Another diversion for my short attention span

I never really liked Jay Leno (I just don't find him funny). Someone sent me this essay attributed to Leno. My comments are interjected. Long story short: I guess he thinks responses to the "How do yo feel about the direction America is headed?" poll question simply reflect people's comfort level or the depth of their wallets. He seems to be oblivious to any matters of morality, to the stability of our constitutional government or to the problems that face the masses who are not rich as hell. Anyway...

> Jay Leno wrote this; it's the Jay Leno we don't often see....
>
> As most of you know I am not a President Bush fan, nor have I ever been, but
> this is not about Bush, it is about us, as Americans, and it seems to hit
> the mark.
>
> The other day I was reading Newsweek magazine and came across some Poll data
> I found rather hard to believe. It must be true given the source, right?
>
> The Newsweek poll alleges that 67 percent of Americans are unhappy with the
> direction the country is headed and 69 percent of the country is unhappy
> with the performance of the President. In essence 2/3 of the citizenry just
> ain't happy and want a change. So being the knuckle dragger I am, I started
> thinking, 'What are we so unhappy about?''
>
> A. Is it that we have electricity and running water 24 hours a day, 7 Days a
> week?
>
> B. Is our unhappiness the result of having air conditioning in the summer
> and heating in the winter?
>
> C. Could it be that 95.4 percent of these unhappy folks have a job?
>
> D. Maybe it is the ability to walk into a grocery store at any time and see
> more food in moments than Darfur has seen in the last year?
>
> E. Maybe it is the ability to drive our cars and trucks from the Pacific

> Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean without having to present identification papers
> as we move through each state?
>
> F. Or possibly the hundreds of clean and safe motels we would find along the
> way that can provide temporary shelter?
>
> G. I guess having thousands of restaurants with varying cuisine from around
> the world is just not good enough either.
>
> H. Or could it be that when we wreck our car, emergency workers show up and
> provide services to help all and even send a helicopter to take you to the
> hospital.
>
> I. Perhaps you are one of the 70 percent of Americans who own a home.
>
> J. You may be upset with knowing that in the unfortunate case of a fire, a
> group of trained firefighters will appear in moments and use top notch
> equipment to extinguish the flames, thus saving you, your family, and your
> belongings.
>
> K. Or if, while at home watching one of your many flat screen TVs, a burglar
> or prowler intrudes, an officer equipped with a gun and a bullet-proof vest
> will come to defend you and your family against attack or loss.
>
> L. This all in the backdrop of a neighborhood free of bombs or militias
> raping and pillaging the residents. Neighborhoods where 90% of teenagers own
> cell phones and computers.
>
> M. How about the complete religious, social and political freedoms we enjoy
> that are the envy of everyone in the world?

The three percent of Americans who have been to or are in prison (and particularly the 1/4 of those who were jailed for non-violent drug offenses) would disagree about the status of social freedoms. I personally feel like my religious freedom is under threat as do many of my fellow American atheists (Bans on abortion and suicide are explicitly Bible-based. The use of public finds for religious proselytization in the form of prison ministries and abstinence education are thefts of my tax money by religious politicians. Having "In God we Trust" on my money and "Under God" in my Pledge of Allegiance are personal religious affronts endorsed by my government.) "Complete social and religious freedom" only exist for Christians who don't drink or smoke or or use drugs or have only heterosexual sex in the missionary position. In other words it doesn't exist, and there are those who would like to eliminate any illusion that it does exist.

>
>
> Maybe that is what has 67% of you folks unhappy.
>
> Fact is, we are the largest group of ungrateful, spoiled brats the world has
> ever seen. No wonder the world loves the U.S., yet has a great disdain for
> its citizens. They see us for what we are. The most blessed people in the
> world who do nothing but complain about what we don't have, and what we hate
> about the country instead of thanking the good Lord we live here.

Maybe he's privy to some information I'm not, but I've always heard the opposite--that foreigners have a problem with the US and not the people (even al Queda states that their beef with us is that we pay taxes that support the US government's actions against their people.) I don't think he has any fucking idea how most Americans live. I'll agree that there are a lot of stupid ungrateful people out there who don't appreciate what they have. For example, all of the idiots commuting in oversized trucks and SUVs have no right to complain about the price of oil, nor do any of the politicians who have allowed the propagation of this stupid huge truck trend in the US. But, to have our government create an unnecessary war that sucked-up not just our tax dollars but probably those of our children and to "justify" it with a series of lies and twisted "facts", unjustly persecute the people of the nation we went to war with and to say he did it because God told him to degrades our nation by undermining our basic expectations of fairness, truth, government transparency, and not having an insane man piss away trillions of our tax dollars on lunacy. This is something to be angry about not despite the fact that you have food on the table and a roof over your head but because you have those luxuries. To live in relative luxury is reason to want to elevate others and all the more reason to be ashamed of what we have done to the Iraqis. To live in a society where ultimately we are responsible for the conduct of our government officials is all the more reason to be upset when those officials mismanage our nation and conduct its business in a manner contradictory to fundamental human values.

>
> I know, I know. What about the president who took us into war and has no
> plan to get us out? The president who has a measly 31 percent approval
> rating? Is this the same president who guided the nation in the dark days
> after 9/11?

By standing atop a pile of rubble that he failed to prevent despite repeated warnings that an attack was imminent (just what percentage of his time had he spent on vacation at that point? 27% as of 2003--100 days more in three years that Clinton had in seven.) and waving a flag? I didn't feel led. I felt insulted. I still do. He gave the military permission to draw-up plans and go to Afganistan as he should have, but he commanded them to stop short of capturing Bin Ladin and then sent them into Iraq because of some manufactured reasoning. The president and hence the US's response the attack has been a huge disaster militarily and morally. We've created more terrorists than there were to begin with and given them really good reasons for wanting to hate us and attack us. I should thank him?

The president that cut taxes to bring an economy out of
> recession?

Are we out of a recession? When the rich folks benefiting from the tax cuts start investing in new energy and transportation technologies and infrastructure, I'll consider considering the virtues of supply side economics. It only works if the rich are altruists, and people don't get rich by being altruists.

Could this be the same guy who has been called every name in the
> book for succeeding in keeping all the spoiled ungrateful brats safe from
> terrorist attacks?

Is there some reason to think that he is somehow personally responsible for us not being attacked? Is he that tight with the terrorists? Did he have the Saudis tell Bin Ladin to step off in exchange for not making a martyr out of him? I never felt threatened to begin with. Do I have him to thank for me still having a job? Would my car have broken down he he had not willed it to keep running? Maybe he's also responsible for the increases in teenage pregnancy and smoking that have occurred under his watch? The idea that he is responsible for us not being attacked is just stupid.

The commander in chief of an all-volunteer army that is
> out there defending you and me?

The commander in chief that sent our all-volunteer army into harm's way to avenge his daddy or protect Israel or control the Iraqi oil supply or whatever stupid reason it is that we went there? The Commander in chief who basically deserted or avoided real military service using his familial political ties in a time of war (I'd respect him more if he fled the country or deserted outright than I can for joining the National Guard and then not even showing-up? Regarding the Army, they aren't defending me. I'm sure they'd rather be but instead they're on a futile and wasteful mission at the cost of their lives and health and American tax dollars (but not the rich people's tax dollars because it's more important that they have money to invest).

>
> Did you hear how bad the President is on the news or talk show? Did this
> news affect you so much, make you so unhappy you couldn't take a look around
> for yourself and see all the good things and be glad? Think about
> it......are you upset at the President because he actually caused
> you personal pain OR is it because the 'Media' told you he was failing to
> kiss your sorry ungrateful behind every day.

I don't watch cable or network news. They don't provide real news anymore. The anti-reality movement has ruined ruined the media. This kind of nonsense is a case in point.

>
> Make no mistake about it. The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan have
> volunteered to serve, and in many cases may have
> died for your freedom.

No; the ones in Iraq died for the president's misguided war. The ones in Afganistan continue to die because we took the emphasis off of Afganistan and put it on Iraq.

There is currently no draft in this country. They
> didn't have to go. They are able to refuse to go and end up with either a
> ''general'' discharge, an 'other than honorable'' discharge or, worst case
> scenario, a ''dishonorable'' discharge after a few days in the brig.

Yeah, but an "other than honorable discharge" is like having a felony on your record.

>
> So why then the flat-out discontentment in the minds of 69 percent of
> Americans?
>
> Say what you want but I blame it on the media. If it bleeds it leads and
> they specialize in bad news. Everybody will watch a car crash with blood and
> guts. How many will watch kids selling lemonade at the corner? The media
> knows this and media outlets are for-profit corporations. They offer what
> sells, and when criticized, try to defend their actions by 'justifying' them
> in one way or another. Just ask why they tried to allow a murderer like OJ
> Simpson to write a book about how he didn't kill his wife, but if he did he
> would have done it this way......Insane!
>
> Turn off the TV, burn Newsweek, and use the New York Times for the bottom
> of your bird cage. Then start being grateful for all we have as country.
> There is exponentially more good than bad. We are among the most blessed
> people on Earth and should thank God several times a day, or at least be
> thankful and appreciative. With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of
> control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country
> from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist
> attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of
> Allegiance ?

I don't blame the media for making people discontented; I blame them for not informing the public with facts, but instead waving the flag and sounding the march to war, when they should have been asking "what's the reason for war and where is the evidence and why is ours the only government on earth who interprets the intelligence this way?" I blame them for unquestioningly endorsing administration claims because to do otherwise might be interpreted as unpatriotic and be bad for ratings. "With hurricanes, tornadoes, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks," and with serious environmental, energy, and economic problems facing the US and the world we shouldn't be pissing away our wealth on an ill-conceived war; we should be prosecuting the criminals responsible for it, and we should all feel a sense of guilt for our waste and our disastrous actions against the people of Iraq.

>
> Jay Leno
>

Diversions for my short attention span

So, I've been slack here lately, but I've been blathering on nonetheless. So, here are a couple links to my remarks on someone else's nonsense.

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=47385
I think I wrote about another page re. this, but decided to be "brief."

http://southernavenger.ccpblogs.com/2008/06/27/the-left-conservative-ralph-nader-white-guilt-and-black-nationalism/

I was blown away by this guy's rants on "white guilt," which I assumed to be some fiction he created, but then discovered the guy he was criticizing actually endorsed a sense of guilt among whites as a step towards interracial harmony (whoa). But after reading enough of this guys rants about liberals and his bad (i think) arguments, I realized he's a ahhhh not to be taken seriously.

The New Business-as-usual

When Bush I was running for president in 1988 one of the popular cries of the Republicans was that the People should elect a Republican president and a Republican Congress so that they could stop government gridlock and get business done. Of course the Republicans took Congress in 1994 during the Clinton administration, and blocked legislation and government business in a manner unseen in generations. As of 2008, because the Democratic majority of 2006 has been so slight and as to not be effective, the Republicans still keep a stranglehold on Congress and block any legislation for which the president has not requested a rubber stamp. When the Republicans held the majority they tried to ban filibusters, the last ditch minorities have to stop their oppression. Now that they’re in the minority again, the Republicans all for the filibuster. They’ve filibustered the Fair Pay Act. They filibustered legislation that would limit troop deployment cycles. They filibustered a bill that would reduce carbon emissions. As if they thought they would be the majority forever. Clearly they have no concern for any Americans but themselves.

Any notion that the inaction of the legislature on issues that matter to Americans is the fault of the Democrats seems a poorly based one. While I’d like to think it is partisanship that is the problem, the evidence in my eyes seems to point toward the Republicans, perhaps more specifically the new brand of Republicans who have a my-way-or-the-highway attitude about legislation. While I can appreciate the no-compromise-in-defense-of-whathaveyou approach to certain moral issues, that approach is not appropriate on most issues; it just seizes-up the engine of government. And, those who choose that path are decidedly un-American and un-democratic in my eyes. The new Republicans have pursued tyranny of the majority long considered an obstacle to good representative democracy, as if it was mandated by their elections--as if it was their right and their obligation to oppress those who disagree with them.

While the Republicans may have held a parliamentary majority, largely as a result of the election of many of these “new Republicans,” the new Republicans that made the parliamentary majority are actually representative of minorities (fundamentalist Xians being the major one). Christian grass roots organizations began taking over the Republican party in the 70s. They infiltrated local and state parties and displaced the old, moderate Republicans who thought of themselves as American first and Republicans second. Using anti-abortion, anti-gay, and anti-secular sentiments (it’s much easier to rally people against something than it is to rally them for something) this minority within the Republican party stirred evangelical Xians to go to the polls and vote for whomever towed the party line. Thus the Republican majority was established and the original Republican party was subverted, destroyed and replaced with a new party with an extremist agenda. They sought to replace our secular government with a religious one, and that was just the beginning. Luckily, once they got power, they failed to do much aside from rubber-stamp Dubya’s awful policies. It has seemed to me that they were just using their Xian agenda as a tool to mobilize voters in support of other hidden agendas such as free-market capitalism (economic libertarianism). Like Dubya's "Some people call you the elites; I call you my base" joke at an $800/plate charity dinner suggests, he sees himself as representing the economic elites despite his culture-based appeals to those at the other end of the economic spectrum. Surely, we'll find out who he's really fighting for about the same time as we find out why we really invaded Iraq. In the mean time, I hope those who supported Bush and the new Republicans take a closer look at who they're voting for and why.

Under the guise of freedom of religion, the new Republicans have infiltrated the government with Christian extremists and threatened to implement Christian law. They have derided populism abroad while employing it at home to build voter support for policies that actually go against the common man's own interests. They have stalled or subverted the government when it went against their values and tried to take away the ability of others to do the same. Everyone looks for reasoning that supports their opinions, but the incredible hypocrisy of the new Republicans and their failure to face up to it is unfathomable.

For Void's Sake

So, I've been practicing my Babylonian math lately. They used a base-60 (sexagesimal) system with an imbedded "10s" digit. So, for example, you count using tallies from 1 to 9 and when you get to 10 you add a different symbol representing 10. You count this way up to 60, then you start tallying sixties and tens of sixties (as opposed to ones) in the same manner till you get to sixties of sixties and so on. Its use of place value notation was a major innovation--one which we employ today with the decimal system. Mesopotamians were using this system ~2000 BC for geometry, measurement of astronomical distances, and of course in economics and trade. The Babylonians knew the Earth revolves around the Sun, they knew the Earth was round and they knew that math and science were the key to unlocking the mysteries of the world. Although their innovations were lost and had to be reinvented, few societies failed to grasp the importance of studying the physical world. Christianity (as an institution rather than a people or a philosophy) was the major exception. Certainly Christians didn't invent intolerance; the Old Testament practically prescribed intolerance as a means of preserving the tribe. But, Christianity innovated suppression of thought. Perhaps also associated with an increasingly barbarous and feudal society and with economic stratification, the control of information by the church (which was one with the government from the rise of the Roman Empire until the founding of the United States) kept the populace ignorant, fearful and subservient. The church/government managed to keep the population largely illiterate by monopolizing education, thereby avoiding the problem of free thought and maintaining cultural hegemony--hence the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages—over a thousand years of suppression of thought by those who feared what people would think if allowed to think for themselves. Why? So, the powerful could stay powerful and keep the masses at their heels.

Why am I writing about this? This is exactly what we have to look forward to if we continue to allow demagogues dominate the mass media (particularly what used to be news) and fail to reject their misinformation and thought control. Need we subject ourselves to this? Must the U.S. stagger intoxicatedly away from the Renaissance into a new Dark Age just as Europe and circa-Mediterranean societies did after the brilliant Preclassical period? I hate to compare Glen Beck or Bill O'Reilly to a pope or a king, but their effect is the same--or it may be more correct to say the effect of institutions empowering them are the same. The so-called news media obfuscate the truth and replace it with fear of an ever-present and unseen enemy. They bury the facts in emotions and charge that questioning this unseen enemy is tantamount to alliance with it. If we are to avoid a new Dark Age, infotainment must be stopped. Apparently people are all too ready to stop thinking. They don't need the help of the news which is supposed to inform and empower them. We can move forward from the Modern Era, we don’t need to digress.

Health Care Commies

Third cup of coffee is kicking in, and I gotta run soon. This'll havta be short (in more ways than one).

Health care. Everyone has heard the talk about how we need universal health care (or not) and how the politicians are gonna give it to us by subsidizing our insurance payments. How many have stopped and said, "my ass your gonna make some rich extortionist richer with my goddam tax dollars!"? Has it not occurred to these politicians that the profits skimmed by insurance companies and salaries for all the people who are needed to file claims and shuffle paperwork are the reason healthcare costs so damn much? Of course it has. What's more, the insurance companies' lobbyists are well acquainted with the legislators who are going to make it law to redirect your tax money strait into the pockets of insurance salesmen. Health insurance companies make tens of billions of dollars per year; they can afford to invest in lobbying for insurance subsidization. But, wouldn't it be more expedient and less costly for the tax payers, if they want universal health care, to just pay strait into a public pool of cash for healthcare and draw on it as needed, rather than give it to someone who's gonna skim a profit and then make it as hard as possible for you to get your money back? Why aren't the politicians talking about this? For starters, they need the insurance lobby's campaign donations. And, in the end, they need the insurance lobby's campaign donations. In the middle somewhere there is the matter of destroying an industry worth billions of dollars and replacing it with a state institution, which is kinda the definition of communism (although altruistic common sense says "so what?"). There is alot of ideological baggage associated with such a move--much moreso than there was when Soc. Sec. was created pre WWII). I say the health insurance companies are extortionists and, in a moral sense at least, racketeers. Basically they are bookies. You pay them, betting in essence that you will become ill at some point, and they make a counter bet that you will remain healthy. They back up their bet with their capital resources that you don't have; if you did, you wouldn't need health insurance. Thing is, it's just like Vegas. They know the odds [statistics] all too well, so their winning is guaranteed. As if that's not enough, a lot of these crooks like to make it as hard as possible for you to collect on your bet when you win. Meanwhile, you have no choice but to make the bet, because if you don't you're making the wildcard bet that you'll remain healthy right up until your sudden death. HSAs and all that crap are just other ways for third parties to get their hands on your money.

If the whole country had the equivalent of their medical insurance payment taken out of their paychecks (along with the employer's contribution which is an issue unto itself) and that money was put in a centralized account from which folks would draw when they needed medical care (think "non-profit health insurance company"), within a few years there would be ample billions extra (formerly known as "profits") which could be used for investment in health technologies that with promising returns and/or individual payment reductions. Of course, there's always gonna be a crook who gets in a tries to work the system for his/her personal gain, but we'll just have to take him out in the street and beat him/her to death. Works for me. At least then we'll be calling a crook a crook instead of an "insurance salesman."

The Path Forward

So, I was milling about the internet over my morning coffee looking for some info about the rise of the US Gov't propaganda campaigns. It's (propaganda that is) been integral to the United States as a people and a nation since the country's inception. Recall "Don't tread on me," T.P.'s "Common Sense," slogans like "taxation without representation." Also, the importance B. Franklin's connection if not control of the printed word in the colonies should not be overlooked. Certainly the success of the revolution would have been less certain without effective propaganda. It was after the rise of the Soviet Union that the US Gov't acknowledged the supremacy of and vowed to emulate and out-do the Soviet propaganda machine. It was that decision and successive efforts that put the infrastructure in place for the current taxpayer-funded pro-war journalism that is now being investigated by the few patriots of the Constitution in Congress.

Anyway, that's what I was looking for when I thought to articulate why we need to prosecute the current executive leadership to avoid in the future the kind of malevolent and destructive behavior and policies the current executive has enacted and the current congress has allowed. What's the connection? Well, part of fixing something is dismantling it and throwing out the bad parts. That's what we need to do to with both the Executive branch and the covert branches of our government that work to overthrow foreign governments and undermine the sovereignty of the American people.

To get the whole propaganda thing out of the way, let me just say that propaganda can be good. For example, for the purpose of informing people of some cause for action and the necessary action they should take. The old duck-and-cover, as if that's gonna protect you from fallout, might be such an example. Anti-smoking TV ads like that of truth.org are good examples of positive propaganda campaigns. However, when the purpose is to build paranoia, fear of a fictitious enemy, misinform or otherwise diminish the capacity of the people to make informed, rational decisions, then the propaganda undermines democracy and is the definition of anti-American. No surprise Team W is such a big user of propaganda. The programs that our government is using to subvert our own democracy through misinformation must be rooted out and exposed so that the people are fully aware of how malevolent politicians will misguide them with their own government if allowed. Not that it'll make any difference next time, but it is needed to create new faith in the government now.

The second matter goes to the same end but on a larger scale. It is necessary to prosecute the Bush and gang for their misdeeds to absolve the rest of us for our failure to stop them. This is critical to set a precedent for what happens to leaders who so dramatically overstep the bounds of their office--lying to the press and the public, presenting false arguments for going to war, taking our country to war on false pretenses, killing possibly a million or more foreign nationals on their own soil during an illegal invasion and occupation, amazingly blatant nepotism in the form of no-bid contracts for the Vice President's former Company, pissing away billions of the people's dollars in a fantastically misguided boondoggle designed to profit the president and his cronies. It is also necessary as a means to salvage the image of the US in the world. As much as I believe that we're piling misdeeds upon misdeeds by staying in Iraq, that we are perpetuating a criminal war and that we could and should be spending all those billions of dollars much more wisely, I can't help but feel we have an obligation to the people of Iraq to protect them from the chaos that has besieged their nation (I mean, aside from that for which we're directly responsible). All one foreign national I've asked has assured me the US is under no such obligation, and I find it pretty easy to believe we're doing more harm than good (just look at what the Bushies have done domestically--just imagine if they could get away with murder here), so maybe we should just leave the Iraqi's to deal with the mess we made and stop trying to fix our mess with more of the same. So, we leave. But, in order to (re)establish our position in the world as a nation that is not evil, it’s necessary to demonstrate to the world and also to ourselves that the US does not stand for the kind of international crime that we as a nation have perpetrated against Iraq in the last five years and that we are not so stupid as to believe the lies on lies on lies that the Bushies have showered on us as explanations for US foreign policy. If we fail to at least try those in the Executive Branch and even Congress who dragged us into Iraq on a stack on false evidence then we admit no wrongdoing. If we are to admit no wrongdoing, we as a nation share the guilt of arrogance, contempt for human life and justice; we share the guilt for perpetrating an illegal war against a sovereign nation under false pretenses. Some might think such matters of justice are trivial, but I say, if we don’t have and use the authority to dispense justice in our own land, then we better keep out of Somalia (As if! They don’t have any oil.) or any future Iraq, Kuwait, Yugoslavia or Germany. Justice is not just for the weak. And, we must prove our justice is worthy here at home before it is exported.

It is absolutely critical that we dispense justice to ourselves. This is necessary for the purposes of setting a standard for accountability for our elected leaders/ representatives, absolving the American people of the criminal actions taken by few and supported by no more than half, demonstrating a standard for moral authority in a democratic nation that’s worthy of emulation, and last but not least: disarming those who would use our latest misdeeds as fuel for their hatred of the US. Actually, this is what I thought we should have done after 911. Of course we should have gone into Afghanistan and demonstrated our will and ability to retaliate for the attacks, but the most expedient way to deal with the terrorists, based on why they claimed to be attacking the US, would have been to say, “You’re right. Our bad. We’ll try to avoid doing undermining Middle Eastern governments and replacing their chosen leaders with West-friendly dictators in the future.” Tough on us, we’d have to admit we’re not always right, admit that we do have a program for subverting governments that don’t do what we want, and maybe even mean it when we say we’ll stop overthrowing the governments of other sovereign nations (well, except Venezuela, maybe).

Think of all the billions...or is it a Trillion…that have been squandered on securing our oil supply, when we could have spent that money (perhaps less) creating a whole new energy and transportation infrastructure. Instead, we blew it running a global war on an idea—an idea that may have some pretty good justification. Instead, we’ve done nothing but illustrate just how justified their actions were, and the growth of Al-Queda since 2003 is the obvious result.

Anyway, that’s why I think we need to prosecute the fuckheads in Washington who’ve been running amok these last seven years. The tie to domestic propaganda is double. The use of domestic propaganda—and this was biased misinformation, not positive in any way (except to Halliburton and Blackwater)—was a crucial piece of the Executive’s program to mislead the US into an illegal war. And, the continuation of domestic propaganda is a moral and legal parallel to the failure to prosecute the culprits responsible for the Iraq fiasco.

Granted, as optimistic as my idealism leads me to be, my pessimistic/ realistic side tells me that we won’t leave Iraq. We’ll be there for another hundred years. Bush and Cheney will never see justice. They’ll continue to profit directly and indirectly from their actions in the White House, and their cronies will have the money and the political machinery to continue to misguide our country right down the tubes for generations to come.

Hope, fear, change, hate, redemption, self-loathing and other vote-getters

“All forms of dedication, devotion, and self surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives”.
—Eric Hoffer, TheTrue Believer

Politicians almost universally find themselves in the role of trying to form or ride on the wave of mass movements. This is necessary because fervent political support is key to their success, and in order to generate this support they must form a message or an idea that people can cling to. More importantly, this message must promise to fulfill some need for change—better for the politician and movement that this change be in an imagined reality than in the subject’s reality. This is true, because if the promised change can actually be fulfilled the mass movement ends. It is better to make wild, abstract and idealistic promises than suggestions about how real living conditions might be improved.

Initially this really turned me off from Obama, since he and Hilrod both harped on the “Change” bandwagon. Ya’ll get this? They tested buzzwords in focus groups and found people responded positively when the word change was used. Then they used “change” as much as possible, building massive support while more qualified candidates fell to the wayside. Only Edwards, whose one-note song, “oppression of the working-class” was equally disappointing, had significant support within the Democratic party. But, now Obama stands-out in sharp contrast to McCain and Hilrod as the one guy with a nuanced an objective understanding of the issues facing our nation. Regardless of how much he chants “change” and “hope,” he addresses each new attack on him as well as the real issues of the day with a depth of thought that suggests he thinks Americans are more than a bunch of idiots.

The other two candidates provide no objective solutions to any problems—only short-sighted, vote-getting, non-starter policy ideas, and more importantly prey on fear, derision, distraction and anything that will fool someone who wants to be fooled.

I think the following quote says a lot about the anti-elitist phenomenon that is responsible for our current douche-bag president and that Hilrod has recently decided to use against Obama. By inverse, it suggests Obama’s confidence indicates he is not particularly vulnerable to the draw of mass movements. How refreshing it is that he has chosen thus far to not prey on the fears and self-doubts of voters.

“The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.”
—Eric Hoffer, TheTrue Believer