has taken a whipping through American history. Why? Because the vast majority of Americans are simply not very conservative. Oh sure, there are large patches of the nation that are conservative, and pockets of conservatism around every corner. And sometimes they even win elections and manage to turn back progress a notch or two. But sooner or later their ideas end up getting flattened as the wheels of liberal progress get moving again.
To become a conservative country, America would have to dismantle its liberal ideals. Instead, it is these very ideals that propel America to become more and more liberal. What did the founding fathers think would happen when they voted for a Declaration of Independence that included the phrase "All men are created equal..." and possess the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" What did they have in mind when they established a Constitution for "We the People and set up a government to promote the general welfare?
How far America has come in its great liberal experiment! Ideals that the founding fathers themselves could only give to America as idea-seeds, successive generations of Americans have brought to fruition. The Louisiana Purchase, emancipation of the slaves, votes for all adult citizens, public education, women's liberation, Native American rights, workers' rights and safety, food and drug safety, banking and commerce regulation, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national parks, environmental protection, civil rights, the Interstate Highway System, the space program, medical discoveries, disease control, weather science and so much more... constant pursuit of a "more perfect union." These are the great liberal achievements of this great country... and each and every one of them was opposed by conservatives of their day!
Conversely, from witch-burning to the Tories to the stealing of Indian lands and breaking of treaties to secession and Civil War to Jim Crow lynchings to serial banking panics and busts to industrial abuses to Prohibition to the Depression to McCarthyism and Communist fear-mongering to today's crony corporatocracy and out-of-control militarism, conservative ideas have generally evoked the very worst episodes of our national story.
As you sit there reading this, conservatives are busily trying their hardest to deny liberty, equality, justice and pursuit of happiness for union members, gay, lesbian, transgender, Muslim and Hispanic citizens. They have no intention of actually loving any of these "others," as Jesus commanded them to. Instead, incoherently, they direct their "love" toward the hierarchy of the richest of the rich, and the most powerful of the powerful... the very ones who Jesus said have as much chance of getting into heaven as a camel through the eye of a needle! They have even distorted patriotism to where it now requires loyalty to corporations... yes, the very same corporations that have stolen us blind, polluted our planet, shipped jobs overseas and relocated their headquarters to a post office box in Bermuda to avoid paying American taxes have conservatives swooning in slavish devotion!
Conservatism! Always a messy sight.
But most Americans do not share this craziness. They don't swear blind allegiance to the rich or corporations or even a "free market;" they want a fair market. They want good public schools, safe working conditions, safe food, safe drugs, a clean environment. They support Social Security and Medicare and the idea of a social contract whereby we all help each other. They support the government supporting the arts and sciences in addition to the armed forces. The believe in the U.S. government helping out in natural disasters at home and abroad. They support the idea of the United Nations. They think for themselves and do not fear change or want to perpetuate hoary old hierarchies that lock in white, male, rich advantage over all others. They elected Woodrow Wilson (twice), Franklin Roosevelt (thrice), Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy (a Catholic), Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (twice), and even stunned and inspired the world by voting in unprecedented numbers to elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president (TWICE)! In other words, they are substantially more liberal than they are conservative.
Indeed, after Obama's reelection, Fox News main anchor, Brit Hume, finally admitted, "This tells us something about moderates: A lot of people who call themselves that are actually liberal, more liberal than many of us thought."
And this is rather the rub for conservatives. They know they are losing the "cultural war," and that's why they are so angry and afraid. What most of them don't realize is that this "cultural war" is not new. They've been losing this "war" for hundreds of years. More than any other group of people, social conservatives are oblivious to their own ideological history. Instead they imbibe a rosy mythology of some ideal America that existed a short time back, and needs to be reclaimed by bringing back "traditional values." If they could only impose these values on everybody else, America could be great again. They can't go into too much detail about when this ideal timeframe was, or what such a renewed America would actually look like, just that it wouldn't be so liberal.
It's the fervent conservative fantasy: return to an era that never really existed. So even in their dreams the conservatives themselves pay homage to how liberal America really is, and will remain as long as the founding ideals light the way.

3. AMERICA IS A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY.

 America has never been a "Christian nation," and never will be. If it ever becomes officially a Christian nation, that's the end of America!There is no exclusively or specifically Biblical or Christian legal construct or ideology encoded in America's foundational ideals, Declaration of Independence, original Constitution, subsequent Amendments, laws or system of government. If anything whatsoever, the American system is a radical and emphatic rejection of the "divine right of kings" and religion-government entanglement which comprise the core of Abrahamic (Jewish-Christian-Islamic) governmental tradition.
Diametrically opposite of this tradition (thankfully), the United States of America is based upon English common law, as established principally by the Magna Carta (1215), Constitution of 1657, Habeas Corpus Act (1679), and Bill of Rights (1689). These in turn draw not from Biblical governmental philosophy, but from pagan Greek democracy and Roman law. Other important inspirations for the novel U.S. system were obtained from Enlightenment and utilitarian philosophers, principal among these the English philosopher John Locke, as well as French champions of the common man's rights and qualities: Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu. Also, there is some evidence that Benjamin Franklin brought ideas from the Iroquois Confederacy's form of democracy into the original discussions of American government, particularly the aspect of each state/tribe being an autonomous unit yet bound to a larger federal whole: a league of united tribes/states.
If the founding fathers had intended to create a Christian country they most certainly would have included the five letters J-E-S-U-S or the six letters C-H-R-I-S-T or the nine letters C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N somewhere - anywhere - in the nation's bylaws. But nope. Did they just forget Jesus? Well yes, they did. They intentionally forgot Jesus, and left out Christianity for some very, very, very good reasons.
First off, more than a few of the founding fathers were simply not Christian. Right along with the vanguard of Western civilization as it embraced the philosophies of the Enlightenment, the leading lights of the American Revolution, including Thomas Paine, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, were reevaluating religious doctrine and dogma and "tradition," and finding much of it quite lacking and contrary to their rational sense of justice, morality and spirituality. Recent scientific discoveries, including Newton's laws, had served to undercut Biblical explanations of how the world works. Jefferson went so far as to cut out all the parts of the Bible he disagreed with, ending up with a very compact little treatise.
Many of the most sophisticated members of the American founding fathers claimed to be "deists," not Christians or even "theists." These men still believed in God, but not in a god who would break His own laws of nature to interfere in human affairs.
As well, the American patriots were keenly aware of the disastrous intersection of religion and government as it had played out in their ancestral England and throughout Europe, as well in the American colonies where at a time in history a person could be put to death for being of a particular religious stripe and caught in the wrong colony. They had absolutely no intention of adhering to the "traditional value" of brutal and bloody Christian vs. Christian warfare that had ravaged Britain, Ireland and the continent for centuries, much less sanction something as barbaric as a new government-sponsored religious crusade against some purported "infidel" (like, say, the Cherokee).
So the founding fathers extremely wisely chose to create a wholly secular government and society, where the religions would be allowed to freely, and hopefully peaceably, coexist. In the new America you had the right to be an Anglican or a Quaker or a Catholic or a Muslim or a Hindu or a deist or an atheist. This concept is called "freedom of religion." Or it could likewise be defined as "freedom from religion," if you so choose. Either way you want to parse it, it is a fundamental aspect of the concept of freedom itself.



The very idea that America used to be more religious is also false. Church membership as a percent of the population peaked in the 1980s, and we are still a more religious nation than were those early Americans. During the Revolutionary War period only about a fifth of the population were church members. That had grown to about a third by the time of the Civil War. Today about two-thirds of the population are church members. That figure is dwindling. The "non-churched" (or "nones") - that is people who do not go to church - is the fastest growing segment of the population, now standing at about 20 percent of the population. If we keep going at this rate soon we'll be right back to the level of religiosity of those beloved patriots!
So a Christian America was never created, nor remotely intended, by the founding fathers... and the idea that the original Americans were more religious is another myth.
But let's do as Christians suggest - take a "leap of faith" - disregard all evidence (or lack thereof), suspend all common sense and fantasize that America really was intended to be a "Christian nation." Now we must ask ourselves, what would that even mean?
What is a "Christian nation?" What are the sterling models of such a government? Solomon's Israel? (Oops, that wasn't even Christian). Constantine's Byzantium? Michelangelo's Italy? Joan's France? Henry's England? Luther's Germany? Hamlet's Denmark? Whose version of Christianity is it based upon? There are hundreds of different sects of Christianity, some viciously opposed to the others. Would it be based upon the love, forgiveness and passivity of the actual Jesus, or the "Christian soldier" mentality that came along much later? Would it be a Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Evangelical Christian, Holy Roller, Amish or Mormon nation? Who would decide? Would we vote on the Christian sect every four years concurrent with the presidential election, or every two years as with each congressional cycle? Might we swing from an ideology of "love thy neighbor as thyself," "feed the poor," "give away your clothes," and "turn the other cheek," to xenophobic zealotry, "an eye for an eye," and "all heathens shall roast in hell for eternity," as we lean away from Christian-Democrats and toward Christian-Republicans? Would we be a nation that turns the other cheek, or would we become Crusaders for Christ (with drones and nukes)? It's all rather fuzzy, rather like Christians' descriptions of heaven... not nearly as well defined as their sweeping details of hell.
As long as we are dreaming of the Christian America, we might also pause to ponder when America has ever acted according to the major precepts of Jesus the Christ... EVER!
Oh, of course, America (half inspired by a semblance of conscience and the other half by the desire to feel good about itself and influence world opinion) sends a pittance of a percentage of its titanic wealth in aid and comfort to this or that country suffering from poverty, disease or disaster. Conservatives would like to cut out even that morsel of true Christian charity that America extends to the world community. But by far the primary impulse from America's "real Christians" (i.e. white, Anglo-Saxons) has been toward utterly selfish, exploitative and destructive tendencies... for longer than America has even existed.
The first Christian Europeans to arrive had barely dried out from their sea voyages before they were stealing from and murdering the original inhabitants of the new "promised land," which, come to think of it, is pretty similar to the way the invading Israelites treated the rightful owners of the land of Canaan. So this behavior may be described as "biblical," but it certainly was not Christian.
These Anglo, so-called Christians, quickly expanded their exploitation, subjugation, superstition and cruelty to burning "witches" (also all the rage among European Christians of the day) and establishing a lively trade with Africa for that all-important commodity for their burgeoning capitalism: slaves.
Surely we cannot expect to locate a "Christian nation" within the moral morass of perennial abuse of the Indians, or the institutional debacle that was slavery, or the rampant sinfulness of the segregation era right up through the 1960s.
As well, when they weren't tormenting natives, burning witches or whipping slaves, these enterprising "people of the Book" turned their voracious righteousness toward chopping down the primal forests and blasting away at any animal that moved, all aspects of the "nature" they so wished to have dominion over, as urged by the Bible. Again we can see glimmers of Old Testament ruthlessness in these hardy ancestors, but hardly a glint of the agape love of Jesus or St. Francis.
Yet even before the Civil War, the Rise of Corporations had begun, where the very folk that Jesus routed from the temple and warned had as much chance to get into heaven as a camel through the eye of a needle had taken control of the ship of state and were steering like wild pirates toward their own idea of a promised realm: the Land of Greed and Gluttony. This America, ascendant still today, with its celebrated filthy rich celebrities, athletes and corporate titans (not to mention the bulging waistlines of an obesity epidemic) also seems quite bereft of any tangible Christ connection.
The corporatization of America also ushered the clarion call for all of its citizens to put away their thoughts of philosophy, virtue, love and piety and turn back to "childish things." Consume! Consume! Consume! Jesus said, "If you have two coats, give one away." The corporations demand, "If you only have two coats, you are seriously out of style. Get yourself straight to the mall!" Nothing is too childish, nothing too silly, nothing too meaningless to be obsessed over until you purchase it, at which point you will turn to craving something else entirely. And, of course, while you are selfishly wanting and buying and obssessing, your mind is as far away from Jesus and God as it is possible to be. Such is the real religion of America!
So too is America exporting some of the most un-virtuous and potentially dangerous products in world history, including high-sugar, high-calorie, non-nutritious fast foods and beverages, cigarettes, drugs made of rat poison, predatory business, banking and industrial practices, as well as pesticides, herbicides and other toxic chemicals so dangerous they are not allowed for use in America, but perfectly fine to export to other unfortunate countries. It is all too clear that America's rampant consumerism and immoral capitalism - the dominant systems of today's America - lead not toward but dramatically away from Christian precepts. And yet we never hear a peep of protest from would-be Christians against this type of corporate missionary zeal as their "Christian Nation" traffics in Satan's stock and trade.
Meanwhile, the mighty American "military-industrial complex" arose that has never seen a lethal weapon it didn't want to put into action, and then, typically, sell to the world. In most textbooks American history actually comes across as a continuous fabric of prelude-to-war, war, and then build-up to the next prelude-to. In its entire 230-something year history, America the Christian Nation has been unable to avoid armed conflict for more than a decade or so. In just the past 75 years America has carpet-bombed Europe, dropped not one, but two, atomic bombs on an exhausted and helpless Japan, rained bombs, napalm and Agent Orange all over the tiny nations of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos that never threatened us, invaded the tiny countries of Grenada and Panama that never threatened us, and belched "shock and awe" at Iraq and Afghanistan, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, though these nations had never threatened us, either. "Destroying the village to save it," and "peace" through warmongering, conquering and exploiting is the precise opposite of what Jesus had urged.
Today we can clearly see by the real passions of our nation - consumption, mindless entertainment, and perpetual militarism - that America is far from being a Christian Nation. How many millions of "Christians" spread out across America are fixated not to the words and ways of Jesus, but can't wait to get out of church and back to their favorite reality-TV shows, starring strange people with names like Snookie and P-Fuddy... or the Big Game! Indeed, speaking of sports, if you want final proof of the mind and heart of America, consider the simple fact that not a single major sports team (pro or college) calls itself the "Christians." We have Lions and Tigers and Bears and Indians and Patriots and Pirates and Rockets and all manner of other weird monikers (the Hoyas!), but not even one team of Christians. Even that vaunted Catholic university, Notre Dame, calls itself not the Christians but the "Irish," famous for being the hard-fighting, hard-drinking, very last pagans of Europe to adopt Christianity. Even down South, the Bible Belt, it's football that dominates communal attention and consciousness, not the Lord. Yes it's true that on Christmas Day some 60 million pious Christians go to church. That sounds impressive, until we remember that 100 million Americans watch the Super Bowl each year! How pathetic all of these facts for those who believe they live in a Christian nation.
Actually, in its entire history about the only time America has wandered into actual Jesus ideological territory is when it has attempted to care for and expand the rights and dignity of those disenfranchised and abused: the poor, women, children, people of color, immigrants, the sick, the elderly, the handicapped, gay and lesbian and transgender: in other words those outsiders that Jesus called the meek who would "inherit the world." The founding fathers had a different name for them: "We the People."
But wait! That can't be right! These are the very people that the "Christians" who scream loudest about America being a "Christian nation" can't stand! These "Christians" never seem to take issue with the continuing exploitation, subjugation and prejudice directed at the people who made up Jesus' flock. Nor do they ever condemn the greed, the gluttony, the vacuousness, the jingoism, the machismo, the obsession with guns, the militarism, the violence, the injustice, the stupidity, the immorality of so much of Americanism. They seem to have Jesus' essential message precisely back asswards! The truth is, of course: these people are not Christians, in the sense of behavior that Jesus emphasized. They are the Pharisees, and the rabble that at Jesus' trial would have been screaming "Release Barabbas!" and "Long Live Caesar!"
And while we are on the subject of faux-Christians, it seems that the screech of America being a "Christian nation" comes shrillest from the American South. Wouldn't you know it? The "Bible Belt." What a myth that is! The "Devil's Den" the whole place should be called. The least educated states in the country, and the original home of the Confederate traitors, think they know better than anyone else what America is all about. Hey South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi... have you ever even read your own state histories? It's a toss-up as to which of you ignorant, bigoted, blood-drenched, drowning-in-sin states is actually the least American and theleast Christian, in the truest sense of these ideals!
So now we come to yet another sublime irony. If there ever could be an actual "Christian America" these fake "Christians" and brain-dead "Americans" would run amok trying to destroy it. Because such a "Christian Nation" would be the most liberal country in world history! Such an entity would represent a clear and present danger to their narrow and selfish mindset. They no more understand the most basic precepts of Jesus Christ than they have the foggiest notion of what America truly stands for. If a "Christian America" appeared tomorrow, all they would know is that they would have to kill it. Just like a certain rabble did to a certain man 2000 years ago.
Click Here for a thoughtful evangelical Christian's take on modern conservatism and the Grand Old Party. AndClick Here for an article about how Jesus would be received at a Tea Party rally.

4. CONSERVATIVES ARE BETTER MANAGERS OF THE ECONOMY!

 There are two essential problems with conservative economic management: they are greedy and they are liars. Putting them in charge of the economy is like hiring a bunch of pirates. If you're one of the pirates, you might do great. If you're not one of the pirates, you are likely to get shanked.Now remember that when we speak of conservatives managing the economy, we're not talking about social conservatives, or SoCons. They have little or no control over the economy. Here we are talking about professional conservatives... corporate conservatives. CorpCons represent the wealth and power on the conservative side. SoCons just stupidly go along for the ride. That ride is usually extremely bumpy... and SoCons just ask for more.
The most important thing to consider about CorpCons managing the economy is simply this: they want all governmental policy aimed at aiding and abetting the richest of the rich and the biggest of corporations. Whereas liberal economic policy is aimed at aiding and abetting the averge Joe, the middle class. That's it in a nutshell.

The conservative economic ideology of coddling the rich and giant corporations is called "supply-side" economics, AKA "trickle-down" or "Voodoo economics." The mantra for this approach is low, low taxes (at least for the rich and corporations) and deregulation of commerce and markets. Historically, supply-side economics provokes cycles of boom and bust. It gave us the Gilded Age and "panics" of the late 1800s. It brought us the "Roaring Twenties" and then the Great Depression. More recently it spawned the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush serial bubbles, the Savings & Loan bailout, the 2008 Bush Bank bailout, and the Great Recession that we are still mired in. "Trickle-down" works great for the rich and corporations... not well at all for the middle class and poor. The famous "trickle-down" that is supposed to "float all boats," never quite seems to come in... even as the rich get richer and corporations reap record profits.
The liberal economic ideology oriented toward supporting the middle class is called "demand-side" economics, or "Keynesian" after economist John Maynard Keynes. This philosophy, put into place during the Depression by Franklin D. Roosevelt, created relative calm in the American economy for nearly five decades, and the largest expansion of a middle class in world history. Remember that time not so long ago when a middle class family,with only the father working, could afford a decent house, a new car every few years, braces and piano lessons for the kids, adequate insurance and health care, and count on a decent pension? That was the day of "demand-side" economics... when companies cared enough to take care of their employees and pay them well enough so they could afford to buy products. That was also back when unions were strong, taxes on the rich and corporations were far higher than today, and regulation, especially on financial institutions, was far tighter than today.
The moral of this story is that the corporate conservative emphasis on the rich and large corporations is completely backwards. It doesn't matter how much "supply" there is; if there is little or no "demand" for that product, it ain't going to sell, and the economy is going to falter. It takes demand to fuel an economy. It takes a strong middle class to make a strong economy. When the middle class does well, all classes do well. When it's only the rich getting richer and corporations piling up profits, neither willing to share, that's a recipe for disaster.... thus the booms, the panics, the crashes, the Great Depression, the bail-outs and the Great Recession.
Now ponder for yourself. Which ideology do you think works best overall? Which ideology works best for you and your family. If you are in the 1%, then obviously, "trickle-down" works much better for you. But if you are in the vast middle class and you are voting for those who want to continue "trickle-down," you are nuts!
But there's more... It turns out professional conservatives are lying about more than just "trickle-down."
Concerning the lying liars: Professional conservatives rail against government spending when seeking your vote, but never actually get around to doing anything about it when they are in power. Time after time they promise to cut spending, but do the exact opposite. They were lying to you. To win your trust. To get elected. They never really intend to cut spending or shrink the government. They love spending and a big government. The bigger the better to manipulate things all around the world.
Indeed, the facts prove that conservatives are the worst money managers and most profligate spenders of all. It's not even close.
Conservatives blame liberals of being "tax and spenders." Well, conservatives are "charge and spenders," which is much, much worse. They just put everything on the nation's credit card without any clue as to how it's going to be paid for. "Tax and spend" is a caricature of liberals, another way conservatives try to distort the truth, but it does suggest at least some forethought as to how things are going to be paid for. If conservatives were managing your family's budget, you would rush to jerk the checkbook and credit cards away from them.
Professional conservatives are perpetually promoting this mythical thing called "small government" (as if in the modern world there could ever really be such a thing). It's all a web of lies. Who were the two biggest expandersof the federal government in U.S. history? Look at this! Lo and behold, it's none other than our good Republican buddies Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Liars... they say one thing, and do the exact opposite.
Concerning the greedy greedsters: Even worse is what conservatives spend all that money on. It's not anything that actually helps people or the country, like infrastructure or health care or education or environmental cleanup, it's simply giveaways to the rich and corporations, and crazy military escapades. We the People get NOTHING out of conservative largess.


WHO GREW THE GOVERNMENT THE MOST?

Tax cuts for the richest of the rich and for the biggest of the big corporations, and crazy military spending are the primary causes of the astronomical deficit we now find ourselves in. Reagan went hog-wild on military spending (including the infamous failed "Star Wars" missile defense system) so as to out-spend the Soviet Union, which was dying on its own anyway. But that was just a warm-up to Bush the Dumber's squandering of up to $3 Trillion (estimated eventual cost) on misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, the largest heist of taxpayer dollars in world history. That included $9 Billion simply lost. Oops! Lost! Sorry! He-he! Doesn't it feel great to know your hard-earned tax dollars have been going to fill the coffers of wartime predators like Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater, build foreign schools and hospitals (that often were subsequently blown up by the enemy), bribe warlords and terrorists, oh, and don't forget sometimes just lost!Let's look at the actual way the past six presidents have actually managed your tax dollars:


U.S. DEFICIT AS OF 2012

Forever in Error & They Don't Care: Lying and Greed come together in the conservative economic philosophy of "trickle-down." This has been tried throughout history, going back centuries. It works like a charm for the rich. It never works for the common person, or for the nation as a whole. As a way to enrich the rich, it is genius. As a way to run a nation's economy, it is bunk. Worse than bunk; it's theft.Most professional conservatives know it's theft and trickery, but they like getting rich, so they stick to the propaganda about cutting spending, lowering taxes, shrinking the government, and protecting the "job creators." These people are actually doing nothing illegal (usually). They don't need to. They've rigged the system just for themselves. It may not be illegal, but it is immoral. Like the pirates they are, they don't care about that either.
As we enter another political season, the conservatives are up to their old tricks. The Republican Lie Machine is trying to pin most of the deficit on Obama. Not a word about their own heroes' malfeasance. Again the Republicans are promising to cut government spending and usher in "small government." We heard the same thing from Reagan, the same thing from Poppy Bush, the same thing from Bush the Terrible, the same thing from John McCain, the same thing frm Mitt Romney. Don't you believe a word of it! Once in power, they won't do it, and if they ever were to attempt to do it, the crushing weight would be borne by the middle class and poor, while the ultra-rich and corporations - who actually helped cause and greatly benefitted from these deficits - would continue running to the banks with hysterical laughter.
Economic Terrorism: And let us also ponder the sheer spite and hatefulness of the period Republican government shut-downs. Conservatives have absolutely no problem throwing millions of people out of work, cutting off Social Security payments, shuttering government services, jolting financial markets, even risking national default on the debt... as they engage in extortion to get their way. In so doing, they are thumbing their nose at democracy. Such hostage-taking is really nothing short of economic terrorism. Liberals have never done this to the nation, yet conservatives seem to be building such jarring disruption and perilous brinksmanship into their routine political strategy. When you don't win and election, or if a law was passed that you don't like, just thrown a temper tantrum... and theaten to blow up the country's economy. Al Qaeda couldn't dream of a better ally than conservatives in Congress.
The conservative Song-and-Dance is all hype, all the time. As the charts above and below clearly show, Democrats are FAR better at managing the American economy than conservatives are. And these charts don't even include the conservatives' biggest debacle: a little thing called the Great Depression.


And now a word about capitalism!
Liberals are not against capitalism. Liberals invented capitalism! Capitalism began in earnest in the Middle Ages when a merchant class began to emerge that flaunted the "traditional value" of all commerce being strictly controlled by the church and/or state, kings and the richest of lords. The conservatives were furious about this development. Remember, liberals liberate, conservatives conserve. These early merchants were liberating themselves from the constraints of the traditional hierarchy. Thus the original "free market." Yet they were despised and persecuted by the kings and lords and popes and bishops who sought to conserve the traditional way of all commerce funneling through them. But soon enough, the merchants proved their worth by bringing goods and wealth into the country. That's when the conservatives decided they liked capitalism. Ever since then, conservatives have abused it. Just like clockwork, liberals periodically have to step in and save capitalism from the conservatives... as they did in the Progressive Era, during the Depression, through the great Middle Class expansion, and now, again, through this Great Recession.So let's just get this straight. Liberals are the experts in making capitalism work for the average person and an overall economy. Conservatives - as always - strive to bend capitalism to benefit mainly the richest of the rich... just as they always have!




DON'T TRUST THE ECONOMY TO PROFESSIONAL CONSERVATIVES! THEY ARE LYING, THIEVING PIRATES!

5. CONSERVATIVES SUPPORT THE TROOPS.

 Many people who consider themselves conservative volunteer to serve in the military. We thank you for that! And we know you support the troops. It's the professional conservatives who are seriously and chronically amiss in this regard... both in terms of their own service and how they treat service personnel when they are in charge of things. But how can that be? Conservatives are forever wearing little shiny flag pins on their lapels and having their photos taken with the troops, and never ever fail to mention the troops in their stump speeches. Unfortunately, it's all just a pose and a sham. Most social conservatives haven't quite caught on to the disservice and disrespect professional conservatives actually render to active duty personnel and veterans.It can certainly be said that professional conservatives support using and abusing the troops. They support sending the troops to die for various dubious causes that only vaguely have anything to do with defending America, or in some cases, like Iraq, is just plain old bullying and trying to steal natural resources. Otherwise, conservatives have a pathetic record of supporting active duty military personnel, as well as veterans. Since the days of Valley Forge, liberals have traditionally been far more supportive of U.S. military personnel and veterans. Particularly in the 20th and 21st Century, Democrats and liberals have been far and away more supportive and protective of active troops and veterans. The common theme is that conservatives are full of macho bluster. No cool and patient diplomacy for them. No Special Ops approach to belligerents... it's full-on "shock and awe." Besides, there is no end to how much of the taxpayers' money they are willing to spend on military toys, and then can't wait to use them. Hey, it's good for business! If you are in military , or have a son, daughter, dad or mom in the service, you should absolutely shudder when a conservative becomes Commander-in-Chief. Let's take a look at the record:

• 1777-78 - General George Washington, camped at Valley Forge during a bitterly cold winter, pleads with the Continental Congress to provide food, clothing and equipment for his army. Conservative politicians in Congress (mainly Southern, of course) propounding "states' rights" bicker, balk, cripe and delay. Over 2,500 American soldiers died of starvation, exposure, and disease.
• 1922 - Republican President Warren G. Harding vetoed the Veterans Bonus Bill, reneging on a promised cash benefit to World War I soldiers.
• 1924 - Republican President Calvin Coolidge again tried to veto the Veterans Bonus Bill, but the Democratic Congress overrode the veto, providing the veterans their promised benefit.
• 1932 - In one of the most shameful episodes in American history Republican President Herbert Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to attack a camp of World War I veterans protesting near the Capitol to receive early disbursement of their bonus. The Army (led by Generals Douglas MacArthur and George S. Patton) went into the camp with tanks and fixed bayonets! The veterans at the camp thought the oncoming tanks, horse cavalry and marching soldiers was a display in their honor, and were shocked to discover they were actually being attacked by their fellows. The attackers even used poison gas on the veterans camp. Hundreds of veterans and family members were injured. Two veterans were killed. A civilian bystander was shot in the shoulder. A veteran's ear was severed by a cavalryman's sword. Another was bayonetted in the side. More than one thousand people were gassed, including policemen, reporters, ambulance drivers and residents of the city. Two infants in the camp died from the gas. This sorry episode is part of their horrible record that conservatives hope no one will remember, and it is illustrative of how conservative political leaders cynically manipulate military related patriotism while actually disdainfully abusing the troops.
• 1933 - Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt puts thousands of unemployed and desperate veterans back to work with his Civilian Conservation Corps. When the veterans again marched on Washington, rather than sending tanks and bayonets to meet them, Roosevelt sent his wife Eleanor out with a pot of coffee.
• 1936 - The Democratic Congress overrode President Roosevelt's veto to at last give the World War I veterans their early bonus.
• 1944 - Democratic President Roosevelt signed the G.I. Bill of Rights, the first such legislation of its kind, which provided World War II veterans with college or vocational education, unemployment compensation, and low interest, zero-down payment, home loans. The bill meant that a returning World War II veteran could get a full-ride to Harvard if he qualified academically.
• 1952 - Democratic President Harry S. Truman signed into law the Veterans Adjustment Act offering for Korean War veterans.
• 1959 - Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower rejected a proposed extension of the G.I. Bill for veterans, believing that military service "should be an obligation of the citizenship, not a basis for government benefits." Liberals disagree, believing that military service is the most dangerous and precious risk that a citizen can accept for his/her country, and that such "above and beyond" commitment should be rewarded with benefits above and beyond those citizens who have not so risked their all. This is a fundamental difference between how conservatives and liberals view service personnel and veterans.
• 1966 - Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Veterans Readjustment Benefits Act, which further improved benefits accorded to veterans.
• 1968-1974 - In one of the most traitorous episodes in American history Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon lied to the American people by running on a platform of ending the Vietnam War, and secretly passed word to the Communist leaders of North Vietnam to avoid signing any agreements with the United States to end the war before the election, implying he would offer them a better deal afterwards. Nixon campaigned again in 1972 on a "secret plan" to end the war, another lie. Long before Watergate, he was a lying bastard. He had no plan for America or the Viet Cong. The Vietnam War would grind on for another five years and cost over 30,000 additional American lives.
• 1975 - Republican President Gerald Ford rashly and unnecessarily sent 41 American servicemen to their deaths in Cambodia. The Mayaguez affair occurred shortly after the fall of South Vietnam when an American merchant ship was captured by Cambodia, which suspected the ship was a CIA cover, and held its crew of 39 captive for a few days. Still seething from the embarrassment of Vietnam, Ford and his conservative advisors jumped on this opportunity to display America's "resolution" to continue to meddle in Southeast Asia. Ford ordered the bombing of Cambodian ships, and the invasion of tiny Tang Island. This invasion commenced approximately one hour after the merchant sailors had been released to the American fleet, and reported they had been treated quite courteously by the Cambodians. Meanwhile, the invasion was a disaster. One third of the American force was killed or wounded, and five helicopters were destroyed, while another chopper coming over from Thailand to assist crashed, killing 23. All for precisely nothing! The Mayaguez incident is barely remembered today, but it stands as yet another stark depiction of the utter incompetence of the short-fused, testosterone-fueled conservative mindset, which service personnel and their families would do well to hold in great suspicion.
• 1983 - Republican President Ronald Reagan cut and ran following a suicide bomber attack in Beirut Lebanon which killed 241 U.S. servicemen, including 200 Marines. It was the deadliest attack on the Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. Reagan bears the responsibility for placing our forces in harm's way (the Lebanese Civil War) in the first place, with slack security, and for instigating hate toward the U.S. by firing on rebel forces. After the explosion, Reagan promised that the U.S. would stay in Lebanon. It was another Reagan lie. Shortly thereafter the Americans skedaddled, leaving the honor of the American dead in the rubble of Beirut.
• 1983 - Republican President Ronald Reagan illegally ordered an invasion of the tiny island country of Grenada ostensibly to rescue American students after a military coup had toppled the government. In defiance of the War Powers Act that required approval from Congress before any American involvement, Reagan sent a force of nearly 8000 to counter the coup. Nineteen U.S. servicemen would die in the operation (17 from "friendly-fire"), along with 116 wounded. The military action was entirely trumped up. The students said they never felt they were in any danger, and the operation was condemned by our firm allies, Canada and Great Britain, as well as by the U.N. General Assembly. Today Grenada is a CorpCon haven, a great place to launder cash and avoid taxes. And so, again, a conservative Commander-in-Chief was perfectly pleased to shed American blood to further the interests, not of democracy, but capitalism.
• 2002-2008 - In perhaps the most complete and utter dereliction of duty as Commander-in-Chief in American history, Republican President George W. Bush sent American troops into not one, but two dubious wars. In both operations, the professional conservatives ignored the advice of the consensus military opinion, and sent the U.S. military into dual combat theaters with no clear overall objective or exit strategy, highly dubious expectations, and shockingly ignorant and unprepared of what they would face. By all rights, George W. Bush and his puppet-master, Dick Cheney, should be regarded as international war criminals and high traitors of America. Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks (which according to Al Qaeda were primarily retribution for American military bases in the Muslim Holy Land of Saudi Arabia), the Republican braintrust of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and a flock of neocon think-tank chicken-hawks overreacted about as badly as was humanly possible. The neocons steered America, like an enraged troll, into a pattern of reaction that Al Qaeda and other America-haters could only dream of. The neocons would squander the outpouring of goodwill and support for America from around the world following the terrorist attacks, quickly alienating billions of people with a series of clumsy and violent reprisals. It would not be terrorists, but the neocons, who would wear out America's military, waste trillions of dollars, wreck American families, and sully America's honor as they ran roughshod over both the Constitution and international agreements prohibiting torture. Completely unprepared for the reality of what they would encounter, they rushed to send troops into Afghanistan, then promptly lost interest in bombing it into the Stone Age, allowing Osama Bin Laden to disappear into the mountains, while they were preoccupied with myth-manipulating America and a "Coalition of the Willing" into war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, floated a series of pure myths: "weapons of mass destruction," "the war will be over quickly," "America will be greeted as liberators," "Iraqi oil will pay for the war," "Iraq is a terrorist hideout." Whether they ever really believed these myths themselves or not is debatable. Depending on how you decide that question will inform your opinion on whether these professinal conservatives were simply ridiculously inept, or whether they were abject traitors and true war criminals. The important realization is that they were 180-degrees wrong on every major point of discussion. The rush to oust Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11 and everything do with second largest reserve of oil in the world, which had loomed as a neocon prize since George H.W. Bush left the job undone (in their minds) in the first Gulf War. Predictably, based upon their faulty assumptions, neither Afghanistan or Iraq worked out well for America. Just like the first Gulf War, the result was devastating for American military personnel. As merely a feign to set up a comprehensive "war on terror" cover for all manner of neocon shenanigans, Afghanistan festered into a full-blown quagmire, while the flowers and kisses the neocons assured would be forthcoming from Iraqis for their American liberators never materialized, nor did the Iraqi oil money that the neocons promised would pay for the war. Bush sent political hacks to oversee the reconstruction of Iraq and showered no-bid contracts on Republican corporate cronies, while thousands of U.S. soldiers were killed and maimed by roadside bombs. A virtual pipeline was set up to funnel billions upon billions of dollars in American taxes directly into the pockets of war profiteers, and other billions simply went missing in Iraq and Afghanistan. While the war and subsequent insurgency were going on, in order to oversee their newly-gained oil fields, the neocons were building the largest U.S. embassy in the world in Baghdad, another billion dollars! Meanwhile, overstretched troops were subjected to defending a surly and increasingly resentful populace in two occupied countries. American equipment, including trucks, humvees and armored vests proved inadequate to protect the troops. Families had to send higher-grade flack jackets to their relatives in combat. KBR, one of Cheney's hand-picked war profiteers, electrocuted at least 18 service personnel before they could figure out how to build showers correctly. Bush never raised taxes to pay for this double war, nor did he ever ask for even the minutest sacrifice from the general populace, which quickly lost interest in both wars; indeed, they were encouraged to do just that by Bush, who instead of rallying the public's support and sacrifice told everyone to "go shopping." The entire brunt of the two neocon wars was borne by military families. Family-destroying deployment after deployment, including involuntary "stop loss" retention, wreaked havoc upon the troops. Suicides and divorces among service members skyrocketed. An extraordinary percentage of soldiers were coming home with injuries, concussions and PTSD. Following a much ballyhooed "surge", the violence in Iraq diminished, but not before possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed or displaced. Bush left office with over 100,000 troops still in Iraq, which remained violence prone and its future stability highly questionable. After all that, the neocons weren't even able to steal the Iraqi oil fields, which the Iraqis turned out to be not cowed enough to allow to be stolen. So much for shock-and-awe! Meanwhile Afghanistan has become the longest-running American war ever. Bush's ineptness and flat wrongness left our own military in shambles, is expected to end up costing over three trillion dollars, and never caught Osama Bin Laden. It all adds up to perhaps the greatest misuse of the American military in U.S. history. Liberals still seethe about the Bush years, and how the troops were so thoroughly abused. Indeed, anyone who is not outraged by this criminal break of sacred trust between the commander-in-chief and the United States military personnel is simply brainwashed by conservative propaganda.



CONSERVATIVE CHICKEN-HAWKS START TWO WARS AT ONCE! Here are some of the prominent neo-conservatives associated or influential with the George Bush administration who desperately wanted to invade Iraq long before Bush even took office. The 9/11 terrorist attacks gave them a pseudo-rationale for going after Saddam Hussein and his oilfields, even though Saddam and Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. So the neocon chicken-hawks had to first start a war in Afghanistan, ostensibly to go after Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden for actually devising the attack, and punish the Afghan Taliban for allowing Al Qaeda to train in their country. George W. Bush + - President Dick Cheney * - Vice-President Donald Rumsfeld - Defense Secretary John Ashcroft * - Attorney General Paul Wolfowitz * - Assistant Defense Secretary Richard Perle * - Department of Defense Official Karl Rove * - Special Advisor to the President Scooter Libby * - Special Advisor to the Vice-President Douglas Feith * - Department of Defense Official Condoleeza Rice * - National Security Advisor Tom Delay * - House Majority Leader Bill Frist * - Senate Majority Leader Dennis Hastert * - Speaker of the House Roy Blunt * - House Whip John Bolton * - United Nations Ambassador (recess appointment) Saxby Chambliss * - Senator, Georgia Paul Ryan * - House Representative, Wisconsin Phil Gramm * - House Representative, Texas Trent Lott * - Senator, Tennessee Rudy Giuliani * - Mayor, New York Rick Santorum * - Senator, Pennsylvania Jon Kyl * - Senator, Arizona Jeb Bush * - Governor, FloridaThese politicos were egged on by media types: Bill Kristol*, David Brooks*, Pat Buchanan*, Ann Coulter*, Lou Dobbs*, Sean Hannity*, Rush Limbaugh*, Brit Hume*, Bill O'Reilly*, Michael Savage*, George Will*, Bill Bennett*, along with just about all other on-air personalities at Fox News and Clear Channel Radio. NONE OF THESE CONSERVATIVES HAD ANY COMBAT EXPERIENCE... AND MOST HAD NO MILITARY EXPERIENCE WHATSOEVER (*) OR JUST A CUP OF COFFEE IN UNIFORM (+) ... A PARADE OF CONSERVATIVE CHICKEN-HAWKS WHO WILLFULLY, GLEEFULLY & CLUELESSLY LED THE WAY INTO THE QUAGMIRES, KILLING AND MAIMING FIELDS OF AFGHANISTAN & IRAQ. And don't forget that these chicken-hawks and their minions took delight in savaging actual combat veterans (who happened to be Democrats) such as John Kerry, Jack Murtha, Max Cleland, Jim Webb, Joe Sestak, Bob Kerrey, Gray Davis, Wesley Clark, and any others who dared to object to the run-up to double war. If you or your family member had a wonderful time in either Afghanistan or Iraq, you can thank this clique of conservative chicken-hawks. Click Here to read the last letter of an Iraq War veteran to Bush and Cheney!


• 2008 - Congressional Republicans, including 2012 Vice-Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan, unsuccessfully try to block expansion of the G.I. Bill, yet another example of a chicken-hawk Republican promoting war(s) while not having any interest whatsoever in the real lives of the troops and veterans.
• 2009 - Present - Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama finally ends the Iraq War, removing all American troops in 2011. Also in 2011, a covert special ops mission involving just a few Navy SEALS killed Bin Laden, the type of calculated and measured response that would have been the most responsible and effective strategy following 9/11... not the Shock and Awe blundering of the Bush Administration. Conservatives refused to give the president much credit for the master-terrorist's death, but those much more informed praised Obama for such a gutsy call on the mission. The political risk was tremendous considering all that could go wrong. Admiral William McRaven, a leader of U.S. commandos, said this about Obama as commander-in-chief: "He made some very tough decisions. He was really everything the American public would expect from their national leadership. The President was at all times presidential. I would contend he was the smartest guy in the room. He had leadership skills we'd expect from a guy who had 35 years in the military." No general or admiral ever said anything remotely similar about Bush or Cheney. The contrast between the Bush administration's ham-handed, utterly inept and morally reprehensible handling of the U.S. military machine and Obama's cool efficiency could not be any more stark. Yet, actually, Bush and Cheney are just the latest to absolutely confirm that conservatives are the absolute worst to have at the helm of our national defense.
• 2011 - Congressional Republicans unsuccessfully try to block V.A. payments to veterans affected by the use in Vietnam of the toxic herbicide Agent Orange, just as they earlier had tried to block government-provide health care for First Responders to the 9/11 attacks in downtown Manhattan.
• 2012 - Senate Republicans filibuster the Veteran's Jobs Corps Act of 2012, that would have created jobs for veterans as local first responders, as well as conservation, resource management and historic preservation personnel on public lands and projects. All Democrats and Independents, but only five Republicans, voted for the bill, which was not enough to break the filibuster. After the vote one Republican leader said, "Well, the bill wouldn't have passed the (Republican-controlled) House anyway, so it wasn't worth our while." So there you go, soldiers and veterans... from the very mouth of the conservatives... you just aren't worth their while.
• 2013 - House Republicans, led by Paul Ryan, sought to slash VA healthcare benefits for disabled veterans. The cut would have affected 1.3 million veterans. This proposal did not make it out of committee. Instead the House cut spending for the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, making it more difficult to challenge claim denials. So this is how conservatives have always run, folks: start wars, send soldiers to die and become injured or disabled... then junk them like an old tire.



And just how has John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential candidate, supported the troops? Like this:
• VOTED AGAINST 2001 bill to increase by $650 Million the amount available for medical care for veterans.
• VOTED AGAINST a 2003 bill to provide more than $1 Billion for National Guard and Reserve equipment in Iraq.
• VOTED TO KILL a 2003 bill to provide an additional $322 Million for additional safety equipment for U.S. forces in Iraq.
• VOTED AGAINST a 2004 bill that would have eliminated a corporate loophole and diverted $1.8 Billion to a reserve fund to allow for an increase in Veteran's medical care.
• VOTED TO KILL a 2005 amendment that would have increased veterans medical care by $2.8 Billion, instead voting for an alternate Republican bill that added only $410 Million, less than 1/5 the amount of the Democrat plan.
• VOTED AGAINST a 2006 bill increasing veterans medical services funding by $1.5 Billion.
• VOTED TO KILL a 2006 bill that would have assured a stream of funding for veterans health care by closing corporate loopholes.
• VOTED TO KILL a 2006 bill that would have prevented privatizing support services at Walter Reed Hospital. Such outside services were implicated in the horrendous conditions discovered Walter Reed a short time later.
• Was one of only 13 senators who VOTED AGAINST a 2006 bill to appropriate $430 Million for the Department of Veterans Affairs for outpatient care and treatment of veterans.
• VOTED AGAINST a 2006 bill that would have provided $20 Million to the Department of Veterans Affairs for health care facilities.
• VOTED AGAINST a 2007 amendment calling for adequate troop rest between deployments.
• VOTED AGAINST the 21st Century G.I. Bill that would have increased educational opportunities for post 9/11 veterans.
Hey, how about the 2012 Republican presidential nominee: Mitt Romney? How has he supported the military? Glad you asked. Well, Mitt never wanted to serve. You see, there were just too many companies waiting to be gutted and handsomely profited from. He couldn't wait to get to all of those riches, and didn't want to fool around, you know, serving America or anything like that. And he has five strapping sons, all of service age: Tagg, Matt, Josh, Ben and Craig. Wow a lot of testosterone in that family! You would think that someone in there would be willing to step up and serve in the U.S. military. After all, they're filthy rich, they could step right in as officers. No grunt-work for these purebloods! But nope. Mitt and Sons are a continuation of the Grand Old Party's tradition of "Team Chickenhawk!" Ooh-Rah! Right? It's a corporate conservative tradition: talk tough, stir up trouble, let somebody else do the fighting. Exactly as Cheney and Bush slunk away from Vietnam service, Romney dodged the draft as a "minister of religion" and skedaddled for France to be a "missionary" for a cult, while living in a mansion with a chef and servant. No slumming around in foxholes, or even less than four-star accommodations, for Mitty. As for his five sons, Mitt explains, "My sons are showing support for our nation by helping to get me elected." Ha-ha, right Mitt, that's real service. That's easily on par with slogging around Iraq and Afghanistan, no doubt about it. Hey, Mitt, where do the rest of our sons and daughters sign up for that "service" so they can skip out on the PTSD zones? About actual, real military service, Josh, who has no plans of serving, adds, "It's just something none of us has done." Right. They had better things to do with their lives... like keep close to daddy and wallow in his glitz and glamour while you were watching your buddies get blown up (or was that you that got blown up?). And there was Team Chickenhawk in August 2012 at the Republican National Convention where good old Mitt mentioned the War in Afghanistan exactly ZERO times during his biggest speech to date and first great opportunity to tell the nation and world what he really believes in! Ha-ha, not you soldiers, or veterans. There you go: your prospective next Chickenhawk-in-Chief who doesn't give a damn about you. Oh, and look who is hiding behind Mitt's skirts as "foreign policy advisors," many of the same old neocon gang that brought us Afghanistan and Iraq. Wonder where he'll send you to die? Count on it; it will be somewhere hellish, probably smelling of oil. Iran, anybody?



So it should be very clear. Military personnel and families, the LAST politicians you want directing military affairs are conservatives! The notion that they support you is one of the cruelest of all Conservative Myths! They'll nickel-and-dime you; they'll use and abuse you; they'll send you off to be killed by a trumped-up enemy (while they are really after corporate profits); they'll sacrifice you to make some stupid, bravado "statement;" or sometimes they'll even turn the U.S. military against itself. Active-duty personnel and veterans... don't fall for it! Conservative politicians are NOT your friends!

6. CONSERVATIVES SUPPORT SMALL GOVERNMENT

 No one wants a big, bloated, inefficient government, certainly not liberals. Yet the idea of a "small government" is just another big lie and deception. Both corporate and social conservatives really support a very BIG government that has its powerful hands all over your private rights.Even though most literate conservatives despise Thomas Jefferson, the conservatives' favorite quote from a founding father is Jefferson's quip, "the government that governs least, governs best." Of course, Jefferson said that before he became president and went out and bought the Louisiana Territory without bothering to consult with Congress, more than doubling the size of the USA. It was perhaps the greatest flip-flop in American political history, and quite a propitious one at that. That was 200-something years ago.
Even back then -- when America was only a few hundred miles wide, had less than seven million citizens, had a national economy about the size of one of today's small cities, and the state-of-the-art weapon was a cast-iron cannon - there was never any possibility of the United States of America having a small government. Today we are a country that stretches around the globe, with 300 million citizens, an economy worth trillions of dollars that dominates the world and tens of thousands of American corporations actively seeking ways to get into trouble, as well as a military and weapons such as the world has never known. Whoever sincerely believes that all of this can be managed and controlled by a "small government" should report directly to the nearest psychiatry office.
Of course such believers would all be social conservatives or libertarians. CorpCons know full well that "small government" is another conservative language trick, just like the "free market."
The rich and powerful used to love government, back in the feudal days of old, when the king was benefactor to his lords and ladies, allowing them free reign over their own subjects, the serfs and little townspeople. That was when government and Big Religion were rolled into one. The combined leviathan controlled every facet of everyone's life. But then came this radical new kind of government called democracy , something about "We the People", and "all men are created equal," and stuff like that which threatened to demolish the whole wonderful system the upper crust had going its way for thousands of years.
A just democracy stands for the people -- all of the people, not just the rich, not just the powerful, in fact, not even for the majority of people... ALL OF THE PEOPLE. Now this should be self-evident to anyone who has a clue into what America is all about. Alas, such people are sometimes few and far between.
It turns out that some in America really don't much like that democracy thing, and would like to hijack it if they could. This, of course, would be the conservatives.... both those of the rich and powerful, professional corporate type, and those sometimes lovable (sometimes not) mush-brains often referred to as social conservatives.
These conservatives see the government as in their way. And so is born the idea of shrinking the government. "I want a government so small we can drown it in the bathtub," conservative guru Grover Norquist (the no-tax pledge cult leader) famously said.
But just like the "free market" that professional conservatives proffer as the savior of economic systems is actually a "rigged market" kraken, so too the "small government" that conservatives envision is really a dragon masquerading as a flea. The conservatives would slash and burn all the ways government protects, but supersize the ways it controls and coerces.
So we see that conservatives are never for even a penny to be cut from the United States military, which already is as large as the rest of the world's militaries combined. That's right, America has a military machine equal to all the rest of the countries of the world... and conservatives will not allow one copper penny of that budget to be touched. Moreover, they cheerfully support military intervention anywhere in the world. Hey, we have this gigantic military; we might as well get some decent use out of it, eh?
In what solar system is this "small" government?
Corporations make billions upon billions through military contracts. And this gravy train continues year after year, decade after decade. Over and above this largess, much of American militarism is, in fact, simply promotion of U.S. business interests. Hiding behind the clarion call to defend America against the boogey-man of fascism, communism, terrorism, whatever the latest "ism" might be, is the conservative desire to divide and dominate... the markets of the world. In the cases of the wars in Korea and Vietnam, hatred for communism teamed up with a keen determination to protect and preserve U.S. raw material resources, as well as consumer markets in Asia. American bellicosity in the Middle East is almost solely as a result of this being the great oil pool of the world.
Big Business requires a big government, if for no other reason than to sort out all of the legal squabbles corporations have with each other. Beyond that, Big Business actually likes governmental regulations and red-tape that make it more difficult for newcomers, small-fry and less dexterous competitors. And the more corrupt the governmental system, the more Big Business basks and luxuriates in its innate advantages of capital and connection. A small, lean, efficient government just wouldn't be able to serve this important business purpose at all. A huge and complex government system crawling with paid lobbyists - precisely what the average citizen would describe as bloated and inefficient - is absolutely ideal for corporatists. The average citizen has not a single lobbyist, while the oil companies have hundreds or thousands.
Meanwhile, some of the biggest prizes for the CorpCons involve the vast resources of the "commons" that a government ostensibly controls. This land, water, air belongs to the people, but Big Business wants and needs it. A smaller, efficient government might effectively protect these precious resources. Within a big, clumsy government, all manners of shenanigans can be manipulated and hidden, at least for a while, as Big Business gets its clutches on the peoples' property. From Harding's Teapot Dome scandal, to Reagan giving away the old growth forests, to Bush's attempt to steal the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, conservatives within government are always trying to find a way to steal national resources from the public and get them into the hands of private corporations, including the public airwaves that conservative corporations have used to their great advantage to dominate the media. Today the CorpCons have their sights on the internet, as well as Social Security and Medicare, as plums ready to be plucked.
So CorpCons need and want a Big Government, but one that is putty in their hands. So when they wax eloquently about "small government," it's really just code for dismantling all the elements of the government that protect the people and their assets, while expanding the ways that allow corporations to run wild.
Of course, the eventual goal of some hardcore conservative corporatists is complete corporate control of government. This, as some of you will know, is called "fascism." It's also perfectly in keeping with the traditional conservative of a hierarchy of This is the end of government for the people, and the start of people for the government-corporations. It may seem like a long way off, but we are moving quickly in that direction now. Just take a good, long look around.
So the biggest cheerleaders for "small government" are the CorpCons, who have a great deal to gain by cutting the government's ability to protect its citizens and the commons from incessant corporate greed.
But there is another conservative segment that also would like to severely constrain the government's ability to protect. The social conservatives are mostly oblivious to the mischief that the corporations are up to. It's hitting them on the head, and they still can't recognize the real threat to America. They are too fixated on their own idea of "small government." It's called a "theocracy."
The social conservatives want a government so "small" it can come through the keyhole of your own house, into your living room, bedroom, hospital room, or wherever you may be hiding, take you by the scruff of the neck and lay down the law! They want the "small" government to be able to tell each and every person exactly how to live. No, we are not talking about seat belts or handicapped ramps or the food pyramid here. This is nothing so benign as a "nanny state." This is more like the "Ayatollah state." This is major stuff. These conservatives would force their brand of religion, their form of patriotism, their idea of politics, their idea of conformity on everyone else. To do that requires a very BIG government.
The Theocracy of America would, effectively, be a police state. Social conservatives love a huge military, plus lots of police, sheriffs, marshalls, border patrol, Texas Rangers, and it's never a bad idea to have a posse ready to go. You never know when some of those non-conformists will get uppity. So the Patriot Act, which allows spying without a warrant on American citizens is quite all right with conservatives. So, too, jails where the government can hold you without charge for months or years, or brand you a "terrorist" and just throw away the key and forget about you. All perfectly legit for "small government" conservatives.
Likewise, conservatives love the idea of punishment, and almost hope you will do something that will break their code of conformity and enable them to call the dogs of government on you. Conservatives want the government to be able to peer and pry and intervene in your most private life, and then lower the boom if they find anything amiss. They believe their morality should be the state morality. They believe they -- and only they -- should have the power to determine whether it should be legal or illegal for you to enter the country, stay in the country, get a job, vote, build a mosque, wear a head scarf, smoke pot, allow your brain-dead family member to die in peace, yourself choose to die with dignity in the face of a terminal illness, have an abortion, or get married. And if you happen to do anything they have deemed illegal, down you go to the courthouse where an official with the Ten Commandments looming behind him will judge you; if you are a Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Shinto, aboriginal or tribal, agnostic or atheist American, good luck getting impartial justice from this theocratic system. This is all a social conservative's dream, and represents nothing but big, big, government.
The social conservative wars on abortion, immigrants, women's rights, civil rights, and the LGBT community are the most visible current depictions of what kind of big government they really want. The want big government to put big restrictions on all of these written into law, preferably the Constitution, and thereafter enforced by the big police state.
But perhaps the most insightful, and stunning, portrayal of the social conservative's notion of "small government" was the case of Terri Schiavo. For years Michael Schiavo had been trying to allow his wife, Terri, to die in peace following devastating brain damage in 1990 that left her lingering in a vegetative state. After a prolonged legal battle within the family and through Florida's legal system, in 2003 Michael was finally granted the right to allow Terri's life-support to be removed, as husband and wife had discussed they would do for each other back in happier times. But then in swooped the conservative harpies, led by gadfly Randall Terry, maintaining that Terri's might not be so hopeless, and insisting that they had the right to butt into this most private and painful decision. Conservatives wrangled to quickly pass a Florida law, called "Terri's Law," that allowed Governor Jeb Bush to intervene in the case. He ordered Terri's feeding tube reinserted, and sent state cops to remove Terri from her husband's guardianship. A judge ruled "Terri's Law" unconstitutional and struck it down. The conservatives appealed. The case went to the Florida State Supreme Court where again it was struck down. Conservatives around the country were outraged... not at this big government intervention in the private life of a family, but by "activist judges" not allowing them to butt in. The affair went up the conservative chain of command... all the way to Congress and President George Bush. Both Michael and the brain-dead Terri were subpoenaed to testify before Congress! Republican congressmen and senators had a grandstanding fest, demanding the ability to take control of the case out of the hands of the State of Florida and into their own. So much for state's rights, ever only a fallback position for conservatives when they can't get their way nationally. Congress passed a bill usurping Florida's jurisdiction, and George Bush flew back from vacation in Texas to sign the bill. So this was at least twice in this case that conservatives actually changed or created new laws giving them previously power in order to pursue their determination to impose their morality and justice. It was at this juncture that an explosive memo surfaced suggesting that the Schiavo case offered "a great political issue" for Republicans that could be used against Florida Democrats. After "Terri's Law" was struck down and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene (unlike when the presidency was at stake in 2000), again Jeb Bush alerted the Florida state police to take Terri and remove her to out of state (where to no one has ever said, but you know it was probably Texas). The Florida Supreme Court instructed the state police to stand down. Jeb Bush reluctantly obeyed the court order, though there was enormous pressure from conservatives in the state and around the country to defy the law. Terri died shortly thereafter, and so the sordid affair came to conclusion. An autopsy revealed that Terri's brain was severely damaged and atrophied. She really had been in a vegetative state. The conservatives were wrong again.
But the shocking revelation of the Terri Schiavo case was the manner in which conservatives rushed to stick their faces into this very personal, very private, very painful family affair. They pulled every trick in the book, hurriedly writing and passing new laws and plucking the highest strings of government, from the president to the Supreme Court, to finagle a way to impose their version of morality upon an innocent family. This example should stand as a flashing warning to anyone who would buy into conservative notions of a "small government."
So we see a similar compulsion to govern the most private and personal lives of others in conservative beliefs concerning abortion, gay and lesbian rights, religious freedoms, science and art, and many other facets of governmental concern. Apparently conservatives don't quite understand how contradictory their own beliefs truly are.
Now recall, these are the people who chirp so loudly about freedom and rugged individualism and property rights... but all that goes out the window when it comes to someone not conforming to their notions of proper behavior. For that they want a Big Government to shut it down.
Crazy, isn't it? The CorpCons know what they want; they want a big government that is skewed totally toward their corporations, while the Constitutional purpose of "serving the public welfare" has been drowned in the bathtub. But they can't discuss it openly. So they couch their true scheme in terms which appeal to the SoCons, who are so bamboozled they don't know which end is up. Thus, a "small government" that frees them all to bully everyone else becomes the shared dream of conservatives, corporate and social.
And a nightmare for that "everyone else."
All conservatives, CorpCon and SoCon, have an agenda to create a government that has "small" ability to protect, but "big" ability to subject. The rich and corporations want a government that is powerless to protect the public commons and consumers, while allowing them to rampage around the world. Social conservatives want a government that is powerless to prevent them from imposing their values on everyone else. So neither really believes in a "small government," only in a government that does their bidding... not that of We the People, all of the people.
Think about it. Why on earth would We the People want to give up our power to protect ourselves from our most insidious enemies? Who is that? Certainly not those on the outside, who have never been able to harm America very much. It is the enemy within that is the true and present danger. Those would be the unscrupulous, immoral, vicious, predatory, greedy rich and powerful corporatists, and the bigoted, ignorant and thuggish theocrats. Either or both would think nothing of destroying America to remake it in their image.
The only thing standing in their way is We the People, and the robust national government that is us!

7.  THE "FREE MARKET."

 There is no such thing as the "free market." There never has been, and never will be. It's a fairy tale. Another conservative myth. Pure baloney.It might be theoretically possible for a totally "free market" to exist if the "market" itself was very tiny, such as a very small town where everyone knew and trusted each other. In anything larger, say a country of 300 million, fuggetaboutit!
The great irony is that the very people who so aggressively promote the idea of a "free market" are the actually the last ones who would actually want such a thing. Those would be the CorpCons and the professional politicians they have bought and paid for. These schemers don't really want a "free market" they want a "rigged market," and that's pretty much what they have. But it can always get even more rigged. And that's what they truly wish for: a world where Big Business is king of the world, and government - the only entity large enough to counter and control Big Business - is small enough to "drown in the bathtub" (at least when it comes to regulating Big Business... otherwise, everybody knows a very Big Government is necessary to rampage around the world promoting Big Business).
So, what professional conservatives actually mean by the "Free Market" is this:


• Corporations should be FREE to do anything they want.
• Corporations should be FREE to sell anything, anywhere.
• Corporations should be FREE to pay little or nothing to their workers.
• Corporations should be FREE to demand utter loyalty from their workers.
• Corporations should be FREE to return no loyalty whatsoever to their workers.
• Corporations should be FREE to extract, exploit, subjugate and monopolize at will.
• Corporations should be FREE from taxes.
• Corporations should be FREE from regulations.
• Corporations should be FREE of responsibility for any damage they do.
• Corporations should be FREE to influence lawmakers.
• Corporations should be FREE to slaughter the competition any way they can.
So now you know. When conservatives politicians and economists talk about the "free market" it is simply code for Big Business Heaven, a world in which Big Business is free to do whatever it wants.
Of course, this would be Hell for everyone else, including smaller businesses, for which such a "free market" would be a killing field. Giant corporations could swoop in, completely unfettered, and buy out or simply squelch smaller competitors.
And for consumers and workers? Well, the "free market" envisioned by giant multinational corporations would make them hardly better than slaves. Consumers and workers in the unregulated "free market" would be "free" to like it, or lump it. Caveat Emptor, sucker! You say our product blew up in your face or gave you cancer? Prove it! You say the unsafe conditions in our factory led to you getting your hands cut off? Sue us, see if you get anywhere with your "frivolous lawsuit" in the justice system we have rigged up for ourselves.
Parasitic banks would run wild with speculation, buying and selling without constraint, inventing all manner of financial "instruments" with which to use to dissect customers and relieve them of their money, their security, their future.
Privatization of anything and everything would run rampant in the conservative "free market" fantasy.
Let's just imagine what that would directly lead to:
The goal of the professional conservative's "free market" is to assume all of the powers of government, and then take it to the limit, including total control and exploitation of the people.
Your electricity, gas, water would not come from public utilities, but from predatory corporations, which can raise the rates, or cut you off, whenever they want. Toll roads and bridges would proliferate. Think about how corporations and the very rich could put the squeeze on the average citizen with such total and unchecked power.
Judges and jails would be privatized, with a strong profit incentive to lock as many people away for as long as possible. Wars would be completely privatized, with a strong profit incentive to go to battle, and to use up the weapons and equipment so to create the need for more, more, more.
Education would be privatized, with only the wealthy able to afford a decent education, everyone else shunted into "stupidity schools," indoctrinated and taught only enough to become a good worker-bee, or soldier-fodder, for the state and its overlord corporations.
Without government subsidies, price controls and regulations, food production would become wholly predatory. A few corporations without major competition due to proprietary trademarks on genetically modified foodstuffs would dominate. Prices would skyrocket. Food quality and safety would plummet for most of us. Only the rich would be able to afford clean, healthy food. The rest of us would take our chances with every bite or drink, if we could afford to buy anything. Scavenging and begging would become a way of life for millions.
Likewise, health care would only be affordable for the very wealthy. With no government assistance, no government health programs, illness and disease would explode into pandemics. The wealthy would simply cut themselves off from the general population, as plague raged across the land.
As you can see, very quickly this model collapses in on itself. Unregulated capitalism eventually eats itself alive. But before that happens, billions, trillions of dollars are to be made by the greatest pirates the world has ever known: corporate pirates!
This is the "free market," recipe for utter disaster if it could ever come to fruition. A "free market" would quickly tear the goose that laid the golden eggs to pieces
Little by little, over the past 30 years, CorpCons have managed to slip us ever further in the direction of their slimy wet dream. Since Reagan, the mantra that "government is not the solution; it is the problem," has become an accepted axiom. According to this philosophy, the answer to this "problem" of government is the "free market." This axiom has been shrilly pounded, ad nauseum, by conservatives for decades, and millions upon millions of people believe it. As the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, correctly realized, "people will believe anything if it is repeated often enough."
This has been the tactic by the very richest to gain support for their nefarious intentions to cripple the one and only force that can control them: a government of We the People.
Indeed, the proof is in the pudding. Since Reagan, this coddling of the rich, this release of the "free market" kraken has had 30 years to produce the results that CorpCons perpetually promise: great wealth that would "trickle down" to everyone, jobs galore, an ever-improving quality of life for all. That has not happened. For three decades, taxes have been slashed for the richest Americans. Deregulation has swept across government, dramatically loosening safeguards in sector after sector. Competent government regulators have been replaced, in both Republican and Democratic administrations, by capitalist wolves supposedly protecting the henhouse. So the "free market" ethos has been applied to an extent that would have stunned and dismayed those who crafted the New Deal pathway out of the Great Depression.
And this same formula has been applied not just in America, but around the world, as other countries followed our lead in dismantling many of the regulations, protections and higher taxes on the wealthy that existed prior to the "Reagan Revolution."
What has actually happened is the reverse of what conservative "free marketers" promised. Real wages and earning power of average American families have stalled or gone backwards. Prices for most things have zoomed upwards to the point where decent housing, good health care and higher education are beyond the means of upwards of half of the country. For the first time in American history, vast portions of the American people face the prospect of a lower quality of life for their children. This is the result of the low, low taxes and the deregulation of the "free market" that has swept this nation. Imagine how much worse it would be for most of us - and how much more glorious for the rich - if the market were even "freer."
How much further do we have to go down this awful road of coddling the rich and corporations before the people stand up and fight for themselves? Instead of a "free market," workers, consumers, citizens should be demanding a "fair market." A fair market takes care of its workers, consumers and communities FIRST, and the profit of any corporation comes second.
Only a "fair market," can sustain. A "free market" will eventually consume itself. And that is what we see happening in America as jobs are sent overseas, rich capitalists hide their wealth overseas, manufacturing collapses, the tax base shrinks, infrastructure crumbles, crime soars. The community is systematically manipulated, exploited, and then destroyed by predatory capitalism.
Unrestrained capitalism, what CorpCons call the "free market" is the greatest threat to America.
Thomas Jefferson hit the nail on the head when he stated that banks were more dangerous than armies, and "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws our country."
The "moneyed corporations" are doing more than just challenging our government to a trial of strength, more than bidding defiance to the laws of our country, they are grabbing for control, and consolidating their hold. The end-game of this trend is Fascism: where corporate power completely controls the government, and can then demand of the people what they will. When that happens We the People will be crushed. The labor movement, small businesses, local communities, freedom itself will be expunged.
You think it can't happen? Well then continue to buy into the conservative myth of the "Free Market" and watch the kraken rise.
For more thoughts on the Free Market, Click Here.

8.  THE MEDIA IS CONTROLLED BY LIBERALS.

 A Gallup survey in 2011 showed that a majority of Americans think the media is biased: with 47% saying it is too liberal, while 13% say it is too conservative. Of these respondents, 78% of conservatives said that the media is too liberal; 53% of liberals say it is too conservative. According to Gallup, ever since 2002 more people have believed the media shows a liberal bias. Who is right?Well, of course, it depends on what "media" one is referring to. The "media" is certainly not a monolithic institution. It is factured and fragmented, with no true cohesion to speak of. Some media outlets are most definitely skewed one way or the other; others, including the so-called "mainstream media," try their hardest to be completely impartial - sometimes going to ridiculously excess when they give actual facts and utter nonsense equal weight in a misguided attempt to present both sides of the story, a practice known as "false equivalency." This sorry state of journalistic credibility has grown in prevalence right along with the wing-nut craziness of the political right.
Taken as a whole, however, American "mainstream media" is actually a CONSERVATIVE juggernaut! Yet, there are two points to consider here.
1) The media is certainly NOT controlled by liberals as conservatives love to complain. Once again, the truth is precisely the opposite of conservative demagoguery: The "mainstream media" is actually thoroughly and innately dominated by gigantic, very conservative corporations. Let's call it what is is: mainstream/mass media = corporate media. In general, corporations are conservative entities, with a definite bias in support of the conservative stance of low taxes and deregulation. Moreover, almost all media is supported by advertisers, which are most often conservative corporations themselves, likewise having a self-serving bias toward conservative tax and regulation policies. Moreover, both media company and advertising corporations do not want to alienate the significant (and most loyal) share of their viewers/readers/consumers who are socially or politically conservative. Thus corporate media has a triple impetus to skew conservative: their own financial interests, their advertisers' financial interests, and the sensitivities of the conservative (and most loyal) share of their audience. A trend in corporate media is to project that a larger share of their audience leans conservative than liberal, which may not always be entirely true (See Myth No. 2) but is reinforced by the more vociferous feedback they receive from conservative audience members (people complain more when they are angry, and conservatives are generally angrier than liberals). So, as a rule, corporate media is more afraid of offending its conservative audience than its liberal viewers/listeners/readers.
Revealing examples of this trend are the mainstream media's propensity to practice "false equivalency," i.e. to give equal weight to both sides of a politically hot topic, even when one side is bereft of factual evidence and/or espoused only by a noisy minority. Because they are so often at odds with science and with actual universal values, this noisy but factually bereft side is most likely to be of the conservative persuasion. In presenting both viewpoints in the manner of, "Senator A says this", and "Senator B says that," the media outlet can't be accused of partisanship. Alas, they also cannot be accused of furthering the quest for the real truth, either.
But perhaps the greatest evidence for the mainstream media leaning conservative is the manner in which it steadfastly refuses to fully recall and articulate the pattern of utter failure of conservative ideas and policies historically, most particularly economic policy, but also social ideology. The mainstream media mindlessly ignores this legacy and litany of disastrous positions, fostering contemporary debates between "right and "left" (or today's more common "far-right" and "center") as if so many of these issues had not played out over very long periods of time, with an historical record and empirical data to factor into an objective discourse. In this way, the mainstream media is an accomplice in lulling the people to forget what a very bad record conservativism actually trails behind it.
To this basic, inherent conservative lean of media corporations, stir in the concerted, coordinated and extremely well-funded coalition of right-wing capitalists who over the past 50 years have increasingly expanded their control of the corporate media. This effort was enabled by deregulation of the media industry by Reagan and Poppy Bush, and even Clinton. Laws that once restricted a single person or corporation from owning many different newspapers, television and radio stations were abolished, opening the way for gigantic corporate interests to take firm, monolithic control. Now, the media industry is a notoriously risky financial bet, which has become even more so with the increased competition of the marketplace (which now includes such things as cable and satalite channels, as well as the internet). The entire newspaper industry is barely hanging on in the face of this onslaught of competition. However, certain individuals and their corporations were keen to jump into the deregulated fray with something more than profit in mind: they wanted to propagandize their self-serving political message. If you could manage profit and propaganda at the same time, all the better! And with deregulation, the way was clear for them to have just that. Almost all of the individuals with this goal have been conservative, including Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Brothers, Philip Anschutz and others. There are none - zippo - nada - liberal media moguls remotely in the same ballpark as these conservative titans of conservative disinformation.
2) However, there is another aspect in play here that is the source of so much conservative angst regarding the media. The horrible fact of the matter for conservatives is that truth itself seems to have a decidedly liberal bias. Of course, "truth" doesn't know liberal from conservative, but it turns out that liberals base their ideology on science, empirical evidence, actual facts (truth), while conservatives base their ideology on faith, dogma, mythology. Therefore media outlets that even remotely attempt to report actual facts end up promoting a liberal worldview. The truth-oriented dictionary and thesaurus and encyclopedia and history books and art and science do precisely the same. So it's not actually "liberal bias" of the media but truth that drives conservatives crazy.
There is a corollary: if truth has a "liberal bias," then seekers of the truth are going to have a "liberal bias." We find this to be absolutely true. The most educated, wordly and aware people are usually liberal. A strong majority of scientists, professors, teachers, artists, writers AND journalists describe themselves as liberally-oriented. A 1997 study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors indicated that 61% of reporters stated they shared the beliefs of the Democratic Party. Some 24% claimed to be independent. Only 15% said their beliefs were best represented by the Republican Party. There's your "liberal bias" right there: the people who are out there in the trenches gathering information about the real world don't buy into the worldview the conservatives are selling.
Of course, just because you are a "liberal" reporter doesn't mean your reporting is "liberal." In fact, if the corporation you work for skews conservative, overtly or covertly, then as an employee (if you want to keep your job) you make sure you present whatever "bias" the corporate master dictates. You'll present the "truth" only so far as you can... while sometimes bending over backwards (and gritting your teeth) to blend in some "balance," which is to say the conservative viewpoint, or "untruth." One has to wonder how many of Fox News' employees are closet liberals.
Oftentimes, however, even a smidgeon of truth is too much for conservatives. Conservatives love to be mad at people, things, ideas, whatever... so when huge chunks of their cherished worldview are not upheld by the media - whether news media or entertainment media - they lash out at fictitious monsters, the "liberal media," the "Hollywood elite," etc. Demonizing some nebulous "other" - including liberals - provides them with a ready excuse to continue believing in fairy tales. And there's no more prominent, more glamorous and more inviting target for their ire than the media.
And so conservatives turn away from the truth and toward whatever media outlets offer ressurance of their mythology.
News Corp is the ideological spear-point of right-wing propaganda. It is owned by uber-conservative Rupert Murdoch, and includes Fox News, where former Republican spinmeister Roger Ailes controls the show. The conservative Death Star that is News Corp also wields a battalion of other right-wing propaganda spewing local television stations, a squadron of other cable channels, newspapers (including the Wall Street Journal), magazines (including Barron's), book publishers (including Harper-Collins) and movie and television studios (20th Century Fox). Fox News betrays the malevolent willingness to propagandize of Murdoch and News Corp with the slogans, "Fair and Balanced" and "We Report, You Decide," along with the Bill O'Reilly show's self-description as a "no-spin zone." In the history of American broadcast media there has never been a less fair and balanced or more spinning "news" channel than Fox News. Fox News slathers on the slant to brainwash its listeners, and millions of American viewers tune in. Households and businesses all over the nation leave Fox News playing exclusively. Multiple surveys concur that these viewers are the most ill-informed of all regular television news viewers in the nation. It seems you can be informed (by the truth) or have your conservative worldview affirmed... but not both.





FAIR & BALANCED? or UTTER DISINFORMATION? The graphic above is Fox News' "fair and balanced" explanation of what will happen if the Bush tax cuts expire for the wealthy. As anyone can clearly see, the taxes on the "job creators" will drastically inflate if this terrible thing happens. Why, their taxes will explode all the way from 35 percent to 39 percent! Only liberals could think up a tax scheme this diabolical and punitive toward our beloved job creators. But wait! Where is the rest of the chart? Why is Fox only giving us the upper 1/10th of the picture? Well, sorry to break this to you, but Fox News is wholly partisan, and deeply engaged in brainwashing its viewers. The chart at right is the full and real story. Considering that our staggering national debt is in large part due to the Bush tax cuts on the very wealthy, and considering that most, if not all, wealthy people pay closer to 15% in taxes, rather than the official 35% rate, then a return to the very modest 39% rate for the wealthiest Americans is quite the most reasonable - and patriotic - course of action. But Fox disagrees because Fox News, and all conservative media, are all about coddling the rich and corporations, and they are determined to confuse and befuddle you so that you won't figure it out. This telling graphic is proof positive of Fox News malicious intent to distort the truth. If you don't believe your own eyes and mind, then, sorry, we just can't help you. THE 2012 ELECTION: A ROMNEY LANDSLIDE! The 2012 elections were another crystal clear illustration of why Fox News might more accurately be named Faux News. Leading up to the election, most polls showed Mitt Romney in a virtual tie for the popular vote, but Barack Obama consistently leading in the vastly more important battleground states which would decide the electoral college vote and thus the presidency. The New York Times poll guru Nate Silver, using weighted statistical algorhythms (in other words, math) to compile the predictions of all of the trustworthy polls, had Obama with a 70 percent chance of winning reelection through much of the summer and fall, and that margin jumped to 90 percent in the days before the election. Fox News anchors and pundits (as well as Rush Limbaugh) fell all over themselves to debunk the polls, most particularly Silver, whom they attacked personally (Silver is openly gay). The conservative media didn't like the message, so they attacked the messenger. Meanwhile, the conservative media was predicting a Romney victory... most of them a landslide for Romney. Of course the conservatives had their own poll "guru," the twats at UnskewedPolls.com, who relied not on actual math and statistics, but "gut feeling." These geniuses were among those predicting a Romney landslide, with 359 electoral votes for the conservatives. Fox News' prime election forecaster and former political consultant As late as the night of the election, Fox News viewers and Rush Limbaugh listeners were confident of a Romney win... while viewers and listeners of more mainstream and/or liberal news sources were well aware of the truth: the popular vote might be close, but Obama was a heavy favorite to win the election. Again, conservative media consumers, certainy including Fox News viewers, were the least informed in the nation!

Aside from Fox News, the other major news channels: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN are owned by those aforementioned conservative corporations. MSNBC? The pipsqueak liberal "equivalent" of Fox News is owned and controlled by conservative monster Comcast.The largest radio station owner in the country is Clear Channel, a decidedly conservative operation, owned in part by Bain Capital (yes, that Bain Capital, Mitt Romney's golden sandbox) which coddles Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Clear Channel owns 866 radio stations and Premiere Radio Network, all overwhelmingly conservative-oriented, something that would have been impossible before the Reagan revolution deregulated telecommunications, opening the door for conservative corporate shenanigans. Conservative CBS Corp owns another 130 stations.
As far as talk radio goes, a recent survey discovered that 91 percent of politically-oriented programming is conservative, 9% liberal. Many American markets receive no liberal oriented talk radio at all. This also would have been illegal before Reagan's dismantling of the "Fairness Doctrine," which required honest, equitable and balanced presentations of public importance. The Air America experiment to see if liberal talk radio could compete in the marketplace failed, in no small part because corporations (being innately conservative, remember) refused to support it by advertising.
Like radio, American newspapers are decidedly conservative. As with the radio landscape, many markets have little or no liberal voice within their papers at all, while the "liberal" papers always feature a "balance" of conservative (often "severely" conservative as Mitt Romney would put it) vs. moderate viewpoints.
It's all so easy these days. B.R. (Before Reagan) there were over 50 major companies providing news content through television, radio, newspapers and magazines. As a result of deregulation of the media industry, something conservatives desperately wanted, today only five corporations control over 80 percent of media sales in the United States. Now we can see why conservatives desperately wanted deregulation of the media industry, so they could buy up and control the majority of "voices" available, and thereafter work to curtail alternative voices and ideas.
Meanwhile, the so-called "balance" generally offered by the "mainstream" media usually runs from far right wackadoodle Republican all the way across the spectrum to a centrist, corporate Democrat. True left-leaning, non-corporatist liberals need not apply. And, as the chart below depicts, the viewpoint of the white, male, conservatives rules supreme.



There are a few truly liberal media outlets. You can find some of them on our Links Page. But many of the large corporate media outlets singled out as "liberal" wolves by conservatives are actually timid sheep. The New York Times and Washington Post head up this list, supposed defenders of the public's right to know, that utterly capitulated to George W. Bush's faux-patriotic rampage to war(s). The Times' Judith Miller beat the drum for Bush as loudly as anyone, and is now - surprise - a Fox News pundit. Newspapers and broadcast stations across the country rushed to jump on the Iraq War bandwagon. With 20/20 hindsight the collapse of the Fourth Estate during most of the Bush reign of terror abroad and trampling of American rights at home is deeply embarrassing and troubling. The pips and peeps of the small smattering of tiny, true liberal outlets were the only lifeline to trustable truth that tens of millions of blue-hearted Americans had through the dour and sour Bush-Cheney near-decade, one that began with a stolen election and ended on the precipice of depression. Such "alternative," actual truth-providing media outlets were mocked and derided as traitors throughout the entire Bush-Cheney reign of terror, while all through the long, dark night the "liberal" mass media was just a step behind Fox News cheerleading for un-Americanism.
In 2004, with the war(s) going badly and the economy misfiring, the mainstream media was nevertheless loathe to criticize too sharply the sitting "war president," and largely let slide the slanderous barrage the Republican slime machine dumped on John Kerry. Bush and his "boy genius" Karl Rove barely won another election, this time by possibly rigging the electronic voting machines in Ohio. The mainstream media looked the other way, just as it when the Bushies stole the presidency the first time around. As we enter another presidential campaign the Republicans are up to more shenanigans, trying to disenfranchise as many likely Democratic voters as they can in state after state. The "liberal" corporate media is fast asleep on this front. In stark contrast, if Obama's dog Bo is spotted pooping, the entire coordinated conservative media goes into high alert, smelling a scandal and conspiracy.
The corporate media never fails to hold a finger to the wind to sense the mood of the market. And it caters its delivery accordingly. That the public in 2008 had wearied of the Republicans (and John McCain was a dud of a candidate) featured prominently in the media's seeming fascination with Barack Obama. Obama's eloquence and novelty stirred real, passionate support, and the media hopped on a new bandwagon, but saved tons of airspace and column inches for the equally celebrity-like Sarah Palin, daring not to too sharply disparage her glaringly unpreparedness. Aside from comedians, the harshest media critics of Sarah were conservativecolumnists and pundits!
Liberals can fully agree with conservatives about the "lamestream media," but for completely opposite reasons. Conservatives object that what IS being reported is too liberal, but don't have any real facts to back that up. Generally what they don't like turns out to be just plain truth that grates against their worldview, and their conspiracy theories run into the hard wall of conservative corporate domination of the media. Liberals object to what is NOT being reported, and have sheaves of evidence of the corporate media bias toward, fear of and kowtowing to their conservative audience. When a news "debate" features two conservatives, plus a conservative-leaning host, against a centrist Democrat (no real liberal included), this is not "fair and balanced," whether it's on Fox or any other channel. When newspapers run only conservative and centrist editorials, this is not fair and balanced. When conservative voices outnumber liberals on the radio 90 to 1, this is an avalanche of inequality, in favor of conservativism.
Some of the largest coroporate media recognize that avoiding politics as much as possible is the safest bet. For these - and the major television "news" networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN) are included - the main concern is not real news and information at all, but serving as the lead shills and sluts of consumer culture, keeping us craving all manner of stupid things, while at the same time dazzled and mesmerized by... beautiful, fluffy, ego-boosting, vacuous, empty nothingness, cheap programming that reaps a profit... entertainment, sports, video games, "reality TV"... which divert our attention from real reality, including each other. This is the age-old professional conservative ploy of keeping the masses satiated, distracted, divided, dazed and confused while concurrently picking their pockets.
A truly liberal media would provide mostly relevant, meaningful, enlightening, elevating, and UNITING content, while instructing - as have all the great teachers of history - that the best things in life are free, and the less you need to be happy, the happier you will be. Why, it would be a lot like PBS.!
By that same token, the more liberal someone is the less reliable consumer they are for the media, at least the corporate media. Liberals are far more individualistic and discriminating in their worldview, and therefore much less susceptible to the attraction and addiction of the "mass" media. This is why Fox News targeted directly at conservatives can be a phenomenal success, while there has never been even the remotest liberal counterpart. This is precisely why talk radio is overwhelmingly dominated by conservatives, and another key reason the liberal-oriented Air America fell flat. This is why so many channels and tabloids grab a sensational story of a beautiful, young white girl being abducted or murdered and flog it to death for weeks or months. Non-discriminating conservative audiences eat that stuff up. So, of course, corporate media is going to lean in the direction of their most loyal, mesmerized conservative viewers, not flaky liberals who are off doing yoga or organic gardening or something.
And so we see that from every angle the "liberal media" is a complete myth. Conservatives have, by far, the loudest megaphone in the media; centrists would come next, while the actual liberal voice is a soft whisper amid the shrill cacophony of the whole. The "lamestream media" is certainly real enough, but it is conservative through and through in its bias, its omissions, its predatory capitalism, its preference of audience, its complicity in the dumbing-down of America and the egging-on of rampant consumerism, and in its dereliction of duty to defend truth and virtue. Once in a while a bit of truth gets through, and that's when conservatives howl. They want the media to retort, contort and distort as much as needed to affirm their worldview. In general the lamestream media delivers exactly that, with Fox News leading the charge. And PBS is an endangered species.











CAMPAIGN 2012: THREE WORDS THAT PROVE THE MEDIA IS NOT LIBERALLY BIASED If you want more proof positive that the media is certainly not biased toward the liberal ideology, consider that in the 2012 campaign season there are three words that seem to be off the table for so-called "mainstream" broadcasters. Those words are "Global Warming" and "Mormonism." For the past 10 years extreme weather events have wrought havoc around the world, from north to south, from sea to shining sea. Tornado swarms in February rampaging through the Midwest and even into New England. More powerful hurricanes, including those threatening Boston. Freakish ice storms. Deadly heat waves. Record rains and floods. Record droughts. Record wildfires. Melting glaciers and ice caps. These extreme weather events lead the news on many an evening, yet you will almost NEVER hear any of the mainstream talking-heads whisper the words, "Global Warming." They'll report all about what is happening, and where it's happening, but won't touch the question of why! Now "Journalism 101" requires inquiry into the who, what, where and why of a story. Why no why in the reporting on these extreme weather events that keep on coming at us? It is certainly not because there are no answers to why these events are occuring at alarmingly more frequent and more terrible rates. Almost all credible climatologists now agree that Global Warming is NOW a serious threat... that the rate and severity of these events are part of this warming trend... and that the primary cause is the tremendous increase the amount of greenhouse gasses (principally carbon dioxide) released by humans into the atmosphere for the past 230 years (since the Industrial Revolution). These extreme weather events actually add up to THE MOST IMPORTANT NEWS STORY OF THE MILENNIA! But the mainstream media continues to act as if there is no connection whatseover between any particular ice storm or heat wave or raging wildfire or tornado swarm or monster hurricane or sweeping drought or melting glacier or ice shelf the size of a state breaking off of Antarctica and the looming disaster of Global Warming. They refuse to ask the "why" question. Why won't they ask why? Because they are terrified of offending their conservative viewers/readers/listeners. And so, on the all-important subject of Global Warming - which should not be a liberal or conservative issue (though it is most certainly an issue that the fossil fuel and factory farm industries wish to debunk and minimize... because they are the principal sources of the greenhouse gasses) - the mainstream media is thoroughly and unconscionably biased toward corporate conservative ideology. Meanwhile, the 2012 election is upon us and for the first time in American history a person is the nominee of a major political party who not only professes to be a Mormon, but is actually a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, has given tens of millions of dollars to the church, and plainly states that his religion informs who he is and every decision he makes. This would seem to be very big news, and the subject of a great deal of scrutiny. But no, the mainstream media seems to have determined not to touch the subject. Again, why? In the 2008 election, conservatives made the biggest ruckus they could muster about Barack Obama's religion and his pastor (Jeremiah Wright). Accusations flew that Obama belonged to a church that was un-American. Other conservatives wildly claimed that Obama was not really even Christian but was a secret Muslim (despite the fact that Reverend Wright, a United Church of Christ minister had officiated Obama's wedding and baptised both of his children, nor any other slightest shred of evidence). The mainstream media dutifully covered the "controversy," keeping the story alive and hot for weeks. Yet this time around, religion, for the conservative candidate, seems off the table. The word Mormonism shall not be spoken or printed, the mainstream media seems to have agreed. Now it is impossible to imagine that if a liberal candidate for President was Mormon, evangelical Christians would not be writhing in angst and horror at the prospect of such a cultish, wacked-out, un-Christian, un-American believer in multiple gods and "latter day saints," coming within 100 miles of the Presidency. Why... a Muslim has more, MUCH MORE, in common with real Christians than do Mormons! The election of a Mormon President, an agent of an agressively proselytizing religion, would legitimize this cultish religion in ways that nothing else could, and would go far toward destroying America as a so-called "Christian nation." The election of a Mormon President would be the end of America as we know it. Such would be the conservative assault on a liberal Mormon Presidential candidate. And surely the mainstream media would dutifully follow the "controversy." But apparently conservatives will easily surrender their most dearly held religious and nationalistic beliefs to defeat the liberal black guy. Now THAT, in itself, is a remarkably newsworthy story. But you won't find it anywhere in the mainstream media. Nor will you find any summary of Mormon beliefs... which range from the hardly likely to bad science fiction. As far as the mainstream media is concerned, apparently, Mr. Romney's belief in millions of gods on millions of planets, where he, himself, will someday rule as a god in the afterlife, along with his multiple wives, and the fact that this core religious belief guides his everyday decisions, is not even a subject for the slightest mention before he takes over as President of the United States of America. Once again, the reason for the stand-down by the mainstream media is clear: they are afraid of losing their conservative audience. And so, again, the mainstream media kowtows toward conservative ideology, and in the process abdicates its sacred duty to serve as the all-important "Fourth Estate" of the American governmental process, educating and protecting the citizens of this country with information that is biased toward facts and truth, regardless of which political party this may favor. The failture of the mainstream media to adequately explore, address and educate the American public about the beliefs and eccentricities of Mormonism prior to a true believer in this religion becoming President of the United States is surely dereliction of duty, and may haunt America for generations to come. But the failure of the mainstream media to seriously broach the subject of Global Warming may be the greatest failure of the "news" industry in history. This lapse of judgment and honor may facilitate and hasten the devastation of not just American but world culture if the trend toward ever-increasing fossil fuel emissions - that conservatives still cheer on - is not reversed quickly and decisively before it is truly too late. Meanwhile, these three words that shall not be uttered stand as stark testimony of the mainstream media's shying away from real reportage of facts and truth, and toward conservative disinformation.