Jimmy Lohman: Last Throes Of The Republican Insurgency

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTIONby Jimmy Lohman

Maybe Dick Cheney was right: we are in the "last throes of the insurgency" - but not the "insurgency" he was talking about.

Cheney's "insurgency" is a nebulous ill-defined neoconcoction that will never die as long as Halliburton can wring billions upon billions of dollars out of it (over 20 billion at last count). Cheney depicts the insurgency as some monolithic enemy, composed of "terrorists" who "hate freedom," Coca-Cola, and MTV. The imperial Cheney expects us not to notice that the dread "insurgency" is Sunnis one day and Shiites the next, Saddam lovers one day, Saddam haters the next, Iranians one day, Syrians the next, Al-Qaeda and its infinite imitators and permutations one day, the Taliban and its swelling ranks the next, Saudis, Moroccans, Pakistanis, Indonesians, Ethiopians, and more. (It also includes Cindy Sheehan, Teddy Kennedy, Valerie and Joe Wilson, Keith Olbermann, and you.)

The warmongers label the enemy in Iraq as "the insurgency" because it sounds a heck of a lot better than calling it "the massive resistance of a proud ancient people to foreign domination."
Clearly, the "insurgency" conjured by Cheney's diabolical imagination is nowhere near defeat. Any semi-conscious observer can see that Bush-sponsored anti-Americanism is thriving and growing geometrically. For the last 6 months, this supposedly withering "insurgency" has been killing, on average, 3 American troops and wounding 18 every day. That equates to one of our guys getting killed and six wounded every eight hours. That's one dead and six wounded while we are at work, another dead and six more wounded while we are home from work eating dinner and watching television, and another dead and six more wounded while we are sleeping - every day. These deaths and maimings of American forces are occurring at a higher rate now than any other six-month period since the invasion of Iraq four years ago.

Contrary to the Vice President's predictions and assertions, the insurgency in Iraq is alive and well.

There is another insurgency, however, that may indeed be in its "last throes" - the insurgency that Bush and Cheney spearheaded on November 7, 2000, when they and their Republican Party stole the presidency and hijacked America.

The Republican insurgency seems to be going down in flames, and at the rate things are going, the whole GOP may be reduced to ashes. In the last three years, the percentage of Americans who admit to being Republicans has dropped by nearly 6 percent, and the number of "independents" who lean towards Democratic has increased by at least 10 percentage points. Only 30% of Americans now admit they are Republican and the number is going down every month. Even in the military, according to a poll last week, the percentage of service men and women calling themselves Republican has gone from 60% to 45%. The endless litany of Republican scandals, incompetence, and life-destroying policies has reached the tipping point, and the long term viability of the Republican Party is in jeopardy. The best thing that could happen for the future of humanity and all living things would be for the entire corrupt organization to be wiped out as soon as possible.

It is shocking, of course, that anyone can still identify with a political party that unabashedly, even proudly, stands for unjustified wars, religious fundamentalism and intolerance, domestic spying, torture, cancer, homophobia, tax breaks for the wealthiest, downgrading public education, opposition to women's rights, shoddy infrastructure, increased poverty, environmental holocaust, anti-intellectualism, racial inequality, and Hummers. It takes a special person to still support Bush-Cheney in March 2007! To call oneself a Republican today, a person necessarily falls into one of three narrow fairly hopeless categories: (1) filthy rich and pathologically selfish; (2) congenitally mean and pathologically indifferent to the suffering of others; or (3) woefully ignorant, mentally retarded, insane, delusional, or in a psychotic state of denial. The first two categories (rich/selfish and mean/sadistic) are basically incapable of redemption barring some life-altering experience such as being kidnapped (Patty Hearst), incarcerated (Charles Colson), or getting old (my friend Tony's father). The third group (retarded/crazy/in denial) can do remarkably well with medication, residential treatment, radical therapy, injections of LSD, or in some cases, a lobotomy - all of which are vastly preferable to being a proud Republican.Powerful supervillains never seem to get in trouble for the worst things they do. We all know, for example, that Al Capone was busted not for all the murders and mayhem he caused but for not paying his fair share of taxes. So, too, with the genocidal maniacs running our country. What is now poised to bring down the murderous cabal headquartered in the White House is not the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents or a scorched earth approach to absolutely everything they can get their greedy fingers on. What may drive a golden spike into the icy heart of the Bush-Cheney coup is their brazen and unprecedented effort to convert the once-prestigious job of United States Attorney into no more than a flunky for Karl Rove - and then having the Attorney General lie to Congress about it.So, with some vigorous organizing on our side, a little luck, and another 20 months of Bush, Cheney, and Rove to kick around, the 30% of Americans calling themselves "Republican" will continue plummeting to sub-Nixon levels and on into the realm of "fringe politics" where the Grand Old Party of Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Rick Santorum, Bill O'Reilly, and Arlen Sphincter belongs. It is time for the Republican Party to go the way of the Whigs and the Dixiecrats and the Visigoths, relegated to a couple of dismal chapters in the history books.

Jimmy Lohman is a human rights lawyer and musician in Austin.