Came across something interesting in the LA Times Opinion section this morning. http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-klavan29-2009mar29,0,5456892.story
"If you are reading this newspaper, the likelihood is that you agree with the Obama administration's recent attacks on conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh. That's the likelihood; here's the certainty: You've never listened to Rush Limbaugh."
True, and true. No, wait! I have listened to Rush!
"On further questioning, it always turns out that by "heard him," he (closed minded liberal LA Times Editorial Page Reader) means he's heard the selected excerpts spoon-fed him by the distortion-mongers of the mainstream media."
True again! He got me there.
"You're not a moderate or you wouldn't be reading this newspaper. You're not tolerant of a wide range of views; you are tolerant of a narrow spectrum of variations on your views. And, whatever you claim, you still haven't listened to Rush Limbaugh."
This is getting creepy. This guy knows me just a little too well.
"Which leads to a question: Why not?"
Because NPR's better? And there are no commercials?
Wrong answer.
"Now let me tell you the real answer: You're a lowdown, yellow-bellied, lily-livered intellectual coward. You're terrified of finding out he makes more sense than you do."
Wow. This guy's got me so pegged it's scary.
Worse, this is not the first time that my intellectual self-esteem has suffered this bad a body blow. Six months ago I discovered that I am but a caricature of white affluent liberals. I documented this on the net at http://sites.google.com/site/iaminfactacliche/ , and vowed to reform. I bought a country music CD and tuned four of the AM presets in my car to right-wing talk radio stations. Honest! I really did! And several times a week, during my midday drive between work sites, I listen to Sean Hannity intermixed with some woman on one of the other stations whose name I cannot remember.
So far, Sean Hannity has failed to convince me that he is not totally full of shit.
But Sean Hannity is no Rush Limbaugh. Rush is the King! The ur-Voice Of The Right!
"The mainstream media (a.k.a. the Matrix) don't want you to listen to Limbaugh because they're afraid he'll wake you up and set you free of their worldview. You don't want to listen to him because you're afraid of the same thing.
"Therefore, I am throwing down my gauntlet at your quivering liberal feet. I hereby issue my challenge -- the Limbaugh Challenge: Listen to the show. Not for five minutes but for several hours: an hour a day for several days."
How does this guy know my feet are quivering? We are talking oracle-quality insightfulness here. Do I have any choice but to take the Limbaugh Challenge? I will. I will.
There can be little doubt as to the outcome. Our editorialist has been 100% accurate so far, so it is practically a given that by the end of the week I will have been set free of the worldview that the Matrix has inflicted upon me.
It won't happen instantly. I suspect I have one or two good posts of left-leaning drivel in me before my metamorphosis into a Dittohead is complete. But I am already contemplating the titles of future posts.
"Stem Cells Are People, Too"
"Rush Limbaugh is NOT a Big Fat Idiot" (Take that, Senator Franken!)
And I am already looking forward to a more stress-free life; no longer having to worry about, for example, impending global environmental catastrophe. President Sarah Palin--a hope, no longer a threat. I can't wait!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I WANT BARACK TO BE LIKE ROSS
I want President Obama to be like Ross Perot.
Those of a certain age may remember a certain eccentric billionaire who ran for President in 1992, helping Bill Clinton get elected by doing most of Bill's negative campaigning for him. He actually had a viable candidacy until he revealed himself to be a total whackjob.
Yes, he was probably the weirdest guy ever to win more than 15% of the popular vote. But he did something amazing in that election. He endeavoured to not just lay out his policy positions, but to explain them and argue them in excruciating detail. From Wikipedia:
"Perot employed the innovative strategy of purchasing half-hour blocks of time on major networks for infomercial-type campaign ads; these ads garnered more viewership than many sitcoms, with one Friday night program in October attracting 10.5 million viewers.[17]"
Perot would sit down and with nothing but graphs and pie charts explain why the deficit needed to be reduced and how it could be done. Agree or not, his arguments were sophisticated, well-argued, and not bullshit. And people listened, and maybe learned a thing or to. I have never seen a politician (or wannabe politician) do anything like it. But I have always wished for ones that would, ones that would try to convince the nonbelievers rather than just preaching to the choir.
Which brings us to our current president. He has been a busy media presence lately---the Tonight Show, 60 Minutes, 2 prime time press conferences in 2 months, 4 town hall meetings in a few weeks. This has elicited much hand wringing from the media, especially from right-wing talk radio (which I listen to, if only because it feels so good when I finally turn it off)--he should be governing instead of talking to Jay Leno!!!
As regards that last point--can anybody remember a president who has governed more in such a short period of time?
I say--go O-man!
The only way we are going to survive the current economic crisis, much less deal with the even darker clouds that loom in the future (global warming, entitlements, the ever-increasing national debt) is for the American public to realize that there is going to have to be a lot of short-term pain for any long-term gain to happen. It is easy to convince people of what they want to believe (hence the popularity of religion). Much harder to convince people that if they don't want the average daytime high in Houston to hit 115 degrees they are going to have to give up the 10 mpg pickup truck. But that is going to have to happen.
I am encouraged. My heart fluttered when I first heard the phrase "teachable moment." May we have far more More Perfect Union speeches-not necessarily about race, but about all the shit that we have to deal with.
So Mr. President, summon your inner Ross Perot. Be the professor that you once were, and tell us what needs to be done, and why. Make it interesting, make it entertaining, or we are all going to fall asleep, but don't spare any of the gory details.
Those of a certain age may remember a certain eccentric billionaire who ran for President in 1992, helping Bill Clinton get elected by doing most of Bill's negative campaigning for him. He actually had a viable candidacy until he revealed himself to be a total whackjob.
Yes, he was probably the weirdest guy ever to win more than 15% of the popular vote. But he did something amazing in that election. He endeavoured to not just lay out his policy positions, but to explain them and argue them in excruciating detail. From Wikipedia:
"Perot employed the innovative strategy of purchasing half-hour blocks of time on major networks for infomercial-type campaign ads; these ads garnered more viewership than many sitcoms, with one Friday night program in October attracting 10.5 million viewers.[17]"
Perot would sit down and with nothing but graphs and pie charts explain why the deficit needed to be reduced and how it could be done. Agree or not, his arguments were sophisticated, well-argued, and not bullshit. And people listened, and maybe learned a thing or to. I have never seen a politician (or wannabe politician) do anything like it. But I have always wished for ones that would, ones that would try to convince the nonbelievers rather than just preaching to the choir.
Which brings us to our current president. He has been a busy media presence lately---the Tonight Show, 60 Minutes, 2 prime time press conferences in 2 months, 4 town hall meetings in a few weeks. This has elicited much hand wringing from the media, especially from right-wing talk radio (which I listen to, if only because it feels so good when I finally turn it off)--he should be governing instead of talking to Jay Leno!!!
As regards that last point--can anybody remember a president who has governed more in such a short period of time?
I say--go O-man!
The only way we are going to survive the current economic crisis, much less deal with the even darker clouds that loom in the future (global warming, entitlements, the ever-increasing national debt) is for the American public to realize that there is going to have to be a lot of short-term pain for any long-term gain to happen. It is easy to convince people of what they want to believe (hence the popularity of religion). Much harder to convince people that if they don't want the average daytime high in Houston to hit 115 degrees they are going to have to give up the 10 mpg pickup truck. But that is going to have to happen.
I am encouraged. My heart fluttered when I first heard the phrase "teachable moment." May we have far more More Perfect Union speeches-not necessarily about race, but about all the shit that we have to deal with.
So Mr. President, summon your inner Ross Perot. Be the professor that you once were, and tell us what needs to be done, and why. Make it interesting, make it entertaining, or we are all going to fall asleep, but don't spare any of the gory details.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Best $165 Million Ever Spent
As we all are well aware, there is a huge firestorm surrounding the payment by AIG of $165 million in bonuses to the executives of its financial services division, the creators of those wonderful credit default swaps that have resulted in AIG owing orders of magnitude more money than what the company is worth. And, as we all are well aware, that $165 million was paid for by U.S. government bailout money i.e. taxpayer money i.e. our money.
Never has $165 million in taxpayer money been better spent.
For decades, we the greater American public have uttered hardly a whisper of protest while being raped by many (not all, to be fair) of the titans of the capitalist system. We have funneled billions of dollars into our ex-VP's corporation for the rebuilding of a country we should never have destroyed. We have spent millions on building logging roads so that timber companies can stripmine our national forests. Medicare is paying full retail for prescription drugs for no better reason than that the pharmaceutical companies have better lobbyists than the taxpayers. We have spent tens, if not hundreds, of billions on cleaning up the toxic sludge left behind at Superfund sites. We have stood quiet while well-paying jobs were outsourced to foreign sweatshops, so that the company's stock would go up and the CEO could afford a new place in the Hamptons. We have willingly assented to allowing coporations to evade hundreds of billions of dollars in tax obligations by renting post office boxes in the Bahamas and calling it their headquarters.
Can you believe that last one? But god forbid that the IRS acquire some muscle and teeth and some new rules that would force these corporations to help pay for some of the infrastructure that has enabled them to do so well. Our freedom would be threatened!
I have always been amazed by the success that conservatives have had in convincing us of their Norman Rockwell version of the very wealthy--that they are people who have worked hard, come up with a great idea, implemented their vision, left society the better for their efforts and have been justly rewarded. The fact and extent of their wealth is a function of the value that they have added to the economy. Okay, for many of the very well-off, perhaps even the majority, this version of events does in fact hold more-or-less true. This is how capitalism is supposed to work, and very frequently does.
But it is also far too easy in this country to become very very rich without adding any value to the economy. Far far too many have reaped fabulous rewards by doing the exact opposite. A significant subset of our economic ruling class has managed to become very well-off by destroying wealth. This is not new for 2008-2009. This has been happening all along, right under our noses, and the response of our elected officials has been to make it ever easier for them to do so, yet all too many people are more worried that the government is going to take away our guns than about our government's complicity in the robber barons' destruction of our 401ks.
Which is why the AIG bonuses are so absolutely wonderful. Because now, finally, FINALLY, the masses have learned that the economic ruling class does not consist solely of an enlightened and motivated group of people who are creating great products, creating jobs for Americans, and letting the wealth that they have created trickle down to the rest of us. No, now we realize that there is a huge subset of them that would happily send the economy into the toilet if by so doing they would be able to afford to hire the Rolling Stones to play at their 60th birthday party. And there always have been. And finally people are pissed off about it. Probably still not pissed off enough, but pissed off nonetheless. And maybe a miracle will occur and our government will start doing its job and begin to actually regulate corporate America the way it should have been all along.
And if it only cost $165 million for this to happen, it will be the bargain of the decade.
Never has $165 million in taxpayer money been better spent.
For decades, we the greater American public have uttered hardly a whisper of protest while being raped by many (not all, to be fair) of the titans of the capitalist system. We have funneled billions of dollars into our ex-VP's corporation for the rebuilding of a country we should never have destroyed. We have spent millions on building logging roads so that timber companies can stripmine our national forests. Medicare is paying full retail for prescription drugs for no better reason than that the pharmaceutical companies have better lobbyists than the taxpayers. We have spent tens, if not hundreds, of billions on cleaning up the toxic sludge left behind at Superfund sites. We have stood quiet while well-paying jobs were outsourced to foreign sweatshops, so that the company's stock would go up and the CEO could afford a new place in the Hamptons. We have willingly assented to allowing coporations to evade hundreds of billions of dollars in tax obligations by renting post office boxes in the Bahamas and calling it their headquarters.
Can you believe that last one? But god forbid that the IRS acquire some muscle and teeth and some new rules that would force these corporations to help pay for some of the infrastructure that has enabled them to do so well. Our freedom would be threatened!
I have always been amazed by the success that conservatives have had in convincing us of their Norman Rockwell version of the very wealthy--that they are people who have worked hard, come up with a great idea, implemented their vision, left society the better for their efforts and have been justly rewarded. The fact and extent of their wealth is a function of the value that they have added to the economy. Okay, for many of the very well-off, perhaps even the majority, this version of events does in fact hold more-or-less true. This is how capitalism is supposed to work, and very frequently does.
But it is also far too easy in this country to become very very rich without adding any value to the economy. Far far too many have reaped fabulous rewards by doing the exact opposite. A significant subset of our economic ruling class has managed to become very well-off by destroying wealth. This is not new for 2008-2009. This has been happening all along, right under our noses, and the response of our elected officials has been to make it ever easier for them to do so, yet all too many people are more worried that the government is going to take away our guns than about our government's complicity in the robber barons' destruction of our 401ks.
Which is why the AIG bonuses are so absolutely wonderful. Because now, finally, FINALLY, the masses have learned that the economic ruling class does not consist solely of an enlightened and motivated group of people who are creating great products, creating jobs for Americans, and letting the wealth that they have created trickle down to the rest of us. No, now we realize that there is a huge subset of them that would happily send the economy into the toilet if by so doing they would be able to afford to hire the Rolling Stones to play at their 60th birthday party. And there always have been. And finally people are pissed off about it. Probably still not pissed off enough, but pissed off nonetheless. And maybe a miracle will occur and our government will start doing its job and begin to actually regulate corporate America the way it should have been all along.
And if it only cost $165 million for this to happen, it will be the bargain of the decade.
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