I started this blog in January 2008 as a forum for my thoughts, mainly those relating to politics, and it soon evolved into a journal about the 2008 presidential election. Since the election in November, not only have I had little to say about politics, but I've become increasingly disengaged politically. I'm burnt out on politics. I'm much more focused on love, on beauty, on being happy right now.
So I'm signing off here for the last time. Thank you if you've spent any time here at all. I hope my words weren't a complete waste of your time.
5.01.2009
3.22.2009
Obama and the Weeds of Cynicism
I am teaching about World War II right now and thus I’m meditating quite a bit on war generally. It’s quite apparent that war is merely a bubbling over of tensions that exist in society generally. We have a society that is still fundamentally based on greed and violence. Human beings are not given equal opportunity anywhere in the world. Not even close. There is a distinct minority of people who control most of the world’s resources, and thus in their hands, the fate of our society. The current economic crisis has exposed this problem. It will continue to in increasingly dramatic fashion.
The very basis of the American economy is conspicuous consumption. Once people stop conspicuously consuming, we are told that we need to start spending more, that we need to consume, even if it's with money that we do not have,or else no one will have a job. No one has any use to society in that instance according to capitalist values. Your value in a capitalist system is your labor, and if people aren’t buying shit, no one will need your labor. Unless, of course we all worked fewer hours. That's a topic for another day.
Why does a small percentage of humanity control so many resources? Why do we allow this situation to persist? The core belief is that our society is a meritocracy- that people are rich because they have earned that money.
By earning, I don’t mean the way that most of us earn- in the sense that if you or I don’t go to work tomorrow, we get fired. Earning is surviving. That doesn’t apply to people with wealth. They can just give their money to a big investment firm like Bear Sterns (whoops!) or AIG (yikes!) and make a fortune, right?
The foundation of this economic crisis is greed. A relatively small number of people wanted to get a big, fat piece of the cake and they sold the average worker down the river. The huge irony of it, of course, is that now they’re coming back to the average worker and stealing even more money because for them to fail would create an economic cataclysm.
Here’s the thing: the banks have already failed. When a bank needs the kind of money that Citi ($50 billion) or Bank of America ($45 billion) have received from the federal government, they’ve failed. There’s no private investor that’s going to step in and invest anything in those institutions. With investment clout comes control. We’re all getting fucked right now and it’s one of the most disappointing things that I have encountered in my life.
The Geithner plan, if Paul Krugman is correct in his assessment, is revolting. We, the American people, are buying a cool trillion dollars of toxic assets from banks that fucked up. We are saving the banks. How about we just save people. We could put a very adequate social safety net in place with the money we are handing to the banks.
I suppose it's true that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
This is not Change We Can Believe In. It’s not acceptable for the administration to take this tack. Obama needs to get rid of Geithner and Summers immediately, and get someone in there who is not looking at this situation through the skewed prism of Wall Street. Geithner, although he has not worked in the private sector, has learned from people in the private sector. He's drunk on their Kool-Aid. Summers is one of the Kool-Aid stirrers. For Obama to entrust his economic policy to those two is a huge mistake, and I'm hoping that he fixes it sooner rather than later.
The truth is that this is a moment when we get to see what the change we worked so hard for is going to amount to. My intuition right now is not telling me good things.
The very basis of the American economy is conspicuous consumption. Once people stop conspicuously consuming, we are told that we need to start spending more, that we need to consume, even if it's with money that we do not have,or else no one will have a job. No one has any use to society in that instance according to capitalist values. Your value in a capitalist system is your labor, and if people aren’t buying shit, no one will need your labor. Unless, of course we all worked fewer hours. That's a topic for another day.
Why does a small percentage of humanity control so many resources? Why do we allow this situation to persist? The core belief is that our society is a meritocracy- that people are rich because they have earned that money.
By earning, I don’t mean the way that most of us earn- in the sense that if you or I don’t go to work tomorrow, we get fired. Earning is surviving. That doesn’t apply to people with wealth. They can just give their money to a big investment firm like Bear Sterns (whoops!) or AIG (yikes!) and make a fortune, right?
The foundation of this economic crisis is greed. A relatively small number of people wanted to get a big, fat piece of the cake and they sold the average worker down the river. The huge irony of it, of course, is that now they’re coming back to the average worker and stealing even more money because for them to fail would create an economic cataclysm.
Here’s the thing: the banks have already failed. When a bank needs the kind of money that Citi ($50 billion) or Bank of America ($45 billion) have received from the federal government, they’ve failed. There’s no private investor that’s going to step in and invest anything in those institutions. With investment clout comes control. We’re all getting fucked right now and it’s one of the most disappointing things that I have encountered in my life.
The Geithner plan, if Paul Krugman is correct in his assessment, is revolting. We, the American people, are buying a cool trillion dollars of toxic assets from banks that fucked up. We are saving the banks. How about we just save people. We could put a very adequate social safety net in place with the money we are handing to the banks.
I suppose it's true that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
This is not Change We Can Believe In. It’s not acceptable for the administration to take this tack. Obama needs to get rid of Geithner and Summers immediately, and get someone in there who is not looking at this situation through the skewed prism of Wall Street. Geithner, although he has not worked in the private sector, has learned from people in the private sector. He's drunk on their Kool-Aid. Summers is one of the Kool-Aid stirrers. For Obama to entrust his economic policy to those two is a huge mistake, and I'm hoping that he fixes it sooner rather than later.
The truth is that this is a moment when we get to see what the change we worked so hard for is going to amount to. My intuition right now is not telling me good things.
3.18.2009
This Is Why I Am Not Catholic
I was baptized Catholic. I took my first Communion. And that was pretty much it. I decided at some point around 12 years-old or so that I wasn't buying what the Church was selling. Christianity in general never really spoke to me, but Catholicism in particular was just so damn solemn.
I feel that I made the right decision in leaving those closeted homosexual pederasts behind, and this story serves to confirm it. The pope, you see, does not believe that the distribution of condoms is an appropriate answer to the spread of AIDS in Africa. His solution? "A responsible and moral attitude toward sex." In other words, the Catholic Church's attitude towards sex, which of course means that sex must take place within the context of marriage and for the purpose of procreation. No fun for you, lowly sinner.
The fact is that the Catholic Church does not care about people suffering and dying from AIDS in Africa. The Catholic Church simply wants to impose its dogma, which is really nothing more than institutionalized insanity. There is nothing intellectually serious about telling Africans to adopt a responsible and moral attitude toward sex. Those are the words of a man who has been ensconced in his bubble for so long that he no longer can logically and critically examine social dilemmas. The Catholic Church is obsolete. It, and its followers, have become nothing more than relics.
I feel that I made the right decision in leaving those closeted homosexual pederasts behind, and this story serves to confirm it. The pope, you see, does not believe that the distribution of condoms is an appropriate answer to the spread of AIDS in Africa. His solution? "A responsible and moral attitude toward sex." In other words, the Catholic Church's attitude towards sex, which of course means that sex must take place within the context of marriage and for the purpose of procreation. No fun for you, lowly sinner.
The fact is that the Catholic Church does not care about people suffering and dying from AIDS in Africa. The Catholic Church simply wants to impose its dogma, which is really nothing more than institutionalized insanity. There is nothing intellectually serious about telling Africans to adopt a responsible and moral attitude toward sex. Those are the words of a man who has been ensconced in his bubble for so long that he no longer can logically and critically examine social dilemmas. The Catholic Church is obsolete. It, and its followers, have become nothing more than relics.
3.15.2009
Leave It Up to Cheney to Get Me Pissed.
Leave it up to The Prince of Darkness himself to stir up that righteous indignation that had been slumbering for so long.
So Tricky Dick Cheney, quite possibly the worst criminal who has ever occupied any executive-level position in the history of the United States, claims that President Obama's decisions to close Guantanamo, ban waterboarding, and figure out ways to prosecute terror suspects under some semblance of due process makes us all less safe. Not particularly surprising. What's more outrageous to me is that he feels the need to continue to assert that torturing suspects and denying them habeas corpus was done legally and "in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles." This is a guy who believes that the President of the United States is essentially a king, mind you.
And while you were busy watching the economy continue to melt down from Bush-Cheney economic policies, a democracy has evidently broken out in Iraq:
And while violence has been down recently, anyone who looks seriously at the situation makes certain to comment on the fragility of this peace. It must also be acknowledged that tens of thousands (at least) of Iraqi civilians were killed as a result of the US invasion, and over 5 million refugees were created. Over four thousand soldiers have died, and tens of thousands have been maimed. We will have spent over $3 trillion on the Iraq disaster when all is said and done. The original cost estimate of the war: $60 billion.
Maybe it was just a coincidence that a couple of oil men sent the US military into what happens to be the most oil-rich region on the planet. Or perhaps it was the biggest con ever perpetuated against the American people. If we put Tricky Dick through a simulated drowning, maybe we could get some good, sound intelligence on that.
So Tricky Dick Cheney, quite possibly the worst criminal who has ever occupied any executive-level position in the history of the United States, claims that President Obama's decisions to close Guantanamo, ban waterboarding, and figure out ways to prosecute terror suspects under some semblance of due process makes us all less safe. Not particularly surprising. What's more outrageous to me is that he feels the need to continue to assert that torturing suspects and denying them habeas corpus was done legally and "in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles." This is a guy who believes that the President of the United States is essentially a king, mind you.
And while you were busy watching the economy continue to melt down from Bush-Cheney economic policies, a democracy has evidently broken out in Iraq:
We’ve accomplished nearly everything we set out to do,” he said about Iraq. “Now, I don’t hear much talk about that, but the fact is, the violence level is down 90 percent. The number of casualties and Iraqis and Americans is significantly diminished. There’s been elections, a constitution. They’re about to have another presidential election here in the near future.Ah, there go the WMDs down the memory hole. Getting rid of those (non-existent) weapons was actually what they originally set out to do.
We have succeeded in creating in the heart of the Middle East a democratically governed Iraq, and that is a big deal, and it is, in fact, what we set out to do.
And while violence has been down recently, anyone who looks seriously at the situation makes certain to comment on the fragility of this peace. It must also be acknowledged that tens of thousands (at least) of Iraqi civilians were killed as a result of the US invasion, and over 5 million refugees were created. Over four thousand soldiers have died, and tens of thousands have been maimed. We will have spent over $3 trillion on the Iraq disaster when all is said and done. The original cost estimate of the war: $60 billion.
Maybe it was just a coincidence that a couple of oil men sent the US military into what happens to be the most oil-rich region on the planet. Or perhaps it was the biggest con ever perpetuated against the American people. If we put Tricky Dick through a simulated drowning, maybe we could get some good, sound intelligence on that.
3.14.2009
My Slumbering Indignation
I haven't had a whole lot to say on this blog lately, and I just now realized precisely why: a complete lack of outrage and righteous indignation. While I don't agree 100% with everything the Obama Administration is doing, it's just hard to get fired up when our Democratic political leaders are doing a reasonably good job and Republicans continue to make total asses of themselves. I am thankful for the fact that I don't have anything to say here. It's a sign that we're finally on the right track.
While Republicans are bitching and complaining that President Obama's stimulus package is going to bankrupt the United States, the $1.2 trillion deficit projected for 2010 is only about 9% of a GDP of $13 trillion (a rough estimate of where that figure might end up). While that's a historically high number, it seems totally appropriate during a pronounced economic downturn for the federal government to step in to increase the level of spending in the economy. Voters endorsed this view on November 4. Real Clear Politics shows a 60% average approval rating for President Obama. The Democrats in Congress have a 43% approval rating, which looks bad until you see that congressional Republicans come in at 16%. The Democratic and Republican parties generally are at 55% and 29%, respectively.
And meanwhile, delusional conservatives like Fred Barnes are predicting that Democrats will lose seats in both the House and Senate in 2010. Seriously? That doesn't provoke outrage or righteous indignation. That just provokes me into laughing my ass off.
While Republicans are bitching and complaining that President Obama's stimulus package is going to bankrupt the United States, the $1.2 trillion deficit projected for 2010 is only about 9% of a GDP of $13 trillion (a rough estimate of where that figure might end up). While that's a historically high number, it seems totally appropriate during a pronounced economic downturn for the federal government to step in to increase the level of spending in the economy. Voters endorsed this view on November 4. Real Clear Politics shows a 60% average approval rating for President Obama. The Democrats in Congress have a 43% approval rating, which looks bad until you see that congressional Republicans come in at 16%. The Democratic and Republican parties generally are at 55% and 29%, respectively.
And meanwhile, delusional conservatives like Fred Barnes are predicting that Democrats will lose seats in both the House and Senate in 2010. Seriously? That doesn't provoke outrage or righteous indignation. That just provokes me into laughing my ass off.
3.09.2009
Celebrating the Economic Crisis
In my readings over the past few days, I have repeatedly encountered the theme of the economic crisis as a good thing, as it is forcing people to reconsider the wisdom of an economic system built upon the absurd premise of unlimited growth. Thomas Friedman at the New York Times, and more obscure pieces at Yes! Magazine and Tikkun demonstrate the reasons that the current economic downturn provides the fertile ground needed for creating a new economic culture- one that serves both humanity and the ecosystems on which we depend for survival.
3.01.2009
Socialism: As American as Apple Pie.
While Republicans have resorted to labeling President Obama's budget "socialist," once again falling back on the fear-mongering that they depend on when they can't debate issues on their merits, what they don't seem to recognize is that America has embraced socialist initiatives for quite some time.
I would bet that most Americans like being able to dial 911 and have a government-paid police officer, paramedic, or firefighter show up at their door. Those Americans are socialists. Most Americans like the idea of having public schools. Those people are also socialists. Do you like laws that protect the quality of the air you breathe and the water you drink? You too, are in fact socialist.
One might object that the above are obvious examples of public goods, which are simply not provided efficiently by a market economy. I would respond with another question: what is being provided efficiently by the market right now? The market has failed us miserably. For the government to step in and to help people who have been absolutely screwed by predatory lenders, corrupt and/or moronic investment brokers, and most importantly, our American system of overproduce and overconsume, is not only appropriate, but is why people elected Barack Obama on November 4 instead of John McCain. Nothing Obama announced in his budget or in his address on Tuesday night is a surprise. A politician following through on campaign promises is a surprise, however, and a quite pleasant one at that.
Republicans don't realize who they're dealing with in Obama- he is going to destroy the remnants of their party over the course of the next eight years, which in the long run will actually be a good thing for them, because he will force them to enter the 21st century.
I would bet that most Americans like being able to dial 911 and have a government-paid police officer, paramedic, or firefighter show up at their door. Those Americans are socialists. Most Americans like the idea of having public schools. Those people are also socialists. Do you like laws that protect the quality of the air you breathe and the water you drink? You too, are in fact socialist.
One might object that the above are obvious examples of public goods, which are simply not provided efficiently by a market economy. I would respond with another question: what is being provided efficiently by the market right now? The market has failed us miserably. For the government to step in and to help people who have been absolutely screwed by predatory lenders, corrupt and/or moronic investment brokers, and most importantly, our American system of overproduce and overconsume, is not only appropriate, but is why people elected Barack Obama on November 4 instead of John McCain. Nothing Obama announced in his budget or in his address on Tuesday night is a surprise. A politician following through on campaign promises is a surprise, however, and a quite pleasant one at that.
Republicans don't realize who they're dealing with in Obama- he is going to destroy the remnants of their party over the course of the next eight years, which in the long run will actually be a good thing for them, because he will force them to enter the 21st century.
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