Straw Dogs And Bogeymen

With the increasingly apparent lies about Obama-care still ringing in the ears of skeptical voters, the party that has failed dismally in foreign affairs, has crashed our economy, and is still denying millions of people affordable health care is desperate. The Republicans would like to make the economy the issue but it is improving in spite of their obstruction. There is, however, another issue Republicans love, and it is an issue that takes no thought at all. They point at President Obama and squeal, “WEAK! WEAK! WEAK!” They want you to believe that merely calling President Obama weak makes it so, and that he is incapable of protecting America.  Of course they cannot tell you what they would do differently to protect America. They are certainly not going to provide the State Department with the funds Hillary Clinton requested to protect our diplomats before the attack at Benghazi, nor are they going to restore the funds they cut from the CDC. I guess the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are not important unless you run into problems with diseases such as Ebola and the Adenovirus. The same thing could be said for confirming a Surgeon General or providing medicare so that preventive care is available to everyone. This begs the question; what have Republicans carried out in the last two years? Well they got the hell out of Washington, thereby avoiding their duty to deal with the war on ISIS.

 

So bereft of any positive programs are the Republicans that they now have to count on their new and improved straw dogs and bogeymen to carry them through the mid-terms. “WEAK! WEAK! WEAK!”  That is their cry.  That is it folks! Fear and loathing is all the GOP has to offer you. Unfortunately, the news media is unwittingly helping the Republicans sell that fear and loathing. Do not misunderstand what I am saying, the media is responsible enough to point out that Ebola is not easy to transmit from one person to another. What the media emphasizes, however, is that the mortality rate of those who catch it is high, and that is scary enough to make people want to hear more. The utter brutality of ISIS is also frightening enough to attract an audience, but the immediate danger ISIS poses to this country is not that great because it is not on our border. That, of course, does not keep the news media from constantly reporting the brutality or the Republicans from lying about terrorists or people infected with Ebola crossing our southern border. What is amazing to me is that the Republicans continue to tell those lies even after they repeatedly fail to meet challenges to name a single documented case in which a terrorist or a person with Ebola has crossed our border with Mexico. As Richard Wolfe said on MSNBC: can you imagine someone infected with Ebola being healthy enough to work his way from Mexico City to the northern border, then sneak past the US border patrols and hike through the hot, dry desert to a city! As unlikely as that scenario is the Republican base wants to believe it badly enough to embrace it

One of the most vexing problems we have in trying to give the public a realistic assessment of the danger we face is that the incessant news coverage in and of itself serves to greatly exaggerate the threats, thereby putting a certain luster on the straw dogs and bogeymen the Republicans are selling. We can only hope that the people will say no sale, that they will reject the straw dogs and bogeymen, and that they will vote for candidates who present a realistic approach to dealing with ISIS, Ebola and the other challenges we face.

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Define Your Terms

I am so damn sick of pundits referring to the five injustices on our current Supreme Court as judicial activists. Merely overturning a precedent is not judicial activism.  As I pointed out in a previous post, “judicial activism" is a pejorative term reactionaries use to describe the practice of overturning unjust but well established precedents; which makes "judicial activist" a badge of honor that must be earned!  Laws that protect the right to vote and make it easier to exercise that right are not unjust. Laws that allow legal remedies for injuries caused by medical malpractice or the negligence of companies are not unjust. Laws that protect us from the risky and bad behavior of financial institutions are not unjust. Laws that protect the right of employees to collectively bargain with employers are not unjust. Laws that prevent the oligopoly from buying politicians and elections are not unjust. Calling the five supreme injustices “judicial activists” is therefore a bastardization of a term used to describe the very justices who have done the most to make our laws and our society fairer and more equitable.

What is obviously called for now is a term to describe the injustices who are casting us back into a time before either of the Roosevelts, when there were no labor unions and the robber barons pretty much did as they pleased no matter how harmful that was. The definition of a reactionary is: someone who is resistant or opposed to a force, influence or movement; “especially: [a] tendency toward a former and usually outmoded political or social order or policy.” I therefore propose that we describe overturning just and well established precedents as acts of “judicial re-activism,” and that we describe the five injustices who are overturning those just precedents as “judicial reactionaries.” 

Given the fact that Messrs. Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy have made this the most politicized and retrogressive court ever, calling them "Judicial Reactionaries" seems almost too polite to me.  I mean, how do you describe men who have and are causing so much damage to our country and the reputation of its highest court without becoming profane?  If you have a better suggestion than "judicial reactionaries" or "supreme injustices," please let me know.