Movie Review: Cowboys & Aliens

Just saw Cowboys & Aliens.  Meh.  I almost never see new movies as I don't much care for what Hollywood's doing these days, but I thought this one had potential and really wanted to like it, yet...meh.  Calling it dumb is fairly pointless, as I like dumb movies and wasn't expecting this to be Macbeth.  But it was dumb even by the standards of a movie called Cowboys & Aliens, and the more you think about what happened, the dumber you realize it was.

Very paint by numbers.  Things only happen because the plot needed them to happen and then they'd move on to the next plot point, with no real desire for presenting us with anything we hadn't seen before.  Hell, they couldn't even bother giving us full-blooded cliches, as even the tired tropes they used were barely fleshed out; as if they couldn't wait to get to the end and be done with it.  And once all the secrets are revealed, you realize you've been conned, because people and events no longer make sense once put into context.

And I hate when filmmakers cheat like that.  It's great to manipulate the audience by not letting them know everything, but it still needs to make sense once the truth is revealed.  Instead, they just keep the action moving and hope you never think too hard about it, while acting like they had done something clever.  And if they're going to do that, they shouldn't bother pretending they had a good secret anyway, as you leave feeling confused and disappointed.

Hint to Hollywood: When you're making a film called Cowboys & Aliens, don't try to have serious moments.  Just have your fun and let us enjoy it.  As with everything in life, if you're doing something dumb, own it.  You can't turn piss into lemonade just because you don't want to be holding piss.

Not a Western

And without a doubt, this movie proves that having cowboys in a movie doesn't make it a western.  The timing was wrong.  The feeling was wrong.  And while the acting was decent, they mostly acted like modern people wearing dusty clothes and didn't give the vibe like they were truly in the old west.

And that ruins half the gag.  I mean, when you've got a movie with the same damn alien invasion story that's already been done before, the only thing they had going for them is to put it in the context of a western.  But no.  This felt like your standard alien invasion movie which just happened to involve characters in the old west; as if they could just throw in a few cliche characters on horses and call it a western.

Anyone who thinks this movie is a western deserves to be punched in the face by Sergio Leone.  After all, Leone was a primary culprit in why you can't make real westerns anymore, as he made a western so perfect that it made a mockery of the entire genre and ruined it for everyone.  Still, people have made good westerns in the post-western era, including Silverado, Young Guns, and Shanghai Noon; all dumb films which are incredibly entertaining.

Yet even by the standards of those pop-culture westerns, Cowboys & Aliens flags far far behind. 

Just Not Fun

Not that it was a complete write-off, as the acting was decent, it had a few laughs (not that I laughed out loud, but it had its moments), and the special effects were excellent.  But the plot felt rushed, the characters only existed to fill that rushed plot, everything was mindlessly predictable, and of course, it was incredibly dumb, even by the low standards you might expect from such a film.

And I think the main problem is that it just wasn't fun.  While there were fun parts in it, like all of the scenes where Daniel Craig kicks ass; that was pretty much it.  And the whole weirdness of alien abductions permeated the entire movie and made it far too creepy to truly be enjoyable.  Seeing aliens destroy whole cities in Independence Day: Totally cool.  Seeing aliens use chains to snatch family members to be zombified and tortured: Very uncool.

Overall, I don't think I'd call this a bad movie, as there was nothing bad about it.  But...it just wasn't a good movie.  And that's the biggest problem of all, as I like good films and I love bad films; and this was neither.  Just a nothing summer blockbuster with more polish than heart.  Again, I wasn't expecting to see a work of art, but I did at least expect to be entertained.  Unfortunately, this one isn't art or entertainment.

As it turns out, sometimes, filmmakers can know so much about making films that they focus on the craft of polished filmmaking and forget to include the fun.

The Real Legacy of Conservativism

One odd trait of many progressives is their insistence that Republicans have a great track record of being bold and creating their own reality, and that we need to emulate that strategy.  And that, of course, is in complete contradiction with reality, which clearly shows time and time again that conservative "boldness" almost always backfires in the long run. 

And sure, Republicans pitch an unpopular agenda, which helps explain a big chunk of their longterm failures.  But of course, if many of these progressives pushed their agenda, unfettered by the demands of popular opinion, I daresay they'd be as unpopular as the Republicans keep finding themselves to be. 

Whenever you listen to talk radio and marvel at the fantasyland Obama version of Obama is, remember this: The Obama they're caricaturing is the same Obama many progressives would like in the Whitehouse.  And were Obama to follow that lead and be the bold leader who ignores political realities and attempts to create a new reality, he'd be as unpopular as Bush was when he tried the same thing.  As it turns out, the reason they tell everyone that Obama is a socialist radical, is because that would be a bad thing for Obama to be and people would reject him.

Revisionist Empowerment

Anyway, over on TPM, I wrote:

At what point do we admit that boldness in politics is usually a handicap, and in the long run, d-bags rarely prosper?

To which AJM3 responded:

When we live in an alternate universe where neither Reagan nor Bush became President. 

And what's weird here is watching progressives rewrite history, in which Reagan and Bush both had successful presidencies based upon their bold ideological stands.  And that posits a reality in which a president COULD be successful by boldly following their ideology.  But why do that?  Why empower them?  By suggesting that Bush or Reagan were successfully bold, they're making conservative look better and more popular than it's ever been. 

Now, I understand why conservatives want to reimagine Reagan as a successfully bold leader, but I fail to see why a liberal would ever do such a thing.  Besides, even wingnuts aren't delusional enough to believe that Bush was successfully bold.  Rather, they insist now that he was too liberal and timid, even though they fully supported his policies at the time.

The Real Legacy

But anyway, here's my rebuttal, basically saying that:

Yes, because Bush had longterm success.  Oh, wait.  No, he didn't.  He is still considered a disgrace several years after leaving office, and a majority of people STILL blame him for the problems we're facing.  He tainted conservativism for years, causing them to lose two straight elections and the presidency.  Wow, what a legacy!

Meanwhile, it's only conservative-vision hindsight that posits Reagan as a successful and bold leader.  Reality shows that he was wildly unpopular during several periods of his presidency, he repeatedly compromised with Democrats, negotiated with Commies, ran away from terrorists, and by the end of his presidency, he was a doddering old man facing the onset of Alzheimers and mired in impeachable controversy. 

This isn't remembered as much now, but Reagan was very unpopular towards the end of his presidency, and it was only because they liked him personally that his popularity came back again and his legacy revised.  But he got hammered HARD for his boldness, and it was only by giving up key platforms that he was able to keep the popularity he had.  After all, Reagan wanted to kill Social Security and Medicare, and got hurt so badly by it that he actually saved them.  That wasn't boldness.  That was pragmatism.

The only two groups who cite Reagan and Bush as successfully bold are hardright ideologues and leftwing progressives who demand that we copy the conservative blueprint for success; despite the fact that they've lost more elections than they've won since they started this strategy; and their prospects dim with every passing election. 

And of course, not even conservatives believe that Bush was successful in his boldness; as they insist he was too timid and liberal.  It's only these progressives who will insist that Bush achieved much with his boldness, despite the small handful of items they can list that Bush actually did.  Sure, he got us wars, taxcuts, and lots of conservative judges and cronies.  But he got almost nothing else.  If there's a person who proves that boldness can backfire, it's George W. Bush.

These men failed when they pushed hard-right ideals, and did better when they compromised and quit.  I see no reason to pretend it was otherwise.

What I Learned Today

I actually learned something today.  I don't mean like a fact or the day-to-day stuff you learn as it comes up.  That stuff's easy to learn and you usually would rather forget.  I mean, I learned a new idea.  It's been a long time since I learned an idea from someone else, but it actually happened, so I thought I'd share it with you.  It comes from TPM's Josh Marshall:

As we move closer to intentionally jettisoning the full faith and credit of the United States and eyeing the pulse of the bond market, we shouldn't forget one salient fact. The centrality of debt holders in our constitutional order isn't a bug, it's a feature. Indeed, the national debt -- created through the federal assumption of state war debts -- was created to do precisely this: get the holders of bonds, necessarily wealthy and powerful people, to have a vested interest in the fixity and stability of the federal government.

And yeah, that makes sense to me.  I get it.  Now, I'm assuming that Josh got that from someone else and this represents some known thing that Hamilton intentionally did for this reason; so if that's not the case and someone just made it up, it's somewhat less impressive.

But all the same, it's an excellent theory to explain why our system works as well as it does.  Because one big problem with democracy, obviously, is that without a common bond to tie people together, you'll quickly find that the various interest groups will tear the things to shreds vying for power.  But as long as you find some way to get people's interests vested in the common good of our country, they'll still have a common purpose to move towards.

And our problem right now is that conservatives have been fed such a long stream of delusional reality that they genuinely don't know what's really going on at all.  And while that's been a problem for a long time, thanks to Fox News and the rest of the echo chamber, it's all any of them can hear and they're all getting off of their own supply. 

But if we can ever convince them that we all have a common goal, and explain to them how real economic and financial theories work (ie, explain liberalism); we can get back on the right path towards greater stability and understanding.  Culture wars suck, but things have gotten a heckeva lot worse now that they've started dabbling in economic theory.

Fox News and Their War on Logic

So I'm over at Think Progress and the first headline I see is Fox Host: Free Birth Control Is Liberal Conspiracy To ‘Eradicate The Poor' which is exactly what it sounds like it'd be.  And because, yeah, if there's one thing us liberals hate, it's poor people. That's why we work so hard to help them, so we'll have fewer poor people. 

Oh wait a minute, that actually makes sense.  In fact, one big reason to give birth control to the poor is so they'll have fewer children, which will also help them be less poor.  So this isn't really a conspiracy, in that it's our stated purpose for poor people to have the ability to limit the number of kids they have.  And being that conservatives typically lament how many kids poor people have, you'd think they'd be in on this "conspiracy" with us.

But that's not my point, my point is: How much longer can they continue to spew this offensive nonsense before they lose their last believers?  Seriously.  I mean, who can listen to this and be like "Yeah, those lousy liberals hate them poor people so much they want them to have fewer kids"?  At best, they have to hope that nobody's paying attention to what they're saying, because even the most diehard Foxfan can't possibly find these arguments convincing;

And then there's the weird issue of them going on and on about women not needing birth control if they "stop having irresponsible sex."  Uhm, duh?  Using birth control IS having responsible sex.  And really, are they imagining that only sluts need birth control? 

And it sounds like they forgot they weren't talking about STD's.  If you abstain until marriage and stay in a monogamous relationship, you won't get STD's; but you can STILL get pregnant.  And if they're arguing that it's irresponsible to ever have sex unless you were wanting a kid from it, then I think they should go right out and say it, and see how far that gets them. I suspect they'd lose a big chunk of their audience with that one.

But of course, they don't really mean this stuff at all, as these are all codewords for what they're really talking about, and this code is so ingrained in their viewers that the words pass through without their surface meaning being heard.  This isn't about birth control.  This isn't even about helping poor people.  This is about them attacking irresponsible black hos who are too dumb to close their legs, as well as getting a funny little dig on liberals.  That's it.  That's the uncoded message that Fox viewers are receiving. 

Because at the end of this, you're not supposed to think "Oh, those damn liberals want to prevent poor people from having kids."  You're supposed to think...well, hold on.  It's late and I'm still actually having trouble with the exact message on this one.  Because again, conservatives should be happy about a program that helps poor people be more responsible and have fewer children.  And so they're attacking the very program they should support, as well as attacking and defending the ability of minority women to have fewer children. 

And so I'm thinking they're just mindless dolts who are using codewords irresponsibly and don't really know what they're doing.  And if their viewers aren't cluing in on how moronic this garbage is, it's only because they also don't know what they're doing, and aren't even really paying attention.  They know they're upset about something, and that's good enough for them.

Clueless Conservative Sobriety Test

As a devout anti-authoritarian, I typically don't like watching police videos, as I usually feel bad for the suspect and these videos almost always involve bossy cops yelling at confused civilians and escalating the situation out of control while always placing the blame on the confused civilian for not being more obedient.

I mean, even when the suspect is clearly in the wrong about something, it's generally the case that the cop could have made things better, had they made an attempt to do so.  But they often teach these people that the only way to control a situation is to establish authority and demand obedience, so that's what they go with.  So if you don't obey every command, even the confusing ones, there's a good chance you'll be arrested and/or tasered.

And then...there are videos like this one, involving Republican state legislator Robert Mecklenborg; Voter ID sponsor and skunk drunk idiot.  It's a long video, but definitely worth the length if you have time.

And wow, that was simply hilarious.  Because first off, Officer McCreary is a funny dude and it was obvious that he knew exactly what was going on, and was just humoring the drunk while subtly mocking him; as if he's seen it a thousand times before.  We're not in Ohio anymore, indeed. 

Reality is for the Other Guy

And what's so funny here is how oblivious Mecklenborg seems to be the whole time.  He seems entirely clueless as to what a drunk test is, imagined he passed the tests instead of failing so badly that he couldn't even complete them, didn't seem to understand what a breathalyzer was, imagined he would be let go if he refused to breathalyze, and finally, thought the cop would remove the handcuffs if he asked him to.  I mean, is this guy part of our reality or what?

And here's the thing: It's quite possible he was playing dumb.  But...why?  Did he imagine the cop would say "Hey, you failed the field sobriety test, couldn't understand the basic words I was telling you, and seem entirely clueless as to what drunk driving is; so I think I'll just let you go home.  Have a nice day!"

Of course not.  So, if it was an act, what did he hope to achieve other than to make a bad situation worse?  I suppose it is possible to talk your way out of a DUI, but this guy wasn't even close.

And that's the thing: Either way the guy is oblivious to reality and seems to lack the basic knowledge people need for daily life.  At a guess, I'm thinking this guy only thinks of drunk driving and arrests in the abstract and didn't realize it could somehow happen to him.  And unfortunately, those are key traits to being a Republican these days, as the more reality based you are, the less likely you are to adopt conservative positions. 

Conservative policies look great, until they actually happen to you.  After that, you'll beg for a little liberal empathy and assistance.

Atheist on Atheist Violence

I'm having one of those problems where I've got so much I want to say that I end up not saying any of it.  So I'll just share some stuff I wrote in a Facebook exchange with a friend who is a strong Atheist atheist who dislikes Agnostic atheists like myself; who he considers to be weak and wimpy.  As if it takes strength to be rude towards people in an online debate.

He's a nice guy and everything, but he's one of those atheists who's more of an anti-Christian than anything, and fails to see how he causes problems for the rest of us atheists who are neutral on the issue of other people's religions.  As I always say, if someone claims they need guidance from God to stop them from raping dogs, who am I to disagree?

He even wrote a book on the subject, called Malevolent Design: The Death of a Loving God, which I'll plug, even though I don't necessarily agree with it.  If you're interested, here's the first chapter; which isn't bad, though it's far less convincing that he thinks it is.  As you can guess from the title, it's all about why Intelligent Design isn't compatible with a loving god.  And yeah, I'm afraid I might have just given away the whole thing.

And anyway, I saw a post of his on Facebook which kind of insulted Agnostic atheists like myself, so I defended agnosticism while explaining that it's the only logical position for a skeptic to take.  And this guy not only continually refuted the idea that you can't prove a negative, but actually claims that he can prove that gods don't exist.  Seriously, he said that repeatedly; that he could prove no gods exist.  And that's just ridiculous, but being the open-minded kind of guy I am, I asked for the proof.  Needless to say, I was disappointed.

Here was my reply to him:

Uh, Matt. Nothing you wrote gave any evidence that gods don't exist. When you write things like "where do gods fit in" and refer to contradictions and bad science, you're not proving your claims. You're merely disproving other people's claims, and that's not the same thing at all.

And this all ties back into the "can't prove a negative" thing that you clearly don't understand. Your arguments haven't been to prove a negative, but to disprove a positive. I already explained the difference earlier, while you're still hung up on the semantics of the phrase.

And just so it's clear, I intentionally used the terms "gods" repeatedly, and wasn't referring to any god in particular. While you're still stuck arguing against Yahweh and other known gods, I was addressing the entire concept of gods. That wasn't accidental on my part, as I've been using that construct for years, because my arguments apply to ALL gods, not just the Christian god.

And even Yahweh himself is clearly outside of your disprove zone. What part of omnipotent didn't you understand? He supposedly can do ANYTHING and works in mysterious ways. So mysterious, in fact, that it's impossible for mankind to understand what he's doing. That's part of his story and makes it utterly impossible to prove that he doesn't exist. Do I think this sounds likely or probable? Of course not, or I wouldn't be an atheist. But proof isn't about guesses, probability, or opinion. Proof is proof, and if you claim you can prove no gods exist, you better back it up or stop making the claim. That's the first rule of skepticism: Claims require proof.

All you've done is to dispute manmade religions. But that doesn't mean anything, as it's widely understood that most religions are false, if not all of them; or there wouldn't be so much disagreement among them. But for argument's sake, let's say ALL the religions are wrong: Does that prove that Yahweh doesn't exist? No, it doesn't. It just means mankind got it wrong. Showing contradictions in religion does NOT prove that gods don't exist. After all, maybe the gods WANTED people to get it wrong, and it's all part of their design.

And so, how about it? Are we going to get your proof that gods don't exist? Or will you continue to disprove other people's claims without ever supporting your own? But I'm telling you, you shouldn't bother. It's simply impossible to prove that gods don't exist, so you shouldn't even try.

I then posted this:

The weirdest thing about all this is that I remember having these debates with Christians fifteen years ago, with them insisting that I had to prove that gods didn't exist; and if I couldn't prove it, it proved that their specific god DID exist.

And forget about their odd belief that proof of any god is proof of THEIR god (a mistake they make constantly, including their mistaken belief that the "Creator" Jefferson wrote about was Yahweh), it all came down to them insisting that I had to prove my claim. Yet I didn't have to because I wasn't making a claim, and rightly insisted that I couldn't possibly do so. And since they were making the claim, the burden of proof was on them.

And that's so often the case with these sorts of debates, as people aren't really arguing about the real topic, but merely joisting about to decide who has the burden of proof. Everyone always wants to be the skeptic demanding the evidence, as it's far easier than being the sucker who has to prove his claims. And they all believe that if the other guy can't prove his claim it somehow proves the skeptic's claim, without understanding that all claims have a burden a proof and the moment you make a claim, you're the sucker who has to provide the proof and there are no shortcuts out of it.

And that's why I'm agnostic, so I never make the mistake of making a claim I can't prove. Agnosticism is the only logical answer for the true skeptic. Being skeptical about the existence of gods is easy. Proving it is impossible.

So, is that the cheapest way of filling blog space?  No, but it's not great either.  But hey, what do you expect for free?

Real Republicans Lose in Wisconsin

The headline says it all: Fake Democrats Lose in Wis. Primary Recalls

Ouch.  Talk about your political fails.  I mean, yeah, sure, even Wisconsin Republicans knew that their fake Democrats wouldn't win and were just doing it to help themselves politically.  But, man, what a fail.

Because the thing is, anyone over the age of twelve should be too mature for this kind of garbage and it cost taxpayer money to hold these sham primaries.  Yet the Republican Party in Wisconsin actively told people to vote for these fake Republicans, which only makes them look like immature con-artists.  Besides the headline, the article used the phrase "Fake Democrat" seven times!  And the story made the Yahoo homepage.  As much as people pay attention to political stories at all, it'll be known how Republicans ran fake Democrats in a perversion of our electoral system.

So yeah, they scored a few cheap points, and even had to spend some of their own dough to support these fake Democrats.  And in the process, they announced to the country that Republicans are jerk-faced tricksters who enjoy taking a crap on the head of democracy.  And rather than undermine the Democrats, all they did is give them more momentum and make any sensible Republicans turn their heads in disgust.

But that's all we've seen from Republicans ever since they allowed the far-far-right take over the party.  They continue their death spiral downwards, taking bigger and bolder stands that they imagine shows themselves to be gaining power; when it's really just more evidence of how delusional and impotent they really are.

But By The Grace of God

I was just reading about the story from Grand Rapids about some guy who apparently killed his ex-girlfriend, her family, his child, and whoever else; and how he went on a "rampage" throughout Grand Rapids trying to escape, shot at police, drove down the wrong side of the highway, crashed into a ditch, ended up busting into a house to take hostages, and finally killed himself while the police were trying to coax him to surrender.  And I don't know how much of this is accurate at this point, but the whole thing sickens me. 

And naturally, our sympathies go out towards the victims and their families and loved ones, and it's at this point that I always hope maybe there is some sort of afterlife that makes everything better.  But for as much as it seems absolutely wrong to feel sorry for the killer, I just have to.  Because he was a human too, and as wrong as what he did was, there can be no doubt that he'd have done things differently had he been able to.

Because he can't have wanted it this way.  I'm sure he was overwhelmed with horrible feelings, felt trapped into reacting based upon out-dated animal instincts, and must have felt the whole world crushing in on him before finally killing himself.  And again, it's at this point that I hope for an afterlife with a forgiving god of some sort that can make this guy feel better.  When I even try to imagine the despair he must have felt before he pulled the trigger it makes me sick to my stomach.

Because in the end we're all just stupid animals trapped into a society that was never meant for us, and we should all be thanking the heavens that we weren't born in his shoes, experienced what he experienced, and ended up like he ended up.  For as much as we all want to pat ourselves on the back for being great, we don't deserve any of it. 

From the time we're conceived until the time we die we're all stuck on a one-way railway built on genetics, learned behavior, and fate.  There is no other alternative and if you believe that you would have lived this guy's life differently than he did than you're simply deluding yourself.  The very concept is an absurdity and I'm constantly amazed that anyone tries to argue otherwise.

The whole thing was sad from start to finish.  There were no winners here.  And as much as it was possibly a sensible decision he made to kill himself, this wasn't justice.  There can be no justice in this sort of story.  A man going to jail for stealing from the elderly can face justice.  In this story, it's sad all the way around.  And I read comments on the story from people gladly denouncing the guy, wishing that we could destroy him while he was alive, and reveling in his ignominious death at the end; and it just breaks my heart even more.

And yes, I definitely believe we must punish wrong-doers, though I place far more emphasis on rehabilitation than most folks.  And if we punish people, we shouldn't be happy about it.  Justice is a necessity of life, but it doesn't bring back the dead or make the victims' families any happier.  I just hope some day mankind can get past our primate urges and can live amongst each other as civilized beings.  Until then, we just have to be kind to each other and understanding when people need to be understood, and hope that we can receive the same in return.

Justifiable Bigotry

Yahoo has an article on Tarantino's new movie about slavery.  So what else can that mean other than that we can see lots of comments from bigots complaining about how bigoted black people are, as their big excuse for acting racist towards black people?

The angle here is that black people are supposedly still extremely upset about slavery, and use that as their excuse for being lazy, stupid, and hating white people.  Oddly, I guess I don't hang around many black people, as I have yet to hear them use slavery as a reason for what's keeping them down.  When I hear about the problems facing black people, it's more about poor education and discrimination; not slavery.

Yet there are apparently lots of white people who will insist that black people are blaming slavery for their problems, and since that's ludicrous, they use that to show how ludicrous all black people are.  And so you can read comments about how Jamie Fox is a black racist who hates white people, as evidenced by him agreeing to be in a white guy's movie involving slavery.  My theory, on the other hand, is that Jamie Fox is a bad ass who is superior to these racist morons in every way, and it bugs the hell out of them.  After all, Fox is a black man, which means he's supposed to be stupid and lazy.  How dare he use his stupid laziness to be such a huge success!

And what's so weird is that these people are conscious enough about the problems of racism that they know they can't be outright racist.  But...if they can convince themselves that black people were racist to them first, then it's completely ok to attack all black people for doing this to them; unaware that this is still racist on the first level of racism.

So they continue to make these completely racist attacks, all the while imagining themselves to be so clever as to have dodged them and act outraged when we call them bigots anyway.  And they're completely unaware that even the original racists justified their racism in this exact manner, by insisting that blacks were a scary inferior race that would destroy whitey if they could.  Some things never change.

Examples of Racism

Here's an example of some of these ridiculous comments, edited for offensive words, of course:

Oh, well.  Never mind.  I started re-reading the comments and couldn't find a representative one that didn't make my stomach hurt, and I just couldn't do that to my loyal readers.  If you're interested, you can click on the link and read them yourselves.  But I just can't stand to have that garbage here.

But if you do read the comments, what you'll find are a few people interested in the movie, a few people who say this is an interesting discussion, and quite a few people who insist that black people hate white people, are lazy, and are blaming slavery for their problems.  Yet, you'd think if black people were doing that, that you'd see an equal number of comments from black people attacking white people and blaming their problems on slavery.  But I guess the wily black man is up to his tricks again, as the only racists there are the white people attacking black racists and using that racism as an excuse to be racist.

And of course, the big irony is reading lots of bigots insisting that black people can't "move on" from slavery, yet they're entirely obsessed with the issue, while few black people wrote comments about it at all.  Likewise, they insist that all black people are blaming us for their problems, which is their excuse for blaming black people for their problems.

New Bigots, Same as the Old

But really, as much as these people imagine they've invented a clever new form of justified racism, it's really no different than the old racism.  Back in the day, bigots invented reasons to rationalize the enslavement of other races for their personal benefit.  After that became illegal, they invented rationalizations for denying other races equal treatment with themselves.  Now that that's illegal, they've invented rationalizations for treating other races badly, and it defies belief to imagine they wouldn't happily discriminate or enslave other races if given the opportunity.

And in the end, there can be no doubt what their game is.  Some people will always be discontent with their own lives unless they can tear down others to make themselves feel better.  For these people to be up, someone else has to be down, and if they're not getting ahead and being the awesome Master of the Universe they know they should be, then obviously somebody is holding them back.

For authoritarians like them, life is a zero-sum game, and if they are denied their god given right to oppress others for their personal benefit, then they'll use that as their excuse for wanting to oppress others for their personal benefit.  For these people, the concept of the win-win situation eludes them entirely, and so they wallow in their own disgusting world, as they refuse to build themselves up in a world that doesn't give them everything they want in the first place.

All That Glitters Isn't a Conspiracy

Note: I wrote this one a few days ago.  Still don't know if it's worthy to post, but decided to do it anyway, just to post something.

Brains are incredible things, but you really have to be careful with them or they'll start playing tricks on you and make you see things that aren't real.  And so I'm bored and looking at Yahoo and see an article about how the government is sitting on $1 billion in gold coins because an idiot Republican thought he could get people to start using gold coins, so he mandated that the government make them; but people still didn't care.  So no one uses the coins and taxpayers are now stuck paying to store them in a warehouse..

Pretty straight forward story, right?  Not if you're an anti-government conspiracy monger.  To them, this is all about some secret plot to undermine gold and destroy our economy.  And I saw that on the most highly ranked comment on that story, which said:

The headline should read "Gold Colored Coins"

Now, I get his point.  His point is that these coins aren't actually made of gold, but of course, that's because they couldn't be.  After all, $1 of gold isn't really going to be big enough to make a coin out of.  But all the same, they look gold and coins have long been referred to as "gold coins" even if they're not actually made of gold.  Similarly, I can say I'm wearing an orange shirt without people thinking it's made of fruit.

And from that, we see comments like these:

You can't trust Yahoos' headlines anymore..

The Presidential Dollar coins do NOT contain any gold ... they have a golden color due to a special mix of alloys. Makes me wonder if this article is a propaganda article to spin the country's financial condition as being sounder than it is?

sounds like they are saying that gold itself is pretty worthless, and trying to call these coins gold? i agree fully with michael s

Eric, I want our currency made of real gold and silver so the fed can't just devalue them and steal my wealth.

Yahoo you suck!!! Big time!!!

This article is trying to convince me (emotionally) that these "gold-colored" coins (ergo gold coins) aren't worth considering because nobody wants em (bandwagon propaganda) BUT I'm not buying it. Gold and Silver Bullion is so much better than fake, digital, fiat, debt financed, federal reserve notes, and will be worth more when this country crashes and burns (by purposeful engineered design BTW)

And here's the thing: The word gold was NOT in the actual headline of the article.  It was the teaser headline on the Yahoo homepage that these people are referring to, while the actual headline was The $1 Billion That No One in the United States Wants.  In fact, the word "gold" was only used once in the article, and the point of the article wasn't about them being gold, but about them being metal and how people don't want metal dollars.

Yet, we're to imagine that Yahoo conspired to have someone write this story for the explicit purpose of devaluing gold by making people think it's worthless.  And naturally, Yahoo would have no purpose for doing this, were it not some plot from the government or some shadowy cabal.

But...if they were going to do such a thing, don't you think they'd do a better job of it?  I mean, you'd think between the combined resources of Yahoo, the government, and Obama's Kenyan-Chicago ties, we'd have a little better push on this than a minor story on a Yahoo blog.

For that matter, don't you think they'd have just written an article about how coins made of gold are useless because it's just a shiny rock with no intrinsic value beyond what we give to it?  That'd be a much better article for pushing that sort of agenda, and has the benefit of being true.  But no matter.  These people see a conspiracy and that's all that's important.

I've actually tried to explain that to people whenever they start talking about how paper dollars only have value that we give to it, as they somehow believe that gold has magical value that will always last.  But of course, value is all in the eyes of the person willing to pay for it, and if our country ever gets to the point that our money becomes worthless, we'll have a lot more problem on our hands than how many shiny rocks we have in our pockets.  If the shit goes down, bullets will most assuredly be worth more than gold.

Democracy Means You Can't Always Win

There's this fantasy thinking that says that life is black & white with easy answers and if people just did the right thing, they'd do the right thing and the world would be a better place.  And so you have people who believe that Obama can force Congress into rubber-stamping anything he wants, if only he told people what he wanted and went on the offensive against anyone who got in his way.  As if that's ever worked for any president in the history of our country.

And then you have people who demand vigilante justice and insist that bad guys don't deserve a trial; like many of the commenters at this news story about a serial killer in Cleveland.  And yeah, sure, in this case I'm sure the guy did it and vigilante justice would be swifter and perhaps more accurate than what he's going to get.  And just as the liberals criticizing Obama "know" the right answer and are frustrated by this whole democracy "balance of power" system, these commenters "know" the right answer and are frustrated by the whole Due Process system.

But the reason we have these rules is because there AREN'T always easy answers, and we CAN'T always know if the guy is guilty; and the best way to sort this out is to have laws, elections, and trials.  And yeah, this can be frustrating and you will often get bad results.  We can't always get the laws we need and bad guys will get treated better than they deserve and might even be set free.

But that's simply the price we have to pay for having our form of government.  If we want people to be willing to cooperate and obey laws they don't like, then we have to cooperate and obey laws WE don't like.  And if we want to make sure mobs don't kill innocent people, we have to have a fair justice system that also applies to guilty people.  Like it or not, this is the best option.

As I keep saying, our system of government isn't designed to find the "right" answer.  It's about having a process that we can all agree to, even if we don't agree with the results.  And this benefits us in the long term.  Sure, it'd be nice if Obama could unilaterally give us free universal healthcare and if serial killers could be made to suffer the way they made others suffer; but that also means we could have rotten laws forced on us and endless warfare as vigilante groups waged vengeance upon one another.

As messy as democracy can be, it's still far better than the alternative.  After all, dictatorships rarely get the right answers either.

The Case for Staying in Afghanistan

It feels good to be smart.  We all want it.  We all want to be experts, just as we all want to be rockstars and superstar athletes and sexy pornstars that everyone wants to sleep with.  Unfortunately, that's just not the case for the vast majority of us.  And whereas it's obvious to people when they're not rockstars or athletes or pornstars, too many people fall into the delusion that they're experts.  That they have some piece of inside information that the majority of folks don't know, and this is what sets them apart from the rest of the heap of humanity.

But...this is simply a delusion and becoming an expert isn't as simple as making up your own facts or agreeing with people who you think are experts.  No, being an expert takes hard work and just as we can't all play guitar like Jimi Hendrix or slamdunk like Michael Jordan, we can't all know what we're talking about.  And if you go stumbling through life imagining yourself to be an expert, then you probably aren't one.  Sorry, but that's just life.

And so I had to laugh when reading about Obama's plan to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, and saw this comment at TPM:

10,000 is definitely not enough at this point. I understand the fear that some may have about violence breaking out again with a more significant draw down and the instability it may cause, but Afghanistan is going to have to do it on its own at this point. The country needs to transition from the "nation builder" model that the neo-cons wanted us to be, and move into the arena of military activity that netted us OBL.

Ah, of course.  Obama has been working on this plan for some time, with the best military experts who have real world experience both in managing troops and understanding the situation on the ground in Afghanistan, yet Hobbes83 knows this isn't enough.   Damn, why couldn't the Pentagon have hired him?

And hey, I'm not trying to pick on Hobbes, but come on.  This is a dumb comment.  Seriously.  There's no real thought behind this at all, as it's nothing more than a confirmation of what he was already thinking.

Fixing What You Broke

And what bugs me about all this is the people who insist that we need to leave immediately as if that's the liberal pro-peace position.  But it's not.  We're not there because we're war-monger invaders exploiting their country.  We're there because we invaded and are now responsible for fixing the country.  Those are the rules: You break it, you bought it.

Now, if someone wants to argue that we simply can't afford to fix their country, that's fine.  That's an argument I can understand.  But that's not a liberal argument.  That's not in support of peace.  Because if we leave, there won't be peace.  There will be fighting and death.  Sure, it won't be American lives or American money being lost, and it might even be less violent than it is now.  But let's not delude ourselves into thinking that peace will break out the moment we leave.  That's simply not the case.  There will be violence whether we're there or not, and our purpose there is to make it as painless as possible.

And so we're pulling out 10,000 troops now and another 23,000 by next summer. That's the plan drawn up by the experts we've got.  And maybe they're full of shit war-mongers who simply like killing people.  And maybe Obama's a sellout who won't remove all the troops for political purposes.  Or maybe this is the best plan possible and it'd be better for the world if we put more troops in.  I don't know.  I'm not a psychic or a military expert, so I'm not in a position to say.  I'm a smart fricking guy, but even I've got my limitations.

But I will say this: If we had unlimited funds and an all-volunteer army willing to do the job, I think we should stay.  While I always opposed the Iraq War and am glad we're still on track for our withdrawal there, I always supported the war in Afghanistan.  Partly, that's because Afghanistan's leaders were responsible for attacking us and Iraq wasn't, and partly because Iraq had a stable government and Afghanistan didn't.  And I believe that all humans have a right to a decent society and truly believe that America could help that become a reality.

That's what liberalism is all about, and if we're pulling out of Afghanistan because it's too costly for money and men, that's fine.  If we must, we must.  I'm a pragmatic liberal and don't believe in fighting fights I can't win.  But we still must remember what liberalism really is, and it's not just about helping America or opposing all military interventions.  It's about helping everyone, and sometimes a military intervention can do that.

If the troubles in Afghanistan are too much for us to handle, we should leave.  But that's not to say we should like it.

The Problem of Subjective Facts

Politifact has a problem: It doesn't believe in facts.  It's a fact checking site, yet on some of the key issues of the day, if there's a difference of opinion on what the facts are, they get all squishy and start insisting that facts are subjective and perception is more important than reality.  And if there's a dispute over a fact, they'll not only refuse to settle the dispute, but they'll insist that anyone who considers it to be a settled is wrong and will use their "fact check" to declare that person wrong.

Needless to say, you can't have a difference of opinion on facts, which makes it so many of their "fact" checking pieces are beyond useless and we'd all have been better off if they said nothing.

And so I just read this "fact checking" piece they did on Jon Stewart's claim that Fox News viewers are the least informed of news viewers.  According to their "analysis" this claim is false.  Their evidence?  Three studies by Pew Research Center which show that Fox News viewers rated consistently low when asked questions about who the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is and other relatively meaningless questions.  And then there were two studies asking meaningful policy questions, which Fox viewers did the worst on.

And that's it.  Three studies showing Fox News doing poorly, and two showing they did the worst.  So how, might you ask, did they rate Stewart's claim to be false if Fox did so poorly?  You see, while they did poor on the Pew studies, they weren't the worst.  And on the two studies they did the worst on, Politifact didn't like the questions because they saw them as being subjective because some people might disagree on the facts.  Huh?

As they say:

Meanwhile, the other set of knowledge surveys, from worldpublicopinion.org, offer mixed support for Stewart. The 2003 survey strikes us as pretty solid, but the 2010 survey has been critiqued for its methodology.

Ah, well then.  If someone critiqued that study, then it must not be a good one.  After all, no one would have disagreed with it if it were good, right?

Objective-Objective Questions v. Subjective-Objective Questions

You see, when you ask a relatively meaningless question like "Who is the president of Russia?" there's no subjective angle to it so it's entirely safe; even if it has little importance to what's going on around us.  But when you ask questions like

"Is it your impression that most economists who have studied it estimate that the stimulus has created (a) saved or created several million jobs, (b) saved or created a few jobs, or (c) caused job losses."

and

"Do you think now that the American economy is (a) starting to recover, or (b) still getting worse?"

These questions don't count, because some people's perceptions might disagree with the facts.  And because their perceptions differ, we must pretend that these objective questions are subjective, even though they have definite answers that informed people should be aware of.

As Politifact explains, that last question is no good because:

However, given the phrasing of the question, a respondent might think the question was asking for a personal opinion of how the recovery was going, rather than what the official statistics say.

And so we're not allowed to declare someone to be misinformed even if the facts and experts show they're misinformed.  Right.

And this is where Politifact can get all tangled up, because they just don't like controversy.  That's why in this very piece, they identify Fox News by saying they're "widely perceived as a conservative-leaning network," as if there was any doubt about that.  I mean, come on!  Saying that Fox is perceived as conservative-leaning is like saying that NBA players are perceived as tall.  Yes, everything's relative at a certain level, but even Fox doesn't really pretend to be balanced anymore.

Curiously, later on in the piece, they describe MSNBC as "a liberal counterpoint to Fox," as if that's undisputed fact.  So...MSNBC is a counterpoint to Fox, yet Fox can't be accurately described as conservative.  Of course.  How squishy of them.

But thus is the world of Politifact.  When a fact isn't disputed, they'll proudly denounce any who get it wrong, but as soon as you get to an issue that might piss off Republicans, even facts aren't good enough anymore.

Man Arrested for Baggy Pants on Airline

This kind of shit just pisses me off.  It's a story about some dude who had baggy sweatpants that were a little too baggy for US Airways, and so they made a big fucking deal about it and finally removed him from the plane because he wouldn't pull up his pants and had him arrested for trespassing.  Trespassing!  And now there are all these people insisting that this guy had it coming, because people shouldn't have baggy pants that are too baggy and we should all respect the authority of airline employees.

But, no.  This wasn't about baggy sweatpants at all.  I mean, it's an airplane.  The dude was sitting down.  And if they had just left him be, nobody would have noticed that you could see his underwear.  And even if they did, so what?  It's just underwear and you see worse than that at any pool, lake, or beach every day.  This guy was at least an athlete.  I've seen a lot grosser dudes than him wearing speedos, and in front of children, no less.

So it ain't the end of the world.  This is America and if some fool wants to wear his pants to the ground, what's the problem?  They're his pants and he's the one who looks like a fool.  And if you don't want to look at his underwear, don't look.  That's what I do with the fat speedo dudes, and it's worked quite well for me.

Respect My Authority

The only problem here is that the US Airways employees decided to make it a problem and demanded that he respect their authority.  Sure, he wasn't hurting anyone and he was being polite towards them, but that's apparently not enough.  And as a full-fledged red-blooded anti-authoritarian, this shit pisses me off.  Because I'm sick of control freaks telling me what to do.  Schools that dictate what color shoelaces you can wear and employers telling me how to dress.  I thought we settled this shit back in the 60's and the freaks won!

But no, we're now in 2011 and have a shitstorm of real problems in the world, just like we always have, yet some jerkoffs insist that they get to tell us how to dress and will imprison people simply to prove that point.  And that's just fucked up.

And here's the thing: It's not Big Government doing that to people.  That's private industry.  That's the free market that got this guy arrested.  Sure, it was the government that enforced the law, but they had no choice because they had to follow the law.  It was these freaks at US Airways making a big deal about nothing that's the problem.  And even when governments does this sort of thing, it's local governments that enforce dress codes on baggy pants.  The federal government doesn't give a damn how you dress.  And the bigger a government is, the less likely it is to screw with your everyday life.

Big government, I can deal with.  It's authoritarian control freaks that bother me, and more often than not, it's the people without much power who insist upon exercising it the most whenever they can that are the real problem.  I'll take an intrusive Uncle Sam over a snippy Flight Attendant any day.  I understand that they have tough jobs, but screw it, so do the rest of us.  And as much as I'm sure it's not fun dealing with annoying kids and drunk passengers, this was an entirely avoidable situation that didn't require anyone to do a god damn thing.

Balancing the Budget by Screwing the Old

Fortune Magazine's Geoff Colvin wrote an article titled Why Can't We Fix Medicare Once and For All?, in which Colvin announces the solution to bringing Medicare costs down: Pay less for Medicare.  Ah, genius!  Why didn't anyone think of that before?

As he sees it, there are two approaches to solving the problem: The "Brute Force" solution and the "People Aren't Dummies" solution.  And yes, Colvin plays us all for dummies, by using a bad name to describe the option he doesn't like and a good name to describe the option he does like; even though the labels serve no descriptive purpose other than to make us favor his solution while opposing the other.  It's as if we're all so stupid that he's just going to win us over with silly labels.

The first approach is to use the strength of the government to keep costs low by using its purchasing power to force health providers to charge reasonable rates.  And he says this doesn't work because:

Turns out that if you unilaterally cut prices, some providers will quit providing services and some patients won't get care, so you can't cut too much. And if you pay providers barely profitable rates when they perform a given service, they will overperform those services, grossly inflating the government's costs. That's what has happened.

Ahh, of course.  If the government uses its power to keep costs down, greedy health providers will game the system for their own advantage.  The solution?  Tossing old people to those same greedy health providers in hopes that they can achieve cost savings the government couldn't.

Quality Rises, Costs Stay Reasonable, and Magic!

Here's how he puts it:

Providers aren't dummies, so they'll innovate in ways that bureaucrats would never think of. Consumers aren't dummies, so they'll choose what works for them. Quality rises, and costs stay reasonable.

Yes, innovation that will happen magically once providers realize that seniors won't have unlimited funds.  And this is different from the Brute Force model of  keeping costs low because...uh, well, because...magic! It's as if we're to imagine that health providers only bristle at low pay from Medicare because they hate government, but they'll gladly invent new ways of providing better services for less money if Medicare steps aside.  Of course.
 
Now granted, there is a way that government intrusion could be causing healthcare to be more expensive than what our bright individuals would do for themselves.  For example, if the government was forcing hip replacements on people who would otherwise prefer to walk funny to save a few bucks.  But more likely, it's Medicare recipients who are choosing to have their hips replaced, and the government is the one trying to cut corners and keep costs low.

Apparently, Republicans haven't yet learned that the Freedom to Get Screwed really isn't such a great freedom at all.


A Screwing By Any Other Name

And of course, Colvin's article never says it, but it's not seniors who will make any of these choices in any case.  It's the insurance companies that would make the choices, not the seniors.  And the only choice the seniors get is to decide which insurer will be screwing them over.  Somehow, Colvin didn't think it necessary to mention this little aspect of his plan.

In fact, in his entire piece, Colvin never uses the word "insurance" at all.  Not even once.  Someone unfamiliar with his plan could easily assume that this New Medicare involves letting seniors pick their health providers and the government will pay the cost for them.  But of course, that would be the Old Medicare that does that, while the new one guarantees nothing, as seniors might not be able to find a plan they can afford.

And even if they do get insured, there's nothing to guarantee that the plan will be there when they need it.  After all, the free market would surely punish any insurer who denied coverage for improper reasons, right?  I mean, yeah, that's how things worked until Obamacare came along, but...but...magic!

And of course, the word "voucher" never makes it in either.  Instead, we're given the focus group approved "premium support."  Yet I have no doubt that if the phrase "premium support" ever catches on to describe this plan, it'll be as unpopular as the word "voucher" and conservatives will demand a retraction from anyone who uses that phrase, too.

As I've said before, there's nothing magical about these words, and you could call Ryan's plan the Apple Pie & Matlock Medicare Bonanza and seniors will hate it as soon as they hear what it is.

Two Approaches: Big Daddy Government v. Screw the Old

So how could Colvin's No Dummies approach possibly work?  It couldn't and it doesn't.  The Ryan Plan for Medicare doesn't truly believe that senior citizens are smart enough to get providers to lower costs in ways that the government can't.  The Ryan Plan cuts cost by limiting the amount of money seniors will get for their care and forces seniors to pick up the difference, period. 

There's no mystery magical forces of free markets here.  We're saving costs because seniors just won't get enough for healthcare, period.  That's it.  That's the whole gimmick.  We're saving money because we just won't spend as much money, and if people suffer, well, that's their own fault for not being smart enough to pressure health providers into doing things that the experts in the government couldn't even do.

And as much as there is a mechanism for lowering prices, it's only by denying extra money into the marketplace; which is just like the "Brute Force" option Colvin derides; except it's far less likely to work.  More likely, old people will still need to have their hips replaced, but they'll have to figure out some other way of making that happen.  Perhaps with their new titanium hips they can turn to purse snatching or professional sports to help pay their medical bills, as it's quite unlikely that they'll get the care they need from the insurance companies.

And the kicker on all this is that the Republican plan most likely won't screw the elderly in the long run.  Just as Obama filled the "doughnut hole" that Bush's prescription drug plan created to keep costs low, if Republicans were somehow to bring Ryanicare into existence, it'll only be a matter of time until lots of angry seniors realized how little their voucher was getting them and Democrats would once again step in to save the day by making the voucher's work; thus removing any cost savings we might possibly have gotten from this misbegotten plan.

Or...we could just let the government continue to do the job for less money and not screw around with a good thing.  Is Medicare expensive?  Yes, because healthcare for old folks is expensive.  But if the only solution is to simply pay less and hope it magically works out, then that's no solution at all.

Breaking News: News Media As Dumb As They Appear

There's this theory many liberals have which suggests that the media is biased against us because they're owned by corporations and therefore do the bidding of their corporate masters.  And while that would make a bit of sense, it fails the general rule of all conspiracies: If a conspiracy involves lots of people keeping a big secret, the conspiracy probably isn't real.

And so, if the corporate masters of CNN (Time Warner) and MSNBC (NBCUniversal) and the New York Times (New York Times Company) were all telling their employees to stifle liberal policies while pushing pro-corporate policies...don't you think we'd have heard about it from at least some of their former disgruntled employees?

We're all familiar with Bill Sammons' email directives telling Fox reporters how to push their propaganda, and that's from a fairly secretive network that keeps a tight lid on leaks. So how is it that this is just limited to Sammons?  Where's the CNN, MSNBC, and NY Times memos on these subjects?  Bozo nitwit Bernie Goldberg has made a career out of exposing the so-called liberal bias of the media.  Why haven't we seen the opposite?

Are we really to believe that there are literally NO real journalists who get inside these organizations and decide to expose the truth?  Not one liberal makes it through the cracks, even as low level production staff or admin assistant; and they're able to keep them ALL tight lipped about this grand conspiracy that every corporate media outlet is a part of?  That seems highly unlikely.

When All Else Fails, It's Probably Incompetence

Because yeah, it's a plausible theory.  But there are LOTS of plausible theories, and just because a theory is plausible doesn't mean it's true.  And in this case, not all the facts match the theory.  Some facts fall WAAAAY outside the theory, and so the people who espouse this theory simply ignore those facts or rationalize them away.

And what's my theory on the subject?  What else: Incompetence.  When something screwy's going on, the most likely explanation is that incompetent people are involved.  And in the case of the media, that's almost definitely the best explanation.

And here's a test case for you: Watch the video below and tell me whether it's more likely that these people are in the pocket of corporate masters, or if they're complete airheads who wouldn't know real news if it bit them in their plastic faces.


And first off, I'm sorry, but I doubt these people are sophisticated enough to pull off anything more complex than a surprise party; and certainly aren't part of some cabal keeping us misinformed.  These people aren't just playing dumb.  That's how they really are.

The Real Media

While there are intelligent people within the field, the media as a whole are just simple-minded pack animals that follow the herd.  When they breathlessly await Palin's emails while following her vacation bus; they truly believe that's where the "real" story is.  The reason they're not exposing Wall Street isn't because they're under orders not to do so.  It's that they don't even understand what the problem is.  And the reason they support tax cuts for the rich is because they are the rich, and they don't think they should pay more taxes.

These people are celebrities posing as journalists, working in part of the entertainment industry in order to sell commercials which pay their salaries.  And if they believed they could make more money by selling liberal policies and explaining complicated issues to their viewers, they'd do so.  But that's boring as hell and doesn't sell commercials, so that's why they won't do it.

Besides, these people aren't intelligent enough to understand the truth; let alone attempt to explain it to anyone.  But they get better ratings than the vast majority of liberals complaining about them, which is why you'll see the airheads and not the intellects.  If you haven't learned that sad truth by now, then it's about time you did.

And it's important for us to get this straight.  As it always is in life, you can't solve your problems until you properly identify them.  And the longer we believe that there's some conspiracy keeping the media from telling our story, the longer it'll be until we understand how to work them to our advantage.

If a Liberal President Gives a Speech in the Woods...

WaMo has a post about how Obama held a meeting for his Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in North Carolina and gave a speech at Cree, Inc. in which he talked about the need for jobs; particularly high-skill jobs in math and science.

In the speech, he once again reaffirmed his commitment to investing in research, education, infrastructure, and clean energy.  He even highlighted how Cree received a tax credit to help them invent clean energy products, as well as getting a grant from the Department of Energy.  And he mentioned the Better Buildings Initiative, giving $40 billion to help upgrade existing buildings to make them more energy efficient; which has the added benefit of putting more people to work.

In other words, Obama gave yet another liberal speech that didn't exist to his critics on the left, because they "know" he doesn't give liberal speeches.  Or at least it was so for all the commenters criticizing him without having read what they were criticizing him for.

Hearing the Obama in Their Head

Now mind you, this was on a post titled Obama Stresses ‘Need to Accelerate the Recovery’ which mentioned his Jobs Council in the first paragraph.  It also mentioned that Obama was looking into extending the 2% payroll tax cut he got for workers last December as part of the deficit ceiling negotiations.  And nothing in this suggested he was talking about spending cuts, as he was quoted in the post saying that "day-to-day spending" wasn't the problem.

But because they saw the words "tax cuts" and "deficit" and Benen didn't quote Obama saying the word "jobs," his liberal critics pounced; so certain he had given a conservative speech about deficit reduction that they didn't bother reading the thing.

And sure, talk is cheap and maybe Obama's trying to trick us liberals by hyping liberalism in every speech he gives, but...you can't say he doesn't talk like a liberal.  As they say, you can disagree about opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts.

Can't Hear Jobs for the Jobs

Here's the worst of the comments, though there are several along these lines (emphasis added):

It doesn't really require much processing power to realize Obama's rhetoric hasn't changed one iota. He actually thinks the way to a better economy is by strangling it first with deficit reduction. Not one word about jobs, since he believes "the gumint don't produce no jobs." Of course, job creation is the only real way out of the deficit in the first place.

Naturally, before someone would claim that Obama didn't say one word about jobs, they should have, ya know, read the speech and checked to see if Obama said anything about jobs.  And if he had, he would have seen that Obama repeated the word thirty-three times.  And in the short speech he gave to his Jobs Committee that same day, he said the word fifteen times.  But, besides the forty-eight times he said "job" in speeches that day, he didn't say it once!

And you know what Obama didn't say?  He didn't say that the government doesn't produce jobs or that we need to improve the economy by reducing the deficit.  In fact, he said the opposite.  Just as he continues to say in every damn speech he gives.  And of course, Obama said the exact stuff this guy said about needing jobs to boost the economy, but much much better.

So...which Obama are they listening to, and is there any way we can get them to listen to the real one?

Obama Highlights

At this point in the post, I gave highlights of the best parts of Obama's speech.  But I found myself quoting so much that I decided it wasn't worth it and you can read the damn thing yourself.  And if you go through his collection of speeches, you'll find this wasn't the outlier.  Obama talks like a liberal all the time and this is just one of his everyday speeches.

And hell, I'll just close with his ending:

So I am optimistic about our future. We can’t be complacent. We shouldn’t pretend that a lot of folks out there are not still struggling. But I am absolutely optimistic that we’ve got everything it takes for us to succeed in the 21st century. Americans do not respond to trials by lowering our sights, or downscaling our dreams, or settling for something less. We are a people who dream big, even when times are tough -- especially when times are tough. We’re a people who reach forward, who look out to the horizon and remember that, together, there’s nothing we can’t do.

And as long as I have the privilege of being your President, I’m going to be right there with you, every step of the way, fighting for a brighter future in this community, in North Carolina, and across the United States of America.

Why the Economic Sabotage Attack Won't Work

Washington Monthly has another post suggesting that Republicans might be intentionally sabotaging the economy in order to hurt Obama politically, which is why they oppose any stimulus spending.  I definitely disagree, as modern Republicans have been consistently against government spending of this sort for two decades; and they've made it a cornerstone of their party.  They've staked their political fortunes on tax cuts and deregulation; and it's one of the very few things they're consistent about.

After all, they didn't support stimulus spending during Bush's second term, yet the economy was in freefall and certainly needed a boast.  Unless we're trying to suggest that Republicans were sabotaging Bush too, it's more likely that they're just morons who don't know what they're doing.  Sure, they'll hype government projects in their own districts, but they remain steadfast in their general opposition to stimulus spending.

But of course, the majority of the comments there reflect the idea that Democrats are wimps and/or fools for not accusing Republicans of sabotage, as if this is some easy way for us to put Republicans on the defensive.

As one commenter wrote:

If the Republicans are put on the defensive and have to explain why they aren't sabotaging the economy for electoral gain, along the way they have to amplify the message that in fact they might be sabotaging the economy for electoral gain.

But knowing what we know about how Washington works, why should we assume that Republicans would be on the defensive at all.  In fact, I'm often ashamed to see the sorts of questions that some liberals imagine would put Republicans on the defensive, unaware that Republicans are fully capable of responding to such questions in the same manner they always do.

I suppose that's why they imagine Obama never supports liberal policies or derides conservative ones, as they somehow imagine we'd always win if we did these things.  As if getting what you want is as simple as talking about it.

Beat the Press

To highlight this, I'll write two hypothetical interviews of Mitch McConnell on Meet the Press, and you tell me which of these two seem more realistic.  And remember, these are fake, so don't go looking for the transcripts.

MTP: What do you say to Democrats who claim Republicans are trying to sabotage the economy in order to hurt President Obama's electoral prospects in 2012?

McConnell: What?  Sabotage?  We're not trying to sabotage the president.  We just want to cut taxes for the rich and services for the poor.

MTP: But won't it, in fact, hurt the economy if we remove billions of dollars from it while firing workers, as you're proposing?

McConnell: But...but...but...

MTP: And what about in October 2010 when you said "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."

McConnell: That was taken out of context!   I wasn't talking about sabotage!

MTP: Yet you DID say making Obama a one-term president was your most important goal.

McConnell: That's it!  This interview is over!

But of course, as stirring of an interview as that would be, there's a reason you've never seen anything like it: Because Republicans aren't so stupid that they couldn't evade factless accusations like this.  It'd be one thing if we had a quote of Republicans saying they're intentionally sabotaging the economy, but we don't.

And no, McConnell's "one-term president" line isn't any more damning than liberals who said the same thing about Bush.  Or were we trying to sabotage the economy, too?

Here's the interview you're more likely to see:

MTP: What do you say to Democrats who claim Republicans are trying to sabotage the economy in order to hurt President Obama's electoral prospects in 2012?

McConnell: I say that the only thing sabotaging our economy is Obama and his failed economic policies. Rather than growing the government to unprecedented size, he needs to be helping small businesses by cutting taxes and burdensome regulations. We need to be helping the ECONOMY grow, not the government.

MTP: So you're saying that Obama is to blame for the sluggish economy.

McConnell: Absolutely. No doubt about it. The sooner we can get government out of the way, the sooner we can get our country back on the right track. Yada, yada, yada. Ronald Reagan.

Doesn't that look a little more like what you've seen, and why you probably don't watch Sunday morning talkshows?

Like Attacking a Fish with Water

I mean, hell, the only way a guy like McConnell could get put on the defensive about this is if he suffered a major head trauma.  Not that he's the brightest bulb, but experienced politicians can deflect these sort of attacks in their sleep; especially if they're Republican and have a fawning media trying to impress them.

If you want to watch them suffer, get them on record supporting Paul Ryan's plan to destroy America, or Tim Pawlenty's Unicorn in Every Garage plan.  Those are doozies that will throw any Republican for a loop, as they're either stuck supporting craziness or opposing it and getting attacked by the crazies.  It's all about getting Republicans to hang themselves with their own agenda.  Similarly, a Republican attacking Obama isn't nearly as damning as a Democrat doing so.  Like it or not, that's just how it works.

By comparison, I'm sure they'd LOVE to field an attack about sabotage, as it'd give them another chance to highlight fiscal conservativism and cast Obama as a Big Government Liberal.  And Fox News would have a field day with it, as they'd trot out every conservative Democrat they can find to backpedal and denounce liberals for suggesting that Republicans are trying to hurt the economy.  The idea that Republicans would be put on the defensive by this is ludicrous.

And overall, this all fits in with the error Obama's leftwing critics make, as they really do imagine that all we have to do is attack Republicans and defend liberalism and we'd win.  They're so confident that there are easy answers to our problems that they completely gloss over those problems all together, and we're to imagine that it's Obama's fault that the media likes conservatives more than liberals.

Of course, we still have liberals insisting that Obama doesn't make liberal speeches, all evidence to the contrary.  So I suppose this isn't the only area that they're unclear about.

Breaking News: Obama Gives Liberal Speeches All the Time

In my last post, I discussed how there really aren't any good options for getting a jobs or stimulus bill passed, because Republicans can still filibuster anything in the Senate and have complete control of the House.  Wish all you want, but it ain't gonna happen.  This isn't Obama's fault and anyone blaming him for this is living in a fantasy world of fairies and unicorns.

And as I also discussed, there's little point in even pretending to try to pass one to score political points, unless we've got some great strategy for making it work to our advantage.  Doing something just to do something is worse than doing nothing at all.  And that's generally the case in life, as you shouldn't do anything unless you know why you're doing it.

And as could be expected, a leftwing critic of Obama left a comment which ignored everything I wrote and pretended as if Obama has lots of great options he's choosing to ignore.  Here's the entire comment, and please note the lack of any clue as to what Obama should do:

Hell, you may even be right. But it doesn't matter. Unemployment is 9.1%, the economy is stagnating, the stimulus that he was able to get was underfunded and insufficient (though, of course, it was better than nothing) -- we have desperate need for more jobs, better infrastructure, a better energy policy and vast amount of public investment.

We have none of it.

I'm sure the strategy to ignore this and not upset the most-easily upset people in the world is savvy and utterly correct. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't change the fact that he is a President that is presiding over a terrible economy, economic uncertainty and he keeps talking about the importance of getting the deficit under control.

Sure the Republicans are gargoyles, but the Democrats in Congress and in the White House are also doing jack shit and Americans are still suffering and no one really seems to care.

Ok, yes.  That's a good recap of the problem.  But where's the solution?  The problem is obvious.  The solution doesn't exist.  Yet the best this guy can do is to continue to blame Obama for not being able to pull miracles out of his butt.

Apparently, this guy lives in a fantasy world in which every problem has a solution.  Well sorry, but that's not always the case.  Sometimes, you're just screwed.  And if this guy has the secret solution, I would imagine he'd have explained it, rather than restating the same damn problems that everyone already knows about.  It's as if we're to imagine that we can solve problems merely by stating them.

And if I sound a bit disgruntled about that, it's because I am.  I understand why Republicans attack Obama, because he scares the shit out of them.  It's when liberals attack him that I'm left scratching my head and wondering about the sanity of people who agree with Obama on almost every issue.

How a Real Liberal Sounds

See if these remarks sound familiar:

The fact is, we understand what it takes to build a stronger economy. We know it’s going to require investing in research and technology that will lead to new ideas and new industries. We know it means building the infrastructure, the roads and bridges, and manufacturing the new products here in the United States of America that create good jobs. Above all, it requires training and educating our citizens to out-compete workers from other countries.

If you guessed that I was quoting the president, you'd have guessed correctly.  That was from a speech he gave at a Community College in North Virginia three days ago.

Needing jobs, infrastructure, and investment, huh. Where, oh where might I have heard someone else say we needed the same things?  Oh yeah, from my liberal commenter who insisted that Obama is ignoring these issues.  Oooh, that president!  Stealing this guy's best ideas two days before the guy said it!

Obama went on to say Congress needed to pass the "Workforce Investment Act," though I can't find anything on that; even on the Whitehouse website.  I get the impression that's something they're still working on.

Investing in a Better America

We saw the same thing when Obama talked to auto workers in Toledo last week to hype the auto bailout which helped prevent an economic disaster and saved thousands of jobs; in accordance with core liberal principles.

And in this one, you can see how someone cherry-picking Obama's speeches might be confused, as he begins with conservative rhetoric.  Yet the point is to take those arguments and twist them around to show why we need liberal policies.  Yes, he starts by talking about the deficit, but watch how he works it back to our side with full-throated liberalism (emphasis added):

These are tight fiscal times. You guys have all heard about the deficit and the debt, and that demands that we spend wisely, cut everywhere that we can. We’ve got to live within our means. Everybody’s got to do their part. Middle-class workers like you, though, shouldn’t be bearing all the burden. You work too hard for someone to ask you to pay more so that somebody who’s making millions or billions of dollars can pay less. That’s not right. (Applause.)

And even though we’re in tough times, there are still some things that we’ve got to keep on doing if we’re going to win the future. We can’t just sit back and stop. We got business we got to do. We got to make sure that our schools are educating our kids so that they can succeed. I was looking at all the gizmos and gadgets you got in this plant here -- it’s a lot more complicated working on a plant than it used to be. Kids have to know math and science.

We got to have a transportation and communications network that allows our businesses to compete. We used to have the best roads, the best bridges, the best airports. In a lot of places we don’t have that anymore. If you go to China, Beijing, they’ve got a fancier airport. You go to Europe, they got fancier trains, better roads. We can’t let our infrastructure just crumble and fall apart. We’re American. We’ve got to make that investment. (Applause.)

We’ve got to invest in innovation that will pave the way for future prosperity. We invented stuff that the world now uses and the world now makes. We’ve got to keep on inventing stuff and make sure it’s made right here in America. And that requires investments. (Applause.) That requires investments in basic research and basic science.

So these are all things that will help America out-innovate, out-educate, out-compete, out-hustle everybody else in the world. I want America to win the future, and I want our future to be big and optimistic, not small and fearful.

Now, show me the liberal who can disagree with this.  This sounds like the exact sort of thing liberals should want Obama to say...but better.

Obama's Strategy

Because this is the strategy I mentioned in my last post.  Republicans wanted to hit Obama with phony talk of fighting the deficit, believing he'd fight against them and make them look like fiscal heroes battling a Big Spender Liberal.

Instead, he stole their platform and turned it on its head by agreeing that the deficit is a problem, yet still insisting that we need to tax the rich and pump up infrastructure and other needed improvements.  And rather than arguing Big Spender v. Fiscal Conservatives, like Republicans wanted; Republicans are forced to explain why they want to cut education and our safety net while the rich get tax cuts.  These bozos went back to the playbook of the 80's and 90's, while Obama kept them clueless by using a 21st Century playbook.  Did he win?  Not yet.  But at least he's fighting and has a good chance of coming out ahead.

His liberal critics, on the other hand, demand that he refight all the old battles, walk into all the old traps, and are so clueless as to what his strategy is that they imagine he doesn't have one; as if Obama's some fool just guessing his way through life and lucking into winning situations.  Republicans have shown again and again how their rhetoric beats what these liberals want Obama to use, but insist that he can't possibly have a strategy because he's not using the playbook that FDR crafted in the 30's and was already looking haggard by the time LBJ used it in the 60's.

And even when I EXPLAIN the strategy to them, they insist that there is no strategy and Obama is ignoring our problems.  Why?  Because he's not using a strategy that the Republican playbook was specifically designed to destroy.  Oh, no!  Obama's not running into a buzzsaw!  What a traitor!  Meanwhile, Obama remains the most popular politician in America while staying true to liberalism, and his Republican foes see their political prospects dimming all the time.

And hey, maybe I'm wrong and maybe Obama's strategy is a blunder; but you at least have to explain why.  And if the best you can do is to insist that Obama doesn't have a strategy, then you obviously don't know what you're talking about.  And again, trying to pass legislation solely for the sake of passing legislation is worse than doing nothing at all; so if that's your advice to Obama, save it.

My Challenge to Leftwing Obama Critics

And what I quoted before wasn't just a one-time thing intended to impress a liberal audience.  He's saying this stuff to auto workers in Ohio, and community colleges in Virginia, and the British Parliament, and a Women's Leadership group in DC, and at a DNC Fundraiser. And he used consecutive Weekly Addresses in April and May to talk about Oil Market Fraud, Ending Oil Subsidies, Clean Energy, and Responsible Oil Production.  He consistently uses liberal rhetoric to support liberal policies in almost every speech he gives.  Whoever claims he's not using the Bully Pulpit to promote liberalism just isn't paying attention.

Please, find me the speech where Obama isn't talking about this stuff.  Find me the speech where Obama says that everything's ok and budget cuts are more important than infrastructure.  Because I'm reading through all his material and I'm not seeing it.  As I've highlighted before, you read his speeches and he sounds like a liberal.  Not just on a superficial level, but on the most fundamental deepdown level, Obama explains his liberal policies using liberal rhetoric; both in his prepared remarks and his impromptu answers.

Naturally, people can believe what they want, but anyone who believes that Obama uses rightwing rhetoric or is ignoring our problems simply don't know what they're talking about.  And again, I expect that from Republicans, as they've been delusional for a long time and Obama is really driving them bonkers.  But I fail to understand how a liberal could possibly hear an Obama speech and conclude that he's not saying the right things.

More likely than not, they're not even reading his speeches at all, and simply imagine he's not making them.  Why?  Because the progressives complaining about him only cherry-pick the negative stuff and never quote his speeches.

Actions Speak Louder

And so that just leaves us with his deeds, yet there's no credible evidence to suggest that Obama could have done much better than he did.  I'm sorry, but the president isn't omnipotent and even Bush's supposed success at strong-arming congress was vastly exaggerated; as he got almost nothing unpopular through Republican Congresses and his entire second-term was a lame-duck as Democrats continually stuffed him.

By comparison with Bush, Obama was a legislation machine in his first two years.  But of course, Obama's legislative accomplishments rival that of any modern president.

Could Obama have gotten us more?  Yeah, maybe.  I'm not about to suggest that his record was perfect.  But whose is?  Are we really to fault the man for being less than perfect?  But anyone using the premise that Obama definitely could have gotten more  is full of shit; if only because life doesn't involve certainties like that.  And any respectable review of the facts shows that Obama's biggest "betrayals" of liberalism were forced upon him by Congress; in accordance with our system of government.

Obama didn't give up on the public option, Congress did.  Obama doesn't want Gitmo open.  Congress does.  And you can call those excuses if you want, but it happens to be the truth.  Our system of government doesn't give Obama unlimited powers and that's generally considered a good thing.  Like it or not, if you want a president who strong-arms Congress into rubber-stamping his agenda against their will, that's a dictatorship.  And if you don't like that word, then you shouldn't try to force us into one.

Because no, a President Kucinich or President Grayson wouldn't have gotten a damn thing through the 2009-2010 Senate unless they cajoled a few moderate Republicans to support it; and that wouldn't have happened with insults and angry speeches.  And had they pushed for a trial against Bush and Cheney for torture or war crimes, the country would have blown up on them and they definitely wouldn't have gotten anything through Congress.  And they most definitely couldn't get a jobs bill through the current Congress.  That's simply impossible until after 2012.

The Reality of Politics

As I've said before, politics are real and if you believe that a president can pass legislation while ignoring the political implications of his actions, then you don't know what you're talking about.  Boldness is rarely rewarded in politics and if you don't play your cards right, you get what Clinton got in 1993, when he was not only under siege by Republicans, but by his own party.

Skittish Democrats are always looking for a chance to push against a Democratic President (eg, Clinton & Carter) and if you push them too hard, you'll lose them completely.  History shows that again and again, and there are no examples showing the contrary.  Republican Congressmen follow orders and Democratic Congressmen look for excuses to buck authority; and that's just the way it is.  And if your strategy is to break Republican obedience while strong-arming Democrats into obeying the president, then you haven't been paying attention.

Yeah, yeah.  I know.  That's not what you've heard from Obama's critics.  But those people don't know what they're talking about.  Sorry to say, but there are no heroes in the world, unicorns don't grow on trees, and the president isn't omnipotent.  We live in reality, and that means we take our liberal presidents as they come; not as we wish them to be.  And by that standard, Obama is a fantastic liberal president.

And as your reward for reading to the end (and yeah, I know you did), here's what an intelligent liberal president sounds like. Enjoy!