Ok, ok, so I lied, I couldn't keep myself away completely. I just had to blog again. Anyway, after reading the pro's and con's and listening to hours of chatter on the radio, I've decided that I will not be supporting this health care bill, and I don't care if it costs us seats in the house, the senate, and quite frankly, I don't care if it costs Obama his job.
That's right...I honestly and truthfully don't give a damn. Here's why: the current bill is an absolute travesty. This bill somehow manages to turn health care reform into a boon for the insurance industry. It requires that all uncovered Americans buy health insurance from the existing insurance companies--now, granted, there are caps on the amount people have to pay based on their yearly earnings. This might be OK, if other provisions had been included, like stripping insurance companies of their anti-trust exemption, or including the amount employers have to pay for insurance on employee pay stubs, so that people can see just how much their plan actually costs...and possibly consider whether they'd rather see a portion of that in their take home pay. OR if the bill included the now infamous public option, which would be a government run plan designed to compete with the insurance industry. But the current bill doesn't include any of these things, and now senator Bill Nelson (D-Nebraksa) is throwing a fit about abortion, so who knows...maybe the final bill will revoke Roe v. Wade as well.
The point is, this bill is so watered down, and contains so many concessions to the insurance company, we are better off if it doesn't pass. Sure, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the Republican idiots will celebrate this as a victory against Obama, but it won't change the inevitable, the thing that apparently really needs to happen before we can get real reform in this country: people need to be worse off. The problems that we face are not bad enough for people to take notice or care.
And the fact is, without reform, things will get worse...much much worse. People are suffering, and dying, and that isn't enough for Republicans or conservative Democrats at this point, so I guess that has to go on. Passing this bill won't make a damn bit of difference in that aspect at this point--better to let the dam burst and build a new one that to throw a shitty patch job together for the sake of saving face. If that costs Democrats their jobs, good. We're better off at this point with people doing harm to our society than waffling over doing what's right.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Deck the halls with morons (ear muffs chillun')...no, seriously, this is bad
God, fucking, dog-shit dammit, I'm pissed. Maybe I should just ask one of my students if I can borrow their gun and go shoot some of the teachers that told me today, they would be voting AGAINST measures 66 and 67. This is how terrorism begins: a young man with arms, no future, and a reason to hate. Wholesale slaughter actually sounds pretty good right now...
(Just so the Republicans understand, the above is an example of satire, and sarcasm, since you fucking idiots like to take everything literally--I hope you've never eaten shellfish, coveted anyone but your spouse, and don't own any miniature statues, or you are going straight to hell fuckwads)
Look, the fact is, if Oregonians don't pass measures 66 and 67, they are probably going to have to cut sports, music, number of days in the school year, oh, yeah, and some teachers will probably lose their jobs too. It will be interesting to see if everyone supports education as much as they say they do, or if they are going to be convinced once again to vote against their best interests in exchange for another pile of ideological bullshit...
Meanwhile, the Senate is stalling on healthcare because one lone asshole, Joe Lieberman, is blocking passage of any kind of public option. In addition, the bill is going to allow the industry to keep their anti-trust exemption (this is the opposite of free market capitalism, Republican assclowns), while mandating that all Americans be forced to buy coverage from these same companies, who will continue to profit off of bad luck, sickness, misery, and death. According to David Brooks, who, like most Rapeublicans, probably jerks off to underage, gagged, little boy porn, most American's (58% quoth the molester) are currently opposed to health care reform.
Let's all say it together kiddies: "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK! FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK! FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!
The verdict in sum, is this: we live in a representative Democracy, in which our only hope of an effective government as average people is that good people get voted into office and solve the great problems we face in the 21st century. As we can clearly see now, most of those representatives are evil, greedy sons of bitches who are in all likelihood, well practiced at witch craft and supporting rings of child slavery and prostitution. In short, they are beholden not to voters, but to their corporate sponsors--Lieberman, for instance, has taken more than $1 million from the health insurance industry.
If this isn't bad enough, most average Americans are absolute fucking morons. They continually vote against their best interests, care nothing for the fellow man, are generally incapable of raising decent children, cannot, even in plain sight of fact, admit fault or flaw, and have a myopic, self-centered view on almost every single issue known to the arena of politics. Even many of the teachers that are currently working in my very building fall into this category. Pillars, supposedly of education, and yet, they lack even the common sense to vote for a ballot measure that sustains the jobs of themselves and their co-workers. Unfuckingbelievable. Gun please.
I'm done writing this blog for now...no amount of truth seems to make a difference, Obama is a complete failure, and it is inevitable that our country is going to slip further and further toward being a third world nation, becuase our people are too fucking stupid to stop it, and our politicians are a bunch of selfish fucking jerks. I'll leave you with this (the twilight kingdom part is by T.S. Eliot):
Wheels
Tarnished dreams,
A man rides by, smoking on a bicycle
in the morning,
smokestack engines and auto exhaust, and
wheels, wheels, wheels.
Warnings on the radio:
How to diaper your baby, how to save money,
How to keep your lawn green, how to avoid bankruptcy,
How to accept the creeping sickness crawling across the chasms and cracks of our country,
in this
twilight kingdom.
See,
see the white trash divas, ebony queens, and the chula princesses are
waiving their arms in the air:
like a metronome,
knowing no reason, but that motion was set to it,
and all this while—
the suburban bebe’s wake up in Ralph Lauren dreams,
and everything matches.
Aristocratic robotics, complete with moving arms and
genital wheels,
wheels, wheels, wheels,
Keep me moving on to the next passage, the next tomorrow,
where static reigns and somehow,
somehow,
everything’s better
in this
twilight kingdom.
Outside the man on the bicycle finds a bomb in his jacket,
His hands trembling
unfolds and reads the fine print:
8 year old girls enter beauty pageants, and—
the Christians are at it again, back to their Old Ways, and—
inside the classrooms, entranced children spit prophecy and nonsense,
and roll around with bugs in their heads,
and wheels,
wheels,
wheels.
(Just so the Republicans understand, the above is an example of satire, and sarcasm, since you fucking idiots like to take everything literally--I hope you've never eaten shellfish, coveted anyone but your spouse, and don't own any miniature statues, or you are going straight to hell fuckwads)
Look, the fact is, if Oregonians don't pass measures 66 and 67, they are probably going to have to cut sports, music, number of days in the school year, oh, yeah, and some teachers will probably lose their jobs too. It will be interesting to see if everyone supports education as much as they say they do, or if they are going to be convinced once again to vote against their best interests in exchange for another pile of ideological bullshit...
Meanwhile, the Senate is stalling on healthcare because one lone asshole, Joe Lieberman, is blocking passage of any kind of public option. In addition, the bill is going to allow the industry to keep their anti-trust exemption (this is the opposite of free market capitalism, Republican assclowns), while mandating that all Americans be forced to buy coverage from these same companies, who will continue to profit off of bad luck, sickness, misery, and death. According to David Brooks, who, like most Rapeublicans, probably jerks off to underage, gagged, little boy porn, most American's (58% quoth the molester) are currently opposed to health care reform.
Let's all say it together kiddies: "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK! FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKK! FUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!
The verdict in sum, is this: we live in a representative Democracy, in which our only hope of an effective government as average people is that good people get voted into office and solve the great problems we face in the 21st century. As we can clearly see now, most of those representatives are evil, greedy sons of bitches who are in all likelihood, well practiced at witch craft and supporting rings of child slavery and prostitution. In short, they are beholden not to voters, but to their corporate sponsors--Lieberman, for instance, has taken more than $1 million from the health insurance industry.
If this isn't bad enough, most average Americans are absolute fucking morons. They continually vote against their best interests, care nothing for the fellow man, are generally incapable of raising decent children, cannot, even in plain sight of fact, admit fault or flaw, and have a myopic, self-centered view on almost every single issue known to the arena of politics. Even many of the teachers that are currently working in my very building fall into this category. Pillars, supposedly of education, and yet, they lack even the common sense to vote for a ballot measure that sustains the jobs of themselves and their co-workers. Unfuckingbelievable. Gun please.
I'm done writing this blog for now...no amount of truth seems to make a difference, Obama is a complete failure, and it is inevitable that our country is going to slip further and further toward being a third world nation, becuase our people are too fucking stupid to stop it, and our politicians are a bunch of selfish fucking jerks. I'll leave you with this (the twilight kingdom part is by T.S. Eliot):
Wheels
Tarnished dreams,
A man rides by, smoking on a bicycle
in the morning,
smokestack engines and auto exhaust, and
wheels, wheels, wheels.
Warnings on the radio:
How to diaper your baby, how to save money,
How to keep your lawn green, how to avoid bankruptcy,
How to accept the creeping sickness crawling across the chasms and cracks of our country,
in this
twilight kingdom.
See,
see the white trash divas, ebony queens, and the chula princesses are
waiving their arms in the air:
like a metronome,
knowing no reason, but that motion was set to it,
and all this while—
the suburban bebe’s wake up in Ralph Lauren dreams,
and everything matches.
Aristocratic robotics, complete with moving arms and
genital wheels,
wheels, wheels, wheels,
Keep me moving on to the next passage, the next tomorrow,
where static reigns and somehow,
somehow,
everything’s better
in this
twilight kingdom.
Outside the man on the bicycle finds a bomb in his jacket,
His hands trembling
unfolds and reads the fine print:
8 year old girls enter beauty pageants, and—
the Christians are at it again, back to their Old Ways, and—
inside the classrooms, entranced children spit prophecy and nonsense,
and roll around with bugs in their heads,
and wheels,
wheels,
wheels.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Letter to the editor: Lowry sucks
Rich Lowry and the Republicans may be right to point out flaws in the current health care bill. I believe I speak for many Democrats and progressives when I say that I worry about the bill as well. However, it is precisely because of Republican tactics and columnists like Lowry that we have a less than ideal health care bill.
Consider the last tirade by Lowry, "Democrats Choice: Suicide or Death?" In it, Lowry argues that the Democrats shouldn't pass the current health care bill, because "it only covers half the uninsured." I thought Republicans were A-OK with leaving millions of people uninsured--after all, isn't that why we haven't seen ANY real proposals on health care reform from that side of the aisle?
The truth is, the elephants want it both ways. They want to whine about the flaws in any bill, pointing to factors like cost (our current system spends 16% of the GDP), and the number of uninsured (now around 40-50 million, depending on estimates); yet, they refuse to take part in the process because they see reform as a political victory for Obama and the Democratic party.
Personally, I would like to see a single-payer system. It would be the cleanest, most effective, simple way to fix our health care system. Unfortunately, it is not a political reality, because the health care industry, its lobbyists, conservative media outlets, and Republicans have thrown all of their weight against any kind of reform for reasons most foul: personal and private profit at the expense of the sick and dying, and political gain at the expense of our country.
Lets not forget who the real enemies of health care reform are: Lowry, the Republican party, and the "for profit off of sick and dying people" health care industry.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/11/democrats_choice_suicide_or_de.html
Consider the last tirade by Lowry, "Democrats Choice: Suicide or Death?" In it, Lowry argues that the Democrats shouldn't pass the current health care bill, because "it only covers half the uninsured." I thought Republicans were A-OK with leaving millions of people uninsured--after all, isn't that why we haven't seen ANY real proposals on health care reform from that side of the aisle?
The truth is, the elephants want it both ways. They want to whine about the flaws in any bill, pointing to factors like cost (our current system spends 16% of the GDP), and the number of uninsured (now around 40-50 million, depending on estimates); yet, they refuse to take part in the process because they see reform as a political victory for Obama and the Democratic party.
Personally, I would like to see a single-payer system. It would be the cleanest, most effective, simple way to fix our health care system. Unfortunately, it is not a political reality, because the health care industry, its lobbyists, conservative media outlets, and Republicans have thrown all of their weight against any kind of reform for reasons most foul: personal and private profit at the expense of the sick and dying, and political gain at the expense of our country.
Lets not forget who the real enemies of health care reform are: Lowry, the Republican party, and the "for profit off of sick and dying people" health care industry.
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/11/democrats_choice_suicide_or_de.html
Friday, November 6, 2009
This is why newspapers fail
This morning I read one of the most blatantly right wing newspaper articles I have seen in a long time, by Charles Pope, the Oregonian's Washington D.C. correspondent. The article, titled "Thousands flood capitol to protest health care bill as Democrats predict passage," has not an ounce of journalistic integrity. As is common practice in the media these days, the article legitimizes a right wing point of view because the author refuses to ask any hard questions of the people involved, and worse, fails to inform his readers about the actual facts surrounding the story. This is part of the reason why people have stopped subscribing to newspapers, and why I would find it extremely hard to ever purchase a subscription to the Oregonian, whose controlling interests continue to print conservative dribble by the likes of Rich Lowry and others who insist on ignoring the failures of Republican ideology in lieu of playing attack politics for the singular purpose of winning elections.
(Don't you idiots remember the last eight years and the absolute disasters of the conservative agenda?! Lets not forget that it was a Republican controlled government that got us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, deregulated the housing and financial markets leading to their consequent collapse and massive government bailouts of the banks, and turned Bill Clinton's budget surplus into massive deficit spending, most of which is owned by China. These right wingers remind me of the women that return to their husbands after being beaten to within an inch of their lives time and time again. WAKE UP! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NUTS!!!)
Inaccuracy and bad reporting abound in Pope's article. For one, he states that "thousands of protestors descended on the U.S. capitol," and later characterizes the crowd as "large and energized" and "from every corner of the nation." I thought this was supposed to be a news article, not a narrative--how many is "thousands," what does "large" mean, and wouldn't we expect that protesters would be "energized"--isn't that the very nature of a protest? So essentially, in the first two paragraphs, instead of asking pertinent questions, such as, "why, specifically, are you protesting?" or "who organized this protest?" Pope elected instead to lend the protest credibility, based not on information he gathered, but rather on his own observations, which are biased and unspecific.
When he does finally find someone to talk to, its "Kerry Rietmann, a 54-year-old wheat farmer from Ione, Ore., population 350." Rietmann, according to the article, called Thursday's protest, "the most beautiful experience of my life" (not the birth of a child, her wedding day, or other transcendent life moment, but rather, this tea party event to protest health care--really?) and in Pope's words, is "worried about the direction of the county and, in her view, its movement toward a heavy-handed socialist government that will sap freedom and opportunity." But wait a second, Reitmann is a wheat farmer right? What about the fact that according to the US Department of Agriculture, wheat farmers collectively receive about $1.2 billion in government subsidies per year? (1) Is Rietmann against that kind of "heavy-handed socialist government" program? Did U.S. taxpayer money pay some part of the $773 plane ticket she purchased to take part in this protest? No, no, Pope refuses to ask these sorts of questions--he is content to treat Reitmann's concerns as legitimate, even though she directly benefits from a government program that does exactly the kind of thing she and the other teabaggers are criticizing in the proposed health care bill.
While I would like to write here that the article got even worse, unlike Pope I have integrity, and the plain fact is that it isn't possible. Instead he just offers up his print space as a blank canvas for the same kind of ridiculous rhetoric that's designed to rile up foolish people like Reitmann, but when analized, doesn't really mean anything.
For instance, one of the paragraphs in Pope's story is a stand alone quote by Representative John Boehner, "This bill is the greatest threat to freedom I've seen in my 19 years in Washington." Boehner was in office during the Bush administration's assault on the 1st, 4th, and 8th amendments, yet a healthcare bill that is meant to expand coverage to poor people and strip health insurance companies of an antitrust exemption is a threat to freedom? Why didn't Pope ask a Democrat or even an intelligent political insider about Boehner's comment and its meaning?
The same type of uncritical reporting occurs again later, when Pope interviews Oregon Representative Greg Walden, who is quoted as saying, when asked about the protestors, "Heck, their angry, and they have a right to be. Their health care is about to be taken away from them. Their kids are about to handed an enormous debt." Here we might expect a responsible reporter to point out to the Representative that Congressional Budget Office estimates that as of yesterday the proposed bill would reduce the federal deficit by "$129 billion dollars over the 2010-2019 period."(2) Now that may not be a huge margin of reduction, but it doesn't excuse the fact that Walden lied; and this is not even to address his bogus assertion that passage of the bill equates to people losing their healthcare.
It is only at the end of the article that Pope discusses the actual big news of the day, which is that the American Medical Association, along with the AARP, both announced their support for the legislation. Of course, if one simply read the headline and the first few paragraphs, they might miss this development entirely. Then again, even if they read the entire article they would have been horribly misled about the current healthcare legislation's actual ramifications.
The Oregonian should either fire Charles Pope or force him to write a retraction, outlining all of the mistakes he made in writing this story. Probably both. As long as media outlets continue to run these kinds of biased stories, they will continue to legitimize the conservative "do-nothing" agenda, and their readership will continue to drop.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_subsidies
(2) http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10706/hr3962Dingell_with_mgr_amendment.pdf
(Don't you idiots remember the last eight years and the absolute disasters of the conservative agenda?! Lets not forget that it was a Republican controlled government that got us into the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, deregulated the housing and financial markets leading to their consequent collapse and massive government bailouts of the banks, and turned Bill Clinton's budget surplus into massive deficit spending, most of which is owned by China. These right wingers remind me of the women that return to their husbands after being beaten to within an inch of their lives time and time again. WAKE UP! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY NUTS!!!)
Inaccuracy and bad reporting abound in Pope's article. For one, he states that "thousands of protestors descended on the U.S. capitol," and later characterizes the crowd as "large and energized" and "from every corner of the nation." I thought this was supposed to be a news article, not a narrative--how many is "thousands," what does "large" mean, and wouldn't we expect that protesters would be "energized"--isn't that the very nature of a protest? So essentially, in the first two paragraphs, instead of asking pertinent questions, such as, "why, specifically, are you protesting?" or "who organized this protest?" Pope elected instead to lend the protest credibility, based not on information he gathered, but rather on his own observations, which are biased and unspecific.
When he does finally find someone to talk to, its "Kerry Rietmann, a 54-year-old wheat farmer from Ione, Ore., population 350." Rietmann, according to the article, called Thursday's protest, "the most beautiful experience of my life" (not the birth of a child, her wedding day, or other transcendent life moment, but rather, this tea party event to protest health care--really?) and in Pope's words, is "worried about the direction of the county and, in her view, its movement toward a heavy-handed socialist government that will sap freedom and opportunity." But wait a second, Reitmann is a wheat farmer right? What about the fact that according to the US Department of Agriculture, wheat farmers collectively receive about $1.2 billion in government subsidies per year? (1) Is Rietmann against that kind of "heavy-handed socialist government" program? Did U.S. taxpayer money pay some part of the $773 plane ticket she purchased to take part in this protest? No, no, Pope refuses to ask these sorts of questions--he is content to treat Reitmann's concerns as legitimate, even though she directly benefits from a government program that does exactly the kind of thing she and the other teabaggers are criticizing in the proposed health care bill.
While I would like to write here that the article got even worse, unlike Pope I have integrity, and the plain fact is that it isn't possible. Instead he just offers up his print space as a blank canvas for the same kind of ridiculous rhetoric that's designed to rile up foolish people like Reitmann, but when analized, doesn't really mean anything.
For instance, one of the paragraphs in Pope's story is a stand alone quote by Representative John Boehner, "This bill is the greatest threat to freedom I've seen in my 19 years in Washington." Boehner was in office during the Bush administration's assault on the 1st, 4th, and 8th amendments, yet a healthcare bill that is meant to expand coverage to poor people and strip health insurance companies of an antitrust exemption is a threat to freedom? Why didn't Pope ask a Democrat or even an intelligent political insider about Boehner's comment and its meaning?
The same type of uncritical reporting occurs again later, when Pope interviews Oregon Representative Greg Walden, who is quoted as saying, when asked about the protestors, "Heck, their angry, and they have a right to be. Their health care is about to be taken away from them. Their kids are about to handed an enormous debt." Here we might expect a responsible reporter to point out to the Representative that Congressional Budget Office estimates that as of yesterday the proposed bill would reduce the federal deficit by "$129 billion dollars over the 2010-2019 period."(2) Now that may not be a huge margin of reduction, but it doesn't excuse the fact that Walden lied; and this is not even to address his bogus assertion that passage of the bill equates to people losing their healthcare.
It is only at the end of the article that Pope discusses the actual big news of the day, which is that the American Medical Association, along with the AARP, both announced their support for the legislation. Of course, if one simply read the headline and the first few paragraphs, they might miss this development entirely. Then again, even if they read the entire article they would have been horribly misled about the current healthcare legislation's actual ramifications.
The Oregonian should either fire Charles Pope or force him to write a retraction, outlining all of the mistakes he made in writing this story. Probably both. As long as media outlets continue to run these kinds of biased stories, they will continue to legitimize the conservative "do-nothing" agenda, and their readership will continue to drop.
(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_subsidies
(2) http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10706/hr3962Dingell_with_mgr_amendment.pdf
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Why My Dad Hates Colin Cowherd
OK, I promise that at some point I am going to get back to the economy, but I just had an epiphany and I have to share it with you, dear readers. So today, I was again listening to Colin Cowherd (ironically that fact proves his point, but I'm right god damn it), and he and Trey Wingo (NFL Live host and kind of a deushbag) and Mark Schlereth (sometimes I really like him, and sometimes he is a tremendous tool--we're talking double lock, power grip, ultra duty, beefcake strength) are talking this morning about the whole Rush Limbaugh/Rams fiasco (by the way, apparently they didn't have the balls to read or discuss my response--not surprising--and no, I don't think its advisable to use this many parenthetical statements in one sentence, but fuck it, I'm not teaching English right now--put that in your pipe and smoke it Dom).
Anyway, as usual, they are just really congratulating themselves on being successful and rich and right about everything, and they say, well, you can tell that Rush is just a super great guy because he elicits such a strong response, be it positive or negative. From there they seemed to collectively decide that the best kind of a radio/television host or newspaper columnist is one that horrifies and alienates half of his audience, while vindicating and glorifying the other half. And why? Because that generates ratings and interest and big surprise--it makes the most money. Initially I just sat there kind of disgusted, because as anyone knows whose ever been around a bunch of rich white men congratulating themselves on being pompous, you realize that it is this kind of narcissism that perpetuates poverty, corrupts government, and justifies war carried out for the purpose of protecting national security/economic interests--and more importantly, as everyone knows, I hate bragging unless I'm the one doing it.
But then it hit me--this is why my dad hates Colin Cowherd (he, because of a stronger moral imperative than I can muster, refuses to listen to the Herd anymore). Cowherd espouses exactly the kind thinking that caused our nation's economic collapse: nothing matters but the bottom line, making money, and being politically ambiguous. "Winning isn't everything, its the only thing."(1) That may sound nice, and it may seem appropriate for a sports talk show, but when you apply it to the housing market or the stock market, you start to see why our economy is in deep fucking shit.
Indeed, that is exactly what mortgage brokers wanted to do, its exactly what the banks thought, and it might as well be the mantra for the Republican party as well (and judging by the assclown health care bill we are probably going to get, half the Dems as well). Our society has become too obsessed with the appearance of success, with making money for money's sake. Gordon Gecko was wrong. In fact, he was a fuckhead. Greed is not good, at least not pure unadulterated, unregulated, unashamed greed.
In fact, it reminds me of a quote in Jurassic Park (the first, and only good one), in which the physicist, Dr. Malcolm, says, in objection to the park, "The problem with scientific power you've used is it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge yourselves, so you don't take the responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you knew what you had, you patented it, packaged it, slapped in on a plastic lunch box, and now you want to sell it."
The problem with Rush Limbaugh, and a whole hell of a lot of people in our society, is that they do something purely for personal profit, regardless of whether or not it is a good thing to do. In other words, there is no responsibility. MTV glorifies wealth and the objectification of human beings in a way that is criminal, but somehow that's OK, because kids watch it, and it makes them money. Other networks put miscreants and people that engage in disgusting behavior on reality shows because it makes them money. Limbaugh lies to his audience on a regular basis to make money, stock brokers and mortgage brokers bought and sold bad housing loans to make money, health insurance companies deny their clients necessary, life sustaining procedures to make money. The grocer who owned the corner store and stood behind his products has been outmaneuvered by the travelling salesman and the faceless corporation that care for nothing but to sell their product and leave as quickly as possible so they don't have to take responsibility for them.
My dad hates Cowherd because he justifies it. He and his cronies justify the love of money for money's sake, the triumph of wealth and comfort over the externalities (an economic term for the unintended consequences of a particular activity) that arise from the business of profiteering.
Sure, money matters. Anyone who tells you it doesn't is probably working for Pat Robertson and the 700 club, or some other two faced evangelist taking advantage of his flock. Money matters, but not at the expense of our humanity. In the words again, of Dr. Malcolm: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should. Science can create pesticides, but it can't tell us not to use them. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it can't tell us not to build it!"
(1) This quote had often been attributed to Vince Lombardi, but it was actually first uttered by UCLA coach Harry Russel "Red" Sanders.
Anyway, as usual, they are just really congratulating themselves on being successful and rich and right about everything, and they say, well, you can tell that Rush is just a super great guy because he elicits such a strong response, be it positive or negative. From there they seemed to collectively decide that the best kind of a radio/television host or newspaper columnist is one that horrifies and alienates half of his audience, while vindicating and glorifying the other half. And why? Because that generates ratings and interest and big surprise--it makes the most money. Initially I just sat there kind of disgusted, because as anyone knows whose ever been around a bunch of rich white men congratulating themselves on being pompous, you realize that it is this kind of narcissism that perpetuates poverty, corrupts government, and justifies war carried out for the purpose of protecting national security/economic interests--and more importantly, as everyone knows, I hate bragging unless I'm the one doing it.
But then it hit me--this is why my dad hates Colin Cowherd (he, because of a stronger moral imperative than I can muster, refuses to listen to the Herd anymore). Cowherd espouses exactly the kind thinking that caused our nation's economic collapse: nothing matters but the bottom line, making money, and being politically ambiguous. "Winning isn't everything, its the only thing."(1) That may sound nice, and it may seem appropriate for a sports talk show, but when you apply it to the housing market or the stock market, you start to see why our economy is in deep fucking shit.
Indeed, that is exactly what mortgage brokers wanted to do, its exactly what the banks thought, and it might as well be the mantra for the Republican party as well (and judging by the assclown health care bill we are probably going to get, half the Dems as well). Our society has become too obsessed with the appearance of success, with making money for money's sake. Gordon Gecko was wrong. In fact, he was a fuckhead. Greed is not good, at least not pure unadulterated, unregulated, unashamed greed.
In fact, it reminds me of a quote in Jurassic Park (the first, and only good one), in which the physicist, Dr. Malcolm, says, in objection to the park, "The problem with scientific power you've used is it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge yourselves, so you don't take the responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you knew what you had, you patented it, packaged it, slapped in on a plastic lunch box, and now you want to sell it."
The problem with Rush Limbaugh, and a whole hell of a lot of people in our society, is that they do something purely for personal profit, regardless of whether or not it is a good thing to do. In other words, there is no responsibility. MTV glorifies wealth and the objectification of human beings in a way that is criminal, but somehow that's OK, because kids watch it, and it makes them money. Other networks put miscreants and people that engage in disgusting behavior on reality shows because it makes them money. Limbaugh lies to his audience on a regular basis to make money, stock brokers and mortgage brokers bought and sold bad housing loans to make money, health insurance companies deny their clients necessary, life sustaining procedures to make money. The grocer who owned the corner store and stood behind his products has been outmaneuvered by the travelling salesman and the faceless corporation that care for nothing but to sell their product and leave as quickly as possible so they don't have to take responsibility for them.
My dad hates Cowherd because he justifies it. He and his cronies justify the love of money for money's sake, the triumph of wealth and comfort over the externalities (an economic term for the unintended consequences of a particular activity) that arise from the business of profiteering.
Sure, money matters. Anyone who tells you it doesn't is probably working for Pat Robertson and the 700 club, or some other two faced evangelist taking advantage of his flock. Money matters, but not at the expense of our humanity. In the words again, of Dr. Malcolm: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn't stop to think if they should. Science can create pesticides, but it can't tell us not to use them. Science can make a nuclear reactor, but it can't tell us not to build it!"
(1) This quote had often been attributed to Vince Lombardi, but it was actually first uttered by UCLA coach Harry Russel "Red" Sanders.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
ESPN and Rush Limbaugh
I'm not sure how many of you listen to sports radio (I'm not really sure why I still do), but if you do, it would be almost impossible to not have heard the story about Rush Limbaugh's wish to own the St. Louis Rams. Not surprisingly, every host I've heard so far defends Limbaugh's right to own the Rams (maybe they had a staff meeting). One of the most popular, Colin Cowherd took it a step further and noted that a huge number of NFL players were arrested for domestic abuse, DUI's, etc., so who were they to be judging Limbaugh? Cowherd also stated that since Limbaugh uses only words, and not actions, he should get a pass from society at large.
Apparently, Colin and the folks as ESPN have failed to consider a few key points:
1) NFL players that commit crimes are forced to apologize for their actions, and are usually punished with fines or jail time--Rush Limbaugh, as far as I know, makes no apologies for his talk show, and plans on continuing his broadcast. Michael Vick would certainly not have gotten his second chance if he had said that he planned to continue hosting dog fights and was proud about it. In other words, if Rush Limbaugh apologized for his offenses (which I list below), and changed the content of his show, no one would be opposed to his owning the Rams.
2) Being that Limbaugh is a radio host, the nature of his show dictates that he only uses words, but the fact is that those words reach the ears of millions of listeners (from my limited research, between 10 and 50 million, so lets just stick with millions), and those people act, argue, and think on the basis of what Limbaugh says, so his words translate to have a far greater cumulative effect on the actions of many than one NFL player's individual actions.
3) Limbaugh has participated and profited (his last contract was worth $400 million) from a conservative movement that has alienated many of its own Republican party members (perhaps even Colin, who claims to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative), and that has totally dissolved the civility and dignity which used to be afforded the political process--moreover, to accomplish this end, he has lied, manipulated information, and misled his listeners to achieve this politically motivated result. He is the figurehead of everything bad about the Republican party, whose aims have been primarily to work against the general good of the American people in exchange for the profits of millionaires, billionaires, and multinational corporations (By the way, if anyone can prove that the above allegations are not factually accurate, I will publish your admonition of my statement).
Cowherd is right to point out that in all probability, many NFL owners are conservative. The difference between them and Rush is that Limbaugh has made a living doing it, and doing it loudly. Owners are just owners--who knows what their views are and why they have them--as long as they aren't made public, it doesn't really matter to the players or the fans.
On the flip side, Rush is a polarizing figure that people either love or hate, and the fact is that he has said racially insensitive things before (Donovan McNabb), and his Republican party continues to basically oppose everything our BLACK president does for completely political reasons.
Maybe he does have a right to buy the Rams franchise, but then so too, do players have a right not to play, and fans have a right not to attend games (though, judging from the Rams record, they may have already started doing that).
Apparently, Colin and the folks as ESPN have failed to consider a few key points:
1) NFL players that commit crimes are forced to apologize for their actions, and are usually punished with fines or jail time--Rush Limbaugh, as far as I know, makes no apologies for his talk show, and plans on continuing his broadcast. Michael Vick would certainly not have gotten his second chance if he had said that he planned to continue hosting dog fights and was proud about it. In other words, if Rush Limbaugh apologized for his offenses (which I list below), and changed the content of his show, no one would be opposed to his owning the Rams.
2) Being that Limbaugh is a radio host, the nature of his show dictates that he only uses words, but the fact is that those words reach the ears of millions of listeners (from my limited research, between 10 and 50 million, so lets just stick with millions), and those people act, argue, and think on the basis of what Limbaugh says, so his words translate to have a far greater cumulative effect on the actions of many than one NFL player's individual actions.
3) Limbaugh has participated and profited (his last contract was worth $400 million) from a conservative movement that has alienated many of its own Republican party members (perhaps even Colin, who claims to be socially liberal and fiscally conservative), and that has totally dissolved the civility and dignity which used to be afforded the political process--moreover, to accomplish this end, he has lied, manipulated information, and misled his listeners to achieve this politically motivated result. He is the figurehead of everything bad about the Republican party, whose aims have been primarily to work against the general good of the American people in exchange for the profits of millionaires, billionaires, and multinational corporations (By the way, if anyone can prove that the above allegations are not factually accurate, I will publish your admonition of my statement).
Cowherd is right to point out that in all probability, many NFL owners are conservative. The difference between them and Rush is that Limbaugh has made a living doing it, and doing it loudly. Owners are just owners--who knows what their views are and why they have them--as long as they aren't made public, it doesn't really matter to the players or the fans.
On the flip side, Rush is a polarizing figure that people either love or hate, and the fact is that he has said racially insensitive things before (Donovan McNabb), and his Republican party continues to basically oppose everything our BLACK president does for completely political reasons.
Maybe he does have a right to buy the Rams franchise, but then so too, do players have a right not to play, and fans have a right not to attend games (though, judging from the Rams record, they may have already started doing that).
Monday, October 12, 2009
The Nobel Prize
Yes, yes, our president won the Nobel prize, and as usual, the right-wing blowhards are all over it, saying that Obama didn't deserve it, that he shouldn't have accepted it, and that it is emblematic of his presidency thus far: all talk and no action. These are the same people that rejoiced when Chicago didn't get the Olympics, and that continue to laud and protect a health care system that leaves 50 million people uninsured while financially bleeding our country dry. We, liberals, were chastised for "hating America" by these same people, who think that an American president, winning the Nobel Peace Prize, is a bad thing.
And while the media continues to hold a circus trying to make Obama the bad guy for winning a prestigious prize on the behalf of our country, all it really does is display the absolute transparency of the Republican party's morality of the late. Everything Obama achieves is bad--everytime he fails, its good. End of story--no matter what.
I know. Its about as complex a strategy as that of a two year old crying in the super market for candy, or an over matched football team hoping the opposition's star running back gets injured before the big game. Of course, in either case, both of them actually have a chance of getting their way--the Republicans, like the fat girl who develops a crush on the heart throb QB, hopes for his girlfriend's demise, and refuses to diet, have none.
As stated previously on this blog, the time when Republicans can win by going negative has passed. It passed in 2008 when Barack Obama won the Presidency. Maybe that is why they are so mad at him. And at this point, all it would take is a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party (in other words, unlike the Greens or the Libertarians, one that was viable) to make the Republican party obsolete, because as usual, other than breeding hate and mud-slinging, they appear to have absolutely no interest in governing this country in a way that benefits the majority of its citizens.
The press may conveniently forget this, but I suspect that voters have not.
And while the media continues to hold a circus trying to make Obama the bad guy for winning a prestigious prize on the behalf of our country, all it really does is display the absolute transparency of the Republican party's morality of the late. Everything Obama achieves is bad--everytime he fails, its good. End of story--no matter what.
I know. Its about as complex a strategy as that of a two year old crying in the super market for candy, or an over matched football team hoping the opposition's star running back gets injured before the big game. Of course, in either case, both of them actually have a chance of getting their way--the Republicans, like the fat girl who develops a crush on the heart throb QB, hopes for his girlfriend's demise, and refuses to diet, have none.
As stated previously on this blog, the time when Republicans can win by going negative has passed. It passed in 2008 when Barack Obama won the Presidency. Maybe that is why they are so mad at him. And at this point, all it would take is a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party (in other words, unlike the Greens or the Libertarians, one that was viable) to make the Republican party obsolete, because as usual, other than breeding hate and mud-slinging, they appear to have absolutely no interest in governing this country in a way that benefits the majority of its citizens.
The press may conveniently forget this, but I suspect that voters have not.
Monday, October 5, 2009
The Economy--Part 1: Health Care
The U.S. currently finds itself in an interesting position--our GDP is just beginning to once again swing upward out of recession (a recession is considered to be two or more consecutive quarters in which the GDP declines), and yet the unemployment rate continues to climb toward 10% (figures currently put the number at about 9.8% nationally)--and as always, this doesn't include people who have given up on finding jobs, or are partially, or under employed (meaning they have jobs, but not the kind of jobs they want or need financially--think Home Depot, or worse, fast food).
There are several primary reasons why our economy is in the dumps and why unemployment numbers are swelling: 1) the tremendous cost of healthcare, 2) the effects of illegal immigration on the labor market, 3) the lack of funding for education, especially higher education, and 4) the shift in wealth from the middle class to the ultra wealthy.
Over the next week or so, I will address each of these factors, and explain why, if we want a strong, healthy economy, our policies must change. We will begin with health care.
Healthcare is the single most controversial issue today in our society, and we have reached a critical point where we have a Democratic party that for the most part is in support of far reaching reforms, and a Republican party adamantly opposed to any action whatsoever. Many of the arguments, as usual, are ideological in nature, and therefore obscure the real problem with the status quo--it is just too damned expensive.
The current U.S. Healthcare system places a huge amount of responsibility on private employers to provide healthcare for their employees. Health care premiums have gone up 131% over the past decade, and are projected to rise 166% over the next decade (about $29,000 per employee). Simply put, the cost of providing employee healthcare is forcing many businesses out of business or overseas.(1) At the very least, they are finding ways around providing health care for their employees, which is one of the reasons that the U.S. boasts nearly 50 million people that do not have any kind of medical coverage.
Much of the tremendous cost of health care is due to bureacratic overhead. According to a Denver Post article published earlier this year, "More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc." Compare this to the provincial single-payer system in Canada, which, "operates with just a 1 percent overhead." As the author points out, "It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered."
Continuing with the comparison, Canada's health care system is far less expensive. Whereas the U.S. spends about 17 percent of its GDP on health care to cover 85% of the population, Canada spends 10 percent of its GDP to cover 100% of its population.
So Canadians must pay far more in taxes than Americans to pay for this right? Acutally, the answer is no, as noted in the same article: "Overall, Canada's taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S., Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent." (2--this is a great article, by the way, to read on its own)
In other words, universal health care is far more economically viable than the current oligarchic private system. True reform (a single payer system--see the note at the end on this) would put that 7% of the GDP back into the U.S. economy in terms of consumer savings, business profit, and a reduction of operating costs in both the public and private sector. The amount of capital that this would free up for innovation, investment, and the viability of small businesses would be absolutely astounding.
(1)http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/sep2009/db20090915_854650.htm
(2)http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427#
NOTE: It is important to remember, that no matter how hard and long people scream about it, a single payer system is not socialism. As the author of the Denver post article explains,
"Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt says single-payer systems are not "socialized medicine" but "social insurance" systems because doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source. Most physicians in Canada are self-employed. They are not employees of the government nor are they accountable to the government. Doctors are accountable to their patients only. More than 90 percent of physicians in Canada are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Claims are submitted to a single provincial health care plan for reimbursement, whereas in the U.S., claims are submitted to a multitude of insurance providers. Moreover, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities rather than being part of or run by the government."
There are several primary reasons why our economy is in the dumps and why unemployment numbers are swelling: 1) the tremendous cost of healthcare, 2) the effects of illegal immigration on the labor market, 3) the lack of funding for education, especially higher education, and 4) the shift in wealth from the middle class to the ultra wealthy.
Over the next week or so, I will address each of these factors, and explain why, if we want a strong, healthy economy, our policies must change. We will begin with health care.
Healthcare is the single most controversial issue today in our society, and we have reached a critical point where we have a Democratic party that for the most part is in support of far reaching reforms, and a Republican party adamantly opposed to any action whatsoever. Many of the arguments, as usual, are ideological in nature, and therefore obscure the real problem with the status quo--it is just too damned expensive.
The current U.S. Healthcare system places a huge amount of responsibility on private employers to provide healthcare for their employees. Health care premiums have gone up 131% over the past decade, and are projected to rise 166% over the next decade (about $29,000 per employee). Simply put, the cost of providing employee healthcare is forcing many businesses out of business or overseas.(1) At the very least, they are finding ways around providing health care for their employees, which is one of the reasons that the U.S. boasts nearly 50 million people that do not have any kind of medical coverage.
Much of the tremendous cost of health care is due to bureacratic overhead. According to a Denver Post article published earlier this year, "More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc." Compare this to the provincial single-payer system in Canada, which, "operates with just a 1 percent overhead." As the author points out, "It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered."
Continuing with the comparison, Canada's health care system is far less expensive. Whereas the U.S. spends about 17 percent of its GDP on health care to cover 85% of the population, Canada spends 10 percent of its GDP to cover 100% of its population.
So Canadians must pay far more in taxes than Americans to pay for this right? Acutally, the answer is no, as noted in the same article: "Overall, Canada's taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S., Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent." (2--this is a great article, by the way, to read on its own)
In other words, universal health care is far more economically viable than the current oligarchic private system. True reform (a single payer system--see the note at the end on this) would put that 7% of the GDP back into the U.S. economy in terms of consumer savings, business profit, and a reduction of operating costs in both the public and private sector. The amount of capital that this would free up for innovation, investment, and the viability of small businesses would be absolutely astounding.
(1)http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/sep2009/db20090915_854650.htm
(2)http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_12523427#
NOTE: It is important to remember, that no matter how hard and long people scream about it, a single payer system is not socialism. As the author of the Denver post article explains,
"Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt says single-payer systems are not "socialized medicine" but "social insurance" systems because doctors work in the private sector while their pay comes from a public source. Most physicians in Canada are self-employed. They are not employees of the government nor are they accountable to the government. Doctors are accountable to their patients only. More than 90 percent of physicians in Canada are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Claims are submitted to a single provincial health care plan for reimbursement, whereas in the U.S., claims are submitted to a multitude of insurance providers. Moreover, Canadian hospitals are controlled by private boards and/or regional health authorities rather than being part of or run by the government."
Sunday, September 27, 2009
But where is your message? A challenge...
In today's opinion section of the Sunday Oregonian, Gary Andres of Dutko Worldwide (by all accounts, a lobbying company--we all know how helpful lobbyists have been in helping ordinary Americans), argues that "Democrats can't count on lock of younger voters." He goes on to cite that the president's approval has gone down, even among younger voters, and how, for a bunch of other idealogical reasons, the Democrats are in trouble come the next election (likely a veiled way of saying that if health care fails so does Obama and his party).
What he doesn't address is how the Republicans are going to recapture or raid the young voters that were so crucial to Obama's victory last year. After all, enthusiasm may fade after a pivotal election, and the public most certainly is frustrated with the lack of action by the government to solve our nation's problems, but deep down the fact is that most of us realize that when we vote for one major party or another, we are choosing the lesser of two evils. And while the waffling and some of the bad bills we've gotten on health care from the Democrats are downright discouraging, the simple truth is that if health care reform fails it is due to one reason: the Republican party's absolute refusal to participate in the process, along with their eagerness to lie about what that reform would mean and obscure the benefits of such action. You can be damned sure the Democrats will bring that up in the next election.
Yes, the Republican party has its 20-25% base that would vote for them even if they started wearing Swastika's on the right arms. But the party has gone so far to the right that in securing that base that it has alienated the rest of the American public. No matter what happens in the next two, and likely the next four years, unless the Republican party actually puts forth some kind of platform that is pragmatic and based in solving some of the problems our country faces (rather than the same old impotent ideological dribble), the Democrats have absolutely nothing to fear. Indeed, it is the Republicans who should be worried, because given their current position, the only solution left the American electorate would be to elect MORE Democrats in order to get something done on health care, not less.
Since poignant ideas are not currently the Republican's forte, I'll give them one: a simple solution for a problem that resonates with a massive swath of the voting public. Put forth a bill in the house, or senate, that makes hiring illegal immigrants a federal crime carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. If the democrats oppose the bill, it will give you potent ammunition going into the midterm elections (most Americans will back you--even most Dems), and if they join on, you can take credit for being the first party to pass effective immigration reform, and bringing bipartisanship back to Washington. It is a win-win situation, and one which would greatly benefit this nation if immigration reform were passed. This is how you win back the young voters, Republicans, the question is: do you have the heuvos to do it?
What he doesn't address is how the Republicans are going to recapture or raid the young voters that were so crucial to Obama's victory last year. After all, enthusiasm may fade after a pivotal election, and the public most certainly is frustrated with the lack of action by the government to solve our nation's problems, but deep down the fact is that most of us realize that when we vote for one major party or another, we are choosing the lesser of two evils. And while the waffling and some of the bad bills we've gotten on health care from the Democrats are downright discouraging, the simple truth is that if health care reform fails it is due to one reason: the Republican party's absolute refusal to participate in the process, along with their eagerness to lie about what that reform would mean and obscure the benefits of such action. You can be damned sure the Democrats will bring that up in the next election.
Yes, the Republican party has its 20-25% base that would vote for them even if they started wearing Swastika's on the right arms. But the party has gone so far to the right that in securing that base that it has alienated the rest of the American public. No matter what happens in the next two, and likely the next four years, unless the Republican party actually puts forth some kind of platform that is pragmatic and based in solving some of the problems our country faces (rather than the same old impotent ideological dribble), the Democrats have absolutely nothing to fear. Indeed, it is the Republicans who should be worried, because given their current position, the only solution left the American electorate would be to elect MORE Democrats in order to get something done on health care, not less.
Since poignant ideas are not currently the Republican's forte, I'll give them one: a simple solution for a problem that resonates with a massive swath of the voting public. Put forth a bill in the house, or senate, that makes hiring illegal immigrants a federal crime carrying a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison. If the democrats oppose the bill, it will give you potent ammunition going into the midterm elections (most Americans will back you--even most Dems), and if they join on, you can take credit for being the first party to pass effective immigration reform, and bringing bipartisanship back to Washington. It is a win-win situation, and one which would greatly benefit this nation if immigration reform were passed. This is how you win back the young voters, Republicans, the question is: do you have the heuvos to do it?
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Outburst, and a Choice
I am not sure how many of you saw the president's speech on health care last night, but during the speech, Republican house representative Joe Wilson decided to shout, "You lie!" after Obama dispelled notions that his plan would offer free health care to illegal immigrants. His outburst underlines the tremendous efforts Republicans, along with most of the mainstream media, are making to obscure what health reform means, and obstruct its progress in any way possible.
Of course, this is simply a continuation of two recurring themes:
1) Republicans have made the shrewd calculation that if they can stop health care reform, Obama will be seen as a failure, and thus, their chances to take back seats in the House and the Senate will increase, along with their presidential aspirations in 2012.
2) The media treat health care as a middle of the road issue, in which each side has an equally legitimate claim for their position; moreover, by confusing people and generating fear, they drive up their ratings as people seek the latest news on the issue. This is not the first issue to receive such treatment by the media, and it won't likely be the last. Coincidental or not, this treatment of news almost always benefits the GOP, which grows more old and less grand with each passing moment.
If this sounds more like a soap opera than two institutions taking seriously their responsibility to do some good for the American people, well, make no mistake: it is, and it seems quite plain that if this trend continues, government will essentially cease to function, and that is something that Americans can simply not afford during economic turmoil and changing times.
During certain historical periods, it is true that government hasn't done anything but line the pockets of those fortunate few that happened to govern; the eras of 1820-1860, 1870-1900, 1920-1932, and 1948-1960; and largely, the recent era from 1970-today. The periods immediately following each of these periods are marked by government actions that drastically altered the shape and course of our nation: the civil war, the progressive era, the New Deal and reforms of FDR, and finally, the civil rights expansion and social reforms of LBJ. These periods of reform were necessary for the good of our country, and we come now to another such period.
The problem is that Democrats and progressives cannot do it alone, dragging the others along kicking and screaming. The old adage stands true like a prophecy that, united we stand, divided we fall. So, Republicans, throw down your weapons, and instead of merely thinking of how to politically gain from the obstruction of progress, join in and reap the rewards; bring your ideas, tell us where we're wrong, but let us at least work toward a common goal, rather than continue this futile tug-of-war.
As Americans, we have a choice now, and two roads we can go down. The first road is led by the fear of change and the slow rotting decay of our social, political, and economic instituions; the second, by the hope of a prosperous future, the gumption to work hard for the benefit of all Americans, and the courage to meet and throw down the challenges that stand in the way of progress.
Which road will the press and the GOP choose? That remains to be seen. For the sake of this nation, I hope it's the latter.
Of course, this is simply a continuation of two recurring themes:
1) Republicans have made the shrewd calculation that if they can stop health care reform, Obama will be seen as a failure, and thus, their chances to take back seats in the House and the Senate will increase, along with their presidential aspirations in 2012.
2) The media treat health care as a middle of the road issue, in which each side has an equally legitimate claim for their position; moreover, by confusing people and generating fear, they drive up their ratings as people seek the latest news on the issue. This is not the first issue to receive such treatment by the media, and it won't likely be the last. Coincidental or not, this treatment of news almost always benefits the GOP, which grows more old and less grand with each passing moment.
If this sounds more like a soap opera than two institutions taking seriously their responsibility to do some good for the American people, well, make no mistake: it is, and it seems quite plain that if this trend continues, government will essentially cease to function, and that is something that Americans can simply not afford during economic turmoil and changing times.
During certain historical periods, it is true that government hasn't done anything but line the pockets of those fortunate few that happened to govern; the eras of 1820-1860, 1870-1900, 1920-1932, and 1948-1960; and largely, the recent era from 1970-today. The periods immediately following each of these periods are marked by government actions that drastically altered the shape and course of our nation: the civil war, the progressive era, the New Deal and reforms of FDR, and finally, the civil rights expansion and social reforms of LBJ. These periods of reform were necessary for the good of our country, and we come now to another such period.
The problem is that Democrats and progressives cannot do it alone, dragging the others along kicking and screaming. The old adage stands true like a prophecy that, united we stand, divided we fall. So, Republicans, throw down your weapons, and instead of merely thinking of how to politically gain from the obstruction of progress, join in and reap the rewards; bring your ideas, tell us where we're wrong, but let us at least work toward a common goal, rather than continue this futile tug-of-war.
As Americans, we have a choice now, and two roads we can go down. The first road is led by the fear of change and the slow rotting decay of our social, political, and economic instituions; the second, by the hope of a prosperous future, the gumption to work hard for the benefit of all Americans, and the courage to meet and throw down the challenges that stand in the way of progress.
Which road will the press and the GOP choose? That remains to be seen. For the sake of this nation, I hope it's the latter.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Real Solutions for Real Americans
Let me start this post with a question: what has happened to the "can-do" spirit of the American people? It seems that everyone is so hell bent on dissenting, or pointing out flaws in ideas of progress, that we have gotten ourselves into a cycle of thinking that amounts to little more thank spinning our wheels in the mud. I think that we all realize that we're stuck--most rational Americans (so this obviously discludes all supporters and members of the Republican party, who are little more than an angry group of mentally challenged nihilists) understand that our economy, our schools, and our health care system are deeply flawed; yet we are so focused on the potential problems that change presents that we forget that the real problem is the status quo.
Now, obviously, for the sake of our nation's prosperity and survival, this metacognitive trap has to change in order for any real progress to occur, so here is what I propose: we have to start holding each other accountable, and we have to do so by simply not allowing people to dissent to a transformative idea without proposing an alternative solution. Here is how a hypothetical conversation with someone who opposes health care reform should work:
RP (rational person): what we ought to do is have some kind of public option that competes with private insurance in order to keep costs low and ensure competent service.
M (moron): I don't want the government running my health care.
RP: Why? What is wrong with the government insuring people if it means you get better and cheaper coverage?
M: Well Rush Limbaugh says...
RP: Well, clearly you are letting a fat, corpulently rich, drug addict think for you, but fine, if you don't want to have a public option, what do you then propose we do?
M: I don't know...nothing.
RP: To do nothing is innately irrational. The average cost of insurance premiums has gone up by 50% in the last eight years, we continue to have more than 40 million people that have no insurance coverage at all, the health care industry comprises nearly 20% of our GDP, and all forcasts suggest that all of these numbers are going to rise if we do nothing. So if you don't agree with what Obama is proposing, then what do you propose as an alternative?
If the person continues to waffle, then continue to press them for solutions. This will accomplish two things: 1) it will force the person to wrestle with the foolishness of their position, and to perhaps at least dabble with the idea of thinking creatively about change, because you are simply asking for a solution, which is non-partisan and inviting in nature. 2) It underlines the fact that the status quo is untenable, and rather than doing this in a way that leaves the person defensive, it leaves them feeling stupid and unprepared by their respective pundit. Stupid people, most of whom are Republican, like to begin statements about polity by prefacing them with, "I believe..." because this allows them to disassociate themselves with facts and rationality. By essentially asking them what they believe in a solution oriented way, they can neither refuse to answer the question, nor can they really answer it, because their entire political stance is based on believing certain things that they then define themselves with personally. The key is to hammer on the point that doing nothing is not an option. Once they concede this, they have to answer the question, or else concede that they have no standing whatsoever. And who knows: maybe the conversation will produce a thoughtful solution.
Ultimately, it is becoming painfully clear that our Congress is bought and sold, and that reform, especially health care reform, faces huge hurdles in the vast sums of money, media, and resources lined up against it. These are problems that are going to have to be overcome through campaign finance reform, and a concerted effort by voters to oust members of the good old boy network that currently exists in Washington. But until we have a rational, solutions oriented dialogue about the problems that face our country, nothing is going to get done. So please, make every effort to force opponents of reform to offer up solutions if they are going to bitch about change; do not let any email, co-worker, friend, or family member go unchallenged--we need to force everyone to start thinking about solutions, because if we don't, the seemingly docile status quo will eventually bury us.
Now, obviously, for the sake of our nation's prosperity and survival, this metacognitive trap has to change in order for any real progress to occur, so here is what I propose: we have to start holding each other accountable, and we have to do so by simply not allowing people to dissent to a transformative idea without proposing an alternative solution. Here is how a hypothetical conversation with someone who opposes health care reform should work:
RP (rational person): what we ought to do is have some kind of public option that competes with private insurance in order to keep costs low and ensure competent service.
M (moron): I don't want the government running my health care.
RP: Why? What is wrong with the government insuring people if it means you get better and cheaper coverage?
M: Well Rush Limbaugh says...
RP: Well, clearly you are letting a fat, corpulently rich, drug addict think for you, but fine, if you don't want to have a public option, what do you then propose we do?
M: I don't know...nothing.
RP: To do nothing is innately irrational. The average cost of insurance premiums has gone up by 50% in the last eight years, we continue to have more than 40 million people that have no insurance coverage at all, the health care industry comprises nearly 20% of our GDP, and all forcasts suggest that all of these numbers are going to rise if we do nothing. So if you don't agree with what Obama is proposing, then what do you propose as an alternative?
If the person continues to waffle, then continue to press them for solutions. This will accomplish two things: 1) it will force the person to wrestle with the foolishness of their position, and to perhaps at least dabble with the idea of thinking creatively about change, because you are simply asking for a solution, which is non-partisan and inviting in nature. 2) It underlines the fact that the status quo is untenable, and rather than doing this in a way that leaves the person defensive, it leaves them feeling stupid and unprepared by their respective pundit. Stupid people, most of whom are Republican, like to begin statements about polity by prefacing them with, "I believe..." because this allows them to disassociate themselves with facts and rationality. By essentially asking them what they believe in a solution oriented way, they can neither refuse to answer the question, nor can they really answer it, because their entire political stance is based on believing certain things that they then define themselves with personally. The key is to hammer on the point that doing nothing is not an option. Once they concede this, they have to answer the question, or else concede that they have no standing whatsoever. And who knows: maybe the conversation will produce a thoughtful solution.
Ultimately, it is becoming painfully clear that our Congress is bought and sold, and that reform, especially health care reform, faces huge hurdles in the vast sums of money, media, and resources lined up against it. These are problems that are going to have to be overcome through campaign finance reform, and a concerted effort by voters to oust members of the good old boy network that currently exists in Washington. But until we have a rational, solutions oriented dialogue about the problems that face our country, nothing is going to get done. So please, make every effort to force opponents of reform to offer up solutions if they are going to bitch about change; do not let any email, co-worker, friend, or family member go unchallenged--we need to force everyone to start thinking about solutions, because if we don't, the seemingly docile status quo will eventually bury us.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thank You to the Republican Party (earmuffs)
Perhaps you had the same reaction I did when you saw the self aggrandizing ad that the Oregon Republican party has put out recently: have they finally gone completely batshit krazy, or as my students would put more succinctly, "WTF!?"
I mean, I get it, they realize that they need some serious PR, but this recent ad is just about as genuine as trying to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese while your planes napalm villages and your army massacres civilians.
The ad is just another example of the Republican party using a Machiavellian political tactic (see divide and conquer, or the use of fear to control the population). Consider the following, taken from The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, "A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it." The recent Republican ad is nothing more than this--attempting to walk in past accomplishments of other Republicans who came before, specifically civil war era party members and Ronald Reagan.
So they attempt to appeal to environmentalists by heralding the fact that a Republican, Ulysses S. Grant, signed a bill that created the Yellowstone, the first National park. They attempt to cleanse themselves of racism by citing the fact that the first black U.S. congressman and state governor were Republicans. They then appeal to their base by noting the Reagan and Bush era tax cuts, and the absurd claim that Republicans help make American "the land of the free." All of these facts are available on the Oregon Republican Party website.
What they fail to mention is that any accomplishments in the post civil war era were going to be accomplished by Republicans de facto, because the Union army and U.S. government at the time was held by the Republican party. Moreover, at that time, it would have indeed been insane for an African Americans to join the any other party, because prior to the war most Southern States were governed by Democrats, and the Republicans were the anti-slavery party. Then again, that was over 140 years ago. At the last Republican convention, only 1.5% of the delegates were African American, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
They also gloss over the fact that while they did cut taxes, both Reagan and W. are responsible for the biggest government debts in American history.
Of course, according to the ad, we're also supposed to be thanking the Republican party for "making American the land of the free." The website doesn't offer any factual support for this statement--in its nature, the statement is so rhetorical that to do so would be kind of ridiculous. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary, including: government wiretaps, the opposition to gay marriage, the attempt to interfere in state government and state laws passed by citizen's initiative, Watergate, stop-loss...I mean for Christ's sake, Republicans hate the ACLU.
In any case, I have my own list, which I modestly title, "A general fuck you to Republican party." OK, here we go: Fuck you for lying our troops and resources into Iraq, fuck you for torturing people, fuck you for opposing health care reform, fuck you for disenfranchising voters, especially African American voters in order to win the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections; fuck you for passing the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, which does neither and actually prevents people from being able to file for bankruptcy while stiffening the laws that enable corporations to collect; fuck you for passing the Clear Skies Act that actually reduces air pollution controls; fuck you for bailing out Wall Street, fuck you for cutting taxes for the wealthy while running up our country's debt; fuck you for opposing science and not accepting evolution; fuck you for politicizing religion; fuck you for being bigots and opposing equal rights for gays; fuck you for dividing this country for your political benefit; fuck you for your lack of civility and rational discussion; fuck you for lying all the time and always trying to twist the facts to suit your agenda; fuck you for Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and that absolute deushbag Glenn Beck. Finally, fuck you Republican party, for trading your promise of small government, fiscal conservatism, and states rights, for war, fear, hatred, and the status quo. We have so much to be pissed about. Fuck you Republican party.
This message paid for by the Americans for Rational Thought and Science (ARTS)
I mean, I get it, they realize that they need some serious PR, but this recent ad is just about as genuine as trying to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese while your planes napalm villages and your army massacres civilians.
The ad is just another example of the Republican party using a Machiavellian political tactic (see divide and conquer, or the use of fear to control the population). Consider the following, taken from The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, "A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it." The recent Republican ad is nothing more than this--attempting to walk in past accomplishments of other Republicans who came before, specifically civil war era party members and Ronald Reagan.
So they attempt to appeal to environmentalists by heralding the fact that a Republican, Ulysses S. Grant, signed a bill that created the Yellowstone, the first National park. They attempt to cleanse themselves of racism by citing the fact that the first black U.S. congressman and state governor were Republicans. They then appeal to their base by noting the Reagan and Bush era tax cuts, and the absurd claim that Republicans help make American "the land of the free." All of these facts are available on the Oregon Republican Party website.
What they fail to mention is that any accomplishments in the post civil war era were going to be accomplished by Republicans de facto, because the Union army and U.S. government at the time was held by the Republican party. Moreover, at that time, it would have indeed been insane for an African Americans to join the any other party, because prior to the war most Southern States were governed by Democrats, and the Republicans were the anti-slavery party. Then again, that was over 140 years ago. At the last Republican convention, only 1.5% of the delegates were African American, according to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
They also gloss over the fact that while they did cut taxes, both Reagan and W. are responsible for the biggest government debts in American history.
Of course, according to the ad, we're also supposed to be thanking the Republican party for "making American the land of the free." The website doesn't offer any factual support for this statement--in its nature, the statement is so rhetorical that to do so would be kind of ridiculous. There is, however, plenty of evidence to the contrary, including: government wiretaps, the opposition to gay marriage, the attempt to interfere in state government and state laws passed by citizen's initiative, Watergate, stop-loss...I mean for Christ's sake, Republicans hate the ACLU.
In any case, I have my own list, which I modestly title, "A general fuck you to Republican party." OK, here we go: Fuck you for lying our troops and resources into Iraq, fuck you for torturing people, fuck you for opposing health care reform, fuck you for disenfranchising voters, especially African American voters in order to win the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections; fuck you for passing the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, which does neither and actually prevents people from being able to file for bankruptcy while stiffening the laws that enable corporations to collect; fuck you for passing the Clear Skies Act that actually reduces air pollution controls; fuck you for bailing out Wall Street, fuck you for cutting taxes for the wealthy while running up our country's debt; fuck you for opposing science and not accepting evolution; fuck you for politicizing religion; fuck you for being bigots and opposing equal rights for gays; fuck you for dividing this country for your political benefit; fuck you for your lack of civility and rational discussion; fuck you for lying all the time and always trying to twist the facts to suit your agenda; fuck you for Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and that absolute deushbag Glenn Beck. Finally, fuck you Republican party, for trading your promise of small government, fiscal conservatism, and states rights, for war, fear, hatred, and the status quo. We have so much to be pissed about. Fuck you Republican party.
This message paid for by the Americans for Rational Thought and Science (ARTS)
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Liberal Response
Hey all, I know its been awhile since I've written to you...I don't honestly have a good excuse, so I won't give you a bad one. Recently a liberal friend sent me an email she received from a good ol' boy. Please read:
American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists,
Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:
We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this
latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I
know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future
generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course.
Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree
on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile
and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way..
Here is a model separation agreement:
Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each
taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure
our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it
should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can
effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct
and disparate tastes.
We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are
welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns
and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.
You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are,
however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to
move all three of them).
We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical
companies,Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved
homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot
Alaskan hockey moms, you can have the greedy CEO's and
We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood ..
You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the
right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.. You can have
the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life
are under assault, we'll help provide them security.
We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values. You are welcome to Islam,
Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the
U.N. But we will no longer be paying the bill.
We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You
can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.
You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.
We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.
We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem.
I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the
World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.
We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up
poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our
history, our name and our flag.
Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like
minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree,
just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll let you answer
which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.
Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American
P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen,
Barbra Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.
P. S. S. And we won't have to press 1 for English.
The liberal response: OK DEAL! Jesus Christ (We'll go ahead and take slang, swear words, and using the lords name in vain, if you don't care) we thought you crazy bastards would never agree. A few thoughts on your proposal however...
First of all, since Bush and McCain best represent modern Republican values, I think that every state that voted for Obama in the last election should be in our nation. That means where you get Texas, we get California and New York. We also get Virginia and North Carolina--you can keep all the rest of the deep south, oh, except we also get Florida, which should be just fine with you, since there are an awful lot of Jews, African Americans, and Latinos there anyway. We will take the bulk of the more productive, populated, seaboard states, and you can have the landlocked, backward, rural states. You'll have fantastic universities like Rice, Ole Miss, and Southern Baptist...we'll merely have Stanford, the UC system, and the Ivy league, not to mention Northwestern, University of Michigan, Duke, oh, well, I could go on I guess, but I don't want to rub it in...
As for the rest, yes, we will keep redistributive taxes, because we want to allow the American dream to flourish rather than ensuring the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. We also prefer to have a robust middle class, and a country where citizens are independent and free, so we will be offering universal health care, in addition to providing plenty of funding to support education, so that our teachers are properly valued and our students enter the working world with a wealth of knowledge and experience, rather than a ball and chain of debt from which they will never be free of.
You are right: we do hate guns and war, so we will train all of our citizens in subversive guerilla tactics, and maintain a small but spartan military force that is trained in repelling outsiders and defense, rather than imperialist conquests and worldly adventures. I believe, however, that we will be keeping the police and fire services--this will give you ample opportunity to privatize yours.
Along that line, yes, go ahead and keep the pharmaceutical companies, the greedy corporations, WalMart, and Wall Street. We'll keep the family farms, artisan bakeries, gourmet restaurants, coffee shops, Hollywood, and silicon valley. Keep the gas guzzlers too--and have fun competing for oil with China.
Good luck with trickle down economics...if you even understand what a dumb idea that is--we'll rely on building demand with strong minimum wage laws, innovation, and a fundamental belief in quality over quantity. Plus, since we'll be providing health care at a fraction of the cost, our companies will be able to thrive rather than being burdened with ever increasing insurance premiums.
And yes, please keep the bible and Judeo-Christian ethics, which you have turned into tools of hate and intolerance, rather than love and good will toward humanity.
But you won't keep our history, which you pervert, our flag, which you desecrate, or our name, which you don't deserve in the despotic, fascist country you'd like to spawn. We will keep the bill of rights and the constitution, since you could care less about them, the idea of privacy (Amendments 3 and 4), free speech (Amendment 1), and provisions of justice (Amendments 5--10) being as they are, an anathema to your true beliefs.
Finally, we will keep science, logic, reason, the right to dissent, and the belief that every American deserves life, liberty, and justice under the rule of law.
Here is what we are willing to cede: bass fishing, pork rinds, nascar, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and every other conservative idiot out there, racism, torture, government surveillance, gun racks, lying, backroom deals, sleeping with young boys, and leeching off of human misery and sickness. In return, we'll take all of the gays and minorities, which you stains upon your white pride, and we see as human beings.
And I promise you, we will never need your help, assclown.
Deal?
Jeffrey Scott Allen,
Teacher and American
PS--kiss my balls, deuschbag.
American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists,
Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:
We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this
latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I
know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future
generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course.
Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree
on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile
and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way..
Here is a model separation agreement:
Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each
taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure
our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it
should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can
effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct
and disparate tastes.
We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are
welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns
and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.
You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are,
however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to
move all three of them).
We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical
companies,Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved
homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot
Alaskan hockey moms, you can have the greedy CEO's and
We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood ..
You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the
right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.. You can have
the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life
are under assault, we'll help provide them security.
We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values. You are welcome to Islam,
Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the
U.N. But we will no longer be paying the bill.
We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You
can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.
You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.
We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.
We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem.
I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the
World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.
We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up
poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our
history, our name and our flag.
Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like
minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree,
just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll let you answer
which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.
Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American
P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin Sheen,
Barbra Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you.
P. S. S. And we won't have to press 1 for English.
The liberal response: OK DEAL! Jesus Christ (We'll go ahead and take slang, swear words, and using the lords name in vain, if you don't care) we thought you crazy bastards would never agree. A few thoughts on your proposal however...
First of all, since Bush and McCain best represent modern Republican values, I think that every state that voted for Obama in the last election should be in our nation. That means where you get Texas, we get California and New York. We also get Virginia and North Carolina--you can keep all the rest of the deep south, oh, except we also get Florida, which should be just fine with you, since there are an awful lot of Jews, African Americans, and Latinos there anyway. We will take the bulk of the more productive, populated, seaboard states, and you can have the landlocked, backward, rural states. You'll have fantastic universities like Rice, Ole Miss, and Southern Baptist...we'll merely have Stanford, the UC system, and the Ivy league, not to mention Northwestern, University of Michigan, Duke, oh, well, I could go on I guess, but I don't want to rub it in...
As for the rest, yes, we will keep redistributive taxes, because we want to allow the American dream to flourish rather than ensuring the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. We also prefer to have a robust middle class, and a country where citizens are independent and free, so we will be offering universal health care, in addition to providing plenty of funding to support education, so that our teachers are properly valued and our students enter the working world with a wealth of knowledge and experience, rather than a ball and chain of debt from which they will never be free of.
You are right: we do hate guns and war, so we will train all of our citizens in subversive guerilla tactics, and maintain a small but spartan military force that is trained in repelling outsiders and defense, rather than imperialist conquests and worldly adventures. I believe, however, that we will be keeping the police and fire services--this will give you ample opportunity to privatize yours.
Along that line, yes, go ahead and keep the pharmaceutical companies, the greedy corporations, WalMart, and Wall Street. We'll keep the family farms, artisan bakeries, gourmet restaurants, coffee shops, Hollywood, and silicon valley. Keep the gas guzzlers too--and have fun competing for oil with China.
Good luck with trickle down economics...if you even understand what a dumb idea that is--we'll rely on building demand with strong minimum wage laws, innovation, and a fundamental belief in quality over quantity. Plus, since we'll be providing health care at a fraction of the cost, our companies will be able to thrive rather than being burdened with ever increasing insurance premiums.
And yes, please keep the bible and Judeo-Christian ethics, which you have turned into tools of hate and intolerance, rather than love and good will toward humanity.
But you won't keep our history, which you pervert, our flag, which you desecrate, or our name, which you don't deserve in the despotic, fascist country you'd like to spawn. We will keep the bill of rights and the constitution, since you could care less about them, the idea of privacy (Amendments 3 and 4), free speech (Amendment 1), and provisions of justice (Amendments 5--10) being as they are, an anathema to your true beliefs.
Finally, we will keep science, logic, reason, the right to dissent, and the belief that every American deserves life, liberty, and justice under the rule of law.
Here is what we are willing to cede: bass fishing, pork rinds, nascar, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and every other conservative idiot out there, racism, torture, government surveillance, gun racks, lying, backroom deals, sleeping with young boys, and leeching off of human misery and sickness. In return, we'll take all of the gays and minorities, which you stains upon your white pride, and we see as human beings.
And I promise you, we will never need your help, assclown.
Deal?
Jeffrey Scott Allen,
Teacher and American
PS--kiss my balls, deuschbag.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Cut the Military, Cut the Fat
$651,163,000,000. According to several sources, that is the amount that we will spend this year on the military budget.(1) For comparison's sake, China (according to China) will spend about $70.3 billion dollars in 2009. According to the Pentagon, China spends between 105 and 150 billion on their military, which is the second largest in the world--behind us of course.(2)
A review of the U.S. budget reveals that we spend about 23% of our money on Medicare and Medicaid, 21% on Social Security, 21% on the Military, and 17% on other discretionary spending (pork). So 82% of all of our federal spending is tied up into these four categories.(3) Now, initially, it may seem that we could cut any one of these categories if we wanted to find more money, for, I don't know, health care, or education, because they all make up similar size proportions of the overall budget. But, upon further consideration, a lot of discretionary spending is tied up in education, and Medicare and Medicaid are health care (both of which would see their costs plumet with a single payer health care system, because they are currently bloated by the greedy insurance and pharmacuetical industries). Personally, I would be OK with cutting Social Security, but the fact is that would leave a lot of elderly people on the streets, because many Americans have simply not adequately planned for their retirement.
That leaves the military. The fact that we currently outspend China, our next closest competitor, by a margin of 4 to 1, is absurd, and completely unjustified. I mean, I thought we had nukes? I am not suggesting that we become completely isolationist, but we ought to be able to maintain a functioning DEFENSIVE military, without spending 651 billion. If we could cut our military spending by just less than a third, that would free up 200 billion dollars per year that could be used to fund health care and education, or even to cut taxes. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to find out exactly how the military budget is spent, because on the Office of Management and Budget homepage, the descriptions of how the money is spent is quite vague. Still, here are some suggestions I would make after reading it through:
1) We are scheduled to spend 20 billion on growing the size of our military forces...why, other than the fact that our previous idiot of a president involved us in two wars, both of which our current president (it remains to be seen as to how he shall be remembered) seems keen on continuing? Why do we need to have a standing army of 547,400 people, other than to start imperialistic wars of choice, or to meddle in the affairs of other nations? If we were truly attacked, what we need is a strong navy and air force with which to launch missles to hit specific strategic targets. And by strong I mean having great capabilities to strike and strike effectively, not strength in numbers. The conventional wars where numbers matter are over.
2) 159.7 billion is allocated for daily operational needs. So it costs us more than China spends on its entire military budget to simply operate. This portion of the budget out to be audited to ensure that this money is necessary, and moreover, that it is wisely spent. With careful planning one should think that this number could be cut by a third, if not more.
3) We spend 49 billion on the national guard per year. It is not that the national gaurd is unimportant, but is it so crucial that we are spending almost 1 billion dollars per state to keep up? Rationally, the answer is no. It sees to me that this amount could easily be halved.
4) We also spend nearly 13 billion to continue building warships, submarines, and the like; 10.7 billion on space exploration; and 17 billion to modernize our naval fleets and procure new fighter jets and other machines of war. (All of the facts above are available through source 1--listed below)
I am in no way suggesting that a well funded military is not important, but the numbers on some of these allocations absolutely blows me away. We really ought to be able to get more for our military spending and cut out some of the unnecessary funding that is going on for purposes other than defending our nation in an the age of modern warfare.
Would this potentially mean that some contractors go out of business, or that some troops and defense department employees would have to find something different to do: yes, it would. And this is the crux of the problem with our country and its decision making process at this point: we simply seem unwilling to cut the fat out of our economic system. For instance, the Republican attack against health care reform is largely centered on preserving the enormous profits of the health care industry, despite the fact that it is wildly inefficient.
The fact is that our economy has to change, and change dramatically, if our way of life is going to continue, and that is going to mean that some industries will die out and that many of the people that work in those industries are going to lose their jobs. Tough shit. To continue to purposefully continue funding and supporting industries and systems that are inefficient, bloated, and derelict for the sake that they provide people with jobs is the antithesis of capitalism, and far worse than socialism, which at its best, would at least strive for purpose, if not efficiency. Honestly, it is the worst kind of welfare, and whoever utters the phrase, "too big to fail," ought to be drug out of their homes in the middle of the night by armed thugs and unceremoniously shot and left in the streets as an example to those that are too scared to accept change and sit enraptured on their couches by the fear mongering, conservative media.
As I have said before, and I will now say again, if the middle and lower class continues to be bled for money, the cost of health care and education continues to rise, and our tax dollars continue to buy us nothing that works toward the common good and our collective economic benefit, we are going to look like Mexico, which is a swindling, corrupt country, where the market is subject to the whims of drug lords, organized crime, and the casual direction of the wind, and capitalism fails because there is a general lack of law and order.
We need to cut the fat, and that means the military budget, the prison system, the health care industy, and the auto industry. It really is just that simple.
1) http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/rewrite/budget/fy2009/defense.html
2) Office of the Secretary of Defense - Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2009
3) Fiscal Year 2008 U.S. Federal Spending - Cash or Budget Basis
A review of the U.S. budget reveals that we spend about 23% of our money on Medicare and Medicaid, 21% on Social Security, 21% on the Military, and 17% on other discretionary spending (pork). So 82% of all of our federal spending is tied up into these four categories.(3) Now, initially, it may seem that we could cut any one of these categories if we wanted to find more money, for, I don't know, health care, or education, because they all make up similar size proportions of the overall budget. But, upon further consideration, a lot of discretionary spending is tied up in education, and Medicare and Medicaid are health care (both of which would see their costs plumet with a single payer health care system, because they are currently bloated by the greedy insurance and pharmacuetical industries). Personally, I would be OK with cutting Social Security, but the fact is that would leave a lot of elderly people on the streets, because many Americans have simply not adequately planned for their retirement.
That leaves the military. The fact that we currently outspend China, our next closest competitor, by a margin of 4 to 1, is absurd, and completely unjustified. I mean, I thought we had nukes? I am not suggesting that we become completely isolationist, but we ought to be able to maintain a functioning DEFENSIVE military, without spending 651 billion. If we could cut our military spending by just less than a third, that would free up 200 billion dollars per year that could be used to fund health care and education, or even to cut taxes. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to find out exactly how the military budget is spent, because on the Office of Management and Budget homepage, the descriptions of how the money is spent is quite vague. Still, here are some suggestions I would make after reading it through:
1) We are scheduled to spend 20 billion on growing the size of our military forces...why, other than the fact that our previous idiot of a president involved us in two wars, both of which our current president (it remains to be seen as to how he shall be remembered) seems keen on continuing? Why do we need to have a standing army of 547,400 people, other than to start imperialistic wars of choice, or to meddle in the affairs of other nations? If we were truly attacked, what we need is a strong navy and air force with which to launch missles to hit specific strategic targets. And by strong I mean having great capabilities to strike and strike effectively, not strength in numbers. The conventional wars where numbers matter are over.
2) 159.7 billion is allocated for daily operational needs. So it costs us more than China spends on its entire military budget to simply operate. This portion of the budget out to be audited to ensure that this money is necessary, and moreover, that it is wisely spent. With careful planning one should think that this number could be cut by a third, if not more.
3) We spend 49 billion on the national guard per year. It is not that the national gaurd is unimportant, but is it so crucial that we are spending almost 1 billion dollars per state to keep up? Rationally, the answer is no. It sees to me that this amount could easily be halved.
4) We also spend nearly 13 billion to continue building warships, submarines, and the like; 10.7 billion on space exploration; and 17 billion to modernize our naval fleets and procure new fighter jets and other machines of war. (All of the facts above are available through source 1--listed below)
I am in no way suggesting that a well funded military is not important, but the numbers on some of these allocations absolutely blows me away. We really ought to be able to get more for our military spending and cut out some of the unnecessary funding that is going on for purposes other than defending our nation in an the age of modern warfare.
Would this potentially mean that some contractors go out of business, or that some troops and defense department employees would have to find something different to do: yes, it would. And this is the crux of the problem with our country and its decision making process at this point: we simply seem unwilling to cut the fat out of our economic system. For instance, the Republican attack against health care reform is largely centered on preserving the enormous profits of the health care industry, despite the fact that it is wildly inefficient.
The fact is that our economy has to change, and change dramatically, if our way of life is going to continue, and that is going to mean that some industries will die out and that many of the people that work in those industries are going to lose their jobs. Tough shit. To continue to purposefully continue funding and supporting industries and systems that are inefficient, bloated, and derelict for the sake that they provide people with jobs is the antithesis of capitalism, and far worse than socialism, which at its best, would at least strive for purpose, if not efficiency. Honestly, it is the worst kind of welfare, and whoever utters the phrase, "too big to fail," ought to be drug out of their homes in the middle of the night by armed thugs and unceremoniously shot and left in the streets as an example to those that are too scared to accept change and sit enraptured on their couches by the fear mongering, conservative media.
As I have said before, and I will now say again, if the middle and lower class continues to be bled for money, the cost of health care and education continues to rise, and our tax dollars continue to buy us nothing that works toward the common good and our collective economic benefit, we are going to look like Mexico, which is a swindling, corrupt country, where the market is subject to the whims of drug lords, organized crime, and the casual direction of the wind, and capitalism fails because there is a general lack of law and order.
We need to cut the fat, and that means the military budget, the prison system, the health care industy, and the auto industry. It really is just that simple.
1) http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/rewrite/budget/fy2009/defense.html
2) Office of the Secretary of Defense - Annual Report to Congress: Military Power of the People's Republic of China 2009
3) Fiscal Year 2008 U.S. Federal Spending - Cash or Budget Basis
Monday, July 13, 2009
Obama is a socialist? REALLY?!
Short Version: Really? Really? Obama is a socialist? Haha, what a laugh?! What an absolute fucking joke...only a senile, brain dead moron would believe such a crackpot statement.
Long Version: Dear readers, I apologize for my lack of published work lately...I have been quite busy moving out of Ninnyville, and running around galivanting here and there. In any case, this past weekend I spent time with some friends who insisted that Obama is pushing socialism, and that socialism won't work. Another idiot whom I'm related to recently sent me an email claiming some similar bullshit. Here's the email, and afterward I'll explain why I would accuse even friends and family of being idiots:
(Moronic email)"An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that."
First of all, let me say that a teacher's primary goal in issuing a test is to measure learning, which obviously if you are averaging test scores, is not going to happen. If this actually really even happened (the emailer in question is famous for sending along forwards that make false claims and fail to accurately cite sources), I hope that the students recieved a refund for the portion of their tuition that went to enrolling in this guy's class, as he apparently shirked his responsibility to educate his students, or appropriately measure their learning, in order to teach a politically motivated lesson that contains fundamentally flawed logic and that certainly does not belong on the campus of any university or community college.
More broadly, there seems to be this notion among conservatives that Obama is somehow a socialist, when the only significant piece of legislation that has passed under his watch was an economic stimulus package, which A) did not mandate that everyone in the U.S. be paid the same across the board, B) has effectively stopped the economic downward spiral caused by irresponsible laissez faire capitalist housing, banking, and finance policies, and C) is designed to be divyed out by a variety of methods, one of the most prevalent being contract bidding for public works projects, which uses market competition to seek the lowest price for the project.
The only legitimate attack on Obama for being socialist is to cite his support of a public health care option. Admittedly, this would be somewhat socialist, that is to say, the government would be entering a formerly private industry. In truth, what Congress is proposing is simply to provide a public option, allowing regular citizens to buy health insurance through the government. People would still, by the way, be able to buy private insurance--the idea is to drive down costs by providing effective competition, which actually sounds a lot more like capitalism to me--in fact, the only way the market would cease to exist is if the private companies weren't able to compete with the public option.
Ultimately, what we need to remember is this: no one would ever talk about socializing an industry that is effective at delivering a quality product to consumers and that provided healthy profits to its investors. Its precisely when capitalism fails, as we have seen recently with the banking, auto, housing, and health care industries, that the government steps in to regulate or socialize private industry. It has nothing to do with an underlying pinko conspiracy or a belief that government should be in charge of delivering goods and services to consumers. In truth, pure laissez faire capitalism fails for the same reasons that pure socialism like the idiot professor above was exemplifying, and that is because human beings are by their nature selfish and greedy, to the point that they will do things they know are wrong in order to benefit themselves exclusively to the detriment of those around them, the factor of which is largely determined by their access to money and power.
Therefore, good government policy ought to be directed by pragmatism, skepticism, science, and reason. The reason I accuse my relative who sent the email, and friends, of being idiots, is that they ignore their rationale faculties when informing their political position and then try to appeal to other people on an academic basis, the same basis they abandoned when they donned their political philosophy in the first place.
So, I mean, fuck it, go ahead and try to convince me that Obama is a socialist and that everything the Republican party does is sacrosanct, but you better come with something better than this--you better come with something better than Fox News talking points and Limbaugh rants that sound good but fall apart under even the most elementary cross examination. You better come with it, because if you don't, you're only going to contribute the the growing notion that conservatives are a bunch of batshit crazy assholes that believe ridiculous versions of Christianity, hate people that look different or believe different things than they do, and think that Sarah Palin is actually a good person.
Long Version: Dear readers, I apologize for my lack of published work lately...I have been quite busy moving out of Ninnyville, and running around galivanting here and there. In any case, this past weekend I spent time with some friends who insisted that Obama is pushing socialism, and that socialism won't work. Another idiot whom I'm related to recently sent me an email claiming some similar bullshit. Here's the email, and afterward I'll explain why I would accuse even friends and family of being idiots:
(Moronic email)"An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that."
First of all, let me say that a teacher's primary goal in issuing a test is to measure learning, which obviously if you are averaging test scores, is not going to happen. If this actually really even happened (the emailer in question is famous for sending along forwards that make false claims and fail to accurately cite sources), I hope that the students recieved a refund for the portion of their tuition that went to enrolling in this guy's class, as he apparently shirked his responsibility to educate his students, or appropriately measure their learning, in order to teach a politically motivated lesson that contains fundamentally flawed logic and that certainly does not belong on the campus of any university or community college.
More broadly, there seems to be this notion among conservatives that Obama is somehow a socialist, when the only significant piece of legislation that has passed under his watch was an economic stimulus package, which A) did not mandate that everyone in the U.S. be paid the same across the board, B) has effectively stopped the economic downward spiral caused by irresponsible laissez faire capitalist housing, banking, and finance policies, and C) is designed to be divyed out by a variety of methods, one of the most prevalent being contract bidding for public works projects, which uses market competition to seek the lowest price for the project.
The only legitimate attack on Obama for being socialist is to cite his support of a public health care option. Admittedly, this would be somewhat socialist, that is to say, the government would be entering a formerly private industry. In truth, what Congress is proposing is simply to provide a public option, allowing regular citizens to buy health insurance through the government. People would still, by the way, be able to buy private insurance--the idea is to drive down costs by providing effective competition, which actually sounds a lot more like capitalism to me--in fact, the only way the market would cease to exist is if the private companies weren't able to compete with the public option.
Ultimately, what we need to remember is this: no one would ever talk about socializing an industry that is effective at delivering a quality product to consumers and that provided healthy profits to its investors. Its precisely when capitalism fails, as we have seen recently with the banking, auto, housing, and health care industries, that the government steps in to regulate or socialize private industry. It has nothing to do with an underlying pinko conspiracy or a belief that government should be in charge of delivering goods and services to consumers. In truth, pure laissez faire capitalism fails for the same reasons that pure socialism like the idiot professor above was exemplifying, and that is because human beings are by their nature selfish and greedy, to the point that they will do things they know are wrong in order to benefit themselves exclusively to the detriment of those around them, the factor of which is largely determined by their access to money and power.
Therefore, good government policy ought to be directed by pragmatism, skepticism, science, and reason. The reason I accuse my relative who sent the email, and friends, of being idiots, is that they ignore their rationale faculties when informing their political position and then try to appeal to other people on an academic basis, the same basis they abandoned when they donned their political philosophy in the first place.
So, I mean, fuck it, go ahead and try to convince me that Obama is a socialist and that everything the Republican party does is sacrosanct, but you better come with something better than this--you better come with something better than Fox News talking points and Limbaugh rants that sound good but fall apart under even the most elementary cross examination. You better come with it, because if you don't, you're only going to contribute the the growing notion that conservatives are a bunch of batshit crazy assholes that believe ridiculous versions of Christianity, hate people that look different or believe different things than they do, and think that Sarah Palin is actually a good person.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Worms and Fools
Well, as usual, I had to open the newspaper to the letters to the editor section to find yet another dumb conservative spouting off about economics. Since newspapers like the Oregonian and Statesman Journal are filled with editors and ombudspeople that are nothing but a collection of spineless worms, I’ll share my letter with you here, dear readers:
The Statesman Journal should do a better job screening its letters. Recently, I read a ridiculously dumb tirade by a conservative reader who claimed that Obama’s stimulus package is going to cause inflation, and then proceeded to lecture us “liberals/socialists” on the finer points of economics.
I teach economics, and I get my information from people like Adam Smith, Dr. John Nash, and Dr. Paul Krugman, as opposed to the conservative gentleman, who I’m guessing gets his from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. By the way, neither Hannity, nor Limbaugh, ever graduated from college.
As for the economics: spending money through government entities, such as schools, publics works projects, research grants, etc. is almost a sure fire way to boost the economy. By paying the salaries of both public, and government contracted, private workers, the stimulus will fill in the sag in demand that has occurred recently due to the housing market’s collapse and the general contraction of the economy. The assertion that this will cause any kind of dangerous inflation is laughable.
Additionally, the gentleman may want to check his numbers. The CPI, the government’s method for measuring inflation, has recently fallen about 1.3% over the past year, meaning that we are currently experiencing deflation. So, even if the stimulus does cause some inflation, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.
This is the problem with our current political climate: media sources, whose duty to the public as the fourth estate and controller of information is to report facts, consistently treat conservative rhetoric as if it is actually a rational world view, which, as the Republican Party veers ever to the right, is absurd, obnoxious, and totally irresponsible. When the Statesman receives a letter of this nature, the proper thing to do would be to call the gentleman and laugh at him when he answers, or, if you really wanted to stay classy, you could just throw it away.
Remember, these are people that do not believe in science, that have replaced reason and constructive thinking with faith, and continue to believe in ideas and theories that, when put in practice, are disastrous. The Statesman would do well to remember this the next time they decide to publish a letter, or op-ed for that matter, that displays such a lack of intelligence and critical thought.
The Statesman Journal should do a better job screening its letters. Recently, I read a ridiculously dumb tirade by a conservative reader who claimed that Obama’s stimulus package is going to cause inflation, and then proceeded to lecture us “liberals/socialists” on the finer points of economics.
I teach economics, and I get my information from people like Adam Smith, Dr. John Nash, and Dr. Paul Krugman, as opposed to the conservative gentleman, who I’m guessing gets his from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. By the way, neither Hannity, nor Limbaugh, ever graduated from college.
As for the economics: spending money through government entities, such as schools, publics works projects, research grants, etc. is almost a sure fire way to boost the economy. By paying the salaries of both public, and government contracted, private workers, the stimulus will fill in the sag in demand that has occurred recently due to the housing market’s collapse and the general contraction of the economy. The assertion that this will cause any kind of dangerous inflation is laughable.
Additionally, the gentleman may want to check his numbers. The CPI, the government’s method for measuring inflation, has recently fallen about 1.3% over the past year, meaning that we are currently experiencing deflation. So, even if the stimulus does cause some inflation, that might not necessarily be a bad thing.
This is the problem with our current political climate: media sources, whose duty to the public as the fourth estate and controller of information is to report facts, consistently treat conservative rhetoric as if it is actually a rational world view, which, as the Republican Party veers ever to the right, is absurd, obnoxious, and totally irresponsible. When the Statesman receives a letter of this nature, the proper thing to do would be to call the gentleman and laugh at him when he answers, or, if you really wanted to stay classy, you could just throw it away.
Remember, these are people that do not believe in science, that have replaced reason and constructive thinking with faith, and continue to believe in ideas and theories that, when put in practice, are disastrous. The Statesman would do well to remember this the next time they decide to publish a letter, or op-ed for that matter, that displays such a lack of intelligence and critical thought.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Things I Hate: In no particular order (Vol. 1-Earmuffs)
1) Twilight and Paperback Novels: Sure, I've never actually read Twilight, but I just know that its dogshit right off the bat. 1st clue: teenage girls like it. Teenage girls are dumb. And just to make sure, I looked it up in Websters and it said, "dumb--(adj.) stupid, unintelligent, the opposite of smart. Ex: teenage girls are dumb because they like that new book about a daywalking vampire, and everyone knows that's horseshit." Then they had a picture of a dumb looking teenage girl wearing a Twilight shirt. Case-mothafuckin-closed, gangstas.
Seriously though, reading moronic books like Twilight and paperback novels is bad in a more insidious way--they actually achieve the opposite of promoting critical thought, reason, or a rational understanding of the human condition; things that every writer should have as part of their mission. These books are simply written to make money. There's nothing wrong with making money, but just because you're successful doesn't mean you are doing a good thing. Rush Limbaugh is a very fat and rich man. What he does makes him a lot of money. He also has possibly the most filthy, stinking, satanic soul that the world has known this side of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. He promotes hate, misunderstanding, ignorance, and bigotry, and swims in a philosophical cest pool of drug addict feces. Twilight readers: this means he is a bad person.
Paper back novels are no better than watching soap operas--they rely on cheap thrills, shock value, and making shit up as they go--not unlike "Lost." Therefore, they have no real bearing on reality and no real social or intellectual worth. And why not read something good? I've got plenty of suggestions...be a person.
(Eleven great books: 1) Catcher in the Rye, 2) Adventures of Huck Finn, 3) On the Road, 4) The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao, 5) Lord of the Rings, 6) the Alchemist, 7) The Road--very dark for those shy of horrification, 8) Gravity's Rainbow, 9) 3 Cups of Tea--non fiction, 10) The Slaughter House Five, and 11) The Good Earth--I realize that I have a male centric list here, so ladies, feel free to make some suggestions and I'll list those in the next edition)
2) Sleeping More Than Necessary: Think about it: sleeping, aside from dreams, is like being dead. Time is passing and you have no awareness of the physical world. Or, if there is an afterlife, and its good, then sleeping is worse than being dead (if its bad, then you certainly aren't helping your case by sleeping, are you, ya lazy bastard).
Look, go ahead and sleep for 6, 7, 8, even 9 hours, but its time to get up after that and start BEING a human BEING. I mean, if you sleep more than that, your life must suck, and I can goddamn guarantee the solution to life not sucking isn't sleeping for 11 or 12 hours a day.
Oh, and another thing, sleep isn't a tax or a fee, or a bill--it doesn't build up over time and you don't need to "catch up." It's not as if for every hour you get less than 8 hours parks itself in your personal sleep bank as debt. You need enough to function and feel good--that's it.
The last thing I'll say is that if you're sleeping because you're bored, find something to do that is enjoyable or useful. Sleeping too much has been linked with depression, and it can actually make you more tired. If you sleep too much, you're basically like a lazy ninny, so either get out of bed, or start putting on your wolf sweater and give up on yourself.
3) People That Complain About Food They Get at Restaurants: First off, let me qualify that I'm not talking about if there's a toe in your soup, or some actual flaw in the food. I'm talking about a dish that is cooked fine, but for some reason or another doesn't jive with the diner's picadillos. Look, it is partially your responsibility, when you go to a restaurant, to order something you'll like. Yes, ideally every dish a restaurant serves is good, but unless they tricked you, or the menu is written in Urdu, you should be able to have a pretty damn good idea of what the hell you were getting yourself into.
In other words, take some responsibility. If you don't like crab, don't order it, or if you do then don't blame the fucking restaurant because you're a fucking idiot. And if you think there should be more clams in the chowder, just keep in mind that the dish is called "clam chowder," not "clams."
I guess my point is that if you're really picky, maybe you should learn to cook instead of going out to eat all the time. Don't blame the restaurant because you got what you ordered and didn't like it. Get better at ordering--here's a hint: ask the waiter--when I waited tables I wouldn't let my guests order something gross unless they really, really wanted to. And if its not a good restaurant...don't go.
Seriously though, reading moronic books like Twilight and paperback novels is bad in a more insidious way--they actually achieve the opposite of promoting critical thought, reason, or a rational understanding of the human condition; things that every writer should have as part of their mission. These books are simply written to make money. There's nothing wrong with making money, but just because you're successful doesn't mean you are doing a good thing. Rush Limbaugh is a very fat and rich man. What he does makes him a lot of money. He also has possibly the most filthy, stinking, satanic soul that the world has known this side of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. He promotes hate, misunderstanding, ignorance, and bigotry, and swims in a philosophical cest pool of drug addict feces. Twilight readers: this means he is a bad person.
Paper back novels are no better than watching soap operas--they rely on cheap thrills, shock value, and making shit up as they go--not unlike "Lost." Therefore, they have no real bearing on reality and no real social or intellectual worth. And why not read something good? I've got plenty of suggestions...be a person.
(Eleven great books: 1) Catcher in the Rye, 2) Adventures of Huck Finn, 3) On the Road, 4) The brief wondrous life of Oscar Wao, 5) Lord of the Rings, 6) the Alchemist, 7) The Road--very dark for those shy of horrification, 8) Gravity's Rainbow, 9) 3 Cups of Tea--non fiction, 10) The Slaughter House Five, and 11) The Good Earth--I realize that I have a male centric list here, so ladies, feel free to make some suggestions and I'll list those in the next edition)
2) Sleeping More Than Necessary: Think about it: sleeping, aside from dreams, is like being dead. Time is passing and you have no awareness of the physical world. Or, if there is an afterlife, and its good, then sleeping is worse than being dead (if its bad, then you certainly aren't helping your case by sleeping, are you, ya lazy bastard).
Look, go ahead and sleep for 6, 7, 8, even 9 hours, but its time to get up after that and start BEING a human BEING. I mean, if you sleep more than that, your life must suck, and I can goddamn guarantee the solution to life not sucking isn't sleeping for 11 or 12 hours a day.
Oh, and another thing, sleep isn't a tax or a fee, or a bill--it doesn't build up over time and you don't need to "catch up." It's not as if for every hour you get less than 8 hours parks itself in your personal sleep bank as debt. You need enough to function and feel good--that's it.
The last thing I'll say is that if you're sleeping because you're bored, find something to do that is enjoyable or useful. Sleeping too much has been linked with depression, and it can actually make you more tired. If you sleep too much, you're basically like a lazy ninny, so either get out of bed, or start putting on your wolf sweater and give up on yourself.
3) People That Complain About Food They Get at Restaurants: First off, let me qualify that I'm not talking about if there's a toe in your soup, or some actual flaw in the food. I'm talking about a dish that is cooked fine, but for some reason or another doesn't jive with the diner's picadillos. Look, it is partially your responsibility, when you go to a restaurant, to order something you'll like. Yes, ideally every dish a restaurant serves is good, but unless they tricked you, or the menu is written in Urdu, you should be able to have a pretty damn good idea of what the hell you were getting yourself into.
In other words, take some responsibility. If you don't like crab, don't order it, or if you do then don't blame the fucking restaurant because you're a fucking idiot. And if you think there should be more clams in the chowder, just keep in mind that the dish is called "clam chowder," not "clams."
I guess my point is that if you're really picky, maybe you should learn to cook instead of going out to eat all the time. Don't blame the restaurant because you got what you ordered and didn't like it. Get better at ordering--here's a hint: ask the waiter--when I waited tables I wouldn't let my guests order something gross unless they really, really wanted to. And if its not a good restaurant...don't go.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Education (earmuffs)
Well, apparently Obama's choice for secretary of Education is going about as badly as all the rest of the Bush legacies he is carrying on. Arne Duncan, according to a recent article in the New York Times, simply plans on closing schools and then reopening them to solve our problems. Yeah, that sounds like a great fucking idea Arne! In fact, I'll do you one better fuckface--how about we just close all the schools and give up on public education altogether...then we can all go play with our model trains during the day while you cuddle with prostitutes and cocaine paid for by the money that used to go toward public education.
Yes, in fact the more I think about this, the more excited I get, because we all know that by closing down schools we can:
1) solve poverty
2) drive down student apathy
3) incur greater parent involvement
4) teach parents to better raise their children
5) help teachers better plan lessons and classes
6) end illegal immigration
7) make everyone's dick larger
8) finally produce a tree that does grow money
9) solve the health care crisis
and 10) end our need for foreign oil
Hoo-fucking-ray, this is great isn't it? The answer to fixing things isn't to make things better or actually examine the problems that exist in what we're trying to fix, its to outright quit. Everyone: stop working and start drinking Daquiri's.
Wait a fucking second...hold on. This isn't going to work at all, and let me tell you why: though closing schools might have a temporary effect on the overall culture of the school for a brief period of time, it isn't going to put an end to the problems that plague our youth and their education system. Students, if they have no reason to succeed (i.e. parents that don't give a shit and/or can't speak English), won't. And goddamn it, it is not the fucking fault of the teachers. If I were to tell you that there weren't bad teachers out there, I'd be lying, but for the most part, teachers are trained, licensed professionals that do a good job and are genuinely interested in the well-being and mental development of their students. Firing an entire school's faculty isn't going to change a goddamn thing, other than piss off a bunch of teachers who will ask why the fuck they got into the profession in the first place, and will go do something else where their work and efforts are appreciated rather than continuing to be the scapegoats for the lazy fucking populace of average assholes who would rather blame someone else for their problems than help their kids do math or emphasize that academic achievement is important.
Simply closing schools is the exact thing that is wrong with how our government functions; it is the appearance of doing something to solve a problem, even though that something has nothing to do with a real solution--just like passing harsher penalties for crimes, or asking the health care industry to voluntarily cut money out of its profits. What a bunch of fucking bullshit.
The democrats are turning out to be almost as bad as the Republicans, except that the Republicans hate women, racial minorities, believe in torture, supply side economics, child slavery, exporting jobs off seas, killing doctors, and have virtually no rational platform positions on issue that matter to the American public. OK, so the Democrats are no where near as bad as the Republicans, but as we are plainly seeing, that doesn't mean they are going to solve our problems. They are laying in bed with the lobbyists from big industries and largely carrying on many of the same, outrageous policies the Bush Administration rolled out. This isn't going to work, and Arne Duncan is a fucking ass clown.
Yes, in fact the more I think about this, the more excited I get, because we all know that by closing down schools we can:
1) solve poverty
2) drive down student apathy
3) incur greater parent involvement
4) teach parents to better raise their children
5) help teachers better plan lessons and classes
6) end illegal immigration
7) make everyone's dick larger
8) finally produce a tree that does grow money
9) solve the health care crisis
and 10) end our need for foreign oil
Hoo-fucking-ray, this is great isn't it? The answer to fixing things isn't to make things better or actually examine the problems that exist in what we're trying to fix, its to outright quit. Everyone: stop working and start drinking Daquiri's.
Wait a fucking second...hold on. This isn't going to work at all, and let me tell you why: though closing schools might have a temporary effect on the overall culture of the school for a brief period of time, it isn't going to put an end to the problems that plague our youth and their education system. Students, if they have no reason to succeed (i.e. parents that don't give a shit and/or can't speak English), won't. And goddamn it, it is not the fucking fault of the teachers. If I were to tell you that there weren't bad teachers out there, I'd be lying, but for the most part, teachers are trained, licensed professionals that do a good job and are genuinely interested in the well-being and mental development of their students. Firing an entire school's faculty isn't going to change a goddamn thing, other than piss off a bunch of teachers who will ask why the fuck they got into the profession in the first place, and will go do something else where their work and efforts are appreciated rather than continuing to be the scapegoats for the lazy fucking populace of average assholes who would rather blame someone else for their problems than help their kids do math or emphasize that academic achievement is important.
Simply closing schools is the exact thing that is wrong with how our government functions; it is the appearance of doing something to solve a problem, even though that something has nothing to do with a real solution--just like passing harsher penalties for crimes, or asking the health care industry to voluntarily cut money out of its profits. What a bunch of fucking bullshit.
The democrats are turning out to be almost as bad as the Republicans, except that the Republicans hate women, racial minorities, believe in torture, supply side economics, child slavery, exporting jobs off seas, killing doctors, and have virtually no rational platform positions on issue that matter to the American public. OK, so the Democrats are no where near as bad as the Republicans, but as we are plainly seeing, that doesn't mean they are going to solve our problems. They are laying in bed with the lobbyists from big industries and largely carrying on many of the same, outrageous policies the Bush Administration rolled out. This isn't going to work, and Arne Duncan is a fucking ass clown.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
What People Don't Understand...Their Dumb and Easily Manipulated
Recently I received a forward from a dear reader of this blog (well, or more like forced reader, since I send all of you an email everytime I crank this crap out), from a co-worker who sent her an article on how some social security checks were sent out to dead people--the original sender (not my lovely reader of course) then made a comment to the tune of "so you want our government running health care?"
There is a sentiment throughout our society that government cannot run things efficiently--ever--and that this fact alone means that we should never let the government do anything, because it will be...ah yes, inefficient. This is dumb. And though it would be perhaps foolish of me to do it given that some of my dear, forced readers believe this as well--oh what the hell--people that believe this are dumb. Dummies, morons, fools, and extremely easily tricked and manipulated. At the very least, they are undereducated, and lack intellectual curiosity.
A couple of points in response if I may:
1) If private corporations are more efficient and make less mistakes than the government, why did the banking industry fail and why are we currently in the biggest recession in about 50 years? What about GM, Chrysler, or any other private corporation that has filed bankruptcy etc? Not too terribly efficient are they--so yes, though the government makes mistakes, there is nothing about running a business that is somehow a saving grace against screw ups--its called human fallability.
2) Using one example of a screw up does not damn an entire system. People make this mistake all the time. They think that just because they know someone who has done this, or done that, or something that somehow magically defies conventional wisdom, that this means that it always happens and is true and logical--I've heard so many outright lies of this nature, because someone was unwilling to concede an argument. Again, giving one provincial example to prove a point that is related to hundreds of thousands of people or a tremendously complex system is a drop in the bucket, and without thousands of similar examples, should be completely disregarded. Your buddy may well have an uncle in the Ozarks that cured his lung cancer by drinking bathtub gin, but that doesn't mean the Mayo clinic is going to start offering the Cletus Cocktail to cure its patients.
3) The government run health care system already operates more efficiently than private health care. Medicare (though it is running out of money because it caters to people who need an unbelieveable amount of care--oldsters), is administrated at a cost of about 2%, depending on where you get your data, and most HMO's operate at a cost of 9%.
4) When competition cannot produce a better product at a lower price, it doesn't do anyone any good to have it (on a side note, this is why we allow public monopolies, such as PGE, or the water or sewage company--it would be silly to build more than one electric grid, water, or sewage system--inefficient, more precisely), especially when you consider that it is not as if you can pick and choose whether or not you get treatment. If you break a leg, you don't wait for the price to go down, or go to the cheapest doctor--you go to a doctor you are comfortable with, and get a cast, or go to the emergency room.
This is the reason that health care costs have gone up tremendously in the last few years...people can't very well just not go to the doctor if they are seriously ill, and the HMO's make a higher profit by DENYING these people treatment and making it as difficult to access their health care as possible. In any private industry, corporations are going to seek to increase their market share as much as possible (as they should), and that is exactly what has happened with the health care industry.
Consider these facts:
-About 45 million Americans do not have health insurance, including 9 million children.
-We currently spend about $2.2 trillion on health care every year. That amounts to $7,421 per person!
-If the current rate growth in the health care industry continues, 1 out of every $4 in the U.S. economy will be tied up for this purpose by 2025.
-Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases.
-Americans spend more money on health care than on food or housing.
Now, think of insurance as an umbrella--the more people under that umbrella, the larger the umbrella needs to be, and the more efficient it becomes. You need less material to cover 20 people with one giant umbrella than you would need if every single person had an individual umbrella. Additionally, most of the people are in no danger of getting wet (healthy) with one umbrella--it would only be the people on the outside that were in any danger (sick); whereas if everyone has a small, individual umbrella, they are all in danger of being outside of their coverage.
In other words, since there are many, many more people that are healthy at any one time, than are sick, the larger the insurance pool is, the lower the cost of coverage. So putting every American under the same umbrella would save us a lot of money (single payer health care).
5) Things are getting pretty bad in this country and we need to change the way we do things. Arguing, as the Republicans do, against change of any kind is not maintaining the status quo, because things are already getting worse, so arguing against change to fix these problems is actively harming the general American public. There is no reason that we can't make government run effectively and efficiently to make it do the things we want it to do, and one of those things it can and needs to run is health care.
6) Many people somehow think that changing to a public health care system will cost us money--it won't! THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF CHANGING TO GOV. HEALTHCARE DUMMIES! Going to a single payer system will have a number of benefits: a) employers will no longer have to provide health care for their employees, making their profit margins larger, which means that they can either pay their employees more, take more home for themselves, or both; b) we will drastically reduce the number of people that are not covered and have to use the emergency room to get care, which is tremendously more expensive than regular visits to the doctor; and c) because we will all be in the same system, public pressure to keep it efficient will be tremendous, giving each American much more leverage than they currently enjoy with their soulless HMO.
Look, we can all sit here and listen to the wolves baying outside our door, but they're picking people off every so often, and pretty soon their gonna find us and kill us, and being too scared to confront and kill them isn't going to solve our problems. Yes, change is scary, but I would rather face that fear than piss the bed like a little kid because I'm too scared to get up and go to the bathroom. This is the difference between adults and children. Adults use facts, knowledge, and confront their problems in a rational way by finding solutions. Children beg mommy to make it better.
Be an adult.
There is a sentiment throughout our society that government cannot run things efficiently--ever--and that this fact alone means that we should never let the government do anything, because it will be...ah yes, inefficient. This is dumb. And though it would be perhaps foolish of me to do it given that some of my dear, forced readers believe this as well--oh what the hell--people that believe this are dumb. Dummies, morons, fools, and extremely easily tricked and manipulated. At the very least, they are undereducated, and lack intellectual curiosity.
A couple of points in response if I may:
1) If private corporations are more efficient and make less mistakes than the government, why did the banking industry fail and why are we currently in the biggest recession in about 50 years? What about GM, Chrysler, or any other private corporation that has filed bankruptcy etc? Not too terribly efficient are they--so yes, though the government makes mistakes, there is nothing about running a business that is somehow a saving grace against screw ups--its called human fallability.
2) Using one example of a screw up does not damn an entire system. People make this mistake all the time. They think that just because they know someone who has done this, or done that, or something that somehow magically defies conventional wisdom, that this means that it always happens and is true and logical--I've heard so many outright lies of this nature, because someone was unwilling to concede an argument. Again, giving one provincial example to prove a point that is related to hundreds of thousands of people or a tremendously complex system is a drop in the bucket, and without thousands of similar examples, should be completely disregarded. Your buddy may well have an uncle in the Ozarks that cured his lung cancer by drinking bathtub gin, but that doesn't mean the Mayo clinic is going to start offering the Cletus Cocktail to cure its patients.
3) The government run health care system already operates more efficiently than private health care. Medicare (though it is running out of money because it caters to people who need an unbelieveable amount of care--oldsters), is administrated at a cost of about 2%, depending on where you get your data, and most HMO's operate at a cost of 9%.
4) When competition cannot produce a better product at a lower price, it doesn't do anyone any good to have it (on a side note, this is why we allow public monopolies, such as PGE, or the water or sewage company--it would be silly to build more than one electric grid, water, or sewage system--inefficient, more precisely), especially when you consider that it is not as if you can pick and choose whether or not you get treatment. If you break a leg, you don't wait for the price to go down, or go to the cheapest doctor--you go to a doctor you are comfortable with, and get a cast, or go to the emergency room.
This is the reason that health care costs have gone up tremendously in the last few years...people can't very well just not go to the doctor if they are seriously ill, and the HMO's make a higher profit by DENYING these people treatment and making it as difficult to access their health care as possible. In any private industry, corporations are going to seek to increase their market share as much as possible (as they should), and that is exactly what has happened with the health care industry.
Consider these facts:
-About 45 million Americans do not have health insurance, including 9 million children.
-We currently spend about $2.2 trillion on health care every year. That amounts to $7,421 per person!
-If the current rate growth in the health care industry continues, 1 out of every $4 in the U.S. economy will be tied up for this purpose by 2025.
-Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases.
-Americans spend more money on health care than on food or housing.
Now, think of insurance as an umbrella--the more people under that umbrella, the larger the umbrella needs to be, and the more efficient it becomes. You need less material to cover 20 people with one giant umbrella than you would need if every single person had an individual umbrella. Additionally, most of the people are in no danger of getting wet (healthy) with one umbrella--it would only be the people on the outside that were in any danger (sick); whereas if everyone has a small, individual umbrella, they are all in danger of being outside of their coverage.
In other words, since there are many, many more people that are healthy at any one time, than are sick, the larger the insurance pool is, the lower the cost of coverage. So putting every American under the same umbrella would save us a lot of money (single payer health care).
5) Things are getting pretty bad in this country and we need to change the way we do things. Arguing, as the Republicans do, against change of any kind is not maintaining the status quo, because things are already getting worse, so arguing against change to fix these problems is actively harming the general American public. There is no reason that we can't make government run effectively and efficiently to make it do the things we want it to do, and one of those things it can and needs to run is health care.
6) Many people somehow think that changing to a public health care system will cost us money--it won't! THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF CHANGING TO GOV. HEALTHCARE DUMMIES! Going to a single payer system will have a number of benefits: a) employers will no longer have to provide health care for their employees, making their profit margins larger, which means that they can either pay their employees more, take more home for themselves, or both; b) we will drastically reduce the number of people that are not covered and have to use the emergency room to get care, which is tremendously more expensive than regular visits to the doctor; and c) because we will all be in the same system, public pressure to keep it efficient will be tremendous, giving each American much more leverage than they currently enjoy with their soulless HMO.
Look, we can all sit here and listen to the wolves baying outside our door, but they're picking people off every so often, and pretty soon their gonna find us and kill us, and being too scared to confront and kill them isn't going to solve our problems. Yes, change is scary, but I would rather face that fear than piss the bed like a little kid because I'm too scared to get up and go to the bathroom. This is the difference between adults and children. Adults use facts, knowledge, and confront their problems in a rational way by finding solutions. Children beg mommy to make it better.
Be an adult.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
I Didn't Vote for Compromise (earmuffs)
I'm probably going to sound a lot more like an asshole conservative than I'm comfortable with, but I'm mad. Barack Obama called in health care industry leaders on Monday, apparently so that they could sit around and sing "Kumbaya," eat pastries, and "voluntarily" cut 2 trillion dollars of their burgeoning system.
Yes that's right, they are going to "voluntarly" do it...if you follow me that means that: A) They've been sticking it to the American consumer for years unnecessarily, B) They have made zero priority to make their businesses efficient (a huge argument against the competition axiom economic conservatives tout...the assclowns), and C) There are going to be no penalties for these people if they don't "voluntarily" accomplish any of this.
You want to know why else I want to punt a small dog? Well, maybe I'm just not so big on trust these days, especially when it comes to mindless, soul-crushing corporations that could give two shits about the people that die because they can't afford coverage, and employ a phalanx of lawyers so they can deny coverage to the people that can. The people that run these companies are some of the worst kind of life sucking vampires that humanity is capable of producing (and no, not the cute, day walking dipshits in Twilight--which is a dumb, worthless book).
But I am really mad at Barack Obama. I didn't vote for waffling, compromise, and feel good rhetoric (well, maybe a little)--I voted for fucking change. Real change, not once again letting the lions into the herd, and asking them to be a little less greedy. I mean, John McCain probably would have bought the guys prostitutes, gone around lighting cubans with hundred dollar bills, and handed them the keys to the fucking treasury--after all, that is the Republican way--but still, I expected more from Democracy's savior.
Honestly, it would be nice if Obama turned his eloquence into action. He has made some outstanding points about the state of public education, and on Monday again paraded out the landslide of reasons we cannot continue with our current health care system. Yet, we have still to see anything major out of this administration except more of the same. More bailouts for irresponsibly run corporations, no teeth on investigating the abuses of the constitution in the past, and the tendency when an industry has run amok, to invite the leaders of that industry in to fix it. Perhaps I misunderstood my parents, but two wrongs still don't make a right...right?
For now, I am still waiting for Obama to become the man he promised to be during his campaign. I voted for action on these issues, and as soon as Franken gets seated, Obama will have no excuse but to move forward with the sweeping change he promised. Make no mistake, our country is in dire trouble if we don't change the way we do things, and change them drastically. Waffling, bipartisanship, consensus building, and compromise is not going to get it done. And neither are fantastical stories about day walking faggot vampires.
Yes that's right, they are going to "voluntarly" do it...if you follow me that means that: A) They've been sticking it to the American consumer for years unnecessarily, B) They have made zero priority to make their businesses efficient (a huge argument against the competition axiom economic conservatives tout...the assclowns), and C) There are going to be no penalties for these people if they don't "voluntarily" accomplish any of this.
You want to know why else I want to punt a small dog? Well, maybe I'm just not so big on trust these days, especially when it comes to mindless, soul-crushing corporations that could give two shits about the people that die because they can't afford coverage, and employ a phalanx of lawyers so they can deny coverage to the people that can. The people that run these companies are some of the worst kind of life sucking vampires that humanity is capable of producing (and no, not the cute, day walking dipshits in Twilight--which is a dumb, worthless book).
But I am really mad at Barack Obama. I didn't vote for waffling, compromise, and feel good rhetoric (well, maybe a little)--I voted for fucking change. Real change, not once again letting the lions into the herd, and asking them to be a little less greedy. I mean, John McCain probably would have bought the guys prostitutes, gone around lighting cubans with hundred dollar bills, and handed them the keys to the fucking treasury--after all, that is the Republican way--but still, I expected more from Democracy's savior.
Honestly, it would be nice if Obama turned his eloquence into action. He has made some outstanding points about the state of public education, and on Monday again paraded out the landslide of reasons we cannot continue with our current health care system. Yet, we have still to see anything major out of this administration except more of the same. More bailouts for irresponsibly run corporations, no teeth on investigating the abuses of the constitution in the past, and the tendency when an industry has run amok, to invite the leaders of that industry in to fix it. Perhaps I misunderstood my parents, but two wrongs still don't make a right...right?
For now, I am still waiting for Obama to become the man he promised to be during his campaign. I voted for action on these issues, and as soon as Franken gets seated, Obama will have no excuse but to move forward with the sweeping change he promised. Make no mistake, our country is in dire trouble if we don't change the way we do things, and change them drastically. Waffling, bipartisanship, consensus building, and compromise is not going to get it done. And neither are fantastical stories about day walking faggot vampires.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Incentives and Disincentives
There's a lot of complaining that goes on in school. The teachers complain, the kids complain, the parents complain, I complain (there is an abundance of evidence on this blog particularly), everyone complains. I suppose that is the way it is anywhere with people, as long as they have the freedom to do so. And complaining is fine, if, when it reaches a loud enough volume, something is done: either the complainers shut up, or the problem that they are complaining about gets solved.
OK, so you can stop holding your breath--I'm not going to shut up. But today, I am going to offer some solutions to some of the most glaring problems our country faces in this time of economic distress.
Economists are big fans of incentives--financial or other benefits for the exibition of a particular desired behavior. I believe that many of the situations we find ourselves in now could be solved by simply implementing the proper incentive, or disincentive. For example, our students are not acheiving to the levels we need them be at in school--this has to do with lack of effort on the student's part, parents that are not helping their kids, and/or teachers that are poor or not trying. Why not create an incentive for performance? If a kid goes to school and does not try or show effort, and fails more than half of his/her classes, we fine the parents $1000 for wasting the taxpayer's money OR they get to work off their fees by joining the military. And if a teacher fails to show improvement during observations and their students do not show gains on a district approved pre and post test for that course, they do not advance on the pay scale for the next year...if they do show improvement, instead of going up the usual one year on the scale, they advance two years.
With illegal immigration, simply pass a law with a 10 year jail sentence for those who hire illegal immigrants. A strong jail sentence works with this kind of crime, because employers are rational people; in fact, that is precisely why they hire illegal immigrants in the first place--because it is cheaper. Pass a law that strongly punishes the hiring of illegals, publicize it, and pull off a couple of high profile stings every so often. No fence needed.
And look, as far as tax revenue is concerned, why not kill two birds with one stone and legalize marijuana? That way, you can tax the living day lights out of it, and you don't have to spend the money to police, prosecute, and imprison the people that use it.
Finally, can we please just go ahead and do single payer health care by putting everyone on medicare? It would be so much more efficient than having privatized health care. Competition in the case of health care, has failed--and if you still think competition is so great for areas of our economy that are essential to life, you are an idiot, you are wrong, and you may as well believe in unicorns and pixies, because the logic behind that argument is pure fantasy. It's like so many other things conservatives believe in--good rhetoric, but ridiculous when examined with any rational scrutiny.
What I really don't understand is why Obama hasn't done some of these things? I voted for change damnit!
OK, so you can stop holding your breath--I'm not going to shut up. But today, I am going to offer some solutions to some of the most glaring problems our country faces in this time of economic distress.
Economists are big fans of incentives--financial or other benefits for the exibition of a particular desired behavior. I believe that many of the situations we find ourselves in now could be solved by simply implementing the proper incentive, or disincentive. For example, our students are not acheiving to the levels we need them be at in school--this has to do with lack of effort on the student's part, parents that are not helping their kids, and/or teachers that are poor or not trying. Why not create an incentive for performance? If a kid goes to school and does not try or show effort, and fails more than half of his/her classes, we fine the parents $1000 for wasting the taxpayer's money OR they get to work off their fees by joining the military. And if a teacher fails to show improvement during observations and their students do not show gains on a district approved pre and post test for that course, they do not advance on the pay scale for the next year...if they do show improvement, instead of going up the usual one year on the scale, they advance two years.
With illegal immigration, simply pass a law with a 10 year jail sentence for those who hire illegal immigrants. A strong jail sentence works with this kind of crime, because employers are rational people; in fact, that is precisely why they hire illegal immigrants in the first place--because it is cheaper. Pass a law that strongly punishes the hiring of illegals, publicize it, and pull off a couple of high profile stings every so often. No fence needed.
And look, as far as tax revenue is concerned, why not kill two birds with one stone and legalize marijuana? That way, you can tax the living day lights out of it, and you don't have to spend the money to police, prosecute, and imprison the people that use it.
Finally, can we please just go ahead and do single payer health care by putting everyone on medicare? It would be so much more efficient than having privatized health care. Competition in the case of health care, has failed--and if you still think competition is so great for areas of our economy that are essential to life, you are an idiot, you are wrong, and you may as well believe in unicorns and pixies, because the logic behind that argument is pure fantasy. It's like so many other things conservatives believe in--good rhetoric, but ridiculous when examined with any rational scrutiny.
What I really don't understand is why Obama hasn't done some of these things? I voted for change damnit!
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Jumping to Judgment Without Rationale
I was reading an advice column (AN advice column Dom, now lets not reply all kiddos) the other day (I know--how super emo of me), and I noticed that the ridiculous nature of the advice being given is a classic pattern of thinking in our irrational society. In it, the lady said that the petitioner should just immediately leave her boyfriend because he was giving her the silent treatment (women NEVER do that--its so childish) after they had an argument. I was amazed at what a quick rush to judgment this was--the advice columnist, miss Carolyn Hax (who is a total hack), immediately assumed the woman was on the right side of this argument, and that the gentleman in question must have been behaving like a total jerk, without even knowing anything about the scenario of the relationship or nature of the argument.
Sound familiar? This quick rush to judgment is a veritable pandemic in our society, a distinct pathological characteristic of the American zeitgeist that probably owes its existence to our lamentable puritanical past. It is the reason that we so strictly punsih criminals and have the largest prison population in the world, and probably the reason Fox News is able to exist. As a society, we are so self-righteous, so holier than though, and if we are a Christian nation, we did certainly not learn our Sunday school lessons, in which Jesus Christ explains that one should not judge others, lest ye be judged. If this is true, we are in for a hell of a lot of judgement, and it won't be the first time (or the last) that "Christians" end up looking a lot more like jerks than genuinely decent people.
I don't know if people understand this, but you aren't going to teach anyone any lessons by being an asshole...you're not making the world a better place by being so harsh and quick to judgement, and in the end it is just ridiculous, not to mention tremendously narcissistic. Somehow, we think we've taught people a lesson, when in fact, the opposite has happened: the accused now has every reason to believe they've been treated unfairly and is given no reason to examine the validity of their own actions.
I mean, I used to do it, I'd purposely not do jerky things that guys get accused of being horrible people, specifically because I did not want to give men a bad name.
This, at least, until I realized, that even if I do something totally justified, girls are going to think men are bad people anyway. I was not teaching the female gender at large any grand lesson through my behavior--my attachment to moral behavior was just that--an attachment--it had absolutely zero effect on the world around me. In other words, yes, people do dumb things that are hurtful and inconsiderate, but we don't make them any better or make the world a better place by shunning them and acting like jerks ourselves.
In the same way, this woman who was told by the hack to dump her boyfriend, will not guarantee her better treatment in the future, nor will it, in all likelihood, alter his behavior in similar circumstances. Politicians are big fans of saying they are tough on crime because they pass harsh penalties for particular crimes, when in reality, they are only increasing the jail time of those we catch. When people do bad things they know they shouldn't do, the overwhelming majority do it because they believe they will not get caught, so the consequences are completely inconsequential.
Harsh prison sentences do nothing to deter crime, as harsh social consequences do nothing to deter bad behavior. As long as the reasons and rational exists to commit a crime or behave poorly (not to mention human imperfection and tendency to err), it will continue to happen. And the longer our society continues with this tremendous sense of self-righteuosness and narcissistic indignation, the longer we will continue to have bad policies like our failed war on drugs and failed system of education, and continue to have failed political and social discourse on matters that are utterly inconsequential and meaningless.
NOTE: If you would like to comment on this or any of the other blogs, please go ahead and comment on this blog right here!
Sound familiar? This quick rush to judgment is a veritable pandemic in our society, a distinct pathological characteristic of the American zeitgeist that probably owes its existence to our lamentable puritanical past. It is the reason that we so strictly punsih criminals and have the largest prison population in the world, and probably the reason Fox News is able to exist. As a society, we are so self-righteous, so holier than though, and if we are a Christian nation, we did certainly not learn our Sunday school lessons, in which Jesus Christ explains that one should not judge others, lest ye be judged. If this is true, we are in for a hell of a lot of judgement, and it won't be the first time (or the last) that "Christians" end up looking a lot more like jerks than genuinely decent people.
I don't know if people understand this, but you aren't going to teach anyone any lessons by being an asshole...you're not making the world a better place by being so harsh and quick to judgement, and in the end it is just ridiculous, not to mention tremendously narcissistic. Somehow, we think we've taught people a lesson, when in fact, the opposite has happened: the accused now has every reason to believe they've been treated unfairly and is given no reason to examine the validity of their own actions.
I mean, I used to do it, I'd purposely not do jerky things that guys get accused of being horrible people, specifically because I did not want to give men a bad name.
This, at least, until I realized, that even if I do something totally justified, girls are going to think men are bad people anyway. I was not teaching the female gender at large any grand lesson through my behavior--my attachment to moral behavior was just that--an attachment--it had absolutely zero effect on the world around me. In other words, yes, people do dumb things that are hurtful and inconsiderate, but we don't make them any better or make the world a better place by shunning them and acting like jerks ourselves.
In the same way, this woman who was told by the hack to dump her boyfriend, will not guarantee her better treatment in the future, nor will it, in all likelihood, alter his behavior in similar circumstances. Politicians are big fans of saying they are tough on crime because they pass harsh penalties for particular crimes, when in reality, they are only increasing the jail time of those we catch. When people do bad things they know they shouldn't do, the overwhelming majority do it because they believe they will not get caught, so the consequences are completely inconsequential.
Harsh prison sentences do nothing to deter crime, as harsh social consequences do nothing to deter bad behavior. As long as the reasons and rational exists to commit a crime or behave poorly (not to mention human imperfection and tendency to err), it will continue to happen. And the longer our society continues with this tremendous sense of self-righteuosness and narcissistic indignation, the longer we will continue to have bad policies like our failed war on drugs and failed system of education, and continue to have failed political and social discourse on matters that are utterly inconsequential and meaningless.
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Monday, May 4, 2009
Fat People Having Kids
I think if our country was a sitcom, it could accurately be called, "Fat people having kids." Maybe they could get Kelly Clarkson to do the theme song (I bet she'd do it for a life time supply of KFC). Anyway, I don't mean to suggest that everyone is fat and irresponsible, but lets face it, a ass load of people are, and most of them fall into that category--fat, and having children. This may rub some people the wrong way, but the newest addition to this group are our freindly flu spreading neighbors to the south. Hispanics are having kids like I order cocktails on Fridays, and most of them aren't skinny.
So where am I going with this? Nowhere really, I mean just because someone is fat and/or has children doesn't mean they are a bad person, but it is a hell of a good start. First of all, fat people require a great deal more medical care than healthy people, because they are more likely to get sick, and more likely to have heart disease or develop cancer. Pregnant people and children also require a great deal of care...that's not good for the most expensive health care system in the world.
Second, being an obese, childblasting nation is symbolic, if not symtomatic of our problems. Fatness is lazyness, and having tons of kids is irresponsible, and that's exactly what we are as a nation: lazy and irresponsible. Not only that, we are gullible and paranoid. This whole swine flu pandemic reveals that--our media spends all this time talking about the swine flu, and people start freaking out about it, when hardly anyone has died, and there are many other dangers we are much more likely to die from, such as bad driving, which is rampant from what I can tell.
I guess I am just sick and tired of people being stupid and making horrible choices. We've got some real problems in this country...we've got to shut down the border, we've got to fix health care and education.
But moreover, we've got to stop being so goddamn lazy and settling for a life without challenges. Marrying a schmuck, sleeping all the time, eating poorly, and watching an ass load of television is no way to live our lives. We have fallen behind other nations, perhaps in part due to poor education or lack of opportunity, but mostly, because our country is lazy, fat, and perpetually pregnant with more mouths to feed and a growing population needing jobs, housing, education, and health care. My solution is to euthanize everyone over the age of 14 who has seen either Beverly Hills Chihuahua--if you have any solutions, let me know.
FYI: I had a ninny come right into my dugout while I was coaching the other day, and when she said I needed to calm down, I told her she needed to get out! Ninnies are the worst...
So where am I going with this? Nowhere really, I mean just because someone is fat and/or has children doesn't mean they are a bad person, but it is a hell of a good start. First of all, fat people require a great deal more medical care than healthy people, because they are more likely to get sick, and more likely to have heart disease or develop cancer. Pregnant people and children also require a great deal of care...that's not good for the most expensive health care system in the world.
Second, being an obese, childblasting nation is symbolic, if not symtomatic of our problems. Fatness is lazyness, and having tons of kids is irresponsible, and that's exactly what we are as a nation: lazy and irresponsible. Not only that, we are gullible and paranoid. This whole swine flu pandemic reveals that--our media spends all this time talking about the swine flu, and people start freaking out about it, when hardly anyone has died, and there are many other dangers we are much more likely to die from, such as bad driving, which is rampant from what I can tell.
I guess I am just sick and tired of people being stupid and making horrible choices. We've got some real problems in this country...we've got to shut down the border, we've got to fix health care and education.
But moreover, we've got to stop being so goddamn lazy and settling for a life without challenges. Marrying a schmuck, sleeping all the time, eating poorly, and watching an ass load of television is no way to live our lives. We have fallen behind other nations, perhaps in part due to poor education or lack of opportunity, but mostly, because our country is lazy, fat, and perpetually pregnant with more mouths to feed and a growing population needing jobs, housing, education, and health care. My solution is to euthanize everyone over the age of 14 who has seen either Beverly Hills Chihuahua--if you have any solutions, let me know.
FYI: I had a ninny come right into my dugout while I was coaching the other day, and when she said I needed to calm down, I told her she needed to get out! Ninnies are the worst...
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