The man pictured here next to Sen. Barack Obama is the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. You’ve probably seen him in the news, as he has come under tremendous fire from politicians and media alike, in regards to some strong and inflammatory comments he’s made at his church, which just so happens to be the church of Sen. Obama, who just happens to be running for President.
The outrage machine has been working overtime to link Obama and some of the more insensitive things Rev. Wright has said, and the main-stream media is especially giddy about this- I think Sean Hannity actually had to hide his outrage boner last night on his show. It's been the lead in the N.Y. Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, as well as on every major evening news network. This is the type of garbage that passes for news nowadays.
I’m willing to bet almost nobody knows anything about Barack Obama’s healthcare plan (here’s the link: http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/ -there’s some good stuff in here, especially the subsidies for people who can’t afford to pay for their own health care, as well as mandated universal health coverage for children- something Pres. Bush VETOED late last year, but I digress), but you know he’s a shitty bowler, and that he doesn’t wear a flag pin on his lapel, and his middle name is Hussein, and the pastor of his church seems like kind of a dick.
Does anybody give a shit about Hillary’s plan to help fix the housing market/subprime loan mess (some of the details are here: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=4530 -she’s calling for moratoriums on home foreclosures for up to 90 days and possible rate freezes for people locked into subprime adjustable-rate mortgages- some solid first steps)?
Nope, but I’ll bet you know she lied about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire when she was first lady, and how she cried while campaigning in New Hampshire, and how her husband got some BJ’s from a chubby bimbo ten years ago. Or what about John McCain’s stance on Iraq? Does anybody realize that Sen. McCain advocates increasing the troop levels in Iraq and rejects unconditional negotiations with Syria and Iran (here the link to his official website, less you think I jest: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/fdeb03a7-30b0-4ece-8e34-4c7ea83f11d8.htm)? Maybe vaguely, but no doubt you know John McCain is hailed as a “maverick” in the U.S. Senate, repeatedly adorned with the false moniker of “Straight Talker” by the adoring press? I’ll bet you didn’t know how McCain voted on the last piece of legislation regarding torture (look it up, it’s quite surprising), but I’ll bet you knew is campaign bus is called the “Straight Talk Express”.
I started with Rev. Wright because he embodies the epitome of the stupid bullshit that not only passes for news with our lazy, sycophantic mainstream media, but also the motivations of our votes as Americans. Much was made in 2000 when George W. Bush “beat” Al Gore (not even going to get into that one)
by appealing to regular folk- many voters perceived him as the guy they wanted to have a beer with, the guy who loves baseball and golf and isn’t a big reader and who clears brush on his ranch on his days off, as opposed to the seemingly elitist Gore, a robotic lifetime bureaucrat who probably drank cabernet sauvignon and threw like a girl. But look at what this got us- this “regular guy” got us balls deep into an unwinable, costly and deadly war in the desert, neglected our national security and economy, and generally fucked things up as much as one human being could possibly fuck something up. It’s fair to say that if the effete, boring wine-drinker were elected, we wouldn't be in this war, almost 4,000 of our soldiers would be still alive, and our federal deficit wouldn’t be higher than Willie Nelson (hey-0!).So, do you think, America, that possibly, maybe, this stupid bullshit we read in the papers and obsess about, the crap we allow to substitute for debate about actual issues, might not the best judgments of how our leaders will act and carry out their duties? Do you think that maybe just because a politician names his fucking bus the “Straight Talk Express”, it means he’s actually a straight talker? If I chartered a bus and had “World’s Smartest Man” emblazoned on the side and traveled the countryside giving speeches about how I was indeed the World’s Smartest Man, would you believe a word of it? Hopefully not, because if you met me for ten seconds you would know this wasn’t true (I drool a lot), but I’m willing to be there are some assholes that would. They would tell their friends they met the World’s Smartest Man, and it had to be true because it said it on the side of his bus.
Herein lies the fundamental problem with us as a voting electorate. We’re extremely fucking intellectually lazy. We'll take the word of the side of the bus.
We don’t want to take the ten minutes to log onto Hillary Clinton’s website to find out about her plan for withdrawing our troops from Iraq, but we’re sure we’re not voting for her because she seems like kind of a bitch. We are sure we aren’t voting for Barack Obama because here’s a picture of him in a turban, and Muslims are our enemies, and he might secretly be one. In fact, here’s a perfect illustration of this, its an article about some bumblefuck pastor down in South Carolina who tried to raise the question on his church sign of whether or not Obama is a Muslim: http://www.wspa.com/midatlantic/spa/news.apx.-content-articles-SPA-2008-04-20-0005.htmlThe best part about this is his quote: Pastor Byrd says the sign is not meant to be racial or political but rather to make people think. "His name is so close to Osama I have a feeling he might be Islamic therefore he doesn't recognize Christ," Pastor Byrd said.
No, you ignorant dickhole, Obama isn’t “Islamic” and if you had taken one second to search this on the interwebs you’d have found out that yes, he is in fact a Christian, and no, you shouldn’t make assumptions based on things as frivolous as people’s names, and yes, your parents probably are related you slack-jawed yokel. Only this guy apparently isn’t as much of a slack-jawed yokel as a representative sample of our voting electorate, as displayed by the fact that his church voted unanimously to keep this sign up, and as much as most people don’t want to admit it, these are the kinds of things that go through our minds as we walk into the voting booth.
It’s too difficult for us to research the issues, investigate the candidates and come to our own independent conclusion- we need things pre-packaged for us, we need it black-and-white, good vs. evil, we need the Black Guy vs. the Bitch, we need it all wrapped up neatly in a bow. We rely on rumors and hearsay and our gossipy neighbors-that’s why we know that Obama bowled a 37 but don’t really remember John McCain’s role in the Savings and Loan scandals of the 80’s (here's a primer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five).
I hate to say it, but we deserve exactly the leaders we get, and if a smirking, faux-cowboy trust-fund baby, a legacy Yale and Harvard failed oil tycoon convinces us he could possibly have any of our best interests at heart, then whatever happens is our fault. If you don’t want shitty, ignorant leaders, then we need to stop being shitty, ignorant voters, and we need to reject the crap about flag pins and sniper fire and make the effort to educate ourselves. If all you know about John Edwards is that he allegedly pays $400 for his haircuts, then shame on you.
As the great philosopher Daniel Plainview might say: “I… drink… your… MILKSHAKE! I DRINK IT UP!”
Right now, the political and economic elite are drinking our milkshake, and we’re way, way too lazy to do anything about it. They distract us with stupid bullshit, and while we’re sending each other YouTube clips of Obama’s pastor saying disturbing things about 9/11, they stick the long straw of stupidity into our milkshake. They drink it up.* UPDATE: Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Sen. John Edwards, wrote a wonderful (and incredibly more eloquent) Op-Ed in the New York Times talking about much of the same I covered here, only, you know... better, and with much less profantiy and boner jokes. Check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/opinion/27edwards.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#
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