New Zealand artist protests
Environment Minister by sculpting
his bust with cow manure.
It’s amazing! I watched a few minutes of the debate on health care and was astounded to learn there are apparently two totally different bills, the one described by Democrats, and the one described by Republicans. As I learned long ago that too much hot air is not good for me I fairly quickly turned it off. It’s a bit difficult to describe what is going on as a “debate,” because they do seem to be talking about two entirely different things (bills). As Pelosi and the Democrats seem to feel they will have enough votes to insure passage of this monumental bill, I trust that by morning I can feel they have succeeded. But wait! They have succeeded! The House passed the health care bill with 220 votes (219 Democratic and apparently 1 Republican who must be out of the loop). So Obama and the Democrats have managed to do something no one has been able to do for somewhere between 60 and 100 years. Hooray!
And if they do succeed (they did), the Republicans will once again find themselves on the wrong side of history, just as they were when Social Security and Medicare were passed. For at least a hundred years they have battled nonstop against anything and everything designed to improve the lives of ordinary citizens, and for anything and everything that would benefit the wealthy and the huge corporate interests. This time they have, in my opinion at least, made such utter fools of themselves we might hope they would hide somewhere for the next few years and say nothing. Witness the absolutely disgusting display that Bachman and her loony supporters put on the other day as a case in point. You might also watch the video going around of Republican men despicably shouting down women as they attempted to have their say about health care. This was truly like something out of the dark ages. Of course they had Wilson’s boorish shouting at Obama for a model, as well as some of their past Brown shirt activities (as in the 2000 election that apparently established a precedent for fascist activity in the U.S.).
I expect the Stupak amendment will pass that will not allow taxpayer money to be used for abortions, thus denying legal abortions to poor women who need them the most (it did). These anti-abortion fanatics apparently believe that women (and their doctors) have abortions just for fun, and that the responsibility for children stops once the fetus is born. I hear many people, especially in Congress, say, “I don’t agree with them (abortion opponents) but I understand where they are coming from.” I don’t agree with them and I don’t understand where they are coming from. I believe there are usually if not always perfectly good reasons for abortions and they are not done casually or just for fun (and if done early enough do not destroy a viable human life, but that is for another time and place). Furthermore, I think the alternative to abortion (neglect, abuse, and abandonment) is often worse.
I see references now fairly commonly that refer to the “Democratic debacle” of Tuesday. I hate to be so dense but I don’t get it. Democrats won two more Congressional seats, one of them in a district that has not been Democratic since the Civil War. I guess the “debacle” has to do (in the MSM anyway) with the loss of the Governor’s races, one in New York and one in Virginia, and the loss of the New York City mayor’s race. Granted it would have been better had Democrats won, but it seems to me these races were perfectly predictable. Corzine was a most unpopular Governor who had not produced what he had promised, was a long way back in the early polls, but with Obama’s support only lost by a much smaller margin than predicted. Bloomberg is apparently regarded as one of the best mayors ever (although why I could not say), and also spent around 100 million dollars of his own money to get re-elected, and then only won by a small margin over a not very well known Democratic opponent. Virginia, apparently since time immemorial, has always elected a Governor from the opposite party in power. How you can consider this somehow bad for Democrats I find highly questionable, and given the fact that the exit polls indicated Obama had little to do with the voting, I think I am right about this. Of course whether I am right or wrong is irrelevant.
LKBIQ:
No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them - campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again.
Bill Clinton
TILT:
I finally did it! I found something that did not appear on Google – tolstovakas (the name of a kind of peasant blouse Leo Tolstoy started wearing).
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Goebbels is Passe
Miss England forced to
relinquish crown after
punching Miss Manchester.
Goebbels, it turns out, might have been a pioneer when it came to lying, but he is now passé. It was Herr Goebbels, I believe, who said something to the effect that “if you tell a big lie often enough people will come to believe it.” Rove, Bush and Cheney refined that technique by discovering that if you tell constant lies about everything, all the time, truth simply becomes completely irrelevant. That is what I think is going on now. We have reached the point where the lies have become so commonplace and ubiquitous that no one has any idea of truth anymore. This is why Republicans can now say anything they wish, no matter how unbelievably ridiculous, and there will be at least some who will believe them. And it is also why whatever Democrats say cannot be believed because no one believes there is any truth anymore. Thus when Republicans say the Obama health care proposals mean that old people will be put to death, no Democratic denial matters, because we have all been conditioned to understand that no one tells the truth. If Bachmann claims there were 50,000 or 500,000 supporters at her rally in D.C., and someone else claims there were a million, the police claim of 4,000 is no more acceptable than the larger numbers, because who knows anymore who is lying? If Republicans claim a huge victory in the election last Tuesday, and Democrats think otherwise, who is to know? Everything nowadays is just considered “spin” because that is what we have been fed for the past eight or more years. I have to concede, however grudgingly, that this was a brilliant strategy on the part of Bush/Cheney. The result of it is that nothing can be taken seriously as there is no truth. If I say Cheney is a blatant war criminal who should be prosecuted for his terrible unconstitutional and illegal atrocities, others will say he saved us from a fate worse than death, and who is to be the wiser? If I say we have no reason to be in Afghanistan and should get out as soon as possible, others will say that is unthinkable, but no one seems willing to explain why.
This is why I believe that there may be someone, somewhere, perhaps more than one (but not many), who must actually know the truth but won’t tell us what it is. It is all this uncertainty and doubt about veracity that has led me to start thinking about conspiracies. For example, I believe there is a “truth” about our continued “war” in Afghanistan, and that is we still must be planning to build a pipeline through that troubled land, but no one will admit it. I believe there must be a “truth” about Osama bin Laden as well that we are not being told. I doubt very much that a millionaire Saudi Prince is still hiding out in a cave in the wilds of Pakistan, and I also suspect that he may still be a CIA asset they cannot possibly reveal now (for good reasons). He certainly was an asset for Bush/Cheney as he became their only excuse for their barbaric and illegal behavior. Similarly, I have no idea what to believe about health care and its presumed changes. Some Democrats say one thing, some say another, Republicans just say “no” to whatever it is, and how could anyone possibly know the truth. If it passes I would venture to say we still won’t know the truth because the bill is almost 1000 pages, probably mostly gobbledy-gook that most of them have not bothered to read, and quite likely unintelligible so that it can be interpreted, reinterpreted, argued about and ignored for years. The Obama administration claims they have stopped torture, but some say they are still involved in renditions. How could I be expected to know what is true? It all reminds me of a story I once heard about a father who put his son on top of a fence post and told him to jump and he would catch him. The boy jumped and the father didn’t catch him. He said, “there, son, let that be a lesson to you, don’t trust nobody, not even your own father.”
Why can’t everyone be like our Independent (socialist) Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders? As near as I can make out he and Dennis Kucinich are about the only two people in Washington D.C. that have any interest in the public interest. Sanders says, rightly, that we must break up the huge “too big to fail” banks. I say hurrah! Yes, by all means we should do that. And while we are at it, we should break up all the big corporations, especially the corporate farms that are slowly trying to kill us with their pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and genetically modified crops. Here again we are caught up in lies so frequent and never-ending we have no way of knowing what is what. Some say genetically modified foods are perfectly safe, others (including me) say how do we know? They say they have been researched and found to be safe, but the research usually turns out to be research sponsored and paid for by those who want to modify our crops in the first place. So who do you want to believe? Again, we seem to have reached a place where no one knows who to believe. How convenient for those who want to just go ahead and do whatever they want. If we had any genuine interest in the public interest, when there is any doubt whatsoever about the possible deleterious effects of something, we should stop doing it until we really know. Not here, not in the good ol’ U.S.of A. Caught in the strangle-hold of our huge and immoral corporations we have to prove that something actually is harmful before any action can be taken. And simple correlations won’t do, so if there is a correlation between tobacco and lung cancer and such that doesn’t really count, let ‘em sell their poison until we can prove causation. Hey, it’s the American way, and Americans are infallible as well as being the greatest country on earth. Just ask Republicans, they never lie.
LKBIQ:
We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it.
Dave Barry
TILT: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov on April 22, 1870 (I am entering a Russian period).
relinquish crown after
punching Miss Manchester.
Goebbels, it turns out, might have been a pioneer when it came to lying, but he is now passé. It was Herr Goebbels, I believe, who said something to the effect that “if you tell a big lie often enough people will come to believe it.” Rove, Bush and Cheney refined that technique by discovering that if you tell constant lies about everything, all the time, truth simply becomes completely irrelevant. That is what I think is going on now. We have reached the point where the lies have become so commonplace and ubiquitous that no one has any idea of truth anymore. This is why Republicans can now say anything they wish, no matter how unbelievably ridiculous, and there will be at least some who will believe them. And it is also why whatever Democrats say cannot be believed because no one believes there is any truth anymore. Thus when Republicans say the Obama health care proposals mean that old people will be put to death, no Democratic denial matters, because we have all been conditioned to understand that no one tells the truth. If Bachmann claims there were 50,000 or 500,000 supporters at her rally in D.C., and someone else claims there were a million, the police claim of 4,000 is no more acceptable than the larger numbers, because who knows anymore who is lying? If Republicans claim a huge victory in the election last Tuesday, and Democrats think otherwise, who is to know? Everything nowadays is just considered “spin” because that is what we have been fed for the past eight or more years. I have to concede, however grudgingly, that this was a brilliant strategy on the part of Bush/Cheney. The result of it is that nothing can be taken seriously as there is no truth. If I say Cheney is a blatant war criminal who should be prosecuted for his terrible unconstitutional and illegal atrocities, others will say he saved us from a fate worse than death, and who is to be the wiser? If I say we have no reason to be in Afghanistan and should get out as soon as possible, others will say that is unthinkable, but no one seems willing to explain why.
This is why I believe that there may be someone, somewhere, perhaps more than one (but not many), who must actually know the truth but won’t tell us what it is. It is all this uncertainty and doubt about veracity that has led me to start thinking about conspiracies. For example, I believe there is a “truth” about our continued “war” in Afghanistan, and that is we still must be planning to build a pipeline through that troubled land, but no one will admit it. I believe there must be a “truth” about Osama bin Laden as well that we are not being told. I doubt very much that a millionaire Saudi Prince is still hiding out in a cave in the wilds of Pakistan, and I also suspect that he may still be a CIA asset they cannot possibly reveal now (for good reasons). He certainly was an asset for Bush/Cheney as he became their only excuse for their barbaric and illegal behavior. Similarly, I have no idea what to believe about health care and its presumed changes. Some Democrats say one thing, some say another, Republicans just say “no” to whatever it is, and how could anyone possibly know the truth. If it passes I would venture to say we still won’t know the truth because the bill is almost 1000 pages, probably mostly gobbledy-gook that most of them have not bothered to read, and quite likely unintelligible so that it can be interpreted, reinterpreted, argued about and ignored for years. The Obama administration claims they have stopped torture, but some say they are still involved in renditions. How could I be expected to know what is true? It all reminds me of a story I once heard about a father who put his son on top of a fence post and told him to jump and he would catch him. The boy jumped and the father didn’t catch him. He said, “there, son, let that be a lesson to you, don’t trust nobody, not even your own father.”
Why can’t everyone be like our Independent (socialist) Senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders? As near as I can make out he and Dennis Kucinich are about the only two people in Washington D.C. that have any interest in the public interest. Sanders says, rightly, that we must break up the huge “too big to fail” banks. I say hurrah! Yes, by all means we should do that. And while we are at it, we should break up all the big corporations, especially the corporate farms that are slowly trying to kill us with their pesticides and chemical fertilizers, and genetically modified crops. Here again we are caught up in lies so frequent and never-ending we have no way of knowing what is what. Some say genetically modified foods are perfectly safe, others (including me) say how do we know? They say they have been researched and found to be safe, but the research usually turns out to be research sponsored and paid for by those who want to modify our crops in the first place. So who do you want to believe? Again, we seem to have reached a place where no one knows who to believe. How convenient for those who want to just go ahead and do whatever they want. If we had any genuine interest in the public interest, when there is any doubt whatsoever about the possible deleterious effects of something, we should stop doing it until we really know. Not here, not in the good ol’ U.S.of A. Caught in the strangle-hold of our huge and immoral corporations we have to prove that something actually is harmful before any action can be taken. And simple correlations won’t do, so if there is a correlation between tobacco and lung cancer and such that doesn’t really count, let ‘em sell their poison until we can prove causation. Hey, it’s the American way, and Americans are infallible as well as being the greatest country on earth. Just ask Republicans, they never lie.
LKBIQ:
We Americans live in a nation where the medical-care system is second to none in the world, unless you count maybe 25 or 30 little scuzzball countries like Scotland that we could vaporize in seconds if we felt like it.
Dave Barry
TILT: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov on April 22, 1870 (I am entering a Russian period).
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Are They Trying to Kill Us?
Young man Halloween-costumed
as breathalyzer test, arrested
for drunk driving, blows 0.158.
One often raised objection to a change in our dysfunctional health care rackets is that we can’t afford it. Got that? We can’t afford health care. We can afford a “war” in Iraq that costs billions upon billions, another “war” in Afghanistan that costs more billions, a dismally failed “war on drugs” that costs billions, tax breaks for the filthy rich who do not need them that costs more billions, an “empire” that stretches around the world and costs billions, a defense budget that costs even more billions year after year, and we can’t afford health care for our citizens? Words like “pathetic,” “insane,” “stupid,” “absurd,” “ridiculous,” “disgusting,” and even “obscene,” do not even begin to describe how unutterably awful this is. And when you realize that most of the above expenses are not even necessary to begin with it gets even worse. The war in Iraq was completely unnecessary (and even illegal and a war crime), what should have been a police action in Afghanistan somehow became a war, the war on drugs is, and has been a dismal failure for years, we do not need 1000 or so bases around the world, especially in places like Germany and Japan, the tax breaks for the obscenely rich were certainly unnecessary. What does this tell you about American priorities? It tells me we are a bunch of pitifully stupid people who have no understanding of right and wrong, no empathy for suffering humanity, and no genuine sense of community. Our society has been increasingly dysfunctional for years and we are now paying the price for our inexcusable stupidity and short-sightedness.
There is also, at the moment, a problem that seems to have not yet registered with most of us. Namely, the Republican party, not content to be the party of “no,” is now actively trying to kill us (and I guess everyone else on the planet as well). Global warming is known to be a serious (even more than serious) threat to our planet. This is not a joke. The vast majority of our scientists, and scientists from all around the world, recognize this is happening and threatens our very existence. Democrats, who are currently in power in Washington, D.C., have been holding meetings to discuss this crisis (and it is a genuine crisis) and pass legislation that might lessen this dire threat. They can do nothing, however, unless at least two Republicans attend the meetings. Republicans are deliberately sending only one representative at a time, thus blocking any conceivable action that might be taken. This is irresponsible beyond belief and is, in fact, a threat to our very existence. They might as well be holding guns to our heads and insisting we just go quietly to our deaths. Granted global warming is not going to kill us all tomorrow, or next month, or even next year, but if left unchecked it is going to kill us, or certainly a great many of us. So why are Republicans doing this? You might say some of them are doing it because they are ignorant and uninformed, and don’t believe it is happening. Some think it might be happening but human activity has nothing to do with it. Some might be informed but simply don’t believe in science. But you can safely bet that the most basic reason they are resisting action on global warming is because they are getting lots of money from corporations who stand to lose money if any restrictions are placed upon their profit-driven, greedy, destructive enterprises. It is, alas, the American way.
Ah, yes, the elections yesterday. The ones Republicans are claiming were a referendum on Obama and predict how the vote will go in 2010, and even 2012. Obama, they claim, was the big loser, because two governorships went to Republicans and blah, blah, blah. This is known as “spin” nowadays. Actually, these elections most likely had nothing to do with Obama. And if they did, Obama probably came out the winner. Corzine in New Jersey was an unpopular governor and was quite a way behind his opponent in the early polls. Obama campaigned a bit for him, the result being he lost, but not by the large margin that had been predicted. Bloomberg is widely regarded as perhaps the best mayor of New York ever. As he also spent more than 100 millions of his own fortune it is not at all surprising that he won. You simply cannot use these two examples to demonstrate that Obama lost anything. Furthermore the exit polls made it clear that most voters said Obama had nothing to do with their votes. In California democrats picked up a seat in Congress that was pretty much expected. What was not expected was that the 23rd district in New York would elect a democrat for the first time since the Civil War. How can it be spun that Obama lost anything? The one truly disappointing vote was in Maine, where they proved they were every bit as bigoted as people in California. Obama had nothing to do with this vote. This is my interpretation of the votes. You may not agree with it, but it is an interpretation and not simply spin. Genuine attempts at interpretation are seldom if ever attempted by Republicans and their media puppets, preferring instead just more and more spin (lies) with no foundation or explanation whatsoever. I do not believe the elections of yesterday had anything to do with President Obama, nothing at all, but if Republicans want to believe they have already won in 2010 and 2012, that’s fine with me. But I truly wish they weren’t trying to kill me in the meantime.
LKBIQ:
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Friedrich Nietzsche
TILT:
Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein.
as breathalyzer test, arrested
for drunk driving, blows 0.158.
One often raised objection to a change in our dysfunctional health care rackets is that we can’t afford it. Got that? We can’t afford health care. We can afford a “war” in Iraq that costs billions upon billions, another “war” in Afghanistan that costs more billions, a dismally failed “war on drugs” that costs billions, tax breaks for the filthy rich who do not need them that costs more billions, an “empire” that stretches around the world and costs billions, a defense budget that costs even more billions year after year, and we can’t afford health care for our citizens? Words like “pathetic,” “insane,” “stupid,” “absurd,” “ridiculous,” “disgusting,” and even “obscene,” do not even begin to describe how unutterably awful this is. And when you realize that most of the above expenses are not even necessary to begin with it gets even worse. The war in Iraq was completely unnecessary (and even illegal and a war crime), what should have been a police action in Afghanistan somehow became a war, the war on drugs is, and has been a dismal failure for years, we do not need 1000 or so bases around the world, especially in places like Germany and Japan, the tax breaks for the obscenely rich were certainly unnecessary. What does this tell you about American priorities? It tells me we are a bunch of pitifully stupid people who have no understanding of right and wrong, no empathy for suffering humanity, and no genuine sense of community. Our society has been increasingly dysfunctional for years and we are now paying the price for our inexcusable stupidity and short-sightedness.
There is also, at the moment, a problem that seems to have not yet registered with most of us. Namely, the Republican party, not content to be the party of “no,” is now actively trying to kill us (and I guess everyone else on the planet as well). Global warming is known to be a serious (even more than serious) threat to our planet. This is not a joke. The vast majority of our scientists, and scientists from all around the world, recognize this is happening and threatens our very existence. Democrats, who are currently in power in Washington, D.C., have been holding meetings to discuss this crisis (and it is a genuine crisis) and pass legislation that might lessen this dire threat. They can do nothing, however, unless at least two Republicans attend the meetings. Republicans are deliberately sending only one representative at a time, thus blocking any conceivable action that might be taken. This is irresponsible beyond belief and is, in fact, a threat to our very existence. They might as well be holding guns to our heads and insisting we just go quietly to our deaths. Granted global warming is not going to kill us all tomorrow, or next month, or even next year, but if left unchecked it is going to kill us, or certainly a great many of us. So why are Republicans doing this? You might say some of them are doing it because they are ignorant and uninformed, and don’t believe it is happening. Some think it might be happening but human activity has nothing to do with it. Some might be informed but simply don’t believe in science. But you can safely bet that the most basic reason they are resisting action on global warming is because they are getting lots of money from corporations who stand to lose money if any restrictions are placed upon their profit-driven, greedy, destructive enterprises. It is, alas, the American way.
Ah, yes, the elections yesterday. The ones Republicans are claiming were a referendum on Obama and predict how the vote will go in 2010, and even 2012. Obama, they claim, was the big loser, because two governorships went to Republicans and blah, blah, blah. This is known as “spin” nowadays. Actually, these elections most likely had nothing to do with Obama. And if they did, Obama probably came out the winner. Corzine in New Jersey was an unpopular governor and was quite a way behind his opponent in the early polls. Obama campaigned a bit for him, the result being he lost, but not by the large margin that had been predicted. Bloomberg is widely regarded as perhaps the best mayor of New York ever. As he also spent more than 100 millions of his own fortune it is not at all surprising that he won. You simply cannot use these two examples to demonstrate that Obama lost anything. Furthermore the exit polls made it clear that most voters said Obama had nothing to do with their votes. In California democrats picked up a seat in Congress that was pretty much expected. What was not expected was that the 23rd district in New York would elect a democrat for the first time since the Civil War. How can it be spun that Obama lost anything? The one truly disappointing vote was in Maine, where they proved they were every bit as bigoted as people in California. Obama had nothing to do with this vote. This is my interpretation of the votes. You may not agree with it, but it is an interpretation and not simply spin. Genuine attempts at interpretation are seldom if ever attempted by Republicans and their media puppets, preferring instead just more and more spin (lies) with no foundation or explanation whatsoever. I do not believe the elections of yesterday had anything to do with President Obama, nothing at all, but if Republicans want to believe they have already won in 2010 and 2012, that’s fine with me. But I truly wish they weren’t trying to kill me in the meantime.
LKBIQ:
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Friedrich Nietzsche
TILT:
Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronstein.
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Is it all really real?
After argument, man spikes
wife’s tea with anti-depressant
to calm her down.
“I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I do not know if I am a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”
Chuang Tzu
I once thought I was a sane person, but now I am not certain if I am an insane person who once merely thought I was sane. Events of the past few years, months, weeks, and days have left me terribly confused. I have begun to wonder if I am sane and the world insane or vice versa. Take Afghanistan for example. Here we have a situation where President Karzai presumably won re-election by a vote that everyone recognized was blatantly stolen. So, under pressure he agreed to a new vote. But then, his opponent announced that the second vote would be just as dishonest as the first one, so he withdrew. As a result of this Karzai was declared the winner and is still President of Afghanistan, and is acknowledged to be such by the U.S. So we are agreeing to recognize and work with an illegal head of state that is not acceptable to the majority of the Afghan people. I guess as we installed him as President in the first place, and now realize he is seriously corrupt, it will be okay to work with him. Strange, no?
Then there is my pet awesomely unbelievable situation with ex Vice-President Cheney. Cheney is a known war criminal who also engaged in what was a treasonous act against his own country by “outing” a secret service operative, destroying her career, and putting her colleagues in danger. His crimes and lies are so well known that they are now being discussed on the MSM. The law and the constitution of our country would seem to demand that he be brought to justice. Not only has that not happened, he walks around free and offers his (terrible) advice to our current President. Mysterious, is it not?
The 23rd district in New York State offers still another example of some really weird stuff. There was a perfectly respectable Republican candidate who was to run against a Democrat. But members of the truly conservative right-wing of the Republican Party, like Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, and others, decided she was not conservative enough so they conspired to oust her from the race in favor of an Independent candidate who is ultra conservative. The most interesting thing about this is that their preferred candidate, Hoffman, does not even live in the district, gave an unusually embarrassing press conference during which he admitted he knew nothing of their local issues, and seems (from the little I have seen of him) to be without charisma of any kind, and virtually without even a personality. As this district has not had a Democratic representative since Civil War times, Hoffman could even win (apparently he did not). But what the Republican conservatives hope to accomplish by this, whether he wins or not, is beyond my limited comprehension.
Then there is the perennial problem of Israel and Palestine. Obama has said the Israelis must stop their settlement building. The Palestinians have said there can be no further peace talks until Israel stops. Israel has refused to stop. Obama says he is committed to an Israeli/Palestinian peace accord. So, when Israel has refused to stop the settlements, and the Palestinians refuse to talk peace, what has the Obama administration done about it? Why, naturally, they have said the Israelis shouldn’t have to stop. Now doesn’t that make sense?
The issue of health care has become about as crazy as everything else. The American public wants a public option of some kind. Their corporate opponents do not. So our Congress, elected presumably to serve the public interest, have stalled and done everything they can to stop anything that might resemble a viable public option. Why do some of our Congresspersons and Senators do this? Why, they have accepted really big bucks from the corporations that oppose any meaningful change. What is truly insane about this is that everyone knows about it. Everyone knows they are being bribed and this is apparently considered appropriate behavior for a political system that claims to be a democracy. Even individual Senators who are known to have accepted large sums and are acting in the best interest of those who are paying them, are not being castigated or punished (or expelled from the Congress). This system of bribes and payoffs is now apparently considered just a natural part of our political system.
There are many other examples of what I regard as insanity or near insanity that are nowadays just considered “politics as usual.” Watching this, and hearing about it daily, I have come to believe that perhaps I am not who I am at all, but, rather, the Alice, in Alice in Wonderland. The line between sanity and insanity has been blurred in our country, or perhaps erased.
Although I admit to having been neglectful of late, I have not given up on my latest hobby, Collecting Sex Advice for Women as it Appears on Women’s Magazine Covers. This is the best hobby I’ve ever had, it’s cheap (costs absolutely nothing), it’s interesting, it’s easy, and it stimulates your imagination (because I never read these articles). Standing in line at the check-our station, I pursued the covers of some of the latest women’s magazines. Cosmopolitan featured this captivating title, “What He Thinks While Having Sex.” On the same cover I also found, “Foreplay Men Crave.” These were both featured in the “Sexy Bitch Issue.” Cosmopolitan is not called cosmopolitan for nothing. On Redbook’s cover was another sort of provocative title that almost made you want to read it, “Could a Stripper Pole Save Your Marriage.” Glamour threatened to undermine the entire trend of sex advice in women’s magazines by proclaiming, “Finally All the Answers to Sex and Love.” They also featured an article, “50 ways to dress your body sexier.” This latter almost doesn’t count as virtually all women’s magazine contain advice on dressing and being sexier: sexier hair, sexier legs, butts, thighs, dresses, hands, arms, eyes, and just about all other parts of the body (except feet, I have never yet seen any claims about having sexier feet). This is really a great hobby as you know it will be never-ending so you don’t have to worry about running out of material or having collected everything possible, and, like I said, it costs nothing (although the clerks sometimes raise an eyebrow or two).
LKBIQ:
Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.
Nora Ephron
TILT:
I would not have liked Leon Trotsky personally.
wife’s tea with anti-depressant
to calm her down.
“I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I do not know if I am a butterfly dreaming I am a man.”
Chuang Tzu
I once thought I was a sane person, but now I am not certain if I am an insane person who once merely thought I was sane. Events of the past few years, months, weeks, and days have left me terribly confused. I have begun to wonder if I am sane and the world insane or vice versa. Take Afghanistan for example. Here we have a situation where President Karzai presumably won re-election by a vote that everyone recognized was blatantly stolen. So, under pressure he agreed to a new vote. But then, his opponent announced that the second vote would be just as dishonest as the first one, so he withdrew. As a result of this Karzai was declared the winner and is still President of Afghanistan, and is acknowledged to be such by the U.S. So we are agreeing to recognize and work with an illegal head of state that is not acceptable to the majority of the Afghan people. I guess as we installed him as President in the first place, and now realize he is seriously corrupt, it will be okay to work with him. Strange, no?
Then there is my pet awesomely unbelievable situation with ex Vice-President Cheney. Cheney is a known war criminal who also engaged in what was a treasonous act against his own country by “outing” a secret service operative, destroying her career, and putting her colleagues in danger. His crimes and lies are so well known that they are now being discussed on the MSM. The law and the constitution of our country would seem to demand that he be brought to justice. Not only has that not happened, he walks around free and offers his (terrible) advice to our current President. Mysterious, is it not?
The 23rd district in New York State offers still another example of some really weird stuff. There was a perfectly respectable Republican candidate who was to run against a Democrat. But members of the truly conservative right-wing of the Republican Party, like Sarah Palin, Dick Armey, and others, decided she was not conservative enough so they conspired to oust her from the race in favor of an Independent candidate who is ultra conservative. The most interesting thing about this is that their preferred candidate, Hoffman, does not even live in the district, gave an unusually embarrassing press conference during which he admitted he knew nothing of their local issues, and seems (from the little I have seen of him) to be without charisma of any kind, and virtually without even a personality. As this district has not had a Democratic representative since Civil War times, Hoffman could even win (apparently he did not). But what the Republican conservatives hope to accomplish by this, whether he wins or not, is beyond my limited comprehension.
Then there is the perennial problem of Israel and Palestine. Obama has said the Israelis must stop their settlement building. The Palestinians have said there can be no further peace talks until Israel stops. Israel has refused to stop. Obama says he is committed to an Israeli/Palestinian peace accord. So, when Israel has refused to stop the settlements, and the Palestinians refuse to talk peace, what has the Obama administration done about it? Why, naturally, they have said the Israelis shouldn’t have to stop. Now doesn’t that make sense?
The issue of health care has become about as crazy as everything else. The American public wants a public option of some kind. Their corporate opponents do not. So our Congress, elected presumably to serve the public interest, have stalled and done everything they can to stop anything that might resemble a viable public option. Why do some of our Congresspersons and Senators do this? Why, they have accepted really big bucks from the corporations that oppose any meaningful change. What is truly insane about this is that everyone knows about it. Everyone knows they are being bribed and this is apparently considered appropriate behavior for a political system that claims to be a democracy. Even individual Senators who are known to have accepted large sums and are acting in the best interest of those who are paying them, are not being castigated or punished (or expelled from the Congress). This system of bribes and payoffs is now apparently considered just a natural part of our political system.
There are many other examples of what I regard as insanity or near insanity that are nowadays just considered “politics as usual.” Watching this, and hearing about it daily, I have come to believe that perhaps I am not who I am at all, but, rather, the Alice, in Alice in Wonderland. The line between sanity and insanity has been blurred in our country, or perhaps erased.
Although I admit to having been neglectful of late, I have not given up on my latest hobby, Collecting Sex Advice for Women as it Appears on Women’s Magazine Covers. This is the best hobby I’ve ever had, it’s cheap (costs absolutely nothing), it’s interesting, it’s easy, and it stimulates your imagination (because I never read these articles). Standing in line at the check-our station, I pursued the covers of some of the latest women’s magazines. Cosmopolitan featured this captivating title, “What He Thinks While Having Sex.” On the same cover I also found, “Foreplay Men Crave.” These were both featured in the “Sexy Bitch Issue.” Cosmopolitan is not called cosmopolitan for nothing. On Redbook’s cover was another sort of provocative title that almost made you want to read it, “Could a Stripper Pole Save Your Marriage.” Glamour threatened to undermine the entire trend of sex advice in women’s magazines by proclaiming, “Finally All the Answers to Sex and Love.” They also featured an article, “50 ways to dress your body sexier.” This latter almost doesn’t count as virtually all women’s magazine contain advice on dressing and being sexier: sexier hair, sexier legs, butts, thighs, dresses, hands, arms, eyes, and just about all other parts of the body (except feet, I have never yet seen any claims about having sexier feet). This is really a great hobby as you know it will be never-ending so you don’t have to worry about running out of material or having collected everything possible, and, like I said, it costs nothing (although the clerks sometimes raise an eyebrow or two).
LKBIQ:
Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy.
Nora Ephron
TILT:
I would not have liked Leon Trotsky personally.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Race to the Polar Sea
Race to the Polar Sea, The Heroic Adventures of Elisha Kent Kane, by Ken McGoogan (Counterpoint, Berkeley, 2008)
The primary theme of this fine book has to do with Elisha Kane’s attempt to find out what happened to the expedition of Sir John Franklin that had disappeared somewhere in the arctic. He was also attempting to prove there was a “Polar Sea” surrounding the North Pole. The belief in a Polar Sea, although we now know it was a nonsensical idea, was widely believed by a number of arctic explorers in the early to mid 1800’s. The belief was that if you could travel through the pack ice far enough to the north there would be open water surrounding the pole. Not only would there be such a sea, there would also be an abundance of fish and game. There were a number of reasons for why people believed in a Polar Sea, mostly based upon assumptions we know now to be false, but there is no need for me to mention these here.
I found this book of uncommon interest not only for the detailed account of Elisha Kane’s arctic trials, unbelievable hardships, and triumphs, but also because it tells one a great deal about Elisha Kent Kane himself, an unusually adventurous and fine young man who had traveled widely around the world before he led his famous expedition to the arctic. In search of nothing but adventure (and possible fame), Elisha had traveled widely in Brazil, China, Africa and Mexico by his mid twenties. Some idea of his adventures can be seen in the following quote: “Despite his youth, a weak heart, and recurring health problems, Elisha Kane had made countless tough decisions in difficult circumstances. He had descended into a volcano in the Philippines, infiltrated a company of slave traders in West Africa, grappled with thieves on the Nile River, and narrowly survived getting stabbed during hand-to-hand combat in the Sierra Madre.”
Elisha had been repeatedly confined to bed by sicknesses of various kinds. In spite of his ill health he continued his university studies. He had natural abilities in art, music, and literature, but also studied chemistry, mineralogy, mathematics, as well as geography. At nineteen, appraising his health, he decided to study medicine and become a doctor. He apprenticed himself to a well-known Philadelphia doctor, excelled in his tasks, and then enrolled in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated at the top of his class in 1842. His interest in medicine had always been more theoretical than practical, and as he did not need money, he began looking for opportunities for travel and adventure. As his father was exceedingly well-connected he was given a position as ship’s surgeon on one of four ships being sent to China (just after China had grudgingly opened its ports to foreign ships). He eventually traveled to other countries, and, upon returning to Philadelphia signed on for a trip to the arctic in search of Sir John Franklin. This first trip failed to find any trace of Franklin but gave Elisha enough arctic experience to then be chosen to lead a second expedition, the main theme of this book.
There is no mention of Elisha Kane having experience as a ship’s captain or the leader of any previous exploration, but apparently this was not deemed to be necessary for him to be put in charge of a second arctic voyage. He was certainly not without experience as in two and a half years he had traveled some 40,000 miles, sailing in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, and cruised the Mediterranean, Red and Adriatic seas. He had been on five continents and explored three of them. In this sense he was well qualified. But having experienced the brutal practices that occurred on sailing ships of the time, he had unusual ideas about how things should be run more democratically. While this endeared him to most of his crew it also caused him some trouble with some. In any case, Kane managed to sail farther north than anyone previously, discovered and named the Humbolt glacier as well as many other points in the arctic. He also discovered what later became known as the American route to the North Pole, the route than was subsequently followed by most other arctic voyagers.
His major troubles arose when his ship became stuck in pack ice and they had to spend the winter locked in that icy embrace. They suffered almost indescribable ailments from lack of the proper food, weeks without any daylight, and cold, cold, cold. Amputations of toes and feet became almost commonplace, scurvy was a constant problem, and, as might be expected in such a situation, some of the crew threatened mutiny. Somehow, in spite of his own ill-health, Kane managed to keep them all together, treat their ailments, and get them through the winter. But then, calamity, because their ship could not make it out of the pack ice for the second year as they had thought it would. Faced with a second year locked in the ice, with little food, and much desperation, their plight looked hopeless. Kane, however, unlike previous explorers, was not too proud to refuse help from the Eskimo, and making a pact with them, managed to survive the second year and then later lead the remaining crew on an almost impossible 1300 mile trip by sled and boat to safety and home.
Kane was also remarkable in that he kept very detailed logs of their day-to-day activities and hardships, and as he was an exceptionally gifted writer and lecturer (as well as unusually handsome) he finally received the fame he had sought, and even more than he might have imagined. I have not mentioned his strange love affair with a woman deemed unsuitable for him, his attempt (long before Eliza Doolittle) to make her acceptable, and his eventual marriage to her, against his father’s wishes, and unfortunately not long before his untimely death at thirty-seven. This is a truly fine book, a remarkable adventure story, and an account of a truly remarkable man who was once the toast of the world and has subsequently been rather badly neglected.
The primary theme of this fine book has to do with Elisha Kane’s attempt to find out what happened to the expedition of Sir John Franklin that had disappeared somewhere in the arctic. He was also attempting to prove there was a “Polar Sea” surrounding the North Pole. The belief in a Polar Sea, although we now know it was a nonsensical idea, was widely believed by a number of arctic explorers in the early to mid 1800’s. The belief was that if you could travel through the pack ice far enough to the north there would be open water surrounding the pole. Not only would there be such a sea, there would also be an abundance of fish and game. There were a number of reasons for why people believed in a Polar Sea, mostly based upon assumptions we know now to be false, but there is no need for me to mention these here.
I found this book of uncommon interest not only for the detailed account of Elisha Kane’s arctic trials, unbelievable hardships, and triumphs, but also because it tells one a great deal about Elisha Kent Kane himself, an unusually adventurous and fine young man who had traveled widely around the world before he led his famous expedition to the arctic. In search of nothing but adventure (and possible fame), Elisha had traveled widely in Brazil, China, Africa and Mexico by his mid twenties. Some idea of his adventures can be seen in the following quote: “Despite his youth, a weak heart, and recurring health problems, Elisha Kane had made countless tough decisions in difficult circumstances. He had descended into a volcano in the Philippines, infiltrated a company of slave traders in West Africa, grappled with thieves on the Nile River, and narrowly survived getting stabbed during hand-to-hand combat in the Sierra Madre.”
Elisha had been repeatedly confined to bed by sicknesses of various kinds. In spite of his ill health he continued his university studies. He had natural abilities in art, music, and literature, but also studied chemistry, mineralogy, mathematics, as well as geography. At nineteen, appraising his health, he decided to study medicine and become a doctor. He apprenticed himself to a well-known Philadelphia doctor, excelled in his tasks, and then enrolled in medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated at the top of his class in 1842. His interest in medicine had always been more theoretical than practical, and as he did not need money, he began looking for opportunities for travel and adventure. As his father was exceedingly well-connected he was given a position as ship’s surgeon on one of four ships being sent to China (just after China had grudgingly opened its ports to foreign ships). He eventually traveled to other countries, and, upon returning to Philadelphia signed on for a trip to the arctic in search of Sir John Franklin. This first trip failed to find any trace of Franklin but gave Elisha enough arctic experience to then be chosen to lead a second expedition, the main theme of this book.
There is no mention of Elisha Kane having experience as a ship’s captain or the leader of any previous exploration, but apparently this was not deemed to be necessary for him to be put in charge of a second arctic voyage. He was certainly not without experience as in two and a half years he had traveled some 40,000 miles, sailing in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, and cruised the Mediterranean, Red and Adriatic seas. He had been on five continents and explored three of them. In this sense he was well qualified. But having experienced the brutal practices that occurred on sailing ships of the time, he had unusual ideas about how things should be run more democratically. While this endeared him to most of his crew it also caused him some trouble with some. In any case, Kane managed to sail farther north than anyone previously, discovered and named the Humbolt glacier as well as many other points in the arctic. He also discovered what later became known as the American route to the North Pole, the route than was subsequently followed by most other arctic voyagers.
His major troubles arose when his ship became stuck in pack ice and they had to spend the winter locked in that icy embrace. They suffered almost indescribable ailments from lack of the proper food, weeks without any daylight, and cold, cold, cold. Amputations of toes and feet became almost commonplace, scurvy was a constant problem, and, as might be expected in such a situation, some of the crew threatened mutiny. Somehow, in spite of his own ill-health, Kane managed to keep them all together, treat their ailments, and get them through the winter. But then, calamity, because their ship could not make it out of the pack ice for the second year as they had thought it would. Faced with a second year locked in the ice, with little food, and much desperation, their plight looked hopeless. Kane, however, unlike previous explorers, was not too proud to refuse help from the Eskimo, and making a pact with them, managed to survive the second year and then later lead the remaining crew on an almost impossible 1300 mile trip by sled and boat to safety and home.
Kane was also remarkable in that he kept very detailed logs of their day-to-day activities and hardships, and as he was an exceptionally gifted writer and lecturer (as well as unusually handsome) he finally received the fame he had sought, and even more than he might have imagined. I have not mentioned his strange love affair with a woman deemed unsuitable for him, his attempt (long before Eliza Doolittle) to make her acceptable, and his eventual marriage to her, against his father’s wishes, and unfortunately not long before his untimely death at thirty-seven. This is a truly fine book, a remarkable adventure story, and an account of a truly remarkable man who was once the toast of the world and has subsequently been rather badly neglected.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Stop Dithering!
Mercedes hit-and-run driver
claims he didn’t see six foot
orange rabbit’s bright pedicab.
Quityergoddamnedithering, that’s what I say. I’m not talking about Afghanistan. I’m talking about health care. For Dick the Slimy to criticize Obama and his many advisors of dithering over Afghanistan is not only insulting, it betrays once more Cheney’s complete indifference to reality, rules, morality, and the deaths of our troops. Obama and his advisors are attempting to try to craft some way to gracefully get out of the incredible mess Cheney and his puppet, Bush, left them, and it is not an easy task. Someone said they are looking for an exit but can’t find it. I suspect this is true. By shifting our troops early on to Iraq (itself a terrible mistake) and neglecting Afghanistan (which Bush/Cheney shamefully did), they made matters much worse than they might have been. Now Obama and his advisors are trying to find a way to correct these horrendous mistakes (not an easy task) and Cheney (who has been wrong about literally everything and should not even be showing his face in public) should just shut up and hope he can disappear into the dustbin of history without being put in jail (where he clearly belongs). Carefully reviewing the complete situation and trying to find a decent solution cannot reasonably be seen as dithering. Of course Cheney would have just sent in more and more troops, forever, to make sure his buddies in the defense and oil industries continue to make their exorbitant profits from permanent “war.” What does he care if more and more of our young people die and keep on dying as long as profits are to be made. Not only is Cheney a blatant and unrepentant war criminal, he is also a chronic liar. How he continues to avoid accountability for his evil deeds I will never understand. To think Bill Clinton was impeached for lying, as Cheney’s record of lying goes unpunished, makes me want to weep. Whatever good Obama manages to do, and I think it will be quite a lot, I will never forgive him for letting Cheney avoid responsibility.
But when it comes to dithering, can there be any greater example than our President and Congress dithering for months over health care? It is perfectly obvious that the easiest, quickest, cheapest, most efficient system of health care we could have for all our citizens would be a single-payer system, basically medicare for all. This apparently was not even considered. It was taken off the table even before negotiations began. Now, if we are lucky, we are maybe, possibly, perhaps, going to get some kind of public option that would make insurance companies have to compete for customers. But even the public option is slowly being made into an impossible dream as it has been modified into a system that will have only a very small percentage of the population eligible, which means it will not have enough clout to really compete with the insurance giants. Of course as things are going we may end up with no public option at all, in which case there will be no meaningful change in our totally dysfunctional health care system. This vacillating, pussyfooting, wishy-washy, timorous approach to health care will get us exactly nowhere. Having failed for 60 years to pass a decent health care system it appears we may be on the brink of failing dismally once again. And why is this? It is because our political system, from the Executive Branch right on down, has become completely dysfunctional itself. Whereas the President and Congress are supposed to act in the public interest, they no longer do so. Corporations and big money rule – everything, including our Senators and Congresspersons. The very few elected officials that argue for a sane system that would benefit the people, like the late Ted Kennedy, Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders, are marginalized and even ridiculed as “socialists” by the bought and paid for morons they have to serve with, most of whom wouldn’t know socialism from a wart on their ass. What makes this worse is the fact that it is so blatantly obvious. Both Lieberman’s and Bayh’s wives, for example, are making big bucks from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. This is known. If Lieberman and Bayh claim this has nothing to do with their decisions they are lying. But even this pales in significance when compared with the money Baucus and others have taken from the corporations who want to kill health care. Most Americans want affordable and universal health care. The corporations and their whores in Congress do not. It’s unfortunately just that simple. I want universal health care in the form of a single-payer system like those that prevail in decent, moral, “civilized” cultures such as Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, and others (systems that are lied about and distorted constantly by those who want no such thing, who want to continue our broken system that provides them with their annual obscene profits that come from nothing but shuffling paperwork around and devising new schemes to rip us off). This is really what the dithering has been about, trying to create the impression of change without interfering with (and perhaps even improving) the profits of those who have been gaming the system for all these years. ” I’m mad as hell and…” what the hell can I do about it?
LKBIQ:
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Krishnamurti
TILT:
An estimated 2000 species of geckos is thought to exist and there are more to still be discovered.
claims he didn’t see six foot
orange rabbit’s bright pedicab.
Quityergoddamnedithering, that’s what I say. I’m not talking about Afghanistan. I’m talking about health care. For Dick the Slimy to criticize Obama and his many advisors of dithering over Afghanistan is not only insulting, it betrays once more Cheney’s complete indifference to reality, rules, morality, and the deaths of our troops. Obama and his advisors are attempting to try to craft some way to gracefully get out of the incredible mess Cheney and his puppet, Bush, left them, and it is not an easy task. Someone said they are looking for an exit but can’t find it. I suspect this is true. By shifting our troops early on to Iraq (itself a terrible mistake) and neglecting Afghanistan (which Bush/Cheney shamefully did), they made matters much worse than they might have been. Now Obama and his advisors are trying to find a way to correct these horrendous mistakes (not an easy task) and Cheney (who has been wrong about literally everything and should not even be showing his face in public) should just shut up and hope he can disappear into the dustbin of history without being put in jail (where he clearly belongs). Carefully reviewing the complete situation and trying to find a decent solution cannot reasonably be seen as dithering. Of course Cheney would have just sent in more and more troops, forever, to make sure his buddies in the defense and oil industries continue to make their exorbitant profits from permanent “war.” What does he care if more and more of our young people die and keep on dying as long as profits are to be made. Not only is Cheney a blatant and unrepentant war criminal, he is also a chronic liar. How he continues to avoid accountability for his evil deeds I will never understand. To think Bill Clinton was impeached for lying, as Cheney’s record of lying goes unpunished, makes me want to weep. Whatever good Obama manages to do, and I think it will be quite a lot, I will never forgive him for letting Cheney avoid responsibility.
But when it comes to dithering, can there be any greater example than our President and Congress dithering for months over health care? It is perfectly obvious that the easiest, quickest, cheapest, most efficient system of health care we could have for all our citizens would be a single-payer system, basically medicare for all. This apparently was not even considered. It was taken off the table even before negotiations began. Now, if we are lucky, we are maybe, possibly, perhaps, going to get some kind of public option that would make insurance companies have to compete for customers. But even the public option is slowly being made into an impossible dream as it has been modified into a system that will have only a very small percentage of the population eligible, which means it will not have enough clout to really compete with the insurance giants. Of course as things are going we may end up with no public option at all, in which case there will be no meaningful change in our totally dysfunctional health care system. This vacillating, pussyfooting, wishy-washy, timorous approach to health care will get us exactly nowhere. Having failed for 60 years to pass a decent health care system it appears we may be on the brink of failing dismally once again. And why is this? It is because our political system, from the Executive Branch right on down, has become completely dysfunctional itself. Whereas the President and Congress are supposed to act in the public interest, they no longer do so. Corporations and big money rule – everything, including our Senators and Congresspersons. The very few elected officials that argue for a sane system that would benefit the people, like the late Ted Kennedy, Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders, are marginalized and even ridiculed as “socialists” by the bought and paid for morons they have to serve with, most of whom wouldn’t know socialism from a wart on their ass. What makes this worse is the fact that it is so blatantly obvious. Both Lieberman’s and Bayh’s wives, for example, are making big bucks from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. This is known. If Lieberman and Bayh claim this has nothing to do with their decisions they are lying. But even this pales in significance when compared with the money Baucus and others have taken from the corporations who want to kill health care. Most Americans want affordable and universal health care. The corporations and their whores in Congress do not. It’s unfortunately just that simple. I want universal health care in the form of a single-payer system like those that prevail in decent, moral, “civilized” cultures such as Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, and others (systems that are lied about and distorted constantly by those who want no such thing, who want to continue our broken system that provides them with their annual obscene profits that come from nothing but shuffling paperwork around and devising new schemes to rip us off). This is really what the dithering has been about, trying to create the impression of change without interfering with (and perhaps even improving) the profits of those who have been gaming the system for all these years. ” I’m mad as hell and…” what the hell can I do about it?
LKBIQ:
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
Krishnamurti
TILT:
An estimated 2000 species of geckos is thought to exist and there are more to still be discovered.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Who's Stupid?
Caught with stolen ferret
stuffed in his pants, thief
uses it as “deadly weapon.”
It is obvious by now that no matter what President Obama does, or doesn’t do, some Republican will attack him for either doing it or not doing it. The latest case in point is Cheney’s daughter criticizing Obama for meeting and honoring the caskets of our dead warriors, and taking photographers along. This can be dismissed as just another example of how absurd and petty Republicans can be. But there is a dimension to this ubiquitous criticism that I find of interest, as much of what they have been doing is so stupid I can’t understand why they are doing it.
You are all familiar I am sure with their “birthers” argument. Some of them have claimed, and some still do claim, that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore cannot truly be our President. This claim has repeatedly been shown to be completely false, Obama’s birth certificate has been produced and the State of Hawaii has vouched for its authenticity. Most people have given up pursuing this lost cause but there are still a few who haven’t.
Then there came the “deathers,” who have argued that Obama’s health care plan is really a plot to kill old people. This belief has been expressed not only by the real nut cases but even by some of our Senators and Congresspersons. Here, unlike the birthers, they picked up on a statement in one or another of the proposed health care bills that suggested doctors should be paid for counseling people about dying and death. This made their claim of “death panels” at least remotely plausible, but only if you believe that Obama and Democrats in general really might desire to kill old people (a most unlikely claim). Other forms of this argument had to do with Democrats apparent desire to kill women with breast cancer, handicapped children, and even our veterans, to say nothing of using registration rolls to select out and kill Republicans.
Also recently has been their stated outrage over the fact that in one pre-school, in one state, one time, in honor of black history month the children sang a song about the U.S. and also included lines referring to President Obama. To listen to Republicans on this you would think this was an established, universal, and fully required procedure, akin to the Chinese cultural revolution or the Nazi youth movement. It was, by the way, seven months after this happened that they saw fit to bring it up and raise such a fuss.
Now there is a rumor making the rounds that Obama is going to take over the Internet and thereby control what we can read and write and so on. This one seems to have such little foundation in fact that it hasn’t received as much play as most of the others. I think perhaps the best one of all, however, is the rumor that plans to maybe build a high-speed rail system across the U.S. is really a plot to be able to transport people more quickly to the concentration camps that have been built here and there by FEMA.
What I find of the most interest about all of these rather outrageous claims is not really where they originate, we know they originate with Republicans, desperate to attack Obama at every opportunity. There are many others having to do with false claims of raising taxes, how expensive health care will be, and so on, which might have at least some semblance of validity. But most of them are so completely far-fetched, so virtually insane, so absurd or ridiculous, I cannot believe those who say them can in fact believe them. This would seem to leave only two possibilities: either they do believe them and are completely stupid, or they don’t believe them but think they can get others to believe them, in which case they think the American public is unutterably stupid.
Could anyone actually believe that President Obama, or anyone in his administration, would want to kill old people, women with breast cancer, veterans or the handicapped? If so, how and when did we come to be so suspicious and fearful of our government? I may be wrong about this, but I don’t recall anything like this happening prior to the Clinton administration, when Republicans accused the Clintons of everything including outright murder. It is true that Lyndon Johnson was accused of killing Vietnamese children (“hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today”) but these were anti-war chants, not claims Johnson was about to kill our children or old people or such. I think the use of such outrageous claims can probably be traced initially, and mostly, from the Republican unfounded attacks on Clinton, through Karl Rove and the Bush/Cheney administration until they have now become institutionalized as part of the regular Republican strategy. Yes, I know that techniques such as false accusations can be traced back earlier, certainly to LBJ, but they were never before systematically used by an entire party to destroy the Presidency of another party, no matter who was President. Karl Rove has had much to do with this as he has always seemed to believe that anything at all was fair, as long as it benefitted Republicans and would help to bring about a permanent ruling class (of Republicans). At the moment they do it because they have no record of accomplishment they can stand on, and no ideas whatsoever about solving our current problems. I guess they think it is better to babble idiotically at every opportunity than to actually try to help (which might require effort and would no doubt reveal them as true enemies of the public).
LKBIQ:
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell
TILT:
What was previously known as Bechuanaland is now Botswana.
stuffed in his pants, thief
uses it as “deadly weapon.”
It is obvious by now that no matter what President Obama does, or doesn’t do, some Republican will attack him for either doing it or not doing it. The latest case in point is Cheney’s daughter criticizing Obama for meeting and honoring the caskets of our dead warriors, and taking photographers along. This can be dismissed as just another example of how absurd and petty Republicans can be. But there is a dimension to this ubiquitous criticism that I find of interest, as much of what they have been doing is so stupid I can’t understand why they are doing it.
You are all familiar I am sure with their “birthers” argument. Some of them have claimed, and some still do claim, that Obama was not born in the United States and therefore cannot truly be our President. This claim has repeatedly been shown to be completely false, Obama’s birth certificate has been produced and the State of Hawaii has vouched for its authenticity. Most people have given up pursuing this lost cause but there are still a few who haven’t.
Then there came the “deathers,” who have argued that Obama’s health care plan is really a plot to kill old people. This belief has been expressed not only by the real nut cases but even by some of our Senators and Congresspersons. Here, unlike the birthers, they picked up on a statement in one or another of the proposed health care bills that suggested doctors should be paid for counseling people about dying and death. This made their claim of “death panels” at least remotely plausible, but only if you believe that Obama and Democrats in general really might desire to kill old people (a most unlikely claim). Other forms of this argument had to do with Democrats apparent desire to kill women with breast cancer, handicapped children, and even our veterans, to say nothing of using registration rolls to select out and kill Republicans.
Also recently has been their stated outrage over the fact that in one pre-school, in one state, one time, in honor of black history month the children sang a song about the U.S. and also included lines referring to President Obama. To listen to Republicans on this you would think this was an established, universal, and fully required procedure, akin to the Chinese cultural revolution or the Nazi youth movement. It was, by the way, seven months after this happened that they saw fit to bring it up and raise such a fuss.
Now there is a rumor making the rounds that Obama is going to take over the Internet and thereby control what we can read and write and so on. This one seems to have such little foundation in fact that it hasn’t received as much play as most of the others. I think perhaps the best one of all, however, is the rumor that plans to maybe build a high-speed rail system across the U.S. is really a plot to be able to transport people more quickly to the concentration camps that have been built here and there by FEMA.
What I find of the most interest about all of these rather outrageous claims is not really where they originate, we know they originate with Republicans, desperate to attack Obama at every opportunity. There are many others having to do with false claims of raising taxes, how expensive health care will be, and so on, which might have at least some semblance of validity. But most of them are so completely far-fetched, so virtually insane, so absurd or ridiculous, I cannot believe those who say them can in fact believe them. This would seem to leave only two possibilities: either they do believe them and are completely stupid, or they don’t believe them but think they can get others to believe them, in which case they think the American public is unutterably stupid.
Could anyone actually believe that President Obama, or anyone in his administration, would want to kill old people, women with breast cancer, veterans or the handicapped? If so, how and when did we come to be so suspicious and fearful of our government? I may be wrong about this, but I don’t recall anything like this happening prior to the Clinton administration, when Republicans accused the Clintons of everything including outright murder. It is true that Lyndon Johnson was accused of killing Vietnamese children (“hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today”) but these were anti-war chants, not claims Johnson was about to kill our children or old people or such. I think the use of such outrageous claims can probably be traced initially, and mostly, from the Republican unfounded attacks on Clinton, through Karl Rove and the Bush/Cheney administration until they have now become institutionalized as part of the regular Republican strategy. Yes, I know that techniques such as false accusations can be traced back earlier, certainly to LBJ, but they were never before systematically used by an entire party to destroy the Presidency of another party, no matter who was President. Karl Rove has had much to do with this as he has always seemed to believe that anything at all was fair, as long as it benefitted Republicans and would help to bring about a permanent ruling class (of Republicans). At the moment they do it because they have no record of accomplishment they can stand on, and no ideas whatsoever about solving our current problems. I guess they think it is better to babble idiotically at every opportunity than to actually try to help (which might require effort and would no doubt reveal them as true enemies of the public).
LKBIQ:
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell
TILT:
What was previously known as Bechuanaland is now Botswana.
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