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Romerica
Posted by Wes
or: The only thing we didn’t steal from Rome was…ummmmm, wait I’ll come up with something…
…You don’t think that the same fate the felled Rome can’t happen here? Well let’s take a trip in to the possibility machine. What would it take to break down Americans to roving bands of rebel forces and militia groups like something out of Mad Max? I think it wouldn’t take very much. Think about it…all it would take is three bad days…
Day one would be the worst, the stock market crash. I mean a full blown crash. The dollar is worth absolutely nothing. Every single person in America is officially without a dollar to their name. Because of this commerce shuts down at the news, and it travels pretty quick seeing as technology gets you prices right to your hand. It’s over, our nation has no capital, and seeing as we are already leveraged to the hip with every lender we had, we aren’t getting a nickel to tide us over and since the dollar is a simple act of faith without any gold backing it up, we’re done.
Of course this comes with massive amounts of looting in the night once everyone is home after getting laid off or not going to work the next day. Why go to work if the money you were to earn is worth two cents on the dollar? SO the looting and rioting breaks out in pockets through cities all over the country. LA, NY, Chicago, Detroit, San Diego, Seattle, Atlanta, and others break out in to chaos as people ransack every shop and market, every grocery store and car dealership. In just one day the poor to the upper class have taken it upon themselves to prepare for the worst.
On the dawn of day two the fires still roar, but the streets are practically empty in some places as others have fled the cities when the looting slowed before first light. The sunrise is obscured by tire fires and massive blazes that still burn from the night before. The firefighters and police are trying to control the violence and madness, but the entire city is alive with fear and rage…there was only one cop for every 145 people when there was peace; there are never enough cops for something no one planned for. With the violence not ending, the country grinding to a halt in commerce and work attendance, President Obama has ordered all public schools closed for the time being until his cabinet can come up with a plan and order can be restored…no one buys it…
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The Donkey Will Chew Off its Own Leg to Survive
Posted by Wes
or: Nancy Pelosi would not come back for you during the zombie apocalypse
I’m sure like me after a few beers with some friends you have entertained the idea of what your plan of action would be in the event of a zombie apocalypse. I know there have been many films and even an extensive library of books on the subject; George Romero has a hard-on for the subject. Thanks to the insight of a friend I know that after securing ammunition and armament I would make for my local CostCo. Large building with massive amounts of food, provisions, and minimal entrances, that could keep a small group safe and well fed for possibly years. But on the way to the facility, under close pursuit, if a group of people fell behind or even a cliche scenario of the twisted ankle, would you go back for them? Would the majority of you risk your own lives to save the few that are seemingly lost to the blood thirsty horde? Could you leave the safety of a fortified position to help your comrades on the slim chance they could survive unscathed?
Well if you are the Democratic Party the answer is a resounding “no.” If the recent actions of the party leadership is any indicator then they would stand idly by protecting their beloved CostCo of a house majority leaving nothing to chance in losing the position they have for the few lives that are too far gone to help. September 4th brought a story about the Democrats deciding to cut off support for those seats that seem too far out of reach for the party to continue the campaign fight. The party has seen the Zombie horde that is the Republican party in this scenario setting itself upon many races with a vigor and outpouring of public support that indicates that the battle is lost this late in the game; the Democrats are now turning their focus to those races that are near assured and those where they feel they can gain enough ground with appropriate funding to keep a slim hold on the house majority they have held through the last two elections.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued a letter to the party members to redirect funding and support for those candidates who need and deserve the help, also urging party members behind on their dues to pay up. She asked everyone to reach in their campaign coffers and support the candidates that have the best shot to win. This basically says to those in trouble and behind in the polls this late in the game, that they need to pull up stakes and help the party majority before they help themselves; throw yourself on the grenade in the foxhole to save the squad, your own safety be damned.
Obama is seconding this motion adding extensive rallies and fundraisers to his schedule in the coming months to throw his weight behind the candidates within striking distance of opponents in key races while trying to pad the funding so that the candidates can take to the airwaves and oust their republican opposition. Right now there are some four dozen candidates running TV adds as of Labor Day, more than ever before at this time, and they are not only on the air but are leaning to the negative spectrum using words like “liar” and painting their opponents as poor choices instead of highlighting their own qualifications.
Some of the gangrenous Democratic candidates that have been amputated from the body politic are Betsy Markey of Colorado (an 11 point dog), Tom Perriello (a whopping 26 point dog in Virginia), and even Earl Pomeroy who is seeking his tenth term but finds himself at a 9 point disadvantage in North Dakota. These candidates have basically been abandoned by the party support they desperately need because to the Democratic leaders it looks like they are already too far gone to be saved. The party feels it would be doing itself a disservice to fight these Waterloos and in the process lose other winnable races, and possibly the majority as a result, by spreading the $218 million budget too thin.
Is this my party? How embarrassed I feel to be painted in a corner with these people who are cannibalizing their own party to survive while the Republicans have only become more galvanized over the years. This is so indicative of the two parties and the solidarity therein. Liberals have always been a scatter-shot kind of group with wide ranging ideals and beliefs as well as a complete lack of focus as a group. Liberals are islands unto themselves with their outlook on the evils of how things are done, rights, morals, finance, international policy, etc. Democrats seem to be good at doing and saying nothing while Conservatives seem to be a sniper rifle of a group, now more than ever. Conservatives are on the same page with gun control, financial issues, social issues, etc. Just as the Democrats are sawing off limbs like a scene out of SAW, the Republican party is tighter and more united than ever; hell, they put out a purity test to prove you were with them, like Reagan would have wanted.
This is clearly a Kafkaesque sign as to the issues that are facing the Democratic party if they want to continue to hold any kind of power, even if they don’t intend to use it for anything. As inaction is our action of choice, the Republicans are prepared to scale the walls of our ivory tower and take our women and rations. The Democratic party is going on the defensive, a role well rehearsed to this point, trying to protect their fleeting hold on the government by running campaigns and toting their strides in healthcare, education, and regulation of Wall Street. I am no Frank Mankiewicz, but I think you might want to avoid the hot button issue of health care which divided this country to the point that the TEA Party was formed and people reverted to primitive, ape-like creatures calling out “death panels” and “killing your grandma” as slogans of opposition.
The Democratic party is clearly aware of the situation they find themselves in. They are well-versed in the details of the national climate and the taste the party in power has left in the mouths of those that swallowed “change” and “hope” like a Kool-Aid that goes best with NIKE sneakers and bunk beds. We are still deep in a recession, mired in healthcare malarkey, unemployment has not improved, cities and states are bankrupt, and the wars…well they are still going on despite Obama calling an end to active combat on one front. I hate to say it, but though he might be miles more eloquent in his speech, the man is one ranch and a bomber jacket away from “W” in the eyes of many Americans. I know I feel a great sadness from the debt of “change” I am owed.
I have said this before but I just feel like politicians are more concerned with their next campaign than they are for the constituency they represent. No one would ever say it, but I am betting in dark, smoke-filled rooms over fine Scotches even the best Democrat could admit that many of their candidates out there are outclassed and it is a matter of tricking the people in to not seeing it. It is going to take wizardry and slight of hand to win a few of these races, and that is exactly what a redirection of funds is going to allow. Sure, the race in Ohio is a toss-up between (D) Mary Jo Kilroy and (R) Steve Stivers, but with the right funding it might not be, if David Blain moonlights as a campaign manager; but the Democrats aren’t willing to take that chance at this juncture.
The race for Governorship is not really part of this debate, but you see the same thing happening here in California. A well qualified Democrat, Jerry Brown, with decades of experience at all levels of leadership in politics is simply being outspent and outclassed by the (R) Meg Whitman machine. She had poured more than $50 million of her own fortune in to buying the most air, radio, and billboard time she can manage. The woman is all over the state grabbing up endorsements while she and (D) Jerry Brown trade poll leads month to month coming down to the wire that is November. This is the eighth largest economy in the world, California, and yet the best candidate may not win. Or maybe the best candidate will, if the “best candidate” is not synonymous with the “right candidate.” At this point in my life I now see that the best candidate is the one that runs the best campaign, not the one who is right for the job. Politics is a game of getting in to office no matter the cost or lack of qualifications a candidate may possess; then once you are there it is a matter of making the right choices and voting along party lines so that you can convince the people to keep you there the next time around.
The Democrats are in the latter portion of the “keeping it” stages of the races. To save the ship they are keying the airlock to engineering and letting good men and women drown in order to save the ship and the rest of the crew. The party is in crisis mode redirecting all power they still wield to point at their “accomplishments” and to misdirect the voter with negative ad campaigns of opposition while skirting the subjects that simultaneously effect and outrage the proletariate. Thomas Jefferson said that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” The Democratic party is taking this to heart as they are feeding the tree they are tending with the blood of their own kind. I don’t know if that is a patriotic act or one of a tyrant, sacrificing your own for the good of the body politic and perpetuating the cycle of political impotence and ineptitude, but I would think that great men and women know when they are doing the people an injustice and know full well that it may be better for another to lead for the sake of the greater good.
I am a proud liberal in the most degrading and inflammatory sense of the word. When a Republican uses the term as a slur, they are painting you with the same brush they reserve for me. I am a far left, wild-eyed critic of the world and America as she grows and labors under her own weight. The party I am begrudgingly linked to is showing its true colors now by not creating at least a cloakatively united front. They know that the party’s power gambit is in jeopardy, and instead of asking why or making an effort to change their course, they are simply shoring the levees on good races and leaving the stragglers to be torn apart without even a somber word to their bravery and self sacrifice. The Democrats have tipped their hand; they are willing to leave those most likely lost to their own fate while protecting the greater good of the party. I wonder how Jefferson would interpret this kind of human sacrifice for the good of the machine, but I know that it is not made for the good of the people. The races deemed lost are not those be run by bad people, leaders, or politicians; it is the abandoning of losing races. It is clear that “my” party is not holding in mind who is best to represent me, but who is most likely to win, and if not tyrannical, this is at least contrary to the true idea of representative politics.
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Hangover to End All Hangovers…2010
Posted by Wes
I have taken a few days now to think long and hard about the year we just experienced, and to a lesser extent the decade we just endured. This last 10 years have been my formidable years; I started 2000 off at 15, now 25, and so I can really look back on these years clearly with horror and disgust in our actions as a nation and as a people. I hate to look back as far as the year 2000, I can barely stomach 2009 leading me to believe that trying to choke down ten years would be the death of me; a frantic malaise would fall upon me pock marked by bouts of crushing depression ending in ripping my hair out in clumps and eating it until I died in a puddle of my own bodily fluids in the fetal position.
The last decade saw the rise of the wartime president with no regard for anything but the nation’s collective bloodlust and vengeance, damning the UN and leading us in to an intractable war. We saw two different men win back to back elections with only one taking office both times. We saw a collapse of a nation, ours, in our banking industry, housing market, stock market, as well as the likes of Enron, Worldcom, and other disgusting malpractices of the rule of law and the code of trust. There have been more scandals then I can shake a big stick at with alter boys being molested by priests and pages being propositioned by politicians. This has been a decade of degradation, filth, and violence on a scale not seen before with the truly controversial rise of newsertainment and 24 hours coverage running rampant on too many networks.
I Hate to reminisce or wax nostalgic about the past, but I can’t help but look back on 2009 and wonder what happened? It feels like, as I look forward to this next year, I am looking back on 2009 as a rampaging night of excessive drugs and alcohol; 2009 was an abuse of every narcotic we could get our hands on, leaving me with more question the morning after. Here I am, tangled in sweaty sheets in some stranger’s home, room spinning, and naked feeling a veracious burning sensation in my nether regions that wasn’t there yesterday. As I come to I notice a fresh tattoo, haphazardly done and still bleeding where there was once simply freckled skin. Empty beer bottles and half empty liquor bottles are strewn around the room as I stumble about, a blaring high pitched whine hindering my every thought deep inside my head.
January is our morning after. This is our time to find our pants and get out before she wakes up, and try to piece together what happened last night. Upon further inspection we have a lot of missed calls, missed ‘dare to be great’ situations we passed on as a nation, had we been sober enough to stop and answer. Reaching in to our pockets we stare through dark sunglasses in the early morning light to see our turned-out pockets, empty, not a cent in them, we’re broke, no chance for a cab now. Wandering down the street we try to get our bearings, find a street we know, some semblance of location and orientation to our home. Making at a haphazardly stumbling pace we try to see the flashes of last night, putting them in to some kind of order to gleam a storyline from.
What was it that we did? We feel like shit, so it had to be bad. I know we met up with Barack at some point, got drunk on hope and possibilities, then he fucking baled on us talking about having to work across the aisle and just left us with our dick in our hands…maybe he knows what he’s doing though, might even come through on some of those plans, just not bingeing on hope with him again any time soon. I know we put a bet on Chicago for the olympics, but lost $50 on Rio in that game. What started it all? That’s right, lost my job yesterday and my insurance got cancelled on me because of the test results, no wonder I called Barack. Dropped by the Tea Party for a while, but those guys were fucking off the wall, could not hang with them so I busted over to FOX News after-party, but that was out of control too. Plus I can’t in good conscience listen to a room full of people trash talk my buddy, so I had to tune them out and get going.
Met up with Sanford, despite him leaving me hanging a while back for some hiking, his chick was nice though, wait were we in her bed? No, couldn’t be. Sanford totally holding on to that chick and his job, never would have let us near her. I was drinking away the pain of losing the house too, so I know I had some shots after hearing the news of the bailouts. Ha, those fuckers fucked me, and got paid to do it, now I feel like another drink. It was Mike’s going away party too, what a New Year’s, dude is shipping off to Afghanistan after three tours in Iraq, rough road to walk there. At least we sent him off in style.
My fucking head is killing me, must have been mixing punditry and journalism for that punch Wes calls “newsertainment”. That shit is lethal. Walking down the street I don’t know which way is up; we’re all confused and can’t get our facts straight, haha, never getting in to that shit again. We gotta sit down a second. Wow, what a night. Too much bullshit and booze, the fucking bottom fell out last night. This is rock bottom. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves, bingeing on hope and news punch only to just feel like shit after it’s all over, doing it again years later once we forget about the hangover? So much bullshitting and empty promises man, no reason to do it, yet we keep falling for the peer pressure every time. Gotta get our shit together man, just learn to say when enough is enough. And who was that chick sleeping next to me? Some brunette, that chick was crazy, and dumb as hell. Wasn’t she from Alaska, just passing through but just would not go away…what was her name.
We breathe deeply and lean our head against the wall rail on the stoop we sit at. Just need to rest a moment ad collect ourselves as the shining sun, God’s spotlight, punishes us for giving most of our day to last night’s affairs. A glaring reminder that in the night you were evil, a sinner falling for the devil’s tricks, but in the day’s light you are very clearly able to see the error of your ways. We hate that sun now, wish we could have stayed in bed with the Alaska chick, would have been easy, but we decided to know better and not linger on that idea. Pretty, different, but no type to be getting in bed with for more than a fling, don’t want to commit for four or especially eight years. Barack was cool last night, but what a drag, such a talker and he never backs it up. Told me he could get me in to that club downtown, “healthcare”, fucking wash out. Told me he had a scheme to get me out of hock, but that didn’t go well. Just a fucking big talker, so much for a fun night, now we feel like shit.
This is our hangover we are dealing with. 2009 brought much disappointment, not really in actual events, but in the idea that Barack sold us in 2008. This last year, now gone and past, the final chapter in the decade of “oughts and shouldas”, stands as a tough year for this nation and those the live in it. We had such hopes after 8 terrible years, that we could have a great hoorah in 2009 and get back on track, but all I feel is a hand job without the release. No happy ending to this year. Instead I look back on 2009 as a lost opportunity, a series of epic fails that snowballed in to the worst hangover this country can feel. There is little to unite us, much more to divide us, and we sail blindly, after a series of scary attacks, increased war efforts, and fear mongering on an accelerated scale, knowing full well that there is no telling how badly we can squander the chance 2010 gives us for true redemption. Sitting on this stoop in God knows where suffering from binge drinking of hope and here-say, all we can ask is whether 2010 will serve as the alka-seltzer to our troubling woes, or just hair of the dog?
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Grand Old Party Purity: Get tested every six months…
Posted by Wes
to avoid an outbreak of moderate views and ideas
or: in case of a ‘moderate ideas’ outbreak, take Purivax every day until you again hate gays, immigrants, and rekindle your love for guns. (side effects may include rash, dizziness, prolonged spells of irrational fear, misinformation on all political topics, a predisposition to simply scream instead of reasoning with opposition, anal leakage, and even supporting G W Bush for re-election. If side effects continue, contact your nearest republican representative for a job, immediately.) Purivax, wouldn’t this country be great if we had a moat?
For many years leading up until now the very driving force of hope and joy has been sucked out of my life force by one story after another of truly despicable and shocking actions by those vested with the responsibility of representing the proletariate they were elected to fight for. Week after week and year after year, the will of the people has been largely ignored, as well as the masses of the world, as America, specifically the GOP, ran rough shod over every human right and possibility of progress this country has had on a myriad of topics. When Obama was elected, or was campaigning even, this country began to polarize in a way that I had not seen in my lifetime. As he became president and started enacting his decisions on policy and action, the outraged tides were stemmed no longer, and the tidal wave of irrational fear and neo-racism came rushing in from all sides. I felt that there might have been a real chance for bi-partisanship in this country despite this, but I have been so wrong. Though Obama may claim to want it, I haven’t seen it, and if the GOP’s new purity test is any indication, the conservative right has now galvanized to shun even moderates who represented the possibility for across-the-aisle progress in this country.
If you haven’t been obsessed with politics as I am, then you may not have caught wind of the new ‘purity test’. It is a list of ten policies and platforms that every republican running for office in 2010 must adhere to so as to receive support from the GOP in their election. The ten items include opposing Obama-care, bills like the stimulus package, anti-amnesty immigration laws, protecting the defense of marriage act, and supporting the right to bear arms, among others. Every candidate must meet at least eight out of ten of these items to qualify as a conservative republican and be eligible for support in fundraising and endorsements from the far-right GOP. The test was designed to weed out moderate republicans in the coming elections; with no support from their party, moderate candidates would die leaving an opening for the GOP supported, far-right candidates to run for office in the house and senate.
I want you to think about this for a minute, I mean really think about the message the GOP is sending to the public and it’s party. The GOP is saying that if you aren’t with us eighty percent then you are not with us at all. It is no secret that I feel the GOP has entrenched itself for legislative war up until now; this proposal now stipulates that no traitor shall be given quarter, and no nay sayer shall be in rank and file of their army. The GOP has essentially stated that they are now requiring every candidate to either give not an inch, no bi-partisan consent, and to hold true to ideologies of the conservative core of the party, or they can join the drum march in to a communist Soddom and Gammorah ushered in under the guise of ‘responsible governing’. The party is now cutting out anyone that isn’t completely with them, requiring them to play ball or they will be excommunicated from the party to fend for themselves on their outlandish ideas of a moderate nature.
When I thought about this I found a few things quite funny as well as terrifying. When I first heard about the ‘purity test’ consisting of ten items I immediately thought that it could not have been a coincidence that the conservative, religious-right came up with ten rules to campaign by, or be shunned in to damnation…c’mon, ten commandments maybe? The party decided that they needed a list of ten mortal ‘sins’ to judge men by as an election came around. Someone decided that ten, exactly ten, items needed to be highlighted that required adherence, so as to get in to heaven..I mean, the RNC. I find it so funny that the religious arm of the conservative party, an all too powerful group of decision makers with puppeteering hands, had to pick just ten. If you look at the rules I see that there are two that sound very much alike, as if they had nine, but needed to fill to conjure images of Moses handing down platforms and policy reform to live by…I’m guessing they think Moses would have run for the Senate.
When I heard the term ‘purity test’ I then became cold and fearful, my laughter dying out. A purity test? Could it be that a bunch of lawmaking, rich, white men decided that they needed a system by which to measure the purity of those in their party, and to a greater extent, the length to which they would go to achieve it? The last time a bunch of white men sat around in a room talking about purity, a million people vanished and Poland had it’s worst tourist season ever; just saying. Hey, if the TEA Party can call Obama “Hitler” then I think this is a fair situation to turn the ‘light of the third reich’ on its head. I find it a very scary proposition for the possible progress in those brave people willing to open their minds to moderate views, that could represent a populous well, when their party has got a knife to their GOP umbilical cord. The sweat needs to be pouring on the brow of those willing to hear legitimate concerns from the left right now. There they are pouring over their voting record and policy moves to make sure they qualify, or where they can fudge the results to fit in the new cement boots of a helplessly desperate party center.
What does this all represent? How has the party become so hostile and unyielding in their policies so as to take it to the extreme of a political contract? I cannot understand how the members of the republican party can stand idly by as those willing to explore moderate compromises are burned at the electoral-stakes as witches. I think it shows a complete lack of respect for the times we live in and the possibilities that are out there. The Grand Old Party is showing its age as it is not willing to embrace a growing population of those Americans, even republicans, that are pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, pro-gun legislation, and pro-health care reform. I know that Obama, and nobody so far, has it right on every issue, the times today have complicated these issues, but I think it is damaging to us as a nation to have one of the two parties unwilling to budge or support anyone that is open to hearing new ideas and constructive criticism to the point that you must sign your ability, as a representative, to re-evaluate your stance as you mature and new information or concerns come to light. Nothing can be gained if we are not willing, first, to truly be open to change.
I am outraged at the audacity of the GOP to literally hold a career ending gun to the heads of those wanting to make change and do good for the public, though in a misguided way, and to stunt their ability to be sentient beings. You are handicapping some of the greatest young minds your party has to offer and you make no apologies for it. If it were me, and I was a republican (shudder), I would be the first to stand up and say “hey, isn’t our conservative party lines and exclusive party policies what lost us every source of power we had in 2008?” Just saying. This party was supposed to be rebranded, remember that? Where a bunch of republicans sat around in what looked like a Pizza Hut and talked about the party ‘rebranding’ and then they placed a black guy as their party representative, Michael Steele. I remember that, do you, GOP? Was this the rebranding, because this feels more like branding…literally branding your party members like cattle on the farm as your intellectual and literal property. Save a horse, ride a Republican.
There is a more nefarious idea I explored as the republican’ts put this out, do you want to elect anyone who signed it? As a republican I would fear two things. First I would fear that my representative was so conservative that they would qualify, and secondly, that my representative trying to get elected would fudge their record or lie to get the GOP support by signing it. Either way the country and the constituents lose. If they are so conservative that they qualify, then progress on the myriad of rights, amnesty, and reform policies would never be explored, even as information and concern changes with time. Your representative would have to ignore moral and constituent’s imperatives to re-evaluate just so as to adhere to these strict guidelines. In this situation the will of the people and this country would not be done. Secondly, if they lie or scheme their way in to the good graces of the party, do you want a slime-ball like that representing you? Would you want someone willing to disavow their own guiding principles in favor of GOP support and funding? They are essentially selling out for money even before they get in to office, there is no way that person has the moral aptitude to represent you and stand up for what is right when they feel it is time, no matter the cost. Either one of the candidates represents the worst possible option when faced with the fallout of not getting with the conservative program.
There may be an upside to this though, as the liberal that I am. The ten commandments as they stand (let’s just call them what they are) would not allow for Sarah Palin, based on her record and platforms, to qualify for support from the party and therefore could not get a nomination to office from the Republican party. This is great news as that maverick can not play the Washington game with her ‘shoot from the hip’ kind of ‘tell it how it is’ mentality. Little Miss Land of the Midnight Sun would have to jump on the GOP bandwagon or get trampled to get to the white house. How great is it that she could not get the support to make a run, unless she recanted, went back on her word, morals, rogue persona, and let the party ‘handle’ her to get to the white house. She would have no footing, if this list stands long enough, from which to run for office. She could not run as a republican representative without the nomination, so she would have to run as an independent…Hardy-fucking-har-har. Hell, they would send Nader back out there just to beat her, and how great would it be for Palin to suck republican votes away as an independent leading to an Obama landslide in 2012!?
The new party line of “qualify or fuck you, Commy” is going to weaken the party in the end. This kind of mandate will further fracture the party, alienating a moderate republican base and hurting the party in 2010. The question of “are you GOP pure?” will come up and will be a platform for candidates to campaign on. This test of GOP balls is a shining example of some of the fundamental issues Obama faces trying to make headway with these fastidious conservatives. They have their heads in the sand on the direction of this country and where it will inevitably lead as causes rise, oppressed groups get larger, and the issues for middle-america become more dire. They will be hurting themselves by saying that they accept no treaty and no compromise. Digging in their heels like this seems to be an appeal to the TEA Party movement and an all out ass-presentation to those involved supporting the 9/12 project. Don’t think that the GOP doesn’t have a specific demographic in mind when trying to retake seats of the senate in many conservative states that flipped on them.
The GOP is attempting to shun those that could be a key asset to showing the party’s aforementioned “rebranding” in the future, opting instead for a party manifesto to weed out the unsavory characters eroding what this country stands for…hmmm, seems there was this guy Karl who had a manifesto once (turn around is fair play after all). I cannot pretend to not see what the religious-right base is trying to do. I have to say that if you are trying to reach out to new voters and appeal to lapsed republicans after a decade of screwing up, the last thing you wanna do is push someone that you are trying to pull in from the ledge of a 15 story building. The action you should be taking is inclusion, open dialogue, and free exchange of ideas which could lead to those on the fence choosing your dead republican grass over our brown liberal grass. This oathe-like list has done little but to disheartened those of us that wanted bi-partisan progress, and scare the shit out of those in your party that don’t fornicate in a pentagram covered in the blood of a thousand enviro-activists while rhythmically chanting the names of all republican presidents. You can’t blame them for doing some house cleaning though, because when you are trying to stage a national coup for power you can’t have any pussy moderates standing in your way examining the ‘consequences’ of your ‘actions’. Heil, Reagan!
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Posted in Politics
Tags: 10, 8, amendment, america, amnesty, beater, bi-partisan, bible, campaign, candidates, care, communist, conservative, fundraising, germany, gop, government, grand, gun, health, hitler, illegal, immigrants, items, jews, karl, list, lower, manifesto, marx, middle, moderates, obama, old, option, package, party, poland, political, Purity, reagan, reform, religious, republican, right, rights, ronald, second, shunned, smaller, socialist, stimulus, support, taxes, ten, test, universal, USA
‘Tis the Season…For Equating Love with Money
Posted by Wes
It’s that time of year, the holiday season, where you seemingly feel an overwhelming urge to grit your teeth and bare the discomfort to spend time with judgmental people you dislike the other ten months of the year. You sit and eat meals, you send christmas cards, and you also fight tooth and nail to the death for the best deal on a flat screen TV you don’t need in a house that is getting tougher to afford so you can watch assholes on Survivor in 1080i HD. Indeed, this season of barfight-like kerfuffles in the aisles of Toys ‘R’ Us and Best Buy across the nation to appease little Timmy and Susan Q American so as to keep them from hating you to the point they cut their wrists when off their meds, is a testament to the real spirit of the season as it stands today. It wasn’t so long ago that gift cards were lame and price tags on gifts were taboo, as you shopped with thought and care as to get the right thing for those special people in your life so as to light up their faces with joy and wonder. What it has become is the tabulation of a P&L sheet as to see how much you spent and what profit you may have made while sliding all the thoughtless plastic tender in to your wallet to get the things no one knew you well enough to know you might want. ‘Tis the season…
I remember when I was growing up and Christmas came around. As a youngster I rarely received gift cards, if ever. As a tiny tot I got a check from Grandma, but that is as close to a Best Buy card as I got; what I had under the tree were actual gifts wrapped with care and purchased with thought by those that loved me. When I got to ravage that pile of commercialized wonder I opened item after item, knowing I had wanted every one, and that ‘Santa’ had me in mind when every enslaved Elf built it…ok, not really, but you get the point. When I was a kid you bought people stuff, you actually went out and shopped. You thought long and hard about that thing you saw them looking at six months ago and they just never got for themselves, or that item of conversation in passing while waiting for a table at the Sizzler on some idle Sunday evening. These were the days when people put real care in to what they gave to you, and vice versa.
When I was growing up my mother always taught me to take the price tag off of things I was wrapping. In my mother’s eyes the price of something was between you and the poor, suicidal clerk at Cash/Wrap 1 who rang you up, no one else. My relationship to the price tag was that of a sin confessed between me and my priest, not for others to know. The greatest of follies in gift giving was for there to be any remnant of the price tag, so before wrapping you carefully inspected every crevasse to ensure that no evidence of the monetary value was present, even though the poor recipient would be walking through Target the next week and take a gander at the $19.99 discount price you snagged it at. A present was to be a gift and the price tag was removed to both keep the recipient from feeling guilty if you spent a lot, and to keep you from feeling foolish if you spent only a little. Money was taken completely out of the picture and gifts were to be given in ernest, never making either party feel like they got gipped, or owed, in the exchange.
There was a shift a long time ago as I got older. When I got in to my teens it started innocently with gift receipts from Grandma in case I already had one, or didn’t like it. With Grandma it was acceptable, what did she know, I only saw her three times a year; birthday, christmas, and thanksgiving; so it was forgivable that she was out of the loop on my interests and desires. After all, with Grandma it was really only talk of my grades in school and what I wanted to be when I grew up; would it have killed you to talk about anything but my job, really? But it started with my parents once I got a bit older, receipts with every gift, and now Grandma wasn’t the only one rolling out the money. My parents didn’t write me a check, that was Grandma’s gig. How weird would it have been to get a check from your parents at 12 years old? “Don’t cash it ‘til Friday, love you.” Parents started giving you cash and then some generic gift that seemed like an afterthought to the money, like they felt they couldn’t give you JUST cash, so they got you a piece of Coca-Cola merch or an eight ball skull. Thanks…for the money.
Thought in gifts was taking a turn at this point and once I hit puberty it was less thoughtful than ever. First off, your parents just asked you what you wanted in advance, if you weren’t dropping hints with with Sunday newspaper ads open to what you wanted, circled and highlighted as they drank their morning coffee. So they never thought about you, they just didn’t want you pissed when they got the wrong thing, you were distant enough already, so they just asked. So, if they got you something it was exactly what you asked for. Worst was when they would call you from the store and play the “Hey, what was that thing you mentioned last week, my co-worker was trying to get something for his son, your age?” game, and you had to play coy like you didn’t know what was coming home with your name on it.
Then went the wrapping, my parents and friends stopped wrapping things themselves. If they didn’t get it wrapped by some poor sap at the store then some girl scout troop was wrapping your gifts for you for donations so they could go camping in Spain in the summer to get their ‘running of the bulls’ merit badge or something. What’s even worse is the bag, you know the one, $2.99 and stuff with tissue paper with handles for easy transport. You see someone pull out the bag by the handles like it’s left overs from a Thai joint and plop it down in front of you, and you go through like a grocery bag making sure that you got everything before putting everything back in to it and tossing the tissue paper. By the way, how much does that bag take the fun out of ripping open a wrapped package!? I mean, there is no great reveal satisfaction when you look down in to a bag, but when you viciously strip a gift naked, then we’re talking some Christmas cheer.
Now we’ve skipped forward and the whole system is plastic today. Rare is the truly thoughtful gift. Price tags and receipts are standard on all gifts and they are given with the disclaimer, “you’re so hard to shop for, the receipt is in there in case you don’t want it,” gee, thanks for giving me an errand for Christmas, my favorite time of year to jam in to crowded streets and get stabbed for an Elmo doll, so glad to get back out there once my stitches heal. Now we don’t even give gifts, we just give the ‘gift card’. Boy did those make a huge leap. Remember when they were like paper gift certificates that sometimes looked like fake money. Now they went digital looking more like credit cards, good way to train up the little ones for a life of debt, get them comfortable with plastic early. So now we don’t even try, and we don’t wrap, and we don’t think. We instantly decide, at the register, what you are worth and what store we think you might like; Bath and Body Works for women, Sears for men, and Best Buy is gender neutral.
When did this happen? When did we go from taboo price tags on thoughtful gifts to arbitrarily assigning a person in our lives a monetary value on a piece of plastic? Well I guess I could go in to deep psychological and social issues and trends in the nation that have curved towards simply passing economic funds from one consumer to another, allowing them full buying potential leading to money spent beyond the gift card value on full priced items after the holidays which lead to higher profits in the first fiscal quarter of the following year which can float stock prices on publicly traded companies keeping liquidity intact allowing for a better projected earnings sheet in the next year, but that might just be a little convoluted. I could go on to say that the advent of the gift card in the shape of any normal credit card is the greatest invention since poker chips, removing the true value of money and replacing it with an item of almost no value except the agreed upon terms, which removes the ability to spend said item anywhere but at the table/store. The genius behind the gift card is actual turning cold hard cash in to funny money that has value in only one location; the gift card is actually worse than money since you have now limited it’s buying power to just one chain, locking your money up in them like a goods & services bank until you withdraw the money in the form of a liability(item) with limited longevity. Genius.
I think we can blame commercialism and the fact that once you turn 15 you become a bitch to shop for until you turn 40. Sadly, this is the prime target market for consumer propaganda to be designed for; everyone in this category is the prime spender with disposable income and emerging identity and status issues for which to compensate. Before puberty and after the midlife crisis image is less of an issue, before 15 you aren’t secure, but you don’t really notice the differences in status and in items as much, after 40, generally, you have accepted yourself and lived long enough that you can cast those types of impulsive behaviors aside (you stop giving a shit), my father not included, he bought his first house and first Harley in 2009…he’s 48. Well in this market there is so much stuff to buy that no one knows exactly what you want at any given time, what you wanted last month is not necessarily what you want this month, so people err on the side of caution and get you money to a place where you can get the stuff you want, yourself. The exchange of gift cards is not so much trying to please someone as it is not wanting to disappoint them with a poorly thought out purchase.
Why is there this shift though? My mother raised me to hide how much was spent, and to get someone something they really wanted so they never would return it, receipts were never included either. Now it seems that if a gift is given it was purchased so as to not just be buying everyone gift cards. Gifts have turned in to place holders for thoughtfulness and are bought in haste, wrapped by someone else, and given to you with a disclaimer and the means by which to return them, in addition to a gift card so you can get what you want…shit, now I’ve got to go to two stores Saturday, a full day of shopping, for me. It seems that we have grown comfortable with the recipient of your gift card knowing exactly what they are worth to you at any given time when they calculate what you spent and figure out what that equals in love. It’s like a supply and demand chart, where the love and the money intersect is where the price of the gift card will be, less love equates less money. After all, you’re not going to give Bob Q Jackass from the office a $100 gift card and your wife the $5 one…think about it, I’ll put together a graph later.
In this country we have gotten so busy and fear the embarrassment of giving the wrong gift that we have been bullied in to giving out funny money to the people in our lives. This disconnection with the good ol’ days of scratching price tags off of carefully wrapped items has fallen just short of Grandma’s $25 dollar check and turned in to the game of the gift card. No longer are we scared of letting people know just what we think of them at a time like this. I fear the distaste for our families during the holidays has seeped to the surface and is now poisoning our shopping. We now relish in giving people $10 gift cards to Applebee’s to passive aggressively tell Uncle Rich he can shove his snooty corporate-job digs. Every one of us is guilty of giving the gift card, the modern equivalent of a new tie for dad, but now we give them to everyone and expect the same in return so as to get our money back. But now the hostage exchange of gift card for gift card can really stick the shame to a friend when you give them fifty and they only give you twenty five. Like savvy Wall Street brokers we’re investing gift/shame equity in our friends and loved ones so as to turn a profit somewhere down the line. I’m just spitballing here, but let’s leave the gift cards to Grandma and actually get a thoughtful gift, carefully wrap it, a watch the disappointment fill your sister’s eyes when she rips it open on Christmas day and sees how little you actually care, like Jesus intended. Happy holidays, folks.
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Posted in Personal
Tags: $25, and, applebees, badges, bar, bath, battle, best, black, body, brothers, buy, card, care, checks, christmas, commercialism, consumers, cost, crowds, dad, deals, distaste, doll, elmo, equating, errands, exchange, family, fight, friday, friends, funny, gift, giftee, gifter, gifts, girl, giving, grandma, holiday, hostage, joy, kid, last, loed, losses, Love, men, merit, mom, money, ones, price, profit, receipt, recipient, return, santa, savings, scouts, sears, season, shame, shopping, sisters, spirit, suicidal, taboo, tag, thanksgiving, toy, tree, women, works, wrapping, young
