The Year Of Living like a pack of Self-Absorbed, Egregiously Obnoxious, Unapologetically Dangerous and Mean, Mind-Bogglingly Stupid Americans.
Or, 2004: Good Fucking Riddance.
What to say, on this final day of the year? Clearly, the thing I would most like to say to a great many of my fellow country men-and-women is, simply, "fuck you". Unfair? Hardly. This is what y'all are saying, each and every day, through your actions and behavior (and a good number of your words as well) to the good folks you share the planet with. And, this may come as a surprise to many of you- they are, most of them, good folks. Really.
Something like 125,000 of those good folks, at last count, have been killed in this horrible natural disaster taking place in and around the Indonesian sea... And the reaction of the Bush Administration has been classic, if not more than a little telling--- They behave like nothing so much as a rich person getting out of a limo and seeing a homeless family with little kids living in a box.. did you notice? People are dying in a massive human tragedy, and the first thing team Bush does is get defensive and pissed off. The natural response would have been an expression of sympathy and - "how can we help"?. The Bush administration took the sudden tragic deaths of tens of thousands of children, among others, to grind their perennial axe against the Clinton Administration. Got that? Let me repeat it: The very first comments from the Bush Administration about the Tsunami were a ranting bash against Bill Clinton. See, that's the other thing about this crazy myopic Americanism that is exemplified by Bush and his millions of pinched, constipated, dumbfuck red state supporters- no matter what is going on, it's always about them. And these are the assholes who rail against the "if it feels good, do it" ethos of the 60's (as opposed to the "if it makes money, do it... even if if fucks over grandma millie for $300 a megawatt-hour" ethos of, say, Enron) ... Uh-Huh. Like the people who opposed the Vietnam war were soooo self-centered, yet Bush and his legion of AM Radio apologists are only being pragmatic when they turn global concern over an unprecedented human tragedy into yet another excuse for Clinton, Europe-and-Foreigner-Bashing. Want to know why the Bush Administration looked so weird and pissy, trying to pony up even the miserly (and yeah, it's fucking miserly) $15 Million they initially pledged for Tsunami relief? Because it required a massive mental gear shift in their collective pointy heads.. See, in the mind of your average Bush Republican, "furriners" aint no good, they all hate us, and the UN wants to come in and force commercials containing interracial sex into monday night football.. and worst of all, those gul-durn furr'nurs don't appreciate our hard work liberating Iraq.
The right's entire gestalt is predicated upon the idea that the planet outside of the Red States is littered with degenerate, socialist ingrates who hate Merka.. so why would they want to send any of our hard-earned cash when tens of thousands of them are being swept out to sea? The United Nations is a "Slime-Oozing Cesspool", which makes the world outside our borders...-- what? Certainly not deserving of anything resembling help in a time of extreme crisis.
Bottom line? Even when the situation requires him to be a decent human being, he has no choice; Bush is still an asshole. He can't help it. And so, for that matter, are his supporters, toadies, and stupid fucking media whores. Debra Saunders, the woman whose SF Chronicle Columns make me want to buy a parrot just so I'll have something in the house that will shit on them, really crystallized this attitude with her own snarky-ass response to anyone who dareth criticize the self-centered response of Team Bush to the Earthquake/Tsunamis. (Whoa! And check out that picture! Talk about your circa 1985 Hair-dont...She looks like a fucking roadie for Juice Newton) Well, for starters, a death toll of 125,000 -and rising- is apparently no excuse to take a break from that classic GOP pastime, namely, bitching about how unfair the tax burden is. Then she dissembles, with this touching bit of Bush apologia:
(Now, you'd think that $1 billion figure would be a big story. But in a show of unabashed solipsism -- in a world where what you say always trumps what you actually do -- Beltway pundits are more interested in the fact that Bush didn't hold a press conference on the tsunami until Wednesday than in the fact that the United States is talking about spending $1 billion to help tsunami victims.)
Solipsism? I think solipsism is hearing that over a hundred thousand people just got washed out to fucking sea, and immediately thinking about your wallet and how much you hate the god-damn UN. That's fucking solipsism, you heartless bitch. But, oh, it doesn't matter that Bush initially proposed a meager $15 million- the price of a hubcap on a Stealth Bomber- in aid.. See, what's important is that they're talking about spending $1 Billion. (The price of one entire Stealth Bomber) On Planet Bush, talking about sending $15 Billion to Africa to combat AIDS is at least as good as doing it.. Talking about how the troops all have adequate armor is as good as putting the shit on their humvees... Funny, though, I suspect that when Halliburton and Bechtel get those checks from the treasury for billions and billions in no-bid contracts, they need actual money... not just the kind that is "talked about".
Yeah, well, Bush took some PR hits on this deal- despite feeling invincible after his man-date, and so he's reportedly upped the amount earmarked for relief. Not up to the "talked about" $1 Billion figure, of course, and I'm absolutely certain that the only way our government would send that kind of money to furriners is if there were some clause saying it could only be spent on Jesus-based abstinence education.
But this line of the Saunders piece, in particular, just blew me the fuck away:
Meanwhile, American taxpayers have bankrolled a defense apparatus that protects people around the globe.
There you have it. Orwellian doublespeak at it's best. We don't need to send you food, medicine, money, any of that shit! Our defense apparatus, our army, our weapons, our cluster bombs.. our Empire, which we have been told can do what ever it wants to protect our interests (not, mind you, the interests of "people around the globe") is protecting the world, see! Right. We don't have to spend a penny, say... feeding the world... because, dammit, it costs so god-damn much to run the fucking thing. Yes, the same world that we hate, the one that we give the finger to on the Kyoto treaty, and that is represented by the oozing slime of the United Nations, is safe under the loving umbrella of American pre-emptive militarism. Okay, well, an overwhelming majority of people around the globe- Even people in countries like Britain, one of the last holdouts in the "coalition of the willing"- opposed the invasion of Iraq. If we were really "protecting them"( and not our own, say, oil interests) then why didn't we give them a say in whether or not we should do it?
Ahhhh, I suspect we're not going to get an answer for that.
Warning, they are very graphic.... Yes, what kind of crackhead would suggest that we, as the richest nation on Earth, should pay to send help to disaster victims, when we are already spending so much to export stuff like depleted uranium laser-guided muntions around the world? How dare that UN Pond scum call us "stingy"!.. do they have any idea how much it costs to build, say, a non-functional missile defense system?
Anyway, I think I was saying something on Christmas Eve about Karma. The United States has done some -many- good things over the years. But right now, our Karma sucks. And in 2004, we made it a hell of a lot worse. So enjoy your New Years, hug your family, love your loved ones, and party up. But we would do well to remember what the song says: If You Plant Ice, You Gonna Harvest Wind. In other words, what comes around goes around..
So, hopefully, in 2005 we as Americans will start acting more like members of the human family again--- and less like that arrogant, selfish neighbor who drives drunk through the neighborhood blasting shitty music, parks in front of your driveway, and dumps fast food garbage from his car onto your lawn.
Because if not, I fear we're bringing down a tsunami of shit- upon ourselves.
The Impeach Dubya Blog Christmas Message for 2004: Excuse me if I ramble. I'm kind of dizzy and not feeling so well. I think I'm coming down with the flu, and fuck me if it's half as bad as the one I had last winter. That bastard knocked me flat for three fucking weeks.
The OTHER Impeach Dubya Blog Christmas Message for 2004:
Peace on Earth.
No, seriously.. I don't mean in a Hallmark card sense, I mean, um, it seems to me that if you want peace, the way to get it is to stop killing people. Now. Just stop killing people. No more, "but... he killed me first!" (Alright you kids, cut it out back there-- or I'm turning this planet around) ..The way to have peace is to stop war. The way to stop killing people is not to kill people anymore. Problem is, like an alcoholic can always find a reason for the next drink, the justifiers of war can always find a "reason" for the next batch of killing; always, we're told, it's going to be the last one... at least, the purpose of the killing is to get to a place where we won't have to kill people anymore, because we will have finally killed all the people who like to kill people. Or something.Bullshit. Oh, yes, we hear all about how wars are necessary and there are "good wars"-- like WWII... But blow me with a vacuum cleaner, WWII was nearly seventy years ago, already. We've beaten that particular justification for our behavior into the ground. Enough, already. Yes, if we're attacked, we reserve the right to fight back- if we're attacked. Now Iraq.. uh, it never attacked us. (And yes, Saddam Hussein was a "bad man". But he's gone. So why are we still there?) If the Iraqi people wanted us there, we'd know it. We want to give them self-determination? Seems to me, they've determined that we should go home. Bring the troops home, already. Stop the fucking war. Don't kill anyone else. There You Go, Peace on Earth.
Good will Towards men.
I have goodwill towards everyone. Really. Despite being repeatedly accused of "intolerance" towards red-staters, Republicans, Christian Conservatives, and people who inexplicably sit for endless amounts of time daydreaming at green lights, I am actually a pretty friendly guy. I don't care what you believe in, which gender you prefer to have sex with, how long your hair is, what kind of music you listen to.. As long as you don't interfere with me I'm pretty damn content not to interfere with you as well. This seems to me to be a no-brainer of a concept. Man, it would be nice if the self-righteous among us would come to some kind of a flash of realization this season, and discover that- hey!- it really doesn't matter if the gay couple down the street get married, have kids, even hold hands in public! The fucking sky isn't going to fall! It's a big world, and it's got room for all of us- for now, at least... Speaking of which, despite what certain brain-damaged members of the right wing seem to think, if Gays are allowed to get married-- it does not mean that heterosexuals will suddenly stop reproducing. Look around, genius- there's 6 billion of us and no sign that we're gonna run out of people any time soon. I think humanity can weather a few million non-reproductive gay couples. Think about it. If the Christmas spirit is embodied by Good will towards men, and Christ said to love your fellow man, what the flippin flarb is so hard about expressing good will towards men--- who love their fellow man? Ahhh, answer me that.
Think Outside the Box.
This is crucial. Hell, if you can, think outside the box the box comes in. And then try to think outside that box. While you're at it, think outside thinking, and think outside "outside". The world could use a shitload more of this. Sure, it's easier to operate within the narrow parameters that someone else has laid down, but before long you get a nation of Bush voters who think Ashlee Simpson is an actual musician. No, no, no. Stop being so damn lazy with your brains. I can't imagine your God really gave you brains yet doesn't want you to think-- that's just earthly authority figures using him as an excuse to make you easier to control: "Sleeeeep... Sleeeeeep!"
Because, you never know- Karma might be real.
Or, I am you as you are me as you are he. And we are all together-- In which case, I'm of the opinion that George W. Bush's next life is going to suck.
One of my problems with fundamentalist Christians is this insistence they have that people cannot have ethical value systems, or even be moral people, without belief in a very specific (their) "God". The irony is that, for the "left behind" crowd, the prime motivator for not feeding their neighbors into the wood chopper apparently isn't some inherent human decency on anyone's part, but rather the fear of punishment from the giant invisible father figure in the sky. Which, of course, leads me to wonder just how moral anyone can claim to be when the only thing keeping them from car-jacking you is the fear of eternal hell. (It's funny, too, because if you really read up on the Christian Right, many of them seem to genuinely believe that Jesus, along with societal disapproval, is the only thing keeping most heterosexuals from turning gay. Hmmmm. Maybe for them!)
Which isn't to say that behaving in a decent fashion towards your fellow beings can't flow naturally from what I consider to be an enlightened or at least expanded self-interest. If everyone is essentially one, or we are at least all parts of the same larger soul, then from a broader awareness, all murder is suicide, and all violence is masochism.. (and all sex is masturbation, but we don't have time to get into that right now) ..all of which makes war, in particular, even more idiotic than it already is. As I understand it, this is the essence of not just Buddhism, but also what I consider the central truth of Jesus's teaching as well. But chew on this- even if reincarnation is real, and your soul progresses in a linear fashion from one life to the next when you die, maybe there is still only one of us. Like the only member a seriously understaffed theater company, perhaps we (you/I) go forward and backwards through time, playing every single role in this weird Earthly drama. What you end up with, eventually, is a form of automatic justice- the sweatshop boss who exploits 400 Indonesian teens would have to come back and work in his own sweatshop. 400 times.
See, all of our violence, all of our war, even all of our blatant disregard for our fellow man (not to mention our fellow animals, although I'm hardly the PETA member) depends on us not looking him/her/it in the eye, not seeing the essential core of awareness or soul that we share, and certainly not empathizing with the being on the other end of the missile/rifle/set of bombs. Most of our military technology depends on turning the "enemy" into a set of pixels straight out of a video game, just like thousands of years of military training has depended on turning the enemy into something less than human.
Of course, albeit to a far lesser extent, we also do this in our everyday lives- and I'm as guilty as anyone. It's a useful exercise, if nothing else, to consider for a moment that the next time you cut somebody off in traffic, or swear at a homeless person who asks you for change, that might be you--- in your next life.
Now this idea, or the idea that we all share enough in common to at least warrant an occasional attempt to see through each others' eyes, is so obviously in line with what I consider the point of religion, or at least spirituality, that it's astounding that it receives little more than lip service in a country such as ours... one that is supposedly so deeply, seriously religious. Except it's not, not where it counts- Because empathy and sympathy and compassion for your fellow man runs directly against the real number one religion of the United States, which is cutthroat capitalism. Now, capitalism is fine and dandy, and the desire to make money is an excellent motivator-- you'll get no argument from me, there. But look around. We have elevated the worship of winning, and the glorification of greed, to unprecedented levels. No one even stops to think about the contradictions inherent in a society hell-bent on announcing it's self-righteous "Christianity" to the world on one hand, and reveling in obscene material excess- and the worship thereof- on the other. I don't mean just liking nice stuff.. I mean a system that thinks Paris Hilton is worthy of our time and attention only because she's four times richer than God. Bottom line? Our priorities, as well as our understanding of the religions we profess, are massively fucked. As someone pointed out to me not too long ago, the Bible mentions homosexuality less than ten times, or something (And I am not claiming to be an expert on the bible, so don't even go there) but it mentions fair treatment for the poor hundreds upon hundreds of times. And if that aint the case, it should be. So the bend of our so-called "spirituality", or lack thereof? It ain't an accident. Think about it- most people in modern America live in subdivisions and exurbs, they spend their days working in cubicles under flourescent lights, and for fun they go shopping in strip malls. They have no community and are cut off from any sort of organic relationship to nature or the larger world around them. They know they're missing something, but they can't figure out what it is.. So Fuck yes, they're going to end up with a spiritual hunger.. and right on cue, here come the right-wing televangelists to sell them.... the religious equivalent of a big mac.
It's interesting, too, that anyone who even mentions, in the political sphere, the concept that We Are All Connected or expresses an awareness of empathic sensitivity to the situation of others is roundly mocked as a clueless hippie, or worse. Remember the shit Bill Clinton took for "I Feel Your Pain"? Funny, isn't it, that George W. Bush is considered such a more "Christian" man (presumably, because no interns have sucked his dick lately)-- and this is the guy who reportedly pumped his fist in the air and said "Feels Good" as the bombs started falling on Baghdad. No, the "Christians" in American political life are people like Bill Bennett and Pat Robertson, folks so unapologetically gul-durn rich and greedy, not to mention self-righteous, that they can't even see straight. And the folks who talk the most like Jesus might have, even when mentioning unsettling truths? Shit, they don't even seem to show their faces, anymore. Can you even imagine a politician today sounding like Eugene Debs, at his fiery best?
"While there is a lower class, I am in it.. While there is a criminal element, I am of it.. While there is a soul in prison, I am not free"
Doesn't anybody find it weird that the socialists, liberals and pacifists are the ones who end up talking like Jesus, and the Jesus people are the assault-weapon waving advocates of "kill them- before they kill you"?
Love your enemies?... Shit, we're not even allowed to speculate what might be motivating them.
I will leave you with this excerpt from an excellent Arkansas Times Piece, "I Want My Faith Back". It pretty much sums up, well, a lot:
Of all the progressive and moderate people of faith I talked to as part of this story, Howard “Flash” Gordon, pastor of First Presbyterian Church and a social justice activist, told me the story I’ve repeated the most often:
When Ronald Reagan died earlier this year, someone from Fox News called Gordon, looking for a sound bite for a story on Reagan’s religious faith because Gordon had known Reagan’s pastor.
“I said, ‘He didn’t take care of poor people,’ ” Gordon said.
The guy from Fox said, “I don’t want to hear about poor people, I want to hear about Reagan’s Christianity.”
Gordon replied, “That IS Reagan’s Christianity,” and the Fox guy hung up on him.
The current "take back Christmas" is an engineered "2-minute hate". --JHB on Democraticunderground
You got that right, brother. Phew. If you have tuned into the news in the past few weeks, no doubt you have been informed that all across this great, Christian land, roving packs of liberals and lawyers are wandering shopping malls, snatching little children off of Santa's lap, unplugging lights from Christmas trees, body-slamming Christmas Carolers, and generally making life miserable for the poor, oppressed, Christian Majority.. Well, I've got a confession to make- I am a secular humanist, blue state liberal, and yes, there is nothing I hate more than this season of pious celebration of Jesus's birth. If I had my way, I would form a federal bureau of scroogification, fully armed and deputized to scour the countryside, yanking train sets and barbie dolls from the arms of joyful tots on... no, no, you can't call it that! ...the morning of Dec. 25..
Yeah, the sad thing is, some folks probably believe just that about people like me-- watch, it'll end up on some right-wing blather site, taken out of context. I hate to break it to you, but it's not liberals who are that mean, particularly to kids. The truth is, the only people in this country who rate that high on the fucking heartless-meter are Conservatives, the kind of people who like to act magnanimous after watching A Christmas Carol on tv... then on Jan. 4 go back to defining Ketchup as a school lunch vegetable...
Look, I don't have a problem with Christmas. I celebrated it as a youngster, and I was the kid who got his ass kicked for answering "atheist" to the perennial "what religion are you" question on the school bus at age 7... But I have to laugh when FOX News types bitch about "liberals taking Christ out of Christmas".. News flash, folks, it was our hyper-capitalist society, the one you spend so much time the rest of the year defending, that took out whatever Christ was in Christmas to begin with.
Of course, there wasn't ever a whole lot of Christ in Christmas. Jesus, in as much as he may have been an actual guy, probably wasn't born on Dec. 25. Dec. 25 was chosen as a co-opting of the ancient Roman celebration of Saturnalia, where the Romans would drink and feast and fuck and flatulate and generally whoop it up until some time in early February. (Not a bad deal, in my mind.) Or take the Christmas Tree. The only way the Christmas tree would have anything to do with Jesus is if there was a little wooden man nailed to it. No, the tree is, of course, pagan in origin, and putting Christmas on Dec. 25 served the double duty of replacing the old-school pagan winter solstice celebrations. What I find truly interesting about so much of this stuff is, no matter how much veneer of western religion they try to overlay on them, the essentials of the old pagan earth cycle rituals remain. Easter, or "Ishtar", is a perfect example. What do eggs and rabbits have to do with Jesus being crucified? Diddly fucking squat. However, before that holiday was co-opted to commemorate that particularly dubious event, it was a rite of springtime, rebirth, fertility, and all the good things that happen when the weather starts getting warmer, like ladies wearing less clothing. See, eggs are symbols of fertility.. and rabbits? Well, it may disturb devotees of the Easter bunny to know that the reason rabbits are deeply tied to the rituals of springtime rebirth is because of the activity rabbits are so often associated with; namely, fucking. Yes, the Easter Bunny is a big, horny, priapic symbol of rampant and enthusiastic copulation.
So, when conservatives piss and moan about secularists taking Jesus out of their precious holidays, they would do well to remember that he only moved in there, himself, recently.
Of course, it isn't happening. As the prescient DHB noted, this whole thing is an engineered working-up of people. The election has been over for a month, and despite blather about "coming together", it's apparent that the right wing, the media, and the right wing media (as they become ever-more indistinguishable) are unable to even wait until the re-coronation of their beloved chimperor before they start taking the inevitable cultural swipes at the great liberal enemy.
First inkling I got of this was a couple weeks ago, at a party at my neighbor's house. Some crusty old duffer made some comment about how, "in Cupertino, they're trying to ban the Declaration of Independence"... because it mentions "God" and how 'they' want to take 'God' out of everything and etc. etc. etc. I bit my tongue, because I like my neighbor and I didn't want to start arguing with this dude in her kitchen, so I mumbled something about how Jefferson was a Deist and changed the subject. I didn't really know what this guy was talking about, but I recognize the right-wing, AM radio propaganda style when I hear it.. So it came as no surprise to me that apparently this "Cupertino bans Declaration of Independence" story was whipped up by the usual suspects of Right-Wing Radio, and thrown at the national press right before Thanksgiving, with no opportunity for voices of reason to respond as millions of dittoheads descended upon turkey dinners, rabidly frothing about this latest assault on American Decency from the godless commies of liberal-dom.
The truth is, of course, vastly different. This whole thing was another in a long-line of rightwing set-ups. As ereposte puts it, this is like conservatives hyperventilating about a "man arrested for praying" while neglecting to point out that he was kneeling down in the middle of a busy intersection. Turns out, the Stevens Creek school district in Cupertino told a teacher to stop giving religious right hand-outs that included quotes from, among other sources, the Declaration of Independence. If I'm a teacher and I give out handouts advocating drug abuse, and use the Declaration's line about "the pursuit of happiness" as a justification of that position, would the school be "banning the Declaration" if it told me to stop? Of course fucking not. But that is, essentially, the position of the religious right and the Drudge/Limbaugh axis in this deal. Actually, they're banking on people not paying attention, just repeating ad nauseum "listen to what the libruls have done now!"... Which is exactly what this senile old fart at my neighbor's house tried to do, at least until he preternaturally sensed that, maybe, I wasn't a big Limbaugh fan..
But that was just the beginning. Within a week or so, it was impossible to open the paper, turn on the news, without reading the inevitable story about kids forced to sing bastardized "holiday" carols, mayors forced to say "happy holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas", and townspeople up in arms about not being able to erect bloody papier-mache statues of Christ on the cross in front of city hall, in honor of the "spirit of the season". Yes, clearly, this liberal obsession with separation of church and state is out of control. I'll hand it to the religious right, while the rest of us were trying to relax after the election, they were out of the bag and immediately working on ways to angle off of the newly asserted fundamentalist bend of the US Electorate, to use these days of peace and family to ramp up the culture war another notch wherever possible. The strategy, if you want to call it that, is something like that of the child in the back seat who pokes his sibling repeatedly until the sibling finally smacks him.. at which point, he hollers "Mom! He HIT ME!!!!!!!"
Ahhhh, 'tis the season for peace on earth..
...um, at least as a concept...
...and, good will towards men--
unless by "men" you mean those sniveling liberal bastards who want to force us to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".
In Polk County, Florida, a Baptist Group put a manger display on the lawn of City Hall. Certainly, they did this not because they wished to thumb their nose at persons of differing faiths, or because they knew that it would trigger an inevitable Church-State brou-ha-ha. No, they must have had nowhere besides the front lawn of City Hall to stick this little manger dealio with assorted tchochkes. Apparently, some quick-witted Floridians put up a sign celebrating Festivus, ("Festivus for the rest of us") a holiday apparently near and dear to Seinfeld fans.. (I admit I wasn't familiar with it, although after reading up on what it entails, I must say that the ritual "airing of grievances" sounds particularly attractive) ...Well, it seems that the Polk County commissioners have decided that the Manger can stay, but the "Festivus" sign has to go.. .. It's reported that, regarding Festivus: "We don't know what it is.. and we don't want to know", said one Commissioner.
But let the mainstream media get a hold of the story, and it invariably will become about the meaaan ol' ACLU wanting to snatch the baby Jesus from the manger on the lawn of city hall.. fuck, they want to snatch the manger, too! Heartless bastards. It's like the fucking pledge of allegiance story. Man, that pissed me off. To this day, you can't get through one of these fucking debates without some shitbrain talking about "Liberals banning the pledge." Nobody banned the pledge. All anyone tried to do was return it to the way it was originally written, before the totally unnecessary "under God" was tacked on- during that other shining period of American rationality, the McCarthy era. What the supporters of prayer in schools, religious displays on public property, and 5,000 lb. granite ten commandment monumets in courthouses never want to talk about, however, is why specifically these displays of religious faith must take place on and through the public square. If you want your kids to engage in organized, group prayer, they have all day Saturday, all day Sunday, and every single day after school during which you can give them official religious instruction. If it's that important to you, you can take them out of Public School. All that is asked by the first amendment is that you not force the government to take a part in indoctrinating your children, as well as everyone else's, in a particular faith. Ah, but that's the rub, isn't it? It's not so much about your children as it is about the rugrats belonging to the heathens down the street... you know, the folks you look at askance because they shop at Whole Foods and have a Darwin fish on their bumper. Likewise, I would imagine that, in Polk county, there are at least a hundred churches, most of them with front lawns big enough to hold a hundred potemkin manger scenes of the kind we see in pictured above. In fact, it being Florida, many of them could probably hold a giant Manger-land, replete with holy rollercoasters, a Fiery Furnace tilt-a-whirl, a confess-a-tron, and a 300 foot tall Jesus on a cross for kids to bungee jump off of. Yet, for some odd, inexplicable reason, this display MUST be placed in front of City Hall, on public land.. Or is it really so odd and inexplicable?
The handmade creche, figures of Joseph and Mary in a simple lean-to with a baby Jesus lying between them in a manger, drew lots of media attention. It was erected Dec. 15 by Marvin Pittman, 66, a retired law enforcement officer and a member of the First Baptist Church of Bartow, and his Bible study group. They mounted it after county commissioners had earlier deadlocked on another church's request to permit such a display.
"The real spirit of Christmas is the birth of Christ," Pittman said after the meeting. "We felt it needs to be in the public eye, so we did it."
Right. In other words, we felt we absolutely had to give the finger to folks who don't believe as we do.
Well, let's be honest, shall we? I think it's not the "marriage" part that really bothers some of you folks, it's the "Gay".. Because, when you break it all down, there's just not a whole hell of a lot of difference between a "civil union" that confers all the legal benefits to a gay couple that marriage does, and a marriage itself. Except that little word, and that's what -it seems- has a good many of your burlap shorts in a bunch. Of course, most conservatives are genuinely opposed to civil unions and the rest as well, although publicly it doesn't give them much cover from charges of homophobia to be seen arguing that gay people shouldn't have the right to, say, visit their terminally ill loved ones in the hospital-- as they don't, in many places, today. No, all of a sudden the "institution" of marriage has been turned into a sacred fortress that must be defended, at all costs, against Siegfried and Roy storming through the front gate with the hot, hard, turgid battering ram of social progress.
I tell my wife an "institution" is something people get locked up in. We make our marriage work because we both understand that it is a voluntary assosciation combined with a deep commitment. It's not a bond that God or Government defines, so much as we define. With that in mind, I'm of the opinion that anyone who wants to call themselves 'married', is married. And if right-wing opposition to gay marriage is really not about wanting to deny equal rights to other citizens (it couldn't be... could it?) then it must relate to a primal fear of Gay people being able to say, like straights can, "Guess what? We're married". So the bad news? As far as I'm concerned, at least, they already can.
I can hear the Christian Conservative response, already: "It doesn't matter where you are concerned, you're just a left-wing, heathen blogger. What matters is whether God considers Gay people married" ...Ahhh, but that's where the compromise comes in. See, I would be perfectly happy if, in this country, churches, synagogues, witches' covens, Priests, Rabbis and the like, were all able to decide whether or not they wanted to marry gays, just like many denominations won't marry persons previously divorced. The Catholic Church doesn't want to marry Gays? No problem!
Right, see, if the gays get a marriage license-- one that confers the same civic rights as a civil union- and Rev. Fred Phelps (even though he's a flaming, noxious butt-shard) wants to yell at them "Nyah, Nyah, you're not really married"... He can still hold that opinion! (Actually, that fucking asshole would probably do something a lot more offensive... However, as we all know, the first amendment is only as good as the most vile speech it defends)
But I would go further than that with this Gay Marriage deal. I understand that many of you right-wingers find the "threat" of Gay Marriage to be an all-encompassing, frightful bugaboo that keeps you up at night in clammy, cold sweats, visions of wedding cakes topped with two little plastic men swimming around endlessly in your pointy little heads.. Therefore, let me assure you, as gently, as reassuringly as I can.. if Gay Marriage is legalized, under no circumstances.. none, whatsoever! will any of you be forced to have one against your will. Furthermore, I think I can safely say that, with the exception of inmates of certain correctional facilities and Catholic Altar boys, it is extremely unlikely that you will find yourself engaged in any kind of homosexual relationship-- unless you're really, really looking for one. Yes, my right wing friends --and I know this is a stunning revelation-- accepting gays doesn't mean you have to become one! In fact, I hate to break it to you, but most of them aren't really interested in you to begin with.
But I promised compromise, so, here goes- you don't even have to "accept" the Gays who live, work, and pay taxes all around you. Sure, it would be the decent thing to do, but there's no law against being a fucking ignoramus. All you have to do is not interfere with their lives and rights- just like they don't interfere with yours.
Gun Control
Someone on DU asked about this issue and the drug war, which I will address presently. I lean towards the libertarian end of the liberal spectrum, and as such I'm really not too hot on the government overly regulating the lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens. While I think guns are a problem and violence is a problem in our society, I don't hold any illusions of the Gummint coming in and stripping the big, swollen, shiny metal penis substitutes out of the hands of tens of millions of rednecks with few other means to get their jollies. And I hate to break it to you guys, but as much as you like to wave those things around, most of us don't give a shit, and we're as equally uninterested in taking them away from you as we are unimpressed with how "manly" you seem to think they make you look. (Uhhhh... huh.)
That said, I don't see why the second amendment precludes background checks and waiting periods, and if you genuinely think you need an AK-47 to hunt deer you really are a pussy.
But believe it or not, most of us are pretty much resigned to the fact that we're sharing the country with a whole ton of heavily armed dingbats. Just don't point that thing at anyone's head, okay, Junior?
The War on Drugs.
Like the "war on terror", this is another mis-named war on a social phenomenon which has been turned from the get-go into an excuse for a war on civil liberties. Surprise! But I'm not even suggesting compromise, here- on this issue, I think we should let the Conservatives win. Conservatives like Milton Friedman, who for years has been arguing that the small government, free market position with regards to currently illegal drugs (there being plenty of more dangerous legal ones) should be to stop trying to control the behavior of consenting adults, specifically what they do with their own bodies and minds. End government overregulation of private choices and commerce, and stop blowing of $400 Billion tax dollars a year on a giagantic, useless, big-government boondoggle? What position could be more conservative than that?
Personally, I don't think it's any of the government's damn business what consenting adults choose to do with their own bodies, in the privacy of their own homes, so long as they don't harm anyone else, get behind the wheel, that sort of thing.. If a drug user commits a real crime, or even disturbs the fucking peace, then arrest 'em. But turning 40 million otherwise non-violent pot smokers, for example, into criminals because they smoke a plant that the pharmaceutical industry can't monopolize and patent is shameful and wrong. Leaving aside for a moment the philosophical position that the government has no business telling people what they can and can't do with their own bodies, I think at the very least the sensible, reasonable thing to do would be to legalize and tax marijuana, and, as the Netherlands has done, adopt a harm reduction strategy for other, harder drugs, combining that with treatment on demand for people who need it, including for alcohol... which, by the way, incurs more social cost and causes more health problems than all the other drugs (except maybe nicotine) combined.
What really chafes my 'nads about the drug war isn't that I have any desire to actually do drugs; I left those days behind long ago. But I have little doubt that if I really wanted to, I could find 'em. Despite the billions of dollars spent every year to "fight" them, most people understand that drugs are still everywhere in this society- and the most dangerous, deadly drugs of them all are no farther away than the liquor store or the local Cigarettes 4 Less Outlet.. No, what bugs me most, aside from the fundamentally anti-freedom notion that the government owns your head and what you can or can't do with it, is that there are real-life consequences to our overzealous, crazed inquisition against the "drug menace". Real tax dollars being blown, real non-violent, first time offenders being locked away for decades, real cancer grannies are being hauled off to the hoosegow for smoking the only thing that will ease their nausea, and real people are finding that they are unable to, say, get adequate pain medication, because their doctors are terrified of the DEA. God forbid you should be one of these people with a failed back operation, who can't get a doctor to agressively treat the pain that wracks your body 24-7-- because there are literally legions of federal servants who make it their business to ensure you remain in horrible agony... lest you find yourself "addicted".
Don't believe me? Maybe you'd rather believe that someone like John Ashcroft has your best interests at heart? I'm sure he'd write you a prescription for some vigorous prayer, that's about it. Remember, it was your Federal Government that decided, in the wake of 9-11, that it had nothing better to do than initiate investigations and prosecutions into Tommy Chong's online retail bong business, and Gonzo Porn.
Which leads me to...
The "Culture War" and Censorship.
Here's an area where I sometimes find myself arguing with would-be "progressives" as well as right-wingers. In keeping with what I consider my vaguely social libertarian outlook, I think that consenting adults should have the right to read, watch, listen, or spank the monkey to whatever "obscene" material they choose, provided, of course, that said material, likewise, involves consenting adults. Any time you get in an argument with the "ban porn" crowd, they launch into diatribes about porn and kids.. Well, news flash, porn involving kids is illegal everywhere on the planet, and rightfully so. But to drag that into an argument pertaining to erotic materials for and involving adults, is intellectual laziness of the worst sort-- which is probably why they tend to do it. Likewise, you can't get through an argument about medical marijuana; or legalizing the stuff altogether, for adults-- without some shitbrain dragging in arguments about "protecting the children". I would refer them to a wonderful quote from some guy named Twain, or something...
"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak, because a baby can't chew it"
But I am sympathetic to the plaintive wails of right-wing conservatives who can't find their issue of Weekly Gun Nut, Soldier of Fortune, or Kill 'em All, Let God Sort 'Em Out, because the newstands have become crowded with sinful filth, oozing naked breasts and lewd, sick, pink flesh. And the internet- whoa, that internet!- all you have to do is google "hardcore fucking" and you will find, amazingly enough, hardcore fucking.. (Or, now, this blog.) I'm reminded of an episode of King of the Hill I saw the other night, where they're standing around complaining about 'filth'.. "Why, it's- it's- it's right there on the tv, once you hit the Pay Per View"..
So, one compromise I propose to the right (as well as the would-be censors on the left) is this: all televisions will come with two high-tech devices.. one to change the channel, and one to turn the thing off altogether. Using these devices, you can become your own little Anthony Comstock, censoring images left-and-right as they attempt to enter your home. Likewise, I would argue that cultural conservatives should have just as much right to keep porn out of their homes as I have to keep Jehovah's witnesses out of mine. The minute someone invents a DVD of Rocco Ravages Prague that is capable of walking out from behind the curtain of the local video store, breaking into the home of someone like Pat Robertson or Andrea Dworkin, inserting itself into the player and displaying its wares on the plasma screen in full, squirting color-- I promise I will be the first to call for such an item's banning.
And, no, the internet is not doing the same thing.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, last week you had the Orwellian-titled "addictive images specialist" Judith Reisman testify to the U.S. Senate, babbling some totally unscientific crap about how erotic images produce something called "erotoxins", and as such --since they cause pleasurable sensations in the brain- must be across the board banned. Hmmmm. What if I just think of a naked woman? Theoretically, that might produce some of these erotoxins, too... if an artist persists in drawing naked women, what then? Chop off his hands? (Might serve doube duty, with regards to those pesky erotoxins.) Dare I say it, if looking at smut produces these nasty, happy thoughts, what does looking at an actual naked woman (or man, if you're so inclined) do? How in the name of sweet Jesus are we going to prevent people from doing that?
Never fear, I'm sure they're working on it. The wholesale march to tell you what you can read, watch, or get your jollies from continues, unabated. At these Senate hearings, it was asserted that Internet Porn is, quote, "worse than crack".
And since we can't -yet- control the images people keep in their heads, those gul-dang nekkid bodies get in there for good!!!
Mary Anne Layden, co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology Program at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Cognitive Therapy, called porn the "most concerning thing to psychological health that I know of existing today."
...
Pornography addicts have a more difficult time recovering from their addiction than cocaine addicts, since coke users can get the drug out of their system, but pornographic images stay in the brain forever, Layden said.
Right. And short of lopping off a man's nuts, he's probably still going to be interested in sex. But it's amazing. We've got a country full of heavily armed crazies, pumped full of bile by spittle-spewing hate-mongers cramming the range of the AM Dial, people in love with guns and bombs and oversized trucks, a planet where millions of folks literally don't give a shit that 2004 was the second warmest year on record and the arctic polar cap has shrunk by a third in just three decades.. Zombies on prozac and ritalin and zoloft and lithium and god-knows what else, kids being blown apart daily in a bullshit oil war.. We're overworked, underpaid, loaded full of chemicals, poisons, hydrogenated gunk and high fructose corn syrup... overstimulated and stuck for 90 hours a week under flourescent lights, cut off from our families and nature and most things real and true and good and funky, we've got an idiot man-president who can't even lie right and we re-elected him.. and the most concerning thing to psychological health is ...pictures of people fucking?
Where's your psychological health at, lady?
Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist and advisor to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality echoed Layden's concern about the internet and the somatic effects of pornography.
"Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance," Satinover said. "That is, it causes masturbation, which causes release of the naturally occurring opioids. It does what heroin can't do, in effect."
Y'all should read that several times, to be sure exactly what this guy is saying.
See, according to the oddly-named Mr. Satinover, the problem isn't so much the porn.. it's the masturbation, and the natural opiods which are released during that act (and during sex, as well).. Dang it, there's nothing we can do about that- yet.. but one of these days, the Junior Anti-Sex League will achieve total victory over that enemy of Big Brother, the Orgasm! Hmmm. And just what is this official-sounding National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, you ask? I did too. Check this out:
Welcome to the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) -- a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to affirming a complementary, male-female model of gender and sexuality.
NARTH, founded in 1992, is composed of psychiatrists, psychoanalytically informed psychologists, certified social workers, and other behavioral scientists, as well as laymen in fields such as law, religion, and education.
Ahh. So it's, basically, a medical-sounding group that shills for the Jesus people.. you know, the ones who have nothing better to do than run around trying to "cure" gays.
The real question is, why is our Government holding hearings and paying these religious right wackjobs to come and explain why the sex chemicals in our brains need to be better regulated? After we just had an election where Dick Cheney assured us nuclear disaster was just a vote for John Kerry away, and the undulating colors of the terror threat were deemed so horrifying that, heavens, unless the polls start to swing the other way, we might have to cancel the election altogether?
Now, all of a sudden, we have nothing more important to worry than except "erotoxins" and pictures of Veronika Zemanova?
Someone should tell those shitheads that sex isn't toxic. Pictures of naked men and women gettin' it on, aren't toxic. Erotic Images Aren't Toxic.
War is toxic. Hate is toxic. Fuck, Toxic waste is toxic. Discrimination is toxic. Censorship is Toxic.
....but I was talking about compromise, wasn't I? Ahhh, sorry, got a little off-track.
Okay, then, here's my final compromise Culture War proposal to the religious right: You agree not to tell us what we, as consenting adults, can or can't watch, read, or enjoy in the privacy of our own homes, and we won't make you watch any smut against your will. Furthermore, we promise not to mention the fact that virgins don't have babies, invisible men don't live in the sky, and vegetables don't sing about the god-damn bible.
Many of my friends and colleagues on the left have been doing a good bit of soul-searching in the past weeks, asking how the Democratic Party can adjust to this wild new reality that finds us being walloped in the polls with something like a 3% "mandate". Many have suggested that the Democrats need to abandon core principles, or at least moderate them, in an effort to "reach out" to the heartland voter, the evangelical Christian, that kind of thing. While I am of the opinion, myself, that the best thing the DNC could do- not only in terms of reclaiming its lost soul, but also in the eyes of the average American voter- would be to strap on a pair of balls for once and consistently stand for what is right, polling be damned--- I am nevertheless not totally deaf to calls for concilliation and attempts to find common ground with our political opponents. Therefore, I'm working on some rock-solid, practical ideas which I think can form the basis of a workable comprimise on some of the thorny issues which divide this nation today. I'm totally fucking serious. Really.
Abortion.
Yeah, why not start with the easy one first, huh? Seriously, this is the big, sticky loogie in the back of the throat of American Politics (I should win some kind of award for that metaphor, IMHO) and if we don't get past this one, we're just going to spend eternity glaring at each other from across red/blue state lines like drunken officemates who hate each other at the Company Christmas party. So, a few proposals with regards to the abortion issue:
Herewidth, from now on, any right-winger, Christian Conservative, or Republican Citizen who finds the act or procedure of abortion to be morally and ethically reprenhensible, will never, ever have to have one against her will. Furthermore, I would suggest that pro-lifers should be free to tell their friends they don't like abortion, and to brag about the fact that they would never do such a thing.
Many pro-lifers consider the birth control pill to be a form of abortion. Therefore, I suggest that no pro-lifer should ever be forced to take the birth control pill.
But compromise is about more than that; it's about working together. I propose that Liberals and Conservatives, persons pro-choice and pro-life, could all work together to reduce the need for surgical abortion: Namely, by supporting research into better and more effective forms of birth control, a medical science which has barely advanced in some 40 years.. Also, I would propose that we find common ground with right-wingers in their desire to reduce abortions by working to ensure that everyone who wants access to birth control has it, by working to ensure that health plans cover birth control, and by making the birth control pill available OTC.
Since it's obvious that women who don't have health care coverage can't very well be expected to carry a healthy baby to term, we can compromise with right-wingers by all of us working together to get universal health coverage in this country, preferably through a Canadian-Style Single Payer Health Care System. As well, it's obvious that a single mother making minimum wage is going to find abortion a more practical option than raising a child on six dollars an hour. Therefore, we agree to compromise with the religious right by working to reduce any financial-related abortions by supporting a liveable minimum wage in the United States.
Now, I am firmly of the opinion that the "partial birth abortion" argument is a red herring, a foot in the door for the folks who want to criminalize all abortion from conception onward. However, if pro-lifers can come up with a proveable, verifiable instance where, say, a woman was pregnant for eight months and then decided to get an abortion at the last minute on a whim because, say, she thought she "looked fat", I will roundly condemn such a thing and I'm certain my friends on the left will concur.
No discussion of sexuality would be complete without mentioning abstinence. We understand that total sexual abstinence is the only 100% certain way to prevent pregnancy, not to mention orgasm. Therefore, we agree that we will support right-wingers who wish to abstain from all sexual activity, and, as much as possible, we will abstain from having sex with them. Furthermore, we will vigorously encourage them to live completely chaste lives, if that is their choice, and even when it is not their choice.
Religion
We understand that many on the right take their religious beliefs very seriously. (Boy, do we ever!).. We realize that this is an area where we need to come together. My proposals for compromise on the issue of religion are simple. I propose that no one in this nation be prevented from worshipping as he or she sees fit. I might even consider allowing churches to be exempt from taxation, insofar as they refrain from direct politicking. I suggest that no one in this country be discriminated against in employment or housing on the basis of their deeply held religious beliefs, and I suggest that we compromise by saying that any personal displays of religious opinion, be they a crucifix around the neck or a jesus fish on a minivan, be considered-- get this-- constitutionally protected free speech.
Any church, home, or private business that wants to post the 10 commandments should be absoultely free to do so!
Now, prayer in schools is a big issue for Christian Conservatives, so I'm going to go out on a big limb here with the compromising-- I propose that no child ever be prevented from praying, on his or her own volition, in a public school, so long as it does not disturb school activities. I would even go so far as to say any child that wishes to pray silently should have the right to do so at any time during the day- even in the middle of class, during a test, during dodgeball- whenever! No child should ever be told he or she can't believe in whatever he or she wishes to believe in. I would also propose that kids should be allowed to form religious clubs as they see fit, so long as they don't proseltyze to other children or disrupt the learning environment.
So, long-time readers of the blog may have noted that, while this forum has always been a place for my profanity-laden rants, of late I've become something of a one-note charlie in that regard. I don't exactly apologize, like many of my friends on the left I haven't wanted to do much since the election except swear like a motherfucking sailor... However, in the interest of keeping my own sanity and as much of a positive outlook as is reasonably expectable in such fucked-up times, I am going to try to focus on some different stuff in the coming weeks. There is much good in the world, and much more interesting, incomprehensible, funny or just plain weird. That's all worth talking about as well.
Astute readers also may have noted that I haven't wanted to have a whole helluva lot to do with current events lately. For instance, Rumsfeld is a lying, prevaricating, beady-eyed shit-monkey, and it seems the troops rightfully pelted him with broken can openers and bits of rusted sheet metal at the press conference the other day.... yes, yes, we know... It's important stuff, but I'll be damned if --at this moment-- I can even bring myself to address some of it. I mean, look-- no matter what went down with the election, a good portion of you (by you I mean the American Public) voted for this nightmare. This mismanagment. This Joke of a Presidential Administration. You did. So I'm supposed to get up there and hector your ass because Halliburton has walked away from this war with hundreds of billions of dollars and our troops have to dumpster dive for scrap metal to bolt onto their own vehicles as armor? What the fuck can I say about something like that?
How about, "No Duh"?
Yeah. Support the troops. Maybe if you send them several thousand of those Made-in-China magnetic "Support the Troops" ribbons, they can stick those fucking things on to defend themselves against the roadside bombs that our government "can't afford" to give them adequate armor against.
No, with stuff like that, I don't even have the energy to fucking hammer it right now. Fuck it. You people voted for this shit, sooooo... enjoy it. I mean, if you can't figure it out by now.... well, if you voted for Bush, I guess you can't figure it out. All I can do is recommend you buy a helmet, because you're probably too fucking dumb to safely go outside without one.
Hey, I hope it all works out- I really do- but when the shit comes due, the kids come home in a box, the deficit is through the roof, the foreign governments that are financing our debt decide to cash out of our badly-run economy, the troops aren't armored, and the war is going even more fucking wrong than it ever was, my stock response for the time being is going to have to be "Mmmmm-Hmmmm? Sorry, not my problem!" I mean, it IS my problem, because I live in this country and on this planet, but fuck it- I did what I could, and so did everyone else who cared enough about this shit to support John Freaking Kerry and a return to competent Government. We threw everything, including the kitchen sink, at this election, and -by hook or by crook- Bush "won". 60 million people, more or less, just didn't want to be bothered with pesky details, like "the facts"... So, fuck it. Let someone else point out the obvious, like it's insane that the party of "support the troops" can't find the cash to give them actual fucking armor on their vehicles.
No, right now I want to focus on the few people on the planet who are still making sense, speaking intelligently and eloquently. Wangari Maathai, Kenyan founder of the Green Belt Movement, won the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize and managed to pack more wisdom into five minutes of words this week than the entire US Media has communicated in a decade. The Green Belt Movement is an environmental organization that, among other things, has planted 30 million trees across Africa in the past 27 years. Imagine that! People planting fucking trees, instead of using them for their god-given purpose of being clear cut to make room for another Wal-Mart. Ahhh, but I promised to ease up on the cynicism. Please forgive. Here are some excerpts from Ms. Maathai's excellent speech:
As the first African woman to receive this prize, I accept it on behalf of the people of Kenya and Africa, and indeed the world. I am especially mindful of women and the girl child. I hope it will encourage them to raise their voices and take more space for leadership. I know the honour also gives a deep sense of pride to our men, both old and young. As a mother, I appreciate the inspiration this brings to the youth and urge them to use it to pursue their dreams.
Although this prize comes to me, it acknowledges the work of countless individuals and groups across the globe. They work quietly and often without recognition to protect the environment, promote democracy, defend human rights and ensure equality between women and men. By so doing, they plant seeds of peace. I know they, too, are proud today. To all who feel represented by this prize I say use it to advance your mission and meet the high expectations the world will place on us.
***
Entire communities also come to understand that while it is necessary to hold their governments accountable, it is equally important that in their own relationships with each other, they exemplify the leadership values they wish to see in their own leaders, namely justice, integrity and trust.
Although initially the Green Belt Movement's tree planting activities did not address issues of democracy and peace, it soon became clear that responsible governance of the environment was impossible without democratic space. Therefore, the tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya. Citizens were mobilised to challenge widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement. In Nairobi's Uhuru Park, at Freedom Corner, and in many parts of the country, trees of peace were planted to demand the release of prisoners of conscience and a peaceful transition to democracy.
Through the Green Belt Movement, thousands of ordinary citizens were mobilized and empowered to take action and effect change. They learned to overcome fear and a sense of helplessness and moved to defend democratic rights.
***
As we progressively understood the causes of environmental degradation, we saw the need for good governance. Indeed, the state of any county's environment is a reflection of the kind of governance in place, and without good governance there can be no peace. Many countries, which have poor governance systems, are also likely to have conflicts and poor laws protecting the environment.
In 2002, the courage, resilience, patience and commitment of members of the Green Belt Movement, other civil society organizations, and the Kenyan public culminated in the peaceful transition to a democratic government and laid the foundation for a more stable society.
Excellencies, friends, ladies and gentlemen,
It is 30 years since we started this work. Activities that devastate the environment and societies continue unabated. Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. This will happen if we see the need to revive our sense of belonging to a larger family of life, with which we have shared our evolutionary process.
In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other.
That time is now.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has challenged the world to broaden the understanding of peace: there can be no peace without equitable development; and there can be no development without sustainable management of the environment in a democratic and peaceful space. This shift is an idea whose time has come.
***
Further, industry and global institutions must appreciate that ensuring economic justice, equity and ecological integrity are of greater value than profits at any cost. The extreme global inequities and prevailing consumption patterns continue at the expense of the environment and peaceful co-existence. The choice is ours.
I would like to call on young people to commit themselves to activities that contribute toward achieving their long-term dreams. They have the energy and creativity to shape a sustainable future. To the young people I say, you are a gift to your communities and indeed the world. You are our hope and our future.
The holistic approach to development, as exemplified by the Green Belt Movement, could be embraced and replicated in more parts of Africa and beyond.
The woman makes a great deal of sense. Too bad that, in this country, the only way we would get anyone that intelligent, speaking that level of wisdom, anywhere near the White House, would be if they reinstated the public tours.
But it is my intent, as we approach the new year and beyond, to try to focus a bit more on positive, thoughtful subjects and my personal opinions of them.. (I'm reminded of the Kids in the Hall sketch about the guy who can only sound sarcastic when he talks. I really want to talk about positive things... I really feel like it! Like, I'm tooootally optimistic about the state of the world. Really.)
For despite Bush and Cheney and the regressive neo-luddites who currently hold the reins of politcal power in the US, it is still a wonderful, amazing world, one for which the fat lady has not quite sung.. not yet, at least.
It would seem that Wangari Maathai, 2004 Nobel Peace Price Winner, still believes it's worth fighting for.
For that matter, so do I.
Fans of my invective-filled, foulmouthed, insult-laden rants should not fear, however. I fully intend to continue bitching and griping. Even if I didn't intend to, I probably would anyway. Case in point:
I know I've said it before, but if I had ten bucks for every helpful suggestion coming from right-wingers these days, I'd be a rich satan-worshipping blue state elitist, wouldn't I?
AKA the 'power' of a stupid rightwing fuck-jockey with too much time on his hands:
(From politicalities.com. ...is that even a word?)
The site I've been spending the most time on lately is Democratic Underground. Of course, I'm not permitted to post there, but registration isn't required simply to lurk, and I've been quite the lurker. At first I just came for some simple schadenfreude, to enjoy a little well-earned gloating, but now I simply can't look away. It's a fascinating glimpse into the minds of the delusional. A doctoral candidate in psychiatry could probably get a hell of a thesis out of it.
Not being a psychiatrist myself, I don't know if there's a formal name for the syndrome the DUers suffer, but it's most interesting. They hold an unshakeable belief, a belief not only that they are right, but that the rightness of their ideas is self-evident. They simply can't countenance the possibility that anyone would support Bush over Kerry, let alone a majority. This belief is so ironclad that evidence to the contrary must be explained away... no matter how preposterous the explanation, nothing is less probable than the chance that they are simply wrong.
How to explain Kerry's electoral defeat? The snap judgment was that the majority which supported Bush was stupid, misled, or both. That reconciles the outcome with the conviction, but it leads to an uncomfortable state of mind. People don't want to live in a country of fools and dupes. Furthermore, the tiny voice of rationality intrudes. Intelligent, clear-eyed Bush supporters exist, and they damn well know it.
So the story changed: the election must have been stolen. The majority did support Kerry, and did agree with their worldview, but Bush's evil cabal, led by the execrable Karl Rove, rigged the ballots. It's not enough to believe that Kerry's 160k margin of defeat in Ohio was the result of fraud, his 3.5 million margin of defeat nationwide was also stolen. Think of it: these people believe that Bush managed to steal over three million votes without leaving piles and piles of evidence. (This is difficult to reconcile with their belief that Bush is a low-grade moron, so of course the sinister plot is led by Rove and Cheney, the puppet-masters.)
But what of John Kerry, whom they had elevated to the level of a demigod? He's been silent about the fraud. How to explain that? On DU, no fewer than three theories have been proposed: he's biding his time and plotting, he's in league with the Bushes and was simply a prop, and he or his family have been threatened. All three have found their share of adherents. At first, the "biding his time" theory was most popular, but as the days tick by it's becoming less credible and the faithful are losing hope and drifting to the other two theories. It's fascinating to watch them turn on their man. The few faithful who remain have become ever more shrill as more and more of them break out the knives. The one theory which has not been widely proposed to explain Kerry's silence, of course, is that he really lost, he really knows it, and he's coping. That would shatter the myth.
A few DUers have suggested this, of course... not all of them are entirely insane. These poor voices of reason have been shouted down as "defeatists".
And now, the latest: Michael Moore. Appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Moore wore a suit and a clean-shaven chin, and spoke of Kerry's defeat. Not a fraudulent election, not a massive Republican conspiracy, but an electoral defeat. Moore tried to explain Kerry's loss... while everybody knows that he really won! The DUers are outraged. Some believe, as they did with Kerry, that Moore is plotting something, that his apparent joinder with the "defeatists" is all a scheme, a scam to get the Republicans off-guard. Some believe he must have been threatened. But most of them seem to think he's sold out. He's in the pocket of the Republicans. Think of it: Michael Moore in the pocket of the Republicans.
It's an awesome demonstration of the power of delusion. No theory, no matter how outlandish, will be rejected as long as it permits them to cling to their belief that their ideas are correct. It's fascinating to watch, and I encourage everyone to spend a few hours enjoying the spectacle.
Unbelievable. Wouldn'tcha know it, it's the left that has created straw men and caricatures of their political opponents, and who can't admit that there are intelligent, thoughtful people on the other side of the spectrum who simply disagree with them on certain things. Yes, we truly could learn something about tolerance and understanding of different viewpoints & opinions from the likes of Coulter. Savage. O'Reilly. Hannity. Scarborough, and of course Laura "Shut up and sing" Ingraham. Indeed.
I think this asshat, like many on the right, doth protest too much... "But- but- you KNOW we're not all crazed religious extremists, buckle-hatted puritans who want to put women in stocks for wearing pants!" Uh huh. So why do you let those folks write your fucking platform, then?
This line is great: "They hold an unshakeable belief, a belief not only that they are right, but that the rightness of their ideas is self-evident."
Rumsfeld, Party of four!.. Or is it Falwell? Robertson? Cheney?...
...Bush?
An unshakeable belief? You mean against all evidence to the contrary? Where the fuck should I start? Denial about Global Warming? The Iraq War and it's never ending Macy's Parade of failed and bullshit rationales? No? How about Creationist "theory" and the ever-popular missionary lizards?
Yeah. "Delusion". Like anyone on the right in this country has any basis whatsoever for using that word in public. Fucking Delusional is smiling like a god-damn electroshock patient as Dick Cheney insinuates an Iraq-9/11 connection for the umpteenth time. Delusional is insisting that you're fiscally fucking responsible as you run the deficit through the roof, or asserting that you're somehow morally superior because you don't approve of Gay Marriage, nevermind the fact that your policies fuck the poor, and you just sent 18 year old #1,006 to his bloody death in a war based on lies that has improved the lot of no one except certain well-placed Halliburton and Bechtel execs. Sure, mac- you tell me all about what is fucking "delusional".
You right-wingers have been floating the same load of tripe since the election. Allow me to disabuse you of the most noxious of your assertions, right here.
First off, how do we "explain" our "massive defeat"? No matter how you slice it, genius, there wasn't one. We almost won the fucking election, and even without the shennanigans, the disenfranchisement, Nathan Sproul running around Ohio and Nevada and Oregon and Pennsylvania registering Democrats and tearing up their forms (a Felony- for which I suspect Mr. Sproul will do the exact same amount of jail time as a Mr. Ken Lay probably will)... AND the fact that easily hacked Diebold GEMS tabulating software was counting, by some estimates, 30% of the votes.. Yeah, despite all that, your Chimperor's "mandate" was a 51% to 48% victory. If those numbers were reversed, would the right wing be taking it as a sign that they needed to abandon their core values? That they needed to court the Secular, Coastal, Pro-Choice voters who have abandoned the GOP in droves? Fuck no. Bill Clinton won twice and you ass-clowns only took that as evidence that the lord wanted you to become even more intransigent and obnoxious in your smarmy, church lady, Gay-bashing, Clinic Bombing, Doctor Shooting, Christian Rock ways.. So don't give me this "massive defeat" crap. When the right wants to tell us what we've been doing wrong, my answer is "fuck you- we haven't been doing anything wrong, and if we have, I'll trust someone like Howard Dean to explain what it is way sooner than I will some shithole neo-con blogger trying to be helpful"...
Secondly, I'm sorry if questioning the sacrosanct election results makes any of us "delusional". You people believed that Bill Clinton barbecued and ate Vince Foster, Hillary Clinton hung crack pipes on the White House Christmas Tree as part of a Satanic Ritual, and some of you stupid fuckwits still think the Clenis is bringing UN Black Helicopters in to tattoo barcodes on your foreheads and force your teenage daughters to use birth control... Yet we're delusional because we think the difference between the exit polls-- the same exit polls which are the basis for the assertion that "values" motivated a big chunk of the voters this time around-- and the actual election results smells kind of fishy, particularly in light of the fact that Bev Harris has conclusively demonstrated that Diebold's central tabulation software (the "proprietary" stuff they would sooner gnaw off their own feet than let a government agency or the public examine) leaves a massively easy back door open for hackers to come in and alter election results with no trail or secondary verification available. Yeah, what a bunch of "kooks" we must be, to not trust that Diebold- with the CEO who promised to "deliver" Bush Ohio- would do the right thing while no one is looking? After it's been shown that some of their head programmers had serious criminal records? Wow. Yeah, we must be nuts to even question those election results, when they diverged seriously and anamolously from Zogby's exit polling-- particularly in areas with Electronic Voting and/or the questionable Vote Tabulation software...
But my favorite part of these oft-repeated asshat RW assertions is this saw about how the Democratic Party (along with Michael Moore, who speaks for no one except Michael Moore) "alienated" voters because of our "rhetoric" and "extremism". Like, Michael Moore questioning Bush's business ties to the Saudis makes him a "hate-filled extremist" but Ann Coulter calling for the execution of Liberals by beating with baseball bats means she's "in touch with the heartland". What a crock of utter, flaming bullshit. If "extremist rhetoric" alienated large swaths of the voting public, I guarantee you that the GOP would have silenced their mouthpieces on right-wing radio a looooong fucking time ago.
You want to talk about extremism? Delusion? Check out this guy:
ABC Sports last week took careful aim at the "moral issues" that are said to have driven this month's national election and delivered a good swift kick to their dentures on national television.
The main reaction from viewers and the professional "family values" lobby has been to denounce the nudity and clearly implied sex of the now-notorious ad that promoted last week's Monday Night Football game. That's all well and good, but there was more going on in the ad that no one will mention—race.
The ad shows blonde white sexpot Nicolette Sheridan of the steamy "Desperate Housewives" series smooching up to black football star Terrell Owens in the locker room of the Philadelphia Eagles. Then the young lady drops her bath towel and jumps into Mr. Owens' not-exactly recalcitrant arms.
"Aw, hell," he leers, "the team's going to have to win without me."
In the aftermath of the similar reaction to CBS's showing of the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake flap during the Super Bowl last February, there can be little doubt the ABC ad was not just a blunder.
It was an intentional act of moral subversion.
It was filmed the Friday before, and in the aftermath of all the jabber about "moral issues" in the election, it ought to be transparent that it was intended as an act of political-cultural subversion as well.
In the CBS incident, Miss Jackson exposed her breast on camera during a performance with Mr. Timberlake. The Federal Communications Commission fined CBS, which broadcast the Super Bowl, the piddling sum of $550,000—little more than lunch money, of course, for the big networks and hardly a deterrent to similar smacks at good taste in the future.
But taste and morality are by no means the ad's only targets.
Like the Jackson-Timberlake performance, the Owens-Sheridan ad was interracial and brazenly so—if only morals and taste had been the targets, the producers could easily have found white actresses who are less obviously Nordic than the golden-locked Miss Sheridan, but Nordic is what the ad's producers no doubt wanted.
For that matter, if you only wanted to take a swipe at morals and taste, you could find a black woman to rip her towel off or replace Mr. Owens with a famous white athlete (there are still a few).
But that wasn't the point, was it? The point was not just to hurl a pie in the face of morals and good taste but also of white racial and cultural identity. The message of the ad was that white women are eager to have sex with black men, that they should be eager, and that black men should take them up on it.
So far only one voice has mentioned the ad's racial meaning and denounced its "insensitivity" (to blacks)—that of black Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy.
Blacks are permitted to notice race. Whites aren't.
But the ad's message also was that interracial sex is normal and legitimate, a fairly radical concept for both the dominant media as well as its audience. Nevertheless, for decades, interracial couples of different sexes have been sneaked into advertising, movies and television series, and almost certainly not because of popular demand from either race. The Owens-Sheridan match is only the most notorious to date.
In the minds of those who produced the ad, race is at least as important as the moral and aesthetic norms their ad subverts.
To them, the race as well as the religion, the morality, and the culture of the host society are all equally hostile and oppressive forces that need to be discredited, debunked and destroyed.
If the destruction can't happen at the polls or through the courts, they can always use the long march through the culture that control of the mass media allows.
Breaking down the sexual barriers between the races is a major weapon of cultural destruction because it means the dissolution of the cultural boundaries that define breeding and the family and, ultimately, the transmission and survival of the culture itself.
"We apologize," smirked the spokesman for those who sponsored the ad, Mark Mandel, the Vice President of ABC Sports.
Mr. Mandel of course ultimately reports to his own boss, Michael Eisner, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company that owns ABC.
And Mr. Eisner's Disney in recent years has become a battering ram against traditional American identity.
Re-electing President Bush and voting against homosexual marriage are well and good, but they won't defeat the real enemy in the moral, cultural and racial war that the likes of Mr. Mandel and Mr. Eisner are waging.
If American voters really are driven by the "moral issue," they need to drive a good bit further than Mr. Bush and his "family values" allies have suggested.
Yes, folks, driving to the la-la land of Christian Reconstructionism is a good start, putting Abortion Doctors to Death isn't bad, and Stoning Gays, Adulterers, and Blasphemers is an okay half-solution, if you want to be lily-livered, wishy-washy moderates... But if y'all were really interested in Morals.... well, You know, "Morals" starts with an "M", and so does "Miscegenation"...
Yes, you should be willing to drive... all the way to Lynchburg, if you get Mr. Francis's drift.
And apparently, he invites readers to email him. I encourage my faithful readers to do so, particularly if you have images to include, preferably ones of large, well endowed, handsome, athletic black men ...erm, frolicking with willing, nubile, blond women. (You know, just to remind him what we're up against.) There's no word, however, on whether or not this proud Aryan Warrior has an amazon.com wishlist-- If he did, though, I'd suspect white sheets are at the top of the gift registry. Just a hunch... And judging by his picture, Queen Size--- at the smallest.
I mean, for some moments, there truly are no words. How dare we on the left insinuate that any of Bush's supporters are bigots! How can we call them homophobes, nevermind the guy on yourewelcomeeverybody.com, grinning like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, while holding up the cardboard sign saying "Not Here Ya Queers"?... How intolerant of us to suggest that there be any hint of Racism in the "new" Republican Party (certainly not, with such high profile Tokens on board as Condi and Clarence!) ...pay no attention to the Bob Jones University policy on interracial dating, or the fat, ugly toad writing the screeds about "white racial and cultural identity".
What do you wanna bet this guy's deep-seated issues- and they seem to be pretty fucking glaring- have to do with an undersized, perpetually limp dick... and his wife running off with the Gardener?
Sure, it's pathetic, and it might be kind of funny, or sad, that this world still has creatures like this Sam Francis cat slithering around, defining morals in terms of "cultural identity" and "racial purity". Sure, it might be- except these issues are hardly academic.
It seems for the past couple years, The FBI has been tracking threatening letters sent to sports stars and other prominent African Americans warning them off of dating "outside their race".. recently, High School Students have received the letters as well:
The letters, postmarked from cities in northeast Ohio and Pennsylvania, criticize interracial relationships and direct the men to end such relationships "or they're going to be castrated, shot or set on fire."
The letters are usually signed "angry white woman" or "angry Caucasian woman."
Right. Angry? No doubt. White? Almost certainly... But why do I suspect they're being written by a man? Either way, I don't think it's that much of a stretch, particularly in light of what Mr. Francis has argued above, to assert that this may be another one of the "values voters" we on the left are supposed to be hanging our heads in shame for not "courting" not "speaking to" not "understanding the imperative of the biblical worldview.." and, above all, we've committed the sin of "demonizing" these individuals, and -worst of all!- unfairly categorizing them as "bigoted"...
And in New York, recently a burning cross was left on the lawn of an interracial couple.
Last time I checked, this was 2004. Not 1954. Last time I checked.
Remember, "Re-electing President Bush and voting against homosexual marriage are well and good..."
So, strike another blow for "white racial identity". Just don't call Bush supporters "stupid", or "misled"...
And whatever you do... don't try to imply that they're bigoted.
On Oct. 4, while George W. Bush was in Iowa, blathering about his tax relief (Sure, Billionaires love it. But you will, too!) he recognized a "Good American" named Michael Hintz. Hintz, apparently, is part of that "values" heartland that Democrats can't connect with. See, we don't speak the language of the Christian Conservative. We don't express concern with the unborn, at least not the kind of concern that wants to stick women in prison for getting abortions, and wants to give pharmacists the right to tell sexually active people to "pray to Jesus for self-control" as opposed to dispensing oral contaceptives. No, Michael Hintz was obviously the kind of Voter Dubya wanted to get out to the polls... The "Base".
"One of those families is the Hintz family, from Clive, Iowa. Thank you all for coming. (Applause.)
"It's a special day for Mike and Sharla, not because they're with the President or with Chairman Grassley, but because it's their 13th wedding anniversary. (Applause.) Theirs is a typical story. See, last year they received a child tax credit check for $1,600 for their four children. And under all the tax relief we've passed, they saved about $2,800 last year. With this extra money they bought a wood-burning stove to reduce their home heating costs. They made a decision for their family.
"They also made home repairs and improvements. They took the family on a vacation to Minnesota. Next year when you get your check, you may want to come to Texas. (Laughter.) Without the tax bill I'm signing today, the Hintzes would have paid $1,200 more in federal taxes next year. Think about that. Here's a family of four, working hard to raise their kids, the money would have been going out of their pocket. I believe they can spend that $1,200 better than the federal government can." (Applause.)
Hintz is apparently a "youth pastor", a gig that, it would seem, has pretty low character requirements, considering it was another "youth pastor" (otherwise known as "that jerk") who beat the crap out of a four year old boy at a Texas Rangers baseball game while trying to pry a foul ball out of his little hands...
So... who is "Youth Pastor" Michael Hintz, family man, Bush Supporter, "values" voter, Red State Heartland Merkin? Erm, well, now it looks like he's also an accused Sex Offender. Busted for having an affair with a 17 year old member of his Flock. (Guess he "Flocked up", huh? Or he took the "Congregation" concept a bit too far?) It remains to be seen whether or not some of that much-anticipated $1200 in Tax relief received by Hintz went to seedy Des Moines area motels, trashy Fredricks of Hollywood Lingerie, or bubble-gum flavored lip gloss...
Now, as many of you probably have figured out by now, I'm generally libertarian on the subject of sexual and other private behaviors between and amongst consenting adults. Operative words being, however, consent and adults. I think there are damn good reasons for the age of consent being 18, although I don't think I'm alone in thinking that there's a difference between an 18 year old HS Senior being arrested and sent to jail for "statutory rape" because he was having sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, and a pervy 30something youth pastor giving the "good news" to some doe-eyed bible camp ingenue.. (Hell, at least she was 17.. and not 12) ... But none of that matters, because apparently I, as a secular member of the latte-sucking coastal elite, have no handle whatsoever on "values" or how they motivate the heartland voters, i.e. the Hintzes of the world.
For example, I don't give a shit if the gay couple next door decide they want to get married. Nope. If they would invite me, I might even give them a nice bottle of wine, a bread machine or an espresso maker, depending on how good friends they were. This is not a merely academic exercise in hypothesis, here... I really did used to have a gay couple next door. They were great. Never caused any problems, always really nice, never made any noise except on summer afternoons one of them would play piano, and you could hear the relaxing sounds of classical music drift over on the wind occasionally. Great Neighbors. Then they moved out. In their place I got a, fuck, I can't tell if they're a family, but a fucking gaggle of yahoo fucking twentysomething white trash skinhead morons. I think they're a motocross race team, or something, they have all these beat up fucking vehicles all over the place now, there's fucking garbage all over the street, and on summer afternoons when the windows are open I can hear them playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or yelling at each other about whose turn it is to buy the beer. I'm really tempted, at times, to run over there and yell at them-- "Why... Why... WHY Can't You Be Gay?!?"
...but I suspect that might not go over too well...
Now that these folks have been there for a while, I actually am half-tempted to surreptitiously mention, if I get the chance, that the former tenants in their place were a couple of gay men. These kids are just the type who would totally flip out. Like they needed to bleach the countertops, scrub down the doorknobs, that kind of thing.. "But we've been using the toilet for eight months... Aeeeeeeeeee!!!!!"
Yeah, so... obviously, I don't understand the values voter.
Okay, Kids, today's life lesson is that... Corporations are Trying To Kill You..
They are. It's the truth, and while they would ideally like you to stay alive during the period of time which their actuarial tables tell them you are statistically most likely to spend the maximum amount of consumer dollars on whatever shit they're peddling, the reality is that they generally seem to regard you as a pain in the ass, and if and when they are given the chance, they will do everything in their power to load you up with cholesterol and chemicals and high fructose corn syrup and pesticides and processed shit, and send you on your merry, shaky, poisoned way..Oh, it's nothin' personal, boy... Just Bizznizz.. Have you ever noticed that the likelihood you have to be able to order something in any given eating establishment resembling real, actual, nutritious food is often inversely proportional to the number of people employed by the parent company? Not only do large corporate organizations de-humanize their employees, they have a pesky tendency to treat their customers as sub-human chemical sludge dumps, as well.
So, you are probably asking, Why do you rant on this topic today, Mr. Impeach Dubya blogger-man? Well, this isn't a new observation on my part. I notice this shit all the time.. But this morning, I had to go to the bank to do some actual in-person banking activity, which I hate.. Frankly, I want my bank to hold my money, and give it to me when I need it.. that's about it, and for those activities I shouldn't need to deal with any flesh-and-blood human types. If the lord had wanted me to have a "personal banker", he wouldn't have invented the ATM. But this morning I found myself waiting to go into the bank, which opened at 9 AM, and it was 8:30 and I wanted some breakfast. Well, shit, there was an IHOP right there- and I figure, okay, well, I know if I go in there I will be presented with 400 choices of different kinds of butter-laden, hydrogenated sludge combined with over-fried cheese and potato wedge type deals, all of which ought to come with their own cardiologist.. But on the plus side, I'm hungry, and I can kill about a half hour and get out at just about the right time to do my bank thing and split in a timely fashion.
So, fuck it, I think, I'll go to IHOP. So I go in. I order an omelet with egg beaters (or "egg substitution", which I assume means some kind of egg beater type thing- I guess I have no way of knowing that they aren't trying to kill people by also using some high-cholesterol egg substitute substitute, too, but I'd be willing to bet that in that case they might be opening themselves up to lawsuits by omelet-eating triple bypass patients) ...right. With vegetables. And orange juice. I see "cheese $1 extra" so I figure that if you have to order cheese on the thing, they aren't going to slather it on there without asking, are they? Ahh, silly me. Because I have forgotten rule number one, which is- corporations are trying to kill you... Yeah. So the orange juice is, like, fucking TANG. I mean, whether or not there once were actual oranges in this shit, now it's like fucking flavored sugarwater with orange coloring. And then, voila- the omelet comes. And wouldn't you know it, it's totally covered with that generic half-melted orange cheese that, for whatever reason, middle America apparently wants covering fucking everything. Shit. I'm sure any of you who've ever tried- I mean, really tried- to eat well (and eat light, because Mrs. Impeach Dubya sure prefers the slender, size 36, semi-vegetarian version of your humble blogger) and then gone somewhere like Disneyland, where one big megolithic entity controls all your food options, know exactly what I'm talking about here. Shit, no fucking wonder you can't walk through something like the Mall of America without having to navigate around trailer-sized asses crammed into tent-sized pants.. I guess it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that Americans are fetishistically obsessed with buying bigger and bigger SUVs and oversized trucks- we need all that room, and that horsepower, to haul around our fucking rolls of outsized flab. The sad thing is (and yes, I know Morgan Spurlock has covered much of this ground recently) that I suspect lots of people don't know why they're so fucking fat, and they think it's only their fault for eating-- sure, eating too much is part of it- but if you go to a chain restaurant like Chilis, and order a "salad", what do they give you? If you're not familiar with the vagaries of middle American, strip mall dining, I suggest you try it- because what constitutes a "salad" in Chilis-land is, apparently, four pieces of iceberg lettuce, some carrot-style shavings, some garlic croutons invariably covered in, yeah, probably something like butter or grease, and- surprise- a fucking mountain of that same weird, nondescript, orange cheese! You order the Salad and there is more cheese (or "cheese") than vegetables! So you can't fucking escape that stuff.. And I couldn't, either, although I managed to scrape most of it off. The omelet itself wasn't bad, but- shit- why would they put that stuff on there if you don't ask? If the menu makes it look like you HAVE TO ask to get cheese on the fucking omelet? What would have happened if I had ordered some cheese on the thing? Two kinds of cheese? Real cheese... and whatever-the-fuck-it-is?
So the question, of course, is why do they do these things?.. Well, I know that on Airline flights, the plan for years was to load the passengers up with high-fat foods, to keep them in a low-grade food coma, sedated and held down in their seats by a rock of overly processed, high-fat, high sugar combination of cheese, grease, bad meat, and cheap pasta in their guts. After a while, people starting figuring this out, and asking for special meals on flights.. now, of course, airlines are working on doing away with food entirely on flights, (unless you want to pay twelve bucks for swill similar to the shit they used to try to poison you with for free) but conveniently for the Airlines, Sept. 11 and terror hysteria has allowed them to become absolute fucking Nazis about the "seat belt sign", which, if you haven't noticed, has been turned into a de facto crowd control device on crowded flights. Want a snapshot of hell? Spend a couple hours drinking coffee in an airport waiting for a delayed flight (or stuck in absurd traffic trying to get to the airport, in which case your flight will invariably leave on time) then get herded on board by harried, underpaid, overworked, pissed off flight attendants, and then, if the flight is "very full today" (like they always are, because they cancel the ones which aren't) bet your fucking bippy you will be crammed into your miserable, undersized, medieval torture unit/seat for at least an hour and a half, while the pilot mumbles about "possible turbulence ahead" and the skies are crystal fucking clear and calm. No, they just want you to sit the fuck down and stay put, so they can get the carts through the aisles and congregate in the galley and laugh about the drunk businessman who blew a gasket and took a dump on the food tray... (Funny, isn't it, that the same hypothetical turbulence that is so dangerous that it requires you to fucking wet yourself in your seat isn't so bad that they can't traipse through the aisles with hundred pound metal carts?)
...Which is reason #2015 in the ten thousand I have for not wanting to ever fly, ever again, since they have taken what used to be merely tolerable, and made it into such an indescribably hellish, miserable experience.
Yeah, but the bean counters in charge of the chain restaurants, like the bean counters in charge of the airlines, understand that by packing "meals" full of artificially colored, artificially flavored, high fat high grease high sugar goop, they can give people a phony feeling of "fullness" using shit that has a longer half-life than most forms of radioactive waste. Which is good for Mr. Megacorp, because he/she/it has no fucking interest in doing what would be best for you, and the local economy, and the environment, and the planet- i.e. using locally grown, fresh ingredients to make an actual, edible meal. No, see, if you go to Denny's in, say, Salinas- where some big portion of the lettuce the country eats comes from, and order a salad (or, should I say, a "salad"), the iceberg lettuce-laden, nutritionally nonexistent creation you will receive may actually have lettuce from salinas- but it has probably been to Idaho and back, first. Meanwhile, when people go somewhere like Chilis or IHOP and try to order a "healthy option", the bean counters ensure that somewhere in there, they're sticking some of this hydrogenated, high fat crap or high fructose corn syrup- because not only are these cheap items, easily distributed from centralized locations with ridiculously long shelf lives, they have the added benefit of producing fat and sugar "rushes" in the brain, which are followed by an energy and emotional crash. People eat this shit all the time, and they become, essentially, addicted to them. Here's an experiment- try to buy a drink- soda, iced tea, anything- from the store, with only one restriction. It can't have any High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. (Diet doesn't count, because if you're rotting your brain from the inside out with nutrasweet, you're really not in that much better shape, in my opinion) It's practically god-damn impossible.
Fuck, I suppose it's not that surprising that, somewhere like Disneyland, most of middle America won't feel like they're being "fed" unless they have a meal with a good helping of this shit.
Yeah. Then I went to the bank, and wouldn't you know it? Because an actual human being had me in his grasp, he immediately tried to get me to switch my checking account.. Because mine is "old" but there's certainly a "better deal" that I could get now, if I just get rid of the "old" deal they are forced to give me, because I signed up when the "old" deal wasn't old.... I get the same thing when I talk to anyone at my credit card company. They tried for years to force me to change to their new credit card deal, because they assured me that it was a 'better deal' and that there was a 'special offer' if I did it now, and I better do it because they were going to do it anyway so I might as well get the special fucking offer.
Sorry, no. Sorry, no. Sorry, sorry, sorry, no.
God, they hated that. And was I stupid to refuse, when they were certainly (they constantly assured me) "just trying to do me a favor"? Nope. Because invariably what they had done, what the bean counters had done, was take away certain rights and privileges associated with the credit card accounts, and rewrite the rules to shut out certain things, like airline miles without expiration dates, that people were enjoying an awful lot. (Here is the point where the astute reader will ask him-or-herself why, if I hate to fly so much, I give a Mongolian Clusterfuck about Frequent Flier miles.. Which is an excellent question, and now that you mention it, I never really thought about it that way before.)
But because I had signed up under the old terms, they couldn't force me to switch. MUAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA. They still can't. Fuck 'em. Finally, one guy plaintively wailed, after listing for the umpteenth time all the supposed benefits from switching to this new kind of credit card account, "...but, Mr Frimhatzwaddle*, wwwwhhhhyyyy won't you take us up on this wonderful offer?"
"Because. You want me to so fucking badly, there has to be a catch."
Life Lesson number two: If a stranger working for a huge corporation suddenly shows up trying to "just do you a favor", the immediate assumption should be that they are full of shit, until proven innocent. Your real friends don't spontaneously do you "favors", so why should some suit at the bank?
My advice? Don't sign anything until you do the research yourself... And if you have to eat breakfast at IHOP, tell them to leave that shitty-ass cheese food off the omelets.
Bottom line? Even when the situation requires him to be a decent human being, he has no choice; Bush is still an asshole. He can't help it. And so, for that matter, are his supporters, toadies, and stupid fucking media whores. Debra Saunders, the woman whose SF Chronicle Columns make me want to buy a parrot just so I'll have something in the house that will shit on them, really crystallized this attitude with her own snarky-ass response to anyone who dareth criticize the self-centered response of Team Bush to the Earthquake/Tsunamis.
There you have it. Orwellian doublespeak at it's best. We don't need to send you food, medicine, money, any of that shit! Our defense apparatus, our army, our weapons, our cluster bombs.. our Empire, which we have been told can do what ever it wants to protect our interests (not, mind you, the interests of "people around the globe") is protecting the world, see! Right. We don't have to spend a penny, say... feeding the world... because, dammit, it costs so god-damn much to run the fucking thing. Yes, the same world that we hate, the one that we give the finger to on the Kyoto treaty, and that is represented by the oozing slime of the United Nations, is safe under the loving umbrella of American pre-emptive militarism. Okay, well, an overwhelming majority of people around the globe- Even people in countries like Britain, one of the last holdouts in the "coalition of the willing"- opposed the invasion of Iraq. If we were really "protecting them"( and not our own, say, oil interests) then why didn't we give them a say in whether or not we should do it?
You got that right, brother. Phew. If you have tuned into the news in the past few weeks, no doubt you have been informed that all across this great, Christian land, roving packs of liberals and lawyers are wandering shopping malls, snatching little children off of Santa's lap, unplugging lights from Christmas trees, body-slamming Christmas Carolers, and generally making life miserable for the poor, oppressed, Christian Majority.. Well, I've got a confession to make- I am a secular humanist, blue state liberal, and yes, there is nothing I hate more than this season of pious celebration of Jesus's birth. If I had my way, I would form a federal bureau of scroogification, fully armed and deputized to scour the countryside, yanking train sets and barbie dolls from the arms of joyful tots on... no, no, you can't call it that! ...the morning of Dec. 25..
What do eggs and rabbits have to do with Jesus being crucified? Diddly fucking squat. However, before that holiday was co-opted to commemorate that particularly dubious event, it was a rite of springtime, rebirth, fertility, and all the good things that happen when the weather starts getting warmer, like ladies wearing less clothing. See, eggs are symbols of fertility.. and rabbits? Well, it may disturb devotees of the Easter bunny to know that the reason rabbits are deeply tied to the rituals of springtime rebirth is because of the activity rabbits are so often associated with; namely, fucking. Yes, the Easter Bunny is a big, horny, priapic symbol of rampant and enthusiastic copulation.
Ahh. So it's, basically, a medical-sounding group that shills for the Jesus people.. you know, the ones who have nothing better to do than run around trying to "cure" gays.
On Oct. 4, while George W. Bush was 
I think they're a motocross race team, or something, they have all these beat up fucking vehicles all over the place now, there's fucking garbage all over the street, and on summer afternoons when the windows are open I can hear them playing Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas or yelling at each other about whose turn it is to buy the beer. I'm really tempted, at times, to run over there and yell at them-- "Why... Why... WHY Can't You Be Gay?!?"
So, fuck it, I think, I'll go to IHOP. So I go in. I order an omelet with egg beaters (or "egg substitution", which I assume means some kind of egg beater type thing- I guess I have no way of knowing that they aren't trying to kill people by also using some high-cholesterol egg substitute substitute, too, but I'd be willing to bet that in that case they might be opening themselves up to lawsuits by omelet-eating triple bypass patients) ...right. With vegetables. And orange juice. I see "cheese $1 extra" so I figure that if you have to order cheese on the thing, they aren't going to slather it on there without asking, are they? Ahh, silly me. Because I have forgotten rule number one, which is- corporations are trying to kill you... Yeah. So the orange juice is, like, fucking TANG. I mean, whether or not there once were actual oranges in this shit, now it's like fucking flavored sugarwater with orange coloring. And then, voila- the omelet comes. And wouldn't you know it, it's totally covered with that generic half-melted orange cheese that, for whatever reason, middle America apparently wants covering fucking everything. Shit. I'm sure any of you who've ever tried- I mean, really tried- to eat well (and eat light, because Mrs. Impeach Dubya sure prefers the slender, size 36, semi-vegetarian version of your humble blogger) and then gone somewhere like Disneyland, where one big megolithic entity controls all your food options, know exactly what I'm talking about here. Shit, no fucking wonder you can't walk through something like the Mall of America without having to navigate around trailer-sized asses crammed into tent-sized pants.. I guess it shouldn't be that much of a surprise that Americans are fetishistically obsessed with buying bigger and bigger SUVs and oversized trucks- we need all that room, and that horsepower, to haul around our fucking rolls of outsized flab. The sad thing is (and yes, I know Morgan Spurlock has covered much of this ground recently) that I suspect lots of people don't know why they're so fucking fat, and they think it's only their fault for eating-- sure, eating too much is part of it- but if you go to a chain restaurant like Chilis, and order a "salad", what do they give you? If you're not familiar with the vagaries of middle American, strip mall dining, I suggest you try it- because what constitutes a "salad" in Chilis-land is, apparently, four pieces of iceberg lettuce, some carrot-style shavings, some garlic croutons invariably covered in, yeah, probably something like butter or grease, and- surprise- a fucking mountain of that same weird, nondescript, orange cheese! You order the Salad and there is more cheese (or "cheese") than vegetables! So you can't fucking escape that stuff.. And I couldn't, either, although I managed to scrape most of it off. The omelet itself wasn't bad, but- shit- why would they put that stuff on there if you don't ask? If the menu makes it look like you HAVE TO ask to get cheese on the fucking omelet? What would have happened if I had ordered some cheese on the thing? Two kinds of cheese? Real cheese... and whatever-the-fuck-it-is?
