The Criminal Class in Washington is
Bipartisan: Republicans On the Issues
30 March 2012By Stephen Lendman
Inside the Beltway, it's evident daily. The political
news website Capitol Hill Blue says "Nobody's life,
liberty or property is safe while Congress is in
session or the White House is occupied."
Electoral politics also highlights its clear and
present danger. It involves rogue politicians
competing to be part of Washington's corrupted duopoly
run system - especially the top job as president.
Both sides support corporate interests, imperial wars,
and the divine right of capital to exploit workers,
plunder resources, control markets, and rule
unchallenged. Beneficial social change, independent
voices, and electoral democracy lose out under a
rigged system against them.
Democracy in America's shear fantasy. Money power
controls everything. Candidates are pre-selected.
Privatized elections assure corporate favorites win.
Democrats are interchangeable with Republicans.
Differences between them are minor, and none whatever
on what matters most.
Consider the unpalatable 2012 presidential options.
Voters get to choose between a lawless, crime boss,
militarist, pro-war, anti-populist president, and a
rogue's gallery of Republican aspirants, looking more
like a police lineup than legitimate candidates for
any office, let alone the nation's highest.
By comparison, Ron Paul looks good, but his platform
shows otherwise. He wants social America abolished. He
believes government's only role is to respect,
protect, and defend personal liberties.
In other words, government's responsibility for
universal healthcare, education, and other essential
services is incompatible with personal freedom.
Everyone should be on their own to provide them, even
though millions, through no fault of their own, can't.
Yet he's the best of the lot. Obama proved what loyal
supporters thought impossible. On domestic and foreign
issues, he's governed to the right of George Bush. He
does it lawlessly for the monied interests that own
him.
He's waging multiple imperial wars, plans others,
looted the nation's wealth, wrecked the economy,
consigned growing millions to impoverishment without
jobs, enough income, or futures, illegally spies on
Americans more aggressively than Bush, and
institutionalized tyranny to target dissenters
challenging political corruption, corporate crooks, or
abuse of power lawlessness.
He also promotes regime change in Syria, Iran,
Venezuela, Lebanon, and other independent states. In
addition, he targets Russia's military strength and
China's growing economic might. At the same time, he
supports ruthless, corrupt tyrants, and Israel's worst
crimes.
After its devastating earthquake, he militarized and
occupied Haiti. He belligerently ousted Honduran
President Manual Zelaya and Libya's Gaddafi. He
presides over a bogus democracy under a homeland
police state apparatus.
He's waging class war against Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, public and private pensions, as
well as other New Deal and Great Society gains. He
wants more aggressive media control than Nixon,
according to former White House correspondent Helen
Thomas.
He imposed austerity when vital stimulus is needed and
real unemployment approaches 23%. He promotes "shared
sacrifice" to force ordinary people to sacrifice so
America's super-rich can share.
He authorized indefinitely detaining anyone called a
national security threat without charge (including US
citizens). He continues Bush's rendition and torture
policies. He authorized state-sponsored
assassinations, including US citizens considered a
national security threats, whether or not true.
He deployed Special Forces death squads covertly to
120 or more countries. They're in Syria, Iran, and
other independent states working for regime change.
He destroyed hard won labor rights, and wants
education commodified as another business profit
center. He wages war on whistleblowers, dissenters,
Muslims, Latino immigrants, and environmental and
animal rights activists called terrorists.
No matter. He'll likely get another four years to do
more damage and complete unfinished business, at the
expense of growing millions enduring poverty,
homelessness, hunger, and despair in the world's
richest country. He's thrown them overboard to serve
wealth and power interests alone.
Republicans On the Issues
The web site page on Mitt Romney's skeleton closet
says other politicians call him "a phony, two-faced,
flip-flopping weasel."
Mitt Romney calls himself "the ideal" Tea Party
candidate because his views replicate theirs. Its
platform calls for tax cuts for the rich, eliminating
the national debt at the expense of wrecking the
economy, ending deficit spending, free, not fair,
market capitalism, and supporting states rights
It also wants all federal, state and local social
spending ended. It wants people freed to do what they
please lawfully, no matter the consequences for
others. It supports staying independent from federal
oversight or constraints.
Overall, it stresses fiscal responsibility,
constitutionally limited government, free (not fair)
markets, and everyone on their own sink or swim.
Romney wants less taxes, government spending,
regulation, and federal programs. He wants more trade,
energy production, local power, human capital and
labor flexibility (code language for destroying worker
rights). He calls it "a plan to get America back to
work."
He wants Obamacare replaced with extremist
"market-based reforms." He says America "faces a
bewildering array of threats and opportunities." He
calls "national security" the nation's "unifying
thread."
"When America is strong, the world is safer." Only US
power can "ensure security and prosperity," he claims.
Again, no explanation's given or threats explained at
a time the nation has none except ones it invents.
Earlier he said we "can and will stop Iran from
acquiring nuclear weapons." He called for military
action "in the nature of blockade or a bombardment or
surgical strikes or one kind or another."
More recently he called Iranian leaders intolerant,
repressive, state sponsors of terrorism. He also
accused them of developing nuclear weapons, despite
the latest March 2011 US intelligence assessment and
IAEA inspectors concluding the opposite.
He called for diplomatic isolation and crippling
sanctions, including denying Iran access to foreign
capital and investment. He also supports divesting
from companies supporting the Islamic Republic, and
says "the military option is very real and very
credible."
On Syria, he said "it's time for the Assad
dictatorship to end. And we should use covert
activity" and sanctions because he's "an ally of
Iran."
His energy program calls for drill, drill, drill. He
says everything government does business does better
so let it. He wants China sanctioned for alleged
unfair trade practices. He wants more defense spending
to advance America's imperium.
He wants workers denied union representation. He's
pro-family, pro-life, pro-gun, pro-Israel, pro-war,
pro-corporate, and entirely anti-populist. He and
Obama support the same hard-right agenda. Virtually
nothing distinguishes one from the other on issues
mattering most.
Newt Gingrich's web site features his "21st Century
Contract with America." It partly reinvents Speaker
Gingrich's 1994 Contract on America. It set a
hard-right agenda for the 104th Congress' first 100
days.
Now he's at it again. He favors pro-business policies,
including tax cuts for the rich, eliminating the
capital gains tax, a 15% flat tax, an energy agenda
favoring Big Oil, a balanced budget, and abolishing
social America to free up more resources for business
and imperial wars.
He calls it "keep(ing) Americans safe." Unexplained
was the nation's only enemies are ones invented to
ravage the world one country at a time or in
multiples.
Yet Gingrich claims we're "in a long war against
radical Islamism, a belief system adhered to by a
small minority of Muslims but nonetheless a powerful
and organized ideology within Islamic thought that is
totally incompatible with the modern world."
A notorious Islamophobe/racist, he supports "a unified
grand strategy for defeating radical Islamism." He
wants imperial wars and occupations continued to free
the world for capital, no matter the body count to
achieve it.
Like Romney, he supports low taxes, deregulation,
privatizing basic services like healthcare and
education, and whatever else favors wealth and power.
His "Day One Plan" includes:
- drill now, pay later;
- eliminating Obama's bureaucratic appointments
not accountable to Congress;
- stopping abortion funding, and women's right to
get one;
- supporting Jerusalem as Israel's capital despite
its legal designation as an international city under
UN trusteeship most countries respect;
- ending federal immigration lawsuits against
racist state laws like Arizona's; and
- supporting the environmentally destructive
Keystone XL Pipeline.
Gingrich is also scandal-plagued. He's a serial
adulterer with younger women when two former wives
were seriously ill. During his term as Speaker, he
also faced 84 ethics charges. Pressure got most
dropped. One stuck when an ethics panel found him
"repeatedly violat(ing) one rule by using a political
consultant to develop the Republican legislative
agenda."
The House reprimanded him by a 395 - 28 vote, and
ordered him to repay $300,000 in investigative
charges. It was the first time a speaker was ever
disciplined for ethics violations.
The House Ethics committee also said inaccurate
information Gingrich supplied to investigators
represented "intentional or....reckless" disregard for
House rules.
The Ethics Committee's Special Counsel James M. Cole
said he violated federal tax law. He also lied to the
ethics panel to force the committee to dismiss charges
against him.
The committee didn't agree that tax law was violated.
It let the IRS decide. In 1999, it cleared
organizations connected with the "Renewing American
Civilization" courses under investigation for possible
tax violations. As a result, Gingrich got off
scot-free, despite committing what the ethics
committee called 84 violations.
Later, he earned $1.6 million lobbying secretly for
Freddie Mac while attacking it publicly. A web site
covering scandals in the closets of presidential
candidates said this about him:
"I've researched a lot of polticians' scandals over
the years. Some are lying, adulterious lechers
(Clinton). Some are money-grubbing and corrupt
(Santorum). Some are vindictive and dangerously
authoritarian (Giuliani)."
"Some are incredibly phony and change with the wind
(Romney). Some are draft dodgers (actually, most of
them are). But in 17 years, only one man has been able
to combine every one of these moral failings into one,
super-humanly despicable candidate: Newt Gingrich."
Imagine if he ends up president. Though unlikely, his
rogue "credentials," in fact, qualify him for the job
only miscreants or candidates likely to govern like
one can hold.
Rick Santorum served lawlessly in the Senate like
Gingrich did in the House. George Lakoff believes his
agenda involves much more than being president. It's
about advancing "a radical conservative future for
America."
He wants to continue decades of right-wing politics
and harden them. No matter who's president, he'll
succeed "unless Democrats dramatically change their
communication strategy" effectively.
Power isn't limited to becoming president. It's also
about controlling Congress, state and local
governments at all levels down to school boards.
Santorum wants the top job. Getting it will make him
maestro of misery. His web site asks "Why Rick?
saying:
He "became one of the most successful government
reformers in our history, taking on Washington's
powerful special interests from the moment he arrived
in our nation's Capitol."
Saying it gives chutzpah new meaning, but he added
more about "maintain(ing) fiscal sanity," supporting a
balanced budget, so-called responsible reforms,
leading the fight against America's threats, taking
credit for being "one of the most conservative
senators in Pennsylvania's history, and much more."
He ended saying he's "most proud of his role as a
husband and father" of seven children. How that
qualifies him for president wasn't explained.
On the issues, he says here's "where I stand," citing
the following:
His "first 100 days economic freedom agenda" includes:
- approving the Keystone XL Pipeline, no
responsible leader would allow;
- eliminating all anti-business regulations;
- cutting $5 trillion over five years, virtually
entirely targeting vital domestic programs, while at
the same time supporting annual defense spending
increases, as well as pro-business tax cuts and
other generous benefits;
- replacing Obamacare with entirely free-wheeling
corporate-run healthcare to do what they please and
charge what they wish;
- balancing the budget on the backs of America's
most vulnerable by eliminating vital programs they
need;
- cutting taxes for corporate America and
super-rich elites;
- supporting one-sided unfair "free trade"
agreements, benefitting US corporations at the
expense of trading partners;
- reforming entitlements by ending them; and
- reviving housing by letting corporate crooks
game the system freely for maximum profits.
He also promises "no more leading from behind for
America," saying:
He'll support America's global interests, including
its terror war on humanity, vilifying Islam for
political advantage, supporting Israel's worst crimes,
and replacing independent regimes with pro-Western
ones.
"It is time that America stop leading from behind and
stand for freedom once again. Pretending that this
battle isn't raging will not protect our families and
our interests, nor will it strengthen our allies; it
will only diminish our nation, increase our risk and
grow our security challenge."
"Stand for freedom," he added by ravaging the world
one country at a time, and leaving a trail of mass
deaths, destruction, and human misery behind.
Santorum combines racism, ignorance, militancy, and
pro-corporate/pro-war extremism. His agenda threatens
humanity. He'll make America more than ever unfair,
unstable, insecure, and unsafe.
Like Romney, Gingrich, and Obama, imagine America in
his hands. All of them advocate similar destructive
agendas. Ordinary people will be harmed most.
The Santorum's Skeleton Closet site calls him "one of
the most corrupt politicians in America." The clean
government group CREW twice named him one of the
nation's three most corrupt senators.
He bragged how he steered millions of earmark dollars
to lobbyist American Continental Group clients. They
paid him handsomely for services rendered. So did
Consol Energy and Universal Health Service (UHS) for
other corrupt practices.
In fact, UHS paid him $395,000 for "insights" after he
left the Senate and appointed him to its board. In
1995, he began his Senate tenure as one of its least
well-off members. When he left in 2007, he bought a $2
million Great Falls, VA home.
As part of Tom Delay's "K-Street project," he filled
lobbying groups with Republican loyalists. In return,
he earned $500,000, more than any other federal
official. He got rich by lying, cheating, and
betraying loyal constituents who elected him.
His public statements openly display racism, contempt
for the poor and disadvantage, attacking high-achiever
women as radical feminists, and numerous other
outrageous comments most people wouldn't think, let
alone say.
Imagine what's ahead if he's president. Imagine it
under Romney, Gingrich or Obama.
Given the post-9/11 path followed, the worst is yet to
come domestically and abroad unless grassroots rage
stops it.
If wanting better futures and imperial wars stopped
aren't worth fighting for, what is? If not now, when?
If not us, who? If that's not important enough, what
is?
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached
at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog
site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to
cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on
the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive
Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and
Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are
archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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