Tag Archives: politics

Can Comics Critics Be As Vapidly Ignorant as Political Pundits?: Live-Blogging the Presidential Address on Syria

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The live blogging is below in comments (scroll down!)

Below is my concluding response to the speech:

All right. Well, as I said, that was a naueseating and unbelievably disingenuous performance. I guess it’s foolish to think that a President planning the incredibly serious step of dropping bombs on a foreign nation would try to lay out all the facts rather than doing some television courtroom bullshit complete with pictures of dead children and lowered, whispery, “I am sincere” voice.

At a minimum, any serious speech should have acknowledged that we don’t know for sure that Assad used the chemical weapons, and pointed out specifically that there’s a ton of evidence that the rebels did in fact use such weapons a few months back. It would also acknowledge that the “moderate” resistance barely exists, and that al Qaeda and other radical groups have a really good chance of taking over if Assad falls. And it wouldn’t pretend that somehow Assad using chemical weapons means that Iran is going to make a nuclear bomb and kill us all.

Of course, without all of that, there’s basically nothing left. Which to me means we shouldn’t be dropping bombs on Syria. But obviously, the President thinks we should. Why? I still don’t know. He can’t possibly believe the nonsense he was peddling, can he? He can’t be that much of a fool. I know it’s supposed to be all about Israel, but I don’t see what Israel gains by dropping bombs on Assad for maybe using chemical weapons in the interest of maybe slightly helping al-Qaeda take over in Syria.

Maybe someone else can figure it out. I’m just baffled and depressed.

And here’s Richard Cook’s response:

In the spirit of a 15 minute speech, I’ll lay out my opposition to the war as briefly as possible.

Attacking Syria would not be legal, not even if Congress gave him authorization. As I mentioned above, international treaties regarding the use of chemical weapons do not empower any nation to unilaterally enforce them. The use of force – outside of defense – is ultimately governed by the Security Council. Of course, China and Russia would never allow the president to wage a war of choice on Syria, which is why he’s prepared to violate international law (again).

Attacking Syria would not be prudent. There is no guarantee that we would successfully destroy all of Assad’s chemical weapons. We would invite retaliation by Syria or Hezbollah. If the bombing topples the Syrian government, we have no guarantee that the so-called moderate rebels will be able to govern the country. We may very well be helping extremist groups allied with al-Qaeda.

It would not be moral to bomb Syria, especially for the reasons that the president gives. We are allegedly punishing Syria for using chemical weapons, but who are we punishing? Top regime leaders? Military leaders? Their wives and kids and anyone else who happens to be in the room when the bombs hit? What if Assad decides to continue using chemical weapons? Or, more likely what if he just goes back to killing kids with bullets and bombs? What have we accomplished, other than making ourselves feel righteous?

Thanks everyone for reading, and especially Richard for live-blogging with us here. Feel free to leave any thoughts in comments.

Meet Your Candidates, America

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This ran at Splice Today in a somewhat edited form. It’s out of date, but maybe still funny.
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Like most of my fellow citizens, I don’t know much about the Republican candidates running for President. So, what the hell, I volunteered to watch the Monday night New Hampshire debate for Splice and see what I thought of the field.

Two hours later, I had discovered, to my sorrow, that the debate was two hours long.

What did I learn about the candidates? Well, in no particular order:

Tim Pawlenty has the earnest, lean intelligence of Gilligan after being hit on the head by a coconut. He insisted repeatedly and forcefully that just because he had occasionally done mildly sane things in the past did not by any means indicate that he wasn’t as completely insane as anybody else on the stage, so help him God. Yes, he had supported the proposition that abortions should be allowed in cases where the mother had been raped by demonic ravening acid-blooded beasts from beyond the stars, but if you’ll look at his record you’ll see that he had actually passed legislation making Minnesota the state in which it was most difficult for women raped by demonic, ravening acid-blooded beasts to obtain an abortion. Which is why most industrial jobs in Minnesota are performed by salivating aliens (legal aliens, of course!) fed almost entirely on the blood of UAW workers.

Newt Gingrich carried himself remarkably well considering the fact that his entire campaign staff lined up to resign one after the other on camera during the course of the debate while a retinue of circus clowns took turns slapping him in the face with three-day old haddock. He said NASA should be defunded so that private enterprise could invent warp speed and we could ship gay people to Pluto where government could constitutionally prevent them from marrying. He also said something about billions in health care savings through not paying crooks which sure sounded like bullshit, but I wasn’t really paying attention because everyone knows already he’s going to lose.

Michelle Bachmann has personally birthed a quarter of the population of the United States, and has provided foster care to the rest. As a personal favor to all her children, she announced her official candidacy right there on the debate, causing moderator John King to almost have the decency to be embarrassed at what he’s doing with his life. Bachmann said the debate taught her about the goodness of the American people, who did not, it is true, rise up as one to beat her to death with her own smarm. Presumably though that was less because of altruism and more because most of them weren’t watching.

Mitt Romney was not able to attend, so he sent in his place a coiffed, starched penguin which screeched, “Obamacare! Obamacare! Obamacare!” every time the clowns assaulting Newt Gingrich threw it a haddock. When it was asked about sharia law being implemented in the United States, the penguin did a spit take, covering the other candidates in fish guts. This was probably the most statesmanlike moment of the debate, and almost made me proud to be an American.

Herman Cain did a live demonstration of his business acumen and ability to multi-task by making a pizza at the podium while simultaneously battling hordes of disloyal American Muslims. Later he consulted experts and, on their advice, called the moderator a meany.

Rick Santorum admitted, when pressed, that he was more authentic than Mitt Romney, less irritating than Michelle Bachmann, and more admired by his own campaign staff than Newt Gingrich. He also pledged to cut the capital gains tax to zero for all manufacturers and to recoup the revenue through exorbitant sin taxes on google searches.

Ron Paul was Ron Paul.

Hating America First

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This first ran on Splice Today
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It appears there’s a chance our Congressional representatives will decide en masse that financial apocalypse is preferable to a possible primary challenge. What this would mean exactly is unclear; I guess the first consequence would be a stock market nosedive. Longer term, presumably, it would involve a downgrading of U.S. debt, which means we’d have to live within our means, which would result in a sudden and vicious fall in our quality of life. Unemployment would skyrocket, production would grind to a halt—we’d be looking at a massive contraction of the economy that would make FDR sit up in his grave and say, “We have nothing to fear but…HOLY SHIT!”

Obviously, this would be bad, and nobody but nobody wants this to happen… not even the wind-me-up-and-I-drool-great-gobs-of-stupid animatronic joke that is Michele Bachmann. If the Dow plunges to 3000, I lose my retirement savings, my kid can’t go to college, and quite possibly my freelancing income will dry up. My wife could lose her job. We wouldn’t be able to make our mortgage payments… though maybe that wouldn’t matter so much if all the banks holding the mortgages collapsed. So we’d have a place to stay at least. But, yes, I would prefer overall to have a retirement and a job and to send my kid to college and just generally for things to continue as they are with my fairly affluent lifestyle in the Greatest Nation on Earth, thank you very much.

And yet. Affluence, Greatest-Nation-On-Earthing, strutting about the globe with my kid’s college fund and my new Prius… is it really all good? Or could there be some upside to financial apocalypse?

If the US did default, as I said, it would mean a huge drop in standards of living, definitely in America, most likely throughout the entire globe. China’s economic boom, fueled in large part by US debt, would come to a screeching halt. People everywhere would buy less and make less. Using fewer resources would be a major boon for the planet. We’re probably too far along at this point to actually do anything about curtailing global warming, but still, it’s hard to believe that the assembled frogs, whales, and plant life wouldn’t appreciate a reduction in emissions, plastic crap, and deforestation. If humans regress to the Stone Age, the only things on the planet that’ll really be upset are humans and, possibly, stones. (Okay, Siamese cats and little lap dogs too. But that’s it.)

The other major benefit of the U.S. buying less of everything is that it would mean, logically, that the US would buy fewer guns. In 2010, the U.S. accounted for 43 percent of the world’s defense spending. It’s a familiar statistic, but its consequences remain staggering. Because of that vast outlay—because, in short, our standard of living is so high that we can’t figure out what to do with our money—we are currently fighting at least three wars, and have troops everywhere on the globe, from Germany to Korea to god knows where else. If a Muslim terrorist shakes hands with a drug dealer in the wilds of Northwest Upper Slabovia, we have the will and the excess capacity to bomb a wedding party somewhere nearby. If a client state defies us by egregiously oppressing its neighbors, we can speak to them sternly and, with a grave shake of the head, send them only twice as many missiles as they asked for.

It’s almost certainly true that the world would be less peaceful if America wasn’t playing global policeman. And, of course, if our standard of living goes down, everybody else’s will too. Still, despite all the good we do outside of bombing wedding parties and arming oppressors, there must be a moment or two when folks in the rest of the world look over at us, sitting on our nuclear stockpiles, and wonder, if only for an instant, how things might be different if we had something to worry us other than our neighbor’s business.

The U.S. isn’t going to collapse because of this debt ceiling nonsense. If we did, it would be bad for me, you, and the vast majority of people on earth. Getting punched in the face would hurt. But that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be punched in the face.