Ok. I have a bunch of shit running through my mind as usual. I don’t feel like separating it into separate entries, so I’m just going to mash them all into one. Let’s start with Meghan McCain. Apparently, she is fashioning herself to following in the footsteps of her father, though she claims she will never run for office. A tip of advice, Meghan, honey. Never is a long time when you are twenty-four years old.
Anyhoo, Meghan decided to call out Ann Coulter for being the ugly side of Republican politics. This is pretty interesting considering that Papa McCain dove happily into that particular mud during the last campaign, but I’m being unfair. I mean, I shouldn’t lump Meghan in with her daddy, except, she wouldn’t be getting the kind of attention she is right now if she wasn’t John McCain’s daughter.
Meghan was on Rachel’s show last night. Because I watch the show on-line, I usually see it the day after it airs. I didn’t really give a fuck about Meghan McCain, but I was curious to see from what angle Rachel would approach the interview. It turns out that Rachel follows Meghan’s twitters and–I’m sorry, I pretty much lost interest after that.
See, here is my problem. First of all, Meghan talked about how she’ll tell you her life story in the bathroom of an airport or restaurant or something (which, given the trouble the men of her party have gotten into while visiting public bathrooms, she may want to rethink) because everybody wants to know what it’s like to be John McCain’s daughter and because she’s interested in other people’s life stories. Putting the latter aside because I doubt it but don’t want to dissect why I doubt it, let me focus on the former.
This is the fucking problem with Twitter and all the tech shit. There is no sense of privacy any more. I am not going to rail about the tech stuff in specific because I would be a massive hypocrite if I did, but really, I don’t give a shit when Meghan McCain talks to her parents. I don’t give a shit if her mom twitters. Wait, yes, I do. If Cindy McCain would actually twit about something real, I would be interested to read that. She says she’s seen SO much, which I’m sure she has because of her dad’s campaigning, but so what? That doesn’t make her thinking on what’s wrong with the Republican Party any more (or, to be fair, less) valid than if she were, say, Bill Kristol. Ok. Wrong example. The point is, she was so self-absorbed while discussing gravely why she has some deep insight into what’s wrong with the party. Someone who takes herself THAT seriously is someone I tend not to take seriously at all.
She also says that she has many extremely liberal friends and many extremely conservative friends and that they all get along just fine. It must be a generation thing, Rachel concluded. First of all, that’s bullshit. That’s like saying, “Some of my best friends are gay.” If she really has friends who are wildly liberal and friends who are wildly conservative, they would not get along ‘just fine’, believe you me. I am pretty damn liberal, though not wildly (at least not in my mind), and there is no way in hell I would be friends with a, say, David Brooks, let alone Rush Limbaugh.
The bottom line with Meghan McCain–I don’t give a fuck if her daddy is a senator. That doesn’t mean she has anything worthy to say. However, I would pick her over Ann Coulter any day. That’s not saying much as I think I would even choose Rush over Ann Coulter any day. Scary.
Moving on. There is a segment of the Rightwingnutters who are threatening to ‘go Galt’. Apparently, they are taking a fictional character from a fictional book (Atlas Shrugs), misinterpreting the whole damn point of the book, and threatening to do something they will never do. It’s all teh rage at the lefty blogs to diss the movement (which is ridiculously easy to do). Clink on any of the political blogs in my blogroll, and you probably will see an entry on these asses. The best, though, is Hilzoy over at Washington Monthly. Just find the entry entitled, Going John Galt: The Video! to read it, but I will sum it up. The Going Galters make over $250,000, or are deluded into thinking they might at some point. Because of Obama’s repeal of W.’s tax cuts, their taxes on anything they make over $250,000 is going to go up by a little over three percent. I am bolding that part because most of these idiots believe that the increased rate applies to all their income once they pass the magical threshhold. So, some are threatening to not make more that $250,000 so they won’t have to pay taxes on the extra. Others are threatening to take away their productivity and let the rest of us suffer. Others are merely writing about going Galt without, you know, actually doing it.
Gee, I remember that after W. was elected in 2004, some liberals threatened to leave the country (me included). The right howled at us when we didn’t (and rightly so), mercily mocking our indignation. So, now that the tide has turned, I say the same to them. If you are going to go Galt, just do it already and shut the fuck up!
The thing is, in the book, the ones going Galt were actual producers and creators of goods (so I gather. I’ve never read it, and just the snippet that Hilzoy reproduced made my eyes cross)–not people who work in a fictitious realm like hedge fund managing. Some of these yahoos even dared to say that they were outraged that the money taken from them would be given to people who were less productive than they had been. Well, yeah, if you’re basing it on pure income. Based on products, however, and the ‘losers’ (as Rick Santelli so infamously called them) kick your ass from here to Mars and back again.
These people are a joke if they think they are indispensible. If a dentist cuts back on her practice, another will take her place. If a Wall Street CEO decides to quit his job–hahahahhahaha!–there are a dozen others more than willing to take his place (and it’s most likely a ‘his’). Let them all go to an island to be selfish in one place and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
Finally, this is for the well-heeled Dems out there who talk about ‘cutting back’ in terms of not taking the overseas family vacation–fuck you, too. I was listening to NPR today, and there was this columnist from Washinton DC, and she was talking in hushed tones how her friends were ‘cutting back’. They weren’t losing jobs or anything like that, but they were cutting back because they see their 401k plans plunging. I thought she would talk about getting rid of cable or going to the Salvation Army to buy clothes or something like that. Yeah, right.
She said, and I paraphrase, “The first thing they do is start cutting coupons. Whereas they might have walked into Whole Foods and just bought whatever was on their list, now they may go to three stores, or forgo those $7 organic strawberries this time if they don’t have a coupon for it.” She then added in a hushed tone, “They won’t take that overseas family vacation they had planned–not this year.”
As someone who could take an overseas trip to Taiwan to see family if she should so choose AND someone who buys organic strawberries (though not at seven bucks a pop), let me say this as succinctly as I can–FUCK YOU. You are the reason Democrats have an image of the latte-drinking, hybrid-driving effete elites. This fucking woman was serious when she talked about the ‘sacrifices’ her friends were making. Her conclusion was that while the vacation definitely was going to be taken next year or the year after, her friends won’t ever overspend the way they once did.
Seriously? This is the shit on NPR? No wonder I vastly prefer MPR! I wanted to reach through my radio and strangle the bitch–not a good thing as I was driving on the freeway at the time. Oh, poor fucking your friends who have to DRIVE to THREE different CO-OPS to buy their food…with COUPONS! I would bet dollars to donuts that this woman and her friend consider themselves ‘middle class’ as well. Maybe upper middle class, but definitely not rich.
I have one other thing to say to you–please ‘go Galt’ with the rightwingnutters: I won’t miss either of you.
And because I need to remember a more joyous political time, I give to you, Yes We Can by will.i.am.
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