Tales of the Bizarro World

Remember Bizarro World, where everything is its opposite?  As Superman said, "If I win this crazy game, these Super-Creatures will say I lose"  Hit the ball over the fence and they'll call you out.

Somehow this has been the tactic behind Republican campaigns since that great Victim, elder statesman and non-crook Richard Nixon was forced to resign rather than be convicted of burglary and obstruction. Everything is its opposite, the loonies run the asylum. Democrats want to oppress women by allowing them to use birth control, or get innoculated against HPV and by not forcing them to give birth to two-headed, hydrocephalic offspring of rapists. Democrats (according to radio ads for Allen West) want to take away our Social Security, while the Army Colonel who had to resign rather than face 11 years in Leavenworth for war crimes is a "war hero."

Of course it's not just Republicans, it's the Christian Right some of whom insist that "you can't be a Christian if you don't own a gun"  Just like Jesus would if Jesus were his own opposite.

Dr. Gary Cass, with heavy-hitter credentials in the Republican Party and the Bizarro World of forcing militant, heavily armed Christianity upon America and the World -- Dr. Gary who now heads the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission,  perhaps another exercise in contradictory rhetorical gymnastics, insists that Christians need guns because those Satanic, non-cult members want to kill babies and allow people to marry in contradiction of Dr. Gary Cass's 'moral' compass.  Bizarre enough for ya?  Is he saying that these "Christians" need to kill doctors and blow up women's health clinics in the name of morality?  Sounds like it to me, but then it could mean the opposite, couldn't it?

Could it be that the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is the Bizarro way of being the Defamation-of-everyone-else-Commission?  Certainly, or of course not, depending on whether you're a Bizarre Super Creature or a rational human being. If you are a Bizarro creature, you see, Victims are victimizing the persecutors and the ancient institution that's been persecuting others for millennia, is the Victim here:  the victim of the victims and if you shoot someone for not obeying you, why you're the victim. Just like Jesus.

When arguing with the Right, you can't win because they'll declare you the loser, just Like Superman said -- so should I declare that you can't be a Liberal, or even that you can't be moral if you don't own a gun?  Sounds Bizarro right to me -- make mine a Kalshnikov.

Who needs Satan when we have the GOP

Disgusting, isn't it?  So much so that I'll just let it speak for itself lest I lapse into disgusting vulgarity myself.  Suffice it to say that no one who would perpetrate this can be said to have any regard for the United States or truth of common decency.  Yes, the Romney campaign continues to explore new depths of mendacity, or at least those entities paying for the campaign do.  Yet we who find the man and his backers to be traitorous villains out to destroy our society for profit continue to be polite lest they insult us or make us cry.

Obama bowing to the Saudis? Perhaps they've forgotten this:

 

Or this:

Yes, That's Rumsfeld sucking up to Saddam and yes, giving him a lot of money and weapons.


So do you remember Bush's massive bailout plan where we were not to know how much went to whom?  Do you remember the largest increase in debt and the most expensive war and 8 years of zero job growth and the record breaking in the size of Federal Government.  Do you remember George W. Bush?

So are you stupid? Are you going to let them continue? Are you a damn liar or an irredeemable and deluded idiot? Or is it just to much fun to bash Obama and giggle like a Klansman at a lynching?  Do you really think a President sets international fuel prices or that the dip during the depth of the Recession perhaps had something to do with supply and demand.  You do know how Capitalism works, don't you, because it's a free market for petroleum out there. 

Are you going to listen to McCain tell the Marines to go on one last mission and vote for Romney and are you going to remember how that Gibbering jackass told us hours before the Collapse in 2008 that the economy was "robust" and blamed the rumors on "liberals" just as he blamed the high gas prices on -- you guessed it -- Barack Obama who wasn't yet elected.

No, I do not have the words to describe my contempt for any Republican, whether complicit in this sleaziest in history campaign or just stupid and bigoted enough to buy the lies. A vote for Romney is a vote to abandon America to Feudalism and Fascism and villainy.

A small addendum...

Speaking as a veteran with two tours of the Middle East, I think I should mention just one small point to our friends on the right wing.

The Only Thing Left Is the Voting

It's over; the only thing left to do is vote. Last night, Governor Romney and President Obama engaged in their final debate.

The general tide supports that Obama edged out Romney by a small margin. My favorite guru, Nate Silver over at the 538 Blog says that the debate is unlikely to provide Obama with a large bump but that a small bump will still be significant. I can't read the rest of the article because the blog is on the New York Times site and I've used up my 10 free articles for this month. If I want to read more articles, I have to be a paid subscriber or just wait to November for my next 10 free reads.

The debates were about as substantive as the "reality" shows that abound on the major networks. The moderators fail to ask substantive questions about matters such as climate change, the impact of the European economy on America, alternatives to fossil fuels and so on and so forth, and the candidates don't care if they answer the questions that are asked, only that they make points that their supporters will applaud.

The public plays a major role in this pretense of doing something meaningful. Far too many people have the attention span of a toddler and only wake up and focus when there is a zinger offered by one of the participants. The media actually writes reviews of the debates analyzing who gave the best zingers of the night. The President appears to have won the zinger contest in last night's debate with his reminder to Romney that the modern Navy is not just a bunch of ships but consists of aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. Of course the memorable part of the chastisement was, "Governor,...we also have fewer horses and bayonets..."

The Huffington Post thinks that the President's zingers were "sharp but snarky." (Hunter Stuart and Oliver Noble) Various critics declared the President the loser of the first debate, chastising him for not offering any zingers. The talking heads on Good Morning America offered that the attack mode of the President in the last two debates may have upset women voters. Didn't bother me, but then I've watched Liam Neeson kick butt in Taken three times.

It would be nice if candidates could have real debates where they talked about the issues. Imagine scoring points with viewers by actually saying something substantive that required you to listen and follow the intricacies of the discussion. Everyone glued to the screen and not a single soul texting or playing Words with Friends on their electronic gadget of the moment.

I also hope for world peace. I'm a patron of impossible causes.

I support President Obama. I believe that he does think about matters of substance but realized that his initial efforts to engage in civil and substantive discourse wasn't playing well with Mr. and Ms. Average American. I enjoyed his zingers, but that's not why I am voting for him.

I'm casting my vote for Obama because I believe that this country needs a leader who thinks about what matters. A leader who is focused on our interaction with the rest of the world, who understands that foreign policy is not about threats and waving a big stick. I want a leader who believes that we are all in this together and supports domestic policies that address  wealth distribution. You see, I don't believe that poverty is inevitable, that people are homeless because they are too lazy to do better, or that any child should go to bed hungry. I also believe that we can do better as a country, that we can work to build a society based on equity and fairness for all. I'm voting for Obama because in spite of the absence of any discussion of environmental issues in the debates, the President has demonstrated in practice and policies that environmental protection issues are high on his agenda.

Maybe next election cycle, we'll hear candidates engage in substantive discussions of the issues that should concern us all and maybe Denzel Washington will call me to chat. I work at being an optimist.

Let it be a sign unto you. . .

Living right on the Atlantic coast in Florida, I often see and hear blimps cruising the shoreline at low altitude.  It was a a beautiful day yesterday and I spent the balmy afternoon reading and listening to music on my boat and perhaps I would have seen the Romney Blimp ( technically a hot air dirigible) had it made the trip up the coast from Miami, just over a hundred miles south of here.

It didn't, because as WPLG TV reports, it was forced down by high winds, crashed and went limp in a field near Davie, FL.  In other words the winds of  reality outweighed the artificially created hot air holding it aloft.

There's something amusingly Ozymandian about the smiling image of Willard Mitt Romney looking out from the wreckage of a collapsed airship; something so appealingly metaphorical and  prophetic.  Please, God -- let it be a sign.

Romney, Iran, and Nukes

A Survivor of Hiroshima

Note: Only two nuclear weapons have been used in the course of warfare, both by the United States near the end of World War II. These two bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 Japanese people—mostly civilians—from acute injuries sustained from the explosions. (Radiations Effects Research Foundation)

Foreign policy is the focus of the last presidential debate prior to election day. No doubt, one of the topics will be Iran's nuclear program. 

The Iranian government declares that its nuclear program is for peaceful, energy producing purposes. However, in spite of Tehran's protestations that the goals of its nuclear program is to provide fuel for medical reactors and a non-oil based energy source, the U.S., Europe, and Israel are skeptical and believe that the goal is to create nuclear weapons. 

A recent New York Times headline proclaimed that the White House has been in secret negotiations with Iran resulting in an agreement between the U.S. and Iran to engage in one-on-one negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. (NYT, 10/20/12) Before we all get excited that reason has prevailed, both the White House and Tehran are denying that any such agreement has been reached. (The Telegraph-UK, 10/21/12) The White House does assert that it is open to such negotiations. 

In the meantime, the Israelis continue to advocate that the U.S. set "clear red lines" on Iran's nuclear program that if crossed would trigger military action by the U.S. against Iran. (NYT, 9/11/12) Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has publicly criticized what he considers to be President Obama's soft policy towards Iran, and avers that if the U.S. won't draw a line in the sand regarding Iran's nuclear program that the U.S. "...has no 'moral right' to restrain Israel from taking military action of its own." (NYT, 9/11/12)

Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has made it clear that he feels that the President should stop Iran in its pursuit of nuclear weapons and specifically rejects the notion of using diplomatic channels to address this issue. Already, Republicans are rejecting the notion of any negotiations with Iran, asserting that even if Iran makes an offer to parlay, it is only a ploy to distract from its real goal of making a nuclear bomb. South Carolina's Senator Lindsey Graham (R), a Romney ally, offered his views on Sunday, "The time for talking is over,...we should be demanding transparency and access to the (Iranian) nuclear program." (USA Today, 10/21/12) 

What is this red line that we need to draw? No one has made that perfectly clear. The Israeli government has indicated that it wants the U.S, to set a limit on the amount of enriched uranium (essential bomb making material) Iran may stockpile and enforce Iran's adherence to the limit with the threat of military force for a transgression. The Obama administration has rejected placing military action by the U.S. on the table as a possibility. Apparently, Romney doesn't share the President's views, as he has declared Obama to be soft on Iran and lacking in commitment to our ally, Israel.

The one question that I want Mr. Romney to answer tonight is what is his recommended course of action in dealing with Iran's nuclear program. I want specifics. Does he favor the red line spoken of by Netanyahu? If so, what will that line consist of? If elected, is Romney willing to take us into another war? Will he use military action if Iran crosses that red line? 

I admit that I don't need an answer; I think Romney has already made it perfectly clear that his image is of America the macho, the world enforcer. I just want to hear him say it and just maybe more of my fellow Americans will hear his words and reject an ideology predicated on the belief that might makes right.

Mitt Romney as commander-in-chief is a very scary proposition. It's like putting a ten-year-old behind the wheel of a race car. There was a folk song popular in the 1960s that had the line: When will we ever learn? It became an anthem for the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s. Unfortunately, we appear to be a nation of slow-learners.

Tagg, you're it

So, now even the Romney kids are allowed to weigh in on the race? How do these dicks even get a public forum?

See, Tagg Romney... OK, first off, what the hell is up with these rich kids' names? Tagg, Piper, Trig: it used to be that you could expect the stupid names to come from ex-hippies - River, Leaf, Phoenix. But it's all coming from the right this time around.

But regardless of that, Tagg went on some second-rate North Carolina radio show, and when he got asked how he felt about President Obama calling his dad a liar, he coughed up the following hairball.

"Jump out of your seat and you want to rush down to the stage and take a swing at him. But you know you can't do that because, well, first because there's a lot of Secret Service between you and him, but also because that's the nature of the process."

Now, let's get this out of the way right off the bat. Tagg, you really don't have much call to get all cranky anyway. It was only a couple of weeks before the second debate that Daddy (who's admittedly, a dishonest bag of douche himself) said that he raised a big old bunch of liars - that would be you, right?

"I've got 5 boys. I'm used to people saying the same thing over and over again hoping it becomes true."

So, unless you beat Daddy up while no cameras were around, you don't get to be all up in arms about this. But there's something even more important that you aren't taking into account.

Tagg, you're the privileged son of a known bully. You probably aren't used to walking around without a group of sniveling syncophants trailing along behind you, willing to do whatever they had to in order to keep you happy, from beating up other kids to backrooom blowjobs.

So it's possible that you aren't even aware how big a puss you are. You're a pampered, self-indulgent rich kid. Hell, you couldn't take Barack. You couldn't even take Michelle: she's got better arms than you do.

I'll go one step further. Sasha and Malia would put a fist right in your crotch and you'd drop like a rock, and probably wet yourself. It wouldn't take the Secret Service; Bo, the First Dog, wouldn't have a hard time making you run.

These aren't people scared that your dad is going to fire them. I know their skin might be a little darker than yours, but they aren't the help. Any one of them could kick your ass.

It really wouldn't take much.

2012, the end of an era

I've been a Newsweek reader and subscriber for more than a half century and of course I haven't always been appreciative of all their regular columnists.  I haven't ever in fact, but none the less, people like George Will or the current counterpoise to rational thinking, Niall Furguson, haven't made me cancel my subscription  as I've threatened to do on occasion. But you can't fight progress and you can't fight the kind of decay progress leaves in its wake and the magazine that once published some of the best political writing and news reporting in America has been fighting a losing battle. Advertising revenue is drying up in the slow economy and advertisers may feel they get a bigger bang and a bigger audience elsewhere.

 The venerable publication was sold last year and combined with The Daily Beast.  Controversial editor in chief Tina Brown, known for saving The New Yorker a few years back hasn't been able to save Newsweek or stem the flight of advertising revenue -- or as I might speculate, stem the rising illiteracy and unwillingness to read objective journalism and I read this morning that as of the end of this year, Newsweek will cease to put out a print edition. Alas.

I had been meaning to write this week about the noticeable trend toward being 'fair and balanced' in Newsweek and indeed almost every other slowly sinking print publication by including a measure of snarky, sulfurous vituperation  to balance out any accurate reportage or fact based opinion that will irritate the delusional Right, as if  there actually were two sides to arithmetic or an alternate and opposite  history despite the accuracy of the record.  I was going to chastise Ms. Brown for the October 15th cover story "Heaven is Real" pandering, once again, to irrational beliefs, but at least for Newsweek, the Mayans were correct.  It's the end of an era.

It may be more of a dignified end however, than being bought up by Darth Murdoch or some corporation controlled by the Koch brothers or Karl Rove.  They plan to continue on the Web and I plan to read them but I can't say I don't have a feeling of loss or a suspicion that the future of Journalism is not the improvement of journalism but more like a large, dark cave full of screaming voices.

More of the same

Over 65% of respondents to the CNN poll so far this morning ( 10:15 EDT) say Obama "won" the "debate."  Of course it wasn't really a debate and nobody really wins because supporters always think their candidate did better whether he was lying or not.  I think Romney came off better than he should have, but then that's what a con man does.  A good flim-flam man makes the marks forget what he said or did ten minutes ago by sheer force of personality.  The truth just isn't as sexy and it's almost always harder to understand even for those few who try and I think Romney did as well as he could have in reassuring his minions that our current condition had nothing to do with the long standing Republican policies that caused it.  Did he do as well with his claims that his vague and not so honestly described "policies" would quickly restore the peace and prosperity of the Clinton era?  It remains to be seen.

Did Obama really stress adequately that Democratic policies, equally trashed by Republicans gave us unprecedented prosperity and near full employment or that virtually all our debt was acquired by Republican administrations preaching the same 'debt doesn't matter' idea and that  'slashing the upper brackets produces prosperity?'   No, but if the viewer doesn't see it already, he's not going to and the public is more dishonest with itself than Romney could ever be with us.

The fact check people of course, are suggesting that the fierceness of Mitt's assertions seem to correspond to their inaccuracy and mendacity, but again; fact checkers are to the cult members as liberally biased as is math itself and it won't change minds well trained to reject information from outside sources.  Perhaps Mitt's little tantrums about being able to talk over his opponent, or his foot stamping, infantile and dishonest demonstration about "government land" gives us a peek into his private self or at least a whiff of sulfur, but perceptive, informed and analytical people aren't really Mitt supporters in the first place.  Folders full of facts ( and the fact is that oil and gas production are way, way up despite the sluggish economy) can't outweigh the slick haircut, the the silver tongue and the polished art of the con.

So I'm not going to say who I thought 'won' this thing because I don't know.  I can hope that a sufficient number will be disgusted enough to go to the polls and vote. A large turnout usually favors the Democrats.

I OWE MY SOUL TO THE COMPANY STORE

I was greatly disturbed by the 2010 SCOTUS ruling that favored Citizens United and the abomination which is known as, among other things, corporate personhood.

The landmark case opened the floodgates of cash expenditures to influence political races, appointments and government policies. Some will argue this has been going on for years under the guise of lobbyism and other shadowy strategies.  And I would agree, influence buying is nothing new.

What has changed is the number of avenues into which this kind of corporate power grabbing can be channeled and the amount of funds that can be invested.  I was waiting for this first national election to see just how pervasive the ad campaigns would be.

Are you as sick of them as I am yet???

One big problem with these so called super pacs and social welfare organizations is their ability to legally hide their donor list and donation amounts.  We know Americans For Prosperity is a functional arm for the Koch brothers and that American Crossroads is a vehicle for the GOP run by Karl Rove, but what of all the others out there? Shells within shells within shells…The megacrooks have lots of places to hide.

This level of corporate involvement harkens back to the days when the robber barons were kings of the hill and middle America was locked into a vicious cycle of hard work and endless debt to the company store. No need to worry about what was going out in wages, most of it was coming right back in. How far are we from the 21^st century equivalent?

There is a bill on Capitol Hill, HR 4010 and S3369, also known as the Disclosure 2012 Act which calls for more robust transparency in donor lists, organizational framework and monetary amounts.

This bill is being strongly opposed by, surprise, surprise, Sen Mitch McConnell and his GOP minions. The list of organizations who oppose this bill includes the US Chamber of Commerce and just about every mega agriculture/industrial organization out there. American jobs may have been exported overseas but not the corporate slimeballs running the show. They are here, on US soil, pretending to be patriots who love their country, all the while gutting it from the inside out.

It will surprise no one that the list of those in the Senate and House who have received campaign funds from these groups is largely Republican but there are a couple of nasty revelations of those Democrats who have also received funds from these groups:

Harry Reid - $859,121 (reported)

Charles Schumer - $678,850 (reported)

As well as several House Dems.

To allow this decision to stand without oversight and some sort of controls is to put democracy on the chopping block. We need real Americans to come together in a genuine grassroots movement and demand this bill is passed before we are sucked back in time:

 

You load sixteen tons, what do you get

Another day older and deeper in debt

Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go

 I owe my soul to the company store.