Home » politics (Page 24)
Dick Cheney
You are wedded to stupidity, my fine friend, of the vilest kind; you are impeached of this by your own words, out of your own mouth; and this, it seems, is why you dash into politics before you have been educated. And you are not alone in this plight, but you share it with most of those who manage our city’s affairs… Plato: Alcibiades
To the Right and to the Left
Go outside and look around you at the people passing by. Are they all white? If so, you must be in a gated community somewhere. We all know for a fact that the demographic of the American conservative tends heavily toward the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, and elderly. But, according to a recent article in The Nation entitled “The Unbearable Whiteness of the American Left,” American Progressives are just as far removed demographically from the people whose interests they profess to serve. The tents at either end of the American political spectrum are nowhere near as big as they should be. Wherever the voters are congregating, it is nowhere near either of the two poles.
If voters of different races and ethnicities are disgusted by being ignored, that could result in an election where the zealots are in charge, and the middle stays home. What would be an even more desirable outcome is for the two major political parties to either morph into something other than what they are, or to form new parties. Initially, these new parties would suffer losses at the polls, but eventually, the theory is that they would draw members from the two now ideologically bankrupt major parties.
The article in The Nation makes an interesting point about all-white panels making decisions affecting non-whites: “In the United States, campaigns for social justice are always ‘a racial thing.’ That doesn’t mean they might not be about other ‘things,’ too. Indeed, they invariably are. Race does not exist in a vacuum. But in a country that has never considered equality beyond its most abstract iterations and that has practiced slavery far longer than freedom, race is never entirely absent.”
If African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and others are excluded from the political process, the political process will become increasingly remote from the concerns of most Americans. When that happens, change can become painful and violent, as it did during the urban riots of the 1960s. I’m afraid we still haven’t learned the lesson, and that we will suffer for it.
I Must Apologize …
My last two postings—about the Koch Brothers and Cliven Bundy—are classic examples of (1) wretched excess and (2) lowering the level of political discourse by several notches. Not that I wouldn’t like to see those low-grade villains get their come-uppance, but it is just not worth overstating the obvious. I fell into the trap set by social conservatives of responding with knee-jerk outrage to acts of arrant stupidity.
There is no point to it: We are surrounded by a sea of retardation. Among our fellow Americans are millions of people whose combined brainpower isn’t enough to strike a match. The news media are there to capture every stupid phrase or gesture and magnify it until it comes to us with an unreal sense of urgency.
When I do this—in fact almost whenever I write about politics—I feel dirty. I have said this before, but now I am coming to realize that it’s all a sick game. Whenever I react in some knee-jerk fashion, I am doing my cause no good. The main thing is to show up at the polls, and when necessary, contribute a few dollars to my side.
I plan to move from Duh Drive as soon as possible … and stay away.
The GOP Loves Nevada Ranchers
If it weren’t so pathetic, I would laugh at Cliven Bundy and other GOP folk heroes like Joe the Plumber (remember him?). It never seems to take very long before the “Cliven” turns into a “Cloven Hoof,” around the time he opens his mouth in front of the news media.
Let’s face it: Rancher Bundy is a tax cheat and, in the process, a Federal Government nullifier. He makes a big thing about paying his taxes to the county but doesn’t appear to recognize that there are fees for grazing on Federal lands—lands that have been Federally owned since the conclusion of the War with Mexico.
Is it any surprise that the latest GOP folk hero rhapsodizes about the good old days of slavery? He knows his audience, and he will keep braying like an ass until, quite suddenly, everyone will be fed up with him and he will be seen as just another embarrassment to the Government Optional Party.
Paging Captain Boycott!
I am so tired of the Koch Brothers’ attempts to turn this country into a grey oligarchy that I thought the best thing to do would be to boycott, to the maximum extent possible, their products and services.Thanks to websites such as KochWatch.Org, it is now possible to see some of what makes the Brothers the rich bastards that they are. Their main consumer products are put out under the Georgia-Pacific logo and include:
Vanity Fair
Angel Soft
Quilted Northern
Soft N Gentle
Sparkle
Brawny
Mardi Gras
Zee
Dixie
DensArmor Plus
Plyntanium
Tough Rock Demak Up
Kittensoft
Lotuss
Moltonel
Tenderly
Nouvelle
Okay
Calhogar
Delica
Inversoft
Tutto
Nitamin
Bumper Harvest
Quik-Wrap
Quilt-Wrap
Food Shop Sandwich Wrap
Under the Investa subsidiary, the main Koch products are:
Lycra
Cool Max
Tactel
Solar max
Polarguard
Dacron
Thermolite
Comforel
Antron
Stainmaster
Cordura
And this is just a small sample. Most of the Koch Evil Empire is in business-to-business services that don’t impact us at the supermarket and which we are unlikely to use. Still, I think it’s a good idea to hit these billionaire clowns where they live, in the wallet.
According to Forbes, there’s even a Smart Phone app for scanning a UPC to determine whether the product in question is from the Kochs.
Do What’s Right First, THEN Ask for Money
I am daily besieged by dozens of almost identical e-mails asking me for support. At first, they want me to just sign a petition. That’s fine with me. Then they hold out the tin cup, asking me for money so that the evil Koch Brothers, the Nazgul of our own time and place, do not hurl us all into a pit of unrelenting misery.
Look, I hate the Koch Brothers as much as they do—but I also hate television. All these Democratic-aligned organizations are doing is arranging for millions in political ad buys on a medium which I do not support, and for which I have active contempt. I am also getting a little bit suspicious: Just whom are these organizations supporting? Is it the issue named? Or is it the collective broadcast and cable television networks? And has anyone ever checked to see whether there are kickbacks taking place?
That reminds me of a snippet I read last night from Christopher Isherwood’s South American travel journal Condors and Cows: “In Bogotá, he says, the milk was always sold diluted with water. One day, a pure-milk dairy was started but soon went bankrupt. It had been deliberately ruined by the directors of the water-works, who feared a serious drop in water-consumption.” In other words, are the TV ad people involved in these movements as a way of drumming up business?
These are questions that need to be asked, because I, for one, am reluctant to respond to any of these ads—regardless of my political beliefs.
Being an Optimist in the Long Run
As a student of history, I tend to be an optimist in the long run. It’s quite possible that the American people will take a generation or more to act upon discovering that they were being had by super wealthy and powerful individuals and corporations. By then, I and most of my friends will have passed on. But then, remember that all those old stupid white people inhabiting the Confederate States of America will all be gone, too. Some of the most annoying commentators on the political scene today, people such as Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, and and Ann Coulter will be seen as passé as the John Birch Society and Father Coughlin. (You do remember them, don’t you?) And the Rand Pauls and Ted Cruzes of this world will either have been voted out of office or decided it was better to pursue power than ideological purity.
History is made up of large cycles. Ever since the end of World War Two, the United States has been in a “Let’s Go to War with People About Whom We Know Nothing” cycle. The list of our military incursions over the last sixty years would take several pages—though I’m tempted to try to list them one of these days, but after tax season. One of the things that will happen rather sooner than later is the realization that America is no longer viewed as “the City on the Hill” for all the world to look up to and follow. We will be just another large country thathas shamelessly squandered its power. By the way, that’s happening to Russia now. I think the Crimea will, in the long run, be a poisoned cookie for Putin.
I think I will read Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s The Gilded Age, for a look at the last time we let rich and powerful individuals have their way. Then, too, there is Frank Norris’s The Octopus and Theodore Dreiser’s Frank Cowperwood trilogy (The Financier, The Titan, and The Stoic). It was the labor movement that put an end to much of that. Even though GOP stooges like Scott Walker, Governor of Wisconsin, have done everything they could to destroy labor, I think it will be back again … but in the long run.
People my age have seen both worlds. It’s so depressing to straightline tendencies that we hate until they assume monstrous proportions, I would like to quote a GOP President whom I admire. Calvin Coolidge once said, “If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.” You just have to be ready for the one that does.
The SCOTUS Retards: Thomas and Scalia
Although I am by no means a Communist, I have a certain belief in dialectics. Somethings happens (THESIS), opposition emerges (ANTITHESIS), and finally some sort of compromise solution emerges (SYNTHESIS). With the McCutcheon vs. FEC case just concluded, the U.S. Supreme Court gives wealthy individuals the right to in effect donate as much money as they want to the party or issue of their choice through SuperPACs which redistribute the funds. Although they still cannot write a megacheck directly to a particular candidate, I’m sure that won’t be long in coming.
What the so-called 1% (actually, a much smaller percent that) don’t realize is the hatred and opposition they are sowing. The superwealthy and the corporate elite have succeeded in infiltrating and gutting a major political party’but not without hard feelings. The more they ride roughshod over the feelings of American voters, the more likely there is to be a reckoning of some sort to redress the balance. There will be no Thousand Year Reich for the likes of Sherman Adelson and the Koch Brothers. They may be at their apogee wight now in terms of influence, but angry crowds are massing in front of the Bastille, and with luck their efforts will be taken apart brick by brick.
I am convinced that many or perhaps even most viewers of the Faux News channel are aware that the fix is in and are just waiting for the right time to cast their vote.
At least, I hope so.
Our Embattled President
As we approach the end of the Obama presidency, a few thoughts are running through my mind, mostly along the lines of what I would have done differently. I am really not cut out to be a politician: From me. one is more likely to get a smoldering look along the lines of “What’s with you, f*ckwit?” than a glad hand.
The President has made an honest attempt to reach across the aisle to the Republicans and conduct his office for the benefit of all Americans. I would probably have been better known as the leader who invited the Republican leadership to the Oval Office, from which they mysteriously and unaccountably disappeared. Instead of playing golf with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell, I would have introduced those two traitorous obstructionists to a cat-’o-nine-tails and liberally (I use the adverb advisedly) slathered chile habañero onto their wounds. I would be like those ancient Roman leaders who urged certain opposition leaders to depart the political scene by opening their veins in a hot bath, lest they face something a whole lot worse.
Okay, so I’m not a nice guy, especially to people I perceive as having done me dirt. None of this turning the other cheek business. After all, these Evangelical tools don’t follow that rule, so why should I?
Barack Obama was probably too nice, too reasonable to be President. Within those constraints, I think he did a good job at a truly horrible time. Americans are being jerked around big time by a combination of Corporate Fat Cats and a few million Secessionists who just want to blow away anyone who looks at them cross-eyed or won’t let them marry their twelve-year-old cousins.
Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA)
Every time I look at a picture of Troglodyte Republican Congressman Darrell Issa, I think of the cubist paintings of a century or so ago. The lack of symmetry of his facial planes is rather marked; and I cannot help but wonder if it represents some seismic disaster in his brain. His right eyebrow seems to be an inch or more above his left eyebrow. Seems quite appropriate for a rightist, no?
Compare with the portrait by Juan Gris below and you’ll see what I mean:
Portrait by Juan Gris
Tarnmoor 
You must be logged in to post a comment.