I try to learn something new every day and lately, thanks to our friends
in the media and all those helpful folks who work at PACS and "think
tanks" today has been very informative indeed. Sitting a doctor's
waiting room, watching ABC this morning between 9:00 and 9:15, I learned
that Democratic candidate Patric Murphy, running for Congress against
Disgraced war criminal Allen West, was really the morally reprehensible
choice because he'd been arrested at age 19 for being drunk. Probably
unforgivable even 25 years afterward and much more so than West's being
forced to resign from the Army rather than face a Court Martial and a
probable 11 year prison sentence for torturing an innocent Iraqi. Abu
Ghraib? Never heard of it. Did you hear about Obama's apology tour?
But wait, there's more. The Democratic candidate has a secret plan to
eliminate Social Security (which he doesn't) and Allen West who has
campaigned long and hard to end it, is obviously the better choice --
but you say you want more for your money -- you say you're not satisfied
with the level of mendacity? Why, you can be certain says another half
panicked voice on the tube; you can be certain that if Murphy is
elected, then Iran will launch the nuclear weapons they don't have on
missiles they don't have and commit suicide by bombing the United
States. I guess a junior Representative has a lot more power than I thought!
Arriving home, there was a large flyer in the mail from the NRA insisting that "After four years of Obama, we have More Debt ( 87% of which is attributable to his predecessor) There is more Spending ( vide supra) and Higher Prices."
I did a little quick arithmetic and under Obama there seems to have
been a smaller increase than under the Commanderguy, but never mind,
this isn't about the numbers, it's about tactical dishonesty. It's
about the triumph of lies, the ascendancy of evil -- a Republican
campaign.
"There's only one thing we have less of," says the NRA "and that's FREEDOM."
You can look it all up at gunbanobama.com. That's right gun ban - the
one thing you can't honestly accuse Obama of doing and during his
administration, not only have there been no new gun laws, but gun laws
limiting where I can can carry a weapon have actually been loosened.
Yes, the pigs have slightly less freedom to use fake Bible quotes as a
suppository today. Less freedom to interfere in our marriages and
romantic attachments and private moments. Again, none of this is about
truth and again, half the country sucks up this sewage like a vulture
gulping down carrion.
Which brings me to my conclusion. For the 8 years of the Bush
misadventure, which brought us the longest and most expensive wars in
our history, the biggest increase in government borrowing and spending
in memory and the largest most extensive invasions of privacy (remember
when Bush told us we'd have to give up civil liberties, 'cause there's a war on?) During the Bush years of slashed taxes that gave us zero job growth and the biggest economic catastrophe since 1929 -- for all those years
I was told that I, as a Liberal, hated America, was unforgivably rude
for mentioning Bush's transgressions against the Constitution and
individual liberty -- and just laughably and liberally trying to bring down the robust economy with pessimistic predictions (which came true.)
Well Guess what, you lying Tea Whores, you lying revisionist Zombies,
you lying enemies of everything you pretend our country stands for -- at
this point I do. At least I hate half of it's brainless, undead
beasts. I hate the half that can't see any difference between pretty
good and bottomless evil. I hate the millions that decide not to vote
because Obama can't raise the dead or walk on water or undo 8 years of
sabotage in 6 days. I hate the ones who have been yelling that the
government can't create jobs and now are sobbing that the government
can't create jobs for them. I hate you smug, ignorant, Denialist
bigots; paranoid that 'the coloreds' are living off your money and too
many people are having sex against your wishes and that we aren't
letting them all die to decrease the surplus population and lower Mitt
Romney's already meager taxes. I hate you irredeemably stupid weasel
turds who insist that high taxes gave us economic collapse when they've
never been lower ( under both Bush and Obama) and while we've had our
most prosperous times under much higher tax burdens. History matters.
Numbers matter. Truth matters and while your dogmas never, never, ever
produce results, you still want to choke us to death with them. I hate
breathing the same air that carries the sound of your lies.
I hate the average moderate Americans -- like me -- who aren't
dragging these horrors out of their homes and dragging them through the
streets in tar and feathers, because as nasty as that might be, we'll
get accused of it anyway no matter what we do.
And it's our own God Damned fault.
Righteous rant, Captain. You perfectly express what I haven't the talent to write.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
I'd like to cross-post this at PE later today. It needs to be read by many more people.
Shout it from the rooftop - my throat is already sore.
ReplyDeleteCapt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteYes, you state well the worst thing here: it's that approximately half the country is so clueless that it can't tell the difference between a pathological glad-faced liar and a decent man who has actually done a pretty fair amount of decent things in four years, despite being surrounded by howling Zombie Arschlochs a hundred rows deep on all sides.
I'll say it again, or rather I'll let "Tommy C" (Carlyle) say it for me: "In the long run, every government is the exact symbol of its people." And if we elect "Mitt," our symbol will be a particularly odious used-ideas salesman. They just keep turning back the odometer on that trickle-down jalopy they've been peddling, and the rubes all think it's brand new. I guess that's because THEY'RE brand new -- they must wake up every blessed day not remembering a damn thing about what happened yesterday.
Anyhow, Nate Silver has the odds at around 73/27 in Barack Obama's favor, which I suppose isn't so bad. I'd rather be Obama than Romney right now for any number of reasons, but the horse-race odds here would have to be the most immediate reason. Even a stupid dinosaur like me knows that 72.9 / 27.1 is good odds in favor of the incumbent. So long as Obama can hang on to Ohio (which would have to be a collective five kinds of fool to support "let the auto industry go bankrupt first" Mitt), he should manage to get himself a narrow victory over the forces of zombie dissimulation and greed.
Looking at the septic tank of American politics, I remember why I decided not to major in psychology. Like any kind of madness, I'm not sure it can be understood and less sure that I want to try. A mind is a terrible thing to lose.
ReplyDeleteI keep confronting the zombies, asking for any evidence that their ideas actually work out anywhere but in poorly written political fantasy novels, and they manage to condescend without any attempt to supply examples of success or to 'refudiate' my facts and figures and examples that show them to be dishonest, deranged and doomed denialists.
Scorn and snark and snicker seem to be the only responses other than blind and mindless rage and I'm tempted to say that the only way to deal with such hopeless people is the way Mr. Babington and his pals were dispatched, castrated, disemboweled, quartered and their heads set on pikes.
If they can indulge in fantasy, why can't I?
Most excellent rant!
ReplyDeleteCapt. Fogg,
ReplyDeleteWell, I and all the dinosaurs I know are always already prepared for anything, be it a satisfying victory for the president or a Teapocalypse in which hired brownshirt thugs scare all the Democrats away from the polls and usher in the Night of the Living Teahoos. I say bring it on: I have teeth the size of railroad spikes, and a tail that can knock any 'bagger zombies I encounter half a football field's length.
I don't think anybody knows quite what to expect this coming Tuesday -- so many variables, including the abovementioned thugs, the voter-id based deliberate confusion sown, etc. Just all sorts of fraudulent bunkum to deal with. The bastards probably suspect they can't win squarely, and they've obviously no tedious scruples about stealing an election any more than they give a dump about bankrupting the country to enrich their miserable selves. I don't trust them any farther than a human can throw a boulder.
My boulder tossing days are long over, but I do have a crossbow -- something I'm told is effective against the walking brain-dead.
ReplyDeleteI think my candidate is looking noticeably presidential today and I'm reminding everyone of Childe Romney's statements about the "immorality" of using his tax money, such as it is, to fund FEMA and disaster relief. What a guy.
The cephalopod doesn't want 73/27 odds. He wants 99 to 1 odds; wants to mash them into mush and grind them into chicken powder; wants a tsunami of public condemnation; wants to discredit the lords of trickle down forever; wants to turn $hitt Rmoney, Mitch McConnell, Steven King, John Boehner, Alan West, Joe Walsh and the rest of the rabble into chum. Nothing less will do.
ReplyDeleteTurn the scum to chum - I like it, but I think the sharks will leave them alone out of professional courtesy.
DeleteOcto,
ReplyDeleteWell, how about 77/23 odds? Nate Silver drives a hard bargain, but he heard you and this morning he posted those numbers, upgraded from 73/27. I think 77/23 is pretty damn good, all things considered. I also think Romney has faltered -- he looks foolish with his bullshit "not-a-rally rally" gathering unneeded canned food for hurricane victims while the president does what presidents are supposed to do to organize the relief efforts in several states. And that idiotic lie about the auto company and China won't go over well at all in Ohio: once the Big Lie gets hit with the Big Sneer, the teller is in deep trouble. When's the last time a car company actually put out a press release all but calling a REPUBLICAN candidate a cork-soaking futher-mucking liar? I can recall no instance since the mid-Jurassic of that ever happening.
Saluti Dino,
ReplyDeleteIs there room for negotiation? The cephalopod wants them beaten so badly, he proposes new odds for getting even (considering the torment we have been forced to endure thru the years): 103 to minus 3. The only way to remove this pestilence is to eradicate them totally in an overwhelming landslide - then send them to the micro-organism bank marked: "Autoclave."
Octo, I agree
ReplyDeletethe dissolution
of the republican party
brought on by their
own scorched earth policies
caused suffocation
by foot in mouth disease
while bed ridden by hypocrisy
it should expire in ignoble death
hence consigned to briny depths
like parts of New Jersey
Octo, Nate wouldn't quite go for -3, but I lumbered into the NYT offices and snarled at him a few times and even made a few surprisingly angry-cat-like movements of my fifteen-foot-long tail, after which he agreed that 83.7 / 16.3 sounded highly reasonable. That's of this morning, and if he focuses on the railroad-spike-sized teeth the snarls revealed, the number could well go up over the weekend. I'm guessing that post-Sandy polling will place Obama in the 85-90% range heading into Tuesday.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I find worrisome is the evident attempt Republicans have made in several states to repress the vote -- if that goes far enough, what happens could make 2000 look like a stroll in paradise.
Dino,
ReplyDeleteThis is no joke - what the ReThugs are attempting in Florida. If you have an Obama bumper sticker on your car and you drive into the parking lot of the polling station, there is "spotter" outside who text messages an operative inside to challenge the Obama supporter's registration.
I had intended to vote via absentee ballot but changed my mind when I heard about this. My intention is to vote in person - with an Obama sticker emblazoned on my Octomobile - and make big (st)ink if any ReThug operative gets in my face.
I intend to vote well armed - of course!
Octo,
ReplyDeleteIndeed -- what we're dealing with is Nazi thugs. I wholeheartedly agree with your idea about voting in person. I vote "in dino" for that very reason, even though I live in Dem-friendly California.
Wish me luck. Your intrepid Octopus has an inky temper, and anyone who challenges my right to vote will get a face full ...
DeleteDoes the Swash Zone have a bail bondsman on hand just in case?
I voted today and no problems and no delays even though apparently turnout is very high. Poll workers were very polite and efficient.
ReplyDelete