A big part of being a high profile politician is being a good actor. You have to be able to say all kinds of absurd things with total sincerity. The story here is that Obama is good at acting because he practices, and he's athletic and likes sports so they like to cast him in roles in movies like "Ballin' with The Boss." Naturally, NYT perpetuates the theatre instead of reporting, administering a slobbery tongue bath to the narcissistic asshole they describe.
He preemptively blames his staff for problems by claiming his superiority to them at their jobs. So confident! My favorite part is Obama whining ("in his darker days" ha!) about how he should be judged against the accomplishments of the hypothetical Republican alternative rather than on his own record. Dude is the exact same as them! What, he's pissed off that we don't care that Bush didn't even bother to work hard at the acting while basically doing all the same dirt? Dude pardoned Bush and his accomplices for their crimes and continued and escalated those crimes in between his golf lessons with PGA pros. NYT focuses on the golf. Dude got his Grammy and his 2008 Marketer of the Year. He isn't satisfied with those performance awards and wants voters to give him credit for it too? Seems kinda greedy, dude. NYT ignores that Obama can't go all-out against the Republicans because he's complicit in all of their crimes. So competitive! Bullshit! So cooperative. So compliant.
By the way, here's the plot of Ballin' with The Boss, which won 25 Oscars, 56 Golden Globes and 3 Nobel Peace Prizes. Once upon a time Obama called in a "double tap" drone strike on a bunch of Pakistani "militants," knowing full well the NYT would comply with his directive that all young men killed will be called militants. A few minutes later, while he lectured a very special group of
underprivileged teens how anything is possible, the first tap killed 9 members of a wedding party. A few minutes after that, the second tap killed 8 would-be rescuers and 16 survivors of the first attack. A few days later, Obama talked a bunch of shit while slacking off on defense, then demanded the ball on offense, knowing his White House staff league basketball opponents would never risk challenging his drive to the basket. The one time a brash young intern plays tough defense on Obama, the ref calls a highly questionable foul. After the game, Obama teammates laud his accomplishments. He's so smart and talented and his close friend says he tries to do his best!! The next day the intern is fired. About a decade later, 50% of the long forgotten very special underprivileged audience have been killed or incarcerated in the war on drugs, 90% have
received inadequate medical care, and the few who made it to post-secondary
education are an average of $79,00 in debt with no job prospects.
Meanwhile Obama basks in the luxury and prestige of the post-Presidential speaking
circuit, collecting unimaginable speaking fees from all his partners who profit from the
destruction of the lives of inconsequential losers. Obama plays to win!
Showing posts with label every candidate sucks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label every candidate sucks. Show all posts
Monday, September 03, 2012
Thursday, August 09, 2012
BO sez urrybody wants to be like USA USA USA USA!!
I dunno dude, Canada laughs at you pretty hard.
BO sez like whatever, they're totally jealous.
I dunno dude, Canada laughs at you pretty hard.
BO sez like whatever, they're totally jealous.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
this is what you did
Can you say this?
Because if you voted for Obama or McCain you can't. You voted to support evil. Yes you did. And as long as you live, you'll have to remember that.
I know I do from 2004. I don't know if I'll ever get over it.
Now I say that I will only vote for peace candidates. If I lived in Ohio, the swing state where I was born, I still would have voted for her. I will never again cast a vote for a war criminal. That conviction means I am disenfranchised. My vote will never count and I can only play the role of spoiler. I no longer care. I can't pretend that America's aggression around the world can be dismissed if it is carried out by the lesser of two evils.
Because if you voted for Obama or McCain you can't. You voted to support evil. Yes you did. And as long as you live, you'll have to remember that.
I know I do from 2004. I don't know if I'll ever get over it.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Chomsky on this election
Chomsky's case in favor of voting for Obama (in swing states, and "without illusions").
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?
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
voting for democrats is ironic and funny hahahhaha
Ha, isn't it funny how Democrats have no interest in democracy at all? But that Palin woman has no experience overturning democratically elected governments, so we can't take her seriously! We must support Obama/Biden! They don't talk funny like she does.
Friday, October 03, 2008
is there a single sentence here that doesn't sound stupid?
In regards to the way I respond to what passes for politics in the USA, I'm hoping that I can make the transition from quivering rage to bemused above-it-all condescension. In that spirit, I note the following statement by Sarah Palin (pointed out by the 51 fellas):
I'm thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chose to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president's policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are...What's with the GOP and idiots who can't talk good?
Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president's agenda in that position.
Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we'll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation. And it is my executive experience that is partly to be attributed to my pick as V.P. with McCain, not only as a governor, but earlier on as a mayor, as an oil and gas regulator, as a business owner. It is those years of experience on an executive level that will be put to good use in the White House also.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
they both support this plan!
The US treasury secretary, former head of Goldman Sachs, who by playing both of those roles is doubly responsible for the current economic meltdown, decides to let Lehman, a Goldman competitor sink, but then bails out AIG, which, coincidentally, owes Goldman $20 billion, and he made that decision while the current Goldman CEO was in the room, coincidentally. (I get bonus points for how much punctuation that sentence had.) Then he demands to pour more gasoline on the fire, to the tune of $700 billion of taxpayer money that he gets to unconditionally pass out to his former colleagues. And everyone who doesn't understand how brilliant his plan is, they're all shit-eating retard monkeys who need to let the responsible people make the decisions. Because if we don't go along with this mature wise plan, everyone is going to fucking die a painful death in their beds. But if you just cough up a few hundred extra every tax season until you die, we'll all be safe and the Wall Street boys will be able to keep providing us with the valuable services that we desperately need from them.
Bow before your betters, America, and thank them for liberating you from your money.
This is what they do. Both of those clown running for imperial manager support this swindle. And you're going to go vote for one of them aren't you?
Bow before your betters, America, and thank them for liberating you from your money.
This is what they do. Both of those clown running for imperial manager support this swindle. And you're going to go vote for one of them aren't you?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Nader
I saw this video at Dennis Perrin's blog and figured my little sister would appreciate if I posted it here. I'm not posting this to support Nader's candidacy, though the basic critique is a message that really needs to be spread.
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Biden on prosecuting Bush: "Don't worry my conservative friend, not a fucking chance!"
Mentioning this on Trakker's blog would probably get me double-banned, so I'll do it here. As I said recently, there's no fucking way these blood-drenched Democrats will prosecute the blood-drenched Republicans. This has been obvious for a long time.
To be more straightforward for those of you who don't like clicking on links, Chris Floyd wrote this last November:
To be more straightforward for those of you who don't like clicking on links, Chris Floyd wrote this last November:
No mainstream Democrat will ever allow full-fledged criminal investigations and prosecutions of Bush II officials for torture and the war crime of military aggression. You know and I know that's not going to happen. We will get, at most, some soaring rhetoric about "healing national wounds" and "coming together again" and "moving on." (With the outside possibility of a few small fry being offered up as sacrifices, to let the Dem president preen as the "restorer of the rule of law" -- and also purge the Republicans, and Bush, of the worst taint: "Hey, it was a few bad apples, and now they're gone. We've got a clean slate!")A few days ago, internet liberals got all excited because Biden made some vague hypothetical comments somewhere about pursuing criminal investigations. A few days after that, Biden rushed to Fox News to correct the record on this matter:
Brian Kilmeade of Fox & Friends raised that issue with Biden on Thursday morning, asking about "a report that if you guys are elected ... you're actually going to pursue criminal charges against President Bush's administration and different people that served there."But internet liberals will ignore this, or somehow convince themselves that Obama/Biden just had to say that for political reasons, but really in their hearts they want to prosecute, and we'll see that once they get elected. If Obama gets elected, this will also be proven wrong, but McCain is going to win now anyway so they'll forget all of this.
"That's not true," Biden immediately replied. "I don't know where that report's coming from. What is true is the United States Congress is trying to preserve records on questions that relate to whether or not the law has been violated by anyone. Anybody should be doing that."
Biden emphasized that "no one's talking about President Bush. ... I've never heard anybody mention President Bush in that context." He noted that "there's been an awful lot of unsavory stuff that's gone on ... but I have no evidence of any of that. No one's talking about pursuing President Bush criminally."
Biden concluded his comments by explaining that possible misdeeds are
"being looked into now, just so it never happens again in any other administration. ... The Obama-Biden administration is not going to start off saying, 'God, let's go take a look at what this --.' The American people want to know what we're going to do, not what happened."
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Democrats are great
In this round of The Most Important Election Ever, it is very important not to Waste Your Vote, and thus it is every right-minded citizens duty to march to the polls and vote for the party that thinks this is a perfectly good idea.
I know, I know, the other guys are going to cage their protesters in 15X15 razor-wired pens and sprinkle them with flesh-eating acid, so the 20X20 razor-wired pens are clearly deserving of our support. I wonder how much I have to donate to the BO campaign to get my name as a sponsor on one of those cages?
I know, I know, the other guys are going to cage their protesters in 15X15 razor-wired pens and sprinkle them with flesh-eating acid, so the 20X20 razor-wired pens are clearly deserving of our support. I wonder how much I have to donate to the BO campaign to get my name as a sponsor on one of those cages?
Friday, August 08, 2008
Friday, August 01, 2008
Go vote for Obama like the liberal sheep that you are
CHANGING THE VERY NATURE OF POLITICS!!
"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices." Thanks BO!! The US puts more carbon into the air than any other nation, 22% of the world total despite having just 5% of the world's population, but BO's interest is in making sure we have cheaper gasoline. Such bold leadership! Such vivid change!
BO and the Democrats are fucking filthy slime, and you just can't get enough. He'll punch you in the face and you'll ask for more. When someone mentions that he just punched you in the face, you get mad... at the person who mentions it... as you crawl back to Obama and kiss his feet.
Then he kicks you in the teeth.
CHANGING THE VERY FOCUS OF OUR IMPERIAL WARS OF AGGRESSION!!
Hooray! Glorious freedom bombs dropped on different civilians! But dropped by a President who might actually know how to pronounce the name of the towns he destroys, so that makes it better!
"My interest is in making sure we've got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices." Thanks BO!! The US puts more carbon into the air than any other nation, 22% of the world total despite having just 5% of the world's population, but BO's interest is in making sure we have cheaper gasoline. Such bold leadership! Such vivid change!
In linking McCain to the unpopular President Bush, [BO] struck a theme from Ronald Reagan's successful 1980 campaign against President Jimmy Carter by asking a town-hall audience in St. Petersburg: "Do you think you are better off than you were four years ago or eight years ago? If you aren't better off, can you afford another four years?"Just like in 2006 when we took over Congress! Republicans had been in charge, but you marched to the polls and voted for Democrats because you knew they'd make everything better! Remember how great things were after that? BO supporter Glenn Greenwald will remind you:
Since that overwhelming Democratic victory, this is what the Democratic-led Congress has done:
- Repeatedly funded -- at the White House's insistence -- the Iraq War without conditions;
- Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- Jim Webb's bill to increase the intervals between deployments for U.S. troops;
- Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- a bill to restore habeas corpus, which had been abolished by the Military Commissions Act, enacted before the 2006 election with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support;
- Enacted -- at the White House's insistence and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous Republican support
-- the so-called Protect America Act, vesting the President with extreme new warrantless eavesdropping powers;
- Overwhelmingly approved the Senate's Kyl-Lieberman Resolution, to declare parts of the Iranian Government a "terrorist organization," an extremely belligerent resolution modeled after those which made "regime change" the official U.S. Government position towards Iraq;
- Deleted from a pending bill -- at the direction of the House Democratic leadership and at the insistence of the White House -- a provision merely to require Congressional approval before the Bush administration can attack Iran;
- Overwhelmingly enacted -- at the White House's insistence, and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support -- the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008," to vest the President with broad new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, all but putting an end to any chance for a real investigation and judicial adjudication of the Bush administration's illegal NSA spying program;
- Confirmed, with the indispensable support of two key Democratic Senators, Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, despite his support for radical Bush theories of executive power and his refusal to oppose torture;
- Stood by passively and impotently while Bush officials flagrantly ignored their Subpoenas and refused to comply with their investigations.
BO and the Democrats are fucking filthy slime, and you just can't get enough. He'll punch you in the face and you'll ask for more. When someone mentions that he just punched you in the face, you get mad... at the person who mentions it... as you crawl back to Obama and kiss his feet.
Then he kicks you in the teeth.
CHANGING THE VERY FOCUS OF OUR IMPERIAL WARS OF AGGRESSION!!
Hooray! Glorious freedom bombs dropped on different civilians! But dropped by a President who might actually know how to pronounce the name of the towns he destroys, so that makes it better!
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday Misc
- But join all these morons in supporting Obama!!
- It has been over 2 weeks since we've heard from Arthur. With his bad health, that is scary. Hope he's ok.
- On Sunday I saw Romeo and Juliet for the first time. I think I read it in high school but never saw a production. It was ok. Those two sure are a couple of stupid little kids.
- Belief in god and support for government both linked to feelings of low personal control. That seems appropriately pathetic.
- I got my bike a couple weeks ago, and use it for my 5.4 mile round trip daily commute. I love it. I plan to do that until it is too cold or icy, then I'll have a free bus pass when I need it. Not using a car is great.
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.
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Why I Won't Vote: Endless Slaughter Everywhere
McCain, Clinton, Obama, they all support this. And I'm supposed to concern myself about the lesser evil? Read all the gory details: the gang rapes of young women, the mutilation of children, the crushed testicles of men, and then realize that this is a course of action that all three of those monsters agree on. How hopelessly wrong is it that we obsess over the tiny differences between them while this is what is going on in the world? Fuck the media, fuck the candidates, fuck all of their wars, and fuck their worthless ballots.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Why I won't vote: Religion
Nobody gets elected without proclaiming a belief in an imaginary sky daddy. This means they either have a fundamental inability to understand the world around them, or they're willing to lie to the nation they aspire to purportedly serve. These aren't qualities of someone I'd want leading an organization that controls the entire world by force. Every candidate sucks.
Of course I don't think anyone should be leading an organization that controls the entire world, so the real role religion plays in this "why I won't vote" story is illustrating what a farce elections and governments are. We claim to value separation of church and state, claim to value a system of government where there is no religious test for public office, yet make a mockery of that notion every election season.
I won't analyze here what role the population and the media gatekeepers each play in this hypocrisy. But the whole process is an elaborate ritual, with everyone playing their part, that accords religion far more respect than it deserves, thereby giving superstition far too great an influence in decisions that have profound impact on all of us. I won't play my part. I won't vote.
Of course I don't think anyone should be leading an organization that controls the entire world, so the real role religion plays in this "why I won't vote" story is illustrating what a farce elections and governments are. We claim to value separation of church and state, claim to value a system of government where there is no religious test for public office, yet make a mockery of that notion every election season.
I won't analyze here what role the population and the media gatekeepers each play in this hypocrisy. But the whole process is an elaborate ritual, with everyone playing their part, that accords religion far more respect than it deserves, thereby giving superstition far too great an influence in decisions that have profound impact on all of us. I won't play my part. I won't vote.
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.
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