It's a joke

That would be much of public discourse now (and some of the policy proposals out there).

The War Against the Poor
It's not enough to give the ultra rich huge tax breaks, you must actively punish the poor:

Carl Paladino, Tea-Party-backed Republican candidate for governor of New York (who has showed up on these pages before for is racist and hardcore porn emails), advocates for the creation of prison dorms for welfare recipients where they can receive training including lessons in "personal hygiene" (because everyone knows that the poor are stinky).

Utah state Sen. Dan Liljenquist wants to cut all elective epidurals and elective C-sections for women on Medicaid (I'm going to take a wild guess here that he's also "pro life" in addition to being pro pain).

The War Against US Muslims

What does it say when the voice of sanity in the Republican party on the Ground Zero Mosque Burlington Coat Factory Non-Mosque is Ron Paul? '...Paul argues that the opposition to the mosque “is all about hate and Islamaphobia,” stoked by “neo-conservatives” who “never miss a chance to use hatred toward Muslims to rally support for the ill conceived preventative wars."'

And, just in case you think it isn't all about "hate and Islamaphobia," you can view a video here of "a person of color wearing a skull cap and wandering through the crowd was targeted with insults and nearly attacked by protesters for the offense of looking vaguely Muslim" at an anti Burlington Coat Factory Non-Mosque protest. You can also hear a person chanting "Mohammad is a pig."

The War Against President Obama
Last week I spent some time in my old stomping grounds (Jeannette, Hempfield, Greensburg -- or as I like to refer to it -- The Heart of Darkness). While there, the following marred the lovely landscape:

A group of four billboards. One said "Obama Care Shovel Ready" over a picture of a cemetery. Another announced a 9/11 T.E.A. Party at Bushy Run Battlefield. Right under that, was one with a graphic of the US Capitol dome with the words "Throw the bums out" (I'm guessing based on the other two signs that "bums" referred to Dems). A little further down Route 30 was a billboard which proclaimed "Marriage...God's plan for Safe Sex" (you can be sure that the picture was of one man and one woman). There were also more yard-size T.E.A. Party signs on the back roads of Greensburg than I cared to count.

A man I met who, while telling me that he didn't follow politics, was absolutely certain that Obama didn't have a US birth certificate. When I told him that a copy has been available online for two years, he looked like I told him his parents were really Santa Claus.

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