Originally posted @ No Cure For That

A Chicago strip club is celebrating Sarah Palin’s visit to Illinois next month by hosting a Palin lookalike contest titled “Less Taxation, More Stimulation”. A portion of the event’s proceeds will be donated to the Tea Party movement.

I’m not kidding:

It was obscene enough when Ronald Regan rose from Hollywood B star to the office of the presidency, but this twenty first century synergistic blend of porn, entertainment and politics is not something that the founding fathers, no matter what the Ayn Randian Regressive tea baggers will tell you, had in mind. Unless of course, you count among the founding fathers one P.T. Barnum.

What can possibly be next?

Not to be outdone, the log cabin republicans have announced several lookalike strip contests at Chicago hot spots: The Glenn Beck lookalike strip contest “Chalk my board” at the Lucky Horseshoe on May 9, The Mitch McConnell lookalike strip contest “Filla my buster” at the Cattle Call on May 10, and the highly anticipated “Pound me in my Pickup” Scott Brown lookalike strip contest at the Jackhammer on May 11.

The Palin strip contest will be held at the Admiral Theatre Gentlemen’s Club in Chicago on May 12^th.

Sure it would be easy to rattle off a few misogynistic jokes:
Drill Baby Drill! ; These Lipstick Pit bulls can free my market; or I’ll bring the GOP Whip.

However, to dismiss Palin as a whore who gets by on her looks is damaging to the advancement of women in general and ignores the fact that most politicians and media personalities are, in fact, whores who get by on their good looks. With the notable acceptation of the aforementioned Mitch McConnell, who owes his seat as a Senator from Kentucky to a pact he made with a band of Satanic Goblins- politicians have been getting elected based on how photogenic they are since Kennedy beat a hairy, hunched, and wildly perspiring Nixon in 1960 Presidential debate. And now that Glenn Beck Glenn Beck- whose died orange whips of hair on top of his pudgy head appeal to a an aging baby boomer population made fat, soft and angry by a lifetime ingesting processed foods, has paved the way for pundits who wield more power than politicians, we have truly entered a new era of pornographic mindfuck in America where intelligent debate and meaningful progress no longer seem possible. Ronald Regan started the trend when he parlayed his Hollywood career into politics. And the love child of Glenn Beck and Ronald Regan is the former Ms. Wassilla 1984. Could the Orwellian writing on the wall be any clearer?

It is all enough to make you want to kill your TV & your laptop & your iphone and ipad and return to a time when the freaks still traveled from town to town and remained harmless in the safe confines of P.T. Barnum’s circus.

Will Rogers, America’s Cowboy Comedian and the top movie star of his time famously said of taxes: “The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”

You know what Will Rogers? Bleep you and the horse you rode in on! I have to say, I actually like Taxes.

Really.

Sure, the way taxes are assessed and the way the government spends the money (so I guess I mean the whole system as it is currently operating) has more problems than a crack addicted pregnant teen whose baby daddy just got deployed to Afghanistan. However, that does not mean that we should do away with or lower taxes.

We should bring her baby daddy back from Afghanistan and increase taxes!

Now, to be sure, the rich should pay more taxes than they currently so. Moshe Adler, in an eye opening April 14^th article on Truth Dig writes:

“Between 1913, the first year that the income tax became constitutional, and 1981, the first year of the Reagan presidency, the highest federal marginal income tax rate was, on average, 68 percent. It should come as no surprise that the years of the country’s greatest prosperity for the middle class coincided with the highest tax rates. Since Ronald Reagan held the presidency, inequality has increased markedly, and today the highest marginal tax rate is only 35 percent.”

So Regan gave us trickle down economics. But what are really trickling down are bad ideas. Ideas that drive angry, white middle class people to Tea Party protests to wave their guns, demand lower taxes and ogle at the former runner up to Ms. Wassilla 1984 who wants to tell you that it is perfectly okay for a man like Warren Buffet to pay fewer taxes, as a percentage of income, than his secretary.

Regan’s trickle down theory is a shell game. Wealth does not obey the Newtonian laws of gravity, wealth always redistributes itself upwards. Now that the wealthy have much less of their income base as taxable, where does that money go? While an unspecified percentage goes to the Rachel Utchitels of the world, much of it goes into hedge funds, where it generates more income that will only get taxed as at a business rate of 15%. Again, lower than the income tax rate of Warren Buffet’s secretary.

Hedge Funds make so much money for the richest in the U.S. that the top twenty-five Hedge fund managers in 2009 made an average of one billion dollars each. Yes, that is billion with a “b”.

As Les Leopold at AlterNet points out, the salaries for those twenty-five people could pay for over 650,000 entry-level teachers who would, in turn, serve 13 million students.

The next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary needs to expand its definition of pornography to accommodate this level of unregulated Ayn Randian Regressive economics.

The rich should pay more of their income in taxes. Period. Our tax dollars should stop funding war illegal invasions and occupations. Our Tax dollars should start improving public education from pre-K through post -graduate work. Our tax dollars should subsidize the arts. And our tax dollars should put health insurance companies out of business and pay for a single payer healthcare for all system.

I am even okay with my tax dollars being spent on Tea Party rallies. This is America; after all, free speech can’t be for me and not for thee. But then again, even the second lady of Tea Party hierarchy agrees with me on this point. As reported by Sahil Kapur on RAW STORY recently-

“As Michele Bachmann riled a group of feisty Tea Partiers to rail against taxes and government spending, taxpayers were quietly forced to pick up a $13,600 tab for their festivities. For the sound, staging and equipment, Bachmann (R-MN) was financially assisted by taxpayer-funded allowances from Reps. Todd Akin (R-MO), Tom Price (R-GA), and Steve King (R-IA).”

But the glassy eyed Bachmann continues to play her role as a servant of the rich, whipping the fast disappearing middle class into froth by inventing facts such as Obama has recently nationalized 51% of the economy.

The Tea Party’s “taxes are bad” argument is an Ayn Randian Regressive one. It does not empower the middle class; rather it aspires to a 21^st century form of feudalism.

see the video here
NOTICE: Be warned, these videos are graphic in nature and difficult to watc

It is commonplace to refer to veterans of the Vietnam War, the Afghan War, the Iraq War, the “war on terror, as heroes.

Are Veterans heroes?

Consider the recently released classified US military video showing the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff and several children.

To those of you who can watch the video and still support the illegal invasion and occupation of the U.S. military in Iraq; to the Kool-Aid drinking Christian Republican conservatives out there, to the don’t tread on me, Hummer driving, steroid popping pigs amongst us, to the self congratulatory Democrats with Obama goggles so thick that you refuse to protest the Bush doctrine because it is now perpetuated by Obama- I just want to remind you that we all sprung form apes. Unfortunately you didn’t spring far enough so we’re going to have to put you back in the zoo. It’s the only safe place to observe you until you evolve.

Watching defenders of the War on Terror spin your rhetorical web is a bit like watching Planet of the Apes movies dubbed into Farsi without any English subtitles. I just can’t- given the benefits of modern life- how you people are, well, human.

It is commonplace to refer to veterans of the Vietnam War, the Afghan War, the Iraq War, the war on terror, as heroes.

Are Veterans heroes?

Vietnam was immoral, you Ass-hats. The domino theory of spreading communism was falsified. And our government entered the war secretly and then lied to the American people and congress to escalate the war. Gulf of Tonkin… sound familiar?

So, let’s agree that war in Vietnam and the war in Iraq are of no service to our country whatsoever.

None.

Are Veterans of those wars heroes, then?

Pilots dropping bombs over Baghdad were following orders. They were not protecting America. They are not heroes. They are victims. They signed up to serve a country they believed in, to defend democracy, or at least get some money for college and get out of their shit hole towns- and if necessary to be used as a last resort in conflict resolution. Instead, they are being used as pawns in an Armageddon chess game.

Look at the amount of unemployed in the U.S. The amount of foreclosures. The sorry state of our public education system, and other items on an ever growing list of domestic priorities and ask yourself what reasonable person can defend the expenditure of 400 million fucking dollars a day on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?

To supporters and defenders of the war on terror, to those who blindly elevate veterans to the status of heroes, please, try evolution. It’s not just for apes anymore.

When the Tiger Woods Scandal first broke; Britt Hume said that the extent that Tiger can recover from this scandal depends upon his faith. In the type of culturally sensitive commentary that Fox News has become know for, the senior analyst (Hume) for the network said:

“The extent to which he can recover seems to me depends on his faith,” Hume said. “He is said to be a Buddhist. I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. My message to Tiger would, ‘Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world.”

Never mind that the Christian Faith counts amongst its leaders some of the worlds most destructive sex addicts, with the Vatican quickly becoming a playboy mansion for pederasts and pedophiles, Brit Hume’s little bit of “My God is better than your God” had a very important sliver of truth embedded in it.

America, this one Nation under God, in the service of Wall Street with the help of Madison Avenue sells everything (clothes, mortgages, sex, wars, Davis Fleetwood DVD’s and books, available May 1^st from No Cure For That) through the manipulation and careful application of recycled narratives.

As a Christian Nation, one familiar narrative that sells well is that of redemption.

So- even though Woods mentioned that he is still a practicing Buddhist, his press conference was a Christo-American affair.

I’m sorry. He said. For what? He never said, “Sex addict”. Nor did he say the word sex. Or Rachel Uchitel is now in the Guinness Book of World records the highest paid sex machine ever to dig for gold.

As I said last week, the drive to be the best, to squelch all competition, that quality that is at the heart of both Capitalism and America- that is what needs to be under the microscope in the wake of Tiger-Gate. As both a master and the product of Hypercapitalism, a carefully crafted product for our consumption the life and times of Tiger Woods pre sex addict scandal were more fiction than fact.

Did Tiger Humanize himself enough to reclaim his place as the billion dollar pitchman? He said:

“Golf… winning tournaments.. . all of that does not matter now. What matters now is living life the right way.”

By bowing to the Christo-Corporate Gods while maintaining his Buddhist faith while maintain a vice like grip on his own evolving personal narrative, Tiger Woods is at the forefront of the evolving marriage between religiously based morals and a consumer based, post reality TV culture where we know the reality being presented to us is, in many ways, a lie, but we just want a good story.

This week, as the second coming of Nike’s messiah begins, we probably will not get to know the real Tiger any better. Weathered, and brandishing a few scars, Tiger will become a much more likeable – and bankable figure.

Even I’m gonna watch golf this weekend. So should you.

Go on, just do it.®

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

Sarah Palin’s first TV special aired on Fox last night.

If you missed it, it will re-air Easter Sunday at 9PM. Christ has died, Christ has risen, but after seeing Sarah Palin’s Real American Stories, if Christ does “come again” to save these libertarian murderers- I’ll choose the 9^th circle of hell rather than spend eternity with these ass-hats, thank you very much.

Heroism, Courage, generosity and the warrior spirit those are things that unite all Americans. With this, the ½ term Alaska Governor, former VP nominee, runner up for Miss Wasilla 1984, and current headlining act for the tea party terrorist tour, began her much anticipated one hour Fox Special.

And then, to music recorded on a special new machine made from recycled heartstrings, Palin trotted out her stories.

Among them a canned interview, with a Sarah Palin voice over superimposed over 1-year-old Fox News Coverage of Toby Keith discussing the inspiration for his best selling hit “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue.” There is no doubt that the country song has made a huge impact on the warrior spirit culture of American Life. I wonder how many men and women, who, at last call at some bar popped Keith’s “Courtesy of the Red White and Blue” on the jukebox and then vowed, after one last shot of Jack Daniels, to enlist in the Army. I wonder how many of them died or are currently dealing with life altering injuries sustained in a war based on lies that had nothing to do with protecting – as Miss Wasilla- I’m sorry- I mean the runner up to Miss Wasilla 1984- our “American Way of Life.”

Certainly this did not seem to apply to another profile on last night’s show: Jason Dunham, a heroic Marine who gave his life to save his comrades in Iraq. When a grenade was dropped amongst his men by an Iraqi insurgent (an by insurgent we mean someone with the balls to protest the illegal invasion and occupation of their country by an imperialist Empire) Jason Dunham did not run, he placed his helmet atop the grenade. His friends were saved. Dunham died. And while this example certainly satisfies the opening thesis of Palin’s program, Heroism, Courage, generosity and the warrior spirit, can we not agree and acknowledge that the tears we shed for Jason Dunham are not tears of pried, but of shame that he died in vain?

The most effective story Palin pandered last night was that of George Weiss, and his SAY YES program. Weiss, is a wealthy businessman who helps prepare underprivileged students for college and pays for their education. He famously walked into a 6^th grade classroom in a rough section of Philadelphia some years ago and told all of the kids there that if they graduated high school, he would personally pay for their college education.

And then he backed it up.

George Weiss is a hero in my book. But are we to rely, as Palin remarked, on the power of the “voluntary private sector contribution to recognize where a need is, and how the can jump in and help.”

Yes, friends, Real American Stories is a feel good libertarian manifesto that aspires, not so much to Glenn Beck saber rattling, but to a kinder, gentler approach of propaganda.

But are we, as Sarah Palin told her exclusively white Fox studio audience, to bank on a future that relies on the voluntary private sector contribution to remedy the evils of inequity brought on by that very same unregulated private sector?

The rate of poverty in the United States is more than three times as great as Switzerland, a government that functions much like Federal Republic with a spoon full of socialism thrown in for good measure. The Swiss are, by all accounts, much happier than Americans, living as they do in a much more equitable society. Then again, they don’t have to spend so much money on their military, the bloated wasteful budget of which accounts for more than 50% the expenditures of the U.S. government to fund what the Cover Girl for Tea Party Terrorism calls the warrior spirit of America.