Alright, you know each other. Now here are the rules:
No hitting below the belt. The reason for this is that you will neither be happy nor particularly disposed toward being at all communicative on any level, let alone a civil one. And let's not mention the severely diminished desire for any future romantic encounters. After a devastatingly effective blow to the yarbles, the fight, as they say, will be ovuh.
No eye gouging. The eyes (as the inventor of Windex has said repeatedly) are the windows to the soul. So, jabbed fingers, flung muck, and endlessly broadcast salaciousness containing little or no factual information or intellectual nutrition will not be tolerated. Unless, of course, no one has any concept of the consequences of such behavior and decides to place profit above people.
No kidney punching. That is, unless you don't mind paying unscrupulous and unregulated insurance companies ever increasing premiums, paying top dollar for prescription drugs, watch as corporate-controlled politicians whittle away Medicare and Social Security and endure ever decreasing wages and benefits as you yourself get older, less employable and less productive.
Let's go Mano a Mano, even if one combatant only has the standard two manos while the other -- thanks to Supreme Court rulings like the so-called "Citizens United" -- controls hundreds, thousands, millions and billions of coordinated manos all geared toward the elimination of the opposition's single pair of pathetic, empty, dangling, impotent manos! Olé!
Trash talk is allowed, even if one of the combatants only has a standard mouth consisting of a tongue, lips and teeth from which said trash issues in a colorful and imaginative stream of taunts and barbs, while the other wields a monopolistic stranglehold on hundreds of millions of "mouths" from which signals are relentlessly belched through the air and straight into the easily breached brains of all those in possession of really neat electronic devices.
It's every man for himself! (Which isn't strictly what you'd call an enlightened approach to a situation in which entire swaths of population are marginalized for being old, female, sick, of color, in need of an education, etcetera, etcetera. In fact, when you get down to it, that sentiment is a cowardly alternative to helping one's fellow when things get tough out there, which, as history and our own common sense tells us, they are bound to get. Hell, already are!)
And lastly, be brave, fighters! That is, unless you prefer to embrace that hollow specter of an American Dream of possibly becoming wealthy yerself one day, a dream peddled by the very folks who have been hoarding 98% of the nation's dough, and who insist that you, too can share the largesse through prayer, clinging to divisive, retrograde concepts and an unquestioned fealty to corporate manipulation of information, commerce and culture. That's the kind of bravery embodied by the ranks of chicken hawks who seek wars for profit, who purposely sow fear and disorder to make money. Hey, it works! And if that's what you wanna bring to this fight, then that's how it goes.
Now, come out swinging and may the best man win. And I'm getting the fuck outta here.
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheStevenWeber
And concerning those brainwashed minions in your last paragraph...
If, when you buy that lottery ticket with the dollar you can't afford, you're grumbling about the taxes you'll have to pay if you hit the jackpot, I hope you never win. You're already far greedier than the greediest corporate shyster you admire, and your winnings would come to no good end.
If you have an invention you're sure will make you a gazillionaire, but you're angry that it will be subject to government regulations protecting consumers and the environment, I hope you never get that patent.
We have enough people sickened by poorly regulated useless "brilliant ideas," and Mother Nature is reeling from your type of thoughtless anti-ecological profiteering "progress."
And if you have a business idea that you just know will make you rich, but you don't even want to pay the minimum wage to the employees you MUST have to actually run it, I say this:
I hope you get the same reception from the bank when you ask for that business loan, that you intend to give to your future employees when they ask for a raise or health care benefits. Turned down and shown the door.
Sadly, it's the millions of greedy people with little in their pockets but wadded up lottery tickets voting against their own self-interests, keeping the rest of us under the boot of those relatively few (and very clever psycho-manipulating) greedsters at the top.
After all, you've come on this forum repeatedly, pushing the right-wing agenda, singing the praise of right-wing politicians, trashing Liberals as everything wrong with this country, while, at the same time, admitting that you owe your relatively high standard of living, and your ample leisure time (necessary for all those postings) to being a member of AFSCME.
Voting Republican, while being a Union Member, while the Republican Party is demonizing Union workers.
Yeah, I'd call that "voting against your own self-interests".
I know your response, so don't bother. If you "don't want to be a Union Member", just quit your job and let someone else take the "unfair burden of paying dues".
I'm sure with your qualifications you can easily get a job in the Private Sector that pays far more than your "Union work" does.
And according to your previous post on this blog, apparently so are you. You claim to belong to the AFSCME. I assume that's the American Federation Of State, County and Municipal worker's union.
So, how's that electing Repub dictatorships in states across this nation last November, working out for those union members who voted Repub against their own self-interests?
Even the heavily pro-police and firefighters unions, have now seen the error of voting against their own self-interests. Too bad they first had to have their noses rubbed in it to smell it.
These unions (like all unions for years now) have already made huge concessions to help with their states budget "crises." But that wasn't enough for the Repubs. Now they've taken the union's voice away. Is THAT in the worker's best self-interest? Really?
In every Repub-led state across this once great nation, the Repubs are kicking the final remaining planks out from under the working class, and those Repubs could not have gotten elected without working class voters voting AGAINST their own self-interests.
The fact that you, CCape (and assuming you truly ARE a working class union member), still cannot see the light, makes it quite plain why my post seems to have struck a nerve.
Recent polling in reddish swing-states shows not only are 80% of voters FOR reversing wealth transfer to the top 2% of the last decade, but also how they're more greatly aware what's causing current economic problems than main stream media or beltway pundits would have us believe. 'Maybe' this spells eventual trouble for the boat-load of bought referees (Congress), on whatever side of the isle they LIE.
Unless reading Weber for the first time one understands how his humor is used to diffuse real anger at these issues, and we're most happy to have him in the fight. We can only hope when he says he's 'outta here', its visiting family in Europe - and not a permanent move.
Steven's character, Dr. Harris, has to deal with alien "skitters" trying to destroy mankind and the Earth as we know it.
It's not that much of a jump to what Steven and the rest of us are dealing with from the Republican party.
"The right wing seems to be made up of dangerous, possibly sociopathic, treasonous, democracy-hating ass-pies." - Steven Weber
"Skitters," if we ever find ourselves forced to deal with such creatures in the future, might prove to be actually easier to reason with.
"fight" in him. it's going to be up to the us "cheerleaders" to energize both the crowd and our champion.
I have no idea how to engage those folks. when the champion keeps allowng the opponent to change the rules of the game every time they meet, it's difficult for the crowd to give their full support.
you can do that annoying 'suck on your teeth' thing though...i think thats still allowed
A good summary of our crazy times.
I am hopeful will lead to Steven's future blog post:
A crazy summary of our good times.
- Tom
Sen. McConnell admitted on tape, that Republican decisions concerning the most grave issue our Congress can consider (placing our armed forces in harm's way), was and is dependent on which party occupies the White House.
And Clinton got impeached for a BJ.
McConnell's comments should buy him a forced resignation from office at the very least, and a full criminal investigation of the Republican Congress on matters concerning troop deployments.
Fat chance, I know...