Poetry For Memorial Day:
From "Morning-A Death" by Vietnam War soldier Basil Paquet:
I'd sooner be a fallen pine cone this winter
In a cradle of cold New England rock,
Less hurt in it than nineteen years.
What an exit! Stage left, fronds waving,
Cut down running my ass off at a tree line.
I'm thinking, as I hear my chest
Sucking air through its brand new nipple,
I bought the ticket, I hope I drown fast,
The pain is all in living.
From the work of Afghan poet Zarlasht Hafeez:
The sorrow and grief, these black evenings,
Eyes full of tears and times full of sadness,
These burnt hearts, the killing of youths,
These unfulfilled expectations and unmet hopes of brides,
With a hatred for war, I call time and again,
I wait for peace for the grief-stricken Pashtuns.
(Poems found at the Healing Combat Trauma blog.)
5/28/2010
Three More Oil Stories to End Another Crude Week:
1. Here's an activity for the whole family:
Murdered Gulf has put out this flyer for a Jackson Square protest in New Orleans this Sunday at 1 p.m. Even if only the 1500 people who say they're going to attend (in that charming Facebook commitment way) actually do, it will be bigger than nearly every Tea Party rally. The Rude Pundit wishes he could be there, but, alas, he won't be down until July. Someone do him a favor and send him pictures. And maybe start a chant of "Eat me, BP."
2. In a strange confluence of two of the major themes of this week's news, shareholders at ExxonMobil have once again refused to add protections for LGBT workers to the corporation's non-discrimination policy. So, if you needed another reason to think that everyone running oil companies is a barbaric, hateful, avaricious piece of shit who would fuck a pelican corpse if they could get a little more gas out of it, well, now you have more evidence to support your well-considered position.
3. From the New York Times on April 3, 1989: "Mr. Bush has rejected the idea of a Federal takeover of the Valdez cleanup and has reiterated his support for drilling in the wildlife refuge."
April 7, 1989: "Alaskan officials said today that the spreading oil slick from the Exxon Valdez threatened thousands of miles of shoreline, and they insisted that only Federal intervention could prevent further environmental damage."
April 12, 1989: "Not until April 7, 14 days after the accident, did [Bush] order a larger Federal role in the cleanup effort - long after it had become universally clear that the oil companies had botched the job."
Article after article back in 1989 talked about the federal government's lame, at best, response to the crisis.
Bush never went to Alaska. He sent Vice President Dan Quayle, who said he would report on his firsthand experience to the president. And by September 15, 1989, Exxon said it was done and walked away from the clean-up, thus giving it the time to prepare to lay waste to lawsuits against it. By December, Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner praised Exxon for its response, even as environmentalists said that the long-term effects had been ignored, something that's borne out now, over twenty years later, by the continuing toxicity of areas of Prince William Sound.
The point here is not to defend the Obama administration's response to the Gulf oil catastrophe. The Rude Pundit's not gonna do that, except to say that, however you might think about it, Obama's miles and miles ahead of what Bush the Smarter did back at the start of his damned presidency.
No, actually, the point here is to say, "Oh, go fuck yourself with Reagan's femur" to craven columnist and creepy commentator Peggy Noonan, who writes in today's Wall Street Journal (motto: "Rupert Murdoch's taint is nicely powdered"), "The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the president and his administration, as she compares Obama to Bush the Dumber during Katrina.
Noonan conveniently leaves out the Exxon Valdez story, which is a more appropriate analogy than Katrina. Why? Because this overpaid slattern was working for Bush the Smarter during and after the Valdez spill, writing speeches to attempt to spin his criminal incompetence into principle, his boobish aloofness into engagement. She made people believe the lie that Bush gave a goddamn about the environment. This is not even to mention her aiding and abetting Ronald Reagan, whose administration's mad deregulation spree is one of the factors that led to the very oil spill Noonan is spewing about now.
And, thus, like so many of our corrupted punditerati, her opinion is pretty much a junk shot.
1. Here's an activity for the whole family:
Murdered Gulf has put out this flyer for a Jackson Square protest in New Orleans this Sunday at 1 p.m. Even if only the 1500 people who say they're going to attend (in that charming Facebook commitment way) actually do, it will be bigger than nearly every Tea Party rally. The Rude Pundit wishes he could be there, but, alas, he won't be down until July. Someone do him a favor and send him pictures. And maybe start a chant of "Eat me, BP."
2. In a strange confluence of two of the major themes of this week's news, shareholders at ExxonMobil have once again refused to add protections for LGBT workers to the corporation's non-discrimination policy. So, if you needed another reason to think that everyone running oil companies is a barbaric, hateful, avaricious piece of shit who would fuck a pelican corpse if they could get a little more gas out of it, well, now you have more evidence to support your well-considered position.
3. From the New York Times on April 3, 1989: "Mr. Bush has rejected the idea of a Federal takeover of the Valdez cleanup and has reiterated his support for drilling in the wildlife refuge."
April 7, 1989: "Alaskan officials said today that the spreading oil slick from the Exxon Valdez threatened thousands of miles of shoreline, and they insisted that only Federal intervention could prevent further environmental damage."
April 12, 1989: "Not until April 7, 14 days after the accident, did [Bush] order a larger Federal role in the cleanup effort - long after it had become universally clear that the oil companies had botched the job."
Article after article back in 1989 talked about the federal government's lame, at best, response to the crisis.
Bush never went to Alaska. He sent Vice President Dan Quayle, who said he would report on his firsthand experience to the president. And by September 15, 1989, Exxon said it was done and walked away from the clean-up, thus giving it the time to prepare to lay waste to lawsuits against it. By December, Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner praised Exxon for its response, even as environmentalists said that the long-term effects had been ignored, something that's borne out now, over twenty years later, by the continuing toxicity of areas of Prince William Sound.
The point here is not to defend the Obama administration's response to the Gulf oil catastrophe. The Rude Pundit's not gonna do that, except to say that, however you might think about it, Obama's miles and miles ahead of what Bush the Smarter did back at the start of his damned presidency.
No, actually, the point here is to say, "Oh, go fuck yourself with Reagan's femur" to craven columnist and creepy commentator Peggy Noonan, who writes in today's Wall Street Journal (motto: "Rupert Murdoch's taint is nicely powdered"), "The disaster in the Gulf may well spell the political end of the president and his administration, as she compares Obama to Bush the Dumber during Katrina.
Noonan conveniently leaves out the Exxon Valdez story, which is a more appropriate analogy than Katrina. Why? Because this overpaid slattern was working for Bush the Smarter during and after the Valdez spill, writing speeches to attempt to spin his criminal incompetence into principle, his boobish aloofness into engagement. She made people believe the lie that Bush gave a goddamn about the environment. This is not even to mention her aiding and abetting Ronald Reagan, whose administration's mad deregulation spree is one of the factors that led to the very oil spill Noonan is spewing about now.
And, thus, like so many of our corrupted punditerati, her opinion is pretty much a junk shot.
5/27/2010
Family Research Council: "Pray that Gay Rapists Don't Infiltrate Khaki Ass":
As a loyal member of the Super-Duper Prayer Team, yesterday, the Rude Pundit received his weekly Prayer Target list from the evangelical Family Research Council (motto: "Here a queer, there a queer, everywhere a queer queer"). The Rude Pundit joined the Super-Duper Prayer Team a few years ago under a secret nom de rude, which means that he gets emails o' faith that tell him what causes need some hot oral action on his knees. Each Wednesday, a letter arrives that says, more or less, "Hey, Jesus didn't shave his balls for nothing. Get busy."
And so he dutifully opened up the email and, lo and behold, what do you think our praylatio orders were about? It's a motherfuckin' emergency, man: "FRC President Tony Perkins believes the President's effort to infiltrate our military services with practicing homosexuals through the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) is a 'Gettysburg' moment in the war for the soul of our nation, and that it is time for God's people to 'pull out all the stops.'" Yes, preventing gay men and women from serving their country in the military is the equivalent of 50,000 casualties in a Civil War battle. And, by the way, which side of the Civil War is the FRC saying it's on? The side preventing people from having rights? Or the side that was fighting to keep the Union together and end slavery?
(On another note, one of the Rude Pundit's favorite Civil War stories: In 1864, Massachusetts soldiers encamped in Virginia decided to have a formal ball. Sixty of the males, including the drummer boys, dressed in gowns and were the "women" for the evening. One soldier wrote, "Some of the them looked good enough to lay with, and I guess some of them did get laid with. I know I slept with mine.")
This is important, goddamnit: "We need prayer for God to show us just what is being said in secret government counsel chambers and to give us creative ideas to stop these evil schemes." Perkins apparently went into some kind of psychological collapse over the threat to repeal DADT for a bill that says, if the Pentagon gives the thumbs-up, the Navy won't know what to do with all the seamen: "In his prayer time yesterday morning, Tony wept for our nation. He saw in his mind's eye the oil now spewing from the Gulf of Mexico and polluting the gulf coast and saw it as a picture of the sexual immorality now polluting our land."
As if to demonstrate this immorality in the hottest way possible, the possible future is described as intensely homoerotic: "The sexual immorality that has oozed in our culture for decades with government consent and support has been bad, but under the legislation now being offered, it will become 'an unstoppable gusher and the damage will be catastrophic.' Please pray fervently." Dude, the Rude Pundit prayed all over his jeans reading that.
The problem, see, according to a FRC "researcher" who "analyzed" (with an emphasis on "anal") data about same sex assaults in the military, is that gay people are just too into raping straights. You put a straight guy in front of a gay one and a raping's gonna happen. His study proves it. Now, one could argue that the paranoia and self-loathing that enforced closeting has engendered in gay soldiers has led to such incidents. One might also argue that the number of assaults, while serious in and of itself, is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the assaults on women by male soldiers. One might argue that so many of the incidents involve drunk people that maybe alcoholism is the real problem. One might even argue that if you have a few million people in a group, there's gonna be some assholes who like cock. And assholes.
But then you'd be thinking with your logical brain and not just outright hating you some homosexuals. 'Cause we gotta pray, motherfuckers. We got our orders: "May God stir his people to 'take out all the stops!' May they aggressively pray and take action to stop this morally, spiritually, and in every other way senseless measure. May God open the blinded eyes in both Houses of Congress in sufficient numbers to stop this measure in its tracks. May God enlist believers who will pray day and night until the efforts to overturn DADT and to pass ENDA, have both been defeated!" No sleep, you Jesus-hating pussies. Day and night.
One of the bible passages we're supposed to read to accompany our prayer is Jeremiah 5:21-29, which is God getting all pissy and wanting people to tremble before him or whatever. Of course, if you go one verse more, you get this: "A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?" To put that another way, all those people, like, say, Tony Perkins, telling you what to say and what the invisible sky wizard think? Their own God thinks they're full of shit and that you're a loser if you believe them.
As a loyal member of the Super-Duper Prayer Team, yesterday, the Rude Pundit received his weekly Prayer Target list from the evangelical Family Research Council (motto: "Here a queer, there a queer, everywhere a queer queer"). The Rude Pundit joined the Super-Duper Prayer Team a few years ago under a secret nom de rude, which means that he gets emails o' faith that tell him what causes need some hot oral action on his knees. Each Wednesday, a letter arrives that says, more or less, "Hey, Jesus didn't shave his balls for nothing. Get busy."
And so he dutifully opened up the email and, lo and behold, what do you think our praylatio orders were about? It's a motherfuckin' emergency, man: "FRC President Tony Perkins believes the President's effort to infiltrate our military services with practicing homosexuals through the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' (DADT) is a 'Gettysburg' moment in the war for the soul of our nation, and that it is time for God's people to 'pull out all the stops.'" Yes, preventing gay men and women from serving their country in the military is the equivalent of 50,000 casualties in a Civil War battle. And, by the way, which side of the Civil War is the FRC saying it's on? The side preventing people from having rights? Or the side that was fighting to keep the Union together and end slavery?
(On another note, one of the Rude Pundit's favorite Civil War stories: In 1864, Massachusetts soldiers encamped in Virginia decided to have a formal ball. Sixty of the males, including the drummer boys, dressed in gowns and were the "women" for the evening. One soldier wrote, "Some of the them looked good enough to lay with, and I guess some of them did get laid with. I know I slept with mine.")
This is important, goddamnit: "We need prayer for God to show us just what is being said in secret government counsel chambers and to give us creative ideas to stop these evil schemes." Perkins apparently went into some kind of psychological collapse over the threat to repeal DADT for a bill that says, if the Pentagon gives the thumbs-up, the Navy won't know what to do with all the seamen: "In his prayer time yesterday morning, Tony wept for our nation. He saw in his mind's eye the oil now spewing from the Gulf of Mexico and polluting the gulf coast and saw it as a picture of the sexual immorality now polluting our land."
As if to demonstrate this immorality in the hottest way possible, the possible future is described as intensely homoerotic: "The sexual immorality that has oozed in our culture for decades with government consent and support has been bad, but under the legislation now being offered, it will become 'an unstoppable gusher and the damage will be catastrophic.' Please pray fervently." Dude, the Rude Pundit prayed all over his jeans reading that.
The problem, see, according to a FRC "researcher" who "analyzed" (with an emphasis on "anal") data about same sex assaults in the military, is that gay people are just too into raping straights. You put a straight guy in front of a gay one and a raping's gonna happen. His study proves it. Now, one could argue that the paranoia and self-loathing that enforced closeting has engendered in gay soldiers has led to such incidents. One might also argue that the number of assaults, while serious in and of itself, is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the assaults on women by male soldiers. One might argue that so many of the incidents involve drunk people that maybe alcoholism is the real problem. One might even argue that if you have a few million people in a group, there's gonna be some assholes who like cock. And assholes.
But then you'd be thinking with your logical brain and not just outright hating you some homosexuals. 'Cause we gotta pray, motherfuckers. We got our orders: "May God stir his people to 'take out all the stops!' May they aggressively pray and take action to stop this morally, spiritually, and in every other way senseless measure. May God open the blinded eyes in both Houses of Congress in sufficient numbers to stop this measure in its tracks. May God enlist believers who will pray day and night until the efforts to overturn DADT and to pass ENDA, have both been defeated!" No sleep, you Jesus-hating pussies. Day and night.
One of the bible passages we're supposed to read to accompany our prayer is Jeremiah 5:21-29, which is God getting all pissy and wanting people to tremble before him or whatever. Of course, if you go one verse more, you get this: "A horrible and shocking thing has happened in the land: The prophets prophesy lies, the priests rule by their own authority, and my people love it this way. But what will you do in the end?" To put that another way, all those people, like, say, Tony Perkins, telling you what to say and what the invisible sky wizard think? Their own God thinks they're full of shit and that you're a loser if you believe them.
5/26/2010
Our Regulation Farce: Oil Companies Self-Evaluate Their Rig Safety Drills:
On July 24, 2009, the Gulf of Mexico office of the Minerals Management Service celebrated the 20th anniversary of its Unannounced Oil Spill Drill Program. From what we now know about the MMS, it must have been a hell of a meth-infused porn party paid for by the oil industry. Here's how it goes: "The MMS designs the drill to exercise an oil and gas and pipeline operator’s Oil Spill Response Plan and evaluates its spill management team’s effectiveness in responding to a simulated spill event."
The article continues, "A drill may consist of a table top exercise or the actual deployment of specific response equipment such as oil spill response vessels and dispersant aircraft. Every drill tests an operator’s ability to notify the appropriate contacts including federal regulatory agencies, affected state and local agencies, internal response coordinators and response contractors, as well as an operator’s ability to make decisions, respond properly, and take appropriate action."
One must wonder, though, how "unannounced" these drills were. In fact, considering what we've learned about how deeply corrupt the poor office drones at the MMS were by the cash, jobs, hookers, and football tickets dangled in front of them, one must wonder if the MMS officials tasked with evaluating the results of the unannounced drills even wrote the reports (as they allowed industry officials to write up inspections). And while much of the unethical and illegal activity took place during 2000-2008 (funny, eh?), it takes a while to root out every wormy apple in the tree.
In addition to the unannounced drills, the MMS runs "announced 'Table Top' simulations of a large oil spill." All drills are evaluated according to the National Preparedness for Response Exercise Program. These are guidelines that were put into effect in August 2002. It's fascinating reading, in a total wonky way, in that embedded within this document and within the Code of Federal Regulations, are all the various ways that BP and other oil companies, in essence, police themselves and weasel their way out of all but the most minimal and eminently corruptible regulation. In other words, you wanna know why the Gulf Coast is going to hell today? Here's the gospel of that damnation.
For instance, except for the unannounced exercises, all other safety drills have "self-evaluation" and "self-certification." And, in what may as well be bowing down to BP et al, "Records [are] to be maintained at a corporate location." So, for instance, BP can conduct a certain safety test once every three years, using the equipment they allegedly have for the "worst-case discharge scenario" (make your own joke), write up the report themselves, pat themselves on the head no matter how it goes, and then file the report away in corporate HQ.
You wanna know just how toothless government regulations in the post-dereg area are? Here's 30 CFR 254.54: "In addition to your response plan, you must submit to the Regional Supervisor a description of the steps you are taking to prevent spills of oil or mitigate a substantial threat of such a discharge. You must identify all State or Federal safety or pollution prevention requirements that apply to the prevention of oil spills from your facility, and demonstrate your compliance with these requirements. You also should include a description of industry safety and pollution prevention standards your facility meets. The Regional Supervisor may prescribe additional equipment or procedures for spill prevention if it is determined that your efforts to prevent spills do not reflect good industry practices." To put that simply, write us up something and, since our agency is filled with underpaid cubical zombies who want a job in your company, we might give it the once-over to make sure everything's cool, but probably not even that.
The closest thing to any statement that's in the ballpark of an actual regulation is "Nothing in this part relieves you from taking all appropriate actions necessary to immediately abate the source of a spill and remove any spills of oil." And it seems that BP has violated that repeatedly. Otherwise, we get nonsense like "You are responsible for any required testing of equipment performance and for the accuracy of the information submitted" when it comes to booms and anything else that might save the water and land.
Everything is what "you" must take care of, even in the that worst-case: "You must ensure that the response equipment, materials, support vessels, and strategies listed are suitable, within the limits of current technology, for the range of environmental conditions anticipated at your facility."
And if they weren't? Then what? That's the problem with relying on "you." "You" may figure the cost of any little fines are easier to deal with. "You" may be the unbelievable dickhead president of a company who says, after his company killed eleven people, has sickened who knows how many more, and ruined wetlands, "The US is a big and important market for BP, and BP is also a big and important company for the US, with its contribution to drilling and oil and gas production. So the position goes both ways." "We" might want to tell "you" to "Go fuck yourself."
"You" can no longer be trusted. But, then again, "you" have run the show for so long that "you" have made it impossible for "us" to extricate ourselves from "you." And to our eternal shame, for the decades of our government's idiotic disassembling of the regulatory mechanisms in the name of unhinged capitalism, through presidents of both parties, "we" have enabled "you."
On July 24, 2009, the Gulf of Mexico office of the Minerals Management Service celebrated the 20th anniversary of its Unannounced Oil Spill Drill Program. From what we now know about the MMS, it must have been a hell of a meth-infused porn party paid for by the oil industry. Here's how it goes: "The MMS designs the drill to exercise an oil and gas and pipeline operator’s Oil Spill Response Plan and evaluates its spill management team’s effectiveness in responding to a simulated spill event."
The article continues, "A drill may consist of a table top exercise or the actual deployment of specific response equipment such as oil spill response vessels and dispersant aircraft. Every drill tests an operator’s ability to notify the appropriate contacts including federal regulatory agencies, affected state and local agencies, internal response coordinators and response contractors, as well as an operator’s ability to make decisions, respond properly, and take appropriate action."
One must wonder, though, how "unannounced" these drills were. In fact, considering what we've learned about how deeply corrupt the poor office drones at the MMS were by the cash, jobs, hookers, and football tickets dangled in front of them, one must wonder if the MMS officials tasked with evaluating the results of the unannounced drills even wrote the reports (as they allowed industry officials to write up inspections). And while much of the unethical and illegal activity took place during 2000-2008 (funny, eh?), it takes a while to root out every wormy apple in the tree.
In addition to the unannounced drills, the MMS runs "announced 'Table Top' simulations of a large oil spill." All drills are evaluated according to the National Preparedness for Response Exercise Program. These are guidelines that were put into effect in August 2002. It's fascinating reading, in a total wonky way, in that embedded within this document and within the Code of Federal Regulations, are all the various ways that BP and other oil companies, in essence, police themselves and weasel their way out of all but the most minimal and eminently corruptible regulation. In other words, you wanna know why the Gulf Coast is going to hell today? Here's the gospel of that damnation.
For instance, except for the unannounced exercises, all other safety drills have "self-evaluation" and "self-certification." And, in what may as well be bowing down to BP et al, "Records [are] to be maintained at a corporate location." So, for instance, BP can conduct a certain safety test once every three years, using the equipment they allegedly have for the "worst-case discharge scenario" (make your own joke), write up the report themselves, pat themselves on the head no matter how it goes, and then file the report away in corporate HQ.
You wanna know just how toothless government regulations in the post-dereg area are? Here's 30 CFR 254.54: "In addition to your response plan, you must submit to the Regional Supervisor a description of the steps you are taking to prevent spills of oil or mitigate a substantial threat of such a discharge. You must identify all State or Federal safety or pollution prevention requirements that apply to the prevention of oil spills from your facility, and demonstrate your compliance with these requirements. You also should include a description of industry safety and pollution prevention standards your facility meets. The Regional Supervisor may prescribe additional equipment or procedures for spill prevention if it is determined that your efforts to prevent spills do not reflect good industry practices." To put that simply, write us up something and, since our agency is filled with underpaid cubical zombies who want a job in your company, we might give it the once-over to make sure everything's cool, but probably not even that.
The closest thing to any statement that's in the ballpark of an actual regulation is "Nothing in this part relieves you from taking all appropriate actions necessary to immediately abate the source of a spill and remove any spills of oil." And it seems that BP has violated that repeatedly. Otherwise, we get nonsense like "You are responsible for any required testing of equipment performance and for the accuracy of the information submitted" when it comes to booms and anything else that might save the water and land.
Everything is what "you" must take care of, even in the that worst-case: "You must ensure that the response equipment, materials, support vessels, and strategies listed are suitable, within the limits of current technology, for the range of environmental conditions anticipated at your facility."
And if they weren't? Then what? That's the problem with relying on "you." "You" may figure the cost of any little fines are easier to deal with. "You" may be the unbelievable dickhead president of a company who says, after his company killed eleven people, has sickened who knows how many more, and ruined wetlands, "The US is a big and important market for BP, and BP is also a big and important company for the US, with its contribution to drilling and oil and gas production. So the position goes both ways." "We" might want to tell "you" to "Go fuck yourself."
"You" can no longer be trusted. But, then again, "you" have run the show for so long that "you" have made it impossible for "us" to extricate ourselves from "you." And to our eternal shame, for the decades of our government's idiotic disassembling of the regulatory mechanisms in the name of unhinged capitalism, through presidents of both parties, "we" have enabled "you."
5/25/2010
The Rude Pundit on Monday's Stephanie Miller Show:
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit and Stephanie Miller disagreed sharply on the Obama administration's handling of the BP underwater clusterfuck. But since they were in the studio together, it only added more spark to the electrically-charged room.
For more oily fun, including rudeness during upcoming trips to the Bonnaroo Music Festival and Louisiana, subscribe to the Rude Pundit's podcast.
Note: Earlier today, the Rude Pundit misspelled BP CEO Tony Hayward's name. He hasn't corrected it yet because fuck Tony Hayward.
Yesterday, the Rude Pundit and Stephanie Miller disagreed sharply on the Obama administration's handling of the BP underwater clusterfuck. But since they were in the studio together, it only added more spark to the electrically-charged room.
For more oily fun, including rudeness during upcoming trips to the Bonnaroo Music Festival and Louisiana, subscribe to the Rude Pundit's podcast.
Note: Earlier today, the Rude Pundit misspelled BP CEO Tony Hayward's name. He hasn't corrected it yet because fuck Tony Hayward.
Nobody Puts BP in the Corner:
BP is BP, motherfuckers, and who the fuck are you? Some puny government? Man, BP has fucked up entire nations so it could drink their fucking milkshakes. British Motherfucking Petroleum. C'mon, who the fuck do you think you are? BP eats Amocos and Arcos, and it'll lay pipeline wherever the fuck it wants and make governments work for the privilege. BP says jump and the fuckin' earth will shake from all the people hopping in unison.
So, really, when BP CEO Tony Heyward says, as he did yesterday, that he was "devastated" by walking amidst the environmental wreckage caused by his company, or when managing director Robert Dudley says that "there's nobody -- nobody -- who is more devastated by what has happened" than BP, well, what can one say to such touching human emotion other than, "We hope you get raped by alligators while the pelicans cheer."
For, see, if BP was honestly devastated by the oil gushing out of the hole in the ocean floor in any way other than its bottom line, then why the fuck is it resisting or delaying anything asked of it? 'Cause, see, the situation would seem to call for maybe a bit of humble pie, maybe some deference to people who didn't fuck up the ocean, who didn't say, as the now-"devastated" Heyward did less than two weeks ago, that "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." (Someone give that man a gallon of water and tell him that it's got one drop of HIV-tainted blood in it. Ask him if he'll drink.) No, that man, that company, has earned the disgust, mistrust, and contempt of the public. That's why, at this point, Americans have turned on the company. We're so adorable when we get angry at a multinational megacorporation.
How do you think this plays out? That some fucking miracle happens? That BP pays every dollar to every fisherman, every shrimper, every marsh tour boat operator, every business that has to cut back or shutter because of lost tourist dollars? That Congress will pass any regulations that have gums, let alone teeth? That President Obama will put on his Aquaman Underoos and dive down a mile to personally shove a cork into it? Hey, if we're gonna fantasize, we may as well have fun with it.
Jesus, already, BP is resisting changing to a less toxic dispersant, despite the EPA "ordering" it to do so. Why? Because there simply isn't enough of the shit that only poisons the ocean and the people a little less, or so BP says. So of course the EPA backed down. BP is also taking its sweet time even agreeing that oil washing up in places where oil hadn't washed up before is its oil, thus delaying clean-up, thus allowing more oil to pile up. Why? Who the fuck knows and why the fuck is anyone listening to BP executives except to hear them say good-bye to their loved ones from a gallows?
Look, we know what happens: For BP, it's a holding pattern until the goddamn thing is plugged and a relief well is drilled a couple of months from now. BP's gonna stand there and take everything that everyone is gonna throw at it. It'll go to the meetings and listen to the fishermen talk about the destruction of their heritage. Its executives will sit at congressional hearings and soberly answer questions. Heyward will scrub a seagull. Then, once the oil stops, BP will unleash the lawyers to scorch the earth it hasn't befouled. It will seek to pay as absolutely little as possible. It will make settlement offers that are a fraction of the real damage and people will take that because time is passing and everyone needs to move on. It'll contribute thousands of dollars to members of Congress. Hell, now it can just run campaign ads itself: Lisa Murkowski, brought to you by BP. Environmentalists will attempt to continue to call attention to the unending effects of the damage, but no one will pay attention once the greasy birds die off. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will sit back down and demand nothing more. He will, in fact, talk about the future and making sure that offshore drilling continues for the good of the state's recovery.
Because they are fucking BP. And who the fuck are you?
BP is BP, motherfuckers, and who the fuck are you? Some puny government? Man, BP has fucked up entire nations so it could drink their fucking milkshakes. British Motherfucking Petroleum. C'mon, who the fuck do you think you are? BP eats Amocos and Arcos, and it'll lay pipeline wherever the fuck it wants and make governments work for the privilege. BP says jump and the fuckin' earth will shake from all the people hopping in unison.
So, really, when BP CEO Tony Heyward says, as he did yesterday, that he was "devastated" by walking amidst the environmental wreckage caused by his company, or when managing director Robert Dudley says that "there's nobody -- nobody -- who is more devastated by what has happened" than BP, well, what can one say to such touching human emotion other than, "We hope you get raped by alligators while the pelicans cheer."
For, see, if BP was honestly devastated by the oil gushing out of the hole in the ocean floor in any way other than its bottom line, then why the fuck is it resisting or delaying anything asked of it? 'Cause, see, the situation would seem to call for maybe a bit of humble pie, maybe some deference to people who didn't fuck up the ocean, who didn't say, as the now-"devastated" Heyward did less than two weeks ago, that "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume." (Someone give that man a gallon of water and tell him that it's got one drop of HIV-tainted blood in it. Ask him if he'll drink.) No, that man, that company, has earned the disgust, mistrust, and contempt of the public. That's why, at this point, Americans have turned on the company. We're so adorable when we get angry at a multinational megacorporation.
How do you think this plays out? That some fucking miracle happens? That BP pays every dollar to every fisherman, every shrimper, every marsh tour boat operator, every business that has to cut back or shutter because of lost tourist dollars? That Congress will pass any regulations that have gums, let alone teeth? That President Obama will put on his Aquaman Underoos and dive down a mile to personally shove a cork into it? Hey, if we're gonna fantasize, we may as well have fun with it.
Jesus, already, BP is resisting changing to a less toxic dispersant, despite the EPA "ordering" it to do so. Why? Because there simply isn't enough of the shit that only poisons the ocean and the people a little less, or so BP says. So of course the EPA backed down. BP is also taking its sweet time even agreeing that oil washing up in places where oil hadn't washed up before is its oil, thus delaying clean-up, thus allowing more oil to pile up. Why? Who the fuck knows and why the fuck is anyone listening to BP executives except to hear them say good-bye to their loved ones from a gallows?
Look, we know what happens: For BP, it's a holding pattern until the goddamn thing is plugged and a relief well is drilled a couple of months from now. BP's gonna stand there and take everything that everyone is gonna throw at it. It'll go to the meetings and listen to the fishermen talk about the destruction of their heritage. Its executives will sit at congressional hearings and soberly answer questions. Heyward will scrub a seagull. Then, once the oil stops, BP will unleash the lawyers to scorch the earth it hasn't befouled. It will seek to pay as absolutely little as possible. It will make settlement offers that are a fraction of the real damage and people will take that because time is passing and everyone needs to move on. It'll contribute thousands of dollars to members of Congress. Hell, now it can just run campaign ads itself: Lisa Murkowski, brought to you by BP. Environmentalists will attempt to continue to call attention to the unending effects of the damage, but no one will pay attention once the greasy birds die off. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal will sit back down and demand nothing more. He will, in fact, talk about the future and making sure that offshore drilling continues for the good of the state's recovery.
Because they are fucking BP. And who the fuck are you?
5/24/2010
Gulf Oil Spill: It Ain't Like This Never Happened Before:
This is fucked beyond fucked. And the history tells us it's gonna get more and more fucked before we can stop the fucking and, even then, it'll be ages before it's unfucked. Back in 1979, a Mexican oil well blew out under only 160 feet of water in the Bay of Campeche. The well was two miles deep. It was nine months and 138 million gallons before a relief well was completed. You won't be happy to learn that two months after the blowout, oil reached the Texas shore. You'll be less happy to learn that they (really) called their diversion dome a "sombrero" (instead of a, you know, "top hat"). And that they used dispersants. And that, even four months after the blowout, they didn't know exactly how much oil was flowing. Or that Mexican officials ignored some routine safety measures.
A New York Times editorial from April 12, 1980 wondered, "The enduring question is whether a devastating blowout could occur in our own offshore waters...The accident does suggest that blowout-prevention equipment is not designed to handle the worst emergencies." And it pondered, "Could a blowout in American waters be quickly capped and cleaned up?" before sadly concluding that "Most Americans would accept such blowouts to find oilfields are rich as Mexico's."
It's 2010, and the same questions persist. Thirty years and we've learned almost nothing. Yet everything old is new again.
This is fucked beyond fucked. And the history tells us it's gonna get more and more fucked before we can stop the fucking and, even then, it'll be ages before it's unfucked. Back in 1979, a Mexican oil well blew out under only 160 feet of water in the Bay of Campeche. The well was two miles deep. It was nine months and 138 million gallons before a relief well was completed. You won't be happy to learn that two months after the blowout, oil reached the Texas shore. You'll be less happy to learn that they (really) called their diversion dome a "sombrero" (instead of a, you know, "top hat"). And that they used dispersants. And that, even four months after the blowout, they didn't know exactly how much oil was flowing. Or that Mexican officials ignored some routine safety measures.
A New York Times editorial from April 12, 1980 wondered, "The enduring question is whether a devastating blowout could occur in our own offshore waters...The accident does suggest that blowout-prevention equipment is not designed to handle the worst emergencies." And it pondered, "Could a blowout in American waters be quickly capped and cleaned up?" before sadly concluding that "Most Americans would accept such blowouts to find oilfields are rich as Mexico's."
It's 2010, and the same questions persist. Thirty years and we've learned almost nothing. Yet everything old is new again.
5/21/2010
Oil Spills? Coal Mine Explosions? War Overseas? Nothing Compared to the Real Threat:
As BP's lies, greed, and incompetence destroy the Gulf Coast, as North Korea is gettin' all ship-sinky with South Korea, as we pass the thousand mark in soldier deaths in Afghanistan, let us never forget who the true villains are: gay people. Specifically, gay people who want to serve the nation in the military and also be open about what flavor they like to lick. Oh, and let's not forget the traitorous straights who want to enable the barracks love that, for now, dare not speak its queer name.
How does the Rude Pundit know? Because he got a letter from Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council (motto: "George Rekers? We don't know no stinkin' George Rekers") telling him so. In rhetorical flourishes that'd make RuPaul wince at how flamingly over the top they are, Perkins writes (really), "I fervently believe the glorious Star-Spangled Banner should wave over our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, and Coast Guard heros. President Obama wants to raise the rainbow flag of the homosexual rights movement over them." What do you say to that other than "Goddamnit, Tony, do you have to be such a drama queen about everything?" (By the way, that's Perkins' misspelling of "heroes." Maybe "e" is too gay-looking.)
And the answer would be, "Yes, Tony Perkins does have to be such a drama queen because Christ died bleeding on the cross to make sure that gays can't get on the mess line with seamen or that lesbians can't dive in the trenches with straight women." Perkins' letter continues with the nightmare scenario that would follow the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell: "Soldiers will be forced to live in close quarters with people who view them as sexual objects. Morale will plunge, discipline will suffer, and unit cohesion -- the glue that holds the military together -- will fall apart and dramatically weaken our national defense capability." Yes, we wouldn't want them to be less sticky.
How does Perkins know this? Well, he's talked to "military leaders." And "I served in the U.S. Marine Corps. I know what it's like to live in an open barracks, dress, and shower in front of 70 other men. I know what happens when straight soldiers demand that you hand job the fattest member of the platoon while everyone else jacks off on you until you're covered in jarhead spunk." (One of those sentence is made up. The rest is all Perkins.)
After begging for money to fight the gay menace (or, as Perkins puts it, "the homosexual lobby," which is probably mauve carpeted and lined with gold lame'), the FRC president gives us a Bible passage to move us to action. That'd be Ephesians 6:13, which reads, "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand."
Of course, a few verses earlier, Ephesians 6:5 advises, "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ." But, as with trying to figure out what really matters in this world, you always have to ignore the things that make your side look bad.
5/20/2010
Why Is BP Still in Charge in the Gulf?:
So the little ramshackle bayou town of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana has canceled its annual Seafood Festival because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. You might think they're overreacting, since the festival's not until July 30. Except that Lafitte's less than a 100 miles from this:
That's dark, thick oil in the marshes near Pass-a-Loutre in Plaquemines Parish, which is about 20 miles further north from where the initial reports of oil making landfall about a week ago. That small area of the marsh will be dead in another week, so you can't really fault the town of Jean Lafitte for thinking that, by the end of July, Bayou Barataria will become a viscous, awful dead zone. Damn, the Rude Pundit remembers that being a good festival when he was a kid. Of course, the 2100 people who live in Jean Lafitte will probably miss the tourist dollars a great deal more. You think BP is gonna pay for the loss of income?
The Rude Pundit can't get his mind around the fact that the well is still pouring out oil a month later. He can't grasp how BP executives haven't been arrested for, at the minimum, criminal negligence, if not manslaughter, and the well blown up and sealed. He can't understand why BP is even involved in any decision-making here, why any notion of protecting profits and shareholders has had any effect on the solution, why the Obama administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, fucking NOAA hasn't told BP to go fuck itself, that the well's not theirs anymore. And then order the Coast Guard to shoot on sight anyone from BP who gets near it.
BP has wasted so much time on efforts to save the oil and its investment in the well that it is just now getting around to attempting to seal the well. It's pretty simple. Fuck BP. Fucking blow it up. Fucking collapse the earth around it. And be fucking done with the spill and get to the clean up.
Why the desperate sound? Because everything we have been told by anyone in supposed authority on this crisis has been proven wrong, and the spill has turned out to be far worse than BP or the Obama administration has been admitting. BP CEO Tony Heyward, who should be set adrift on a flaming raft in the middle of the spill, had assured Louisiana officials that the dark crude wouldn't hit the marshes, that it would be chemically dispersed. That was wrong. The chemical dispersants were supposed to help, but they've turned out to be too toxic to the environment and, by extension, to people. What's next? The methane released in the ocean accelerating global warming? The oil becoming a sentient blob that eats boats?
Meanwhile, the coral reefs are fucked. The deep water is fucked. The fishing industry has already had a fifth of its area closed. Governor Bobby Jindal is trying to get the Corps to approve a plan to dredge near the marshes and create barrier islands to protect the wetlands. It's a plan from the Dutch. Why not? They actually seem competent when it comes to dealing with protecting their wetlands and their nation.
So the little ramshackle bayou town of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana has canceled its annual Seafood Festival because of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. You might think they're overreacting, since the festival's not until July 30. Except that Lafitte's less than a 100 miles from this:
That's dark, thick oil in the marshes near Pass-a-Loutre in Plaquemines Parish, which is about 20 miles further north from where the initial reports of oil making landfall about a week ago. That small area of the marsh will be dead in another week, so you can't really fault the town of Jean Lafitte for thinking that, by the end of July, Bayou Barataria will become a viscous, awful dead zone. Damn, the Rude Pundit remembers that being a good festival when he was a kid. Of course, the 2100 people who live in Jean Lafitte will probably miss the tourist dollars a great deal more. You think BP is gonna pay for the loss of income?
The Rude Pundit can't get his mind around the fact that the well is still pouring out oil a month later. He can't grasp how BP executives haven't been arrested for, at the minimum, criminal negligence, if not manslaughter, and the well blown up and sealed. He can't understand why BP is even involved in any decision-making here, why any notion of protecting profits and shareholders has had any effect on the solution, why the Obama administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, fucking NOAA hasn't told BP to go fuck itself, that the well's not theirs anymore. And then order the Coast Guard to shoot on sight anyone from BP who gets near it.
BP has wasted so much time on efforts to save the oil and its investment in the well that it is just now getting around to attempting to seal the well. It's pretty simple. Fuck BP. Fucking blow it up. Fucking collapse the earth around it. And be fucking done with the spill and get to the clean up.
Why the desperate sound? Because everything we have been told by anyone in supposed authority on this crisis has been proven wrong, and the spill has turned out to be far worse than BP or the Obama administration has been admitting. BP CEO Tony Heyward, who should be set adrift on a flaming raft in the middle of the spill, had assured Louisiana officials that the dark crude wouldn't hit the marshes, that it would be chemically dispersed. That was wrong. The chemical dispersants were supposed to help, but they've turned out to be too toxic to the environment and, by extension, to people. What's next? The methane released in the ocean accelerating global warming? The oil becoming a sentient blob that eats boats?
Meanwhile, the coral reefs are fucked. The deep water is fucked. The fishing industry has already had a fifth of its area closed. Governor Bobby Jindal is trying to get the Corps to approve a plan to dredge near the marshes and create barrier islands to protect the wetlands. It's a plan from the Dutch. Why not? They actually seem competent when it comes to dealing with protecting their wetlands and their nation.
5/19/2010
Random Observations on Yesterday's Vaguely Meaningful Voting Activities in Pennsylvania:
1. Who gives a shit about Rand Paul? He's pretty much the acme of Tea Party candidates, a legacy name with a handsome face who knows all the words to the songs. And, while only 37% of Kentucky's 2.8 million registered voters are Republican, which means there's roughly a million of 'em, the supposed gleeful excitement and genital-throbbing thrill of the Rand Paul candidacy garnered about 206,000 votes. That's 20% of Republican voters in Kentucky. 57% of the state's registered voters are Democratic. The top two Democrats in the primary got more votes than the alleged Randmania express. So, basically, go teabag yourselves, Paulturbators.
2. However, the Republican Party is now owned by the Tea Party so, hey, enjoy the smell of Sarah Palin's ass. The base has been stolen by the wackanoids, and Mitch McConnell's enormous philtrum must be quivering and sweat-covered about now. The old guard GOP has a choice: double-down on Jim DeMint-like crazy or try to crawl its way back to relevance. The latter takes guts. So you know which way things are about to go in the Congress until November. Bring out the tranq guns, 'cause it's gonna be a long summer.
3. By the way, Rand Paul is kind of an idiotic dickhead. His acceptance speech was a mishmash of Tea Party greatest hits, an incoherent ramble that made no sense in the context it was given. Oh, sure, the usual "We have come to take our government back" nonsense was par for the course. But this part was ten kinds of nuts:
"We now have a president, though, who apologizes for America's greatness. We have a president who went to Copenhagen and appeared with Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez and others, Evo Morales to apologize for the industrial revolution. They say, these dictators, these petty dictators say that to stop climate change, it's about ending capitalism. They are explicit. And the president by attending Copenhagen gives credibility and credence to these folks, and he should not go. America is a great country." Mugabe? Copenhagen? What the fuck? Dude, that must have been some awesome coke you did backstage.
4. Other than Arlen Specter, is anyone even vaguely upset that Arlen Specter lost? Fuck, the President pretty much shivved him at the end there, when Specter was begging Obama to come in and hold a rally. Obama had promised Specter all the help in the world in exchange for the party switch, but when the end was nigh, Obama told him to shove a magic bullet up his Bush-loving ass. The lesson here? When Barack Obama is done with you, he's fucking done. Pick up your shit and get the fuck out. Besides, Joe Sestak appears to actually have...wait, what's the word?...oh, yeah, principles. Funny things, those.
5. Why aren't we talking more about Democrat Mark Critz's victory for Rep. Jack Murtha's old seat? Before the election, when it seemed like the GOP had a shot, we heard things like "This race will tell us a lot about how the midterms are going to turn out in November" (from Tucker Carlson on Fox "news" on April 26) or "The special election coming up in a couple months, and that will tell you a lot" (from Rick Santorum on Fox "news" on March 22). Is it because Critz is a conservative Democrat and therefore doesn't count as a bellwether? Or was it only significant if a Republican won? Because, see, Tim Burns was a Tea Party-supported candidate, but he lost a general election. Sorry if that doesn't fit the narrative, but, as mentioned before, go teabag yourselves, media.
1. Who gives a shit about Rand Paul? He's pretty much the acme of Tea Party candidates, a legacy name with a handsome face who knows all the words to the songs. And, while only 37% of Kentucky's 2.8 million registered voters are Republican, which means there's roughly a million of 'em, the supposed gleeful excitement and genital-throbbing thrill of the Rand Paul candidacy garnered about 206,000 votes. That's 20% of Republican voters in Kentucky. 57% of the state's registered voters are Democratic. The top two Democrats in the primary got more votes than the alleged Randmania express. So, basically, go teabag yourselves, Paulturbators.
2. However, the Republican Party is now owned by the Tea Party so, hey, enjoy the smell of Sarah Palin's ass. The base has been stolen by the wackanoids, and Mitch McConnell's enormous philtrum must be quivering and sweat-covered about now. The old guard GOP has a choice: double-down on Jim DeMint-like crazy or try to crawl its way back to relevance. The latter takes guts. So you know which way things are about to go in the Congress until November. Bring out the tranq guns, 'cause it's gonna be a long summer.
3. By the way, Rand Paul is kind of an idiotic dickhead. His acceptance speech was a mishmash of Tea Party greatest hits, an incoherent ramble that made no sense in the context it was given. Oh, sure, the usual "We have come to take our government back" nonsense was par for the course. But this part was ten kinds of nuts:
"We now have a president, though, who apologizes for America's greatness. We have a president who went to Copenhagen and appeared with Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez and others, Evo Morales to apologize for the industrial revolution. They say, these dictators, these petty dictators say that to stop climate change, it's about ending capitalism. They are explicit. And the president by attending Copenhagen gives credibility and credence to these folks, and he should not go. America is a great country." Mugabe? Copenhagen? What the fuck? Dude, that must have been some awesome coke you did backstage.
4. Other than Arlen Specter, is anyone even vaguely upset that Arlen Specter lost? Fuck, the President pretty much shivved him at the end there, when Specter was begging Obama to come in and hold a rally. Obama had promised Specter all the help in the world in exchange for the party switch, but when the end was nigh, Obama told him to shove a magic bullet up his Bush-loving ass. The lesson here? When Barack Obama is done with you, he's fucking done. Pick up your shit and get the fuck out. Besides, Joe Sestak appears to actually have...wait, what's the word?...oh, yeah, principles. Funny things, those.
5. Why aren't we talking more about Democrat Mark Critz's victory for Rep. Jack Murtha's old seat? Before the election, when it seemed like the GOP had a shot, we heard things like "This race will tell us a lot about how the midterms are going to turn out in November" (from Tucker Carlson on Fox "news" on April 26) or "The special election coming up in a couple months, and that will tell you a lot" (from Rick Santorum on Fox "news" on March 22). Is it because Critz is a conservative Democrat and therefore doesn't count as a bellwether? Or was it only significant if a Republican won? Because, see, Tim Burns was a Tea Party-supported candidate, but he lost a general election. Sorry if that doesn't fit the narrative, but, as mentioned before, go teabag yourselves, media.
5/18/2010
The Rude Pundit on Monday's Stephanie Miller Show:
This week, the Rude Pundit and Stephanie Miller talked about oxygen-sucking microbes and Sarah Palin, although, really, that's just one subject. Also, Stephanie demonstrates how she's a prophet.
The free Rude Pundit podcast is a way to keep the rudeness next to your sweaty groin when you're exercising. Ah, taint-drops...
This week, the Rude Pundit and Stephanie Miller talked about oxygen-sucking microbes and Sarah Palin, although, really, that's just one subject. Also, Stephanie demonstrates how she's a prophet.
The free Rude Pundit podcast is a way to keep the rudeness next to your sweaty groin when you're exercising. Ah, taint-drops...
Notes Regarding the Feasibility of a Minor Revolution, Part 3: The Stagnant Soul Must Learn to Rise Again:
Goddamn, this fight gets weary, no? Year after year, through flush times and failed times, we on the left have said that if you fail to take care of the shit that matters to people on a daily basis, there is going to be a disaster. Oh, sure, we've been predicting the mass destruction of our environment through greed and fossil fuel dependency. We knew that the end result of deregulation would be disaster wherever it touched, starting with the airlines, ending with the banking industry. We knew, we goddamn knew that ignoring the infrastructure of the nation, the needs of the working class, the exploitation of the poor, the dismantling of even the smallest of safety nets would result in economic disparity that moved from unfair to savagely cruel. We have stood here and screamed and yelled and tried, but we also knew that unless money was taken out of the political process, our voices would barely register, like a feather tossed in a metal bucket. And you know that this list of sighs is barely scratching the surface.
But there's one thing we didn't see coming: that people would just become so fucking apathetic, to the point where, almost always, they are contemptuous of those who offer genuinely transformative ideas, not the fake revolution offered by the Tea Party, our mutant model of protest now. Sorry, but if your goal is to offer aid and comfort to the rich and powerful, you're not protesting jack shit; you're merely signing your own death warrant. The purpose of the Tea Party movement is individualism gone mad, which means "If you fuck off and leave us alone, government, with our god, our guns, our high fructose corn syrup, our Facebook, our shitty jobs and wages, you can go about your business." The Tea Party's "success" is just a clever exploitation of our American nihilism, a march into oblivion, or wheeled into it unawares as we gaze at our Blackberrys assuring us that every little fart of a thought is important. The election of Barack Obama is beginning to seem less like an urgent call to change than the huffing effort of a fat guy forced to call 911 because his kitchen's ablaze because of an exploded microwave burrito. "Oh, the fire's out? Can I get that burnt burrito? Because The Biggest Loser's about to come on."
Progress is unbelievably frightening. But progress is all there is. You don't move backwards in this life. That's what the right wing wants now. The entire "I Want My Country Back" meme is such a lie because that crazy woman with that sign never had her country. And it ain't going back because what she wants to go back to never existed. That unstoppable urge forward is meeting this fear of the future, and the result is a stalling out, where progress inches, rather than leaps, ahead. It's caused our politicians to become stymied, with few actual leaders out there, with baby steps, like the financial reform bill, actually seeming like man-on-the-moon moments. We have lowered the bar on progress.
But everything has potential energy. Every stone, every fat fuck in an easy chair. The question that the Rude Pundit's been trying to get to is how to tilt the landscape so that gravity inevitably creates kinetic energy. In the last two parts of this series, the Rude Pundit has said that we need bogeymen, that we need to get our rage on over something, and that the current evident excesses of unfettered capitalism has given us the potential opening.
There's an awesome article by Michael Lind at Salon today; in it, Lind breaks down the history of American capitalism into five different versions, leading to a point now, where, he says, it's time for a new version, American capitalism 6.0. What Lind leaves out is that each of his time periods ends with a great upheaval in the nation that forces social changes. For instance, version 1.0 ends with the Civil War. Sometimes, the result is a more responsible capitalist model, as with version 4.0, which came after the Great Depression, and, according to Lind, was, for all intents and purposes, a time of responsible capitalism. Then, post-1960s and 1970s rights movements and the Vietnam War, the increasing drive towards globalization saw an abandonment of regulation, starting with President Carter, and a greed virus released on the financial markets that has led us to our current endtimes. Lind concludes, "Capitalism 6.0 will be just as American as its predecessors, but it will be better than what we have today. It could not possibly be worse."
Whatever it is, it needs to begin with a way to open the blocked arteries of the masses.
Christ, there's a lot of balls in the air here. Let's see if the Rude Pundit can bring it all home in the fourth and final part of this series.
Goddamn, this fight gets weary, no? Year after year, through flush times and failed times, we on the left have said that if you fail to take care of the shit that matters to people on a daily basis, there is going to be a disaster. Oh, sure, we've been predicting the mass destruction of our environment through greed and fossil fuel dependency. We knew that the end result of deregulation would be disaster wherever it touched, starting with the airlines, ending with the banking industry. We knew, we goddamn knew that ignoring the infrastructure of the nation, the needs of the working class, the exploitation of the poor, the dismantling of even the smallest of safety nets would result in economic disparity that moved from unfair to savagely cruel. We have stood here and screamed and yelled and tried, but we also knew that unless money was taken out of the political process, our voices would barely register, like a feather tossed in a metal bucket. And you know that this list of sighs is barely scratching the surface.
But there's one thing we didn't see coming: that people would just become so fucking apathetic, to the point where, almost always, they are contemptuous of those who offer genuinely transformative ideas, not the fake revolution offered by the Tea Party, our mutant model of protest now. Sorry, but if your goal is to offer aid and comfort to the rich and powerful, you're not protesting jack shit; you're merely signing your own death warrant. The purpose of the Tea Party movement is individualism gone mad, which means "If you fuck off and leave us alone, government, with our god, our guns, our high fructose corn syrup, our Facebook, our shitty jobs and wages, you can go about your business." The Tea Party's "success" is just a clever exploitation of our American nihilism, a march into oblivion, or wheeled into it unawares as we gaze at our Blackberrys assuring us that every little fart of a thought is important. The election of Barack Obama is beginning to seem less like an urgent call to change than the huffing effort of a fat guy forced to call 911 because his kitchen's ablaze because of an exploded microwave burrito. "Oh, the fire's out? Can I get that burnt burrito? Because The Biggest Loser's about to come on."
Progress is unbelievably frightening. But progress is all there is. You don't move backwards in this life. That's what the right wing wants now. The entire "I Want My Country Back" meme is such a lie because that crazy woman with that sign never had her country. And it ain't going back because what she wants to go back to never existed. That unstoppable urge forward is meeting this fear of the future, and the result is a stalling out, where progress inches, rather than leaps, ahead. It's caused our politicians to become stymied, with few actual leaders out there, with baby steps, like the financial reform bill, actually seeming like man-on-the-moon moments. We have lowered the bar on progress.
But everything has potential energy. Every stone, every fat fuck in an easy chair. The question that the Rude Pundit's been trying to get to is how to tilt the landscape so that gravity inevitably creates kinetic energy. In the last two parts of this series, the Rude Pundit has said that we need bogeymen, that we need to get our rage on over something, and that the current evident excesses of unfettered capitalism has given us the potential opening.
There's an awesome article by Michael Lind at Salon today; in it, Lind breaks down the history of American capitalism into five different versions, leading to a point now, where, he says, it's time for a new version, American capitalism 6.0. What Lind leaves out is that each of his time periods ends with a great upheaval in the nation that forces social changes. For instance, version 1.0 ends with the Civil War. Sometimes, the result is a more responsible capitalist model, as with version 4.0, which came after the Great Depression, and, according to Lind, was, for all intents and purposes, a time of responsible capitalism. Then, post-1960s and 1970s rights movements and the Vietnam War, the increasing drive towards globalization saw an abandonment of regulation, starting with President Carter, and a greed virus released on the financial markets that has led us to our current endtimes. Lind concludes, "Capitalism 6.0 will be just as American as its predecessors, but it will be better than what we have today. It could not possibly be worse."
Whatever it is, it needs to begin with a way to open the blocked arteries of the masses.
Christ, there's a lot of balls in the air here. Let's see if the Rude Pundit can bring it all home in the fourth and final part of this series.
5/17/2010
SEIU on the Attack: Bring It, Teabaggers:
If the teabaggers were smart and not enthralled by Sarah Palin's sneering vagina, they would be joining with members of the Service Employees International Union in marching on banks and lobbyists yesterday and today. Of course, asking them to be smart is like asking buzzards to stop eating carrion: why bother with live prey when the dead kind is so much easier?
Up there is a picture from what ought to be a teabagger's wet dream: hundreds of people on the lawns and at the door of JP Morgan Chase's Peter Scher, who is Global Government Relations and Public Policy for the mega-mighty bank. And a lobbyist. The marchers wanted to pierce the protective shell inside which the banks' lobbyists exist, to deliver messages and be heard by people outside the Capital echo chamber. In other words, they were a bunched of pissed-off workers brought in to fuck shit up. Where's your Adam Smith now, motherfucker?
By the way, Scher (who was protested along with Bank Of America's Gregory Baer) has previously worked for the Clinton administration and Democratic bank whore Max Baucus. He's a Democrat. This shit crosses party lines.
Of course, Glenn Beck has gone the full bugfuck insane on the SEIU, calling them "Marxists" bent on the destruction of our capitalist way of life. Right wing blogs are busy smearing anyone even vaguely connected with the protests, including Heather Booth, who David Horowitz's outfit calls "an Alinskyite" (as in Saul, ya know) who "has also been described as a 'guiding force' for ACORN and was an avowed supporter of Bill Ayers’s Weather Underground terrorist group," as if these are bad things.
Truly, if there's a universal opponent, it is those portrayed in that grotesque image there from today's protests. But Beck and Palin and every Tea Party abetting politician and media freak have convinced their followers that the enemies are those trying to rein in an unhinged, greedy beast. They think they can puff the cigars when, really, they're lucky to inhale the smoke. The entire Tea Party movement is about being hyper-selfish, based in Ayn Rand-porn, a perverse take on individualism that elevates one over the many, as if giving a good goddamn about the community and nation is merely a Stalinist plot.
Never fear, dear droolingly stupid teabaggers. Some keep fighting for the good of the many over the few, however hopeless a pursuit that may be.
If the teabaggers were smart and not enthralled by Sarah Palin's sneering vagina, they would be joining with members of the Service Employees International Union in marching on banks and lobbyists yesterday and today. Of course, asking them to be smart is like asking buzzards to stop eating carrion: why bother with live prey when the dead kind is so much easier?
Up there is a picture from what ought to be a teabagger's wet dream: hundreds of people on the lawns and at the door of JP Morgan Chase's Peter Scher, who is Global Government Relations and Public Policy for the mega-mighty bank. And a lobbyist. The marchers wanted to pierce the protective shell inside which the banks' lobbyists exist, to deliver messages and be heard by people outside the Capital echo chamber. In other words, they were a bunched of pissed-off workers brought in to fuck shit up. Where's your Adam Smith now, motherfucker?
By the way, Scher (who was protested along with Bank Of America's Gregory Baer) has previously worked for the Clinton administration and Democratic bank whore Max Baucus. He's a Democrat. This shit crosses party lines.
Of course, Glenn Beck has gone the full bugfuck insane on the SEIU, calling them "Marxists" bent on the destruction of our capitalist way of life. Right wing blogs are busy smearing anyone even vaguely connected with the protests, including Heather Booth, who David Horowitz's outfit calls "an Alinskyite" (as in Saul, ya know) who "has also been described as a 'guiding force' for ACORN and was an avowed supporter of Bill Ayers’s Weather Underground terrorist group," as if these are bad things.
Truly, if there's a universal opponent, it is those portrayed in that grotesque image there from today's protests. But Beck and Palin and every Tea Party abetting politician and media freak have convinced their followers that the enemies are those trying to rein in an unhinged, greedy beast. They think they can puff the cigars when, really, they're lucky to inhale the smoke. The entire Tea Party movement is about being hyper-selfish, based in Ayn Rand-porn, a perverse take on individualism that elevates one over the many, as if giving a good goddamn about the community and nation is merely a Stalinist plot.
Never fear, dear droolingly stupid teabaggers. Some keep fighting for the good of the many over the few, however hopeless a pursuit that may be.
5/14/2010
The Gulf Oil Spill: There's Only One Hero We Need:
Of course, you realize this all ends with Godzilla rampaging through New Orleans. Or maybe DC.
Godzilla wouldn't sit still for this nonsense. Atomic fire-breathed motherfucker would have been awakened by the rig exploding, seen all the oil pouring into the ocean, and lost his shit.
Sarah Palin could try to explain to Godzilla that more offshore drilling is needed in order to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Godzilla would have dropped a motherfucking bus on her before she got to "baby."
Oh, Godzilla, where are you when we need you? You could chow down on Rush Limbaugh and BP CEO Tony Hayward. You could head over to the Capital and fry Lisa Murkowski for blocking a bill to raise the cap on oil company liabilities. You could just wreck the offices of the Minerals Management Service, the federal office that somehow was allowed to function without managing minerals, which, one would think, would be first on their list of services they're supposed to provide. Go ahead, Godzilla. The scientists and researchers they consult would cheer you on, since their warnings were ignored or changed by whoremongering industry suck-ups working there.
And then, once you've fucked up the lives of every worthless stooge involved, Godzilla, once you've destroyed BP refineries and made a real dent in their bottom line, then you can return to the ocean, swim down to the bottom, and wrestle with that gushing pipe. Fuck, it's no more of a fantasy than any other method that's being tried to stop it.
Beware: Godzilla does not like it when you shit in his bed.
Of course, you realize this all ends with Godzilla rampaging through New Orleans. Or maybe DC.
Godzilla wouldn't sit still for this nonsense. Atomic fire-breathed motherfucker would have been awakened by the rig exploding, seen all the oil pouring into the ocean, and lost his shit.
Sarah Palin could try to explain to Godzilla that more offshore drilling is needed in order to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. Godzilla would have dropped a motherfucking bus on her before she got to "baby."
Oh, Godzilla, where are you when we need you? You could chow down on Rush Limbaugh and BP CEO Tony Hayward. You could head over to the Capital and fry Lisa Murkowski for blocking a bill to raise the cap on oil company liabilities. You could just wreck the offices of the Minerals Management Service, the federal office that somehow was allowed to function without managing minerals, which, one would think, would be first on their list of services they're supposed to provide. Go ahead, Godzilla. The scientists and researchers they consult would cheer you on, since their warnings were ignored or changed by whoremongering industry suck-ups working there.
And then, once you've fucked up the lives of every worthless stooge involved, Godzilla, once you've destroyed BP refineries and made a real dent in their bottom line, then you can return to the ocean, swim down to the bottom, and wrestle with that gushing pipe. Fuck, it's no more of a fantasy than any other method that's being tried to stop it.
Beware: Godzilla does not like it when you shit in his bed.
5/13/2010
The Gulf Oil Spill: Government Oversight Is for Pussies:
Those workers there are at the southeast tip of Louisiana. They're skimming oil and picking up tar balls from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig gusher that continues to pour sweet crude into the Gulf of Mexico after over 4 weeks. It could be a photo of dead fish, of oil coated birds, or of filthy oyster shells. It could be a video of the vomiting pipeline itself. Or of the sea being set on fire. By tonight, with the westerly direction of the current, it will probably be close to the Rude Pundit's old haunts in South Louisiana.
Everything you need to know to understand just how ridiculous our American approach to the interaction between government and industry has become is contained in this exchange: It's from the Coast Guard's hearing on the oil spill that was held on Tuesday. The USCG's Captain Hung Nguyen asked about the blowout preventer that was supposed to, you know, prevent the blowout, "It's my understanding that it's designed to industry standard and it's manufactured by the industry, installed by the industry, with no government witnessing or oversight of the construction or installation. Is that correct?"
To which Michael Saucier of the disgraced Minerals Management Service responded, "That is correct."
You got that? The very thing that's supposed to prevent, say, a massive, environment-despoiling, economy-wrecking incident was not subject to any government oversight. If you think that's okay, then you better be on the payroll of BP or else you're just a fucking fool, the kind of person who really ought to have their citizenship taken away and be sent to live on an island run by investment bankers, lobbyists, and free market whores. Oh, wait. That'd be America.
Saucier explained to Nguyen that his agency doesn't certify blowout preventers, but it will send out letters, "notices to lessees," if MMS has some problem it would like a driller to address. The driller usually responds with "Yeah, hey, and while you're down there, don't neglect the balls."
You could tell that Nguyen was thinking, "Are you fucking kidding?" when he said, "We have self-certification of critical equipment and safety notices that are not enforceable." And Nguyen's soul crumbled a bit more when Saucier informed him that any standards for safety and training with blowout preventers are created and certified by the industry, with no government oversight at all. Said the good Captain, "So, there's no licensing requirements for critical positions for drilling operations. The operator self-certifies, establishes what they think is adequate and then qualifies its own people to do the job."
You know, the politicians who would let an oil company do what it wants with the safety of its workers are very often the same ones who would tell a woman what to do with her body. Just a thought.
Meanwhile, the oil creeps closer. Meanwhile, we learn more about just how awful and unscrupulous and just goddamn evil the companies involved are, as if that's some sort of surprise. Hey, maybe all those clean-up jobs will spur the economic recovery.
Those workers there are at the southeast tip of Louisiana. They're skimming oil and picking up tar balls from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig gusher that continues to pour sweet crude into the Gulf of Mexico after over 4 weeks. It could be a photo of dead fish, of oil coated birds, or of filthy oyster shells. It could be a video of the vomiting pipeline itself. Or of the sea being set on fire. By tonight, with the westerly direction of the current, it will probably be close to the Rude Pundit's old haunts in South Louisiana.
Everything you need to know to understand just how ridiculous our American approach to the interaction between government and industry has become is contained in this exchange: It's from the Coast Guard's hearing on the oil spill that was held on Tuesday. The USCG's Captain Hung Nguyen asked about the blowout preventer that was supposed to, you know, prevent the blowout, "It's my understanding that it's designed to industry standard and it's manufactured by the industry, installed by the industry, with no government witnessing or oversight of the construction or installation. Is that correct?"
To which Michael Saucier of the disgraced Minerals Management Service responded, "That is correct."
You got that? The very thing that's supposed to prevent, say, a massive, environment-despoiling, economy-wrecking incident was not subject to any government oversight. If you think that's okay, then you better be on the payroll of BP or else you're just a fucking fool, the kind of person who really ought to have their citizenship taken away and be sent to live on an island run by investment bankers, lobbyists, and free market whores. Oh, wait. That'd be America.
Saucier explained to Nguyen that his agency doesn't certify blowout preventers, but it will send out letters, "notices to lessees," if MMS has some problem it would like a driller to address. The driller usually responds with "Yeah, hey, and while you're down there, don't neglect the balls."
You could tell that Nguyen was thinking, "Are you fucking kidding?" when he said, "We have self-certification of critical equipment and safety notices that are not enforceable." And Nguyen's soul crumbled a bit more when Saucier informed him that any standards for safety and training with blowout preventers are created and certified by the industry, with no government oversight at all. Said the good Captain, "So, there's no licensing requirements for critical positions for drilling operations. The operator self-certifies, establishes what they think is adequate and then qualifies its own people to do the job."
You know, the politicians who would let an oil company do what it wants with the safety of its workers are very often the same ones who would tell a woman what to do with her body. Just a thought.
Meanwhile, the oil creeps closer. Meanwhile, we learn more about just how awful and unscrupulous and just goddamn evil the companies involved are, as if that's some sort of surprise. Hey, maybe all those clean-up jobs will spur the economic recovery.
5/12/2010
Yeah, Your State Sucks, Too, But Not As Much As Arizona, Oklahoma, or Louisiana Today:
1. So let's say, and why not, that you fucking hate the family in the house next door. You don't like the smell of the food they cook, the way they play their music too loud, their bratty kids, the way they mow their lawn. Sure, when you can, if a party gets boisterous, you call the cops, but ultimately that's treating a symptom, not the problem. Finally, you reach that breaking point, when you can actually hear the electric crackle of synapses firing off in your deranged brain. After a good dousing with gasoline, you set the house on fire. And you stand outside with a shotgun and shoot each family member as they come running out, but you keep one alive, just one, say, the oldest son. You shoot him in the leg to make sure he can't run away. You make him witness while you burn the house to the ground. And then, just as the cinders are cooling, you tell him, "Watch this," and you walk into the center of the ruins and piss on the ashes.
It's essentially what Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislature have done with their string of anti-immigrant bills. And the one she signed yesterday? It was a steamy piss on the wreckage she has already created. Yep, now Arizona has an unnecessary fuck-you of a law that says schools can't teach any ethnic studies classes "that promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people."
So, if, say, you're teaching a Native American history class in a Tucson high school, you better say that God killed all those Indians, not white people.
2. Oh, just, fuck you, Oklahoma.
3. As viscous doom from underneath the sea floor begins to engulf the coast of Louisiana, the results of the rank avarice of the various multimultimultibillion dollar corporations involved, the state legislature is really and truly considering a bill right now that would prevent the law clinic of any university that receives state funds from filing "a petition, motion, or suit against any individual, business, or governmental agency seeking monetary damages." The bill is targeting environmental law clinics and some of the potential lawsuits from the Gulf of Mexico oil geyser, as well as challenges to permits for new oil platforms (among other polluting industries).
A month ago, pre-rig-conflagration, cocksucker of the first order and Louisiana Chemical Association President Dan Borné said of the clinics, "We’re going to tell legislators all over the state, if they want to play hardball by trying to kneecap industry in Baton Rouge, then we should play hardball and kneecap them with their state appropriations." Apparently, some legislators in the state know who they should listen to, even now, after the ruin being caused to the livelihoods of the very people who might need a law clinic assisting them with recovering damages.
By the way, this bill was originally a reaction to the Tulane law clinic's successful lawsuit that prevented a plastics plant from being built in a town filled with poor people. Convent is already part of Cancer Alley in the state. So, really, if you think about this from a polluters' point of view, those people had it coming.
1. So let's say, and why not, that you fucking hate the family in the house next door. You don't like the smell of the food they cook, the way they play their music too loud, their bratty kids, the way they mow their lawn. Sure, when you can, if a party gets boisterous, you call the cops, but ultimately that's treating a symptom, not the problem. Finally, you reach that breaking point, when you can actually hear the electric crackle of synapses firing off in your deranged brain. After a good dousing with gasoline, you set the house on fire. And you stand outside with a shotgun and shoot each family member as they come running out, but you keep one alive, just one, say, the oldest son. You shoot him in the leg to make sure he can't run away. You make him witness while you burn the house to the ground. And then, just as the cinders are cooling, you tell him, "Watch this," and you walk into the center of the ruins and piss on the ashes.
It's essentially what Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislature have done with their string of anti-immigrant bills. And the one she signed yesterday? It was a steamy piss on the wreckage she has already created. Yep, now Arizona has an unnecessary fuck-you of a law that says schools can't teach any ethnic studies classes "that promote the overthrow of the United States government or promote resentment toward a race or class of people."
So, if, say, you're teaching a Native American history class in a Tucson high school, you better say that God killed all those Indians, not white people.
2. Oh, just, fuck you, Oklahoma.
3. As viscous doom from underneath the sea floor begins to engulf the coast of Louisiana, the results of the rank avarice of the various multimultimultibillion dollar corporations involved, the state legislature is really and truly considering a bill right now that would prevent the law clinic of any university that receives state funds from filing "a petition, motion, or suit against any individual, business, or governmental agency seeking monetary damages." The bill is targeting environmental law clinics and some of the potential lawsuits from the Gulf of Mexico oil geyser, as well as challenges to permits for new oil platforms (among other polluting industries).
A month ago, pre-rig-conflagration, cocksucker of the first order and Louisiana Chemical Association President Dan Borné said of the clinics, "We’re going to tell legislators all over the state, if they want to play hardball by trying to kneecap industry in Baton Rouge, then we should play hardball and kneecap them with their state appropriations." Apparently, some legislators in the state know who they should listen to, even now, after the ruin being caused to the livelihoods of the very people who might need a law clinic assisting them with recovering damages.
By the way, this bill was originally a reaction to the Tulane law clinic's successful lawsuit that prevented a plastics plant from being built in a town filled with poor people. Convent is already part of Cancer Alley in the state. So, really, if you think about this from a polluters' point of view, those people had it coming.
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