Dear Charles...........

So some guy posted a screed, um, essay allegedly by Charles Krauthammer, and I'd just like to take a few moments to respond. On closer review, I'm not entirely sure it is The Kraut's work, but let's go with it shall we?

"Charles" begins, "I do not understand how living in a country with its democracy established over 200 years ago, and now, for the first time in history, suddenly we have one of our former presidents set up a group called "Organizing for Action" (OFA)."

Er, OK Charles, let's go with this idea that organizing for action (aka encouraging citizens to show up and participate in their democracy) is somehow a bad thing. I have to wonder tho, what were your thoughts on the Tea Party.

So unless I'm mis-hearing Charles, the Tea Party was a valid political movement that was eventually integrated into the Republican tent, but OFA is somehow a huge problem? I totally see how you could come to that conclusion. [NOT!]

Charles writes, "OFA is 30,000+ strong and working to disrupt everything that our current president’s administration is trying to do. This organization goes against our Democracy, and it is an operation that will destroy our way of governing. It goes against our Constitution, our laws, and the processes established over 200 years ago. If it is allowed to proceed then we will be living in chaos very much like third world countries are run. What good is it to have an established government if it is not going to be respected and allowed to follow our laws?"

Me: So let me see if I have this right. The former Constitutional Law professor, Hussein, is setting up a public organization that "goes against our Constitution"? Erm, wat? Is it your contention Charles, that engaging with democracy at a grassroots level is somehow unconstitutional, undemocratic and likely to "destroy our way of governing"? This is your claim? Question: how do you feel about the Kochs and the massive slush fund they've set up for actual legislators? Hm? You have any trouble with billionaires giving enough money to legislators that even when 90+% of the populace is in favor of gun control we gets nothing? Even when 80+% of the society is in favor of some kind of Dream Act we gets nothing? Basically you're saying, as oh so many of your compères on the right tend to do, that big money on your side is democracy in action, but organized public engagement on the left side is undemocratic. 

Charles again: "If you had an army some 30,000 strong and a court system stacked over the decades with judges who would allow you to break the laws, how much damage could you do to a country? We are about to find out in America!"

Me: I'm endlessly fascinated by people for whom their way, the conservative way, is the only right and true way. I wonder Charles, when Mitch McConnell stole a Supreme Court seat, how did you feel? When de ijit in charge, aka 45, starting filling the courts with right wing folks - many of them woefully unqualified - placing them in seats left vacant because congress wouldn't approve Obama's picks for those seats. Did you think that our democracy was "at risk" then? Prolly not. Oh Charles, your hypocrisy, it's hanging out there like over-exposed body parts that nobody wants to see. 

Here's Charles again: "Our ex-president said he was going to stay involved through community organizing and speak out on the issues and that appears to be one post-administration promise he intends to keep. He has moved many of his administration's top dogs over to Organizing for Action."

Me: This here is so petty I ain't eem gonna comment. Truly, all I have in response is a giant Cooper eyeroll. 

via GIPHY

Charles goes on: "OFA is behind the strategic and tactical implementation of the resistance to the Trump Administration that we are seeing across America, and politically active courts are providing the leverage for this revolution."

Me: Charles, oye vey! Seriously?! Do you actually believe this tripe or do you get paid by the word? Do you really think that the objections to DiJiT is centrally organized? Do you truly find it so hard to believe that people find your guy deeply objectionable in about ten thousand different ways? My guess is that if you weren't so wedded to your own power and privilege, you too might have the common decency to object to a great deal about 45. "Sh*thole"? "Muslim ban"? Unraveling civil rights left, right and center? I suppose you'll only be perturbed if he comes for the rights of some group of which you are a part. Oppression is only oppressive when it oppresses you directly. This is the problem with folk like you Charles. A thing ain't a thing until it's a thing to you. Well, hold tight brother, your turn may yet come. Niemöller was right. He was then and he'll be right again any day now. 

I'm not going to waste any of my words trying to respond to your "politically active court" comment because what would be the point? 

Charles continues: "OFA is dedicated to organizing communities for "progressive" change. Its issues are gun control, socialist healthcare, abortion, sexual equality, climate change, and of course, immigration reform."

Me: Well, I'm not sure where you're going with this Charlie, but so far no lies detected.

Charles: "OFA members were propped up by the ex-president's message "Organizing is the building block of everything great we have accomplished Organizers around the country are fighting for change in their communities and OFA is one of the groups on the front lines. Commit to this work in 2017 and beyond.

OFA's website says it obtained its "digital" assets from the ex-president's re-election effort and that he inspired the movement. In short, it is the shadow government organization aimed at resisting and tearing down the Constitutional Republic we know as AMERICA."

Paul Sperry, writing for the New York Post, says, “The OFA will fight President Donald Trump at every turn of his presidency and the ex-president will command them from a bunker less than two miles from the White House."

Sperry writes that, “The ex-president is setting up a shadow government to sabotage the Trump administration through a network of non-profits led by OFA, which is growing its war chest (more than $40 million) and has some 250 offices nationwide. The OFA IRS filings, according to Sperry, indicate that the OFA has 32,525 (and growing) volunteers nationwide. The ex-president and his wife will oversee the operation from their home/ office in Washington DC.

Me: Oh well, so much for the "no lies". "Shadow government"? For the love of heaven Charles! Get a damn grip! Shadow government? What kind of Faux Nooze nonsense is that? "Command them" from his "bunker"? Holy lolly guacamole! Where to start? So much hogwash! 

Question: where was Paul Sperry when the Kochs were giving the Speaker of the Damn House $500,000 shortly after the tax bill that serves them so well was passed? Hm? Where were you? What are your and Sperry's views of the Kochs funding grassroots campaign organizing or is that A-OK with you? And if it is OK, why is that organizing better than OFAs? And you're complaining at a paltry $40 million being spent on progressive causes, what were your thoughts on the $889,000,000 the Kochs spent in the 2016 cycle? No problems there I'm sure. Your hypocritic oath is peeping out again. (That's a dig at Krauthammer's former profession. He's a trained psychiatrist.)

This entire screed is filled with the kind of "The sky is falling!" bs rhetoric for which the right has become known over the last eight years. It's not only ridiculous, it's dangerous. It's toxic to the system frankly and it has brought us to where we are today, with a dangerously incompetent and probably mentally unstable man at the helm of a nuclear-armed nation, duly aided and abetted by white nationalists and surrounded by sycophants like yourself. Lovely. 

But never mind those challenges, it is Obama who remains the problem. Obama's efforts to activate the passions of citizens is, to Krauthammer's thinking, is what's gonna break America, not racism, not misogyny, not patriarchy, not homo- and transphobia, not extra-judicial police killings, not a lack of health care or more broadly a lack of empathy for the least of us. Nope. None of those are the problem, an engaged citizenry that's what's gonna break America. 

What becomes ever clearer as folk like Charles Krauthammer (or who-the-hell-ever-this-really-is) write and speak, is that they believe that democracy is only for some people. As far as they and their ilk are concerned, broad participation and engagement is a bad thing. So much for any claims about freedom and the virtues of democracy. It's all bullshit. Clearly. 

What they really want is for a small group of like-minded individuals to make all the decisions and for the rest of us to just shut up and know our place. Yeah, that ain't happenin'. 

You sir, are a hypocrite and an ass. Clearly you're taking that hypocrites oath seriously. It shows.