Why Obama Is The Choice

I apologize for my recent absence. I was busy moving to Canada.

A recent exchange between John McCain and Barack Obama is the best evidence yet for why the latter is not just the greatest candidate for the presidency, but maybe the greatest candidate in history.

Consider that Obama said he would withdraw troops from Iraq, but also that he would act “if Al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq.” We must assume that “acting” would involve fighting Al Qaeda with troops. McCain predictably retorted that we’re currently fighting to keep Al Qaeda from forming a base in Iraq.

Obama then responded brilliantly: “There was no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq.” This man is so confident that he’s able to admit he’s wrong and that McCain is right, by admitting in the first half of his statement that we’re already fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq. Then he skillfully follows up by adding a fact that’s irrelevant for our current situation in Iraq: that things would be different had we not invaded. (After all, when you need to make a decision about your five-year-old child, it doesn’t help to lament having had the child in the first place.)

He’s smooth enough and brave enough to not feel as though he needs to have a coherent stance on Iraq. He’s sticking to his guns: U.S. out of Iraq, no matter what the consequences, no matter what the costs, no matter what’s best for their country and ours.

O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!

The L-Word: Not Just Hot Lesbian Sex OR The L-Word: It Ain't "Liberal"!

I always thought the show was a gleaming bastion of liberal thought. But lately I’ve realized that the writers are subliminally trying to pass on fascist and immoral messages to their audience. In short, I think the L-Word is a pro-war vehicle in disguise. It’s written by fascists who want to make homosexuals and pacifists look like cretins.

In recent episodes, a new lesbian has been introduced to the cast. She’s a soldier who has fought in Iraq. All the lesbians in the show rightly point out that the “liberation” was immoral. The lesbian Iraq veteran counters desperately with the screamingly lame proclamation that “There are some really good people in the armed forces!” Then there was hot lesbian sex.

At first, I tried to give the writers the benefit of the doubt and assume they’re just a little dim. But you tell me: Would writers brilliant enough to center a show on hot lesbian sex be dim enough to portray a soldier as having nothing to say about the war than that one line?

No. They would suck it up and have the soldier make all the ridiculous arguments that people who support the war make: that it’s “just” to overthrow a “murderous tyrant”; that “human rights” and “freedoms” of women, religion, and the press are worth fighting for; that homosexuals shouldn’t be “murdered”. The writers would suck it up and create characters capable of refuting these arguments by proving we’re no better than the people who deliberately target civilians with suicide bombs, beheadings, and power tools.

In another episode, a lesbian refers to the war in Iraq as “morally bankrupt”, and another character (the one having hot lesbian sex with the soldier) agrees without hesitating. Then there was hot lesbian sex.

Again, it’s tempting to simply assume the writers are dim. After all, they’re writing a show about (and to a large extent for) homosexuals, yet the writers portray the very things homosexuals want — respect, the safety to live their lives without fear, equal rights under the law — as immoral to fight for in Iraq.

The only explanation is that the L-Word writers are fascists disguised as morally impotent liberals. They’re secretly part of the corporate system and they’re trying to pawn their pro-Bush views on us in ways that we’re not supposed to notice.

That’s why the soldier couldn’t come up with anything better as a rebuttal. She’s meant to seem impossibly stupid. That’s why the lesbians are portrayed as too shallow to think of the conflict as anything other than “morally bankrupt”. They’re meant to seem like hopeless knee-jerk ideologues. They’re meant to seem too selfish to believe that the rights they want — nay, expect — are rights that gays in foreign countries deserve as well.

If the writers were genuine anti-war thinkers, they would be more responsible. Instead of creating laughably stupid characters, they would have created characters intelligent enough to warrant inspirational counter-arguments. These morally responsible characters would then educate us all on why it’s wrong to fight for freedom against torture, why it’s wrong to fight against rape and murder, and most importantly why it’s wrong to fight for gay rights.

Until the writers are replaced, all you have is a morally embarrassing show centered on hot lesbian sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, if y’know what I’m sayin’…!

Don't Let Him Get Away With It!

Freddy Thompson maintains that there were WMDs in Iraq!

Let’s be honest here. It all depends on which way you want to hate America. If we’re talking about WMDs in Iraq as a justification for an immoral "liberation", WMDs didn’t exist. If we’re talking about how America is immoral, they did exist and we sold them to Iraq.

As most of the commenters on the article understand, it’s not the facts (nor the spelling, punctuation, and grammar) that matter so much as having it both ways. In this case, Thompson’s implying that the WMDs Hussein used to kill 100,000 Kurds and 50,000 Iranians were real. We can’t let him get away with that immoral view, just as we can’t let people think that the 500-or-so canisters of WMD materials we’ve recovered since the invasion suggest that Hussein ever had WMDs.

Loyal readers, as long as Thompson and others maintain that there were WMDs, we need to argue that the “slaughters” of the Kurds and Iranians were faked. They were staged by the same people who faked the moon landing and who organized the inside-job conspiracy of 10,000-strong to rig the World Trade Center with countless explosives.

If you doubt the effectiveness of the Jewish cabal that controls the world, consider this: They’re deviously savvy enough to know that the best way to get us to invade Iraq was to use not one Iraqi as a “hijacker.”

If you still doubt the effectiveness of this Jewish cabal, consider this: Not one person involved in any of these conspiracies — from the moon landing, to the “massacres” in Iraq, to the “attack” on the World Trade Center — has ever come forward. Be afraid.

Eh?-Okay: The Magic of the Forty-Ninth Parallel

I know these absences are hard on my millions of loyal readers. Rest assured that when I take long periods of time off, I am doing so for the sake of gathering information that will help me write my next brilliant article. This will be one such article.

I’ve just spent a few months in Canada. It is, without a doubt, the greatest place I’ve ever visited.

You wouldn’t think it possible, but I swear to you on the lives of my future children that as you pass over the border you can feel a difference. The air is instantly cleaner, the ground instantly less littered, the people instantly less ignorant. All this is attainable simply by heading north, showing your passport to a half-asleep border guard, answering a laughable question or two, and continuing onward.

Truth be told, I was skeptical. After the last Canadian federal election, I assumed that Canadians had dropped their default liberal ways and had made a turn toward the Right (something that even France — France! — has done), because they elected fascist candidate Stephen Harper. I don’t know anything about Harper’s views or what he’s done since he was elected, but a conservative government isn’t a good one, no matter what it does, even if it does liberal things, which it never would do, because conservative governments are bad.

But Harper’s best efforts at turning Canada into a fascist wasteland have proven limp. The country is as liberal as ever. For instance, you can still get a legal abortion in Canada as late as the day you’re due to deliver. I’ll bet everyone has a good laugh when a woman, faced for the first time with the excruciating pains of labor, cracks and yells, “I changed my mind! Abort it!”

Not only is Canada as liberal as ever, it’s as anti-American as ever. Take the Canadian healthcare system, for example. Everyone has a certain amount of free coverage. The entire country suckles at the same teat, removing the chance that lucky or ambitious people get any kind of advantage. It is the only country in the West that doesn’t allow its citizens to pay for their own healthcare. This is the way it should be, of course.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the brilliance of Canadian healthcare. In 2000, the WHO released a comprehensive rating of 191 countries’ healthcare systems. Canada ranked a spectacular 30th, a full seven spots ahead of America’s disgraceful showing at 37th. Canada managed to outperform America despite the fact that a) America has the unfair advantage of spending more money per capita on its patients than any country in the world, and despite the fact that b) the WHO ranked America first in the world in terms of what should be considered unimportant factors such as responsiveness to patients' needs for choice of provider, dignity, autonomy, timely care, and confidentiality. Not a bad victory for a country of people who regularly travel to the States for better medical options!

A crazed few in Canada believe that government agencies sometimes result in inefficient bureaucracies, and that, to “remove some of the strain” on the one “overworked” healthcare teat, it might be a good idea to allow a privatized option to those who have the means. Thankfully, most believe that not only is this not an option (because it’s fascist), but that even if it were shown to improve healthcare for everyone involved (fewer people at the common teat would mean better and more efficient care, so the silly theory goes), Canadians would largely refuse to privatize for the most glorious of reasons: That would be kind of like what they have in America.

That would be kind of like what they have in America! Canada is a country whose identity isn’t derived from a common history or from pride in its role in the world. This is a country that decides what to do based on what America isn’t doing, whether it’s “beneficial” or not. You rarely see a protest in Canada that isn’t about something America’s doing.

Similar to the healthcare issue is the gun registry bill that was put into effect by the previous Liberal government. When introduced, the bill was supposed to cost around $119 million. Unfortunately, it has cost upwards of a billion dollars. And sadly, all the evidence that the registry has reduced Canadian gun violence has been suppressed. In fact, the fascists have even gotten to the head of the commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, who has come out in opposition to the registry, arguing that the money could be much better spent elsewhere, like on “anti-terrorism” measures. (Yes, fascists try to scare Canadians with invented enemies, just like they do in America.)

A lesser country might have scrapped a seemingly useless billion-dollar “disaster”, but not Canada. Even though Stephen Harper has tried to “fix” the problem by repealing mandatory gun registration, his bill has yet to pass in Parliament. And if it ever becomes a major issue again, I trust that Canadians will fight to keep tax money where it is: well spent on anti-American principles for their own sake. This way, responsible Canadians who are law-abiding and unlikely to commit gun crimes are forced to register their guns. They serve as an effective example and deterrent for the criminals who have unregistered guns and intend to commit harm.

Another beautiful thing about Canada is that you’re far more likely than in America to find fans of revolutionary leaders, such as Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez. Indeed, it’s quite common in downtown Toronto to see brave and thoughtful college-age kids wearing Che Guevara t-shirts. These kids aren’t bullied by the crackpot notions that Guevara stood for murder, thuggery, and oppression. They know he stood for the uncompromising ideals that have given us the Republic of Cuba. Viva la libertad!

When it comes to the “War On Terror”, Canada impresses yet again. Canadian soldiers are fighting “terrorism” in Afghanistan, and yet an impressively small number of cars display a “Support Our Troops” ribbon. If it weren’t for these misfits, you wouldn’t know that Canada’s at war. The war itself is an issue of contention, because many Canadians rightly hold America and Bush responsible for the fact that Canadian men and women are dying in the defense of “democracy” and “reason”.

But undoubtedly the greatest thing about this glorious nation — indeed, what fuels all its other greatness — is the fact that “true patriot love”, while prominent in the national anthem’s lyrics, no longer exists. An unrelenting multiculturalism is the law of the land here. Canada doesn’t waste its time with notions of a melting pot that engenders a feeling of “community” and “solidarity” and “sharing something greater”. Immigrants, foreign-born Canadians, and second-generation Canadians generally identify first with their nation of birth or their parents’ nation. If you ever doubt the greatness of Canada, consider that immigrants who flee a country for a better life in Canada prefer to wave the flag of the country they fled!

Yes, Canadian-born citizens sew the Canadian flag onto their backpacks in order to avoid being tortured with power tools when they’re traveling abroad. If forced to make the choice, who wouldn’t take patriotism over torture? But otherwise, Canadian patriotism ends there. Some are too polite or caring to be proud of Canada, lest a foreigner take that as an insult to his or her country. Others just don’t really care either way.

And still others — the most sophisticated and enlightened — prefer to see themselves as “citizens of the world”. As such, Canadians understand among other things that average Americans are archaic and immoral when they vote for the leaders they like, or who have the same values as they do, or who they think will do the best job of improving their lives and the lives of their friends and family.

This kind of selfish voting is acceptable for Canadians, Germans, Australians, the French, the British, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Japanese, and everyone else in the free world. But Americans who want to be serious and responsible should ignore their own lives and vote for the leaders they believe will be best for Canadians, Germans, Australians, the French, the British, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Japanese, and everyone else in the free world, as well as those in the not-so-free world. It’s only fair: another price of being “great”.

Oh Canada, we liberals stand on guard for thee! And if there’s another Republican voted into the White House, we American liberals will look up your immigration website yet again and briefly consider moving to Canada.

Looking at 2008: Barack and a Hard Place

My last piece wasn’t meant to argue that we shouldn’t vote for Obama. I’m a raging liberal. I like blacks better than whites. I like Hispanics and Asians better than whites. I even kind of don’t hate Jews. So of course I’m pulling for Obama — he’s blacker than the white males. Half-black, while not as good as black, is still better than white.

But this brings up an interesting dilemma. Experience and ability don’t matter here. So barring those factors, which candidate should true and honest liberals support in 2008, the half-black man or the white woman? Obviously, a black woman would be perfect, unless it were Condoleezza Rice (she’s a Republican and therefore must have fake pigmentation). But we don’t have that luxury.

The best way to solve this problem is to figure out which group — women or blacks — has been shafted more throughout history. Whichever candidate is part of that group gets the support of the honest liberal.

I don’t want to get into detail about the advanced math that I used to figure this out, but it has become clear to me, after much struggle and analysis, that women have been shafted far more than blacks.

Yes, blacks were royally screwed during the slavery era. But women have been subjugated since the dawn of time. We’re only now evening the playing field. Trailblazing policies like lower physical standards for female police officers and firefighters not only right the wrongs of the pigheaded male mind, but they weaken our fascist law enforcers so that fewer criminal suspects are caught and beaten for no reason.

So it seems Hillary wins, right? Not so fast! There is one factor that prevents anyone of conscience from supporting Hillary: her vote for the Iraq war. Before we support her, Hillary has to renounce her initial, vociferous support and vote for the “liberation” of Iraq. Until then, it’s Obama all the way.

It will be tough for Hillary to renounce her war vote, because many will ask her how she can honestly go back on a vote in favor of the possibility for human rights in Iraq. The best way for her to do this is to play dumb, just like John Edwards. She needs to convince us that she was duped into thinking that it was noble to vote in favor of fighting in Iraq for women’s rights, gay rights, freedoms of the press and speech, and a government elected by the people. He was fooled, she was fooled, we were all fooled. The stupider she shows herself to be, the better a liberal presidential candidate she is.

Black?: Barack's Lack

I hate to ruin this love-in we’re all enjoying, but Barack Obama isn’t black.

First, Obama, unlike ideal black leaders like Louis Farakhan and Al Sharpton, doesn’t loathe and distrust white people. Where’s the anger? Where’s the indignation? Luckily, he’s a Democrat. If he were a Republican, Obama would be less black than even Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell.

Second, he’s only half-black. His mother was white. And as the Spike Lee faction will remind you every chance they get, half is definitely not full. Need an example? Take former Guns n’ Roses guitarist Slash. He’s half-black. And instead of being into rap or soul or funk or R&B, he’s into hard rock and plays a guitar. And when Slash was still in Guns n’ Roses, singer Axl Rose wrote the epithet “nigger” into a song and Slash didn’t quit the band. (Note: This doesn’t mean that the white side is more powerful. It simply means that, like the Dark Side of the Force, the white side is evil, more seductive, and can keep one from making the right decision.)

Some might argue that Jimmy Hendricks and Lenny Kravitz suggest that even “full” blacks can indeed be into rock without it diminishing their blackness. I’d argue that they’re the exceptions that prove the rule, but I don’t have to. They aren’t exceptions: Hendricks had a British accent, so he can’t really be black, and Kravitz is a Jewish name. You can’t be black if you have a Jewish last name. Just ask Farakhan.

Third, and most importantly, the black heritage Obama does have is faux. Even though he has lived his whole life with dark skin, and even though that would put him in the same psychological mindset as anyone else with darker-than-white skin, Barack Obama can’t possibly understand what it means to be black. He’s not black in the ways that count.

For your blackness to be black, you have to be a descendant of a West-African slave. If you’re a descendant of an African who wasn’t a slave, you’re simply an American of African descent. If you’re an African who moved to the States, you’re an African who moved to the States. If you’re from the Caribbean, I have no idea what you are.

But unless a distant relative of yours was whipped by a cracker-ass cracker, you’re not black, regardless of the size of your penis. As Debra Dickerson suggests in her piece that courageously points out Obama’s fake blackness, Obama is only “ ‘black’ as a matter of skin color and DNA”. Case closed.

The ideal, of course, is for everyone to live as One, with as few arbitrary divisions as possible, with humanity holding hands and sharing everything. But it remains important for minorities to create sub-divisions among themselves so that, for example, true blacks can ostracize fake blacks. This way, true blacks get a feel for what it was like for whites when they ostracized blacks. The more racial distinctions we make among ourselves, the closer we are to dropping racial distinctions and living as One.

Slowly, the world is starting to realize that your pigmentation doesn’t determine your worth as a human being. Now we must convince the world that your pigmentation doesn’t determine the color of your skin, either.

The Democrats’ Lot: Iraq and a Hard Place

Even though the Democrat party pretends to be mildly leftist, it isn’t. It isn’t as far to the right as the Republican party, but it’s still too right-wing for a reasonable person. Still, they can sometimes help. This is the case with the war in Iraq.

Democrats know that in order to position themselves as an alternative to the Bushes and McCains and Grahams who want to “win” against the jihadists and secure an oppressive regime of democracy, they need to be the party of exit strategies. So it is their political lot right now to have to call for a withdrawal of troops.

The spin of it is that it’s up to Iraqis to step up and take full control, because the Iraqi government will be better able to defend itself from the chaos without 150,000 American troops getting in the way. But behind this façade is the truth: They want to leave Iraq to its rightful heirs — those who understand what would be lost if Iraq were to permanently fall victim to a modern representative government.

It’s about time. As I’ve written before, the best way to get back at the Bush Administration is to force him to bring the troops home. As we watch the horrors unfold, we can all turn to Bush and blame him. It will make everyone hate him more than they already do, and that’s the goal, no matter who has to die.

We need to support the Dems as much as we can. We need to help them win the presidency in ‘08. Then and only then can we be 100% sure that the alliance of America and traitor Iraqis will lose the war.