So Many Targets, I Need a Revolving Head

Tags

Ayn Rand, corporate America, GOP, Paul Ryan, wingnuts

Truth is, I sit here at the keyboard browsing through my reader, looking for something to resonate. And the choices are gargantuan. Shall I talk about the GOP talking head, Noelle Nikpour who was “interviewed” by Aasif Mondvi?

 She was a hoot, blathering on about how science was suspect because only  other scientists could judge another scientists work.  “How convenient!” she screeched. Why The American People can tell in their “guts” what science is real and which isn’t.

As Mondvi ridiculed her with ideas about “yeah, how dare another neurosurgeon decide whether your neurosurgeon did a good job on your head”, she nodded vacantly, not getting that she was being made a fool of.

Or, take Mark Rubio. I think he may be poison to whoever turns out to be the GOP nominee. His parents were exiles, who were forced out by Castro, and they family expected to return home to Cuba. What a nice bio that made. Except it wasn’t true. His parents were immigrants (big difference) and left years before Castro took over, and never made any attempt to return. Perfectly acceptable bio, but not one that gets the sympathy juices flowing.

But, today’s winner is Paul Ryan. (What is in the drinking water in Wisconsin?) I picked up on Ryan when the Orange Slush started touting him as the Republican economic genius, who was going to blow the Democrats out of the water with his new plan.

Except it didn’t. Everybody, very quickly realized that Ryan was a shill for big business and that high on his list of targeted programs was medicare and Medicaid and social security. Republicans, individually and then in droves began distancing themselves as little old ladies with blue hair and little old men with belts under their armpits descended upon local Republican congressional offices with canes and walkers waving semi-threateningly about.

And then I learned that Paul Ryan’s hero was Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand of Atlas Shrugged.

So, me, being the curious type, and needing a good excuse to read a bit of fiction, picked up the tomb (over 1,000 pages) and began. Then I skipped to the bio of Rand, and then I realized why she was writing this stupid stuff. Then I read, and read, and read, and, heck I even read the 79 page “speech” given by John Galt.

It’s a silly book. No one could conceivably take it seriously. Except Paul did. In fact, we understand that Ryan required all his staff to read it. It’ is his Maoist version of the  “little red book” .

This is nothing new to regular readers of this blog. I’ve written about my long journey through Atlas Shrugged (use the search engine here) and my thoughts about it. Rand was an émigré from Russia, after the Revolution. Her family fared badly at the hands of communism. Her books MUST be read in light of her hatred.

But Paulie thinks that her theories about economics are actually accurate. So he referred in a recent stop at the Heritage Foundation that:

“We’re coming close to a tipping point in America where we might have a net majority of takers versus makers in society and that could become very dangerous if it sets in as a permanent condition.

As anyone who has read Rand knows, these are purely her words. Charles P. Pierce, in his, dare I say, scathing article in Esquire, literally guts Ryan and his thinking. Like Rand herself, Ryan had no philosophical qualms about taking  government money, much as he rails against the very programs themselves.

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post, takes apart the entire speech, showing that as usual, the GOP and Ryan in particular deal in falsehood, and the usual politics of convenience.  While it plays to the extreme right-wing to claim that Obama and the Democrats are engaging in “class warfare”, quite clearly the American people do not buy it.

I guess what I come away with from Ryan’s speech is that it is but another example of  TeaNutz® pandering. Tell the lie, tell it often, and don’t worry. You’re talking to people who are either unable or unwilling to check out the facts. How this is done before a room full of people, albeit fellow-travelers, without bursting into guffaws of giggles is always beyond me. To suggest that Obama is engaging in class warfare and engendering envy, fear, and resentment is to simply restate the manifesto that is the TeaParty.  I mean one always figures that back stage there are some winks, smirks, and light rib jabs, at how wonderfully  “this will play to our ‘grass-roots’  minions.”

What becomes frightening, is the very thought that Ryan actually believes the stuff he spouts. If he does, then it shows a man who indeed has no common cause with Americans in general, but only with those who have proven themselves worthy of concern–the  “Creators” of wealth, the rich. All others, are in Rand’s words, mere fodder to fuel the engine, in other words, the takers.

** Many of these links originate from Constant Comments, written by Constant Weader. If you haven’t been there yet, please do go. He does what I do but in much greater breadth.

***What’s on the stove? A new creation. I call it Fusion Chicken and Corn Chowder. Check it out. Up no later than tomorrow.

Related articles

• The Real Galt’s Gulch (amightypen.net)
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There Are No Rules of the Road

Tags

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, death, Democrats, economy, life, life in the meadow, Republicans, Sarah Palin

If I had found myself abandoned in the wilds of the US, oh say, four hundred years ago, I would surely have perished. I was not “the fittest”. Nor even close.

To what do I refer? Well, please keep the secret, but I am one of those people genetically challenged when it comes to sight. I couldn’t hit the side of the proverbial barn as they say. Without technological assistance that is.

So with bow and arrow, I would have missed the target, and no doubt starved to death.

I started wearing glasses in the fourth grade. Year by year my eyes deteriorated until I was close to the “coke bottle” syndrome. I switched to contacts, but a badly shaped eyeball made them difficult at best.

Finally, I trucked off to Canada and got the Lasix treatment where they rearrange your focal point by some voodoo magic light, and voilá, I could see, sans glasses.

That has pretty much been it for nearly seventeen years. But alas age catches up with all of us.

Which is nothing more to say than that the Contrarian and I (as part of our departure stuff) went off to get our eyes tested and glasses ordered. We have gotten to the point that watching anything written on the TV screen, requires both of us to read it. We figured we might miss New Mexico all together and end up in the Grand Canyon by mistake. I do mean IN it.

So that was yesterday.

And I’m telling you all this, simple because there are no rules of the road here, and I can tell you whatever I choose, and you can read or not as the mood or time strikes you.

♦

As we were driving and I was trying hard to ignore the fact that one is never quite sure where one will end up when driving with the Contrarian at the wheel, we got to talking about Brandy. The sorrow is still there, but we can talk with laughter now.

Anyway, we were talking about how she went so easy and we were not forced to make that decision to “put her down”, a thoroughly strange way of avoiding “ordering her killed.”

It came to me, that we as humans are adjudged “humane” for putting down an animal that is in pain and with no real way to correct the condition. If we were to do the same thing for a human being, we would be adjudged more often than not, a murderer. A human is required to die in misery if that be the medical situation, no matter how long it takes. ‘Course, they often don’t. I understand doctors often “over dose” with pain killers, knowing that death will ensue.

Still, we wouldn’t judge it humane to put a human being out of their misery. Except if you were Doctor Kevorkian. He judged it merciful.

♦

I wonder how it will play?

Democrats: lets build roads, repair schools, fix bridges. (translate: hire construction companies which then hire more workers, and all the supply companies (concrete and so forth). Job creation: immediate. Results: workers make some money, start buying crap at Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart starts hiring more workers. Two tiered job creation.)

Republicans: cut taxes, eliminate regulations. (translate: corporations have more cash. HOPEFULLY they will expand worker pools. Hard to see why they would when nobody has any money to buy their shit.)

Does the American public at large have the brains to see this? I wonder.

♦

Did ya hear? Sarah Palin is heading off to Korea in a month or so to speak at a “World Knowledge conference.” I mean, oxymoron or what? What on earth could she possibly be speaking about? Is she gonna ask for help? A book list maybe? Or just pooh-pooh the notion that In_tEYE-lec-tuls are necessary in a world where everything can be decided using just good old common sense.

♦

Did anybody catch that Rudy Giuliani did it again? He said he will make a decision about running for the GOP nomination but not until after the 9/11 events. He does always get that 9/11 reference into everything he says doesn’t he?

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I’m just about done with Atlas Shrugged. She really is a pretty awful writer. She actually had some interesting characters but she’s buried them in so much political rhetoric that you have to wade through pages and pages of it, to get back to the story line.

I just finished “John Galt’s” radio broadcast. It went on for about forty pages of non-stop explanation of why enterpreneurs were good and everybody else was bad. This quote sums up her thinking about all of “us”.

“The man at the top of the intellectual pyramid contributes the most to all those below him, but gets nothing except his material payment, receiving no intellectual bonus from others to add to the value of his time. The man at the bottom, who, left to himself, would starve in his hopeless ineptitude, contributes nothing to those above him, but receives the bonus of all of their brains.”

The rich man is the victim you see, and the worker is the exploiter of the rich man’s intellect. Why, Rand claims, all the things the worms at the bottom have, are the product of the genius of the top. The worms could never create a car if their life depended upon it.

This is ADMITTED mindset of the Cantors and Ryans, the DeMints and the Pauls. This is their concept of “survival of the fittest.”

Have a nice day!

Know Thy Enemy

Tags

Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, capitalism, economics, free-market economy, GOP, government, Objectivism, Paul Ryan, philosophy, Rand Paul

I’ve been reading Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s epic novel that has become the spiritual guide for the likes of Rand Paul and Paul Ryan. They, so we understand, have made it required reading for their staffs.

I’m only about half way through (it’s over 1,000 pages), and I can already tell that anyone who thinks this is some kind of model of how to run a country is, well, not exactly playing with a full deck.

Ayn Rand was an immigrant from Russia, and pretty much that’s all you need to know. Her thinking is utterly shaped by her hatred of Communism and those who brought it upon the earth–the intellectual elites in the form of “progressives.”

Her heroes in the book are all brilliant industrialists, those who work because they  see the only virtue as being the quest to create. It is the purpose of existence.

Juxtaposed against them are the progressives, those who teach and those who are not capable of creating. They pursue as their virtue love of humanity and the need to help one’s brother.

Where it all goes horribly wrong is in the extrapolations. The good guys are perfectly good and the bad guys are perfectly bad. It gets down to even sex. For the good guys sex is a million fireworks going off at once as to perfect people unite in creative glory. For the bad guys, sex is that dirty little animal drive reserved for faceless men and women in back alleys.

In a nutshell, Rand creates draws out the pitfalls of the nanny society to such absurd extensions and the glories of unbridled capitalism to inhuman heights, that they ultimately are laughable. That anyone could take this as a serious likelihood worldwide, is indeed quite juvenile in their thinking. Indeed, they are incapable of anything resembling critical thought.

The fact that most philosophers have rejected her theories of “objectivism” relying on utter reason as the basis for all knowledge, and her belief that only a pure laissez-faire capitalism can protect individual rights, hasn’t stopped those who champion her cause. Of course it is a rather convenient excuse for corporate greed. And surely she would have nodded at Gecko’s shout: “Greed is good.” She promoted selfishness a proper and “good” thing after all.

Ironically, she was very much against religion of any kind, finding it failed the “reason” test. I say ironic because today her most ardent supporters are the know-nothing TeaNutz®. A healthy percentage of them are also ultra right-wing Christianists who wish in the end to form a theocratic state modeled after their strange interpretation of the bible. Ayn would have shuddered and be repulsed by such notions. Given that the average TeaNutz® imbiber has neither read Rand nor has a clue of anything she wrote, this is pretty understandable. You can imagine that the GOP elite is not rushing to inform them either.

She would have whole-heartedly endorsed the idea of calling industrialists as “job creators” since she found workers as parasites, necessary ones to be sure. Among her friends and presumably fellow travelers is one Alan Greenspan. Other admirers are Mark Cuban, owner of the Mavericks and John P. Mackey, owner of Whole Foods.

It is not hard to extrapolate from her portrayal of the wealthy as the true “victims” of society to the idea that it is a near-religious sin to think of taxing these superior folk. That is essentially the Republican mantra. After all, they are the fountainhead (pun intended) of the successful state.

I have to admit that I am enjoying the read. I love tomes (I read Aztec for god’s sake!), and this one is about par for the course, wildly boring in spots, full of soapbox rhetoric that passes as “conversation” and a plot that is fairly obvious. I am about half way through and long ago “guessed” the outcome. Still, the characters are interesting and like I said, I like these kinds things. (I’ve also read War and Peace TWICE.)

Still, reading the book or even reading a Wikipedia bio on Rand explains a good deal of what would otherwise be inexplicable regarding the GOP. What is amusing most of all is that the silly TeaNutz® continue to have no clue. It is quite clear that the GOP elite neither cares nor is interested in pursuing the social aspects of the trailer-livin’ right. They are prepared to give lip service and that only. Rand was in favor of abortion rights, she had an open marriage, and she as I said, had no use for religion whatsoever.

 Much of the “shadow” GOP feels the same. This is simply about money, and making sure that money goes to the right place and thus power is retained where it should be. The little folks are just to be patted on the head, thrown a crumb or two once in a while, and assured that “efforts are being made” to effect a moral government based on the bible. To the degree that a number of them feel that this is “ordained” by their unique interpretation of the bible, that is well, gravy.

I don’t say read the book. You may not have the fortitude to sign up for that long a haul, but do at least familiarize yourself with its basic outline and the life of its writer. And do pay a bit closer attention to those who promote this science fiction as “where we are headed” if a certain black man continues to guide the ship of state.

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Buckle Up: It’s Going to Be a Bumpy Ride

Tags

affirmative action, African Americans, Ayn Rand, budget, GOP, Paul Ryan, racism, Trump

It probably comes as no major surprise that not everybody was convinced yesterday by President Obama’s disclosure of his “long-form” birth certificate.

Fully 51% of Republicans, down albeit from 70%, still have doubts or are “convinced” it is a forgery. And of course, this relates not at all to the quality of  the evidence, but rather to deep-seated hatred of the President that is in some large respect motivated by conscious or unconscious racial bigotry.

Everyone knew this would be the case, as the post from yesterday featuring the dullards of The Blaze so aptly showed. The good news is that those who are of normal intelligence now know the truth, and the continuing yammering by the insane right will only serve to ensure that people will now see them for the loathsome vermin they truly are. Of course, the media whores from the right will make every attempt to claim that Obama and his crew invented this issue and surreptitiously pushed it, all to make the GOP look bad. No surprise there.

♦

Meanwhile the GOP continues to claim that it ain’t a racist bunch. New evidence from Oklahoma, where the GOP controlled House of Representatives has introduced a constitutional amendment ending affirmative action in state government. Rep. Sally Kern (R) explained that discrepancies in pay between whites and blacks were based on “blacks not wanting to work as hard as whites” and that black youngsters in schools don’t study as hard, because they “said government would take care of them.”

Kern comes by her bigotry in many forms. She wants teachers to be forced to teach against evolution, and considers homosexuality a greater danger than terrorism. She’s a full-basket full of crap. Oklahomans must be so proud.

♦

Don’t blame me, I’m just reporting the news! [from Joe.My.God who got it from The Onion]

♦

So, okay, maybe that was a bit over the top. Do ya like this one better? [From ICanHasCheezeburger.com]

 

 

♦

 We are respectable negroes has a much deeper question to ask about Obama and the “birther” question. A question, that I don’t know the answer to, but surely needs to be asked, discussed, and thought deeply about. Go on over and join that conversation.

Make no mistake this is so much about race. Trump in his egotistical hair mind, boasts that he is “proud” of himself. And now he moves on to his next target: how did this “boy” get into Columbia and Harvard. If you can’t see the implied racism in the very question, then well, you need a refresher course in racism 101 and the place to go is today’s post from stopthemadness at Angry Black Lady Chronicles.

♦

Paul Ryan says he got into politics because of her. All manner of folks from Rand Paul to Sean Hannity, sing her praises. She is the hero of the teabagger phenomenon. Who is she? Ayn Rand. Her famous and largely lousy book, Atlas Shrugged is the book they all tout, although The Fountainhead many would argue is a good book. In any case, if you want to see what the GOP really is all about and who they don’t care about and what they think about YOU, then do read AlterNet’s article.

Believe me, after reading it you will be chilled to the bone and see the GOP for what it is, nothing but a cold-hearted champion of the rich. We are the parasites, all of us collectively, who infest the wealthy who are the only true creators of wealth. Creepy.

♦

What’s on the stove: steak, baked potato, corn, salad.

 

Related Articles

• Oklahoma GOP Rep. Sally Kern: ‘Blacks’ Don’t Work As Hard As White People (littlegreenfootballs.com)
• Oklahoma GOP Lawmaker Sally Kern: ‘Blacks’ Don’t Work As Hard As White People (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Atlas Whined: ‘Shrugged’ producer may drop sequels to film nobody watched (dailykos.com)
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Can Spring Be Far?

Tags

abortion rights, Ayn Rand, Egypt, GOP, Humor, libertarianism, Middle East, right wing, Sarah Palin, world politics

Spring? Is anyone talking about spring yet?

Things have been decent here for some days. We are getting more snow next week and colder temperatures again, but frankly, we aren’t sure how bad.

It’s nothing, compared to the East. I sure do feel sorry for those poor folks. Well, sorry, but glad too. Glad it’s them and not us. Them and us. Comparisons are inevitable.

I haven’t been off the property for nearly a month now. It will be by next Thursday, which I am hoping will be a shopping day. The Contrarian has gotten out a couple of times and is out now, buying a few things to tide us over. We got blown out yesterday, since he didn’t quite make it out the driveway at the road. So we were officially stuck  for the first time this year. Not bad all told, usually we have had at least 3 or 4 by now.

***

One begins to wonder if we are on the cusp of something really big happening in the Middle East. Tunisia fell, and now Egypt is tottering. Not sure how that will play out, but it seems it’s either going to be a new government or a very ugly crackdown. Yemen is rumbling. No word yet if the Iranians have become emboldened again to try to break that regime.

Time will tell as they say. That’s a waste of words heh? Time doesn’t tell anything, and “they say” is just a cheap way of not researching to who actually said that. Anyway, the obvious is true. We will know more in the future. Like we would know less?

***

Political Irony has your late night humor. Given that there is NO football, humor is a necessity here. Grumpy husband alert.

***

Elizabeth Kaeton has a very important post on the proposed Rethug bill about non-funding of abortions. It re-writes what “rape” means, and thus seeks to limit abortions. It’s Machiavellian in its intent certainly. It hopefully will be opposed by all intelligent and compassionate persons.

***

David Frum has a short piece on why the GOP, and its apologists need to let go of Palin. The new ERW (extreme right-wing) claims she would be a nobody without the Left. Frum disagrees and the comments are rather good on this one.

***

Under the theory that everybody has a talent. Andrew Sullivan found a map of the US with notes on what each state excels at. Iowa is first in “sick days taken”. Go see what your state does best at.

***

If I got this straight: We are sort of for people throwing off the chains of dictatorship and deciding their own fate. Some would argue that this is what is happening in Egypt. John Bolton was always a point man for Dubya’s “nation” building theories, always decrying “human rights violations”. But now Bolton backs Mubarak because he fears the Muslim Brotherhood may gain control in a democratic process. Sooo. What is this Muslim Brotherhood, and should we ignore our principles for expedience sake? The Brookings Institute explains the history of the Brotherhood and says the danger is not that great. One can see the predictable lines of debate on this one. Neo-cons versus rational people.

***

Gosh, what would the world be without hypocrisy? I mean, irony is one thing, but hypocrisy, it fairly makes life worth living. To be able to point someone out and know with deep satisfaction, that the person at the end of your finger is someone who fails to live by any standard they themselves set. It’s purely delicious, enough to make you happy for the rest of an entire day.

Ayn Rand, beloved of the cockadoodle-do right-wing teabaggers, is one such person.  Now, first let me say, that no teabagger probably ever heard of Ayn Rand before Beck or a colledge ejucated right-winger happened to remember reading her utterly forgettable tomb, Atlas Shrugged.

Rand, as you may remember ranted against the poor and most of the middle class as undeserving rabble, sucking the well-earned funds from the real people, the rich, who got to be rich because they were, well, just better in every way. Well, it turns out Rand, sank to the level of the much maligned masses: she drew both social security and medicare under another name, “Ann O’Conner”.

Paul Ryan, the GOP budget czar, credits her with being his guru. Rand, with two other women started American libertarianism. The other two women refused social security on principle.

***

What’s on the stove: burgers and fries and coleslaw. It’s Saturday! Drat, the spellchecker isn’t working so hope I spelt awflea gooder than useyul. 🙂

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