Generation Why? and a note on American exceptionalism.

Through the past 60 years or so, each generation of Americans has taken on an unofficial monocer to describe the kind of era that those in that generation grew up in.  While the beginnings and ends of each are slightly up for interpretation, it seems that this naming of generations started with the generation of Americans who fought and won World War II.  Through their sacrifices and triumphs, they have become known as “The Greatest Generation”.  Tom Brokaw did an excellent mini-series about this, highlighting the struggles and successes that this generation went through.

Next came “the baby boomers”.  After millions of American men came home from some of the most treacherous conditions they had ever seen, what’s the first thing they’re going to do when they get home?  They’re going to get on makin’ some babies.  Therefore we saw an amazing boom of birth rates in this country after the war.  This is the generation of most of our parents (by ‘our’ I mean those who reside within the twentysomething category I do) are in.  They grew up, probably protested in the ’60′s about civil rights or protested in the ’70′s about Vietnam.  Nevertheless, they had something to stand for and they knew that the hard work they’re parents had put forth to make a better life for them shouldn’t be wasted.

After the baby boomers, the next title most commonly held is “Generation X”.  These people generally grew up during the latter years of the Cold War and the years right after it.  This generation is marked by many different characteristics: coming right after the Cold War and growing up in years of American supremacy and hegemony and the advent of MTV and the internet.

Shortly after, my generation can generally be described as “Generation Y” or the “millenials” refering to the changing of the millenium and the fact that we are the generation after Generation X.

This is where I really wanted to dive into.  Since the founding of this country, each subsequent generation has wanted to have a better life than the ones that their parents had.  Revolutionary farmers wanted to have a better life in the new America than back in England; slaves, newly free, wanted to impart that freedom on their children and so on and so forth until we reach today, where my generation, a generation so far defined by the instant gratification of the Internet age and other traits associated with it.  My generation has seen advances in science and technology that no one could have even dreamed of 20 years ago.  The Cold War was over, we had won, and it was time to focus on the future.

But with the success of many Baby Boomers and Generation X’ers, how would we, the Millenials, ever hope to surpass the success of our parents when our parents had seen success no one could have ever dreamed of?  Now, this isn’t a narcisstic, “Oh woe is me” kind of thought question.  I have, with many different sources, contemplated this very question of how our generation would set its self apart from the other generations before us.  How would we deal with the amazing advances and successes that have come before us?

All of this was before the current economic crisis set in and I think that our generation has, more or less, changed from Generation Y to Generation Why?  The events that have taken place are so drastic and so dire that it leaves many, if not most, of us asking, why?  Why did this happen?  Why did the people responsible for this mess ever get us into it?  And why are they now being paid a king’s ransom to try and get us out of it?  Indeed, I think that this generation has started out with far more questions than answers.

This is where I come to my second point:  American Exceptionalism.  American exceptionalism has been a key point to many of the sweeping, amazing changes that have taken place in this country for hundreds of years, even before we were a country.  Many, many scholars have cited John Winthrop’s “A Model of Christian Charity” given in 1630 describing how they would build this “shining city upon a hill” in America.  This drove many Americans in the 1800′s to conclude that God Himself had ordained that the United States should stretch from sea to shining sea because we were exceptional.  We are just different.  And that makes us special.  Of course, we killed and forcefully moved hundreds of thousands of Native Americans and simply seized their land in the name of “Manifest Destiny”.

Fast forwarding to the today, as I look around at the current crisis we are in, I begin to wonder, are we exceptional?  Have we become so bloated with success and lazy with our triumphs that the rest of the world has caught up?  Another question:  What is the American Dream?  Is it a house with a white picket fence, 2.3 cars and 3.5 children?  What is it?

That’s just the thing.  This is America, damn it.  The American Dream is whatever each of us desires out of life.  Socrates talked about living the “good life”, in my opinion deliberately being vague because the good life can mean so many things to all of us.  I do not believe that Americans are exceptional because we are any measure smarter than those in other countries, or inherently better.  We are all humans, and we all should have the same opportunities.  Yet, we are Americans.  And as Americans, we shall not take this crisis lying down.  Like a prized fighter who has been dizzied after a couple of haymakers to the face, I believe we shall refocus and come back in a blaze of glory.

I recently read an article asking, “Is China the New America?” comparing how similar the situations are between when the US came to prominence in the last century and what China is looking like right now.

I will not simply lie down and watch America be overtaken as the world’s lone superpower.  If China wants to keep growing and become a world leader, fine by me.  Good for them even!  However, this is America and I think there are a few things that we need to change in order to recalibrate the machine and keep her hummin’ along:

1) Stop the pandemic fear and get capitalism going again

Sorting out our financial problems will take precedence over anything else we do until it is fixed.  And that’s fine, but we need to get back to what makes this country great: People taking a chance on their dream, working hard, and seeing that dream come to fruition.

2)  End this xenophobia in immigration policy and let the skilled, productive workers come here

Seriously people, America was built on and by immigrants.  Why do you think we love holidays that celebrate other cultures?  St. Patty’s Day or Cinco de Mayo anybody?  Stop the unfettered hatred of people who are different and let’s bring America back to where it needs to be: a haven for the tired and poor, a haven where those who yearn to breathe free can.  Make that poem on the side of the Statue of Liberty actually mean something again.  Without new ideas and new minds coming together, our entrepeneurship can only be stifled.

3) Stop the hypocrisy with torture and other civil rights

Another point that gets my blood boiling.  The blatant hypocrisy that has been going on lately where we decry totalitarian states such as China or Iran for their human rights abuses and then turn around and torture the hell out of “enemy combatants” deprives the US of all credibility on the matter.  How can we demand that other countries step up on issues such as human rights when we ourselves don’t meet the same standards?  I am completely with President Obama who mentioned in his inauguration speech that “We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals” and Benjamin Franklin said (roughly) that men who would give up their liberties for security deserve neither.

4)  Make America the moral leader of the world again.

This goes similarly with point #3, but it needs to be extended onto all fronts: the environment, trade, civil rights, etc.  If America wants to be the world’s lone superpower, it had better start acting like it (and I am NOT talking about pushing and shoving other countries around ’til we get our way, we ALL see how that works out).  Be an example for countries around the world to follow because if we do not provide that example, who will?

I believe this country is the greatest nation on Earth.  We lost our way for a while, but I believe we can recover.  We can gain back the financial stability of the last decade without basing it on faux, complicated financial equations.  We can make this world a safer place for everyone without taking away the rights of others.  We can become more successful than our mothers and fathers, especially if our family has been hit particularly hard right about now.  We can do all this, but we have to do it together.

Yes We Can.

Vero Possumus

Scott Riener

You know what grinds my gears?

Wow, two posts in one night? Yeah, I guess it has been awhile.

Normally, I like to keep a pretty even-keeled approach to life.  Not a whole lot of things make me upset because as my dad always says, “It’s just not worth the energy to get mad”.  And he’s completely right.  Yet, there are a few things that really, really get me going.

1) Ignorant people who, like the cliched ostrich, simply prefer to stick their head in the sand rather than try and understand what’s going on

Ah, ignorance is bliss.  Not for me, though.  In nearly every discussion I’ve ever had about (modern) political discourse, we lay the foundation for making the kind of society we want to live in by assuming that every individual will be “rationally self-interested”.  That every person could and should know what is best for them, implying that they will be well informed.  Now, this could easliy lead into an entire discussion on the state of education in this country, but that’s enough fodder for a completely different post.  A good sizeable portion of the population, on both the left and the right, tend to grab onto talking points offered up by cable news programs and run with it like that is the end all, be all, killer argument that will completely shift society towards their point.  An example:

On the right: Barack Obama is a socialist.

Let’s take a look at that statement because you can’t go but a few minutes listening to right-wing punditry without hearing this one.  The clame is that Barack Obama is secretly a socialist that wants our government to effectively seize all wealth in this country and redistribute it equally.  My biggest problem with this one is that I’m pretty sure most people don’t actually understand what socialism is.  Socialism, for all intents and purposes, an economic set of beliefs that argues that the state should take public control of the means of production, with a view towards fair compensation.  Well, if Barack Obama wanted to redistribute wealth equally among all people, that would look a bit more like Communism, wouldn’t it?  But calling your political rival a Communist is soooooo 1950′s.

No, I do not believe the talking heads and politicians that started this slanderous term about Obama actually think he wants to turn us into a Communist/Socialist country.  This term was first used not after the Joe “The Plumber” (Who’s name is not Joe and seems to be more Sam the Reporter more than a Plumber) incident.  The first time I had ever heard this used was from the McCain campaign themselves, especially from Sarah Palin.  I truly believe that the McCain Campaign simply used this as a way to “otherize” Obama, to make him seem not like you without actually going back to the old standby of “he’s black”.  No, I believe the campaign realized they needed to alienate Obama from their base by making people afraid of him.  Afraid that he would come after their money and their guns in an unprecedented way.  But calling someone a Communist just gets you laughed at today, so what did they do?  They went for the next best thing: Socialist.

Does anyone believe that Obama thinks the best way for our country to be run is to have the government run businesses?  If they do, I’d love to hear the reasoning.  Does anyone honestly believe that Obama had started running for president well over two years before the election, well before the economic crisis began craving, indeed yearning to be able to run up these kinds of deficits if he didn’t think it was absolutely necessary?  If you do, then we’ll have to agree to disagree.

If anything, I believe that Obama’s approach to this whole mess is wholly unoriginal.  For as much talk as there has been comparing Obama to Lincoln, his situation is much more like the one that FDR faced coming into office.  Indeed, a crisis of the credit markets, of consumer confidence and an economy that just seems destined to continue down the drain.  Sound familiar?  I could be talking about 1932 or 2009.  And Obama is taking many of the same approaches FDR took during the 1930′s.

Now wait a minute you say, FDR didn’t stop the Great Depression, World War II did!  Yes, you would be right that we didn’t completely get rid of the effects of the depression until the war started.  However, if you look at this graph the US unemployment dropped every year except for 1937.  And wouldn’t you know it, 1937 was the year that budget hawks got on Roosevelt’s case enough that he had to scale back some New Deal programs and raise taxes in order to balance the budget.  Wouldn’t you know it, the programs were helping until budget hawks called for less spending, indeed the exact opposite thing we needed at the time?

So let me be one of the the few to actually stand up (figuratively) and say it: I, by way of my personal opinion, believe that the $787 billion stimulus package may not end up being big enough.  There, now it’s out there.  If I’m wrong, I’ll eat my words (figuratively).  But Lord help us if I’m right.

2) People who cherry pick science for their own personal beliefs

This one always gets me hot under the collar.  I am lucky enough to have grown up in a generation of people who actually knew the dangers of smoking (even though many, many of my age continue to do so, different strokes I guess).  How did we come to know these dangers?  Surely we’ve all had the grandpa or grandma who smoked, got sick and died.  But everybody dies, how did we know that it was the cigarettes?  Scientific studies.  So now we know that you are at a much higher risk of getting lung, throat or mouth cancer if you smoke.

We landed a man on the moon (or maybe we didn’t, if you believe that conspiracy theory).  You trust science to make sure that your grandpa’s pacemaker will work if your g-pa’s heart starts to beat irregularly.  It is far and awide accepted that if I go to an optometrist, he will give me a prescription for glasses that will make me see better.  Thanks to science.

But when we start talking about the origins of humans? Nope, nope, nope, the science is completely wrong.  Carbon dating is a sham.  The scientists “just found some big bones and put them together to make it look like whatever they wanted it to” (actual quote by a source who shall remain nameless).  I do believe in consistency in life.  I believe that decisions should be as fair as possible.  How in the world can it be consistent that the same science that has made our lives exponentially better (especially with things like the internet) is all of a sudden completely wrong?

Ok, I get it.  It 100% goes against your personal beliefs as a (insert denomination here) true believer.  That’s fair, this is America and you can think whatever you want to, it’s one of the things that makes this country great.  But please, PLEASE keep your personal beliefs just that: personal.  John Rawles came up with a pretty smart way of having a civil debate in a public, pluralistic democracy.  He proposed the idea of “public reasons”, a pool of ideas that the general public can at least somewhat agree upon.  If you want to debate on the merits of science, use scientific arguments.  If you want me to have a religious discussion, by all means bust out any Leviticus or Romans clause that you want.  But please, don’t mix the two, it makes a horrible mess.

Vero Possumus

Life Lessons

So it’s been awhile since I’ve put up a post and I think it is due to the fact that nearly every second of every day is already spoken well in advance.

Another reason I think I’ve been not posting as much is because I really figured out why I even have a blog: I really don’t care how many people read it, I think the real reason I even have it is it allows me an avenue to truly, indiscriminately express my thoughts on everything that’s going on around us.  It allows me to purely express my opinion on things, not having to worry about taking others opinion into the equation of what I will say or do.

Looking all around, it’s hard not to see signs of the hard times we’re going through, whether it’s cutting back on family vacations or not eating out as much, it’s hitting us all pretty hard.  However, through all the doom, gloom, and end of the world scenario’s being decried by all the Chicken Littles out there, I think there are some valuable lessons to be learned:

1) Responsibility is something that we all need to learn more about.

One common theme I see between all the AIGs and Bear Stearns of the world is that the people who were controlling our financial futures were never responsible to anybody because there was no way any of this stuff could go wrong.  You know, my high school gym teacher once taught us about this, about how if you were in a room and there was a wallet full of money and you knew nobody would know that it was you, would you take the money?  That’s called integrity and I think we all need a little more in our daily lives.

2) Just because you think you’re “entitled” to some kind of lifestyle does NOT give you the excuse to cheat others just to have it

I swear to God if I hear one more person say “You can’t live in Manhattan on $500,000 a year” and complain about that, I’m going to rip my hair out.  So you can’t afford to live in Manhattan on $500,000?  Leave Manhattan.  You won’t be able to afford your child’s private tuition?  I went to a public school and (knock on wood) I turned out alright.  Going to a private school does not guarantee success, hard work and dedication does.  Can’t afford that nanny?  Do your own damn laundry and hey, spend some time with your kids while you’re at it.  If I EVER made the argument that I should receive more money at work because I need to keep my current lifestyle even though I thoroughly suck at my job, people would laugh and say, “Well, sorry son, that’s not how the real world works”.  Well guess what, some people think it is.

3) Don’t spend money on things if you don’t actually have the money

This one really gets me.  Over the past 20 years or so, Americans have effectively shrunk their annual savings rate to zero, even going into the negative territory for a couple of years.  Who says you need a nest egg in case of an emergency?  Pssshhh, if you get in trouble, just borrow against your house!  Home values will never go down, it’ll always be there for you! Yeah.  Right.  Yes, this is America and we do live in the greatest country on Earth; however, that does not mean you should go buy a $300,000 home if you make $25,000 a year.  Our eyes got too big for our stomachs.  What’s that called again?  Oh yeah.  Irrational exuberance.  You know what’s funny about all this?  There was only a handful of Ivy League economists who said that they had no idea whatsoever that this home bubble was going to burst, yet my mom had the common sense to sell my grandfather’s old house because, in her words, “We need to get the value out of this before the bubble bursts”.  Huh, who knew my mom could be an economic forecaster.  It’s common sense people.

When Congress, led by Ronald Reagan, pushed it’s foot on the proverbial pedal of de-regulation, that tends to accelerate the effects of free market capatalism, making the booms and busts much, much bigger.   Considering the boom we just experienced was a big one, well  look where we are now.  How a company can have $30 of debt leveraged against $1 of actual capital is beyond me, but then again, I don’t make the big bonuses to be retained at these companies because let’s be serious I’m not “top talent”.

You know, that top talent that effectively did what no other nation could ever hope of doing: bringing the world’s lone superpower to its knees, bringing our American Experiment dangerously close to an end.

Vero Possumus

Just some interesting things I read on the interwebs today:

So Obama releases his budget today and the press corps FREAKED OUT because Obama is going to repeal the Bush tax cuts on the 5% wealthiest people in the country.   Wait isn’t that exactly what he said he was going to do, oh, I don’t know, about 100 times on the campaign trail?  Some people just amaze me.  I know raising taxes during a recession is never a good thing; however, i think that the most affluent in our nation will be able to go back to the marginal tax rate that they were under during the years of the Clinton administration.  I think we all did pretty OK then, right?  I mean, I know I was about 12 when Slick Willy left office, but I mean come on, let’s be serious here.  Obama is actually coming through on a campaign promise.  Just like he did on the Lilly Ledbetter Equal Pay Act that was passed this year.  Just like he did on Gitmo.  Just like he did on the stimulus.  Wait, how long has he been in office?  A month? Jumpin Jesus, if most presidents did this in their first term it’d be a good term but Obama has managed to get this stuff through in his first month.  Now, I do understand where much of the worry comes from: how are we going to pay for all this?  Well, the current budget deficit is running at about, let’s say at worst $3 trillion.  We’ve got about $500 billion in interest this year alone, so that’s not good because that gets paid out right now.  Now if every single person who has a Treasury bond (issued when they essentially buy government debt) was to show up tomorrow with a tire iron and ask “Where’s my money?” yeah, we’d have to default on most of those debts.  And that would be catastrophic.  But, considering we still do have the worst largest military and quite a stockpile of nuclear bombs, I’m pretty sure people aren’t going to come calling for their money tomorrow.  In fact, people are buying up goverment debt like hot cakes, sometimes even at a negative interest rate, because these bonds are so safe precisely because they know we won’t default on them.  I’m not saying that we can have a $3 trillion dollar debt forever, or even say 10 years.  But I’m pretty sure we’ll be OK.

Right-wing punditry makes me laugh.  They are so red in the face with anger at what Obama’s doing that they can’t even speak straight sometimes.  However, they are “unified”, although what they’re unified for I still haven’t figured out yet.  I’m pretty sure we tried the whole tax cuts for the wealthiest of the wealthy and we all see how that turned out.

Just want to give a shout out to all the Republicans who vehemently voted against the stimulus bill, even when Obama gave you what you wanted, and then go back to your district trumpeting how amazingly amazing this bill is going to be for your district.  Also want to give a shout out to Bobby “Kenneth the Page” Jindal for his riveting response after Obama’s speech.  I know it must be hard to follow “Big Speech Obama”, but I mean come on.  The one example you give of how goverment red tape prevents progress is Hurricane “Heckuva Job Brownie” Katrina? SRSLY? Wow, words cannot explain…should’ve brought a poet.  Good thing too, cuz that story was complete BS to begin with.

Oh well, at least it gives me a nice laugh during the day.

Vero Possumus

Scotty

The Kingdom of Me

The other day, as is the case with most days, I was crusin around the Internet, reading up on topics that interest me.  Not only do I read blogs such as OpenLeft, the Daily Kos, Fivethirtyeight.com, and the like, I also hop on over to see what the other side is saying with such sites as Fox News and the National Reviews website.  Thankfully, I now have come to the bipartisan consensus that the shit has indeed hit the fan.  I feel so much better now.

The state of affairs our country finds itself in is becoming more dire by the day.  Granted, a crisis always looks worst when you are in it.  Yet, this one seems to be pretty darn bad.  The worst part about it is no one seems to know what to do about it.  Sure, we could just let the markets work themselves out; however, where will this country be after all is said and done?  Would that spell the end of the age of American dominance throughout the international community?  That’s the thing, no one knows, no matter how much of an “expert” they seem to be.

Reading stories about what’s going on in the news tends to make my blood boil.  I love politics, but since when did the thought “disagreeing without being disagreeable” fall out of favor?  Sometimes I think people are so caught up in looking out for themselves instead of doing the right thing like they should.  Case in point: last week (or a couple of weeks ago, idk) I heard Rudy Giuliani (on Fox News) talking about how the billions and billions of dollars corporate CEO’s got last year was a good thing for the economy.  Hey, these people are going to go spend some of that money at Dolce and Gabana, Louis Vitton and the like, and hey, that’s stimulating the economy.  Why yes Rudy, yes it is.  However, if we’re looking out for what’s best for the economy, wouldn’t it be better for the bonus (yeah, that’s right BONUS money, i.e. money you should be getting for doing a great job, not running your company into the ground) money of CEO X instead be going to the general interests of Company Y so that they don’t have to go back to the tax payer trough and ask for more money when they realize they’re insolvent?  I don’t know, maybe I’m just crazy.  But then again, maybe that’s why Rudy was the attorney general for New York, not the economic advisor.  It truly seems the “Kingdom of Me” has become just that.

Coming as a product of the Gilded Age of American capitalism, the Age of Individualism has since become the paradigm for American thinking.  Whether it’s our declining enrollment in bowling leagues or the sprouting up of gated communities like weeds, the American persona has been, in general, turning inward for the past half century of so.  While this may not be evident in the smaller parts of America, it is prevalent in the urban metropolis’ that have grown around the country.  The majority of America’s population lives in these kinds of settings, where many people can go an entire day only having to speak to a handful of people, if that.  The onset of the 20th and 21st Century technology has served to expedite this process.  Many Americans now get the majority of their news from the World Wide Web.  While this could allow for more people to find more differing opinions, I believe this by and large serves as just a polarizing medium.  If I were to watch TV (broadcast, not cable) or read the newspaper (local, not conglomerate) a mash up of many different opinions will be presented to me.  However, should I choose to get my news from more user generated or ideological avenues (MSNBC, Huffington Post, National Review) my options for different opinions becomes limited.  As I said before, the number of different opinions made available to the public has never been greater.  Though, these are only of use should the user be so inclined as to read them.

The polarization has led to many becoming so entrenched in their beliefs that there is no way on God’s green Earth you could ever hope of changing them.  This has made compromise extremely difficult.  Yet, I try with all my might to understand where the other side is coming from.  Yes, I do understand that your right to own your gun is much more than simply being able to own a firearm.  Yes, I understand that after a life of ridicule and humiliation for being gay, you feel like the one entity that should stick up for the founding principles of this country, equal freedom and justice for all, the government, never seems to do just that.  Having an understanding between two parties seems to allow at least some channels of communication to be opened.  Without this common thread, it is extremely difficult for any  two people to talk about anything.  The common ground can be anything, only a little sliver to get your foot in the door.  A Representative from Texas thinks it is a travesty the way the BCS is run in college football.  So does President Obama.  So does my best friend.  Could we find something else all three of these people agree on?  Unlikely.  And it is not just enough to have a commonality between parties.  So what if we all like football?  No way am I voting for your stimulus plan.  No, that is not enough.  But that’s a start, and it’s a good a starting point as any in building strong relationships.

It is a shame those kinds of relationships are generally lost between our leaders.  Pres. Obama recounts in his book, The Audacity of Hope, a conversation he had with one of the more senior members of the Senate just after his swearing in ceremony.  This is a man who remembers a time when Congressman used to move their families to Washington and send their kids to the same school.  When they used to get drinks together after legislative sessions.  It is so easy to villify and demonize and “otherize” your opponent or call them “the enemy”, but it is exponentially more difficult to do that to someone who carpools with your kids or someone whom you have had a beer with.  I know many people who could not be on a more opposite end of the political spectrum and oppose pretty much everything I stand for, yet they are still my friends.

Now I do not believe that becoming everyone’s friend can solve all of our problems, especially when it comes to problems abroad, or that all of our problems will be solved by singing “Kumbaya” around the campfire.  What I do believe is that if we don’t have open channels, compromise will never come.

Going more abroad, does anyone really expect anyone in Iran to support us?  I mean seriously, we have overthrown their leader more times than Joaquin Phoenix has considered being a hobo.  And that’s all in the last 50 years.  Do you expect anybody to forget about that? Hell, we still remember bailing the French out of two World Wars, and that was 60 years ago.  I still jokingly poke fun at any British person I meet on the Fourth of July because we won the Revolution and that was two hundred and forty three years ago.  I remember a story my history Professor told me last semester about his friend the Admiral, head of Central Command (all US Forces in Latin America).  He went to Nicaragua for a military summit and when he got off the boat, there we so many pictures of William Walker hung in spite.  Who is William Walker, you ask?  Why, the only American citizen to go into Nicaragua, overthrow the government, and appoint himself President.  That was like, a hundred and fifty years ago! Yet, Mr. Walker perfectly exemplafies the kind of American Imperialism so many in Latin America have come to know and hate.  So just a reminder, you don’t have a short memory, and neither does anybody else.

People always tell me, “Well, life’s not fair”.  Well why not? Life could be more fair, if people just opened their eyes and thought about what it would be like to be that other person.  “Be the change you want to see in the world” and breakdown that wall around the “Kingdom of Me”.

Vero Possumus

Scotty

We Stand on the Edge of a New Frontier

So it’s been three days since Obama became President.  He’s issued a number of Executive Orders since then, so far so good.  I am so thankful to finally have a President in office that is smart, really smart.  You just can’t teach that.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Republican Party endures (which it will) in the political wilderness.  Will they take the neo-con approach of socially conservative values with a liberal internationalist view of foreign policy, like that of Sarah Palin?  Or will they try and take back the Republican brand of small government and less taxes, as many others are calling for?  Stay tuned!

If you would have come to me 10 years ago and asked me, “Which of the following is false: The Cardinals will be in the Super bowl as the same year we have a black President or the moon is made of cheese” I probably would’ve taken the cheese FTW.

You know, I’d like to give a short shout out.  I saw an article similar to this and I’d like to do my own version of it.  No matter how much they’ve shredded the Constitution, tortured people because their name was “ak Mehd” and no other reason, illegally listened in on the conversations of entire news organizations, or how divided they made the American people, I have to give a big thanks to Karl “Scortch the Earth” Rove, Dick “Darth Sideous” Cheney, or George “Hekcuva Job, Brownie” W. Bush.  No really, I do.  Without their brand of divisive campaiging, brazen partisanship, and cowboy philosophy to foreign policy, we would’ve never had Barack Obama.  Maybe we would have, but probably not.  But I mean come on, how aligned do the stars have to be in order for a Black man from Illinois to go from State Senator to POTUS (President of the United States) in literally 5 years?  They have to be perfectly aligned.  The entire country has to be so fed up, so sick of the secretive paranoia, the Constitutional round about, the praising of foreign leaders when we need something, then blasting them when they don’t agree with us.  The entire country has to be feeling that, and hey, guess what?  That’s exactly how many of us feel.  The overwhelming sympathy around the country of being fed up of having people high up in government just because they’re a “good ‘ol boy” and nothing else (see: Abramoff, Jack), so fed up with the stupidity and pompousness in government that literally one man can run an entire campaign (probably the perfect campaign) on literally taking the exact opposite stand as you have.  So thank you, Bush, Cheney, and Rove, thank you for creating such a toxic political arena that one city in Connecticuit has warrants out for your arrest and you probably shouldn’t leave the country for fear of being tried as a war criminal.  So thank you, now get the F–k outta here.

</rant>

Vero Possumus

Scott

Hilarious

I’m glad SOMEBODY in washington has a sense of humor, watch the whole thing.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtOW1CxHvNY

Big Fat Resumes

So I sat down at my computer and thought to myself, “Hey, I should probably blog tonight”.  But then it hit me: about what?  So I sat here for a second, read a list of the Top 50 Most Loathsome Americans and still couldn’t come up with anything to write about, so I’ll do what everyone does best when they can’t think of anything to write about: talk about something that annoys me.

First, after getting some inspiration from the most loathsome person in America (According to the Beast), Sarah Palin, I’d like to bring up a topic that has been a popular campaign tactic employed by many on the right side of the political spectrum: attack on so called “elites/elitism” in America.  This tactic has been employed on everyone from Barack Obama to John Kerry (showing amazingly, that you can have one attack that works on two guys that different).  It is an attempt by those who use it to “otherize” their opponent, by showing that, “No, he/she’s not like you, I’m more like you, vote for me because we don’t know what they’ll do because they’re not like us.

The ultimate target of this otherization was Barack Obama during the past campaign.  If I described someone who was raised by a working mother who’s husband had left the mother and child, grew up and went to college, did drugs while he was in college and took out student loans to pay for college, I would probably be describing a good portion of the American people.  “Real Americans”, as they’re called.  But no, I’m talking about Barck Hussein Obama, who because his name is different and because his skin is dark he is very, very easy to “otherize”, especially when people already want to believe it.

Now, back to the main point, attacks on elitism have become commonplace in American politics, especially when addressing “real Americans” (btw just in case anyone had any confusion about what they meant by that or when they talk about ‘rural/blue collar people’, they’re talking about white people).  Sarah Palin herself said that she indeed was running as an outsider because:

“One of the points of running as an outsider was she did not have a “big fat resume that shows decades and decades in that Washington establishment”.-Times Online

When did it become a bad thing to have a lengthy resume?  When did it become a point to run against an education?  Or multiple degrees?  I don’t want this to degenerate into a Palin-bashing entry (that could be an entire post upon itself) because she doesn’t have an avenue to defend herself (although if she does want to, I’d be happy to have an interview!).  But honestly, whenever you have a group project and you need to choose a leader, who do you choose?  I know I choose the person who is the smartest and most equipped to handle the task at hand, I don’t give a ship if the leader of my group is like me, I want the person who will get stuff done!  If someone came up to me and said, “Here Scott, we want you to head up this project of leading our country because I’m like the people that live there,” I’d tell them they were nuts!  If I were talking to a person who literally let this sentence come out of their mouth, I’d go nuts:

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?”

PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. Think Progress

Emphasis added was not mine, although I left it in because I thought, yeah, that works.

All I’m saying is, if you don’t agree with someone,  especially politicians, because of what they believe in, more power to you.  But if you don’t like Barack Obama because he went to Harvard, then I’ll just leave you to your hole in the ground.  Because if ignorance is bliss, there are a lot of happy people out there.

Vero Possumus

Scott

It was all a dream

Had a really fun night with my dad last night.  We went and stayed at the Radisson at the Ft. McDowell Casino.  Casino’s are very funny places, you see such an interesting mix of people.  One thing I never thought would be weird is the fact that you can still smoke in Casino’s (because they’re on the Indian Reservations) so if you’re in there for any amount of time, you end up coming out smelling like cigarette smoke.  For the longest time this was not odd because my dad worked in a bar and my best friend’s mom smoked.  But now that you can’t smoke anywhere (pretty much) I thankfully have not come out of many establishments smelling like smoke.

Watched a couple of basketball games last night, the Cleveland Caveliers vs. the Boston Celtics and the Dallas Mavericks playing the hometown Suns.  While both games turned out to be not close at all, they still were entertaining.  Watching the Suns smoke the Mavs was fun, they ended up winning 128-100 I think.  The first game was also extremely entertaining because it pitted the two best teams in the Eastern conference against each other.  While the Celtics have been on a bit of a skid lately, I think they’ll be fine, Keving Garnett won’t let this hang around for too long.  However, I don’t know if there’s anything anyone (and yes, this includes Kobe Bryant, who everyone has deemed the single best player on the planet.  Really? The planet?) can do to stop LeBron James.  That guy is a force of nature.  He measures in somewhere around 6’9″ officially, but I think he’s closer to 6’10″ and around 270 lbs.  Which, when you think about it, is pretty shocking considering this is the guy that moves around the court like Dwayne Wade (who’s nickname happens to be The Flash).

Wade, according to his NBA Page, weighs in at 216 and measures 6’4″. This means James is about six inches taller than Wade, he’s about 54 pounds heavier, and he STILL moves around like a blur.  Truly a freak of nature.  And, he’s only 24.  That means he’s my sister’s age and he’s tearing up the NBA.  Lord have mercy on anyone who plays the Cavs at their place (they’re 19-0 this season at home).

Listening to Girl Talk’s third album right now, Night Ripper, as my sister cleans.  Girl Talk, for those of you that don’t know, is a guy who makes entire albums out of mash-ups.  They include such artist mash-ups as Ludacris and Boston, Slim Thug and Oasis, and of course, my personal favorite, Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” and Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy”.  Whenever that comes on, I seriously have to turn it up as loud as it can go because it’s just such a great pairing.  Which got me thinking, I’m really excited for the biopic about Biggie to come which is called Notorious.  When they were doing casting, Voletta Wallace, Biggie’s mom, was there and as soon as she saw Jamal Woolard (the guy who plays Biggie), she said, “That’s my son”.  So hopefully it’s going to be an awesome movie, doing justice to Biggie.

I’m excited for the football games on today.  Got Ravens v. Titans first, then Cardinals v. Panthers in the night game.  Never thought I’d write that, Cardinals in the second round of the playoffs.  Huh.  Go Cards!

Vero Possumus

Scott

Startin to Come Together

So I was looking over the aesthetics of my blog today, and I realized I wasn’t very happy with it.  Segway 45 minutes and about 20 different styles later, I finally settled on the one you see right now.  I thought it was fitting that I have the most memorable quote from the ’04 Democratic National Convention which thrust Obama onto the national stage.  I think the quote is very fitting because now is a time where we need to move past our petty differences and really come together as a nation to pull ourselves out of the mess we find ourselves in (Good breakdown of how the country was doing in 2001 vs. how we’re doing today over at FromTheLeft, really makes you think…).  Had to do some tricky rearranging from the original picture, but I think it looks pretty good.

Saw a cool story today, the AP says the iconic portrait of Barack Obama, originally done by Shepard Fairey but mass produced throughout the campaign, is heading to the Smithsonian Museum in the National Portrait Gallery.  Always thought it was a really cool picture, definitely defined the overall feeling of many involved with the campaign.

Moving away from politics for a moment, tomorrow’s the big game between the Oklahoma Sooners and the Florida Gators.  They’ve played a combined 2,000+ games throughtout their storied history, yet this is the first time they’ve faced each other.  I’m personally biased towards the Sooners, been a fan since around the last time the won a championship at he beginning of the millenium (is anyone else weirded out by saying that?), so if you want a better analysis of the game and sports in general, head on over to the Buzzer Beater Blog.  Although, the case can be made that he’s sort of, maybe, kind of biased, but I digress…

Oh well, hopefully the Sooners can pull one out and “Big Game Bob” Stoops can actually, you know, earn back his nickname.  Good times will be had by all I’m sure, although there will be just a tiny bit a lot of bragging rights at stake.

Going back to the rat race tomorrow.  However, at my work, I wouldn’t be surprised if we actually had a rat race. God my job is awesome.

Vero Possumus

Scott