Monthly Archives: June 2016

fuck dilbert

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Oh lawdy, did you see this? Scott Adams — the Dilbert cartoonist — has 1) endorsed Hillary Clinton for President of These United States and 2) says she’s likely to start a race war. But it’s okay, on account of 3) he’s only endorsing her to escape assassination.

No, I am NOT making this up. It sounds like I’m making it up, on account of it’s so fucking stupid it would make paramecium scratch their heads — but I am NOT making it up. Here’s his endorsement in its paramecium-confusing entirety. So you can check what I write against what he actually no-shit I’m-not-making-this-up says.

“This past week we saw Clinton pair the idea of President Trump with nuclear disaster, racism, Hitler, the Holocaust, and whatever else makes you tremble in fear.”

And hey, there’s some truth in that. Not a lot, but some. Hillary did, in fact, say this:

“[I]t’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.”

I have to say, it’s pretty easy to imagine Trump getting the U.S. involved in a war. He talks a lot about bombing the shit out of people, which sounds pretty war-like to me. But did she actually ‘pair’ Trump with Hitler and the Holocaust? Nope. Did she call him a racist? Well, sorta kinda. What she actually said was that Trump “plays coy with white supremacists.” She says that because Trump actually does play coy with white supremacists. Which, I guess, is pretty much saying he’s either a racist or he doesn’t mind racists. But that’s because Trump is a racist. Or doesn’t mind racists.

dilbert2006101221628

Adams also wrote this in his ‘endorsement’ of Clinton:

“Trump took her so-called “woman card” and turned it into a liability. So Clinton wisely pivoted. Her new scare tactics are solid-gold persuasion.”

Well, no. Trump didn’t turn the ‘woman card’ into a liability. Trump said “I think only card she has is the women’s card.” That didn’t hurt Clinton at all. In fact, it turned a LOT of women away from Trump. Well, farther away. And Clinton didn’t pivot away from Trump’s sexist comment; she embraced it as an example of why women can’t trust or believe him.

And then Adams says — and again, I’m honestly NOT making this up — this Dilbert guy actually wrote these exact words:

“The only downside I can see to the new approach is that it is likely to trigger a race war in the United States. And I would be a top-ten assassination target in that scenario because once you define Trump as Hitler, you also give citizens moral permission to kill him. And obviously it would be okay to kill anyone who actively supports a genocidal dictator, including anyone who wrote about his persuasion skills in positive terms.

If Clinton successfully pairs Trump with Hitler in your mind – as she is doing – and loses anyway, about a quarter of the country will think it is morally justified to assassinate their own leader.”

Apparently if you claim Trump is a racist and you cite some of the racist shit Trump says, and then racist violence starts, the violence is the fault of those folks who called Trump a racist. To believe that and write it is stupid at the atomic level. Every atom in Scott Adams body must be spinning off-kilter and making a whiny, high-pitched mree mree mree sound, like an air conditioner that’s about to explosively cease functioning.

It’s a good thing Trump supporters and conservatives have too much integrity to pair anybody with Hitler (oh lawdy, I’m a fucking riot).

hitlery

And that ‘morally justified to assassinate’ bullshit? This colossal fuckwit Adams is not only suggesting Clinton is tacitly promoting the murder of Trump but also the murder of himself because — because who the fuck knows why? Because he predicted Trump would win the election? C’mon.

Those French dudes who wrote politically charged cartoons for Charlie Hebdo? They were assassinated because they offended intolerant religious fanatics. Those guys took actual risks by writing unpopular stuff about actual issues. Writing a cartoon about an office drone in a cubicle and a snarky dog doesn’t make anybody a threat. Jeebus, get over yourself. Dilbert is no fucking Charlie Hebdo.

Then Adams says — and I know you’re thinking he can’t possible say anything stupider than what he’s already said, but YOU’D BE WRONG. He writes:

“I’ve decided to endorse Hillary Clinton for President, for my personal safety. Trump supporters don’t have any bad feelings about patriotic Americans such as myself, so I’ll be safe from that crowd. But Clinton supporters have convinced me – and here I am being 100% serious – that my safety is at risk if I am seen as supportive of Trump.”

He may be 100% serious, but he’s also 100% full of moose shit. The only risk to Scott Adams is that somebody might decide to stop reading his comic or buying his fucking stuffed dogs or his…well, his books.

But don’t fret. At the very end of his ‘endorsement’ Scott Adams asks you to buy his book. Seriously. Again, totally NOT making that up. So if all you Hillary supporters can just hold off on that race war and assassination summer long enough to buy his book, then maybe he’ll be able to afford to escape to some safe haven for cartoonist heroes.

Mree mree mree mreeeee.

this is bullshit

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It’s no secret that I’ve become disenchanted with the Sanders campaign — and to some extent with Bernie himself. A few folks have pointed out that since the beginning of his campaign I’ve been harder on Bernie than I have on Hillary. And it’s absolutely true — I have been. That’s because I expected more of Bernie than I did of Hillary. In fact, I still expect more of Bernie than I do of Hillary. I expect Hillary and her campaign to engage in traditional politics; I expected Bernie and his campaign to move beyond that.

Let me also say I’m not entirely opposed to traditional politics. When practiced with integrity, politics is about getting stuff done. It’s about finding the seam between what’s ideal and what’s possible. But when practiced with cynicism or ego — and way too often these days, that’s the default toggle — politics becomes about tearing down the people with whom you disagree.

Which brings me to this. Over the last few days, I’ve seen this posted five times by five different people. All of them are people I like. They’re all people I firmly believe have integrity. They’re people who would never deliberately spread a lie. And yet there’s this:

bernie hillary social security

I don’t know anything about Ron Gavalik. But I do know this is bullshit. I don’t say that because I’ve become a convert of Hillary Clinton. I haven’t — though I accept she’s going to be the Democratic nominee and I’ll work to get her elected. I say this is bullshit because I took the time to look into it. I looked into it because this made no sense to me. I may not be an avid Hillary supporter, but she’s always been sound on the issue of Social Security. I had to wonder if she’d somehow changed her position.

She hasn’t.

Here’s how this sort of pernicious bullshit gets spread. It started back before the New Hampshire primary, when Bernie made a categorical statement that he’d never accept any sort of cut to Social Security. Daniel Marans, a reporter for The Huffington Post, asked the Clinton campaign if they were also willing to make “a red-line pledge not to cut [social security] benefits.” According to the article Marans published, the aide pointed Marans to the Clinton campaign website, in which Hillary is quoted as saying “I won’t cut Social Security. … I’ll defend it, and I’ll expand it.” The aide then told Marans the following:

“She has no plans to cut benefits and, in fact, has a plan to expand them.”

That seems pretty clear, right? But wait — no plan to cut Social Security doesn’t mean she won’t consider it at some point in the future. Could that mean she’s ‘open’ to the idea? Marans then interviewed Nancy Altman, who has a lot of experience in issues involving Social Security (and who, by the way, also does reporting for The Huffington Post). Ms. Altman stated Clinton’s policy statements:

“do not definitively promise not to cut the program.”

That’s technically accurate, though radically misleading. On her campaign website Clinton lays out her plan to extend Social Security benefits and very clearly states “I won’t cut Social Security” but she doesn’t say “I definitely promise not to cut the program, honest, cross my heart, I’m not making this up, pinkie swear”.

Marans also interviewed Stephanie Taylor, the co-founder of the Progressive Campaign Change Committee. When asked for a response to Clinton’s aide’s comment that Hillary doesn’t plan to cut benefits, Ms. Taylor said:

“George W. Bush had no plan to invade Iraq.”

Since George W. Bush DID, in fact, invade Iraq, clearly Hillary Clinton will almost certainly cut Soci…you know, that notion just too stupid for me to even finish writing it.

Let’s review all that. A reporter for The Huffington Post interviewed a Clinton campaign staffer who stated Hillary had no plans to cut Social Security but DID have plans to expand the program. He then interviewed another reporter for The Huffington Post who read the Clinton campaign’s position on Social Security and decided it didn’t include a definite promise not to cut Social Security. Finally, he interviewed a third person who noted that George W. Bush invaded Iraq.

Got that? That bit of rank speculation was then reported at CommonDreams.org under the following headline:

Hillary Clinton Refuses to Rule Out Any and All Benefit Cuts to Social Security

And that leads us directly back to Ron Gavalik’s bullshit claim that Hillary Clinton is ‘open’ to the idea of cutting Social Security benefits for poor folks.

There are valid reasons to prefer Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. Lots of valid reasons, in fact, which is why I supported Bernie early in the campaign. There’s simply no need to make shit up and smear it all over the Intertubes.

This is exactly the sort of ugly politics Bernie opposed at the beginning of his campaign. It’s bullshit like this — and the willingness of so many Bernie supporters to fabricate bullshit like this — that led me to end my support for Bernie’s campaign. It’s bullshit like this — and the willingness of so many Bernie supporters to believe anything if it suggests Hillary is evil and corrupt — that disappoints me more than any of the ugly attacks spread by the Republicans.

You don’t have to lie about Hillary to support Bernie. You don’t have to resort to this sort of bullshit.