Maybe It's Time To Give Up

Are we a serious people?

That question has repeatedly been posed by Bill Maher on Real Time in the past year; I think it's a good one. And I fear that the answer is a resounding, "No."

We are a people who believes that we can get something for nothing. We believe that we can simultaneously have both increased government services and lower taxes. We decry government "pork-barrel" spending, yet ferociously defend any program, agency or policy that directly benefits us individually. We shed crocodile tears about the burdens our current policies will place upon future generations, yet refuse to do anything to change those policies.

The politics of our day is a stunning exercise in self-delusion and cognitive dissonance. I encounter many liberals, people who supported Barack Obama's Presidential bid, who are in many cases absolutely enraged that the President is enacting exactly the policies that he promulgated during the campaign. And conservatives who nodded heartily in agreement when Vice President Cheney intoned, "Deficits don't matter," who cheered as the Bush Administration went about the business of squandering the budget surpluses left them by the Clinton Administration, now unselfconsciously clothe themselves in the ill-fitting robe of fiscal responsibility.

Today's political parties, to a greater degree than since the Gilded Age, serve narrowly-defined constituencies; the corrosive influence of special-interest monies has eaten away at the notion of a "public good." Good policy no longer matters, only the exigencies of the permanent election cycle. And, most disturbing, we actually embrace this notion of politics-as-gladiatorial-theater; we root for our chosen "leaders" and their insincere, insubstantial, bought-and-paid-for ideologies as though they were players for our favorite sports team.

This can be seen even in America's pop culture. A new class of celebrity has emerged: people who are famous just for being famous. Lack of talent, ability or intelligence is no longer an issue, as long as one is determined enough to force one's way into the popular consciousness. We have Paris, Jon, Kate, OctoMom, Balloon Boy, and the list goes on, and on, and on.

This is not the manner in which a serious people behaves. It is the behavior, rather, of an empire in decline. One can't help but think that we have reached the point as a nation where we are essentially ungovernable; we have lost the self-discipline and perspective to forestall our eventual, inevitable collapse as a society.

And so I sadly say: Perhaps it is time for the serious-minded among us to give simply up and join in America's death-throe party. Though we may be well-meaning, the pearls we cast before swine just don't matter.

Why Does John McCain Piss Me Off So Much?

...It's a question I ask myself. What is it about his candidacy that makes me see red?

I guess that it's really about disappointment. A year ago, I could easily have seen myself voting for John McCain. He is, after all, a genuine American war hero; he's a very likable public figure, capable of rare self-deprecation; he had shown an ability to learn from his own mistakes (can you say "Keating Five?") by co-authoring campaign reform legislation; he had refused to pander to the crazy religious right, correctly calling them "agents of intolerance;" he had been more pragmatic than doctrinaire on numerous policy positions, including climate change and progressive taxation.

But, in the last year, much about John McCain has changed for the worse; the man has turned against much of what made him worth believing in. He started taking his economic outlook from the Republican orthodoxy (in the persons of Phil Gramm, et al) rather than from Main Street; he began kowtowing to the likes of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and James Dobson; he abandoned policy for personality, honesty for obfuscation, straight talk for double talk.

As a proud independent, I have been let down by the Senator. Look, I understand the reality that he had to win the Republican nomination, and honesty doesn't fit into that equation. But these seemingly endless inconsistencies make me wonder if John McCain has any beliefs at all.

And that's something I can't waste a precious vote upon.

The MILF Speaks! Republicans Hear What They Want To.

Listening to Sarah Palin speak Wednesday night at the RNC, I couldn't help but be unimpressed. Her speech said essentially nothing, and certainly nothing new; it was just the same old cultural warfare, decrying us "elites" who believe in crazy notions like evolution and gravity. A couple of convenient lies, some snarkiness, but no substance. No policy. Nothing.

Others, though, seemed much more impressed. In part, this is probably because I always listen to speeches, rather than watch them; I do not wish to be distracted by empty images when I could actually be hearing the words. So, while most people were immersing themselves in Palin's warm MILFiness (and, doubtless, seeing the TV cut to adoring looks from the party faithful), I was left with her tired phrases, delivered in that high-pitched, nasal Alaskan whine.

But there is more to it than just imagery. In post-speech interviews, party delegates were utterly, over-the-top effusive in their praise, some even calling her the next Ronald Reagan. So why this wide gap between my perceptions and theirs? The answer, I feel, lies in what Sarah Palin is not.

You see, each of John McCain's other potential running mates was, to a greater or lesser degree, more of a known commodity. And each had some potential difficulty looming with one or another of the GOP's core factions. Palin, by contrast, is not burdened with much of a national reputation. She is a blank canvas upon which Republicans of every stripe can project all of their fondest hopes and dreams. And that is just what they're doing.

Now, in order to be elected, all McCain and Palin need to do is keep us (and especially the press) distracted for the next two months with red herrings -- you know, stuff like endless discussions of pregnant teenage daughters -- and we'll never have to think about pesky things like her record, nor who she really is.

Identity Politics Or Bust!

One need not wonder what John McCain was thinking when he named MILF Sarah Palin as his running mate. It is as utterly transparent as it is insulting.

In the aftermath of Joe Biden's announcement as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, it was mildly amusing to watch members of the right-wing media feign sympathy for the plight of poor, poor Hillary Clinton. After nearly two decades of using her as one of their favorite punching bags, did they now truly feel that Senator Clinton had been unfairly slighted? I think that both you and I know the answer to that question.

And now, with the choice of Palin, we see what all those distributed talking points were leading up to: The GOP believes that cranky, stridently Clinton-supporting PUMAs* will now flock to the Republican ticket because, like Hillary, Alaska's first-term governor happens to have a vagina. That is, apparently, all it takes -- never mind the fact that Palin has roughly the same worldview as Strom Thurmond.

Once, not long ago, John McCain didn't believe in pandering to identity politics. But how quickly things change. I sincerely hope that those who are targets of McCain's cynical maneuverings still have enough of their wits about them to know when they are being treated like idiots -- and to be appropriately angry.



*PUMA = Party Unity, My Ass

Panderers To The Left Of Me! Panderers To The Right!

Perhaps you've heard: Oil and gasoline prices are rather high. And no one really has a way to change that fact. Fortunately, though, our political class does have a method by which they hope to make me feel better about it: Pandering.

On the left, the Democratic congressional majority, in recent months, brought oil company executives before them for an utterly unilluminating inquisition. In an attempt to provide the illusion of doing something, both the House and Senate used those hapless execs, and the "evil corporations" they head, as verbal punching bags for a couple of days in the spring. And the end result? Nothing.

On the right, our Republican friends in congress have recently given us a new slogan: "Find more. Use less." In other words, drill and conserve. For people who supposedly cherish the "magic of the market," the GOP seems to have absolutely no grasp of market economics. Reduce demand? Sure. Makes sense. Unfortunately, though, the decreasing prices that would result from increased supply would, logically, serve as a perverse incentive against that goal.

Even The Decider, moron that he is, has likened our thirst for oil to the jones of an addict. So are Republicans telling us that the best way to wean a junkie off heroin is to supply him with even more heroin, at a cheaper price?

And candidate McCain's take on the high price of fuel? In a new campaign ad, he tells us that it's all Barack Obama's fault. (Wow! Obama has that kind of power? We'd better elect him President; if he gets pissed at us, there's no telling what kind of havoc he might wreak!)

I'm tired of being pandered to, from left, right and center. So why don't you all just shut up, go about the real business of governing, and stop the empty theatrics? And stop treating me like an idiot!

A Glimpse Into Republican Economic "Thought"

In the news: Top McCain economic advisor Phil Gramm has bestowed his "wisdom" upon us concerning the U.S. economy. The former Republican Senator and financial services lobbyist believes that our economic problems are all in our collective head, that we are a nation of whiners, that it's just a "mental recession."

Really, Mister Gramm? That makes me feel so much better!

The rising cost of food at the local grocery store? The falling sales of the company for which I work, and the corresponding cutbacks? The inflation of energy costs, both at the gas pump and the electric meter? Thank God, they're all hallucinations!

Or maybe there is a better, more rational explanation. Maybe Phil Gramm, like so many Republicans, lives in a flimsily-built, inside-the-beltway fantasy world, insulated from the hard realities of life by some combination of material wealth and irrationalism.

In a perfect world, some unemployed Rust Belt everyman would meet Gramm in a dark alley and beat the living piss out of him, with the same lack of mercy that he and his ilk have shown those of us who work for a living. Then we could assure him that the pains from his many contusions and broken bones, the blood issuing from his orifices, were merely figments of his imagination.

But I digress.

Ultimately, this kerfuffle merely serves to illustrate why we cannot afford a President John McCain. McCain himself has admitted that he knows little about economics (as an aside, one has to wonder why Johnny Boy, during 25-plus years in Congress, never bothered to learn much about the subject), and it shows: He has, in his campaign, simply fallen back on the standard Republican economic orthodoxy, leaning on the likes of Gramm for poor economic advice.

We are on the verge of a second Gilded Age. And this time, in this time of unreason, in this New Corporate Age, we cannot count upon a second Progressive Movement to save us from it.