{pic by discoverblackheritage}

Congressional Republicans would seem to be taking to an extreme the proverb that “every dark cloud has a silver lining.” Using the collapse of the U.S. economy as a salve for the gaping political wound inflicted by their electoral beating last November, Republicans are striving for redemption by opposing, as a matter of “principle,” the economic stimulus bill now before them. Allegedly, the lofty “principle” at stake has something to do with “fiscal discipline” and “small government”—neither of which was very important to Republicans when they held the reigns of federal power and were merrily expanding both the national debt and the national-security state.

But now, with Democrats in charge and the United States on the brink of a new Great Depression, Republicans want to resurrect the Trickle-Down Economics of the Reagan Era and rely upon tax cuts as a panacea for all that ails us. Public-works projects to create jobs for the millions of newly unemployed? Heaven’s, no! That smacks of New Deal-style Big Government! Most Republicans are perhaps unaware that the New Deal was undertaken in part to undercut the growing appeal of the Communist Party among impoverished American masses for whom the dream of free-market prosperity had been reduced to a sick joke told by wealthy capitalists who inherited their fortunes. Given that Republicans tend to be immune to the lessons of history, even this Machiavellian consideration is out of conservative sight and mind when it comes to the stimulus bill.

Ironically, it was Republican Representative Pete Sessions of Dallas who provided a more honest appraisal of his party’s tactics when he suggested that Republicans are taking lessons from the Taliban in Afghanistan. If that is indeed the case, perhaps President Obama should reconsider his decision to close Guantanamo and, instead, use it to house the more dangerous members of the Republican Party before their devious plot to sabotage the nation’s economic recovery succeeds.

{pic by bobster1985}

On January 30, the members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) sought to give their defeated and demoralized party a quick, cosmetic makeover through the selection of former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele as their first black chairman. In comments seemingly divorced from any pretense of reality, Steele proudly proclaimed his intent to help Republicans with their “image problem” of being perceived as “a party unconcerned about the lives of minorities.”

Image problem? That would seem to be a bit of an understatement considering the racially charged fates which befell two of Steele’s competitors for the job of steering the GOP through these treacherously diverse electoral times. The campaign of former Tennessee GOP chairman Chip Saltsman went down in flames after he distributed a CD to RNC members that included one of Rush Limbaugh’s favorite songs, “Barack the Magic Negro.” Chip’s friends and allies didn’t help him much when they repeatedly and publicly failed to grasp why anyone would have a problem with this. And the campaign of South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson crashed and burned following revelations about his 12-year membership in a whites-only country club.

Given that roughly 90% of registered Republicans are white, and that the GOP trotted out all sorts of racist campaign tactics during the 2008 elections in an attempt to scare white voters with visions of black and brown menace, the RNC’s selection of Steele represents change that is even less that skin deep. It’s about as convincing as Thomas D. Rice in blackface doing his “Jim Crow” minstrel performance of a happy, dancing, singing plantation slave in 1828.