They call it "Class War"

They call it class war only when we fight back.



In the months since I last saw fit to open my yap on this here soapbox, the political landscape has been rocked by classic Republican over-reach. I've been poked and prodded by friend and enemy alike, urged to spew forth some wit and wisdom, some nugget of insight on what was happening, as if I had some expertise or inside scoop, instead of just rank speculation and opinion.

Anyhow, quite simply, the GOP, for years, have sold themselves as limited government types, which is popular in the boonies amongst the meth lab, dog- and cock-fighting, and copper-still types, who prefer to be left alone for obvious reasons.

Yet, in practice, they've proven to be as beholden to the leviathan as their Democractic colleagues to shove their ultra-extremist culture wars down our throats. With so many examples of their hypocritical, fascist behavior coming to the fore, it has simply been quite hard for this here redneck to concentrate on just one case when there were so many examples to point out.

So, I leave it to a New York liberal named Rachel Maddow (whom I crush on despite the obvious barriers) to come up with a perfect 11-minute dissection of the Republican "small government" myth:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I don't blame my teabagging brothers and sisters for falling prey to this myth -- they've been sold a raw deal based on a lifetime of fear and uncertainty.

Whether they be manipulated to fear shadows after 9/11, or to mistrust an American-born President with a foreign-sounding name (in a country built by immigrants, we're all kinda foreign-sounding!), they've been expertly duped by billionaires and their proxies -- it keeps the poor saps distracted, keeps them fearing their neighbors more than the corporate executive who is the REAL danger to their lives and livelihoods.

And, let's take a moment to remember the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, which claimed the lives of 146 garment workers -- 129 women and 17 men -- who died from the fire or jumped to their deaths on 25 March 1911, just 100 years ago.

Weeks before, many of the workers -- mostly young, mostly recently-immigrated -- had tried to organise for better working conditions in the factory, and had been beaten and arrested by the cops, who, like now, served to protect the rich from the poor. The factory owners -- captains of industry who made millions off the labor of these poor women -- refused to provide a safe working environment in favor of more profits, and 146 people lost their lives to greed as a result.

The tragedy inflamed public passions and jump-started the American labor movement. Industry, unwilling to provide labor with a sliver of the wealth it had created, was forced to reluctantly bend slightly, giving workers the barest crumbs of benefits, benefits they've sought to take back piece by piece over the years.

And just 100 years later, the Republicans in Congress and in statehouses across the country seek to destroy organised labor -- which would have died an inglorious death on its own if left to its own devices -- at the behest of billionaires. And just as the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire jump-started the American labor movement, so to the Republican/Corporate fascist over-reach will revive the American labor movement.

To that, I gotta give thanks to them short-sighted sumbeaches who done more for organised labor in a few short months than 100 years of shop-floor organising.

Some call it sedition...

At various times as I politically matured, I've been called a seditious traitor by those less class conscious than myself for being a "little-c" communist, particularly for being one who strongly believes the capitalist class will not relinquish control peacefully, and will in fact react violently to any movement or prophet who advocates a redistribution of wealth, from the hands of nebulous investors to those working class grunts responsible for that wealth in the first place.

That redistribution will not be anything other than violent, and as I see it, the existence and level of violence will be decided by the capitalist class itself, and how hard and fast they send out their armed wing known as the police and military. I accept that as my political truth.

In a short-sighted display of liberal delusion, those seeking a just and better society often ignore labor history and have long eskewed violence, better able to be both infiltrated and smashed before their very simple demands are made. Their simple demands? In the words of James Connolly, "our demands are very simple - we only want the earth."

Face it -- if you advocate a just and better society, you WILL be smashed violently, regardless of whether yer weapon is a gun or a pen, a molotov or a megaphone.

So that being said, my ears perked up when Stephen Broden, a GOP candidate for Congress, in my home state no less, adopted AND mainstreamed my belief that the violent overthrow of the government is on the table.

A quick google search defines sedition thusly: "an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government; or conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state."

Let's take another look at what Broden, the GOP's candidate for Tx-30, said again -- "The violent overthrow of the government is on the table."

Now, had a so-called liberal Democrat uttered such a seditious phrase, the reichwing echo chamber would have quickly jumped into action, and succeeded in forcing their resignation and a life-time of political exile. But in this day and age, when up is down and teabaggers are right, GOP candidates for Congress are free to advocate violent overthrow of the American government.

It may seen nutty on the surface, but I embrace this mainstreaming of such a radical idea, especially by agents of the reichwing, because this mainstreaming protects myself and others of my ilk who have long faced political persecution.

Saying thusly, Thomas Jefferson earned his own political exile from the Texas educational system (even as the GOP-packed School Board of Education and the GOP'ers themselves incorporate his message into their "revolutionary" programme) -- "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."

Hell, driving it home, teabagging GOP'ers have taken Jefferson's 1787 quote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" as their call to arms in their faux-revolution against the brutal reign of democratically-elected and broadly-supported President Obama.

Now, I'd argue that revolution is indeed as American as apple pie. However, reichwing luminaries like Henry Kissinger and his NeoCon spawn typically only practice that policy abroad, toppling democratically-elected governments and enacting "regime change" so that American corporate interests are preserved, protected, and run supreme. These teabagging fascists have adopted the "regime change starts at home" rhetoric of the Left, and plan on doing violently of democracy stands in the way of their reactionary plans.

The reichwingers should take careful note of their actions and their rhetoric, and pay special mind to another founding father, John Adams, who cautiously, if not prophetically, said: "Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

As for this redneck revolutionary who embraces a healthy dose of misanthropic nihilism, I wouldn't mind seeing this corporatist vision of democracy die a flaming death at its own hand so a new, and better, society can take its place. I suspect, however, that I'm in the distinct minority on this, but I am heartened that some of my fellow travellers as I rage against the system now include some of the most powerful, strongest and well-connected actors on the political stage.

So come on in, compadres, sit down, grab a beer, make yerself at home, and embrace yer violent, revolutionary impulses. Unless, as I suspect, yer faux-outrage is pure bluster, yer anti-government rhetoric dies the instant yer side once again steals power back and you go back to yer unAmerican, anti-democratic thievery in service to the oligarchs who really run this joint. Yeah, you are revolutionary posers who will gleefully lock away me and mine for uttering the same sentence Stephen Broden shouts from the campaign trail.

Oklahoma Militia?

I've got a strong affinity for Oklahoma. I grew up there, I've got friends and family there, Woody Guthrie is from there, and I've got a lot of good memories attending powwows, the state fair, Middle Earth Daycare in Norman, visits to the family ranch in Woodward.

And as I've told folks before, I believe in two things -- a working class revolution leading to a redistribution of wealth and control of the means of production and distribution by the workers ending in a classless society free from the scourge of capitalism and wages slavery, and the University of Oklahoma football program.

For all the things I love about Oklahoma, there are also some things that drive me crazy about it, least of which are the politicians there that make Texas pols seem half-way sane, which these days is a pretty low bar.

I'll set this bit up first by saying that Texas politicians are known for saying some batshit crazy stuff on a pretty regular basis. The crazy just ain't limited to state legislators or congressional reps either -- Gov. Good Hair himself has stepped into the Teabagger breach and erroneously said that Texas had the right to leave the union if it wants to.

Keep in mind, the GOP not too long ago was all about "American First!" and "Country Before Party!" not too long ago, but now, they have suddenly become anti-federalist and pro-secessionist. We've already fought one war over that issue, and the pro-union side won.

Anyhow, Oklahoma Teabaggers have got Gov. Good Hair beat on the crazy talk. Simply put, Oklahoma conservatives and lawmakers want to form an anti-federal militia to "defend against" federal infringement on state sovereignty.

FDR said famously that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but the GOP has become master purveyors of fear, and selling it at bargain rates to their easily-led sheep, ever since the attacks on Washington and New York. They offer no real solutions, and they are more than willing to give away liberties for security, and the Bush Years were evidence that they really didn't care about the Constitution. This latter day conversion to Constitution-Fetish is frankly unbecoming to the wingnuts, who at least should be consistent in their crazy. Easier to keep score and keep track, you know....

Leave it to a foreign-born, black muslim socialist (that's tongue in cheek talk for the sarcasm-impaired) to scare angry white males into forming militias to keep the federal bogeymen out of Oklahoma.

A shame it didn't work for the Native Americans. And we saw how it turned out in Waco and Ruby Ridge.

Toxic Tea....

When is a Teabagging Republican not a Teabagging Republican? When he's running for re-election in politically-moderate Massachusetts and knows he can't pander to a miniscule but rabidly-vocal segment of the voting population and hope to get re-elected....

Newly-elected Senator Scott Brown, perhaps better known as the tucked Playgirl model candidate (eh, moderately NSFW), won Ted Kennedy's senate seat thanks in large part to the Dems fielding a weak candidate unworthy of filling such large shoes, but also in part thanks to support from the Teabaggers. And true to form, they saw his victory as a victory of their own, and a portent of things to come.

So, when the Teabaggers, fronted by Teabagging Luminary/Visionary Sarah Palin, decided to hold a "massive rally" in Boston, invited Mr. Brown to attend, he said, um, thanks but no thanks. At a time when the IRS proves more popular than the Teabaggers, even Teabagger-supported politicians know their support is toxic to the majority of correct-thinking voters.

Expect more of the same as GOP politicians jettison the brain-dead, thuggish political neophytes they shamelessly fostered and supported while it was expedient.