Just Can’t Watch The “Debate” Tonight

I just can’t watch the Tea/GOP “debate” tonight, between the various candidates, quasi-candidates, maybe candidates, no-one-else-is-stupid-enough-to-run candidates, my-book-fees-go-through-the-roof-if-I-say-I-am-a candidates, and all-my-rich-friends-and-other-drunks-say-I-should-run candidates.

Since former New Mexico Governor and serious candidate Gary Johnson was shut out of the debate by CNN, the remaining field will bend over backwards and grab their ankles to:

1. Blame President Obama for everything from the forest fires in Arizona to global warming (which does not exist, but, if it does, it is Obama’s fault.)

2. What they say will be complete pandering garbage, but the underlying message to donors and to the Tea Party will be more important and I can’t watch that either. They will prescribe various cost cutting remedies designed to chart a course toward fiscal health, but no plan will involve inconveniencing their wealthy donors in any way, so:

1. No tax increases on the wealthiest 2% of the population. Why not? Because Pater needs a third  vacation home in the Cayman Islands!

2. Repeal capital gains taxes. Pater died shtupping the maid and they need all of his dough to put into tax sheltered accounts in the Cayman Islands, where they, incidentally, have a third vacation home.

3. No tax increases on mega-corporations. Without that extra cash, how can they pay $multi-million bonuses to rich CEOs, so they can buy that third vacation home and add to their already bulging accounts in the Cayman Islands?

4. allow big businesses to continue shipping American jobs overseas. America demands cheap Nikes, and iStuff, so the former middle class will just have to learn to speak Chinese and greet customers at the WalMart. Mean while, the CEOs of these companies will be relaxing in their third vacation homes in, yes, you guessed it, the Cayman Islands.

5. Repeal recent “job killing” regulations on the Fortune 500 companies. Why should oil companies like BP and Exxon have to follow burdensome safety rules? Goldman & Sachs should again feel free to drum up another ponzi scheme and rake in billions (now sheltered in the Cayman Islands) and give us the bill, just like last time.

6. Continue financing the military-industrial complex, (not the actual soldiers) so that Halliburton, Raytheon, and Blackwater CEOs can take shelter (tax shelter, that is) from the hell that is war in their third vacation homes in the Cayman Islands.

7. Kill “ObamaCare,” to insure a return to the status quo for the mega-pharma/insurance companies. Cayman Islands. Them, not us. Get it?

However, their ideas will uniformly require the rest of us to “share in the sacrifice” and so they will include plans to:

a.    Dismantle Medicare and replace it with coupons that folks over 65 can use to try to buy 30% of a health insurance policy from a private insurer, if they can find a company that will take the risk.

b.   Dismantle Social Security and replace it with…uh…soilent green?

c.    Strip state workers rights to collective bargaining about unnecessary frills like job security, pensions, a safe work place, fair wages, no child labor, no gender, age, racial discrimination, etc.

d.   Increase taxes on the poor and the middle class though great ideas like “the flat tax,” increased sales or excise taxes, gasoline taxes, etc.

e.    Cut funding for Head Start, Aid to Families With Dependent Children, family planning clinics, and block grants for state-run social programs.

f.    No more helping companies that actually make goods in the U.S.A. and employ millions in the middle class, like GM, Chrysler, and green energy start-up ventures. Those jobs should be in Mumbai, where they belong!

As for social legislation I can’t watch because each candi..whatever, will attempt to sound more pious, and replete with family values than their opponents. The family values in questions will undoubtedly involve:

1. Abolishing abortion, contraception, and sex outside of the man-on-top-woman-on-bottom marriage bedroom, the way Jesus had intended it.  Underlying message? A child born of rape or incest could turn up to be the next American Idol or even The Bachelorette!

2. Outlawing all gay marriage, so gays will not start humping barnyard animals. Underlying message (as if the main message was not scary enough)? Just because you never heard of Jesus with a woman doesn’t mean he was gay!

3. Denying that the Founding Fathers ever provided for the separation of church and state and insisting that we acknowledge the U.S. as a Christian Nation.  Note: Mike Huckabee is currently working on this historical revision, which will also include the Midnight Ride (to warn the British) of Paul Revere, the shot Heard Round The World from Concord…New Hampshire, and how the Founding Fathers freed the slaves. All revisions will come complete with the full blessing of Jesus.

4. Sending all illegal aliens back to where ever they came from and building a wall, so they can’t get back in. Underlying message? Jesus, (in addition to not being at all gay, and Founding America) would have wanted it that way.

5. Supporting our troops (with ribbons and stuff), but not with actual money or healthcare or the GI Bill, or jobs when they get home from war. Jesus will go as far as ribbons but we have this deficit that Obama caused, so…

6. arming every American citizen with a gun, or two, or three, so that the gummint (that each candi…whatever wants to lead) can’t tell them what to do (with the exception of above items 1-4 and any other good Christian rule that might come up on Sunday in church).

7. Promoting religious tolerance, as long as the religion is Christian-based.

I also can’t watch because I cringe at how many groups of people these sort-of, kind-of, maybe candidates will piss off tonight. My general read is that there will about 15%-18% of the U.S. population who are so stupid, bigoted, and mean of spirit, that they will cheer on these heroes and therefore will remain psychologically unscathed, after the debate.

The seven whatevers will not be playing to a national audience but rather to a select group of the Tea/GOP in Iowa. Yet the “debate” will broadcast nationally and I believe that it will be recorded.

Although big business will spend billions to support whomever becomes the front-runner and to debrief the public about what the candiwhatevers said tonight, the progressives will have this debate and many, many, many more crazy-assed tasty tidbits of tripe to sound-byte a resounding response.

Are these seven wannabes hoping that they can say dangerously stupid stuff to get nominated and then do a“king’sxIdidn’tmeantosaythatitwasinresponsetoagottchaquestionwhoareyougonnabelievemeorthetapeofmespeaking?” Do they really believe that most Americans have such a short memory? Do they think that they can “advertise” their way out of it, before the general election?

I don’t have an answer to that one, but I just can’t watch the “debate” tonight. Mostly because it is not a debate, but a fashion show to see who can the most out of touch with everything I stand for. And they want to be President of my country. I’ll read the excerpts in installments tomorrow.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo