Fire Them!

So, the president of the United States has been blocked from doing any major job creation through the use of the federal government - even for much-needed infrastructure projects. The reason, we are told, is because this is not the obligation of the federal government, of the president or government.

It is the job of the Job Creators (T) to create jobs. Job Creators is the proper title for what progressives have class-warfaringly been calling the Uber-Wealthy, the richest 1% of Americans who only control a mere 42% of the nation's wealth.

But since our unemployment levels are consistently steady at over 9% (and twice as high for the Black population) since they've assumed sole responsibility well over a year ago, and since they have yet to report their plans to the un- and under-employed, nor have they set up an accountability system with those of us who create their wealth for them, it seems obvious to me that the Job Creators are not up to the task.

My fellow Americans, I propose that we fire them.

That's right. Call up security. Call 'em to the office, give them their pink slips and recover our property.

Let's start with John Fleming, the poor multimillionaire who only has $400,000 left every year after he's done paying his bills, feeding his family, paying taxes, business expenses, and all that big mean stuff that the rest of us poor people don't have to deal with. $400,000 that he is using for ...what??

That is all...

All Hail Loof S Lipra!

The most ingenious, brilliant and straight-forward thinker/talker/radio-and-tv host of the millennium is back on the air. And just in time to change me from my error-filled and muddled thinking. With clarity and simplicity that can only come from the mind of a true, scrambled genius, the honorable Dr. Loof S. Lipra has shown me exactly what I have been missing all this time.

I was so, dreadfully, sympathetically wrong and just not sociopathic enough to truly liberate society.

In point of fact, Obama hasn't done too much warring - he has done too little! I'm with John McCain and Loof Lipra on this: In order to save the Libyans, we must bomb the mess out of them.

In addition, the all-knowing and rightfully cock-sure Loof:

• taught me that we shouldn't mock the pain of the struggling rich. A measly million dollars just isn't what it used to be and it's hard for a US senator's family these days. They, unlike the working poor, deserve much more - but many have tax rates HIGHER than those lazy thugs making $25,000 are paying! It's as if the structure that the gub'mnt gives them allows the rich to make wealth in the first place!
• shows how America is the nation most blessed by God ever in all of the face of the earth. The proof is in our military might! Just like how God was with ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Rome.
• breached the gap in my brain that could not see how cutting services to the poor helps the poor. Of course, when they run out of options, they'll all stop being so lazy and take all those well-paying jobs just waiting for them.
  
• clarified how rightfully that war is expensive! I've been so frustrated at the tremendous price-tag of our Empire-building - half of our national budget, the murder of civilians, the toll upon our own soldiers in PTSD and moral ambiguities, the destruction of ancient civilizations, to name a few. But then Loof showed me that those concerns are mere eggs. And America is the best omelet ever!

photo © 2009 Michael Dorausch | more info (via: Wylio)

These are your friends...


• step-by-careful-step shown me how important it is for Jesus that America eradicates all them filfy Muslims from the face of the Earth - starting with Israel and the local terririst-bomb detonating house of worship (aka, the mosk). This way, he'll finally be able to come back from hiding in heaven (Jesus is scared of them) and wipe out all the other unbelievers with his magical angry powers.
  
• has also patiently demonstrated how the Cubs are the greatest sports franchise ever and how they'll win it all this year, next year, ad infinitum until Jesus comes and then after that!

photo © 2009 Seth Anderson | more info (via: Wylio)

Have you listened to the almighty words of Loof S Lipra? What has he taught you?

ReMix: Weapons of Our Warfare: Sarcasm

It's certainly not the only weapon, nor the best to fend off the maddening screams of chaos and control. Kind words are often more effective and certainly help to defuse a tense situation.

Sarcasm and its twins only shorten the fuse.

But there are times when one needs to cut the wick low, when the shock bomb needs to go off just so that the listeners can be broken free from the sadistic chains of manipulation. It is only then that they are able to see the bigger picture and envision a brighter hope. Sarcasm is a weapon, and there are times when it is the most appropriate one to use. It's the hammer that hits heavy, the hand grenade lofted into the enemy's space, the incisive knife of the surgeon. It works in a way where kind words or actions do not.

And, importantly for Christians like myself, it's deeply biblical.

The lone Hebrew prophet Elijah taunting his multitudinous contemporaries, wondering aloud if their gods were taking a tinkle. The otherwise unknown prophet Nathan flipping the story of the thieving, murderous landowner on King David. Jesus illustrating the corruption of the debtor system with his rude imagining of a stark naked quasi-slave.

In each of the biblical stories listed above, it was the little man, the outsider, the powerless countering the onslaught and injustice of the mighty. In some cases it worked immediately on the target (luckily for Nathan). Although the priests never seemed to convert to Elijah's God, we can imagine that the audience was stumped and even broken by the prophet's mockings. Jesus' illustration made his impoverished and often deeply-in-debt hearers laugh and feel a bit empowered. But since the two-line story from Matthew 5 may be lost on the modern ear, allow me the chance to update it a bit.

If we were to make a trip a few miles west of my house, next to the innumerable empty lots you may also notice the absence of traditional banking venues (large, community, or the increasingly popular credit unions). "That's only sensible," you suggest. "Banks aren't out of reach, they're just not in this area, and for good cause. There are few businesses in this blighted area, and the neighborhood most likely doesn't have enough cash flow to maintain such a costly venue, let alone allow it to turn a profit."

I won't argue that, but I will point you to the institutions that have filled the monetary void, specifically the title and paycheck loan businesses, not to mention their ancient cousin, the pawn shops. Used car salesmen will say that they offer credit for any borrower, but the APR - as it is with the other lender businesses mentioned - is exorbitantly high; 500% APR is typical, if not many times more so (They've also been taking advantage - if that's the word we want to use - of the microfinancing boom). As long as there have been poor people there have always been businesses who abuse them for profit at every turn, going back even before Jesus' day.

Fortunately, there were a few laws and customs in ancient Judea to at least moderately protect the debtors from total annihilation (besides, what kind of foolish economic system would completely obliterate their profit-base?). In Jesus' time and place, the lender sues the borrower that has not paid up on his debt. The court will often decree that the indebted give up his outer garment for the duration of the day. This was a type of protection for both parties, a kind of guarantee that the debt will be repaid and a way to keep the humiliation minimal for the payee.

Which is to say that the payee is supposed to be humiliated. Triply so, actually. First, that he needs to borrow money in the first place just in order to make ends meet for a couple more days, probably until he finds work. Then he's embarrassed that he isn't able to pay his debts off as immediately as he planned. But now he walks around town with half his clothes off, a sign of his triple-shame.

The type of permanent serfdom that such situations lead to (where the borrower is always *just out of means* of fully repaying and therefore always indebted somewhat to the loaner) is basically a hidden slave system, a way of using the law to the advantage of the usurer and to the disadvantage of the majority poor and penniless.

But Jesus, in his ingenious way, reverts the shame back to the creditors. "If a man asks for your tunic, give him your robe as well." In a two-robe society, the person who follows this advice is stark naked. And in a society in which the person who looks upon the other person's nakedness is ashamed, the shame belongs to the loan officers and their court allies. It's a small victory, to be sure, but it looms large as the poor and oppressed villagers parade around town, happy that the usurers have been upended, even if just for a moment.

There are many, many other examples and the Bible is rife with satire of one form or another. According to Douglas Wilson's A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire, the entire book of Amos is satire, as is Jesus' woes to the hypocritical religious leaders of his time. Check out this translation of Matthew 23 and tell me the text isn't dripping and oozing of unhinged Juvenal sarcasm:

Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It's on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse. (The Message)

The Bible is rife with such analogies: an indiscreet woman is like a gold ring on a pig's snout (Proverbs); hypocrites accusingly point to the splinters on others' eyes while overlooking the barks in their own (Jesus); then there's the sacred cow slaughter in Amos 4:

Listen to this, you cows of Bashan
grazing on the slopes of Samaria.
You women! Mean to the poor,
cruel to the down-and-out!
Indolent and pampered, you demand of your husbands,
'Bring us a tall, cool drink!'

This is serious—I, God, have sworn by my holiness!
Be well warned: Judgment Day is coming!
They're going to rope you up and haul you off,
keep the stragglers in line with cattle prods.
They'll drag you through the ruined city walls,
forcing you out single file,
And kick you to kingdom come.
- God's Decree.

Come along to Bethel and sin!
And then to Gilgal and sin some more!
Bring your sacrifices for morning worship.
Every third day bring your tithe.
Burn pure sacrifices—thank offerings.
Speak up—announce freewill offerings!
That's the sort of religious show you Israelites just love. (The Message)

Sarcasm has the ability to illuminate, to make truth blindingly bright. It does so by dragging its hearers through truth's dark undertow, and leaving them panting for breath at the shores.
Of course, the majority of times that isn't a proper way of treating even an enemy. Leaving someone traipsing in the dark after punching them in the guts is not a way to have a non-sadist return.

The Elder James (one of Jesus' brothers) warns against using the tongue in a negative or easy manner (James 3). That's for good reason: sarcasm is a double-edged sword that needs to be wielded rarely and carefully.

Sarcasm is the odd man out. It cuts deep and leaves shards all over the friggin' place, but then there are times when nothing else will work, when you need to cut it open or blow it up (depending on which of my many mixed metaphors you want to bandy about). The rest of the time, it's probably not so cool to run around with a live little bomb in your hands.

A Modest Proposal for All Those Trying to Enter America

It appears that with every problem in these United States that we have, every time a resourceful citizen dreams up a possible and viable solution to a fundamental problem of the peoples (be it health care, economic prosperity, national safety, job retention, or problems in the bedroom with a member of the fairer sex), another road-block is thrown onto the streets. That roadblock is called "illegal immigrants." They apparently are the reason that we cannot afford childcare, welfare, health care, nor, apparently, Bel Aire.

Now, I know the answer that you are thinking to that ultimate question. We should run over those roadblocks and their children. They aren't even supposed to be there anyway. And that is a good answer, four years ago, when we could afford Expeditions and H2's. But this is a new, ecologically-friendly Depression-lite era, and unless you have a chipper in front of your Prius, that thinking just will not do justice for this day. We need a bold and creative plan of action that will once and for all solve the problem of too many immigrants.

Now you will notice that I did not say, "the problem of the immigrants." That wording is too broad. It does not tell you what it is that is wrong with immigrants. For surely not everything about immigrants (nor immigration) is amiss. Most reasonable men (and some of the more reasonable women folk) will agree that at least a small amount of new blood is good for the soil of our country. Who else will work crappy jobs for piss pay? The un-Americans, that's who!

So, we do not need to completely plug the holes, but rather to control the flow of foreigners coming into our land, dating our sisters, and eating our children. I, fortunately for you, dear reader, have thought long and hard for many, many minutes about this thingymabobby.

It has struck me that the path to legal immigration and citizenship is wholly unlike the path that our forefathers took in founding this wonderful nation. George Washington never had to take a test that asked who George Washington is. No, the Washingtons worked the fingers of their slaves to the bones and threw tens of hundreds of thousands of voluntary military men into the range of fire for the right to be called a citizen of the United States of America (or, as it was called in the time, "America: F**k yeah!"). True heroes opened up the borders of what we would define as our God-given rightful land by heart-wrenchingly creating and then breaking peace treaty after peace treaty, raping, declaring war on, and/or enslaving brown-skinned people from

Our new visitors need to demonstrate that they have the same heart that our great forefathers did. It seems to me that very few, if any, of the recent migrants who have darkened our shores (be they via the Pacific, Atlantic, or Rio Grande Oceans) have raped, murdered, mangled or so much given a smallpox-infested blanket to an Indian. Obviously, there aren't enough Indians around for large-scale genocide in these times (Oh, the old glory days...), but that will in fact open up the stakes, for they will understand that they are being hunted down and will go into hiding.

The practicalities would work out as thus: by lottery we will choose, say, 2,000 "undocumented" immigrants for short visa stays per month. Within that month, they are expected to unload, pay their respects to the great centers of our nation (the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell, Wasilla, Savannah plantations, etc.) and then commit random acts of genocide on the Indian population.

However, if the foreigner has the ability to import a boat load of free laborers upon his or her arrival, that will also prove his or her character. The new arrival will not need to undergo the month-long process, but will be granted immediate citizenship upon arrival and a recitation of The Pledge of Allegiance (preferably with bombs bursting in air in the background). I mean the new arrival who owns the boat and the laborers, not the laborers themselves. They will each represent 2/3's of a person.

One perceived side-effect for this ultimate solution would be that there will be fewer casinos. Not to worry, since the gaming centers run on reservations may be staffed by Natives, but are not owned by Natives. Although, for nostalgia's sake, I'm sure you will be greeted by a tall, dark and handsome man wearing loincloth and carrying a tomahawk and peace pipe -- just like the Iroquios, Mohawk, or Fighting Illini.

That is, if you are a citizen.