So a slick, folksy Governor of Texas just parachuted into the Republican Presidential race. Remind you of anyone? Hair coiffed, teleprompter set to patronisingly moralistic, Rick Perry — who previously promised America he would not run for President — has decided that the country needs yet more faith-based initiatives, public prayer and foreign excursions. In his own words:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
One in six work-eligible Americans cannot find a full-time job. That is not a recovery — that is an economic disaster.
He’s right. But of course — rather than investing in dilapidated infrastructure — Perry believes that righting our economic woes is just a matter of getting right with God. From CNN:
On August 6, Texas Gov. Rick Perry wants you to drop the Texas BBQ, grab a moist towelette and fold your hands to pray. On Monday, Perry declared the date a “day of prayer and fasting for our nation’s challenges.”
“America is in crisis, ” the Republican governor says on a website promoting the event. “We have been besieged by financial debt, terrorism, and a multitude of natural disasters.”Perry invited the 49 other governors in the U.S. to issue similar proclamations, “encouraging their constituents to pray that day for unity and righteousness for our states, nation and mankind.” He wants other governors to join him at Houston’s Reliant Stadium, home to the NFL’s Houston Texans, for an August 6 event called The Response, organized by a conservative Christian group.
This is a non-political blog. The over-accumulation of debt from wars and bailouts is not really a Democratic, or a Republican issue, because both sides have been complicit in that growth, and there are politicians on both sides of the aisle — including Ron Paul from the Republicans, and Eliot Spitzer from the Democrats — who are committed to ending the bailouts and wars. Is Rick Perry one of them?
Nope. According to Anti-War.com, Rick Perry is another trash-talking big government pro-war hawk:
One foreign policy advisor with knowledge of Perry’s thinking told The Cable: ’He will distinguish himself from other Republicans as a hawk internationalist, embracing American exceptionalism and the unique role we must play in confronting the many threats we face,’ . ‘He has no sympathy for the neo-isolationist impulses emanating from some quarters of the Republican Party.’
Neo-isolationist? These wars cost trillions of dollars that could be invested in American business, that could be invested in American health, that could be invested in American infrastructure. Of course, as this blog wrote on August 7th:
The Tea Party is (largely) a manipulated group of poor and lower-middle class voters who are in fact manoeuvring for the interests of a tiny corporatist and industrialist elite. The “all government spending is bad” rhetoric has quickly been turned around to “spend less on welfare, spend more on bombing brown people to death”, the rallying cry of Big-Government Neo-Conservatives like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. That administration increased the national debt by a higher proportion than any Presidency in history, creating deeper debt woes, and handing huge power and wealth to investors like the Communist Party of China. Those early anti-tax and anti-debt protests were long ago astroturfed by Corporatists who want more and more government handouts to big business and to the military industrial complex.
Rick Perry’s announcement is the crowning achievement of the swift and brutal transformation of the Tea Party from an anti-debt, anti-war, anti-authoritarian group into a bunch of neoconservative warmongers. Rick Perry’s announcement is the rebirth of Bush and Cheney, and all the destruction they wrought. Rick Perry’s announcement is a disaster for America.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
