6 August 2011. Politics Through a Cartoonist’s Eyes… and Some Thoughts to Think Upon…

You mean NOTHING to the Republican Party… only the Five Percenters matter. You? “Die… and decrease the surplus population”.

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John Boehner had NO problem increasing the debt ceiling every time that Shrub Bush asked for it…

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Anyone who applies for unemployment after 1 July 2011 will have NO extended benefits… they’ll only have 20 to 26 weeks worth, when the “average” length of joblessness is 40 weeks… the Republicans know this… but it would inconvenience their oligarch paymasters, so, they’ll not say a thing…

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Don’t blame President Obama for this… GWB founded this agency; it’s HIS creation, through-and-through. I wonder what Ike would’ve said about this? He DID warn us about the Military-Industrial Complex, didn’t he?

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Here’s a perfect personification of Jonas Paffhausen and all of his former Episkie pals…

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We can’t fund schools! We’ve got to buy bombs! You don’t need to know how to read to open up an MRE…

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The Tea Party slobbers its approval of stock market gamblers and commodities speculators… what about you?

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In the USA, petrol went up 20 percent… in Europe, it went up an average of 8.6 percent… none dare call it “price-gouging”.

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“To the winner belongs the spoils”… “Only the productive should benefit from society”… “Those unemployed freeloaders won’t get a job until their benefits run out”… if you believe ANY of that… you’re a godless pig, and you’re not only my enemy, you’re the enemy of all mankind… and I’ll oppose you and fight you as long as I’ve breath in my body…

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Who conjured up the monster? Why, it was the Tea Party with their “deficit hawk” madness. You can believe Rush and Michelle… or you can believe Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz… I don’t think that you need to guess my choice!

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There are three main props of the Tea Party extremists. The first is Perpetual Warfare against the Impure. There are wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, an incipient war simmering in Yemen, and a planned war in Syria. There are BILLIONS available for bombs… in the Tea Party’s view, if we take food out of the mouths of poor kids, that’s OK… bombs on wogs are more important. Here’s what General Smedley Butler, USMC had to say about politicians, businessmen, and the wars they foment:

The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then, it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then, the flag follows the dollar, and the soldiers follow the flag. I wouldn’t go to war again as I’ve done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defence of our homes, and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. … War’s a racket. It always has been. It’s possibly the oldest, easily, the most profitable, surely, the most vicious. It’s the only one international in scope. It’s the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. … In the World War, a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows…

The second prop of the Tea Party is a touching faith in an untrammelled Fundamentalist Free Market. Here’s what Professor Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize laureate, said of that:

Free market policies were never based on solid empirical and theoretical foundations, and even as many of these policies were being pushed, academic economists were explaining the limitations of markets… for instance, whenever information is imperfect, which is to say, always. … The fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism. It’s not the conspiracies that wreck the world, but the series of wrong turns, failed policies, and little and big unfairnesses that add up. Still, those decisions are guided by larger mind-sets. Market fundamentalists never really appreciated the institutions required to make an economy function well, let alone the broader social fabric that civilisations require to prosper and flourish. … There’s one way out of this seeming impasse… expenditure cuts combined with an increase in taxes on upper-income Americans and a reduction in taxes on lower-income Americans. The expenditure cuts would, of course, by themselves reduce spending, but because poor individuals consume a larger fraction of their income than the rich, the “switch” in taxes would, by itself, increase spending. If appropriately designed, such a combination could simultaneously sustain the American economy and reduce the deficit. … Excessive leverage has large societal costs. Banks, and especially the big banks, need to be restrained. … The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it’s often not there.

The third prop of the Tea Party is Radical Sectarianism (AKA Fundamentalism, Evangelical Protestantism). This is its strongest column of support. Here’s what Our Lord Christ said about Sectarians and their fancies:

Not every one that saith unto me, “Lord, Lord”, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

The Gospel according to St Matthew 7.21-23

Before I go, there was one other saying of the Lord Christ that applies to the Tea Party and its supporters:

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit; neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore, by their fruits ye shall know them. 

The Gospel according to St Matthew 7.15-20

Here are the fruits of the Tea Party:

1. Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, a coming war in Yemen, and a planned war in Syria (and the bloody butcher’s bill that falls on ordinary families)
2. Taking the bread out of the mouths of the unemployed and putting it in the boodle bags of the oligarchs by cutting extended UI benefits
3. Cutting senior’s healthcare in order to safeguard the lowest tax rates in the developed world on the affluent
4. Two million dispossessed families, with five to six million more to come
5. An increase in petrol prices 2.5 times the increase in European markets
6. One in six Americans now on food stamps
7. Increasingly-invasive searching by the TSA and other “security” agencies

The conclusion’s clear… in Our Lord Christ’s words, the members and supporters of the Tea Party are “bad trees”… Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Orthodox people should ponder the fact that JP, the konvertsy, Potapov, and the First Families support the Tea Party. Ergo, if the Tea Party’s a “bad tree”, only fit to be hewn down… what does that make them? Think well before answering…

BMD