I don’t think I’ve ever read anything by Bob Burnett (“Bob from Berkeley,” a retired Silicon Valley Executive) until I found this one in some Google search, and the Huffington Post is NOT on my daily reading list – not even my weekly list.

Reading this column (I have no idea whether it is typical of Burnett or not) was like lifting a rock off a nice bed of hydric soil (like in a wetland) and seeing all the nasty little beasties living under it.  I know the Lord created them for a purpose, but … yuch.

I am no fan of the GOP or its establishment, nor many of its leaders at local, state, or national level (one of these days, I might meet a GOP tribal-level leader, but I’m not holding my breath).  But this chunk of electron-waste is a real piece of work, and both insults and overpraises the GOP, all at the same time.  It is writing like this that gives the GOP and Tea Party movement so much ammunition, and makes people like me who are NOT GOP-philic in any way take a much stronger dislike to the Democrats and Liberals and Progressives than to even the Neo-Cons and RINOs.  Phew!

I am an anarchist – of the free-market variety.  The GOP does not have an “anarchist wing” any more than it has a royalist wing, no matter what definition of anarchy you use.  It doesn’t even have the nihilist wing or an “anti-royalist” (LaRouche) wing.  What it has is a progressive wing that is closely aligned with similar Democratic progressives (in the same way that, say a Orleanist and a Bonapartist and a Bourbonist might all be aligned:  all want a monarchy but with THEIR favorite inbred ninny on the throne, not the others), a neoconservative wing that wants crony-capitalist-economic “freedom” and strict social control at home (big government) with American domination abroad, the Tea Party movement (call it “smorgasbord conservativism” – you get to pick and choose), and a tiny paleo-conservative/”Republican libertarian” clique that thinks their way to electoral success lies in the the GOP.  In other words, about as much a patchwork quilt as the Dems have, just with different patches and different seams (or glue).  But Mr. Burnett’s view of the GOP and the pro-self defense people and even the Tea Party movement is such a caricature of reality as to make me wonder if he is a secret Tea Party movement operative trying to discredit the progressives and liberals.

But I’m fairly certain that he is “for real,” in part because reading the first of three pages, I find the usual rhetoric on the part of those who support his thesis, and a refreshing restraint on the part of the “right-wingnuts” who dare to question his wisdom.  Just as I find in many other postings on-line, and hear all too often on the little TV I watch and radio I listen to.

And it makes me realize that the time for mutual understanding and cooperation (nor compromise) has passed. I don’t know if this is 1858 or 1859 or 1860… but the time for the balloon to go up is very near.

Are you prepared?