OURS IS A DYSFUNCTIONAL SOCIETY WITHIN A DIVIDED COUNTRY

And the Republicans want it dysfunctional in order to get back all the power and complete control of government.

here should be no doubt in anybody’s mind that it has come to this: believers in religious magnanimity against free thinking, democracy loving folks. It is a religious war and it is raging; and as wars always do, they destroy everything in its path…a scorch the earth type of war where if they don’t get their power through the ballot box then they will resort to “2^nd amendment options” 

The very wealthy and the corporations are just sitting in the side lines just observing and letting it happen because for the most part, getting rid of regulations is their reward and having people fanaticized by their religions makes them a lot more docile so they can be manipulated and follow like sheep obediently whatever those rich folks want them to do or not do. 

We were hearing it often during the summer of 2009 “THEY ARE TAKING AWAY MY AMERICA” and it was repeated verbally and through often misspelled signs by Teahadists throughout the country…yes, those very people who don’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of were defending the interests of the very rich.

But really, what basically were they saying? Taking away “their” America? as if America was theirs and only theirs, as if the WASPs were the only ones entitled to wealth and power and I think: you assholes, it is everybody’s America.

When talking about that deranged black politician from Florida Allen West, Stan of http://www.understandingstan.net/explains it brilliantly:

 “We the People” Constitution is only for me, not you!  I don't know if West is an Evangelical Christian, but he spews all the same hate as Evangelicals do in the name of religious freedom and for love of God.

 I have three questions for these Evangelicals.   One.  Does our Constitutional right to freedom of religion  only apply to your religion?  Two.  Since when does God take sides?  Three.  Just who do you think you are?”

Then he goes on to make five points I find so very interesting and relevant:

“1.  Neither God, nor the Bible, tells anyone to be un-thinking sheep who do whatever bidding they are told.
Proverbs 14:6  “The hater of authority, searching for wisdom, does not get it; but knowledge comes readily to the open-minded man.“
Jesus didn't command anyone to follow him.  He did speak, and those who listened and agreed with him, followed him.  Those that did not, he did not condemn.  He never asked anyone to hate anyone else for any reason.  He loved everyone, equally, whatever their perceived flaws.

2.  Neither God, nor the Bible, tells anyone to reject government and taxes.
Matthew 22:21 "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"
Jesus did not speak out against the government, but asked that we leave governmental laws and rules here on Earth, and obey them.  At the same time, we should consider spiritual things to be sacred and give God what he wants from us.

3.  Neither God, nor the Bible, tells anyone that God wants anything from us but love.
John 13:34  “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just like I have loved you; that you also love one another.”
Jesus was dismayed by all the squabbling and arguing over the commandments and which was more important and what they should do to get into Heaven.  He told them, pure and simple.  Just love one another.

4.  Neither God, nor the Bible, tells anyone to be narrow minded or to cause harm.
1 Peter 2:15  “For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”  Jesus was asked many times to lead his people in revolt against the Romans.  His response was always the same.  You have to lead by example and do good.  Violence is not the answer.

5.   Neither God, nor the Bible, tells anyone to pass judgment on anyone else, for any reason.
Romans 14:10  “But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God.“
Jesus never asked anyone to judge anyone for any reason.  It was not our business to be judgmental, or to pass a judgment on anyone.  That was God's prerogative, not for man. “

Look, I don’t hold a dear place in my heart for religions in general; however, when it comes to the Jesus business and the passing of judgment on others including the issue of homosexuality I always say “what would Jesus say and do?” Seeing it that Jesus himself never uttered one single word against homosexuality and would certainly condemn today’s Republican’s worship of the almighty dollar, their imposed abuses on the poor and middle class to benefit the rich all in the name of fucking GREED. 

I think that Jesus would summarily punish the purveyors of hatred and the merchants of greed like he did with the traders at the temple when he lost his cool; that is the reason I often remind Evangelicals that their spewing of hatred is by far more odious and repugnant to the Creator than the practice of homosexuality which is something the Creator made. For that reason I tell Evangelicals that their spewing of hatred is a one way ticket to hell.

SOURCES: http://www.understandingstan.net/

http://www.towleroad.com/

Allen West to Liberals: “Get the hell out of the U.S.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/allen-west-liberals-get-out-florida-primary-2012_n_1239247.html

WEALTHY – IS THE RESENTMENT ENVY OR JUSTIFIED?

It all depends on how you accumulated that wealth

hen someone comes up with an invention, an idea and has it patented and then manufactures it and markets it and makes a lot of money with it…I applaud it; if you work your ass off and save then start a small business that is successful…kudos to you. If you provide a service that everyone needs, or make available something you do that everyone wants…as for example entertainers or athletes, and make tons of money…then you deserve praise.

But if you were born into wealth and you either kept the wealth or multiplied it then there is no merit in that.

I should think that if you made a shitload of money trafficking in illegal substances or booze that would not only be illegal but not worthy of any medals. Then if you made your fortune by being a parasite…that is, you didn’t really provide a service or made a product but you became a middle man that just skimmed the profits then you should be ashamed of yourself. In this category one should include the corporate raiders, Wall Street speculators, insurance companies and all the other leeches in our society.

You see, if a small businessperson ever tries to gain entrance into that 1% he/she will meet so many hurdles, so many barriers, so much red tape that it would be a miracle to succeed. I know this first hand because in more than one instance I owned a small business; yet, there were so many permits, so many inspectors, so much red tape and there wasn’t a week that went by when I didn’t have some local, state or federal representative wanting to exact some tax or make me comply with some absurd regulation.

But make no mistake about it, it is not coincidence nor is it justified in terms of safety and ethical behavior…it is designed that way by the very wealthy to keep anybody else from entering that privileged class…that 1% that lives a lofty life without worrying about regulations because they have so few…to fret about taxes because they pay so little and to abide by safety and ethical rules because those are not important…they are but obstacles that prevent the super wealthy from making a bigger profit.

So that the answer to the question: “Is it envy from those who are not rich?” is very obvious…no, we are not envious, but we do resent your immunity from the rules the rest of us have to adhere to and we abhor the idea that you pay less than your share of taxes…much lower than the rest of us do.

The wealthy that are worthy of admiration and should be congratulated are those with a social conscience, those who have not forgotten where they came from, those very people who worked their asses off to be what they are…people like Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett or Bill Gates…a Mitt Romney, not so much.

Photo source: http://www.ideachampions.com/weblogs/archives/2012/01/everything_begi.shtml

A REPLY TO ANONYMOUS WHO SAYS WE WILL NEVER HAVE SAME SEX MARRIAGE

Just a little message to piss him off and those like him who read this blog: EAT ME; it is just a matter of time before we have it.

And then, all of you fucking Evangelical-Mormon-Christianists will have to bend over and kiss your own asses because nobody else would want to. We may take two steps forward and one back in our endeavor to have the same rights that everyone else has. But rest assured that your faith, your stupidity is based on erroneous interpretations of the Scriptures and Jesus himself never ever said anything against homosexuality.

This beef you have, this homophobia is unreasonable and odious and because you spew your hatred I don’t think the Creator is going to look at you favorably…at least not as compared to gays…it is by far worse to hate and discriminate, to cause misery to others than it is to just be who the Creator intended you to be. If you think you’re going to heaven only because you insert your penis in a vagina you are sadly mistaken.

And do you know why you write me those anonymous comments? It is because you are so devious, so ashamed to be identified that you have to hide behind anonymity…you are a fucking coward - come out of your fucking closet because that is what you most likely are – do us all a favor – GROW SOME BALLS and don’t expect any gays to feel humiliated by your nonsense and it is precisely why you are pissed at gays…you can’t humiliate us any longer without our consent.

MITT ROMNEY THINKS THE VERY WEALTHY SHOULD BE CONGRATULATED

I think that we, the 99% are the ones that should be congratulated.

As a 67 year old looking back at all the opportunities I had to “make it big” and turned them down because these were either immoral, unethical, illegal or all of the above…I can tell you that poverty is no picnic but it is preferable to being an asshole with money.

You see, I have my problems just like everyone else…one of them is putting food on my table with the meager Social Security check I get…which, if you had your way you would reduce or eliminate altogether. But I think that your problems are much bigger than the ones most of all have, you can’t connect, you can’t visualize how us mere mortals live, our concerns, our fears, our insecurities. You have no fucking idea bucko and you are obsessed with being liked.

You belong to a cult that has been striving to gain validation and that has at its roots some of the most outrageous fantasies of all the religions out there…and if you really believe in that shit, then I don’t care how rich you are, how many companies you dismantled and put so many people out of work…you are basically a moron…not a Mormon…because if you believe Moroni and Jesus in the New World, the Book of Mormon and all the other crap then you are not too intelligent, now are you?

It is worth mentioning that Mitt Romney didn’t really do all that much to have that wealth…let’s face it he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and if I had the loopholes, and the tax breaks that he has had, I too would be obscenely rich.

One would think that it is unfair and bad enough to pay less than 15% on one’s income to the IRS and that low rate is well below what middle income families pay…even more shameful is the carried interest exemptions these captains of industry and private equity managers get…with breaks like those, I too would be rich.

These rich people like him will tell you with a straight face that they are the job creators and thus have to have lower tax rates than mere mortals.

No Mr. Romney, I’m not sending you any congratulatory Hallmark card this year or ever!

ABOUT POLITICAL ROBO-CALLS

What to do? Do you hang up? Do you listen? Do you call them to have them take your number off the list?

Last elections I got more than my share of robo-calls. For the most part they were from Republicans and a few of the Democrats asking for money. But the Republican calls didn’t ask for a donation as a rule…instead they wanted you to listen to some odious message and that got me fired up a few times.

I remember one particular one from The College Republicans that I had to actually put down the phone before I would throw it against the wall. Such were the distortions, lies and askew ideology they were spurting out that I could not help myself but to get angry…anger out of frustration because had it been a live person I would have chewed them a new asshole.

I have vacillated on the issue and I have come to one conclusion: that I want to hear what the sons of bitches have to say because that way I am better informed and can fire back should I ever run into some misguided soul who would defends the Republican agenda. They are hiding under rocks now you know. They will only appear on Fox but the general public is spared for the most part from people in their own circles expressing any approval of the Republicans and their agenda.

Why is that, you might ask? First, because George W. Bush’s failed Presidency is still fresh in our minds, the damage he did to our country affected almost every American and contrary to what Republicans think that people have short memory spans, if you are hurt bad enough you tend to look for the reason of your misery and find out who caused it.

Then the Republicans have been conducting a scorch-earth agenda to make Obama a one term President and have blocked, delayed and sabotaged each and every effort that was put before them to correct the mess they created and left behind…it is best exemplified by the lowest approval in history that Congress has.Never mind that it hurts the country and the majority of the people.

The other issue I have a beef with is the solicitation of contributions…be it political or charitable. What these people calling don’t realize is that if you are having troubles putting food on your table, how could you possibly donate any money? One day I actually added up the requests for donations and between the e-mails and the phone calls, I came up with a minimum of $232.00…that is assuming I don’t make a larger donation.

How and when is this going to stop? When Citizen’s United is somehow made illegal and when the very rich and the corporations are no longer considered people…even though real people have to disclose their donations and have limits, while imaginary people like “CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE, MY FRIEND” can do so anonymously.

NUDITY – SOME OF THE MORE REASONABLE ARGUMENTS FOR IT

Make no mistake about it, it is religion that has instilled this feeling of shame about our nakedness

 

WARNING

This blog does contain adult and gay material. If you are under your country's legal age (18 or 21), do not scroll down and leave this page now.

Thanks

This post is dedicated to my good friend and blogger Roger in Northern Virginia. 

Throughout history the issue of clothing has gone from necessity to luxury, from protection from the elements to sexual repression.

When you come right down to it, clothing is and should be necessary only when they have a useful purpose…like protecting you from the elements. Any other use for clothing is superfluous and arbitrary…and I am very resolute in this; can you think of a more useless article of clothing than a tie?

Most of this fabricated shame we all feel about nakedness stems from that fucking fairy tale that is found in the Scriptures about Adam and Eve. You see, there is no fucking way that only two specimens of the human family could have been our ancestors, not if you believe in evolution. But I digress…the idea that these two fucker breeders found themselves in paradise after biting into the mother fucking apple…(which according to scientists couldn’t have been an apple but a persimmon) then these had sex and God told them to feel ashamed of the deed they had just partaken in and told them to feel ashamed of their bodies, their nakedness. Such absurdity can only exist in the minds of religious fanatics but unfortunately it has percolated on down to the general population and to popular culture throughout history.

Sean Lamont – Dieux du Stade

 ESPN's Naked Athletes: Heavenly Bodies, Queasy Christians

Christians adore sports, always have, and always will. Saint Paul was no jock, but he knew the importance of athletics to the Greco-Roman world around him, and the relevance of sports to the life of faith: 

"Do you not know that the runners in the stadium all run in the race, but only one wins the prize? Run so as to win," the Apostle exhorted his listeners in Corinth. "Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but an imperishable one. Thus I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight as if I were shadowboxing. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified."

Powerful words, which later believers took literally. From the YMCA movement and the birth of "muscular Christianity" in the 19th century, to the professional gladiators of today’s sports -- praying to win and profusely thanking Jesus when they do -- athletes and the faith have been soul mates.

But will Christians still love their sports heroes (and heroines) if they go stark naked? That question is starting to stir debate among Christian sports fans (the term may be redundant) as ESPN the Magazineprepares its first-ever "Body Issue"-- the bodies in question being those of world-class athletes who have volunteered to take it all off for a photographer, and the 2.1 million readers (and counting) of the bi-weekly.

The issue hit the newsstands on Oct. 9, 2008 with the list of participating athletes still a mystery. Editor-in-chief Gary Belsky told USA Todayin June that the magazine invited pro, amateur and Olympic athletes, but would only say their response has been enthusiastic. (IndyCar driver Danica Patrick, who has appeared in numerous magazine shoots showing off her form, is rumored to be one of the subjects. But there will be male athletes as well.) Still, those early reports quickly raised some eyebrows in Christian fandom.

"Nudity is the most over-ridden pony in mass media," sports columnist and onetime missionary Ted Kluck wrote in an "open letter" to ESPN published on the Web site of Christianity Today, the flagship evangelical magazine.

Kluck said he was not surprised, just disappointed. "Upsetting the prudish is part of the devil-may-care outlaw/renegade ethos that helps you sell big trucks and Viagra. I respect that," he wrote to ESPN. "But really? Nudity?" (Kluck also quoted Paul, who counseled focusing the mind on "Whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, and whatever is admirable...")

Comments on Kluck's post tended to agree with him--though few echoed his larger point, a plea for better sports writing. "This is a prime example of where our country is morally and one of the reasons it is being bombarded by the minor wrath of God," wrote one commenter. Another threatened to cancel his son's subscription. Still another wrote: "I hope this will succeed in remedying ESPN's inhuman vulgarity." (The main objection was to Kluck's dig at big trucks.)

So will this cause ESPN to reconsider? Not likely, given the success of the annual swimsuit issue of ESPN's main competitor, Sports Illustrated. The SI edition of models clad in bikinis (or less) has come out each February for 36 years and now generates up to 9 percent of the weekly's yearly revenue, reaching some 66 million adults. The 55-year-old Sports Illustratedstill outsells ESPN's 11-year-old magazine, 3.2 million to 2.1 million, though ESPN the Magazine is reportedly gaining. ESPN's "Body Issue" could be seen as a savvy upgrade on SI's swimsuit issue.

A spokesperson for ESPN the Magazine insists that the "Body Issue" is not intended as a beef-and-cheesecake alternative to SI's swimsuit issue, and is rather "a celebration of the athletic form."

"The assumption that there will be flat-out nudity is a bit of a presumption," said Crystal Howard. "Certain body parts will certainly be obscured. It certainly will be tastefully done. This is a sports magazine and it is being presented as such." In fact, the editors are apparently going to be using various pieces of equipment related to each athlete's sport to do the necessary obscuring.

Moreover, the "Body Issue" isn't completely novel. In a January 2004 issue for the Winter X Games, ESPN the Magazine featured athletes in their birthday suits, or nearly so: Canadian freestyler Aleisha Cline was shown skiing in nothing but hat and glovers, and of course, boots and skis.

And before last summer's Olympic Games in Beijing, PowerAde, the official sports drink of the games, produced an eye-catching series of photos of members of Britain's contingent starkers and in action. (And hey, if the English can do nudity...)

Christian protesters may also want to recall that conservative Christian poster girl Sarah Palin showed her runner's chops (and gams) for an impressive spread in Runner's World. And sexy beauty queens like Carrie Prejean are the toast of the church circuit, as are other sought-after models who often pose in provocative positions, as Prejean herself once did. The whole world is waiting for Tebow to show his goodies…perhaps on one knee praying, conveniently hiding his cojones by his knee.

Besides, as Editor Gary Belsky noted, ESPN is owned by Disney, so they're not about to have full-frontal nudity.

But what if they did? Would it make any difference? Everyone knows partially clothed bodies tend to be more alluring than the full monty and that is because of our prudishness.

Moreover, the Bible belt isn't exactly averse to the pleasures of the flesh. Red states with the highest percentage of bluenose Christians also tend to be the biggest consumers of online porn. And when Alabama's liquor control agency this summer banned a wine because its label depicted a nude nymph (from a vintage 1895 advertising poster) it sent sales of the California vintage soaring. So it's unlikely ESPN's newsstands sales will be hurt, even if Christian protests do expand beyond a few disgruntled writers and commenters.

 

 After Saint Paul, it took Christianity a long time to get comfortable again with the classical ideal of the human form as an object of beauty, or even something of divine inspiration -- as long as the divinity in question was the one, true God. In fact, what upset early Christian preachers most about Greek sporting events was not so much that the athletes were naked -- even the Romans and Egyptians and other sophisticates of the Mediterranean world were a little uncomfortable with that. Rather, their objection was that that the Games were also religious festivals and ceremonies dedicated to one or more of the pagan deities.

The editors at ESPN the Magazine say the aim of the "Body Issue" is to "explore the past, present and future of the athletic form," both male and female. Indeed, Belsky said one male "very big star" allowed photographers into the operating room to shoot surgery to correct some sports-related injury.

Compared to the "Girls Gone Wild" vibe of SI's swimsuit issue, we could look at that as a good thing. If we look at it at all.

I remember the days when you could not even take your film developed at the corner drugstore because some prudish asshole working there would turn you in to the authorities if he saw just a butt or a tit, never mind a photo of a penis. You would go to jail if you sent pictures through the mail and the Postmaster General was the acting morality Czar.

There is one good thing that has come out of all these insane Teabag demonstrations and the wackos that have been sabotaging the Town Hall Meetings; It is simply this: because they are so extreme, so insane and so unreasonable, because they tend to be the same people who go out and demonstrate against a film or an art exposition, even a magazine like Playboy has not escaped their condemnation. But as they have done all these crazy things, the majority of Americans see them for what they are: fucking hypocrites and uninformed, ignorant and provincial. 

That makes for fertile grounds to offer tolerance, because the more extreme they become, their credibility is diminished. This war on sex, women, gays is just an attempt by the religious right to salvage whatever little validation they had to exist in our society. We knew all along that the Republican Party in view of their gargantuan failures during the Bush administration, their failed economic policies, their askew view of how the economy works…with this TRICKLE DOWN BS…we knew, we just knew the fucking Republicans were going to fight the next electoral battle on social issues and moral superiority (which is neither)

 

IS THERE A CORRELATION BETWEEN WAL-MART CUSTOMERS AND THEIR BIGOTRY?

Somehow, I had the impression that a great many of the shoppers there were provincial and uneducated.

For the times that I was going to Wal-Mart to shop many years ago I never liked the store. I encountered many times the bait and switch and the mispriced merchandise that resulted in you getting to the cashier and the price was always higher than advertised. They of course would say that it was an item that was “misplaced” by customers themselves…but I often found many of the same items within that group.

Then I heard about how terrible an employer they were. The salaries they paid were not enough to feed sparrows and even some of the people who worked there were in need to receive welfare because of their low incomes. The benefits employees get were also absent.

What got me all turned off was when I read how Wal-Mart would open a store just outside of Smalltown, U.S.A. by the Interstate and sell things at ridiculously low price with the purpose of driving the Ma and Pa stores out of business in the little towns.

And then what really made me indignant was when I found out how much money the Walton family gives to right-wing political pacs and hate groups.

And now this…I can’t really say that I am surprised.

Wal-Mart And Hate Groups

Though they promise they're not trying to pick on Wal-Mart, economists at Penn State have found a positive correlation between the super store's presence in an area and the prevalence of hate groups in that same area.

Via RawStory:

The study, published in Social Science Quarterly, found that the number of Wal-Mart stores was a better predictor of hate group participation than the unemployment rate, high crime rates and low education.
…
The researchers believe that the correlation between Wal-Mart and hate groups exists because of breakdown of the community. Small local businesses are more likely to be members of civic groups and involved in the community. They are also more likely to have closer relationships among their employees.

“While we like to think of American society as being largely classless, merchants and bankers are part of what we could call a leadership class in a community,” Goetz said.

In contrast, people are more likely to feel alienated by big-box retailers like Wal-Mart, the researchers explained. They noted that areas that had Wal-Mart stores were also likely to have other big-box retailers, like Target.

“We’re not trying to pick on Wal-Mart,” said Goetz. “In this study, Wal-Mart is really serving as a proxy for any type of large retailer.”

Bigger, it seems, is not always better.

Posted 9:19 AM EST by Andrew Belonsky in Discrimination, News, Wal-Mart | Permalink |

Read more: http://www.towleroad.com/#ixzz1rpxRGEyz

THERE WILL BE A LOT OF PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO WILL BUY WHAT MITT IS SELLING

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and wife, Ann, take the stage at an election night rally yesterday.

In his speech after winning five primaries he took the one road that if he wasn’t serious and the Republican die-hard followers so gullible…it would be laughable.

However, this modern day snake oil salesman is counting on people having short memory spans and being terribly misinformed about politics and the economy. In a sane world, Mitt Romney would be laughed out of politics for the speech he gave celebrating his final wins (Delaware, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York) in the Republican nomination contest.

Jamelle Bouie

Writes in an article for The American Prospect:

“The centerpiece of the address was a riff on the classic formulation, “Are you better of now than you were four years ago?”

Is it easier to make ends meet? Is it easier to sell your home or buy a new one? Have you saved what you needed for retirement? Are you making more in your job? Do you have a better chance to get a better job? Do you pay less at the pump?

What’s frustrating about this is the fact that it ignores the last four years of political history in an attempt to put Barack Obama at the center of the country’s economic troubles.

But that’s ridiculous. Here’s what we know about the last four years. In 2008, the economy fell into a deep recession. The proximate cause was the collapse of the global financial system, but the process itself was long in the making; George W. Bush was a terrible steward of the economy, and his policies—along with those of congressional Republicans—yielded a decade of slow growth and sluggish job creation. Along with an out-of-control financial sector, the end result of all of this was the worst recession in more than seven decades.

In response, the public ejected the Republican Party from power, and elected Barack Obama to the presidency by the highest margin of victory of any Democrat since Jimmy Carter. What’s more, he entered office with large majorities in Congress, giving him space to pursue solutions to the economy, along with his own projects.

By the time he reached office, however, two things had happened. First, the economy had gotten worse. Unemployment shot to new highs, growth reversed, and the United States entered economic freefall. The overwhelming priority for the incoming administration was to stabilize the economy and keep things from deteriorating into a second Great Depression.

The other thing was less remarked upon at the time, but no less important: Congressional Republicans, led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, pledged to make Obama a one-term president by any means necessary. Their plan was to use legislative rules like the filibuster to create a supermajority requirement for everything from confirming nominees to passing new legislation. Far from harming Republicans—who would be unified in their opposition—the blowback would tarnish Obama, who would be blamed by the public for gridlock and obstruction.

Even without Republican support, Democrats managed to pass a stimulus, health-care reform, and financial reform, but each bill involved a tremendous amount of work, and left the party in poor shape with the public. Still, Republican obstruction was successful in reducing the size of the stimulus, stigmatizing health-care reform, and taking the teeth out of financial reform.

Worse, the sudden reversal of Republicans on the issue of fiscal stimulus—which they supported at both ends of the Bush administration—meant that the economy was stuck without further support, even as it stagnated with slow growth and high unemployment. Obama, as the president, received the lion's share of blame from the public. The only people who noticed Republican obstruction, by contrast, were assorted bloggers, journalists, and Washington insiders.

The rest of the story is straightforward. Republicans rode this discontent to the a massive victory in the House of Representatives—as well as big wins throughout the country—and used their newfound power to push austerity and a reactionary social agenda. In a series of terrible mistakes, Obama tried to negotiate with and accommodate Republicans, resulting in a string of political losses, and further damaged his credibility with the public. His administration flailed until it recognized the futility of trying to work with congressional Republicans.

There are two things to take away from this abridged version of the last three and a half years. The first is that Democrats, led by Obama, passed an impressive amount of big legislation, given the circumstances. Obama has had his fair share of problems—his actions, or lack thereof, on the federal reserve come to the forefront—but on the whole, his administration has accomplished more than most.

The second, and more important lesson, is that the economy could have been in much better shape had Republicans cooperated. That doesn’t mean acquiescence, but it does mean an attempt to find mutually beneficial solutions to the problems of slow growth and high unemployment.

In an ideal world, all of this would be a part of the political conversation in an election year. As the standard-bearer for the Republican Party, Mitt Romney would have to answer a few questions: Is it not true that Obama has spent his term cleaning up the wreckage of the last Republican president? Why shouldn’t we hold the GOP responsible for the gridlock of the past three years? How do you intend to fix the economy, if you are touting the same policies as your Republican predecessor?

Of course, none of this will be asked. As he did in this speech, Romney will be allowed to campaign as if the past never happened, and the Republican Party didn’t have a part in producing the current circumstances. His campaign will run on clichés, and angrily swat back at anyone who questions his refusal to acknowledge the people—his fellow Republicans—who created this mess in the first place.

If there’s anything we can take from Romney’s speech tonight, it’s that the general election will be fought in a vacuum, where the only person who can ever be blamed is Barack Obama.”

Much to the detriment of the Republicans and those die-hard conservatives who would much rather have us shut the fuck up…we are here to remind everyone who caused the mess we are in, we are relentless in our opposition to TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS and we are never going to let them forget that their opposition to recovery, their downright treason in opposing any attempts by the President and the Democrats to fix the mess they left is something they are not going to sweep under the rug.

Stop blaming the President for the fucked up mess you created and your unpatriotic sabotage of his administration.

SOURCES: JAMELLE BOUIE - http://prospect.org/article/mitt-romneys-fantasy-world