In the meantime, note this:
No votes for women! According to tea party leader Janis Lane, women are simply too diabolical to be granted suffrage.
"I can no longer support a system..." Further proving that the ultra-affluent have no loyalty to anything beyond themselves, time-share king David Siegel (builder of the world's largest mansion and subject of a recent documentary) told his employees to vote Romney or else.
While the media wants to tell you to believe the "1 percenters" are bad, I'm telling you they are not. They create most of the jobs. If you lose your job, it won't be at the hands of the "1%"; it will be at the hands of a political hurricane that swept through this country.My response? Shrug, Atlas! Shrug! Grab your techno-chested wife and hit that beach pronto!
You see, I can no longer support a system that penalizes the productive and gives to the unproductive. My motivation to work and to provide jobs will be destroyed, and with it, so will your opportunities. If that happens, you can find me in the Caribbean sitting on the beach, under a palm tree, retired, and with no employees to worry about.
Look, if there's money to be made in the time-share game, then someone else will always be around to take Siegel's place. And that someone else will need employees. The problem with guys like Siegel is that they think they are irreplaceable. The best response to his brand of jackass narcissism is a loud raspberry.
Once you've made it, once you have enough long green stashed away to secure your future, why work? Hit the beach. That's what the beach is for. You deserve your Pina Coladas, Davey -- and the rest of the world deserves a vacation from you.
The politico-industrial complex. Stephen Colbert did an out-of-character interview in which he introduced a very useful new phrase...
New polls are starting to show signs of an Obama comeback. Of course, Obama could reverse that positive news if he screws up again. Truth be told, I was not entirely surprised by his quasi-comatose performance during the first debate. The man never struck me as a particularly riveting speaker.
Perhaps I may now safely repeat an observation that infuriated many people back in 2008.
This country has a history of extraordinary African American orators, King and Malcolm X being only the most obvious examples. Many have automatically presumed that Barack Obama belongs in that pantheon. He doesn't. He never did. People just thought he did. Obama does quite well with a teleprompter -- but when he speaks off the cuff, he is rarely better than just good enough.
Obama's great surge after the convention stemmed not from his own acceptance speech -- which, even with the teleprompter, was just good enough -- but from the rousing rhetoric of Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Joe Biden. Especially Clinton. That guy possesses an almost supernatural talent. The election would be in the bag if the Big Dog could substitute for Obama on Tuesday night.
Alas, there's only so much the Big Dog can do to win this thing for Obama; from here on out, it's up to Barack.
I think he can pull it off, though he may well stumble. The public doesn't demand a knock-out win, but we do need to see evidence that the man is actually listening to his opponent. More than that: We need evidence that Obama won't tolerate guff.
On a related note: Is it possible for a president to become a worse orator over the years? That certainly was the case with Dubya, who seemed quite competent in his debates in the year 2000. As time passed, he sounded like a drunk with a concussion. A subtler version of the same phenomenon beset his father. Reagan as well; word has it that he fell prey to Alzheimer's rather earlier than the public was led to believe.
Jimmy Carter never could give a damned speech. Neither could Ford. Their debates were as painful as ten toothaches.
7 comments:
Obama's undeserved popular appeal can be understood by his use of illogical but effective Eriksonian suggestion techniques: "You deserve to be recognized by government. Your dreams are dear to you -- And that's why I will be your next President."
George Bush's second inaugural address was stuffed with Dominionist references. I often wonder who put that package together for him.
Joseph,
I love your blog. Even though you've been annoyed as all hell with me or despised me (as duly noted by one of your recent replies about me), I still find myself routinely checking your blog. Just chiming it to let you know you are doing a great job. I've tried to convince the people I know (limited in number as they are) to read your blog but they don't want to be bothered with 'serious stuff' in life and would rather cover their eyes and ears.
Sincerely,
Jay
Perhaps we ought to be voting for people based on policies, not stage performance. Ah, maybe not.
Jobs are created based on demand, and therefore through inflationary government measures, not through the further grasping of people who've already stolen enough wealth to keep their grandchildren rich.
As for women voting, obviously women should be allowed to vote in theory, but in reality Britain would have had continuous socialist government from the end of the War to the present day if the votes of women hadn't been counted. I don't suppose it's democratic to judge whether people should be allowed to vote based on who they vote for, but on the other hand I really hate the Tories. But in America women are more likely to vote for the, for want of a better term, the slightly less objectionable party.
A modest proposal: votes only for people with annual earnings below a certain level.
I think for Bush the Lesser it was all about the contest not the governing. Same for Obama. Why bother learning a speech if you're not that into it.
I just picked up that post over at Crooks and Liars, Joe--the Tea Party woman suggesting other women should be barred from:
VOTING!
We're too emotional, diabolical.
Where are these jackass ideas coming from??? There's either something in the water or there are mass lobotomies underway.
I never cease to be amazed!
Peggy Sue
The "timeshare king" is going to cease producing timeshares. Well we are all in a lot of trouble. Seriously, if I ever buy a time share just shoot me. It is truly heartwarming to think that less money will be wasted in the utter welfare destroying madness which are timeshares.
One assumes secret ballots remain secret here, so his employees can safely ignore him.
In the meantime the question that comes to my mind is did Atlas busy himself with time share developments? Exercise videos? Making furbies? Perhaps get rich quick infomercials? What was he doing before he shrugged? Perhaps we are all better off if he spends his time shrugging?
Harry
Seigel's self-laudatory comments deserve some passing analysis, since they are so typical of the right-wing, Randish paradigm offered as a substitute for reality by the Republican ticket.
Capital as an impersonal force seeks the highest return in any regulatory environment, whether that environment be relatively restrictive or not. In this sense, capital behaves quite mechanically and the moral qualities of the holders of capital have very little effect on outcomes. The attempt to paint the wealthy as more 'deserving' than the rest of us is a very dangerous fantasy.
That fantasy continues to resurface as a sort of parasitic corollary to something genuine - the American work ethic. That ethic has its source in the real working class and has little to do with the concerns of the wealthy, yet it is repeatedly used as a springboard for constructing the consciously false moral arguments of the right.
Seigel and his ilk will not follow through with what they think are 'threats' to retire from the scene, as much as we would prefer this. Such people define themselves by personal actions made possible by their wealth. In their own distorted psycho-sexual universe, forgoing the day to day battle for better capital return would amount to self-castration.
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