The King Of Snark

“It must have cost a man as amiable as Engels a considerable conscious effort to keep up with Marx’s relentless misanthropy. We feel it in reading their correspondence. Marx had the satanic genius of the satirist: his sneers are the true expression of his nature, and for this reason they are often effective: but Engel’s sneers seem off-key. Though he can be humorous, he cannot be deadly: he simply commits faults of bad taste. Poor Engels, who had done what Marx had not: repudiated the bourgeois family–had sacrificed more by his bohemian life than it is easy today to understand.”

— Edmund Wilson in To The Finland Station

Why Act Surprised? Pelosi and Reid Are Accomplices In Bush’s War Crimes

On the revelation that Nancy Pelosi was possibly consulted about torture techniques, namely waterboarding, by the Central Intelligence Agency as early as 2002, one thing has confounded me: Would you be so surprised if she had and do you really feel baffled that she has no desire to pursue serious investigations into torture allowed under the Bush administration?

Pelosi and Harry Reid spent 2000 to 2006 cheering on the ‘War on Terror’ and giving a blank check to Bush’s wars. They then spent the election campaign of 2006 promising to end the Iraq war, halt the Bush tax cuts, and investigate torture and other Bush administration practices. So, it’s 2009, and what exactly have they exactly accomplished with 3 years of a Democrat majority? We’re still in Iraq, we’re still in Afghanistan, AIPAC still controls America’s destiny on Iran, Joe Lieberman is still a Democrat, the Patriot Act is not repealed, and Obama embraces the executive power to spy on citizens.

There’s a reason there will never be a serious and thorough investigation of Bush era war crimes: Pelosi, Reid, and a majority of the Democrats spent 8 years being de facto accomplices of some of Bush’s worst crimes. They supported the Iraq War, they supported the Patriot Act, and they supported the warrantless wiretaps. The Congressional Democrats had the power to say something and do something, and they did neither for 8 years of the worst Presidency in American history. And that’s a legacy they have no desire to bring up in the future.

See Also: Pelosi’s Favorables Plummet, Torturing for Political Purposes Is Wrong, Deep Thought of the Day, War and Piece on Pelosi, Parsing For Dummies, The Flip-Flop on the Torture Photos, Left Disappointed In Obama?, If the Harsh Interrogation Tactics Were Not Torture, What Difference Does It Make What Pelosi Knew?, Did You Know That The Senate Refused To Outlaw Waterboarding In 2006?, and GOP Backs Cheney’s Assault on Obama, Pelosi.

[tags]nancy pelosi, on torture, torture briefings, patriot act, wireless wiretapping, george bush, bush administration, 2006 elections, harry reid, democrats, congress, torture investigations, barack obama, iraq war, Afghanistan war, war on terror[/tags]

I’m thinking of moving to Red Hook, maybe getting some tie dye laces, maybe turning bi, I’ll probably be getting into the Sugar Cubes. KnowwaddaImean?

Do you ever feel…

Like you were born into an Ice Age of reason, where you are forced to agonizingly watch humanity go through a formative stage characterized by debasing belief systems, incomprehensible violence, and unscrupulous avarice and corruption?

Hit me with your best shot!

Actually, this kinda hurts [note: all of these are taken from Buffalo Beast’s 50 Most Loathsome annual lists]:

From 2004:

Crimes: You gaze idly at the carnage around you, sigh, and go calmly back to your coffee and your People magazine. You can’t stop buying useless crap, though you’re drowning in a deepening pool of debt. You think you’re an activist because you bitch all day on the internet, but you reelect the same gangsters at a 99% rate. You consider yourself informed because you waste a significant portion of your life watching the same three news stories cycle over and over again on your gargantuan, aerodynamic television set while you eat processed food. You really thought everything would be okay if Kerry won. Not only do you believe in an invisible man who magically farted out the universe, you also excoriate and marginalize those who disagree. You have a poorer understanding of your country’s foreign policy history than a third world peasant, but you can’t wait to see what Julia Roberts will be wearing at the Oscars. You cheer as Ukrainians challenge an election based on exit poll data, but keep waiting around for someone else to fix your problems. You can’t think, you can’t organize and you won’t act. This is all your fault.

Smoking Gun: You’re fat.

Punishment: You’re soaking in it.

From 2005:

You

Charges: Silently enabling and contributing to the irreversible destruction of your planet. Absolving yourself of your responsibility to do anything about it that your immediate neighbors don’t. Assuming that it’s normal behavior to spend several hours each day totally inert and staring into a cathode ray tube. Substituting antidepressants for physical motion. Caring more about the personal relationships of people you will never meet than your own. Shrugging your shoulders at the knowledge that your government is populated by criminal liars intent on fooling you into impoverished, helpless submission. Cheering this process on.

Exhibit A: You don’t even know who your congressman is.

Sentence: Deathbed realization that your entire life was an unending series of stupid mistakes and wasted opportunities, a priceless gift of potential extravagantly squandered, for which you deserve nothing but scorn or, at best, indifference, and a cold, meaningless demise.

From 2006:

16. You

Charges: Your whole life has been a pitiful exercise in rote mimicry, a meek subjugation of individuality in exchange for herd approval. Your delusions of “common sense” wisdom stem from an unwillingness to seek information and an inability to critically analyze it. You never hesitate to offer strong opinions on subjects you don’t know a damn thing about. You’re willing to believe anything a guy in a suit says on TV, as long as it doesn’t hint at your culpability in the negligent homicide of your country and planet or otherwise cloud your streak-free conscience. You’re more worried about friction on the “Desperate Housewives” set than the lack of health coverage at your tedious, soul-destroying job. You have no idea what is going on in the world, and you’re fine with that. You are why democracy doesn’t work.

Exhibit A: You’re Time magazine’s person of the year. So was Hitler.

Sentence: More of the same.

From 2007:

You

Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism — it’s nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears’ children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you’re going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase “enhanced interrogation techniques.” You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can’t spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don’t want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy’s doing well. You’re an idiot.

Exhibit A: You couldn’t get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.

Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn’t cover. You deserve it, chump.

From 2008:

You

Charges: You think it’s your patriotic duty to spend money you don’t have on crap you don’t need. You think Hillary lost because of sexism, when it’s actually because she’s just a bad liar. You think Iraq is better off now than before we invaded, and don’t understand why they’re so ungrateful. You think Tim Russert was a great journalist. You’re hopping mad about an auto industry bailout that cost a squirt of piss compared to a Wall Street heist of galactic dimensions, due to a housing crash you somehow have blamed on minorities. It took you six years to figure out what a tool Bush is, but you think Obama will make it all better. You deem it hunky dory that we conduct national policy debates via 8-second clips from “The View.” You think God zapped humans into existence a few thousand years ago, although your appendix and wisdom teeth disagree. You like watching vicious assholes insult each other on TV. You support gun rights, because firing one gives you a chubby. You cuddle falsehoods and resent enlightenment. You think the fact that 43% of whites could stomach voting for an incredibly charismatic and eloquent light-skinned black guy who was raised by white people means racism is over. You think progressive taxation is socialism. 1 in 100 of you are in jail, and you think it should be more. You are shallow, inconsiderate, afraid, brand-conscious, sedentary, and totally self-obsessed. You are American.

Exhibit A: You’re more upset by Miley Cyrus’s glamour shots than the fact that you are a grown adult who is upset about Miley Cyrus.

Sentence: Invaded and occupied by Canada; all military units busy overseas without enough fuel to get back.