Nihilism   (2017Apr15)

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Saturday, April 15, 2017                                          10:51 AM

Do we have laws or don’t we? The Trump campaign colluded with Putin and Wikileaks during the election—and that’s treason. Trump refuses to divest himself of his businesses—or release his tax returns—or close his D.C. hotel—all in direct violation of the Constitution’s banning of emoluments of any kind from foreigners to the president—and that’s an impeachable offense. Trump has hired unvetted, unqualified family and friends to important posts in his ‘administration’—which is nepotism. Do we have laws or don’t we?

Trump spent millions of taxpayer dollars to bomb Syria (once) and bomb Afghanistan (once)—and, as intended, we are all taking about those non-events now, instead of running him out of office, as the good lord intended. There are at least ten different reasons for impeachment proceedings—and the only reason they aren’t proceeding is that Trump is in their party.

You know partisanship has gotten out of hand when the Republicans turn a blind eye to blatantly criminal behavior in a president. And you know that media-hype has gotten out of hand when the president so obviously blows things up for no reason other than distraction—and the media run with it, anyway, as if his unfitness for office suddenly disappeared.

This whole thing is beyond sanity—don’t try to tell me that our politicians represent the people, when we the people stand aghast at the perfidy of the Republicans and nothing is done to rectify their total dismissal of any laws or ethics. These skeezy bastards deserve to go to prison—they all seem to have a hard-on for more prisons, so let’s send them there.

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Of course, the real shame is us. Racism elected Trump—his ‘platform’ is nothing but the erasure of any accomplishment of Obama—and the enormous number of haters and pigs in this country voted for him because he promised to take away their healthcare (and everyone else’s—especially minorities). Our government sucks the big hairy throbbing red one—but we citizens aren’t much better—we brought Trump on ourselves, through our own ignorance—no wonder the pols are in no hurry to oust him.

Trump

Who Needs The Russians?   (2017Mar07)

marinerg

Tuesday, March 07, 2017                                        9:03 AM

Trump’s ‘wiretap’ lie is an attempt to convince us that serious planning happens inside Trump Tower (and by extension, in the Oval)—but tweeting it without consulting anyone else on his staff proves the exact opposite.

I’m so deeply ashamed of my country and my countrymen right now—especially those who voted for the vile vanity who struts golf-courses as our head of state. That offense-against-decency-in-chief is backed by a gang of soulless, conscienceless Republicans who began the new administration by sending him a vital bill—allowing our waterways to be used to dump coal waste. That was their top priority—and a bill speaks a thousand words.

Now they want to rescind the legislation that offers health care to the underserved—sending them flooding back into the country’s ERs. These elitist vermin cackle to each other as they dismantle everything good they can find, while promoting whatever unethical, money-grubbing fat-cat sends a lobbyist to blow them.

Who needs the Russians? We have hate-filled voters and hypocritical politicians destroying the American Dream as fast as they can—denying religious freedom, denying First Amendment rights, denying science, and making some sort of new art-form out of bullshitting—as if blatant untruths are okay, as long as your TV spokespeople are sleazy enough to keep all their obstinacy-balls in the air until the break.

As if using the Citizens United ruling to pretend wealth spent equals free speech were not enough, they promote and support outlets of untruthfulness, called ‘alternate news sites’ (‘alternate’ is the new euphemism for ‘dishonest’) which they can then feed their own propaganda and hear it regurgitated back to them as ‘news’. Then they call the New York Times dishonest. And people fall for this blatant bullshit. It’s so humiliating—and the irony is that most of the voters and pols who are dissolving America’s greatness before our eyes are people who believe that American Greatness is something they were born to—not something that requires effort or engagement. Of course they bridle at the label ‘deplorable’—it’s perfectly apt—and they have to look it up.

For all his talk about making America great, Trump has patently never bothered to learn what America truly is or, more pertinent to a president, how America is supposed to work. But this is where Republicans can offer pointers on making up rules as they go along—they know how America is supposed to work—and they stay up late figuring out how to gerrymander their personal gain past the will of the people—or, failing that, using psy-ops-like disinformation to convince the voters to support their own persecution.

I suppose we should be grateful that these monsters are too selfish to work together as a team—they’re doing plenty enough damage just flailing around as independent self-servers.

Death To Republicans   (2017Mar05)

delightd

Sunday, March 05, 2017                                          1:59 PM

The Republicans are dead meat. Sure, we were distracted by Trump and the Russians, but Trump is a Republican, and Putin works for the Republicans—so really, this is all about the Republicans. Trump’s ‘who-gives-a-shit’ antics allowed him to garner popularity votes—but he can’t sign anything important unless the Republicans put it on his desk. And the Republicans’ attacks on Obama’s last six months of legislation sound more like a list of crimes against humanity than any kind of political agenda.

While we stare aghast at their straw-man, Trump, we overlook their willingness to allow his cronyism, his lying, his criminality, his conflicts of interest—and his ties to Russia—to go unchallenged. Why? Because that idiot will sign whatever bill they give him—he’s a free ride for their darkest fantasies of corporate overrule and climate denial. Trump is a travesty—but these cynical goons in Congress know exactly what they’re doing. They know the difference between right and wrong—and they wouldn’t squirm on TV so much or be so reluctant to give a straight answer if they didn’t know they were guilty.

We even give their defensive guilt-trips cute names like ‘push-back’ and ‘spin’—but only the guilty need to modulate the truth. They mask their reluctance to confront their constituents by claiming town-hall attendees are too rambunctious—or even that those people are being bussed in by political activists—one of their many easily-disproven lies. How do they convince themselves these lies will be effective?

Well, they have a market for their lies—a support-group who strain upward, beaks agape, like baby birds waiting for any scrap of delusional thinking the alt-right drops down their gullets. I think this is the first time the ‘militia’ demographic has gotten a voice in American affairs—up until now everyone readily recognized them as treasonous malcontents with psychological issues.

Trump’s responses to his faux-pas have been, “I didn’t know.”; “This was started before me.”; and “Nobody knew it was so complicated.” Trump is an ignorant buffoon—but the Republicans stand behind him, to a man—supporting ignorance even greater than their own, knowingly, willingly, for cynical partisan gain.

I say no one should ever vote for a Republican, ever again, for any elected office. A Republican, from all current evidence, is a traitor to his country and to its citizens—these gerrymandering, scandal-grinding, science-denying, disinformation-addicted sons-of-bitches have got to learn that Americans will only take so much shit.

These are just a few of the horrendous bills the Republicans have introduced:

  1. HR 861 Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency
  2. HR 610 Vouchers for Public Education
  3. HR 899 Terminate the Department of Education
  4. HJR 69 Repeal Rule Protecting Wildlife
  5. HR 370 Repeal Affordable Care Act
  6. HR 354 Defund Planned Parenthood
  7. HR 785 National Right to Work (this one ends unions)
  8. HR 83 Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill
  9. HR 147 Criminalizing Abortion (“Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act”)
  10. HR 808 Sanctions against Iran

If your senators and reps aren’t saved in your phone yet, text your zip code to 520-200-2223. You’ll get a text back with everyone’s contact info. It gives you Federal and State.

Call your House Representative and ask them not only to vote ‘No’, but to speak out against their party and its administration.

delightW

Mommy, Where Do Republicans Come From?   (2016Apr29)

Friday, April 29, 2016                                              9:50 AM

Republicans are stupid. Republicans politicians are just smart enough to get paid by the rich and by corporations for advocating stupid legislature, but the Republican voter is unabashedly stupid, voting against his or her best interests, voting against science, voting against common sense. Republicans politicians cultivated stupidity in the party’s ranks for many years—‘teaching the controversy’ on many issues that sensible people considered settled, using ‘dog-whistles’ to attract certain ‘patriotic’-seeming hates, and persistently reassuring white Christian males that they were the apex of humanity (all that ‘equality’ nonsense aside).

So when twelve or so Republican presidential candidates took the field, way back when, they were all different flavors of stupid—you had conventional stupid (a la Bush Dubya, or rather, brother Jeb), religion-crazed stupid (a la Cruz), overtly corrupt stupid (a la Chris Christie), and just plain bat-shit crazy stupid, which appears to be the shoe-in for nomination. The Republicans wanted their voters good and stupid—but then were shocked to find that they supported the stupidest candidate that ever ran for the office. That’s pretty stupid.

 

Then they all got behind Ted Cruz, whom Boehner recently described as ‘the most miserable son-of-a-bitch I’ve ever worked with’—a man reviled by virtually all of his colleagues—merely because he was the only viable alternative to their front-runner, who they hate even more for his being an outsider, with his own brand of stupid. Any reasonable, intelligent group of people would have thrown up their hands at this point—but not the Republicans. Now that Trump has forced himself upon them, you can be sure that they will back his candidacy with the same wooden-headed stubbornness that they use to deny racism, climate change, or the nature of homosexuality.

 

The front page of the Times today has a story about how Trump is attacking Clinton with veiled sexism—and that the Democrats are ‘scrambling’ to find a way to counter this attack. I find that obtuse. And I’m upset that Republican stupidity has found legitimacy in the media, purely on the basis of its having become their political platform. I’m sorry, Republicans (and the NY Times) but stupid is stupid—it doesn’t need to be defended against, except when talking to Republicans. Trump’s appeal is confined to people angry enough to want conflict instead of compromise—even with the evidence of how conflict within the legislature paralyzes our government staring them in the face. These voters don’t want things done right, they want things done fast—thinking about whether it’s right or not is just more of that ‘political correctness’ that they blame for all their problems.

In fact, a vote for Trump is a way of quoting that old John Candy flic, “Canadian Bacon”, where a guy at the bar says, “There’s a time for thinking and a time for action—and this is no time for thinking.”  In the movie, it’s meant as a joke, a witty one-liner—but for Trump, it’s a campaign slogan that his adherents would unthinkingly agree with.

We have a two-party system, so naturally we think of them as equals—but there is no equivalence between Trump and Clinton. Clinton is a lifelong public servant with knowledge and experience far beyond the average citizen—Trump is an average citizen with a lot of money and a big mouth. And I think I’m being kind with the use of ‘average’—‘below average’ might be more correct.

Americans, by and large, are not fans of big thoughts or deep thinking—that’s nothing new. But we used to elect people to office who were smarter than us, just so they could do the thinking for us. This idea of electing someone just as stupid as the least of us, because he ‘represents’ us, is a new low. Apparently, even once every four years is too often to ask American voters to think.

Most people could have told you a year ago that Trump would be the Republican, and Clinton the Democratic nominee, and that Clinton would crush him in the general. We’ve all known this for some time. But the media persist in scaring us, creating dramatic tension (and ratings) by constantly asking the question, “Will America be stupid enough to vote in Trump?” Everyone knows the answer is a resounding ‘no’. But the media can’t accept that—there’s no excitement in a foregone conclusion—so they take a page from the Republicans, and ‘teach the controversy’.

She’s Still The One   (2015Oct23)

Friday, October 23, 2015                                         8:14 AM

Yesterday’s Benghazi hearing was a spectacle. Republican congresspersons were indefatigably terse, insensitive, and thick-headed for eleven hours. Their pretense of nonpartisanship would have been better served had even one of them said even one civil word to the former Secretary of State throughout their marathon grilling. And even Hillary Clinton might have wilted under such a barrage of enmity, had she not had the regular interruptions of the Democratic members, who spent their time castigating the hearing itself, rather than its witness—to whom they pretty much offered apologies that she was required to be subject to that circus.

After the preceding seven hearings, it’s hard to see how the Republicans committee members had hoped to appear anything other than incompetent during this eighth, Clinton-only farce. All the GOP members at the dais were former prosecutors—and after witnessing their bullying, all-talk, no-listen tirades, I was ready to despair not just of the Congress, but of our justice system as well. To ‘win a case’, in our dreary reality, often replaces the seeking out of truth among hot-shot lawyers—and these specific lawyers have transferred that worst-of-all-failings of our legal system to our legislative system. Their desire for a partisan victory, rather than clarity, showed through every syllable of their attempted mugging.

With all the talk of ‘transparency’ yesterday, it was the Republicans who were revealed as transparent in their partisanship. I would have been tremendously embarrassed to have been among their number—but then, I’m not trapped in an extremist right-wing bubble of anger and resentment. They showed the sorry enthusiasm of cheerleaders for a team being soundly trounced—lots of noise to little purpose.

Darling Hillary—now, that’s a different story. Eleven hours of unruffled poise and competency—I was blown away by her strength, her endurance, and her intelligence. If her poll numbers don’t reflect a surge of approval for her candidacy, then I give up on this country for good—if hi-jinx and raillery can drown out such astute capability, then democracy has finally failed us. The late Margaret Thatcher has a new rival for the title “Iron Lady”.

I learned two things yesterday—the Benghazi attack was a horrible tragedy, and Hillary Clinton was not the cause of it. If that is what the Republicans wished America to learn yesterday, then—job well done, folks.

Tea Party Success   (2015Oct09)

Friday, October 09, 2015                                         4:30 PM

I sense a repeated pattern of history—once, when the rich and powerful felt that slavery was too necessary to their continued peace they began to rationalize indecency as convention, even tradition—and it caused a national schism. Now, we have rich and powerful people who feel that climate-warming and arms dealing are too necessary to their continued peace—and they have been busy rationalizing indecency as convention, even tradition—even as ‘constitutionally protected’. Now they have caused a schism in our nation—but we’re too modern for a second civil war—no, we’re just going to shut down the government, ruin its credit rating, and let the whole beautiful dream turn to poo.

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The turmoil in Congress is indicative of this—no one on the Right can agree because the Right has entered the world of rationalization—all of their reasons must support Big Energy, and the NRA—logic be damned. It’s not that they’re wrong for abandoning logic—that can be an effective tactic—it’s just that when you get a whole roomful of people doing it, they’ll all come up with their own rationalizations. And they have. The term ‘Congress’ implies a coming together—and it has operated in that spirit, more or less, for centuries—but not anymore.

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Many people in this country have let themselves be convinced that government is bad—they should grow the hell up. We’re going to have government whether we like it or not—the only things that’s bad is bad government—and that’s what the Tea Party propaganda has led us to. They can’t get rid of government, but they can sure fuck it up so it doesn’t work anymore—good job, boys and girls—and you too, you loyal voters.

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The crisis isn’t who the next speaker will be—that’s so unimportant it’s not funny. The crisis is: How do we get rid of these yahoos that clog our political system like human cholesterol? It’s like the red states are voting to give this country a heart attack—well, congrats, Baggers—the whole place is falling apart. We’re weaker; we’re less secure; our infrastructure is rotting; our economy is stagnating; there aren’t enough jobs—but hey—we can all still carry pistols around. Yippie-kiyay, motherfuckers!20150526XD-Radio_03_1920s

Please note: For illustrations, I was going to download images of some House Republicans and photoshop memes that had the caption “Do You Trust This Man?” but I’m too damn lazy—you’ll have to imagine them for yourselves. Sorry.

GOPeers

Augmentation, but In a Bad Way

Get back to me on that.

Get back to me on that.

 

Augmentation, but In a Bad Way

2nd consecutive rant–I can do this all winter….

Nothing Could Top Michelle’s Speech—Except Bill’s

I’m struck by the contrast between last week’s convention and this week’s. While the Republicans seemed to be plotting a national witch hunt (or would it be more honest to call it a lynching party?) the Democrats have spent a lot of time celebrating the American character. Those things that thrill me about living in the USA, the things that are closer to Christ’s teachings than the Evangelists will ever get, the ideal of equal rights, liberty, and cooperation—the Democrats celebrate our greatness and the GOP seem far more negative.

Cooperation? Yes, though we rarely tout it amongst our flashier ideals—human rights, liberty, equal opportunity, democracy, and public education—the root of America is its strength; and its strength comes from being united. Our unity is so much a part of us that we never bother to think about it—but it is there. Fifty-plus different sovereignties, a half-continent full of individual cultures and inter-relationships—all working (by and large) together and united in purpose.

Whether it’s world war, cold war, or cyberwar—no other nation has a chance against us—because we are united in purpose. And I add that ‘purpose’ for a reason. China, the Soviet Union—there are bigger plots of land and greater populations in the world—but none of them are united in purpose. In spite of our antipathy towards pinko commies and socialist hippies, America is the first great collective. The invention of this great socialist government that would serve no king and let no one determine their lives for them was a decision to band together, to share the dangers and the decisions to come—and to try (and we still try) to keep at bay the autocrats, the monopolizers, and the elitists.

Yes, we invented socialism. We collect everyone’s votes to decide our leaders and our laws. We enact laws that forbid division, advantage, and suppression. In many special new ways, Great Britain, France, Canada and other countries may have taken further steps on the road—nationalized health care, subsidizations of the labor force, etc. But we built the road. We differed from the Old World most substantially by having come into being post-Enlightenment. The divisions that tore Western Europe into tiny fiefdoms had no influence on the New World. Well, that’s not entirely correct—but the influence they did have on our continent was to flood it with the independent-thinkers, dissenters, and adventurous dreamers that the Old World had no use for.

So, yes, the USA was the world’s first hippie commune. We threw out the rules and wrote new ones, which included instructions to keep arms and to rise up and destroy the government if the day ever came that it no longer represented its people. For most of our past, we have proudly fought against pernicious influences in other parts of the world (with the notable exception of our civil war—the bloodiest war we ever fought, because we were on both sides!) And what with world wars against fascism and cold wars against soviets, we’ve been kept pretty busy. Ironically, now that the USA has no credible military threat to its security, we have begun to turn on each other.

Patton once said “Americans traditionally love to fight.” And if you see deployed troops on the news, they always display a spirit and an eagerness that seems to confirm Patton’s claim. Hell, you can go to a bar on Saturday night, most anywhere in the country, to see further proof. And I would not be idiotic enough to suggest that we find an excuse for some new, military adventuring outside our country. So how do we keep Americans fighting without them fighting each other? It is a serious problem—and this is not the first time it’s come up.

When there was an interval between the Korean War and the Viet Nam War, Kennedy called for a Peace Corp to conquer not the world, but the world’s poverty and disease. When former-President Jimmy Carter made a plea for involvement in Habitats for Humanity he was offering a fight to restless, good-hearted citizens everywhere. Kennedy and Carter were both leaders who recognized the American lust for challenge—and tried to channel it into positive, constructive efforts. And with job growth too slow to reach everyone without several years of patience and suffering, I hope that one of the things a re-elected Obama administration will work on is a channel for the energy of our young adults. They are the ones who are starting to take over from the grown-ups while also ‘finishing up’ their own maturation—they are easily diverted, particularly when unemployed and unhappy, to troublemaking and disaffection with society—and that is as grave a danger to our future as the unemployed, hungry poverty of today is a danger to our present.

You know, sometimes when I’m typing these ‘things’ (whatever they are) it occurs to me that there are plenty of people, Americans like myself, that would violently disagree with my ideas. And I know that my country protects my right to say what I think. But that doesn’t change the fact that I am just one person—that if I make someone else mad enough, that person could (unlikely as it sounds) decide to end me. And I would die for exercising Free Speech. But we don’t let that bother us in this country. I remember a news item about occupied Iraq telling of a newspaper publisher trying frantically to find an official to approve the paper’s copy before printing it.

The soldiers he spoke to had to reassure him over and over that he could not be punished for printing anything in the paper—facts, opinions, or otherwise. There was a kind of awe evident in the man when they finally convinced him that this was the way the USA did things—and that he (and his countrymen) were free to do likewise, at least as far as the coalition forces were concerned. The fact that many media sources in Iraq suffered later, at the hands of displeased fundamentalists, shows that the freedom of speech we enjoy here in the USA is an unheard of luxury in many other places on Earth. And it shows that even when a government restriction on speech is ended, that culture still retains the belief that words should be carefully measured—and controlled by those in authority. For us, the only worry is the random, enraged psychotic—for other places, free speech may be despised even by one’s friends and neighbors.

So, I guess what I’m saying is—Freedom and Unity are not just awesome aspects of our country—they are rare and precious in much of the rest of our world. And that is the reason I go so far as to accuse the GOP of treason concerning their last-four-year’s agenda—they have tried to make the whole country split up into sides and have at it without compromise. And that is not only an unprecedented shame of any political party, it is counter to everything this country stands for. Even if I didn’t think Obama was a great president, I’d be voting against the GOP in November—because they’ve been taken hostage by the Tea Party—the all-time winner of Party’s Dumbest (and most divisive) Platform.