Krugman Scores Again

by Rich Miles

Here's the paragraph of the week, from Paul Krugman of the New York Times and Princeton University. I tried to reduce it to one sentence, but I couldn't do it. So, for your reading enjoyment:

It seems almost superfluous, given all that, to mention the final insult: many of the most vocal austerians are, of course, hypocrites. Notice, in particular, how suddenly Republicans lost interest in the budget deficit when they were challenged about the cost of retaining tax cuts for the wealthy. But that won’t stop them from continuing to pose as deficit hawks whenever anyone proposes doing something to help the unemployed.

I mean, ain't that great??? This from a column entitled "Appeasing the Bond Gods", in which Dr. Krugman shows us how Republican operatives are treating the bulk of the American people like human sacrifices whose only function is to appease the gods.

I've probably said this before, but I think based on Krugman's column today and on current circumstances in our country, it bears saying again: What do the repugs plan to do for servants and peons, once they wipe all of us poor and middle-class people out? When I first posed the question, I intended it to be more or less humorous, but as time passes it seems a more and more serious concern for the poor Repugnicans. If all of us Democrats and other lefties are reduced to struggling skeletons fighting each other for scraps of food, or worse if we start dying of starvation, which is the logical extreme of Republican policy, then what will the fat cats do for valets, butlers, cooks, etc.? Surely they won't have to polish their own shoes, prepare their own meals, wipe their own asses, etc., etc., etc?

OK, so it's a long time till that happens - but the process has to start somewhere. And driving the bulk of the middle and lower classes to abject poverty is, as far as I can see, a good first step toward it. And they (the repugs) have been embarked on this mass murder for at least 40 years, since Nixon was president.

Add to this direct effort at impoverishing us, there are wars to kill off our young men, ignoring global warming, and for all I really know a concerted effort to purchase land away from the coasts, so when global warming kicks in, and the ice caps melt, and the coasts close in on us, they'll have some place to go, and we won't.

There is lots more, but I'll leave that to your imagination. I also realize how paranoid this whole article is. I at least acknowledge that there is no organized plot to achieve this - at least, not yet.

But if the gap between the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor continues to widen, as it has done for the past 25-40 years, none of this - NONE of it, mind you - is impossible. No matter how unlikely it may seem, it's not impossible.

Read your science fiction. Note how much of what USED to be science fiction is now fact. And consider how much more could become so. Try reading "The Handmaid's Tale", by Margaret Atwood, to see how people can become second, third or lower-class citizens in the service of the wealthy. In Atwood's tale, rented or hired wombs. In The Terminator, men vs. machines, machines created by wealthy men who wanted control of Earth. And of course, Harlan Ellison's I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, among many others he wrote that spoke to the same topic.

Men like Paul Krugman are, whether they know it or not, fighting against these sorts of things. Unfortunately, before most of us will join the battle, we will require proof that amounts to nearly losing the battle. That's called complacency.

In the paragraph of the week above, substitute "the poor and lower classes" for "the unemployed", and it works much better for the right-wing extremists. Or maybe even "the unwashed lower classes". Or worse.

This one is positively criminal!

by Rich Miles

Well, we've all watched Rand Paul stumble, slash, lie and apologize his way through this campaign, and I don't know about you, but it makes me tired just to watch him. I want the campaign to be over so I don't have to wake up almost daily to his latest faux pas or lie or idiocy or whatever.

But this one - the moronic remark du jour - is just too much. He's crossed over the line from stupidity to genuinely aiding and abetting criminal behavior. My friend Bob over at Blue Bluegrass has detailed for us today (8/13) how stupid Rand has declared that the drug problem in eastern Kentucky is not a pressing issue.

I mean, what kind of total moron would say such a thing? Surely no one who has ever been to Eastern Kentucky for longer than 5 minutes. Surely no one who has any friends or relatives in that part of the state (or indeed, anywhere in the state). Surely no one who has ever read a state-based newspaper with a bureau in the eastern half of the state.

Surely no one with an effing BRAIN IN HIS HEAD.

I mean, fer cryin' out loud, there were 114 overdose deaths in the 21-county area in the first - wait for it - TWO MONTHS of this year!! And Bubblehead Paul thinks that Kentuckians won't miss the Operation UNITE anti-drug task force because most of us haven't even heard of it. And most of the voters in the region will vote for him because he and they are socially and fiscally conservative.

While the high-powered rifle fire is passing through their homes....

I'm serious - this remark from Rand Paul is no less than aiding and abetting criminal enterprise. In order to take a tiny little bit of pressure off the federal budget, we should let an extremely vicious and ruthless criminal element just ply their trade unimpeded. It's hard to interpret this any other way. Except perhaps that Rand doesn't think the loss of an average 57 Kentuckians a month, nearly 2 a DAY, to overdoses is any big deal.

Does this anger you? Does it anger you even a bit worse that the man who said all this now wants your vote in getting him elected to the Federal legislature, where he can actually vote on such actions and perhaps help them get passed?

Is he going to apologize for this one too? And if so, Republicans, are you going to let the apology count?

Or is it time yet to kick this clown to the curb? Hasn't anyone else gotten as sick of this little dweeb as I have?

I simply don't know where else to go with this. I can't imagine an adult saying something like this. But then, we're not really sure Rand Paul is an adult.

Whup his ass, Jack. PLEASE!!!!!