Michelle Bachman’s Not the Problem

[texshelters]

Michelle Bachman’s Not the Problem



For the rest of my article go here: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/31/michele-bachmann’s-not-the-problem/ 



Michelle Bachmann exists as a symptom and a distraction. While the left (and others) writes endlessly about Bachmann, what we need to ultimately address if we want to change the political landscape is the ignorant nationalistic and dominionist right-wing ideology from which she sprang. 

First, we must address religious intolerance and the moral superiority complex of the far right in the United States. 

Bachmann believes in Dominionism, the idea that people of faith are mandated by God to be politically involved. They believe that they need to be politically involved because they are the chosen people and the only ones that can faithfully carry out God’s plan. 



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From gay marriage, reproductive planning, education, immigration laws, and other policy areas, Dominionists are actively trying to create public policy based on their theology. And if you are not of their faith, you are out of luck. Freedom of Religion is merely an obstacle to dominionists, not a right of all people in the United States. And if you are a practicing Muslim, dominionists won’t care about your immigration status, years of residence, community standing or law abiding history. All Muslims are suspect to the religious right. Herman Cain called on the specter of McCarthyism by saying that Muslims would have to take a loyalty oath to work for him.

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The language of the Republican party against Muslims only makes such attacks more likely. 

If Republicans take over the White House and gain control of the Senate, they will pass Jim Crow style laws against Muslims as soon as they take power. After they are done with the Muslims, the atheists will be next, then non-Christians and so on.


We must also educate each other and our children to fight Republican historical revisionism.


History and economics doesn’t deter the far right from promoting failed economic policies. We have had ten years since the Bush tax cuts, and the far right still argues that tax cuts create jobs. One look at the rise in unemployment since the Bush tax cuts will disprove that theory, and a look at historical tax rates show that high tax rates can be correlated to high employment. http://www.capecodtoday.com/blogs/index.php/2011/04/29/oh-those-job-killing-taxes-and-other-gop-1?blog=214 



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There is also the myth that regulation hurts investment, but there are fewer regulations today then there were in the Clinton era when the economy did well. There is no evidence that a reduction in regulation helps our economy and will lead to investment, unless you count as evidence the self-serving statements of corporations who will benefit financially if they can pollute the environment and poison us with impunity. 


“An analysis conducted by the Washington Post at the end of Bush’s first term found that since he took office, federal agencies had begun roughly one-quarter fewer regulations than President Clinton and 13 percent fewer than Bush’s father during their first terms.” http://www.skeptically.org/gov/id19.html


So, if cutting regulations will improve our economy, why after all the cuts in regulations under Bush isn’t our economy booming? The cutting of regulations leading to a better economy is a lie looking for evidence. Yes, we can find examples of over regulation and regulations that might cost us, in the short run. But regulations are put in place for the long term health of the economy. 



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We must acknowledge that Bachmann, Perry and Palin are symptoms and act accordingly. 

While the largest media outlets in the United States talk about Bachmann, apparently unimportant issues like corporate earnings, corporate welfare, poverty, unemployment, and a growing income gap get largely ignored. Poverty continues to be overlooked because it’s depressing and we don’t want to read or watch stories about things we can’t solve. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3469 However, “In the past six months, the Post has published online or in print 34 staff-written stories plus 12 wire service stories on Bachmann” and only five about Ron Paul who has spent twelve terms in Congress compared to Bachman’s three. Liberals need to stop adding to the Bachmann chorus and start writing about the issues.


Other underlying issues that must be address so fewer Bachmanns get undeserved press attention include: poverty, income inequality, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, fear of change, election laws and corporate speech, and lies about “family values”. 

Let’s work on the issues that concern us and fight the Bachmanns of the world by promoting education, inclusiveness and good governance.



Find my complete post here: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/08/31/michele-bachmann’s-not-the-problem/



Peace, 

Tex Shelters

[Paranoid Pessimist]

1. She's Not the Disease -- She's One Symptom n/t

[JayhawkSD]

2. Dominionists are, of course, trying to recreate that from which we fled.

The original settlers who came on the Mayflower fled to this continent to escape a government and, more importantly, a society, of intolerance. They were not free to worship as they wished, but more importantly they were not free to live as they wished. So they came to this country to excape that intolerance, that pervasive "you must believe and live as we do" where they had been.

Many have come to this land in search of economic opportunity in the centuries since that original shipload, but always, always, people have come here to escape the intolerance of the governments, of the societies in which they lived.

And now Dominionists want to make this nation a nation from which people need to escape that same intolerance. But where is there left on the planet for them to go?

[texshelters]

3. Well said

Thanks.

Peace,
Tex Shelters

[David Sky]

4. Yes, well said !!