Dear God,

We humbly write to you, our great and omnipotent Lord because we’re not sure you’re aware of what’s been happening lately.

We’ve done everything to follow what you want. We hate all the right people. We promote Christian values especially when we cheat on our wives, get caught taking bribes or “accidentally” shoot someone.

We are pro-life so much we virtually encourage people to kill those who aren’t Pro-Life.

We keep the poor as meek as possible so they can one day be meek enough to inherit the Earth.

And yet, we lost the presidency, our party has declined to 25% of voters, we’re on the brink of becoming a cult and our followers can’t decide if our leader is an obese, offensive recent drug-addict or a woman who shoots wolves from a helicopter and has had an exorcism.

Each week, it seems to be something else, a Republican politician commits adultery, opposes saving childrens’ lives, loses an election he lost six months ago, it just never stops.

So, God, as your official party, though we anxiously await the Rapture to bring all of our members to the big Republican Convention in the Sky (we would still recommend just having Bush appear via satellite), we humbly ask for you to give us all super magical mind control powers or else bring Ronald Reagan back to life.

And not like in those horror movies where they come back but they’re all deteriorated and zombie-like…well, more zombie-like than is typically Republican.

Sincerely,

The GOP

Quentin Tarantino’s backstory is well known, before becoming an enormously successful director, he was a video store clerk obsessed with movies, especially “pulp” and cult films.

This obsession served him well, especially in his early films when his celebration of those styles of filmmaking took audiences by surprise and truly amazed, thrilled and entertained them.

With Inglorious Basterds, Tarantino continues his transition from wanting to share his passion with his audience to wanting to indulge himself. This makes the title of the film itself achingly ironic.

So as not to spoil the film for those Tarantino fans anxiously awaiting it, I’ll speak in generalities.  The film is a series of mostly clunky sequences that alternate (though some plot lines that are setup, especially that of the marauding Basterds,  are suddenly dropped) .  However, the first sequence is very dramatic and tense while including a purposely self-conscious joke to switch the dialog in the film from French to English in the middle of the scene. Well done and the best sequence in the film.

From there, the film slips deeper and deeper into one-dimensional characterizations and literally, fantasyland about WWII and Hitler. Brad Pitt is painfully bad as he tries far too hard to do a virtual Jack Nicholson impression from his Last Detail days. As happens repeatedly through the film, the viewer’s mind is shaken off of the story and into thinking about the poor choices made in making this film. The one exception is the cliche but brilliantly played German baddie played by Christoph Waltz, he injects the role with a comic and light touch that somehow intensifies the characters’ threatening presence. Mark my words, if anyone or anything from this film gets an Academy nomination, he certainly should.

The Inglorious Basterds themselves are a cliche “ragtag” band of Jews…who unfortunately look as stereotypical as the propaganda at that time. There were (and are) a wide variety of people who are Jewish, though using cliches is part of how Tarantino appears to be entertaining himself with this film, going that route with Jews in a WWII movie with Nazis and Hitler, even if the idea is to have them get revenge on Nazis, does feel a bit tone deaf.

The styles of Tarantino faves like Sam Fuller and Sergio Leone are intentionally replicated by him though the script is so scattered that most characters come off as shallow pawns being moved around a cinematic chessboard tailored for Mr. Tarantino’s enjoyment.

From a commercial standpoint, the film will likely have a strong opening, benefiting from trailers and the Tarantino name but as American audiences discover that a large amount of the film is in French and German, requiring subtitle reading for a good bit of the film, the slow moving nature of the film and that it’s a period piece set in WWII France that is an homage to 60’s – 70’s westerns and war films, it would not seem to have great prospects after its first week.

And considering that Germans are  portrayed as mostly dumb and evil and are scalped like animals…I wouldn’t put the highest hopes in returns from the German boxoffice.

My disappointment in this film and Tarantino come from my desire to enjoy his work. His early films were remarkable, he reinterpreted his favorite genres and shared them with the audience. His decline in connecting with the audience is not unprecedented, rising to the heights of accomplishment and success in the biz, being pampered and adored, can deteriorate one’s humility and in essence sanction self-indulgence.

And self-indulgence, even from a talented filmmaker, is a dish best not served on a Friday Night date at $10 bucks a head.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the von Brunn shooting incidence at the Holocaust Museum is that von Brunn is part of the anti-Fed woo woo movement.  Unfortunately the woo woo movement is not restricted to the far right wing.   It has now become part of radical leftist conspiracy mythology as well.

We have all heard all the Fed conspiracies by now.

-The Fed’s ultimate goal is to create a New World Order.

-The Fed was not legitimately enacted.

-The Fed was created by Jewish bankers.

-The Fed is the root of all our national debt problems.

-The Fed put the government in $14 trillion dollars more debt this year.

The problem is few of these theories are grounded in any truth.  The Fed is just an institution that was created to control the money supply and be the lender of last resort when necessary.  But the woo woo conspiracy theorist take these absurd notions as fact like people take radical religious views as fact.  Anything that counters their believes is not considered at all.  Church of Woo Woo hardliners have divine faith in their conspiracies and claim that non-believers just do not accept the truth and are not enlightened.  Woo woo believers rarely stray from their founding documents (mostly from internet conspiracy web sites) in their arguments and pray to the almighty movie “Zeitgeist” for their vast orthodoxy of beliefs.  Woo woo conspiracy theorists also have there saints like Ron Paul.  If these woo woo faithful sound familiar it is because they sound just like religious zealots that close their minds to opposing views.

The worst part of all is woo woo conspirators theories are based on hate that has been passed down for millennium, particularly hate for Jewish people.  The Nazi’s and woo woo conspiracy believers share the same basic edicts that Jewish people want to dominate the world.  Worse yet they foment this hatred by coming up with more convoluted conspiracy theories like 911 was an inside job and all wars have been the cause of Jewish bankers just to demonize Jewish people even more.  Many left leaning woo woo believers minimize this part of woo woo ideology but hatred for Jewish people is the very basis of all the Fed and New World Order conspiracy theories nonetheless.

For practical purposes woo woo believers create problems for people who want real reform with our institutions.  There are basic problems with the Fed but they are the same basic problem we have with most of our institutions, namely transparency and accountability.  But trying to legitimize these crazy conspiracy theories misdirects bona fide efforts to reform our institutions.  The establishment can actually use crazy woo woo conspiracies as a scape goat to prevent real needed reforms.

Woo woo conspiracy theorists tend to dilute efforts to stop real conspiracies from occurring like the conspiracy to go to war with Iraq.  Instead of being focused on the fact that the Bush administration was trumping up lies to justify the war, torture and rescinding habeas corpus, many woo woo conspiracy theorists diverted their attention to fighting for the 911 conspiracy theory instead.  This was very similar to the way the Bush administration diverted attention from the conflict in the Af-Pak region by starting a new criminal war.

There are people and factors working to control our lives everyday but they are not the insidious organized conspiracies woo woos believe.  These controls are institutionalize as wealthy entities have concentrated wealth through exerting influence over government by way of campaign funds and lobbies.  The Reagan Revolution of greed is good has much more to do with the economic and institutionalized problems we have today than establishment of the Fed decades ago.  Reagan expanded the Military Industrial Complex, created the Prison Industrial Complex with his “War on Drugs” and maximized the Private Healthcare Industrial Complex by demonizing any reforms that including public insurance.

The facts should be obvious we have seen good times and bad times under the Fed.  After FDR and before Reagan we had a vast expansion of wealth in the middle class.  The tax cuts and deregulation fever that trickle down Laffer curve Republicans brought us has much more to do with why wealth is being concentrated.  Just like the Reagan Revolution took 30 years to exact the final verdict of it as a failed policy it will take years and decades for government to undo the damage that has been made to our real economy.

Woo woo believers are not helping society evolve.  Like an group steeped in beliefs over reality they are collaborating with conservatives to devolve the American debate by insisting on a new form of orthodoxy rather than fact based discussion.

Click link to see top 10 conspiracy theories.

I tired, almost two months ago, at the foolishness of my fellow liberals, working the meme “President Obama is playing three-dimensional chess” when discussing the pending (0r NOT!) investigations into the crimes of BushCo.

Particularly at a site that shall remain nameless (but some would call it FaRT) I found correspondents who insisted that not only was Santa bringing a pony, but that Obama was working the Progressive Forces to create a Public Outrage sufficient that he could say to the Reactionary Assholes “What can  I do?   It is the will of the people that the truth of BushCo’s crimes come out!”

I had an inkling that this was confirmed as nonsense when the president blocked the second court order under FOIA brought by the  ACLU for the release of a second batch of torute photos.

It is the president’s support of the clearly Straussian* Graham-Leiberman “You Can’t Handle The Truth” amendment that was just removed from the conference mark-up due to the pressure of liberals in the House, from the war funding bill, that has solidified in my mind the certainty that there will NEVER be any investigations, much less trials, of BushCo.

Oh, the weeping and gnashing of teeth as I dared to push that argument over at Happy Land Tree Fort.

The president has clearly turned away from his commitment to “transparency”, if he ever really meant it.   Certainly his vote in favor of Teleco Immunity did not reflect any real commitment to transparency.

We cannot allow the argument that an act of our government could be so hideous, so horrendous, that it is critical that we cover it up as well as we may.   That is the argument put forth: that the release of evidence of purest barbarism under BushCo. will endanger Americans.

That would have been a good discussion to have BEFORE invading another country, especially one of such a different culture as Iraq.   But there was too much discussion of how all the war opponents were traitors to be bothered to consider the consequences of invasion.

Graham-Leiberman, and Obama as well, are continuing the Cheney logic of You Don’t Need To Know, And If You Did Know, It Would Destroy America, that so poisonously predominated the political debate for the better part of a decade.

No.   I stand today and I say: No.

This is supposedly a democracy.   We the people are the government.   We need to know EVERYTHING that we possibly can know.

And “It would reflect poorly on America or and administration” is not sufficient reason, under FOIA, to repress information.   Two courts have said so.

Which would explain why Graham-Leiberman was authored: FOIA simply does not present any legally valid reason to withhold the photos in question.

I say, No.

* (Straussian: a term you MUST know by now!  it is a modern spin on Plutocracy.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straussian)

Okay, one of the bullshit arguments that Republicans trot out on Health Care should be blown up for once and for all.

I was watching Bill Maher Friday night and a dweeby Republican Woman, feigning a sense of humor (which Republicans often do since they don’t understand how to intentionally be funny (see: Dennis Miller). As the conversation turned to Health Care, she robotically blamed Dems and spouted something to the effect of, “If they would only let us shop for insurance anywhere in the country we could have more competition and prices would go down…but the Democrats don’t want that.”

Let’s run that through the Pinocchiometer…hmm, what she is really saying is, “Let’s take away state’s regulation of insurance, deregulate health insurance like we did with banks, how could that not be good for Americans?”

DEREGULATION???

What is their mental malfunction (quote from Full Mental Jackass)?!

The intellectually bankrupt party should be widely exposed and humiliated for this talking point deception, put in the public stocks and whipped with the phrase “deregulation” mercilessly.

The only drawback is that i think they might get “excited” by public humiliation and whippings.

For me there is nothing more tedious than a jingoistic expression of pride in America.    The less often one needs to say that America is the greatest nation ever, the more likely it is to be true.

Now I need to figure out how to insert a photo…..

For people like me where music is an important part of their life I introduce to you Planet Dance Party.

I have a very eclectic taste in music.  I love everything from classical to reggea to hip hop to bluegrass to opera to alternative you name it.  It fits my personality because I tend to experience many different moods and music to me is all about satisfying our emotions.  I tend to like music with an edge or a political conscience but like I say to anyone who asks me about my musical tastes I say “I only like good music”.

There probably is no art from that is more a matter of personal preference than music.  We often cannot say why we like one piece of music and do not like another.  Most likely because music touches the soul and some music reminds us of things that make us happy and things that make us sad, in a bad way.

For me music transcends spoken language as well.  I love music with meaningful lyrics but for me to enjoy music I do not need hear lyrics or even to understand the lyrics to satisfy my love for certain songs.

Music more than any other art form is uniquely international.   Music loses little in translation from one culture to another culture.  America easily adopts musical styles from cultures all over the world.  Furthermore, American culture spreads music all over the world as well and in many cases has been our best method of diplomacy.  I love hearing Asian cultures for example adopt and hybridize American music forms like rock, the blues, ska and even hip hop.

Probably my favorite instrument of all time is the electic guitar having grown up in the 60’s and 70’s.  While I love classic rock I still follow many current groups though I beleive the 00’s has been disapointing so far especially in terms of American music.  I end up enjoying more and more international music for that reason.  However one of my favorite rock albums was produced in the 00’s that really resonated with me not only musically but in theme as well because it truly was the best protest album of our time.

Green Day “American Idiot”

Green Day “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”

Green Day “Jesus of Suburbia”

Of course right wingers like O’Reilly and Limbaugh came out against Green Day’s album “American Idiot” because it was too truthful.

This is actually a phrase my wife uses to describe the every increasing level of domestic violence.  By domestic violence in this case I mean violence that is initiated from pressures at home or someone’s immediate environment.  These horrific crimes are usually perpetrated on immediate family members but also spreads out to the workplace environment and even the public.  But the cause for these people to commit such horrendous acts of violence begin because they perceive themselves as failures in there lives.  The people who usually commit these acts of violence are usual white middle aged males who are recently divorced, recently lost their jobs and are frequently gun owners.

Many of us see the the stories seemly on a daily basis about people killing their whole families to save them from the cruel world or killing people at their workplace or just targeting a group of people to direct their hatred.  All too often people that know these mass murderers see all the signs before they commit such atrocities but ignore them either for the temporary sake of peace in their lives or just because they do not feel a sense of community and remain apathetic.

There is simply not the sence of community in this country that their once was not too long ago.   It has very little to do with the usual suspects Republicans pontificate about including elements of modern culture like violence in movies, on television, in music videos or in video games.  Focusing on these parts of our culture is just a distraction Republicans use for political purposes.  The real problems with our culture are much more complex and insidious.  Lack of high paying middle class jobs, a broken educational system, lack of adequate mental health, the presures on two parents needing to work to raise children, lack of an adequate safety net and the inability of people to live where they want instead of where the jobs are moving are much more destructive to our modern culture.

The American Dream is simply a myth in modern America.  Families all to often are broken apart not beecause of internal pressures within relationships but because of external pressures like constant layoffs, inability for a couple to find high paying jobs in the same location and the inability of couples or single parents to raise children in an affordable homes.   Even when times were “good” when I worked in corporate America companies I worked with would find a reason to shed workers each year to maximize profits.  These workers who’s jobs were “eliminated” where usually close to the tail end of their carreers in their mid 40’s to late 50’s.  While their jobs where “eliminated” the companies tended to find a way to created new positions that employed younger people who typically did similar job functions as the people who where let go at lower cost.  However in these circumstances during these yearly shakeups the managers that eliminate jobs often end up getting promotions and pay raises.  This is one driving factor in creating a wider and wider gulf between the haves and have nots in modern American society.

Almost without exception the people I kept in contact with ended up taking jobs at less pay in different cities and often states.  Many times they ended up living in a different place than the rest of their family just so their spouses, junior high school or high school children could have some stability in their lives.  Sometimes people who had even advanced degrees had to find jobs outside thier direct area of expertize and I would see excellent scientists have to become pharmacuetical sales reps or even care salespeople.  The worst part or maybe the best part depending on your perspective is the people I worked with were highly trained and many of them had multiple degrees or advanced degrees so they were able to find something.  So I personally cannot imagine what a blue collar worker’s prospects are when they are layed off after working over 20 years for a company like GM and having nothing more than a high school education.

Nothing that happens in society every justifies the terrible acts these people commit.  Obviously people that take the live’s of others and their own live’s are the most extreme examples of the negative effects that these stresses have on society.  The people that perpetrate such acts are like unpop kernals of popcorn and when the heat in their lives passes a critical temperature they pop destroying the lives of so many people around them.  There are aggrevating factors that are unique to American society like free access to weapons of micro destruction including semi-automatic pistols and assault rifles which helps the killer be able to dissasociate themselves from their own crimes.  The worst part is these pressures in society are creating a new catagory of people committing such unthinkable acts like single mothers taking the lives of their tiny children to free themselves from that responsiblilty.

There are few easy solutions to many problems our globalized society faces.  In fact more and more other countries are experience an uptick in such crimes.  Progress has been painfully slow in this country and the economic turmoil is only aggrevating the problem.  Fixing the social problems created from economic inequality and an inadequate safety net will take decades not years to accomplish.  As long as we have a political party in this country that campaigns only on personal responsibility, ineffectively small government and lower the tax base progress will be hindered for the foreseable future.  Sure things like personal responsibility are good catch phrases and sound good in principle but what about those people who are like unpoped popcorn kernels and cannot take the pressures a society without proper mental healthcare has to bare?

We need everyone in society accountable to one another, a real community again, not just individuals whose sole purpose in life is to amass wealth who are accountable to no one.

Nothing energizes quiet as much as dancing, that’s a fib but I’m

 not about to give  you another example I’m a good girl!!

David Carradine dies of asphyxiation or is it really suicide?