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Obama’s choice of lipstick
Posted on September 11th, 2008 14 commentsI’m so glad I don’t live in the United States.
Not because of the crippling, unequal tax system. Not because I may be sued into oblivion by a clown who gets butthurt over my free speech. Mostly because at times like these, its corporate media system is even more broken than that in which I work.
I woke up today to a full iGoogle ticker with nothing but reports about Obama saying, “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” Not the choicest of words I’m sure, but only a stone’s throw away from “If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and shits duck shit, it’s probably a fucking duck.”
Given the media world works in sound bytes, what were the 30 seconds both before and after this about? Why, they were about the economic plans put forward by John McCain. A logical person would have to admit this statement is criticizing McCain’s proposal.
That’s not what Sarah Palin said.
According to her spokespeople, Obama was comparing Palin to a pig.
…
What does this say about Palin’s spokespeople, that the first thing they connect with “putting lipstick on a pig” is Sarah Palin?
When I want logical, rational thinking, I generally do not look to a woman. Is that sexist? Not if you are being honest. There is a time and a place for everything, and two months before an election is neither the time nor the place for this very feminine derailing of an argument. I don’t believe for a second McCain could come up with this, because for men, logic lumbers along a fixed trajectory. It takes a woman to break the tracks and bend them into some kind of Mobius strip so the train runs eternally, never reaching its destination.
Well, until she firebombs it in frustration after three days of ignoring you.
And that is probably why women tend to dominate the field of public relations. Not because they are better speakers or that people open up to them — those are reasons women excel in journalism. They can get stories men can’t because both men and women are more willing to talk to a woman. I’m not complaining, I’m stating a good point. No, women dominate public relations for their ability to warp every logical question or statement into a personal attack, which they will then rail about at length without answering the original question or responding to the original statement.
This is why there are so many ladies working the campaign trail.
You see, politics in the United States works by talking about absolutely everything except the issues on which people vote. From filibusters that rely on the Yellow Pages to Sarah Palin wearing lipstick, the political landscape is rife with childish bickering and absent of issues.
What has been accomplished by this? Is McCain talking more about what really matters? No, mostly he’s just preventing Obama from trying to.
I’m not an Obama supporter. I’m not a McCain supporter. I live in China and do not vote. Even when I lived in the US I did not vote. Even after eight years of George W. Bush I do not believe in the lesser-of-two-evils theory. If you vote for someone you do not fully support, then you helped put that idiot in power. You lost your right to criticize him. Me? I stayed home. I can hardly be blamed for having to live with your fuck up.
Which brings me to your biggest fuck up: turning on the television.
You leave CNN running all day. You show what gives news its highest ratings. If people didn’t tune in all day long to watch the parade of fucktard “commentators” on networks named in letters rather than words, then this tactic would fall flat on its face.
Those ads these campaign buy to smear each other would look pretty silly if it were not for the fact that as soon as the ad ends, you’re dumped back into a news program “debating” the validity of the ad you just saw. Whether they get it or not, they are just contributing to the problem.
And it’s so easy to fix.
All it takes is these “mediators” to do their job. Their real job. Not the one CNN told them to do — stir up a shitstorm to bump our ratings — but the one the people should be telling them to do: keep these clown fuckers on the right track.
When Obama and his boys or McCain start rambling off on the other candidate or on all their past achievements, cut them off with a simple, friendly “SHUT THE FUCK UP!” I have a lot of these really useful phrases that come in handy when interviewing politicians. If the mediator is feeling wordy, he can try a simple “SEE THIS FUCKING CUE CARD? THIS IS THE FUCKING ISSUE. STAY THE FUCK ON IT OR GET THE FUCK OFF MY SHOW!”
Asshat doesn’t want to comply? Cut to a commercial and come back talking about Bobo the dancing bear.
I guarantee you it wouldn’t be but three weeks before American politics would be in chaos. Thousands of campaign staff would lose their jobs as candidates wonder, “Jesus, what are we doing wrong? We’re slinging mud, attacking character and avoiding anything people care about. We’re following everything right from what we learned in our Yale text books. Where did we go wrong?”
You went wrong when you stopped focusing on how to make things better and started talking about bags of dead babies.
If that ever happened, you might have an election I would consider voting in.
Until then, I prefer a benevolent but authoritarian government to a failed democracy. It does far less damage to itself and the world at large.
(I do not usually write about American politics. It is not my area of expertise. I prefer to focus on China and its issues. However, people have been dogging me about this election for four months both online and at my work place. I needed to say something, and I think today my frustrations with both American politics and this election came to a head. Do not expect a follow-up.)
14 responses to “Obama’s choice of lipstick”
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I can’t say I’d prefer a benevolent dictatorship to a bunch of fucktards, but that’s probably just because I’m paranoid. While it would be great for people to actually… you know, talk about something more than who’s ass they wiped, we all know that’s not going to happen. Not in American politics anyway. Hell, the most “notable” thing about Palin in America right now is her glasses, which apparently are now selling for some egregious amount as the circle of morons continues.
Oh yeah, I’m also in South Korea. Come visit!
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Garrett September 15th, 2008 at 00:19
I probably agree with your take on politics in america, but I haven’t looked at in-depth to see if it correlates with my beliefs. I personally can’t stand the crap. It’s even gotten to the point where I stopped watching the Colbert Report and the Daily Show. Just because they’re satirizing it, doesn’t make it any better. I probably lean more towards the liberal side and you’d think I’d vote for Obama, but I’m not going to. The only possibility of me voting is if Nader’s on the ballot, but I don’t really agree with him either. As for Obama, this idea that he’s supposed to represent change is complete bullshit. Things will get much worse before they’ll ever get better.
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If you’re just going to vote with someone you agree with, you might as well vote for yourself. I tend to vote for who I think will fuck things up less. Since I know that no matter who has power, they’re going to fuck something up with it. That’s sort of all power really is–the permission to fuck things up. So I vote for the person who I think does that the least. Thus I didn’t vote for Bush. Not that it mattered since I vote in a state that’s been Republican for some 100 years, but at least I can say I voted. I prefer to not take the George Carlin approach and at least pretend like I give a shit (secretly nobody except the person getting voted in really cares–most people just want their lives to continue going on as they always have, change is actually what scares people the most).
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I like your take, Garrett. I’m just waiting for the day where it finally gets to them and both Stewart and Colbert just say, “Fuck it,” on their shows and quit right on the air.
Also, I agree more with Talbain. There’s just no point to not voting at all. If anything, it empowers the stupid people who vote for.. stupid people. In a way, people DO vote for themselves like Talbain said.
Of course it is too simple-minded to say that people can be shoehorned into one set of ideals since many people aren’t that generic (though some are). Sometimes to make a difference, choosing the lesser of two evils is all you can do. Not saying either candidate is evil here, but it’s just a phrase.Anyway, even with all this said I’m not THAT jaded to politics. I do like Obama, and I’ll be voting for him. It doesn’t mean I’m some brainwashed American that likes EVERYTHING the democratic party does; it’s just who I would prefer.
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Talbain: I would vote for myself if it didn’t take 27 million dollars to get my name on the ballot. Write-ins, in the few places that allow it, just get binned anyway.
Senka: You will never convince me that by not voting, I am voting for someone. My mom tried that kind of shit on me when I was 18. I’m sorry, but no. By not adding my vote to anyone’s side, I am not helping any of them to get elected.
These same assholes tried that in 2000 — they said a vote for Nader was a vote for Bush. Then they did it again with Kerry.
No. A vote for Nader was a vote for Nader. To say otherwise is to admit you believe democracy is a binary system. It can have 0 or 1: candidate A or candidate B. It is saying that people who pick neither A nor B, or who demand a C, are in fact supporting whichever side you oppose.
That is bullshit.
Sure, it may be the case that in present day USA, most people share this Texas Instruments approach to logic. That does not mean it is not a fallacy.
What they are really saying is that anyone who is not for their side is against their side. And, well, for anyone who cannot see how illogical that is I can only say May Dog help them.
I certainly can’t.
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Well, I respect your point of view. I wasn’t exactly trying to say that, “A vote for McCain is a vote for Bush again,” which would be the modern equivalent of Nader and Bush, though.
I’m sure if I bothered to research politics much more I’d end up with a similar attitude about it, so I won’t claim to be right or anything.
I’ve never been outside of the country, so I’ve always wondered what kind of viewpoint I might have of the US after living somewhere else for a while. I certainly know that stuff is seriously messed up here at least. -
Nader announced he is running as an independent earlier this year. So now you can say, “A vote for Nader is a vote for McCain.” Substitute Nader with McKinney if you support the Green party or with Barr for Libertarian party.
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If there’s a problem with our government, it’s probably that there are only two major parties. I don’t think majority election was intended in such a manner, but then the ideals of any governing system are always great, it’s just that whole “putting it into practice” that’s the problem. In the end, I think you probably end up with a dictatorship no matter the governmental type because governments, or at least their leaders, always attempt to consolidate power to whatever office they happen to lead.
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Oh, I’ve heard of Nader, McKinney, and Barr trying to get in. I always kinda wish they could really get somewhere for something different, but.. stuff is just ingrained into people’s heads.
Also, I want to blame the baby boomer generation for our problems. Then again, those people just teach the same stupid thought processes to their children, so it never stops. -
Any particular reason you’re blaming the baby boomer generation? Doesn’t seem like much of an argument, that somehow America’s problems are related to one group or another and not just a collective group of fuck-ups.
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.. yeah it’s not. I’m just being a whiny, 19 year old kid. It’s just that it frustrates me when you hear about 50 year olds blaming video games for problems in kids and stuff like that.
I guess rock and roll got the same treatment and now nobody has a problem with it, so I guess every generation has people like that. -
Years in China have taken its toll on you, my friend.
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EricKei October 23rd, 2008 at 11:15
Years in China have taken its toll on you, my friend.
Yeah, he has mellowed out a bit. ^_^
I am not sure that I really believe that either of the candidates who have a realistic chance of getting into office are worth a damn anyway. The past few major elections, and this one in particular, just remind me of one of my favorite “Guide entries” in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books. It told of a race of beings who were effectively enslaved by democratically-elected, cruel, evil lizards. The people in question kept re-electing the lizards into office because, if they didn’t, “the wrong lizard might get in”…
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That’s beautiful.
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The author
Derrick Sobodash is a copy editor and freelance journalist covering culture, history and technology in Beijing, China.
Originally from the Detroit, Michigan area, he has worked at weekly and daily community newspapers as reporter and copy editor in both the US and China, and has covered niche topics for nationally published magazines.
His photographs have been used in Schmapp!! and are often used in NowPublic stories related to Beijing life.
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