America Cares! You Know, Unless You Have an Actual Problem

Read a rather fascinating article in Mother Jones today.  It was a young woman telling the story of her cousin, who was schizophrenic and killed his father by brutally stabbing him.  She also talked about her aunt, who had problems of her own, but got treatment.  It was a rather cold look at the absolute failure of the current American mental health care systems.  The staggering statistics of people who need help and aren’t getting it in this country is almost terrifying.  The people who are ignoring this overwhelming statistic are so surprised when shootings like Newtown and Virginia Tech happen.  Why that is the case is genuinely beyond me.

As a journalism major, I hear much on the news.  So much gnashing of teeth after shootings like this.  “It’s because we don’t have strict enough regulations on guns!”  “It’s because the public doesn’t have enough guns!”  “It’s because of violent video games!”  Lots of talk, but the elephant in the room is becoming overwhelming.  America simply doesn’t care about people with actual problems.  Our country can cry the blues all day about how this is bad or that is bad, but when we are faced with a genuine dilemma, what do we do?  We start talking about budget problems, logistical problems, how it can’t be dealt with right now.  Reason after reason why we can’t handle this problem now, but will handle it later.  It’s almost kind of touching.

I read another fascinating article that was written about a new breed of people in this country – tunnel people.  See, it turns out that there are massive underground networks of people in this country.  Almost every major city has them.  Groups of people with nowhere to go and no help to be found, making a life for themselves however they can.  Some of these communities have actual camaraderie.  Most of them don’t.  The truly saddest part about that is that police who have found evidence of these communities (which is surprisingly harder than you’d think) have found something very tragic – diapers.  A lot of the trash in these places is diapers.  Babies and small children are being brought up in underground communities.  This is happening here, folks!  Right here in the good-ol’ USA.

And while we’re talking about things in the US, here’s a neat statistic – there are over a million children right now, in schools, who have no home.  There are children who lie to their friends about where they live, because they don’t want to tell them that they go home to their family’s car at night.  This is happening, right now, in America.  And how much do the pseudo-celebrity jackasses we put in Congress care?  Not at all.  Hell, even the President of this fucking country doesn’t care!  After all, he is embracing the austerity that has been destroying the EU.  Cutting massive chunks from our nation’s social safety net.  Our President has shown himself to be a turncoat for EVERY single thing that he said he stood for.  I hope that the blue-dog liberals are proud.  After all, they have yet to say that he is a bad guy about anything.  Same way that the Republicans sucked Bush’s cock.  Well, every side has a fanbase, doesn’t it?

The reality getting lost in all of this political bullshit is this – America doesn’t care about the people who have actual problems.  I wish that someday, somebody in the media would see that they are the single greatest contributor to all the mass shootings in this country.  When you have people who have nobody to help them, nobody who will listen and  who are having some severe mental issues, what do you think happens when they see the news?  They see some other mentally-unstable person who has done something horrible.  They see the news and the general public wanting to know everything about them.  Everything they said, wrote or may have been a part of.  The public is absolutely swarming with people who will listen, where nobody listened before.  You don’t think that that sort of coverage has an effect?  When we care more about the killers than their victims, you don’t think that that makes a difference?  If you honestly don’t, then please, leave the gene pool.  You aren’t worth the genetic material that made you.

If there is an afterlife, Mr. Rogers must be looking down right now and wanting to cry.  His entire message was about taking care of each other, because it makes the world a better place.  That people should care about one-another, because being hateful and divided just makes everybody hurt.  But what have I been hearing my entire adult life?  Something along the lines of – you gotta look after yourself!  Don’t help nobody because if you do, they will become losers!  On and on it goes, with everybody finding more and more ways to justify not helping people.  Because they really do seem not to care.

What hurts me most about this is that I keep wanting to believe that there is something redeemable about this species.  That we aren’t just wild and filthy animals that can occasionally aspire to something OTHER than pure evil.  But over and over again, humanity gets more opportunities to prove me wrong.  And they take advantage of all of them.

You know, if we are going to be the evil empire, could we please just drop the fucking pretense?  Could we just man-up and admit that we are evil?  If this country is going to give fuck-all about the fact that we are using drones to kill innocent people overseas and not care that over a million kids in this country go to school and have no home, could we just accept that premise?  For real, can we just fucking stop pretending to be so good, when we’re anything but.  See, here in America, we trample upon the people who can’t stand up and fight for themselves.  A pity that the people who did all these mass-killings didn’t get the memo about that.  If only they had known that, they could have done what they want with impunity!

Until next time, a quote,

“But we’re fucked.  Because it’s too easy, in nature, for evil to conquer good.  For force to conquer peace.  Because the tranquility of 20 people at a picnic can be destroyed by one maniac, wielding an automatic weapon.”  -TJ Kirk

Peace out,

Maverick

A Look at America’s Bigotry

Well, considering that I did a post about the debate over gay marriage that is now taking the center stage, and how Obama’s pussy ass didn’t decide to support either side, I figured that I should take a look at the always vocal side of America that is focused on bigotry.  Oh, so many of them will say things like “I hate their sin, not them,” or “I don’t hate them, God hates them.”  Yeah, that’s a lovely line to spew when you don’t have anything else to say.  But the reality is that they are just bigots.  Garden variety bigots.  And now, a group called Buzzfeed has given us visual proof of this. 

See, they asked 20 people why they are against gay marriage.  These people decided to be nice enough to write their answers down and let pictures get taken of them.  Here are 10 of those answers.  I will be commenting on them as I post.

Well, that reason is just so well-informed, educated and backed-up by fact, honey.  I mean, the way you put it, if we let other women get married, they’ll all want to!  Oh, wait, that’s really fucking stupid, and you’re equally-stupid because you actually believe that.  Oh yeah, and you also can’t spell, since you don’t want to be with “a women.”  Moron.

Ah yes, God.  You’ll find that a lot of the reasons that these young people have come to this conclusion is associated with this imaginary friend.  Because, as we have seen in the Bible, this God character sure does follow people’s prejudices, doesn’t he?  Well, I’m so glad that these believers have a guy in their life who always agrees with them and never tells them that they are just a bunch of bigots.  I mean, all that stuff that Jesus said about loving your neighbor and not hurting people.  I’m sure that’s just window-dressing.  We all know that Jesus secretly hates the gay people as much as the rest of us.  Right?

You know what else is written in the Bible – that men having long hair is a sin.  Dumb shit.  Oh, and apparently, because you had good parents, that means that all gay and lesbian parents are bad parents.  Unreal.  That kind of stupid can only be found in America.  Or maybe not, but it’s most vocal here.  I just love the idea that because you had good parents, these people can’t have good ones.  But I’m sure that your Fundie Christian parents made sure that hammer that point home inside of that clump of bologna that you call a brain.  Oh yeah, and you call yourself “amazing,” yet you are at a rally for bigots.  Well, if anything, you’re an amazing piece of shit.  Would you accept that?

Oh, the pretty white girl has a problem with gay marriage because she believes in God.  So tell me, honey, you have sex before marriage?  Get any piercings?  Got any tattoos?  Ever eat shellfish?  I can see that you’re wearing something of mixed and also artificial fabrics, so you’re sinning right there, holding that sign.  So, you believe in God, but don’t obey every single command he gives, except this one.  At least the first girl was honest, saying that she found it icky.  Like all the rest of these Christ-tards, you hide being religion because it makes you feel good.  Never mind that you’re causing real harm to real people in real time.  Rotten excuse for a human being…

Oh my god.  Your grammar is awful!  Seriously, reading this out loud is an exercise in patience.  So, let me get this straight – because your imaginary friend made a man and a woman, and a woman from a man’s rib (If you buy one of the Genesis stories.  There are two, in Genesis.  In the other story, God makes a man and a woman at the same time.  But don’t tell Christians that.  They aren’t real good with consistency.  Or knowing their own Bible), so that’s why gay marriage is wrong?  Huh, when you say it out loud, that sounds pretty fucking stupid.

Oh, really?  Well, I guess you haven’t heard that being gay is totally natural.  For real, over a dozen species of animal (and human beings are animals, despite our desire to believe otherwise) that are documented to get into single-sex relationships.  Homophobia only exists in one.  Here’s a hint – it’s the one that is holding up the signs in this blog post.  And everything in nature is totally natural.  So, by your logic, since it’s in nature, that makes it okay.  Right?  I mean, if you’re arguing that it’s still wrong, even though it’s in nature, then that makes you just a hypocrite.  For real, there’s no way around that.  Either you accept your own position, or you just shut the fuck up.  I hope you pick the former, but I’m totally fine the latter.

Well, here’s a new one.  Most people go right to the whole Leviticus reasoning and just say it’s wrong.  You are actually making a different argument.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s fucking stupid, and you don’t look any smarter making it, but wow.  You actually are coming at this from a different angle.  You wearing any mixed fabrics?  You ever eat shellfish?  I ask this not to be a broken record.  I ask because I am looking at what you are saying here and think that it is nothing but bullshit.  You nit-pick, which makes you nothing but a casual Christian, and you hide behind the Bible as a means to not take moral responsibility for the insipid bullshit you say.  Yeah, That sounds about right.

Wait…what?  So, we’re redefining what’s human by allowing gay marriage?  Are you fucking serious?  Are you actually making the argument that these people are somehow not human because they don’t have the same relationships as you?  Or are you saying that somehow God’s creation is changed because we allow gay marriage?  I honestly don’t know what else to say, because I just don’t get this response.  It’s that stupid.  I leave it to you, my viewers, to figure this one out.

Yeah, and you put one woman and one man on that island, a couple generations down the road, there’ll be some nasty inbreeding happening.  Though if you by the Christian angle, it’s all inbreeding.  Still, I gotta say, this is new.  You are actually making an argument that doesn’t involve the Christian sky-daddy.  Okay, um…hm.  Well, let me first say that if you believe the entire purpose of a relationship and marriage is to produce offspring, then you must have one boring love life.  The purpose of human life is not to produce offspring.  It’s to find happiness and to lead the kind of life that you think is worth leading.  And, as usual, you are with the bigots who make the argument that a man and a woman are needed as parents.  Take it from me, you bigoted bitch, I know two women who have raised an amazing daughter.  She’s a cool kid, and one of the few I like.  What makes a good parents isn’t what genitals they have.  It’s what they do with that responsibility.

And finally, we come back to another idiot who hides behind his faith to avoid having to actually think.  The girl above you may be nothing but a idiot who has thoughts that actually amuse me with how stupid they are, but at least her idea was original.  You, on the other hand, are just a person who wants to believe that God shares your prejudice and your hatred.  As most Christians do.

I posted a long time ago asking – what is God?  I now know what it is.  God is an idea.  The idea that there is somebody out there who will love you, no matter what.  A person who will always be there for you.  A person who likes what you like, thinks like you do, and hates what you hate.  Don’t like gays?  Naturally, God has your back.  Don’t like black people marrying white people?  Well, God certainly likes that too.  I mean, after all, the same idiots who are spewing this stupid shit were saying very similar things about 50 years ago.

Think about it.

Until next time, a quote,

“Instead of school busing and prayer in schools, which are both controversial, why not a joint solution? Prayer in buses. Just drive these kids around all day and let them pray their fuckin’ empty little heads off.”  -George Carlin

Peace out,

Maverick

Obama is a Pussy

You know, I have been seeing pretty much all my friend’s Facebook profile pics becoming a rather strange image.  An = sign.  At first, I didn’t know what to think.  Part of me felt like this is something that I should know.  I mean, if pretty much everybody is doing it, why haven’t I heard of it?  Then I remembered that I didn’t know what Gangnam Style was until right around the time of the election, when I saw the Mitt Romney parody of it.  Which is a video I still watch to feel good when I’m having a bad day.  And I didn’t know what the Harlem Shake was until two weeks ago.  So yeah, things that are big have slipped my notice before.  But this was literally half of my friend’s list.  That can’t be a coincidence.  So, I put it out there that I had no idea what was going on.  And I found out that right now, the debate about the Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is being deliberated by the Supreme Court.  It’s a big battle, and one that we shouldn’t ignore.

And what I heard from the debates was generally uplifting.  I heard a lot of sound and rational arguments from the United States Supreme Court.  It sounds like they are actually looking at this issue seriously.  And there is NO good reason why same-sex marriage should be kept illegal.  None.  Outside of religious bigotry, I haven’t heard anything that makes me think for a second that denying these people the right to marry is a good idea.

While hearing all of this, there were some lovely testimonials, support pledges and what have you.  But then I came upon this video, by a news group I follow called The Young Turks.  And, once-again, I got to see that this country is led by the single biggest pussy in the history of pussies.  Because, as always, Obama talks about a middle-ground solution.  Naturally, he can’t fight for ANYTHING!  His stated purpose of existence is to not challenge the status quo in any way.  Because doing that might mean that something that is actually positive would get done!  Can’t have that.  No, instead we have to kowtow to the belief that the two sides of this country are actually able to act like grown-ups and agree with one-another.

No!  Wrong!  The conservatives in this country don’t give a shit about working with the liberal side of the fence.  They’re too busy believing in magical sky wizards and all their little friends!  The reality here is that the President of this country is supposed to believe in things.  This person is supposed to stand up for what’s right.  Or even if it isn’t what’s right, they are still supposed to believe in what they choose, and fight for it with determination.  What does President Pussy do?  Well, he decides that the best course of action is to not support either side, and still think that he’s the good guy.  And when the rest of us are annoyed that this little sniveling coward doesn’t get any results, he just doesn’t seem to understand what’s wrong.

This is unacceptable, people.  You all talk about how great voting is.  You all talk about how these future leaders mean something.  Well, here’s a query – where is all this greatness that these clowns are supposed to have?  Cause from where I’m sitting, it looks like our world’s government is just going through the motions.

I didn’t think that I would be putting my nose back into politics.  But when I see stories like this, then hear my liberal brethren talking about how Obama is so good for America, I just want to punch them in their blind faces!  Gay marriage should be a nationally recognized right!  Why our government is even involved in who marries who is a complete mystery to me.

Just another day with Obama the Pussy.

Until next time, a quote,

“I got large amounts, in Swiss Bank accounts.  Norris and Eastwood in my vacation house.  Talking wine and cheese, mad Ivy degrees.  Baby-baby, I got butlers just to wipe me.  You know what I’m sayin’!”  -Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney Style

Peace out,

Maverick

CNN, Steubenville and How Awful Humanity and the News Really Is

Does anyone remember the imprisonment of Jerry Sandusky?  Well, after that whole affair, there was this comic that got rather famous, where you see Sandusky in jail, along with a giant guy who says, “Hey, I’m the tickle monster.”  The implication being that this man is going to rape Sandusky.  And wouldn’t you know it, people just loved that comic!  It got so many thumbs-up or what-have-you wherever it was posted.  And all the people’s comments talking about how Sandusky should get horrible raped and beaten repeatedly got tons of thumb-ups on them as well.  It seems that we all like the idea of a man being horrible raped and beaten.

Now let’s look at the news footage following the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.  The media did as they always do following these events.  They tore into the shooter’s personal life.  The victims?  They got a couple of blurbs.  But after that, they went right into talking about the shooter.  It seemed that America needed to know every single thing about the shooter.  What his likes were, what his hobbies were, who his friends were, everything.  We all wanted to know everything about this guy.  If you were paying even a modicum of attention, then you noticed that a lot of this reporting sounded like celebrity gossip.  That is REALLY disturbing, ladies and gentlemen.  And the worst part is that this kind of reporting has happened before.  A lot.  It was the same after Columbine, Virginia Tech and the Oklahoma City bombing.  This is a trend that gets these networks views.  Lots of views.

But now we come to CNN, and the recent scandal following something they reported about a horrific rape that happened in Steubenville, Ohio.  The reason that this story is making so many waves among the internet is because, if you check out the link I put above, you will see that the story is pretty much defending the rapists.  For real, the story is lamenting that this conviction of young football players, who raped a teenage girl, is going to ruin their lives, along with their family’s reputations.  Take a moment.  Let that sink in.  A news outlet didn’t lament what happened to this girl.  Instead, it had a guest on who is sad that this rape conviction is going to damage the reputation of future of the rapists.  What the fuck?!  Yeah, there is only one conclusion that a person can come to after seeing that – CNN is pure evil.  I mean, they make hardly any mention of the victim, and focus almost exclusively on the rapists, from the perspective of – isn’t what happened to them so sad?

But you know what, to me, this is a symbol.  It’s a symbol of what is truly wrong with this species, and especially America.  See, this story is cruel in a way that is mind-boggling, but the reason it is taking so much heat is because it is cruel in a way that makes us look harshly on ourselves.  Meanwhile, we absolutely LOVE to watch cruelty that is to other people.

There are almost an endless list of reality shows that exploiting people who aren’t smart enough to know better.  Shows like Toddlers and Tiaras, Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, Bridezilla, and the list goes on and on and on.  These shows find the biggest assholes they possibly can and air out their dirty laundry to the rest of the country, for the express purpose of people enjoying it and mocking these people.  Then there are shows that spit in the face of what America says.  Shows like Pawn Stars.  This show, for the most part, is glorifying money lenders.  America calls itself a “Christian nation,” yet we are totally behind a show that makes money lenders look good.  I’m sure that Jesus would just LOVE to see that show, wouldn’t you?  Oh, wait, the Christian religion as a whole has been spitting on what Jesus said for as long as the Catholic church has existed.  You know, that whole thing about Jesus preaching about living in poverty and giving everything you have to the poor, while looking out for your fellow man.  Yeah, the opulent palaces that we call churches don’t reflect too well on their beliefs, do they?

While we’re on the subject of watching cruelty, let’s look at the world of UFC fighting.  This is taking the boxing gloves away (which is a sport that is the lesser-version of where this is going) and gives people carte-blanche to beat the shit out of each other.  The people who watch this don’t watch to see skill and tactics.  No, they are watching to see two people brutalize each other.  How exactly were the Romans worse than us?  I mean, they had people kill each other in the ring, but let’s be honest – there are a lot of people who are hoping for that to be the result with these sports.  And then there is NASCAR, which is pretty much just the Roman chariot races with seat-belts.  For real, the people who watch that shit watch for the crashes.  It’s the absolute truth.

But the thing that’s funniest to me about this whole pathetic thing is that when you see the news networks coverage of this affair, it shows you that this is the reason why the networks aren’t able to cover anything of actual emotional complexity.  They don’t know where to sympathize.  If these people had been around following the fall of the Berlin Wall, they probably would have been sad that the wall had to be destroyed.  If they had been there following the end of World War II, they probably would have been upset that the Nazis weren’t getting a fair shake.  If CNN had been around following the Civil War, they probably would have been sad that the slaves were being freed.  These people just don’t know how to look at things that are emotionally complicated, because they have no empathy.  They fake feeling sad, because they honestly can’t feel sad.  They go through the motions, because they want a quick buck.

This story wasn’t focused on actual people.  No, this story was for parents who think their douchebag kid is going to grow up to be a rapist.  It was cheap pandering for the sake of making money from people who are afraid.  Fear has become the absolute narrative of modern media.  But at the end of the day, this is who we are.

America, I’m going to give it to you straight – you are an amoral monster who tries so hard to believe that you have actual morals that some part of me thinks that you have convinced yourselves that it’s true.  You say that you believe in God, while you spit in the face of his teachings that you don’t want to actually listen to.  You merely want to believe it because it feels good.  You like to be pandered to, indulgent, complacent and stupid as fuck.  And when your complacency is no longer sustainable, when you have to get off your fat and stupid ass and actually give a shit about what is happening in this world, there is NO god who is going to be here to help you.  You’ll only have each other.  Alas, that won’t get you far.

Fuck you, America.  Fuck. You.

Until next time, a quote,

“Traditional media takes one small step away from moral sanity, and one giant leap away from cultural relevancy.”  -TJ Kirk

Peace out,

Maverick

Newtown, Video Games and the “Sin” Taxes

So, for those of you wondering where I have been for the past week, well, it isn’t all that glamorous.  I spent my entire spring break either visiting family or playing the Mass Effect series.  Sorry about that.  I know that I said that I would be posting more of The Wolves and Video Game Confessions.  Alas, I was too busy with something.  So yeah, there’s that.

But in the world of news that just pisses me off, I was looking at the cover of a new issue of Variety magazine when I saw an article about how the government is making a whole bunch of REALLY stupid decisions regarding one of my free time hobbies – video games.

For one thing, a bill is looking to go through Congress that would have yet-another study into the effect of video game violence on real violence.  Let me set this straight – there have been tons of these studies.  Tons.  And you know what the universal conclusion they came to is – video games do not making people more likely to commit acts of violence.  In fact, while this cannot be directly attributed to video games, violent crimes as a whole have been dropping dramatically since the rise in video game popularity.

Another piece of legislation that is making the rounds is a bill spear-headed by the Connecticut Representative that will add a 10% increase in the cost of games rated M or above.  This is a pathetically stupid piece of legislation that does absolutely nothing.  Absolutely nothing at all.  It would just make this more expensive.  Naturally, the corporate side of video games has come together to make themselves heard in opposing this.  For good reason – this is nothing but an attempt to censor these products.  And the worst part is that it is being done for absolutely no reason.  All of the evidence does not support the theory that video games cause violence, and this sad attempt to try and connect them is kind of embarrassing at this point.

These new tax laws, called the “Sin” taxes, are becoming an embarrassment to this country.  Or at least they should be.  The reason that we should be so ashamed of them is because they are blatantly ignoring the realities that are facing gun violence in this country.  For one thing, there is the fact that the amount of gun violence in this country is directly tied to America’s absolute failure that is more commonly known as the War on Drugs.  Our government’s inability to talk about the real problems facing America is not a good thing.  More and more, it seems like our government almost wants everything in this country to go to shit.  I mean, if they won’t take something like this seriously, then what are they going to take seriously?

America’s government is looking more and more incompetent every single day.  The rest of the developed world is starting to see us as complete idiots.  That’s not to say that the rest of the developed world doesn’t have its share of people who are totally ready to get on the video games cause violence bandwagon.  There were articles in UK tabloids that were talking about how the shooter was into Call of Duty (the go-to games to show how people are violent, shitty as they are), along with Dynasty Warriors, which one publication said helped fuel the shooters violent fantasies.

I am truly starting to think that the people who are against violent games don’t know shit about the demographics of people who play them.  The geriatric crowd seems to think that video games are a young people’s thing.  Tools for them to become mass murderers.  Maybe they missed the fact that the typical demographic of those who play console games is people who are in their late 20′s to mid 30′s.  These are the people who grew up with this medium.  The people who saw it in its adolescence and the people who want to see what it will become.  But that doesn’t matter.  They see blood and guts and their opinion is over before it even started.  Perhaps that is the reason that video games will never, ever be seen as nothing but violent perversion by those in the academic circles.  But that’s something for another day.

The long and short of it is – these new laws are a waste of time and this country’s money.  America has no shortage of wastes of money these days.  There are the wars in the Middle East that are getting us nowhere.  The war on drugs back home that should have ended ages ago, and if it ended tomorrow, you would see a precipitous decline in gun violence.  It would be in free-fall.  And there is also the endless talking about banning guns outright, that would create yet-another black market.  We can’t afford to be this stupid.  Not when our nation’s economy is getting worse and we are getting left behind.  We should be pushing NASA and the frontiers of space.  We should be trying new things and getting ahead of the curve.  We should have universal health care by now!  But no.  Instead, we are debating about video games.  Ugh…

Until next time, a quote,

“Courage: the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”  -Maya Angelou

Peace out,

Maverick

Why I Stopped Fighting the Good Fight

You probably have noticed that I don’t talk very much about politics these days.  It’s true.  I haven’t been.  There is a reason for it – I have lost the will to keep on fighting the political battle.  I still chat about some things, every now and again.  There is plenty that is going on in this country that bugs me.  The new Sequester cuts are draconian and are going to hurt our nation’s economy.  Fuck it, everything that we have done following the 2008 recession has been wrong.  I could go on and on and on about all the stupid, asinine shit that our country does.  But I just don’t have the drive anymore.

When I got to college, I was so passionate.  I wanted to change the world.  How I was ever that naive is truly beyond me.  But I did fight the good fight.  I got involved.  I got registered to vote in the city where I attend.  It was my cousin who registered me.  I felt like I was going to be walking into a new era where I could make things better.  Instead, I found out very quickly that I was wrong.

The more and more informed I became about what happens in this country, the more that the endless corruption pissed me off.  But I kept being told by friends that this was all at the highest levels of government.  Nobody could truly win there.  However, I did believe that on a local level, I could make a difference, while continuing my war to educate the public.  After a few years of subjecting myself to how stupid this country is, and how pathetically moronic the public is, I didn’t want to continue.  But I did, believing that on some level, I could help make a difference.

When I truly lost faith was last year.  Last spring.  During the Anchorage municipal election.  There was a Proposition on the ballot.  Prop. 5.  It would have largely expanded gay rights here in Anchorage.  I was with the people who were fighting for it.  And fight we did.  Everyone fought hard.  Some fought a dozen times harder than I ever did.  Others fought as hard as me.  Others did little.  But we all came together for a common goal.

The day of the election comes and what I saw was nothing short of painful.  It hurt me to watch.  I watched democracy fail in front of me.  I watched the opponents of Prop. 5 manipulate the election process in order to make this lose.  Ballots were running out and denied.  Polling places were closed, and people who wanted to vote were losing their ability to do so.  A lot of things happened.  If you want to know the details, you can find them.  It won’t be hard for you, trust me.  But the truth is still the same.  Democracy failed.  Everybody who fought for this watched it fail.

After its so vivid failure, the people gathered to bring this grievance to the Anchorage Assembly.  And what were we told?  We were told to shut up and accept it.  We were told that this is what it is, and to try again next time.  The people of this state, who are supposed to be the people who have the ultimate control over this government, were being pushed aside by its government.  This was a crime, and the people had a duty to come together and to fight against it.  There should have been protests.  There should have been civil disobedience for something that was a crime.  This was criminal, and the government who told us to shut up and take it should be held accountable for their actions.

But nobody did.  Nobody did anything.  They were told to shut up and take it, and they did just that.  They shut up and went away.  It was at that moment where I, sitting in that Assembly meeting, hearing a woman beg for the Assembly to the right thing and saw them do nothing, that I decided it was time to walk away.  I didn’t believe in the cause anymore.  I watched in real time as corruption and human cowardice won over what once made our country great.  People who are scared.  People who didn’t want to rock the boat.  People who just decided that it is better to accept than rebel.  I watched those people not even try, and I just don’t want to fight the battle alone anymore.

So, does that mean that I am not going to keep trying to get the word out to people?  No.  Here, on this blog, in some small way, I hope to entertain, to do new things and to also make responses to the stupidity of the world.  But now I see that Carlin was right.  This species is totally fucked.  All of the potential that we had will be undone because of how pathetic the people of this country actually are.  They are so cowardly that when their vote is corrupted, when their voice is taken away by the people in power, they did not fight back.  Why should I fight for those who will not stand up for themselves?

The worst part, of course, is that the victim isn’t just the LGBT community who had opportunities, like not being able to be denied housing because they are gay, who are victims here.  It is also the rest of us.  This was democracy in real time, people!  Not ten years ago!  Not five years ago!  Not twenty years ago!  But right now.  If you will not stand up for what is right now, then I put this question to you – why the fuck should anyone choose to stand beside you or go to your voting booth?

Fuck America.  It’s too fucking corrupt and stupid to save itself.  And I’m not going to fight to make it better anymore.  I have stopped fighting the good fight.

Until next time, a quote,

“We are are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable, and complacent. We have a built in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information; our mass media reflect this. But unless we get up off our fat surpluses, and recognize that television, in the main, is being use to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us, then television and those who finance it, those who look at it, and those who work at it, may see a totally different picture, too late.”  -Edward R. Murrow

Peace out,

Maverick

Update: for those of you wondering where The Wolves and Video Game Confessions have gone, don’t worry.  They will be back soon enough.  I will post a great deal over spring break.  But the semester has been a lot of work, and I am already running ragged.  But don’t worry, more will be coming very soon.

America Likes to Have Its D*ck Sucked

If you are not a person with a dick, this is all metaphor, so don’t think that I am insulting you.  But the reality is that yeah, America loves to have its dick sucked.  America wants to be told, over and over and over again, how awesome this country is.  Michael Bay has made an entire career over sucking America’s cock.  George Bush II wanted to build a giant “Freedom Tower” on the site of Ground Zero, and to anybody that was paying attention, we could all see Bush’s hand in spirit-form going around the metaphorical cock of every single American in the room.  Even the women.  Everyone in America has the America Cock.  I guess we’re all hermaphrodites.  Yeah, I am going to be disturbing like that.

When Jimmy Carter made speeches during the Presidential election against Ronald Reagan, Reagan would continually make fun of the fact that Carter wanted to look seriously at America’s flaws and failings.  His own advisers were telling him not to broach that subject.  Wouldn’t you know it, Reagan beat the shit out of Carter, because he kept saying that America was on top.  “It’s morning in America” was one of his biggest catch-phrases.  Everyone wanted to believe that Reagan was right, and America is awesome, and the big dick of America was still just as big.

If you talk to a conservative about any of the many issues surrounding this country, and how America is falling behind from the rest of the world.  Like the fact that America’s internet is among the worst in the developed world, thanks to our corporations having a monopoly on the digital realm in this country, while the rest of the developed world has nationalized their internet services and they are WAY faster, cheaper and easier access.  South Korea has the greatest internet on Earth, and it is everywhere.  Their entire country is a wifi hotspot.  Another thing lots of Americans don’t like to hear is that we have the worst national transit system of the developed world.  Hell, this is an area where Russia is kicking our ass.  America’s train system should have been leading the charge into the 21st century.  Instead, it is another sticker on our board of un-exceptionalism.

And don’t you dare bring up how America’s health care system IS the worst in the developed world.  If you even bring up the idea of universal health care, then they will jump all over you saying how you are “un-American,” whatever the fuck that actually means, and against capitalism.  Funny, having universal health care is doing just dandy in other countries who have a capitalist system.  Hey, if we want to have pure-capitalism, then I say – let’s take that step further.  Let’s introduce another player.  Introduce a public option.  We’re all for competition, right conservatives?  Introduce a public option, and then watch as it crushes the insurance companies.

Or let’s talk to conservatives about how, between 2007 and 2010, an entire generation of wealth has been destroyed, while we keep shoving money into the banks to keep them from falling apart.

Yeah, America doesn’t exactly have a lot of good things on its plate, does it?  But lo’ and behold, the people of this country still want their dick sucked.  They still want to believe that America is on top of the world and we can do no wrong.  Because if we repeat it enough times, that will make it true, right?

The reality, however, is not nearly as rosy as people like Reagan or the people who worship him want to believe it is.  Instead, it’s bleak as fuck.  America is getting left behind by the rest of the industrialized world.  And until we can curb ourselves of our need to continually have America’s dick sucked, it is only going to get worse.

The thing that enrages me about all this, the reason that I got online late at night and decided to rant is that solving these problems is easy!  For real, it would be so fucking simple to solve so many of America’s problems, and if we did that, maybe we would have a dick worth sucking.  But we don’t, and it kills me that people think we do.  America is getting worse and worse, but everyone still wants to believe it is.  The worst part is that that thinking is what is killing us.  It just fucking kills me.

Not too long a post, but something that my late-night mind thought of.

Until next time, a quote,

“Fine. Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paychecks, but he gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn’t cost money, it costs votes. It costs airtime and column inches. You know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fuckin’ smart, how come they lose so GODDAM ALWAYS! And with a straight face, you’re going to tell students that America’s so starspangled awesome that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, Belgium has freedom. Two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom. And you… sorority girl. Yeah, just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about? Yosemite?
We sure used to be. We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. We aspired to intelligence; we didn’t belittle it; it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we didn’t scare so easy. And we were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one-America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.” -Will McAvoy, The Newsroom

Peace out,

Maverick

My Skewed Perspective on History

I went out to dinner with my friend Maddie last night, and her and I got to talking on the way there, about influential people.  She told me about how there was a list of the top 100 most influential people, and that Kim Kardashian was well-above Josef Stalin.  I heard this, and if I hadn’t have been driving, I would have face-palmed.

How the vapid, insipid stupidity of Kim Kardashian is even on that list is a face-palm worthy offense all on its own.  How is this woman influential?  The most I can figure is that she is one of the many spear-heads of this modern movement, most often (but not in any way limited to) seen in teenage girl, to believe that intelligence is wrong, and that outer beauty and money are all that matters.  Of course, shallowness in our culture is nothing new, but it has become far more profound in recent eras.  At least, that’s how I see it.  This mantle of being hot and thinking little has been all over our reality-infested TV sphere, with shows like anything on the E! network, Real Housewives of…wherever, Jersey Shore and Hannah Montana (may the last two rest in agonizing pain, since they are over).

When I said that, Maddie rightfully pointed out all the huge effects that Stalin has had on history, national and worldwide politics, along with the formation of a nation.  But her first example was that Stalin had killed over 23 million people.  Now, here’s the thing – I will never say that what Stalin did wasn’t that bad, or wasn’t wrong.  What he did was nightmarish, awful and it was a dark stain on that country, that the more interesting position is that people will still defend him.

But to me, the fact that Stalin killed over 23 million people is not the reason that I think he is influential.  Look at what he was able to do.  He was able to change the dynamic between the US and Russia.  He changed the dynamic of the entire world and Russia.  The future of an entire nation was shaped by this man.  Like I said, I would never condone what he does, but with that said, I still think that the fact that he killed so many people is not why he is an influential as he is.

Similarly, the reason that I think that Adolf Hitler is so unbelievably influential is not because of how many people he murdered.  Despite being one of the worst monsters in history, it can’t be argued that his effect on the history of Germany and Europe was incredibly huge.  While Fox News may have twisted Hitler into their go-to guy for whenever they want to make the left look bad, the reality is that the ultimate effect that Hitler had on history is showing the true ugliness of what nationalism can lead to.  He also is almost an example that those who would follow, along with the rest of German culture at the time.  From scapegoating people who had not truly wronged them, to going to war over cultural divides, a lot of nations have followed that same path, and had come before.

Call me heartless if you must, but I must concede the absolutely amazing effect that these monsters, along with those who would go in similar fashion, have had on history, and it has nothing to do with the body count that they have.  The Communist leader, Mao killed metric tons if dissidents, and I view his true influence on how he made the culture and entire future of China change forever.

Is murder something that changes history?  Sure, it can be, but only if it is done because of something greater than murder.  Same with genocide.  In Africa, right now, there are leaders who are committing genocide all the time.  How many of them do you know?  How many of them do you think will be remembered forever in the world’s history books?  Genocide has to be the sign of something greater than genocide.  It has to be a part of a nation’s growth and change.  And it often is.

The point of all this is that my perspective is skewed.  I guess…well, this was a long way of saying that.

Until next time, a quote,

“One person’s craziness is another person’s reality.”  -Tim Burton

Peace out,

Maverick

The God Band-Aid

This isn’t a new concept.  I first heard about this from Marilyn Manson in an interview he had done a long time ago.  And it makes a lot of sense.

Here’s the premise – if there is something in your life that you can’t explain, then God did it.  For real, if you have a really good day, it was because of God.  If your day kind of sucked, well, it was God testing you.  If your cancer was cured, by modern medical science and a doctor who studied for years to learn oncology, then somehow God blessed it.  But if your loved one died of cancer, then they are with God.  If you are talented, or have worked hard to learn a skill, it was a gift from God.  If you girls get raped, according to several congressmen and preachers, then it was somehow a gift from God, so they can justify being against abortion.  This God character is so fucking interchangeable, isn’t he?

But there is also a darker side to this.  Well, it’s all dark, but it gets even darker.  See, large portions of Americans to this day believe that our going into the Middle East and killing thousands of civilians who weren’t involved in anything is just fine, because we’re Americans.  And we believe in God! (insert dumb-ass redneck accent) In the documentary “Jesus Camp,” the woman who ran it talked about how militarizing children in America was fine, because it was for God.  She made reference to how children in the Middle East in certain places are being indoctrinated for Islam.  And she wants kids who would be willing to kill and blow themselves up for the cause of Christianity, stating that “we have the truth.”  Yeah, because being a terrorist is okay, so long as you have God on your side, right?  All throughout American history, and European history as well, genocide has been considered totally acceptable if the people who did it had God on their side.

Killers all over the world and all throughout history have justified their actions or claimed innocence because they believe in God, or repented, so now they are better.  There are new laws stating that a woman’s rapist could actually bring legal action against her if she tries to have an abortion.  People will say that God hates them just because they are gay, a condition that we are not able to choose.  God is behind hate, killing and rape.  And if you look at the Bible, yeah, he is.

But it seems like God is the answer whenever something is too hard, too complicated or too difficult.  Why do people buy this?  Why do people accept something that is so obviously ridiculous?  Well, I think I’ll let Huey Freeman take this one -

Because the truth hurts…The world is a hard and lonely place, and nobody gets anything for free, and want to know what else – one day, you and everyone you know is gonna die.

But when you think about how liberally people apply the God Band-Aid, you start to see how absolutely despicable this character really is.  A pastor says that God helped him find his car keys.  Jerry Falwell said that 9/11 was punishment from God for the feminists, gays and lesbians, pagans and the ACLU.  Ray Lewis said that he’s innocent when implicated in a homicide because God made him good at football, and if you don’t buy that, then God is going to bitch-slap you.

Think of all the immeasurable suffering in the world.  Think of the rampant starvation all over the world.  Think of the people who are dying in this country because they can’t afford medical care.  You look at all that, and when you make the argument that God does some of the most inane or completely horrible bullshit, then you are essentially saying that God is a complete monster who could give a shit about all the horrible things in this world, that he created, and only cares about the most shallow and egocentric of human impulses and desires.

But what kills me, absolutely kills me, is how many people go along with this!  For real, all over this country, there are people who will totally bash atheists who are good people and don’t want to hurt anybody, all because they don’t believe in God, but will then turn right around and defend the asshole Christian who is a wife-beater, saying that all they need Jesus to help them.  What the fuck?!

I find it so interesting when I hear Christians make the argument to me that atheists are evil because they don’t believe in God, while they are so much better because they believe in God.  If you listen to how these people talk, it makes sense why Ray Lewis would get so much support, all because he says that God has his back.

It never ceases to amaze me how Christians don’t find this sort of thing insulting, to say the least.  God helped you find your car keys?  God helped you score a touchdown at a game?  God was the reason that you won a Grammy?  Well, he just sounds like such a cheap and shallow asshole, doesn’t he?  And of course, he also hates the people you hate.  He really is everything you want him to be, isn’t he?  And since the Bible is so contradictory, it is an easily supported position.  Sure, God said that if you eat shellfish or wear mixed fabrics, that is a damnable offense.  But he said that them fags are bad, so that’s what you want to hear.

Christians, if you believe in God, and you use this sort of reasoning, then the truth is that your God is a complete piece of shit.  For real, he is among the worst sort of things in all of existence.  Because any God who will do the most mundane of things, while ignoring how horrible life is in a vast part of the world, is not a God that is worth following.

Until next time, a quote,

“You got a problem, you stick the God Band-Aid on, you know?”  -Marilyn Manson

Peace out,

Maverick

Banning Guns Won’t Stop Anything!

I am getting so annoyed by the liberal position on what is happening with gun violence in this country.  I am on the left.  I am a far-left progressive.  I consider myself more of a socialist than a liberal.  However, I am one of those people who looks at things critically, and wants to actually make a difference.  I want to change things for the better.  I am all about realistic changes that need to be made.

To that end, I am not with the rest of the PC liberal community in thinking that total environmentalism is what we need, because reality isn’t as kind to us in that regard.  We should be looking to make alternative energy a bigger market, and there is room that America is falling low on.  But at the same time, I recognize that we are dependent on fossil fuels, so we should look for cleaner ways to utilize them.  I also am not against nuclear power, if the oversight is taut as a model’s ass.

By the same metric, I am nowhere near my side of the fence’s current stance on guns in this country.  For people who are so understanding of how Prohibition didn’t work, and that banning things doesn’t stop it, but only creates a black market, the position that banning guns is going to solve things is so fucking dumb that it is getting on my nerves.  It’s like the left thinks that if we deal with the symptoms hard enough, the disease will go away.

What is the disease, you ask?  The disease that is causing this rampant problem of gun violence in this country is the very reason that banning guns wouldn’t solve anything – the war on drugs, or for the purposes of this discussion, a black market.  See, here’s the thing – banning things doesn’t work!  It didn’t work with alcohol.  It hasn’t worked with online piracy.  And it most certainly isn’t working with drugs.

In fact, if you look at the rate of violent crimes through America’s history, you see a rapid decline both during Prohibition, and since they have begun the war on drugs.  Most of the gun violence that liberals are so against is directly associated with gang violence.  And guess where the gang culture comes from?  The war on drugs.

For real, if we ended the war on drugs, the crimes associated with guns in this country would plummet.  This is because if we legalized and taxed all drugs, controlling their sale to licensed businesses, the legal market would completely and utterly crush the illegal market.  We would see the rate of violent crimes in this country turn to almost nothing.

But what do I hear, on every news network, from every politician and even from our own President – ban the guns!  Yes, let’s solve the problem of one black market by creating another black market.  This is so fucking annoying!  Have learned nothing?!  Did we learn nothing from Prohibition?  This is really getting on my nerves because it appears, more and more, that my fellow lefties seem to think that if we throw enough at the symptoms, the disease will go away.

Violence is a part of human nature.  Getting rid of guns isn’t going to change that.  Before guns, they killed people with swords.  I’m all for looking at the violence of human culture.  I’m all for smart regulation on guns.  But banning them isn’t going to work.  And how many politicians have I heard make an argument for the true source of the problem, the war on drugs?  None!  Not one!  Hell, the news doesn’t even bring it up.  What the fuck, people?!

We need to grow the fuck up as a nation, or we are going to become another 3rd world cesspool.  America is getting left behind by the rest of the developed world.  We need to fix things, but who is demanding that things get fixed?  Not many, that’s for damn sure…

Until next time, a quote,

“We don’t need no gun control.  You know what you need?  We need some bullet control!  Man, we need to control the bullets!  That’s right!  I think all bullets should cost $5,000!  $5,000 for a bullet.  You know why?  Because if a bullet cost $5,000, there’d be no more innocent bystanders.  Every time somebody gets shot, you’d be like, “damn, he must of done something.  Shit, they put $50,000 worth of bullets in his ass!’  And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost $5,000!  Like, ‘man, I would blow your fucking head off, if I could afford it!’”  -Chris Rock

Peace out,

Maverick