Democrats Work For Solutions; Republicans Pray The Problem Will Go Away.It's never been more true than during this, the fifth Bush year, and barring a turnaround in Congress, I don't see it ending anytime soon.
Take a look at the world around you, take a look at the big challenges and problems we face: Iraq, global warming, diseases, terrorism, Iran, China, Russia. Look at this administration's response to these problems.
Now look at what has their knickers in a twist: gay marriage and illegal immigration.
These are the issues the Republicans choose to focus on: non-problems. And boy, do they ever plow an enormous fount of energy into these suckers! Bill after bill after bill, all designed to eliminate a non-problem.
Gay marriage, for example. Who cares? My slick answer when asked about gay marriage is, "Sure, why should they get special treatment, let them be as miserable as the rest of us," but in truth, my feelings run pretty deep on this. Jesus tells us to accept people for who they are, and so long as there is love, we really don't have much to say in someone else's private affairs (Absenting children, of course, as Jesus was pretty clear how he felt about kids.)
Apparently, for Republicans, gay marriage ranks right after nuclear holocaust as a force that will destroy America. Using some bizarre calculus based on disparate Biblical passages, they actually have Jesus attacking homosexual behavior.
That's not the Jesus I know.
Illegal immigration is such a non-starter of an issue, I'm surprised someone hasn't cogently made the point that it deals with less than 4% of the population taking less than half a percent of the GDP, and that's based on the WORST estimates of services they use.
If a beggar came to me, and I had a hundred dollars in my pocket, would I give him 50 cents? You bet. Why should I care? That fifty cents will do him a lot more good than me, and maybe one day, he'll do something of fifty cents worth of value for me.
Yet here again, using this same "Republicalculus," Jesus is shunning these poor people.
That's not the Jesus I know.
Meanwhile, we have real issues to look at: Iraq, particularly in light of Haditha, has become a morass of a spider's web, so badly twisted and tangled that I'm not sure we can ever get out easily.
The right wing response to Haditha has been curious. "Let's not jump to conclusions, let the facts come out."
Yea, but think of Haditha in terms of members of the Bloods busting into four homes in Compton and killing 24 people, and you tell me what the reaction on the right would be? Because, in effect, that's what we have fighting in Iraq: not trained soldiers, but unsupported packs of the "Greens". Kilo Company, the band whose unit committed this atrocity, is 160 men patrolling a city of 90,000 civilians, many of whom it's fair to say look at the US troops as an occupation force, and who look upon their fellow citizens with suspicion and mistrust.
And this is their second (and for some, third) tour of duty in Iraq.
The Republican response to all this going on in Iraq? Nothing. "Stay the course."
Pray the problem goes away.
Global warming. Right now we are poised to be the hottest this planet has been in hundreds of millions of years, according to deep sea core samples taken and analyzed in the last five years. All this, when the planet should be heading towards a new Ice Age (sometime in the next three thousand years).
The Democrat response? Let's sign a worldwide treaty to limit emissions, and work with developing nations like India and China to leapfrog fossil fuel use to renewable energy sources.
The Republican response appears to be, "Let's wait for the Ice Age to fix things.
Pray the problem goes away.
Terrorism. The Democrat response was the appropriate one: hunt down the terrorists and bring them to justice (Canada seems to have taken the hint, as has the UK.) On President Clinton's watch, terrorists were caught, captured, tried, convicted and jailed, and even provided information regarding following attacks, including September 11.
The Republican response? Cut terror funding to the only cities hit by terrorists, while larding pork to small cities and towns that are crucial to their re-election efforts.
And pray the problem goes away.
And problems that I see, that others see, on the horizon: the showdown with China, the showdown with Russia, are being totally ignored by the "Ad hoc-licans" running this country now with their situational defensive efforts to fix shadows like Iran's nuclear capability. Make no mistake: unless we start to defuse the situation now, Russia and China will shortly confront us, the bully of the world, and there will be war.
"The West Wing" touched on this in its final season, having the US intervene in Kahzakstan between Russian and Chinese forces fighting over the oil fields, but let's take this one step further and realize that America is the single largest consumer of petroleum in the world, and we've been aggressively securing our supply from the Middle East.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out this *might* threaten the world's fastest growing petroleum consumer and one of its largest producers.
I hope George Bush is prayin' hard right now.
snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky
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