Say Anything Blog

We heard from the right, from roughly 2000-2009, that dissent is flat-out unpatriotic. Anyone who dared oppose Bush’s policies during this period was an ‘appeaser’, a ‘pacifist’ (assumed to carry a negative valence), a ‘terrorist sympathizer’, etc etc etc. We were asked to believe lies about intelligence, spending, wartime commitments, and countless other things; the challenging of which was met with ad hominem attacks (both abusive and circumstantial fallacies) and a refusal to engage any counterpoints. The rebuttals offered, if any, were in the form of threats (argument to the club fallacy) about the potential repurcussions of our ‘unpatriotic’ sentiments. The Pentagon launched a disinformation-propgit effort so that even the informational content of the debates was consciously manipulated, incorrect, and skewed to favor the admin’s desired result.

Currently we are witnessing an exact reversal of that phenomenon. The absolute lack of reflexivity betrayed by both the right, who now seeks public approval of the legitimacy of their dissent, and the left, who now wishes to paint the dissenters as unpatriotic and dangerous, is absolutely abysmal. Its nothing short of f**king outrageous. The blind obedience that this evidences from both sides of the aisle to their chosen ideology is 100% laughable. No one has any ability to imagine what’s its like to wear the other guys shoes, not even a few minutes after they have exchanged shoes.

What result does this leave us with? How can we; given this clear and concrete evidence of gross hypocrisy, blatant use of rhetoric, and an instrumental stance towards the information flow that the populace receives; continue to maintain even a shred of respect for any of these institutions/parties? After all, the proper function of these institutions is predicated on the availability of appropriate information and a shared desire to co-exist in a mutually beneficial society.

These are important questions that I have, which it seems no one is asking. Neither the rightwing nor the leftwing in the US, in their big party varieties, deserves a shred of respect or credibility going forward.

The moral of the story seems to be that the details of a specific case will tend to bear out the truth and a desirable course of action much more readily than skewed interpretations which flow from ideological positions and merely use the facts, as needed, as ornaments for ones own personal dogmatisms. The use of ideological catch phrases, containing much psychological effect and little factual content, needs to be curbed at a time when THE ENTIRE POLITICAL DISCOURSE has been reduced to such phrases. What are we to do?

The results of this; for a country which is such a paragon of political and societal advance; is disappointing and disconserting. Our desire to exploit problems for use against each other seems to have outstripped our desire to cure them with each other. Alas, these criticisms apply to both political parties.

Kansas State researchers have mapped out the distribution of the sinful among us. As could have been predicted, the ‘bible belt’ area is among the worst, sin per capita wise.

Don’t you love it when science edifies your suspicions about hypocrites?

See for yourself.

Ouchie. Quotes from the full article in the mag.

...she sat on the living room couch… watching house shows and wedding shows on TV. She always wanted things and she wanted other people to get them for her. .... She used to make Bristol feel bad by telling her that she did everything for her. This was unfair because… Bristol was… the mom of the house. (p.218)

Sarah was always in a bad mood and she was stressed out a lot. Sometimes she would wonder why she took the job as governor. It was too hard, she said; there was so much going on. (p.218)

She only goes to church four or five times a year - mostly on holidays… (p.219)

It’s a long article. There are a few more block quotes at the other end of the link above.

Heh.

Original here.

“Parenthood seems to heighten the political ‘gender gap,’ with women becoming more liberal and men more conservative when it comes to government spending on social welfare issues,” says Dr. Steven Greene, an associate professor of political science at NC State and co-author of the study. Greene and Dr. Laurel Elder of Hartwick College used data on the 2008 presidential election from the American National Election Studies to evaluate the voting behavior of men and women who have children at home. Parents who have grown children were not part of the study.

“Basically, women with children in the home were more liberal on social welfare attitudes, and attitudes about the Iraq War, than women without children at home,” Greene says, “which is a very different understanding of the politics of mothers than captured by the ‘Security Mom’ label popular in much media coverage. But men with kids are more conservative on social welfare issues than men without kids.” Men with kids did not differ from men without kids in their attitudes towards Iraq.

Greene also notes that, “despite media speculation that Sarah Palin, given her status as a self-proclaimed ‘Hockey Mom’ and working mother of five, would be effective at attracting the votes and admiration of parents, especially mothers, the research showed no evidence of a ‘Sarah Palin effect’ (between parents and non-parents), even when looking exclusively at Republicans.” Greene explains that this means there was no difference in how parents viewed Sarah Palin versus how non-parents viewed Sarah Palin.

When you get a new puppy, its cute. It misbehaves, but its so adorable and lovable that well… jeez… it’ll learn soon.

When it gets bigger, and some time goes by… the novelty wears off—it starts chewing up your nice leather boots and pissing on the floor—all of the sudden you can see it. This thing is a f**ker. Its… not so cute.

Seems like some of the Democrats I know are beginning to get over the new puppy phase…

I love late summer.

Story here. Props to the one who can actually find the photo and post it below for us all.

East Houston St, NYC

Us Arbuckles have been temporarily relocated to the East Village, NYC this summer for copius amounts of work and play. I have been busy jet-setting, hence my sparce sparring with you pesky partisans. At any rate, here’s some photos from the ole cell phone and the trusty Canon digital:


The sunset on July 4th, looking west over the Hudson from a Chelsea rooftop shindig (cellphone). The view of the fireworks later on was absolutely bitchin’.


WWII memorial in Battery Park (Canon).


Korean War memorial in Battery Park (Canon).


Lady Liberty as seen through the boot of the Korean War memorial (Canon). The symbolism is thick, no? I figured the crowd at SAB might appreciate these.

New York is wonderful this summer (if not a bit rainy)—the capital of the world lives up to its rep. And, last but not least, the bull himself:

...but they all pretend. WaPo has the bad guy with a two to one margin three weeks ago. Now no one knows. The diaspora, the foreigners, the local elites, the rich guys… they all want the bad guy to loose. Me too. Still… I can’t help but wonder what the actual result was. We know that—with the American presence in Iraq, the cajoling from Israel, the increasing alignment of Israel and Egypt and Saudi Arabia, all the name calling, sabre rattling, etc—any result is possible.

We just don’t know. Should we merely claim the result we want is the truth, or should we admit that we just don’t know. I don’t think the state reported result, ratio-wise, is farfetched. The bad guy is probably trying to inflate his mandate—it just continues to strike me as improbable that the pol supported by foreigners and the elites would win.

Should we admit we don’t know. Should we all pretend what we want to have happened is actually the case?

The population feels he sticks up for Iran.

Without Cheney and Bush’s hollow posturing, the nutbag never would have won. Wouldn’t have even close.

BUSH AND CHENEY RETARDED THE ADVANCE OF THIS COUNTRY 20-40 YEARS. Make no mistake. Children should be ignored. Instead they used Iran to appear tough domestically, the same thing Iran did with us. Mutual rightwing backscraTCHING. Taking us backwards in time.

Remember also that we didn’t give a crap about Iran from 2003-5, and were even arming their militias who operated in Iraq, before we had an about-face in 2005.

Oh my god! Dave Letterman tells jokes! Apparently they are pretty funny too, or Governor Moose Meat wouldn’t be thwowing a hwissy fwit.

I guess Palin’s got her slutty flight attendant panties in a knot.

When #2 was, “To improve her foreign policy, she recently went to an IHOP,” then there was no prob.

Call her stupid? Ha.
Call her dumb? Ha.
Call her a slutty flight attendant?
THAT’S NOT FUNNY.

The screeching right reveals themselves as the sensitive little, censoring bitches that they are. Whiny little victims who urge the use of PC language from comedians. What a bunch of pussies and sore loosers.

Boo hoo hoo.

Don’t worry folks, Joe Starbucks has the hard hitting story, replete with his indignation, on his house-wife brainwashing coffee infomercial on CNN. Tune in, but first get a hanky.

Ooh. I bet it will be so edited… I mean eloquent.

Perhaps Mrs. Palin can offer why she mentions what she learned in college econ if she got a D? She inserts it into the interview where the boilerplate calls for credibility generating copy.

Perhaps she should point out that taking econ advice from conservative jockstraps who want to spend a shitload of money and not pay for it… is bad newsbears.

Perhaps those who have passed fourth grade will find the interview a little thin.

McCrystal got the soft treatment from the Armed Services Panel in the Senate.

He is a torturer and he led the Iraq version of the Phoenix program, spearheading a death squad effort.

We’re talking a knee-jerk jerk. Obama and the Dems have rolled over to seem tough. They want a lawless mfer. They want a torturing, local peasant killer.

We want an 18 hole golfcourse in the tribal region goddammit.

Sounds like we are continuing to subsidize jihadi recruitment through proxies.

Russian firm invests $200M in facebook.

That sh*t is already creepy and sci-fi enough. Now Putin is penetrating your child‘s electronic existence.