Tell the Republicans to go fuck themselves. No, really. Tell-the
Republicans-to-go-fuck-themselves.
America (and the rest of the world) has suffered eight years of
these assholes — the “we create our own reality” (Rove) crowd — who
were convinced after they defiled the horror of 9/11 with a phony war
and all the torturous trinkets they draped it with that they would
ultimately prevail in their quest to maintain Republican power for
many years to come. Mr. Obama, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth
after it has kicked itself in the balls. Give it another kick, just
to make sure it isn’t getting up again any time soon.
These are the people who’s ultimate goal is to eradicate all social
programs, to privatize everything, and to keep America in the wild
west where Reagan placed it years ago with a policy of deregulation
which has finally imploded, leading to the current economic crash.
These are the people who would stand up in a debate, as the
Republican candidates did in late 2008, and when asked if they
“believed” in evolution (as if evolution is something to “believe”
in, like a deity) would most certainly keep their hands firmly to
their sides. This is the type of nutter you are dealing with here.
Conservative thinking is over. Its crushing,
one-small-portion-of-the-left-hemisphere-of-my-brain-is-all-I’m-using
approach to the complexities of this period in history are now too
flat-footed to be entertained by anyone who is using a modicum of
the other cranial areas. It might have been useful once, but it’s
not anymore.
Look, Pres., the public chose you over a man who was so obviously
suffering the beginnings of some degenerative brain disease, the
like of which strikes our aged with such unfortunate regularity.
(Well done, old chap! You beat a man with Alzheimers!) Don’t let
these “ideology above everything” folks grind you down. Please
find your Huevos Grandes, and quickly.
And so, President Obama, tell the republicans to go fuck themselves.
Thanks you for your time today, sir.
The Chairman
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31 comments:
Graham,
I have been a fan of yours since 1976. I think you have been one of the most consistently great artists on the planet. Few have bought more of your albums than I (I've given scores as gifts in attempt to expose others to you).
That being said, I think your comments here are simplistic and childish and ignorant and beneath you. History will have a chance to judge Bush, Republicans and conservatives. But it might do you some good to actually educate yourself on the other side, and why some think as they do. Based on the immaturity and ignorance you display here, most conservatives I know could probably run circles around you with regard to a discussion of political policy and philosophy.
With regard to Bush, no president in the past several decades has expanded social spending more than Bush. I happen to think this has been a major failing of Bush's, but nonetheless, it's just so incredibly ignorant of you to make the comment you did about the ultimate goal being to eradicate all social programs. At least try to educate yourself on actual facts, rather than be governed by emotion.
While you probably got great satisfaction from writing what you did, and while many sycophants and self-satisfied liberals will fall in step and pat you on the back -- the reality is you don't know what you're talking about and you appear to be too damn lazy and/or smug to go take the time to understand the other side, or to discover just how stupid you sounded here to those of us who might not share your political views.
Steve,
Do you really like the way things are going in this country today? Do you think the last 8 years have been good for America? Who's the ignorant one here? The Republicans have been in charge for the past 8 years (including the last 2 when the Democrats were supposed to be in charge but weren't), and look how things have turned out. You like the way people are losing their jobs (500,000 in the past month) and the way businesses are failing and people losing their homes? All because of failed Republican policies. I think most people in this country agree that the Republicans blew it and want to try something different. The Republicans are all about standing in the way, not about actually doing anything to fix the situation.
They just want to do more of the same shit.
FUCK the Republicans!
Killface,
Do you for a second think the financial meltdown would have been avoided had Bush not been elected? The current meltdown, is a worldwide phenomenon, not a U.S. one.
In fact, the United States may end up not doing as bad as many other advanced western nations. Look what's happening in Great Britain. Bush and the Republicans and American conservatives were not running Great Britain. Look at Japan. Bush and the Republicans and American conservatives were not running Japan.
We all know we're in a financial mess. But don't believe anybody who tells you they know exactly why that is. Because they don't.
Alan Greenspan is a person whose reputation has been discredited, after years of enjoying the reputation of being some kind of maestro. But Greenspan was also someone who Clinton appointed as well. And one of President Clinton's economic geniuses was Bob Rubin. Ask the shareholders of Citi what they think of the brilliant advice Rubin gave the bank. So Clinton's economic guru didn't seem to have a clue that the financial system was on the verge of collapse.
Bush and the Republicans are hardly blameless. But nor are they the cause of all that is wrong with the world.
Graham Parker was claiming that the goal of Republicans was to eradicate all social spending. But consider this. Some of the housing bubble was rooted in the incredibly liberal policy of pressuring lenders to give mortgages to lower income people. This was the policy of the Clinton Administration. And the Bush Administration kept it going, the meanies that they are.
Are we to believe that if Al Gore had become president, that the policy would have been to turn off the spigots of using government coercion to get more and more mortgage money into the hands of those of lower financial means?
With regard to the decision to remove Saddam -- maybe that was a disastrous choice. Or maybe not. History will decide. Iraq sure is looking better today than 1 year ago. Who knows what historians in 10 years will say about the decision, or in 50 years?
Regardless of what future historians write, let's not engage in revisionist history today. While Bush made the ultimate call to remove Saddam, the intellectual foundation for doing so was put in place during Clinton's presidency. Remember the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 that President Clinton signed into law? That made the pursuit of regime change in Iraq not just the policy of the Clinton Administration, it also made it the law of the United States.
As well, remember how during Clinton's presidency, whenever Saddam would cause trouble we would hear from some in Democratic Party circles and in the Clinton Administration how the first President Bush had caused them this problem by deciding to leave Saddam in power? I remember.
And consistent with that, during the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush actually ran to the left of Al Gore with regard to U.S. involvement in confronting threats from rogue countries. It was Gore who was more of a hawk during that campaign. It took 9/11 to bring Bush on board, regardless of what you might see in movies by Michael Moore and Oliver Stone.
Ah, so it's all Clinton's Fault :-) Got it. By the way, Graham doesn't mention Bush. But while we're talking about Clinton & Gore, I seem to recall that it was Clinton who not only balanced the budget (something that the "fiscally responsible" Republicans have consistently failed to do), but he left us with a surplus. I also recall the '90s under Clinton being the boom years. Funny how a "fiscally responsible" Republican administration was somehow unable to sustain that growth even for a brief time. Again, I say, Republicans are not in the least bit interested in solving any of our financial problems. They're only interested in scoring points by blocking Obama's efforts in what I think will be a misguided attempt to take back congress. They will lose even more seats if they keep this up. People are hurting and want action, not more tax cuts for huge corporations. Fuck the Republicans.
Killface,
Are you saying Graham Parker wasn't including Bush when he wrote:
"America (and the rest of the
world) has suffered eight
years of these assholes"
Anyway, I'm not blaming Clinton. I thought Clinton was a decent president overall. But I'm just pointing out that Bush's Iraq policies didn't exist in a vacuum, that they had their intellectual roots in what was going on in the Clinton Administration in the late 1990s when it was becoming apparent that much of the Democratic Party establishment was preparing the country for the need to remove Saddam. You can even go back to 1998 when John Kerry basically said that he was ahead of the nation and of the Clinton Administration with the need to confront Saddam.
As for your claim that Clinton balanced the budget. Yes the budget was balanced during Clinton's presidency. And Clinton deserves some credit for that. But the Gingrich Congress deserves plenty of credit as well, if not more. Afterall, a balanced budget was actually part of the Republican Party's Contract With America that they ran on in 1994. A balanced budget was not something the Clinton Administration ever promised. In fact, the Clinton Administration was estimating budget deficits of 200 billion dollars per year as far as the eye could see. They were actually quite surprised when the budget went into balance and then surplus. They never saw it coming nor promised it. Gingrich and the Republicans of the time did.
So both Clinton and the Republican Congress deserve some credit for that. But some of the credit also goes to the incredible explosion in government revenues resulting from the capital gains tax cut. And some of the credit also belongs to the stock market bubble that resulted in massive amounts of capital gains tax revenue to the government as well. But that such revenue was really the result of a bubble, not anything rooted in true sustainable reality.
One more thing regarding Clinton and Bush. Did you know that the income gap increased the most during Clinton's presidency? Far more so than during Reagan's and during the first President Bush's term? And that if anything, the income gap actually stagnated or shrunk during the 2nd Bush's 8 years in office? Isn't that ironic? Since you think the economy under Clinton were the "boom years", perhaps growth in income inequality isn't such a bad thing. Or is it?
After suggesting that President Obama tell Republicans to go fuck themselves, Graham Parker also writes:
"These are the people who
would stand up in a debate,
as the Republican candidates
did in late 2008, and when
asked if they “believed” in
evolution (as if evolution
is something to “believe”
in, like a deity) would most
certainly keep their hands
firmly to their sides. This
is the type of nutter you
are dealing with here."
For the record, I'm a secular person who thinks that evolution is the way things happened.
But I find the evolution debate interesting. Most in the United States who subscribe to evolution are also people who believe in God. They will say that evolution is the mechanism that God used to create man. I suspect that's what President Obama would say, as Obama is a believer in God.
And that's all very interesting if you ask me. If it's ok to believe that an all powerful being (God) created evolution so as to create Man -- then how much of a stretch is it to then entertain the possibility that such an all powerful being (God) would have had the power to create Man via a different process?
So I would argue that there is negligible distinction between those who believe that God created evolution to create Man and those who believe that God created Man another way. They both subscribe to a variation of some type of creation theory. Think about it.
So Graham, what kind of "nutter" would believe that a supreme being created Man? The answer is the Democratic president who you suggest tell Republicans to go fuck themselves, as well as tens of millions of Americans who believe that evolution is a creation of God.
Graham Parker writes:
"and to keep America in the wild
west where Reagan placed it years ago with a policy of deregulation which has finally imploded, leading to the current economic crash."
Is that reality? With regard to the policy of deregulation, let's remember that it was actually President Jimmy Carter who started the country down the path of deregulation. And Reagan continued down that path.
Now, was the current financial meltdown the result of deregulation? There are reasonable arguments on both sides of the question. But are more regulations necessarily good? There is no doubt that some of the housing bubble was the result of banks being pressured by the government to lend to people of marginal financial means. But it was government regulation and decrees that pressured mortgages be given out to people of marginal means. It wasn't deregulation that led to that.
With regard to President Bush -- just what exactly did he deregulate? As far as I know, most of the changes in law governing financial institutions, that some think contributed to the financial meltdown, were signed into law by President Clinton.
So what did Bush deregulate? I'm sure most of us have heard of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act that was signed into law by President Bush in 2002. That wasn't deregulation. That was a massive regulatory bill which was the exact opposite of deregulation. It was in response to the corporate malfeasance of Enron and others that went on late during Clinton's presidency, but which came to light early on during Bush's.
So by signing Sarbanes-Oxley, President Bush actually added regulations to the economy at a rate not seen in several decades. While it did no good in preventing the financial meltdown, it certainly added massive compliance costs to American business.
Steve,
So the Republicans get the credit for the good things that happened in the last half of the Clinton administration but none of the blame for what went wrong once they took over in 2001? LOL! You Republicans are such funny people. The fiscally conservative thing to do would have been to continue the apparently successful policies of the Clinton years, but they didn't do that. They went back to massive deficit spending as soon as they took office. And they had SIX FUCKING YEARS of being in charge of all three branches of government, and two more of basically more of the same, since the Democrats never really went against them. Look at the mess we're in. The current crop of Republican weasels are not truly conservative. I could respect that if they were, but they're not. They should just step aside and give Obama a chance to fail - or succeed, which is what they're really afraid of.
Chairman,
I couldn't have said it better, though I have said it many times to anyone who will listen. In the real world (which even includes Washington, D.C., many indications to the contrary) there are times when there is no substitute for unconditional surrender, despite one's normal civilized preference for making peace with the vanquished. The Civil War and WW II spring to mind, and lest anyone think I'm exaggerating, the republicans' ongoing performance with the stimulus bill amply demonstrates that this is another such time.
Perhaps there is material here for Tex?
That said, when are you going to get back to the west coast? I keep asking...
The difference to me between a Republican and a Democrat is no hope or the belief of hope.
You probably don't have any more hope but believing in hope is better than none at all.
GP, love ya, but give me some of the shit you're smokin! Bush and his neocon buddies sucked. No argument from me, but the reason they suck is they became Democrats while the Democrats became Socialists. This collapse was the result of government interference in the market not the free market itself. The program started under Clinton and scumbags like Chris Dodd, Maxine Waters and that reprehensible mush-mouth moron Barney fucking Frank, who mandated things like unemployment and welfare could be used as forms of income for the love of Christ! I don't mind the criticism of the Republican dirt-bags who have been complicit in this whole mess, but to think these fucking Democrats are our salvation is just plain stupid. The bigger government gets the more control they have over our lives and the less freedom we have. "It has been my experience that most bad government is the result of too much government" - Thomas Jefferson. Please take the time to watch the Aaron Russo documentary "America Freedom to Fascism". Fuck all the Bureaucrats!PS, Loved Waiting for Columbus. See you next time at the Narrows.
Jeff,
Regardles of who's fault it is, what Graham was trying to say, I think, is that the Republicans are just trying to stick it to Obama and are doing nothing to help the situation other than to score points and try to get re-elected (good luck on that). If you think the Republicans' ideas of more tax cuts for the already wealthy is going to do any good, then you must have been asleep for the past eight years.
And I loved "Waiting For Columbus" too. I also really liked "Don't Tell Columbus"!
Sorry,got my GP and and my Little Feat mixed up, probably because I've been listening to "Waiting" a lot recently. Apologies to the chairman!
Steve,
Clearly you have a unique brain disorder that allows you to type and repeat phrases you heard on your AM radio but renders you unable to think. Anyone able to feed himself knows that unregulated US investment banks, under the supervision of the Bush administration's SEC, caused the global financial meltdown. Border collies are 20 IQ points beyond thinking evolution is up for "debate". But the stupidest thing you wrote is the notion that most conservatives could "run circles" around Chairman Parker in a discussion around policy and philosophy. Within minutes of such a discussion, ANY conservative would be found in the fetal position, in pool of their own urine, screaming "THERE IS NO GOD!" while trying to fuck themselves.
I agree with Steve. One-sided political ranks always seem inappropriate, immature, and reflect poorly the ranter. I've always enjoyed Graham's music, perhaps more so long ago when we all and the world were younger and it troubles me that you would sacrifice thinking through issues for mere cleverness and snark. There is room for at least two parties and two schools of thought on how to govern. Bush et al did not destroy conservatism or the country anymore than President Obama will resurrect liberalism and be our salvation. The economic meltdown has lowered the financial tide to reveal some interesting bedfellows. there is more than enough criticism and responsibility for both parties to share in this current colossal economic mess but it is, indeed, a global phenomenon.
As an aside, for what it's worth, classical liberalism has been in suspended animation for decades in the U.S. I always try to remember that political ideas and thought transcend individual politicians and policies and we should all think more before we speak on these issues. There is enough misinformation and alienation already. Thank you. Howlin Wind remains a great record, and Struck By Lightning remains woefully underrated, IMHO.
Jim
Dear Chairman Parker,
I thank you for your succinct appraisal of the disaster that was the Dubya era. I too have been a fan of yours since 1976 and I have always enjoyed your left-brain comments on authority and buffoonery. More power to you.
Tribal Geoff
Hats off to you Steve for presenting an alternative view with civility, decency, and plenty of reason for the discerning. GP and his fellow travelers don't quite deserve the level of engagement you're offering -- they're obviously more interested in hacking off their political enemies.
I love how the left seems to think they have some kind of monopoly on reason. They are the true people of science, they tell us. Yet the posts here suggest a white-hot hatred that is hardly rational or anything close to empirical.
They also love to cut off debate on questions they consider settled because their intellectual slave masters say it is settled. So you see the vitriol pointed at anyone doesn't bow in obeyance to those slave masters.
I'd bet you a cold pint that Graham and his adolescent buddies couldn't tell you the difference between micro and macro evolution or explain Stephen J. Gould's "baby monster" theory and why he postulated it in the face of non-existent transitional forms in the fossil record. Evolutionist reactionaries typically know diddly squat about the actual facts and debate over evolution, yet are smart enough to recognize it as a scary threat to the idea that there might be cosmic accountability.
Meanwhile, they'd like to hang W. from the highest rafters for his alleged sins. (Funny how self-righteous you dudes are, given that, by your own admission, you're just evolved muck.)
Good luck with that approach, fellas. As the good book says, "Pride goeth before a fall."
It's gonna be a long way down.
Dave,
You need to stop sleeping with your drunken chimpanzee and for God's sake stop letting him dress you in the morning. Your mother was a hamster and your father reeked of elderbeery wine. The only "pint" you ever tasted was from your mother's wrinkled teat, now grow up and find a nipple of your own you empty-headed idiot. Is that civil enough for you?
I apologize for portions of the posting above. I live in the basement which is wet because of a leaky hot water heater that keeps me awake with its persistent pinging and popping. My environment has caused a psychotic disorder which sometimes results in antisocial comments, especially when I'm drunk.
Steve and Dave,
Thank you. One can clearly tell from the childish vehemence of the responses to your considerate posts just how right you are.
Care to tackle the fraud of global warming for these folks now too? Obama and his ilk are now about to tank our economy for decades with this nonsense. Much like the "boom" under Clinton, correlation is not the same as causation.
I would rather have no "hope" than this kind of change. The many failures of those who led the Republican party, having emerged from our terrible political process, do not condemn conservative thought. As you stated, it was their betrayal of conservative thought that was their biggest problem. Now we may all irretrievably pay for this with the terrible ideas of the Democratic leaders.
I am also a secular conservative, but we may need a god to help this country survive. Not holding my breath waiting.
GP, love the music as always.
Puckpaul11,
Please no more oxymorons like "conservative thought". You immediately lose all credibility with all thinking people when you write "fraud of global warming". Is gravity a fraud too? Is the earth really round Puckpaul? What's amazing to me is that right-wing thought has been so thoroughly discredited, and proven so utterly bankrupt of worth that you stand before the world metaphorically naked and still refuse to accept it.
What President Obama has accomplished in 100 days is Herculean. Beyond passing a stimulus bill and steadying an economy that was in free fall, he brought back human decency, the Bill of Rights, and restored the integrity of the USA in the eyes of the world. He has removed legal barriers to stem cell research that promises to cure some of the most abominable diseases affecting mankind. He has put an end to illegal torture conducted by a country that stands for values that are so counter to those espoused by the previous Republican administration that our very identity became obscured.
So please spare us your inane blather, the foundation of which is pure hysterical nonsense.
I just wanted to point out that neither "conservative" nor liberal" are bad things to be in and of themselves.
No one can question that the policies of the past eight years were flawed (and that may be at best).
I wonder whether the record spending being done by the current administration is really going to make a difference. It seems to me we're taking the irresponsible spending done by the former Marxist regime and multiplying it. I'm a CPA, but it doesn't take passing that exam to figure out that the government is (and has been since the Carter administration) spending far more than it takes in, and that doesn't sound like a smart fiscal policy. In fact, it sounds a little like the consumer behavior that caused a little irregularity in our mortgage market that seems to still be having a slight impact on various sectors of our economy.
And so much for that promise of ending the war. It's been escalated onto yet another front.
This is not a partisan post-I hold both parties in equal contempt.
Graham, I am a huge fan, for more than thirty years, and I respect your right to a viewpoint. I just wonder, did you really think the new Prez was a Messiah? Has there really ben a difference between the two parties in the last few decades? Or is it really just what they choose to lie to us about?
Don't blame me-I wrote in Ron Paul!
So when can we expect a new studio disc?
In Soul Corruption, GP sang about a black would never being let into the White House.... Now there is one there and he's passing out medals to Mary Robinson, who in 2001 presided over an anti-Semetic conference in.... Durban, of all places. The USA boycotted the conference on the advice of Colin Powell. Durban Poison, indeed.
Et tu, Mr Parker?
Today's Wall St Journal has an article on the topic:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052970204251404574342152496390582.html
Graham...also a longtime fan who regularly links from my conservative blog to your albums on Amazon. It's possible that I've put a few nickels in your pocket. In additions the records and CDs I've purchased.
I live in Illinois, Obama's home state. Our state is essentially bankrupt, and the Democrats have controlled the governor's office and the General Assembly since 2003. We're a national joke because of corruption--yes, I know there have been some GOP snakes here.
As for Obama, he said if his stimulus bill would be enacted, unemployment would not exceed 8 percent, it is now at 9.7 percent. In Illinois it is 11.3 percent. Although I believe Republicans are right more than Democrats, neither side has a lock on the truth--or virtue.
Graham,
The unfortunate thing about the digital age is that some of the more unfortunate things we say and do are enshrined for all eternity. (e.g. your shrill endorsement of an empty suit).
I would venture to say most of the nation would take back the GOP in a heartbeat over the socialist idiocy we are suffering through now. And they will get their chance in November.
That said, your rant was disappointing at best and the bizarre rantings of an uneducated kool-aid drinker at worst. There is a bumper sticker out there with the now-famous "O" symbol, and under it a caption "The Sign Of The Easily Fooled". I think of you whenever I see it.
You should seriously consider a piece on how bamboozled you were ... no worries, you won't be alone but at least you'd be man enough to admit it.
Amen, John and R100.
I love the bumper sticker. Now that Obama seems to be coming to his senses on the war on terrorism (particularly given his expected recantation of civilian trials and regarding the efficacy of Guantanamo), the party of the easily fooled hopefully will recognize their intemperate and foolish animosities toward the Bush administration, whom history is already vindicating.
Or perhaps not. They seem quite content to spend America into oblivion in their morally vain preoccupation with European-style cradle to grave socialism.
They don't seem to have noticed that Europe is a dying civilization that can't even replace it's own population.
Why? Because welfare state ideology is hostile to human reproduction, hence abortion on demand, euthanasia, and extremely low fertility rates. More space for beleaguered species, I guess. Children and old people should be neither seen nor heard, but rather disposed of as quickly as possible. They impinge on our recreational lifestyle, after all.
No thanks, Graham -- that may be your vision of utopia, but most Americans fortunately don't share your obsession with statism and its corollary death (whether that be literal or the Kafka-esque version), nor the angry nihilism that too often finds its way into your music.
personally if Mr Chairman want the previous administration to know how distructive their attempts were to guide this country in the right direction and fail after 16 years so be it, thats including Sr time.
President Obama has quite a task on his hands that 1 1/2 years is not going to solve anytime soon, so if and when we can focus on senseless wars and instead focus on the needs of the nation like enviroment, poverty,healthcare, disease, and all the other issues that may be the end of a plant in existence, which was man made, then someone with a more vocal voice is needed
Thank you Chairman for you courage to address issues that may go ignored do to other issues at hand.
Hey everyone, I think American just went and told the Democrats, Obama and very possibly even The Chairman to go fuck themselves.
Let the beginning of the end of the last 2 years of broken promises and lies begin.
Even gridlock will be an upgrade over the terror of far-left socialism.
I've been a long-time admirer of Graham Parker's music. Earlier today, I was browsing the All Music Guide's section on Parker and it claimed that he was a "Conservative."
I was pretty shocked. It was like finding out that Moe Tucker was an enthusiastic TeaBagger. (I lost a lot of respect for the VU after that).
Anyway, I Googled "Is Graham Parker a Conservative?" and wound up here. Reading this piece restored my faith in Parker. However, reading the pro-Bush comments made me ashamed (once again) to be an American.
F*ck all you Rush-listening, brainwashed assholes. You people have the blood of over one million Iraqi men, women and children civilians on your hands---and for what? To steal Iraq's oil for the likes of ExxonMobil.
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