transmissions from another planet

INFORMATION IS AMMUNITION

 

CONFESSIONS OF A TABLOID HACK

"So, it's a spider's web of subterfuge which extends far beyond the offices of 

News International in Wapping, east London, to the City and even into government. 

If Fleet Street is increasingly dependent on surveillance, so too is wider society."

I need to dig out the punching bag.

   All of this playing politics over the debt limit thing is really getting to me. Mainly because I spend too much time watching political shows. These idiots are grandstanding and trying to create drama for their campaigns (why the hell do presidential campaigns start a year and a half ahead of time?). Meanwhile europe is imploding in part because of their own debt crisis. The american people dont even seem to know that this is happening at all and dont know or really care what a debt ceiling is. Many though seem to think not raising the debt ceiling would be a good idea.

   What really grinds my gears though is the way that this discussions over the national debt and our obligations to deal with it is broken down into pure ideological nonsense and political theater. Its completely irresponsible for people in authority to discuss things on this level. In these vague intangible abstractions. Its like when people say that truman shouldnt of dropped the atomic bombs on japan. Its all well and good to say this and truman himself had qualms morally and otherwise about it but when you are elected as the leader of a nation and you are in a time of great crisis you must do everything you can to protect that nations interests. Truman wasnt the president of japan, he wasnt serving on the human rights watch council, or otherwise entrusted with upholding some humanitarian virtues, he was the president of the united states and it was his duty to defend the united states first and foremost. All other interests came second, even his own moral objections to his own decisions. being a total ideologue is frankly stupid, reality is not easily divided up into mathematically quantifiable bits. Ideology is not science. Politics is not science, there are no always right or always wrong positions. Thomas jefferson was the arch small government republican, the man wanted to disbanded the navy just to save money, DISBAND THE FUCKING NAVY. Think about the kind of ideological puritan you have to be to do something like that. But when napoleon came along and offered the louisiana purchase for 2cents an acre (or whatever it was) he jumped at it. Not because he had the right as president or a duty to do so under the constitution. Not because he had the cash on hand or because he thought it was ideologically correct. He jumped at the chance because only a fool wouldnt. It greatly expanded the nations territory and wealth. It was the kind of thing many other nations had fought great wars over but no war was necessary, just sign the check and poof it was all ours. Complete with the new car smell. Debt, credit and ideology be damned.

   This is what irritates me so much about these tea party people (and the popular political dialog in general). Many seem to be ideologues to the point of absolute absurdity. They literally believe we should of let the banks fail in 08. They literally believe we should not raise the debt ceiling and let the entire federal government go bankrupt. This is the most juvenile sort of thinking. They are ideologues in the worst and most insulting sense of the term. You know who else is this sort of hell bent ideologue? Kim jong ill, he will never cooperate with the west, his entire nation is crumbling but he cant swallow his pride and open his mind to a future in which he is not stubbornly grandstanding against the west. Moamar gadaffi is similarly an ideologue, his entire nation is rising up against him but he sticks his finger in the dike and tries to hold back the entire north sea. He is going to end up hung in the streets, disgraced, his name an epithet. Forever cuckold by history, a stain on humanity, and yet he persists. He cannot accept a shift in his ideology, he cant help but play the fool.

   With authority comes responsibly and letting the banks fail, or not increasing the debt ceiling, or not dropping the atomic bomb on the japanese would be wholly irresponsible, no matter who did it. These ideologues would let the nation go bankrupt for their own smug satisfaction. Osama bin laden himself could not engineer such a devastating attack on our nation.

   On the issue of the debt ceiling more specifically I find it patently ridiculous that either party is trying to play this game of not raising taxes or not cutting spending respectively. The federal government spends a larger percentage of the GDP than it has in our history (save ww2). Simultaneously we are paying some of the lowest tax rates in the last hundred years. (dont get me wrong I dont know what im talking about but this is a blog, I dont have to check my facts!) Why on earth then, would anyone make the stance of "no more taxes" or "no more spending" part of their party platform? Anyone who has took a political science class and paid attention should immediately know that this is a strange kind of sabotage. What does lowering taxes have to do the being a social conservative? What does increasing government spending have to do with being a social libertarian? Nothing what so ever of course. Why would anyone believe lowering taxes would be the answer to all economic problems? Why would anyone believe that government spending is the answer to all economic problems? Why are solutions to these incredibly complex problems even allowed to be broken down into ideological stances? The whole thing reeks. I say this with the least possible amount of irony, this is what the communists warned us about. Political grandstanding and popularity contests controlling the entire attention and the entire future of the nation. Whole generations sink or swim based on who "reads" well on camera. This is the "suck" of democracy. Not only is all of this political theater ridiculous but nobody in the general populace knows wtf is going on or why. It doesnt even have the veneer of "representation". No one knows who eric cantor is or what he walked out on or why. Nobody even noticed but the insulated peanut gallery in washington. This is the ridiculous dog and pony show that is national politics. Its natural for obama to make sarcastic jokes about it because it really is a cynical joke.