Last night I watched Jon Stewart mock Bush’s position on the bailout. It went something like this:

(Clip of Bush at a press conference)

“I’m normally against big government, but after consulting with my advisors, I think this is the best thing to do.”

(Back to Jon Stewart)

[imitating Bush's accent] “It’s like, normally I love Jesus, but after consulting my advisors, ‘Hail Satan!’”

——

In the last couple weeks, we have witnessed republican leaders having a huge change of heart. Historically the party of small government, republicans have suddenly changed their tune, and are now singing the virtues of this bailout.

But wait just a minute! This is exactly the kind of government meddling they have been fighting all along. They have always been the party of capitalism-is-so-great-it-will-resolve-everything-if-we-just-keep-our-hands-off.

So why the apparent change in ideology? Is this just an epic flip-flop?

I don’t think so. I think that it is totally in line with what their policy has tacitly been all along: ‘fuck the poor’.

It just so happens that the market forces tend to favor the rich, and deregulation allows them to drift further in that direction. So deregulation and small government usually align perfectly with conservative ideology of coddling the rich. However, as soon as it’s in the interest of corporations/the business class/plutocrats to have BIG government (i.e. the bailout), conservatives show their true colors, and default back to ‘fuck the poor’, suspending their supposedly unswerving devotion to small government.

So what they are doing is, in fact, entirely in character.

If the economy is in the shitter and people’s houses are being foreclosed on, and nobody can afford an education or a car, the natural thing to do is to give $700,000,000,000 to a bunch of gluttonous companies right?

What if we cut out the middle man? That is to say, just abandoned the idea that by pulling economic strings, bailing out this company here, lowering that rate there, we would eventually put more money in the pockets of American citizens, and instead, we just put the money right into the pocket of the American citizens?

Nah, you can’t do that, the people didn’t earn it

Response:

1. Wouldn’t that be good; if people just had money to blow, isn’t that the kind of injection into the economy that we would want? (à la stimulus package)
2. Since when do we value companies lives over people’s lives? Why are these companies, who obviously made grievous mistakes, more worthy of a handout than a citizen? Conservatives are perfectly happy to use that “you’re on your own, if you fuck up, it’s your own fault, and the government shouldn’t help” line against citizens who are down and out, why not give the same tough love to these companies?

What if we just gave all of that $700,000,000,000 to the work force. Let’s say, people between the ages of 20-64. They make up 60% of the population (according to Wikipedia), so that is 180,000,000 people.

$700,000,000,000 ÷ 180,000,000 people = $3,889 dollars/person

That would pay off a lot of people’s credit card debt.

Or how about this, pay that money to everyone making less than $25K a year (42% of the poplulation [sad isn't it?])

They would all get $5,555. That would mean that for 2009-2010, 42% of the popluation’s yearly income would increase by 22% or more. That is a hell of a raise!

But no, people don’t deserve money for nothing. Organizations that make a handful of people obscenely rich deserve free money. But people don’t.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/25/AR2008092502171.html?hpid=topnews

From the interview with Katie Couric:

Katie: Explain to me why [being near Russia] enhances your foreign policy credentials.

Palin: Well, it certainly does. Because our…ooh…our next door neighbors are foreign countries…they’re in the state that I am the executive of. And they’re…

Katie: Have you ever been involved with any negotiations, for example, with the Russians?

Palin: We have trade missions back and forth. We, we do…It’s very important when when you consider even national security issues with Russia as Putin rears his head and …ah… comes into …ah… the airspace of the United States of America. Where, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s just right over the border. It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on, this very powerful nation: Russia, because they are right there, they are right next to, um, to our state…

—

This woman is seriously living on another planet. Did anyone ever say that Bush had foreign policy experience for governing a state next to Mexico? No, because that would have been absurd.

If Palin had any relations at all with the leaders of a nation bordering the state she governed, it was done so illegally. The constitution specifically assigns foreign relations responsiblity to the federal government.

I know I will catch a lot of hell for this, from people who like to maintain the optimism that this election will put a non-Neo-con in office, but I have to get it off my chest.

It is about time we face up to the fact that this country will never again be run by progressives. Everyone, regardless of party, is fed up with the past 8 years; the economy, the housing market, the war, and the list goes on. Yet they refuse to admit that this is directly correlated to who has been in power.

The fact that there is even a question of electing another neo-con, let alone that he is leading in the polls, just goes to show you how pointless the American political system has become.

Truthfully, I don’t think most conservatives even want this man in power: they’ve been duped. They have a legitimate right to worry about terrorism, abortion, and gay marriage, but these viewpoints have been co-opted by a party who could give a shit about them. What the Republicans’ real platform is is ‘fuck the poor’. Plain and simple.

The genius of their strategy is to do lip service to the issues people care passionately about, like family values, and protecting us from terror, so the very people who the Republicans’ policies are designed to exploit are their biggest voters.

The saddest thing is that they have somehow even managed to convince us that they are the party of patriotism. I don’t know how they pulled it off, but they did. Maybe it was by repeating the lie that progressives are unpatriotic loud enough and often enough that it became truth. I don’t know. But as long as they have a trademark on Patriotism™, there is no way you can resist them without allying yourself with Terrorists™, Muslim Fundamentalists™, the Axis of Evil™, Freedom Haters™, Mahmud Ahmedinejad™, and all of the other threats to the very existence of America™.

To quote Jack White, who was undoubtedly singing to Republicans on the topic of America:

“You’ve got her in your pocket
And there’s no way out now
Put it in the safe and lock it
’cause it’s at home sweet home”

-e

As sad as it is, Palin is a pawn. Everyone in power (the neo-cons) knows that this election is too important to leave to the candidates to debate about the issues, so they found this conveniently outrageous caricature of a person to distract us from what matters in this election: the economy and the war.

The status quo of both of these things plays to the advantage of the rich, and as they do in all elections, they make anything that might jeopardize their status a non-issue by flooding the media with other garbage.

GE for example, which owns a huge part of the American media, also furnishes our troops with supplies. It is therefore very profitable for them for us to stay fighting. Thus, they use the influence they have, namely the media, to make the war a marginal issue in this election. Just do a quick survey of the top headlines on google. Two thirds of them are about Palin’s eccentricities.

Far more interesting than issues to the American public (and these corporations know it) is the juicy gossip about nepotism, teen pregnancy, hypocrisy, book banning, inexperience, and moose meat that follows Palin.

We will be distracted by this, while McCain plots how to convince us, as Bush and Rove did, that if his party is not in power, some outside force will conquer us and drive us into a new dark age.

Don’t be fooled: Palin was not a bad choice at all. She will serve the end she was selected to further, and that is to make this election an issue of personality. Hence the renewed focus on ‘maverickness’. In the end, we will be forced to elect McCain, so he can protect us from the impending barbarian invasions.

The xenophobic fear that Republicans have instilled in us throughout the last twenty years will most certainly reincarnate itself in the last hours of this election, and will effectively nullify any lead Obama may have had based on his stand on the issues. As we can see from recent polls, Obama was far ahead in the ‘would do better with the economy’ venue, but now is trailing in that and other polls. Focus has shifted elsewhere.

This is the game they play. Obama knows it, and in the last few days has made it a policy not to mention Palin’s name at all.

We will see if his strategy pans out.

…I think is an apt title for what the last 8 years have been under the Republicans/Bush Administration/Neo-cons/Fascist Regime whatever you want to call it.

Granted, we had a right to be shocked and appalled at the events of 9/11, but the response to them was entirely inappropriate. We squandered 8 years batting at an enemy that should have been no more than a nuisance, but whom we made a monster of in our minds. We should have swatted it like the pest it was, but instead, as we step out of this era, we are not better off at all. We are only more fearful.

Fearful of Muslims, as is demonstrated by the now pervasive contempt for anything middle-eastern.

Fearful of other countries, as we now label anything foreign (like the world’s support for Barack Obama) as un-American, and dangerous.

Fearful of our children, as we can see from the unwarranted raids of the houses of young protesters of the Republican National Convention.

And most shockingly, fearful of ourselves: unquestioningly giving up liberties in the PATRIOT and FISA Acts, to combat so called ‘terror’.

I think now more than ever, the saying “there is nothing to fear but fear itself” should apply, but instead, we are looking for a president who will check our collective closet for the boogeyman.

What we should remember is that our fear is our enemy’s power.
Right now, it seems that he’s got us by the balls.

PS, Happy Patriot Day everybody

Sarah Palin recently criticized Barack Obama for asserting that the writ of Habeas Corpus applies to ‘terrorists’.*

He fired back, and in my opinion, showed her who’s boss.

The responses to Obama’s defense of alleged terrorists’ right to Habeas Corpus have been interesting to say the least. I have read conservatives railing agaist him for sympathizing with terrorists, and claiming that he is extending American legal rights to non-Americans.

Both of these points are of course insane. The first, for the the reason that Barack so adeptly pointed out, because there are certain things we do not do as a country; it is part of our identity. We do execute people publicly, we do not segregate, and we do not scoop people up and hold them without reason. We just don’t do it. The moment we sacrifice these principles is the moment we are no better than they.

Silly but appropriate example: Superman. He would never kill an innocent to get to the bad guy, and sometimes it would torture him, but he held on to those principles. People laud the character for that.

The second point is a little more complicated, but I will start by saying that Habeas Corpus is not defined in the constitution as a privilege granted only to American Citizens. Here is what Article I Section 9 says exactly:

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.

It doesn’t say anything about ‘American citizen’, it was written to apply to any individual being held by the federal goverment, citizen or otherwise.
Also, we are not officially in the situtations of rebellion or invasion, so it cannot be suspended for one of those reasons.

There has been a huge debate in the supreme court lately, but with a few caveats, Habeas Corpus is still available to so-called ‘terrorists’. You cannot therefore argue that Obama is trying to give Americans’ rights to aliens, when the guarantee of latters’ access to said rights has been upheld by the supreme court.

–

The ’shoot first, ask questions later’ mentality is too prevalent these days. And what bothers me the most is that if you even once question the battle cry ‘LET’S GET ‘EM”, then people label you an appeaser, or a sympathizer.

Don’t get me wrong; I am all about goin’ ‘n’ gettin’ ‘em, but I don’t think we can allow ourselves to trample the constitution into the ground in the process.

*(Habeas Corpus allows people being held by the government to question why they are being held)

As time goes on, I get angrier and angrier with the right’s focus on preserving what they call ‘family values’. They will not only openly decry any changes to the status quo that could be a detriment to the ‘American Family’ (whatever that is supposed to mean), but if you press them hard enough, their underlying motivation for most of their beliefs is the same thing: ‘family values’.

Why not legalize gay marriage?
Because it would destroy the sanctity of heterosexual marriage.

And what is wrong with that?
Well, it destroys the American Family.

So what?
The family is the glue that holds society together, and if it goes, our civilization will crumble to dust.

This is just an example of one of the things they base off of the values argument, but I have heard it used on the attack against things like gay adoption, sex education, and to justify censorship.

I am going to ask you to humor me for an out-there hypothetical. What would really happen if the family unit as we know it were completely done away with? What if marriage as a government recognized institution were totally abolished, or extended to animals and inanimate objects? What if a kid walking down the street were exposed to billboards and ads showing full on penetration on a daily basis?

Would people stop pairing off and reproducing? I highly doubt it. Would they stop caring for their children and wanting the best for them? Surely not. The government is not what is keeping fathers from abandoning their children, and single men from raping women on sight. Familial instincts are just that; instincts. They existed before government, and even when societies collapse they continue to exist.

And there it is; morals are something that’s internal, and need not be handed down from the state.

The real responsibility of the government is to ensure that the American way of life remains possible, not to preserve it. The moment they start legislating anything based on how a family ought to be is the moment when family values are really being threatened; nobody knows what is right for anybody else’s family.

And so we come to Sarah Palin. She claims to know what is good for everyone’s family, and she makes this very apparent.

-Good families do not start with sex out of wedlock (even though her first was conceived before marriage).
-Good families start when a baby is conceived, not necessarily when the parents are mature enough and financially capable to take care of it (even if the parents are seventeen).
-Good families don’t learn about sex and reproduction until it happens (even though her daughter was sneaking out for some independent study).

I won’t bring up the point of how socially/economically/environmentally irresponsible it is to have 5 children, because that is my personal family value.

The point is, she is hypocritical. That’s obvious. But what I am trying to get at here is that those values were not good for her family, and they aren’t good for every family in America, either. I am sure that they work for some people, but prescribing them as a moral goal for every family is silly.

I do not by any means think Sarah Palin is a bad mother. But by her own standards she is. I do not think her teenage daughter did any wrong either, but as much as Governor Palin tries to call it a ‘blessing’, it is in fact exactly the thing she is fighting so hard against.

Do away with your unrealistic ideals of what a family should be, and no family is a failure. And face it, you are not the only thing ensuring the existence of the family unit.

I finally got to a place where I am reasonably satisfied with the way the blog is working. I am still kind of pissed that it has to open in a new window, but I am currently unable to edit the PHP to make there be a link back to ‘home’ at the top of the blog; it only goes back to the blog home.

I did a pretty shitty job with the images for the blog site, as I am sure you can tell, when compared with the ones on the main site. There was basically no way I was going to be able to mess with the formatting in the PHP, so I just straight up edited the images they had in the template! Kind of a half-assed way to do it, but whatever.

I am going to start putting some content on the main pages themselves, maybe sometime in the near future.