Does Conservative Spoogebucket Kevin McCullough Actually Know Any Black People?:
Pity poor Kevin McCullough. McCullough is an alleged columnist (although can anyone come up with a newspaper that carries him? A Penny Saver? Windshield flyer?), the co-host with a vestigial Baldwin of a weekly satellite radio show, a Fox "news" semi-regular, and a man whose vicious words and hate speech reveal a never-satiated urge for cock, so many cocks spewing so much jizz on him that you could stick him to a giant envelope and mail him to Fire Island on the Fourth of July. Truly, this man needs some cock.
McCullough is the sweaty, skinny, balding white guy in movies who thinks that all these people not like him are fucking up the neighborhood, Bernhard Goetz with a blog instead of a gun. He has never shied away from using racist language to attack Barack Obama. In his latest column (if by "column," you mean, "a mad pining for double anal penetration while ball-gagged with chained nipple clamps"), McCullough may as well be putting on blackface and saying of Obama, "That crazy nigga's gonna cap yo cracker ass."
Titled (really) "Hope and Change, Gangsta Style," McCullough's column purports to reveal how the Obama administration is using thuggish Chicago-style politics to get its failure of an agenda accomplished. If that makes absolutely no sense, then you're paying attention. The column ends with this remark about Obama not being able to deal with being President: "Unfortunately when someone from Chicago's south side gets that emotionally backed up it usually ends with flying bullets and someone's brother lying dead in a pool of their own blood." Yes, around Hyde Park, it's always "Contract killa, murder for the scrilla." You know, McCullough could have gone with the safe Al Capone reference instead of black-on-black violence, but, hell, you can't be a motherfucker if you don't fuck some mothers.
This comes after McCullough repeats the lie about Obama threatening to close a strategically-necessary airbase in Nebraska in order to get Ben Nelson's vote on health care reform, spouting in outrage, "President Obama was going to put a bullet in the operations of our national security simply to score a point, serve a little vengeance, and punish with a little payback." And then he instantly discredits himself by adding, "We know this from a memo that was leaked." Well, actually, the original liar said he got the info from a Senate aide, not a memo. Besides, everyone involved has denied the story except The Weekly Standard writer who created it (or was punked).
That's just generic fucktardery. However, "racist" is McCullough's default position with Obama (and all black people). He goes there constantly. In a recent blog post, he wrote, "Part of the great thing about the equality of every man, woman, and child in America is the opportunity to succeed or to fail. And to do so irrespective of race. Finally we have the African American equivalent of Jimmuh Cahteh in the oval office, and it is a scary day indeed..." Parse that shit. And that's on top of last week's column comparing Tiger Woods and Barack Obama, who would seemingly only have one thing in common. Goddamn that animal nature of the half-breed Negro.
At night, when he's all alone, his crusted picture of Mike Huckabee safely stored away, Kevin McCullough sits back and dreams, dreams, dreams away, thinking about the sensations of being the rocking horse moving back and forth with Obama behind him and Tiger ahead.
12/18/2009
Let's Not Forget That There Are Republicans to Hate, Too:
If the Rude Pundit was in some Karl Rove-like capacity advising the White House, he would right now be telling President Obama to have the Justice Department start investigating the crimes of the Bush administration, with an eye to prosecutions beginning sometime in 2010. Because amidst our vastly justified Lieberman-hating and Obama-doubting and with rending ourselves asunder on the left, we cannot forget that one of the major reasons that we are at this point in the health care reform debate, with a bill that seems to do as much harm as good (and that's the generous take), is that Republicans simply refused to engage in the process (beyond begging Olympia Snowe for her vote). It was far more entertaining for them to watch the Democrats eat their tail.
During the 2004 negotiations over the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, Democrats were engaged every step of the way. They had the votes to simply filibuster and kill it. But they didn't. Hell, it was Ted Kennedy who got 35 Democrats to vote for the bill because "he insisted that once prescription drug coverage was a reality, a future Congress could extend and improve it." How's that working out? Kennedy also thought that it could be fixed in conference committee, not realizing that behind closed doors, Republicans would eventually dick him over, aided and abetted by Big Pharma's own Democrats, Max Baucus and John Breaux. But Democrats never just disengaged, as Republicans almost unanimously did on this process.
To indulge in disgusted crowing for a moment, here's what the Rude Pundit wrote back in February, back in the days of new and shiny hope, in calling for the Obama administration to have inquiries into the Iraq War, among other things: "[T]here's gotta be consequences for people's actions or there's gonna be chaos...when the Obama administration was sending out signals that it would be willing to forgo serious inquiries into who-authorized-what as it relates to the various -gates from the previous administration, that was an olive branch to Republicans, a way of saying, 'You give us some shit we need, we won't spank you for being accomplices to crimes' (by the way, Democrats don't get away clean on this). It was, in terms of the DC circle jerk of power, a pretty fuckin' big concession. Republicans took that olive branch, broke it, shit on it, and flung it back at the White House."
See, the Rude Pundit believed then, and still believes now, that it would force Republicans to have to choose whether or not to back the Bush administration. Because as angry as people are with Obama, that pales in comparison to how much they continue to loathe Bush and Cheney. If you think shit's bad now, wait until Summer 2010. The country's gonna be ripped apart because Republicans will taste blood. You wanna unify the people who think the Tea Party screamers are crazy? Remind them of why we're so fucked in the first place.
And that's the point. Right now, the public hasn't been told to blame anyone, so they're going to blame the people in power. If not, the greatest failure of the Obama administration will end up being in not pursuing prosecutions of Bush administration officials and Wall Street executives. What the White House will have sown its own doom with the public because, at the end of the day, it says that no one is accountable for what has happened to the economy and, indeed, our national soul. Go after Bush and company and you say, "You can't destroy the country and just get to go on with your lives." And point out that many of the Republicans now opposing this President were willing accomplices to the previous one. Fuck, Republicans leap any time an Obama official mentions Bush, talking about the "blame game." Well, you know, if someone burned down your house and you happen to mention the arsonist who lit the match, as you try to rebuild from the ashes, it seems kind of justified.
This doesn't solve the problem with the health care reform bill and with the Democrats. The Rude Pundit remains agnostic at this point, thinking, as Katrina Vanden Heuvel said on Morning Starbucks with Joe today, that it might be best to let the thing go to conference and keep pressure on (although his gut says kill the bill).
And, indeed, if the Rude Pundit were in a Karl Rove-like position, he would be dropping quotes for Barack Obama to read - a little less Gandhi, a little more Machiavelli; a little less Martin Luther King, a little more Malcolm X.
If the Rude Pundit was in some Karl Rove-like capacity advising the White House, he would right now be telling President Obama to have the Justice Department start investigating the crimes of the Bush administration, with an eye to prosecutions beginning sometime in 2010. Because amidst our vastly justified Lieberman-hating and Obama-doubting and with rending ourselves asunder on the left, we cannot forget that one of the major reasons that we are at this point in the health care reform debate, with a bill that seems to do as much harm as good (and that's the generous take), is that Republicans simply refused to engage in the process (beyond begging Olympia Snowe for her vote). It was far more entertaining for them to watch the Democrats eat their tail.
During the 2004 negotiations over the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, Democrats were engaged every step of the way. They had the votes to simply filibuster and kill it. But they didn't. Hell, it was Ted Kennedy who got 35 Democrats to vote for the bill because "he insisted that once prescription drug coverage was a reality, a future Congress could extend and improve it." How's that working out? Kennedy also thought that it could be fixed in conference committee, not realizing that behind closed doors, Republicans would eventually dick him over, aided and abetted by Big Pharma's own Democrats, Max Baucus and John Breaux. But Democrats never just disengaged, as Republicans almost unanimously did on this process.
To indulge in disgusted crowing for a moment, here's what the Rude Pundit wrote back in February, back in the days of new and shiny hope, in calling for the Obama administration to have inquiries into the Iraq War, among other things: "[T]here's gotta be consequences for people's actions or there's gonna be chaos...when the Obama administration was sending out signals that it would be willing to forgo serious inquiries into who-authorized-what as it relates to the various -gates from the previous administration, that was an olive branch to Republicans, a way of saying, 'You give us some shit we need, we won't spank you for being accomplices to crimes' (by the way, Democrats don't get away clean on this). It was, in terms of the DC circle jerk of power, a pretty fuckin' big concession. Republicans took that olive branch, broke it, shit on it, and flung it back at the White House."
See, the Rude Pundit believed then, and still believes now, that it would force Republicans to have to choose whether or not to back the Bush administration. Because as angry as people are with Obama, that pales in comparison to how much they continue to loathe Bush and Cheney. If you think shit's bad now, wait until Summer 2010. The country's gonna be ripped apart because Republicans will taste blood. You wanna unify the people who think the Tea Party screamers are crazy? Remind them of why we're so fucked in the first place.
And that's the point. Right now, the public hasn't been told to blame anyone, so they're going to blame the people in power. If not, the greatest failure of the Obama administration will end up being in not pursuing prosecutions of Bush administration officials and Wall Street executives. What the White House will have sown its own doom with the public because, at the end of the day, it says that no one is accountable for what has happened to the economy and, indeed, our national soul. Go after Bush and company and you say, "You can't destroy the country and just get to go on with your lives." And point out that many of the Republicans now opposing this President were willing accomplices to the previous one. Fuck, Republicans leap any time an Obama official mentions Bush, talking about the "blame game." Well, you know, if someone burned down your house and you happen to mention the arsonist who lit the match, as you try to rebuild from the ashes, it seems kind of justified.
This doesn't solve the problem with the health care reform bill and with the Democrats. The Rude Pundit remains agnostic at this point, thinking, as Katrina Vanden Heuvel said on Morning Starbucks with Joe today, that it might be best to let the thing go to conference and keep pressure on (although his gut says kill the bill).
And, indeed, if the Rude Pundit were in a Karl Rove-like position, he would be dropping quotes for Barack Obama to read - a little less Gandhi, a little more Machiavelli; a little less Martin Luther King, a little more Malcolm X.
12/17/2009
This Is What a Liberal Sounds Like: A Few More Pieces of Bernie Sanders' Speech Yesterday:
You've heard the beginning of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' old-fashioned, passionate, actually liberal speech on the Senate floor yesterday after being fucked over hard by Oklahoma Republican Tom "Pay That Man Whose Wife You Nailed, Ensign" Coburn. By forcing a reading of Sanders' entire 767-page amendment to the health care reform bill, Coburn claimed he was just making sure that every Senator knew what was in it. But what Coburn was doing was making sure that single-payer insurance was never discussed by the full Senate. Why the hell not, you know? It's not like President Obama wanted it brought up.
A righteously pissed-off Sanders, who actually looks like he would fit right in at Independence Hall back in the day, made a one-man stand for actual progressive politics, withdrew the amendment saying, "Why is it that we need an entirely new approach for health care in this country? The answer is pretty obvious. Our current system, dominated by profit-making insurance companies, simply does not work. Yes, we have to confess, it does work for the insurance companies that make huge profits and provide their CEOs with extravagant compensation packages. Yes, it does work--and we saw how well it worked right here on the floor yesterday--for the pharmaceutical industry which year after year leads almost every other industry in profit while charging the American people by far--not even close--the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
"So it works for the insurance companies. It works for the drug companies. It works for the medical equipment suppliers and the many other companies who are making billions of dollars off of our health care system. But it is not working for--in fact, it is a disaster for--ordinary Americans."
By the way, dear tea partygoers, that's what a fucking liberal sounds like. A motherfucking liberal hates corporate America and wants to see it severely regulated and taxed, if not destroyed. A motherfucking liberal thinks that government works for the people, not the corporations. And that if you leave a vacuum of needs that has to be filled by a private company, that need will be subjugated to the profit margins of the private company, and that shit will destroy the country. Nearly everyone you accuse of being socialist or even leftist is a moderate or conservative. They're just not fucking nutzoid, like you.
Sanders ended by saying, "This country is in the midst of a horrendous health care crisis. We all know that. We can tinker with the system. We can come up with a 2,000-page bill which does this, that, and the other thing. But at the end of the day, if we are going to do what virtually every other country on Earth does--provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, one that does not bankrupt our government or bankrupt individuals--if we are going to do that, we are going to have to take on the private insurance companies and tell them very clearly that they are no longer needed. Thanks for your service. We don't need you anymore.
"A Medicare-for-all program is the way to go. I know it is not going to pass today. I know we do not have the votes. I know the insurance company and the drug lobbyists will fight us to the death. But, mark my words, Madam President, the day will come when this country will do the right thing. On that day, we will pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer system."
We have lost the courage again to do really big things in this nation that don't involve blowing shit up and killing people, things that actually affect people on a day-to-day basis and make their lives easier. Our government only does things within a narrow sliver of possibility, pressed in by corporate money, lies, and fear.
You've heard the beginning of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders' old-fashioned, passionate, actually liberal speech on the Senate floor yesterday after being fucked over hard by Oklahoma Republican Tom "Pay That Man Whose Wife You Nailed, Ensign" Coburn. By forcing a reading of Sanders' entire 767-page amendment to the health care reform bill, Coburn claimed he was just making sure that every Senator knew what was in it. But what Coburn was doing was making sure that single-payer insurance was never discussed by the full Senate. Why the hell not, you know? It's not like President Obama wanted it brought up.
A righteously pissed-off Sanders, who actually looks like he would fit right in at Independence Hall back in the day, made a one-man stand for actual progressive politics, withdrew the amendment saying, "Why is it that we need an entirely new approach for health care in this country? The answer is pretty obvious. Our current system, dominated by profit-making insurance companies, simply does not work. Yes, we have to confess, it does work for the insurance companies that make huge profits and provide their CEOs with extravagant compensation packages. Yes, it does work--and we saw how well it worked right here on the floor yesterday--for the pharmaceutical industry which year after year leads almost every other industry in profit while charging the American people by far--not even close--the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.
"So it works for the insurance companies. It works for the drug companies. It works for the medical equipment suppliers and the many other companies who are making billions of dollars off of our health care system. But it is not working for--in fact, it is a disaster for--ordinary Americans."
By the way, dear tea partygoers, that's what a fucking liberal sounds like. A motherfucking liberal hates corporate America and wants to see it severely regulated and taxed, if not destroyed. A motherfucking liberal thinks that government works for the people, not the corporations. And that if you leave a vacuum of needs that has to be filled by a private company, that need will be subjugated to the profit margins of the private company, and that shit will destroy the country. Nearly everyone you accuse of being socialist or even leftist is a moderate or conservative. They're just not fucking nutzoid, like you.
Sanders ended by saying, "This country is in the midst of a horrendous health care crisis. We all know that. We can tinker with the system. We can come up with a 2,000-page bill which does this, that, and the other thing. But at the end of the day, if we are going to do what virtually every other country on Earth does--provide comprehensive, universal health care in a cost-effective way, one that does not bankrupt our government or bankrupt individuals--if we are going to do that, we are going to have to take on the private insurance companies and tell them very clearly that they are no longer needed. Thanks for your service. We don't need you anymore.
"A Medicare-for-all program is the way to go. I know it is not going to pass today. I know we do not have the votes. I know the insurance company and the drug lobbyists will fight us to the death. But, mark my words, Madam President, the day will come when this country will do the right thing. On that day, we will pass a Medicare-for-all single-payer system."
We have lost the courage again to do really big things in this nation that don't involve blowing shit up and killing people, things that actually affect people on a day-to-day basis and make their lives easier. Our government only does things within a narrow sliver of possibility, pressed in by corporate money, lies, and fear.
12/16/2009
What Would Jesus Lie About? (Health Care Reform Edition):
In another one of those orgasm-inducing moments that's becoming regular now that he's in the Senate, Al Franken bitch-slapped Republican John Thune all over the Senate floor, to the point where Thune actually walked out. What was the dastardly Minnesotan bludgeoning the poor South Dakotan over? Franken wanted Thune to stop lying about when benefits start in the health care reform legislation. Or, as Franken put it, "[W]e are entitled to our own opinions; we’re not entitled to our own facts." And facts, as we are well aware, have a suspiciously liberal bias. Thune was later seen curled up and crying in the cloak room, whimpering, "I'm no bitch," while furiously licking his own anus.
But actual facts don't matter if you can tell a lie with a straight face and pretend it's the truth, which is how the conservative body politic and its obedient media chihuahuas function. One might expect better of people who proclaim that they are taking their marching orders directly from God, or Jesus, whichever, or both, depending on if they're feeling Judeo-Christian or just plain Christian on a particular issue.
However, if you're the Family Research Council (motto: "Lazarus and the lepers did just fine without Obamacare"), your Christian beliefs are no barrier to spinning lies out of the pain of others. An ardent opponent of health care reform, ostensibly over abortion, but mostly because they're dicks, the FRC posts a "Fact-a-Day" about that issue. One of its most recent "facts" addresses the financial burden that states may face from expanded Medicaid coverage, using New York as an example. It's actually a legitimate concern, one worthy of discussion, and if the FRC had left it there, they would have a point. But remember, they're dicks. Lying dicks.
The FRC says, "New York State has one of the most liberal Medicaid policies in the United States, and in these tough economic times, they're saving money by rationing care for women in the state seeking cancer screenings." The post links to an article that talks about women being turned away from free mammograms and pap smears in 20 states due to the overwhelming numbers of women without health insurance. Thus states like New York have been forced to, yes, ration the free screenings. It's another awful consequence of our barbaric medical system. God, one might think upon reading the FRC's statement, if a place with liberal Medicaid policies can't provide for women, then by extension any government insurance must fail."
The thing is that if the women had Medicaid, they'd be able to get screenings because they wouldn't have to go to free screenings. They'd have health insurance in the form of, well, fuck, Medicaid. In fact (yes, fact), a recent study said, according to another article's headline, "Medicaid coverage no barrier to mammography access." The poor women in the FRC-cited article don't qualify for Medicaid, which is only for the poorest of the poor. In New York, that means your income has to be no higher than $8,462 a year, if you're single.
In other words, the exact opposite of what the Family Research Council asserted is the factual truth. It's kind of like when Jesus said, "Psych," after the Sermon on the Mount and then told the poor to suck it.
In another one of those orgasm-inducing moments that's becoming regular now that he's in the Senate, Al Franken bitch-slapped Republican John Thune all over the Senate floor, to the point where Thune actually walked out. What was the dastardly Minnesotan bludgeoning the poor South Dakotan over? Franken wanted Thune to stop lying about when benefits start in the health care reform legislation. Or, as Franken put it, "[W]e are entitled to our own opinions; we’re not entitled to our own facts." And facts, as we are well aware, have a suspiciously liberal bias. Thune was later seen curled up and crying in the cloak room, whimpering, "I'm no bitch," while furiously licking his own anus.
But actual facts don't matter if you can tell a lie with a straight face and pretend it's the truth, which is how the conservative body politic and its obedient media chihuahuas function. One might expect better of people who proclaim that they are taking their marching orders directly from God, or Jesus, whichever, or both, depending on if they're feeling Judeo-Christian or just plain Christian on a particular issue.
However, if you're the Family Research Council (motto: "Lazarus and the lepers did just fine without Obamacare"), your Christian beliefs are no barrier to spinning lies out of the pain of others. An ardent opponent of health care reform, ostensibly over abortion, but mostly because they're dicks, the FRC posts a "Fact-a-Day" about that issue. One of its most recent "facts" addresses the financial burden that states may face from expanded Medicaid coverage, using New York as an example. It's actually a legitimate concern, one worthy of discussion, and if the FRC had left it there, they would have a point. But remember, they're dicks. Lying dicks.
The FRC says, "New York State has one of the most liberal Medicaid policies in the United States, and in these tough economic times, they're saving money by rationing care for women in the state seeking cancer screenings." The post links to an article that talks about women being turned away from free mammograms and pap smears in 20 states due to the overwhelming numbers of women without health insurance. Thus states like New York have been forced to, yes, ration the free screenings. It's another awful consequence of our barbaric medical system. God, one might think upon reading the FRC's statement, if a place with liberal Medicaid policies can't provide for women, then by extension any government insurance must fail."
The thing is that if the women had Medicaid, they'd be able to get screenings because they wouldn't have to go to free screenings. They'd have health insurance in the form of, well, fuck, Medicaid. In fact (yes, fact), a recent study said, according to another article's headline, "Medicaid coverage no barrier to mammography access." The poor women in the FRC-cited article don't qualify for Medicaid, which is only for the poorest of the poor. In New York, that means your income has to be no higher than $8,462 a year, if you're single.
In other words, the exact opposite of what the Family Research Council asserted is the factual truth. It's kind of like when Jesus said, "Psych," after the Sermon on the Mount and then told the poor to suck it.
12/15/2009
Joe Lieberman, You Can Choke on the Bones of Jacqueline Kelly as They're Crammed Down Your Throat:
Jacqueline Kelly died yesterday in Jersey City, New Jersey, of ovarian cancer. She also had emphysema. She was 61 years-old, a woman who was a stay-at-home mom to her six kids and a supportive wife for 44 years to John Kelly. John, 68, worked for fifty years as a truck driver and was old enough to get on Medicare when he retired. His wife could not, since she was 61.
She was told she didn't qualify for Social Security disability benefits because she had never "worked." They didn't qualify for welfare assistance or Medicaid because John's pension checks were too high. So, instead, most of the money went to paying for Jacqueline's medical expenses, as much as they could, until it became a choice of chemotherapy or food. As John put it, "I worked all my life. She's being penalized for staying home and taking care of her kids." Kelly died because of a lack of health insurance, pure and simple, cause and effect.
Think about that: John and Jacqueline Kelly were like apple pie, they fit so perfectly into the mold of ideal Americans that conservatives propagate. John was able to support his family doing a job that he stayed dedicated to. Jacqueline chose to stay at home and raise a large family. This is also death by sexism in that we live in a nation where full-time motherhood is not valued as a job and never has been. The myth of the American dream is always, always revealed as the lie it always was, and those who continue to foist it upon us are the ones least willing to make it be true. Where were all the alleged Christians, who are now so ready to kill health reform legislation? Where was the charity that's supposed to take care of such things? There was some, but not enough to get her the medical care that might have saved her.
You know who stepped up to help the Kelly family? Professional wrestlers. Yeah, Total Mayhem Pro Wrestling held a fundraiser for Jacqueline about a week ago, raising $4000 for medical expenses. That money will now be used for a funeral.
Pulls at your heartstrings, no? Really gets that lump in your throat going, this story of love and failure? Jacqueline Kelly was one of millions of Americans who would have qualified for help in just about any of the health care reform measures that actually seek to insure people. She'd have qualified for the public option. She'd have qualified for Medicare buy-in. In almost any other country in the developed world, and even in some in the undeveloped part, her care would not have even been an issue.
We are overwhelmed, yes, by tale upon tale of the sadness and horror brought on by this country's willful neglect of its citizens because we need to please some mad god of capitalism. And because we need to soothe the vanity of politicians, like Joe Lieberman.
We focus our rage on Lieberman out here in Left Blogsylvania not just because he is the kind of man who sucks his own cock in public and then grins, his semen-slicked teeth shining in the klieg lights, to the delight of Aetna and Wellpoint executives just before they shove his ass full of cash and tell him he can have it after he shits it back out. That would be enough. But it's that Lieberman actually takes pleasure in dicking over the Democratic caucus. Motherfucker said he supported the Medicare buy-in and then bailed? What kind of fuckery is that? That's just doing shit for the sake of doing shit. He's Shylock with less motivation. And that just makes us wanna go Berlusconi on his face. (Rhetorically, of course. Of course.)
But, if only to take a little power away from Lieberman, let's spread some blame around here for what is now a fairly worthless bill that is absent any control over insurance companies for jacking up prices in the wake of any new regulations. There's, of course, the Republicans, who never once negotiated in good faith (or bad faith, for that matter). There's Harry Reid, who took reconciliation off the table, thus shaking empty the compromise toolbox that had been dumped out when single payer wasn't even discussed. And there's the President, who demonstrated that if you are unwilling to say specifically what you want, then you will get nothing. Goddamnit, if Barack Obama had said he wouldn't sign a bill without a public option, if members of Congress knew he had their backs, his supporters would have rallied around the cause in a way that would have had the teabaggers grabbing their sacks in fear. He didn't, and you can't have a movement based on a vague hope that something might perhaps get done.
There's a couple of paths left now: revive reconciliation and/or try to salvage a bill that can be spun as a first step in a longer battle. The former is almost a must, because Lieberman has given anti-health care reform forces a boner for the final fucking. It might be a chance to get at least the Medicare buy-in or go back to the public option. The latter is close to surrender and is disgusting to contemplate, but there we are.
Lieberman's gotta be punished, or they gotta get rid of Reid. There's gotta be consequences for Lieberman. He's gotta lose his Homeland Security committee chair, maybe even be ejected from the caucus. He's gotta be publicly defiled. If there was any kind of justice right now, Lieberman should be locked in a glass room with the ghost of Lyndon Johnson. Motherfucker would be on his knees after five minutes, begging to give LBJ a rim job for mercy's sake.
Or, instead, Lieberman should be forced to eat the body of Jacqueline Kelly. He should have to taste her diseased organs and mutated cells. He should have to stare at her dead face as he ingests her faded skin and deteriorated muscle. And if he can't do it on his own, he should have her bones shoved down his throat until he fucking gags. Then maybe he'll understand that we're not talking about abstract numbers of people dying. We're talking about real corpses.
Jacqueline Kelly died yesterday in Jersey City, New Jersey, of ovarian cancer. She also had emphysema. She was 61 years-old, a woman who was a stay-at-home mom to her six kids and a supportive wife for 44 years to John Kelly. John, 68, worked for fifty years as a truck driver and was old enough to get on Medicare when he retired. His wife could not, since she was 61.
She was told she didn't qualify for Social Security disability benefits because she had never "worked." They didn't qualify for welfare assistance or Medicaid because John's pension checks were too high. So, instead, most of the money went to paying for Jacqueline's medical expenses, as much as they could, until it became a choice of chemotherapy or food. As John put it, "I worked all my life. She's being penalized for staying home and taking care of her kids." Kelly died because of a lack of health insurance, pure and simple, cause and effect.
Think about that: John and Jacqueline Kelly were like apple pie, they fit so perfectly into the mold of ideal Americans that conservatives propagate. John was able to support his family doing a job that he stayed dedicated to. Jacqueline chose to stay at home and raise a large family. This is also death by sexism in that we live in a nation where full-time motherhood is not valued as a job and never has been. The myth of the American dream is always, always revealed as the lie it always was, and those who continue to foist it upon us are the ones least willing to make it be true. Where were all the alleged Christians, who are now so ready to kill health reform legislation? Where was the charity that's supposed to take care of such things? There was some, but not enough to get her the medical care that might have saved her.
You know who stepped up to help the Kelly family? Professional wrestlers. Yeah, Total Mayhem Pro Wrestling held a fundraiser for Jacqueline about a week ago, raising $4000 for medical expenses. That money will now be used for a funeral.
Pulls at your heartstrings, no? Really gets that lump in your throat going, this story of love and failure? Jacqueline Kelly was one of millions of Americans who would have qualified for help in just about any of the health care reform measures that actually seek to insure people. She'd have qualified for the public option. She'd have qualified for Medicare buy-in. In almost any other country in the developed world, and even in some in the undeveloped part, her care would not have even been an issue.
We are overwhelmed, yes, by tale upon tale of the sadness and horror brought on by this country's willful neglect of its citizens because we need to please some mad god of capitalism. And because we need to soothe the vanity of politicians, like Joe Lieberman.
We focus our rage on Lieberman out here in Left Blogsylvania not just because he is the kind of man who sucks his own cock in public and then grins, his semen-slicked teeth shining in the klieg lights, to the delight of Aetna and Wellpoint executives just before they shove his ass full of cash and tell him he can have it after he shits it back out. That would be enough. But it's that Lieberman actually takes pleasure in dicking over the Democratic caucus. Motherfucker said he supported the Medicare buy-in and then bailed? What kind of fuckery is that? That's just doing shit for the sake of doing shit. He's Shylock with less motivation. And that just makes us wanna go Berlusconi on his face. (Rhetorically, of course. Of course.)
But, if only to take a little power away from Lieberman, let's spread some blame around here for what is now a fairly worthless bill that is absent any control over insurance companies for jacking up prices in the wake of any new regulations. There's, of course, the Republicans, who never once negotiated in good faith (or bad faith, for that matter). There's Harry Reid, who took reconciliation off the table, thus shaking empty the compromise toolbox that had been dumped out when single payer wasn't even discussed. And there's the President, who demonstrated that if you are unwilling to say specifically what you want, then you will get nothing. Goddamnit, if Barack Obama had said he wouldn't sign a bill without a public option, if members of Congress knew he had their backs, his supporters would have rallied around the cause in a way that would have had the teabaggers grabbing their sacks in fear. He didn't, and you can't have a movement based on a vague hope that something might perhaps get done.
There's a couple of paths left now: revive reconciliation and/or try to salvage a bill that can be spun as a first step in a longer battle. The former is almost a must, because Lieberman has given anti-health care reform forces a boner for the final fucking. It might be a chance to get at least the Medicare buy-in or go back to the public option. The latter is close to surrender and is disgusting to contemplate, but there we are.
Lieberman's gotta be punished, or they gotta get rid of Reid. There's gotta be consequences for Lieberman. He's gotta lose his Homeland Security committee chair, maybe even be ejected from the caucus. He's gotta be publicly defiled. If there was any kind of justice right now, Lieberman should be locked in a glass room with the ghost of Lyndon Johnson. Motherfucker would be on his knees after five minutes, begging to give LBJ a rim job for mercy's sake.
Or, instead, Lieberman should be forced to eat the body of Jacqueline Kelly. He should have to taste her diseased organs and mutated cells. He should have to stare at her dead face as he ingests her faded skin and deteriorated muscle. And if he can't do it on his own, he should have her bones shoved down his throat until he fucking gags. Then maybe he'll understand that we're not talking about abstract numbers of people dying. We're talking about real corpses.
12/14/2009
The Rude Pundit on Today's Stephanie Miller Show:
After much discussion of Stephanie Miller's sexy wounded eye, the Rude Pundit suggested that Joe Lieberman should receive a shit swirlie and that climate scientists can be pricks to each other.
Subscribe to the Rude Pundit podcast and you can carry the rudeness in your warm, moist pocket.
After much discussion of Stephanie Miller's sexy wounded eye, the Rude Pundit suggested that Joe Lieberman should receive a shit swirlie and that climate scientists can be pricks to each other.
Subscribe to the Rude Pundit podcast and you can carry the rudeness in your warm, moist pocket.
Ben Nelson Is a Hypocrite on Abortion Funding:
Follow the bouncing ball here: So, on Saturday, the GOP, as is their dipshit way, was gonna filibuster an omnibus spending bill that would keep most of the government functioning and give budget increases to many a department. The Democrats, hanging fairly tight and with a couple of Republicans siding with them, needed one final vote to get to the magical sixty, thus invoking cloture, thus leading to a vote on the committee report of the appropriations bill (the committee report being, in short, the version of the bill hammered out by Senate and House negotiators and already passed by the House). Of course, it all came down to Joe Lieberman. Why? Because nothing tickles Liberman's scrotum quite so much as the assertion of whatever vanity-driven power he holds.
And, oh, how delighted Lierberman was. It being Saturday and the sabbath and Hannukah, and Lieberman being an Orthodox-flavored Jew, Glory Whore Joe walked the three miles from his Georgetown synagogue to enter the Senate chamber wearing a bright orange scarf and a shit-eating grin to cast the vote that led to cloture. No horse available? No carriage? Well, fuck it. The next day, on Sunday, and, with apparently no Amish senators needing the day away from motorized devil-machines, the conference report passed, which means that everything but defense now has a budget.
But this ain't about Lieberman. That fucker can wait his turn. No, let's instead talk about Ben Nelson, Democratic Senator of Nebraska. He voted for cloture and for the bill. Hey, that's awesome. Good on him. That was on Saturday. But you may know Ben Nelson most recently from the Nelson-Hatch Amendment to the health care reform bill, which would have tightened restrictions on abortion funding, which is not funded at all by could be by implication of other spending not on abortion. Or some such shit. The amendment failed. Nelson, in response, said of the bill, "This makes it very hard for me to support it."
Yesterday, on CBS's Face Bob Schieffer's Corpse, Nelson reiterated that, even with the new negotiations on Medicare, "I still have the unique issue of abortion...I can’t support the bill with the -- the abortion language that’s there." So Ben Nelson has a moral stand that he's taking. Agree or disagree with him, no matter how much good a bill may do for millions of people, there's a bottom line for him, and that's not a single penny even remotely spent on even telling women that abortion exists. Well, disagree as one might, it's honorable to stick to one's guns.
Oh, wait. No, sorry. That's wrong. There's no honor here. See, because Ben Nelson voted for the aforementioned omnibus spending bill. That bill, H.R. 3288, also approved the budget for the District of Columbia. There used to be all kinds of restrictions on how the city of DC could use its money because a chunk of its budget comes from the Congress and because it's always great that a Senator from, say, Alabama can have sway over such things. But, lookie here, there's actually a major lifting of spending restrictions in that bill, including striking out language that said "That amounts provided to said projects under such title shall not be expended for abortions" and "that all pregnancy counseling shall be nondirective." Also struck out: "None of the funds appropriated by this Act [will] provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or provide referrals for abortions." This is not to mention the cutting of "None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for any abortion." In fact, all restrictions on public funding for abortions in DC, restrictions that used to be there, have been struck out.
Or, in other words, Ben Nelson, who is threatening to shitcan the entire health reform bill over even indirect abortion funding, voted to allow direct funding of abortions. It wasn't hidden - ant-abortion forces had pointed it out. And even Democrat Bart Stupak over in the House stuck to his Jesus guns and voted against the bill.
So what's the difference? Does Ben Nelson hate the fetuses of Washington, DC? Well, the Rude Pundit doesn't know that one way or the other. But he does know that the omnibus spending bill, which would have passed even if Nelson had been a good but soldier and voted for cloture but then against the conference report, doesn't have anything in there that might affect the profits of the health insurance industry.
Unlike, say, any health care reform bill that includes even a nod to a public option or government spending on health insurance. And since Ben Nelson sucks the scabby cock of the insurance industry as its bought and paid for bitch for three election cycles now to the tune of $2 million, when Aetna wants to come on his face, Aetna comes on his face.
Or, in otherer words, there is no real principle at work here, no morality, just typical political expedience to pleasure whoever needs pleasuring at the moment.
Follow the bouncing ball here: So, on Saturday, the GOP, as is their dipshit way, was gonna filibuster an omnibus spending bill that would keep most of the government functioning and give budget increases to many a department. The Democrats, hanging fairly tight and with a couple of Republicans siding with them, needed one final vote to get to the magical sixty, thus invoking cloture, thus leading to a vote on the committee report of the appropriations bill (the committee report being, in short, the version of the bill hammered out by Senate and House negotiators and already passed by the House). Of course, it all came down to Joe Lieberman. Why? Because nothing tickles Liberman's scrotum quite so much as the assertion of whatever vanity-driven power he holds.
And, oh, how delighted Lierberman was. It being Saturday and the sabbath and Hannukah, and Lieberman being an Orthodox-flavored Jew, Glory Whore Joe walked the three miles from his Georgetown synagogue to enter the Senate chamber wearing a bright orange scarf and a shit-eating grin to cast the vote that led to cloture. No horse available? No carriage? Well, fuck it. The next day, on Sunday, and, with apparently no Amish senators needing the day away from motorized devil-machines, the conference report passed, which means that everything but defense now has a budget.
But this ain't about Lieberman. That fucker can wait his turn. No, let's instead talk about Ben Nelson, Democratic Senator of Nebraska. He voted for cloture and for the bill. Hey, that's awesome. Good on him. That was on Saturday. But you may know Ben Nelson most recently from the Nelson-Hatch Amendment to the health care reform bill, which would have tightened restrictions on abortion funding, which is not funded at all by could be by implication of other spending not on abortion. Or some such shit. The amendment failed. Nelson, in response, said of the bill, "This makes it very hard for me to support it."
Yesterday, on CBS's Face Bob Schieffer's Corpse, Nelson reiterated that, even with the new negotiations on Medicare, "I still have the unique issue of abortion...I can’t support the bill with the -- the abortion language that’s there." So Ben Nelson has a moral stand that he's taking. Agree or disagree with him, no matter how much good a bill may do for millions of people, there's a bottom line for him, and that's not a single penny even remotely spent on even telling women that abortion exists. Well, disagree as one might, it's honorable to stick to one's guns.
Oh, wait. No, sorry. That's wrong. There's no honor here. See, because Ben Nelson voted for the aforementioned omnibus spending bill. That bill, H.R. 3288, also approved the budget for the District of Columbia. There used to be all kinds of restrictions on how the city of DC could use its money because a chunk of its budget comes from the Congress and because it's always great that a Senator from, say, Alabama can have sway over such things. But, lookie here, there's actually a major lifting of spending restrictions in that bill, including striking out language that said "That amounts provided to said projects under such title shall not be expended for abortions" and "that all pregnancy counseling shall be nondirective." Also struck out: "None of the funds appropriated by this Act [will] provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or provide referrals for abortions." This is not to mention the cutting of "None of the funds appropriated in this Act, and none of the funds in any trust fund to which funds are appropriated in this Act, shall be expended for any abortion." In fact, all restrictions on public funding for abortions in DC, restrictions that used to be there, have been struck out.
Or, in other words, Ben Nelson, who is threatening to shitcan the entire health reform bill over even indirect abortion funding, voted to allow direct funding of abortions. It wasn't hidden - ant-abortion forces had pointed it out. And even Democrat Bart Stupak over in the House stuck to his Jesus guns and voted against the bill.
So what's the difference? Does Ben Nelson hate the fetuses of Washington, DC? Well, the Rude Pundit doesn't know that one way or the other. But he does know that the omnibus spending bill, which would have passed even if Nelson had been a good but soldier and voted for cloture but then against the conference report, doesn't have anything in there that might affect the profits of the health insurance industry.
Unlike, say, any health care reform bill that includes even a nod to a public option or government spending on health insurance. And since Ben Nelson sucks the scabby cock of the insurance industry as its bought and paid for bitch for three election cycles now to the tune of $2 million, when Aetna wants to come on his face, Aetna comes on his face.
Or, in otherer words, there is no real principle at work here, no morality, just typical political expedience to pleasure whoever needs pleasuring at the moment.
12/11/2009
Weekend Revving Treats:
Here's a few minutes of the Rude Pundit's hour with Stephanie Miller this week. There's precious few people he'd rather be locked in a small room with. Except the wet dream is spoiled by too much Glenn Beck talk.
And you can, and should, subscribe to the Rude Pundit's podcast so you can enjoy your rudeness in your energy-efficient automatic motor vehicles.
Oh, and extra rudeness over at the National Journal's year-end poll of bloggers. The Rude Pundit calls Sarah Palin "the Paris Hilton of the Republican Party."
Here's a few minutes of the Rude Pundit's hour with Stephanie Miller this week. There's precious few people he'd rather be locked in a small room with. Except the wet dream is spoiled by too much Glenn Beck talk.
And you can, and should, subscribe to the Rude Pundit's podcast so you can enjoy your rudeness in your energy-efficient automatic motor vehicles.
Oh, and extra rudeness over at the National Journal's year-end poll of bloggers. The Rude Pundit calls Sarah Palin "the Paris Hilton of the Republican Party."
Sarah Palin, James Inhofe, and the Rest: Meet Christopher Clavius, Copernicus Denier:
You cannot imagine the shitstorm Nicholas Copernicus started when he stated that the sun was the center of the universe with planets revolving around it. All of a sudden, holy fuck, not only was the Earth no longer the big astronomical cheese, but the fuckin' terra firma was moving. Copernicus, using heathen scientific observation, transformed everything. It meant that theology, physics, and, well, astronomy, as well as the general psychology of people who actually gave a shit one way or the other had to be reconfigured. Or you had to say that Copernicus was a fucking asshat and cling desperately to your flaccid Ptolemy.
Now you may be familiar with metal-nosed Tycho Brahe, a bad motherfucker who kicked mucho celestial ass and taught Johannes Kepler, but who could not make the leap to total heliocentrism, although he tried to reconcile Copernicus and geocentrism in a clusterfuck of intersecting orbits. But you may not know Christopher Clavius, the mathematician and astronomer who worked on the Gregorian calendar and who spent much of his later life denying Copernicus and those bastard heliocentrists.
Clavius clung to the fixed Earth-centered universe, coming up with seemingly logical ways to tell Copernicans they could go fuck themselves with their observations and explanations. One of Clavius's goes like this: the earth couldn't be rotating because buildings would collapse and water would swirl and tip in vessels. "For the same reason, a stone or arrow projected straight upward with great force would not fall back to the same place, just as we see happen on a swiftly moving ship," Clavius wrote in the 16th century. Physics would catch up to heliocentrism. But you can bet that people who found it more convenient to their maintenance of power (the Catholic Church, for instance) paraded out Clavius as gospel.
Actually, Clavius used scripture to back up his beliefs, along with such choice nuggets as saying that the Earth stays the center of the universe because "of its heaviness. It rests always in the lowest place, farthest from the heavens, namely the center of the cosmos, and once there, it cannot be displaced naturally." Absurd, no? But Aristotle and others said it was so; therefore, it was so.
The point here is not to mock poor Christopher Clavius for being a Jesuit tool for his German religious overlords. But one imagines that if at the time, with the wealth of the church behind him, had there been an internet and Fox "news" and a compliant media who believe that facts are mutable, Clavius would have been cited repeatedly in order to smack down that asshole Copernicus for daring to fuck with our sense of our place in the universe. And the uneducated masses, not knowing anything more than what the church told them, would have mostly agreed, "Fuck that Copernicus. What does he know?" We would still be arguing over it now, calling out Copernicus-deniers.
The Rude Pundit thought of Clavius when he read Sarah Palin's idiotic editorial in the Washington Post and then saw that she was daring to take on Al Gore over climate change. Truly, while he is not threatened possible sanction by a powerful church, it is sad to see Gore have to answer constant questions on whether or not climate change is real, to have to address every conspiracy theory that comes up, to have to talk to people as if an observed, confirmed fact is not such.
Clavius never completely gave up on geocentrism. But Galileo visited him in 1611, just before his death, and allowed him to use the telescope. Observing for himself such things as the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter, Clavius realized that what he believed about the order of the universe could not stand up to such scrutiny, and one of the last things he wrote was, "Since things are thus, astronomers ought to consider how the celestial orbs may be arranged in order to save these phenomena."
Clavius died the next year. Imagine Clavius in that moment, knowing his time was passed; knowing that everything he defended, all those centuries, all those theories, was now up for grabs; knowing - he had to - that he was wrong. The Rude Pundit would like to believe that we live among people who have the capacity for such enlightenment, but he fears that we are in an age where unbelief is, to rephrase, too convenient for truth.
You cannot imagine the shitstorm Nicholas Copernicus started when he stated that the sun was the center of the universe with planets revolving around it. All of a sudden, holy fuck, not only was the Earth no longer the big astronomical cheese, but the fuckin' terra firma was moving. Copernicus, using heathen scientific observation, transformed everything. It meant that theology, physics, and, well, astronomy, as well as the general psychology of people who actually gave a shit one way or the other had to be reconfigured. Or you had to say that Copernicus was a fucking asshat and cling desperately to your flaccid Ptolemy.
Now you may be familiar with metal-nosed Tycho Brahe, a bad motherfucker who kicked mucho celestial ass and taught Johannes Kepler, but who could not make the leap to total heliocentrism, although he tried to reconcile Copernicus and geocentrism in a clusterfuck of intersecting orbits. But you may not know Christopher Clavius, the mathematician and astronomer who worked on the Gregorian calendar and who spent much of his later life denying Copernicus and those bastard heliocentrists.
Clavius clung to the fixed Earth-centered universe, coming up with seemingly logical ways to tell Copernicans they could go fuck themselves with their observations and explanations. One of Clavius's goes like this: the earth couldn't be rotating because buildings would collapse and water would swirl and tip in vessels. "For the same reason, a stone or arrow projected straight upward with great force would not fall back to the same place, just as we see happen on a swiftly moving ship," Clavius wrote in the 16th century. Physics would catch up to heliocentrism. But you can bet that people who found it more convenient to their maintenance of power (the Catholic Church, for instance) paraded out Clavius as gospel.
Actually, Clavius used scripture to back up his beliefs, along with such choice nuggets as saying that the Earth stays the center of the universe because "of its heaviness. It rests always in the lowest place, farthest from the heavens, namely the center of the cosmos, and once there, it cannot be displaced naturally." Absurd, no? But Aristotle and others said it was so; therefore, it was so.
The point here is not to mock poor Christopher Clavius for being a Jesuit tool for his German religious overlords. But one imagines that if at the time, with the wealth of the church behind him, had there been an internet and Fox "news" and a compliant media who believe that facts are mutable, Clavius would have been cited repeatedly in order to smack down that asshole Copernicus for daring to fuck with our sense of our place in the universe. And the uneducated masses, not knowing anything more than what the church told them, would have mostly agreed, "Fuck that Copernicus. What does he know?" We would still be arguing over it now, calling out Copernicus-deniers.
The Rude Pundit thought of Clavius when he read Sarah Palin's idiotic editorial in the Washington Post and then saw that she was daring to take on Al Gore over climate change. Truly, while he is not threatened possible sanction by a powerful church, it is sad to see Gore have to answer constant questions on whether or not climate change is real, to have to address every conspiracy theory that comes up, to have to talk to people as if an observed, confirmed fact is not such.
Clavius never completely gave up on geocentrism. But Galileo visited him in 1611, just before his death, and allowed him to use the telescope. Observing for himself such things as the phases of Venus and the moons of Jupiter, Clavius realized that what he believed about the order of the universe could not stand up to such scrutiny, and one of the last things he wrote was, "Since things are thus, astronomers ought to consider how the celestial orbs may be arranged in order to save these phenomena."
Clavius died the next year. Imagine Clavius in that moment, knowing his time was passed; knowing that everything he defended, all those centuries, all those theories, was now up for grabs; knowing - he had to - that he was wrong. The Rude Pundit would like to believe that we live among people who have the capacity for such enlightenment, but he fears that we are in an age where unbelief is, to rephrase, too convenient for truth.
12/10/2009
From Oslo, Barack Obama Wasn't Talking to You:
Let's put aside for a moment whatever misgivings we may have about the bullshit war we're fighting in Afghanistan and its nonsensical escalation (oops - tipped the hand there). In fact, put aside whatever personal animosity or disappointment you may or may not be feeling as health care reform gets watered down, gay rights gets thrown under the bus, and real banking regulation seems like a distant dream. Put aside, especially you, dear, sweet conservatives, any anger you may have about why President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; he had nothing to do with it, and he was about as confused as anyone. Let us all just take a breath and for a moment, outside of the blinding contexts in which we all exist, take a look at the speech Obama just delivered in Norway.
To put it simply, Barack Obama wasn't talking to you. He wasn't even talking to Europe, really. No, he was speaking to history, offering a philosophical and not dispassionate assertion of American leadership in the world, a reasoning behind his war policies, a defense of the "just war" doctrine, and a plan for future peace. It wasn't a stemwinder, a breathtaking oratory cum sermon. It was a speech, from an intellectual president to intellectuals, and it was so fucking smart. Have we gone so far down the dumbing-down highway that we can no longer see the importance of hearing a rational man grapple with the conflict between realism and idealism? Have we been so numbed by the cowboy presidency of George W. Bush, along with a steady diet of reality-TV hysterics and high-fructose corn syrup-infused food products, that we're no longer capable of understanding anything except in relation to how it makes us feel? Of course, that doesn't mean we have to blankly agree, but there's meat to chew on, not just the gristle of catchphrases and threats.
Check out a few lines: "Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest – because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity."
That is arrogant shit, right there, similar to what he said in his Afghanistan speech. But it is honestly arrogant. There's so much you can argue with - that every nation that gets into a war claims it is "just," the fact that the United States was reluctant to get into World War II in Europe, the necessity of U.S. involvement in Korea, the foot-dragging on doing anything in the Balkans (which didn't meet the criteria of Colin Powell's doctrine), and whether or not we're "imposing our will" on Iraq and Afghanistan. But is the underlying premise false? (And, frankly, conservatives ought to latch onto this entire speech; Obama does more to reform the image of Republicans than a thousand Sarah Palins.)
Here's how you know the way things have changed. In his September 14, 2001 speech at a prayer service for 9/11 victims, George W. Bush said that America's "responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." And today, Barack Obama, in contrast, offered a less utopian view of the future: "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes."
In the second half of the speech, Obama laid out his ideas for he called "a just peace." Elimination of nuclear weapons, support of human rights, and social development, good, clear liberal goals all, are the basis of this peace. And what he did in this section was to subtly curve the speech towards America as equal partner with other nations, not as arrogant spreader of wealth and democracy. Indeed, the sense of this part was that America ain't what it once was, and it needs to work with the rest of the world: "[I]n a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come." For most of the rest of the speech, America is barely mentioned at all, and, after exhortations of the need for the simplicity of love in the world, inspired by Martin Luther King, among others, Obama ended with the word "Earth."
One of the attacks on liberalism is that it's too eggheaded, too concerned with seeing all sides of an issue, with all that fucking nuance. And no doubt, even as the Rude Pundit types this, others are leaping at the speech as "dull" or lacking emotion. They're missing the point. The President articulated a vision of the future, tempered by acknowledgment of our reality. Essentially, Obama went to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to accept the accolade, and, instead, he asked the world to help him earn it.
Let's put aside for a moment whatever misgivings we may have about the bullshit war we're fighting in Afghanistan and its nonsensical escalation (oops - tipped the hand there). In fact, put aside whatever personal animosity or disappointment you may or may not be feeling as health care reform gets watered down, gay rights gets thrown under the bus, and real banking regulation seems like a distant dream. Put aside, especially you, dear, sweet conservatives, any anger you may have about why President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; he had nothing to do with it, and he was about as confused as anyone. Let us all just take a breath and for a moment, outside of the blinding contexts in which we all exist, take a look at the speech Obama just delivered in Norway.
To put it simply, Barack Obama wasn't talking to you. He wasn't even talking to Europe, really. No, he was speaking to history, offering a philosophical and not dispassionate assertion of American leadership in the world, a reasoning behind his war policies, a defense of the "just war" doctrine, and a plan for future peace. It wasn't a stemwinder, a breathtaking oratory cum sermon. It was a speech, from an intellectual president to intellectuals, and it was so fucking smart. Have we gone so far down the dumbing-down highway that we can no longer see the importance of hearing a rational man grapple with the conflict between realism and idealism? Have we been so numbed by the cowboy presidency of George W. Bush, along with a steady diet of reality-TV hysterics and high-fructose corn syrup-infused food products, that we're no longer capable of understanding anything except in relation to how it makes us feel? Of course, that doesn't mean we have to blankly agree, but there's meat to chew on, not just the gristle of catchphrases and threats.
Check out a few lines: "Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest – because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity."
That is arrogant shit, right there, similar to what he said in his Afghanistan speech. But it is honestly arrogant. There's so much you can argue with - that every nation that gets into a war claims it is "just," the fact that the United States was reluctant to get into World War II in Europe, the necessity of U.S. involvement in Korea, the foot-dragging on doing anything in the Balkans (which didn't meet the criteria of Colin Powell's doctrine), and whether or not we're "imposing our will" on Iraq and Afghanistan. But is the underlying premise false? (And, frankly, conservatives ought to latch onto this entire speech; Obama does more to reform the image of Republicans than a thousand Sarah Palins.)
Here's how you know the way things have changed. In his September 14, 2001 speech at a prayer service for 9/11 victims, George W. Bush said that America's "responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." And today, Barack Obama, in contrast, offered a less utopian view of the future: "We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes."
In the second half of the speech, Obama laid out his ideas for he called "a just peace." Elimination of nuclear weapons, support of human rights, and social development, good, clear liberal goals all, are the basis of this peace. And what he did in this section was to subtly curve the speech towards America as equal partner with other nations, not as arrogant spreader of wealth and democracy. Indeed, the sense of this part was that America ain't what it once was, and it needs to work with the rest of the world: "[I]n a world in which threats are more diffuse, and missions more complex, America cannot act alone. This is true in Afghanistan. This is true in failed states like Somalia, where terrorism and piracy is joined by famine and human suffering. And sadly, it will continue to be true in unstable regions for years to come." For most of the rest of the speech, America is barely mentioned at all, and, after exhortations of the need for the simplicity of love in the world, inspired by Martin Luther King, among others, Obama ended with the word "Earth."
One of the attacks on liberalism is that it's too eggheaded, too concerned with seeing all sides of an issue, with all that fucking nuance. And no doubt, even as the Rude Pundit types this, others are leaping at the speech as "dull" or lacking emotion. They're missing the point. The President articulated a vision of the future, tempered by acknowledgment of our reality. Essentially, Obama went to the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony to accept the accolade, and, instead, he asked the world to help him earn it.
12/09/2009
Limbaugh Doctored Jesse Jackson Quote to Make It Look Like Jackson Opposes Obama:
So on his radio show yesterday, prior to asserting that he understood "the black frame of mind" and that black people were "feeling abandoned" in part because of "Tiger Woods' choice of females," Rush Limbaugh was trying to show that African Americans are turning against President Barack Obama by playing a clip of Rev. Jesse Jackson from The Tavis Smiey Show. Limbaugh said Smiley's question was, "Some think the blame Bush rhetoric no longer applies that Obama used successfully in the campaign."
Here's the transcript of Jackson's response, as presented by Limbaugh: "He essentially owns more and more. When Bush left office there were 30,000 troops in Afghanistan. We're now going to a hundred thousand, so we kind of own the Afghanistan mission. We bailed out the banks. We kind of own a plan now where you have more foreclosures than you do have modifications. We're losing jobs by the droves. Unemployment levels are disastrously high. We are the canary in the mine. We're on the front side of its pain and the backside of its prosperity. Urban America is black, but Appalachia basically is white. We must not be seen as marginal America."
Limbaugh then uses Jackson as a leaping off point to the supposed outrage of black Americans, saying, "How is that Hoax and Change working for you? They're all livid. I mean they thought there was going to be an exact 180 degree economic reversal and it's done nothing but get bad for everybody."
And Limbaugh might have a point, except that he's lying about Jackson. The audio of the clip is pretty smoothly done, but the Jackson quote is a Frankenstein's monster, strung together from edited pieces of two separate answers.
Smiley's question was: "There are some who believe that the blame Bush rhetoric that worked so well for the Obama team during the campaign no longer applies, on the economy, on the war -- he owns it now. You agree with that?"
Jackson's response was far more nuanced and actually blamed the Bush administration for putting the nation in its precarious position:
"Well, there's a continuity, but he essentially owns more and more. Bush left office with 30,000 troops in Afghanistan; we're now going to 100,000. So we kind of own the Afghanistan mission, for example. When Bush came in we were losing houses, foreclosures were outdistancing modifications.
"Now we bailed out the banks without linking to bailing out homeowners, and so we kind of own it planned out where you have more foreclosures than you have modifications. You own a situation where we're losing jobs by the droves without some plan to stop the hemorrhage and some kind of plan for economic reconstruction.
"The burden is upon us now. I think that there is still the awesome high hope for this president. It's early on. But you must judge him early on by the priorities and the priorities first with the bailout, the banks with no linkage to bailing out domestic America. Now the priorities shifted to bailing out Afghanistan and the healthcare plan. In the meantime, within these cities, the unemployment levels are disastrously high. Forty-nine million Americans are food-underserved. They're omitting meals or skipping meals, so to speak.
"So we need a real focus on domestic, urban poverty plan of the likes of a Lyndon Johnson. We need a domestic, urban poverty plan."
What the entire answer gives us is not a black leader angry at Obama, but a cautiously optimistic man who is hoping that the causes he worked on for his entire life won't be ignored again, as they were in the Bush administration.
The rest of the Limbaugh version, from "We are the canary in the mine" on, is from an entirely different question, where Jackson also said of jobs programs, "So when we cry out for help and we say putting America back to work, it affects everybody." In other words, it's a concern for all poor people, not just blacks, but blacks happen to be disproportionately poor.
After informing his audience about how he understands the emotional state of black people, Limbaugh offers another Jackson quote from the interview, also pasted together with chewing gum and lies. Smiley asks about how Jackson can "push back" against Obama when 90 percent of black people "love this president?"
Here's the Limbaugh version of the answer: "They also love to keep their houses and they also love their jobs. So the issue is about policy. It's not about our appreciation of the impact of this presidency. We found through the attorney generals that these major banks profiled blacks and Latinos. They circumvented community reinvestment laws. As opposed to getting a bailout, they should be facing the courts for breaking the law. On the black and brown side is where the water came in the boat. But the water didn't stop. It kept on coming, the water kept coming across. A rising tide will not lift those boats stuck at the bottom that have holes in them."
And now the actual quote (this is long, but you need it to know just how much Limbaugh tricks his audience): "And for all the right reasons. They'd also love to keep their houses, and they also love jobs. They also love some way to reduce student loan rates that are now driving us out of schools. It's issues about policy. It's not about our appreciation of the impact of his presidency; it's not about that at all. I think the quicker we get to the issue of direction and not complexion, then we can begin to focus on what do we need.
"We need targeted jobs now, for the unemployment, for all of us. Forty-nine million Americans who are food-underserved need a food-directed program now. As for the patterns of race discrimination, we've found through the attorney generals that these major banks target and profile Blacks and Latinos are still enclustered. That they've violated the laws, they've violated -- they've circumvented fair lending laws, they circumvented community reinvestment laws. As opposed to getting a bailout, they should be facing the courts for breaking the law.
"So really, the first step we need is the attorney general's role. If he would just step in to enforce the law, that is to stop -- to enforce the EEOC, to enforce contract compliance, to enforce affirmative action, to punish those who break the law, if he would just -- that would stop the hemorrhaging bottom-up. And that is the concern now, that unless we stop the patterns of discrimination, then we all lose.
"Put it this way, Tavis. On the Black and Brown side is where the water came in the boat. That was vulnerable spot. But the water didn't stop there, it kept on coming. In other words, what the lawsuits show is that a Black or Brown making $100,000 got a subprime, high-cost loan, and a White making $50,000 got a low-cost prime loan. That was discrimination.
"So on the front end, the banks profited from the loan not being enforced. The water kept coming until it affects -- because if my house goes in foreclosure, your house loses value. So now four and a half million homes lost to foreclosure, 20 million underwater. The water kept coming across. Now it's gone up to prime loans, and then credit cards, and then real estate.
"So the water that's now sinking the whole ship came in at the bottom, so if we would have, if you will, the Bobby Kennedy type aggressiveness, which -- and Holder is capable of that, I might add. We need the law -- if we just have the law enforced it's a big step, because for eight years, the law was not enforced.
Limbaugh is not just taking Jackson out of context. He's rewriting Jackson's words without saying at any point that he is selectively stringing together sentences in order to fit a narrative. Is that slander? And the narrative Limbaugh is trying to enforce is not only that Obama is losing black support because of some notion of betrayal, but that Jackson is not concerned with poverty, just race. Every reference to fighting poverty has been eliminated by Limbaugh.
Limbaugh concludes, "So there's trouble in paradise out there. The Reverend Jackson, his anger is pretty muted here but he's pretty mad." That may be true, but for his listeners, Jackson's real anger is misrepresented. Or, in other words, as ever, Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat liar.
So on his radio show yesterday, prior to asserting that he understood "the black frame of mind" and that black people were "feeling abandoned" in part because of "Tiger Woods' choice of females," Rush Limbaugh was trying to show that African Americans are turning against President Barack Obama by playing a clip of Rev. Jesse Jackson from The Tavis Smiey Show. Limbaugh said Smiley's question was, "Some think the blame Bush rhetoric no longer applies that Obama used successfully in the campaign."
Here's the transcript of Jackson's response, as presented by Limbaugh: "He essentially owns more and more. When Bush left office there were 30,000 troops in Afghanistan. We're now going to a hundred thousand, so we kind of own the Afghanistan mission. We bailed out the banks. We kind of own a plan now where you have more foreclosures than you do have modifications. We're losing jobs by the droves. Unemployment levels are disastrously high. We are the canary in the mine. We're on the front side of its pain and the backside of its prosperity. Urban America is black, but Appalachia basically is white. We must not be seen as marginal America."
Limbaugh then uses Jackson as a leaping off point to the supposed outrage of black Americans, saying, "How is that Hoax and Change working for you? They're all livid. I mean they thought there was going to be an exact 180 degree economic reversal and it's done nothing but get bad for everybody."
And Limbaugh might have a point, except that he's lying about Jackson. The audio of the clip is pretty smoothly done, but the Jackson quote is a Frankenstein's monster, strung together from edited pieces of two separate answers.
Smiley's question was: "There are some who believe that the blame Bush rhetoric that worked so well for the Obama team during the campaign no longer applies, on the economy, on the war -- he owns it now. You agree with that?"
Jackson's response was far more nuanced and actually blamed the Bush administration for putting the nation in its precarious position:
"Well, there's a continuity, but he essentially owns more and more. Bush left office with 30,000 troops in Afghanistan; we're now going to 100,000. So we kind of own the Afghanistan mission, for example. When Bush came in we were losing houses, foreclosures were outdistancing modifications.
"Now we bailed out the banks without linking to bailing out homeowners, and so we kind of own it planned out where you have more foreclosures than you have modifications. You own a situation where we're losing jobs by the droves without some plan to stop the hemorrhage and some kind of plan for economic reconstruction.
"The burden is upon us now. I think that there is still the awesome high hope for this president. It's early on. But you must judge him early on by the priorities and the priorities first with the bailout, the banks with no linkage to bailing out domestic America. Now the priorities shifted to bailing out Afghanistan and the healthcare plan. In the meantime, within these cities, the unemployment levels are disastrously high. Forty-nine million Americans are food-underserved. They're omitting meals or skipping meals, so to speak.
"So we need a real focus on domestic, urban poverty plan of the likes of a Lyndon Johnson. We need a domestic, urban poverty plan."
What the entire answer gives us is not a black leader angry at Obama, but a cautiously optimistic man who is hoping that the causes he worked on for his entire life won't be ignored again, as they were in the Bush administration.
The rest of the Limbaugh version, from "We are the canary in the mine" on, is from an entirely different question, where Jackson also said of jobs programs, "So when we cry out for help and we say putting America back to work, it affects everybody." In other words, it's a concern for all poor people, not just blacks, but blacks happen to be disproportionately poor.
After informing his audience about how he understands the emotional state of black people, Limbaugh offers another Jackson quote from the interview, also pasted together with chewing gum and lies. Smiley asks about how Jackson can "push back" against Obama when 90 percent of black people "love this president?"
Here's the Limbaugh version of the answer: "They also love to keep their houses and they also love their jobs. So the issue is about policy. It's not about our appreciation of the impact of this presidency. We found through the attorney generals that these major banks profiled blacks and Latinos. They circumvented community reinvestment laws. As opposed to getting a bailout, they should be facing the courts for breaking the law. On the black and brown side is where the water came in the boat. But the water didn't stop. It kept on coming, the water kept coming across. A rising tide will not lift those boats stuck at the bottom that have holes in them."
And now the actual quote (this is long, but you need it to know just how much Limbaugh tricks his audience): "And for all the right reasons. They'd also love to keep their houses, and they also love jobs. They also love some way to reduce student loan rates that are now driving us out of schools. It's issues about policy. It's not about our appreciation of the impact of his presidency; it's not about that at all. I think the quicker we get to the issue of direction and not complexion, then we can begin to focus on what do we need.
"We need targeted jobs now, for the unemployment, for all of us. Forty-nine million Americans who are food-underserved need a food-directed program now. As for the patterns of race discrimination, we've found through the attorney generals that these major banks target and profile Blacks and Latinos are still enclustered. That they've violated the laws, they've violated -- they've circumvented fair lending laws, they circumvented community reinvestment laws. As opposed to getting a bailout, they should be facing the courts for breaking the law.
"So really, the first step we need is the attorney general's role. If he would just step in to enforce the law, that is to stop -- to enforce the EEOC, to enforce contract compliance, to enforce affirmative action, to punish those who break the law, if he would just -- that would stop the hemorrhaging bottom-up. And that is the concern now, that unless we stop the patterns of discrimination, then we all lose.
"Put it this way, Tavis. On the Black and Brown side is where the water came in the boat. That was vulnerable spot. But the water didn't stop there, it kept on coming. In other words, what the lawsuits show is that a Black or Brown making $100,000 got a subprime, high-cost loan, and a White making $50,000 got a low-cost prime loan. That was discrimination.
"So on the front end, the banks profited from the loan not being enforced. The water kept coming until it affects -- because if my house goes in foreclosure, your house loses value. So now four and a half million homes lost to foreclosure, 20 million underwater. The water kept coming across. Now it's gone up to prime loans, and then credit cards, and then real estate.
"So the water that's now sinking the whole ship came in at the bottom, so if we would have, if you will, the Bobby Kennedy type aggressiveness, which -- and Holder is capable of that, I might add. We need the law -- if we just have the law enforced it's a big step, because for eight years, the law was not enforced.
Limbaugh is not just taking Jackson out of context. He's rewriting Jackson's words without saying at any point that he is selectively stringing together sentences in order to fit a narrative. Is that slander? And the narrative Limbaugh is trying to enforce is not only that Obama is losing black support because of some notion of betrayal, but that Jackson is not concerned with poverty, just race. Every reference to fighting poverty has been eliminated by Limbaugh.
Limbaugh concludes, "So there's trouble in paradise out there. The Reverend Jackson, his anger is pretty muted here but he's pretty mad." That may be true, but for his listeners, Jackson's real anger is misrepresented. Or, in other words, as ever, Rush Limbaugh is a big, fat liar.
12/08/2009
Hey, EPA, Good to See You; It's Been a While:
Believe it or not, kids, there was a time when the Environmental Protection Agency existed as an agency to protect the environment. Obviously, as a government entity, it was subject to the inevitable compromises and political turbulence that goes with getting a budget from Congress. But, you know, you could count on the EPA to generally kick some corporate ass every once in a while on shit like air pollution, water pollution, hazardous waste, wetlands degradation, and more. If you were a kid in the 1970s, you might have even seen the EPA as one of the more noble efforts of the government, the good guys, the ones who thought you should maybe grow up without shit streaming into your rivers, chemicals in your air, medical waste on your beaches, and an extra arm on your brother.
Started by Nixon, the agency was almost crushed by Reagan, as he slashed its budget and gutted regulations (and Republicans misused Superfund dollars). As bad as that was, at least some actions occurred. If you want to know just how little the EPA did during the reign of Bush the Dumber, look at the EPA's own timeline of accomplishments by decade. Even in the 1980s, the agency was still working to get rid of toxic shit in the environment. But then you look at the 2000s (which only goes up to 2006), and you see that the entire decade was spent shuffling papers, crumbling under White House pressure, and rotating in new heads.
Once the American cultural focus shifted from the sickness and death caused by pollution to climate change (and global warming), the Bush administration was able to make the idiotic doubts about science a reason to once again chain the EPA in the attic and leave it a quivering, frustrated mess, filling the mid-level ranks with pro-corporate toadies and doing, basically, jackshit for fear of angering a craven Cheney in his mad pursuit of all oil, all the time, no matter whose air it fucks up. As the New York Times put it in December of 2008, "One original initiative in eight years, saved at the bell."
This week, then, it was almost heartwarming in a retro way to welcome the EPA back to the business of, you know, environmental protection. The agency ruled yesterday that "greenhouse gases posed a danger to human health and the environment." The finding gives the Obama administration, through the EPA, the power to regulate and that "if lawmakers do not act to control greenhouse gas pollution it will use its rule-making power to do so." The power for the administration to do so is backed up by a Supreme Court decision from 2007, although, you know, there will be more lawsuits against any rules that are proposed.
In a crystal fucking clear conclusion, the EPA "finds that the combined greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change." Got that? Humans cause greenhouse gases. The report was open for public comment for several months before this final one was issued. Through that process, Republicans in Congress have tried (and will continue to try) to discredit the entire study. Bags of dick James Sensenbrenner and Darrell Issa and others tried to insinuate that the EPA has a "desire to promote an environmental agenda dominated by extreme special interest groups."
But if you read deeply into the report, there's some awesome kicks in the nutsacks to climate change deniers. In a response to commenters about the "lack of consensus" on human contribution to global warming, the report notes, "the strength of the science is not determined by petitions or lists of names; rather it is determined by the detailed examination of the fully body of literature."
And in reference to a Senate minority report that attacked the science of climate change, the EPA responds, "Though the declarations, petitions, and letters referred to by commenters demonstrate the existence of dissenting viewpoints, they do not represent the viewpoints of the overwhelming majority of the active climate science research community nor provide legitimate scientific evidence to substantiate the alternative points of view presented." In layman's terms, "Goddamn, you are all such fucktards and losers."
So welcome back, EPA. And to the many Americans didn't even realize they were missing you, let's hope this is the start of a great reignited love affair.
Believe it or not, kids, there was a time when the Environmental Protection Agency existed as an agency to protect the environment. Obviously, as a government entity, it was subject to the inevitable compromises and political turbulence that goes with getting a budget from Congress. But, you know, you could count on the EPA to generally kick some corporate ass every once in a while on shit like air pollution, water pollution, hazardous waste, wetlands degradation, and more. If you were a kid in the 1970s, you might have even seen the EPA as one of the more noble efforts of the government, the good guys, the ones who thought you should maybe grow up without shit streaming into your rivers, chemicals in your air, medical waste on your beaches, and an extra arm on your brother.
Started by Nixon, the agency was almost crushed by Reagan, as he slashed its budget and gutted regulations (and Republicans misused Superfund dollars). As bad as that was, at least some actions occurred. If you want to know just how little the EPA did during the reign of Bush the Dumber, look at the EPA's own timeline of accomplishments by decade. Even in the 1980s, the agency was still working to get rid of toxic shit in the environment. But then you look at the 2000s (which only goes up to 2006), and you see that the entire decade was spent shuffling papers, crumbling under White House pressure, and rotating in new heads.
Once the American cultural focus shifted from the sickness and death caused by pollution to climate change (and global warming), the Bush administration was able to make the idiotic doubts about science a reason to once again chain the EPA in the attic and leave it a quivering, frustrated mess, filling the mid-level ranks with pro-corporate toadies and doing, basically, jackshit for fear of angering a craven Cheney in his mad pursuit of all oil, all the time, no matter whose air it fucks up. As the New York Times put it in December of 2008, "One original initiative in eight years, saved at the bell."
This week, then, it was almost heartwarming in a retro way to welcome the EPA back to the business of, you know, environmental protection. The agency ruled yesterday that "greenhouse gases posed a danger to human health and the environment." The finding gives the Obama administration, through the EPA, the power to regulate and that "if lawmakers do not act to control greenhouse gas pollution it will use its rule-making power to do so." The power for the administration to do so is backed up by a Supreme Court decision from 2007, although, you know, there will be more lawsuits against any rules that are proposed.
In a crystal fucking clear conclusion, the EPA "finds that the combined greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles and motor vehicle engines contribute to the atmospheric concentrations of these key greenhouse gases and hence to the threat of climate change." Got that? Humans cause greenhouse gases. The report was open for public comment for several months before this final one was issued. Through that process, Republicans in Congress have tried (and will continue to try) to discredit the entire study. Bags of dick James Sensenbrenner and Darrell Issa and others tried to insinuate that the EPA has a "desire to promote an environmental agenda dominated by extreme special interest groups."
But if you read deeply into the report, there's some awesome kicks in the nutsacks to climate change deniers. In a response to commenters about the "lack of consensus" on human contribution to global warming, the report notes, "the strength of the science is not determined by petitions or lists of names; rather it is determined by the detailed examination of the fully body of literature."
And in reference to a Senate minority report that attacked the science of climate change, the EPA responds, "Though the declarations, petitions, and letters referred to by commenters demonstrate the existence of dissenting viewpoints, they do not represent the viewpoints of the overwhelming majority of the active climate science research community nor provide legitimate scientific evidence to substantiate the alternative points of view presented." In layman's terms, "Goddamn, you are all such fucktards and losers."
So welcome back, EPA. And to the many Americans didn't even realize they were missing you, let's hope this is the start of a great reignited love affair.
12/07/2009
Wake Up World with Lizz Winstead Tomorrow Night in NYC:
Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show, and the hard-working and hilarious crew of comics (like Jeff Kreisler and Baron Vaughan) from Shoot the Messenger present the Wake Up World Christmas Special on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. at the Bleecker Street Theatre at 45 Bleecker in New York City.
No, the Rude Pundit isn't involved this time. But after the sketch funny, Lizz will be talking with Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor and Publisher and one of the Rude Pundit's favorite lefty writers.
Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Show, and the hard-working and hilarious crew of comics (like Jeff Kreisler and Baron Vaughan) from Shoot the Messenger present the Wake Up World Christmas Special on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. at the Bleecker Street Theatre at 45 Bleecker in New York City.
No, the Rude Pundit isn't involved this time. But after the sketch funny, Lizz will be talking with Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor and Publisher and one of the Rude Pundit's favorite lefty writers.
Photos That Make the Rude Pundit Want to Freebase Metamucil:
That's Senator John McCain, America's Most Prickish Leprechaun, gettin' his blood all angered up because he was debating health care reform this past Saturday. And what got Johnny Maverick all arms aflailing, teeth-a-barin' mad? Oh, he latched onto the Obama administration's skeevy backroom deals with big pharma to leave drug prices mostly untouched in any reform turd that might squeeze through the tight sphincter of the Senate. In other times, his Republican colleagues would have been all over supporting such deals (and making them), but not when there's opposin' to do by the opposition.
In that dwarfish passive-aggressive voice of his, McCain said, "I don't know what the deal was, but we will find out, just like the deals that were cut with all of these other organizations," attempting to pimp-slap Max Baucus while being cheered on by Judd Gregg, Bob Corker, and the other mouth pissers of the minority. Really, watching this "debate" is like trying to figure out whether to root for Godzilla or King Kong. Ultimately, shit's just gonna end up crushed.
Perhaps forgetting the way that the Senate was run by K-Street lackeys just over a year ago, McCain observed, "This place is full of lobbyists. I can't walk through the hallway without bumping into one of their lobbyists." This is not to mention McCain going into full dickbag mode when Baucus was attempting to answer him: "If the Senator keeps interrupting, he is violating the rules of the Senate. I thought he would have learned 'em by now."
The Republicans were allotted 45 minutes for this part of the "debate" (it was over some damn Republican amendment or other that ultimately failed). And to show you how serious McCain and the minority takes the whole thing, McCain wrapped up by saying, "It has been a great time. We are going to do it again, a lot, between now and the time the vote is forced, and the American people are on our side."
Yep, it's big fun, delaying and delaying as the bill is watered down and watered down, until finally there's nothing left in there for anyone to support except that something should have been done.
That's Senator John McCain, America's Most Prickish Leprechaun, gettin' his blood all angered up because he was debating health care reform this past Saturday. And what got Johnny Maverick all arms aflailing, teeth-a-barin' mad? Oh, he latched onto the Obama administration's skeevy backroom deals with big pharma to leave drug prices mostly untouched in any reform turd that might squeeze through the tight sphincter of the Senate. In other times, his Republican colleagues would have been all over supporting such deals (and making them), but not when there's opposin' to do by the opposition.
In that dwarfish passive-aggressive voice of his, McCain said, "I don't know what the deal was, but we will find out, just like the deals that were cut with all of these other organizations," attempting to pimp-slap Max Baucus while being cheered on by Judd Gregg, Bob Corker, and the other mouth pissers of the minority. Really, watching this "debate" is like trying to figure out whether to root for Godzilla or King Kong. Ultimately, shit's just gonna end up crushed.
Perhaps forgetting the way that the Senate was run by K-Street lackeys just over a year ago, McCain observed, "This place is full of lobbyists. I can't walk through the hallway without bumping into one of their lobbyists." This is not to mention McCain going into full dickbag mode when Baucus was attempting to answer him: "If the Senator keeps interrupting, he is violating the rules of the Senate. I thought he would have learned 'em by now."
The Republicans were allotted 45 minutes for this part of the "debate" (it was over some damn Republican amendment or other that ultimately failed). And to show you how serious McCain and the minority takes the whole thing, McCain wrapped up by saying, "It has been a great time. We are going to do it again, a lot, between now and the time the vote is forced, and the American people are on our side."
Yep, it's big fun, delaying and delaying as the bill is watered down and watered down, until finally there's nothing left in there for anyone to support except that something should have been done.
12/05/2009
A Birthday Treat For You:
The podcast server that had been fucking things up is fixed, so here's this week's Stephanie Miller Show appearance, with John Fugelsang and the lovable producer Chris Lavoie, just in time for the Rude Pundit's birthday, which arrived just in time to cure the post-Beck hangover.
And get yer rude to go: sign up for the Rude Pundit's podcast, one of the top-five political podcasts on Podbean. Pod.
The podcast server that had been fucking things up is fixed, so here's this week's Stephanie Miller Show appearance, with John Fugelsang and the lovable producer Chris Lavoie, just in time for the Rude Pundit's birthday, which arrived just in time to cure the post-Beck hangover.
And get yer rude to go: sign up for the Rude Pundit's podcast, one of the top-five political podcasts on Podbean. Pod.
12/04/2009
Glenn Beck's Christmas Sweater Live Broadcast: A Rude Review (Updated Again):
The Rude Pundit would rather have his balls waxed by a beautician with hooks for hands than have to sit through Glenn Beck's performance of The Christmas Sweater again. While recognizing that Beck's daily ear and eye mauling on radio and TV certainly have an effect on his perception, the Rude Pundit can say that, based on everything he's seen of or read by the man, Glenn Beck is one of the most despicable human beings on the earth who does not have the power to decide life or death. A truly just God would have buried him up to his neck in dense shit and then sent a plague of flies to lay eggs in his head.
Which, come to think of it, is not unlike watching The Christmas Sweater. This is not merely a response to Glenn Beck or his "politics" (the quotation marks will be explained later); the Rude Pundit must see at least 100 plays and performance pieces a year, as well as having done his own one-person show thing (and, you know, having a PhD in this shit). But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The idea of The Christmas Sweater, as promulgated by Beck, is that the "media giant," as his promotional video modestly calls him (he'd say it was a joke, you can be sure), is that the conservative talk show host is going to reveal "my greatest shame." Instead, what Beck did was write a novel about a young boy and said sweater. That led Beck to create and act in an elaborate one-man show, with a small orchestra, video, and the obligatory large black woman singer, one performance of which was simulcast and "rebroadcast" several times to movie theatres around the country last Christmas, which leads to this year, when Beck staged The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption last night at the Skirball Center in New York before a live audience, with simulcast at movie theatres around the country (and a re-broadcast next Thursday).
Here's what Beck promised for the show: "Before a live audience, Glenn will tell you about the real life events that inspired him to write The Christmas Sweater, and he’ll share stories of the overwhelming response he received about the how tale’s message of redemption literally changed people’s lives, bringing many back from the brink of collapse and restoring family relationships. Then, Glenn will show a brand new, re-mastered and exclusive version of The Christmas Sweater taped live during his 2008 cross-country tour. Afterward, Glenn will introduce you to some of the people who were touched by the story, and through inimitable interviewing style you’ll experience their intimate journey of transformation through the simple gift of redemption."
The show itself started 15 minutes early, with Beck talking to us in that passive-aggressive, aw-shucks, fuck-you-wanna-punch-him-in-his-pudgy face voice of his, about how great his story is and how the economy sucks. Then we get a few minutes carols sung by a second-tier black choir (apparently, in Beck's world, only black people can sing Christmas songs), the first having bailed on him when someone pointed out that they'd be singing for Glenn Beck. After a brief, teary intro by the man himself, revealing that one year he had to buy Christmas gifts for his kids at CVS, and gesturing to some very uncomfortable-looking people sitting on the stage, he tells us we're gonna watch the video from last year. It should be mentioned here that this cost 20 bucks.
You can get an awesome summary of the story at Dave Holmes's place. Short version: a 12 year-old boy named Eddie lives in some ridiculous parody of an idyllic Americana town right out of the Disney garbage bin. Eddie's dad is dead, his mom works a couple of jobs, and it's Christmas time. Eddie wants a bike, Mom gives him a sweater she made, Eddie throws it in a corner, Mom is sad, they drive to Grandma and Grandpa's farm, Eddie's a dick the whole time, they leave early, they get into a head-on collision, Mom dies, Eddie ends up living with the grandparents, he meets a mysterious filthy old ranch hand named Russell who wants him to accept that shit happens, Eddie's prick grandpa shows him the bike he would have gotten if he hadn't been such a douchebag, Eddie steals the bike and runs away, he crashes in a corn field, he curses Jesus, he sees a giant storm heading his way, he's scared, creepy Russell walks out of the cornfield to get Eddie to walk into the storm, Eddie does it, he ends up in a field of flowers, it turns out Russell's God or Jesus or something, Russell-God-Jesus-or-Something tells Eddie he has to face his storms, Russell disappears into light, Eddie wakes up in bed on Christmas morning with his mom still alive and he gets a re-do of the day. There is much crying.
Beck's performance involves lots of throwing himself on the floor, rolling around, doing stereotyped voices for every character, and crying, to the point that at some point it becomes a parody of crying. That would probably be when Beck is fetal on the ground, sobbing while the fat black woman sings something. Al Pacino at his most scene-chewing, barking mad would look at Beck and say, "Too far, motherfucker, too far." Oh, and he uses a teleprompter:
The script itself (and one presumes the book) is so vilely calculating, conceived to parade every possible cliche' in front of us, that, if Beck were a smarter man, it might seem like some Andy Kaufman-esque prank that mocks the audience for believing there actually was an America in the 1970s, when this takes place, where kids rode red bikes and said, "For Pete's sake" and "Golly" and "This is the bestest Christmas ever" (that's not a joke). It's like he took every overused Christmas story element short of a Grinch, tossed it into a blender, and then threw in a bleeding Jesus doll.
The Christmas shit is fine, bland, whatever. But when the story gets into redemption mode? That's when it goes bugnuts. Beck's image of the swirling storm that represents life's challenges and the urgings of Russell are the stuff of sub-Joel Osteen hope-mongering. And it left the Rude Pundit wondering, "What's that skeevy fucker up to?" Beck's put himself into the role of motivational speaker, about how once you face the storm in your life, you can heal or some such shit. Fuck him. Read Barbara Ehrenreich's brilliant new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive-Thinking Has Undermined America. It is like a wrecking ball to this entire heal yourself movement.
But, mostly, Beck is a fucking liar, a con artist, and a sociopath. After the video of his sweaty, slobbering, sobbing performance, Beck cries and tells us that his publisher made him change the ending to have Mom come back to life. How does the Rude Pundit know Beck is lying? If all that choking up and crying is real, this fucker is dangerous to himself and others. Besides, he's got a fucking tell. His pause just before each time his throat catches. It's consistent and exactly the same each time. No one cries the same way every time.
But that's not the worst of it. Put aside for a moment that the entire enterprise was a two and a half hour infomercial to make us buy his goddamn book. The lies just start to pile up. Beck told us he was going to reveal the truth behind the story. But he doesn't. He teases us with the notion that "elements" of it are true so that people watching it conflate his story with Eddie's. But that's another lie, a lie he doesn't dispel at all. He's not Eddie, his mom didn't die on Christmas, his parents got divorced - death is less messy than divorce, no? - but Beck is consciously tricking his audience into believing a story that is as much a fantasy as It's a Wonderful Life. Beck's redemption wasn't an overnight transformation in a cornfield when he was 12. It was actually years of work to overcome alcoholism to be the dry drunk, hateful maniac he is today.
And nothing is below him to ennoble his fucking lie of a story. Here's the worst part (yes, there is a worst part): The last segment of the evening was Beck showing us videos of the stories of people he says were "inspired" to face their "storms" by reading The Christmas Sweater or hearing Beck's voice. No, really, one guy was said he was heading into a drug store to get sleeping pills to off himself; then he heard Beck speaking, and it caused him to fall to the street sobbing and not kill himself (although public degradation is fine). These people are a former heroin addict (who got serious about doing drugs on 9/11), a breast cancer survivor, and the aforementioned suicidal guy. Their stories are highlighted with quotes from the book about, you know, facing storms. They were brought out to a couch to vouch for the greatness of Beck and the sweater. Each of them said they're glad they suffered, glad they were addicted to drugs, glad they had breast cancer, because of what it taught them about life. Whether or not such lessons might have happened otherwise are never part of this equation.
But the fucking con job is completed in a sloppy way. For there's one other woman. She is there to illustrate getting past loss. See, one Christmas day, she, her husband, and their 3 year-old daughter were riding to the grandparents' house when they got in a collision with another car, killing the husband and little girl. The woman went through a long recovery, but she decided to live her life to the fullest, doing things her little girl loved, like learning to ride horses, and she devotes her life to rescued dogs. It's actually quite a lovely tale. What does Beck's book have to do with it?
Fucking nothing. The accident happened in 1986, while Glenn Beck was a nobody jerk-off DJ, and Beck had nothing to do with the woman's "redemption." In other words, Beck was looking for someone who had lost someone in a car accident on Christmas Day just like Eddie in order to illustrate some fucking point in his awful story. In other words, it's a lie to prop up his other lies.
That cynicism, that utter contempt for humanity and suffering, that ability to freely exploit the awful events of others, that is what Beck does. Whether it's about God, the nation, or your pain.
Update o' Fun: If you want to read the Rude Pundit's live-Twitter musings from last night while watching Beck, go to http://twitter.com/rudepundit. Scroll down, go back, enjoy.
Update o' "Politics": The Rude Pundit was called away before he got to finish this point: The word "politics" is in quotation marks because there are no real political foundations behind Beck's beliefs. He spouts a vague, nebulous form of nationalism without grounding in any real world policy (except a complete set of lies about what the Founders wrote). It is governance-lite; or, more accurately, it is anarchy. His religious beliefs, as exemplified by the fictional story of Eddie, are devoid of actual Christian suffering and redemption. It's faith without much more work than a good therapy session. In other words, he has no beliefs at all, other than to suck your wallets dry, but he disguises that fact in words, words, words and tears, tears, tears.
The Rude Pundit would rather have his balls waxed by a beautician with hooks for hands than have to sit through Glenn Beck's performance of The Christmas Sweater again. While recognizing that Beck's daily ear and eye mauling on radio and TV certainly have an effect on his perception, the Rude Pundit can say that, based on everything he's seen of or read by the man, Glenn Beck is one of the most despicable human beings on the earth who does not have the power to decide life or death. A truly just God would have buried him up to his neck in dense shit and then sent a plague of flies to lay eggs in his head.
Which, come to think of it, is not unlike watching The Christmas Sweater. This is not merely a response to Glenn Beck or his "politics" (the quotation marks will be explained later); the Rude Pundit must see at least 100 plays and performance pieces a year, as well as having done his own one-person show thing (and, you know, having a PhD in this shit). But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
The idea of The Christmas Sweater, as promulgated by Beck, is that the "media giant," as his promotional video modestly calls him (he'd say it was a joke, you can be sure), is that the conservative talk show host is going to reveal "my greatest shame." Instead, what Beck did was write a novel about a young boy and said sweater. That led Beck to create and act in an elaborate one-man show, with a small orchestra, video, and the obligatory large black woman singer, one performance of which was simulcast and "rebroadcast" several times to movie theatres around the country last Christmas, which leads to this year, when Beck staged The Christmas Sweater: A Return to Redemption last night at the Skirball Center in New York before a live audience, with simulcast at movie theatres around the country (and a re-broadcast next Thursday).
Here's what Beck promised for the show: "Before a live audience, Glenn will tell you about the real life events that inspired him to write The Christmas Sweater, and he’ll share stories of the overwhelming response he received about the how tale’s message of redemption literally changed people’s lives, bringing many back from the brink of collapse and restoring family relationships. Then, Glenn will show a brand new, re-mastered and exclusive version of The Christmas Sweater taped live during his 2008 cross-country tour. Afterward, Glenn will introduce you to some of the people who were touched by the story, and through inimitable interviewing style you’ll experience their intimate journey of transformation through the simple gift of redemption."
The show itself started 15 minutes early, with Beck talking to us in that passive-aggressive, aw-shucks, fuck-you-wanna-punch-him-in-his-pudgy face voice of his, about how great his story is and how the economy sucks. Then we get a few minutes carols sung by a second-tier black choir (apparently, in Beck's world, only black people can sing Christmas songs), the first having bailed on him when someone pointed out that they'd be singing for Glenn Beck. After a brief, teary intro by the man himself, revealing that one year he had to buy Christmas gifts for his kids at CVS, and gesturing to some very uncomfortable-looking people sitting on the stage, he tells us we're gonna watch the video from last year. It should be mentioned here that this cost 20 bucks.
You can get an awesome summary of the story at Dave Holmes's place. Short version: a 12 year-old boy named Eddie lives in some ridiculous parody of an idyllic Americana town right out of the Disney garbage bin. Eddie's dad is dead, his mom works a couple of jobs, and it's Christmas time. Eddie wants a bike, Mom gives him a sweater she made, Eddie throws it in a corner, Mom is sad, they drive to Grandma and Grandpa's farm, Eddie's a dick the whole time, they leave early, they get into a head-on collision, Mom dies, Eddie ends up living with the grandparents, he meets a mysterious filthy old ranch hand named Russell who wants him to accept that shit happens, Eddie's prick grandpa shows him the bike he would have gotten if he hadn't been such a douchebag, Eddie steals the bike and runs away, he crashes in a corn field, he curses Jesus, he sees a giant storm heading his way, he's scared, creepy Russell walks out of the cornfield to get Eddie to walk into the storm, Eddie does it, he ends up in a field of flowers, it turns out Russell's God or Jesus or something, Russell-God-Jesus-or-Something tells Eddie he has to face his storms, Russell disappears into light, Eddie wakes up in bed on Christmas morning with his mom still alive and he gets a re-do of the day. There is much crying.
Beck's performance involves lots of throwing himself on the floor, rolling around, doing stereotyped voices for every character, and crying, to the point that at some point it becomes a parody of crying. That would probably be when Beck is fetal on the ground, sobbing while the fat black woman sings something. Al Pacino at his most scene-chewing, barking mad would look at Beck and say, "Too far, motherfucker, too far." Oh, and he uses a teleprompter:
The script itself (and one presumes the book) is so vilely calculating, conceived to parade every possible cliche' in front of us, that, if Beck were a smarter man, it might seem like some Andy Kaufman-esque prank that mocks the audience for believing there actually was an America in the 1970s, when this takes place, where kids rode red bikes and said, "For Pete's sake" and "Golly" and "This is the bestest Christmas ever" (that's not a joke). It's like he took every overused Christmas story element short of a Grinch, tossed it into a blender, and then threw in a bleeding Jesus doll.
The Christmas shit is fine, bland, whatever. But when the story gets into redemption mode? That's when it goes bugnuts. Beck's image of the swirling storm that represents life's challenges and the urgings of Russell are the stuff of sub-Joel Osteen hope-mongering. And it left the Rude Pundit wondering, "What's that skeevy fucker up to?" Beck's put himself into the role of motivational speaker, about how once you face the storm in your life, you can heal or some such shit. Fuck him. Read Barbara Ehrenreich's brilliant new book, Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive-Thinking Has Undermined America. It is like a wrecking ball to this entire heal yourself movement.
But, mostly, Beck is a fucking liar, a con artist, and a sociopath. After the video of his sweaty, slobbering, sobbing performance, Beck cries and tells us that his publisher made him change the ending to have Mom come back to life. How does the Rude Pundit know Beck is lying? If all that choking up and crying is real, this fucker is dangerous to himself and others. Besides, he's got a fucking tell. His pause just before each time his throat catches. It's consistent and exactly the same each time. No one cries the same way every time.
But that's not the worst of it. Put aside for a moment that the entire enterprise was a two and a half hour infomercial to make us buy his goddamn book. The lies just start to pile up. Beck told us he was going to reveal the truth behind the story. But he doesn't. He teases us with the notion that "elements" of it are true so that people watching it conflate his story with Eddie's. But that's another lie, a lie he doesn't dispel at all. He's not Eddie, his mom didn't die on Christmas, his parents got divorced - death is less messy than divorce, no? - but Beck is consciously tricking his audience into believing a story that is as much a fantasy as It's a Wonderful Life. Beck's redemption wasn't an overnight transformation in a cornfield when he was 12. It was actually years of work to overcome alcoholism to be the dry drunk, hateful maniac he is today.
And nothing is below him to ennoble his fucking lie of a story. Here's the worst part (yes, there is a worst part): The last segment of the evening was Beck showing us videos of the stories of people he says were "inspired" to face their "storms" by reading The Christmas Sweater or hearing Beck's voice. No, really, one guy was said he was heading into a drug store to get sleeping pills to off himself; then he heard Beck speaking, and it caused him to fall to the street sobbing and not kill himself (although public degradation is fine). These people are a former heroin addict (who got serious about doing drugs on 9/11), a breast cancer survivor, and the aforementioned suicidal guy. Their stories are highlighted with quotes from the book about, you know, facing storms. They were brought out to a couch to vouch for the greatness of Beck and the sweater. Each of them said they're glad they suffered, glad they were addicted to drugs, glad they had breast cancer, because of what it taught them about life. Whether or not such lessons might have happened otherwise are never part of this equation.
But the fucking con job is completed in a sloppy way. For there's one other woman. She is there to illustrate getting past loss. See, one Christmas day, she, her husband, and their 3 year-old daughter were riding to the grandparents' house when they got in a collision with another car, killing the husband and little girl. The woman went through a long recovery, but she decided to live her life to the fullest, doing things her little girl loved, like learning to ride horses, and she devotes her life to rescued dogs. It's actually quite a lovely tale. What does Beck's book have to do with it?
Fucking nothing. The accident happened in 1986, while Glenn Beck was a nobody jerk-off DJ, and Beck had nothing to do with the woman's "redemption." In other words, Beck was looking for someone who had lost someone in a car accident on Christmas Day just like Eddie in order to illustrate some fucking point in his awful story. In other words, it's a lie to prop up his other lies.
That cynicism, that utter contempt for humanity and suffering, that ability to freely exploit the awful events of others, that is what Beck does. Whether it's about God, the nation, or your pain.
Update o' Fun: If you want to read the Rude Pundit's live-Twitter musings from last night while watching Beck, go to http://twitter.com/rudepundit. Scroll down, go back, enjoy.
Update o' "Politics": The Rude Pundit was called away before he got to finish this point: The word "politics" is in quotation marks because there are no real political foundations behind Beck's beliefs. He spouts a vague, nebulous form of nationalism without grounding in any real world policy (except a complete set of lies about what the Founders wrote). It is governance-lite; or, more accurately, it is anarchy. His religious beliefs, as exemplified by the fictional story of Eddie, are devoid of actual Christian suffering and redemption. It's faith without much more work than a good therapy session. In other words, he has no beliefs at all, other than to suck your wallets dry, but he disguises that fact in words, words, words and tears, tears, tears.
12/03/2009
Facebook Racists: Anti-Obama Imagery and Cowards on Parade:
Any idiot with a computer, a Facebook account, and internet access can set up a group or page for any damn cause or issue or animal, vegetable, or mineral. That relative freedom is one of the things that has attracted the third of a billion Facebook users who obsessively check their status updates for comments. Somewhere, anthropologists and sociologists are studying the fuck out of this phenomenon for papers and dissertations.
Often, it can be damn funny to trawl around the FB and see what's there. For instance, there's a "Fuck Jesus Christ" group that has 4500 members, which is a place for fairly interesting atheist talk. Of course, there are at least 5 pages dedicated to getting rid of the Fuck Jesus Christ page, the largest of which has 260,000 members. Free speech and the effort to ban free speech, which is itself a kind of free speech: the vicious cycle of liberty.
As you might imagine, there's a whole fuck of a lot of anti-Barack Obama Facebook groups of varying shapes and sizes. And as you might imagine, or maybe not, there's a fuck of a lot of racist images that make the groups' members and administrators giddy. You may remember the controversy from October about racist Obama images showing up on the GOP's Facebook page. The smaller FB groups that propagate racist imagery related to Obama generally fall under the radar. For instance, there's this one from The Hardcore Right-Wing News group, which has nearly 2000 members:
That isn't a lingering image from the campaign. As you can see, it was just added this week, to the delight of the commenters:
Fun observation about the group: the first three names of the administrators, who are not listed in alphabetical or any order, all start with K. You can also buy an Obama witch doctor t-shirt there. (To follow the money, the shirt is from "Wall Street Market News" as a 9/12 Project item. It's a fucking insane conservative conspiracy theory website.)
There's layers upon layers of these...well, let's just call them "fringe groups." They share images; that witch doctor t-shirt is available for sale through pro-Sarah Palin groups, pro-Glenn Beck groups, and a dozen or so other conservative groups. Another image making the rounds in the last couple of weeks is this one, with the caption "'bamas mistress" (that'd be the poster's punctuation there):
It's featured in the nearly 3000 member Don't Tread on Me group, as well as at the smaller, wordily-named "Let's Help Obama's Approval Rating Drop 20% in 3 Months" and "Remove Our Communist President from Office" groups.
As far as the Rude Pundit can tell, unlike the "Fuck Jesus Christ" group, no one is agitating to get the groups kicked out or to get the images taken down. Which is fine, actually. This is not a call for Facebook to ban anything. It's not really about Facebook at all. Facebook just makes it easier for racist pussies to share their hatred in a virtual circle jerk. Used to be, people like this would have to meet in secret and speak in code in public. Not anymore. Now it's perfectly fine to let everyone know that you're a proud, backwards ass redneck.
This is a reminder, as we on the left disagree with Obama and oppose some of his policies, of what we're actually up against, our own extremists and the absolutely bugfuck insane shit they are willing to say openly.
Any idiot with a computer, a Facebook account, and internet access can set up a group or page for any damn cause or issue or animal, vegetable, or mineral. That relative freedom is one of the things that has attracted the third of a billion Facebook users who obsessively check their status updates for comments. Somewhere, anthropologists and sociologists are studying the fuck out of this phenomenon for papers and dissertations.
Often, it can be damn funny to trawl around the FB and see what's there. For instance, there's a "Fuck Jesus Christ" group that has 4500 members, which is a place for fairly interesting atheist talk. Of course, there are at least 5 pages dedicated to getting rid of the Fuck Jesus Christ page, the largest of which has 260,000 members. Free speech and the effort to ban free speech, which is itself a kind of free speech: the vicious cycle of liberty.
As you might imagine, there's a whole fuck of a lot of anti-Barack Obama Facebook groups of varying shapes and sizes. And as you might imagine, or maybe not, there's a fuck of a lot of racist images that make the groups' members and administrators giddy. You may remember the controversy from October about racist Obama images showing up on the GOP's Facebook page. The smaller FB groups that propagate racist imagery related to Obama generally fall under the radar. For instance, there's this one from The Hardcore Right-Wing News group, which has nearly 2000 members:
That isn't a lingering image from the campaign. As you can see, it was just added this week, to the delight of the commenters:
Fun observation about the group: the first three names of the administrators, who are not listed in alphabetical or any order, all start with K. You can also buy an Obama witch doctor t-shirt there. (To follow the money, the shirt is from "Wall Street Market News" as a 9/12 Project item. It's a fucking insane conservative conspiracy theory website.)
There's layers upon layers of these...well, let's just call them "fringe groups." They share images; that witch doctor t-shirt is available for sale through pro-Sarah Palin groups, pro-Glenn Beck groups, and a dozen or so other conservative groups. Another image making the rounds in the last couple of weeks is this one, with the caption "'bamas mistress" (that'd be the poster's punctuation there):
It's featured in the nearly 3000 member Don't Tread on Me group, as well as at the smaller, wordily-named "Let's Help Obama's Approval Rating Drop 20% in 3 Months" and "Remove Our Communist President from Office" groups.
As far as the Rude Pundit can tell, unlike the "Fuck Jesus Christ" group, no one is agitating to get the groups kicked out or to get the images taken down. Which is fine, actually. This is not a call for Facebook to ban anything. It's not really about Facebook at all. Facebook just makes it easier for racist pussies to share their hatred in a virtual circle jerk. Used to be, people like this would have to meet in secret and speak in code in public. Not anymore. Now it's perfectly fine to let everyone know that you're a proud, backwards ass redneck.
This is a reminder, as we on the left disagree with Obama and oppose some of his policies, of what we're actually up against, our own extremists and the absolutely bugfuck insane shit they are willing to say openly.
12/02/2009
In Brief: Dick Cheney Hates You:
When Politico's Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei made the trip to Cheney Manor for a completely unnecessary interview, they went there with the knowledge that the former Vice-President would use his scabby, cock-headed tentacles to fuck everyone of their orifices at once. Indeed, Allen had been holding jawbreakers in his mouth for the past week to stretch out his muscles, and Vandehei had been shoving increasingly larger vegetables into his asshole in order to get his sphincter prepared. He was up to eggplants. When you are a slithering, maggot-spewing, Hades-spawned dungbeast like Cheney, you have only a couple of choices when you are visited by humans: ingest them into your viscous maw or ream them completely. Since Allen and Vandehei brought Dick Cheney a freshly-killed Iranian child as an offering and promised him no tough questions, they knew they'd survive the experience.
But Cheney was in rare form, more or less declaring that the Obama administration was trying to destroy the nation. Cheney slurped out that Obama "doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism — the idea that the United States is a special nation, that we are the greatest, freest nation mankind has ever known." Yeah, Cheney went full teabag, adding, "When I see the way he operates, I am increasingly convinced that he’s not as committed to or as wedded to that concept as most of the presidents I’ve known, Republican or Democrat." You got that? Dick Cheney, one of the most vile people ever to be allowed to walk into the White House, the man whose mere presence in this world led to the creation of the abyss we're trying to avoid finally plunging into, the motherfucker who advocated policies that actually and really reversed the course of this nation's progress in order to demonstrably profit a very few people, a deranged sadist whose death would instantly lead to more light on the earth, says that Barack Obama is against America and is tearing it down, although he never actually explains why. Maybe that's just what presumptive liberals do. More likely, Dick Cheney just hates you, all of you, all of us, for daring to think you could fuck up everything that he had put in place.
And it's not like Allen and Vandehei pressed Cheney on what Obama's goal is in enslaving the citizenry to awful things like health care and environmental rescue. But they were probably too busy getting penetrated by Cheney's plunging tentacles. When they were seen later, the two Politico-ers were said to be covered in blood, black shit, and green semen, but smiling, as if they had proudly done their jobs so very well.
(For a genuine chill, listen to Cheney's digitally-recorded voice. The robotic distortion makes it seem like he can't keep the human sound steady as he speaks.)
When Politico's Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei made the trip to Cheney Manor for a completely unnecessary interview, they went there with the knowledge that the former Vice-President would use his scabby, cock-headed tentacles to fuck everyone of their orifices at once. Indeed, Allen had been holding jawbreakers in his mouth for the past week to stretch out his muscles, and Vandehei had been shoving increasingly larger vegetables into his asshole in order to get his sphincter prepared. He was up to eggplants. When you are a slithering, maggot-spewing, Hades-spawned dungbeast like Cheney, you have only a couple of choices when you are visited by humans: ingest them into your viscous maw or ream them completely. Since Allen and Vandehei brought Dick Cheney a freshly-killed Iranian child as an offering and promised him no tough questions, they knew they'd survive the experience.
But Cheney was in rare form, more or less declaring that the Obama administration was trying to destroy the nation. Cheney slurped out that Obama "doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism — the idea that the United States is a special nation, that we are the greatest, freest nation mankind has ever known." Yeah, Cheney went full teabag, adding, "When I see the way he operates, I am increasingly convinced that he’s not as committed to or as wedded to that concept as most of the presidents I’ve known, Republican or Democrat." You got that? Dick Cheney, one of the most vile people ever to be allowed to walk into the White House, the man whose mere presence in this world led to the creation of the abyss we're trying to avoid finally plunging into, the motherfucker who advocated policies that actually and really reversed the course of this nation's progress in order to demonstrably profit a very few people, a deranged sadist whose death would instantly lead to more light on the earth, says that Barack Obama is against America and is tearing it down, although he never actually explains why. Maybe that's just what presumptive liberals do. More likely, Dick Cheney just hates you, all of you, all of us, for daring to think you could fuck up everything that he had put in place.
And it's not like Allen and Vandehei pressed Cheney on what Obama's goal is in enslaving the citizenry to awful things like health care and environmental rescue. But they were probably too busy getting penetrated by Cheney's plunging tentacles. When they were seen later, the two Politico-ers were said to be covered in blood, black shit, and green semen, but smiling, as if they had proudly done their jobs so very well.
(For a genuine chill, listen to Cheney's digitally-recorded voice. The robotic distortion makes it seem like he can't keep the human sound steady as he speaks.)
12/01/2009
Live Whiskey-Blogging the President's Latest Most Importantest Speech of the Millennium:
If it's time for another special primetime appearance by a Commander-in-Chief, it's time to break out the sippin' whiskey (the shots are for press conferences). The Rude Pundit was given a bottle of Tom Handy rye, and, sweet belchin' Jesus, he can tell already that this is gonna kick his ass like a 'roid-rager at the gym arguing over who's next on the lat machine.
But we're not here to just talk rye. Oh, no, we're awaitin' the confirmation word at bad-ass West Point from the man hisself that, for the next two years, we're upping the ante on Afghanistan. Yeah, yeah, he's doin' what he said he'd do during the campaign, but just because we told him he could have anal on his birthday doesn't mean we'll like it. (All quotes pretty much guaranteed to be right in spirit and wrong in wording.)
8:00: Was C-SPAN3 playing Stevie Wonder music as we wait?
8:01: Oh, the Rude Pundit can't wait until the cadets detain Obama...whoa, are they applauding? Is that how a military coup is supposed to start?
8:03: Fuck, he's really gonna bring out the 9/11. The Rude Pundit's heart just broke a little more. And Tom Handy burns so sweetly when you take a gulp.
8:05: Will he actually say that Bush and Cheney fucked it up?
8:06: Nope. "Decisions were made" that led to war in Iraq. He shall still not be named. But, apparently, in 2011, there better be a few hundred thousand more jobs available in the United States for the returning troops and laid-off Blackwater employees.
8:07: Wait, wait, Iraq is a success?
8:08: So, yeah, he increased troops, just like he fucking said he would.
8:09: "Disrupting, dismantling, and defeating" al-Qaeda and Taliban are the goals. How soon before right-wingers note that Obama pronounces "Taliban" like he's Harry Belafonte?
8:10: Next mention of 9/11. Addresses the cadets directly. Cadets look like they wish they could watch Charlie Brown Christmas before they get deployed.
8:11: "There has never been an option before me that called for" troop increase before 2010, he says, which seems like real inside baseball. He explains the long "review" he undertook, pretty much saying that sometimes grown-ups actually have to think about decisions rather than impulsively make them like monkeys wondering which gawking zoogoer deserves shit thrown at them.
8:12: There you go: 30,000 more troops for 18 months. But, finally, he says that the war in Iraq has made people angry about the Afghanistan war and that anger now has transferred over to Afghanistan because they have nothing to distract them.
8:13: "I see first hand the terrible wages of war." No, you see the vig on the loan we're making.
8:14: Clearly states that it is about Pakistan as much or more than Afghanistan. Which ought to make us wonder: why the fuck aren't we invading Pakistan? (No, we shouldn't invade Pakistan.)
8:15: "This is not just America's war." But it sure as fuck seems that way.
8:16: Fuck him for making this sound reasonable. Fuck him for making it seem like it'll work. Fuck him for making this whiskey be sucked down faster than it ought to be.
8:17: "We must come together to end this war," he says. But, of course, "taking into account conditions on the ground" - there's the out that we've heard before. Afghans will "ultimately be responsible for their own country." But when is "ultimately"? And if "conditions on the ground" suck balls, are we gonna stay there to suck 'em?
8:18: He actually thinks that we can end corruption in the Karzai government and poppy-farming in the countryside.
8:19: Speaks to Afghan people. Pashtun goat herders in their thatch lean-to's feel their ears burning.
8:20: "We're in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from spreading." We've heard this, we've heard this, we've heard this before; it's just that he can pronounce all the words correctly. And even if it's true, the fact that we have not held the Bush administration accountable for the Iraq war means that American believe there's no consequences for lying or incompetency. It basically comes down to "trust me." And, sorry, unless someone has to pay for breaking that trust, it's been used up.
8:22: Addresses Afghanistan as another Vietnam. More or less , his answer is "Don't fuck with me on history."
8:23: Says some say we should "go forward with troops we already have." Who is suggesting that? And, since he's being attacked on the left and right, Afghanistan may actually be an issue that unifies the country.
8:25: Agh, C-SPAN freezes. Chance for refill. Tom Handy has become a good friend in a short period of time.
8:26: Says he will address costs "openly and honestly." Says flat out that it will cost $30 billion this year.
8:27: "The nation that I'm most interested in building is our own." The lack of smirks and tics makes it easy to take him seriously.
8:28: "We can't capture or kill every violent extremist abroad." Now broadens the meaning of security to include nukes.
8:29: "We'll have to use diplomacy." And then talks about how much he's tried to reconnect - sorry, "surrender" - to the rest of the world.
8:30: Reiterates that he has banned torture and really, really wants to close Gitmo. Makes it about American moral authority.
8:31: "We have not always been thanked for these efforts..." in building global security and economy. "We have not sought world domination" although Goldman-Sachs has.
8:33: Okay, okay, we're all really fucking great, thanks. Bring it on home. (Oh, look, black cadets with glasses like Obama.)
8:34: Oh, shit, he's actually talking about how we were allegedly so unified just post-9/11. Look for Glenn Beck to sue right after eating his own face on the air.
8:35: That's good: "Right makes might."
And we're done.
Bottom line: he wants one last shot to make right what Bush fucked up. But that doesn't take into account that maybe it was never possible in the first place to get it right.
If it's time for another special primetime appearance by a Commander-in-Chief, it's time to break out the sippin' whiskey (the shots are for press conferences). The Rude Pundit was given a bottle of Tom Handy rye, and, sweet belchin' Jesus, he can tell already that this is gonna kick his ass like a 'roid-rager at the gym arguing over who's next on the lat machine.
But we're not here to just talk rye. Oh, no, we're awaitin' the confirmation word at bad-ass West Point from the man hisself that, for the next two years, we're upping the ante on Afghanistan. Yeah, yeah, he's doin' what he said he'd do during the campaign, but just because we told him he could have anal on his birthday doesn't mean we'll like it. (All quotes pretty much guaranteed to be right in spirit and wrong in wording.)
8:00: Was C-SPAN3 playing Stevie Wonder music as we wait?
8:01: Oh, the Rude Pundit can't wait until the cadets detain Obama...whoa, are they applauding? Is that how a military coup is supposed to start?
8:03: Fuck, he's really gonna bring out the 9/11. The Rude Pundit's heart just broke a little more. And Tom Handy burns so sweetly when you take a gulp.
8:05: Will he actually say that Bush and Cheney fucked it up?
8:06: Nope. "Decisions were made" that led to war in Iraq. He shall still not be named. But, apparently, in 2011, there better be a few hundred thousand more jobs available in the United States for the returning troops and laid-off Blackwater employees.
8:07: Wait, wait, Iraq is a success?
8:08: So, yeah, he increased troops, just like he fucking said he would.
8:09: "Disrupting, dismantling, and defeating" al-Qaeda and Taliban are the goals. How soon before right-wingers note that Obama pronounces "Taliban" like he's Harry Belafonte?
8:10: Next mention of 9/11. Addresses the cadets directly. Cadets look like they wish they could watch Charlie Brown Christmas before they get deployed.
8:11: "There has never been an option before me that called for" troop increase before 2010, he says, which seems like real inside baseball. He explains the long "review" he undertook, pretty much saying that sometimes grown-ups actually have to think about decisions rather than impulsively make them like monkeys wondering which gawking zoogoer deserves shit thrown at them.
8:12: There you go: 30,000 more troops for 18 months. But, finally, he says that the war in Iraq has made people angry about the Afghanistan war and that anger now has transferred over to Afghanistan because they have nothing to distract them.
8:13: "I see first hand the terrible wages of war." No, you see the vig on the loan we're making.
8:14: Clearly states that it is about Pakistan as much or more than Afghanistan. Which ought to make us wonder: why the fuck aren't we invading Pakistan? (No, we shouldn't invade Pakistan.)
8:15: "This is not just America's war." But it sure as fuck seems that way.
8:16: Fuck him for making this sound reasonable. Fuck him for making it seem like it'll work. Fuck him for making this whiskey be sucked down faster than it ought to be.
8:17: "We must come together to end this war," he says. But, of course, "taking into account conditions on the ground" - there's the out that we've heard before. Afghans will "ultimately be responsible for their own country." But when is "ultimately"? And if "conditions on the ground" suck balls, are we gonna stay there to suck 'em?
8:18: He actually thinks that we can end corruption in the Karzai government and poppy-farming in the countryside.
8:19: Speaks to Afghan people. Pashtun goat herders in their thatch lean-to's feel their ears burning.
8:20: "We're in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from spreading." We've heard this, we've heard this, we've heard this before; it's just that he can pronounce all the words correctly. And even if it's true, the fact that we have not held the Bush administration accountable for the Iraq war means that American believe there's no consequences for lying or incompetency. It basically comes down to "trust me." And, sorry, unless someone has to pay for breaking that trust, it's been used up.
8:22: Addresses Afghanistan as another Vietnam. More or less , his answer is "Don't fuck with me on history."
8:23: Says some say we should "go forward with troops we already have." Who is suggesting that? And, since he's being attacked on the left and right, Afghanistan may actually be an issue that unifies the country.
8:25: Agh, C-SPAN freezes. Chance for refill. Tom Handy has become a good friend in a short period of time.
8:26: Says he will address costs "openly and honestly." Says flat out that it will cost $30 billion this year.
8:27: "The nation that I'm most interested in building is our own." The lack of smirks and tics makes it easy to take him seriously.
8:28: "We can't capture or kill every violent extremist abroad." Now broadens the meaning of security to include nukes.
8:29: "We'll have to use diplomacy." And then talks about how much he's tried to reconnect - sorry, "surrender" - to the rest of the world.
8:30: Reiterates that he has banned torture and really, really wants to close Gitmo. Makes it about American moral authority.
8:31: "We have not always been thanked for these efforts..." in building global security and economy. "We have not sought world domination" although Goldman-Sachs has.
8:33: Okay, okay, we're all really fucking great, thanks. Bring it on home. (Oh, look, black cadets with glasses like Obama.)
8:34: Oh, shit, he's actually talking about how we were allegedly so unified just post-9/11. Look for Glenn Beck to sue right after eating his own face on the air.
8:35: That's good: "Right makes might."
And we're done.
Bottom line: he wants one last shot to make right what Bush fucked up. But that doesn't take into account that maybe it was never possible in the first place to get it right.
We Need to Stop Pretending That Obama Hasn't Been Consistent on Afghanistan:
Let's not kid ourselves here:
"This is a war that we have to win. I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan...We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region." - Then-candidate Barack Obama in his last big speech about Afghanistan, July 15, 2008.
"I think I was right in terms of the need to put more troops into Afghanistan. I said that a year and a half ago. John McCain disagreed. Recently he now wants to put more troops in, and I think that's a good thing, because I think anybody who talks to folks in Afghanistan will concur that we need more support." - Obama to Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News, July 24, 2008.
"Those 30,000 troops could have also been in Afghanistan during this time, and we might have done a much better job of going after al-Qaeda and the Taliban and stabilizing the situation there than we are right now. And that is part of the calculation that has to be made when we're having this broader debate about how to keep America safe." - from the same interview.
"I will finally have a comprehensive strategy to finish the job in Afghanistan, with more troops..." - Obama at a campaign news conference in Ohio, September 9, 2008.
"We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there... I think we need more troops. I've been saying that for over a year now. And I think that we have to do it as quickly as possible because it's been acknowledged by the commanders on the ground the situation is getting worse, not better." - Obama at the September 26, 2009 debate with John McCain.
How many more quotes do you need on this? 'Cause there's probably a couple of hundred or so more, every single one of them with Barack Obama calling for an escalation in the number of troops in Afghanistan. Hell, it was an easy applause line.
His acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination? "When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11."
An early campaign speech from September 12, 2007? "When we end this war in Iraq, we can finally finish the fight in Afghanistan. That is why I propose stepping up our commitment there, with at least two additional combat brigades and a comprehensive program of aid and support to help Afghans help themselves."
So let's be grown-ups here as we get ready for President Obama to make his new, big Afghanistan speech and say that the man didn't lie to us. He told us for the last two years that he was gonna send more troops. In fact, about the only thing he's guilty for during this long period of contemplation and meetings is getting our hopes up that he might be changing his mind. Out here in Left Blogsylvania, we desperately read things like his delay in announcing a strategy and his trip to Dover Air Base as the signs of transformation. Nope. Turns out that he was just figuring out how much to up the number from two brigades.
Americans are also finally getting to the point of accepting that Afghanistan is not the "good war" we had hoped it was. It's just, now that there's at least some movement on Iraq withdrawal, we're paying attention, and, oh, wow, hell, there's actually people dying and we're not really sure why. For so very long, many on the left were willing to use Afghanistan as a way of demonstrating how tough they could be while condemning Iraq.
But we who supported Obama but opposed the war knew, or should have known, what we were getting by voting for him. The thing is that there were supposed to be all these mitigating factors, like a kind of bargaining session. Like we had a mental negotiation with his campaign platform: "Okay, you can escalate the number troops in Afghanistan if you close Gitmo, really end the Iraq war, get health care reform with a real public plan, and, oh, fuck, how about ending DOMA and DADT?" If Obama had held up his end of the deal, there's a good chance a great many more Americans would be supporting this escalation, as they had supported the Afghanistan war to this point. It's an issue of trust, yes, but not in the pathetically misinformed, hysterical way of the teabaggers, who never trusted him to begin with.
Sure, times have changed since the pre-economic collapse a couple of years ago, and more than ever, the wars are luxuries we can't afford. And it doesn't help that so much of what Obama himself said about Iraq seems prescient when talking about Afghanistan. In that July 15, 2008 speech, he said of Iraq, "At some point, a judgment must be made. Iraq is not going to be a perfect place, and we don’t have unlimited resources to try to make it one. We are not going to kill every al-Qaeda sympathizer, eliminate every trace of Iranian influence, or stand up a flawless democracy before we leave." Damn, that guy was smart.
But this isn't about Obama or even the Afghanistan war. It's about us. As we see Obama capitulate, hedge, or hesitate on all the liberal things he promised, it's just goddamned depressing to see him so readily follow through on the hawkish promises. And it also forces us to realize that all that protesting of the Iraq war was far, far too narrow in scope.
Tonight: Live whiskey-blogging the speech.
Let's not kid ourselves here:
"This is a war that we have to win. I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan...We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region." - Then-candidate Barack Obama in his last big speech about Afghanistan, July 15, 2008.
"I think I was right in terms of the need to put more troops into Afghanistan. I said that a year and a half ago. John McCain disagreed. Recently he now wants to put more troops in, and I think that's a good thing, because I think anybody who talks to folks in Afghanistan will concur that we need more support." - Obama to Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News, July 24, 2008.
"Those 30,000 troops could have also been in Afghanistan during this time, and we might have done a much better job of going after al-Qaeda and the Taliban and stabilizing the situation there than we are right now. And that is part of the calculation that has to be made when we're having this broader debate about how to keep America safe." - from the same interview.
"I will finally have a comprehensive strategy to finish the job in Afghanistan, with more troops..." - Obama at a campaign news conference in Ohio, September 9, 2008.
"We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there... I think we need more troops. I've been saying that for over a year now. And I think that we have to do it as quickly as possible because it's been acknowledged by the commanders on the ground the situation is getting worse, not better." - Obama at the September 26, 2009 debate with John McCain.
How many more quotes do you need on this? 'Cause there's probably a couple of hundred or so more, every single one of them with Barack Obama calling for an escalation in the number of troops in Afghanistan. Hell, it was an easy applause line.
His acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination? "When John McCain said we could just 'muddle through' in Afghanistan, I argued for more resources and more troops to finish the fight against the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11."
An early campaign speech from September 12, 2007? "When we end this war in Iraq, we can finally finish the fight in Afghanistan. That is why I propose stepping up our commitment there, with at least two additional combat brigades and a comprehensive program of aid and support to help Afghans help themselves."
So let's be grown-ups here as we get ready for President Obama to make his new, big Afghanistan speech and say that the man didn't lie to us. He told us for the last two years that he was gonna send more troops. In fact, about the only thing he's guilty for during this long period of contemplation and meetings is getting our hopes up that he might be changing his mind. Out here in Left Blogsylvania, we desperately read things like his delay in announcing a strategy and his trip to Dover Air Base as the signs of transformation. Nope. Turns out that he was just figuring out how much to up the number from two brigades.
Americans are also finally getting to the point of accepting that Afghanistan is not the "good war" we had hoped it was. It's just, now that there's at least some movement on Iraq withdrawal, we're paying attention, and, oh, wow, hell, there's actually people dying and we're not really sure why. For so very long, many on the left were willing to use Afghanistan as a way of demonstrating how tough they could be while condemning Iraq.
But we who supported Obama but opposed the war knew, or should have known, what we were getting by voting for him. The thing is that there were supposed to be all these mitigating factors, like a kind of bargaining session. Like we had a mental negotiation with his campaign platform: "Okay, you can escalate the number troops in Afghanistan if you close Gitmo, really end the Iraq war, get health care reform with a real public plan, and, oh, fuck, how about ending DOMA and DADT?" If Obama had held up his end of the deal, there's a good chance a great many more Americans would be supporting this escalation, as they had supported the Afghanistan war to this point. It's an issue of trust, yes, but not in the pathetically misinformed, hysterical way of the teabaggers, who never trusted him to begin with.
Sure, times have changed since the pre-economic collapse a couple of years ago, and more than ever, the wars are luxuries we can't afford. And it doesn't help that so much of what Obama himself said about Iraq seems prescient when talking about Afghanistan. In that July 15, 2008 speech, he said of Iraq, "At some point, a judgment must be made. Iraq is not going to be a perfect place, and we don’t have unlimited resources to try to make it one. We are not going to kill every al-Qaeda sympathizer, eliminate every trace of Iranian influence, or stand up a flawless democracy before we leave." Damn, that guy was smart.
But this isn't about Obama or even the Afghanistan war. It's about us. As we see Obama capitulate, hedge, or hesitate on all the liberal things he promised, it's just goddamned depressing to see him so readily follow through on the hawkish promises. And it also forces us to realize that all that protesting of the Iraq war was far, far too narrow in scope.
Tonight: Live whiskey-blogging the speech.
Subscribe to:
Posts
(
Atom
)