Ha! For all of you lesser-evil supporters of BO evil, how do you feel about this? You voted for BO to keep McCain away from power, right? To make sure he has nothing to do with the important decisions, right? Well now Commander Hope-n-Change is calling McCain every night asking him what to do, almost as if he thinks McCain is likely to have something useful to say.
h/t Chris Floyd
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label McCain. Show all posts
Monday, January 19, 2009
Friday, October 24, 2008
banality of evil
I don't think I've ever recommended listening to one of these Greenwald audio interviews before, but I think this one is worth listening to. The reason I recommend it is because the of how casually evil the interviewee is. This guy is widely considered an "Iran expert" and served on a bipartisan task force that recently recommended a variety of aggressive actions towards Iran, which was given prominent display in the Washington Post. Both of the lunatics in contention for President of the US value the input of this guy, who is clearly fucking insane. Good work, America!
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Why I won't vote: Lesser Evilism is a sham
So I wrote a sprawling reply to a comment, only to realize that by the end I had written my way into a pretty good point that should have been more emphasized. I ought to rewrite it, but, let's face it, I'm just a lazy writer with a thinly-read blog whose audience disappeared when he stopped writing about poker. So I'll add some more thoughts here at the top.
Anyway, the point is this: if you accept the lesser-evil logic of voting for Democrats, you're basically saying that you'll support anything as long as you're convinced that the alternative is worse. And once you admit that, you become completely exploitable and hope is lost.
Given a choice between two evils, the lesser evil is better. That part of it isn't wrong. But the flaw in the lesser-evil argument in favor of supporting Democrats is that there are more than two choices. There's always another option for a better outcome, it just might be very unlikely to win. If you make it known that you'll always support the lesser evil and never opt for the risky 3rd choice, those two evils can get worse and worse, knowing that you'll have to support one of them. So at some point you have to make a stand with the third option.
When should you stop favoring the more likely lesser evil and opt for the unlikely 3rd (or 4th, etc) option*? Well I think that is a judgement everyone has to make for themselves, but I think we can agree on 2 things. First is that the more evil the two evil options are, the more we should favor the highly unlikely 3rd option. And second is that the more similar the two evils (i.e. the lesser evil isn't really that much less evil), the more we should favor the third. Much of the discussion below is about the second point, though I discuss the first as well.
* - equally important question is "what is that third option?" Here, as usual, I argue for boycotting the election. I think there is also honor in voting for 3rd party candidates, like Nader or the Green Party. My preference for boycott over that option is a topic for another time.
----
Some recent comments by David are worth considering.
Even if you recognize that both Democrats and Republicans are basically two factions of the same party, working together towards an authoritarian corporate police state domestically, and endless violent interventions internationally, all for the enrichment of an elite few at the expense of the vast majority of the rest of us, there is still the question as to whether one faction is preferable to the other because of their minor differences. And due to the tremendous amount of power and control wielded by various holders of public office, those minor differences can add up to be very meaningful for lots of people.
I've argued repeatedly that the best response to our sham democracy is to boycott the elections. I generally think that refusing as much as possible to interact with a system that is hopelessly rigged against my interests is the most effective and honorable way to dissent. That's my approach. But everyone has to make their own decisions, and maybe my moral calculus is different than yours.
I do believe that it is possible to construct good arguments in favor of participating in these elections. I think that if they exist, they'd look something like what David said: that these small differences add up enough to justify supporting one side over the other. But here's the thing. I think there's a huge burden of proof to be met, and I'm not at all convinced that David or people who make similar arguments have met them. For his reasoning to stand up, I'd need to be strongly convinced that these differences actually exist, considering not just the immediate short-term impact of the minor policy changes, but also the long run consequences of various decisions. By going out and voting for BO, you're casting a vote in support of a candidate who has repeatedly lied about matters of extreme importance, who fully supports the framework of the US using lethal military force around the globe in the so-called "War on Terror," who fully supports domestic lawlessness for the executive branch, who fully supports using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street lunatics, and so on and so on. In order to actively support such monstrous evil, you need to be very very sure that what you're doing really does somehow lead to a better result than your other choices.
David lists 3 commonly-cited reasons to think Democrats are preferable. (1)They make better judicial appointments. (2)They are less influenced by irrational factions (specifically Christians), and (3) there is better treatment of persecuted groups of people under Democratic leadership. First I'll make a few scattered rebuttals to these notions, then I'll argue that even if he's right, that isn't a convincing case in favor of supporting Democrats.
In regards to the first point, it seems to me that the pattern of judicial appointments is roughly like this. Under Republican leadership, the most radically far-right judges that can possibly be taken seriously are pushed through the system with little obstruction from Democrats. Under Democratic leadership, highly conservative judges are appointed, but called "moderate" by Democrats to make them sound reasonable and responsible, and yet fiercely opposed by Republicans who push for even more conservative jurists. There is no force for a genuinely liberal judiciary, just a two-pronged approach towards an ever more conservative one , that moves a little more slowly to the right under Democrats. I should note that this is 'measured' relative to public sentiment, meaning perhaps overall the courts could become more liberal on an absolute scale, but the force of the political process is to move them as far right as the public at large can stomach.
Do women and gays and minorities receive better treatment under Democrats? Well, not the ones in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Somalia. They'll keep getting slaughtered at roughly the same rate under BO or McCain. And it seems to me that plenty of Democrat leaders would be quite willing to give up on abortion, or to turn the other way on gay-bashing. They'll maintain the policies that keep black people at a disadvantage, and keep locking up black men who turn to the underground pharmeceutical economy as an inevitable response to that disadvantage. Cause, I mean, what are the black people going to do, vote for Republicans?
Last is that under Democrats, the insane Christian Right won't have the President's ear as much. But Democrats have plenty of other insane people pulling their strings. Like who? Well how about the lunatics who got us into this economic meltdown in the first place? The insanity and influence of the Christian Right is benign compared to the murderous pyschopathy of corporate influence. And it isn't like the rabid Christian Right is powerless under Democrat rule. In fact they might work themself into such an outrage about being ruled by a terrorist Muslim nigger with a funny name that they become even more of a political force.
Real political change doesn't happen from the top down, but from the bottom up. The President doesn't dictate how gays are treated, the people do, and the President responds. BO might treat them better than McCain, but how do we know that the further outrages under McCain wouldn't be some kind of tipping point to drive people towards some kind of social revolution (the reverse of the Muslim-nigger effect on the racist Christians)? Just because the government might be more officially hostile under Republican executives or judges doesn't necessarily mean the public will be.
So those are my scattered rebutals, and you might point out that all of these objections can still be consistent with Democrats being a relatively lesser evil. The conservative Democrat judges are better than the ultra-right Republican ones, right? The Republicans and Democrats are both run by corporations, but at least the Christians are more ignored under Democrats, right? And the Democrats might be a bit less willing to stomp the queers, right?
Say that is the case. Does that actually justify supporting a blood-drenched criminal for President? Does more support for gay marriage merit participating in a system that guarantees perpetual war and suffering on a monumental scale? Does the slightly lower chance of Roe v Wade being overturned make it worth it to lend the appearance of legitimate democracy to a ruling class who privatize profits to an elite few while making risk and losses public? Does having fewer Liberty University graduates in the Justice Department make it ok to vote for a party that passed retroactive immunity for companies that spied on us, a party that passed laws to make torture legal, that has refused to impeach Bush?
David says we should support a murderous criminal party because their crimes aren't quite as bad as the crimes of their partner. But the obvious fact of their partnership means that by supporting one, you're supporting the other. Not a lot can happen in the USG if one of the parties doesn't want it to happen. Everything that we've seen happen under Bush is fully the responsibility of Democrats as well. There's not the slightest reason to think that BO will set any of those things right, and there's ample reason to think that he'll continue on largely the same path.
But David and many others want to support this whirlwind of bipartisan destruction, in the name of a few very marginal differences that may or may not even really exist. What are the long term consequences of this? It tells the ruling class that you'll accept anything, as long as you're convinced that the only alternative is something slightly worse. Stop and think about that. Say it over and over. Think about how easy this can be exploited. And think about whether a ruling class who has slaughtered a million Iraqis and stolen trillions of your dollars would be willing and able to exploit you in such a way.
Chomsky makes the important point that genuine freedom and democracy means that the use of power should be assumed to be illegitimate unless proven otherwise, and that the burden of proof should be very high. Participation in a national election to decide the holders of offices is certainly a use of power. And I don't see that David's argument has met the burden of proof for the exercise of such power, especially considering the strategic consequences of demonstrating your willingness to support evil out of a fear of slightly greater evil. It isn't clear to me that there is going to be much, if any, difference in real-world results under either option, and it is clear to me that both options are evil. So I'm not voting. Are you?
Anyway, the point is this: if you accept the lesser-evil logic of voting for Democrats, you're basically saying that you'll support anything as long as you're convinced that the alternative is worse. And once you admit that, you become completely exploitable and hope is lost.
Given a choice between two evils, the lesser evil is better. That part of it isn't wrong. But the flaw in the lesser-evil argument in favor of supporting Democrats is that there are more than two choices. There's always another option for a better outcome, it just might be very unlikely to win. If you make it known that you'll always support the lesser evil and never opt for the risky 3rd choice, those two evils can get worse and worse, knowing that you'll have to support one of them. So at some point you have to make a stand with the third option.
When should you stop favoring the more likely lesser evil and opt for the unlikely 3rd (or 4th, etc) option*? Well I think that is a judgement everyone has to make for themselves, but I think we can agree on 2 things. First is that the more evil the two evil options are, the more we should favor the highly unlikely 3rd option. And second is that the more similar the two evils (i.e. the lesser evil isn't really that much less evil), the more we should favor the third. Much of the discussion below is about the second point, though I discuss the first as well.
* - equally important question is "what is that third option?" Here, as usual, I argue for boycotting the election. I think there is also honor in voting for 3rd party candidates, like Nader or the Green Party. My preference for boycott over that option is a topic for another time.
----
Some recent comments by David are worth considering.
Even if you recognize that both Democrats and Republicans are basically two factions of the same party, working together towards an authoritarian corporate police state domestically, and endless violent interventions internationally, all for the enrichment of an elite few at the expense of the vast majority of the rest of us, there is still the question as to whether one faction is preferable to the other because of their minor differences. And due to the tremendous amount of power and control wielded by various holders of public office, those minor differences can add up to be very meaningful for lots of people.
I've argued repeatedly that the best response to our sham democracy is to boycott the elections. I generally think that refusing as much as possible to interact with a system that is hopelessly rigged against my interests is the most effective and honorable way to dissent. That's my approach. But everyone has to make their own decisions, and maybe my moral calculus is different than yours.
I do believe that it is possible to construct good arguments in favor of participating in these elections. I think that if they exist, they'd look something like what David said: that these small differences add up enough to justify supporting one side over the other. But here's the thing. I think there's a huge burden of proof to be met, and I'm not at all convinced that David or people who make similar arguments have met them. For his reasoning to stand up, I'd need to be strongly convinced that these differences actually exist, considering not just the immediate short-term impact of the minor policy changes, but also the long run consequences of various decisions. By going out and voting for BO, you're casting a vote in support of a candidate who has repeatedly lied about matters of extreme importance, who fully supports the framework of the US using lethal military force around the globe in the so-called "War on Terror," who fully supports domestic lawlessness for the executive branch, who fully supports using taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street lunatics, and so on and so on. In order to actively support such monstrous evil, you need to be very very sure that what you're doing really does somehow lead to a better result than your other choices.
David lists 3 commonly-cited reasons to think Democrats are preferable. (1)They make better judicial appointments. (2)They are less influenced by irrational factions (specifically Christians), and (3) there is better treatment of persecuted groups of people under Democratic leadership. First I'll make a few scattered rebuttals to these notions, then I'll argue that even if he's right, that isn't a convincing case in favor of supporting Democrats.
In regards to the first point, it seems to me that the pattern of judicial appointments is roughly like this. Under Republican leadership, the most radically far-right judges that can possibly be taken seriously are pushed through the system with little obstruction from Democrats. Under Democratic leadership, highly conservative judges are appointed, but called "moderate" by Democrats to make them sound reasonable and responsible, and yet fiercely opposed by Republicans who push for even more conservative jurists. There is no force for a genuinely liberal judiciary, just a two-pronged approach towards an ever more conservative one , that moves a little more slowly to the right under Democrats. I should note that this is 'measured' relative to public sentiment, meaning perhaps overall the courts could become more liberal on an absolute scale, but the force of the political process is to move them as far right as the public at large can stomach.
Do women and gays and minorities receive better treatment under Democrats? Well, not the ones in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan or Somalia. They'll keep getting slaughtered at roughly the same rate under BO or McCain. And it seems to me that plenty of Democrat leaders would be quite willing to give up on abortion, or to turn the other way on gay-bashing. They'll maintain the policies that keep black people at a disadvantage, and keep locking up black men who turn to the underground pharmeceutical economy as an inevitable response to that disadvantage. Cause, I mean, what are the black people going to do, vote for Republicans?
Last is that under Democrats, the insane Christian Right won't have the President's ear as much. But Democrats have plenty of other insane people pulling their strings. Like who? Well how about the lunatics who got us into this economic meltdown in the first place? The insanity and influence of the Christian Right is benign compared to the murderous pyschopathy of corporate influence. And it isn't like the rabid Christian Right is powerless under Democrat rule. In fact they might work themself into such an outrage about being ruled by a terrorist Muslim nigger with a funny name that they become even more of a political force.
Real political change doesn't happen from the top down, but from the bottom up. The President doesn't dictate how gays are treated, the people do, and the President responds. BO might treat them better than McCain, but how do we know that the further outrages under McCain wouldn't be some kind of tipping point to drive people towards some kind of social revolution (the reverse of the Muslim-nigger effect on the racist Christians)? Just because the government might be more officially hostile under Republican executives or judges doesn't necessarily mean the public will be.
So those are my scattered rebutals, and you might point out that all of these objections can still be consistent with Democrats being a relatively lesser evil. The conservative Democrat judges are better than the ultra-right Republican ones, right? The Republicans and Democrats are both run by corporations, but at least the Christians are more ignored under Democrats, right? And the Democrats might be a bit less willing to stomp the queers, right?
Say that is the case. Does that actually justify supporting a blood-drenched criminal for President? Does more support for gay marriage merit participating in a system that guarantees perpetual war and suffering on a monumental scale? Does the slightly lower chance of Roe v Wade being overturned make it worth it to lend the appearance of legitimate democracy to a ruling class who privatize profits to an elite few while making risk and losses public? Does having fewer Liberty University graduates in the Justice Department make it ok to vote for a party that passed retroactive immunity for companies that spied on us, a party that passed laws to make torture legal, that has refused to impeach Bush?
David says we should support a murderous criminal party because their crimes aren't quite as bad as the crimes of their partner. But the obvious fact of their partnership means that by supporting one, you're supporting the other. Not a lot can happen in the USG if one of the parties doesn't want it to happen. Everything that we've seen happen under Bush is fully the responsibility of Democrats as well. There's not the slightest reason to think that BO will set any of those things right, and there's ample reason to think that he'll continue on largely the same path.
But David and many others want to support this whirlwind of bipartisan destruction, in the name of a few very marginal differences that may or may not even really exist. What are the long term consequences of this? It tells the ruling class that you'll accept anything, as long as you're convinced that the only alternative is something slightly worse. Stop and think about that. Say it over and over. Think about how easy this can be exploited. And think about whether a ruling class who has slaughtered a million Iraqis and stolen trillions of your dollars would be willing and able to exploit you in such a way.
Chomsky makes the important point that genuine freedom and democracy means that the use of power should be assumed to be illegitimate unless proven otherwise, and that the burden of proof should be very high. Participation in a national election to decide the holders of offices is certainly a use of power. And I don't see that David's argument has met the burden of proof for the exercise of such power, especially considering the strategic consequences of demonstrating your willingness to support evil out of a fear of slightly greater evil. It isn't clear to me that there is going to be much, if any, difference in real-world results under either option, and it is clear to me that both options are evil. So I'm not voting. Are you?
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Killer of Innocents Denounces (Other) Killers of Innocents, Runs for President
Jonathan Schwarz notes:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you have any doubt that Barack Obama shares your sense of patriotism?SEN. MCCAIN: I'm sure he's very patriotic, but his relationship with Mr. Ayers is open to question...how can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings which could have or did kill innocent people?
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Obama says he was eight years old when that was happening.
SEN. MCCAIN: But he became friends with him and spent time with him while the guy was unrepentant over his activities...
I'd like to make some jokes here, but I don't have the heart. What a country this is.
Via today's cretinous NY Times story about Obama & William Ayers, which mentions McCain's statement while betraying no awareness of its significance.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Despite what he says, this retarded fuckmonkey doesn't speak for me
McCain told more than 2,000 voters in York, Pa., that he spoke Tuesday morning with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to make sure he knows "that the thoughts, prayers and support of the American people are with that great little nation as it struggles today" for independence.Technically I'm an American, and I'm not a Georgian, today or any other day. Furthermore I don't give my support to dictators who slaughter civilians for political gain, whether they're named Saakashvili, Bush, Clinton, or Washington. And that that list includes you, John McCain, you fucking piece of shit. You don't speak for me, and you never will, even if you manage to hack your way into office.
"I told him that I know I speak for every American when I said to him, today, we are all Georgians," McCain said.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Why I won't vote: "Tennis on the Titanic"
During the Gore/Bush/Nader presidential election, while the entire nation was hypnotized by the spectacle, I had a vision. I saw the Titanic churning through the waters of the North Atlantic toward an iceberg looming in the distance, while the passengers and crew concentrated on a tennis game taking place on deck.That's the opening of a Howard Zinn essay included in his book A Power Governments Cannot Suppress. Here's the closing.
In our election-obsessed culture, everything else going on in the world - war, hunger, official brutality, sickness, the violence of everyday life for huge numbers of people - is swept out of the way while the media covers every volley of the candidates. Thus, the superficial crowds out the meaningful, and this is very useful for those who do not want citizens to look beyond the surface of the system. Hidden by the contest of the candidates are the real issues of race, class, war, and peace, which the public is not supposed to think about.
The ferocity of the contest for the presidency in recent elections conceals the agreement between both parties on fundamentals. The evidence for this statement lies in eight years of the Clinton-Gore administration, whose major legislative accomplishments - destroying welfare, imposing more punitive sentences on criminals, increasing Pentagon spending - were part of the Republican agenda.
The Demacrats and the Republicans do not dispute the continued corporate control of the economy. Neither party endorses free national healthcare, proposes extensive low-cost housing, demands a minimum income for all Americans, or supports a truly progressive income tax to diminish the huge gap between rich and poor. Both support the death penalty and growth of prisons. Both believe in a large military establishment, in land mines and nuclear weapons and the cruel use of sanctions against the people of Cuba.
Perhaps when, after the next election, the furor dies down over who really won the tennis match and we get over our anger at the referee's calls and the final, disputed score, we will finally break the hypnotic spell of the game and look around. We may then think about whether the ship is slowly going down and whether there are enough lifeboats and what we should do about all that.
This analogy is pretty fucking good. So fuck Gore and Bush and fuck the 2000 election. Fuck BO and McCain and this stupid election too. All the candidates are the same. Stop wasting your efforts on this bullshit.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Who is the lesser evil?
That is getting harder to assess. Below are the two schools of thought that say maybe Obama is worse than McCain.
Stop Me Before I Vote Again:
Stop Me Before I Vote Again:
So claimed the magnificent Diderot: "Two or three consecutive reigns of a just and enlightened despotism... is one of the great misfortunes of any free nation."
Sound to you like the possible pending Obama anni mirabiles? Recall that the three consecutive terms of the New Deal saved corporate America to march triumphantly under the victory arch of world war two right smack dab into the heyday of the American century.
Is this why, on some tacit, crumbling-infrastructure mind level, we rads fear Obie's success far more than his failure? Is this why we root for dismalitude? Why are we so fond of spoiling the ballots of Lady Liberty -- while she remains on the limited liability plan?
Arthur Silber:
I am not quite there yet, but I am seriously considering the following. Depending on how this campaign develops, and depending on how Obama conducts himself and -- very significantly to me -- how Obama's most devoted supporters act, I may conclude that, if you vote, you should vote for John McCain. Unbelievable, I realize, but I may have no choice but to think that the alternative is far too dangerous to countenance.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Why I won't vote: Al Gore Iraq myth debunked
An idea that I've encountered (most recently in an email conversation with Trakker, but other times as well) in response to my stance against voting is that if only Al Gore had won in 2000, we never would have invaded Iraq. And somehow this proves that voting, and voting for Democrats specifically, is a very important obligation. I don't get the logic, but I don't think logic is really the point with this argument. Nevertheless I'll respond to it.
First of all, Al Gore did win the election in 2000 and the votes didn't matter because the Supreme Court said the son of the guy who gave them their job was the winner. And, as I've mentioned before, Al Gore in his role as Senate President blocked the attempts of a few Democrats from the House of Representatives to contest the election. So the votes didn't matter, and even the guy who won the election agreed that the votes didn't matter.
But more to the heart of it, was there any reason in fall of 2000 to think Gore would advance a less destructive foreign policy than Bush? Specifically in regards to Iraq, Gore had just been part of 8 years of the Clinton regime that imposed brutal sanctions against the Iraqi people. When it was pointed out to Secretary of State Madeline Albright that these sanctions caused the death of over half a million Iraqi children, her response was "we think the price is worth it." I think it is reasonable to assume that "we" includes Gore, and as far as I know Gore never spoke against those sanctions as a candidate.
So Al Gore was part of an administration willing to kill over 500,000 children on the theory that starving the Iraqi population would cause them to overthrow Saddam and enhance US access to Middle East oil. But at the time of the 2000 election, even if everyone could have magically known that a group of fanatical religious fundamentalists with no connection to Iraq would fly planes into U.S. buildings, we were supposed to be quite certain that Gore would be less inclined than Bush to respond by killing more Iraqis in an effort to overthrown Saddam. Decisions must be judged by the expected outcomes at the time of the decision, and I don't see any way that it would have been possible to forecast the Iraq outcome.
And so now here were are, worrying about the 2008 election and how McCain will be more of a disaster than Obama for some reason or another. And who is the headliner of Obama's national security advisory group? Madeline "worth it" Albright. As far as I can tell, the decision available to voters is between Republicans, who drop bombs on brown folks, and Democrats, who prefer to starve them to death.
First of all, Al Gore did win the election in 2000 and the votes didn't matter because the Supreme Court said the son of the guy who gave them their job was the winner. And, as I've mentioned before, Al Gore in his role as Senate President blocked the attempts of a few Democrats from the House of Representatives to contest the election. So the votes didn't matter, and even the guy who won the election agreed that the votes didn't matter.
But more to the heart of it, was there any reason in fall of 2000 to think Gore would advance a less destructive foreign policy than Bush? Specifically in regards to Iraq, Gore had just been part of 8 years of the Clinton regime that imposed brutal sanctions against the Iraqi people. When it was pointed out to Secretary of State Madeline Albright that these sanctions caused the death of over half a million Iraqi children, her response was "we think the price is worth it." I think it is reasonable to assume that "we" includes Gore, and as far as I know Gore never spoke against those sanctions as a candidate.
So Al Gore was part of an administration willing to kill over 500,000 children on the theory that starving the Iraqi population would cause them to overthrow Saddam and enhance US access to Middle East oil. But at the time of the 2000 election, even if everyone could have magically known that a group of fanatical religious fundamentalists with no connection to Iraq would fly planes into U.S. buildings, we were supposed to be quite certain that Gore would be less inclined than Bush to respond by killing more Iraqis in an effort to overthrown Saddam. Decisions must be judged by the expected outcomes at the time of the decision, and I don't see any way that it would have been possible to forecast the Iraq outcome.
And so now here were are, worrying about the 2008 election and how McCain will be more of a disaster than Obama for some reason or another. And who is the headliner of Obama's national security advisory group? Madeline "worth it" Albright. As far as I can tell, the decision available to voters is between Republicans, who drop bombs on brown folks, and Democrats, who prefer to starve them to death.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Why I won't vote: mob lawyers and mob thugs
Here's an analogy I'm working on. Let's consider it a part of my "why I won't vote" series.
Democrats are dirty mob lawyers; Republicans are the mob enforcers. In the power struggle to be the next don, people get to choose between the no-neck tough guy (McCain) or the smooth-talking debonair schmoozer (Obama).
Think about what the mafia is. They operate in a geographical area, using a combination of violence, fear, and pay-offs to get whatever they want for the people who control the organization. It is a corrupt power structure run by amoral men to advance their own interests at the expense of everyone else. That is what government is too. Same thing.
People who live in a community where organized crime operates have to pay their taxes, and then they mostly can stay out of trouble. They're told these taxes are for their own protection. And that's true, though mostly for illegitimate reasons. There might be occasional threats - thieves, rapists, whatever - and the mafia will come down hard on those people. But that's only because those people are taking the mafia's action. The primary threat to the community is the mafia itself, its hired thieves and rapists.
So then when you in the community are generously offered a say in who takes over as the next don, you're too excited for a chance to participate to notice that you're never offered a choice to disband the mafia entirely. No, you're just offered two choices - a tough guy or a lawyer. Some of you look at the clenched jaw and the dead eyes of the brute and then at the nice smile and eloquent prose of the white-collar charmer and decide that it really isn't a contest. Yeah we'd rather have better choices, but surely the lawyer is better. He's very nice and you can invite him to a dinner party without scaring the guests. So maybe we should just support the lawyer. He's the lesser evil.
Until you realize that the mob is always run by either a lawyer or a tough-guy, and that they always advance the same basic agenda. They're always going to steal from you, threaten violence, and use violence. The lawyer's purpose is to conceal as much of it as he can, and make complex arguments about why the rest of it is really not that bad. They work within the accepted system, exploiting it for their own cynical advantage. The thug's part is to scare the shit out of people so they don't fight back. In periods of time where the lawyers are on the top, everyone is a little more comfortable, and they don't fight back as much as the mafia slowly dips its fingers into more and more things. After all, it is that nice shiny lawyer running things, and violence isn't really his style. But you're forgetting that when the next don is a thug, he'll take that increased access and ramp up the violence, use all that extra influence to take even more for himself, and everything is worse than ever. That's how the cycle has worked for centuries, and that is always how it will work. But short term choices will always make it seem like one or the other is better. But you're forgetting that the thugs can't do their thing without the lawyers. The lawyers make the thugs possible. The lawyers are thugs too. They're the same.
And so what not enough people realize is that they don't have to put up with the mafia at all. There are way more of us than there are of them, even if they have more guns. But that's why the mafia relies on fear. You're afraid that if you stand up to them, not enough people will get your back, and you'll go down alone. The mafia counts on this, and that's why they make examples out of a few trouble-makers every once in a while. That scares people, and they retreat and pay their tax and don't say anything too serious.
Democrats are dirty mob lawyers; Republicans are the mob enforcers. In the power struggle to be the next don, people get to choose between the no-neck tough guy (McCain) or the smooth-talking debonair schmoozer (Obama).
Think about what the mafia is. They operate in a geographical area, using a combination of violence, fear, and pay-offs to get whatever they want for the people who control the organization. It is a corrupt power structure run by amoral men to advance their own interests at the expense of everyone else. That is what government is too. Same thing.
People who live in a community where organized crime operates have to pay their taxes, and then they mostly can stay out of trouble. They're told these taxes are for their own protection. And that's true, though mostly for illegitimate reasons. There might be occasional threats - thieves, rapists, whatever - and the mafia will come down hard on those people. But that's only because those people are taking the mafia's action. The primary threat to the community is the mafia itself, its hired thieves and rapists.So then when you in the community are generously offered a say in who takes over as the next don, you're too excited for a chance to participate to notice that you're never offered a choice to disband the mafia entirely. No, you're just offered two choices - a tough guy or a lawyer. Some of you look at the clenched jaw and the dead eyes of the brute and then at the nice smile and eloquent prose of the white-collar charmer and decide that it really isn't a contest. Yeah we'd rather have better choices, but surely the lawyer is better. He's very nice and you can invite him to a dinner party without scaring the guests. So maybe we should just support the lawyer. He's the lesser evil.
Until you realize that the mob is always run by either a lawyer or a tough-guy, and that they always advance the same basic agenda. They're always going to steal from you, threaten violence, and use violence. The lawyer's purpose is to conceal as much of it as he can, and make complex arguments about why the rest of it is really not that bad. They work within the accepted system, exploiting it for their own cynical advantage. The thug's part is to scare the shit out of people so they don't fight back. In periods of time where the lawyers are on the top, everyone is a little more comfortable, and they don't fight back as much as the mafia slowly dips its fingers into more and more things. After all, it is that nice shiny lawyer running things, and violence isn't really his style. But you're forgetting that when the next don is a thug, he'll take that increased access and ramp up the violence, use all that extra influence to take even more for himself, and everything is worse than ever. That's how the cycle has worked for centuries, and that is always how it will work. But short term choices will always make it seem like one or the other is better. But you're forgetting that the thugs can't do their thing without the lawyers. The lawyers make the thugs possible. The lawyers are thugs too. They're the same.And so what not enough people realize is that they don't have to put up with the mafia at all. There are way more of us than there are of them, even if they have more guns. But that's why the mafia relies on fear. You're afraid that if you stand up to them, not enough people will get your back, and you'll go down alone. The mafia counts on this, and that's why they make examples out of a few trouble-makers every once in a while. That scares people, and they retreat and pay their tax and don't say anything too serious.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Why I won't vote: every conversation with an Obama supporter
Why shouldn't I support Obama? He's way better than McCain or Hillary!
Well I think it is more complicated than just comparing the few viable candidates. The first thing you need to do is let go of your idea that the United States of America is a democracy. It isn't. Look, Dr. Chomsky says so:
He's really fucking smart, so you ought to really give this notion some consideration. America isn't a democracy.
Yeah, but, like, we have elections. We get to vote, right? That makes it a democracy!
Not really. All elections mean is that the public has a choice between various candidates. It doesn't mean that those candidates represent the interests of the people, or that the people have any say in the decisions that are important to them. All elections mean is that people can choose between candidates. The real power is in who chooses the candidates.
Uh, so... who chooses the candidates?
Well, first look at a what all the candidates have in common. You might notice that they're all politicians. They all have lots of money behind them. They're all Democrats or Republicans.
Yeah but wait, if they're all the same, how come there are Democrats and Republicans?
They aren't all exactly the same. There are some minor differences between them, perhaps even some major ones. But even major differences are dwarfed by their profound similarities. And the reason they have so many similarities is because the big money that backs them generally comes from people with very similar interests.
So now to answer the question, there are Democrats and Republicans for a few reasons, but two main reasons stand out. First, while the people who make the decisions have vast areas of common interests, they do have some differences. And so factions form that compete with each other over those minor areas of disagreement.
But far more importantly to you and me, there are Democrats and Republicans because it creates the illusion of choice for the public. The interests of the people in power, the people who control both the Democrat and the Republican parties, are very different than the interests of the public. So it is important that they make it seem as if the public has meaningful choices. Parties are kind of like marketing gimmicks. They create appealing slogans that generates enthusiasm, and use various methods of deception to get the public to overlook the fact that their actions and their rhetoric don't match. The vast majority of their actions favor the interests of those elite few, at the expense of the general public and the rest of the world.
Ok, well that all makes sense, and I kind of agree. But still, Obama is way better than McCain.
He certainly wants you to think that. It is possible that it is true, though I think it is much harder to predict than most people seem to think. Like Chomsky says, the campaigns are designed to highlight character qualities, rather than positions on meaningful issues. It seems to me that Obama has been highly evasive on issues, and quite willing to outright lie.
Regardless, putting your efforts, your time, your money, your hope, into Obama is putting your efforts, your time, your money, your hope into the Democratic party. And that Democratic party is a crucial part of that whole corrupt and disorienting system that gives the illusion of choice without actually providing one. Its primary function is to attract the votes of progressive/liberal-minded people. It does this by saying things that progressives like to hear, and very rarely by passing measures that progressives like (so long as they don't conflict with the interests of the elites), but then primarily using their electoral success to serve the interests of the elites and maintain their own personal and party power.
Yeah, I kind of felt that way after the last election...
Exactly! In 2006 you supported Democrats because you wanted them to end the Iraq war. The war escalated. You wanted Democrats to stop the US from torturing people and holding them without charges. They not only stopped it, they legalized it. You wanted them to impeach Bush and Cheney for their obvious crimes, but they said impeachment was off the table.
So just because Democrats have always claimed to offer a better alternative to Republicans, just because they've said they stand for the things that are important to me, and just because they've never actually done a single thing to back up those claims, and just because there's an extremely painful recent example for me to dwell on... wait but Obama is changing everything. He's different!
Argh! Nobody gets to the position he's in without being completely a creature of the system. Big business is pouring money into his campaign; he's selling out his friends because they say true things that are politically inconvenient; he wants to increase the size of the military; he refuses to acknowledge the turmoil wrought by Israeli action in the Middle East; the list goes on forever. He's not different.
But he's better than McCain!!
Again, he very much wants you to think that, but I'm not sure I see how. You could certainly look at one very narrow issue and conclude that Obama would handle things better in than McCain in that domain. A popular example of that is military belligerence. It might well be the case that Obama is less likely to bomb Iran, for example, although Obama seems quite unwilling to advocate non-aggression. Even if Obama is less likely to launch another war of aggression, he could be more likely to inflict massive harm on people through economic sanctions, as Bill Clinton did in Iraq. Or he might be more inclined to use his beefed up military for "humanitarian" interventions, which never seem to have humanitarian outcomes. Or Obama might have the acquiescence of a Democratic Congress that allows him to pass various measures that cause long-term harm, whereas a McCain presiding with a Democratic Congress wouldn't allow much of anything to pass, preventing harmful measures from proceeding. Or....
The point of that isn't to argue that Obama will be worse or as bad as McCain, but to illustrate the difficulty in figuring it out. Which is once again why I say supporting Democrats is a huge fucking waste of any good intentions you have, because you're supporting the system that allows a decision that is seemingly so important to be contested by people who offer you no meaningful commentary on the important issues.
So you're just saying I shouldn't support anyone? I shouldn't vote? Well then what should I do? You aren't offering any alternatives.
Why does pointing out the massive flaws of the system have to be accompanied by a specific plan of alternative action? Whatever causes you support, whatever ideals you hold that you think Obama might be slightly more likely to represent than the other idiot, you'd be better served pursuing them in other ways. Presidential elections don't change that shit. They're a huge brick wall between you and your vision, and you're just slamming your head into that wall by supporting candidates. If I come along and point out that slamming your head against the wall isn't going to knock it down, isn't that pretty fucking useful information right there? But I guess some people have hit their head so many times that they can't even recognize the futility.
I'm still going to vote for Obama.
I know you are. That's the fucking diabolical beauty of the system.
Well I think it is more complicated than just comparing the few viable candidates. The first thing you need to do is let go of your idea that the United States of America is a democracy. It isn't. Look, Dr. Chomsky says so:
He's really fucking smart, so you ought to really give this notion some consideration. America isn't a democracy.
Yeah, but, like, we have elections. We get to vote, right? That makes it a democracy!
Not really. All elections mean is that the public has a choice between various candidates. It doesn't mean that those candidates represent the interests of the people, or that the people have any say in the decisions that are important to them. All elections mean is that people can choose between candidates. The real power is in who chooses the candidates.
Uh, so... who chooses the candidates?
Well, first look at a what all the candidates have in common. You might notice that they're all politicians. They all have lots of money behind them. They're all Democrats or Republicans.
Yeah but wait, if they're all the same, how come there are Democrats and Republicans?
They aren't all exactly the same. There are some minor differences between them, perhaps even some major ones. But even major differences are dwarfed by their profound similarities. And the reason they have so many similarities is because the big money that backs them generally comes from people with very similar interests.
So now to answer the question, there are Democrats and Republicans for a few reasons, but two main reasons stand out. First, while the people who make the decisions have vast areas of common interests, they do have some differences. And so factions form that compete with each other over those minor areas of disagreement.
But far more importantly to you and me, there are Democrats and Republicans because it creates the illusion of choice for the public. The interests of the people in power, the people who control both the Democrat and the Republican parties, are very different than the interests of the public. So it is important that they make it seem as if the public has meaningful choices. Parties are kind of like marketing gimmicks. They create appealing slogans that generates enthusiasm, and use various methods of deception to get the public to overlook the fact that their actions and their rhetoric don't match. The vast majority of their actions favor the interests of those elite few, at the expense of the general public and the rest of the world.
Ok, well that all makes sense, and I kind of agree. But still, Obama is way better than McCain.
He certainly wants you to think that. It is possible that it is true, though I think it is much harder to predict than most people seem to think. Like Chomsky says, the campaigns are designed to highlight character qualities, rather than positions on meaningful issues. It seems to me that Obama has been highly evasive on issues, and quite willing to outright lie.
Regardless, putting your efforts, your time, your money, your hope, into Obama is putting your efforts, your time, your money, your hope into the Democratic party. And that Democratic party is a crucial part of that whole corrupt and disorienting system that gives the illusion of choice without actually providing one. Its primary function is to attract the votes of progressive/liberal-minded people. It does this by saying things that progressives like to hear, and very rarely by passing measures that progressives like (so long as they don't conflict with the interests of the elites), but then primarily using their electoral success to serve the interests of the elites and maintain their own personal and party power.
Yeah, I kind of felt that way after the last election...
Exactly! In 2006 you supported Democrats because you wanted them to end the Iraq war. The war escalated. You wanted Democrats to stop the US from torturing people and holding them without charges. They not only stopped it, they legalized it. You wanted them to impeach Bush and Cheney for their obvious crimes, but they said impeachment was off the table.
So just because Democrats have always claimed to offer a better alternative to Republicans, just because they've said they stand for the things that are important to me, and just because they've never actually done a single thing to back up those claims, and just because there's an extremely painful recent example for me to dwell on... wait but Obama is changing everything. He's different!
Argh! Nobody gets to the position he's in without being completely a creature of the system. Big business is pouring money into his campaign; he's selling out his friends because they say true things that are politically inconvenient; he wants to increase the size of the military; he refuses to acknowledge the turmoil wrought by Israeli action in the Middle East; the list goes on forever. He's not different.
But he's better than McCain!!
Again, he very much wants you to think that, but I'm not sure I see how. You could certainly look at one very narrow issue and conclude that Obama would handle things better in than McCain in that domain. A popular example of that is military belligerence. It might well be the case that Obama is less likely to bomb Iran, for example, although Obama seems quite unwilling to advocate non-aggression. Even if Obama is less likely to launch another war of aggression, he could be more likely to inflict massive harm on people through economic sanctions, as Bill Clinton did in Iraq. Or he might be more inclined to use his beefed up military for "humanitarian" interventions, which never seem to have humanitarian outcomes. Or Obama might have the acquiescence of a Democratic Congress that allows him to pass various measures that cause long-term harm, whereas a McCain presiding with a Democratic Congress wouldn't allow much of anything to pass, preventing harmful measures from proceeding. Or....
The point of that isn't to argue that Obama will be worse or as bad as McCain, but to illustrate the difficulty in figuring it out. Which is once again why I say supporting Democrats is a huge fucking waste of any good intentions you have, because you're supporting the system that allows a decision that is seemingly so important to be contested by people who offer you no meaningful commentary on the important issues.
So you're just saying I shouldn't support anyone? I shouldn't vote? Well then what should I do? You aren't offering any alternatives.
Why does pointing out the massive flaws of the system have to be accompanied by a specific plan of alternative action? Whatever causes you support, whatever ideals you hold that you think Obama might be slightly more likely to represent than the other idiot, you'd be better served pursuing them in other ways. Presidential elections don't change that shit. They're a huge brick wall between you and your vision, and you're just slamming your head into that wall by supporting candidates. If I come along and point out that slamming your head against the wall isn't going to knock it down, isn't that pretty fucking useful information right there? But I guess some people have hit their head so many times that they can't even recognize the futility.
I'm still going to vote for Obama.
I know you are. That's the fucking diabolical beauty of the system.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Fuck you, Congress, Obama, Clinton and Democrats
More evidence of the Bush administration's crimes comes to light every day it seems like, lately with this Yoo torture documents, and every day Congress fails to do a damn thing about any of it. Every member of Congress should be doing everything they can to initiate impeachment and criminal trials. If Obama or Hillary (or McCain) were such great fucking leaders, worthy of the powers they seek, they'd be leading that fucking charge. But of course they won't.
And you want to vote for one of them?
Oh, that's right, somehow it is bad strategy for Democrats to try to impeach, because it would be so fucking divisive, which could cost them the chance to take the reins. That's way more important.
And you want to vote for one of them?
Oh, that's right, somehow it is bad strategy for Democrats to try to impeach, because it would be so fucking divisive, which could cost them the chance to take the reins. That's way more important.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
More shit! (This time with political commentary)
Since I've gotten started blogging about shit, I might as well keep going. Advance apologies for the prolonged analogy, but it serves a purpose.
I was recently chastised for being too critical of Obama and not sufficiently critical of McCain, thus supporting a McCain presidency. I thought I'd made my opinion of each candidate fairly clear, but let me clarify.
John McCain is a warmongering idiot who will say or do anything at all to increase his power, and is probably starting to become senile. Of the three remaining candidates, the thought of a McCain presidency is probably (but not certainly) the worst.
Barrack Obama is an elegant and charismatic speaker whose lofty rhetoric almost disguises the overwhelming similarities between him and McCain. Obama has demonstrated no principled objection to McCain-style warmongering, and has shown that he too will say or do anything at all to increase his power. He'll just do it more smoothly. Of the three remaining candidates, the thought of an Obama presidency is probably (but not certainly) the least offensive to me.
So that's my position on those guys. So, why the focus on Obama criticism? It is a function of the audience I'm addressing. In regards to my blog posts, I don't imagine that I need to convince many of my readers that McCain is a lunatic (though I've made that point repeatedly, just not very recently.) The same logic applies to personal communication. I just assume that this position is well established. John McCain the presidential candidate is a big steaming pile of shit.
Why criticize Obama so much if he seems to be the best of the viable candidates? Because he's still a terrible candidate! Obama the presidential candidate is a big steaming pile of shit, but with a slight sprinkle of deodorizing baking soda on top. This is a point that I believe needs to be made loudly and often, and the idea that this is de facto support for McCain can only come from a mind so beholden to power as to fail to recognize that an individual has more than two fixed choices on election day. I'm a fucking anarchist, not a fucking Republican. Yes, Republicans and I have a common interest in not wanting an Obama presidency. But Democrats have far more in common with Republicans than I do: both of them want huge steaming piles of shit in the most powerful office in the history of the world, but one of them prefers the huge steaming pile of shit that smells a slight bit less shitty. I don't want a pile of shit at all! And while I'll certainly get one, I'm not going to vote for one, and I'm not going to be shy about complaining how much it stinks.
This shitty post might serve as a good prequel to a series I'm thinking about writing on the topic of why I won't be voting. But I'll leave you with this last stinking nugget for today. If everyone who didn't want a steaming pile of shit refused to eat it, instead of eating the least stinky one, what would happen? Or conversely, what happens when people who don't want a pile of shit will continually eat shit anyway, if that is all they are offered? Is there any chance they'll be offered anything else?
I was recently chastised for being too critical of Obama and not sufficiently critical of McCain, thus supporting a McCain presidency. I thought I'd made my opinion of each candidate fairly clear, but let me clarify.
John McCain is a warmongering idiot who will say or do anything at all to increase his power, and is probably starting to become senile. Of the three remaining candidates, the thought of a McCain presidency is probably (but not certainly) the worst.
Barrack Obama is an elegant and charismatic speaker whose lofty rhetoric almost disguises the overwhelming similarities between him and McCain. Obama has demonstrated no principled objection to McCain-style warmongering, and has shown that he too will say or do anything at all to increase his power. He'll just do it more smoothly. Of the three remaining candidates, the thought of an Obama presidency is probably (but not certainly) the least offensive to me.
So that's my position on those guys. So, why the focus on Obama criticism? It is a function of the audience I'm addressing. In regards to my blog posts, I don't imagine that I need to convince many of my readers that McCain is a lunatic (though I've made that point repeatedly, just not very recently.) The same logic applies to personal communication. I just assume that this position is well established. John McCain the presidential candidate is a big steaming pile of shit.
Why criticize Obama so much if he seems to be the best of the viable candidates? Because he's still a terrible candidate! Obama the presidential candidate is a big steaming pile of shit, but with a slight sprinkle of deodorizing baking soda on top. This is a point that I believe needs to be made loudly and often, and the idea that this is de facto support for McCain can only come from a mind so beholden to power as to fail to recognize that an individual has more than two fixed choices on election day. I'm a fucking anarchist, not a fucking Republican. Yes, Republicans and I have a common interest in not wanting an Obama presidency. But Democrats have far more in common with Republicans than I do: both of them want huge steaming piles of shit in the most powerful office in the history of the world, but one of them prefers the huge steaming pile of shit that smells a slight bit less shitty. I don't want a pile of shit at all! And while I'll certainly get one, I'm not going to vote for one, and I'm not going to be shy about complaining how much it stinks.
This shitty post might serve as a good prequel to a series I'm thinking about writing on the topic of why I won't be voting. But I'll leave you with this last stinking nugget for today. If everyone who didn't want a steaming pile of shit refused to eat it, instead of eating the least stinky one, what would happen? Or conversely, what happens when people who don't want a pile of shit will continually eat shit anyway, if that is all they are offered? Is there any chance they'll be offered anything else?
Sunday, June 17, 2007
distraction as policy
"POOR FORM!" strikes again.
Harry Reid says that outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace was incompetent and is immediately hypocritically attacked by the White House and John McCain, among others, for daring to criticize the military in a time of war. Rather than address the substance of Reid's remarks with an honest analysis of Pace's performance, conservative lunatics and their fawning press have focused on the manufactured scandal about whether criticism of the general was appropriate. In a world where basic respect for logic and consistency is valued, this tactic would be laughed at and then dismissed, along with those who use it. Too bad...
Harry Reid says that outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace was incompetent and is immediately hypocritically attacked by the White House and John McCain, among others, for daring to criticize the military in a time of war. Rather than address the substance of Reid's remarks with an honest analysis of Pace's performance, conservative lunatics and their fawning press have focused on the manufactured scandal about whether criticism of the general was appropriate. In a world where basic respect for logic and consistency is valued, this tactic would be laughed at and then dismissed, along with those who use it. Too bad...
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
McCain Self-Destructs
I've written about John McCain a few times before, but reading this today is my breaking point. What's weird about this is that I don't really know very much about him, and I don't seek out information about him, but he just keeps astonishing me with his stupidity.
I honestly wonder if maybe he's got some kind of brain damage. He's an elderly man at this point; maybe he's in the early stages of Alzheimer's or something. Seeing what he says and does makes me think that somewhere deep in his brain he has a few core values like "America = good" and "must win war" and "I will be President" but then the parts of his brain that process information and govern rationality are malfunctioning.
So he gets in front of a certain audience, has a few ideas about what that audience values, and tries to spin his own core ideas and the audience's values into a message. But he long ago abandoned any hope of his message being consistent with anything he's ever said before. And now he's at the point where he's abandoned logical coherance as something important in his message.
It is like McCain is a caricature of a pathetic pandering politician, except real. I'm basing all of this off basic reporting of what he says and does, and I'm not sure that it puts me in a position to evaluate this next statement, but I do think that he is almost totally genuine. I don't think he's a diabolical schemer. I think he genuinely believes everything he says at the time he says it, and is genuinely unable to comprehend the contradictions and inanity.
End rant/
I honestly wonder if maybe he's got some kind of brain damage. He's an elderly man at this point; maybe he's in the early stages of Alzheimer's or something. Seeing what he says and does makes me think that somewhere deep in his brain he has a few core values like "America = good" and "must win war" and "I will be President" but then the parts of his brain that process information and govern rationality are malfunctioning.
So he gets in front of a certain audience, has a few ideas about what that audience values, and tries to spin his own core ideas and the audience's values into a message. But he long ago abandoned any hope of his message being consistent with anything he's ever said before. And now he's at the point where he's abandoned logical coherance as something important in his message.
It is like McCain is a caricature of a pathetic pandering politician, except real. I'm basing all of this off basic reporting of what he says and does, and I'm not sure that it puts me in a position to evaluate this next statement, but I do think that he is almost totally genuine. I don't think he's a diabolical schemer. I think he genuinely believes everything he says at the time he says it, and is genuinely unable to comprehend the contradictions and inanity.
End rant/
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
paulp on McCain the liar
It has been a while since I cited paulp, probably because he hasn't posted much lately and when he does it is usually a bunch of words I don't even know, but I figured I'd mention this post that talks about the McCain bullshit that I've commented on.
The rational response to someone who lies like this is to drum them out of politics. Would you personally associate with someone who lied to your face like that? Why? Why do we have lower standards for the highest office in the nation than we do for who we'd go to dinner with? It's irrelevant that mccain is not the frontrunner. The point is that we so thoroughly expect to be lied to that it's barely an impediment.
David Brin has written some about this, such as in this predictions registry article. Today I am less concerned with a predictions registry (although such a thing would be extremely useful) than I am with a straightforward statement registry. A simple web site that catalogs every public statement made by every public official of any note, and which shines a light on all the lies and self-contradictions. I don't know what good I think it would do, because in general people clearly don't care that they are constantly being lied to. But like I said, if there is to be any hope at all, something has to be done to bring accountability to government.
As a good example of how far gone we are, consider the read the bills act. This is an attempt to get congress to know what laws they are passing. Seriously, that's what it is. And yet it's laughable. It will never, ever happen. What kind of government do we have if our legislators do not even have time to find out what laws they are passing? I don't know, but it's sure as hell not a representative government. The american revolution began over far smaller indignities that we face today.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
More McCain straight up lying
Just like last time, John McCain directly lies about things he said. This is pathetic.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Support the troops
Republican Presidential Candidate John McCain and Democratic Presidential Candidate Barrack Obama both recently made comments about the wasted lives of our soldiers in Iraq, and both were heavily criticized by their opposing parties and forced to make an apology. Setting aside the glaring hypocrisy of both parties on this issue, what I want to know is why the hell their comments were regarded as controversial at all.
Inevitably the bullshit answer has something to do with "supporting the troops." Because absolutely every discussion about the war has to include that phrase. Anyone who criticizes the war is instantly smeared as unsupportive of the troops by war-supporters, to the point where now every war critic has to jump through rhetorical hoops of making sure every paragraph includes a sentence in "support of our brave men and women fighting in the war."
How do we accept this complete bullshit? How fucking stupid are we? How can someone advocate sending under-prepared Americans to fight and die in a needless voluntary war and then be taken seriously when they question if someone who wants to bring those Americans out of harm's way "supports" those Americans? How can we not collectively rise up in outrage when this administration talks about supporting the troops while they ignore the wounded soldiers whose bodies and minds have been broken by this disastrous war? What the fuck is going on?
Thank the flying spaghetti monster that someone finally clearly articulated this issue. (This is a brilliant article that deserves a better and more serious sounding introduction than that.) All this "support the troops" is just pathetic rhetoric, intentionally designed to tug on the last emotional string of a public that is otherwise opposed to the war, that string being the lives of the people fighting it. The average American doesn't know a whole lot about Iraq, generally wants to avoid war, and strongly believes they should support the troops. That is an equation that is ripe for the exact cynical and manipulation we're seeing: powerful authority figures suggesting without elaboration that certain arguments in a seemingly complex situation reduce to anti-troop arguments.
So just stick a magnetic yellow ribbon on your gas-chuggling SUV and sleep easy knowing you're supporting our troops!
Inevitably the bullshit answer has something to do with "supporting the troops." Because absolutely every discussion about the war has to include that phrase. Anyone who criticizes the war is instantly smeared as unsupportive of the troops by war-supporters, to the point where now every war critic has to jump through rhetorical hoops of making sure every paragraph includes a sentence in "support of our brave men and women fighting in the war."
How do we accept this complete bullshit? How fucking stupid are we? How can someone advocate sending under-prepared Americans to fight and die in a needless voluntary war and then be taken seriously when they question if someone who wants to bring those Americans out of harm's way "supports" those Americans? How can we not collectively rise up in outrage when this administration talks about supporting the troops while they ignore the wounded soldiers whose bodies and minds have been broken by this disastrous war? What the fuck is going on?
Thank the flying spaghetti monster that someone finally clearly articulated this issue. (This is a brilliant article that deserves a better and more serious sounding introduction than that.) All this "support the troops" is just pathetic rhetoric, intentionally designed to tug on the last emotional string of a public that is otherwise opposed to the war, that string being the lives of the people fighting it. The average American doesn't know a whole lot about Iraq, generally wants to avoid war, and strongly believes they should support the troops. That is an equation that is ripe for the exact cynical and manipulation we're seeing: powerful authority figures suggesting without elaboration that certain arguments in a seemingly complex situation reduce to anti-troop arguments.
Put another way, American troops in Iraq, or heading for Iraq, and the American dead from the Iraq War are now hostage to, and the only effective excuse for, Bush administration policy; and American politicians and the public are being held hostage by the idea that the troops must be supported (and funded) above all else, no matter how wasteful or repugnant or counterproductive or destructive or dangerous you may consider the war in Iraq.The President expressed this particularly vividly in response to the following question at his recent news conference:
"[i]f you're one of those Americans that thinks you've made a terrible mistake [in Iraq], that it's destined to end badly, what do you do? If they speak out, are they by definition undermining the troops?"Bush replied, in part:
"I said early in my comment… somebody who doesn't agree with my policy is just as patriotic a person as I am. Your question is valid. Can somebody say, we disagree with your tactics or strategy, but we support the military -- absolutely, sure. But what's going to be interesting is if they don't provide the flexibility and support for our troops that are there to enforce the strategy that David Petraeus, the general on the ground, thinks is necessary to accomplish the mission."This is hot-button blackmail. Little could be more painful than a parent, any parent, outliving a child, or believing that a child had his or her life cut off at a young age and in vain. To use such natural parental emotions, as well as those that come from having your children (or siblings or wife or husband) away at war and in constant danger of injury or death, is the last refuge of a political scoundrel. It amounts to mobilizing the prestige of anxious or grieving parents in a program of national emotional blackmail. It effectively musters support for the President's ongoing Iraq policy by separating the military from the war it is fighting and by declaring non-support for the war taboo, if you act on it.
So just stick a magnetic yellow ribbon on your gas-chuggling SUV and sleep easy knowing you're supporting our troops!
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