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| Unintelligent Design |
Just when we thought the Republican freak show had reached its apogee with Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum has burst forth in all his glory, fire and brimstone, spiked garter belts and chains. Even his own daughter inadvertently admits that he is demented. "So, here we go", she blogged last summer on Backstage with the Santorums. "We are out of the gates and into the race … and what a crazy journey it will be!"
Actually, Daddy did not so much decide to run for president, as he was called by God. In the same blog entry, Elizabeth Santorum writes that it took "months of discernment" for "Our Father", as she calls him, to announce. Not discussions with the family, nor talks with think tanks and pollsters. Discernment is a Catholic theological term, a form of soul-searching and meditation so intense that one can reach the point of literal arousal by the Holy Spirit. It goes way beyond prayer. It's what happens when a religious person is "called" by God to a vocation as a priest or nun. I think it is fairly obvious that Rick Santorum is not so much running for public office as he is on a one-man crusade to impose his medievalist oddball fantasies on an unsuspecting body politic.
Direct from the Eldest Daughter of the Santorum Cult/Clan:
Yesterday was a big day in the Santorum household. After long months of discernment, my father has decided to run for president of the United States of America. This morning, as I drove my sister Sarah Maria to school, she looked over at me and said, “Wow. I think I’m still absorbing how important yesterday was!” I had to agree.What a typical family, right down to the authentic dialogue, huh? But I have one quibble. Elizabeth says she drove her younger sister to school. Aren't the Santorum spawn all supposed to be home-schooled by the parents? At least, that is what Dad brags about. Or are the kids driven around the block a few times before they are dropped right back at Home School? Is Home School the name of an elite private academy nestled amidst the Homeland Security complex in Northern Virginia, where the Santorums have a home and initially got Pennsylvania state funding for their Home School? I emailed the campaign to ask, but they have not yet replied. Do I discern a brush-off?
So, I’ll give a recap of yesterdays “behind the scenes” excitement. My Dad spent the morning doing radio and television interviews, while my Mom and I got all six of my siblings ready to go. As you can imagine, getting everyone ready is never an easy task. From “Oh no, did you pack the hairbrush?” to “Patrick, those had better not be grass stains on your khakis,” let’s just say that we averted several minor crises. Bella is often the easiest to get ready because she always looks adorable in whatever she’s wearing. Her sweet smile and peaceful demeanor are a constant source of joy for our family.
(The Santorum sons did go to an all-boys Catholic school in Washington, DC for a time -- see above Opus Dei link. The place was so insulated that rumor had it that secular mothers put condoms in their son's Christmas stockings.)
The Ricktus (he has the preternatural grin of a surprised corpse) was all over the TV this morning, rantsoruming about Obama's "phony ideology." Unfortunately, he is not complaining about presidential corporatism or crony capitalism or even the usual straw-man socialism, because Rick unabashedly adores the One Percent God. Monuments and statues are erected in honor of the titans of industry and finance, says Rick, who probably missed the chapters on heresy and idol worship in Catechism Class. It is the Gospel of Inequality Rulz!
He also seems to take the story of Adam and Eve quite literally. He sunk even deeper into his own primordial ooze when he told one TV interviewer that Obama is wrong to put the fate of the earth before Man, who shall have dominion over it:
"I wasn't suggesting the president's not a Christian. I accept the fact the president's a Christian. I just said that when you have a world view that elevates the world above man, and says that we can't take those resources because we're going to harm the Earth by things that are frankly just not scientifically proven, like for example the politicization of the whole global warming debate, I mean this is just all an attempt to centralize power and give more power to the government. This is not questioning the president's beliefs in Christianity. I'm talking about the belief that man should be in charge of the Earth, and have dominion on it, and be good stewards of it."The anti-Environmental Protection Agency crowd must have loved this. The checks from the polluting Koch Brothers are in the mail even as we speak.
Rick, along with alcoholic Arizona Governor Jan Drinkwine Brewer, also seems to have a severed head fetish. In his Saturday column, New York Times writer Charles Blow recounts how Santorum has actually foretold the Second Coming of the French Revolution:
Obama as Robespierre. Ohhh-kay. Somebody needs to stage an intervention. Or a casting call for The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade!Also last week, he suggested that liberals and the president were leading religious people into oppression and even beheadings. I kid you not. Santorum said: “They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is a government that gives you rights. What’s left are no unalienable rights. What’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine.”
3 comments:
While these clowns are fun to laugh at for their pure gall and idiocy, there is no way those in power at the RNC are going to allow a nutcase like that win the nomination. No, this is just a ploy to make Republicans think they actually have a choice and to make Mittens look good in comparison. These nutcases appeal to the fringe - in this case religious zealots - but not enough to get the nomination.
The main purpose they serve is to distract the American population from the real issues being slid under the rug like income disparity, perpetual bank bailouts, and the demonising of Iran and America's constant search for a new war to fight.
Matt Weidner wrote yesterday "The AG Mortgage Sellout Will Lead to Social Upheaval" and "Notice I didn’t say, "may lead to". I said "will lead to". This is as clear as day. You cannot continue to heap injustices upon a people, you cannot destroy the foundations and basic elements of a people’s law and not have those people finally rise up in protest." Matt is a Florida foreclosure defense lawyer and former Republican.
http://mattweidnerlaw.com/blog/2012/02/the-ag-mortgage-sellout-will-lead-to-social-upheaval/
Anyone still skeptical about the possibility of civil unrest?
Just to be clear, I do not condone civil unrest. It is a symptom of a broken system. Other than serving notice to TPTB, riots are often counterproductive. The parties responsible for the unrest are usually far removed. Instead the police and local people suffer. The remark by Zee in the previous thread shows the view of many:
"So was violence an immediate "help" to black people in the wake of Martin Luther King's assassination? I'm inclined to say "no."
The violence was not intended to help anyone, it was a spontaneous expression of frustration by the disenfranchised. 248 years passed from 1619 when enslaved Africans arrived at Jamestown, to the 13th Amendment that officially ended slavery in 1865. It was another 100 years until the civil rights act was passed. So 348 years is a long time for a people to wait for freedom, to just peacefully sit back when their leader was assassinated. How many centuries should the oppressed peacefully wait for justice from their oppressor? Even today the King family does not believe the real killer was ever brought to justice, and brought a wrongful death lawsuit against Loyd Jowers.
On December 8, 1999 a Memphis jury found Loyd Jowers and other unknown co-conspirators assassinated King by a conspiracy that included agencies of the U.S. government, and that James Earl Ray was used a scapegoat.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/who-killed-martin-luther-king/
This was also reported in the New York Times Dec-10-1999
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/10/us/dr-king-s-slaying-finally-draws-a-jury-verdict-but-to-little-effect.html
"At a news conference here today, seated at a table with a view of Dr. King's crypt, the civil rights leader's widow and children made it clear that they now consider the case closed. The ''most incredible coverup of the century'' has now been exposed, said Dexter Scott King, one of Dr. King's four children."
''We know what happened,'' Mr. King said. ''This is the period at the end of the sentence. So please, after today, we don't want questions like 'Do you believe James Earl Ray killed your father?' I've been hearing that all my life. No, I don't, and this is the end of it.''
"In Washington, where Justice Department investigators have been reviewing aspects of the assassination at the request of the King family, officials said today that the Memphis verdict was unlikely to alter their review. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department's report was nearly complete and that criminal charges were not likely to be brought." (Eric Holder, now US Attorney General) (Both Kennedys and MLK killed by lone gunmen? And the banksters are still walking around?)
An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1844672859/
Likewise with the 1992 L.A. riots. It made no sense for rioters to attack motorists and shopkeepers when it was the police who beat Rodeny King. But it is also unlikely that the acquitted officers would have been retried if not for the riot. That is not a justification, just a fact of life.
Those against civil unrest have a duty to provide alternatives to the disenfranchised. The Occupy movement appears stalled, out of ideas. The link provided by Valerie to the FOX video of Judge Napolitano’s rant is one more example that our political duopoly is an illusion of democracy.
So what are the current options?
1. Conform, as expressed by Pres. Obama, "eat your peas" and "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'" and support his agenda of corporatism, the military empire, and a corrupt banking system.
2. Rebel or Occupy, with futile police confrontations, and unsustainable encampments.
3. Head for the hills, i.e. Chris Hedges, drop out of the system.
4. Wait for the system to crash, i.e. as a result of financial meltdown, and hope for better governance in the aftermath.
What are we doing for more options, for real workable solutions?
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