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Welcome to Loserland

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Cage ’em up and let ’em ride outside the minivan—on top!

A scant two weeks ago, I still had some qualms about the outcome of the 2012 Presidential Election. Now that all is over but the shouting—and that primarily from the losers and their diehard followers—it’s interesting to see how Obama’s two victims, McCain and Romney, have fared since then.

Romney showed us that he was not about to give “gifts” to anyone but members of his rarefied socio-economic class. He blamed Obama for promising gifts to Hurricane victims, students loaded down with debt, and Hispanic families. In other words, he blamed the President for trying to help out Americans who did not own a string of polo ponies, enjoy firing people or sending their jobs to China, or installing car elevators in their La Jolla McMansions.

McCain, on the other hand, has continued to show himself to be a mercurial old sod in trying to turn the Benghazi affair into a major Democratic liability. Now this Libya fracas occurred on the first day of my vacation this year; so Martine and I didn’t follow the media frenzy that usually accompanies this sort of thing. Two things are pretty clear, however: First, it was a terrorist act; and second, the Republicans had previously cut the budget for the protection of our embassies abroad. (That second thing was the real scandal, if there can be said to be one.)

If McCain or Romney were elected President, that would indeed have been a scandal. Thankfully, even if only by the skinniest of margins, the American voters are still better than that.

Secesh

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Now These Self-Proclaimed Patriots Want To Secede?

I find all this talk of Right Wing Conservatives wanting to secede from the United States rather funny. What would a country of pasty-faced, beer-bellied angry white males in their fifties and sixties be like? For one thing, the GNP would be zero, unless spluttering outrage can be assume a monetary value. There would be no services to speak of. Let’s go down the list:

  • Military: These guys are just too old, sorry.
  • Healthcare: None. Ain’t that socialistic?
  • Fire and Police: Maybe some old-time police kinda like Andy Griffith. Firefighting is too strenuous for these gomers.
  • Foreign Policy: “We don’t hold with no furriners!”
  • Immigration: “Meet ’em at the border with a hail of bullets!”
  • Postal Service: “Nope, too much walking hurts my corns.”
  • Taxes: “We ain’t no Communists! So, nossir!”
  • Elections: “Whatever Rush, Sean, and Glenn say is jake with us.”

And so it goes. Maybe instead of seceding, they should just find another country that is more amenable to their way of life. Possibly North Korea or Somalia.

 

 

 

The Biggest Losers

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Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands Corporation

Millions of dollars were all but thrown away by many of America’s most wealthy right-wingers. Heading up the list is Sheldon Adelson of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Out of $53 million he injected into the 2012 election, his only winner was a minor Michigan ballot initiative. If his political investments were race horses, they were mostly glue factory material.

Remember Karl Rove, whom George W. Bush nicknamed “Turd Blossom”? He came a cropper with his American Crossroads Super PAC, which spent $103 million in attack ads with a paltry 1% success rate. And here we thought the man was invincible, instead of being just another reputation on the rocks.

It is possible that the Citizens United decision which opened the political contribution floodgates did more of a disservice to American millionaires than it did to the electoral process. You may recall from several of my recent posts that I thought all this political advertising would ultimately be regarded as mere noise in the system which voters would just tune out. That is a typical American failing: If something works once, say the Willy Horton ads that sank Michael Dukakis’s campaign for President in 1988, that doesn’t mean that a thousand-fold increase in negative advertising will bear a thousand times as much in the way of results.

No, there are limits. You know that I don’t listen to political advertising at all. I even throw out all the political bulk mail I get without reading it. For me, information is not something I am force-fed, but something I go out and actively seek, carefully judging the accuracy of the source.

So now there are quite a few millionaires out a lot of money. I’m sure they’re on the horn with their accountants right now trying to figure out how to expense their contributions so that they won’t have to pay so much in taxes. I frankly hope they get audited and convicted. The jerks!

Papa Bear Gets It Right

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“Papa Bear” Bill O’Reilly

The nickname is from Stephen Colbert, who has occasionally had him on as a guest on his Comedy Central show. In all the media and political verbiage being flung back and forth yesterday, he made probably the most accurate statement of why Obama won last night: “It’s not a traditional America any more…. The White Establishment is now a minority.”

While O’Reilly meant that in the most rueful way possible, it’s what I have been saying for years. The whole Conservative political movement in the United States has been driven by aging Whites, many of whom feel disenfranchised and alienated. They tend to be either rich (a small minority of them), or small businessmen who made it big at one time and are now facing an attrition of their past gains, or poor and wanting to identify with the rich. In any case, they are not young. If they have any children, there’s no guarantee that their children are either numerous or politically in step with their parents.

Even though I am White, I am part of that new America that O’Reilly decries. I am not a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP); nor am I Scotch-Irish; nor am I a member of any other demographic cohort that runs with the Right Wing. I am a White Hungarian Renegade Catholic (WHRC) with Black, Latino, and Asian sympathies.

When I used to work with census data at Urban Decision Systems some twenty years ago, I saw the handwriting on the wall for the White political establishment.

The Handwriting on the Wall

Over the next decade or so, most of the Tea Party recidivists will either die out or enter nursing homes. Those who remain will be increasingly irrelevant in the face of a demographic groundswell for those who had, until lately, been lumped together as “minorities.” In Los Angeles, it is the Whites who are in the minority. And, really, it’s not so bad as all that.

It has always been the fate of political establishments to be supplanted. Remember the Irish immigration of the 1830s and 1840s? Then it was the “Yellow Peril” when people feared being replaced by Chinese coolies who were brought in to work on the railroads. Then it was the turn of us Eastern Europeans later in the 19th and early 20th centuries as they arrived to escape political and religious persecution. Then it was the turn of the Mexicans.

Somehow, enough always remains of America to be worthwhile, even if there is a slightly darker shade of skin, an epicanthic fold about the eyes, or broken English. Hell, I didn’t even know the English language existed until I showed up in kindergarten. (That was just before the days of a TV set in every home.)

So yesterday I called it right. I thought Obama would win. And I think we all will win in the long run as a result. Don’t worry about me becoming an embittered Conservative complaining about the relentless tides of change. That’s what life is all about.

 

 

This Is the Day

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This Says It All About U.S. Elections

I was surprised, but at the same time gratified, to see about 150 people in line ahead of me when I showed up at 7:15 am—just a quarter of an hour after the polls opened—to cast my ballot. Needless to say, I voted against Mitt Romney and whatever issues and candidates the Koch Brothers and their nefarious ilk supported.

For me, the 2012 Election is over. I’ll check the Internet a few times this evening to see how things are going, looking anxiously over my shoulder to make sure there is no last-minute groundswell of support for Conservative candidates.

Tomorrow morning, I will know whether we will be relatively safe for the next four years under the mercurial “Bronco Bama” or whether I will have to join the disloyal opposition and bullyrag my Senators and Congressman into doing to the Romnesiac what Boehner and McConnell have been doing to Obama since he took office. And I’ll want to see birth certificates and baptismal certificates for Romney and his wife and dog: We don’t want no polygamite Messicans taking over our fair land.

You can probably guess that, if Romney should win, you will see me doing more blog entries in protest of what I can guess will be some pretty objectionable government policies. And I will certainly foment class warfare against Right Wing billionaires.

Frankly, I would just as soon write about some great literature I’ve read, neat places Martine and I have visited, and maybe some personal reminiscences of my past. If you haven’t voted yet, you can save me from becoming politically radicalized by voting Democratic wherever possible. You don’t want to do that, don’t you?

The above Cartoon is a classic from the New Yorker.

 

Give a Man a Rope …

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Will Roberts: Political Comedy and Rope Tricks

It was almost as if Will Rogers were still alive. In a way, he was—because over a hundred people were there to celebrate his 133rd birthday. The sponsoring Will Rogers Ranch Foundation brought in a man, who, like Rogers, could do rope tricks and sophisticated (yet gentle) political comedy at the same time. He goes by the name Will Roberts.

Formerly with Cirque de Soleil in Las Vegas, where he did a stint in a show called Viva Elvis, which closed on August 31 of this year. In the show, he did rope tricks while perched on a Cadillac.

Today, he reminded Martine and me how much we wished that Will Rogers were still alive today. His gentle humor made Republicans and Democrats laugh together, rather than at one another’s pain and outrage. Although, in the early 1930s, he was one of the richest men in America, he was also one of the busiest and one of the best. He gave freely of his time and money to help people who were suffering, such as when an earthquake struck Managua, Nicaragua, in 1931. Will showed up and proceeded to help out the victims with money and other aid paid for from his own pocket.

We sat through two shows that Will Roberts gave and enjoyed his rope tricks and humor, which are by no means easy to combine. Yet everyone in the audience has received hundreds of robocalls during this political campaign and was in the mood to put the whole election behind them with a good laugh, whether they were for Obama, Romney, Ron Paul, or Donald Trump.

Just as the original Will was a syndicated columnist (see his Daily Telegrams), Will Roberts has just come out with a book entitled A Crackpot’s Potshot at American Politics (Mustang, Oklahoma: Tate Publishing, 1912) which is pretty much in the same vein. Witness this selection about George W. Bush’s Mideast war budget:

Today President Bush is supposed to give his shopping list for the war. If all goes the way the Democrats want, our President will join the more than 100 million a year that bounce checks.

Republicans have been winning the coin toss for a few years now. Some Democrats think it might be due to the fact that it is a double-headed quarter. Now the Democrats have a home field advantage and are hoping for a strong first quarter. Go team!!!

Some folks are most likely thinking, “Will must be a Democrat.” But folks, I am like all the others in the middle, and I am just for the right answer or left answer … OK, the correct answer.

Even Rush Limbaugh or Roger Ailes couldn’t cavil at that. Well, maybe they could.

If you want to read more about Will Roberts, I suggest you check out two websites: Will Roberts, Speaker, Humorist, and Trick Roper as well as Will Roberts Modern Day Will Rogers. The latter contains some of his political humor in blog format. If you have an Amazon Kindle, you could also buy A Crackpot’s Potshot at American Politics for only 99 cents.

It is so rare to find political humor any more that doesn’t leave a bad taste in one’s mouth….

 

Mitt on Superstorm Sandy

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I Think Now the Race Is Romney’s To Lose

I am beginning to feel better about the Presidential race. The thought of a President Mitt Romney is sufficient to cause my insides to curdle. But now, with Superstorm Sandy and Barack Obama showing just how presidential he could be, Romney might just be stranded in left field sucking on a mop.

Do you recall the race between Daddy Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992? George H. W. was accused of being too patrician for the White House. If he was too patrician, what about Mitt?

The following tweets from #MittStormTips #Sandy show more about Romney than he would like to have the public see. Read ’em and laugh:

  • If you haven’t already, move money from Cayman Islands to Swiss account.
  • People, this is why we only build houses on top of cliffs.
  • No generators at Home Depot. I have ordered Paul Ryan off the campaign trail to power my home with a stationary bike.
  • This is a time for bipartisanship, despite the President’s bungling of this preventable natural disaster.
  • Hurricanes are best spent overseas, visiting your money.
  • President Obama has not once referred to this storm as a hurricane. (This one is a bit more subtle: Think Libya and the Second Debate.)
  • Remember, the most important threat facing the east coast is and always will be Russia.
  • My thoughts and prayers go out to 53% of you.
  • What are you people complaining about? This wind is no stronger than one of my medium sized helicopter rotors!
  • Shucks, I hope FEMA isn’t the third agency Perry is getting rid of. (Think back to the GOP Primary debates.)

For more of the same, click here

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I Wipe the Dust of Ohio from My Feet

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I Get Pretty Tired of All My Political Contributions Being Spent in Ohio

Unless you live in one of the swing states, such as Ohio, Florida, and Iowa, you’re vote just doesn’t count as much. Now California is the most populous State in the Union. All fifty-five of our electoral college votes for President will go to Obama. That’s almost a dead certain guarantee, however badly the ranchers in the San Joaquin Valley and the Republican troglodytes of Orange County feel about it.

But where is all the effort in the last few weeks of political campaigning going? You guessed it: Ohio, Florida, Iowa, and a handful of other swing states.

Why is it that these are swing states? The answer is simple: Because they are divided approximately fifty-fifty between Democrats and Republicans. Take Ohio. I’m from Cleveland originally, which, like most of Northeastern Ohio, leans to the Democrats. South of Lake Erie is where most of the trogs, recidivists, and Red-State racists live. As a Clevelander, I never visited Columbus, Dayton, or Cincinnati: We also considered the southern half of the State to be south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Over the decades since I’ve left Ohio, the State has drifted farther and farther to the right. So far, in fact, that I repudiate my origins, at least insofar as the State is concerned. (I still have some feelings for Cleveland, “The Mistake on the Lake.”)

It’s not that I want to see more political advertising in California. I hate political advertising. It’s one of the reasons I don’t watch television at all. But I have donated several hundred dollars to the Obama campaign; and I am mightily pissed that most of that money is probably going to television stations in parts of Ohio that I would just as soon see swamped by a tsunami.

There is a funny short piece on Raw.Com entitled F*ck You Ohio for hogging presidential race. Among the points it brings up is that all kinds of concessions must be made to Southern Ohio regarding the use of coal for energy:

For example, [Andy] Cobb [of Second City] notes that vying for Ohio means that candidates feel the need to promote “clean coal” technologies, “something the rest of the country knows is bullshit.”

“Ohio made them do that,” he observes. “Clean coal doesn’t exist. Coal is dirt. So, clean coal is like clean dog shit.”

Why should we kowtow to Ohio for being so deeply divided? The answer lies in our country’s dysfunctional electoral college voting system, which should be scrapped in favor of direct elections. But that is another matter entirely. It is probably the most glaring weak point of our Constitution and should be scrapped.

I suspect, however, that it will drag on for several more decades, doing incalculable harm to our political process.

Addendum (10/26/12): This cartoon from David Horsey that appeared in today’s Los Angeles Times:

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words

The New Yorker Scores Again

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A Great New Yorker Cover

I don’t always like The New Yorker, which I slavishly continue to read every week. There are far too many detailed biographies of boring national business figures and other thieves whom I would consign to the lower circles of Dante’s Inferno. (Witness, in particular, the October 8, 2012 issue, which on one hand kisses up to the top 0.001% and on the other attempts to maintain its Liberal editorial policy.)

The September 24 cover, however, which is shown above, is a classic take-off on an America which I no longer profess to understand. It’s not that I’m a Socialist or even necessarily a Liberal. But most certainly I am not a flag-waving motherhood and apple pie type. Whenever I meet some Tea Party type, I usually prefer to think of myself more as a Hungarian-American rather than an American—just to distance myself. (Though, God knows, there are as many if not more horror stories connected with my Magyar antecedents.)

It is always surprising to me to fight Right Wingers in other countries, yet they are there. In fact, they are everywhere.

Will I ever come to terms with them? Probably not. At best, I can co-exist with them, and not always peacefully. I am always amazed by the disconnect by these people, who usually profess to be such good Christians, yet are so hateful toward the unfortunate, in direct opposition to Christ’s teachings. Trying to reconcile one’s beliefs and make sense of them does not appear to be part of the American way.

 

Is That How He Prefers Them?

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A New Romney Meme Is Born

From Debate #2 between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The circumstances, according to CNN:

When asked about what he’d do to improve income equality for women, Romney cited his efforts as governor of Massachusetts to include women on a state economic panel, efforts that apparently included poring through “binders full of women” in search of qualified candidates. And with that, a meme was born.

I wonder how the women felt….