Tag Archives: Barack Obama

Glenn Beck gets pissy over art

Posted by Shea in Politics and tagged with , , , , , , ,

(Article first published as Glenn Beck Submerges Obama Figurine in Fake Urine As Art Stunt on Technorati.)

Mom jeans impresario Glenn Beck took time out of his busy schedule of huffing chalk fumes to discuss art yesterday.  Apparently he was terribly upset that over protests, a piece of artwork depicting Obama as a crucified man was pulled from a NYC show.  His contention, and a correct one it was, is that the 1st Amendment guarantees people to display works of art that one may find offensive. That is free speech in a nutshell.  And then he goes on to prove his point for the ‘others’, by submerging a small figurine of President Obama in a mason jar of what he claims is his own urine, but later admits is beer.

 


Several things to consider:

  1. Why is he using a French accent when speaking about the Sistine Chapel, when it is in Italy (Vatican City to be precise)?
  2. What is his obsession with fat people?  He talks about them constantly.  That and male genitalia.  Is this like when he constantly used to shill for the gold companies – does he have new, weird sponsors now?
  3. Does he realize that the Obama figurine appears to be wrapped in the American flag, which he has just dunked in a jar of urine/beer?

And most importantly…

Why in the world did he think that this would be at all offensive?

 

 

 

 

 

His gambit, ridiculous as it may seem, appears to be that the Left would be up in arms with his stunt, and would call for a government censorship, hence proving to him and your Nana who listens to him that artsy fartsy people are only interested in their work being protected, not anyone else’s.   Does he not yet realize that what comes out of his mouth on a daily basis contains far more excrement than a mason jar with a plastic toy in it?  Does he not yet realize that the misspelled, racist signs of the Tea Party are far more offensive than anything he could come up with?  And most importantly, has he never heard of the Andres Serrano work “Piss Christ”, a piece created from the devout Catholic’s rage at the hypocrites (like Beck) who desecrate the ideals of Christ, while pretending to speak in His name, to their own financial and social gain?

So no, Mr. Beck, you will see no one up in arms with your ridiculous attempt at ‘shock’ art.  Had you started your career with this stunt, we might have listened.  But as your life seems to be one endless stream of filth that we still believe you should be able to say because of the 1st Amendment, your ‘point’ on artwork, like so much of what you say, is irrelevant.

There is an upside to all this:  Because Beck’s work is such an obvious rip off of “Piss Christ”, people who may have never heard of Serrano’s work will now be introduced to it by association with Beck himself.  That’ll do, Glenn.  That’ll do.

 

 

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Why You Lost

Posted by Shea in Politics and tagged with , , , , ,

 

Let’s get one thing clear right off the bat, Republicans: You didn’t lose because people didn’t ‘wake up’ in time, or because Black Panthers carjacked all the little white nanas on the way to the polling place. The UN didn’t shut down stations in republican states, and HAARP didn’t make that gust of wind push a tree limb on just your car. ACORN didn’t replace your vote with a big piece of paper that just said “Obama” on it, and George Soros didn’t do a Jedi mind trick and make all red blooded Ammuuuuricans tick the D box when they meant the R. Don’t be one of those people who complain about bad referees when it’s obvious their team choked. You lost because, quite simply, your candidate was horrible.
This isn’t the end of the world (except for Ted Nugent and his ilk); you can actually get through this. All you need to do is keep some tips in mind for next time.

1. Turn off Fox News. I know it pains you to think of it, but all of media is not in a massive conspiracy, with your beacon of light, Fox News, cutting through the lies. Look at Murdoch’s other media empires – he’s an opportunist. He saw a need for fear-based ‘reporting’ in the US, and he went with it. The over-coiffed people on the couch feeding you a steady diet of misinformation and paranoia? Not helping you. Coulter and O’Reilly are only on Fox because they need to shill their newest book; they have to be there – you don’t. Unplug the tv, get some fresh air.

2. Stop letting the lunatics run the asylum. Remember when ‘conservative’ meant ‘fiscally prudent and laissez-faire regarding social issues’? Yeah, no one else born after 1980 does either. From Ron Regan’s courting of the Religious right, to John McCain’s choice to open the floodgates of insanity in the form of Sarah Palin, intellectuals and moderates no longer run your party – extremists do. And the American public as a whole fear those extremists, and sent a message that they won’t put up with racist homophobe ignoramuses any longer. You need to do the same from within. Which brings us to our next point…

3. Quit the ignorance. From Santorum calling the President a ‘snob’ because he wanted all young adults to get an education, to Tea-party led school boards and districts white-washing textbooks to fit what they wished happened, versus what did, your party is likely to sink under the weight of its own stupidity. Stop being afraid of math, science, and numbers. Find your local librarian and ask her how to research primary resources. Don’t just rattle off what Breitbart or WorldNetDaily or Newsbusters or the Heritage Foundation says – look up the full text behind the sound bite. You’ll find yourself shocked by the results.

4. Tell your leaders that the buck stops here. Are you sick of political ads? Well, good luck, because they’ll be back in 1.5 years for the mid-term elections. Want to stop the rhetoric? Tell your senator, rep, council person, everyone, that you won’t vote for them again till they pass comprehensive campaign reform (this goes for all parties, by the way). Corporations are not people. Super PACs are not good. Politicians aren’t supposed to be run by lobbyists. Get the money out. And those who refuse? Get them out in the next election cycle.

And finally, because this will come up again in our nation…

5. Choose a candidate because you like them, not because you hate the other guy. Who happens to be black. Who, the minute he took the oath, magically became the focus of birthers and prominent ferret headwear collector Donald Trump, a massive movement of the Tea Party who just ‘happened’ to spring up to fight him (even though the things they yell about were things Bush did for eight years without a peep), and a Republican led effort to ensure he’d get nothing done (to quote Mitch McConnell : “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”). I’m not going to paint all of you with a racist brush, but I will say this – they did all of this, and still lost, because Americans got sick and tired of your divisiveness. And this goes for the next candidate, who may be disabled. Or gay. Or a woman.

Republicans, you better evolve. Now. Or spend a lot of Tuesday nights, sullenly staring at the tv, making excuses for your party.

When the election ends, the work begins.

Posted by Shea in Politics and tagged with , , ,

As an expat, one gets used to being the de facto translator for cultural or national matters, on everything from who in the world would eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, to what people do on Thanksgiving.  But during election season, the questions fly thick and fast.  Trying to explain the electoral college to people who vote ‘first past the post’ reminds me of when my nieces were toddlers, only with much smarter ‘Why?’ questions.  I’ll be watching the results tonight with 2 Brits, and will be no doubt answering more questions along the way, but more along the lines of “Why do people need such gaudy graphics to explain a map?” (for which I will have no answer).  But the largest question I’ve received in the last few days is always along the lines of “Are you glad it’s over?”.  And of course, I am.  But the thing is, it’s not.

See, when you elect someone, you can’t just close your eyes for the next 2-4-6 years, and then open them again in the next voting booth.  You have to watch, carefully, as to what the person does.  You have to muck through the partisan bullshit, and learn how to research primary sources, to see if what you’re being spun is actually the truth.  You have to question, every time, and you have to weigh the good of a candidate against the bad, and see how much of your soul you can sell in the process to vote for them again.  It’s a particularly laborious process, and one I’m actually quite tired of.    This campaign has been one of the worst for lying (or as the Romney campaigner said, “We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers”.  Barf).  It’s also been the most expensive in history, with billions raised or infused through anonymous SuperPACs, which has in no way shape or form injected a lick of decency or truth in the national discourse.

So yes, I’m happy it’s almost over.  But no, I’m not happy that the work actually starts now.

US politics, in one tweet.

Posted by Shea in Politics and tagged with , , , , , , ,

As many of you know, Hurricane Sandy ripped through the northeast of the US this past week. One of the hardest hit areas after NYC was the state of New Jersey, who saw widespread structural damage. New Jersey’s governor is Chris Christie, a Republican, who has in the hours and days after the strike worked with and praised the Democrat President Obama for swiftly mobilizing and cooperating to halt the secondary destruction (sickness, starvation, etc). Christie, a very vocal Romney supporter, even took to twitter, announcing:

When it comes to getting things done, I don’t care what party someone is in. The responsibility I have is much bigger than politics.

Lovely, right? Bipartisanship gets the job done.

Not quite. Look at the responses to the tweet itself.

They are angry that Christie put the lives of his constituents over his political affiliation.

In their world, it’s better to have a high body count, but still with your cronies, than actually co-operate with someone who’s ideas are different than yours.

And it’s not just a couple of idiots on twitter. Oh, I wish it were! The spiritual leader of the right, Rush Limbaugh called the governor “fat and a fool,” saying Christie “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” (We’ll avoid the obvious pot/kettle reference on the Jabba sized Rush). The Daily Caller assumes that Christie and Romney are no longer buds, and that “So what’s up? Is Christie angry he was passed over for vice president? Has he resigned himself to Romney’s defeat? Or is something else afoot?” (Ominous, something may be afoot! Nothing like a possible conspiracy for the tinfoil crowd to gnaw on). The right is absolutely apoplectic that a Governor would, you know, govern his state through crisis, over play politics and watch people die.

And this is why the US will see civil war in the next 20 years. When you let the inmates run the asylum, when you feed yourself a steady diet of myopic, hubris-stuffed jingoism and pooh-pooh science, fact, reasoning, or even basic humanity, and when you firmly believe that human lives aren’t as important as a photo op for your candidate, something will give.

This election will be an interesting one, no doubt about it. I’m just glad I’m safely here, frankly. I have nightmares where I have to fly my nieces over here to get them away from the ridiculousness, and I wake, so sad and angry. “In the age of information, ignorance is a choice”, I always say. These twitterers, devotees of the larger idiots who spew this garbage from their radio stations and morning news couches, are single-handedly dumbing down our nation to the point that it will collapse in on itself. And honest to God, I just wish they’d get it over and done with already, so I wouldn’t have to watch them teeter on the edge for so long.

For what it’s worth, while I don’t like Christie’s politics, he’s been class act throughout this entire ordeal, and for that I thank him. He put people over politics, and that is never a bad thing. I still wouldn’t vote for him, but I respect him for this.

You’re doing a heckuva job, Christie. Keep up the good work.

Dear Mitt Romney Campaign;

Posted by Shea in Politics and tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

If you want to run on a platform of fearmongering about, among other things, the fact that Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act) will kill people (DEATH PANELS YO), you might want to tell your lackeys to stay on point.  When they point out that Romneycare (the blueprint for the ACA) saves lives, you have a bit of a problem.  Just sayin.

 

(the whole thing is gold, but check in at 1.20 for foot entering mouth)

 

Poor Andrea Saul. When she gets fired today, at least she knows under Obamacare she will be able to still have healthcare coverage, and it’s all thanks to the man who created the blueprint of the ACA, Mitt Romney.

Thanks, Mitt!