The forces of ignorance, greed, and stupidity, long bubbling just below the surface of American politics, finally erupted this month in a viscous flume of bullshit so dense that it coated everything it touched. The stench will likely linger for years. I speak, of course, of the great budget debate of 2011.
For years, the American political dialogue has been littered with shabby cranks, kooks, know-nothings, and scam artists, shouting over one another on radio talk shows, in letters-to-the-editor, at the end of the bar, and now on internet blogs, each “opinion” more witless than the last, in a cacophonous dim of utter nonsense. The difference now is that the same kooks and know-nothings, admittedly with better haircuts and nicer suits, have wormed their way into our government.
Much has been written and said in the past several days about “hostage taking” and “ransom”, about how President Obama “capitulated” to the teabaggers in Washington, about spineless Democrats and greed-mongering Republicans, and while mostly accurate, it misses the big picture: We the people put these shitheads in office. They are, whether we’d like to admit it or not, a reflection of us and it’s not a pretty image. Just when did the crazy uncle pry himself away from the primordial ooze, climb the basement stairs, and find himself in a position of power? When we voted for him, or worse yet, when we were too busy to vote for the other guy.
Our national dialogue has been reduced to imbicilic sloganeering, about returning to the gold standard, about “socialism” and “liberty”, about the free marketplace and the founding fathers, about international cabals and conspiracies and “elites” and things that go bump in the night, all annotated with misspelled words crayon-scrawled on a placard. And that placard is clutched in the hands of a man standing in front of a court house screaming his demand to remove Washington from the dollar bill and replace him with a picture of Jesus.
That the tea party is being manipulated by corporate interest is beside the point. That most of us were too busy amusing ourselves and did nothing to stop it before it was too late is the point.
The reality of American society is not our “exceptionalism”, it’s our ignorance, our laziness, and our obliviousness. We all saw this train wreck coming, and while some welcomed it in the name of some moronic ideology, the rest of us merely averted our eyes and hustled quickly from the accident scene for fear of being called as a witness. Shame on us for letting this happen.
The Senate voted Saturday to end the Clinton-era military policy known as “don’t-ask-don’t-tell”. Doesn’t seem that long ago, does it, when ol’ Bubba introduced his quaint little wishy-washy idea in the first month of his presidency, managing to enrage the rednecks while still disappointing gays. The policy simply meant that the military could no longer ask potential recruits their sexual orientation. But to be fair, Clinton at least attempted to end the military discrimination against gay soldiers, as half-assed as his reform turned out to be. Keep in mind, a lot of mainstream Dems, like Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, were dead set against the policy. One major problem with D.A.D.T. was that took an act of congress to repeal the policy, which, at least technically, explains Barrack Obama’s refusal to eliminate it in the first 2 years of his presidency. What explain his decision to force the Justice Department earlier this year to vigorously fight its repeal is anybody’s guess.
In Saturday’s vote, the usual suspects in the Republican Party , led by shit-for-brains John McCain, fought against the law’s repeal. McCain referred to the the vote as ”a very sad day” for America, reinforcing his support amongst bigots and the sexually conflicted. Come on, Maverick, even Dick Cheney supported the law’s repeal, for christ’s sake. And there was also the usual outcry by bible-thumpers and jesus freaks about the imposition of a ”radical social agenda” in the Armed Services. But at the end of the sad day, the policy was officially voted down. Too bad it took 16 years, a long time to stay in the closet for gay soldiers and sailors.
Seems the President is pissed off at his liberal base….for expecting him to govern on the same principles that he campaigned on. New Wednesday webcast to follow…
With the election just a couple days away, instead of dwelling on the rat bastards who have run the economy into the ground, I thought I’d write about the rat bastards who have run politics into the ground.
The highlight of the “Real Time” episode with Bill Maher Friday night was Maher’s undeniable assertion that most of the belligerent, know-nothing assholes who are dominating modern politics belong to the Republican party, a position greeted with derision by his 2 right wing panalists, the laughable airhead Margaret Hoover and odious National Review blogger Reiham Salam. Hoover attempted to laugh off the comments while Salam went positively apoplectic, contorting his face into a demonic scrunch while babbling about fairness. At one point, Salam looked as if he wanted to slug the affable Lawrence O’Donnel for agreeing with Maher, thus proving the point.
But the show will likely be remember for 2 things: actor Zach Galifianacis smoking a joint on live television and Maher’s “controversial” comments, based on the fact that “Mohammed” is the most popular baby name in Great Britain, that Muslims are taking over the world.
“Am I a racist to feel alarmed by that?” Maher asks his guests. “Because I am. And it’s not because of the race, it’s because of the religion. I don’t have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam in 300 years?”
Pundit Juan Williams, of course, was fired from NPR last week for similar comments, mainly because about the only thing wimpier than Juan Williams is NPR. But I’m guessing Maher’s job is safe because his long time antipathy towards religion is a known commodity and HBO is not NPR. But at least for the moment, Maher is getting kicked around by the hanky-wringers in the blogosphere for his comments and Maher’s lib credentials may have taken a hit.
But will Maher apologize? Doubtful. He’s got a week to prepare for another show and plenty of future oppurtunities to burnish his street cred.
But let’s compare the Maher’s “incident” with some other recent assholery. How about the beer-gutted Timothy Profitt stomping the head of a protester prior to a Rand Paul-Jack Conway senatorial debate in Lexington, Kentucky? Profitt certainly wasn’t apologetic and, in fact, requested an apology from his female victim (a position echoed by lard bucket Rush Limbaugh).
“I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Profitt said. “I would like for her to apologize to me to be honest with you.”
Of course, right wingers never apologize for their lies, thuggery or bigotry; they revel in in. Take Meg Whitman (please). After her California governorship candidacy was damaged by revelations that she had employed an illegal immigrant for nearly a decade, what was Whitman’s response? Typically, she tried to lie her way out of the situation and then, ultimately, went on Fox News to say that her former housekeeper should be deported. Yes, that Meg Whitman is toughon illegal immigration.
But it’s also beginning to sink in that the likes of Paul, Marco Rubio, Joe Miller, Sharron Angle, Jim Demint, and Carl Paladino are likely to be holding the reigns of power for the forseeable future, propelled into office by a motley gang of intolerant and uninformed teabaggers. And there’s plenty of blame to go around. That Democrats have lost the support of both women and the poor demonstrates the result of timid politics and diminished expectations.
Maher shouldn’t have to sweat the Muslim comments for too long. He’ll be able to draw yucks from plenty of soft targets for the next couple of years. But the laughs will come harder for the rest of us.
The Book of Mormon concludes the story of Shiz’s death at the hands of Coriantumr with the words: “And it came to pass that after he [Coriantumr] had smitten off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised up on his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died.”
Of course, we would have never known the story of the Shiz, leader of the Jaredites, struggling for breath despite being headless, were it not for the Angel Moroni, the guardian of the Golden Plates. Moroni appeared before Joseph Smith in the woods outside Manchester, New York in 1823, and presented Smith with the plates. The whole history of the Lost Tribe of Israel wandering around pre-Colombian North America was all written on those plates in hieroglyphics that Smith was able to decipher with the use of magic glasses. And thus the Mormon religion was born.
I bring this up only because of a little fracas brewing between fundamentalist Christians and shitbird Glenn Beck over Beck’s conversion to Mormonism. Well, maybe it’s not really brewing, but the lib website Think Progress is sure trying to instigate something by resurrecting a story that appeared on a Christian website earlier this year, a story that quoted Bill Keller ” leader of the world’s largest interactive Christian website for 11 years”, saying that Beck’s religion was pure batshit.
“The ‘god’ of the Mormon cult used to be a human who rose to god-like status, just like Beck and all Mormons believe they will too after their death. The ‘jesus’ of the Mormon cult is the natural offspring of their ‘god’ Elohim who had sex with Mary, meaning their jesus is a created being and NOT a deity as the Bible teaches, and is the brother of Lucifer.”
I never know whether to stifle a yawn or a chuckle, or both, when I read stuff like that but I see the point that Think Progress is trying to make: Beck’s running around saying Obama’s religion is fake Christianity while a bunch of born-agains are running around saying Beck’s religion is fake Christianity. I see the irony. But, to me, this is like saying “Hey, Beck! That drooling lunatic Keller says that you’re crazy!”
Shiz? Moroni? Urim? Elohim? Thummin? All sounds insane to me. Magic glasses, golden plates? Whatever.
I’m not here to defend Mormonism, but don’t the real the Christians have their share of odd balls running around in the real scriptures, too? How about those ol’ ox-faced cherubs, four-winged angels with the face of a cow that guarded the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden? Nothing unusual about that. Or multi-headed hydra rising from the sea on judgement day? It’s all there in the Book of Revelation. To say nothing of talking snakes, women turning into mineral compounds, dead men rising from the grave, virgin birth, and all that good stuff we associate with true Christianity, which, as you know, is far superior to those far east crap religions that worship elephants and cows, and where they have to pray 7 times a day, you know, those guys who want to kill us because they hate our freedom?
To which I politely say: Please fucking stop. Seriously. Stop the voodoo nonsense. It’s not helping anyone and it’s driving people apart. Whether or not a Mosque is built a few blocks from “ground zero” is, to me, an issue about as meaningful as whether or not to put ketchup on a hotdog. And here’s something else that apparently nobody has the guts to say.: it’s all insane. That men die in the name of imaginary men like Moroni or Abraham is incredible to me. I declare a jihad against this insanity.
“My role, as I see it, is to wake America up to the backsliding of principles and values and most of all of God,” he said. “We are a country of God. As I look at the problems in our country, quite honestly, I think the hot breath of destruction is breathing on our necks and to fix it politically is a figure that I don’t see anywhere.” (Glenn Beck)
This week brought news of devastating floods, erupting volcanoes, a world economy in free fall, an alarming spike in Afghanistan violence, and, of course, Tiger Woods’ divorce. And yet, at week’s end, the news is dominated by coverage of a radio talk show host’s fan club rally in Washington. Of course it wasn’t just Glenn Beck that gathered a large crowd to the nation’s capital for a series of Tea Party meets Jesus events. It was also anti-abortionist Patrick Lee, self-parody Sarah Palin, homophobic uber-Zionist John Hagee, drunk driving St. Louis Cardinal’s manager Tony LaRussa, along with an assortment of Christo-fascists, conservative rabbi’s, and right wing sycophants (Or as George W. Bush would call them: “My base, heh, heh, heh.”) How big was this story? No fewer than 5 of the 15 most-emailed stories on the New York Times website were about Beck, the Tea Party, or both. The New York Times, not the Washington Times.
NBC estimated the crowd to be around a staggering 300,000. (Other estimates were as low as 85,000.) Hell, I’d be staggering too if I had to sit through the stultifying twaddle that roused the rabble at an event alternately billed as “America’s Divine Destiny” or”Restore Honor” rally. Highlights include Lee’s admonition that public prayer would make America a better place, black belt conservative hack Chuck Norris quoting from Ben Franklin , and war worshiping Palin saying things like “Say what you want to say about me, but I raised a combat vet, and you can’t take that away from me.”
“I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans…I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are — were recipients of the judgment of God for that…There was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades…The Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment.”(Rev. John Hagee, 2005)
And, of course, there was Beck himself, mugging for the camera, unleashing his potent repertoire of facial tics, and conjuring up brilliant bon mots like “If you look at the Washington Monument, you might notice its scars. … a quarter of the way up it changes color. Look at it. Look at its scars. How did the scar get there? They stopped building it in the Civil War. And when the war was over, they began again. No one sees the scars of the Washington Memorial, the Washington Monument; we see what it stands for.”
You like that one? Well, there’s more where that came from, Buckie: “Something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to God.”
And yes, the whole messianic megalomania of the event, the phony humbleness of Beck (who grossed $37 million last year), the huge turn out, and Palin’s smug, tired act do annoy the crap out of me. But, as you can tell from my opening paragraphs, it was the coverage of this thing that really grates. The increasingly insufferable Keith Olbermann of MSNBC absolutely couldn’t keep his mouth shut, providing literally hours of publicity to Beck and the rally over the past several weeks. CNN’s Sunday morning “Reliable Sources” show was devoted almost entirely to the event and featured this excruciatingly inane exchange between host Howard Kurtz and Democratic party hack Bill Press:
KURTZ: Bill Press, you have been crusading against this event for weeks. Most of the talk from Glenn Beck was about God and patriotism. What did he say, if anything, that you found troubling?
BILL PRESS, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Well, first of all, talking about God on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. By the way, whatever the numbers were –
KURTZ: Haven’t preachers done that?
PRESS: — 200,000, or whatever, I was there yesterday. I went down there. OK?
And I’ll tell you, I thought I was at a camp meeting, an old- fashioned religious camp meeting. I don’t think that’s appropriate on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. But two things.
KURTZ: Why is it not appropriate. Let’s stick with that. Why is it not appropriate?
PRESS: Because it is a sacred spot, number one. I don’t think it should be turned over to be a political or a religious rally. It was both, in my opinion. It was political. Not that he ever mentioned the word “Obama,” but you can’t bash Obama five days a week on the radio and television and then stand up on the Sabbath and be a non-political person.
Fox News, Beck’s spiritual home, actually covered the event less than either CNN or MSNBC
and didn’t even broadcast the first 2 hours of the rally. And post-mortem news coverage focused on the “message” Dems should be receiving about the crowd turnout, the religious psych-babble, and the anti-government tone of Operation Restore Honor. Yes, the fringe kook tea bag movement has officially entered the mainstream, with lots of help from NBC, CNN, the New York Times, Bill Press, Keith Olbermann, and the usual suspects. I guess that’s why they call it the Mainstream Media.
As DrinkingwithBob so artfully put it, are you freakin’ kiddin’ me?! This guy speaks for me. Two freakin’ mosques already near “ground zero” and another one on the way?! What the freak, you freakin’ freak-wads: this is Hallowed Ground, like Arlington National Cemetery, like Gettysburg, like the set of “American Chopper”! Just take a look, you freedom hating, elitist, surrender monkeys:
That’s not just a freakin’ hole in the freakin’ ground, Abdul, that’s a freakin’ hole in freakin’ hallowed ground! But not everybody in this great country is gonna roll over and play dead before the Islam-o-fascist-jihadist towel heads. Bryan Fischer of The American Family Association has it nailed:
“Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero.This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.”
And I learned a few other things while recently searching the freakin’ web! For example, did you know that muslims who work at the Pentagon are allowed to pray to Allah, like, 500 times a day? There’s your freakin’ tax dollars at work for you. Now, I’m not saying that the Pentagon is exactly hallowed ground, because after all, it was designed along the lines of a pentagram, the universal occultist symbol for One World Government domination. But still. I’m just sayin’.
Bunch of freakin’ ‘tards. I can’t freakin’ believe it. What happened to this country? What happened to my America? Go back to freakin’ Libya, where you were born, Barrack Hussein Obama!
A decade ago, there was much hue and cry about the vanishing middle class. Jobs were being “out-sourced” to overseas slave labor markets, illegal immigration was forcing wages and salaries down, old line “smoke stack” industries were crumbling under the weight of foreign competition, and technology was replacing manpower. The rich were getting richer, and the poor were getting poorer, and there wasn’t much in between.
Now, looking back, those were the good old days. Today, due to an global economic collapse, even the overseas slaves are loosing their $2-a-day jobs. Whereas a few years ago, people were flocking to big box stores like Costco to stock up on heavily discounted staples like bread, milk, rice, and 30-pound bags of M&M’s, now people are lining up 10 deep in the same stores just to get the free sample of pita chips and hummus. Gotta eat something.
Friday’s “jobs report” was sobering. The so-called economic recovery ground to a halt in July as only 31,000 jobs were added to the private sector. In fact, there was a net lossin jobs. Here is the reality:
- 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
- 61 percent of Americans “always or usually” live paycheck to paycheck.
- 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
- For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
- In 1950, the ratio of the average executive’s paycheck to the average worker’s paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
- The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America’s corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
- More than 40 million Americans are on food stamps.
- Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 – the highest rate in 20 years.
- Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
- The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.
And, of course, the irony is that that top 10% of Americans who earn 50% of our national income are, in large part, the same swindlers who’s greed and avarice caused the economic melt-down in the first place. And what is the Republican party’s response to this disaster? They want to extend the Bush tax cuts so that Goldman Sachs, et al, can keep a few billion dollars more of their obscene profits, while the hard working wage earner can pocket an extra 400 bucks.
To be fair, the Obama administrations response to the collapsewas weighted heavily in favor of Goldman Sux and Shitty Bank as well. Exactly where are all those high paying jobs we heard were going to be created by TARP, you know, the ones rebuilding dilapidated bridges, spraying Round-Up on Mount Rushmore, and shoring up decaying infrastructure? Oh yeah, that didn’t happen.
But at least the Repugs know who their constituents are, and unlike the Dims, they’re out to reward them. Look at the above statistics: millionaires actually constitute 16% of American society, and they vote. And once that the tea baggers and the rest of theboobgeosie are convinced that the tax cuts, like gun ownership and homophobia, are part of God’s sacred covenant, these millionaires will be laughing all the way to the bank. The one they own.
