Not a fan of Nader since 2000 but this article puts him back up in my book. GREAT essay and LOL lines that ring true.

from nader.org

In The Public Interest

Institutional Insanity

By Ralph Nader 12/6/10



If there was a mental health hospital for institutions the Republican Party and

its top leaders would be admissible as clinically insane. Their bizarre

wackopedia seems to contain no discernible boundaries. Repeatedly, these

corporate supplicants oppose any measure, any regulation, any legislation that

will directly help workers, consumers, the environment, small taxpayers and even

investor-shareholders.



There are some exceptions. Since these Republican politicians eat, some did vote

for the long-delayed food safety bill last week so that e-coli does not enter

their intestines to disrupt the drivel drooling from their daily repertoire.



The Republicans get away with countless absurdities for at least two reasons.

One is that their nominal opponents are the spineless, clueless, gutless

Democrats (with a few notable exceptions) who present themselves as uncertain

waverers, dialing for the same corporate dollars as the Republicans chase. The

other is the political reporters who dwell on questions directed toward tactics

and horseraces that the dimmest of Republicans can handle easily.



Take the evasive next Speaker of the House, Ohio Republican John Boehner. I’ve

lost count of the times he said the recent health care law would "kill jobs in

America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our

country." I don’t recall one reporter asking him to be specific on these claims.

Instead, the questions focused on Capitol Hill timing and tactics.



Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, makes similar declarations

such as: “I’ve said over and over again, you don’t raise taxes in a recession.”

Really? Of all previous presidents, only Only George W. Bush did not raise taxes

but actually reduced them in wartime. But don’t expect a reporter to ask

McConnell whether he thinks the children and grandchildren should be sent the

bill for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Or if he thinks repealing the Bush tax

cuts on the rich would help reduce the deficit.



How many times have you heard the Republicans demand cutting the national

deficit? Probably as often as they did nothing when George W. Bush piled up

trillions of dollars in red ink. Now that Obama is president, they rarely get

specific about just how they are going to do this, other than jumping on

Medicare (where corporate fraud is indeed rampant and untreated by them) or

social security which is solvent for another 30 years.



For most Republicans, it is never about cutting the bloated military

budget—ridden with corporate crime and fraud and burdened with massive

redundancies that keep the military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower

warned about deep in profitable government contracts.



Nor do the Republicans go after the corporate welfare budget—the hundreds of

billions of dollars per year of subsidies, giveaways and handouts to domestic

and even foreign corporations. Except for Ron Paul and a very few others, that

is. (See: http://www.taxpayers.org and http://www.goodjobsfirst.org )



Another assertion made in this year’s mid-term elections by Republican

candidates for Congress all over the country is that: “Government does not

create jobs, only the private sector does.” Let’s see. Government not only

creates jobs, taxpayers have paid trillions of dollars for research, development

and tax credits that are given over to build entire industries. These include

the semi-conductor, computer, aerospace, pharmaceutical, biotech, medical device

and containerization industries, to name a few.



The Pentagon created the job-producing Internet, for example. When the

government funds public works or expands the armed forces, millions of jobs are

created.



Will there be one reporter who challenges this Republican nonsense, often

expressed in press interviews on cell phones while driving on highways in cars

with seat belts and air bags either based on taxpayer-funded research, directly

paid for, or regulated into being through the government?



Mute Democrats and mindless reporters make insane Republicans possible. Bringing

these cruel descendants of Lincoln’s Party down their ladder of generalities is

to become concrete, to give substantiating examples that will either show that

they have no clothes or that they prefer mink.



The American people deserve to have reporters ask one question again and again:

“Senator, Representative, Governor, President, would you be specific, give

examples and cite your sources for your general assertions?”



For instance, especially Republicans regularly roar their demand for “tort

reform.” A reporter could ask for clarification such as: “Sir, do you mean by

‘tort reform’ giving more access to the courts to millions of excluded Americans

who get nothing for injuries and illnesses recklessly caused by manufacturers,

hospitals, and other wrongdoers, or do you mean further restricting the law

designed to afford these people compensation for their harms? (See:

http://www.centerjd.org )



The same demand for concreteness can be directed to the dittoheads who cry out

against “over-regulation.” Where? Over Wall Street? For health and safety

requirements that are either weak when issued, technically obsolete or rarely

enforced? (See: http://www.progressivereform.org )



Bringing these well-greased pontificators down their abstraction ladder to where

people live, work, overpay, bleed and suffer is a major step forward so the

sovereignty of the people can begin exercising itself.