HOW CAN YOU TELL WHEN A POLITICIAN IS LYING?

Their lips are moving.
Rough Tuesday in Massachusetts. The mystery writer Robert B. Parker died, and a right wing nutbag got elected to the U.S. Senate. Robert B. Parker was a generous philanthropist and a proud Bostonian who featured the city in his writing, especially his Spenser for Hire series. I worked at a Beacon Hill wine shop that his wife frequented occasionally. Classy couple, and he will be missed.
Now the nutbag.
But first a little background. I have vowed to not talk about politics any more. Never. To anybody. Whether I agree with you or not, it doesn't matter. If we agree, what's the point? And if we disagree, you're not going to change my opinion, and I'm probably not going to change yours, so what's the point? Talking politics only breeds hate and mistrust where there could have been a perfectly good relationship in the absence of politics. You know what I'm talking about. We've all had somebody who we got to know and like, maybe they went to bat for you or helped you out, only to discover they have some wacko political views diametrically opposed to yours, and you can never really look at them the same way. Personal politics should be just that. When you step into the booth you make your voice heard and that's that. However, I can't just let this one go, so I am going to violate my rule one last time here, and then I'm done.
The nutbag.
I don't know too much about Scott Brown, except that he is basically a male Sarah Palin. Pretty, anti-abortion, anti-gay, mindless right wing Republican foot soldier who claims to be an "independent thinker." Wow, they could be twins now that I think about it. I don't think Brown likes to hang out of helicopters and slaughter wolves, but that may be the only difference. Hopefully he'll be a worthless quitter too, and leave 2/3 of the way through his term to pursue a profitable book tour. I respect his service in the National Guard, but I do not respect his service in the Massachusetts Senate. It was there that he helped pass the pathetic health care bill that penalizes people for not having insurance, but does nothing else. It is the same mangled plan that we are heading towards on a national level. Oh wait though, maybe not. With Brown in office the Republicans can filibuster and shut everything down. Congratulations GOP. You've won! You can now finish slowly choking health care reform to death. You must be so proud! What an awesome victory for you! You've taken the most important issue in America, and the thing that needs fixing beyond desperately, and you suffocated it because it didn't suit your interests. The corrupt and hypocritical mega banks and insurance companies that tax payers bailed out are safe to continue pillaging. Yeah! All the bipartisan goodwill and ill-advised Republican appointments Obama made were a complete waste of time. This is a cage match with no mercy. The citizens don't matter. The health of the nation doesn't matter. The future of the planet doesn't matter. All that matters is that your team comes out on top, and you did it Republicans. Red beat blue! In your face President Trying To Do Something Good For The Common American!
Don't get me wrong, both parties disgust me, but the Republicans disgust me more. If only for their bible thumping, anti civil rights, corporate welfare supporting, rape the planet mentality. Those are deal breakers for me. I recently finally figured out the secret to the success of the GOP. I always wondered how they managed to get poor people and moderates to vote for them when it is clearly not in their best interest. It's a party built on protecting the wealthiest individuals and corporations. The insanely rich and upper middle class are on their side for obvious, selfish reasons, and donate a shit ton of money to campaigns. Then there are the middle class people who aspire to one day be upper middle class. They are convinced to vote based on future hopes that they will probably never acheive, and based on ridiculous lies like "read my lips, no new taxes." Remember that one? I do. And then the poor. The Republicans get a shitload of them with the bible thumping kool-aid. The GOP is God's party (much the way the Cowboy's are God's team, but we saw how that worked out this year). It's funny that a lot of Republicans tend to be the Toby Keith-loving, American flag doo-rag wearing, love it or leave it morons, when all they are doing is facillitating the exploitation and looting of America by an elite few. Not to mention the war mongering, but I better not get started on that.
The Democrats are pathetic in their own right. When they had the chance they should have stuck the knife in their enemies across the aisle as often as possible. But their weakness is also their strength. Compassion. For all their faults, they still want to help people and protect the average American. They want less people to die, unlike the Republicans who want more people to die (as long as they are the right ones: poor people, retarded convicts, and foreigners). That's it in a nutshell. For all their faults, I find it hard to believe that a Democrat would have shouted insults at a sitting President during a speech in the house the way that knee-jerk fascist Republican from South Carolina did. If there ever was a time to do that, it would have been during the eight years of lying, war crimes, blocking stem cell research, and denying global warming that we had just gone through with W. Now that may have justifyed yelling "liar."
But let me get away from party bickering. I believe all politicians are narcissistic whores who would sell their own mothers up the river if it meant a 1.5% gain in the polls. It's a job requirment these days. The political structure has bogged itself down just like ancient Rome, and soon will collapse under it's own arrogant weight. Health care reform was the albatross for me. The sign that we had become so polarized and inefficient that we can't even accomplish something that would benefit everyone. I just finished reading a mind-boggling account of hospital greed and corruption by Otis which exemplifies so many of the problems in American health care today. I was in Massachusetts when their so called reform passed, and all it did was create more business for legitimate and illegitimate insurance companies. I have many health problems that I should have dealt with, but didn't because I (and my employer) couldn't afford real insurance. Many nurses and doctors gave me the same advice when I couldn't get an appointment due to lack of insurance: just go to the emergency room. They have to treat you and you don't have to pay for it. Somebody does though. The hospitals and the taxpayers. And so the disaster that is our health care system continues to snowball. Why can't we solve this problem when so many other countries have incredible systems that we could model our own system on? Arrogance? Greed? Stubbornness?
Well, congrats again GOP on your hard fought victory. Go celebrate by drinking the blood of a pacifist, or taking a money bath, or having shameful, hypocritical, gay sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom, or whatever it is you do for fun. I don't care anymore. I've gone from Libertarian leanings to Anarchy leanings. Screw it. Every man, woman, and child for themselves. Good luck. And now I'm done talking about politics forever.