Operation Cast Lead

This post is a bit overdue, because the Israeli bombardment of Gaza began nearly a fortnight ago. As usual, Israel has received a ridiculous amount of criticism for actions that are perfectly acceptable under international law - that is, unless initiated by the Jewish state. The criticisms are so obnoxious and predictable, they come from the same quarters and say the same shit. To put it succinctly: every single time Israel acts to defend itself, it is acting immorally and disproportionately. Sure, it is understandable that the Israelis should defend themselves from the incessant rain of rockets cascading upon them from Gaza, but they should do so in a more restrained manner so as to limit civilian casualties.

What they neglect to mention is that Hamas is a pussy organization that hides among civilians. They boast about their toughness and about Israel's supposed weakness, but when Israel comes calling, the first place these cowards head is into the most densely populated area they can find. In fact, they launch their rockets from those very locations, knowing that any Israeli response will kill and injure civilians. So, Hamas fires rockets at the civilians of the western Negev, and do so from highly populated areas (the Gaza Strip itself is one of the most densely populated areas on the face of the earth). This is a war crime in two ways: firing upon civilians and using other civilians as human shields. Yet for some reason the world seems blind to this.

Well, it isn't so much "for some reason". I know the reason. It is unadulterated anti-Semitism, cloaked in so-called "anti-Zionism". As the British historian Paul Johnson, a great philo-Semite and author of A History of the Jews (a magisterial work) writes, "Scratch an anti-Zionist and you will find an anti-Semite." It is just a very convenient disguise. Yet, sometimes it is exposed, such as the recent demonstration in Fort Lauderdale, at which pro-Palestinian demonstrators urged Jews "to get back to the oven" and screamed about nuking Israel. This story has received relatively scant attention from the media, but I can guarantee that if there were pro-Israeli demonstrators screaming about nuking Gaza or the West Bank, it would be all over the news. This was not just a demonstration against supposed Israeli belligerence, but rather a castigation of all Jews. What do the military activities of the IDF have to do with Torah scrolls and synagogues in Belgium, which have been desecrated in recent days in response to the military op in Gaza? Nothing, except that the IDF is composed of mostly Jewish soldiers. So, because Jewish soldiers in the Middle East are engaged in military action, it suddenly becomes legitimate to attack European Jews whose only link to said Jewish soldiers is their Jewishness. Even if one found the attacks in Gaza to be immoral, which I most assuredly do not (they are long overdue), the rationale of the violent acts in Europe is nonsensical. Yet, most sadly and frighteningly, it is par for the course for Muslims around the world.

No other nation on earth is expected to adhere to the ridiculous standard of perfection that Israel is, not even the United States although we come close. More insults are hurled Israel's way when they act in a perfectly legitimate, defensive manner, than when Hamas engages in suicide bombings and rocket launchings. I did not see any marches or demonstrations on behalf of the besieged Israelis of Sderot and surrounding environs. Because no one fucking cares. No one cares except maybe some Jews and their conservative Christian friends. And the latter are not even recognized by the former but are rather shunned. LOOK: all of the anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism that matters comes from two groups: Islamist murderers and their idiot liberal apologists. That is it! Neo-Nazism is a fucking joke: there are like 9 adherents to that ideology and they are largely marginalized.

China took over Tibet 50 years ago and no one cares. Millions of Sudanese are being slaughtered and no one really cares. Sure, they say they do but when is the last time you saw worldwide protestations against the Khartoum regime? Russia asserts its dominance by raping Georgia and everyone is prepared to make the whole situation Georgia's fault. Russia went into Chechnya in 1999 in such a destructive frenzy that I am not sure there are any cockroaches left in Grozny. But the Russian government has the audacity to criticize the legitimate Israeli response, calling it disproportionate. And the world hardly seems to recognize this arch-hypocrisy. There have been more UN resolutions against so-called Israeli belligerence than against any other country in the world, including China, North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and a host of other nations with unsavory regimes. The United Nations has an entire department dedicated to the Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which is either the most ineffective department in the history of humans or superb in its actual intent to keep the Palestinians in squalor to deepen and perpetuate anti-Israeli feelings both in the region and worldwide. I vote for the latter. The United Nations: a good idea poorly executed. It's a waste of time. It is so corrupt and useless that I don't understand why anyone should care what it has to say anymore.

Israel needs to shrug its shoulders and say a big "Fuck you" to a hostile world. Otherwise Operation Cast Lead will have been a huge waste of time and human life. Israel cannot afford another 2006 Lebanon-like failure, otherwise it will deter no one. The whole world already hates the Jewish state: there is no difference whether they act or do not. So they must continue their offensive until Hamas is sufficiently weakened. If they accept an ineffective cease-fire, as they always do in their hopeless attempt to assuage world opinion, the Israelis will be only weakening themselves and strengthening Hamas, which will make it seem that terror is the way to go for the Palestinians, rather than moderation. This is not to say that Fatah is moderate - only in this fucked up part of the world can such an organization be considered such.

There is only so much that a country should be expected to take. That Israel restrained itself for this long is pretty impressive (albeit mistaken). Yet no sooner do the Israelis act than all the talking heads begin their blathering anew about how such violence sets back the peace process. A "peace process" with one party desiring to destroy the other is not worth the paper it is written on. Israel needs to destroy Hamas before any meaningful peace can be established, if it can (and I have my doubts). Arafat seemed moderate to much of the world because they fell for his duplicity (telling the Western world one thing, the Arab world his true intentions). The Second Intifada was pre-planned and no matter what Barak had offered at Camp David in 2000, there would never have been an agreement. The Palestinian leadership gets off on its constituents' misery. The more miserable the Palestinians, the better the excuse to demonize Israel. If there was ever an effective peace, the Palestinian leadership would have to act responsibly, as any leaders of a sovereign state must. Israeli occupation and "genocide" and "apartheid" would no longer be an excuse. This responsibility is not welcomed in these quarters - it is easier to blame the Jews. And so long as it is the Jews you are blaming, you will find sympathy around the world.

Israel is damned if they do and damned if they don't. If they don't, they place their civilians in unacceptable danger (as happened to Sderot). If they do, then they are called bloodthirsty warmongers. They really cannot win. Hamas wins either way: if Israel does nothing, Israel is seen as weak and Hamas as strong. If Israel attacks, then Hamas can hide among civilians, knowing that Israeli bombardments will kill some civilians, which will turn the world against Israel.

The entire world, with the exception of a few countries, hates Israel with a demented fury that is reserved for it alone. How much more can it increase this hatred if they continue with Operation Cast Lead? Because the whole world hates Israel anyway, they might as well go for it because their security as a sovereign nation is more important than what a bunch of self-important, ignorant leftists have to say on the matter. As for the Palestinians - they hate Israel for even existing. Unless hatred for Israel has an 11 knob, like Nigel's amplifier in This is Spinal Tap, there is not much higher it can go.

Succumbing to world opinion has accomplished nothing. It accomplished nothing when you retreate d from Gaza and when you half-assed your war against Lebanon. Fuck it. Get 'em.

Long Overdue Post

I tried to think of a witty, pithy title, but I had nothin'. I'm halfway through grad school apps, took my econ final tonight, so I might be able to blog a bit more. Things are looking up!

I want to stop myself before I get too positive. That isn't why I created this blog. I created it as a cathartic way to get things off my chest and in the process hopefully teach someone a thing or too. I am sure I have failed in this latter respect, but I try. Before I start with anything political or truly significant, I want to point something out, something that never really hit me until recently.

Basically, I am Opposite Guy. I have never intended to be, it is not something that I purposefully created and nurtured. But it is true nonetheless. You're probably like "What the hell are you talking about?" Alright, I live in Fairfield County which is in the New York City metropolitan area. NYC is a little less than an hour away. My sis lives there and I go there a decent amount. I love it. I would love nothing more than to have a penthouse overlooking Central Park. That is, with all honesty, a dream of mine. Yet, with the kind of random exception of the Rangers, I dislike New York sports teams. Most of the people in my town and county, my friends, and my family, are all NY sports fans. I am not. Why? I don't really know, but if someone didn't know me they might think that I picked my sports teams specifically to piss off my family, friends, and region. This couldn't be further from the truth, but seriously: I like the Boston Red Sox and the Dallas Cowboys. I have decals of the teams on my car. How my car has not been keyed or egged yet is beyond my comprehension.

But believe me: I didn't pick the teams because I am some contrarian who is just being contrary for its own sake. I hate people like that. By "not conforming" they are actually conforming to an idea of nonconformity. I have always loved Dallas - I was basically obsessed with Troy Aikman as a kid. As for Boston - I started rooting for them primarily in my early teens. I had always liked them, and kind of passively rooted for them because I actively despised the Yankees, but I didn't actively root for them until a bit later. But understand this: I am no bandwagoner. These Red Sox fans who have cropped up all over the place since 2004: lame. Same with Patriots fans. I never knew a Pats fan until they won the Super Bowl in 2001, then all of a sudden everyone in my neighborhood was a die hard Pats fan. Pfft. I had barely even heard of that team with the exception of a few blurbs when they faced the Packers in the Super Bowl in the 90s.

This is also true of my politics. I live in the Northeast. Every state out here is true blue with the exception of New Hampshire which typically goes Republican but did not this year. And yet I'm a conservative in this most liberal of regions. Again, not to be contrary. Believe me, it would be a lot easier to be a conservative if I was surrounded by them. Sort of like how it's really easy to be on MSNBC because everyone at the network and all guests agree with you. It would be nice to not have to debate once in a while.

This was hugely tangential and super random. On to more pertinent issues.

I don't really have much to say concerning the whole Blagojevich scandal. The dude is sleazy as shit, he's up his eyeballs in corruption, he's your typical Chicago politician. But Obama managed to get through Chicago unscathed because he is our Savior. All I have to say about this whole shit show is this: there is no way the media would give a Republican President-elect the same benefit of the doubt they have given Obama about this whole scandal. That would never happen. The media would actually do some investigating. I am sort of interested to see what the media would do if Obama maintains much of the Bush policies contra terrorism. I can't wait to see how the fuckers squirm their way into somehow supporting the Patriot Act because now Obama is in charge. The prospect is delectable.

Bush is killing me. Besides his acrobatic move in dodging a shoe thrown at him, which was pretty impressive, he has done everything wrong lately. This whole push to nationalize Detroit is pretty pathetic. He is obviously just trying to solidify his legacy, somehow, someway, with those that hate him. Ain't gonna happen, Dubya. You have spent a disgusting amount of government money, a liberal trait, and have not done anything terribly conservative. Unless if some leftists want to argue that waging war is somehow some conservative trait. I already discussed that in the latest post. Not true. George W. Bush has disintegrated into a socialist in his last months of office, and it seems as though he is pleading with us. "Can't I do anything right?" No, in the eyes of many, you can't. You could legalize gay marriage, destroy our economy so that we can be more "green", and pull out of Iraq, etc. It doesn't matter. As far as the left is concerned, you should have never been President. You stole the presidency. So, in sum, fuck you. You can guarantee that if Bill Clinton invaded Iraq, which he supported doing, the media would be doing their darndest to support him and the effort. Swinging wildly to the left and being ridiculous won't change anything. So stop, its embarrassing. And stupid. Bailing out Detroit merely postpones the inevitable at taxpayer cost. Washington has nationalized enough.

So, a new movie coming down the chute: a 4 hour epic on the life of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, starring Benicio del Toro and directed by Steven Soderbergh. Okay, seriously: when is everyone going to stop deifying this man? He was the father of the Cuban prison system, he was a cold-blooded murderer who reveled in that role. Who uttered the following? "Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective, and cold-blooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become." Dick Cheney? You woulda thunk, but no. Che Guevara, that romantic, idealistic revolutionary who adorns many a college student's t-shirt and/or dorm room, said those words. And if Bush said them, these same idiots who wear Che shirts would decry it as proof of his fascism. But Che said it. So whatever. He was fighting for socialism, and equality, and the indigenous peoples of Latin America and Africa, and all that good shit. So, yeah, maybe he did kill a few people. So what? They got in the way of his wonderful revolution. And they're making a movie glorifying this guy? Alright, then I'll write a screenplay glorifying Augusto Pinochet and then have that made into a film. No? Well, why not? All sarcasm aside, here's why: It would be stupid because Pinochet was a goddamn murderer...but so was Che, and it's therefore just as stupid. And not only stupid, but wrong.

We should be wearing t-shirts of actual heroes: George Orwell, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, the unknown rebel of Tiananmen Square, Winston Churchill. But Guevara? Uggh.

Mumbai and Moral Equivalence

Again, a long hiatus and again, sorry.

First off, I want to talk a bit about the Mumbai massacre. This was an atrocious tragedy. It has received a bunch of attention, as it should. But some of the things I have read have been beyond idiotic. Of course, we were inundated with moral equivalence. Muslims are a persecuted minority in India, Indians are wrongfully occupying Kashmir, and every other excuse under the sun. Has it occurred to anyone else that Muslims are the only ones who get these excuses? When Baruch Goldstein opened fire in a mosque in 1994, killing a bunch of Muslims at prayer, did anyone get on CNN and try to explain away this horrible deed? No. If and when Hindu Indians kill Muslims, it is a wrongful, genocidal deed. When Muslims do likewise to the Hindus, there is a Rolodex of excuses waiting for them.

It's disgusting. If Americans, Israelis, Britons, Indians, or any other nation currently in a fight with Islamists is attacked, it is always some transgression on the former's part that justifies the latter's terrorism. Yet the former never gets the benefit of any such viewpoint. It seems as though there is no limit as to what is acceptable for them to do. Plow a plane into the World Trade Center, stone and/or hang homosexuals, shoot women for painting their toenails in front of stadium crowds, etc, and there will be some Noam Chomsky-like defender of your actions. Happen to be a soldier of the IDF, and shoot some Palestinian terrorist attempting to blow something up, and you are the approximate equivalent of Paul Blobel, the architect of the Babi Yar massacre.

Moral equivalence is probably the most sickening development in Western society that has exploded in popularity since the Vietnam War. We must realize that our culture is really no better than any other culture. If another culture sacrifices children to Moloch, it's cool, it's their culture. It's this sort of thinking that placed the Soviet Union and the United States on the same moral plane during the Cold War. According to this way of thinking, the two were equal actors in the five decades pursuant to World War II, and one was no better than the other. In other words - the USSR, who shoved millions into the maw of the Gulag and robbed peoples of their human rights, is basically the same difference as the United States, which occasionally went overboard in its support of anti-Communist regimes in Latin America and elsewhere. If anything, the former is given the benefit of the doubt more than the latter. In other words, supporting a few unsavory characters in a few Latin American countries is worse than the USSR starving and killing millions of its denizens. In these people's minds, Guantanamo Bay is a worse moral stain than Kolyma and Abu Ghraib is worse than Lubyanka. I understand that the U.S. does not have a lily white past - but who does? And basically the same difference as the Soviet Union as the two culprits in the Cold War? This is insanity.

This is also the kind of thinking that makes Mikhail Gobachev some kind of knight in shining armor and makes Ronald Reagan a Forrest Gump-level idiot. Perestroika and glasnost were not intended to tear down the Communist structure, but rather to strengthen it by making some reforms. Reagan gets no credit in these quarters and if so, it's for the strength of his personality, not his ideology or his policies. Gorbachev and the Soviets get more credit. Not true and, if it were, completely unintentional on their part.

I have started a biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow, which so far is a magnificent read. The author describes the educations that these men would receive, and the subjects they were expected to know: the classics (the Aeneid, Cicero, Greek and Roman philosophy and history), Greek and Latin, the Bible, etc. These are, indeed, the backbone of Western civilization. Nowadays, with the multicultural left running (and ruining) academia, and moral equivalence all the rage, it is not considered politically correct to teach these things. This is not to say that one cannot take these courses, but they are no longer required in the curriculum. They are, if anything, an elective or an obscure major. At my school, as a history major I was required to take more courses on Third World nations than on Europe and the United States. I do not understand why it is suddenly a faux pas to be knowledgeable and proud of Western heritage. I don't understand why the Aeneid and the Bible were dropped and Marxo-Feminist Thought and Chicano Literature were added. While the latter can be interesting to some, they are not nearly as important as the former in Western civilization. If the PC police got a problem with that, then fuck 'em. Come get me.

We have lost pride in ourselves, and I believe that the start of this was the Vietnam War. I am not going to debate it, because a) it is still a sore issue and b) I am still debating myself as to what I really think about it. I believe that it was for a decent cause and I do not believe any such bullshit that it was for imperialist reasons. What would be the point? But, at the same time, to send vast numbers of men to die for a country not in our backyard was over the top (an understatement). I just finished Philip Caputo's memoirs of his time as a Marine Lieutenant in 'Nam, A Rumor of War. One of the best books I have read. If you haven't read it, drop what you are doing now, go to your nearest library or bookstore, and get it. You will not be disappointed.

Anyway, our loss of self-respect and confidence stems from Vietnam. Because many believe that we did not act morally in that war, it suddenly stained our entire history. The multicultural left came to view the United States as the aggressor, as the bad guy, hence their whitewashing of Soviet communism and their demonization of Reagan. To this day, to wear a Che Guevara t-shirt or to display the hammer and the sickle, or a portrait of Chairman Mao, is considered cool. There is nothing cool about it. Che Guevara was a cold-blooded murderer who killed thousands and was the father of the Cuban prison camps. I see so many ignorant college kids with his t-shirt that it makes me physically nauseous. The hammer and sickle represented a murderous systems which killed tens of millions. Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward killed millions.

Yet to display a swastika would bring immediate social isolation and contempt AS IT RIGHTFULLY SHOULD. Nazism was extraordinarily evil, but at the same time so was Soviet Communism. The former is rightfully hated while the latter is given an excuse. "Well, Lenin deviated from Marxist doctrine. If only they followed Marx to the letter, it would have worked," etc. It is as though Lenin and Stalin were fools who just "didn't get it" rather than murderers of millions. (And even many of those who will admit the Soviet state's evil, Lenin, a bloodthirsty bastard, is often given a complete pass and Stalin somehow is a corrupter of the system who fucked it all up, and real communism is actually a delight). I suppose the difference is that while Nazism was bluntly evil in both word and deed, communism sounded pretty acceptable in theory. Therefore, they are given much more slack than their Nazi cousins.

Communism killed, and still kills, way more people than fascism in all of its forms. But for many, somehow the ends justify the means. "Stalin killed a lot of people, yeah, but it was necessary to consolidate the revolution. It was necessary to achieve a stateless society. Plus, he modernized the Soviet state." Well, let's put it this way: no the ends did not justify the means. Maybe he built some canals, roads, and dug up ores but he did so through the enslavement and deaths of tens of millions. His state was an economic basket case because no one had any motive to make anything of high quality. Everything was about just attaining a quota. In the 1970s something like 3% of the country's farms were private but they produced like 40% of its agricultural goods.

Many of us did not have the moral certitude to say that we were in the right during the Cold War. Sometimes we were overly aggressive but never were we even in the same league as the Soviet Union in terms of sheer wrongness. That has extended into today, with many making George W. Bush worse than Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Muslim fundamentalists are coddled everywhere. Israelis, as mentioned briefly above, are demonized in the most hateful of language. There are Sharia courts in Great Britain. Asshole terrorists who shot up hundreds of people are given a "Well, you see...." justification. Enough. Grow some balls to stand up for yourself, and for your culture and civilization. We were better than the Soviet Union then, and we are better than the terrorists now. Yet we are tentative to say so. Winston Churchill must be spinning in his grave.

Hi Kids!

Do you like violence? (Yeah! Yeah!)... Anyway, it is time for me to end this ridiculous 2 week plus hiatus. I bet all of you thought I had quit or something. Uh uh. There is no quit in this guy. I've been a busy little bee. Don't look for any rants about the election - it's over and done with, and I've moved on. I will discuss politics here, but I won't be whining about the election. I'm over it. I was pissed that night, I did not rejoice in Obama's victory as I was told to do by the media, I expressed that in my last blog post, and that's all there is to it. Although I have my concerns, and have no great like for the man, I will try my best to get behind him. After all, if he messes up, we're all fucked. All. I refuse to become like the Bush Derangement Syndrome folks who could not get over their hatred for Bush and would oppose him no matter what he did. He has swung sharply to the left over the past year or so and the public still hates him.

I will get to Bush in another post. All I will say for now is this: he is hardly the conservative demon he is made out to be. Even if he were a demon, he wouldn't be a conservative one. He would be a sort of hard to categorize, but undoubtedly evil, Mammon-Moloch hybrid. Big government, bailouts, No Child Left Behind, immigration amnesty? Not conservative. At all. The word conservative does not mean evil. It is a governing philosophy. Bush has been painted as some right-wing uberconservative when that isn't even remotely the case. He is hated for being a "warmonger" which is bullshit, but even if he were, that is no conservative trait. We were led into both world wars, Korea, and Vietnam by Democrats - Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson. Under conservatives - the end of 'Nam, Grenada, Gulf War, and Iraq War (Oh what am I saying? This is the bloodiest war in history, George Bush and Dick Cheney are the equivalent of Adolf Hitler and Martin Bormann, if not worse, Halliburton is an evil Nazi corporation that manufactured and dispensed Zyklon-B during World War II, etc.) What I am trying to say here is that war is not necessarily brought upon by any rational governing philosophy, liberal or conservative. It is brought upon by circumstances. The political movements in the U.S. are largely rational. We don't see fascism or communism here. Now those two movements begat some violence, and by necessity. Fascism needs to conquer to sustain itself and in order to achieve communism one must forcefully and violently remove people from their homes. And send them to Kolyma if they cry about it.

Random tidbits:

The "Big Three", a phrase that until recently I thought referred to Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill, need to get off their knees, get back to Detroit in their jets, and accept bankruptcy. If the government continues to subsidize and bail out everything, there will be no end to it. And that isn't good for anyone. Not good for business, not good for the economy. If you're a company, and you suck, why should taxpayer money be given to you? Bankruptcy would provide Chrysler, GM, and Ford with the opportunity to revamp their companies and hopefully become more competitive. Throwing money at things doesn't make them work: look at the public school system in this country. Either change or die. Why prolong their agony? Why prop up a corpse? If your business model sucks, do something about it.

Hillary Clinton: the next Secretary of State? Eh. Not pissed, not delighted. Just eh. Seriously: who is this woman? Last year she was the bane of every conservative's existence. She was forced to move rightward in her campaign against Obama and she somehow managed to pull it off and not look idiotic. Now several conservatives seem pretty content with the fact that she may be the next Secretary of State. The transformation is truly remarkable. I admit to thinking up to earlier this year that if Hillary Clinton were elected, I would be devastated. But during her run against Obama, I was rooting for her because compared to him, she was one tough cookie. I don't really think she has the proper credentials for SecState, but if the alternative is either John "Reporting for Duty" Kerry or Bill Richardson, she's got my approval. Hillary has not been my favorite woman in the past. In 1999 she was present for a speech made by the late Yasser Arafat's wife, in which she (Arafat's wife) claimed that Israel poisons Palestinian wells (an atrocious falsehood). Hillary seemed to eat it all up and afterwards gave her a big hug. She supported the war in Iraq until it became politically harmful to do so and then flip flopped like every Dem except Lieberman. But she is fairly hawkish compared with her competition. Kerry and Richardson would be jokes. Can you imagine John Kerry squaring off against Vladimir Putin or one of his top dogs? Think about it. And then weep. Or clap, if you're Russian.

Speaking of Putin: this guy has got to be the most balls out and absurdly macho world leader since Benito Mussolini. Mussolini would wrestle lion cubs (or was it bear cubs? Whatever). He would rip his shirt off and harvest wheat alongside Italian peasants. Or at least he would for the cameras. Putin has, in the past few months, assembled a judo video of himself kicking the shit out of guys, tranquilized a tiger and subsequently pet it like a kitten, and received a tiger cub for his birthday. And this is not to mention his shirtless fishing, which supposedly made him some sort of sex symbol. Ridiculous. I guess he's pretty awesome - or at least he would be if he wasn't such a dick. I read recently that he wanted to string up Georgian President Mikhail Sakaashvili "by the balls." Direct quote. In sum, I would not mess around with this dude. There aren't any specific implications I wanted to make in this paragraph, I just wanted to randomly talk about this guy. I sincerely feel like I haven't seen anything like it. Not outside of a history book, anyway.

I said I wouldn't speak about the election, but to be fair I have to ask one question: Why, two plus weeks after the election, does Sarah Palin, the vice presidential candidate for the losing ticket, continue to get hammered by the media? Is the left that pathetic that, even with victory, it must continue to belittle and besmirch this woman? It is truly sickening. The only reason I can think of is that the left is afraid that somewhere down the road, she is going to be a problem. They are trying to nip that in the bud. Or at least that is my not-really-thought-out theory. Look, people, you got what you want, the embodiment of all your hopes and dreams was elected, fair and square (well, there was voter intimidation but the gap between his votes and McCain 's render this irrelevant). GET OVER IT. Move on. Every time I turn on Olbermann, he's STILL talking about Palin. He's obsessed with her. They all are. And I don't really understand why. If she had been on the victorious ticket, it would be much more sensible.

It's 1:15 in the morning and I got to get up for work. More posts to come.

For the First Time Ever...

...I am disgusted with my country, to paraphrase Michelle Obama. I want to throw up. It appears that if one can merely speak well without saying anything, then one can become President of the U.S. Obama makes Clinton appear to be a political amateur. Congratulations for pulling the wool over the eyes of the electorate...Canada even has more sense than us, Harper is still in office. I am actually so annoyed right now that I have nothing more to say. We've elected a socialistic empty suit who has literally brought nothing to the table. This is a man who physically makes me gag every time I see him on television or any time he opens up his mouth so that I can hear silver tongue wag. Ayers and Farrakhan and Ahmadinejad and Hamas and Putin are delighted, all for different reasons. What a fucking joke.

Sorry for the dearth of posts, I've been absurdly busy. Same old, same old, I'm always complaining about something I know. But I got the GREs out of the way this weekend, I sorta rocked 'em, and that's one thing off my plate.

I'm not really sure what I want to talk about in this post. I really have nothing left. It may be a case of verbal premature ejaculation or it could just be my sheer exhaustion and frustration with the world around me. But I'll try to say something, because this juggernaut named Obama will not be stopped. Not that I'll stop him, but still.

Barack Obama is becoming a celebrity and a standard for not much of a reason. I understand that he is the first major candidate to be black and could very well become the first black president of the United States. That is a great historical development. I want you to be honest with me though: do you think people would be all about Obama in the manner they are if he was just some white dude from Illinois telling all of us to change? Pfft. Yeah, okay. T-shirts depicting this empty suit alongside Martin Luther King, Jr? Are you really comparing the two? What has the former done to AT ALL compare with the latter? Oh, he's black. It has nothing to do with actual accomplishments or anything. King spoke with soaring rhetoric but backed it up with deeds. Barack Obama just talks big but really hasn't done anything memorable, OTHER THAN GIVE SPEECHES. I overhead some girl in my class last night saying how she wants to go to Columbia because that is where Obama went as an undergraduate. "That is a smart man." Maybe he is, but is he really the reason you want to go to a school? Would you want to go to Stanford because R. James Woolsey went there? And is Obama that smart? I'm not sure that he is: he thinks that the Berlin Wall fell because the "world stood as one." What world was that, Obama?.....Oh, it doesn't matter, you don't have to answer to anybody.

Let's put it this way: we are a week from electing the most left-wing candidate in the history of this country. For some of you, that is undoubtedly a good thing. For me, it's pretty horrible and scary. We're not talking Bill Clinton here. (Although, compared with Mr. Obama, Mr. Clinton was (and is) a political amateur). Obama has managed to pull the wool over so many people's eyes, and these people have become so narrow-minded and brainwashed that it is more or less futile to attempt to sway them. Name me one reason that Obama should impress me. He went to Columbia? A lot of people do. He went to Harvard Law? Impressive, but so did everyone in the United States government. He was a useless professor at the University of Chicago Law School who left nary a trail of any academic scholarship? I'm amazed. He was a left-wing state senator representing a left-wing district for the Illinois State Senate? Holy Mother of God, what more can you tell me? He opposed the Iraq War when it was "unpopular" to do so in a left-leaning, anti-war district? Wow, such political courage. He gave a speech at the 2004 DNC in Boston that was well-worded and sort of nice-sounding? OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD MY BRAIN HAS EXPLODED AND I NEED NEW UNDERPANTS OH MY GOD.

Here is a man who believes that it is a shame that the Supreme Court has not made it a priority to spread your wealth around. A) Not their responsibility, dipshit. They're a judiciary. B) Spreading wealth around - not good for anybody. I know that we need taxation to pay for indispensable goods and services provided for the government at the local, state, and federal level. But in the end, I work for myself and in the future (God willing) for my family, not for some federal bureaucrat in some cubicle in Washington so that he can give that hard-earned money to some dude who this bureaucrat feels should get it. It is hard to see how this is not socialistic, although I know this is a term that is thrown around waaaaaay too often. But, honestly, I don't like the idea. We are already taxed too much. Way too much. But let's become like Europe! With like 70% income tax. Not like their economies have been stagnant since forever or anything.

Bush is getting a ton of shit for what is happening with the economy right now. Bush has gotten and will continue to get shit for anything wrong in the world until he is six feet under. This financial crisis and all the ramifications stemming from it are not the fault of the Bush tax cuts though. Obama himself said that more taxes make no sense when in an economic rut, implicitly saying that higher taxes hinder growth. So what gives then, man? The top economic bracket already pays like 70% of taxes in this country and most people on the lower end of the scale don't pay anything. I understand wanting to help out the poor, but punishing people for their success is ridiculous and counterproductive. Why should anyone bust their ass to create and run a successful business, only for it to be taxed to holy hell? What planet am I on?

Oh, right. The one Obama is going to magically heal. I nearly forgot.

A Little Somethin' Regarding McCain

A few years ago (and even more recently than that) John McCain was the recipient of so much praise and admiration from the media you would've thought that he was a superhero or a resurrected Founding Father. He was adored, even by the New York Times, which nowadays won't publish an opinion piece that he had penned. Seems like a long time ago, but it wasn't.

So, what has changed? Has McCain marched radically to the right and become a Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan? Based upon the latest stuff out there, you wouldn't be wrong to think so. But he really hasn't. In fact, he has stayed his usual self: a moderate, right-of-center Republican who does not march lockstep with his party on every issue. He disagreed with basically everyone on the surge, which has turned out well. He sponsored the McCain-Feingold bill to reform campaign finance, has called for amnesty of illegal immigrants, and now points his fingers at Wall Street, which is always an easy target. Suffice to say, I don't delight in these latter three. But they show you something: If John McCain is a right-wing ideologue, then I am Simon Bar Kochba.

His call for more regulation in the financial sector is contradicting his message for less government (which annoys me), and it's also dumb beyond words because it was over-regulation, not deregulation, which is largely why we got into this financial mess. Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd pushed lenders to offer loans to uncreditworthy borrowers, because it's the government's duty to make sure everyone fulfills the American Dream (sarcasm), and what happened is that the industry was overfed and ultimately shat all over itself and everyone else. I don't know when the next laundry cycle will come around to get this stain completely out, but it might be awhile because the government is slow and lazy when it comes to actually doing the laundry (like me), although it talks about doing it. They demand that you let them borrow your pants, they defecate in said pants, and then give them back to you claiming that they didn't do it - their brother did, their cousin did, their stepfather's niece's best friend's collie did. But if you take a stool sample, it will show you that the government is the culprit. The government pooped your pants.

Before I get out of control here with the poop stuff, I must say with a measure of level-headedness that there were most assuredly instances of greed and wrong-doing outside of the government. But the government's steering of Fannie and Freddie, and the pressure it put on lenders to be "fair" (playing the race card, no doubt), was wobbly and misguided.

Anyway, back to McCain. When I watched the debates, it seemed as though Obama and McCain were trying to "out-socialist" one another. "Well, I'll put this much money into it." "Well, I'll put this much money into it, so take that." Throwing money at things doesn't make them work. Ingenuity does. Entrepreneurial and analytical thinking, along with mechanical, technical, and a million other skills, make things work.

McCain has it wrong here. I don't see too much of a difference between him and Obama on this issue, and I think McCain likes his role as the maverick (a word that has begun to annoy me due to its overuse). He couldn't deny the temptation for demagoguery. How about: throwing the facts out there about how Congress and the federal government was largely at fault here, instead of trying to out-Huey Long Obama? The American people hate Congress (last I saw, it had a 9% approval rating, making George W. Bush look like motherhood and apple pie), they think it's terrible, but somehow they think more government is going to make everything dandy. That doesn't make sense, and it won't. Government is no panacea. What does a guy sitting in a cubicle in Washington, D.C. give a shit about you and what you need? The profit motive, folks, as much as we hate to think it, is very powerful. More powerful than just "goodness". Because when it comes down to it, most people aren't saints. But, if given a chance to earn something for themselves, they might care a bit more. And it works. A person who is sick gets his medicine and the dispenser of that medicine gets his money. I know it sounds bad, and I really wish it were otherwise, but unfortunately it's the world in which we live. We are humans, after all.

A lot of that was tangential to the point at hand. Basically, to sum it up, McCain is not a radical right-winger. In fact, it is hard to really see much of a pattern to his politics at all. I'm not in love with the guy trust me - I'm more voting against Obama than for McCain. But the crap being thrown out there at him is largely unfair. So I'm gonna get his back.

The new theme that the media is harping on is that McCain is a big ole meanie. Obama is the skinny twit at school being picked on by the big bully. And Obama's black too, so that makes him a big racist bully. The only ones making an issue of race out of this campaign are Obama and his minions. He preemptively accused McCain and the Republicans of racism and, since any criticism leveled at Obama is racist, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one has made fun of his name or attacked his ethnic background, except for maybe a few extremist jerks. The McCain campaign has certainly done no such thing. How is asking about Obama's ties to a WHITE terrorist racist? I guess because Obama is black? Look, if McCain or anyone on his team attacked Obama for his race or anything like that, I would be appalled and decidely turned off. I would never write a post doing anything but bashing him. But this hasn't happened. This country is increasingly knee jerk and hyperbolic. Bush = Hitler. Guantanamo = Auschwitz. Questioning Obama about anything = Jim Crow-level racism.

McCain's reputation is being sullied for no legitimate reason. Agree or disagree with him, he is a man of honor, and these lies are despicable. This is the same man that the media deified when he defied Bush (those words look weird in the same sentence and are oddly similar in spelling). It's the same guy who ran against Bush for the 2000 Republican nomination and gained so much kudos for his honor and integrity. But now that he is atop that ticket, he no longer has that integrity? Why? Just because he questions (and even attacks) Obama over policy differences, that does not mean he is a schoolyard bully. If it does, then so is Obama. And so is every candidate who has ever run for any position anywhere ever. Stop your crying and finger-pointing hysterics. Get over it. McCain did not run for the presidency to lie down and lose with grace. I know that is what is expected of him. I know that he is an obstacle barring the door to Paradise. A nuisance. It is Obama's time, etc. This is a presidential election in a democracy, so McCain, unfortunately, has the right to fight back.