Monday, September 20, 2010

Week of 09/20/2010

“Just Sayin’…”
– by David Matthews 2

I really hate it when people invent loopholes to justify saying what they really want to say.

In the South, we have a little phrase that older Southern women who are heavily religious use when they normally “aren’t supposed” to speak ill of others. Any time they want to void the rules they just add in “bless his/her heart”. As in…

“Oh, you know Mary down-the-street? Did you know she’s pregnant for the third time? She probably doesn’t even know who the father is… she spends half her time strutting around half-naked… she leaves her kids with her parents so she can sleep around with anyone she feels like. That girl is nothing but a cheap whore and an embarrassment to the neighborhood… BLESS HER LITTLE HEART!”

It’s really disgusting, because this is the same group of people that are quick to talk about “tradition” and “ethics” and “values” and then turn around and invent ways to justify their own hypocrisy, and you can’t call them out on it!

Of course being RUDE and OBNOXIOUS and pretty much being a JERK can get you big money if it is done right.

Now I don’t mean people like Howard Stern. Stern is too blatant about it. Plus he never really pretended to be anything more than an entertainer. He’s an actor, and his best character is this exaggerated version of himself that he then brings out unapologetically for a good laugh.

If you REALLY wanted to understand the magic of Howard Stern… that’s it right there. Howard Stern is an actor playing a slightly exaggerated character called “Howard Stern”.

But he doesn’t try to pretend that “Howard Stern” is REALLY him. Nor does he try to convince people that they need to be more like “Howard Stern” and that America is really full of oppressed versions of “Howard Stern”.

On the other hand, there are plenty of people who go around serving as the measuring stick and echo chamber for the rest of society. These are the people who host shows on 24 hour cable news channels, host conservative and neo-conservative talk radio programs, and write endless books which somehow make a lot of money even before they show up on the shelves or appear online. And they continually claim (and their fans will back them up on it) that THEY represent the mythical “silent majority” that was made famous by President Nixon.

One of the phrases they use to get away with being rude and obnoxious is “just sayin’.” As in “if President Obama has nothing to hide, then he shouldn’t have had a problem releasing his birth certificate… just sayin’.”

Yes, these are the same people who will tell you that they’re “not Birthers” (people who believe that Obama wasn’t born in this country) and yet at the same time acquiesce to their theories by adding the phrase “just sayin’” at the end of it. It allows them to espouse extremist ideas without being seen AS an extremist.

But… why should they be the ones to have all the fun? I think turnabout is fair play when it comes to politics. I mean let’s get brutally honest here… if politics has truly become the bloodsport of the mind, why should one side be allowed to verbally decimate others without getting so much as a scratch in return?

So here are a few social and political observations that I’m “just sayin’…” about these factions.

For instance… why is it that the same political party that supported then-Attorney General John Ashcroft when he scolded “those who scare peace-loving people with the phantoms of lost liberties” are able to then pretend to be the reincarnation of America’s Founding Fathers and bemoan about those very “lost liberties”? How is it that the “threat” is only real when they’re not in charge of the government? I’m just sayin’…

How is that “no ratings” (or “no viewers” or “no listeners”) is considered the über-insult for cable news and talk radio people when they’re supposedly not doing these things FOR the sake of ratings? I mean, I can understand the rationality that doing stuff for the sake of ratings is considered cheap, but why is it that when their OWN credibility is on the line they turn around and say they have more listeners/viewers than their critics? Since WHEN did validation become a matter of NUMBERS? You can have 99.99999% of the populace believe that the world is flat, but that doesn’t mean that it suddenly is. I’m just sayin’…

Here’s a good one… how is it that someone who RESIGNS from public office barely halfway into their first term simply so they can make a fortune doing public speaking, book deals, and regular appearances on a certain cable “news” channel be considered “more experienced” than someone who served almost a full-term before moving on to become the President of the United States? I mean, it’s one thing if you resign from one public service job to move up to another public service job, but the person in question just out-of-the-blue decided to quit simply because they were looking to make MILLIONS on media appearances. Doesn’t that make that person… I dunno… doesn’t that make that person something of a media prostitute? I’m just sayin’…

I know that one will have the conservatives and neo-conservatives in an uproar, but, hey, I’m using their own “Get Out Of Condemnation Free” immunity catchphrase, so I should be good, right? And besides, it IS the truth, as painful as it may be. I’m just sayin’…

Besides, at that time, experience was considered to be something of a detriment. So how could saying that you’re “more experienced” make you a better candidate if it was better to be seen as an actual “outsider”? I’m just sayin’…

Oh, speaking of said unnamed person, how is it that regurgitating talking points and political catchphrases and only appearing in venues that don’t question said regurgitation make one a credible leader? That’s not leadership… that’s putting on a puppet act. That makes you less of a leader and more of a stooge, or even an assembly-line product. I’m just sayin’…

Hey, speaking of talking points… how is procedural gridlock considered a plan for good governing? Isn’t that called SABOTAGE? That would have even been called ACTS OF TREASON five years ago. It’s one thing to say that you’re for less government. It’s another to do everything in your power to literally SHUT DOWN a government. That’s called INSURRECTION. I’m just sayin’…

And speaking of plans for governing, how does a five-point program where every point starts out with “We will force the President to…” called a plan of action? How is it that FORCING other people to do something be considered a personal plan of action? That’s not a plan, that’s an ULTIMATUM. I’m just sayin’…

This one is for the air-fluffed ego-driven media… how is it that you can pride yourself in JOURNALISM when you tout your greatest assets as being egotistical media personalities that engage in nothing but OPINION? There is a difference between REPORTING the news and COMMENTATING about it. It’s a line that I have to point out every day. So why advertise that your 24-hour cable NEWS channel is superior over the competition when you’re glorifying the people that have NOTHING TO DO WITH REPORTING THE NEWS? I mean, that’s like trying to sell a car for its gas mileage by talking about the plush interior. I’m just sayin’…

Speaking of 24-hour cable news channels… how is it that you can have ALL of these so-called EXPERTS from think-tanks and political action committees that are willing to show up seemingly EVERY DAY to talk about the issue of the moment, but have absolutely NO IDEA how to RESOLVE the very problems that they’re talking about? You would think that with all of these EXPERTS around that there shouldn’t be single a problem left in the country to resolve! Where do these people COME FROM? And where can I get a job doing what they’re doing? Talk about a sweet goldbrick position! I’m just sayin’…

By the way, media personalities and politicians, can you guys stop trying to pick fights with Jon Stewart over at Comedy Central? Ditto for Bill Maher. I know this is going to be hard for you to comprehend, but these guys are COMEDIANS. That means they get paid to poke fun at things! Being interviewed by Jon Stewart is not like being interviewed by Oprah or Larry King. Sure you can promote your new projects just the same, but Oprah and Larry are not there to get a laugh out of the audience. Maybe you should pay closer attention to the name of the cable channel that Jon’s show is on… it says COMEDY Central, not COMMENTARY Central. I’m just sayin’…

And finally, how about a little consistency? I mean, if you want to talk about wasted spending, fine, but don’t talk about wasted spending while you’re inserting your own blank check political earmarks. If you want to talk about law and order, don’t do it while at the same time excusing out-and-out criminal activity. If you want to talk about family values and the so-called “sanctity of marriage”, then you better make sure that your personal number of marriages is less than TWO and that you don’t have some extramarital skeletons in your closet. Oh, and if you’re quick to condemn theocracies in other nations, you better make sure that you’re not backing the same thing by piecemeal in this country.

In other words, you’re not really doing a damn thing to clean up the mess called our political system if all you’re doing is swapping one batch of corrupt hypocrites with YOUR OWN batch of corrupt hypocrites and than expect things to somehow be different. Because I’ve got news for you… we just DID that between 2006 and 2009… and things only went from bad to worse.

I’m just sayin’… bless your little hearts…

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