Lightning Joe - a piece of work
Spiritual Sluttery and the Permanent Majority
posted Thursday, 6 March 2008
Starship Troopers is a cult again? Strange that soldiers in the field in Iraq are
studying up on a fictional battle-for-survival against rapacious aliens.
So lemme see, on this side we have alien hordes, who lob moons at our planet, and swarm-attack by the tens of thousands, and suck our brains (only in the movie)... And over here, we have some militia guys with guns and bombs, who don't like us invading their country, or are striking back against a historic enemy or two -- and the so-convenient Great Satanic Crusaders, cruising around in cardboard jitneys, just asking for an EFP in the side panel.
After I saw Star Wars, I wanted to join the Rebellion, and played the theme mentally at work, for the testosterone rush. I wondered, if I was in Luke's place, would I maybe have tortured an Imperial stormtrooper?
Say, if he planted a bomb and if, our side, the Rebellion, needed to know where it was, like, to protect innocent civilians, maybe? I think I could shoot a pan-head in the knee for that. Some electrodes maybe, some pliers, some Q-Tips in the ears...
Oops -- identity mis-match, duh -- WE'D be the insurgents then, wouldn't we? Makes me kind of identify with the Sith after all, I guess. I suppose they must be great entrepreneurs anyway, like Ming the Merciless, or the Matrix.
Trouble is, Iraq is not a movie, nor are there any play-overs. This reality crap hangs around for -- well, as long as we do. Fiascos are fiascos for good; no warping back to the start of the level.
At least Bush's tax cuts for the super-rich are for sure going to expire now. Including the effective suspension of the amazingly-illnamed "death tax."
-The inheritors who pay the tax aren't dying, are they? They're getting lots of money they never earned, like a sweepstakes. I guess their way of grieving is to complain about having to pay taxes on a couple of million in free income. Of course, they may indeed have earned it in a fashion, by sucking up mightily to the dead guy; but I don't feel we as a country need go out of our way to reward such spiritual sluttery.
It sucks. You have a rich relative pass away, and you only get a million and a bit, for all the bereavment. I'm sure it would take me at least a few mil to get over a parent dying. Taxes would only add to my grief, doncha know. Thank god for lawyers.
The Owning Classes, the very rich, got 75% of the Republican Congress's tax cuts -- about 85% if you include upper-middle class. The Republicons chose to make them temporary, in order to win the votes to pass them. ( And of course because they thought they were the new-under-the-sun "permanent majority," and could make the cuts permanent, at their convenience. )
So no problem -- the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will only affect the same folks, who can well afford it anyway, since they own the rest of us. A few Republicon senators in the Budget Committee today dutifully called the expirations "raising taxes," but they lost their Amendment to make them permanent, and by a good margin.
The Empire had a permanent majority too, once.
-----
Suck your tv's brains out, until it shrivels and cracks right across, and free your mind.
studying up on a fictional battle-for-survival against rapacious aliens.
So lemme see, on this side we have alien hordes, who lob moons at our planet, and swarm-attack by the tens of thousands, and suck our brains (only in the movie)... And over here, we have some militia guys with guns and bombs, who don't like us invading their country, or are striking back against a historic enemy or two -- and the so-convenient Great Satanic Crusaders, cruising around in cardboard jitneys, just asking for an EFP in the side panel.
After I saw Star Wars, I wanted to join the Rebellion, and played the theme mentally at work, for the testosterone rush. I wondered, if I was in Luke's place, would I maybe have tortured an Imperial stormtrooper?
Say, if he planted a bomb and if, our side, the Rebellion, needed to know where it was, like, to protect innocent civilians, maybe? I think I could shoot a pan-head in the knee for that. Some electrodes maybe, some pliers, some Q-Tips in the ears...
Oops -- identity mis-match, duh -- WE'D be the insurgents then, wouldn't we? Makes me kind of identify with the Sith after all, I guess. I suppose they must be great entrepreneurs anyway, like Ming the Merciless, or the Matrix.
Trouble is, Iraq is not a movie, nor are there any play-overs. This reality crap hangs around for -- well, as long as we do. Fiascos are fiascos for good; no warping back to the start of the level.
At least Bush's tax cuts for the super-rich are for sure going to expire now. Including the effective suspension of the amazingly-illnamed "death tax."
-The inheritors who pay the tax aren't dying, are they? They're getting lots of money they never earned, like a sweepstakes. I guess their way of grieving is to complain about having to pay taxes on a couple of million in free income. Of course, they may indeed have earned it in a fashion, by sucking up mightily to the dead guy; but I don't feel we as a country need go out of our way to reward such spiritual sluttery.
It sucks. You have a rich relative pass away, and you only get a million and a bit, for all the bereavment. I'm sure it would take me at least a few mil to get over a parent dying. Taxes would only add to my grief, doncha know. Thank god for lawyers.
The Owning Classes, the very rich, got 75% of the Republican Congress's tax cuts -- about 85% if you include upper-middle class. The Republicons chose to make them temporary, in order to win the votes to pass them. ( And of course because they thought they were the new-under-the-sun "permanent majority," and could make the cuts permanent, at their convenience. )
So no problem -- the expiration of the Bush tax cuts will only affect the same folks, who can well afford it anyway, since they own the rest of us. A few Republicon senators in the Budget Committee today dutifully called the expirations "raising taxes," but they lost their Amendment to make them permanent, and by a good margin.
The Empire had a permanent majority too, once.
-----
Suck your tv's brains out, until it shrivels and cracks right across, and free your mind.
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