5 posts tagged “politics”
So I guess the newest idiot remark by John McCain that has the blogosphere pointing and laughing comes from his appearance today on Good Morning America:
DIANE SAWYER: Do you agree the situation in Afghanistan is precarious and urgent?
JOHN MCCAIN: Well, I think it's very serious. I think it's a serious situation.
SAWYER: Not precarious and urgent?
MCCAIN: Oh, I don't know exactly-- run through the vocabulary. But it's a very serious situation. But there's [sic] a lot of things we need to do. We have a lot of work to do and I'm afraid that it's a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border. And I would not announce that I'm going to attack Pakistan as Senator Obama did...
Now, I’ll agree the bolded section of the block quote appears at first glance to be a profoundly stupid statement. But all the harping about how Iraq and Pakistan don’t share a border is misguided and easily countered by right-wing apologists with the very valid assertion that live television allows very little room for error and McCain simply misspoke, saying “Iraq” when he meant “Iran”. Everywhere I look, that’s the repeated verbal volley.
But maybe everyone is so focused on the specifics of what McCain said that they’re missing the implication of his words. Maybe McCain didn’t misspeak at all, but rather uttered that sentence exactly as he had rehearsed it. His doddering persona may have fooled the masses into thinking he isn’t capable of clever innuendo – and he probably isn’t – but I can’t help but feel a twang of suspicion when I hear a presidential candidate known for joking about bombing Iran basically refer to that same area as just a border between the two countries on either side of it.
One last thing. Obama never said he would attack Pakistan – that's yet another lie made up by Dubya – but isn't it funny that McCain took that shot anyway, especially considering his afore-mentioned "Bomb Iran" guffaw?
I'm just sayin'.
In these trying times, even though religion is the cause of most of the trouble, it’s really no surprise that Americans are looking to God. But what are they looking to him for, exactly?
Evidently, the people of Rockville, Maryland, are looking to him to lower the price of gasoline. No lie.
"[Rocky] Twyman, a community organizer from Rockville... and seven other people formed a semicircle, held hands and sang, pleading for divine intervention to lower fuel prices.
Boy, talk about not getting it! What a remarkable example of the cluelessness inherent in false piety. In this era of suicide bombings, beheadings, and mass murder, I would sincerely hope no omnipotent deity would bother to turn its attention to such pitifully selfish requests.
There are people in the world who are seeing their children murdered, their loved ones raped, their parents tortured, and their homes destroyed, but these privileged assholes feel the need to ask God to cut them a break when they fill up their fucking SUVs.
And they wonder why they’re commonly referred to as batshit wingnuts.
OK, so, if we’re to condemn Barrack Obama because the pastor of his church said some inflammatory things, how much more upset should we be with John McCain for selecting as his convention chief a man who was a shill for the Burmese regime?
If Jeremiah Wright shouting “God damn America” during some overblown sermon somehow bruises Obama’s presidential electability, then doesn’t McCain employing as senior counsel and spokesman a man who has made millions working in cahoots with the likes of Ferdinand Marcos and Ibrahim Babangida render him unelectable?
Last time I checked, human rights violations were bad and freedom of speech was good.
Dear right-wingers,
You’re getting tired, aren’t you? It’s starting to take its toll – this battle to hang on to every precious penny while simultaneously trying to justify such immense greed. It’s getting harder and harder to explain why you as “Christians” have no problem with obscene wealth and retributive killing, despite the very tenets of your faith commanding you* to the contrary**. At the end of the day, you are weary of continually defending the same indefensible positions such as the notion that paying for public schools and health care for children is bad but paying a fee just to withdraw your own money from the bank is perfectly acceptable. You’re starting to lose your grip and it’s showing. To wit…
♠ The “Chicken Little” metaphor is played. PLAYED. If you’re as clever as you think you are, come up with something new.
♠ Continually posting articles written by other, more articulate repugs isn’t “spreading the word”; it’s just a sad, slightly more acceptable form of plagiarism.
♠ Your group is becoming more and more crowded with straw men who, as everyone knows, only start showing up for your parties after the discerning and relevant people have gotten sleepy and headed home.
♠ Supporting McCain now that he’s the shoe-in after you’ve spent the last six months deriding his every move is probably the most obvious signifier of all.
You’ve got nothing. Nothing but years of shitty policy-making that has widened the gap between rich and poor, garnered a world full of enemies, made America weaker than ever (both militarily and financially), and stripped its citizens of civil rights which were once deemed the Most Important Thing Ever. But what did you expect? It’s not easy constantly trying to uphold flawed logic systems. It’s a taxing endeavor to support the systematic removal of your freedoms while claiming to be fighting to save those same freedoms. Apologizing for Dubya and his band of horned incubi would wear out even the most resilient of asshats – just ask Tony Snow. And I don’t even want to think about how demanding it must be for you to forever be outsmarting God (har!) by creatively re-interpreting whatever Bible passages don’t fit your Love-of-Money agenda.
You need a nap. Why not just lay those fat, self-absorbed heads down on a goose-feather pillow covered in a nice, 800 thread count Pratesi pillowcase and sleep it off for, oh, about forty years. When you wake up, a Democrat will have (once again) balanced the budget, restored our rights, and made it up to the old, formally loyal allies we’ve recently buggered but good. Then you can stretch, have a couple screwdrivers, and get right to work fucking it all up all over again.
Nighty-night.
*Matthew 19:21-23
**Romans 12:19-20
A coworker of mine mentioned that when he was at the gas station earlier this morning he was in line behind a woman, who by all appearances was probably a prostitute, trying to purchase a can of one of those new-fangled alcoholic energy drinks. He said she was denied on the basis of a new law that disallows the sale of single-serving alcoholic beverages before noon. I immediately expressed my immense disapproval of such legislation.
“Yet another example of how society deftly screws the poor,” I snarled.
“How do you figure?” asked my coworker.
“Well, let’s see, the law basically says that if you don’t have enough money to purchase more than a single can, you aren’t allowed to buy it at all. It’s discrimination based on income.”
“I think you’re extrapolating a tad there. The law isn’t necessarily based on income, but rather a desire to keep drunken transients to a minimum. Besides, how can you say that making it harder for them to acquire their poison a bad thing? It could be argued that the law is designed to help them.”
“That isn’t why the law was passed and we both know it,” I rebutted. “Withholding a can of beer isn’t going to cure a raging alcoholic, especially one who has no home. It’s not as if that woman you saw this morning walked out of the store thinking, Gee, now I see the light. I’m never drinking again! Time to start filling out employment applications and finally making something of myself! The fact is that law was created so that ‘regular’ people wouldn’t have to look at others less fortunate than themselves doing whatever they can to get by for one more lousy day.”
The debate continued for a few more minutes. He’d contend that because the people affected were alcoholics, a law prohibiting them from buying booze was justified, brushing away my counter-argument that what he described was merely one faction imposing its system of ethics upon another, less powerful faction.
Eventually, we pretty much just had to agree to disagree.
Anyway, I’d love to know what my politically inclined readers* think:
Is prohibiting the sale of booze to people who can only afford a single can discrimination or justified therapy?
If you have an opinion, let’s hear it!
*Save for the insufferable, close-minded neo-cons I’ve blocked, of course.
