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Droning On


I recall seeing the first drones.  Unmanned aircraft.  I’m a pilot and thought the technology was nifty.  I also admired the surveillance capabilities of those things.  Protect the troops without endangering AWACs and helo crews.  Find the bad guys.  Like that.

Then we started using these things to kill people at weddings.

Now my friend and futurist David Houle has pointed out that Grumman has a programmable 330-pound robot.  This thing is cool and can trek where no man has gone before or ever should go and has capabilities no human will ever have.  Major geek factor.

They also have a surveillance “bat” airborne drone – also a major cool and high geek factor item.  While watching the video I couldn’t help but notice how its superb surveillance eye was able to find a human “target”.  That is the label Grumman pasted on some guy walking on an airport tarmac.

We truly do have the capability to make a weapon out of anything, perhaps even a lampshade.  It’s just what the fertile minds of our war materiel contractors, the military and our secret CIA army dream up to do with that stuff that scares me, because the power and the decisions seem to be unbridled and even unchecked.

The NSA is supposed to get warrants for its spying, but it often doesn’t.  The CIA is prohibited by law from engaging in activities within the US, but it does so all the time.  The FBI is legally limited in its spying efforts, but it reads your email without a warrant, even going beyond the lawless powers of the so-called Patriot Act.  Now we have a programmable 330 pound robot that “they” will be able to program to do whatever they want it to do.  Look for a knock at your door soon.  And have a nice day.

For David Houle’s comments on privacy, have a look at his new e-Book, Is Privacy Dead?.

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Ed. note:  There is much in America that needs fixing and we are on a path to continually fail to make things better.  It is my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst – for things to get better.  That is the reason for these posts.  To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.  Please help by passing this along and encouraging others to do the same.  Thanks.  JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

It Isn’t About a Website


HealthCare-GovIt is a great and comforting validation that people with large megaphones and big mouths have focused on the ailing website of the Affordable Care Act.  They show us that naked self-promotion of individual and collective stupidity lives on in perpetuity.

Opponents of Obamacare wail and wring hands over the website.  That dysfunctional site alone is reason enough to kill the entire program, they tell us.  And it is evidence and proof of the folly and unconstitutional core of the entire Act, they insist.  In their claimed clairvoyance they bray over what is in the heads of those who led us to such evil, although how they got into others’ heads is not explained.  And now they have fixated their mean spirited, laser beam of antagonism on the website.

I must have been absent from class when they explained that the main purpose of reforming healthcare in America was a website.  That is similar to the day I missed class when they explained all about death panels.

Full disclosure: I have not read all 2,500 pages of the Affordable Care Act, so I may be misinformed.

But my understanding is that the Act is designed to remove limitations on coverage for healthcare, this in order to promote better medical care for Americans.  I thought it was to stop insurance companies from collecting premiums and then refusing to pay for the medical care that was supposed to be covered.  I thought it was to make it so that poor people stopped using the emergency ward at their closest hospital for their primary care and instead steer themselves to primary care physicians.  That is supposed to help catch medical issues earlier in order to promote better health and to lower overall healthcare costs for everyone.

It has been my understanding that Obamacare really isn’t about medical decisions.  It is about how we fund medical care and all the changes for the better that will bring.  There are no specific medical procedures that are prescribed or prohibited by the Act.  That is between you and your doctor.

All of that is in place, with or without a facile website.

The ACA website and phone center will be incrementally improved in an ongoing program, just as such things are for most endeavors.  So, while the current website is operating at a sub-optimal level, it is quite beside the point.  That is, it’s beside the point for all of us except for the self-promoting political hystericals, locked in their rending of garments and feigned woe.  What a bummer it will be for them when the website is fixed.  They will have to find some other phantom horribleness over which to go all googly-eyed.


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

It Is Time


Kennedy MotorcadeIt has been 50 years, so the shock is gone, of course.  The grief has passed for some and lingered for others, but the sense of loss remains palpable for most of us who remember.  It was a loss of hope and of innocence for an entire generation and the blinding of a dream of something lofty.

All of us of a certain age remember where we were and what we were doing when we learned what had happened.  We stayed glued to the the tube for days and our vocabulary was irrevocably altered by that day.  Indeed, the term “grassy knoll” now means only one place on Earth.  “School book depository” is a term for use solely in Dallas, Texas.

The initial furor ended and we were left with a permanent itch we cannot scratch.  We crave the satisfaction of full explanation, of the ascribing of responsibility and of the meting of consequences to all guilty ones.  Even after 50 years that simply has not happened.

The Warren Commission was designed to soothe the nation with a simple explanation.  And it was a fine investigative body, except for its complete incompetence, its refusal to admit crucial evidence and testimony and the predetermined conclusion it carefully crafted.  We Americans know a snow job when we’re in one and we resent being treated as simpletons.  We want answers.

There remain so many critical questions.  For example, if the whole thing was done by a lone gunman, how did a mediocre marksman manage to accurately fire three shots in four seconds, something even the best marksmen are unable to do with that model rifle?

Here is another.  Acoustics engineers have studied audio records of those seconds of American history and developed various theories to explain the contradictory statements from people who were on the scene.  They examined echoes from the surrounding buildings and some concluded that all sounds of gunfire came from one place.  That is unconvincing to people who were in Dealey Plaza that day and who heard a shot and turned toward the sound by the fence bordering the plaza and saw a puff of smoke as from a firearm.

The result of all the official soothing, disingenuous explanations and denial has been a terrible addition to the loss of innocence of a generation.  That addition is a loss of trust in government itself.  Even now 61% of Americans distrust official explanations and instead believe there was some sort of conspiracy to kill President Kennedy, that an ideological loser would not have been able to do this on his own.  Note that the 61% includes Americans who had not yet been born when the murder happened, so they are immune from the trauma of that moment and in a position to be clearer of mind about this entire chapter of our history.

One of the last actions of the Warren Commission was the sealing of evidence brought to the commission but which was shielded from the public.  We were told that it would be unsealed and made public in 50 years.  Well, that is where we find ourselves today.  It is time to unseal and deliver the rest of the information to us and let the chips fall where they may.

Our distrust of government, borne of the Kennedy assassination whitewash, has been fueled through the intervening years by an ongoing parade of lies and disinformation from our government.  Our current DC dysfunction continues that, in part because so many of us have dropped out, wishing a pox on all their houses.  That dropping out allows the crazy people to expand the debilitation of government and that actually exacerbates the very thing we loathe.

It is time for we Americans – and especially those who remember – to drop back in.

It is time to end our willful apathy, cynicism and disinterest and take the bold step of reinvesting ourselves in our country.

It is time for us to again be moved as we were that day in 1961, to pick ourselves up and,

“Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country.”


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Another Shot In The Foot


The recent government shutdown over a stupid power play by right wing extremists, along with their threat to cause the United States to default on its debt, were more than just political theater and more even than a showdown episode.  It was an exercise in self-destruction.

Yes, it was destructive to the Republican Party.  On the other hand, the Republicans stopped being true conservatives at least 35 years ago and instead have focused on transferring wealth to the already rich from all the rest of us, ensuring our prisons are full of chronically voiceless people and starting unnecessary wars.  So, who really cares if the Republican Party is in self-immolation mode?  Just let them burn to the ground and perhaps some sane voices will emerge from the ashes.

The self-destruction you need to pay attention to is that of the United States of America.  We have threatened the entire world with financial catastrophe.  We have demonstrated repeatedly that our primary goal is national dysfunction.  We have marginalized the majority of Americans.  We have dramatically expanded the ranks of our poor.  We have declared that we don’t want to fund the education of our children.  And we do want to arrest and torture people without so much as charging them with a crime and then keep them imprisoned endlessly.  All of this stands in stark contrast to the values we say we believe in like truth, justice, democracy, fairness, opportunity and other worthwhile attributes.

Given that contrast, what do you suppose the people in the rest of the world think when they hear the happy words but see the not-so-happy deeds?  Surely, our mixed messages pull the rug from under their trust and confidence in us.  Don’t imagine that is a small thing.

Trust is the cornerstone of relationship and we are in continuous relationship with a global society.  For many decades the standard of world trade has been the American dollar.  It is the symbol of global influence enhanced not just by military might, but also by trust and confidence in our values and our dependability.  Once those things are gone, the money of some other country will step in and be the global standard and the United States will be a second tier country.

We are in a headlong rush to hand over world leadership to China, led with daring forcefulness by crazy Americans who tell the world that the United States cannot be trusted.  They do that by paralyzing our government and threatening creditors with our default and those exercises are scheduled for a replay in the middle of January.

For more on the American Brand and the crazy messages we give the world, review Bruce Terkel’s blog here.  Then comment below with your ideas about how to stop us from repeatedly shooting ourselves in the foot.


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Are You Ready?


CialisBoomers are the ones who were told, “Don’t trust anyone over 30,” (thank you, Jerry Rubin), the ones who were going to change the world and who most certainly were never going to get old.  But now we are past the point where we can refuse to trust anyone over 30, we did change the world but many of us still refuse to get old.  That has created a billion dollar industry of erection sustaining drugs for old stud wanna-bees.

The next time you see a Cialis commercial on television take a good look at the happy couples.  Of course they are happy, as the commercials imply that they are so hormonal that they are having sex whenever the wind blows.

Notice, too, that everyone is good looking.  We viewers subliminally hope that Cialis will deliver that benefit, too.  And there is something else.  The women are all at least 15 years younger than the men.  Little surprise there, since the drug hucksters are selling a return-to-youth fantasy to old guys.

Let’s see, he’s a “senior” who refuses to acknowledge time, wants to be the young stud he never was, so he pairs himself with a young, nubile, willing kitten (yeah, that’ll work) who smiles at him with just a hint of lust in her eyes – and he’s ready!  All of this comes at just seven bucks per thrill pill.

Yup, we watch the commercials and we fall for the fantasy.  Somehow, the pleasant and desirable images and the smooth sound of the voice-over, go down easily and we accept the whole package.  Actually, though, it is nothing but a manipulation of you and me for the profit of the pharmaceutical corporations selling us dreams in a pill.

It works the same way in the political arena.  Radicals and rich guys are trying to separate you from your cash and your power with slick commercials, images and slogans, and even a chest-thumping testosterone rush, all for their own benefit, not yours.  Maybe instead of mindlessly absorbing the fictions we’re fed we should get in touch reality before the American plutocratic coup is complete.

It is the right moment right now.  Are you ready?

WARNING: If you go blind, lose your hearing or die, stop taking Cialis immediately – it will be too late for you.  Correspondingly, if you lose your democracy, it will be too late for all of us.


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Continuing Frog Boil


Boiling FrogThe U.S. budget sequestration went into effect on March 1, 2013.  It was designed to reduce defense and certain non-defense discretionary spending by annually declining percentages through 2021.  It applies these cuts with the fine precision of a large asteroid smashing into the Earth.  It was said to be designed as a pressure on Congress and the White House to hammer out a budget agreement on a timely basis and was not supposed to go into effect because its stupidity was unthinkable.  Apparently, some of the major actors in that drama didn’t do enough thinking, because we’re living with the sequester now.  Oddly, we are not hearing much of a wail from those affected.  There are reasons for that.

First, the impact of the sequester on defense spending is small enough to be a rounding error for the agencies with nearly unlimited spending ability and which buy thousand-dollar toilet seats, tanks for fighting the non-existent Soviet Union in a land war and trillion-dollar airplanes that no one wants.  Besides, when the affected contractors are unhappy with the government they don’t march in the streets.  Their comments are given behind closed doors, so you don’t hear them.

Second, many of the domestic program cuts only affect poor people and nobody listens to them.  For example, study after study has shown that early childhood education is the cornerstone for later success in higher education and for a lifetime.  But the sequester cut 57,000 children out of the Head Start program, thus necessarily relegating them to a much dimmer future.  Understand, though, that the Head Start victims of the sequester are poor kids whose parents’ voices aren’t heard in Congress because those parents don’t make large campaign contributions, so they don’t have access.  And you can’t hear them because the corporate media doesn’t relay their brutal reality.

Here is another example.  The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicted that the sequester would produce a reduction in economic growth of 0.6%, saying that this would affect job retention for 750,000 Americans.  “Retention” is not about new jobs.  It is about employed people just keeping their jobs.  That means three-quarters of a million Americans will lose their jobs because of the unthinkable sequester.  Like the parents of kids kicked out of Head Start, the newly unemployed don’t have access, so you don’t hear their voices, either, and it is relatively easy for the rest of us to ignore the change.

Third, we human beings only become aware of change when a big WHUMP! smacks us in the head.  Most of the time we tolerate small changes quite easily and don’t even notice them.  By the time we at last notice their accumulation into a WHUMP!, it is too late to prevent the adverse consequences that we will live with forever.  That is to say, most of us are living with the unrecognized effects of small changes and, like live frogs in a slowly heating pot of water, we fail to recognize that we are being boiled alive.

Yet, metaphorically speaking, that is what is happening to Americans.  We are tolerating changes like the sequester, either because each change is very small, as they are for most of us, or we are accommodating them because we are powerless, as it is for the poor, the disenfranchised, the unemployed – the very people who don’t contribute big money to political campaigns.

And the incremental deterioration story gets worse.  The current government shutdown engineered by Ted Cruz (R-Psych Ward) and his extremist pals has already kicked another 7,000 kids out of Head Start and 19,000 more are on the way out the door.  Those kids will under-perform and we will lose the benefit of their contributions and their genius.  Some will drop out and be a weight on society and some will turn to crime for survival.  For those who don’t care about those kids, surely even the investment class understands the value of spending a buck today to get a return of two in the future.  Yet all they seem to be able to see is that they want everything now.

Head Start is just one example of incremental changes that are absorbed with barely a public whimper – there are many more – but we will all pay the price.

On the other hand, here is a happy thought: we’re saving money today because we’ve cut unemployment compensation for those 750,000 Americans being laid off this year and we won’t have to listen to them complain because they don’t have a voice powered by campaign contributions.

Come to think of it, perhaps you are not donating thousands of dollars to the right legislators every election cycle.  If that is the case, you just might want to check the thermometer in your pot.  It might be edging up the the WHUMP! mark at the top of the scale.

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Definition: The Republican Caucus – a gathering place for the clueless.

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“Let me just check my talking points, and  .  .  .  Why, here’s something flamboyant and hateful I can say to rile up the base and make them cheer for me.  And here’s another.  Wow!  There’s a whole pile of ’em!  I’ll never run out of self-serving drivel.”  Sen. Ted Cruz in an imaginary and oh-so-brief moment of honesty.


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

What Do You Want?


Uncle Sam What Do You WantA fundamental question in all negotiations is, “What do you want?”  Of course, there are other questions each party must answer but everything hinges on knowing what you want.  Absent that, all negotiations are just exercises in defeating the other guy for no clear purpose other than the opportunity to do a little chest beating.  Not much good happens from that.

Indeed, On Thursday Congressman Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) said of the government shutdown, “We’re not going to be disrespected.  We have to get something out of this.  And I don’t know what that even is.”  And, in fact, nothing good came from that, except for Stutzman’s hand getting slapped by other Tea Party  people for making them all look stupid.

The answer to the “What do you want?” question for each side in our ongoing DC dysfunction is “government.”  The Democrats want government to be an active agent in society.  The Republicans continue to follow the slick campaign quip of Ronald Reagan, “Government is the problem.”  That is to say, what Republicans want is to do away with nearly all government.  To that point, Grover Norquist has told us that he wants to reduce government in size such that he can “drown it in a bathtub.”  And, due to 2010 redistricting, the Republican extremists have managed to shut down much of the federal government and have threatened to default on the nation’s debt in pursuit of their government destruction goal.  Apparently, nothing is sacred to them in their quest – not even our national honor nor the world economy.

This is not a situation where each party is equally to blame for the mess we’re in.  This is the result of a few dozen radicals holding the United States and the world economy hostage.

The question for all the rest of us is, “What do you want?”  If you want to terminate all the things you have come to expect from government, then the extremists’ view and their Machiavellian methods are for you.

On the other hand, what you want might include the protections that only a functioning government can provide, things like meat inspection, careful review of drugs before they’re used on your children, air traffic control so that the airplane on which Granny is riding doesn’t go bump in the night with another airplane, ensuring that our kids get an education for success both today and tomorrow, building and maintaining our bridges and interstate highways, all national security functions, funding the research work at the National Institutes of Health so that when you get sick there is medical help for you and so many other important functions.  If that is what you want, then it just might be a good idea to contact your representative and senators in Congress and tell them to shape up, especially if one of them is a Tea Party zealot with his/her gun pointed at Uncle Sam (aka you).

As always, the behavior you tolerate is the behavior you get.

One more time:  What do you want?


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Greater Good – Part 2 of 2


Situation RoomBooks have been booked and blogs have been blogged.  Pundits have pundited and liars have lied.  The consensus seems to be that the invasion of Iraq was about oil.  Clearly, it wasn’t about WMD’s or Saddam’s non-existent links to al Qaeda.  So, let’s play with the oil theory.

We are now in the Situation Room.  Seated around the table are President George W. Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and the head of the CIA, George Tenet.  The topic is global energy stability and U.S. national security.  The concern is that Saddam is a loose cannon with the second largest known reserves of oil on the planet and he could upset world order.

President Bush declares, “This is about Amer-ka and we have to focus on the greater good.  Besides, I don’t like that guy.”

Rumsfeld raises his hand.  “You’re right, Mr. President.  If Saddam gets any more unpredictable the world oil markets could become crazy and force major disruptions to our national well-being and even threaten our future economic and political stability.  We must devise a plan to protect us from the ‘known unknown’ outcomes.“

“We’ll invade Iraq,” snarls Cheney.  “It’s simple, plus it will be quick and easy.  We’ll just apply massive force, topple Saddam’s regime and install a new U.S.-friendly leader.”

Rumsfeld lights up upon hearing Cheney’s idea, “Our soldiers will be greeted by Iraqi citizens tossing flowers to them.  Best of all, the war will only last a few weeks and will cost just $300 million.  And, get this:  we can pay for it with Iraqi oil.”  There are big, self-satisfied smiles all around the table.

President Bush is really getting into it now and says, “That’s a great stratergy, Dick.  Oil market confidence’ll soar, we’ll have a continuing supply of cheap oil and the Amer-kn way ‘a life and our national secur-ty will be assured.  Plus, we can make ’em into a democracy just like us.  It’s all ’bout the greater good, get it?  And don’t you just love simple solutions to complex problems?”  Everyone at the table agrees with the boss.

“But wait,” Rice says.  “We can’t just tell the world that we’re going to invade Iraq because we want their oil.  We have to come up with a cover story for the invasion.”  That is when they begin to craft a lie about the smoking gun being a mushroom cloud.  And, because this conversation happens just months after 9/11, the tie between secular Saddam and Islamist al Qaeda is fabricated and, voila!  An American hunger for retribution is served by providing the lynch mob with someone to lynch.

George Tenet has been quietly scheming as he listens and can no longer contain himself.  “We can get real creative here.  We’ll make up a story about yellow cake from Nigeria, telling everyone that Saddam is making the yellow cake into weapons grade uranium. We’ll tell everyone that Joe Wilson is a liar and we’ll out his wife, Valerie Plame.  How ’bout you handle that, Dick?”  Cheney grunts.

“Oh, wait!” continues Tenet.  “I just thought of the best part.  You known those flimsy little aluminum tubes we found in that abandoned trailer in the desert?”  A few heads nod affirmatively.  “This is great.  We’ll tell everyone that Saddam’s going to pack his enriched uranium into them.  Hey, Colin – how ’bout you spout that one at the UN?”  Powell looks at Tenet, then to Bush, his brow furrowed.

“Look, Colin,” continues Tenet, “We’ve got the intel and we can spin it any way we want.  We can make it sit up and bark, if that sells the program.  It’ll be a slam-dunk.”  Powell acquiesces.

Cheney blurts, “We’ll probably take some heat for this, but we can sidetrack criticism by doing some illegal stuff.  We’ll call it legal and then we’ll stonewall critics by saying, ‘So?’  This is a no-brainer.”   Cheney snarls again.

Let’s leave that imaginary meeting and scratch our own heads about “the greater good” and other paths that might have served it.

If the issue was fossil fuel energy, we could have pursued a path like the one we’re on now, poking more holes into the ground in America and in different ways than ever before.  In fact, we are now extracting more fossil fuels domestically than at any time in our history.  Our dependence on foreign supplies has dropped from 60% a few years ago to 36% now and none of that domestic extraction cost the life or limb of any military personnel, nor did it cost the U.S. Treasury even a buck.  And we didn’t become even more hated throughout the Muslim world as a result of finding our own oil.

If the bigger picture of energy (i.e. beyond just burning more hydrocarbons) and its impact on national welfare and security were the issue, there is far more that we could have done.  We could have elected to take some of the billions we spent on war materiel, resources and personnel and instead put that into research and development of alternative, renewable energy sources, as well as a better battery for electric automobiles.  Indeed, just imagine what we could have accomplished with 12 years of well-funded research and Yankee ingenuity.

There is a lot of craziness that can be rationalized using the words “the greater good”.  Too often the only participants in discussions about the greater good are those with a limited or bizarre imagination, capable only of short-term thinking and with a vested interest in the outcome.

There are wacko-birds in congress right now who think that the greater good will be served by the United States of America, the bedrock upon which the world economy rests, defaulting on its debt.  Never mind the global catastrophes that will be visited upon us.  Ignore the massive economic depression that will put tens of millions of Americans out of work.  Just take it on faith that the crazies wearing the propeller hats of the Tea Party, the new American terrorists, understand “the greater good”.

But once again those controlling power have a limited and bizarre imagination capable only of short-term thinking and with a vested interest in the outcome.

We need better than that.


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Sam I Am


Green Eggs and HamFor many decades Dr. Seuss has entertained children and parents with his delightful rhymes, entertaining pictures and compelling characters.  His stories always contain life lessons and they go down easily for millions of children around the world due to his easy style.  One of those lessons seems to have been lost on Senator Ted Cruz (R-Pluto).

Cruz has been doing his fake filibuster to oppose the bill he insisted be passed by the House.  Some might call that crazy, but it is politics as usual for today’s Republicans.

The bill that Cruz is grandstanding against would insist upon the defunding of Obamacare as a condition of passing a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning.  In the event that the Senate refuses that bill, the alternatives that are available are to send a clean bill to the house (sans defunding Obamacare) or to just defeat the bill in the Senate.  Either would shut down the government.  That is how much Cruz hates Obamacare – or at least he thinks that it serves his narrow self-interest to grandstand – or maybe both – that he is willing to paralyze all of America.

So, he blathered on the floor of the Senate, including reading Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham.  The hero of this Seussian journey to a lesson is Sam, who repeatedly tells us,

“I do not like green eggs and ham.
“I do not like them, Sam I am.”

Sam declares this in spite of never having tried green eggs and ham.  Not even a tiny bite.  In the end, he does taste them and to his shock and surprise, he likes them.  The lesson, of course, is not to reject things without trying them first.

I’m wondering if Senator Cruz understands the absurd irony of his reading Green Eggs And Ham during his filibuster, since it is clear that he hasn’t tried Obamacare, effectively saying,

“I have not tried Obamacare.
“I’m limited by my cranial air.”


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Sometimes Conspiracy Is The Only Explanation


SensenbrennerIt is curious that the Republican National Committee decided to hold its own commemoration of the 1963 March On Washington, rather than participate in the national event on the National Mall on the 50th anniversary of the March just two days later.  And so it was that on August 26, 2013 Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) spoke at that all-R event.  He said, “The first thing we have to do is take the monkey wrench that the court threw in it, out of the Voting Rights Act, and then use that monkey wrench to be able to fix it so that it is alive, well, constitutional and impervious to another challenge that will be filed by the usual suspects.”

Hold on just a second.  This is a Republican calling for restoration of the teeth of the Voting Rights Act, insisting on reinvigorating a liberal cause?  Well, the story gets even more curious.

Following Sensenbrenner at this event was Reince Pribus, the fire breathing, absolutist chairman of the RNC, who said, “I think Jim just made some news.”  He did not counter what Sensenbrenner had said or spout far right wing propaganda about intrusive government, even though Pribus is on the “usual suspects” perps list.  This pairing and this behavior are worthy of some head scratching.  Indeed, that the RNC convened an event to commemorate the 1963 March on Washington was in and of itself more than unusual.

The Republicans have acknowledged that they have to appeal to minorities if the R’s are to avoid becoming extinct, and have been clear that they believe that to do that they must change their image.  The only thing that requires, say leading Republicans, is to craft their messages properly.  There has been no acknowledgement that they are the wrong side of nearly every issue that is important to the very people whom they must attract.  For the Republicans, it is all about the manipulation they can manage through word-smithing.  Modify their positions on issues of importance?  Not a chance.

Appropriately, the poor and those who are counted as minorities have overwhelmingly shunned the Republicans.

Now comes Sensenbrenner, committing to deliver substantive value to minorities and, oddly, the far right chair of the RNC doesn’t push back.  Very strange, but try this for an explanation.

For decades the Republicans have done everything they could think of to disenfranchise, marginalize and control anyone who isn’t an old white guy.   Now they are making noises as though they are going to be the flag bearers for restoration of a key liberal cause.  They will claim championship and insist that they are all about supporting the little guys of America, the minorities and the poor.  They will proclaim that those people should now flock to the Republican Party, the party that, no-kidding, we-really-mean-it-this-time, is really looking out for the little guys.

Crush ’em for years and then save ’em (at least a little), telling them that you’re their hero.

Brilliant strategy.

Diabolically brilliant.

Sometimes conspiracy is the only explanation.


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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