Message from the Chair

This will be my first of several messages written from an infusion chair in my rheumatologist’s office. As I sit here during another four-hour session, with an I.V. of mouse DNA dripping into my arm, forced to contemplate my own mortality, I cannot help but think about what an idiot I have been, to let myself get so continually upset about the recent political goings-on in my country.

It’s not that I just sit around griping. Okay, I am sitting now, but usually I am out and about trying to help. I have always tried to help. I was a public defender for 23 years. Right now, I am volunteering for the Obama campaign from day to day, to the extent that I am able. I have always believed that each individual should properly both understand the bases as well as own the results of their own decisions. Too many of us abdicate, to avoid those responsibilities. Too many of us opt out completely or at most, pull the lever without bothering to vet the flood of offal that swept us into the voting booth. 2012 has already kept its promise to be a banner year for offal, thanks to a couple of buddies of the Koch Brothers on the U.S. Supreme Court. But now I digress.

I pay attention. A lot of attention. Too much attention. And so, when someone I know (or usually someone I don’t) opines, based upon nothing but fear-n-smear, poppycock propaganda, I feel an immediate and uncontrollable need to set them straight about the latest “big lie.” How stupid is that? And how useless.

I already know that most people simply cannot tolerate the discomfort of learning that their long-held beliefs are based upon absolute crap, and that most also take issue with me pointing this out to them for some reason. And that bothers me too.

But the fact that I cannot sit idly by while someone, anyone, takes a ritualized, steaming, dog-poop-bath in ignorance, says more about my own psychological state, than that of my mentally-challenged target. No, the country will not blow up overnight, if the over-privileged, amoral, vulture capitalist is elected. America has been in a steady nosedive since we elected Bonzo in 1980. That was when the corporations started jumping ship and the rest of us quit paying attention. By my accounting, if the insane win and start running the asylum, a Hunger Games scenario will not develop for at least another 20 years. We have all kinds of time.

Even if enough of us start paying attention, and the good guys win this election, the bad guys still have already wired things in Washington to go to s#!t by the end of the year in what can only be characterized as a congressionally engineered economic apocalypse. The Tea/GOP has set several fiscal time-bombs to explode at about the same time as the lame duck session convenes. And can you imagine the spirit of cooperation between the parties once all those injured fowl are armed with one-way tickets to a gig at Fox News/MSNBC? The fact that this will happen and that I can’t help stressing over it is yet another part of my pathological penchant for paying too much attention. Why do I have to know this crap and feel crappy no matter who wins the election? Not fair. Not fair at all. And I digress again.

Of course, I have legitimate, personal, practical reasons to worry about who wins the next election which are directly related to my present incarceration in this infusion chair. If the bad guys win, my health insurance gets canceled and the war between my overactive immune system and the rest of me results in my untimely demise. Okay, we all gotta go sometime, but, in a glass-half-empty state of mind, instead of feeling good about my contribution to capping the current population explosion, I’m worried about pushing daisies before I can meet my grandchildren. Some may view this angst as neurotic and selfish. I don’t know that I agree.

And so, I get my panties in a bunch and start ranting about the whole GOP/corporate-elite-SOB- hegemony thingy again and perpetuate the vicious cycle. Those bastards act like the greedy amoral sociopaths they were raised to be, and then I take it personally when other people defend the SOBs (like being a sociopath is a good thing) and smile through the tears as they are being screwed sideways with a wire brush by said SOBs.   

Practically speaking, for me it is really quite simple. If the bad guys take this one, I and 40 or 50 million other Americans get kicked to the curb to croak. And before we can croak with dignity, our pensions will be cut, and our taxes will increase, and our government services (into which we have been paying since we were teenagers) will be reduced to a tattered not-so-safety net with a rip down the middle, just big enough for me and the rest of the middle class to fall through and hit the asphalt at top speed. And there is so little that I or any one person alone can do to reduce the road-rash those bastards intend to inflict on the same folks that bought their stuff and/or their promises and made them rich. Makes a fella feel kinda helpless. So I volunteer. It helps me to feel not so helpless.

It is hard for this worry wart to just fuggedaboudit and get on with things, knowing what a personal stake I have in what happens in the next six months. Serenity simply refuses to course through my veins. I asked the Doctor to slip some in my drip, but he just laughed.

J. Brandeis Sperandeo

Voter’s Guide to Picking the Next President

The paid political-media wise guys have already started to analyze the $1 billion in rapidly metastasizing super-pac-attack-ads and are preparing to offer their own dubious pearls of highly distilled yet sagacious, poignant, pundifferous, prognostications to promote the proverbial parting of wheat from chaff after each and every barrage of  bumper-sticker, bromides by which we are beleaguered between ball games, ballroom bossa novas, barfing bulimic bimbos, boxing bouts, and box office blockbusters on the boob tube.

That I am offering my suspect services free of charge should only partially exonerate me, in that, and by way of disclaimer, not only am I a firm supporter of the current President, but I am also a volunteer on his campaign. Feel free to bring as many grains of salt into this short(ish) read as you see fit.

Nevertheless, the sole aim of my piece is to simply put you in touch with your own self interests so you can vote to protect them, unless of course, you are a complete idiot. If you are actually reading this, I am banking on the premise that, either you are not an idiot, or if an idiot, not such a blithering specimen so as to happily jump the cliff with other idiots who vote based upon what some big shot idiot with good hair tells them.

If you hail from the rabid fringes of either the far-left or the far-right (and are therefore irrelevant in this election), please stop now and get on another blog, or go read the National Enquirer. Alien Siamese Batboy Is Snookie’s Spirit Baby Daddy.

I should also add that I have been known to be wrong before, but this admission alone should tell you that I am not afraid to stray from the cardinal rule of punditry, which is that the pundit is never wrong.

Okay. As much fun as I have been having thus far, you may have not been, so let’s get to heart of the matter, with the simplest example first: if you are a white, heterosexual male, earning at least $250K or more, and expect your yearly income to rise even further, then Governor Romney is your man.

Since you have been entrepreneurial enough to squeeze yourself into this very small demographic, your self interests would be much better served with a candidate who has promised to slash unfair taxes even more for corporations and the wealthy, discard all burdensome banking/hedge-fund investment rules and laws preventing/punishing corporate crime, both foreign and domestic, roll back obnoxious employee health and safety regulations, and abrogate all wimpy, whiny, tree-hugging emission standards for the air, water, and soil. Wadda bunch of job-killers! Go, Romney!

Still, you might want to first check your company’s latest prospectus to make sure that your stock options have not taken a recent nose dive, or that management has not turned over the reins to Bain Capital for any mergers, acquisitions, restructuring, recapitalizing, off-shoring, outsourcing, downsizing, or any of those other businessy terms that mean you may soon join the ranks of the unemployed.

You also probably want to make sure you locate at least one of your abodes an appropriate distance from any drilling, fracking, logging, mining, refining, factory, military base, wastewater treatment facility, and/or large farm or ranch. Make sure that the payments on your private security service are up to date and that your HOA custodians are all properly, uh, equipped for their duties. Emergency shelters, escape tunnels, armored SUVs, and even man-made private islands are the smart bet for the discerning exec who has already exhausted the offerings at Tiffany.com.

Merely wanting to make a bunch of money or simply idolizing the class containing those who do, though admirable, does not necessarily make Governor Romney a good fit for you. For instance, if you are currently paying off college loans, raising kids (without the au pair) and taking a child tax credit, or making use of ANY kind of state or federal subsidy or program, go ahead and feel really guilty about doing so if you must, but voting to cut off your nose to spite your face can be interpreted as acting in your own self interests, only if your low self esteem necessitates constant, gratuitous self-flagellation.

Falling on the sword so millionaires can beef up their trust funds doesn’t make you a hero; it just makes you a chump. Tens of millions of other working families in the U.S. are in the same boat. You are not a freeloader, yet you will be regarded as such under a GOP-dominated government.

And remember, the coolest part of being in a club is being able to exclude others, right guys? KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS YOU!! Wealthy guys don’t want you to be wealthier. Fancy cars, mansions, private golf courses, gated communities, summer homes, exotic vacations, hidden assets, and trophy wives are what wealthy white men need to feel that they are somehow so special that they will not drop dead like the rest of us common folk. Just think about how many times you have seen the word exclusive in an ad for something that you will never be able to afford unless you rob a bank. Get it now?

Okay, I am already running long and am therefore violating yet another rule of punditry, so I will just make a short list of some of those folks in demographics that would be complete idiots to vote for Governor Romney or any other Republican candidate, at least until the insane stop running the asylum in that party:

1.Older/retired people: think Medicare coupons, Medicaid block grants, Social Security lite, slashed state and private pensions; think about all the sacrifice you shared already and get ready to share some more.

2.Young adults: think minimum wage (until they get rid of it), college loans (big ones), the job market (in China), home ownership (not by you), at-will-contract-labor (okay, that’s you), and the total demise of the American dream (unless you happen to live in Mumbai).

3. Women: think wall-to-wall glass ceilings, $.77/1.00, vaginal probes, contraception for males only, and get ready to be forced to have rape-babies by psychopaths hopped-up on insurance-covered Viagra and testosterone, because the GOP said that the pastor said that Jesus said the spawn of rape is a gift from God.

4. Racial/ethnic minorities: think about 1 out of 4 black males doing jail-time, papers please treatment for all brown citizens (and any Muslimy-looking people), and laws in every state intentionally designed by Romney’s current immigration advisor to keep America white. But hey, Marco Rubio may be the GOP-VP!

5. Working class/middle class: see #s 1-4, plus more frozen pay, pay cuts, speed-up-effect, unhealthy working conditions, downsizing, outsourcing, 401K toilet paper, social insecurity, government assistance programs gone. Unions-bad! Benefits-bad! State/federal jobs-bad! At-will contract piecework-good! The rich will have a green light from Mitt and Co. to keep even more wealth but will trickle down their share of shared sacrifice to you and the retired folks.

6. Immigrants: see #s 1-7, but especially #4. I believe reality show participants to be the only true aliens on this planet, so perhaps they should join this demographic. That way, terrestrial immigrants and selected citizens can have a good laugh about those inane, low-life, morons with no self respect before they are systematically rounded up by the new GOP Department of Ethnic Cleansing, caged, and “self-deported.”

7. Poor/homeless: be prepared for the “you indolent leeches” treatment to be the standard. What safety net? Loitering laws strictly enforced. The Moon, maybe? Better check with Newt first. See also #s 8 & 9.

8. Military/vets: see #s 2-7 on steroids. After the GOP thanks you for your service, what is left of your GI benefits will get you no job and $80K in debt after a degree in Video Gameology from a GOP-owned, private, for-profit “university”…and more ribbon magnets.

9. Mentally or physically challenged: see #s 7 & 8. God help you if you don’t have a $100 million trust fund like Mitt’s kids.

10. Religious minorities: as long as you are a fundamentalist Christian, you’ll be okay. Might I suggest a portable dashboard Jesus, in case of traffic stops? Consider changing at least your middle name from Jihad or Ali, to Wayne, or Lee, or some other Confederate war hero.

11. GLBTQ: Just get the hell back in the closet and shut up, and you’ll be fine until the GOP passes a law declaring that yours is no longer a protected class of citizens under the U.S. Constitution. To the GOP, it’s a choice; an evil, un-Godly choice, but you will be able to choose between many for-profit rehab centers that, for a fee, will “pray,”  “beat,” or even “rape your gay away.”

12. Artists/writers/intellectuals: find a GLBTQ friend and share the closet. Right wing, political propagandists are excluded from this demographic. Think 1984 vanilla with a little 1939 Germany sprinkled on top.

Those of you in demographics #1-12, please also be advised that 22 states (in the U.S., not Iran) currently have GOP-dominated state legislatures which have worked tirelessly on passing legislation written by the Koch brothers and designed to prevent millions of you citizens from voting at all. Just imagine what new ideas they will come up with, if they take the next election. Seriously.


J. Brandeis Sperandeo