"If You Go Carrying Pictures of Chairman Mao...."

 

I get it, I think. There's a handful of them in every radical crowd. They're so hip, they're positively pelvic. If you're offended by their t-shirt, the problem is you, etc. And nonetheless, the young folks who have discovered Bin Laden's "Letter to America" are just so disappointing. I always hoped, somewhere out there, that, having grown up with the internet, some kind of extra media-savvy would rub off on them, and they would understand that there is propaganda, everywhere, and just because you've run into something "new to you" doesn't mean it's actually valid. That the youths would seek context.

This is called, me, being overly optimistic about human nature. Also, too, I know a bunch of elderly "leftists" who are likewise suckers for the same sort of thing. 

Bin Laden was a recruiter for terrorism against the US--he peddled horseshit pills for what ailed the world. Lots of bloody-minded assholes do that. It's not special. 

I'm not going to be the one who waves my fist and yells at the kids to get off my lawn or stop making human chains or whatever they do today, even if for the love of the revolution, please consider why you are getting dragged off of private property and whether blocking doors are a fire hazard. And also too, be aware cops will wreck your property and get physical at pretty much any leftist protest--it isn't personal. 

But for the love of fuck, please try not to make actual monsters your fucking mascots--is that TOO MUCH to ask? 

Finally--yes, movements can be discredited by malicious actors from within. There were bad actors embedded in Occupy and BLM, and they are already down in your pod.  Don't be hoodwinked and bamboozled babies. It's a jungle out there. 

This Filner Guy Kind of Creeps Me Out

Okay, I opined a little about this in a post I pulled because I went a little too cheeky with the title and somehow never came to my point: there is something kind of dark about a person whose boundaries issues seem to be this far-reaching, who somehow made it 70 years without actually getting the idea that women are not some kind of multi-purpose party favor: we're people. Two weeks of therapy is obviously not going to undo whatever cultural/psychological fuckup that turns a meeting with a constituent into something like this.  It won't undo whatever sense of entitlement led him to treat his former fiancee like this. So far, about a dozen women have come forward to say that he's been a total sleaze to them--this is not a small sample to begin with, but I get the feeling that they are only coming forward because the initial accusations got the ball rolling--and there are probably more women who just haven't come forward yet or who would prefer not to.

What still astounds me about this is that many of these women are even professional women--all women are entitled to respect, but many of these women were in positions where they were not just entitled to respect but in a position to call him out for his disrespect towards them. Sadly, it seems to me like not being called out only reinforced to him that there wasn't anything especially wrong with what he was doing. He may still just think he was being a schmoozer or whatever, without seeing that, especially in situations where there was clear "quid pro quo" involved, what he was doing was abusive of an authority that he probably had no business holding if that's how he used it.

Given that the concept of sexual harassment as an example of abusive behavior isn't all that novel, it is pretty freaking ballsy that he wants to allege that the city currently cutting his paychecks should have advised him that the sorts of things he was doing were "no-no's", and it's pretty sickening that San Diego doesn't have a clear-cut way to easy shed themselves of this ass.  Resigning would be the most decent thing to do from the vantage of his political effectiveness (uh, which would be pretty much disappearing, given that he is up to his ass in scandal), but if he won't, he's basically using the city of which he is mayor no differently than he used or tried to use so many women. Hey, San Diego--it's "What can you do for Bob?" And let's never you mind what you think Bob can still do for you.

This piece of work should find a rock to hide under, and stay there.

Sheriff Arpaio Gives a Press Conference Regarding a Fraud

That's right. Sheriff Arpaio has been talking about himself again--that's quite the fraud!

Anyhow, he claimed today that after a six-month investigation by his crack cold-case squad, he's pretty sure that Obama's birth certificate is some kind of fraud because it was printed out on some kind of printer or something.  Because everyone knows that real birth certificates issued by the state of Hawaii are carefully copied by quill-bearing scribes on parchment, I guess. It's kind of obnoxious, actually--because if he has a top-notch cold-case squad, why doesn't he have those thumb-sitters investigate the backlog of rape and domestic abuse cases they've got hanging around?

(That was rhetorical--obviously that kind of work would never get him national attention!)

What a jerk.

Deadbeat Dad, Teabagger--Joe Walsh, angrily misses the point and looks douchey.

Why yes, we do want more regulation if consumers are getting screwed, thanks for bringing it up! Yes, we do think our government should do stuff for us! Wow! Maybe government isn't putting restrictions on us--the problem is that it isn't putting proper regulations where they are needed, and we aren't funding useful programs the way they should be funded! Maybe unions are working for working people's interests, and lobbyists are working to enrich the profiteers of big industries! Wow! It's like they are totally different things!

It seems like Walsh is a dumbass who believes a false equivalency and will defend it to the death. Just like he probably believes he totally is Father of the Year because Family Research Council says so. In other words--yeah.  Douche.

It's the Season of the Dick

There's this cliche in television lawyer shows: an attorney seemingly recklessly says something unprofessional in court, is reprimanded by the judge and the comment is stricken from the record. The attorney apologizes, but then you see a little smirk--because whatever the lawyer wanted the jury to hear, got heard. Mark Halperin's smirk was kind of like that. Maybe his characterization of the President would be cut out, maybe he'd have to apologize, but in the meanwhile, it was out there. Everyone heard what he wanted them to hear. He said that President Obama was being a dick.

Ha, ha, ha.

He could have been more suave. I'm sure I heard Matt Lauer this morning call Obama's remarks "testy", and that only annoyed the shit out of me because a) Matt Lauer, and b) "testy"--really? Because I genuinely think the president is more than "testy" over some grandstanding congressional twits staging walk-outs and threatening economic disaster just to please the tiny percentage of tea-party fuckwits they for some dumb reason believe brung them to this dance. But that wouldn't have gotten the reaction he wanted--people discussing whether you can call the president "a dick".

I've been light on posting--big reason is douchebags.

There have been a quantum fuckton of stories I wanted to blogulate about, but they all had a depressingly similar hook.  Check these out, if you didn't see them anywhere else (but of course, you have):

GA. Rep. Rob Woodall, a recipient of government-provided health care, suggests that people should take care of themselves instead of expecting, um....the government to. Even though, technically, the government is sort of of, by and for the people so I suppose if we all, like, supported programs like Medicare....oh hell, what's the point?  The guy's a 3-liter douche.

KS GOP (duh) Rep. Pete DeGraaf  says women should just plan ahead for rape by getting their own insurance coverage that provided abortion in case of rape. Wait, what???? I suppose if a woman could afford to get her own coverage, then....she'd probably be able to pay for her own abortion anyway, but, I just don't think this guy has a clue about rape, women, abortion, insurance, or even why uteruses are not like tires and rapists are not like random bits of sharp road-debris. What he does know about, though? Being a huge grainy ice-water douche!