Real America Looks Different

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

check out what the folks at 538 are saying…

Fear Of Europe 101: The Ballad of Josef Sechs-Braü

“The problem is that the Republican Party of the United States has to serve three masters in principle but really only serves one in practice.”

Over the last 24 hours, John Mccain has been stepping up attacks on Barack Obama as a ’socialist’ and comparing his policies to the policies of European governments (Oh No…).

The hatred of Europe that our American nation was founded upon at this point may be simply genetic. How else to explain everyday America’s blatant disdain for Europe’s free medicine, free education, five weeks of mandatory vacation, no public drinking laws, hands off government where it counts and hands on where it helps, and a general sense that the people are the ones who matter most.

I’m writing this from Zurich, Switzerland, where I am staying with some friends of my Moms for the next week. The people I’m staying with speak four languages around the dinner table. From what I can tell from walking along the shores of the Zurich lake today, Joe Six Pack Switzerland, aka Josef Sechs-Braü, has plenty of opportunity to chill out on the shores of
the lake after a hard days work and drink a Sechs-Braü without the police getting involved. Josef also gets almost two months of paid vacation a year and both he and little Josefina Sechs Braü get paid to make their own little six packs and take, respectively, one month and six months paid paternity/maternity leave after the fact.

Every citizen here is a patriot—in the sense that none if any of them are trying to secede from the Swiss nation — every citizen is required to do Army service and every homeowner is expected to have an
underground bunker in their house in case of emergency.  Everyone who has done Army service – aka everyone — gets to keep their gun after their service is over. (And its not a pistol, it’s a fucking AK-47).

So, JSP America… where’s the problem? These ’socialists’ have far more to offer to you than your ‘Mavericks.’ They’ve got guns, free healthcare, bunkers, pot, beer … They are Joe’s wet dream. Only apparently Joe doesn’t know it. Because apparently Joe is caught in a tangled web of Republican lies.

The problem is that the Republican Party in the United States has to serve three masters in principle but really only serves one in practice. In principle, they serve the 2-8% of their base who are hardcore religious zealouts who believe in overturning Roe V. Wade and ushering in a new era of book burning and armageddon and good semi-literate Christian values. Then they serve JSP, the elusive working class voter with Southern Rebel values who votes for hands off government and libertarian rights.

Who they really serve is their third master – the old boy network of rich Republicans who stay tax free and wealthy as a result of the Republican tax policies and get fat contracts along with every despicable bill their party passes. Joe Six Pack is not only an afterthought, he is a pawn in the Republican Game. If, after McCain’s repeated references to the average ‘Joes’, Republican Americans don’t realize that they are getting empty pandering… well, they aren’t paying attention.

Modern day Confederates —  as much as the Republican Party through blind and immediately self-serving strategies has cultivated them as a voter base and now  turned them loose on the National Stage —  are
not nearly the most important faction of the Republican Party. And thinking Republicans know that.

Which is why, after this election is over, there is going to be nothing short of total upheaval in the GOP.

Which is also why, if there are thinking men among them, the modern day Con-Feds will start to realize that they are more socialist and less Republican than they ever imagined.

Alaskan oil revenue = sharing the wealth, anyone?

You do the math.