Hildog

Last night while listening to the radio, i received the following warning.  Americans -- you don't understand the reality of the Clintons, the true reality, my friends.  Bill?  Bill is just a talented politician, a back-slapping glad-hander who's an inch-deep and a mile wide; he lucked into the presidency and was just there to savor the perks of the job.  He's an amiable fuzzy-wuzzy good old boy...

...but Hillary?  Hoo-boy.  She is, and always was, the nerve center of the Clinton dynasty.  She's the Machiavellian mastermind, the Mandarin, the Richelieu, the brutally-effective prime minister behind the figurehead.  Her mind is sharp and deadly.  She sees everything through her army of agents, like Littlefinger and the bald guy on Game of Thrones.  She knows all the players, all the angles, coldly analyzing them and moving them around the game board in a brilliant manner, an ever-changing and ever-growing battle that she is determined to win at all costs. No one except her close allies and worst enemies have any real idea how dangerous this woman really is.

Umm.

Good?

I'll vote for that.

It's only fair.

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I want some of what Mark Levin is smoking...

Seriously, i do.

Sometimes say something so stupid, so obviously mendacious and untrue, that i can barely process it.  I'm sitting here, listening to Mark Levin, and he claims...

...that everything went wrong about a hundred years ago.  That was when an "alien" way of thinking invaded America, a way of thinking in which people classified themselves not as individuals, but as members of "groups."  Instead of saying, "i am a human being," they started saying things like "i am a poor person" or "i am a woman" or "i am a black man" or "i am a Latino" or "i am a gay."

This was a crippling and catastrophic change, because before that, the USA was some sort of colorless, genderless, classless meritocracy where everyone was just "a human."

.....wait, what?

Has Mark Levin ever heard of... of... well, HISTORY? 

Like, ALL of AMERICAN HISTORY?

Look, Levin, start with Jim Crow and work your way backwards.  It just gets worse. 

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No Fat Kids

Conservatives still confuse me.

Quite frequently they will complain that children today are fat, lazy, and spoiled by indulgent parents who cater to their every whim.  What kids need today more than anything is discipline.  To be kicked outside and forced to do unpleasant things to build up their deficient characters....

...but hey, did you hear about what's going on with school lunches?  Ever since the government started mandating healthier lunches, a growing number of kids are avoiding them, bringing food from home, and throwing out the leafy green vegetables and whole grain breads....

...intolerable!  The conservative screams, that  our precious babies should ever to put in that position.  If they want to eat nothing but cheeseburgers and Mountain Dew, then that is their right as Americans. 

.....whut?  I thought... i mean, i just assumed... they'd say that kids need to eat the healthier food... that they were lucky to even have food... that they should listen to their parents... that personal responsibility including a healthy lifestyle must be brutally drilled into them to keep them away from Obamacare...

...no?  Really?  We should let kids eat whatever? 

Umm, okay.

My brain hurts.

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Switching chairs.

Looking back, it's a bit funny what have happened to the two parties over the last few decades.  Let's rewind back to the time when i first became aware of politics, somewhere around the Bush v. Dukakis election of 1988...

...the Republican Party was the party of strong national security.  They were the ones who "won" the Cold War, they were the warriors, the generals, the stalwart men guarding the battlements against foreign threats.  The Democrats, in contrast, were the besweatered professors, the kindly doofuses, the geeks and eggheads who would let the Russians sneak into the county and wreck up the joint.

Democrats lost elections because the average American would shrug and tell the exit poller "eh, i just feel safer with a Bush in charge, you know, like my kids are safer, i guess?"

So during the Clinton era, Democrats worked hard to overcome the wimp stigma and learned to beat their chests and rattle their sabers.  "If my Republican opponent is willing to bomb our enemies, i'll bomb them twice!  Come on, what you got?  Iraq?  We're going to war with Iraq?  Hell yeah, i'll vote for that shit -- America, yeah!"

Then 9-11 happened, and it sucked.  And Bush launched his wars, and they were utter disasters.  Pretty much every American realized how bad an idea it was to try to bring "freedom and democracy and the blessings of Baby Liberty Jesus" to nations that were little more than warring tribes tenuously united by strongmen.

The wars were so bad that Democrats started winning elections.  But they had spent the last 30 years trying to not look like wimps, so they had to keep that up.  They had to continue all the Patriot Act/NSA programs because, Jesus man, can you imagine what would happen if we ended all that crap and then a terrorist attack happened, and we were left looking stuffy professors blathering about Amendments and civil rights while American bodies burned?  We'd be Dukakis all over again, and we don't want that.  We're STRONG, damnit.

Meanwhile, the Republicans who used to worship Bush no longer speak that name.  And they've done a total 180-degree turn into John Birch-style anarchy and teabaggerism.  They want a cabin in the woods and a shotgun to keep the big bad government away.

Their leaders have jumped on this train, because its convenient to just oppose anything a Democratic administration does.  If the Democrats are for national security and breathing oxygen, then i'm for total anarchy and breathing nitrogen, damnit!

So here we are, in a political climate where Republicans are now whining about the big bad government having the ability to keep track of people, while the Democrats are accused of being iron-handed, skull-stacking tyrants who crave absolute power.

It's been quite a journey from Bush and Dukakis, it really has.

A warning to all teabaggers and freedom junkies -- just wait until the next time the Republican Party controls the White House.  It might be a while, because their candidates suck so badly that they thought a fat bully from Jersey was going to be the messiah.  But when it does happen?  Be ready.  Because the government security state, which will be bigger and scarier than it is now, will again be the tool of a strong and patriotic nation, odious only to terrorists and troublemakers.  And the only people clutching copies of the Constitution and whining about rights and amendments will be those weak, traitorous hippies who hate America and want the terrorists to win.

Just letting you know.


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Both of these Voices

You know, it's frustrating, being a regular guy from a poor family trying to make it in this crazy, mixed-up world.

Half of the voices you hear say the following: "The world is your oyster, baby!  If you work hard and stay focused, then you too can be a massive success.  You could be the next Steve Jobs, the next Mark Zuckerberg, the next Walt Disney!  The unlimited possibilities of America are totally open to you, like a Las Vegas buffet!  Where does your true calling lie?"

The other half say: "Uhhh... eeessshh.... yes, this dream of yours?  Listen, kid, there's a reason they're called dreams.  If they could exist, they'd be called "reals."  Now that you're in your thirties, you, ah, need to start thinking practically about your future, because the idea of getting your pie-in-the-sky job (that many people actually have) is just faerie dust that's preventing you from buying a house and starting that 401K."

Both of these voices suck.

MarcL'HommedieuPopAddict

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Brand New Year

Wow, it is frozen outside.  This is neat.  I'm one of those people that loves the cold.  Okay, sure, having to work at 3:00AM when it's 20 degrees outside gets a bit rough, but during the day?  When i'm taking my strangely cold-impervious Jackrat terrier on a chilly walk in the 35-degree weather?  Oh, it's heavenly.  I never want the winter to end.  But it will, so i just gotta enjoy these last few months of blissful cold before.... April.  April, when the bugs awaken.

Right now, i can't remember what 98 degree heat feels like.  Six months ago, i couldn't remember what 28 degree cold feels like.  It's a strange form of amnesia.

You know what?  2013 was a pretty damned good year for me.  I got a raise at my job.  I moved out of the moldy rathole and into a much nicer apartment.  I had more commission work than i could handle, and my night job didn't have any major upheavals.  Well, i lost my two great coworkers and they were replaced by one great coworker and one total dud, but i suppose these things happen.

Do i have resolutions?  You bet i do.  I've already pretty much given up cow milk for almond milk, and promise to continue to eat healthier.  Broccoli and salmon and avocados and onions, oh yes.  Garlic in everything.  More importantly, i'm going to FINALLY take some pauses in my Photoshop work to learn Illustrator and some other programs.  InDesign is probably a cinch, right?

I should also overcome my natural cheapskatery and buy a new tower, one with a 64-bit operating system.  That money does me no good sitting there in the credit union vault.

I would say i mean to be nicer to people and all that crap, but the truth is i'm already nice enough.  Maybe TOO nice. 

2014, people.  Let's do this.

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Dynasty of the Duck

You got a purty mouth.

Well, of course i have an opinion on the Duck Dynasty boondoggle, why wouldn't i?  And this is it.  Look, i'm as liberal as the next lib, but i also have thick skin and nothing this guy says is going to "offend" me.   People are more interesting when they are allowed to speak their minds.  So let Phil be Phil.  Let Eminem be Eminem.  Let Stern be Stern.  Let Carlin be Carlin.  And let's live with it, okay?  I'm tired of living in a culture where we're supposed to be "shocked and appalled" at every salty thing that every bearded weirdo mutters. 

Let it be, man.  A&E should hire Phil back.  And let him do what he wants.  Heck, if he wants to march around in Klan robes and hurl empty whiskey bottles at the TV every time Adam Lambert appears onscreen, let him.

It would make the show more interesting.

You know what does offend me?

That the insecure white man brigade is using this to fluff themselves up and stroke their persecution complex yet again.  And that is always offensive.  Look, if it were the other way around -- if a gay reality star was being suspending for saying he couldn't understand why people go to church, people must be gross and dumb to do that -- then these same people would say "hey, this has nothing to do with persecution.  This is just a PRIVATE company exercising their right to promote whom they want on their network.  The fact that this guy is trying to make it about all gay people is just sad and wrong." 

But if it's one of THEIR guys?  Well, it's all about persecution from a shadowy force.  Just listen to this slop from Pat Archbold, who found the angle to maximize his audience's feelings of injustice and rage...

"This is what happened.  The whole idea of the show was to parade these nouveau riche Christian hillbillies around so that we could laugh at them. "Look at them," we were supposed to say.  "Look how backward they are!  Look what they believe!  Can you believe they really live this way and believe this stuff?  See how they don't fit in? HAHAHA."  They tried to get the Robertson's to tone down their Christianity, but to their eternal credit they refused.  They tried to add fake cussin' to the show by inserting bleeps where no cussword was uttered.  At best, they wanted to make the Robertson's look like crass buffoons. At worst they wanted them to look like hypocrites.  They desperately wanted us to laugh at the Robertsons.  Instead, we loved them.  A&E wanted us to point fingers at them and laugh at them.  But something else happened entirely.  Millions upon millions of people tuned in, not to laugh at them, but to laugh with them. And then we pointed at them.  We pointed at them and said things like, "I wish my family was more like them.  I wish we prayed together as a family.  I wish we were together like the Robertsons."  By the time this all happened, A&E had a conundrum.  They knew who the Robertsons were and what they believe and they still held it in disdain.  But they really liked the money.  Really liked the money. So they lived with it.  But the progressives whose bank accounts were not growing fatter because of these backward rubes were never inclined to look the other way.  They hate the show and they really hate the response to the show.  They want it destroyed."

 ....what a load.

Notice how he starts with "this is what happened?"  He does that because he's telling us what he wants to have happened.  Notice that there's no anonymous network source here, no quotes, no evidence of any sort.  Nah, he just assures you, sans evidence, that this is a case of honest, awesome folks who became unexpectedly successful ('coz God loves 'em) and are now being set upon and hounded by a few bizarre, shrunken demons in suits who cannot tolerate their essential goodness.  How does he know what the "whole idea" of the show was?  How does he know that it changed?  How does he know that "progressives" are in charge of A&E's department of development?  How does he know it's not a case of normal businesspeople trying to rein in their star before he damages their fluffy, family-friendly brand, because they default position of any capitalist enterprise these days is "offend nobody?"

He doesn't.  He's just guessing. 

The important thing is, the Duck lovers out there get to feel nice and persecuted.  This isn't about ONE guy saying dumb things, this isn't about ONE man who has to be accountable to his bosses' demands or else lose his job -- this is about a hatred for THEIR way of life and ALL of them.

Group politics.  When gay people, or black people, or women, or any other group of people think this way, it's wrong.  When they do it?  They don't mind it at all.  

Lame.

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This is what happened. The whole idea of the show was to parade these nouveau riche Christian hillbillies around so that we could laugh at them. “Look at them,” we were supposed to say. “Look how backward they are! Look what they believe! Can you believe they really live this way and believe this stuff? See how they don’t fit in? HAHAHA” When the producers saw the way the show was shaping up, different than they envisioned it, they tried to change course. They tried to get the Robertson’s to tone down their Christianity, but to their eternal credit they refused. They tried to add fake cussin’ to the show by inserting bleeps where no cussword was uttered. At best, they wanted to make the Robertson’s look like crass buffoons. At worst they wanted them to look like hypocrites.
They desperately wanted us to laugh at the Robertsons. Instead, we loved them.
A&E wanted us to point fingers at them and laugh at them. But something else happened entirely. Millions upon millions of people tuned in, not to laugh at them, but to laugh with them.
And then we pointed at them. We pointed at them and said things like, “I wish my family was more like them. I wish we prayed together as a family. I wish we were together like the Robertsons.”
By the time this all happened, A&E had a conundrum. They knew who the Robertsons were and what they believe and they still held it in disdain. But they really liked the money. Really liked the money. So they lived with it.
But the progressives whose bank accounts were not growing fatter because of these backward rubes were never inclined to look the other way. They hate the show and they really hate the response to the show. They want it destroyed.
- See more at: http://proteinwisdom.com/#sthash.XxJJDCbb.dpuf

(Too sick with the flu to write anything coherent.)

What the hell happened to us?

What happened to the American Dream?

....what happened to the American Dream?

It came true.  You're lookin' at it.

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Glory Days of Couch Potatage

You know, life sucks.  I work a normal job just like most people, and i generally get a day or two off per week.  The tragic irony is that my days off are so much busier than my days on.  I wake up, walk our dogs, and then begin a mad orgy of laundration, meal cookery, vacuumage, and other randomized chorework before settling down about halfway through the day and drawing for seven hours, because i'm a freelance artist and there's always something to be done.  All while giving the dogs regular walks.  The day is over and done before i know it.

If i'm lucky, i'll have enough time to slip in one episode of whatever current show i'm watching.  (Right now, it's Darker Than Black.)  And even then, i have to FORCE myself to sit still and watch it without checking my messages or getting up to clean something.  I think i've lost my ability to zone out completely.  I fantasize about spending a day off doing nothing but sitting around in unclean shorts, playing videogames, eating Hot Pockets, and watching television mindlessly.  Man, does that ever sound sweet... remember television?  Remember being a kid and vegging out on television for long periods of time?  I'm not sure how i ever had time for that, because i must have had a pretty brutal schedule of school, doing homework, playing with friends, drawing, reading, and beating every 8-bit NES game that came within reach of my fingers.  Even so, there were those languid afternoon stretches of brainless TV absorbtion, because i distinctly recall seeing many episodes of Bewitched, The Price is Right, Head of the Class, Family Matters, Dinosaurs, DuckTales, Step By Step, Saved by the Bell, Perfect Strangers, The Beverly Hillbillies, Wheel of Fortune, and yes, even some Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.  

....how bored must we have been to watch that stuff?  Not to mention all the movies.  Oh, look, Ghostbusters II is on... i've already seen it three times, but i might as well watch it again, it's not bad i guess. 

Where did we ever get the time?  Seems so gloriously lazy and unstructured now.  I haven't even been able to start watching The Sopranos and Game of Thrones because, damnit, there is no time.  I have those slotted in for 2014.

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That's why you're still kids, you're stupid.

Okay, i don't normally comment on stuff like this, but this picture caught my eye while i was randomly flitting about the internet on this chilly, cloudy Thanksgiving Eve Eve....

....this is a photo of One Direction, currently the biggest and most profitable boy band on the planet.  I've seen female coworkers swoon over their songs, but i had no idea they looked like that.  What... the... fuck.  They look.... so.... i mean, is it just me?  Or do they just look incredibly weird and lame?  Is this what preteen girls currently fap to?

I mean, jeez.  Backstreet Boys, N*Sync, i could see the appeal of those groups, even if i didn't like their music.  But look at those guys.  They look like... what do they look like, Jimmy?

Dorks.

Yeah, they look like dorks.

I really do not understand anything anymore.

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The Prism of Reality

It's true what they say, it really all is in the eye of the old beholder, ain't it?  Reality is elastic, entirely dependent upon the consciousness observing it.... at least, that's the conclusion i have to make after hearing about this "Knockout Game" bullshit on the news this morning.  You've heard that crap, right?  These random thuggy kids walk up and smack the shit out of random people on the street for kicks and film it?

My reaction is this:

"What a bunch of assholes.  I blame that WorldStarHipHop website.  Kids have always been dumb and violent, but never before have they had the chance to be dumb and violent in front of millions of people who applaud their dumb violence.  Idiots!"

Then i listen to Michael Savage, and his reaction is thus:

"This is happening because of Obama, and Oprah, but mostly Obama!  These black kids are striking out because Obama tells them to, he wants to make them into his Greenshirt Army, quick, play that clip from 2009 where Obama called for a "civilian service corps" which is like the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia who were organized by college-lib-educated Pol Pot socialist communist dictator with red scarves!  Soon no white person will be able to leave the house without being bludgeoned to death by angry strong black kids wearing Obama uniforms and carrying lengths of pipe to beat us all to death, waaaaarrrgh!" [ Paraphrase]

Really.

And i just cock my head to the side like a confused squid.

"Well... I suppose you could go that route with it."

Different realities.  Which is valid?  Who can say.  Who really can say. 

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Puppies and puppies and even more dogs

Ain't he beautiful?

One thing i love is dogs.  Almost all of them.  We have three dogs.  That dog pictured there?  One of my dogs.  He's kinda old and stinky but we love him anyway.

I love dogs so much that it pisses me off when people are bad dog owners.  Nothing that the government can do even comes close.  The main thing that grinds my gears is when people get it in their heads that they want a dog, and make plans to get a dog, and it's just abundantly clear that they probably shouldn't.  The main red flag is when a guy says he wants a pit bull, you know a really big tough one, like those rappers have?  Or when a girl says they want a little teacup chihuahua, you know, a teensy-little-tiny-bitty one.

You already know that this person wants the dog as a fashion accessory, and will pay attention to it about one hour a day, when friends are over, if that.  The dog will spend the other 23 hours a day locked in a garage or shut up in a spare bathroom.  It will rarely interact with other dogs.  It will be lonely and desperate.

I've seen it.  It pisses me off.

People don't realize that dogs need attention.  We have three dogs, and between me, my brother, and his girlfriend, there is almost always someone here to take care of them.  Only rarely do they have to be caged, if the carpets are being cleaned or what have you.  And they get to run around everywhere.  Does this mean having to vacuum up some dog hair every week?   Do things occasionally get chewed on?  Sure.  But those are the breaks.  If you care more about your decorative throw pillows than your dog, then don't get a dog.  If you're not willing to conceal every cord in your house so they aren't within the dog's chewing radius, then don't get a dog.

If you plan on keeping the dog outside in a pen all year, even when its 19 degrees out, you suck.

One time, my Muslim coworker asked me if i had any questions about Islam.  "It's like Ask a Black Guy," he goofed, "except it's Ask a Muslim!"  I knew i was treading on delicate ground because you know i like to be PC within reasonable limits.  The only thing i could think to ask him was -- why are dogs thought of poorly in the Muslim world sometimes?  Why are they not man's best friend?  He said something about how the Koran labels dogs as unclean, and that if a dog licks your hand, you have to wash it seven times.  And then use sanitizer, i would imagine.

And i said, man, that's not how we do things here in America.

Dogs.  I like dogs.

It's my day off right now, and i'll be working my dogs around five times.  The youngest one will want to play tug-of-war when the sun comes up.  Mostly, they will laze around while i draw and work.

It's a good life.

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"In a strictly medical definition"

 Because i have no original thoughts of my own today.

"I think it's important to remember that American life in particular is institutionally predisposed to make people unhealthy. We have few walkable/bikeable living choices, absolute crap for food regulation services, subsidized prices but only for crap food, and a culture that rewards manipulative marketing behavior. The food market doesn't care if it kills you, and the USG doesn't either. Good luck out there.

Now we get to the more important part: the lack of time. If you don't make much money, you have to stay at work for 60+ hours a week to make it. If you make a little bit of money, your boss will make you stay for 60+ hours a week. Then subtract the worlds longest and worst commutes from your day. I didn't get healthy until I moved to a country where 40 hours was a full work week, and working outside of that time is viewed with suspicion and disgust, but the same can probably be achieved with a change of jobs. And who has those kinds of options open to them? I was lucky.


I think many of us living fully western lives are miserable because we are barely valued in our places in the machine. All we have time to do is work, commute, eat, sleep, and die, with nothing but entertainment from a small backlit rectangle to see us through. These financial connections to other people are not nearly as satisfying as regular camaraderie and meatspace interaction, for me at least, but our financial connections are the only connections that are valued. Your job is your life, the source of your financial stability, and probably your health insurance. But in the end we're still just keeping up with what we see on television, and accepting bland 22 minute narratives as a drop-in replacement for living. You can work really hard, miss your kids growing up and dinners with your partner, and your only upgrade is the kind of car you drive, or the cut of your suit.
So of course almost everyone is miserable, no matter what they look like or how much money they have compared to others. Many of us are only alive in a strictly medical definition."

- Tripping Daisy, Metafilter.

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Parasailin'.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin attempted on Monday to explain her alternative proposal for Obamacare on the "Today Show...."

"The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health-care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there's more competition, there's less tort reform threat, there's less trajectory of the cost increases, and those plans have been proposed over and over again," Palin said.  "And what thwarts those plans? It's the far left," she said "It's President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care."

...

......wow.

...nice.

Peanut gallery?   What say you?

"She has absolutely no idea what the words mean that come out of her mouth. They are opulent iridescent pearls, as beautiful as they are inscrutable. She is as baffled by her bullsh*t as you are. What she does know is whatever it is she is doing is a gold mine with diminishing returns." - Lockers.

"Romney is GooglePolBot 2.0. Palin was 1.0. All of her thought processes end up being run through each language in Google Translate before they're converted into speech. Google admits they still have a long road ahead of them before their robots are ready for public office but believe the speech pattern advancements alone are a good indicator of how much they've progressed in four years. They also have asked the public's help in capturing one of the beta models that escaped the labs and accidentally became governor of Texas." -EngineerAU

"Why do people keep giving this creature air time? She's obviously as dim as five feet up a pig's ass, and yet no one ever seems to call her out for her bullshiat. The only people who seem to make any attempt to hold her accountable for the idiotic things that spill out of her are the Daily Show and Colbert Report writing staff. Sure, she's good for plenty of laughs, but every time they play a clip of her talking, my brain starts to melt." - Wenchmaster

"Okay, let's cut to the chase:  is she retarded or on drugs?  It has to be either/or." -- Guntram Shatterhand

"When I hear Sarah Palin, I hear America.  I hear the sweet cries of an eagle above the purple waves of grain.  I hear the song of freedom that reminds me of a country where the people are free to be freedom, the flag is revered, and mobility scooters can hoveround." -- Uncomfortable Silence

Yes.

Yes.

This is why i love Fark.com.

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I am Souperman

I still haven't seen Man of Steel yet -- except for a few minutes of it on a friend's cel phone -- but i'm already disappointed that the sequel will apparently feature both Superman AND Batman... and did someone say Wonder Woman as well?

Lame.

I really am anti-crossover.  Crossovers are useless.  I don't want Batman to meet Superman, i don't want the Predator to fight Aliens, i don't want Harry Potter to team up with Robocop.  Has a crossover ever been anything but forgettable and gimmicky?  It reminds me of the type of random scenarios that we'd come up while drawing at our desks in 4th grade -- hey, Scottie, what if the Mario Brothers met the Ninja Turtles, who'd win in a fight?  Shredder would totally beat Bowser!  That sort of thinking should vanish when you become an adult and learn how not to be stupid.

I just don't like the idea that Bats and Supes live on the same earth.  It doesn't fit.  If Superman existed, the people of Gotham would be talking about him all the time, because he'd be the biggest news story in the world.  Batman's crusades against local gangsters would be bumped to page six because the headline of the Gotham Times would be something like RUSSIANS DEMAND TALKS WITH SUPERMAN or NASA HOPES SUPERMAN WILL HELP DETECT NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS or maybe just NO ONE HAS SEEN SUPERMAN IN WEEKS, WHERE IS THE MAN OF STEEL?

Superman is too overwhelming and he blocks out everything else like the freakin' sun.  Bruce Wayne's whole life quest only makes sense in a world where there are no costumed heroes, where he's one man engaged in some impossible ongoing struggle against corruption and violence.  When he puts on his suit in Batman Begins, it's something that no one has ever done before.  If Superman was flying around out there, Alfred would just cock his head to the side and ask "who do you think you are, Master Bruce?  Superman with ears?"

It's all just... messy and pointless.  Look, it's entirely possible that at some point, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis could have sat down, and said, "hey, what if we write a book where Frodo and Gandalf travel to Narnia, meet the Pevensie kids, and have some kind of adventure where they stop, i dunno, some random villain?  The wouldn't get along at first, of course, but then they'd overcome their differences and come together for the common good..."

That would be horrible.

Wouldn't it?

But don't get me wrong, it's not that i'm going to automatically hate the next Superman movie just because Batman is in it, and that he's going to be an Affleck Batman at that.  Might be fun?  The tragedy is that this goofy-ass movie is going to take the place of something much cooler -- a superior sequel where Lex Luthor is finally made into a real, convincing villain, and engages Superman in a battle of wits for the soul of humanity using his incredible intellect -- a Superman film that has the same power as, say, The Dark Knight.

Whatever Superman/Batman is, it won't be that.

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You want the Thing you Claim to Fear

Really, you do.

One argument i see Teabaggers make all the time is this -- "look, all our apparent madness is totally justified because we see, quite clearly, the incredible and imminent doom that the DEBT will bring to America.  And that only OUR solutions to the debt problem will work."

It's that simple, they're the farsighted Cassandras wailing in the square.  They're just like a person who sees a leak in the levee, or a forest fire spreading and heading to the town -- they are FORCED into action and have to warn the rest of us.  And that's why they sound like doomsayers who "root for ruin" and cheer on any sign of government shutdown or debt default.

But the massive economic realities that face us are not simple.

Here's a more apt analogy -- they're like the people screaming about the end of the world before Y2K.  Way back in 1999, people were saying many things about the dreaded Millennium Bug.  If you were a rational person who liked technology and the modern world in general, then your response was probably something like "this sounds serious,  i don't want it to happen, we'd better fix it, let's get to work."  But if you were a nutter who didn't like the way things were and secretly yearned for some sort of apocalyptic collapse because you thought it would allow some new, pure, redneck society to spring forth from the ruin, then you sounded like the Teabaggers do today.  "It's too late!  Collapse is inevitable!  You liberals and city-dwellers will get what's coming to you, while us real blue-collar Christian men will become the new natural aristocracy.  Bill Gates will be a pauper, begging for a place in the new order from Big Jim the Drygoods King!"

They thought that was going to happen because they wanted it to happen.

It's the same thing with religious fanatics.  They demand that everyone live according to their holy book, because the alternative is fire and damnation.  "Look, i don't want anyone to go to Hell and burn forever in endless agony, but that's what's gonna happen if you don't listen to me."

See the common thread?  Fundamentalists, Y2K alarmists, doomsday preppers, teabaggers... they all see doom on the horizon because it justifies their own personal worldviews.   Do what we say or the Universe will punish you.  It's not a coincidence that these people all sort of overlap on the Right in a churning, eddying ocean of fear and hatred.

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It's not easy being Green. Or Tea.

You know, to be entirely serious, i do feel bad for the Teabaggers whenever they issue one of their "clarion calls" or "calls to arms."  Things aren't going well for them, and they're stuck in the classic splinter-party conundrum.  They want to abandon the GOP and go third party, except they know that this will forever shunt them off to the third-party ghetto where they'll never win another election.  Third parties don't even get invited to debates -- that's messed up.  They'd rather stay inside the GOP and take it over -- but are stymied by the larger number of centrists and moderates who resist the glorious purification.  Hell, any Republican who can do simple math knows that they'd be in control of the Senate right now, if not for the likes of Christine O'Donnell and Todd Akin.  So what do they do now?  I mean, how long are they going to have to wait to see real change?  They've been at this for, what, at least three years now?

Sadly, they may have a bit longer to go.  Look, guys, have you ever heard of the Green Party, or Ralph Nader?  People on my side have been disillusioned and dissatisfied for ages.  Back when you teadrinkers were happily lining up at the trough and voting for Bush, we were screaming that neither of the two parties represented OUR interests.  We wished that the Democratic Party was a true liberal party that would take drastic action against corporate malfeasance, make bold moves to improve the environment, decrease the size and the scope of the military, allow full rights to gays, and hey -- decriminalize drugs!  Any moral person can see that the Drug War is senseless and evil!

See?  We've barely scratched the surface on those issues.  A Green Party activist who's been plugging away for 25 years can look back and say, well, at least we have gay marriage?  Legal weed in two states?

The struggle goes on.

So teabaggers, be patient and keep at it.  You've got a long road ahead.  Things might look better in a few decades if you don't lose hope.  For now, you're going to have to accept that Chris Christie or Jeb Bush is going to be your nominee in 2016, rather than Rand Paul or Ted Cruz. 

Also, we must accept the loss of Christine O'Donnell.  Gosh, she was cute.

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Methods in the Mouth of the Mountain of Madness

Most of my friends and acquaintances look at the teabaggers and the actions of individuals like Ted Cruz, and ask "are these people insane?"

And i tell them -- perhaps.  Perhaps they are.  But there is a method to their madness.  You have to delve into their thinking and see the big picture that exists inside their mental minds!  It goes something like this...

We hate America as it is.  We desire a new America.  We long for a massive structural collapse or other catastrophe to completely snap the spine of the nation.  If such an event happens, Washington DC will simply go away.  The President and Congress and the Joint Chiefs of Staff will all get on planes and fly away to France and the states will be left to fend for themselves.  The Red States, being full of fertile farmland and virtuous people, will thrive.  The Blue States, which have no natural resources and are populated by moochers and leeches whose only occupation is to "move money around" and fiddle with weird technology that no one really needs, will become impoverished hellholes.  And any smartypants losers from those states who escape the hordes of looting blacks and rioting Mexicans will have to beg our forgiveness before we allow them to enter our Red Utopias.  Ha, ha, not so smart now, are you, city man?  Who's your daddy!

Am i exaggerating?  Hardly.  They sit around their little blogs and daydream of exactly this, and they say things like...

"My secessionist energies are devoted to a free Cascadia. From San Fran to British Columbia on the Western side. More than enough food and resources. Ports for trade, travel and fish, and the natural protections afforded by mountain ranges. Politically, farther left than blue could ever hope to be – bioregionalism at its finest.  I’m getting to this late – but why would redtopia not sell food to bluistan? Pre-schism trade relationships would likely still exist, and trade is probably a better deal than economic/social isolationism."

"When the alternative is to sell to people who have nothing but demands, and those funny green pieces of paper, I think they would sell to anyone who actually has the money. The blue areas won’t have that money, because they will have no wealth to back it up.  Wealth is not those little green pieces of paper, that’s just money, useful for trade, but not backed by anything but the promises of a government that is about to collapse. Wealth is arable land. Wealth is energy. Wealth is potable water. Those blue areas are notoriously short on all three.  You keep thinking that US currency will be worth anything by that time. I imagine the Weimar Republic thought the same thing."

No matter how many times i read such slop, i never stop being amazed at it.

 Glossing over the ridiculous simplicity of reducing states to geographic stereotypes, let's imagine the other more plausible scenarions that would occur before this daydream could materialize.

-- If the US does indeed suffer an economic collapse on some unprecedented scale, we'd see some sort of default/bailout in the international arena.  While i'm no American Exceptionalist, i do recognize that there are nations -- China, for one -- who can't afford to see the US reduced to a bucolic farming community.  The US would limp on, worse than before, but it would remain intact.

-- If ever did get past some point of no return, Washington DC and the central power structure would not "go away," and more than Moscow did after the fall of the USSR.  If the presidency and the Constitution became null and void, they would almost undoubtedly be replaced by some sort of regime that would exercise even MORE dreaded Federal authority than the government we have now.  The impulse to hold the nerve center together at the cost of extraneous limbs is hard to overcome.  We would not have pure freedom, we'd have true tyranny for the first time.

-- There would be no hand-to-hand Civil War that the gun nuts and NRA boosters dream of.  Government agents would not go house-to-house to try to seize your ramen and your bullets.  No, we'd have more of a situation where the General in Charge of the Interior would demand that the North Dakotan oil would continue to flow as it should, else suffer some light bombing runs.  Just because the Constitution trumpets the virtues of a "well-armed militia," this doesn't mean that hunting rifles and shotguns will ever be the deciding factor in any intranational conflict.

Honestly, is this not the same sort of logic that made the Confederacy to believe they'd win in the first Civil War?  They're hitting all the same notes -- we're better people, we have farms and stuff, factories and railroads won't make a difference, and God is on our side anyway. 

Is that really at the heart of this all?  Do they want to fight the Civil War all over again so they can triumph this time?

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It's Teatime

Well, that was a fun senseless debacle.  

Sometimes, in the midst of these political jujitsu grapples, it's easy to lose sight of the essential issues.  To the people on the right, the issue is Teh Debt.  Everything, they claim, is insignificant compared to the one defining priority -- reducing the national debt by any means necessary.  That's why Obama (or any Dem president) is by definition, unnacceptably evil -- because any president, inheriting the recessions and the wars of the previous president -- would be presiding over a country where the debt is increasing.

That brings me to my bullet points.  This is why Teabaggers are WRONG.

1.) To imagine that any president could have assumed the office in 2009 and immediately slashed the Federal Debt is insane.  It couldn't have happened without crippling the country.  Stop dreaming that this was somehow a plausible idea.

2.) The only way to decrease the Debt is steadily, over time, through a combintion of increased revenue, cuts to entitlement programs, the elimination of waste, and a reduction in the defense budget.  Democrats have compromised on entitlements, but Republicans have refused to do the same when it comes to taxes and defense.  They demand not ONE penny in higher taxes, and not ONE penny cut from the Pentagon -- because the Republicans take their orders from billionaires who don't like paying taxes, and defense companies like Halliburton, Lockheed-Martin, etc.  Let me just state this again -- the Republican Party works for billionaires, and ONLY billionaires.  Ever since the Reagan era, they've been pursuing a long-term strategy of using deficits as an excuse to eliminate programs they don't like.  The government is in debt?  How awful!  Sure, we could raise the capital gains tax or eliminate some defense programs, but why even think of doing that when you could eliminate the EPA, gut the IRS, and kill the departments of education and energy?

The Republican Party uses crisis as an excuse to pursue things only found on the Billionaire's Wish List.  And thanks to talk radio, they've very successfully fooled millions of blue-collar people into supporting their aims.  Seriously, as we speak, there are rednecks in poor rural areas who feel very strongly that the EPA needs to die, not because they've EVER dealt with the EPA, but because they've absorbed their masters' propaganda.  It... is... sickening.

3.) Of course, the Republican party is now two parties, and the supposedly-insurgent Teabaggers are just as bad in these respects as the old guard conservative elites.  They think they're different, but when it comes to compromise, they both take the same hard line -- all the money we need to save must come from social spending, and not one penny from the Pentagon or the Koch Brothers' capital gains.  The old elites used to demand tax cuts and deregualation under the guise of "it's better for the economy, and you'd better give us what we want unless you want everyone to suffer."  The new teabagger elites now demand tax cuts because they've listened to too much Mark Levin, fetishize the Revolutionary era, and pursue some fever dream of "doing what the Founders intended."  Because the Founders were infallible beings of pure light and goodness, i suppose.

This supposed civil war in the GOP amuses me, because both sides are equally as vile.  It's a bit like watching radical Sunnis and radical Shiites kill one another because they both want to be the only genuine crazy cult in town.

4.)  Nobody believes that you know anything about prudent tax policy when you act like the teabaggers do.  When you dress up in tricorne hats, adorn yourselves with Lipton bags, carry racist signs, and are obsessed with sideshow issues -- Obama's a muslim, abortion, FEMA deathcamps, UN oppression, fluoride in the water... you don't look or sound serious.  You look like a bunch of loons.  

That's pretty much it.

Accept some higher taxes on the rich.  Accept some cuts to defense.  Stop making youselves look stupid.  We can totally deal.

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Tiger Balm

I'm feeling a bit flu-ish today, so here are some wise words from someone else.

"It happened slowly, didn’t it? The change in the Republican Party? I don’t know. Maybe it’s nostalgia. There have always been the wild, vicious voices of the right. The devil on the shoulder of the conservative movement that whispers in its ear, “burn it down, burn it down.” But those voices were to be ignored, humored, tolerated, placated, or just deceived. That was the way of things, and we were protected by the obvious: people who believe foolish things tend to be easy to fool.

Then it all changed. The Republican elite caught a ride on the tiger. But the tiger got sick of waiting for the gazelles it was promised, the gazelles that were always one election away. The tiger was hungry and angry and tired of being used and the longer it waited the more appetizing the elite on its back became. So the tiger got a radio station and a news channel. The tiger got organized and mobilized. And finally the tiger realized it didn’t need someone kicking its sides telling it which way to run and who to eat and when to eat and why it wasn’t time to eat and the time to eat would come, don’t worry, you’ll eat soon enough.

So the tiger ate its master and now here we are.

America needs a strong, rational, positive, practical conservative movement. It needs that bulwark against liberal delusion and hubris. It needs a voice that says we are imperfect, that life is complex, that government can create need even as it meets need, that you can’t fix everything and freedom is worth some danger and sorrow. And there are smart, honest conservatives at the ready to be that voice, to help govern practically and sincerely with that voice, but they are drowned out by the guttural scream of craven utopians raging against reality.

This moment in American political life is insane. That a group of narrow-minded zealots could push us to the brink of economic ruin, that they maintain a base of support in their frenzied, quixotic, incompetent gambit, that there is an apparatus that exists to defend this kind of nonsense—it came on us slowly but it is no less an emergency. This is broken. This cannot go on."   -- Jon Lovett.

I.... agree.  Is all i can say.

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