Random
On god, Michele Bachmann, and BSG
I’ve been thinking about God lately. Or, I’ve been thinking about how God is used and abused in speeches, especially of the political nature. The other day, as I was finishing up Season 2 of Battlestar Galactica, I saw Michele Bachmann’s Iowa straw poll victory speech. Think what you will of Bachmann, in her excitement and adrenaline, she demanded, “God bless America!” and “God bless you!” at least a dozen times within a few minutes. I use the word “demanded” purposefully. Somewhere along the way, we as an English-speaking people went from asking or requesting that God bless us – “May God bless you” – to commanding this omnipotent, omniscient powerhouse to bless us. Whereas the omission of “May” may be a simple elision, that is, it was just more convenient for us to drop the “may” in order to be more efficient with our time. One syllable can make a difference.
Ok, so I understand that there is no comma in the phrase. Bachmann and others do not say, “God, bless America!” as a command, but considering how fervently and authoritatively they speak it, it becomes a demand. They are no longer requesting God to bless us. They are no longer asking.
All of this, of course, is juxtaposed against BSG, where rather than pray to a God – well, I guess the Cylons do, but now I’m just getting my nerd on – the human characters believe in gods, based more or less on the zodiac or stars or astronomy whatever word you choose to use. So the characters very distinctively walk around using “God” the way we would, only pluralized. It’s jarring. Rather than hear “God damn it,” they say, “Gods damn it.” Rather than “omg,” it’s “oh my gods.”
Being immersed in the BSG universe, I have a heightened awareness of the word “god” in everyday speak, so when I heard Bachmann’s victory speech, every instance of “god” felt like she was bashing me on the head with a megaphone while screaming. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe Bachmann used only as much God as any other public figure. Maybe she isn’t playing God by demanding he bless her supporters. Maybe I should just go watch another episode of Battlestar Galactica.
Tags: Battlestar Galactica, GOD, Michele Bachmann
Flipping that on its head, most would interpret ‘Goddamit!’ to be an invocation to the All Powerful to smite something horrible we have just encountered/experienced from the face of the earth.
I wonder if anyone ever makes any wishy-washy demands of God. Instead of blessing with his omnibenevolence or blasting down with the Sodom and Gomorrah stick.
“God, maybe you could shut the window, you know, since you’re already up and stuff.”
thought this was going to be about brandon scott gorrell. did not know how you would tie him in.
everything is explained.
May God damn it.
I always thought of “God bless America” or “God bless you” or “God give me strength” as pleas. I think the size of God is enough for anyone hearing the phrase to know that no one can actually command Him to do anything, but people are proud, and don’t want to sound weak, so they get rid of “please” or “may.” Like most things people do, it’s an idiotic compromise.
bachmann is more religious than most politicians. she’s been accused of being dominionist.
I thought she is a Dominionist; I mean that I thought she doesn’t push this label of theocracy away from her. –nor Rick Perry; I think he, too, is pretty straightforwardly a Dominionist-by-other-names. –and most of the Teabaggers, in whose minds the arithmagical incompetence of fiscal ‘conservatism’ comfortably nestles with the belief that fossils were put in the dirt to test “our” faith.
These America-haters are definitely a reason to vote – even to vote for a moderate Republican like Obama: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominionism .
America, it’s been nice knowing you, but you can FUCK OFF! Crazy, greedy, self-involved, religious FREAKS!!! You’re over.
and you can’t help but see a little bit of bachmann in president roslin. so say we all
I don’t want to admit that but
They are both pro-life for very similar reasons.
damn
“Pro-life“???
You mean that Bachmann is a strong supporter of EPA regulatory activism? –not much is worse for “life” than nail-polish remover in the drinking water.
Bachmann wants the CPA to litigate more aggressively? –products that injure or kill when used as directed are surely bad for “life”.
Bachmann supports vigorous, thorough OSHA activism? –dangerous workplaces are bad for “life”, too.
Compulsory incubation has nothing to do with “life” and everything to do with controlling the pleasure women get from sex.
agreed. perry but especially a perry/bachmann (or vice versa whatever) ticket could seriously kick our asses unless we get all the wishy washy unhappy liberals, independents, disaffecteds, etc to reaffirm obama’s candidacy.
i understand on a philosophical level why people are like “well if i can’t vote for the perfect candidate i don’t want to vote” but it’s like wake the fuck up, not voting / voting for an independent candidate with no chance in a close election like this is just as stupid as the poor people who vote for republican tax cuts on the wealthy…. do y’all seriously want to risk a president perry or bachmann or palin… no matter how pissed off you are at obama (and i am pissed at him about plenty) this is very much a situation where the lesser of 2 evils is so dramatically less evil that it’s important to get over yourself and fucking vote.
I remember very sincerely telling my Sunday School teacher when I was in 2nd grade or so how using the Lord’s name in vain was bad because it’d be like calling and hanging up. Like if you say “Oh my God!” God would part the clouds and be all, “Yes….?” and you’d essentially be saying, “Oh, false alarm, just swearing,” and that would probably annoy him. The teacher liked my idea.
The lesser-of-two-evils approach is not super effective. Rather get a series of splinters shoved up your dick or have it smashed repeatedly with a morningstar? Neither. Just like I would vote for neither of the two candidates. And bashing 3rd party voters is simply reinforcing the two-party system. We should encourage people who are trying to actually change it. Not stifle them with lessers-of-two-evils. NOTHING WILL CHANGE WITH LESSERS-OF-TWO-EVILS
and then what happened. oh my god, don’t leave us hanging like that.
one has gravitas and isn’t always stupidly smiling. guess which.
Yeah buddy, right there with you on a philosophical level, fight the mannnnn, except the real world doesn’t work like that. If you can somehow turn shit around where you have a better candidate then Obama with a viable chance of winning then that’d be great, otherwise all y’all’s misplaced idealism just hurts the country. Maybe if you had Perry as your governor for awhile like I do you’d get it–this is not the man we want in office under any circumstances.
Of course I don’t want anything to happen to my dick, but in the real world, where I have to live, then fuck yes I’d rather get some splinters than have it smashed.
But that’s not even an accurate analogy–a better analogy would be, “Would you rather have some splinters in your hand (Obama) or have all your limbs removed (conservative)?”
It’s funny how all the people wanting a change from the 2-party system never give two shits about it or do anything to organize a revolution until it’s election time and then they still don’t do much more than rationalize their lazy apathetic disaffected attitude into some kind of “moral highground” while we get 8 years of BUSH
Then I kept going to church for several more years and had to keep getting “saved” over and over because I was never sure it stuck and was always terrified I’d go to hell anyway, and my religiosity peaked when I got into the Left Behind rapture books and bought a special small zippered Bible to bring to the playground so I could try to save the kids from eternal damnation during recess, and then I went to 7th grade and started doubting shit and met this Jewish girl who rocked my world with her irreverence and at the same time I was starting to have gay feelings that I tormented myself over (cried and prayed and read the scriptures for like two hours after accidentally ejaculating one night [turns out it was only pre-cum]), and then I couldn’t Fight It anymore and gave into my doubts and terrible longings and by 9th grade was dating guys as a vaguely liberal semi-sorta-Christian and by 10th or 11th grade was an atheist, and never gave a shit about saying “God damn it” ever again.
Don’t you get it deadgod, we can’t kill fetuses, only poor black convicts
Acting like there’s a difference between Liberal and Conservative is willful ignorance. The analogy should be getting your dick smashed or getting your dick smashed.
And no not “fight the mannn.” But I appreciate you reducing my argument to that. Because if a 3rd party wins…that 3rd party is the new “mannn.” It’s fight the absurdly preventialist two-partied system.
What’s hurting the country is not misplaced idealism, it’s the soft-assed acceptance like yours that dictates you bend over and take it because any challenge is too intimidating.
And desire to change the system is hardly “apathetic” or “disaffected. Meanwhile…it’s good to see that you, from your own “moral highground,” feel justified lashing out at anyone that refuses to acknowledge an alternative to a severely limited choice.
I was a little dismissive, I’ll admit. Sorry. But I live in Texas and Rick Perry is fucking terrible, and Michelle Bachmann is even worse than Palin with all her ex-gay connections. So yeah as a gay Texan with firsthand experience of evangelicalism, this election means a fucking lot to me.
My point is not that we should be accepting things 4 years round… it’s “vote for the lesser of two evils to keep terrible, terrible, terrible things from happening, and then in the off-season if you wanna discuss a new party or some kind of change I’d be happy for that.” But that never happens. My generation and the one before it can’t even protest en masse… If we got drafted, there’d be a bunch of pissed off Facebook updates and nothing else. If I thought there was actually any chance of a massive overhaul of the system like you’re describing, then I’d support it… but there’s just not. And so in that case, not voting (and thereby allowing someone like Perry/Bachmann to win) is hateful and hurtful in effect, no matter how well-intentioned it is in theory.
What have you done lately to fight the 2-party system, Ben? What has anyone done?
If you can’t see a difference between
someone coming in and affirming nonsense about us being a Christian nation, getting Roe v. Wade overturned, making DOMA a constitutional amendment, undoing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and perhaps most of all, refusing any tax increases on the wealthy and cutting every socially beneficial program in the process (never god forbid the military),
and
a liberal progressive who just isn’t moving fast enough, and fucked up by bailing out some corporations
then you’re being way more willfully oversimplistic than I am.
I totally get that the difference between Democrats and Republicans is not as drastic as the difference between Socialists and Republicans, and that it’s more of a Center vs. Far Right debate than an actual Left vs. Right debate. I totally get that. But I’d so much rather live under the Center than under the Far Right.
Would I love to live under a Far Left presidency? Yeah that’d be wonderful. But how does letting a Far Right candidate win do ANYTHING to help get us there, anything at all?
If you can’t see a difference between
someone coming in and affirming nonsense about us being a Christian nation, getting Roe v. Wade overturned, making DOMA a constitutional amendment, undoing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and perhaps most of all, refusing any tax increases on the wealthy and cutting every socially beneficial program in the process (never god forbid the military),
and
a liberal progressive who just isn’t moving fast enough, and fucked up by bailing out some corporations
then you’re being way more willfully oversimplistic than I am.
I totally get that the difference between Democrats and Republicans is not as drastic as the difference between Socialists and Republicans, and that it’s more of a Center vs. Far Right debate than an actual Left vs. Right debate. I totally get that. But I’d so much rather live under the Center than under the Far Right.
Would I love to live under a Far Left presidency? Yeah that’d be wonderful. But how does letting a Far Right candidate win do ANYTHING to help get us there, anything at all?
well now you change the conversation by talking about a perfect world
I completely agree we shouldn’t be accepting things 4 years round. And your positioning is definitely not mine, and I think that accounts for a lot of our differences.
Gonna have to disagree on the “can’t protest en masse” bit. I’ve been in attendance to some pretty large protests. Not saying they’re always completely effective, but I’d say they still bring some influence (but yes on the draft/facebook status bit…totally agree).
And while you might find more comfort in voting for the lesser of two evils to keep those terrible things from happening, I still refuse to encourage a system that can only offer the illusion of choice. But it’s not only sitting out of elections/apathy/inactive idealism.
For instance I wrote a poem against the two-party system. Haven’t shown it to anyone yet though. But lemme tell you…it’s super angsty.
Not arguing the difference between Obama and Perry/Bachmann…on an individual level everyone is going to be different, especially when represented in an (intentionally) hyperbolic analogy. Arguing the (non)difference (again, hyperbolically) between Liberal and Conservative today.
feed us your black convicts – we’ll right them with jesus.
ummm. i’m coming up confused. just tell.
she’ll always be mrs. darko to me…. long before she was holding paper octagons she was sipping wine and looking concerned
Lily, how do you interpret the way the humans sign off their prayers on BSG? They say “So say we all” instead of “Amen,” which to me could either indicate either a kind of cult-based “We’re all brain-washed to believe this so we ALL say it,” or a sort of nice unity and re-focusing of religion back on its followers and away from an anthropomorphized God. When I picture Bachmann’s followers chanting “So say we all” after everything she says, though, I do get creeped out.
-Alyse
bsg = brandon scott gorrell…
none of these GOP cartoons will beat Obama but Condi Rice and/or Powell could, multiply ironic that the only Repubs with a half ounce of dignity who won’t engage this revival vaudeville are black
I’m a little stoned, deadgod, so forgive me if I sound “weird.”
I suppose I’m trying to draw the morbid parallels between Roslin and Bachmann that they are both powerful and smart women who really think their strain is indeed feeling the threat of extinction, and to both of them that “wipe” is very real. Yet, that threat they feel is “man” made and fictitious.
clap. clap. clap.
bravo, well done.
(adjusts monocle)
quite nice, that.
whoops, completely misread your comment. thought u had something like: they’re like totally the same. nuance <– missed.
Sure, though I don’t remember watching an episode of Battlestar Whatever.
The Christian superficialists who took over the Republican party 30 years ago are not so much threatened – who really is on the verge of, say, going into a ‘church’ and taking away their corporate-tax exemption?, much less anybody’s privilege of state-unhindered ‘worship’ – so much as they are themselves threats to economic democracy and reasonable institutions of justice.
I don’t think Bachmann is “smart”, but I thought Reagan was a dope who got away with being stupid for whatever cultural-media reasons. I’m sick up and fed with people who say stupid things getting credit for being–somehow secretly–“smart”, but I guess that’s my problem.
Anyway, I was just ranting on the phrase “pro-life”, which I desperately want to take away from life-hating conservatives who always choose concentrating wealth and decision-making in the hands of fewer and fewer people over “life”.
Every time you spend money, or work for less than money your work is worth to someone else, you “encourage” the system that you say “can only offer the illusion of choice”. Not ‘voting’ is not an option.
It’s simply not true that, between Clinton and Hanoi George, say, “choice” is only an “illusion”. A president isn’t a magical emperor, and a president who’s saddled with a Contract on America has been herded into Dickie Morris’s clammy grasp not by the Right, but rather, by the idiotically Leninist Left of Ralphie and Noamy and Mikey (Moore) and Gorey – who can’t tell the difference between Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Twan Scalia.
If you think that the reach of the Executive branch involves the same decision-making in the hands of Rove/Cheney and this (yes: very disappointingly, what, “grown-up”) administration, then you’re asking for such obvious empirically compelling data that you might be lost to neo-liberal obfuscation and neutralization.
Why not put the draft of that poem that you’re at now here?
Fair enough that you understand your smearing of that distinction to be “hyperbolic”, but it’s hyperbole that many lefties bought when they sat out Gore v. Bush.
Christian superficialists, anarcho-libertarians, and such dunderheads can tell the difference between liberal and conservative–and they all vote.
Parrokeeza will never stand for determined face-to-face debunking of her robotic lies, and Slick Colly’s career of spaghetti-medalled flacking for real power comes down to lying about Saddam’s discredited WMD “programs” then lying now about lying then.
I sure hope you’re right about “these GOP cartoons”, but I think Perry can win.
ack – should have tried “and then lying now about lying then”
these atheistic-cosmos damned adverbs
Hey, deadgod.
I liked your “ranting” on pro-life, I think it was fun.
I was raised in the church and come from a long-line of church-goers. Most of my family are very intelligent, but also very conservative. I have been raised around people that can have faith in one hand and reason settling somewhere else. It’s weird, I suppose.
That’s slightly unfair though. Almost all of our actions to subsist
within the system encourage the system. It’s an existential problem
within the system. Not voting is an option in that opting out of that
system is one of the only ways to resist. We’ve already discussed the
relative ineffectiveness of protests and desire for radical change in
our generation.
And yes, there are clearly downfalls to this method. But the illusive
choice I’m referring to is a choice between A and B. If you want C
you’re screwed. It’s a choice insofar as you want one of the offered
options. And when mainstream politics have aligned themselves to be far
from dissimilar, the choice sucks. You end up defaulting again to the
lesser of two evils argument.
I think not choosing is a choice and a stance. And of course indecision
leads to potentially unfavorable outcomes, and in some cases terrible
outcomes, but I would much rather not support the very system I bitch
about than partake and be dissatisfied still (and still be bitching and
saying the same things).
“as stupid as the poor people who vote for republican tax cuts on the wealthy”
Yeah, it’s so much smarter to vote for Democratic tax cuts on the wealthy.
Until there is a viable option, I will sit out every election to come. When you stick two idiots on a ballot and say “pick one,” I can’t. I understand my actions (in)directly affect the outcome of the race, and perhaps I am occupying some “moral highground,” but I can’t justify picking someone I disagree with on that many issues.
So let the Christian superficialists and anarcho-libertarians pick, I know my position is far outnumbered anyhow. And I’ll sit idly while the masses suckle on the bizarre teat of their bipartisan politics and simply be content that I’m not.
lying comes with the job description, I only think Rice and/or Powell can beat Obama, that is all, we’ll see about Perry, he’ll have a hard time “keeping it real” like, they almost can’t help themselves and have to appeal to the base at campaign time, then can appear to take a step toward the center once elected, etc. you know the drill…
Well, you’re not quarreling with “the lesser of two evils”–you’re saying that it’s the same evil, and that’s where I (and postit) disagree: Ginsberg is not the same judge as Scalia is, and that’s your A or B choice when considering Republican or Democrat for president (or senator, in this case).
If one really wants C, one is responsible for choosing, in the medium run, which, of A or B, is closer to C and/or more likely to be, in the long run, a step more towards C. If A or B is actually closer to C, and you don’t choose between A and B because neither is C, then I think you’re making ‘perfect’ the enemy of ‘better’, which is what I mean by Leninism.
I don’t think not voting is ‘resistance’; it’s acquiescence, and even – if you’re conspiracy-minded enough – obedience. You’re powerless, so just keep working and consuming and don’t trouble yourself with silly distinctions between Supreme Court justices. –The minor premise is untrue: the judiciary admits of significant difference between “liberal” and “conservative”, as do regulatory agencies, foreign policy, military strategy, and so on.
I think you’re defining “viable” in such a total way that it’s no “moral high ground” at all–it’s one kind of opposite to that: the low ground of self-satisfied inertia.
Most people who vote Democrat aren’t sucking on any teat of illusion – though many are in this or that particular election – ; most voters anywhere on the notional spectrum, I think, recognize their votes themselves to be compromised.
Again, seeing ‘moderate’ as the same as ‘conservative’ simply “let[s]” Christian superficialists and libertarians pick, not for themselves, but for you. Then to say that you opted out because ‘moderate’ actually does equal the extremity that we all get? That’s an expedience that doesn’t travel well, as I understand it.
I don’t think “poor” people actually vote for “tax cuts on the wealthy”, but I think middle class voters are convinced to vote for vague ideas of ‘less government’ (for all), and are not clear about private government being more costly and erosive of liberty than public government–for example, as to corporate profits being an egregious privatized tax.
What might be so much smarter would be for the large working middle class consistently to give Democrats a progressive majority on the grounds of economic self-interest.
Is this serious? How is it FUCKING possible Michelle Bachmann’s name is now linked to HTML GIANT? & are these responses for real? Is this a LIT BLOG? / w/ intelligent, creative thinkers? / MICHELLE BACHMANN!!!! / RICK PERRY!!!! / 47 comments to state the obvious! / ”GOD” HELP US!
– and I think that making the conversation personal is “fun”.
In my view, those people you know who separate “faith” from “reason” and then make political-economic and social decisions based on “faith” and not “reason” are making, in those cases, “stupid” decisions (by definition) – regardless of how “intelligent” they are in any other ways – .
Maybe ‘stupid v. intelligent’ is an unkind, and therefore emotionally explosive, distinction — how about ‘foolish v. reasonable’? or ‘socially and self- destructive v. constructive’?
To me, calling forcing a woman to stay pregnant “pro-‘life'” but calling deregulating ground-water pollution a ‘jobs’ policy and not a “life” issue at all is as (economically) irrational as it is immoral.
I guess maybe probably I’m the weirdo!
Well, there are these “lies” and there are those “lies”, and surely a morally rational agent will seize the prerogative to distinguish among “lies”.
Republicans have spent three years calling Obama a ‘nigger’ in a score of different ways–now they’re going to run a Rove/Cheney ‘good black’ against him – and win?? What would their narrative be?: You want a Kenyan Muslim socialist terrorist who couldn’t get into college without affirmative action? Have we got a Kenyan Muslim socialist terrorist who couldn’t get into college without affirmative action for you!!
You left out the part of the drill that’s still passing through our brains: once elected, Walker, Kasich, Scott, et al. proved and are continuing to prove to be extreme cascade-up political economists and Christian superficialist social engineers.
It might be self-satisfied inertia, but it isn’t wholly-satisfied inertia. I’m content with my own choice on this matter, but I’m not content with the matter itself.
I think most people that vote are sucking that teat. And why blame them? It’s much easier to live within the confines of an admittedly flawed political system than to imagine any change in it.
And when you take the whole political spectrum into account…a moderate and a conservative are close enough to masturbate each other. My problem isn’t that I don’t vote moderate and conflate the extremist outcome with the moderate I didn’t vote for. My problem is I want neither, and since I have the choice to vote neither, that’s what I choose. And my defining of viable is a (conceivable) choice that isn’t superglued to the two-party system.
One is not “responsible” for choosing which of A or B is closer to C, or which will bring about C (maybe) more quickly. That’s a miserable copout. History’s shown us our own stagnation and we can pretend all we want that this or that choice will lead us to C, but when make-believe time is over we’re facing another choice between A or B and C still a mirage in the distance. Not voting is not an issue of powerlessness-it’s an exercise of power. It’s not absent-minded consumption and indifference to all things political, it’s a refusal to be part of the construct that I’m dissatisfied with.
Granted I understand there are differences between Liberal and Conservative, and as some generalized statement, I don’t support most of where they stand. I think it’s much more my responsibility to not feign support for something I don’t support than to fall into the quicksands of acceptance…
welp, the fact they spoke english should be a polyp on your sensibilities, too
The “copout” is in equating ‘no perfect choice’ to ‘no choice at all’.
Choosing, given the necessary limitations of any point in history, the best path to C is what you think you’re doing by not choosing between A and B, right? Well, to me, that’s irresponsible–the irresponsibility of not being willing to distinguish between Ginsberg and Scalia, and between more and less enforcement at the EPA, and so on.
What “power” is exerted in not voting? I mean, what actually changes? (One thing that changes when a Democrat is picked instead of a Republican is Ginsberg instead of Scalia being seated on a bench, and I’m asserting that that’s a distinction with at least some real difference.)
Voting for moderates isn’t necessarily “feign[ing] support” for them; for me, it’s a deeply distasteful choosing of an actually lesser evil, because Obama is not the same evil as Rove/Cheney. In 2000, every vote for Nader – every one – enabled Rove/Cheney: luxuriating in specious ‘protest’ at that critical moment was a real – and, to me, shameful – “fall into the quicksands of acceptance”.
It’s easier – sometimes – “[to] imagine” revolutionary change than it is to shepherd it in small, wandering steps.
You really think most voters don’t “imagine” that they’re getting less than they want with their franchise?? or that, if they elect whom they’re voting for, they think that things won’t “change” for the better at least a little? –You think voting is almost purely complacent? Oddly, that’s what I think not voting is, ha ha.
As I say, many voters don’t – well, this voter doesn’t – get all of what is wanted from moderate candidates. What is available, to a progressive voter, between moderate and conservative is less evil–which you are saying, inaccurately, is equally evil.
One unhappily complicated thing about each of the “two” parties is that they’re each more than one party. The “two-party system” slur is, in my view, a slogan fail.
I should have said that “your making the conversation personal is ‘fun'”.
idk maybe its all code for another taolin/bsg/muumuu-related post im pumped idk why bye
I suppose I was making things personal to highlight that things get complicated when people that you love espouse very stupid ideas, especially when there are nieces and nephews involved. So it’s kind of a zero-sum game trying to be heady about why people you love think stupid thoughts and believe in stupid things. But that has more to do w/ personal beliefs rather than political policy. And you’re totally right re “forcing a woman to stay pregnant “pro-‘life'” but calling deregulating ground-water pollution a ‘jobs’ policy and not a “life” issue at all is as (economically) irrational as it is immoral.”
Re Battlestar Galactica, I fucking love that show. I may have lost my faith in God, but my faith in Adama being a bad ass can not be shaken.
FU
– jesus, deaders –
– – – – – –
– but i am in agreement with you –
hi deaders –
I was raised in an non-religious family and come from a long line of drunks.I totally agree with “life-hating conservatives who always choose concentrating wealth and decision-making in the hands of fewer and fewer people over “life” “are you SA? if so email me i need to knowif not, . . . . . . … . Have a great weekend
Don’t let this be a missed connection, deadgod!
I support your candidacy for morally rational agent and best of luck with that. The narrative that will work against Obama is one that gets moderates (most of the country) into the R column, the nutflakes on the edges have made up their minds by definition, but moving moderates in agitates and blurs the purity-minded edges, the dopey GOP has already blown themselves up with this auto-isolation problem, I’m only discussing and interested in campaign drama here, I’m well aware of your positions before you even post them
Well, you can talk to people you love, right? I mean that your relationship to them – compared, say, to their perspective of pmsnbc – privileges you such that you can use language gently to provoke them to think about things in ways different than the ones they’re used to and maybe mostly only hear.
For example, you’re not going to talk a compulsory incubationist out of violating a woman’s relationship to her own uterus, but you definitely can get a social conservative to look at environmental protection in the light of valuing the ‘sanctity of “life”‘–of a stark choice between ‘life’ and ‘profit for a very few’.
You might even be able to get a fiscal conservative to wonder about whether cutting taxes ever “creates” growth and “creates” jobs and “creates” reality, or whether privatizing a utility like prisons or schools is economically rational (much less morally so).
Maybe I should give Battlestar a look. I mostly only use tv for sports, news, and movies.
I’m not gusty Agogustine. (We – he and I – argued here a couple of months ago (?) about whether Osama had really been killed and tossed into the sea or not. (He thought ‘not’.))
okay, good to know
it’s just that every so often you’ll use a ‘certain word’ in a ‘certain way’ and i will get ‘a small inkling’
Funny thing, Prometheus! It’d be a mighty relief to learn that there are plenty of people who understand that corporate profits are privatized taxation that “kills” jobs.
I’m not sure the teabaggers need a coherent – or any – narrative. Perrywinkle is so anti-science and anti-data that he’s set up to run on single words/phrases: jobs! God! country! –and to challenge any of these slogans as slogans is ‘suicidally’ to oppose their content.
–but the biggest advantage even a demented theocrat like Perrywinkle has is Obama’s relentless drive to neutralize arguments against Republican positions. Six weeks ago, the story was ‘Republican = kill Medi-Care and Social Security’. Obama’s stupid 98% deal with Boner took that accurate, well-documented narrative completely away–I blame Obama even more than Rove’s insurance company money for the Wisconsin disappointment. If Obama loses because he was playing “grown-up” rather than being a bare-knuckled politician, it’ll be on account of lefties who sit the election out – like (I think) Benjamin (above). Benjamin’s emotional thrust is compelling, and I think it’s Obama’s biggest problem–and one Obama is creating for himself, in my view.
There aren’t enough people on the hard left or the hard right (the edges) to elect a president, the moderates always (and forever, hopefully) decide the outcome. Following the nomination process we’ll see the rush for moderates. GOP pledges of no tax increases no matter what and their bizarre statements on climate change and sexual orientation have already iced out these deciding moderates.
From your keystrokes to the atheistic cosmos’s instruction code on that “iced out”–but I missed the stampede for or of “moderates” last November. (That was after the town-hall summer of teabaggers carrying posters of monkeys with Obama’s face had had a full year to sink in; I don’t think “bizarre statements” have prevented “moderates” for voting for conservative nuts or morons since, well, Reagan.)
Instead, what I’ve noticed in the diseased foam atop the teabag wave is phony ‘moderation’ campaigns in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Florida (among others) bringing fiscally ruinous teabag policies to state governments–and Obama taking the Ryan “plan” – and easily demonstrated Reaganomic failure generally – off the front page. What the tom’s dick is harry fuck, right?
There has not been a landslide or mandate in the last 4 or 5 elections, some of these have been statistical ties. The country is certainly moderate and while holding its nose with that sour vomit taste in the throat (much the way I do while reading your maniacal anachronistic emotional tirades) selects from either a conservative or liberal who must come out like a ideological zealot to be nominated. You only need to look at your own checking account to see the elegantly simple balance proof, what the fuk indeed.
There has not been a landslide or mandate in the last 4 or 5 elections, some of these have been statistical ties. The country is certainly moderate and while holding its nose with that sour vomit taste in the throat (much the way I do while reading your maniacal anachronistic emotional tirades) selects from either a conservative or liberal who must come out like a ideological zealot to be nominated. You only need to look at your own checking account to see the elegantly simple balance proof, what the fuk indeed.
Both 2000 and 2004 were taken by Republican extremists – and, shamefully, not successfully contradicted by “moderates”, liberals, or progressives – as “mandates”. Last November is taken, unquestioned, by CNN and the three broadcast networks that do journalism and ‘news’, as a “mandate”.
Evidence? Look at the Reagan/Bush/Quayle/Rove/Cheney judiciaries, in comparison to the mostly successful blockage by Senate Republicans of Clinton and now Obama “liberal” bench nominations. –which is hand-in-glove with the patterns during these administrations of all Executive appointments that require Congressional approval: Republicans, no matter how extremist, get to play by different rules than “moderates”, liberals, and progressives.
What do you mean by “mandate”?
–and what do you mean by “anachronistic”? Do you have an example from my arguments that conforms to the meaning ‘misplaced in history’?
And why do you disdain facts and logic in favor of personalized diatribe? You keep saying inaccurate things and being contradicted strongly but factually, and now you turn – characteristically? – to emotionally manic abuse.
–weird, but fun!
a landslide is a substantial large majority of the electorate voting for one side and is viewed as a mandate to govern, recent races have been ties, the electorate wants (thinks its getting) checks. What is anachronistic is trotting out one absolutely true anecdote after another to produce moral/ethical doubt and malfeasance at least and court records at best and both sides do this as they are lousy with corruption graft payoffs cronyism nepotism kickbacks and pay for play. All sides will pack the court if they can to get a paralegislative office so maybe our heroes should put six million people to work administering national referendums on everything and they just have to obey so we won’t have to go through the streets like raccoons getting shot shitkicked and run over while trying to put together six pages of signatures to submit to the royal syndicate as if we’re colonies
Faggot