Hi folks! This is a long post, nearly 2000 words, with 3 videos, so grab a drink or snack and get comfortable before you continue.

President Barack Hussein Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. He enjoys a whopping 83% approval rating. When Bush left office on the same day, he had a 22% approval rating.

The above video was just a snippet of the poor attitude GOP leaders carry. Many Republicans have voiced significant dismay with the direction the party has gone and is going. They haven’t left the Republican party, it has left them. I haven’t left the Republican party, it left me, and now I’m leaving it.

So what went so wrong and why?

I think four things are at the center of the GOP’s demise:

• The GOP aligned themselves with the evangelical, religious right, which accounts for 20% of the American population. They made these people their base. This population likes to tell others what they should do when they don’t follow their own beliefs anymore than “regular” Christians, those of other faiths and non-believers.* This group is advocating for rewriting the U.S. Constitution to make it more like the Bible, something our Founding Fathers went to great lengths to guard against in the strict separation of church and state.
• The GOP became intolerant of anyone who doesn’t think the way they do or anyone who doesn’t agree with them. They are a party of “their way or the highway”.
• Their leader, George W. Bush, willingly exchanged liberty, American values and the rule of law for some unknown and unmeasurable margin of national safety which I do not see as making us safer. If anything, Bush has made us less safe.
• The GOP has believed that government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem ever since Ronald Reagan was President. Why would we want to elect anyone to a government position if they believe this? They are ideologically opposed to government playing an appropriate role in society. But we have a government and it is supposed to work. Under these people it can’t work because they don’t believe it can work effectively, and they purposefully don’t make it work effectively.

The 2008 Presidential Campaign

The Presidential campaign underlined so clearly that the GOP has become unprincipled and has dived into the gutter. They spent their time and money smearing President Barack Obama instead of coming up with new ideas and new solutions to our problems. Barack Obama was running for President and John McCain was the guy who didn’t want Barack Obama to be President. There was nothing in McCain’s campaign of substance about what he had to offer America, except perhaps more of the same of George W. Bush.

That they thought it is okay to attack an opponent’s patriotism and character instead of his stand on the issues is completely unconscionable. That John McCain slandered William Ayers and continued to do so even though public records clearly indicate Dr. Ayers was tried and acquitted of any crimes is wrong. That the GOP thinks it’s wrong for anyone born in the U.S., no matter what their racial heritage, to run for president, including someone of the Islamic faith, is despicable. Those actions are not America’s values and they certainly are not Republican values, at least not the Republican values with which I grew up.

The GOP’s Hubris

The Republicans seem to want a royal-like control of the government, all its money and other resources, free reign over the economy, and the power to give even more power to certain individuals they bless with that power. Even though they preach smaller government and government is the problem, it seems to grow under GOP Presidents without bound. That’s hypocritical.

If anything, the GOP has become un-American in its thinking and actions. They want all the power and money, and anyone who might need help needs to help themselves because if you aren’t putting more money in the wealthiest pockets in the country, you’re of no use to them. Of course, now that trickle-down economics and the gutting of banking and investment regulations have thrown us into an economic recession to rival the Great Depression, they aren’t as rich as they used to be. They are being paid back in the most effective way possible, hitting them in their bank and investment accounts.

The Rush Limbaughs of the country seem to think we surfs, a the middle class, owe them our hard work to line their pockets. Why anyone listens to this comedian is beyond my understanding.

The GOP is no longer for limited government, peace through fire superiority, the party of ideas and principles, and reasonable progress. It is now for a bigger, socialist government to help the richest of the rich, invasion of our privacy without checks and balances, increasing power in the highest offices of the land, racist, raping the environment at every turn, in favor of torture and “the ends justify the means” thinking, and starting wars in countries that haven’t attacked us. That’s outright imperialistic. Anyone who isn’t for them is against them and is an enemy, as demonstrated in the indefinite detentions of “enemy combatants” without charges.

Compassionate Conservatism? NOT!

What about our obligations to each other? What about compassion for those less fortunate than we are? They call a middle class tax cut welfare. What about the redistribution of wealth from the other classes to the rich? In a time when the rich are richer than ever before, the amount of charitable giving has decreased significantly. How is anything supposed to trickle down when no faucets are turned on at the top of the sink? Trickle down economics doesn’t work. It has never worked and it won’t work in the future because of the greed of the rich.

I know one thing. If they don’t change their ways it will be a long, long time before they are able to rebuild the party and regain any power. Why do I care? This country is built on a two party system of government where the opposing parties are supposed to help keep each other in line. Right now, staying in line has to come from the Democrats who also have all the power. Perhaps the far more open government President Obama is leading will provide the necessary checks and balances from the American people without the need for an opposing party. If that happens, I’m not sure the Republicans will ever be able to rebuild the party.

Change Has Come To America

The Obama campaign machine has morphed into a grassroots volunteer organization at usaservice.org where people can search for local volunteer and service projects in their communities. President Obama is doing something many recent Presidents have failed to do, ask the American people to give, sacrifice and become part of the solution. No Presidents since John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter have asked the American people to help.

President Obama can’t change the country alone and neither can the government as a whole. We the people have to work together and President Obama asked everyone to join him and work toward helping others in our communities and solving as many of our own problems as we can.

Significant, lasting change comes from the bottom up, not from the top down. It helps the bottom up approach if the top assists in making the job easier by providing programs and resources to use in making the changes that need to be made.

The Obama Administration has already, in its first few days in power, reversed some of the most egregious violations of justice committed by the Bush Administration by ordering the closing of Guantanamo Bay prison, closing the CIA’s secret prisons off shore, forbidding torture techniques to be used by any agency, and the halting of the kangaroo tribunals that were a sham of legal trials. It is also in the process of seriously beefing up its diplomatic corp, the State Department.

The GOP lost all its power in the House of Representatives and a great deal of power in the Senate in this election. There are currently 58 Democrats in the Senate and there may be 59 when the Minnesota Senate election is finally settled. It takes 60 votes in the Senate to prevent a filibuster.

There are at least a couple of centrist Republicans who got the message sent by voters in this election that we are tired of them not cooperating and getting things done. I believe and seriously hope the Senate will not be bogged down with Republican partisan tactics to slow legislative progress just because they might be able to get away with it. I abhor violence, but if any of these bozos start a ridiculous filibuster, I hope someone will slug him or her in the chops.

In 2010, several Republican Senators will be retiring from office, opening their seats to potentially be filled by Democrats. If that happens a lot will be riding on the success of the Democrats, but if they succeed, and I believe they will, the Republicans won’t be able to use the Democrats’ record against them to win elections. The GOP will have to stop being a party of finger pointers and naysayers, and become a party of real constructive force in the political arena or they will never regain leadership in America.

In closing this post, I must say I am most ashamed of Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, from my home state. He is a pathetic character since being caught both in Washington DC and at home with prostitutes. So much for Republican right-wing family values. He is also proving to be one of the most obstructionist Senators in that body of legislators. I didn’t vote for him and I sure won’t be voting for him in the next election, should he choose to be foolish enough to seek re-election with his horrible behavior.

*References:

Ethics and Religion

Technorati Tags: Afghanistan war, Bush-Cheney, GOP in Exile, Guantanamo Bay prison, Iraq war, Obama Administration, Republican party problems

Tim DeChristopher, a 27-year-old University of Utah student committed a grand act of civil disobedience to help protect some U.S. National Parks in southern Utah from oil and gas drilling. Here’s a video from The Rachel Maddow Show about it:

These National Parks are some of the most beautiful, pristine areas in the entire world. Oil and gas drilling close to these areas and the development that would come with it will destroy these lands forever. It took the Earth 4.5 billion years to build these beautiful places and if we don’t protect them we can’t get them back. The federal oil and gas leases for these lands must be stopped.

I’m very impressed with Mr. DeChristopher’s resolve to do the right thing, even if it means he has to go to prison. If he is convicted and sentenced, I hope President Obama will pardon him, especially if it turns out the lease auction violated the law.

How serious are you about protecting our environment? Are you willing to commit acts of civil disobedience, face federal legal charges and even go to jail if it will protect the Earth?

I’m older and more pragmatic, and would be willing to do a lot of things to protect the Earth. I would be willing to trespass and lie down in construction areas to prevent it from proceeding. I and any others who performed such acts would likely be arrested and released, but those acts would not carry fraud charges and significant federal jail time.

So this begs the question: how serious are we going to have to get to make this huge ship, the USA and developed world, turn around in time to prevent catastrophic environmental changes on our planet?

We already face some changes that will be difficult to deal with, but can be handled with fast action and good technology solutions. But if we don’t make significant changes within the next 10 years, we may face far worse catastrophes that may effect large populations of humans with mass starvation, insufficient clean water, pandemic disease outbreaks, and increased flood and tropical storm activity that could wash entire cities out to sea.

Technorati Tags: Bush-Cheney, civil disobedience, Environment, Lame Duck Actions, National Parks in Utah, Rachel Maddow, Tim DeChristopher

I have been wracking my brain for weeks trying to figure out why in the world John McCain would choose Sarah Palin as his running mate.

• She’s basically ignorant of most issues, though don’t underestimate her, she’s smart.
• She’s ignorant of a great deal of American history and politics that a lot of us have come to expect most people to know.
• She has practically no experience.
• She’s clearly not ready to step up and be President should, God forbid, something happen to John McCain early in his term of office.

She is a social conservative and she is young, two things McCain had to deal with on his ticket. Some also see Palin as a maverick, something McCain hasn’t been much lately.

So why pick Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska as a running mate?

Thoughts about Palin, the VP debate last Thursday, what Palin said about wanting to emulate current VP Richard Cheney, and John McCain’s very pro-Bush voting record have been buzzing around in my head. I’ve been trying to make sense of all this and it’s been beyond me. I was out working in the yard just now, letting my thoughts flow freely, and it came to me.

Sarah Palin is from one of the states in the Union that has some of America’s biggest untapped oil reserves. I looked it up and Governor Palin has some strong connections to big oil. She is not much of an environmentalist so taking protections away that currently keep big oil from drilling in many parts of Alaska would be something she would work toward.

McCain is another George W. Bush, but to pull it off, who does he get to play the part of Dick Cheney? The governor of a big oil state.

McCain-Palin aren’t just more of the same, they are exactly the same as Bush-Cheney. McCain will continue the policies of the George W. Bush administration and groom a young, healthy version of Dick Cheney for the Presidency in the 2012 election.

Any talk of alternative energy research and development from this proposed administration, I believe, is just that, talk. There will be drilling and nothing else. The big oil companies will have the opportunity to rape the pristine areas of Alaska that have been protected. Big oil will continue to run the country at just the time in American history when we need to stop investing in oil and start working on lots of alternatives to our energy needs. Their profits will skyrocket, and middle-class America will go broke paying higher and higher gas prices.

It would be a second Halliburton administration designed to continue what Bush-Cheney started.

Now I’m really scared…

Technorati Tags: big oil, Bush-Cheney, Halliburton, John McCain, Sarah Palin