Collapsing Shack, AZ—This is some serious breaking news:  now that this distracting election is over, it’s time to push aside useless labels like Tea Bagger, Bleeding Heart Liberal, Limp-Wristed Cow-Kissing Independent, or Humanitarian Sheep-Humping Dingleberry. None of these things matter in the face of the 100 Angry Men and their lacky, nay, their leader, nay, their Supreme Allied Commander…Al Gore. 

Sometimes the Discord actually breaks news instead of merely breaking news into ‘tiny shards of sensationalism’.  Google won’t verify anything I’m about to say, because they’re in on the conspiracy. Google has been manipulated by these angry men, also known as the mysterious Men In Green (MIG).  Only a small underground knows the truth. Through a mixture of ill luck, Odysseusian exhaustion, and booze, I found myself a participant in a plot that will surely shake the very core of human existence.

The other night one of these Men In Green ended up at The Green Room, my favorite bar.  I don’t know what they were looking for there, but what they found was some awesome drink specials and yours truly—a combination that would prove their undoing. I will tell you what I know.  If I disappear, they got to me…or, I got drunk.  I’m sure it’ll be one of the two. These MIGs have no country, but move throughout the world like shadows and, no, they don’t get felt up at airports; lucky bastards.

I got two of these MIG dudes drunk back at The Green Room and while they were in the can I accessed one of their laptops.  Apparently, these men control the wealth of the world and their word can change nations or economies overnight, to say nothing of extending all happy hours indefinitely!   So why was I buying all the beer?  Geesh, in retrospect, it’s a shame I spent most of the time logging into their Facebook pages to have all their friends befriend Jack Primus and The Daily Discord.  Hindsight is always 20/20, or in my case, a beer goggly 30/40.

I learned a lot perusing their files; suddenly everything made sense.  Do you really think we elected Bush twice?  It’s the game beneath the game.  Gore never wanted the presidency and then maneuvered Bush into a second term.  This was all part of the plan.  This group even allowed Fox lies to keep the ’04 election close enough so we wouldn’t suspect any foul play.   These Men In Green currently hate everyone except commies. These guys love commies. As they swerved away into the night their bumper sticker read: Pinko is the New Green.

I just heard something outside the window?  I hope it’s just the Ghetto Shaman trying to get me to buy him some more Robitussin.  Otherwise, they’re onto me.  I just hope I have enough time to send this off, finish this twelve-pack, and eat those last few slices of pizza from last night. Damn, that was a good spicy Hawaiian…

I almost forgot to put on my aluminum foil hat!  There, that should block their transmission for the few more minutes I’ll need.  They aren’t settling for just sucking the world’s resources dry, like some Bond villain.  These fiends believe the world is overpopulated so they mean to cull  the herd! That’s where Al Gore comes in.  He is their leader in the guise of an affable fool.  Their most treasured secret is this: Al Gore’s world shattering H.A.R.P.! You think Al Gore is against Global Warming, hah!  That’s nothing but another clever ruse. According to these Men In Green, Al Gore has a dreadful harp-like machine and when he plays this Human Apocalyptic Reprogramming Per-whatsas (H.A.R.P.)…well, lean in closer.  It actually causes global warming!

Why are they trying to kill us? That’s the creepy part. The truth is this: they like fluffy little animals better.  They think humans are all wicked and unredeemable.  Sure, it’s true, but it’s still not a nice thing to say.
I heard something again. I had better attach and send this document to Pierce Winslow before they set off another electro-magnetic pulse.  Shit…get another slice of pizza or warn mankind?  Damn you saucy pineappley yumminess!

So we have nothing to look forward to, other than these 100 Angry Men stealing as much money as they can and then destroying the world.  They’ll leave our planet a Road Warrior wasteland while they move into their mansions in Antarctica, party with Gwar, and laugh as the rest of the world becomes a lifeless desert.  Worse yet, they don’t seem to buy any rounds of alcohol despite almost C. Montgomery Burns levels of wealth!

I’d like to quote the Lord Humungus, “What a puny plan!” but I hear they are already booking flights to the South Pole.  They left Al Gore in the center of a hidden Tobacco patch, plucking away on his malign H.A.R.P. from Hell.  I emailed the above picture from their laptop to myself and then onward to The Daily Discord.  Do you think they’ll check their sent mail?  Damn.  I think they’re in the house now.

Still don’t believe me?  Well, I don’t give a pluck what you think. You’ll be playing a different tune when the oceans roll over the cities and the forests turn to dust. Don’t come running to me when that doomsday H.A.R.P plays its final stanza as our fingers grasp through the burning sands in the hopes of unearthing some old sandwiches or the warm beer of a dead world.

And always remember, It Could Happen to Harpo!

Now that everyone is piling on Obama like a Cambodian stampede, it’s time to come to the aid of my old pal, Mr. Mediocre.  Currently, Bush’s approval rating is 44% and Obama’s is 39%.  Huh?  Granted, Obama’s struggling, but Bush’s approval rating should only be calculable using quantum fractals, pygmy fractions, or perhaps some other non-Euclidian geometry only found down in Whoville on Psilocybin Wednesdays.  Speaking of which, Shaman man…what are ya doing Wednesday?

My prediction on inauguration day was this: Obama would do poorly on the economic front and well on foreign policy.  He has done a little better on the economic front than anticipated.  What!?!  Sorry Foxeteers, those of us who saw this coming thought our economy would be pushing up more Daisy than the Duke boys right about now.  Last I checked, we’re not in a depression, so kudos, oh Anointed One.

As for foreign policy, I have always put his achievements into the context of a country drastically declining in influence, resources, and options.  I never felt we, as a country, would regroup after Bush—not without strong non-partisan approval and implementation of Psilocybin Wednesdays.  If and when we re-emerge from the inflation to come, we will have a very different role on the world stage.  Not to mention intermittent flying unicorns.

Can you imagine a Republican president ruling in this environment?  How will they govern without their two favorite tools, bullying and threatening?  Let me make another prediction:  they will continue as if nothing has changed for at least a year, then, when faced with the overwhelming fact that no one is listening anymore, they will deny this for another six months or so.  When the stark reality of America’s shrinking role, influence, and power finally sinks in, they will renew their hatred for Barney Frank and Barak Obama.  At least they’re predictable.

Fact: Obama is not handling the Israel-Palestine conflict well.  But let’s not forget, no one ever has.  At this juncture, Israel is the biggest barrier to the process.  That’s not anti-Semitism, it’s a fact.  As for Afghanistan, in a recent C-Span moment, the former President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, pointed to two key strategic blunders that exacerbated the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  The first occurred under Reagan, when, after fighting a proxy war alongside Pakistan against Russia, the U.S. abandoned Pakistan and sought only to improve ties with India.  The second blunder occurred in 2002, after the U.S. had won a military battle in Afghanistan, but, instead of seeking a political a solution, chose instead to go bomb Iraq.

“Then (2002) the U.S. could have brokered a political deal from a position of strength, now the U.S. is attempting to broker a deal from a position of weakness.”

—Pervez Musharraf

Wow, sounds like Mick Zano.  So what were we doing for a gazillion dollars a day over there for nearly a decade?  Hmmmm.  Oh, and for some juxtaposition (which is our bonus word today, kids), we are cutting organ transplants for the poor in my state.  Gotta love Republicans. Let’s invade Iran!  We can supply our troops by having old people reuse their catheters.  That should help.  Borrow $ for Warren Buffet’s tax breaks?  Sorry, that’s a must.

Indeed, that was a very long and expensive stalemate, Mr. Decision Points.  Where was your Mission Abolished banner for that one?   Fact: we have fought Al-Qaeda more effectively in both border countries under Obama’s reign.  And I’m betting we will reach a political agreement with the Taliban soon.

C-Span recently assembled a “what the ‘F’ are we going to do about Iran” panel.  This group of specialists believes a military option with Iran is off the table.   They unanimously agreed that any military option cannot just be empty words.  We need to be able to back threats up with troops, and our current military situation is such that, beyond air strikes on the nuclear facilities themselves, a ground invasion is logistically impossible right now.  The Republicans have decimated this option and left our cupboards bare.   But Tiny Tim didn’t need that liver anyway.   Well, he did, but it’s just tough love. The panel also seemed to agree that multi-lateral sanctions, imposed by the U.S. and China under direction of the Obama administration, are having an impact.  You won’t hear that one on Fox News.

Fareed Zakaria had some Iranian ambassador on CNN this Sunday.  Let me translate, “If I don’t lie through my teeth and praise my midget overlord, he will do things with my testicles so humorously diabolical they could only exist in the realms of a Mel Brook movie.”  Something definitely has to be done about this regime.  Even the mild mannered Fareed was taken aback by this guy.  This putz didn’t know bupkis! But his inability to stay several light years from the truth at all times does make him strong with the Schwartz.

With next to no options, Obama has done relatively well, considering.  Is everything resolved?  Are things still bleak?  Certainly,  right on cue.  But he is playing the hand he was dealt rather well. (Hint 1: he has a pair of 4s.  Hint 2: the world can see his hand.)

The point of high irony here is that the same actions that avoided the Bush depression really cost Obama dearly.  Now, when the depression comes, they will call it the Obama Depression.  This has been my fear all along.  The depression was inevitable; I just hoped the terminally wrong would figure a few things out on the way down.  Not likely, though. Fox is a state of mind as impenetrable as any Fortress of Ineptitude.  I gave Kerry a 30% chance of pulling this country out of this mess and I gave Obama a 15%.  The Z-Party has only a 10% chance, but as Leslie Nielson tells us, there’s only about a 5% chance of that.  Once again I’ll defer to Andrew Sullivan to sum up the Obama administration, because I need to get to Whoville before Cappy Hour ends.

“Preventing a second Great Depression, which was a real possibility (and not just the jobless recovery we’re in, but a full-scale collapse), rescuing the banks without nationalizing them, saving the auto-companies with precision and technocratic skill (I didn’t think it would work at all, and it did), re-setting relations with the rest of the world, bringing a new sanity and balance to Middle East policy, taking out 400 al Qaeda operatives, using the myth of the surge to get the hell out of Iraq (for the most part), upping the ante to get a deal with the Taliban and enacting a centrist, moderate law that for the first time in history ensures that anyone can get health insurance in this country … really, in perspective, pretty damn remarkable.”

—Andrew Sullivan, October 14, 2010

Or, as the Crank calls him…the worst president in U.S. history.  Hah!  I will say it again, so some day it will sink in:  Obama’s 1.65 trillion was a Hail Mary pass of Bill-blical proportions–a move that so far has worked.  I predicted the double dip recession within two years, it’s over that now.  His deficit was NOT the cause of the problem.  The only people who believe that can unhook the electrodes and climb out of the friggin tub any time now. Renounce Fox today and join the Z-Party! Now accepting applications.

As for my predictions and my posts, they’re all posted on the site.  Use our search page and search by author and read a couple.  If you think I erred somewhere, hit the contact button.  I, unlike a certain someone of Shamanic persuasion, will respond to your comments. If you can find something the Crank predicted accurately…well, good luck with that.

Of course, there’s a couple of things I have been wrong about…I still believe, Sanjaya!  But, for the most part, the chicken entrails the Ghetto Shaman uses as a prediction method has served me well.  Thanks, old friend. And, as for the Foxeteers and the rest of the increasing number of unconscious beings roaming the western world, Carl Jung said it best:

“Inescapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing conclusions about the future.”

—C.G. Jung

Hey, let’s start another war and let the world’s greatest healthcare system ignore even more sick Americans.  No, no. I got it…let’s just cut spending on things we really can’t or won’t ever really cut!  Oooh, how about, we keep the Bush tax cuts despite all economic reason, because so many credible people on Fox think this couldn’t possibly fail a second time. No, no, wait…

Flagstaff, AZ—Deciding against heading to D.C. for my own rally, which is every blogger’s prerogative, I instead attended the Rally to Restore Sanity in my area.  This was a difficult decision for me but, since Winslow wouldn’t let me into the rent-a-car, I opted to stay around town and…damn you Ghetto Shaman!

At 11:00 AM on 10/30 as the D.C. Mall filled up with ralliers, for some rally or another, a woman named Donna held a sign outside of City Hall that read “Vote Damn It!”  OK, it just said ‘vote’, but the damn it was implied.

She said, “I would have preferred Hillary over Obama, but considered McCain until he chose Palin as his running mate.”

Donna, a true AZ independent, seemed interested in a viable third party, but didn’t seem horribly enthralled with the Tea Peeps.  Then I spoke with a gentleman named Doug, who said he’s “disturbed by all the 2^nd Amendment rhetoric and threats; all because they don’t like the results of a democratic process.” And he was “upset with all the hatred and intimidation these days.”

I chose that moment to expose my holster, “Shut up, douche bag!” I said, before breaking his rally sign over my knee.

OK, maybe not.  But what were these seemingly sane people hiding? Hmmmm. My interview with Doug was interrupted, because someone started yelling obscenities at the ralliers (only seconds after the above picture was snapped). 

At the time this unpleasantness erupted, there were only three signs out: Vote Now, Your Choice Counts, and Rally to Restore Sanity.  So this “patriot” was either not interested in voting, not interested in sanity, or perhaps becomes enraged by the sight of American flags.  I know what you’re thinking, but The Crank was in The Valley that day (come for the festival a-ya?).

We are a divided nation.  But I’m not saying all Tea Party members are morons—sure some of them are steeped in stupid, but the concerning thing is, the majority of their candidates certainly are morons.  That was yet another key point missed by my blogversaries.  And not all Tea Party darlings are bone heads either; there’s Joe Miller over in Alaska who can complete a whole sentence on command, and there’s Chris Christie over in Jersey who certainly has his fair share of hootspa.  I hate hootspa. 

But it’s important we stop pigeonholing ourselves into one camp or another.  I can make fun of Sean Hannity, because he’s consistently pathetic, but I can also quickly lose faith in Keith Olbermann (someone I admired during the Bush years).  My article Today’s Worst Liberal in the World came out in 2008.  In fact, I was critical of Keith before it was popular to do so.  Whereas I figured out some media madness in a few weeks, my friends across the blogosphere never questioned Eight YEARS OF BUSH FOXAGANDA.  This is why they only resonate with those completely immersed in the neococoon, or vodka.

Having such a large faction of society completely devoid of any independent thought is a mortifying.  It scares me more than pragmatism (Fox translation = socialism).  It scares me more than whatever the hell Glenn Beck is scared about (no Prozac script?).  I think it’s the story of our time, which is why I’ve been harping on the subject (to the chagrin of both of my readers).

Bachmann and Angle are as scary on the right as Reid and Pelosi are on the left.  Difference?  Most liberals get that.  Yet Republicans have almost no ability to identify the dangers on their own side of the aisle. In fact, they tend to promote them.  Does that mean they’re morons themselves?  Not necessarily; it could be dementia. 

Fact 1: I do know intelligent people who watch and enjoy Fox News. 

Fact 2: That’s a shame.

I heard a conversation the other day at a coffee shop.

The guy at the table next to me said, “My brother’s from Nevada and he’s like, ‘God, Reid is such an asshole, but then the Tea Party people put up Angle to run against him?  What the F&^%!’”

That quote rather succinctly sums up why I have some faith in liberals and next to none in today’s conservatives.  They’re picker is not only broken, it has been shoved so far up the U.S. psyche’s ass that our country’s zeitgeist is walking a little funny these days. 

Angle, Bachman, Palin, O’Donnell?  Really?  Ethnocentric, nationalistic, fundamental thought is fine—aka, wherever the hell you’re at in the grand meme of things, knock yourself out—but for God’s sake, do it well (hint: you’re not). 

This has been my point all along.  I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but there are valid positions within the Republican Party and there are valid positions within the Tea Party.  Bottom line, we are healthier with a better brand of donkey and a better brand of elephant.

At the rally today, the four people I interviewed were reasonable, intelligent, and informed.  The one guy from the right was yelling obscenities, because advocating for normal brain wave patterns is apparently unacceptable to him.  Hmmm.  Liberals are all over the map with their positions.  Foxeteers are in lockstep or, in some cases, ‘goose step’, fashion.  But I kid the fascists.

Listening and thinking are clearly not vogue.  Politicians have devolved to little more than legitimized crooks, or, as I like to call them, Discord staffers.   This is why I want to stand with some type of Tea Party movement, but in order to do so today I would have to don my Groucho mustache/glasses combo out of sheer embarrassment.  And, as most people who know me would attest, I don’t embarrass easily.  Sure, they’re not all morons, but how can we tell when the person stating their case is, in fact, a moron?  Oh, wait, no M word…er, analytically challenged?

My five minutes at City Hall Saturday reminded me why I would rather be at a Stewart/Colbert rally than a Tea Party or a Beck Rally any day.  The Crank feels most people are moderate.  I say, they seem anything but these days.  What gets my goat is those the most outraged have an outrageous voting record and a tenuous grip on reality (on a good day).

I have entire posts focusing on—not the dismantling of conservatism—but the legitimizing of it. Republicans seem incapable of self reflection, or anything resembling improvement. I also want something better than Air America or MSNBC on the liberal side.  Again, the main difference?  If you lose objectivity on the left, you dive (MSNBC or AA), you lose objectivity on the right, you thrive (Fox News).  As usual, Andrew summed the rally up nicely…the Ghetto Shaman rally, of course:

“It wasn’t ethnically very diverse, but there were many more boomers than I expected. It was very good humored, and one sensed that the entire crowd loathed Fox, felt queasy about MSNBC, couldn’t bring themselves to watch CNN and caught NPR in the commute…oh, and The Ghetto Shaman rocked!”

—Andrew Sullivan

OK, I added the Ghetto Shaman part, but it was implied.   The tanked media was a major theme of the Stewart rally.  Once again our comedians are more insightful than our politicians.  Heck, a news outlet for my meme doesn’t even exist yet.  When will there be an integral news station?!  Well, I could just keep watching Fareed Zakaria all day on TiVo, but that’s hardly the same. 

What I fear is that if we have too many at a ethnocentric/fundamental level, we have very little chance of avoiding a global conflict with Islam.  Too many liberal pluralists, on the other hand, and we’re likely to have Sharia Law in the west.  But if a few more integral folk show up in congress, who knows, maybe we could really fuck things up!

And now, as promised, a Special Comment:

(hint: it’s really not all that special and if you have something better to do right now, like go for a root canal or watch C-Span 2, you might want to do that.)

My original thought was to go line by line with Crank’s last post, pointing out what I meant and how the Foxeteers switch to something completely different (hint: usually involving socialism).  But the Daily Discord is already cutting way too much into my drinking time, so no. 

But the Crank is right about this part: dumb, dumber, dumbest comments are hardy integral.  And, in the interest of good sportsmanship, I’m even willing to drop the M and even the D word from my vocabulary. If, but only if, my fellow Discordians actually read what I say before immediately translating them into Foxisms—nine out of ten of which do not apply to my posts or my position. 

I will take the bite out of my schtick, but, as far as the truly personal attacks, I think that’s another example of the Crank calling the Zano hack.

Meanwhile, Pernick on a recent Facebook exchange called me “clueless” for thinking Bush added more to the deficit than Obama.

And, not to be outdone, the Crank said, “Well, no (Obama had more deficits).  You once said to me that Fox lies, and that you can make up stories, but ya can’t make up facts.”

Two posts ago, here’s me on deficits: “Sorry, but Obama doesn’t count. Capitalism ended in 2008,” and in this week’s post I added, “The last $1.65 trillion Obama spent was a reaction to the collapse. It staved off a depression.”

A few posts back, I showed a graph of all the deficits of the last 8 presidents, minus Obama, and I explained why his deficits didn’t count, because it was all over by then (and still is).  This is borrowed time with borrowed money. The way you guys make it sound, Obama just waltzed in during a little lull in our economy and started seizing automobile manufacturers. Huh?  Do you think Obama blew $1.65 trillion on hats?

Again, just for fun:  Operation Monopoly Money doesn’t count; it was post econolyptic. 

Summary of the economic debate late ‘08:

“Naaah, let’s not do the whole depression thing.”

“Sounds good, George. I’ll print the loot.”

Summary of the economic debate early ‘09:

“Naaah, let’s not do the whole depression thing.”

“Sounds good, Barak. I’ll print the loot.”

Obama’s part in this was going to go down similarly no matter who was in power.  Oh, oh, wait.  Actually, if a true Tea Partier was in at that time, the global economy would have collapsed.  They are, of course, right in principle about fiscal conservatism, but if they had tried that shit at the onset of The Great Recession, it would have been soup line city.  Facts are terrible things.

The deficits that broke America’s back happened during those fiscally conservative Bush years.  And, to some degree, the whole Spendulus thing worked far better than I could have imagined.  I still think we’re heading for a double dip recession, but the crux of our differing opinion is this: I know how to appropriately divvy up the blame, again 60(R), 40 (D), which is about the best case scenario for Republicans.  History will likely be harsher. That’s why I was yelling as loudly as I did circa 2004-2008, when you were all just a twinkle in your founding father’s tea bag.  I saw the big tree and I saw the glazed look in our Commander in Chief’s eyes as he stayed the course. I predicted the collapse almost to the month…so yeah, I’m crazy…crazy like a Fox!

–Homer Simpson at a Beck rally