The Persistence of Assholes

America Takes a Leak (near 48th St. & 48th Ave., Queens)
Half of all people tend toward being assholes.  (Proved beyond doubt when this spoiled democracy RE-elected George Bush Jr.)  It has always been so, and always will be.  Humanity comes from nature, which spreads risk through Chance, delivering a potential asshole each time the coin flipped at conception lands tails.

Technology helps assholes amplify their effects on others.  (Proved by the existence of cable "news" networks, car alarms & chirpers, Wall St. CDOs and high-speed trading, etc.)  That is the double-edged nature of knowledge; it can expand your reach and even save your life, until assholes get their hands on it.

Every year it becomes more obvious that the world is split between those who are curious and seek meaning, because they love life, and those who find meaning in their brutal ability to dominate, because they hate life and people in particular.

They sneer at empathy; the only time they're willing to stand in someone else's shoes is after they've blown the wearer to smithereens.

They sneer at "regulations" -- the tedious details of Law put in place to balance the interests of the diverse individuals who make up society.

They sneer because all those sissified niceties just get in their way.

They play the political game just to get inside and poison government, then society -- spreading the ignorance, hate and cynicism that consumes and distracts the pitchfork crowd long enough to let the assholes keep on stealing until they've trucked everything away, right down to the pipes.

You thought these assholes would go away when Obama won?  They will never go away.  Looked at in the most positive way possible, they are our "worse half," conniving brutes installed by nature's random balancing act to test us, to help keep our critical judgment lean, sharp and clear eyed for the long voyage ahead.

The few headlines that triggered this screed:

On proto-fascist mobs rallying to the aid of angry Confederates and billionaires, and their Fox/GOP minions, at "health care town halls": Senator Goes Face to Face With Dissent

On the lucrative Torture Industry: 2 U.S. Architects of Harsh Tactics in 9/11's Wake

On the shocking revelation that Karl Rove -- the Conscience of the GOP -- could have done something bad: E-Mail Reveals Rove's Key Role in ’06 Dismissals

Update: A loaded weapon guarantees your right to be an asshole: Gunning for Health Care by Gail Collins

This screed has been brought to you by the head-boiling effects of a mini-heatwave and a heat trapping apartment, evil incarnate, and an economy bad enough to give me even more time to spout...

More Morsels

Tara Donovan at Lever House
Rubber stamping all that development was easy, but now Bloomberg's Dept. of Buildings is at a loss over how to test all the untested concrete without turning the buildings into Swiss cheese (before they fall apart all by themselves).  See New York Faces Huge Backlog in Concrete Retests.

"Threatened white elites try to mask their own anxieties by patronizingly adopting working-class whites as their pet political surrogates — Joe the Plumber, New Haven firemen, a Cambridge police officer.  Call it Village People populism."  See Frank Rich's Small Beer, Big Hangover.

And Paul Krugman thinks high-speed trading is a crock, too.  See Rewarding Bad Actors.

Naked Power Palin

Sign above seen at the CUNY Graduate Center on Fifth at 34th
I'm ready to ignore the rest of the GOP hierarchy for a while, as it tries to come up with a new angle to sell its lies, but not the demagogue Sarah Palin.  From a recent interview:

"I’m like, O.K., God, if there is an open door for me somewhere, this is what I always pray, I’m like, don’t let me miss the open door."

A little later she tries to expand the ring of supposed beneficiaries of her being elected, but it's obvious that Sarah Palin is the beginning and end of what matters to Sarah Palin.

Palin's "faith" doesn't connect her to anything larger than herself, but shrinks Creation to serve her schemes.  She sees God as her personal genie and -- like George Bush, Osama bin Laden and fundamentalists the world over -- believes that God's heart is just as puny and self-serving as her own.

She's "real" alright -- just like every other smooth, conscience-free demagogue with the power to focus and multiply hate.  The trouble with her -- and with the fans and the hucksters who'll help sell her -- is that she refuses to accept the fact that a world exists outside herself, with billions of souls whose aspirations and sufferings are every bit as real as her own.

Because she can't and won't see the world outside herself, she doesn't see any consequences to her actions, and like a true god-queen, like a Pharaoh, could take the world with her to Kingdom Come without blinking.

What was that line Bob Dylan tossed off?  Something about letting you be in his dream if he could be in yours too?  Bob may be a performing machine, a windup troubadour doomed to play hick towns and dinner clubs three nights a week until he's 106 and on his thirteenth Blonde on Blonde Poly-fro wig.  But Bob Dylan has got more decency and heart in his eyelash dandruff than all the Palins, Bushes, and bin Ladens on earth.

(Now that Obama has helped us pry the gun from Charlton Heston's cold dead hands, don't think for a minute that Heston's buddies are just going give us the world -- we have to take it from them.)

Sarah the Barbarian

Sarah Palin, as Frank Rich points out so well today, has more testosterone than McCain and all his tired Swift Boat hacks put together, plus the unfounded confidence of 10 George Bush Juniors.

I look forward to a bright future (after nuclear winter clears up) as a member of her bloodthirsty clan.

[ Previously: Palin Seduces Moose ]

Palin Seduces Moose

Palin seduces Bullwinkle, lonely in rutting season.  He woke up
missing his antlers and musk gland -- he might as well be a squirrel!
Warning: This is serious and yes, another rant.  I realize that people like Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Gail Collins, and Jon Stewart are already doing a better job than I ever could, but that doesn't stop me.  If you love life, how could you not be upset at a time like this?

I've been heartened by the aggressiveness of the New York Times this week, in both its editorials and reporting; the world needs journalists to step up, and so few media empires give them the chance.

And I made the mistake of reading Michael Goodwin in the Daily News' free handout.  He lambastes the Times for letting non-GOP reporters dig into the facts behind Gov. Palin's front, as though fairness is what happens when you stand midway between facts and fiction.  (Interesting how Creationists use the same bogus "fairness" argument to weasel their way into science class.)

Goodwin repeats what the GOP considers Palin's qualifications, that she is not just "pro-life" but can "field-dress a moose."  He's rehashing the GOP dream factory script that brought us the B-movie heroes Reagan -- whose chief accomplishment was demonizing the idea of government and "the common good" -- and Bush Jr., who, along with a GOP congress, has demonstrated the inevitable result of the GOP's cynical philosophy.

Why does the GOP make my blood boil?  Because:

1) It is a con, top to bottom.  It's created an alternate reality at the core of the world, where facts -- which can be shared by people of different faiths and worldviews -- don't exist.  Where whoever cons best wins.  The GOP, since long before Rove, has had an uncanny knack for getting voters to let their resentment trump common sense and their own self interest.

Most people just want to be left alone; people are anxious because technology and globalization are pulling the rug out from under them.  The GOP sells a simple fiction to counter that anxiety -- the world is black & white, just like Leave it to Beaver -- trying to make a knee-jerk response to the world seem principled.

In a world wired together like never before, where actions cause complex hair-trigger reactions, that's a drunk-driving, suicide-murder level of irresponsibility.  And in true Con Man fashion, while one hand distracts the other helps the filthy rich get richer; meanwhile the religious right has no worries -- why should they when they -- like Bush and Palin -- believe their knee-jerk impulses are part of God's plan, and that they'll wind up in heaven no matter what happens to the rest of the world?

2) Their love of ignorance.  I think curiosity is at the center of the "life force."  The GOP and religious right hate curiosity, because it leads to facts and answers that challenge their narrow beliefs.  I really don't see the point of life if we're all supposed to sit here in the dark, regurgitating the words of a single book, as though life, human history and everything else could be reduced to one literal explanation, like a car repair manual.

And since I'm pretty sure I have a better idea of what's on God's mind than the fundamentalists, I'll just add: He/She is not happy with those who insist on blind ignorance and spit in the face of all His/Her work.

(If someone from Focus on the Family stumbles on this and has an aneurysm over "He/She," I'm happy to have facilitated God's plan; one of "the Left's" worst habits is wasting decency on those who wouldn't spend an ounce on anyone else.)

God has also shown that when it comes to earth we're on our own.  All we can do is try to keep a level head as the Swift Boats approach, flinging crap, and do our best to steer toward the light.