No unity without justice

I'm sure you're all happy to know that I'm willing to sacrifice my constant stream of entertainment embodied by The Idiot, President Donald J. Trump, for the sake of the rest of your sanity and ability to feel at least somewhat decent about the concept of America as anything but the profit center I believe it to be. We have come to end of Trumpworld, to a certain degree, and even the QAnon people are giving up. I remain constant in my opinion that the only upside to that moron occupying the Oval Office was that it forced people to pay attention. Every time he exploited the "rules" of tradition and custom that make up our mockery of a government; every time he pushed the limits, knowing that the pearl clutchers wouldn't believe he was telling them exactly what he was going to do; every time he reinforced the farce of an uneducated and often willfully ignorant public putting a con man into the highest office in the land and being supported by other elected officials (Hi, Mitch!) who definitely knew better, he showed just how outdated and inadequate our administrative system actually is for the vast majority of those subject to it. If you are part of the ownership class, the Trump era likely reinforced your status. The rest of you will have to live with actually being awakened to the reality of how the system is designed to exploit you and those with even less than you have.

And, of course, now is not the time to return to sleep. What I was afraid of with Hillary Clinton's election was that the very real systemic problems- the wealth disparity, the police state, the inability to speak outside the traditional norms of discourse without being dismissed as an extremist -would all be dutifully ignored. Trump's election changed some of that and we began to see the emergence of people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar and Katie Porter; people that were committed to asking the questions about the power structure that had regularly been dismissed as not relevant to the goal of wealthy people making even more money. Those representatives are all still present in Congress and one assumes (hopes?) that their attitude has not and will not change. With a functioning adult in the White House, there arises the prospect of actual, positive change. But in his speech today, actual-President Joe Biden spoke of "unity", which has been a buzzword among Republicans in the last two weeks, suddenly confronted with the fact that not only had they lost control of both branches of government but had been directly threatened by the monster that they've nurtured and ridden for the past 30 years. My opinion on that is simple:

I'm not interested in "unity" without justice.

I'm especially not interested in unity with those who actively encouraged the assault on January 6th, such as Ted Cruz (R-TX), Joshua Hawley (R-MO), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), and Andy Biggs (R-AZ.) (Rumor has it that the latter three went looking for a pardon from the Idiot in the last couple days...) I'm not interested in unity with fascists or unrepentant racists or devoted QAnon cultists. Advocating unity with people like that only encourages their crimes and makes it that much easier for them to be considered acceptable behavior the next time some con man like Trump (and there will be a next time; in Josh Hawley, there basically already is) leads a bunch of fools into declaring him the messiah. The only thing that counts right now is justice. Justice means expelling all five of those people, among others like Lauren Boebert (R-CO), from their respective bodies of the legislature as not suitable for the proper function of government. It means arresting stooges like Louis DeJoy and seizing the assets of his company for directly interfering with the function of a federal agency (in this case, the US Postal Service.) It means cracking down in the most direct and obvious ways to send the message: No more. No more profiting by damaging the function of government. No more attacking the function of that government in the name of some twisted cult based on the second amendment or some other bizarre notion (like trickle-down economics...) For once, the hope is that Democrats run the show like they're aware that they're in the director's chair and not concerned about the studio (i.e. their campaign fundraisers) threatening to pull the plug if they're spending too much money (It's pathetic how symmetrical that analogy is.) For once, they should be assured that the progressive opinions they're hearing put forth are those of the majority of the citizens of this country.

National healthcare is one of them. Climate change is another. Student debt is another. Policing is another. Economic inequality may be the most important one of all. But don't talk to me about unity with what are, in the end, actual criminals. In the modern era, the fox guarding the henhouse is perhaps a bit too quaint to draw the picture, so let's try something timely: If you invite the plaguebearers into the house, all you do is continue to spread the plague. There is no herd immunity to broken government and the widening gap between rich and poor in this nation. There is, instead, a simple dividing line: One can be on the side of facts, truth, and equality or one can be a fascist. I say again that I have no interest in unity with fascists because they have no interest in facts, truth, or equality. I'm still convinced that proper civil war is the only way to truly solve our current national problem, but it may be a case of fighting the fascists long enough for some of them to realize that the real problem is the ownership class and always has been. It's Biden's task at this point to make a statement about which way this society is going to move in the future. To his credit, the line from his speech today: "... not by the example of our power, but by the power of our example." is a good summary of what I'm talking about, since it would be starkly different from much of what the US government has stood for, in matters international and domestic, for most of its existence; from Shays' Rebellion to now.

The casualties of the non-stop rueful, cynical entertainment will probably be half a million strong by the time we reach February, and that's only talking about COVID. Millions more are already casualties of the profit machine and one con man's willingness to exploit every angle of it. Now we have a new executive whose task is to reverse course on much of what has happened over the past four years, but whose real task should be to alter course on much of what has happened over the past forty. Is he willing to do that? As the zen master once said: "We'll see."

The mirror, darkly

People usually ask me around the appropriate times: "What do you want for Christmas?" or "What do you want for your birthday?" My typical response is something like: "Bloody revolution." Most that know me also know my political outlook, which is one that decidedly contrasts much of America's and certainly the outlook that has come to embody America. Whereas most believe in and promote the idea of big business, everything for profit, what's good for GM is good for America, etc., I'm a Marxist. What that means is that I favor people over profits, whether it comes to labor law, environmental law, or any other rules of society. So, when I talk about "bloody revolution", my image is of a popular revolt based on a higher principle, rather than on petty prejudices and a demagogue. So, when it came to the events today around and inside the Capitol building, my primary reaction was a mix of disgust and humor. The humorous part was that all of these fools were following the commands of an idiotic con man whose true nature has been blatantly apparent for 40 years. The disgust was based on watching all of the institutions that are held so sacred by most Americans being brought to their proverbial knees by a bunch of ignorant QAnon believers and a large number of racist cops; many of whom are also supporters of that idiotic con man. (How can someone that stupid deceive so many people? Animal cunning isn't bounded by intelligence. It's an instinct that's well-served by people who want to be deceived in the first place. But I digress.)

First off, let's get one thing straight: Anyone invading the Capitol today should have been shot. Full stop. That's what any nation does when an insurrection is attacking its primary legislative body. If I were leading my much-fantasized bloody revolution, I'd certainly expect to be shot if I was in the halls of Congress or the White House. That's what happens when you're trying to violently overthrow a government. People tend to shoot you or at least shoot back when you shoot at them. These people should have been treated as the domestic terrorists that they are and been shot. The first few to go down would have scattered the rest to the four winds. This is how this normally works. But, instead, what we saw were repeated instances of police retreating from unarmed invaders, taking selfies with said invaders, and even letting them in the door in the first place. This was after the date of January 6 was singled out by both President Trump and anyone who casually followed this thing called the Internet for weeks. Everyone knew this was coming, so there can be no argument that the Capitol Police or the myriad of security forces in and around DC were surprised by what happened. The fact that they stopped to share photos with these insurrectionists demonstrates what the reality was: These cops supported this insurrection. The foxes were, indeed, guarding the henhouse.

This brings into stark contrast what happened over the summer, when actual protests occurred across the nation in response to the death of George Floyd. In those instances, since the protests were made up of non-White people and were in support of non-White people and protesting against their usual treatment at the hands of authority (Protect and serve!), those participating in those events were attacked by police as if they were the enemy... because we are, to their thinking. We threaten the institutions because we point out that those institutions are either flawed or malicious. That's never a good idea in a state that's beholden to a very few. Indeed, the starkest example of the difference in response to the two events were what Washington looked like then:

 And what it looked like today:

This speaks to not only orders given from on high, given the weeks of lead-in to this event, but also attitudes among the police themselves. After all, these "protesters" weren't Black! We're all in this together as fellow Americans, right?! This was cooperated with. Messages were sent from above that this behavior was acceptable in the corridors of power. (15 whole arrests today! Woo!)

And that's where the disgust really ramps up. Right away, you get the plaintive mewlings of government officials with the "This isn't who we are." line. This isn't America!, they say. This doesn't represent our grand, idealized vision of the city on the hill that, as one CNN reporter put it tonight, is the "anchor of democracy throughout the world." I nearly spit my water across the room because, you see, this is America. It totally is. This nation is seen as the "anchor of democracy" in many corners of the world only if your interpretation of "anchor" is something that weighs you down until you drown. This image- of self-entitled White people given free reign by cops to attack the legislature in the hopes of intimidating it to hand power to a would-be dictator -is absolutely America; especially when contrasted with what happened over the summer and what has happened to Black people in this nation for 400 years at the hands of authority, both locally in the form of cops and nationally in the form of Congress. This is so on brand for America it's almost as funny as it is disgusting. The "This isn't who we are" line is a dodge. It's an evasion that allows people to not confront this truth and pretend that real problems don't exist until everyone can move on to the next episode of The Mandalorian and forget that bad things even happened. It usually helps that the people using that line are the ones for whom those problems don't really exist (i.e. White, often wealthy) because they're never directly affected by them.

But that's another thing to keep in mind: This problem is far bigger than The Idiot, Donald J. Trump. This is the Republican party in a nutshell (with their often all-too-willing accomplices, the Democrats.) Trump may be the beacon in these insurrectionists' lives. He may be the one that keeps whipping them into a frenzy with lies that they love to hear and fantasies that can't possibly make sense. But it's vermin like Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, Matt Gaetz, Mitch McConnell, and Josh Hawley that have made this possible, among many, many others. They enabled this creature and looked the other way every time he committed crime after crime just like today, usually only after announcing that he was going to commit whatever crime that took place. (Someone tell me: Is Susan Collins concerned again? Or has she learned her lesson...?) This is the modern GOP and no one should ever forget what this party is: fanatical hucksters, dependent on ignorance, and completely devoid of any policy ideas that will improve life for anyone but the tiny sliver of the wealthy of which they are a part. This is a party so dependent on the Reagan religion, the tenets of which that have been so resoundingly disproved or rejected over the past 40 years that they can't reasonably be brought forward as actually popular ideas, that it can't promote anything but ignorance and fear; mostly of The Other (the non-Whites, the foreigners, the immigrants, the "socialists", etc.) Trump is the outward manifestation of this trend and they have covered his tracks at every opportunity; so much so that Cruz and Hawley have played to his base tonight on the Senate floor as prospective candidates for 2024. This is the Republican party and no one should ever forget what they've created.

The humor of today was also brought about by entities like the National Association of Manufacturers, suddenly realizing that widespread public violence might be bad for their profit margins, finally suggesting that Trump is unfit for office, two weeks from his removal after four years of perfidy. Or Twitter and Facebook, finally responding to the unending stream of lies that he spews forth that led directly to the national legislature being evacuated from its building by cutting him off their platforms; the same platforms that were used to organize this little revolt and which did nothing but promote his bullshit for years as a concession to "free speech", but really because they made money from it. As always in American politics, it's about the money. It's always about the money. Even the corporate media finally had to concede that perhaps "protesters" and "demonstration" weren't quite sufficient euphemisms for insurrectionists attempting a coup. CNN even labeled them "anarchists" at first. Remember anarchy? That thing you do when you're trying to keep the current government in power? Yeah. That. But all of this is reflective of the normalization of fascism. History is replete with examples of events like this, both within America (the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 (also racially-motivated)) and without (Mussolini's March on Rome in 1922.) Fascism is a solidification of corporate and political power and most major media sources are corporations, so they feed off this. Organizations like the New York Times remain eager to avoid buzzwords that might make anyone think that something is wrong with the American democratic edifice like, say, when the President is a liar or when people attempting to intimidate the legislature are staging a coup. That's why the term "anarchist" is thrown around. Anarchy represents change, so it's used to represent chaos, the lack of order (Law and order!), the undermining of authority, the breaking down of institutions.

So, don't kid yourself when you think that America is "better than this." It never has been, because things like this usually lead to profits for the people that own America (exactly what the NAM was concerned about.) It's also a shining example of what the US has done, repeatedly, in other nations around the world, also at the behest of those owners (the term "banana republic", which many are applying to the US these days, came about because of the activities of United Fruit, the US Marines, and the CIA.) This is America. One of our two major political parties has simply begun saying the quiet part out loud; usually embodied in the form of The Idiot, but now also in his devoted followers who have been elected to the highest legislative body in the land. But his departure will not change anything but the façade. While every effort should be made to both arrest all of the participants of today's debacle (including the outgoing president) and expel all of the Congresspeople promoting sedition (It actually should be done, legally, per the 14th amendment.), there will still be much more work to be done. They and the people they serve will still own everything and will still work to maintain that situation. The only thing to potentially look forward to is the actual bloody revolution that might serve the interests of someone other than a minority of racist morons. I await that day with great anticipation.

Obscene confessions of a lapsed Michigan fan

[With apologies to the indomitable Craig Ross, esq.]

I've been a Michigan fan since I was six years old. The year was 1976 and my dad was watching the Michigan-OSU game. I instantly became interested in the team with the cool helmets. When Michigan stopped OSU right before halftime with an end zone interception and proceeded to score 22 unanswered in the second half, I turned to my dad and asked who those Cool Helmet Guys were. He said: "The University of Michigan." I responded: "That's where I'm going to school."

That prediction turned out to be accurate. I did attend Michigan in 1986, having become a rabid fan of both football and basketball teams in the decade prior, and graduated four years later, living and dying with every moment that either team played (and adding the hockey team to that cycle of death and rebirth (mostly death in those early years...)) But I come to you now with a confession that requires no great effort to utter, despite it having been laughable for the majority of my life:

I am no longer really a Michigan fan.

I think many things fade as you get older and your outlook and priorities change with both age and, hopefully, wisdom. But to use the easiest comparison, I am no less the diehard Liverpool fan that I became only a couple years after that football game. In fact, given that LFC is in probably better shape, with better leadership on the field and off, than it has been in 30+ years, I may even be more of a fan now than I was then. No, the change in my Michigan loyalty is based on a series of factors that have grown more prominent in my mind and more inimical to the basic enjoyment of the teams as the years have gone by. To wit:

The game:
This aspect is largely centered around football as, in a few ways, I feel like the game is broken. Like most other sports, if you have endless talent, you have options. If you don't, there's a way to take advantage of the modern development of the game and then there's a way to cling to tradition in an exercise of futility. Too often in the last decade, it seems like Michigan has gone the latter route. When Jim Harbaugh was hired, I was the least excited among the fans that I know. I was attending Michigan when Harbaugh played quarterback there and I had kept an eye on his pro career and his subsequent coaching career. Despite considerable success at the latter, he didn't exactly strike me as a forward thinker of the game, so I was hesitant upon his arrival because Michigan had gone through a series of upheavals transitioning away from the hidebound Carr era, to the more modern but disastrous Rodriguez regime, and then a return to what the English would call a Proper Football Man in Brady Hoke. That label is always applied cynically to someone whose thinking is largely outdated but who embodies some unknowable spirit of the game the way it used to be when men were men and daffodils sang on the sidelines. The Ann Arbor-centric parallel is the "Michigan Man"; a term I have grown to loathe for the blind loyalty it's meant to instill, despite the lack of success which often follows in its wake (see: Hoke, Brady and Carr, Lloyd.)

Jim Harbaugh, in many ways, is a Proper Football Man. By that, I mean that he clings to a notion of the game that was outdated when he was playing for Bo Schembechler. What that has produced in the last four years is the inability of the football team to defeat its greatest rival (heretofore led by one of the preeminent modern football minds of the game), which means not only a lack of what most Michigan fans would identify as "success" (conference titles, Rose Bowls, playoffs), but also performances that are often somewhere between grueling and soporific. I spent the first game day last year accompanying my girlfriend's son to the tailgate that he was being paid to watch while its owners were inside Michigan Stadium. Despite Michigan playing on the widescreen in front of us, I spent most of that time watching Georgia Tech on another TV to my right. Why? Because Tech's offense was actually entertaining, even if also outdated. Better the fossil you don't know than the one you do when it comes to interesting football, I guess (although, admittedly, I know the triple option very well because Michigan ran it when I was a kid...)

On top of that, the continuing prostration to the gods of commerce has made the game largely unwatchable in the first place. Three minutes of action followed by three minutes of commercials is awful for fans in the stands, as well as those trying to watch at home. American football is already a slow-paced game, given that the ball is actually in play for only a fraction of the time that the game clock is running. When you combine that with the constant interruptions (touchdown, commercial, kickoff, commercial, end of quarter, commercial; one minute of game time just took 15 minutes of actual time), it simply saps the life from the proceedings. I've gotten to the point where even the four commercial breaks in every half of basketball is more annoyance than I'm willing to tolerate, so I frequently watch those on "DVR delay", so that I can speed through the ads.

But the most disturbing aspect to football, of course, is the health risk. Unlike basketball, I think football is on a clock. As the evidence of the dangers of the game, CTE-connected and otherwise, continue to mount, I find myself no longer interested in watching people kill themselves for my supposed amusement. It's even worse when watching them kill themselves in an often brutally boring display of offense. I can't look at hits on the football field in the same way anymore and I'm usually just thinking about how much damage these kids are doing to themselves for our entertainment... and for someone else's money.

The NCAA:
As usual, it's always about the money, and this incorporates basketball and hockey, as well. The NCAA is one of the more corrupt institutions in the sporting world and when you consider that said world includes organizations like the NFL, FIFA, and the IOC, that's saying quite a bit. Unlike those other organizations, which exist to profit off of the games they oversee and only occasionally via the abuse of the athletes which play those games, the NCAA goes all-in on the abuse. There are many, many other locations where you can read about the ongoing circus that is the NCAA's attempt to preserve the notion of "amateurism" (including their admission that the term "student-athlete" was created so that they wouldn't have to pay workmans' comp to what were obviously employees.) I find that I simply can't continue to be a paying spectator to that circus. The only other institution in this country where your labor produces profits for others but only in-kind "payment" for you is prison. There is no other institution where you are expressly forbidden from using your talents for payment. There is no other institution where people the same age as you and attending the same school as you can make money from an outside job but where you are forbidden to do so because of your talents and consequent special status ("student-athlete".) There is no other institution or status where you are forbidden from even taking a job that has nothing to do with those talents. While you are a "student-athlete", you're essentially indentured to your university, while no other student, including those on "full ride" scholarships as these athletes often are, is so burdened. The fact that the image in front of us is largely a bunch of young, Black men making billions for old, White men while not able to take a dime of that money can't be more disturbing, because that scenario has never happened in this country before...

John Beilein, a career college basketball coach, recently resigned that post at Michigan, at least in part because of the farcical system that the NCAA has in place. All the man wanted to do was teach and coach basketball, but the NCAA has set up a host of policies that prevented him from doing just that, supposedly to protect the athletes from being exploited by their coaches, but mostly to ensure that they're not classified as employees so they can continue to be exploited by their universities. These policies are given the guise of preserving some kind of "life balance" between sport and school, but given that the NCAA has been unwilling to enforce its rules against some of its biggest offenders (and biggest moneymakers), it becomes apparent what (account) balance they're really trying to preserve. All indications are that he was also frustrated by seeing his players regularly leave school early for a chance at the money that they should be making now.

I find myself unable to support that system- directly by buying tickets or tacitly by watching TV -any longer. I don't want to contribute to the wallets of those old, White men while we hear example after example of athletes being unable to go to the movies or even have enough to eat, while their in-kind "payment"- an education -is often a scam only perpetrated until their usefulness to their non-employer is served. I'm not interested in supporting the profoundly elitist and often racist perspective that athletes can't be trusted with the millions that they've earned, while programmers who develop a new app in school (Mark Zuckerberg, anyone?) aren't given a second thought about how they might spend their windfall. I'm not interested in helping to perpetuate the idea that athletic departments are strapped for cash and therefore can't pay their laborers, when any tour around a major university will show you exactly how and where that money is spent. You might even see the host of middle managers and special assistants walking out of their well-salaried jobs and well-appointed offices on your tour. Major athletic departments exist to make money and spend money so that they can claim that those that earn the money can't have a slice. I live with enough lies already, thanks. And the key thing here, of course, is that...

The university:
is the NCAA. The NCAA is a membership organization. The schools that follow its rules are the ones who write the rules. Michigan is one of those members. But, even beyond that, there's no way to escape the truth that Michigan is also a giant, profit-seeking corporation. The facade of an educational institution for most major American universities disappeared long ago and Michigan is no exception. Athletic departments are just a manifestation of the same phenomenon that is rampant across academia. From the never-ending building sprees to the vast gulf in salaries between department heads and those who actually do the bulk of the teaching, Michigan and universities like it are far more concerned about their bottom lines than they are about the welfare of most of their employees or the education of their students. How else does one explain the university refusing to extend a decent contract to its lecturers without a walkout? How else does one explain the confrontational nature of the relationship between the university and the city in which it resides? (Mostly about tax issues. It's always money...) How else does one explain the ridiculous increase in university cost of attendance, far outpacing inflation over the past 40 years? That explanation is simple: the University of Michigan is a profit-seeking, multi-billion dollar corporation and is following in the same behavior pattern of most of its brethren (Wal-Mart, et al.) The university is sitting on an endowment of over a billion dollars and yet it can't find a way to give its staff a decent cost-of-living increase or maintain their health insurance? What does it say when the university with one of the most famed medical schools in the world regularly threatens to cut back on the health care access of its employees?

It's not just that I don't really want to be associated any longer with teams that bore me or a system that exploits athletes in the name of a mythical status while gathering increasing profits. It's that I'm questioning the nature of the institution from which I hold a degree. That institution owns its identity and it's one that I'm not really comfortable with anymore. To draw a comparison with Liverpool again, I'm happy to say that LFC is a club that is extremely conscious of the livelihoods of its employees and the community that surrounds it. The club goes to great lengths to assist local charities and has instituted a ticket price freeze for the past few years after fans objected to an increase in the already expensive seats at Anfield. The only time Michigan ever instituted a ticket price freeze was when students stopped coming to the games because the team was so awful (see: Hoke, Brady.) Ownership matters. The actions of owners matter. Michigan's teams are "owned" (there's that disturbing scenario again!) by the university. They represent the university and their respective actions are impacted by each other. I look at recent activity by my alma mater and confess that I'm not particularly proud of it or proud to say that I was once part of it.

So, yeah. I have no problem walking away from the football program. I'm mostly there already and my interest in hockey was slowly hammered by Red's almost decade-overdue departure. But I did (and do) really enjoy watching Beilein's teams and I'm intrigued by what Howard might do. I'm also intrigued by a member of the Fab Five, one of the more prominent collective voices talking about the injustice of the NCAA system 30 years ago, being the guy who basically has to live by and enforce that system with his players. I'd like to think he's no happier about it than I am, but he doesn't have the choice I do to simply not play ball anymore. And, despite my interest in his team, that's what I'm going to do.

Recriminatory stupidity

Now that was an interesting first three weeks, wasn't it? It's like having a five-year old as leader of the most powerful nation on Earth: "There's no way he'd do that, would he...?" Everyone with that attitude or who actually uttered that statement is the equivalent of a direct challenge to the Idiot. It's like telling said five-year old not to run out into the street. That's immediately the first thing he thinks of doing. Now it just remains to be seen if Nancy Pelosi can find the right angle: "I bet you can't raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour!" (This never works on kids, either.) I said before the election that if the Idiot got elected, this would be non-stop entertainment, and it is (waves tiny flag /mgoblog), even if it's the "shock value" kind of entertainment. More's the pity.

Tangent: I've found no more suitable title for President Trump (snicker) than The Idiot. I'm betting that most people will read that in the conventional sense in which it's intended. Me being one of those untrustworthy and uselessly hyper-educated types, I can only think of Prince Myshkin every time I use that term, which is hilarious because of the genuine irony present in Dostoyevsky's novel (That's right people. Not sarcasm. Not coincidence. Actual irony.) Myshkin, as a character, is everything that Trump is not and someone who would be roundly rejected by both Trump followers and many Democrats as unsuitable for public office. Again, more's the pity. /tangent.

Howevah! One thing that has become increasingly annoying over the past few weeks is the recriminatory bullshit being lobbed from many corners of the Democratic sphere (mixed metaphor!; that's how complex modern politics are.) "Thanks to all those Sanders/Stein/Johnson/insertrandomnon-Clintoncandidatehere voters who said there was no difference between Democrats and Republicans!"

First off: What, exactly, does this accomplish? It lets you vent your spleen at... who?
The Idiot? No.
McConnell? No.
Goldman Sachs? No.
Putin? No.
Millions of Trumpistas? Not them, either.

Instead, you direct your teenage angst and ire against the very people who would otherwise be your allies. I've seen this happen in previous scenarios too many times to count. These are people taking the chance to get Twitter yuks and demonstrate their perceived superiority over other points of view, while the building continues to burn around them. The most important thing to do right now is fight back. I think a great first step would be to alienate the people willing to fight alongside you and who, incidentally, have often been doing it longer and harder than you ever have, especially if you're a Clinton fan. (That, folks, is sarcasm.)

Secondly, they're still using the old boogeyman routine: "If you don't vote for our horrible candidate, you'll get something even more horrible!" They've been stroking that since Kennedy and, since the advent of the DLC and the Clintons, the horrible candidate has gotten (ahem) progressively worse with one exception: Obama, who tried to separate himself from the DLC types and was rather ferociously attacked for it in 2008 by one Hillary Clinton... who no doubt had done a 180 and become a stalwart supporter of the little guy by 2016. Seriously. Just ask her. Yes, I'm putting aside all of the ways that Obama really wasn't for the little guy (especially if said little guy happened to live in, say, rural Yemen) but let's not get into that.

The point is simple: Democrats are not entitled to votes no matter how awful the GOP candidate may be. They have to earn them, just like everyone else. If you want millions of progressives to actually vote for a Democrat, one has to be proffered that isn't on the payroll of Bank of America and Co. If you give people something to vote for, they will. If all you ever talk about is someone to vote against, at some point, they stop caring. They'll stop caring even sooner if your response to their not voting for your candidate is attempting to browbeat them with specious reasoning. Hillary Clinton's husband did more to shape the modern economy for the worse than any Republican going back to Warren Harding. And you're telling me that she would have suddenly abandoned her wealthy donors and decided that the way forward is to help the little guy? Her campaign and extensive history say otherwise.

You just lost an election to the worst candidate who's ever run for president and your response is to blame everyone who didn't vote for your candidate who couldn't win that race. Just think about that for a bit and then wonder if your next tweet should be sniping at people like a rejected teenager or promoting the actual efforts of groups like Rogue NASA.

Clown Car, part deux

So, 10 guys go to a funeral to meet up with this one woman who knew it was actually a business meeting... That's pretty much the encapsulation of last night's clownshow which was only too ready for punchline after punchline. The continued pontificating and breathless grasping at the MLK moment ("I have a dream... that someone might say something of actual substance so that we may measure the content of their character instead of CNN's constant trolling...") all came in utter contrast to the one person who talked in blunt terms and short sentences. That's why many people think Carly Fiorina "won" the "debate", which is like saying someone outran a bunch of toddlers to the juice box table where everyone still got one. Hooray?

Fiorina answers questions like she's in a boardroom, which is precisely what you want if you want someone to talk about basic facts. She's still evasive as hell when someone asks a direct policy question (it's way too early to establish positions that could be picked apart for their inadequacy) but she keeps it short, spares everyone the flowery prose, and makes her case. People appreciate that, especially when it's down the dais from the bloviating Trump and his ego which only barely share space between themselves, much less Dexter Bush and the Right Reverend Huckabee. That makes Fiorina come across as halfway intelligent, even if she wasn't already standing out as the only female clown on stage. And on matters of sex and sexism, she did have the best genuinely funny moment (as opposed to all of the unintentionally funny moments) when she responded to Trump's idiocy from the last debate with her simple line: "I think every woman in America knew exactly what Mr. Trump said." That was worth a Kelso:

Of course, as soon as she wandered off the rez and decided to try to impress us with her prose, she withered. Note the pseudo-closing statement (dressed up nicely by CNN with their softball about what their respective presidencies would look like (You mean other than The Handmaid's Tale?)) where she blathered on about her personal manifest destiny, the return to the glory of the City on the Hill, and yadda yadda yadda (Gotta include the Yiddish phrase for all the Israel references when people were talking about what their American presidency would look like...)

[Tangent: It's hilarious to note the omnipresence of said references to Israel in most GOP discussions of foreign policy as perhaps the one hot button they can still press to get a visceral, red meat response from the masses. Said masses don't really know shit about foreign issues other than "Foreigners are weak [French], out to steal our jobs [Mexican], communists [Europeans, in general], and crave American leadership." but you can name drop "Israel" into almost anything and immediately get the kneejerk that equates to "Spend billions on the military to protect pseduo-Christians from evil Muslims and prepare for the Second Coming!" That latter part is most important to people like Huckabee, who always fail to see the disconnect between supporting the militarists in Tel Aviv so that they may bring about their own damnation when only Christians are allowed into Heaven. /tangent]

Speaking of CNN and their softballs... Ugh. These things are a complete farce in the first place, even if we weren't watching in glee over just how many clowns will do a pratfall as they climb out of the car, but CNN's questions were brutally bad. I know they're ratings-conscious and are aware that a large segment of the audience is watching for entertainment and not because they'll even consider voting for one of these idiots, but could they at least give a nod to propriety? The vast majority of the questions were the equivalent of conversation on a middle school playground: "Hey! I heard he said X about you! What are you gonna do about it?!" All they're doing is continuing to feed the perception that "the media" (whoever the hell they are) is out to get the GOP/right-wing/Trump/America's hayseed population. Even if that perception is inevitable, at least try to show a little class.

A couple highlights:

Christie: "Don't prosecute these people after the crime is committed, intervene before the crime happens!" I know what his intent probably was, but given all the other 1984 trappings that hang over much of GOP discussions these days (including the oft-quoted "Strength is peace!"; Ignorance, therefore...) that was totally a Minority Report moment.

Huckabee: "Vaccinations are a part of big government!" Why, yes. Yes, they are. Most people don't complain about the eradication of things like polio.

Trump: "We're three trillion in debt!" followed by "We're not spending enough on our military!"

This, of course, is a perfect example of the disconnect between the embedded disdain for George and Dick's Excellent Iraqi Adventure walking hand-in-hand with the earnest shouts to go balls out in Syria, because that worked so well the last time. Your Republican candidates, America. Exxon's biggest nightmare is someone hooking up a power cable to Goldwater's grave because he's not gonna stop spinning anytime soon.

Coke and a smile, people

So, one of the resident conservative iconoclasts put this on the board today in response to Coke's ad during the Super Bowl:

You know what? I actually think the adverse reaction (which seems to have been pretty minimal) is more than anything else a case of people being annoyed at being told what to think.
Posted on February 3, 2014 
 
There are a lot of social signals that one has to conform to certain ideals. Diversity is good. Gay people deserve equal treatment. Bullying is bad. The rich don't pay their fair share. Poor people deserve a leg up. Prejudice is bad. Burning carbon is bad.

I think people at some point just resent being "herded" by broad, mass media social signals into viewpoints that are selected to be good by some collective agreement by some opinion makers. I think it is actually okay for some people to think, yes, America is the product of immigration, and is an example of diverse people from diverse cultures with diverse languages forming a new society--and continually adding diversity through immigration. But a cherished paean to America should preferably be sung in America's language--which necessarily is English even if plenty of Americans speak a different language as their first language.

In this case, I think I find the reaction to the reaction (calling people neanderthals etc.) more troubling than the reaction.

(Oh, and sometimes bullying is good. Some people deserve to have their ass kicked. And carbon energy has been a great boon to people in general, and has really improved the quality of the lives of billions of people. The doctrinaire attitude on some topics is sometimes worth questioning.)

There's so much ammunition there that it almost brought me to the point of immobility... but nah. I did sit there for a moment trying to decide whether it was more disingenuous or fatuous (definitely something with an "ous") but, in the end, it's like playing Tee ball.

The central theme is the usual pseudo-Libertarian horseshit that essentially states that people who aren't tolerant of intolerance are hypocrites. Coke, instead of presenting the song "America the Beautiful" in its proper language of English (how offended must the English be that their language has been abducted by idiots?), has done all independent thinkers (read: racists, super-patriots... oh, and idiots) a disservice by encouraging the social mores that state that diversity and respect for cultures and languages that are not explicitly whitebread 'Murrican are, in fact, a good thing.

First off, it certainly is trying to "tell you what to think." It's an advertisement. It's telling you to think about buying Coke. That's how they do. But you're saying the rest of society is telling you how to think about non-whites and gays and the environments and bullies? Who's telling you? The people that object to all of that anti-social behavior? Yeah. Life is rough that way. Most decent people will tell you that it shouldn't matter what color someone is or what language they speak (aka "Diversity is good.") And they'll tell you that gay people should be treated equally since they're, you know... people; that treating people poorly ("Bullying") is wrong; that poor people could use your help; that prejudice is bad... What intelligent person doesn't think those things? Certainly is a helluva lot easier to get along with your neighbors if you don't hold preconceptions about them before you even get to know them. Fer reals. It's, like, been proved and stuff.

Secondly, what could honestly be so offensive about singing a song in another language? Would you shout down a chorus in France if they dared to sing "America the Beautiful"? Are you saying that people who can't speak English aren't allowed to sing that song about their home (because that's quite a few residents of this nation)? I mean, that's what these people are saying:

No wonder I am a Pepsi man. #boycottcoke
— CUZ_55 (@Cuz_55) February 3, 2014

You know what's NOT American? America the Beautiful in a million languages #boycottcoke
— John (@JRaw1285) February 3, 2014

I love diversity and what not, but the Super Bowl is an AMERICAN tradition. #boycottcoke
— Macy (@Macy_Lewis) February 3, 2014

Last time I checked this is America and we sing patriotic songs the way they're written #boycottcoke
— josh (@joshmunti) February 3, 2014

You can't sing an American song in another language! #boycottcoke
— spencinator (@taylorspencer3) February 3, 2014

The most unamerican coke commercial ever. National anthem in non English #boycottcoke
— K C (@TheBoyCrispy) February 3, 2014

(H/T Midtown blogger for the list.) I bet you're really discouraged that you didn't hop on Twitter last night and number yourself among Mensa candidates like that. Such a lost opportunity. I especially like the last guy, since Coke has not only told him what to think but drinking too much of that crap has clearly corrupted his memory of his own national anthem.

What a number of people likely failed to remember is that Coke was bouncing off of their own 40-year legacy of having produced this commercial:

which explicitly and implicitly called for unity and goodwill among races and nations (albeit from the foremost front for the CIA in destabilizing and disrupting many of them...) Given that and the current rather divided status of these United States, what message would you have preferred to hear? "America is beautiful as long as it's sung by and filled with white, hetero, sometime bullies who don't want to be reminded that they're racist, homophobic assholes?" I mean, I'm sure there's a song out there like that but probably not from any composer this side of the Aryan Nation.

Now, of course, I'm being facetious (another "ous") because there's no way you'd (publicly) admit to thinking that because it would be stupid and make you look and sound every inch the Neanderthal that those fools did on Twitter last night. If one is so weak-willed as to object to being "told how to think" by a commercial or is objecting to the broad-based message of inclusion despite difference that said commercial is presenting then, yeah, I think you deserve every epithet being tossed your way, especially if you're willing to do so in a public forum like Twitter.

And, again, suggesting that people be tolerant of your obnoxious attitudes for fear of hypocrisy is perhaps the most asinine idea put forth in that post. Contradiction is not intelligent refutation (thank you, Michael Palin.) What you see as heavy-handed social engineering, the rest of us see as simple common sense. There's all kinds of people. Getting along with them should be the first order of the day, every day.

They already know everything because you let them

Edward Snowden is now being heralded by no less than Daniel Ellsberg. Snowden, of course, exposed the rampant NSA spying program and fled to China in order to escape what will surely be energetic attempts at retribution by the US government. The program is being labeled an attempt at "security". The question that no one is asking is: Security from what?

A "war on terror" is deliberately left wide open to be pursued in any direction. Nameless, stateless; it could be anyone and anywhere and, most importantly, it could be us. The first time government of, by, and for the people was mentioned was the last time it existed. Now the only question is why.

Why would the government be so obsessed with controlling its citizenry? Because people left with no other choices tend to revolt. Revolt would be bad for those in power, not least because it disturbs their carefully crafted image of the land of opportunity/greatest nation in the world/(insert pathetic slogan here.) It's been less than a couple weeks since the last time I was attacked for rejecting the benefits afforded me by being part "of this great nation." People believe this stuff, even when the evidence of rampant inequality, perhaps the highest in the history of said nation, is everywhere. If much of the population is doomed to work low-wage jobs for the rest of their existence, with little prospect of change, what hope do they have other than violence? If the highly educated segment of the population is largely demoralized because that education has been devalued if it doesn't produce instant profits, what message might they deliver to people actually willing to read their books, view their art, and listen to their speeches? Is it hope? Is it opportunity? Or is it "don't bother following me here"?

A populace without choices is a populace without hope. No hope means nihilism. Nihilism means violence. Thus, the control. That control is already so effective that much of the population, urged on by wealthy and compliant media sources, screams for more whenever a violent event occurs. After the Boston Marathon bombing, some of the first responses were complaints about the government not knowing enough and/or acting quickly enough. The only way to know that much and act that fast is with the type of program that Snowden revealed. It's a howl of outrage, not that two men took such actions, but that the government wasn't hovering over them to stop those actions. It's easy to do when it's "crazy Muslims" aka NOT ME. I don't have anything to hide! I don't have anything to answer for! They shouldn't be spying on me! Just the bad people! It's NOT ME!

But it is you.

Just like animals in a very pretty and comfortable enclosure at the zoo, it is you. If you're lucky, you have food and a nice place to stay and despite the fact that you walk the same boring path and look at the same boring plants every day, it's easy to not think about how your entire world is 50 square yards. Until perhaps you lose that nice job of being looked at by the tourists. Or you lose that good food. Or that enclosure isn't so comfortable anymore. And then you realize that they have been watching you, guiding you, controlling you... because, at its root, they're afraid of you.

They're afraid because they know that if enough animals in the zoo that are less equal than others decide to band together and resist the controls, revolt against the keepers, and abandon the enclosures, they might be in trouble. Without doubt, their profit margins would be in trouble and that is, in the end, the most important thing to any member of Congress and any president elected in the past 150 years, at least.

So, should people be outraged about the NSA program? Sure, I guess. It's just one more symptom of how the system is maintained. But what they should really be outraged about is not that the system of control was exposed, but that it exists in the first place. The NSA program is one element of a massive problem that is summed up in one simple phrase: rule by the rich. As long as that exists, you might as well relax and perform for the watchers. Nothing you do will matter until that changes. And, incidentally, if 1/10 of the outrage currently being spewed about the spying were directed at the massive economic and environmental problems in this country, things might actually start to change.

The Man's got a surefire system
An economic prison!
Ya gotta get out!
Ya gotta get out!

They've won. Again.

Nation of sheep. Ruled by wolves. Owned by pigs.

Election season arrives at its two- to ten-month hiatus, depending on your status (local, state, federal) and obsession (What will Fox and Friends choose to obsess over and will the term "lame duck" begin to be used for a president's entire second term?) Last night was similar to 2008 in that I kept only vaguely in touch with the proceedings until it was all over but Karl Rove's shouting (Well, sniveling, really.) Then it was a mix of laughing uproariously at the funereal air enshrouding Fox News and nauseous disgust at a lot of the blather on Facebook and other networks where friends, associates, and colleagues of mine seemed to revel in the idea that a Democratic president had been reelected to continue to plague the nation with both action and inaction.

He doesn't even need the rock rolled away first. (H/T gamesthirst.com)

This is a man who justifies the assassination of US citizens from afar without due process or trial, who claims that the death of children in the process of these assassinations is also justified because they are of "military age", and who maintains a "kill list" of people he most desires to see in the crosshairs of the nearest unmanned drone (regardless of the nearby presence of a few dozen Pakistani villagers.) This is a man who employed Tim Geithner as his Treasury Secretary (the primary goalkeeper for the interests of the banks who nearly destroyed the global economy) and Larry Summers as his primary economic adviser. Summers is perhaps the one person about whom I could accept the concept of public lynching, as would doubtlessly happen were he to set foot in the Baltic nations or Russia anytime soon, where the people who lost savings, homes, livelihoods, and relative after relative to suicide as a direct result of Summers' "shock therapy" transformation away from communism would descend on him as soon as he appeared in public. This is a man who not only extended the duration of the most virulently anti-privacy and anti-individual rights law since 1790, but expanded upon its tenets. The Patriot Act is now even more oppressive than the previous administration had hoped for and we have liberal, socialist, Muslim Obama to thank for it. Don't you all feel safer?

I mean, to a certain degree, I'm used to this. I've been involved in electoral politics even before I could vote (1988) and it's no surprise to see the public mindlessly flock to the polls every 2 and 4 years to elect people who think of them as beneath contempt (i.e. easy targets for unmanned drones and the economic dreams of Larry Fucking Summers) and then revel in it as if this time they finally found the right guy. In this case, they found him again, even though he spent the last 4 years doing everything he could to dissuade them of their fantasies. What makes it even more galling was seeing a number of people whom I, at one time, considered political allies crowing about the reelection of a man who's done everything he can to make "Hope and change" into a punchline, rather than a mantra.

"But health care!", they say. Right. A money soak for the already wealthy insurance industry and a "solution" that does nothing to address the real problem of lack of government price controls, even in government programs, and the ever increasing costs created by medical professionals too willing to soak the system. As always, gotta protect those big donors. "But social issues!", they say. The Democrats' response to most social issues is the equivalent of someone attacking the tide with a broom. Obama's lone progressive social moment in his first term was a last-minute acknowledgment of the right of gay people to have a publicly recorded relationship with the person of their choice and he only did that when it was clear that his poll numbers were wavering. Glory fucking day. Otherwise, he essentially served out George W. Bush's third term.

Those social issues, while important in the long run, are also often seen as inevitable in that same period of time (witness Colorado and Washington's legalization of marijuana; anyone want to make a bet with me that Obama doesn't touch that issue for the next 2-3 years? The prison industry donates a lot of money to Democratic coffers.) Said issues also do absolutely nothing to alleviate the fact that those soon-to-be-happily-married gay people are just as economically screwed as the rest of us. It's the equivalent of the GOP getting angry, poor, white guys to vote for guns and against abortion while draining their wallets of anything meaningful. We've arced past the inequality of the Gilded Age. What do we call it when everything is plated in platinum?

This is the wealthiest nation in the history of human existence... but more people are going hungry now than at any time since the 1930s. This is the fabled Land of Opportunity... but social mobility is lower now than it has been in a century and getting worse. We'll have spent $707 billion on guns, planes, tanks, and soldiers in FY 2012 but somehow teachers' salaries and their pensions are the reason that our municipal, state, and federal budgets are out of whack. Progress on social issues? You mean we're finally approaching the level of devoutly Catholic Spain, which permits gay marriage and abortions as national policy? Awesome. Is that happening because of or in spite of the fact that people keep gladly electing criminals to public office and then throwing a party at their own funeral?

Hello, um, America. And goodbye.

Now, you could say that the outpouring of emotion last night and today is a product of the relief of a closely fought election but the worst part about that supposition is that all of this was easily predictable, months ago. Sure, Nate Silver is properly getting his 15 minutes because he actually paid attention to the numbers and understood what was happening, whereas the rest of the political world was still trusting its collective gut, which all too often has shit for brains. But all of this was obvious even above and beyond Silver's data. Romney was an historically bad candidate with a campaign that will be the benchmark for what not to do for decades to come. Who lets their candidate on a yacht named Cracker Bay(!) for an exclusive "thank you" dinner for big donors in the midst of economic hard times? What GOP candidate in the past century could have imagined having the CEOs of two of the biggest multinational corporations in the nation tell him that he and his ad crew were "full of shit"? Even at a private dinner, who dares to state that almost half the electorate is beneath your notice? The incompetence displayed by the Romney campaign over the past year is astonishing and I have a hard time believing that any of those who led it could possibly find another job in 2014.

Put simply: There was no doubt that Obama was going to win. There was as little doubt as in 2008 when the Alaskan Dingbat Carnival took over the McCain campaign. There was no struggle of values here; no hard-fought engagement for the future of the American people. It was two rich guys slinging crap at each other in an effort to make themselves seem less bad (as in, more attuned to people who won't make in 10 lifetimes what either of them will make next month) and betting heavily on the idea that said people are too weak-willed or defeated or distracted to ask for something better. It makes me physically ill to see people claim that their vote doesn't matter because of where they live so that they feel free to vote for what they actually want and believe in, while others bemoan the fact that their state isn't "safe" and they therefore don't feel justified in choosing the candidate that they truly desire. This is the Democrats' Boogeyman Syndrome written into stone. It's no longer used as a threat to scare people. It's now a moral obligation to heed the fact that the Dems' candidate gives better lip service to the ideals that those voters favor and that said voters must accept personal blame if their vote leads to the GOP candidate winning who, in the example laid out for us by Obama, is only slightly worse, if at all. Think GWB would have been in favor of the indiscriminate bombing of the Pakistani countryside? I'd give a lot to be able to see that interview, especially now that he's out of office.

So, yeah: Four more years. Hoo. Ray. Four more years of killing, hedging away from anything the public actually wants, and rule by the monied elite. The below picture was perhaps the best summation of the whole thing. I wonder how big the party will be in 2016 when they get elected for a third time.

(H/T Not a Dime's Worth of Difference)

Things

Low output lately. I wish I could say it was because I was diligently at work on something else, but I can't. There's more than one "something else" and diligence has only occasionally been a part of it. I don't get writer's block. I get low-grade writer's malaise and it's not (always) about the content of what I'm writing. It's more about futility, in general. Already racked up my first two rejections in the fiction market. Same as it ever was. So, I thought I'd just leave some brief thoughts:

1. Some of you whom were watching the Super Bowl (I was because there was food (Margot food) and good people) in the Michigan area may remember this ad:

Here we have the young Asian girl, bicycling along the rice paddies in her yellow shirt and speaking clear but slightly halting English about the threat of (presumably) Chinese people like her stealing American jobs because of Senator Debbie Stabenow's (D-MI) personal spending policies. What people immediately jumped on was the unmitigated racist nature of the ad (Foreigner! She took our jobs!) and, from a marketing standpoint, it's ridiculously over the top. Of course, most Midwesterners wouldn't know a rice paddy if they fell into one and drowned, but it was a nice touch all the same. Immediately, the media descended upon Hoekstra, with the state party saying it would have nothing to do with insufferable conduct of that vulgar nature. Pete, for his part, stood his ground, claiming that the intent was not racist and saying absolutely nothing about the fact that the entire spiel (Chinese people stealing American jobs because of the out of control spending of the US government) makes not a bit of sense in any way, shape, or vaguely economic form. Stabenow doesn't even sit on a significant trade committee and has been a back bencher of small repute on the Senate Budget committee in the most ineffective and largely invisible sessions of the US Senate in recorded history.

Pete's campaign had already been largely given up for dead when he unleashed this seemingly suicidal assault on the tender political sensibilities of the modern state. Most people considered it a grave "error". But no one who's been in the game as long as Hoekstra and whom spent the considerable outlay for a Super Bowl ad makes an "error" like that. Pete knew that if he wanted to get ahead in the primary struggle, he'd need a horde of wacky fanatics to give him the boost amidst the collection of milquetoast individuals then vying for the nomination. As soon as the media began its tirade, Hoekstra assumed the modern conservative stance of oppressed victim in a largely conservative and religious state. The Tea Party sycophants flocked to his side and a huge infusion of cash hit his coffers (doubtlessly a good thing since he probably broke the bank paying for the ad time.) Pete was telling it like it really is and the "librul media" and the "lamestream Republicans" weren't going to hold back the righteous hordes. 'Lo and behold, Pete wins the primary.

Thus, we come to Todd "legitimate rape" Akin, who has now been asked by the Romney campaign to step down for comments made a few days ago. Of course, he still leads Democrat Claire McCaskill (D-MO) in the general polls and there are no doubt a flock of "real Republicans" pouring cash into his pockets to protect him from those who don't want to hear the truth about illegitimate rape. Akin, of course, didn't plan this like Hoekstra did, but he can take advantage of it in the same way. Mind you, this is only a feasible political strategy if the bulk of your electorate is dumb as a fucking bag of hammers, but, there you go...(Just as an aside: Pete knew without a doubt what he was doing, as the ad ran largely in markets that are heavily populated by people to whom this kind of marketing would appeal, e.g. not the main urban centers of the state.)

2. In listening to one of the endless NPR homilies on the plight of the jobless a few weeks ago, I came across a phrase that stuck with me. I wake up some mornings with it in my head, quite possibly because I understand the deprivation and discouragement of the speaker's circumstances. The topic of the show was unemployment and underemployment. The caller was from Tennessee and he'd been a philosophy and divination student at Vanderbilt and a couple other schools and held multiple advanced degrees in those areas. He'd been unable to find work teaching and so had finally answered an ad for a house painting job and was still employed in this work at the time he called. The host of the show asked him if such work paid the bills and he replied: "Well, I've got peanut butter, no jelly. Sandwich, no chips. But you get used to it."

Here was a highly educated and intelligent man whose possession of those qualities matters not at all to our modern society. And he knew it. Just as so many other people that I know whom are in similar straits also know it. Society does not want them because they cannot do anything "productive" (i.e. profitable.) Even most universities don't want them. Our grand society.

3. I was thinking of doing some more detailed analysis of Hell on Wheels, as I've seen the first two episodes of the second season (including the first episode not written by the Gayton brothers, the show's creators) and it might, maybe, kinda, sorta be veering its way toward some interesting material. I think the potential for the setting is boundless (railroad expansion immediately after the Civil War, with a mixed crew of laborers, and venturing through Indian territory) but, while the Gaytons created some great characters, their ham-handed dialogue and mono-chromatic storytelling was letting a lot of the air out of the balloon by the end of last season. I mentioned this on the board one day and a lurker spoke up, saying that he was friends with someone at AMC who was connected to the show and that they were bringing in a stable of writers for the second season. The Gaytons wrote the first episode this year, so I was wondering if the plan was still in motion, but the second was written by John Shiban of X-Files fame and it began to seem almost human, so I'm looking forward to more. It's no Breaking Bad or Deadwood, but few things are. Anyway, if anyone among the half dozen or so of you out there has any interest, say so.

More is always better. God says so.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said Friday that the shootings that took place in an Aurora, Colo. movie theater hours earlier were a result of "ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs" and questioned why nobody else in the theater had a gun to take down the shooter.
During a radio interview on The Heritage Foundation's "Istook Live!" show, Gohmert was asked why he believes such senseless acts of violence take place. Gohmert responded by talking about the weakening of Christian values in the country.
"You know what really gets me, as a Christian, is to see the ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs, and then some senseless crazy act of terror like this takes place," Gohmert said.
"Some of us happen to believe that when our founders talked about guarding our virtue and freedom, that that was important," he said. "Whether it's John Adams saying our Constitution was made only for moral and religious people ... Ben Franklin, only a virtuous people are capable of freedom, as nations become corrupt and vicious they have more need of masters ... We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country."
Ernest Istook, the host of the show and a former Oklahoma congressman, jumped in to clarify that nobody knows the motivation of the alleged Aurora gunman. Gohmert said that may be true, but suggested the shootings were still "a terrorist act" that could have been avoided if the country placed a higher value on God.
"People say ... where was God in all of this?" Gohmert said. "We've threatened high school graduation participations, if they use God's name, they're going to be jailed ... I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don't want him around. I kind of like his protective hand being present."
Gohmert also said the tragedy could have been lessened if someone else in the movie theater had been carrying a gun and took down the lone shooter. Istook noted that Colorado laws allow people to carry concealed guns.
"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?" he asked. (HT: HuffPo)

Emphasis mine, of course, because when one is in a dark room, packed with people, many in costume, under the flashing lights of a two-story movie screen, and filled with tear gas, what better solution to the situation could there be than MORE GUNS? After all, it was doubtlessly a room full of trained police officers and combat vets there to see the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, right? All of those people would have understood the chaotic situation into which they were discharging a firearm, just like the individual who sowed said chaos, no? Personally, I don't give a damn if the room was filled with the local law enforcement convention. Under those circumstances, I'd rather be in a coop full of armed chickens who just got doused with water.

Newsflash: The solution to guns in our society is not more guns. It's less of them. Less access, less numerous, and lower rates of fire. Those hallowed Judeo-Christian values ("all who take the sword, die by the sword") should tell you that.

Return of the messiah

So, today the president of the United States put his foot down, saying that he supports the idea of gay marriage. This is, of course, music to the ears of the half dozen NGOs that have emailed me today and a good chunk of the electorate still desperate to revel in some kind of delusion. For some commentators, this was the moment that Obama chose to "energize the base."

Which, of course, only goes to reinforce the fact that the American electorate is as dumb as a bag of hammers. This is the political equivalent of watching these guys try to organize a three car parade while the populace stands on the side of the road, waving their little flags and waiting for something to happen.

"Abortions for some. Miniature American flags for others!"

So, the Romney campaign, being all things Romney, hung their foreign policy guy out to dry because he was gay and the enthusiastic wing of the GOP was foaming at the mouth at the concept. Not that he was gay and had gotten married in Massachusetts; just that he was gay. They're the "values" party, y'see? As long as those values are circa 1950s, at best. But, as with most Romney moments concerning social or cultural issues, this instantly became an opening for the Democrats. The Obama campaign and DCCC started dropping buzzwords about gay rights, human rights and, of course, gay marriage. The media, by and large, ignored the whole issue and Fox News remained quiescent because they know that most intelligent people consider gay marriage to be a fait accompli. In other words, it's stupid to argue against it in the nation that prides itself on being the "leader of the free world" (and, in the case of Fox, also when the longtime host of your highly rated show, Fox Report, happens to be... shhh... gay.) So, first test passed.


The next step is to float the idea with everyone's favorite verbal live grenade, veep Joe Biden. The veep says he's "comfortable" with the idea. The media, once again, basically moves on to other pressing issues (Secret Service agents being poor tippers or some other moral crisis.) That's perfect for Obama, because if the press had recoiled in outrage, they could always laugh it off. "That's just Joe! When does he get through 30 days without saying something outrageous?!" That's basically what he's there for. He's about one step up the political evolutionary ladder from Dan Quayle. As long as he's telling some guy in a wheelchair to stand up and be recognized, he's diverting attention from anything constructive or destructive and basically being a bullet shield for the president. This is where the concept of going back to the veep being the runner-up in the presidential race becomes enormously appealing. As much as I appreciate the mouth that is Joe Biden for all the times that he unintentionally speaks the truth (much to the owning class' dismay), can you imagine the fun that could have been had with President Obama and Vice-President McCain?

Fast forward to today and Obama makes the daring move to say that he "supports the idea". You know, in principle. A hypothetical, as it were. If asked at gunpoint, he might nod his head. Because, after all, he only supports it now because he "assumed that civil unions would be sufficient."

It's still water, amirite?

This guy is as timid on social issues as an Amish woman climbing out of her wedding gown. Why? Because, of course, he doesn't give a shit about things like that. That stuff is for the poors, or at least the non-rich, to worry about. Anyone moving in his social circles doesn't worry about tax benefits or insurance coverage or hospital visitation rights. They get what they want because money buys what they want. And what Obama really wants is more money, preferably in separate checks from different people at the same corporation (the process is known as "bundling".)

And, yet, because he kinda, sorta, wobbles in the direction of an issue near and dear to the deluded masses that still think he cares about them and their lowborn concerns, "the base" is "energized". Keep in mind, of course, that he has not a shred of power to actually effect a change toward gay marriage anywhere in the nation, since the laws concerning such a thing are the purview of the states; 3/4 of which have explicitly banned the practice, sometimes by constitutional amendment, because the majority of state legislatures are packed to the gills with rednecks frightened of the gays, like we have here in Michigan from Jackson to Houghton.

It would be funny if it weren't such a goddamn tragedy.