Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong

She calls 911 because they argue,
again because he calls her names,
finally, because he “won’t shut up.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong, and wrong. I find it amazing that so many things could go wrong at once, at least in my humble opinion. I think, for example, it was wrong for President Obama to give an interview to Bill O’Reilly. It was totally pointless, as are all interviews with this pompous bullying jerk, and nothing of any importance whatsoever was accomplished. Obama should have known better. I think it is also wrong for the MSM to report on whatever the Housewife from Hell has to say about anything. Sarah Palin, a housewifely brood mare, somehow managed to get herself elected as mayor of some little dump of a town in Alaska and parlayed that into becoming Governor of a state with a small and scattered population where much of the population was most likely not even much concerned with who their governor was. She was, by most accounts, not much of a governor and quit halfway through her first term. If she had not been mysteriously picked as John McCain’s running mate she would have remained a nonentity. It is widely agreed she is not qualified to become President of the U.S., she knows little or nothing of world affairs, but she is now allowed on national television to criticize the foreign and domestic policies of the President of the United States. It is rather like going to a bowling alley and asking one of the women bowlers what they think of foreign affairs. Apparently she can see Egypt from her front porch. This is not only wrong, it is utterly disgusting.

More importantly, I believe it is wrong for President Obama to believe that corporate America is in any way patriotic. In his speech today to the business community he appealed to their patriotism to create jobs here in America, saying, “I know you all love America.” These are nowadays mostly international corporations, they are interested in profits, not patriotism. And there are few jobs to be created as these corporations are doing better than ever with the employees they have, they are not going to hire more out of some sense of patriotic duty. He should have read them the riot act, closed their loopholes and raised their taxes, rather than try to sweet talk them into something they have no intention of doing.

It is also wrong, very wrong, to keep uncritically supporting Israel if, indeed, we are supposed to be serious about establishing peace in the Middle East. There can never be peace in that part of the world as long as Israel persists in stealing Palestinian land and water and building more and more illegal settlements. Obama has asked them to cease and they have just ignored him. In Egypt he has called for Mubarak to step down (more or less, it is not completely clear what his position is) and that, too, is being ignored. Iran pays little or no attention to our threats. The U.S. is increasingly becoming a “paper tiger” in the eyes of the world, our influence is disappearing, our “empire” is in trouble, and we are on the wrong side of history.

On the Republican side it is wrong for them to claim they are interested in creating jobs. They have done absolutely nothing along the lines of creating jobs and seem to be concentrating on an all-out attack on women and reproductive rights. Some of their proposals are little more than horrifying, like letting hospitals allow pregnant women to die on their doorsteps rather than give them life-saving abortions, and changing the definition of rape to chip away at Roe vs Wade. Amazingly, there are still women who support these sexist butchers. Apparently they keep pursuing this theme relentlessly because they have no other ideas, other than cutting taxes and reducing government, the single theme they parrot over and over and over. And all of their pie-in-the-sky promises to reduce government spending by billions is now running up against reality and they have little to say that makes any sense whatsoever.

They are also wrong to keep threatening Social Security as a way to reduce our deficit. How many times do they need to be told that Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, Medicare and Medicaid, yes, Social Security, no. They have hungered to do away with Social Security ever since it was started by FDR and they cling to this desire like eels on a horse’s head. This desire is not only wrong, it is wrong in triple digits. We are clearly wrong not to take global warming seriously, and wrong to drill in the deep oceans and the arctic, wrong not to spend on education and infrastructure, and certainly wrong to think President Obama is a socialist.

I guess one might argue I think everything is wrong. It is wrong to continue in Afghanistan, wrong not to have closed Guantanamo, wrong to not get out of Iraq, wrong not to have investigated Bush/Cheney for war crimes, wrong to use drones, cluster bombs, and assassinations, and wrong to give tax breaks to the obscenely wealthy, and wrong to cling to the idea of American exceptionalism. We seem to be swimming in an ocean of wrong and, strangely, getting farther from shore the harder we swim.

Yes, I do think there are things that are right, certainly in principle, but not many seem to be interested these days in doing things that are right.

LKBIQ:
To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!
H. L. Mencken

TILT:
There are approximately 800 species of eels.