The "Real" America

I grew up in the 50's, believing in the American Dream of working hard and getting some stuff to show for it and eventually retiring on a pension and social security.

Well, so much for that.

Now I believe:

That both political wings of the same old party that we vote for have edged further and further to the right since I was a child.

That the Republican Party is against education, unless it's to educate their own offspring to handle the wealth that they will inherit.  That the Republican Party is, in fact, against educating the middle and lower classes, in order that they will have legions of underpaid, mindless drones to work in their factories and on their farms. 

That this is the Republican Dream:  to have all the money and to share it with no one.  To keep what's theirs and what's yours too.

This is not the American Dream.  Republicans do not believe in the same America that I believe in.  Republicans do not believe in the America that my dad and his brother and countless other dads and brothers fought for in countless wars.

The current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not being fought to fight the forces of evil afoot in the world.  They are being fought to further enrich the already Republican rich.

This is America now.  America is a place where a handful of people have it all.  And that same handful people has every intention to keep it all.  And they will do whatever needs to be done in order for that to happen.

I can't believe that it's taken me 63 years to wake up and to see America for what it really is, a semi-noble experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong.

I am no longer buying the bullshit.  Are you still buying the bullshit?

You have GOT to get THIS!

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work

Bullshit Thursday!

Karl Rove, on some Faux news yakking head program last night, maintained that Barack Obama is arrogant.

When I stopped pissing myself because I was laughing so hard, I tried to remember just how humble the Bush White House has been for the last nearly 8 years.

Nothing self-righteous about that crowd, nosireebob. "Contempt Prior to Examination" being their motto and all. Karl is contemptuous of anything to which he hasn't even given a cursory glance. George is arrogant, too. But his arrogance is just born out of sheer stupidity.

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I see that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is back in the news. For some reason.

Look, here's the bottom line on all this:

There was a time, not so long ago, when religious people practiced their religion privately. They differentiated between their personal moral beliefs and the need to accommodate differently held beliefs in a pluralistic society.

So we were led to believe. BULLSHIT. This was never the case. We pretended that we were one, big happy family but that only worked as long as everyone PRETENDED to be the same as everyone else, to play by the same rules, and to act as if we all believed the same collection of fairy tales about God and Country.

It was okay to be gay as long as a) you pretended you weren't and b) you kept your mouth shut about it. In other words, it was okay to be gay.... as long as you weren't.

And that's what Don't Ask, Don't Tell is really about. It's okay for YOU to be gay, as long as I don't have to think about it!

It's all about accommodating somebody else's religious prejudices.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Nothing else.

Institutionalized religious bigotry posing as military necessity.

And that, my friends, is a heaping load of Bullshit for today!

Bullshit Thursday!

Pictures speak a thousand words. Especially when it comes to typos. Here are a few billion words.



Note that this is the same "Barach" Obama with a Jewish branch of the family, headed by "Baruch" Obama.

And now, just in time for your summer movie-going pleasure (or whatever):



I have to admit, I've heard stories regarding Mr. Smith's allegedly awe-inspiring bulging basket of goodies. Certainly "above-average."

Our "Gratuitously Insulting Lapel Button of the Week Award" goes to the Texas Republican Party who, during their recent convention, had a vendor booth selling these tasteful little items:



Tacky, no?

And finally we have this:



In which there is nothing... abso-fucking-lutely nothing... wrong.

Just stare at it for awhile. Everything else eventually becomes meaningless.

Sigh.

The Marines Are Looking for a Few Good Felons (and so's the Army)

Today's outrage can be seen by clicking on the title of today's blog, above. It seems that the armed forces would "prefer" the company of known felons to that of known queers.

You always hear a lot of yammer about how allowing gays into the service would adversely affect morale. Bullshit. The people who foment this particular argument are not the troops or sailors in the field or at sea but, rather, it's the party-line of the Royal High Muckety-Mucks back in the Pentagon. And the reason they foist this nonsense on the public and even onto their own personnel is simple:

Because Ma and Pa Kettle, back home in East Jeebus, Utazona, will NOT let little Johnny or little Suzie sign up to serve as cannon fodder in meaningless wars of superiority if they even suspect that little Johnny or little Suzie (whom they've always, secretly, had their doubts about anyway) will meet up with one of them big-city kuwheers who will, in one wild evening of hot man-on-man or gal-on-gal sex, totally get them to succumb to temptation and to convert to the Dark Side.

It's really about recruiting numbers (theirs, not ours). The Pentagon Brass doesn't give a rat's ass about Ma and Pa's religious beliefs (or Johnny's or Suzie's, either). But they DO care about their prejudices. Especially, they care about catering to all those prejudices in order to make sure that the war machine is kept primed and pumped with the hot, steaming, patriotic, well-meaning and totally ignorant fuel of war, the flower of our nation's youth.

So, calling all Felons out there!

Uncle Sam Wants You (but in the good way, not the bad way! I think.)

Taking the Verizon BS by the Horns!

Just when life seems serenely complacent something invariably comes along to throw a wrench into my spiritual works.

Since last week I've been harrassed at home by a renegade robo-phone which attack-dials my number, seemingly in six hour increments, around the clock. It scared the crap out of me at 3:30 in the morning last Friday. I've since turned the ringer off on the extension in the bedroom. But it still calls.

Naturally there are no human beings at the phone company over the weekend (and it was foolish of me to have ever thought otherwise) so it was a pointless effort to reach one until they all came in, hungry and hung-over, on Monday. It was then that I found out that in order to do this properly I would have to await the phantom robo-dialer again and, as soon as it had called and hung up, I was to press *57 which would, apparently, register the offender's number with the phone company for later tracing.

It would also, it seems, cost me a buck. I like that. You could be getting threatening calls from your crazy ex and, in order to get the phone company to cooperate with the police, YOU would have to plunk down a dollar of your hard-earned cash, in advance.

Now there's service! N'est pas?

Well, the phantom struck again last night. I was on my cellphone at the time (why do I still have two phones, I wonder?), so I struggled with yakking into the cellphone at the same time I was trying to press the (star)57 thingie. I hope I managed it.

I called the phone company this morning to report to them that I'd captured the culprit, red-handed, and registered the number, according to specifications.

They told me to wait another 48 hours to "make sure" they'd taken care of it.

Why is it that I seriously doubt that this will take care of it?

And why do I live in an age where "customer service" is just a load of corporate bullshit?