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Steven Weber

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Money

Posted: 02/14/2012 11:29 am

"Money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money money" -- Kander and Ebb (Cabaret)

You'd think it's all about money, wouldn't ya? But you'd be wrong.

It's the facts, stupid!
It's the substance, stupid!
It's the truth, stupid!

Despite the rapid rise of Der Super Pacs, the 24/7 spew from the pundit putzery and the thoroughly bored billionaire Geppettos making their pinheaded Pinocchios dance long after the music has died, will the infusion of all that money really --REALLY-- distract the awakening public from the increasingly outrageous and desperate shenanigans emanating from the right-wing corporate GOPhuckyourselves?

After years of failed trickle-down approach to everything from economics to morality, the right's previously proven pudding has besmirched everyone's bibs, laps and plastic covered couches to the point where even true believers are getting sick of the mess.

But don't tell the money gushers that.

Oh, everyone knows they hate the masses and look upon them as easily swayed chattel. And hell, that's proven to be the case. There are and will always be slavishly compliant folks who trust the obscenely monied regardless of the mayhem they sometimes wreak.

But one cannot handle toxic materials for long without it leeching into their own marrow and they are now feeling the effects. Their actions belie their boasts as they leap-frog from one faux issue to the next, down roads we've all been before. It's as if they have become so distanced from the reality their decade of disastrous dominance has created, they can't even remember history: even slaves revolt; that despite dumbing down the public, making them dependent on planned obsolescence, wresting humility, mercy and common sense from them through relentless distraction and fear, they are glassy-eyed with their latest hoarding of wealth, like cartoon Croesuses, and can't feel the rumblings beneath their feet. Or, they're just ignoring them.

A day doesn't pass when someone from the organized right (let alone the anonymous individual cyber-berserkers) says or does something so patently offensive that it's a miracle any real conservative still in possession of sanity and sense -- and they are out there! -- doesn't just move to another country altogether. The right-wing characteristic of unflinching fealty no longer serves the party or the country and the tragic results are clearly to be seen. There simply is no amount of expensive lipstick that will pretty up that pig of a corrupted ideology anymore.

Money does make the world go 'round. But without a country full of healthy, educated, secure, united, hopeful people to make it, save it and spend it wisely, then really, what the hell good is it?

 

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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Anna Nicole Dahmer
Lie like that & you won't go to heaven
04:37 PM on 02/21/2012
Steven Weber, you're "The Bomb"
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Greg Mirsky
Riga dimd, Riga dimd, Kas to Rigu dimdinaj?
12:38 PM on 02/17/2012
All political extremism, right or left, ends in xenophobic ditch. Prof.Dershowitz right on the money in http://dailycaller.com/2012/02/15/dershowitz-media-matters-center-for-american-progress-the-david-duke-of-the-extreme-left/
12:30 PM on 02/17/2012
More people need to understand the concept of "faux issue", but I fear the people who need it the most won't be reading your article. Instead, they're thoroughly enjoying the pissed-off mania their chosen GOP candidate instills in them every time they open their mouths, with the hope that they are creating some mob-mentality that will somehow give them a leg up in an otherwise hopeless election. And, thanks to the power of the great faux issue, the ruse works, and the dance is all the more stupid.
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triplettam
Mind Bender
10:44 PM on 02/16/2012
btw: Loved you on "Hot in Cleveland." Looking forward to next week.
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The Smartest Monkees
Planet of the Apes? We're on it, baby!
06:42 AM on 02/17/2012
Got Joe at the Albert. Fantastic! :-)
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triplettam
Mind Bender
07:27 AM on 02/17/2012
: )))))).
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AndKoolaidForAll
The nature of OUR Universe is 'change'
09:31 PM on 02/15/2012
"...they can't even remember history"

I've long contended whether in politics or religion, Steven, 'they' (the far right) deny so many simple facts when it suits them, and alter so much of their own reality when it offends them, the ability to recognize hypocrisy in themselves or others often seems lost. Either that - or more folks than can logically be imagined are consummate practiced liars without conscience. (Any other kind would obviously lose sleep.) Unfortunately, there's also just as likely a large number that have eventually realized they've been sold a bill of goods by the greedy, but would rather continue on a path of convenient self-deception than admit the many hours 'they' wasted listening to limbaugh or beck.

It seems a bit generous and forgiving of their careless driving perhaps, for the Meastro of 'wise-ass'. But then, my old self could also have drawn unflattering connections - concerning belief in make-believe vs. reality and the clinical definition of 'psychosis' (but I chose not to?).

Oh yeah, here's to cutting off one's pseudonym to spite unemployment; er ...or something like that.
AKA - NoFactsJustTruth
This user has chosen to opt out of the Badges program
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Milash
It says I should edit my micro-bio, so I did.
11:54 AM on 02/15/2012
Excellent post, though it needs more Sansabelt.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
SirReal1
10:53 AM on 02/15/2012
Steven, The only thing that could possibly be added to the wonderful imagery of your words would be an illustration by the great Victor Juhasz.

Every time I read a line like "thoroughly bored billionaire Geppettos making their pinheaded Pinocchios dance long after the music has died", or, "the money gushers", my mind immediately imagines the wonderful images those words might inspire from him.

On a side note, I just have to share a great quote from a discourse I had on one of the other stories on AOLPost this past week.

The back-story is; while debating the potential pitfalls and merits of the Occupy Movement, an opponent of the movement was trying to propose that "unlike the Civil Rights Movement" which he argued had a "specific goal and agenda" right from the start (which he cited as the Rosa Parks incident), the Occupy Movement lacked any specific goals or agenda, and was simply a "disorganized mob".

In rebuttal, I noted that his knowledge of the history of the Civil Rights Movement was horribly flawed, citing specific events that predated Ms. Parks protest, and the many events that led up to her historic stand and the resultant protests that coalesced around it.

To which he replied with one of the all time great Right Wing retorts I've ever seen:

"your continual insistence on bringing in non-essent­ial facts. . .on a message board is laughable."

FACTS? We don't need no stinking FACTS!

Gotta love it!
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The Smartest Monkees
Planet of the Apes? We're on it, baby!
07:13 AM on 02/16/2012
I do love it, SirReal1!

Facts? They are so annoying sometimes. ;-)
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Anna Nicole Dahmer
Lie like that & you won't go to heaven
07:33 PM on 02/17/2012
♥
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Anna Nicole Dahmer
Lie like that & you won't go to heaven
09:33 AM on 02/15/2012
"It's the facts, stupid!
It's the substance, stupid!
It's the truth, stupid!"

i watch fox & friends every morning with my cheerios.

It"s just the stupid, stupid!
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The Smartest Monkees
Planet of the Apes? We're on it, baby!
04:32 AM on 02/20/2012
Hey, Anna! I've been working my way through your blog. What a trip this Keller guy is! Loved watching Joe Redner tearing into him, calling him a coward, lol!!!

And Joe offered a comment similar to one that I've used for years answering these religious zealots, when he talked about how he would never burn his own children in H. Especially only for the "sin" of rejection.

I tell 'em that I can think of very few people I would sentence to an eternity in fire, so I refuse to believe in a God less merciful and forgiving than I am. Drives 'em crazy, lol!!!

Oh, and that HAIR!!! How could he believe in an omnipotent being, who would "bless" him with such a ridiculous mop? :-)
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Anna Nicole Dahmer
Lie like that & you won't go to heaven
08:34 AM on 02/20/2012
i emailed keller once and asked why he dyed his hair blond and he replied, "god told me to".

yes, a cruel god indeed, lol.

anyway, keller is reduced to begging on youtube, so i say, job well done.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Anna Nicole Dahmer
Lie like that & you won't go to heaven
07:37 PM on 02/20/2012
speaking of money

"***FEBRUARY FINANCIAL UPDATE: With just 9 days left in the month, we still need to bring in $37,000 to cover our basic monthly operational costs. I am asking you to take a second and seek the Lord what HE is calling you to do to help me this month. For some, it may be a gift of $5, others $50, others $100, and still others $1,000 or more. The Bible teaches to give according to your ability to give. All I ask is that you pray, and be obedient to give as the Lord purposes in your heart. Thank you for your prayers and sacrifce as we bring HIS Truth and salvation through faith in Jesus to the lost and hurting masses." -bill keller liveprayer

so very sad, lol.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
ennis438
08:37 AM on 02/15/2012
How true. As long as this trickle down garbage is the philosophy of this right wing loonie tune GOP, then none of them should hold elective office anywhere.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Denis Higgins
02:44 AM on 02/15/2012
Their obstructionism has become somewhat of a deconstructionism of the conservative ideology.
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FireDog
Peace lovin, Tree huggin, Progressive Lib
01:14 AM on 02/15/2012
Yes, it is as if they have their hands cuffed over their ears, intentionally not listening to the people they represent and at the same time murmuring "money, money, money", over and over again. Things have gotten so outrageous that they may as well do the above because it will accomplish the very same thing and will have the same outcome.

The only thing is that even the stupidest of Americans may be starting to see how ridiculous and desperate they are and so maybe voters will start to open their eyes and finally see these corporate hoes for what they are.
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The Smartest Monkees
Planet of the Apes? We're on it, baby!
11:51 PM on 02/14/2012
"Money does make the world go 'round. But without a country full of healthy, educated, secure, united, hopeful people to make it, save it and spend it wisely, then really, what the hell good is it?"

Thank you, Steven.

I'm encouraged by the situation in Wisconsin, where all the corporate money pouring in to help the corrupt Governor there keep his job, seems to be for not. Over one million Wisconsinites said it's time for him to go, and the recall was and is totally grass roots.

For all the money Romney poured into Florida, all he could muster was 8% of the vote from a republican base in which half those registered stayed home. And it's the same in all the other primary states so far. Your "expensive lipstick" analogy is quite right.

And now the Pubs are attacking women's rights and birth control????? They just infuriated the biggest voting block in the nation! Hades hath no fury like a woman having her contraception denied by some condescending GOP politician. Try buying your way out of THAT ludicrous campaign-year foul-up, Republicans.
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The Smartest Monkees
Planet of the Apes? We're on it, baby!
07:44 AM on 02/16/2012
"Women's rights and birth control are not being attacked TSM,"

".... freedom of religion is being attacked by your socialist buddy in chief. "

That's "comrade in chief," to you, Kams. ;-)

We "socialists/communists" are very sensitive to what labels you Tea Baggers attempt to place on us, as we try to wrest this nation back from the corporations to the PEOPLE the Founding Fathers actually intended it to belong to.

Returning it to the people, who deserve compensation for all they have contributed to this nation's greatness.

The only place you'll find religion in this dynamic, is in the corporate Republican Right's misuse of it's followers in order to fulfill their greedy agendas.

You can always change your mind, Kams. But first you must free it.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Anna Nicole Dahmer
Lie like that & you won't go to heaven
08:26 AM on 02/16/2012
oh, lol Monkee.

those poor christians, always so persecuted. boo hoo.
well, i didn't get the luxury of reading kams comment, but i have a response ot her anyway.

Matthew 5:10-12

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven...."

so Kams, the sooner you get to heaven, the better, (for all of us)
LOL.
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freedom is right
Just tired of all the liberal bias and hypocrisy
04:30 PM on 02/16/2012
You are a little off.. the Founding Fathers' goal was to protect FREEDOMS. Protect us from GOVT. oppression and govt. violations of our rights. My mind is free TSM.. yours is being manipulated mercilessly by an aggressive liberal "progressive" movement headed by people who are soooooo CONFUSED about what this country needs. The right desire for us to remain the best country in the world but the liberal left strangely think that bringing us down is the "answer".. the question is.. the answer to what?? That's when it gets scary.
Berettasskeeter
For what we are about to receive, may we be truly
02:50 PM on 02/18/2012
What Rights of women are being attacked by Republicans?
Semper fi
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freedom is right
Just tired of all the liberal bias and hypocrisy
09:12 PM on 02/18/2012
Hi Berettasskeeter.. good luck getting a response to that.. I've asked over and over and still haven't gotten any specifics.. just insults.
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
OneInEveryFamily
10:30 PM on 02/14/2012
Looks like the faux issue of the day is outrage with Obama's proposed budget. Reminds me of last year. They all know how the budget process works. They know that they all work within the CBO guiselines and they all know that their constituents are such a bunch of idiots that they can pull a fast one on them. The spending preferences may differ but the GOP would have budgets at the same size as Obama's if hey held the White House

History lesson time.

2/14/2011, Obama proposed a fiscal 2012 budget of 3.73 Trillion.
GOP says no way.
Everyone proceeded without a budget and they passed 3 spending authorization bills that effectively are the budget.

The result: Spending for 2012 is 3.78 Trillion. (50 Billion more than Obama's request)
Most of the people in Red States cant add big numbers. That is the GOP's political cover.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
antmousie
08:34 PM on 02/14/2012
As always, love it. As for a real conservative still in possession of sanity and sense, I like David Frum. I disagree with him on almost everything philosophically, but he's not an unpleasant, name calling, mindless talking point repeating, unable to think for himself, hater.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Katherine Schock
Over the hill,liberal,organic gardener
06:40 PM on 02/14/2012
Steven, you are the master of words and their placements! As always, terrific post!