First, a little update on Club Thievey, for anyone who didn’t hear. There’s a new web site at http://thievey.org where you can read all about our efforts and opt in for club updates via RSS. I’m also making the member pages opt-in, so if you’d like to see yourself listed, drop me a line. Anyway, on to it...
 
Lately I’ve been thinking about the Republican party and what they’re all about. Oh sure, lately they’ve been known for spreading war, subverting liberty, and doing their damnedest to make America into a true theocracy. Still, I think all of this is just a means to the end: robbing us all blind.
 
Although our standing military is still huge compared to pre-Cold War eras, it’s not all that large. Iraq is much too big a job for the military, which necessitates pouring billions of dollars into the coffers of contractors, like Haliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (now known formally as KBR) and the now infamous Blackwater mercenaries. Companies who I’m willing to bet were owed a favor.
 
Moreover, with the national guard mobilized and shipped overseas, even domestic problems like the flooding of New Orleans have been given over to contractors. According to a recent report on NPR, a Blackwater employee in New Orleans made $350 a day, while costing taxpayers $950 a day. No doubt once they got back to Iraq things got even more lucrative.
 
If all the death and destruction is not the goal in and of itself, maybe it isn’t necessary. Moreover, I think I’ve figured out a way for the Republicans to not only do the seemingly impossible and maintain the presidency, but do so while continuing to fleece the American taxpayer on behalf of their corporate masters.
 
Oh, I know, you’ve already got a strategy. With the economy teetering on the bring of recession and the pooch good and screwed overseas, whichever Democrat takes office will be in a hell of a pickle. They’ll be lucky if they aren’t dragged out of town behind a horse before the newly romanticized GOP comes swooping back in. But, what if it didn’t have to be that way?
 
Let’s invent a candidate: Joe Republican. He comes forward with a brave new idea: going around killing people is really making us unpopular, and that causes things like planes flying into buildings. Aside from the cost in human lives, that kind of crap endangers our liberty and costs us money. More war isn’t going to work; logic dictates there’s no amount of murder or destruction you can rain down on a country to make them like you.
 
So let’s do things that are good instead. Let’s invest our money into leading the fight against global warming. Let’s send our troops into places like Darfur where they can prevent violence, instead of instigating it. Let’s cooperate with the United Nations and obey to international law. Why not? Who wrote the law? Thomas Jefferson did, and George Washington, and Ben Franklin. Great patriots and lovers of liberty and justice wrote that law. Americans wrote that law, because that’s what an American is.
 
Two problems come immediately to mind, of course. First, all that do-gooding is going to cost money — a lot of money. Second, the constituency likes war and guns and keeping down the brown people. They are never going to go in for a bunch of hippie rah-rah bullshit.
 
To the first point I say, exactly. That’s exactly right. Who better to reforest Madagascar than our friends at KBR? Who better to guard the national forests against poachers than our good friends at Blackwater? Who better to spend billions of taxpayer dollars in cutting edge research than the captains of industry. Yesterday we got fat on oil, tomorrow we can get fat on hydrogen, solar, wind, and wave power.
 
If you’re going to rob us, at least spend the money on something that makes the world a better place. Hell, think of it as an investment. For our security, what better way to spread democracy and reason than to educate people. What percentage of suicide bombers or hijackers are doctors, mathematicians, or scientists? I’m going to bet, not much. For our finances, remember that the economy is simply the flow of money. Bring people out of poverty and they can afford to buy your crap. Don’t be misled by your mercantilist instincts. Adam Smith was long ago proved right: we can all get rich.
 
As to the other problem, the ignorant, racist, bloodthirsty contingency. To a certain extent you can appease them with things, other than murder, that are also cool. For example, the space program plays well to a diverse sociopolitical audience. Think of how well our work in Madagascar will help us get to Mars by 2020, build a moon base, or whatever other craziness NASA can think of.
 
As for the rest of them, I say fuck ‘em. Why should the worst of us rule the rest of us. Most of who we think of as “red staters” are rational people with their own self-interests at heart, just like every one else. The truly awful ones have a lot less political might than we give them credit for, and when we stop giving them that credit, stop encouraging a culture of ignorance and intolerance, their numbers will decrease even as their power.
 
So to you, Joe Republican I say this — and Jill Democrat, you’re welcome to give this a try as well, though with your situation so less dire at the moment I can’t imagine you’d bother — you can lie and cheat and steal to serve your masters without actually destroying the damned planet. Give it a try, you’d have my vote, and that’s a hell of a lot more than you’ve got now.
 
        Addenda        
 
Ash Ponders
Just the other day I suggested training commandos to wage a sherman-esque total war on poachers. My father suggested I take more medication.
Chris Hitchcock
“What percentage of suicide bombers or hijackers are doctors, mathematicians, or scientists? I’m going to bet, not much”

Just as an FYI, the last set of bombings in the UK were done by doctors. I was pretty surprised when I heard that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/world/europe/06britain.html
Bobby Golightly
For “bombings” read “attempted bombings.” Not even very good attempts, frankly; if your plan comes down to driving a burning car into an airport’s doors so that you can get dragged out by a Glaswegian security guard, you’re doing it wrong.
Mike Lee
Maybe I should revise that to:

“What percentage of (competent) suicide bombers or hijackers are (competent) doctors, mathematicians, or scientists?”
 
“Meet Max the elephant, a wonderful plush toy. He proudly sports his Republican colors...”
 
Hey Max, don’t you forget: those are America’s colors. Photo by GOP.com
Sunday, January 6, 2008
GOP ‘08