Sunday, March 15, 2015
Writing E-Mail Forwards with Thomas Sowell
I talk about the old white men of the GOP/right-wing pundit class needing to retire quite a bit in these here minutes, and upon reflection, perhaps ALL the men over the age of 45 should retire from the pundit class. It’s not like the right-wing pundit class is hurting for misinformed, malformed prognosticators that will more often than not be wrong. 45 year old men are still respected for their vigor and youth, perhaps having a bit of salt-and-pepper in their hairdo’s, you get the drill. Because this notion that with age comes wisdom is proving to be an utter fallacy for those in the right-wing who bow at the feet of a Krauthammer, Will and in today’s case: Jack Krier’s one Black Friend™ Thomas Sowell.
Maybe the day he farted out his article “Random Thoughts” 84-year old Mr. Sowell was in need of a nap. Perhaps he’s about to go on vacation, because this article reeks of someone getting one of those apocalyptical e-mail forwards from their right-wing buddies, manifested some words around it, and called it a day. It covers all the current day bases…wait a minute did Thomas Sowell just flesh out a GOP/right-wing talking points memo? It’s got all your usual suspects: a new GOP presidential darling, extolling the virtues of a lack of an education, Obama writ dictator, immigration, ceaseless war, academia hating, the IRS, feminism, Democrat/Liberal bungling foreign policy, and then double dipping on another GOP presidential darling! I was merely going to be hyperbolic with the talking points accusation, but it looks to be ABSOLUTELY true!
Fun Fact: Did you know hat Thomas Sowell is an economist? It’s true! He even wrote a book about economics. I watched a college kid try to read it on a plane trip recently. The boy kept shaking his head at what he was trying to read, I sneaked a peek at the pages from time to time, and also shook my head. Utter and complete inane bullshit. So the amazement that he doesn’t write about economics 98.9% of time should be tempered somewhat. But you would like to think that perhaps in these trying economic times that Mr. Sowell’s supposed economy expertise would be quite handy, and that his prodigious banal right-wing also ran baloney writings could be stemmed somewhat.
Let’s break down these random thoughts, that I’m most assured will crop up as a carefully reworded Jack Krier penned editorial in the coming weeks.
He opens with a Obama slam. Yawn. There is also apparently a joke in here that goes over my head. Uh…Har har?
That blasted “mainstream media” is at it again, this time trying to topple Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s rise in the polls! What polls? The GOP/right-wings pants? Exactly! The condemnation: Walker didn’t finish college! The horror! Mr. Sowell then rattles off that LOTS of GREAT people didn’t finish college. Like “[…] Bill Gates or Michael Dell. The Wright brothers didn't finish high school. Neither did Abraham Lincoln or George Washington.” As if this means something. I have also never ceased to be amazed at the bulk of GOP/right-wing pundits with multiple college degrees that then go and admonish a higher education. So academia wasn’t the veiled Satan you say it was while you were in school? Now that you’re out it’s this brainwashing, free thought crushing, useless endeavor? Give me a break. There’s research that shows that the smarter one gets the less inclined they are to be conservative and by extension Republican, maybe that’s why?
Mr. Sowell then notices that there are a ever growing number of things you’re not supposed to say in public anymore. Like what exactly? He doesn’t elaborate. I wonder if like Jack Krier, old man Thomas Sowell said something inappropriate and got mean mugged by some old white lady, or his wife, or daughter. Hell, when you’re that old the amount of stupid bullshit coming out of your old ass mouth is more likely than anything cogent. Which explains the bulk of Mr. Sowell’s output.
Netanyahu’s address to Congress is brought up, only to elucidate the notion that it will finally prove to the American public just how fucked up it is in the Middle East. Really? Americans don’t need to just look back over the past decade of two useless wars, countless lives and money lost, and so on and so forth? That an Israeli provocation in the area and the ensuring retaliation from neighboring countries or vice versa could lead to yet another World War? Nah! With his speech to Congress Netanyahu all but made certain that conflict was not an “if” but “when” for that region and the U.S. better get ready for more war.
Mr. Sowell then Andy Rooney’s us with a look in to his office space. Calling it a “paper jungle” and…Oh, did you fall asleep? I’m sorry, I don’t know why he needed to put this in here. I hope later in the article he talks about what he looks for when he buys fruit and how he likes to keep it in his house. Perhaps an update on his prostate, and/or how hard or soft his shits were on this particular day.
Ah yes, securing the border, never you mind that according to polls we’ve spent more on the border patrol in recent years than in all other decades combined. That immigration from Mexico to the U.S. is basically a net zero. No, we must pour more treasure in to the useless wedge issue. Then Mr. Sowell asks a rhetorical question about the movements and designs of congress. Really? Aren’t you one of those pundits that applaud the fact that the GOP/right-wing is always jamming up congress with useless grandstanding bullshit?
Now this next one is the very reason I decided to write about this article and nothing else. I wanted to write about Kathleen Parker’s recent navel gazing, hell Tom Purcell had a good one recently too. But no, Thomas Sowell had to write one of the most stupid things ever. In regards to terrorists Mr. Sowell writes:
“State Department official Marie Harf said, "We cannot win this war by killing them" but instead we need to get to the "root causes" of jihads by providing "job opportunities." We tried getting at the "root causes" of crime back in the 1960s -- and crime rates skyrocketed. But we stopped the Nazis in World War II by killing them, instead of setting up a jobs program in Germany.”
Now, because Mr. Sowell is black, I guess it’s okay to just assume that “we” tried getting to the “root causes” of crime in the 1960’s and not really flesh that first part of the “random thought” out. What does he mean by that? Was there an actual real concerted interest in getting to the “root causes” of black crime in the 1960’s? Or are we just giving Mr. Sowell a pass because he’s merely facilitating his job of saying racist things because his fellow white conservative couldn’t get away with saying baseless bullshit like this in the first place? More importantly, are we talking about black crime skyrocketing in the 1960’s or crime in general. Specifically are we talking crime in the broadest since of the word, or murder, theft, etc?
Then the whole Nazi’s thing is another ball of wax. Oh to live in a time when right and wrong were so patently black and white! But I guess you can cut Mr. Sowell some slack seeing that he’s an economist and not a historian, that he would go ahead and assume that “we” didn’t try and get to the “root causes” of Germany’s problem in the aftermath of the first World War and how their lack of outlook is what let to a little thing like Nazism gaining a foothold in the country. Nah, you see we totally eradicated the hateful rhetoric off the face of the planet by killing Nazi’s right? What’s that? Oh…Neo Nazi’s, the Ku Klux Klan…and so on and so forth? But according to Thomas Sowell, who was ALIVE during WWII, we stopped the bad guys by killing them! The End! Their hateful legacy died with them too, you’d be naïve…or forcibly ignorant if you think that diplomacy works on ANY level. All you need is to crank up the ol’ War Machine® and just drive it in to whatever country or people that are foolish enough to trifle with freedom! The Internets says that Mr. Sowell served in the Korean War, so he more than most of his conservative peers should know the cost of war. Now, The Internets doesn’t specify if Mr. Sowell saw any combat, but at a certain point, and so many more decades of war hawking under his belt, it doesn’t really matter.
Going back to the victimizing Israel well for the next thought. Mr. Sowell’s hyperbole gun is on full blast with this one. Signing a deal with Iran is paramount to throwing Israel to the wolves? Never you mind that the agreement is of the international flavor with U.S., Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia all on board. One would like to think those other countries are at least a bit closer to a nuclear Iran than we are. And I have to wonder if Mr. Sowell even knows what the agreement is about. It’s express purpose is to make sure Iran doesn’t get ANY centrifuge capabilities, and that their nuclear ambitions stay in check. What should be more alarming to conservatives is that Iran is able to rebuild a nuclear program that would normally take two years down in to two months.
Then we hit the ol’ academic piñata again! If you’re sensing a lot of de ja vu in these here “random thoughts” don’t worry, it’s actually happening. This is why I’m supposing Mr. Sowell needed a nap or something. Better yet, he just farted this column out over a weekend and that’s why it apparently loops back over on itself, as he forgot that he just lambasted academia earlier. And so I repeat what I wrote earlier with the addition that Mr. Sowell himself has served on several university faculties, graduated from both Harvard and Columbia…and the University of Chicago…and the think tank he works for, The Hoover Institution, is at Stanford University! Hell, it’s on the campus…so where the hell does Mr. Sowell get off on this “academia is a veiled Satan” rhetoric? Now this “random thought” might hold a bit of water as it approaches the notion that “The young are indoctrinated with demographic "diversity" that contrasts with a squelching of diversity of ideas on social issues.” But he doesn’t elaborate. Aside from stating that campuses are filled with more taboos and intellectual intolerance in America. This is because of professor tenure? In coupling that with Chris Rock’s recent comments that he doesn’t like performing at college campuses because of an intolerance to dirty jokes and taboo topics, perhaps Mr. Sowell has a point. But then there are his fellow conservative writers who are also tenured professors who spend a fair amount of column space crowing about the fact that their tenure allows them to be a racist, regressive conservative blowhard and no one can touch them. As with any social/ideological movement there will eventually be some push back. Social justice isn’t for everyone, and it’s current overreach will be met with a stronger push back as with all movements eventually.
I find it funny in the next “random though” that he takes the IRS and other social entities to task for “losing” things. Is it better to lose things that might disprove something, than to just pretend it doesn’t exist…or by extension matter? These “random thoughts” and their lack of context is pretty damning if the idea is to have other people, aside from his ditto-head readers, read this and then decide they’ve had enough of that mainstream media and Obama’s liberal agenda. Is he talking about the data climate scientists lost a few years back that would lead to the disproving of man made global warming? Also, would it be so bad if conservatives just agreed that global warming is real and stop pretending nothing is happening? You don’t have to like it, and in fact you can just out and out say that you’re being paid by the fossil fuel industry and the other earth hating corporations to be in constant disbelief and call it a day. This “random thought” is fucking loaded! He even slides in a dig at “affirmative action” for some reason. I feel like with this “random thought” there’s plenty of data he has failed to recognize that would combat his bullshit, but then the randomness and his conservative bonafides would be in question.
I don’t understand this “radical feminist” “random thought” not being couple or tripled with these previous anti-academia talking points. Hell, I think it would’ve been neat had Mr. Sowell actually taken the time and fleshed out an article on this straw man argument. You see, radical feminists are strangely silent about this whole ISIS thing. You know the most evil current boogeyman to the GOP/right-wing? According to Mr. Sowell, the “radical feminists” have sure been quiet on the whole ISIS front. But that makes me wonder if he’s just out of touch, and not that “radical feminists” aren’t saying anything about ISIS. Would having “radical feminists” on your side actually help the saber-rattling for war that is currently possessing the GOP/right-wing? “Well you know, we weren’t so sure about going in to more ceaseless war’s, but then all these “radical feminists” joined our cause, and now it is most just!”
A “random thought” about John Kerry is next, who made the mistake of saying the world isn’t so dangerous now. But then someone else said it wasn’t! Which is in line with the conservative world view that ever single thing is awful and terrible and the apocalypse is JUST around the corner, OH MY GOD EVERYONE HATES AMERICA AND IS COMING TO ATTACK US…somehow! Give me a fucking break. Is the GOP/right-wing not going to be sated until the U.S. just becomes the imperialistic overlord to the world?
Finally, book ending his “random thoughts” another dig at Obama. “We should never again put a first-term Senator in the White House.” But then goes on to list three other first-term senators for the Republican Presidential Candidate Clown Car Rally™! Oh, because they’re YOUR guys, I get it now! And also he’ll be ready in 2020! Ah, so clever Mr. Sowell. Since Marco Rubio admitted he was so wrong on immigration, he gets the Thomas Sowell seal of approval for the far flung future! You wanted something substantive as a better reason to be a GOP presidential candidate? Did you forget that you’re reading a Thomas Sowell column, come on!
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Talking Readability with Jack Krier
It’s too bad Shithead Hall of Fame® Inductee Jack Krier doesn’t post his opinion pieces on the Internets. I mean, his newspaper empire does have it’s own website, but you have to register an account to actually LOOK at anything. You’d think he’d be proud to blast his asininity laden brain farts all over the world, but like a clam with it’s precious pearl, he hides them away from most people.
But that doesn’t stop me from reading his “opinion” in his various newspapers and scurrying back to retell it all shitty Beowulf style to you, dear citizens! I’ve once again been torn from my hiatus to break down a Jack Krier brain fart about the recent State of the Union.
Now, I’ve not been one to shy away from the State of the Union in recent memory. I mostly enjoy watching said address then watching the GOP/right-wing trot out some new current hot thing they got working on. Said hot new thing then most likely embarrasses themselves with a bunch of baloney and staid talking points, and then we move on. Somehow, with the election of Obama, it appears a political Pandora’s box has been opened and all manner of people come up out the woodwork to give their “rebuttal” to the State of the Union address. Sadly, this year I missed the State of the Union. I’m sorry, I forgot it was on!
I’m fairly certain the “state” of the “union” is “strong” (whatever that means). I did hear Obama drop some shade on the congress and then he talked about free community college for all on the backs of the wealthy. Fox News hosts lost their mind, and for some reason 58 year-old Steve Doocey JUST recently paid off his student loan from a state school…weird right? That HAS to be a lie. Par for the course for the right-wing!
Not having watched the address, I can only guess as to the bulk of the contents. I also can’t burden myself to actually WATCH the address and perhaps form my own opinions. Honestly, it doesn’t matter, because the address Mr. Krier saw was THE MOST WORST THING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVERY SINGLE THING!
Unfortunately for Obama, this years address was the least watched in a while. Mr. Krier takes that to mean something it doesn’t. For some reason the Nielsen ratings are still taken seriously. Yet, they don’t account for the true viewership of said item. So yes, while viewership was down, I’m fairly certain it was just as watched as any other State of the Union in the recent past.
To begin Mr. Krier states that “Obama’s speech was filled with so many lies, half-truths and untruths that even the ultra hardcore liberal, Chris Matthews, and Andrea Mitchell, also a staunch liberal, readily criticized it.” What?! Christ Matthews, even though he lives on MSNBC (the supposed “Liberal equivalent to Fox News”) is nothing more than a populist blowhard. He’s the same guy that proclaimed, not that long ago, that George W. Bush should be put on Mt. Rushmore. I’m fairly certain I’ve never heard any self professed liberal say something like that! And Andrea Mitchell? Come on… On top of this Mr. Krier states that both Matthews and Mitchell “readily criticized” the speech, yet offers no examples to his readers, who most assuredly did NOT watch the State of the Union. Talk about so many lies, half-truths and untruths!
Not that much further in Mr. Krier displays his old man-ness but not understanding much of what Obama was talking about. But before that he shows us he doesn’t know how to do math very good either. As of 2013 the U.S. population was 316 million people, Mr. Krier crows that only 31 million people “watched” the State of the Union. Doing the math 285 million people didn’t watch it. I guess he’s rounding up when he says “300 or so million” How hard is this math Jack Krier?!
Moving along past Mr. Krier’s admonishment of Obama’s desire for “free stuff” like broadband internet access, cyber-security, and so on, we find that he thinks that higher taxes on the rich somehow mean people like him. Maybe so, seeing as he does own a sizable publishing arm in the Midwest. But that’s also the problem with a lot of the lower class of the GOP that get fooled by things like Fox News and talk radio in to thinking they’ll suffer because of rising taxes on the wealthy. The disconnect is often stymieing to me. I get the general idea that you don’t want to pay more taxes. But once again, taxes pay for all kinds of things, some of which you just aren’t going to like. For all this talk of American exceptionalism, the right-wing sure doesn’t want to pay to keep it that way. Hell, we’re not even really competing globally anymore in terms of broadband access and higher education.
It’s any wonder why Mr. Krier prattles on and on about the State of the Union when towards the end of his piece he states that “ […] the Democrats suffered a crushing defeat last November.” So why hem and haw about what Obama is offering in his address, if it’s all for naught because Republicans won control of congress on the lowest voter turnout since after World War II? I guess a victory is a victory right? It’s odd what right-wingers will declare as a mandate versus what isn’t a mandate. A thin George W. Bush “re”-election margin was enough to declare a mandate, Obama wins a majority of the popular vote both times, the GOP/right-wing is all “No mandate for you!” It’s odd, right?
Mr. Krier states that since Obama (and his favorite target “the mainstream media”) failed to read the November memo that “ […] the country soundly rejected all of the Obama policies.” that all his speech making is pointless. In the battle of political wills, it is Obama who must relent to the regressive wills of a Republican led congress. Who, for all it’s talk of getting America back on track, immediately started in on anti-abortion legislation. I shit you not! They couldn’t even be bothered about repealing Obamacare. First things first, let’s fight that anti-woman thing we’ve been accused of by doubling down on moral issues that most of America doesn’t care about and certainly didn’t put us back in power to do in the first place. Refutation my ass!
And now, we get to the real meat of my problem with this Jack Krier opinion piece. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he filled his “opinion” piece with a bunch of baloney. He impugns Obama further (if that’s even possible) by stating hat according to the Flesch-Kincaid his speech was written at a ninth grade level. What? Seriously? According to old man Jack this is for “the wealth of low-information voters”, which he means “the others” which he means minorities. Furthering in the stupidity, Mr. Krier states that George W. Bush’s address were the “highest rated speeches of the last five presidents.” Oddly enough he doesn’t provide any proof. Funny that. Which left it to me to dig around and see if this claim was even remotely true.
Sadly, Mr. Krier is wrong. Which shouldn’t be surprising for someone’s whose own Flesch-Kincaid score rests at about a 7. Which means Jack Krier writes for a seventh grade reading level. Does he also write for low-information voters? Just not minorities! Heaven forbid a “the other” get’s any ideas!
Sure W. had some high scoring years, 2006 in particular scored an 11th grade readability level, but he wasn’t the “highest rated speeches of the last five presidents” according to the Jack Krier Institute of Deep Inside the Dark Crevices of His Asshole of Higher Learning. That distinction belongs to the vaunted Saint Reagan! Who’s 11.7 is the much highest!
Regardless, I think the Flesch-Kincaid test is more a revelation to the fact that America is getting stupider the further she stumbles along the decades. Putting up a State of the Union address from George Washington yielded a 20.9 on the readability-o-meter. So this to could mean the readability test isn’t necessarily fool proof by any stretch of the imagination.
But why wouldn’t you want your speech to be understood by the masses? So what of the aim towards “low-information voters”? Does Mr. Krier think himself an intellect? His writing sure doesn’t allude to that whatsoever, and in the many years of reading his columns, the only smart thing he ever really does is plagiarize Thomas Sowell columns and steal blond jokes to re-purpose them as “democrats are dumb”.
For Old Man Jack Obama’s address is all for not, seeing as the president “ […] has the worst record in the past five years of getting things passed in Congress.” Where did Mr. Krier get this information, again…who knows?! He rambles out some more highly dubious information about how many Obama “calls to action” were actually followed through by congress. I’m wondering, if Jack Krier knows how our government works. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t, seeing as a lot of his TEA Party patriot comrades don’t have the vaguest idea ever. No, what’s more important is to keep parroting the “Imperial Obama” line over and over again as if it’s truer now than in any other point in history when it comes to executive orders. It’s amazing that with a “The Internets” chock full of information, and search engines that can get you to that information so quickly, we have such a lack of intelligence in our social discourse.
More pathetic is Mr. Krier’s hope that congress continues to stymie Obama’s “agenda”. Once again, a congress that did more nothing than the infamous “Do Nothing Congress” of the Truman presidency is exactly what this country needs right now.
But that doesn’t stop me from reading his “opinion” in his various newspapers and scurrying back to retell it all shitty Beowulf style to you, dear citizens! I’ve once again been torn from my hiatus to break down a Jack Krier brain fart about the recent State of the Union.
Now, I’ve not been one to shy away from the State of the Union in recent memory. I mostly enjoy watching said address then watching the GOP/right-wing trot out some new current hot thing they got working on. Said hot new thing then most likely embarrasses themselves with a bunch of baloney and staid talking points, and then we move on. Somehow, with the election of Obama, it appears a political Pandora’s box has been opened and all manner of people come up out the woodwork to give their “rebuttal” to the State of the Union address. Sadly, this year I missed the State of the Union. I’m sorry, I forgot it was on!
I’m fairly certain the “state” of the “union” is “strong” (whatever that means). I did hear Obama drop some shade on the congress and then he talked about free community college for all on the backs of the wealthy. Fox News hosts lost their mind, and for some reason 58 year-old Steve Doocey JUST recently paid off his student loan from a state school…weird right? That HAS to be a lie. Par for the course for the right-wing!
Not having watched the address, I can only guess as to the bulk of the contents. I also can’t burden myself to actually WATCH the address and perhaps form my own opinions. Honestly, it doesn’t matter, because the address Mr. Krier saw was THE MOST WORST THING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF EVERY SINGLE THING!
Unfortunately for Obama, this years address was the least watched in a while. Mr. Krier takes that to mean something it doesn’t. For some reason the Nielsen ratings are still taken seriously. Yet, they don’t account for the true viewership of said item. So yes, while viewership was down, I’m fairly certain it was just as watched as any other State of the Union in the recent past.
To begin Mr. Krier states that “Obama’s speech was filled with so many lies, half-truths and untruths that even the ultra hardcore liberal, Chris Matthews, and Andrea Mitchell, also a staunch liberal, readily criticized it.” What?! Christ Matthews, even though he lives on MSNBC (the supposed “Liberal equivalent to Fox News”) is nothing more than a populist blowhard. He’s the same guy that proclaimed, not that long ago, that George W. Bush should be put on Mt. Rushmore. I’m fairly certain I’ve never heard any self professed liberal say something like that! And Andrea Mitchell? Come on… On top of this Mr. Krier states that both Matthews and Mitchell “readily criticized” the speech, yet offers no examples to his readers, who most assuredly did NOT watch the State of the Union. Talk about so many lies, half-truths and untruths!
Not that much further in Mr. Krier displays his old man-ness but not understanding much of what Obama was talking about. But before that he shows us he doesn’t know how to do math very good either. As of 2013 the U.S. population was 316 million people, Mr. Krier crows that only 31 million people “watched” the State of the Union. Doing the math 285 million people didn’t watch it. I guess he’s rounding up when he says “300 or so million” How hard is this math Jack Krier?!
Moving along past Mr. Krier’s admonishment of Obama’s desire for “free stuff” like broadband internet access, cyber-security, and so on, we find that he thinks that higher taxes on the rich somehow mean people like him. Maybe so, seeing as he does own a sizable publishing arm in the Midwest. But that’s also the problem with a lot of the lower class of the GOP that get fooled by things like Fox News and talk radio in to thinking they’ll suffer because of rising taxes on the wealthy. The disconnect is often stymieing to me. I get the general idea that you don’t want to pay more taxes. But once again, taxes pay for all kinds of things, some of which you just aren’t going to like. For all this talk of American exceptionalism, the right-wing sure doesn’t want to pay to keep it that way. Hell, we’re not even really competing globally anymore in terms of broadband access and higher education.
It’s any wonder why Mr. Krier prattles on and on about the State of the Union when towards the end of his piece he states that “ […] the Democrats suffered a crushing defeat last November.” So why hem and haw about what Obama is offering in his address, if it’s all for naught because Republicans won control of congress on the lowest voter turnout since after World War II? I guess a victory is a victory right? It’s odd what right-wingers will declare as a mandate versus what isn’t a mandate. A thin George W. Bush “re”-election margin was enough to declare a mandate, Obama wins a majority of the popular vote both times, the GOP/right-wing is all “No mandate for you!” It’s odd, right?
Mr. Krier states that since Obama (and his favorite target “the mainstream media”) failed to read the November memo that “ […] the country soundly rejected all of the Obama policies.” that all his speech making is pointless. In the battle of political wills, it is Obama who must relent to the regressive wills of a Republican led congress. Who, for all it’s talk of getting America back on track, immediately started in on anti-abortion legislation. I shit you not! They couldn’t even be bothered about repealing Obamacare. First things first, let’s fight that anti-woman thing we’ve been accused of by doubling down on moral issues that most of America doesn’t care about and certainly didn’t put us back in power to do in the first place. Refutation my ass!
And now, we get to the real meat of my problem with this Jack Krier opinion piece. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he filled his “opinion” piece with a bunch of baloney. He impugns Obama further (if that’s even possible) by stating hat according to the Flesch-Kincaid his speech was written at a ninth grade level. What? Seriously? According to old man Jack this is for “the wealth of low-information voters”, which he means “the others” which he means minorities. Furthering in the stupidity, Mr. Krier states that George W. Bush’s address were the “highest rated speeches of the last five presidents.” Oddly enough he doesn’t provide any proof. Funny that. Which left it to me to dig around and see if this claim was even remotely true.
Sadly, Mr. Krier is wrong. Which shouldn’t be surprising for someone’s whose own Flesch-Kincaid score rests at about a 7. Which means Jack Krier writes for a seventh grade reading level. Does he also write for low-information voters? Just not minorities! Heaven forbid a “the other” get’s any ideas!
Sure W. had some high scoring years, 2006 in particular scored an 11th grade readability level, but he wasn’t the “highest rated speeches of the last five presidents” according to the Jack Krier Institute of Deep Inside the Dark Crevices of His Asshole of Higher Learning. That distinction belongs to the vaunted Saint Reagan! Who’s 11.7 is the much highest!
Regardless, I think the Flesch-Kincaid test is more a revelation to the fact that America is getting stupider the further she stumbles along the decades. Putting up a State of the Union address from George Washington yielded a 20.9 on the readability-o-meter. So this to could mean the readability test isn’t necessarily fool proof by any stretch of the imagination.
But why wouldn’t you want your speech to be understood by the masses? So what of the aim towards “low-information voters”? Does Mr. Krier think himself an intellect? His writing sure doesn’t allude to that whatsoever, and in the many years of reading his columns, the only smart thing he ever really does is plagiarize Thomas Sowell columns and steal blond jokes to re-purpose them as “democrats are dumb”.
For Old Man Jack Obama’s address is all for not, seeing as the president “ […] has the worst record in the past five years of getting things passed in Congress.” Where did Mr. Krier get this information, again…who knows?! He rambles out some more highly dubious information about how many Obama “calls to action” were actually followed through by congress. I’m wondering, if Jack Krier knows how our government works. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t, seeing as a lot of his TEA Party patriot comrades don’t have the vaguest idea ever. No, what’s more important is to keep parroting the “Imperial Obama” line over and over again as if it’s truer now than in any other point in history when it comes to executive orders. It’s amazing that with a “The Internets” chock full of information, and search engines that can get you to that information so quickly, we have such a lack of intelligence in our social discourse.
More pathetic is Mr. Krier’s hope that congress continues to stymie Obama’s “agenda”. Once again, a congress that did more nothing than the infamous “Do Nothing Congress” of the Truman presidency is exactly what this country needs right now.
Monday, August 18, 2014
BuyPartisan: Sorry, there isn't an app for stupid!
BuyPartisan sounds like a great app: scan the bar code of your favorite food and figure out if that company leans to the left or to the right and how much it contributes to the various parties. It’s inventor told the Washington Post that the app was designed to “empower individuals so that they can make every day like Election Day in how they spend their money.” Oddly enough, the editorial board doesn’t like this one bit. Surprising!
For now, I think this app is a great idea. It boils down the one fast rule of life: money is everything. People as a whole have known for some time that voting with your dollar is the quickest way to make the change you want. It’s no surprise that after corporate sponsors of the regressive think tank ALEC were outed a lot of them went “What? Nope…not us!” and hustled out of the door so fast. It’s how groups of people threaten to boycott certain corporations that are doing things they don’t care for in order to persuade the corporation to maybe just have ONE day where they’re not being the evil, black-hearted, cocks they tend to be. Glenn Beck knows all to well the power that corporations provide through advertising. So much so that when they started leaving his accompanying shows in droves, he left the television airways with them, and now hocks “real made in the USA” denim jeans on his radio show and “internet television network“.
Unlike the Washington Post editorial board, I don’t think one app is going to further splinter the country. I would be amazed if it did, and that would mean that a lot of red state citizens would probably have to buy a Smartphone first. With their tin-foiled hat fear of the government scanning their thoughts for future crime, and dragging them away in the night, I doubt a surge in Smartphoned right-wingers is going to happen.
To attempt to try and validate its point, the editorial pulls out that stupid ass Pew Research poll that proves that America is driving itself further down ideological lines. I say stupid ass because all it’s proving, like a lot of polls showing this divide, is that it’s CONSERVATIVES that are becoming more ideologically rigid, and unwilling to work with other ideas. NOT the other way around. You’d think the right-leaning Washington Post would do better than to include that quote from the Pew poll, but they do.
The editorial continues with the notion that “if” the app “succeeds” it will take ideological sorting to a whole new level. Have they even used a Smartphone before, do they even know what an app is? This editorial is strangely technophobic and profoundly ignorant to just how much of an impact an app can have…on any level.
The app seems to be more about informing consumers about how a corporation does its business, and less about driving an ideological agenda. In fact, the app seems more to fill in the gap that has long been abandoned by the news altogether: public information. The internet also facilitates this notion, and it’s any wonder the news industry is suffering as a whole.
This notion of fearing the impending “ideological silos” is laughable, because it’s mostly a right-wing construct. Why is there still this constant need to have your own views represented in everything? The GOP/right-wing has a white knuckle grip on talk radio, they have their own channel, and a fair amount of newspaper editorial boards. This fear of marginalization was laughable when it was established and is absurd now. No one’s driving the GOP/right-wing ideas away from the mainstream but themselves and their idiotic actions as a party/ideology.
For now, I think this app is a great idea. It boils down the one fast rule of life: money is everything. People as a whole have known for some time that voting with your dollar is the quickest way to make the change you want. It’s no surprise that after corporate sponsors of the regressive think tank ALEC were outed a lot of them went “What? Nope…not us!” and hustled out of the door so fast. It’s how groups of people threaten to boycott certain corporations that are doing things they don’t care for in order to persuade the corporation to maybe just have ONE day where they’re not being the evil, black-hearted, cocks they tend to be. Glenn Beck knows all to well the power that corporations provide through advertising. So much so that when they started leaving his accompanying shows in droves, he left the television airways with them, and now hocks “real made in the USA” denim jeans on his radio show and “internet television network“.
Unlike the Washington Post editorial board, I don’t think one app is going to further splinter the country. I would be amazed if it did, and that would mean that a lot of red state citizens would probably have to buy a Smartphone first. With their tin-foiled hat fear of the government scanning their thoughts for future crime, and dragging them away in the night, I doubt a surge in Smartphoned right-wingers is going to happen.
To attempt to try and validate its point, the editorial pulls out that stupid ass Pew Research poll that proves that America is driving itself further down ideological lines. I say stupid ass because all it’s proving, like a lot of polls showing this divide, is that it’s CONSERVATIVES that are becoming more ideologically rigid, and unwilling to work with other ideas. NOT the other way around. You’d think the right-leaning Washington Post would do better than to include that quote from the Pew poll, but they do.
The editorial continues with the notion that “if” the app “succeeds” it will take ideological sorting to a whole new level. Have they even used a Smartphone before, do they even know what an app is? This editorial is strangely technophobic and profoundly ignorant to just how much of an impact an app can have…on any level.
The app seems to be more about informing consumers about how a corporation does its business, and less about driving an ideological agenda. In fact, the app seems more to fill in the gap that has long been abandoned by the news altogether: public information. The internet also facilitates this notion, and it’s any wonder the news industry is suffering as a whole.
This notion of fearing the impending “ideological silos” is laughable, because it’s mostly a right-wing construct. Why is there still this constant need to have your own views represented in everything? The GOP/right-wing has a white knuckle grip on talk radio, they have their own channel, and a fair amount of newspaper editorial boards. This fear of marginalization was laughable when it was established and is absurd now. No one’s driving the GOP/right-wing ideas away from the mainstream but themselves and their idiotic actions as a party/ideology.
Monday, August 11, 2014
5 Signs You're A Social Justice Asshole!
Since writing about the Samantha Allen vs. Giant Bomb a while back I went on a journey in to the world of social justice. If this Encyclopedia Dramatica reference is to be believed, I’m fucked, and there’s no way out. Well, it was nice knowing you dear readers.
But fear not, my time with this wing of The Internets is drawing to a close. I’ve attempted three different times to write an article about social justice: it’s misinformed warriors and it’s well-intentioned but narrow minded knights. All to no avail. I’m struck by the sheer amount of horrible writing, both in terms of content and it’s literal meaning. These Social Justice Warriors (SJW’s) defend topics that need absolutely NO DEFENDING. In the past month, I’ve read a defense of Kim Kardashian’s shitty celebrity game, that claims people hate Kim K because she’s making money? In that same vein another SJW defended PewDiePie from game “journalists” who are also jealous of his millions, and homophobic? What? This is the world of the SJW.
To close this dark chapter in my time as Mayor of Haterville, I’ve decided to take one of these articles to task. Ironically enough, it’s a Samantha Allen article titled 5 Signs You’re Dating a Reddit Troll. Yup, ol’ Ms. Allen is writing another tired “thought piece” on what appears to be one of the few different venues that draw her, and most SJW’s ire, Reddit. The other is 4chan. Because white cisgendered men are the enemy, and they cannot hide any longer!
I chose the article mostly because it’s the most recent, and is vaguely political, but also because it encapsulates my general problem with SJW’s. These broad stroke, lazy, arm chair quarterback articles are just inert pieces of trash clogging up The Internets, and honestly, not doing anyone a bit of good.
SJW’s by their very stated nature aren’t in to educating people, especially men. They are more than happy to shovel their hot opinions in to your face, but if you even blink at a notion they suddenly feel threatened and go on the offensive. Ms. Allen is great at this. She was interviewed at On the Media (around the time of the Giant Bomb debacle) about games that include "LBGT (sic) identities". On the podcast comment page were FIVE comments. One of the comments posted was a link to Ms. Allens’ misandry screed and stated that perhaps this wasn’t the right person to be interviewing about broader representation in games. Ms. Allen then proceeded to inform her twitter feed that she was being trolled yet again by the white man. Which wasn’t even the case. This mountain out of a molehill mentality is kind of the SJW’s one play with The Internets.
The one thing that truly stymies me is the SJW writer actively engaging in the very trolling behavior they admonish. Which, if the research I’ve been doing these past few weeks is any indication, is kind of what they do. I truly want to believe that Ms. Allen’s article is satirical in nature, but sadly it isn’t and it’s truly sad.
The intro to the list is a bit useless as it’s unnecessary to the list. But Ms. Allen has a SJW quota to fill so she indulges in a bit of early man hate from the beginning. You see, a woman’s husband left a browser open on their shared laptop, she shockingly discovered that he was an internet troll that “spends his spare time harassing teenagers on Tumblr”. (Tumblr is basically SJW Valhalla, so this is doubly damning!) Horror of horrors, the wife is also pregnant! (Somehow the teenagers referenced earlier are coyly changed to “women”, and the husband then becomes a “chronic harasser”.)
Now it’s not up to Ms. Allen to provide context, she’s trying to sell her bullshit misandry anyway she can. But context is definitely key. The husband needs to be a woman hating internet harasser for her article about how every single male on the planet is evil to hang together. It’s with the context of actually going and looking up said reddit thread that things become a lot less black and white, but we’re here to make fun of Ms. Allen’s list, not use one couples deeper marital issues to buoy horseshit ideology-as-help articles.
To perhaps save the woman from the same fate as the reddit woman, who was tricked by an evil man in to marrying him and then producing children with him, which he would then harass and slut-shame, Ms. Allen has crafted a list of things a woman needs to ask a potential man (who you are not going to be fooled by then perhaps marry and procreate with him). But you would probably be better off just NOT asking any MAN anything, because as we all know, men are just wanting sex and cannot even begin to suppress their need to subjugate the woman.
Question 1. “What do you think of Seth MacFarlane?” As a white cisgendered man (A.K.A. THE ENEMY) my first answer would be: “What?” But I’m part of the problem. Because Mr. MacFarlane’s Family Guy (and most of his output if we’re being honest) is about being equal opportunity offender to everyone, this greatly bothers SJW’s. The SJW’s see their plight as the most pure and the most right, and equal opportunity thinkers (EOT’s) are the SJW kryptonite in this regard. EOT’s think that SJW’s are just polishing the brass on the Titanic, and are just being overwrought, hyperbolic bullies. MacFarlane being a white male is also the worst thing ever, regardless of his equal opportunity “nonsense”.
Also, according to Ms. Allen he squandered his one-shot at Oscar hosting, which is odd, as he just hosted the Oscars, do you mean perhaps another shot? A second shot if it were? I don’t think Seth MacFarlane is going to lose sleep over not hosting the Oscar’s again. So, if you hate Seth MacFarlane’s “politics” then you’ve passed woman level one! If not, then the woman should be worried, because you may have been mean to a woman on The Internets! Run woman Run!!!! At the very least she didn’t make the question about “the South Park guys” and their equal opportunity shenanigans.
Question 2. “Have you ever heard of Anita Sarkeesian?” You’re answer will probably be “Nope!” As NO ONE outside SJW’s and video game nerds have heard of her. More than likely, you’re answer should still be “Nope!” because she’s a non entity to most society/culture and really should not have any profound impact on a relationship in any capacity.
Ms. Allen still has an axe to grind with the Giant Bomb “community” and this is how she squeezes it in to her article. First off, the term “video gamer” is antiquated and insulting, and so is the idea that if you’re a male and play video games you’re a seemingly undesirable to the female. Calling Anita Sarkeesian a feminist is fine, but calling her a media critic is pretty laughable. She isn’t interested in critiquing media and video games, she’s only interested in propelling herself. Her videos “liberally borrow” content from other internet videos, we used to call this plagiarism, but when you’re the queen of SJW’s you can do no wrong, therefore it’s not stealing. She also “liberally borrowed” other content on The Internets for her video series and failed to give proper credit, causing more problems for herself.
As with most SJW movements, Anita Sarkeesian isn’t interested in addressing problems and fixing them. So, do as Ms. Allen says in the last sentence and pretend to recognize the name and say something that “[…]sounds feminist or, at the least, empathetic […]. Then you’ll be okay to have babies with! Hooray?
Question 3. “Which amendment in the Bill of Rights do you think is the most important?” I could write an entire column just about this ONE question. This is where the article leaves the atmosphere of anything remotely satirical and crashes gloriously in to the SJW quagmire of buffoonishness. It’s clear that Ms. Allen doesn’t know shit politically and this question should’ve been avoided as it also has NOTHING to do with a relationship.
Ms. Allen does a quick sexy run down on the Bill of Rights. In fact, it seems as though she just ran down the Bill of Rights wikipedia page and nothing else. Speaking of sexy this question can be a “ […] fun question that every couple should ask each other just to build intimacy […]” Sure, if you’re a couple of TEA Party Patriots who met on okStupid or Ohatedate.com!
Unsurprisingly, the fourth amendment gets shoved unsexy like with the fifth, sixth, and seventh amendments. It seems as though Ms. Allen started losing the thread in her column as none of the choices seem particularly inspired, funny, or insightful...or remotely satirical. Thinking that one particular amendment is more important than another doesn’t say much about a person. Nor is thinking the 2nd amendment being the most important makes you unlovable and that the woman should “RUN!” from you. Most people will ALWAYS pick the 1st amendment, it’s the fucking 1st amendment for crying out loud! Instead of half-assing a top-ten list of the Bill of Rights, perhaps Ms. Allen should’ve just said “If the man says anything about the 1st and 2nd amendment then he is unworthy of your love, because crazies love the 2nd amendment and internet trolls ALWAYS use the first amendment to harass women!” It’s also humorous that she adds about 1st amendment lovers “[…] If he thinks it means that “it’s a free country” and “people can say whatever they want,” tell him to go back to the playground he learned his politics from […]” Kind of where Ms. Allen learned her critical thought and analysis ability?
Question 4. “Can I borrow your laptop really quick?” The next two questions are quick because Ms. Allen got her misandry out of the way and you can only sub textual write “white cisgendered males are the Satan” so many times. What better way to find out if your loved one is the one by straight up invading his privacy. According to Ms. Allen you have about 30 seconds to hand over your laptop before your doltishness unleashes itself and your rendered wifeless and alone! No one, I mean NO ONE should have their privacy invaded in order to prove worthiness. This nugget pretty much settles everything in this humorous bit:
“Men don’t just cheat on you and watch too much porn anymore. They also obsessively track down and harass people who are different from them in order to feel the fleeting sense of control and superiority that defines their particular version of masculinity.”
Are we still pretending this is satirical?
Question 5. “Do you harass people on the Internet?” This is the only question you ever need to ask. The entire article previous is useless, unless you’re in to misandry and broad stroked idiocy-as-academic-critical-thought. But more importantly, being an asshole on The Internets doesn’t make you an unworthy partner. Should you also think twice when you’re riding in the car with your mate and they yell at bad driving on the road? Unless they have constant anger issues, you have nothing to worry about. There is more concrete evidence and signs for a bad partner than their internet habits.
It recently came to light, from Ms. Allen herself, that the article in question is just a “lighthearted thing”. I sincerely hopes that this is the case, but it still doesn’t excuse the rampant idiocy that rages through this column. Sure, as an academic Ms. Allen isn't shackled to churning out constant “academic thought pieces”, but that would mean that she would have to have written something academic in the same vein as this column. The bulk of her writing online is about video games, and trolling pop culture, so it becomes a bit stymieing that she paints with such a willfully ignorant brush. None of this article reads as satire, unless tongue-in-cheek has become ruthlessly bullying and mean. This article is just straight up trolling.
But fear not, my time with this wing of The Internets is drawing to a close. I’ve attempted three different times to write an article about social justice: it’s misinformed warriors and it’s well-intentioned but narrow minded knights. All to no avail. I’m struck by the sheer amount of horrible writing, both in terms of content and it’s literal meaning. These Social Justice Warriors (SJW’s) defend topics that need absolutely NO DEFENDING. In the past month, I’ve read a defense of Kim Kardashian’s shitty celebrity game, that claims people hate Kim K because she’s making money? In that same vein another SJW defended PewDiePie from game “journalists” who are also jealous of his millions, and homophobic? What? This is the world of the SJW.
To close this dark chapter in my time as Mayor of Haterville, I’ve decided to take one of these articles to task. Ironically enough, it’s a Samantha Allen article titled 5 Signs You’re Dating a Reddit Troll. Yup, ol’ Ms. Allen is writing another tired “thought piece” on what appears to be one of the few different venues that draw her, and most SJW’s ire, Reddit. The other is 4chan. Because white cisgendered men are the enemy, and they cannot hide any longer!
I chose the article mostly because it’s the most recent, and is vaguely political, but also because it encapsulates my general problem with SJW’s. These broad stroke, lazy, arm chair quarterback articles are just inert pieces of trash clogging up The Internets, and honestly, not doing anyone a bit of good.
SJW’s by their very stated nature aren’t in to educating people, especially men. They are more than happy to shovel their hot opinions in to your face, but if you even blink at a notion they suddenly feel threatened and go on the offensive. Ms. Allen is great at this. She was interviewed at On the Media (around the time of the Giant Bomb debacle) about games that include "LBGT (sic) identities". On the podcast comment page were FIVE comments. One of the comments posted was a link to Ms. Allens’ misandry screed and stated that perhaps this wasn’t the right person to be interviewing about broader representation in games. Ms. Allen then proceeded to inform her twitter feed that she was being trolled yet again by the white man. Which wasn’t even the case. This mountain out of a molehill mentality is kind of the SJW’s one play with The Internets.
The one thing that truly stymies me is the SJW writer actively engaging in the very trolling behavior they admonish. Which, if the research I’ve been doing these past few weeks is any indication, is kind of what they do. I truly want to believe that Ms. Allen’s article is satirical in nature, but sadly it isn’t and it’s truly sad.
The intro to the list is a bit useless as it’s unnecessary to the list. But Ms. Allen has a SJW quota to fill so she indulges in a bit of early man hate from the beginning. You see, a woman’s husband left a browser open on their shared laptop, she shockingly discovered that he was an internet troll that “spends his spare time harassing teenagers on Tumblr”. (Tumblr is basically SJW Valhalla, so this is doubly damning!) Horror of horrors, the wife is also pregnant! (Somehow the teenagers referenced earlier are coyly changed to “women”, and the husband then becomes a “chronic harasser”.)
Now it’s not up to Ms. Allen to provide context, she’s trying to sell her bullshit misandry anyway she can. But context is definitely key. The husband needs to be a woman hating internet harasser for her article about how every single male on the planet is evil to hang together. It’s with the context of actually going and looking up said reddit thread that things become a lot less black and white, but we’re here to make fun of Ms. Allen’s list, not use one couples deeper marital issues to buoy horseshit ideology-as-help articles.
To perhaps save the woman from the same fate as the reddit woman, who was tricked by an evil man in to marrying him and then producing children with him, which he would then harass and slut-shame, Ms. Allen has crafted a list of things a woman needs to ask a potential man (who you are not going to be fooled by then perhaps marry and procreate with him). But you would probably be better off just NOT asking any MAN anything, because as we all know, men are just wanting sex and cannot even begin to suppress their need to subjugate the woman.
Question 1. “What do you think of Seth MacFarlane?” As a white cisgendered man (A.K.A. THE ENEMY) my first answer would be: “What?” But I’m part of the problem. Because Mr. MacFarlane’s Family Guy (and most of his output if we’re being honest) is about being equal opportunity offender to everyone, this greatly bothers SJW’s. The SJW’s see their plight as the most pure and the most right, and equal opportunity thinkers (EOT’s) are the SJW kryptonite in this regard. EOT’s think that SJW’s are just polishing the brass on the Titanic, and are just being overwrought, hyperbolic bullies. MacFarlane being a white male is also the worst thing ever, regardless of his equal opportunity “nonsense”.
Also, according to Ms. Allen he squandered his one-shot at Oscar hosting, which is odd, as he just hosted the Oscars, do you mean perhaps another shot? A second shot if it were? I don’t think Seth MacFarlane is going to lose sleep over not hosting the Oscar’s again. So, if you hate Seth MacFarlane’s “politics” then you’ve passed woman level one! If not, then the woman should be worried, because you may have been mean to a woman on The Internets! Run woman Run!!!! At the very least she didn’t make the question about “the South Park guys” and their equal opportunity shenanigans.
Question 2. “Have you ever heard of Anita Sarkeesian?” You’re answer will probably be “Nope!” As NO ONE outside SJW’s and video game nerds have heard of her. More than likely, you’re answer should still be “Nope!” because she’s a non entity to most society/culture and really should not have any profound impact on a relationship in any capacity.
Ms. Allen still has an axe to grind with the Giant Bomb “community” and this is how she squeezes it in to her article. First off, the term “video gamer” is antiquated and insulting, and so is the idea that if you’re a male and play video games you’re a seemingly undesirable to the female. Calling Anita Sarkeesian a feminist is fine, but calling her a media critic is pretty laughable. She isn’t interested in critiquing media and video games, she’s only interested in propelling herself. Her videos “liberally borrow” content from other internet videos, we used to call this plagiarism, but when you’re the queen of SJW’s you can do no wrong, therefore it’s not stealing. She also “liberally borrowed” other content on The Internets for her video series and failed to give proper credit, causing more problems for herself.
As with most SJW movements, Anita Sarkeesian isn’t interested in addressing problems and fixing them. So, do as Ms. Allen says in the last sentence and pretend to recognize the name and say something that “[…]sounds feminist or, at the least, empathetic […]. Then you’ll be okay to have babies with! Hooray?
Question 3. “Which amendment in the Bill of Rights do you think is the most important?” I could write an entire column just about this ONE question. This is where the article leaves the atmosphere of anything remotely satirical and crashes gloriously in to the SJW quagmire of buffoonishness. It’s clear that Ms. Allen doesn’t know shit politically and this question should’ve been avoided as it also has NOTHING to do with a relationship.
Ms. Allen does a quick sexy run down on the Bill of Rights. In fact, it seems as though she just ran down the Bill of Rights wikipedia page and nothing else. Speaking of sexy this question can be a “ […] fun question that every couple should ask each other just to build intimacy […]” Sure, if you’re a couple of TEA Party Patriots who met on okStupid or Ohatedate.com!
Unsurprisingly, the fourth amendment gets shoved unsexy like with the fifth, sixth, and seventh amendments. It seems as though Ms. Allen started losing the thread in her column as none of the choices seem particularly inspired, funny, or insightful...or remotely satirical. Thinking that one particular amendment is more important than another doesn’t say much about a person. Nor is thinking the 2nd amendment being the most important makes you unlovable and that the woman should “RUN!” from you. Most people will ALWAYS pick the 1st amendment, it’s the fucking 1st amendment for crying out loud! Instead of half-assing a top-ten list of the Bill of Rights, perhaps Ms. Allen should’ve just said “If the man says anything about the 1st and 2nd amendment then he is unworthy of your love, because crazies love the 2nd amendment and internet trolls ALWAYS use the first amendment to harass women!” It’s also humorous that she adds about 1st amendment lovers “[…] If he thinks it means that “it’s a free country” and “people can say whatever they want,” tell him to go back to the playground he learned his politics from […]” Kind of where Ms. Allen learned her critical thought and analysis ability?
Question 4. “Can I borrow your laptop really quick?” The next two questions are quick because Ms. Allen got her misandry out of the way and you can only sub textual write “white cisgendered males are the Satan” so many times. What better way to find out if your loved one is the one by straight up invading his privacy. According to Ms. Allen you have about 30 seconds to hand over your laptop before your doltishness unleashes itself and your rendered wifeless and alone! No one, I mean NO ONE should have their privacy invaded in order to prove worthiness. This nugget pretty much settles everything in this humorous bit:
“Men don’t just cheat on you and watch too much porn anymore. They also obsessively track down and harass people who are different from them in order to feel the fleeting sense of control and superiority that defines their particular version of masculinity.”
Are we still pretending this is satirical?
Question 5. “Do you harass people on the Internet?” This is the only question you ever need to ask. The entire article previous is useless, unless you’re in to misandry and broad stroked idiocy-as-academic-critical-thought. But more importantly, being an asshole on The Internets doesn’t make you an unworthy partner. Should you also think twice when you’re riding in the car with your mate and they yell at bad driving on the road? Unless they have constant anger issues, you have nothing to worry about. There is more concrete evidence and signs for a bad partner than their internet habits.
It recently came to light, from Ms. Allen herself, that the article in question is just a “lighthearted thing”. I sincerely hopes that this is the case, but it still doesn’t excuse the rampant idiocy that rages through this column. Sure, as an academic Ms. Allen isn't shackled to churning out constant “academic thought pieces”, but that would mean that she would have to have written something academic in the same vein as this column. The bulk of her writing online is about video games, and trolling pop culture, so it becomes a bit stymieing that she paints with such a willfully ignorant brush. None of this article reads as satire, unless tongue-in-cheek has become ruthlessly bullying and mean. This article is just straight up trolling.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Debate: Are Republicans cold-hearted? Well, They Are Stupid.
Ugh. I almost wrote about Jonah Goldberg’s column about conservative values finding a home in the evil Uber-Liberal world of the moving pictures. His rhetorical laziness and blatant force of ignorance will always trump any sort of real cogent point he could make about the excellence of “conservative values“.
Instead, something else fell in to my lap, which is much more worthy of my rankles.
I don’t think people understand what debate is anymore. Reading this hot garbage Newsday fueled “debate” on whether Republicans are cold-hearted or not makes the case that the two authors don’t either. Then I read the comments. Yeah, people don’t have a goddamned clue what debate means anymore.
It’s easy to understand how this came to be. Real debate is hard for normal people. For the pundit class, who get paid to think by their ideological monied interests, it’s all too easy. For the pundit class, debate is just yelling over someone who thinks differently from you, not answering the original question asked, and going of on some tangent that’s somehow remotely related to the debate topic…and inexplicably not answering the question. That’s debate in the 24 hours news cycle, so can you really blame normal, everyday people, if they think that what the see these days is “debate”?
I tend to avoid reading these kind of “pro” and “con” articles when they appear in the newspaper. They lack any real substance and simply boil down to a “chocolate” or “peanut butter” solution from their respective camps on the myriad of topics foisted at it. It’s also just blatant status quo upkeep in the grand false equivalency.
So the topic goes: “Recent poll results from the Pew Research Center raise the question anew: They show that 86 percent of self-described "steadfast conservatives" believe that in America, "the poor have it easy." Just 6 percent of "solid liberals" believe the same thing. Who is right? Are liberals too soft-hearted, or are conservatives big ol' meanies?”
Joe Mathis (I guess representing the left-wing?) and Ben Boychuk (Umm…the right-wing…but not because he is a LIBERTARIAN!) “debate” this question.
Coming in at a (generously counted) blazing sixty-hundred and sixty-ish words you kind of get the notion that there’s not going to be much, if any debate. And wouldn’t you know it? There isn’t! Mr. Mathis does attempt to answer the question. Of course, the answer is yes: because they are!
Mr. Mathis makes some good points. He discusses the last election, and Romney’s “47 percent” comment, behind closed doors. It’s in their veiled racism towards “others”, like Reagan’s “welfare queens” of yore. Further, it’s in the GOP/right-wing’s exaltation of “policy wonk” Paul Ryan’s annual attempt to gut welfare budget’s and garner huge tax cuts for the wealthy through his “budgets”. It’s going on now with the current immigration problem, as the pundit class looks at those children living a life in limbo and squalor and just keep screaming “Eww! Eww! Send them away! Obama do something! Ick! Ick! Ick!” It’s in GOP/right-wing in congress being the arbiter’s of the general “Do-Nothing Congress 2.0” nature. If they are not cold-hearted, then what are they? They certainly aren’t pragmatic or sensible currently.
Mr. Mathis undercuts most of this by continuing to hedge his answer towards the false equivalency. It’s kind of hard not to. Regular people aren’t as black and white as the pundit class is paid to be. They can be of two minds on a topic. Believing that some poor people aren’t trying hard enough, AND that government is doing too much harm than good or in their case, probably not spending the money on the things they think the government should be spending their tax money on.
Ben Boychuk, in perfect right-wing fashion, doesn’t even bother answering the question. He’s basically “Answer?…pssh! That poll is stupid!”. The End. He does site a shortened version of the poll you the viewer can participate in and of course he came up “solidly conservative“. Then goes on to I guess site the actual poll where people could answer “I don’t know” to some of the questions, and has one of his buddies at the LIBERTARIAN Cato Institute double down on Mr. Boychuk’s assertion that the poll’s questions are dumb, therefore the poll itself is dumb. He then rattles off some debunked right-wing talking points, and calls it a day.
The Pew Poll website quiz that Mr. Boychuk sites is indeed a bit dumb. There are only two answers to a question, and it’s PRETTY OBVIOUS which answers are which. But the debate question isn't “Is this poll dumb and why?” and I’m pretty sure if we count this as a debate, then the answer is “Yes, Republicans are cold-hearted…and stupid…and don’t take direction well when asked to debate a question.” But hey at least Mr. Boychuk was found to be "solidly-conservative". Whew!
Instead, something else fell in to my lap, which is much more worthy of my rankles.
I don’t think people understand what debate is anymore. Reading this hot garbage Newsday fueled “debate” on whether Republicans are cold-hearted or not makes the case that the two authors don’t either. Then I read the comments. Yeah, people don’t have a goddamned clue what debate means anymore.
It’s easy to understand how this came to be. Real debate is hard for normal people. For the pundit class, who get paid to think by their ideological monied interests, it’s all too easy. For the pundit class, debate is just yelling over someone who thinks differently from you, not answering the original question asked, and going of on some tangent that’s somehow remotely related to the debate topic…and inexplicably not answering the question. That’s debate in the 24 hours news cycle, so can you really blame normal, everyday people, if they think that what the see these days is “debate”?
I tend to avoid reading these kind of “pro” and “con” articles when they appear in the newspaper. They lack any real substance and simply boil down to a “chocolate” or “peanut butter” solution from their respective camps on the myriad of topics foisted at it. It’s also just blatant status quo upkeep in the grand false equivalency.
So the topic goes: “Recent poll results from the Pew Research Center raise the question anew: They show that 86 percent of self-described "steadfast conservatives" believe that in America, "the poor have it easy." Just 6 percent of "solid liberals" believe the same thing. Who is right? Are liberals too soft-hearted, or are conservatives big ol' meanies?”
Joe Mathis (I guess representing the left-wing?) and Ben Boychuk (Umm…the right-wing…but not because he is a LIBERTARIAN!) “debate” this question.
Coming in at a (generously counted) blazing sixty-hundred and sixty-ish words you kind of get the notion that there’s not going to be much, if any debate. And wouldn’t you know it? There isn’t! Mr. Mathis does attempt to answer the question. Of course, the answer is yes: because they are!
Mr. Mathis makes some good points. He discusses the last election, and Romney’s “47 percent” comment, behind closed doors. It’s in their veiled racism towards “others”, like Reagan’s “welfare queens” of yore. Further, it’s in the GOP/right-wing’s exaltation of “policy wonk” Paul Ryan’s annual attempt to gut welfare budget’s and garner huge tax cuts for the wealthy through his “budgets”. It’s going on now with the current immigration problem, as the pundit class looks at those children living a life in limbo and squalor and just keep screaming “Eww! Eww! Send them away! Obama do something! Ick! Ick! Ick!” It’s in GOP/right-wing in congress being the arbiter’s of the general “Do-Nothing Congress 2.0” nature. If they are not cold-hearted, then what are they? They certainly aren’t pragmatic or sensible currently.
Mr. Mathis undercuts most of this by continuing to hedge his answer towards the false equivalency. It’s kind of hard not to. Regular people aren’t as black and white as the pundit class is paid to be. They can be of two minds on a topic. Believing that some poor people aren’t trying hard enough, AND that government is doing too much harm than good or in their case, probably not spending the money on the things they think the government should be spending their tax money on.
Ben Boychuk, in perfect right-wing fashion, doesn’t even bother answering the question. He’s basically “Answer?…pssh! That poll is stupid!”. The End. He does site a shortened version of the poll you the viewer can participate in and of course he came up “solidly conservative“. Then goes on to I guess site the actual poll where people could answer “I don’t know” to some of the questions, and has one of his buddies at the LIBERTARIAN Cato Institute double down on Mr. Boychuk’s assertion that the poll’s questions are dumb, therefore the poll itself is dumb. He then rattles off some debunked right-wing talking points, and calls it a day.
The Pew Poll website quiz that Mr. Boychuk sites is indeed a bit dumb. There are only two answers to a question, and it’s PRETTY OBVIOUS which answers are which. But the debate question isn't “Is this poll dumb and why?” and I’m pretty sure if we count this as a debate, then the answer is “Yes, Republicans are cold-hearted…and stupid…and don’t take direction well when asked to debate a question.” But hey at least Mr. Boychuk was found to be "solidly-conservative". Whew!
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Giant Bomb vs. Samantha Allen
The greatest trick Giant Bomb ever pulled was convincing regular people they could get hired at their site.
Samantha Allen, a trans writer “activist” known for her provocateur nature writing on gender politics and videogames, had a point: Giant Bomb hired two white guys they already knew? Yawn.
If only it was constructed that way.
Initially, Ms. Allen had my sympathies in the great shitstorm on the internets that arose over her disappointment in Giant Bomb hiring to white males to their staff and her nascent need to comment on it as a trans woman. In the ensuing hours and days after her twitter post, it was nigh impossible to get a clear picture of what just instigated Giant Bomb’s “community” to spew hot trash and vitriol someone just speaking their mind. Giant Bomb’s staff were on twitter vaguely commenting towards the assholery and telling those in the “community” to stop and that they didn’t represent the site and so on. It wasn’t helping matters. Then Jeff Gerstmann wrote a vague editorial admonishing those who would attacks critics of the site.
But after reading Ms. Allen’s work, I find that my sympathies have greatly diminished for her. While I don’t condone the insults and harassment she received, I do believe she brought in on herself with how shittily she handled the entire situation. I think she knew what she was doing when she expressed her opinions, she just wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of push back she received.
It’s been over a week since the debacle, and it’s been interesting to see so little of those in the videogames press attempt to discuss the Giant Bomb debacle, as most of them are white males, with any clarity. Aside from the “we need more women in videogames” and the “oh you…the internets…up to no good again!” comments, nothing’s really being discussed in depth. This topic needs to be treated with respect and honesty.
Giant Bomb’s staff, aside from the editorial, has said nothing else on the subject. Which is pretty disappointing, as again, I think this a topic worth discussing. Of course, it’s a minefield, both as Giant Bomb being owned by CBS and the very real notion that Ms. Allen was indeed the instigator in the hot mess that everyone found themselves in.
I’m of the mind that the harassment Ms. Allen experienced may have been fueled by Giant Bomb’s “community”’s disappointment at not getting hired at the site, and they couldn’t really lash out at the staff. Ms. Allen was a perfect target to focus this communal rage at not gaining access to the promised land of games journalism. She apparently looked to be starting a fight, and the internets being the internets, obliged her.
Let’s be honest: “games journalism” is a shallow, tiny pool. Giant Bomb itself and past hiring practices have been one of friends and known entities to the various staff members of the site. It should’ve been a foregone conclusion that Giant Bomb was going to hire someone everyone knew, for maximum awesome and general site personality cohesion. It was ALWAYS going to be a white male.
Ms. Allen initially had a point: Giant Bomb could’ve hired ANYONE else. The tired argument goes “It is 2014 after all“, and while it is indeed a small minority (no pun intended), there are a lot of other people besides 30 something white males that have opinions on videogames. But Ms. Allen handled her point inelegantly, and because of her “activist” nature, swung a mighty feminist cudgel when none was necessary.
But my biggest question about all of this: why white trans women like Ms. Allen (and to a lesser extent Caorlyn Petit), are pushing such a hard-line feminist agenda? In addition why do they insist on doing so in the low hanging fruit venue of videogame websites? This same subculture has allowed man-children the ability to whine and scream about videogames and their corporate overlords doing them injustices AND getting paid to do so! Predominantly overweight white men to boot. It’s a subculture of man-babies creating content for fifteen year old boys.
Reading most of Ms. Allen’s writings, there is a clear thread of provocation. Which she has never been unclear about. She’s an unapologetic misandrist. Which makes her wading in to the videogame’s press sphere a tad insidious. When you’re a hammer everything seems to be a nail, and so it explains when a fellow twitter writer wrote that maybe Giant Bomb’s new white male hire’s were the most qualified she replied “Go Fuck Yourself”. Unfortunately, those tweets were deleted from her feed, in a move to probably appear more victimized than initially observed. But the bulk of her misandry and views on videogames press is still present in her twitter feed.
To be fair, after everything was said and done Ms. Allen appeared to lament her knee jerk reaction that inevitably lead to the shitstorm she found herself in and made her vacate twitter for a week. I hope this becomes a teachable lesson for her, and any young “activists” that think provoking people is a viable method of converting the masses to your cause. Too often young activists just don’t understand how long it takes to actually affect real change.
But this fiery attitude is immeasurably useful to any movement. The fire and brimstone nature of youth gives any change movement the energy it needs in the long cold months when it seems like nothing is ever going to change for the better. But the sexiness of activism wears off quickly for young people, and they soon abandon their “principles” once they realize that revolution has not taken hold overnight.
This fiery attitude can also lead to the Giant Bomb/Samantha Allen fiasco as well. It should be noted that Ms. Allen is knee deep in academia at Emory University. So I believe she should know better than to entertain the kind of firebrand proactive baloney she keeps finding herself in. She has some good things to say, and her activist bent is going to be an evergreen one as our country itself begins to understand and accept sexualities that may confuse and scare them. But the last place she needs to couch some of it is in the videogames press. Enthusiast press of all sorts isn’t really the venue for ANY kind of political activism, it’s existence is based on true escapism from the “real world”.
I’m of the mindset that the videogames enthusiast press isn’t going to change any time soon. I’m less concerned with the diversity of it’s ranks and more concerned with the toddler tantrum nature that seems to be the entire foundation of it’s being. I would love if videogames could be taken seriously as an art form, but it is still shackled to the notion by and large that it’s still a toy for children. Videogames themselves have a long way to go, and “gamers” themselves have even further. I would enjoy the notion that we could discuss the topics Ms. Allen and others bringing up in the videogames press with some maturity, but for now that is largely absent from the proceedings.
Samantha Allen, a trans writer “activist” known for her provocateur nature writing on gender politics and videogames, had a point: Giant Bomb hired two white guys they already knew? Yawn.
If only it was constructed that way.
Initially, Ms. Allen had my sympathies in the great shitstorm on the internets that arose over her disappointment in Giant Bomb hiring to white males to their staff and her nascent need to comment on it as a trans woman. In the ensuing hours and days after her twitter post, it was nigh impossible to get a clear picture of what just instigated Giant Bomb’s “community” to spew hot trash and vitriol someone just speaking their mind. Giant Bomb’s staff were on twitter vaguely commenting towards the assholery and telling those in the “community” to stop and that they didn’t represent the site and so on. It wasn’t helping matters. Then Jeff Gerstmann wrote a vague editorial admonishing those who would attacks critics of the site.
But after reading Ms. Allen’s work, I find that my sympathies have greatly diminished for her. While I don’t condone the insults and harassment she received, I do believe she brought in on herself with how shittily she handled the entire situation. I think she knew what she was doing when she expressed her opinions, she just wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of push back she received.
It’s been over a week since the debacle, and it’s been interesting to see so little of those in the videogames press attempt to discuss the Giant Bomb debacle, as most of them are white males, with any clarity. Aside from the “we need more women in videogames” and the “oh you…the internets…up to no good again!” comments, nothing’s really being discussed in depth. This topic needs to be treated with respect and honesty.
Giant Bomb’s staff, aside from the editorial, has said nothing else on the subject. Which is pretty disappointing, as again, I think this a topic worth discussing. Of course, it’s a minefield, both as Giant Bomb being owned by CBS and the very real notion that Ms. Allen was indeed the instigator in the hot mess that everyone found themselves in.
I’m of the mind that the harassment Ms. Allen experienced may have been fueled by Giant Bomb’s “community”’s disappointment at not getting hired at the site, and they couldn’t really lash out at the staff. Ms. Allen was a perfect target to focus this communal rage at not gaining access to the promised land of games journalism. She apparently looked to be starting a fight, and the internets being the internets, obliged her.
Let’s be honest: “games journalism” is a shallow, tiny pool. Giant Bomb itself and past hiring practices have been one of friends and known entities to the various staff members of the site. It should’ve been a foregone conclusion that Giant Bomb was going to hire someone everyone knew, for maximum awesome and general site personality cohesion. It was ALWAYS going to be a white male.
Ms. Allen initially had a point: Giant Bomb could’ve hired ANYONE else. The tired argument goes “It is 2014 after all“, and while it is indeed a small minority (no pun intended), there are a lot of other people besides 30 something white males that have opinions on videogames. But Ms. Allen handled her point inelegantly, and because of her “activist” nature, swung a mighty feminist cudgel when none was necessary.
But my biggest question about all of this: why white trans women like Ms. Allen (and to a lesser extent Caorlyn Petit), are pushing such a hard-line feminist agenda? In addition why do they insist on doing so in the low hanging fruit venue of videogame websites? This same subculture has allowed man-children the ability to whine and scream about videogames and their corporate overlords doing them injustices AND getting paid to do so! Predominantly overweight white men to boot. It’s a subculture of man-babies creating content for fifteen year old boys.
Reading most of Ms. Allen’s writings, there is a clear thread of provocation. Which she has never been unclear about. She’s an unapologetic misandrist. Which makes her wading in to the videogame’s press sphere a tad insidious. When you’re a hammer everything seems to be a nail, and so it explains when a fellow twitter writer wrote that maybe Giant Bomb’s new white male hire’s were the most qualified she replied “Go Fuck Yourself”. Unfortunately, those tweets were deleted from her feed, in a move to probably appear more victimized than initially observed. But the bulk of her misandry and views on videogames press is still present in her twitter feed.
To be fair, after everything was said and done Ms. Allen appeared to lament her knee jerk reaction that inevitably lead to the shitstorm she found herself in and made her vacate twitter for a week. I hope this becomes a teachable lesson for her, and any young “activists” that think provoking people is a viable method of converting the masses to your cause. Too often young activists just don’t understand how long it takes to actually affect real change.
But this fiery attitude is immeasurably useful to any movement. The fire and brimstone nature of youth gives any change movement the energy it needs in the long cold months when it seems like nothing is ever going to change for the better. But the sexiness of activism wears off quickly for young people, and they soon abandon their “principles” once they realize that revolution has not taken hold overnight.
This fiery attitude can also lead to the Giant Bomb/Samantha Allen fiasco as well. It should be noted that Ms. Allen is knee deep in academia at Emory University. So I believe she should know better than to entertain the kind of firebrand proactive baloney she keeps finding herself in. She has some good things to say, and her activist bent is going to be an evergreen one as our country itself begins to understand and accept sexualities that may confuse and scare them. But the last place she needs to couch some of it is in the videogames press. Enthusiast press of all sorts isn’t really the venue for ANY kind of political activism, it’s existence is based on true escapism from the “real world”.
I’m of the mindset that the videogames enthusiast press isn’t going to change any time soon. I’m less concerned with the diversity of it’s ranks and more concerned with the toddler tantrum nature that seems to be the entire foundation of it’s being. I would love if videogames could be taken seriously as an art form, but it is still shackled to the notion by and large that it’s still a toy for children. Videogames themselves have a long way to go, and “gamers” themselves have even further. I would enjoy the notion that we could discuss the topics Ms. Allen and others bringing up in the videogames press with some maturity, but for now that is largely absent from the proceedings.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Jonah Goldberg: Running Scared from a Hilary Clinton Presidency
Republicans are scared of a Hilary Clinton presidential run. They just need to come out and say it already. They know full well whatever clown crawls out of the wreckage of next year’s GOP Presidential Candidate Clown Car Rally™ is going to lose to her. It won’t be pretty, and so now you see the GOP/right-wing at it’s best: trying to fire up the base with some good old fashioned Clinton bashing!
The GOP/right-wing know people as a whole aren’t paying attention. It’s why they can cycle through their boogeyman at a pretty good clip and no one really notices. It’s no surprise that the lack of Obamacare failure gave rise to renewed Benghazi inquests. Never mind the over a dozen congressional investigations that if they had turned up something scandal worthy, we would never hear the end of it out of Fox News and right-wing pundits.
But what is so bad about another democrat president? Haven’t the GOP/right-wing had field day driving a centrist corporate democrat president further to the right with obstinacy and general “do-nothing”-ness? Time and time again have they not gotten almost everything they’ve wanted out of Obama? Is this all a sick ploy to actually get Hilary elected in 2016?
The reason I bring up the whole "GOP/right-wing know people don’t pay attention" is because Jonah Goldberg riffs on a common political tactic and twists it around as some sort of bellwether to Hilary’s certain defeat. That tactic: distancing yourself from your political counterparts.
But first, some clarification on the recent history. Mr. Goldberg asserts that candidate Obama “pandered to liberal hopes”. This is juvenile wordplay on Mr. Goldberg’s part, but isn’t accurate. Candidate Obama, and most mainstream candidates, pander to most EVERYONE, even during the respective party primaries. He also goes on to say that Obama “promised miracles and magic”, which again, isn’t true. Again, I'd like some sort of context or examples, of said miracles and magic. However, he did propel "Hope" and "Change", but I don't know how magical or miraculous those things are.
Perhaps in the ass lined cave that Jonah Goldberg keeps his head in, Obama-come-Savior was the case. But what both candidate Obama and candidate Hilary were doing was distancing themselves from each other and also W. Who at the time was the veiled political Satan and chief driver of our country's economy in to the ditch. It should be noted that John McCain certainly wasn’t touting just how much like W. he would if he got in office (well…aside from that ridiculous foreign policy of skullfucking “The Terrorists”).
It could be said that in 2008 Americans got wrapped up in Obamamania. But Mr. Goldberg blames “liberals” for voting with their hearts and not their heads for why Obama came to power, and why the government is now suddenly being run by a boob. And to be fair, I have no real defense on the way Obama is running the executive, because it doesn’t matter to me. What was clear that Americans wanted something different, and being pandered to by a really old white man and an illiterate hockey mom was not the answer they were looking for. Then in 2012 they staunchly defended themselves from being presided over by a literal manifestation of "The Man".
When Mr. Goldberg runs with Obama’s handling of the VA “scandal” as some sort of proof that democrats are really regretting that whole “hopey changey thing”, I have to wonder if that’s just wishful thinking on his ideology and behalf. Time and time again, actual scandals worth being scandalized over pop up, and the GOP/right-wing do nothing. This VA scandal isn’t being pushed too hard by the right-wing pundit class because the GOP/right-wing are the most responsible for it. They would rather harp on something like Benghazi which isn’t nearly so tied in to GOP/right-wing congressional malfeasance wagon.
Mr. Goldberg surmises that Hilary is distancing herself from Obama because of his perceived failures, and is attempting to run from it. Of course she is! This is how it’s been done since the founding of this nation! Every candidate to a “T” has distanced themselves from the previous occupant in order to get in said occupants place! That Hilary won’t dare run on any of her time in the Obama administration because that will tank her chances, is ludicrous. Any politician worth their salt is going to downplay fault or perceived “failures”. It isn’t like Hilary doesn’t know Benghazi isn’t going to hound her during her run. Hell, that’s why the GOP/right-wing is still pushing it as if it’s something.
Mr. Goldberg asserts: “Americans almost never reward a party with a third consecutive term in the White House, and when they do, it’s because they want more of the same. Anyone want to wager on how much of a “more of the same” mood America will be in come 2016?” Oddly enough, that depends. I don’t think most Americans are buying what the current GOP/right-wing is selling, that’s for sure. And while Obama’s numbers may be going down, it isn’t because he’s mired in scandal and inept as the right-wing would attest, they’re just getting bored with him.
To end his column Mr. Goldberg insults Hilary’s time as Secretary of State. The manner in which he does show is a really good primer in the GOP/right-wing’s strategy in trying to either dissuade her from running, or what they will harp on when she does. It’s bad enough that they’re insinuating that she might have brain damage (after ravenously proclaiming at the time of her concussion she was faking it to get out of Benghazi investigations), but that she also might be too old to run for office. This coming from the same party that is THE de facto party for propelling old white men presidential candidates! Ronald Reagan was 69, John McCain was 72, Bob Dole was 73 and we’re really going to take Hilary to task on age?
It’s odd that once again Jonah Goldberg uses a construct, in the case the “Hilary-Industrial Complex“, to lambaste “liberals” while rigidly maintaining the GOP/right-wing groupthink that anything that isn’t staunchly conservative is THE EVIL. Does he not even see the irony in this? The right-wing “bubble” is largely to blame for their inability to maintain executive or congressional power very long?
And “liberals” are still the ideology who votes with their hearts and not their heads?
The GOP/right-wing are clearly afraid of a Hilary Clinton presidential run. It’s apparent just from Jonah Goldberg’s column that this is true. All those conservative presidential darlings of a few months back? Chris Christie, Jeb Bush…where are they now? And while Sheldon Adelson and the other moneyed interest hasn’t quite publicly declared a victor in the GOP “Blunder Games”, you can expect that the “defeat Hilary at all costs playbook” is being written at this moment.
The GOP/right-wing know people as a whole aren’t paying attention. It’s why they can cycle through their boogeyman at a pretty good clip and no one really notices. It’s no surprise that the lack of Obamacare failure gave rise to renewed Benghazi inquests. Never mind the over a dozen congressional investigations that if they had turned up something scandal worthy, we would never hear the end of it out of Fox News and right-wing pundits.
But what is so bad about another democrat president? Haven’t the GOP/right-wing had field day driving a centrist corporate democrat president further to the right with obstinacy and general “do-nothing”-ness? Time and time again have they not gotten almost everything they’ve wanted out of Obama? Is this all a sick ploy to actually get Hilary elected in 2016?
The reason I bring up the whole "GOP/right-wing know people don’t pay attention" is because Jonah Goldberg riffs on a common political tactic and twists it around as some sort of bellwether to Hilary’s certain defeat. That tactic: distancing yourself from your political counterparts.
But first, some clarification on the recent history. Mr. Goldberg asserts that candidate Obama “pandered to liberal hopes”. This is juvenile wordplay on Mr. Goldberg’s part, but isn’t accurate. Candidate Obama, and most mainstream candidates, pander to most EVERYONE, even during the respective party primaries. He also goes on to say that Obama “promised miracles and magic”, which again, isn’t true. Again, I'd like some sort of context or examples, of said miracles and magic. However, he did propel "Hope" and "Change", but I don't know how magical or miraculous those things are.
Perhaps in the ass lined cave that Jonah Goldberg keeps his head in, Obama-come-Savior was the case. But what both candidate Obama and candidate Hilary were doing was distancing themselves from each other and also W. Who at the time was the veiled political Satan and chief driver of our country's economy in to the ditch. It should be noted that John McCain certainly wasn’t touting just how much like W. he would if he got in office (well…aside from that ridiculous foreign policy of skullfucking “The Terrorists”).
It could be said that in 2008 Americans got wrapped up in Obamamania. But Mr. Goldberg blames “liberals” for voting with their hearts and not their heads for why Obama came to power, and why the government is now suddenly being run by a boob. And to be fair, I have no real defense on the way Obama is running the executive, because it doesn’t matter to me. What was clear that Americans wanted something different, and being pandered to by a really old white man and an illiterate hockey mom was not the answer they were looking for. Then in 2012 they staunchly defended themselves from being presided over by a literal manifestation of "The Man".
When Mr. Goldberg runs with Obama’s handling of the VA “scandal” as some sort of proof that democrats are really regretting that whole “hopey changey thing”, I have to wonder if that’s just wishful thinking on his ideology and behalf. Time and time again, actual scandals worth being scandalized over pop up, and the GOP/right-wing do nothing. This VA scandal isn’t being pushed too hard by the right-wing pundit class because the GOP/right-wing are the most responsible for it. They would rather harp on something like Benghazi which isn’t nearly so tied in to GOP/right-wing congressional malfeasance wagon.
Mr. Goldberg surmises that Hilary is distancing herself from Obama because of his perceived failures, and is attempting to run from it. Of course she is! This is how it’s been done since the founding of this nation! Every candidate to a “T” has distanced themselves from the previous occupant in order to get in said occupants place! That Hilary won’t dare run on any of her time in the Obama administration because that will tank her chances, is ludicrous. Any politician worth their salt is going to downplay fault or perceived “failures”. It isn’t like Hilary doesn’t know Benghazi isn’t going to hound her during her run. Hell, that’s why the GOP/right-wing is still pushing it as if it’s something.
Mr. Goldberg asserts: “Americans almost never reward a party with a third consecutive term in the White House, and when they do, it’s because they want more of the same. Anyone want to wager on how much of a “more of the same” mood America will be in come 2016?” Oddly enough, that depends. I don’t think most Americans are buying what the current GOP/right-wing is selling, that’s for sure. And while Obama’s numbers may be going down, it isn’t because he’s mired in scandal and inept as the right-wing would attest, they’re just getting bored with him.
To end his column Mr. Goldberg insults Hilary’s time as Secretary of State. The manner in which he does show is a really good primer in the GOP/right-wing’s strategy in trying to either dissuade her from running, or what they will harp on when she does. It’s bad enough that they’re insinuating that she might have brain damage (after ravenously proclaiming at the time of her concussion she was faking it to get out of Benghazi investigations), but that she also might be too old to run for office. This coming from the same party that is THE de facto party for propelling old white men presidential candidates! Ronald Reagan was 69, John McCain was 72, Bob Dole was 73 and we’re really going to take Hilary to task on age?
It’s odd that once again Jonah Goldberg uses a construct, in the case the “Hilary-Industrial Complex“, to lambaste “liberals” while rigidly maintaining the GOP/right-wing groupthink that anything that isn’t staunchly conservative is THE EVIL. Does he not even see the irony in this? The right-wing “bubble” is largely to blame for their inability to maintain executive or congressional power very long?
And “liberals” are still the ideology who votes with their hearts and not their heads?
The GOP/right-wing are clearly afraid of a Hilary Clinton presidential run. It’s apparent just from Jonah Goldberg’s column that this is true. All those conservative presidential darlings of a few months back? Chris Christie, Jeb Bush…where are they now? And while Sheldon Adelson and the other moneyed interest hasn’t quite publicly declared a victor in the GOP “Blunder Games”, you can expect that the “defeat Hilary at all costs playbook” is being written at this moment.
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