FLAIT

One of the continuing themes of this blog has been that Republicans and the right must oppose and attack whatever Democrats and the left are saying. They have to, or else whatever sense the liberals were making would resonate and prove right-wing propaganda and talking points wrong. And they can not, under any circumstances, allow that to happen.

As I wrote in that 2010 link above:

The 1988 Presidential election between George Bush and Michael Dukakis was a turning point in electoral politics because it wasn't just the beginning of ruthless attack politics, but showed what would happen to a candidate and his campaign if those attacks went unanswered. The Bush campaign bombarded Dukakis with one attack after another but he didn't respond to any of them. And the rest is history.

The Republican "Party" and their propaganda machine learned a lot from that. Not only that candidates must respond to every single attack, but that you can use the same strategy to keep the truth from resonating. For example, if someone believes the world is flat, and you want them to continue believing that, you can by attacking and tearing at the credibility of anyone who says the world is round.

Because facts and the truth aren't unfair attacks based on lies, it's not entirely like responding to an unfair political attack based on lies because in this case you're firing the first salvo as if it was an unfair attack based on lies. And that's the key. It's an offensive attack against the truth, not a defensive response against lies...

We all know (the 2008 stock market/economy crash) was caused by deregulating the banks, investment banks and insurance companies (for "competition" reasons) and also a lack of regulation of the derivative markets (credit default swaps and collateralized debt obligations). So the right took a big hit because it was their entire mantra - "competition," "free markets," "less government," "deregulation," "no regulation," and "let the industry police itself" - that was responsible for bringing the global economy to its knees. So they had to come up with something to deflect that blame and pin it somewhere else. And that's exactly what they did when they blamed it on the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act which required banks to lend money in low income neighborhoods. So the financial collapse was all Jimmy Carter's fault. And Bill Clinton's (even though he strengthened the CRA). And ACORN's!

But the CRA, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and ACORN (obviously) had nothing to do with the crash. The right made it up.

Paul Krugman explains this revisionist history:

...the way to understand the "Barney Frank did it" school of thought about the (financial) crisis is that it's an attempt to turn a huge defeat for conservative ideas into a win. The reality of the financial crisis was that deregulation...led to an economic catastrophe of the kind that just didn’t happen during the 50 years or so when we had effective bank regulation.

So the right's answer is to claim not just that the government did it, but that it caused the crisis by its attempts to reduce inequality! It's kind of a masterstroke, in an evil way. (Bold mine.)

Mr. Krugman provides an example of how GOP talking points gets them all tangled into knots.

...Republicans — who normally insist that the government can’t create jobs, and who have argued that lower, not higher, federal spending is the key to recovery — have rushed to oppose any cuts in military spending. Why? Because, they say, such cuts would destroy jobs...

At a fundamental level, the opponents of any serious job-creation program know perfectly well that such a program would probably work, for the same reason that defense cuts would raise unemployment. But they don’t want voters to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda — keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay. (Bold mine.)

And prevent their rhetoric from being called out for what it is.

So the right will take the opposite opinion of the left's, the extreme opposite opinion, because they have to, then make stuff up to defend that position regardless of how hypocritical (also here), ignorant, wrong (also here) and foolish it makes them look. That creates the conflict and confrontation they're looking because it gives them the opportunity to fire the first salvo by attacking their enemies credibility. And on cue, the well trained right-wing base will grab their torches and pitchforks and come to their "party's" aid, no questions asked. So whatever the left was saying gets lost in all the noise. And that's what they're trying to do with the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Republican Rep. Peter King:

"The fact is these people are anarchists. They have no idea what they're doing out there," King said. "They have no sense of purpose other than a basically anti-American tone and anti-capitalist. It's a ragtag mob basically." King, whose Long Island district includes many Wall Street commuters, dismissed the demonstrators as "a bunch of angry 1960s do-overs" trying "to create chaos and take away the focus on the Obama record."

Republican Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, whose top contributor is Wall Street:

"If you read the newspapers today, I for one am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country," he said. Cantor appeared (to) try and connect the protests to the cries of "class warfare" Republicans are lobbing at President Obama’s jobs bill and his Buffett Rule. He attacked Nancy Pelosi for praising the protests yesterday.

"Believe it or not, some in this town have actually condoned the pitting of Americans against Americans," Cantor said.

(Cantor did retreat a bit from his comments.)

Glenn Beck also got into the action:

"It will be the Night of Long Knives. It will be a purging of this country." This was a seeming reference to the political murders carried out by the Nazis in 1934. Beck then turned to "capitalists," and here his warning was even starker and more graphic:

"Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsies with these people, you're wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you...they're Marxist radicals...these guys are worse than Robespierre from the French Revolution...they'll kill everybody."

And naturally Fox "News" did their part:

According to Fox News, the thousands of Communists, anarchists, eco-feminists, malingerers, and professional protesters taking part in OWS are actually being guided by a reconstructed ACORN. The "fair and balanced" news organization alleges that OWS is being funded and controlled by former ACORN activists under new names who are using shady practices to collect money for OWS under false pretenses. Will this turn out like that time that a certain prominent news organization alleged George Soros was funding OWS?

Hey, Fox left out big government socialists.

(November 19 insert: Fox identified the White House shooter as the "Occupy shooter" even though he didn't have ties to OWS. Actually, his "thinking" is more in line with Fox "News" viewers and Tea Party supporters. The right did the same thing when they stuck a liberal label on the Tucson shooter, Jared Loughner, even though he too had more in common with right-wing extremists.)

The right has also tried to discredit OWS and divert attention of their cause by accusing it of anti-semitism. They also tried to "mock and undermine" the movement by deliberately causing a ruckus at a Washington D.C. protest.

So the right has used a barrage of attacks, lies, spin, exaggerations and mischief to try and discredit and demonize OWS. Whatever it takes. It's pretty much the same strategy the right always uses. But with the anti-semitism accusations, the incident in Washington and the incessant attacks, it goes to show how desperate they are to ensure that the message the protestors are trying to get across doesn't; or at least destroy their credibility. And they have the propaganda machine to do it.

It's incredible. How can anyone oppose what OWS is protesting? Wall Street destroyed the economy because of massive fraud, greed and recklessness. And while millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes because of it - including jobs and homes held by right-wing conservatives, I'm sure - the bankers responsible weren't only bailed out by taxpayers, made whole and received their million dollar bonuses, but weren't investigated, weren't prosecuted and weren't thrown in jail. And to top it off, the poor, middle class and senior citizens have to pay for all those sweetheart deals and all that government largess in the form of spending cuts, pension cuts, and possible cuts to Social Security and Medicare, not to mention losses to their retirement accounts. And yet, the right is doing everything in its power to destroy OWS as if they're responsible for wrecking the economy (I recommend watching this clip of comedian George Carlin predicting much of this in 2005. NSFW.).

Robert Scheer on this lunacy:

(Robert) Rubin was rewarded for his efforts on behalf of Citigroup with a top job as chairman of the bank’s executive committee and at least $126 million in compensation.

That was "compensation" for steering the bank to the point of a bankruptcy avoided only by a $45 billion taxpayer bailout and a further guarantee of $300 billion of the bank’s toxic assets.

In another column, Mr. Scheer writes:

There is no three-strikes law for crooked bankers, not even a law for a fifth strike, as The New York Times reported in the case of Citigroup, cited last month in a $1 billion fraud case. Unlike the California third-striker I once wrote about whom a district attorney wanted banished forever to state prison for stealing a piece of pizza from the plate of a person dining outdoors, Citigroup executives get off with a fine and by offering a promise not to do it again, and again and again...

This time, the fine against Citigroup was $285 million, which may sound like a lot except that the bank raked off as much as $700 million on this particular toxic securities deal...

...that corporation was not the only serial offender. "Citigroup has a lot of company in this regard on Wall Street," the Times noted, "nearly all of the biggest financial companies—Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America among them—have settled fraud cases by promising that they would never again violate an antifraud law, only to have the SEC conclude they did it again a few years later."

In a story well worth reading that praises the judge for not allowing these "settlements," Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi goes into more detail:

Over the last decade, Citi has repeatedly been caught committing a variety of offenses, and time after time the bank has been dragged into court and slapped with injunctions demanding that they refrain from ever engaging the same practices ever again. Over and over again, they’ve completely blown off the injunctions, with no consequences from the state – which does nothing except issue new (soon-to-be-ignored-again) injunctions.

In this current case, this particular unit at Citi had already been slapped with two different SEC cease-and-desist orders barring it from violating certain securities laws...

But the SEC avoided the issue of the 2003 injunction by charging Citi with a different type of fraud. But, as Bloomberg points out, it probably wouldn’t have mattered much if they had accused Citi of violating the 2003 injunction, since the bank had already done that once and not been punished for it...

Hunter over at Daily Kos asks some obvious questions about this:

...it begs the question of why on earth the SEC even exists...How much profit can a company make, via fraudulent behavior? If a company can be as crooked as it wants, and the only punishment government will inflict is a small tax on their crookedness, then why would anyone be the slightest bit surprised if the whole damn encompassing industry turned out crooked?

The SEC's lax enforcement of its own rules, coupled with the constant trafficking of personnel to and from the very companies being regulated, leads to the obvious question: Is the SEC, itself, crooked? Are they going out of their way to procure such lenient settlements, and to willfully ignore past infractions, as some sort of banks-are-better-than-us economic policy—or just as personal favor to those same banks?

This is exactly what the Occupy movement, not to mention most of the rest of the public, is talking about. There is no substantive punishment for crooked behavior on Wall Street. Even when that behavior threatens the entire nation's economy, which should be a damn scary thought right there, it will be met only with an easily payable cash fine, and nothing else. Bonuses will remain the same. Nobody in a position of significant power will go to jail. No past injunctions will be enforced, no serious obstacles to committing similar frauds in the future will be enacted ... nothing. Not a damn thing. (Bold mine, italics his.)

'Nuff said.

Just prior to OWS, the right attacked Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, hard, because of her emotional viral video diatribe in which she went after conservative "ideals" and explained what America's social contract should be (actually, Republicans had been attacking her before she even announced her run for Senate. It began when she became a fierce advocate for the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because protecting consumers from complicated financial products and its fine print is long overdue big government. So the GOP not only attacked her and the CFPB, but blocked her or anyone else from becoming its administrator because A) the banks don't want to be regulated at all, and B) Republicans are afraid it would work and prove them wrong, and as usual). They attacked her credibility and blasted her for engaging in "class warfare." Of course they did, they had to, because for once an intelligent liberal called out right-wing propaganda and talking points for what they are and it scared the hell out of them. So they had to go on the attack to prevent what she said from resonating with the public at large; or at least their right-wing base. And, on cue, they joined the fight.

So first they go after Mrs. Warren, an intellect who took on right-wing propaganda head on. And then they went after the OWS protestors. Wait for it...three...two...one...Republicans attack Elizabeth Warren for Occupy Wall Street. And...Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS attack ad links Elizabeth Warren and Occupy Wall Street.

Goes to show how concerned and panicked the right is with Mrs. Warren. Of course they are, they've always been; because unlike the rest of the liberals, she's smart, articulate and not afraid to take on Republicans and their propaganda. So she's a threat to the conservative establishment.

Anger, intimidation and confrontation is all they have. Just like school yard bullies.

So as I've pointed out, and proven, Republicans and the right pick fights with Democrats and the left solely to protect their conservative propaganda and dogma. They have to because if it's ever be called out for what it is, and it goes unchallenged they don't attack it and the "liberal" who said it, they fear it'll resonate, and consequently, will lose their millions of supporters, torches and pitchforks (fat chance as it is).

The right's attacks on OWS has also confirmed another of this blog's themes.

Whenever Republicans/the right accuse Democrats/the left of, well, anything, it's A) not true and B) an indictment of themselves. Because whatever accusation they make, they're usually always describing themselves. Don't take my word for it, take theirs: "anarchists", "mob," "anti-American tone," "(trying) to create chaos," "class warfare," and "pitting Americans against Americans." This blog has proven that it's Republicans and the right who are the anarchists, mobs, use anti-American tones, create chaos (on purpose) and engage in "class warfare" every single day by pitting Americans against Americans. Heck, with their tax policies always overwhelmingly benefiting the wealthy, and dividing Americans along racial, social, financial, regional and religious lines, Karl Rove and the Republicans invented class warfare!

Florida GOP Senate candidate, Adam Hasner, couldn't describe his own "Party" any better when he called all OWS supporters "anarchists," "extremists" and "thugs."

And with his Nazi comparisons, Mr. Beck has proven me right, yet again.

What's ironic, is that the right assumes that OWS is liberal and therefore "pro-Obama," which forces them to angrily oppose and attack it. But while the Republican "Party" has always looked out for the interests of the wealthy and corporate America, Salon's Glenn Greenwald points out that Obama does too:

In March, 2008, The Los Angeles Times published an article with the headline "Democrats are darlings of Wall St", which reported that both Obama and Clinton "are benefiting handsomely from Wall Street donations, easily surpassing Republican John McCain in campaign contributions." In June, 2008, Reuters published an article entitled "Wall Street puts its money behind Obama"; it detailed that Obama had almost twice as much in contributions from "the securities and investment industry" and that "Democrats garnered 57 percent of the contributions from" that industry. When the financial collapse exploded, then-candidate Obama became an outspoken supporter of the Wall Street bailout.

And Obama has continued to suck up to Wall Street. The 2010 banking legislation that was supposed to address the market collapse and what caused it was weak, watered down and has a Volker "too big to fail" Rule filled with loopholes. So it won't prevent the next financial meltdown. And not only has the Obama administration failed to prosecute a single banker for the biggest theft of the American Treasury in history, as I already said, but has pressured New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to agree to a slap-on-the-wrist settlement with these crooks and end his investigation.

If Obama really wanted to hold the bankers accountable, he could have. But instead, he gave them a "get out of jail free card" and is trying to get them another.

Also, if Obama and the Democrats really opposed oil companies receiving billions of dollars in subsidies, corporations paying little or no taxes a negative tax rate, and billion dollar hedge fund managers paying just a 15 percent tax rate (as opposed to 35 percent), then they could have done something about all that too in 2009 and 2010 when Democrats held enormous Congressional majorities. But they didn't because A) Obama's a Republican, and B) Obama and the Democrats were/are so frightened of the GOP, they're implementing the conservative agenda.

We're supposed to have a Government of the people, by the people, for the people... Not an Oligarchy of the plutocrats, by the plutocrats, for the plutocrats. But that's what we got. And it's an embarrassment that Americans have to take to the streets to get the government, our government, to realize that.

Is there not a single politician out there who's honest and cares enough to change "the system"? Of course not, because trying to find honesty in Washington is like trying to find a clean place to sit in a garbage dump.

But with...

• A self-inflicted economic collapse resulting in the biggest theft of the American Treasury in history, and not a single banker prosecuted for it and instead using the bailouts to record record profits
• A suspicion that our financial markets are manipulated and rigged on behalf of the crony capitalists
• The SEC "punishing" banks with fines that are a fraction of what they made from their crimes
• The SEC ignoring information about Bernie Madoff's $50 billion Ponzi scheme for 10 years
• The scandal-ridden collapses of Enron, Global Crossing and Worldcom
• More and more money being pushed up to the wealthiest Americans
• Corruption, criminality and political contributions legalized bribery running rampant among and between, politicians, donors corporations, lobbyists and special interests; and the rich and powerful using that influence to carve out special tax breaks for themselves so millionaires can pay a lower tax rate than some in the middle class; and corporations, as I said, paying little or no a negative tax rate on their billions in profits
• A presidential election where the votes couldn't be counted
• Insane billion dollar presidential campaigns that take almost two years, and not a single candidate or president even questions it, that includes a FUBAR/Rube Goldberg/more-complicated-then-it-has-to-be primary system where finishing third can get you a majority of a state's delegates - and not a single candidate or president even questions that either
• Congressional and state legislative districts drawn specifically to keep them safe for one party or the other and to keep incumbents in power for life, Soviet-style
• Local residents forced to fend for themselves after a massive hurricane floods their city
• A President starting a war based on lies
• Presidents usurping unconstitutional power, authorizing torture, includding children and detainees they know to be innocent, while top administrative CIA torturers aren't prosecuted, they go on book tours instead
• Conducting sham trials (we call them "military commissions")
• Instituting warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detention which was legislatively codified and expanded
• Prosecuting Muslim-Americans for their advocacy and speech
• Engaging in secret wars, political assassinations and cyber terrorism
• Providing training and "material support" to terrorist groups
• Indicting a number of whistleblowers and jounalists under the Espionage Act
• Detaining and questioning American journalists at U.S. borders who report on government felonies, bombings, war crimes or anything else the administration doesn't want made public, and confiscating and searching their cell phones, laptops and other electronic devices and presumably downloding the files onto DHS servers - all without cause, a warrant, oversight or accountability
• With the complicity of party leaders and an acquiescing media, sweeping felonies and war crimes under the rug
• A two-tiered justice system - elites on one side and everyone else on the other
• The most asinine and expensive health care system in the world where only the privileged can access the best it has to offer, while others - even with insurance - are forced into bankruptcy
• A crumbling infrastructure
• Five million Americans in the process of losing their right to vote
• An epidemic of daily shootings and gun violence and nothing is ever done about it (except, of course, repealing gun laws)
• A post office that can't deliver the mail on time
• And an arcane and dysfunctional legislative process purposely paralyzed by gridlock, sabotage and political terrorism...

what do you expect?

(Note: That was originally written in a single paragraph with a number of inserts added inside parentheses. In October, 2013 it was reformatted in this bullet point format to make it easier read. The inserts remain, but their identification and date were removed as well as the parentheses they were in. Other than a handful of words, the text remains exactly the same.)

Congratulations America, we're the most corrupt, crimminal, feckless, fraudulent and duplicitous banana republic in the world. U-S-A!...U-S-A!...U-S-A!...

While I have issues with some of OWS's tactics and don't believe they should be allowed to pitch tents and live in parks and public places (November 14 insert: I go into detail here), the rage and anger they're expressing is certainly understandable. So understandable that anyone who opposes, attacks and demonizes them for expressing that rage and anger, is either not paying attention, or convinced themselves into believing that OWS is (boo-goody, boo-goody, boo!) liberal, and therefore, must be attacked and ridiculed. Hey, that's what cults get you to do.

America is sick and tired of on-the-take politicians constantly doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons by catering to the whims of the rich and powerful, and having the poor, middle class and elderly pay for it. Who can possibly disagree with that?

Republicans. Because they have to protect their propaganda and talking points at all costs. And with their propaganda machine they do by keeping their moronic base perpetually enraged at Democrats, liberals, Occupy Wall Street, Elizabeth Warren, (February, 2012 insert: Planned Parenthood) or whoever their manufactured enemy of the week day hour happens to be.

November 16 insert:

Hunter and OWS protestor/spokesman Jesse LaGreca have posts worth reading on the afraid-of-their-own-shadow/capitulating/corporate suck-up "Democrats".

What you can take from both of them is this: when power is split, Republicans get what they want. When Republicans hold enough power (George Bush never had "60 votes" in the Senate either), Republicans get what they want. And when Democrats hold enormous power, Republicans get what they want.

Febuary, 2012 insert:

Conservative blowhard Andrew Breitbart accused the OWS protestors, wrongly, of being "rapists." Of course he did, he has to, to tear their credibility down.

By doing so, Breitbart also proved another theme of this post and blog: that whenever a Republican/conservative attacks a (perceived) Democrat/liberal, and accuses them of whatever, it's not only a lie, but an indictment of themselves. Because if anyone's a rapist, it's Republicans. No, really, they are!

As always, IOKIYAR. Even rape.

Thanks Andrew for proving me right. Twice.