Does this after ever happen to you? You step away from American politics and political media for a few days, you forget how nuts it is, then you get back into it and feel the stupidity and possibly doom all over again, as if for the first time?
Anyway, this song has been my happy place recently.
General Winfield Stuck
Well, thank the lard. Having a thread debate involving BoB and Nuclear fission was making me nervous.
Xanthippas
Yeah, but I just quit checking Memeorandum.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
I spent the weekend in one of the best belly dance workshops I’ve ever taken — powerful, exhausting, but recharging and thoughtful.
Pulling up Sully on my Google Reader killed my good mood, but fast.
The Populist
That’s me!
freelancer
Nebraska won as I got so bombed that I spent the majority of Sunday in bed recuperating. Then when I woke up I fixed lunch and went for a long walk. (It’s sunny and 60 degrees here. Sweet.)
Checked my reader feed this morning and got a little depressed. “We’re not gonna make it.” etc.
But hey, midnight release of MW2 tonight!
Zam
So the teabaggers were on campus today handing out posters with dead people on them. You know just so we know that liberals=hitler and all that.
The Populist
Not only that but I felt my IQ drop another 20 points. BoB thinks he has the answers. I get it though, when Beck and Limpbaugh are your heroes it makes the average cons like BoB think they are so intelligent! The reality is they aren’t. They might be trolling (definitely) but if they think they are winning a battle of wits, they need to think again.
freelancer
Reminds me of something TNC wrote a bit earlier:
licensed to kill time
__
Yes. I try to limit my exposure to politics to (mainly) this site for my sanity’s sake. Although the BoB Quotient doesn’t help.
General Winfield Stuck
@The Populist:
with BoB you just have to realize it’s the pizza talking, poor feller needs some intervention.
tripletee
Happens to me all the time. I have to take a sanity break every few weeks since Obama got elected because teh stoopid has been so pervasive.
I think you meant “ever” instead of “after” in the first sentence of your post, btw.
The Populist
Some guy tried that with me at the post office. He handed me a flier, I grabbed it, dropped off my stuff and then read the dumb ass thing.
I came back out and asked him one simple questions. Explain to me how Hitler/fascism and liberalism are one and the same? They got flustered, looked at each other and responded that we are losing our rights and socialism is taking over.
I then asked how is socialism happening? How did we lose our rights? I told them I own a gun but nobody has taken it from me. I argued that I am still free to go to and from the P.O. to my home. I don’t see the military patrolling the streets. How are we less free?
They got pissed and told me to go away. I laughed and reminded them that they are in a public place where THEY decided to engage the public. The guy told me to f-off. I told him to watch the language as I saw an old lady near by. They told me to go away.
I then reminded them of how Hitler came to power and that it is nothing NEAR to what is going on today. I also reminded him that fascists are right wing in ideology. Hitler HATED the communists. He fired the parliament. He made deals with the biggest titans of their industry. He rounded up political enemies, jews, gypsies, blacks, etc and sent them to camps.
How is any of that equivalent to today I ask? They told me to go away or they’d call the police. I called their bluff, broke out my cell phone and started dialing and offered for them. They looked confused.
The End.
licensed to kill time
@General Winfield Stuck: I thought it was the bricks.
General Winfield Stuck
@Xanthippas:
Yup, I deleted it from my bookmarks a little while ago. Completely substance free, or nearly so. But then, American politics is largely that on a good day.
General Winfield Stuck
@licensed to kill time:
There is more than one thing wrong.
The Populist
Is it me or does Michelle Malkin always have that flabbergasted/idiotic look of ‘Oh no you didn’t’ on her face 24/7?
I see her and it’s a look of exasperation and a tinge of hatred for anybody who is smarter than her.
Zam
@The Populist: Well the answers I usually receive are Liberals want to intervene in the economy to create some stability. Hitler intervened in a failing economy with some social programs. There fore Hitler=Liberal and then Liberal=Genocide.
licensed to kill time
@The Populist: Hey, good on ya! Those types need to be confronted and challenged. When they only talk to each other the crazy goes in circles.
The Populist
Has anybody also noticed that Michelle doesn’t get half the defenders that, say, Limbaugh, Hannity, BillO and Beck get?
She likes to remind us how successful she is as an author/blogger but really…nobody really stands up for her brand of crazy. Shoot, Bachmann has more defenders than the Philipino queen of mean.
The Populist
Funny that. He created programs to pacify the masses. In return he had the SS spy on the masses and created programs that indoctrinated youths to spy on family members and neighbors.
See, that is not left wing at all. Liberals tend to create social programs that HELP people. Maybe they overreach but nobody on the left attach stigma to those in need the way the right does. Since the beginnings of the USA, the founding fathers must have been precursors to Hitler using these morons arguments. Gawd what fools.
Sentient Puddle
Man, I can’t even remember the last time I totally detached myself from politics. I think I had a few brief moments immediately after the ’04 elections, but I don’t think I would’ve been missing much in tuning out a few of those days.
The Populist
Thanks ! My wife walked by a LaRouche table the other day where they had a huge photo of Obama with hitler mustache. She went into the P.O., came out and yelled at them. She’s part jewish and lost many family members to the ovens.
She basically asked in the loudest voice possible…”HOW DARE YOU. I LOST FAMILY IN HITLER’S GERMANY. YOU EQUATE OBAMA TO A MADMAN?” They could not even look her in the eye. I knew the two guys, they are part of a local biker gang who I believe might be part of a white supremacist group.
My wife walked away and a lady walked over and apologized to her about those people. She said she was a republican, didn’t like Obama but this is going too far.
ellaesther
I did it for fourteen years….
Came back to America, and went: D’oh!
General Winfield Stuck
@Sentient Puddle:
I felt like a train landed on me after the “04 election. I hardly turned on the teevee or computer and it took about a month to feel like I still existed and life needed to go on. Then I got really really pissed off and stayed that way till 06 when the daily rage started to wane a bit.
ellaesther
@The Populist: Populist, my friend, you have made me very happy.
freelancer
@ellaesther:
Kind of why I’m afraid to leave when I finish school. I’m gonna come back to a land filled with Brawndo, Costco’s, and Carl’s Jr’s…
Wait.
Fuck.
(sigh.)
Zam
@The Populist: Yea I’ve got to deal a lot with the “If there is any government at all then it’s not conservative so you liberals fail” types of people. There has always been some sort of government in human civilization even if it was just basic family structure in early communities. This means that every time something horribly bad happens there will be some sort of government around, and if we assign all government to the liberal side then every time something bad happens we can blame a liberal. I have this one friend who insists Hoover was an extreme liberal.
kay
This lead paragraph made me laugh:
Michael D. Shear, in the Washington Post
“Health bill victory came on heels of sobering evidence that despite popularity, Obama is subject to constraints beyond his direct control.”
Who knew, right? Here I thought he was all-powerful.
MikeJ
I was checking the sched for Sesame Street since Mrs O is supposed to be on the season premier. Check today’s show synopsis:
Yes, the O-bots have invaded Sesame Street.
The Populist
I’m a former Goldwater conservative. Left the party when I saw how bad it had gotten with the impeachment of Clinton.
When Bush lost (mean WON…right) I felt like he’d be done in four years. A sane person could see what a goof and idiot this guy was. Well, 9/11 happened and that pushed me more to the center left. I saw what was gonna go down. The righties invoked the patriot act, laws that truly infringed on our rights and then this doofus won again in 04.
Man, whenever I raised the issue of the patriot act to anybody who told me they were Conservative, they would defend it as necessary. Flash forward to today…and the same idiots whining about losing freedoms STILL don’t get it.
Zam
@Sentient Puddle: I did it for a short time after the 08 election, I was just burned out, but I am studying Political Science so this shit tends to come up a lot.
The Populist
I have one who calls out Barry G as a traitor and Bush jr as not really conservative.
I laugh hard at that and he gets mad. Why is GW not a conservative? He tells me it’s because he wasn’t Reagan. I laugh and ask so you mean he didn’t spend ENOUGH Money?
That pisses them off everytime.
Dom Phenom
That song is the truth. You should check out the version on Third Plane (1980? Herbie Album) as well. Nasty stuff.
EvolutionaryDesign
I think we should start imagining/game planning what it would be like were John McCain president (and not just of Sunday Morning). I’ll go with heart-attack while planning health reform (if it ever got to that) and President Palin rounding up the liberalati.
licensed to kill time
@ellaesther: I’ve spent much of my life living outside the U.S. It is always jarring to come back. Americans really have no idea how wacky they look to the rest of the world. And watching American politics from the outside is equal parts amusing, frightening, and downright incomprehensible.
The Populist
I have another con friend who insists schools aren’t teaching morality and that is why things are going bad.
On the issue of the left, he’s a decent person and not a crazy but he swears there is some agenda in this country to destroy America led by left wingers.
He doesn’t care who they are but if they have a D next to their name, they are pushing an agenda that is making America weak.
I ask him to clarify and he can’t.
DougJ
You should check out the version on Third Plane (1980? Herbie Album) as well. Nasty stuff.
I see that’s got “Stella By Starlight” on it too, one of my favorite standards.
Zam
@The Populist: That is just an amazing response. This friend of mine is another one of those GWB was a liberal, of course before he left office and we get to deal with what he left us he was, according to this one friend a blessing to our nation and he was capable of seeing things libtards like us can’t because we worship minorities.
The Populist
If McCain won (and sometimes I wish he did JUST to argue a point and win it) I promise you we’d be in full force depression right now.
How come China and Europe aren’t deeper in the craptastic recession than us and England? Why? Supply side bullshit economics is why.
The right likes to tell Americans that if they only had the “chance” to run things and do it THEIR way, things would be better. How’s that, I ask? You idiots had full control of the house/senate throughout the nineties and the full throttle with the WH from 2000-2006.
Seems to me the policies of the RIGHT have infected us. Can’t blame the left. Even if you could they need to explain how we PROSPERED for almost 25 years after WWII with social policies, large union membership, manufacturing.
Idiots. God they are dense.
licensed to kill time
@licensed to kill time: I guess I should have said “we” Americans, Kemo Sabe.
EvolutionaryDesign
@The Populist: I’m also thinking full-scale bobmbing raid on Iran after their botched elections. Distract from the economy and all that.
freelancer
@The Populist:
“We used to make shit in this country. Y’know, build shit. Now we just stick our hand in the next guy’s pocket.”
-Frank Sabatka
The Populist
Funny, I am not a traditional liberal. I have always seen myself as a middle of the road independent who supports the Dems. I agree with Liberals 9/10 and for that I am called a “libtard” by many con friends of mine.
We worship a system that gives everybody a fair CHANCE to succeed. The way it is now, there is no free market. If watching Wal Mart build store after store and crush their competition while Target does the same a free market, I give up.
I saw Macys gobble up chain after chain only to turn them into another bland dept store.
I watch as radio becomes generic and boring under the guise of the free market so Clear Channel and CBS own everything in sight.
Look at cable. How many “Competitors”. How is this a free market?
How about phone service? On the cell side, you have 4 major competitors (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile) with a few upstarts like Virgin thrown in.
Look at TV. 4 major networks owned by the biggest corps in the world.
It’s a joke. A true free market is one where there are choices locally but a lot of niches are dying because it’s too expensive to compete with mega chains that can put you out of business by brokering sweet deals.
The Populist
Yep, why not. After the Ft Hood “terrorist” attacks, it would be justified right? (snark)
srv
It doesn’t matter how many times I step away, I can always return to my happy place on Sesame Street. With Steve Wonder. Singing Superstition.
EvolutionaryDesign
@The Populist:
THIS on a big scale.
These “Free-Marketers” really just mean “free to do whatever the fuck we want that makes US and not YOU money”. No choice, no competition. Monopolies are all that remain.
Zam
@The Populist: Yea, I don’t really think a free market like some of these people want can exist. You will just end up with large companies such as GE buying up one thing after the other until they control a huge percentage of our economy. When they do this they begin to have the kind of power a strong centralized government would have and can just exploit the hell out of us. Without some government regulation we are just gonna end up being owned by a few mega-corporations.
EvolutionaryDesign
@Zam:
Yet people don’t realize that government is a PRO in this situation. The plebes main defect is that they can never think in terms of SCALE. This is why global warming/climate change, multi-national conglomerates, and world politics are never argued with any argument beyond fer or agin’. All these asshats know is AHHHHHH EVERYTHING’S COMING TO GET ME!!!!! SHOOT IT!!!!
freelancer
@EvolutionaryDesign:
@Zam:
@The Populist:
Paddy ftw.
ellaesther
@freelancer: @licensed to kill time: Though, in the name of fairness, I should point out that where I was, was Israel. Talk about your “have no idea how wacky they look to the rest of the world”…!
Every time I go back to visit, I have this hugely jarring moment of “oh, yeah, that’s right. People here actually think/talk like that!” 10 times as bad as when I came back to the US, frankly…!
Cain
Another big win on “FailBlog”. Please see a video picture of the GOP:
Scooter FAIL!
bobbo
I quit cable after the impeachment horror show. At the time I think I believed unconsciously that if I kept an eye on the story, somehow it I could make it all work out. Then I grew up and realized that the whole dog and pony show will never end, and my watching or not watching has no bearing on anything. So for my own peace of mind, I just switched it all off.
freelancer
@Cain:
That is so sweet!
W. Kiernan
Bass in that mfucka is inhuman. What album is it on? What album is it on?
arguingwithsignposts
@The Populist:
Preach it. I think they should ban hostile takeovers and a lot of the activity of hedge funds needs to be curtailed somehow.
Randy Paul
W. Kiernan,
That’s Maiden Voyage with the incomparable Ron Carter on bass.
Big E
legendary music by Herbie….
you probably know about ‘Kind of Blue’ by Miles Davis,
if you don’t, 1st thing you do tomm, go out and get it..
licensed to kill time
every frickin’ day i have to leave a comment and then restart my browser to get the reply arrow to show up. every frickin’ day.