Stopping Dem 60 ‘real hard,’ Cornyn fears

unclematt,

Agree, almost 100%.

One big exception. What do you mean "The Republicans may SEEM "looney"?

From what I remember of Psychology, one of the most arduous tasks is to "extinguish a conditioned response".

Think any addiction, or anything which triggers obsessive\compulsive behavior. Breaking it is nearly impossible.

As far back a 1961 and Robert. J. Lifton's book, "Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Brainwashing In China" the incredible task of de-programming the badgered and bewildered was made clear.

Let's be honest. The GOPer "looneys" you mention (the one's McCain\Palin summoned to form their Patriot's Coalition) fused together the widest known amalgam of the ignorant, bellicose, belligerent, paranoid, abused, abusive, semi-psychotic, and media brainwashed bedlam ever seen gathered together in this nation.

Collectively they rant on, with fervor, that the GOP is "their" personal property, they own it,

--that the President is NOT "their" President,

--that the Union is not something that suits "them," but that it must jump to their tune or else states must turn to 'patriotic sedition' to teach that Marxist Obama a lesson.

--that the Constitution is what they alone say it is, despite being nothing more vital than words on paper.

Oh, yes, Jesus thinks Torture is A-OK and that Taliban jihad stuff is a terrible idea unless it's a GOPer initiative against them evil Dems...

But you think somehow the GOP is willing, and capable of disentangling itself from our homegrown version of Mao's fanatical Red Guards?

Look up any thread on Current and you'll see a very different reality. The GOP is not disengaging from the looneys. The looneys are running the circus.

As you suggest, will the GOP attempt to go over the looney's heads to widen their appeal? Of course. What choice do they have? They love spin. It worked for them for years and the Dems were too compromised, weak and enfeebled to counter attack.

But by next election cycle the GOP will become so closely associated with the idiot and lunatic fringe that the electorate will be "conditioned" to fuse both camps into the same image of the Right. The extremist fringe will BE the GOP.

As easily as the Liberals were tagged with being "liberals" and therefore "wrong", the GOP will be seen as dangerously unhinged.

As the lady says - "it's all just a little bit of history repeating." Unfortunately not ours, but Maoist China's.

Avery, I agree with your assessment of the Right Wing loonies. The point I was trying to make was their true, looney colors always show after they loose an election but when the next election nears, they suddenly become "compassionate conservatives". I feel it is IMPERATIVE that we continuously remind the electorate of their extremist views.
Peace

unclematt,

"The Dark Side" is right!

The idea that The Party Of Lincoln (and Eisenhower) has gone so completely berserk perplexes a lot of us. Since when did consertvative mean RADICAL and EXTREMIST?

The idea that after sqaundering both the Presidency and Congress, these guys would refuse to acknowledge that they are no longer The Government Leadership and granted free reign to dictate policy? That's just crazy.

Or crooked.

Some years back a conversation with an economic historian led to some surprising conclusions about the work of a fellow named Kondriateef.

I was aware that Kondriateef thought major economic crashes came in approximately 60-year cycles. As thanks for his work, Stalin had him executed. Recently attempts were made to explain the cycle as solar or lunar phenomena.

The economist said probably the easier way to explain the time between failures was the time it took (following an initital period of intense reform) for government and business to become completely corrupted and dysfunctional.

It looked something like this. The highest ranks just stopped perceiving what was wrong with the system they had created. Over the decades they learned to use it largely to ensure their own status and welfare.

More recently, if the corporate world was willing to pay the costs to elect and maintain a political-lifestyle and all it took was to kill regulation of dangerous products and processes? Why not?

Sixty years ago you had a Judge - Truman - followed by the supreme Allied Commander of all forces in Europe - General Eisenhower. Both cracked the whip. Corporate tax rates - to pay for a war ASAP - were at 90%. It worked. For bailing out America in record time, Ike is now classed as a Pinko and too sympathetic to Communism.

More prophetic than people today can comprehend, at the end of his term Ike warned us what was to follow if we did not "guard against" another collapse due to "undue influence".. AKA Militarism.

What Ike, and Kondriateef predicted, is the quicksand we find ourselves in now.