Month: November 2012

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Tone Deaf

So now all the blame and finger pointing begins with those on the reich.

It seems it's always someone else's fault that they didn't walk away with the White House or—for that matter—succeed in keeping marriage equality at bay. "We didn't get the message out." "We were outspent." "It was Sandy!" Blah, blah blah.

The Neanderthals in the Republican party and the far right wingnuts they so assiduously integrated into their fold will never admit that they were just plain wrong. It wasn't that they failed to do anything; it was that the American people rejected their goddamned message!

And rightly so!

So what's their plan now? We've already heard that more Republican obstructionism is Congress is on the way (if not the outright circus of impeachment proceedings—really?), and all the usual suspects who are against marriage equality are vowing that their fight to keep everyone locked in a bronze-age mindset isn't over.

Talk about tone deaf.

Talk about denying reality.

With any luck, President Obama (who has nothing to lose) should whip out that Executive Order pen and move this country forward—dragging, if necessary—those who wish to keep us mired in the eighteenth century.

To both the Republicans and the Christopaths I have only this to say: please continue doing what you're doing. With any luck the American people will be so utterly disgusted by your antics that by the time the next election cycle comes around they will finally put you both down like the rabid animals that you are.

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Quote of the Day

"Tonight is the night when our collective civic unconscious puts on its party dress and fuck-me shoes and comes slouching out of the swamp. It is Democracy's Prom Night, and whether you wake up tomorrow full of fond memories and renewed hope, or face down, naked, in a pool of your own sick all hinges on the whim of nine low information, undecided voters in the People's Republic of Ohio." ~ Driftglass

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A Day in the Life of Joe Republican

From my friend Mark:

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water for his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging, commie liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, Joe takes his daily medications. His medications are safe to take because some evil, lefty bomb-throwers fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of Joe's medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some fire-breathing, lazy-ass union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance — now Joe gets it, too. Never would turn it down.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In his morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some cry-baby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is healthy because some wacko, trouble-making, militant environmentalist fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

Then Joe walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants, limp-wristed, freethinkng asshole fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some fire-breathing, Viet Cong-loving union members fought and died for these working standards.

Joe's employer pays these high standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union in. So Joe benefits from what others have gained.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a workers compensation or unemployment check because some stupid, pinko troublemakers didn't think Joe should lose his home because of a temporary misfortune.

At noontime Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless, liberal red wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. He can thank that Stalinist Franklin D. Roosevelt for that.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist, pointy-headed liberal decided that Joe and society as a whole would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. That's okay, but the bastards tricked him because he has to pay taxes. Romney will fix that, he tells himself.

Joe gets home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government, New Deal, Stalinist liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating Marxist made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that over the decades the beloved Republicans have fought to defeat every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees with the talk-radio loudmouth: We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man and a good Republican and I believe all Americans should take care of themselves, just like I have!

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The View From Abroad

"A friend of mine says the US is like a sandwich, made up of two coasts of sanity with an asylum in between."

By Matt McCarten of the New Zealand Herald via Life is a Sexually Transmitted Disease:

On Wednesday the Americans will decide who their next president is. After the recent Republican Party conference I wrote in this column that their nominee Mitt Romney could actually win. It seems incredible that this obvious phoney could beat incumbent Barack Obama.

With increasing globalisation and dominance of the US, any visiting aliens would assume the US president was the leader of the world. Every day, the world's newspapers and television breathlessly cover each twist and turn of the presidential campaign.

If the world got to vote, Obama would romp home. We scratch our heads that there is barely one percentage point between the two presidential candidates. Racism plays a big part.

But it's even more depressing than that.

Because American culture via media, film and lifestyle so dominates us, we think we know the American psyche. A friend of mine says the US is like a sandwich, made up of two coasts of sanity with an asylum in between.

It's true that the west states and the New England states in the northeast are liberal and the south and much of the mid-west are barking mad. And I'm being polite.

I admire Americans. I love their enthusiasm and self-assuredness. They have an innocence and a naivety that you don't find in countries with more history. There's an ugly side to them, too. They are spoilt and have simplistic views about life. These traits infect and drive their politics.

Despite depressingly regular massacres by deranged nutters, no politician dare oppose the pro-gun lobby. The mind boggles that people are allowed to carry concealed guns in bars when they're drinking; buy machine guns at fairs and over the internet; and have the right to shoot someone on their property. No wonder they have more handgun deaths than the rest of the Western world combined.

New Zealand's Christian right-wing are so fringe they can't get a class monitor elected. Unfortunately in the US, they run the Republican Party and intimidate the Democrats into going along with much of their nonsense.

No US politician is elected without saying God told them to do it. When a majority of their right-wing voters actually believe that the earth is only a few thousand years old and really was created in a week you know what a candidate has to spout to succeed.

Abortion has been off the political agenda in New Zealand for a generation. In the US election, it's the number two issue after the economy. The Republican Party official election platform is no abortions for women even in cases of incest or rape.

Their Indiana candidate claims a rape victim has to carry a rapist's child to birth because it's a gift from God. Presumably God was okay about her being raped too. If she aborts, she and the person who carries out the procedure go to jail. His colleague running in Missouri publicly claims that if a woman is "legitimately" raped then her body has mechanisms to reduce the likelihood of conception. Both of these candidates could win their seats along with their vice-presidential nominee and 13 other Republican senatorial candidates who have signed up to the same policy.

If Mitt Romney and his party win, women's rights will be set back two generations. The Republican Party already opposes equal pay. With impending new appointments to their Supreme Court by the next president, women's rights to control their own bodies will be illegal. I can't believe any woman would vote for these men. Do the Republicans see the irony of their holy war against Muslim fundamentalists espousing the same reactionary beliefs?

Let's hope enough Americans do their duty for the rest of the world's humanity and save us from Romney and his dangerous ilk from becoming an example for every right-wing nutcase who wants to get into politics.

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Unfuck Your Election Day By Getting Your Ass to the Polls

Here's some useful shit you need to know before your epic journey on November 6th…

This list is fucking incomplete—so if you have anything important, how about adding that shit? People out there could fucking use it, you know.

Unfuck your voting!

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Movie Review

I've been meaning to write this all week. We saw Cloud Atlas last Saturday and both Ben and I came away very impressed and wanting to see it again.

In my humble opinion, this film showcases the concepts of karma and reincarnation in the most beautiful manner I have ever seen on film. There have been other movies over the years that attempted to do this, but none have succeeded the way Cloud Atlas does.

Sadly, like many reviewers have noted, it's also a bit of a hot mess. The so-called "yellow face" makeup was somewhat of a distraction, but necessary to telling the story and keeping the thread of "same soul, different lifetimes" intact.

While I consider myself an atheist, I cannot deny that the idea of reincarnation still resonates on a deep level with me, and if I had to choose from and embrace any of the multitude of belief systems that—like reincarnation—have no scientific proof to back them up, reincarnation would definitely be my selection.

In fact, this pretty much would sum up my belief—if I believed in karma and reincarnation.

If nothing else, the movie has reminded me to be a little more mindful of my interpersonal relationships…just in case.