More on Rick Perry, now officially a Republican Presidential candidate...
I read today in a headline (and subsequently in the accompanying article) that Governor Perry is alleging, very publicly, that climate change is a hoax created by scientists in order to make money. Of course, what the headline should have read was: Rick Perry Claims Climate Change is Hoax Created by Scientists to Make Money so that He Can Make Money. And he will, because that will assure him more campaign contributions from those most responsible for the climate change. See, here's the basic problem: here in America, we don't believe in experts. Anybody can be an expert about anything, just so long as they heard something about the subject in question somewhere at some point in time. When anybody is allowed to say anything they damn well want, knowing that huge numbers of people will believe to them (as millions will believe Perry), it tends to devalue the actual experts. You know, the folks who went to college for four and eight and twelve years so that they can attach the title "Doctor" to their names, because that's supposed to add a little weight to their words. It should be a given that those people, the ones who actually have spent years, perhaps decades studying climate change should know a little more about it than your average guy on the street. For all intents and purposes, Perry is that guy on the street. I'd be surprised if he's spent more than several minutes in his life reading anything factual regarding climate change. Yet here he is, saying things for which he has no evidence. He says that more scientists are coming forward every day to challenge the "theory" of climate change. Well sure, if you ask a group of thousands of people, even experts, about just about anything, there will always be a few who don't buy into the widely agreed-upon view. That doesn't make them right. Even a few qualified historians will tell you that there was no Holocaust, but the vast majority agree, rightly, that there was, and the vast majority of qualified scientists agree that the climate is changing and that it is caused by humans since the Industrial Revolution.
Why is this man Perry, or anyone like him, even considered a viable presidential candidate? When people cast votes for politicians who place bluster, talking points and dubious claims over actual facts, well, that's when we end up with presidents like George W. Bush, and that's when we end up with things like a fucked-up worldwide climate, a complete lack of access to affordable or effective health care, piles of debt, pointless wars without an end in sight, and increasing disparity between the rich and the poor. I see no reason to believe that four years under President Rick Perry would be unlike any four years under President Bush the Younger. Yet, America actually considers him. What the fuck is wrong with everybody?
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Freedom
It is both sad and terrifying to me that we have here any significant portion of the population that would even consider casting a vote in favor of someone in the mold of Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann, but I try not to let it get to me too much because neither of these people would ever be considered electable to the office of President of the United States. But the guy that I prayed (figuratively speaking) would decide not to run, Governor Rick Perry (R-TX), appears ready to jump into the race, and he is truly a scary candidate, because he actually could win.
Even if you set everything else about Gov. Perry aside, he just looks uncomfortably like Ronald Reagan when he stands at a podium. Do we really want to relive the 1980s? It's worse than that, though...far, far worse. This is the guy who sponsored a state-wide prayer event, because God apparently looks kindly upon Texan presidential candidates (though it seemingly required a deal with the Devil to secure George W's seat in the Oval Office). Strangely, it was a calculated political move, a ploy to contrast Perry with Mitt "Book of Mormon" Romney, who is despised by the far-right wing of the GOP, and by most accounts, the event went very well for Perry--it is Texas, after all. The scary part is that the guy has enough charisma and appeal that he could be palatable to both ends of the Republican Party, and unlike Palin or Bachmann (or any other prospective opponent in the GOP), he actually has some sort of qualification: a political post that he has not abandoned, and the factual claim that his state has created more jobs than any other since the recession hit. He won't tell you that the huge majority of those jobs are of the part-time, minimum wage variety doing things like flipping burgers and running cash registers at Wal-Mart, but I guess work is work. So, on the surface Rick Perry looks downright Presidential, a legitimate challenger to Obama come November 2012, with the added bonus (for Republicans) of being less-obviously on the brink of speaking in tongues than some fellow members of his party.
But let's return, for a moment, to this day of prayer thing. We have this persistent problem in this country where some people would have us become a theocracy. We are no such thing, nor should we be. No religion should be imposed upon a person who does not want it, and no one religion should be given any kind of preference over another, or over the lack of one. It's right there in the Bill of Rights, the very first part of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In case you haven't read it, it states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Our founding fathers, much wiser men than your average American today (or in any day), saw the very obvious danger here, and they saw that it was important enough that they made it the first fucking thing they said on the subject of American rights. And because no religion can be legally established as a preferential one, it should not be an issue that enters into politics, and it should not be an arena into which any politician should enter. Similarly, voters should not allow it to enter into the equation of who they choose to vote for. Yet, there are still an alarming number of eligible voters who would not even consider voting for someone who was not a very visible and undoubted Christian, something that Rick Perry ensured would not come into question for him. Why do we continue to allow religion to factor into our politics to such an alarming extent? If Rick Perry is a Christian, I have no problem with that, as long as he puts the well-being of his country first. I can tell you this right now, though, I cannot stomach the thought of any national days of prayer or anything like that any more than I can accept the legitimacy of a politician who claims to have received a calling from God to be President or anything else. Here in these United States, we have freedom of religion, but we also have freedom from religion.
Even if you set everything else about Gov. Perry aside, he just looks uncomfortably like Ronald Reagan when he stands at a podium. Do we really want to relive the 1980s? It's worse than that, though...far, far worse. This is the guy who sponsored a state-wide prayer event, because God apparently looks kindly upon Texan presidential candidates (though it seemingly required a deal with the Devil to secure George W's seat in the Oval Office). Strangely, it was a calculated political move, a ploy to contrast Perry with Mitt "Book of Mormon" Romney, who is despised by the far-right wing of the GOP, and by most accounts, the event went very well for Perry--it is Texas, after all. The scary part is that the guy has enough charisma and appeal that he could be palatable to both ends of the Republican Party, and unlike Palin or Bachmann (or any other prospective opponent in the GOP), he actually has some sort of qualification: a political post that he has not abandoned, and the factual claim that his state has created more jobs than any other since the recession hit. He won't tell you that the huge majority of those jobs are of the part-time, minimum wage variety doing things like flipping burgers and running cash registers at Wal-Mart, but I guess work is work. So, on the surface Rick Perry looks downright Presidential, a legitimate challenger to Obama come November 2012, with the added bonus (for Republicans) of being less-obviously on the brink of speaking in tongues than some fellow members of his party.
But let's return, for a moment, to this day of prayer thing. We have this persistent problem in this country where some people would have us become a theocracy. We are no such thing, nor should we be. No religion should be imposed upon a person who does not want it, and no one religion should be given any kind of preference over another, or over the lack of one. It's right there in the Bill of Rights, the very first part of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In case you haven't read it, it states: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Our founding fathers, much wiser men than your average American today (or in any day), saw the very obvious danger here, and they saw that it was important enough that they made it the first fucking thing they said on the subject of American rights. And because no religion can be legally established as a preferential one, it should not be an issue that enters into politics, and it should not be an arena into which any politician should enter. Similarly, voters should not allow it to enter into the equation of who they choose to vote for. Yet, there are still an alarming number of eligible voters who would not even consider voting for someone who was not a very visible and undoubted Christian, something that Rick Perry ensured would not come into question for him. Why do we continue to allow religion to factor into our politics to such an alarming extent? If Rick Perry is a Christian, I have no problem with that, as long as he puts the well-being of his country first. I can tell you this right now, though, I cannot stomach the thought of any national days of prayer or anything like that any more than I can accept the legitimacy of a politician who claims to have received a calling from God to be President or anything else. Here in these United States, we have freedom of religion, but we also have freedom from religion.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Where Is This World?
This continues somewhat from my previous blog entry, since this debt debacle is ongoing, and since I like to be informed and would hope that my friends prefer to be as well.
Last Friday, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the rating of the United States treasury bonds from the top level AAA to AA+ (the U.S. rating remained the same with the other top two agencies, Moody's and Fitch, though that is, of course, subject to change). Predictably, this morning the stock market took a substantial dive, and anybody who was paying attention and knows anything about it pissed their pants a little, and people started getting even more panicky about a possible second recession (I didn't realize we had got out of the first one). Immediately, any conservative able to put together a complete sentence--there are scant few, I know--screamed that this earthquake and the subsequent shockwaves were because of the debt. To be sure, most reasonable people of any political stripe would agree that the U.S. is in far too deep, that we owe too much money to far too many countries (especially China, and I know I wouldn't want to owe China a damn Canadian penny). On the radio, I heard Bill Cunningham point out (correctly, I checked) that for every dollar the U.S. government spends, forty-three cents of it is borrowed money. That's sick, that is unquestionably out of control. There is plenty that can be responsibly done to remedy that, and there is no shortage of people to blame for it. However, as bad as the debt situation is, and despite what Republican talking heads would have you believe, it is not what caused the downgrade and the negative forecast that came with it. Don't believe me? Okay, let's go ask John Chambers, the deputy head of the Sovereign Debt Ratings Group at S&P, the guy largely responsible for the downgrade. Oh, wait, we don't have to, because Anderson Cooper at CNN already did (and I'm glad it was him, he's about the most unbiased guy working for any of the major news outlets right now). Cooper asked Chambers point blank why the S&P decided to downgrade the United States' credit rating, and Chambers replied, in no uncertain terms, that the level of debt incurred was not nearly as concerning as the unprecedented inability of our political parties to work together for the good of the country, as they seem more concerned with playing their game of political brinkmanship, seeing how far they can push each other or. Even worse, we also have the Tea Partiers seeing how far they can force the rest of the Republican Party to go and generally being completely unwilling to act in the reasonable and responsible manner that it is in no way too much to expect our elected officials to behave.
Oh, wait, didn't I read somewhere last week, before the downgrade, that the real problem we were having was the unwillingness or inability of our lawmakers to meaningfully work together? No, that's not right, I didn't read it...I fucking wrote it, right here! This is all about our political parties (all inclusive, to varying degrees) being more interested in claiming victories than accomplishing what the American people have elected them to do. One might suppose that two major political parties would, at this point, put some of their childish bickering aside and realize that it is now absolutely incumbent upon them to work cohesively to do what needs to be done, rather than what they think might be most politically advantageous. I fear that this would really be to expect far too much, even still. Doesn't it speak volumes about our politicians that they cannot realize that the best way to further their careers would be to act in accordance with the wishes of the people who voted for them in the first place?
I'm dubious about our ability to get back to the relatively secure and comfortable place we haven't been in as a country since Bill Clinton was in the White House. It's clear what needs to be done, but I think the disparity in ideas about how to do it is too great, and is being kept that way intentionally by some. We do need to bring the debt down drastically, but doing it the Tea Party way, by cutting spending on things like Medicare, Medicaid, and education, while refusing to levy greater taxes on corporations and the wealthy, is wildly irresponsible, if not downright stupid. Doing that would place an unfair burden on those least able to absorb it, particularly people of my generation, as well as my son's. We need to spend money in some places, the right places, because government jobs are jobs we desperately need. People who don't have jobs are people who aren't paying taxes or contributing to an economy that badly needs people with disposable income, or any income at all. No, cutting spending indiscriminately is not the answer. The spending we need to cut is that which is wasteful and unproductive. Jobs fall under neither category. You know what is wasteful and unproductive? Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we're not winning, and wouldn't accomplish anything if we won them anyway. Want some more? Any Senator, Representative, Governor, President, or government appointee who already has a net worth in excess of, let's say a million dollars aside from their salary as an elected official, should not be eligible to receive that salary. I haven't got the time to check it, but I would be thoroughly shocked if that did not save combined state and federal governments untold millions of dollars. That's part of the problem anyway, having that many wealthy elected officials does not make for a very representative government. Oh, to live in a world where people earn what they deserve and deserve what they earn.
Last Friday, credit rating agency Standard & Poor's downgraded the rating of the United States treasury bonds from the top level AAA to AA+ (the U.S. rating remained the same with the other top two agencies, Moody's and Fitch, though that is, of course, subject to change). Predictably, this morning the stock market took a substantial dive, and anybody who was paying attention and knows anything about it pissed their pants a little, and people started getting even more panicky about a possible second recession (I didn't realize we had got out of the first one). Immediately, any conservative able to put together a complete sentence--there are scant few, I know--screamed that this earthquake and the subsequent shockwaves were because of the debt. To be sure, most reasonable people of any political stripe would agree that the U.S. is in far too deep, that we owe too much money to far too many countries (especially China, and I know I wouldn't want to owe China a damn Canadian penny). On the radio, I heard Bill Cunningham point out (correctly, I checked) that for every dollar the U.S. government spends, forty-three cents of it is borrowed money. That's sick, that is unquestionably out of control. There is plenty that can be responsibly done to remedy that, and there is no shortage of people to blame for it. However, as bad as the debt situation is, and despite what Republican talking heads would have you believe, it is not what caused the downgrade and the negative forecast that came with it. Don't believe me? Okay, let's go ask John Chambers, the deputy head of the Sovereign Debt Ratings Group at S&P, the guy largely responsible for the downgrade. Oh, wait, we don't have to, because Anderson Cooper at CNN already did (and I'm glad it was him, he's about the most unbiased guy working for any of the major news outlets right now). Cooper asked Chambers point blank why the S&P decided to downgrade the United States' credit rating, and Chambers replied, in no uncertain terms, that the level of debt incurred was not nearly as concerning as the unprecedented inability of our political parties to work together for the good of the country, as they seem more concerned with playing their game of political brinkmanship, seeing how far they can push each other or. Even worse, we also have the Tea Partiers seeing how far they can force the rest of the Republican Party to go and generally being completely unwilling to act in the reasonable and responsible manner that it is in no way too much to expect our elected officials to behave.
Oh, wait, didn't I read somewhere last week, before the downgrade, that the real problem we were having was the unwillingness or inability of our lawmakers to meaningfully work together? No, that's not right, I didn't read it...I fucking wrote it, right here! This is all about our political parties (all inclusive, to varying degrees) being more interested in claiming victories than accomplishing what the American people have elected them to do. One might suppose that two major political parties would, at this point, put some of their childish bickering aside and realize that it is now absolutely incumbent upon them to work cohesively to do what needs to be done, rather than what they think might be most politically advantageous. I fear that this would really be to expect far too much, even still. Doesn't it speak volumes about our politicians that they cannot realize that the best way to further their careers would be to act in accordance with the wishes of the people who voted for them in the first place?
I'm dubious about our ability to get back to the relatively secure and comfortable place we haven't been in as a country since Bill Clinton was in the White House. It's clear what needs to be done, but I think the disparity in ideas about how to do it is too great, and is being kept that way intentionally by some. We do need to bring the debt down drastically, but doing it the Tea Party way, by cutting spending on things like Medicare, Medicaid, and education, while refusing to levy greater taxes on corporations and the wealthy, is wildly irresponsible, if not downright stupid. Doing that would place an unfair burden on those least able to absorb it, particularly people of my generation, as well as my son's. We need to spend money in some places, the right places, because government jobs are jobs we desperately need. People who don't have jobs are people who aren't paying taxes or contributing to an economy that badly needs people with disposable income, or any income at all. No, cutting spending indiscriminately is not the answer. The spending we need to cut is that which is wasteful and unproductive. Jobs fall under neither category. You know what is wasteful and unproductive? Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that we're not winning, and wouldn't accomplish anything if we won them anyway. Want some more? Any Senator, Representative, Governor, President, or government appointee who already has a net worth in excess of, let's say a million dollars aside from their salary as an elected official, should not be eligible to receive that salary. I haven't got the time to check it, but I would be thoroughly shocked if that did not save combined state and federal governments untold millions of dollars. That's part of the problem anyway, having that many wealthy elected officials does not make for a very representative government. Oh, to live in a world where people earn what they deserve and deserve what they earn.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
This Is Not A Democracy
For about a week now, I've been trying to find the time to get in a blog about this whole debt ceiling mess, but it's been tough. I've been juggling my regular job, home business, getting ready to move, and being a dad to a very demanding six-month-old little boy, and I just can't always get around to it, dear readers. And now that this thing we're calling a deal has been reached, I'm trying to at least comment on that, but I'm having a problem of a very different sort: no news sources, columnists, editorialists, bystanders, onlookers, rubberneckers, slack-jawed yokels or anybody of any stripe seem to be in complete agreement about what the deal accomplished, so it comes down to who you trust. And since this is the United States, I don't trust the media to keep me accurately informed (and some sources I automatically assume are outright lying to me).
The only consensus I see is that nobody is really all that happy with the outcome, and almost everybody is angry to some degree at our politicians. Liberals seem to be pissed (and rightly so) that the Democrats once again managed to show a complete lack of backbone, conservatives are saying that they're disgusted that they compromised anything at all (even though they didn't), working class and poor Americans are furious that their government has once again failed to act on their behalf, and this guy right here can't even comprehend how most of this became an issue. That's not to say that I don't understand what happened, but rather that it astonishes me (for some reason) that it was allowed to happen.
Look, kids, raising the debt ceiling has historically been pretty routine for our lawmakers, because most of them prior to this round have at least been competent enough to realize that defaulting would be disastrous, and it's too serious to fuck around with, so they just got it done and that was good enough. This time, however, we have an extremist group to deal with, one that is disproportionately vocal and demanding to how large it actually is, and this group, the Tea Party, is so desperate for anything they can cling to as a political victory that they are willing to leverage anything and make an issue out of anything. And since there isn't anything else right now, they took up this debt ceiling issue, only you can't really come out in opposition to that, because then you look like the fringe lunatic you really are. So what they did was, they basically said they wouldn't go along with it unless the Democrats agreed to cut a bunch of spending and continue letting corporations and the wealthy off the tax hook. Neither of those things has a damn thing to do with avoiding a default, but what Teabaggers lack in rationale, they more than make up for in terrifying levels of understanding of their opposition, and they knew they could count on most Americans to not put two and two together, and they knew that they could count on Democrats to back down when push came to shove. So they went ahead and lumped all this stuff together, knowing full well that nobody would attempt to say, "Hey, wait a minute here, these are separate issues, there is no reason to be dealing with them together." And sure enough, nobody said a word about it. And sure enough, the Democrats were basically forced to back down to the spending cut and tax demands in order to avoid a default.
Our government disgusts me on a near-daily basis anyway, but this is just epic. Its collective ineffectiveness and inability to work in the best interest of the country is staggering. The Republican Party as a whole is selfish, manipulative, and operates almost exclusively in defense of those who have nearly all of the money and power, just so they can collect the scraps handed down to them under the table. The Democratic Party, allegedly the champions of the little guy, who purport to work in the interests of reason, compassion, fairness and social justice, frequently lack the conviction to make good on what they promise to accomplish on behalf of those who most need and deserve the help of a functional government.
This whole ordeal has been fucking pathetic, serving only to exemplify further what is wrong with our government. Never before in our history have our politicians so thoroughly refused to act like they work for the people. This is not a democracy, folks, and continuing to call it one will only serve to someday redefine the term.
The only consensus I see is that nobody is really all that happy with the outcome, and almost everybody is angry to some degree at our politicians. Liberals seem to be pissed (and rightly so) that the Democrats once again managed to show a complete lack of backbone, conservatives are saying that they're disgusted that they compromised anything at all (even though they didn't), working class and poor Americans are furious that their government has once again failed to act on their behalf, and this guy right here can't even comprehend how most of this became an issue. That's not to say that I don't understand what happened, but rather that it astonishes me (for some reason) that it was allowed to happen.
Look, kids, raising the debt ceiling has historically been pretty routine for our lawmakers, because most of them prior to this round have at least been competent enough to realize that defaulting would be disastrous, and it's too serious to fuck around with, so they just got it done and that was good enough. This time, however, we have an extremist group to deal with, one that is disproportionately vocal and demanding to how large it actually is, and this group, the Tea Party, is so desperate for anything they can cling to as a political victory that they are willing to leverage anything and make an issue out of anything. And since there isn't anything else right now, they took up this debt ceiling issue, only you can't really come out in opposition to that, because then you look like the fringe lunatic you really are. So what they did was, they basically said they wouldn't go along with it unless the Democrats agreed to cut a bunch of spending and continue letting corporations and the wealthy off the tax hook. Neither of those things has a damn thing to do with avoiding a default, but what Teabaggers lack in rationale, they more than make up for in terrifying levels of understanding of their opposition, and they knew they could count on most Americans to not put two and two together, and they knew that they could count on Democrats to back down when push came to shove. So they went ahead and lumped all this stuff together, knowing full well that nobody would attempt to say, "Hey, wait a minute here, these are separate issues, there is no reason to be dealing with them together." And sure enough, nobody said a word about it. And sure enough, the Democrats were basically forced to back down to the spending cut and tax demands in order to avoid a default.
Our government disgusts me on a near-daily basis anyway, but this is just epic. Its collective ineffectiveness and inability to work in the best interest of the country is staggering. The Republican Party as a whole is selfish, manipulative, and operates almost exclusively in defense of those who have nearly all of the money and power, just so they can collect the scraps handed down to them under the table. The Democratic Party, allegedly the champions of the little guy, who purport to work in the interests of reason, compassion, fairness and social justice, frequently lack the conviction to make good on what they promise to accomplish on behalf of those who most need and deserve the help of a functional government.
This whole ordeal has been fucking pathetic, serving only to exemplify further what is wrong with our government. Never before in our history have our politicians so thoroughly refused to act like they work for the people. This is not a democracy, folks, and continuing to call it one will only serve to someday redefine the term.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Functionally Dysfunctional
I feel like talking politics today, since I haven't really done that much since my return to blog-land, and there always seems to be something going on there.
How about these folks that are being presented as potential presidential candidates by the Republican party? No, wait I'm getting ahead of myself. First, for anyone not familiar with my politics, I don't align myself with any particular party that we have in this country because I have serious issues with the way that the two major parties conduct themselves as a whole and with the way that many members of those parties behave as individuals. Neither party really resembles what either one is supposed to represent, and even worse is the fact that there are only two major parties in the first place. American politics tries to divide itself up into only two parts, black and white. They like this because it makes for an atmosphere that is very "Us versus Them", and that is ultimately what those with any power want. Divide and conquer, one of the oldest strategies of war, and make no mistake about it, politics is a battleground. The truth is, the vast majority of Americans are like myself insofar as their positions on the various political issues are a total scattershot, falling at any number of different points along the spectrum, and very few among us fit entirely as a liberal or conservative. At any rate, I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat, and as such, I have no problem critiquing either party.
That said, on the whole I tend to me more liberal on most issues, but I have a hard time backing Democrats because they don't really represent my values much anymore, and they are far too willing to take entirely too much shit from the folks on the other side of the aisle. Democrats not named Clinton largely have little willingness to fight for what they believe in, or are too frequently bogged down in bureaucracy to actually accomplish anything. There is something to be said for being the more mature and reasonable party (they are), but there is much more to be said for being willing to actually represent your constituents (they largely do not). For that, the Democratic party has earned my ire. The Republican party, on the other hand, is a total, unfettered mess right now, for reasons I will discuss shortly.
If we're going to have a two-party system (and apparently we are, since we seem to be so resistant to having any more parties than that), then it stands to reason that one ought to represent roughly half of the political spectrum, and the other party should represent roughly the other half. If that was the way it worked, it would be relatively okay. This country is allegedly a democracy, and the way it's supposed to work is that, following the elections, all elected officials are supposed to work together for the common good and generally move in the direction indicated by those who won the elections. This usually means small steps, which is fine. It lets the American public test the proverbial waters, see if they like the new direction, and if they do, then progress will be made, however incremental. This no longer works in this country because the party to the right is deliberately stubborn to a childish degree, and the party to the left folds like a chair at every opportunity. Consequently, center-right voters back candidates who are increasingly far-right, center-left voters support candidates who are increasingly center-right, and far left voters back candidates who are increasingly moderate. All of this causes the political spectrum to shift to the right, which it undeniably has, despite the fact that the American public is actually gradually moving to the left (on the whole, though there are also elements moving to the extreme right). Want proof? Our president is a black dude. Polls show that, for the first time, a majority of Americans support gay marriage. Support for the legalization of marijuana is growing (pardon the pun). Yet our policies are, at best, spinning their wheels. The only way we can get back to having policies that reflect what the people want (which is how it is supposed to work in a democracy) is if the politicians are actually reflective of the people who elect them.
Part of the problem is the lobbyists and the special interest groups and the corrupt politicians, and those will never go away, but they can be combated to some extent by nominating candidates for public office who are actually reasonably representative of the party they supposedly stand for, which brings me back to my original point. Look at some of these potential Republican presidential candidates: Rick Santorum. Rick Perry. Herman Cain. Michele Bachmann. Tim Pawlenty. Mitt Romney. Ron Paul. Sarah Palin (maybe). Except for the latter, those are the ones who appeared at the recent Republican presidential debate. Most of these folks are severely flawed as politicians and are long-shots at best, and rightly so. The first four and Palin are extremists to varying degrees, and represent only a small slice of Republicans nationwide, let alone Americans in their entirety. Ron Paul is ideologically a libertarian, which a surprising number of Americans identify as, either in part or in whole. Paul, however, has a problem where, for every one thing he says that makes a lot of sense, he says another six that are totally ludicrous. He is an extremist in a direction all his own. For the vast majority of Americans, extremists of any stripe are unelectable, which brings us to Pawlenty and Romney. These two are essentially middle-of-the-road Republicans, and if the GOP has any sense at all (it may not), it will embrace one of these candidates, or someone like them.
As a (more or less) liberal, I would be glad to see one of the extremist candidates somehow emerge as the Republican candidate in 2012, because any of them would get slaughtered in a general election against President Obama (or almost any other Democrat, really), and it would likely be such a thorough victory that it would give Democrats almost free reign to make policy. As an American, though, I would hope to see what I would term a "normal" Republican like Pawlenty or Romney run against Obama because, while I largely am at odds with their positions, they at least would force the issues to take center stage, which would be much better for the country than the inevitable train-wreck that would ensue from someone like Bachmann or Palin challenging the incumbent. A country where one of these dangerous people can even be considered as a legitimate candidate is a frightening country indeed, but someone like Mitt Romney, even if he didn't win, would at least help to return some credibility to the Republican Party, and would help to re-align our political spectrum. Whatever party or candidate you support, isn't that something we should all be in favor of, a political system that actually functions?
How about these folks that are being presented as potential presidential candidates by the Republican party? No, wait I'm getting ahead of myself. First, for anyone not familiar with my politics, I don't align myself with any particular party that we have in this country because I have serious issues with the way that the two major parties conduct themselves as a whole and with the way that many members of those parties behave as individuals. Neither party really resembles what either one is supposed to represent, and even worse is the fact that there are only two major parties in the first place. American politics tries to divide itself up into only two parts, black and white. They like this because it makes for an atmosphere that is very "Us versus Them", and that is ultimately what those with any power want. Divide and conquer, one of the oldest strategies of war, and make no mistake about it, politics is a battleground. The truth is, the vast majority of Americans are like myself insofar as their positions on the various political issues are a total scattershot, falling at any number of different points along the spectrum, and very few among us fit entirely as a liberal or conservative. At any rate, I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat, and as such, I have no problem critiquing either party.
That said, on the whole I tend to me more liberal on most issues, but I have a hard time backing Democrats because they don't really represent my values much anymore, and they are far too willing to take entirely too much shit from the folks on the other side of the aisle. Democrats not named Clinton largely have little willingness to fight for what they believe in, or are too frequently bogged down in bureaucracy to actually accomplish anything. There is something to be said for being the more mature and reasonable party (they are), but there is much more to be said for being willing to actually represent your constituents (they largely do not). For that, the Democratic party has earned my ire. The Republican party, on the other hand, is a total, unfettered mess right now, for reasons I will discuss shortly.
If we're going to have a two-party system (and apparently we are, since we seem to be so resistant to having any more parties than that), then it stands to reason that one ought to represent roughly half of the political spectrum, and the other party should represent roughly the other half. If that was the way it worked, it would be relatively okay. This country is allegedly a democracy, and the way it's supposed to work is that, following the elections, all elected officials are supposed to work together for the common good and generally move in the direction indicated by those who won the elections. This usually means small steps, which is fine. It lets the American public test the proverbial waters, see if they like the new direction, and if they do, then progress will be made, however incremental. This no longer works in this country because the party to the right is deliberately stubborn to a childish degree, and the party to the left folds like a chair at every opportunity. Consequently, center-right voters back candidates who are increasingly far-right, center-left voters support candidates who are increasingly center-right, and far left voters back candidates who are increasingly moderate. All of this causes the political spectrum to shift to the right, which it undeniably has, despite the fact that the American public is actually gradually moving to the left (on the whole, though there are also elements moving to the extreme right). Want proof? Our president is a black dude. Polls show that, for the first time, a majority of Americans support gay marriage. Support for the legalization of marijuana is growing (pardon the pun). Yet our policies are, at best, spinning their wheels. The only way we can get back to having policies that reflect what the people want (which is how it is supposed to work in a democracy) is if the politicians are actually reflective of the people who elect them.
Part of the problem is the lobbyists and the special interest groups and the corrupt politicians, and those will never go away, but they can be combated to some extent by nominating candidates for public office who are actually reasonably representative of the party they supposedly stand for, which brings me back to my original point. Look at some of these potential Republican presidential candidates: Rick Santorum. Rick Perry. Herman Cain. Michele Bachmann. Tim Pawlenty. Mitt Romney. Ron Paul. Sarah Palin (maybe). Except for the latter, those are the ones who appeared at the recent Republican presidential debate. Most of these folks are severely flawed as politicians and are long-shots at best, and rightly so. The first four and Palin are extremists to varying degrees, and represent only a small slice of Republicans nationwide, let alone Americans in their entirety. Ron Paul is ideologically a libertarian, which a surprising number of Americans identify as, either in part or in whole. Paul, however, has a problem where, for every one thing he says that makes a lot of sense, he says another six that are totally ludicrous. He is an extremist in a direction all his own. For the vast majority of Americans, extremists of any stripe are unelectable, which brings us to Pawlenty and Romney. These two are essentially middle-of-the-road Republicans, and if the GOP has any sense at all (it may not), it will embrace one of these candidates, or someone like them.
As a (more or less) liberal, I would be glad to see one of the extremist candidates somehow emerge as the Republican candidate in 2012, because any of them would get slaughtered in a general election against President Obama (or almost any other Democrat, really), and it would likely be such a thorough victory that it would give Democrats almost free reign to make policy. As an American, though, I would hope to see what I would term a "normal" Republican like Pawlenty or Romney run against Obama because, while I largely am at odds with their positions, they at least would force the issues to take center stage, which would be much better for the country than the inevitable train-wreck that would ensue from someone like Bachmann or Palin challenging the incumbent. A country where one of these dangerous people can even be considered as a legitimate candidate is a frightening country indeed, but someone like Mitt Romney, even if he didn't win, would at least help to return some credibility to the Republican Party, and would help to re-align our political spectrum. Whatever party or candidate you support, isn't that something we should all be in favor of, a political system that actually functions?
Monday, June 13, 2011
That's Not Funny
A couple weeks ago, there appeared on Cracked.com an article by Daniel O'Brien entitled I Can't Tell If the World Is Being Serious Anymore (link below):
http://www.cracked.com/blog/i-cant-tell-if-world-being-serious-anymore/
In short, do you ever see something that just makes you think, or even say, "Is that for real?" I get that a lot, more and more every day it seems. There are a couple prominent reasons for this, mostly that A) we as a culture are completely over-saturated with sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek remarks, and B) we still feel compelled to at least attempt to take everything seriously. But Ryan, I can hear you shouting at your screen, those two things run totally counter to one another! Of course they do, my friends, and that is exactly why it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern the legitimate from the farcical. It's like trying to force your eyes to look in two different directions at once; you can't do it, so you have to choose. This is either serious or it's not. This used to be okay, but the line is becoming blurred. As Mr. O'Brien points out, we now have to decide if Donald Trump or Sarah Palin is seriously going to run for President of this country, when we've got competing concepts vying for leadership in our brains. The media is trying to convince us that yes, these people are deserving of the sort of attention that is granted to actual politicians, while our common sense is screaming that these people can't even keep their crappy reality shows afloat, how could anybody actually believe that they could do any better for an entire country? Unfortunately, far too many people will assume that the collective media couldn't possibly make such an egregious mistake, so they go with that because hey, that way they won't have to actually think about it. Consequently, the rest of us are left dumbfounded that such debates even exist.
For my part, I tend to notice ridiculous creations that somehow not only find their way to the market, but actually sell in quantities significant enough that I have to re-stock them at work. Exhibit A:
http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Iron-Man-2-Edition/dp/B002VECGUU
Yes, that really is what it appears to be, the board game Operation with an Iron Man theme. When I saw that on the shelf, I actually said out loud, "Are you fucking serious?" I'm ashamed to be part of a society that looks at the already tremendous wall of board games that can be found at any department store and thinks, You know what's missing from this? A game where you operate on Tony Stark! There are a lot of very superfluous things floating around out there, and perhaps worse, a lot of things that just scream MONEY GRAB. This is one of those things that will ultimately drift under the radar of things that are laughably absurd, just because there are so many bigger, flashier, louder and more expensive things with similar amounts of absurdity, but to me, this in some way represents the zenith of the mountain (or the bottom of the pit, depending on your perspective) with regard to the ceaseless garbage that is the primary export of the United States. Of course, I've thought this before, and somehow it manages to keep getting more appalling. And people wonder why I'm so cynical--it's because the things that are meant to be humorous have become formulaic and repetitive, and the things that are supposed to be serious are just a joke.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/i-cant-tell-if-world-being-serious-anymore/
In short, do you ever see something that just makes you think, or even say, "Is that for real?" I get that a lot, more and more every day it seems. There are a couple prominent reasons for this, mostly that A) we as a culture are completely over-saturated with sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek remarks, and B) we still feel compelled to at least attempt to take everything seriously. But Ryan, I can hear you shouting at your screen, those two things run totally counter to one another! Of course they do, my friends, and that is exactly why it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern the legitimate from the farcical. It's like trying to force your eyes to look in two different directions at once; you can't do it, so you have to choose. This is either serious or it's not. This used to be okay, but the line is becoming blurred. As Mr. O'Brien points out, we now have to decide if Donald Trump or Sarah Palin is seriously going to run for President of this country, when we've got competing concepts vying for leadership in our brains. The media is trying to convince us that yes, these people are deserving of the sort of attention that is granted to actual politicians, while our common sense is screaming that these people can't even keep their crappy reality shows afloat, how could anybody actually believe that they could do any better for an entire country? Unfortunately, far too many people will assume that the collective media couldn't possibly make such an egregious mistake, so they go with that because hey, that way they won't have to actually think about it. Consequently, the rest of us are left dumbfounded that such debates even exist.
For my part, I tend to notice ridiculous creations that somehow not only find their way to the market, but actually sell in quantities significant enough that I have to re-stock them at work. Exhibit A:
http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Iron-Man-2-Edition/dp/B002VECGUU
Yes, that really is what it appears to be, the board game Operation with an Iron Man theme. When I saw that on the shelf, I actually said out loud, "Are you fucking serious?" I'm ashamed to be part of a society that looks at the already tremendous wall of board games that can be found at any department store and thinks, You know what's missing from this? A game where you operate on Tony Stark! There are a lot of very superfluous things floating around out there, and perhaps worse, a lot of things that just scream MONEY GRAB. This is one of those things that will ultimately drift under the radar of things that are laughably absurd, just because there are so many bigger, flashier, louder and more expensive things with similar amounts of absurdity, but to me, this in some way represents the zenith of the mountain (or the bottom of the pit, depending on your perspective) with regard to the ceaseless garbage that is the primary export of the United States. Of course, I've thought this before, and somehow it manages to keep getting more appalling. And people wonder why I'm so cynical--it's because the things that are meant to be humorous have become formulaic and repetitive, and the things that are supposed to be serious are just a joke.
Saturday, June 4, 2011
A Job Well Done
This hasn't been prompted by anything in particular except another article I came across on Digg with a list of things not to do as a guest in a restaurant (I've seen at least a few of these, all written by waiters/waitresses). I've never been a server, never worked in food service, and I hope to keep it that way because I probably wouldn't be very good at it, and I'd hate to have so much of my income be dependent on my ability to be nice to people. That said, I feel a very strong urge to side with and defend these folks because I've worked for nearly a decade in retail, and as such I have extensive experience with customers who have no idea what is reasonable to expect from whomever is providing you with your service, and even worse, people who have never had to do such a job before and therefore have no idea how much it sucks anyway, even without having someone be shitty to you.
I know most of the people who will read this have had such a job, because the only place I advertise is on Facebook, and most of the people who populate my Facebook are current and former co-workers, so presumably this is just preaching to the choir, but I feel compelled to remark on this anyway because it seems like every time I go out anywhere, I see some customer service worker being treated badly for no reason they deserve, and I'm frequently tempted to say something; I should start doing so, I've never been one to keep my mouth shut about anything. For those of you who do not know, customer service workers typically make somewhere in the neighborhood of minimum wage, which wouldn't be enough to scrape by on even if you worked 60 hours a week (and if you're making minimum wage, you almost certainly are employed part-time, and not full-time). It's even tougher on waiters and waitresses, who typically make two bucks and change every hour, and are forced to rely on tips for the rest.
I know I have at least one friend who demands nearly flawless service and has unreasonable standards everywhere he goes to shop or eat; he does not work anywhere near customers, and only experiences one side of the exchange. The fact of the matter is, anybody working in any type of guest service is probably trying to work on several different things at the same time, sometimes with multiple customers, and they just cannot do everything all at once. Even worse, if a customer does have a complaint, they tend to make it personal. This is beyond unfair, because whatever the problem is, it is rarely the fault of the poor front-line workers, and even worse, our hands are tied to defend ourselves because almost anything we say, no matter how right or how justified, could get us fired from our crappy job.
Every bit as bad is the guy who fails to appreciate a job performed well. This applies more to the waiters and waitresses who, as mentioned before, rely so much on tips. Oh, you may protest, but it's their job to do well, that doesn't deserve an extra reward. To which I would reply, are you fucking serious? Have you got any idea how thankless it is to work anywhere in the service industry? It feels good to have someone tell you that you've done a good job, and I'm not talking about when a superior tells you that. That just feels hollow and forced, just something they tell you so they can feel better about themselves and look good on the HR report. What really means something is when a customer tells you that you've done a good job, because why the hell would they say that if it wasn't true? A couple weeks ago, Audrey and I went out to a nice sit-down restaurant for dinner, and our waiter was just exceptional. I'm sure the dude does a good job for just about everyone who sits at one of his tables, but probably not nearly enough people tell him so, either in words or with their tips. I made a point of telling him that he did a great job, and left him a tip above the standard 15%. I don't exactly have a bunch of extra money or anything, so I couldn't afford to leave as much as I would have liked, but the guy knew that I valued his hard work. You know these folks don't get that as much as they deserve, so hey, next time...no, every time you go out and you get good service, let 'em know. I mean, wouldn't you like that if you were in their place?
I know most of the people who will read this have had such a job, because the only place I advertise is on Facebook, and most of the people who populate my Facebook are current and former co-workers, so presumably this is just preaching to the choir, but I feel compelled to remark on this anyway because it seems like every time I go out anywhere, I see some customer service worker being treated badly for no reason they deserve, and I'm frequently tempted to say something; I should start doing so, I've never been one to keep my mouth shut about anything. For those of you who do not know, customer service workers typically make somewhere in the neighborhood of minimum wage, which wouldn't be enough to scrape by on even if you worked 60 hours a week (and if you're making minimum wage, you almost certainly are employed part-time, and not full-time). It's even tougher on waiters and waitresses, who typically make two bucks and change every hour, and are forced to rely on tips for the rest.
I know I have at least one friend who demands nearly flawless service and has unreasonable standards everywhere he goes to shop or eat; he does not work anywhere near customers, and only experiences one side of the exchange. The fact of the matter is, anybody working in any type of guest service is probably trying to work on several different things at the same time, sometimes with multiple customers, and they just cannot do everything all at once. Even worse, if a customer does have a complaint, they tend to make it personal. This is beyond unfair, because whatever the problem is, it is rarely the fault of the poor front-line workers, and even worse, our hands are tied to defend ourselves because almost anything we say, no matter how right or how justified, could get us fired from our crappy job.
Every bit as bad is the guy who fails to appreciate a job performed well. This applies more to the waiters and waitresses who, as mentioned before, rely so much on tips. Oh, you may protest, but it's their job to do well, that doesn't deserve an extra reward. To which I would reply, are you fucking serious? Have you got any idea how thankless it is to work anywhere in the service industry? It feels good to have someone tell you that you've done a good job, and I'm not talking about when a superior tells you that. That just feels hollow and forced, just something they tell you so they can feel better about themselves and look good on the HR report. What really means something is when a customer tells you that you've done a good job, because why the hell would they say that if it wasn't true? A couple weeks ago, Audrey and I went out to a nice sit-down restaurant for dinner, and our waiter was just exceptional. I'm sure the dude does a good job for just about everyone who sits at one of his tables, but probably not nearly enough people tell him so, either in words or with their tips. I made a point of telling him that he did a great job, and left him a tip above the standard 15%. I don't exactly have a bunch of extra money or anything, so I couldn't afford to leave as much as I would have liked, but the guy knew that I valued his hard work. You know these folks don't get that as much as they deserve, so hey, next time...no, every time you go out and you get good service, let 'em know. I mean, wouldn't you like that if you were in their place?
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