One of the biggest stories in the news this week is taking place at the United Nations. Palestine and its representatives are pushing for a UN vote on Palestinian statehood, much to the chagrin of Israel and the United States. This move is being seen as very controversial and a way to circumvent the peace process in the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama are hard at work trying to either A.) prevent the UN from taking the issue up for a vote and/or B.) urge Palestine to not force a vote on this. The United States has promised a veto on Palestinian statehood if it does come to vote, which would kill the resolution.
This of course would be a political and cultural landmine the United States would be stepping on. President Obama has already left his Jewish Democrat base and the Israelis feeling miffed by openly declaring his support for Palestinian statehood. The Islamic countries in the Middle East (and around the world really) are already in a great deal of turmoil and have long excoriated the US for its support for Israel. A commitment to a Palestinian state can go a long ways towards earning the trust and respect of Arabic nations in the hopes of scaling back some of the vitriol directed towards America. By stopping a vote or vetoing it, it sends the message (whether justified or not) that the United States is only paying lip service to Palestine’s aspirations.
Israel is condemning Palestine for going to the United Nations, claiming that it is just a ploy to get the rest of the world to bully and beat on Israel some more. This is preposterous. Israel condemns acts of terrorism committed against them and the use of violence as a means of solution. That’s fair enough; terrorism isn’t a solution. But to condemn them for taking it to the UN has nothing to do with it circumventing their negotiations with Palestine.
It has to do with the fact that outside of the United States, the rest of the world recognizes and speaks out on Israel’s complicity in limiting the peace process. Their responses to terrorism could be considered as such themselves and the economic and political repressions of the Palestinian people do not jive with the concept of Israel as victim. This isn’t even mentioning their constant expansion of new settlements on Palestinian territory and the severe restrictions they insist upon in any peace agreement. A vote before the UN isn’t kicking Israel around; it’s airing Israeli’s part in the hostilities in the region on a public stage.
For a supporter of a Palestinian state, this whole situation reeks of Obama kowtowing to a base he is afraid of losing to Republicans and an unwillingness to truly sway from decades of longstanding American policy of unwavering support for Israel. No one in American foreign policy is looking at a UN vote as something that could actually help to force a peace agreement between the two. If Israel is forced to have to recognize Palestine as an equal, it has to at least consider negotiating in good faith. On the other side, if Palestine is considered an actual state, it would be compelled to stop allowing terrorists to act on its soil, or at least try to stem that tide. If it wants to be considered legitimate, it would have to act like a responsible nation and negotiate as such with Israel. And at the very least, a vote and its consequences has just as good (if not more of) a shot at success than any other method. Its not like any other option has worked.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Kim Kardashian's "song" is terrible, Charlie Sheen, the Middle East is burning, and the Royal Wedding is a waste of time...
Who told Kim Kardashian she was capable of anything besides making the same exact face in every picture (seriously, look at her expression) and banging Ray J on camera? More specifically, who told her she should make an album? Her new single dropped yesterday, and sweet baby Jesus it's terrible.
Like worst song of the year bad. I read that she used Auto-Tune, but it just sounds like she is sexlessly mumbling some mindnumbingly awful lyrics Repeating the same fifteen words over and over again worked in an ironic way for the Ramones. In this song, it's just wretched. Now I know this is a stretch, but music/art is supposed to be an expression of the self and your view of the world. This is what Kim Kardashian wants everyone to know is what the essence of her personality and life is? "They're playing my jam"? A few thoughts: 1.) If you've never sang, written a song, or played an instrument, your late 20s are not the time for a music career. 2.) If you can't write your own songs and the people writing them for you can't make you sound interesting, you should undertake some serious soul searching. 3.) Just because you have the time and money to make an album doesn't mean you should. This song is an even worse idea than the Kardashian Kredit Kard.
Changing gears, Charlie Sheen needs to be institutionalized. It's not even a matter of being a drug addict, since he is only addicted to Charlie Sheen. Seriously, this dude is crazy as hell. The Goddesses? Winning? He's off his rocker. He's like Tom Cruise, but heterosexual and completely unfiltered and trashy. It's hard to believe he's Martin Sheen's son. I did find it hilarious when the Today Show asked him if it was true that he threatened to chop off his ex-wife's head and mail it to her mother. His answer was "No, but that's a good one." It does make me wonder how fucked up his ex-wife is that he had custody of the kids until the other nite.
Before conservatives take credit for Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, let's get one thing straight. This is not the Bush Doctrine in action. The uprisings across the Middle East were going to happen either way. Look at the demographics of the region. In Egypt, the average age is 25. Libya is 24. Iran, two thirds are under 30 and a quarter is under 15. Forty percent of Iraqis are under 14. When you factor that in with old dictator after old dictator and cronyism in economies with no jobs, of course you are going to get protests. This has nothing to do with people being emboldened by the Iraqi experience. Let's not be so "AMERICA FUCK YEAH!" and be realistic. The rest of the Middle East hated the US for the war in Iraq and their governments for supporting it. Not to mention, there isn't even a real democracy in Iraq. This was bound to happen with younger people who want to do better than they are right now and don't have the opportunity to do so.
What is really surprising is that these protests run counter to hundreds of years of history. The Ottoman Empire, Saddam Hussein, Nasser through Mubarak, the Assad family, Shah of Iran, Supreme Council in Iran, the Saudi royal family, and Gadafhi. All are dictators and oppressive regimes. When Saddam was toppled in Iraq, the Iraqis were saying that Saddam was a bad guy and they hated him, but at least he kept order. Order and stability have been the hallmarks of the governments in the Middle East. That is why what is going on is so fascinating. This never happens in the Middle East. The media should be talking more about that, and less about stupid shit like the royal wedding.
Which reminds me, who in America gives a fuck about the royal wedding? And why? At the risk of sounding like a Republican, we didn't fight a war to still be worshipping the royal family of England! But seriously, they aren't our royal family so why does it matter? Americans don't watch every other nation's royal weddings, so why are Britain's so important? And the thing that really gets me is that America has a President that you always hear is supposed to be respected and treated like the highest official in the country, but you get morons saying that the President wasn't born in the country and was raised in Kenya and hates America. I'm not saying everybody has to like the President or agree with him. I'm just saying that people in America think that the royal family is something special and not just a product of inbreeding. Hey, why else would they all be hemophiliacs?
Like worst song of the year bad. I read that she used Auto-Tune, but it just sounds like she is sexlessly mumbling some mindnumbingly awful lyrics Repeating the same fifteen words over and over again worked in an ironic way for the Ramones. In this song, it's just wretched. Now I know this is a stretch, but music/art is supposed to be an expression of the self and your view of the world. This is what Kim Kardashian wants everyone to know is what the essence of her personality and life is? "They're playing my jam"? A few thoughts: 1.) If you've never sang, written a song, or played an instrument, your late 20s are not the time for a music career. 2.) If you can't write your own songs and the people writing them for you can't make you sound interesting, you should undertake some serious soul searching. 3.) Just because you have the time and money to make an album doesn't mean you should. This song is an even worse idea than the Kardashian Kredit Kard.
Changing gears, Charlie Sheen needs to be institutionalized. It's not even a matter of being a drug addict, since he is only addicted to Charlie Sheen. Seriously, this dude is crazy as hell. The Goddesses? Winning? He's off his rocker. He's like Tom Cruise, but heterosexual and completely unfiltered and trashy. It's hard to believe he's Martin Sheen's son. I did find it hilarious when the Today Show asked him if it was true that he threatened to chop off his ex-wife's head and mail it to her mother. His answer was "No, but that's a good one." It does make me wonder how fucked up his ex-wife is that he had custody of the kids until the other nite.
Before conservatives take credit for Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, let's get one thing straight. This is not the Bush Doctrine in action. The uprisings across the Middle East were going to happen either way. Look at the demographics of the region. In Egypt, the average age is 25. Libya is 24. Iran, two thirds are under 30 and a quarter is under 15. Forty percent of Iraqis are under 14. When you factor that in with old dictator after old dictator and cronyism in economies with no jobs, of course you are going to get protests. This has nothing to do with people being emboldened by the Iraqi experience. Let's not be so "AMERICA FUCK YEAH!" and be realistic. The rest of the Middle East hated the US for the war in Iraq and their governments for supporting it. Not to mention, there isn't even a real democracy in Iraq. This was bound to happen with younger people who want to do better than they are right now and don't have the opportunity to do so.
What is really surprising is that these protests run counter to hundreds of years of history. The Ottoman Empire, Saddam Hussein, Nasser through Mubarak, the Assad family, Shah of Iran, Supreme Council in Iran, the Saudi royal family, and Gadafhi. All are dictators and oppressive regimes. When Saddam was toppled in Iraq, the Iraqis were saying that Saddam was a bad guy and they hated him, but at least he kept order. Order and stability have been the hallmarks of the governments in the Middle East. That is why what is going on is so fascinating. This never happens in the Middle East. The media should be talking more about that, and less about stupid shit like the royal wedding.
Which reminds me, who in America gives a fuck about the royal wedding? And why? At the risk of sounding like a Republican, we didn't fight a war to still be worshipping the royal family of England! But seriously, they aren't our royal family so why does it matter? Americans don't watch every other nation's royal weddings, so why are Britain's so important? And the thing that really gets me is that America has a President that you always hear is supposed to be respected and treated like the highest official in the country, but you get morons saying that the President wasn't born in the country and was raised in Kenya and hates America. I'm not saying everybody has to like the President or agree with him. I'm just saying that people in America think that the royal family is something special and not just a product of inbreeding. Hey, why else would they all be hemophiliacs?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Hall of Shame: BP and NYS Legislature Edition
I haven't updated this in a while, so now is as good a time as any to carry forth with a new installment of the Hall of Shame. These are always pretty easy to write, as there are a lot of fucking assbags out there fucking everything up for the world (or at least for me). I had planned on starting my 100 greatest albums of all time blog, but my brother is not prepared for the massive joint undertaking. I do have some other things coming down the pipeline, but for now you will all have to settle for this. Speaking of pipeline, let's go to our first (and most obvious) inductee:
BP: Holy Mother of God, BP has fucked up big time. They have managed to ruin millions of lives and a significant portion of the world's environment. Then, they follow it up by doing nothing about it for weeks and when they finally start to get a plan to implement, they execute it poorly. There are 60,000 barrels of oil a day (!!) streaming into the Gulf of Mexico every day thanks to these guys. To make it even better, they have no idea how or why this happened. There was some serious criminal negligence in the creation and maintenance of this oil well, as well as a serious lack of oversight on the part of BP. What really gets me is that it has been nearly two months and they are just now starting to stem the flow of oil. Shouldn't there have been a plan in place before the well was even built that would cover this possibility? It is a rhetorical question, since the answer is "Yes!" Now, some of you might be saying, "Now Jimmy, no one could expect something like this would happen. How could they be prepared?" I would then tell you to read the article I linked to above. When the plans for the well were being put forth, the engineers warned that something like this could happen. On top of being criminal douchebags who have ruined the Gulf Coast for decades, their leaders are also inconsiderate pricks. Hayward, the dude who testified before the House (more on that later) today, as quoted the other day as saying "I want my life back" and that the spill wasn't a big deal because the gulf was "a very big ocean." Their other main executive, whose name I can't find right now, said, after having to put $20 billion into an account to cover claims, that "Obama cares about the small people. Oil companie s care about the small people." What an asshat. It isn't a matter of rich and poor, or important and small. BP has just made the Gulf Coast, an area still devastated from Katrina, an even bigger wasteland. On top of that, they are fucking up Canada too by throwing out indigenous people to drill in the tar sands. You can read a bit about it here. BP is ecologically and morally reckless and reprehensible and should have to pay the penalties for all the bad shit they've done. Of course, not all people feel that way, which brings me to the next inductee:
Rep. Joe Barton (Republican-Texas): This rotten piece of shit is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where BP's Hayward testified today. Barton had the unmitigated audacity to say to Hayward, and I quote directly: I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown. What kind of an insensitive, out of touch goofball would say something so ridiculous about forcing a corporation to be responsible for the shit it's wrought on everyone, an action that the majority of Americans support? The kind of person that is the number one recipient in the House of funds from gas and oil companies, that's who. Yes indeed, good ole Joe Barton has received $100,470 in donations from big oil since 2009 and $1.4 million since 1990. That is the kind of person that would be more ashamed by an oil company being punished by the government than by an oil company ruining the Gulf Coast. And on top of that, it's fucking insane that he is on the Energy Committee. Actually, five of the top ten recipients of big oil money serve on this committee. Talk about a conflict of interest. No wonder renewable energy is going nowhere in this country, but I digress. Barton's comments were so out of line that even Republican nutbags Eric Cantor and John Boehner spoke out against him and reiterated the fact that BP is in the wrong and not the White House. Of course, just when I want to only single out one Republican and point out that the majority of them actually don't have their heads up their asses on this one, I read this quote by Georgia Republican Tom Price that the $20 billion fund "suggests that the Obama administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics." Sigh.
At least, the US Congress isn't the only legislative body fucking up. I introduce you to our last inductee:
New York State Senate: Oddly enough, this has nothing to do with the fact that the budget is ten weeks past due and that they are the laughingstock of the political world every year. No no, this one has to do with their boneheaded treatment of mixed martial arts (MMA), or "ultimate fighting" as the less informed call it. It finally passed a bill that would make New York the 45th state to legalize MMA. Of course, it didn't pass without a fight with the vote going 32-26 without any rationalization across party or gender lines. First of all, "ultimate fighting" is not the name of the sport and calling it as such shows how out of touch the Senate is with the subject that they voted on. Democratic Senator Diane Savino "compared MMA to the days of the gladiators, when Christians and Jews were fed to the lions." Give me a fucking break! MMA is a legally sanctioned sport that does not allow low blows, eye gouging, knees and kicks to the head of a downed opponent, and unlike boxing does not have a standing eight count. That means that when a fighter is dazed or down on his back, the fight is over. He is not given eight seconds to regain his wits from the head trauma and expected to get back into it. Also, there is no lion feeding and no death to the loser. It is essentially a combination of wrestling and kickboxing. Whenever an event is run, it is sanctioned by the state athletic commission. It is not a no holds barred, barbaric sport. The people who compete in it are highly trained and highly disciplined and are no more bloodthirsty than a football player or boxer. On the other side of the aisle, Republican Bill Larkin made sure to point out that he will "be able to look at [his] grandchildren and say, 'I won't let you watch it on TV, and I didn't vote for it in Albany." He also made sure to state that the sport would become nothing more than a hoodlum training program. Good for you Bill, that you won't let your grandkids watch it. That's the beauty of freedom of choice. Don't watch it if you don't want. Just because you think it is barbaric doesn't mean that it is. Also, what kind of hoodlums are training MMA? Training kickboxing or wrestling or Brazilian jiu-jitsu is expensive and someone who practices it is most likely not going to be using it to act like a "hoodlum." For that matter, it is proven that kids or people who enroll in a martial art or some kind of extracurricular activity are LESS likely to become hoodlums. Not to mention, MMA training is already going on and there has been no change in crime because of it. This bill just means that it can be sanctioned and done safely, as opposed to bootleg amateur bouts that lead to injuries to people. Sanctioning it means that the UFC can come to NYC or Albany and run a show and bring in a shitton of revenue to the areas where a fight card occurs. At least Democrat Craig Johnson, who voted in favor of allowing MMA, pointed out that a lot of these people against it because of a fear of leading to a Reefer Madness like fall of humankind in New York also voted against microstamping semiautomatic weapons in order to cut down on gun crime. I could go on about this all day, but I feel as if I've gone on a bit too long.
That does it for this entry. I hope to update it again soon. Leave a comment on my facebook page or on this blog if you would like.
BP: Holy Mother of God, BP has fucked up big time. They have managed to ruin millions of lives and a significant portion of the world's environment. Then, they follow it up by doing nothing about it for weeks and when they finally start to get a plan to implement, they execute it poorly. There are 60,000 barrels of oil a day (!!) streaming into the Gulf of Mexico every day thanks to these guys. To make it even better, they have no idea how or why this happened. There was some serious criminal negligence in the creation and maintenance of this oil well, as well as a serious lack of oversight on the part of BP. What really gets me is that it has been nearly two months and they are just now starting to stem the flow of oil. Shouldn't there have been a plan in place before the well was even built that would cover this possibility? It is a rhetorical question, since the answer is "Yes!" Now, some of you might be saying, "Now Jimmy, no one could expect something like this would happen. How could they be prepared?" I would then tell you to read the article I linked to above. When the plans for the well were being put forth, the engineers warned that something like this could happen. On top of being criminal douchebags who have ruined the Gulf Coast for decades, their leaders are also inconsiderate pricks. Hayward, the dude who testified before the House (more on that later) today, as quoted the other day as saying "I want my life back" and that the spill wasn't a big deal because the gulf was "a very big ocean." Their other main executive, whose name I can't find right now, said, after having to put $20 billion into an account to cover claims, that "Obama cares about the small people. Oil companie s care about the small people." What an asshat. It isn't a matter of rich and poor, or important and small. BP has just made the Gulf Coast, an area still devastated from Katrina, an even bigger wasteland. On top of that, they are fucking up Canada too by throwing out indigenous people to drill in the tar sands. You can read a bit about it here. BP is ecologically and morally reckless and reprehensible and should have to pay the penalties for all the bad shit they've done. Of course, not all people feel that way, which brings me to the next inductee:
Rep. Joe Barton (Republican-Texas): This rotten piece of shit is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where BP's Hayward testified today. Barton had the unmitigated audacity to say to Hayward, and I quote directly: I'm ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday. I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown, in this case, a $20 billion shakedown. What kind of an insensitive, out of touch goofball would say something so ridiculous about forcing a corporation to be responsible for the shit it's wrought on everyone, an action that the majority of Americans support? The kind of person that is the number one recipient in the House of funds from gas and oil companies, that's who. Yes indeed, good ole Joe Barton has received $100,470 in donations from big oil since 2009 and $1.4 million since 1990. That is the kind of person that would be more ashamed by an oil company being punished by the government than by an oil company ruining the Gulf Coast. And on top of that, it's fucking insane that he is on the Energy Committee. Actually, five of the top ten recipients of big oil money serve on this committee. Talk about a conflict of interest. No wonder renewable energy is going nowhere in this country, but I digress. Barton's comments were so out of line that even Republican nutbags Eric Cantor and John Boehner spoke out against him and reiterated the fact that BP is in the wrong and not the White House. Of course, just when I want to only single out one Republican and point out that the majority of them actually don't have their heads up their asses on this one, I read this quote by Georgia Republican Tom Price that the $20 billion fund "suggests that the Obama administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style shakedown politics." Sigh.
At least, the US Congress isn't the only legislative body fucking up. I introduce you to our last inductee:
New York State Senate: Oddly enough, this has nothing to do with the fact that the budget is ten weeks past due and that they are the laughingstock of the political world every year. No no, this one has to do with their boneheaded treatment of mixed martial arts (MMA), or "ultimate fighting" as the less informed call it. It finally passed a bill that would make New York the 45th state to legalize MMA. Of course, it didn't pass without a fight with the vote going 32-26 without any rationalization across party or gender lines. First of all, "ultimate fighting" is not the name of the sport and calling it as such shows how out of touch the Senate is with the subject that they voted on. Democratic Senator Diane Savino "compared MMA to the days of the gladiators, when Christians and Jews were fed to the lions." Give me a fucking break! MMA is a legally sanctioned sport that does not allow low blows, eye gouging, knees and kicks to the head of a downed opponent, and unlike boxing does not have a standing eight count. That means that when a fighter is dazed or down on his back, the fight is over. He is not given eight seconds to regain his wits from the head trauma and expected to get back into it. Also, there is no lion feeding and no death to the loser. It is essentially a combination of wrestling and kickboxing. Whenever an event is run, it is sanctioned by the state athletic commission. It is not a no holds barred, barbaric sport. The people who compete in it are highly trained and highly disciplined and are no more bloodthirsty than a football player or boxer. On the other side of the aisle, Republican Bill Larkin made sure to point out that he will "be able to look at [his] grandchildren and say, 'I won't let you watch it on TV, and I didn't vote for it in Albany." He also made sure to state that the sport would become nothing more than a hoodlum training program. Good for you Bill, that you won't let your grandkids watch it. That's the beauty of freedom of choice. Don't watch it if you don't want. Just because you think it is barbaric doesn't mean that it is. Also, what kind of hoodlums are training MMA? Training kickboxing or wrestling or Brazilian jiu-jitsu is expensive and someone who practices it is most likely not going to be using it to act like a "hoodlum." For that matter, it is proven that kids or people who enroll in a martial art or some kind of extracurricular activity are LESS likely to become hoodlums. Not to mention, MMA training is already going on and there has been no change in crime because of it. This bill just means that it can be sanctioned and done safely, as opposed to bootleg amateur bouts that lead to injuries to people. Sanctioning it means that the UFC can come to NYC or Albany and run a show and bring in a shitton of revenue to the areas where a fight card occurs. At least Democrat Craig Johnson, who voted in favor of allowing MMA, pointed out that a lot of these people against it because of a fear of leading to a Reefer Madness like fall of humankind in New York also voted against microstamping semiautomatic weapons in order to cut down on gun crime. I could go on about this all day, but I feel as if I've gone on a bit too long.
That does it for this entry. I hope to update it again soon. Leave a comment on my facebook page or on this blog if you would like.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Hall of Shame: Tea Party Edition
My original list for this installment of the Price Vincent Hall of Shame was six people. As I started fleshing out my reasons for gaining this very prestigious honor, my reasons for the Tea Party (and two people in particular in the movement) made the column far too long. Instead, I'll talk about the other entries later and focus this one on the Tea Partiers, Rand Paul and Mark Williams in particular.
Since I first started using this blog last August and September and updated it periodically over the last two months, I've somehow managed to remain curiously silent on the Tea Party movement. I didn't specifically mention them in my August 21, 2009 entry on health care obstructionists, but that was really the beginning of the Tea Party movement. For some reason that escapes me, I also somehow managed to ignore writing about them in the beginning of the year when they were sending death threats to people who voted in favor of health care reform, a move that calls to mind the memories and reform of the kristallnacht period. In my first installment of the Hall of Shame, I referred to Sean Hannity and the state of Arizona, two bastions of Tea Party support. I even managed to stay silent when my uncle joined a Tea Party group in our hometown and brought his ten year old son with him and had him carry a sign that read "In God We Trust, Not Obama." This week, however, I decided that I couldn't really stay quiet about them any longer.
The Tea Party movement managed to corrall enough angry, Jesus lovin', racist, white people to gain some primary victories and set the national agenda for the Republican Party. This agenda is simple: not having to pay taxes, calling Obama a socialist, not helping the less fortunate, ending government spending on medicare and social security, and advancing a message of states' rights/social Darwinism/hating people who aren't middle class (at least) and white/blaming the "other" for every problem in America. The irony of not wanting government programs escapes them since forty percent of them are over 55 and 22 percent are under age 35, so they will be eligible for Social Security payments, which I would be willing to bet they aren't going to return to the government in protest. Also, 70 percent of them want the federal government to foster job creation and to limit the abuses of Wall Street. They are either hypocritical, stupid, or both. Before anyone says I'm generalizing the movement, 79 percent of them are white, and 44 percent of them are born again Christian.
Now some of you might still be saying, "Shahen, the Tea Party movement doesn't condone racism and ignorance. Just because they are white, Christian, and include an inordinate amount of Birthers doesn't make them racist. It's about the size of government, not that the President is black. Besides, the leadership of the movement can't control the masses who protest, as that would be anathema to the purpose of the movement and free speech. It's a grassroots movement and doesn't express any cohesive ideology besides lower taxes and less government." After wondering how you were able to tell me this with a straight face, I would then tell you that you're a fucking moron, question how we even know each other, tell you that not only does it condone racism, ignorance, and hatred, but it endorses it and is an explicit part of their platform. Let's have a look at two shining examples of leaders within the Tea Party movement and how fucked up they are: Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams and Kentucky US Senate nominee Rand Paul.
Mark Williams: Mark Williams is evidently a radio host and blogger, as well as the leader of the Tea Party Express, which I guess is some kind of deal where Williams and some other asshats are going countrywide in a bus to spread their message. Kind of like the Partridge Family but the Tea Partiers are even bigger douchebags. They enlist noted intellectuals like Sarah Palin to give policy speech and provoke meaningful dialogue and understanding. Just kidding, they make up a bunch of stories about "death panels" and taking back democracy for the (white) people. Don't believe me? Well, Mr. Williams makes it clear exactly where he stands and where his followers should stand. For starters, Mr. Williams is a birther and has referred to Obama as an "Indonesian thug turned welfare fraud," a "half-white racist," a "half black racist," and a "Nazi." I'll point it out, although it isn't necessary, but the Dixie Chicks were mauled in the media for saying they were embarrassed to be from the same state as Presidfent Bush. This idiot says the above things and he is considered a viable voice for political change. He shouldn't even be asked to be on television. The birther movement is bullshit and his refusal to recognize Obama as even a human being is appalling and disgusting. Not as disgusting as the shit he pulled this week. In a blog on his website this week he wrote about a planned 15 story community center being built by a Muslim group that will feature a mosque, performing arts center, a gym and a swimming pool that will be put up near Ground Zero in NYC as a monument to celebrate terrorism. His exact words were, "The monument would consist of a mosque for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god." The blog also featured an illustration called "Nazi Muhmmad" that featured Muhammad with swastika and cockroach beard with women who are bleeding from the crotch and is armed. When asked about the Nazi comparison, he stated that he couldn't find an image of Muhammad as Satan and had to settle for Hitler. In another blog, he stated Islam is a "7th Century Death Cult coughed up by a psychotic pedophile." First, Islam and Christianity have the same God. Second, all religion is essentially a cult. Jesus was a charismatic carpenter of dubious birth origins who had a devoted legion of followers. Second, Islam is the most popular religion in the world and only a small percentage of Muslims could be considered terrorists. And is it a monkey-god because brown skinned people are predominantly Muslims? Third, how come he hasn't ever spoken about fringe Christian terrorists like Tim McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph? I'm gonna say because they were far right, religious white men and they were just fighting against the liberals and big government socialism and people who perform abortions and fighting the good fight (in his eyes). The fact that this lunatic is the leader of a group that gets mainstream media coverage and isn't treated like a bunch of fringe wackos anywhere except MSNBC troubles me. This guy is breeding hate in the same way that Republicans always state that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (both black, what a shocker) do. It is more troubling because he is race baiting to incite middle class and lower class white people to attack and go after a large segment of the population. If the Tea Party was really inclusive and not a bunch of idiot white people, they would disavow Mark Williams immediately. They won't though, because he's their kind of guy.
Rand Paul: Rand is the son of everyone's favorite libertarian, Ron Paul. He has entered the political fray now as the Republican nominee for US Senate in the state of Kentucky. Rand is also a Tea Partier and super conservative. How conservative, you ask? Let's take a gander at his political views. He wants to remove US military bases from overseas. Every single base. He also wants a constitutional amendment banning abortion. That's ironic, a self-proclaimed libertarian wants government to pass a law restricting people's rights. It is even more ironic when you consider that he doesn't like the Civil Rights Act. On Rachel Maddow's show, he stated that he would have opposed parts of the 1964 legislation, specifically the parts that forced businesses to serve white and black people and do so equally and without exclusion. He stated that it is the free speech right of a business or person to choose to be segregated and not the role of the government to interfere. He also said the same thing about the Americans with Disabilities Act. Companies shouldn't have to be handicap accessible. It restricts the free speech of a company to have to comply these things if it doesn't want to. Don't believe me? Watch it for yourself. I'll even include his rebuttal that blames Rachel Maddow and not himself for being a racist dick. Even if he feels that the states should make these rules or leave it up to businesses to do right for themselves, the fact is that they wouldn't and haven't throughout history without the federal government forcing it upon them. Also, an amendment banning abortion? What happened to let the people and the states decide? It is 2010 and abortion is not an issue, get over it. No one is pro-abortion. No one walks around saying, "Goddamn I love abortions. They are so awesome." Abortion is a women's health issue and the right wing needs to stop trying to force their morality on women. I got off track there, but Rand is a total hypocrite. No to federal involvement in civil rights enforcement but yes to it when it involves stopping abortions? Also, Rand believes in abolishing the Departments of Education, Energy and Commerce, as well as aboloshing the income tax. No cohesive national education standards and funding, no ensuring that we have clean and healthy energy source, no stopping monopolies and illegal trade, but the government should abolish abortion constitutionally? Fuck you Rand. I could go on about how he doesn't support amnesty and wants to limit the amount of Visas eligible to foreigners and thinks money should go to parents to home school their kids instead of having them go to school (since that breeds normal, well-adjusted kids), but I think I made it clear before that he is a racist and a dick.
These people in the Tea Party make me so disappointed in being an American. They are lunatics who preach hate and pull a Chicken Little routine over everything the Democrats do. Meanwhile they said nothing about how Bush launched two failed wars that cost trillions, restricted civil liberties via the Patriot Act, supervised the destruction of New Orleans, and started the recession with his laissez-faire attitude but they don't. Instead the recession is blamed on handouts to the poor and health care. Instead it was handouts to Bush's rich buddies through tax breaks while increasing spending at the same time. You can't increase spending and cut taxes at the same time. It just doesn't work. If it was about what's right and what's wrong, these people would have called Bush out for his fuckups. But its not about whats wrong and whats right, its about who is black and who is white.
Since I first started using this blog last August and September and updated it periodically over the last two months, I've somehow managed to remain curiously silent on the Tea Party movement. I didn't specifically mention them in my August 21, 2009 entry on health care obstructionists, but that was really the beginning of the Tea Party movement. For some reason that escapes me, I also somehow managed to ignore writing about them in the beginning of the year when they were sending death threats to people who voted in favor of health care reform, a move that calls to mind the memories and reform of the kristallnacht period. In my first installment of the Hall of Shame, I referred to Sean Hannity and the state of Arizona, two bastions of Tea Party support. I even managed to stay silent when my uncle joined a Tea Party group in our hometown and brought his ten year old son with him and had him carry a sign that read "In God We Trust, Not Obama." This week, however, I decided that I couldn't really stay quiet about them any longer.
The Tea Party movement managed to corrall enough angry, Jesus lovin', racist, white people to gain some primary victories and set the national agenda for the Republican Party. This agenda is simple: not having to pay taxes, calling Obama a socialist, not helping the less fortunate, ending government spending on medicare and social security, and advancing a message of states' rights/social Darwinism/hating people who aren't middle class (at least) and white/blaming the "other" for every problem in America. The irony of not wanting government programs escapes them since forty percent of them are over 55 and 22 percent are under age 35, so they will be eligible for Social Security payments, which I would be willing to bet they aren't going to return to the government in protest. Also, 70 percent of them want the federal government to foster job creation and to limit the abuses of Wall Street. They are either hypocritical, stupid, or both. Before anyone says I'm generalizing the movement, 79 percent of them are white, and 44 percent of them are born again Christian.
Now some of you might still be saying, "Shahen, the Tea Party movement doesn't condone racism and ignorance. Just because they are white, Christian, and include an inordinate amount of Birthers doesn't make them racist. It's about the size of government, not that the President is black. Besides, the leadership of the movement can't control the masses who protest, as that would be anathema to the purpose of the movement and free speech. It's a grassroots movement and doesn't express any cohesive ideology besides lower taxes and less government." After wondering how you were able to tell me this with a straight face, I would then tell you that you're a fucking moron, question how we even know each other, tell you that not only does it condone racism, ignorance, and hatred, but it endorses it and is an explicit part of their platform. Let's have a look at two shining examples of leaders within the Tea Party movement and how fucked up they are: Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams and Kentucky US Senate nominee Rand Paul.
Mark Williams: Mark Williams is evidently a radio host and blogger, as well as the leader of the Tea Party Express, which I guess is some kind of deal where Williams and some other asshats are going countrywide in a bus to spread their message. Kind of like the Partridge Family but the Tea Partiers are even bigger douchebags. They enlist noted intellectuals like Sarah Palin to give policy speech and provoke meaningful dialogue and understanding. Just kidding, they make up a bunch of stories about "death panels" and taking back democracy for the (white) people. Don't believe me? Well, Mr. Williams makes it clear exactly where he stands and where his followers should stand. For starters, Mr. Williams is a birther and has referred to Obama as an "Indonesian thug turned welfare fraud," a "half-white racist," a "half black racist," and a "Nazi." I'll point it out, although it isn't necessary, but the Dixie Chicks were mauled in the media for saying they were embarrassed to be from the same state as Presidfent Bush. This idiot says the above things and he is considered a viable voice for political change. He shouldn't even be asked to be on television. The birther movement is bullshit and his refusal to recognize Obama as even a human being is appalling and disgusting. Not as disgusting as the shit he pulled this week. In a blog on his website this week he wrote about a planned 15 story community center being built by a Muslim group that will feature a mosque, performing arts center, a gym and a swimming pool that will be put up near Ground Zero in NYC as a monument to celebrate terrorism. His exact words were, "The monument would consist of a mosque for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god." The blog also featured an illustration called "Nazi Muhmmad" that featured Muhammad with swastika and cockroach beard with women who are bleeding from the crotch and is armed. When asked about the Nazi comparison, he stated that he couldn't find an image of Muhammad as Satan and had to settle for Hitler. In another blog, he stated Islam is a "7th Century Death Cult coughed up by a psychotic pedophile." First, Islam and Christianity have the same God. Second, all religion is essentially a cult. Jesus was a charismatic carpenter of dubious birth origins who had a devoted legion of followers. Second, Islam is the most popular religion in the world and only a small percentage of Muslims could be considered terrorists. And is it a monkey-god because brown skinned people are predominantly Muslims? Third, how come he hasn't ever spoken about fringe Christian terrorists like Tim McVeigh or Eric Robert Rudolph? I'm gonna say because they were far right, religious white men and they were just fighting against the liberals and big government socialism and people who perform abortions and fighting the good fight (in his eyes). The fact that this lunatic is the leader of a group that gets mainstream media coverage and isn't treated like a bunch of fringe wackos anywhere except MSNBC troubles me. This guy is breeding hate in the same way that Republicans always state that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (both black, what a shocker) do. It is more troubling because he is race baiting to incite middle class and lower class white people to attack and go after a large segment of the population. If the Tea Party was really inclusive and not a bunch of idiot white people, they would disavow Mark Williams immediately. They won't though, because he's their kind of guy.
Rand Paul: Rand is the son of everyone's favorite libertarian, Ron Paul. He has entered the political fray now as the Republican nominee for US Senate in the state of Kentucky. Rand is also a Tea Partier and super conservative. How conservative, you ask? Let's take a gander at his political views. He wants to remove US military bases from overseas. Every single base. He also wants a constitutional amendment banning abortion. That's ironic, a self-proclaimed libertarian wants government to pass a law restricting people's rights. It is even more ironic when you consider that he doesn't like the Civil Rights Act. On Rachel Maddow's show, he stated that he would have opposed parts of the 1964 legislation, specifically the parts that forced businesses to serve white and black people and do so equally and without exclusion. He stated that it is the free speech right of a business or person to choose to be segregated and not the role of the government to interfere. He also said the same thing about the Americans with Disabilities Act. Companies shouldn't have to be handicap accessible. It restricts the free speech of a company to have to comply these things if it doesn't want to. Don't believe me? Watch it for yourself. I'll even include his rebuttal that blames Rachel Maddow and not himself for being a racist dick. Even if he feels that the states should make these rules or leave it up to businesses to do right for themselves, the fact is that they wouldn't and haven't throughout history without the federal government forcing it upon them. Also, an amendment banning abortion? What happened to let the people and the states decide? It is 2010 and abortion is not an issue, get over it. No one is pro-abortion. No one walks around saying, "Goddamn I love abortions. They are so awesome." Abortion is a women's health issue and the right wing needs to stop trying to force their morality on women. I got off track there, but Rand is a total hypocrite. No to federal involvement in civil rights enforcement but yes to it when it involves stopping abortions? Also, Rand believes in abolishing the Departments of Education, Energy and Commerce, as well as aboloshing the income tax. No cohesive national education standards and funding, no ensuring that we have clean and healthy energy source, no stopping monopolies and illegal trade, but the government should abolish abortion constitutionally? Fuck you Rand. I could go on about how he doesn't support amnesty and wants to limit the amount of Visas eligible to foreigners and thinks money should go to parents to home school their kids instead of having them go to school (since that breeds normal, well-adjusted kids), but I think I made it clear before that he is a racist and a dick.
These people in the Tea Party make me so disappointed in being an American. They are lunatics who preach hate and pull a Chicken Little routine over everything the Democrats do. Meanwhile they said nothing about how Bush launched two failed wars that cost trillions, restricted civil liberties via the Patriot Act, supervised the destruction of New Orleans, and started the recession with his laissez-faire attitude but they don't. Instead the recession is blamed on handouts to the poor and health care. Instead it was handouts to Bush's rich buddies through tax breaks while increasing spending at the same time. You can't increase spending and cut taxes at the same time. It just doesn't work. If it was about what's right and what's wrong, these people would have called Bush out for his fuckups. But its not about whats wrong and whats right, its about who is black and who is white.
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