"Paul Ryan and I understand how the economy works, we understand how Washington works, we will reach across the aisle and find good people who, like us, want to make sure this company deals with its challenges. We’ll get America on track again."
Mitt and Paul can probably sell off some of the company assets. I'm sure the oil and gas companies could use Yellowstone and Yosemite and the Grand Canyon for something more lucrative than usless "scenery."
It's time to acknowledge that Willard M. Romney is adding phrases to the 2012 campaign at a record pace. He's already added far more depth and absurdity to the English language than John McCain, the most recent Republican nominee.
Here are the first obvious contributions to the dictionary:
Corporations Are People: If only one phrase can follow Mitt Romney into future history books, it will probably be this one, a heartfelt sentiment he voiced to hecklers on the Iowa State Fairgrounds in August 2011. It summed up his personal philosophy as well as the political mood in this year when the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision has given corporate money free rein to steal our electoral process.
RetroactivelyRetired: Who knew that the ultra-rich had the power to so easily time travel and erase responsibility for four years of actions by the company of which you were CEO and sole owner? We didn't know until Romney senior advisor Ed Gillespie explained it to us on Meet the Press last Sunday. Next, Mitt Romney is going to retroactively retire from the Massachusetts Governorship on the day before he signed Romneycare into law.
"Romney" as a verb: To defecate in terror. Self explanatory for anyone who knows the story of poor Seamus the Irish Setter riding on the roof of the family station wagon.
Running for Office, for Pete's Sake: Used to indicate that of course you would take the expedient, slightly-illegal, normal course of action (e.g., having undocumented Mexican gardeners sprucing up the grounds of your six homes) if you did not have that pesky press and inquisitive voters second guessing you. Phrase introduced to America in October 2011 during a debate with Rick Perry about "illegals".
Self-Deportation: This ideal solution for the problem of undocumented immigrants (or "illegal aliens" in the official GOP Styleguide) was suggested by Mitt Romney in a January 2012 debate, but he was unwittingly lifting the idea from the satirical stance of "Daniel D. Portado" in 1994. It is also a description of what the Romney family may need to do when the IRS finally audits his unreleased tax returns and they self-deport to join their money in Switzerland or Bermuda or the Cayman Islands.
Ten Thousand Bucks: This is equal to $9.28 if you are an average 65-year-old American. It's equal to $0.06 cents if you're an average American between 21-25. In other words, he was putting no serious money where his mouth was when he offered to bet $10,000 with Rick Perry during a debate on December 10, 2011.
Do you have others that need to be added in the next installment?
A hundred years ago the citizens of your young state stood up strongly to copper kings like William Andrews Clark, who in the words of Mark Twain, "bought legislatures and judges as other men buy food and raiment. By his example he has so excused and so sweetened corruption that in Montana it no longer has an offensive smell." You didn't just complain about these Gilded Age robber barons. You passed a referendum in 1912 that stated clearly a "corporation may not make ... an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political party that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party." That clear will of Montana's early citizens was upheld again by the Montana Supreme Court in 2011.
Both the votes of your people and the decisions of your highest court were dismissed by five men on the US Supreme Court yesterday, without hearing the specific merits of your case, and by simply citing - in an unsigned opinion - their own ill-considered Citizens United decision as the basis for ignoring your will.
It should be clear to all of us that the rights of corporations (whether American or multinational) now trump the rights of American citizens, at least according to the 5-4 conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Dear Montana, Please think about the importance of that thin majority voting against your interests on the Supreme Court before you present your "safe" electoral votes to Mitt Romney in November. His goal is to change that majority to a safer 6-3 or 7-2 for his corporate friends.
Two years ago today I posted this quotation from South Carolina's least favorite Republican President (at least they don't hate Barack Obama enough to secede from the Union) in honor of the Supreme Court's Citizens United case that had just been decided earlier that week. I followed it at the time with a short rant about the ramifications of this groundbreaking Corporate Personhood case, but now it doesn't need any further elaboration:
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."
Here's the quote of the day, from the Republican debate of two nights ago:
"So we went to the company and we said: Look, you can't have any illegals working on our property. I'm running for office, for Pete's sake, I can't have illegals. It turns out that once again they hired someone who had falsified their documents, had documents, and therefore we fired them." -- Mitt Romney
Meaning of course that if (for Pete's sake) you happen to be a mere private citizen working for a group that buys and breaks up companies, and you find yourself with a few hundred acres of shaggy bluegrass, then illegal aliens are a very cost effective means for keeping that lawn as impeccably groomed as your classic 1962 Brylcreem hairdo. The video here is important, because it shows how Romney can be pushed into saying what he really means.
Without Rick Perry badgering him, Mitt never would have come out with the admission that he is only forced into following the letter of the immigration laws because he has political ambitions.
This isn't the first time that we've seen Mitt say something revealingly unscripted in the heat of the moment. I've commented on the "Corporations Are People, My Friend," video from the Iowa State Fair before, but note how the hecklers get him to reveal his deep love for abstract legal entities...
My favorite bit of absurdity in this clip now is the sentence, "Of course they are [people]. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to people." Following that logic, crime syndicates making money for criminal people are people, savings accounts earning 0.001% interest for duped people are people, churches collecting money for priests are people, marijuana plants growing in your basement that can be converted to cash that ultimately goes to people are people, everything is, ultimately, people, for Pete's sake. But that doesn't mean everything should be allowed to vote or influence our electoral process based on its monetary power.
So what's the next question that will knock Mitt off script? I'd suggest a customized version of Clinton's famous 1994 MTV Question. In Mitt's case it would be: "Boxers? Briefs? Or Magic Underwear?"
I'm still so sorry that the heckler didn't take his cue from Terrance and Phillip and respond with, "I'm not your friend, buddy."
But seriously, the real responses to this idiocy of Mitt "Buddy" Romney's are myriad, but the more I think about it, the more I think that even if you accept the January 21, 2010, Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court that corporations have the same unlimited rights to free political speech of any other person -- and the rights to back up that speech with all their substantial resources -- the heckler should have followed up with, "But are they American citizens?" Even if corporations are people, why should these people without a country, these supranational groups with unlimited resources that moves jobs, factories, and corporate headquarters offshore, have any say in the domestic politics of their former home? Or in the politics of any country in which they have some of their tentacles planted?
Jim Carrey tweeted this about ten minutes ago on Twitter, giving us yet another reason to feel good about our decision not to pay a cable or satellite corporation for the privilege of watching other corporations' television programs. And if you're reading this blog on a device that doesn't show the image up above, Mr. Carrey's tweet reads:
television is weirdos judging weirdos viewed by weirdos who are just glad there are weirder weirdos out there. like me DAMN IT! %^(
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.
This quotation from the Great Emancipator seems especially appropriate in this week when the five conservative members of the Supreme Court fully removed the previous restrictions on corporate speech in political contexts andgave the corporations of America -- and the rest of the world -- "corporate personhood" that called for the protection of corporate "free speech" rights, with all the money that they can throw behind that speech. Imagine how sponsored speech will drown out real human speech when fully unleashed. The Fox-sponsored Tea Parties will seem like a tea party when there's so much corporate "grass roots" Astroturf covering the American landscape that we'll never need another lawnmower.
Though it's nothing to laugh about, it was very hard not to play with the idea of giving corporations even fuller personalities under the #CorporatePersonhood hashtag on Twitter a couple of days ago:
According to the results of free non-scientific online tests, TBL found that he was "Existentialist", "Communist", and "A Grammar God," i.e., if he were a short wall-eyed Frenchman rather than a 6'3" blond American, he would be constantly mistaken for Jean-Paul Sartre!
