“Old Selfish White People”

Gentle Reader, here is a magnificent bit of prose from musician/artist/awesome dude Bob Ray Starker. Read and become enlightened, as did my cranky self:

Okay, I started out today trying to be civil and constructive, but all anyone wants to do is throw mud at each other… so what the hell, let’s get into this…

I am a 50 year old white american straight man and here is what I know for sure: Black people have never messed with me. Gay people have never messed with me. Asians, Hispanics, Native Americans, poor people, none of them have ever messed with me. 

Which group of people have repeatedly made my life harder than it had to be for no good reason at all? White people with more money than me. 

They have laid me off, closed companies I worked for, made a lot of money by underpaying me for the work I did in their employ, bought elections when I could only afford to vote in them, and, perhaps most infuriating of all, they have relentlessly messed with my non-white, non-straight, non-wealthy friends. And they continue to do it because their world is ending and they are afraid of losing control as the human race slowly evolves beyond their limited scope of understanding.

So who am I most worried about when I lay in bed awake at night? Old selfish rich white people. All in all, I could have done without them.

Well said by the Saxman. Nailed it to a tree, he did.

All y’all, googlize this fine young man. Read his words, buy his art, attend his shows: but first and foremost, read what he said today. Read, reflect, and act.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

“Republicans”: Don’t Fix the Problem, Make it a Secret Instead.

It’s a reflex, really: anytime Teapubbies want to do a thing and some pesky thing like “legality” or “optics” interferes, they do the thing anyway, and hide it. Look in your dictionary under “Teapot Dome” or “Watergate” for some classic examples. But it didn’t stop there, Cranksters: here are three examples from recent American history, showing that the GOPee is all about them thar secret thangs:

Number A: Recently, a lot of drug companies (ya know, they exist to make money by saving lives) have refused to sell Ohio drugs if they’ll be used to end lives instead of saving them. This puts a crimp in the execution-via-lethal-injection process that is so beloved by “conservatives”. In short, it’s getting hard for the Gummint to kill people quickly and cheaply.

So, there’s the thing Teapubs want to do: kill convicts. Do they come up with a new way of doing this, or an alternative punishment? Nope. In Ohio, they are trying to pass a law that would hide death drug information instead:

State lawmakers are preparing to introduce legislation to address legal concerns about Ohio’s administration of the death penalty, likely including language to keep secret the names of sources of execution drugs. Batchelder said the legislation has been drafted, and he anticipated its introduction in coming days. He declined to offer specifics about what would be included in the bill, though he said it would address issues that have arisen from court decisions related to the death penalty. “We have a problem in the sense that some of the federal judges have held that our existing system does not provide due process safeguards for those who have been convicted of homicide,” he said.

Got that? The problem is that Ohio (like some other states) is unconstitutionally executing convicts. Do the Repubs seek a constitutional way to execute said offenders? Of course not, don’t be silly. ‘Tis far easier to hide their actions than to solve the problem at hand.

Letter Two: also in newly-Red-ified Ohio (motto: “As red as Ohio State’s Scarlet, as Confederate as Ohio State’s Gray”), Guv Kasich wanted to hand his Kronies a lot of Kash. Alas, that’s illegal. So, he set up a secret money-laundering scam called JobsOhio, and then added more secrecy when the public objected to having their collective pockets picked by a load of millionare motherf***rs. The link provides a good summary of the matter, sans cranky snark and lingua franca.

Thirdly: since it’s illegal for Parties to coordinate with “outside groups”, Repubs had a problem in the recent election cycle: how to, well, break that law and get away with it. The solution? A secret Twitter account, of course. Click the link there, it’s pretty f***ing outrageous s***.

Nor are these the only examples. ‘Twould take a hundred bloggers a hundred hours to document a hundredth of these crimes. They are sufficient to illustrate the situtation: the scumball “Republicans” that Americans have stupidly put in charge of 2/3 of our government are a load of uber-liars and thieves who are not only adept at hiding their crimes: they instinctively hide them. Trust them not a bit, Gentle Reader. Not a single bit.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The 2014 Election Summarized: “GOP Used Car Salesman Wins”.

Granted, it was from a single race. And it seems like a punch line, rather than reality. But it’s true: a member of one of the sleaziest of all professions just won election to high office, in spite of his complete lack of qualifications and dearth of experience:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Mark Maynard owns a used car lot, runs a towing business and spends his spare time on a professional drag racing pit crew. And despite not raising a dime for his Republican campaign and agreeing with his Democratic opponent on almost all the issues, he defeated West Virginia’s longest-sitting state senator.

Got it? The majority of voters that turned out and cast ballots in this race elected an unqualified used car salesman instead of a qualified public servant. There is nothing else to say about that choice except, “Oh, ferchrissakes, you stupid f***ing f***s”. But it wasn’t just in this one contest: all across the country, those who actually chose to vote made some amazingly silly choices, like electing hog-castrators and science deniers.

Kudos to the minority of American voters who cast thoughtful, deliberate ballots based on rational criteria. Thank you for being responsible citizens, we need more like you.
Bricks upside the heads to the vast majority of eligible American voters who lazily sat it out and let the Moron Minority choose our government. You are about to get what lazy people usually get: whatever the non-lazy people wanted. Tough s*** if you don’t like it.
And dunce caps for all the eedjits who voted for shysters, con men, extremists and yes, used car salesmen. You are about to get what you truly deserve.

We can’t fix stupid, but we CAN fix apathy. Get out and vote next time, please. If you disagree with that course of action, well, there’s a newly-elected “Republican” West Virginia State Senator who has a used car he’d like to sell you. Or maybe two or three used cars.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Repubs Impose the Nation’s First “Uterus Tax”. Most Eligible Michigan Voters are Responsible.

Yes, you read that correctly. In Michigan, women who are raped may not have an abortion if their rapist impregnates them. UNLESS they purchased what is being called “rape insurance” ahead of time. Result: women need to plan for being raped, and pay out of pocket in case they are someday raped. Your humble correspondent feels that “rape Insurance” is the wrong term. Really, it’s a tax on people who can become pregnant.

It is a tax on fertile women, levied upon their functioning uteri. A “Uterus Tax”.This is a 100% “republican” idea, pushed only by repubs, voted for only by repubs. Repubs have successfully imposed it upon women in Michigan, and plan to spread it across the nation.

America, you just voted to give the party behind such obscene ideas even more power than they already had. You voted for it, and you are getting what you deserve. Almost all eligible voters are to blame for such travesties as these.

Perhaps you didn’t vote? By not voting against the GOPee, you helped Repubs to win.

Perhaps you voted third-party? See above.

Perhaps you voted “Republican”? You stupid f***, you truly do DESERVE this. Hope it hurts, motherf***er.

The only people who are blameless are those who voted for the candidate with the best mathematical chance to beat a Teapubbie. Every other eligible voter within the locale involved in a Repub outrage bears some measure of responsibility for the outrage in question.

This is just the first example of what America asked for during this week’s election. Look forward to years more of such revolting results. And as you are subjected to these manifold obscenities over time, remember: America voted for this. America asked for this. America demanded this. AMERICA’S VOTERS MADE THIS HAPPEN. As the Politicos like to say, “elections have conesquences”.

Maybe we’ll learn our lesson. Maybe after we get f***ed so brutally, so often, so painfully, the country will learn to ignore the propaganda, respect the facts, and get out to vote in our best interests for a damned change. Maybe.

But for the foreseeable future, we will all pay, as a nation, for the sins of the majority of actual voters.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Ultimate Lesson of Election 2014: “Nothing’s Free”.

Stripped down to its barest bones, that’s the takeaway. The “Republicans” won because they invested in things that could help them win, and the Dems lost because they didn’t invest thus. Not saying it’s fair, not saying it’s right, just saying that smart investing pays dividends, and un-smart investing loses shirts.

And what was the GOPee investment? Why, ’twas in propaganda media. 24/7, all across the TeeVee, radio, Internets, billboards, you name it, the Elephants paid millions upon millions to hammer their message home. And even though the bulk of said message was a pack of lies, the repetition of it over a period of years proved effective – lots of gullible nitwits believed it. The ‘Phants bought the media and used it to brainwash the masses. That was a huge investment, and it resulted in an enormous return.

In contrast, the Democrats invested in smart public policies (like the ACA), and then tried to pretend they hadn’t. They invested in the election of a truly historic President, and then tried to pretend he wasn’t there. Dems invested a lot in holding back the most cray of the Repubs’ cray-cray ideas, and then pretended they hadn’t done that either. Many Dems actually did a very good job in office, but got scared of seeming too, well, non-Republican. They invested and then tried to un-invest. Small wonder they got bupkis for a return, innit?

You can’t get ANYTHING for free. Even the air we breathe and water we drink requires investment to keep it clean enough to use. Hell, even love requires an emotional investment, does it not? Gravity isn’t free, for that matter – ask any physicist. NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING. Ya gotta do something, pay something, sweat, speak, take some kind of action, if you want to get something in return.

The Democrats, Greens, and the Left in general need to treat this as a lesson in reality. If they want power, they won’t get it by being virtuous; by being right; by having a “D” by their name; kicking and braying; or any of the other stupid, lazy, disorganized, inconsistent methods they employed in 2014. And they can look to their own ranks for proof. Minnesota Dems invested in candidates, media, turnout, message, and did much better than the party as whole. They invested wisely and profited thereby. Something the rest of American Democrats did not do.

One phrase common during this writer’s youth was “the marketplace of ideas”: the notion that quality ideas would, like quality goods and services, rise to the top via free and vigorous debate. The willingness to invest time and effort in the debate was part of how well an idea succeeded in the “market”. The Repubs invested in control of the debate instead of quality policies, but have succeeded because, 9 times out of 10, the public hears only GOP talking points. Sadly, because of this unscrupulous (but competently executed) strategy, the GOP is winning the battle of ideas, at least when it comes to how it shakes out at the ballot box.

Non-Repubs needn’t opt for the criminal methods employed by the GOPee; but they DO have to invest in good ideas and policies, courage, consistency, and learn to aggressively promote themselves and their “products” if they are going to succeed. Based on this year’s election cycle, Democrats have a f*** of a lot of work to do.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Only Questions that Matter Today: Could You Vote, and Did You Vote?

Everything else is a bunch of irrelevant details, or an excuse. If you could have voted and did not, then you suck at being a citizen.

If you are voting or have voted, thank you! Feel free to ignore the rest of this post.

If you couldn’t vote, you should find out why, and then work to clear any roadblocks so you can vote in the future. Perhaps you’re too young, not a citizen, or prevented by other legal reasons; nobody can get on your case for that. Or perhaps you couldn’t vote because of GOPee criminal actions that disenfranchised you: you’re pretty much blameless there. too. Maybe you’re sick, or out of the country, or had some other obstacle in your path. Understandable.

But if you COULD have voted today, and CHOSE not to do so, f*** you. F*** you for being lazy, being cynical, being stupid, or being oh-so-superior. The only way we can win a f***ing election is if we turn out. And when people don’t turn out, we get whatever a**holes the 1% wish to cram down our throats. By not voting, you bear partial responsiblity for the Teapublican Takeover of our nation. F*** you for that, you stupid, f***ing f***.

Turnout is the ONLY tool left in our kit, the ONLY weapon in our arsenal. Turnout, and ONLY turnout can defeat voting machine hacks, disenfranchisement schemes, poll-rigging, disinformation and propaganda. Every other means of ensuring our representation is already gone, stolen by the corrupt motherf***ers who have hijacked our nation. THE ONLY WAY TO DEFEAT THE “REPUBLICANS” IS FOR EVERYONE ELSE TO VOTE AGAINST THEIR CORRUPT A**ES.

A few other factual points:
Number A: the two parties are NOT THE F***ING SAME. Stop with that f***ing lying bull-f***ing-s***.
Letter 2: Dem voters outnumber Repub voters overall. If Dem voters vote Dem, we win. If Dem voters don’t vote Dem, we lose.
Thirdly: If you aren’t voting, you aren’t using your Constitutional rights.
Fact the Fourth: You can vote Dem, or Repub, or for some idiot third-party yahoo who is there to help Repubs steal Dem votes. Only by casting votes for Democrats do we beat “Republicans”.

It’s math, period. Pound all the other hifalutin philosophical bilge right up your own a** along with a heaping helping of sand. More votes win. Fewer votes lose. Math.

Ohio flipped from Purple to Red because of fewer votes that can be counted with your shirt, pants and socks on. Less than ten votes in one district did the trick. So don’t tell this writer that your vote is of no consequence: women, children, and every taxpayer in the state are suffering because a few f***ing Dem voters did not vote for a single Ohio Democratic candidate in 2012.

Once again: If you can vote, PLEASE do so. If you choose not to and you could have, f*** you and the high f***ing horse you f***ing rode the f*** in on.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Guest Blogger: Mr. Scorpio on Palin the Millionaire

Sometimes Mr. Blunt and Cranky happens upon a post that deserves sharing. Thus it is today, with this bit of awesomeness from Internet DJ Mr. Scorpio:

Today, as it just so happens, I found out that Sarah Palin is worth twelve million dollars

Marinate on that thought for a moment: As a person who all but demonstrates the intellectual dexterity of a rusty crankshaft all of the time, she has somehow accumulated twelve million dollars.

Obviously, you don’t need to be smart in order to get rich in America. That much is sure.

Now, how much of that she had before she became America’s most egregious example of poor family planning, I don’t know.

But she’s rich beyond her dreams of avarice now. Scratch that… Her dreams of avarice knows no bounds, as long as there are gaggles of willing rubes for her to grift. Hence, we see her advantage.

Basically, to get rich, all she had to do was invest in a complete lack of scruples. Let’s forget about any moral compass that she may have… It only points toward money.

Just recently, our favorite Wicked Grifter of the North indicated that she may toss her pointed hat into the political ring in some upcoming election. Now we’re talking about a person who’s too moronic to be voted dog catcher, but that’s not going to prevent her from exercising her delusions of grandeur, now is it?

Say whatever you will about this babbling, gun toting wolf murderer, she has a purpose and she has the blindingly stupid belief in herself to achieve that purpose. Personally, I’m aghast that she incoherently blundered her way into accumulating 12 million dollars. This says even less about her than it says about how many people who are walking around today who are willing to give her all of that money.

Many of these people vote, I’m sure of that. And they consistently vote wrong.

Now, I’m not worried for one second that Caribou Barbie is going to stumble into the Oval Office. If she can still operate her lucrative business model in the same way she has for the last six years, getting elected would be too expensive for her and limiting as well.

The grift is on. That’s all that matters. Whatever she does, just remember that no one ever got rich by underestimating the stupidity of the American people.

In Bible Spice’s case, quite the opposite.

Nice takedown of the Sparklemoose, innit? Thanks to the author for allowing this repost. Check out his writing and musical activities.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

Uh, You DO Know that Obama’s Not on the Ballot, Right?

Just checking, because lots and LOTS of people are yammering on about him during this year’s campaign. Which is pretty f***ing stupid, because OBAMA CAN’T BE F***ING RE-ELECTED. The pundits and “news” types are all ratchet-jawing about the man, but in truth he matters not one bit for next Tuesday’s contests.

The Senatorial candidates matter. The Gubernatorial candidates matter. The House candidates matter. So too do the other state and local ballot options. They matter, and they matter a LOT. (For example, McConnell, Boehner, and a host of other politicos are up for re-election or de-election.)

By your actions you can help turn this country into a Red Hell or a Purple Patchwork (It’ll take a Helluva lot more than one election to turn America Blue). You can take away our rights, or give them back to us. You can enable us to: feed the kids or starve them; fight or cower; fix or ignore; pay or go broke; function or fall apart; all of these vitally important matters are in the hands of voters on November 4th, 2014.

But Obama is NOT on the ballot. We kinda need to ignore him when we hit the voting booth, because the people for whom we DO cast ballots can actually make our lives better or worse.At the very least, we need to focus on the people and issues that are on the table this coming Tuesday.

The media moguls and bribe artists would love nothing better than to have us focus on a lame-duck President: that enables them to play their sleazy shell games via distraction and misdirection, f***ing us over royally in the process. We The People need to see past the sleight of hand and focus on the task at hand.

Like Obama or loathe him, as you choose: but you can’t vote for him this year. Concentrate on the people you CAN vote for instead.

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

THIS is how Dems can Win. Easily.

Everybody assumes that Dem turnout will suck out loud this election. And it looks like that could well be true. If so, Democrats have no one but themselves to blame for the succeeeding years of Teapublican rape, pillage and plunder.

But there IS a way for Dems to win. An easy way. A way that can work, and requires less than half an hour’s time from each Dem voter. Here it is:

VOTE. That’s it. If Dems vote in numbers that exceed the current dismal expectations, they will win races. Lots of races.

This is because Repubs are assuming Dems WON’T vote. So their plans are based on crap Dem turnout. Increasing our turnout messes up their plans.

Plus, voting machine hacks are programmed in advance, and are based on projected turnout. If Dems exceed turnout, the hacks fail and Dems can win.

The biggest problem in making this happen? Disengaged, apathetic Dem voters. For example: Ohioans as a rule pretty f***ing pathetic when it comes to doing anything other than bitching and moaning about our government. So Repubs are projected to keep 100% of power in the state for another four years.

Now, ask yourself, “what would happen if just a few thousand extra Dem votes were cast in the Buckeye State?”. Answer: Some of those motherf***ing Repubs would be cast out of office, replaced by Democrats. That, Gentle Reader, would be a very good thing indeed. In Ohio, and across the nation. Add more votes, win more victories.

Come on, let’s give the bastards one in the eye. Let’s confound the pundits and give the Elephants an atomic wedgie. Let’s all vote. The occupants of the House O’ Cranky mailed in our ballots today. Who’s next?

Mr. Blunt and Cranky

The Road to Dystopia

Your humble correspondent and his amazingly tolerant spouse spent last weekend with family, preparing for all manner of family-altering events. In the course of that, we were exposed to Cable “News” of various flavors (we don’t typically watch that kind of crap at chez Blunt and Cranky) on family members’ TeeVees, as they keep those channels on during waking hours. This was a depressingly revelatory experience, and it explained a lot about how America has would up so close to becoming a Dystopia on the order of Brave New World, 1984, or one of such.

What this writer saw was a load of propaganda, innuendo, speculation, dissimulation, distraction, obfuscation, panic-mongering, manipulation, and outright lies: call it 90+% of the programming. Any actual news appeared at random and infrequently. This, whether one was subjected to Fox, CNN, or MSNBC. The vast majority of airtime was swallowed up by “panel discussions”, “analysis”, and members of the the Punditocracy doing their Pundit thing.

So this morning, listening to the Beeb on the car radio, all one heard was the Brit Flavor of the same programming. Perhaps a bit more news there, but not by a lot. And it brought home the pervasiveness of the phenomenon: we are getting the same sort of near-as-no-matter brainwashing as described by Huxley or Orwell. Big Brother may not be watching us 24/7/365 yet, but He is most certainly doing His very best to control our thinking. And having great success at it, too.

Ebola? Be afraid, shun the infected!
A mass shooting? Be afraid, buy more guns and hide!
Terrorists? Be afraid, elect authoritarians!
People of Color in our country? Be afraid, vote to take away their rights!

On and on, on nearly every topic (except the occasional cat video), fear was the product being sold. And a neo-Fascist, authoritarian approach was the lone solution being presented as the “only way” to be “safe”.

America has gone down this road before: the “Redskins”, the “Yellow Peril”, and the “Red Scare” are just a few examples of how the powers that be use the media to manipulate us, mislead us, and bit by bit, enslave us. By pitting us against the “Other” du jour, we are led down a twisted road to a Dystopian nation, in which we will all be at risk of being “Othered” if we don’t stay in line.

One bright spot: our President doesn’t watch cable news: http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/jay-carney-president-obama-is-various-reader-of-print-does-not-watch-cable-news_b243577 One very dark spot: this is presented as a very unusual and possibly negative thing. By, of course, cable news:

STELTER: Is it true the president doesn’t watch any cable news?

CARNEY: It is true, which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t get news, in a real time basis. He does. He’s a voracious consumer of the printed word, even the electronic printed word, and but he doesn’t — he doesn’t watch cable news. I have spent, you know, countless hours with him on Air Force One, especially, in the conference room where we always had the TV on, and it was never in any of the trips I ever took with him, tuned in to cable news.

So hey, cool, the Prexy isn’t getting the full brainwash treatment. Yay. He’s not peddling as much fear and loathing as most DC Politicos. But of course, most people don’t like him much, so who cares what he has to say?

I know most people don’t like Obama; after all, I heard it on CNN this weekend…

Mr. Blunt and Cranky