rabbit + crow blog: Planet Shuttleworth

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

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Normally, I would expound at length about how wonderfully flattering this is -- my very own planet named after my very own self -- complete with monster-filled warm water oceans and whispy clouds of deadly sufuric acid.

But I cannot because we are all far too pleased with the election results, the banning of ex-Speaker Hastert, the banishment of Mr. "Rummy" Rumsfeld, and the angry, defensive jabbering of the (mock) preznit.

Oh it is a fine day here in the United of States. As soon as the imbecilic George Allen condedes defeat in Virginia, we may truly say that the Great Victory (control of the House and of the Senate) has been acheived.

And in case the Great Victory doesn't pan out...you have your very own planet to flee to.

I, King Edward of Planet Shuttleworth, hereby decree the following names for settlements in my glorious (and underpopulated) domain:
New Blitin
New Cairo
New Beverly
Penrith
New Saveloy
Billmoseleyville
Selbyland
and TarPittsBurgh

Hmmm... Neal leaves the U.S. for England and less than two months later the good side wins back the House and Senate.

Coincidence?

I think not.

I'm guessing Margaret Thatcher will be Prime Minister again soon.

Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design ... heh ... heh, heh ...

From his ancestral home in the House of Pies, near TarPittsburgh, King Edward offers the following editorial from today's NY Times for all to read and savor:

November 10, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
The Great Revulsion
By PAUL KRUGMAN

I’m not feeling giddy as much as greatly relieved. O.K., maybe a little giddy. Give ’em hell, Harry and Nancy!

Here’s what I wrote more than three years ago, in the introduction to my column collection “The Great Unraveling”: “I have a vision — maybe just a hope — of a great revulsion: a moment in which the American people look at what is happening, realize how their good will and patriotism have been abused, and put a stop to this drive to destroy much of what is best in our country.”

At the time, the right was still celebrating the illusion of victory in Iraq, and the bizarre Bush personality cult was still in full flower. But now the great revulsion has arrived.

Tuesday’s election was a truly stunning victory for the Democrats. Candidates planning to caucus with the Democrats took 24 of the 33 Senate seats at stake this year, winning seven million more votes than Republicans. In House races, Democrats received about 53 percent of the two-party vote, giving them a margin more than twice as large as the 2.5-percentage-point lead that Mr. Bush claimed as a “mandate” two years ago — and the margin would have been even bigger if many Democrats hadn’t been running unopposed.

The election wasn’t just the end of the road for Mr. Bush’s reign of error. It was also the end of the 12-year Republican dominance of Congress. The Democrats will now hold a majority in the House that is about as big as the Republicans ever achieved during that era of dominance.

Moreover, the new Democratic majority may well be much more effective than the majority the party lost in 1994. Thanks to a great regional realignment, in which a solid Northeast has replaced the solid South, Democratic control no longer depends on a bloc of Dixiecrats whose ideological sympathies were often with the other side of the aisle.

Now, I don’t expect or want a permanent Democratic lock on power. But I do hope and believe that this election marks the beginning of the end for the conservative movement that has taken over the Republican Party.

In saying that, I’m not calling for or predicting the end of conservatism. There always have been and always will be conservatives on the American political scene. And that’s as it should be: a diversity of views is part of what makes democracy vital.

But we may be seeing the downfall of movement conservatism — the potent alliance of wealthy individuals, corporate interests and the religious right that took shape in the 1960s and 1970s. This alliance may once have had something to do with ideas, but it has become mainly a corrupt political machine, and America will be a better place if that machine breaks down.

Why do I want to see movement conservatism crushed? Partly because the movement is fundamentally undemocratic; its leaders don’t accept the legitimacy of opposition. Democrats will only become acceptable, declared Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, once they “are comfortable in their minority status.” He added, “Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate.”

And the determination of the movement to hold on to power at any cost has poisoned our political culture. Just think about the campaign that just ended, with its coded racism, deceptive robo-calls, personal smears, homeless men bused in to hand out deceptive fliers, and more. Not to mention the constant implication that anyone who questions the Bush administration or its policies is very nearly a traitor.

When movement conservatism took it over, the Republican Party ceased to be the party of Dwight Eisenhower and became the party of Karl Rove. The good news is that Karl Rove and the political tendency he represents may both have just self-destructed.

Two years ago, people were talking about permanent right-wing dominance of American politics. But since then the American people have gotten a clearer sense of what rule by movement conservatives means. They’ve seen the movement take us into an unnecessary war, and botch every aspect of that war. They’ve seen a great American city left to drown; they’ve seen corruption reach deep into our political process; they’ve seen the hypocrisy of those who lecture us on morality.

And they just said no.

I like that there Paul Krugman. He's such an optimist.

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Planet Shuttleworth

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