I Hope They Serve Brian Griffiths in Hell

Goldman Sachs, the pig fuckers who own western civilization, want you to know that since communism represents inherent godlessness, capitalism must be cleanliness and godliness. Here’s Sachs’ international adviser Brian Griffiths speaking at a church in Europe recently:

“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest… We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”

Where to begin?

I honestly don’t know.

I could go with the self-examination route and blast whatever church actually invited this pig fucker to speak about how Jesus would have approved of executive bonuses funded by taxpayers, but that’s just a whole barrel of monkeys.

I could point out a dozen fairly obvious biblical stories and parables that directly and irrefutably contradict what this pig fucker is saying, but that should be obvious to anyone who has any familiarity with the bible.

I think I’m going to go with a slightly more subtle route than usual. I’m not going to advocate violence against Brian Griffiths or any of the free market pig fuckers that he works for and speaks on behalf of.

In fact, I want to wish Brian Griffiths a very pleasant day. I hope that he enjoys as much of the profits and the pig fuckery that he possibly can during this lifetime, because I have a pretty good idea what’s on the menu where he’s going afterwards.

Things

I have an idea in the works. Right now I’m trying to find a form for it. Perhaps it will come in a series of blog posts, or compiled into a book, or just a long screed. It’s about materialism. I’m trying to find a balance between Norman Mailer’s White Negro and the average SUV driving douchebag who spends every weekend at the mall. So, I’m searching the internet for like-minded people.

Today I found a screed in the comments section of the New York Times that fits pretty closely with what I’m thinking. Here’s the original article and here is the text of the relevant part of the screed:

…I am a hippy in that I turned away from the materialistic consumerism rampant in the 60’s and now ubiquitous. Our style of capitalism that is reliant on throw away consumerism is a bankrupt system yielding millions of tossed out cell phones every year. The petroleum used to create the plastics tossed out every year would likely fuel all the cars in China for a year. We have bought into the waste economy because the marketing powers and corporate powers have chosen to climb above the rest of us through scaling a pinnacle of tossed out cheaply made and readily disposed of consumer goods.

Haven’t you noticed that the cheap WalMart goods you buy wear out and get tossed out in weeks or months? I have a pair of wingtip shoes I bought in 1966 that still wear well. I have a back up phone for when the power is out that my parents used from 1955. Yes it is dial not touchtone and yes, I can drive nails with the handset and still use it.
I now am in the garment business and have to buy foreign made materials to get quality raw materials because when I went to Velcro USA I was told by their product development lab that all their requests for new inventions are for Velcro that will wear out faster and no they could not make a product that would last longer because my company was the only one asking for it. So now I buy from a small company in France.

Disposable style and disposable products and we have a disposable society which means our society, the US society, is disposable as far as the global corporate interests are concerned. We are merely a market, merely consumers, and when the global economic interests see that we are no longer consuming, no longer buying, they will toss us out and move to where they can sell more disposable junk…

Interesting that the original debate was about helicopter parents and dependent children. I don’t have much sympathy for those still relying on the rents in their 40’s but I also want to drive an ice pick through the eyes of the pricks who always reply with a rant about entitlement.

I have a lot of thoughts on this but no coherent form at the moment. What do you think?

 

Quitting is Good

While President Obama mulls the decision to send 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan, this week’s incidents that killed US soldiers make this October the deadliest month for American troops since the war began 8 years ago.

8 years is a long time and given the fact that the situation on the ground is deteriorating every single day, it’s time to think about quitting.

That’s right, I said the Q word.

It’s time for America to quit in Afghanistan. It’s time to give up. It’s time to throw in the towel on this whole moronic nation building enterprise that never should have started to begin with.

As a matter of fact, it’s probably a good time to quit in Iraq, as well.

While we’re at it, why don’t we just quit the Middle East altogether?

Because the American military establishment is like a pubescent bully trying desperately to prove that he’s tough enough to beat up anyone, anytime, anywhere. The answer for why we don’t quit these endless exercises in futility is really quite simple when it comes down to it: hubris.

Is leaving Afghanistan and Iraq tantamount to letting the terrorists win?

No, in fact, it is the first step in a new strategy that actually might stand a chance of defeating them. The more intelligent members of the military are beginning to embrace this idea already.

Is it chicken to take your prick out of a pencil sharpener? No. It’s just plain common sense.

Is it cowardly to stop betting money on a horse that has never won a race and has already lost you 3 trillion dollars? No. It’s just good business.

When we stop wasting money trying to set up democratically elected, non-corrupt governments in functioning countries where previously there wasn’t even a country to begin with, then we can start really addressing the war on terror.

Terrorism is sadly, a fact of life in the 21st century. After eight years of catastrophic failure executing the war on terror over two different administrations, it’s time that we accepted it and started thinking about new ways to combat it rather than shoving our pricks even deeper into the pencil sharpener.

Politics

Rather than rant about the US running guns in every corner of the world while proclaiming to fight for peace, or point out that the CIA is selling heroin out of Afghanistan while we spend hundreds of billions of dollars locking up pot dealers here at home, or mention the fact that our entire system is an enormous pile of steaming horse shit no matter who gets elected, here are a few jokes:

Politicians are like diapers.  They both need changing regularly and for the same reason. -Author Unknown

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.  ~Alexis de Tocqueville

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule – and both commonly succeed, and are right.  ~H.L. Mencken

George Washington is the only president who didn’t blame the previous administration for his troubles.  ~Author Unknown

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.  ~John Kenneth Galbraith

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn.  The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.  ~P.J. O’Rourke

I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.  ~Cissy Farenthold

A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.  ~Texas Guinan

Fiction Project

If you have ever wondered what I do with my free time aside from political ranting, today I have an answer for you. I try to make a living as a writer, some days pay better than others.

If you enjoy what I say on this blog, you may also enjoy the e-book that I just put out, The Valley of the Shadow.

It’s a crime, horror, apocalyptic thriller type of story that is in the spirit of the season. Here’s a blurb:

Legendary conman Jimmy Jared Jenks just got out of prison after serving eight years for manslaughter and all he wants to do is drive to Los Angeles to see his daughter Jenny again. The only things stopping him are his crazy partner in crime, a mafia hitman, a street gang, and the end of the world.

If it sounds like something you’d be interested in, you can buy it for 2.99 from Smashwords. It’s available to download in a whole bunch of formats. Or, if you’re cheap, the good news is that you can also read the whole thing for free by following this link:

The Valley of the Shadow

Enjoy!

Obama Nobel Prize?

So apparently President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The sound you just heard is every Republican in the country crapping themselves with indignation.

The sound you should be hearing is liberals scoffing at the very notion.

See, the reason that Republicans believe this is a travesty is because they think the Nobel Peace Prize shouldn’t be awarded to a Socialist baby killer, and that of course, is ridiculous.

The reason that liberals should be upset by this prize is because President Obama really hasn’t done a whole heck of a lot to promote the cause of peace. He’s worked for nuclear disarmament. Yeah? So did the first President Bush. What Obama has also done is NOT get us out of Iraq, NOT get us out of Afghanistan, and NOT stop the saber-rattling with Iran that will eventually lead to World War 3. As a matter of fact, Obama is considering moving 40,000 MORE troops into Afghanistan even though the conflict is already into its 9th year and everyone else on the planet with common sense has already abandoned the mission.

Negotiating with your adversaries shouldn’t be rewarded. It’s common sense. It’s something that every President should do. Just because the bar was set so low by the imbred imbecile King George doesn’t mean that anyone who doesn’t nuke another country should get a Nobel Peace Prize.

Lest we think that this prize actually means something, let’s remember that the European douches who hand it out also gave one to Henry Kissinger, who is wanted in pretty much every other country but this one for war crimes.

Let’s be honest with ourselves. Every day that American troops are still in Iraq, President Obama is party to a war crime. Period.

Attn David Brooks: Don’t Waste Your Time

David Brooks is one of the few conservative writers that I enjoy reading, mainly because he cares about reasoning and likes to support his arguments with actual facts. So it should come as no surprise that “men” like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Mark Levin don’t think too highly of him.

Brooks called out these maggots in his most recent column for destroying the Republican party’s appeal and deluding themselves as to how much clout they actually wield:

“Over the years, I have asked many politicians what happens when Limbaugh and his colleagues attack. The story is always the same. Hundreds of calls come in. The receptionists are miserable. But the numbers back home do not move. There is no effect on the favorability rating or the re-election prospects. In the media world, he is a giant. In the real world, he’s not…“

Because the New York Times columnist was finally speaking a language that the maggots could understand, the wriggling, slimy creatures all attacked at once:

- Rush Limbaugh e-mailed Politico and claimed that Brooks was JEALOUS, of what I can’t be sure, but I presume, his enormous titties.

- Mark Levin claimed to not know who Brooks was “David Brooks? Does he run Brooks Brothers?”

- Glenn Beck replied with a flurry of his usual rambling utter nonsense.

So, the war is on in the conservative media. On the one side you have one intelligent man who writes columns for the most respected newspaper in the country, and on the other, you have a horde of maggots spewing bile into the airwaves 24-7.

The maggots are going to win this battle handily. Nevermind the fact that David Brooks will prove their arguments false, run circles around what they call “logic” and speak for the vast unspoken Republican crowds who are embarrassed by this species of talk show host. The maggots will win because their collective shouting will drown out his words and the far right wingnuts who make up their core audience hang on their every word, no matter if the word actually exists in the English language or not.

David Brooks cannot win this war because he is hopelessly outnumbered, outflanked, and out-volumed. Normally I wouldn’t care what his fortunes are but Brooks happens to represent the last vestiges of reasonable conservatism that existed before the culture wars began.

So, Mr. Brooks, you need to take the high road. Take it from someone who has tried to wage a war of words with the lunatic fringes of the far right wing media: it’s not worth your time.

You Want it to be One Way

The American public is operating under the false pretense that we live in a democratic republic and that our elected officials work for us.

In short, we want it to be one way, but it’s the other.

Author Dennis Lehane coined this line in one of his short stories, and later it was used by Marlo Stanfield in season 4 of The Wire. The context of the line is that Marlo, the most powerful and wealthiest drug kingpin in the city, a modern-day King Richard type, has just stolen a lollipop from a corner store right in front of a security guard. When the security guard confronts Marlo, he tells him that he knows who he is, but that he’s a man, and Marlo has no right to steal in front of his face. Marlo replies:

You want it to be one way.

The security guard is confused, and insists that he isn’t being aggressive or challenging Marlo’s primacy, but is only asking that he not publicly demean him like that.

You want it to be one way.

But it’s the other.

Later, Marlo has the security guard killed.

This is in a nutshell what the American system is about today. We are no longer a democracy, if we ever were one. Today we are in fact a nation of gangsters. The gangsters have different names and occupations, from politicians, to pharmaceutical industry leaders, to insurance companies, the game is the same.

Take for example the health care bill that just made it out of the Senate’s finance committee:

The bill has several key points which are good, one of which that excludes insurance companies from excluding people with pre-existing conditions, and creates non-profit alternatives.

What sticks is that we will finally have universal health coverage, but it’s a universe that is owned, runned, and operated by the gangsters. In order to procure insurance for every American, the bill will force every citizen to buy insurance; if they cannot afford it, then they will be subsidized. If they still refuse to buy, they will be fined.

So this is how we get universal health coverage: by subsidizing 47 million new patients for the insurance industry; the same reprehensible fucking reptiles that have contributed to the least efficient, most inhumane health care system in the world more than any other single entity.

Without a public option, this health care reform is almost entirely meaningless. Since there is no public option and the legislation essentially amounts to millions of new customers the industry is ecstatically throwing its support behind this reform.

Damn, it must feel good to be a gangster.

Reasoning

In marketing, they teach you that consumers make decisions much like people make decisions in every other aspect of their lives. They buy a product or don’t buy a product for two reasons:

1. The rational, objective reasoning. Such as: say that I went out to a pub and drank fifteen beers two nights ago. I can reason that my purchase of said beers is going to help the economy and create more jobs.

Or,

2. I can admit that I like drinking beer, because I like the effect that said beer has on me, and I would do it even if it hurt the economy and would put people out of work.

So it goes with every decision we make, supposedly. And thus, my decision to cut back on my political posts falls into the same thing.

1. I don’t have as much time to write about politics because I have a new job, and other writing projects are taking precedent.

Or,

2. I don’t really think I’m changing anyone’s minds, here. Our political discourse is nauseating and I contribute nothing meaningful to the discussion, I’m either preaching to the choir or pissing people off.

Paul Krugman summarizes the debate pretty well.

So there you have it.

Row Sham Bo Saudi Arabia

I have not read The New Republic for several months. Today when I returned to turning their online pages, I remembered why. First of all, John Mcwhoretore insists that some opposition to Obama is driven by racism, but it’s really not that big of a deal.

Then, Marty Peretz chides the President for caving in too much to the Saudis. The title of the article is “Saudi Arabia Kicks Obama in the Groin Again.” While Peretz is clever enough to use a ball-kicking reference in his title, he unfortunately doesn’t seem clever enough to remember and understand that every President has been kicked in the nuts by the Saudis for the last 60 years.

The reason why they’re able to do this has nothing to do with President Obama’s tough-guy image. If you’ll recall, President Bush went on hands and knees several times during his two terms asking for the Kingdom to lower the price of oil. If you’ll also recall, they promptly kicked him in the balls.

The reason why they’re able to do this has nothing to do with religion, either. Yes, Saudi Arabia is the seat of Islam and therefore the country with the most influence over Muslims. Yes, if our retaliation for 9/11 had made any sense and we had bombed the shit out of Saudi Arabia, all hell would have broken loose and we would have had a legitimate holy war on our hands.

Politics and Religion are very powerful forces, but for the Saudis, they can’t hold a half of a candle to oil.

The REASON why the Saudis can hijack airplanes (15 of 19) and hit our biggest military targets and population centers and get away with it isn’t just because of their cozy ties with the Bush/Cheney cabal. They’re able to get away with it because we paid them to do it.

We pay them to kill us every hour of every day.

That’s right. It’s like the tobacco industry, only they (the Saudis) make a lot more money, and less people die in the process.

You want to stop terrorism? You want to halt the spread of fanatical, radical, fundamentalist, whatever-you-want-to-call it Islam and help bring democracy to the Middle East? It’s real, real simple: Stop. Using. Oil. How do you think Osama bin Laden’s family got its wealth to begin with? Hmm?

You want to bring the troops home once and for all? Stop. Using. Oil.

Is it as easy as it sounds? Of course not. It will take many years of painful readjusting our investments and priorities, which is why, at our current pace, it’s not going to happen until the last drop is gone, which will be entirely too late.

If we ever want to Row Sham Bo Saudi Arabia back, you know what we have to do.

Jon Kyl Makes a Funny

From the New York Times:

Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Senate Republican, says if the Democratic health care overhaul is ultimately killed, its demise should not be blamed on the overheated talk of government “death panels” for the old and infirm.

While distancing the Republican establishment from the hype over the rather remote prospect of government-ordered euthanasia, Mr. Kyl said on Tuesday that public concerns about the health legislation go well beyond a minor provision concerning consultation on end-of-life issues.

“I really reject the notion that the American people oppose this because somebody on the Republican side has deliberately spread misinformation about the plan,” he said on a conference call with the news media. “In this democracy, there is no way voters can be fooled to this extent.”

…

That made my day

Kanye West, Joe Wilson Interrupt CBS Evening News

During the middle of last night’s CBS Evening News special, anchor Katie Couric was in the midst of interviewing author Gore Vidal when rapper Kanye West and Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina interrupted the broadcast.

“Yo Katie, Katie, I’m really happy for you and your grandpa and all, but I got somethin to say,” The Chicago native rapper said as he took the microphone from Kouric.

“Gore Vidal is a great writer and everything, but Joe Wilson is one of the BEST Congressmen of all TIME!”

The Republican representative from South Carolina nodded his head and shouted “He doesn’t Lie!” as West continued his impromptu political protest:

“I mean, you got Jesse Helms, and you got Michelle Bachmann and they aight and everything, but Joe Wilson? Joe Wilson is a legend! Joe Wilson is the voice of a generation, and he has the courage to stand up there and tell everybody that they lyin’ even when he know they tellin’ the truth. That takes a lot of heart.”

After this outburst, Kanye West handed the microphone back to Couric, but the show wasn’t over. Instead of allowing the CBS interview to continue, West and Wilson forced themselves in front of the camera and proceeded to engage in a passionate make-out session. At one point while kissing the infamous MC, Joe Wilson removed what appeared to be a live salmon from his trousers and stuffed it down Kanye West’s pants.

Despite the best efforts of the CBS security team they were unable to separate the two.

“Don’t try to take this away from us! You Lie!” Joe Wilson screamed at the stunned network executives.

Kanye West admitted later that he is, quote: “really, really into fish.”

Changes, Recommended Reading

Some changes are coming to Not so Subtle.

Do not be alarmed, unless you enjoy being alarmed, of course.

Several developments have occurred in my personal and professional life that dictate I will simply have much less time to devote to this blog. Also, I just don’t feel like I have been giving the readers enough attention so in order to keep this blog going I’m going to have to mix things up a bit.

First and foremost, I am seeking a few more contributors so that people can get their NSS fix on a regular basis even if I’m unable to post for extended periods of time. If you’re interested in contributing, send me an e-mail.

Guidelines:

Style- your writing style should preferably be straight to the point- no showing off your vocabulary, please.

Views- any point of view is welcome except for far right wingers and Communists. (Of course no racist, homophobic, or sexist stuff, and no outright hostility directed towards any religion.) Examples of posts I will not except:

God Hates Fags, Islam is an Inherently Evil Religion, All Christians are Stupid, Slavery was Great for the Economy, Repeal the 19th amendment, and so on…

Writing- you don’t need to have any formal training, just be able to write a clear sentence or two.

That’s it for the contributor stuff. Now I’d like to share some articles that I found lately that I think you will enjoy as well. I’ll try to do this at least once a week or when I find really good ones as they come.

- Paul Krugman explains the economic crisis as a matter of philosophical differences between free marketeers (freshwater economists) and pragmatists (saltwaterers.)

- Matt Taibbi discusses Wall Street’s latest mind-blowing wickedness.

- Lewis Grossberger ponders what things would be like if we actually had a liberal President in the White House.

- Glenn Greenwald explains the difference between legal and illegal.

- Thomas Sowell displays breath-taking ignorance of the political process as he sticks his head up his own ass.

Enjoy!

Nothing to be done

I apologize for the lack of posts.

To be honest, I just don’t know where to go with this anymore. I feel like I’ve spoken my mind on every topic under the sun. Nothing has changed significantly enough over the last 2 years in this country to warrant another round of posts on every political issue.

In short, I’m tired of repeating myself.

This health care debate has sucked the last little bit of enjoyment that I got out of following politics. I see no progress, I see only a handful of elected officials really working for reform. Unfortunately none of them reside in the White House.

Meanwhile, I will soon be filing for bankruptcy thanks to medical bills.

61% of the bankruptcies in this country are due to health care costs.

Health care spending accounts for over 17 percent of our entire GDP, and it’s only going to keep going up.

This will destroy us. This health care business. This will destroy America.

We have two people to thank for this:

1. Special interests: insurance companies and big Pharma, who took the teeth out of any real reform before the debate even started by buying the President and members of Congress.

2. Idiots.  Idiots who protest health care reform so much they get their fingers bitten off during a fight over it and then have it fixed through their Medicare plan.

Because we let these two kinds of people drive policy, the cost of health care is going to destroy this country inside of thirty years. Osama bin Laden could only dream of doing the kind of damage that our health care system is doing to us, and frankly I don’t see much reason to fight it anymore.

The idiots won.

Kudos.

Polls Show Americans not really Sure Who to Hate

Polling numbers indicate that President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have fallen from 70% when he was elected to just 53% today, and in some polls as low as 46%.

One might assume that this would mean Republicans are polling better, but in fact just the opposite is true. Numbers for members of Congress have actually never been lower in American history.

The conflicting poll numbers show the general confusion in the American public as to who, and what they hate at any given moment. In the fall of 2008, President Bush suffered approval ratings as low as 25%, and many Americans said that the government needed to take a greater hand in things.

Today, Americans seem to believe that in fact government has become too intrusive in our day-to-day lives, and that the market should just sort things out.

Jacob Neuman, a registered independent from Florida said “last year I was just so sick of the Bush administration and their crazy conservative ideas. But now I see just how much I hate big government liberals and I think the Obama administration is just taking us right off a cliff of socialism. I really don’t know if I hate Republicans or Democrats more right now. That’s why I’m an indepenent.”

Despite his frustration with both parties, Neuman insists that he will not vote for any third-party candidates any time soon. “Yeah, I mean I don’t like either of the big parties right now, in fact I want to strangle both of them some days, but I’m just so darned used to voting for one of them.”

The recent polling also suggests a strong trend indicating that political polls are fickle and trifling.