Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Let’s finish the job.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

He really is that stupid.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

T R E 4 5 O N

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Cynicism Check

Reader Interactions

61Comments

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    When the Power of Love
    Overcomes the Love of Power
    the World Will Know Peace
    So That Will Never Happen

    Just try reading that aloud. It doesn’t scan and it doesn’t rhyme. There’s no way a musician like Jimi would have written such a verse.

  6. 6.

    Karen in GA

    @Amir Khalid: GAAAAHHHH!! You’re right! In my defense, I wrote it at three in the morning. But wow.

    Maybe I should leave it alone, though, since it’s a goof on right-wing scaremongering — the misspelling kind of belongs there.

    No, I don’t have it in me. Off to edit. Thanks.

  21. 21.

    WereBear

    I remain hopeful, not cynical.

    Amir is right: Jimi knew it wouldn’t scan.

    And Jimi knew hope is what keeps us going.

    Look at the man: in only 27 years, he overcame an oppressed, poverty stricken, neglectful early life to realize some pretty big artistic dreams, and remains influential to this day. If he’d been cynical… he couldn’t have done that.

    I know cynical is a “realistic” outlook, and that’s a totally fine way to go through life. It eliminates the pitfalls of toxic religion, lowers the likelihood of being conned or used, and helps move people towards a good adjustment, in order to compensate for the avalanche of bad information most of us grow up with. But there’s a point where cynicism is a brake: on our dreams and ambitions.

    A person’s reach should exceed their grasp.

  23. 23.

    JPL

    @chopper: The funniest wordplay mess up was when a front pager, had a post about the Senator from N. J. Cory…. There were many commenters in moderation that day.

  24. 24.

    Bobby B.

    I’m pretty sure Janie Hendrix scoops a bit of royalties from the sticker. I’d rather have one with an Edwin Starr quote.

  25. 25.

    Redshift

    Apparently it’s actually a quote from William Gladstone, nineteenth-century British prime minister.

    I am actually on the less cynical side. We’re living in the most peaceful time ever. The world has plenty of wars, but they’re smaller, and large parts of the world that used to have frequent wars don’t have them any more. Heck, it was less than two hundred years ago that England and France maintained fleets in the Channel to protect their borders from each other.

    Fascinating thing — while googling for the Steven Pinker work about how we’re living in the most peaceful time ever and the world is getting more peaceful, half the results on the first page are from conservative sites mocking Obama for having mentioned it (or something similar.) It can’t be true, or else you wouldn’t have to be afraid of all of these Hitlers running around and terrists who are going to invade Topeka and kill us all!

    It’s reasonable to be cynical about the prospects for action to improve things (at least here), but don’t buy into the utopians’ and fear-mongers’ (curiously shared) worldview that there will never be peace without impossible changes in human nature. There may never be perfect peace everywhere, but the prospect of “good enough” in most times and places is real.

  27. 27.

    kindness

    @Bobby B.: I doubt it. Most those stickers were made back when there weren’t royalty lawyers running amuck. I used to see those stickers all the time in the 70’s & 80’s. Only rarely now.

  31. 31.

    scav

    I think repeated, calculated small arms with a vision of the larger arm can work. Think long-arm, grasp short arm and keep going.

    ETA: Prepare to tack against headwinds or take switchbacks when faced with a solid slope.

  32. 32.

    Citizen Alan

    I am reminded of this discussion of the Republican’s Favorite Bible Verse — “The poor are always with us” — which they interpret to mean that nothing should be done about poverty. In context, however, it refers back to the passages from Deuteronomy pertaining to Jubilee which state that if the Israelites follow God’s commandments about forgiving debts, then poverty would be eliminated, so if there is poverty, it is because the people disobey god.

  36. 36.

    Seanly

    I agree that the statement is a little short.

    I have to stop listening to NPR in the morning. All they do is fluff for Republicans & now Apple products. They had a 5 minute piece on Apple Wallet then followed by a 5 minute piece about Brown vs Shaheen without ever mentioning the actual poll numbers.

    While I’m sure Apple Wallet is a great thing, that entire discussion neglected to mention that Europe has been using touchpads for credit cards for years & the USA financial & retail industries have been dragging their asses on adopting that.

  37. 37.

    askew

    Shakira used that quote in her 2003 tour right before performing Octavo Dia under a screen depicting Bush and Sadam as puppets controlled by the grim reaper. Pretty baldy antiwar statement at a time when being against Iraq War was destroying careers.

    Good news polls in NC by PPP Hagan is up by 4% and in KS where the Independent is tied. Bad polling news in KY where Grimes is down by 8%.

    On an unrelated note, has talking points memo just given up? There live wire section is full of inane stories. They seem to have given up covering any actual political news. Makes huffington post look serious.

  43. 43.

    raven

    @askew: Right when the 1st Gulf War started El Vez played Athens and started with “Prezident Booch, Soddom Hutzien,. Chu Ain’t Nuttin but Chiuauas. . . .

  44. 44.

    Violet

    @Karen in GA: I just voted on my phone. I was number 484. That’s way up from yesterday. Can vote again on my computer I think. Different devices and different internet access.

  45. 45.

    WereBear

    @Villago Delenda Est: And that was on purpose.

    In 1964 the leaders of the Republican Party (including George Will) met with the heads of prominent Protestant seminaries to remold the Bible into conservative, fearful, Prosperity Gospel principles. It was the only way to keep the Republicans in power and fighting godless Communism.

    The fundamentalists and John Birchers didn’t just drift together from common goals. They were pressed together like a panini.

  47. 47.

    Ferdzy

    @Citizen Alan:

    I always got the vibe, reading that verse, that Jesus was thinking of the guy pestering him when he said “the poor”. As in, the poor in understanding and charity. Yeah, I think of Jesus as being just as sarcastic as a Balloonjuicer. Why not?

  49. 49.

    drkrick

    @Bobby B.: What’s wrong with Janie getting a few cents? Jimi and his family certainly had enough money stolen from them over the decades. (Leaving aside the fact that it isn’t really Jimi’s quote)

  50. 50.

    Redshift

    @WereBear: And they didn’t become Republican activists because of abortion (though they love to repeat that myth), they became anti-abortion because it was useful for motivating parishioners to become Republican activists.

  51. 51.

    Karen in GA

    @Violet: Thanks! Not only do different devices count as different people, but so do different browsers on the same devices. I wish I’d known that sooner — I saw a puppy last night with over 1,000 votes. Oh, well. Iggy’s a winner in my book, even if he doesn’t land me free food and household items.

  52. 52.

    Cervantes

    @Redshift:

    Apparently it’s actually a quote from William Gladstone, nineteenth-century British prime minister.

    Several people have been “quoted” voicing the sentiment — including Chinmoy Ghose, from whom Hendrix likely borrowed it — but only one of these sources, namely, Gladstone, also told the House of Commons in April of 1866 that time is on our side (yes, it is, the assembled parliamentarians did not, I’m sorry to say, interject).

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @Citizen Alan:

    In context, however, it refers back to the passages from Deuteronomy pertaining to Jubilee which state that if the Israelites follow God’s commandments about forgiving debts, then poverty would be eliminated, so if there is poverty, it is because the people disobey god.

    I don’t think that’s the correct context. The incident happened between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, i.e. when Jesus knew he had only a few days left to live. He goes on to say that she was anointing him for the grave. So it wasn’t a general comment that it was OK to blow off the poor because they would always be there, but a warning to take advantage of the little time the disciples had left to be with him. It’s a specific command for specific circumstances.

  57. 57.

    Another Holocene Human

    @Citizen Alan: What the Republicans are lacking is the context of Jewish religious law, which this Jesus character claimed to follow, which requires Jews to engage in charitable giving to the less fortunate in the community. While I don’t necessarily agree with the NT passage here, I’ve always interpreted it to mean that it’s a mitzvah, so you did it last week and you’ll be doing it next week.

    As for the sabbatical, whether it’s a loan or a field, there’s a workaround. ;)

  58. 58.

    Roger Moore

    @catclub:
    And my impression is that the whole concept of Jubilee was always more aspirational than real. I suspect, though I don’t know for sure, that the law about keeping a Hebrew slave for more than 7 years was actually followed, but we do know that other aspects of the Sabbatical Year were not kept, or there wouldn’t be so many passages threatening disaster for failing to follow it.

  59. 59.

    John M. Burt

    I suppose I ought to think, “And therefore it will never happen” but . . . I don’t.
    Which I guess means the slogan is serving its purpose.

    This also reminds me of the world’s shortest alternate-history story:

    Hitler set down his beer, turned to me and said, “I must have seen one part or another of Wagner’s Ring cycle a hundred times, when one day during a performance of Ring des Nibelungen a thought struck me: it was about a man who sacrifices his ability to love for the sake of power, and lives to regret it. So why was I doing the same thing?”

  60. 60.

    mike in dc

    DO NOT go see the new “biopic” about Jimi. Slanderous and disappointing does not begin to cover it. So bad that the estate withheld the rights to use Jimi’s music, and his friends(including his former girlfriend) condemned and disavowed much of the content.

Comments are closed.