Scare Factor

It's been many decades since I read Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, but I remember his description of the man up in the bow of the riverboat measuring the depth with a lead line. When the line wasn't long enough to reach down to the river bed, he'd call out "nooooo bottom!"

I could hear that call yesterday when I read about the latest from Sharron Angle and David Vitter's campaign ads fincluding a picture of a trio of Mexican men used to imply that if their opponents were elected, these scary, swarthy, hostile and decidedly non-Aryan aliens would be sneaking about your back yard leering at the womenfolk, giving Marijuana to your toddlers forcing you to pay them social security benefits our of your contributions and spreading leprosy. The oldest of ploys, really and I'm trying like hell not to invoke that jerk Godwin and his damned laws, but of course everyone uses it from biblical prophets to today's iteration of the 19th century Know-Nothing party.

That the picture of three Mexican farmers taken in the far south of Mexico -- that's Mexico, not New Mexico -- and back during the Bush administration, may have been illegally used and do not actually portray aliens, illegal or otherwise, means nothing to these candidates or their supporters since anything they do in the name of the cause, even if they have no idea what that is, is justified. That is, of course, the very policy they attribute to Islamic terrorists, but never mind, only liberals would make an issue of it, you know. Liberals ( and that means anyone who opposes them) are "soft on illegals," love illegals, want more illegals and want to pay them Social Security benefits ( says the ad) and that makes Lou Dobbs a liberal along with that arch liberal George W. Bush who even speaks a few words of Mexican or whatever scary and incomprehensible-to-regular-folk language it is they speak down there. Of course that claim is as misleading as the photograph filched from the Getty Archives, but my experience proves that teabag zealots would rather pass along any lie than bother to check the facts.

There's no bottom to this muddy river. There never has been for any extended time in our history. The dream of a country run by white Protestant, preferably Anglo-Saxon males with guns (God and Guts) and their subservient families is still strong and apparently well armed. It's rapidly becoming a smaller minority and that of course only makes it an angrier bunch of dreamers with an ever greater number of unscrupulous opportunists and yes, idiots and the logically impaired. Few of them are smart enough to understand that their increasingly irresponsible extremism, the incompetent, morally unscrupulous tribe of candidates they support, harms the ability of rational conservatives -- and yes, liberals and even Libertarians -- to control the immigration rate, deal with the undocumented in a decent, American way and most of all to end the support they have from American industry as well as individual hypocrites like Dobbs and Whitman.

At first glance, it may appear that with the rise of the neo-Know Nothings, Liberal principles are under renewed assault once again -- and they are, but the real danger, in my opinion, is the death of principled conservatism and a dedication to efficient, honest government rather than one that looks good in theory but fails every test.

I have a certain amount of faith that the public will recognize the danger of the Christine O'Donnels and the Sharron Angles, the Pallidino's, DeMints and Vitters, but I have far less faith that we'll ever be able to survive the ability of Global corporations to steer us in any way they want, particularly since they are so good at keeping us fighting ourselves that we don't notice.

Rogue numbers

Would it really surprise anyone these days to see Fox News using stock footage from the Oklahoma land rush to show how many people "spontaneously" show up at a Fox planned and organized rally? It certainly doesn't surprise me when they fail to check out stories that appear on web sites or refuse to apologize when caught inventing stories like some city in Michigan "banning" Christmas. They know we're gullible and they know that if feels good to believe, it will be believed.

Still I'm ever amazed at their confidence in our gullibility and unquestioning belief. How many Fox friends looked at this and bothered to do the arithmetic? How many just saw it and thought " hey, that Sarah's gonna be our next President!"

Amazing.

This way to the egress - part II

APEC / OPEC. Austria, /Australia; the only connection between these organizations and countries is the addled brain and braying mouth of the man who controls America's largest white-collar crime cartel and America's Nukes.

In Australia for the APEC conference, the embarrassing Mr. Bush proudly presented his dimwitted confusion and once again the Commander guy couldn't find the exit and someone had to show him the door, a metaphor in action that can't have escaped notice or comparison and surely prompted the cringing majority of Americans to be be happy to show him the door as soon as possible.

Check Raw Story for the video

Tale told by an idiot

The good thing about Republican leaders is that you don't have to smear them. The bad news is that the wonderful job they do of making themselves look like idiots doesn't seem to affect their standing as Republican leaders.

It takes a certain kind of brain to see a link between legal abortion and illegal immigration. That brain belongs to Tom Delay.

"If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 30 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it."

said he to a college audience. To be sure, he's playing inventions on a theme by Zell Miller, who doesn't need me or anyone else to provide further evidence for a diagnosis of idiocy. His linking of the alleged ills of the Social Security system with Roe Vs. Wade provides everything you need.

Neither needs me to elaborate on the use of the term "Children" or the distorted linking of dubious claims into some crude simulacrum of a logical presentation and the last thing I would recommend is that anyone take Delay's advice to think about it. For one thing it leads straight to the Lebensborn breeding project to replace racial inferiors with Blond workers and provide cannon fodder for wars of aggression. It's a well worn path that leads steeply downhill.

The only real link between the straw men of immigration and abortion and Social Security is the Republican Party and its need to burn as many them as brightly as possible so as to hide the corruptions, perversions and high crimes of that party in the glare.

Max Blumenthal took video, now playing at the Huffington Post and apparently was escorted out of the building for his pains - too late of course. If there is any justification for a free internet, making it harder for them to tell different lies to different audiences is it.