Today's Republicans vs. the United States, Part 2 (Post-9/11 Punk'd):
As with many things in this world, before you blame others, you gotta blame yourself. In his "Well, fuck me, guess I was wrong" commentary in today's New York Times, former executive editor Bill Keller offers an explanation of why he and other liberal-ish writers supported the war in Iraq, even when it was headed for disaster. After saying that Slate writer Fred Kaplan decided that "whether or not an invasion was morally justified, he doubted the Bush administration was up to the task," Keller offers this: "The rest of us [liberal hawks] were still a little drugged by testosterone. And maybe a little too pleased with ourselves for standing up to evil and defying the caricature of liberals as, to borrow a phrase from those days, brie-eating surrender monkeys."
And there ya go. Right there is the epitaph for 21st-century liberalism, written large in the first years of the awful decade: We didn't want to seem like pussies.
You're gonna read a lot over this week about how George W. Bush and Dick Cheney abused an act of terrorism and used it to launch two failed wars. Once supposed liberals had had a taste of bloodlust by supporting the invasion of Afghanistan (which some of us opposed as being the equivalent of using an elephant to squash a grape), too many stayed on board with blowing up some Saddam Hussein in Iraq, including a majority of the Democrats in the Senate. Before that, of course, the odious Patriot Act was passed, and the door was open to let Republicans rape and pillage until 2007.
Keller writes, "I wanted to be on the side of doing something, and standing by was not enough." So instead, like too many in this country didn't stand up. Our leaders didn't lead. Cowed by the fear of being labeled "unpatriotic" or worse, they folded, and a good many liberals followed suit. Well, they could dance and justify, Saddam Hussein was a bad man. At least we'll get rid of him. It was delusional, the hubris of a country that had gone more than a generation without a serious military conflict.
After the attacks, some of us didn't lose our shit. We didn't go monkey fuck insane and demand blood and flesh as payment. We were the patriots. We knew that really being a pussy was to trust the post-9/11 world to the very man we believed was an incompetent buffoon with an evil inner circle on 9/10. Really? You wanna put that much power in the hands of the dude who had to go on a walkabout on his fake ranch to decide that medical research can go fuck itself? No, sorry, liberal hawks who have lived with regrets ever since shock and awe, a good many of us were strong enough to know that you don't give a loaded gun to a idiot and not expect him to shoot himself in the foot and then just spray random fire at us all.
Too many people did trust the White House. Too many people did believe that they would have the best interests of the nation at heart. Too many people were just so fucking scared. So what Republicans have done to this country, in dividing us under the guise of security and wrecking our economy under the guise of saving it, they have accomplished in no small part because too many of us allowed it to happen.
As for Bill Keller and the Times, if the newspaper - indeed, had anyone in the mainstream press done their jobs - then we might be looking back with less regret and more anger.
Monday, September 05, 2011
Absence of Labor Day:
Today, on CNN's American Morning (where apparently only Ali Velshi got the day off), the question of the day was "Do unions help or hurt America?" The responses were surprisingly not insane, and a good many were pro-union. Of course, it was a stupid fucking question, being asked in a studio that probably contained union members, but, as with so many things these days, CNN was merely giving credence to the anti-worker rhetoric spouted by the right. Are unions good or bad for America? Well, shit, considering that corporations come up with ways to hire near-slaves whenever they can, it shouldn't even be a question.
The photo up there is from a job fair held by the Congressional Black Caucus in Los Angeles on August 31. About 20,000 people lined up for it. That tops the previous CBC job fairs in Atlanta, Detroit, Cleveland, and Miami, each of which had thousands of jobs seekers in long, winding lines, hoping against hope that someone would actually give a shit.
Some people who do give a shit are unionized workers, currently less than 12% of the American work force. By the way, only 6.9% of private employees are unionized. Government workers are one of the last bastions of any real strength for the labor movement in this country. No wonder the right is going after them so viciously, discrediting and demonizing and then eliminating them.
Of course, if actual actions by unions got even a tiny fragment of the coverage that the Tea Party gets if it farts in a windstorm, you might realize that they really do represent the majority of Americans: the ones who want decent jobs and decent treatment and decent standards of living and who understand that the wealthy in the country (what we used to call "capital") are the very people who are trying to destroy unity in the working class through bullshit like the Tea Party.
You might know that, just this week, 10,000 unionized nurses across the country demanded through protests that their members of Congress raise taxes on Wall Street transactions. You might know that 3000 members of the United Farm Workers marched on the state capitol in Sacramento for, among other things, the right to overtime pay. Maybe you did hear that organizers of the Pittsburgh Labor Day parade, with tens of thousands of participants, told anti-union politicians to go fuck themselves, that workers are not their props, and that they can't march.
But, if you did hear that last one, that's only because thuggish union members were being mean to the poor, poor politicians who want to strip away their right to exist. And we can't make the lapdogs of our corporate masters feel bad, can we? Oh, and, hey, look, 2000 people listened to a Sarah Palin speech.
Today, on CNN's American Morning (where apparently only Ali Velshi got the day off), the question of the day was "Do unions help or hurt America?" The responses were surprisingly not insane, and a good many were pro-union. Of course, it was a stupid fucking question, being asked in a studio that probably contained union members, but, as with so many things these days, CNN was merely giving credence to the anti-worker rhetoric spouted by the right. Are unions good or bad for America? Well, shit, considering that corporations come up with ways to hire near-slaves whenever they can, it shouldn't even be a question.
The photo up there is from a job fair held by the Congressional Black Caucus in Los Angeles on August 31. About 20,000 people lined up for it. That tops the previous CBC job fairs in Atlanta, Detroit, Cleveland, and Miami, each of which had thousands of jobs seekers in long, winding lines, hoping against hope that someone would actually give a shit.
Some people who do give a shit are unionized workers, currently less than 12% of the American work force. By the way, only 6.9% of private employees are unionized. Government workers are one of the last bastions of any real strength for the labor movement in this country. No wonder the right is going after them so viciously, discrediting and demonizing and then eliminating them.
Of course, if actual actions by unions got even a tiny fragment of the coverage that the Tea Party gets if it farts in a windstorm, you might realize that they really do represent the majority of Americans: the ones who want decent jobs and decent treatment and decent standards of living and who understand that the wealthy in the country (what we used to call "capital") are the very people who are trying to destroy unity in the working class through bullshit like the Tea Party.
You might know that, just this week, 10,000 unionized nurses across the country demanded through protests that their members of Congress raise taxes on Wall Street transactions. You might know that 3000 members of the United Farm Workers marched on the state capitol in Sacramento for, among other things, the right to overtime pay. Maybe you did hear that organizers of the Pittsburgh Labor Day parade, with tens of thousands of participants, told anti-union politicians to go fuck themselves, that workers are not their props, and that they can't march.
But, if you did hear that last one, that's only because thuggish union members were being mean to the poor, poor politicians who want to strip away their right to exist. And we can't make the lapdogs of our corporate masters feel bad, can we? Oh, and, hey, look, 2000 people listened to a Sarah Palin speech.
Friday, September 02, 2011
Today's Republicans vs. the United States (Part 1):
On last night's under-the-radar podcast/online radio venture, Cheater and the Rude, the Rude Pundit posited another way to think about the Republicans and their relationship with America. It's a variation on the abused partner metaphor, one that's a bit more extreme: At this point, Republicans have gotten so batshit and destructively irrational about their hatred of Obama and the Democrats that they've become like the psychotic boyfriend who grabs his girlfriend who's threatening to break up with him and puts a razor to her face, saying, "I'm gonna make you so ugly, no one will ever fuck you again. And then you'll only have me" before horribly scarring her.
What more can we make of a party that seems determined to wreck whatever it can in order to the nation to shit, calculating that frightened Americans will turn back to Republicans.
The nonsense over the date of the President's address to Congress made the Rude Pundit wonder, "Are there no depths to which they'll go in order to degrade Obama? At this point, are they just fucking with him for fun? Are they just seeing how often they can get him to cave?" Yeah, there's a Republican candidates' debate scheduled. On NBC. One network, a debate that no one's gonna fuckin' watch other than geeks trying to out-tweet each other. Boehner made a power play. And Obama, always trying to stay above any fray, even those where he should be in the alley, swinging hard, moved the speech and even made it early in the evening so as not to piss off NFL fans. The stupidity and childishness of Boehner's actions shouldn't overshadow whatever substance of the speech might be, a speech that is already making the particularly rank assholes in the House majority teabag themselves.
Today, Paul Krugman, referring to Eric Cantor's call for budget offsets to any additional disaster funding, wrote, "Never mind getting enough votes to pass legislation; it gets what it wants by threatening to hurt America if its demands aren’t met. That’s what happened with the debt-ceiling fight, and now it’s what’s happening over disaster aid."
To take it further, this year has become about whether or not you give a shit about America. The battle that is occurring in our politics is so ludicrous that it begs belief. We are, in essence, arguing over whether or not there should be a United States of America. This ain't liberal hysteria. This comes from listening, reading, and watching the right, including nearly every candidate for president.
Next week, the Rude Pundit will get more into how the current Republicans are wrecking the country in a way that the Bush administration could only dream about.
For now, let's just say this: Boehner denied the President on the date of the speech because he knew he could. He knew he could turn his back on a century of precedent, and he knew he could get away with it. And that's sad on so many levels.
On last night's under-the-radar podcast/online radio venture, Cheater and the Rude, the Rude Pundit posited another way to think about the Republicans and their relationship with America. It's a variation on the abused partner metaphor, one that's a bit more extreme: At this point, Republicans have gotten so batshit and destructively irrational about their hatred of Obama and the Democrats that they've become like the psychotic boyfriend who grabs his girlfriend who's threatening to break up with him and puts a razor to her face, saying, "I'm gonna make you so ugly, no one will ever fuck you again. And then you'll only have me" before horribly scarring her.
What more can we make of a party that seems determined to wreck whatever it can in order to the nation to shit, calculating that frightened Americans will turn back to Republicans.
The nonsense over the date of the President's address to Congress made the Rude Pundit wonder, "Are there no depths to which they'll go in order to degrade Obama? At this point, are they just fucking with him for fun? Are they just seeing how often they can get him to cave?" Yeah, there's a Republican candidates' debate scheduled. On NBC. One network, a debate that no one's gonna fuckin' watch other than geeks trying to out-tweet each other. Boehner made a power play. And Obama, always trying to stay above any fray, even those where he should be in the alley, swinging hard, moved the speech and even made it early in the evening so as not to piss off NFL fans. The stupidity and childishness of Boehner's actions shouldn't overshadow whatever substance of the speech might be, a speech that is already making the particularly rank assholes in the House majority teabag themselves.
Today, Paul Krugman, referring to Eric Cantor's call for budget offsets to any additional disaster funding, wrote, "Never mind getting enough votes to pass legislation; it gets what it wants by threatening to hurt America if its demands aren’t met. That’s what happened with the debt-ceiling fight, and now it’s what’s happening over disaster aid."
To take it further, this year has become about whether or not you give a shit about America. The battle that is occurring in our politics is so ludicrous that it begs belief. We are, in essence, arguing over whether or not there should be a United States of America. This ain't liberal hysteria. This comes from listening, reading, and watching the right, including nearly every candidate for president.
Next week, the Rude Pundit will get more into how the current Republicans are wrecking the country in a way that the Bush administration could only dream about.
For now, let's just say this: Boehner denied the President on the date of the speech because he knew he could. He knew he could turn his back on a century of precedent, and he knew he could get away with it. And that's sad on so many levels.
Thursday, September 01, 2011
God Continues to Respond to Rick Perry's Prayers:
Of course, his response is "Lick my sacred sack." But at least it's an answer.
That picture, by the way, is of a wildfire destroyed house in Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas, so the name is kind of ironic these days.
Of course, his response is "Lick my sacred sack." But at least it's an answer.
That picture, by the way, is of a wildfire destroyed house in Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas, so the name is kind of ironic these days.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
The Rude Pundit on Monday's Stephanie Miller Show:
Yes, we did talk about the hurricane. And Rick Perry, who is like a hayseed hurricane.
Jesus, just subscribe to the podcast already, and you can get your Cheater and the Rude fix.
Yes, we did talk about the hurricane. And Rick Perry, who is like a hayseed hurricane.
Jesus, just subscribe to the podcast already, and you can get your Cheater and the Rude fix.
Eric Cantor Used to Love Him Some FEMA Money:
Oh, hey, look, here's Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Cantor, who thinks that any additional money requested to help people in the wake of Hurricane Irene be matched by more cuts in gutted government programs, in 2007, praising the Federal Emergency Management Agency for giving money to help his district rebuild after a 2006 tropical storm: "I am pleased to see that FEMA has come to the aid of the residents of the City of Richmond. I am committed to continuing to work with Mayor Wilder to assist the victims of Battery Park and residents of the City of Richmond." By the way, that's from a press release from Cantor's office that isn't available on the Majority Leader's website anymore. By the way, those funds came from an emergency supplemental funding act.
Of course, initially, after Ernesto flooded parts of the state, FEMA had denied federal aid to the area, with the agency saying the federal government didn't need to spend money because the storm "didn't overwhelm the state and local capacity to help these people." Virginia officials were outraged that FEMA wouldn't spend money on it. They couldn't just help themselves. Cantor lashed out; he "called FEMA's evaluation subjective and unfair. 'The whole incentive system is just upside down,' he said," according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch on September 30, 2006.
Back in 2004, Cantor was downright proud at his ability to secure funding for his local office of emergency management through FEMA. He got a $400,000 grant to help out with first responders there. Of course, then it was all about protecting from the terrorists, and, in a press release from his office that is no longer available anywhere but Nexis, Cantor crowed, "It is imperative that cities like Richmond have enough funding to ensure first responders can continue to efficiently coordinate preparations in the case of a mass medical emergency. This funding will help sustain and enhance the capabilities of the Richmond Regional MMRS to coordinate resources for an effective regional response to a possible terrorist attack."
And in 2002, as we continue on this little journey, Cantor announced that the Chesterfield, VA, fire department had received over $350,000 from FEMA to improve its emergency response. Isn't that what's referred to these days as "pork"?
Not mentioned in all the times that Cantor got funding for Virginia for disasters and for disaster prep is cutting anything else in the federal budget in order to pay for, say, repairing homes in Richmond or making sure that firefighters had equipment and training. Not then, not even when, in 2004, he was Deputy Majority Whip and the House suspended the rules and passed, on a voice vote, an emergency supplemental appropriations bill for hurricane relief. And in 2003, when one of those adorable emergency supplementals for the wars was passed, it included funding for relief for victims of Hurricane Isabel. From Cantor? Not a word about cutting in other areas.
Now you could argue that during those comparatively flush times of the early Bush administration, when deficits didn't matter, when the GOP pretended there was cash to toss around like a crazed little boy in a candy store on allowance day, Cantor was just doing the right thing for his district while the money was there. But what makes it even more hilarious now that the bespectacled douchebag has his semi-pompadour all a-flutter over offsetting any additional disaster relief funds with budget cuts elsewhere is that, in 2004, he voted against an amendment to do just that. And, of course, in 2007, when he appealed for FEMA funds for his district, the United States was well into recession living.
Apparently, all it takes for one to abandon one's human decency is a Democratic president, a healthy infusion of PAC cash, and the attention of wild-eyed fanatics from the Tea Party. And Cantor sucks those last two teats like a starving piglet.
Oh, hey, look, here's Virginia Republican Congressman Eric Cantor, who thinks that any additional money requested to help people in the wake of Hurricane Irene be matched by more cuts in gutted government programs, in 2007, praising the Federal Emergency Management Agency for giving money to help his district rebuild after a 2006 tropical storm: "I am pleased to see that FEMA has come to the aid of the residents of the City of Richmond. I am committed to continuing to work with Mayor Wilder to assist the victims of Battery Park and residents of the City of Richmond." By the way, that's from a press release from Cantor's office that isn't available on the Majority Leader's website anymore. By the way, those funds came from an emergency supplemental funding act.
Of course, initially, after Ernesto flooded parts of the state, FEMA had denied federal aid to the area, with the agency saying the federal government didn't need to spend money because the storm "didn't overwhelm the state and local capacity to help these people." Virginia officials were outraged that FEMA wouldn't spend money on it. They couldn't just help themselves. Cantor lashed out; he "called FEMA's evaluation subjective and unfair. 'The whole incentive system is just upside down,' he said," according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch on September 30, 2006.
Back in 2004, Cantor was downright proud at his ability to secure funding for his local office of emergency management through FEMA. He got a $400,000 grant to help out with first responders there. Of course, then it was all about protecting from the terrorists, and, in a press release from his office that is no longer available anywhere but Nexis, Cantor crowed, "It is imperative that cities like Richmond have enough funding to ensure first responders can continue to efficiently coordinate preparations in the case of a mass medical emergency. This funding will help sustain and enhance the capabilities of the Richmond Regional MMRS to coordinate resources for an effective regional response to a possible terrorist attack."
And in 2002, as we continue on this little journey, Cantor announced that the Chesterfield, VA, fire department had received over $350,000 from FEMA to improve its emergency response. Isn't that what's referred to these days as "pork"?
Not mentioned in all the times that Cantor got funding for Virginia for disasters and for disaster prep is cutting anything else in the federal budget in order to pay for, say, repairing homes in Richmond or making sure that firefighters had equipment and training. Not then, not even when, in 2004, he was Deputy Majority Whip and the House suspended the rules and passed, on a voice vote, an emergency supplemental appropriations bill for hurricane relief. And in 2003, when one of those adorable emergency supplementals for the wars was passed, it included funding for relief for victims of Hurricane Isabel. From Cantor? Not a word about cutting in other areas.
Now you could argue that during those comparatively flush times of the early Bush administration, when deficits didn't matter, when the GOP pretended there was cash to toss around like a crazed little boy in a candy store on allowance day, Cantor was just doing the right thing for his district while the money was there. But what makes it even more hilarious now that the bespectacled douchebag has his semi-pompadour all a-flutter over offsetting any additional disaster relief funds with budget cuts elsewhere is that, in 2004, he voted against an amendment to do just that. And, of course, in 2007, when he appealed for FEMA funds for his district, the United States was well into recession living.
Apparently, all it takes for one to abandon one's human decency is a Democratic president, a healthy infusion of PAC cash, and the attention of wild-eyed fanatics from the Tea Party. And Cantor sucks those last two teats like a starving piglet.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Stories Not Mentioned in Dick Cheney's New Memoir:
1. During sex with Lynne, he has his own version of autoerotic asphyxiation. As she's fucking away on top of him, just before he orgasms, she pulls the battery out of his artificial heart. It's a huge turn-on, the beeping alarm, the unstable fluttering "heartbeat," like some kind of rusted steampunk villain. If the timing is right, and it rarely is, just as the last blood is flowing through his arteries, Cheney will come in waves.
Once, just recently, Lynne was startled by daughter Liz walking in on her parents to check to see if a document should go in the shredder or the "fuck you, fuckers" blackmail safe. Madame Cheney dropped the battery, which led to an awkward scene of Liz and her nude mom scrambling to find it and shove it back into the power pack of very naked Dick as he sprayed them both with spooge. Instead of "Thank you," the post-coital former vice president looked at his sticky wife and child and said, "Shoulda left it out for just a few more seconds. Woulda been the best load I've blown in ages."
2. When he was just a child, his father was home on leave from the military. He was delighted when Dad and his soldier buddies would have cookouts and play games with him. Upon receiving a pony ride on the back of one of the men, Young Dick declared to himself, "I will do everything in my power for the rest of my life to avoid being in the military, yet I will make sure that I am in a position where soldiers will do my bidding, no matter how ridiculous or destructive."
3. At a party at the White House during the Ford administration, he got into a drunken brawl with the CIA Director's coked-up son over who was going to decide on the next 8-track on the stereo. Cheney broke a vase over the man's head, yelling, "Mantovani, you bastard," and was kicking his skull repeatedly until Ford tackled Cheney and suggested that he should run for Congress. The CIA Director's son was hospitalized for weeks. It has been suggested secretly that the man never recovered from the brain damage he received during the beating, as revealed by his serial failure at every career he ever attempted.
4. The real reason he voted against the creation of Martin Luther King Day? He hates black people. (See criticism of Powell, Colin, and Rice, Condoleezza.)
5. Best thing about his job at Halliburton? All the Iraqi children he could bone, sent personally by Saddam Hussein. Best thing about being Vice President? Making sure that Saddam was silenced.
6. Sometimes, in the darkest part of the darkest nights in Wyoming, when there's no moon and clouds have blocked off the stars and Milky Way from the eye's view, Dick Cheney gets contemplative. Some men might reflect on the evil that they took part in; they might think about their errors, their overreactions, their failures; they might regret blithe and active cruelties; men who have been destructive might ponder how they may spend their remaining days trying to compensate for the wreckage.
Not Dick Cheney. No, in those dark times, he thinks about all the things he didn't get to do: bombing Syria and Iran, the sweet smell of burnt flesh that would have been left behind; the men and women and children that weren't waterboarded in order to get them gasping lies that might contain the smallest particle of truth about threats small and large; the places on earth that he didn't get to despoil with oil drilling in order to drive up profits for freedom, sweet American crude freedom.
Of course, he has his photos. And when he's feeling down about all he didn't accomplish he takes out his stack of photos, the only sound the purring of his heart pump, and he looks over the pictures of the detainees tortured in the black ops sites, the burnt testicles, the bloodied faces and assholes, the bruised feet and torsos. He smiles his stroke victim smirk as he reaches into his pants to begin masturbating, one hand on his battery, ready to do right for himself what no one else could have done.
1. During sex with Lynne, he has his own version of autoerotic asphyxiation. As she's fucking away on top of him, just before he orgasms, she pulls the battery out of his artificial heart. It's a huge turn-on, the beeping alarm, the unstable fluttering "heartbeat," like some kind of rusted steampunk villain. If the timing is right, and it rarely is, just as the last blood is flowing through his arteries, Cheney will come in waves.
Once, just recently, Lynne was startled by daughter Liz walking in on her parents to check to see if a document should go in the shredder or the "fuck you, fuckers" blackmail safe. Madame Cheney dropped the battery, which led to an awkward scene of Liz and her nude mom scrambling to find it and shove it back into the power pack of very naked Dick as he sprayed them both with spooge. Instead of "Thank you," the post-coital former vice president looked at his sticky wife and child and said, "Shoulda left it out for just a few more seconds. Woulda been the best load I've blown in ages."
2. When he was just a child, his father was home on leave from the military. He was delighted when Dad and his soldier buddies would have cookouts and play games with him. Upon receiving a pony ride on the back of one of the men, Young Dick declared to himself, "I will do everything in my power for the rest of my life to avoid being in the military, yet I will make sure that I am in a position where soldiers will do my bidding, no matter how ridiculous or destructive."
3. At a party at the White House during the Ford administration, he got into a drunken brawl with the CIA Director's coked-up son over who was going to decide on the next 8-track on the stereo. Cheney broke a vase over the man's head, yelling, "Mantovani, you bastard," and was kicking his skull repeatedly until Ford tackled Cheney and suggested that he should run for Congress. The CIA Director's son was hospitalized for weeks. It has been suggested secretly that the man never recovered from the brain damage he received during the beating, as revealed by his serial failure at every career he ever attempted.
4. The real reason he voted against the creation of Martin Luther King Day? He hates black people. (See criticism of Powell, Colin, and Rice, Condoleezza.)
5. Best thing about his job at Halliburton? All the Iraqi children he could bone, sent personally by Saddam Hussein. Best thing about being Vice President? Making sure that Saddam was silenced.
6. Sometimes, in the darkest part of the darkest nights in Wyoming, when there's no moon and clouds have blocked off the stars and Milky Way from the eye's view, Dick Cheney gets contemplative. Some men might reflect on the evil that they took part in; they might think about their errors, their overreactions, their failures; they might regret blithe and active cruelties; men who have been destructive might ponder how they may spend their remaining days trying to compensate for the wreckage.
Not Dick Cheney. No, in those dark times, he thinks about all the things he didn't get to do: bombing Syria and Iran, the sweet smell of burnt flesh that would have been left behind; the men and women and children that weren't waterboarded in order to get them gasping lies that might contain the smallest particle of truth about threats small and large; the places on earth that he didn't get to despoil with oil drilling in order to drive up profits for freedom, sweet American crude freedom.
Of course, he has his photos. And when he's feeling down about all he didn't accomplish he takes out his stack of photos, the only sound the purring of his heart pump, and he looks over the pictures of the detainees tortured in the black ops sites, the burnt testicles, the bloodied faces and assholes, the bruised feet and torsos. He smiles his stroke victim smirk as he reaches into his pants to begin masturbating, one hand on his battery, ready to do right for himself what no one else could have done.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Fucked New Orleans: A Sixth Anniversary Post:
When you hear idiots who aren't drowning in the Catskills or watching their towns get washed away in Vermont debate over whether or not government officials and the media overreacted to Hurricane Irene, you have to wonder if they would have been happier if a couple of thousand people had died and lower Manhattan had become Katrina-ville. Of course it was overstated. Of course they screamed and called it "ferocious" when it turned out to not be that bad. How else do you get heard over the cacophony of bullshit that passes for information these days? How else do you get through to the numbskulls who think that something that might kill them is just an opportunity to record a sub-Jackass fail video?
As bad as Irene's effects continue to be, you could detect the disappointment in the news anchors and reporters as they realized that it's only podunk towns in the mountains and not New York City that'd be fucked up (except for Staten Island, but that never counts as real NYC), that they wouldn't have the opportunity to ride boats through Ground Zero so close to the anniversary of 9/11, that the story wouldn't have the synchronized beauty of wreaking havoc on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
For, yes, yes, it is that time of year, the end of August, and fewer and fewer people are recognizing it, when we remember that six years ago, Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, the natural disaster on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain and Mississippi, the human-made disaster of New Orleans. And, despite most outward appearances, still, after all this time, after mayors and governors and presidents Democratic and Republican, after celebrities moved there to help, after the cultural scene is more vibrant than perhaps ever, New Orleans is still, still so very, very fucked.
About six weeks ago, the Rude Pundit spent a lovely couple of days in New Orleans, drinking hard, eating hard, roaming the streets, staying in an extra lovely inn in the Bywater with an even more lovely partner, the romance of the place washing over us as we existed for that short period in the reconstructed blocks and mostly untouched spaces of the dark and sticky and magical city.
The thing about the Bywater, which, if you head west, is next to the Fauborg, which is next to the French Quarter, is that if you head east and jump a canal, you are in the Lower Ninth Ward. It's that close to the revived places. And when the Rude Pundit visited the Lower Ninth back in December of 2010, he saw this:
That's a dead dog in the middle of what was once a street lined with houses. It was a big dog, and it had been there a while: the skin was decaying, and, on the dog's head, it was pulled tight, revealing the teeth and skull. You got that? In the middle of a street, in the middle of a major city, less than a half mile from the tourist areas, no one gave a fuck about moving the goddamned dog's corpse. And those fields of weeds covered the foundations and remnants of houses. Some day, someone is going to excavate that area and wonder what civilization abandoned it.
But New Orleans isn't fucked because it has left its poor neighborhoods to go fallow (even if some FEMA money was just secured to possibly help). No, it's fucked because the very levees that failed are still pieces of shit. Yep, on a five point Roman numeral scale, with V the best and I the worst, the supposedly more secure levees got a II. And that's from the Army Corps of Engineers using its own scale, the same people who thought they were fine in the first place.
You add to that the corruption and incompetence that has gone into building a new hydraulic pump system, not to mention rising sea levels (which the Corps knows it needs to take into account and will happen no matter how much climate change deniers say it won't), and, no matter how much spackle they put on the holes to make it pretty for the tourists and the hipsters, no matter how much daily life seems "normal," unless the government is willing to truly commit in a way that goes beyond enriching subcontractors, yes, New Orleans will be fucked.
(Note: The Rude Pundit's Almanack contains a bunch of pictures from that December trip.)
When you hear idiots who aren't drowning in the Catskills or watching their towns get washed away in Vermont debate over whether or not government officials and the media overreacted to Hurricane Irene, you have to wonder if they would have been happier if a couple of thousand people had died and lower Manhattan had become Katrina-ville. Of course it was overstated. Of course they screamed and called it "ferocious" when it turned out to not be that bad. How else do you get heard over the cacophony of bullshit that passes for information these days? How else do you get through to the numbskulls who think that something that might kill them is just an opportunity to record a sub-Jackass fail video?
As bad as Irene's effects continue to be, you could detect the disappointment in the news anchors and reporters as they realized that it's only podunk towns in the mountains and not New York City that'd be fucked up (except for Staten Island, but that never counts as real NYC), that they wouldn't have the opportunity to ride boats through Ground Zero so close to the anniversary of 9/11, that the story wouldn't have the synchronized beauty of wreaking havoc on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
For, yes, yes, it is that time of year, the end of August, and fewer and fewer people are recognizing it, when we remember that six years ago, Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, the natural disaster on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain and Mississippi, the human-made disaster of New Orleans. And, despite most outward appearances, still, after all this time, after mayors and governors and presidents Democratic and Republican, after celebrities moved there to help, after the cultural scene is more vibrant than perhaps ever, New Orleans is still, still so very, very fucked.
About six weeks ago, the Rude Pundit spent a lovely couple of days in New Orleans, drinking hard, eating hard, roaming the streets, staying in an extra lovely inn in the Bywater with an even more lovely partner, the romance of the place washing over us as we existed for that short period in the reconstructed blocks and mostly untouched spaces of the dark and sticky and magical city.
The thing about the Bywater, which, if you head west, is next to the Fauborg, which is next to the French Quarter, is that if you head east and jump a canal, you are in the Lower Ninth Ward. It's that close to the revived places. And when the Rude Pundit visited the Lower Ninth back in December of 2010, he saw this:
That's a dead dog in the middle of what was once a street lined with houses. It was a big dog, and it had been there a while: the skin was decaying, and, on the dog's head, it was pulled tight, revealing the teeth and skull. You got that? In the middle of a street, in the middle of a major city, less than a half mile from the tourist areas, no one gave a fuck about moving the goddamned dog's corpse. And those fields of weeds covered the foundations and remnants of houses. Some day, someone is going to excavate that area and wonder what civilization abandoned it.
But New Orleans isn't fucked because it has left its poor neighborhoods to go fallow (even if some FEMA money was just secured to possibly help). No, it's fucked because the very levees that failed are still pieces of shit. Yep, on a five point Roman numeral scale, with V the best and I the worst, the supposedly more secure levees got a II. And that's from the Army Corps of Engineers using its own scale, the same people who thought they were fine in the first place.
You add to that the corruption and incompetence that has gone into building a new hydraulic pump system, not to mention rising sea levels (which the Corps knows it needs to take into account and will happen no matter how much climate change deniers say it won't), and, no matter how much spackle they put on the holes to make it pretty for the tourists and the hipsters, no matter how much daily life seems "normal," unless the government is willing to truly commit in a way that goes beyond enriching subcontractors, yes, New Orleans will be fucked.
(Note: The Rude Pundit's Almanack contains a bunch of pictures from that December trip.)
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Hurricane Housecleaning: Thanks You's and More:
Yeah, yeah, most of you are not under a hurricane warning. Bully for you, smug fuckers. The Rude Pundit's half a bottle of tequila into the storm. And he realized he forgot to thank his way cool guest bloggers from his vacation.
So big time thanks to Jeff Kreisler, PFC Margheriti, and Miandering for their great work.
Meanwhile, for your hurricane or not-hurricane weekend pleasure, here's the latest episode of Cheater and the Rude with the aforementioned Jeff Kreisler and the always-mentioned Rude Pundit on the Progressive Radio Network:
Subscribe to this shit. It's free.
Follow this shit on Twitter.
Oh, yeah, there's also this upcoming appearance at the Words and Music Festival in New Orleans in November (on a panel with Roy Blount, Jr.). More details to come.
And, fuck, if you haven't, buy the Rude Pundit's book at OR Books or Amazon.
Yeah, yeah, most of you are not under a hurricane warning. Bully for you, smug fuckers. The Rude Pundit's half a bottle of tequila into the storm. And he realized he forgot to thank his way cool guest bloggers from his vacation.
So big time thanks to Jeff Kreisler, PFC Margheriti, and Miandering for their great work.
Meanwhile, for your hurricane or not-hurricane weekend pleasure, here's the latest episode of Cheater and the Rude with the aforementioned Jeff Kreisler and the always-mentioned Rude Pundit on the Progressive Radio Network:
Subscribe to this shit. It's free.
Follow this shit on Twitter.
Oh, yeah, there's also this upcoming appearance at the Words and Music Festival in New Orleans in November (on a panel with Roy Blount, Jr.). More details to come.
And, fuck, if you haven't, buy the Rude Pundit's book at OR Books or Amazon.
Friday, August 26, 2011
A Guide for New Yorkers Experiencing Their First Hurricane:
The Rude Pundit has been through five hurricanes that he can remember, like one insane night escaping Houston as Alicia was bearing down on the city in 1983, driving for six hours as the storm hit each town just after we made it through. And Alicia did a shitload of damage (including messing up the downtown hotel we had just abandoned). Growing up in Louisiana and Florida, you laugh at tropical storms and treat hurricanes with respect, listening to the hype and rolling your eyes because it's rarely as awful as they threaten it will be.
So he feels like he can offer some advice to New Yorkers who are filling their shopping carts with canned tuna and toilet paper:
1. If you're told to evacuate, evacuate. You think they're doing so for the joy of a gigantic traffic jam? Get the fuck out.
2. It is not cool or extreme to stand outside during the storm. Weather people do it because they get paid. The world is divided between people who got murdered by falling tree limbs and flying debris while "yee-haw"-ing at the sky and the rest of us.
3. Floods are not ironically filthy fun pools. They are foul, garbage-filled, shit-containing rivers of poison. But it's cute to watch the rats drown. Ditto hobos.
4. Candlelight for romance is awesome. Candlelight for reading sucks hard.
5. Days without power do not add up to a good time for all. You might think it'll be just like camping. You might think you'll just wanna do coke and fuck your boyfriend all the time. You might hope for some family bonding time over board games. That's good for a day. By the second day without power in August, you will despise everyone you ever loved. You will contemplate killing the stinky sweatballs who occupy your studio apartment. By the third day, you'll sit still, pissing yourself, hoping for the sweet kiss of death, thinking that you're such a pussy because your ancestors could do this just fine.
6. If you decide to loot, go for small items. You just look stupid trying to carry a TV through the water.
7. In the aftermath, all the shit and debris and dead rats that were in the flood will be in the street. Make sure you drive or walk on it to grind it down to the patina of dirt that covers everything anyways.
8. The upside: new stories to tell at the beer gardens and wine bars for the next couple of years. And it's way better than your dumbass earthquake tale.
The Rude Pundit has been through five hurricanes that he can remember, like one insane night escaping Houston as Alicia was bearing down on the city in 1983, driving for six hours as the storm hit each town just after we made it through. And Alicia did a shitload of damage (including messing up the downtown hotel we had just abandoned). Growing up in Louisiana and Florida, you laugh at tropical storms and treat hurricanes with respect, listening to the hype and rolling your eyes because it's rarely as awful as they threaten it will be.
So he feels like he can offer some advice to New Yorkers who are filling their shopping carts with canned tuna and toilet paper:
1. If you're told to evacuate, evacuate. You think they're doing so for the joy of a gigantic traffic jam? Get the fuck out.
2. It is not cool or extreme to stand outside during the storm. Weather people do it because they get paid. The world is divided between people who got murdered by falling tree limbs and flying debris while "yee-haw"-ing at the sky and the rest of us.
3. Floods are not ironically filthy fun pools. They are foul, garbage-filled, shit-containing rivers of poison. But it's cute to watch the rats drown. Ditto hobos.
4. Candlelight for romance is awesome. Candlelight for reading sucks hard.
5. Days without power do not add up to a good time for all. You might think it'll be just like camping. You might think you'll just wanna do coke and fuck your boyfriend all the time. You might hope for some family bonding time over board games. That's good for a day. By the second day without power in August, you will despise everyone you ever loved. You will contemplate killing the stinky sweatballs who occupy your studio apartment. By the third day, you'll sit still, pissing yourself, hoping for the sweet kiss of death, thinking that you're such a pussy because your ancestors could do this just fine.
6. If you decide to loot, go for small items. You just look stupid trying to carry a TV through the water.
7. In the aftermath, all the shit and debris and dead rats that were in the flood will be in the street. Make sure you drive or walk on it to grind it down to the patina of dirt that covers everything anyways.
8. The upside: new stories to tell at the beer gardens and wine bars for the next couple of years. And it's way better than your dumbass earthquake tale.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Someone Should Smack Marco Rubio with a History Stick:
So yesterday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio was speaking at the Reagan Library (motto: "What? No pudding?") and he said a truly ignorant, stupid fucking thing about Social Security, Medicare, and other safety net programs: "These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job."
You gotta love the fantasy America that Republicans conjure all the time, where the little people live decent lives, helping one another, sharing cups of sugar and loaning each other a few bucks when little Tommy breaks his leg in a bicycle accident; where you could save your money in a little local bank where you knew the tellers and the president and know that the money would be there, security, yes, but private, not social, which is also in the word "socialism." Ahh, fantasy America is quite a place. Who wouldn't want to live there?
Of course, real America is filled with unscrupulous cocksucker capitalists who would stab your children in their eyes to take their money. It's one reason we have recessions and, oh, hell, a Great Depression that destroyed the pleasant little nest eggs that all those little people saved in their little banks so they could help their little neighbors and their little selves. That'd be why we have safety nets. Because people are people, and everyone is not on board with the whole "compassion" thing.
Oh, and Ronald Reagan? Bastard loved him some Social Security (after initially thinking he could dismantle it). Here he is in 1983, understanding history in a way Rubio never could, after signing the act that raised taxes, brought federal workers into the system, and added tens of billions of dollars to its coffers: "It was nearly 50 years ago when, under the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the American people reached a great turning point, setting up the Social Security system. F.D.R. spoke then of an era of startling industrial changes that tended more and more to make life insecure. It was his belief that the system can furnish only a base upon which each one of our citizens may build his individual security through his own individual efforts. Today we reaffirm Franklin Roosevelt's commitment that Social Security must always provide a secure and stable base so that older Americans may live in dignity."
You got that? Saint Ronnie raised taxes to save Social Security. And he taxed the benefits of the wealthy because that's what you do if you're not a totally dumb, pandering, ape-faced motherfucker like Rubio. Instead, Rubio thinks that the people of the past were numbskulls who willingly gave up their right to privately help themselves and others and that an insidious government set up these corrupting programs in order to weaken the public so as to make the populace dependent on it. It's the mad endgame of anti-Washington rhetoric. And it's factually wrong. Which means it's just wrong. Which means that anyone who takes what Rubio said seriously is objectively wrong. Which means there aren't two sides to this story. There's one: the actual events of history, not the convenient lie of fantasy.
Bonus points: Rubio's speech inspired what is surely one of the most vile posts ever over at the National Review Online's "The Corner" (motto: "A good 90% of what we write is vile; most of the rest is about our pop culture boners").
Note: The Rude Pundit always feels disgusting after he writes something that includes even mild praise for Reagan, who set us on this path of doom. But that's how filthy our discourse has become. You have to give credit to a cannibal serial killer when he doesn't eat all of his victims.
So yesterday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio was speaking at the Reagan Library (motto: "What? No pudding?") and he said a truly ignorant, stupid fucking thing about Social Security, Medicare, and other safety net programs: "These programs actually weakened us as a people. You see, almost forever, it was institutions in society that assumed the role of taking care of one another. If someone was sick in your family, you took care of them. If a neighbor met misfortune, you took care of them. You saved for your retirement and your future because you had to. We took these things upon ourselves in our communities, our families, and our homes, and our churches and our synagogues. But all that changed when the government began to assume those responsibilities. All of a sudden, for an increasing number of people in our nation, it was no longer necessary to worry about saving for security because that was the government’s job."
You gotta love the fantasy America that Republicans conjure all the time, where the little people live decent lives, helping one another, sharing cups of sugar and loaning each other a few bucks when little Tommy breaks his leg in a bicycle accident; where you could save your money in a little local bank where you knew the tellers and the president and know that the money would be there, security, yes, but private, not social, which is also in the word "socialism." Ahh, fantasy America is quite a place. Who wouldn't want to live there?
Of course, real America is filled with unscrupulous cocksucker capitalists who would stab your children in their eyes to take their money. It's one reason we have recessions and, oh, hell, a Great Depression that destroyed the pleasant little nest eggs that all those little people saved in their little banks so they could help their little neighbors and their little selves. That'd be why we have safety nets. Because people are people, and everyone is not on board with the whole "compassion" thing.
Oh, and Ronald Reagan? Bastard loved him some Social Security (after initially thinking he could dismantle it). Here he is in 1983, understanding history in a way Rubio never could, after signing the act that raised taxes, brought federal workers into the system, and added tens of billions of dollars to its coffers: "It was nearly 50 years ago when, under the leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the American people reached a great turning point, setting up the Social Security system. F.D.R. spoke then of an era of startling industrial changes that tended more and more to make life insecure. It was his belief that the system can furnish only a base upon which each one of our citizens may build his individual security through his own individual efforts. Today we reaffirm Franklin Roosevelt's commitment that Social Security must always provide a secure and stable base so that older Americans may live in dignity."
You got that? Saint Ronnie raised taxes to save Social Security. And he taxed the benefits of the wealthy because that's what you do if you're not a totally dumb, pandering, ape-faced motherfucker like Rubio. Instead, Rubio thinks that the people of the past were numbskulls who willingly gave up their right to privately help themselves and others and that an insidious government set up these corrupting programs in order to weaken the public so as to make the populace dependent on it. It's the mad endgame of anti-Washington rhetoric. And it's factually wrong. Which means it's just wrong. Which means that anyone who takes what Rubio said seriously is objectively wrong. Which means there aren't two sides to this story. There's one: the actual events of history, not the convenient lie of fantasy.
Bonus points: Rubio's speech inspired what is surely one of the most vile posts ever over at the National Review Online's "The Corner" (motto: "A good 90% of what we write is vile; most of the rest is about our pop culture boners").
Note: The Rude Pundit always feels disgusting after he writes something that includes even mild praise for Reagan, who set us on this path of doom. But that's how filthy our discourse has become. You have to give credit to a cannibal serial killer when he doesn't eat all of his victims.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Things None of Us Need to Give a Shit About (Republican Presidential Nomination Edition):
Time away from bloggery can be clarifying for one's brain. And time away from home, out in the natural world, away from the myriad bullshit that passes for "news," can kick you in the head. The Rude Pundit just spent the last two weeks whitewater rafting and hiking in Colorado and just relaxing by a lake in the Cascades in Washington. And, even if he wasn't completely disconnected, he felt distanced from it all. Now, he's been looking over the news websites and briefly watching the news networks and taking in all the coverage of the presidential campaign and he came to the conclusion: who the fuck cares?
1. Who the fuck cares whether or not Sarah Palin is running for president? It's over. She's done. All it would mean is that she's trying to suck the last drops of cash out of PalinCorp before that pipe goes dry and she and her inbred hillbilly family live out the rest of their lives as a horrible reality show before Todd commits suicide.
2. Who the fuck cares what kind of backwards ass country shitkicker stuff Rick Perry says? He's a dumbass hick from the barren wastelands of west Texas. Of course he's gonna say stupid shit. It's what he's hardwired to do. And because we've fetishized dumbass hicks in this country as having some kind of wisdom, people lap it up like dogs on cat turds. No, he's an idiot. He needs to be treated like an idiot. And anyone who supports him needs to be dunce-capped and beaten in the streets.
3. Who the fuck cares about demented, uber-Christian, Jesus ball-licking Michele Bachmann? Just...who the fuck cares?
The entire Republican nomination has already devolved into bullshit like who hates evolution and who wants to take health care away from old people, who loves Jesus and who really, really loves Jesus. The whole degrading affair is less an absurd circus than a version of "The Aristocrats" that ends up with all of us covered in blood and piss.
Could we just get to the Mitt Romney nomination already?
Note: Yes, Ron Paul exists.
Time away from bloggery can be clarifying for one's brain. And time away from home, out in the natural world, away from the myriad bullshit that passes for "news," can kick you in the head. The Rude Pundit just spent the last two weeks whitewater rafting and hiking in Colorado and just relaxing by a lake in the Cascades in Washington. And, even if he wasn't completely disconnected, he felt distanced from it all. Now, he's been looking over the news websites and briefly watching the news networks and taking in all the coverage of the presidential campaign and he came to the conclusion: who the fuck cares?
1. Who the fuck cares whether or not Sarah Palin is running for president? It's over. She's done. All it would mean is that she's trying to suck the last drops of cash out of PalinCorp before that pipe goes dry and she and her inbred hillbilly family live out the rest of their lives as a horrible reality show before Todd commits suicide.
2. Who the fuck cares what kind of backwards ass country shitkicker stuff Rick Perry says? He's a dumbass hick from the barren wastelands of west Texas. Of course he's gonna say stupid shit. It's what he's hardwired to do. And because we've fetishized dumbass hicks in this country as having some kind of wisdom, people lap it up like dogs on cat turds. No, he's an idiot. He needs to be treated like an idiot. And anyone who supports him needs to be dunce-capped and beaten in the streets.
3. Who the fuck cares about demented, uber-Christian, Jesus ball-licking Michele Bachmann? Just...who the fuck cares?
The entire Republican nomination has already devolved into bullshit like who hates evolution and who wants to take health care away from old people, who loves Jesus and who really, really loves Jesus. The whole degrading affair is less an absurd circus than a version of "The Aristocrats" that ends up with all of us covered in blood and piss.
Could we just get to the Mitt Romney nomination already?
Note: Yes, Ron Paul exists.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Guest Blogging: miandering
Be afraid. Be goddamned fucking afraid.
I was very flattered when the Rude One invited me to be a guest blogger in his absence—me, who’s not even a “real” blogger and, when she does blog, it’s about her travels in Southeast Asia, not politics in the U.S. (I usually confine my political rants to Facebook.) So flattered, in fact, that I had to accept. And by Saturday, boy, was I glad I did, as I felt a major Michele Bachmann rant coming on. So apologies, Rude, for not writing about my glamorous life working in New York City's nonprofit sector, and thanks for the opportunity. Here goes.
Just when we’d finally stopped tearing our hair out over the fact that Sarah Palin could actually be a presidential candidate, into her Ferragamos (though apparently not without suffering for it) steps Michele Bachmann. Not just, as less than 5,000 Iowans have now ensured, a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination, but a leading contender.
I usually think of myself as a cynic. A cynic who believes that approximately half the American populace is insane. And yet . . . and yet . . . every once in a while they still manage to surprise me. They did it in 2004 (though that was not so much a surprise as a heartwrenchingly depressing dose of reality). They did it in 2008 when Sarah Palin was not immediately laughed off as the most ridiculous vice presidential candidate in history. And now, yet again, I realize I’ve underestimated the stupidity of the American populace. Because as much as I chided friends on Facebook for being “amazed” that Bachmann won in Iowa and “in disbelief” that she wants to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (I mean, come on. This would be the mildest of the anti-gay legislation she’d put on the table, I assure you.), wasn’t there something inside me that was, still, in 2011, utterly incredulous that this was actually happening? That part of my gut whose immediate reaction was “Really? Really? Has it really come to this?”
Bachmann’s ascension and candidacy are terrifying for a multitude of reasons, some of which are outlined in this week’s New Yorker profile by Ryan Lizza. I encourage you to read every last cringe-inducing word about her “education” (read “religious indoctrination”) at the hands of some of the country’s most radical—and slavery-condoning—“theologians.” You know, the kind who write things like “When people curse their parents, it is clearly a capital crime (Exodus 21:17). The son or daughter is under the lawful jurisdiction of the family. The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death.” Because, of course, we're pro-life. The kind of people who, like Bachmann, get their law degrees at Oral Roberts University, whose founding twin goals were “to equip our students with the ability to bring God's healing power to reconcile individuals and to restore community wholeness” and “to restore law to its historic roots in the Bible.” If you want, you can delve even deeper into the nitty gritty fanaticity (yes, I just coined that) of the aptly-named Dominionists by reading the words of the son of one of said theologians himself.
But I digress. What's got me particularly riled today is actually the effect of Bachmann's candidacy on women and our future as one-half of this country.
You see, good feminist that I am, I judge women exactly the same as I judge men. Hillary, Sarah, Michele—you don’t score extra points with me just because you’ve got a vagina. It’s infinitely more significant to me that you are a (choose one) lying manipulative hack / raging idiot / certifiably lunatic religious fanatic. So when I first heard, back in May, that New Jersey high school sophomore Amy Myers had challenged Michele Bachmann to a “Public Forum Debate and/or Fact Test on The Constitution of the United States, United States History and United States Civics,” I thought “Good for her! This woman’s knowledge and interpretation of American history are just embarrassing. She totally needs to be taken down. And by a teenager. Go, girl!”
What had not yet occurred to me, however, was the impact the kinds of things Bachmann was saying could have, and was already having, on young people—specifically on their views of women leaders.
In her letter to Bachmann, Myers wrote: “As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere. Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole.”
Now, that is one eloquent teenager. Who is, unfortunately, dead on. It hit me hardest when, in a subsequent interview, Myers characterized Bachmann’s frequent misstatements as an embarrassment to all women with political ambitions, making it harder for them to be taken seriously in politics. “It took until the 19th amendment for women to be able to vote, and now it seems like the most famous women in politics are kind of jokes,” she is quoted as saying.
“It seems like at school there's always a separation between what people think men can do and what women can do,” Myers said. “If a girl says she wants to go into politics, people say 'Oh yeah, like Michele Bachmann?'”
When I read that, it just about broke my heart.
Really? Really? Has it really come to this?
Is this really where we are at now in this country? Have we come this far to have our hard-won accomplishments (meager though they often may seem) nullified by fucktards just because those fucktards are women? Just because there are enough other fucktards around to vote them into public office?
And all this is without even mentioning her frightening stance on the truly critical issues affecting women's rights in this country—which is of course dictated by her religious beliefs. Who was made out of whose rib? Who was given dominion over the earth and all the other living creatures on it? You got it, ladies.
I’m not sure how much worse it has to get before the sane people in this country realize we’re in fucking serious trouble and whatever you think you’re doing to fight against it, well, it ain’t bloody good enough, now, is it?
I don't have an answer to this, and I consider myself even more jaded than the Rude One, whose response, when I asked him if he'd recommend reading Winner Take All Politics, was: “At this point, I don't know if I can read more depressing shit topped with a few encouraging words about organizing.”
So, yeah. I'm not going to do that. I find it hard to believe it would be possible to organize our way out of the mess this country is in. A lot of us had hope in 2008. (And I say hope, not crazy-ass expectations that Obama was the second coming and was going to fix all the fucked-up shit and everything would be better forever. Please.) Where's that hope now? Hope has left the building, motherfuckers. And more and more, I’m starting to think we sane folks should just leave the goddamned country and watch the crumbling of this empire from afar instead of continuing to clutch our front-row-seat tickets to the apocalypse in our sweaty little paws.
Be afraid. Be goddamned fucking afraid.
I was very flattered when the Rude One invited me to be a guest blogger in his absence—me, who’s not even a “real” blogger and, when she does blog, it’s about her travels in Southeast Asia, not politics in the U.S. (I usually confine my political rants to Facebook.) So flattered, in fact, that I had to accept. And by Saturday, boy, was I glad I did, as I felt a major Michele Bachmann rant coming on. So apologies, Rude, for not writing about my glamorous life working in New York City's nonprofit sector, and thanks for the opportunity. Here goes.
Just when we’d finally stopped tearing our hair out over the fact that Sarah Palin could actually be a presidential candidate, into her Ferragamos (though apparently not without suffering for it) steps Michele Bachmann. Not just, as less than 5,000 Iowans have now ensured, a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination, but a leading contender.
I usually think of myself as a cynic. A cynic who believes that approximately half the American populace is insane. And yet . . . and yet . . . every once in a while they still manage to surprise me. They did it in 2004 (though that was not so much a surprise as a heartwrenchingly depressing dose of reality). They did it in 2008 when Sarah Palin was not immediately laughed off as the most ridiculous vice presidential candidate in history. And now, yet again, I realize I’ve underestimated the stupidity of the American populace. Because as much as I chided friends on Facebook for being “amazed” that Bachmann won in Iowa and “in disbelief” that she wants to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell (I mean, come on. This would be the mildest of the anti-gay legislation she’d put on the table, I assure you.), wasn’t there something inside me that was, still, in 2011, utterly incredulous that this was actually happening? That part of my gut whose immediate reaction was “Really? Really? Has it really come to this?”
Bachmann’s ascension and candidacy are terrifying for a multitude of reasons, some of which are outlined in this week’s New Yorker profile by Ryan Lizza. I encourage you to read every last cringe-inducing word about her “education” (read “religious indoctrination”) at the hands of some of the country’s most radical—and slavery-condoning—“theologians.” You know, the kind who write things like “When people curse their parents, it is clearly a capital crime (Exodus 21:17). The son or daughter is under the lawful jurisdiction of the family. The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death.” Because, of course, we're pro-life. The kind of people who, like Bachmann, get their law degrees at Oral Roberts University, whose founding twin goals were “to equip our students with the ability to bring God's healing power to reconcile individuals and to restore community wholeness” and “to restore law to its historic roots in the Bible.” If you want, you can delve even deeper into the nitty gritty fanaticity (yes, I just coined that) of the aptly-named Dominionists by reading the words of the son of one of said theologians himself.
But I digress. What's got me particularly riled today is actually the effect of Bachmann's candidacy on women and our future as one-half of this country.
You see, good feminist that I am, I judge women exactly the same as I judge men. Hillary, Sarah, Michele—you don’t score extra points with me just because you’ve got a vagina. It’s infinitely more significant to me that you are a (choose one) lying manipulative hack / raging idiot / certifiably lunatic religious fanatic. So when I first heard, back in May, that New Jersey high school sophomore Amy Myers had challenged Michele Bachmann to a “Public Forum Debate and/or Fact Test on The Constitution of the United States, United States History and United States Civics,” I thought “Good for her! This woman’s knowledge and interpretation of American history are just embarrassing. She totally needs to be taken down. And by a teenager. Go, girl!”
What had not yet occurred to me, however, was the impact the kinds of things Bachmann was saying could have, and was already having, on young people—specifically on their views of women leaders.
In her letter to Bachmann, Myers wrote: “As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere. Though politically expedient, incorrect comments cast a shadow on your person and by unfortunate proxy, both your supporters and detractors alike often generalize this shadow to women as a whole.”
Now, that is one eloquent teenager. Who is, unfortunately, dead on. It hit me hardest when, in a subsequent interview, Myers characterized Bachmann’s frequent misstatements as an embarrassment to all women with political ambitions, making it harder for them to be taken seriously in politics. “It took until the 19th amendment for women to be able to vote, and now it seems like the most famous women in politics are kind of jokes,” she is quoted as saying.
“It seems like at school there's always a separation between what people think men can do and what women can do,” Myers said. “If a girl says she wants to go into politics, people say 'Oh yeah, like Michele Bachmann?'”
When I read that, it just about broke my heart.
Really? Really? Has it really come to this?
Is this really where we are at now in this country? Have we come this far to have our hard-won accomplishments (meager though they often may seem) nullified by fucktards just because those fucktards are women? Just because there are enough other fucktards around to vote them into public office?
And all this is without even mentioning her frightening stance on the truly critical issues affecting women's rights in this country—which is of course dictated by her religious beliefs. Who was made out of whose rib? Who was given dominion over the earth and all the other living creatures on it? You got it, ladies.
I’m not sure how much worse it has to get before the sane people in this country realize we’re in fucking serious trouble and whatever you think you’re doing to fight against it, well, it ain’t bloody good enough, now, is it?
I don't have an answer to this, and I consider myself even more jaded than the Rude One, whose response, when I asked him if he'd recommend reading Winner Take All Politics, was: “At this point, I don't know if I can read more depressing shit topped with a few encouraging words about organizing.”
So, yeah. I'm not going to do that. I find it hard to believe it would be possible to organize our way out of the mess this country is in. A lot of us had hope in 2008. (And I say hope, not crazy-ass expectations that Obama was the second coming and was going to fix all the fucked-up shit and everything would be better forever. Please.) Where's that hope now? Hope has left the building, motherfuckers. And more and more, I’m starting to think we sane folks should just leave the goddamned country and watch the crumbling of this empire from afar instead of continuing to clutch our front-row-seat tickets to the apocalypse in our sweaty little paws.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Guest Blogging: Saving Private Ryan?:
(This is from PFC Margheriti -not his real name- an active duty soldier.)
Yeah, Tom Hanks did get him home, and then Ryan got to go to the cemetery and reflect on the war. Legit, right? I guess they said "cut" before Ryan got into his car and drove home, daydreaming of steering his vehicle into oncoming traffic. The idea that Hollywood's portrayal of the U.S. military is dead-on is pretty much common knowledge amongst the American public, and we know that the mythical hero who can level a building full of Iraqis is completely justified to do so because he eats MREs and has to masturbate in a port-a-potty. But who am I to criticize? Oh, that's right; I'm a soldier, too!
My recruiter forged his smile while he fed me everything I wanted to know about the U.S. Army: "Free college! Steady paycheck! Getting your head sawed off on YouTube!" I guess by "career" he meant only if you don't die fighting the civilian being paid to endlessly throw rocks and grenades at your convoy. With this career, you'll be left feeling skull-fucked on a daily basis by flashbacks of seeing that brown civilian kid take a .50 caliber round to the face. That subsequent nagging urge in your guts to go on a homicidal rampage. One recruiter called me and based his entire campaign to enroll me based on the fact that I'd get into Disneyland for free. How did he know that I always wanted to hug Mickey Mouse with blood all over my hands? Yes, PTSD is very real, and anyone related to a service member will tell you that their soldier was not the same after coming home, but they won't tell you that he wakes up at night running around looking for his M16 that isn't there, while tactically clearing the living room of insurgents.
Practically every non-commissioned officer has deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan more than once, and probably got their rank from deploying, thus our direct supervisors are normally specialists who fell ass-backwards into their spiffy sergeant rank, and they subsequently make it their personal mission to assert and flaunt their new-found power at any given time of day because of what they've "seen" or "done." It isn't like 20 years ago when you had to have top physical fitness scores and 36/40 targets during rifle qualification, and spend roughly half a decade as a lower-enlisted soldier first. There are some very good leaders in the military who actually give a shit about their soldiers, but many people are fucked in the head by this point. I respect soldiers, their sacrifices for their families, and every mother, father, and child who is left asking, "Why is my soldier dead?" It is that question that has led me to turn my back on the military and the pseudo-conquest of "protecting the country."
I said my goodbyes to my family and was picked up and flown to Fort Knox, Kentucky for Basic Combat Training. It's as one would assume it would be: getting your head shaved, vaccinations, basic issue of uniforms and gear - the works. Drill Sergeants. The apex of military discipline, complete with personality disorders. The fuckers simply love watching you work out; and, since they can't kick your head into the dirt during pushup hour anymore, they find fun and imaginative ways of getting their dick hard that doesn't include violence: having you salute wildlife in front of the chow hall, and then having 30 seconds to eat as opposed to 3 minutes; being given a time limit after the Drill Sergeant spray-paints a grouping of small rocks. Your mission: to turn over each and every rock so that he cannot see any more spray paint. One of them based his mood off of the latest pep talk from his even-less-emotionally-stable superior, mixed in with whatever PTSD-related issue was happening back at home. Be all you can be, now with alcoholism!
My best sense of camaraderie in the military was in basic training, because we were all there for one purpose: to graduate and get the fuck home. Serving the country wasn't even in the equation. It was you, your buddies, and your weapon, and you never went anywhere without those. It was not this epic undertaking of duty; it was a shit-ton of running, shooting, and barracks inspections. And, at the end, you get about 4 hours with your family before moving on to train in your occupational specialty. Afterwards, I went to my appointed unit where we eventually received our warning order to prepare for war, about 9 months away. We all went home and told our families what could be happening, where we could be going, as we don't know anything until just before it happens. A soldier could be ordered to Kandahar, Afghanistan and end up being told that he or she will be going to Iraq 2 months before leaving. (Props to women for wearing a uniform; female soldiers have generally been very proficient soldiers. And sex between soldiers in Afghanistan? Fuck yeah, it happens all the time. Normally in a unit there is at least a 2 to 1 ratio of male soldiers to female soldiers, if not even higher, so there will be the females who act professionally, the closeted lesbians, and the married or single females who want to fuck the shit out of you. And with the males, practically all of them cheat - so think of that the next time your husband changes duty station to a stripper's bacteria-ridden anus that he met off-post.) Deployment weighed heavily in our minds, but we tried to distract ourselves, as we're taught to block out all emotion and continue on.
The fact is, we do appreciate all the respect, handshake, hugs, and thank-yous, but we're just regular people with everyday problems. We're all there to either make money, or to go to college. The only ones who are there to "serve their country" are the high-ranking officers and long-term sergeants who have been in so long that the military is all they know anymore. I may be completely different than my fellow soldiers, either because I no longer agree with what we're doing anymore, or the fact that I'm writing this as a resolute declaration to myself that I am not like them, and never was. During boot camp, they played us many videos of footage recorded in Iraq or Afghanistan. The first was a video of a soldier lying on the floor of a dusty desert house. His head was wrapped in white cloth except for his orifices, and men were talking in their native dialect in the background. I immediately knew where it was going and I didn't want to watch it, but we had to sit there. A frail, underfed native approached the bound form of our comrade and lifted him to rest on his knees. He drew a long knife and tilted the soldier's head close to the camera, hovered over the figure who knew that he was about to die, and then sawed the man's head off his shoulders. There was screaming and blood was everywhere. And then his killer set his head on top of his body and laughed. How the fuck did this guy meet his fate? I felt so much rage I could have gone to war that moment and dealt fire and death to everyone responsible for the mutilation.
We then watched several videos of the Taliban insurgency being shot down and blown to smithereens, and we found ourselves laughing. Laughing. Like the guy who just cut a man's head off. We may as well have done it ourselves and shit down his neck for good measure because, in that moment, we were no longer the guys that our families hugged and cried on. We were the instinctual killers we were trained to be, without fear, pity, or remorse. I thought about every time someone talked about killing like it was supposed to be fun.
The exploits of the Taliban include things like strapping bombs to mentally challenged people and blowing them up at our gates, or paying a child to shoot at our convoy, which ends with the kid getting his brains blown out, courtesy of the red white, and blue. Other ways they have fucked with us is shooting at us from a schoolyard over kids' heads, because we can't fire at schools or churches, though mosques were assaulted at the beginning of OIF to pursue insurgents. That obviously ended quickly, and also the case of the Air Force gunner who opened fire at a mob of little black blobs of people fleeing from a building. Nobody could prove that they weren't insurgents, so we ass-raped some civilians with Lady Liberty's torch and called it "progress." This sort of killing isn't new to us; ever wonder why we never see many Native Americans?
In the time I trained for deployment, I took a look at how other military factions saw war. The Japanese believed that it was glorious to die in battle in service to a deity; they've since been renamed "Right Wing." Religion is its own animal - not my thing. "God is so great, I push all my guilt on him and I don't have to feel responsible about a thing! And, the best part is, he made a magical land that we float up to when we die as long as we rally to take away civil rights!" Wasn't this kind of thing started in a time when it was okay to fuck the underage and enslave the poor to the government, when most people were delusional due to mental illness and disease? Oh wait, that's 2011. Most soldiers don't know a damn thing about politics, myself included, but I'll call it like I see it. We're just not exposed to as much politics on Army bases, We constantly talk about Army, Army, Army, and that's it. I don't doubt that any soldier who reads this will either be laughing his ass off or breaking his laptop by the third paragraph, because it's a hard reality to accept that there is no winning this war. We'll never completely eliminate every terrorist; but, if we did, what would be next? Killing their kids? They already have more than a few reasons to hate us, all they've known their whole lives is war. And, yeah, maybe their dad did plant bombs on the side of the road, but that was their dad, not ours, and he may not have done those things out of hatred, the same way some soldiers don't go to war out of hatred, but to just put some food on the table.
Not every person over there is a monster. What is left of the Taliban is a broken, bankrupt circle of extremists who could never hurt you, or your family in the USA; it's just not possible. They have no resources other than what they can get from a hardware store, household chemicals, and whatever weapons they have stashed under the dirt we walk on over there. Ammonium nitrate is easy to make in the convenience of one's own kitchen, and it's one of the Taliban's favorite weapons because it's cheap. Other examples include pressure-plate activated charges designed specifically for certain vehicles, meaning they've tested them to know exactly what weight they need for the wires to touch completing the connection, and it's designed to detonate on our vehicles rather than lighter, civilian vehicles. They used to fire mortar shells into our bases but they'd be retaliated upon afterwards, so they would fill the mortar tube with ice and drop the mortar on top. The ice melts, and by the time to round gets down to the firing pin, the insurgent is long gone. They've lived in poverty their whole lives while people in the USA went to McDonald's then drove to Burger King because their kids wanted a slice of pie to go with their burger doused in thousand island dressing. I once met a kid from India and he said to me, "My dad said that Americans eat fried Snickers bars, is that true?" Not even I knew we had deep fried candy bars until I looked it up, but some kid from around the world knows about it. People in the unemployment line sure as hell don't think it's fair that they're losing everything they have while Iraq is being rebuilt. We can go help every other country who will destroy itself in civil war whether we're there or not, but we can't give our kids a decent education.
I used to be scared by the prospect of getting out of the military, but I realized that everything I've been taught about being a warrior would be completely contradicted by participating in this pointless endeavor. Honor, to me, is protecting the people you love, not blindly throwing myself into a mine-ridden wasteland. I'd have been more than happy to liberate a Jew and bring him to Hitler's corpse so he could piss on him; hell, I'd even hold his dick for him, but this? We're not fighting soldiers anymore. We see them now as enemies because we are told they're our enemies, and I can't be a part of that. If a foreign power was kicking in the doors of our homes looking for bomb labs and searching our families' personal belongings, we would fight back. What "honor" or "heroism" is there in shooting an opponent wearing no ballistic armor from the turret of an armored truck with a .50 cal machine gun? And, according to the Geneva Conventions, we are not allowed to shoot people with that weapon, but we are allowed to shoot at their equipment - as in the AK47 in their hands. Even civilians carry AKs there; practically everyone in Afghanistan has one, so I guess it can't be that inhumane to blow someone in half. That guy won't ever look at spaghetti the same way again.
I am a warrior. I will protect my fellow countrymen from legitimate danger. We have more to fear from ourselves; we may not have AK47s or IEDs, but we, as a country, carry a concealed weapon called stupidity. Nobody is perfect, but that doesn't mean we can't be good people. I don't need to be in the Army to be a good man. I'm not by any means a hippie, but I love my life, and I love the people in my life too much to have them question why I'm not around. That's my reason for getting out, and I don't really give a shit if anyone disagrees; and, if they're so fucking righteous, then throw on a brain bucket and march their ass down to a recruiter for Disneyland tickets.
(This is from PFC Margheriti -not his real name- an active duty soldier.)
Yeah, Tom Hanks did get him home, and then Ryan got to go to the cemetery and reflect on the war. Legit, right? I guess they said "cut" before Ryan got into his car and drove home, daydreaming of steering his vehicle into oncoming traffic. The idea that Hollywood's portrayal of the U.S. military is dead-on is pretty much common knowledge amongst the American public, and we know that the mythical hero who can level a building full of Iraqis is completely justified to do so because he eats MREs and has to masturbate in a port-a-potty. But who am I to criticize? Oh, that's right; I'm a soldier, too!
My recruiter forged his smile while he fed me everything I wanted to know about the U.S. Army: "Free college! Steady paycheck! Getting your head sawed off on YouTube!" I guess by "career" he meant only if you don't die fighting the civilian being paid to endlessly throw rocks and grenades at your convoy. With this career, you'll be left feeling skull-fucked on a daily basis by flashbacks of seeing that brown civilian kid take a .50 caliber round to the face. That subsequent nagging urge in your guts to go on a homicidal rampage. One recruiter called me and based his entire campaign to enroll me based on the fact that I'd get into Disneyland for free. How did he know that I always wanted to hug Mickey Mouse with blood all over my hands? Yes, PTSD is very real, and anyone related to a service member will tell you that their soldier was not the same after coming home, but they won't tell you that he wakes up at night running around looking for his M16 that isn't there, while tactically clearing the living room of insurgents.
Practically every non-commissioned officer has deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan more than once, and probably got their rank from deploying, thus our direct supervisors are normally specialists who fell ass-backwards into their spiffy sergeant rank, and they subsequently make it their personal mission to assert and flaunt their new-found power at any given time of day because of what they've "seen" or "done." It isn't like 20 years ago when you had to have top physical fitness scores and 36/40 targets during rifle qualification, and spend roughly half a decade as a lower-enlisted soldier first. There are some very good leaders in the military who actually give a shit about their soldiers, but many people are fucked in the head by this point. I respect soldiers, their sacrifices for their families, and every mother, father, and child who is left asking, "Why is my soldier dead?" It is that question that has led me to turn my back on the military and the pseudo-conquest of "protecting the country."
I said my goodbyes to my family and was picked up and flown to Fort Knox, Kentucky for Basic Combat Training. It's as one would assume it would be: getting your head shaved, vaccinations, basic issue of uniforms and gear - the works. Drill Sergeants. The apex of military discipline, complete with personality disorders. The fuckers simply love watching you work out; and, since they can't kick your head into the dirt during pushup hour anymore, they find fun and imaginative ways of getting their dick hard that doesn't include violence: having you salute wildlife in front of the chow hall, and then having 30 seconds to eat as opposed to 3 minutes; being given a time limit after the Drill Sergeant spray-paints a grouping of small rocks. Your mission: to turn over each and every rock so that he cannot see any more spray paint. One of them based his mood off of the latest pep talk from his even-less-emotionally-stable superior, mixed in with whatever PTSD-related issue was happening back at home. Be all you can be, now with alcoholism!
My best sense of camaraderie in the military was in basic training, because we were all there for one purpose: to graduate and get the fuck home. Serving the country wasn't even in the equation. It was you, your buddies, and your weapon, and you never went anywhere without those. It was not this epic undertaking of duty; it was a shit-ton of running, shooting, and barracks inspections. And, at the end, you get about 4 hours with your family before moving on to train in your occupational specialty. Afterwards, I went to my appointed unit where we eventually received our warning order to prepare for war, about 9 months away. We all went home and told our families what could be happening, where we could be going, as we don't know anything until just before it happens. A soldier could be ordered to Kandahar, Afghanistan and end up being told that he or she will be going to Iraq 2 months before leaving. (Props to women for wearing a uniform; female soldiers have generally been very proficient soldiers. And sex between soldiers in Afghanistan? Fuck yeah, it happens all the time. Normally in a unit there is at least a 2 to 1 ratio of male soldiers to female soldiers, if not even higher, so there will be the females who act professionally, the closeted lesbians, and the married or single females who want to fuck the shit out of you. And with the males, practically all of them cheat - so think of that the next time your husband changes duty station to a stripper's bacteria-ridden anus that he met off-post.) Deployment weighed heavily in our minds, but we tried to distract ourselves, as we're taught to block out all emotion and continue on.
The fact is, we do appreciate all the respect, handshake, hugs, and thank-yous, but we're just regular people with everyday problems. We're all there to either make money, or to go to college. The only ones who are there to "serve their country" are the high-ranking officers and long-term sergeants who have been in so long that the military is all they know anymore. I may be completely different than my fellow soldiers, either because I no longer agree with what we're doing anymore, or the fact that I'm writing this as a resolute declaration to myself that I am not like them, and never was. During boot camp, they played us many videos of footage recorded in Iraq or Afghanistan. The first was a video of a soldier lying on the floor of a dusty desert house. His head was wrapped in white cloth except for his orifices, and men were talking in their native dialect in the background. I immediately knew where it was going and I didn't want to watch it, but we had to sit there. A frail, underfed native approached the bound form of our comrade and lifted him to rest on his knees. He drew a long knife and tilted the soldier's head close to the camera, hovered over the figure who knew that he was about to die, and then sawed the man's head off his shoulders. There was screaming and blood was everywhere. And then his killer set his head on top of his body and laughed. How the fuck did this guy meet his fate? I felt so much rage I could have gone to war that moment and dealt fire and death to everyone responsible for the mutilation.
We then watched several videos of the Taliban insurgency being shot down and blown to smithereens, and we found ourselves laughing. Laughing. Like the guy who just cut a man's head off. We may as well have done it ourselves and shit down his neck for good measure because, in that moment, we were no longer the guys that our families hugged and cried on. We were the instinctual killers we were trained to be, without fear, pity, or remorse. I thought about every time someone talked about killing like it was supposed to be fun.
The exploits of the Taliban include things like strapping bombs to mentally challenged people and blowing them up at our gates, or paying a child to shoot at our convoy, which ends with the kid getting his brains blown out, courtesy of the red white, and blue. Other ways they have fucked with us is shooting at us from a schoolyard over kids' heads, because we can't fire at schools or churches, though mosques were assaulted at the beginning of OIF to pursue insurgents. That obviously ended quickly, and also the case of the Air Force gunner who opened fire at a mob of little black blobs of people fleeing from a building. Nobody could prove that they weren't insurgents, so we ass-raped some civilians with Lady Liberty's torch and called it "progress." This sort of killing isn't new to us; ever wonder why we never see many Native Americans?
In the time I trained for deployment, I took a look at how other military factions saw war. The Japanese believed that it was glorious to die in battle in service to a deity; they've since been renamed "Right Wing." Religion is its own animal - not my thing. "God is so great, I push all my guilt on him and I don't have to feel responsible about a thing! And, the best part is, he made a magical land that we float up to when we die as long as we rally to take away civil rights!" Wasn't this kind of thing started in a time when it was okay to fuck the underage and enslave the poor to the government, when most people were delusional due to mental illness and disease? Oh wait, that's 2011. Most soldiers don't know a damn thing about politics, myself included, but I'll call it like I see it. We're just not exposed to as much politics on Army bases, We constantly talk about Army, Army, Army, and that's it. I don't doubt that any soldier who reads this will either be laughing his ass off or breaking his laptop by the third paragraph, because it's a hard reality to accept that there is no winning this war. We'll never completely eliminate every terrorist; but, if we did, what would be next? Killing their kids? They already have more than a few reasons to hate us, all they've known their whole lives is war. And, yeah, maybe their dad did plant bombs on the side of the road, but that was their dad, not ours, and he may not have done those things out of hatred, the same way some soldiers don't go to war out of hatred, but to just put some food on the table.
Not every person over there is a monster. What is left of the Taliban is a broken, bankrupt circle of extremists who could never hurt you, or your family in the USA; it's just not possible. They have no resources other than what they can get from a hardware store, household chemicals, and whatever weapons they have stashed under the dirt we walk on over there. Ammonium nitrate is easy to make in the convenience of one's own kitchen, and it's one of the Taliban's favorite weapons because it's cheap. Other examples include pressure-plate activated charges designed specifically for certain vehicles, meaning they've tested them to know exactly what weight they need for the wires to touch completing the connection, and it's designed to detonate on our vehicles rather than lighter, civilian vehicles. They used to fire mortar shells into our bases but they'd be retaliated upon afterwards, so they would fill the mortar tube with ice and drop the mortar on top. The ice melts, and by the time to round gets down to the firing pin, the insurgent is long gone. They've lived in poverty their whole lives while people in the USA went to McDonald's then drove to Burger King because their kids wanted a slice of pie to go with their burger doused in thousand island dressing. I once met a kid from India and he said to me, "My dad said that Americans eat fried Snickers bars, is that true?" Not even I knew we had deep fried candy bars until I looked it up, but some kid from around the world knows about it. People in the unemployment line sure as hell don't think it's fair that they're losing everything they have while Iraq is being rebuilt. We can go help every other country who will destroy itself in civil war whether we're there or not, but we can't give our kids a decent education.
I used to be scared by the prospect of getting out of the military, but I realized that everything I've been taught about being a warrior would be completely contradicted by participating in this pointless endeavor. Honor, to me, is protecting the people you love, not blindly throwing myself into a mine-ridden wasteland. I'd have been more than happy to liberate a Jew and bring him to Hitler's corpse so he could piss on him; hell, I'd even hold his dick for him, but this? We're not fighting soldiers anymore. We see them now as enemies because we are told they're our enemies, and I can't be a part of that. If a foreign power was kicking in the doors of our homes looking for bomb labs and searching our families' personal belongings, we would fight back. What "honor" or "heroism" is there in shooting an opponent wearing no ballistic armor from the turret of an armored truck with a .50 cal machine gun? And, according to the Geneva Conventions, we are not allowed to shoot people with that weapon, but we are allowed to shoot at their equipment - as in the AK47 in their hands. Even civilians carry AKs there; practically everyone in Afghanistan has one, so I guess it can't be that inhumane to blow someone in half. That guy won't ever look at spaghetti the same way again.
I am a warrior. I will protect my fellow countrymen from legitimate danger. We have more to fear from ourselves; we may not have AK47s or IEDs, but we, as a country, carry a concealed weapon called stupidity. Nobody is perfect, but that doesn't mean we can't be good people. I don't need to be in the Army to be a good man. I'm not by any means a hippie, but I love my life, and I love the people in my life too much to have them question why I'm not around. That's my reason for getting out, and I don't really give a shit if anyone disagrees; and, if they're so fucking righteous, then throw on a brain bucket and march their ass down to a recruiter for Disneyland tickets.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Guest Blogger: Kreisler On "Work"
Oh, great. I'm first? I get all the "this guy sucks" comments* until everyone realizes Lee's engaging in some selfish socio-politico-bloggero experiment to prove the axiom that "absence makes the heart grow Ruder."
Well, fuck that guy.
He wants me to write about work? Work? WTF do I know about work? What is work? Seriously, how's it defined in America? How's that definition changing? Who's helping or hurting the cause? Is asking a series of questions to readers selectively inclined to agree with my worldview "work?" What do you think?
So, me.** As a Slash - comedian/author/speaker/editor/producer/radio-talky-talker/actor/crotch adjuster - I don't really have a "job," but I'd venture that the freelancers amongst us tend work a more that those with traditional jobs. Can't avoid taking work home with you if you work from home, #IfYouKnowWhatIMean***
The truth is, most of my work time isn't doing work, it's administrating work. This is what's so hard about a freelance, project-based career. I just want to work, I want someone to give me a meager check and say, "Do what you do." I don't want to spend 90% of my time convincing people I'm worth that check, waiting for it in the mail, then making them replace it with cash because there is no Bank of Northern GetARealJobYouHippyStan.
This is what makes the idiotic political battles over the economy so infuriating to me. We're missing the point.
Ours is an economy that needs to support the flexible, project-based worker, because that's what we've got left. Brick and mortar industries don't last generations anymore. If they're lucky, some product will have a 5-7 year shelf life - think Palm Pilots, Priuses, the word "artisanal."**** We're careening towards what some call the "free-agent economy." And the need to support that shift and that free agent worker - with stuff like broadband, high speed rail, education that focuses on thinking not facts, health-fking-care - should be a focus of our economic policy. But it's not.
Ya see, I still believe America's strength is in our brains, despite evidence to the contrary. Our ability to think, to take chances, to adapt both individually and in the aggregate. Our ability to Innovate. To see problems others wouldn't dare confront and find creative solutions: Separation of Powers, Kitty Hawk, the Egg McMuffin.*****
In order to find these solutions, to take these leaps, to Innovate, we must have the support system to do so. We must be able to take chances, there must be something to, if not catch us when we fall, at least cushion the blow. But that's not the economy we have right now, nor what we're building. Right now, the innovators can only be those with their own support system, their own safety net (said the guy with the fall-back law degree). That's why, right now, this free agent economy is only for white collar, professional work. Everyone else is too scared by 10% unemployment and health care costs and outsourcing and college tuition and Hudson River tolls and cell phone bills and Charlie Sheen to take a chance.
So, yet again, I question/mock/hate the self-applied "pro-business" label of the "pro-business" Right and what they've done to us. An empowered, innovative, engaged workforce helps business. Modern infrastructure helps business. Public goods - education, fire fighters, national defense, lower crime, clean water - help business. Business should be in partnership with, not ownership of, the workforce.
But the Right doesn't want this. They want a drone workforce***** until it is not just cheaper, but easier, to farm it all out overseas, which is where they're keeping their profits anyway. For stuff that has to be made here, we'll have a workforce with so few rights, such limited skills, so little flexibility that they'll beg for the paltry wages, negative benefits, and 25 hour work days they're gracious enough to offer. And if they keep pumping us full of crap and demonizing efforts to get healthy and to learn and to engage politically then they won't even need to build moats around their gated communities, we'll be too exhausted, diabetic and scared by the physics of battering rams to storm the ramparts.
Innovation? They'll decide what to innovate based upon their bottom line, and you'll make it and buy it and promote it on your t-shirt.
This is where the Right has taken our economic dialogue. We're arguing over how to maintain a dying industrial model, rather than how to forge a new one. And that sucks.
Look, Universe knows, I don't want every industry turned into the hellscape of showbiz, where talent, skill, and hard work have little bearing on advancement and potential is routinely wasted,******* but it would be nice if our economy focused on tapping the true potential of the American worker, based upon a collective embrace of our long-term interests and an honest understanding of the evolving definition of "work."
____
* If Rude had the balls to allow comments.
** I was supposed to write about making it as a lawyer turned comic, but, again, fuck that guy. And by that guy, I sorta mean me (one Native American teardrop).
*** These will be my last words just before Lee stabs me.
**** Please die soon.
***** You know what industry really gets the real potential of the American worker? Finance. Why do you think they're making all the money? They understand what Americans do best is innovate, and they milk that. The brain drain isn't overseas, it's into finance: Our greatest minds don't cure cancer or end hunger or create hydroelectricsolarwindbeeffart energy technologies…. but ways to make money by moving money around, skimming 2% off the top.
****** As for Rick Perry creating jobs which are a) minimum wage or less, b) energy industry based, and c) at the expense of education, investment, and health insurance, I'll just say this: I miss Molly Ivins. (Also: Fuck that guy).
******* Whoops. "Bitter" does-not-equal "rude."
Jeff Kreisler wants you to buy his book and hire him to write or perform for your political group, corporate function, or sexy nurse party.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Vacation Time Means Guest Blogger Time:
Every year the Rude Pundit takes a week away from the exigencies and exhaustion of daily bloggery. But he would never just leave you all alone, so this year he's got a line-up of way-cool guests all writing about working and not working, employment and unemployment, and whatever else creeps into their minds.
The co-host of Cheater and the Rude, Jeff Kreisler, comedian and author of Get Rich Cheating, will toss in about trying to survive as an artist with a law degree.
Mentioned by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, G.I. Jew himself, Benari Poulten, a stand-up comic when not in uniform, will write from his post in Afghanistan.
More coming, including another active duty soldier, a non-profit employee, and an EMT.
It's work week here at the Rude Pundit's joint.
And he's heading off to vacation. Back next Wednesday. Just make sure you feed the fish. The pot is in the carved-out volume of Kafka on the second shelf down. The vodka's in the freezer. Don't touch the good whiskey. Have a good time.
Every year the Rude Pundit takes a week away from the exigencies and exhaustion of daily bloggery. But he would never just leave you all alone, so this year he's got a line-up of way-cool guests all writing about working and not working, employment and unemployment, and whatever else creeps into their minds.
The co-host of Cheater and the Rude, Jeff Kreisler, comedian and author of Get Rich Cheating, will toss in about trying to survive as an artist with a law degree.
Mentioned by Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, G.I. Jew himself, Benari Poulten, a stand-up comic when not in uniform, will write from his post in Afghanistan.
More coming, including another active duty soldier, a non-profit employee, and an EMT.
It's work week here at the Rude Pundit's joint.
And he's heading off to vacation. Back next Wednesday. Just make sure you feed the fish. The pot is in the carved-out volume of Kafka on the second shelf down. The vodka's in the freezer. Don't touch the good whiskey. Have a good time.
A Quick One Before Vacation: Fareed Zakaria Thinks Liberals Want Speeches:
This has stuck in the Rude Pundit's craw since Sunday, when author and CNN host Fareed Zakaria, on his show Fareed Zakaria Is Sick of Your Bullshit, took liberals to task for some kind of magical thinking about President Obama. Using a June New Republic column by Jonathan Chait as the basis for his tut-tut-tutting, Zakaria scoffed, "[T]here is a recurring liberal fantasy that if only the president of the United States would give a stirring speech, he would sweep the country along with the sheer power of his poetry and enact his agenda." And then he defends Obama as a centrist who has gotten what he wanted (the facts of which were almost immediately disputed by Paul Krugman on the same show).
It's always good to have a reminder that Zakaria is not another liberal plaything; he's not just Hadji to Jon Stewart's Johnny Quest. In addition to having the most intelligent and consistently compelling Sunday gabfest, Zakaria is, like Andrew Sullivan, a reformed conservative, someone who watched the GOP go nutzoid and say, "Whoa, those bastards are crazy," and aligned with a left-center in America that is more like traditional (non-teabagging) conservatism. And he supported the Iraq War.
It's the reductionism of Zakaria's attack that is most aggravating. Of course, people write fantasy speeches. Chait chides Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore for doing so. And if that's all they ever did, it'd be worth mockery. But we're not idiots and we're not children. As Donna Brazile pointed out on CNN's website, Obama has powerful tools that he is simply not using to achieve what he seems to say his goals are.
We know that Republicans are the real villains here. We know that conservative and/or fearful Democrats cower at the feet of the Fox "news" watching voters and go along with Republicans. Obama apologists cite FDR working with Republicans, as Zakaria does, but he was willing to call the Republicans out. He was more than willing to say that assholes are assholes and, hey, aren't these guys assholes?
We don't want Michael Douglas in The American President. We want Harry Truman. We've got Barack Obama. And while compromise may be necessary in order to achieve anything, when the compromises end up doing more harm than good or in watering down whatever goals you may have had to begin with, well, then dissatisfied liberals aren't the ones living in a fantasy.
Later today: "What? The Rude Pundit on vacation? Whatever shall we do?" Fear not. The list of cool and interesting guest bloggers (including two active soldiers) coming up.
This has stuck in the Rude Pundit's craw since Sunday, when author and CNN host Fareed Zakaria, on his show Fareed Zakaria Is Sick of Your Bullshit, took liberals to task for some kind of magical thinking about President Obama. Using a June New Republic column by Jonathan Chait as the basis for his tut-tut-tutting, Zakaria scoffed, "[T]here is a recurring liberal fantasy that if only the president of the United States would give a stirring speech, he would sweep the country along with the sheer power of his poetry and enact his agenda." And then he defends Obama as a centrist who has gotten what he wanted (the facts of which were almost immediately disputed by Paul Krugman on the same show).
It's always good to have a reminder that Zakaria is not another liberal plaything; he's not just Hadji to Jon Stewart's Johnny Quest. In addition to having the most intelligent and consistently compelling Sunday gabfest, Zakaria is, like Andrew Sullivan, a reformed conservative, someone who watched the GOP go nutzoid and say, "Whoa, those bastards are crazy," and aligned with a left-center in America that is more like traditional (non-teabagging) conservatism. And he supported the Iraq War.
It's the reductionism of Zakaria's attack that is most aggravating. Of course, people write fantasy speeches. Chait chides Rachel Maddow and Michael Moore for doing so. And if that's all they ever did, it'd be worth mockery. But we're not idiots and we're not children. As Donna Brazile pointed out on CNN's website, Obama has powerful tools that he is simply not using to achieve what he seems to say his goals are.
We know that Republicans are the real villains here. We know that conservative and/or fearful Democrats cower at the feet of the Fox "news" watching voters and go along with Republicans. Obama apologists cite FDR working with Republicans, as Zakaria does, but he was willing to call the Republicans out. He was more than willing to say that assholes are assholes and, hey, aren't these guys assholes?
We don't want Michael Douglas in The American President. We want Harry Truman. We've got Barack Obama. And while compromise may be necessary in order to achieve anything, when the compromises end up doing more harm than good or in watering down whatever goals you may have had to begin with, well, then dissatisfied liberals aren't the ones living in a fantasy.
Later today: "What? The Rude Pundit on vacation? Whatever shall we do?" Fear not. The list of cool and interesting guest bloggers (including two active soldiers) coming up.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Giving the People What They Want: Ten Things Regarding Corn Dogs and Bachmanns:
Oh, the Rude Pundit had good intentions for the day. He was going to write a defense of liberal discontent with President Obama. Or he was going to write an attack on Texas Governor and newly-announced presidential candidate Rick Perry. But this weekend, one thing electrified rude readers more than anything else: Iowa straw poll winner Michele Bachmann's cocksucking face as she deep-throated a corn dog at the state fair. Yes, she did. She gobbled that meat stick like a roped-up Sasha Grey getting mouth-fucked.
Here's some things the Rude Pundit believes Minnesota's non-quitter was thinking as she went down on some carny dong:
1. "Oh, God, it's been so long."
2. "This tastes better than Sean Hannity."
3. "Wait, you mean it's just a hot dog?"
4. "I can take a bigger one than Rick Perry."
5. "This won't look bad at all."
Of course, if there's tube meat available, Bachmann's not-at-all-gay, anti-gay, gay-curing husband Marcus will be close by. He got a corn dog facial, too, with the congresswoman making him take it, take it all. Look at him:
Obviously he was thinking:
1. "Pray it away, pray it away, pray it away..."
2. "Well, if I just put the tip in, it won't look like I like it."
3. "Is it okay if I touch it, just a little, with my fingers gently caressing the smooth shaft before it hits my tongue and fills my mouth, oh, god, oh, Jesus, this feels amazing...no, no, stop it, bad thoughts. I'll have to whip myself later."
4. "Maybe if I show that I think it's yucky, people will stop talking."
5. "Oh, Michele, it's just...you."
Update: The profile view of the event does Bachmann no favors.
Tomorrow: back to weightier matters. And later this week: The Rude Pundit starts his yearly vacation, with great guest bloggers steppin' in to do the deed.
Oh, the Rude Pundit had good intentions for the day. He was going to write a defense of liberal discontent with President Obama. Or he was going to write an attack on Texas Governor and newly-announced presidential candidate Rick Perry. But this weekend, one thing electrified rude readers more than anything else: Iowa straw poll winner Michele Bachmann's cocksucking face as she deep-throated a corn dog at the state fair. Yes, she did. She gobbled that meat stick like a roped-up Sasha Grey getting mouth-fucked.
Here's some things the Rude Pundit believes Minnesota's non-quitter was thinking as she went down on some carny dong:
1. "Oh, God, it's been so long."
2. "This tastes better than Sean Hannity."
3. "Wait, you mean it's just a hot dog?"
4. "I can take a bigger one than Rick Perry."
5. "This won't look bad at all."
Of course, if there's tube meat available, Bachmann's not-at-all-gay, anti-gay, gay-curing husband Marcus will be close by. He got a corn dog facial, too, with the congresswoman making him take it, take it all. Look at him:
Obviously he was thinking:
1. "Pray it away, pray it away, pray it away..."
2. "Well, if I just put the tip in, it won't look like I like it."
3. "Is it okay if I touch it, just a little, with my fingers gently caressing the smooth shaft before it hits my tongue and fills my mouth, oh, god, oh, Jesus, this feels amazing...no, no, stop it, bad thoughts. I'll have to whip myself later."
4. "Maybe if I show that I think it's yucky, people will stop talking."
5. "Oh, Michele, it's just...you."
Update: The profile view of the event does Bachmann no favors.
Tomorrow: back to weightier matters. And later this week: The Rude Pundit starts his yearly vacation, with great guest bloggers steppin' in to do the deed.
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