Barry’s Rant

I was reading the other day where the Clinton campaign was poo-pooing the idea that her continued monomaniacal slog through the primaries was damaging the Democratic Party, and making a McCain victory the more likely by sowing division in a party not so well known for playing well within its ranks anyway. I have been saying for several months that this election is the Democrats’ to lose - if John McCain wins, it will be because the Dems have, yet again, formed the circular firing squad and started shooting.

Just take a look at some of the exit polling data - absurdly high numbers of Hillary voters saying that if she isn’t the nominee, they will vote for McCain. Lots of Obama voters saying about the same idiotic shit about their man too. Excuse me, but since when does it make any fucking sense at all that if your favorite progressive candidate doesn’t get the party nod, it’s time to vote for more of the same inane, immoral, and just plain goddamn stupid conservative bullshit? To answer my own question, I guess since most Americans’ most involved undertaking with the democratic process became voting on American Idol. The average American voter is woefully underinformed or usually misinformed, relying as he or she does on such propagandistic "news" sources as Fox, generally views politics as some sort of spectator sport which is only interesting come horse-race, er election, time, and most amazingly of all doesn’t seem to believe that any of it has any relevance to their own lives. Maybe Germans thought that in 1932 or so, too.

So, you did a fine job, you made history, now sit down and shut up Mrs. Clinton, unless you’d care to start campaigning for Obama and maybe repair some of the damage you’ve done through your quixotic, incredibly selfish stubborn refusal to see when you’re beaten. And stop harping on gender discrimination as being an issue in your being an also-ran - the fact is, we simply don’t like you, or your frequently Republican-lite stances. It isn’t because you are a woman… it’s because you are you.

Okay, so today Senator John McCain "repudiates" the horrendous statements made by the so-called "Reverend" John Hagee about how the LORD Almighty, in his wise beneficience, decided that Adolf Hitler was just the kick in the pants the Jews needed in the !930’s to get on with the business of getting the fuck out of Europe and building Israel . Furthermore, he now rejects the endorsement of this mental midget with the moral compass of a stray bullet, and Hagee withdraws said endorsement shortly thereafter in a show of redundancy.

Mr. McCain has had some experience with rattle-brained preachers (sorry, repeating myself) endorsing him and then making statements, or having them revealed, much to ol’ John’s chagrin. Take the Reverend (cough) Rod Parsley. Please. Sorry, Mr. Dangerfield. Anyway, he endorses McCain which gives our "presumptive Republican nominee" a huge hard-on I’m sure, until Mr. Parsley turns out to have said that Islam is "an antichrist religion that intends through violence to conquer the world." Ignoring the fact that I happen to agree with an evangelist pinhead for once other than the "antichrist" bit (since the term would have to have some relevance to me), Mr Parsley was making statements that are just not said here in the US of A. See, if something is a bona fide  religion, then you simply cannot point out how dangerous and full of shit it is, or you are a "bigot". Last I checked, ‘bigots’ are unreasonably biased; that is, they have no rational basis for their views. Think Archie Bunker. If you actually research something and observe it and read it’s history, and then say it’s a violent insane piece of shit and here are the reasons why, then that really shouldn’t open you to charges of bigotry. I digress. Mr Parsley was embarrassing, and costly to the McCain campaign’s crucial moderate Muslim vote (like that? I do), and so McCain dropped the dude like a hot rock.

So the end result is that the candidate rejects the endorsement of the pastors because he doesn’t endorse them. Excuse me, but exactly how does that make a shit? Our Holocaust apologist asshole buddy saw something in McCain that he liked, and said so. Our Christo-centric, non-ecumenical asshole also saw something in McCain he liked and said so. So, now shouldn’t the issue be what the fuck do asswipes like this see in McCain to gravitate toward him, and shouldn’t we be concerned if, in a weak moment, we say to ourselves "well, yeah, he’s a Republican, but he isn’t like those other guys"? Maybe he’s exactly like those other guys, just packaged a little differently, but still full of the same intellectually bankrupt nonsense that I’ve heard conservatives of both parties spew all my adult life.

I read an op-ed piece today that asked "where have all the thoughtful conservatives gone?", making reference to some GOP hack who kept comparing Obama to Neville Chamberlain and then was unable to say what, exactly, Chamberlain did that was such a big deal other than parroting "appeasement!" to the host. I wasn’t aware that there had been a plural number. I would pretty much have to give William F. Buckley credit as having been an intelligent conservative, as confusing as that sounds, but I can’t think of any others offhand, and certainly not in any of the 3 branches of the Federal Government. Well, right there are what serves the role - the 2 shitheads and the candidate trying to scrape them off his shoe and distract us from asking why would they endorse him in the first place? Maybe because they smelled a fellow shithead? …. Just a thought.

I know, I know - you’re thinking "well, how wonderful, Captain Obvious". Well, the thing is, I was reading an email in Gmail from the Obama campaign, and noticed this "sponsored ad" Google had thoughtfully added after having read my email - "Barack Obama Exposed www.HumanEvents.com". Just for shits and giggles, I clicked it to see what sort of pinhead nonsense there would be in this (cough) exposé.

The innocuously named HumanEvents.com turns out to be some reactionary conservative screed that appears to make FOX News actually "fair and balanced" in comparison, and I requested the PDF of whatever libel they have on Obama, which led me to a page pushing Coulter’s inane diatribe "Godless: The Church of Liberalism". Note that she uses "godless" like it’s a bad thing. Anyway, she signs herself as the "Legal Correspondent for Human Events", if you can imagine. This is somewhat like having Gomez Addams as your legal correspondent; you may recall that he is an attorney. Gomez Addams crossed with Dick Cheney, and a slight, inept Adam’s Apple reduction surgery… voila! Ann Coulter!

There’s a candid film clip of her floating around, YouTube or somewhere, showing her "human" side as she prepares for a TV appearance. Chewing Nicorette gum with teeth-gnashing worthy of a meth addict, she fusses and preens and generally acts like a prima donna. Yup, very human. I kept waiting for the alien to burst out of her chest. My impression of it was that if you couldn’t tell already by her loathsome comments on various news outlets which for some reason allow her to speak, she’s just a bitch 24/7 apparently and doesn’t require a live audience to be one.

I have to admit I haven’t read Ms. Coulter’s entry for the National Book Award. I picked it up in a bookstore, leafed through it, felt nauseous, and misfiled it back on the shelf. However, it appears to be more of the same sparkling personality we have come to know and despise, with the usual calumnies, misrepresentations, and outright lies that are her stock-in-trade. Books-A-Million had it in their Top 10 Sellers section. Sigh.

A place for me to say the things that desperately need to be said. Now, I won’t claim that I will say anything that is necessarily particularly original; if you think about it, there really aren’t all that many things that truthfully are. However, the things I say will be most unequivocally mine, with the technical exception of quoting other sources, in which case credit will be given and a reference, where possible.

Allow me to introduce myself, first of all. I am a 45 year old man, moving not terribly gracefully into middle age, and a lifelong resident of Birmingham, Alabama. That I am 1)bisexual, leaning toward gay, 2) somewhere to the left of Al Franken, 3)profoundly agnostic, and atheist when feeling cranky, 4)absolutely loathe organized religion, Republicans, conservatives in general, and any variety of fundamentalist, 5) have a tendency to question authority as my initial reaction to government, clergy, academics, authors, and miscellaneous pundits and 6) insist on people’s opinions having some reasonable, logical basis if I am to seriously entertain them, has made life here in The Land That Time Forgot sometimes, ah, troublesome betimes. For those of you who keep a scorecard of such things, I am also white (Austro-German) and middle class.

Anything I say on this site will naturally be filtered through the foregoing. If you agree, or disagree, with things I post, then by all means post a comment. I do not censor or block comments, with the exception of spam or abuse in the form of multiple postings or the like. (i.e., "I hatez you, yoo commie bastard!!!!" posted 30 times; once is quite enough, thank you) Be aware that spurious arguments, mangling of the English language, an appalling tendency to believe whatever your Sunday School teacher taught you at 7 years old without adult questioning, or other symptoms of unfamiliarity with critical thinking will gain you ridicule. (Look up "critical" if you think that meant "talking bad about somebody") Don’t worry, though - if your offenses in that regard are too egregious, you likely won’t recogize it when I insult you anyway. ("You should be a theologian" is not high praise, for example.)

 Anyway, here we go. While there are not many posts to this blog, you can amuse and enlighten yourself by hopping over to F*cking C*nts , a delightful little place operated by Alphabitch. Be sure to read "10 Things Every Adult Should Know" and its 400,000 comments.