Feast & Loafing on the Campaign Trail: Facing the road
By Rrrandy Wurst | June 14, 2008
It’s Friday the 13th, that day of generalized and specific fear. But I have no fear about my forthcoming (Monday) trip around the American west to drum up votes for my still breathing presidential candidacy. I have rejected the Republicans and the Democrats have rejected me. The Greens have their guy–I can’t recall who he, she, or it is– and Ron Paul heads the Libertarian Party ticket, which is the reverse of Groucho Marx refusing membership in any club that would have him as a member. (Libertarians don’t want or need a government; they just need an army.) Hardly anyone has heard of my Horse Sense Party, but then hardly anyone admits to being a Bush/Cheney Republican anymore.
So, come Monday, off I go with my faithful sidekick-campaign manager, Steve, at the wheel. We’ll be wandering America’s roads from the Pacific Ocean to the brand new lakes of Iowa. We hope to bring those dear, beset folks some humor and, perhaps, a bit of wisdom in their trying time. If nothing else, Steve can drag a sandbag with the best (or wurst) of them.
I have been asked if, in this summer of $4.00-and-rising gasoline, it is wise to do so much traveling. To that I can only answer that it would be worse to postpone the election, although George might try. If Obama and McCain can travel around for votes, so can this pig.
You might think that I just implied that Obama and McCain are pigs. Only Senator Obama would I so honor into my extended family, a man who deserves great respect for his stated objectives and who would deserve even greater respect if he’d do the same on immigration, healthcare reform, and the disposition of impeachment proceedings against those who deserve it. The American public wants answers.
Some of my fans have wondered whether it isn’t time to throw in the towel this late in the political season. I considered it, but then my eyes were drawn to my family crest on the wall, the Order of the Curly Tail: pink tail on a field of muddy truffles, above crossed ivory tusks. Our motto, “Grunt-Gruntus, Snort-Snortus, Rrr-rrr-rrr.” The sight of this crest, fairly glowing in the sunset through my window which overlooks the mighty, yet calm (today) Pacific, stiffened my back, as well as my hind legs. I said to my faithful Steve–who has some of the finer canine qualities and few of the worst human foibles– I said, “Faithful Steve, let nothing deter us from this most important trek for the sanity and safety of our great nation! Let us re-energize our campaign for the Leadership of the free world, not to be confused with World B. Free, formerly of the National Basketball Association.”
Steve’s, “Whatever,” was good enough for me.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: 2008 election, Barak Obama, John McCain | No Comments »
Barack, the Veep Question, and Arrogance
By Rrrandy Wurst | June 7, 2008
Who should Barack Obama select for his presidential running mate? The question is on everyone’s mind, except perhaps those stuck in the Bush-boat rapidly sinking into their polluted swamp. (Will Cheney fade with a brief Nixonesque wave, snarling, “You won’t have this Dick to kick around anymore”?)
One theory is that Mr. Obama should select someone who would attract votes that he might not otherwise get, for one reason or another (good reason or bad). So here are some possibilities, replete with pros and cons:
Katherine Sibelius would be a good choice to attract, if not defuse, angry Hillary-ites (male or female), although the Governor of Kansas is short on international experience.
Bill Richardson would be a strong choice with his background in stuff international, and he would bring along more Hispanic voters. Also, a real sense of humor would be a delightful change to Cheney’s relentless sneer and viperish stare. But stay away from the beard, Bill. America is not ready for another U.S. Grant.
A liberal-leaning famous NASCAR driver (if one exists) would be a good choice to bring along the male, white, pick-up truck driving, beer-swilling, feminist-bashing, anti-gay, anti-commie, anti-anything Muslim vote, although they probably couldn’t figure out HOW to vote.
How about Sandy Koufax to bring along the Jewish baseball fan vote. I don’t know what Sandy has been doing since he retired from playing for the Dodgers in 1966, but he is the most famous (and greatest) Jewish baseball player still living (and thus eligible for Veep).
Which, oddly, raises the question of whether Dan Quayle is still alive. (Was he ever truly alive?) By the way, if one wishes to visit the Dan Quayle Center and United States Vice Presidential Museum, it can be found in Huntington, Indiana, in a stately old church. The entire collection of Quayle’s significant vice-presidential papers are located on the second floor in a slightly used box of Animal Crackers.
So what’s left? Oh yeah, Smoky the Bear to bring along the aging Boy Scout and rabid environmentalist vote, although Smoky is a tad short on the international front, and his communication skills could stand some juice.
OR, Barack Obama could just do what the pro teams do on draft day and pick “the best ‘athlete’ available,” never mind what special interest group his Veep pick might attract. This seems to me as the best strategy, and Rrrandy Wurst IS AVAILABLE.
*****************************************************
BARACK: Beware Arrogance!
In a fit of post-Hillary exuberance during a return to Chicago, Barack shouted the following to a crowd:
In 2016, I’ll be wrapping up my second term as President,” Obama said. “I can’t think of a better way than to be walking into Washington Park [in Chicago]…as president of the United States and announcing to the world, ‘Let the Games begin!’
Let’s get you voted into the presidency once before you start tossing the balloons of twice to some segments of the American populace. (See NASCAR, above)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Here is a little bonus from Ambrose Bierce, a great American wordsmith whose pen worked wonders congruent with Mark Twain:
Politics [is] a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. [It is] the conduct of public affairs for private advantage.
Let’s hope that, when he holds power, this remains a major item of Barack Obama’s “change” agenda.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: 2008 election, Barak Obama, Dick Cheney | No Comments »
Loss of truth in news: Should we just “get over it”?
By Rrrandy Wurst | June 1, 2008
Read the following from the New York Times in an article by Ford Fessenden and John M. Broder, dated Nov. 12, 2001:
“If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards, and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won, by a very narrow margin.”
This statement, very straight-forward and factual, was buried in that Times article titled: “STUDY OF DISPUTED FLORIDA BALLOTS FINDS JUSTICES DID NOT CAST THE DECIDING VOTE”
In a Wall Street Journal article covering the same research report the headline was: “IN ELECTION REVIEW, BUSH WINS WITHOUT SUPREME COURT HELP”
And ditto from the Los Angeles Times: “BUSH STILL HAD VOTES TO WIN IN A RECOUNT, STUDY FINDS.”
The data supporting the statement that “Gore would have won” if all the Florida ballots had been counted, comes from a million dollar study jointly conducted by the NY Times, the WSJ, the LA Times, as well as the Washington Post, the Associated Press, CNN, the Palm Beach Post, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Tribune Company (owner of the Chicago Tribune and 20 other major market media outlets). Not only did the headlines contradict the data, but that truth, in the case of the NY Times, was buried in the fourth paragraph and was surrounded by evasions.
Why did these major media outlets bury the results of their own million dollar research? Larry Beinhart at Alternet.com suggests that the date on which the study results were reported may be the reason. November 11, 2001, was exactly two months after the jet-liner attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. America in that time of crisis needed solidarity more than truth, which could lead to political divisiveness.
Which does not answer why seven years later, toward the end of a Bush Administration descended to historically unpopular proportions, that these major media outlets haven’t admitted to the truth of the 2000 election results. They admit daily to other mistakes. Why not admit this mistake, which is having such awful impact on life in America and the world? My guess is that they cannot admit it precisely because it is having and will continue to have so much impact. (Which does not address the question of corporate ownership of the media, the government, and the country. Let’s not go there today.)
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was complicit in the Supreme Court decision to stop the 2000 presidential vote count and give Florida to Bush, has said more recently (on CBS’s 60 Minutes) that Americans should just “get over it.” Should we just get over it, forget it, get on with our lives?
Scalia would like us to forget it (not to mention Clarence Thomas and others). So would the Bush Wing of the Republican Party, including its tentacles in the Pentagon, the Justice Department, etc. Because if we Americans “get over it,” forget about it, subverting another election becomes easier, more likely. So, don’t forget about it. Keep your back up, your fur spiked like a punk-rocker, your tail stiff and bristly, your eyes peeled, your claws ready, and a howl rolling deep in your throat. Just like LoveJones, my favorite watch-cat. Because it can happen again.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: 2008 election, Corporations, George W. Bush, Media, Republican, War | No Comments »
Hillary and Careers that require lying (not that the two go together)
By Rrrandy Wurst | May 29, 2008
I, Rrrandy Wurst, do hereby go on record that I want and look forward to the day that America has a female president. Just not Hillary. I support feminism. But it’s a struggle to support a feminist whose claim to 35 years of experience in politics and leadership comes mostly as her husband’s wife. She’s said many things during this nomination campaign that have led me away from believing that either she or Obama would be fully supportable. I needn’t repeat them; you know what they are.
I have no harsh feelings about Hillary’s continuing the campaign, as Barack Obama has benefited from dealing with her charges, miscastings, and insinuations. She has served him well by providing what amounts to “Spring Training” for the coming Rovian Republican assault. But that was by-product. While the outcome for Obama may be beneficial, the role Hillary played and is playing is her desperately desired climb to the presidency, rather than to vetting Obama.
So, while I’ll vote for Hillary and ask the legions of Americans who would otherwise vote for me to do likewise if she, somehow, pulls the nomination out from some hidden place, she is not the one I’d prefer to have as America’s first female president. There are many women out there who could and would make first-rate presidents, who would stand on their own feet with less (perhaps no) assistance from vile, domineering, dominating corporations. (Not that all corporations fit that description, but enough do that they should have to prove their innocence. I know, that’s a violation of our legal system in which a “person” does not have to prove his, her, or its, in the case of corporations, innocence. This “personhood” of corporations leads to another rant for another time.)
*******************************************************
I was listening to the wonderful and geniusistic (means brilliant back home in Papoose, NE) Thom Hartmann on AirAmerica radio this morning on my way to a major presidential campaign speech in Gorda, California. The topic on Hartmann was Scottie McClellan’s expose/mea-culpa about his time working inside George Bush’s White House. (The book is titled What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.)
Comment was made during Hartmann’s show that people lie to protect their job, maybe even their career. Which led me to form this question: Is keeping a job, even a career, important enough to lie, obfuscate, or otherwise be dishonest, especially if this or these actions bring great harm to many people, or even to one person? ToValerie Plame, for example.
For the folks back in Gorda, Papoose, and like communities, let me simplify my question. Should you lie because your boss expects it and you’re paid to do it? Or maybe said this way: Should you lie in the conduct of your job in order to keep food on your family table, clothes on your kids and spouse, and gas in the car?
If the answer to any formulation of this question is “YES,” isn’t this what’s wrong with the world? Even I, as smart as I am, don’t know how many pillars hold up civilization, but it seems that honesty must be one of them.
Let’s visit the question more closely. Spies, of course, have to lie; it’s in the contract. We know, of course, that there is one other profession in which lying is not only its essence, but may even be illegal if it isn’t done. That would be lawyering in court in defense of one’s client, particularly if we hold as the standard the oath taken by witnesses to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” Oh, the games that lawyers (including prosecutors) play with that! But are spies and lawyers the standard for humanity?
Is it any wonder that so many of our high elected and appointed officials come from the ranks of lawyers? A piece of great summer reading that nails such people is The Gilded Age by a guy named Mark Twain (along with Charles Dudley Warner). It tells of the era of U. S. Grant’s White House, which will be recognized as quite similar to the 2nd Bush Occupation, replete with a nation-wide sales staff of lobbyists, corporate toilets for American tax money, and all-too-willing-to-be-bought senators and congressmen who labor with their left hand for the “public welfare” while stuffing their own pockets with their more nimble right hand. It’s a good read. Hey, it’s Mark Twain, who has shown many a time that a person can learn while laughing.
Back to the main hanging question: Should a person lie to keep his or her job or career? From the personal perspective, I have had only two occupations. In the first I can honestly say I never had to lie. Feeding on the left-over garbage of humans, occasionally digging a truffle, having no use for cars or jewelry or even clothes, I had no need to lie. My only luxury was a mudhole on hot Nebraska summer days. But as a candidate for the presidency on the Horse Sense Party ticket, aha!, I have not lied either. Which possibly explains my debt-financed campaign and my mass of committed voters, which so far has not exceeded the total of my toes and tail.
So, perhaps, I don’t need to answer that question. But you should. If your job/career requires lying, do you need to stay in it? People change jobs and careers all the time, survive, and often do better. What is the cost of a life-style of lying? Okay, some people feel good about it, maybe better than if they weren’t lying even disregarding the pay-offs. But how do you feel about it? Is it one of those uncomfortable compromises every time you do it? Is it something you have to kind of sidle or dance around when teaching your kids? Is it something you have to worry about, as in getting caught by the authorities or anyone? If you do get caught, will your bosses lie for you, maybe take the blame? (Are you listening, Scottie and Scooter?)
And what about the state of this world our rampant lying behavior has led to? Has it been one lie after another, big and small, for personal gain or the gain of our tribe? Pigs aren’t perfect, nor are other so-called lower animals. (As to name calling, we have a quite different view of you humans.) But the few of us who do lie–snakes, by the way, are very straight-forward, with no doubt as to their feeling and intention–usually do so to protect our young from predators. Among humans, it’s the predators who commit the most and biggest lies.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Someone out there is saying, “In a pig’s eye!” but that’s my humble view.
Before cashing another paycheck, why don’t you list the jobs and professions that do not require lying. I’ll start with…
1.
2.
3.
Well, maybe you better start.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Congress, Corporations, Elections, George W. Bush, Horse Sense Party, Republican, hillary clinton, pigs | No Comments »
Rich Democrats, Do the News!
By Rrrandy Wurst | May 17, 2008
Bill Moyers has a new book coming out, Moyers on Democracy, that I’m sure will be terrific. I love how Bill Moyers thinks and writes, and I’m so glad he’s on the side of people and pigs, the right side, which is actually the Left side. (No wonder people get confused in the voting booth.)
Moyers is brilliant, but sometimes he says what we already know, in this case, that corporations, including corporate journalists, have hijacked American-brand democracy and smothered not only dissent, but objective analysis. The formerly liberal or truly balanced news outlets (NY Times and WashPost being two glaring examples) can no longer be trusted to give us news and analysis uninfluenced by big money.
So, if that’s the way our world is, what can be done about it? (This is not a rhetorical question. ) Let me suggest a question that has an answer…potentially. Where are the wealthy Democrats from “the good side?” Are there none willing to put their money, individually or together, into a national daily publication? Americans need a daily that would put reporters in places where important news is not now being fairly covered, or covered at all, by the corporate/insider mass media. At least 40% (probably more) of Americans crave this kind of news.
So, rich Democrats, you have a market niche yawning before you. Not only could you make money, but think of the good you’d be doing, not only for America, but for the entire downtrodden, threatened, fearful, and suffering planet. Where are you guys? Mrs. Teresa Heinz-Kerry? Mr. Soros? Et al?
Alternatively, all you poor liberals out there, and you, too, independents and disgruntled Republicans, could buy a hundred million or so Rrrandy Wurst mugs, shirts, ball caps, stickers, etc., and I’ll start a national daily newspaper.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Democrat, Media, Republican, Uncategorized, wealth | No Comments »
Why Not Hillary
By Rrrandy Wurst | May 1, 2008
Hillary, Hillary, Hillary! How we loved you…or at least liked you (remember 1994 with the health care thing?)…or at least tolerated you? You were smart and played your liberal cards so well, and we felt so sorry for you when those nasty Rovian Republicans went after you and Billary so relentlessly, that you couldn’t be anything but, well, tolerable. But you’ve become such , a, a, an unscrupulous, well, I wish I could use a nicer word, but I must say it, a POLITICIAN.
A very nice, effective, above-board Democratic Representative from California named Lois Capps no longer supports you. Ms. Capps, a Dem. super-delegate, has endorsed Barack Obama because:
Barack Obama is the better choice because of something larger and perhaps more important. Simply put, he has made a call to the better angels of our nature. He is challenging us to lift ourselves out of the ugliness that increasingly consumes Washington, where the heat of your argument counts for more than the light it should bring. He is asking us to stand together as Americans and transcend the traditional lines that have so often divided us by party affiliation, economic status, gender, or race. He is calling on us to rethink our approach to problem solving in the face of the enormous challenges facing our country, like Iraq, economic recession, global warming, record energy prices, and 47 million Americans without health insurance, to name just a few. I believe in his effort to put our country on a new path and want to help him make that happen.
Now, THAT is what I want to hear a politician say. And further, a couple of weeks ago, after forty years of friendship and serving with Bill (as his Secretary of Labor) and Hillary Clinton, Robert Reich, threw his support to Barack Obama. In a story in New York magazine, Reich said,
I saw the ads — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama’s bitter/cling comments a week ago — “and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It’s the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we’ve developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and blowing it up into something your opponent doesn’t possibly believe and doesn’t possibly represent. And third is a kind of tradition of distraction, of getting off the big subject with sideshows that have nothing to do with what matters. And these three aspects of the old politics I’ve seen growing in Hillary’s campaign. And I’ve come to the point, after seeing those ads, where I can’t in good conscience not say out loud what I believe about who should be president. Those ads are nothing but Republicanism. They’re lending legitimacy to a Republican message that’s wrong to begin with, and they harken back to the past twenty years of demagoguery on guns and religion. It’s old politics at its worst — and old Republican politics, not even old Democratic politics. It’s just so deeply cynical.
For both Capps and Reich, it’s not so much a matter of policies or promises or experience, or even of the potential for defeating McCain in November, which a few months ago seemed assured for any of four Democratic candidates, but which now is an open question precisely because of Hillary’s Rovian tactics. It’s a matter of character (as Rush Limbaugh, of all mouths, used to say).
For whatever reason, Hillary is showing less of that character stuff by the week. We don’t know whether she’d make a good president, but she makes a nasty candidate.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: 2008 election, Barak Obama, Democrat, Elections, John McCain, Republican, Uncategorized, hillary clinton | 2 Comments »
So, what do we DO about the Rovian Right Wing?
By Rrrandy Wurst | April 29, 2008
This about our Republican-run economy, from blogger “Angel of Mercy“:
Historical fact: Prior to the rise of the radical right some 30 years ago, America was the most innovative, most prosperous, most vital nation on the face of the Earth. And it wasn’t just an obscenely rich fraction of one percent skewing the numbers, either…like it is today. Broad-based, bottom-up prosperity–in which liberal Democratic administrations specialize–really DID lift all boats.
…Did you know that ALL recessions since the 1930’s, save one, have taken place under Republican presidents? …The single exception occurred at the conclusion of World War II during the administration of Harry S. Truman and it was one predictable consequence of ending a war. It was also the shortest, as well as the shallowest. Contrast that with the fact that we are now enduring our SECOND recession due to the gross mismanagement of that congenital idiot [GWB] and the band of thugs in his administration.
Angel of Mercy, you are so right in pointing out what’s wrong and who’s to blame. But these truths beg the question of why Republicans continue to get elected to do their dirty, self-enriching deeds. Reminds me of a cover of The Economist in post-election 2004 that said, approximately, “How can 53 million Americans be so stupid?”
Which raises another question: “How can elected Democrats be so weak?
I suppose “fear” answers both questions to some extent. But how real is the fear compared to how real and self-perpetuating are the problems when we citizens and our elected so-called opposition continue to kneel to it?
Was it that probing wit, H. L. Mencken, who said, “We get the government we deserve”? Another highly intelligent wag said, “We have nothing to fear but Right Wing Republicans and Democrats-Who-Act-Like-Republicans.” I think it was me who said that.
Another Mencken tidbit:
As democracy is perfected, the office [of President] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” (Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920)
Just think, it only took us eighty years! Anyway, the really crucial question we face now is, “How do we get those people (the RWR’s and the DWALR’s) out of office? We know the problems. But given the ground we have to battle upon (corporation-serving mass media, the bottomless well of Rovian tricks, a populace afraid to vote when it has doubts, etc.), what do we do to fix it?
Unfortunately, our system discourages an electable third (or more) political party. This means that when the Democrats are out of power, there is no opposition worthy of the name. Of course, when the Republicans are out of power, they become rabid bulldogs in opposition.
Sorry, rather than coming up with solutions, I’m offering more problems. Maybe what needs to happen is similar to the demise of The Whig Party. The Whigs crumbled in 1856 due to a great schism within the party and was replaced by the Republican Party in 1860 with Abe Lincoln at its head. To clarify, the Republicans of 1860 were like the Democrats of today, while the Democrats back then were like today’s Republicans. Make sense? Clear as the windows in a shut-down factory in Michigan or Ohio or Indiana?
Maybe we should just give up, let the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Rove/Cheney/Bush Republicans do their worst, until everything collapses under their obscene, self-feeding obesity, then build again from scratch. At least this time we wouldn’t have to steal the land from the natives.
Or maybe I just have a bad case of indigestion. Pepto cocktail, anyone?
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Corporations, Democrat, Media, Republican, wealth | 2 Comments »
Vonnegut, still teaching after all these years
By Rrrandy Wurst | April 26, 2008
“He [Kurt Vonnegut] didn’t think the war in Iraq was going to happen, right up until it did. It broke his heart not because he gave a damn about Iraq but because he loved America and believed that the land and people of Lincoln and Twain would find a way to be right. He believed, like his immigrant forefathers, that America could be a beacon and a paradise.”{from the Introduction by Mark Vonnegut to Armageddon in Retrospect by K.V.}
*************************************************
And this alert to writers from K.V.:
The reader’s time and attention are sacred.
By that Kurt Vonnegut meant always to consider your reader when you write. I would say that’s true on the second and all subsequent drafts. But the first draft should go wherever the writer’s mind wanders, no censor, no cautions.
You might think me audacious to be amending Kurt Vonnegut’s advise. But audacity is something he liked and respected and strove for, and because I love his mind, I do, too. So it goes.
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: iraq war | 1 Comment »
Fear and Loathing in the New Gilded Age
By Rrrandy Wurst | April 24, 2008
Steve Fraser has written a terrific article called The Great Silence about the two “Gilded Ages”, the first occurring at the turn of the last century, while the second currently plays at gas pumps, grocery stores, mortgage companies, etc. around our great nation.
Fraser points out several similarities, notably the tremendous disparity in income between the poor who actually do the work and the rich whose work is essentially moving assets around ( stocks and bonds, etc.) and slicing and dicing companies and mortgages. There are also a few disparities in the two “Gilded Ages,” one being that our present day rich tend not to live the life of “The Leisure Class.” (If you were awake in class that day, you’ll perhaps recall that Thorstein Veblen wrote about the old-time rich. For another enjoyable description of the old Gilded Age, you might want to read Mark Twain.) Instead, the rich of the 21st century consider leisure to detract from their 24/7 efforts to screw everybody else on the way to amassing fortunes that even seven generations of idle offspring could not thoroughly spend.
To call their earnings obscene and to ask, “How can they spend it all?” is to miss the point. They don’t gobble up cash in order to spend it; for them its a game. The more they make, the more they justify their efforts at making even more. Maybe they know no other way. Or, perhaps, they are afraid of not keeping sufficient and geometrically growing distance between themselves and the lumpenproletariat because the revolting poor might figure it out and actually revolt.
But the financial fat-cats have little to fear, really, because today’s proles are primarily focused on consuming whatever they see advertised. We have been trained to consume, to see consuming as the ultimate goal in life. Remember that bumper sticker from the greedy 1980s and 90s?: “He who dies with the most toys wins.” The ultimate face-slap to their hippy generation parents. Not much has changed since then, except for the growing awareness that our heedlessly consuming society, which has infected China and India, is destroying the environment.
Is there a revolution waiting in the wings as was attempted in the first Gilded Age? Unfortunately for those of us with an over-developed sense of fairness, several conditions mitigate against an uprising by the 21st Century down-trodden.
1) The new ubiquitous technologies including DNA, RFIDs*, and other personal data capturing abilities by the government and corporations, which bring fear to anyone who might consider speaking out and acting against entrenched powers.
2) Disappearance of Constitutional protections, such as habeas corpus, for living, breathing citizens, while corporate “persons” gain greater protection.
3) Corporate armies like Blackwater and CACI which have been employed within the USA (New Orleans) and will be more so in the future as our National Guards are deployed elsewhere. Pinkertons are to Blackwater as lead pipes are to assault rifles and night-vision goggles.
This world is one where fear trumps righteousness and the rich and powerful have learned how to use and multiply fear. Oh boy!
____
*RFIDs (radio-frequency identification chips) exist in our cars and cell-phones and may, if the right-wing gummint has its way, be implanted in our bodies.
Person Mark Twain
Right click for SmartMenu shortcuts
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Corporations, The Constitution, wealth | No Comments »
Catfish, pig poop, and your tax dollars
By Rrrandy Wurst | April 15, 2008
“Governments are unstable multi-party coalitions subject to perverse incentives that have more to do with politicians’ careers than with the wishes of the electorate at large.” (from ‘The dysfunctional Jewish state,’ The Economist, April 5)
I would argue that the first incentives of politicians are toward their own careers whether or not a government is multi-party, a monarchy, or anything between. In second place for politicians are their donors. Third comes their party. Fourth place is their local or state voters (who are granted the grand name of “constituents”). Fifth place comes the electorate at large, meaning the country, which, as those acquainted with betting know, is out of the money. Which suggests that if the people we send to Washington are not going to come through for us, maybe we shouldn’t give our money to them.
Supporting politicians, of course, is optional, while paying taxes isn’t. How do we Americans feel about that? Generally speaking, Libertarians would, like Bartleby the Scrivener, “prefer not to.” Right Wing Republicans prefer that whatever tax dollars they absolutely must pay go toward war in the guise of national defense. Democrats, on the other hand, in their vast variety prefer opening their wallets to things of benefit to humans and the environment. Citizens Against Government Waste–I love their cute little pink piggy mascot and their “Porker of the Month” award– reports that Congress awarded $871,854 to Auburn University to grow a better catfish. Which is good for people who eat catfish, although I’m not so sure the catfish themselves feel that way.
Dave Barry, investigative wag at the Miami Herald (How your taxes turn into manure, April 13), opined perceptively: “Perhaps you wonder why this project is being financed by taxpayers, as opposed to the catfish industry. The answer is that the Catfish Genome Project is crucial to achieving a vital national goal that we all share: reelecting the Alabama congresspersons who stuck it in the federal budget.”
Readers of wurstwisdom.com–that means you!– might cast a similar aspersion to the congressperson or persons who used $372,375 of your tax dollars (not mine; I don’t make enough to pay taxes) to study the management of pig manure. Truth be told, if I did make enough to pay taxes, I’d have no problemo with this. Hey, why should catfish get more than twice the government research money that pigs get when catfish don’t even have legs? The money is called “pork,” isn’t it?
And this also from Miami Dave trying mightily to explain President Bush’s Economic Stimulus Tax Rebate, which only folks who actually pay taxes get:
Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.
Q. Where will the government get this money?
A. From taxpayers.
Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
A. Only a smidgen.
Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.
Q. But isn’t that stimulating the economy of China?
A. Shut up.
Though I am one smart pig, the relationship between politics and good sense has always escaped my ken (means “understanding” in Scottish, or even Scotch). Which is to say that I have long wondered about the great distance between politicians and good sense. Depending on perspective, politicians show great understanding about their own purpose. If it is to maintain residence in Washington, DC, then they generally are excellent at their jobs, as 90-99% (depending on who you ask) of incumbents tend to get re-elected. If their purpose is to obtain the best government for the people of the nation and the well-being of the world, then the answer is unclear, as political parties, who pretend to represent the people’s interests, don’t keep statistics about well-being. (Is that odd or not?) Some non-governmental groups do keep such statistics, but they tend to be either left-leaning or right-leaning (People for the American Way and The Heritage Foundation, respectively) or have a specific agenda, such as the welfare of the earth or the welfare of the oil industry (The Sierra Club and TXOGA , respectively) and so come to radically different conclusions, which leaves one in a conclusional No-Person’s Land.
Gee, does this mean that the really rich folks who can afford super-dooper tax accountants who find ways for them to pay no taxes on their $12,000,000 income, don’t get their $600 rebate? Why am I concerned about that?
Sphere: Related ContentTopics: Uncategorized | No Comments »
