The Pistons Pacers fight

I've been cringing through self-righteous analysis of this fight for the last week now and I have one thing to say to all of those sports reporters who are on a moral crusade:
That fight as the coolest thing that has happened in the NBA for a decade.

It was awesome. You had punches, mayhem and complete anarchy on the floor. What more could you ask for? That fight made my morning last Saturday (I watched it about 10 times in a row and laughed for an hour). We need more fights like that, not less. From Slate:

If I had to reconstruct what happened during Friday night's Pacers-Pistons game based solely on the reactions of sports columnists, I'd probably come up with something like this: Ron Artest beats his own coach with a club, Stephen Jackson shows a homemade sex tape on the Palace's Jumbotron, and Jermaine O'Neal grabs a mike and makes disparaging remarks about John Wooden, Mother Teresa, and "the troops."

Luckily, I saw everything happen with my own eyes. I was in a bar on Friday night when the fight began streaming in an infinite loop. Many of us had been primed for the highlights by enthusiastic cell-phone calls. When it finally came on, most every patron in the establishment enjoyed, thoroughly and loudly, all of the hot-and-heavy action. That's right, we loved it. Sure, it was wrong for Artest to run into the stands, and wrong for Jackson to run in after him throwing haymakers, and wrong for the fans to douse the Indiana players with beer. But when a crazy basketball player charges into the stands and tries to pounce on some drunk jerks, I don't fly into a rage on behalf of the nation's children. Nope, I just kick back and enjoy the spectacle.

In the bar where I was watching, I don't recall seeing anyone weeping inconsolably about the stain on the NBA, sport, and human civilization. If anyone was crying, it was from laughing so hard after seeing that rotund, souvenir-jersey-clad fan run onto the court and try to show Artest who was boss. (Connoisseurs should also note that one of the first peacemakers onto the scene, running in from Artest's left, was a clown. Another was, of all people, Rasheed Wallace.) The very few people in the crowd who weren't interested in the fracas seemed like the kind of people who refuse to be entertained under any circumstance.

The UN is a "terrorist organization"

...at least according to these conservatives:

LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A right-wing Republican group launched a television campaign calling for the United Nations to be kicked out of the United States, alleging the world body is a "safe harbor" for terrorism.

California-based Move America Forward wants the world body's New York headquarters shut down and its officials expelled from the country because it failed to support the US-led war on Iraq.

"The UN has become an apologist and defender of terrorist organizations and their agents," claims a 60-second commercial, which also cites the oil for food scandal involving alleged fraud in Iraqi oil sales.

The spot, which backs a "Get the UN out of the US" petition drive, claimed that "billions of dollars" intended for UN humanitarian aid was used to pay the families of "Palestinian terrorists" and to buy weapons for Iraq-based terrorists.

The UN needs some work. But you know who else needs work? Saudi Arabia. They help fund dozens of terrorist organizations and they're the most religiously repressive regime in the world. Let's focus on them first. Once we fix Saudi Arabia, we can move on to lesser problems like the UN or even Pakistan.

Of course, Michael Moore has completely destroyed the case for dealing with Saudi Arabia by radicalizing it with capitalist conspiracies, lies, and a boring game of 6 degrees of separation. Now anyone who wants to deal with Saudi Arabia is a left-wing nut.

In the same way, insane groups like "Move America Forward" damage the credibility of anyone who wants serious reform at the UN. Even more ridiculous is the fact that you can find 40-50 congressional Republicans (+ one cooky Independent, Virgil Goode) who actually want the US to withdraw from the UN.

Social Security

First of all, who cares about Social Security? It's supposed to go bankrupt in 40 years. How is that a crisis?

Second of all, regular reader(s) of this blog know that I'm warming to the idea of privatization. The idea that I'm not warming to is this (from Washington Monthly):

The strategies include, for example, moving the costs of Social Security reform "off-budget" so they are not counted against the government's yearly shortfall.

...."You cannot look at Social Security in the context of a five-year budget," the window that current White House and congressional spending plans cover, [Senator Judd] Gregg said. "To do so is naive and foolish. . . . If this is simply scored as a five-year exercise, we're never going to solve the problem."

....An analysis of one plan produced by Bush's Social Security Commission concluded that the interim financing would cost as much as $104.5 billion the first year, balloon to $194.4 billion in the 10th year and would peak in roughly 20 years at $258 billion.

....Gregg and other allies of the president argue, in fact, that transition costs of $1.5 trillion or more over the next 10 years should not be considered an increase in the nation's debt. Instead, they say, such borrowing would be a prudent recognition of future obligations.

So if we pretend the budget deficit doesn't exist, does it exist? And if a tree falls in a forest, does anyone hear it? Dude...that like, totally blows my mind. Pass the bong!

What is Judd Gregg smoking??? We already pretend like the social security surplus counts as general fund revenue. Now we're going to pretend like a social security deficit counts as...nothing?

"The diversion of a portion of payroll taxes to personal accounts is akin to prepaying a mortgage," R. Glenn Hubbard, former chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, wrote in the current issue of Business Week.

...."The market is rational, and they are already nervous about all these unfunded obligations in Social Security and Medicare," said Kent Smetters, a former Bush Treasury Department economist now at the University of Pennsylvania. "Resolution of that uncertainty is actually going to be a positive."

Yes, the market is rational. And their biggest fear is skyrocketing interest rates brought on by a TRILLION DOLLAR A YEAR DEFICIT.

Hey - remember the 90s?

Bill Clinton in an interview with Peter Jennings.

"You don't want to go here, Peter," snapped Clinton, who proceeded to criticize the reporting of ABC News, in particular, in the 1990s. "Not after what you people did and the way you, your network, what you did with Kenneth Starr. The way your people repeated every little sleazy thing he leaked. No one has any idea what that's like."

Was Clinton out of line? Not if you don't believe he raped a woman and murdered a staffer.

Our Leader

Where do we live, Iraq?

I just want to know when we're going to start "heiling" each other. Can we make it a high five instead? Or maybe a thumbs up?

Write to the GOP and request a patriotic salute before it's too late!

The Heil Bush Contest
c/o Ed Gillespie
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003

Do it. I dare you.

"It's time to put down our pusillanimous poodle proclivities and start taking onboard a pitbull-esque tenacity … you know, like the Christians of old, like Peter, like Paul, like Timothy, and Stephen. We need a breed of believers with the courage to stand proudly for their faith in God and their place in society. How about looking at scripture through the eyes of the Pit Bull?"

That was Doug Giles, a religious fundamentalist and anti-abortion activist.

How the GOP wins

1. They cut taxes on the rich. No one outside of the Club for Growth actually believes that this serves any other purpose besides ensuring that rich people vote for Republicans.

2. They bring up social issues under the radar. That inflames their base.

3. They have a clear message: we're going to win the war on terror by erring towards killing everyone and letting God sort out the bodies (I'm completely serious).

4. They attack snobby elites, and thereby win the admiration of the portion of the country that is bitter about their underperforming brains. I'm not implying that all Republicans are unintelligent. I'm just saying that the political leaders of today's GOP have done a great job capturing the unintelligent white vote, where it exists.

Let me elaborate on #4. For generations, a hard day's work would pay the bills and get anyone by. You could work a low-skill blue collar job and make ends meet.

Imagine that you're a textile worker out there in South Carolina. You're father worked at the plant, as did your grandfather and your great-grandfather. They worked hard, and were rewarded with a decent wage.

Now you can't make that wage anymore because the jobs have moved off to other countries. And you take a look around you and see all of these (for lack of a better phrase) smarty pants college educated folks getting the good work. Oh they think they're so smart! And you attribute their wealth and well-being as "a sign of the times". Hard working people are getting the shaft, and these happy-go-lucky liberals in their ivory towers are laughing it up drinking cappichinos and watching Will and Grace. Meanwhile, religion is declining, the divorce rate is rising, and your daughter wants to dress like Brittany Spears. Some liberals have tried to take "Under God" out of the pledge. What happened to the good old days? What happened to the days when hard working men could get earn a decent wage? It must be those snobby liberals' faults!

The GOP sees these people and swoops in for the kill. Like the Jews in Nazi Germany, our problems are blamed on the very nature of liberals. The message is crafted thusly:

1. Liberals lack morality/hate Christ. It's liberals that have created a society where anything goes. If anything overly sexual occurs on television, it's not the capitalists fault, it's the liberals. If religion is ever attacked, it's the liberals trying to attack Christianity. Conservatives love to paint Christians as a minority under viscous attack.

2. Liberals live promiscuous lifestyles. The skyrocketing divorce rate (and therefore, the breakdown of the family) is the fault of liberals and feminists.

3. Some liberals are homosexuals, and rest sympathize. In the mind of a cultural conservative, homosexuality is a plague that is sweeping the nation and attacking "institutions" like marriage, family, and high school girls (don't let them go to the bathroom together!)

4. Some liberals are minorities who have been provided jobs that they don't deserve. Racism (as we know it) may be dead, but paranoid fantasies about a world run amok by Affirmative Action are alive and well.

5. Liberals hate this country. I've always said this: The far left and the far right both hate this country. That's about 2% on each side of the spectrum. The far left apologizes for terrorists while the far right thinks this country has descended into a moral decay so great that God should strike us all with lightening and end the world right now.

6. The media is controlled by liberals. Everything the media does is a huge conspiracy. They work together to elect Democratic presidents, cause the US to lose wars, and push filth and profanity on our children.

This is the most important because, once legitimized, the GOP is free to tell the nation, "Do not listen to what the media tells you. It is propaganda for a vast left-wing conspiracy. Instead, listen to us."

The problem with their strategy is that they're trying to create a "race" of liberals. It's not like they're saying, "Liberal policies create dire consequences." That's how democracy should function. No, the subtle implication of their appeals is that the very existance of liberals threatens their way of life. And that's why it's scary.

And that's why I'm afraid that if we're attacked and tens of thousands of people die, they'll use that opportunity to throw many of us in jail.

Oh and tens of thousands of people will die. That would be bad too. I don't hate America. I swear. (Look what they're forcing me to write!)

Think our Democracy is safe?

The Republicans are dismantling the system of checks and balances.

1. They forced Arlen Spector to sign a loyalty oath where he would support every nominee that George W. Bush puts forward. A written contract.

2. They are actively pursuing constitutional amendments to block recent judicial decisions (Roe v. Wade especially).

3. They're considering removing the filibuster rule in the Senate. Without that rule, the Democrats wouldn't have any chance. They'd be forced to put holds on bills (a rarely used tactic where any one Senator can stop debate on a bill).

Imagine if another catastrophic terrorist attack occurs. In a moment of national distress, do you think these people will let us keep our freedom? Or will they interpret the attack as God's punishment for all of the abortions performed in America?

This sounds far fetched and paranoid. But think about it. If a horrible attack occurs and creates a national emergency (like a dirty nuclear bomb or something), the GOP will put troops on the streets and the Patriot Act 2 will most certainly be enacted.

A few freedom loving liberals protest the law. The country is in no mood for dissent and the liberals are locked up. And it spirals out of control from there.

Why not?

I'm not the kind of person who thinks Bush's social security plan, his tax cuts, or even his attempts to outlaw abortion will have much of an impact on America. We'll move on and survive.

I have studied history, however. And in my studies I've noticed that whenever right-wingers are in power during national emergencies (throughout the world), it leads to uber-nationalism, the curtailment of personal liberties, and the expansion of the police state. And that will be America's undoing. That's why this election was so important.