The coming Muslim-Christian coalition in the US? is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

Can't we all just get along? Probably not any time soon...

Disclaimer: the article below represents the noodlings of a dumbass who is talking about things way over his head, but which he nonetheless found interesting as a mental exercise.

When JFK was elected, the US had its first (and so far only) Roman Catholic president.  Barack Obama was the first African American president.  That leaves some interesting milestones still ahead of us, such as first female, first (openly) gay, and first (openly) atheist/agnostic.

I think there’s a good chance that we’ll hit all of those milestones, at some point, and that it’s just a matter of ‘when’.  I also think we’ll hit them in that order (female, gay, secular).  And I also think that as we hit each milestone, it will create a greatly increasing disturbance among conservative US voters.

The first milestone, female, will not have any overtly negative reaction at home or abroad.  There have been plenty of female heads of state, and anybody who publicly takes issue with that will be nearly universally condemned as a backwards nincompoop.

However, the next one (first gay) would set up the beginnings of a political holy war, as the groups who are anti-gay are really committed to being anti-gay.  These are people who put the behavior of same-sex consenting adults in the same category as child molestation or bestiality.  They will see a gay US President as the beginning of the end of the world, and will fight against it appropriately.

But the last one (first secular) would potentially set up an actual Holy War (notice the caps).  There was a recent survey that showed that people of faith trust atheists to the same level that they trust rapists.  Yes, really.  And a group with that outlook is going to work diligently (to say the least) to prevent it from happening.

Just as an exercise (not a prediction), I could see the future of Presidential politics progressing thusly (major party candidates, unless otherwise specified):

2012 – Obama re-elected, possible female VP (Clinton)
2016 – female President
2020 – gay VP nominee
2024 – gay Presidential nominee
2028 – secular serious 3rd party Presidential candidate
2032 – gay President, secular VP nominee
2036 – secular President

Yes, that goes 24 years into the future, and that seems like forever.  But consider if we were to look backwards, 24 years ago was the election of George H.W. Bush.  Not that long ago, for some of us.  Again, that is not a prediction as much as one possible future outcome, the likelihood of which is open to debate.

However, regardless of the actual dates and progression, I think we’ll eventually see female, gay, and secular presidents in the US, and that that progression of events will stir ever increasing ire among conservative Christian US voters.

Interestingly enough, there is another group whose reactions would, in my estimation, parallel those of conservative Christian US voters – namely, Muslims.  I am not Muslim, nor am I a student of Islam, but my lay-person’s understanding of Islam is that they generally hold that women should be subservient to men, that homosexuality is unacceptable, and that the faithless can be subject to persecution and even death.

Also, I’ve seen estimates that project the Muslim population will double or triple over the next 20 years in the US.  One thing that has been consistent throughout US history is that while immigrant populations may retain a lot of their cultural heritage, they all usually end up ‘going native’ and seeing themselves as Americans, not as displaced immigrants in a strange land.

So, let’s project to a point 24 years in the future.  There’s a larger, fairly well assimilated Muslim population in the US, and an increasing presence of openly gay and secular candidates on the national election stage.  Both the conservative Christian base and the growing Muslim-American community would have significant opposition to these types of candidates.

And there’s nothing, and I mean *nothing*, that unites groups like having a common enemy.  Politics makes for strange bedfellows, and although in today’s terror-focused, post 9-11 world it seems unlikely that Christians and Muslims would form a political alliance, time heals a lot of wounds.  Arguably, Muslims and Christians believe in the same God, and there are a lot of overlaps in their faiths, as well as a lot of differences.  However, in the face of a common enemy, and a heretical enemy at that, historical differences tend to be de-emphasized, and commonalities highlighted.

So, am I sitting here as a Nostradomus-like seer laying out prophecies?  No, it’s more of a mental exercise, and quite frankly started as a lark, but the more I considered a potential Christian-Muslim coalition, the harder it became to rule it out completely, and the easier it became to consider it as a realistic potential outcome.

How likely is this outcome?  I don’t know – as stated in the disclaimer at the top of this article, I’m just a dumbass with a blog who is noodling on things far outside my area of expertise.  America’s Jewish population and/or our alliance with Israel could be a wildcard.  The non-dogmatic US population could refuse to accept gay and/or secular candidates for a lot longer than is being speculated here.  And it could also be the case that both conservative Christian and Muslim US voters would have an equally vehement opposition to gay and secular candidates, but without forming any sort of alliance.

Dumbassery aside, however, I think it is at least plausible that, if faced with the prospect of an atheist/agnostic US President, the US Christian and Muslim communities could form an alliance to fight against such a candidate.  I’m not hoping this happens, I’m not saying I know it’s going to happen, and I’m not saying it should (or shouldn’t) happen.  However, what I am saying is that as implausible as a Muslim-Christian coalition seems today, I would not be surprised to see it happen in the future.

And just how unlikely is a Christian-Muslim coalition?  Well, consider that, today, the United States’ closest ally is Great Britain, and in the decade after the Revolutionary War I’m sure that would have seemed like an outlandish prospect.  The US also counts Germany and Japan among our closest allies, and that would have seemed unlikely in the decade after WWII and Pearl Harbor.  Think Russia after the Cold War, or China after Korea.  All are now our allies, or at least our economic partners, and such alliances and partnerships would have seemed ludicrous to contemplate in the time period just after the hottest hostilities.

And that’s part of the historical context here.  I can look back over my lifetime and see the birth, growth, and death of many conflicts.  For example, my grandfather was a WWII vet.  In the 60′s, he gave us our first color television, and we couldn’t have been more excited the day it was delivered and set up.  However, my grandfather checked the labels on the back of the set, saw it had been made in Japan, and angrily returned it because he had clearly indicated he would not purchase a TV from our WWII enemies.  However, my father’s and my generation defined material success, in part, as having a Walkman, a Betamax, and an Accord, meaning that my grandfather’s grudge didn’t even last a full generation.

As I continued to grow up in the 60′s and 70′s, I experienced the tail end of the civil rights movement.  I did civil defense drills in school, hiding under my desk in preparation for the nuclear holocaust that was surely coming as we faced down the godless communists during the Cold War.

Then there were the weekly, sometimes daily, reports of violence and terrorism in Northern Ireland.  There was the rise of Japan in the 80′s, when they were an economic powerhouse that was going to take over the US, both economically and culturally.  Today it’s the terroristic threat of ‘radical Islam’ and the economic rise of China that are threatening our way of life.

But, these, too, shall pass.  Old conflicts and enemies fade away, sometimes to be forgotten, sometimes to become friends and allies, always leading to a new reality in the future.  It’s the way of the world.  Does that mean that a Muslim-Christian coalition will definitely come to pass in the US?  Of course not, but it means that, to me, it is a distinct possibility, and I’ll be interested to see how events progress.

Related posts:

1. “President Obama” = I’m Proud to Be an American
2. A Day in the Life of a Typical American, or how I learned to stop worrying and not be hypocritical about ‘socialism’
3. Mourn the dead, honor the heroes, fight injustice, embrace freedom, celebrate life, and, on today of all days, forget to hate.

Mourn the dead, honor the heroes, fight injustice, embrace freedom, celebrate life, and, on today of all days, forget to hate. is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

Peace

Mourn the dead, honor the heroes, fight injustice, embrace freedom, celebrate life, and, on today of all days, forget to hate.

.

.

.

.

.

Peace.

Related posts:

1. A Day in the Life of a Typical American, or how I learned to stop worrying and not be hypocritical about ‘socialism’
2. Dawn of the Dead (**½)
3. The Fight Club (**)

A Day in the Life of a Typical American, or how I learned to stop worrying and not be hypocritical about ‘socialism’ is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

Keep the Government Out Of My Life!

A day in the life of a typical American:

Your alarm clock rings, having been powered through the night with an uninterrupted flow of electricity generated by a power company that is a regulated monopoly.

Your alarm clock didn’t catch fire overnight, nor did any other product in your house, because their safety is regulated by consumer product watchdog agencies and federal trade regulations. 

However, if you had somehow had an accidental fire, you could have picked up your phone (regulated monopoly) and called 9-1-1 (municipal service) and had the fire department (municipal service) on site within minutes saving your home and possessions.

As you move through your morning routine in your house, which is still standing because it has been built to meet building codes, you turn on your television and watch the news and weather channels, both controlled by the FCC.

You get an accurate weather forecast from the NOAA, which has gotten detailed satellite imagery from NASA, and see that today will be rainy.  Fortunately, your drive to work will be unimpeded because the local flood plain has been scrupulously mapped and flood control reservoirs and runoff controls have been established to protect you from all but the most egregious conditions.

You eat your breakfast, which doesn’t kill you because of FDA controls, and maybe take your medicines, which also don’t kill you.

You get in your car for your commute, secure in the knowledge that your government-mandated seat belts, air bags, and anti-lock brakes will help protect you from the weather, and your tires meet the government codes for handling on slick streets – as do the tires of all the other cars on the road.

The roads do not wash away in the rain because they are built to meet government codes for roadways, and you check the clock – which is 100% accurate because it is synchronized with the atomic clock at the US Naval Observatory via the nationwide radio signal – and see that you’ll make it to work with time to spare.

You drop your kids off at public school, then you stop for gas, secure in the knowledge that the gasoline is free from impurities and meets the operating requirements of your vehicle, and will be delivered via a mechanism that is 100% compatible with every vehicle on the road by virtue of governmental standards.

You live through the work day in an office that meets OSHA standards, and have your lunch in a cafeteria where the food is safe by virtue of regular inspections and staff training mandated by the government.  You get your paycheck, as guaranteed by law for the work you have performed, and head for home.

Your drive home is not interrupted by criminal activity or civil unrest, because the local police officers, sherrifs, constables, and guard forces ensure the peace and tranquility of society.  Also, when you arrive home, you find that your house has not been ransacked, nor has it been confiscated by a foreign government, thanks to the protection of our armed forces.

When you get home you see you got a couple of birthday cards, and then spend a few minutes leafing through new magazines, all delivered by the US Postal Service.  You take your dogs for a walk on publicly maintained sidewalks down to the public park and walk around the public walking trails, and stop to drink water from the public fountains and let your kids play on the public playground equipment.

You spend the rest of evening watching television on a system made up of completely interchangeable and compatible components, because the government sets the standards to ensure interoperability.  Later you surf the internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration (DARPA).

You put your kids into their flame-resistant pajamas, adjust the temperature of your home HVAC system, secure in the knowledge that it will not poison your family with fumes or gases due to the safety regulations developed and imposed by the government on such appliances.

As you sleep, your money sits safely in a bank earning interest, and your principle is guaranteed by the government.  And you know that tomorrow your currency will be accepted anywhere and everywhere as legal tender for all debts public and private, a guarantee backed by the government.

But keep the god damned government out of health care, I don’t want them intruding into my life because they can’t do *anything* right!!!

Related posts:

1. Mourn the dead, honor the heroes, fight injustice, embrace freedom, celebrate life, and, on today of all days, forget to hate.
2. Can We Stop Airline Terrorism?
3. “President Obama” = I’m Proud to Be an American

The Closing of Guantanamo Bay and the Return of the Real “Real America” is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

Lawyer?? What's a lawyer, you maggot?!!?

“As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our founding fathers, faced with perils that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.” - excerpted from President Obama’s inaugural address

The United States is a country of breathtaking highs and soul-crushing lows.  One of the lowest low points in American history is the tragic reality of the Guantanamo Bay detention area, also known as Gitmo.  For over one hundred years the US Navy has maintained this base on the southern tip of the island of Cuba.  The proximity of the base to the US mainland coupled with its location in a country with whom we have no diplomatic relations has made Gitmo a unique asset for the US government.

The fact that it was not on US soil means that the laws of the United States did not apply.  The fact that it was located in a country where we have no diplomatic relations means we did not have to care about what the host country thought of our activities there.

The Bush administration took advantage of these facts to create a specialized prison to hold what were called “enemy combatants”, which they defined as anybody the President said was involved in terrorism against the United States.  Think about that for a minute – all it took to be sent to Gitmo was the President stating that you were an enemy combatant.  No trial.  No jury.  No lawyers.  No hearings.  No rights.  No Constitution.  No Geneva Convention.  Nothing.  Just imprisonment by Presidential fiat.

Sounds like the old Soviet Union to me, doesn’t it?  Remember those days, when the USSR would throw comrades into prison for political reasons and just make them disappear?  Remember how outraged we were by that?  But with the dawn of the “War on Terror” we ended up with our own American Gulag.  Now, we did not imprison millions at Gitmo, only hundreds, but that doesn’t make it any less wrong.  Picture a serial killer who murders 25 people and compare him to a dictator who causes the genocide of hundreds of thousands.  Do we forgive the serial killer because of the smaller scope of his crime?  Of course not.  The nature of the crime is so heinous that scale doesn’t matter.

And such is the case here.  We, the United States of America, took foreign nationals from foreign soil and imprisoned them with no rights or due process, with no method to appeal their case, without even a sentence to mark the time – just open-ended imprisonment until such time as we decided we wanted to do something with them.

Quite frankly, my opinion is that Bush and Cheney didn’t realize the magnitude of their fuck-up until Gitmo was well-established and publicly known, and then they realized that there was no way to un-fuck it.  Gitmo was filled with a mix of innocent people, people who were not necessarily innocent but for whom there wasn’t enough evidence to try and convict, unquestionably bad people for whom the only evidence was obtained through illegal and/or immoral means (like torture), and the few very bad people who we could legitimately charge and convict of crimes using the standards of any acknowledged court.

So Bush and Cheney looked at their options and realized that the best course of action was to defend the existence of Gitmo, and then leave the mess for the next administration to clean up.  The good news is that even as the administration tried to exercise imperial prerogative, the checks and balances of the American government tried to rein them in.  When the case of a Guantanamo Bay detainee reached the US Supreme Court, the majority ruled in his favor, and their opinion included the following:

“The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”  - Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, affirming that detainees at Guantanamo Bay have rights

And President Obama is acting on that precept and cleaning up the Bush/Cheney debacle.  On his first full day in office he announced that Gitmo would be closed within a year.  There are enormous complications surrounding the clean-up of this mess, such as what to do with people whose home countries won’t take them back?  What do we do with guys we know are our enemies but who we can’t convict with any legitimate evidence?  How do we stop the inevitable stories of abuse and torture from becoming public and further shaming the United States?  The answer is that these questions have no easy answers, but that does not mean that we keep Gitmo open because it is inconvenient to close it.  This is a wrong that needs to be made right, the fact that it will be hard to do doesn’t change that fact.

Obama also announced that, beginning immediately, all further interrogation and treatment of Gitmo detainees would conform to the US Army Field Manual.  So, not only will the American Gulag be closed within a year, but the maltreatment of the prisoners there will stop immediately.

But what about the safety of the United States?  Bush administration defenders love to trot out the “ticking bomb” scenario in attempts to justify torture, by saying that if a hidden bomb is set to explode and a prisoner knows the location of the bomb, we are justified in setting aside any rights of the prisoner and any morality that we hold dear and torture the prisoner in order to save the lives at risk from the bomb.  But a true “ticking bomb” scenario only happens one in a million times – and there were (and are) hundreds and hundreds of Gitmo detainees…were (or are) there hundreds and hundreds of ticking bombs, with their flashing red LED clocks counting down to tragedy, while the foreboding musical ker-thunks from the show “24″ serve as a dramatic flourish?

No, there isn’t.  Are there groups who hate the United States and want to strike at us and murder our innocent civilians on American soil?  Yes, there are.  But, to me, the reason that attacking the United States is such a heinous act is because of what we stand for – freedom, justice, morality, opportunity – the pursuit of happiness, if you will.  But if we reject our principles in the defense of our way of life, what will we have gained?  And what will we have lost?

One of the greatest statesmen in American history said it best:

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety” - Benjamin Franklin

Related posts:

1. America and Terrorism
2. Eminent Domain – Isn’t This America??
3. It’s Time to Ban All Public Smoking in America

“President Obama” = I’m Proud to Be an American is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

President Obama

I’m a 47-year-old, white, male, upper-middle-class Texan.  And tonight I am proud to be an American.  We have lived up to the fundamental precept of this country – all men are created equal.  As a country, we make mistakes, we follow ill-advised paths towards unwarranted goals, we stick our heads in the sand about the large issues while simultaneously wailing and gnashing our teeth about unimportant bullshit.  But we also self-correct.  We blink our eyes, shake our head, stand up, look around, assess, re-evaluate, and take action.  So far in our history it’s been two steps forward for each step back, meaning we keep making progress, even if we get off track for short periods.

I don’t love or hate Barack Obama, I don’t love or hate John McCain.  Neither are angels or devils.  Neither would have been my first choice, but neither were horrific.  I don’t know if Barack Obama will be a good president, and I don’t know if he’ll be a bad one.  But I know he’ll be different, and different is what we need.  We needed to break cleanly and clearly, unequivocally, from the last eight years.  We needed to show the world, and ourselves, that we had enough guts and wisdom to admit our mistakes and change course.

And we did.  Barack Obama will be our next president.  A black man.  The fact that I’ve lived to see the first black US president fills me with pride and emotion.  And patriotism.  And optimism.  I hope to live long enough to also see the first woman, the first gay, the first atheist, the first Jew, the first Muslim, and first of every other wrongly oppressed minority get a chance to occupy the Oval Office, as long as they are qualified patriots.

I look forward to seeing the next phase for America under our new president.  I hope, and actually expect, that we will be able to set aside our petty differences, quibbles, and dogma and come together with President Obama to do less of what we’re doing wrong and do more of what we’re doing right…in order to form a more perfect union.

Related posts:

1. Colin Powell for President
2. Obama? Really!? Sigh…
3. The New President Should Immediately Double Public School Teachers’ Salaries

The New President Should Immediately Double Public School Teachers’ Salaries is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

"Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave." -- Henry Peter Broughan

There are many problems that our new president will face on day one of his administration.  The economy.  War in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Terrorism.  Energy policy.  Global climate change.  Etc.  And I, as an American voter, should expect that important issues will be addressed quickly, with the most urgent issues being tackled first.  When I project to the first 100 days of the new president and speculate as to what will be his first, major policy undertaking – the one that will set to tone for his administration – I realize that there is one over-arching, all-important issue that serves as the foundation of solving all other issues.

Education.

Education is the only lever we can use to pry ourselves out of our current morass of apathy, stupidity, ineptitude, tomfoolery, flim-flam, and bullshit.  An educated voting public is the one and only way to preserve and refresh our still-great-but-stumbling nation.

Education is the only pathway to break us out of the fool’s game of dogma, partisanship, and illusion.  Skepticism and critical thinking are the only tools that a voter can use to make truly informed choices.  Intellectual curiosity leads one to question each and every candidate on each and every claim and issue, to make truly informed decisions, and to eschew the hegemony of the Idiocracy.

But how do we get to the point where a discerning population of voters makes informed votes to give us effective leadership?

Education.

Well, how do we fix education?  There are so many problems in our public educational systems that it’s like handing a lumberjack and ax and telling him to chop down the forest.  Where to start?  How about by announcing that the federal government will immediately match existing public school teachers’ salaries, effectively doubling their income?  Make teaching a competitive career for truly sharp, motivated people.  Back in the day I would have loved to teach, but not enough to sacrifice a lifetime of more than double the salary doing something else that I also love.  And even if I had gone into teaching way back when, I’m sure I’d be out of it now that it has devolved into being minimum security prison guards getting ground down between apathetic parents, idealogical wars, dingbat board members, and impotent administrators.

But if we double teacher salaries, suddenly the best and the brightest might actually consider teaching our children.  Suddenly the existing tiny core of truly effective, talented, and motivated educators would grow by leaps and bounds to include people across the spectrum of industries and avocations, and break the stranglehold that the mediocre have on the teaching profession in America today.

Seriously, when is the last time you met a truly exceptional public school teacher?  Not exceptional when compared to other teachers, but exceptional when compared across the board with other professionals in all industries and career paths.  Personally, I can count them on one hand.  Now, how many public school teachers have you met that were unexceptional drones, and the only way you could stop the keening in your head was because they seemed, at the very least, harmless?  I don’t have enough fingers, toes, and/or other appendages to even make a dent in that count.  And that situation is the exact reverse of what we need – a mediocre teacher should be the exception, and the harmful teacher should be immediately rooted out and dismissed.

The bottom line is that if we want to return the United States to a position of leadership in the world, and we want to ensure our continued economic prosperity, and if we want to reclaim the moral high ground and become the “good guys” again, we need to start with the education of our children. 

Is doubling teachers’ salaries the only step?  No, it is only the first step, but it is one that needs to be taken.

Related posts:

1. Colin Powell for President
2. It’s Time to Ban All Public Smoking in America
3. “President Obama” = I’m Proud to Be an American

Colin Powell for President is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

President Powell. Has a ring to it, no?

We just watched Colin Powell on Meet the Press with Tom Brokaw, and I just have to ask, why isn’t he one of our choices for President?  He is the kind of person that we need in the job, but I don’t think our system can deliver him up, because he’s not a power-hungry, megalomaniacal clown.  He’s a smart, wise, thoughtful public servant, and he’s just what we need in the White House.  Someone with experience and respect on both sides of the aisle, and around the world.

I might waste my vote on a write-in for him.

Related posts:

1. “President Obama” = I’m Proud to Be an American
2. The New President Should Immediately Double Public School Teachers’ Salaries
3. Dennis Kucinich Introduces Articles of Impeachment Against President George W. Bush

Did John McCain Pick Sarah Palin In Order to Lose? is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

Okey-dokey, thanks...but no thanks.

I have a theory that John McCain picked Sarah Palin with the express purpose of losing the election.  There can be no other explanation.  This is a woman that he had met only once before naming her as his running mate.  Nobody in the lower 48 had ever heard of her, and as we learn more about her the choice by McCain seems more and more insane.

This is a woman who can’t name a Supreme Court decision, or name a newspaper or magazine that she’s read regularly, and I’m beginning to doubt she can see Russia from her house.  She is so unequivocally unqualified to be Vice President that it’s like we’ve entered an alternate dimension where they’re holding a bizarro-election.

There is no way that her selection has helped the McCain campaign or the Republican party.  It smacks of the Bush administration tactic of breaking any and every law of the land with impunity, right out in the open, and not only not hiding it, but flaunting it and claiming that it’s not only not wrong, but it is in fact right.  And that’s the spin they’re putting on her selection – that she speaks to the everyday Americans, the Joe Sixpacks and Hockey Moms out there who need representin’.  And we all know that if there’s one demographic that is near and dear to the heart of the Republican party, it’s the lower middle-class.

There is simply no way the choice of Palin was made for the purposes of winning the election.  The only explanation I am left with is that John McCain does not want to win this election.  That begs the larger question of…why?  Why wouldn’t he want to win?  I’ve found his campaign to be disappointing, because he seems to have eschewed his actual maverick credibility and become a pandering nincompoop.  He does not appear to be the John McCain that I expected in this race.

Well, what if what he’s doing is falling on his sword in order to protect us from another Republican administration?  What if he got into the Republican primaries without any expectation of winning, but only to stir things up and bring his actual true maverick sensibilities to the party platform?  And then, oops, he won – now what?  He may even know, or at least feel, that he’s too old at this point to be President.  If that were the case, he’d need to make sure that his VP selection was someone not only qualified to be the veep, but also qualified to be President, given the increased probability that his age/health will render him incapable of serving his full term.

Did he do that?  No, he did the exact opposite.  He picked someone who doesn’t even appear to be qualified for the job she has, much less qualified enough to leapfrog to a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

In fact, he picked someone who will almost certainly ensure that he does not win in November.  Maybe this will turn out to be his final heroic, maverick act – thumbing his nose at the Republican party by sabotaging his campaign and their quest for a permanent Republican majority. 

Bless you, John McCain.

Related posts:

1. The New England Patriots Lose!!!! The Cheating Pats Lose to the New York Giants!!!
2. John from Cincinnati (***½)
3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (***)

Idiocracy (***½) is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

We Are Not Men

Idiocracy is the latest film by Mike Judge, who also created Office Space.  It was released in 2006, playing in only a handful of theaters with no advance publicity of any kind, and it quickly made the jump to DVD.  However, if there is any movie in recent memory that SHOULD have played endlessly at the multiplexes of America, it was Idiocracy.

As we here in the United States drown in a downward spiral of reality TV, processed foods, bombastic advertising, mindlessly large corporations, zombified workforces, and borderline retarded elected leaders, Idiocracy perfectly describes the water with devastatingly funny, sadly accurate satire and wit.

The story revolves around Joe (Luke Wilson), a current-day soldier who is selected, along with Rita (Maya Rudolph), to participate in a year-long human hibernation study.  However, while they are in stasis, the people in charge of the super-secret study are arrested for unrelated reasons, and Joe and Rita are forgotten about – for 500 years.

When they awaken they are greeted with a future where Joe, initially selected for his averageness, is now the smartest person in the world.  You see, as the movie explains, with no natural predators man has not evolved to favor the most intelligent problem solvers, man has instead evolved to favor promiscuity and dumbness, because that combination leads to the most babies, and the absence of poverty, disease, hunger, or hardship means that those offspring continue to survive and reproduce, causing human intelligence levels to decrease with each passing generation until mankind has reached the point where it can no longer maintain the technology of society, and the collapse of civilization is imminent.

One example of this devolution is that a huge company has signed an exclusive agreement to replace the water in the nation’s water supply with their sports-drink, called Brawndo.  So, everywhere you go the water fountains and faucets supply Brawndo instead of water.  Unfortunately, even the portions of the water supply used for agriculture are replaced with Brawndo, and nobody in the dumbass future understands that plants need water to grow, so there is a looming food crisis.  All this is fostered by ubiquitous advertising which claims that Brawndo’s got electrolytes, which is what plants crave.  Joe, of course, is confused by the ubiquity of Brawndo, and the future-doofuses simply mock him for wanting to drink “toilet water”, as apparently the only place water is still used is for flushing. 

It actually takes a while for Joe to figure out how long he’s been frozen.  When he first wakes up he’s confused and doesn’t feel well, so he stumbles into a hospital for help.  After a reasonably revolting medical test, he meets with a doctor who gives him his diagnosis that:  “…it says here on your chart that you’re all fucked up, you talk like a fag, and your shit’s all retarded.”  Indeed.

Also, in the future most people have at least one brand name as part of their full name – for example the diagnosis above is given by a Dr. Lexus, and Joe meets and befriends a “lawyer” named Frito Pendejo.  Also, current actual brand names are used throughout the movie, in some cases with surprisingly unexpected evolutions of their primary products and/or advertising.  For example, Carl’s Jr.’s slogan is “Fuck you, I’m eating”, an idiocratic evolution of their current slogan of “Don’t bother me, I’m eating”, Costco stores have grown to the size of cities and a greeter greets each customer by saying “Welcome to Costco, I love you”, and the Fuddruckers chain’s name has evolved from Fuddruckers to Futtbuckers to Buttruckers to, finally, Buttfuckers.

Joe’s relative hyper-intelligence is finally recognized, and he is tasked with “saving the world” by President Dwayne Elizando Mountain Dew Hector Camacho, who makes him Secretary of the Interior.  Joe is reluctant to take on the task, as in his own mind he’s no genius, so at the first opportunity he slips away to try and find the rumored “Time Masheen” that will let him go back to his original time and place, and back to his safe, ordinary, averageness.

In restrospect, it’s easy to see why the studio didn’t put much effort into promoting this film.  First of all, so many huge name-brands are skewered here that any revenues could have easily been lost to lawsuits (Starbucks giving handjobs?!).  Also, the target demographic for major Hollwood movies are the typical dumbasses in the typical multiplex, and this movie would have insulted them (if they could even have understood it) by pointing out to them that they are the seeds of the downfall of humanity, if for no other reason than the fact that their lack of discriminating taste put “300″, “Shrek the Third”, and “Alvin and the Chipmunks” in the top 10 highest grossing films for 2007 (really).

It’s also easy to see that this film was released by the wrong studio – Fox, to be exact.  If it weren’t for slack-jawed dumbasses who are slavishly influenced by advertising, who are hypnotized by slapstick violence, and who lack the ability to think critically, the Fox empire wouldn’t exist.  Even Fox is smart enough to know that you don’t make money by insulting your constituency.

And this brings us to the drivers that prompted this review, two years after the release of the film.  First and foremost, the film is incredibly well done and funny as hell.  But second, and more importantly, I think that this film has precisely described what is going on in America today, and shows us the logical (if exaggerated) conclusion if things keep going the way they are.  At the risk of sounding elitist, I have a reasonably high IQ and am reasonably well-read and knowledgable about the world, and while this movie made me laugh, it also, upon reflection, scared the hell out of me.

In my lifetime I’ve seen a lot of progress by mankind and I’ve always had an optimistic view of the future – not that I expected things to become perfect, just that overall, bottom-line, after factoring in all the successes and failures, we as a society would tend to make progress towards a more enlightened, safe, and enjoyable future. 

However, it’s beginning to feel that we’ve peaked, and are now starting a downward slide.  Superstition, dogma, and ignorance are not only supplanting logic and reason, but are being embraced and promoted as positive values.  Our political process has become such a farce that it feels more like a reality show competition than a quest to find the greatest possible leaders.  Seriously, I can’t think of a single political leader in my lifetime worthy of respect and awe.  In fact, I can’t think of one who wasn’t wildly deserving of scorn and derision.  Even the ones who come close to being true leaders are obscured by the fact that the political machine marginalizes them into impotence, and they wave their tiny fists in the air and squeak like caged mice, all with the best of intentions, but all for naught.

In the end, We the People are to blame for our situation.  We could, in one single election year, throw out each and every bum currently in office and replace them with true thinkers and leaders.  But we don’t.  We could, with only a little effort, choose to live within our means and spend our hard-earned money on quality products from ethical companies.  But we don’t.  We could, with just a little backbone, ensure that each and every child in this country gets a rich, full, well-rounded education.  But we don’t.  We could, with a little introspection, choose to idolize great thinkers, great artists, great writers, great inventors, and people of great character instead of the constant stream of vapid, artificial celebrities-du-jour.  But we don’t.

And we could choose to stave off the coming Idiocracy, by fighting against the encroachment of ignorance and complacency into the realm of reason and ambition.  I try to do that, each and every day, and although sometimes it feels like a lonely task, I know that there are others out there doing the same thing.  Know that you are not alone.

Oh, and watch Idiocracy, it’s fucking hilarious, scro!

Related posts:

1. Solving the World’s Energy Crisis
2. Loch Ness Monster Found?

The $700 Billion Financial Bailout Failed – Good! is brought to you by CleverDonkey.com - ...Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel!

Just Say No

Today, the US House of Representatives voted against the proposed government bailout of US financial institutions.  Good.  We have a mostly free marketplace, and the less government intervention the better.  Yes, the government should set the rules, and perhaps even adjust them every great once in a while.  What the government should NOT be doing is constantly tweaking the rules and then bailing out the losers simply because they happen to be large.

Having the government artifically control the marketplace is…well…communism.  And we all know how well that has worked, historically.  It’s easy to understand why the government feels the need to do something – if they don’t, and the natural market corrections occur, many people will feel a lot of pain.  And most of those people will also be voters, and injured voters tend to react by throwing out whoever is holding the hot potato when the music stops.

And the music is definitely stopping.  After years and years of reckless financial policies, major institutions are finding that their worth is now based on undercapitalized loans to unqualified borrowers on overpriced assets.  Historically, we had regulations that prevented our large financial institutions from leveraging themselves so unwisely, but those regulations have been eroded over the last decade or so, and now the bill has come due.

And the bill must be paid, no doubt about it.  However, the bill should be paid now, by virtue of natural market corrections (with the associated, short-term pain) rather than through government bailout money, which can only lead to a solution that is, at best, inefficient, and, at worst, rigged to benefit the politically powerfully.  Personally, I trust the capitalist marketplace more than I trust the Federal government when it comes to the free market.  The government’s job is to set up a level playing field, but then not interfere in the game.

Can you imagine the outrage if, with four minutes to go in the Super Bowl, the NFL announced a bunch of rule changes, applicable immediately and designed to impact the outcome of the game in progress, simply because the team they preferred wasn’t winning?  Say it was the Dallas Cowboys versus the Baltimore Ravens, and the NFL desperately wanted Dallas to win because it would mean much higher fan interest and revenues for the following seasons, and Dallas is behind with 4 minutes to play.  So, the NFL announces that the Cowboys can immediately gain access to the Ravens full playbook, and listen in on all their called plays and headset communications.  Oh, and the Ravens have to bench their top offensive and defensive players, and their head coach has to spend the last four minutes of the game in a sound-proof isolation booth and can’t communicate with any of his players or coaches.

That would be outrageous.  But that’s what they’re trying to do with this bailout.  Every financial transaction is like a bet, at some level.  Every time you hear of a sell-off of shares, remember that there are exactly the same number of shares being bought as are being sold.  And when a person with some spare capital chooses to invest it via an investment bank instead of stuffing it in their mattress or buying government-backed T-bills, that investor has made a bet that the risk of losing that money is worth the potential for a higher return.  Well, those investors have lost their bets, and the government is coming in and trying to rig the game at the last minute.

Now, if the story is actually that the financial institutions (perhaps in cahoots with our elected officials) perpetuated some kind of criminal fraud on the American people, and the government is trying to redress that crime, that’s a different story.  But, first, announce that it is a crime, indict and arrest the criminals, put them in jail (not minimum-security country clubs), and then work to redress the victims. 

However, if this is simply a matter of greedy investors and ignorant loan-signers, then I say let the (blue) chips fall where they may.

Related posts:

1. A Day in the Life of a Typical American, or how I learned to stop worrying and not be hypocritical about ‘socialism’