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.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
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.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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.
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.
I Apologize for the Hiatus
Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've been really busy. Between my GRE this Saturday, a billion schools to apply to (which require 2 essays each), a full-time job that takes forever both to get to and to come from, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, and spending time with my lovely lady, sometimes I feel too lazy to blog it up. However, I know how much my readers anticipate the venom that I spew forth, and how much they've missed it. I know this because I got a complaint that I was posting too few and far in between.
I'm going to try to make this a short post. I tend to get overexcited and try to get all of my thoughts down at once. First, I want to lightly cover baseball. Rays, good job. I heartily congratulate you. Sox: you didn't win the pennant but you made it a bruising fight, commencing with an incredible comeback starting in the 7th inning of Game 5. I have to applaud that, despite my disappointment at the final outcome. That a team could go from AAA-caliber to winning the pennant of their league is to be applauded. It's actually pretty miraculous. No one ever thought that the Rays would be anything more than a doormat for Boston and New York to piss on.
As for the election - I don't even know what's the point of talking about it, although talk about it I damn well will. It's pretty scary how easily and quickly Americans have fallen in love with Barack Obama. He's got a silver tongue and he's even kinda funny, as we saw at the Alfred E. Smith dinner at the Waldorf in NYC. But the lack of curiosity about the man continues to appall me: no medical records needed, nothing about his past important, nothing about his associations are important. What is important? Oh, that he's the one we've been waiting for. Why is he? Because he's going to "change" things. Change what? "......" I can't hear you. "...Fuck Bush, man. He's an asshole." Thanks for your scholarly exegesis.
Look, this is hyperbole. There are many thoughtful supporters of Obama, including many family members of mine. However, this country is a center-right country. Obama is hard left. Not sorta left, or left. Hard left. I understand that people are frustrated with Bush and his cronies because they're responsible for (fill in anything horrible that has happened in the past eight years anywhere in the world that comes to mind here). Dick Cheney invented a time machine, went back in time, shot Lazar Kaganovich in the face "accidentally", took over his post, and increased the efficiency of the Holodomor. I know all of this. BUT -if the people of this country were made more aware of Obama's actual philosophy, positions, and past, maybe they would see beyond his silver tongue. The fact that he has been portrayed as some sort of messianic figure is a joke, except that it isn't as funny as it should be, because so many people are buying into it, whether realizing it or not. They call him "transformational", they say he will heal the partisan divide, make the rising waters slow, etc. They have absolutely no evidence to support any of this. Indeed, it is based on what people want to think. They want to believe that Obama is a post-partisan and -racial candidate who will make everything hunky dorey by simply sitting down with someone and soothing him/her with his mellifluous voice. In fact, they actually do believe this; they have made themselves believe it.
If you were to watch only MSNBC and the "analysts" on CNN (read: liberal commentators), you would think that John McCain was a hybrid of John Wayne Gacy and William Calley. Because I'm into serious sadomasochism like my boy Dice-K (see first post), sometimes I watch MSNBC just to see what Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann say. I don't know about Maddow but I know Olbermann pretends to have a veneer of neutrality, which is a joke. I know Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are blowhards too, but guess what - they know they are conservative and they make it clear. The thing that makes Olbermann and Maddow laughable is that not only are they so in the tank for Obama that their brains are dead from want of oxygen, but I have never seen a conservative or Republican on their show to contest them. Sean Hannity has liberals on his show to debate all the time. Everytime Olbermann and Maddow has a guest, it is ALWAYS a fellow liberal. They share snide remarks about Republicans and how "stupid" they are, hate on McCain and Palin and Joe the Plumber. Which means they never have to defend the bullshit that continuously pours from their mouths. They never have to debate, or to look at it from the other side. It's easy to share smirks with those who support you. This is the problem with the media - they all think alike so they don't really think to think otherwise. In other words, it's a big circle jerk.
But this charade of the media continues. Joe the Plumber has been given a public colonoscopy. I don't care whether he owes taxes, that his first name is Samuel, etc. I don't. I care about who is running for office. He's just a dude in Ohio who asked a candidate for president a legit question. The main news-getter should be Obama's socialist response to Joe's query. The media, though, has reacted in predictable fashion and has turned on a private citizen who did nothing but ask the guy a question. If an "average Joe" had asked McCain a hard question which required an extemperaneous response which he had flubbed, the media would be festooning praise on the guy. Inviting him on "The View," etc. But we all know that you can't question Obama. I'm not talking bash, or be racist about. I'm talking, you can't question him. Joe (or Samuel, or whatever), learned this quickly. Don't you know better than to question the Lord thy God, you fucking peon?
We all know McCain's deal, Palin's deal, and we all know whether or not Joe the Plumber has ever been late to a doctor's appointment. But we know very little about Obama. Yeah, we know a few things, but when you get down to it, you don't know much. You know what you want to know and you see what you want to see. Any sort of criticism of Obama is castigated as racism, no matter how it's posited. I have covered this on another post, but this is a pet peeve of mine. Anything mentioning Franklin Raines: racist. Mention Paris Hilton: playing into the racist stereotype of lustful blacks chasing blondes. In other words, "Shut your mouth, McCain and let Obama win this election. You're not being a good enough loser. Don't you know you're supposed to lose?"
A New York Times reporter has sent messages to associates of McCain's daughter, via Facebook, to get the inside scoop (on what, I don't know). If the media showed half of this dedication in trying to find out things about Obama, then maybe the poll numbers would look different (or maybe if they stopped polling a majority of Democrats). I want every one of you reading this to google "Obama and Odinga". Because Ayers isn't enough to sway people. Neither is Wright. But you all know that if McCain had these sort of associations, the media would be in our face with a new revelation every day. You know it, I know it. We all know it. If you don't know it, then you really do know it and you're lying to yourself.
In sum, if the media showed even a modicum of the gusto with uncovering stuff about Obama as they do with McCain, then people would be able to make an informed decision. But because they don't, all we hear are the positives of one and the negatives of the other. Which means that, if one does not do his or her own research, one will vote for the man the media touts as the better of the two. This is what's happening. Most people aren't curious enough to do their own reading beyond the paper or the evening news, they just take everything they're told at face value. If Obama wins, this is why. Not because he is some miraculous Lightworker.
Soon to come (and I mean immediately): a post on McCain and how, now that he is the Republican nominee, he is such a mean jerk.
I'm going to try to make this a short post. I tend to get overexcited and try to get all of my thoughts down at once. First, I want to lightly cover baseball. Rays, good job. I heartily congratulate you. Sox: you didn't win the pennant but you made it a bruising fight, commencing with an incredible comeback starting in the 7th inning of Game 5. I have to applaud that, despite my disappointment at the final outcome. That a team could go from AAA-caliber to winning the pennant of their league is to be applauded. It's actually pretty miraculous. No one ever thought that the Rays would be anything more than a doormat for Boston and New York to piss on.
As for the election - I don't even know what's the point of talking about it, although talk about it I damn well will. It's pretty scary how easily and quickly Americans have fallen in love with Barack Obama. He's got a silver tongue and he's even kinda funny, as we saw at the Alfred E. Smith dinner at the Waldorf in NYC. But the lack of curiosity about the man continues to appall me: no medical records needed, nothing about his past important, nothing about his associations are important. What is important? Oh, that he's the one we've been waiting for. Why is he? Because he's going to "change" things. Change what? "......" I can't hear you. "...Fuck Bush, man. He's an asshole." Thanks for your scholarly exegesis.
Look, this is hyperbole. There are many thoughtful supporters of Obama, including many family members of mine. However, this country is a center-right country. Obama is hard left. Not sorta left, or left. Hard left. I understand that people are frustrated with Bush and his cronies because they're responsible for (fill in anything horrible that has happened in the past eight years anywhere in the world that comes to mind here). Dick Cheney invented a time machine, went back in time, shot Lazar Kaganovich in the face "accidentally", took over his post, and increased the efficiency of the Holodomor. I know all of this. BUT -if the people of this country were made more aware of Obama's actual philosophy, positions, and past, maybe they would see beyond his silver tongue. The fact that he has been portrayed as some sort of messianic figure is a joke, except that it isn't as funny as it should be, because so many people are buying into it, whether realizing it or not. They call him "transformational", they say he will heal the partisan divide, make the rising waters slow, etc. They have absolutely no evidence to support any of this. Indeed, it is based on what people want to think. They want to believe that Obama is a post-partisan and -racial candidate who will make everything hunky dorey by simply sitting down with someone and soothing him/her with his mellifluous voice. In fact, they actually do believe this; they have made themselves believe it.
If you were to watch only MSNBC and the "analysts" on CNN (read: liberal commentators), you would think that John McCain was a hybrid of John Wayne Gacy and William Calley. Because I'm into serious sadomasochism like my boy Dice-K (see first post), sometimes I watch MSNBC just to see what Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann say. I don't know about Maddow but I know Olbermann pretends to have a veneer of neutrality, which is a joke. I know Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are blowhards too, but guess what - they know they are conservative and they make it clear. The thing that makes Olbermann and Maddow laughable is that not only are they so in the tank for Obama that their brains are dead from want of oxygen, but I have never seen a conservative or Republican on their show to contest them. Sean Hannity has liberals on his show to debate all the time. Everytime Olbermann and Maddow has a guest, it is ALWAYS a fellow liberal. They share snide remarks about Republicans and how "stupid" they are, hate on McCain and Palin and Joe the Plumber. Which means they never have to defend the bullshit that continuously pours from their mouths. They never have to debate, or to look at it from the other side. It's easy to share smirks with those who support you. This is the problem with the media - they all think alike so they don't really think to think otherwise. In other words, it's a big circle jerk.
But this charade of the media continues. Joe the Plumber has been given a public colonoscopy. I don't care whether he owes taxes, that his first name is Samuel, etc. I don't. I care about who is running for office. He's just a dude in Ohio who asked a candidate for president a legit question. The main news-getter should be Obama's socialist response to Joe's query. The media, though, has reacted in predictable fashion and has turned on a private citizen who did nothing but ask the guy a question. If an "average Joe" had asked McCain a hard question which required an extemperaneous response which he had flubbed, the media would be festooning praise on the guy. Inviting him on "The View," etc. But we all know that you can't question Obama. I'm not talking bash, or be racist about. I'm talking, you can't question him. Joe (or Samuel, or whatever), learned this quickly. Don't you know better than to question the Lord thy God, you fucking peon?
We all know McCain's deal, Palin's deal, and we all know whether or not Joe the Plumber has ever been late to a doctor's appointment. But we know very little about Obama. Yeah, we know a few things, but when you get down to it, you don't know much. You know what you want to know and you see what you want to see. Any sort of criticism of Obama is castigated as racism, no matter how it's posited. I have covered this on another post, but this is a pet peeve of mine. Anything mentioning Franklin Raines: racist. Mention Paris Hilton: playing into the racist stereotype of lustful blacks chasing blondes. In other words, "Shut your mouth, McCain and let Obama win this election. You're not being a good enough loser. Don't you know you're supposed to lose?"
A New York Times reporter has sent messages to associates of McCain's daughter, via Facebook, to get the inside scoop (on what, I don't know). If the media showed half of this dedication in trying to find out things about Obama, then maybe the poll numbers would look different (or maybe if they stopped polling a majority of Democrats). I want every one of you reading this to google "Obama and Odinga". Because Ayers isn't enough to sway people. Neither is Wright. But you all know that if McCain had these sort of associations, the media would be in our face with a new revelation every day. You know it, I know it. We all know it. If you don't know it, then you really do know it and you're lying to yourself.
In sum, if the media showed even a modicum of the gusto with uncovering stuff about Obama as they do with McCain, then people would be able to make an informed decision. But because they don't, all we hear are the positives of one and the negatives of the other. Which means that, if one does not do his or her own research, one will vote for the man the media touts as the better of the two. This is what's happening. Most people aren't curious enough to do their own reading beyond the paper or the evening news, they just take everything they're told at face value. If Obama wins, this is why. Not because he is some miraculous Lightworker.
Soon to come (and I mean immediately): a post on McCain and how, now that he is the Republican nominee, he is such a mean jerk.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Some Thoughts (Not About Baseball)
I can't bring myself to talk about baseball. The past few games of this ALCS have been painful. Game 2 stayed close, though for some reason I never felt that the Sox really had a chance. Games 3 and 4 can be summed up in a simple analogy: Rays:Red Sox::German Wehrmacht:Belgian Army. I think that's about right.
On to some more pertinent matters, like the future of our country. This election race is slipping out of McCain's hands, if he ever had it in his hands to begin with. He has forfeited any sort of political capital that he might have gained in the short run due to the Palin bounce. Palin, in some circles, is more anathema than George W. Bush, which is saying something. Oliver Stone (I know he's a joke politically) said that "George Bush is an intellectual compared to Sarah Palin" and said that she wouldn't understand the dialogue of his new feature film "W". This, in liberal speak, is calling her a protist. It's pretty unfair, too - we have been publicly exposed to this woman for like eight weeks, and people are frothing at the mouth about her in a ridiculous manner. There is an absurd double standard that she is being held to.
Joe Biden, Foreign Policy Savant, Knower of All Things Foreign, Wisest of the Wise:
"President Bush insisted on elections in the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, 'Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them.'" President Bush insisted on elections in the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, 'Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them.'"
....What are you talking about? Hamas has power in Gaza, not the West Bank. I am not Lord of Foreign Policy, but even I know this. If Sarah Palin had made this error, the media would have pounced. With Joe: maybe a shrug and a "That's our Joe!" Ridiculous.
Another Biden error in the same debate, regarding foreign policy, his supposed forte:
"When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said, and Barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”
.........................................................................
I am literally speechless at this. Hezbollah out of Lebanon? What universe is this guy living in? Even if he meant that we had kicked Syria out of Lebanon, he would be wrong: we didn't. Soooo....not sure what Biden is talking about. If Sarah Palin had made this mistake, she would be derided as an out of her league dumb redneck hick c*nt (yes, there is a t-shirt calling her this despicable term - what she did to deserve such hatred I don't know, but if she were a Demmie all the lefties would be shouting "Sexism!" But she's not, so whatever).
Biden:Gaffes::Box Factory:Boxes. There are many delightful ones to choose from. But perhaps my favorite, which no one cares about because he is the Seer of Seers and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., the Scrapper from Scranton:
In an interview with Katie Couric:
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”
I'm sure my readers are intelligent enough to see where the mistakes are in that statement. Hint: There are two of them. If Sarah Palin uttered this absurdity, she would be a Mongoloid retard backwoods inbred uneducated idiot. But Joe Biden said it. "Sooo....let's pretend it didn't happen or, if we do acknowledge it, let's do so with humor as opposed to the unmitigated hatred with which we would tar Sarah Palin if she had made the same remark. Joe Biden is a God." This is over stating it though: if Obama is Jesus, and I'm pretty sure that he is, than Biden is more anagolous to, I don't know, Peter.
This is an inexplicable double standard. Sure, Palin is an upstart and she rightfully deserves a lot of scrutiny. But Biden is sort of just given a pass just because he's been in the Senate since like 1842. If anything, his words should be criticized more because as someone with routine access to intelligence reports and meetings with foreign policymakers and analysts, he should know that Israel did not kick out Hezbollah, never mind us, and that Hamas won an election in Gaza, not the West Bank. And, as a man who has been an American leader for forever, he should know that FDR wasn't President in 1929 and that he certainly did not appear on television, which was not yet publicly available. Not to say that this should cost the Obama-Biden team the election, but the free pass from the media is unacceptable. Unacceptable.
I heard about a segment on the Howard Stern program in which Stern sent out a correspondent to Harlem. He asked passers-by what they thought of Obama, and then intentionally misrepresented McCain's positions as Obama's. Questions were asked such as, "Do you support Obama's pick for Sarah Palin as V.P.?" The passers-by were basically like, "Why, of course." Here's another delicious treat: "Do you support Obama more because he's pro-life, or because he says our troops should stay in Iraq and finish the war." Knowledgeable voter: "Um...I guess, both." This is what I hinted at last post, people. Obama is going to win this election (I am sure of this) because he is a minority, he is telegenic, and a good public speaker. People don't necessarily know his actual policies. The benefit of the doubt he receives from both the media and the public at large is ridiculous.
The race card thing makes me want to explode. You cannot say a negative thing about this man without some asshole pointing at you and whining "Racist! Racist!" Any attack that McCain makes is racist. Racist, racist, racist. Shut up with that. These are scare tactics. Everyone treats Obama with kid gloves, and I can come to no conclusion other than it is because he is black. McCain is being an absolute pussy. The media should spend wisely and invest their money in some knee pads. Otherwise, if Obama gets elected and is president for four or (God have mercy) eight years, their knees will be awfully sore. Other than talk radio and a few dudes on Fox News, who has really laid into Obama? Even O'Reilly, a blowhard who I can't really stand, threw him softballs. Why? Because everyone is afraid of being castigated as a racist. There are eggshells all around. I get so sick of being indirectly accused of being a racist (I say this because conservatives are painted as racists by much of the ignorant public).
Obama, to paraphrase the Beatles, is a real nothing man, sitting in a nothing land. He is a nonentity whose entire persona has been created by his campaign and the media (the same difference). Think about it: we don't really know anything about him, except that he was a "community organizer". The media's lack of curiosity is shameful. We have learned more about Sarah Palin in like eight weeks than we have about Obama over the past few years that he has been campaigning for president.
Make sure that you've really thought everything through before pulling the lever for this guy. McCain is NOT a right wing ideologue like the media is making him out to be. He is a centrist, which is why he used to relish in attacking Bush and the media loved him. He is, in my opinion, not conservative enough. The media is painting him as an out of control, angry right-winger (racist to boot!), which is ridiculous. McCain is pretty independent. Obama rolls with dudes who hate this country and, for you Jews out there, who hate Israel too. If it was one guy, or maybe two, then I give him the benefit of the doubt. Beyond that, it becomes a pattern. It is a pattern. I am not saying that Obama hates the U.S. and Israel, but he is in deep with crowds who do. What does this tell you? I understand: Bush fatigue, yada, yada. But McCain is not Bush. No one is Bush but Bush.
I could be wrong. There is a strong possibility that in his first day in office, Obama will take a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish and feed the multitudes in the Third World. Blind children in Somalia will be able to see. Lepers in Bangladesh will be cured. A man will be exorcised of his demons, who are legion - (we, the United States, are the man - the Republicans are the demons). He'll walk across the Tidal Basin. He will ascend Capitol Hill, where he will be transfigured into a radiant, superior being. All of these amazing things could happen, and more.
But then again, I could be right. This man has a shady past, hangs with shady dudes until it's politically expedient to throw them under the bus, and is, get this, no more experienced to be president than Sarah Palin. Tell me: what has this man done other than talk about what he's going to (miraculously) do? Why is he any more qualified? He isn't - but he is more eloquent and a minority to boot. These are his qualifications - nothing more.
On to some more pertinent matters, like the future of our country. This election race is slipping out of McCain's hands, if he ever had it in his hands to begin with. He has forfeited any sort of political capital that he might have gained in the short run due to the Palin bounce. Palin, in some circles, is more anathema than George W. Bush, which is saying something. Oliver Stone (I know he's a joke politically) said that "George Bush is an intellectual compared to Sarah Palin" and said that she wouldn't understand the dialogue of his new feature film "W". This, in liberal speak, is calling her a protist. It's pretty unfair, too - we have been publicly exposed to this woman for like eight weeks, and people are frothing at the mouth about her in a ridiculous manner. There is an absurd double standard that she is being held to.
Joe Biden, Foreign Policy Savant, Knower of All Things Foreign, Wisest of the Wise:
"President Bush insisted on elections in the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, 'Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them.'" President Bush insisted on elections in the West Bank, when I said, and others said, and Barack Obama said, 'Big mistake. Hamas will win. You'll legitimize them.'"
....What are you talking about? Hamas has power in Gaza, not the West Bank. I am not Lord of Foreign Policy, but even I know this. If Sarah Palin had made this error, the media would have pounced. With Joe: maybe a shrug and a "That's our Joe!" Ridiculous.
Another Biden error in the same debate, regarding foreign policy, his supposed forte:
"When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said, and Barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.”
.........................................................................
I am literally speechless at this. Hezbollah out of Lebanon? What universe is this guy living in? Even if he meant that we had kicked Syria out of Lebanon, he would be wrong: we didn't. Soooo....not sure what Biden is talking about. If Sarah Palin had made this mistake, she would be derided as an out of her league dumb redneck hick c*nt (yes, there is a t-shirt calling her this despicable term - what she did to deserve such hatred I don't know, but if she were a Demmie all the lefties would be shouting "Sexism!" But she's not, so whatever).
Biden:Gaffes::Box Factory:Boxes. There are many delightful ones to choose from. But perhaps my favorite, which no one cares about because he is the Seer of Seers and Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., the Scrapper from Scranton:
In an interview with Katie Couric:
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’”
I'm sure my readers are intelligent enough to see where the mistakes are in that statement. Hint: There are two of them. If Sarah Palin uttered this absurdity, she would be a Mongoloid retard backwoods inbred uneducated idiot. But Joe Biden said it. "Sooo....let's pretend it didn't happen or, if we do acknowledge it, let's do so with humor as opposed to the unmitigated hatred with which we would tar Sarah Palin if she had made the same remark. Joe Biden is a God." This is over stating it though: if Obama is Jesus, and I'm pretty sure that he is, than Biden is more anagolous to, I don't know, Peter.
This is an inexplicable double standard. Sure, Palin is an upstart and she rightfully deserves a lot of scrutiny. But Biden is sort of just given a pass just because he's been in the Senate since like 1842. If anything, his words should be criticized more because as someone with routine access to intelligence reports and meetings with foreign policymakers and analysts, he should know that Israel did not kick out Hezbollah, never mind us, and that Hamas won an election in Gaza, not the West Bank. And, as a man who has been an American leader for forever, he should know that FDR wasn't President in 1929 and that he certainly did not appear on television, which was not yet publicly available. Not to say that this should cost the Obama-Biden team the election, but the free pass from the media is unacceptable. Unacceptable.
I heard about a segment on the Howard Stern program in which Stern sent out a correspondent to Harlem. He asked passers-by what they thought of Obama, and then intentionally misrepresented McCain's positions as Obama's. Questions were asked such as, "Do you support Obama's pick for Sarah Palin as V.P.?" The passers-by were basically like, "Why, of course." Here's another delicious treat: "Do you support Obama more because he's pro-life, or because he says our troops should stay in Iraq and finish the war." Knowledgeable voter: "Um...I guess, both." This is what I hinted at last post, people. Obama is going to win this election (I am sure of this) because he is a minority, he is telegenic, and a good public speaker. People don't necessarily know his actual policies. The benefit of the doubt he receives from both the media and the public at large is ridiculous.
The race card thing makes me want to explode. You cannot say a negative thing about this man without some asshole pointing at you and whining "Racist! Racist!" Any attack that McCain makes is racist. Racist, racist, racist. Shut up with that. These are scare tactics. Everyone treats Obama with kid gloves, and I can come to no conclusion other than it is because he is black. McCain is being an absolute pussy. The media should spend wisely and invest their money in some knee pads. Otherwise, if Obama gets elected and is president for four or (God have mercy) eight years, their knees will be awfully sore. Other than talk radio and a few dudes on Fox News, who has really laid into Obama? Even O'Reilly, a blowhard who I can't really stand, threw him softballs. Why? Because everyone is afraid of being castigated as a racist. There are eggshells all around. I get so sick of being indirectly accused of being a racist (I say this because conservatives are painted as racists by much of the ignorant public).
Obama, to paraphrase the Beatles, is a real nothing man, sitting in a nothing land. He is a nonentity whose entire persona has been created by his campaign and the media (the same difference). Think about it: we don't really know anything about him, except that he was a "community organizer". The media's lack of curiosity is shameful. We have learned more about Sarah Palin in like eight weeks than we have about Obama over the past few years that he has been campaigning for president.
Make sure that you've really thought everything through before pulling the lever for this guy. McCain is NOT a right wing ideologue like the media is making him out to be. He is a centrist, which is why he used to relish in attacking Bush and the media loved him. He is, in my opinion, not conservative enough. The media is painting him as an out of control, angry right-winger (racist to boot!), which is ridiculous. McCain is pretty independent. Obama rolls with dudes who hate this country and, for you Jews out there, who hate Israel too. If it was one guy, or maybe two, then I give him the benefit of the doubt. Beyond that, it becomes a pattern. It is a pattern. I am not saying that Obama hates the U.S. and Israel, but he is in deep with crowds who do. What does this tell you? I understand: Bush fatigue, yada, yada. But McCain is not Bush. No one is Bush but Bush.
I could be wrong. There is a strong possibility that in his first day in office, Obama will take a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish and feed the multitudes in the Third World. Blind children in Somalia will be able to see. Lepers in Bangladesh will be cured. A man will be exorcised of his demons, who are legion - (we, the United States, are the man - the Republicans are the demons). He'll walk across the Tidal Basin. He will ascend Capitol Hill, where he will be transfigured into a radiant, superior being. All of these amazing things could happen, and more.
But then again, I could be right. This man has a shady past, hangs with shady dudes until it's politically expedient to throw them under the bus, and is, get this, no more experienced to be president than Sarah Palin. Tell me: what has this man done other than talk about what he's going to (miraculously) do? Why is he any more qualified? He isn't - but he is more eloquent and a minority to boot. These are his qualifications - nothing more.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The Game Last Night
I doubt that many of you got through my election thoughts. I just kept writing and writing, and without realizing it, I exceeded 3000 words. Sorry about that. I won't bore this time. I just want to talk a bit about the game last night, and by "the game" I'm referring, of course, to the second game of the ALCS.
As I predicteed yesterday, Beckett indeed was not his "ridiculously ridiculous" self. In fact, if anything, he was ridiculously terrible. I kept thinking that eventually he would get his shit together, and he just never did. It was pretty frustrating to watch, but I guess you can't get too cocky about your guys always going out there and excelling, kickin' ass and taking names. That would make you a Yankees fan. Or, to be fair, an obnoxious brand of Red Sox fan that was spawned in 2004, a group that sort of disgusts me. Every single one of Boston's teams, with the exception of the Bruins, at least made it to their league championship last season. That, my friends, is absurd. This has, in turn, bred a bunch of cocky assholes in Boston (even cockier than before, which is saying a lot). But again, I digress.
Like I said, I kept expecting Joshy to turn it around but he just didn't. The offense was awesome last night, though, which bodes well. Pedroia hit two jacks, Youk had 1, and Bay had yet another (who is this guy?). I had to wonder how this was not enough offense. It just seemed that no matter what the Sox did, the Rays just turned around and either matched it or exceeded it in the bottom half of the inning. The Rays have been consistently underestimated all year and I will admit that until 3/4 of the way through the season, I felt the same way. I knew they were good, but I just could not accept that they were winning the AL East, and quite handily. Chalk this up to the fact that they have been more or less a AAA team until now. Kudos, I guess. But still, Beckett? Even coming off an injury, Red Sox fans have gotten into a habit (perhaps a bad one) of expecting him to go out there and allow at most 2 runs. He has been so amazing in the post seasons of the past that is it hard for you NOT to expect that. But his last two starts have him looking completely out of it. Not sure of it's the injury, rust, a bit of both, or just not getting it together. I still love the guy though.
DP looks like he is turning it on. Youkilis is hitting like the reincarnation of Ted Williams, although he looks like Sasquatch's cousin. I love Jason Bay. When Manny was released, I figured that there were two sides of the coin. One was that he was acting like an asshole, so maybe it would be good for the team to have that off their minds. He and Youk, it should be remembered, got in a fight in the dugout last June. Manny attacked the traveling secretary. There was certainly tension. The other was: Holy shit, we are losing Manny, who is a future Hall of Famer. But Bay has really been playing well in his stead, and Manny's absence hasn't really been too palpable in the postseason. Bay is hitting out of his mind. Big Sloppy is popping up everything, but I feel like he is just missing. I am calling this right now: he's hitting a home run in Game 3. I know this. I consulted an augur last night, after throwing my cat out of the window in frustration at the outcome of the game and scaring the crap out of my sleeping girlfriend. The augur guaranteed it. And the augur knows all (what the hell am I talking about?). Maybe I was dreaming, although I think not.
Anyway, last night was an excellent game. It was intense and competitive throughout. It was a billion hours of exciting baseball. I had several myocardial infarctions. All of these extra inning games are taking years off my life. But, then again, this is playoff baseball. I live for this. But, you can't win 'em all.
As a final note, I think it is beyond idiotic that Major League Baseball decided to have tomorrow's game start at 4 pm. This sucks. I get out of work at 5:30 and I can't get home till at least an hour later. That means that, conservatively speaking, I might get to see 2 innings of baseball. Most people also have jobs. It starts at 1 pm on the West Coast. It is an important playoff game. Who thought this up?
P.S. I have a crush on Jon Lester. I get giddy when I see him on the mound. I have five posters of him in my room and I asked the augur if there is a future for us together. And tomorrow afternoon, he's gonna win. I know it. I just might not see it. And that is just not right.
As I predicteed yesterday, Beckett indeed was not his "ridiculously ridiculous" self. In fact, if anything, he was ridiculously terrible. I kept thinking that eventually he would get his shit together, and he just never did. It was pretty frustrating to watch, but I guess you can't get too cocky about your guys always going out there and excelling, kickin' ass and taking names. That would make you a Yankees fan. Or, to be fair, an obnoxious brand of Red Sox fan that was spawned in 2004, a group that sort of disgusts me. Every single one of Boston's teams, with the exception of the Bruins, at least made it to their league championship last season. That, my friends, is absurd. This has, in turn, bred a bunch of cocky assholes in Boston (even cockier than before, which is saying a lot). But again, I digress.
Like I said, I kept expecting Joshy to turn it around but he just didn't. The offense was awesome last night, though, which bodes well. Pedroia hit two jacks, Youk had 1, and Bay had yet another (who is this guy?). I had to wonder how this was not enough offense. It just seemed that no matter what the Sox did, the Rays just turned around and either matched it or exceeded it in the bottom half of the inning. The Rays have been consistently underestimated all year and I will admit that until 3/4 of the way through the season, I felt the same way. I knew they were good, but I just could not accept that they were winning the AL East, and quite handily. Chalk this up to the fact that they have been more or less a AAA team until now. Kudos, I guess. But still, Beckett? Even coming off an injury, Red Sox fans have gotten into a habit (perhaps a bad one) of expecting him to go out there and allow at most 2 runs. He has been so amazing in the post seasons of the past that is it hard for you NOT to expect that. But his last two starts have him looking completely out of it. Not sure of it's the injury, rust, a bit of both, or just not getting it together. I still love the guy though.
DP looks like he is turning it on. Youkilis is hitting like the reincarnation of Ted Williams, although he looks like Sasquatch's cousin. I love Jason Bay. When Manny was released, I figured that there were two sides of the coin. One was that he was acting like an asshole, so maybe it would be good for the team to have that off their minds. He and Youk, it should be remembered, got in a fight in the dugout last June. Manny attacked the traveling secretary. There was certainly tension. The other was: Holy shit, we are losing Manny, who is a future Hall of Famer. But Bay has really been playing well in his stead, and Manny's absence hasn't really been too palpable in the postseason. Bay is hitting out of his mind. Big Sloppy is popping up everything, but I feel like he is just missing. I am calling this right now: he's hitting a home run in Game 3. I know this. I consulted an augur last night, after throwing my cat out of the window in frustration at the outcome of the game and scaring the crap out of my sleeping girlfriend. The augur guaranteed it. And the augur knows all (what the hell am I talking about?). Maybe I was dreaming, although I think not.
Anyway, last night was an excellent game. It was intense and competitive throughout. It was a billion hours of exciting baseball. I had several myocardial infarctions. All of these extra inning games are taking years off my life. But, then again, this is playoff baseball. I live for this. But, you can't win 'em all.
As a final note, I think it is beyond idiotic that Major League Baseball decided to have tomorrow's game start at 4 pm. This sucks. I get out of work at 5:30 and I can't get home till at least an hour later. That means that, conservatively speaking, I might get to see 2 innings of baseball. Most people also have jobs. It starts at 1 pm on the West Coast. It is an important playoff game. Who thought this up?
P.S. I have a crush on Jon Lester. I get giddy when I see him on the mound. I have five posters of him in my room and I asked the augur if there is a future for us together. And tomorrow afternoon, he's gonna win. I know it. I just might not see it. And that is just not right.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Some Thoughts on the Election
Now, as some of you may be aware, the Presidential election is on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of this November, namely Nov. 4. The progression of the campaigns has made me increasingly worried, but most of all, frustrated. Barack Obama - the messenger of hope, the "one we've been waiting for", fairly new on the political scene, Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ returned to earth etc. against John McCain - a scarred war veteran, a Senator for the last quarter century, a "maverick" who is barely right of center yet framed by the media to be some right wing ideologue now that he is no longer that convenient thorn in Bush's side that made him their favorite Republican. These are the two choices and quite frankly I am not too excited about either. The former is an empty suit who is the classic Sophist - all rhetoric, no substance. The latter, while honorable for his independence and his tendency to speak his mind on issues rather than succumb to groupthink, is sometimes uncomfortably populist
First, I want to come clean here - I'm a registered Republican. Now, before you call me a rich-loving, poor-hating, racist, misogynist, gay-bashing, warmongering, imperialist Hitler-loving Nazi Fascist, let me get some things out. I am a Republican because I believe that it is one's responsibility to be responsible for one's self (with certain limitations). I don't believe that the government should have the final say on everything and basically be the overlord of everything that happens in this country. While there is certainly some greed in the private sector, I don't believe that faceless bureaucrats within the federal governments are any less susceptible to that greed. They are not angels. Human nature is greedy. That is how it always has been, and always will be. Legislation that calls for more regulatory oversight won't change that. The regulators could be, and most likely are, just as greedy, because they're human too. I do not believe that just because a person is motivated by profit, that person, ipso facto, is incapable of acting with decency and humanity. I just believe in Adam Smith's philosophy of the invisible hand, and here I will quote perhaps the most famous passage from his 1776 Wealth of Nations:
But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or rather is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
All of that dense 18th century language is only saying that by pursuing one's own self-interest, one usually ends up fulfilling the public interest much better than if one intends to fulfill the public interest.
Also, I believe in a muscular foreign policy. The Bush Administration has gotten a ton of criticism, and rightfully so, for its blunders in Iraq and now, ever more apparently, in post-Taliban Afghanistan. However, I think that the intentions of invading Iraq were correct. I'm not going to get into a big thing here, if anything maybe I will cover it in a later blog, as to why this is so. However, I want to state very clearly that the conflict has been overly simplified, the notion that we "took our eyes off the ball" in Afghanistan is misguided, and that strategically speaking, invading the heart of the Middle East was a pretty good idea.
Believe it or not, I am no fascistic thug. Maybe I have some neoconservative leanings (this term has been misused and abused to the point that its original meaning has been largely obfuscated). I tend to be relatively liberal when it comes to domestic social issues (gay rights, marijuana, etc), but on foreign policy I tend to be a bit more hawkish. That is, more or less, the definition of a neoconservative, although obviously truncated for brevity's sake. It must be emphasized though, that Obama's idea that the war began in Afghanistan and therefore must end there, is stupid. That isn't where the war began. Sure, that is where our troops first invaded, but this war began in the heart of the ARAB Middle East, the home of Wahabbism, Sayyid Qutb and Islamic fundamentalist thought in general. That is where it must end, if it does end. Obama's notion is akin to saying, "The Second World War in Europe began in Poland, therefore it must end in Poland". Ridiculous and historically impossible. Even if Osama bin Laden were killed tomorrow, do you think that suddenly all Islamic fundamentalist thought would cease to exist? He is one man. An influential, dangerous, murderous, asshole-ish man, but still, just one man. The ideas do not die with him. There needed to be a much wider war against Islamists than just in Afghanistan. The root of it is in the Arab world, not Afghanistan. These are very complex issues, but I'm just throwing out the basics. I'm not writing a thesis or a Foreign Affairs essay
Now, on to the candidates. For this post, I will deal with the Democrat, Barack Obama. On the surface there is much to be admired in the man. If elected, he would become the first black President of the United States. This would be a huge leap forward for a country that once held blacks as slaves and segregated entire communities. He is eloquent, and seemingly thoughtful and intelligent on some important issues. He is young, and seems to brim with optimism. Indeed, this makes him, to some, a much more attractive candidate than John McCain, who can appear cantankerous and stiff in comparison. But, come on people, let's get beyond the superficial and let's dig here. Beyond the rhetoric, who is this guy? This is a man who, beyond degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law, does not have much to say for himself. Sure, he was in the State Senate of Illinois and the U.S. Senate. Sure, he speaks about bringing Republicans and Democrats together to sing Kumbaya from Capitol Hill, and he does so in an often beautiful way. But, to simply take him for his word and believe in him because of an admittedly brilliant speech he made at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, and subsequent speeches, is stupid. Listen, he will never bring Republicans and Democrats together on every major issue. No one ever will. Why? Because they are sentient human beings with the ability to process information and, ultimately, decipher, understand, and act upon that information in different ways. They will not always agree to compromise on every issue, because sometimes there is a fundamental reason as to why they differ. And this is healthy for democracy. If there was always the ability for everyone to just agree and get along, then democracy is for naught. The whole purpose of democracy is to discuss issues and argue over them, often vigorously and angrily. If everyone always agreed, the point of a legislature would be slim to none and a fascist state would more or less exist.
I have gone off on a tangent, but this is my blog, so deal with it. I have a lot to say here, and because this is not a school assignment, I might be all over the place. I can't possible cover everything wrong with Barack Obama because I am not Edward Gibbon, I don't have time to write a six volume tome, and I don't care enough. People are going to vote for him regardless. There are several reasons, but I will list five:
1) Everyone, save a small minority, despises George W. Bush and, by extension, the Republican Party. Iraq, Afghanistan, the financial crisis, etc. have people angry and just tired of this administration. Some of it is justified, some not.
2) Barack Obama is black.
3) People don't inform themselves on the issues and say, "Hey, here's a handsome, relatively young man who speaks eloquently about the evils of Republicans and the plights of the little guy. I'm for him!"
4) Many Democrats (and Republicans too) will pull the lever for damn near anyone provided that there is a D (or an R) in front of his or her name without really thinking about it.
5) John McCain is running the most inept and retarded campaign ever.
I'm not going to get into the wars or the financial crisis right now. They are too big of concepts to effectively dissect in a blog, although I will go against this very grain of thought in future posts. Suffice to say, no one is more culpable in the financial crisis than the Democratic Party and, specifically, Barney Frank and Connecticut's own Christopher Dodd. They are obfuscating the truth by trying to lay the blame on the typical bad guys: Wall Street executives and their slithery, oily, evil, cunning, warmongering, Slytherin House-inhabiting Republicans. This is not to say that Wall Street execs are not to blame. Quite the contrary. Richard Fuld seems like a dick. So do these AIG people going out and getting manis and pedis. They have much to do with it. But for Frank and Dodd to deny all culpability and just point the fingers is nauseating. Yet, people will eat up this word vomit. With delight.
As you may or may not know, and you may not, Barack Obama is (half) black. Because of our country's history for slave owning and Jim Crow laws (which is a fault that must be acknowledged), the fact that Obama is black and on the cusp of becoming President is a huge deal. But, to some people, it's the only factor in their vote. Blacks are going to vote for him because he's black. The hip hop community will vote for him because he is black. Teen suburbanites will vote for him because they think they're black. Older Americans who want to prove to themselves that they are not prejudiced will vote for him because he is black. And...that's wrong and stupid on so many levels that no Earth language can truly do it justice. Also, any time anyone ever criticizes anything that Obama ever does, they are racists. This is an awesome card that he can play. And he does. He constantly brings up that Republicans will tell everyone how "different" he is, and how he looks nothing like the people on our currency. No Republican that I know of has said this. HE IS THE ONLY ONE SAYING THIS, and to make us feel sorry for him. And if he loses, blacks across the country are going to riot, blame racism, etc. I am not a racist. I am, in fact, part black. Race, to me, is a non-issue. I am a person who reads and ultimately comes up with his own decisions. Sometimes they differ from other people's. Because I am a human being, not a pre-programmed robot. I hate college student liberals more than anything - they profess to be so free-minded, man, and so liberal and thoughtful, dude, but if anyone thinks differently than they do, they try their damndest to shut him or her the fuck up, and immediately. This is called hypocrisy. I could write a Gibbon-esque tome on this. It is widespread, metastasizing, and actually sort of dangerous. But whatever. On to the next point.
People don't go about trying to learn stuff on their own. They see what the celebrities like Brad Pitt and Barbara Streisand have to say, what Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, and Tom Brokaw et al. have to say, etc. Many do not do their own research. If people were to do a fair to heavy amount of research on the candidates, compare and contrast them, and ultimately decide to vote for Obama, then fine. This is a free country and I don't begrudge them their opinon. But many don't. "Hey guys, that Obama can speak. Not like that retarded ape Bush. Obama's got my vote". Believe me, people, I know many an Obama supporter whose thought processes run along these general lines. Maybe he is eloquent, maybe the Europeans want to deify him while hypocritically treating their own black minorities like shit. BUT THIS DOES NOT SUBSTITUTE FOR HIS LACK OF SUBSTANCE. His speeches are vague nonsense, meaningless, drivel. Give me one solid, factually-grounded reason that this guy should be President other than that we need "change" (whatever that means). Or that he is not an evil Republican. Or that he is black, or any other such nonsense. If you can, then okay. If not, then you're an idiot who is voting based on nothing. Unfortunately, I know too many people, mostly my age, who are in the latter camp. If more people knew about his connections with not only Jeremiah Wright, but with Bill Ayers, ACORN, Tony Rezko, Michael Pfleger (sp?), the Saul Alinsky-influenced leftist community organizers, his apparent membership in a socialist party in Chicago, his disturbing connections with Raila Odinga (look him up) etc., he would not be as popular. But many don't know. Many don't care to know. Many do know, but shrug it off. "He is not George Bush. He is not a Republican. He is black. So fuck McCain and those old white jerks."
This sort of applies to the fourth point I made as well. I am sometimes convinced that if Benito Mussolini were resurrected, and had in some hypothetical universe been born in the Midwest instead of Predappio, Italy, and ran as a Democrat, he would get votes over John McCain. "Because, goshdarn it, McCain is a Republican. He's not like you or me. He was awesome when he was against Bush but now that he seems to have some conservative principles (gasp) and is the Republican candidate, he is evil. Mussolini will make the trains run on time! Not like they did under Bush. They were always late! Always!...I'm voting for the Muss." This is hyperbole, obviously, but truly, for people who claim to be free thinkers, not like those narrow-minded gay-bashing Republicans, Democrats are often frighteningly narrow-minded. I guess the same can be said for Republicans. But I live in an area where everyone and their mother is a Democrat, so I can't really speak for that from personal experience. But it's a mind-boggling groupthink mentality. If you are friends with liberals, and you are outed as a conservative, you might be looked at as though you crucify puppies for recreation on the weekends. This is stupid, from either side. People have the right to think differently. This isn't Stalin-era Russia.
And, as for the fifth point: Is John McCain trying to lose this campaign? Look, I don't love the guy. But, because Obama is downright frightening to me, he has my support. And...WTF is he doing? He doesn't bring up Wright, Rezko, Ayers, etc. He has a bouillabaisse of things to choose from to harm Obama's popularity and he just doesn't. This isn't character defamation. Obama had a more-than-casual relationship with an unrepentant domestic terrorist and with some other sketch-ass dudes. This requires some investigation if this man is running for the most powerful position on earth. If McCain had had connections with Eric Rudolph or another like-minded individual, no matter how coincidental, the media would be all up in it. But they're not. And this speaks volumes. McCain is hardly helping because he refuses to bring it up. If I were him, I would bring it up in every single response in the debate, no matter how off topic, irrelevant, or dick it would be.
Moderator: So, Senator McCain, how will this financial crisis affect your governance if you become the next President?
McCain: Well, my friend, it will have a profound effect. People feel as though they are being taken advantage of, and they are correct. My administration will take the proper steps to rectify this horrible situation. My opponent, who is friends with an unrepentant Weatherman terrorist, will raise taxes. Any economist will tell you that you don't raise taxes in a crisis. According to a Wall Street Journal survey among top economists...
Stop being a lame ass and do it. You will be called unfair and rude and evil and racist no matter what you do because the media is in the tank for Obama anyway, so what's to lose? I fear that at this point, it's too late anyway, and if he brings up Obama's shady past associations he will look desperate and mean-spirited. I don't, however, think there is an alternative.
I can go on and on, but I have the GREs two weeks from today and I have to study some geometry. That stuff owns me. I have the verbal down (although the analogies are absurdly difficult), the algebra, trigonometry. But if you asked me about the area of a triangle inside a circle inscribed in a square that has sides measuring 3 units, I would not even know where to begin. It kicked my ass in high school too. So I have to get on that. Have a good day, y'all. More posts to come!
First, I want to come clean here - I'm a registered Republican. Now, before you call me a rich-loving, poor-hating, racist, misogynist, gay-bashing, warmongering, imperialist Hitler-loving Nazi Fascist, let me get some things out. I am a Republican because I believe that it is one's responsibility to be responsible for one's self (with certain limitations). I don't believe that the government should have the final say on everything and basically be the overlord of everything that happens in this country. While there is certainly some greed in the private sector, I don't believe that faceless bureaucrats within the federal governments are any less susceptible to that greed. They are not angels. Human nature is greedy. That is how it always has been, and always will be. Legislation that calls for more regulatory oversight won't change that. The regulators could be, and most likely are, just as greedy, because they're human too. I do not believe that just because a person is motivated by profit, that person, ipso facto, is incapable of acting with decency and humanity. I just believe in Adam Smith's philosophy of the invisible hand, and here I will quote perhaps the most famous passage from his 1776 Wealth of Nations:
But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or rather is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
All of that dense 18th century language is only saying that by pursuing one's own self-interest, one usually ends up fulfilling the public interest much better than if one intends to fulfill the public interest.
Also, I believe in a muscular foreign policy. The Bush Administration has gotten a ton of criticism, and rightfully so, for its blunders in Iraq and now, ever more apparently, in post-Taliban Afghanistan. However, I think that the intentions of invading Iraq were correct. I'm not going to get into a big thing here, if anything maybe I will cover it in a later blog, as to why this is so. However, I want to state very clearly that the conflict has been overly simplified, the notion that we "took our eyes off the ball" in Afghanistan is misguided, and that strategically speaking, invading the heart of the Middle East was a pretty good idea.
Believe it or not, I am no fascistic thug. Maybe I have some neoconservative leanings (this term has been misused and abused to the point that its original meaning has been largely obfuscated). I tend to be relatively liberal when it comes to domestic social issues (gay rights, marijuana, etc), but on foreign policy I tend to be a bit more hawkish. That is, more or less, the definition of a neoconservative, although obviously truncated for brevity's sake. It must be emphasized though, that Obama's idea that the war began in Afghanistan and therefore must end there, is stupid. That isn't where the war began. Sure, that is where our troops first invaded, but this war began in the heart of the ARAB Middle East, the home of Wahabbism, Sayyid Qutb and Islamic fundamentalist thought in general. That is where it must end, if it does end. Obama's notion is akin to saying, "The Second World War in Europe began in Poland, therefore it must end in Poland". Ridiculous and historically impossible. Even if Osama bin Laden were killed tomorrow, do you think that suddenly all Islamic fundamentalist thought would cease to exist? He is one man. An influential, dangerous, murderous, asshole-ish man, but still, just one man. The ideas do not die with him. There needed to be a much wider war against Islamists than just in Afghanistan. The root of it is in the Arab world, not Afghanistan. These are very complex issues, but I'm just throwing out the basics. I'm not writing a thesis or a Foreign Affairs essay
Now, on to the candidates. For this post, I will deal with the Democrat, Barack Obama. On the surface there is much to be admired in the man. If elected, he would become the first black President of the United States. This would be a huge leap forward for a country that once held blacks as slaves and segregated entire communities. He is eloquent, and seemingly thoughtful and intelligent on some important issues. He is young, and seems to brim with optimism. Indeed, this makes him, to some, a much more attractive candidate than John McCain, who can appear cantankerous and stiff in comparison. But, come on people, let's get beyond the superficial and let's dig here. Beyond the rhetoric, who is this guy? This is a man who, beyond degrees from Columbia and Harvard Law, does not have much to say for himself. Sure, he was in the State Senate of Illinois and the U.S. Senate. Sure, he speaks about bringing Republicans and Democrats together to sing Kumbaya from Capitol Hill, and he does so in an often beautiful way. But, to simply take him for his word and believe in him because of an admittedly brilliant speech he made at the Democratic National Convention in 2004, and subsequent speeches, is stupid. Listen, he will never bring Republicans and Democrats together on every major issue. No one ever will. Why? Because they are sentient human beings with the ability to process information and, ultimately, decipher, understand, and act upon that information in different ways. They will not always agree to compromise on every issue, because sometimes there is a fundamental reason as to why they differ. And this is healthy for democracy. If there was always the ability for everyone to just agree and get along, then democracy is for naught. The whole purpose of democracy is to discuss issues and argue over them, often vigorously and angrily. If everyone always agreed, the point of a legislature would be slim to none and a fascist state would more or less exist.
I have gone off on a tangent, but this is my blog, so deal with it. I have a lot to say here, and because this is not a school assignment, I might be all over the place. I can't possible cover everything wrong with Barack Obama because I am not Edward Gibbon, I don't have time to write a six volume tome, and I don't care enough. People are going to vote for him regardless. There are several reasons, but I will list five:
1) Everyone, save a small minority, despises George W. Bush and, by extension, the Republican Party. Iraq, Afghanistan, the financial crisis, etc. have people angry and just tired of this administration. Some of it is justified, some not.
2) Barack Obama is black.
3) People don't inform themselves on the issues and say, "Hey, here's a handsome, relatively young man who speaks eloquently about the evils of Republicans and the plights of the little guy. I'm for him!"
4) Many Democrats (and Republicans too) will pull the lever for damn near anyone provided that there is a D (or an R) in front of his or her name without really thinking about it.
5) John McCain is running the most inept and retarded campaign ever.
I'm not going to get into the wars or the financial crisis right now. They are too big of concepts to effectively dissect in a blog, although I will go against this very grain of thought in future posts. Suffice to say, no one is more culpable in the financial crisis than the Democratic Party and, specifically, Barney Frank and Connecticut's own Christopher Dodd. They are obfuscating the truth by trying to lay the blame on the typical bad guys: Wall Street executives and their slithery, oily, evil, cunning, warmongering, Slytherin House-inhabiting Republicans. This is not to say that Wall Street execs are not to blame. Quite the contrary. Richard Fuld seems like a dick. So do these AIG people going out and getting manis and pedis. They have much to do with it. But for Frank and Dodd to deny all culpability and just point the fingers is nauseating. Yet, people will eat up this word vomit. With delight.
As you may or may not know, and you may not, Barack Obama is (half) black. Because of our country's history for slave owning and Jim Crow laws (which is a fault that must be acknowledged), the fact that Obama is black and on the cusp of becoming President is a huge deal. But, to some people, it's the only factor in their vote. Blacks are going to vote for him because he's black. The hip hop community will vote for him because he is black. Teen suburbanites will vote for him because they think they're black. Older Americans who want to prove to themselves that they are not prejudiced will vote for him because he is black. And...that's wrong and stupid on so many levels that no Earth language can truly do it justice. Also, any time anyone ever criticizes anything that Obama ever does, they are racists. This is an awesome card that he can play. And he does. He constantly brings up that Republicans will tell everyone how "different" he is, and how he looks nothing like the people on our currency. No Republican that I know of has said this. HE IS THE ONLY ONE SAYING THIS, and to make us feel sorry for him. And if he loses, blacks across the country are going to riot, blame racism, etc. I am not a racist. I am, in fact, part black. Race, to me, is a non-issue. I am a person who reads and ultimately comes up with his own decisions. Sometimes they differ from other people's. Because I am a human being, not a pre-programmed robot. I hate college student liberals more than anything - they profess to be so free-minded, man, and so liberal and thoughtful, dude, but if anyone thinks differently than they do, they try their damndest to shut him or her the fuck up, and immediately. This is called hypocrisy. I could write a Gibbon-esque tome on this. It is widespread, metastasizing, and actually sort of dangerous. But whatever. On to the next point.
People don't go about trying to learn stuff on their own. They see what the celebrities like Brad Pitt and Barbara Streisand have to say, what Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, and Tom Brokaw et al. have to say, etc. Many do not do their own research. If people were to do a fair to heavy amount of research on the candidates, compare and contrast them, and ultimately decide to vote for Obama, then fine. This is a free country and I don't begrudge them their opinon. But many don't. "Hey guys, that Obama can speak. Not like that retarded ape Bush. Obama's got my vote". Believe me, people, I know many an Obama supporter whose thought processes run along these general lines. Maybe he is eloquent, maybe the Europeans want to deify him while hypocritically treating their own black minorities like shit. BUT THIS DOES NOT SUBSTITUTE FOR HIS LACK OF SUBSTANCE. His speeches are vague nonsense, meaningless, drivel. Give me one solid, factually-grounded reason that this guy should be President other than that we need "change" (whatever that means). Or that he is not an evil Republican. Or that he is black, or any other such nonsense. If you can, then okay. If not, then you're an idiot who is voting based on nothing. Unfortunately, I know too many people, mostly my age, who are in the latter camp. If more people knew about his connections with not only Jeremiah Wright, but with Bill Ayers, ACORN, Tony Rezko, Michael Pfleger (sp?), the Saul Alinsky-influenced leftist community organizers, his apparent membership in a socialist party in Chicago, his disturbing connections with Raila Odinga (look him up) etc., he would not be as popular. But many don't know. Many don't care to know. Many do know, but shrug it off. "He is not George Bush. He is not a Republican. He is black. So fuck McCain and those old white jerks."
This sort of applies to the fourth point I made as well. I am sometimes convinced that if Benito Mussolini were resurrected, and had in some hypothetical universe been born in the Midwest instead of Predappio, Italy, and ran as a Democrat, he would get votes over John McCain. "Because, goshdarn it, McCain is a Republican. He's not like you or me. He was awesome when he was against Bush but now that he seems to have some conservative principles (gasp) and is the Republican candidate, he is evil. Mussolini will make the trains run on time! Not like they did under Bush. They were always late! Always!...I'm voting for the Muss." This is hyperbole, obviously, but truly, for people who claim to be free thinkers, not like those narrow-minded gay-bashing Republicans, Democrats are often frighteningly narrow-minded. I guess the same can be said for Republicans. But I live in an area where everyone and their mother is a Democrat, so I can't really speak for that from personal experience. But it's a mind-boggling groupthink mentality. If you are friends with liberals, and you are outed as a conservative, you might be looked at as though you crucify puppies for recreation on the weekends. This is stupid, from either side. People have the right to think differently. This isn't Stalin-era Russia.
And, as for the fifth point: Is John McCain trying to lose this campaign? Look, I don't love the guy. But, because Obama is downright frightening to me, he has my support. And...WTF is he doing? He doesn't bring up Wright, Rezko, Ayers, etc. He has a bouillabaisse of things to choose from to harm Obama's popularity and he just doesn't. This isn't character defamation. Obama had a more-than-casual relationship with an unrepentant domestic terrorist and with some other sketch-ass dudes. This requires some investigation if this man is running for the most powerful position on earth. If McCain had had connections with Eric Rudolph or another like-minded individual, no matter how coincidental, the media would be all up in it. But they're not. And this speaks volumes. McCain is hardly helping because he refuses to bring it up. If I were him, I would bring it up in every single response in the debate, no matter how off topic, irrelevant, or dick it would be.
Moderator: So, Senator McCain, how will this financial crisis affect your governance if you become the next President?
McCain: Well, my friend, it will have a profound effect. People feel as though they are being taken advantage of, and they are correct. My administration will take the proper steps to rectify this horrible situation. My opponent, who is friends with an unrepentant Weatherman terrorist, will raise taxes. Any economist will tell you that you don't raise taxes in a crisis. According to a Wall Street Journal survey among top economists...
Stop being a lame ass and do it. You will be called unfair and rude and evil and racist no matter what you do because the media is in the tank for Obama anyway, so what's to lose? I fear that at this point, it's too late anyway, and if he brings up Obama's shady past associations he will look desperate and mean-spirited. I don't, however, think there is an alternative.
I can go on and on, but I have the GREs two weeks from today and I have to study some geometry. That stuff owns me. I have the verbal down (although the analogies are absurdly difficult), the algebra, trigonometry. But if you asked me about the area of a triangle inside a circle inscribed in a square that has sides measuring 3 units, I would not even know where to begin. It kicked my ass in high school too. So I have to get on that. Have a good day, y'all. More posts to come!
ALCS
So, the first game of the American League Championship Series went pretty well last night, albeit in a boring fashion. Daisuke must get some serious sadomasochistic delight out of filling up the bases with walks and then getting out of the inning, something at which he excels. This really only happened in the first inning yesterday, and I was thankful that he got out of it unscathed, but Christ man, serving up three walks in the first inning of a game is just asking for it.
I'm looking forward to tonight, should be interesting. I hope that Beckett plays up to his potential. He had a really rough outing last start, but he's coming off an injury and these things happen. I expect that he won't be his ridiculously ridiculous playoff self tonight, but that is just cuz I'm a glass half-empty kinda guy. I still think (hope?) the Sox will win tonight, and if it's 2-0 going back to Fenway, this thing is a wrap. But even if they lose, splitting the first two in Tampa is pretty good. I gotta give it up to the Rays, it's good to see that maybe they have exorcised their Devils (lame joke, I know) and that they've broken out of their existence-long basement- dwelling status. I have a soft spot for underdogs of any type: this is, I think, what initially drew me to the Red Sox, before they became the favorites themselves. This is why I sometimes root for the bad guys in movies, because you just KNOW that when all is said and done, they're gonna lose. I love the underdog. That said, I hope the Rays get fucking face planted.
I'm looking forward to tonight, should be interesting. I hope that Beckett plays up to his potential. He had a really rough outing last start, but he's coming off an injury and these things happen. I expect that he won't be his ridiculously ridiculous playoff self tonight, but that is just cuz I'm a glass half-empty kinda guy. I still think (hope?) the Sox will win tonight, and if it's 2-0 going back to Fenway, this thing is a wrap. But even if they lose, splitting the first two in Tampa is pretty good. I gotta give it up to the Rays, it's good to see that maybe they have exorcised their Devils (lame joke, I know) and that they've broken out of their existence-long basement- dwelling status. I have a soft spot for underdogs of any type: this is, I think, what initially drew me to the Red Sox, before they became the favorites themselves. This is why I sometimes root for the bad guys in movies, because you just KNOW that when all is said and done, they're gonna lose. I love the underdog. That said, I hope the Rays get fucking face planted.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)