PlaceboNation

A misinformed, right-wing corporate media consumer who often fails to understand that BOTH major parties represent a corrupt plutocracy that steals from the middle class by taxing labor and profiting from corporate tax subsidies.

A teabagger also often fails to acknowledge that George W. Bush and his neo-conservative minions perpetrated one of the boldest and most egregious executive power grabs in the history of the United States. Furthermore, teabaggers mistakenly continue to blame a newly elected President Obama for all that ails the United States of America, based on a grossly flawed perception of reality (including latent racial prejudice) and despite the fact the U.S. economy collapsed on the previous administration’s watch.

Teabaggers are also known to base their misguided, right-wing-media-inspired beliefs about President Obama on stupid conspiracy theories about totalitarian takeovers, FEMA camps, etc., despite the fact these very same theories have been circulating around on the Internet for years, and were originally ascribed to neo-conservative cabalists at a time when Barack Obama had not even entered national politics. Teabaggers also are known to be particularly paranoid, xenophobic and intolerant, especially with regard to immigrants and anyone who isn’t white.

Additionally, teabaggers generally echo stupid myths about entitlement spending (it actually only accounts for about 1% of federal budget spending), have no idea that most poor people in America are not lazy, actually do work and don’t want to be on welfare, and have no idea what socialism actually means or that socialist reform in this country is actually what allowed a middle class to flourish and ultimately make the U.S. one of the most prosperous nations in human history.

Furthermore, teabaggers incorrectly equate socialism with Stalinism, think a system that rewards greed (capitalism) is the divine preference (despite Gospel evidence to the contrary), and are shameless champions of a misguided belief in American exceptionalism. Teabaggers also fail to recognize the inherently unpatriotic nature of their failed every-man-for-himself ideology that ultimately vilifies anyone who supports public policy aimed at reaching out to fellow Americans in need. They celebrate an exploitative corporatocracy (holy creator of jobs, blah blah blah) while denigrating the little guy for being “weak.”

Interestingly, teabaggers uphold an immoral, morbidly obese, twice divorced, draft-dodging, college dropout and known drug addict as their de facto leader, and are even known to advocate burning books. Of course, teabaggers fail to recognize the blatant hypocrisy within the GOP and tend to oversimplify all political debate and social issues, much like their pseudo-intellectual, fat-ass leader.

Finally, incredibly, teabaggers fail to recognize the hysterical double entendre associated with their proudly adopted teabag moniker.

Every village has its idiots, of course, but it’s sad when citizens of any nation allow themselves to be whipped into a frenzy en masse by a state-run propaganda machine masquerading as a legitimate, fair, balanced and independent news organization. Teabaggers are right to believe the future of the U.S.A. is in jeopardy, but sadly they have not yet correctly identified the real enemy. Perhaps when teabaggers finally grow up and mature into thinking adults, they will see the right-leaning power establishment for the oppressive and cunning beast that it is.

Teabagger: We don’t care that George Bush tripled the deficit and lied us into a war. The new administration only cut taxes for 90% of the population… fascists. Let’s go throw some Lipton tea bags into a fountain!

Most people don’t seem to understand that the Democratic party is a coalition party, not a progressive party. For each progressive student ranting about gay marriage there’s an urban black man who’s a hardcore Christian and against homosexuality. For every green advocate pushing for carbon emission reduction there’s a steel worker union member who’s worried about his job.

Progressives seem to have developed the idea that they are the Democratic party’s base, but they’re not. To understand that all you need to do is look at Obama’s policies, he’s for civil unions but against gay marriage, he’s for hard-line diplomatic stances (eg Iran can’t have a nuke, escalation in Afghanistan), he’s not actually doing anything about carbon emissions, etc. Quite simply the Democratic party is not the Progressive party, it’s the party of many conflicting and competing points of views. As a result it will continue to be the party that says a lot of good-sounding things during election, but won’t actually take action incase it pisses off one of their core constituencies. Gay marriage cannot happen due to the urban poor and latino vote which is every bit as religious as the Religious Right.

Green reforms cannot happen due to the union vote which is every bit as pro-business as big corporations. Anti-war policies cannot happen due to the working class blue collar vote which is every bit as pro-gun and pro-war as the Southern Republican vote. Once people start to understand things thing maybe they’ll stop acting surprised when Democrats accomplish nothing on the federal level. These Democrats aren’t “limp dick” democrats, they’re simply intelligent enough to understand their constituency, their entire constituency, not just the progressives.

If most democrats want something as well as a few republicans, shouldn’t that be enough to get legislation passed?

But the thing is republican politicians are a lot more consistent in sticking with party lines. Is this due to a greater alignment on issues? Perhaps to an extent, but I would guess a lot of it is due to the “Us vs Them” mentality. As annoying and insane as it can be, their dramatic posturing and fearmongering can have some political value. The democrats are evil, healthcare legislation is socialism, and anyone who strays from the party line is a traitor/communist/heathen.

This sort of thing doesn’t seem quite as pervasive on the democratic line, so it’s definitely a part of their problem. But sitting there, taking vague lines that they don’t stick to, backing down to opposition and giving into “compromise” to people who are unwilling to compromise isn’t going to help them. I think the democratic party needs some of the force and consistency in their posturing that, admittedly, conservatives have been very successful with. Long story short, they need a clear and forceful plan to stick with – which will be far harder to accomplish now than it would have been before.

• No Medicare expansion
• No public option,
• No cost controls
• A captive market to an industry protected by an anti-trust exemption.

The only “Change” we will receive are the graves of individuals and families that cannot afford coverage.

Burglars tie up family at knife-point. Son escapes, calls brother and beats one burglar to within an inch of his life. Brothers are jailed. Judge says brothers should have let the courts deal with burglar. Those will be the same courts that kept the burglar free, despite 50 prior convictions, then?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/dec/14/jail-brothers-burglar-cricket-bat

Ok. Lets take a break from politics and focus on some geekiness. Ok well the one thing thats nice about Linux is the ability to have an operating system that you want. You have that choice. So many to choose from. The funny thing about Linux is that its much harder for the hard core windows guys to learn Linux than it is for lets say your dad or grandmother. But anyway. Lets move on.

So heres my script. Pretty easy to use:
wget www.placebonation.com/scripts/ubuntu.sh
sudo chown +x ubuntu.sh

To run it:
sh ubuntu.sh

This script will update Ubuntu Karmic and install most of all apps that are necessary to make me happy. Wine fully setup with all the dependencies and key files it needs. PlayOnLinux setup. All the keys needed for repositories are all there. Also it will download my current “sources.list” and backup your own. Still in beta and I am updating it every day. Stay tuned.

The kind of change we are wishing can never come to this nation. Not in its current condition. If we were to look at a beneficial law that has shown success in other nations could never work the same here. Guess this goes without saying. You can’t force a jigsaw puzzle piece to fit a situation it is not meant for.

Laws fit the society. The culture. In our current society. Democracy is a bane. When the mentality of the nation is “What’s good for me is good for the nation.” is a poor and self destructive mindset. Democracy in lets say France would have a much different result. The majority of the people have a proper understanding of what it means to take care of the whole to benefit the few. Which in turn benefits and protects all. Maybe one day we can appreciate that idea.

Lets be honest with ourselves. What has changed? Again I will take in account its only been a year. Granted. But what has changed? At least a light on the horizon. Some foreshadowing. A hint?

We are not pulling out of Afghanistan.The healthcare we are hoping for may not be what we really need. There seems to be very little end in pay backs. I’m not blind. I understand that with the current way we initiate political races leaves our newly voted in presidents vulnerable to having to pay back in some way, their victory for reaching the White House.

Progressives hungry for someone to step in and make the major changes this country needs to continue a legacy that it has lost many decades ago. They looked up at Obama as the first person capable of bringing back the honor we have lost for so very long. Yet it is easy to look among moldy bread as a saving grace when all you’ve ever experienced are crumbs.

But with the corporate greed combined with selfish citizens. We will never succeed. We have to put aside all of the multitude of issues that cloud us. We must focus on campaign reform. Also limiting the amount of time a person can be in office. Set limits for congress and senators. We must stop the political careering that mimics the kings of our past. There are no kings in a Republic.

My God, those evil Wall Street bankers.

First they bought our politicians, then they stole our moneys.

That $700 billion that went to Wall Street, that’s what everyone’s so angry about, right? It proves how the government is (a) socialist (b) sold out to corporate interests* (*choose one based on preexisting ideological preconceptions). Oh, the gross injustice of it all, how evil bankers just up and stole $700 bill-…

…Wait – what’s that you say? We’re getting it all back?

That’s what the New York Times is reporting anyway. With the economy recovering faster than anticipated, the Treasury has revised down its losses from the bailout program – to the tune of 300 billion.

The Treasury Department expects to recover all but $42 billion of the $370 billion it has lent to ailing companies since the financial crisis began last year, with the portion lent to banks actually showing a slight profit, according to a new Treasury report.The new assessment of the $700 billion bailout program, provided by two Treasury officials on Sunday ahead of a report to Congress on Monday, is vastly improved from the Obama administration’s estimates last summer of $341 billion in potential losses from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. That figure anticipated more financial troubles requiring intervention.

It now looks like the banks will be able to pay back all the money loaned to them sooner rather than later, with interest. Even taking into account losses due to additional business loans and actions such as the bailout of GM, the most optimistic scenario has the government recovering 90% of the bailout money.

Dear Tea Baggers,

I am convinced that close to 90% of you have no clue what you’re even protesting.

If it’s the debt or the deficit, where were you the last eight years? You scream about ignoring the Constitution, but when pressed for specific examples you stutter on about Socialism. Most of you don’t even know the definition of socialism, it’s just a buzzword your rich corporate sponsors injected into the debate to further their own agenda.

You shout people down in town halls while they talk about loved ones who were denied care by health insurance company “death panels.” Classy.

And stop calling it a “government take over of health care,” if anything, the current bills are the opposite, driving more people into the free-market health care system and making those insurers even wealthier. Shouldn’t that make you happy?

Also? Please stop bringing up the founding fathers. You did not know them. You do not have some sort of special access to their views on the current debate if they were alive today. For all you know, they would have voted for Barack Obama.

If you want to go back to the days of the founding fathers as your misspelled signs and civil war garb suggests, you will also have to give up the following:

• Cars
• Sneakers
• Fast food
• Telephones
• Chocolate chip cookies
• Fox News
• Medicare
• Rush Limbaugh
• Automatic weapons

I knew those last two would change your mind. Oh, and the founding fathers read….a lot, and not books by Glenn Beck.

Maybe you should start by reading the Constitution, I suggest Article I Section 8.