I tried not to write about it.  I didn’t want to be just another liberal blogger uninentionally calling attention to the “birther” movement and thereby adding legitimacy to it in the subconscious minds of many Americans who vote.  When the White House went above and beyond any legal requirement of any American citizen to do anything (not to mention presidential candidate, not to mention sitting president) and released his long-form birth certificate I patted myself on the back for staying out at least one pointless debate.  And now they want his college records.  And of course the birthers are not satisfied with the long-form birth certificate.

So let’s go over what we know.  Birthers are racist, and not the pseudo-intellectual “there exist some gifted negroes but as a race they are intellectually inferior” but the “there are just some things nobody with mongrel blood should ever, ever do and being president is damn sure one of them.” All Republicans, racist or not, know that birthers are racist and deliberately pander to this group for political points by pretending that the birthers really care where Obama was born not as much what he looks like and who he was born to.  Polls indicate that over half of people who identify themselves as Republicans don’t believe Obama is American or aren’t sure.  Believe it or not, I can live with that.  Or rather, I have to – I’m black in America.

But here’s what makes me angry.  It’s the fact that so many people, with nothing to gain to from this slander and libel against the President, don’t get angry and don’t stand up to make any sort of change.  Case in point: If you haven’t struck up a conversation with an acquaintance or stranger about how absurd this birther thing is, then guess what? Black or white, you’ve failed the racism/self-hatred test. 

Ok, let’s back up.  Raise your hand if you’ve overheard a birther talking on the bus or in a bar sounding all authorative like he’s king shit of fuck mountain?  Yeah all right, all of you.  Now, raise your hand if you’ve EVER heard someone DENOUNCING birtherism loudly and in the same manner? Now put your hand down if you’re at a small liberal arts college North of the Mason Dixon line with no division 1 or division 2 athletics.  Yeah, not a single hand raised.

Look people.  It’s 2011.  We know that progress isn’t guaranteed with the passing of time.  We’ve seen slavery, holocaust, genocide and the like.  It’s not just that we know what our primal demons are like, we also know, as people how extremely cowardly we are.  I mean, you won’t come to the defense of the President of the United States? Your President? Supposedly the most powerful person in the world?  If not then guess what, you’re not coming to the defense of the gay kid who is being bullied.  You’re not coming to the defense of the Hispanic-American who is having his citizenship questioned by an angry mob.  Come on people, we need to start controlling how the masses think.

Oh, you’re one of those “you can’t control how people think” people are you?  Ever heard of advertising? Your deepest most sacred convictions are bought, sold, bundled, divided and sold again every day on Wall Street.  Your very concept of what it means to be American is 80% commercials you’ve watched during Major League Sports.

So read a book, figure out what your convictions are, and PLEASE don’t just STAND UP for them if they get attacked in front of you.  Convictions aren’t to be used for self-defense only.  ADVOCATE for them.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I hate stupid people as much as the next guy.  But you know what I hate even more?  A coward.

One of the things that makes our plight so frustrating is we feel we have been punished for doing the right thing. As we serve coffee at rest stops to high school dropouts whose parents own construction companies and get interviewed for junior level positions by former division III quarterbacks who still have credits outstanding despite the diploma in their spacious office, we can’t help but feel the world has done us an injustice.  This election season we are reminded the universe didn’t do us an injustice, we simply exist in an unjust universe. Never are we so reminded of this as we are in this past election.

Let’s go macro first and look at Healthcare.  The House passed a strong healthcare bill complete with the public option and did so in a reasonable amount of time.  Keep in mind, passing healthcare directly equals saving millions of lives over the course of the next decade and actually lowers the deficit. Reward? House Democrats lose control and are voted out mostly by people who will come to depend on this bill for survival.

The Senate takes a different route. It hems and haughs and barely passes a watered down version of healthcare…and barely holds on (just barely) to it’s majority.  Now let’s look at some individual elections.

I am a Philly boy so let’s take the Sestak loss. He thought he knew better than the President. The President asked him not to run against Arlen Specter not because he preferred Specter to Sestak but because Specter would win and Sestak would lose. But as I am finding out with this blog, you can’t tell people anything these days. They have to learn for themselves.

Now, I know what you’re thinking “but by that logic Obama should have deferred to Clinton.” Tssk, tssk. Joe Sestak was not a once in every 40 years transformative figure with that  rare genius it takes to inspire a nation and the world to greatness…he’s Joe Sestak. Now let’s at Rand Paul. He won on a platform of repealing the Civil Rights Act. I can’t wait until Alpha Man gets around to writing about that.

Given that when the Civil War ended and Reconstruction was cancelled former Confederates were elected to Congress in landslides and dominated politics for 40 years, it’s pretty sad that all the GOP could do was take back the House. Also, all those soon to be unemployed congressman, at least those that voted for Healthcare, can know that the injustice they suffered meant something. I think that’s a laudable goal to aspire to, particularly since the Mercedes and house with a pool is no longer an option.

Read Benito’s post. That’s the problem with the Democratic party. They are made up of losers like Benito. Now if you are familiar with me you know I don’t vote unless I can directly personally benefit through favors from the individual to be elected, but if I did vote I would vote Republican and here is why- I like winners.

Benito claims you should vote in your “self interest.” I think we can all agree that I am as self interested as they come but hell if I am voting for them. Think back to high school. Losers were always doing things for their friends whether it was giving them rides, helping them with school work or coaxing them into reconsidering suicide. The popular kids? They didn’t do shit for their friends and wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to talk about them behind their backs. Same thing with the Republicans. They expect your vote and you are not going to get shit for it except the promise they are going to keep doing what they do: getting that money, starting that war, and penalizing everyone that fails to conform to the ideal. Hellz and Bellz bitches.

I mean look at Jesus. He healed people of incurable diseases instantly for free. Now that’s Universal Healthcare. You really just had to ask. Apparently he rarely ever got thanked, such that a leper expressing his appreciation was a noteworthy occurrence. He also multiplied resources from wine to fish and bread. He never asked for any money and would openly associate with anyone. He lost an election for “not crucified” in a landslide to a convicted killer who as far as I know never did anything for anyone. Jesus even had an endorsement from God, Moses, Elijah and from the governor Pontius Pilate.

So vote Republican. People will think you are a winner by association and if you start doing cold shit like that maybe you will actually become one. A winner that is.

So I hear a pathetic whimpering sound late one night a few weeks ago. My first thought was that the waitress I picked up that night left something. Maybe it was the Princess come back to beg forgiveness and explain where my missing condoms are. Maybe her coke head brother needed a place to crash and avoid his dealer or bookie. Or maybe the dog needed food/to go to the bathroom. My response to all four was “who gives a shit?” I rolled over and went to sleep.

So the next day I do my due diligence: No crap that doesn’t belong to the Princess, No Princess and no sign of her coke head brother. Oh yeah. The dog. I found him passed out in his own feces.  I had assumed the Princess had at least been feeding him. Nope. Lazy slut.

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At the risk of offending Alpha Man I have decided to take issue with a recent article written by the illustrious Elie Mystal of Above the Law.

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/10/bullying-shouldnt-be-a-crime-no-matter-how-many-people-kill-themselves-because-of-it/

As a blogger myself I recognize an article titled simply to get hits and draw commentary.  Normally I think touche and go on about my business.  This article pulled me in with it’s Karate Kid analogy.  I happen to have an encylopedic knowledge of that movie.  Now if one recalls, the Karate Kid is about a kid named Daniel who moves across the country from NJ to LA.  There he accidentally offends a group of Martial Arts students after hitting on one of their ex-girlfriends.  After several run-ins four or five of them chase Daniel through a field and beat him until he is unable to stand.  The bullies argue briefly about whether to leave him or keep going, and they decide collectively to continue.  But for the intervention of Mr. Miyagi while Johnny was in-flight, Daniel almost certainly would have died from the next strike.

It has nothing to do with being fragile, Elie.  A beaten and broken human-being cannot survive a flying sidekick to the sternum.  Let’s break this down a little further…

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There’s nothing like creeping up on 30, barely out of school and making less than a janitor (they have unions) with mounds of debt, turning on the TV for your 15 minutes of television a week and seeing a teenage barely literate deadbeat high school dropout dad running for mayor. Anger. Then I listened a little closer and realized that this fool was being asked the same damn questions that his almost mother-in-law was asked in 2008. So basically this idiot was at the plate in a Major League Gsme a d he’s allowed to use a tee like in tee-ball (what you play before little league).  The fool answered “I don’t know” to about half the questions. And you know what? He still outperformed a woman who could have been President of the United States. Believe me, I know how to read McCain’s health chart.

So during another brief monthly break I mentor young girls at the Sadie Alexander School.  I asked her what she wanted to do/be when she grew up and she said she wanted to have Lil’ Wayne’s baby. I won’t tell you how old the child was because it will make you cry. I won’t tell you the race either (it’s not the one you think) because you won’t believe me. Now this girl isn’t dumb so I just assumed she was a slut, furthering my argument that sluts are born not made. But now I can see how a student could come to the following conclusion: why spend an additional 10+ years in school working hard to distinguish myself when the chance you have worked so hard for will be given to some idiot who had a child with a famous person? Why graduate high school when you can simply conceive a child with someone you plan to use for personal gain? The child will understand of course and if not they will be rich enough to afford whatever necessary therapy is required.

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A question was posed in the New York Times recently

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/magazine/22Adulthood-t.html?pagewanted=10&hpw

asking whether the collective failure of “twenty somethings” to 1) finish school 2) move out 3) become financially stable 4) marry and 5) have a child by age 30 and hence achieve adulthood is so rampant that perhaps we are witnessing some kind of collective devolution such that a new category in addition to adolescence is needed between childhood and adulthood called “emerging adulthood.”  This article is more than just another slap in the face to young people who have never had the opportunity to start a career mixed with some struggling, debt-ridden academic’s sad attempt to make a name for himself.  This article is the very antithesis of what this blog is all about and as such merits a response.  As I peel back the layers of lies and hypocrisy I ask that you the reader not lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day life is not about 1-5. 1-5 simply has to do with a society perpetuating its own existence.  Your LIFE is measured by how you advance an organized movement designed to benefit others well beyond your few years on the planet.
 
First, let me say this: ouch.  I don’t say ouch lightly.  This was not a bee sting or a splinter.  This was a sledgehammer to the ankles.  This is like getting a test back from a teacher that you failed so badly the teacher actually begins to wonder if whether you have some unknown mental deficiency.  I mean, the article is saying someone in my situation is so hopelessly pathetic that SOCIETY NEEDS TO MAKE SPECIAL LAWS TO ACCOMMODATE MY EXISTENCE.  I have a friend who completed 1-5 by age 23.  I was 0-5 then.  Now I’m 28, 1-5, with nothing on the horizon.  This article suggests that when we rent cars, purchase alcohol or engage in other activities that the law treat us differently…kind of like insurance companies do when evaluating what kind of risk you are or mortgage companies do when deciding whether or not to give you a loan.  According to this article pursuing a graduate degree and not being able to get a job right away could eventually make you a protected class under the Constitution!

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Several months ago Erin (I think) wrote an article called why I don’t care about the national debt. Maybe someone else stole the by line but I remember the conversation that spurned the entry. About a week and a half ago the President reminded us how in a generation we had plummetted from 1 to 12 in terms of countries with the highest percentage of citizens with a college degree. And of course this is Debtors’ Prison so you know how we get down. Let’s explore how the three are interconnected.

Student Debt and National Debt. It’s really hard to care about the latter when entrenched in the former, particularly when the latter is used as an excuse for why the govt can’t help you but they need another fleet of 100 million aircraft to hunt the 50 Al Qaeda left in Afghanistan. But let’s look deeper. We as students behaved alot like our country, borrowing a ton for a questionable large investment and assuming everything would just work out because hey, it’s us.

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As I prepare for the start of class in a few weeks and take a much needed break from my ongoing feud with Mike Triforce I would like to, hopefully for the last time, explain why I am borrowing excessive amounts to go to what is commonly referred to as a TTT law school, particularly after taking 7 years and over $100k to complete my undergraduate education and writing for a blog called “Debtor’s Prison.”  After all, isn’t the point of “Debtor’s Prison” that borrowing large amounts of money for a fancy degree, particularly a law degree is foolhardy?  I would argue no, and here is why.
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What do student debtors and the unemployed have in common? No, not Benito (or the millions of others who are in the same boat). Selfishness. That’s not a criticism. I’m not judgmental. It’s certainly not praise. I am not Mike Triforce. It’s not even a challenge because I am not President Kennedy.

But I would be remissed if I didn’t point out two trends and suggest that perhaps one should rethink which hole their particular cog in the machine fills.

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