It may have taken eight years, but finally, the world has a new Metallica album again. Hardwired... To Self-Destruct sees the band continue to indulge their thrash heritage that they returned to on Death Magnetic; and while the mixing is, thankfully, less abrasive this time around, Hardwired feels less like an album and more like a really well put together mix-tape.
Starting with the landmark Master of Puppets, each Metallica album, including St. Anger, had a central purpose, a core idea or attitude that the band explored or played around with. Hardwired doesn't achieve that level of cohesion, the album is split into two separate six song sets that don't feel related to or gel together at all, and, also, the theme of addictive self-destructive behavior is a road so well traveled by Metallica that nothing here feels new, exactly. Almost every song on this album sounds like it would be a really strong track three or six from their Ride the Lighting to ...And Justice for All prime in the 80's, but on their own, they have a hard time carrying the weight of an entire album.
That isn't to say the songs are bad. Individually, the songs on the album are the some of the most solid and consistent the band as ever put together; "Atlas, Rise!" is the most Maideny twin guitar harmony song the band has done in a good long while, "Am I Savage?" shows the band learned a lot of lessons about slithery guitar riffs from their much maligned Load and Reload period and continues to put those lessons to good use. The album's closer, "Spit Out The Bone" is an instant classic, it's easily one of the most ferocious songs the band has ever done, that they can still produce something that's as ambitious as the things they did in their prime is testament enough that the band isn't just coasting along or plodding through old glories without the old enthusiasm. It's just that, well... it takes a long time for the album to get to that point, and by then, even a song as awesome as "Spit Out The Bone" can't inject everything that came before it with that same kind of life or energy.
So while I'm disappointed that the album feels less like something made to listen to all the way through and more like "Hey, here's a bunch of songs that will be good for a Spotify playlist," it's still good to have music made by a classic band still pushing and reaching for something new and different, even if they don't quite get there.
Grade: B
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Friday, November 18, 2016
Doctor Strange Review
Magic has come to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Guardians of the Galaxy
brought in the cosmic aspect of the Marvel comics, but where that movie
used inventive and surprising casting to bring life to its standard
plot line, Doctor Strange is bogged down by the utter predictability of its storytelling.
We meet Dr. Stephen Strange at the height of his life; performing routine miracle surgeries, respected, rich, and totally aware of the magnificence that is him. That is, until a car crash destroys his hands, robing him of the very thing that made him the man he was. Broken, beaten, and crushed under the weight of so many failed surgeries to restore his hands, he finds his way to Nepal and joins a sorcerer's club where he learns magic and the true nature of the universe(s).
The sad thing is that you know exactly how the movie will play out within the first five minutes. Haughty, prideful hero is crippled and humbled, said haughty hero finds new thing which he initially sucks at but quickly masters, wise, magnanimous mentor turns out to be not so wise or pure, best friend/sub-mentor begins the road to evil and enmity, great and terrible forces threaten existence but are repelled in the end with tactics haughty hero incorporates after lessons in humility, the end. The casting is as boring as the plot; Cumberbatch adds materialism and an American accent to his Sherlock ticks, Tilda Swinton and Mads Mikkelson pull off their roles as the sage mentor and evil harbinger just by showing up and speaking into the camera. There's no real shading or depth of character here except for Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo, who gets some actual motivation for his eventual break from the hero's path instead of the usual mustache-twirling evil that makes up the entirety of his characterization in the comics. That they didn't waste an actor of Ejiofor's caliber is pretty much the only good thing I can say about how this movie's writing.
Which is a shame, because the hollowness of the story and characters neuters the actually pretty amazing visual tapestry the movie plays out on. The magical constructs all feel like real-world objects, and watching people battle it out on warped, bent over backwards buildings that constantly alter perspective is a marvel (sorry) to take in. The highlight is an astral projection fight between Strange and a Monk of Evil in a hospital, which has some of the most fluid and impressive lighting and effects work I've seen in a movie in a long time.
It's just too bad that no one thought to apply that same sense of dazzling, no-holds-barred attitude to literally any other aspect of this movie.
Grade: B-
We meet Dr. Stephen Strange at the height of his life; performing routine miracle surgeries, respected, rich, and totally aware of the magnificence that is him. That is, until a car crash destroys his hands, robing him of the very thing that made him the man he was. Broken, beaten, and crushed under the weight of so many failed surgeries to restore his hands, he finds his way to Nepal and joins a sorcerer's club where he learns magic and the true nature of the universe(s).
The sad thing is that you know exactly how the movie will play out within the first five minutes. Haughty, prideful hero is crippled and humbled, said haughty hero finds new thing which he initially sucks at but quickly masters, wise, magnanimous mentor turns out to be not so wise or pure, best friend/sub-mentor begins the road to evil and enmity, great and terrible forces threaten existence but are repelled in the end with tactics haughty hero incorporates after lessons in humility, the end. The casting is as boring as the plot; Cumberbatch adds materialism and an American accent to his Sherlock ticks, Tilda Swinton and Mads Mikkelson pull off their roles as the sage mentor and evil harbinger just by showing up and speaking into the camera. There's no real shading or depth of character here except for Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo, who gets some actual motivation for his eventual break from the hero's path instead of the usual mustache-twirling evil that makes up the entirety of his characterization in the comics. That they didn't waste an actor of Ejiofor's caliber is pretty much the only good thing I can say about how this movie's writing.
Which is a shame, because the hollowness of the story and characters neuters the actually pretty amazing visual tapestry the movie plays out on. The magical constructs all feel like real-world objects, and watching people battle it out on warped, bent over backwards buildings that constantly alter perspective is a marvel (sorry) to take in. The highlight is an astral projection fight between Strange and a Monk of Evil in a hospital, which has some of the most fluid and impressive lighting and effects work I've seen in a movie in a long time.
It's just too bad that no one thought to apply that same sense of dazzling, no-holds-barred attitude to literally any other aspect of this movie.
Grade: B-
Sunday, November 13, 2016
So That Happened
So... Donald Trump is going to be President. Right. That's still a crazy sentence to write, but, what're you gonna do? There's been a lot of posts over the last week trying to sift through the debris and figure out just what the hell went wrong, but the answer isn't all that complicated: Hillary Clinton had massive flaws as a candidate that she barely cared to recognize, let alone fix, and it cost her the election. She did very little to bridge the wide policy divide between herself and young voters, so it really shouldn't come as a surprise that those voters declined to vote for her.
The Clinton team also laid the blame for their defeat on James Comey, but, again, if the mere existence of more emails is enough to topple a campaign that'd gone on for two years, that campaign has more substantial problems than politically-minded FBI agents. It's not like Clinton wasn't warned, repeatedly, about these faults and how to correct them; it's just that, in the end, she decided that saying Trump is incredibly uncouth would be enough to win the day and we're just going have to live with the aftereffects of that decision for longer than any one term in office.
Which brings us to the question on everyone's mind: What happens now? Trump is about to find out that when you ride the anger of a mob to victory, that mob expects you to deliver. And now that Republicans control both Congress and the White House, I expect the GOP as a whole to slowly realize that now that there isn't an "Other" for them to point to, there's nothing to separate them from the anger of their voter base, should they fail to do so.
And fail they most definitely will. Anyone expecting an economic miracle from massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations need only look at Kansas, which has been in a perpetual state of budget crisis since Sam Brownback cut taxes down to nearly nothing and got exactly fuck-all in return. W. Bush pushed through what was then the largest tax cut in history which produced the worse economic growth since the Great Depression. But maybe, this time, it'll work out the way Republicans always say it will, and then, we can all go buy ourselves some ponies with the windfall.
Also on the "guaranteed disasters" policy list is the intention to gut all the financial regulations that came from the Dodd-Frank bill. Now, that bill has a litany of problems, but it at least acknowledges that having an unrestricted financial sector is a bad thing and maybe we should at least try to rein it in. Republicans, obviously, disagree, and think an industry with such a sterling record of money laundering, identity theft, collusion, and good old-fashioned theft is best left to its own devices in policing and monitoring its own behavior. And if 2007 taught us anything, it's that nothing can ever, ever go wrong when nobody pays attention to what the financial industry is doing. Nope. They've got it all covered.
But wait, Trump said that one time that he would reinstate Glass-Steagall. To which I say, if anyone really believes that a virulently anti-regulation party is going to reinstate one of the most famous and stringent banking regulation bills in our country's history, than their ability for self-delusion borders on the professional and we should all be appropriately impressed.
And then we have the Obamacare plans. Trump recently said that there are parts of the law he likes, but his Congress and his base sure as fuck will still hate it and will expect him to follow through on his "Repeal and Replace" promise in the first 100 days. That most of those people will suddenly find themselves without health insurance is, of course, not something they're thinking about, but, hey, a Democrat did it so by definition it must be the worst thing ever. What will be really interesting to see is if Republicans actually follow through on Paul Ryan's plan to dismantle Medicare. Now, Medicare is the most popular government program, ever. Attacking it is the surest form of political suicide and that's before you factor in that Medicare is usually the single biggest factor that the GOP's aging voter base is even alive. I've never thought much of Republican politicians mental prowess, but even I think they can't possibly be so stupid as to directly attack a huge and loyal part of their base so brazenly.
*Speaking of the little shit, I'll be legitimately surprised if Paul Ryan is still Speaker of the House come January. The only way I see Ryan keeping his position is if he goes through a humiliating and debasing apology gauntlet Trump will put in front of him to prove his loyalty. I don't doubt that Ryan will submit himself to said gauntlet, but I wonder if it will be enough to save him, in the end.
I also think you can toss the whole "drain the swamp" ethos out with the garbage, too, especially since the people running Trump's transition team are the same kind of swamp things he spent so much time railing against like, three weeks ago. As usual, it's not that Washington is full of political insiders that's the problem, the problem is those insiders aren't working for your side. Appointing Reince Priebus as Chief of Staff is a pretty telling move, namely, that the main qualifications to serve in a Trump cabinet are less about your political abilities and more about your loyalty to Trump. I'd also bet money that the other big reason Priebus has the job is that Trump needs a conduit to the mega-donors and other party elites that hate his guts. So it'll be interesting to see how Trump fills out the rest of his cabinet, which I'm sure, will provide no shortage of horror shows in the years to come.
All of this and I haven't even touched on the threats to women's rights, the LGBT community, Muslims, Hispanics, the Supreme Court, the Iran Nuclear Deal, the Paris Climate Agreement, the cuts to renewable energy, immigration, education, or what will happen to protestors like those standing against the DAPL. It's simply too much to process all in one go. But, I do know this, the poor, the broken middle class, the working man who barely scrapes enough to get by, all those people who voted for Trump are going to be fed to the wolves on a silver platter by that pampered and spoiled child. Trump, if left unchecked, will usher in the world as they always thought it should be, and, far from being masters of their own destinies, they'll be ground to dust by corporations and the rich in a economic system that keeps them around because shit doesn't clean itself. This wouldn't be so terrible, if not for the fact that we'll all be trapped in that world, too.
*This paragraph has been edited to clarify the point I was making.
Monday, November 7, 2016
And Here, We, Go
Tomorrow, we'll finally cast our ballots and put this slog of an election behind us once and for all. There does seem to be a general sense of relief going around at the prospect, which, isn't all that surprising. The dampening effect that voting means either Clinton or Trump will be the next President hasn't really sunk in yet, but, at this point, people can only deal with crushingly hopeless situations one at a time, getting a jump start on the next awful situation looming over the horizon just shows a lack of basic survival skills
As of now, things are too close to call. I imagine Hillary desperately searching for the "why" of it all on the eve of the election: How could decades worth of work ingratiating herself into the upper echelons of politics and business leave her in a dead heat with a used car salesman lucky enough to pop out to a rich family? How could it all really come down to this? It's telling that Hillary will never really be able to comprehend that the single biggest threat to her endgame is all the things she did to get to this point in the first place. I've said it before, but, still, watching Hillary see her life's ambition slip away in front of her because she was bogged down by the weight of the backroom bullshit she's pulled over the years would be a great thing to see. Irony always stings deeper when it plays out on the biggest stage possible. In a better world, she would get all that she has coming to her and we'd all be the better for it.
Unfortunately, we happen to live in this one. And Hillary getting her comeuppance means being saddled with what is quite possibly the stupidest person to ever run for President. Not that I think Trump is actually going to be that involved in his Presidency, no, I expect much of the day-to-day decisions are going to fall to Mike Pence. Pence, at least, actually has a coherent and consistent political and philosophical outlook he operates by; the only downside is that outlook would put him on pretty friendly ground with the Taliban if they spoke English. For the Trump supporters inclined to find themselves in a tizzy, remember, Trump stamping his name on something while other people do all the actual work that he takes credit for is literally how he makes his money.
Ultimately, this election is like one of those choose your own adventure stories where you made all the wrong decisions and now have to decide what your horrible ending will be. For my money, picking the woman who will continue to sell out the average citizen to her donors is the better pick. The only reasons why are that Clinton's awfulness is actually quantifiable, we know what to expect and can plan accordingly to survive it or beat it. The other good thing about Clinton is that she is so dependent on being seen as an actual, compassionate person that she is a slave to the political winds; if popular sentiment can generate enough blowback against her, she won't do anything that she sees as a political risk to jeopardize her position. So Hillary can at least be countered or out-maneuvered because she is, at heart, a political animal, and she plays the game to such a rigid extent that it's pretty easy to see her coming.
It is true that electing Hillary is going to lead to "more of the same" and that continuity doesn't mean anything good for, well, pretty much anyone who isn't already stupidly rich. But electing Trump is basically calling a hurricane down on a rickety old building and hoping there will be something left worth salvaging afterwards. As a general rule, megalomaniacal, impetuous children and religious fanatics aren't really the kind of people who come along in a dire moment of need and turn their countries back towards prosperity; rather, they're usually the ones who bring down whatever ruin they claimed they could save the country from in the first place.
To close, I'd like to leave you with a little something to remember just in case you start feeling that the only way for us to go from here is up:
As of now, things are too close to call. I imagine Hillary desperately searching for the "why" of it all on the eve of the election: How could decades worth of work ingratiating herself into the upper echelons of politics and business leave her in a dead heat with a used car salesman lucky enough to pop out to a rich family? How could it all really come down to this? It's telling that Hillary will never really be able to comprehend that the single biggest threat to her endgame is all the things she did to get to this point in the first place. I've said it before, but, still, watching Hillary see her life's ambition slip away in front of her because she was bogged down by the weight of the backroom bullshit she's pulled over the years would be a great thing to see. Irony always stings deeper when it plays out on the biggest stage possible. In a better world, she would get all that she has coming to her and we'd all be the better for it.
Unfortunately, we happen to live in this one. And Hillary getting her comeuppance means being saddled with what is quite possibly the stupidest person to ever run for President. Not that I think Trump is actually going to be that involved in his Presidency, no, I expect much of the day-to-day decisions are going to fall to Mike Pence. Pence, at least, actually has a coherent and consistent political and philosophical outlook he operates by; the only downside is that outlook would put him on pretty friendly ground with the Taliban if they spoke English. For the Trump supporters inclined to find themselves in a tizzy, remember, Trump stamping his name on something while other people do all the actual work that he takes credit for is literally how he makes his money.
Ultimately, this election is like one of those choose your own adventure stories where you made all the wrong decisions and now have to decide what your horrible ending will be. For my money, picking the woman who will continue to sell out the average citizen to her donors is the better pick. The only reasons why are that Clinton's awfulness is actually quantifiable, we know what to expect and can plan accordingly to survive it or beat it. The other good thing about Clinton is that she is so dependent on being seen as an actual, compassionate person that she is a slave to the political winds; if popular sentiment can generate enough blowback against her, she won't do anything that she sees as a political risk to jeopardize her position. So Hillary can at least be countered or out-maneuvered because she is, at heart, a political animal, and she plays the game to such a rigid extent that it's pretty easy to see her coming.
It is true that electing Hillary is going to lead to "more of the same" and that continuity doesn't mean anything good for, well, pretty much anyone who isn't already stupidly rich. But electing Trump is basically calling a hurricane down on a rickety old building and hoping there will be something left worth salvaging afterwards. As a general rule, megalomaniacal, impetuous children and religious fanatics aren't really the kind of people who come along in a dire moment of need and turn their countries back towards prosperity; rather, they're usually the ones who bring down whatever ruin they claimed they could save the country from in the first place.
To close, I'd like to leave you with a little something to remember just in case you start feeling that the only way for us to go from here is up:
Saturday, October 29, 2016
High Crimes and Shenanigans
Thanks to the investigation into Anthony Weiner's hat-trick sexting scandal, the FBI has found yet more emails from Clinton's time as Secretary of State. So that means we all get to go through the whole show of "Lock her up!" again and watch the media screw up its coverage of the issue again and, finally, when it all amounts to nothing, we'll have to listen to the wailing and gnashing of teeth about how James Comey is in the Clinton's pockets again. Thanks, Anthony Weiner, you sext-addicted dick.
Speaking of Comey, I do feel for the guy. He's catching a lot of heat from the Clinton campaign and its surrogates for sending his letter to Congress informing them that they'd found the emails and were going to review them for classified information. Because, really, what else was he supposed to do? It's not his fault that Hillary Clinton worked so hard to keep her activities out of the public record and then got caught doing so, it's not his fault that she lied about pretty much every aspect of what she did regarding the emails, and it's definitely not his fault that those emails became the political shit show we all know and love.
If he had kept the discovery a secret, then when it leaked (and there is no if regarding a leak, someone was bound to say something) that the FBI had found something but didn't tell anyone the bellowing of "Cover up!" would've had much more weight behind them and nothing the FBI or the Justice Department said about the ensuing investigation would have credibility. I'd bet money that when Comey received word that his agents found more Clinton emails, he wished they didn't. Because now that they were found, he had to do something, and no matter what that something was, it would drag him and the Bureau back into a political sideshow Comey had hoped to bury months ago. So he wrote the letter, because if the FBI was going to be drawn back into this mess, at least it would do so on its own terms.
In other criminal justice shenanigans, the Bundy brothers were acquitted on the conspiracy charges brought against them in the wake of their occupation of a federal wildlife reserve in Oregon. After the dumbfounded shock wears off, it does make sense how these idiots walked away from their live-broadcast occupation. According to some of the jurors, the government had a hard time proving that the militia leaders had "intent" to block government workers from doing their jobs. They said that the defenses argument that the Bundy brothers couldn't have intent because, technically, they were never ordered to leave the refuge so therefore weren't in violation of any order to clear the premises; the defense also pointed out that the militia members freely came and went for almost the entirety of their 41-day fiasco, so they obviously couldn't be very serious about blocking government agents from doing their jobs. After all, if the cops and the feds weren't treating the militia as any kind of serious threat, why should a jury?
As usual, context is everything, and when you factor that in, the absurdity of the Bundys becomes almost satirical. At the same time that journalists, documentary film makers, and activists of all stripes are being arrested by the hundreds protesting an oil pipeline that could contaminate the Sioux's water supply, the guys who literally shit on Indian burial grounds are free, sleeping in their own beds. In the same world where black men and boys are killed holding fake guns, the people who led a heavily armed takeover of a government building never even got shot at.
On the one hand, I understand the government wanting avoid another Ruby Ridge or Waco, but the disparity between how law enforcement treated the Bundy militia in Oregon and Nevada and how they've treated the Black Lives Matter or NoDAPL protests is too wide to ignore. It almost lends credence to the usual gun advocates adage that if you want the cops to respect you, make sure you can shoot back. But, for some strange reason, I don't think the government would be worried about the optics of a massacre if they were suddenly faced with an armed contingent of black or Native American protesters.
On a lighter note, Trump made it through the week with only one woman accusing him of grabbing at her with his child-sized hands. Sure, she did say that he offered her $10,000 to sleep with him, which is pretty pathetic to offer in the first place, but even more so to have the offer turned down. Still, though, I'm sure he appreciated the change of pace.
Speaking of Comey, I do feel for the guy. He's catching a lot of heat from the Clinton campaign and its surrogates for sending his letter to Congress informing them that they'd found the emails and were going to review them for classified information. Because, really, what else was he supposed to do? It's not his fault that Hillary Clinton worked so hard to keep her activities out of the public record and then got caught doing so, it's not his fault that she lied about pretty much every aspect of what she did regarding the emails, and it's definitely not his fault that those emails became the political shit show we all know and love.
If he had kept the discovery a secret, then when it leaked (and there is no if regarding a leak, someone was bound to say something) that the FBI had found something but didn't tell anyone the bellowing of "Cover up!" would've had much more weight behind them and nothing the FBI or the Justice Department said about the ensuing investigation would have credibility. I'd bet money that when Comey received word that his agents found more Clinton emails, he wished they didn't. Because now that they were found, he had to do something, and no matter what that something was, it would drag him and the Bureau back into a political sideshow Comey had hoped to bury months ago. So he wrote the letter, because if the FBI was going to be drawn back into this mess, at least it would do so on its own terms.
In other criminal justice shenanigans, the Bundy brothers were acquitted on the conspiracy charges brought against them in the wake of their occupation of a federal wildlife reserve in Oregon. After the dumbfounded shock wears off, it does make sense how these idiots walked away from their live-broadcast occupation. According to some of the jurors, the government had a hard time proving that the militia leaders had "intent" to block government workers from doing their jobs. They said that the defenses argument that the Bundy brothers couldn't have intent because, technically, they were never ordered to leave the refuge so therefore weren't in violation of any order to clear the premises; the defense also pointed out that the militia members freely came and went for almost the entirety of their 41-day fiasco, so they obviously couldn't be very serious about blocking government agents from doing their jobs. After all, if the cops and the feds weren't treating the militia as any kind of serious threat, why should a jury?
As usual, context is everything, and when you factor that in, the absurdity of the Bundys becomes almost satirical. At the same time that journalists, documentary film makers, and activists of all stripes are being arrested by the hundreds protesting an oil pipeline that could contaminate the Sioux's water supply, the guys who literally shit on Indian burial grounds are free, sleeping in their own beds. In the same world where black men and boys are killed holding fake guns, the people who led a heavily armed takeover of a government building never even got shot at.
On the one hand, I understand the government wanting avoid another Ruby Ridge or Waco, but the disparity between how law enforcement treated the Bundy militia in Oregon and Nevada and how they've treated the Black Lives Matter or NoDAPL protests is too wide to ignore. It almost lends credence to the usual gun advocates adage that if you want the cops to respect you, make sure you can shoot back. But, for some strange reason, I don't think the government would be worried about the optics of a massacre if they were suddenly faced with an armed contingent of black or Native American protesters.
On a lighter note, Trump made it through the week with only one woman accusing him of grabbing at her with his child-sized hands. Sure, she did say that he offered her $10,000 to sleep with him, which is pretty pathetic to offer in the first place, but even more so to have the offer turned down. Still, though, I'm sure he appreciated the change of pace.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Potpourri
I've actually enjoyed seeing Donald Trump flail about like a child as he slips further and further behind in the polls. His actions are pretty typical of conservative mindsets, namely, the habit to proclaim themselves as the strongest, most badass people on the block and then the moment anything turns against them, start bellowing about how they're being victimized and are powerless against the onslaught. It's such a perfect example of the victim culture that so many of Trump's supporters routinely mock everyone else for, so the irony of it all is just delicious.
Speaking of, Trump actually did say something worth listening to. His call for Senators and Congressmen to be subject to term limits is actually, a good plan. Of course, even if he was President, he couldn't enforce or impose those limits himself; if he tried, it'd be an action so blatantly illegal that he'd have the honor of being the first President ever convicted in an impeachment trial. Also, I'm sure Trump is making this case because he really wants to clean up the government and not, say, punish all the Senators and Congressmen who've abandoned him in the last few weeks. But still, calling for an amendment to force guaranteed new blood into Congress isn't a bad idea for people to consider.
The ground work for getting further involved in wars in the Middle East is already being laid. The Navy launched missiles into Yemen, and ground troops are among the forces trying to take back Mosul. My main concern here is that if the Mosul offensive is successful, Hillary will take the opportunity to make the case that we can drive ISIS out of Syria, too. If that happens, and the public doesn't put up much of a fight against the war, than I don't know how bad it will be, but Iraq will most likely look like a full blown success in the aftermath. For one, since Hillary has said multiple times, her real goal in Syria is overthrowing Assad. She hasn't said who exactly would take his place, but since the only real opposition in Syria is ISIS and al-Qaeda, they'll probably fill the void. Or they won't because of a high troop commitment to stop them while we install a puppet government that will survive until a new civil war breaks out. But that's okay; Hillary will just use another surge which will lead to the same political stability that you see in Iraq and Afghanistan today. I haven't even mentioned how Iran, the Saudis, the Gulf States, Turkey, the Kurds, or Russia will react to all of this and how that will make any full scale war in Syria a ludicrous option, because this America, those countries are lucky we even know they exist.
I've been seeing a lot of breathless headlines lately about how Democrats are eyeing Utah, Texas and other states that were previously thought to be no-win situations as back in the game and an opportunity to re-take the House and Senate both. My reactions are 1. That's counting a lot of chickens before they hatch and 2. Even if does happen, so what? After the 08 election, Democrats had super majorities in both houses of Congress and did... pretty much nothing with it. Obama insisted on using a Congress that would write him a blank check on demand to it through away that power and instead reduce themselves to cajoling and bargaining with a Republican minority that from the start explicitly said would do nothing but sabotage his administration. Hillary and her hypothetical Democratic Congress won't have the mandate that Obama did, and Hillary is even less inclined to pursue anything that would resemble a public good. If the Dems do get Congress back, it's a safe bet that they'll be so ineffectual and worthless that they will lose it, again, two years from now anyway.
To close, I've been thinking a lot this year about how Obama is likely to be remembered, and my conclusion is he'll be thought of well, which is better than he deserves. I'm not saying he didn't do good things as a President- his support of gay rights and the nuclear deal with Iran are his highlights- but more often than not he proved to be found wanting. The economic crisis in 2007-08 still plagues the country, he could've pushed through a bigger stimulus package which would have kick started the economy again. But no, instead he choose to make it smaller to gain more Republican support. The support didn't come, and the smaller package halted the downfall but didn't make the economy strong enough for people to go back to work.
When it came to healthcare, Obama very noticeably failed to back the public option, which would've been a government operated insurance plan that would've directly competed against the private operators around the country. It would've likely been cheaper and produced better coverage than the insurance companies, instead he deferred again in the name of compromise and fed people to the same predatory companies that had made our healthcare system the most dysfunctional in the world in the first place. He also formalized a global assassination program, indemnified the banks who caused the financial crisis from criminal prosecution, and is as ironic a Nobel Peace Prize winner as Henry Kissinger. Almost everyone blames Republican obstructionism preventing Obama from actually getting anything done, what this point misses though, is that it was Obama himself who kept Republicans in the game and afforded them every opportunity to stymie his agenda. If Obama had simply bypassed the Republicans when he had the chance, he wouldn't have had to deal with their bullshit for six years of his Presidency.
But, it wasn't to be. Because bold action has to come from a bold man, and Obama is simply not that. He's persistent, pragmatic, and charismatic, but bold he is definitely not. He was given a chance to rewrite the status quo, to fundamentally alter what we thought possible in our lives and what we, as a country, could do. Faced with all of that, Obama doubled down on the same status quo that had born the economic crisis that had propelled him to victory, he solidified, normalized, and extended the worst practices of the Bush administration, and now, at the end of his reign, is leaving the country almost exactly as he found it; teetering on the edge, desperate for a change or new direction. Except, this time, the standard bearer of the new way is Donald fucking Trump. If my legacy helped make that pathetic little thing have a chance to be President, I don't think I could be proud of it. I certainly couldn't ask anyone else to, either
Speaking of, Trump actually did say something worth listening to. His call for Senators and Congressmen to be subject to term limits is actually, a good plan. Of course, even if he was President, he couldn't enforce or impose those limits himself; if he tried, it'd be an action so blatantly illegal that he'd have the honor of being the first President ever convicted in an impeachment trial. Also, I'm sure Trump is making this case because he really wants to clean up the government and not, say, punish all the Senators and Congressmen who've abandoned him in the last few weeks. But still, calling for an amendment to force guaranteed new blood into Congress isn't a bad idea for people to consider.
The ground work for getting further involved in wars in the Middle East is already being laid. The Navy launched missiles into Yemen, and ground troops are among the forces trying to take back Mosul. My main concern here is that if the Mosul offensive is successful, Hillary will take the opportunity to make the case that we can drive ISIS out of Syria, too. If that happens, and the public doesn't put up much of a fight against the war, than I don't know how bad it will be, but Iraq will most likely look like a full blown success in the aftermath. For one, since Hillary has said multiple times, her real goal in Syria is overthrowing Assad. She hasn't said who exactly would take his place, but since the only real opposition in Syria is ISIS and al-Qaeda, they'll probably fill the void. Or they won't because of a high troop commitment to stop them while we install a puppet government that will survive until a new civil war breaks out. But that's okay; Hillary will just use another surge which will lead to the same political stability that you see in Iraq and Afghanistan today. I haven't even mentioned how Iran, the Saudis, the Gulf States, Turkey, the Kurds, or Russia will react to all of this and how that will make any full scale war in Syria a ludicrous option, because this America, those countries are lucky we even know they exist.
I've been seeing a lot of breathless headlines lately about how Democrats are eyeing Utah, Texas and other states that were previously thought to be no-win situations as back in the game and an opportunity to re-take the House and Senate both. My reactions are 1. That's counting a lot of chickens before they hatch and 2. Even if does happen, so what? After the 08 election, Democrats had super majorities in both houses of Congress and did... pretty much nothing with it. Obama insisted on using a Congress that would write him a blank check on demand to it through away that power and instead reduce themselves to cajoling and bargaining with a Republican minority that from the start explicitly said would do nothing but sabotage his administration. Hillary and her hypothetical Democratic Congress won't have the mandate that Obama did, and Hillary is even less inclined to pursue anything that would resemble a public good. If the Dems do get Congress back, it's a safe bet that they'll be so ineffectual and worthless that they will lose it, again, two years from now anyway.
To close, I've been thinking a lot this year about how Obama is likely to be remembered, and my conclusion is he'll be thought of well, which is better than he deserves. I'm not saying he didn't do good things as a President- his support of gay rights and the nuclear deal with Iran are his highlights- but more often than not he proved to be found wanting. The economic crisis in 2007-08 still plagues the country, he could've pushed through a bigger stimulus package which would have kick started the economy again. But no, instead he choose to make it smaller to gain more Republican support. The support didn't come, and the smaller package halted the downfall but didn't make the economy strong enough for people to go back to work.
When it came to healthcare, Obama very noticeably failed to back the public option, which would've been a government operated insurance plan that would've directly competed against the private operators around the country. It would've likely been cheaper and produced better coverage than the insurance companies, instead he deferred again in the name of compromise and fed people to the same predatory companies that had made our healthcare system the most dysfunctional in the world in the first place. He also formalized a global assassination program, indemnified the banks who caused the financial crisis from criminal prosecution, and is as ironic a Nobel Peace Prize winner as Henry Kissinger. Almost everyone blames Republican obstructionism preventing Obama from actually getting anything done, what this point misses though, is that it was Obama himself who kept Republicans in the game and afforded them every opportunity to stymie his agenda. If Obama had simply bypassed the Republicans when he had the chance, he wouldn't have had to deal with their bullshit for six years of his Presidency.
But, it wasn't to be. Because bold action has to come from a bold man, and Obama is simply not that. He's persistent, pragmatic, and charismatic, but bold he is definitely not. He was given a chance to rewrite the status quo, to fundamentally alter what we thought possible in our lives and what we, as a country, could do. Faced with all of that, Obama doubled down on the same status quo that had born the economic crisis that had propelled him to victory, he solidified, normalized, and extended the worst practices of the Bush administration, and now, at the end of his reign, is leaving the country almost exactly as he found it; teetering on the edge, desperate for a change or new direction. Except, this time, the standard bearer of the new way is Donald fucking Trump. If my legacy helped make that pathetic little thing have a chance to be President, I don't think I could be proud of it. I certainly couldn't ask anyone else to, either
Friday, October 14, 2016
Hypocrisy, and the Perils of a Landslide
Undoubtedly the happiest person in the country after this week has to be Hillary Clinton. She's seen her poll numbers climb in pretty much every swing state she needs to win, and since Trump is going through his own Bill Cosby phase in the wake of his "Grab them by the pussy" video, no one is really paying attention to all the Wikileaks material that would've killed her campaign were she not against someone so virtuostically repulsive.
Remember how, back in the primaries, a big theme of Bernie's was that had been compromised because of all the Wall Street money she hoovered up? And how the Elizabeth Warren story charting Clinton's change of heart over a bankruptcy bill exemplified that point? Well, Clinton made a very big point of going out on TV saying that "Oh no, it wasn't the money, it was for the women and children who came to me asking for help." Turns out, shockingly, that story isn't so much true as it is self-serving. Here's a back-and-forth between Clinton staffers about her recollection:
All of this information comes courtesy of Wikileaks, which published the hacked emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta on its website. The Clinton response to the leaks have been to say that Wikileaks, and Julian Assange specifically, are acting as Russian agents under orders from Vladimir Putin to tar her with baseless propaganda so Donald Trump can become the next President; which the media and Clinton supporters have wholeheartedly embraced so they won't have to hold her responsible or question anything she's done to get to this point. Clinton's outrage that someone was using shady, behind-closed-doors strategies directing the media to falsely debase their political opponents shouldn't carry a lot of weight anyway considering that, you know, she had just done the exact same thing to win her own fucking primary. At this point, the emails aren't really going to affect the election- especially not when there's a mountain of sexual harassment and assault allegations mounting against Trump by the day- but they do provide insight into how she is likely to govern, and depending on how much she wins by, that doesn't really bode well.
If Clinton wins in a landslide, she will, naturally, treat that as a mandate to do as she will. Since Congress is still going to be divided and useless, the only real arena Clinton will be able act unilaterally is in military actions, and Hillary has never met a war she didn't support. She's been a long-time advocate for a no-fly zone in Syria, which she won't need Congress for since she'll likely cite the AUMF (the authorization of military force against al-Qaeda directly or countries who aided or harbored them) as her authorization like Obama did. This is kinda crazy, since enforcing such a thing would require the Air Force to either escort Russian aircraft out of Syrian airspace, or, failing that, shoot them down. Somehow, I don't really see the benefit in risking such a direct conflict with another military power who is literally attacking ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates, a.k.a the same people we're supposed to have this whole War on Terror thing against.
I bring this up because if Clinton is willing to construct a primary campaign based on media distortions around her record and planting stories in the media to discredit anything that ran counter to her narratives, there's no reason to think she won't pull the same move with regards to a war, especially if she's in a position where the country is turning against her and she needs something to show her strength. For those who would doubt their upstanding candidate would ever pull such a blatant manipulation, just remember that Bush supporters told themselves the same thing about there was no way such a straight forward man was lying them into a war with Iraq.
Look, I get voting for Hillary over Trump; the man is easily the stupidest person to ever try to sit in the Oval Office, and all the white supremacists who have mainstreamed themselves under his banner would only grow bolder if he actually won. That being said, we shouldn't pretend that voting for Hillary is the same thing as voting for a good President. There's every reason to believe hat once she's in office, Hillary will use all these same gambits to push through whatever war she's jonesing for or trying to pass off continued kid gloves towards Wall Street abuses as an unfortunate cost of good-ole American Capitalism. But, if there isn't any public support for Hillary to implement that bullshit, we may actually force into being a half-way decent President after all.
Remember how, back in the primaries, a big theme of Bernie's was that had been compromised because of all the Wall Street money she hoovered up? And how the Elizabeth Warren story charting Clinton's change of heart over a bankruptcy bill exemplified that point? Well, Clinton made a very big point of going out on TV saying that "Oh no, it wasn't the money, it was for the women and children who came to me asking for help." Turns out, shockingly, that story isn't so much true as it is self-serving. Here's a back-and-forth between Clinton staffers about her recollection:
"We have a problem,” Clinton senior policy advisor Ann O’Leary wrote to campaign staffers that afternoon. “HRC overstayed (sic) her case this morning in a pretty big way.”Oops. Also, remember how when Clinton and Sanders were set to start debating each other, a lot of Bernie supporters started kicking up a fuss that the DNC was setting up the debate schedule (fewer debates than the Republicans were running, also scheduling them on the weekends out of prime-time) was to explicitly give Clinton the advantage by not risking Bernie getting further exposure and thus, more people willing to vote for him? Also, shockingly, everyone who brought up this complaint was totally right, again. This is from an email sent by a DNC official to the heads of the Clinton campaign:
“What did she say that was wrong?” spokeswoman Kristina Schake replied.
“She said women groups were all pressuring her to vote for it,” O’Leary wrote back. “Evidence does not support that statement.”
"Through internal discussions, we concluded that it was in our interest to: 1) limit the number of debates (and the number in each state); 2) start the debates as late as possible; 3) keep debates out of the busy window between February 1 and February 27, 2016 (Iowa to South Carolina); 4) create a schedule that would allow the later debates to be cancelled if the race is for practical purposes over; 5) encourage an emphasis on local issues and local media participants in the debate formats; and 6) ensure a format that provides equal time for all candidates and does not give the moderator any discretion to focus on one candidate."The email also says that another important issue is to keep the debates multi-candidate to "eliminate the possibility of one on one debates," as if they knew that Hillary having to constantly defend her record against a single, pointed attack would be bad for her. So, to recap, the DNC, who maintained it was a neutral party all throughout the primary, set up a debate schedule specifically to deny any exposure for anyone running against Hillary Clinton so its voters couldn't weigh their options, funneled money directly to the Clinton campaign under the guise of state-level fundraisers (and then tried to lie about it), and coordinated with the Clinton people to discuss strategy on how to beat Bernie Sanders and plant negative stories against him in the media. And yet, even with all that elite and media backing, she still had to fight to the very end to put away a Senator that two years ago almost none of the public could've even named.
All of this information comes courtesy of Wikileaks, which published the hacked emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta on its website. The Clinton response to the leaks have been to say that Wikileaks, and Julian Assange specifically, are acting as Russian agents under orders from Vladimir Putin to tar her with baseless propaganda so Donald Trump can become the next President; which the media and Clinton supporters have wholeheartedly embraced so they won't have to hold her responsible or question anything she's done to get to this point. Clinton's outrage that someone was using shady, behind-closed-doors strategies directing the media to falsely debase their political opponents shouldn't carry a lot of weight anyway considering that, you know, she had just done the exact same thing to win her own fucking primary. At this point, the emails aren't really going to affect the election- especially not when there's a mountain of sexual harassment and assault allegations mounting against Trump by the day- but they do provide insight into how she is likely to govern, and depending on how much she wins by, that doesn't really bode well.
If Clinton wins in a landslide, she will, naturally, treat that as a mandate to do as she will. Since Congress is still going to be divided and useless, the only real arena Clinton will be able act unilaterally is in military actions, and Hillary has never met a war she didn't support. She's been a long-time advocate for a no-fly zone in Syria, which she won't need Congress for since she'll likely cite the AUMF (the authorization of military force against al-Qaeda directly or countries who aided or harbored them) as her authorization like Obama did. This is kinda crazy, since enforcing such a thing would require the Air Force to either escort Russian aircraft out of Syrian airspace, or, failing that, shoot them down. Somehow, I don't really see the benefit in risking such a direct conflict with another military power who is literally attacking ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates, a.k.a the same people we're supposed to have this whole War on Terror thing against.
I bring this up because if Clinton is willing to construct a primary campaign based on media distortions around her record and planting stories in the media to discredit anything that ran counter to her narratives, there's no reason to think she won't pull the same move with regards to a war, especially if she's in a position where the country is turning against her and she needs something to show her strength. For those who would doubt their upstanding candidate would ever pull such a blatant manipulation, just remember that Bush supporters told themselves the same thing about there was no way such a straight forward man was lying them into a war with Iraq.
Look, I get voting for Hillary over Trump; the man is easily the stupidest person to ever try to sit in the Oval Office, and all the white supremacists who have mainstreamed themselves under his banner would only grow bolder if he actually won. That being said, we shouldn't pretend that voting for Hillary is the same thing as voting for a good President. There's every reason to believe hat once she's in office, Hillary will use all these same gambits to push through whatever war she's jonesing for or trying to pass off continued kid gloves towards Wall Street abuses as an unfortunate cost of good-ole American Capitalism. But, if there isn't any public support for Hillary to implement that bullshit, we may actually force into being a half-way decent President after all.
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