We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore

[UConn James]

We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore

 

How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?

 

By Garrison Keillor

 

Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned-and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.

 

In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.

 

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

 

Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.

 

Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy-the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.

 

The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.

 

Our beloved land has been fogged with fear-fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.

 

There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.

 

Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.

 

This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.

 

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

 

This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.

 

Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.

 

Excerpt from Keillor's new book (© 2004)

[ExiledInIllinois]

Ripon, WI is the birthplace of the republican party... Not too far from Min-naa-so-taaa.

Near the shores of beautiful Green Lake (just west of Lake Winnebago). Believe it or not, it (Green Lake) was the first resort west of Niagara Falls!

 

Totally useless information... Just thought I'd blurt it out...

 

 

That would be his new book, Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts From the Heart of America

 

Right?

 

Sounds interesting.

[spidey]

We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore

 

How did the Party of Lincoln and Liberty transmogrify into the party of Newt Gingrich’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk?

 

By Garrison Keillor

 

Something has gone seriously haywire with the Republican Party. Once, it was the party of pragmatic Main Street businessmen in steel-rimmed spectacles who decried profligacy and waste, were devoted to their communities and supported the sort of prosperity that raises all ships. They were good-hearted people who vanquished the gnarlier elements of their party, the paranoid Roosevelt-haters, the flat Earthers and Prohibitionists, the antipapist antiforeigner element. The genial Eisenhower was their man, a genuine American hero of D-Day, who made it OK for reasonable people to vote Republican. He brought the Korean War to a stalemate, produced the Interstate Highway System, declined to rescue the French colonial army in Vietnam, and gave us a period of peace and prosperity, in which (oddly) American arts and letters flourished and higher education burgeoned-and there was a degree of plain decency in the country. Fifties Republicans were giants compared to today’s. Richard Nixon was the last Republican leader to feel a Christian obligation toward the poor.

 

In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward down the Twisting Trail of Rhetoric and sneered at the idea of public service and became the Scourge of Liberalism, the Great Crusade Against the Sixties, the Death Star of Government, a gang of pirates that diverted and fascinated the media by their sheer chutzpah, such as the misty-eyed flag-waving of Ronald Reagan who, while George McGovern flew bombers in World War II, took a pass and made training films in Long Beach. The Nixon moderate vanished like the passenger pigeon, purged by a legion of angry white men who rose to power on pure punk politics. “Bipartisanship is another term of date rape,” says Grover Norquist, the Sid Vicious of the GOP. “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” The boy has Oedipal problems and government is his daddy.

 

The party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and of secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk. Republicans: The No.1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.

 

Rich ironies abound! Lies pop up like toadstools in the forest! Wild swine crowd round the public trough! Outrageous gerrymandering! Pocket lining on a massive scale! Paid lobbyists sit in committee rooms and write legislation to alleviate the suffering of billionaires! Hypocrisies shine like cat turds in the moonlight! O Mark Twain, where art thou at this hour? Arise and behold the Gilded Age reincarnated gaudier than ever, upholding great wealth as the sure sign of Divine Grace.

 

Here in 2004, George W. Bush is running for reelection on a platform of tragedy-the single greatest failure of national defense in our history, the attacks of 9/11 in which 19 men with box cutters put this nation into a tailspin, a failure the details of which the White House fought to keep secret even as it ran the country into hock up to the hubcaps, thanks to generous tax cuts for the well-fixed, hoping to lead us into a box canyon of debt that will render government impotent, even as we engage in a war against a small country that was undertaken for the president’s personal satisfaction but sold to the American public on the basis of brazen misinformation, a war whose purpose is to distract us from an enormous transfer of wealth taking place in this country, flowing upward, and the deception is working beautifully.

 

The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few is the death knell of democracy. No republic in the history of humanity has survived this. The election of 2004 will say something about what happens to ours. The omens are not good.

 

Our beloved land has been fogged with fear-fear, the greatest political strategy ever. An ominous silence, distant sirens, a drumbeat of whispered warnings and alarms to keep the public uneasy and silence the opposition. And in a time of vague fear, you can appoint bullet-brained judges, strip the bark off the Constitution, eviscerate federal regulatory agencies, bring public education to a standstill, stupefy the press, lavish gorgeous tax breaks on the rich.

 

There is a stink drifting through this election year. It isn’t the Florida recount or the Supreme Court decision. No, it’s 9/11 that we keep coming back to. It wasn’t the “end of innocence,” or a turning point in our history, or a cosmic occurrence, it was an event, a lapse of security. And patriotism shouldn’t prevent people from asking hard questions of the man who was purportedly in charge of national security at the time.

 

Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term.

 

This year, as in the past, Republicans will portray us Democrats as embittered academics, desiccated Unitarians, whacked-out hippies and communards, people who talk to telephone poles, the party of the Deadheads. They will wave enormous flags and wow over and over the footage of firemen in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and bodies being carried out and they will lie about their economic policies with astonishing enthusiasm.

 

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

 

This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people. We have a sacred duty to bequeath it to our grandchildren in better shape than however we found it. We have a long way to go and we’re not getting any younger.

 

Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning.

 

Excerpt from Keillor's new book (© 2004)

43578[/snapback]

As a true republican I couldnt have written something like this any better. It has been extremly sad that the party that produced Honest Abe, Teddy R, Ike and even Nixon has been hijacked by the blowhards like Rush and the fundamentalists. Its amazing how such concern was raised about seperation of church and state 40 years ago when JFK ran yet today we are guided by a president who is creating a new modern inquisition and crusade.

[ExiledInIllinois]

He paints a pretty good picture:

 

"Whenever I think of those New Yorkers hurrying along Park Place or getting off the No.1 Broadway local, hustling toward their office on the 90th floor, the morning paper under their arms, I think of that non-reader George W. Bush and how he hopes to exploit those people with a little economic uptick, maybe the capture of Osama, cruise to victory in November and proceed to get some serious nation-changing done in his second term."

 

"Dante said that the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who in time of crisis remain neutral, so I have spoken my piece, and thank you, dear reader. It’s a beautiful world, rain or shine, and there is more to life than winning."

 

 

Where did Dante place the "banker" in the Inferno?

 

Would that be who we are pandering to?

[Guest RabidBillsFanVT]

As a true republican I couldnt have written something like this any better.    It has been extremly sad that the party that produced Honest Abe, Teddy R, Ike and even Nixon has been hijacked by the blowhards like Rush and the fundamentalists.  Its amazing how such concern was raised about seperation of church and state 40 years ago when JFK ran yet today we are guided by a president who is creating a new modern inquisition and crusade.

43961[/snapback]

 

Ahhh, welcome to the sad reality of the modern era. When more extremist forces took over the Republican Party, it became a haven for these kinds of people.

I compare it to the alteration of the Democratic Party of Kennedy. When he was President, the party became very liberal, and has not drifted far from that course; I am still suprised that Clinton became the presidential candidate in 1992 because of his more moderate views.

 

We're screwed until the extremists on both sides are told to shut up, and compromise like civil people have to do in society.

[UConn James]

Ahhh, welcome to the sad reality of the modern era. When more extremist forces took over the Republican Party, it became a haven for these kinds of people.

I compare it to the alteration of the Democratic Party of Kennedy. When he was President, the party became very liberal, and has not drifted far from that course; I am still suprised that Clinton became the presidential candidate in 1992 because of his more moderate views.

 

We're screwed until the extremists on both sides are told to shut up, and compromise like civil people have to do in society.

44108[/snapback]

 

I once considered myself a Republican, but this excerpt hits that nail on the head that it's the economic and war/security paranoia side that's had the old Republican Party pack its bags and move two blocks to the right.

 

Clinton, Gore, Lieberman and the DLC were created before '92 as a moderating force to a too-liberal Democratic Party. And with all the aftermath of the past 4 years, many Dems up and moved to the right as well, which has made them more in line with the old GOP than most current Republicans.

 

We just suffer the ad hominum attacks, complaints and shouting of the current age. I hope we get some good debates this time where the ISSUES are discussed rather than the men. B/c if Kerry does and takes a stand to this "Flip flop" charge, he'll show Bush for what he is.

[gmac17]

wow, that piece was full of a lot of well thought out arguments....

[MichFan]

wow, that piece was full of a lot of well thought out arguments....

44338[/snapback]

 

I particularly like how he goes from:

 

The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Pithecanthropus Republicanii has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the town and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and mark up the constitution on behalf of intolerance and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.

 

Straight to:

 

This is a great country, and it wasn’t made so by angry people.

 

Oh the hypocracy...

[Guest RabidBillsFanVT]

Oh the hypocracy...

44340[/snapback]

 

He's right, you know.

 

Lincoln had to hold back the Radical Republicans in order to preserve the Union AFTER the war was over. It sounds strange, but its true. Only his death prevented it from happening, and the South's reaction to a vengeful Radical group was Jim Crow and hatred.

 

Unfortunately, now the Radical Republicans are called neo-cons, who will stop at nothing to attempt to drive this great country into the ground. This article says what should have been said long ago...

[Guest RabidBillsFanVT]

I once considered myself a Republican, but this excerpt hits that nail on the head that it's the economic and war/security paranoia side that's had the old Republican Party pack its bags and move two blocks to the right.

 

Clinton, Gore, Lieberman and the DLC were created before '92 as a moderating force to a too-liberal Democratic Party. And with all the aftermath of the past 4 years, many Dems up and moved to the right as well, which has made them more in line with the old GOP than most current Republicans.

 

We just suffer the ad hominum attacks, complaints and shouting of the current age. I hope we get some good debates this time where the ISSUES are discussed rather than the men. B/c if Kerry does and takes a stand to this "Flip flop" charge, he'll show Bush for what he is.

44267[/snapback]

 

Ohh, that last paragraph was brilliant! Unfortunately, it will pass, and the same commentary will continue. It is a good day when issues can be discussed without insults or stupid sound bites!

 

I cannot imagine if the 1992 Democratic movement, backed by a person with good character and a strong military background, could do... the truly good things that could be done. Unfortunately, this is impossible right now. Fears are being played with, and of course the struggle to find good candidates continues. Someone like an Eisenhower, Truman, or a Roosevelt, who KNEW what it was like to fight and to lead, is sorely needed in this age of heightened alerts and such. That would be the tonic necessary. I long for that day when he is found.

[Alaska Darin]

B/c if Kerry does and takes a stand to this "Flip flop" charge, he'll show Bush for what he is.

44267[/snapback]

Takes a stand? That'd be a first.

 

There is little difference between these 2 candidates.

[Flight Suit]

Takes a stand?  That'd be a first.

 

There is little difference between these 2 candidates.

44392[/snapback]

 

Yes there is! One of them doesn't dress up in a flight suit and give kickbacks to Halliburton!

[UConn James]

Oh the hypocracy...

44340[/snapback]

 

Uhm, I rather thought that was a level-headed list of the policy problems that have waylaid the interests of the many versus the interests of the few and well-connected. For "angry," you're going to have to have a duel with Zell Miller, after you stand in line with all the other people he's lunged at.

 

Fears are being played with, and of course the struggle to find good candidates continues. Someone like an Eisenhower, Truman, or a Roosevelt, who KNEW what it was like to fight and to lead, is sorely needed in this age of heightened alerts and such. That would be the tonic necessary. I long for that day when he is found.

44340[/snapback]

 

I think that man was Wes Clark, unfortunately he wasn't enough of a name candidate. He supports Kerry, and would probably serve as the Secretary of Defense. About the only guy left who was the leader of a sustained and efficient force in modern warfare. My brother served in the NATO coalition under him in the Boz. I think that would be a great change from the current staff of men who fight wars on paper.

[UConn James]

Takes a stand?  That'd be a first.

 

There is little difference between these 2 candidates.

44392[/snapback]

 

Yes there is!  One of them doesn't dress up in a flight suit and give kickbacks to Halliburton!

44405[/snapback]

 

Could we maybe take a break from the constant ad hom one-liners that have been cut and pasted a thousand times? Seriously, it adds nothing to the debate.

[Flight Suit]

Could we maybe take a break from the constant ad hom one-liners that have been cut and pasted a thousand times? Seriously, it adds nothing to the debate.

44436[/snapback]

 

Flight suit! Halliburton! Goat story! His daddy's a murderer! Mission accomplished!

[Andy Rooney]

I like John Kerry, because he fought in Vietnam. Thats why I'm voting for him.

[ExiledInIllinois]

He's right, you know.

 

Lincoln had to hold back the Radical Republicans in order to preserve the Union AFTER the war was over. It sounds strange, but its true. Only his death prevented it from happening, and the South's reaction to a vengeful Radical group was Jim Crow and hatred.

 

Unfortunately, now the Radical Republicans are called neo-cons, who will stop at nothing to attempt to drive this great country into the ground. This article says what should have been said long ago...

44383[/snapback]

 

Facts suck don't they?

[John F. Kerry]

Could we maybe take a break from the constant ad hom one-liners that have been cut and pasted a thousand times? Seriously, it adds nothing to the debate.

44436[/snapback]

 

I agree.

 

Did you know I was in Vietnam?

[Guest RabidBillsFanVT]

I think that man was Wes Clark, unfortunately he wasn't enough of a name candidate. He supports Kerry, and would probably serve as the Secretary of Defense. About the only guy left who was the leader of a sustained and efficient force in modern warfare. My brother served in the NATO coalition under him in the Boz. I think that would be a great change from the current staff of men who fight wars on paper.

44421[/snapback]

 

 

I actually met him when he came aboard the ship for an all-hands call. It is very hard to judge someone when you are amidst so many other high-ranking officers.

 

I think that MANY members of this board, both right, moderate, and left, would highly support a Colin Powell candidacy. I for one would be in that support column... it's too bad he won't run.

[Alaska Darin]

Could we maybe take a break from the constant ad hom one-liners that have been cut and pasted a thousand times? Seriously, it adds nothing to the debate.

44436[/snapback]

There isn't anything to add to the debate when it involves which of these 2 is better than the other.