Saturday, March 28, 2009

There is Always Hope...

This article is striking because it is written by a former Republican power player who recently left that party in disgust. The whole article should be read, but I just posted part of it here. This guy was one as tight with the Republican party as anyone, and even worked to get McCain elected. He has since rejected the dark side and has come into the light. Here's an excerpt:

Open Letter to the Republican Traitors (From a Former Republican)
"You Republicans are the arsonists who burned down our national home. You combined the failed ideologies of the Religious Right, so-called free market deregulation and the Neoconservative love of war to light a fire that has consumed America. Now you have the nerve to criticize the "architect" America just hired -- President Obama -- to rebuild from the ashes. You do nothing constructive, just try to hinder the one person willing and able to fix the mess you created...

How can anyone who loves our country support the Republicans now? Barry Goldwater, William F. Buckley and Ronald Reagan defined the modern conservatism that used to be what the Republican Party I belonged to was about. Today no actual conservative can be a Republican. Reagan would despise today's wholly negative Republican Party...

Republicans are today's fifth column sabotaging American renewal. President Obama has been in office barely 45 days and the Republican Party has the nerve to blame him for the economic and military cataclysm he inherited. I say economic and military cataclysm because without the needless war in Iraq that you all backed we would not be in the economic mess we're in today. If that money had been spent here at home on renovating our infrastructure, taking us toward a green economy, putting our health-care system in order we'd be a very different situation.

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.

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." Frank Schaeffer is the author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back Now.
One of the reasons I am posting this is that we are beginning to hear a lot of rightie-tighties saying that "the economy was just fine before the Democrats took over" (a local blog friend will recognize that one), and basically blaming the left and Democrats for all of America's current problems.

Now, there aren't many people left who have read my blog for the 5 years or so that it has been going, but one of my earliest and truest things obsrvations has been the inevitable pattern where Republicans massively screw things up, and the rest of us have to clean up the mess. I say "the rest of us" because there are more than just Democrats who have to work to repair the damage left by the Repukes.

Anyway, I just wanted to share with the world: If one of them can see the light, there is hope.

16 comments:

LeftyLadi said...

Welcome to the light! Like the name of your blog, constantly amazed, yet never surprised is a constant companion of mine. I'm amazed at the utter stupidity and hatefulness of republican apologists, yet never surprised. My husband put his bullet-proof vest on and ventured over to the site that shall not be named this morning. Hate was just oozing from the posts of the regulars. After reading a few posts, he said he felt like he needed to take a shower. I, now, refuse to even take a gander. We've realized there is absolutely nothing we can say or do to invoke a two-way conversation with those folks where each learns from the other. Hatred is a strong emotion, one that seeps through the pores like poison. The hatred they feel will eventually come right back to them and they won't know what hit them. Sad, but I will not allow myself to become part of the vile insults that occur there. I believe that more and more level-headed, centrist Republicans with operating brain cells have seen the light and realized that the GOP has become beholden to the far-right nut-cases. The rhetoric of the Sara Palins and Joe the Plumber types has become the calling card for the GOP and the ignorant neocons now feel they've been given some kind of power to continue vile attacks against other Americans.

Thanks for posting this, Shea. It's good to know some of them are leaving the dark side!

SheaNC said...

Nancy: Hopefully, what goes around comes around. Of course, they are god's chosen party, so they'll all float away during the rapture or something ('bye! I'll wave, as I deftly dodge the falling Hummer keys, corporate expense account cards, and Larry the Cable Guy DVDs).

LeftyLadi said...

Shea, I'll be standing right there with you waving. LOL...Larry the Cable Guy!

Grandpa Eddie said...

It was 30 years ago that I allowed myself to be suckered by christianity and it's lies. At that time I read some of the writings of Frank's father, Frances Schaeffer.
Knowing what he must have learned from his parents, it had to be difficult for him to make the decision that he did. They had to really be bad in his eyes for him to turn against them.

I see he is still holding onto Reagan as a 'good' Rethuglican. I'm sorry, but Frank has a long way to go before I'll believe that he really is supporting Obama and what he's trying to get done. Simply because the things Obama is working towards are the exact opposite of what Reagan would be doing. Besides, it was Reaganomics that started the economy heading into a tailspin.

I don't trust him because he is still a Rethuglican, and he seems to be blaming the neocons and that's about it. All the Rethuglicans, as well as a lot of Democrats, are responsible for the state of our economy because none of them did a damn thing to try to stop the fascist necons.

William F. Buckley is a conservative I can deal with, but Goldwater was a neocon war-monger and Reagan was a neocon Fascist. As long as he still thinks they were OK I won't trust him.

nunya said...

Hello Love :)

I think that except for the Reagan worship, this guy should make Republicans take a good look in the mirror.

My friend's mom is a Republican and she recognizes that this GOP is not the party she joined in the 50's.

LeftyLadi said...

"Only Christians can paint with beauty, and only Christians can love or have creative stirrings." Frances Schaeffer

Mr. Schaeffer did not have respect nor regard for 67% of the rest of the world.

SheaNC said...

G.E. and Nunya, you're right about the Reagan thing. I don't forgive him that! But, at least he's made a start...

Mike of the North said...

We are all on a journey, doesn't matter whether you believe in the "other" or not. We are born, we die. The time we have in this here and now is limited, no matter what your paradigm ( I love that word ). I appreciate Schaeffer's journey from a kool-aid drinking cult member to a thinking individual, most of the criticisms he makes are right on.

I identify with this guy in many ways, I was raised in the southern baptist church by Goldwater republicans. I left the "church" when I was 14. I couldn't stand the blatant hypocrisy. I wandered around for a few years thinking I was a republican, even voting for G.Ford in my first election.

I eventually became an anarchist, I suppose that it replaced the loss of the communal sort of concern and connectedness that I had felt in my early days with the church. And as far as I am concerned Jesus preached a pretty radical sort of socialism so the philosophy fit with my world view. It wasn't a big leap for me to go from "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." to the IWW motto "An injury to one is an injury to all."

So I guess my point is that the guy is on a journey, I'll support him in that. I'm still wandering too.

LeftyLadi said...

I suppose we're all wandering. Some are just closer to their personal destinations.

Mike of the North said...

Does anyone actually arrive at a personal destination?

As far as I can tell it's a long strange trip...

and it's not over 'til the fat guy sings,

and if a tree falls in the forest that's where the bear poops.

Ali Dahmash said...

This is crazy, how can they blame the economy on Obama while he just inherited it from Bush and his lousy admin. Thanks for sharing this with us

LeftyLadi said...

Mike of the North - Well, I don't know if anyone ever does arrive at their personal destination, but it's the journey there that makes it all so interesting. I suppose you could call your life a success if on your last day on earth you knew you had arrived. But on the other hand, if you knew that arrival to your personal destination meant that was the day you died, maybe you wouldn't strive so hard to get there. :)

Glen said...

SheaNC, and Mike of the North, oh my God, I can't believe you two are not in straightjackets yet. God help the rest of us :)

Grandpa Eddie said...

Glen, maybe it's you who need the straightjacket ;)

SheaNC said...

Mike: It is indeed a juorney. Of course, my spiritual guru is still County Agent Hank Kimball from Green Acres, and my religion is, strangely enough, described by Jed Clampett: "We's Golden Rulers!"

Glen: Nope, I'm not in a straight jacket, but I do haev the power to smack down wingnuts with both hands tied behind my back :)

Glen said...

As long as you still got those hands to play that bass, I guess that's alright.