Dumb Shit People Say About the #OccupyWallStreet Movement

¡Hola mi Gente!
I’m not a nice person. in fact, I make my own mother cry sometimes. I am not proud of this, but it is true ::hangs head in shame:: I am not a gentleman: I say and do things that are totally socially unacceptable, and I will try to fuck you in the ass at some point if you’re in a relationship with me. I don’t know how to drive and I have no sense of direction. So, what good am I, you ask? (LOL!). I don’t have many good character traits, but I think the few I can claim are important. Chief among this sparse crowd is trust. That’s my one trump card -- trustworthiness.

Another one is that I don’t tolerate ignorance too well. This might be a good or bad thing, according from what perspective you’re looking at it. The following is rude, but I know no other way of addressing it…

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Dumb-Fuck Fuckery

I have utter contempt for lazy thinking or fallacious reasoning. The following are actual objections overheard or gleaned from various conversations about #OccupyWallStreet:

They criticize corporations, but use smart phones made by corporations! Hypocrites!

This one gets me the most because it is such a blatantly stupid assertion. It’s so ignorant, I don’t think it deserves a response. I’ll just add that we wear clothes too. ::blank stare::

A movement that doesn’t have a compressed agenda and list of demands can’t be taken seriously.

OK… I’ll give this one a try. When the OWS organizers had their first few general assemblies, it was decided, by consensus, not to have a list of demands or agenda. There were many reasons for this, but chief among them was the shared belief that demands, agendas, goals, should be arrived at within a horizontal democratic process inclusive of all participants. In other words, it was decided that the best way to come up with these things was to actually include the people in the decision-making process. I was wrong on this because, not having a prefabricated, sound bite list of demands made it much more difficult for the corporate media to label us because they have no experience with a movement predicated on a transparent, horizontal democratic process.

People living in third-World countries have it worse -- these OWS people should go try living there for a while.

Again, this one is too ridiculous to respond to. As a thought exercise, do yourself a favor and take that line of reasoning to its logical conclusion and you tell me what’s wrong with it.

Shouldn’t they protest in Washington instead? That’s where the people in charge are, right?

::sigh::

This is part of what separates us from the clueless (exploited and forgotten) teabaggers: we actually have a salient analysis. The vast majority of the OWS organizers I’ve come into contact with are ardently pro-government/ pro-democracy. We’re not against the government; we’re steadfastly opposed to a form of government sabotaged by money and corruption. We’re against government for and by the 1%.

Why aren’t you people out there looking for jobs instead of protesting?

There are several stupid, narrow-minded assumptions embedded in this objection. First, it assumes there are jobs out there, when the fact is that for every job, there are scores of people looking to get it. Secondly, most of the participants in the #OccupyWallStreet movement don’t work. This is patently untrue. There are many people intensely involved in the movement who work. There are many, as well, who’ve been downsized and out of work, and there are many working at jobs beneath their level of proficiency. In fact, the people at OWS sites across the nation are just like you and me -- part of the 99% -- and as such, represent the full range of demographics.

Occupy Wall Street is a secret plot by Soros/ Obama/ Michael Moore/ communists/ socialists (<-- insert favorite bogeyman here) to undermine our country.

Really. I really heard this one…

They’re hippies and hippies suck! I hate hippies!

What’s wrong with hippies? And if you bothered, you would see that this is a bullshit stereotype. I’ve seen poor people, middle-class people, PhD’s, Nobel Prize winners, people with little formal education, old, very young -- I’ve seen all manner of people at the OWS sites. Do yourself a favor, turn off the TV machine and take a walk.

I saw where one person at an OWS site did (<-- insert something objectionable). That’s proof they’re all scum!

Really people… really? You actually think the above statements are examples of logical or critical thinking? SMDH

My name is Eddie and I’m in recovery from civilization…

Bedbugs At CPAC Host Hotel

¡Hola! Everybody...
My blogger compatriot, Joe.MY.God, passed along the following and I just had to re-post it!

-=[ Bedbugs At CPAC Host Hotel ]=-

The host hotel of this year's Republican CPAC convention has an extensive and documented record of complaints for bedbug infestation. Apparently the blood-suckers have attacked guests and apparently still there, waiting to pounce on Michelle "Bat Shit Crazy" Bachmann.

Wonkette reports:

The three-legged stool of conservatism is strong and united at CPAC! Yes, as intelligent and alive as a small piece of furniture. However, the stool may not last long, as the hotel they chose, the Marriott Wardham Park, seems to currently be infested with bedbugs. Yes, we knew that, but are there blood-sucking insects there too? Har har har. “I woke up seeing the bed bugs on the bed, on my shirt and even on the bed that I am not using. Unbelievable!!! The hotel staff wasn’t surprised with what happened at all. I will never stay here again,” one visitor wrote recently.

I couldn't write fiction/ satire this good!I'm fuckin dying here, cracking up like a fool, getting strange looks from my co-workers... LMAOOO!

One visitor to the hotel reported:

I attended the AWP Conference from February 2-6 and found a bed bug in my suitcase upon returning home. Had to throw out my suitcase and am now dealing with cleaning everything else I took with me. Don’t stay here.

I found a bed bug in my suitcase upon arriving at home. Today, I found live bugs in my bedroom and laundry room where my suitcase had been.
DO NOT STAY AT THIS HOTEL.

As noted on the other post, the jokes just write themselves.

Resources

Bed Bug Registry

IF The GOP Wins This Elections, Here's a Good Clue Why...

A Zogby Interactive poll found that 37% say they believe in human or animal ghosts, 23% believe they have been visited by a dead relative or friend, and 20% say they have seen or heard a ghost. Another 22% say that while they have not experienced a ghost, they know someone who says they have.

(h/t/ to Sam Smith)

The Tower of Babel

¡Hola! Everybody...
As summer officially winds down, it seems that no one is in The City. The trains are relatively empty, the streets less full. My summer fling ended much too soon (by mid-summer) this year, and weather-wise there wasn’t a heat wave worth remembering...

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-=[ The Great White Hope ]=-

Republicans are struggling right now to find a “great white hope.”

-- Rep. Lynn Jenkins

For those with a lack of historical context, the phrase “great white hope” is associated with pre-civil rights-era racism and is widely believed to have entered usage in the U.S. when boxer Jack Johnson, who was black, captured the heavyweight title in the early 20th century. Many whites reacted to Johnson’s achievement by trying to find white fighters -- a “great white hope” -- who could beat him. The boxer’s story inspired a play, then a movie, with that title, both starring James Earl Jones.

Some will contend that Jenkins is an aberration, but I challenge that contention. There is ample evidence that racism is alive and well and in some cases even more pernicious than ever. In order to see the pervasiveness of white male privilege one only has to consider something as ordinary as consumer trade. It’s a known fact that blacks and other minorities are denied mortgages far more frequently that whites with comparable income. But even in something as seemingly mundane as buying a car, race plays a powerful role. A study of automobile dealerships in Chicago, for example, found that salespeople offered significantly lower sales prices to white men than to women or blacks, even when economic factors and bargaining strategies were held constant. Another study found that in the 1990s blacks paid significantly more for car loans arranged through dealers than whites did, despite having comparable credit histories.

That systemic racism exists is without question. The real question is how racism is manifested in these so-called post-racial days. Is Rep. Jenkins an aberration, or an expression of a large swath of white neoconservative America? I think the facts speak for themselves.

But this post isn’t necessarily about racism per se. My question is more along the lines of uncovering the meaning behind subtle and not so subtle racism. What is the meaning behind the yells of “nigger!” and “kill him!” at Palin rallies? How is it that disconnected mostly conservative whites are convinced at every turn to vote against their own interests? How is it that major league dimwits such as Palin, Limbaugh, and Beck can intentionally lie about “death panels” and so many neocons fall into line goose-stepping and yelling, “We’re no. 1”?

The standard conservative talking point against health care reform describes an America poisoned at every level with queers, liberals, socialists, and other traitors; a country on the precipice of European defeatism and no longer willing or able to defend itself from an international menace that so ardently wants their destruction.

And what is this America of old they keep talking about? Is it the America where my people weren’t allowed in certain areas, or women knew their place, and children died in sweatshops? Or perhaps the America they rave about was the America where blacks and other people of color knew better than to speak out. I don’t know, but this America doesn’t sound like a place or time I would want to revisit.

I see, with crystal clarity that the people who claim to be the biggest patriots -- the ones yelling at town halls, calling for Obama’s birth certificate, foreskin or placenta -- are the same ones who yell out “nigger! at political rallies. The pale-faced red-staters who feel the need to drape themselves in flags and rant “U-S-A!” can’t be feeling good about themselves. From where I’m standing, the disasters and humiliation of the Bush years -- from the 9/11 attacks, to Katrina (which made parts of the USA look like Calcutta on a bad day) to the collapsed real estate market, shit even the humility of a white man losing to a black in the presidential election -- all this has neocons in America aching for some way to feel good about themselves again.

The problem is that the only thing too many Americans really know how to do anymore is consume huge amounts of fast food and look for dates on the internet. If you think my estimation is cruel or unjust, I refer you to the countless millions being duped into believing the myths of health care reform.

Look, all this talk about socialism and death panels and, yes, great white hopes, is really a cover of one essential truth: the rhetoric of both political parties (especially at the center!) is mostly a fraud, that the true business of both is to repay the favors in the form of policies to their campaign contributors. These very same multinational corporations are spending one million dollars a day to convince you that a market-driven health care delivery system is best.

Good luck with that...

Love,

Eddie