TBT: The Brutal Truth

A Meme Is A Meme

posted by Sizemore at 4:54 AM | 1 comment(s)

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Two Maps That Aren't A Gas

posted by Sizemore at 11:21 PM | 0 comment(s)

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The Drowning Pool

posted by Sizemore at 10:59 PM | 0 comment(s)

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Gawd Damn The Fixer-Man

posted by Sizemore at 12:35 AM | 0 comment(s)

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AmericaBlog Needs To Smokum Peace Pipe - FAST!

posted by Sizemore at 8:50 PM | 0 comment(s)

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RANT: Gay Marriage

posted by Sizemore at 12:25 AM | 0 comment(s)

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And Yet Another Rovian Swerve ...

posted by Sizemore at 5:28 PM | 2 comment(s)

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De-creating Frankenstein's Shit-Monster

Over in Shaker-Land, Mr. Shakes attempted to do something that many people before him have tried to do and met nothing but complete failure -- to give the average knuckle-dragging human progressive male a rhetorical labotomy. The results are in and it's a day to marked on the calendar. With ever surgery, there results always spell good news and bad news. Sometimes, however, there's good news and better news masquerading under the banner of "bad news". We've reached that rate occurance because the good news here is Mr. Shakes actually fucking succeeded. The bad news (e.g. better news) is the progressive male establishment had better start quaking in their Doc Martins:

This morning, Shakes asked me why it is that there are so many men, including far too many progressive men, who seem so bloody-mindedly determined to malign and attack the feminist movement, even as they are supportive of individual feminists. What is it, she wondered, that makes it feel so threatening, that elicits the urge to try to discredit it or deny its necessity? It’s not an easy question to answer, particularly as it reminds me of positions I once held, because I had never stopped to question why I held them.

Men (and here, I generally mean straight men) are conditioned—by the news media, by the entertainment industry, by religious fundamentalism, by the government, and by other men—to believe that, first of all, they have a more important set of responsibilities and rights than women, and that, not only do they have these things, but that they deserve them and should do everything they can to defend them.

This tendency among men to swallow this bullshit strikes me as being particularly stupid.

It is stupid, but one can't help but notice that human beings -- both men and women; especially American men and women -- have devoted the last 20-30 years of their lives to raising bullshit eating out to be not only an artform, but compulsary to survival. We either love our bullshit or we're very selective when it comes to our Recommended Daily Allowance of bullshit. Isn't that something? We can count our calories, or carbs, our fat grams and such but stop dead short of counting the unmitigated "Go Large" bushels of BS we'll inhale as if it were Albuterol.

Why do we suck down it all down? Probably because the lack of an attention span longer than the wick on a lady finger is where the creation, marketing, and distribution of bullshit via the media comes in as it conveniently fullfills some kind of morbid, sick, corruptive need for a "quick fix" to all the world's vast problems and issues to immediately take center stage and germinate into "conventional wisdom" (e.g. political correctness) as fast as possible.

The faster that pile of prime excremento de toro can germinate into a monalithic golem, the harder it is for the more enlightened and alert masses to hold their breath from the noxious stench long enough to get within striking distance to knock it the fuck down. But, yes - there indeed is a link to our growing lack of an honest attention span that makes us not only just gullible to bullshit, but readily hungry for it to the point where we deaden our own ears and conscience to our internal bullshit alarm going "Pfffffft! Pfffffft!" as if is were a Hindenberg-sized whoopie cushion placed between Karl Rove's asshole and Jeff Gannon's dick on those nights he checked in but didn't check out.

And, of course, anyone with pets knows that a well-irrigated, moist pile of shit is tougher to deal with than when it dries out and hardens. Thus, the media continues to sprinkle water over the bullshit golem every now of then. Gotta keep it watered. Oh, and nothing pisses the media and the patriarchal "Daddy" politicians off than watching the insolent, unwashed, grubby-handed children rebel against their convenient dung babysitter. They create a shit-monster within months and we devote years in trying to de-create it. They might send us to bed without our supper but we send their asses back to the fuckin' drawing board to develope and even stronger, more impervious shit-monster.

Alas, I've two fears of feminism and not because of what it is or its principals. No, I fear feminism because with the combined darth of attention spans among most Americans along with our penchant for gorging ourselves on every single "quick fix" bullshit story the media churns out for them, I can't help but worry that the moment the feminists ressurrect their total equality stump speeches, we're just gonna have more of the same -- a deliberately cyclic, orgiastic, mental masturbatory Pfffffffft! that stunts actual progression. For example it won't surprize me one bit if the next President kicks out with more oppressive "Deadbeat Dad" legislation in order to re-irrigate the "conventional wisdom" shit-golem for Policy-Studies to continue collecting government contracts for their "Catch And Release" program and I fear the feminists along with most Americans will be ordered and instructed by patriarchal "Daddy" government to accept it or else. Both Bush and Clinton did it before them and, besides the housing market, child support collection is a vast revenue ponzi scheme for the U.S Government.

But if I were calling the shots right now, I'd pardon every so-called "Deadbeat Dad" and "Deadbeat Mom" and free them from jail (if there is any "Deadbeat Moms" in jail). Why? In order to make room for the all the Republicans and Democrats in Washington D.C. right this second (Forget the Bush Administration - I've got a special venue reserved for them and it's called The Hague).

Also, they'll probably truck out with another demogogic violent video games campaign, opting to blow another $100 Million on another worthless study on 'em instead of delivering what we really need: healthcare, increases in minimum wage, increases on welfare and other social programs. As for why divorce became so common over the past 20 years, I believe it's because our politicians (and their corporate task-masters) deliberately conceded our leadership in many areas to the third world, particularly our leadership in the automotive, electronics, textile, and steel industries. The loss of these industries have eroded the middle class, leaving them jobless and scraping by financially. Finances are typically what married couples argue about. These arguements are loaded with alot of verbal and psychological abuse, throwing a marriage on the rocks. From there, it's not uncommon for physical abuse to manifest itself over time, which tosses marriages across the point of no return -- nobody likes being abused. Nobody.

Perhaps, however, that fear is misguided. The following from Mr. Shakes gives me hope:

Men need to get it through their heads that they, too, are under the heel of power structures that have no interest in promoting their welfare. They must understand that the rights and privileges that they have hitherto been enjoying fall far short of the privileges they could enjoy were they to try and achieve them. The internecine warfare that occurs between women and men, people of color and white people, straights and gays, as they all squabble like schoolchildren in an attempt to gain or deny rights, is exactly what those in power want. They promote it, they foment it, they do everything they can to aggravate it, because they know that if we were all ever to get our fucking shit together, and demand that the society we all live in and contribute to should be fair and decent to everyone, then the egregious wealth and power that they enjoy would finally meet its end.

What men need to understand is that their wives, the black guy across the street, the gay guy next door, are not the only ones toiling under the weight of a patriarchal system that doesn’t benefit all men, but instead a select few who hold all the power and all the wealth in their hands, the weight of a society that rewards capital and a slavish work mentality over human dignity and the freedom of individuals to express their own interests and realize their full potential as human beings.

Shakes once pointed out to me that the etymology of patriarchy is father, not man, which is an observation that struck right at the heart of the matter for me. In an abusive family, the sons are beat right along with the daughters. Would it not make more sense for these sons to band themselves with their sisters, with whom they, in fact, have more in common than with their father, instead of beating their sisters, too, as mere agents of the abusive father? In the latter case, they only sustain a system that is just as shitty for them as for their sisters. As we spoke about this, Shakes noted, “Abuse by proxy carries the same illusion of garnering the father’s approbation as the American Dream deceives those who will never walk the halls of power.”

Could it be possible - nay, likely - that the feminists and humanists will no longer ravenously inhale another bullshit story from the media? No longer flatten themselves in childlike obediance at the feet of the shit-golem? Have we ultimately come to the revelation that we -- man, woman and child -- have finally reached our breaking point with patriarchy politicians who, after blowing millions of dollars for the privilege of a $160,000-$180,000 government job up on the Hill, dare to turn around and think they can just push and shove us around into blindly accepting whatever it is they and the Corportocracy wishes to do, even if it's against our own welfare, our needs? Are we about to rise up in defiance of the unmitigated abuse from them and start demanding that they instead listen to us like they're supposed to?

Sure as hell sounds like it and if that's really the case, then pass me the T-Shirt -- I'm a fuckin' feminist right here and now. Forever and always. Anyone that doesn't like it? Pffffffft!

The following little morsel from Mr. Shakes's post, however, compells me to make a few startling revelations about myself and brings me to my second fear of feminism -- a fear that's also probably misguided, although I can't help myself:

This relegation to powerlessness is not solved by a small-minded attempt to gain power over others who, in the grand scheme of things, are equally powerless.

This line is exactly why I resist all temptation or manipulation - either by the media, friends, family, etc. - to go for full custody of my daughter Gwen. If anything, the only temptations I have is because my mother could then put her on her social security and the extra cash would sure help us. Another reason would be to insure Gwen makes it to pre-school as "Mouse" (my ex-fiance and Gwen's mother) and her current lover (whom I've known since the mid-1980s as his cousin is my best friend) are having to relocate constantly.

Other than that, I have no real motivation to do so unless I was certain there was abuse and I could prove it. Granted, I've got theories that there is abuse but since everyone in Mouse's family adore me to death and waste no time in giving me (or making sure I get) the latest gossip, they're also the primary source of these theories. But theories aren't enough. Plus there's motive to consider, and the motives of both hers and my families aren't what I would call totally altruistic, especially not after half of them bailed when Mouse's father litigated for guardianship of Gwen a few years back just so he could put her on his health insurance.

But from a big picture perspective, these fools don't understand that, after 5 years, Mouse and I have finally buried the hatchets and reached a mutual understanding. As a result, we get along better seperated than we did together -- just like we did when we were friends for 7 years before the relationship ever started. And if members from both our respective families would simply let us be Gwen's parents instead of them trying to be usurp that role from us, our seperate lives would improve even better.

Plus, the only reason why I'm a "Deadbeat Dad" (yes, Ms. Shakes - pass me one of your kitty-cats; I beez hongweee! FEED!) is because two years after Mouse had left me, she had to get on welfare. Clinton's ridiculous welfare reform makes child enforcement a default proceedure. In other words, in order to recieve assisstance, the welfare office forced her to sic the beauracracy on me, whether she wanted to or not. No way around it. At the time, I only made $4 an hour through the Relative Care provider program my sister was on and whatever cash I gleaned by doing computer jobs was going to keep my mother and I living after the death of my father.

Regardless, this is another reason why I don't go for custody -- by doing so, I'm just shifting the "deadbeat" role from my poor ass to her $6-an-hour poor ass. Considering that a wage like that, adjusted to today's rate of inflation, equals out to be the equivilent of the minimum wage of the mid to late 1960s, how in the hell is she supposed to pay me child support and live?!? Plus, if I were to get on welfare, they'd force me to sic the Child Support collection/enforcement ghestapo on her, too.

And for what purpose other than to make white, well-to-do, middle/upper class people feel better about their SUVs and Athlon64s, make 'em more secure in their marriages, make nefarious corporations feel better about exploiting the cheap illegal immigrant labor force, and make politicians feel better about their not-so-blind trusts?!?

Fuck that and them!

I've got something none of them bastards have: a conscience. It's because of that conscience that I'm more than happy to wear any demogogic label the status-quo wishes to pin on me in their vain, egotistical attempts to make themselves appear better than everyone else. So, yeah, I'm a "Deadbeat, Liberal, Feminist Dad" and proud of it. I wasn't put on this world to be their play thing; their pawn, their scapegoat. And I'm certainly not going to lose a drop of sleep over what they may or may not think of me, especially not after 70% of them thought Saddam helped Al-Queda conduct 9/11. I need their thoughts like I need a hole in the head.

But yet, whose fault is it? Whose to blame?

We both are -- it was a relationship that shouldn't have happened for many reasons but the crux of the matter was that I knew she would cheat on me because she had cheated on every man she's ever been with, I had caught her netsex cheating on me twice before she physically cheated on me, but yet I was a bleeding heart, easily lulled by her sympathy-seeking "Freeper" personality. Add a good dose of pussywhippedness (is that a word? It is now!), and you've got a glutton for punishment.

That revelation brings me to why I harbor a second fear towards feminists. Like Mr. Shakes says about most progressive men, when they think "feminist", the immediately think of women on the same level as when one thinks of a "deadbeat", they automatically think of men. It's so much of my own pre-conditioning that it'll take some considerable ammount of time to shake it off. In the meantime, I can't can help but think "FEMINIST=WOMAN" and it reminds me all over again ...

It's not the fact that she physically cheated on me that hurt me. She's not the only woman in my past that has done that. It's the finer details of it all. When Mouse became pregnant with Gwen, her plug was paper thin and she was always spotting. Her OBG/YN naturally put her on high risk for miscarriage. This meant that I was cut off. No big deal - I was a virgin for 26 years so what the hell is 10-12 months? Nothing. Just means I'm regaled to going Pfffffffft! alone in the shower more often and gives me something to really look forward to after Mouse heals up a month or two after Gwen's birth.

Or, so I thought.

Gwen was born in February of 2000. Mouse cheated on me with my ex-friend in July of 2000. Translation? Not only was I cut off for an estimated 14 months but the very first person Mouse offered herself to after Gwen's birth was not me; it was him. Twice. In the end, she wasn't sorry she did it - she was more upset that she got busted and how I busted her. My natural instinct was to wash my hands of her like I did of all the others but Gwen changed all that. My every option at the point lead to the same outcome: a denial of a daily relationship and interaction with my meany-rat.

Granted, that was 5 years ago and I like to believe that I'm over that and cite proof of it with the fact that I don't let it cloud my judgement anymore, certainly not to the point where I give in to all the manipulation around me to drag her into court for full custody of Gwen. She moved on and so have I.

But have I really gotten over it?

Nope. Not since all I've done is moved on to celibacy, mostly because my experiance with Mouse has unfortunately instilled a fear of women/feminism in general. In other words, although I no longer let my experiance with Mouse cloud my judgement in that regard, I am, however, letting that experiacne cloud my overall judgement of women and feminism. Goofy? Yep. Unfair? Uh-huh. And yes, sometimes I sit and here and say to myself, "Alright, Sizeless -- look at the big fucking picture here. She cut you off for 14 months, gave you the greatest Valentines Day present you could ever want with the birth of Gwen, bangs one of your friends before you, and then blames you for her cheating. Shit, dude! Save for slaughtering your daughter in front of you, that's a level of cruelty no other woman could ever top. At least, not intentionally. Never in a million years! Bring your walls down, man, and let a new woman in ..."

Yet that's exactly why the walls remain: I don't want to risk lowering them and find out -- regardless if it may either confirm my suspicions or leave me pleasantly surprized with a more caring and loving woman standing just behind their destruction.

---

Bad luck and trouble's my only friend.
I've been down ever since I was ten.

"Born Under A Bad Sign"
Cream
(1966)

posted by Sizemore at 2:10 PM | 0 comment(s)

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...

Mary Scott O'Connor is having "Thief 3" flasbacks and probably without even having played "Thief 3" at all. Wow!

*imitates stone golem voice*

...Nuuuthing buuuut siiiilenccce ...

posted by Sizemore at 6:07 AM | 3 comment(s)

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Jesus Freaks Tripped Up By Logic

Bill Nye, The Science Guy, pissed off the Fristians.

Skippy's got the skinny ...

posted by Sizemore at 5:59 AM | 0 comment(s)

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Dain Brammage

Yes, it's from Nancy Pelosi's diary on dKos yesterday but I couldn't resist. Follow along with me because she needs to be buried ... and I'm the fuckin' undertaker:

Today, I offered my eleventh privileged resolution to hold the Republican Rubber Stamp Congress accountable for its abuse of power and ethical lapses. And for the eleventh time, the Republicans voted to shut down debate on these issues.

Whoa, wait a second here. You bashed your empty fuckin' skull against the Republican brick wall eleven goddamned times only to turn around and not only do you have the nerve to grandstand in front the Kossacks as if you're proud of it but you even have the outlandish termity to describe your eleven headbutts as "privileged"?!? Newsflash Pelosi: In baseball, it's three strikes and you're out. After the third resolution, you should've peppered them all with so many ethics complaints that Cheney's crony would demand licensing residuals.

If you want "privileged", look no further than the eight strikes too many you gave to the Republicans. As for ethical lapses, look no further than the nearest mirror. As for campaign money, go flip burgers at a Wendy's. Waste your own time and dime -- you've demonstrated a penchant for wasting time and dimes admirably eight times already. Too bad the dimes weren't yours ...

My friends, when an innocent man is accused of a crime, he works to clear his name. He does not do everything in his power to sweep that crime under the rug.

He will indeed do everything in his power to sweep his crimes under the rug when an ignoramus gives him eight chances too many to do so. As for calling me "friend", that's a little premature. The day you agree to recind the remainder of your 6 figure salary for the rest of this year in the interest of being a friend to your constitutents is the same day you can call me "friend". Not a moment sooner.

Oh, and don't even dare patronize me with any of that sanctimonious "attack blogger" bullshit -- people who blow tens to hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning for the privilege of a 160-180K government job NEVER has the right to lecture me on a goddamned thing, especially on matters of personal responsibility and civics. On the contrary, it's the other way around and between my two feet and your two ass cheeks, a lecture on any of those things from me won't cost the American tax-payer a single cent.

Alright. I think that's enough. No, wait ... AHAH!

Pelosi, you used the phrase "the American people" three times in your entire diatribe.

That's three strikes. Get the fuck out.

posted by Sizemore at 12:22 PM | 1 comment(s)

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The Beginning Of The End ...

On or around April 13th, TBT will be on hiatus ...

TBT and Charter Communications has a long sordid history that repeated itself over the last 24-48 hours. Between 2-7AM yesterday morning, Charter not only disabled our single digital cable reciever but also my internet service. What for? Charter claims we're not paying our bill ... but Charter's billing practices are the problem.

Right in front of me is the bill they printed on March 13, 2006 (which I would've scanned and posted here if the assholes at Lexmark provided downloadable drivers for an LX1100). I recieved this on or around March 20th. By flipping the bill over to the back, it shows the billing in detail. The package we've got here is their HBO/Cinemax And STARZ SuperPak along with their 3MB Down/256k Up internet service. This comes out to about $99 a month. Without the digital service, my mother loses Lifetime Movie Network and my internet service goes up in price. Either way, Charter's got the deck stacked at $80-$100 a month no matter what.

The detailed billing information also shows the dates. So, on this particular bill -- printed on March 13th and recieved on around March 20th -- the billing period is between March 21 thru April 20th. Do you see the obvious problem? Of course, you do: Charter Communications is demanding advanced payment for a month's worth of services that they haven't even delievered yet ... and that payment is due upon reciept of the bill!

In other words, Charter Communications, like most capitalist businesses, sanctimoniously claim to have more rights and more entitlement to your money than you do, sometimes before you even earn it! If you don't give into their Kafka-esque demands within 2 weeks after getting the bill, they'll cut your service. If you make a small payment, it doesn't matter. They want their $100 paid in full within 2 weeks of getting the bill or they'll interrupt the service.

Who in the hell do they think they are -- an insurance company?!? A cell-phone conglomerate?!? An online retailer?!? Those are the only business that can justify advanced payment for their services because it's a no-brainer. But for a communications company to engage in this is ridiculous.

Would you tolerate your favorite grocery store sending you an invoice where they pre-charge you $200-$300 for a month's worth of grocercies and demand that you come in, pick them up, and run your debit card through the machine (as a form of formality/"good faith") within two weeks or else be banned from shopping there ever again?!? Would you tolerate NewEgg.Com to pre-bill and slowly ship to you over the course of two weeks $400 in computer upgrades exactly one month before you even got the $400 to spare (and only ship half of the equipment because you didn't launch their website and formally order the parts within that two week time frame)?!? Like hell you would ...

Of course, a Charter Communications PR flak would defend the company by saying that the billing practices are ethical in comparison to most business standards and that Charter's billing policy (e.g. charging people ahead of time before tendering services) is a means of establishing good faith relations with its customers.

I used to do marketing research so I know a good pile of Public Relations bullshit when I see it. In such a case, the Charter PR flak is just saying that Charter customers shouldn't be concerned and instead should happily tolerate being charged ahead of delivery of services all under the self-serving corporate rubric of "good faith". To put it differently, Charter is saying, "Show us good faith by paying us now and we'll recriprocate that good faith over the course of the next 30 days with service. Next month, the process begins anew."

Tell me: would you have "good faith" in doing business with a company that has the SEC breathing down, whose ridiculous payment terms have gone on long before I started devoting attention to them here on TBT, and as of this very moment appears to be swimming between $18-25 Million in debt?!?

No, you would not and, if you live in Michigan, you definately would not. Why? Because unlike other states in the USA that get to enjoy the four seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, we Michiganians/Michiganders get to enjoy only two fucking seasons: Winter and Construction. With the Construction season comes potential interuptions or outages of cable or other communications-based service, usually because some nitwit contractor on I-94 or I-75 sliced a fibre. Service can be down for hours or days depending on a myriad of factors, meaning you're going to get pissed off, call up Charter Communications, and demand an explaination, make some serious demands like having your account pro-rated with the loss, or for them to give you something else.

Whether they give in to your demands is contingent upon the mood of the underpaid Level 1 tech. They might; they might not. If they don't, tough shit -- they still got your money because Charter demands payment ahead of time, are often the only game in town in some areas of the USA, and whose PR flaks will justify it all because of their outlandish debt. In other words, you and I -- the customer -- become personally and financially responsible for the lack of personal, finacial, and ethical responsibility of Paul Allen, Wally Weitz, Warren Buffet and the rest of Charter Communications' shareholders and pro-capitalist appologists. In other words, Wall Street tramples Main Street. Empower the rich and embalm the poor.

George Carlin said it best: "Pfffffffffffffttt!!!"

If Charter wants to bill me between March 21st and April 20th, fine. But they sure as hell aren't under any position whatsoever to demand payment for it on March 20th and won't ever recieve such payment until April 21st or later. And that brings me to the announcement that TBT will be going on hiatus: if Charter Communications does not recieve the whopping $28 overdue ballance -- that's right a biiiiiig $28 ballance -- by April 12th, one of their techs will come out and disconnect the service entirely at the tap. Yes, because I guess Paul Allen is $28 short of buying another worthless, gas-guzzling, water-polluting yacht and slinging Arby Melts and curly fries for slightly above minimum wage is for other people.

Until then, I'm just gonna try making the best of what's left of my time. While T.S. Eliot mentioned the world ending with a whimper, I'm going out with a series of loud fucking bangs -- the video camera is on the charger, the YouTube account is secure, and all I need now is a good AVI to MPEG/MOV converter ...

posted by Sizemore at 4:07 AM | 0 comment(s)

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The Multiple Americas

As I mention in my previous post, there's was a big stink between John Aravosis and his readers and it's my opinion that both John and some of this complainers are off base as hell. Who is more offbase, in my opinion, is John Aravosis. He wonders:

I've noticed over the years a decided fear of money, hatred of money, or at least discomfort of money by some people on the left.

Whether it's concern over the heads of liberal non-profits or big corporations making too much money, or snarky comments I get whenever I try to raise money off the site or, God forbid, actually take a vacation, there's a certain disdain amongst a certain segment of the left for having or spending money in any way beyond bare subsistence, and I'm trying to figure out why.

I recall back when the WaPo suspended comments on their blog, John and a score of other A-list liberal bloggers went ballistic over Howell and Brady's intellectual dishonesty. When Howell and Brady, in the MSM's own patented and predictable method of pure sactimony, dared to ask why they were getting attacked by bloggers, the bloggers justifiably responded by pointing out the very answer to that very question laid beneath Howell and Brady's own beak. Isn't it now ironic that for John Aravosis -- being one of the largest read, most successful, A-list bloggers among the left -- has to ask such a question when the answer is right under his own beak:

John has a joint law degree and masters in foreign service from Georgetown, where he studied under former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. He is an avid writer, and in addition to writing THE LIST, he has worked as a stringer for the Economist magazine, and for years was the US Politics Guide at About.com.

John's policy experience includes stints in the US Senate, the World Bank, and the Children's Defense Fund. John is also an occasional TV pundit, having appeared on The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball with Chris Matthews, ABCNews World News Tonight, CNN, Court TV, and more. John speaks five languages and has visited or worked in 28 countries.

When some members of John's audience reads the bold part, the gears in their head start turning. And who can blame them? Let's face it - a person with a joint law degree and a masters degree along with experiance in the U.S. Senate, The World Bank, and the CDF is a person that probably got paid very handsomely for those gigs (that person would HAVE to be paid handsomely to afford living in the overpriced hell-hole of Washington D.C. for 20 years), isn't going to be standing in a welfare and emergency food commodities line anytime soon, and could easily score gainful employment damn near anywhere in the world at the drop of an orchid petal or a Floridian chad.

As a result, those readers might think, "This guy sure as hell doesn't really need to fuckin' blog for a living" whenever John beats the fundraising drum. From there, they might ask, "Why in the hell is he?!?" Hmmm. Good question and I don't think activism alone will suffice as a decent enough answer as I suspect a growing majority of the American people are about as fed up with rightwing "pretender class" Americans as they are of leftwing "pretender class" Americans ...

Those wheels really start rotating like Scotty McClellan on a Sit-and-Spin when they read the following paragraph from John's first rant:

I was raised a good capitalist boy in a good immigrant home in Chicago, my family worked hard to put us in a nice suburban home with nice suburban schools, and the occasional family vacation out east or out west, and you know, I liked it. I liked it when I got to do my junior year abroad. I liked it when I saved up enough money to visit Europe on my own. And when I did well enough in school to get summer jobs in Paris and Buenos Aires, both in the same summer, I liked that too. This isn't stuff I'm ashamed of, it's stuff I've earned and I'm proud of accomplishing. And it's all stuff that money helped me do.

Right here it all is, cleary under his beak and yet he has to ask why?!?

The very reason why there's a growing animosity towards money among the Left is directly linked to the Lefts own lockstep to the right over the past 10-15 years under the auspices of the DLC's pro-capitalist, pro-business cretin agenda -- an agenda that got personified by Bill Clinton's 8 year reign as President. Clinton was nothing more than a moderate Conservative Republican wrapped in Democratic Party rhetoric. As a result, Democrats also began to believe and adopt some of insensitive right-wing jargon that castigated and alienated their own base -- poor people, the elderly, the uneducated, whole or broken families on welfare, etc. as if thier lot in life was of their own fault for not going along with the status-quo's rightward march, prostating themselves at the feet of Capitalism in much the same way Muslims prostate themselves before Allah.

As Dr. Gerry Lower explains:

Under capitalism's dominion ... liberalism has had to accommodate so much greed-inspired nonsense [that] liberalism is as dead-lost as conservatism is dead-wrong.

Such greed-inspired nonsense always appears in the rantings and ravings of not only corruptive and belligerent Republican conservative capitalist shills but also amongst the politically-correct bourgeois Liberal Democratic capitalist shills. Thus, since John confesses to be a capitalist, it's no surprise he sees himself as deserving of everything he has made, or acquired, or did. Those who dare dissent with him? John channels Neil Boortz:

But I can imagine some people on the left thinking that if you don't live like Ralph Nader, on a cot in your dingy old office ...

For those who aren't participating in this, yet again, as usual, bitch-fest about how all liberals are supposed to live like cappuchin monks, this comment isn't for you.

And as I've said many times, I don't plan on living like a monk to fulfill some weird cumbaya dream some of you have of all Democrats being poor and sad and stuck at home all day whining about how bad the world is.

Again, Dr. Gerry Lower goes all surgical:

Like wealthy conservatives, wealthy liberals see themselves as deserving of everything they have managed to acquire under capitalism. Their children deserve the very best educations in private schools, often times spending more money per year to educate one child than millions of working parents can earn in a year. For that matter, a good SUV can cost more than two working parents can make in a year. Then, of course, there is the vacation home, the sail boat, etc.

In other words, both conservative and liberal capitalism survives at the expense of poor working people, a fact of capitalism that has stifled meaningful human progress in America for half a century. Liberal capitalism is still capitalism. It abides the ludicrous right wing notion that sharing and socialism are on the path to hell on earth. It implicitly champions the ludicrous notion that competition and capitalism's corruption are not on the path to hell on earth.

The problem here is self-evident -- whether it's was Reaganomics or Clintonomics, only a small handfull of hard-working people saw their lot in life improve -- improvements that came only at the expense of those at the very bottom. Same can be said with Bush's cheap imitation of Reaganomics today. Now with a totally compromised Republican "Culture of Corruption" playing footsie with a knowingly complicit and therefore equally compromised Democratic "Culture of Complacency", a growing number of the Democratic base that marched rightward along with the capitalist, pro-business DLC status-quo are alienated and pissed off.

The targets of their ire? Money. Mammon. They see it has having way too much influence, way too much power, and even Molly Ivins agrees with them. Like her, they've had it with capitalism's over-indulgence about as much as they had it with fundamentalist Christianity's belligerence. Of course, their animosity is going to bleed over into the blogosphere. Hence it really shouldn't be a surprize to John Aravosis that when he - a self-professed capitalist - flaunts his adventures right out in the open, it's going to get attacked. John's answer to the problem? He borrows the GOPs "Slime And Defend" with a side order to Filet Au Troll Almondaine:

Peter, you have no idea what you're talking about. I'll put my experience as an agent of change up against yours any day. What have you done lately? Tell me about your spine, then let's talk.

First off, if you think I'm a Washington outsider you really haven't read my resume. I went to Gtown, have been here 20 years, worked for a Senator, worked at the World Bank, worked at the children's defense fund, did an internship with Zbigniew Brzezinksi, the state department, and on and on and on. I've traveled to 28 countries, speak 5 languages, have met heads of state and more.

I am not some regular guy from Topeka, sorry to disappoint you, and have never claimed to be. In fact, it's all of my experience that makes me who I am today. That makes me effective at what I do today. You have got to be kidding if you think I'm good at what I do because I'm not tainted by seeing and touching and feeling day to day life in Washington. Gimme a break, I live here and have for 20 years. I'm good at what I do because of the 20 years experience I've had living in this town.

You might be wondering who is the troll. I'll give you a hint: trolls have a tendency to drag you down to their level and then beat you over the head repeatedly with their "experiance".

Am I saying John is trolling is own blog?

You bet your ass, I am.

However, only a complete and utter fool would be touting their political experiance in this age as a means of defending themselves. Newsflash John: All the political experiance in the world shouldn't help one single Republican or Democrat in Washington D.C. right this second score an election win later this year since I suspect that the majority of Americans are convinced beyond a shadow of doubt that the experianced fuckers are the problem -- Left or Right!

When you've got mass corruption with one party (Rethugs) followed by a paralyzed and complacent opposition (Democrats), you can just toss experiance out the window with the Constitution because an inexperianced bastard can come along, framing the incumbent's strength (e.g. experiance) as part and parcel of the morass thus turning it into a weakness, and ultimately ending up sending the experianced politician on the first packiderm or jackass out of town.

It's ironic considering that, in order to combat the rising tide of animosity (and to avoid rightwing talking points sticking to the wall), the A-list liberal bloggers such as John, Markos, and a myriad of others are trying their damned to evangelize the pissed off masses into party unity all the while cashing in on capitalism themselves with their very own respective blogs, hoping the dickens that their readers will ignore the utter self-righteousness of it. Some of them have. But when Billmon addressed that very issue a while back in an L.A. Times op-ed pulling back the ol' curtain, it even earned him a few rakes over the coals:

Even as it collectively achieves celebrity status for its anti-establishment views, blogging is already being domesticated by its success. What began as a spontaneous eruption of populist creativity is on the verge of being absorbed by the media-industrial complex it claims to despise ... and having seen blogs I admired mutate into glorified billboards, and having witnessed the emergence of the "sponsored" blog (in which the blogger is literally an employee of, or contractor to, a corporate owner), I can see who's likely to have the last laugh.

Although Billmon today calls much of that op-ed "unadulterated myopia", I believe he's unfairly short-changing himself, especially when it comes to my second reason -- a reason that has me pissed off to no abandon at just about every A-list liberal blog out there: Why in the hell is it that with John Aravosis's vast experiance in political matters along with the combined power of partisan activist A-list blogs such as DailyKos, MyDD, Firedoglake, Glenn Greenwald -- some of which are loaded to the gils with blogads, getting scores of visitors every day and cashing in on them via contributions and what not, and recieving exposure in the MSM or on C-SPAN -- can get shown up and schooled totally out of the blue by two spanish DJs responsible for getting the feet of 500,000 people beating the pavement?!?

Markos gave the answer to that shit last September:

We are a media-saturated world, bombarded on all angles by information. A bunch of people marching in the street no longer have any serious emotional effect on media consumers.

Heh, I wonder if he's plucking that crow yet ...

In all of John Aravosis's childish thrashings, he only managed to hit the nail a few times on the head. First, the picture Katherine "Tits" Harris. Although I agree with the nay-sayers wholeheartedly that she's an absolute, worthless, evil, inhumane twat whose actions are greatly responsible for the blighted, over-privileged assholes in the White House right now, they are really offbase about being totally pissed at John for having his picture taken with her.

John is correct about those nay-sayers not being open to nuance and too blinded by partisan rage. Forgetting all about how "camp" the picture is (and it is indeed very "camp"), the implications of that picture could literally destroy the political future of Katherine Harris at a later time. Imagine that picture of Harris schmoozing with John Aravosis -- an openly and reknowned gay activist -- suddenly showing up within moments of Harris engergizing the wingnut, gay-bashing, Fundy Fristian base?!? When those Fundy Fristians see that, they're gonna want an explaination from Harris. Considering that the wingnut Christians of the GOP are too militant and partisan for their own good, she won't have an explaination that'll appease them.

So, yes - had I been John, I'd done the same thing. I'd have swallowed my bile and had my picture taken with Harris and posted it here on TBT. But, right below that picture would also be a series of censored photos detailing the long shower of gasoline, mineral spirits, and brake clean I baptized myself with in order to cleanse the filth of being within her presence. Contingency keeps the audience happy.

The second nail he hit on the head is the interesting fact that Conservative Republicans such as Harris and Newt Gingrich turn out to be charming people one-on-one. Although it's a shock to John's naysayers, I beleive it. Why? First off, nobody buys snake oil from a brooding stiff. Secondly, I've got a lot of Conservative Republican friends -- some of the most kindest, happy-go-lucky motherfuckers around. My liberal friends are just like me -- cold, brooding, gruff on the outside but once they trust you, they're just as decent. Also, Newt Gingrich to me is a lot of things, all of them rather negative save for one: Newt is not to be underestimated at all. Newt will not compliment anyone on how well they handled themselves on TV unless it was true. If you did good, Newt will be happy to tell you. If you sucked, Newt will happy to tell you. Had I appeared on TV and whether or not I rocked or if I bombed, I would grudingly listen to anything Newt may have to say to me afterwards. Doesn't mean I'd accept it or not. But I certainly would listen. Why? Because he's doing the same thing I should be doing -- keep thy friends close and thy enemies even closer.

Nevertheless, I can't help but feel the same degree of alienation towards John Aravosis that some readers felt after watching both rants unfold on his blog over the past year and I get a sense that these rants are nothing more than ways for John to drive a wedge between his readers and therefore weed out the non-capitalistic liberals from the capitalistic liberals, the latter being more company to his personal liking (or perhaps he assumes since they're capitalistic liberals, they got money!) In that regard, I no longer blame anyone that demands refunds for their contributions and/or stops reading John's blog.

That leads me to another contention of mine in all of this -- John has stated numerous times thoughout his donation drives that he doesn't want people too poor to donate. He's adamant about that and I commend him for it but here's the problem: what if someone too poor to donate to John's blog gave to him anyway?

That question needs to be asked because of common sense. Sometimes, people don't listen to admonishments. My own 5 year old could admirably demonstrate that shit. Adults are good for it, too. See a big sign that says "NO RIGHT TURN ON RED" and what do they do? Attempt their fuckin' turn anyway only to slam on the brakes over a pedestrian that just djinned into existance out of nowhere and then have the gall to blame them for it. One double-axe handle to the hood later and there's a big fistfight right in the middle of the goddamn the road (I root for the pedestrian, even when I'm not the pedestrian).

Anyway, what if by reading John's work over a length of time, a poor liberal gets a wrong impression about John and thus has a deep convinction of some kind to donate to John's blog anyway (regardless of his admonishments for such people not to do so) and now, because of John's antics with these two rants, is totally alienated and let down?!? Afterall, John made this argument to his alienated former audience:

You have no idea with who and what I talked about last night, and you won't ever. But don't for a minute assume it didn't happen simply because you don't know about it.

Likewise, John shouldn't make the assumption that a liberal reader that was too poor to donate to him wouldn't despite his own admonishments against it. How would he know this doesn't happen? Just because John might assume that a poor liberal would listen to those admonishments doesn't mean they actually did. How does he know? Better yet, how he's gonna find out?!? There seems to be no real genteel way for John or any liberal blogger to go about asking, either.

RANDOM LIBERAL BLOGGER: "Aight! All welfare mooches?!? Off my blog -- Now! Out of my public library, too, unless you're on break!"

Yeah, that'll go over real well ...

Unless they confess to him in his e-mail or HaloScan, he won't ever know anymore so than his readers will ever know about the "who and what" he talked about at the Gala. See? That's the inherit problem in all assumptions -- could be accurate; could be false. It's also an inherit problem in general activism -- words are just as powerful as money is and it's not uncommon for an activist to unknowingly touch people in such a way that people would be willing to part with the last goddamned buck to their name.

Personally, I'm too poor to give to any blog and TBT will be going dark anyway within the next few weeks. If there was a way for me to pull in $800-1,200 a month with this blog for a little while, not only could I stick around but the bills could be kept up and still leave me with enough cash to line Bush's pockets for the gas required to look for a full-time job, perferably one that pays $9 or more an hour (can't live on anything less). I believe in full disclosure but the finacial situation of my life is too much for me to get into and the last thing I intended for TBT is to, unlike John Aravosis, make my own sorry ass THE story. It's been my experiance that the people who, like John himself, claim to want to be judged by their work but spared the judgment of how they live often end up being the first to dish out to me ration upon ration of the latter before I recieve a drop of the former (and that's not counting the rightwing Boortz-loving Freepers).

With all that said, there's been times where I would've given to John or any of the other A-list blogs if I had the cash to do because, although they won't really impress until they can pull off an actual physical, 1 million strong, protest against either Bush, the war, the shredding of the Constitution, the MSM's continued penchant for propaganda, etc. (and actually be in the sonofbitch instead of at home or at a net-cafe blogging about it), I do admire the work they do.

Alas, had I done so only to see another one of these self-righteous rants from John, the last thing I'd do is demand a refund from him because it would then be obvious to me that he needed the money worse than I did and I'd be more apt to hope that perhaps he'd use the money to buy himself a clue or an ounce of humility while I relish in the fact that it'd be the last dime he ever scored from me. In other words, when confronted by being used and minipulated, I find it more constructive in the long run to just shut up, wash my hands of the crook, and go back to work (if I've got work to even go to). Bitching about being used and manipulated doesn't turn back the clock; just turns up the blood pressure.

In closing, these last two morsels from John doesn't sit well with me:

I have a good friend in liberal politics who always worked too much. We're talking until midnight every evening. He was working on AIDS policy, civil rights, education, poverty, all the good stuff. But he refused to ever take time to smell the roses, let alone sleep. I remember telling him once "what's the point in fighting for a world you never plan to live in?"

Strange. As a independent moderate that identifies with the human rights values of socialism along with the liberty of libertarianism, I often find that middle to upper-middle class (how Orwellian is that horseshit?) liberals and democrats see me as nothing more than a convenient means to a political end. In other words, they'll all pretend to be fighting for me and hound at me for a little unity as long as we're in agreement but the moment I dissent, I'm too-far to the left, tearing the party apart, and must be regaled back the the basement with the rest of the fucking quakers for not being "a team player"; for not licking the asses of the bourgeois status-quo soon after my vote is filched. I ask myself a slightly different question that the one you posed your friend: "What's the point in living in a world surrounded by fools and hypocrites that are awfully selective on whom they're willing to fight for and the criteria they're willing to do it?!?"

If you love this country and this world so much, why do you so hate anyone who tries to enjoy it?

Because it makes me wonder at whose expense are they enjoying it at and that's something neither the corruptive Republicans, the complacent Democrats, nor their respective capitalistic supporters will never find out. In order to do so, they would have to do something they're not willing to do anytime soon: To think outside the box. To take a needle to their own myopic cul-de-sacs they've carved out for themselves under the dominion of big business and capitalism, shake their minds and thoughts free from being permeated by commerce and dung, and then choose to see an unglossed, un-retouched, and un-airbrushed picture of America they've not seen in a long, long time -- warts and all.

Notice I said "choose" as a qualifier -- most of them would rather choose not to. Hurricane Katrina took that choice from them. While John and his remaining supporters may relish at the idea that the rising tide of liberals that loathe and dispise money and capitalism hasn't taken hold on the majority of the Democratic party just yet, that is the keyword: Yet. When our soldiers come home from Iraq, the choice could be swept from the board again.

----

Fuel the fire for war
It's man against mankind
Bruises that they bear
Been beaten down with time
Innocent people suffer the loss
Your broken hope so close to the cross
Sometimes, you just don't know
How low ...
How low you can go...
So low it's sickening
Low ... Low
Show some mercy ...

"Low"
Testament
(1995)

posted by Sizemore at 10:24 PM | 1 comment(s)

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