Unlike most Australians, I was following the US Republican caucus vote in Iowa yesterday. Australians largely tend to dismiss US politics, and I don't know why. Since the Howard era, we've been forcibly steered into stepping into the role traditionally held by the UK - the US' Prison Bitch. Whoever ends up as President is the person our PM is going to be having meetings with about bombing some new nation of brown people. So yeah, I kind of think US politics is important.
But, to the Iowa caucus.
The big hullaballoo was all centred around whether it was Mitt Romney or Rick Santorum's race. However when studying the field of candidates, some more pertinent questions are raised;
1) Does it fucking matter?
2) What the fuck is up with the Republican party that this motley collection of drooling dullards and naked egomaniacs is the best they can offer up?
To question 1) I would probably reluctantly assume an answer of 'maybe'. Romney's a flip-flopper, one of those ragdoll appeasers, who - to borrow and mangle the words of Warren Ellis' character Spider Jerusalem - walks out of backstage licking the taste of pressure group semen off his lips. In these days when you have to choose between psychotic culture warriors, and meek faceless chameleons, the meek faceless chameleon might be the better bet. There's some talk that the Republican party moderates and middle ground have become alienated by the Tea-Baggery that has infested their party of shameless old bigots and cowards. Maybe a flip-flopper like Romney can appeal to them IF the Tea-Bagger element are sufficiently weeded out of the crop. Apparently, like a secret Catholic in Elizabethan England, he hides his beliefs, among them that he actually (shhh) believes evolution is real.
To question 2) I can only shake my head and weep. I'm not pretending our pollies are shining paragons of human decency - I'd have to be a liar of Abbottonian proportions to do that - but jesus, with all but a few exceptions at least they're fucking sane and understand they live in the 21st century!
I mean, look at them! Just look at them! She's dropped out of the race now, but you had Michele Bachmann, one of those Christians who believes you can reprogram gay people like a Lego Mindstorms robot. With her vacuous, unblinking expression, she'd warble on about Jesus, often proving that not only did she have no fucking clue about any world outside the sucking vortex where her brain should be, but she proved she had an understanding of her own faith that was vague and peculiar at best. Having her as President would be like us having Barnaby Joyce as PM - a fucking ridiculous assertion that you weep and beg to be a joke.
Pretty much out of the race now to everyone but himself, you also had Texas lunatic Rick Perry. Rick Perry sought to prove his 'I'm a right-wing jackhole' credentials by a raft of fun statements and actions, such as forcing women seeking an abortion for any reason to undergo a painful invasive and mandatory ultrasound, and loudly whooping fun things like he'd probably ordered the execution of innocent people, and boy howdy did he want to get rid of all forms of government regulation on everything! I cannot even begin to guess at which Australian pollie would match the rampant hate-filled insanity of this cowboy crack-smoking werewolf.
Speaking of insanity we come to Newt Gingrich, the man who has no empathy for any living creature, certainly not the wife dying of cancer he left to have an affair with another woman, while he was pompously trumpeting about the sanctity of marriage. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. All of these morality taliban jacktards are hypocrites. If they're not having gay sex with the pool boy or snorting lines of coke or shoving gerbils up their ass they're doing some other activity that runs contrary to their stated morality. So, Newt enjoyed four minutes of fame as the Republican darling du jour, before everyone wised up and realised he's a psychotic monster who hates everybody. Perhaps one of his better gems was when he suggested poor children should be made to go to work. How to solve America's financial woes? FEUDALISM! Hooray! Fuckwit.
Ron Paul came in a strong third in Iowa. He's being trumpted as a libertarian. I have no frigging idea what libertarian means in the context of the US political/ideological landscape, but I do know that it sounds like something you shouldn't accuse Ron Paul of being. To quote Inigo Montoya from 'The Princess Bride' - "This word, I don't think it means what you think it means". Ron Paul is in bed with the Reconstructionists. I've mentioned these dangerous religious terrorists before. But if you're a US citizen desperately craving to live under an evil taliban-esque theocracy, then the Reconstructionists are your guys.
Speaking of insane Christian fundamentalists we come to Rick Santorum - whose name apparently refers to the discharge that occurs after a vigorous bout of anal sex - an arch-lunatic of the far right of the Christian ethos if ever there was one. For some of his nuttier beliefs, feel free to check this out. I know right? What a loony-tunes. This tool came a very very very close second in Iowa. Seriously?
Look, it's important. One of these mad bastards could possibly end up as President. Do we as a nation want to stand on the world stage next to one of these blithering ideological psychopaths? Really?
They're culture warriors, the lot of them. They don't give a rat's fuck about anyone. They're all part of the same psychotic ideology of 'have some wars/fuck the poor/bring in the theocracy/don't have sex'. Does the Republican party really expect anyone to take them seriously after this? All they can proffer is a field of idiots - science-deniers and boojum-believers, woman and gay-haters. The Ku Klux Klan in a three piece suit instead of white robes. You can't just laugh these guys off either, much as I personally would wish to. They're dangerous, madmen escaped from an asylum eyeing up some sharp cutlery. The America any of these arseholes would create is a dangerous, impoverished hate-state.
Apart from their hate and lunacy, their sound and fury, these idiots are collectively telling a tale that amounts to pretty much nothing. Nothing of any decency or worth anyway.
I don't have a thorough grounding in how these caucus things work in the US, but apparently they have a few more to run, before the official party hand is enthusiastically shoved up the rear end of their preferred party puppet. Maybe in the next few days, weeks, months, some of the more egregiously evil madmen will fall by the wayside, but what will be left? Nothing too appetising is my guess.
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