On bullshit

I will give the right-wing this begrudging credit: there is no phrase that ever has or ever will top "Right to Work" in terms of overwhelmingly effective spinning of complete bullshit. It is a simple, short phrase that is designed, perfectly, to capture the sentiment of a vast majority of people who have no idea what it actually means.

In my adult life I have never come across any other piece of jargon that more masterfully embodies the concept of "I don't understand something, but this sounds good, so I'm for it."

We are a nation of idiots, by choice. This is a thing we are just going to have to accept and encourage our children to deal with and work around at an early age.

Tell Him About the Twinkie

Ahh. The Hostess strike. In which I am angry and sad at how many people are sounding like morons about this.

Here are some facts for you that 99% of news outlets felt weren't worth pointing out:
The workers went on strike because Hostess declared that 18,000 workers would need to take an 8% paycut... AND have their cost of company healthcare benefits increased by 30%. When the workers striked, Hostess declared that they'd rather liquidate the company than give in to the union demands to, umm, not fuck the workers over.

Huh, that's funny, since.... oh, hey look at this: Hostess lost $143 million in 2011. In fact, for almost ten years the company's been keeping itself afloat through unsustainable injections of private equity. According to the Chicago Tribune, Hostess is already down more than $800 MILLION in this equity that they can never recover. How do they avoid paying that? By declaring bankruptcy. WHAT A COINCIDENCE.

The company was ALREADY going bankrupt. They decided that this would be a great way to liquidate and blame the union instead of their own terrible business practices over the last few years. Hostess planned to, let me quote some news articles here, "end an American tradition" and "watch another part of your childhood fade away" BEFORE THE STRIKE EVEN STARTED. They just realized that holding out this long gets them a better deal in bankruptcy liquidation AAAAAND they get to blame the union now.

And you know what pisses me off the MOST about this? Do any of you REALLY lament the lack of, specifically, a Twinkie? Because there aren't a HUNDRED competitor equivalents on the shelves? As if you don't buy the cheaper store brand "creme filled snack cakes" when they're on sale already? Why the love for Hostess? Oh, right, it's a brand loyalty. It's because Americans care about that name and that product tradition... one that was maintained by.... oh, that's right.... A STRONG LABOR FORCE MAKING THE GODDAMN THINGS.

By the way, can I take a moment to ask all of you attacking the unions a quick question: so you believe that the company's going bankrupt because of those "greedy, greedy unions." In other words, you are suggesting that the very existence of a major national corporation, one that makes and sells millions of products a year, hinges on a financial precipice solely balanced by employees taking a pay cut. You believe this? And that this action of a company being willing to actually dissove itself completely is in no way a larger sign of an already-existing financial disaster of its own making, far beyond the actions of its employees? You are saying you believe all that, correct? Okay, so if yes, here is my follow-up question: are you truly this fucking stupid?

But please, keep pretending that this will be "the end of Twinkies" because hey, THAT'S what's important- continuing to fill your children with saturated fat with sugar-flavored oil injected inside of it. It's so nice to see Americans all getting together and blaming this once again on a handful of middle class workers instead of the CEOs who already ran the company into the ground.

Good enough

I woke up a few minutes ago and I'm still processing it all. For me this wasn't just about Obama; it was about not letting lies and general spite of half the country win as an effective strategy. The hugest victim of this election is a media that by and large failed to do even the simplest job of saying when something was a lie. Even this morning a talk show is saying this "proves you need to stay a center-right country to win."

Horseshit. Across the country we defeated right-wing lunatics, put the first openly gay Senator into office and defeated amendments to strip people of their human rights.

It amazes me that in this day and age I have to say this, but my greatest hope for Obama isn't some revolutionary march of liberalism or world-changing action, but merely getting 50% of the government that spent the last four years acting like children to give a fuck about human beings again.

Last night Republicans didn't lose. Assholes did. And that's the greatest news I've heard in four years.

Welp

Paul Ryan is the final proof to me that this country simply doesn't have a news media anymore. Regardless of you liking/hating Obama or supporting/opposing a right-wing economic plan, we don't have people we used to have simply stating for the fact that almost everything he says is a complete lie. This isn't a partisan observation; his tax plan literally doesn't work using a highly biased system called "math." Politics, and yes, Republican politics by a much larger percentage, has become a matter of people just saying something like it's a fact and... no one cares. People pointed out a year ago that Ryan's plan will destroy Medicare. The Washington Post, the paper that brought down Nixon, responded by awarding that fact four cartoon Pinnochio heads. Journalism.

There used to be responsible, trustworthy people who pointed out when liars are liars. The Republican ticket is Harold Hill from The Music Man and no one cares because everyone on the teevee this weekend is talking about how lovely Paul Ryan's singing voice is.

Something something kangaroo-years joke

A hearty congratulations to Skippy, who celebrates ten years of blogging. Most of them with a really silly cartoon kangaroo on his homepage.

(Thanks to Skippy I think technically I can claim I've had fanart made of my work.)

And A

In which a subject of completely unrelated context turns into one of the most poignant statements about our current media in recent memory:

That said, my journey to making this documentary happens to coincide with my growing frustration with the vituperative nature of political discourse in America. I don't like Fox News, but I don't like MSNBC either. Nor Pacifica Radio; or AirAmerica; or Rush Limbaugh; or any other agenda driven "news" outlet. I'm of the opinion that one enters personal or public dialogue in one of two ways: to seek the truth or win the argument. The news programs mentioned are, for the most part, in the latter category. They have become ratings driven entertainment and, more often-than-not, they are mean-spirited and disingenuous. Current events are difficult enough to understand without being purposely mislead by news organizations unconstrained by the truth.

The quote is from actor/filmmaker John DeLancie, best known as "Q" from Star Trek, who is talking about negative comments he recieved in the media. Not about Obama, or the election, or even politics in general, but about a documentary he is currently making about... adult fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.

Because, apparently, people actually involved in politics and news media were all too busy to point this out.