What They're Feeding Me

A rift exists in the GOP as it currently stands, between the propagandized masses of their party and the head honchos, the people really in charge.

You can never tell a propagandized party that they are being lied to. They must always think that the truth is all they know, and it is a simple, quirky truth. The leaders of the GOP use religion in American politics to polarize every issue as a moral imperative and insist that they charge forward with a morally-righteous agenda, one justified by reading brief excerpts of the 2,000 page Holy Bible. This Biblical agenda spits in the face of women and gays, and in so few ways resembles the historical agenda of Christ.

The contradiction between core Christian values and the reality of their voting patterns is, of course, war.

The war’s supporters are largely in the GOP. They started this thing, and never considered it thoroughly. Quite a few Independents were along for the ride for some time. But Osama bin Laden fled to Pakistan, and George W Bush lost the credibility at home he would have needed to take action in Pakistan. Obama famously declared during the 08 debates that he’d strike if the Pakistanis would not. And clearly, they did not. McCain chided Obama in the debate, as though Obama was going to do something crazy like announce he would bomb Pakistan.

“This,” Obama replied, “coming from the guy who sang ‘Bomb, Bomb, Iran.’”

The rift, essentially, are the so-called small-government conservatives who cheer-lead us into wars. Once we invaded Afghanistan, Osama fled to Pakistan, likely after Tora Bora. He’s probably been in Pakistan 6 years. Likely the ISI had a deal with him, which is why the Pakistani government wasn’t told we were coming in the night with dogs and silent helicopters to shoot Osama in the head.

With enough intelligence, we could be anywhere on the globe in a matter of seconds. Why it is I’m constantly talked-down to by “conservatives” for wanting to end these wars and the over-abundance of military bases? And wanting to invest taxpayer dollars… on the homeland? That precious homeland the modern-day fascist movement loves to gloat about protecting? These supposed Christians are used to paying 10% of their income for a corrupt organization to tell them what to do. It’s not the church, it’s the military. And it’s not 10%, it’s much closer to half of every dollar in the nation, funding this absurd idea that you can wage war on an indistinct concept like “Terror.” The wages of war is death.

Think of me the next time you see a Boeing commercial, or a Lockheed ad.

People are more vitriolic and suspicious than ever. It has created a crisis of leadership, where no body is willing to stick a neck out in either direction, for fear of being insulted or questioned immediately. It is apparent from our poor to our rich. Everyone’s under direct orders to remain vigilant.

“Vigilant,” has since 2001 been a national buzz-word. The leaders of our national security apparatus have told us to be vigilant, on the look-out for … something. Signs on the bus say “see something? say something.” It has created a suspicion among all people of the others around them, and while we simultaneously speak of national unity, we’ve shown how poorly we can treat each other, how ugly and suspicious we can all be of each other.

We live in constant fear that the next great terrorist attack is going to kill us, that some untrustworthy person on our bus is going to be the culprit. We are reminded constantly to keep an eye out for that moment of death.

I would like to calmly propose a wildly different manner of living.

Rather than suspecting you will be killed by a terrorist, or mugged, or kidnapped, or assaulted, just embrace the fact that eventually you will die and your legacy will live on. Your enemies are going to hate you no matter how much you try to appease them. You will argue with your spouse, you will pay huge bills for minor surgeries, you will have an accident that changes your life. Shit, as the saying goes, happens.

Once you accept that people are potentially going to be vicious with you (and hopefully your vigilant fellow citizens will call the police when they see .. that), you can stop being afraid of it. You can start reclaiming the words people use against you as your own, or you can call yourself something else and get a fresh start in a world you’re not scared to experience. You can stop living your life as though you are being limited by others’ potential to harm you.

The world at large may or may not end your life. But you should do your dance either way.

I think this is what FDR was talking about when, in a 1936 re-election campaign speech he said

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

(full text of the speech)

What FDR is demonstrating, in short, is the courage to act despite powerful, omnipresent hatred. While welcoming it. It is clear from his words that he knows who is out to stop him, and he believes enough in his cause to represent it, loud and clear. Perhaps this speech would incite some crazy person to try to assassinate FDR. He wasn’t far from Wall Street when he delivered it. He delivered the speech anyways, because it needed to be delivered, and he was the man at the moment to deliver it.

The frame of mind of “vigilance,” which has terrified America, insists that you must suspect everyone of being a terrorist. Until you can escape this mental torture you will be unable to demonstrate the courage of your convictions, politically. Embrace the potential to die, and move on. Injustice is as terrifying as the prospect of death. We should be on the lookout for real problems we can solve, and spend less time chasing figments of our imagination.

Oh yeah, Osama bin Laden is dead. Probably.

If you’re going to vote for someone, you should support them. Spend your time talking on their inadequacy all you want, up until you pull that lever. I want to make sure Obama (and I) win, and that means spreading my joy at his successes to counter all the spin and vitriol opposing him from either side.

Regarding most of his failings, I believe he’s at the top of an out-of-control war machine, overseeing a no-rules-or-else, bloated, viciously-lobbying financial sector, and is at the mercy of the 24/7 media. In spite of that he’s passed tough new regulations on two huge sectors of our economy (two of the most unfair to the poor), improved the status quo on a ton of civil rights issues, and he’s making clear strides toward bringing the US back under international law. He has to tell people what to do, and see that they do it. I don’t believe he’s done a poor job of that, except on closing Gitmo and on Wisconsin.

I don’t think he’s been as good a President as FDR, but he’s certainly no Hoover. He gets things done for America, even when it’s painful and harms his credibility with people like me, wild-eyed over-educated liberals clamoring for ever-more. He will go down in history as a stellar one-term President, even if he loses in 2012. My inner Progressive wants a Roosevelt (either kind), but my inner Independent tells me to make the most unemotional of decisions. Obama and the Democrats’ position has made sense for two years, and his “conservative” opposition has mostly been constantly mouthy with very little policy behind them.

His liberal opposition has articulated the vision of the 2012 campaign. Should we get a public option? Yes, moving forward. Should we keep banks from using deposits as poker chips? Yes, moving forward. Can we let the Bush tax cuts expire? Yes, moving forward. End the wars? Free the gays? Legalize it? This era has a working progressive movement, liberals who are hungry for that last little bit of change we can believe in, a Democratic Party getting most of what it wants, pulling the country back toward the center. But it won’t continue if we shoot ourselves in the foot. Now is the time to point out the absurdity of the right, lay bare the inherent contradictions in their economic philosophy, their way of governing, and their lockstep march. Not to rehash the past years’ debates and think we didn’t get enough from a President who’s done an awful lot that the TV remains silent about.

The Supreme Court, highest authority in the country, wants Orly to pay her fine for abusing the legal system by defending a soldier who refused to deploy because he believes Obama was born in Kenya and brought here by his father in a secret plot to overthrow racist white America and replace it with black people living next door. Her steadfast commitment to this Obvious Lie is something like Goebbels’ “big lie.” Repeat it and it becomes true. Tax Cuts! Deficits Don’t Matter! War! This is the buzz, to some.

They’re slurring against Obama, the 1 in 5 people who say they think he’s Muslim. That’s 20% of America. Right after the election of Barack Obama only 21% of Americans would self-identify with the GOP, which had just run a nakedly-racist pro-war campaign. Obama’s sweeping victory embarrassed a lot of those people. This 20% voted Palin, just like the former. They’re the same people and their numbers are dwindling. The 80% of people who think he’s a Christian think so because he’s already worked to heal the sick and he’s working on feeding the poor. Those are Christian deeds. Our soldiers are coming home from Iraq today, and eating hot dogs and watching sports. These are nice days and we should enjoy them, knowing we have a President who hasn’t yet provably lied us into war. He was elected to keep that promise. 48% voted McCain-Palin, and after they lost only 20% identified with the Republican Party. People so distrustful of both parties they don’t identify as either, who also voted for Sarah Palin. They voted out of outrage, the way you’d imagine a zombie might vote, though zombies would likely vote for brains.

Simultaneously in our media, a discussion is dead. Discussion of whether Muslims should have the right to pray near American soil, in a building which formerly housed a Burlington Coat Factory, is no longer news. Or even opinion. All lines are drawn, everyone who has this bias is proven wrong. Yet the hosts chatter on because the air remains dominated not just by conservative chatter, but by liberal chatters who will only chat about conservative chatter, with outrage. The liberal chatters are tolerable, but only because their chat is about conservative chat do the conservative media-owners let them on the “public” airwaves.

The media is Orly Taitz, zombie-minded Queen to the Birther Horde, buzzing away with its big sloppy lie, but doing it artfully, in spectacle format.

She is the distraction keeping us from celebrating the end of the Iraq War. Iraq coverage would be much more prolific if the media had any intention of educating and empowering the populace. One major weapons manufacturer is General Electric, which owns NBC Universal. Though they probably do report on the Iraq War ending, a draw-down is bad, bad news for their bottom line. The lack of coverage creates a gap in programming. Another advertisement?

The conservative chatter is attempting to fill this vacuum with racist insinuations about Obama, relating him, since his election two years ago, to Kenya, Indonesia, blackness (while smearing Black Panthers, Shirley Sherrod and Van Jones), and Islam. I once read a quote where Obama said something like “Why can’t they just believe?” about the Birthers. The point to the birth-certificate conspiracy was always to keep angry-at-the-government types outraged about politics enough to vote Republican this year. These last few weeks have been an ugly extension of that plan, and worse is yet to come.

Being Orly Taitz, or the media, or a zombie, you will never change your mind, probably because you can’t. Only one topic will surface, thanks to the wishes of the ownership. The power structure only permits certain topics, certain ways of referring to Obama become so commonplace that even his white friends start calling him “Nigga”. Goebbels perfected the technique. This special breed of dumb ass is on the decline. Old, angry at black people, and about to die. One percent of them are already gone! In just a two year span!

In other news: hey GOP. How those “advances with young people and minorities” going? The U.S. is getting more colorful, more youthful, and smarter by the minute. Back to real life, not the zombie movie that’s on all the channels.

Everyone hates us. When America goes to the playground it kicks all the other kids’ balls. Right out of their hands.

It’s true. Europe especially can’t stand us, when we’re not around, Spain looks at Finland and is like “we may be different. but we are not Americans,” then rides off on a bull. The British call us “those awful Americans.” I feel like we prevent the whole world from having civil wars, just by creating such a bad example.

Hey Sudan? Americans are over here debating the right to build a mosque. Does that do anything for you? No? You’re still gonna cut off your sister’s clit? Sudan, look, Americans -just- got a national health plan. Last January. Seriously, Sudan, stop it. America can at least be racist as hell without killing or torturing people. Yeah they stopped doing that about 40 years ago. Now they just go on television and insinuate that times were better back when slavery existed, because everyone paid a far lower tax rate. Crazy right? Put down that razorblade, Sudan, and pick up this television.

America has never stopped killing people out of racism, it just doesn’t take place on our own soil anymore. Hey there, impoverished slave farmer: the man who owns you is a dick, so we’re going to blow up your sister’s wedding.

When America goes to the United Nations, it can veto anything that happens. And it uses its veto WAY MORE than any other country. Imagine if this were going on in here, and then the doors bust open and someone yells “STOP IT!” That’s America at the United Nations. And that’s the sad thing is we invented the United Nations. After we almost ripped the globe in half with nuclear weapons, I think we owed it to everyone to create a United Nations. The function of the United Nations is to stop wars. That’s why it exists. Nobody ever says it out loud. The UN should put that in their name. I’m going down to New York to attend the United Nations Whose Job It Is To Stop Wars. It just sounds better. “United Nations” sounds like a group therapy session for alcoholic American States. Hi my name is Oregon, and I have a problem. I can’t stop sampling my regions.

Before it was called the UN, there was a League of Nations. Which is way way way way cool. That’s Max Headroom cool. That’s dogs going to college. That’s how cool that is. League of Nations is Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. League of nations is such a cool name, Paris Hilton changed her name to League of Hobags. League of Nations is a cool G.D. name. I would never say God in the same sentence as the LON’s proper name. I do this out of respect for the League of Nations, not God. Damnit.

League of Nations sounds like a superheroes guild. Nobody ever calls a group a League anymore. Where is my League of Black Friends at? That’s some futuristic black slang.

League of Nations forgive me for I have sinned. I have taken Germany in vein. I cooked some black-tar Germany and shot it.

But anyways, the United Nations is supposed to be stopping wars, so I’ll from now on be referring to it as the United Nations Whose Job it Is To Stop War, the UNWJIITSW. And then we can all say UNwjiitsw. It will become an international word for peace. Imagine, if you were having an international peace conference and one country busted down the doors and yelled “STOP IT!” Unjii… STOP IT!

I like the idea, however, of America busting down a door. Maine is like the head of a dog and it would look particularly vicious if its Florida was all stomping on the floor at the UN like “I AM THE AMERICA. STOP PEACE.”

Australia is like “What the hell is wrong with that Guy? Okay everybody, pack it up, we’ll be here next year and try again.” Australia is shaped like Meatwad from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Now that’s a really stupid name.

And of course what would the largest arms manufacturer in the world have to do with a peace conference? We have so many weapons, we get to go to the United Nations and tell other countries they’re not allowed to invent weapons. It’s like going to a knife fight with a gun. All the greasers are like “hey man, geeze, why not put that down?” “I was just gonna cut you, man, come on, be cool.”

America telling you not to produce weapons is like somebody telling you that you have a booger on your nose, while that person is literally dripping with boogers.

I understand that all the poor farmers in our country are afraid that they’re gonna be the first to go, and that seems likely considering the respect that heads of state have for each other. There’s something about being one of the people paid to act like they’re in charge of everything, you gain an unusual respect for the palatial homes of even your most bitter rivals. I mean, who doesn’t want a nice golden mosque? Who cares who it belongs to, we’re trying to kill poor farmers and crap houses, we wanna keep those golden mosques for when we build condos over there next decade.

It always seems like the nations are a few steps ahead.