I need to think happy thoughts

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/03/11/three-reasons-political-polarization-is-here-to-stay/

After a certain point, I just need to come to terms with the fact that our nation is falling apart, and is not going to get better any time soon. It isn’t in our leaders’ best interest to have a functional nation, because if our nation works, then how can they blame the other party for how fucked up our nation is? So instead they keep the nation fucked up, preying on ignorant people’s fear and anger over how our nation is fucked up, and riding that to power.

The real tragedy in all of this is that Congress is painting itself into a corner with this gridlock; by refusing to do any work, people are increasingly going to see Congress as irrelevant, and they are going expect the President to take action, sidelining them even further. The endgame here is the American Empire. Congratulations America!

 

Thanks Republicans for nothing

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/12/cruz-kasich-and-rubio-rebuke-trump-for-campaign-chaos-but-say-the-left-and-the-media-also-share-blame/

I have lots of words about the hypocritical stance Republicans are taking. Blaming liberals for the hatred aimed at Trump? It would be laughable if it wasn’t so fucking tragic. They laid the groundwork for this by standing by and nodding as he spewed out tons of hatred. They refused to condemn him even as he fomented hatred. They did nothing as he told his supporters to abuse people that disagreed with him.

As for the media? If every Republican had stood on the stage and condemned Trump for his actions, then the media would have had to pay attention, but instead they hoped to take advantage of the anger, hoping to ride his coattails to the White House. And now we are where we are, and finally they woke the fuck up to the oncoming train wreck that is Donald Trump. Thanks a whole fucking lot Republicans. You are about to reap what you sow, and the United States is going to pay.

Why do people ignore/forget the past?

There’s a popular fiction in government that they can control events. It’s been shown time and again that the harder governments try to control things, the more likely that events are going to spiral out of control. Russia right now is trying to ride the tiger that is nationalism, and they are going to discover that is a very, very difficult beast to get off of.

If you don’t believe me, I will give you the example to end all examples: World War I. It was nationalistic fervor that triggered that bloody pointless war that has reverberated for almost century. Yet, no one ever remembers the insanity that lead up to that horrific period of time. It’s either that, or people think that they are immune to the march of history. I’m not sure which is worse.

A post where I lose my train of thought about Russians

SFgate.com article about ethnic boundaries.
While I agree with a lot of points in the article above, the writer misses the point of what Putin is doing: it has nothing to do with race, language, or religion. And honestly, we’ll never get everyone to sit down and draw more sane and humanitarian borders that reunite any of these tribes, for the same reason: they don’t give two shits for anyone but their own tribe.

So why does Putin go through these motions if he doesn’t really care? Ego. Actually, ego is why people follow him despite the fact that he is obviously a titanic asshole. He shows that he can be a savior to an entire people, and he makes the people he’s “saving” feel more important. Never mind the fact that other people that aren’t part of the Russian tribe want no part of this charade. Remember how I said it had nothing to do race, religion, or language? Well, in hindsight, I guess it does, but only as an excuse to feel important. Actually, this entire post might be rubbish, but that’s ok; I’ve written posts even worse than this.

It’s tab cleaning time!

Yeah, I’ve been accumulating tabs for a while, gathering link upon link showing that while Obama might not be Hitler, he is a complete hypocrite. Seriously, for a man that promised to shut down the spying, he has done exactly the opposite. I’m not sure if he’s stupid, evil, incompetent, or just bloody arrogant. My guess is the latter, where his shit doesn’t stink, and everyone around him has no incentive to disagree. It seriously makes me want to weep for our future. So with that out of the way, let the linkage commence, before my tablet kills Chrome for bogartting RAM:

And we want to trust these jokers with ALL of our data – http://gizmodo.com/the-u-s-governments-cybersecurity-is-a-total-shitshow-1515947200

Yes, let’s drop malware that can be repurposed and make the Internet less secure – http://www.darknet.org.uk/2014/03/nsa-large-scale-turbine-malware-also-target-sysadmins/

Not security related, but proof that getting rid of these assholes is going to take a whole lotta work- http://www.cracked.com/article_20705_5-ways-u.s.-democracy-more-rigged-than-you-think_p1.html

Great, the Government is taking part in the PC zombie apocalypse – http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00002684.html

Hell, everyone is surveilling you right now – http://betaboston.com/news/2014/03/05/a-vast-hidden-surveillance-network-runs-across-america-powered-by-the-repo-industry/

I have nothing clever to say about this one – https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/surveillance_by.html

So yeah, the CIA is trying to dictate what happens during an investigation against them – http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/us/new-inquiry-into-cia-employees-amid-clashes-over-interrogation-program.html

Hey, what do you know? My opinion has risen from the dead!

Before I start this rant, I need to remind people that I am not the biggest fan of Obama. I think that he was oversold, and tried to do way too much, and his followers had an unrealistic expectation about what an American President can do. (a semi-related aside: What in the hell is up with “We’re going to take back Washington?” From whom? If you tell me the other party, I’ll go Aaron Burr on your ass. And for who are you taking it back for?  For me? Who thinks I want it back in the first place? You all can keep it.)

OK, with that said, I think Hank Williams Jr. made an ass out f himself when he compared Obama to Hitler, and I think ESPN is correct for wanting nothing to do with him anymore. Something that bugs me about this is people have been abusing the phrase “My First Amendment Rights” way too often lately. The First Amendment only has to do with the GOVERNMENT trying to shut you up, not a private entity like ESPN. This isn’t the first time that I’ve heard about this, and unfortunately won’t be the last. Why can’t people see that you have every right to be an insufferable asshole, but everyone else has the right to either ignore you (my favorite tactic) or completely disavow you (“Look, you are being an asshole. Everyone shout down the asshole!”) I’m not a big fan of this tactic; it brings attention to someone that really doesn’t need it. Paying attention to assholes like that just feeds the trolls. Of course, there are the ones we should be paying attention to, like anyone that seriously wants to do some damage… Yeah, it’s a bit tricky. But honestly, I’d rather the assholes be as noisy as possible, so that way I know where to shoot when they become dangerous.

But that’s just me. And my attitude might change if the asshole tugs on the wrong strings…

Facing genocide

It’s funny in a very tragic sort of way, but for some ungodly reason I decided to watch Worse Than War. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was the auction website with German helmets, and my plans to own a German helmet as “a trophy.” The movie made me angry, but not surprised. I’m well versed in the politics of genocide, what drives people to do it.

(Side note: I really shouldn’t be watching something so depressing as I’m trying to claw my way out of depression. Ah well.)

Part of the problem, is us, people that aren’t even involved in the genocide. Watch Devil Came on Horseback. Watch the scene where he showed photos to Arabs, who denied that there were signs of genocide in Darfur. Also, I think about an argument I had once upon a time on the message boards I was admin on about the NATO bombings in Bosnia; the guy was angry about NATO actions, and I had to point out to him that the Serbians were guilty of genocide, and not just their leader. It doesn’t matter that they were mislead, they had to know what they were doing was wrong, yet did it any ways. Worse Than War proves my point with interviews of Hutus that had actually killed Tutsis.

We need to face the fact that the possibility of genocide is within all of us. All it takes is the wrong political leader. In some ways, I worry about it here in the U.S. because of the illegal aliens, an easy outlet… They are outsiders and their cultural isolation make for easy fodder for genocide. Not saying it’s going to happen, but we need to listen for the language of death… Because it’s arrogant to think it won’t happen here.