S.E. Cupp: As stupid as she is attractive

It may be safely assumed that if S.E. Cupp looked like CNN’s Candy Crowley, no one would know who she is. But just like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, because Cupp is attractive, her stupidity matters far less to those who find favor with her.

I do not make the “stupid” charge cavalierly. Anyone who is familiar with Cupp’s downright nonsensical position that although she doesn’t believe a god exists, she nonetheless wants the president of the world’s most powerful country to believe otherwise. Put another way, she wishes for a president who answers to what she basically says is a figment of his imagination. Kind of like a schizophrenic.

Her latest column for the New York Daily News is an attack on Ron Paul in what amounts to a fourth-grade foray into international affairs—a complete mindfuck of gibberish, non sequiturs, and just plain ignorance of US foreign policy:

The problem is that Ron Paul’s America would be a scary place to live in. So would the rest of the world.

That’s not because he would, as he has so often promised, end the Federal Reserve or the Department of Education, but because he would end our history of fighting brutal regimes and human rights abuses around the world.

And what about our history of favoring and supporting brutal regimes and human rights abuses around the world? Cupp does not address this aspect or even acknowledge its existence.

She then proceeds with a familiar line of attack, made popular by Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and other neocon nincompoops who refuse to understand what the 9/11 attacks were about:

It goes beyond getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan. On 9/11, his position is that we started it. “Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda have been explicit,” he said in Monday’s debate in Tampa, “and they wrote and said that we attacked America because you had bases on our holy land in Saudi Arabia, you do not give Palestinians fair treatment, and you have been bombing . . .” His argument was cut off by a chorus of boos.

He concluded that “we had been bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for 10 years,” which is untrue, then asked, “Would you be annoyed? If you’re not annoyed, then there's some problem.”

Ron Paul’s explanation for the 9/11 attacks is shared the CIA, the 9/11 Commission, and anyone who’s ever studied US foreign policy for more than 15 minutes, using sources other than Sean Hannity. The 9/11 attacks were of course examples of “blowback”—the unintended negative consequences of US foreign policy. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you meddle in the domestic affairs of other countries—overthrowing the democratically elected government of Iran in 1954, installing the Shah in its place, supporting Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, imposing a devastating sanctions regime on Iraq in the 1990s that wiped out hundreds of thousands of people, bombing a critically important pharmaceutical factory in Sudan in 1998, supporting dictatorial regimes as in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Egypt and elsewhere, among other crimes—it’s going to cause widespread resentment among the civilian populations in those places.

But instead of comprehending this fundamental axiom of not just international relations, but basic human interaction, Cupp takes an all too familiar swipe at Paul:

The idea that Bin Laden was justified in his violence is dangerous and patently anti-American.

Ah yes, the old, “Giving an explanation for 9/11 that goes beyond the they-hate-us-for-our-freedoms mantra means you are justifying their crimes and hate America” shtick. If this is true, then surely the American CIA hates America, because it’s concluded the same thing. Maybe in her next column, Cupp will write about how Langley needs to be purged of all its anti-Americans.

Continuing on,

This is what the founders advised,” Paul says. “We were not meant to be the policemen of the world.” One is left wondering, then, what President Paul would have done about Hitler or Pol Pot. What would he have done about Rwanda or Bosnia? What would he do now about North Korea?

Cupp isn’t helping her own case here by citing these examples, which show what a putz she is. With the exception of one these, the answer to her question is, the same thing all those other presidents did in those situations.

What would Ron Paul have done about Hitler? Probably the same thing Franklin Roosevelt did after Germany’s Japanese allies bombed Pearl Harbor: asked for a declaration of war on the Axis powers.

About Pol Pot, he would’ve done nothing, just like Carter did. In fact, Carter provided military support to the Khmer Rouge after Vietnam invaded in 1979. And that was our “human rights president.” For his part, when he took office Reagan continued to recognize the overthrown Khmer Rouge as the legitimate government.

Rwanda? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the US did nothing, again, with the Clinton administration taking its sweet time before it could bring itself to calling the slaughter of 20% of the Rwandan population a genocide.

Bosnia? Does she really mean Bosnia, as in the small peacekeeping mission the US had there for about a decade? Or does she mean to say Kosovo, for which we bombed Serbian civilians and after which the ethnic cleansing actually increased? Who knows? Who cares?

And regarding North Korea, Obama and his predecessor have largely ignored them, save for the imposition of trade sanctions. Truth be told, if Ron Paul were president, I doubt we’d see a big shift in US policy vis-à-vis North Korea.

What’s the matter, S.E.? Didn’t want to mention Darfur where the US did nothing also? I’m sure she would’ve mentioned the ghastly civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that killed over 5 million people, but she’d first have to know that that country exists. The US didn’t intervene there either.

The US of course didn’t really intervene in any of these places for the plain fact that there was nothing to be gained geopolitically from doing so. Or at least, the costs were perceived to outweigh the potential benefits. On the other hand, Iraq, which the US invaded, sits on an ocean of oil. Saudi Arabia, despite its tyranny, is a US ally because it too has a shitload of petroleum. Ditto for the monarchy in Bahrain, which hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Cupp makes it sounds like a Ron Paul presidency would allow dictators free reign. But at least then we wouldn’t be supporting them.

- Max

I don't care if Obama loses in 2012

America's most powerful conservative

Against my better judgment, I’ve been commenting on stories on Huffington Post lately. Usually my comments are about how Barack Obama has failed both as a president and a liberal. There is little that distinguishes him from George W. Bush, save for some progressive rhetoric that is ultimately unaccompanied by action. Any honest and politically literate progressive knows this. The only supposed liberals who seem to really believe in Obama can be found on MSNBC or on the Washington Post editorial page—centrists posing as liberals, because they have allowed themselves to be dragged rightward by the craven corporate whores in the modern Democratic Party.

Even the liberal commenters on Huffington Post and Daily Kos have given up defending Obama with any degree of fervency. Most of them, anyway. A few die-hards remain, but their minds are impervious to reality, a la that infamous 30% of the population that was still approving of George W. Bush’s performance at the tail end of his second term.

Despite this widespread disappointment, I am frequently criticized for my Election Day 2012 plans, which do not include a trip to the polls, except perhaps to cast a Green for president and maybe a vote for my congressman. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I will not vote for him again. That much is certain. Even if I lived in a swing state like Ohio or Pennsylvania, I still would not vote for Obama. And it is here, for many liberals, where my need for “ideological purity” comes under fire. Whether it’s on the threads of HuffPost or when I’m having drinks with liberal friends, the specter of a Rick Perry/Michele Bachmann/Mitt Romney is always raised, as if failing to vote for Obama next year—despite my disappointment with him on almost every major issue—will haunt me until my dying breath.

Liberals insist that liberals must vote for Barack Obama because if we don’t, who knows what whackadoodle could be our next president, as if that outcome would be anyone’s fault but Barack Obama’s.

I for one am not going to allow myself to be scared into the voting booth at the mere mention of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or anyone else. No doubt, however, that millions of other liberals certainly will. And that’s a problem. It sends a message to the Establishment-oriented Obama, and all other Democrats present and future, that to secure the “base” of the party, one need only frighten those in it with the prospect of a theocratic supply-side dystopia if Republican candidate X wins the election.

And maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s what we need in this country. Apparently, Bush didn’t make things bad enough in order for endless war, permanent tax cuts, and the trampling of the Bill of Rights to be deemed bad ideas by either party. After all, these buffooneries have continued apace into this so-called liberal administration, which has doled out trillions to the financial sector while destroying the savings of the general population, which eagerly awaits a jobs plan that they will no doubt be terribly disappointed by.

If Obama manages to win reelection, it would be a disaster for liberalism rather than a boost. Since Obama is not an actual liberal, his reelection would demonstrate that, electorally, core New Deal Democratic values don’t really matter on a substantive level, only at a very superficial rhetorical one. It would vindicate former press secretary Robert Gibbs’ dismissive assertion that only the “professional left” is disaffected with the president, meaning anyone who gives a shit about protecting America’s working class from corporate marauders, several of which populate the administration itself.

If Obama is defeated in 2012, the pundit class will proffer every explanation possible for the outcome, except for the correct one—that Obama is a centrist whose shamelessly pro-corporate policies failed to effect positive change in the lives of ordinary Americans during the worst financial crisis in 80 years.

- Max

Herman Cain perfectly summarizes Tea Party social values

Herman “The First Amendment Doesn’t Apply To Muslims” Cain

One of the great misconceptions about the Tea Party is that it’s driven mainly by concerns about the economy and the national debt. And for some members, that is certainly the case. However, as the current race for the GOP nomination shows, even those candidates who have labored to co-opt Tea Partyism simply can’t help themselves when it comes to engaging in Lee Atwater-esque social wedge issue campaigning. Witness the candidates tripping over themselves in attempting to secure the fetus vote, the obligatory tough talk on illegal immigration, and references to god, religion, and other bunkum.

Before today I thought the candidacy of former Godfather Pizza CEO Herman Cain served only one function: To demonstrate the non-racism of the Tea Party crowd by giving them an opportunity to say nice things about an African-American. But now I realize he serves another function: To make Michele Bachmann look like Madame Curie.

Explaining why he opposes the building of the now-forgotten proposed mosque in Murfeesboro, Tennessee, Cain told the AP this about the allegedly devious machinations of that project:

“It is an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion,”[…]“And I don't agree with what's happening, because this isn’t an innocent mosque.”

So Herman Cain opposes the building of a mosque because “it is an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion.”

Read that again. Then again. And then again. Because no matter how many times you read it, it makes no fucking sense at all, unless you share Cain’s bizarro interpretation of freedom of religion, which to him apparently means he has the freedom to choose which religions others are not free to practice. Calling the building of a mosque “an abuse of our freedom of religion,” sends a clear signal to some of the more deranged Tea Partiers that he shares their vision of an America without Muslims.

Of course, I too wish for an America without Muslims, but also one without Christians, and Hindus, and every other practitioner of a faith premised on a belief in the supernatural. Nevertheless, we must never endeavor to hinder what is otherwise private religious practice by legislative fiat or other government mandate. For Cain to say that the mosque ought not to be built, is a direct attack on the First Amendment of the Constitution and the rights of private property. Apparently these don’t hold as much weight in Tea Party circles as some would have us believe.

- Max

Gnarly Tour de France crash

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

I don’t care how random this post is. It’s not every day a Tour de France cyclist gets knocked into another rider by a media car, sending that guy into a barbed-wire fence. And yet, both of them finished the race.

Bruins fuck yeah!

The deterioration of America is our own damn fault

American politics in action

Never in my adult life have I felt so detached and indifferent with respect to American politics. I have always regarded it as a twisted sideshow, unfit for consumption by decent folk. But consume I have. For years I have watched and analyzed this ongoing train-wreck, first out of the hope that someday I could help play a small role in stopping it; then with the understanding that though I could not stop it, I would at least be able to comprehend it; and then finally, having realized that it is neither stoppable, nor comprehensible, I followed politics merely for my own morbid amusement.

I no longer glean much amusement from political diversions. Much hoopla has been made recently about a congressman sending photos of his penis over the internet. In two weeks, the media has spent more time on this “story” than it has explaining how and why the financial system collapsed in last two plus years. Our political debates, such as the one in New Hampshire last night, are nothing more than personality contests stripped of all substance and laden with clever one-liners that pundits use as some sort of standard of political excellence.

And maybe they are. Americans can rarely fix their attention on anything that lasts longer than seven seconds. During the debate Ron Paul no doubt left most people scratching their heads when he blundered by discussing monetary policy. Apparently he doesn’t watch much cable news; otherwise he would know that there is just no place on television for that sort of topic. Much as Americans are concerned about the economy—as they should be—they don’t care to listen or know much about it. The average American’s knowledge of economics is so shockingly deficient that it is no wonder the richest of the rich have been able to plunder middle class wealth for the past few decades. Tea Party types are right to protest wealth redistribution, but they do not seem to understand that the redistribution is upward, not downward to minorities and illegal immigrants as many of them seem to think.

There is a contingent of libertarians and survivalists who keep warning of a malevolent authoritarianism coming to America, and that the people will be ruled over by an iron fist of the kind seen in Third World countries run by military juntas. But this admonition makes a sketchy assumption—namely that Americans would care about, and fight back against, such a development. After all, a true, active dictatorship would only be necessary in America if the citizens push back against the current passive dictatorship, which is run by Wall Street oligarchs and their enablers in Washington. And yet, the populace seems so sufficiently passive, that there is no need to institute a true autocracy complete with the abolition of the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. (No doubt rights have been curtailed courtesy of the “war on terror,” but what I am referring to is the outright erasure of the Constitution by official government fiat.)

Herein is an alarming prospect, captured well in a famous comic strip about the differences between literary prophets George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. That strip reads in part:

“What Orwell feared was those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who would want to read one…

“As Huxley remarked in ‘Brave New World Revisited’ the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny ‘failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.’”

In a nation where a show called “Extreme Couponing” can exist, one must wonder how much longer the culture can be viable before it turns into a society of total serfs—a gigantic idiocracy too stupid and ignorant to operate at a functioning level. It is a sad state of affairs when one of the more popular shows on television is all about fat people working out. Reality television, once criticized for being unrealistic, has with time lived up to its billing. Programs with odd premises such as Survivor have been drowned out by shows about parking enforcers, mall security cops, exterminators, pawn shop owners, and home fixer uppers. One would think Americans already have enough contact with such people, that it would be entirely unnecessary and even idiotic to air shows about such mundane everyday activities. Obviously, one would be wrong.

- Max

The obsession with and uselessness of lawns

This is what a green void looks like.

Is there anything in the world more uninspiring and mundane than a neatly kept suburban lawn? I have scoured the most imaginative nether regions of my cerebrum and, alas, have come away empty-handed. Thinking of possible contenders I could not help but recall the view I had from my dorm room as an undergraduate—that of a giant concrete staircase. I resented the view especially since those on the other side of the building enjoyed a panoramic vista of the river. Even today it still seems unfair that I was paying the same amount for room and board as those more fortunate inhabitants.

But even that bulky and aesthetically foul staircase embodied a world of possibilities that no kempt lawn ever could. For one thing, there were always people going up and down that staircase, coming and going to conduct their business. Sometimes on lazier days, reverie would take hold and I’d find myself wondering and predicting—on no evidentiary grounds whatsoever—just where exactly those people were going.

With a neat lawn, however, there are no possibilities. For the owner of this ecological wasteland will not allow it. To him, every activity that could possibly occur on that lawn is an unwelcome encroachment on his green canvas masterpiece. Ants, squirrels, chipmunks, birds, rabbits, children, and other pests must be denied access at all costs. Though these creatures be involved in the usual work and play of the animal kingdom, any sign of natural commerce or of life in general are snuffed out. The weather, unless it comes in just the right combination of sunlight and rain, often displeases him. Too much sunlight will scorch his green rug; too much rain will drown it. Even the grass itself is not permitted to grow beyond a certain length. But all other things being equal, a well kept lawn will look the same this week as it did the last, especially if the caretaker has a regular mowing schedule, which he undoubtedly does.

And what function does this lovely lush lawn serve? Why, to show the neighbors and all who pass by what a lovely lush lawn the owner has. Like Christmas lights carefully placed around shrubbery in front of a house in December, the lawn is (in some places) a year-round reminder that the master of the house gives a damn about keeping up appearances. This of course is not a function, but rather a matter of cosmetics. A man may chide his wife for being fussy about makeup, but in the finicky department, a man and his dear lawn will always put her to shame.

Not only do millions of people keep up their lawns with a tenderness typically reserved for favored children and pets, but many of them insist that their neighbors do likewise, but perhaps not so much as to put his cookie-cutter creation to shame. No, the prideful lawn owner wants his neighbors to mow their lawns, uproot unseemly dandelions, and perhaps even strategically plant some pre-grown flowers, lest the shabby appearance of an adjacent property affect the market value of his own. Such busybodies have succeeded in influencing the levers of local government and even populate it. Peruse the bylaws of any suburban municipality and you will likely find an ordinance or two ironically instructing the locals in how their personal property ought to be maintained.

As hideous as that imposing concrete staircase was, and still is, it is a testament to productive human activity. Thousands of feet have trampled its steps and it is no worse for the wear. I have no doubt it looks the same now as it did when I was undergraduate, all the while requiring no maintenance save for the occasional winter salting. A lawn can make no such claims. It has no function. It bears no fruit. It features little or no animal activity if the owner can help it. It seldom if ever hosts a wiffle ball game or a bocce match. It is a patch of nothing.

This weekend, millions of people will tend to their patches of nothing with a sense of pride that continues to befuddle me. While other less lawn-bound people are hiking, kayaking, attending a museum or a play, or even just reading a good book, the lawn man shall go a-mowing, a-weeding, a-planting, and maybe even a-mulching. When he nears the end of his life, he may even stop to think in what sort of condition his gravesite will be kept. Perhaps that will be his greatest regret in life—that he will not be around to tend his final lawn.

- Max

The fruitless search for self

We are all wired into a survival trip now. No more of the speed that fueled that 60s. That was the fatal flaw in Tim Leary's trip. He crashed around America selling “consciousness expansion” without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all the people who took him seriously. All those pathetically eager acid freaks who thought they could buy Peace and Understanding for three bucks a hit. But their loss and failure is ours too. What Leary took down with him was the central illusion of a whole life-style that he helped create; a generation of permanent cripples, failed seekers, who never understood the essential old-mystic fallacy of the Acid Culture: the desperate assumption that somebody—or at least some force—is tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

So wrote Hunter S. Thompson as he reflected on the rise and fall of LSD as a viable door of perception. Dropping acid in the sixties was often an act of rebellion against ubiquitous materialism and consumerism. Like religion, it was used as a tool to apprehend something transcendently meaningful. It satisfied an age-old psychological urge by helping create the impression that some force is indeed tending the light at the end of the tunnel.

These days LSD is largely out of fashion. The kinds of people who would’ve taken acid in the sixties today resort to weed, meth, and other drugs whose chief effect is not “consciousness expansion,” but consciousness numbing. Rather than actively seek a path to illusory enlightenment, the chief aim of drug use today is mere psychological aloofness. Of course, smoking endless bales of marijuana is hardly a prerequisite for entry into the counterculture, which today is characterized by a fair amount of nonchalant douchebaggery in the form of nihilistic hipsters who seek meaning—but only ironically—through half-baked art house performances of topless body painting and male go-go dancing set to the theme song of Golden Girls, all while the audience samples fine artisanal cheeses.

But enough about the skin-tight jeans faction. How has the rest of America been coping with the constant cacophony of chaotic commercialism? To answer this, one need only consult the latest list of bestselling nonfiction paperbacks. Here is a sampling of titles.

Heaven is for Real. “A boy’s encounter with Jesus and the angels.”

Have a Little Faith. “A suburban rabbi and a Detroit pastor teach lessons about the comfort of belief.”

Drive. “A look at what truly motivates us, and how we can use that knowledge to work smarter and live better.”

90 Minutes in Heaven. “A minister on the otherworldly experience he had after an accident.”

Eat, Pray, Love. “A writer’s journey in search of self takes her to Italy, India and Indonesia.”

The Checklist Manifesto. “The power of a simple idea to manage the increasing complexity of life.”

If the popularity of these books is any indication, the search for self is not only underway, but profitable. Indeed, “self,” not space, may very well be the final frontier. But the average American’s self, like space, is a vast expanse of nothingness containing just a few if any fleeting flashes of supernova-like brilliance that must ultimately give way to destitute black holes capable of only consumption, not creation. Hence the insatiable consumerism and the path of devastation it leaves in its wake. This realization is what awaits all honest seekers of self. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—very few will arrive at this point. Indeed, humans may have even developed an internal survival mechanism to prevent such a realization from occurring. At least, people in the United States seem to have. It is difficult to imagine America producing a Camus, for example, for the plain fact that his ideas threaten the American dogma that one must exist for something else—god, spouse, children, society, etc.—instead of existing for existence’s sake.

Like the cockeyed acid heads before them, today’s group of self-seekers assumes that some cosmic manager is minding the store. With science’s destruction of faith-based explanations for natural phenomena virtually complete, and the creeping absurdism that accompanies it, we can now perceive the rise of a one-size-fits-all “spirituality” that is slowly encroaching upon the territory of Old Time Religion. Of course, the die-hards will remain, praising Jebus and whatnot until their dying breath. But as for the rest, they will become increasingly receptive to the gobbledygook preached by Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Mitch Albom, and other garbage salesmen who incorporate a elusive spiritualism that on one hand satisfies the American need for religious mumbo-jumbo, while on the other is so vague that it can appeal to anyone who thinks there has to be something “out there.”

But there is nothing out there—nothing that can possibly be ascertained by our mortal minds, anyway. And not only is there no one tending the light at the end of the tunnel, there is no light at all.