We should stop going around babbling about how we’re the greatest democracy on earth, when we’re not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic. The founding fathers hated two things, one was monarchy and the other was democracy, they gave us a constitution that saw to it we will have neither. I don’t know how wise they were.
Gore Vidal
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It seems that politics on the right nowadays is more entertainment than actual politics. The tea party has no real credibility. Birthers won’t take the President’s official Hawaiian birth certificate as proof of his birth in Hawaii. Arizona passes a law that makes it possible to pull any Hispanic over for the crime of….being Hispanic. So foolish is this law that even law enforcement in the state says the law is untenable. The holding up of unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands nationwide by right leaning members of the senate, because they want fiscal responsibility, when for years these same right leaning politicians practiced fiscal irresponsibility with frequency.
The tea party claims to be independent, yet they hold to every single tenet of conservatism. Actual political independence from parties would have to, by necessity, have to hold views from both sides of the political divide. The tea party does not do that, they have not for the entirety of the time they have, in their current form, existed. I am a fairly liberal individual, have been for a dogs age, but have on occasion voted for certain republicans, because I saw in them something I liked and wanted in my duly elected representative.
I see nothing of that kind of independence in the tea party. I’ve heard talk of socialism from people who would not know what socialism is if it walked up and bit their asses. I’ve heard outlandish claims about taxes that the tea party loyalists speak of like they exist, when they don’t. I’ve heard talk of Bill Clinton’s tax increases, which distort the truth insanely.
Sensationalism sells, I guess. The right doesn’t need the truth, when people are stupid enough to buy bullshit.
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Friday’s top 5 Links:
What 3.2 percent GDP says about our contradictory economy
U.S Gulf states mobilize for Valdez-like oil spill
Goldman criminal probe riles markets
Ars Colloquium: The official ACTA Treaty draft and your reactions
US Supreme Court vacancy: Key contenders
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Viddies of the day:
Part i: Rachel Maddow, perhaps one of the coolest beings in the known universe. I watched the show today and caught this, and caught a fair bit of the contentious interview with Dan Stein. It was fun yesterday, and it was fun again today, but a different kind of fun today than was yesterday’s outlandish yelling and anger. Today was the kind of fun I have when watching the truth come to light, and watching someone on my side of the political fence lay the wood to people who give America a bad name like Dan Stein. Good stuff.
Part ii: Gore Vidal from the show about him done by American Masters: The Education of Gore Vidal, part v:
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On a personal note, about work, things have been in a less than perfect state, insofar as the first half of my temp assignment ends in June, and there has been a vagueness about the possibility of getting made a permanent employee. That vagueness lifted somewhat today, somewhat.
There is a possibility things could work out for me soon, but it may take some time, how much I do not know. Sounds vague does it not? That’;s how it was before today. Today I heard that things may come to a head with a potential strike by some other companies under the umbrella of the union I am temping for. After things are done here, the union will then work with my company in trying to get something done to help get more people working there. The union in this shop has lost 12 people over the last few years, and things are significantly strained when there is a lot of work around. There are many temps, the max allowed. The union will try to work a deal to get some temps hired to alleviate some pressure on their people.
It is up to me to make sure that I just do my job and make sure I talk to the boss, and ask them to hire me, after things start to turn.
Wish me luck.
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Quote and pic of the day: The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism. From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament, three anti-human religions have evolved — Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These are sky-god religions. They are, literally, patriarchal — God is the Omnipotent Father — hence the loathing of women for 2,000 years in those countries afflicted by the sky-god and his earthly male delegates. The sky-god is a jealous god, of course. He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not for just one tribe but for all creation. Those who would reject him must be converted or killed for their own good. Ultimately, totalitarianism is the only sort of politics that can truly serve the sky-god’s purpose.
Gore Vidal
G’night America
Casus Belli 