Punishment Farm
They Say Weather Can Affect Your Mood
That was the name of a punk band that played at Sigma Nu during my freshman year at U of O, way back in 1982, and at the time I didn’t yet see that America was becoming that; I was still a Republican, after all. We went from the Great Society to the Punitive Society in the years hence, and despite the warnings of Eugene punkers back then, here we are.
Today on the floor of the House, Pete Sessions patiently explained that women deserved to pay more for health care, because, like smokers, they had higher costs, so there. If you’re a broad, evidently you should go abroad, and stay there. Speaking of smokers, writing about the landmark case against the tobacco industry’s cynical marketing of “light” cigarettes, our local righty Oregonian associate editor, the long gone and unmissed David Reinhard blamed the plaintiff’s dead husband for being so dissolute and perverse as to smoke 3 packs a day, “Sixty times a day, he could have made the right decision,” or some such claptrap. Since God seemed short of lightning bolts, and the miscreant was already dead, perhaps some corporation could step in and further smite the sinner who had supported his killers so lavishly all those years. Maybe he could have been posthumously disinterred so Pete Sessions could join Reinhard in slapping his decaying remains around a bit more, or perhaps drag him from a truck, (he was black, after all…) for the greater glory of God’s own enforcer, Philip Morris. When struck by the terrible swift sword, the only right thing to do is expire, and shut up about it.
In the wake of the Fort Hood massacre, those vauntedly legitimate news anchors at Fox declared that perhaps it was “political correctness” that let an obvious terrorist like Hasan run around loose in the first place; heaven knows that those people are only any good when they’re in a dungeon with a broken bottle up their ass. That’s how you prevent violence, you know. And did you hear that the Orlando shooter was named Rodriguez? Draw your own conclusions.
It’s unsurprising, really. We’re saddled with a deeply unpopular but nevertheless extravagantly funded political movement that is set against doing any good for us, so they drive us to this craziness by pointing out the bad in us all. Few dictatorships could hold a candle to our incarceration rates, military aggression, or ruthless legal system, and yet we still feel that somehow, we’re endangered by not being allowed to “take the gloves off.” What, exactly would that mean? We already torture people, spy on them and invade their homes, kill them (often ineptly and brutally) whether or not they’re guilty of any crime, and scoldingly denounce such chickenhearted notions as rehabilitation and due process as hopelessly naive and patchouli-scented artifacts of a misguidedly namby-pamby era now gone and unlamented.
No deed; good, bad, or indifferent, should ever go unpunished, here in Punishment Farm. Women so uppity and whorish as to have sex of course ought to be forced to bear children against their will, and dykes and fags doing the same thing are even worse. Artists who dare to criticize the government of course should be banned, shunned, and boycotted; countries who question the American Imperium had better stock up their bomb shelters, because the Hammer is going to come down, even if we still haven’t figured out a way to pay for it, without unduly burdening our long-suffering rich.
One wonders, in the end, where all this leads…. Is there really enough punishment to go around for the burgeoning ranks of those who, in the immortal words of Matthew Shepard’s killer, “need” it? Is there ever a case in which suffering isn’t deserved, and therefore a good and cleansing thing? What would we do then? Forgive and forget?
I ask rhetorically, of course, because we’ve gotten to a point where we’ve simply bet the farm on punishing our way out of every problem, and that is the new normal, as long as you’re not a Republican politician or donor. Then, forgiveness reigns, and God calls us to turn the other cheek. Please make a note of it.
Some rules for Punishment Farm Punishers:
1.Whenever anything goes wrong , it is never any Punishers fault. (Note: Wrong is defined as something punishers don’t like or heterosexual man has written that God forbids. Punishers must never take personal responsibility for anything that harms Punishees.
2.Whenever Punishers say something that doesn’t work out well, that statement or action is null and void the next time the subject comes up.
3.It is not possible to lie as long as you know God or at least one other Punisher approves.
4.Whenever Punishers are benefiting from something done by government, never give government any credit.
5.It is never possible for a Punisher to be a hypocrite because truth is malleable and when questioned by a Punishee morally condemn that condemed Punishee.
You’re right on track with this, RMP. Punishment no longer means, “this hurts me more than it hurts you.” More like, “This may hurt you, but it makes me feel a lot better…”
Or said a little differently, “I want this to hurt you so I can feel better about my secretly dreadful self.”
Speaking of which, I’m engrossed in a lengthy article at timesonline about Goldman Sachs. It’s an interview with the CEO, entitled “I’m doing God’s work.” Seriously. Seven pages of jaw-dropping heinousness and hubris. You’ve got to put in in the blast.
I fully expect Conservapedia to eliminate as liberal this verse of the Bible. For example, we’ve already been treated to this bit of scholarship:
Never said it at all! Here’s my guess: Conservapedia will rework the Aramaic/Greek to return us to the original translation which was, assuredly,
No wonder all that Christian art just loved that crucifiction, and not just for the semi-nudity involved. Oh, and that stuff about the camel and the needle’s eye? That really meant that poor people should diet.
Re “God’s Work”, apparently G-S has embarked on a greed-is-godly campaign in Europe. Why not here? Maybe even they realize that it’s been overdone here, and might be one step too far? Matt Taibbi had something to say about it .http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/ Check out the comment by austrianbanker .A variatrion on I/he/they are SERIOUSPEOPLE , that’s the way the world works, and you unserious types don’t seem to realize it. I was going to respond last night, but was too tired to get properly wound up.Probably should have, because it kept me awake.
Here’s the story/video of Kilmeade & Co. worrying about the Muslims. Geraldo Rivera, to his credit (1/2 credit- it was rather timid) didn’t taketh bait. http://rawstory.com/2009/11/fox-host-suggests-special-screenings/
I had an encounter with a hardcore teabagger today . I have before, but didn’t realize s/he was one. How do I know? The teaparty hat, sweatshirt, bumperstickers ( along with the obligatory Freedom Isn’t Free paraphenalia) , keychain, pennant, and cushion. Probably missed a few things, but did see a bit more red, white, and blue in the car. How’d it go? Friendly and pleasant , as it had on previous occasions. Don’t know why they can’t extend that attitude to people they don’t know, who they perceive to be different from them.
http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/
Great article, Mike. I heard something about that story, but hadn’t read Taibbi’s take. I think if you had spent more time with the ‘bagger, some creepy stuff might have started to slip out; it usually does. Funny how co-opted they are showing their commitment through-you guessed it- cheesy merchandise.
Mike Taibbi meet Nail in the Head. Asshole meet Mike.
Health care boogie …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZehnsJnsV_E
Thanks for that Taibbi link. It is another way of explaining what Dylan Ratigan calls Corporate Communism that is rotten to the core. That is the core we need to attack above all other systems. Matt sums up everything so well at the end of his article.
“Some day, when historians finish peeling back all the different onion-layers of this financial disaster we’re living out right now, they’re going to find at the heart of it all this social Darwinist mantra wherein a very small group of overeducated twerps agreed to believe that stealing every last dime they could get their hands on was something other than what it looks and sounds like to the rest of us. That protective delusion was the first of the many luxuries they bought with all the money they stole, and see if it isn’t the last they agree to give up. What a bunch of assholes!”
Let the punishment fit the rhyme.
(Such as, sending Jacques Chirac to Chernobyl.)
http://is.gd/4Qe7g
That was hilarious, sysprog. Thanks.
Ditto …
Some may find it a bit too, too, over-the-topknot.
“I ask rhetorically, of course, because we’ve gotten to a point where we’ve simply bet the farm on punishing our way out of every problem, and that is the new normal, as long as you’re not a Republican politician or donor.”
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In a previous incarnation, I was an ethnic Japanese born outside of Sacramento, CA. Imagine the surprise of my relatives and acquaintances that we were to be given rent-free space in concentration camps and never see our personal property again because some Democrat referred to as “FDR” thought we were a threat to the country. Maybe he was a secret Republican.
While this particular little pool of intellectual midgets and class-warfare fantasists can’t have much of an influence on the leftist struggle to reduce humans to ants in a giant hill, their ideas are instructive. Just as Goebbels and Hitler used the Jews as the source of all problems, the left uses the “rich”, and, ultimately, the free market, as the monkey wrench in the machinery of human progress. Only the direction, and coercive control, by an elite squadron of correct-thinking progressives, can save the unwashed masses from the combined conspiratorial machinations of the “rich” and their own failure to grasp the extent of their subjugation. Accordingly, the average person is helpless before the nefarious schemes of the “rich”, unable to even comprehend the power that holds him in economic slavery. And this attitude displays a concern for others? On the contrary, it shows that left regards society outside themselves as hopeless ignorami. You should be ashamed of yourselves.
I’m dealing with the present here, Tom. in which Michelle Malkin and other righties gasbags have defended Japanese internment; something of which liberals are rightfully ashamed. The fact that you defend our oligarchy so fervently, when it stifles competition, refuses to pay its share of taxes, and has purchased the government outright is simply beyond me. What’s “free market” about Halliburton? Blackwater? Goldman Sachs? Nothing. They are creatures of crony capitalism and government favoritism. How about WalMart? It destroys local business, drives manufacturing overseas, busts unions, keeps its associates in peonage, while its greedy heirs seek to eliminate the Estate Tax, because it beats working. The coal industry shears off mountains and dumps them into streams, oil exploration creates sinkholes that threaten to swallow up towns and destroyed the marshes that once protected New Orleans.
A little awareness of the world around you would make your comments more interesting, and less reliant on irrelevant ad hominems and pseudo-psychology.
“How about WalMart? It destroys local business, drives manufacturing overseas, busts unions, keeps its associates in peonage, while its greedy heirs seek to eliminate the Estate Tax, because it beats working.”
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Yeah, how about Wal-mart? No one is forced to shop or work there. But the citizen democracy votes with their billfolds and shops there from early until late while the dying Main Street stores close at 5 and charge more. If they can’t or won’t compete with the Wal-mart paradigm, they’ll disappear, as they should. Others, willing to supply what customers want when they want it, will find opportunities that Wal-mart can’t exploit. Do you seriously think that Wal-mart is some sort of retailing/merchandising endgame? That human innovation won’t discover and implement new and better ways of supplying human needs and wants? Once again, you and yours have a low opinion of the human race, which really doesn’t need your class-envy philosophy to continue to develop ways to make life better.
What utter bullshit. Because of its overwhelming size, WalMart has bullied its suppliers into offshoring jobs, it takes enormous losses to kill competition, and many of its employees must rely on food stamps and Medicaid. That’s called freeloading, in righty parlance. Its growth has already stalled, since no rational country would allow such a predator to operate there, and few cities in the US will, either. Also, do you have eyes? It’s stores are blights upon the landscape, the shopping experience within reminiscent of some communist hellhole, and unless it’s located somewhere with no other options, it flat out can’t compete.
Worse, other retailers have emulated its model, continuing the race to the bottom.
And shut up about class envy. What, in “market” terms, are the WalMart heirs worth to society? Less than nothing; a lot less. They’d be more useful working as greeters in their piece-of-shit stores.
“the shopping experience within reminiscent of some communist hellhole”
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Now we’re talking bullshit. If the commies could have supplied their citizens like Wal-mart does, maybe they wouldn’t be circling their wagons in North Korea and Cuba. And the customer isn’t moving in to Wal-mart, he’s there to buy a set of towels or some dog feed. Who wants to pay for ambiance?
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“it flat out can’t compete”
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If that’s the case, then what are you worried about?
What, in “market” terms, are the WalMart heirs worth to society? Less than nothing; a lot less. They’d be more useful working as greeters in their piece-of-shit stores.
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Now we’re getting somewhere. Apparently in CHWorld there’s a guide to “societal worth”. Who writes the guide? Who decides the merits of the life lived by anyone? Just because the innovator that founded a lucrative business decided to pass his wealth on to his children makes those children worthless? Better put a rock on the Kennedy millions, then. None of them has done anything of value since the old man delivered his last load of bootleg whiskey.
I’ll attempt to deal with both of your lame retorts in one post, as I’m just starting dinner, and I don’t want to spoil my appetite. I guess I meant to point out that communist hellholes were less annoying than Walmart; they couldn’t afford to have lighting bright enough to perform surgery under, nor did they have 300 garbage, identical products where five would do. The commies crapped out because, just like we’re doing now, they decided to devote all their national wealth to stupid imperial ventures. Here, admittedly, it’s softened somewhat by the fact that although we waste all our money on weaponry and the military industrial complex, our debt to China to pay for it all requires us to have more shitty, foreign consumer goods than they did. My patriotic heart swells. I’m not worried about Walmart personally; it has zero market penetration where I live, nor will it ever. We have better choices. Their heirs are a different story, though.
Say what you will about the Kennedys, which could just as easily be said about the Bushes, they never collaborated with our enemies and they also never devoted their lives to pulling up the ladder of prosperity behind them the way the Waltons do. they epitomized noblesse oblige, recognizing to whom much is given, much is required; lobbying for personal enrichment while refusing to work, ala Waltons, is a little different. I’m surprised you are dumb enough to make such a ridiculous comparison.
Oh, you mean this kind of “noblesse oblige”: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2325107/posts
And if “many of its employees must rely on food stamps and Medicaid” does that mean that all employers with similar wage structures (of which there are many) are similarly evil? I’ll bet the supermarket down the street from the Wal-mart doesn’t pay much better, or the local hardware store or movie theater or restaurant or any other retailer, especially in the rural centers that are the heart of the Wal-mart empire. And how is it that these employees “must rely on food stamps and Medicaid”? Nobody is required to be in either of those programs, or work at Wal-mart. At least they get the chance to buy soap at a reasonable price.
That, and lead tainted toys and shit tainted hamburger. Get some rest.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1226211/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-We-fools-think-fall-Berlin-Wall-killed-far-Left-Theyre–attacking-within.html
Wow. A cuckoo British lady who sounds just like Glenn Beck…. Defending racism, authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, and the prerogatives of the ruling class, and calling it freedom. Sheesh. You sure can pick ‘em.