A long time ago there was a sweet little book, the optimistically naive title of which was “All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten” (Fulghum, 1988), which many of you will recall fondly, I’m sure. It’s a whimsical, and slightly lyrical, and an altogether homogenized and sugar-coated vision.Its charming conceit was that the rules of decorum and interaction which kindergarten–indeed, all “early childhood education”–is meant to inculcate and normalize are sufficient guidance, if applied, for successfully traversing the rest of life. Of course, it’s not true. It’s not “kindergarten” out there. We all know that.
It’s fucking middle school (or, Junior High, if you’re near my age): a cut-throat, mostly unregulated arena of vicious, pointless competition, hormonal chaos, social incompetence, and the raw struggle for power. THAT’S what you needed to learn from in school. That’s how “civilization” really works. One glance at Congress, or the bar of a well-heeled country club, or the corner pub, and you can see: Middle School NEVER ends!
Dr. Woody’s researches into cultural anthropology haven’t so far revealed whether or not there is a distaff equivalent of that most exquisitely humiliating of pre-adolescent, middle school/junior high, male domination rituals–”pantsing.” (If there is, I would like to hear more about it.) Having experienced it both as a pantser and a pantsie, I have clear memories of the experience. So it is with little hesitation that I declare the unfolding drama around St. Barry, the Pale, and the GOPhux/Teahadists to be akin to the big kids pantsing the weakling AND taking his lunch money.
Regard, if you will, ThePrez’ recent, apparently much admired fiscal planning speech. Thom Hartmann, the next day, was fuukin orgasmic with joy and admiration, and the Obamabots were delerious. FaceBook this morning was awash in congratulatory/laudatory ravings about how he’d reawakened the dream, revived hope, dispelled the baleful ghosts of Reaganomics, and on and on and on and…
I’ll grant you, from the standpoint of rhetoric (though his delivery really SUCKS!), composition, talking points, boosterism, ‘reality,’ all that, it was a pretty good address. But we forget, after the Bushevik years, that’s not really all that exceptional. He’s a pro. He “gives good speech.” You expect it, just as you expect a high-priced “escort” to “give good head.” And it was only a speech. He’s given them before, and been lauded by the peanut gallery (extra points: where was the original “peanut gallery?”), only to have the rhetoric and accoutrements amount to nothing in a stew of collapsed (non)promises. I think that must also be the case proceeding from here.
I mean: He’s been pantsed TWICE in six months by the GOPhux, once even before they had a majority in the House. In December, 2010, Shamwow renewed the Bush tax cuts to the wealthiest for two additional years, after declaring six months earlier that they would be scrapped. (When the news taht the cuts were expiring was first going around, I tried to start a pool on FB: What percent will be renewed. But everybody in my cnical circle took “100%.” There’s no money that).
Then, they stuck it to him again on the interim budget agreement, forcing him to slather the lipstick of “VICTORAY” and the mascara of “Historic Compromise” on the snarling snout of the one UGLY pig, the BIGGEST DOMESTIC SPENDING CUTS IN HISTORY. About which he actually BRAGGED? On TV, to the nation. Chuy, jodido!
So you can imagine my surprise yesterday, when St. Barry, in his fiscal plan, declared among other things his firm intention NOT to extend the Bushevik cuts any further, and to instead levee stiffer taxes on the rich. This was what was giving the O’bots the vapors this morning. But hey! Really?
How does he propose to put tax INCREASES on the richest people through a Congress that is MORE hostile to his agenda (which is really, really strange, given how much his resembles theirs) when those folks were so easily able to mobilize their pet Congresscritters to beat back his efforts last time, for which he had the backing of MORE Members.
This is vexing to me. Who believes Prez. O’Bama can accomplish this miraculous occurrence should be able at least to explain how–short of divine intervention–he plans to do it.
Extra Points Answer: In vaudeville, the cheap seats, where patrons were in range to toss peanuts in displeasure; in TeeVee, the kiddee seats on the Howdy Doody Show.W
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