I want to move to France
Posted: February 25, 2011 Filed under: politics 3 Comments
This morning saw another small and flimsy barricade that was standing in the way of the US becoming an oligarchy fall when Governor Walker’s State Legislators held a ‘flash vote’ to force through the bill to deny organizing rights to the state workers and teachers. They are calling it a ‘flash vote’ because, like a ‘flash mob’ will put on a performance in the middle of a public space before any of the onlookers can realize what is happening, the ‘flash republicans’ got the vote to happen so quickly that the onlookers (i.e.: those opposed who were not told in advance) did not have time to vote before the final bell was rung. Reporters said that many of the Democratic legislators could be seen pushing their vote buttons in an attempt to vote when the vote had already been ended.
The stakes are much greater than the pensions of Wisconsin teachers and snow-plow drivers (although, if you were one of those people teaching or plowing in Wisconsin, those things would be important). I used to comfort myself with thinking that my ideological opponents and I could find common ground and create solutions that, while they might not be ideal, would represent the best for all. I thought that hope was the essence of modern democracy. As that hope fades, I’m forced to wonder if we will no longer be living in a democracy.
I used to be more optimistic about this country and its future. Now I want to move to France. Why France? Because I don’t speak French. If I lived in France, I wouldn’t understand what was going on and I wouldn’t know how badly I was getting fucked by whatever nascent French ultra-rich oligarchy is using the economic ‘crisis’ to enrich and empower themselves at the expense of the public much like is happening here. I’d be blissfully ignorant. Plus they have better healthcare and good food. And it is pretty. And I like wine. And England and Germany and Italy (all places I like) are nearby.
RIP: The American Middle Class: 1944-2011
Posted: February 17, 2011 Filed under: politics 17 Comments
“Everythings fucked up and no one goes to jail…”
I was reading a really depressing piece about the continued fallout from the financialand mortgage crisis by Matt Taibbi entitled, “Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail?” the other night. It confirmed some of my worst imaginings and made me wonder if I was going to see the death of the American middle class in my lifetime.
Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world’s wealth — and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people.
The more I learn of what happened and how, the more angry and helpless feeling I get. Insult is added to injury since, after the Obama election, Obama supporters (like myself) had hoped to see a change in Washington; instead we have gotten more of the same. The financial criminals get rewarded while people who engage in ‘poor person crimes’ (like prostitution, drugs, etc.,) continue to fill the jails beyond capacity. Somehow, this story of a woman who collapsed and died at her desk in her cubicle and no one noticed until the next day seems the appropriate bookend for that tale. Has our brand of capitalism degenerated into a form of indentured servitude? We already have workers who live in mortal fear of termination or layoff because of their dependance upon their employer for health care benefits. How many employees would love to use the capitalist system to their own advantage by entertaining offers from another employer but dare not because this would require they enroll in a new health care plan and the pre-existing conditions suffered by themselves or a family member would not be covered? Despite gains in the market and in corporate valuation, salaries contine to remain flat and unemployment rates contine at near-recession levels. There has been a recovery, but this rising tide has not lifted all boats… or maybe that metaphor no longer works because it becomes obvious to me that in this economy, not everyone HAS a boat.
If that were not enough, despite the fact that the money taps had never stopped flowing for the top 10% and their lackeys, the ‘deficit disease’ continues to infect the minds of Americans. The revenues are out there, if the people in Washington had the balls to collect them, but our leaders and media pundits continue to use the financial crisis as a reason to put public assistance programs and the salaries and benefits of state workers on the chopping block. Perhaps emboldened by the way in which GM and other manufacturers managed to kick the stuffing out of unions during their own financial meltdown and come out smelling like a rose on the other side with shareholder’s dividends and CEO salaries intact, Wisonsin legislators are now using the “financil crisis” as en excuse to try to place a foot on the neck of their public service employees and hack away at the benefits (financial and otherwise) associated with public service jobs in their state; watch and wait as other states follow that lead. Why is it that Americans worship billionaires and suck up to millionaires but hate anyone making less than 50k a year to the point that salary caps, wage freezes, benefit cuts and pension gutting for the poor and middle class are always ‘necessary’ but any suggestion that the super-rich should pay a dime more than the have-nots in taxes is met with outraged cries of “communist wealth redistribution” or viewed as an affront to capitalism, freedom and our mother’s love?
Happy Birthday to the Gipper
Posted: February 9, 2011 Filed under: philosophy, politics, punk 1 Comment
Three days ago, much of the nation celebrated what would have been President Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday (if he were still alive). I did not celebrate the occasion.
Watching his spectacle funeral a few years ago, complete with the coffin laid on a gun caisson and boots inserted backwards in the stirrups of a horse without a rider (a bizarre bit of political showboating that seems more at home in some part of a titless PG-rated a Mardis Gras parade than anywhere else) and hearing so many lining up to suck the dead man’s cock (or at least stroke his balls) was a truly strange experience. Ronald Reagan was an American war hero who, unlike actual soldiers, never got his hands dirty or made any reference to the fact that when you go to war, a lot of suffering and death takes place. Eisenhower was well before my time, and, in the lens of history, he seems to be regarded as a ‘merely average’ president, but since Eisenhower had been an actual general you would think the pomp and circumstance of dead generals would be reserved for him, but Ronald Reagan warmed the cockles of our American hearts and never expressed doubt or regret over anything he did. Never mind that his war service consisted of making training films. There is no doubt about it; even in death, Ronald Reagan is and always was a winner who could piss on the public and then get thanked for it.
The current trend of whitewashing Reagan’s legacy reminds me of the overwhelmingly positive obituaries that came from every corner after Senator Jesse Helms died. Journalists in the supposedly ‘liberal media’ mentioned Helm’s blatant racism at the time of his death only as a personal peculiarity, like a preference for seersucker suits or bow ties, rather than calling Helms what he was: an evil old man who rode racism to power. They talked about his long “service” to the nation but did not delve too deeply into what his “service” entailed. Similarly, on Reagan’s birthday the old platitudes came out and got polished up.
Blood Libel: Ignorance, stupidity or political doublespeak?
Posted: January 12, 2011 Filed under: politics, stupidity, weird 5 Comments
(image of a ‘Blood Libel’ at right courtesy of a circa 1939 German Nazi newspaper)
In response to criticisms over the gun related metaphors and imagery used by SarahPac and other politically right-leaning pundits, political candidates and media gadflys in light of the Arizon shootings, Sarah Palin has responded with a video in which she stated, “Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
Her statement is bizarre for so many reasons, and I’ll make no apologies for admitting to my dislike of Palin. For one thing, it seems strange (and ironic) that Palin, who poses as one of the great supporters of the doctrine of personal responsibility, should feel aggreived when someone else gets shot. My own view is that if you encourage someone else to shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre, people are going to be angry at you if they get injured in the stampede for the exit, whether or not you were one of the ones doing the stampedeing. Using terms like ‘reload’ and ‘second ammendment remedies’ and putting ‘surveyor symbols’ on ‘target’ state representatives is going to be viewed as ‘questionable’ when someone does go out and shoot people. That’s one of the risks of making public statements — they can (and will) come back to bite you in the ass.
But I’m also disturbed by Palin’s use of the term, “Blood Libel.” It apparently dates back to the gospel of Matthew where Matthew reports that the Jews who agitated for Jesus’ execution said, “Let the blood be on our heads.” In the middle ages, ‘Blood Libel’ was used to encourage hatred of Jews and to support the false claim that the Jews used the blood of Christians in secret ceremonies. This reasoning was later picked up by the Nazis and other anti-Semites. So “Blood Libel” has a long (and hideous) history.
Unfortunately, Palin didn’t present her remarks in a historical context, so we don’t really know what she intended to mean by the ‘blood libel’ claim. Was it just an accidental pairing of two words? Given Palin’s fundamentalist christian bent and the wording of the phrase, “manufacture a blood libel,” (rather than something more direct and less biblical in tone, like “commit libel”), that seems unlikely. Is Palin an anti-Semite? It wouldn’t surprise me. Or is the inclusion of the word intended as a double meaning to Palin’s supporters and foes alike? Is she tossing this offhand reference to ‘blood libel’ into the mix in order to stir up the obvious claim of anti-Semitism from her foes so she can once again turn that accusation around and say to her followers, “See? The lamestream media really IS against me! Now they are accusing me of anti-Semitism!”
I’m thinking the latter is a definite possibility.
Crazy people with guns
Posted: January 11, 2011 Filed under: politics, stupidity 3 CommentsI read today that in 2010 in Pima County, Arizona, about 45% of the mental health patients were forced out of public treatment programs because the tax payer didn’t want to pay for those services. I wonder if any of the voters who voted down public financing of mental health services last year will make the connection that having their state representatives and judges and children shot dead in a grocery store and not having sufficient mental health services might be in any way related.
Go figure.
Whose fault is it?
Posted: January 9, 2011 Filed under: politics, stupidity, wierd stuff Leave a comment
(BTW, the picture at right is not actually Sarah Palin, but instead is pornstar Lisa Ann who portrayed Palin in a porn film. Lisa Ann is as close as you will get to a picture of Sarah Palin in my blog… unless you have a picture of Sarah Palin killing a puppy or slapping a child; I’ll put that on my blog).
One of the Palin ‘SarahPac’ spokespersons, Rebecca Mansour, has claimed that Sarah Palin and her supporters have been unfairly targeted by the media and states that the symbols are not ‘gunsights’ but map surveyor symbols. Strange how someone else gets shot and Sarah Palin is suddenly the victim. Shortly after the controversey, the graphic disappeared from the SarahPac website (which begs the question of whether or not those ‘cross hairs’ were indeed ‘surveyor symbols’ rather than gun sights… if they were just innocent surveyor symbols, why suddenly decide to take the graphic down?). Back in March of 2010, even media personality Elizabeth Hasselbeck, a Palin supporter, said the ‘gunsights’ were in poor taste and no one from the Palin campaign contradicted Hasselbeck or corrected her by announcing that they were ‘surveyor’ symbols at that time. It’s pretty clear (to me at least) that if Sarah Palin and her followers claim that there was no ‘violence’ in the message they were giving out, that they are lying sacks of shit — but, then again, what else is new?
However, despite my active dislike of Sarah Palin and everything she stands for, I can’t honestly say that I think she is responsible for the shooting. The things she says and tweets and posts on Facebook are stupid and reprehensible and I wish she wouldn’t say them… but they are also just words, and, unfortunately, given her right of free speech she has as much a right to say those words as I do to criticize what she says.
From my recollection, in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh detonated his bomb at the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma, there was a period of stunned silence afterwards. The Limbaughs and the O’Reilleys and the others (whomever the lefty equivalents of Limbaugh might be — Rachel Maddow?) didn’t immediately chime in to offer blame (although, let’s be honest, then President Clinton did benefit, politically, from the unfortunate event — and his opponents like Newt Gingrich were forced to step back a bit from their anti-federalist rhetoric). Today it seemed like the politicals and pundits couldn’t wait to start blaming each other — the blood and brains were not yet cleaned up off the floor of the Safeway before the finger pointing began.
Thoughtcrime 1.0
Posted: December 21, 2010 Filed under: philosophy, politics, sexuality, stupidity, wierd stuff 2 Comments
Philip Greaves, the man who wrote a ‘how to’ book on pedophilia that was briefly for sale on Amazon, has been arrested in Florida even though he lives in Colorado. Greaves wrote and self-published the book, “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure: A Child-Lover’s Code of Conduct,” in Pueblo, Colorado. It was briefly carried on Amazon.com, but, after considerable protest, removed from Amazon’s list of products for sale. Detectives in Polk County, Florida, apparently purchased the book from Greaves through the mail, had him arrested by the Pueblo police and are now seeking to have him extradited to Florida where he will be charged. Sheriff Grady Judd said, “The message is very clear: If you write a book, if you sell that book, if you transmit that book to anyone in our jurisdiction, then we will investigate you and arrest, because our goal is protect the children.“
I would never say that I like the idea of someone writing a book like Greave’s book. There is no doubt in my mind that pedophilia is wrong. But I’m extraordinarily disturbed that a Sheriff in Florida would first ask someone in another state to send him a book and then seek to arrest that person for having sent them the book. The arrest hinges on the fact that such a book is illegal in Florida (Mr. Greaves may have been ignorant of that fact), but Mr. Greaves did not violate the Florida law until detectives in Florida wrote to him and asked him to send them the book. The Sheriff is arresting Mr. Greaves for a crime that law enforcement officers encouraged Mr. Greaves to commit. Aren’t there any actual criminals in Florida in need or arrest?
The other part of the story that disturbs me is that Mr. Greaves isn’t being arrested for commiting acts of pedophila. He is being arrested for writing about pedophila. I think that’s an important distinction. I’m certain that rape is wrong and I think rape should be illegal, but I don’t recall anyone having suggested that it would be right to arrest Ayn Rand for the rape scene she wrote about in “The Fountainhead.” On a practical level, I am very uncomforable with laws that don’t limit themselves to what the criminal does, but instead extend into what the criminal might think or write about. Reading books about murder or fantasizing about murdering someone or even writing a book about killing someone is not murder. And yet, Sheriff Judd claims that he wants to protect the children by arresting someone in another state who wrote a book. Should the authors of ‘Lolita’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ also be arrested since those works of fiction contain references to pedophilia?
The entire story worries me because it makes me wonder what the next logical progression of this event might be. If Greaves can be arrested for writing a book in Colorado that is illegal in Florida, where does Florida’s juristdiction end? If writing the book is illegal, how about owning or reading it? (and, honestly, I don’t know how anyone could judge the legality of the contents of the book without reading it) If writing or reading about certain matters is illegal, then shouldn’t thinking about them be wrong as well? And, if so, how do you enforce that law?
In the end, the issue isn’t pedophilia because, as far as I know, the author is not going to be charged with physical sexual misconduct. The author wrote a book in which he apparently described how one might go about seducing children… which, no matter how distasteful we might find that, is much different than actually doing it. If anyone deserves to be arrested on the basis of the Florida law that makes it illegal to import ‘pedophilia instruction manuals’ across the state line, shouldn’t it be the detectives who caused the book to be shipped to Florida by ordering it?
HANDS OFF MY JUNK!
Posted: November 28, 2010 Filed under: politics, stupidity 5 CommentsSuddenly, some Americans are very angry. Some of the same people who didn’t make a peep when we went to war in Iraq under false (or wrong) pretenses, who stayed quiet when the Administration and FEMA sat on their hands as the floodwaters inundated New Orleans during Katrina, who didn’t say anything when treason was swept under the carpet in the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson affair, who remained silent as foreign nationals were imprisoned and tortured without evidence or charge by the US and her allies, who did not protest when the definition of the word “torture” was rewritten for the convenience of politicians, who said nothing through the warrantless wiretaps and email scans, who did not protest when George W. Bush called the Constitution “just a piece of paper”… these people are finally outraged and have declared that they “will not take it anymore.”
What is the reason for their anger? New airline security regulations in the US that require scanners that can see through people’s clothes just went into effect. So when you stand in front of the scanner, some underpaid TSA guy or gal will see an outline of your penis.
I don’t believe that most of what we (the US) did in response to the terrorist attacks on 9-11 made us safer — but I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I hear how much fuss some people are making about this. I don’t believe that having a TSA employee look at the outline of my naked body will really make my flight any safer… but, in the scheme of things, I don’t understand why the new scanners outrage some folks when everything else that has come before it (that represents real abuse) has gone unmentioned. If I go to a gym and take a shower, strangers can see my penis. What is the big deal?
I believe that this is manufactured outrage that has more to do with wanting to embarass the current administration than anything else. I come to that conclusion because the TSA was created and it’s mission defined under the previous administration. It is all just political theatre and the outrage is all about 9 years too late.
Idiots on Parade!
Posted: October 27, 2010 Filed under: politics, stupidity 4 Comments
Sometimes the shit that happens for real is weirder than anything you can make up.
Earlier this week, a woman wearing a blonde wig and carrying a fake “Employee of the Month” award tried to heckle Tea Party darling Rand Paul at one of his rallies by presenting him with the award in the name of “corporate America.” Given Rand Paul’s stated beliefs, I would of thought his supporters would have taken this as a compliment. One of Rand’s supporters, Tim Proffitt, stomped on her head after she was pushed to the ground. Video cameras captured the whole thing. Paul’s campaign subsequently severed all ties with Proffitt and denounced head stomping as a form of political expression.
Proffitt first blamed the police (presumably because they didn’t STOP him from stepping on this woman’s head) and now wants an apology from the woman whose head he stepped on. I don’t know why; maybe he hurt his foot.
Ironically, one of the people shown pushing the woman to the ground was carrying a sign that said, “Don’t tread on me!”
Also, Clint McCance, an official of a school board in Northern Arkansas, recently posted his opinion on the public campaign to get people to wear purple in order to show sympathy for gay students who may have killed themselves because of bullying.
“Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves,” McCance allegedly wrote. “The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin.”
OK, not only is McCance a douche, but he is obviously too stupid to serve on a school board. “Killed thereselves“? I wouldn’t trust this idiot to teach a dog how to shit in the grass.
HEY! It’s COME OUT IF YOU ARE GAY DAY!
Posted: October 11, 2010 Filed under: bitching, politics, sexuality, stupidity 1 Comment
I didn’t realize that today was “National Coming Out” day. I didn’t even know we had a National Coming Out day. But, in the spirit of that day, let me take this moment to slam the New York State Republican Gubernatorial Candidate, Carl Paladino, for being an ass.
If you haven’t been keeping track, Paladino first stated that he was against gay marriage and said that he once ended up at a gay pride parade “by accident” and was disgusted by the sight of grown men “grinding” against each other, and he criticized his opponent for having attended a Gay Pride parade with his daughters, saying that bringing your children to a Gay Pride parade was a way of teaching them that ‘gay was OK’ but he believed that Gay was not OK. Then, later, when his opponent criticized Paladino as ‘anti-gay,’ Paladino said that he wasn’t a homophobe and the whole story of his anti-gay remarks was really his opponents attempt to smear him.
“What?”
I am not gay, but I think we, as a nation, don’t need the government telling us who can be in our family or not. I think marriage should be a legal contract between consenting adult humans. Since one cannot enter into a legally binding contract with a child, animal or object, I think arguments that say that gay marriage is the thin wedge that will inevitably lead to people marrying children or turtles or appliances are a crock. I also think that ministers who do not approve of gay marriage should feel free to refuse to marry any same sex couples who come to them.
Paladino is a complete turd because he wants to gain the support of that section of the populace that dislikes the idea of gays getting married, so he says that gays shouldn’t marry and that the gay pride parade is ‘disgusting,’ but, at the same time, when his opponents dare to state the obvious (i.e.: if you support marriage rights for all, Paladino is NOT the candidate you want), he cries foul.
Given the usual trajectory of these blowhards who spend a lot of time publicly worrying that gays are gonna get the right to marry, it’s probably just a matter of time before Paladino is caught with a “wide stance” in a public restroom, or hiring a rent boy to help him “lift his luggage”, or buying sex and drugs from a male “masseuse.” It seems that the louder folks bitch about something, the more likely they have some unresolved issues with whatever it is that they are bitching about. My own theory is that Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church, is so outspoken in his hatred of gays because he is scared to death by the fact that he feels “same sex attraction.”
Anyway, enough about Paladino, Phelps and all the rest. Now that I know that today is “come out of the closet day,” is there anything that I am going to try to do differently? I realize that I still use words like “homo” and “gay” as insults and to get a cheap laugh… but, interestingly enough, I don’t use these words pejoratively around people I know who are gay — which makes me into a sort of a “closet bigot.” So, in the coming year, I am going to try to take more responsibility for my language… and that means dropping the cheap shots on gays that I do to get a laugh out of my straight friends. It’s going to be a challenge because I grew up in the 70s and 80s (when it was usually socially ‘safe’ to hate on gays in straight culture — much like it was ‘safe’ to hate on blacks in white culture during the 1940s), so the behavior is pretty ingrained… but I also realize that every time I make a cheap crack around my straight friends that I would avoid around my gay friends, it makes me into a hypocrite like Paladino.
If you are curious about the picture, above, I typed “Gay Unicorn” into google image search and this was the best image that popped up out of the first few results.