Taupe Hat Systems

Look, I know a lot sucks, and I've written in some pretty strong language about that fact on this website, but seriously, look around, and what? Uh, from where I sit, things don't look that different now from what they looked like on November 3rd, or six months ago, or a year ago. Honestly, the biggest changes I can see are that the weather is getting colder (I'm supposed to welcome the onset of winter for some reason, but even now I still don't know what that is), and my daughter is getting big enough that picking her up is risking a trip to the hernia clinic.

But the really fun stuff is out there. I mean, did you not see Governor Palin's turkey pardon yesterday? That itself was worthy of a Coen brothers movie about people from somewhere remote and culturally distinctive, but then she followed it up with what in other circumstances would have been a pretty generic pre-Thanksgiving interview - "I'm thankful for this and that, I cook the turkey this year, yadda yadda..." - if it were not for the fact that she was conducting the interview in front of a guy who was slitting the throats of the turkeys who had not been pardoned in between staring surprisedly at the cameras pointed his way. Seriously, search on YouTube or whatever for "Palin turkey" and you'll see what I mean. It looks more like a Saturday Night Live skit than real life. Like, don't get me wrong - we raised animals for food when I was a kid, and I have no illusions about what it means for me to eat meat (which happens daily), but to conduct an interview in front of an abattoir is, like, wow. You can't make this stuff up.

Yes, I do in fact use the word like "that way." It's a product of the generational dialect I speak, and has a grammatical purpose. If you come from another generation or region, sorry, but not so much. Deal with it.

Anyhow, what's been seriously amusing is the circular firing squad that is the Republican Party ever since they got their asses handed to them in the election. Funny me, I thought that was the duty of Democrats. Guess not. Even better is that the far-out conservative rightists have won the leadership battle. Can you guys possibly do a more effective job of showing the world why your philosophy is morally and intellectually bankrupt? I guess we'll get to sit back and enjoy the show.

Meanwhile, President-elect Obama has done an amazing job of picking a team. I'm far from being a flag-waving member of the Hillary Clinton fan club, and would have greatly preferred to see Bill Richardson get the Secretary of State nod, and my feelings on Senator Lieberman are crystal clear if you read an earlier post of mine, but damn. It's a good mix of highly-intelligent, pragmatic people, and the complete opposite of what was happening eight years ago when Carl Rove was hand-picking his favorite toe-the-line ideologues. Well, we've seen how well that worked out, haven't we? Anyhow, it's damn good that we're seeing serious-minded adults running the show, as these have become "interesting times" in the traditional meaning of the phrase, and it's going to take hard work and a lot more smarts than you or I have to set things right.

But I digress - this stream-of-thought post was going to be about comedy. Well, here's one: watch a show with Rachael Maddow, Bill O'Reilly,and Jon Stewart, in that order (it's possible that Mr. Stewart will be your "unicorn chaser" after watching O'Reilly, particularly if you fall for the trap he's laid). Anyhow, strip away your political leanings for the purpose of doing an analysis of comedic content of each of the three shows, and see if you can really raise one of the three above the other. Probably not. Don't get me wrong, Rachael Maddow is one of my heroes and if it were not totally insulting to do so, I'd send her flowers and a heartfelt proposal, and O'Reilly's a complete asshat whose blood pressure concerns me, but damn. They're all comedians at some level. The only difference is that Jon Stewart is the most honest about it. And O'Reilly is in danger of experiencing exploding head syndrome as he apoplectically attempts to blame the fact that the US public has firmly rejected the line of Edsels he's paid to promote on anything other than the fact that his brand is a fundamental failure.

Hey Bill O'Rovvey, is it "Mission Accomplished" yet? Keep trying, though - you're doing a fantastic job in the time-honored and traditional role of muggins, and I for one am enjoying the show.

One of the fear-points bandied around by the extremists on the right, and to some extent bought into by more moderate folks, is the notion that if an Obama administration is combined with a "liberal" Congress and a "liberal" Supreme Court, then this country is doomed to fall into the pit of hardship and evil that is "socialism."

Huh. No, really, huh?

Unlike most of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy, I've actually spent some time in a country they'd describe as socialist. It was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, in fact, so it wasn't like it was kept on the down-low what was going on there.

It was an awful place. Over the years, I've described it as "an industrialized third-world country." Any kind of technology that was in the least bit modern was imported, especially in the realm of consumer goods - the best and brightest of that country had either flown off for a better life elsewhere, or were immured within one of the "new cities" near the Ural Mountains - where they managed to create some truly amazing fighter jets, for example. One of the images that sticks in my mind after all these years was that of a supposedly-fancy hotel in Kiev, with the fire-escape literally hanging off the side of the building because the bolts hadn't been anchored to anything more substantial than decorative fascia. The afternoon before, as we were departing Moscow via train, we drove past an immeasurable number of flatbed cars loaded with T-72 battle tanks all dry-humping one another so more could fit on the rail cars. It's possible that our Soviet minders put on this display deliberately (nothing like impressing 300 teenagers to help fix foreign policy from afar), but there was no doubt of the lethality and power that those machines represented.

Yes, the government was completely incompetent. I really can not begin to describe here the number of ways the controlling system of governance managed to screw things up. Suffice to say, people were extremely poor, and damn scared of their minders. There is and was a good reason that the top Soviet export product was really good vodka - the place was awash in it, and not especially out of happiness.

Having said the above, what was truly evil, awful, and insidious about the Soviet State wasn't their economic policy, but instead their iron grip over the social lives of the people who lived in that nation. Want to travel out of town? "Motherland Security Wishes You To Show Papers." Want to get married? If the People's Local Committee approves. Do you wish to travel outside the country? For why you want to leave this glorious world-leading nation? Want to know what is happening around the world? The big newspaper "Truth" (Pravda) will give you fair, balanced account of world events.

Seriously, there are far more comparisons that can be made between the worst excess of the Soviets and what the far-right types in this country want to create. The biggest difference is the names assigned to the parlor-tricks used. In the USSR, it was Party this, Party that, committee and apparatchiks. In the Republican Party, it is Christianity this, Christianity that, and deacons and pastors. But the goal is the same: total social and economic control over the masses. And given our recent history, the economic and sociopolitical outcome would be the same.

Fortunately, I think people in this country are too damn stubborn, too damn strong-willed, and too independent-minded to fall for that kind of rubbish. Fortunately, we got smart before the monsters fully pulled the wool over our eyes, but we need to stay smart, stubborn, and independent-minded, and waste no time in throwing the demagogues over the rail and dumping stale tea on them as they fall into the murky waters below.

I will say this: if I thought for a fraction of a second that a candidate for office would want to create the conditions I list above, I'd be first in line volunteering for his or her opposition. Think about it.