Did you ever see the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High? Do you remember the scene where Jeff Spicoli (Sean Penn) crashes his friend’s older brother’s car into a pallet of cinder blocks? After they both survey the devastating damage to the front-end of the car, Spicoli announces confidently, “Relax, all right? My old man is a television repairman, he’s got this ultimate set of tools. I can fix it.”
The GOP might be getting a kick out of learning that our current president used to act a lot like Jeff Spicoli in high school, but right now it’s Mitt Romney that reminds me of him. The Republicans drove the economy into a pallet of cinder blocks and now they’re offering us the exact same tools they used to wreck it as a way to fix it.
I mean, at its most basic, “Dudes on ‘ludes should not drive.” We tried the Reagan way and wound up with a giant debt, a Savings and Loan crisis, and a nasty recession. We tried the Bush the Lesser way and wound up with the biggest goddamned disaster since James Buchanan was president, and the worst economy since Herbert Hoover. We got an even bigger recession, an even bigger banking crisis, and much more debt.
And where did the government’s “ultimate set of tools” go when it came time to fix New Orleans. We had Republicans out there saying that the city should just be abandoned.
The truth is, the Republicans’ toolbox never changes. It comes down to, leave greed alone to do its magic, less government revenue equals less government debt, and a whole bunch of lies and divisive language to confuse everyone.
Don’t let anyone try to convince you that elections don’t matter. In 2000, if we had nominated Bill Bradley and John McCain, we would have had less money in politics. In 2004, a Kerry win would have tilted the Supreme Court to the left instead of giving us Citizens United and unlimited corporate cash in our elections. Do you know how fucked up the Middle East and Central Asia would be right now if Sarah Palin and John McCain had been running our government over the last three and a half years?
Mitt Romney’s out there saying that he has a pro-business plan that will cause full employment, like we have no memory banks and it’s some kind of guarantee.
Businessman Romney: It says one hundred percent guaranteed, you moron!
Barack Obama: Mister, if you don’t shut up I’m gonna kick one hundred percent of your ass!
That’s how this needs to go down.
