Paul Ryan and Tom Morello Should Get Married

Why Paul Ryan and Tom Morello are NOT making mad passionate monkey noises together in the back of a roach coach is beyond me. Maybe they are, actually.

They are the perfect marriage. Political allies of the most curious kind, bound to one another by hypocrisy like big government foot-stink.

I’ll bet the conversation went something like this:

Agent: “Hey Tom, guess what? Your band has a fan!”

Tom: “A whole fan? Really?! Oh please tell me who!”

Agent: “Paul Ryan.”

Tom: “Seriously?”

Agent: “Yup.”

Tom: “Um. I don’t know what that means.”

It means a bromance made in heaven. I don’t know if that’s how it went down, but I know he eventually came to his senses and attacked Paul Ryan anyway. It seems to be quite popular.

And God bless Mr. Morello for his passion. He’s placed his rage in all the right places. Definitely. It’s good to have a powerful man worth $60 million going after the embodiment of the 1%, because…

Oh wait a minute. $8.4 million, that’s the threshold for the 1%, right? (shhhh… don’t tell Tom he’s in the 1%…)

Anyways, it’s good to experience such brilliant anti-establishment art as the music of Rage Against the Machine. I just love that they donated their time and energy to those so-called Warner brothers who are just like you and me. That indie film – oh what was it called?

The Matrix. That’s right.

And it just warms my heart that they’ve decided to stick with an indie label, too. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Epic Records? Probably not. That’s because…

Oh. Owned by one of the “Big Four”? You don’t say.

Well, it’s no matter. At the end of the day, I just prefer my rock idols to be really really angry. Doesn’t really matter why, just as long as it’s directed at the right people. And I don’t care how much they make. I know in the end they really care about me. Like all the folk that also write for that newsletter that published his article. Small newsletter called Rolling Stone. You may have heard of it?

But I know he wouldn’t just try to capitalize on people’s hatred of Paul Ryan, because he has every reason to love Paul.  Paul Ryan is Tom’s representative in Congress. I mean, surely he sees that.

Paul Ryan does hate things. And if the system Tom’s group has raged against was to be changed into a system of the very kind of rage that fuels his own, it would come in the form of someone like the Congressman. So be proud of your Congressman, Tom. He’s got your back.

Or, to put it another way: They would go down with the ship together in honor. The women and children would still go first, then the real men. Then, the people like you and the Congressman would stay. Because douchebags go down with the ship, and they feverishly play “Fight The Iceberg” on the cello while those who know how to save themselves fail to care.

“Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy,” you once raged.

I agree completely.

4 Arguments Against the Dislike Button

I know it might be an unpopular position to take, but I don’t think Facebook having a Dislike button is a good idea. I know that disliking things is very popular right now, and a good many of my friends really want the chance to dislike things openly. Disliking things is fun, requires zero effort and allows you to put a dent in a reality that you find offensive without getting involved. But that’s sort of why it’s a terrible idea. There is nothing constructive about the Dislike button, and I believe the narcissism already present on the Internet would be only intensified and made destructive if allowed to exist. That is because the desire for the Dislike button comes from the remnant of a primitive brain which seeks to tear down and control the reality of others, and rejects communication, cooperation and respect for other people.

First of all, there is a practical reason why Facebook shouldn’t have a Dislike button, and it’s the same reason why it never will: A Dislike button is bad for business, especially if your business is social networking. Think about it. Why in the name of all things sacred would a business based around the idea of creating and building relationships introduce an element that could only break one down? How soon after they introduce the Dislike button would you see a rapid decline in activity on Facebook? How could a dislike button possibly contribute to a dynamic that is supposed to be all about sharing, and not about division and hate?

Some argue that using a Dislike button to show empathy could build relationships, such as for comments like “I just lost my job,” or “My wife and I are getting a divorce.” But why wouldn’t you rather leave a comment for these types of posts anyway? Why would you clamor for an alternative that allows you to sympathize without actually doing any work? I would sure rather see a comment from a friend as opposed to a bunch of dislikes. Not to mention there have already been suggestions for alternatives, such as a Hug button, to differentiate these sorts of things.

But in the absence of these alternatives, how would Facebook differentiate these types of posts from others that people just don’t like, such as, “That new Katy Perry song is awesome!” If Facebook filters its feed on the basis of how many likes a shared item or status update receives, wouldn’t it just bury the “My dog just died” posts as well? The list of problems goes on.

But let us not forget the other reason it’s bad for business: Sponsors. Imagine you were Coke, and Facebook just announced it was adding a Dislike button. Do you think Facebook would be a good place to advertise after that? I don’t think so.

But in case you think that’s just as well, realize that it applies to ALL businesses, including that concert that you and your band were thinking of creating an event for. Your local mom and pop could get slammed with dislikes, making Facebook no longer a place to network and communicate with its fanbase. Not only would Facebook be hit with a loss in advertising revenue, which would affect how well it operates and whether or not it can expand, but it would make it even harder for smaller businesses to compete.

Again, this is all to say that the Dislike button would do very little to build relationships, but would do everything to break them down.

It is very fortunate for everyone involved that the Dislike button will never become a reality. But why would people keep arguing that it should?

Well the second argument that it shouldn’t is a philosophical one: A Dislike button wouldn’t add more choice, but it would make choosing unpleasant for everyone. People act like they have a fundamental entitlement to a Dislike button, and the fact that they don’t is an affront to their freedom of choice. They want to be able to dislike something, and they can’t, and it’s just not fair. Well this view of choice is very immature, because it reflects a very poor understanding of what choice actually is.

The word “choose” comes from the latin verb gusto, which means “to taste.” It is also the origin of the modern “gusto,” which means enthusiastic enjoyment or pleasure. The action of taking, tasting, eating and enjoying is inherent in the idea of choosing. If you did not enjoy something, then you couldn’t say you chose it. To NOT pick the apple from the tree is NOT a choice. You can’t say, “I chose not to pick that apple.” You could say, however, “I didn’t chose to pick the apple.”

So if you decide not to pick the apple, what is that called, if not a choice? I would call it a rejection. I would even say it is an inaction until you consciously decide not to pick the apple. Once you decide you don’t like the apple, then you move on. But it’s not a choice, it’s a rejection. In other words, there is always a yes involved in choice, because that’s what choice IS. It’s you saying yes to something. Even when you use the word, that’s understood. If you choose red not blue, you don't say,“I choose not blue.” You say “I choose red."

So if you see something come up on your Facebook feed that you don’t like, don’t choose it. And if you really want a Dislike button, you won’t be getting the freedom to choose, you’ll be getting the freedom to reject.

Having said that, it should be clear just how unpleasant it would all become to ACTUALLY choose something in an environment filled with rejection. If something comes up in your feed that you like, but others publicly dislike, your liking it is now an open invitation to be harassed for it. The more dislikes, the more likely you are to get hassled for liking it, making you less inclined to like anything. The repercussions of your decision to like something would always have to be considered when choosing to like something. And that is very sad.

Facebook should be a place where everyone can have the experience they choose to have, to like what they want, even if there’s only one other person that agrees with them. You don’t get to decide that for them, even if you know they’re crazy.

That leads me to the sociological argument: When it is known how unpopular a thing is, the quality of the discourse diminishes. This seems like a no-brainer. Think about how kids react to knowledge that a certain kid is unpopular. All they need is a little bit of encouragement and they turn into monsters. Many of them are good kids, actually, but if lead by the hand and given the ok, they will go along with all of the awful things the truly awful kids are doing.

We like to think that we are not like them, that we are grown adults. But we are kidding ourselves if we think that’s the case. Think about every alliance that formed in your workplace between those looking for a scapegoat and those few whipping boys who actually pull their weight. Think of all the gossip magazines we read and all the popular TV shows where we all get to watch a family fall apart. We enjoy it because we know that millions of other people are watching it too, and so its ok. But imagine a world in which watching “Hoarders” made you more deplorable than its own subjects. Imagine if you didn’t have the support you needed in the dislike of celebrities and politicians. What would you do?

You would make your case, that’s what you would do. You would have to do so intelligently, coherently, concisely and passionately. This is what happens on discussion boards and forums where the article or subject did not include a like or dislike button.

If you do not know how many people are on your side, you are more inclined to form your own opinion, or abstain when you feel you are lacking in the knowledge with which to comment.

To be fair, this argument is true for the Like button as well, since the popularity of an idea often carries the ethos of credibility. But undoing the damage of a bad idea with a lot of Likes is as simple as posting a link in the comments section. Undoing the damage of a good idea with a gazillion Dislikes is close to impossible. Plus, in most cases, there is no harm done by clicking Like.

 If you are reading this and you really want to help create a better world both on- and offline, then the final argument should matter a lot to you: The absence of a Dislike button is Facebook’s version of “innocent until proven guilty,” and that’s a very good thing. This is the moral argument, and I’m not sure that many of the people I talk to about the Dislike button are aware of this.

I think the Dislike button represents something in all of us that needs to die out. It is the power to destroy, motivated by the desire to control the reality of others.

It is much bigger than simply being able to say, “I really don’t like lolcats.” It is as if you think that every piece of media that passes before your eyes begs the question, “Do you think this should exist?” People have been exposed to so many things that they don’t like, they just really want the chance to make it go away, and they feel like they ought to have a right to do so.

The Dislike button at least gives you the gratification of saying, “No.” You don’t even have to be personally involved in the thing you don’t like, you don’t have to think about it for very long, and beyond that you can just let your gut tell you if it's good or not. No regard needs to be paid to the person who made it, or the others who like it.

But here’s the thing: It still exists. You are not going to get rid of something in cyberspace just by disliking it.

Maybe you think, “People will stop making this sort of thing if enough people dislike it, and that is alright with me.” Not only is this an unrealistic assumption, it once again demonstrates your desire to control the reality of others. What is actually happening is people are connecting to one another by an experience, and you are trying to destroy it for them. It is not your experience, but you don’t care because you don’t think it was fair that you were exposed to it in the first place. Well I say you need to grow up, if that’s what you think.

To be clear, I’m not saying that actually disliking something is wrong, and I’m certainly not saying that making a comment to that effect is bad. In fact, I’m saying the opposite. Your efforts to voice your displeasure should be one-to-one and co-operative, not top-down and authoritative. The Dislike button is a replacement for conversation, and it contains no insight, criticism or respect for the content's creator.

Part of that conversation that MUST be present is evidence. If you are displeased with something and voicing your displeasure in the form of a Dislike could have a very negative impact on the content’s creator, you should be required to explain yourself. You should not be allowed to take an action like Disliking a video without having to – or at least being able to – defend it.

This is crucial for building a better world for all of us. Only in the last few hundred years did we learn a very important moral lesson which has helped us become better people. One of the core principles of Western philosophy is the idea that a person’s guilt should never be assumed, and that everyone has the right to defend themselves. You shouldn’t be able to send me to the chair just by pointing your finger at me, and I should never be able to do the same to you.

This is such a profound ethical achievement on humanity’s part, and we’ve come too far in our real life to allow this idea to die out in our digital world. Once it disappears online, we will see it less and less in the real world. We will go back to the way things used to be decided: By tyranny, where a totalitarian ruler decides. or by mob rule, in which an individual is defenseless against the many.

We are already seeing it now with every major criminal case, from Gabby Giffords to Treyvon Martin. Everyone has an opinion, but nobody knows the facts. And nobody cares that they don't have the facts.

The argument doesn’t even have to be that big. Think about it on a personal level: How would you tell someone to their face that you don’t like what they’ve made? I suppose a few of you reading this might actually be just as blunt in real life. But even if you are, wouldn’t you then include your reasons or would you just say, “It sucks,” and leave it at that?

I suspect most of you would either lie and say you liked it, or you would try to find a nice way to say it. You might even re-examine your dislike and find that it’s not that bad after all. There are many reasons why a Dislike button eliminates avenues of communication that would lead to relationship-building, but instead it drives a wedge between two people who are potentially very much alike.

If nobody likes something, it won’t get shared and it won’t last long. The Dislike button is not necessary, and it will introduce much harm to a world that is just starting to get built. There are so many problems in the world, and we can’t let it fall apart just because we’ve introduced a relationship-destroying element into our community. There is no content that is so Disliked that it can’t either be debated with or flagged. As human beings, we should be wanting to like and create, not finding things to dislike and destroy.  

 If you would like to hear more about this from others, I would recommend this guy, who has a lot to say about it. I would really like to know what your thoughts are on the subject, so please leave a comment!

2012: Lessons Learned So Far

I’ve been feeling for some time like a great change is occurring, if not in the world at least in myself. This could be just me emerging from that quarter-life crisis we all have, when we finally find footing after being flung into a world that looks and feels and acts nothing at all like we were told it would.

I’ve been taking it one day at a time in everything I do, trying my best to live by a philosophy that maintains simply that if you don’t like your life and your world, change it. It is further driven by a sense of rational optimism that is informed merely by the good results it produces.

I’m certain now that the recent and abrupt termination of an otherwise awesome relationship with a wonderful woman was absolutely meant to occur. The dedicated crew of impassioned and creative people I’ve been fortunate enough to acquire is also, I feel, no accident.

As cuckoo as it sounds, at this very moment in my life, I’m prepared to accept that forces beyond my power or control are guiding me in a certain direction.

That I should choose to include a pomegranate as a decidedly important symbol in my music video, only to find that my art director himself possesses a pomegranate bush. Added to this the odd fact that it began leafing the very first day I met with him to discuss the project, and may very well begin to flower at precisely the same time we shoot. The full moon on the day we begin pre-production, as well as the solar storm we are currently experiencing and various other little things of this nature all seem very synchronistic.

That this all is circumstantial is obvious, but there is also the feeling of it. I have become very much intuitive about everything now. Even my body has found a way to tell me exactly what food to eat, and it seems stubborn in its refusal to accept anything else. Beer, for some reason, is in great supply these days. The hearty type, with lots of body and very dark.

All this is to say that I am feeling more and more like a player in my own life, and not just an actor or an observer. All my life I’ve judged the merit of my own actions on the sensibilities and successes of others. I wasted time in college in this futile attempt to gain acceptance and to depend on the advice and opinions of others.

But as monumental a task as learning to truly form your own opinions can be, it is still only half the battle. If you truly want to carve out a niche for yourself and be a free spirit, there are things you will learn that may leave you with that feeling of existential dread in the pit of your stomach keeping you up at night. Just know this is temporary.

I believe the lack of appetite I’ve had these days is related to this. No longer do I care what people think, but no more do I care to change what people think about anything, even me. I can help them to understand me, but no expectations should be made of it.

The truth is, I just can’t care enough anymore. It’s not possible. It has taken all of the energy and passion I can muster just to forge on for myself. Perhaps someday when my hair is gray, I will have something to say, when I can no longer be a player. Or sooner, if I can obtain any sort of mastery which others would want to hear of.

One thing I can speak of, though, is that oft-neglected aspect of optimism that even the most positive person can forget: the valley. If you’re a pessimist, your world is pretty flat. Ever so often you find a mountain that might reach into the heavens, but it will be rare. An optimist, though, lives in the Alps. There are peaks and valleys galore. It can be a most beautiful sight, but the hardest part is that no mountain looks more intimidating than when viewed from the valley. The relativity makes the valley unbearable.

I imagine a world where the sanctimony and pretension that pollutes most human interactions will wither away, and I believe that we are seeing it happen today. The rebel spirit in all of us that decries intolerance and cruelty has never been louder. The wretched fuel normally reserved for heated political discourse is now dwindling and the loud cry of justice bellows through bottom-up forms of media like Youtube and Facebook.

That our economy will be wrecked by runaway inflation is inevitable, as will be the panic that follows. But never underestimate the power of human ingenuity and goodness.

I can’t describe my place any more clearly than that. That everyone has a path to walk is a fact not needed to explain my own path. I may talk about humanity’s desire for knowledge to combat ignorance, but this just may be my purpose.

One thing is certain, though, and this is perhaps my purpose for writing this: If you are not on the right path, the universe will tell you! To a Christian, this is akin to turning your back on God. To a scientist, this is like choosing to abandon good logic and sound reason. You will find success to be very difficult if you stray from the path.

I don’t know who chose the path – if it was some god or angel or alien or even me, before I was born – but it exists. The universe is set up in a specific way, and a reckless life isn’t any more sustainable than a snowflake on the Tucson asphalt in August. All that matters is taking the hints the universe gives you and the rest is up to you.

Ode to The Mint

To Kricket, who, together with a young Justin, beat us at pool and won a free pint of the finest Natty Light a Tucson dive bar has to offer, and who greeted my friend and I with the joke, “That break was a Dolly Parton break: all bust and no balls,” I say: Thank you. To Louis, who complemented me on my Stetson hat and concluded a ten minute diatribe with the words: “I just can’t stand the sound of rocks under my feet,” I thank you. To the woman who slapped her hands together, proclaiming, “Alright! Let’s do this!” Who then emerged from the restroom with a rake, together with a gentleman wielding a mop, and proceeded to play a most impressive game of pool with said tools in the accompaniment of her Toxic Avenger and concluded her evening with the aforementioned Louise on the dancefloor – as if it was made for her – I say: Congratulations, you’ve got it. And finally, to the remarkably gracious bartender who let me into the holy of holies to gander at the beer selection and left me with a tab I could have paid with the change in my pocket: I am very grateful.

There are people in this world who continue to inspire me, and they are the ones who seem to care the least about social norms, or about intellectual endeavors. They don’t care about politics or class, or where you come from. You meet them, and the meeting is the best part. The real human moments occur in the most unlikely of places. They occur when people gather to express – with stubborn optimism – their desire for a better life. That they should succeed is beside the point. The pursuit is its own justification.

The Female Hall of Fame: Rock and Roll vs. Country

In general, Rock and Roll tends to be regarded as left-leaning, both its audience and its performers. Likewise, Country music is usually regarded as right-leaning.

Of course there are exceptions, but I decided to assume the position and do an experiment. I compared the numbers of female Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees with female Country Music Hall of Fame inductees.

Here's what I found...

The number of female soloists and all-female groups inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 21 (out of 253). If you include mixed groups (like ABBA and Jefferson Airplane) as well as duos (like Ike and Tina Turner), the number increases to 32.

The number of female soloists inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame: 15 (out of 125). There is one mixed group and one duo, which would move the number to 17.

Female soloists and all-female groups only:
RRHF: (21/253)*100 = 8.3%
CMHF: (15/125)*100 = 12%

With mixed groups and duos included:
RRHF: (32/253)*100 = 12.65%
CMHF: (17/125)*100 = 13.6%

The numbers seem fairly close, but they do suggest one thing: the conservative value of individualism appears to be more apparent in country music.

If you are a liberal, then it would makes sense to go with the number that includes all women wherever they appear in the Hall of Fame, since they are more about equality than individualism. That would also suggest that there is no political leaning whatsoever. If we actually count heads, however (i.e. Jefferson Airplane = 1 woman, 5 men), then the percentage would likely be much lower.

(Of course if you actually are a woman, you’re probably just pissed that the numbers are so damn low to begin with.)

My Take on the Tea Party, and 4 Tea Party Myths Debunked

I have to admit that my strong interest in politics has had a big relationship with the emergence of the Tea Party. I became disillusioned by the phony Democratic opposition to George Bush in 2004, and slowly shifted my beliefs to the right. I never let Bush off the hook in my mind for running up the deficit, expanding foreign militarism and turning America into a police state, but I began to see the Democrats in a new light as well.

It seemed to me (and kinda still does) that their heart was in the right place, but they lacked a basic understanding of the fundamentals of economics. They are made up of intellectuals, not businessmen, and so they cannot understand how to create profitable systems that actually work. Everything works in theory for them. That is why, unlike businessmen, they don’t see why an unsuccessful system that they love dearly should have to disappear – not when there’s oodles of money to throw at the problem in the vain hopes that it will fix the problem.

On the other hand, it also didn’t seem fair that corporations could or should get away with becoming unstoppable giants that are unaccountable to anyone, and actually help to eliminate what could potentially be great products that I’d want to buy. I had so much hatred of private markets programmed into my understanding of how the world works, that it took a lot of research on my part to eventually grasp the fallacy of this line of thinking. The more I looked at the actual problems – corporations sending jobs over seas, polluting the environment, taking advantage of tax loopholes and killing mom-and-pop businesses – the more often I would see the work of the government that actually caused it.

The relationship between big business and the government, as it turns out, is like peas and carrots. Politicians getting their backs scratched with campaign donations in exchange for special handouts, lobbyists spearheading legislation that is favorable to their constituencies (like Big Tobacco), and companies (like Monsanto and Pfizer) promoting the kind of regulation that would be more costly and thus harmful to their smaller competitors. These are just some of the unintended consequences of a government that has far too much shit to give away.

But should the government really be involved in choosing which companies get special attention? The Solyndra scandal is only the most recent example of why the answer is a resounding no.

This all has to do with redefining the role of government, which we as a nation are now doing. I never would have thought that changing the way business works in Washington would ever really be possible, but then during the last election cycle, I noticed a guy that was saying all of this. He articulated quite well the new role the government should play, and he was pretty darned consistent about it. I checked him out, found him to be legit, and I know many others did as well. Many of them became the Tea Party. And the man I’m talking about is Ron Paul.

TEA PARTY PATIENT ZERO AND BEYOND

You can’t really begin an analysis of the Tea Party without looking at Ron Paul. He hasn’t gotten as much flack as the Tea Party, but he’s certainly portrayed as Crazy Uncle Jeb by most of the media. It’s believed by many who have heard of him that he is unelectable, and that his beliefs are too radical to be taken seriously.

It is my hope that soon Ron Paul will get the Republican nomination, but even if he doesn’t, he will have been the first to begin the discussion we are all having right now about just how big of a role the government really ought to be playing in our lives. He may be Tea Party Patient Zero (as Jon Stewart calls him), but that does not mean he speaks for the Tea Party and he has never called himself its founder. He is the only candidate that doesn’t need to mention their name to add credibility to himself, as all the other candidates have done.

I remember watching the first Republican presidential debate in 2007 with my friends at a community house I was living in at the time. Everyone in the room with me – most notably my Pakistani friend Haseeb – immediately took a liking to him, just as I did. Towards the end, Haseeb said to me, “he’s the only guy up there making sense.” We all became fans.

At the next debate, we saw Giuliani try to trip him up by calling him un-American for “blaming Americans for 9/11,” and forced him to apologize. I was quite tickled two days later when Ron Paul gave Giuliani a “reading list,” which included the 9/11 Commission Report. The report found – as Paul was criticized for correctly stating in the debate – that our military occupation of Arab holy lands in the Middle-East was probably the biggest reason why our enemies wanted to attack us.

Nevertheless, I knew he was doomed when I talked to my dad about him (who watches Fox News regularly), and he sided with Giuliani. After he later accepted that Ron Paul was actually correct, he had already formed the opinion that he was unelectable.

So when, during all of this election stuff, did the Tea Party come about? Most pundits didn’t register the Tea Party existed at all until around Spring of 2009, but it actually started much earlier. The first big event was probably the protest of Bear Sterns in NYC during April of 2008 People traveled from all over the country to protest the banker bailouts, and it was an early reflection of a growing wave of frustration over Wall Street corruption. And with a Republican administration still in office, one which actually supported the bailout, it is hard to even see how this was a partisan response. Put simply: everyone was pissed off.

Another event happened in Washington that Glenn Beck took credit for, even though it was planned months in advance of him finding out. Later, Ron Paul had a money bomb on Guy Fawkes Day, raising 4.2 million in 24 hours, followed by another on December 16 – the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party – which pulled in 6.2 million. The whole idea of sending a tea bag to your congressman came later.

The Ron Paul run was fun, but I sort of sat it out after that. The Tea Party kept doing their thing, I went back to focusing on my schoolwork and I became increasingly worried that the Tea Party was morphing into some quasi-fascistic nebula of right-wing crazy-talk. How couldn’t I? All of the people on Fox News that I had grown to despise were now praising them, they seemed to be talking about regulating personal business and supporting anti-immigrant bigotry. I didn’t know what to think about them anymore.

So recently, I jumped back in and did some research. I wanted to know: does a real, genuine Tea Party still exist, or has it been absorbed by the RNC with RNC talking points and Faux Tea Party figureheads like Sarah Palin? Well, yes and no.

A FEW THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW FIRST

First of all, any time a “Tea Partier” talks about anything but money, he is off-topic. You can spot a Faux Tea Partier by the scope of his conversation. All of the genuine Tea Party issues concern money: fixing the monetary system, cutting spending, balancing the budget, simplifying the tax code and eliminating unnecessary and costly regulations that hamper private businesses. There should be no talk of Obama’s birth certificate or SB 1070 or gay marriage or any of that crap. Even anti-war discourse has no real place in the Tea Party, unless it’s to point out how much money we are spending on militarism and nation-building.

So with that said, it should be clear that there seems to be either a disconnect within the Tea Party itself, or a grave misunderstanding of it by outsiders and the media. I think it’s both.

At this point in time, the Tea Party has never been more feared and despised. Joe Biden likens the Tea Party to terrorists,
Rep. Luis Gutierrez called them arsonists and Barney Frank compares them to schoolyard bullies who drive teens to suicide. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver called the whole debt deal a “Satan sandwich,” and Maxine Waters wants the Tea Party to “go straight to hell!” And Teamster head Jimmy Hoffa even declared war on the Tea Party, saying: “President Obama, this [the Teamster union] is your army. We are ready to march. Let's take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an America where we belong.” To which Obama responded with great praise, expressing how proud he was of Hoffa and his “army.”

These are all grown adults, and I would hope they would not be saying such things unless the evidence of Tea Party bullying and racism was overwhelming and could cement the notion that the problem is not just a few lone nuts but one that is systemic. I hope that is the case because these are all huge accusations, and they are being echoed by most of the liberals in the media.

THE MYTHS

I’m not going to get into specifics here, I’m just going to summarize. This list of myths is by no means an exhaustive one, but it contains the ones I feel knowledgeable and confident enough to debunk.

1. They are racists.

Anyone who has spent time with the Tea Party would be absolutely insane to believe this. There are at least two big reasons why anyone believes this. The first is the Tea Party protest of Obamacare early last year. It was from this event that most of the rumors began that the Tea Party was racist. Democratic House leaders walked right through the Tea Party to the Capitol building (instead of taking the underground tunnels between the building that were designed to be used in just such a situation) and their aides reported live via Twitter that they were being spit on and called the N-word. The news spread like wildfire, and pretty soon everyone in the media was reporting that some Congressmen and –women were being harassed by Tea Partiers.

Thing is: there’s no proof this actually happened. Several videos have surfaced of the event, and none of them show any evidence that these things happened. In fact, the Weiner-scandal guy has offered a $100,000 bounty to anyone with proof that these things actually happened. And looked at this way, it isn’t hard to imagine why these Democrats (under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi) would want to do such a thing as provoke a confrontation with their political adversaries and fabricate one when nothing ends up happening.

The other reason people might think the Tea Party is racist is a phenomenon known as “nutpicking.” This is when someone with a camera goes to Tea Party events (or scours the web for Tea Party videos) and picks out the nutjobs holding very bizarre and offensive signs and spouting nonsense. These people do exist, and the Tea Party is quite efficient at weeding them out.

Sometimes the Tea Partiers even use force to remove these crazies from events, but not before they’ve left their mark for the evening news. Unfortunately for the Tea Party, one sign reading “Obama is a babykiller” is going to turn more heads than the thousands of “Taxed Enough Already” signs. Added to this are people (usually liberals) who try to make a laughing stock out of them by pretending to be bigoted and ignorant Tea Partiers.

But I have a stress test for you, in case you want to be scientific about your efforts to expose the Tea Party as the racists you think they are: why don’t you find the video of a Tea Partier taking the podium and getting cheered on while he spews his racist filth? At many of these protest events, there is a podium that is made available to anyone who wants to give a testimonial. All kinds of people usually step up to the mic and its open to all, usually. Surely there must be one video or two of some nutjob running his mouth to the adulation of his peers? That would be nice to see. And that brings me to…

2. Sarah Palin is the Tea Party’s leader.

I can see why you might think she is, but she is as far from the Tea Party message as you can be and still be in the same room. She supported TARP – which, if you recall, is the very thing that the Tea Party was founded to protest! Furthermore, she ran on the presidential ticket with a mainstream, establishment Republican, champions military spending, is on the payroll at Fox News and supports the economically dreadful cap-and-trade. And notice that none of these things have anything to do with her character, or the fact that she keeps the guys over a FactCheck.org busy working overtime. These are positions that are antithetical to the Tea Party itself, and anyone with a search engine who had five free minutes to compare her positions to that of the Tea Party would discover the discrepancy.

The same goes for Michelle Bachmann. She is a former government bureaucrat that has profited from government handouts herself and is beloved by the very sort of Wall Street bankers she claims to be opposing.

This is what leads people to believe this next myth…

3. The Tea Party is just Astroturf for the rich.

There may be many well-off people in the Tea Party, but that is a far cry from acting like all of its members are bought and paid for. It is difficult to prove that each and every member of the Tea Party isn’t representing someone else’s interest (although simply going to a Tea Party event and meeting with these people in person might seem like a good place to start). But setting aside the figureheads I’ve just discussed, and the many others like them whose rhetoric doesn’t quite match their record, I’m going to use simple logic to dispel this nonsensical myth.

As I mentioned, the movement began with the banker bailouts, and who but the rich stood to gain from those bailouts? When the common man runs out of money, banks foreclose. When the banks run out of money, they get bailed out. It hardly seems fair.

So carrying this argument further, if everyone who still had money tied into banks, whether it be savings or investments, suddenly saw their banking institution fail, who would lose the most? Those with the most money involved (i.e. the rich). Are we catching on?

As I stated at the beginning, corporations and government are like peas and carrots. If the government were smaller, the super-rich would not be able to profit off of the kinds of crony capitalism I described. They would lose.

At least, the unfairly and unjustly rich would stand to lose. Class warfare doesn’t even need to enter the conversation to see this logic. Genuine Tea Partiers recognize that corporate handouts are just as bad as socialized handouts, and they both lead to class warfare and division.

The argument for limited government is usually and correctly limited to the federal level. No one should be saying that the government shouldn’t be relied upon to maintain our roads and monitor air traffic, the water table and many other things. But why do we lack faith in local governments to handle these matters? It doesn’t make much sense to involve people 3,000 miles away in the decision of what your child learns in school, or what schools to send him to. Even if the argument for government involvement in medicine or education or energy is a good one, why not leave the matter to the states? Not because the constitution says so (although that is a good reason) but because it actually makes sense?

The point is that the super-rich actually depend upon a strong, centralized government to remain super-rich. If government were smaller and more localized, it would become quite difficult to obtain the kind of handouts that make a company like Pfizer a top Fortune 500 company.

That having been said, the fact that the majority of Tea Partiers are middle class Americans is the biggest reason why the Tea Party is a conservative movement, not a liberal one. The middle class represents a big chunk of government revenue – albeit, not as big as the rich, who, despite their efforts, have failed to fully evade paying. It stems to reason that they would be concerned with how their tax money is being spent, just like it’s reasonable to see why those who pay less in taxes would have their sights aimed at those with yachts. But they both are upset about the same things: those who are benefiting from money they didn’t earn and don’t deserve.

If liberals would come to see that their fight and the limited-government fight of the Tea Party are really working to fix the same problem, then real change can happen.

Unlike, say…

4. The Tea Party halts progress.

The Tea Party has become the scapegoat for any failed piece of legislation. Here’s an example of the Tea Party getting blamed for shit, and here’s why that’s stupid. It is as if anytime Congress doesn’t come together on something, the response is now to look around for the Teabagger that got in the way.

Or take the FAA debacle, for another example. Here is just one article reporting on how the shutdown was eventually averted. Notice how it makes it appear as though one lone Republican named Tom Coburn is somehow to blame for shutting down a major government agency, putting over 70,000 airline sector workers out of work for two weeks and costing the government $400 million in lost tax revenue? That seems like an awful lot of blame to place on the shoulders of one man. Certainly there’s more to the story.

And as it turns out, there is. There already was a bill that was set to be voted on, but the Democrats didn’t want to vote on it because it had a GOP provision that would have cut $16.5 million in subsidies. They went on recess refusing to vote on a bill to temporarily fund the FAA knowing that it was going to shut down, and then blamed the Republicans for playing politics! To be fair, they assert that the GOP inserted the provisions on purpose because they knew the Dems would have to vote for it to prevent a shut down, and they’re right. But is this where you want to draw your line in the sand? Letting a much-needed government agency fail just so that you can make a point? Isn’t that exactly what you are accusing the Tea Party of doing? Good job, Dems.

For all of Obama’s talk of changing the way business is done in Washington and how much fanfare he received for saying so, the Tea Party represents what it looks like when you ACTUALLY change the way business is done. Every Tea Party candidate knows that he is scrutinized like hell by his own constituency, and if he tries to turn on them by going along with another stimulus or bailout or any other kind of over-reaching, wasteful spending legislation, he will have to pray for a miracle to get re-elected.

A big tool for this accountability is the CATO Institute’s No Tax-Hike Pledge. Every member of Congress was given the opportunity when running for office to sign a pledge not to raise taxes. Now, they are faced with breaking that pledge to get something done and risk losing re-election. (If you can keep up with it, you can watch a debate here on whether or not this pledge is helping or hurting our current financial situation)

When Congress has approval ratings routinely in the 20's despite re-election rates of 80-90%, you can see how accountability is lost as a priority. Now, with game-changers like the Tea Party involved, politicians, for better or worse, are held accountable. And just as well.

SO NOW, THEN

In summation, I would just like to give you my definition of what the Tea Party actually is, based on my experience and research:

The Tea Party is a legitimate and effective grassroots movement made up of well-educated, hard-working, mostly-middle-class Americans who are rightly outraged by the perpetuation of a flawed monetary system, uncontrollable spending, crony capitalism and over-taxation, and is a movement which, in the absence of any sense of direction on the part of the Republican Party, has become an empty vessel into which to place all of the hopes and dreams of an increasingly fragmented, paranoid and politically impotent conservative right that nevertheless endeavors to continue joining the left in its abuse of government power.


What are your thoughts?

Donkey Kong For President

Barrels for Baghdad became the slogan for the Great Ape’s foreign policy. It created the most tenaciously petty rivalry between those who wanted an ape who was tough on terrorism and those who wanted Iraq to have some of what they were calling “oil” and what he was calling “a thousand dead Yoshi’s.” The meaning of this latter was not clear to the pundits at the time, but they suspected he might have been a Japanese spy.

Donkey Kong was an unlikely hero in the greatest story ever televised. The (mostly) mute protagonist failed to respond to early allegations of sexual assault on a member of royalty, but not many had realized how exponentially his popularity had already grown up to that point. His candidacy was known to some as early as two summers before the famous election, but it was never officially declared. Most of his positions, in fact, came through the grapevine and never from him directly. His early fans liked it this way. They thought he was a “genius” and a “world wonder.”

One ambitious journalist set out to catalogue the hundreds of positions that had been floating around in the year that followed, and his op-ed became the unofficial platform for what was being called the Konga Line Party. No one was surprised to learn that he was in favor of equal rights for non-corporeal citizens. He also wanted to convert the official US currency from dollars to bananas, as that had been one of his childhood dreams and, he argued, would be far more stable of a currency. He thought that paid mercenaries deserve unemployment benefits when they are between jobs and, according to one very vociferous philanthropist, unpaid ones as well. He wanted to relocate the nation’s capital to a place in the south Pacific, but, of course, no one knew where exactly.

Generally, he was very friendly with everyone who met him and threw parties at his mansion in Maui on a pretty regular basis. When his popularity became evident, he was offered the chance to debate his opponents in a televised debate but declined, instead, to host a party for the now-legendary boxing match between former rivals Glass Joe and Little Mac.**

Not accepting the invitation to debate was considered by all the commentators as a concession and they proceeded as though he was not in the race. It wasn’t until New Year’s Eve, when Time Square was overtaken by thousands of banana balloons the size of small houses, that the press could not afford to ignore the movement. That year, as the ball dropped, the Jumbotron blinked rapidly with the words in 8-bit font: “The Year of Kong.” Millions watched, some to their great horror, as the largest gathering of bipeds since the Million-Man-March cheered and screamed “Kong” beneath a sea of yellow bobbing clouds.

After that, every reporter from here to Timbuktu wanted an interview with the famous hominid that now had such a cult of personality behind him. Most failed, instead turning their efforts to interview what they called “his people.” Garfield, for one, remained mostly apathetic, except that he wondered why the ape didn’t have a sidekick. Kong reportedly hates Garfield, though, as his love for lasagna reminds him of his intense hatred for Italians. Not much is known of the origin of this hostility, but one Sicilian blogger who got too close was given the message by one of Kong’s associates: “if that guinea pipe-fucker takes two steps I’ll rip his ugly wop face off!” The blogger decided not to continue correspondance.

The phrase “a thousand dead Yoshi’s” caught the attention of Dino, which lead Fred Flintstone to become a fan. Gumby, Oscar the Grouch and Crusty the Clown were all reportedly rooting for him as well. The only one to say anything profoundly negative was Mickey Mouse, who, some say, was mostly jealous because he had failed repeatedly to run for office in the past. ***

But as for the tangible voters, they became increasingly confused over the talk they began hearing from the leading opponents. Both seemed to think that they could do a better job than Donkey Kong, and in the eyes of the anti-Kong mentality, this became the only credential necessary to win a vote. No more talk of “appealing to one’s base” or “remaining moderate to gain independent votes” continued. The only issue on anyone’s mind in the final debates was: Can he beat The Kong?

But it was not only Donkey Kong they had to beat anymore. His running mate, Strawberry Shortcake, was much more open to interviews, though the scope of her platform seemed to be limited to one issue: fixing the budget deficit with a bake sale. The public works project, she argued, would create jobs, revenue and love. It was later revealed, though, that she did not realize she was a running mate at all, she just really wanted people to bake more.

Still, she was one tough cookie that the opposing candidates could not bring down with posturing, mudslinging or even debate. “Kong/Shortcake” was the bumper sticker to honk to that summer, resulting in a serious attempt by both candidates to undermine the validity of Kong’s bid for office. Officially, his origins were traced back to Skull Island. However, because this is not a recognized nation, he was declared a refugee until it was decided that U.S.-born Universal Studios owns the property to Skull Island, making Kong a U.S. citizen. Confident that the ape is probably older than anyone alive, he met the 35 year age requirement, and because no law has ever been written barring non-corporeal beings from taking an oath of office, there was nothing for the court to do but to legally grant the ape’s wishes to run for office.

But then a little more than a month before election day, in perhaps the best political strategy ever adopted by any political candidate since Mel Carnahan, Donkey Kong disappeared completely. He had been giving daily addresses to those in his lair, which were being televised on Spike TV every night. But one night, the secretary announced that the Ape would be discontinuing his appearances “here and everywhere, indefinitely.” Those closest to the King seemed to think his departure had something to do with the word “plastic,” but couldn’t tell if this referred to a sought after upgrade, a desire for a corporeal existence, or some obscure reference to Andy Warhol. Plastic seems to have been a Rosebud of sorts for the increasingly depressed ape, and he was wont to withdraw from everything.

So, having burned up so much airtime with anti-Kong ads, both rival candidates suddenly found themselves quite wanting of an image the public now so desperately craved. Kong was hip, he was smart, and above all: detached. All of these characteristics demanded by the clowns with the banana balloons trotting down the town square. Life would most surely go on, whether Washington had a digital leader or a tangible one. It was only after a day or two of mourning for the sudden loss of their new leader that the people began to realize that, present or not, Kong would still have been a better leader. This, coupled with the promise he had already made of a free Slurpee to anyone who voted for him, meant the race was still far from over.

On election day, both candidates offered to bus people to the polls in hopes that they would have their vote, but all of the buses now had Donkey Kong’s smiling face painted on the side. The only thing kids drew in art classes all around the country was a familiar brown furry creature, and the same appeared on high school football fields, bathroom stalls, T-shirts, mountainsides and even the skies. It would not have been uncommon that day to find the rising sound of drums pouring out of the thick trees and parking garages and into intersections and apartment complexes any and everywhere you went.

If there had been any doubt at all that year that Donkey Kong would be the unlikely winner, those doubts ended with the taking of Texas, Colorado, Arizona and the whopping California, which put Kong over the top. He had not only reduced his rivals to losing any chance at a simple majority but, in fact, obtained himself approximately 53% of the vote.

He won.

Pip Lapierre, the campaign manager to the Democratic candidate, had apparently, that day, defected, and was seen that night at the Kong victory celebration in a Hula skirt and jamming on a ukulele. Also, too, were many prominent figures from both campaigns as well as the networks. MSNBC cut their losses and chose a very ambitious and eager janitor to anchor the day’s election results; FOX covered the results on a big board, behind which were two hundred men crying; and CNN mostly deferred the matter to Youtube, where most of its correspondents had relocated.****

There was no military coup that year as the White House made preparations for the primate. Washington didn’t lie in ruins as the revolutionary government began its historic decline toward permanent irrelevance. Donkey Kong didn’t reappear until much later, just before the end of his term. For the interim period, the face of Strawberry Shortcake served as a comfortable but necessary face; a figurehead for the voie nouveau. She did nothing, and she became the best nothing-doer Washington had ever seen. She did nothing better than all but the Kong himself, who remained the truest inspiration to his countrymen for having done so.

When Donkey Kong returned, his address was brief and concise:

“Thank you for electing me. It made me very happy.”

Although he didn’t announce his candidacy for re-election, Donkey Kong won another term in a landslide.

**It was said that the numbers in attendance to the gathering far exceeded those who actually watched the debate.
***Even if he had wanted to endorse Donkey Kong, he had signed a gag order with Disney preventing him from saying anything that might jeopardize the sales of a new gaming console set for release later that year. Nevertheless, the console was a huge failure, due in part, to the concurrent release by an independent competitor of a new PC called the Banana.
****It should be noted that Youtube users “titil8memanparts,” “beiber4prez,” “juicylucy69,” “godluvslolcatz,” and “gbeckfan1984” swept at that year’s highly prestigious Peabody Awards.