The QE2, The Titanic, And Why I Didn’t Vote Last Week
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on November 6, 2010 by admin in Politics
Saturday, November 6th, 2010But I’m glad you were on deck screaming “I don’t think we should sink!” I’m sure it helped. Oh. And all these “bubbles” you keep hearing about? They’re normal when a huge ship is going down.
 Context here if you don’t get this joke |
Yesterday a friend asked me if I voted last week. I calmly said “nope”, to find myself on the receiving end of a laser-like liberal glare that screamed “how could you abandon us at this crucial juncture in history?“, but then out loud they said “Why the f— NOT? Are you RETARDED or something???” I then reminded my liberal friend that it’s not nice to say “retarded”, and went on to explain that my decision not to vote was part of my plan to accelerate my collapsitarian vision for a shiny new apocalypse. You see, what liberal, conservative, and especially that other bunch of voters seemed not to notice last week was the fact that Ben Bernanke had instructed Washington to print a bunch of money in a quantitative easing effort. For those of you not familiar with sophisticated economic terminology, 1 bunch=$600,000,000, and according to many, quantitative easing = bank bailout. To me the best part of this all is that since everyone’s calling it “QE2″, we no longer have to resort to that hackneyed “polishing the brass on the Titanic” line. The QE2, as you may recall, was the last of the great steam-powered luxury liners, whose only satisfied customers were probably the British soldiers that she ferried to the Falkland War. The debate will rage about this economic strategy until the results manifest themselves, but for one of the more balanced views of what’s going on (even if you do think he’s full of shibboleth) Paul Krugman sums things up here. And there’s one likely side effect of this cash injection that I find hilarious: in spite of the fact that if teabaggers had any idea what’s going on in the real world, they would be in a psychotic rage about the government printing a bunch of money at a time like this. But in their inexplicable ignorance, they’ll support it with every bone in their little heads, because clearly, if the rest of the world thinks an idea is stupid, it must be the patriotic thing to do. By the way, if you want to print your own money at will just like Ben, HowStuffWorks has excellent step-by-step instructions. Read the rest of this entry »
The Donner Party – When You’re Hungry For Change But All Hope Is Lost
[ 4 Comments ]Posted on October 19, 2010 by admin in Politics
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010In the vast and brutal wasteland of contemporary American politics, sometimes there’s only one way to survive.
The massive expanse left between the extreme poles of America’s rabidly partisan politics these days leaves the voter in a vast unexplored frontier, where strange and frightening things can happen. Democrats have finally elected a genius IQ black president, and in their infinite and over-intellectualized whininess are still unhappy. Republicans had eight years of exactly what they wanted, the rootenest, tootenest, pro-war, pro-business, pro-rich cowboy the world could dream of, and they’re unhappy, fleeing in droves to the imagined solace of the nebulous and disparate solutions proposed by that bizarre collage of projected voter frustration called the “Tea Party”. Personally, I’m not falling for it; that’s why I’ve proposed innovative solutions like the Punk Party, the Facebook-based I Only Like You So I Can Hate You approach , and the Palin/Quayle 2012 campaign. But in today’s ruthless, winner take all political environment, there’s really only one thing left. Cannibalism. Although the Hannibal Lecters of the GOP will deny it flat out, the Grand Ole Party has a long-standing tradition of eating their young, and in their brilliantly honed campaign savvy, they’ve realized that when the American voter is this hungry for change, they’ll eat anything. That’s why they’re willing to throw them a questionable piece of meat like Christine O’Donnell. Anything to keep the party alive, right? Which is what inspired our latest idea for an alternative political party, The Donner Party. We’re still working up some graphics, but stay tuned for an expanded store, right now we only have an overpriced Palyn/Quail bumper sticker on CafePress. Read the rest of this entry »
The Death & Rebirth Of Political Meta-Satire As Quantum Comedy
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on September 25, 2010 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Saturday, September 25th, 2010Figures like Stephen Colbert, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin have introduced an uncertainty principle in current politics that makes it hard to distinguish a wave of sentiment from an actual political particle.
 The confusion almost makes one nostalgic for the campy satire of Pat Paulsen’s presidential campaigns |
Recently I was going to write about the laws in Brazil that prohibit satirical political candidates during election time, criticizing such laws for denying free speech, which many of us would view as a cornerstone of modern democracy. I mean, sure. This can lead to odd results, like porn star Ciccolina being elected to parliament in Italy, but as we long ago pointed out, it’s hard to tell a prostitute from a politician in the first place. But a confluence of recent events has caused me to rethink things a bit. It started when I received an e-mail from a reader referencing my attempt at meta-satire of the Stephen Colbert/Jon Stewart events sheduled to take place in DC at the end of October. The reader – an obvious teabagger – actually said “I’m happy to see that someone in the mainstream media is calling out these socialist Obamanation jokesters for what they are doing, which is obviously ramming there [sic] liberal agenda down America’s throat right before the elections“. Never mind how much it hurt my feelings when they called Dissociated Press “mainstream”, what really was worrying was the fact that they were regurgitating satirist/comedian Glenn Beck’s humorous spin on political commentator Stephen Colbert’s rally in Washington. Oh. Wait. I think I reversed something there. This inability to distinguish the comedians from the commentators and the candidates wasn’t helped any by Colbert’s recent appearance at a congressional hearing. Although you could reasonably argue that Colbert was wasting taxpayer money somehow, or blew a great opportunity to use his clout to make progress on an important issue, I think he did something even more reckless: he not only highlighted how easily the public can be confused and misled, he exposed how easily a politician can be confused and misled. And in the process exposed the American public to something they should NEVER be allowed to see, i.e., the arcane and out-of-touch legislative process in action. It was hard to decide which was more surreal – Colbert’s presence, or the committee’s response. You’ve taken us into dangerous territory Mr. Colbert, the world of “quantum comedy”, in which the frame of observation can completely determine whether an individual is a comedian or a politician. Which now has me thinking that maybe the Brazilians had it right all along. Leave the comedy to the politicians, Mr. Colbert. They do just fine on their own. Read the rest of this entry »
The Terror Babies Of Texas & The Psychology Of Politics
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 15, 2010 by admin in Politics
Sunday, August 15th, 2010The most rudimentary understanding of psychology explains a lot of what’s wrong with American politics. Even delusions of monster babies from the future that want to kill us.
Because most political dialogue amongst the citizenry these days instantly spirals downward into irrational, knee-jerk, and poorly-reasoned rants about terror, immigrants, socialism and taxes, we often fail to step back and look at the psychological underpinnings of politics in general. Looked at through such a framework, the basic forces at work are quite simple. It all goes back to Psych 101, where one learns that the leaders of any group of people – elected or not – are essentially replacements for our parents. When we’re children, the parental role is first replaced by our teachers and school officials, and later, as we gain more autonomy, by our bosses and other figures of authority, which for some may include some kind of spiritual guidance or deity. As you enter adulthood, if you aren’t the leader of some other type of group, like a business, social, or religious organization, you probably lack the audacity or strength of character to be a political leader. You will forever remain – at least metaphorically – in the role of a child. On the other hand, if you have a sense of self that makes you feel entitled to make decisions on behalf of others, regardless of whether or not you know anything about them, and if you have the communication and organizational skills necessary, your narcissistic tendencies will have the opportunity to flourish, and you stand a good chance of being a politician or some other kind of leader. All of which explains a lot about the dynamics of American politics today. Speaking metaphorically, our parents – who are supposed to provide us with a secure home, feed us, educate us, and guide us into self-sufficient responsible adulthood – have flown the coop. They’ve absconded with our allowance, blowing it on big parties, scandalous relationships, brawls with the neighbors , and half-baked schemes for rebuilding the shattered financial security resulting from their irresponsible behavior. And then, in their guilt and dysfunction, they’ve gone on and tried to point the finger at us , as if their inability to run the household is our fault. As kids, we don’t know how to react to all of this, so instead of calling them out for their shenanigans, we fight amongst each other like dysfunctional siblings. For their part, our “parents” know in their hearts that they’ve created the social and economic mess we’re all in, but are reacting like any parent would when they lose control of the kids. They’re shouting and relying completely on hyperbole to try and scare everyone back into line. Which only riles everyone up more, causing some of the kids to run away from home, others to mope around demanding that someone take care of them, and yet others to scream and shout that they have the solution, even though they’re the ones that most recently trashed the house. So is there a solution? Personally, I think some other families in the neighborhood are going to see a more prominent role in the community before we get our domestic squabbles worked out. Especially when our parents’ guilt and frustration is leading them to create nearly psychotic delusions of, for instance, imaginary terrorist babies. I’ve included a couple of clips below that demonstrate some of the metaphors I’m joking about here. Both clips are with the generally mild-mannered (and probably bleeding heart liberal) Anderson Cooper. Read the rest of this entry »
269 Reasons Why Wyclef Shouldn’t Run For President Of Haiti
[ Comments Off ]Posted on August 6, 2010 by admin in Politics
Friday, August 6th, 2010Someone needs to tell Wyclef that Autotune doesn’t work on countries.
 Reason 269: This Hat |
How about every second of this video, which is basically an advertisement for a company that among other things tries to screw its own artists and sue its customers, and features the aging white master of third world exploitation famous for screwing pretty much every artist involved in the making of Graceland. Or maybe reason #268, which is that he may not qualify as a candidate anyway. I say this all in jest of course – who knows, maybe Wyclef as the president of Haiti is a great idea. Maybe the devastated island nation would actually benefit somehow from the excessive use of autotune. But joking aside, Wyclef as president of any nation sounds like a bad idea to me for the same reason that Bono, Bob Geldof, or Peter Gabriel as a nation’s leader sounds like a bad idea. No matter how much one may admire the artist or their philanthropic activities, they are still – at their core – people who made their living shilling corporate products in one of the most greed-driven and image conscious industries on the planet. What do YOU think? Is Wyclef as president a good idea? Read the rest of this entry »