True Liberal Nexus

Love of Labor

September 5, 2010

When you’re on the phone this weekend, talking to tech support in India about your product made in China, try to remember that it’s Labor Day in America. The holiday was originally intended to honor the men and women (and, sadly, the children) who labored so hard to build this nation. Now The Day of the Laborers is just another 3-day weekend, the semi-official End of Summer. Like the Ramadan cocktail parties in Brave New World, we tend to drain our commemorations of any real significance.

In addition to your last beach visit and your last BBQ, Labor Day will allow you to shop some AMAZING THREE-DAY SALES, with BLOW-OUT PRICES on crap made by Chinese laborers. Your grille and your beach umbrella come from there, too.

But Labor Day is fun. The only people who hate Labor Day are conservatives. For them, Labor = Communism. They can view society only in Ayn Rand’s false dichotomy of Karl Marx vs. John Galt, of collectivized industry vs. robber-baron capitalism. Yet there is a middle way, where a truly free market coexists alongside a strong social network, and with regulations to protect everyday people from exploitation.

The archetypical image of The Laborer is a posterized factory worker in overalls, short-billed cap, burly biceps below rolled-up sleeves, sledge hammer clutched in raised fist. This icon hearkens back to the era when organized labor fought for and won the fair wages, safe working conditions, and livable retirements they deserved. True, many unions later exploited their power. The Teamsters, for example, is nothing less than a mafia. But no one can deny that labor needed to organize to end its terrible exploitation, or that exploiting workers is a bad thing. No one except libertarians, that is. The fact that school teachers in America are so dependent on their unions and on strikes to get fair pay is a sad, sad indictment of our priorities.

Too much is made of the strife between blue-collar and white-collar workers, when in reality, the two ought enjoy a symbiotic relationship. Both classes work, usually very hard, and both make indispensable contributions to our society. Both should be paid fairly, neither too little nor too much. As someone who has personally done nearly every kind of job imaginable, I appreciate all honest labor.

We all saw the ugly face of “Creative Class” elitism bared during the obama campaign, but I have often encountered the inverse, what I call “blue collar bushido.” Once, in a business office, I overheard two secretaries: “what is it exactly that managers manage? I mean they just sit at their desk all day. We’re the ones who do all the real work — the typing, the filing, the answering of the phones.” Years later, when our start-up was struggling, I suggested to my partner that we ask my dad, a retired senior executive, to oversee some projects. “You and your dad don’t know how to get things done,” she sneered, “you just know how to get people like me and my dad to do the actual work!” (My dad & I can do both, actually.) Blue collar and white collar have coexisted since at least the first city-states. They need each other. The rancor of their rivalry should not exceed that of the annual Army-Navy game.

There’s also a third class, with growing influence in America — a small, elite cadre of financiers, stock market players, business magnates and investors. We could call them “gold collar,” but the term “workers” would be too generous. Or we could refer to them by their technical name: “Tapeworms.” Though but a tiny fraction of the population, these tapeworms possess most of the total wealth. Their lust for wealth consumes their entire existence, so they must constantly acquire more — which they do primarily by exploiting the real workers, blue and white. Even worse, these gold collars don’t actually produce or provide anything to earn their riches. Like the parasites they are, they simply have positioned themselves in the flow and suck it off their host. Meet a few of these tapeworms lurking in our collective gut:

Bill Gates: Rewarded each year with $2,100,000,000 for having once bought DOS for 50 grand off the guy that actually wrote it, then preventing anyone from writing anything else useful;

Warren Buffett: Won $62,000,000,000 gambling on whether other people made or lost money;

Koch Brothers: Reap $100,000,000,000 p/a from coal mining that lays waste to entire counties, kills miners both fast and slow. A slice of their profits is parlayed back into the GW denial industry they single-handedly set up;

Tony Hayward: Collected a $1,600,000 severance package — equal to one year’s salary — plus a $1,000,000 p/a pension for life, for overseeing unethical business practices … oh, and for being the cool-headed, quick-thinking, forceful presence should a crisis ever occur;

Richard Grasso: Director of the NYSE, earned $145,000,000 each year for sending the other parasites home each day by banging a gong. His salary nearly bankrupted the 168-year old Exchange;

Goldman-Sachs: Like a thick ball of heartworms, GS threatens to choke the life out of its host – America. GS hit paydirt — $4,000,000,000 — on the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage bond market which it created. GS amasses mountains of money by shuffling around other people’s money, and by betting that those people will lose their money in one of GS’s schemes. When GS bet wrong, we bailed them out with TARP. GS used our cash to give its executives $1,000,000 bonuses for a job well done.

In ever increasing numbers, these tapeworms are ensconced in senior executive positions. In my father’s day, most business execs worked their tails off doing real managerial work, and were paid fairly and in proper ratio to other positions. Of course, many of them were probably like my dad, a son of blue collar workers and grandson of day laborer immigrants, none of whom ever shirked or loafed a day in their life. Today, the tapeworms at the top of the org charts have no concept of what real work is. Instead, they are masters of office politics, of posturing, of indulging in privilege and cashing in on power. Their business decisions concern only the short-term profit of stockholders — and themselves. The fact that most of them spend all their waking hours at the office says more about their lack of an healthy personal life than their diligence.

One such executive tapeworm is Meg Whitman. Born with a silver spoon in her mouth, famous as the former CEO of eBay, Whitman is running for governor of California on her putative managerial skills. Meg has a plan to create jobs. And Meg actually has a long track record of creating jobs — in India and China, that is. As the California Labor Federation warns in a video, Whitman’s M.O. has been to join a company in a senior position, offshore the jobs of entire departments, make a couple mill’ on the side with insider trades, then move on to the next hatchet job.

In 2002, Whitman also inadvertently axed her own position at eBay. Notorious for hounding and berating her employees, one day Meggers got so upset with the maid … er, senior marketing director, that she shoved the woman to the ground. Whitman left eBay pronto to join that squirming mass of bloodworms, Goldman-Sachs, where she’d already been earning (sic) $475,000 to sit on their board. Proving that, for a tapeworm there’s no conflict of interest when it’s all about your self-interest, Whitman had steered millions of dollars of eBay’s investments to GS. This year, Whitman accepted a $105,000 “thank you” campaign donation from GS. And now she wants to apply her work ethic to California. If Whitman wins, she’ll join a thriving colony of gold collar parasites infesting government. Worms in the gut are debilitating. Worms in the brain are fatal.

So this Labor Day, workers of the world, toast yourselves. And while you’re at it, unite! After all, you’ve got nothing to lose, except your intestinal parasites.

3 Comments | capitalism, Economy | Tagged: capitalism, economy, Labor Day, Offshoring | Permalink
Posted by Matt

All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Boots

August 11, 2010

The other day, I went shopping for cowboy boots. I tried on a pair from an unfamiliar brand — Smoky Mountain. They were so comfortable that I wore them out of the store and kept them on all day. It wasn’t until the next morning, when I pulled them on to do my barn chores, that I saw the “Made in China” label.

For some time now, I’ve tried to boycott Chinese products, for reasons given below. It can be hard. Practically everything, from tools to kitchen utensils to pet food, comes from China. Even if you’re prepared to spend a bit extra, most retail stores carry little or nothing else.

I’m Just a Material Cowboy, Living In a Material World

Packaging can trick you. Not for a second would I have considered a pair of boots from Anping Julong Animal By Product Manufacture Co. Ltd. I assumed (admittedly, without thinking too hard) that these boots, in their buff box with a woodsy green logo of a mountain range topped by “Smoky Mountain” in Cooper typeface, came from east Tennessee or North Carolina. In my subconscious arose an image of doughty Appalachian folk in plaid shirts lovingly hand-crafting my new boots in a bat-on-board workshop surrounded by tall pines. I now know that my leather-upper-balance-man-made-materials footwear was slapped together by slave labor in some pollution-belching factory in Guangdong Province before traveling across the Pacific in a 40′ container.

Now alerted, I pulled out all my boots & shoes. With the exception of two pairs, my Justin packers and my sturdy, Wisconsin muck boots, all were from China. I reeled.

Marketing doesn’t have to be deceptive. There’s no sin in effectively communicating a product’s benefits, even if its primary benefit is low cost. The Smoky Mountain mark, however, is a deliberate lie. It fooled me into believing I was paying a premium (the boots were as expensive as Justins) for an American product. Neither the box nor the company web site give any indication who Smoky Mountain is or where they are from. Somewhere out there is a rich bastard who just got a littler richer by first exploiting a Chinese laborer and then duping me.

We Americans, though, need scant help with our self-deception. We complain when jobs get shipped oversees, yet we exclusively bargain-shop. Granted, most of us were raised to view bargain-hunting as praiseworthy thrift, but in today’s global economy, ostensible bargains come with an hefty, hidden mark-up.

The graver problem is not how we shop, but why we shop. Instead of buying things we need or would enjoy using, we buy things for the sheer thrill of acquiring them. This pleasure in finding & acquiring must originate from hunter/collector days if not earlier, but in a world where artificially lowered prices combine with a culture obsessed with possessions, our primeval instincts have been perverted into a mad, insatiable lust.

Birth Of An Addiction

The perversion of the American work ethic into the American acquisition addiction can be dated fairly accurately. Near the end of WW II, when, after seven years of a brutal depression, and another five of a tough (by our standards) war, average Americans craved, & felt themselves deserving of, the gamut of comforts and luxuries. By happy coincidence, we had just undergone massive expansion of our manufacturing base while obliterating that of our competitors. US-made TVs, autos, dish washers, blenders and baseball gloves were all plentiful and affordable.

Steadily, we frittered away that huge lead. Germany started offering high- end products at acceptable prices, while Japan flooded the market with acceptable products at low-end prices. Meanwhile, our bulwark industries, especially auto, ossified and disgorged inelegant crap. Somewhere along the line, the American people morphed from producers into “consumers.”

Jimmy Carter, in a serious buzz kill, tried to warn us. We were instead drawn to Reagan’s siren call, telling us America had never been healthier. Reagan unleashed the dogs of capitalist consumption and the rich got richer and trickled down some table scraps to the rest of us. People started having to work longer and longer hours, while real wages stayed flat and productivity actually went down. But the rich kept getting richer.

When they shut down the steel mills and the factories, and shipped those jobs oversees, they told us we were transitioning to a “Service Economy.” When they shipped all the service jobs oversees, they told us we now had an “Information Economy.” And now we’re down to a “Jobless Economy.”

The Pawn Shop School of Economics

Through these many decades of steady decline, we Americans have stubbornly clung to that shopping habit we first picked up in the late forties. To maintain our habit, we first used up our savings (individual and collective), and then we went into debt.

Our primary pusher has been East Asia, and more and more, China.

A savvy drug dealer, China is intimately familiar with our special cravings and caters to them fastidiously. What? I must choose between the DVD, the swing set, or … these spiffy new boots? I want them all now! Thanks to China, I can afford them all at once — with the caveat that the DVD will break within 6 months, the paint on the swing will poison my kids, and if I saw the factory my boots were made in, I’d probably retch. Products from China are cheap because because unethical means are used to keep costs down. The raw materials increasingly come from poor countries, where the Chinese come in, strip the land of everything of value, then leave. Chinese factories are inefficient, polluting nightmares, with horrific working conditions. The products are shoddy to the extreme. So they fall apart. Which isn’t really a problem, because we buy them not so we can use them; we buy them so we can buy them. Everything revolves around getting that next shopping high.

How have we been able to pay for this sustained and growing trade deficit? Like any desperate junkie, we’ve pawned off our valuable possessions, our national assets. Twenty-five percent of US debt is in the hands of foreign nations, a doubling over the past two decades. We now owe China almost one trillion dollars.

Getting Clean

Every recovery begins by acknowledging that you have a problem. Capitalism and its twin, consumerism, are destructive diseases. Possessions and comforts can provide happiness, but the obsessive pursuit of them only brings woe and devastation. Anyone who tells you capitalism is a good thing is either evil or insane.

The second step is to take some concrete actions to curb your addiction. Ideally, the government could stage an intervention. The regulations on business & finance, never terribly strong, that were lifted in the eighties, could be reinstated in force. US firms that offshore jobs could lose their right to do business in the US, with their CEOs stripped of US citizenship. Perhaps granting “most favored trading nation” status to countries that rig their currency or who permit inhumane labor practices is not such a hot idea, after all. The FTC could also crack down on deceptive advertising. The “America’s Choice Seafood” brand with its red, white and blue logo, would instead have to display a red star and the slogan “China’s Rape of the Oceans.”

Don’t hold your breath — the government was long ago bought and sold to the capitalists. The GOP has always been the champion of laissez faire, but of late Democrats have shown they differ only in degree … and hypocrisy. The libertarians behind the Tea Party movement don’t think capitalism and offshoring have gone far enough!

A Seven Step Program to Recovery

No, we must clean up our act ourselves. Here’s a suggested recovery plan each of us can implement:

1. Tune out the propaganda. Advertising is shrewdly — and scientifically — designed to tap into your primal emotions: don’t let it brainwash you. Instead, practice an healthy internal dialog: No, that new laptop will not make me sexier. My closet is already full. My existing stereo still works. I can slice an hard-boiled egg perfectly fine with a knife.

2. Don’t Buy Chinese. Read the label on every item before tossing it into the cart. If it’s from China, toss it back. This will be hard, as most items in most stores only come from China. The Dollar Store is off limits. For products from other foreign countries, practice discretion.

3. Buy American. If you plan your purchases, and are willing to spend a little more for better quality, buying American is entire feasible. A great place to start is this site with links to hundreds of US makers of quality products. You can even find china made in the USA!

4. Buy Used. Regardless of where it was made, a used item won’t have to be re-made. As a bonus, it’s usually missing that wasteful packaging.

5. Make an Inventory, Make a Plan. Like I did with my shoes, check what you own and see where it came from. Next, assess your regular and upcoming purchases, and craft a plan to alter your buying habits, buying American or even abstaining. I did this exercise with my barn attire. I’m stuck with my Chinese cowboy boots, but my next pair will definitely be American Justins. I have an Australian hat (a nice country), and new, hand-crafted American gloves, but I need another pair, and these ones from New Mexico look nice. I found some exquisite and very reasonably-priced leather belts from Illinois. My Wrangler 13MWZ’s are almost non-negotiable. Wranglers are made in Costa Rica, another nice country that protects its environment and offers universal healthcare. But if I wanted, I could find suitable US-made substitutes. Compiling this list took me about 30 minutes.

6. Spread the Word. Tell everyone you know that you’re a shopaholic but that you’re on the road to recovery. Ask them not to buy you gifts made in China. Like AMERICAN MADE on Facebook. If you’re the agitating type, write letters to inform retailers and wholesalers that from now on, you’ll only buy quality, preferably American-made, products, and never Chinese.

7. Compile a “Sound of Music” List. As in “raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens … these are a few of my favorite things.” It’s a safe bet that high on your list will be intangibles like snowflakes and kittens, time spent with family, quiet walks, sunsets at the beach, home-cooked dinners with friends. And if so, then why not focus on enjoying the real happiness those things provide, instead of the effervescent pleasures of material acquisition?

Perhaps we will finally hear what Jimmy Carter was trying to tell us thirty years ago — our personal value does lie in what we do, not what we own.

12 Comments | capitalism, Economy, libertarians, Ranch Life | Tagged: buy American, capitalism, economy, Offshoring | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Can’t Stand the Heat

July 13, 2010

In Retreat
As a heat wave of record temperatures punishes most of the country, millions of Americans have retreated to the relative comfort of air-conditioned houses and apartments. America’s largely coal- & oil-fired power plants strain to meet the increased demand for electricity. For many elderly in cities like Chicago and St. Louis, the summer swelter will prove fatal.

Another kind of mass retreat can be witnessed every Summer — that of the global warming (“GW”) deniers. For GW denial is a dish best served cold. The deniers find it much easier to get people to swallow their lies and confusion when it’s 21º in Boston (January 21st) than 100º (July 6th). GW denial simply can’t stand the heat.

“Lying” in Wait
The deniers needn’t worry about losing strategic ground over the Summer. They take full advantage of the tendency of the human brain to continue to lend credence to a falsehood, even after it has been exposed as untrue. Come winter, when November blizzards have made the public forget August scorchers, the deniers will spread some more lies. No matter that the unprecedented severity and wild fluctuation of recent Winter weather actually confirms GW — the deniers have tarnished the term “climate change” with an unfounded stigma.

For victory in their guerrilla war against Reason, it’s not necessary for the deniers to convince the public that GW is not real. It’s enough to instill sufficient confusion and doubt to prevent concerted efforts to combat the causes of GW, which coincidentally are the source of so much wealth to the deniers and their patrons.

Climategate-gate
Just released is the Muir Russell Report, commissioned by the British government to investigate the work of the researchers of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Old emails from the CRU scientists were hacked, and the seemingly damning quotes extracted from them were hyped as “climategate” – proof that GW was a hoax.

In contrast, the report finds of the CRU scientists:

“rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt”
“behavior has not prejudiced the balance of advice given to policy makers”
“were not in a position to withhold access to data or tamper with it”
“showed no evidence of bias”

On the CRU analysis of data, the report concludes that:

the analysis “ is robust to a range of station selections and to the use of adjusted or unadjusted data”
its ”level of agreement between independent analyses is such that it is highly unlikely that CRU could have acted improperly to reach a predetermined outcome”
“data derived from tree rings is not misleading”
“the references in a specific e-mail to a ‘trick’ and to ‘hide the decline’ show no evidence of intent to paint a misleading picture”
CRU ”did not withhold the underlying raw data”
there is “no evidence to substantiate allegations that there was subversion of the peer review or editorial process”

The only critique leveled at the CRU scientists was that they failed to “display the proper degree of openness” and “displayed unhelpfulness in responding to requests” for data access.

Bottom line: the real hoax was “climategate” . Nothing’s changed; we’re still in deep trouble, GW is still real and it’s still real bad. You’ve surely heard all about this, as FOX News will be broadcasting about the Russell findings as energetically as they covered “climategate”. No? Well read the truth for yourself:

Muir Russell Report

Climategate scientists cleared of manipulating data on global warming

In fact, the ice caps are melting much faster than scientists previously believed, at what are described as “runaway” rates.

Like Cancer

For decades, the tobacco industry successfully sowed doubt as to the carcinogenic effect of cigarettes. Faced with a report by doctors saying cigarettes were bad for you, the cancer deniers would simply crow, “Yeah? Doctors also told us leeches were good!” For every hundred stories of an Auntie Em who succumbed to emphysema in her mid-fifties, the cancer deniers only needed one tale of an Uncle Ernie, the chain smoker who lived to ninety. One freak snow storm in Atlanta serves as the climate version of the ninety year-old chain smoker. That the GW deniers are using the same devious tactics as the cancer deniers should come as no surprise, because in most cases, they are the very same people.

Mental Insulation
Insulating your house is one of the best ways to ameliorate heat and cold, and a concrete, simple way to fight GW. This Summer, while you’re sweating and cursing the heat, may we recommend a little mental insulation against the coming wave of GW denier lies. On a piece of paper or in a note card, write down how you feel about this heat. Record the date and the temperature. Then read the links above on the Russell Report. Write down your thoughts and assessment of them. Then place your note in an envelope, address it to yourself “to be opened during first Winter storm.”

We all live busy lives, and are inundated with too much information, most of it shoddy. Let’s not get distracted, and let’s not forget — climate change is a serious threat. We need to keep the fight against it a priority, twelve months of the year.

4 Comments | Environment | Tagged: Climate change, Global Warming Denial | Permalink
Posted by Matt

A Joke

July 12, 2010

Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, invites Barack Obama to do a flyover of the Gulf oil spill in BP’s private plane. Along with them are Bill Clinton and a young Greenpeace volunteer. As they’re flying over the spill, the engines catch fire and the plane begins to hurtle uncontrollably toward the sea below.

The pilot calls back to the passengers: “We’re going down! I’ll keep flying as long as possible so you can save yourselves. Bail out now!”

But, because BP cut corners, there are only three parachutes for four passengers.

Hayward quickly snatches the first parachute. “I’m the only person in the world with the expertise to solve this oil spill” he says, and jumps out.

Obama now dons a parachute, and before bailing out declares, “I’m the smartest president ever – only I can figure out a solution to this disaster!”

The Greenpeace volunteer turns to Bill Clinton and solemnly says, “You take the last parachute. I’m just one activist. But you head a large international charity, and you have the experience, resources and the compassion to do something about this terrible tragedy.”

Clinton chuckles as he pats the Greenpeace volunteer on the shoulder. “Grab a ‘chute, kid,” Bill drawls, “the ‘smartest president ever’ just leapt out of the plane wearing your backpack!”

5 Comments | BP Oil Spill, Environment, Satire | Tagged: Bill Clinton, obama | Permalink
Posted by Matt

BP Must Die

June 23, 2010

— If an auto mechanic, to cut costs, intentionally installed defective brakes in a car, and the driver & passengers later died in a crash, would you let that mechanic investigate the accident scene?

— If a mother & father had their children repeatedly detained for abuse and neglect, would you allow them to be foster parents?

— If your neighbor callously let antifreeze drain onto the sidewalk, and your pet drank it and died, would a simple apology do?

BP, an incorporated entity, is happy to be treated as a person for the purposes of taxation and campaign contributions. It’s time BP be treated as the sick, psychopathic and extremely dangerous individual it truly is.

One dead pelican: $25,000. Getting away with murder: priceless.

BP:

– Has a record of rampant safety violations, the worst in a bad industry;

– Knew it had no way to stop a leak if one of its Deepwater wells blew;

– Released a strategy plan lifted verbatim from Exxon’s useless Alaska plan. BP didn’t even care that the plan mentions walruses;

– Lied repeatedly about every detail of the spill, and continues to lie;

– CEO Tony Hayward parties on his 52′ yacht while endangered animals die by the thousands, and millions of peoples lives are ruined;

– Has assured its investors that it will pay no more than $6 billion in damages;

– Is burning sea turtles alive at sea, thus saving $25,000 per turtle in EPA fines.

Lethal injection, electric chair, firing squad – that’s how we kill a person who is a psychopathic murderer. And the punishment for the individual perps, from Hayward on down, must be severe. But the way to put a corporation to death is to seize its assets, and revoke its charter. The seizure’s easy to do — the president could simply issue an executive order. Since BP has openly said it doesn’t intend to pay for more than a tiny fraction off the havoc it had wreaked, only a fool would forego seizing its assets ASAP. And then BP must die: revoke its charter, hand over its operations permanently to the government.

Good riddance.

Leave a Comment » | BP Oil Spill, Environment | Tagged: capitalism | Permalink
Posted by Matt

BP is Burning Sea Turtles Alive

June 22, 2010

In an effort to make its spill look less horrific, BP is setting fire to surface oil which has been cordoned off by shrimp boats carrying booms.

Tony Hayward, serial killer

Ongoing efforts to rescue endangered sea turtles trapped in the oil were shut down by BP as it interfered with the burns. The captain of one of the rescue boats explains in an interview how BP ran him off, forcing him to leave numerous turtles trapped inside the burn cordon.

The Endangered Species Act metes out stiff criminal penalties, including imprisonment and $25,000 per death, to anyone responsible for killing a member of an endangered species.

Rescuers are putting on ice every animal they find killed by the oil. So BP can actually save money by roasting the turtles at sea, instead of risking a rescued turtle might later die.

If you discovered someone setting the neighbor’s dog or cat on fire, and assuming you did not bash in their skull on the spot, what sort of punishment would that sick monster deserve?

In an earlier era, BP’s assets would have been seized, its leaders imprisoned — or tarred & feathered by the mob. America has grown soft and weak, doped out on SOMA. All we can do about this nightmare, it seems, is grumble under our breaths.

BP is a sociopathic entity; its executives & management are twisted murderers. Their punishment must be swift, it must be ruthless, it must be complete. If obama continues to aid & abet their killing spree, he must be impeached.

(h/t littleisis)

4 Comments | BP Oil Spill, capitalism, Environment | Tagged: BP oil Spill, Tony Hayward | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Affirmative Inaction

June 14, 2010

– by ‘tamerlane’

From Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, the latest excuse for our Fraud-in-Chief’s ineptitude:

African American men are taught at very young ages (or learn the hard way) to keep our emotions in check, to not lose our cool, lest we be perceived as dangerous or menacing or give someone a reason to doubt our ability to handle our jobs.

Poor obama — he daren’t show his emotions. Like some stoic hero from an Alan Paton novel, Barack the Silent must fight his lonely crusade while hiding his true pathos behind an inscrutable mask. A burden imposed on every black male in America whenever a Boston Police responds to a disturbance, a Lunch Lady breaks up a school fight, or an NFL ref calls a penalty for flagrant end-zone celebration.

The mystery is now solved. BO’s curious detachment, his seeming insensitivity to the suffering of others, is actually a noble trait.

That’s a relief! Cuz it would totally suck if in actuality we’d elected someone who is utterly incompetent, has zero leadership qualities, and is saddled with some serious attachment issues & other psychological flaws, stemming from his fucked-up childhood, to boot.

Jonathan, step away from the kool-aid! You voted for him simply because he was part black. That was the only qualification you needed, and that was the only one you got. Not only are you a racist, you’re too big of a fool to realize that once you’ve dug yourself into a hole, you need to stop digging. STFU already.

3 Comments | Kool-Aid drinkers, race card | Tagged: race card, slacker-in-chief | Permalink
Posted by Matt

I’ll Have the Open Primary on Rye, Please

May 28, 2010

— by ‘tamerlane’

With the entire nation chafing at the two major parties’ stranglehold on American politics, Californians will be given a chance to do something concrete about it.

California’s June 8th primary ballot includes Proposition 14, which would turn all state elections for office into open primaries. All candidates, regardless of party affiliation, would appear on a single list that every registered voter would pick from. The top two vote-getters in the primary — again, regardless of party affiliation — would face each other in November.

Proponents of open primaries include around 70% of voters surveyed so far. The biggest opponents are, unsurprisingly, the Democratic and Republican parties. The No on 14 effort is being heavily funded by a union that is the state’s #1 campaign contributor.

Prop 14 is designed to broaden voters’ choice. Those against 14 claim it will actually do the opposite. That’s implausible, considering the Hobson’s choices we currently face. As it stands now, incumbents and party insiders dominate the primary slates of both Dems and Gops. Viable challenges within a party rarely occur, as party dynamics favor the person best at finessing the political machine, or who runs as the “purest” partisan. In the general election, third party candidates are nearly always unacceptable kooks with fringe philosophies. Thus is our suffrage reduced to a Coke vs. Pepsi taste test. (Or perhaps the better analogy is the buffet at Panda Express: many choices; none that don’t turn your stomach.)

California’s current races exemplify this dynamic. In the GOP gubernatorial primary, Meg Whitman, Corporate Nazi & all-around nasty crustacean, is running far to the right by painting her opponent, Steve Poizner, as a spendthrift, democrat-light doofus. Among the Democrats, the only recognizable name, Jerry Brown, is not so much running from the left as from somewhere beyond the Oort Cloud. But Jerry Brown is the Dem machine in California. For this true liberal, neither Whitman nor Brown are palatable, but nor are any of the motley crew of third party Vegans, Know-Nothings, Marxists, Randians and Raelians.

Open primaries promise to change all that. On a ballot offering Brown, Poizner or Whitman, it might be Poizner, currently facing GOP flak for having worked with Democrats in the past, who’d find the broadest appeal. This true liberal would certainly use his primary vote to block any extremist on either side; in this instance, voting for Poizner to sink Whitman. And in an open primary, another powerful Democrat or two besides Brown might’ve felt confident to run, further expanding the spectrum of choice. Come November, neither party’s anointed candidate might appear on the ballot, with Californians choosing between, say, a moderate and a centrist. (It makes one giddy to imagine Barbara Boxer facing an open primary.)

Make no mistake – open primaries are no miracle cure. The candidates most likely to prosper will be other Dems and Gops (kind of like how the Yankees and Red Sox have benefited most from the Wild Card.) Also, voters, for all their complaining, tend to go with the names they know.

Still, even if viable third party candidates might remain rare, an open primary would at least induce both Dems and Gops to offer candidates with broader appeal — and hopefully less corrupt ones, as well. The need to ride the party machine to get elected would be lessened. Being a party hack or an extremist would turn overnight from a requirement into a liability. And that would make for a better political system, and a better government, for us all.

Vote YES on 14.

6 Comments | Elections | Tagged: California politics, Jerry Brown, Meg Whitman, open primary | Permalink
Posted by Matt

Earth Day Matters

April 22, 2010

Today celebrates the fortieth Earth Day. Often given short shrift as a hippie/vegan indulgence, Earth Day is important, and should be celebrated — as one does the Fourth of July or Yom Kippur — properly and thoughtfully.

It’s no exaggeration to say that nothing is more important than the Earth. We’d be SOL without it. We need to treat it with the respect, verging on veneration, it deserves. An holiday once a year in its honor is the least we can do.

We also need to stop treating our home like one giant paper plate. Over at the Clinton Foundation, they have an Earth Day page with four interactive links: 1) a climate quiz; 2) a climate change primer; 3) info on local efforts to combat climate change; and 4) a one-day Q & A forum hosted by Bill Clinton.

The quiz is typical Clinton ingenuity/synergy: for each person taking the quiz, $2 will be donated toward supplying the people of Haiti with solar flashlights. Not just today, but every day, the Clinton Foundation is engaged in concrete, pragmatic and eminently achievable efforts to stop climate change.

Preserving our Earth, our only home, is something we can do, and must start doing in earnest. Keep that in mind today.

2 Comments | Environment | Tagged: Bill Clinton, Climate change, Clinton Foundation | Permalink
Posted by Matt

It’s Decaf

April 14, 2010

– by ‘tamerlane’

Every dedicated java drinker has experienced a morning when, desperately needing that kick-start, a soothing wave comes over you as the aroma of fresh coffee caresses your nostrils. The first impact of the elixir on your tongue instantly smoothes the edge of your irritability. After a few more sips, though, you realize your jones has not dissipated. You check the coffee can and discover … it’s decaf.

A similar arc of anticipation, initial satisfaction, and rapid disillusionment came when I learned of the Coffee Party (“CP”). Formed in direct response to the anarchist Tea Party movement (“TP”), the Coffee Party proclaims “We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will….” Amen to that! But poking around its extensive and elaborate web site, filled with blog posts, forums, online organizing tools and PDF policy briefings, it’s hard to determine what the CP really advocates. A pledge “to conduct myself in a way that is civil, honest, and respectful toward people with whom I disagree” seems an awkward lunge at TP negativity and selfishness, while the promise of “expanding the influence of the People in America’s political arena” is calculated to deliver the caffeine that left-leaners might otherwise seek in tea. The repeated calls to “value people from different cultures” and embrace “diversity” is played-out rainbow goo. A blog exhortation to “paint or dance what you think to feel what you think. Sing a thought!” is downright hippie.

It’s even harder, at first glance, to determine who’s producing all this material. The CP claims to be “100% grassroots” and “made up of people acting independently of political parties, of corporations, and of political lobbying networks…. No lobbyists here. No pundits. And no hyper-partisan strategists calling the shots in this movement.” Which all sounds dreamy until you discover the hyper-partisan politico behind the curtain — Annabel Park: leftist radical, open borders activist, member of the Netroots/Kos crime gang, evangelical apostle of teh Messiah in 2008, current obama hack.

Frightened by the growing momentum of the TP, the obamalonians decided to fight astroturf with astroturf. They turned to Park, an old hand at fabricating sham groundswells. A maker of youtube “documentaries” that nobody outside of tribeca or Cole Valley has seen, Park had most recently created a mock grassroots org to promote passage of (the albeit laudable) HR 121, which demanded that Japan apologize for enslaving Koreans as “comfort women”. In her home state of Virginia, Park cooked up a pro-immigration crusade, and a rainbow coalition for Jim Webb’s senate run.

Park also has serious bone fides as an obama operative. Her Asian Americans for obama (one of the many ethnic “grassroots organizations” created & financed by the obama campaign) released a video of her imagining Hillary Clinton and the Lightbringer as rival applicants for CEO of a failing company. Park’s comments are revealing:

“I think Hillary is a great manager, and she’s a technocrat, she understands the political machine in Washington …. But she doesn’t have the kind of leadership that can really turn around a company that’s about to go bankrupt.

“… obama has the kind of leadership skills that can really inspire people to focus on the goal and to … transform themselves and the company. We need someone to take over and really change morale, to change the culture of the company.

“And Hillary can’t do that. She doesn’t have the capacity to inspire people, she doesn’t know how to talk to us in a way we need people to talk to us right now. She’s a great manager but she’s not a collaborator. I think obama is … gonna say, ‘look, I wanna collaborate with you on how to make these decisions’, and Hillary is … saying, ‘I know all the answers, hire me, I’m an expert, and I’m gonna manage it for you.’ I don’t want that.

“I feel like we’re culturally ahead of the political process … but … we’re so submissive and passive; we haven’t been participating. People are hearing that from obama now: ‘get involved, this is your time.'”

This is the kind of magical unicorn mysticism behind the CP. It’s crazy talk and it simply won’t do.

So here we are again, stuck in the middle, with fools to the left of us, and jokers to the right. Fuck the Coffee Party. Fuck the Tea Party. We true liberals need to form a new party ourselves.

4 Comments | Elections, Kool-Aid drinkers, tea party | Tagged: Coffee Party, Tea Party | Permalink
Posted by Matt