Obama's Katrina

A lot happened this month, but alas I could not be bothered to find the time to write about it.  Personally though I think the last couple of months can be summed in in one single dick-move by Congressional Republicans and Eric Cantor. 

We've watched for months (the last two years, actually) while they prioritized budget austerity in the face of crushing economic woes, knowing that this could only prolong America's misery and that most of the ignorant fools (the Right) would just blame Obama'.

Because, you know: FUCK WORKING PEOPLE.

(And DOUBLE-FUCK the unemployed!)

And in truth, some of the blame DOES lie with Obama for his refusal to take the gloves off and call out their anti-American, routing for failure bullshit for what it is.  (As I have just done.)  We've seen what he's capable of.  We saw this at the correspondent's dinner, and we saw it on immigration reform with his "alligator filled moat" comment.  We KNOW he can do it.  And that makes it all that much sadder than he doesn't employ this razor wit more often. 

And now they go beyond trying to keep the economy shitty.  In an effort to pull down Obama, they're going to do their damnedest to turn Joplin's Tornadoes into a Katrina-like disaster.  It won't work - or at least it shouldn't - mainly because the crisis following Katrina was MUCH WORSE.  And any failings on the parts of Mayor Nagan-D and Governor  Blanco-D only made for a greater opportunity for FEMA Direct Brown-R and President Bush-R to show some REAL LEADERSHIP. 

And they failed, miserably, EPICALLY, to do this.

But do you know what I DON'T remember?  I don't remember Congressional Democrats accusing Bush of overreaching his authority during Katrina, or off being irresponsible with the budget when it came to spending too much on relief efforts, or dicking around with obstructionist tactics to prevent him from acting while people's houses, businesses and lives were destroyed.  But who knows? 

I mean... That could have just been a failure of that good old, Liberal Media to tell the story, right?

Because they sure have failed to make sure people have the right ideas about THIS story.

Losing heart...

*sigh*

I’ve really been losing heart lately.

The Phelps piece was totally draining for me to write, because it really is a lose-lose scenario. I still feel like crap for having to come down on the side of shitstain like Phelps, and feel even worse that my feelings haven’t really changed much since writing it. Sometimes I find that when writing something and laying out my argument that my feelings on the matter change during that process. That the arguments that sounded fine and dandy in my head, sound absurd once I put them down on paper, (so to speak.) And the Phelps piece could easily fall into that category, bar the fact that I still feel the same way. (And still feel completely and utterly awful about it.)

But beyond any one issue, there’s been a growing sense of helplessness in my mind lately. Some of it comes from the continuing erosion of public support for the Democrats, and how they will now likely lose control of at least the House if not the Senate. Part of it comes from the fact that they DESERVE TO, having abandoned their voting base, accomplished very little, and failed to really sell what they did, after having made concession after concession to the Right, all in a vein effort to win their support – which they never would. And perhaps the worst part of it all is that the general perception (according to narrative being played out in the media) is that they’re losing because they tried to be too Liberal. This narrative has been carried by the Beltway Press since the Carter days, and while there has NEVER been much actual evidence to support it, there is far less now than there has ever been.

The REALITY is that the Republicans have actively tried to sabotage everything Obama and the Democrats have tried to do, even as this has caused people to lose their homes, lose their unemployment benefits, and forestalled the country’s economic recovery until such time as it would be politically advantageous for them. And for all their treasonous, anti-America scumbagery, PEOPLE ARE REWARDING THEM.

What a joke. Obama’s too liberal – even though no part of the liberal agenda has come to pass – and it’s his fault the country’s in this mess – even though it started under Bush, and has been on a steady path to recovery, despite every effort made by the Republicans to prevent this.

The public is being actively misinformed. And they have no fucking clue. None at all.

And it’s not like I haven’t been aware of this for years. It’s not like my frustration with utter stupidity possessed by the average American is anything new. But while I’ve been both a skeptic and cynic my whole life, I guess for one brief moment, between the time the Democrats took back the House in '06 and Obama won the Presidency in '08, I thought things might change. For one brief period of time, I let myself BELIEVE. I had FAITH. But I guess I also seriously underestimated just how stupid this country is, and how easy it would be for the uber-rich and the RW Media (which is ALL of the media!) to simply GIVE power back to the Right. I really didn’t think people would forget how badly the Republicans fucked everything up quite this quickly, especially as the Democrtas have made some progress FIXING almost everything.  IOW - the COURSE is basically right, we just not going fats enough, thanks to the Repulicans, so people want the Republican's to set the course. 

It's makes no damned sense at all.

And not only are the Republicans are running against a recovery that they fought against, and incumbantcy that has been slowly but surely cleaning up their messes for the past four years, reversing the downward death spiral that we were in when the Dem’s came to power in 2006 and that we in the absolute depths of when Obama was elected in 2008… And yet not only are they winning, but the candidates they are winning with candidates who are like everything that was wrong with the ones that lost in 2006, SQUARED! I swear… the next time I hear one of these god-damned tea-baggers saying that we need to cut spending to create jobs, or cut taxes to fix the deficit, I am going to punch them square in the face! (And while they’re on the ground, as I continue kick the shit out of them, maybe I’ll take the time to educate them about how progressive taxation systems or macroeconomics work.) Reagan & Bush’41 CREATED the fiscal problem, Clinton fixed it, Bush’43 brought it right back, and these people want to go BACK to those morons, even as the economy recovers under Obama!

It's utterly insane.

I’d say they deserve what they get, but the problem is that the rest of us DON’T.

Anyway, thanks. Thanks for listening to me piss and moan. I really needed that. I want to leave you with something I came across the other night from a webcomic I’ve started reading recently called “Venus Envy.” (Which is really, really GOOD, BTW! Strong, complex characters, good plot with clever twists, funny as hell at times, dark and tragic at others. Definitely a future Silver Star recipient, although probably not this month.) This is a rather old piece, and it's not a piece from the actual storyline, but rather an expression of the author's frustration with the results of the 2004 election that perfectly echoes not only how I too felt at the time, but how I have increasingly come to feel in over the past two years, and particular in the past few months. I couldn’t say it any better, and don’t really want to try (again) so here it is:

You’re beautiful, Erin. 

And BTW, I love her follow-up reply, to the emails basically telling her to STFU and ‘get on with the story.’ All I can say is, "Wow. Damned strait! You go, girl!"

Go team, go!

I think I figured out a way to explain what I see as one of the biggest problems with our political discourse: People pick their political party the way they pick their favorite sports team. It’s all about emotion, rather than practical or principled considerations.


I’m a Red Sox fan.

And you can argue (or point out) that the Yankees have the richer history; that the Yankees have won more Championships; that the Yankees have more Hall of Famers; that the Yankees have a deeper farm system; that the Yankees have better ownership; that the Yankees have the most talented 5-man infield ever assembled; that the Yankees do better business; That the Yankees bring in more revenue; that a Yankee Championship would be better for baseball… In short, you could lay out every practical, tangible way in which the Yankees are not only the better team, and not only why they therefore deserve to win, but how more people would be better off if they did. And even were I to concede on every single point?

I’d still want the Red Sox to win.

Why?

I don’t know. They’re just my team. And they always will be my team. And even a guy who I hated when he wore pinstripes, suddenly becomes perfectly likeable in the White and Red.

And do you know what?

That’s perfectly OK.

Because you don’t NEED a reason to root for a sorts team. Maybe you grew up in the city. Or maybe you met one of the players and he made an impression on you. Maybe you just like the team’s logo. I don’t care. Any of those - or NO REASON AT ALL - is a perfectly good reason to root for “your team” to win the ball game.

But we shouldn’t VOTE that way. And we shouldn’t decide how we feel about POLICY that way. Only two questions are in anyway relevant when looking at policy: “How does it affect me?” And, “How will it affect the Country?” That’s IT. And while the answers will sometimes differ between the two questions, they should not change based on which party is proposing them or whether they can been labeled ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal.’

If a policy will benefit YOU, why should you oppose it simply because it’s liberal or conservative or was proposed (originally or now) by a Democrat or Republican?

If a policy – when looked at objectively - will benefit THE COUNTRY, why should you oppose it simply because it’s liberal or conservative or was proposed (originally or now) by a Democrat or Republican?

Why are so many people – primarily Conservatives – more concerned that “their team wins” than with whether or not GOOD POLICIES get enacted? And why do so many people – primarily Conservatives – judge policies based on whether of not they have their team’s logo on them?   And I say “primarily Conservatives” because those are the people who use “Liberal” as a criticism, and act like the inherent badness therein is self-apparent. Liberals generally don’t argue against Conservatives this way. But Conservtaives act like it’s just a ball game, and the only thing that matters is that the team that they identify with emotionally wins. People: If the policies being enacted by the “winning team” don’t benefit you and benefit the Country, then they shouldn't BE your team!

I originally intended this as a standalone piece, but I’d like to offer it as an open question to the relatively moderate, shall we say "classic," Conservatives out there, who are every bit as frustrated with how far to the Right the Republicans have gone as Liberals are with how far to the Right the Democrats have gone. If that party no longer represents your values, and have moved into a territory that you find borderline (or downright) offensive to you sense of Patriotism and what you believe America stands for, why are they still your party?  (OR: Why do you still use the label to describe yourself?)

I'd like to use as example, how one on the regular commenters here described his political outlook. Now… excepting the ONE LINE at the end about “smaller government” I don’t see anything there that most Liberals and/or Democrats couldn’t embrace, but I see plenty that Conservatives and Republicans – as they are currently defined – outright reject. Yet this poster STILL describes himself as a “Conservative Republican.”

Given what those words have come to mean, I beg to differ.

Going back to the baseball example, I see that kind of reasoning like this: I might wish the Red Sox had the Yankee’s pitching staff and they may make some dumb trades or pass on a draft pick that I really like that ends up signing with the Yankees… but I’ll still root for the Sox anyway. In sports me it doesn’t matter if your favorite player ends up going somewhere else, or your team ends up totally sucking. You’ll still stick with your team And in that context, that’s perfectly OK. But why in Politics? Why stick with a party that you feel does so much wrong?

I don’t want to speak for y’all but I fail to see, as I read Okie’s post on MMFA, why he would stick with the Republicans. OK, there’s that last line. One point for versus a dozen or so against. And you may think you can change the Party… but you can’t. Sorry. The party has rejected what you see as Conservatism and replaced with something you can’t abide. And they’re trending away from you. So why stick around? Why NOT change?

And I ask this as someone who DID change. Because I was once a Republican, and I even once called myself Conservative. The biggest reason for this was that I was comfortable with those labels. And I could argue from a Libertarian point of view that justified my taking those labels. But the movement went to the Right, and to the Limbaugh’s and Beck’s and James Dobson’s and Pat Robertson’s and Jerry Falwell’s of the world, and I could no longer abide all the mental baggage that the labels “Conservative” and “Republican” required me to carry. And at some point I rejected them. And while I don’t agree with EVERYTHING the “Liberal Orthodoxy” (a notion that is largely a creation of the Right, BTW) stands for, the fact is that the Left is far more tolerant of dissent. There’s room for a Gun Ownership Rights supported in the Liberal camp. Or for someone who supports the Death Penalty. Or someone who supported, and continues to support the War in Afghanistan. Not everyone on the Liberal side will agree with my positions on those things of course, but no one will demonize me for them either. And that, to me, is the biggest difference between the two.

At one point in history, I’d say up until about 1968, both parties had their Liberal and Conservatives wings. Stating in ’68, the Conservatives started going to the Republicans and Liberals started going to the Democrats. By 1980 this process was in full swing and by today, partisan lines are drawn almost entirely along ideological ones. But as this process has played out, something else has happened: One side – the Republicans – has grown increasingly intolerant of any dissent at all. One side became the party of Purity Test. Of “in name only.” Of purging itself of any elements that don’t buy into every single part of the agenda, and of any elements that would be willing to cross the aisle and work with the opposition – even when the opposition is proposing something that Republicans once supported!

In other words: One side went completely bat-shit insane.

And I’m not alone in saying this! I don’t say this as a life-long Liberal who’s just opposition bashing. I say this as a moderate, one-time Republican who is completely fed up with the extremism and the downright un-American authoritarianism and the Party-before-Country mentality that the Right has embraced. Now… I’d have been part of the Liberal wing of the Republican party, to be sure. A ‘maverick,’ if you will. But right now? There ISN’T a ‘Liberal Wing’ in the Republican Party! And the 'moderate' wing consists of what used to be the hardliners! (Lindsy Graham? John McCain?)  And there is no indication that they want one!  (I'll bet you a Coke, right now, Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins will eventuallt retire as either Democrats or Independants, assuming they're not pushed out by Tea-Baggers who go on to LOSE to Democrats.)

In sports it’s expected to stick with your team, even when all your favorite players get traded away. That par for the curse. But WHY do this with politics. My ultimate question, to the moderate, Center-Right, more Libertarian “Republicans” out there, like Okiepoli and others, ESCPECIALLY if it's not "all about the party": Why do you not reject the party that has so clearly rejected you? 

More Tea?

“Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.”

~Jean Luc Picard

It's old news already, but I want to congratulate Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell on her victory in the Republican primary in Delaware. I couldn’t be happier. Likewise, I’d like to congratulate Democrat Chris Coons on his pending victory in the General Election as Delaware's next junior Senator. I couldn’t be happier.

Now I wrote about this awhile ago, but I think the Blogging Ceaser, over at the Conservative Election Project said it best in his post lamenting the then pending loss of 'RINO' Candidate Mike Castle. Ceasar gets it. I get it. Christine O'Donnell and the Tea Party? They don’t have a clue. When otherwise easy seats in Delaware and other places that end up staying Democratic and end up costing the Republicans House and Senate majorities that they would have otherwise won back one of two things is going to happen:

1) The Republicans will finally oust the Tea Baggers and come back to more moderate, Center-Right positions and rhetoric. (And the Tea Baggers will be relegated to the 1%’er, third-party, also-ran status that so many other completely insignificant parties “enjoy.”)

2)The Right will double down, the Tea Baggers will take over the Right completely and the moderates in the GOP will continue to flock to the Democrats. This may pull the Dem’s farther to the Right, but the destruction (or relegation to permanent minority status) of the Republican party finally creates a real opportunity for the Liberal Wing to become more prominent or for Liberals to have a little Tea Party of our own.

Either way? It will good for the COUNTRY. And I couldn’t be happier.

More on (Moron) Censorship...

I just wanted to continue my post from the other day in censorship before moving on to other topics.
A couple of points, for historical perspective, brought to you by the Political Party that opposes Net Neutrality and the Fairness act on the absurd grounds that allowing people to speak somehow constitutes censorship.

From 1930 to 1968, the motion picture industry was subject to the Motion Picture Production Code.  This was a series of guidelines that clearly outlined what could, and what could not be put in a movie.  And unlike todaysrating system - which merely that audiences be of a certain age and that they be advised as to the overall content, this system was absolute and could not deviated from.  It WAS cencorship, textbook censorship, and no serious argument can be made otherwise.

Now why is this relevant?  Simple: It was created and written by REPUBLICAN William Harrison Hays.  So don't think for a minute that the Right's penchant for manipulating the media is anything NEW.

There another example that I'd like to offer: The Comics Code Authority.  This triumpgh of decency pandering over artistic freedom came into effect in 1954 - smack in the middle of the good ol' days, according to today's conservatives.  Now... the Comics Code, which still exists, is a voluntary regulatory board formed by the industry.  Now... WHY would an industry voluntarily adopt standard that would made their stories REALLY SUCK?  (And for anyone who disputes that I offer the first guidline: Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal [or] to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice.  Great. So I can't have a sympathetic villain or a conflicted hero. NO WONDER comic books were always seen as purile and juvenile: They HAD TO BE, under regulations!)  Again: WHY would an industry voluntarily adopt such constraining standards?  Simple: the United States Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency was focusing on, and threatening to censor, COMIC BOOKS of all things.  What a time that must have been - COMIC BOOKS, rather than guns and drugs were the cause of all the world's ills!

And who called this absurd circus into existance?  Why REPUBLICAN Senator Robert Hendrickson of New York.  Apparently Werewolves and Vampires and veiled references to masturbation were the biggest issues the Senator felt needed tackling in the country.  No wonder the Russians beat us to space.

And while it has nothing to do with CENSORSHIP - the Volstead Act (better know as Prohibition) was also a Republican meausre, vetoed by DEMOCRATIC President Wilson, who was then overruled by the REPUBLICAN Congress. 

The Republicans have been censoring and suppressing freedom for almost a hundred years now. 

Add Joe McCarthy to the mix? 

Why are we still LISTENING to these fools?!