Better Than a Texas Whuppin'

What's Better Than A Texas Whuppin'?

Sure, I chuckle along with Tom DeLay's homegrown description of last night's election results... but it gives me pause.

The GOP's agenda has been rejected because Americans want the beatings to stop.

We are tired of killing people in other countries. We are sick of killing our own children to kill those other people.

We are tired of horsewhipping public figures over their sex lives. We are exhausted with hypocritical self-flagellation. We are fed up with bitch-slapping women who need abortions. We are profoundly tired of beating the working people of this country into a bloody pulp.

This election is a repudiation of "whuppings," of all kinds. Let the healing begin, baby! (Could we start with universal healthcare coverage, by any chance?)

This week is my second blog anniversary—  I began my Journal, my first entries, after Bush's reelection. What a difference 24 months makes!

(And yes, you're right!— Today would be a great occasion to make a birthday present donation).

My mom lost consciousness, quite literally, after she voted the straight Democratic ticket in 2004, and died a couple weeks later.  I remember an odd comfort in telling myself, "At least she didn't live to see this!"

In this election, just a few weeks after my father's death, I feel the opposite... he would have been so gleeful to see today's results. We would have talked nonstop and swapped news stories. We both shared so many sad post-election days together, that this would have been a rare treat! I think I would have proposed going out for sourdough pancakes...

Wednesday Wake-Up Update: The best election analysis I've found so far this AM is from London's BBC! 

This story gives a new insight of why the GOP has spent a 50 million to enforce abstinence for 20-somethings— to preserve their base!

BBC's economic analysis of the American voters' interests is also key... and largely ignored by US media.

Singing in the Shower Update: Sign up Rick Santorum for his first post-election bestiality therapy group! Santorum's defeat is the most emotionally satisfying election result of all. His sexual shame and violent homophobia was off the charts— but now he's off the island.

First Cup of Tea Update: Wow— for the first time in US election history, a gay-hating "marriage ban" has gone down to defeat, in the quite conservative state of ARIZONA.

Does this mean fag-bashing, Karl Rove's favorite sport, is going the way of the dodo?  Or is it just that all the "Log Cabin" Republicans relocated to hogans?

Big Fat Queer Breakfast Update: Flaming Homos Win Election in Record Numbers! And look at these states, where openly gay candidates won: Alabama. Arkansas. Indiana. Okalahoma. Missouri. Iowa. Most of these are "firsts." It makes me feel so warm and fuzzy!

The I-Can't-Wait-Department: I love Henry Waxman, not just for the next "100 Hours," but because he is the only elected pol I know who has ripped the "abstinence agenda" to shreds. He stands up for public sex education based on— you know— "science."

Those Responsible for the Sackings Have Been Sacked: Rumsfeld is "stepping down,"  hopefully right onto his own sword. And he's being replaced by Daddy's old friend... Robert Gates? He's a former Eagle Scout and CIA Director... why does that strike me as a sadistic porn movie?

Rev.Dobson Leaves Rev. Haggard On the Couch: "Citing a lack of time, [!!!] Focus on the Family founder James Dobson withdrew from the team overseeing counseling for the Rev. Ted Haggard, the evangelical pastor who was fired amid allegations of gay sex and meth use."

My Favorite CrankyPants: Ralph Nader on Democracy Now this morning with ungleeful, astute, and often funny observations. Ralphie knows how to follow the money... Let the Corporate and DLC Ass-Kicking Resume!

Comments

[Mike]

Susie -

Yeah, we're quite proud of defeating that anti-gay measure, although some of us Arizonans
f*cked up and made English the "official" state language. [sigh...guess we wait for it to come back as another initiative in 2008].

But, since it looks as if we're going to get the Senate too, since macacaman is too far behind with only 3 districts left to count, I won't feel as bad about the English-language thing.

[Richard Bacchus]

Abstinent twenty-somethings are in an unatural state of suspended adulthood and can be treated like overgrown mutant children. It's so sad how damaged this whole group in the GOP are.

As a victim myself, I can't help but notice that.

The outcome of this election is a huge relief that we've had to wait way to long for.

[misterniceguy1960]

You see clearly. DeLay thinks of politics, if not all of public life, as hanging out in a barroom jawing, and an argument that ends in a "good ass-whuppin'" is no big deal, if not a positive asset to the evening. You think of it as a family gathered in the evening -- sometimes for a video, sometimes for a birthday, sometimes for an intervention. In any case, interpersonal violence, physical or emotional, is not supposed to be part of the process. As I used to say when I had to interupt a fight between my own kids when they were little, "This is not a hitting house!"

It is high time that public discourse adopted the same rules we had: no hitting, no screaming, no nasty words.

[Laurie Mann]

We dumped Rick! Yeah!

The greatest thing was how early that happened - like Casey was declared the winner by something like 8:30 (the polls closed at 8:00pm in PA).

While I'm not a huge fan of Senator-elect Casey (he's anti-choice), he'll at least help push for a higher minimum wage.

Laurie Mann
http://www.dumprick.com

[Steve]

Yeah, I'm gleeful, but I can't help feeling some concern that people were voting as they did for the wrong reasons. I'd feel much more comfortable with the victories if voters were selecting the candidates they support, rather than voting against the one in the party they are trying to bitch slap.

[RobertDevereaux]

Right on, Susie! In Colorado, alas, Referendum I (Domestic partnerships, legal rights) was defeated, but I'm delighted to report that here in Larimer County, it won voter approval by 1800 votes.

[jon Bailiff]

As gratified as we may feel now over the mid-term election results there are precious few laurels to rest on. Many, if not most of the new "bluedog" Dems are more purple than blue.

We, America, have not yet truly emerged from the long night of corruption and viciousness that have characterized the Bush years. To assume that the shift in the legeslative power base will, in and of itself, lead to reform is a false assumption. WE barely have two parities. Many, many of these politicians are so on the take, beholden to corporate bloodsuckers and up to the eyeballs in hypocritical and immoral mud that they cannot be allowed to think WE trust and fallow THEM.

Voting THEM in is NOT enough. Pressure to find and prosecute the criminals who have robbed us and our children in the last 6 years begins now. The next presidential election cylcle has already begun. In order for the "Deomocrat" party to truly be democratic in more than name only WE must demand accountability. That means criminal trials for fraud and theft, by churches, war contractors and politicians. The democrats, I predict, will have little stomach for exposing the true depth of malfesance and dishonesty in Washington, due to their own complicity, unless WE force them to puke up the reality so that we and the world can see it and name it.

It's not about elections, its about the money. WE gave it to them in the form of our tax dollars. Now THEY must be called to account.

[C.S. Lewiston]

Right on, Mr. Bailiff. You said just about everything that needs to be said. It's always about the money, is it not? What will it take to mitigate, if not eliminate, corruption on both sides of the aisle? Electing people who reject being corrupted is a good start.

Bully-ism is a cornerstone of fascism. "Political discourse" consisting of "whuppings" of decent people, verbal or otherwise, is bully-ism. As in the schoolyard, the only way to stop bullies is to form a gang that's more powerful than they are.

I listened to an NPR news report on the Supreme Court's hearing of arguments regarding some state's "partial-birth abortion" ban. The folks at NPR were to their credit, very level-headed in their treatment of this favorite religious-right political cash-cow. Of course there is no such thing as "partial-birth abortion", those are Falwellian weasel-words. I wonder how Bush Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito will handle this attempt by religio-fascists to send our mothers, sisters and daughters back to the middle ages? Sandra Day O'Connor said she feared the rise of a rightist judicial "dictatorship", but she was instrumental in encouraging it, was she not? Of course the real bottom line in this and other war-on-sex cases is - do reasonable adults in America have the right to conduct their lives as adults, or will we be ruled by an ideology which regards us as sheep to be shepherded (as always by Men of Jesus like Rev. Haggard)?

As for abstinence-ed for people between 20 and 30 years old, are there really people who don't know better than to believe that their own dry spells, be they freely-chosen or not, make them morally superior?

[David Maclaine]

Thanks for the links on the wave of gay firsts. The list of states that got their first openly gay winners had me teary. I was especially amused to realize that I'd been so out of touch I didn't realize that the woman my vote helped put on the Oregon Supreme Court was lesbian and would be joining a gay man already on the court. (Not usually that clueless, but I've been in the middle of a long arduous move). The local, supposedly "alternative" weekly whose election advice helped me choose her didn't mention that fact. In fact, they endorsed one of her male opponents and seemed to suggest that one one woman on the court was plenty. I decided they were wrong about that, and am delighted with how my choice turned out.

[V. Vxn]

Yay. Proud to say that I have the distinct pleasure of voting for Waxman and calling him my congressman.