OK, Lefties, Here's a Rant Worthy of the Repubs

My pal Kurt Navratil introduced me to James Howard Kunstler a while back when Kunstler (right) spoke at Hollins University. Kunstler's an author, planner and left-leaning mouth whose vitriolic rhetoric is worthy of his own talk show, should he believe such a disgraceful profession worthy of his considerable intellect. Which, fortunately, he doesn't.

Kunstler writes a blog titled "Clusterfuck Nation" and even if that's a little south of good taste, it's simply a wonderful example of vent-ology with the unencumbered virtuosity only a skilled debater with a bit of the brawling Moroccan Goumiere on leave in him. His latest example (here) will have liberals standing and cheering, Republicans whining to mama about how unfair it all is. (You will note that I am differentiating these days from "conservative" and "Republican" because they aren't synonymous. The Republican rogues are no longer safely conservative and genuine conservatives are rarely as base as the Repubs.)

Kunstler, whose several books on planning (The Long Emergency, The Geography of Nowhere, among them), to far oversimplify their messages, are almost biblical in some circles, gets right down to cases in his latest essay with this observation: "The most striking elements of so-called health care in America these days is how cruel and unjust it is, and in taking a stand against reforming it the Republican party appeared to be firmly in support of cruelty and injustice. This would be well within the historical tradition of other religious crusades which turned political -- such as the Spanish Inquisition and the seventeenth century war against witchcraft. Whatever else the Democratic party has stood for in recent history, it has tended to oppose institutional cruelty and injustice, and notice that it has also been the party for keeping religion out of government."

And he's not finished ... hell, he's just getting started. He proclaims the Repubs "enemies of every generous impulse in the national character." Because they refuse to govern, but choose only to obstruct with no alternative plan, "Republicans gravitate toward superstition and the traditional devices of improvident religious authorities -- persecution of the weak, torture, denial of due process, and dogmas designed to spread hatred."

There's a good bit more and I urge anybody feeling put upon by the Limbaughs, Becks, Hannitys, Coulters, et. al., to take a little break from those sociopaths and enjoy one of our own--a man just as disagreeable on these topics as the aforementioned cretins, but one who shares the basic philosophy that we need to be good to each other. There's a difference between him and them that defines the chasm between Dems and Repubs (neither of which am I, by the way).

And, just in case you don't have it yet, here it is in a half a paragraph: "... the Republican opposition ... is ... a gang of hypocritical, pietistic sadists, seeking pleasure in the suffering of others while pretending to be Christians, devoid of sympathy, empathy, or any inclination to simple human kindness, constant breakers of the Golden Rule, enemies of the common good. In fact, the current edition of the Republican party has achieved something really memorable in the annals of collective bad intentions: they have managed to create a sense of the public interest whose main goal is the destruction of the public interest."