What a great visual…it’s the logo for an interesting blog called The Bitter Shack of Resentment.
Kinda reminds me of our quiet, non-commuting life here in the Bitterroot…happy but lamenting the world’s ever accelerating demand for all things petroleum.
Here’s a sobering look at the corporatization of water resources. Less than one half of one percent of all the water is drinkable. It’s valuable stuff.
“My fellow Americans, the people of this nation have spoken, and spoken with a clear voice. So I am here to offer my concession.
I concede that I overestimated the intelligence of the American people. Though the people disagree with the President on almost every issue, you saw fit to vote for him. I never saw that coming. That’s really special. And I mean “special” in the sense that we use it to describe those kids who ride the short school bus and find ways to injure themselves while eating pudding with rubber spoons. That kind of special.
I concede that I misjudged the power of hate. That’s pretty powerful stuff, and I didn’t see it. So let me take a moment to congratulate the President’s strategists: Putting the gay marriage amendments on the ballot in various swing states like Ohio… well, that was just genius. Genius. It got people, a certain kind of people, to the polls. The unprecedented number of folks who showed up and cited “moral values” as their biggest issue, those people changed history. The folks who consider same sex marriage a more important issue than war, or terrorism, or the economy… Who’d have thought the election would belong to them? Well, Karl Rove did. Gotta give it up to him for that. Credit where it’s due.
I concede that I put too much faith in America’s youth. With 8 out of 10 of you opposing the President, with your friends and classmates dying daily in a war you disapprove of, with your future being mortgaged to pay for rich old peoples’ tax breaks, you somehow managed to sit on your asses and watch the Cartoon Network while aging homophobic hillbillies carried the day. You voted with the exact same anemic percentage that you did in 2000. You suck. Seriously, y’do.
There are some who would say that I sound bitter, that now is the time for healing, to bring the nation together. Let me tell you a little story. Last night, I watched the returns come in with some friends. As the night progressed, people began to talk half-seriously about secession, a red state / blue state split. The reasoning was this: We in blue states produce the vast majority of the wealth in this country and pay the most taxes, and you in the red states receive the majority of the money from those taxes while complaining about ‘em. We in the blue states are the only ones who’ve been attacked by foreign terrorists, yet you in the red states are gung ho to fight a war in our name. We in the blue states produce the entertainment that you consume so greedily each day, while you in the red states show open disdain for us and our values. Blue state civilians are the actual victims and targets of the war on terror, while red state civilians are the ones standing behind us and yelling “Oh, yeah!? Bring it on!”
More than 40% of you Bush voters still believe that Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. I’m impressed by that, truly I am. Your sons and daughters who might die in this war know it’s not true, the people in the urban centers where al Qaeda wants to attack know it’s not true, but those of you who are at practically no risk believe this easy lie because you can. As part of my concession speech, let me say that I really envy that luxury. I concede that.
Healing? We, the people at risk from terrorists, the people who subsidize you, the people who speak in glowing and respectful terms about the heartland of America while that heartland insults and excoriates us… we wanted some healing. We spoke loud and clear. And you refused to give it to us, largely because of your high moral values. You knew better: America doesn’t need its allies, doesn’t need to share the burden, doesn’t need to unite the world, doesn’t need to provide for its future. Hell no. Not when it’s got a human shield of pointy-headed, atheistic, un-confrontational breadwinners who are willing to pay the bills and play nice in the vain hope of winning a vote that we can never have. Because we’re “morally inferior,” I suppose, we are supposed to respect your values while you insult ours. And the big joke here is that for 20 years, we’ve done just that.
It’s not a “ha-ha” funny joke, I realize, but it’s a joke all the same.
As well as conceding the election today, I am also announcing my candidacy for president in 2008. And I make this pledge to you today: THIS time, next time, there will be no pandering. This time I will run with all the open and joking contempt for my opponents that our President demonstrated towards the cradle of liberty, the Ivy League intellectuals, the “media elite,” and the “white-wine sippers.” This time I will not pretend that the simple folk of America know just as much as the people who devote their lives to serving and studying the nation and the world. They don’t.
So that’s why I’m asking for your vote in 2008, America. I’m talking to you, you ignorant, slack-jawed yokels, you bible-thumping, inbred drones, you redneck, racist, chest-thumping, perennially duped grade-school grads. Vote for me, because I know better, and I truly believe that I can help your smug, sorry asses. Thank you, and may God, if he does in fact exist, bless each and every one of you.
-Anonymous, sent by a whj reader
Here’s Why You Suck
Got your attention? Most people really suck at communicating, especially writing. People who hate to write usually don’t write well, so they don’t write at all. Or they write drivel to cover their circumlocutory tracks in the digital sand.
Some people who pay me to write marketing poop for them are such poor communicators that they literally cannot ennumerate what needs to be said lucidly and intelligently enough to be credible. And it’s their business! They love me because I put into words what they “would’ve said” if they only had the time.
Yea, right.
On a personal note, people I’ve known and still know hate to be outwardly introspective and take positions, so they adapt themselves to their national origins, religions, and economic interests, cultural programming and so forth and basically go on autopilot with regard to how to live and interact with their fellow beings on the planet. Relationships have become as disposable as the rest of our culture, apparently.
That’s right. Everything about “you” and your peoplesphere is obviously more important than anything else beyond it, including taking time be part of something beyond yourself. If it’s not somehow about you or your family, political party, football team, etc., you’re probably not interested in it enough to lift a finger to affect the outcome.
Yet, here you sit reading my blog and being a spectator instead of a participant.
It’s become a world where most pathways for interaction, communication, news, culture and art are all one way—downstream from corporate America. Television, Gasoline, Swill. It’s no wonder you’re asleep! The byproduct is waste: wasted time, burned bridges, war-for-oil, body bags, beheadings, our wasted environment, and closer to home, wasted relationships with me that, in a prior time, used to have meaning.
You suck at communication. The sucking sound of most people who visit this blog and give nothing back is deafening. If you don’t communicate, it’s too bad, but it’s not my concern. You’re too busy being a catatonic host for what’s wrong with our world and I no longer believe I should maintain a relationship of any kind with you.
If I’ve hurt your feelings or reached anything emotional inside, then at least I succeeded in communicating with you, right? I don’t expect to hear from you on this post, but if you’re inclined, please do leave a comment by hitting the “+” below. I’ll be amazed and impressed. But I won’t be surprised.
Communication, if you do it ofen enough, works, by hook or crook.
Congratulations to those who were “smart” enough to vote for the winning Bush-Cheney ticket. What did we (all of us) get for $4B in nationwide election spending and $200B more in Middle East warmongering this fiscal year? The answer is not much besides 1,150 US soldiers in body bags, huge spending deficits, and millions of people around the world who now hate this country’s “guts.”
A life-long friend of mine sent me this recent response to a person he interacted with on a Web bulletin board regarding the “irrelevancy” of 1/2 the voting body of the United States electorate:
A guy on a message board taunted me, “How does it feel to be irrelevant?”
It’s liberating, BB. Your boys are juggling all the eggs, keep a careful eye out, some of them destroy masses. Because, it’s not our responsibility to be united with you anymore, we’re irrelevant, you told us so. You own it, you clean it up. Don’t send us the bill, it’s not our responsibility, you told us it’s your nation now, and we just need to get the heck out of the way and let you do it all. Sounds like a plan to me. “Hello, you have reached 49% of the nation. If you are the GOP, what happened, we are not relevant, you don’t need us so, hang up the phone and deal with it yourself. If you are not, please stay on the line and someone will be with you shortly.”
BB is a good example of fascism unmasked.
A 51% vote for the Yellow Rogue of Texas makes 49% of our nation’s voters “irrelevant.”
OK, if we are irrelevant, outlaw us, pass a new sedition (look it up) law and send all non-Republicans to Gitmo as godless, socialist, moral relativist, traitors. But, the workplace sure will be — empty. Who’s going to do all those jobs you count on, and not only the low paying, thankless, grimy ones? Irrelevant, eh–
“Aw, hell and tarnation, you mean we got to do something to keep them around, all right but I ain’t raising their wages, improving their health care, or making the path to their prosperity any easier, I got to look out for the relevant ones first, starting with the Boss.” Again I say, fascism unmasked.
GOP control of all three branches of government comes at a price buddy. You won’t be able to blame anyone but yourselves for what you do with our government, our treasury, and our nation. But as you know, a time will come when W nominates some over the top ideologue for Chief Justice, or proposes an insane fiscal measure, or seeks approval for something else requiring a 60-vote margin in the Senate, and then the Democrats’ irrelevance will needle you.
Remember Carter and the Dems had the same opportunity in 1976. What happened there? Sure Carter is different from W, plenty different, in fact, vive la difference. Watch what unfolds as the GOP’s power lust finally comes completely off the leash, and our nation will be able to have a clear stark record to judge them on. That is we would but for the unrelenting GOP spin machine that is going to conceal what our government really is doing to us and around the world, and propagandize the rest. Again, I say, fascism 2 points of the starboard bow.
So enjoy it while you are in the glow BB, because there is a rude awakening just over the horizon. And guess what? You’re going to have to pull the ropes yourselves, the crew was relieved of duty, because they are “irrelevant.”
Unbelievable. Our country has just voted for 4 more years of deficit spending, denial and warmongering to keep our frigging gas tanks full. What good will that do when the damn oceans rise and we’re all swimming?
Half of the country didn’t have the guts to elect the guy whose mind could encompass more than just “getting the bad guys” and spending this country into oblivion.
God help the world, the USA, and George W. Bush.
