From the Department of "I don't get it".
I was nearly prepared to write blog today about hypocrisy and duplicity (perhaps the new monikers of government), when this showed up in the NYT:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/against-stupidity-2/?emc=eta1
John (I picked a bad time to stop drinking)Boehner, Lindsey (nationalize the banks) Graham, Nancy( my family has money) Pelosi, Barbara(send me your tired, huddled masses and all of your money...NOW) Boxer, Sen. (I hang out in men's rooms)Craig, Sen.(I sleep around) Vitter, Rep.(I get all the facts wrong)Cantor and few others, including other assorted Republican grandstanders and state governors, just "don't get it". They rail and rant and stomp their adolescent feet in opposition to the stimulus, then they take credit for any portion of the bill that will put money into the hands of their constituents; or, as a mayor or governor, they say that even though they think the bill is bad idea (generational theft?), they want to be first in line to take the money. One person who may "get it", is Anh Cao, the Vietnamese-American Rep. who recently got elected in Louisiana, because after saying he would vote for the bill, ultimately did not: he buckled under pressure from his Republican obstructionists and now his constituents are now calling for his removal from office. Oops. And right now, some mayors and governors are saying that while they will welcome the cash, they object to being told by the Feds about how and where to spend it. They sound like the bankers who made $350B evaporate into the ether, last fall. Perhaps Hank Paulson is advising them?
Either I am missing something here, or else hypocrisy (I was for it before I was against it) or duplicity (I was against it before I was for it)are the watchwords of the day, and these professional comedians really expect us to believe them, trust them and that they will look out for us. Krugman (above) calls alot of this stupidity: he is more blunt than I like to be (you can laugh, now).
There are some other stupids:
Every study I've seen (and apparently Bill Clinton reads the same ones) from prominent economists says that tax cuts don't help in our current situation. They may not help at all, may actually be bad and that cash infusion for infrastructure, food stamps and extended unemployment benefits give back much more bang for the buck. Continued harping for tax cuts is STUPID.
GM wants umpteen billion more dollars to lay off 47,000 people and close factories. The little car company that could (Saab) has just filed for bankruptcy back home in Sweden, Hummer is on the block ( a special stupid for it even BEING in the first place)and Saturn is on the way out( the dealers are looking for a Chinese or Indian manufacturer to keep it alive?), and , finally, Chrysler is looking for another chunk of money (To give to speculative investors?) for funeral expenses (Chrysler is already dead: they are out shopping for coffins). All of this, as well as our tolerance for this foolishness, is STUPID.
Starbucks is closing many, many store and laying off 7,000 people. At the same time they are introducing instant coffee, or exactly a product they made their fortune campaigning against. STUPID.
J C Penny and Lowe's Home Improvement both say their fourth quarter sales were down 10%. Penny says their profit was down 50% as result. Lowe's says the profit drop was 60%. Who is doing these books? Are we supposed to believe this? STUPID.
Magic tricks: Bernie Madoff makes $50B disappear. Texas "Not a billionaire" Stanford makes $8B disappear. Then he disappears. Scotland's Wedgewood China goes belly up after a hedge fund makes their entire pension fund disappear. United Bank of Scotland admits to helping hide fortunes of taxable money in Swiss accounts, but pulls a George W. Bush and vows not to release details. STUPID.
The stimulus bill was signed just a few dozen hours ago and people are already claiming it doesn't work. NOTE: This document is the product of possibly the largest and slowest moving governmental body in the world. "You want it WHEN?" STUPID.
In February of 2009, in the 21rst century, we still have people trying to make the United States a Christian nation. Try looking around the world and your neighborhood: if you cannot see the ethnic and religious variations, you are just plain STUPID.
A hard-liner secular Jew in Israel is backing Netanyhu for PM and urging, among other absurdities, oaths of loyalties to the Israeli government by any of the several million non-Jews living with rocket range. Hypocritical, duplicitous and STUPID.
Prominent Israelis and defenders/promoters of Israel are decrying the new US mid-east envoy as "too fair", and "too even handed". Heaven forbid we should avoid favoritism and promote any equality of treatment. STUPID.
The new RNC chairman, Mr. Steele, is promoting a re-birth of the GOP through the use of hip-hop. We have a few thousand important issues staring us in the face, and he wants to recruit new blood into his party through the use of a musical venue which sounds as foreign to most Americans as the tone poems of Bela Bartok. STUPID.
Nearly everywhere I look, I see politicians and civic leaders speaking out of both sides of their mouths or reversing themselves over night. The ex-Reverend Ted Haggard (Colorado Springs) and ex-Gov. Spitzer (NY) are poster boys for hypocrisy. Every Republican congress member who voted "no", in lock step against the Recovery Act, then stood up to take credit for its benefits (or the pork they managed put in it, ala "earmarks are bad" John McCain)are guilty of duplicity.
And if we sit back and swallow all of this without criticism, oversight or scrutiny, then we are, sadly very STUPID.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Everybody has their Liebermans
There is this story on MSNBC.com, this morning:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29276575/
You can read the whole article for yourself, but the by-line that got me reads like this (next to a photo of a guy who looks unsettlingly much too much like Paul Krugman):
Israel's Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman, who has called for the country's Arab minority swear loyalty to the state or lose their citizenship, has backed Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister.
My old Texas Instruments calculator seems to be broken, so I can’t say exactly how many people I will piss off with this comment, but that’s the way the unleavened cookie crumbles. Following in the footsteps of, and in the best traditions of, American politics, the Israelis have been busy playing the election game. This last race was a troublesome threesome, starring the venerable retread (and to some reviled) Netanyahu, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni (I still think her name sounds like an anorexic Italian sports car) and the third party, the Beitenu. This third party, the Ralph Nader/Ron Paul element, the salt-in-the-wound, itch-where-you –can’t-quite-scratch, annoying-like-a mosquito bite group, is apparently fronted by a man named...you guessed it…Lieberman!. From the photo in the article, he appears to dress much more casually and with a much nicer flair than our Connecticut chameleon, but he is very outspoken about his positions concerning what Israel “ought to do”And he is completely unapologetic about advising President Shimon Peres as to what stance to take and how the “new” government should be structured. It reminds me of the old joke:” Hi! I’m from Beitenu and I’m here to help you!”
I both know and know of many people in the US who are disgruntled, discouraged and annoyed by Joseph Lieberman and his curious impact on the last election. He dresses drably (and speaks with the same lackluster drone), muddies the waters and makes no secret of his desire to be in the limelight and garner public attention for his changing an changeable positions. I think the Democrats have been very kind to him, considering how many times he has thumbed his nose at them. I have yet to sense anything worthwhile that he has contributed to either the process or the outcome.
The (real) Israeli Lieberman frightens me more. There are too many words and phrases in this article that bother me: hard-liner, ultranationalist, government reign, threat to mid-east peace, and that ominous line (up above) about “swearing loyalty”. I am very concerned about how much obstructionist, militaristic and pugnacious thinking has risen so much to the forefront, especially when nearly the entire world is appalled by the recent genocide in Gaza. And history is littered with self-appointed “advisors” to kings, tzars and Presidents, and I don’t recall any of them promoting bright spots in world development.
But the last influence the world community needs right now is a hard-line position on Palestinians, when almost everyone would like this decades-old conflict to be ended as soon as possible. And the term ultranationalist just reminds me of the carnage, not so long ago, in the Balkans. And the simple fact is that no one needs to reign over the mid-east: somebody needs to get to the Israeli leaders and not-so-gently remind them that the days of King David are long over and democracies don’t reign.
But more disturbing than any other reference is the one about “swearing loyalty” to the government. Great and memorable(?) leaders like Adolf Hitler and kings and of the realm and their ilk have called for such measures over the centuries, and it has always been a story without a good ending. In the case of the Jews, after the Third Reich, I can’t imagine how such a phrase could even begin to roll off anyone Jew’s lips. If the Israelis are going to follow the US democratic model, they should pay attention to the fact that we ask people to “swear allegiance to the flag”, which is quite different from swearing loyalty to the government. An essential component of a vibrant democracy is the ability that we always are able to question the government ( I think Rush Limbaugh just had a heart attack).
Liebermans, Liebermans everywhere, and not a chance to think. I have been thinking a lot lately, during the foreplay and aftermath of the passing of the stimulus bill, about how totally inappropriate, backward looking and oddly askew the language and remarks of the Republicans have been, and wondering how this recent obstructionism and recalcitrance would be resolved. I have also wondered why Joe Lieberman has been relatively quiet. But now I see the world stage is like Wrigley’s chewing gum: with two Liebermans we can double our trouble and double our (not so very much) fun. I wonder if Avigdor wants the Palestinians to wear arm bands?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29276575/
You can read the whole article for yourself, but the by-line that got me reads like this (next to a photo of a guy who looks unsettlingly much too much like Paul Krugman):
Israel's Yisrael Beiteinu party leader Avigdor Lieberman, who has called for the country's Arab minority swear loyalty to the state or lose their citizenship, has backed Benjamin Netanyahu for prime minister.
My old Texas Instruments calculator seems to be broken, so I can’t say exactly how many people I will piss off with this comment, but that’s the way the unleavened cookie crumbles. Following in the footsteps of, and in the best traditions of, American politics, the Israelis have been busy playing the election game. This last race was a troublesome threesome, starring the venerable retread (and to some reviled) Netanyahu, the foreign minister, Tzipi Livni (I still think her name sounds like an anorexic Italian sports car) and the third party, the Beitenu. This third party, the Ralph Nader/Ron Paul element, the salt-in-the-wound, itch-where-you –can’t-quite-scratch, annoying-like-a mosquito bite group, is apparently fronted by a man named...you guessed it…Lieberman!. From the photo in the article, he appears to dress much more casually and with a much nicer flair than our Connecticut chameleon, but he is very outspoken about his positions concerning what Israel “ought to do”And he is completely unapologetic about advising President Shimon Peres as to what stance to take and how the “new” government should be structured. It reminds me of the old joke:” Hi! I’m from Beitenu and I’m here to help you!”
I both know and know of many people in the US who are disgruntled, discouraged and annoyed by Joseph Lieberman and his curious impact on the last election. He dresses drably (and speaks with the same lackluster drone), muddies the waters and makes no secret of his desire to be in the limelight and garner public attention for his changing an changeable positions. I think the Democrats have been very kind to him, considering how many times he has thumbed his nose at them. I have yet to sense anything worthwhile that he has contributed to either the process or the outcome.
The (real) Israeli Lieberman frightens me more. There are too many words and phrases in this article that bother me: hard-liner, ultranationalist, government reign, threat to mid-east peace, and that ominous line (up above) about “swearing loyalty”. I am very concerned about how much obstructionist, militaristic and pugnacious thinking has risen so much to the forefront, especially when nearly the entire world is appalled by the recent genocide in Gaza. And history is littered with self-appointed “advisors” to kings, tzars and Presidents, and I don’t recall any of them promoting bright spots in world development.
But the last influence the world community needs right now is a hard-line position on Palestinians, when almost everyone would like this decades-old conflict to be ended as soon as possible. And the term ultranationalist just reminds me of the carnage, not so long ago, in the Balkans. And the simple fact is that no one needs to reign over the mid-east: somebody needs to get to the Israeli leaders and not-so-gently remind them that the days of King David are long over and democracies don’t reign.
But more disturbing than any other reference is the one about “swearing loyalty” to the government. Great and memorable(?) leaders like Adolf Hitler and kings and of the realm and their ilk have called for such measures over the centuries, and it has always been a story without a good ending. In the case of the Jews, after the Third Reich, I can’t imagine how such a phrase could even begin to roll off anyone Jew’s lips. If the Israelis are going to follow the US democratic model, they should pay attention to the fact that we ask people to “swear allegiance to the flag”, which is quite different from swearing loyalty to the government. An essential component of a vibrant democracy is the ability that we always are able to question the government ( I think Rush Limbaugh just had a heart attack).
Liebermans, Liebermans everywhere, and not a chance to think. I have been thinking a lot lately, during the foreplay and aftermath of the passing of the stimulus bill, about how totally inappropriate, backward looking and oddly askew the language and remarks of the Republicans have been, and wondering how this recent obstructionism and recalcitrance would be resolved. I have also wondered why Joe Lieberman has been relatively quiet. But now I see the world stage is like Wrigley’s chewing gum: with two Liebermans we can double our trouble and double our (not so very much) fun. I wonder if Avigdor wants the Palestinians to wear arm bands?
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
The Great Divide Just Gets"Divider"
“There's nothing wrong with Republicans deciding to play the role of the obstructionist opposition, and in the unlikely event that this stimulus bill does not get the economy going and additional economic recovery legislation is not passed through Congress, they may stand to benefit politically.”
I lifted this from this article:
Letting Republicans Bury Themselves
by Jed Lewison
Tue Feb 17, 2009 at 09:15:03 AM PST
Posted on
http://www.dailykos.com/
I replied to my fellow e-mailers, like this:
The writer may be correct about Obama's "covert" strategy, but I think the truth is that the less Obama fought back, the deeper the Republicans dug themselves in, trying to attract attention to themselves: they have an ad on TV already, claiming credit for portions of the very bill they voted against. They have become increasingly delusionary in recent days. When Lindsey Graham recommends nationalizing the banks, Newt vows to stop "the administration in its tracks" and Cantor leads the fight to disavow the very housing aid portion of the stimulus that he and his colleagues called for as pre-eminently necessary just days ago, they have clearly lost their way and look more ridiculous every day.
The excerpt I pulled out (above) is just plain wrong thinking. In these times, it is VERY WRONG for the Republicans to be obstructionist "just because". That they "may stand to benefit politically",whether the plan succeeds or fails is a lousy way to lead and protect the people who elected them. I am sick to death of making excuses for politicians who are more concerned about re-election than earning the checks and benefits they draw. You are supposed to enter politics to display and exercise maturity and wisdom, not become a professional grand-stander and master of double-speak.
On the whole, I found the article a bit Polyanna-like.
I may have been over-reacting to the fact that I expect pieces in KOS to have more meat on their bones, but I have been noticing for days now, as the hot-air balloon-like debate over the stimulus became increasingly hysterical, that Republicans are acting more and more disconnected and without any real sense of immediacy. As our needs become more dire, the less they seem willing to put their shoulder to wheel and help get something done.
Only recently did we manage to get the “uniter” out of office (of course we all know that that the only thing he united was a movement of people who worked hard, together, to remove him). Bush was, of course, a divider, creating anxiety, and angst and sorrow and regret, along with injustice, constitutional abuse and internal terror across the land. The United States became a land divided and one which ultimately placed great hope in the vision and energy of Barack Obama. It appeared to many that the halting and stumbling pattern of our socio-economic situation might become changed for the better.
But many in the government, Republicans by name, mostly, decided to be, almost overnight, obstructionist, both just because they could and because their self-righteous indignation over having been “hammered” in the last election seemed to give them the self-appointed right to smear, handicap and hobble the new administration. They seemed to adopt a uniform blanket of a complete lack of self-awareness about the new reality. It has been an amazing fait accompli.
Alas, the harder they seem to work at this, the more ridiculous and obscure and (nearly) obscene their claims and objections become, the more completely out of synch with the national mood they become, as well. Instead of working to close the great divide of the last years, they have made it worse…or at least tried to. They speak less and less to the subjects at hands, avoid confronting the real priorities and make every attempt to perfect histrionics, drama and sensational language. Meanwhile, Americans lose their homes and their jobs and drown in debt, bankers and hedge fund managers worry over losing their third home on the seashore, take home enormous bonuses and spend weekends on yachts in the Caymans where they have hidden bank accounts. We are also in the midst of giving out more “bail-out” money to beleaguered and inept auto manufacturers (and their suppliers) and are waiting for the next wave of organizations to mobilize for hand-outs and rescue plans, because they have over-extended, over- indebted themselves and engaged in sloppy business practices. I am waiting for us all to learn how to spell the word g-r-e-e-d.
It is impossible for me to know what the hell John Boehner is thinking when he throws an 111 hundred+ page document on the floor of the Senate chamber, feigning disgust. It may be a great display of theatre, but it does not tell me that he understands anything about its import. I don’t know what Lindsey Graham( as I said above) is thinking (a professed fiscal conservative, anti-facist, anti-socialist), when he announces it is time to nationalize the banks. It may be dramatic but it doesn’t tell me he knows anything about which he pontificates. I don’t know, when Rep. Cantor vows to be obstructionist about the housing provisions he supposedly fought for earlier, what has happened to his brain. And the obscene language being used in Republican TV commercials against AFSCME, or the Republican ads, somehow claiming credit for portions of the very bill they fought to defeat (or just would not vote for) are supposed to move the country forward, when they blatantly and stubbornly shout “No!” in the face of everything.
The divide can only become wider if the American people are supposed to ignore the complete lack of energy being put forth by the RNC to rectify our deficiencies, while touting useless tax cut programs and wasted time and energy for “abstinence only” sex education programs (even Bristol Palin says they don’t work) and simultaneously railing against family planning funding…do I need to go on? I don’t think so.
The behavioral displays of the Republicans are erratic, essentially dysfunctional and downright disturbing. There may some order in chaos theory, but there is no theory in the Republican chaos of being completely illogical and maintaining a determination to repeat the same old procedures that never work. I am astounded that they simply cannot discern the difference between forward and backwards.
I heard a commentary the other day that said that the financial crisis will not end until the bankers are happy, and the bankers will not be happy until we back large trucks, full of money, up to the doors of the banks and unload it with “NSA” , as it often says in the personals. It looks to me like the Republicans are all trying to join the Teamsters Union and get licenses to drive 18-heelers. They seem to think they don’t need to make any sense, listen to anyone or do anything else in order to get re-elected. It may have worked that way in the past, but if they persist in that attitude, the great divide will only get “divider”.
I would like to believe that this Republican act is just that: an act. But somehow I think they may really be that stupid.
I lifted this from this article:
Letting Republicans Bury Themselves
by Jed Lewison
Tue Feb 17, 2009 at 09:15:03 AM PST
Posted on
http://www.dailykos.com/
I replied to my fellow e-mailers, like this:
The writer may be correct about Obama's "covert" strategy, but I think the truth is that the less Obama fought back, the deeper the Republicans dug themselves in, trying to attract attention to themselves: they have an ad on TV already, claiming credit for portions of the very bill they voted against. They have become increasingly delusionary in recent days. When Lindsey Graham recommends nationalizing the banks, Newt vows to stop "the administration in its tracks" and Cantor leads the fight to disavow the very housing aid portion of the stimulus that he and his colleagues called for as pre-eminently necessary just days ago, they have clearly lost their way and look more ridiculous every day.
The excerpt I pulled out (above) is just plain wrong thinking. In these times, it is VERY WRONG for the Republicans to be obstructionist "just because". That they "may stand to benefit politically",whether the plan succeeds or fails is a lousy way to lead and protect the people who elected them. I am sick to death of making excuses for politicians who are more concerned about re-election than earning the checks and benefits they draw. You are supposed to enter politics to display and exercise maturity and wisdom, not become a professional grand-stander and master of double-speak.
On the whole, I found the article a bit Polyanna-like.
I may have been over-reacting to the fact that I expect pieces in KOS to have more meat on their bones, but I have been noticing for days now, as the hot-air balloon-like debate over the stimulus became increasingly hysterical, that Republicans are acting more and more disconnected and without any real sense of immediacy. As our needs become more dire, the less they seem willing to put their shoulder to wheel and help get something done.
Only recently did we manage to get the “uniter” out of office (of course we all know that that the only thing he united was a movement of people who worked hard, together, to remove him). Bush was, of course, a divider, creating anxiety, and angst and sorrow and regret, along with injustice, constitutional abuse and internal terror across the land. The United States became a land divided and one which ultimately placed great hope in the vision and energy of Barack Obama. It appeared to many that the halting and stumbling pattern of our socio-economic situation might become changed for the better.
But many in the government, Republicans by name, mostly, decided to be, almost overnight, obstructionist, both just because they could and because their self-righteous indignation over having been “hammered” in the last election seemed to give them the self-appointed right to smear, handicap and hobble the new administration. They seemed to adopt a uniform blanket of a complete lack of self-awareness about the new reality. It has been an amazing fait accompli.
Alas, the harder they seem to work at this, the more ridiculous and obscure and (nearly) obscene their claims and objections become, the more completely out of synch with the national mood they become, as well. Instead of working to close the great divide of the last years, they have made it worse…or at least tried to. They speak less and less to the subjects at hands, avoid confronting the real priorities and make every attempt to perfect histrionics, drama and sensational language. Meanwhile, Americans lose their homes and their jobs and drown in debt, bankers and hedge fund managers worry over losing their third home on the seashore, take home enormous bonuses and spend weekends on yachts in the Caymans where they have hidden bank accounts. We are also in the midst of giving out more “bail-out” money to beleaguered and inept auto manufacturers (and their suppliers) and are waiting for the next wave of organizations to mobilize for hand-outs and rescue plans, because they have over-extended, over- indebted themselves and engaged in sloppy business practices. I am waiting for us all to learn how to spell the word g-r-e-e-d.
It is impossible for me to know what the hell John Boehner is thinking when he throws an 111 hundred+ page document on the floor of the Senate chamber, feigning disgust. It may be a great display of theatre, but it does not tell me that he understands anything about its import. I don’t know what Lindsey Graham( as I said above) is thinking (a professed fiscal conservative, anti-facist, anti-socialist), when he announces it is time to nationalize the banks. It may be dramatic but it doesn’t tell me he knows anything about which he pontificates. I don’t know, when Rep. Cantor vows to be obstructionist about the housing provisions he supposedly fought for earlier, what has happened to his brain. And the obscene language being used in Republican TV commercials against AFSCME, or the Republican ads, somehow claiming credit for portions of the very bill they fought to defeat (or just would not vote for) are supposed to move the country forward, when they blatantly and stubbornly shout “No!” in the face of everything.
The divide can only become wider if the American people are supposed to ignore the complete lack of energy being put forth by the RNC to rectify our deficiencies, while touting useless tax cut programs and wasted time and energy for “abstinence only” sex education programs (even Bristol Palin says they don’t work) and simultaneously railing against family planning funding…do I need to go on? I don’t think so.
The behavioral displays of the Republicans are erratic, essentially dysfunctional and downright disturbing. There may some order in chaos theory, but there is no theory in the Republican chaos of being completely illogical and maintaining a determination to repeat the same old procedures that never work. I am astounded that they simply cannot discern the difference between forward and backwards.
I heard a commentary the other day that said that the financial crisis will not end until the bankers are happy, and the bankers will not be happy until we back large trucks, full of money, up to the doors of the banks and unload it with “NSA” , as it often says in the personals. It looks to me like the Republicans are all trying to join the Teamsters Union and get licenses to drive 18-heelers. They seem to think they don’t need to make any sense, listen to anyone or do anything else in order to get re-elected. It may have worked that way in the past, but if they persist in that attitude, the great divide will only get “divider”.
I would like to believe that this Republican act is just that: an act. But somehow I think they may really be that stupid.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Talking While Under the Influence: Lying
I am wont to think there should be some sort of etymologically-based breathalyzer test for politicians. It needs to be capable of detecting gross lies and exaggerations, mistruths and the demonic rhetoric of evil that results in the attempted destruction of intellect. It should be connected to rooftop sirens that screech in a loud and horrifying manner all across the land, whenever powered up. My guess is that it would not take long for sales of ear protectors and ear plugs to skyrocket, because any blessed silence would be gone, forever. Political ideological cacophony is deafening.
It needs to be said, at this point, that I accepted this sort of loud-mouthed behavior and criminal abuse of language and truth all during the campaign season, because it comes with the territory: you naturally expect to hear rude remarks, falsehoods, slander, evaluations and claims and counter-claims that range from the outlandish to the ludicrous. But you assume that, like having the measles or a sore throat, it will all go away, eventually. However, coming right after the last election, and escalating heavenward at an alarming rate ever since, then achieving near light speed velocities and volumetrics after the inauguration, the verbal garbage permeating the atmosphere and airwaves has become thick, like Los Angeles smog on a bad day in August.
There is an old saying about used car salesmen: how can you tell when they are lying? Their lips are moving. I know that I am not the first person to make this analogy, but politicians and used car guys have a lot in common, because neither have much “street cred” and the chronicle of history does not work positively in their favor. That little old lady from Pasadena NEVER drove that used car only back and forth to church on Sunday, and that legislative tax break being touted just before the upcoming election will not ever, ever save your job or make you and your brother-in-law rich. Controlled lip movements, to initiate the mesmerizing stupor of temporary belief in the impossible, has become an art form. I am quite certain that Julius Cesar employed this modus operandi, and we know where that got him. It just seems that our tolerance has surpassed that of Brutus, et. al. and we more readily accept mediocre duplicity.
A few days ago, I began try to keep track of and recording instances of the worst abuses of truth I could cull from the daily news reports. I finally gave up because I ran out of space, time and note paper. Suffice it to say that if you listen, even briefly, to the arrogant statements of John Boehner, the verbal flailings of Lindsey Graham or the obtuse pontifications of Newt Gingrich, or perhaps even switch over to the incomprehensible summarizations of “political progress” uttered by Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, you will get the drift of just how badly matters have deteriorated. I’m skipping Barbara “Give me more money” Boxer, for now.
But the events of the week of Feb. 9 have lowered the bar for the “highs” in contorted reasoning and the verbiage that has proclaimed it. In short, if you listen to the remarks of virtually any one member of the entire Republican delegation of congress people who make up the U.S. House of Representatives, NOT ONE of whom voted on two separate occasions for the $787B stimulus package, or…you can subject yourself to the non-stop and non-sensical floor speeches by nearly every one of the Republican Senators (save three) who followed the House vote, in lock-step.
But before I continue my critique of that litany of orally repugnant travesties, I feel compelled to bring to the forefront the speeches, claims and punditry of the right-wing press, the conservative talk show talkers and the paid-by-the-word conservative and ultra-conservative commentators on the network and cable television programs, many of whom have masqueraded as economists. Never mind, for a moment, that the bulk of the legislators deciding our monetary and financial futures right now are not economists either (most are bloody lawyers, who presumably went to college and law school, and also, presumably at least took Econ 101 somewhere along the line), the faux news anchors on networks like Fox, and the hired guns who emanate from think tanks and “research foundations” and appear with them on the six o’clock news, probably understand less about economics than Joe the Plumber (who we all know has done a great job analyzing the mid-east non-peace situation in Gaza). The dearth, girth and breadth of misunderstanding and misinformation which pours forth from these “experts” is literally overwhelming. It freaking makes my head hurt. The absolutely astounding reality of this is how many people actually believe this balderdash to be truthful and accurate. I’ll leave it to you to decide what to believe from the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, but don’t come crying to me when you discover that your intellectual underwear and underpinnings, as well as your wallet, have come up missing.
But back to the actual criminals…er, suspects. I will not even begin to assemble a complete list of examples of gross linguistic misconduct available (for reasons listed earlier), but there are just a few noteworthy examples I will cite, in order to make my point. First, there is Mr. Steele, the new figurehead and titular (and titillating) leader of the (new) Republican party. He has said that the jobs to be created under the stimulus plans are not jobs but merely “work”. The last time I had a damn job, it sure looked and felt like work to me. In a frantic and manic attempt to parse words to build an indefensible case, he has uttered the utterly absurd. Needless to say, he has been the butt of jokes on every liberal news program and caustic blog since he embarrassed himself on national television last weekend.
John Boehner has said repeatedly that this legislation was said by the President to be about “jobs, jobs, jobs”, and it has become all about “spending, spending, spending”. Some of his colleagues have complained (in a similar vein) that the effort was not a stimulus bill but a “spending bill”. The President himself has actually offered the querying retort, “What do you think a stimulus bill IS, anyway?” Then, on Friday afternoon of this week, before the Senate was to cast their vote on the package, as a sort of entertainment topper to his earlier bleating, Boehner held up the 1100+ page document (finally 1700 pages) before the assembly, in order to make the following complaint: the document had just been delivered for inspection only a few hours before, and that “no one had read it”. He asked (somewhat rhetorically) why the congress had not been given the time over the weekend, “on the plane, the train or the bus home”, to read the bill before having to vote. To begin with, I wonder how many members of this esteemed group would have gone home, anyway: they all have nice digs in DC. Secondly, I am very skeptical that any one of them would take a bus. Lastly, if that were the chosen weekend task, they all must be able to read one helluva lot faster than I can. Consider these probabilities: I am very doubtful that anyone went home for a short weekend (not like Amtrak Joe Biden, and even he lives in Washington, now), riding a bus would put any of them much too close to the proletariat they seek to avoid, and I have this hunch that almost none of them ever really read much, anyway…unless it is polling results about their chances for re-election. And BTW, as the texters and twitter folks would enter, earlier in the day, one of Boehner’s fellow obstructionists told the assembly that the document was only 800 pages, or “about a billion dollars a page”. Either someone is lying, can’t count or exaggerating or someone is doing all three. I have given up trying to figure out which is what or why. But Mr. Steele has said that this work that Boehner and his fellows are doing is not a job, or that the job they are doing is not work, but we are paying them to do it anyway. Frankly I have to wonder “Why?”
(After Boehner’s rant about being inconvenienced, he bombastically dropped the entire printout on the floor of the chamber, only making him appear more oafish and contemptible than he had been beforehand. Good theatre; poor plausibility)
There have been a thousand thousand other examples of linguistic air pollution and vocabulary abuse, but the one that has me baffled the most is the oft (now) repeated wisdom of Sen. John McCain. He has called this legislation “generational theft”. Just ignoring for a moment that this phrase is a synthetic language construct and devoid of referential logic (I can construct fluffy bullshit as well as any Washington bureaucrat), it attempts to throw blame around anywhere it can be plunked, accurately or not. This man is attempting to make the point that, as everyone should know by now, we will be borrowing every last cent of this $800B to rescue our nation’s economic future, and that by passing this bill, we will be indenturing the children of the children of the children of those of us living now to pay it back: It is not generational theft, it is debt extension. He is using this argument in an attempt to waylay, demean, sabotage and obstruct the single most important (and the largest financial) piece of legislation in the history of the world. Curiously, he has completely overlooked the trillions of military dollars previously spent by his President, and the leader of his party, to play deadly war games in Iraq, Pakistan, and the other assorted “-stans’ where the United States has been “planting the seeds of democracy” and killing thousands, on a daily basis. This “debt extension” and “generational theft” he has managed to overlook. Not only is this rhetoric and logic myopic and misguided and misleading, he is lying and obfuscating reality. It scares the crap out of me that this man could have become the President.
Granted, the few most heinous and blatant examples I have given to make my case for the polemic breathalyzer have been Republican, but at the moment, they have reigned supreme with their onslaught of evil gibberish. They seem determined to clog the machinery (the pipes of credit?) in the short run, without any concern for the outcomes and needs of tomorrow. And I will happily give you that our newest financial savior-in-chief, Mr. Geithner, has so far been just as uninspiring as Hank Paulson ever managed on a good day (he is nearly as ghoulish). Larry Summers has yet to impress anyone and seems prone to a resuscitating an old version of doublespeak, while Joe Biden has demonstrated several instances of foot-in-mouth disease.
This Orwellian, obstinate, pointlessly confrontational and contorted communication practice must be brought to an end, if we are ever to rise above the level of primitive plutocracy. We are sacrificing dignity and humanity for semantics of plastic and artificial logic, all linked to money and the very greed which has brought us to this point of “bailout” in the first place. We seem unable to learn from our mistakes but rather doomed to compound them.
OTOH, BTW, (I am forced to laugh at myself: I am torturing the very language I am striving to save), we have President Obama, and his revelatory oratory. When he first began delivering speeches, I was impressed with his choice of words and his delivery, but I was also skeptical: my pleasure may have come only from the sudden and wondrous departure from a style of vapid, short grunts of near unintelligible and meaningless faux Texan blather. This was such a cathartic revision of public oratory that perhaps I was succumbing to its charm too easily. But now I think my skepticism was ill-founded. He does reason and speak with a very welcome freshness and alacrity. The gutturally nuanced and poorly framed language of fear and doom have gone, and these Presidential words are actually pleasing to the ear.
Oddly enough, this may in fact be the “stimulus” for the opposition’s verbal toxicity. Having been confronted with both inspirational and positive nature and content of the President’s delivery, they may have been traumatized. They all may have realized, perhaps even somewhat unconsciously, that they have been cornered, and have consequently resorted to the basic instinctual choice between fight or flight. Since, in this electronic world, no one can flee very far and never successfully hide from anyone (or escape the being found out, ala Governor Spitzer); they have chosen to put up a fight. However…
My son has a tee-shirt which says:” I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man”. Methinks that that the (mostly Republican) primordial, ooze-like blustering is a revelation that they have only managed to bring “a knife to a gun fight”. They are outclassed, out-gunned, out-spoken and out-reasoned and can only manage to come after our benevolent T-Tex with a crude club. He is sipping Chardonnay and they are swilling cheap beer. As for the Dems, they may also just be overwhelmed by the power, persuasive ability and the sheer tsunami-like adrenaline rush that this President affords the general public (who are not already transfixed by talk radio), and are fumbling for words that they desperately hope will keep them on anyone’s radar screen. They must be a disappointment to the President.
In either case, both the conservative miscreants and the left-sided liberal underlings would do well not to run from, hide from or attempt to belittle the presence of some genuine and uplifting language ( even Chris Matthews has noticed that). In spite of everything else which has sounded recent sour notes within the fledgling administration, there is still an element of hope. If any of these entertainers are going to engage in talking under the influence, whether that influence be fear, ignorance or sheer incompetence, they should learn to take better cues from President Obama and stop embarrassing both themselves and their constituents, by continuing to verbally stagger around, drunk-like, across the public landscape of language, in a kind of linguistic stupor. Their inadequately thought-through lack of thinking has left their intellectual pants hanging down low, exposing the crack in their logic, like the backside of Joe the Plumber.
President Obama could well prove to be our very own renaissance man, providing impetus and stimulus to become better than we have been. If our public mouthpieces can take the proper cues, and upgrade and uplift their thinking and their vocabularies, almost anything is possible. But at the moment, the bulk of them seem to be cowering and nervous, worried far more about their self-preservation than the health of our society. It should go without saying that this continued insistence on lying will obliterate any eventual useful bipartisanship and nullify any chance for meaningful compromise. Continued talking while under the influence is certain to put us into the wall. Any right-minded NASCAR driver can tell you that.
It needs to be said, at this point, that I accepted this sort of loud-mouthed behavior and criminal abuse of language and truth all during the campaign season, because it comes with the territory: you naturally expect to hear rude remarks, falsehoods, slander, evaluations and claims and counter-claims that range from the outlandish to the ludicrous. But you assume that, like having the measles or a sore throat, it will all go away, eventually. However, coming right after the last election, and escalating heavenward at an alarming rate ever since, then achieving near light speed velocities and volumetrics after the inauguration, the verbal garbage permeating the atmosphere and airwaves has become thick, like Los Angeles smog on a bad day in August.
There is an old saying about used car salesmen: how can you tell when they are lying? Their lips are moving. I know that I am not the first person to make this analogy, but politicians and used car guys have a lot in common, because neither have much “street cred” and the chronicle of history does not work positively in their favor. That little old lady from Pasadena NEVER drove that used car only back and forth to church on Sunday, and that legislative tax break being touted just before the upcoming election will not ever, ever save your job or make you and your brother-in-law rich. Controlled lip movements, to initiate the mesmerizing stupor of temporary belief in the impossible, has become an art form. I am quite certain that Julius Cesar employed this modus operandi, and we know where that got him. It just seems that our tolerance has surpassed that of Brutus, et. al. and we more readily accept mediocre duplicity.
A few days ago, I began try to keep track of and recording instances of the worst abuses of truth I could cull from the daily news reports. I finally gave up because I ran out of space, time and note paper. Suffice it to say that if you listen, even briefly, to the arrogant statements of John Boehner, the verbal flailings of Lindsey Graham or the obtuse pontifications of Newt Gingrich, or perhaps even switch over to the incomprehensible summarizations of “political progress” uttered by Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi, you will get the drift of just how badly matters have deteriorated. I’m skipping Barbara “Give me more money” Boxer, for now.
But the events of the week of Feb. 9 have lowered the bar for the “highs” in contorted reasoning and the verbiage that has proclaimed it. In short, if you listen to the remarks of virtually any one member of the entire Republican delegation of congress people who make up the U.S. House of Representatives, NOT ONE of whom voted on two separate occasions for the $787B stimulus package, or…you can subject yourself to the non-stop and non-sensical floor speeches by nearly every one of the Republican Senators (save three) who followed the House vote, in lock-step.
But before I continue my critique of that litany of orally repugnant travesties, I feel compelled to bring to the forefront the speeches, claims and punditry of the right-wing press, the conservative talk show talkers and the paid-by-the-word conservative and ultra-conservative commentators on the network and cable television programs, many of whom have masqueraded as economists. Never mind, for a moment, that the bulk of the legislators deciding our monetary and financial futures right now are not economists either (most are bloody lawyers, who presumably went to college and law school, and also, presumably at least took Econ 101 somewhere along the line), the faux news anchors on networks like Fox, and the hired guns who emanate from think tanks and “research foundations” and appear with them on the six o’clock news, probably understand less about economics than Joe the Plumber (who we all know has done a great job analyzing the mid-east non-peace situation in Gaza). The dearth, girth and breadth of misunderstanding and misinformation which pours forth from these “experts” is literally overwhelming. It freaking makes my head hurt. The absolutely astounding reality of this is how many people actually believe this balderdash to be truthful and accurate. I’ll leave it to you to decide what to believe from the likes of Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, but don’t come crying to me when you discover that your intellectual underwear and underpinnings, as well as your wallet, have come up missing.
But back to the actual criminals…er, suspects. I will not even begin to assemble a complete list of examples of gross linguistic misconduct available (for reasons listed earlier), but there are just a few noteworthy examples I will cite, in order to make my point. First, there is Mr. Steele, the new figurehead and titular (and titillating) leader of the (new) Republican party. He has said that the jobs to be created under the stimulus plans are not jobs but merely “work”. The last time I had a damn job, it sure looked and felt like work to me. In a frantic and manic attempt to parse words to build an indefensible case, he has uttered the utterly absurd. Needless to say, he has been the butt of jokes on every liberal news program and caustic blog since he embarrassed himself on national television last weekend.
John Boehner has said repeatedly that this legislation was said by the President to be about “jobs, jobs, jobs”, and it has become all about “spending, spending, spending”. Some of his colleagues have complained (in a similar vein) that the effort was not a stimulus bill but a “spending bill”. The President himself has actually offered the querying retort, “What do you think a stimulus bill IS, anyway?” Then, on Friday afternoon of this week, before the Senate was to cast their vote on the package, as a sort of entertainment topper to his earlier bleating, Boehner held up the 1100+ page document (finally 1700 pages) before the assembly, in order to make the following complaint: the document had just been delivered for inspection only a few hours before, and that “no one had read it”. He asked (somewhat rhetorically) why the congress had not been given the time over the weekend, “on the plane, the train or the bus home”, to read the bill before having to vote. To begin with, I wonder how many members of this esteemed group would have gone home, anyway: they all have nice digs in DC. Secondly, I am very skeptical that any one of them would take a bus. Lastly, if that were the chosen weekend task, they all must be able to read one helluva lot faster than I can. Consider these probabilities: I am very doubtful that anyone went home for a short weekend (not like Amtrak Joe Biden, and even he lives in Washington, now), riding a bus would put any of them much too close to the proletariat they seek to avoid, and I have this hunch that almost none of them ever really read much, anyway…unless it is polling results about their chances for re-election. And BTW, as the texters and twitter folks would enter, earlier in the day, one of Boehner’s fellow obstructionists told the assembly that the document was only 800 pages, or “about a billion dollars a page”. Either someone is lying, can’t count or exaggerating or someone is doing all three. I have given up trying to figure out which is what or why. But Mr. Steele has said that this work that Boehner and his fellows are doing is not a job, or that the job they are doing is not work, but we are paying them to do it anyway. Frankly I have to wonder “Why?”
(After Boehner’s rant about being inconvenienced, he bombastically dropped the entire printout on the floor of the chamber, only making him appear more oafish and contemptible than he had been beforehand. Good theatre; poor plausibility)
There have been a thousand thousand other examples of linguistic air pollution and vocabulary abuse, but the one that has me baffled the most is the oft (now) repeated wisdom of Sen. John McCain. He has called this legislation “generational theft”. Just ignoring for a moment that this phrase is a synthetic language construct and devoid of referential logic (I can construct fluffy bullshit as well as any Washington bureaucrat), it attempts to throw blame around anywhere it can be plunked, accurately or not. This man is attempting to make the point that, as everyone should know by now, we will be borrowing every last cent of this $800B to rescue our nation’s economic future, and that by passing this bill, we will be indenturing the children of the children of the children of those of us living now to pay it back: It is not generational theft, it is debt extension. He is using this argument in an attempt to waylay, demean, sabotage and obstruct the single most important (and the largest financial) piece of legislation in the history of the world. Curiously, he has completely overlooked the trillions of military dollars previously spent by his President, and the leader of his party, to play deadly war games in Iraq, Pakistan, and the other assorted “-stans’ where the United States has been “planting the seeds of democracy” and killing thousands, on a daily basis. This “debt extension” and “generational theft” he has managed to overlook. Not only is this rhetoric and logic myopic and misguided and misleading, he is lying and obfuscating reality. It scares the crap out of me that this man could have become the President.
Granted, the few most heinous and blatant examples I have given to make my case for the polemic breathalyzer have been Republican, but at the moment, they have reigned supreme with their onslaught of evil gibberish. They seem determined to clog the machinery (the pipes of credit?) in the short run, without any concern for the outcomes and needs of tomorrow. And I will happily give you that our newest financial savior-in-chief, Mr. Geithner, has so far been just as uninspiring as Hank Paulson ever managed on a good day (he is nearly as ghoulish). Larry Summers has yet to impress anyone and seems prone to a resuscitating an old version of doublespeak, while Joe Biden has demonstrated several instances of foot-in-mouth disease.
This Orwellian, obstinate, pointlessly confrontational and contorted communication practice must be brought to an end, if we are ever to rise above the level of primitive plutocracy. We are sacrificing dignity and humanity for semantics of plastic and artificial logic, all linked to money and the very greed which has brought us to this point of “bailout” in the first place. We seem unable to learn from our mistakes but rather doomed to compound them.
OTOH, BTW, (I am forced to laugh at myself: I am torturing the very language I am striving to save), we have President Obama, and his revelatory oratory. When he first began delivering speeches, I was impressed with his choice of words and his delivery, but I was also skeptical: my pleasure may have come only from the sudden and wondrous departure from a style of vapid, short grunts of near unintelligible and meaningless faux Texan blather. This was such a cathartic revision of public oratory that perhaps I was succumbing to its charm too easily. But now I think my skepticism was ill-founded. He does reason and speak with a very welcome freshness and alacrity. The gutturally nuanced and poorly framed language of fear and doom have gone, and these Presidential words are actually pleasing to the ear.
Oddly enough, this may in fact be the “stimulus” for the opposition’s verbal toxicity. Having been confronted with both inspirational and positive nature and content of the President’s delivery, they may have been traumatized. They all may have realized, perhaps even somewhat unconsciously, that they have been cornered, and have consequently resorted to the basic instinctual choice between fight or flight. Since, in this electronic world, no one can flee very far and never successfully hide from anyone (or escape the being found out, ala Governor Spitzer); they have chosen to put up a fight. However…
My son has a tee-shirt which says:” I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man”. Methinks that that the (mostly Republican) primordial, ooze-like blustering is a revelation that they have only managed to bring “a knife to a gun fight”. They are outclassed, out-gunned, out-spoken and out-reasoned and can only manage to come after our benevolent T-Tex with a crude club. He is sipping Chardonnay and they are swilling cheap beer. As for the Dems, they may also just be overwhelmed by the power, persuasive ability and the sheer tsunami-like adrenaline rush that this President affords the general public (who are not already transfixed by talk radio), and are fumbling for words that they desperately hope will keep them on anyone’s radar screen. They must be a disappointment to the President.
In either case, both the conservative miscreants and the left-sided liberal underlings would do well not to run from, hide from or attempt to belittle the presence of some genuine and uplifting language ( even Chris Matthews has noticed that). In spite of everything else which has sounded recent sour notes within the fledgling administration, there is still an element of hope. If any of these entertainers are going to engage in talking under the influence, whether that influence be fear, ignorance or sheer incompetence, they should learn to take better cues from President Obama and stop embarrassing both themselves and their constituents, by continuing to verbally stagger around, drunk-like, across the public landscape of language, in a kind of linguistic stupor. Their inadequately thought-through lack of thinking has left their intellectual pants hanging down low, exposing the crack in their logic, like the backside of Joe the Plumber.
President Obama could well prove to be our very own renaissance man, providing impetus and stimulus to become better than we have been. If our public mouthpieces can take the proper cues, and upgrade and uplift their thinking and their vocabularies, almost anything is possible. But at the moment, the bulk of them seem to be cowering and nervous, worried far more about their self-preservation than the health of our society. It should go without saying that this continued insistence on lying will obliterate any eventual useful bipartisanship and nullify any chance for meaningful compromise. Continued talking while under the influence is certain to put us into the wall. Any right-minded NASCAR driver can tell you that.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Stuff That Can (Or Is Going To) Go Wrong
Congress should be indicted for murder: Before you jump to the (perfectly reasonable) conclusion that I am about to clobber the Republicans for acting like spoiled children and incompetent jerks about the rescue plan this week (they did), there is plenty of blame to go around for everyone. The Congress, as a whole, has worked hard to murder the entire country. While Republicans in the House and the Senate, who now represent the last of the red areas of the country, have proven themselves to be intractable, stubborn, short-sighted and obstinate, just to prove a point (or try to), the Democrats have simultaneously proven that they have been born without backbones (Reid and Pelosi are jellyfish) and have allowed the discussions to wipe out much needed provisions in the bill to save schools, education, infrastructure and health care. Collectively, these over-paid idiots (Claire McCaskill included) have wasted valuable time, laughed in the public’s face, claimed immunity from sanity and behaved like uninformed buffoons. And all of that is on a good day. (The infrastructure of this country is woefully inadequate and collapsing. It must be repaired and soon, so why not do it now, and kill two flocks of birds with one stone?) . If the US was a business (it is, really), and we were not making money (we’re not: it’s called the GDP), we would make layoffs (including upper management) and stop paying people until the economic conditions improved. I move that we lay off and stop paying the Congress until they manufacture something we can sell/market at a profit, i.e., JOBS. If members of Congress can only act like clowns, let them go get jobs in the circus.
Misuse of Personal Pronouns: As much as I loved the President’s first press conference for its eloquence, detail and good grammar, he got his ego shoe stuck in his mouth. He kept referring to cabinet members as “my” secretary of the treasury, etc. No they are not: the cabinet members are OURS. W’s megalomania is over: stop that shit. This is supposed to be “Yes WE can”, not “Yes I can”. And speaking of the press conference, why on earth did he snub the grand dame of the press corps, Helen Thomas, by not answering (even obliquely) her question about nuclear weapons in the Middle East? Potential grandeur was spoiled by arrogance. Huffiness ruined the moment even if he did call on The Huffington Post.
How do you spell mistake? Geithner. He is guilty of tax malfeasance, is just another over-rated Wall St./Harvard MBA banker, cannot speak in public ( Paulson did as well but looked more ghoulish) and made a presentation to the people on Tuesday that left even Krugman and Reich saying, “Say what?”, while the Dow tanked so badly that Wall St. almost shut down for the week. No details, no clarity and no…oh, no… transparency. God, I am beginning to hate that word. Transparency in government isn’t, and only means that you will get to see what the government wants you to see, when they want you to see it… and when you do see “it”, it will be too late to do anything about it. Geithner is a surefire way (so far) to take the “can” out of yes we can. Go ahead, hope otherwise if you like.
Stop mixing up terms: Governments and politicians have always played fast and loose with words and phrases, but the current torrent is becoming intolerable. Beginning with the faux financial crisis of last fall, when Paulson and company introduced TARP, now we have TALF (?), and most sadly, pork, earmarks (thank you, John McCain), stimulus and spending, and all have become interchangeable. The President has asked, with regard to the spending bill “What do you think a stimulus bill is, anyway?”, and just this morning I heard Orin Hatch (R-UT) call the entire “stimulus” package an “earmark”. This sloppy use of terminologies (employed, I think, just to confuse the public) is misleading and irresponsible. Oh, I forgot the favorite term, “Christmas tree”. Bah humbug.
Gaza, The West Bank and Israel: We certainly forgot all about that mess in a hurry. The MSM has gone stone deaf again while many Gazans are still stone dead and suffering. And amid the aftermath of that turmoil, Israel is actually trying to play at normalcy and have an election. I’m sorry, but Tzipi Livni sounds like an anorexic Italian sports car. And Obama has said zip about any of it. Maybe we should just give them a few more F-16‘s and hope the problem goes away? Calling Dick Cheney.
Bipartisanship in Congress is a Ruse: Get over it, move on, and worry about something we can work with. The only goals of the legislature are to get richer (Daschle, etc.) and re-elected. And they will pursue those goals if it kills the country (see the first paragraph), and it surely will. Dogs will not mate with cats, and elephants will not fornicate with donkeys. The only successful hybrid animal I know of is called a jack-ass and we have plenty of those in government already without encouraging more illicit and obscene behavior. Stop wasting our time with this useless palaver and do something that will move the country forward. Pining about bipartisanship will do nothing to prevent you from falling off of a cliff of philosophical, political euphoria.
One Place We All Go Wrong: Linguistically, and in terms of truth and substance, we have been served up shit stew for so long, that we are immediately and completely bowled over by the rhetoric and style we have been given by the new President. Everything is relative: in the press conference, President Obama alluded to the fact that the American people would be prone to listen to reason and practicality. He actually said that we would welcome “rational argument”. Bullshit: we are impatient, have unreasonable expectations and want immediate gratification. It may be reassuring to hear him say all of that, and it may make us feel momentarily warm and fuzzy, but it just sets up unrealistic estimations of our status quo and puts hope on an unattainable pedestal. Remember Condi Rice (where the hell did she go?) and aspirational horizons? Please don’t do that to us, again.
Breaking Bad Habits, Attracting Private Capital and Making Nice with Iran: Good grief! Why even waste time and oxygen talking about changing bad habits is Washington? That is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier around in a swimming pool. Smoking is a bad habit (and addictive), which is why the makers of nicotine patches make so much money. And like quitting smoking and drinking alcohol, bad legislative habits are bound to have a serious recidivism rate. So while it sounds good, don’t expect much “change” (I doubt John McCain will sell many houses or K St. will go away any time soon).
And in keeping with the brandishing about of silly terms, enticing private capital to buy “toxic assets” is complete and utter nonsense. This country was not built on credit default swaps and will not be saved by anyone buying them. Anyone who offers this as even a partial solution to our financial problems (Geithner) should have his/her mouth washed out with soap. No successful entrepreneur made his fortune by buying up worthless crap. If all the cars in your used car lot won’t start, you’re screwed.
The President said that some of Iran’s actions have been “unhelpful”. Well, after all the dirty deeds and conniving and political skullduggery the US has been up to in that region for decades, what do you expect? We have a lot of explaining to do.
I surely wish the new President and his (precariously co-mingled) cadre of cabinet members and advisors the best, and of course that means I mean the best for our country, as well. But, as my friend Ron and I have oft discussed, the “wheels seem to be coming off the wagon” (this morning he embellished that with “the cotter pins are coming out of the axles”) and the prognosis is not good. As I sit and write this (and watch MSNBC), a member of Congress, representing the Blue Dog democrats, has just said that if any details of the current stimulus bill are altered in the compromise discussions this week, the “blue dogs” will withdraw their support and vote against final passage of the bill. Having heard that, I will close with these observations:
Such radical, narrow and inflexible thinking is largely why we are in the mess we are in (combined, of course, with greed, avaricious behavior and irresponsible regulation: I really do think that John Boehner and Lindsey Graham have had brain damage) brings me right back to my first paragraph. But if we do indict these reprobates for their despicable behaviors and such spectacularly poor stewardship the country, how in the world will we EVER find a jury of their peers for the trial?
Misuse of Personal Pronouns: As much as I loved the President’s first press conference for its eloquence, detail and good grammar, he got his ego shoe stuck in his mouth. He kept referring to cabinet members as “my” secretary of the treasury, etc. No they are not: the cabinet members are OURS. W’s megalomania is over: stop that shit. This is supposed to be “Yes WE can”, not “Yes I can”. And speaking of the press conference, why on earth did he snub the grand dame of the press corps, Helen Thomas, by not answering (even obliquely) her question about nuclear weapons in the Middle East? Potential grandeur was spoiled by arrogance. Huffiness ruined the moment even if he did call on The Huffington Post.
How do you spell mistake? Geithner. He is guilty of tax malfeasance, is just another over-rated Wall St./Harvard MBA banker, cannot speak in public ( Paulson did as well but looked more ghoulish) and made a presentation to the people on Tuesday that left even Krugman and Reich saying, “Say what?”, while the Dow tanked so badly that Wall St. almost shut down for the week. No details, no clarity and no…oh, no… transparency. God, I am beginning to hate that word. Transparency in government isn’t, and only means that you will get to see what the government wants you to see, when they want you to see it… and when you do see “it”, it will be too late to do anything about it. Geithner is a surefire way (so far) to take the “can” out of yes we can. Go ahead, hope otherwise if you like.
Stop mixing up terms: Governments and politicians have always played fast and loose with words and phrases, but the current torrent is becoming intolerable. Beginning with the faux financial crisis of last fall, when Paulson and company introduced TARP, now we have TALF (?), and most sadly, pork, earmarks (thank you, John McCain), stimulus and spending, and all have become interchangeable. The President has asked, with regard to the spending bill “What do you think a stimulus bill is, anyway?”, and just this morning I heard Orin Hatch (R-UT) call the entire “stimulus” package an “earmark”. This sloppy use of terminologies (employed, I think, just to confuse the public) is misleading and irresponsible. Oh, I forgot the favorite term, “Christmas tree”. Bah humbug.
Gaza, The West Bank and Israel: We certainly forgot all about that mess in a hurry. The MSM has gone stone deaf again while many Gazans are still stone dead and suffering. And amid the aftermath of that turmoil, Israel is actually trying to play at normalcy and have an election. I’m sorry, but Tzipi Livni sounds like an anorexic Italian sports car. And Obama has said zip about any of it. Maybe we should just give them a few more F-16‘s and hope the problem goes away? Calling Dick Cheney.
Bipartisanship in Congress is a Ruse: Get over it, move on, and worry about something we can work with. The only goals of the legislature are to get richer (Daschle, etc.) and re-elected. And they will pursue those goals if it kills the country (see the first paragraph), and it surely will. Dogs will not mate with cats, and elephants will not fornicate with donkeys. The only successful hybrid animal I know of is called a jack-ass and we have plenty of those in government already without encouraging more illicit and obscene behavior. Stop wasting our time with this useless palaver and do something that will move the country forward. Pining about bipartisanship will do nothing to prevent you from falling off of a cliff of philosophical, political euphoria.
One Place We All Go Wrong: Linguistically, and in terms of truth and substance, we have been served up shit stew for so long, that we are immediately and completely bowled over by the rhetoric and style we have been given by the new President. Everything is relative: in the press conference, President Obama alluded to the fact that the American people would be prone to listen to reason and practicality. He actually said that we would welcome “rational argument”. Bullshit: we are impatient, have unreasonable expectations and want immediate gratification. It may be reassuring to hear him say all of that, and it may make us feel momentarily warm and fuzzy, but it just sets up unrealistic estimations of our status quo and puts hope on an unattainable pedestal. Remember Condi Rice (where the hell did she go?) and aspirational horizons? Please don’t do that to us, again.
Breaking Bad Habits, Attracting Private Capital and Making Nice with Iran: Good grief! Why even waste time and oxygen talking about changing bad habits is Washington? That is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier around in a swimming pool. Smoking is a bad habit (and addictive), which is why the makers of nicotine patches make so much money. And like quitting smoking and drinking alcohol, bad legislative habits are bound to have a serious recidivism rate. So while it sounds good, don’t expect much “change” (I doubt John McCain will sell many houses or K St. will go away any time soon).
And in keeping with the brandishing about of silly terms, enticing private capital to buy “toxic assets” is complete and utter nonsense. This country was not built on credit default swaps and will not be saved by anyone buying them. Anyone who offers this as even a partial solution to our financial problems (Geithner) should have his/her mouth washed out with soap. No successful entrepreneur made his fortune by buying up worthless crap. If all the cars in your used car lot won’t start, you’re screwed.
The President said that some of Iran’s actions have been “unhelpful”. Well, after all the dirty deeds and conniving and political skullduggery the US has been up to in that region for decades, what do you expect? We have a lot of explaining to do.
I surely wish the new President and his (precariously co-mingled) cadre of cabinet members and advisors the best, and of course that means I mean the best for our country, as well. But, as my friend Ron and I have oft discussed, the “wheels seem to be coming off the wagon” (this morning he embellished that with “the cotter pins are coming out of the axles”) and the prognosis is not good. As I sit and write this (and watch MSNBC), a member of Congress, representing the Blue Dog democrats, has just said that if any details of the current stimulus bill are altered in the compromise discussions this week, the “blue dogs” will withdraw their support and vote against final passage of the bill. Having heard that, I will close with these observations:
Such radical, narrow and inflexible thinking is largely why we are in the mess we are in (combined, of course, with greed, avaricious behavior and irresponsible regulation: I really do think that John Boehner and Lindsey Graham have had brain damage) brings me right back to my first paragraph. But if we do indict these reprobates for their despicable behaviors and such spectacularly poor stewardship the country, how in the world will we EVER find a jury of their peers for the trial?
Monday, January 26, 2009
A Vocabulary Lesson
And not in any particular odor (yes, some it stinks)
Obama is the new POTUS, and at least for awhile, the POTUS is the new cool. America is (mostly) happy. I think it is time to have some fun.
I have often been called a cynic, and am just as often asked why I am so damned skeptical. Let’s just start with these, to set the record straight.
NOTE: I used a Webster’s for almost all of this erudite research. Other sources noted as required.
Cynic: “Doglike”; a person who acts out of selfishness. I think it was Oscar Wilde who defined a cynic as “someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.” This is not me. I know the cost of nothing because I have no money. I know the value of everything because I have so little of anything.
Skeptic: “Thoughtful; curious”. This is much higher on my list of endeavors. I think it helps to tone down my malice aforethought.
However, I have also been called a curmudgeon: This comes from the French, meaning “evil heart”. In today’s parlance, the definitions are” avaricious; churlish; miser; cantankerous”. I like the cantankerous part: it warms my evil heart. But to drive home my points, I must exhibit tenacity: to hold fast; adhesive; sticky; retentiveness. This may well explain why many of you so often implore me to “give it up”. I would say I am sorry, but you would all know I couldn’t mean it and it is not at all curmudgeonly.
On to the vocabulary business. Let’s begin with:
Bail-out. In earlier times, this phrase was meant to describe the act of bailing water OUT of a sinking boat. As applied to AIG, Chrysler, GM. Citibank, et.al. it seems to have become pouring more water back INTO the sinking boat. I think this is called an adverse action which has an inverse effect. And people who are in the money business were supposed to have gotten their feet wet long enough ago to know the better. But it will probably take a lengthy and expensive trial to determine who is actually at fault, and then a very large crane to raise the long-sunken boat, much like we pulled the Airbus 360 out of the Hudson.
Transparency: A recent and popular favorite if you are an Obamite (does obamite have a number in the periodic table of elements?). I know that transparency means that you are supposed to be able to see through the veil of secrecy and obfuscation afforded by government lackeys and bankers and lobbyists, but it is simply the wrong word. Let me just remind you that the plastic wrap you put over a dish of leftovers is transparent as well. It seals the packaged substances, keeps out fresh air and lets you put them away in the cold and dark of the fridge. But, even though you can see what’s in the package, you can’t touch the contents, it remains largely out of sight, can easily be forgotten and can grow moldy and of no further use. (Sounds to me, skeptic that I am, like some Senators I could name). The dictionary says that when something is “transparent”, it has been “uncloaked”. And, being so uncloaked, it becomes obvious: in the way as to be easy to see or understand; plain; evident. I would be very happy if the Obama gang would stop offering me transparent views and uncloak a few things, to make them easier to see, make them more plain and much more evident. If no one has noticed, the first $350B of the TARP program was so “transparent” that it completely disappeared behind a cloak of Bush-Cheney-Paulson-Bernanke smoke. Obvious also means to meet a certain criteria, and withstand or prevent obfuscation. I guess we missed that one. And I am not being cynical…I am being thoughtful.
Now here is a word that can open a delightful can of entomological worms: Perseverance. In its noblest of forms, this word means to continue on a given course in spite of difficulties and setbacks. The new Pres just loves this one. And so do the jubilant masses. However, in the midst of perseverance is “severe”, and I, in my thoughtfulness, don’t believe that most Americans grasp, in any realistic fashion, how severe matters are, economically, culturally and societally. And then the emotional cascade begins to form like this:
Despite the efforts to imbue (to soak; wet; to fill (the mind); permeate),
People will become disillusioned ( disenchanted, dismayed)
Because so much of the rhetoric and the slowness of the efforts will cause wide-spread dismay (removed from power; subdue; defeated)
And they will be unable to sustain (to uphold; keep in existence; prolong)
Because their enthusiasm and momentum will soon abate (to beat down; pull down; put an end to; to deject; lessen; diminish)
Because they have become dismayed (subdued, defeated).
All of which means they will have lost the fortitude to persevere. Well, crap. This is not what the forecast says.
Why the glum outlook, you may ask? Well, my thoughtful skepticism has moved me to uncloak the obvious, to peek behind the curtain of double-speak and to stop looking at the lack of transparency in the bail-out scenario, and to identify the absurd (clearly untrue; inconsistent with reason; contradicts obvious truth) influences which seem to dominate our day to day reasoning.
We are bombarded and assaulted by broken down ideologies and paradigms which promote apathy (from the Gr: to suffer; 1. lack of emotion;2.lack of interest; listless condition;indifference), which in turn results in an atrophy (to waste away; fail to grow, from the Gr: “To nourish”, hence, insufficient nourishment),and eventually societal entropy (available energy diminishes in a closed system, or a loss of energy available for useful work in a system undergoing change)[www.thefreedictionary.com/entropy]
Put simply, everything goes to hell and nobody gives a rat’s ass.
HOWEVER, once you have set out to identify these absurdities in our culture (and perhaps to measure your life by them, as I have begun doing), you can learn to be alert, responsive, reactionary and as vocally and openly objectionable as those who spew them. But first you must learn to be aware of the temptation to accept the temporal (transitory, temporary) nature of your daily intake of (largely useless) information and then resist the temptation to gravitate toward the immediately mind-numbing (atrophy causing) nature of the sensational (vague without reference to specific stimulus; external stimulation; sensation of happiness). Let me give you a few examples of what to watch out for:
The “bail-out” isn’t. There will be no miracle cure and pain will be in the offing. Any other understanding of the depth of situation is absurd.
Transparency isn’t transparent. It is merely an illusion of transparency designed to give you the sensation of happiness (see above). To believe that is to believe in the absurd.
Joe Biden says Americans should “work harder”. This is an insensitive and self-aggrandizing statement that befits an idiot looking for re-election. My friend Barbara has suggested that if he had said “greater participation”, it would have sounded better. As it stands, it is absurd. He should have asked us to persevere.
One prominent right-wing radio talker has called for the Obama administration “to fail”. This stretches the definition of absurdity to obscenely inappropriate behavior. No one needs this much sensationalism.
A Wall Street executive has just remodeled his office in an amount in excess of $1M. Citibank has just taken delivery a multi-million dollar private jet, manufactured in France. These are both absurd and obscene.
Nancy Pelosi has said that she has broken through the “marble ceiling” of Washington. No she hasn’t: if she had, her head would have broken open and she would understand more about America and its problems than she s does about being re-elected. Absurd.
Senate and House Republicans, after already having been given much more in tax-cuts in the “bail-out” than is warranted, are asking for even more. These cuts will go to the top fractional percentile of the populace who control a disproportionately large share of the national wealth. Go back and re-read the definition of absurd.
I could go on, but the “absurdity identifier framework” I have vocabularized (?) here can be applied to evaluate almost any news story or lightning bolt of information that comes your way. If you begin with the candid assumption that most news is both temporal and sensational to begin with (it sells), then you must first ask yourself if what you have just heard/read/seen will perpetuate (make lasting; enduring forever, indefinitely) an ideology or a paradigm that will cause apathy, atrophy and entropy, and then attempt to make a determination about why this person or organization was moved to say/broadcast/publish it (I think publishit should be a word). Examples:
John Boehner has said that the clause in the proposed “bail-out’ bill, which allocated health care money to help with unwanted pregnancies and family planning is simply millions of dollars for “contraceptives”. Absurd. He is perpetrating a baby-momma stereotype and wants to be re-elected by his religious right-wing constituents.
The right wing has suggested that re-funding the Pell Grants would be a waste of money. Absurd. Pell Grants make college education possible for the most unlikely of candidates from low-income families, like, say that of Barack Obama?
There are no “shovel-ready” projects. Absurd. How quickly did we re-build the collapsed bridge on I-35 in Minneapolis? I think the Republicans were about to have a convention, there.
I learned a new word this week, and “uncloaked” a new perspective on the non-transparency of another. Adventitious means accidental; extrinsic; not inherent. I am struck that most of the sensational (and therefore usually temporal) “news” that I get is adventitious. It comes from and is perpetuated by some one or some thing extraneous to the issue at hand. It usually serves to distract and disperse perseverance. It propagates eventual apathy, dismays and disillusions.
Anything said by Dana Perino: absurd. The jury is still out on the new guy.
A party-crashing Republican, at an Obama celebration party Barbara and I attended last Saturday, bowled me over. As the other guests around the room made toasts to the new administration and expressed optimism about the future, post-W, this man took the time to offer up a lengthy statement of praise for John McCain, because he had “served his country so well”. This was not only absurd; it was in extremely poor taste. If I had had a rope and tree…but that would have been absurd as well.
This leads me to the word most closely allied with Transparency: accountability. I fear this is more cloak and swagger. Accountability is wholly dependent upon those who do the accounting, and we all know that ‘Figures lie and liars figure”: Think ENRON. As the great bail-out debate rages on, and transparency is seen not be, all I can say is that what you think you see may not be what you will eventually get, and it most certainly will not be what you thought you paid for.
Please do not ask me why I offered no definitions for ideology or paradigm: I was just too apathetic to look them up.
Please remember: I am not being cynical here, just skeptically thoughtful. Isn’t that absurd?
Obama is the new POTUS, and at least for awhile, the POTUS is the new cool. America is (mostly) happy. I think it is time to have some fun.
I have often been called a cynic, and am just as often asked why I am so damned skeptical. Let’s just start with these, to set the record straight.
NOTE: I used a Webster’s for almost all of this erudite research. Other sources noted as required.
Cynic: “Doglike”; a person who acts out of selfishness. I think it was Oscar Wilde who defined a cynic as “someone who knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.” This is not me. I know the cost of nothing because I have no money. I know the value of everything because I have so little of anything.
Skeptic: “Thoughtful; curious”. This is much higher on my list of endeavors. I think it helps to tone down my malice aforethought.
However, I have also been called a curmudgeon: This comes from the French, meaning “evil heart”. In today’s parlance, the definitions are” avaricious; churlish; miser; cantankerous”. I like the cantankerous part: it warms my evil heart. But to drive home my points, I must exhibit tenacity: to hold fast; adhesive; sticky; retentiveness. This may well explain why many of you so often implore me to “give it up”. I would say I am sorry, but you would all know I couldn’t mean it and it is not at all curmudgeonly.
On to the vocabulary business. Let’s begin with:
Bail-out. In earlier times, this phrase was meant to describe the act of bailing water OUT of a sinking boat. As applied to AIG, Chrysler, GM. Citibank, et.al. it seems to have become pouring more water back INTO the sinking boat. I think this is called an adverse action which has an inverse effect. And people who are in the money business were supposed to have gotten their feet wet long enough ago to know the better. But it will probably take a lengthy and expensive trial to determine who is actually at fault, and then a very large crane to raise the long-sunken boat, much like we pulled the Airbus 360 out of the Hudson.
Transparency: A recent and popular favorite if you are an Obamite (does obamite have a number in the periodic table of elements?). I know that transparency means that you are supposed to be able to see through the veil of secrecy and obfuscation afforded by government lackeys and bankers and lobbyists, but it is simply the wrong word. Let me just remind you that the plastic wrap you put over a dish of leftovers is transparent as well. It seals the packaged substances, keeps out fresh air and lets you put them away in the cold and dark of the fridge. But, even though you can see what’s in the package, you can’t touch the contents, it remains largely out of sight, can easily be forgotten and can grow moldy and of no further use. (Sounds to me, skeptic that I am, like some Senators I could name). The dictionary says that when something is “transparent”, it has been “uncloaked”. And, being so uncloaked, it becomes obvious: in the way as to be easy to see or understand; plain; evident. I would be very happy if the Obama gang would stop offering me transparent views and uncloak a few things, to make them easier to see, make them more plain and much more evident. If no one has noticed, the first $350B of the TARP program was so “transparent” that it completely disappeared behind a cloak of Bush-Cheney-Paulson-Bernanke smoke. Obvious also means to meet a certain criteria, and withstand or prevent obfuscation. I guess we missed that one. And I am not being cynical…I am being thoughtful.
Now here is a word that can open a delightful can of entomological worms: Perseverance. In its noblest of forms, this word means to continue on a given course in spite of difficulties and setbacks. The new Pres just loves this one. And so do the jubilant masses. However, in the midst of perseverance is “severe”, and I, in my thoughtfulness, don’t believe that most Americans grasp, in any realistic fashion, how severe matters are, economically, culturally and societally. And then the emotional cascade begins to form like this:
Despite the efforts to imbue (to soak; wet; to fill (the mind); permeate),
People will become disillusioned ( disenchanted, dismayed)
Because so much of the rhetoric and the slowness of the efforts will cause wide-spread dismay (removed from power; subdue; defeated)
And they will be unable to sustain (to uphold; keep in existence; prolong)
Because their enthusiasm and momentum will soon abate (to beat down; pull down; put an end to; to deject; lessen; diminish)
Because they have become dismayed (subdued, defeated).
All of which means they will have lost the fortitude to persevere. Well, crap. This is not what the forecast says.
Why the glum outlook, you may ask? Well, my thoughtful skepticism has moved me to uncloak the obvious, to peek behind the curtain of double-speak and to stop looking at the lack of transparency in the bail-out scenario, and to identify the absurd (clearly untrue; inconsistent with reason; contradicts obvious truth) influences which seem to dominate our day to day reasoning.
We are bombarded and assaulted by broken down ideologies and paradigms which promote apathy (from the Gr: to suffer; 1. lack of emotion;2.lack of interest; listless condition;indifference), which in turn results in an atrophy (to waste away; fail to grow, from the Gr: “To nourish”, hence, insufficient nourishment),and eventually societal entropy (available energy diminishes in a closed system, or a loss of energy available for useful work in a system undergoing change)[www.thefreedictionary.com/entropy]
Put simply, everything goes to hell and nobody gives a rat’s ass.
HOWEVER, once you have set out to identify these absurdities in our culture (and perhaps to measure your life by them, as I have begun doing), you can learn to be alert, responsive, reactionary and as vocally and openly objectionable as those who spew them. But first you must learn to be aware of the temptation to accept the temporal (transitory, temporary) nature of your daily intake of (largely useless) information and then resist the temptation to gravitate toward the immediately mind-numbing (atrophy causing) nature of the sensational (vague without reference to specific stimulus; external stimulation; sensation of happiness). Let me give you a few examples of what to watch out for:
The “bail-out” isn’t. There will be no miracle cure and pain will be in the offing. Any other understanding of the depth of situation is absurd.
Transparency isn’t transparent. It is merely an illusion of transparency designed to give you the sensation of happiness (see above). To believe that is to believe in the absurd.
Joe Biden says Americans should “work harder”. This is an insensitive and self-aggrandizing statement that befits an idiot looking for re-election. My friend Barbara has suggested that if he had said “greater participation”, it would have sounded better. As it stands, it is absurd. He should have asked us to persevere.
One prominent right-wing radio talker has called for the Obama administration “to fail”. This stretches the definition of absurdity to obscenely inappropriate behavior. No one needs this much sensationalism.
A Wall Street executive has just remodeled his office in an amount in excess of $1M. Citibank has just taken delivery a multi-million dollar private jet, manufactured in France. These are both absurd and obscene.
Nancy Pelosi has said that she has broken through the “marble ceiling” of Washington. No she hasn’t: if she had, her head would have broken open and she would understand more about America and its problems than she s does about being re-elected. Absurd.
Senate and House Republicans, after already having been given much more in tax-cuts in the “bail-out” than is warranted, are asking for even more. These cuts will go to the top fractional percentile of the populace who control a disproportionately large share of the national wealth. Go back and re-read the definition of absurd.
I could go on, but the “absurdity identifier framework” I have vocabularized (?) here can be applied to evaluate almost any news story or lightning bolt of information that comes your way. If you begin with the candid assumption that most news is both temporal and sensational to begin with (it sells), then you must first ask yourself if what you have just heard/read/seen will perpetuate (make lasting; enduring forever, indefinitely) an ideology or a paradigm that will cause apathy, atrophy and entropy, and then attempt to make a determination about why this person or organization was moved to say/broadcast/publish it (I think publishit should be a word). Examples:
John Boehner has said that the clause in the proposed “bail-out’ bill, which allocated health care money to help with unwanted pregnancies and family planning is simply millions of dollars for “contraceptives”. Absurd. He is perpetrating a baby-momma stereotype and wants to be re-elected by his religious right-wing constituents.
The right wing has suggested that re-funding the Pell Grants would be a waste of money. Absurd. Pell Grants make college education possible for the most unlikely of candidates from low-income families, like, say that of Barack Obama?
There are no “shovel-ready” projects. Absurd. How quickly did we re-build the collapsed bridge on I-35 in Minneapolis? I think the Republicans were about to have a convention, there.
I learned a new word this week, and “uncloaked” a new perspective on the non-transparency of another. Adventitious means accidental; extrinsic; not inherent. I am struck that most of the sensational (and therefore usually temporal) “news” that I get is adventitious. It comes from and is perpetuated by some one or some thing extraneous to the issue at hand. It usually serves to distract and disperse perseverance. It propagates eventual apathy, dismays and disillusions.
Anything said by Dana Perino: absurd. The jury is still out on the new guy.
A party-crashing Republican, at an Obama celebration party Barbara and I attended last Saturday, bowled me over. As the other guests around the room made toasts to the new administration and expressed optimism about the future, post-W, this man took the time to offer up a lengthy statement of praise for John McCain, because he had “served his country so well”. This was not only absurd; it was in extremely poor taste. If I had had a rope and tree…but that would have been absurd as well.
This leads me to the word most closely allied with Transparency: accountability. I fear this is more cloak and swagger. Accountability is wholly dependent upon those who do the accounting, and we all know that ‘Figures lie and liars figure”: Think ENRON. As the great bail-out debate rages on, and transparency is seen not be, all I can say is that what you think you see may not be what you will eventually get, and it most certainly will not be what you thought you paid for.
Please do not ask me why I offered no definitions for ideology or paradigm: I was just too apathetic to look them up.
Please remember: I am not being cynical here, just skeptically thoughtful. Isn’t that absurd?
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
I Stand Corrected
When my enthusiasm, indignance, ire and zealotry combined to prompt me to write the last blog, “Neo-Retrovision”, I made few historical errors, a few grammatical slip-ups and some errors of omission. Although I did offer a mid-article disclaimer, in “retro-spect”, I fear that that was not enough to absolve me of my crimes. Very much in the spirit of what appears on the second page of the NYT, after they make a faux pax, I feel constrained to offer this:
The lecture I referred to in that blog, on mid-first millennia history, revolving mostly around misunderstandings about the cooperation of Muslims and Jews during that time, was in fact presented by Mr. Roy Casagranda, an Assistant Professor of Government at Austin Community College, here in Texas. Barbara forwarded the blog entry along to him, and he was kind enough to respond, in true “professorial” style, with a variety of comments and corrections. I re-print them for you here. At the end I will make several feeble attempts at explanation, clarification, justification and other forms of excuses for my (almost) inexcusable behavior:
I caught a couple of typos. I made the corrections in brackets below.Europe ({i}n both beneficial and despicable ways), through it{'}s deft manipulation of money and power, and was then pushed further along after theAramco was the Arabian American Oil Company until 1988 (today it is called Saudi Aramco). Nothing to do with Farsi. Shah is spelled with an 'h' not a 'w'.
The US never lifted a hand to stop the Holocaust. We refused to accept escaping Jews from Nazi occupied Europe, unless they had technical skills that we wanted. IBM sold Hitler the census data containing all the information on who had Jewish ancestry, including hundreds of thousands of Christians who had no Jewish identity. And throughout the massive bombing campaign that reduced nearly every single city in Europe to rubble (Prague, Rome, Heidelberg, and Paris were more or less preserved) not once did a bomb fall on a concentration camp, on a death camp, nor upon the railroads leading to them. The US might have wanted to fight WWII, but not to save the Jews.The time period at the bottom is off. Islam came about in 610 AD. The Arabs began conquering an empire in 633 AD. That amicability lasted even through the Crusades to the Contemporary Period. It fell apart a bit when the Mamluk seized Egypt, it was brought back a bit when the Crusaders joined the Arabs in the Battle of Ayn Jalut when the Mongols were defeated for the first time in 1260 AD (first battle to ever have a cannon by the way). The intolerance that we see today did not really start to implant itself (with one major exception Egypt from 1250 to 1517) until after the British, Italians, Spanish, and French carved up the Middle East between 1830 and 1920. The real event that caused Islamic intolerance and religious strife was the creation of Israel and then the subsequent perception that Israel was Europe and the US's new Crusade. The last sentence seems to use Arab as a term for Muslim. Remember that Arabs are Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.
My turn:
First of all, I finished writing this diatribe at two in the morning. That there were only two immediately noticeable typos is a miracle. I do take exception to the business of using an apostrophe with the word “its”. The jury is still out on the when, if and maybe about when that can and should be used. My apologies to the Shaw: I was thinking of him mostly in terms of “oh.pshah”, anyway, for all the good he did the people of Iran. And you can spell Aramco (Ameriramocomobilxon?) however you see fit. The English-Arab translation still means, “I have most of your money and you don’t”. And the line about Farsi was just a thrown in for cynicism: most of what has happened since the formation of this venture has been farcical. Get it?
On a more serious note, I certainly stand corrected on the historical data: that is why Prof. Casagranda is a professor and I’m not. However (and I say this because if he saw it this way, then perhaps you did, too) I never meant to imply that the U.S. went into or vowed to fight/win WWII for the sake of or because of the Jews and the Holocaust. Sadly, that was probably an ugly and impossible-to-ignore aftermath of that war. The U.S. overlooked much, as did many other countries and races, until the horror had become unspeakable. The U.S. did, however, enter the European theatre as much to buck up Great Britain, and France and to no doubt worry about the future of mid-east oil, especially after Hitler went after North Africa. I still tend to believe that most of the western world, after being on a binge-like spree of militarism after the war, and led by the “great victor” the U.S., was prompted to settle the European Jewish survivors where they are today, for most of the reasons I stated in the original blog. Hence, my conclusion that that Bill Moyers was (and is) wrong, and that the conflict today is not between the Jews and the Canaanites of the books of the Old Testament.
Whether I can prove it or not, I still contend that after WWII, most of the western world, even after the Crusades were long over, still felt it could do with the eastern world pretty much what it willed. That is why you have the British provincial regionalization of Iraq, the Shaw of Iran and the western financial institutions thinking they had the Saudis in their back pocket. That was, of course before, Japan brought us the Toyota, the Chinese grew to several billion people and learned how to copy anything and bubble-wrap it, and the Saudis leaned how to spell OPEC.
Professor Casagranda’s last correction points out probably the most serious error in the entire piece: being an Arab does not automatically mean you are Muslim. Arabs can be Muslim, Jewish or Christian. But in my own defense (and I do sincerely apologize for that blunder), I went back and watched the Moyers’ piece again, and at the end of his commentary he made the same mistake. So although I am indeed guilty, I am in good company!
Update: That initial blog posting was done over a week ago, and the blatant atrocities in Gaza continued. Here are a few more recent observations from Prof. Casagranda:
"Day 22Death Toll 1,203Wounded 5,400I have included the Gaza, Texas map with locations bombed by Israel. Eastern Gaza City south of the Jabaliya concentration camp has really gotten a lot of attention from Israel. Israeli suggestions of a ceasefire are merely a rouse. They will do it unilaterally without solving any of the underlying problems such as the 18 month long siege of Gaza. So Hamas will have no choice but to fight back. That will then allow Israel to say, "Oh my G-d, look at those terrorists." Then they will strike back and continue the massacre.
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Roy Casagranda wrote:
Death toll 1,159 and 5,200 wounded. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/13/catastrophically_misguidedincomprehensible_policy_renowned_jewish_playwrightOn a personal note the talk with the Jewish American Zionists has probably already fizzled. An email was sent today by one of the key Zionists that basically shut the door. I have not completely given up and so we will likely meet again next week, but it seems that there is nowhere to go.Hamas was democratically elected. Was isolated and blockaded by Israel with US support. Offered to enter into a coalition with Fateh, which it did not need to do. Stopped firing rockets into Israel for four months, until Israel attacked the Gaza Strip in November. Israel will not recognize Hamas. Arab Summit: Mahmoud Abbas could not go to the Arab Summit in Doha, Qatar, because he did not get permission from Israel in time, but Hamas made it.
On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:33 PM, Roy Casagranda wrote:
Below are two links to my lecture on Saturday the 10th.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqczt149iIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcaQcqE5w0
On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Roy Casagranda wrote:
Day 211105 Dead. 5,100 wounded.I have included a map to give people an idea of how big the Gaza Strip is. Austin has a 1,000,000 people. Gaza has 1,500,000. " (Italics mine)
My own thoughts run like this:
One: I am hearing today that the Israelis are pulling out (conditionally) from Gaza, completely coincidentally with the inauguration of Barack Obama. They seem to feel that with G.W. Bush and Condi “I am a shill for the MSM” Rice out of the picture, they have no idea what kind of support or cooperation they will get from the U.S., as their ugly and despicable behavior continues. I find this course of action to be a bald and two-faced cowardly and (pardon the expression) “niggardly” manner of politics which is most inexcusable and reprehensible. I hate to sound crude, but on Jan. 20, Washington D.C. had ten balls and the Israelis seem to have none. If they do not feel that they can get approval to play with their (our) F-16’s, they won’t play at all.
Two: Mr. Engel, of MSNBC.TV, just reported that nearly as soon as the Israeli aggression stopped in Gaza, and the troops withdrew, work began immediately to clean up and re-open the supply tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. Aside from the mention that this will enable Hamas to “re-arm” (firecrackers and smoke bombs?), the report stated that Egyptian vendors and merchants night profit from this endeavor. I think Bart Simpson would simply say ,“Doh”. It sound to me like good old-fashioned capitalism (war profiteering?) which remains a mainstay of American economic policy. Once again, it is OK if we do it, but if someone else does, it is a crime.
Thanks to Prof. Casagranda for whipping me into shape with the corrections. But I still reserve the right to be disgusted, indignant and ashamed of the entire affair. Not to mention much aggrieved by the deaths of those civilians who never fired a rocket at anyone.
The lecture I referred to in that blog, on mid-first millennia history, revolving mostly around misunderstandings about the cooperation of Muslims and Jews during that time, was in fact presented by Mr. Roy Casagranda, an Assistant Professor of Government at Austin Community College, here in Texas. Barbara forwarded the blog entry along to him, and he was kind enough to respond, in true “professorial” style, with a variety of comments and corrections. I re-print them for you here. At the end I will make several feeble attempts at explanation, clarification, justification and other forms of excuses for my (almost) inexcusable behavior:
I caught a couple of typos. I made the corrections in brackets below.Europe ({i}n both beneficial and despicable ways), through it{'}s deft manipulation of money and power, and was then pushed further along after theAramco was the Arabian American Oil Company until 1988 (today it is called Saudi Aramco). Nothing to do with Farsi. Shah is spelled with an 'h' not a 'w'.
The US never lifted a hand to stop the Holocaust. We refused to accept escaping Jews from Nazi occupied Europe, unless they had technical skills that we wanted. IBM sold Hitler the census data containing all the information on who had Jewish ancestry, including hundreds of thousands of Christians who had no Jewish identity. And throughout the massive bombing campaign that reduced nearly every single city in Europe to rubble (Prague, Rome, Heidelberg, and Paris were more or less preserved) not once did a bomb fall on a concentration camp, on a death camp, nor upon the railroads leading to them. The US might have wanted to fight WWII, but not to save the Jews.The time period at the bottom is off. Islam came about in 610 AD. The Arabs began conquering an empire in 633 AD. That amicability lasted even through the Crusades to the Contemporary Period. It fell apart a bit when the Mamluk seized Egypt, it was brought back a bit when the Crusaders joined the Arabs in the Battle of Ayn Jalut when the Mongols were defeated for the first time in 1260 AD (first battle to ever have a cannon by the way). The intolerance that we see today did not really start to implant itself (with one major exception Egypt from 1250 to 1517) until after the British, Italians, Spanish, and French carved up the Middle East between 1830 and 1920. The real event that caused Islamic intolerance and religious strife was the creation of Israel and then the subsequent perception that Israel was Europe and the US's new Crusade. The last sentence seems to use Arab as a term for Muslim. Remember that Arabs are Jewish, Christian, and Muslim.
My turn:
First of all, I finished writing this diatribe at two in the morning. That there were only two immediately noticeable typos is a miracle. I do take exception to the business of using an apostrophe with the word “its”. The jury is still out on the when, if and maybe about when that can and should be used. My apologies to the Shaw: I was thinking of him mostly in terms of “oh.pshah”, anyway, for all the good he did the people of Iran. And you can spell Aramco (Ameriramocomobilxon?) however you see fit. The English-Arab translation still means, “I have most of your money and you don’t”. And the line about Farsi was just a thrown in for cynicism: most of what has happened since the formation of this venture has been farcical. Get it?
On a more serious note, I certainly stand corrected on the historical data: that is why Prof. Casagranda is a professor and I’m not. However (and I say this because if he saw it this way, then perhaps you did, too) I never meant to imply that the U.S. went into or vowed to fight/win WWII for the sake of or because of the Jews and the Holocaust. Sadly, that was probably an ugly and impossible-to-ignore aftermath of that war. The U.S. overlooked much, as did many other countries and races, until the horror had become unspeakable. The U.S. did, however, enter the European theatre as much to buck up Great Britain, and France and to no doubt worry about the future of mid-east oil, especially after Hitler went after North Africa. I still tend to believe that most of the western world, after being on a binge-like spree of militarism after the war, and led by the “great victor” the U.S., was prompted to settle the European Jewish survivors where they are today, for most of the reasons I stated in the original blog. Hence, my conclusion that that Bill Moyers was (and is) wrong, and that the conflict today is not between the Jews and the Canaanites of the books of the Old Testament.
Whether I can prove it or not, I still contend that after WWII, most of the western world, even after the Crusades were long over, still felt it could do with the eastern world pretty much what it willed. That is why you have the British provincial regionalization of Iraq, the Shaw of Iran and the western financial institutions thinking they had the Saudis in their back pocket. That was, of course before, Japan brought us the Toyota, the Chinese grew to several billion people and learned how to copy anything and bubble-wrap it, and the Saudis leaned how to spell OPEC.
Professor Casagranda’s last correction points out probably the most serious error in the entire piece: being an Arab does not automatically mean you are Muslim. Arabs can be Muslim, Jewish or Christian. But in my own defense (and I do sincerely apologize for that blunder), I went back and watched the Moyers’ piece again, and at the end of his commentary he made the same mistake. So although I am indeed guilty, I am in good company!
Update: That initial blog posting was done over a week ago, and the blatant atrocities in Gaza continued. Here are a few more recent observations from Prof. Casagranda:
"Day 22Death Toll 1,203Wounded 5,400I have included the Gaza, Texas map with locations bombed by Israel. Eastern Gaza City south of the Jabaliya concentration camp has really gotten a lot of attention from Israel. Israeli suggestions of a ceasefire are merely a rouse. They will do it unilaterally without solving any of the underlying problems such as the 18 month long siege of Gaza. So Hamas will have no choice but to fight back. That will then allow Israel to say, "Oh my G-d, look at those terrorists." Then they will strike back and continue the massacre.
On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Roy Casagranda wrote:
Death toll 1,159 and 5,200 wounded. http://www.democracynow.org/2009/1/13/catastrophically_misguidedincomprehensible_policy_renowned_jewish_playwrightOn a personal note the talk with the Jewish American Zionists has probably already fizzled. An email was sent today by one of the key Zionists that basically shut the door. I have not completely given up and so we will likely meet again next week, but it seems that there is nowhere to go.Hamas was democratically elected. Was isolated and blockaded by Israel with US support. Offered to enter into a coalition with Fateh, which it did not need to do. Stopped firing rockets into Israel for four months, until Israel attacked the Gaza Strip in November. Israel will not recognize Hamas. Arab Summit: Mahmoud Abbas could not go to the Arab Summit in Doha, Qatar, because he did not get permission from Israel in time, but Hamas made it.
On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:33 PM, Roy Casagranda wrote:
Below are two links to my lecture on Saturday the 10th.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udqczt149iIhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcaQcqE5w0
On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Roy Casagranda wrote:
Day 211105 Dead. 5,100 wounded.I have included a map to give people an idea of how big the Gaza Strip is. Austin has a 1,000,000 people. Gaza has 1,500,000. " (Italics mine)
My own thoughts run like this:
One: I am hearing today that the Israelis are pulling out (conditionally) from Gaza, completely coincidentally with the inauguration of Barack Obama. They seem to feel that with G.W. Bush and Condi “I am a shill for the MSM” Rice out of the picture, they have no idea what kind of support or cooperation they will get from the U.S., as their ugly and despicable behavior continues. I find this course of action to be a bald and two-faced cowardly and (pardon the expression) “niggardly” manner of politics which is most inexcusable and reprehensible. I hate to sound crude, but on Jan. 20, Washington D.C. had ten balls and the Israelis seem to have none. If they do not feel that they can get approval to play with their (our) F-16’s, they won’t play at all.
Two: Mr. Engel, of MSNBC.TV, just reported that nearly as soon as the Israeli aggression stopped in Gaza, and the troops withdrew, work began immediately to clean up and re-open the supply tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. Aside from the mention that this will enable Hamas to “re-arm” (firecrackers and smoke bombs?), the report stated that Egyptian vendors and merchants night profit from this endeavor. I think Bart Simpson would simply say ,“Doh”. It sound to me like good old-fashioned capitalism (war profiteering?) which remains a mainstay of American economic policy. Once again, it is OK if we do it, but if someone else does, it is a crime.
Thanks to Prof. Casagranda for whipping me into shape with the corrections. But I still reserve the right to be disgusted, indignant and ashamed of the entire affair. Not to mention much aggrieved by the deaths of those civilians who never fired a rocket at anyone.
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