You know, the interviewer doesn't do himself any favors by baiting with the same question over and over again, but Palin-with-a-penis Joe Miller seems like a bundle of fun, right?
Here's the thing (puts cranky contrarian hat on, adjusting the brim) -- Miller is actually correct about a few important things (setting aside his tedious "states' rights" guff). What passes for the federal government these days does a piss-poor job of providing adequate representation to, well, the average Joe.
Merchant princes and soulless corporations own and operate "both" parties, which ought to provide some clue as to the extent they are genuinely different from an operational standpoint. The truth is that, while each side makes lots of noise for its respective base, little or no action actually takes place, but the bases are distracted sufficiently from the ongoing pocket-picking of their futures. To loosely paraphrase a noted political philosopher, the best way for rich people to keep the poor people they bully and cheat off their backs is to pit them against each other, which they do quite well.
It's a common trope that this nation doesn't make or manufacture anything anymore, but that's not quite true -- America invented the concept of public relations, and the operational aspects of the nation are handled accordingly. PR, opinion, and consent are manufactured routinely, and in mass quantities.
This is what enables "us" to send warships to the Black Sea to flex nuts at Putin's own nut-flexing in Crimea, and not even consider how deeply we would consider it a provocation if, say, we decided to send in the National Guard or even a few army units to eliminate the Mexican drug cartels once and for all, and the Russians or Chinese took it upon themselves to masturbate out in the middle of the Sea of Cortez. This is what enables professional opinion-mongers and analysts of dubious skill and repute to talk about Ukraine like it's important to them on a personal level, without mentioning the geopolitical issues of how Russia perceives our continuous overtures to get Ukraine into NATO, or how much money Ukraine gets in hock to the World Bank and the IMF (i.e., the western centralized banking usury system).
This is how chickenhawks like Huckleberry Closetcase get to go on the Sunday morning follies and pull assertions out of their asses, brush the peanuts and disappointment off them, and present them as facts, apparently based on the premise that, sooner or later, they might actually right about something. (And of course, we wouldn't want to mention that maybe Huck's tough-guy 'tude is driven mostly by the fact that he's being primaried, because the Koch Brothers simply won't be happy until they own every fucking thing and all citizens are merely serfs to their lordship.)
It is all of a piece -- the corporate-owned political and media systems have vested interests in keeping people ignorant and belligerent, outraged over all the wrong things, and ignoring the issues that actually affect their lives. Miller may not think he's part of that, since he likely has no direct stake in such things, but he is a part of it, whether he realizes it or not. Because he, like the corporate insect overlords, make bank on stoking jabber and nonsense, on getting folks liquored up on stale -- and logically impossible; Obama simply cannot be both a tyrant and a pussy, so maybe pick one and stick with it already -- bullshit.
Not only do election season get longer and more polarizing, but midterm election seasons get angrier and weirder with each iteration. Again, it's easy to see where the perpetual horse-race industry has a vested interest in all that. But maybe -- and here's where I suspect someone like Miller and someone like myself might be more aligned in opinion -- it may be time to consider the benefits and strengths of a more decentralized political system, a Hanseatic League type of setup if you will (and you might) that forces welfare states such as, um, Alaska to actually be self-sufficient, instead of just talking about it, and taking blue-state tax dollars and talking shit the whole time.
To paraphrase yet another cinematic thinker, I would prefer if they just said "thank you" and went on about their way; failing that perhaps it's time to cut them loose and make them fend for themselves. We'll see how that rugged individualist shit works out when the deep southern states aren't propped up by our decadent, filthy money.
Here's the thing (puts cranky contrarian hat on, adjusting the brim) -- Miller is actually correct about a few important things (setting aside his tedious "states' rights" guff). What passes for the federal government these days does a piss-poor job of providing adequate representation to, well, the average Joe.
Merchant princes and soulless corporations own and operate "both" parties, which ought to provide some clue as to the extent they are genuinely different from an operational standpoint. The truth is that, while each side makes lots of noise for its respective base, little or no action actually takes place, but the bases are distracted sufficiently from the ongoing pocket-picking of their futures. To loosely paraphrase a noted political philosopher, the best way for rich people to keep the poor people they bully and cheat off their backs is to pit them against each other, which they do quite well.
It's a common trope that this nation doesn't make or manufacture anything anymore, but that's not quite true -- America invented the concept of public relations, and the operational aspects of the nation are handled accordingly. PR, opinion, and consent are manufactured routinely, and in mass quantities.
This is what enables "us" to send warships to the Black Sea to flex nuts at Putin's own nut-flexing in Crimea, and not even consider how deeply we would consider it a provocation if, say, we decided to send in the National Guard or even a few army units to eliminate the Mexican drug cartels once and for all, and the Russians or Chinese took it upon themselves to masturbate out in the middle of the Sea of Cortez. This is what enables professional opinion-mongers and analysts of dubious skill and repute to talk about Ukraine like it's important to them on a personal level, without mentioning the geopolitical issues of how Russia perceives our continuous overtures to get Ukraine into NATO, or how much money Ukraine gets in hock to the World Bank and the IMF (i.e., the western centralized banking usury system).
This is how chickenhawks like Huckleberry Closetcase get to go on the Sunday morning follies and pull assertions out of their asses, brush the peanuts and disappointment off them, and present them as facts, apparently based on the premise that, sooner or later, they might actually right about something. (And of course, we wouldn't want to mention that maybe Huck's tough-guy 'tude is driven mostly by the fact that he's being primaried, because the Koch Brothers simply won't be happy until they own every fucking thing and all citizens are merely serfs to their lordship.)
It is all of a piece -- the corporate-owned political and media systems have vested interests in keeping people ignorant and belligerent, outraged over all the wrong things, and ignoring the issues that actually affect their lives. Miller may not think he's part of that, since he likely has no direct stake in such things, but he is a part of it, whether he realizes it or not. Because he, like the corporate insect overlords, make bank on stoking jabber and nonsense, on getting folks liquored up on stale -- and logically impossible; Obama simply cannot be both a tyrant and a pussy, so maybe pick one and stick with it already -- bullshit.
Not only do election season get longer and more polarizing, but midterm election seasons get angrier and weirder with each iteration. Again, it's easy to see where the perpetual horse-race industry has a vested interest in all that. But maybe -- and here's where I suspect someone like Miller and someone like myself might be more aligned in opinion -- it may be time to consider the benefits and strengths of a more decentralized political system, a Hanseatic League type of setup if you will (and you might) that forces welfare states such as, um, Alaska to actually be self-sufficient, instead of just talking about it, and taking blue-state tax dollars and talking shit the whole time.
To paraphrase yet another cinematic thinker, I would prefer if they just said "thank you" and went on about their way; failing that perhaps it's time to cut them loose and make them fend for themselves. We'll see how that rugged individualist shit works out when the deep southern states aren't propped up by our decadent, filthy money.
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