Tea Partiers

The single defining characteristic of the tea partiers is stupidity. They paid $5oo for entree to a convention whose organizer paid Sarah Palin $100,000 to spout her usual blend of inane, shopworn conservative bromides. The men in the audience will probably crowd the bathrooms immediately after her speech hoping for a discreet opportunity to jack off. The tea partiers enthusiastically applauded former Republican Congressman Tom Tancredo's blatantly racist bon mot that President Barack Obama was elected because, "we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country."

These are stupid, ignorant, paranoid rubes born to be taken. The first couple of tea bagger events were spontaneous. These people are so unworldly that they didn't even realize the sexual meaning of tea bagging until commentators like Rachel Maddow ridiculed them. Then the professional astro turfing groups moved in to herd the rubes and use them to do the health care insurers' bidding by disrupting town hall meetings with legislators. Now the rubes are beeing fleeced for $500 a pop to hear demagogues like Tancredo and opportunists like Palin take advantage of their genuine frustration. But the tea partiers are so stupid that they direct their rage, not at the corporate plutocracy that rapes them, but imaginary threats of secret commie-pinko takeovers led by that furriner niggah Obama.

The tea baggers might unwittingly help a few faux populist Republicans get elected, but will have no real effect on anything. As soon as the media turn off the spotlight, the tea partiers will disperse and disappear, like most angry mobs bereft of cohesive ideas or leadership. Few, if any, will ever realize how they were taken advantage of or by whom.

I Wish I Had Written This

You Have To Be Wrong To Be Right for the U.S. Presidency
by Jon Swift

To a lot of Europeans, and Americans as well, U.S. presidential campaigns are a mystery. Perhaps three-time presidential loser Henry Clay explained the process best in 1839 when he said, “I had rather be right than President.” In other words, you have to be wrong to be right for the U.S. presidency and that is just as true today as it was in 1839. The purpose of a presidential campaign is to give the candidates the chance to repudiate, back way from and explain away as many of their old positions and actions as possible in order to convince extremists and one-issue voters in their parties to nominate them. Then the candidates must run to the middle and regret a few more positions and actions they took in the past in order to get elected. Finally, once they are elected they must never change their minds or admit to any mistakes at all no matter what the situation. President Bush is a perfect example of how this strategy works. While running for President he regretted most of what he had done in his life, from his drinking to his performing badly in school and in business, which just made him more likeable. Now that he is President, he can’t think of a single mistake he has made.

The Turning Point Cliche

Yesterday someone on TV said that the next presidential election is a real turning point for this country. This is probably the most prevalent cliche heard during election season. I've heard it used about every presidential election since I started paying attention (1972) and every election since I started voting (1976).

If everything's a turning point, then nothing really is. Or we're just turning in circles. I strongly recommend this post on 2Blowhards.com by Friedrich Von Blowhard that succinctly explains why who gets elected is much less important than politicians would have you believe. Let me quote from FvB's comment:

While I would support experimentation with voting systems, I think that it misses one of the main points of my piece, which is that the special interests of America have decided they don't care that much who gets elected, they just want to control the deliberation process through lobbying. In other words, fixing elections may not fix much of anything if "administrative" processes and laws are the REAL government, as they appear to be.

The problem of running a big government society is one that really hasn't, as far as I can tell, attracted nearly the attention it should. Big government gets you many benefits, but like Microsoft products, it has gaping "backdoor" vulnerabilities that determined special interests can and do utilize for their own benefit.

Well, I may not have many solutions here, but one thing I do know: it's time to stop looking at our government through traditional "political" eyeglasses.

Perhaps I wasn't blunt enough in the posting about how I currently look at politics: that is, as essentially a dumb-show for the masses, a delusion, a snare, while the real action goes on behind the curtain.

As Eugene McCarthy said, "Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important."

Dick Cheney, True Believer

“Bottom line is that we've had enormous successes, and we will continue to have enormous successes.”

Dick Cheney to Wolf Blitzer - Jan. 24, 2007

A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves. The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.

Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951)

Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own...Whether it our own meaningless self we are upholding, or some doctrine devoid of evidence, we can do it only in a frenzy of faith.

Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind (1954)