Recently in politics Category
one of the ways to tell that you live in interesting times
is to think of how it will be recorded in
history books
is it one of those one-paragraph
by-the-way-this-guy-was-president-and-nothing-much-happened
things
or was it something that merited a whole chapter
or at least a few pages
i have a lot of hope
[groans]
for this to be a great day
i really do
it's unlike me but whatever
and it's a good day to remind ourselves
of everything we've lost
not least because of the idiot
we put in the oval office
twice
in the last eight years we lost
- a budget surplus
- two big buildings with a bunch of innocent people in them
- a large city
- separation of church and state
- over four thousand troops
- the limbs health and livelihood of countless others
- checks and balances
- a vigilant press
- some number of iraqis that we haven't bothered to count
- civil liberties
- civil discourse
- the moral high ground
- millions of americans' retirement savings
- privacy
- the meaning of patriotism
- the respect of a plurality of the world's citizens
i almost feel bad for voting to put barack obama into office
there's a lot to do
a brief and profane summary of my
possibly factually incorrect thoughts
on the whole bailout mess
once upon a time a bunch of assholes
convinced some other assholes
to buy houses they couldn't afford
some other assholes took the mess that
those other assholes made
and packaged it up in a clever way
so that assholes could sell it to other assholes
at some point everybody realized that they were dealing
with a bunch of assholes
and said
hell no
i'm not dealing with you
asshole
so the question is
is it worse to suffer from the mess that
these assholes made
or
to clean up that mess and
deny them their richly deserved comeuppance
but not let them shit all over those of us who aren't assholes
only problem is
the guy who says we're going to get shat upon
is an asshole
[apologies to trey parker and matt stone]
obama and mccain's respective ads on the sucking and swirling of the economy
draw your own conclusions
this makes almost no sense but is still hilarious
you're welcome
am i ever in a weird mood this week
not outwardly bad really
but events in the world around me have conspired to leave me
a little pissed off inside
last weekend i went to an organizing meeting for the obama
campaign
and despite being a little unnerved
by the missionary fervor of the whole thing
i was enthused
that there was something i could do to help
a week passes though
and the full weight of the nation's stupidity
lands on me with not so much a thud but a smush
like the fat ass of a suburban houston suv pilot
brought to bear on a misplaced bit of popcorn chicken
if i have to hear sarah palin vomit that folksy
bullshit
'no thanks'
to that goddamn bridge one more time
i'm going to teach wolves to shoot humans from planes
[admit it you like the mental image]
the whole pig lipstick
controversy
is slightly less annoying because it's the kind of thing
that will at least be forgotten and people who are swayed by that
are really irretrievably stupid
it's the familiar pattern of bald-faced lies
repeated until they are as good as true
too many people are either too dumb or too
indifferent
to sort it out
so at the end of the day
mccain is still a maverick
and not a crass
mealy-mouthed
flip-flopper
who had his chance to throw the emperor down the shaft
in 2004
and stood idly by while bush cheney rove et al
fried john kerry with lightning
and palin
is some kind of anticorruption crusader
who armwrestles ted stevens
with her baby on one arm
a gun on the other
praying
on skates
it's all bullshit
and if obama is going to win it's going to be a
dave roberts stealing second kind of thing
and require a lot of luck
so i guess that answers my question
it probably is still worth the effort
in other news it's september
the kids are back in school
riding the wrong way down bike lanes
people in cars turn the asshole up to eleven
i nearly got run over while running last night
the revs have sucked lately
and i'm working on the most mind-numbing thing you can possibly imagine
and despite all that i guess i'm
paradoxically
in a good mood
until i stop to think
i'll be perfectly honest with you
i was totally cheering against sarah palin last night
for her to trip over her words and make an absolute
hash of her big night
not because i'm sexist
[for the record though i prefer obama i would have voted for clinton with great enthusiasm]
it's only 'cause i think she and her new friend
senator mccain are wrong about nearly everything
[she's always been wrong, he's taken eight years to evolve wrong positions, romney-style]
and frankly i'm tired of the fight we're all about to have
again
it'd have been so much easier if we weren't careening towards another 49-49
deadlock
teetering on the whims of some benighted constituency in a
backassward state like ohio or florida
but it's looking more likely that that'll happen
mccain shored up his own bona fides by hiring a bright-red-state
[smugly born again]
version of your mom
and it's no stretch to say that big parts of the country are going to eat that shit up
the same parts who thought george w bush was a cowboy fighter pilot
and it's going to be left to the despised elites in the cities
the people who pay all the taxes that build the roads and the schools in 'real america'
and get nothing but shit for it
to vote on issues that matter to us
to get us back to the same goddamn tie we've had in the past
because the rest of the country is going to vote for down-home charm (TM) and small-town values
and mom
it's sox-yanks baseball
a slugfest that leaves both sides exhausted and bruised
and don't get me wrong
experience isn't the issue here
intelligence is
intellect
obama [and hillary] and biden are just plain smarter than their opposition
[in my opinion born-again=dumb thank you good night]
experience matters fuck-all when the shit really hits the fan
do you think bush fucked everything up because he was less experienced than al gore
or do you think he was just dumber and listened to people that were
wrong or stupid or both
john mccain might have been a smart guy
might have even been the much-touted maverick once
but like mitt romney
he found his own glass ceiling in his party
and suddenly had to dress the part of a republican
to break through it
but this is all rantings
i'm pissed off at this
pissed off that it's going to come to the equivalent of a coin flip
when we should be talking about ideas
ideas that are provably wrong
ideas that have some merit
and ideas that are great
and seeing who has more of each
i'll leave my dear reader with some substance
i almost want to take time off and go door to door with that in
'real america'
and wait for people to tell me what's wrong with it
oh no
because she didn't annoy the shit out of us enough
in 2000
here's libertarian nutcase carla howell
trying to idiotically abolish income tax in massachusetts
if there's one thing that a tax and spend liberal like myself can't stand
it's people just summarily declaring that we should stop taxing people
not as a means but as an end unto itself
no thought of what to do with all those things that still need to be paid for
social services
roads
schools
fire departments
police
oh wait
there's a reason
she says that this is a way to get the budget back to that of 1995
ah 1995
the year that gave us ace ventura when nature calls
halcyon days they
there are lots of things different now than 1995
but let's just take it as read that there are a lot of things that cost more
so to put it simply
in deference to ms howell
she's a fucking idiot
just because there's a measure of corruption in every large organization
doesn't mean that those organizations are to be abolished
it just means that like all human endeavors there must always be a drive
for improvement
look at it using a mathematical model like sid meier's civilization
organizational corruption takes away a certain percentage of your income
sure
but it's astonishingly foolish to forget about the benefits of
having gotten organized in the first place
so in order to ensure that she doesn't get any love from google on my account
let me be clear
abolishing the income tax in massachusetts is fucking stupid
oh and one other thing
their po box is in fucking wayland
real populists they must be
a less coherent than usual
but nevertheless compelling
rant
from keith olbermann
on president bush's sacrifice for our men and women in uniform
seriously
he gave up golf
[read to page three]
yet maybe there's more symbolism in that
than was intended
[insofar as he told the truth and intended anything]
golf
as interpreted these days
could be considered uniquely symbolic
of bush administration ideals
it's practiced mostly by the wealthy
and is stereotypically exclusionist
it requires the development of a great deal of land
the purchase of expensive specialized equipment
and consumption of numerous disposable products
as well as the use of a fossil-fuel powered vehicle
so maybe in giving up golf he's really reaching out and trying to show us
he's really changed
or maybe he got flustered and in trying to be clever
said something unconscionably stupid
now is the time to say quite archly that the country should
eat its vegetables
and mean several related and useful things by it
the literal aspect of it is driven by the present rise in the cost of food
abetted by the fact that we pay people who grow it to turn it into something that
isn't food
what's worse
that something is fuel for that other insatiable american appetite
the automobile
of course ethanol is something of a white elephant as it is not efficient to produce
or very profitable if not for the rather hefty subsidies involved
who's to say if it's better than oil or not
come a time when we're out of oil it might be a good thing to be able to take corn
or switchgrass
and process it into fuel using cleaner energy
but the second half of this equation is the more figurative reading of
how to eat our vegetables
as a nation
right now
senators mccain and clinton
are both in favor of a so-called gas tax holiday
a reward for american consumers who have sacrificed so much
or to continue to abuse that metaphor
a thick slice of cake for the whiny kid
who pushed around the green beans on his plate
instead of eating them
whereas now is the best opportunity
when everyone's interests are aligned
to set the country to work on the apollo project-like
task of getting ourselves set to face the next century
instead of making it easier for everybody to limp along
and ignore the problem for another ten years
while carmakers and oil companies
continue to profit from our indolence
literal and figurative
we need someone with balls to grab the nation
by the scruff of its neck and say that it's time to change our habits
to maybe do without some stuff that we want and don't need
to say that sometimes doing great things is a hard thing for everybody and that
hard things require effort
effort
you may remember is something that requires work
as in it may create jobs
which are good
but doing hard things is not a way to get elected
getting elected is a short-term concern and that's why it's so tempting to promise short-term fixes
senator
don't let us leave the table until we're done
oh, mittens (as wonkette calls him), you didn’t really say this, did you?
If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. And in this time of war, I simply cannot let my campaign, be a part of aiding a surrender to terror.
wow.
let’s forget for the moment his claim that he’s patriotically ending his campaign to forestall a dangerous, nay, disastrous loss of republican leadership for the country, rather than his own utter lack of appeal. instead, let’s just rejoice in the level of discourse that our great nation takes part in, politically. it’s no longer a matter of whether or not we agree or disagree; we either agree, or we’re actively inviting osama bin laden to trade his cave for the oval office.
i mean, right now, i think that hillary clinton could guarantee herself a trip to the white house by walking up to good ol’ willard, and punching him in the face. i really think that even ann coulter would say, ‘you go, girl’ if that happened and we’d all hold hands and dance on his impeccably-coiffed head.
this is one of those things that makes you just grunt and gasp for words that are adequate to explain precisely how insulting it is on too many levels to count. using similar leaps of logic, just because i don’t care for the patriots, does that mean i’ve turned my back on the red sox as well? if you think lindsay lohan is unattractive, does that make you gay? is opposition to waterboarding the same thing as being in favor of aromatherapy massage for terrorists?
now it’s incorrect to say that nuance is dead in republican politics. however, i did hear that reason, factual details, and shades of gray were all declared enemy combatants, and are presently being held in guantanamo.
