Dispatch #18 March 2nd 2017
Day 116 Post-Ascendency of White Supremacy & Misogyny (PAWSM)
Day 41 Post-Installation of White-Supremacist-Misogynist-Pussy-Grabbing-Self-Aggrandizing-Demagogic-Bully-Illegitimate-PeeOTUS & his White-Nationalist-Fascistic-Christian-Supremacist-Quislings
Well Geez….Are you Fucking Kidding me?!?!?
Yes, this would be my Reactive Outrage with no purpose other than hurling contempt at the pundits, journalists, and self-styled political leaders (C’mon Van Jones, what the hell is going on with you??!) who are breathlessly reporting that the Illegitimate PeeOTUS met the lowest comportment standard possible by managing to read a teleprompter for 60 minutes with only a few errors. Suddenly we have a ‘presidential’ Illegitimate PeeOTUS. Despite the de rigueur condemnations of his strong-man-autocratic-leadership-style, we are suddenly supposed to be reassured that the country isn’t going to the dark side because this Self-Aggrandizing-Demagogic-Bully-Ignorant-Narcissist managed a brief time-out?! (And no scotch tape on his tie either.)
So a brief review of who/what the Illegitimate-PeeOTUS represents and why we need to pay more attention to his White-Nationalist-Fascistic-Christian-Supremacist-Quislings seems in order. OK, just how reprehensible are these Republicans?
Jessica Valenti offers a great take-down of CPAC dis-inviting Mil Yiannopoulos:
Those who canceled his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference and pulled his book because they found what he said about children abhorrent are essentially conceding that everything he said previously was tolerable. That the racism, misogyny, xenophobia were just fine. That they could live with Yiannapoulos outing trans students – putting them at risk of violence – and emboldening online mobs to attack women and people of color.
And make no mistake, the conservative posturing on child sex abuse falls especially flat considering their tolerance for racism and anti-immigrant rhetoric: children of color and kids from marginalized communities are far more likely to be abused because predators target those who are unprotected. Their policies make certain children much more vulnerable to abuse, so I’m quite over hearing how much they care about kids.
Conservatives show us who they are every day – they dehumanize vast swaths of people, disempower the most marginalized, and tolerate discrimination and bile from their own politicians and president.
Another Guardian Columnist Trevor Timm writes:
Nearly all the oxygen and outrage in DC is being sucked up by Donald Trump and his outrageous executive orders. But let’s not forget about the man without whom Trump could not accomplish his larger agenda: the spineless speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, Trump’s mainstream defender and apologist at every turn.
Ryan, who has cultivated a sham image as the “reasonable” Republican for years, has backed virtually all of Trump’s most controversial and cruel policies. Ryan manages to never buck Trump on anything of significance, while getting publicity for meaningless, quasi-critical statements. He is the biggest fraud in American politics.
And of course the most courageous and outrageous late night TV host Samantha Bee of Full Frontal skewers the so-called “conscience of the Republican Party” as the worst of the worst. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oAEJsE-TUvQ&ebc=ANyPxKphleh4zsVzxoT57J3GJSJV1FcX4fHQ21rzTsmLoeeqS6iZQpEHbXTURnPgcQoPNmlVIhrUXQQf81ZrXQRDTfFipufyVg
Paul Ryan (despite his baby blues, or perhaps because of them) embodies priorities for American that include: getting as much as you can with unrestrained capitalism; demonizing the others of color(s); tearing down any and all government program that promotes health, welfare, environment, education and opportunity for all; ensuring the ascendance of ravenous capitalists and white nationalists; and normalizing hatred and bigotry-driven brutal actions.
For another recent and overlooked example of Republican depravity as well as a reminder of America’s brutal past under Reagan, how about the consideration of Elliot Abrams for Deputy Secretary of State. SO UNFAIR that he lost his chance to be Deputy Secretary of State because he had criticized the Illegitimate PeeOTUS during the campaign. L
It didn’t matter that he is guilty of crimes against humanity due to his cover-up and protection of death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala where indigenous women and their families were raped and murdered by the thousands during the Reagan administration’s support for murderous right-wing dictators across Central America during the 1980s. Somehow Abrams was only charged with, and convicted of, lying about his role to Congress. Yup, not what he did, but lying about it.
Eric Alterman discusses this in the February 2nd 2017 issue of The Nation:
I don’t know about you, but intentionally helping the US government to aid and abet the commission of genocide, while attacking the character and reputation of those trying to expose it, strikes me as securely within the definition of “war criminal.” But since Abrams’s 1991 conviction for his Iran-contra lies (and subsequent pardon by George H.W. Bush), the course of his failing-upward career has repeatedly revealed the moral rot at the heart of our political establishment.
The conviction of Rios Montt for genocide in Guatemala during his short rule (1982-1983) has brought that episode back into the news. The death toll during the Guatemalan civil war was estimated at 200,000 by a UN commission, with the overwhelming majority of these casualties (93 percent) committed by the army, though only a portion during the reign of Rios Montt. The record is one of mass slaughter, mass rape, and possibly the worst human rights violation in the Western Hemisphere in the last 50 years.
As anyone who followed human rights issues back then knows, the Reagan Administration supported the Guatemalan regime, with Reagan personally defending the dictator, claiming that he had “great personal integrity and commitment.” Elliott Abrams also claimed that the human rights situation was improving–precisely when it was at its worst. The Guatemalan regime had many supporters–the Reagan Administration, the Christian Right, and several other countries, including Israel, Taiwan, and the fascist regimes in Argentina and Chile.
See also Eric Alterman in July 8-15 2013 issue of The Nation:
www.thenation.com/article/upside-genocide/ The Upside of Genocide The reputations of Reagan-era officials who enabled the Guatemalan genocide have not been tarnished.
And lest we think that American crimes against humanity have ended in Central America, we must think again. The grinding poverty and relentless drug-related violence that have driven so many residents of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras to seek better lives in the US are directly the consequence of US imperialism in Central America during most of the 20th Century. America continues to send money and arms to repressive regimes.
A year after the killing [of Berta Cáceres], the situation in Honduras has become only worse. Activists and journalists critical of the government continue to be targets of violence. The public prosecutor’s office consistently fails to conduct proper investigations into the killings of activists. Yet the office receives full-throated backing from the United States’ ambassador and its State Department. A recent report by the human rights group Global Witness notes that the United States gives Honduras tens of millions of aid dollars “directed to the police and military, both of which are heavily implicated in violence against land and environmental activists.”
Berta Cáceres court papers show murder suspects’ links to US-trained elite troops
The internationally-recognized Honduran environmental activist’s killing a year ago bears the hallmarks of a ‘well-planned operation designed by military intelligence’ says legal source.
Besides virulent racist rhetoric, Republicans relentlessly attacked Obama for the Affordable Care Act. ‘ObamaCare decried as America’s horror and nightmare that will destroy the healthcare system.’ Referring to enactment of ACA, which expanded access to public and private health insurance, Ted Cruz declared this to be the worst event in American history since….well, since slavery. Wow….
Of course America has stood alone for more than 100 years as the only high-income country without universal health insurance or universal access to personal healthcare services. Despite ‘ObamaCare’, the richest country in the world still does not guarantee access to health insurance or to personal healthcare services. Exceptionalism one imagines.
So this news flash doesn’t come as a surprise, although you probably didn’t see it.
US Life Expectancy Expected to Fall further Behind Other Countries!
Life expectancy in the United States is already much lower than most other high-income countries and is expected to fall even further behind by 2030, new research published today [February 21 2017] predicts. The USA has the highest child and maternal mortality, homicide rate, and body-mass index of any high-income country, and was the first of high-income countries to experience a halt or possibly reversal of increase in height in adulthood, which is associated with higher longevity,” the authors write. The United States also lacks universal health coverage available in other high-income countries and has the largest share of unmet health care needs due to financial costs. www.cbsnews.com/news/us-life-expectancy-expected-to-fall-further-behind-other-countries/
The USA is also the only country in the OECD without universal health coverage, and has the largest share of unmet health-care needs due to financial costs. Not only does the USA have high and rising health inequalities, but also life expectancy has stagnated or even declined in some population subgroups. Therefore, the poor recent and projected US performance is at least partly due to high and inequitable mortality from chronic diseases and violence, and insufficient and inequitable health care. www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)32381-9/fulltext
“None of this is news to anyone who has been paying attention. But it is nevertheless disappointing to see the major press organs in the US ignore this important report.” Yves Smith observes in her February 23rd post.
Well, as Mike Pence recently reassured us, we should all take heart because the Frightful Era of the ‘ObamaCare Horror’ will soon be coming to an end.
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