hey, look, i like obama as much as the next liberal progressive democrat, but i think it's time to face up to one big fact: he ain't as great as we think he is.
bottom line is, politicians are politicians, and now that campaign cycles begin the day after the most recent election (the only competition longer than the NBA playoffs. at this rate the 2010 season will start sometime in 2016), buckle up and prepare for a whole lot of idling in the garage until the US breaks down into independent, poverty stricken, war-torn stans, republics, and soviets, like the USSR. what? them again? no. us, this time.
and now that iraq has more money in the bank than we do, get ready for a 40 year run of aziz bond movies, in which an international militant of mystery repeatedly saves the world from total destruction at the hands of over-the-top american stereotype villains with cool scars over their eyes, all the while having tawdry affairs with conveniently named women like "skimpi burkha"; wooing them with lines like "let's liberate you from those wet clothes and rebuild you with a democratically elected interim shirley temple (no drinking there, and all)", "i've got an IED in my pants and i want you to drive your hummer over it", and "let's go back to my place, so you can occupy my former arab dick-tatorship".
"it's a good day to die, vice general greenspan, and it looks like it's time for you to cash out." oh my god, somebody make this movie!
wait...where was i?
oh yeah. less progress, more of the same. a good slogan for miller genuine draft, perhaps, but we're trying to run a country, here. so, what's new? or should i say, what's old? aside from the fact that this financial bailout is all happening with the same players and the same playbook as the bush administration's financial fumbleruski (again with the russians?), which is how we got in this mess in the first place (well, in the first place, we deregulated the banks, well before w got his grubby mitts on the country).
what's old is that obama, while making some strong and progressive moves, is no golden god, and it shows. don't get me wrong. i love the guy, partly because elmo would seem like a great president compared to w, and partly because he is making some strong moves toward a better US (that is just the opinion of this liberal progressive, however). but like i said, politicians are politicians, and at the end of the day, mr o is a politician.
let's discuss guantanamo bay, shall we? ok, so it's going to be closed. hip hip hurray! so what does that change? not a damn thing. all those prisoners are going to be sent to other prisons. look, the important thing about guantanamo is that we stop using it to hold prisoners without fair trial, and stop using it as a dungeon for sick and perverse modes of "information extraction". the prison itself isn't the problem. it's not like it's built on an old cuban revolutionary burial ground, and the ghosts of che's army are returning from the dead to torture people and refuse them due process. the important thing is not the empty gesture of closing the prison. the important thing is that we prove that we've learned our lessons. so we've stopped torturing (so i hear) and we are going to start putting these people through the court circuit (one would hope), so why do we need to start this argument about where to keep them, and whether or not regular, stateside maximum security prisons will be able to hold these super powered evil geniuses? just leave guantanamo open and stop treating it like thunderdome.
let's discuss progressive legislation. i don't know where everyone got the idea that, if elected, obama would legalize pot, and gay marriage, but apparently those ideas got out there in the ether, somehow. neither of those things is going to happen. look, obama said he wants equal rights for the lgbt community. but never did he say that, without following it with that fine print item: i believe marriage is only between a man and a woman. he may have said that he would be willing to open a discussion with the pro-pot folk, about the state of marijuana policy, but he never said he was even going to try to legalize it. in political speak, "open a discussion" could very well mean he invites them to stop by his office so he can tell them to fuck off, in person. but it's so deliciously vague, that it's pretty much assumed by the rubes that it means the flood gates are open and everything's coming up milhouse. we need to understand that there are going to be a lot of things that we thought obama was going to do, but unless he said it specifically (and in many cases, not even then) we're living in a fool's paradise (perhaps my 420 savvy readers are more comfortable with the term "pipe dream"? then again, maybe some of my lgbt readers are more comfortable with that phrase, too...).
let's talk fixing the mess we're in. i pointed out the non-progress of the financial bailout already, as well as the guantanamo affair. but what about the other turds w left on the white house lawn? we've renamed the mission in iraq, but the "exit strategy" is nothing of the sort, and in fact, aside from the name change, it's essentially the same plan w had laid out by the end of his term. so let's chalk that one up to another empty gesture. about GM... you know what? we've been over and over this. my problems with the GM plan were discussed explicitly in who needs capitalism... (06-01-09). about healthcare. somehow the terms universal, and socialized keep getting copy pasted to the front of his healthcare plan. this idea has a snowball's chance in hell of coming to fruition. which brings me to my next point.
mr pork slayer, mr lobby buster, mr transparent, himself. b to the o. transparent, maybe. he certainly seemed to be on tv a lot during the first months of his term, apologizing for things, taking the blame for things, swallowing his pride. so maybe he is transparent. but that's actually a call that history will have to make. as for mr lobby buster, i thought he had his justice league of filibuster proof superfriends to push all this shit through. what happened? every time obama talks about his new healthcare plan, he walks right up to the edge, then takes two steps back. i can just barely make out the health insurance lobbyists hiding behind the door, clearing their throats a little too loud, right before he disclaims the ways in which his new plan won't be universal healthcare, or socialized medicine. and what about mr pork slayer? i think this topic needs to be dealt with via a very sharp left turn, much like mr o did. when it was time to reform the credit industry, mr o sure showed those greedy fat cats and wall street slicksters who's boss. he passed a credit reform and regulation bill that allowed visitors to carry concealed weapons in national parks. shocked and a little thrown off? i was, too. so there goes mr pork slayer, right?
but with those filibuster proof superfriends behind him, at least most of the pork (after this gun thing) will be in the best interest of the progressives out there, right? i can't believe i am about to agree with (gulp) joe scarborough. too many people representing either party is a not a good thing. like bill burr says, humans are not meant to live alone, because when you live alone there's nobody to walk in and catch you doing stupid things, and tell you to put your pants back on and put the scissors away...after you've cleaned them. in a system with occasionally questionable checks and balances, the best way to make sure we don't run right off the edge of the left or the right, is to allow an open forum comprised of a good sampling of all those being represented (remember how we need to add a hispanic woman to the supreme court?). i'm about to agree with scarborough again here (super gulp). the problem is not that there are too many republicans in the government, peeing in the soup. the problem is that there are too many idiots in the government farting on the omelet bar. it just so happens that, at the moment, the republicans are in the majority when it comes to idiot production (i am still in agreement with scarborough at this point...where is this bizzaro joe hiding? you ask. certainly not on morning joe. you have to get waaaaaay deep, to find this joborough. you have to get tavis smiley deep. don't worry, the circus is here to do that for you). the term republican has grown to be synonymous with brain dead ass hat, but in reality, republican doesn't have to be a four letter word. in fact, republican is just that: a word. republicans can be whomever they wish to be, and they don't all have to act the same (dems can do this too). its perfectly ok for a person, regardless of their political affiliation, to use their own brain, instead of borrowing the collective brain that most people plug into when they choose sides. in fact, conservative doesn't, by definition, mean bigoted, whitebread, mississippi mudflappin', truck driving, gun nut (sweet virgin jesus mother mary theresa, joborough, why aren't you this intelligent and introspective on starbucks presents: moaning joe?). this is where me and scarborough go our separate ways, however. joe believes that republican stands for the obtuse idea of conservatism (this i agree with), and that conservatism is a good thing (not always).
i think that it is important to try to keep the intent of the founding fathers in mind (keep in mind, the founding fathers also had a serious discussion over the idea that the constitution they were writing should be rewritten every 19 years, even if it's rewritten word for word, to be a more contemporary, and appropriate document, imagine what an amazing country we would live in...). so if that is conservative, than i am conservative on that point. but as for clinging to their expressed written ideas? i think that we need to keep in mind that the world is a place that is itself progressive (as some of the founding fathers obviously knew), in that it is always changing, with or without us.
to look back at a document written during a time of revolution, building, and rebuilding of a small rogue state, a document that states, "a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" and only see the part that says "the right to keep and bear arms" is ignorant. the world has progressed past that place. even if you wanted to look at that amendment literally, it does not give the right to keep and bear arms to random people who like to go out back and shoot stuff. it provides the right of people to keep and bear arms for the purpose of maintaining a well regulated militia. we've got one of those. it's called the US military, and those people have every right to keep and bear arms. if you're not part of the maintenance of our well regulated militia, then you have no right, or reason, to bear arms. if you plan on starting your own militia to overthrow the government, don't expect to be sanctioned or sponsored by the government you plan on overthrowing. rather, expect to receive sanctions (it's different) and subpoenas from that government. if you're planning on building a people's militia to overthrow the government, and you think you will have the legal support of that government, i don't predict your revolution will go well for you.
nevertheless, mr pork slayer, mr lobby buster, mr liberal progressive, the great and powerful mr o, has deemed it necessary toward wrangling the immoral practices of the credit industry, to allow the expressed legal consent of carrying concealed weapons in state parks. why? in case we come across a creditor while we're hiking Half Dome, and want to shoot them in the face?
