Yesterday, the republican-styled continuation of the 1960 Sharon Statement entitled The Mount Vernon Statement was released. This, my friends, will bring the republicans back to their…ahem…deserved place as the Elite Monarchy – in their own fantasy worlds, at least.
The Sharon Statement was conceived in the beginning of another undeservedly maligned Presidency. John Kennedy faced a similar division of opinion that Obama faces today, although he did not face that division so much within his own party as Obama does. However, opinions seemed to fall into two categories as regards Kennedy – he was either hated or loved. The Sharon Statement gave voice to republican ideals: government that served ONLY to protect the country and wage war, free-market voodoo economics and that age-old bugaboo, the question of State’s rights.
The Mount Vernon Statement runs in the same vein as 1960’s Sharon Statement. The only things missing are quite damning, and those are the quaint notions of free market economy and communism. I find it intriguing that the words “free market economy” never appear in the Mount Vernon Statement, although it certainly alludes to the same economic practices which led to massive deregulation and the largest economic meltdown, on a global scale, since the Great Depression.
I also find it intriguing that it stops short of calling the rallying cry against the impending socialism we have been seeing on teabagger protest signs for the past year.
The republicans are distraught at the harm being done to our country. The Mount Vernon Statement, as of today, boasts 18,500 signatures. I don’t call that a revolution. I call that…well, a bit pathetic, actually.
So let’s take a look at a handful of the people whose names appear prominently just below the Statement:
Edwin Meese: Reagan’s Attorney General from 1985 – 1988, Meese had his share of scandals. Meese was then-California Governor Reagan’s Chief of Staff in 1969. In 1969, a student protest at Berkley turned deadly when against the City’s advice, Meese helped turn the situation into a bloodbath – law enforcement killed one protester, wounded hundreds of others and the National Guard ended up occupying People’s Park for 2 weeks. For the student’s pains, Meese was named an “Outstanding Young Man of California” by the California Junior Chamber of Commerce. Meese would follow Reagan all the way to the White House, where he would become the U.S. Attorney General during Reagan’s second term. He would be strongly implicated in Iran-Contra. He had good company: almost-jailbirds Oliver North and John Poindexter. Reagan and Bush I conveniently pardoned every single person indicted during that heinous example of all that “small government” the Mount Vernon Statement commends. The liberal blogosphere wonders why it seems that there will never be indictments handed down for war crimes by the Bush Administration – look back to Iran-Contra, it really tells you all you need to know.
Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women For America, which touts as its 6 core principles everything from hatred of gays to war-mongering. They also support reform of public education by returning authority to parents. Anytime I hear bible-beating harpies lamenting public education, my right eye twitches. I wouldn’t let these sick bitches within 500 feet of Lil’Bee, because that kind of corruption is exactly what I feel I should protect my daughter from. You see, when they talk of reforming public education, they talk of destroying it. Nothing more. Their kind don’t want your kids educated, because if your kids are not educated, it will be easier for their kids to tear down the country when they grow up.
Edwin Feulner, Jr., President of The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think-tank. They like the idea of healthcare reform, as long as it idolizes and lies prostrate at the altar of free-market ideology, and has none of that “socialist” regulation about it. They believe that Policy makers should take decisive steps to move today’s bureaucracy driven, heavily regulated third-party payment system to a new patient-centered system of consumer choice and real free-market competition. Heavily regulated? In which parallel universe? One of the main problems with healthcare is that there is no regulation where it matters the most – on the money side.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. The Family Research Council was founded by James Dobson of “Focus on the Family” fame. What you may not know is that Dobson was such a stark-raving maniac, that he wrote self-described parenting books which advocated spanking 6 month olds for crying too much. The bastard should have been in jail 30 years ago. Perkins is a branch off of that bastard-tree, as well. The Family Research Council talks a big game about religious freedom, but what they really mean is freedom for everyone else to believe and worship exactly…exactly…as they do, with no deviations. In other words, they talk a lot about freedom for their own twisted beliefs, and everyone else is going to hell anyway, to so hell with them.
The Mount Vernon Statement is so vague as to be nearly meaningless. At best, it is a re-hash of the Sharon Statement. At worst, it is a poorly designed Wordpress blog that blusters and dances around ideology, but falls short of actually naming any of its true desires – total deregulation in the financial spheres, abolition of the tax code, eradication of public education utter disregard of freedom of (and from) religion. The modus operandi is the same old song and dance: malicious and willful mangling of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence to serve their own shortsighted and greed-driven agenda. Twisted language to ensconce in the minds of their followers the notion that the Republican Party is the party of freedom. The Mount Vernon Statement says that it seeks to promote a flourishing society of republican self-government.
“Republican self-government.” Less astute observers, mainly the republican “base,” don’t even know the difference between a “republican self-government” and a “self-governed republic”, which was what the Founders really had in mind.
The republican party has always disgusted me, because the good people I’ve known in my life have not typically been republican. I have known one or two good people who were also republican. When they belong to a party that takes the criminal, the fanatical and the outright tyrannical and puts them forward as outstanding citizens, it makes me want to puke. When they put forward “mission statements” that consist of nothing more than insinuations at extreme religious fanaticism and economic mindlessness, I want to put my head through the wall. Why?
Because at the end of the day, self-imposed stupidity cannot be reasoned with, it cannot be talked to, it cannot be made to see the light. In the end, we can only hope to drown it out in our own shouts of outrage and disgust, and hope that someone who might still be on the fence hears us instead of them.
Tags: Concerned Women for America, Edwin Meese, Focus on the Family, Heritage Foundation, Kennedy, Mount Vernon Statement, Reagan, republican criminals, Sharon Statement, Tony Perkins, Wendy Wright
Those fence sitters Bee, all they get from sitting atop that fence are splinters in the ass. They need to start thinking and stop listening to these people you have highlighted here. I think it is about way past time the people from FOTF focus on their own damn families and leave mine alone.
Concerned women for America, yeah as long as you listen to what your hubby says and go along with him. These are the same women that dog other women for working outside their families, you know the Phyllis Schafly type women. They want to tell you how to be a good woman by staying home but they can go out and command coin at jobs outside the home telling you to stay inside the home. See how I mind boggled my own self there with that stream of non logic. Tony Perkins, makes my skin crawl whenever I see him on the tee vee. He just is so smarmy and skeezy I cannot watch him.
Thanks for running some of this down,Bee. good to have talking points to use against my teabagger coworkers-yeah I got them too although I don’t hit them with dead cats-who can be predicted to spout whatever Beck tells them to think the evening before. And this sounds like the kind of crap he will spout off on.
Good for you to keep Lil’ Bee away from Bible thumping dirtbags.
The cold war was at its peak when the Sharon Statement was written, Americans had been trained to be fearful of all things Russian/Chinese and Communists in general and the statement mentioned Communists as an enemy to be beaten not just tolerated.
What these guys at Mount Vernon are trying to pull I’m not sure, but as far as I am concerned if there is an enemy, it is them.
I think they are preaching to their choir again, their damn choir must have a pretty short memory when it comes to bullshit because their imperial leaders seem to keep having to feed it to them. It reminded me of 1994 when the new Speaker Newt Gingrich, stood on the steps of the Capitol and announced a “Contract With America” or as it turned out a “Contract On America.”
Ed (Treason) Meese should still be in jail.
At least this wacky “statement” — and the signing thereof — kept the rightwads off the streets and away from their favorite hobbies for awhile. Think of all the fly-wings that didn’t get pulled off during that brief period.
Thanks for reporting on this shot at democracy from the right.
I remember the Sharon Statement well. The people involved then were radicals – and they bragged about it privately as they paraded publicly as the “new patriots.”
Fascism raises its ugly head time and time again here in the land of the unfree. Let’s hope that publicity will make it seem less attractive to the rubes than it usually does.
S
These people are among the usual movement-conservatives/libertarian suspects — and stale as month-old French bread. I’m surprised Phyllis Schlafly and Ralph Reed aren’t aren’t in the middle of this.
I hope the tea baggers don’t mistake this no-class menagerie for some new force in American politics. They’re all Republicans and GOP camp followers, and have been nigh on to forever.
The Mount Vernon Statement itself is Republian same ol’, same ol’ from way back, too.
BTW, didn’t the women’s association that runs Mount Vernon refuse to let it be used for this PR event? I thought I read or heard they weren’t having any of it.
Jess: The Schlafly types boggle my mind, as well.
Oso: You’re really getting into the “slinging dead cats” thing, aren’t you (haha)? I see it as my job to protect Lil’Bee from all forms of crazy predators of any stripe – including the bible thumpers
Holte: I reckon that choir’s memory is about 20 seconds long. Oh, look, pretty bright shiny thing…
Tom: I had to wonder, though, just how long it kept the hooligans off the streets.
Suzan: I don’t know that I was saying anything that everyone here doesn’t already know, but I like, for myself at least, to run them to ground every now and then, just to keep myself focused. I’d like to see some negative PR convince them to at least try to hide the crazy – it used to.
SW: I wasn’t aware about the women’s association at Mount Vernon, and I’m pleased to hear that they wouldn’t let that bunch use the grounds. I reckon the people who actually run Mount Vernon are well aware that these people are Huns compared to George Washington.