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Showing posts with label Apocalyptic Cult. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Apocalyptic Cult. Show all posts

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Playing Zombie

My first thought when I read this piece about an Osseo Gun Club was...are they really complaining about a private firm? Facebook can allow or not allow whatever the fuck they want. Perhaps if these gun hunpers are so upset about not being able to advertise "family" gun night (see: what could possibly go wrong?), they should change.

What's more interesting about this place is they have target practice within a Zombie Apocalypse setting. My oh my...how the Gun Cult loves to peddle fear and play make believe! I wonder if they truly believe that this might happen...:)

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Scuhmer V The Cult

Senator Charles Schumer has a great piece up on the Tea Party which is a nice front loader to the SOTU tonight. Here are some of the highlights.

The tea party elites -- with little rebuttal -- have been able to make "government" the boogeyman. They have convinced too much of America that government is the explanation for their ills. Even though most Americans and even most tea party adherents like much of what the government does, the tea party elites proclaim that everything that is wrong, even non-economic and private sector problems, can be blamed on the government.

Yep, it's all the government. And don't you forget it, mister!! In fact, I think it's somehow the government's fault that conservatives have such poor relationships with their parents:)

So, how why are they really like this?

The first and most important force is a phenomenon that Democrats have recently begun to address: the decline in middle-class incomes. It's time we deal with the reality that, for the first time in American history, middle-class American incomes have declined for almost a generation. If middle-class incomes continue to decline, we will have a dramatically different America, a less optimistic, more sour America. 

The second deep-seated force that fueled the emergence of the tea party is the rapid pace of change in America's cultural, technological and demographic makeup. Tea party adherents see an America that's not reflective of themselves, and the America they have known, and they just don't like it. We have entered "the second machine age," a transformation of work, leisure, and life that wouldn't have been recognizable when Reagan entered the White House. The distribution of power is changing to include more women, more African-Americans, and more Latinos.

Those two issues have created the atmosphere we have today. As Senator Schumer notes, we are doing something about the first point. Of course, the resistance to his first point speaks volumes. Take away this inequality and you take away what little raison d'etre the leaders of the conservative movement have. The second point is where the fear comes from. They just can't accept change of any kind and the new world is very, very frightening to them. Schumer draws a correlation to the shift from an agrarian society to a industrial one and I think he is right on the mark here.

Look for the president to hit inequality hard tonight in his speech, touching on the points that Senator Schumer mentions in this piece.

Friday, January 03, 2014

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Cheer Up

Without the continued promises of looming apocalypse, the Right wouldn't have much to talk about these days. "Tough history coming" is what Kevin Baker calls it. A recent cartoon he posted illustrates this mentality perfectly. But reality says otherwise.

All in all, many economists now see economic growth climbing to a solid 3% next year, a significant improvement from the 2% average annual pace that the economy has been stuck on for the last 4 1/2 years. An acceleration to 3% would probably push up U.S. job growth to 250,000 a month on average, from a monthly average of 190,000 over the last 12 months, Kleinhenz said. At that pace, the nation would recover all the jobs lost in the recession by the end of 2014. And it would push down the jobless rate closer to the 5.5% to 6% range that some now see as the potential long-term unemployment rate. 

My home state is certainly feeling this reality as well.

With an improving job market and overall economy, families are once again splurging on big-ticket recreational items, spending $3,000 or more on snowmobiles and ATVs made just for kids. The trend is being thoroughly enjoyed in Minnesota, home to two of the nation’s largest recreational vehicle makers and some of the snowiest turf in the country.

One wonders how long this charade of impending doom will hold. Certainly, there will be an ample supply of frightened old baby boomers for the next couple of decades but how many of them will give into their irrational emotions and fear when the facts say otherwise?

So, given these economic indicators, this recent piece by Edward Carr is my message today to Kevin and the other members of the apocalyptic cult masquerading as conservatives: cheer up.

American fears about the future are also distorted. Nobody doubts the significance of China’s economic rise, but economic prosperity does not automatically translate into geopolitical power. If China wanted to challenge America, it would not only have to sustain its stellar growth for a long time but also to transform its capacity to project power abroad.

Similarly, although countries like India, Brazil and South Africa will want to get on in the world, they also have a stake in the system that America has created. It is unsafe to extrapolate trends into a distant future when America loses its supremacy, not least because rising prosperity will change those other countries beyond recognition. Moreover, until the others eventually catch up, America will remain the global superpower. Could it not turn that position to its advantage?

It is time to cheer up. The world America faces today may seem cussed and intractable, but the world America looked forward to shaping after the fall of the Soviet Union was never as pliant and welcoming as it imagined. And America’s strengths are as impressive as ever. On every measure of power it remains dominant. With a revived foreign-policy agenda, Mr Obama could begin to put the misadventure of Iraq behind him. With creative and energetic diplomacy, he has scope to get plenty done. With more effort to build coalitions and work with allies, American power can once again be decisive. But this can happen only if Americans rediscover the will to lead.

So, why don't people like Kevin have the will to lead anymore? I think the answer is the same response as to why they continually insists that we are heading towards doom.

Because they are afraid that the ideology they vilify is working.

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Hating Pope Frank

I've been laughing my socks right off of my feet as the Right reacts to Pope Francis and his vision that primarily involves Christians actually (gasp!) doing the work of Jesus. You know, feeding the poor...taking care of the sick and less fortunate...as opposed to judging others and being maniacally obsessed with sex. None have been more shocked than Sarah "I'm on a book tour so it's time for me to say dumb shit" Palin.



OMG, Sarah!! Jesus was, in fact, a liberal:)

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Finally


Well, Joe McLean has gone and done it. The Daily Beast columnist has put up the perfect description of my three regular commenters (juris imprudent, Guard Duck, Not My Name). Now I think I understand how they are all united even though they have differing views on religion.

Apocalypticism.

They, along with the Tea Party and many other conservatives, think the End Times are nigh. And guess what? It's all the fault of the liberals.

There are so many great lines in this piece I don't know where to start. Let's see if I can limit myself to just three and then urge y'all to go and read the rest.

They believe America teeters on the brink of destruction, and hold as an article of faith that liberals, gays, Democrats, atheists and the United Nations are to blame. This “end-times” world-view is a foundational precept of the evangelical movement, from which many of the so-called Tea Party favorites spring.Of course, the Tea Party is not just composed of members of the Christian right. Many are genuine libertarians. Some nurse an unreconstructed Confederate grudge, while others harbor a thinly disguised racism. However, the real energy, the animating force for the movement comes from evangelicals, of whom Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin are the most strident. These are the modern-day ”apocalyptic prophets.”

See, you don't have to be a Christian to believe in the apocalypse. Kevin Baker isn't a Christian. Neither is juris. Yet there is something in their libertarianism that helps them along to end times thinking. McLean does a good job of explaining the history of end times thinking. But how does that fit in to today?

For these apocalyptic prophets, the issues aren’t even political anymore; they’re existential, with Obamacare serving as the avatar for all evil. In this construct, any compromise whatsoever leads to damnation, and therefore the righteous ends justify any means. Now if you are battling the forces of evil for the very survival of the nation, there can be no retreat, no compromise, and no deals. Like the Jewish zealots at Masada, it’s better to commit glorious suicide than make peace with the devil. There can be no truce with the Tea Party because its apocalyptic zealots can never take “yes” for an answer.

Compromise as damnation...yep. McLean also notes what I have been stating previously. The GOP establishment and business wing of the party is fighting back. The coming civil war in the Republican party is going to be bloody. But how will it all end? McLean says either the pragmatists win or the hardliners revolt and leave. Either way, a center right party emerges that will enjoy support.

Not surprisingly, these moderates have both liberal and conservative views. 64% support gay marriage, 63% support abortion in the first trimester, 52% support legalizing marijuana, and they support a strong social safety net by wide margins. But 81% support offshore drilling, 90% support the death penalty and 57% are against affirmative action. So a new moderate coalition might well attract significant support from the moderate middle, establishment Republicans, Independents and centrist Democrats too.

Whatever way you cut it, my three commenters, along with the Tea Party and the right wing blogsphere, aren't going to get what they want. Oh well. At least they'll have plenty to complain about. Hey, maybe we could help them set up their own community with all the rest of the doomsayers. They could walk around all day preaching apocalypse to each other and leave the rest of us sane people out of it.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Saturday, August 11, 2012

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Cracked?

Found this old piece from two years ago that I never shared. I think I had planned on it right around the time Andrew Brietbart passed suddenly and thought it might be in poor taste at the time since Klinghoffer makes a  dig at him.

Yet now that the late Mr. Brietbart has been "cultified" with the "Brietbart is Here" photos, I think it's just fine to highlight two or three of Klinghoffer's points.

But more characteristic of conservative leadership are figures on TV, radio and the Internet who make their money by stirring fears and resentments. With its descent to baiting blacks, Mexicans and Muslims, its accommodation of conspiracy theories and an increasing nastiness and vulgarity, the conservative movement has undergone a shift toward demagoguery and hucksterism. 

Once the talk was of "neocons" vs. "paleocons." Now we observe the rule of the crazy-cons.

Pretty much a daily occurrence on all the right wing blogs. No doubt it is profitable and has become a very large industry, but can it influence elections on a consistent basis? I don't think so.

When I became a conservative, that is what I signed up for: a profound vision granting transcendent significance to public life and hope in private life. The goal wasn't to defeat Democratic officeholders or humiliate left-wing activists. It was, and still is (among those who remember) to save civilization.

Now, the goal is to destroy it even if they are ignorant to this plain and simple fact.

Sunday, July 08, 2012

A Cult Member Deprogrammed

Remember that link I put up recently from Bill Maher in which he mentioned Johnathan Krohn?  Well, young Mr. Krohn has apparently outgrown his adolescent power fantasy and is now an Obama supporter. Why? check out the clip.



So, he started....reading? Interesting.

Actually, it reminds me of this quote from a recent Op/Ed piece in my hometown paper.

Conservatives decry the liberal bias in the universities. It is true that most college professors are liberals, but I don't think it has anything to do with bias. It is because college professors are intelligent people, and intelligent people tend to be liberal. I have had many conversations with colleagues about why so many people vote against their own best interests, and the only conclusion that is ever reached is that those people are swayed by emotional arguments, not by intelligent thought.

Young Jonathan thankfully has discovered this as well and grown up.

Monday, June 25, 2012

A Sad Witness

I'm glad Nikto got up a post yesterday as I was too ripped to put anything up after my weekend in Wisconsin for my mom's retirement. Sadly, I was a witness to an old and dear friend (he's 84 years young) complete submission to the Cult.

It didn't take him long to bring up Barack X as he loves to talk politics.

"The biggest problem I have is that Barack Obama is a Muslim," he said with vehemence.
"No, he's not. He went to the same Christian church for over 20 years. Reverend Wright, remember?" I replied.
"Ah, bullshit. He wasn't even born here either. That birth certificate is fake."

I tried to convince him but the facts just bounced off.

And no, he's not an outlier. 

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A Profile In Courage

Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad - they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party - and I don't - as having an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement, doesn't allow for finding some common ground.---Jeb Bush, 11 June 2012

A hard time? Try...he wouldn't have even made it through a GOP primary. Like the fiction they create regarding Obama, the Gipper has become a mythical figure that bears no resemblance to what he actually did in reality. I will give Mr. Bush credit, though, for having the guts to admit what most conservatives will not.

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

A Kinder, Gentler Cult

Take a look at this video below.



This is the first volley against Obama by American Crossroads, a Super PAC run by Karl Rove and some other like minded individuals. The ad is running in swing states like Florida and Ohio. It struck me as interesting for several reasons.

First of all, where's all the Barack X stuff? Well, apparently it's gone because it doesn't play very well. 

Middle-of-the-road voters who said they thought the country was on the wrong track were unmoved when they heard arguments that the president lacks integrity. And they did not buy assertions that he is a rabid partisan with a radical liberal agenda that is wrecking America.

Well, that's because it's not true and doesn't exist in reality. The fact is that even though many people don't agree with the president's policies and/or feel disappointed, they still like him personally. If he is attacked in a manner that was recently floated by some high level conservatives, you can say buh bye to the independents and swing voters. This would be why Mitt Romney always inserts that line "The president is a nice guy but..." into most of his stock answers to questions. He, like McCain before him, knows about the dark side to American populism.

Another thing that struck me was where was the husband? The ad obviously intimates that this is a single woman as she complains about her life and struggles in the job market. VERY interesting considering this is from a conservative group. Have they seen the writing on the wall and know they can't win without the women's vote? This, along with the leaving behind of the Barack X garbage, is a sign of progress. Even though I realize that there are millions of Americans who need to have Barack X to get out of bed and identify themselves every day, themes like this give me hope. Sorry, fuckos, I guess you can't win by calling the president a Kenyan socialist who constantly apologizes for America, spent more than anyone ever in the history of forever, raised taxes, is destroying free enterprise, and is making us weaker.

Yet neither of these points can hold a candle to the two more subtle messages contained therein....two messages that hilariously expose the metaphorical slip, if you will, of the right's dress. Remember all that talk about how if people are having financial problems, it's THEIR fault and blaming others for their own shortcomings is sacrilege? Well, I guess that's gone now because none of this woman's problems are her fault. The fact that she is low on cash and has adult children living at home is the fault of the government.

Wow.

Truly, one of the most titanic examples of hypocrisy I have seen in awhile. And, uncharacteristically, a complete capitulation.

Diving deeper, we can clearly see the Michael Jordan Generation on full display. The reason she has two adult kids living at home is because she has done a poor job in raising her children. Like many in her generation, she has babied her kids to the point where the can't function outside of her home. And without a two parent home it was likely made worse. But that's all the fault of the liberals and their social agenda, right?

No, it's not. This is how our culture is right now and it's truly awful. It's not because of the government or the education system (whose job it is most certainly not to parent or nanny) or the unions made up of people who make 50K a year or less. It's the fault of all of us because we have allowed our culture to be mostly socialized by the corporate owned media who tell us that the definition of success is a guy like Michael Jordan.

And not the winner of the science fair. Or the mathlete. Or the Model UN winners. Or the...well, I think you get the idea.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Challenge Accepted

Put this column in a drawer and take it out on the date below. Let me know how many of these predictions I got right.

You got it, Bill!!

I wonder what is going to happen when this particular Cult member is proved wrong. I predict he will....MAKE A BUNCH OF SHIT UP AND SAY IT HAPPENED JUST LIKE HE SAID.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Actual Handwaving

A few months ago, one of my regular commenters that migrated over from Kevin's site brought out that ol' chestnut about small business. Haplo9 (a small business owner) informed me that not only do I not know what I'm talking about when it comes to small business but that people like me and other Democrats/liberals/etc are actively seeking to destroy small business and, indeed, the free market.

Let's look past all the facts and evidence to the contrary that I have been putting up of late and focus on some small business owners themselves. First, I worked for a small business before I became a teacher. We were a small, four person multimedia company that handled medium sized businesses first forays into online commerce back in the mid to late 1990s. I had left an ad firm where I worked to help out two friends of mine who were the owners of the business.

Not once did I hear any discussion about the government inhibiting them from making money. The onus was on all of us to grow the business and we certainly never played the victim card and blamed the government. Our concern was getting more clients and in order to do that, we wanted to see state and federal policies that supported consumer spending which would lead to more revenue for our clients  and, in turn, more money to spend with us. It wasn't taxes or fear of possible future regulation that altered our decisions. It was customers coming through the door.

This is also true for our very own John Waxey, an owner of a manufacturing concern in Wisconsin that makes a product that helps with shipping and commerce. His company does about 20 million a year in business. I had the occasion to chat with him recently when I visited his cottage.

"How's the company doing?" I asked.
"Never better," he replied. "In fact, we are moving in to a new facility to accommodate all our new business."
"So, Barack Obama and the Democrats aren't destroying your company?"
"No," he chuckled. "We do well when our clients have more customers. Then they come and spend money with us."

John's family has owned this business for his entire life, thirty three years of which he has been my best friend. So, to say that I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to small business (or any size business for that matter) is wrong. That being said, no one should take our lives and anecdotes as gospel. Perhaps we are outliers? Biased?

No, not so much...because of this little thing called How The Free Market Actually Fucking Works. Yesterday, I was perusing the MPR site for some post-mortem on the recently ended state government session and I came across this. House Republican Majority Leader Matt Dean was a guest on the program and they took a call from a small business owner named Andy. 


Here is the audio below. Start it at the 13 minute mark. 



Giving tax breaks to small business owners leading to more hiring is NOT how the free market works? Representative Dean (a REPUBLICAN...GASP!!) doesn't know how the free market works? That it's actually more consumer spending leads to more hiring? Oh, Andy. Don't you dare question one of the central creeds of their rigid dogma! Only THEY are Sacred Keepers of the Free Market. Don't you know you're just going to get glassy-eyed nonsense for an answer?

And that's just what happened. Rep. Dean (sounding as if he was both under hypnosis and attempting to hypnotize Andy) gave a response which (ahem) can best be described as hand waving. Shocking, I know, that someone from the right is actually doing the very thing that I am wrongfully and continually accused of doing. And doing it to someone who actually owns a small business! Well, he owns a hair salon so he's probably gay anyway so he doesn't really know what he's talking about, right?

What all of this perfectly illustrates is how the right really doesn't know what the fuck they are talking about when it comes to this stuff. If small businesses are given tax breaks without new customers coming through the door, why would they hire anyone? They're just going to sit around just as Andy described.

But no. Oh no. It's taxes. It's supply side. Never aggregate demand.  They are only interested in making sure that their ideology is pure and, in behaving in this manner, they completely ignore the core of what drives growth in this country.

Watch as consumer spending magically disappears in my hat!

Monday, May 07, 2012

Despite Reality, They Can't Let Go

I had lunch with an old friend and colleague last week who teaches 7th grade Social Studies at the junior high that my daughter will be attending next year. As we were talking shop, she told me that she was at the point in the year when she begins her unit on the Communist Revolution in China. Like many teachers around the state, she uses the film To Live in support of this unit to illustrate what happened in China during that time.

The film tells the story the Chinese Civil War, The Great Leap Forward, and The Cultural Revolution as seen through the eyes of one family. It's a gut wrenching piece that several students always have difficulty with due to its stark and very accurate portrayal of the horrors of communism. If you haven't seen the film, I highly recommend it. I've used it many times myself in class.

In fact, the film is so critical of Communism, that it has been banned in China. My colleague's entire unit takes this same critical approach as well. Twelve and thirteen year old kids in her class (and around the state as it is a Minnesota standard) see with their own eyes exactly what happens under totalitarian regimes.

As she told me of some of the reactions (some students have to cover their eyes or leave the room during some parts of the film), I began to think about the complaints from the right (in particular right wing blog pundits like Kevin Baker), that communism is soft pedaled in schools. Or that the teachers themselves are communists and indoctrinating our children into becoming little maoists. Given the fact that my colleague and many like her have taught this same unit for the last 15 years or more, I simply don't get from where this paranoia arises. It's just not true.

It would be one thing if Kevin and his followers were outliers but they aren't. Pastor Ed at my gym thinks the same thing. Former Navy Secretary and now Romney national security adviser John Lehman said recently,"We are seeing the Soviets pushing into the Arctic with no response from us." 

The Soviets? Really?

It seems that no amount of truth or facts can persuade them. They needs to have themselves a commie threat otherwise they simply can't identify themselves or their place in the world. Such a deep level of willful ignorance frustrates me on so many levels that it's pathetic.

What exists inside of these people that they simply can't let go despite reality?

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Should I?

I can't help but think of Mike Lofgren when I watch this video which just came up on my dashboard courtesy of Cult Grand Wizard, Kevin Baker.

 

I'm wondering if he would recant his promise to post this once a month considering that  he and his readers have assured me on several occasions that they are, in fact, logical and mathematical thinkers yet there are no facts or evidence supporting most of the claims in the video (aside from the usual War On Christmas type anecdotes).

Are there any facts I could present them that would change their mind? Should I bother?:)

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Not Just Fox
























True not only of Fox but the general thinking of the base and its pundits as well.