I’ve been struggling to come up with a way to write about religion as objectively as possible. Since I don’t really harp on the other parts of the opinion page, I though I’d tackle the letters to the editor today.
This is where the real good meat is at, but you can’t really spend a lot of time raging against the staid, tired, bullshit that sort of is the bulk of the body opinion page. You’ll read your typical right wing blowhard spout nonsense in one editorial. You’ll wait a few days, then some doofus will write in and say the same thing, but he’s from around these parts, he gets published. Typically these are coupled with another viewpoint saying the exact opposite, but using sources, which the right-winger writer never ever does. So it’s more a microcosm of the right wing left wing bologna thrown in with some “someone needs to check themselves” and a little “we need more bike lanes” or something.
Even rarer is the community voice who somehow gets a diatribe published bi-weekly where the nonsense hose gets turned on full blast then dropped in the yard, but that’s another article for another day.
This particular letter to the editor covers the well worn road of what’s causing the crumblization of our morals and society as a whole. Mr. Elmore, starts his letter in the fashion that you know it will surely be followed with an amazing amount of hyperbole and….well…horeseshit:
“Is the United States under attack?
You bet!”
I imagine the space between the sentences is to give you that “Well, gee, I don’t know if…” Then the “You bet!” is someone all up in your face with their best panic inducing tone. Mr. Elmore continues:
“We are under attack on five major fronts and these attacks are being led from within.”
Aww man! Not from within! It’s amazing how much mileage people try to get out of the post 9/11 world. You would think by now that well would be tapped, at least those with enough common sense to rub a couple of brain cells together. Nah. Mr. Elmore isn’t alone in this ages old fear that “one of them” is “one of us” and they’re winning with this ultimate evil plot.
This letter is the very definition of boilerplate right-wing, fear mongering, church loving, ignorance that assails our communities papers. Since most people don’t really care enough to write anything, let alone know what their towns newspaper address is, it’s any wonder other people may get the misguided idea that we’re a center-right nation.
These letters always have this definitive answer to what ails the world. They’re typically enumerated, mixed with bible verses, dictionary definitions. It’s the whole idea that they’re being divinely inspired to met out justice via a letter to the editor.
The first major front, and to Mr. Elmore’s mind the most devastating, is the deterioration of our churches. He goes on to paste the definition of complacency after his first sentence, and rightly blames his brothers and sisters of the church. “We as a nation have chosen to believe in man and government instead of our church and God.” Whoa, wait a minute there Mr. Elmore, I thought we had grown complacent? I guess there’s no better place to put the whole “Obama/Christ” analogy to good use here. Now, I haven’t been to church in a while, but I have read about schools doing the whole worshipping Obama, I even wrote an article about it last year. But churches, Mr. Elmore? I don’t really think that’s possible, and I certainly hope that you aren’t being racist and leading me to believe that black churches just have that giant “HOPE” poster hung up over the pulpit somewhere? Mr. Elmore continues:
“We allow churches to proclaim fake doctrine and distort the Word because we aren’t involved: Why? Because many of us no longer believe the Word.” Man, it’s really hard to keep capitalizing “Word”, it comes out of no where. It’s hard to tell if Mr. Elmore is more literal when it comes to the Word, or does he mean the fundamental values supposedly in the Word? He mentions that we have allowed our churches to become soiled, and by that soiling have allowed more disaster in to the church.
It’s like I was saying a few weeks ago about the lack of specificity. I know it’s a letter to the editor so word count is premium, but he could’ve omitted those bible verses and let some real facts in, or some other hyperbole in there. But oh how he turns over the hyperbole gravy boat on his next points.
“The decline in our moral values has opened the door for homosexuality and the gay rights movement. This group of people not only perverts themselves but our nation along with them.” Mr. Elmore fails to make the connection that this kind of attitude is polarizing. Maybe this is why the church is in decline. Outside of just the “homosexuals”, what about normal people that don’t feel the need to justify judging others? This may make some churchgoers uncomfortable, and it’s definitely out of bounds with much of what Jesus taught in the New Testament. More importantly it’s a waste of church resources to go around chasing straw men and windmills, when the could be performing outreach to those very same “homosexuals”, instead of constantly demonizing them from a bully pulpit.
“Our lack of understanding has led us to seek other gods including Islam,” Mr. Elmore, Islam isn’t a god. It’s another religious viewpoint. It’s kind of like switching to Lutheran, Methodist or Catholicism beliefs. Yet another clue in the decay of the modern church. He continues, “…a religion based on a false prophet demanding the death of all that don’t believe in Mohammed.” The fact that people like Mr. Elmore’s main leaning is making people read the bible to understand where he’s coming from, I’m shocked that these people like him, systematically fail to bone up on other religions. You don’t have to like it, or take it to heart, but I think you can at least glean a perspective and other points of view. Has Mr. Elmore read the Old Testament of the Bible? There’s some heavy shit in there, and a lot of that has to do with smiting and destroying civilizations for “non-belief” in their appointed god.
Sensing he’s running out of room, Mr. Elmore shapes up an old talking point. “We should close our borders to illegal’s and quit rewarding them when they have broken our laws,” yet he goes on “I am happy to welcome legal immigration and work visas.” How very Christian of you Mr. Elmore. We can help Mexico, which has a staggering problem, which I can’t tell is it illegal drugs, money or child slavery? By making immigration from Mexico legal we can wrap that up how Mr. Elmore?
Of course I’m being a bit obtuse, but I fail to see any specificity in fixing problems. This is the problem with a society that fails to engage on a personal level. The great thing about Fox News, their punditry is so out of touch, and it spreads to like minded lizard brained people who fail to engage on a personal level. It’s all regional. Mr. Elmore most likely lives in the whitest town in America, and has seen maybe 6 brown people in his entire life.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Nien Nien Nien to Herman Cain!
Since Jack Krier’s favorite empty headed right wing tart, Sarah Palin, announced that she wasn’t running for president, he’s been in a bit of a scramble. To find a candidate that’s just as vacuous in their rhetoric, will allow him to get away with veiled racism, and ultimately, to never ever be able to land the nomination. He can continue to prattle on during Obama’s reelection about how this one person could’ve saved the world from Muslim based, Sharia Law-ed, socialism. Jack Krier’s pick: Herman Cain. Mr. Krier even takes inspiration from The American Spectator's Aaron Goldstein's Nine Reasons Why Republicans Ought to Nominate Herman Cain. It’s becoming increasingly clear that Mr. Krier may in fact not be writing much of anything these days, just pulling a Mad Libs style Dave Barry writing ethic. I’ve only been reading Mr. Krier for the past year, and I’m finding a LOT of e-mail forwards disguised as editorials or other articles being gussied up and pasted in his opinion section. But naturally I take great inspiration from Mr. Krier’s idiocy so I have retorts to these bullets points. The bullet points in bold are from The American Spectator article, then followed by me ramblings.
1. Herman Cain has no sense of entitlement. You need a lot of ego to think you can run for president. To think that you can be that guy for four years. Especially in this day and age when it’s pretty much available to the highest bidder and not the most qualified. Herman Cain wasn’t born in to privilege and seized moments throughout his life? That sounds like Obama, and wouldn’t’ you know that this was one of those things that made him NOT electable to Mr. Krier and his ilk.
2. Herman Cain worked for Burger King. Oh, like 89% of people who worked some form of restaurant job? Herman Cain was as a CEO (quick reminder before the other bullet points) “assigned to manage some of the least successful (read ghetto neighborhood) Burger King restaurants and turned them in to the most profitable”. Here again is this failed idea that a business and the federal government are so similar that they can be run the same way. Do you now how Herman Cain may have turned some of those Burger King’s around? By firing most of the staff, and only paying minimum wage, with little to no raises, no ability for promotion, and the eventual epic turn around of employees that do stay, you too can turn around a struggling business!
3. Herman Cain has never held elected office. The article foments that never holding elected office is a good thing, yet again the antithesis to the entire argument against Obama. “He doesn’t know how it works, so he will fail!” Yet, this whole “outsider” bent that every politician from the past few decades have used to get elected in to office, is here again! For some reason this sentence is thrown in there too: “…Cain thinks outside the box, as evidence by his success in the business world…” Again, this is written by someone who has to have no idea how business’s run themselves, and how this isn’t even applicable to running a government. Never mind the fact that the president in only in charge of one branch of government. The Executive branch does not make laws or pass budgets, much to the chagrin of the right-wing.
4. Herman Cain is a mathematician. As evidenced by his idiotic at best, cynical class warfare at worst, 9-9-9 tax plan. That in the plainest of terms would bring about revenue on the backs of the poor and old. If Herman Cain thinks this is going to win him over with the minority crowd his is mistaken. However, I don’t think Herman Cain is looking for the minority vote anyways. This also kind of similar to the “Obama is a constitutional lawyer/professor” argument that proffered the mistaken idea that Obama would not just be an extension of W.’s with policy and the like. Clearly, having degrees in the mathematics has little to do with executive economic competency.
5. Herman Cain was a CEO. It's vaguely mentioned in the Burger King bullet point, but not focused on which is why this bullet point is so odd. I get the feeling The American Spectator article was really stretching for 9 things worth noting about Herman Cain. These next few points are kind of one in the same. So "managing" Burger King’s and being a CEO of another company is different…how? Well on this level “he learned first-handed (sic), how the business worlds works. He knows that the federal government is a hindrance when it comes to private enterprise creating jobs…[he would] relax some of the stringent government rules that have tied the hand of business…” Because, as we all know, deregulation is the key to our past economic glory days!
6. Herman Cain is the adult in the room. Ahh, this new nugget of idiotic deliciousness. Since Herman Cain is black, he could take Obama to task without being called racist? This doesn’t make any sense and should probably be included in the next bullet point. But nope, it’s here. How does that make Herman Cain the adult in the room? Time and again this “so and so is the adult in the room” talking point got a lot of mileage during the deficit “crisis” over the summer. In an Obama/Cain debate, as prophesied in this article, Obama would take Herman Cain to task for not even being remotely realistic, and would break done his idiotic 9-9-9 plan for the class crushing bullshit it is. Herman Cain only has charisma to stand on, and while it would be a lively debate, of that there is no doubt, it would be a shallow pool of rhetoric for Herman Cain (See Palin/Biden vice presidential debate). Obama would have to be on his best behavior so the corporate media wouldn’t think he was patronizing Herman Cain and actually taking him seriously.
7. Liberal charges of racism would look really, really stupid. For decades, “the liberals” have been calling conservatives racist? No, how shocking! Maybe because Conservatives pander to these people and have been since Nixon? The article speculates this tired notion that if republican nominate another black person to a spotlight position that that culls the racism? Does anyone remember Michael Steele’s appointment as RNC Head right after Obama got elected? Yup, that sure didn’t look suspicious or anything, Or the fact that you can count on ONE hand the number of minorities representing the Republicans. But it’s about the person's character, not the color of their skin right (wink wink)? No, nominating a black man doesn’t mean you stopped being racist, just as voting a ½ black man president did not make America suddenly post racial and wipe away decades of history.
8. Character Content. Again, they should’ve maybe just wrote paragraphs instead of spreading a short sentence about Herman Cain to 9 bullet points. It reads like one on of those staid business profiles on a corporations website. Herman Cain is a man “who carries himself with a sense of humor, dignity, modesty, responsibility and gratitude towards his country,” Wow, this guy has it all! I don’t think I know anyone who does this on a daily basis. Do you fair reader? What I don’t get is the gratitude part. Gratitude for allowing him to become Herman Cain? To bilk clueless right-wingers out of money by pushing an catchy jingle in the guise of tax reform? Not to mention Koch/Americans for Prosperity financial backing. The last part of this bullet pint tickled me as well: “He doesn’t know everything, but he is a quick study.” Like most of this article, it doesn’t even scratch the surface on who Herman Cain is. This honestly does read like a repurposed “This is why you should elect Obama president” twisted around with Herman Cain for the right-wing crowd. Hell, I’d even go far as to say this covers a majority of people running for president at any one time. But the “he doesn’t know everything, but he is a quick study” is a bit unnerving because in a recent Bloomberg Magazine interview he prefaced with a piece of rhetoric with “I don’t have the facts to back this up,”. Is this something you want your president saying to you during a state of the union address “I don’t have the facts to back this up, but Iran is a dick and we must invade them.”? If you do, you’re probably a right-wing idiot.
9. 9-9-9. Finally! We got to 9! Let’s dovetail that in to this 9-9-9 plan that cannot stand up to real world application. The American Spectator article is correct that would represent the biggest change to our tax system. But it comes off the backs of the middle and lower class, it railroads the progressive nature of our tax code. It gets rid of the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare and dismisses that FICA is a federal tax! According to Bloomberg News it would‘ve generated $200 billion less in 2010 than the governments $2.2 trillion in collections for that year. The article supports 9-9-9 because it would be significant first step in reducing the size of government. Not fixing our debt “crisis”, doing anything to stem the tide of more wasteful spending, or even beginning to bring in more revenue to pay for the stuff we’ve already demarcated. No, this is plain and simply to shrink the government, right in line with the current right-wing ideology. It doesn’t have to make sense, or withstand a litmus test of feasibility, it just has to do what the great Grover Norquist wishes.
1. Herman Cain has no sense of entitlement. You need a lot of ego to think you can run for president. To think that you can be that guy for four years. Especially in this day and age when it’s pretty much available to the highest bidder and not the most qualified. Herman Cain wasn’t born in to privilege and seized moments throughout his life? That sounds like Obama, and wouldn’t’ you know that this was one of those things that made him NOT electable to Mr. Krier and his ilk.
2. Herman Cain worked for Burger King. Oh, like 89% of people who worked some form of restaurant job? Herman Cain was as a CEO (quick reminder before the other bullet points) “assigned to manage some of the least successful (read ghetto neighborhood) Burger King restaurants and turned them in to the most profitable”. Here again is this failed idea that a business and the federal government are so similar that they can be run the same way. Do you now how Herman Cain may have turned some of those Burger King’s around? By firing most of the staff, and only paying minimum wage, with little to no raises, no ability for promotion, and the eventual epic turn around of employees that do stay, you too can turn around a struggling business!
3. Herman Cain has never held elected office. The article foments that never holding elected office is a good thing, yet again the antithesis to the entire argument against Obama. “He doesn’t know how it works, so he will fail!” Yet, this whole “outsider” bent that every politician from the past few decades have used to get elected in to office, is here again! For some reason this sentence is thrown in there too: “…Cain thinks outside the box, as evidence by his success in the business world…” Again, this is written by someone who has to have no idea how business’s run themselves, and how this isn’t even applicable to running a government. Never mind the fact that the president in only in charge of one branch of government. The Executive branch does not make laws or pass budgets, much to the chagrin of the right-wing.
4. Herman Cain is a mathematician. As evidenced by his idiotic at best, cynical class warfare at worst, 9-9-9 tax plan. That in the plainest of terms would bring about revenue on the backs of the poor and old. If Herman Cain thinks this is going to win him over with the minority crowd his is mistaken. However, I don’t think Herman Cain is looking for the minority vote anyways. This also kind of similar to the “Obama is a constitutional lawyer/professor” argument that proffered the mistaken idea that Obama would not just be an extension of W.’s with policy and the like. Clearly, having degrees in the mathematics has little to do with executive economic competency.
5. Herman Cain was a CEO. It's vaguely mentioned in the Burger King bullet point, but not focused on which is why this bullet point is so odd. I get the feeling The American Spectator article was really stretching for 9 things worth noting about Herman Cain. These next few points are kind of one in the same. So "managing" Burger King’s and being a CEO of another company is different…how? Well on this level “he learned first-handed (sic), how the business worlds works. He knows that the federal government is a hindrance when it comes to private enterprise creating jobs…[he would] relax some of the stringent government rules that have tied the hand of business…” Because, as we all know, deregulation is the key to our past economic glory days!
6. Herman Cain is the adult in the room. Ahh, this new nugget of idiotic deliciousness. Since Herman Cain is black, he could take Obama to task without being called racist? This doesn’t make any sense and should probably be included in the next bullet point. But nope, it’s here. How does that make Herman Cain the adult in the room? Time and again this “so and so is the adult in the room” talking point got a lot of mileage during the deficit “crisis” over the summer. In an Obama/Cain debate, as prophesied in this article, Obama would take Herman Cain to task for not even being remotely realistic, and would break done his idiotic 9-9-9 plan for the class crushing bullshit it is. Herman Cain only has charisma to stand on, and while it would be a lively debate, of that there is no doubt, it would be a shallow pool of rhetoric for Herman Cain (See Palin/Biden vice presidential debate). Obama would have to be on his best behavior so the corporate media wouldn’t think he was patronizing Herman Cain and actually taking him seriously.
7. Liberal charges of racism would look really, really stupid. For decades, “the liberals” have been calling conservatives racist? No, how shocking! Maybe because Conservatives pander to these people and have been since Nixon? The article speculates this tired notion that if republican nominate another black person to a spotlight position that that culls the racism? Does anyone remember Michael Steele’s appointment as RNC Head right after Obama got elected? Yup, that sure didn’t look suspicious or anything, Or the fact that you can count on ONE hand the number of minorities representing the Republicans. But it’s about the person's character, not the color of their skin right (wink wink)? No, nominating a black man doesn’t mean you stopped being racist, just as voting a ½ black man president did not make America suddenly post racial and wipe away decades of history.
8. Character Content. Again, they should’ve maybe just wrote paragraphs instead of spreading a short sentence about Herman Cain to 9 bullet points. It reads like one on of those staid business profiles on a corporations website. Herman Cain is a man “who carries himself with a sense of humor, dignity, modesty, responsibility and gratitude towards his country,” Wow, this guy has it all! I don’t think I know anyone who does this on a daily basis. Do you fair reader? What I don’t get is the gratitude part. Gratitude for allowing him to become Herman Cain? To bilk clueless right-wingers out of money by pushing an catchy jingle in the guise of tax reform? Not to mention Koch/Americans for Prosperity financial backing. The last part of this bullet pint tickled me as well: “He doesn’t know everything, but he is a quick study.” Like most of this article, it doesn’t even scratch the surface on who Herman Cain is. This honestly does read like a repurposed “This is why you should elect Obama president” twisted around with Herman Cain for the right-wing crowd. Hell, I’d even go far as to say this covers a majority of people running for president at any one time. But the “he doesn’t know everything, but he is a quick study” is a bit unnerving because in a recent Bloomberg Magazine interview he prefaced with a piece of rhetoric with “I don’t have the facts to back this up,”. Is this something you want your president saying to you during a state of the union address “I don’t have the facts to back this up, but Iran is a dick and we must invade them.”? If you do, you’re probably a right-wing idiot.
9. 9-9-9. Finally! We got to 9! Let’s dovetail that in to this 9-9-9 plan that cannot stand up to real world application. The American Spectator article is correct that would represent the biggest change to our tax system. But it comes off the backs of the middle and lower class, it railroads the progressive nature of our tax code. It gets rid of the payroll taxes that fund Social Security and Medicare and dismisses that FICA is a federal tax! According to Bloomberg News it would‘ve generated $200 billion less in 2010 than the governments $2.2 trillion in collections for that year. The article supports 9-9-9 because it would be significant first step in reducing the size of government. Not fixing our debt “crisis”, doing anything to stem the tide of more wasteful spending, or even beginning to bring in more revenue to pay for the stuff we’ve already demarcated. No, this is plain and simply to shrink the government, right in line with the current right-wing ideology. It doesn’t have to make sense, or withstand a litmus test of feasibility, it just has to do what the great Grover Norquist wishes.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Hopefully, what with all these protests and movements, we might shake up the status quo around here. While I doubt it’s true reach, we can always be rest assured that the elites will continue acting as if nothing is going wrong. Your friendly neighborhood newspaper will go ahead and keep pushing that agenda because they need the readership. I often wonder if editors or publishers read half the shit they publish on a daily basis.
I say this because it’s become rather apparent that the days of “blank v. blank” are getting behind us. I can’t help but cringe when the old conservative v. liberal article whips around to kick a hot soupy pile of what used to be the dead horse. Tom Purcell becomes our focus today, he’s writing of Barry Manilow maybe not being a liberal democrat, you know because 120% of Hollywood is bleeding heart liberal.
It’s funny the straw men of each respective “side” if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty. The right-wing seems to think that Michael Moore represents all of Hollywood, and the left wing seems to think Darth Vader is real and pours tons of his galactic space bucks in to the TEA Party (who is also, as you know, racist). There’s evidence to the contrary readily available, but then, where would all these hack pundits go when trying to maintain the status quo?
Tom Purcell seems to be under the impression that conservatives are “logical and analytical about issues” and liberals “tend to react with their hearts and emotions” which is parlance for “liberals = pussies” in my opinion. I had to step back when reading this article, because I couldn’t believe that’s 2011 and people are STILL pulling this bullshit. It’s somehow not apparent to Mr. Purcell that our country has been pretty divided as of late, and it has nothing to do with conservative/liberal nonsense! America is experiencing real pain, and he wants to whip out ideas that were stale on delivery in 2004!
But then, I got to thinking, he’s only half right. The problem is he’s not distinguishing between big “C” conservative and little “c” conservative. If he did, this article would be more cogent. I can see a Conservative perhaps being analytical and logical, I mean they had William Buckley, who hated ignorance amongst the right wing, and feared that it would tear the conservative argument asunder had they been given root. Today’s Conservative powerhouses of thought are NOT logical and analytical, no matter how hard they try to prove otherwise. Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer can support these supposed definitions? I scoff at this notion! Both are peddlers in the hyperbole and flat out wrongitude! Ann Coulter is an expert at crafting the longest book titles known to man, over loading Lexus searches, and fucking Bill Maher. There’s nothing substantive to anything she says. It’s part of the reason the right wing gets so much shit from the left wing, it’s shrill non stop harping, with nothing to anchor it with. She’d be more compelling if 2% of what she said was marginally true. When her and Laura Ingham broke down Sarah Palin a few weeks back, they came across as mean girls finally unleashing the cat claws. It was pitch perfect! This doesn’t necessarily help my argument, but it boils down that just she alone has near vaporous grasp of anything analytical or logical.
Analytical and logical people, I think, are more adaptive than the conservative. Big “C” conservatives, if they’re worth their salt wouldn’t harp on the same bullet points day in and day out. Any length of time studying conservative outlets proves this lack of logical and analytical basis. The ONLY approach to fix the debt “crisis” is the same thing: cut, cut, cut! “Don’t look at it too long, your face will melt“-like dealings with anything difficult to grasp? If conservatives were logical and analytical they’d be able to parse their argument down so that the masses could understand, and maybe, join their side. But no, THEY deal in hearts and emotions. Like tugging on evangelicals with moral and social issues to buoy a vote. I cannot believe that yet again, and even in the state level, that conservatives yet again get voted en masse in to office proclaiming to fix joblessness and the economy, yet mostly pass laws regarding abortion clinics, voter fraud, and all those wedge issues that as of right now, need no more clarification or dealings. If anything more heavy handedness is going to cost more jobs. That was your mandate?
What of all these current republican mouthpieces flapping about in the media. Your Sarah Palin’s, Herman Cain’s, Rick Perry’s. What exactly is so logical and analytical here? Does a logical person use prayer as a campaign decision tool? What about prefacing a pile of horseshit rhetoric with “I don’t have the facts to back this up but…” that’s analytical and logical where? If Mr. Purcell’s argument that most conservatives are engineers and businessman then how do you explain the Conservatives that lead the party? Most of them are not engineers or businessmen, most are failed actors, writers and radio shock jocks who share the more common predilection of money grubbing like the prostitutes of yesterday and today. I’m sure one day that a multi-millionaire liberal interest could get them to change their tune. It’s obvious that most of them could be easily swayed.
I think the biggest sign of any modern conservative is the ability to yell over someone making a point, and being able to weave any talking point in to a discussion. I guess some care could be made that it’s logical/analytical in some way.
The ultimate point of all this is to rebuke Mr. Purcell’s aged notion of a left and right at the bottom level. That these conservative v. liberal trivialities only exist in the imaginations of writer’s looking to maintain a tired status quo. Party affiliation’s fall out of favor once you and your neighbor realize that you’re both part of the party of fucked, whose only resolve is to somehow get unfucked in this current economic situation. So the Liberal vs. Conservative while still white hot on the 24 hour “news” networks, is essentially a first class problem to the liberals and conservatives who share much more in common. In the face of all that, to say that one side solely possess a superior trait over the other is not only illogical but devoid of any analytic thought, much like Tom Purcell’s editorial.
I say this because it’s become rather apparent that the days of “blank v. blank” are getting behind us. I can’t help but cringe when the old conservative v. liberal article whips around to kick a hot soupy pile of what used to be the dead horse. Tom Purcell becomes our focus today, he’s writing of Barry Manilow maybe not being a liberal democrat, you know because 120% of Hollywood is bleeding heart liberal.
It’s funny the straw men of each respective “side” if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty. The right-wing seems to think that Michael Moore represents all of Hollywood, and the left wing seems to think Darth Vader is real and pours tons of his galactic space bucks in to the TEA Party (who is also, as you know, racist). There’s evidence to the contrary readily available, but then, where would all these hack pundits go when trying to maintain the status quo?
Tom Purcell seems to be under the impression that conservatives are “logical and analytical about issues” and liberals “tend to react with their hearts and emotions” which is parlance for “liberals = pussies” in my opinion. I had to step back when reading this article, because I couldn’t believe that’s 2011 and people are STILL pulling this bullshit. It’s somehow not apparent to Mr. Purcell that our country has been pretty divided as of late, and it has nothing to do with conservative/liberal nonsense! America is experiencing real pain, and he wants to whip out ideas that were stale on delivery in 2004!
But then, I got to thinking, he’s only half right. The problem is he’s not distinguishing between big “C” conservative and little “c” conservative. If he did, this article would be more cogent. I can see a Conservative perhaps being analytical and logical, I mean they had William Buckley, who hated ignorance amongst the right wing, and feared that it would tear the conservative argument asunder had they been given root. Today’s Conservative powerhouses of thought are NOT logical and analytical, no matter how hard they try to prove otherwise. Ann Coulter and Charles Krauthammer can support these supposed definitions? I scoff at this notion! Both are peddlers in the hyperbole and flat out wrongitude! Ann Coulter is an expert at crafting the longest book titles known to man, over loading Lexus searches, and fucking Bill Maher. There’s nothing substantive to anything she says. It’s part of the reason the right wing gets so much shit from the left wing, it’s shrill non stop harping, with nothing to anchor it with. She’d be more compelling if 2% of what she said was marginally true. When her and Laura Ingham broke down Sarah Palin a few weeks back, they came across as mean girls finally unleashing the cat claws. It was pitch perfect! This doesn’t necessarily help my argument, but it boils down that just she alone has near vaporous grasp of anything analytical or logical.
Analytical and logical people, I think, are more adaptive than the conservative. Big “C” conservatives, if they’re worth their salt wouldn’t harp on the same bullet points day in and day out. Any length of time studying conservative outlets proves this lack of logical and analytical basis. The ONLY approach to fix the debt “crisis” is the same thing: cut, cut, cut! “Don’t look at it too long, your face will melt“-like dealings with anything difficult to grasp? If conservatives were logical and analytical they’d be able to parse their argument down so that the masses could understand, and maybe, join their side. But no, THEY deal in hearts and emotions. Like tugging on evangelicals with moral and social issues to buoy a vote. I cannot believe that yet again, and even in the state level, that conservatives yet again get voted en masse in to office proclaiming to fix joblessness and the economy, yet mostly pass laws regarding abortion clinics, voter fraud, and all those wedge issues that as of right now, need no more clarification or dealings. If anything more heavy handedness is going to cost more jobs. That was your mandate?
What of all these current republican mouthpieces flapping about in the media. Your Sarah Palin’s, Herman Cain’s, Rick Perry’s. What exactly is so logical and analytical here? Does a logical person use prayer as a campaign decision tool? What about prefacing a pile of horseshit rhetoric with “I don’t have the facts to back this up but…” that’s analytical and logical where? If Mr. Purcell’s argument that most conservatives are engineers and businessman then how do you explain the Conservatives that lead the party? Most of them are not engineers or businessmen, most are failed actors, writers and radio shock jocks who share the more common predilection of money grubbing like the prostitutes of yesterday and today. I’m sure one day that a multi-millionaire liberal interest could get them to change their tune. It’s obvious that most of them could be easily swayed.
I think the biggest sign of any modern conservative is the ability to yell over someone making a point, and being able to weave any talking point in to a discussion. I guess some care could be made that it’s logical/analytical in some way.
The ultimate point of all this is to rebuke Mr. Purcell’s aged notion of a left and right at the bottom level. That these conservative v. liberal trivialities only exist in the imaginations of writer’s looking to maintain a tired status quo. Party affiliation’s fall out of favor once you and your neighbor realize that you’re both part of the party of fucked, whose only resolve is to somehow get unfucked in this current economic situation. So the Liberal vs. Conservative while still white hot on the 24 hour “news” networks, is essentially a first class problem to the liberals and conservatives who share much more in common. In the face of all that, to say that one side solely possess a superior trait over the other is not only illogical but devoid of any analytic thought, much like Tom Purcell’s editorial.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
I was reading Kathleen Parker’s recent column about Ron Suskind’s blazing new book Confidence Men, and her take on the quote from some ladies in the Obama administration about not feeling welcomed in the economic team’s boys club. While most of the article is of the utmost pedestrian prose (as this Kathleen Parker we’re talking about), a revelation was levied that framed everything Ms. Parker has based her career on. The admission is probably nothing to those who could care less, but being that I am frequently exposed to her, for lack of a better phrase, “brain farts”, it made me want to find a window and scream out of it “Aha! It totally makes sense now!”
Ms. Parker admits that she’s worked from home some 20 odd years and really has no understanding of dynamics in a workplace. Be that gender politics, or other. It made sense why she failed as a co-host on her CNN show. It explains how every article she writes seems to have the common theme of someone who’s lived in a cave for decades trying to act like she’s got a modern grasp on the issues at hand. She has no real world experience to glean a constructive critique of reality from. That’s why she constantly appears to be alien on a lot of topics outside her grasp of mere flip flop-ness.
On one hand, I don’t blame her. If I could work from home and not have to deal with conflict that would arise from my buffoonish meanderings fronting as hard hitting editorials, I’d do it too. Mail those checks directly to me, and let me bark at the world from a 10 foot poles distance from anything resembling conflict.
The great thing about this is that Ms. Parker is smart enough to see that now there’s enough room to flip flop on this topic of gender politics. Whereas before she would just shrug it off and tell women to “grow a pair”, she now see’s that her ignorance was short sighted, so she can now understand where women may be coming from with the whole inequality thing. Especially now that it serves some purpose to her.
Being a Ms. Parker column, about half way through she runs out of gas and relates the tale of Mika Brzezinksi of Morning Joe fame and her inability to get a leg up on the show until she wrote a book about being mistreated. Of course this leads to a switch up at the show and a “deference toward the lady of the house is the new rule…but the show could use a lot more women.” Does Ms. Parker not realize that maybe they’re just humoring Mika? That maybe that book did more damage to that “Aw shucks guffaw we‘re one big huggy family” garbage that most morning shows project? For instance, if Ann Curry wrote a book slamming the way she’s treated at the Today Show, do you not think things would change around there?
That’s the problem with civil rights of any nature. There’s that razor fine line where you’re perilously close to patronizing the wounded party and not elevating their cause. Wouldn’t our society be a much different place had we not taken woman’s suffrage and black civil rights seriously? I mean no one’s taking a hose to Mika Brzezinkski or anything, but you get my gist. Ms. Parker is failing to see that line, and in fact does what most of our society does when confronted with issues like race and gender inequality: “Oh I thought we took care of that like years ago already, right?” It’s not a set in stone and done forever, it’s a constant battle of gains and losses, and no amount of book writing to change one person’s place on a morning show of gas bags is going to correct DECADES of malfeasance towards an entire subset of people!
Ms. Parker argues a remedy against the boys club mentality is “more women, more women, more women!” Obviously on top of living in a cave the past couple of decades, she doesn’t seem to see that more women would only STRENGTHEN the resolve of a boys club, and just lead to the “more women” feeling marginalized. This editorial reads less and less a veiled feminist tinged rant (go girls!) and more a veiled republican hit piece coming from a “democrats DO hate women” angle. However, Ms. Parker lacks the balls to out and out say that, she might alienate readers!
The change of true feminist progress is going to come from the bottom up, not from the top down. Most of the heads of corporations and business are old white doods that believe, although subconscious it may be, that a woman is to be seen and not heard. It’s not rampant or anything, but it sill bubbles underneath the surface. It’s why a woman still makes less than her male counterparts in the this day and age! It’s just that the only light shown on this issue is never a serious light, and it instigates nothing. It’s going to take a lot more than “nutting up” as Kathleen Parker suggests to get any real change done. Also, she’s not looking to change anything either, there’s more fodder for future writing here, she thrives on perpetuating the status quo.
Ms. Parker admits that she’s worked from home some 20 odd years and really has no understanding of dynamics in a workplace. Be that gender politics, or other. It made sense why she failed as a co-host on her CNN show. It explains how every article she writes seems to have the common theme of someone who’s lived in a cave for decades trying to act like she’s got a modern grasp on the issues at hand. She has no real world experience to glean a constructive critique of reality from. That’s why she constantly appears to be alien on a lot of topics outside her grasp of mere flip flop-ness.
On one hand, I don’t blame her. If I could work from home and not have to deal with conflict that would arise from my buffoonish meanderings fronting as hard hitting editorials, I’d do it too. Mail those checks directly to me, and let me bark at the world from a 10 foot poles distance from anything resembling conflict.
The great thing about this is that Ms. Parker is smart enough to see that now there’s enough room to flip flop on this topic of gender politics. Whereas before she would just shrug it off and tell women to “grow a pair”, she now see’s that her ignorance was short sighted, so she can now understand where women may be coming from with the whole inequality thing. Especially now that it serves some purpose to her.
Being a Ms. Parker column, about half way through she runs out of gas and relates the tale of Mika Brzezinksi of Morning Joe fame and her inability to get a leg up on the show until she wrote a book about being mistreated. Of course this leads to a switch up at the show and a “deference toward the lady of the house is the new rule…but the show could use a lot more women.” Does Ms. Parker not realize that maybe they’re just humoring Mika? That maybe that book did more damage to that “Aw shucks guffaw we‘re one big huggy family” garbage that most morning shows project? For instance, if Ann Curry wrote a book slamming the way she’s treated at the Today Show, do you not think things would change around there?
That’s the problem with civil rights of any nature. There’s that razor fine line where you’re perilously close to patronizing the wounded party and not elevating their cause. Wouldn’t our society be a much different place had we not taken woman’s suffrage and black civil rights seriously? I mean no one’s taking a hose to Mika Brzezinkski or anything, but you get my gist. Ms. Parker is failing to see that line, and in fact does what most of our society does when confronted with issues like race and gender inequality: “Oh I thought we took care of that like years ago already, right?” It’s not a set in stone and done forever, it’s a constant battle of gains and losses, and no amount of book writing to change one person’s place on a morning show of gas bags is going to correct DECADES of malfeasance towards an entire subset of people!
Ms. Parker argues a remedy against the boys club mentality is “more women, more women, more women!” Obviously on top of living in a cave the past couple of decades, she doesn’t seem to see that more women would only STRENGTHEN the resolve of a boys club, and just lead to the “more women” feeling marginalized. This editorial reads less and less a veiled feminist tinged rant (go girls!) and more a veiled republican hit piece coming from a “democrats DO hate women” angle. However, Ms. Parker lacks the balls to out and out say that, she might alienate readers!
The change of true feminist progress is going to come from the bottom up, not from the top down. Most of the heads of corporations and business are old white doods that believe, although subconscious it may be, that a woman is to be seen and not heard. It’s not rampant or anything, but it sill bubbles underneath the surface. It’s why a woman still makes less than her male counterparts in the this day and age! It’s just that the only light shown on this issue is never a serious light, and it instigates nothing. It’s going to take a lot more than “nutting up” as Kathleen Parker suggests to get any real change done. Also, she’s not looking to change anything either, there’s more fodder for future writing here, she thrives on perpetuating the status quo.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Political Fiction
Americans for Limited Government HAS to be a publishing arm of a science fiction writer. It’s as if they have a draconian embellished dart board with various topics, then a smaller wheel with various names for the characters and worlds that inhabit their fictions. Today, the story is of German Morales, small business owner and painter of houses and such.
The great thing about these short stories provided by the Americans for Limited Government, is that they always start out with a vaguely connected topic to the fiction at hand. The writer, Bill Wilson, starts the tale with the meager “controversy” of Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer who closed it doors a few weeks ago to bankruptcy. Also, China produces a better solar panel, so it loses on the battlefield of the “competitive marketplace” that Mr. Wilson so proudly supports. Sadly, Solyndra laid off 1,000 workers, which is in turn, tied to another “green energy initiative” in Seattle which only created 14 jobs. The thing to note when reading a lot of this right wing bologna is the specificity of some of the writing versus the near lack of anything other than “This one thing that one time in Somewhereachussetts”. It sets off my bullshit alarm every single time. Why can’t there be constant specifics? Your omission only leads me to believe that your argument is already faulty to start at best, or the point your striving for moot at worst.
I think Americans for Limited Government would have a point, say 30 years ago, before the overreach of Government reached a fever pitch under Reagan. Not that he was the first to begin the overreach, but merely to frame the modern problems we faced today. The seeds of our economic decline were sown during this time, to be sure. But Americans for Limited Government’s point is rendered obsolete by the fact that Ma and Pa Public have, nor have the ever, possess the ability to put the entire society on their backs and jump start the economy. They have at most the ability to toil and sweat for their own sake, and the lives of their kin. But they do not posses any larger power than that of voting for representative government, which has largely been taken away from them by corporate lobbyists and their interests.
The German Morales short story paints the average American as grateful for the suffering it is currently being put through. He wakes up every day with “hope” of doing a good job, so he can continue to struggle. Mr. Wilson believes that Mr. Morales is a great example of the entrepreneurial spirit that’s so waning in America. Sacrificing and cutting back, risking his security for a better life. You’ve got to be kidding me.
The next couple of sentences really hit home the general derision that the right wing elite have for this country:
“The genius of the American economic system is that there are no guarantees. The Declaration of Independence says Americans have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, no a guarantee of happiness.”
In other words, go fuck yourself the poors! This is why people like German Morales should rise up and strike these people from their perches. Not only for looking down their nose at over half of American society, but for talking behind the working American’s back to those who fancy themselves “not one of the poor’s” with bullshit like this editorial.
I can guarantee that most of the right wing blowhards/punditry did not pull themselves up by the boot straps, as they are wont to preach to everyone. When people like Bill O’Reilly threaten to stop employing people if he’s taxed anymore, when the truth is Bill O’Reilly’s taxes are the lowest they’ve been since the Great Depression, we have a problem here. There’s a dishonesty being peddled to the masses as fact, and it’s not going to get any better.
The “competitive marketplace” as Mr. Wilson puts it simply does not exist on the ground floor of the economy any more. Not since the days of the horse and buggy has the individual been in command of anything beyond the macro level of employer and a group of like minded employees. Success is however a great side effect to this thinking. But it is the exception and not the rule. If it was in fact as simple as that, everyone who met a need would be millionaires.
The real threat of the think tanks like Americans For Limited Government is that they always look inward to cut the public off at the knees instead of say the unending cash water flow that goes in to our defense spending. America has yet to shake this the bitter winters of the Cold War and continues to build and amass a giant army, of which a LOT of monetary waste is the order of the day. Lest I remind you that a 6 billion dollar pallet of money just up and disappeared in Iraq. How does a giant stack of cash just go MISSING? The no bid military contracts, the failure of said contractors in providing usable infrastructure to our soldiers or even civilians. Yet you never ever read a think tank piece saying “You know, that defense budget is kind of out of whack.” No, you will get the obligatory “Oh no, if you cut just one dollar from defense, we will be annihilated!!” Never mind the 700 odd military bases all around the world, and America’s station as the “Police of the World”. Americans For Limited Government can’t even look in that direction to suggest some useful in the way of spending far far less. Hell, their fiction would prove more useful, in that Tom Clancy sort of way. People would eat that up!
Finally, a nasty trend of the right wing sound machine has been steadily catching my attention. Mr. Wilson’s article reminded me of it. The Declaration of Independence is indeed not part of the constitution. I don’t know how this thought came to be or why this is being tirelessly bandied by the right wing, but increasingly I’ve been seeing this denial to the middle class in general that they aren’t “guaranteed” anything. The Declaration of Independence has no real modern application other than our society’s unwritten rule not to be assholes to one another, a reminder to not be a tyrant to our common man like the British Empire was to the colonists, who penned the Declaration in order to tell the King what for. It is NOT a part of the Constitution. The Constitution, however, does give us rights and freedoms (and rules and law). The only thing the Declaration and the Constitution share is the fact that they are historical documents.
The great thing about these short stories provided by the Americans for Limited Government, is that they always start out with a vaguely connected topic to the fiction at hand. The writer, Bill Wilson, starts the tale with the meager “controversy” of Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer who closed it doors a few weeks ago to bankruptcy. Also, China produces a better solar panel, so it loses on the battlefield of the “competitive marketplace” that Mr. Wilson so proudly supports. Sadly, Solyndra laid off 1,000 workers, which is in turn, tied to another “green energy initiative” in Seattle which only created 14 jobs. The thing to note when reading a lot of this right wing bologna is the specificity of some of the writing versus the near lack of anything other than “This one thing that one time in Somewhereachussetts”. It sets off my bullshit alarm every single time. Why can’t there be constant specifics? Your omission only leads me to believe that your argument is already faulty to start at best, or the point your striving for moot at worst.
I think Americans for Limited Government would have a point, say 30 years ago, before the overreach of Government reached a fever pitch under Reagan. Not that he was the first to begin the overreach, but merely to frame the modern problems we faced today. The seeds of our economic decline were sown during this time, to be sure. But Americans for Limited Government’s point is rendered obsolete by the fact that Ma and Pa Public have, nor have the ever, possess the ability to put the entire society on their backs and jump start the economy. They have at most the ability to toil and sweat for their own sake, and the lives of their kin. But they do not posses any larger power than that of voting for representative government, which has largely been taken away from them by corporate lobbyists and their interests.
The German Morales short story paints the average American as grateful for the suffering it is currently being put through. He wakes up every day with “hope” of doing a good job, so he can continue to struggle. Mr. Wilson believes that Mr. Morales is a great example of the entrepreneurial spirit that’s so waning in America. Sacrificing and cutting back, risking his security for a better life. You’ve got to be kidding me.
The next couple of sentences really hit home the general derision that the right wing elite have for this country:
“The genius of the American economic system is that there are no guarantees. The Declaration of Independence says Americans have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, no a guarantee of happiness.”
In other words, go fuck yourself the poors! This is why people like German Morales should rise up and strike these people from their perches. Not only for looking down their nose at over half of American society, but for talking behind the working American’s back to those who fancy themselves “not one of the poor’s” with bullshit like this editorial.
I can guarantee that most of the right wing blowhards/punditry did not pull themselves up by the boot straps, as they are wont to preach to everyone. When people like Bill O’Reilly threaten to stop employing people if he’s taxed anymore, when the truth is Bill O’Reilly’s taxes are the lowest they’ve been since the Great Depression, we have a problem here. There’s a dishonesty being peddled to the masses as fact, and it’s not going to get any better.
The “competitive marketplace” as Mr. Wilson puts it simply does not exist on the ground floor of the economy any more. Not since the days of the horse and buggy has the individual been in command of anything beyond the macro level of employer and a group of like minded employees. Success is however a great side effect to this thinking. But it is the exception and not the rule. If it was in fact as simple as that, everyone who met a need would be millionaires.
The real threat of the think tanks like Americans For Limited Government is that they always look inward to cut the public off at the knees instead of say the unending cash water flow that goes in to our defense spending. America has yet to shake this the bitter winters of the Cold War and continues to build and amass a giant army, of which a LOT of monetary waste is the order of the day. Lest I remind you that a 6 billion dollar pallet of money just up and disappeared in Iraq. How does a giant stack of cash just go MISSING? The no bid military contracts, the failure of said contractors in providing usable infrastructure to our soldiers or even civilians. Yet you never ever read a think tank piece saying “You know, that defense budget is kind of out of whack.” No, you will get the obligatory “Oh no, if you cut just one dollar from defense, we will be annihilated!!” Never mind the 700 odd military bases all around the world, and America’s station as the “Police of the World”. Americans For Limited Government can’t even look in that direction to suggest some useful in the way of spending far far less. Hell, their fiction would prove more useful, in that Tom Clancy sort of way. People would eat that up!
Finally, a nasty trend of the right wing sound machine has been steadily catching my attention. Mr. Wilson’s article reminded me of it. The Declaration of Independence is indeed not part of the constitution. I don’t know how this thought came to be or why this is being tirelessly bandied by the right wing, but increasingly I’ve been seeing this denial to the middle class in general that they aren’t “guaranteed” anything. The Declaration of Independence has no real modern application other than our society’s unwritten rule not to be assholes to one another, a reminder to not be a tyrant to our common man like the British Empire was to the colonists, who penned the Declaration in order to tell the King what for. It is NOT a part of the Constitution. The Constitution, however, does give us rights and freedoms (and rules and law). The only thing the Declaration and the Constitution share is the fact that they are historical documents.
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