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Candidates That Make The Tea Party Look Like, Er, A Tea Party

[ 2 Comments ]Posted on July 28, 2010 by admin in Politics

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

A quick roundup of 2010 political campaigns fueled by Jesus, 9/11 conspiracies, and a poorly guaged Lithium prescription.


Vote for Basil Marceaux, and he’ll
“immune you from all state crimes
for the rest of you life”

I was recently lamenting the seriousness of American politics, but it appears the Patron Saint of Crazy has smiled upon us. The other day we talked about Alvin Greene, who campaigns as a Democrat for the US Senate when he’s not busy being an unemployed felon that lives with his mom, but it seems there’s a veritable epidemic of viral-campaign-ready loonies out there, with the infectious epicenters currently located in Tennessee and Michigan. In Tennessee, we have a heated gubernatorial race between Basil Marceaux, whose main pitch is “VOTE FOR ME AND IF I WIN I WILL IMMUNE YOU FROM ALL STATE CRIMES FOR THE REST OF YOU LIFE” and James Reesor , whose Feet On The Street Reesor Sign Tour is built on a “95-county Grassroots campaign through Fast-food restaurants and car lots”. We won’t bore you with more copy that just regurgitates these candidates’ platforms; their slickly-produced videos deliver their messages much more eloquently and efficently. Video below. Read the rest of this entry »

Apple Gets EFFed In Court While Al Greene Runs For Senate

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on July 26, 2010 by admin in Politics

Monday, July 26th, 2010

While both the EFF and Alvin Greene have scored their own little victories recently, we’re still waiting for the Alvin Greene Day & The Chipmunks mashup.

I love it when the day’s news converges in such a way that politics, pop media, copyright law, and comedy collide in an amorphous mass of inanely entertaining foolishness. Like today. While the EFF scored major victories allowing you to jailbreak your iPhone and remix YouTube video content, the PR firm “Frank Strategies” forced a YouTube takedown of the Alvin Greene campaign rap video because it used a few seconds of crappy Tea Party protest footage from one of their videos. Except it wasn’t actually Alvin Greene’s campaign video , and and you can still find it on YouTube, ironically on the Fixed News Channel, which parodies Fox News. If you haven’t followed this story, Alvin Greene is an unemployed felon who lives with his mom, who in spite of these minor handicaps was also the recent victor in the South Carolina Democratic U.S. Senate primary race. Many believe he was a GOP plant. Just another campaign season in America, I guess. Given the media mashup nature of this story, the biggest surprise here is that there still is no “Alvin Greene and the Chipmunks”* parody. Until then, the only Al Green video that gets my vote is featured below…. Read the rest of this entry »

CrimethInc – Anarchy For Fun & Profit

[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 25, 2010 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

CrimethInc is one of the best-organized non-organizations you never heard of.

I’ve often lamented the demise or sellout of culture-jamming publications like Might Magazine* and Ad Busters, which was part of why I was a little intrigued a few months ago when I saw the anti-consumerism video The Story Of Stuff that was making the rounds on the web. That is, until I dug a little deeper and realized that its creator, Annie Leonard – who comes across as a woman who cares and is making a difference – had a book published by Simon & Schuster, which is ultimately owned by National Amusements and Viacom, and that she was really just cashing in on the very system she opposes. Especially worthy of note is that one of her few programs is an assault on cosmetics, a product that this Simon & Schuster promo video makes abundantly evident she does not consume with any enthusiasm. So as a latent libertarian and aging punk-slash-anarchist-slash-pop culture crybaby, I was excited recently when I ran across CrimethInc, one of the best-organized non-organizations I’ve come across in quite a while. The site is much deeper than it appears; use the search box if you’re not finding something of interest. Their latest articles are about the G20 shenanigans in Toronto, but I found the Steal From Work Day campaign from earlier this year much more amusing. The have lots of free downloads of posters, stickers and literature, but if you want to give them money, they’ll sell you things too. They somehow manage to make the idea of an “anarchist store” palatable by using the hippy-dippy e-commerce support of Portland, Oregon’s BuyOlympia.com. Preview some of their goods below. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome To Biraq Obamastan

[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 4, 2010 by admin in Politics

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

How Barack Obama taught me that irony is a sorry kind of slapstick.


I hope the world can handle all the peace
and democracy we keep delivering them

It’s painfully ironic for me to become as cynical as I have about Barack Obama, especially in light of the fact that his remark on the campaign trail that “Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom” was one of the things that helped inspire me to vote for him. I know now – and I did deep down inside then – that in spite of his promise of no permanent bases in Iraq (the kind of language that Bill Clinton loved using), and his implied intention to get America disengaged from wars of aggression abroad, there is absolutely no way his presidency means America’s withdrawal from Iraq or Afghanistan. RNC chairman Michael Steele’s bizarre proclamation that the war in Afghanistan is a “war of Obama’s choosing” doesn’t surprise me at all either; Steele confirmed his ignorance back in April when he played the race card by saying that he and President Obama have a slimmer margin of error because of their race. Which of course left him wide open to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs saying “I think Michael Steele’s problem isn’t the race card, it’s the credit card“, in reference to Steele’s lavish personal expenses as RNC chair. No, Steele’s idiotic statement fits nicely with a long tradition in politics of creating a problem while you’re in office, and then blaming the new guy when you’re out. Much like Vietnam was perceived as Nixon’s war even though LBJ had every chance to end it, and much like Carter was blamed for the Iran hostage crisis even though – as apalling as the likely truth is – it was Republicans who engineered the hostages’ extended captivity, Barack Obama will almost certainly inherit the two wars the Bush administration started as part of his own legacy; the GOP has already done a pretty good job (via tea partiers) of pinning the bailouts of the Bush era on the Obama administration even though they were legislated before Obama was even in office. Read the rest of this entry »

Are You Too Stupid To Vote?

[ 1 Comment ]Posted on June 22, 2010 by admin in Politics

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

A government “of the people, by the people, for the people”? Are you kidding? Have you talked to “the people” lately?

Are you too stupid to vote? Or just rationally ignorant? I think historically politicians have banked on the former. And frankly, I think there’s a viable argument that democracy isn’t working in America because, well, you’re a retard*. A fact that – in better times – lent a certain humor to politics. Personally, I’ve lamented the apparent demise of truly funny political satire for some time now; Hunter S. Thompson went and died on us, and P.J. O’Rourke must have quit drinking or something. I mean, you can still find some humor in politics if you can get far enough from the stench of it, but by and large, the topic is only funny if you’re a part of the ruling oligarchy, an overpaid “expert” on cable news laughing as you pick up your paycheck, or just too stupid too realize how bad things really are. On reflection, that last group has provided some comic relief. As an example, read the rather lengthy (and probably fictional) Rogues of K Street. The anonymous author (an alleged Tea Party political consultant) sums up just about everything ignorant about a tea party voter, and how to manipulate their sentiment. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ll admit I’m personally as ignorant as the next voter. In spite of talking a good game, I probably learned everything I know about politics from watching Primary Colors and Wag the Dog, and I can still get sucker punched like I did when I voted for the Obama crew. I also didn’t do so well on the Pew Research quiz referenced in the links above. Read the rest of this entry »

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