Frank Schaeffer is pissed

[malaise]

Sadly he is years late.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/open-letter-to-the-republ_b_172822.html
<snip>
For the party that created our crises of misbegotten war, mismanaged economy, the lack of regulation of our banking industry, handing our country to rich crooks... to obstruct the one person who is trying to repair the damage is obscene.

Just imagine where America would be today if the 14 to 20 million voters -- "the rube base" who slavishly follow the likes of Limbaugh -- had not voted as a block year after year thus empowering the Republican fiasco. We would have a regulated banking industry and would have avoided our current financial crisis; some 4000 of our killed military men and women would be alive; over to 35,000 wounded Americans would be whole; we would have been leaders in the environmental movement; we would be in the middle of a green technology boom fueling a huge expansion of our economy and stopping our dependence on foreign oil, and our health-care system would be reformed.

After Obama was elected, you Republican leaders had a unique last chance to send a patriotic message of unity to the world -- and to all Americans. You could have backed our president's economic recovery plan. Since we all know that half of our problem is one of lost confidence and perception, nothing would have done more to calm the markets and project resolve and confidence than if you had been big enough to take Obama's offered hand and had work with him -- even if you disagreed ideologically. You had the chance to put our country first. You utterly failed to rise to the occasion.

The worsening economic situation is your fault and your fault alone. The Republicans created this mess through 8 years of backing the worst president in our history and now, because you put partisan ideology ahead of the good of our country, you have blown your last chance to redeem yourselves. You deserve the banishment to the political wilderness that awaits all traitors.

[rucky]

1. Of course, he's spot-on. But I would've taken a different approach

if I were in his position.

As an insider, he's exposed the fact that the leaders of the Religious Right see their followers as "useful idiots". His perspective could "covert" a few of those people, if he were to bring light to the fact that they've been conned all these years.

C'mon, Rev- help these people "see the light"!

Hopefully his name still has some equity among people who really really need to listen to him, and some of this may get through their thick little skulls.

[malaise]

2. I'm curious to see how much coverage he receives

from M$Greedia this week because 'the media/religious right/Rushican political alliance' is never kind to men who jump ship.

[ixion]

3. "Since we all know that half of our problem is one of lost confidence and perception"

Even pissed, Frank misses the crux of the issue, and wants to blame half of that on "confidence" and "perception".

Mr. Schaeffer: It is misplaced confidence and twisted perception that got us into this mess. This is about a return to real value, not about confidence.

And while I totally agree with him that Rethugs caused this mess, the "your fault alone" part is BS. BushCo had plenty of help from compliant, capitulating dems and an enabling press corps.

[notesdev]

4. Nonsense

The idea that the GOP is the only party responsible for this mess is self-delusion. Democrats own it too - MANY members of BOTH parties have gone to bat for financial industry donors, thinking you and I would never be the wiser. It's dishonest to try and foist this whole thing on the GOP when it's the Democratic House (in power since 2006) that has been repeatedly bailing out FOREIGN INVESTORS and domestic rip-off artists.

The cancer of corruption has eaten out the heart of both parties, and we won't fix it until we start being honest about the situation. This inter-party finger-pointing is great for the people looting the Treasury - a fine distraction - but what tangible benefit does it produce for the rest of us?

[KharmaTrain]

5. The Failure Of Raygunomics

Yes, both parties own much of what has happened to this country over the past decade...the escalating costs of elections and beltway lifestyles turned our political system into the "best money could buy". That said, the agenda for the past 30 years has been that of Raygun...less government and taxes, less regulation...just let the corporates trickle down their riches on us and we should be ever grateful. We saw unions minimalized and the middle class divided and diminished as a primarily rushpublican agenda pushed for more and more "deregulation".

So you don't think a lot of the problems we're encountering now wouldn't have happened had we not gone through 8 years of a dictatorship/kleptocracy? Ya think Al Gore or John Kerry would have looked the other way as the "regulators" and the regulated became one and the same? I'm not so sure our system would have collapsed as badly had it not gotten a big helping hand (and the rest of us a finger) from 8 years of boooosh.

Cheers...