TBT: The Brutal Truth

The GOP "Entitlement Culture" Talking Point Is Dead

That's right, folks! The GOP just killed one of their own Talking Points they've counted on for over a decade in order to marginalize and divide America. How did it happen? Welp, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-ExxonMobil) opened his fat yap and told America exactly who the real "Entitlement Culture" has been all along via a hat tip to Crooks & Liars (MP3 Audio available):

You know, what -- what makes our economy grow is energy. And Americans are used to going to the gas tank (sic), and when they put that hose in their, uh, tank, and when I do it, I wanna get gas out of it. And when I turn the light switch on, I want the lights to go on, and I don't want somebody to tell me I gotta change my way of living to satisfy them. Because this is America, and this is something we've worked our way into, and the American people are entitled to it, and if we're going improve (sic) our standard of living, you have to consume more energy."

If this meely-mouthed asshole thinks the key to improving our standard of living is to further enrich the allready-too-rich Republican oil cretins that have raped and pillaged both the Iraqi people and the American poor and middle classes by craming their hoses into our tailpipe and nobody can tell him differently because he and the rest of Republican Red-State America believes they're entitled to it, then by his own words he has killed that entire "Welfare State/Entitlement Class" meme of the GOP.

Grassley just paved the way for the Democratic Party to not only recind the Bush tax-cuts on the richest Americans but also to raise their taxes along with raising taxes on Big Oil and Big Business -- two entities that have profitted immensely from both the War in Iraq and by outsourcing American jobs -- and use the revenue for increased welfare benefits, healthcare, keeping the electric and gas turned on during the Winter, and other social programs that help the poor and the middle class whose standard of living, as we've witnessed as a result of Katrina, is just unconcionable in America.

So, if you're among the poor and the middle class who are currently on welfare or happen to be simply "One Nightmare Away" from being on welfare and happen to live in a state where the welfare office employees and the politicians -- Republican or Democrat -- demand more from you than they do of themselves (e.g. threaten to cut your benefits and aide if you give up looking for the non-existant outsourced job while they continue to collect 6-figure salaries from the same state/federal kitty), I want you to print my post here along with burning the MP3 of Grassley's comments from C&L on to a CD, march on down to either the welfare office or City Hall and demand some results. Tell them you will not be leaving until you get those results.

Why?

Sen. Grassley said it best: YOU ARE ENTITLED TO IT! You are as equally entitled to your lights and heat being left on and gas in your vehicle as he and the Republican "ownership society" say they are entitled to it and since he says nobody can tell him different, then nobody can tell you different, either. That's not to say conservation isn't important for it is important but we can do our part and conserve energy adroitly (e.g. "not letting our right hand know what our left hands are doing") while at the same time driving the Republicans completely batshit by beating them over the head with their own words.

Besides, if you're waiting for 2006 to see if a Democrat will come along an empower your ass, you might as well forget about it for you'll be waiting forever. How do I know this? From this video posted on C&L just days ago when Sen. Ted Stevens refused to have the top oil executives sworn in for their testimony.



The video shows Sen. Maria Cantwell's desire for a vote and Stevens interrupted her with his refusal. Why didn't this Democratic senator or any other Democratic senator on that panel stand up and call the proceedings as a joke (since baseball players were sworn in for their steroids testimony earlier this year)?!? This would no doubt spark Stevens to bang his gavel and bitch about her being out of order, which she could've said, "I'd rather be out of order than out of excuses!" and then walked off the panel, into the Senate's main chamber, and pulled a Harry F'n Reid shutting the Senate down into closed session?!? This is exactly why we'll be waiting forever for the Democrats to empower us because they will not stand up and empower themselves on a consistant basis. Therefore we the people -- like the late Rosa Parks -- must empower ourselves instead of waiting for empowerment from our useless and inconsistant Democrats.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Use it ... or lose it.

Don't wait for heros.

UPDATE: Grassley also gives gay rights activists the perfect justification for legalizing gay marriage. So, from now on, whenever some sanctimonious Republican stooge or Christian Fundamentalist leader like Pat Robertson spouts off a bunch of invective about "deviant life styles", the gay rights crowd can just turn around and use Grassley's own words: "I don't want somebody to tell me I gotta change my way of living to satisfy them. Because this is America, and this is something we've worked our way into, and the American people are entitled to it!" If Grassley and his Republican brood don't have to "change [their] way of living" to sastify others, then NOBODY does! Period. I think it's the height of hypocracy to take for granted the tax-dollars of millions of gay Americans for hundreds of years and not give them the basic right to marry each other.

It's dead, Jim.

posted by Sizemore at 6:55 PM

|