Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Me and Mr. Picasso and, um, Klaus Barbie
As of today I am on the gummint teat and it is sweet! That's right, allayouyoung whippersnappers, I turned 62 at 5:sumpin,sumpin this morning. I want all of you to have a piece of birthday cake, tell old fart jokes and GET THE HELL OFFA MY LAWN!
Friday, October 21, 2011
This:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-ford/ayn-rand-and-the-vip-dipe_b_792184.html
is almost a year old but I just saw it.
Ford's article highlights the hypocrisy of one of the many instances where conservatards say one thing for the soundbite and say/do something entirely different when the klieg lights are turned off.
A number of my friends think I'm just too damned nasty to people with whom I disagree, that would be their perception, not reality. I am perfectly happy to debate the merits of laissez faire capitalism v marxist run GODless nannygummint. Or, I would be, if there was a marxist run GODless nannygummint in place in the U.S.
What we actually have is a fairly right of center executive branch, a very right of center judiciary and a legislature that is divided into a very right of center Senate and a batshit KKKrazzeeHouse.
Many of the freshman class of SKKKrotalMurKKKinPatriotiKKK legislators spend taxpayer money to flit about he countryside encouraging their constituents to vote out the wasteful liebrals who are throwin MY MONEY away.
Teabaggists are using government to try to abolish same--except that where fuckin', druggin', drinkin' and gamblin are concerned. they're all for draconian laws, lots of enforcers and hard time.
More later, I gotta go do some scullery work for a fundraiser tonight--
The fundraiser was a success, lots of good food and happy people.
This evening I was talking to someone who tried to tell me that Obama is the worst imaginable president and that he's done nothing and doesn't know how to lead. When I told him that approximately half of the U.S. Congress has a scorched earth policy concerning governance his counter was that a good "leader" would not let that happen--as if there is fuck all that any president can do about congress. Then he made a comment along the lines of the WSO protestors being a bunch of fools. I will admit that got my blood percolatin' a bit faster. I told him that the difference between the WSO and the SKMPF* (other than the fact that WSO seems to have some idea what the term "coherent" means) is that the Kochsuckers aren't funding the WSO,. and, oh yeah, the Teabaggists are, in far too many instances for it to be a coincidence, racists.
He then said that all Obama wants to do is bring bands to the WH to play. I then told him I was done talking to him because I won't debate with people whose arguments are racist. It's not what I really wanted to say. I wanted to tell him that he was a complete fucking asshole. I did tell him that he was a racist, which he denied. I am really amazed, sometimes, at the level of cognitive dissonance on the right.
* SKKKrotalMurKKKinPatriotiKKK Front
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-ford/ayn-rand-and-the-vip-dipe_b_792184.html
is almost a year old but I just saw it.
Ford's article highlights the hypocrisy of one of the many instances where conservatards say one thing for the soundbite and say/do something entirely different when the klieg lights are turned off.
A number of my friends think I'm just too damned nasty to people with whom I disagree, that would be their perception, not reality. I am perfectly happy to debate the merits of laissez faire capitalism v marxist run GODless nannygummint. Or, I would be, if there was a marxist run GODless nannygummint in place in the U.S.
What we actually have is a fairly right of center executive branch, a very right of center judiciary and a legislature that is divided into a very right of center Senate and a batshit KKKrazzeeHouse.
Many of the freshman class of SKKKrotalMurKKKinPatriotiKKK legislators spend taxpayer money to flit about he countryside encouraging their constituents to vote out the wasteful liebrals who are throwin MY MONEY away.
Teabaggists are using government to try to abolish same--except that where fuckin', druggin', drinkin' and gamblin are concerned. they're all for draconian laws, lots of enforcers and hard time.
More later, I gotta go do some scullery work for a fundraiser tonight--
The fundraiser was a success, lots of good food and happy people.
This evening I was talking to someone who tried to tell me that Obama is the worst imaginable president and that he's done nothing and doesn't know how to lead. When I told him that approximately half of the U.S. Congress has a scorched earth policy concerning governance his counter was that a good "leader" would not let that happen--as if there is fuck all that any president can do about congress. Then he made a comment along the lines of the WSO protestors being a bunch of fools. I will admit that got my blood percolatin' a bit faster. I told him that the difference between the WSO and the SKMPF* (other than the fact that WSO seems to have some idea what the term "coherent" means) is that the Kochsuckers aren't funding the WSO,. and, oh yeah, the Teabaggists are, in far too many instances for it to be a coincidence, racists.
He then said that all Obama wants to do is bring bands to the WH to play. I then told him I was done talking to him because I won't debate with people whose arguments are racist. It's not what I really wanted to say. I wanted to tell him that he was a complete fucking asshole. I did tell him that he was a racist, which he denied. I am really amazed, sometimes, at the level of cognitive dissonance on the right.
* SKKKrotalMurKKKinPatriotiKKK Front
Monday, October 10, 2011
Hank Williams, Jr. be ridin' in the Whaaaaaaaaaambulance; St. Sarah, the Impalinator of Wassilla be griftin' her indignorant supporters and the GOPinheads' candidates be implodin' on themselves. The true tragedy in all of this is that the aforementioned will simply be rebranded or replaced in the hearts and mindlessness of the SKKKrotalMerKKKinPatriotiKKK Front. At best we will wind up with some piece of shit like Mittunswillard Romney doin' backflip-flops to convince the FarsideRight that he's oneathem, while, simultaneously trying to convince those of us with brains that he is oneaus. At worst, well, fuck it, I don't even want to think about what sort of slime coats the bottom of the cesspit that the GOP has become.
The "Party of Personal Responsibility" has become almost incapable of self-grooming. The "Base" whether it's 2.6%, 26% or 62% of the electorate is demonstrating a level of teh batshit KKKrazzee that is beyond self-parody.
If it's not the fact that the talking shitheads parrot the demagogues' "liberals control the media" or "George Soros is buying the MerKKKin political process", it's their reporting* with a straight face that people like Missy Bachman or Herman Cain actually have, y'know, some fucking clue about governance. Meanwhile the protests on Wall Street and other financial centers--worldwide--, the continuing financial daterape of the middle class by those who are in the buildings on Wall Street and other financial centers and a host of other genuine issues are conveniently ignored by the corportatist controlled media**.
The American middleclass, with whom I swam from 1998--2005 (a period when I had semi-decent pay, health insurance and some sort of retirement/pension plan) is being decimated. This is not being done with gunz or goosesteppin'hobnailedjacknannies but, rather, by habitat destruction. American small business is being extirpated in its natural range; not by taxes and regulation but by increasing corporate hegemony.
The small city I live in has many of the same names on the front of the stores that I would see in San Francisco, San Antonio, Des Moines, Chicago, Boston or Tampa--and a thousand or more other cities and towns.
When I go shopping I sometimes ask why I can't find an item at the local big box (yeah, I shop there when I have to) only to be told that they don't move enough units to make it profitable to stock the item. I'm not talking about exotic shit, I'm talking about a plumbing fitting, electrical connector or piece of builiding hardware. The big boxes have run the smaller stores out of business, one way or another, and they simply don't have to worry about competition. The local Wal-Mart and the local store of regional grocer both charge more for their products than other stores in the same chain that are 10-12 miles away. Why? because they can.
I belong to the local Chamber of Commerce and they work their asses off to promote local businesses. What's really bizarre is that he U.S. Chamber of Commerce does exactly the opposite.
It's sad that, for those of you with children, the odds are not in their favor. They will not enjoy an ever expanding economy. They will not be able, in many cases, to live the "American Dream". They will be living, instead, with a crushing burden of national debt that constrains or prevents economic expansion. Jobs which used to be done by well paid U.S. citizens are now being done by people who are paid much less, people who have no unions, no labor friendly legislators, no government controls to speak of on their rapacious and insatiable employers and no benefits worth mentioning.
It seems that the Kochsuckers and their ilk have a plan to return the U.S. to the days of the Johnstown Flood when 2,200 or more people lost their lives after a "disaster" at a privately owned dam inundated the city of Johnstown, PA; the days of the Shirtwaist Factory fire when over 125 women were incinerated in a NYC sweatshop; the days of the unregulated trucking, mining, telecom and manufacturing industries when money spoke louder than any other voice. They wish to return us to a time when governmental social welfare was virtually non-existent and public monies were spent, primarily, to fund fire and police departments, build roads and other public infrastructure--to and from the corporatists' business properties and damned little else.
Elections are coming up. Once again, the DNC is dancing as hard as it can to the right, attempting to emulate the heartlessness and obdurate, willful ignorance of the GOP. I have no particular hope that this will change. I do, however, intend to do what I can to slow the cancerous advance of rightwing wrongheadedness. One of the few things we can all do is to contact our pols and the media and demand that they be engaged in and honest about those things that are truly important in this country. I wish us well in that endeavor.
* Read, "mailing it in", "lying" or other suitable word or phrase.
** Which seems to be most of it, above the level of your "Weekly Shopper" publication.
The "Party of Personal Responsibility" has become almost incapable of self-grooming. The "Base" whether it's 2.6%, 26% or 62% of the electorate is demonstrating a level of teh batshit KKKrazzee that is beyond self-parody.
If it's not the fact that the talking shitheads parrot the demagogues' "liberals control the media" or "George Soros is buying the MerKKKin political process", it's their reporting* with a straight face that people like Missy Bachman or Herman Cain actually have, y'know, some fucking clue about governance. Meanwhile the protests on Wall Street and other financial centers--worldwide--, the continuing financial daterape of the middle class by those who are in the buildings on Wall Street and other financial centers and a host of other genuine issues are conveniently ignored by the corportatist controlled media**.
The American middleclass, with whom I swam from 1998--2005 (a period when I had semi-decent pay, health insurance and some sort of retirement/pension plan) is being decimated. This is not being done with gunz or goosesteppin'hobnailedjacknannies but, rather, by habitat destruction. American small business is being extirpated in its natural range; not by taxes and regulation but by increasing corporate hegemony.
The small city I live in has many of the same names on the front of the stores that I would see in San Francisco, San Antonio, Des Moines, Chicago, Boston or Tampa--and a thousand or more other cities and towns.
When I go shopping I sometimes ask why I can't find an item at the local big box (yeah, I shop there when I have to) only to be told that they don't move enough units to make it profitable to stock the item. I'm not talking about exotic shit, I'm talking about a plumbing fitting, electrical connector or piece of builiding hardware. The big boxes have run the smaller stores out of business, one way or another, and they simply don't have to worry about competition. The local Wal-Mart and the local store of regional grocer both charge more for their products than other stores in the same chain that are 10-12 miles away. Why? because they can.
I belong to the local Chamber of Commerce and they work their asses off to promote local businesses. What's really bizarre is that he U.S. Chamber of Commerce does exactly the opposite.
It's sad that, for those of you with children, the odds are not in their favor. They will not enjoy an ever expanding economy. They will not be able, in many cases, to live the "American Dream". They will be living, instead, with a crushing burden of national debt that constrains or prevents economic expansion. Jobs which used to be done by well paid U.S. citizens are now being done by people who are paid much less, people who have no unions, no labor friendly legislators, no government controls to speak of on their rapacious and insatiable employers and no benefits worth mentioning.
It seems that the Kochsuckers and their ilk have a plan to return the U.S. to the days of the Johnstown Flood when 2,200 or more people lost their lives after a "disaster" at a privately owned dam inundated the city of Johnstown, PA; the days of the Shirtwaist Factory fire when over 125 women were incinerated in a NYC sweatshop; the days of the unregulated trucking, mining, telecom and manufacturing industries when money spoke louder than any other voice. They wish to return us to a time when governmental social welfare was virtually non-existent and public monies were spent, primarily, to fund fire and police departments, build roads and other public infrastructure--to and from the corporatists' business properties and damned little else.
Elections are coming up. Once again, the DNC is dancing as hard as it can to the right, attempting to emulate the heartlessness and obdurate, willful ignorance of the GOP. I have no particular hope that this will change. I do, however, intend to do what I can to slow the cancerous advance of rightwing wrongheadedness. One of the few things we can all do is to contact our pols and the media and demand that they be engaged in and honest about those things that are truly important in this country. I wish us well in that endeavor.
* Read, "mailing it in", "lying" or other suitable word or phrase.
** Which seems to be most of it, above the level of your "Weekly Shopper" publication.
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