Blog Archives
SOPA. PIPA. Lets Call the Whole Thing Off.
The blackout has come and gone for the digital protest of potential censorship and criminalizing the memer and the blogger. SOPA and PIPA represented another front for the unwashed, outspoken masses to rail against over-regulation and broad stroke legislation.
Little was accomplished with our silence and “off-line” statuses on Wednesday. Poppycock joined thousands of bloggers, websites like Reddit and Wikipedia, and many other sites in protest of hastily written bills before the House and Senate to #protectintellectualproperty and #combatpiracy.
I suppose one might have to admit that the widespread protest did at least as much as to raise awareness to potentially dangerous bills before Congress. Bills designed to protect, but will, if enacted, do more harm than good; like the seat belt that saved your life on impact only to trap you in your burning car turned four-wheeled coffin.
Author of SOPA, Lamar Smith
As written, as far as my research and limited legal mind can infer, the bills are written in such vague and interpretable language as to allow for prosecution of parent search engines and sites facilitating user-generated content. In essence, Reddit could be on the hook for potentially illegal content found through their site that is posted by a third-party; it’s charging the gun manufacturer with first-degree murder where an unregistered weapon was used.
I applaud the idea that protection of personal property be it real, digital, literal, or intellectual, needs to be a priority for those who create it; but the simple writing of just something over doing nothing is no answer at all, yet it’s one used by legislators with growing regularity. Some clunky and slow swinging sledgehammer does little to help a situation that calls for more surgical precision that we designed scalpels for. Right tool, right job.
Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of the ravenously popular Reddit, said it best in an interview on G4 Tuesday. He said that the bills are too vague, and were clearly not written with technologists at the table. Had SOPA or PIPA existed when he and Steve Huffman were launching Reddit, it never would have gotten off the ground; it would have been largely illegal.
I am all for protecting the rights of entrepreneurs, writers, photographers, musicians, filmmakers, and the like. As a writer and photographer, I know that what I create has both a monetary and intrinsic, emotional value to me. Someone passing off my work as their own, plagiarism, should be punished. As a production studio, artist, or creator of any kind, I know there is a very clear and numerical monetary value placed on every illegal download and theft of copyrighted material. SOPA and PIPA are just not the answer.
The internet is a being, a living creature that we have created and have no idea how to control or regulate. It is amorphous and doesn’t fit in to the structure of any of the confines and very meticulous laws that we have set forth in our many years. It is not a “real” world. Police don’t exist there. It is, for the most part, the last Wild West frontier that certainly needs taming for the civilized folk to want to live there. Who would make the move west if all we are going to get is robbed, raped, and murdered? Certainly not me. Well, I do live there, but my business doesn’t really have anything worth stealing, so I don’t really worry about locking my doors at night.
For everyone else, trying desperately to lock things up tight and keep from getting robbed, I fully support some Pinkertons coming to town. Hey, I’ve got nothing to hide. Well, I did pull some photos off the web that MIGHT be subject to copyright, but that’s not a big deal, right? Okay, I’ll come quietly, but this is all a big misunderstanding…
Regulation is necessary, so what can be so bad with SOPA and PIPA? We’ll refine them as we go along, but for now, we need at least something. This is dangerous thinking that is probably what got those bills written. The problem with laws of such a nature as these bills, is that it almost encourages corruption and potential censorship equally harmful to that of the illegal practices of piracy. A classic tale of woe, replacing one evil with another.
I suggest regulation, but it should come from within. Much as the MPAA rates its own films, and much as the gaming industry rates and regulates the sale of its games, despite that M-rated material can legally be sold to a minor (thanks, Supreme Court!); these industries took it upon themselves to regulate out of a moral conscience for a greater good and a responsibility to society.
This has nothing to do with web regulation, but it shows that an industry can regulate itself, so why not a marketplace? What’s the harm? Could it be worse than it is? Wall Street went highly unregulated and has screwed the US pooch more times than we can keep track of; the market pops more bubbles than a herd of 6-year olds at a birthday party. We saw the pop of the internet startups bubble in the nineties, but it never crippled the worldwide economy. If we’re not going to regulate the stock market and companies therein in any significant manner, then why must we throw the yolk of fear and culpability on the internet?
We could potentially appoint a committee to oversee internet activity and potentially illegal activity, but it is truly unrealistic. The net is not a brick and mortar city, it cannot be governed by a committee, a city council, or policed by a force of men that can catch pirates in a speed trap and hand out tickets on the internet super highway between Sidereel and Wikipedia. You can’t send SWAT in to a blog, kicking in the door and arresting everyone inside for FCC and copyright violations. There are billions of doors in hundreds of countries. It’s just unreasonable.
Let the onus of copyright and protecting their material be on that of the business or website that is posting for consumption. When you’ve got an apple cart on the sidewalk at a Saturday market, it’s up to the retailer of apples to keep an eye out for five-finger discounts. It’s not good for business to have a police officer leering over said produce enthusiasts.
A marketplace like the internet is too diverse and too ambiguous and anonymous to call for traditional laws. Each company, site, or business, has a responsibility to protect their property. If they find signs of theft, or catch a thief, then good for them, but laws governing everyone and everything on the web does no more good than a law governing every person in the world; your laws don’t apply here.
If there must be some overall governing laws specifically tailored to the web, then we need to work with the entrepreneurs that tamed this wild frontier. Who better to advise a layman on the pressing matter of lawfulness than an expert? Get everyone involved that thrives in this world, in spite of piracy and unlawful activity.
A perfect example of where there is a disconnect between the digital world and reality: “You must be 18 years of age to view these materials. If you are under the age of 18, click NO, if you are 18 years of age or older, click YES.” Have we figured out a way to verify the age of a user yet? Is there a sure-fire algorithm devised that can verify the age of the finger clicking the mouse? Not that I know of. I always clicked YES, and I started clicking it when I was 14 or 15. Never got my door kicked in by a SWAT team. Maybe this is step one, but I suppose that figuring out a PIN for all adults required to view sensitive material would be too much to ask. Something like 431-629. It’s not a huge leap, but most kids know how to click a mouse, and can do simple math to pick a birth date that will get them access to porn and or violent material. Just saying, but hey, lets worry about the bottom line and how much money people are losing instead of the welfare of our impressionable children. Ahhh, American priorities.
There is no easy answer of how to combat piracy and internet fraud and theft. It is a tricky devil. IP addresses aren’t quite as solid in court as fingerprints and DNA. “Someone must have hacked my computer” is a completely legitimate excuse for having stolen material on a hard drive. Instead of starting with a vague law, why not start with what and who you want to prosecute and then reverse engineer a law applying specifically to that activity. Still more layman thinking, I guess.
I am no techno savvy nerd. My skills run more in the vein of movie trivia, video games, and to a lesser extent the written word. So, no law makers will be calling me for advisement. There are experts out there with useful, insightful experience for a congressman who can’t even design their own campaign website or write their own tweets #howdoicheckmyemail.
Regulation will come in one form or another. It may be by the SOPA and PIPA jackboot of vagary under the sledgehammer of totalitarian anti-piracy. It might come from self-governance and businesses investing in better security, clever coding, and well written and prosecutable end-user agreements…not to mention a man-sized safe or two. It may, and least likely, come by way of incremental, levelheaded change from the bottom up; both structural and lawful changes that protect the end-users and the entrepreneurs from the “illegal” acts of a mere fraction of the customer base. Whatever the form, we must be both hesitant and ever thoughtful of the worst case scenario. Civil liberties are constantly jeopardized today, and a bastion of near apparent lawlessness like the internet could easily become over regulated as to push out invention and creativity and stunt the growth of the real world in the process. It is all about the big picture, and some restraint now can pay big dividends far greater than the example that can be made by a blacklisted site or some poor schlep in cuffs over aggregating political links and movie poster pics for some stupid blog on WordPress (he wrote with a darting glance and a lump in his throat).
Crime occurs in the real world in every facet even with the overbearing micromanagement of common moral fiber that we live under now. Why would the internet become any cleaner, safer, or more productive if we regulate it? A war on piracy? We have lost the war on terrorism and that good old war on drugs and will lose the war on cyberbullying and our frontal assault on Christmas; why would piracy end any differently? I already must pay a toll to get on the internet by companies, must my civil liberties and fear of prosecution for retweeting #wearethe99percent? A digital police state, indeed, and that is a far worse fate than the binary wild west we live in now.
Look at This F-ing Guy #17
Who plays an April’s Fools Day joke
When I was a kid we loved playing practical jokes. From the classic snakes in a can and trick gum to whoopy cushions and fart bombs, we had a lot of fun screwing with one another. One classic practical joke was back in middle school. A friend mine and I conspired with the assistant principal to draft a fake letter of transfer for a gym teacher of ours. Sure enough he was called out of class to receive his notice of immediate transfer, and upon his return was sweating bullets and stuttering like an idiot. I guess it was a bonus that he had literally just settled in at the beginning of the school year with wife and kids. It was a classic “gotcha” moment, the look on his face.
But this was when I was a kid, and that kind of thing isn’t funny anymore. We are all adults, and if you think it is funny with the whoopy cushions and trick gum that stains your mouth blue for 48 hours, well you’re an asshole, because this is an office, and now I look like I just blew Papa Smurf for a meeting with the shareholders. I will go ahead and murder you now.
April Fool’s Day is the worst nightmare for friends of a prankster. It is the one day where they get to run carte blanche on the jokes and gags. They get to run elaborate schemes on your wife. With a spare key you lent them they go in to your closet and smear lipstick on the collar of a shirt in the laundry and plant a pair of crotchless panties in your suit pocket. They get on your computer and fill it with fake e-mails to and from your imaginary mistress. They spray perfume your wife doesn’t own on your boxer briefs and maybe if they are crazy enough they plant a dildo under the passenger seat of the family minivan. Then they wait… When you get home all hell breaks loose when your wife is doing the laundry and getting the dry cleaning ready to take out. The kids found the dildo and now your wife is furious that you’re having an affair, throwing panties in your face…
Your buddy is outside in his car, just laughing and imagining all the weird and awkward moments and decides it is time to go in and drop an epic “april fools” on the both of you. He knocks and lets himself in to the sound of very loud yelling in the bedroom upstairs and the kids, Sarah and Michael, crying in the living room. As your practical joking pal closes the door quietly behind him, stifling his giggles, he starts to realize things are off when a suitcase is thrown from the second floor in to the foyer. As he looks up from the front door he watches all his friend’s clothes get tossed as well, along with a purple dildo that begins to vibrate on impact with the wood floor. Tear-filled screaming echoes as you come down the stairs and are collecting your things. Your buddy didn’t know it, but you were IN FACT having an affair, and the joke became all too real when you accidentally admitted it when the planted signs were found.
“What are you doing here, Bill!?” You exclaim when you finally notice him.
“What…What’s goin’ on, Tim?” Bill asks sheepishly.
“I’m getting kicked out of my house! What does it look like!? This is not a good time, Bill!”
“I just came over ‘cause I wanted to tell you guys something, um…” Tim just stares a moment waiting with a face like ‘fuckin’ spit it out, Bill. “Um, I wanted to say…’April Fools?’” Tim realizes what has happened and in a blind rage clocks Bill with the business end of a suitcase. The last thought through Bill’s head before total blackout was, “Hmmm, I knew I should have gone with the dead hooker crime scene gag.”
Ani-mosque-ity
or: The Church is as much the building as the Mosque is the minaret
or: Crumble the house of God and you do nothing to deter his people from his love
All over the country in states like California, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and even New York, protestors of all stripes are rallying against proposed blights on their communities applying for permits and trying to build expansive buildings. People are coming out of the woodwork to fight the construction of these facilities. Brandishing signs denouncing the international entity they bring dogs, shouting, calling for town hall meetings and signing petitions to stop these people from coming in and settling near schools, subdivisions, and in vacant lots. With a heartfelt love for their cities, towns, and the welfare of the children, they are fighting tooth and nail anything they don’t want to come in to their lives.
What are you thinking right now? Who do you think it is that is infiltrating and ruining our way of life from small towns to big cities? No, it’s not proposed Wal-Mart Superstores set to ruin local businesses bringing the mullet laden from the outskirts to hunt for bargains on lawn flamingoes and wholesale tires…it’s Muslims wanting to build Mosques.
All over this country people and groups are unifying to fight sites set for construction of Mosques. In the past the protestors might have fought them based on noise violations, traffic jams, and parking issues; today they are pulling out the big guns of outright racism and bald-faced religious persecution claiming a Mosque is a breeding ground for terrorists; one that these people don’t want anywhere near their backyard. Never mind that there are already nearly 2,000 Mosques in the country.
It is the argument of the opposition that Islamic law and belief runs contradictory to the US Constitution and rights. They assert that Muslims only want to take over the country and install Shariah Law where our Bill of Rights and Constitution once stood. In the eyes of one protestor, “…in 20 years with the rate of the birth population, we will be overtaken by Islam, and their goal is to get people in Congress and the Supreme Court to see that Shariah is implemented. My children and grandchildren will have to live under that.” “Overtaken” seems a bit harsh. I would think this country is currently overtaken by Christian values miring our ability to live freely and openly, but it just doesn’t garner the same support at my weekly bridge club and rotary meetings. Does this person honestly think that at any point this nation is going to let the Constitution be thrown aside or that we would sit idly by as prayer, Islamic prayer, is implemented in schools? We as a people would take up arms like in the revolution before the whispers of such an idea left the lips of anyone able to make that happen, which I am pretty sure the President can’t even do; at least I hope. I see myself as an intelligent person and I have no idea how to speak to a person who feels this same fear that Hitler once preached about the “Negroes” and Jews of the world ruining the great race’s ability to live.
Jewish anti-defamation groups, Christians, Catholics, and even former Muslims have come out fighting these proposed sites. The most heated battle of course is the Mosque trying to clear all the permits for building in close proximity to Ground Zero. Coming out against this location are great political powerhouses that are the “prominent Republican” Sarah Palin and “former house speaker” Newt Gingrich. Sure, when a former 2/3 term Governor and a has been punchline like Newt jump on board you know you’ve got some traction and some clearly open-minded and tolerant people speaking on the behalf of clear headed Americans everywhere.
In these incidents of protest I love the signs I am seeing and pictures of priests in collars speaking to the dangers of Islam. I feel like I should be watching Deliverance or some other film on the tragedy that is “redneckery.” I know these battles are raging all over the country, but all I hear is banjo music in the back of my head. I imagine a frothy-mouthed German Shepherd leaping at the tension of its leash as a soccer mom in a hand-knitted Christmas sweater shouts and brandishes a sign saying “Mosques are a monument to terrorism.” With Catholics speaking out against the evils of Islam and the dangers to our way of life, Christians screaming messages of intolerance, and Jews railing against the inhumanity in Islam (the same Jews that brought us the gem that is circumcision, thank you for that), I wonder if any of them see the hypocrisy of it all?
What gets me is that people are speaking in such broad strokes about such a diverse and world reaching religion that is Islam. With approx. 1.57 billion Muslims spread across the world I think we can safely say that they comprise a fairly diverse portion of the population. I don’t think opposing these sites for the building of a Mosque is going to make this religion go away. Christians were persecuted and on the outskirts of society with no houses of worship on a grand scale until Constantine converted the empire to the religion; didn’t stop Christianity from growing. Opponents are saying that Islam is inherently violent, a militarized religion bent on world control and conversion looking to oppress other religions and people with their beliefs. Sure, and the over 2.2 billion Christians of the world don’t want anyone to listen to them and their message. Boy, it is so hard to throw a rock and hit a Christian church with more audio and video equipment than a Skid Row concert for the purpose of “worship” and yet still want your 10% tithe every week. No, Christians are hiding that little light of theirs in a bush and playing the divinity of Christ close to the chest.
Catholics have not a leg to stand on. I am sorry, but your religion’s personal Mecca that is Vatican City is a sovereign nation with it’s own military force. On a whim the Pope could take and occupy Cuba without breaking a papal sweat. I really don’t think that Catholicism can speak to the militarization of Islam, and not to mention the breeding ground of terrorists has long since been Catholicism. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the fall of Jerusalem, The Troubles in Ireland…Have we forgotten about these little incidents that have burned holes in your authority as a force for good? Sure you may feed the hungry but there are a whole lot fewer mouths thanks to the “my way or the highway” hardline position your God takes. I find it hard to believe that anyone of this faith can honestly hold their head up and begin to point fingers at a religion that references Catholicism and the respect with which the misguided Christians and Catholics should be held in. Catholicism, if it’s a choice between you or Islam I’d rather be blown up than molested, so I’m hedging my bets.
Christianity, how have you been? Busy? I bet. So, you think Islam is here to take over and replace our laws with theirs? I forgot, what is it you wanted inside every state house and court house in the country? Wasn’t it the Ten Commandments, which is your religious laws you live by? You wanted that in every government facility dolling out justice, and you say Muslims want to take over? Right. Oh, while we are on the subject, how ‘bout them Salem Witch Trials? I know you meant well but that has got to be embarrassing. I do have to commend you on your ability to send “mission trips” all over the world trying to convert people in foreign countries to your way of thinking. Bravo because when someone is drowning they will grab any rope you throw them even if it is attached to religious law and the fear of eternal damnation for deviation from “the path and the light.” Christianity, you should just sit out the next few plays when it comes to the effects of a religion trying to impose it’s beliefs and way of life on anyone and everyone on the planet; you started this whole damn recruiting mission and now you’re pissed that other groups picked up the scent.
The audacity of these people of religious groups to oppose these sites of peaceful worship based in nothing but fear and religious persecution is rife for comedy. These protests are nothing but irony and zero hindsight that are one double-time chase scene away from a Benny Hill sketch. They argue that Islam is dangerous, that they want to take over, and that these mosques will be nothing but centers for hate speech. Well guess what, so is every other religion if it is misconstrued and twisted in the minds of extremists. If I called every Catholic a pedophile and crusader-in-training that likes to torture non-believers I am betting I might offend someone. Any Catholic will tell you that those were misguided people and embarrassing mistakes of the past we regret…you might get that same reaction out of the average Muslim if I called them all towel-headed terrorists with a hard on for killing the innocent just for shits and giggles so they can pop them cherries in the afterlife.
Now I can see the public outcry over the building of a Mosque near Ground Zero. You will get no argument from me that the townsfolk in New York might still be nursing a sensitive, open wound over the whole “9/11 thing.” The protests are understandable, though I don’t agree with them, and it seems almost justifiable in a totally unconstitutional and immoral sense. But you’re fighting this hard in Temecula, Calif.; Sheboygan, Wis.; and Murfreesboro, Tenn.? Who gives a damn if they build there? I’m sure Murfreesboro is just inundated with high value terrorist targets; I mean they’ve got a Dippin’ Dots at the Stones River Mall. It is simple fear and socially acceptable hate in what should be a less tense American climate. It has been nearly a decade since we were attacked and yet it seems that our population of Tea Partiers and Republicans still have yet to learn enough to not fear these groups. It has been in the news every single day since the towers came down and I am betting that 85% of people surveyed in these cities would not know the Mujahideen from the Taliban or the difference between Suunis and Shiites. You hate them, yet you cannot define them? You embarrass yourselves.
We are just playing right in to the hands of terrorist training camps if we are openly persecuting Muslims for their beliefs. Jihad is defined as dozens of different things depending on which group in which country you ask. It can be an internal struggle, a fight to follow and worship Allah, a fight for a moral society, and yes even a military offensive. But the last part after military offensive is important; it is an offensive against those they interrupt or hinder a Muslim’s ability to worship and serve Allah. If we stop these Mosques from being built in any way then we are riding the party lines for those people dead set, literally, against America and it’s interests domestic and foreign.
My argument is not less Mosques, but more. Embrace them. Hell, the biggest “Fuck You” we could ever give the terrorists out there is to not only build Mosques, but lets build the biggest minaret in the world right on Ground Zero. Yeah, build the biggest Mosque with the tallest Minaret in the entire world to call the five boroughs to prayer five times a day. How pissed would the likes of Osama be when we cut the ribbon on morning prayer right in downtown Manhattan? How else can we as a people shake the very foundation for anti-American sentiment then by running completely contradictory to our international image? It would be doubly hard to turn young Muslims to extremism if we pull the soapbox right out from under them.
Every house of worship can be a breeding ground for hate and close-mindedness; we are seeing this theory in practice on the front lines of this very social conflict; theoretical shepherds unto the Lord preaching intolerance and persecution. I would point first to Christianity and Catholicism as the most dangerous religions in the world before I would take an accusatory tone with Islam. These protestors might be able to argue that the Muslims are, in twenty years, going to outnumber us and are going to take over, but maybe if we did not now occupy the position and act in the same manner of those that persecuted us in the past then we might not need fear being “overtaken.” Dr. Mansoor Mirza, the man who owns the proposed Mosque location in Sheboygan said it best: “Every new group coming to this country — Jews, Catholics, Irish, Germans, Japanese — has gone through this. Now I think it’s our turn to pay the price, and eventually we will be coming out of this, too.” It is not the Mosque that is the problem that creates terrorism, it is the object of the hate, and that is we Americans doing the very thing we are doing here, which is persecuting these people. Until we can mend the bridge spanning the gaps between our different beliefs then the fiery ideals that drive this prostituted idea of Jihad will continue to burn; I say the Anglo-religions need to put down those stones before we need to clean up too much glass.
New From Mattel, ‘Fox Pundit Palin’, now with Kung-Fu Conservative Grip (on reality)
Jan 13
Posted by Wes
or: 2012 campaigning is really heating up already
Well if you haven’t heard then I figure I should let you know that the scales over at FOX used for measuring out balance and fairness are a little off kilter…ah who am I kidding they’re fucking broken. It was announced that Sarah Palin has found a home at FOX News as a contributor for the network. Sarah Palin will be able to comment and pontificate on the stories of the day from a her fastidious conservative view point on a regular basis now that she has her contract with the least fair and balanced network out there. FOX News made the obvious decision to bring her on board, and now that she is in the private sector with absolutely no power and no ability to affect change through public service she has become more dangerous than ever. Without the constraints of the checks and balances of government and the relative safety of being a commentator and pundit, she can continue her campaign for 2012 office with reckless abandon and speak from a platform directly to her constituency and continue the path that Nixon set forth so many years ago.
With this most recent move Palin now steps further in to the line of fire from the liberal media that she so vilely disdains. For a woman who wants the media to leave her alone and report fairly, I find it odd that she would decide to be a conservative pundit on the most conservative network on television that comes under scrutiny for its shoddy reporting and inaccurate facts and information. Palin is a child of the media, a woman who would be literally no one to anyone outside Alaska if it weren’t for the firestorm of coverage she gets. She is a lightning rod for editorial content from every news outlet in the world, and somehow she seems to be sickened by the very machine that created her and fueled sales of the book she is hocking these days.
Sarah Palin must have a twisted sense of her own moral compass since she is now joining the media. She is a commentator and pundit, though not liberal, of the same job description that she was skewering people for doing on the left. It appalls me that she can take this job with a straight face while telling everyone else just to report the facts and stopping sensationalizing when I would bet dollars to donuts that her first report will be a lambasting of someone of the blue team persuasion. You can bet that every word out of her mouth will be bias, unfair, and only mildly informed on a network that would just as soon bury a pro-liberal story as they would praise her for the insight she can provide. The hypocrisy of her move in to this new arena is not lost on me, and as I am sure Jon Stewart of the Daily Show will show, it’s not lost on many people.
I have written about this before, no not just my distaste for the likes of FOX News and Sarah Palin, but of the glaring similarities between her path so far and the one chosen by Tricky Dick Nixon. I mean, the similarities are eerie. A governorship, a failed run at the White House, a book, six-figure speaking fees, and now a move to the private sector limelight to stay on the tip of everyone’s tongue before bum-rushing the next general election. Think I am wrong? Hmm, well it seems, from her appearance on the O’Reilly Factor, that she is set to campaign endlessly with every camera that is pointed at her. If you watch the interview she speaks like a politician trying to bring it all back to the people, what they want, finding conservative simple solutions, and what the Democrats are doing wrong. The ‘FOX News Sarah Palin’ sounds no different from ‘campaign trail Sara Palin’ that we all laughed and scoffed at. Both are the worst Barbie doll spin-offs ever.
What will Sarah bring to the table on FOX from story to story? I am sure she will tow the Conservative line, being that she passes the ‘GOP Purity Test’ with flying colors, and will stop at nothing to treat every segment like a Conservative Party/Sarah Palin sales pitch. Without a doubt she will be voicing less her opinion on things and more about what others are doing incorrectly and why we deserve it after voting democrat. No matter the story she will bring everything back to examples of situations gone wrong; she will harp on poor health care reform, killing the private sector, unemployment, her book ‘Going Rogue’ on shelves now in hardcover for just 24.95, and that we could do better with common sense conservative values.
“You know Sean, it is like this, I think that the situation with Iran is just like our situation with unemployment in this great country we live in…”
“Well, as you know when I was campaigning in 2008 I talked about the real core values this country needs to get back to. The family values that make this country great are really the first step we need to take so that we can really feel safe in this country, of America, and until we do that then those fat cats in Washington are just gonna be spinning their wheels in the mud on issues, like Yemenis terrorists.”
“Well I don’t know what this administration can really do about so-called ‘Global Warming’, I know I don’t feel it up in Alaska (laugh), where we have strong moral values and are more concerned with employment, our families, and keeping an eye on Russia, so that this country can be as safe as we used to be. I agree with Giuliani that, you know, we never had any attacks under George W. Bush, and now I just really don’t know that we are as safe as we used to be.”
…No, these are not things she has said, but she will say them in one way or another. Mark my words, she will handle issues of national security with some folksy story about her family, or somehow compare it to unemployment, or health care, or some hot button issue she wants to campaign on. I know, that in the coming months I will have to shake my head and try to wonder how she compared the situation in Yemen with protecting the sanctity of marriage and it will inevitably cripple me mentally.
I once wrote about the possibility of Roger Ailes, of Fox News, running for office in 2012 as President, and that Sarah Palin would make a comfortable running mate, especially with her Nixon like approach to politics. I wrote that a meeting of those two minds would lead to a very dangerous position where the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates would be literal bedfellows with the largest and most popular news network in America. I wrote of the real danger to the Democratic ticket that would be and how formidable the aligning of Palin with FOX News would be. I did not stop to think that she may join the team and I cannot figure out why I didn’t think it would make sense for her, trying to stay very public, that she could get a forum on FOX programming in some fashion. I mean Mike F-ing Huckabee has a news show on FOX News Radio, and he is a politician who still has his eye on the white house.
So the plan has been hatched and she got her wish, she is now on FOX News, all the time, without having to make news, she now gets to comment on it. Not only that but she is paid to do so, and now she has every right to voice her opinion and continue to campaign for the white house 2012. My real issue here is whether this might hurt her a bit. I mean, she is aligning herself with a pretty inflammatory network that appeals to the far right, this might have a dire effect on those in the moderate sector that are pliable on their allegiance based on the climate of the country. It is not without merit to try and think whether she cares though. I doubt that Sarah, with her purity affirmed, even thinks about the moderates. She may preach bipartisanship but she sure as hell would not practice it. She would not give democrats an inch to negotiate or put in their two cents, so I don’t think she really gives much mind to anyone but the conservative base she draws on and putting to bed any distrusts FOX News viewers and listeners may have of her. I see now that her foremost concern is with the right-wing base and this channel has that in spades for her to preach to on a daily basis.
O’Reilly did make a few interesting statements though in his softball interview of her. It was funny to see her trash 60 Minutes and then O’Reilly to say he respected them, kind of putting her in check, and then Palin shutting up on it, trying to save face. His most interesting point was about why everyone on the left sees her as a threat being that we all think she is misguided, uninformed, and basically ignorant. I had to think a minute and I realized I am not necessarily afraid on Sarah Palin, no one is afraid of her. What it is for me is that I am afraid that she can find enough ignorant people to stand behind her, I am fearful of the world her constituency wants, and the fandom-like adoration they hold for her no matter how wrong she may be or how foolish she looks.
They are a mindless herd, her people, and given enough exposure and enough Palin Kool-Aid, a situation may occur in 2012 where Democrats are doing shit and she might be able to garner enough votes to win a Presidency. This country elected Bush, one and a half times, so my fear comes from our past mistakes and the fact that she is charming enough to pull off an upset. Look, Bush was a jackass and a terrible public speaker that was able to win during a peaceful time in America against a tried and true Vice President coming off one of the largest periods of growth in American history and great progress, democrats should have been a shoe-in, but it didn’t work out. If the situation develops that Obama has done fuck-all in his four years and we are still in terrible shape, a beautiful, folksy woman might be able to win an election when aligned with the powerhouse that is FOX News and all the right people she will be rubbing elbows with.
Do not put it past Palin to be campaigning every chance she gets on the network, but I think she might have a great advantage with this position as she will be able to up her political and international IQ while working on her non-regional diction and making up for people’s biggest complaint about her, that she was kinda dumb. Every day she will be able to work on her selling points, learning and covering the news, she will know at all times what is going on, and will actually be able to be on television more often, to more viewers, than the President will be able to. Palin will be unavoidable and her punditry will be news, so she will become news by being on the news, she can’t buy that kind of coverage, and she is getting paid for it. Make no mistake, if she is able to make herself in to a great conservative pundit on this network, then I have no doubt that she will be a force in 2012, and her ego and confidence will only be bolstered by good segments on the channel.
I have to admit I did not think she would be able to pull off a position on FOX News, but I can’t say that I am surprised. This is such a ‘Nixon’s Road to the White House’ move. I mean she has stolen every other move of his so far, why stop now. Palin is now very dangerous with a position right in the ears of those that support and love her most. She has endeared herself to a public and now she will have the opportunity on a regular basis to report fair and balanced news to those that want to hear it. No, she is not a ‘reporter’, I think she is officially a commentator, or analyst, or pundit, whatever, but she is now very visible, and as such, is officially kicking off her 2012 campaign as of Monday. From here on out everything will be for the white house and delivered as a campaign stop speech, for which she is getting paid so handsomely. Where might this fair and balanced analyst be making her first stop? Well with her first act as a Fox News pundit and correspondent at the news network she will be the keynote speaker at a TEA Party event for which she has great respect and support for the American people that are getting out and saying enough is enough. Fair and balanced like a fat kid on a see-saw.
Look what I found:
Like this:
Posted in Politics
2 Comments
Tags: 2012, 60, administration, ailes, and, balanced, bill, book, broadcast, broken, Bush, campaign, cats, Channel, commentator, common, conservative, contract, contributor, coverage, event, factor, fair, fat, folksy, fox, friday, George, going, gop, house, huckabee, interview, liberal, media, mike, minutes, network, news, nixon, obama, on air, oreilly, palin, party, pinheads, points, Politics, president, pundit, reporting, richard, road, roger, rogue, sarah, scales, sense, shut, signed, softball, speaking, talent, talking, tea, to, tour, up, Values, vice, W, Washington, white