Black Friday

Oh free market, we bless and we praise thee, and on this holiest day of our calendar, your loyalest servant, Walmart offers up to you this human sacrifice.

Jdimytai Damour was a brave man, a hero, a glorious testament to the natural wonders that the almighty free market bestows upon us every day. Without his brave sacrifice, where would we be? Where would we be in a world without massive discounts to kick-start the Christmas season? Where would we be without the absolute freedom to buy and to sell as we please?

Oh free market, we offer this sacrifice to you in the hope that you will shine your countenance upon us once again. Free market, please accept this offering of blood. We pray that you will turn away your wrath and show us your benevolence and endless, ceaseless love once again.

Free market, we are so grateful on this Thanksgiving weekend for all of your gifts and blessings. You give freely and you take away, and none can question your wisdom.

Free market, we pray to you on this Consumer Festival day that you will smite your enemies with a righteous hand, that you will trample them beneath your very feet. Trample the unions. Trample the workers. Trample the politicians that dare to stand in your way. Let your name be praised from Long Island to Honolulu and shouted from the Appalachian mountaintops for now and for all time.

Amen.

Impeach Sean Penn

Welcome back to another edition of the American Theater of the Absurd. Unfortunately, there has been an unexpected change in tonight’s casting. Condoleeza Rice has come down with a viral infection and will be unable to perform tonight. Therefore, the part of Secretary of State will be played by Sean Penn, reprising his role from I Am Sam.

Winner of the Douchebag Awards

In all the madness of the election season I got swept up in the bitter feuding between left and right, red and blue. Now I consider myself an independent, but if you put a gun to my head and say pick a side, I’m going to go to the left. The nature of the political discussion in October sometimes wasn’t too far off. However I am not an ideologue and I call both sides out when they’re wrong.

Now that all the craziness is over and the winner has been crowned, it is time to re-focus my attention. The little l liberals are back in charge, and so for at least the next 4 years, they will be the ones bearing the brunt of my criticism. Although I prefer their madness to say, the madness of red rural America, which I spent the holiday in (see: Burma Shave ads glorifying gun rights), their ideas and policies are madness nonetheless. Today’s proof in point is on the front page of the Left’s flagship “magazine,” The Nation:

Sean Penn went on a trip recently to Venezuala and Cuba to talk to Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro, respectively. Christopher Hitchens also accompanied him on the trip. But because of Sean Penn’s allure, only he was granted access to the Castros.

Now I’m going to ignore the fact for a moment that Sean Penn is not a journalist and just pretend that he is for the sake of the argument.

The trip was a strange mix of half reporting and half diplomacy, as Penn brazenly asked both of the Latin American leaders if they would agree to a meeting with the Obama administration, if he asked for it. (The interviews took place before November 4, by the way.)

I know that I was very focused on the Presidential race, but did I miss something? What public office did Sean Penn get elected to? What state, district, or constituency gave Sean Penn the power to act as an emissary of the United States and to discuss foreign policy with these nations?

The answer: nobody did. Penn is suffering from a severe case of delusions of grandeur if he thinks that he can speak for America, or even the American left. Hollywood did this, I am certain. You can see it through his navel-gazing. Although he takes ample time to discuss just how spry and hospitable both Chavez and Castro were, the real star of his narrative is one Sean Penn.

If you read the article, which I don’t really recommend, you’ll see that the majority of the sparse dialogue he uses always involves his proper name, just in case that we forgot that he is Sean Penn.

Dear Mr. Penn,

In case you haven’t heard the word, Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro are DICTATORS. Their governments are authoritarian and illegitimate, and the United States should avoid doing business with authoritarian governments regardless of their political stripe. Your solution for 8 years of right-wing extremism is to suddenly bridge the gap with the most fanatical elements of the liberal movement?

As I read your piece, I suddenly started to understand all of those charges of elitism that get lofted like so many Molotov cocktails at liberals. Just who precisely in the hell do you think you are?

Stick to chain-smoking and working on melodramatic films, Sean. Leave the diplomacy to whoever President Obama puts in charge, and leave the journalism to people who actually work for newspapers and magazines.

I don’t know what post you think the American people have appointed you to, but I hereby put forward the notion that you be impeached from it, and be barred forevermore from any positions, real or imaginary, in the U.S. State Department.

One World Government? um… No.

Over the last few months I’ve heard more than one of my mostly liberal and intelligent friends say that we need a united world government to solve our problems.

It’s a terrible idea.

Fortunately nobody with any real power has been calling for this as a solution, oh, wait? What’s that? The Prime Minister of England, Gordon Brown has been calling for a New World Order for the last year and a half? That’s just brilliant. (In a sarcastic American English kind of way, not in a genuine, enthusiastic British English kind of way.)

One of the biggest problems with international crises is that people always tend to overreact to them.

Hitler was defeated over 60 years ago, but his legacy is as alive and strong today as ever. It’s not Nazism that I’m speaking of: it’s the idea that every single dictator is bent on world domination and the very hope for civilization itself rests in the possibility that a few good men will stand up to them… BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.

Hugo Chavez is nothing like Hitler.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is nothing like Hitler.

Saddam Hussein was nothing like Hitler.

It’s an insult both to these world leaders and to the millions upon millions of people who suffered at the hands of this man to compare them to Hitler and it’s a dangerous precedent to set, because terrible, albeit justified things were done in the name of stopping him.

Today’s Hitler is not a rogue leader or a charismatic politician: it takes the guise of the international financial crisis.

The language used to describe the crisis is eerily Churchillian. If we do not bail out these financial giants, then the entire global economy could collapse, we could enter another Great Depression, unless we all come together and unite now to solve this problem, the world will be in great danger!

No Sting to save us this time

A number of people are comparing our situation to Germany in the 30’s. They need to remember that Germany was STARVING in the 30’s, and the last time I checked, nobody in the U.S. or in any of the other major western industrial nations was starving. We’re going without health care and a decent education, but nobody is hungry in the street. So, let’s all take a deep breath and remind ourselves that hasty action can bring on even worse consequences.

Let’s not forget the fact that this crisis would not be nearly so widespread if our markets and politics weren’t already so intertwined. As I write this, the markets in Asia are opening and are up, mainly due to the promise of more aid for Citigroup here in America. Just imagine what would have happened if this economic crisis struck a world that was functioning under the rule of a single government, while using a single currency. There would be nowhere to invest, no one to borrow from, absolutely no way to get credit flowing again.

I believe that governments should pave roads, protect borders, and provide health care for its citizens, but I think that one massive world government is not the answer for poverty, disease, and war: I think it’s a recipe for disaster.

Some of the people I talked to about this say that there should be no executive branch in such a global government. In theory I agree, but this would make the entire idea a pipe dream. Do you really think that a worldwide government could function without an executive? Necessity would demand one. Multiply every thread of bureaucratic red tape in the world today by a thousand, and try to come up with a way to get anything done without a strong executive.

It can’t be done.

Therefore, I think the whole notion of one world government is inherently flawed.

Could it solve some problems? There’s no doubt. But the possibility of having one human being with that much power is a risk that none of us should be willing to take. Don’t think so?

This month, if Sarah Palin had gotten her ticket nine million more votes (a small number, globally speaking) then she would now be just one heartbeat away from becoming the leader of the free world. If that’s not a sobering lesson about the dangers of executive power, then I don’t know what is.

Big 3 Calamity

I have been following the story of the Big 3 bailout for the last couple of days, trying to come to some sort of decision on where I stand.

After watching 6 hours of C-SPAN, listening to countless pundits tug of war, and reading a dozen articles both for a bailout and against, I am absolutely no closer to consensus than when this whole mess started. That’s right. I just don’t know. Scourge of big business blogger has absolutely no ideas. What I have become convinced of is that no matter what anybody does, one of these companies will fail and we will finally see people calling this another great depression. We are in an impossible situation.

If we cave in and give these incompetent auto companies 25 billion dollars, they’re going to ask for 50 billion more at this time next year.

If we decide to let the law of the free market jungle rule the day, it’s possible that GM, Chrysler, and Ford will all go under, taking with them millions of jobs and sinking other parts of the economy that rely on the auto industry.

One brilliant fucker from Princeton this week dared to talk about moral hazard when 5 million Americans are about to lose their jobs. Another person said that it would be immoral to let these companies fail when they’ve done so much for our country and our economy over the years.

What I don’t want to hear is free marketeers blaming this mess on the high cost of union labor. If these companies had bothered to compete with the smaller, more fuel efficient foreign vehicles 20 years ago, they wouldn’t be in this shape. Period. Without the high cost of union labor, these auto workers would still be pulling 14 hour shifts at a dollar an hour for some distant relative of old man Ford.

If unions and government intervention hadn’t been labeled as poison for the last 25 years, our economy might be able to afford losing 5 million manufacturing jobs.

I don’t know how or if we can get out of this mess. But I do know that outsourcing, deregulation, congressional testicularlessness and lax immigration laws brought us to this.

Health care is Personal

What I remember now more than anything is the feeling of helplessness. Absolute, complete, bottomless helplessness.

I was lying in a stretcher waiting to go in for surgery. My hands were shaking, I was covered in a cold sweat, and my heart was pumping furiously. I was bleeding internally. I had been for 3 days after my first surgery had gone awry. My indefatigable sense of humor was gone. No more joking with nurses about my last rites, no more requests for sushi or bourbon. Just the realization of impending death and my being completely powerless to stop it.

That is what brings me to rage now:

Not the fact that the insurance company dropped me from coverage.

Not that my appendix decided to burst the very next week.

Not that the original surgeon butchered my artery and then sewed me up without noticing.

Not the fact that I ran up 83,000 dollars worth of debt in 5 days because I wasn’t covered.

Later, after it was all over, I learned that because I had no permanent injuries, that I could not sue the surgeon for malpractice: no lawyer would take the case because any settlement or reward I would get wouldn’t even cover my legal bills. If I had died, my family would most likely be millionaires after a wrongful death suit. Because I lived and can function properly, not only do I not get a cent, but I’m in a six figure hole. But not even that is what brings me to rage now.

That feeling of lying there, dripping sweat, palpitating, crying, praying to God for mercy as fast and as hard as I ever have or ever will again in my life, and feeling like a speck of sand on the brink of a tidal wave. Remembering that feeling of helplessness is what fills me with rage today.

Will universal health care solve all of our problems? I don’t know. Is it every human being’s right to have free health care as an essential part of their personal liberties? That’s above my pay grade.

What I do know is that there are holes in this system that are big enough for people who are 5′10″ to fall through, and that is unacceptable in the richest country in the history of the world.

It’s impossible for me to not take health care reform personally, and seriously.

If President Barack Obama gets us out of Iraq, I’ll be pleased. If he rights the ailing economy, I’ll be peachy. If he kills Osama bin Laden, I’ll be satsified. But none of this will mean anything if we cannot affect serious reform to this broken health care system of ours during the next 4 years.

Woe to those who stand in the way of health care reform.

Major freaking woe.

Sunday in America

THE RIGHT

The AMC theater downtown is a study in opulence.

A 100 foot long escalator brings you up from ground level to the land of enchantment. To your right is a wall covered in posters for coming attractions. Directly in front of you is a velvet rope maze designed to herd movie-goers like cattle in an orderly fashion towards the ticket booth. To your left is a massive bowling alley and sports bar that they finished just two years ago.

With 30 minutes until showtime for the new Bond movie, you turn left, as is your habit. There are a dozen pool tables just inside the entrance, further back 18 glossy bowling lanes, and a bar set in front of a wall made up entire of gigantic television screens. Every football game in the country is being broadcast on one of these. Each one is marked by team logos that lets even poor saps who don’t know the different between an Eagle and a Seahawk who is playing.

You don’t have time to wait for a pool table or for a game of bowling, so you take a seat at the bar. A skinny brunette decked out in Chicago Bears cheerleader attire asks what you want and you order a Jack and Coke and a basket of fries.

Sure, it’s only 1:30, but judging by the crowd you’re practically a Mormon for starting this late on the sauce.

There are nearly a hundred people sitting either at the bar or in one of many long, leather, luxurious couches, all facing towards the television wall. Seas of white faces turned pink by excitement, beer, and artery-clogging appetizers. You are no different. You are not comfortable, but at least you fit in, and that’s what really matters.

The Bears are losing to the hated Green Bay Packers 17-3 and halftime has just begun. Your hopes of catching some of the game have gone out the window. You face a critical choice: either abandon your whiskey and fries and escape the mindless halftime chatter, or enjoy your brief meal and try hard to not listen to anything you hear for the next 20 minutes.

Brunette brings back your booze and food, and you decide to stick it out. It’s $13.50 for what will have to suffice as lunch. Later when you decide to pride yourself on your tipping, it will turn into $20. But for now it’s not such a bitter pill to swallow and the fries are certainly not the worst you’ve ever had.

In the corner of your eye you catch a glimpse of Fox commercials. They’re promoting a new show called “Secret Millionaire,” in which wealthy folk go under cover and work minimum wage, then hand out generous checks to deserving recipients as a surprise.

Indigestion.

The very idea of the show makes your skin crawl and blood boil. If they want you to believe that our patrician class is a harmless, helpless, lucky bunch who would solve world hunger in a moment if only they could really do something about it, they’re going to have to try harder than that. You do not want their charity. Sometimes though, you think taking their money by force and redistributing it isn’t all that bad of an idea.

You turn away from the enormous wall of televisions and glance out at the happy, shiny faces. Not a single pair of eyes meet yours; all gazing at the wondrous promises and fraudulent fantasies of the Fox network.

The drink is soft, and it pisses you off because you paid 7 dollars for a splash of Jack Daniels, 19 ice cubes, and 4 ounces of Coca-Cola. You remember a colon specialist you met once told you about what soda-pop does to your body: hurts your ability to absorb calcium, rots your teeth, and so on. You don’t even drink soda and you wonder why you ordered it in the first place.

5 minutes left until the movie starts. Your friend arrives, you leave your fries half-eaten and glass completely empty.

You are disappointed in the movie.

You were hoping to enjoy some form of escapism, but you’re greeted instead with senseless violence and hollow reflections on the lower impulses of human beings. Bond villains used to employ giant lazers and drive fancy cars. Now they starve South American nations of their water supply and are joyful participants in the global bum-rush for the last few barrels of oil. This is not entertaining. Not in the least.

Walking out of the theater, you wonder if this is what freedom really tastes like.

THE LEFT

How do you fit 28 white kids and 1 black woman into a basement apartment for a Sunday night potluck? Promise cases of cheap beer.

The hosts keep the 96 cans of Old Style and PBR outside in the snow. This way they stay cold, because drinking them at anything over 40 degrees breeds nausea in anyone with half a sense of taste, and these are all cultured, college-educated folks. Nobody wants to clean that mess up, least of all you.

You don’t feel like drinking but everybody else is.

Crack one open.

You sit on a couch and listen in to a conversation on your left:

“I just wish these corporations would finally get it and just pay everyone the same. That’s what ruined Sex in the City- Samantha was really upset about not getting paid as much as Sarah Jessica Parker- it just ruined a wonderful show and it’s so sad. Even though it’s superficial, I just loved it, and sometimes, I really FELT it.”

With nothing to contribute, you stare at the wall. There are album covers, magazine cut-outs, and witty postcards of all kinds taped to it. Dozens of pictures of Asian pop-culture stars, bombs labeled “Repent,” rain dances, Bjork, inverted pink pentagrams, dildos, George Michaels, and Madonna with Child all sharing the same space. It’s easy to get lost looking at them; even moreso if you try to search for some kind of theme.

You sip your so-called Beer and wince.

Someone notices you studying the wall and they join in.

“Hey that’s awesome!”

He points to a sticker that says “Coexist” with different religious and scientific symbols making up the word. You see it a lot out in the suburbs, but this guy has never seen it before.

“What’s the C?” He asks.

“That’s the symbol for Islam.”

“Oh really? That’s cute. With the moon and everything. Is this the Wiccan symbol?”

“No, that’s for the Jews.”

“Oh, I see. I see.”

All the men at the party sport beards and plaid jackets, all the women sport tight jeans and straight hair, and nearly all of them wear worn-down Chucks. They admit that the things are useless, but too cool to discard. You’ve never felt comfortable in this crowd, but you’re trying. You really are.

Encino Man is on the small television set in the corner with the sound turned off. Some people are watching, some people are chatting and nibbling on one casserole or another. Over in the corner there is a whole half a pumpkin pie tempting you, but you’ve eaten and drunken so much that even the thought of that turns your stomach in knots. You need fresh air and drugs. You turn to the guy next to you.

“Do you have any entertaining substances?”

You are fully aware that he does, and he doesn’t disappoint.

Outside the snow hasn’t stopped and the smoke you blow from your lips whips away in a harsh breeze. Your shoes are wet, but it’s better out here. Safer outdoors. You carve cross symbols into the snow that everyone at the party knows, but nobody seems to understand, least of all you.

Back inside you take your seat and stare at the pop culture wall again. The two people to your right are in a contest to see whose camera-phone records videos in higher quality. At the top right of the wall there is a postcard with a picture of a grinning elderly couple. Above them in bold black letters reads a message:

“We’re all going to Hell.”

You nod, smile, and walk back outside for more fresh air.

I Dream of Barack Obama

You know you’re addicted to politics when you dream of palling around with the President-elect.

Not the first time this has happened: Previously have dreamed of serving in a juggernaut army headed up by the Chosen One in which a massive tank rolls over all enemies of Democracy, and enjoyed a game of one on one in which I beat the 6′3″ Senator (that’s how you know you’re dreaming.)

This time we were blogging and the President-elect renamed the country of Indonesia to Indochinia.

I asked him if he could do that. He smiled and said yes he can.

His sense of humor was quite contagious.

I woke up and was mortified. All other previous Presidential dreams have involved giving a one-finger salute to George W. Bush. I don’t like this personality cult horse shit, I never have, and I never will.

I for one am sick and tired of not being able to go on the internet, turn on the television or radio, walk outside, or read a magazine without seeing Obama’s face, hearing Obama’s voice, or reading his words. More excited people than I see this as evidence that he is the spawn of Satan. At times I find it hard to refute them when I’ve never seen a more popular human being in my life.

Michael Jordan was my idol. I would have done anything if Michael has asked me to do it. Only Michael didn’t, and Michael didn’t have the most powerful military in the history of the planet at his disposal. I would have supported bombing the New York Knicks, but beyond that I would have found it weird that one person, Michael though he may be, could wield such power.

Now the same thing applies to our future President and his billions of fans.

This is too much power for one person. Period.

Obama Will Change Nothing

Over night the United States went from being an imperialist pig nation to the greatest hope for freedom and equality in the world when we elected Barack Obama.

If you actually believe this, you’re either a foreigner, Barack Obama, or an idiot.

For the last 8 years in many countries where Americans visit, they have been demonized and criticized on account of the policies of one George W. Bush. Friends I know have been compared to Bush when they travel abroad despite not resembling, sounding like, or sharing the same chromosomes as the man.

Now all of the sudden the entire world loves Americans again.

Why?

Is it purely a matter of racial reconciliation? Is it because Europe in all its liberal and enlightened glory, has yet to produce a minority President or Prime Minister? Or is it because people all around the world truly believe that Barack Obama is going to fix the global economy, get the US out of Iraq, provide universal health care, solve the Palestinian crisis, and turn water into wine all within his first term?

When I told a visiting German this week about Obama’s plan to add 65,000 to 95,000 troops to the Army and the Marines he seemed stunned and disappointed. Why would Obama do such a thing? He’s a peaceful, intelligent man, not a warmonger or an imperialist.

If you really think that Barack Obama represents a change of policy in dealing with Iran, Russia, terrorism, or imperialism, then you haven’t been paying close enough attention. During the first Presidential debate on foreign policy, the only noticeable difference between McCain and Obama’s platforms seemed to be that Obama thought Iraq was a bad idea from the start. On the other issues they represented the same failed, stupid ideas:

1. Both McCain and Obama put the blame on Russia for brief war with Georgia over the summer. They decried Russian aggression when Georgian troops clearly were the instigators.

2. Both McCain and Obama pledged to never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon and neither would take any options off the table to prevent this from happening.

3. None of the mainstream Presidential candidates said anything about scaling back the massive amounts of troops, military hardware, and intelligence equipment that the US has all around the world, which will cost taxpayers over 700 billion dollars next year.

If the only change that America and the world really wanted was to have a kindler, gentler machine-gun hand at the helm, then I suppose we really are the ones that we have been waiting for.

Bush’s Greatest Failure: Bin Laden Alive

Today comes a report that Osama bin Laden is once again planning to attack the US homeland, this time on a scale that would dwarf the attacks of September 11, 2001.

If somebody would have told you on November 11, 2001 that on November 11, 2008 Osama bin Laden would still be making death threats against the United States of America, you probably would have had a hard time believing them. But they would have been right.

George W. Bush promised to hunt down Al Qeada and bin Laden and bring them to justice.

He has failed on an epic scale.

On a long, long list of epic failures by the second Bush administration, this has to be tops.

5. The failure to help victims of Hurricane Katrina sooner

4. The systematic degradation of the constitution and Geneva conventions in prosecuting the war on terror

3. The choice to invade and occupy Iraq

2. The sinking of the global economy

1. The failure to find Osama bin Laden and kill him.

It is my sincere hope that President Obama will show respect for the law, care for citizens in times of disaster, and manage the economy better than his predecessor. But most of all, I hope that President Obama succeeds where Bush has failed and is able to locate and exterminate OBL. Despite my absolute opposition to the death penalty there is one case which I am willing to make an exception for.

The fact that bin Laden is still alive and still threatening us this day is more than just an embarrassment: it is one of the greatest threats to our national security.

President Obama can go a long way towards assuring the American people that he can protect us if he finds Osama bin Laden and kills him before he can strike us again.

Where do Republicans Go From Here?

Aside from Obamania, the second biggest topic in the blogosphere this week seems to be how the Republican party and conservatives in general can regroup from their losses in 2006 and 2008.

As it stands now, the Democrats have gained 5 Senate and 19 house seats to their existing majorities, plus the White House.

If you’re a Republican, you might be upset about these losses.

However, you should take heart in knowing that the Chinese use the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity. Crisitunity. So what can conservatives take away from this election and what can they learn from it?

1. All hope is not lost- gay marriage bans in several states were approved by large margins. This shows that large portions of America are still very strong conservatives on social issues.

2. The Democrats failed to pick up the filibuster proof majority in the Senate that would have given Obama/Reid/Pelosi a blank check to enact a “liberal” agenda. Even though I lean to the left, I’m actually relieved that they didn’t get this, given the incompetence and spinelessness the Democratic congress has shown for the last 2 years.

3. Ted Stevens is still a Senator. For now.

So there you have 3 good things for the GOP faithful to take away from this election debacle. Now, what can they do to avoid another one in the future?

The Gop has been turned on its head

1. If we have learned anything about the American people from this election, it’s that we want qualified people to be in office, regardless of their political stripe. If the GOP wants to survive, it must stop pushing homely but ill-equipped governors like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin for higher office.

2. The politics of hate and fear will only get you so far. Karl Rove envisioned a permanent conservative majority through playing on cultural divides and anxieties. It failed dramatically. If the Republicans want to gain any ground with crucial new voting blocks like Latinos and Generation Y, they’re going to have to reach out to them.

3. A humbler foreign policy. This used to be a conservative principle. Then they started racking up massive deficits and getting into foreign quagmires for the sake of exporting democracy. Democracy is great, but not everyone is ready for it. Foreign policy should be dictated by legitimate, tangible goals and avoid costly struggles with ideological opponents.

4. It’s the economy, retard. The last two Democratic Presidents (Clinton and Obama) have come into office with record debt and failing economies thanks to deregulation and adherence to free market dogma pushed by fiscal conservatives. If the Republican Party ever wants the American people to trust them to run the economy again, they’re going to have to move closer to the center on issues of trade and regulation. Nobody is advocating socialism or communism, but intelligent, hardcore conservatives will tell you that a complete lack of government oversight is a recipe for disaster.

5. Ditch the Joe the Plumber bit. The cultural war was good for the Republicans, but it is coming to an end. The divisions that have split American society or the last four decades are beginning to crack, and a Barack Obama sized hole was just punched into the dam. Voters are too smart and too informed now to fall for the idea that Democrats are unpatriotic or un-American, and voters in North Carolina, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, and Florida proved it.

Most pundits are saying that in order to get back on track, conservatives need to get back to their core Reaganesque values.

If their plan is to indeed build a bridge back to the 1980’s, then before long we’re going to see more and more red regions and states go blue, and Axelrod could be talking about a permanent liberal majority.

In short, Conservatives must look forward, not back. They need bold, fresh, new leadership to bring the party into the 21st century.

Bobby Jindal, anyone?

The Liberal Majority

In 1968 Richard Nixon called on the “Silent Majority” to stand up and have their voices heard.

For forty years this conservative base has dominated American politics and given Republicans the Presidency and Congress time and time again. Democrats that have risen to power have only done so through being white southerner centrists. This silent majority has decided the direction of our country for several decades.

That all ended on Tuesday, November 4, 2008 when Barack Obama and the new liberal majority took power.

Welcome to Liberal Land

Over the last few weeks many magazines and pundits have called America a center-right nation, and that liberal politicians have always had to move towards the center in order to get anything done. While I do agree that a President has to govern from the center, I heartily disagree with the notion that America is an inherently conservative or centrist conservative country. Perhaps it has something to do with growing up in a generation full of people who are eager for change, or living in one of the more liberal states in the nation. But I have always thought that when it comes down to the ISSUES, America is, was, and always will be a liberal country.

The only reason that this “silent majority” has been in power for so long is because of a successful smear campaign by the right wing about the very nature of American liberalism. The term itself has become synonymous with communism, socialism, godlessness, and a lack of patriotism. Republican strategists have painted liberals as something wicked and something to be feared, and they have been successful up until now.

I have always believed that there were more liberals in America than conservatives or moderates, but that up until now, they have been too apathetic to sway politics.

For too long peace-freaks, Latinos, African-Americans, and blue collar workers sat on the sidelines and decided to abstain from a choice between two evils. But now we are finally seeing these groups come together and get involved in the process, and most importantly, get out and vote.

We will never sit out another election to get high and drink a latte. We will never again say that it doesn’t matter who is President, that our votes don’t matter, that things will never change.

This is the true silent majority in America.

This is the sound of them waking up.

Vote

What are you doing?

Stop reading this. Get up off of your ass and go vote.

Now. Go. Vote.

If you don’t vote, you can’t complain. And believe me, we’re going to want to complain over the next few years about the way things are going.

Vote for McCain. Vote for Obama. Vote for Nader. Vote for Barr. Vote for Joe the Plumber. Vote for Jack the Ripper. I don’t care, just go and vote.

Something occured to me this week during the middle of all this craziness. Despite the negative tone that the campaign has taken recently and the violence we have occasionally heard about, this is all enormously fun, isn’t it? We have the chance to elect our own leader. We decide. They report.

Democracy isn’t perfect, but it’s better than whatever they’re doing in Russia.

Hammond, Indiana is Burning

On Friday we went to a Halloween house party in Hammond Indiana.

The party was scheduled to start at around 9. Little did the lady and I know that Barack Obama was in Hammond, Indiana for a campaign rally, which ended at roughly 9:30, so the festivities got going slightly later than we had thought.

When the crowd started filtering in, the word of the day was Obama.

One woman clad in a cowgirl outfit said that she had been on the fence, but that she was pushed to the other side because Barack had been tardy for his speech.

Another guy dressed as the man himself said that he was inspired and the whole event was a life-changing experience.

A witch had been touched by the part when Obama stopped his speech to make sure that a woman who had passed out got medical attention. I said that that wasn’t the first time that this had happened: that dozens of women have collapsed at Obama rallies and he’s always interrupted his speech to make sure that they get the help they need. Just a harmless political stunt. The witch says that, well, maybe, but those people wait for hours for him so they could pass out because they’re just tired or thirsty. Maybe.

I nodded and walked outside to enjoy a smoke, even though I don’t smoke. My Dr. Thompson costume required it for the evening, or so I said to the lady when I bought the pack of unfiltered Camels.

Outside the air is crisp and clean and we’re the only people around in a 2 mile radius, so we can say or do pretty much whatever the hell we want. This town is still devastated by the flooding that happened over the summer: the waters have receded, but most people have yet to return to their homes. While driving in we saw entire blocks of houses abandoned.

Darkness. Freedom.

Tony Montana and a guy wearing a mirror are discussing Obama’s radical affiliations. When I ask the guy wearing a mirror what he’s supposed to be, he says “you.” Then in his thick Indiana drawl he says:

“Did you know Barack Obama is a communist?”

“Really?”

“No not really. It’s just a joke that they try to peddle on us. He ain’t no communist or socialist.”

“Muslim Socialist.” I correct him.

“Right.”

I had gone outside to enjoy the fresh air and get away from politics, but the blasted thing was following me everywhere I went. The arrival of the liberal savior in the tiny town had awoken a spirit of conversation and controversy. When people weren’t talking about the election, they were talking about race, prejudice, and the roll that it plays in our lives.

Later, while getting high in the backyard with a Marine dressed as a Demon-Pig, we talked about basketball, when he told me:

“You know why black people can’t beat white people at basketball?”

“Why is that?”

“Well, cuz they’re dumb. And I’m not being racist or anything, it’s just a fact. They try to do all this fancy-shmancy crossover stuff and then we just reach in and take the ball away, and they don’t learn. They just keep trying to show us up and we end up winning.”

“I guess.”

Something deep inside of me was screaming that I should correct the man. But another part of me knows better than to correct a drunken Marine, especially when he’s the only other person at the party who has pot. So I bit my tongue and nodded and smiled through his absurd explanation.

Luckily the black guy dressed as the Joker was inside ranting about the pitfalls of capitalism while this was going on.

We returned inside where I turned down shots of Jameson and sat in on the Joker’s economic lecture, with 3 or 4 Latin witches listening intently.

“It’s just gambling! That’s what capitalism is. They just go up and down through these peaks and valleys and there’s no system or rhyme or reason to it, it’s just hog wild speculation and greed and eventually the whole thing will come crashing down on top of us.”

I said something about communism leading to inevitable failure as well, and the best system is a mixed economy. The Joker nodded his head, then returned to his rant.

“It’s just these white pig capitalists who are dividing us along racial and ethnic and gender lines, it’s a divide and conquer strategy so that they can clean up whatever is left and get rich!”

After he finished, I walked back outside to smoke again. The fresh air might do something good for my head, which was getting cloudy. Mixing Baileys with Crown with Sierra Nevada with Peroni in a giant cauldron in your liver might do that to you. Outside there was no reprieve from the political arena.

A man dressed as a Court Jester had stolen the neighbor’s McCain/Palin sign and had set it up again in the backyard. The party’s host, dressed as Tinker Bell has promised to move back to Ireland if John McCain wins on November 4th, and she means it. The sign was dented and battered, clearly the result of the Jester kicking it around. He explains:

“I just didn’t like seeing it there in the neighbor’s yard. It disturbed me, so I brought it here.”

He looks down at the sign, then winds up and kicks it back over the fence. I chime in:

“Hey! I was gonna burn that!”

I was merely joking, but I fear now that I put an idea into the Jester’s head. Somewhere between the bells danging by his hairline and his goatee, a light-bulb turned on. The Jester took a swig of beer and ran back over into the neighbor’s yard again and returned with the sign. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lighter, then he set the McCain/Palin sign aflame.

Everyone turned to watch. It’s amazing that in a state as closely contested as this that nobody objects. By the sheer law of averages there should be at least one horrified person in the small crowd watching this, but I sure didn’t see them.

Part of me thinks, hey wait- he’s a war hero.

Another part of me thinks, well, he’s a warmonger. So fuck it.

The sign curled inward as the flames licked upwards and the scent of burning plastic filled our nostrils. It’s the same scent that comes when you line up a row of GI-Joes in your backyard when you’re in 7th grade and drop a mini-napalm bomb on them.

Black Joker started singing when he saw the sign burning.

“Oh beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain…”

I joined in.

“For purple mountain majesty, above the fruited plain…”

The Krishna next to me joined in.

“America! America! God shed his grace on thee!”

Tony Montana joined the chorus for the finish.

“And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!”

We cheered and shouted God Bless America as the last of the sign disappeared into black smoke, then drifted away into the night.

The Krishna turned to me and spoke:

“So whaddaya think, Doctor Thompson?”

“What a time to be alive.”