Mad Men and the "Death of the American Dream"

During my recent illness I became a huge fan of two vastly different television shows, Breaking Bad and Mad Men, that each in their own way do a fantastic job of showing just how empty the pursuit of the "American Dream" really is. Breaking Bad's Walter White becomes unhinged after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and decides to use his remaining time alive cooking meth in order to build the fortune that eluded him in the straight world and that he felt he deserved. Mad Men paints with a broader brush (though there are key similarities between Walter White and the latter show's Don Draper), but at its heart are a group of characters--ad executives in the 1960s and their supporting office staff--whose lives become ever emptier even as they come to enjoy more and more material success.

The final seven episodes of Mad Men are just now being broadcast, and while watching the premier last Sunday the first thing that struck me was that the characters now find themselves in 1970, the year conventional American oil production peaked. I doubt Matthew Weiner, Mad Men's creator, took that particular factoid into account while setting up the show's conclusion, but given how many electrons have been annoyed in cyberspace by various writers analyzing the show's portrayal of the perils of pursuing material success just for success's sake, the ending taking place the year America's organic "material success" was peaking is quite relevant.

Don Draper--the dirt poor impostor who changed his identity and hustled his way to a partnership in a major Madison Avenue ad agency--has been described by Weiner as having grown up "one generation away from living without plumbing." My father just turned 80 this year, making him only a few years younger than the fictional Don Draper, and he has described to me how his father--a World War I veteran--lost his small trucking business in the early 1930s and then subsequently dragged the family all over the Midwest desperately searching for a way to recapture that tiny bit of the pie he had managed to slice for himself. Eventually he would settle for a factory job back in my hometown, but losing that chance to become a big shot-- even in a small pond--left him emotionally broken for the rest of his life.

One of the ongoing story lines in Mad Men involves Don's relationship with his estranged teenage daughter, Sally, and how he has a hard time trying to figure out why she's so unhappy despite having every comfort he never had growing up. On the show Sally Draper represents the Baby Boomer generation, the first to be raised with television and, not incidentally, to be bombarded with the ads Don and his cohorts so intensively labor developing. Sally may be too young to yet participate in the rat race (or to be the trophy wife of a successful businessman as her shallow and vain mother wants her to be), but her's is the first generation to be brainwashed from the start by media advertising, leaving her unable to recognize that that fancy new designer purse she just bought at Macy's will not make her any happier.

As Mad Men draws to a close, it will no doubt bring some sort of closure to the story arcs of its major characters. But the big picture it has spent seven years of broadcasts painting will in fact be only halfway completed. The second half of the story is unfolding in our current times, at the back end of the lifespan of the fictional Don Draper (assuming he like my father is now living out his golden years in the sort of retirement that became the middle class American ideal but for which only that generation on the whole ever got to enjoy). Draper and my father grew up one generation removed from living without plumbing. As a baby boomer and an elder Gen-X'er, Sally Draper and I were among the first to grow up expecting that a limitless cornucopia of consumer goods would always be available at our fingertips--assuming we were willing to either climb on the big treadmill or marry someone really successful so that we could afford it.

Sally Draper's children, however (I do not have any of my own) and especially her grandchildren are going to be the ones who find out just how big the lies her father told for a living really were. Mad Men has been very good at portraying just how the pursuit of the American Dream can consume a person's soul. What Mad Men will not be showing is what happens when the resources needed to support the kind of lifestyle being sold by Don Draper start running out. Sally Draper's grandchildren are likely going to be the first since Don Draper's parents to discover what it is like to live without plumbing...and they'll be LUCKY if that's as bad as it gets.

That's the show that is playing out in real life every day right now. I doubt if 50 years from now anyone will be putting it on television--or that that most people will have the time to spare from just trying not to starve to watch it if they did.


Bonus: "Even though success is a reality, its effects are temporary"

Brian Williams: The WORST Kind of Liar

If as the old adage goes, "the worst kind of liar is the one who thinks he's telling the truth," then Brian Williams is the worst kind of liar. We little people rarely get to peak behind the facade of what the late, great Joe Bageant called: The American Hologram, so we usually don't have any idea just how much the blow dried airheads who get the paid big money to go on teevee and spout the empire's propaganda are actually in on the joke. The funniest aspect of the current predicament of suspended NBC anchorman Brian Williams is that his likely downfall will come as the result of telling lies--and that the lies that have put him in such deep shit are of such little consequence compared to the ones that tumbled out of his mouth every fucking night he stepped into the NBC "news" studio.

Williams's public persona was always as one of the least objectionable members of the propaganda ministry in that he seemed just as at home trading good natured barbs with Jon Stewart and Conan O'Brien as he did reading bullshit from a teleprompter. But the real Brian Williams was exactly the kind of asshole who, despite becoming massively wealthy while holding down one of the most coveted positions in all media, just HAD to make himself out as some sort of Rambo action figure. Not content to just sit on the sidelines lines cheering on "the troops," he decided he had to BE one of them, or at least to make people believe he is his generation's Ernie Pyle--dodging bullets and artillery fire right there with the grunts on the front line.

All that was bad enough, but yesterday Vanity Fair posted a story in which Williams is finally revealed to be the worst kind of liar--a man so soulless and devoid of personal awareness that he fervently believed that not only was he not a liar, but that he is in fact INCAPABLE of lying:

Within NBC, Burrough writes, Williams floated an even more absurd and cowardly explanation (bolding ours) for his prevarications:

“[Williams] couldn't say the words ‘I lied,’” recalls one NBC insider. “We could not force his mouth to form the words ‘I lied.’ He couldn’t explain what had happened. [He said,] ‘Did something happen to [my] head? Maybe I had a brain tumor, or something in my head?’ He just didn’t know. We just didn’t know. We had no clear sense what had happened. We got the best [apology] we could get.”

As my readers well know, I've spent the last two years battling and then recuperating from pancreatic cancer. During the seemingly endless hours I spent attached to a IV line pumping those horrid chemotherapy chemicals into my body, I once had the very upsetting experience of watching a young man of about twenty being brought into the clinic in a wheelchair, then picked up by an orderly and placed in a nearby chair. He was completely bald, and had lost most of his motor skills--including the ability to speak intelligibly--thanks to a massive tumor that was slowly eating away at his brain. Relatedly, a good friend of my wife just recently lost her husband (and father of their 10-year-old son) after a five year battle with brain cancer that at the end left him bedridden, helpless and in constant excruciating agony.

THAT is the kind of thing that usually happens to a person who has a brain tumor, Brian Williams, you disgusting egomaniacal piece of shit. For 11 excruciating years you were paid countless millions of dollars by America's oligarchical elite to spew whatever lies they wanted you tell to keep the dimwits who foolishly believe that any kind of truth will be broadcast on a network formerly owned by a giant defense war contractor; paid for by advertisements on behalf the country's biggest corporations docile. For you to compare yourself to people who are suffering and dying one the most miserable forms of death there is to be had in this world to me makes you a far bigger scumbag than comparing yourself to soldiers from a mercenary army fighting a one-sided war.

Take your fucking money and crawl back into whatever hole it was you climbed out of, and may we all be spared from ever again having to abuse our eyeballs with your hideous visage.


Bonus: Dedicated to Brian Williams--just another "fevered ego" that is tainting our collective unconscious

UC Irvine "Flag Ban" is Yet Another Meaningless, Media Hyped Controversy

As our society just keeps on getting dumber and dumber, the bar for what constitutes a controversy just keeps on getting lower and lower. I'm specifically referring to the completely over the top media coverage of the decision by a student panel to ban ALL national flags (not just the U.S. flag, Natch) from the office of the Associated Students of University of California, Irvine, because such flags promote "...nationalism, including U.S. nationalism, (which) often contributes to racism and xenophobia, and that the paraphernalia of nationalism is in fact often used to intimidate." The backlash caused by this controversy has already very much proved the student panel's point, but its very predictability shows that standing up for what you believe in probably isn't the best course of action if it all it does is put you at personal risk without achieving anything.

The problem is that reading or hearing about this story is going to cause one of five reactions in about 99.9% of the population:

1). Rabid conservatives will use this as yet another excuse to get outraged about something that frankly doesn't affect their lives one damn bit and is really none of their business--and some will even be angry enough to wish personal harm upon the students who voted for the measure.

2). Ignorant clods will side with the rabid conservatives because they won't take the time to try and understand what the student panel was really trying to say by making this decision.

3). Some liberals will agree with the student's decision and get just as outraged by the backlash as the conservatives are by the decision itself.

4). Other liberals might agree with the panel's decision but will be either too afraid to say so publicly or will offer up some lame ass apologetic defense of the move.

5). Know nothing dipshits will be too busy paying attention to what the Kardashian clan, Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber are doing to give a shit one way or another.

And beyond that 99.9% are the very tiny number of us critical thinkers who will shake our head in disgust for about the millionth time that a story that shouldn't have reported beyond perhaps the UC Irvine student newspaper is instead managing to kill countless billions of brain cells from coast to coast. We are the few who recognize that the oligarchs who control the media use such frivolous and manufactured controversies to keep the engaged portion of that 99.9% divided and at each other's throat's politically so they can slowly strip away all of the nation's wealth and prosperity and pocket it for themselves.

I really wouldn't expect the students themselves to understand such bigger picture issues, but according to the linked article 60 prominent professors at UC-Irvine have now signed a petition supporting their action. Sadly, the wiser adult counsel before all of this started probably would have been to tell the young'uns that they completely understand their point, but whipping up this particular shit storm is not going to change the minds of anyone in those five categories. It will instead paint a big ol' target on your backs and will, by feeding the vacuous media outrage machine, actually help contribute to making matters even worse.


Bonus: "Our emotions are running wild and our mind has stopped"

Because, Your Honor, the Defendant is a Fucking Moron

When contemplating the many factors that are leading America towards its own spectacular downfall, one must maintain one's sense of humor lest depression grip ahold of one like a giant vice and squeeze all remnants of sanity from one's mind. Keeping that basic rule in mind, I'm always on the lookout in the news for a good laugh that might leave others who remain blissfully unaware of where our country is heading scratching their heads. Today's such story features a student from my graduate school alma mater, the University of Illinois at Chicago, who decided it might be fun to reenact scenes from the inexplicably popular 50 Shades of Grey.

I've not seen the movie, nor likely will I ever, but thanks to its ubiquitous presence in the media right now even I know enough about its plot to realize that if the idea of recreating its graphic sex scenes turns you on it would probably be a good idea to clue in your intended partner and obtain her consent. Alas:

Hossain used a knit cap to cover the woman's eyes, Karr said, and removed the woman's bra and underwear. He then began striking the woman with a belt. After hitting her several times, the woman told Hossain he was hurting her, told him to stop "and began shaking her head and crying," said Karr.

Hossain continued striking the woman — including with his fists, according to an arrest report — and she managed to get one arm, and then another, free. But he then held her arms behind her back and sexually assaulted her as she continued to plead for him to stop, according to Karr.

(snip)

During police questioning, Hossain reportedly admitted the assault and "doing something wrong" but said he and the woman had been reenacting scenes from 50 Shades of Grey.

Okay, so far it is yet another grim story of a male college student who thinks his female classmates are there solely for his own sexual gratification. Nothing funny about that, until I came to this quote that demonstrated the cluelessness of the judge assigned to the case:

After public defender Sandra Bennewitz noted Hossain's record of student leadership, Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. responded: "Sandra, how can someone involved in all that let a movie persuade him to do something like this?"

Because your honor, he's obviously a fucking moron. It doesn't matter that he's a college student and not just pumping gas or flipping burgers for a living, nor does it matter how good his grades are or what "leadership" activities he's supposedly engaged in. Nope, being a modern day American means being well trained by Hollywood and the media in monkey see-monkey do. Hossain is in fact not at all different than the moron from Indiana who recently got so riled up after watching Fox News (while consuming 45! beers) that he went out and set a nearby mosque on fire.

I guess what amazes me is that a judge in this day and age could spend years on the bench watching as a parade of American losers passes before him and remain credulous that being a student in our completely broken higher education system might render one immune from being stupid enough to imitate something he saw in a popular a movie. It's the ability to engage in critical thinking, not IQ level or formal educational achievement, that prevents such stupidity, and America's modern education system is specifically designed to snuff out or at least prevent the development of a student's ability to think critically. Students are repeatedly told to get good grades and standardized test scores and not rock the boat, or they won't be able to get a good job when the graduate--trouble being that those who are capable of critical thinking tend to be boat rockers by their very nature.

So yes, your honor, the defendant's excuse is that he's a typical American moron who happens to have lower than normal impulse control. Really, he's not so unusual at all.


Bonus: Bill's likely review of 50 Shades of Gray likely would have been the same as it was years ago for Basic Instinct: "Piece of shit"

Putin’s a Thug, but He’s No Hypocrite

I just recently finished reading Masha Gessen’s book, The Man Without a Face, a journalistic recounting of the rise to power of Vladimir Putin, and how he managed to rather quickly snuff out Russia’s hopelessly corrupt democratic interlude under Boris Yeltsin and return the country to the kind of charismatic authoritarian regime a majority of Russians have always been more comfortable with. In light of the quickly rising tensions between Russia and the U.S. in recent years, it’s almost amazing to recall how positively western leaders initially viewed his anointment. None more so than the imbecilic George W. Bush and his now infamous claim to have looked Putin in the eye and seen a man he could trust.

It is fashionable in leftist and antiwar circles these days to defend Putin and Russia’s stance regarding Ukraine, and certainly U.S. meddling in that beleaguered country has been very bad for the Ukrainian people as well as a direct provocation towards Russia itself. But in our condemnations of yet another American imperial misadventure, lets us not forget one important fact: Putin is a vicious thug. And I’m not insulting the man by calling him that either given that, as Gessen recounts, he highlighted examples of his own personal thuggery during his first presidential campaign. Why would he do that? Because it was a subtle signal to the Russian voters that he would end the chaos of the Yeltsin years and give them what so many of them crave above all else: stability and a restoration of the idea of Russia as a great nation.

With the exception of about six months in 1917 and eight years under Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s, Russia has never been a democracy. And by taking advantage of Russia’s geopolitical weakness after the fall of Soviet Union by expanding NATO and encouraging Yeltsin to pursue harsh neoliberal economic policies, the U.S. did about everything in its power to ensure that Russia’s second democratic experiment would fail miserably. Russia in the 1990s needed a modern version of the Marshall Plan to get back on its feet, money that could have come from the so-called “peace dividend” if our so-called “leaders” had any imagination whatsoever. Instead, the country got knee to the groin intended to keep it down forever. The surprise is not that Russia turned to someone like Putin—the surprise is that the lunatics in charge of the American insane asylum are at all surprised that it happened.

Yes, Putin is a thug—but he makes no bones about it. Unlike our last two presidents, he doesn’t pretend that he’s fighting for freedom and democracy. As Gessen recounts, under Putin’s direction Russia has eliminated elections for ALL federal officials, except the presidency—and he has used the mechanics of power (including vote stealing) to make it all but impossible for any challenger to have a chance of defeating him or whomever he anoints to the job in his stead. Yet George W. Bush, having lost the 2000 election by half a million popular votes, sent an army of operatives to Florida to screw up recount activities there just long enough to allow the Supreme Court to install him as president by judicial fiat on a purely partisan vote. That same Supreme Court would a decade later issue the infamous Citizens United decision, which has not only made it all but impossible for any third party challenger to achieve victory, but has also made it all but impossible for a true outsider to win the nomination of either of the two major parties.

Under Putin, Russia has engaged in collective punishment by invading and indiscriminately bombing Chechnya in response to terrorist attacks—at least some of which were likely false flag attacks carried out by Putin’s old buddies at the FSB. At the very least, as Gessen recounts, Putin’s military response to terrorist hostage taking has been designed to maximize civilian casualties, whose deaths he has then used to justify curtailing the civil liberties of Russian citizens. Similarly, Bush and congress used the 9/11 attacks to inflict massive collective punishment upon Iraq and Afghanistan while greatly curtailing the civil liberties of American citizens. Obama has not only continued the mindlessly destructive war on terror, he has expanded it by dropping drones on Yemen and Pakistan, by bombing Libya until it became a failed state and lately by bombing Iraq and Syria in response to the rise of a mass terrorist movement his own policies did much to help create.

Under Putin, Russian opposition journalists have been murdered and Alexander Litvinenko, a whistleblower who fled the country, was assassinated—likely by the FSB. In America, journalists who have been too vocal in opposition to the many war crimes of Bush and Obama have been fired or otherwise lost access to the mass media—being instead relegated to relatively obscure blogs and websites. And while the most prominent American whistleblowers—Manning, Snowden and Kiriakau—are still alive, two are rotting in prison as negative examples to others and the other certainly would be had he not fled to Russia.

Under Putin, the Russian mass media has been brought under the thumb of the president and no longer reports anything but officially sanctioned information. In America a handful of large corporations control virtually all mass media organs, and while the media may at times still report corruption and abuses, it does not ever question the basic idea of American exceptionalism. The American mass media also constantly demonizes Putin and Russia, while the latter use their English language channel, Russia Today, to throw it right back in America’s face.

Under Putin, Russia has become a classic cleptocracy, with the president and his cronies stealing everything that isn’t tied down. The former FSB functionary himself is said to have a current net worth of around $70 billion. American presidents by contrast are well provided for when they leave office, making huge amounts of money from sweetheart book deals, consultancies and speaking tours. Meanwhile, during the presidencies of Bush and Obama wealth inequality has reached record heights as the elite cronies who put them in office have been allowed to engage in systemic fraud and corruption, and then were bailed out when their own corrupt schemes blew up in their faces.

Overall, when comparing the current American versus Russian systems a few minor differences are apparent—but they are mostly a matter of style. American presidents are far less likely than Putin to kill their own citizens but far more likely to indiscriminately kill citizens of other countries, for example. Bush and Obama have a far higher overall body count on their bloody hands, but Putin is by far the more personally corrupt.

Yes, Putin is a definitely a thug and thief. But unlike Bush and Obama, at least he’s not a hypocrite.


Bonus: "Mother Russia rain down down down"

Down the Memory Hole: The Assassination of Alan Berg

In wake of the appalling Charlie Hebdo attack this week, I found it somewhat bemusing to see lots of American right wingers--in their haste to waste no opportunity to smear all Muslims as freedom hating terrorists--valiantly defending a publication they normally would not have stooped to wipe their asses with given that its lampoons of Christianity were every bit as biting as those against Islam. Charlie Hebdo was an equal opportunity basher of religion, and that normally isn't the kind of stance that will get you invited to answer loving, softball type questions as a guest on Fox and Friends.

I frequently make a point on this blog of demonstrating that there is very little difference between America's two major parties, but I will never say the same thing about liberals (however much I loathe mealy-mouthed mainstream liberalism) versus hardcore conservatives, who now unfortunately make up an overwhelming majority of the conservative movement. Because the fact is a liberal will (usually) defend and respect freedom of expression as defined by the Constitution (Congress shall pass no law, etc, etc) whereas far right wingers (who profess to wear the Constitution on their sleeves) often make no bones about how they would love to see those they disagree with silenced by whatever means necessary.

As an example of what I'm saying, one needs to look no further that the most notorious American parallel to the Charlie Hebdo slayings...namely the 1984 (now THERE is irony for you) assassination of liberal Denver radio talk show host Alan Berg. Though it seems difficult to imagine in these times in which talk radio has become a wasteland of rightwing shouters each trying to out-outrage the other, in his day Berg was the liberal equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. His schtick was to spout his unabashed anticonservative views and then rip into those semicoherent callers to his show dumb enough to try and take him on.

Berg must have been quite good at what he did, because he managed to whip up a murderous rage on the part of a white nationalist group called The Order. The group ambushed Berg outside of his home, shooting him twelve times at close range. Two members of The Order were subsequently convicted of the killing. It was by any definition an act of terrorism--one that has sadly been mostly forgotten today despite being fictionalized a few years later in the Oliver Stone movie Talk Radio. Alan Berg was killed for exercising his freedom of expression, just as the staffers of Charlie Hebdo were. Yet the brevity of his Wikipedia page, which doesn't even include the word "terrorism" in the section about his murder, should be an indication of how such acts that do not fit the prevailing narrative get excluded from our national conversation--even at a time when they are quite relevant.

Another aspect of Berg's murder that never gets discussed is whether as an act of terrorism it wasn't actually a huge success. Liberals are always quick to blame corporate media consolidation in the 1990s for the fact that conservatives rule the radio airwaves, and certainly that has been a factor. Conservatives counter that there is no market for liberal radio talk shows as demonstrated by the Air America debacle during the Bush junior years.

I would actually split these arguments. On the one hand corporations are still motivated by profits, and a liberal host who could score big ratings would certainly not be kept off the air. On the other, for some reason the liberal hosts who were on the air in 1990s when media consolidation began failed to survive (there was a halfway decent rabble rouser I used to listen to on WLS when I lived in Chicago in the early 1990s, though I forget his name) just as Air America failed to draw ratings. Why is that?

Could it be that conservative hosts are safe in knowing that they can routinely make base emotional appeals to their audience without worrying about their personal safety? After all, it is hard to imagine a Volvo-driving, Chardonnay drinking, global warming worrying, gun control advocate blowing away Rush Limbaugh. On the flip side, did liberal radio hosts in this country circa 1984 begin to consciously of unconsciously tone down or deliberately intellectualize their arguments after seeing what happened to Alan Berg? And did the resulting lower ratings then give Clear Channel, for example, the excuse it needed to cancel them in favor of another Sean Hannity clone? We'll never know for sure what kind of chilling effect Berg's murder had on his professional colleagues at the time, but it is difficult to imagine that it didn't have any. If I'm right, Berg's death is a major early milestone in the creeping fascism that has been overtaking America these past 35 years.

So RIP, Alan Berg. Unlike the cowards in patriotic guise who killed you, you were a true American hero.


Bonus: "I'm here to lead you by the hand through the dark forest of your own hated and anger and humiliation"

You Might Be An OPWAL If...

Back in the 1990s, mediocre Georgia-born stand up comedian Jeff Foxworthy became a big star thanks to his inane "You Might Be a Redneck If..." routines. Though the routines themselves seemed fairly harmless at the time (Foxworthy was adverse to using profanity on stage), in retrospect it seems that plenty of Americans--and not JUST from the south--were taking perverse pride at being exactly the kind of people he was allegedly poking fun at.

I hadn't thought about Foxworthy for a long time, until the recent news reports about the idiot Greenpeace protestors who damaged a national historical monument in Peru while filming an anti-global warming video to coincide with the recent carbon emissions conference being held in Lima. Somehow, none of the twelve morons who reportedly participated in the protest nor anyone else in Greenpeace who was aware of this pending protest before it happened recognized how culturally tone deaf and idiotic it was for a pack of liberal gringos to go traipsing around on some sensitive 1,500-year-old Native American geolyphs. Not only did this stupid stunt open Greenpeace up to charges of insensitivity to native cultures, it also basically handed its conservative opposition plenty of (ahem) ammunition with which to totally discredit the very message it was trying to get across.

But, sometimes such things happen when you're an OPWAL (Over-Privileged, White, American Liberal). And no, we don't know if ALL the Greenpeace protestors were in fact white, but they all easily demonstrated what I would call an OPWAL mindset.

Exactly what is an OPWAL mindset? And how do you know for sure whether or not you in fact are one? Well, in the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy I've developed a series of tests so that you, too, may determine whether or not you are actually an OPWAL. Let's begin, shall we?


If you believe driving a hybrid or even an electric car is good for the environment...you might be an OPWAL.

If you believe having a black followed by a female president is more important that what those presidents actually do while in office...you might be an OPWAL.

If you believe Obama deserved his Nobel Peace Prize...you might be an OPWAL.

If you agree with Obama that the country should "look forward and not dwell on the past" when it comes to the Iraq War, torture and the Wall Street crimes that led to the economic crash of 2008...you might be an OPWAL.

If you blame the Republican minority in congress circa 2009-2011 for blocking the many great things Obama promised to do while in office...you might be an OPWAL.

If you're a registered Democrat but cannot name a single famous labor leader other than Jimmy Hoffa...you might be an OPWAL.

If you believe Bill Clinton was a good president because he presided over a strong economy...you might be an OPWAL.

If you still blame Ralph Nader for costing Al Gore the presidency in 2000...you might be an OPWAL.

If you believed that the 2010 Rally to Restore Sanity wasn't a complete waste of fucking time and energy...you might be an OPWAL.

If you hate congress as most Americans do, but voted to reelect your Democratic congressperson anyway...you might be an OPWAL.

If you have a "support the troops" sticker on your vehicle but don't personally know anyone in the service...you might be an OPWAL.

If you have a Stop Global Warming bumper sticker on your Minivan or SUV...you might be an OPWAL.

If you call yourself an environmentalist but live in the exurbs because your precious snowflakes "need" to have a yard to play in...you might be an OPWAL.

If you saw no reason for antiwar protests to continue once Obama was elected...you might be an OPWAL.

If you think Obamacare has solved America's health care crisis...you might be an OPWAL.

If you ever read a book based upon a recommendation by Oprah Winfrey...you might be an OPWAL.

If you think MSNBC is a true liberal alternative to Fox News...you might be an OPWAL.

If you think NPR and PBS are unbiased news sources...you might be an OPWAL.

If you still have a subscription to the New York Times or Washington Post...you might be an OPWAL.

If you consider yourself progressive on racial issues but the only minorities you interact with on a regular basis are your maid and your coffee barista...you might be an OPWAL.

If you actually think it really matters that the Democrats just lost control of the Senate...you might be an OPWAL.


Anyway, that's enough for now. I'm sure you all could probably come up with plenty of your own. After all, OPWALs are easy targets--almost too easy.


Bonus: "Honey let me introduce you to my redneck friend"

It is What it IS

Okay, I have REALLY had it with all these ragged looking, religious extremist back country hicks demanding that everyone who refuses to conform and worship God EXACTLY the same way they do be exterminated like cockroaches. These people are CLEARLY a threat to our American way of life, and President Hopey-Changey needs to stop being such a spineless, spluttering little pansy-boy and sic our ginormous military on them post-haste.

Oh, wait a minute, did you think I was referring to ISIS (or ISIL or IS or Whatever-the-fuck-it-IS?)? No silly, I was talking about Phil Robertson and his merry band of drooling, ZZ Top-wannabe troglodytes.

It's at about this point in the program that the Internet's vast legion of armchair warriors gets itself worked up into a rabid froth and begins firing off bile laden comments about how it is the Mooslim fundamentalist whack jobs from ISIS who are running around lopping off heads of anyone they deem an infidel and posting videos of the executions on You Tube for your entertainment. All poor ol' Phil was doing in that Hannity interview, they would argue, was exercising his God-given First Amendment right of freedom of expression.

Fair point. Okay, for the moment I'll take back my facetious call for military action against the Duck Dynasty. After all, there is a BIG difference between committing hideous acts of violence and merely spouting virulently violent rhetoric on national teevee, right?

Well, maybe not that much.

Let's examine for just a moment who Phil Robertson is. Beyond being a self-professed fundamentalist Christian, Robertson has a net worth of around $15 million that is the result of both his hunting apparel business and his reality television show. In other words, he is despite his apparent fanaticism one of the LEAST likely guys in the world to go out beheading reporters and risking having a predator drone dropped on his rich-ass head.

On the other side of this equation are the mostly anonymous ISIS fighters, who these past few months have been rolling up Iraqi and Syrian controlled enclaves even faster than they have the heads of kidnapped American reporters. But think for just a moment about who the ISIS guys actually are: mostly dirt poor young Sunni males who until recently were living under the oppressive Assad and Maliki regimes and whose life choices came down to either whiling away their days tending goats under a blistering hot desert sun for a few dinars a day, or joining up with the local militia boys and being handed AK-47s to go tear-assing around the countryside blowing away soldiers of those very same regimes that had had their boot heels so firmly placed upon their collective necks.

So which choice do YOU think they were gonna make? If you said "goat herder," you fail and clearly need to be sent back to retake Basic Fundamentals of Human Nature 101 all over again. It's a well worn cliche to say that when people got nothing, they got nothing to lose, and few people on this here old Earth have less to lose right now than your average Muslim living in those unfortunate Middle East and South Asian states that have been ripped apart by more than a decade of unbridled American and NATO militarism--to say nothing of a century's worth of exploitative Western imperialism.

But hey, let's flip this narrative over for a minute and imagine that it was Phil Robertson and his clan who had had the misfortune of being born Sunni down in old Mosul. And let's take it a step further and imagine that it was instead a handful of ISIS fighters who had been lucky enough to be born Christian on the Bayou, where the humidity may be high but one at LEAST generally has recourse to the rule of law, especially if one has managed to build a small fortune and can afford to sue rather than shoot their enemies. NOW who do you suppose is going to be rolling heads through the desert sands like zombie bowling balls versus who'll be raking in millions from their duck calls, parading around like circus freaks on their stupid reality teevee show and for some reason being asked to go on a national "news" network so some idiotic airhead can ask them to opine about world events?

It is about at this point in the essay that I imagine at least a few of you are thinking, "hey, Bill, who really gives a flying FUCK what Phil Robertson has to say?" Well, if these were "normal" times in America I'd agree 100%. But as I've pointed out so often on this blog, these interesting times of ours are anything but normal. America has for years now been skating along the edge of the economic precipice just waiting for SOMETHING to shove the country over into the abyss of at least partial economic collapse. And when the day finally does come in which either that happens, or enough Americans see their livelihoods ripped away from them that the country reaches political critical mass, what do you suppose the millions of heavily armed Americans who heard what Brother Phil said and thought "you're God damned right!" are gonna do?

America as a political entity is already beginning to splinter, just as James Howard Kunstler predicted it would in The Long Emergency, as evidenced from such events as the Ferguson riots and the various secession movements around the country advocating separation from certain states or even the U.S. itself. When it starts to actually break apart things are going to get ugly in a hurry for minorities, gays and even women, and many Americans are going to wake up and suddenly find themselves living in a dystopian world little better than the one those unfortunate civilians in the ISIS occupied territories are currently residing in.

I deplore Phil Robertson's comments for their obvious blind bigotry, hatred and sheer fucking ignorance. But what's worse is the fact that his hate filled words were not universally condemned from the moment he closed his mouth after uttering them. Sadly, what they represent is yet another weather vane pointing to which way the wind is currently blowing in our very broken body politic.

Ironically, by funding the Syrian rebels against Assad our government stupidly created the conditions that has allowed ISIS to flourish, while at the same time its domestic policies of continually rewarding banksters and Wall Street while fucking the middle and working classes is slowly creating the conditions that may well someday allow intolerant, violent, ISIS-like extremist groups to flourish right here in the homeland.


Bonus: My papa said "son, don't let the man getcha...do what He done to me."

The Atlantic Wire's Mocking of Hurricane Sandy Warnings Comes Back to Bite Them

I've taken my shots at dipshit Atlantic Wire blogger Jen Doll before, but she really outdid herself in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. This morning, as New York City was awakened to the grim spectacle of severe damage from the storm, including flooded subways, collapsed building facades, crippled construction cranes, an evacuated hospital, exploded transmitters, a spectacular waterfront fire and at least a dozen casualties, Ms. Doll decided to focus on what was really important: New Yorkers who won't be denied their Starbucks under any circumstances:

Before the store closed Monday afternoon, there was a "daylong stream of customers that packed the store, standing shoulder to shoulder and waiting at least 10 minutes to order." One self-described Starbucks fanatic walked 20 blocks to find an open store. Another had her driver bring her to the shop. The threat of all of the Starbucks closing was, to some, more terrifying than the threat of Sandy:

“I didn’t know they were all going to close. I started panicking,” Hernandez said with a chuckle.

“It was scary not having Starbucks,” said Owings, who orders tea, not coffee.
Said another: “I’m really happy these guys are open. I can’t get a pumpkin spice latte anywhere else."

Some people really need to, um, buy a coffeemaker.

But wait, if you think that was bad, consider Ms. Doll's snarky last sentence in light of her long post last Thursday mocking Hurricane Sandy preparations called, I shit you not, "How to Feel About Snoreastercane." This is just a snippet of the sheer stupidity:

Batten down the hatches, have you heard? There's a weather situation a'brewing, one with the best of all possible weather situation names. (Disclaimer: Should Snor'eastercane Sandy actually hurt people, which we really hope she doesn't, we will disavow any and everything in this post. Her name is Sandy! She's a snor'eastercane. What could she have to hate about?) But what's a snor'eastercane, you ask? Allow us to tell you everything we know about Snor'eastercane Sandy, including how you should feel about her possible presence in the East Coast just in time for Halloween. Remember how much fun Snowtober Saul was? (I'm still holding a grudge that we didn't go with Snoctober.)

Snor'eastercane Sandy, so dubbed by the Wall Street Journal ("Sandy," of course, comes from those folks who name storms) is an "unlikely meteorological scenario: a hurricane blending with an inland snowstorm just in time for Halloween." Hurricane Sandy, a hurricane not yet a snor'easter, is currently approaching the Bahamas. Don't worry, weather in New York City and the East Coast will be pretty great for the rest of the week. "For next week, however, it’s starting to seem like not a question of if but where this giant 'snor’eastercane' might strike," writes Eric Holthaus. "Regardless of the exact landfall location on the East Coast, impacts will be felt from Florida to Maine." He gives "two-out-of-three odds that Greater New York experiences significant impacts from this storm"—by that he means primarily "storm surge, wind and heavy rains" (and maybe snow). She could cost billions. Keep a watch on her here; via the AP's Seth Borenstein, scientists predict a 70 percent chance she'll hit the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic (otherwise, she might just snor'eastercane herself out at sea). There will also be a full moon, meaning TIDES and WEREWOLVES. Keep an eye out.

There are as many feelings about Sandy and her snor'easterncane status as one might have about various types of pie, mincemeat (gross) to pumpkin (yes, please) to pecan (good, but so bad for you) to meat (terrifying, maybe delicious?). In hopes of heightening your sense of preparedness for his weather situation, we have analyzed the various types of ways in which you may prepare, mentally, physically, emotionally, and otherwise for this upcoming gambit with Ole Man/Lady Weather.

And I'm sorry, but her lame disclaimer doesn't get her off the hook. And what's up with using the first person plural "we" to describer herself, anyway? Doesn't she know that Any Rand wrote an entire novel (Anthem) in which the characters all referred to themselves in the plural in order to mock collectivism?

There's a longstanding cliche in this country that people hate the so-called "New York Media" because it's so liberal. Personally, I think it is more because a lot of people who work in the media capital of the world are fucking blithering idiots.


Bonus: Dedicated to Atlantic Wire blogger Jen Doll

Newsweek RIP

In a rather stunning development, it was announced yesterday that Newsweek magazine will cease publishing in hard copy at the end of this year:

In a momentous (though not totally unforeseen) development, Newsweek editor Tina Brown announced this morning that the magazine will move to an all-digital format and shutter the print edition just shy of its 80th birthday. In a post on the magazine's website—which Brown folded into TheDailyBeast.com in 2010—she unveiled the new online-only plan for an once-iconic magazine that first began publishing in February of 1933. The magazine will be renamed Newsweek Global, focus on paid subscriptions, and ramp up the importance of e-reader and tablet editions. The last paper issue will be published on December 31.

Brown's post was a modified version of an internal email that also warns employees about anticipated layoffs and restructuring.

The eventual fate of the Newsweek brand appeared inevitable after the merger with The Daily Beast in 2010, which even included the loss of its URL. The entire concept of weekly news magazines has become outdated, as has the economics of print media in general. IAC chairman Barry Diller (who owns half the company) even hinted that this might happen the summer, though he quickly backpedaled on the idea that the print side would shut down completely. However, Brown's strategy seemed to continually push the Newsweek half of Newsweek/Daily Beast to the back burner—when she wasn't cooking up desperate, attention-seeking covers. It was becoming harder and harder to imagine a world in which the magazine might thrive again, but perhaps few expected the end to come soon or so abruptly. Brown writes that she's looking ahead to the "the 80th anniversary of Newsweek next year," but now that day will be more like a funeral.

Notice how the article above tries to write this off as inevitable “progress” when in fact it is anything but. It isn’t just that Newsweek will no longer offer a dead tree edition, but that one of America’s most trusted news sources had already been virtually destroyed as a reliable source of information through the efforts of the utterly vacuous Tina Brown. First she dumbed down the content in pursuit of the lowest common denominator, and then she further degraded the brand with those “desperate, attention-seeking covers.” Perhaps that was not the wisest strategy at a time when virtually every other news media outlet was essentially doing the same thing. Why would any reader plunk down the cash for a copy of Newsweek just so they can read the same sort of shallow coverage and frivolous celebrity worship they can get anywhere else?

The merging of Newsweek into The Daily Beast is particularly regrettable. That website is one of the very worst on the Internet for the way it mixes stories of real importance with the utterly inane and presents it all with ads and pictures of celebrities splattered across every page. While writing this story, I did a quick check of The Daily Beast’s front page, and just by a selection of the posted headlines you can tell how horrible it is:

Sex Lies and Videotape? Meet the Zumba Madame

Deja Hair: Russian Pols Gnarly 80s Style

9 Craziest Bits from Hogan’s Sex Scandal

Campaign Likes Mitt Aggressive

“Tattoo Guy’ Brought Down Lance

Tagg Romney Wanted to Punch Obama

Ashton’s Relationship Frustrates Demi

Will Mitt Sell Mormon Underwear?

Angelina Jolie: We Are All Malala

11 Biggest Celeb Memoir Flops

Can Single Ladies Save Obama?

All of the above garbage was mixed in almost at random with stories about Syria, the attempted bombing of the Federal Reserve and some more substantive stuff on the presidential campaign. This manner of presenting the news could not be more insidious, for it implies to the reader that all of that sheer fluff is of at least equal importance to the genuine news stories. This same phenomenon is happening all over the Internet, of course. Just the other day, I was reading a crime report on local news website. Halfway down the page, the text was interrupted by a big picture of actress Megan Fox showing off her shoulder tattoo with the headline “Celebrity Ink” and a link to a story that I would assume was of zero news value (obviously, I didn’t click on the link). It’s as if every news source has become the National Enquirer. No wonder hardly anybody in this stupid country has any attention span left anymore.

So while I won’t particularly miss Newsweek, at least not the hollow shell of a real news outlet that Newsweek had become in recent years, I do very much lament the relentless ongoing trend of our national media becoming ever more superficial and content free. That is the real importance of this story, not whether a few trees are saved next year when it ceases publication.


Bonus: "Kick 'em when they're up...kick 'em when they're down"

The Watching Dead

This past Sunday night I did something that was quite rare for me—I went along with the crowd and participated in the same activity as probably the greatest percentage of my fellow countrymen were at that particular moment. Specifically, I watched the Season 3 premier of everybody’s favorite zombie splatterfest, The Walking Dead. Amazingly, not only was it the highest rated cable teevee show, EVAH, but it even beat out the ratings of all three major networks during its time slot, to include an NFL game being broadcast on NBC.

I say amazingly because although I myself have been a bit a of a zombie aficionado ever since the first time I caught the original George Romero classic, Dawn of the Dead, on VHS back when I was in college, I never would have expected the zombie genre to (ahem) rise up and become anything more than fodder for B-movies and short story horror anthologies. It is one thing for a guy like me who grew up a horror fiction geek to (double ahem) eat this stuff up, but when my wife tells me as she did yesterday that most of her girlfriends were discussing the show on Facebook I feel safe in assuming that we are witnessing the emergence of a genuine cultural phenomenon.

If you haven’t yet watched the show, the one thing that cannot be said is that it’s a sanitized version of a zombie apocalypse. There are plenty of gruesome close ups of guts and gore of the type that not too long ago were restricted to R-rated movies. Sunday night’s premier was in fact one of the more violent episodes, climaxing with an in your face shot of one of the living survivors having his leg gruesomely amputated with a hatchet in an attempt to save him from the virus that causes the dead to rise.

Oh sure, you can gripe about some of the tiny details that the show gets wrong like, for example, the living survivors’ seemingly magical ability to execute perfect zombie head shots with their sidearms without ever missing, even at a distance and while running. Ever done a headshot drill at the firing range? I have, and let me tell you it isn’t easy to do even at close range while stationary, not under duress and with the target not rushing towards you determined to rip your guts out. Another quibble is how cavalier the survivors are about getting zombie gore all over them while fighting with swords and blunt weapons, even though the contamination of one little scratch on their skin could be a potential death sentence in that situation. And don’t get me started about Herschel’s “magic shotgun” in the last episode of Season 2. I know the man is a Christian and all, but the number of rounds that came out of that thing without reloading puts the old “loaves and the fishes” story to shame.

Nevertheless, these are mere quibbles. I came here to praise or at least analyze The Walking Dead, not to (ahem again) bury it. Take it from me, the show is worth your time if you are into good zombie stories, or if you just want to scratch your head for awhile and try to figure out just what the heck is going on with our culture.

We’re a nation that has become so good at lying to itself that most people are unable to recognize what the truth even is anymore. The Hologram of the American media spends 24/7 blowing sunshine up the skirts of the masses in an effort to convince them that everything is hunky-dory and that they should get their fat asses out to the mall and consume, consume, consume. Nearly everything in our popular culture, from “reality” television shows, to American Idol-ized music, to endless superhero action movies and dimwitted romantic comedies, to trashy “young adult” novels, are not only relentlessly aimed at the lowest common denominator, but almost completely crowd out any works of artistic quality with the seemingly specific aim of desensitizing those portions of the brain that engage in critical thinking and decision making.

The underlying message is quite simple: work, work, work so you can spend, spend, spend and we will all live in a more prosperous tomorrow with even more electronic gadgets to ruin our attention spans and keep us fat, dumb and if not happy at least not out rioting in the streets demanding change. And if you can’t afford it right now, the banksters will keep right on lending you the money so you can have your instant gratification while being tied by your debts even tighter to a system that is slowly destroying your health, your security and your future. Not that you’ll ever notice, because you are too busy worrying about the supposedly fierce rivalry between the utterly vacuous Mariah Carey and the even more vacuous Nicki Minaj, and if you start feeling depressed about all of this there are plenty of pills we can dope you up with to help you accept your lot in this disposable society.

Yet despite this gargantuan effort to anesthetize the masses, end of the world and dystopian visions have never been hotter as a form of mass entertainment. It all reached a crescendo this past year when The Hunger Games displaced Harry Potter and Twilight as the movie (and book series) the teenyboppers just HAD to see. Nowadays, there’s a version of the apocalypse for every audience and world view, from the Rapture fantasies of the Left Behind series to Colson Whitehead’s literary zombie novel for New Yorker readers, Zone One. And countless millions of people are no doubt holding their collective breath to see if the ancient Mayan doomsday prophecy comes true this December.

So why, in the face of all the propagandizing efforts to the contrary, have Americans become so obsessed with the end of the world? Could it be that many people sense deep down in their bones that we are teetering on the precipice of an epic civilization ending disaster even if they won’t consciously admit it? Perhaps so. You would have to have the emotional intelligence quotient of a slab of granite not to feel that SOMETHING has certainly gone wrong with our decadent and depraved society.

Interestingly, the marketers have caught on to the appeal of the apocalypse phenomenon. The Walking Dead premier itself had about six commercial breaks for all manner of useless products interrupting its one hour broadcast, which creates quite a jarring viewing experience especially since, as Romero recognized 33 years ago, zombies are the perfect metaphor for the mindless consumer. There was even a contest you could enter to win the brand spanking new Hyundai the living characters were driving during the episode. Nice to know that when the world ends, a Korean automobile plant will apparently be the only safe haven available anywhere in the world.

No doubt most people watching the show imagined themselves in the place of Rick and his plucky band of survivors, with no awareness that in the real world their behavior is much closer to the deadly horde, consuming all in their path in a desperate attempt to maintain their unsustainable lifestyles. The only difference is that there is not an elite group of puppet masters in the form of the oligarchs controlling the actions of the undead. All in all, I don’t know what is worse, that we so easily buy into a predatory system that is slowly killing us, or that we do so to enrich the very jackals who manipulate us into going along with it. But hey, on next week's show, Rick and the gang will surely finish clearing out that prison, and then maybe they at least will “safe,” if only for a little while.


Bonus: "I learned everything from George Romero"

Hideous Liberal "News" Outlet Snidely Dismisses the Results of Venezuela's Election

There is probably no website that better encapsulates the sheer venality and arrogance of America's supposedly "liberal" media establishment than the Atlantic Wire. Every day the Wire bombards its mostly liberal and progressive readership with the headlines its editors think are important, which could be anything from the civil war in Syria to economic collapse in Greece to the latest antics of Lindsey Lohan and Amanda Byrnes. Mixing real news with the utterly trivial as if each has equal importance is bad enough. But even worse is the site's routine asskissing of the rich and powerful and total conformity to the accepted conventional media "wisdom."

Case in point: yesterday the Wire ran the following headline in reporting the results of Venezuela's presidential election: "Of Course, Hugo Chavez Wins Another Term." Note the snide inference that the election results were not legitimate.

And yet, unlike the norm in most supposedly authoritarian countries, the election was actually pretty close:

In an election that was expected to deliver a record level of voter turnout on Sunday, the socialist leader garnered 54 percent of the vote, while his challenger centrist state governor Henrique Capriles got 45 percent.

Funny, but America has had presidential elections in which the final spread between the wo major party candidates was greater than 9%. So what was it that generated the insinuation that Hugo Chavez winning the race was a sham?

Fate was always on Chavez's side, though. Armed with Venezuela's war chest of oil money, he's spent the last few months launching massive giveaway programs that gave Chinese-made appliances to tens of thousands of poor Venezuelan families and promised the construction of 200,000 homes for the country's poor. "Since late last year, Chavez has been spending money like there's no tomorrow, and it's worked," one political analyst told The Los Angeles Times. "Most polls show his approval ratings are up 10 points since then." The government is on track to run a $60-billion deficit this year, by the way.

Gee, that horrible Chavez. What an inhuman monster he is for taking Venezuela's oil profits and instead of allowing a tiny group of politically connected corrupt billionaires to steal it all deciding to give it back to the people. And don't get me started about the absurdity of chastising Chavez for running a $60 billion budget defict when our own is around $1.4 trillion.

There are three things about the way the Wire reported this story that are notable. The first is the idea of a "liberal" news organ looking down its nose at a world leader who is not completely captured by the elite interests of his own country. Heaven forbid that the left wing party in Venezuela isn't beholden to the wealthy and the corporations the way the Democratic Party is in the U.S.--those silly third worlders and their quaint notions that having a real democracy means that the full political spectrum and not just the right of center should be represented.

The second thing that is notabale is that amazingly, only 5% less than a majority of Venezuelans actually voted against their nation's power structure. Compare that to the United States, where next month it is virtually guaranteed that at least 99% of the voters will cast their ballots for one of two oligarch-approved candidates whose positions are virtually identical on every issue of real importance. And yet the Wire has the audacity to insinuate that it is the Venezuelans who live in a sham democracy and not Americans.

And lastly there is the casual manner in which the Wire's headline reinforces the idea that America's reflexive anti-Chavez foreign policy makes any sense whatsoever and should be supported without question whatever your place may be on the political spectrum. It is one thing when some Fox News pundit rails against Chavez or cretinous teevee preacher Pat Robertson calls for his assassination, but it is another matter entirely when such propagandizing garbage is published in mainstream media outlets. What this tells you is that the establishment has decided that Chavez is an enemy of America (even though he continues to allow his county's oil to be sold to the U.S.) and dissenting voices which may question why there is so much demonization aimed at a leader who, whatever his faults, is far from being an evil dictator will simply not be tolerated. Certainly, by expressing such positions one is shutting themselves off from any hopes of ever advancing or having one's voice heard by more than a tiny minority of readers on the Internet.

Sadly, the American media has reached the point where it has no more credibility than did Pravda in the old Soviet Union. The difference is that I would bet that many of Russians KNEW that the information they were getting was pure bullshit, whereas you cannot say the same thing about the average American today.


Bonus: "The powers that be...They like a tough game...No rules"

The Crying Games

The crybaby brigade was out in full force late last week, making excuses for the presidential candidates while catering to the prejudices of America's two great (and hopelessly deluded) political tribes. It all started Wednesday night after Willard "unexpectedly" came out strong in his "debate" with President Hopey-Changey. Why oh why, many partisan Democrats were asking, didn't Obama come out swinging and put Governor 47%-er on the ropes early? This should have been like taking candy from a baby, but somehow Obama "blew it."

My favorite "explanation" for Obama's performance comes from George Jackoff Lakoff, author of The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic (just shoot me now), over at the Huffington Post:

You don't win a presidential debate by being a policy wonk. Obama violated all the basics of presidential debating. The best defense is a good offense. You have to set the terms of the debate and press those terms. Obama failed. Here are those basics:

State your moral values. Contrast them with your opponent's.

Project empathy and enthusiasm. Connect.

Communicate clearly and simply. Be authentic. Say just what you believe.

Project trust.

Present an authentic view of yourself that the public can identify with and be proud of.

Obama did none of this. Instead he talked about policy details.

He needed to come on strong from the first sentence.

Democracy is based on citizens caring about and taking responsibility for both themselves as for the well-being of all. Government is the instrument that citizens use to guarantee protection and empowerment for all. We all, together, provide what is needed for a decent life. Individual accomplishment rests on what other Americans have provided and keep providing.

Building the economy requires public investment -- in public infrastructure, education, research, and much more.

Success is much more than money. It is your contribution to America as a whole -- whether it is teaching, raising children, providing food, healing the sick, making useful products, guaranteeing our rights and our safety, or running businesses that make life better. America needs us all. And we all depend on each other. Personal responsibility is necessary.

Lakoff continues on in this vein for a couple more paragraphs, but this was about all I could stand.

Notice what is missing from Lakoff's analysis of what Obama did wrong? Not once does Jackoff...er, sorry, Lakoff say that Obama needed to CLEARLY ARTICULATE HOW HIS POSITIONS ARE DIFFERENT FROM ROMNEY. And why didn't he do that? Because THERE IS NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE, which leaves sellout hack mouthpieces like Lakoff struggling with all of their might to convince their dimwitted readers that there is in fact a difference but it just wasn't clearly articulated.

Obama fumbled the debate for a very basic reason: he ain't got SHIT to say. He has a lead and he's trying to run out the clock. After all, what's Romney going to do, point out how President Sellout has broken nearly every one of his 2008 campaign promises and for four years has been treating his liberal and progressive base like the whiny little bitches that they are? Of course fucking not.

On the flip side, there was the conservative freak out on Friday when, despite the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Lying Statistic showing only 115,000 jobs being created in September, the unemployment rate "magically" dropped by .3% just in time for the home stretch in the campaign. It wasn't more than a few hours after the jobs report was released that the Fox News brigade, led by cretinous old former GE CEO Jack Welch, was out in full force trying convince their drooling troglodyte audience that it was some big conspiracy on the part of federal government drones to get Obama reelected.

So was the BLS report manipulated? Of COURSE it fucking was, just like every other monthly jobs report going back to three years ago when this "zombie recovery" started. But it isn't about trying to get Obama reelected, it's about trying to keep the fucking economy from resuming its collapse. Everything our fearless "leaders" have been doing since the fall or 2008, from the TARP law to QE3 has been a massive con job attempting to induce the average consumer idiot to keep spending. Jack Welch is smart enough to know that, which means he is either a liar or he's gone senile.

All in all, it was just another couple of excruciating days in Campaign Stupid. Thank your own personal deity that we only have about four more weeks of this bullshit to endure before it is mercifully all over.


Bonus: "I still cry...just like a baby"

Campaign Stupid Just Keeps Rolling Along

As I have said here before, every day in this stupid ass country the movie Idiocracy looks more and more like a documentary. No greater proof need be presented of this basic fact than looking at just how completely the presidential campaign has descended into absolute farce. With this contest between two corporatist candidates who differ not one iota on any issue of substance, our completely corrupt and thoroughly compromised mainstream media is working overtime to gin up fake controversies that will be all-but-forgotten by the morning of November 7th in order to maintain the illusion that Americans have a real choice at the ballot box.

Below is a collection of campaign related headlines that have appeared in just the past few days on the liberal politics and news site, The Raw Story. I'm only including the headlines and not links to the stories because the titillating headlines and the resulting sound bites are what's important to swaying the opinions and votes of Americas two great political tribes, not the substance of the stories themselves. I'm also not including the stories because I did not read any of them for fear that my brain would revolt and try to escape out of my ears if subjected to such a heaping pile of sheer nonsense. Anyway, here goes:

What we still don’t know about Mitt Romney’s taxes

What's there to know that we don't already? He's a filthy rich fucker who got that way from offshoring American jobs and paying a tax rate half that of what people who actually work for a living pay. Nothing new to see here, let's move on.

Hollywood celebrities use social media to get out the vote

If you are the kind of mouth breathing nitwit who makes your choice at the ballot box based upon some poorly articulated two sentence tweet from some vacuous celebrity, your voter's registration card should be permanently rescinded because you are clearly a danger to yourself and others.

Limbaugh sides with George Will and calls Obama ‘an affirmative action hire’

Regrettably, the difference between these two bloviating media whores is that Will is allegedly smart enough to know better.

Republicans seize on Biden ‘buried’ middle class gaffe

Wow...the notoriously gaffe-prone Biden said something stupid. Stop the fucking presses already.

Supporters at Romney rally tell cardboard Obama to ‘Go back to Kenya!’

These fucking idiots absolutely fail to realize that every time they say such idiotic, bigoted things it just reinforces the Obama supporters' determination to vote for him again however disillusioned they may be with the sellouts of the first four years of his presidency.

Gary Johnson goes crowd surfing in Utah

Nice to see Gary is trying to paint himself as a different kind of candidate by stooping to the same kind of dumbass, meaningless stunts that the major candidates do.

Ann Coulter ‘horrified’ she ever dated liberals

Hear that Maher--Skeletor has officially made you part of her "walk of shame." Which begs the (ahem) burning question--can an STD be passed from a liberal to a conservative?

Richard Belzer mocks Fox News with Nazi salute on live TV

Because there is absolutely no more effective method of winning a political argument these days and bringing people over to your side than calling your opposition a bunch of Nazis.

Republican candidate posts his gun on Facebook: ‘Welcome to Tennessee, Mr. Obama’

Memo to any Tea Party morons who apparently haven't been paying attention: mentioning the president, any president, and your guns in the same sentence WILL draw unwanted attention from the Secret Service. Bank on it.

Former N.H. Gov. Sununu: Poll showing Romney losing in my state is ‘a piece of garbage’

Yeah...you tell 'em, Gov. It isn't like the land of "Live Free or Die" went blue in 2004 and 2008 or anything...oh wait.

Voter registration slumps amid lack of enthusiasm for Obama and Romney

Well, what do you know? An actual intelligent headline. Gee, ya think maybe Americans are starting to catch on that the election is a sham and that it will have absolutely no affect whatsoever in their lives no matter who wins? Perish the thought!

Beck: God put Romney behind in polls to prove it’s a miracle when he wins

Obviously, that is Glenn Beck, not the rock singer Beck. In case your whole life doesn't revolve around watching the drooling troglodytes on the cable news shows.

GOP volunteer tells voter: Obama is a Muslim who wants ‘a socialistic country’

I really think we're going to have to find a photograph of Obama with his pants down around his ankles and Lloyd Blankfein sodomizing him before these idiots get their heads out of their asses and start to realize that the truth is even worse than their delusions.

Ingraham: ‘Fools’ errand’ for Romney to attempt ‘human moment’ at debate

That would be Laura Ingraham. I just love how the media has become so insular that they just assume we know who every fucking second-rate clown pundit is, like "Ingraham" means the same thing that "Madonna" does to popular music fans.

McCain suggests Harry Reid ‘doesn’t care’ about US ambassador’s death

And you don't eirther, you warmongering old fuck. Or otherwise you'd stop pressing for the aggressive war policies that make acts like the Ambassador's killing far more likely.

But here is my absolute favorite of the lot:

Ryan on Romney’s tax plan: ‘It would take me too long’ to explain

Wow, we were just about to actually, maybe discuss one of the issues, but they are way too complicated for you stupid fucking sheep to understand. Just be sure you get your ass to the polls on November 6th so that no matter who wins this fake campaign between two Holographic images you're going to get sheared yet again over the next four years.


Bonus: We're all losers, baby, so why don't you kill me

Bill Maher: "Dipshit" Pot Calls the Kettle Black

I used to be a fan of comedian Bill Maher, but after many years of apparently having no one in his inner circle who dares tell him he is ever wrong about anything, the man who used to pride himself on being such a supposed deep thinker as a stand up comedian is now "jumping the shark" on a regular basis. For the first time in many a moon I caught the last 20 minutes of his weekly HBO show last Friday night, and I couldn't believe all the idiotic bullshit that was pouring out of his mouth.

It started with he and Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie basically saying that they agree with xenophobic conservatives that, compared to other religions, a majority of the world's Muslims are irrational hotheads without ever once acknowledging that many Muslims residing in the Middle East and South Asia who have been the victims of America's murderous imperialistic war polices might actually have legitimate grievances. Now I would expect Rushdie, who after all has been living under an Ayatollah-imposed death sentence for nearly a quarter of a century, to be a tad bitter towards Islam, but I was appalled when Maher nodded like a sock puppet while Rushdie asserted that half a century ago cities in the region like Tehran were "open, cosmopolitan cities," rather that the hotbeds of radicalism they are today.

Yes, Salmon, Tehran back then was indeed an absolute paradise of open-minded tolerance for you as a citizen of a brutal British Empire that was only just then deigning to grant the "ignorant savages" independence the world over. Unfortunately, and this might have escaped your notice up there in your fucking ivory tower where the air apparently gets a little thin and kills off the brain cells that enable critical thinking, the average Iranian during that period lived every day in fear of being abducted, tortured and disappeared by the U.S.-backed Shah's Gestapo-like SAVAK secret police force. Maybe, just maybe, it makes more sense to blame the U.S. for engineering the 1953 coup that overthrew the democratically elected Iranian government and set the conditions that ultimately led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution which brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. To argue that Islam has become "radicalized" in the past 50 years, as Rushdie did with poodle Maher by his side, without once acknowledging the role of Western imperialism in stoking that radicalization puts Rushdie and Maher intellectually on par with the likes of Dick Cheney or Paul Wolfowitz.

A little bit later in the show, referring to Mutt Romney's little 47% problem, Maher lamented that it has gotten to the point where no one can get up on stage to address an audience anymore without someone making a recording of it and placing it on You Tube. Maher then bizarrely compared the crap Williard has been getting for his comments to the infamous Michael Richards and smarmy douchebag Daniel Tosh notorious comedy club meltdowns.

Apparently, in the increasingly addled mind of America's most lovable atheist, no one should be able to hold you accountable if you get up on stage as Richards did and repeatedly call a black audience member the n-word while advocating that he be lynched or, as Tosh did, tell a female audience member that she deserves to be gang raped for calling out to you that she doesn't think rape jokes are funny (oh, and not incidentally, Tosh's meltdown was NOT caught on video but merely blogged about by the victim of Tosh's vicious verbal assault). Obviously I'm a huge fan of risque humor myself, but heaven forbid that the world is no longer safe for blatantly racist and misogynist stand up comedians to keep earning a buck after exposing their ugly inner thoughts onstage. Bill Hicks was a master at verbally destroying hecklers--but he knew how to do it without resorting to such garbage. Oh, and he was, you know, actually funny.

But Maher reached a new low even for him during his "new rules" segment when he called undecided voters "dipshits" who should "stay home on election day." Here is The Raw Story with the details:

“If you’re one of the 5 percent of American voters who are still undecided on who to vote for, it’s okay to admit you just don’t really give a shit,” Maher began. “Seriously, if you still can’t figure out who you like more –Mitt Romney or Barrack Obama– stay home… because you probably couldn’t find your polling place anyway. I mean, what more information does someone need to make this choice? Obama has been President for nearly four years. And Mitt Romney has been running for President since 1971, when his space egg incubated and he burst out of an astronaut’s chest.”

But Maher’s criticism wasn’t merely for the “undecideds,” but for notion that mainstream media outlets give their opinions weight.

“Can we please stop treating them like they’re more noble and discerning than the rest of us? …[Undecided voters are] put on a pedestal by the media, as if they’re Hamlet in a think tank, searching out every last bit of information and high-minded arbiters pouring over policy positions and matching them against their own philosophies. Please! They mostly fall into a category political scientists call ‘low-information voters’ –otherwise known as ‘dipshits.’”

Yeah, Bill, you are such a superior thinker being a "high information" voter and all that you laughably believe that it will make ANY fucking difference whatsoever in the lives of the average American who wins the election in November. In fact, despite President Hopey-Changey having sold the liberal and progressive movement down the river on every singe issue of real importance since his inauguration you still inexplicably donated a cool $1 million of your own money to Obama's super PAC for his reelection campaign. And this happened AFTER you publicly proclaimed that you were "disappointed" in Obama last year for "giving away the store" as you so memorably put it your own self.

So tell me, Bill, because as someone who is a "high information NON-voter" I'd really like to know the answer to this question...who's the true dipshit, the low information voter who can't make up their mind, or the smug, self-satisfied talk show host who despite all of the evidence to the contrary is still desperately trying to convince his delusional liberal and progressive audience that it matters either way?


Bonus: Here is a video of the Rushdie/Maher conversation if you can stomach it. Pretty sad when a hack like Chris Matthews serves the voice of REASON in any political discussion.

There Are No Superheroes, Just a Decadent and Depraved Culture

Mass shootings have become so common in America in recent years that most of the time they no longer even generate screaming national headlines—instead often fading into the media background noise along with all of the other horrible shit happening these days. If you are an aspiring mass shooter, you’ve got to come up with something truly creative to really get noticed. Show us something we haven’t seen before, you know, like attacking a crowded theater during the midnight premiere of the latest $200 million mindless comic book movie.

Today’s mass shooting tragedy in Aurora, Colorado—incidentally located not too far from the scene of the horrific 1999 slaughter at Columbine High School—was spectacular enough to get our collective attention. Once again, grisly images of bloodied bodies, including children, being littered across a typical suburban landscape have been seared upon our collective conscience, momentarily shaking us out of our media-induced stupor, if only long enough to merely condemn the killer as an asocial monster. And once again, as soon as the initial shock has faded we will collectively go right back to sleep without asking any of the larger questions about just why it is that so many of our fellow citizens “suddenly” turn rabid and try to kill as many others possible.

No doubt that in the aftermath of the shootings, before the blood and gore has even been scrubbed from the crime scene and the bodies of the dead buried in their graves, we will hear the same tired old bromides from both sides of the political spectrum. Liberals will insinuate that we need more gun control, though few Democratic office holders will say so too openly out of fear of offending the gun lobby. Many conservatives, meanwhile, will trot out the even more ridiculous line that the shootings just show that everyone should be packing heat and ready to defend themselves, even though most people are so incompetent that if all of the patrons in that theater had opened fire at once they would likely ALL have ended up dead in the resulting melee.

I’m sorry to disappoint the members of my former political tribe, but easy access to guns really isn’t the problem. Owing to its frontier heritage, America has always been a gun culture, and yet the epidemic of mass shootings is a relatively recent phenomenon. What’s changed is not the available weaponry but a the emergence of a decadent and depraved culture that has left countless millions of people alienated and disaffected with little hope that their shitty lives will ever get any better.

After World War Two, thanks greatly to the rise of television, America became the perfect consumer society just as it was also building soulless artificial suburban communities farther and farther from central cities. Whereas previously most people never strayed more than handful of miles from the place of their birth, meaning that they were always surrounded by a strong support network of friends and family members, suddenly in the pursuit of ever higher paying jobs in order to be able to afford the “good life” being sold to them on their television screens it became the norm to move hundreds or even thousands of miles away to places where they did not know anybody.

Instead of living in a modest homestead with maybe three generations under the same roof, they now occupy oversized McMansions on leafy cul-de-sacs where they barely even know the names of any of their neighbors. Burdened by ever higher levels of debt as they try to keep up with the Joneses despite stagnating salaries, they work ever longer hours with ever less vacation time to try to keep from falling off of a gigantic economic treadmill that seems to move a little bit faster every year.

Rather than having one parent stay home to raise the children, both have to work to afford their expensive lifestyles, meaning that the children get dumped off to day care, often before they are even old enough to walk. When the kids are old enough, instead of being sent to a small local schoolhouse they instead find themselves shipped every morning to gigantic education warehouses where the more socially awkward among them are relentlessly bullied by their peers. And when the kids do finally get to college they find themselves being buried under a gigantic mount of student loan debt before they even have a chance to get started in life. Oh, and just for shits and giggles (and Hollywood's profit margin) we'll make it so much of our popular culture consists of mindlessly hyperviolent movies, video games and teevee shows like The Dark Knight Rises, and get people so amped up to see them that they will stupidly rush out like lemmings to wait in long lines at the ridiculous hour of midnight to see the latest spectacle that will be available in their homes on Netflix within six months.

And now, in this age of permanent economic contraction, having completely bought in to an “American way of life” that has been sold to them relentlessly ever since they were little children, people are staring slackjawed as all of it is slowly being taken away from them by a greedy and predatory elite who have always felt that the rise of the middle class was only made possible in the first place by stealing what was rightfully theirs. At this point, the wonder is not that there are those who go off in a mindless rage and begin randomly killing everyone around them, but that it doesn’t actually happen more often.


Bonus: "Keep everyone afraid, and then they'll consume"