December 22, 2015

Every once in a while, I feel like I need to post this:

I've brought this up before on my journal, but right now, I feel like it bears repeating. The word "Orwellian" gets tossed around a lot, usually in the context of a surveillance state, or in terms of the thought police. I always feel like that's a simplistic reading of 1984, and that the true core of that novel is O'Brien's speech near the end of the book when Winston is in his office.

We can point to the NSA wiretaps, CoIntelPro, gov't shutdowns, changing the meanings of words, etc... and say that they are Orwellian, but what I fear most is the attempt at ideological purity, mostly seen on the right and far right. The main purpose is to impose that will on the people. Another quotation from 1984:



All you need to do is point yourself towards Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, or Glenn Beck in order to see all of these things. The general attention span of the TV public makes it hard to have a more nuanced discussion, so all they can jam into that time are the simple jingoistic buzzwords of fear, hatred, rage, and triumph.

The emperor hasn't had clothes for a long time now. Things are changing. Unrest is bubbling up from beneath the surface and showing up here and there. Occupy Wall Street. The riots in Greece. The riots in Brazil. The G20 protests. The Arab Spring. But things are going to get worse before they get better. We need to keep the conversation open and make sure that people are informed. Remember that reality has a well-established left-wing bias!

The far right Tea Partiers really are only in the game to win it. Their ideology isn't to win to help people, it's only to win because they have to win. The greatest thing about progressives is that we all tend to be progressive in our own ways. There are so many different ways to go forwards. The opposite is not true, the far right can all be regressive in the same way, and that is why it's easier for them to frame the us vs. them. We need new strategies to educate and inform. It's like the episode from The Newsroom where Will and Mac tried so hard to get the new debate format. Of course it was doomed, because they couldn't use their talking points. We all need to beg for that level of discourse, and people who are willing to hold people to a real answer.

More random ramblings that I just need to get off my chest.

December 19, 2015

Please stop telling me that corporations can always do it better than government

Here's something I ranted on Twitter about last night (imagine this divided across 10 separate tweets):

Please stop telling me that "private enterprise will do it better than government." How often do you complain about companies Companies with monopolies like Rogers and Bell, or Comcast and Verizon in the US. The tired old argument that the invisible hand will lift companies with better service and better products is baloney. The "invisible hand" lifts companies that have no ethics and are willing to predatorily drop prices to corner a market. Then you vote with your feet because you're saving a few cents, and ignore that the service isn't so good. Guess what? Stuff costs money. So, the company willing to take a short term loss and cut service will eventually BUY the company that isn't, because people will take the service cut to save pennies. I've seen it personally in travel booking. I had someone literally take a flight with two 4-hour stops instead of 1 2-hour stop to save $.24. Yes, twenty-four cents. And now we elect governments the same way? Who's going to save me $.10 at the pump? Who's going to save me 1% in taxes? Hell, we might as well just vote the Koch brothers in directly if that's going to be the case. If you figure they're going to screw you anyway, wouldn't you like the option to possibly vote them out every half-decade or so?

Just something that was weighing on my mind, I suppose. It's the attitude that brought folks like Rob Ford to be the mayor of Toronto, and the same attitude that constantly causes Toronto's transit plans to fall through, because we forget that things cost money. I realize people vote with their feet because every penny counts to far too many people. That's a systemic problem that is only being made worse by corporations holding increasingly huge segments of the market in a dwindling number of hands.

Just my $.02

December 11, 2015

Police officer shoots man climbing out of wrecked car. No charge.

CAUTION!!! The video attached to this article is extremely graphic:
http://www.actionnewsnow.com/news/da-plays-dash-cam-video-in-accidental-shooting-no-charges-will-be-filed/

From the article:

I'm no expert, but it looks like two shots to me. Regardless, the justification for the shooting is spurious in the extreme.

December 5, 2015

Erick Erickson disliked NYT cover story on guns so much, he shot the paper

Right wing columnist, radio, and TV commentator Erick Erickson (RedState, CNN, Fox News) shot his copy of the NYT and encouraged others to.

From his own Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/673203319528116224

And from the linked blog:



Doesn't that just sum up the right's reaction to this sort of thing in general? I don't have the wherewithal to actually debate you on this point, so *bangbangbang*

Nothing says "responsible gun owner" like someone who gets SO ANGRY at a newspaper column that he SHOOTS the newspaper!
(edit, to give credit as Tom Tomorrow used the same line: https://twitter.com/tomtomorrow/status/673261376140419073)