Len Hart

It may not be the Twilight of the Gods, but, with any luck, it could be a permanent brownout of the GOP --not a political party but a crime syndicate, an evil cult, a the body politic'.

Even the New York Times concedes that election Day exit polls may have sent shivers down the GOPs notochord. According to to the numbers, the GOP is literally 'withering away'.

More than six-in-ten Americans (62%) say they have a positive opinion of the Democratic Party, compared with 40% who say they have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party. The current Democratic favorability advantage is the largest measured in nearly two decades. The widening gap is primarily a result of an increase in favorable views of the Democratic Party since the election, up from 57% in late According to a poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News this month, only 21 percent of respondents said that they consider themselves Republicans. This was the lowest percentage for that response since The Times started asking the question in 1992. By comparison, nearly twice as many respondents said that they consider themselves Democrats.

--Pew Report

"We're all concerned about the fact that the very wealthy and the very poor, the most and least educated, and a majority of minority voters, seem to have more or less stopped paying attention to us, and we should be concerned that, as a result of all this, the Republican Party seems to be slipping into a position of being more of a regional party than a national one."

--New York Times, Whither the Republicans?

• The invasion of Iraq was terrible policy to begin with, dreamt up by neo-con theorists in the Project for the New American Century in the late 1990's. It was always a bad idea to spontaneously invade and occupy a country that did not attack us and with a population that did not want us there. When has that ever ended well? That the policy was justified by intentionally misleading the country on WMD intelligence shows just how bad an idea it was from the start. There was no good reason to do it. Further, any mistakes that were made during the occupation, especially those by private contractors, would never receive serious oversight. The modern conservative movement has no intention of holding private companies accountable for anything. They certainly have no intention of holding their leaders, such as Rumsfeld and Rice, accountable for anything, since the only thing the conservative movement ever holds their leaders accountable for is being pro-choice. Iraq was always going to be a disaster, and the mistakes made would never be fixed. That is inherent to the Republican Party in the age of the conservative movement. It wasn't a "mistake."
• The attempt to privatize, and thus destroy, Social Security was run by Republicans and the conservative movement with as much political smarts as any other legislative campaign they have run since 1994. However, the difference was that Democrats and the progressive movement actually successfully fought back. This wasn't a Republican mistake--destroying Social Security has been a goal of the conservative movement for nearly fifty years. It is just what they do. Again, this was inherent to the Republican system of governance in the age of the conservative movement, but Democrats and the progressive movement just managed to throw a wrench into the machine with an effective defense.
• The Foley scandal is also the point of Republican governance in the era of the conservative movement. As brilliantly document in the 2005 book Off Center, in order to continue to govern with a radical agenda far out of line with the majority of the country, it has been necessary for conservative Republicans to operate on a powerful 50% + 1 strategy for many years. Republicans have consistently pulled power grabs in order to maintain their narrow majority through tactics such as mid-decade redistricting and voter suppression. Thus, it makes perfect sense that Republicans would cover up for a child predator as long as it meant they could keep another seat in Congress. Cover-ups in order to maintain power are inherent to the 50% + 1 strategy employed by the Republican Party in the era of the modern conservative movement. Again, this wasn't a mistake--that is just how they operate.

• When it comes to Katrina, in the era of the conservative movement, it is in no way surprising that incompetent cronies led ineffective disaster relief operations in areas where poor people and minorities live. The crony part is a gimme: people are rewarded in the modern conservative movement for supporting the movement, not for being good at their jobs, or even qualified for their jobs. It also is in no way surprising that a movement which proclaims its desire to "drown government in a bathtub" wasn't exactly well prepared to have a governmental organization respond to a disaster of this scale. And heck, since African-American in New Orleans are not exactly a demographic the movement sees as key to maintaining its 50% + 1 majority, there wasn't an immediately apparent political need to respond with utmost urgency. Maybe if New Orleans had several women in persistent vegetative states on life support, and each of them happened to have huge, conservative, white evangelical followings, then the Bush administration would have been better prepared to capably respond. But, since it wasn't key to their own base, it wasn't high on the list of priorities.

  --Republicans Are Not Losing Because of "Mistakes"

In this case, I am not reluctant to say: "I told you so!" I told you so! Repeatedly, I have stated that the GOP is NOT a political party; it is a crime syndicate, a kooky cult! GOP policies were intended to enrich its base and they succeeded in doing that. As of this moment about ONE PERCENT of the nation owns more than about 90 percent or more of the rest us combined. The salaries of CEOs have risen exponentially since 1980, the year of Reagan's ascension if not his apotheosis.

The heads of America's 500 biggest companies received an aggregate 54% pay raise last year. As a group, their total compensation amounted to $5.1 billion, versus $3.3 billion in fiscal 2003.

We define total compensation as salary and bonus plus "other" compensation, which includes vested restricted stock grants and "stock gains," the value realized from exercising stock options during the just-concluded fiscal year.

For those companies in which the chief executive has been in office six years or longer, we looked at average six-year total compensation and compared this to long-term stock performance of industry peers as well as the overall stock market. We ranked 189 chief executives in our performance versus pay scorecard.

--Forbes

B.R. (before Reagan) anyone earning 100,000 dollars per year was earning real money. Today, it is doubtful that 100,000 dollars would make a down payment on even a modest River Oaks (Houston) mansion. CEO salaries in 1970 (including bonus packages) averaged $700,000 or about 25 times 'worker' salaries. By the year 2000, CEO salaries approached $2.2 million, some 90 times average worker salaries. [See:2004 study on CEO pay by Kevin J. Murphy and Jan Zabojnik].

Don't believe the marlarky peddled by business publications that CEOs increase the tax base! As long as there are 'tax dodges' the gulf between 'tax base' and 'revenues' will never close. If what the business publications say were true, why have trillions been exported to offshore tax dodges since the ascension of Ronnie Reagan? CEOs salaries do not increase the tax base. They subvert it! Wealth does not trickle down; it rushes upward and leaves behind an impoverished nation on the brink of another GOP 'great depression'.

The causes of depression now as then are greed and lies! Wealth did not trickle down then. It has not trickled up since Ronald Reagan began the trend with this improvidenct, 'supply side' tax cut of 1982 which his own Budget Director, David Stockman, called a 'trojan horse'. A 'Trojan Horse' is a deadly virus that pretends to be something it is not. Disguised, it infiltrates the body politic, the body 'economic'. GOP 'supply side' theories were to the economy as AIDS was to the populace: a deadly infestation -- 'canker on the body politic' --for which there has been no cure and little treatment since the ascension and, later, the apotheosis of the 'Great Communicator', Ronald Reagan, about whom GOPPERS still swoon: "he made us feel good about ourselves!"

Addendum:

A statue of shoes, erected in honor of an Iraqi journalist who dared to express his outrage over Bush's capital crimes against the people of Iraq, has been ordered taken down. Let's protest this decision by sharing pictures of shoes on as many 'inter-tube' sites as will allow you to post them.

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By: Len Hart With Any Luck --the End of the GOP, via The Existentialist Cowboy