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Romney and Perry – America Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
more from Hrafnkell Haraldsson
The 2012 election offers a smorgasbord of the wacky and the terrible, from grifters to barking mad would-be messiahs. Taken as a whole (and forget for a moment that the mainstream media really, really wants you to take them seriously) this is probably the most bellicose yet mentally unbalanced field of Republican contenders in American history.
Just look at one potential match-up, between two men who had a heated exchange at Tuesday’s CNN-sponsored debate in Nevada – and what a terrible choice for America– Mitt Romney with his legal adviser Robert Bork claiming that women in this country do not face discrimination, or Rick Perry with his team doctoring climate reports to remove any mention of global warming being caused by human activity. Isn’t either position akin to denying the existence of gravity and air?
Patently, women do face discrimination. Patently, global warming is caused by human activity – 90 percent of climate scientists are convinced of this. Yet here we have two Republicans – a fundamentalist favorite on one hand and as close to an establishment Republican as you’ll find today on the other, who want to be president of the United States while denying reality a role in their proposed administrations.
What is America to do?
Bork, who was never much to be admired, hasn’t changed: he claims the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause should not apply to women. His logic? Because women make up the majority of college students, discrimination and inequality must be a thing of the past.
“I think I feel justified by the fact ever since then, the Equal Protection Clause kept expanding in ways that cannot be justified historically, grammatically, or any other way. Women are a majority of the population now—a majority in university classrooms and a majority in all kinds of contexts. It seems to me silly to say, ‘Gee, they’re discriminated against and we need to do something about it.’ They aren’t discriminated against anymore.”
This is the guy Romney made co-chair of his “Judicial Advisory Committee.” This is what he is selling America. A lie. One of many lies.
Rick Perry is just as dishonest. America should make no mistake: It’s not stupidity but dishonesty, another intentional lie. A recent report on rising sea levels in Galveston Bay had all mention of climate change expunged. Why? Because the truth is unacceptable.
When the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) produced its new State of the Bay report to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), Perry’s appointees to that commission refused to accept the inconvenient truth and edited out all mention of anthropogenic global warming.
Mother Jones provides a copy of the edited report via John Anderson, the Rice University oceanographer who wrote the chapter. You can view it here, and the changes that were made.
Doesn’t America deserve better than the choices the GOP offers?
But this is the Republican way – if you don’t like the truth, if the facts are unpalatable, you just make them go away. This was a popular practice under the Bush administration and Bush look-a-like Perry, who seems to have passed whatever test Texas governors have to pass in order to confound America as a whole, isn’t afraid to do the same thing. Peer reviewed research means nothing to ideologically driven Republicans. No, the Republicans would have us believe that it is geologists, lawyers and corporate CEOs (all employed by the fossil fuel industry) who really understand climate – not experts in the field.
And these people want to run our country. Americans should be afraid, and they should flock to their polling places in 2012 to make sure that they – and their descendents – are safe from this Republican-produced “world as it should be.” Because the only world we really have is the world that is, and we aren’t doing ourselves any favors by pretending anything other than the facts matter. Our children sure won’t thank us for hiding from them the fact that we knew the seas were rising, that we knew about it and did nothing because we didn’t think their futures were worth a dime.
Paul Krugman wrote about this tendency with regards to economics, calling it “rabbit -hole economics” – a “fantasy world where nothing looks or behaves the way it does in real life.” And it’s obviously not only economics but the environment, rights, and so much else besides. The real world does not match Republican conceptions of it and, as Krugman warns, “the prospect that one of these people may well be our next president is, frankly, terrifying.”
Truer words were never spoken. It’s a simple fact that you can’t try to interact with the universe as though it’s a universe of your conceptions rather than a universe as it is – pretending it is not cold will not keep your fingers from freezing. Pretending the seas are not rising will not keep your feet dry. Pretending cigarette smoke will not harm your lungs will not keep you safe from cancer.
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14 Responses to Romney and Perry – America Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
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Viva
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 8:26 am
America has a choice between the Republicans and Obama … which is the devil and which represents the deep blue sea?
Robert Chapman
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 11:02 am
PPACA, the Parient Protection and Affordable Care Act is the first universal health care bill passed since it was proposed by Harry Truman in 1948. This is a good bill that retains the patient choice and multi-payor aspects of successful national insurance plans in countries like France and Germany.
Ending the War in Iraq and winding down Afghanistan. Combat troops have been withdrawm from contact with the enemy and our footprint is being reduced in both countries.
A nuclear arms limitation treaty was passed and ratified in the lame duck session of Congress, a historic achievement that makes the outbreak of a nuclear conflict less likely.
The largerst inverstment in Green Technology under ARRA the American Recovery and Restoration Act- in addition this act, saved or created 3.5 million jobs. ARRA also provided enhanced funding for efforts to combat homelessness and hunger. Fewer people were forced onto the street or went hungry in Obams’s Recession than in Reagan’s Recovery,
Which is the devil, which is the deep blue sea? Facts speak louder than spin.
Sally
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 11:48 am
So it takes a gang of Republicans to beat the President? You have totally missed the point, probably on purpose. The GOP is the devil and should be thrown into the deep blue polluted sea…promptly!
Viva
Oct. 20th, 2011 at 12:37 pm
What IS the point? Read the headline again. America is not between the devil and the deep blue sea – only the Republicans are. You are the one making assumptions about it.
Anne
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 9:35 am
I have no problem choosing Obama. That said, we need a sane Congress that genuinely cares about the well-being of Americans as opposed to their perpetual campaigning for the next election. Although electing a president is only part of the process, I would hate to see any of these empathy-and-ethically challenged morons among the GOP candidates get anywhere near the White House. It is frightening to see them debase themselves to appeal to the lowest common demoninator among their base, appealing to anger, fear, and ignorance. They have no solutions among them, and what they keep suggesting has already been tried and found lacking.
Shiva (Moderator)
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 10:10 am
I don’t think you could pick a worse group of candidates for the office of president. A couple of freaked out religious nuts who are not letting out what their true agenda is, and that doesn’t even include Santorum. There are a bunch of people promising things that are contradictory to what reality is. I’d really be interested to know how you can raise defense spending higher than it already is, drop taxes and lower the deficit. Why they feel they need to raise defense spending is totally beyond me
Reynardine
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 10:15 am
I believed, and sincerely hoped, that Robert Bork had gone to a warm reward by now… But no.
For an example of how he construes the right of free speech, see “Neutral Principles and some First Amendment Problems”, an article he wrote originally in 1971 at Indiana State University but often reprinted in Constitutional law casebooks. His reasoning is: a. The only element of speech which enjoys special protection is “the spread of political truth”. b. Political truth is that which expresses the will of the political majority. c. Therefore, your speech is protected only when it agrees with the will of the political majority.
Reading that article in Constitutional law class was the first time I had ever heard of either Robert Bork or his nifty way of disappearing amendments he didn’t agree with, but when Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court, I swiftly recognized both him and his name. Our local chapter of the National Lawyers’ Guild immediately set about compendizing his decision for Senator Bob Graham, and in a joint delegation with several other groups, presented the Senator with the compendium and a succinct description of the high points. Bob Graham had seen a lot, but the one that made him wince was when Judge Bork held that Union Carbide, almost the sole employer in its region, had every right to require its female workers to be spayed as a condition of employment. This is an exampleof how he “Borks away” protections he doesn’t like; he has done as much with every other protection any part of the 99% have ever relied on to protect themselves. So this is what Governor Romney proposes to inflict on us again? I can only say, “It was not so, it is not so, and God forbid it should ever be so!”
Reynardine
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 10:22 am
Meant to write “decision”, of course; unfortunately, there were many.
Reynardine
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 11:22 am
The Al Jazeera site currently carries an article detailing how, in 2006, then- Governor Romney helped channel an enormous contribution from Bob Perry (no relation) to Rick through the Governors’ Association. Now, of course, under the Citizens United holding, no such subterfuge is necessary, since money is speech and the more money you have, the more you get to speak. (The “political majority”, you know)
A Walkaway
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 11:29 am
It’s a sad state of affairs when dollars have votes and people don’t.
Damian
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
And yet Ron Paul who put out a budget clearly outlining how to balance the budget, end the cease less wars gets no mention.
Black him out all you want. The people want actual change and the Constitution to be followed.
Laura
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
It’s funny to me that everyone keeps saying “Republicans this…” and “GOP that…” Yet the article is only about 2 specific candidates. It’s called generalization and it’s one of the many things that’s wrong with this country. It’s no different than someone saying they don’t like Obama so they hate all African-Americans. You don’t like Perry and Romney so you hate all Republicans. What’s wrong with this picture?
Read the Title
Oct. 19th, 2011 at 5:10 pm
This article is about Romney and Perry, who are seen by many as the two leading candidates for the Republican primary. As a result they ARE representative of the current Republican party’s presidential aspirations.
Please think about your comment next time before you post.
KatzKids
Oct. 20th, 2011 at 10:31 am
Romney is constantly trying to turn himself into the ideal tea party candidate. His latest – agreeing that if he were President he would support a PERSON-HOOD amendment. The wildest, most outrageous thing the RW Dominionist Rethuglicans are trying to perpetrate against women, harming the families as well.
The main reason the evangelicals want to defeat him at any cost is that he is Mormon. Both Perry & Romney are loathsome frauds as are the rest of the insane crew of contenders.