Voters should have a choice of more than two flavors
Entries Tagged as 'politics & government'
Mr. Sean goes to Washington: what makes Barack and Mitt run? (particularly Mitt)
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are, by any standard, exceptional people. They’re extremely well-educated (both have a pair of Ivy League degrees). They’re quite wealthy (Mitt more so). They each got their first marriage right and have produced multiple aesthetically-pleasing children (Mitt’s on top here as well, barring Barack surging into the lead when Michelle unexpectedly announces quadruplets). They’re above average in height and apparently in good shape: while Mitt has been reluctant to release his tax returns, he has enthusiastically shared his Body Mass Index and it’s quite impressive; I expect Barack’s is similarly exceptional. Yet watching these two magnificent men, who if they ever did wind up single would surely prove incredibly popular on Match.com, I can’t help but think, They should be doing something else, particularly you, Mitt. [Read more →]
My 90 Days, 90 Reasons submission
There is a website called 90 Days, 90 Reasons, which features powerful, persuasive essays by famous people, explaining why the current president, Barack Obama, should be re-elected. I was so moved by some of these essays, that I decided to compose a submission myself. Unfortunately, despite the fact that my Dark Knight Rises review got almost 60 Facebook likes, I am apparently not famous enough to be included. This, despite the fact that my essay is as persuasive and powerful and whatever the opposite of cynical is as any of the essays that have been published so far.
Despite the lack of interest, I feel it would be a disservice to the world to not post my essay somewhere, so I’m posting it here. I hope it persuades you to do the right thing.
Reason #1: Tee Are You Ess Tee
The reason that you should vote for Barack Obama for reelection can be boiled down to one word: I trust Barack Obama. And where our government is concerned, there is nothing more important than trust. Obama understands this. That is why he has worked hard to earn our trust, and he hasn’t stopped earning that trust. [Read more →]
Two fears of a pseudo-Republican
Watching the two national conventions, I’ve tried as a thought experiment to imagine what it’s like to be a Republican. Not a snarling right-wing Limbaugh type, but a moderate, libertarian conservative who believes in small government and dignity for all – the kind of Republican that once defined the GOP. Like some of my Republican friends, many of whom voted for Obama in 2008. And in so doing, I find myself confronted by two doomsday fears. [Read more →]
Hope and Chains
U.S. News — Joan Walsh, editor-at-large of Salon.com, says Vice President Joe Biden had a point when he told an audience including black voters in Danville, Va., Tuesday that Mitt Romney would “put y’all back in chains.”
“I don’t think he was referring just to slavery,” she said. “Most people came to this country as indentured servants. We have all been in shackles at some point—except maybe the wealthy.”
Okay, let me get this straight – Joe Biden had a point (which means he had a fairly accurate and enlightening assessment) that the banking industry and the Republican presidential ticket would indeed put us all in chains if given the Whitehouse? And he was referring to all of us – not just his predominantly black audience – because most people came to this country as indentured servants? [Read more →]
Safer for one sociopath at a time, so long as they’re a Republican
Although I’ve been struggling to respond to the latest moment of cluelessness and oblivious response from Mitt Romney, I’ve got to say that the Republicans are in for a hard time on the satire front this year. Actually, it will be easy – all you have to do is repeat their talking points, and then ask yourself, “what the hell was that…” out loud. So many more articulate voices than mine have raised the Paul Ryan thing as a bad idea, from Denis Leary comparing him to Eddie Munster to Maureen Dowd nailing him as well scrubbed altar boy-slasher, that I feel almost like piling on. So, here goes…
Talking about Ryan as a serious policy advocate or a serious anything strikes me as insane. He’s a right wing twit with whom the Evangelicals and the Social Conservatives can be as comfortable as the Ron Paul and Dick Armey types. Gingrich will look wistfully at him, thinking that if he had those abs and those eyes instead of weasel eyes and honey badger approach, he would have been able to find a pretty woman to marry before wife number 3. Or four…I forget. So, he’s in favor of personhood which makes abortion illegal as well as birth control outside of sponges, condoms, vasectomies, tube-tying, rhythm and pulling out; he doesn’t want to fund planned parent hood; he doesn’t specify anyway he’s going to save money except cut programs for the poor and eliminate fraud and waste while opposing the waste reduction transfer from Medicare to pay for additional Medicaid done by the Affordable Care Act. He doesn’t care for Medicare, saying it’s unsustainable. He doesn’t want women to have access to the benefits of no co-pays for birth control, mammograms, pap smears and so on. He wants to cut taxes for the rich, raise them on the middle class, defund education, and on and on and on.
Maureen Dowd has a very good piece on this guy. She figured he’d be the nominee – seems like a nice guy, really a weasel. Perfect match for the Seems lIke a Weasel/Is a Weasel Romneybot 2012. Rachel Maddow has made fun of him from the beginning, tearing his policy credentials to shreds while wondering why the Beltway Media has taken him seriously. (I think it’s the weaselly altar boy look – nothing can get closeted queens more excited than the weaselly altar boy meme. ) Seriously, think Greg Marmalarde sucking up to the Dean in Animal House or better yet, Kevin Bacon smugly saying “ All will be well” and getting trampled also in Animal House. Marmalarde probably made his Omega pledges read Ayn Rand out loud to him. [Read more →]
Top ten suggested Mitt Romney running mates
10. Art Garfunkel
9. John Oates
8. Robin
7. Andrew Ridgely
6. Sonny Bono
5. Bud Abbott
4. Jim Messina
3. The Captain
2. DJ Jazzy Jeff
1. The Pips
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
“The pets of the rich do better than the children of the poor…”
(Originally posted at TheDefeatists.typepad.com)
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest He returning chide,
“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts. Who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.
John Milton, “On His Blindness”
It’s been an odd summer at Defeatist Central. In the last few years, we’d have gone crazy with lots of stuff about how horrible the politicians, economy and so on have become. However, not unlike a lot of other bloggers, we’ve become strangely quiet. Is it because, as in the case of Mr. Fun, we are frustrated because once you go Pek you can’t go back and no Pony has arrived? Perhaps because of the arrival of Defeatist Babies while we mourn the departure of beloved Defeatist Pets? Is it perhaps because of more mundane concerns? Or, maybe greater concerns? Who knows what ennui and disinterest lurk in the hearts of men? Well, besides Yeats, of course….but I quote him often enough.
For me, it’s been an odd time. Mrs. AXE came home one day and announced that she wanted to retire from Federal Service because she was old and because she was working for complete assholes. Well, that was fine with me; I did some math and said, OK we’ll be fine. She then went through some totally unnecessary hassles over insurance coverage for some tests, submitted her paperwork, got the tests in early March and retired on the 31st. That afternoon, we got the diagnosis – colon cancer with fairly large polyps that probably had breeched the walls of the colon. On April 20, they did the surgery. The surgeon said it went very well; on the following Tuesday, I got a call at 10PM saying they were taking her to emergency surgery because of complications; when I got there, she greeted me by crying “Goodbye…” Now, by nature I am not a nurturing type; my response was fairly unemotional and probably helped in this case – “Really? I don’t think so unless you know something I don’t.” The surgery went well – there had been an obstruction and the surgeon took out three feet of small intestine that was gangrenous. To allow everything to heal, he performed a temporary Ileostomy, that is, a procedure to route the small intestine to a sack outside the body. When she was healed, they would reattach the plumbing. In the meantime, she’d start with an oncologist and see if Chemo was the next step.
A short history of useful idiots
Mussolini: you might think he was just a blustering fool in a fez, but once upon a time many people took him very seriously. I remember my shock when, aged 15 or so, I learned from my history teacher that Churchill had spoken approvingly of the black shirts in the 1920s. This week however I was reading a biography of the first Fascist and learned that Winston was not alone. Franklin Roosevelt praised the Italian dictator as a gentleman; Chiang Kai-shek asked for a signed photograph; and even Gandhi (yes lovely, non-violent, vegetable-munching Gandhi) described him as the “Savior of Italy.” Hmm. That’ll be the guy who let his soldiers use live Ethiopians for target practice and ended his political career shipping Jews to Hitler for extermination? All right then! [Read more →]
Top ten X-rated Fourth of July movies
10. Sin Dependence Day
9. Drop Your Pants and Fire a Rocket!
8. Forming a More Perfect Union
7. Give Me Librium or Give Me Meth!
6. My Cunty ’Tis of Thee
5. Time for Some Fireworks!
4. There’s a Barbecue in My Pants
3. The Fourth of Julie
2. The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!
1. Yank My Doodle! It’s A Dandy!
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
You cannot trust these CEO’s
This is just another example of how the corporate fat cats are killing this country.
A few years ago, during the 2008 financial crises there was a well-known multi-national corporate giant on the verge of collapse. The long time CEO at the time, worked with management, government officials, and investors to salvage the company. And though there were several extenuating circumstances that lead to the company’s demise, the CEO graciously took the brunt of the criticism and was terminated by the board of directors. [Read more →]
Paradoxes
I’m conducting some research for a paper I’m writing on persuasive public speech which has brought me to a foundational text on the subject, Principles and Types of Speech, by Alan Monroe of “Monroe’s Motivated Sequence” fame. The original text was published in 1935 and many of its precepts are still taught in public speaking classes today…but what I want to share from the book is not its explicit lessons but, instead, one of the sample speeches printed in it. The speech, originally “delivered by Homer McKown Barlow in the Michigan Oratorical Contest at Alma College, Michigan, March 1, 1929,” is notable for its contemporary relevance. In other words, not much in American political and social life has changed in the intervening 83 years. Read in the light of our present historical moment, it seems the chief paradox of social life is that the more things change the more they stay the same.
I’ve re-printed a slightly truncated copy of the speech below for your contemplation, amusement and/or chagrin. [Read more →]
Welcome home
All politics aside – or most of it, anyhow – President Obama’s decision to stop the deportation of young undocumented immigrants was long overdue. It was a cruel policy that diminished all Americans. And hopefully this move is the beginning of a long-term trend toward a sane immigration policy. By “sane” I mean one that judiciously bars the door to some, opens it at least part-way to many, and offers a pathway to citizenship that Americans can be proud of and makes us a stronger as well as a better country. Yes, stronger. [Read more →]
Top ten Mitt Romney campaign slogans
10. MITT! – Let’s Go Back to the Policies that Put Us in the Toilet in the First Place!
9. “Vote for Me – or You’re Fired!”
8. He’ll Strap Our Economy to the Roof of His Car!
7. Romney: The Stormin’ Mormon!
6. He’s just like you: His valet puts his pants on one leg at a time!
5. He Believes in America! (& the Caymans!)
4. The Only Candidate in Magic Underwear!
3. More Flip-Flops than a Hermosa Beach Shoe Store
2. Mitt Happens!
1. ROMNEY! – Drop the first letter, and switch the next two!
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
