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Sunday, May 02, 2010

Republican Cloud-Cuccinelli-Cuckoo Land

ThinkProgress
The “Great Seal” of the Commonwealth of Virginia depicts the Roman goddess Virtus standing over the defeated Tyranny and has been in use since 1776…. However, far-right Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) is now tinkering with the historic seal: "But on the new lapel pins Cuccinelli recently handed out to his staff, Virtus’ bosom is covered by an armored breastplate. When the new design came up at a staff meeting, workers in attendance said Cuccinelli joked that it converts a risqué image into a PG one."


Obviously, this kind of ridiculous prudery is as completely out-of-touch bonkers as is Cuccinelli's homophobia and harrassment of environmental science research and flirtations with Birther nonsense. Since his very recent election, Cuccinelli has been a powerful force behind the efforts of Virginia to remove civil rights protections from lesbian and gay citizens of the state as well as to indulge in expensive quixotic efforts to fight the Constitutionality of healthcare reform as a fund-raising ploy.

It's an old story, of course, rather like Bush selling himself as a moderate and a "Compassionate Conservative" but then going off upon arrival in office declaring illegal immoral wars based on lies and torturing people and illegally wiretapping his own citizens and so on.

Of course, to the extent that conservative ideology really only benefits a small minority of incumbent and moneyed interests it is always necessary for it to sell itself dishonestly to the majorities whose interests conservatives will not in fact serve but which democratic processes demand to bring politicians to power... Unless one manages instead to depress general turnout through disenfranchisement and demoralization enough that national minorities can function as comparative majorities...

But I must say that the speed with which contemporary Republicans hawk themselves as moderates to a bamboozled electorate and then turn on a dime within days to indulge in extreme reactionary politics really is a sight to behold these days.

I for one no longer sense in all this the discipline of a reactionary Rovian Army of Darkness holding firm in the face of a secular-multicultural onslaught, I sense instead these days the spastic hysterical desperation of yesterday's news freaking out in the sunlight glare of today's realities. It's not that I doubt the damage these authoritarian, greedhead, theocratic freaks still can do, but I no longer think they will prevail as I once sometimes feared.

So, for heaven's sake, whatever your disappointments with Obama and the Democrats these days (and believe me, I'm an anti-militarist environmentalist faggot, I've got my disappointments, too), vote for more, and better, Democrats, now of all times, and neither vote for -- or through failing to vote -- enable another to vote to put in office any more of these truly dangerously crazy Republicans. Even the Republicans will benefit from some breathing space in which to come to their senses, and, heaven knows, the country needs time to rebuild and recover from this awful mess if we still can.

2 comments:

jimf said...

> Since his very recent election, Cuccinelli has been a powerful
> force behind the efforts of Virginia to remove civil rights
> protections from lesbian and gay citizens of the state. . .

Virginia is for lovers.
http://www.musicallandscapes.com/virginia is for lovers.jpg

On the other hand,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceUQHpXoBH0

jimf said...

> "But on the new lapel pins Cuccinelli recently handed out
> to his staff, Virtus’ bosom is covered by an armored
> breastplate. . ."

"I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy?
I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus.
Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn...
but the troops were dazzled."