eVille Times

Mar 21, 2012

The Romneybot

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love." --Mitt Romney, 2012

It's a little scary, but I think that quote is exactly who Romney is. He'd been told that his audience responds favorably whenever they hear words like "believe" and "America", so he spins up a clever-sounding bit of pure sophistry ("I believe in make-believe because I have some very expensive polling data that tells me you idiots believe in that crap, so that's what you're gonna hear me say over and over") But by the time anybody translates it to a human-usable format, the adoring crowd that he pays to follow him around cheering and applauding has rushed past anybody who feels the need to stop and wonder if anything he says actually means anything.

Mar 19, 2012

What We Do To People

Putting a couple of stories together.

George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain in Florida murders (IMO) a black teenager and claims self defense.
SSgt Robert Bales murders 16 Afghanis in Panjwai and claims PTSD.

I hope there's no problem generating sympathy and an aching in our hearts for the dead - and for their families, but I get the feeling that we spend way too much time and energy either condemning or excusing guys like Bales and Zimmerman rather than spending any real time or doing any real analysis on how those guys arrived at the decisions that made such a fucking mess of so many lives.

Can't we just stop for a minute and ask what we're doing to people?

Today's Internet Lore

A pretty fair PhotoShop depiction, and an interesting perspective on the status of our political dialog.

Today I posted an image called "Fox News killed my mother." Because it did. It was the most widely circulated image I've ever posted. But, after about an hour I could no longer read any of the comments. Still can't. And some of you have messaged me to say you can't see it. So here it is again. This time, my explanation will be in the first comment instead of here. Basically my mother fell and refused to go to the doctor because she was afraid that "Obamacare" would get information about her and use it in their "death panels." Since then several of you shared identical experiences. This is how their fear mongering is killing our nation, one person at a time, one lie at a time.

(via Democratic Underground)

I have no way of confirming this so my own Confirmation Bias may be in effect, but this is how this shit can play out over time. People start to believe whatever you tell them if you tell them often enough.

Spendthrift Obama

Can't we just put the crap away now? From The Atlantic:

The graph tells a simple story that I've recounted before. For all the talk you hear about Obama's historic spree, government spending actually hasn't increased so dramatically under this president. The stimulus was big, but it's over. It's been replaced by, if not austerity (which has struck our states and cities) then a hard correction to the center.

But no, we prob'ly can't put it away at all. Digging into the comments on Thompson's post shows an awful lot of people just totally unwilling to accept anything but their own version of the story. And that's where we are now. We've arrived at a place where people of great power have convinced way too many of us that Perception Is Reality. If they're pushing an agenda that isn't supported by honest research and real-world data, then they just go shopping - somebody out there is willing to reach whatever foregone conclusion they have in mind. You can see it in practically any business almost every day - the boss decides to take the company in a certain direction, and the good folks in Marketing (the smart ones anyway) will come up with "customer survey info" that confirms everything he wants to do. Facts are now fungible.

And we are so fucked.