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Why The Founding Fathers Would Hate The Tea Party

I have been working hard to understand the debt ceiling crisis (I actually think I understood the 2008 housing crisis and related issues better but that was thanks to lots of books and documentaries).  The basic idea I think was that if we did not raise the debt ceiling we would run out of money to pay our debts and that would have catastrophic effects throughout our economy.  I think the general descriptions from everyone not associated with Fox News was the following:

Of course, economists and Wall Street were not enough to convince the de facto leaders of the Republican Party, the Tea Party, that this was necessary.  The Tea Party basically held their own party hostage (probably making John Boehner cry some more) in order to secure deficit reduction at all costs, as if it is the 11th Commandment.  They secured massive entitlement cuts as a prerequisite for doing something that has been done many many times as a non-political issue.  John Boehner cried that he had “stuck his neck out a mile” but when the crazies leading your party are ten miles from sanity, sticking your neck out a mile to meet them is still 9 miles from sane.

But what is most significant about many of the political conflicts over the last three years is that our politics have finally outgrown what the Founding Fathers could have conceived.

American Capitalism Has Finally Worked.  And That Is A Bad Thing

I think our financial crisis of 2008-present has proven that capitalism as it is constituted in America now is a failed system.  The problem is that the only people it is not failing are the ones with the most money and the most political access.  Let me count the ways:

  • Money controls our politics
  • There are no term limits so the most important relationship to a member of either house of Congress is with those that donate money to them, not their constituency
  • Lobbying money, which is the key to political power, NOT elections, dictates policy, legislation and regulation.
  • The increasing disparity of wealth will only get bigger because those individuals and companies with wealth can dictate the political narrative through advertising (thank you Supreme Court for Citizens United) and have greater access to the lawmakers.  This will lead to an exponential growth in the wealthy controlling policy, which directly benefits them, as well as the narrative, through advertising and local elections, which will manipulate many people into targeting their anger at the wrong people.  Why do you think Americans seem to hate Mexican immigrants working bad jobs and gays who want to get married more than the money manipulators (I mean “job creators”) on Wall Street.  Why do they hate unions more than the company executives who refuse solid profits to conduct business in America, in favor of making wild profits producing things abroad?
  • We have made news coverage a money making endeavor.  That means for advertising dollars we have to put stories about things people are interested in (dumb people apparently still want the occasional update on Lindsey Lohan) and that has allowed stations (most notably Fox News and to an almost equal degree (but far more correct) MSNBC to turn news into a team sport where the message is guided by what crowd you want to hang with.

Furthermore, who elected Grover Norquist to anything?  If Obama were adhering to pledges from a private citizen or an unelected group do you think that would be palatable to Americans?

 

My solutions would be simple and would never happen.  Term limits for members of Congress.  2 terms for Senators, 3 terms for House of Representatives.  It is supposed to be public service, not a path to long term enrichment.  If a member of Congress were not nearly as worried about re-election then they would not worry about constant fundraising and would worry less about annoying their lobbying interests and focus more on the people who sent them to office.  Some people may say, that elections are enough, but with money controlling everything (even the gay marriage legislation in New York was a victory for money in politics, not civil rights.  The left applauded, but it was only because financial carrots were placed in front of swing votes by well-financed proponents of gay marriage that it passed), elections are no longer enough when incumbents are so flush with decades worth of cash stockpiles, which only increase as their time (and influence) grows in Congress.

The Founding Father’s Lack of Vision

But thanks to the Tea Party’s hostage of the already extra-conservative Republican party, they have now demonstrated that our very form of Republican government may be failing.

We know that the leaders of the Tea Party, like Michelle Bachman, are lovers of the Founding Fathers, at least in theory, since she seems to be less than schooled in what the Founding Fathers actually believed and did (see Founding Fathers fighting slavery).  And perhaps if Bachman and her crew knew that the Founding Fathers they would not speak of original intent so much, mainly because from the Founding Fathers’ own words, they could not conceive of a political minority being able to manipulate government the way they have.

In Federalist 10, from the Federalist Papers, James Madison wrote that the danger to a Democracy was the faction, whether it be tyranny of the majority or the minority.  Here are some of the highlights from Madison:

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority
or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse
of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the
permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

If a faction consists of less than a majority, relief is supplied by the
republican principle, which enables the majority to defeat its sinister views by
regular vote. It may clog the administration, it may convulse the society; but
it will be unable to execute and mask its violence under the forms of the
Constitution.

In the first place, it is to be remarked that, however small the republic may
be, the representatives must be raised to a certain number, in order to guard
against the cabals of a few; and that, however large it may be, they must be
limited to a certain number, in order to guard against the confusion of a
multitude.

Reading those passages it would be hard to believe that the Tea Party would be lovers of the Founding Fathers.  From these quotes from Federalist 10 it goes beyond Madison disapproving of what the Tea Party has been doing to our government.  It is as if he could not conceive of what they are doing! Now of course, ask a member of the Tea Party what the originals intended and they can tell you how all their words can apply to today, but could they really have envisioned our current society if they could not have even envisioned the tyranny of the Tea Party?  Madison clearly believed that our Republican form of government could stop a cabal from controlling or at least clogging the workings of the government.  Madison did not think a minority faction could hide their actions and interests, but thanks to fake grass roots organizations they can.  In short, Madison was wrong.  He just had no idea that he could be wrong because he figured that a majority decision for the nation’s interest could not be subverted by a ideological minority.  It is almost Oedipal.  For the Tea Party to thrive they had to kill an idea of their cherished Founding Father.  And we already know some Tea Partiers have probably slept with their mothers.  Or at least their sisters.

Another person who loves to talk about the Founding Fathers is Sarah Palin, who I believe is the political equivalent of a store front preacher who also sells snake oil elixirs.  I don’t think she will run for president, unless her agent tells her it could raise literary sales.  She is touring the country earning speaking fees and selling books.  She is selling Patriotism the way a preacher sells healings – the only one who actually benefits at the end is Sarah Palin.  But this is who many Americans believe has America’s interests at heart.

The Republicans in general have demonstrated over the last three years that they will allow a minority to control and freeze government action.  In the House, the Republicans allow themselves to be controlled by the Tea Party.  Why?  Because they are all afraid that they could be the target of the well-funded interest groups in the next election (the midterms of 2010 saw many Republicans who did not meet the ultra-conservative litmus test lose in primaries).  Of course, once again, if there were term limits they might not be as worried about clinging to the power of elected office.  In the Senate, the entire Republican party has turned 60 votes into the new 50.  If they have any disagreement the filibuster is called in.  Once again Madison 0 for 2 on the current Congress.

So to sum up the Tea Party – they believe in the Founding Fathers’ vision, which they don’t seem to understand since the Founding Fathers would be at a loss to explain the Tea Party’s death grip on the House of Representatives.  But they probably would have equally perplexed reaction to a black president, which in all honesty is what really spurred this on.  The Founding Fathers would have called Obama a slave, today the S word is socialist.

So as I look at America today, I see an experiment that has failed.  This does not mean America sucks or anything like that, but we have proven that capitalism is not a rising sea that lifts all boats.  Combined with a new Democracy that the Founding Fathers could have never envisioned, we have turned America into a country where the financial minority can deliver power to a political minority and own the entire process.  The progressives who are attacking Obama need to realize that this is now how the country works and that it is way bigger than anything he can do.

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Primary School

Well, it was primary day in NY and six other states plus the District of Columbia yesterday.  Here are some of yesterday’s lessons that are clear about the American people (that I have harped on for so long):

1) Without a cool, young black guy there isn’t nearly as much enthusiasm for politics in America (from some groups).  Barack Obama’s double-edged sword of 2008 is coming to fruition.  He ran as a pop culture icon, which was brilliant personal strategy.  However, many of the “engaged new voters” (yes young people and black people I am talking to you most of all) who were not as much engaged in the political process as they were engaged in Facebook, Twitter and wanting to be part of history.  I waited an hour to vote in November 2008.  I waited 0 seconds yesterday, despite going at the same time of the day.   Ironically it was at the Church I attend and the demographics looked the same – me and some old women.

2) People want to matter, more than they care about issues.  The tea party has two unspoken founded principles.  One is that they are bursting with racist frustration at having a black president.  They KNOW they cannot say “Nig*er” but they can still feel it.  Joe McCarthy did not hate “socialism” as much as these people.  “Obamacare,” “socialist,” and “not born in America” are all surrogates for nig*er.  But the less insidious, but more relevant factor behind the Tea Party is the desire to matter.  The new American way is to force the world to recognize your relevance, even if you are completely irrelevant.  Some examples:

  • Reality television – failed actors and stupid people now can become stars, as long as they have an unbridled desire to be famous.  Talent, relevance or meaningful contributions are no longer needed to be famous.  All you need is the desire to be famous above all things.
  • Twitter, Facebook – we now all have important things to say
  • Political elections – The Tea Party is comprised almost entirely of angry, older white people and they were the ones who felt left behind by Obama’s election – either because of their age, the skin color or their inability to use a computer.

The Tea Party is a great example of this.  They may cost Republicans a chance at the Senate because above political gains, they value being heard and being viewed as relevant above all.  Now they get attention paid to them.  That is the end game, whether they are conscious of it or not.  They are never going to win the White House, they are never going to win a 51 seat majority in the Senate.  But they are going to be noticed.

3) America is about “Me” and about “Them” and Not about “We” or “Us.”

Every marketing campaign in the U.S., from medical books to cable television has some variation of “It’s about you,” or “The Guide to You” or “On Your Time Warner.”  This is what people want.  An increasingly superficial and secular society still has the needs that family and religion provide(d).  Obama created his election in 2008 into a moment for each person to be involved with.  He may have said “You” and “We” as a collective term, but his election presented the rare opportunity for people to feel like they were individually part of history – something that we all seem to want nowadays.  But when that “we” started to be used to ask for patience and cooperation and voting in smaller elections that are just as critical, that “we” started to feel like being an anonymous part of a group, i.e. we’re no longer special and important individually.  That is why voter turnouts are terrible on primary days and on non-awe inspiring election days.

The flip side of this is why the Tea Party candidates won in New York and Delaware.  Carl Paladino, he of the Pimp Obama  e-mail, crushed Rick Lazio in the Republican primary because the Republicans that cared the most were the black-hating, black-fearing folks (sorry a photo of The President and First Lady as a pimp and a prostitute has no humor value unless you believe the simple fact that they are black makes them pimp and prostitute material – remember when being a racist could disqualify a lot of candidates?).  They were the most fearful of being left out of the new America (seriously can someone explain to me what is so drastically new in America?).  Also in Delaware, where you have the trifecta of being old, white and from Delaware – the perfect storm of obscurity, they nominated Christine O’Donnell, politically, fiscally and intellectually the poor man’s Sarah Palin.  But now Tea Party people from Delaware get to be on the front of the New York Times.  Mission Accomplished – you matter.  These candidates have managed to to turn blacks, Democrats, immigrants and Muslims into “them.”  And that is saying something considering Rick Lazio lost, despite making opposition to the Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero his signature campaign issue.  Perhaps he simply did not want the mosque located there, whereas Tea Party voters felt more sure that Paladino actually hated Muslims.

I just think America is too full of sh*t anymore.  There is a tremendous amount of racism still in this country’s fabric.  There is also an incredible amount of self-centeredness.  If Obama wants to keep Congress or at least the Senate he needs to get all his people that voted for him in 2008 (at least the ones that were not doing so to appear less racist to their peers, kids and grandkids for voting against a historic candidate) he needs to make it about US (i.e. You and ME).  We are the country that stops buying SUVs and clamors for energy independence when gas is high and then, in an almost seasonal and satirical shift – we immediately start buying SUVs when gas prices lower.  From the angry to the apathetic the majority of this country (comprised of all political stripes) just care about themselves.  Both sides of the country, left and right want to matter more than they actually do.   But we are only moved to political action when it appears that we can win (and winning does not mean winning the election – winning means mattering).  Obama voters felt like they mattered in 2008 (I remember reading posts on Facebook on Election Day from people who I knew to be politically apathetic – “Bye bye Bush – get out there and vote everybody!” – those would have actually mattered a lot more in 2004 dummies) and Tea Party members feel like it is their time to matter.

Whichever side you are on – I think we are all fu*ked.  And to paraphrase Obama, we are the ones we have been waiting to blame.  The Internet, 24 Hour politicized “news” and our decreasing attention spans are going to bury America in an interminable, political trench war.  I think America is becoming a place where the average person (i.e. obviously the people who vote in primaries are more politically involved than the average person – and yes I know people are registering more and more as independents, which fits my theory – everyone wants to be that critical swing vote in a meaningful election) don’t care about issues or candidates or America.  They care about themselves and they care about mattering.  The average voter is no different than Kim Kardashian or The Situation. They’re just uglier.

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Tea Party Comedy Show

This weekend I was featuring at Magooby’s Joke House in the greater Baltimore area.  I emphasize “greater” and “area” because if you are thinking an urban crowd (a/k/a Omar, Bodie and the rest of the cast of The Wire) would show up you would be mistaken.  There were four shows.  The two shows Saturday were my kind of crowd and I was very happy with my sets.  But Friday offered many lessons in comedy and life, which is why I will share those with you now.

Friday April 9, 2010 – 830 pm Show

First show demographics  2.5 people of color, including myself (.5), 160 white people.  50% of the crowd was over the age of 48.  This would not damn me because I have been pleasantly surprised by crowds with not so different stats before, but this crowd would be an animal that I have never had before.  If the show were a children’s book it would be called “Where’s Negro?”

My second bit of the night was this:

So Sandra Bullock’s husband cheated on her.  Let’s just be honest – if you marry a tattooed man-whore and he goes out and sleeps with a bunch of whores that have tattoos, can you really claim to be surprised?  (Laughter) And come one Sandra – 46, no tits and expects to keep a man in Hollywood? (Silence with start of murmuring)  How arrogant Sandra!  You obviously made a deal with the Devil to win an Oscar of Meryl Streep and now it’s time to pay the price. (Silence broken by a couple of boos).

My girlfriend had warned me about making any jokes that got near the star of The Blind Side, which is treated by white people in Maryland with the same reverence that Hoosiers is treated with by rural basketball players in Indiana.  But one of the decisions I made with these shows this weekend was that I was going to do my best to not compromise a lot on the road.  I have the material to do NYC rooms and road rooms, but who I am as a comic is closer to the NYC material and I need to make crowds meet me a little bit more so at least my reputation will start to be based on who I really am as a comic and not just on an ability to be Jay Leno-ish one night and then more personal and edgy when I feel safer doing so.  But this crowd obviously loved Sandra Bullock because she saved a big black dude from eternal damnation, etc.

They probably would hate my short film, The Blind Side 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_oK6EPc6QA

My 5th bit of the night:

I took Megabus here tonight… I can’t take Greyhound anymore because it is like travelling with Hollywood celebrities – Hey there’s Precious (HUGE LAUGHTER), there’s a creature from Avatar and there’s that dude from that old movie Mask (laughter almost completely dies).

My comedy can sometimes be conservative, but it does not necessarily mean I want the support of fringe conservatives.  Another parallel is when I watch Jim Norton perform comedy.  I think the guys is absolutely brilliant, but he is also dirty, which draws a lot of fans to him that I don’t like.  He may tell a joke involving the words “pussy” and “cock,” but it is also brilliant comedy in there.  Some of his fans get it and some of his fans I think just get off on the usage of the words “pussy” and “cock.”  I feel the same way about some of my jokes that maybe take more conservative angles on abortion or entertainment or religion.  I want comedy fans to appreciate the comedy and thought in the joke, not necessarily to take it as an endorsement or a statement for a certain group.  Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t, so the real point is to not bring all your agendas to the show and just laugh if it is funny.

However, when I heard the all white crowd almost cackle at the Precious reference what I heard was, “Yeah, that fat black bitch is gross.” Which of course, she is but that is not the point.  This crowd was so sensitive to a millionaire white lady who helped an exaggeratedly helpless black man, but not to an impoverished obese black teenager.  You laugh at both or you laugh at neither in my book.

My final exchange of the evening:

I know you may not like this, but I’m not being political when I say I like Obama-

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Hey – great I just turned the show into a Tea Party rally –

a few laughs and some claps

Your closing act – Sarah Palin (joking)

Applause Break

I eventually got to my Obama bit and it went over well enough, but I was startled to be what amounted to a Tea Party rally.  I genuinely don’t understand people who are Sarah Palin fans.  I understand (diminishing every day), but disagree with many Republicans, but Tea Party people are from another planet to me.  Booing Obama, but an applause break for Sarah Palin, who is that magical combination of stupid and increasingly smug/arrogant the more money that gets thrown in her face for “speaking” engagements.  But that also explained why my comedy went over so poorly at that first show.  I was performing for a Tea Party.  Because I like the owner of Magoobys and enjoy playing there I will not connect the dots, but if you have read my blog I think you know what other “R’s” I associate with Tea Partiers besides Republican.

Oddly enough on the 1030 pm show that same night – the Precious joke got near silence because about half the crowd was black.  That did not anger me as much, but it still angered me a lot because the joke is funny and the same way the Tea Party crowd let their cruel humor run rampant on Precious, the second crowd decided, as if they were a liberal arts college in the northeast, that they would let me know how attuned to the plight of poor and sad people they are and would not laugh.  The second crowd was overall 100 times better than the first crowd, so one annoyance did not break an otherwise good show and good crowd, but I still thought I should mention it lest a Tea Party Comedy member read the blog and comment, “See he’s letting all the African-American Nig-ers get off without any complaint.”

Overall it was a fun weekend at Magoobys (3 out of 4 shows a success – previous lessons of shaking off bad shows quickly came in handy), but just another reason for me to hate the Tea Party.  Before it was just business, but now… it’s personal.

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Conan & Obama – Hard Work, Nice Guys &…

It was a tough week for professional comedians and half black men, but it was also a tough week for Conan O’Brien and Barack Obama.  Conan O’Brien’s dignified speech towards the end of The Tonight Show was very impressive and inspirational, but at the same time felt like a scolding for me.  He said not to be cynical (too late) and that nice people who work hard do have good things happen to them (apparently he missed the Cohen Brothers’ “A Serious Man”, and the bringer system of NYC comedy clubs).  I feel like the motto this week should have been “Be Careful What You Wish For” for two of America’s most prominent public figures.

In The Untouchables, Robert DeNiro’s Al Capone said to a reporter, “We have a saying in my neighborhood, ‘you get a lot further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.'”  Despite its cynical undertone, Conan and Obama would be wise to consider it (metaphorically, at least in Conan’s case) from here on out.

Here are a couple of other lessons I think they could learn:

1) Young People Can Get You To The Top, But Cannot Keep You There

Obama – all the new voters, especially in the young and African-American communities, (as I stated when he was inaugurated) were excited about Obama the idea and Obama the fad, but not enough were interested in Obama the policy maker or Obama the executive.  Here is an analogy – when Jay Z or Green Day come out with an album it sells well in the first week, but then tails off greatly because of iTunes and an overzealous anticipation of that first week.  However, if you want to sell a lot of albums today you want someone like Susan Boyle – someone who benefits from the media saturation of today, but whose base is old school and will support their artist in a substantial way that lasts longer and in a more traditional way (i.e. massive CD purchases).  Obama played the new technology in a great way making him a superstar, but a lot of his supporters will not support the old, boring white (albeit inspiring to some people) Susan Boyle’s who make the laws year after year (midterm elections).  They are just waiting for 2012 when the new metaphorical Obama album drops.  And by then he will have lost Congress and they’ll be complaining about his ineffectiveness.  See, Republicans are not to blame for all of Obama’s problems.  Just most.

Conan – his fans woke up when it was too late.  In the end the folks that eat up the road comics’ jokes on GPS navigation systems, erectile dysfunction and how odd white people can be to black people (and vice versa) have decided they want the safe guy back.  And like Congressional Republicans, Jay Leno had no interest in what was right and only interested in getting (more of) his.

2) Getting Tough Works

Obama – I hope he stops his moderate, reach across the aisle rope-a-dope and lives up to his recent speech in Ohio.   He will help himself and his country in the long run if he digs in and says enough is enough.  The word moderate has to have an objective value, which it does not for Republicans.  Instead, when Republicans hurl the term “moderate” they really mean, “We will prop up the Glen Becks, Sarah Palins and Tea Parties, pretending they speak for mainstream Republicans, even though we really believe they are far-right crazies, but then we will claim ‘the middle,’ by comparison, which is actually very right of center.  We will then bash the president for not moving halfway between rational and batsh*t crazy.”  But he should also get tough with the far left morons who are calling him George W. Obama.  They still need to live in the real world and not in a progressive utopia that is impossible with the Internet, 24 Hour News and the Constitution.

Conan – It may have seemed cynical or mean-spirited, but dropping the hammer on NBC was great (and funny)television.  He may not want to, but I think becoming the anti-hero of late night television would be great.

3) If all else fails, be a little cynical.

They both work in a country where a guy named The Situation may have more enduring popularity than either of  them.

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Obamacare is the New N Word

I joked in a tweet a couple of nights ago that Fox Opinions (because it is not really news except for that Shep Smith guy – I wonder when they will fire him?) would try to link Kanye West to President Obama after he upstaged the angelic 19 year old country singer Taylor Swift.  And Kanye was wrong and Taylor Swift seems remarkably (and refreshingly) un-Hollywood for such a big star (perhaps, her humble Christian roots have something to do with it, or perhaps she just hasn’t been paid enough for a sex tape yet).  Whatever the case was I had this eerie feeling that white people in parts of the country would see beyond a vain entertainer upstaging a humble one and see it as yet another arrogant negro ruining a moment for a white woman (e.g. Sarah Palin, Emmit Till to name two such incidents).

But the larger truth is that small town, small minded white people feel incredibly threatened by Barack Obama.  When he was a humble, conciliatory campaigner who aspired (but did not and could not guarantee) bipartisanship he looked like that talented black man who could do wonderful things, but still had the tone on one who recognized that he could not do it all alone.  But now that he has decided to make change that not everybody agrees with, he magically transformed from Jackie Robinson to Malcolm X (pre-Mecca trip) for a lot of Americans.  There used to be a socially acceptable way for angry white people to vent their frustration at blacks.  But most mainstream racists now know that saying the N word is debate suicide, so they just attack the man shouting “Obamacare” (I will probably stop using it because I have just realized through a twitter search that it is used too often in derision and not as an easy shorthand as I thought it was) as their slur.

Democrats rooted against George W. Bush and derided him, but mostly because he spoke in a manner often unfit for POTUS status, waged an unnecessary and lie-based war in Iraq, mismanaged the war in Afghanistan, an honorable and necessary war, to the point that now Obama is facing incredible pressure to abandon it, which may imperil America’s safety, allowed Dick Cheney, who appears to be the only man more evil that Nixon’s squad of goons in the early 1970s, to run roughshod over the Constitution and sold the environment to industry.  There are 5,000 dead troops, over 4,000 from the Iraq War.  Global Warming is real.  These are the classic issues that have always brought on tough words and tougher protest.  But now, universal health coverage has become the lightening rod that pushed these people over the edge.  Not war (and if it was a white country, or at least non-Muslim nations, would these people have been as gung ho about it).  Not environmental degradation with disastrous and cataclysmic consequences.  Health care for all.  With numerous controversial proposals introduced by Republicans.  This is their best shot at Obama and sadly, there may be enough industry whores on both sides of the political aisle to derail it, which will be like getting a do over at the Civil War for some of these morons.

I will admit that I think economic fears have something to do with it also.  I think this country is greedy at its core.  If the economy had not tanked in September of last year, the election would have been A LOT closer.  People vote their wallets and their instincts in this country, in that order.  So when the economy tanked, some people who may not have wanted a black president voted their circumstances and decided their ideology could fight another day.  Well, now that the economy is not recovering in terms of jobs for people it is time to let the racism kick in, in its socially acceptable form – shouting angrily over anything that you can.

I recently read the book Nixonland, which is a weighty tome and sometimes difficult to wade through without a real substantive knowledge of all the political players of the 1960s and 70s, but Richard Nixon rode to the presidency on white frustration.  Not all of it was racial, some was economic (the way Republicans have continued to fool poor and middle class people that their economic best interests are with Republicans), but much of it was racial.  In the 1960s civil rights enactments along with racial riots made the Republicans the party of safety and the re-establishment of white order.  Well now that there is a president of color that battle has been lost, but that does not mean that equality’s victory over intolerance cannot be frustrated.  And that is what these TEA party folks are doing.  Their victory is unattainable so they’ve redefined their goals very simply: if we cannot win, then neither can he/they.

Even if you believe that Obama & Co. are going about health care in the wrong way, is health care for every American such an abomination on its face that it requires the same intensity of protest that Vietnam had, which these people are giving it?  And why do we have to cover these losers as if they matter.  Below is my recent interpretation of a Health Care Town Hall:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAyUoDEX0GE

Richard Nixon tapped into a feeling of helplessness that white people had.  Liberal causes almost always win the day eventually because to quote George W. Bush, “I believe freedom is the deepest need of every human soul.”  But those moments don’t really exist for ordinary white people because they have been on top since the country’s birth.  However, black people have come up from such depths that every milestone is a feel good celebration, culminating, of course, with the election of Barack Obama.

So the the TEA Partiers and their selfish and/or small minded sympathizers, my message to you is relax.  You are still white and in America.  Appreciate the natural advantages that still abound because of it and let people have health care and a president of color.   It reminds me of the scene in Goodfellas where Tommy (Joe Pesci) gets very angry at his girlfriend for over complimenting Sammy Davis Jr.  TEA Partiers and their allies at Fox Opinions are like Tommy (white, angry with no legitimate place for their real frustrations).  Obama is Sammy Davis Jr, but only worse, he is a Democrat.  And worse, he is trying to do something other than  dance, sing or shoot a jump shot.

If you read this and like it (or the video) – please forward on or re-post.  And if you don’t like it…

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Women’s Studies

With a historic nomination, a Pulitzer Prize winning play and a GQ interview all creating different buzz around different women I decided to dedicate today’s entry to women, sort of.  This will not become a regular thing.

First, President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the bench, which became the instant rags to riches story of Bronx project girl made good.  However, it is important to note that she still had a father and a mother working, setting a strong example and instilling in her the values and hard work that would propel her to where she is today.  Not every kid from the projects will have a Princeton or Yale Law intellect (in fact many of the sons and daughters of privilege do not have them either), and worse still is that not every kid will have the kind of guidance that Justice Sotomayor had (I know her father died when she was nine, but that is still a different situation than the incessant problem of deadbeat or non-existent fathers).  So while I hope she is confirmed and can’t wait to make jokes about the Supreme Court being stocked with Bustelo Coffee and Clarence Thomas hoping to be the Supreme Court’s P Diddy to Sotomayor’s Jennifer Lopez I just hope this is not another chance for angry conservatives to pull the “anyone can do it” schtick.

Second, I saw a play called Ruined (this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner for Drama), which focuses on the ravages that Civil War in Congo has taken on young women.  Those featured in the play actually find some refuge in being prostitutes inside of a brothel, because it is shamefully safer and more comfortable than being easy prey for soldiers and rebels or facing scorn and shame from their villages.  The play was quite powerful, but all I could think of was how it inspired in me a new reality series for Bravo: The Real Housewives of New York… in Congo.  If they are successful there you could then send the Real Housewives of Orange County to Afghanistan, etc.  Just a thought.

Lastly I saw a story about Levi Johnston yesterday, who inexplicably continues to get press coverage.  I will say it few times, but I feel bad for Sarah and Bristol Palin (more for Bristol, but some for Sarah as well).  Why this Kevin Federline wannabe, with the same face and respect for women as a young John Wayne Bobbit**, is still getting press is beyond me.  But it is making me believe that people do enjoy beating up Sarah Palin beyond the norm for politicians.  The clip I saw on television yesterday concerned his interview with GQ (“gentleman?”), in which he talks about how he and Bristol drifted apart (wow – after a pregnancy it’s amazing how he lost interest in her) and he says that that it’s “weird” going over to the Palins house to see his kid, but Sarah Palin puts on a “fake smile” for him because she is a politician.  Only an idiot would buy the GQ specifically for his interview and only the most blindly idiotic partisan Democrat would actually read it and say, “Yeah – Palin is such a fake politician!”  Perhaps it’s “weird” around the Palins because you got their daughter pregnant and now badmouth your kid’s grandmother.   So if I have to choose between Obama and Palin I take Obama without thinking, but I’ll take the Palins over Levi Johnston.

**In terms of look-alikes I am aware that Levi Johnston looks more like the lead singer of 3 Doors Down and Michael Shannon (from Revolutionary Road among other films), but JW Bobbitt is more appropriate and funnier.