Sunday, October 30, 2011

The Occupy Movement's Masturbation Rage

A few weeks ago I pointed and laughed at a genius who misspelled her lament at not being able to land a job with her expensive degree. I felt bad about it later (I actually didn't), but it turns out the young lady did not take kindly to being upbraided:

I recognize that I switched the i and the e in field. If you want to sit there and lie to yourself and say that you’ve never done that, go ahead. But I wasn’t going to go through all the trouble to take it down, rewrite the sign, re-upload it, and then still probably catch hate for people that center their lives around looking for it.
When people talk about how the younger generation has no concept of non-verbal communication, this is what they mean. Luv, if you can't take the time and effort to make sure your pedestrian rant at Teh Man doesn't make you look like a complete idiot, then you can't be surprised when people make fun of you. Because they don't know you. Because all you are to them is a piece of paper with words next to the kind of hangdog face that Sarah McLachlan uses to get donations for the ASPCA.

It's a hard cold cruel fact that I began to come to terms with about halfway through college: people judge you on first impressions, and that means appearance. It's human nature. It isn't going to change. If you're going to put your face out there in the big bad world, try not to give people a reason to throw shit at it. And if you can't be bothered, then your skin better be thicker than rhino horn, 'cause the Internet is a mean mean place.

Which brings me to the title of this post. Last night I attended a performance of Church by Young Jean Lee at Single Carrot Theater in Baltimore. Fine performance of a provocative play by a damn good troupe. I mean "provocative" in the best possible sense of that word: it provoked me to think about it's subject, that being organized religion in general and Christianity in particular. But it also gave me a wonderful phrase to hang about the Occupy Movement and its fellow-travelers: Masturbation Rage.

Everything about these clowns is a cheap facsimile of what they imagine the French Revolution was like. A bunch of people standing around waving signs and being obnoxious is not, in any meaningful sense, "occupying" anything. Sure, that's where things have to start: the Tea Party and the French Revolution began that way. But then you have to move on and organize, create a set of goals and attempt to carry them out. For the Tea Partiers, that meant expressing our distaste at our New Class overlords and using electoral muscle to hold the GOP's feet to the fire. Now, they may not succeed in that second part, but they're trying.

The Occupy Movement is a stunt. It's astroturf. It's waiting for fucking Godot to immanentize the eschaton. It's a loud pitched wail for Big Daddy White Boss to change your diaper and give you a sucker. When it ends, exactly the same players will be saying and doing exactly the same things, and the New York Stock Exchange will open and close as though nothing happened. Because nothing has. Ask this guy:

We will stack the bodies this high...

What's the difference between you and him? His maxim was that "political power comes from the barrel of a gun." When V.I. Lenin "occupied" something, that wasn't a demonstration of the possibility of occupation. It meant blood was going to flow. He didn't want the Tsar to provide jobs for the mis-educated; he wanted to kill the Tsar. Which he did.

The Occupy "movement" has legitimate complaints. Crony capitalism is a blight on a free society. The higher education industry has been shafting their customers for decades. But they can't see the extent to which they are the pawns of the institutions they claim to deplore. They have allowed themselves to be turned into useful idiots for a political class that exploits their misery to serve those same corporate and bureaucratic interests. In much the same way, Lenin exploited the suffering of the Russian people during WW1 to establish a regime that multiplied that suffering a thousand-fold.

Trying to prevent industry from corrupting government by giving government more money and authority is like trying to prevent rape with breast implants. All you're doing is making the victim more desirable.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

The More They Tell Me Cain Can't Win, the More I Wonder if He Can

Despite everybody taking a shot at 9-9-9, he's still atop the polls.

And Rick Perry has issued his 20-20 plan, and Newt has said "Me, too!"

So it would seem that the man has fundamentally transformed the race.

So again, what do we need Romney for?

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Herman Cain is Pro-Choice, and I Don't Care...

Vox Populi has the skinny.

I'm more or less in Santorum's wheelhouse on this issue. An abortion obtain for any other reason than to save your own life is a moral failure, and I don't have a problem with them being illegal. But I also don't have a problem with a GOP pres candidate who thinks differently, because abortion is not my #1 issue for the federal government to handle right now. It's not even Top Ten. In fact, I don't want the federal government to handle it at all, which is why I want the Supreme Court to rescind Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton.

But then, I haven't been burning incense to a little Herman Cain doll. I'm about ready to vote for Newt, just to see him tussle with Obama in the debates.

Kaddafy Killed

I guess that means we won.

What did we win?

Because the Only Way to Decrease Rape is to Rape More People...

Sheriff Joe Biden, the executive branch's most prominent FailBot, rides again.

Biden's reasoning -- that more rapes will undoubtedly occur if the federal government doesn't subsidize law enforcement -- doesn't pass the smell test. For that matter, I didn't know feminists were so approving of the way our law enforcement systems handled rape cases.

But these are difference that the reality-based community can surely paper over.


BY THE WAY: Biden's facts are wrong.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

New Poll: All GOP Frontrunners Beat Obama

It's only one poll, but it begs the question:

If Hermann Cain can beat Obama, then what the hell do we need Mitt Romney for?

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Behold, as the Honkies Gather on Wall Street

Via Instapundit, a collection of pictures of the Angry Vegan Brigade on Wall Street.

Notice the distinct lack of color at these gatherings. Why, surely if their ideas weren't racist, they could persuade others of darker hues to support them. Right, Angry Proggie Commentator?

Absolutely right, you teabagging bastard.
I mean, this is a white crew we got goin' here. How white are they? As white as:

  • A Laurence Welk audience
  • Dudley Do-Right's pasty rear end
  • A sun-bleached copy of The Turner Diaries
  • Warren Gamaliel Harding's taste in music
  • The maiden aunt of that English chick who used to tell people they were the Weakest Link and then snap up an octave saying "Good-Bye"
  • Anyone who's ever complained about people calling bandages "Band-Aids," because Band-Aid is a brand name!
  • The cast (and audience) of How I Met Your Mother
  • Robin Williams' sad, desperate attempts to act black
I'm sure Ace of Spades has something similar ginned up, as he did here and here, but it's hardly like Top Ten  Lists were his idea.


Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Bank of America: When Unintended Consequences are Ear-Splittingly Obvious

Consider the principle known as "blowback": that if you attack someone, you should reasonably expect that they will hit back. Thus, Machiavelli's dictum that if you must do an enemy an injury, do him one from which he will not recover.

Now, click over to Ace and read about why Bank of America is gouging me $5 a month for using a debit card.

What proggies consider obvious with regard to Islamic terrorists they consider a bizarre mystery with regard to American businesses.

But behold the Genius that is Barack Obama:
‘You don't have some inherent right just to – you know, get a certain amount of profit.
You don't? When you run a business you don't have the right to defray costs by charging value for service? Does this statement even have that level of thought?


Theorem: Centrists are the Real Conservatives

The problem with appealing to centrists is that you have to govern like one or they will abandon you, whilst proudly announcing their moderation vis-a-vis your reckless extremism.

Look at the conservative agenda: privatize Social Security, re-vamp the tax code, reform tort systems, all the while investing billions to insure that jihadis from the Kyber Pass to Cape Horn continue to explode.

Look at the progressive agenda: ramp up taxes, socialize health-care, go full-Keynes on a new Stimulus, all the while investing billions to insure that public unions from Sea to Shining Sea continue to feather their nests.

Either approach identifies problems and proffers radical solutions. Regardless of what one thinks of them, they have the virtue of ambition.

Centrists, on the other hand, pretend to want someone who will do bold and exciting things, but really want someone who will "get things done," i.e. let things get back to normal, so they can get back to their lives. Whatever is going on right now is what they want to continue, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of important-sounding bromides. As with the governance of the EuroZone, nothing will be done but a great show will be made of doing it.

Occasionally, they will get furious with the general state of affairs and Demand Change. This demand will be stuffed like the skin of a sausage with thunderous denunciations of the current government and the awful mess they have made. Once that pack of fools are gone, however, so is most of the substance of their fury, leaving only a thin film of actual policy.

Centrists are easily panicked, easily browbeaten, and easily led astray, because the only thing they believe in with any regularity is that anyone who wants any real thing is dangerous. So anyone who more successfully pretends to want everything in general and nothing in particular wins.