by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
I smell the sweat of a right wing focus group! Since when did the Heritage Foundation put its OK on the new meme: "...but the Democrats are just as bad as the GOP?" Oh yeah? If that's true, then rewind the time machine and vote for Sarah Palin! Or Dan Quayle! Would you support a doctor who advertises: I'm a quack and you may die of cancer -- but so is Dr Bob where you may die of a heart attack?
It's time to take an objective look at GOP psychopathy which I believe is the source and origin of the recent Bush administration". The GOP must be held responsible for catastrophic economic failures and a panoply of capital war crimes so huge that they may never be investigated and prosecuted.
Democratic failures are failures of omission. GOP crimes are crimes of commission. The issue is not whether Dems are better but, certainly, they are different and different in ways that are identified by sociologists and psychologists. The new 'meme' is intended to blur the differences. If this meme is true, then the GOP has nothing else to recommend it; the electorate cannot even vote the lesser of two evils! In advertising, a leading product will distinguish itself from the wannabes. The wannabes on the other hand will try to blur the differences. Brand 'X' is just as good or, better; Brand 'A' is just as bad!
It's fact check time. Democrats have never tried to rewrite the Constitution as did Bush, supported as he was by the GOP leadership and rank and file. Moreover, Democratic constituencies have never benefited from war as did the elite robber barons who make up the Military-Industrial Complex. The GOP is defined by its real and significant constituency i.e, the top one percent of the nation, owning some 90 percent or more of its total wealth. They are not now nor were they ever members of the Democratic party!
This elite couldn't care which party it tries to own or corrupt so long as they rule. That they have, in fact, succeeded in owning the GOP is perhaps the most significant difference between Democrats and Republicans. If the Democrats had literally auctioned their 'souls', we would have a right to expect ol' scratch to have --at least --lived up to his side of the bargain.
One is either a part of the solution or a part of the problem. The GOP 'way' requires regimentation and obeisance. They have an agenda: world domination and thus continued profits for the merchants of death, their lobbyists on K-street, and the 'think tanks' and focus groups who are tasked with trying to make the whole scam plausible.
There is the problem of 'organization'. The GOP differs qualitatively from the Democratic party, a difference of structure which follows from the mindset. Numerous studies have identified several 'traits' that are statistically much higher among GOPs than with Democrats. Those traits include psychopathy and authoritarianism. My guess is that that is because the Democratic party --as Will Rogers had said -- was NOT an 'organized party'. Independent, creative, constructive thinkers, by definition and inclination, are anathema to the GOP and the GOP to them! Will Rogers was right. Had he been wrong the Democratic party might have opposed the GOP more effectively. But doing so would have redefined the party and blurred the differences with the GOP. I don't think the gains would have been worth the Faustian bargain required to get them.
John Dean's Conservatives Without Consciences, inspired by some very serious research, is must reading. Thought he still claims to be Republican, Dean claims that the conservative mind-set is characterized by the recurring qualities of 'the unbridled viciousness toward those daring to disagree with them' as well as by the big business favoritism that has cost taxpayers billions.
Even before, Dean published, a Stanford University group had published findings indicating Republicans have more nightmares and night terrors than do Democrats. Nightmares are generally believed to be manifestations of deep-seated fears, insecurities and anxieties. We must put into that context remarks by Republicans at the GOP National Convention of 1992. "He made us feel good about ourselves!" They were quite right. Reagan, indeed, made them 'feel good' about being greedy, bigoted, selfish and self-centered, psychopathic.
Continued>>>
http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-gop-remains-threat-to-democracy-and.html