“Weasels and Liars”

When Al Franken was hosting his Air America radio show, he played a game with his listeners called Weasels and Liars. Callers had to decide whether a quote by a politician was an outright lie or a sort of lie; a weasel.
The choices that Franken gave his listeners are a mirror image of what is being laid before the American people by the two major political Parties.

The GOP are liars who have deliberately turned reality on its head and are beginning to believe their own shtick.
The Democrats are weasels who hang their distortions on a framework that looks like reason. Both choices are a win for the oligarchs and deepening losses for the hard-pressed American people.

We know where the Republicans are heading. They are running as fast as they can toward Armageddon. They call it GWOT; the global war on terror.

That’s a lie. It’s a war for economic dominance. Those that survive the nuclear holocaust will live in a master slave state with no rights.
We know the language of their fanatic mindset now. War is peace. Aggression is self-defense. Freedom is denial of freedom. Prosperity equals poverty. Democracy equals apartheid.
The free market is their God. The US arsenal and the bodies of your children are their means. Big, big lies.

The Democrats promise one thing and do another. In the last election, they promised change but are delivering the Bush agenda while shielding Bush from the consequences of his abuse of power and his criminal acts.
They say it’s not their fault. That’s a weasel.
It is their fault. They control the agenda in both Houses of Congress.
They have a majority in both Houses. If they channeled the same energy and power that they used to suppress their own grassroots in battling the GOP, we’d have our country back. That’s a big fat weasel.

Let’s look at the Democratic Vision for America, a very weasely document.

Honest Leadership and Open Government That Ends the Culture of Corruption of the GOP. I suppose the bragging about “K” street lining up at the door after the election was the first step? Refusing to file a single ethics complaint in seven years is the Democrats idea of ending the culture of corruption? Then there are all those subpoenas the GOP are disrespecting and the Democrats are ignoring. Weasel.

Real Security. They think promising to tell the truth to the troops is real security? "You are being deployed in a global war for economic dominance"? There is absolutely no mention of stopping the war for oil in Iraq or restraining Bush from dropping part of our atomic arsenal on Iranian civilians. Imposing our will on other nations by force is not real security. A War Mongering Weasel.

Creating Jobs That Stay in America. Cleaning toilets and waiting tables? Those are about the only jobs that can’t be exported with the trade policies that the Democrats have been supporting. They have been making secret trade deals behind closed doors that will make last months job losses look positively rosy. A nasty, dirty weasel.

A Health Care System That Works for Everybody. That includes the insurance industry and the feckless HMO’s that put the bottom line before the welfare of their “customers”?
There is no mention of single payer universal healthcare. Everyone knows that this is the only way to deliver affordable, quality health care to everyone. A “sicko’ weasel.

Energy Independence. The only thing mentioned is reducing our? (their) dependence on foreign oil. Reducing our dependence on foreign oil is NOT energy independence. That's energy co-dependence. A big, oily weasel.

Retirement Security. No mention of the strengthening the social safety net or making corporations stand behind their pension programs. Remember the Medicare Drug Benefit that forced many seniors to pay more or go without their medication and put billions in the pockets of drug manufacturers? The Democrats voted for that bill and bragged about it. Your retirement? Your problem. A privatization weasel.

Supporting the GOP is signing up for Jonestown. It’s a suicide pact. Supporting the Democratic Party is like drinking yourself to death. It’s a slower way of killing yourself but you end up just as dead.
Political Parties have become a dangerous liability. They have a stranglehold on an election system driven by money and private interests. They are standing between us and the leaders we want and need who can give us the government we pay for and deserve.

Carol DW