The Republican Party as Crime Syndicate

Ever the contrarian (0.00 / 0)

I cannot fully support a thesis of wholesale corruption and criminal intent within the GOP. It is clear that elements, powerful elements within the GOP have hijacked the backing of the conservative faithful.

I can't help but to fall back to Jimmy Carter, who in Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, tries to illuminate the crisis that the GOP has found itself in.

In Our Endangered Values, Carter offers a personal consideration of "moral values" as they relate to the important issues of the day. He puts forward a passionate defense of separation of church and state, and a strong warning of where the country is heading as the lines between politics and rigid religious fundamentalism are blurred.

Now, he describes his own involvement and reactions to some disturbing societal trends that have taken place during the last few years. These changes involve both the religious and the political worlds as they have increasingly become intertwined, and include some of the most crucial and controversial issues of the day - frequently encapsulated under "moral values."

Many of these matters are under fierce debate. They include preemptive war, women's rights, terrorism, civil liberties, homosexuality, abortion, the death penalty, science and religion, environmental degradation, nuclear arsenals, America's global image, fundamentalism, and the melding of religion and politics.

In this book, Carter describes the power trade between the Mega-churches and a faction of the GOP. Carter reminds us that this faction is actually a minority within the Christian community and that if they can be isolated, indentified as charlitans, they will lose their stranglehold on most of the voters on the right.

I will propose that what ever ails the NHGOP is a parallel to what Carter has modeled, likely a fiscal conservative cousin, if you will.

Expose the lie and it will break or simply, meet the "true believers" half way and give the ROCs a palatable alternative.

Sorry, that is the hope monger in me coming out. Maybe it is best to scream "BANZAI" and run headlong towards.....
a. Glory  
b. Stalemate
c. Defeat
d. Oblivion


SGS is Jack Mitchell of Lowell, MA. The symbolism of the "sleeping giant" is based on my HOPE for America.

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by: Sleeping Giant Stirs @ Thu Dec 27, 2007 at 13:01:30 PM CST

The organized GOP is, IMO, a criminal organization. (0.00 / 0)

Down to the local level it engages in voter suppression.

I agree that there are many people who vote Republican but are not active in the Party organization who have no criminal intent.

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by: elwood @ Thu Dec 27, 2007 at 13:16:15 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Sweat Equity (0.00 / 0)

NH is fortunate to have many actively engaging the "syndicate". Mad, crazy props.

Keep up the fire.

SGS is Jack Mitchell of Lowell, MA. The symbolism of the "sleeping giant" is based on my HOPE for America.

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by: Sleeping Giant Stirs @ Thu Dec 27, 2007 at 13:26:37 PM CST

[ Parent ]

That was true of the National Socialists. (0.00 / 0)

What's perhaps ironic is that the adherence to religious principle which gives direction to an individuals life and frees him from oppressive social codes (sacred v. secular order) has been hijacked for the purpose of social oppression.
That which is supposed to make people free is the instrument of their enslavement.

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by: hannah @ Fri Dec 28, 2007 at 04:25:25 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Let's watch it on the Nazi comparisons, Hannah (0.00 / 0)

I despise the GOP, too, but we lose credibility when compare the party to a regime that murdered tens of millions of people.

We don't need hyperbole to go after these bastards.

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by: Dartmouth Dem @ Fri Dec 28, 2007 at 06:33:25 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Let's repeal Godwin's Law (0.00 / 0)

and remember Niemoller instead.

Today we should be thinking, "First they came after the Afghanis, and I said nothing, for I am not Afghani. Then they came after the 'enemy combatants,' and I said nothing, for I was not a suspect."

I can just see us being led away by the authorities, lecturing each other: "Don't say it! Godwin's Law!"

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by: elwood @ Fri Dec 28, 2007 at 06:57:36 AM CST

[ Parent ]

I wonder (4.00 / 2)

Are we more like 1920s Italy or 1930s Germany?

Seriously, I wonder why we always leave Benito out of it?

Is it our pro-America view that we couldn't possibly resemble a second-rate fascist power?

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by: Mike Caulfield @ Fri Dec 28, 2007 at 07:31:36 AM CST

[ Parent ]

The question of the criminal liability of the state GOP (4.00 / 2)

was raised and discussed in a letter that Kathy Sullivan and I wrote to Senator Leahy and Congressman Hodes earlier this year    
which led to the referral to Conyers Judiciary Committee. Pages 6 to 8 discuss what the standards are for criminally charging an organization under DOJ guidelines.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.c...

"But, in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope." Si se puede. Yes we can.  

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by: Paul Twomey @ Thu Dec 27, 2007 at 17:41:47 PM CST

Thanks! (0.00 / 0)

Worth a read, folks. Not legalese.

I had wondered why it was a question of criminal liability for only the STATE party. It wasn't: the letter makes the case against the RNC too.

I wonder if those Thompson criteria proved too inconvenient to name him AG?

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by: elwood @ Thu Dec 27, 2007 at 18:20:24 PM CST

[ Parent ]