I’m Sorry, What Did You Say?
John McCain, is fucking idiot, there are no two ways about it. Anyone who repeatedly refers to a nation called Czechoslovakia is a bozo and it is a masterpiece of the sheer catatonic passivity of the American press, as well as a nod to the audacity of Republican Party dialogue hijacking, that Obama is the one being doubted because of some imaginary relative weakness in areas of foreign policy.
In terms of being a weapons grade global irony whirlwind, on the other hand, the video below deliverys a valedictory masterclass from McCain. I haven’t seen many politicians manage to say anything so jaw-droppingly bald-faced and get away with it before. Perhaps the man is presidential material after all…!
[Video removed, presumably due to hilariously embarrassing content.]
“In the 21st Century, nations do not invade other nations”? You cannot be serious! I am forever being drawn back to Tom Lehrer’s comment about satire being obsolete when I hear things like this. How the fuck is it possible to mock something as dismissively vacant a statement as that. He cannot, cannot surely, be so stupid as to fail to understand the irony of what he just said, and yet he still came out with it.
It amazes me that American politics has become so incredibly partisan that this kind of thing isn’t roundly and widely mocked amongst Republicans as well as Democrats, and all this foreign policy bollocks just laughed out of the room, but it doesn’t seem to be. Just amazing, truly, truly amazing.
I think this is finally reason enough to post this song – finally we have found something ironic enough. Alanis Morrisette – Ironic[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/Ironic.mp3]
I guess these two songs will be all over blog posts discussing this particular situation, but they are so approriate I just can’t stop myself:
Willie Nelson – Georgia on My Mind
The Beatles – Back in the USSR
Well it’s simple. McCain merely believes that the 21st century began in April 2003. All the same, I really do wish Russia hadn’t invaded Georgia. A nasty business.
If the Russians aren’t stopped in Georgia, it’ll be Czechoslovakia next, and then the Habsburg Empire will fall like a domino. To say nothing of the effect it might have on commerce within the Hanseatic League.
13 seconds into that clip – immediately after the “..nations don’t invade other nations” line – there’s a moment where McCain hesitates, stutters slightly and looks to the heavens for a fraction of a second, before carrying on with the practised rhetoric.
That’s the precise moment where, in the fashion of Homer Simpson, the sensible voice inside his head slammed the door, set off down the stairs and called back “That’s it, I’m outta here.”
Why didn’t you post Devil Went Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band? What are you, some kinda commie?
What would be really cool is to hear whether anyone started packing the car and heading for the Mexican border when they heard that the Russians had just invaded Georgia.
“Goddamit Betsy Sue, go git ma shotgun and ma dawg and I’ll load the truck, those commie bastards are back again”
I remember when McCain said the US government would not be bailing out home owners but would be bailing out banks because it did not want to reward irresponsible lending. Basically blaming the housing crisis on the People.
My problem with this was that people don’t understand the global financial system. I mean bit’s of it we get, superficially but, not really. It’s tough. Really tough to understand. Which is why they hire financial planners and mortgage brokers who help them to understand and help them plan. We can trust these people because your government would not let them take your money and ruin your future to make a fast buck. After all that’s why we have laws and regulations. And who writes laws and regulations John? THE FUCKING SENATE YOU PRAT!!!!!!! You self righteous twat! Stand over rape victims and shout “Ya had it coming whore!” much John? Sorry you lost your house, but it’s because you’re a bad person, and don’t know enough about global markets and the effect of the rising debt on your flexible mortgage. Maybe spending a little more time of boring stuff like housing regulation and less time interviewing baseball player (no really, they had a committee for that) might give you the experience you need to understand the economy. You know, like Barak has.
That was when he ruled himself out for me.
I love the idea that irresponsible lending is entirely the fault of the people and not the fault of the people doing the lending. What a wonderful rhetorical achievement.
Also, McCain doesn’t refer to Czechoslovakia because he’s a bozo, he refers to it because he has been living under a rock since the mid-90s (internet, example 2). Additionally, he is old and nervous. As noted on the same clip by those who compare the blunder to referencing Bennifer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNsr2aF1XM0
To be fair, Barack Obama has referred to America has having more than 57 states.
You know, what’s really galling is to watch two men living in an economy that is really hurting the ever growing working poor and neither will accept that they, in their jobs, or the rest of the government have anything to do with it. Fucking disgusting. We critisize kids for not taking responsibility for their actions but it’s not as if they aren’t learning from the top…
How many people live in trailers in the US approximately – is it like here where there is a “traveller” community here or are they just dirt poor?
I was surprised to see a few trailer parks on the outskirts of Portland, its hardly the warmest/sunniest place during the winter months. That said, there is one outside Edinburgh so perhaps they are just less visible here.
Lots of people live in trailers, and it’s because they’re dirt poor, not because they travel. These “trailers” are up on cinder blocks; they don’t move. Unless, of course, there’s a flood or tornado or hurricane, in which case they move quite noticeably. Trailer parks are frequently built in floodplains because it’s cheap land, but of course there’s no insurance to be had when you build in such a place, so when these people lose everything, they really lose it. When I was a law student I worked for a summer in a county prosecutor’s office in a very rural part of Virginia, and pretty much every common crime committed in that county occurred in the county’s lone trailer park. A person from the trailer park would be in the office as the victim of a crime on Monday and then on Friday the same person would be back in the office in handcuffs. Depressing. But unless you happened to live in or near the trailer park, you’d have thought the county had no crime at all.
Here’s a little taste of trailer park livin’. The Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band tune Your Cousin’s On Cops. True Americana.
The trailer park thing depends on what area of the US you’re in. They aren’t strictly purposed for people who are ‘dirt poor’. Here in Arizona, the majority of trailers/trailerparks are occupied by retirees. Not necessarily because they’re poor, but more often because they can’t maintain a large property anymore, and in many cases the alternative – a condo – is far too expensive. In other cases, they function as winter homes, because Phoenix stays reasonably warm in the winter.
On the other end of the spectrum, a lot of young couples will buy a trailer/mobile/modular home because they can’t yet afford the investment in a house. My sister and brother-in-law live in a very nice mobile home, mostly due to the fact that my niece was something of an accident (a wonderful, incredibly smart and funny accident) and the additional cost prohibited purchase of an actual house. Not that a lot of poor don’t live in trailers, clearly that makes financial sense, but they aren’t the sole occupants.
The small town I live in at the moment started off primarily with trailers, then slowly built around that area and is now dominated by houses/apartments/condos (in fact, they aren’t even zoning property for trailers/mobiles any longer). I will admit that most of the drug-related crime in town now takes place in that area, but for a long time that wasn’t the case as the occupants were more diverse than they are now. Of course, the property is so expensive now that people with moderate income haven’t much choice but to live in a trailer.
On the political front, even more absurd than the incredible flubs John McCain tends to make is the fact that both candidates sat down with Rick ‘Megachurch’ Warren Saturday night to discuss religion – that whole seperation of church and state thing apparently being lost on everyone. What on earth is this to do with BEING PRESIDENT??!
Sean’s right of course about sectional differences, I shouldn’t have generalized. As for the Rick Warren “debates,” I really fear it’s just another bit of evidence that church and state won’t stay separate in this country much longer, and in fact I think there are very large segments of the society where they’ve never been separate in the first place. The reason it “matters” in U.S. politics is that much of the electorate is intellectually lazy. Too many people have a very simple-minded and disturbing tendency to confuse religiosity with ethics, and politicians cynically exploit this tendency for all it’s worth. Any politician who makes a public declaration of piety is immediately suspect in my book.
Doesn’t matter where they live, when working on minimum wage means you have to put in over 60 hours a week just to hit the poverty level, something ain’t right. Doesn’t matter if you live in trailer or your brothers basement…
I don’t hold anyone’s religious beliefs against them, but I find these public forums such as the one this passed Saturday to be utterly pointless and 110% pandering nonsense.
Funny enough, when you think in terms of who has their ‘finger on the button’, most people would probably want an Atheist in that position. The religious fella thinks God will support his righteous decision and that we’ll all end up in Heaven anyway (or Hell, depending on their specific belief system), whereas the Atheist, believing that this life is essentially all there is, would think very carefully before cremating 6 billion people. Of course, you wouldn’t want an Agnostic such as myself with his finger on the button – the world would be blowing to hell and we’d still be debating what exactly was going to happen after we pushed it!
In the end, I do understand why both of them participated. John McCain is trying to prove to those conservative Christians that he’s more Jesus-y than they think, and Obama’s still trying to convince the southern states that he’s not a Muslim.
When they were post-morteming it someone said “it was as if McCain didn’t have to think about his answers at all”. And they meant it as a compliment.
Can i just add that most “trailer parks” in Scotland are actually caravan holiday parks and somewhere to go to for a break from your castle.