History Lesson For Y'all

Here's are some excerpts from political "pundits" after the massive Republican (sidenote: even though it is painfully clear to us at this point in Earth's history, 2010 BCE in case you time travelled here recently and were confused, it is still funny how a word can signify so many different things, isn't it? Like, the word Republican, for example, can be used to represent both a political group composed of the most non-constructively offensive people in the United States, but it can also be used to represent an emancipatory political group in (mostly Northern) Ireland. Now, bear with me here, because this is going to get a little bit complicated, structurally speaking. I'm going to embed a video on this topic that I think is one of the best and funniest things I have ever seen, and then I am going to pick right back up where this audaciously parenthetically-induced ellipsis of a sentence left off. Ready? Go:



gains in Congress in 1994 (midway through Clinton's first term). The main reason I want to bring these quotes to your attention is to facilitate you finding some humor, dark though it may be, in this coming week. So read these, swap out Clinton's name for Obama's and have some fun seeing history repeat itself next week.

G. Gordon Liddy, on his radio show the day after the election:

"This marks the beginning of the end of the dreadful, disastrous, venal, corrupt, sleazy Clinton presidency. The American people have rescued themselves."

Newt Gingrich, the incoming House speaker, on why the American people had rejected Bill and Hillary Clinton:

"They really are left-wing elitists and they really thought the country didn't get it and therefore it was their job to give the country the government that they thought the country needed, even if they didn't want it. That's the whole history of the health plan."

Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show the day after the election:

"These two years of the Clinton administration have been a national hiccup, a belch. We've gotten rid of our indigestion, and we're ready to move forward."

George Will, on why Clinton wouldn't be able to recover:

"The country is much more conservative than it was when it elected Reagan, and significantly more conservative than in 1992. But liberals will be a larger portion of congressional Democrats in the 104th Congress than in the 103rd.

"If Clinton remains to the left, he will be trying to govern against the grain of the country and will be peripheral to the nation's political conversation. If Clinton moves to the right, he will alienate his base, such as it is -- liberals, blacks and public employees. That base cannot re-elect him but can help unelect him. Regarding the dangerousness of disaffected liberals, Clinton should ask Jimmy Carter about the spring of 1980.

"Clinton cannot win bidding wars with Republicans in tailoring tax cuts or welfare reforms for a conservative country. Yet if he adopts a veto strategy regarding Republican initiatives, who then is the obstructor of "change" and the author of "gridlock"?

"Clinton's decision to conduct the 1994 campaign as an argument with Reagan underscored the conservatives' contention that 1994 is year six of the Bush-Clinton era, and that Clinton, a passionate opponent of systemic change by term limits and a balanced-budget constitutional amendment, clings to the status quo. The October fear-mongering about the campaign illustrated the Democrats' intellectual sterility.

"And speaking of recycling ideas, some Democrats dream of Clinton emulating in 1996 Truman's 1948 run against the "do-nothing 80th Congress.'' But there are three problems. First, Truman was Trumanesque; Clinton would be pretending. Second, Truman rallied liberals and labor when they were formidable and when government enjoyed unnatural prestige as organizer of the victory in war. Third, the 104th Congress will not do nothing."

(Quotes originally discovered through this article at Salon)

But, you see, Bill Clinton DID get re-elected in 1996 (Things I Learned in College 101), and went on to prove himself one of the better Presidents that this country has had in recent memory, though that may not be saying all that much. So, this is also a post tendering some tentative hope. Though this coming week may at first seem to usher in some obscene and catastrophic idiocracy.... it might not be that bad? In any case, Cake Police still loves you! Unless you eat cake or drop your tea bags on the sane people of the world! Then you're fucked!

Vote

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=DLPL6GNX

Barack Obama Talking Sexy, As He Is Wont To Do

Okay, so The Daily Show's embed codes are apparently incompatible with Blogger all of a sudden, but start here and work it our yourselves, I guess.

I have voiced many problems with President Obama, both on this blog and in the non-digital realm. However, I also have a long, documented history of firm belief in the fact that he is a seriously smooth operator who can make me believe in almost anything he sets his mind to making me believe in... okay, wait, that sounds pretty dystopic and religious. ANYWAYS, lost in all of the faux-populist fervor and partially justified though severely misplaced outrage is the recognition that, you know what, he has really improved things for the average person in this country (though not for the average person in Afghanistan) quite a bit.

And, also, Democratic Congresspeople have played a significant role in the realization of those things (loathe as they inexplicably are to admit it). And this is where Jon Stewart has really shone these past months leading up to the election (next week, FYI). I haven't personally seen anyone else (besides Stephen Colbert, in his own way) point out so forcefully and frequently the single biggest reason why the Democrats are most likely going to lose their majorities in the House and Senate in this coming election: they are afraid to tout their accomplishments because of a very small but very vocal group of Tea Baggers who have managed to dominate the political discourse through a deadly combination of vitriolic rhetoric and mainstream media compliance to the extent that Democratic Congresspeople actually believe that they represent the majority of Americans! Never mind that these idiots, unbeknownst to them, don't even represent their own interests!

So, here Obama makes even Stewart look a bit foolish (especially his cheap-shot concerning unemployment levels). Because, as bad as things continue to be in America, one need only look at the way things were before Obama was president and had a Democratic majority in the House and Senate, the behavior of the Republicans in the House and Senate, and the Tea Baggers who now have candidates in serious jeopardy of becoming the policy-makers of our country, to realize how much worse things could have, and could still, be.

And, since any post of mine wouldn't be complete without a tacking on of some unrelated subject, does anyone else watch the NBC comedy Community? Because you really should watch the NBC comedy Community. It airs on Thursday nights, as does any good comedy show on television, but I recommend looking it up and starting from the beginning, because the first season was awesome, and the character development is great. That is all.

Found Artifacts From A Place Called YouTube

HAAAAA! The Tea Party has now definitively added Curb Stomping to their official policy regarding how to deal with liberals! This fills me with mixed emotions. On the one hand, yes, of course, this is the best election cycle that has ever been. Hands down. The Shakespeare of political theatre, is what everyone should be calling these tea baggers. But on the other hand, elections are next week, and then, what? Well, then it is winter time. Then it is time for all of us to steal garbage cans and desperately attempt to glean some semblance of warmth and comfort from the impotent flames that will arise from the refuse of this country. And once the tea baggers have repealed the already inadequate healthcare reform, infinitely extended the Bush tax cuts, decided Iran just looks too delicious not to blow the fuck up, and, finally, after having bankrupted the country and turned it into the racist, illiterate cesspool that they so fondly idealize as "the good old days", they will turn around and blame it all on Barack Obama.

So vote Democrat! (See? The Left can use scare tactics too! Get off your high horse, Democrats, and start calling an ignorant racist with a mild-to-moderate learning disability an ignorant racist with a mild-to-moderate learning disability!)

Secondly, I found this video that I think is the best possible metaphor for what religious people look like to me always:

Paul Jay on "Journalistic Mythology"

"[T]he biggest deception of mainstream news—and this goes for television and the newspapers— at the very heart of the deception or the mythology, is they report as if we don't live in a class society. I believe, it's absolutely the heart of the problem. Everyone knows we do. Every reporter knows we do. Everyone they report on knows we do. In fact, when Obama ran his campaign, it was all about we're for the middle class. How can you have the middle class if you don't have some other classes? They don't talk about them... During election times you hear all kinds of talk about the middle class. But if you have a middle class, you also have elite. However, you may want to describe that elite, you have to have one [or] else, you don't have the middle class either. And everyone that does news knows that every story you approach, you have to decide where is your starting point, who's your audience, who you speak to. And the people who are most honest about this are people that report for the business press—to some extent The National Post, a little bit The Globe and Mail, but even more honest are, say, The Wall Street Journal or some of the other financial papers. What's honest about them is they know their audience is a section of the elite that has the most capital, and they write for them, and try to write more or less as realistically as they can for them. But there's no independent journalism who says straightforwardly, we're not going to report or side with or be an appendage of one section of the elite or the other, because what's called diversity of opinion here is diversity of opinion amongst the elite, 'cause there are very competing interests amongst the elite. But if you try to say, okay, well, we want to represent what's in the interest of workers, well, then you're marginalized, you're utopian, you're naive, you're a lefty, you're this or you're that."