Pat Say-WHAT?

Pat Sajak, one-time Nashvillian, current Wheel Of Fortune host, and modern conservative pundit thinks public employees shouldn’t be allowed to vote because he thinks they have a larger stake in the outcome, which is just the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.

I think someone needs to go to a Tea Party rally and learn about taxation without representation.

Moron.

How A Train Wreck Becomes A Star

Someone remind me the last time our glorious mainstream media was that interested in the Delaware Senate debates, especially when one candidate leads by 19 points? Seriously?

Can someone please explain to me the wall to wall coverage of the O’Donnell-Coons debate? It even hit my local morning news. Since when do we give a shit about what happens in Delaware? And Coons is blowing O’Donnell out of the water. Are you covering the New York and Louisiana Senate debates, too? Oregon? Connecticut? Those also show one candidate with a huge lead over the other. No? Why not?

Give me a fucking break, I’m so over this shit. Cut it out, already. Next thing you know the media will be labeling Christine O’Donnell a “rising star.” Oh, whoops! Too late! Well at least now you've justified your own fascination with this wackadoodle monster you created.

God I hate having to do two -- no wait, three -- of these posts in one week but I’m so over the way our media mangles political coverage. A bunch of nutballs catapult another nutball through the Senate primary process and even though she’s losing, horribly, the media can’t help but lavish their attention on her. Now they’ve turned this train wreck into a “rising star” in Republican politics, even though the voters are going to bury her on election day.

This is so much fun. I can’t wait to read the inevitable handwringing over how the GOP has become “too extreme” because its standard bearers are nutballs ... like Christine O’Donnell.

You guys in the news media are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy, and you’re destroying the country in the process. You’re creating stars for your own amusement and profit. It’s horribly irresponsible.

Making A Statement

Damn, y’all. I don’t watch The Simpsons but I read about Banksy doing their opening sequence and ... well ... damn. Watch it for yourselves:



Kind of the perfect illustration of what I was saying when I wrote this about how to change the world:

If voting doesn’t work, and boycotts don’t work, what will? Increasingly I’m convinced that the only thing that will change the world, indeed the only thing that ever has, is the creative arts. Music, literature, art, film: these things hit people on an emotional level, they can transform one’s view of the world and engage people in a way that politics does not.

I’m increasingly convinced that this is correct.

More on the segment here.

This Says More About You Than It Does About Us

Via Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice comes this semi-satirical (I hope) piece in Esquire, “How D.C. Became Hollywood for Semi-Attractive People.” The premise is that Republicans are ascendent because they have stars like Sarah Palin and Christine O’Donnell who happen to be attractive women, and they’re fun to watch because they spew crazy shit. The Democrats are boring, and their women, says the article, “are either old or unattractive.” When given a choice between old/unattractive and boring vs. attractive and entertaining/crazy, the American voter will take the latter, according to Esquire at least.

Before you think Tom Junod just watched this video too many times, hear him out:

The reality-television baseline is becoming the standard of beauty in this country: If you can say really crazy things or lead a really crazy life and become a star, well, then you must be beautiful. The Republicans have cornered the market on beauty because they've cornered the market on crazy, and if they've failed to produce a "candidate" in Delaware, they've succeeded in producing a star, and have made all the tut-tutting pundits look as behind the times as the newspapers they serve. Wherever populism reared its head, there used to be sweaty men; now — in country music, at Fox, and in crossover "Islamaphobe" bloggers who get their picture pasted on the Sunday Times — there are at least semi-sexy women.

Okay, I’m going to call bullshit here, with a bullhorn.

B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T!

Sarah Palin lost. Her candidates lose. Christine O’Donnell will lose. They may be attractive and entertaining but they don’t win elections.

Tom Junod and the rest of the media elites may have a hard-on for these women but the country does not want them in elected office. They are “stars” because they are “media-genic” -- Christine O’Donnell was on television long before she was a political candidate, as the current avalanche of embarrassing video from Bill Maher now illustrates. But that is because she fits the media’s idea of what is attractive and entertaining. It certainly doesn’t mean that this is what voters want in their politicians.

Sure, the superficialities matter -- Scott Brown is a case in point. But last I checked, Republican candidates like Rand Paul and Joe Miller aren’t exactly stud muffins. Sharron Angle is no cover girl. So, while I’m trying to be fair to Tom Junod (and Anne Laurie), I think this is BS.

It’s a midterm election, people. The economy sucks. We have a lot of problems in this country, a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. So when Junod writes

They didn't realize that what we want is drama and nothing but ...

my answer is no. Just, no. We have enough drama as it is. You people are the one who wants the drama, Mr. Junod. It’s the media who demands the crazy and the pretty and the studly. Not the public. It's YOU who turn these people into stars.

Cripes. Don't saddle us with your neurosis, buddy.

Offshore Oil Drilling Moratorium Lifted

[UPDATE]:

And a big fuck you to Sen. Mary Landrieu. One of the main reasons I don't give money to the DSCC anymore.

----------------------

Those 33 oil rigs affected by the moratorium imposed post-BP spill can get back to work.

Hah fucking zah.

Hasn't stopped the whining though:

"We're still in the dark," said Hornbeck, who heads up one of the companies that sued to block Interior's initial moratorium. His company provides vessels and other services for the offshore industry.

"The devil is in the details, as they say, and the industry hasn't seen the final requirements for what we would have to do to be able to actually get a permit issued," he added. "Until that is done, lifting the moratorium may be just a moot or perfunctory act. ... Right now, I'm skeptical that it will be anytime soon that permits will be issued even if the moratorium is lifted."

Oh, you're skeptical? Really? You should be on your knees thanking God your industry wasn't wiped out, the way a lot of beachfront restaurants and fishing operations were. You should be grateful you weren't told to find another line of work because the country decided your business was too risky to the country's other vital resources.

You should have been told to shut your yap and quit your whining, and try providing "vessels and other services" to the thousands of oil rigs still chugging merrily along during the deepwater moratorium.

Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, man. Show some personal responsibility. Figures you'd run straight for the lawyers. Of course you did. It's only a bad thing when liberals do it.

Dick.

Yes On The Right To Hunt & Fish Amendment

R. Neal is on to something:

In order to exercise our constitutional right to hunt and fish there must be sustainable habitat for fish and game. Therefore, any action that threatens fish and wildlife habitat is unconstitutional.

That means stormwater runoff and agricultural waste that degrade water quality would be unconstitutional. So would coal-fired power plant emissions that degrade air and water quality and impact forest growth and sustainable fisheries. Mountaintop removal mining, clear cutting, and ridgetop development that destroy natural wildlife habitat would be a violation of your constitutional rights.

Wow that’s brilliant. He’s absolutely, 100% correct.

Ironically enough, similar state constitutional amendments are on the ballot in Arizona, Arkansas and South Carolina. Don’t you wonder how these things crop up all of a sudden at the same time?

The Culprits

Via the Economic Populist blog I discovered this handy-dandy tool where you can punch in your zip code and find out exactly who is exporting jobs from your community.

It appears Nashville’s top five employment villains are AFL Dixiewire, Bridgestone Americas Tire, Cummins Business Services, Dollar General Corp., and Ford Motor Credit Corp.

So thank you very fucking much.

Today in the car I caught the last part of Ed Schultz’s interview with Virg Bernero, Democratic candidate for governor of Michigan. Bernero is a pants-on-fire economic populist if I ever heard one and I wish I could share clips of his interview with you, it was amazing. He talked about how there is an economic war going on, which you can see in all the shuttered businesses and foreclosures all across the country, and America is losing big-time because we aren’t even fighting it. Hell we don’t even talk about it. And he's right!

My question is, is this by design? I have to wonder if so much of our crazy discourse in this country -- Christine O’Donnell is a witch! Sharron Angle says Sharia law has taken hold in Texas! -- isn’t designed to distract from this important discussion. And I think it’s why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been so threatened by attacks from the left about its support of Republican candidates because it puts the focus exactly where the corporatists don't want it. "Please," I can hear them all saying, "let's talk about the crazy people some more!"

The Chamber’s tagline is “Fighting For Your Business.” Once upon a time that implied “fighting for your jobs, your communities, your country.” Those days are long gone. Today the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is fighting for your business’ right to ship manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China, make those workplaces that remain in the U.S. unsafe, pollute our air and water, all to benefit a few overpaid CEOs at the top of the heap.

Again: thank you very fucking much.

Pay attention, people. You’re being played.

Hungarian authorities arrested Zoltan Bakonyi for unleashing an ecological hell on the Danube. The CEOs of Massey Energy, British Petroleum and the Tennessee Valley Authority all walk free. The U.S. Chamber philosophy is: mistakes were made! Bygones!

So yes, it’s an economic war, and there are turncoats in our midst who are aiding and abetting the enemy. Strong words? Yes of course. But I don’t know how else to wake folks up.

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't Mean They Aren't Out To Get You

The latest in right-wing conspiracies: Twittergate!

What's clear is that at some point Rauhauser noticed that he and the Beandogs shared an enemy in Howard and started encouraging them on Twitter. The Beandogs in turn began pretending that Rauhauser was their leader, intimating that they were being paid by George Soros and generally playing on the Tea Party's paranoia. Both the Beandogs and Rauhauser deny there's any collusion, just mutual admiration between Tea Party tormentors.

But Howard and his Tea Party buddies became convinced they were the targets of a massive Democratic conspiracy to control Twitter. Howard wrote a long blog post outlining his "evidence," and Twittergate was born! The Beandogs, having pranked the Tea Party with spectacular success, aren't actually that thrilled about it. "Now it's not funny anymore that they think we're working for Rauhauser," said TheRealSomebody. "Now I'm not getting credit for being the scumbag on the Internet that I am. Rauhauser is."

Our discourse has disintegrated into a replay of someone's freshman year in high school.

It’s All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Elected To Congress

A lot of people are paying attention to Dana Milbank’s column about conspiracy theorists finding succor in Glenn Beck. The guy Milbank focuses on is currently in jail after going on a shooting spree with police. His intended targets were employees of the Tides Foundation, to which Beck has devoted hours of fearmongering.

Welcome to post-9/11 America, Mr. Milbank. What took you so long?

Milbank’s lack of self-awareness is astonishing. Our mainstream media has created these heroes of the right -- Beck was foisted on the nation to a large extent by CNN, remember? So it’s a little too late to complain that there are crazy people running the asylum. Y’all are the ones who handed them the keys.

Anyway, I linked to it last month but the definitive word on media culpability was penned by author Rick Perlstein in an excellent New York Times piece prompted by the Terry Jones affair.

There are lots of conspiracy theories out there, and it’s interesting to see which ones gain traction among our power elite and which ones do not. My favorite is the one about how Mark David Chapman didn't shoot John Lennon, author Stephen King did.

I first heard about it when the guy who cooked it up called in to a liberal talk show -- it might have been Thom Hartmann. The radio host hung up on him, but not before the guy could get the URL onto the airwaves. Apparently Stephen King has been harassed by this guy for years.

It’s crazy shit and yet, no one has launched a Congressional inquiry into this. It’s immediately written off as not credible. Yet conspiracy theories about the Clintons killing dozens of people including Vincent Foster or President Obama’s birth certificate get serious attention. It's all fun and games until someone gets elected to Congress and then suddenly this wacko conspiracy shit becomes public policy.

The left has its own conspiracy theories - and no, I’m not talking about the 9/11 Truth movement. That is one conspiracy theory which appears to be truly bi-partisan. I know plenty of people both right and left who cling to the belief that the government was somehow involved in 9/11, beyond just basic negligence. Let's remember: this conspiracy theory started on the far right, the anti-Semitic neo-Nazi nutjobs who claim no Jews were killed on 9/11 because they got the heads up.

Lefty conspiracy theories include Bohemian Grove, which is a real place and a real retreat for the nation’s really wealthy and powerful. The conspiracy part is that they all get together to decide who the next president will be -- hey, how else to explain how we got saddled with a dufus like George W. Bush, amiright?

We’re still waiting for the Congressional inquiry into that one.

Why do right wing conspiracy theories gain traction in the culture while left wing ones do not? Maybe because liberals don't send crazy people like Michelle Bachmann to Congress to spout their crackpot ideas about FEMA camps, perhaps? In the unlikely event that Christine O'Donnell wins a seat in the Senate, is she going to launch an investigation into those mice with fully-functioning human brains?

I repeat: it's all fun and games until someone gets elected to Congress.

My Last (I Hope) Gene Cranick Post

I’ve been really impressed with the discussion on my Gene Cranick threads here and here. You guys have raised some really good issues, and it’s stuff like this which makes me glad I have a blog.

I really haven’t focused much on the moral issues at play here but I do have something to say about that. To me, focusing on why Cranick didn't pay that $75 fee is almost -- almost -- as mean and heartless as focusing on how the fire started. Fires get put out whether they were caused by a lightning strike or a kid playing with matches or someone burning their trash in the backyard despite a statewide fire advisory (and let me say, this is the first I’ve heard there is a statewide fire advisory. The governor’s office might need to do a better job of getting the word out.)

Sure, if the family were indigent and couldn't afford the $75 fee then that would reveal yet another flaw in the county services. But really to say "he's a freeloader and loser trying to get something for nothing" the way Glenn Beck and a few anonymous folks over here did is just another way of piling on someone who obviously made a mistake.

What, you people never made a mistake? Ever? You’re the only ones, then. It's safe to say Mr. Cranick has learned his lesson the hard way, and has paid a terrible price for it. So shut your yaps.

On second thought, don’t shut your yaps. The Glenn Becks of the world who sanctimoniously (though accurately) claim that Mr. Cranick should have known better and whatnot prove the point we Dirty Hippies have always made: yes. There will always be people who don’t do what they’re supposed to do. That’s correct. Thank you for admitting that. Now the question is, what do we do about it?

Is it best for the community as a whole to let the man’s house burn down, possibly spreading the fire to the homes of neighbors who did do what they were supposed to do? And add a homeless family to the community’s burdens? I mean yeah you can feel all self-righteous that you were right and they were wrong and perhaps that makes you feel better but then what? Does you feeling better benefit the community more than making sure everyone has a home?

And we can take this example across a wide array of social problems. Food stamps, education, you name it. Yes it annoys the hell out of me when people come over here and blithely say “those people should just get a job!” when in case you haven’t noticed, there are no jobs. But that’s really irrelevant. There will always be people who don’t work, even as there are people who can’t. It doesn’t matter, because it’s still an issue we need to deal with.

One of my more clueless commenters claimed that, “there was a time when if you were hungry, you went out and worked to get food. Fish, plant, forage. If you didn't, you starved.” Actually, as any student of anthropology knows, that’s utter bullshit. Every culture around the globe, modern to prehistoric, has developed a way of dealing with those in the community who aren’t doing their fair share. Even those people who inhabit harsh environments -- the Inuit and the !Kung bushmen, for example -- do not let their people starve. They deal with their freeloaders in other ways: public shaming, for example. And perhaps our right-wing commenters like Glenn Beck are serving a valuable community role in this respect as being the public voice of scorn. They sure seem to have that shaming thing down. So, there's that.

Tough noogies might make some people feel better and it might have a role to play in keeping a big chunk of the population in line but it’s not the basis for an effective social policy nor does it build community. There needs to be something else in place, too.

The silver lining in all of this is that we are at least having a national debate about an issue that gets at the heart of what ails America today. Taxes, infrastructure, the role of government, privatized services, etc. I had hoped we could talk about this a little more but our media appears happy to just hit the highlights. Oh well, it seems the conversation has continued on blogs and in other media. This is a good thing.

I'm actually feeling pretty positive about all of this. And I'd like to thank Gene Cranick for -- no pun intended -- sparking a serious conversation about an important issue.

For those of you who don’t lack a cooperative gene a fund has been set up for the Cranicks. Keith Olbermann spread the word about it here.

For those of you who lack that cooperative gene, you can feel all warm and toasty that you did the right thing by paying your bills (you have, right?) and the Cranicks did not and nyah nyah nyah.