Let me save you some time: Obama needs four more years because, well, Bush. Those two years of super majority Congressional control by Democrats, and that supersized stimulus Obama used to transfer over private sector money to those who helped his campaign? Ignore that. That, too, was Bush’s fault. The takeover of private industry that screwed investors and rewarded unions, and the pushing through of the wildly unpopular (and unconstitutional) individual mandate at the heart of ObamaCare, using every procedural gambit and combination of bullying/coaxing/bribing to secure the votes — with not a single Republican supporting the thing? Bush.
You see, the problem with the economy is that the rich are getting tax breaks — Bush! — and these greedy rich don’t want to pay their fair share (except for the Democrat rich; who really really want to pay more in taxes). And in an economic downturn of the kind Obama inherited (from Bush) — which is the worst since the Great Depression (again, pretend the economy Reagan inherited from Carter never happened; and if you can’t do that, at least have the courtesy to pretend Reagan wasn’t able to turn things around in his first term, and that 1984 “Morning in America” re-election campaign was just a figment of our collective historical imaginations) — tax breaks for the rich need to be paid for by somebody, because otherwise the government is deprived of the revenue it needs — and is entitled to, as a matter of course, the government being the proper owner and subsequent font of all monies, which it doles out morally and with much largess — to fund the bureaucracies that helpfully guide us daily with ever new laws and regulations intended to nudge us into becoming better citizens of the State. Which is why Obama never signed on to the extension of those cuts. Except, you know, that one time.
Electing Romney will guarantee the country’s return to the failed policies of tax breaks for the rich (BUSH!) — and of course, ensure the great suffering of autistic children, along with the molestation of the elderly and the dirtying up of the air, the water, etc., which Obama and his cohort are battling by sending out unmanned aircraft to fly over privately held farmland, looking for evildoers.
Is that what you want, America? Dirty airwater and autistic molested elderly?
Of course you don’t. Look: Obama has met some headwinds. Economic headwinds. European headwinds. Residual Bush headwinds. The economy was far worse off than he believed when he took office (thanks to Bush), but it’s turning around, slowly but surely. I mean, just look at how many jobs Obama has created! 4.3 million of those suckers! Look at how wonderfully government-run auto companies are doing!
Do you really think now is the best time to change course — just as we’re nearing that turnaround, and the beautiful Utopian vision of Hopenchange that lies behind it is but one critical election away? Are you sure you want to go backward when you can trust Obama and the progressives to take you forward!, to a magical place of fundamental transformation, where everyone is treated fairly, and the government looks sternly and suspiciously upon speculators and the rich and private cultural instigators like, eg., churches, who try to lure you away from the safe and soft bosom of government with the hoary promises of opportunities you don’t really want, liberties you don’t really need, and a free will you don’t really have?
Obama and the Democrats care about the working folk. They don’t want to see the kind of income disparity that exists in this godforsaken capitalist hellhole, where social Darwinism rules the day, and the poor are never really given a fair shot (or provided with a fair share). And that’s just what the Republicans will usher in, with their TEA Party extremism and their hatred of government — which, let’s face it, is the last best hope for mankind, and the only thing that stands between you and the vulture capitalists looking to exploit you for your labor.
Things are turning around. Trust Obama.
The fact that the government now accounts for 25% of GDP (add in compliance costs at another 11% and the real scope of government is now 36cents out of every dollar of GDP) shouldn’t alarm you at all: because government is good and moral and righteous and protective of you, while the “market” is cold and dispassionate and will run your hapless ass over with its merciless indifference. So the more the government controls, the less is left out there to be misused by a market that has no centralized plan for how to make your lives better (and more fair).
Do you really want to trust in something you can’t completely control? Because that’s what the free market is — and the GOP wants to deregulate it, take the muzzle off it, give it a wider berth, allow it to rage more freely. Whereas the left — good, moral, compassionate, occasionally stern (but it’s a tough love) — is the bulwark against unfettered consumerist anarchy, insisting on a fair and equitable yield from the market so that every American gets a fair share and has a fair shake. For fairness.
Also, Bush.
The decision is yours, America. And besides — what’s up with the Mormons, anyway? I mean, “marvelous”? How unhip is that — particularly when I give you Jay-z and that horsefaced chick from that one show where Kim Catrall is always getting gloriously fucked by some bellhop…?
…and these greedy rich don’t want to pay their fair share (except for the Democrat rich; who really really want to pay more in taxes)…
But only under force of law, not something they’d ever consider doing voluntarily.
Jeff Goldstein to the white courtesy phone. Jeff Goldstein?
Collective salvation is just around the corner.
Hey, you know what the free market has given us lately? Bath salts. The free market is going to eat your face. Vote Obama. He won’t eat your face. Your dog, maybe, but not your face.
One day, di, people will say, hey, who was it who helped save us from the self-inflicted tyranny of language that nearly destroyed our country and nearly convinced us that servitude was actually freedom?
And the answer will come: beats me. Bill O’Reilly? Or maybe that Ace of Spades dude?
I’d say that you’re a fortune teller Jeff, but really, this was too easy. Because BUSH and all.
I really wouldn’t mind reliving some of Chimpy McSmirky Bushitler’s Rodeo Ride Through History right now. Because our current ride through history is on the Hellbound Train, with Barry as the conductor.
she really is unfortunately horsey looking god bless her
I remember reading one piece -I think it was in the “New York Times” – where they talked up how frugal Sarah Jessica is and how careful she is with money
so of course the dizzy bitch votes for someone who spends like a lottery-winning crack whore
I think perhaps she isn’t a terribly well-educated person
HF, you should have ended each sentence of your comment with, “because BUSH.”
…because BUSH!
Romney is also speechifying in Ohio today. Sort of poking a stick at the One.
Also the Mormon bashing has begun. What say you, Dicentra?
Obama: “…and accuse you of running up the tab.”
That’s odd, because I for one haven’t heard George Bush say a single word, not one, on this subject. It’s almost like Obama is making shit up just to be mean, innit?
Why yes it does sdferr.
Obama’s analogies blow.
You see, he didn’t sign an increase in stimulus — and then keep that money as a baseline for the continuation of a budget (because the Senate won’t pass another one). You’re imagining that. Never happened.
And that increase from 1 trillion to 5.5 trillion in debt? Bush’s fault: he started it. Why blame Obama for continuing the trend? Why, that’s like asking him to lead.
Racists.
I miss Bush so much Mr. McGehee
sometimes I cry but then I remember he would want me to be his brave little soldier
My wife gave me a t-shirt that says, “The real question is, do you miss ME yet?”
The picture is of Ronald Reagan. Hell, I was already missing him at 12:01 p.m. on January 20, 1989.
Do you really want to trust in something you can’t completely control? Because that’s what the free market is — and the GOP wants to deregulate it, take the muzzle off it, give it a wider berth, allow it to rage more freely.
Instead, we should follow the example of Biosphere II, which is a totally controlled ecosystem, instead of being one of those annoying self-organizing chaotic systems that lead to no good.
No good, I tell you. Look what happened in Yellowstone before Smokey the Bear and Bambi taught us all to hate and suppress all forest fires. UNCERTAINTY! CHAOS! DEATH!
(Pay no attention to the colossal conflagration of 1988.)
Therefore and thus. Put us in charge and we’ll protect you from all the bad things.
Also the Mormon bashing has begun. What say you, Dicentra?
The Mormon-bashing began in 1820. We’re so used to it we wonder if we’re doing something wrong when it lets up.
What is it this time? Do we hold controlling stock in Jack Daniels? Are they resurrecting the one about the trans-Atlantic tunnel that begins in Europe and ends in the Salt Lake Temple, where kidnapped young things are forced into polygamous marriages, and the only reason we know about it is that a few lucky souls managed to leap out of the window of the temple and land in the Great Salt Lake, where compassionate boatmen fish them out?
How about the one where we are born with horns, or we hold secret ceremonies in the temple to Take Over The World, Pinkie?
Yawn. The dogs bark but the caravan moves on.
Mormons and yellow caricatures – the republic is doomed …because BUSH!
What is it this time?
The usual, mainly riffing on y’all are, ya know weird. Like Catholics only worse, since neither of us is really Christian. At least that’s what all the Baptists used to tell my kids. Plus, we’re going straight to Hell for our crazy beliefs. Like I said, the usual.
I didn’t know Mormons had horns. I thought that was just Jews.
I’m pretty sure there were never rumors that Mormons used the blood of children to make matzoh balls, but that’s because we don’t do that jive.
Besides, you can’t hide blood in green Jell-O, no matter how many grated carrots you add.
Fry sauce, on the other hand…
The Jack Daniels one might be a nice bit of reverse psyops, actually.
But the LDS still have a long ways to go before their haters reach the lunacy of, say, Jew-hatred. Not that the media won’t give it the old college try…
I thought we ground the bones of children to bake in communion wafers? We drink white wine at communion, because we’re racist, so that leaves the blood business right out the window.
Of course our clergy wear crazy get-ups and speak Latin. Who does that?
– So whats going on?….The Left is blaming the recession on beer now?
*smack* ….Whhhhhaaaaaat…..oh, sorry.
But the LDS still have a long ways to go before their haters reach the lunacy of, say, Jew-hatred.
Only because we’ve only been around since 1830. The Extermination Order by Missouri Governor Liliburn Boggs is a good start.
As for lunacy, you ain’t heard what I’ve heard, nor as often. Here in Utah, I heard Mormon-bashing from my high-school teachers, from the radio DJs, from the newspapers, at work, and from all corners of bien-pensantness.
And if you ask them to not bash you to your face, they get all startled as if it had never occurred to them that it’s bad manners to trash a particular group with a member of that group present.
It’s because we deserve to be bashed, you see. We’re making their lives so miserable that they’ve no other defense against our awfulness.
That’s crazy, di. I figured in Utah, there would be strength in numbers. I grew up around an eclectic group of worshipers; Catholics, Protestants (including LDS and Jehovah Witnesses), Jews, Buddhists and I don’t recall any bashing until the Born Again Christian craze swept through southern California and the country around 1980 or a little earlier.
All of a sudden, it seemed, people got all judgey and in your face about how you better do things their way or it was into the Lake of Fire with you. I was raised to live and let live and those folks seemed really unChristian to me. And, seriously? Getting your car blessed? Although I have had my priest bless my house, so it’s not that much of a stretch, but it seemed to me like a refusal to take responsibity for your own lousy driving.
Romney in Cincinnati bitch-slapping O around.
…in any random group in Utah, there might actually be a Mormon or two present?
My aunt, a devout Catholic from birth, lived in Utah for a number of years and never had a good thing to say about them. Years later I had a couple of Mormon co-workers in Sacramento, and I had no complaints at all — more coffee for me.
And when I came up with the office cheer, they liked it better than anybody else:
Dunno.
Social insects?
Or the thing mockers do, rapidly stroking the length of their index finger across their lips while expelling a “mmmm” sound to make a “bbbbb” labial noise they find characteristic of retards? (Speaking of retards, have the Senators succeeded in placing themselves into legislative history on account of retardation yet?)
Ohio: Romney Campaign Bus Drives Circles Around Obama Speech Site Honking Its Horn…
That’s pretty funny, McGehee.
Gimme a B!
Gimme a B!
Gimme a B!
Gimme another B!
Gimme a B!
What’s that spell?
The bond rating of the European Central Bank.
Jeff,
“preview”? It looks, rather, like a transcript…
George, you missed a minus sign in there, I think.
Upper middle class white liberals revealing bigotry against Mormons? Check. Will never forget some close (!) friends all jumping on the conversational bandwagon over dinner about how weird Mormons are. It all started with someone mentioning a news story about some sex slave kidnapper Who Was Teh Mormon! After that the disdain poured out.
Ugh.
It ain’t insects.
My aunt, a devout Catholic from birth, lived in Utah for a number of years and never had a good thing to say about them.
Well, the gulf between Mormons and non-Mormons in Utah (and the surrounding area) goes back a long time.
When we got to SLC, Utah was still Mexico, so we’d literally been chased out of the country at gunpoint. Back then, we practiced a kind of collectivist utopianism (similar to other religious movements of the time, such as the Shakers), and we were determined to make our own little paradise in the Godforsaken Great Basin, free from harassment from outsiders. Because Brigham Young was the political and spiritual leader, Utah was for all intents and purposes a theocracy.
Then the U.S. acquired that part of Mexico, and so other Americans began trickling in, often to work for the mines, and then for the railroad. The extant Mormons resented being “invaded” by the same people who had chased us out, and the newcomers resented living in a de facto theocracy.
Emblematic of the rift were Salt Lake’s two newspapers—the Deseret News, owned by the Church, and the Salt Lake Tribune, owned by non-Mormons—and the rivalry was often white-hot and bitter. (Both papers still exist today, but they were bought out by the same company and so have lost their bite.)
The rift still exists mainly because we Mormons are so hard to socialize with, especially where we’re concentrated. Our church has a lay clergy, and our congregations are organized geographically, so just by participating in Church activity we all get to know each other. Right there you’ve got an insider/outsider dynamic going without anyone behaving badly.
It gets compounded by the fact that we’re such insufferable squares: no alcohol, no tobacco, no coffee or tea, no swearing, no drugs, no fooling around, no naughty movies—who’d want to invite us to their parties? And besides, those Mormons are always trying to convert you to their church, so best stay away.
And then there’s the suspicion that the LDS Church is still the de facto governing agent in Utah. The word “theocracy” gets tossed around regularly, and the inevitable “proof” is Utah’s absurd, byzantine liquor laws.
Which, what do you expect from a compromise between social drinkers, partiers, Utah tourism boosters, and a whole lot of religious teetotalers? The accusation is that the Mormons are trying to force everyone to live our religion, but if that were true, there would be also restrictions on coffee and tea (which are just as verboten). In reality, we Mormons are simply not eager to endure the social costs (fiscal and otherwise) of an alcohol-consuming populace without getting the benefits.
Irreconcilable differences is what it is. That’s not to say that there aren’t some wonderful friendships between Mormons and non-Mormons, because there are plenty, but the unhappy rift is also there. It doesn’t help that some non-Mormons like to spread urban-legend-type rumors about the LDS Church (“they may SEEM wholesome, but secretly they’re eating roasted babies wrapped in gold”) or that some LDS get too pushy or self-righteous.
Then add the same garden-variety cluelessness, insensitivity, stupidity, and douchebaggery that all human societies possess, and you get a fine mess.
Oh, and then there are the hipsters who live in east SLC and Park City and Moab and who are here for the scenery and Nature, and, well…
Obama’s Big Speech, a postview:
Not nearly long enough — by perhaps a factor of three — to suit the high-minded vision Obama wishes to convey. His speech writers should grant themselves license to expand to their fullest, so to raise their master’s will to its complete expression. Only so, only by grasping the public need for more Obama, ever more Obama, will they succeed in their mission to achieve MORE OBAMA, FOREVER MORE, OBAMA.
Silly writers.
di, you haven’t seen byzantine until you’ve lived in the South, where the Baptists and the bootleggers are in bed together (when they aren’t the same people).
Oddly enough, the harshest liquor laws seem to be in Kansas.
Scanning the web I’m astounded to find how few on the political left understand what was wrong with Obama’s speech today. They mostly seem to think he spoke too long, when it’s perfectly obvious he didn’t speak anywhere near long enough! More cowbell, Mr. Obama. More Obama Mr. Obama, that’s the only way to their hearts: it’s for their own good, after all.
Dicentra, the few mormons I know are not like that in alot of respects though I will allow that perhaps being so far away from Utah might lead to a softer approach to things. The two I have most contact with are both elders. Several have attended several functions where alcohol was served but did not partake.
My beef (if one can call it that) with them is they are either too lenient regarding what I would call work ethic particularly of those they supervise or too soft regarding the standards required by the BSA depending on which person I deal with. Not all have the same political leanings as I and I can say none has ever tried to convert my pagan ways.
I have nothing against Mr. Romney (or any one else) being mormon. I do however find nothing I like about certain Yellow Caricatures.
[…] Jeff explains all: Let me save you some time: Obama needs four more years because, well, Bush. Those two years of super majority Congressional control by Democrats, and that supersized stimulus Obama used to transfer over private sector money to those who helped his campaign? Ignore that. That, too, was Bush’s fault. The takeover of private industry that screwed investors and rewarded unions, and the pushing through of the wildly unpopular (and unconstitutional) individual mandate at the heart of ObamaCare, using every procedural gambit and combination of bullying/coaxing/bribing to secure the votes — with not a single Republican supporting the thing? Bush. […]
I just remembered I went to high school with at least one Mormon kid. At a Catholic high school. Of course in Sacramento in the ’70s the options were public school, Catholic school, or “Christian” school which pretty much meant the kind of fundamentalist Protestants that would call Mormons Satanists…