Republican presidential candidate and Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) called protesters who interrupted her speech Thursday "ignorant" and "disrespectful," while at a Veterans Day parade in Columbia, S.C. Friday.
"You capitalize on dividing Americans, claiming people that disagree with you are unpatriotic socialists," said the protesters, according to Mount Pleasant Patch. After local police escorted them out, Bachmann said, "Don't you just love the First Amendment?"
"They haven't been told what was done for them, and that's what's a shame," said Bachmann Friday while shaking hands at the parade, according to CNN. "And I think that as soon as they would know, if they understood the heavy price that was paid for that First Amendment right, they'd be much more respectful." --Huffington Post
The amazing thing is that at 4% in the polls, Bachman still
feels the need to double down on ignorance, pretty much all of them do, even
the "moderate" front runner. One has to ask when intelligence became
a burden in this country, and why decency and compassion have become things to
scorn and ridicule.
This is not just a symptom of the far right in the
republican side, it infects the entire field. Alright, maybe that’s not fair.
Hunstman, for the most part did not join the cabal, though Romney certainly
did. The rest of the candidates, including new front-runner eye of Newt are founding members.
The candidates run to the most extreme
position in a way that indicates that they believe they will be perceived as
weak if they do anything else. Every single moderate, or compassionate, or
humane posture is responded to with vitriol and anger by the other campaigns
and as importantly by the electorate they pursue, which then causes the said candidate
to stretch the previously stated position to extreme or to defend while also
running away either literally or figuratively from their previous posture. In this the criticism of Romney though an interesting narrative, a great story for the press, is marginally unfair. Almost all of the candidates, or at least the ones people are paying attention to, have had to back track from any sense of humanity.
Herman Cain says that in the case of rape and incest it should be a women’s choice whether to carry the pregnancy to term. Blasted the following day, he stiffens his position to oppose choice—his word the previous day--in all cases, even when a woman has been forcibly raped or attacked by her own father. Though he attacked boys, the specter of Sandusky and his allegedly brutal and vicious crimes, gives the theoretical resonance as millions contemplate the face of a monster day after day on the 6:00 news. Should a woman who is attacked in a similar manner be forced to carry the progeny of that crime to term? First Cain, somewhat humanely, said he would not want that, and that the government should have no role in the decision, and then he backtracked completely. And so it goes. After being blistered from the neo-fascist right the candidates with no moral compass evident, show “remorse” or something passing for it. Sufficiently sated the bloodthirsty horde (and the press), lacking any shade of grey or blot of humanity, move on and the story dies. But this season the stories have come, again, and again and again.
Rick Perry supported his state's efforts to assist undocumented alien in Texas with continuing educations—a state with upwards of 1.5 million—and is attacked first and foremost by the leading "moderate" in the race Mitt Romney. Never one to miss a chance to be on all sides of an issue the healthcare plan that Romney signed into law in Massachusetts covered undocumented aliens. But then there is virtually no part of the Massachusetts Health Care law that Romney thinks would be good for the country as a whole.
The “benefit” Perry supported in Texas, and to his credit defended at the debate, allows kids who are interested in bettering themselves through attaining a college education in state schools to receive in-state rates. Though they do pay tuition approximately 12,000 kids a year take advantage of the opportunity. Perry initially said those who would oppose this policy “didn’t have a heart”, but later backtracked to defend the much narrower economic justification. Heart is out of political fashion.
In Foreign Affairs and Security matters Obama has acted with a clarity seen in almost no other aspect of his administration, and in doing so he has completely upset the political calculation on this subject with the electorate. He has vigorously attacked The Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arabian Peninsula. I know that some may not support these actions, particularly the assassination of US citizen, Anwar Al Awlaki and his son in Yemen, but the fact is he has taken it to those who attacked on 9-11, and those who would do it again if given the chance. One thing Obama can’t be accused of is being soft on terrorists or those that give them shelter and comfort.
One would think, And then there's Iraq...
Despite the loss of more than 4,000 American and over 100,000 Iraqi lives, not including those killed by disease, bad drinking water and the malnutrition of chaos, today the Republicans – McCain leading the parade—attacked Defense Secretary Panetta and other military and civilian defense officials for a “failure of leadership” in Iraq. The Americans it seems refuse to cede to cede sovereignty to the Iraqis to try American soldiers they believe may have broken Iraqi laws. Neo-Cons on the right have gone cuckoo for coco puffs crazy in the last few weeks about the pull out, all the while ignoring the central principle which would have caused them to hang Obama in effigy if he had gone soft on that. The Washington Post’s Orwellian sage Krauthammer went so far as to say Obama was “turning victory into defeat”.
As most Americans remember-- but perhaps not-- chaos followed for months after the declaration of Victory. Bush’s defense guru Rumsfeld defended the circumstances, even as he was mystified about the lack of weapons of mass destruction. Along that time he made the vile statement that as civilian deaths mounted and chaos owned the streets that “stuff happens”. Thomas Ricks, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with extensive experience in military matters for the Washington Post called his book on Iraq “Fiasco”. And that it was. Ricks detailed extensively how the military on the ground was repeatedly overridden by civilian commanders in Washington. The decisions to outlaw the Baath party and to require all NGO’s to register with the Americans, effectively making them enemies to all parties, come under intense criticism, even as some American commanders allowed their troops to run amok among the civilian population. A disciplined Petraeus was not among them. Somehow the arrogance that cloaked every decision in a fine mist made America troops enemies to both the Sunnis and the Shiite. Nation building became the only hope for rationalizing the spectacular failure. Somehow after all of this, the Republicans now have identified a failure of leadership. Then on Saturday night, two of the least informed canddiates slipped right by the moral, legal and ethical issues arising from the practice of waterboarding, not to mention the danger it presents American troops in the field. They proudly joined Dick Cheney in support of the technique. Why does stupidity feel like such a good response to angry people?
In this season of debates and campaigns there had s been an orgy of intolerance and thuggery, leading to a series of definitive conclusions:
1) The
Death Penalty is good, 200+ is a standard of accomplishment worth applauding rather
than a symbol of failure in a community
2) Gay
soldiers have no first amendment rights. Alright, maybe they do, but merely
stepping forward and asking a question is cause for catcalls from the rabble
3) People
with no health insurance should die, although “death panels” are to be deplored
I pretty much get that when people speak against the
powerful and the powerfully corrupt, those that have something to guard will do
all sorts of things to protect the palaces of their power. The big centers of
power-- whether monopolies in the early part of the 20th century,
the racist power structure, or the military industrial complex are more than capable
of rallying the powerless in support of their goals. Strikebreakers working for
industrialist monopolies incited violence against unions, bigots bombed churches
in support of the business community in Birmingham and across the South, and construction goons with
hardhats defended Nixon’s policies with ruthless violence.
Bachman, with something of Douglas Neidermayer in her, a
quality so easy to despise, explains that OWS does not understand the sacrifices
others made in defense of first amendment principles. Similar arguments were
pressed against Dr. King by supposedly sympathetic white ministers in
Birmingham in 1963. At least they acknowledged the just nature of his cause even as they cautioned King and his followers to slow down. In April of that year, just months before the March on Washington, King responded in part:
“…I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities
and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what
happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We
are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of
destiny…
You deplore the
demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to
say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about
the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with
the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does
not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are
taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's
white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.” Perhaps Representative Bachman is just ignorant. But in matters of consequence, right and wrong, good and evil, ignorance should never be preceded with the limitation of ‘‘just”. In those cases ignorance is the absolute enemy. And still she doubles down.
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