Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Entrenchment


Note: This blog is about political issues I really care about. It was actually my first blog. I began Creative Journey for business and Sidetracked Charley for lighter approaches to subjects which can be as sensitive as those covered here. This blog is no holds barred.

The GOP's war on women is totally unacceptable. More moderate leaders of the Grand Old Party will tell you the attacks on women's rights to control their own bodies is the political agenda of just a small segment of the Republicans. Blame it on the Tea Party. But in truth the Tea Party is just the front dogs of the attack. The old "Run it up the flag pole and see who salutes" approach. It is a tried and true strategy. Nixon used Agnew for the same thing.

The truth is all the talking heads, be they the "leaders" or the 40 Tea Party members of congress, are just puppets of the real leaders of the Republicans: The fundamentalist religious right and their agenda to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy. This goes against the very core of the foundation of our government - Separation of church and state.

And this campaign is not new. It first appeared in the 1950's when Under God was added to the pledge of allegiance and to our money. (I frankly find that latter significant as money is their god.) Barry Goldwater left the Republican party in the late 1960's because he said allowing the Religious Right a chair at the table was the biggest mistake the leaders of the GOP would ever make. But the Religious Right and its Moral Majority founded in 1979 ruled the roost in the 1980's. It was dissolved in the end days of that decade only because it was no longer needed. They were the Republican Party. Make no mistake, the Republicans are a religion.

It it was religion that brought you the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witchcraft Trials and the Klu Klux Klan and the blowing up of churches in the south if they were black churches. And religion, in the mask of the Republican Party, has brought you our current do nothing for this country Congress.

The Democrat's biggest mistake, and this is huge, is thinking there can be a dialog and negotiation to move the country forward. The only forward the GOP will agree to is their agenda: The United States of America One Nation Under their Christian God.

And that means no rights for women. Maybe even a resurgence of public burning of witches in town squares. Goldwater was right about the unholy marriage of Republicans and the Religious Right. Jefferson and the founding fathers were right to demand the separation of church and state as a key aspect of the Constitution of the United States. We are no longer the country of 1776. We fought then against taxation without representation. Given that the GOP supports no taxes for the rich 1% (which they belong to) can you honestly say you have been represented in the leavening of taxes you currently pay?

Time to say not one more step down this path we have been lead on by the Fundamentalist Religious Right. They are not moral and they are not majority.