To all of the whiny ass people who signed petitions to secede from the USA, I totally get where you're coming from. If I'd had my hopes built up by Fox News, Redstate.com, Breitbart and others for the last 4 years that the election of a particular president was just a fluke, I'd be in denial as well.
If I was one of the folks who had been convinced that a great wave of red state conservatism was going to coming roaring back and wash away decades of liberal progress and legislation, only to see a loss of seats in Congress and the Senate, you bet your ass I'd be furious as well. I would be even more pissed off if I was one of the billionaires who sunk a ton of money into Super PACs run by Karl Rove and got a big damn goose egg on my investments.
I get it though. If you only utilize the sources of "news" that caters to your antiquated worldview and tell you only what you want to hear, of course you'd be confused and angry when the candidate you were told would win by an electoral college landslide ends up losing by an electoral college blowout. I get it though, you're angry and nobody can fault you for being angry after being lied to.
Now, take a deep breath or two. While I know you're pissed, signing silly petitions isn't going to do anything. You're wasting your time and you're making those of us who have a deep and personal relationship with reality laugh. Those of us who are laughing at you aren't just Ivy League elitists, Castro District married gay couples, or any of the other stereotypes you're thinking of. Personally, I'm a gun-owning, gay-rights supporting Southern guy that likes to cuss and drink whiskey, and I (along with a bunch of conservatives) think you've lost your damn minds. Right now you're acting like the angry kid who keeps threatening to take your ball and go home, and it is getting more funny every time we point out that this is a football game and you have a basketball, and it is halfway flat. Even Robert E. Lee knew when he had lost fair and square. He didn't drag it out for years afterwards or bring it up every time he didn't get what he wanted.
I know your definition of "reality" is more in line with TV shows than actual real life, but listen to me on this. If you really want to secede from the Union, I have a proposal for you. Yes, there's legal precedents, history, reality and math that I could cite to dissuade you but I understand you're not at that point in the 12 steps now, or ever, to accept that but hear me out anyhow.
First of all, I know many of you are still pissed about the election but, you lost. The other Harvard-educated "elitist", the one you begrudgingly pretended to love? Yeah, he lost by almost 4 million votes in the popular vote, and over 100 votes in the Electoral College which means your guy lost. No, the Electoral College doesn't have a football team but here's a football analogy, your guy has had a worse year than Auburn. The other thing is, the whole demographic of the United States has changed slowly over the last couple of decades. I know that in some of the retirement communities and other places that are still on the equivalent of a 14.4k dialup connection to the real world that this hasn't sunk in but it did, whether you want to accept it or not. This will also be almost as hard to swallow as the fact that the states with the most signatures for secession are also the ones who receive the most federal assistance to stay financially solvent.
Now I see you want to either pack up your shit and leave or force the rest of us to leave or live under the rules of the new country that we've already unofficially named "Dumbfuckistan". The thing is, most of us like those things that come with being part of the United States of America. First of all, we got a pretty cool looking flag and a decent national anthem although "God Bless America" ain't bad either. I'm wondering which flag you'll fly and which anthem you'll play before NFL games? Oh wait, there aren't any NFL franchises outside of the US currently, or NASCAR for that matter.
We also have this halfway decent federal infrastructure (which would actually be better if you didn't whine about paying taxes so goddamn much), that sure beats the hell out of the horse and buggy system or needing 4 wheel drive to get from point A to point B, but if you like to do shit the hard way, don't let me stop you on that.
Next, I know you're all about "rugged individualism" and "personal responsibility", so once you've schlepped all of your family off to the Promised Land, you're on your own. Don't worry, I'm sure between those two mutually exclusive books "Atlas Shrugged" and the Bible that you've packed, you can figure out how to survive without that federal infrastructure. When Cousin Cletus starts that wildfire that spirals out of control after his meth lab explodes, get the bucket brigade going because there isn't gonna be any federal intervention to help you out.
Education? I'm sure you're thrilled at educating your kids on your own, free from the godless liberal teachers. However, I think it won't take much to put together those football fields and woodshops. If you find it necessary to put something together more complex than that, we'd like to help you out but we're already giving enough money to third world countries and we know how you feel about that whole "culture of dependency" matter.
I'm sure you think I'm being silly, petty and vindictive with this. That's my point, because that's exactly what you're doing. Now kindly shut the fuck up.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
How the GOP lost 2012, and my generation
As I had previously guessed, the GOP circular firing squad is already going full blast. I've always tuned in to their radio and TV shows and it has been rather amusing since the night of the election outcome was announced to watch them tear into each other. Of course, they still blame people in the "liberal media" but they're also blaming their own for either being too moderate or too conservative, depending on who is pointing the fingers.
The plain and simple fact of the matter is that you cannot pander to the extremists, the bigots and the elitists of a party during the primaries and then expect to win in the general election. You cannot allow the attention whores who've had their 15 minutes of political fame to continue to hog the conversation with "well gawwlee shucks" soundbites when you're trying to explain yourself with math that you use to make yourself feel better as a Republican and even expect the folks with an education past the 10th grade to take you seriously. You absolutely cannot allow the anti-immigrant/militia/Neo-Nazi wing of a party to scream about how "traditional America" is going away or the need for a "racial holy war", then expect the largest growing demographic in the country to vote for you. It is so refreshing to see people who've been brainwashed for years pick up the remote, turn off Fox News and say "that's enough".
When you have the some of the most vocal members of your media call women who use birth control "sluts" or have old white men pretend to be experts on the subject of rape and reproduction, don't be surprised when the female demographic doesn't take kindly to it. The GOP has been playing to a base that seems to be comprised of angry white people with guns and/or golf carts, and the elite 1%. Yet they wonder why those votes are shrinking. They mock the slogan of "hope and change" but people want hope and like it or not, change is happening in the voter base. Just like their energy policies, they have relied for too long on a source that will be nearly gone within a couple decades.
The younger generation really doesn't care about gay marriage, abortion, immigration or most of the other dog whistle topics on Fox, Drudge, Limbaugh, etc. Those of us from Generation X and Y are far more likely to have friends from other ethnic groups, sexual preferences and we just don't get wound up on the social issue ideologies. So when politicians and pundits pander to the older base with talk of "traditional American values", it just turns us the fuck off.
It used to be that if you lived in a rural area, your sources of media were few and far between and you could control what your kids saw in order to continue their indoctrination into your beliefs. Trust me, I know because I was raised in that environment. We were taught that feminism was only for women who hated men and they enjoyed and rejoiced in every abortion that was performed. We were taught that gay people were basically disgusting, perverted Satan worshipers who would kidnap and torture kids for fun, especially those of us who used the computers at the library or had a library card(I'm only slightly exaggerating). Never mind that our own parish priest was soliciting sex from the local gay community and the two men that were considered "pillars of the community" were actually two of the worst child molesters I have ever had the misfortune of knowing.
Eventually, we all grew up and with the exception of a couple of my numerous siblings, we became moderate or even flaming liberal in our views. That experiment in the beginning of the information revolution failed, I dare say it even backfired.
Indoctrination, fear and hatred just doesn't work like it used to, not in the US anyhow. Yet, American conservatives demand that we go fight the same people who use the same tactics they used to use, for the same reason, for the same twisted version of a god they claim to love. Look at the ballot initiatives that have overturned decades of legislation against gay marriage and marijuana, despite the billions of dollars spent over decades to convince us that either/or were a gateway to heroin, AIDS and Hell.
No wonder people have stopped going to church and have stopped believing in a god. Not because of "socialism", science or secularism, but because so many of us have found that gay people aren't child raping psychos and atheists aren't God-hating hedonists who burn down churches and then piss on the ashes. We've been turned off from the politics and religion of our parents because we've figured out that Jesus was a long haired anarchist who went around handing out free healthcare and telling people to be excellent to each other and not damning everyone who wasn't a "job creator" or a Bible-thumping Southern Baptist.
The 15 passenger van fundamentalists still believe that the GOP should focus on banning gay marriage, abortion and all the old issues they've been promised that would be addressed for all of these years. They're still working to gain more power and more influence, to get a stronger grip on the wheel of the party bus which has two wheels over the cliff already. On the other side, the "country club Republicans" who used to laugh all the way to Washington (and the bank) every year off the votes of these fucking lunatics, they're not laughing any more. They're smart enough to realize that these people they brought in for the votes, now they want to run the club, and the establishment doesn't want them there. They want to pay less in taxes and suck as much money out of the American consumer, regardless of whether it came out of the LGBT community or the same impoverished saps that support them.
Nowadays, my generation votes with our pocketbook rather than the flawed interpretations of ancient religious texts. We see the bottom line and vote accordingly. Those of us who have gone thousands of dollars into debt for an education, only to wind up with a dead end job while our CEOs make millions, we aren't buying the "vote against the gay, anti-capitalism agenda" line any more. We've watched our wages and benefits get slashed while profits go up and the whole "trickle-down" economics thing, we aren't buying that either. Even though some of us may buy into the social issues bit, they're more concerned about their bills than the personal affairs of private individuals they don't even know.
If the GOP wants to maintain any relevance, they're going to have do an "Extreme Message Makeover" and toss the fundamentalists overboard, quickly. However, I have the feeling it is already too late. Not that I have a problem with that.
The plain and simple fact of the matter is that you cannot pander to the extremists, the bigots and the elitists of a party during the primaries and then expect to win in the general election. You cannot allow the attention whores who've had their 15 minutes of political fame to continue to hog the conversation with "well gawwlee shucks" soundbites when you're trying to explain yourself with math that you use to make yourself feel better as a Republican and even expect the folks with an education past the 10th grade to take you seriously. You absolutely cannot allow the anti-immigrant/militia/Neo-Nazi wing of a party to scream about how "traditional America" is going away or the need for a "racial holy war", then expect the largest growing demographic in the country to vote for you. It is so refreshing to see people who've been brainwashed for years pick up the remote, turn off Fox News and say "that's enough".
When you have the some of the most vocal members of your media call women who use birth control "sluts" or have old white men pretend to be experts on the subject of rape and reproduction, don't be surprised when the female demographic doesn't take kindly to it. The GOP has been playing to a base that seems to be comprised of angry white people with guns and/or golf carts, and the elite 1%. Yet they wonder why those votes are shrinking. They mock the slogan of "hope and change" but people want hope and like it or not, change is happening in the voter base. Just like their energy policies, they have relied for too long on a source that will be nearly gone within a couple decades.
The younger generation really doesn't care about gay marriage, abortion, immigration or most of the other dog whistle topics on Fox, Drudge, Limbaugh, etc. Those of us from Generation X and Y are far more likely to have friends from other ethnic groups, sexual preferences and we just don't get wound up on the social issue ideologies. So when politicians and pundits pander to the older base with talk of "traditional American values", it just turns us the fuck off.
It used to be that if you lived in a rural area, your sources of media were few and far between and you could control what your kids saw in order to continue their indoctrination into your beliefs. Trust me, I know because I was raised in that environment. We were taught that feminism was only for women who hated men and they enjoyed and rejoiced in every abortion that was performed. We were taught that gay people were basically disgusting, perverted Satan worshipers who would kidnap and torture kids for fun, especially those of us who used the computers at the library or had a library card(I'm only slightly exaggerating). Never mind that our own parish priest was soliciting sex from the local gay community and the two men that were considered "pillars of the community" were actually two of the worst child molesters I have ever had the misfortune of knowing.
Eventually, we all grew up and with the exception of a couple of my numerous siblings, we became moderate or even flaming liberal in our views. That experiment in the beginning of the information revolution failed, I dare say it even backfired.
Indoctrination, fear and hatred just doesn't work like it used to, not in the US anyhow. Yet, American conservatives demand that we go fight the same people who use the same tactics they used to use, for the same reason, for the same twisted version of a god they claim to love. Look at the ballot initiatives that have overturned decades of legislation against gay marriage and marijuana, despite the billions of dollars spent over decades to convince us that either/or were a gateway to heroin, AIDS and Hell.
No wonder people have stopped going to church and have stopped believing in a god. Not because of "socialism", science or secularism, but because so many of us have found that gay people aren't child raping psychos and atheists aren't God-hating hedonists who burn down churches and then piss on the ashes. We've been turned off from the politics and religion of our parents because we've figured out that Jesus was a long haired anarchist who went around handing out free healthcare and telling people to be excellent to each other and not damning everyone who wasn't a "job creator" or a Bible-thumping Southern Baptist.
The 15 passenger van fundamentalists still believe that the GOP should focus on banning gay marriage, abortion and all the old issues they've been promised that would be addressed for all of these years. They're still working to gain more power and more influence, to get a stronger grip on the wheel of the party bus which has two wheels over the cliff already. On the other side, the "country club Republicans" who used to laugh all the way to Washington (and the bank) every year off the votes of these fucking lunatics, they're not laughing any more. They're smart enough to realize that these people they brought in for the votes, now they want to run the club, and the establishment doesn't want them there. They want to pay less in taxes and suck as much money out of the American consumer, regardless of whether it came out of the LGBT community or the same impoverished saps that support them.
Nowadays, my generation votes with our pocketbook rather than the flawed interpretations of ancient religious texts. We see the bottom line and vote accordingly. Those of us who have gone thousands of dollars into debt for an education, only to wind up with a dead end job while our CEOs make millions, we aren't buying the "vote against the gay, anti-capitalism agenda" line any more. We've watched our wages and benefits get slashed while profits go up and the whole "trickle-down" economics thing, we aren't buying that either. Even though some of us may buy into the social issues bit, they're more concerned about their bills than the personal affairs of private individuals they don't even know.
If the GOP wants to maintain any relevance, they're going to have do an "Extreme Message Makeover" and toss the fundamentalists overboard, quickly. However, I have the feeling it is already too late. Not that I have a problem with that.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
WTF happened to the GOP?
If you were to take Barack Obama back in time maybe 15 or 20 years and call him a Republican, people would have hardly noticed. Considering the fact that "Obamacare" and a health insurance mandate were both pushed by Republicans and the Heritage Foundation back in the 1990's, aside from his stance on gay marriage, I'd say there are few differences between Obama now and many of the mainstream Republicans of the 90's.
However, go to any Tea Party rally and you'll inevitably find people with misspelled signs proclaiming him to be a "socialist, fascist, communist, Marxist", etc. Back in the 1990's, before the media outlet known as Fox News was on every retirement community center's TVs, there were many Republicans who could care less about what people did with their bodies. They also sometimes supported reasonable restrictions on guns and didn't mind reaching across the aisle to get things done because it was either right for the country, or for their collective pocketbooks.
Most of them are gone now. They've either died, been replaced by the shrieking maniacs of the hard right, or switched parties. I remember in 1993 when Virginia elected George Allen as governor by a wide margin, yet the GOP lieutenant governor candidate (Mike Farris) lost by 9 points even though the election went heavily to the GOP. Mike Farris was one of the wacko "Quiverfull" homeschooling folks and he fits in with the likes of Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum today. Back then the moderates of the party, like John Warner, refused to support him. They would rather a moderate Democrat win than allow someone they correctly viewed as "too radical". I remember the furious sense of betrayal and resentment from nutty fundamentalist homeschoolers who grudgingly peeled their "Mike Farris for Lieutenant Governor" stickers off their minivans after the election. They actually disliked George Allen because they thought he wasn't conservative enough, believe it or not.
Since those days, politicians like George Allen have tacked their sails ever further into the breeze that pushes the party ever harder towards the hardline right. Principle and soft corruption have been replaced by outright corruption and corporate ownership, as well as the never-ending contest to prove who is the most ideologically pure. While the showmanship involved in ideological posturing endears them to the radical base who they can count on to show up for primaries and elections, it makes them unelectable overall. Back then, you could get the support of the rightwing by making racial remarks in an assumed private setting or promising to pass a bill to teach creationism in school without worrying about being caught on a cellphone video. Many of these people still run campaigns that way, and cater to the radical base for the primaries, then wonder why they get laughed at when they try to tack to the center and still lose in the general election.
There's still centrist people left, they've just allowed their more intellectual arguments for being Republican be drowned out by the shrill dog whistles and "you betcha" booksellers and pundits for almost a decade now. I remember watching William F. Buckley at an early age and while he was very conservative, he actually made his argument with points that took more than 10 seconds, a wink, a hairflip and a catchphrase to get across.
I believe the rumors that after Romney gets his ass handed to him on November 6th, 2012 that the GOP top brass will finally realize they can no longer cater to the hard right in primaries and expect to win elections, hoping that their remarks weren't caught on tape to be used in ads in October and November. I think Chris Christie is one of those politicians who knows that his future and his path to the White House lies in the middle and not on the fringe, which is why he didn't play the partisan game when it came to Hurricane Sandy. I think he, and the powers that be, have realized that obstructionist tactics and continued pandering to angry old white people is a losing bet in the long run. Gauging by the remarks I've seen on social media in the last couple days in response to his embrace of Obama, there's definitely some people who have lost their damn minds over it.
Perhaps they've realized, finally, that they've lost a younger generation (myself included) to the Democrats by catering to the old Bible thumpers and the last of the pre-segregation Dixiecrats rolling around The Villages or Scottsdale in their golf carts. Maybe they've come to terms with the fact that angry old white people will be pushing up daisies within the next decade or so and that they will need to find someone else to cater to. Maybe they've realized that a generation that embraces multi-culturalism and overall tolerance is so far out of their reach right now, that they'll wake the fuck up. Maybe they've finally grasped that people like Sarah Palin and "awwww shucks" jingoistic patriotism doesn't attract the emerging demographic, unlike the current dying one that has been stuck in the left lane, with their blinker on, for the last 20 years.
However, go to any Tea Party rally and you'll inevitably find people with misspelled signs proclaiming him to be a "socialist, fascist, communist, Marxist", etc. Back in the 1990's, before the media outlet known as Fox News was on every retirement community center's TVs, there were many Republicans who could care less about what people did with their bodies. They also sometimes supported reasonable restrictions on guns and didn't mind reaching across the aisle to get things done because it was either right for the country, or for their collective pocketbooks.
Most of them are gone now. They've either died, been replaced by the shrieking maniacs of the hard right, or switched parties. I remember in 1993 when Virginia elected George Allen as governor by a wide margin, yet the GOP lieutenant governor candidate (Mike Farris) lost by 9 points even though the election went heavily to the GOP. Mike Farris was one of the wacko "Quiverfull" homeschooling folks and he fits in with the likes of Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum today. Back then the moderates of the party, like John Warner, refused to support him. They would rather a moderate Democrat win than allow someone they correctly viewed as "too radical". I remember the furious sense of betrayal and resentment from nutty fundamentalist homeschoolers who grudgingly peeled their "Mike Farris for Lieutenant Governor" stickers off their minivans after the election. They actually disliked George Allen because they thought he wasn't conservative enough, believe it or not.
Since those days, politicians like George Allen have tacked their sails ever further into the breeze that pushes the party ever harder towards the hardline right. Principle and soft corruption have been replaced by outright corruption and corporate ownership, as well as the never-ending contest to prove who is the most ideologically pure. While the showmanship involved in ideological posturing endears them to the radical base who they can count on to show up for primaries and elections, it makes them unelectable overall. Back then, you could get the support of the rightwing by making racial remarks in an assumed private setting or promising to pass a bill to teach creationism in school without worrying about being caught on a cellphone video. Many of these people still run campaigns that way, and cater to the radical base for the primaries, then wonder why they get laughed at when they try to tack to the center and still lose in the general election.
There's still centrist people left, they've just allowed their more intellectual arguments for being Republican be drowned out by the shrill dog whistles and "you betcha" booksellers and pundits for almost a decade now. I remember watching William F. Buckley at an early age and while he was very conservative, he actually made his argument with points that took more than 10 seconds, a wink, a hairflip and a catchphrase to get across.
I believe the rumors that after Romney gets his ass handed to him on November 6th, 2012 that the GOP top brass will finally realize they can no longer cater to the hard right in primaries and expect to win elections, hoping that their remarks weren't caught on tape to be used in ads in October and November. I think Chris Christie is one of those politicians who knows that his future and his path to the White House lies in the middle and not on the fringe, which is why he didn't play the partisan game when it came to Hurricane Sandy. I think he, and the powers that be, have realized that obstructionist tactics and continued pandering to angry old white people is a losing bet in the long run. Gauging by the remarks I've seen on social media in the last couple days in response to his embrace of Obama, there's definitely some people who have lost their damn minds over it.
Perhaps they've realized, finally, that they've lost a younger generation (myself included) to the Democrats by catering to the old Bible thumpers and the last of the pre-segregation Dixiecrats rolling around The Villages or Scottsdale in their golf carts. Maybe they've come to terms with the fact that angry old white people will be pushing up daisies within the next decade or so and that they will need to find someone else to cater to. Maybe they've realized that a generation that embraces multi-culturalism and overall tolerance is so far out of their reach right now, that they'll wake the fuck up. Maybe they've finally grasped that people like Sarah Palin and "awwww shucks" jingoistic patriotism doesn't attract the emerging demographic, unlike the current dying one that has been stuck in the left lane, with their blinker on, for the last 20 years.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Fighting the end of the "American Dream"
Truth be told, I see the decline of the American Dream happening sooner than later. I'm not being cynical, just realistic. There's people who think that all they have to do is vote for Obama and it'll magically put our country back together again. They think by just doing this and "liking and sharing" some photo or article on social media, they've done their part and can go back to watch "American Idol" or some other insipid crap like that. The same naive sentiments also exist on the other side of the aisle where misguided working class folks believe the jobs will come flooding back once corporate taxes are slashed and regulations gutted.
I believe the "Glory Days" died right around the time the first airplane slammed into the World Trade Center and when subsequently, patriotism was dumbed down for mass consumption and maximum profit. I honestly believe the majority of the American public is not willing to turn off the TV, learn outside of their usual 5 minutes of daily exposure to Fox or MSNBC, open their minds and make the informed choices to fix the mess we're in. It get so frustrating to be one of those "outside the wire", one of the minority who gives a damn, especially when you live in rural America where people complain about the jobs they've lost, all while pushing their shopping carts full of junk food through WalMart.
So here's the rest of my rant...I'm sick of the people who complain about paying taxes and government spending, even though our local roads look like something from Baghdad, circa 2003. I've had it up to here with people who have no problem with borrowing billions of dollars from China to bomb a country into the Stone Age, then rebuild it, but don't want to spend a fraction of that to rebuild our own crumbling infrastructure. It is really hard to not slap upside the head the people who bitch about being "taxed enough already" when they often don't pay any net income tax and actually get back more on their return than they paid in. I'm absolutely fucking done with the pervasive atmosphere of anti-intellectualism, group-think mentalities and the arrogant notion that their ignorance is superior to science, despite all evidence to contradict their asinine claims.
You know what? There are many days where, if I had the money, I'd prefer to sip a cold beer in the cockpit of a sportfisher off the coast of South America and watch the implosion from afar. It is a daily struggle to try to help people who don't even want to learn anything new and even harder to fight those who are willing to destroy the country for another tax cut for their corporate overlords. Today's another day...once more into the fray.
I believe the "Glory Days" died right around the time the first airplane slammed into the World Trade Center and when subsequently, patriotism was dumbed down for mass consumption and maximum profit. I honestly believe the majority of the American public is not willing to turn off the TV, learn outside of their usual 5 minutes of daily exposure to Fox or MSNBC, open their minds and make the informed choices to fix the mess we're in. It get so frustrating to be one of those "outside the wire", one of the minority who gives a damn, especially when you live in rural America where people complain about the jobs they've lost, all while pushing their shopping carts full of junk food through WalMart.
So here's the rest of my rant...I'm sick of the people who complain about paying taxes and government spending, even though our local roads look like something from Baghdad, circa 2003. I've had it up to here with people who have no problem with borrowing billions of dollars from China to bomb a country into the Stone Age, then rebuild it, but don't want to spend a fraction of that to rebuild our own crumbling infrastructure. It is really hard to not slap upside the head the people who bitch about being "taxed enough already" when they often don't pay any net income tax and actually get back more on their return than they paid in. I'm absolutely fucking done with the pervasive atmosphere of anti-intellectualism, group-think mentalities and the arrogant notion that their ignorance is superior to science, despite all evidence to contradict their asinine claims.
You know what? There are many days where, if I had the money, I'd prefer to sip a cold beer in the cockpit of a sportfisher off the coast of South America and watch the implosion from afar. It is a daily struggle to try to help people who don't even want to learn anything new and even harder to fight those who are willing to destroy the country for another tax cut for their corporate overlords. Today's another day...once more into the fray.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Once more into the fray
As another election cycle chugs towards the finish line, I'm looking forward to taking a break. The constant grind of creating new material, along with the demands of working a real job outside of this, and dealing with the hyperpartisan bullshit from both sides has really grated on my last damn nerve.
Out of all of the election cycles I've been involved with since I stood outside a polling place with a sign on my 13th birthday in the freezing rain (for a conservative candidate), I'd say I've been the most involved in this one. As such, I've made some great contacts that have helped me triple the size of "Whiskey and the Morning After" on Facebook in about 4 months which has helped some of our work to go semi-viral.
I've also pissed off more than my share of people, on both sides of the political divide, for a number of reason including skewering conservative politicians and ideas, as well as pointing out unethical behavior on the part of some leftist page owners and self-proclaimed "journalists".
As I've said in the past, I'm not bound to all of the beliefs and stereotypes of either the Democrats or the Republicans. My personal convictions are probably more in line with some weird acid trip combination of Gary Johnson, Sun Tzu, Dennis Kucinich and Gandhi. However, despite many of my more Libertarian/Progressive views, I align with the Democrats whenever there isn't a serious 3rd party candidate on the ballot that I agree with.
What has really turned my stomach this year, more so than in years past, is the very people who claim to be "independent minded, progressive thinkers", yet blindly accept absolutely false or distorted stories spun up by the "shock jocks" of the left. In my mind, it makes them no better than the same Fox News/Drudge Report/Limbaugh devotees they claim some type of moral and intellectual superiority over. Sadly, I see this every day as people blindly "like and share" stories claiming Mitt Romney said he intends to ban porn on the internet or other false stories spun up by hack journalists out to drive traffic to their pages that make them money for every person who views the article. Even satire, which is obviously lost on some people, often shows up on my social media newsfeeds by folks who just accept a link as factual just because it reaffirms their dislike for a person or belief.
I don't regret this "once more into the fray" but the indefinite break I am planning on taking from politics will be a welcome respite from the insanity. For that period of time, my other admins will share their political links and memes while I concentrate on more enjoyable subjects such as food and booze. Once the hiatus is over, I will start supporting independent candidates once again, especially in local politics, to hopefully build a better base of support for alternate choices in future elections. Also, unless something goes horribly wrong, I'll be criticizing President Obama as necessary.
With about a week to go until the election, I'm already plotting my temporary exit shortly thereafter. However, I have the feeling that if it goes the way I want, I'll have to spend a couple days rubbing it in before making my exit. Remember politics, it won't be goodbye, just until we meet again.
Out of all of the election cycles I've been involved with since I stood outside a polling place with a sign on my 13th birthday in the freezing rain (for a conservative candidate), I'd say I've been the most involved in this one. As such, I've made some great contacts that have helped me triple the size of "Whiskey and the Morning After" on Facebook in about 4 months which has helped some of our work to go semi-viral.
I've also pissed off more than my share of people, on both sides of the political divide, for a number of reason including skewering conservative politicians and ideas, as well as pointing out unethical behavior on the part of some leftist page owners and self-proclaimed "journalists".
As I've said in the past, I'm not bound to all of the beliefs and stereotypes of either the Democrats or the Republicans. My personal convictions are probably more in line with some weird acid trip combination of Gary Johnson, Sun Tzu, Dennis Kucinich and Gandhi. However, despite many of my more Libertarian/Progressive views, I align with the Democrats whenever there isn't a serious 3rd party candidate on the ballot that I agree with.
What has really turned my stomach this year, more so than in years past, is the very people who claim to be "independent minded, progressive thinkers", yet blindly accept absolutely false or distorted stories spun up by the "shock jocks" of the left. In my mind, it makes them no better than the same Fox News/Drudge Report/Limbaugh devotees they claim some type of moral and intellectual superiority over. Sadly, I see this every day as people blindly "like and share" stories claiming Mitt Romney said he intends to ban porn on the internet or other false stories spun up by hack journalists out to drive traffic to their pages that make them money for every person who views the article. Even satire, which is obviously lost on some people, often shows up on my social media newsfeeds by folks who just accept a link as factual just because it reaffirms their dislike for a person or belief.
I don't regret this "once more into the fray" but the indefinite break I am planning on taking from politics will be a welcome respite from the insanity. For that period of time, my other admins will share their political links and memes while I concentrate on more enjoyable subjects such as food and booze. Once the hiatus is over, I will start supporting independent candidates once again, especially in local politics, to hopefully build a better base of support for alternate choices in future elections. Also, unless something goes horribly wrong, I'll be criticizing President Obama as necessary.
With about a week to go until the election, I'm already plotting my temporary exit shortly thereafter. However, I have the feeling that if it goes the way I want, I'll have to spend a couple days rubbing it in before making my exit. Remember politics, it won't be goodbye, just until we meet again.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Class Warfare, part 2
Despite being continually screwed by the GOP, rural voters keep voting for them, election after election. Every Tuesday after the first Monday in November, there's a parking lot full of pickup trucks at the local high school, all with the GOP stickers du jour plastered all over their vehicles.
There's a weathered sugar cane farmer with the soot from burning the fields still covering his 1987 Dodge like a fine powder. Deep down inside, he probably knows that two men having the right to get married doesn't affect him in any way. Sure, he thinks it is strange but he cares more about the price of a tank of gas for the tractor, a case of Schlitz or a box of shotgun shells for squirrel season.
There's a mother of four kids in an SUV clutching her third cup of coffee for the morning. She doesn't really think that raising the tax rate on the highest earners will cause any harm to her. She's more concerned with the weekly grocery bill or that the family's income has decreased while the cost of everything has climbed.
What they, and the majority of the other people lined up to vote don't understand, is that all of this is intertwined and they're being taken for a ride every November. They've been sold a shit sandwich and told it was the best cheeseburger ever. They've bought into jingoistic patriotism complete with a plastic American flag from the factory in China where their jobs went, and the people who did it are laughing all the way to their banks in the Cayman Islands. We're probably more divided as a nation now than any other time since 1865, and it's all for a few extra billion in the pockets of just a few hundred people in the entire world.
How has this happened? How are all of these people so goddamn blind? The fact of the matter is that the GOP has managed to lock down much of the rural and working class vote by pretending they "get it". Look at the campaign ads every cycle that show the politician with his dog and shotgun in the duck blind, or the recent flyer I got in the mail for Scott Angelle who is running for Public Service Commissioner here in Louisiana. It shows him with his pretty little family and it basically says "I'm just like you, right down the picture that looks like it was shot in a JCPenney's in 1996". They've done one hell of job convincing their constituents their policies will open the magical floodgates of trickle-down and bring jobs.
Progressive politicians have had this disconnect with these voters for a long time because they're stuck with the stereotype of being urban elitists and they rarely do anything to turn that around. People like President Obama will forever be seen as "city boys" because they are, and they don't try to pander.
Most of the GOP politicians haven't had to do a hard day's work in the fields, crawfish ponds or the factories but they have no problem pretending they're down to earth, working class folks who got successful through rugged individualism and hard work. They'll pander without shame. Look at Mitt Romney kissing the ass of every person he sees a potential vote with remarks about "cheesy grits" and using the word "y'all" like he's been using it all his life. Talk about elitist and out of touch.
The problem is that people want easy, quick slogans and answers pre-assembled and handed to them like a Happy Meal at McDonald's drive-thru. You can't explain the complexities of international economics in a slick 30 second political ad. You can't explain how spending a few cents more for a product from a local business rather than a big box store makes a community more prosperous in between the flashy ads for new televisions and the screaming pundits on the evening news commentary. Like a herd of sheep, they stare at the screen, blink and nod, then shuffle off to the polls once again to pull the lever for every candidate who waved the flag the hardest and added a little drawl to their delivery.
Yeah, we're pretty much fucked.
There's a weathered sugar cane farmer with the soot from burning the fields still covering his 1987 Dodge like a fine powder. Deep down inside, he probably knows that two men having the right to get married doesn't affect him in any way. Sure, he thinks it is strange but he cares more about the price of a tank of gas for the tractor, a case of Schlitz or a box of shotgun shells for squirrel season.
There's a mother of four kids in an SUV clutching her third cup of coffee for the morning. She doesn't really think that raising the tax rate on the highest earners will cause any harm to her. She's more concerned with the weekly grocery bill or that the family's income has decreased while the cost of everything has climbed.
What they, and the majority of the other people lined up to vote don't understand, is that all of this is intertwined and they're being taken for a ride every November. They've been sold a shit sandwich and told it was the best cheeseburger ever. They've bought into jingoistic patriotism complete with a plastic American flag from the factory in China where their jobs went, and the people who did it are laughing all the way to their banks in the Cayman Islands. We're probably more divided as a nation now than any other time since 1865, and it's all for a few extra billion in the pockets of just a few hundred people in the entire world.
How has this happened? How are all of these people so goddamn blind? The fact of the matter is that the GOP has managed to lock down much of the rural and working class vote by pretending they "get it". Look at the campaign ads every cycle that show the politician with his dog and shotgun in the duck blind, or the recent flyer I got in the mail for Scott Angelle who is running for Public Service Commissioner here in Louisiana. It shows him with his pretty little family and it basically says "I'm just like you, right down the picture that looks like it was shot in a JCPenney's in 1996". They've done one hell of job convincing their constituents their policies will open the magical floodgates of trickle-down and bring jobs.
Progressive politicians have had this disconnect with these voters for a long time because they're stuck with the stereotype of being urban elitists and they rarely do anything to turn that around. People like President Obama will forever be seen as "city boys" because they are, and they don't try to pander.
Most of the GOP politicians haven't had to do a hard day's work in the fields, crawfish ponds or the factories but they have no problem pretending they're down to earth, working class folks who got successful through rugged individualism and hard work. They'll pander without shame. Look at Mitt Romney kissing the ass of every person he sees a potential vote with remarks about "cheesy grits" and using the word "y'all" like he's been using it all his life. Talk about elitist and out of touch.
The problem is that people want easy, quick slogans and answers pre-assembled and handed to them like a Happy Meal at McDonald's drive-thru. You can't explain the complexities of international economics in a slick 30 second political ad. You can't explain how spending a few cents more for a product from a local business rather than a big box store makes a community more prosperous in between the flashy ads for new televisions and the screaming pundits on the evening news commentary. Like a herd of sheep, they stare at the screen, blink and nod, then shuffle off to the polls once again to pull the lever for every candidate who waved the flag the hardest and added a little drawl to their delivery.
Yeah, we're pretty much fucked.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
The truth about "Matthew Desmond" and "Being Liberal".
Again, let me stress that this is NOT about individuals who share images from pages via mobile where you are basically forced to download and then re-upload the image to your personal page. This is about plagiarism, for profit. Plain and simple.
Rather than admit to the truth, the folks behind "Being Liberal" are portraying these warnings from Facebook as being the work of "paid conservative trolls" when in fact, if you look at the image that they posted on their site, it is very clear that the warning is not for an objectionable picture. It is for an image being removed because Facebook received a report of copyright infringement, reviewed it and the evidence presented by the submitter, decided in the plaintiff's favor, removed the image and issued a warning. The time and trouble that it takes to file a copyright complaint to Facebook where you have to give them your name and contact email, links to the offending material and the original content, and then do an electronic signature is not worth it to trolls. It is easier for them to report an image as "nudity" or "spam" which takes just a few seconds before they march on to their next victim.
My first dealings with Matthew Desmond Kerry, AKA "Matthew Desmond" AKA "Matthew Hanson" was in the fall of 2010, shortly after his domain was registered. On every news page, progressive page, you name it, was his profile spamming links to Addictinginfo.org. This was something you could see literally hundreds of times a day. I would occasionally comment and mention how annoying it was, sometimes I would report it as spam. One day he commented back in a really nasty manner so I reported him again as a spammer and blocked him. This was all before I had a page of my own. After my page got started, he started spamming my page with links to his tabloid-esque articles so I banned him from the page as well. Around the beginning of 2012, I started getting into making my own images and that's when the content theft from our page really began. In all fairness, I've seen our work with watermarks and tags removed on a number of sites but never with the frequency as I have seen on pages run by "Matthew Desmond".
I've had a number of confused and indignant people ask me "why should it matter, so long as the message is getting out?" or tell me "we don't need to be airing our internal squabbles". So, let me go ahead and address that once and for all.
First off, I love that our original content, and that of other pages is getting out there. Every time we see a meme, a blog, a quote or whatever, get passed around on social media, we rejoice. We've seen some photos go viral and show up 10 or 20 times in one day on our personal newsfeeds. That's a good thing. What isn't a good thing is when that work is repeatedly taken by another page and passed off as their own work (often after altering the image to remove references to the original creator) or credited to one of their satellite pages which are controlled or owned by the same person doing the theft. This drives "likes" on Facebook to their pages, not the original author. "But they're not making any money off it" you might say and you would be VERY, VERY wrong.
The site "Being Liberal" and their satellite pages like "Addictinginfo", "Americans Against The Republican Party", "I Acknowledge Classwarfare Exists" and others have collectively at least 2.5 millions fans as a conservative estimate. By his own admission "Matthew Desmond" admits in this article on Addictinginfo.org that he controls 50+ pages on Facebook. These pages, and many other pages that they have coerced or manipulated in some way into co-operating with them then post controversially titled "news" articles by Addictinginfo, Reverbpress.com and others, often dozens of times a day.
Why does this matter? Because by drawing in as many hundreds of thousands of fans as they can and then driving them to a non-Facebook site, they make money. Websites have advertising and the more people who see those ads, the more the website owner makes. Simple math, and that's the new model for media.
This isn't some small time blogging operation either. We're talking about 100's of thousands of visitors (sometimes millions) a day to their respective websites to where they get paid for traffic. This is a case of taking other people's work, without credit or compensation (monetarily or otherwise) and making money off it, a lot of money. This isn't about a good cause using somebody else's work, using it to promote their page and in return, promoting/acknowledging the original creator. This isn't about someone making money off writing and jealousy of someone else's success. This is about a lot of money being made perhaps not illegally, but certainly through unethical and dirty methods that the people we are supposed to be united against use daily. If you don't think plagiarism is a big deal, ask Fareed Zakaria who was suspended from CNN for lifting quotes from other people without attribution. Try doing that with a term paper or thesis in college and see what happens.
Second, the whole "we shouldn't be airing our dirty laundry and internal squabbles for all to see" bit...I get it. However, after you and many others have tried repeatedly through private channels to address the issue and after having been attacked with a slew of rightwing trolls and abuse reports after calling them out publicly on their page (and being instantly banned), it is obvious that the polite method doesn't work. I have the emails from the original owner of Being Liberal (Wojtek Wacowski, who also works for Upworthy) where he demanded either an apology or proof of the work taken from my page by his co-admin "Matthew Desmond". After I provided proof, Wojtek Wacowski got angry and rude before breaking off contact. Within a few days, my page suddenly experienced massive attack after attack from right-wing trolls, an image I made mocking the KKK was reported and removed and I got a 3 day suspension. The timing was very uncanny although it cannot be proven that they were behind it.
We shouldn't be covering up the sins of our own because it corrupts what we're supposed to be about. We can't go around saying that we have a moral high ground when members of our own ranks are engaging in the same behavior of corporate greed and bullying that we're supposed to be fighting against. They like to say they have nothing to hide but they hide their business information behind a proxy offshore domain registration where DMCA and other US copyright laws don't apply and have the business registered to a UPS store in Santa Rosa, CA.
Business listing with CA Sec of State:
Entity Name: ADDICTING INFO LLC Entity Number: 201129410004 Date Filed: 10/12/2011 Status: ACTIVE Jurisdiction: CALIFORNIA Entity Address: 1007 W COLLEGE AVE #433 (UPS Store box#) Entity City, State, Zip: SANTA ROSA CA 95401 Agent for Service of Process: LEGALZOOM.COM, INC. (C2967349)
Domain registry results through whois.org:
Domain ID:D160073684-LROR Domain Name:ADDICTINGINFO.ORG Created On:05-Sep-2010 20:33:25 UTC Last Updated On:07-Aug-2012 22:47:05 UTC Expiration Date:05-Sep-2014 20:33:25 UTC Sponsoring Registrar:eNom, Inc. (R39-LROR) Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED Registrant ID:2fe87cb4afe1ee62 Registrant Name:Privacy Advocate Registrant Organization:Domains.com Ltd Registrant Street1:Lupins Business Centre Registrant Street2: Registrant Street3: Registrant City:Weymouth Registrant State/Province:Dorset Registrant Postal Code:DT4 7SP Registrant Country:GB Registrant Phone:+44.130582275 Registrant FAX:+44.130582275 Registrant FAX Ext.: Registrant Email:addictinginfo@rocketmail.com Admin ID:2fe87cb4afe1ee62 Admin Name:Privacy Advocate Admin Organization:Domains.com Ltd Admin Street1:Lupins Business Centre Admin Street2: Admin Street3: Admin City:Weymouth Admin State/Province:Dorset Admin Postal Code:DT4 7SP Admin Country:GB Admin Phone:+44.130582275 Admin FAX:+44.130582275 Admin FAX Ext.: Admin Email:addictinginfo@rocketmail.com Tech ID:2fe87cb4afe1ee62 Tech Name:Privacy Advocate Tech Organization:Domains.com Ltd Tech Street1:Lupins Business Centre Tech Street2: Tech Street3: Tech City:Weymouth Tech State/Province:Dorset Tech Postal Code:DT4 7SP Tech Country:GB Tech Phone:+44.130582275 Tech FAX:+44.130582275 Tech FAX Ext.: Tech Email:addictinginfo@rocketmail.com Name Server:NS1.ADDICTINGINFO.ORG Name Server:NS2.ADDICTINGINFO.ORG
http://www.corporationwiki.com/California/Santa-Rosa/addicting-info-llc/103385923.aspx
Now you can write this off as "protecting one's identity" but that's not what it is about. It is about protecting themselves against civil suits for infringement of intellectual property. It isn't just images they've taken, it's news articles they've lifted from other journalists and have copied nearly word for word. In every case they've been confronted, they've first tried to bully their accuser and then when threatened with legal action, have hidden behind the offshore accounts.
If this passes for "acceptable behavior" or something we should look the other way on for the better good of the progressive/liberal/moderate coalition, then I want no part of that movement. Just ask the Catholic Church how well that "not airing dirty laundry" thing worked out for them.
*EDIT* By popular request, I have compiled a list of pages that are owned or partially controlled by Matthew Desmond Kerry as well as some of his close friends and associates like Justin Rosario, Daniel Gouldmann, Tiffany Willis, Egberto Willies, Omar Rivero, Rafael Rivero, Elisabeth Parker, Sean Conners, Leah Farley, Wendy Gittleson, Stephen D Foster and others.
Known websites:
www.beingliberal.org
www.addictinginfo.org
www.freewoodpost.com
www.ifyouonlynews.com
www.reverbpress.com
www.liberalamerica.org
www.occupydemocrats.com
www.leftwingnation.rocks
www.egbertowillies.com
www.americannewsx.com
Known Facebook pages:
https://www.facebook.com/GirlDuJour
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats
https://www.facebook.com/republicansareidiots
https://www.facebook.com/Republicansareidiots1
https://www.facebook.com/beingliberal.org
https://www.facebook.com/LiberalAndProudOfIt
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Americans-Against-Bobby-Franklin-By-AddictingInfoORG
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Americans-Against-Martin-Harty-By-AddictingInfoOrg
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Michele-Bachmann-Needs-To-Read-A-History-Book-By-AddictingInfoorg
https://www.facebook.com/opinionatedlib
https://www.facebook.com/LiberalAndProudOfIt
https://www.facebook.com/AmericansAgainstMittRomney
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Proud-to-be-a-Filthy-Liberal-Scum
https://www.facebook.com/LiberalAndProudOfIt
"Friendly" Facebook pages: (Pages that frequently use Addictinginfo links but not necessarily owned by Matthew Desmond).
https://www.facebook.com/coffeeparty
https://www.facebook.com/PragProgPage
https://www.facebook.com/classwarfareexists
https://www.facebook.com/WSBYWSO (not to be confused w/ the other site)
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