ROGER'S ANGLE: August 2012

Thursday, August 30, 2012

NO RESPECT

Why do Republicans lie so much? Do they have no respect for the truth? Do they have no respect for the American people?

I just read the Salon magazine article about Paul Ryan's GOP Convention speech:
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/30/paul_ryans_brazen_lies/

Here are links to two articles about Mitt Romney's lies:
http://marketplayground.com/2012/08/29/robert-reich-how-mitt-romney-keeps-lying/

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/08/29/mitt-romney-tells-533-lies-in-30-weeks-steve-benen-documents-them/

How can they expect people to vote for them when they lie so much? Here is a link to PolitiFact, a good fact-checking site:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/

Condoleeza Rice famously lied about Iraq to persuade Americans to support the Bush invasion. She said there might be a "mushroom cloud" over Washington, D.C., if we didn't take out Saddam Hussein. What a crock of GOP poop.

Now here she was this week addressing the GOP Convention as a Republican heroine:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/30/the-wars-condoleezza-rice-john-mccain-left-out-of-their-rnc-speeches.html

My God. What is the world coming to?

There is an old saying: You can't trust a liar to tell you the time of day. And my God. These liars want to lead the country!

When George W. Bush was president, the joke was, how did you tell when he was lying? His lips were moving.

Do they really think the American people are that stupid?

The weird thing to me is that the GOP is the party that keeps talking about American exceptionalism. How can we take pride in our country when leaders of a major political party lie all the time?

Do they want us to believe that America is great because of these lies? Are they just trying to hoodwink the people? Do they think we can't handle the truth? Or don't they want us to know the truth?

The Republicans amaze me. I was raised to think that people who lie and cheat and steal are the same as criminals. Perhaps these big-time liars should be put in jail. If these GOP leaders got a week in jail for every lie they told, they'd be in jail for the rest of their lives.

Maybe that is where they belong.

-- Roger

Saturday, August 11, 2012

ROMNEY BETS ON THE RIGHT

Some people are criticizing Mitt Romney's choice of right-wing congressman Paul Ryan as his running mate.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/features/2012/paul-ryan-vp-pick-reactions-and-rebuttals.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

They think this choice is as bad as John McCain choosing Sarah Palin in 2008.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/11/michael-tomasky-on-romney-s-stunning-terrible-choice-of-ryan-for-vp.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

But I think they are wrong. I think Romney is showing his true colors. He will do anything to win, and he thinks the country is leaning far to the right.

Good for him. Now we have a clear choice.

Ryan is guilty of magical thinking, that if we reduce government aid and force everyone to live on what they or their family can earn, in this winner-take-all economy, the country will be better off.

Well, guess what. It won't be.

We will have more corporate control, more power in the hands of the rich, and more successful attempts by the government and big business to screw the poor and the middle class.

Do you want to live by this fantasy, under this kind of magical thinking? Do you want to rely on the fantasies of right-wing crazies?

I don't. I hope the American people don't either.

But don't be too sure. The masses actually elected George W. Bush the second time he ran, which was in 2004. If they were stupid enough then, they can be stupid enough again.

-- Roger

Friday, August 10, 2012

THE NEW BOURNE B.S.

I saw the new Jason Bourne movie, "The Bourne Legacy," on its opening day, Friday, Aug. 10, and I was sorry.

What a load of hokum. All razzle-dazzle with no real story, no character development, no real movie. It's as if they spliced a lot of action sequences together with transition scenes that don't make any sense.

Some of the action sequences seem great until you think about them. I kept thinking to myself, over and over, Why are the characters doing this? What does this mean? And, most often: Huh?

Why is our hero in the Alaska wilderness? It's a training area. Is this a training exercise? No, that would make too much sense. Wait, he's not supposed to be there. But then... duh... why is he there?

The black ops agency is killing its own people. Why is that? It makes absolutely no sense. Does anyone care if it makes no sense? Does anyone read these scripts before these movies are shot?

How does our hero find the hot scientist babe? If the bad guys are there to kill her, why don't they just go ahead and kill her? Why try to fool her first? Or are they really trying to fool the audience? Ya think?

Our hero and the hot babe are on the run--a mad, scrambling, crazy run--away from the government bad guys (the government is always the enemy in these movies, for some reason) and they just happen to have a laptop computer with them? Huh? WTF? How did that happen?

(This movie treats the audience like morons, in the same way the black ops agency treats its field agents like morons.)

Wait, our hero had a low IQ, and now he's brilliant? How in hell does that work? Where do we get that pill?

What is all this hokum about a virus and, I guess, genetic engineering? The movie has some 'splainin' to do.

Most of it is confusing, silly and pointless. I did like a few scenes, and I do like going to the movies. But Lord, this is a load of crap.

Check your brain at the door. And don't ask too many questions.

These Bourne movies have gotten worse each time. The first one is pretty good, one of my favorite action films. Then they go downhill. Why is that? I think these movies are made to be stupid, for a younger and dumber audience. For an audience that is incapable of critical thinking.

In Hollywood, big dollars don't go with high IQs. The big studios, which have big bucks to invest in a blockbuster movie, don't care about intelligence or quality. They care about one thing: money.

So the movies get bigger and dumber. And so do the audiences. Hooray.

Welcome to the Big Brainless Blockbuster.

-- Roger

Thursday, August 9, 2012

BLOOD MONEY & MITT

At first I thought this was a joke:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/08/mitt-romney-death-squads-bain_n_1710133.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular

But it isn't. Turns out Mitt Romney started Bain Capital with blood money from Central America.

Sad.

What won't Mitt do for money?

-- Roger

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

'PURPLE CANE ROAD' LOSES ME

I'm about three quarters of the way through James Lee Burke's well written and mostly entertaining novel "Purple Cane Road." But on Page 288, it's losing me.

It has gotten too complicated, and it's focusing on things I no longer care about. It's hard to spend so much time with low-lifes--criminals, psychopaths, pimps, hookers, hit-men, corrupt cops.

The main character, Dave Robicheaux, is focused too much on the past. I don't care who killed his mother. Burke has not managed to interest me in that through-line.

Dave feels sorry for himself. Oh, poor me, my mother was a cleaning woman for hookers, and my father was a drunk who liked to fight in bars. OK, so Dave was born poor white trash. We all have our problems, get over it.

As the famous hard-boiled novelist Mickey Spillane said, "No one ever read a novel to get to the middle." But what pulls you along, usually, are dramatic questions (Did Hamlet's uncle kill his father? What is Hamlet going to do about it?) and concern for the fate of the character. (How will this affect Hamlet's life?)

In "Purple Cane Road," the dramatic questions I see are four: Will Letty Labiche be executed by the state for killing her molester? Will Dave find out who killed his mother and why? Is the sexy female attorney general corrupt? Will Dave's wife's past destroy their marriage?

Frankly, at this point, I don't care about any of that. Maybe I should, but I don't.

Maybe there are too many story questions. Maybe these story questions are not momentous enough. Maybe they are not matters of life and death. Maybe not vital to Dave's future. I don't know. Anyway, I am giving up, at least for now. Still, the writing is great.

-- Roger

Monday, August 6, 2012

VIETNAM WAR - INSANE

I'm watching a movie called "We Were Soldiers," and I am reminded once again how insane the Vietnam war was.

As Daniel Ellsberg said, about Vietnam: “We were not just on the wrong side of this war, we were the wrong side.”

We had no business there. It was all because of propaganda, fear of the boogie man communism, and the fault of mindless and ambitious career building in the military and the government.

It was a waste of 58,000 American lives and three million Vietnamese. Our government was scared witless that Vietnam would go communist. Guess what? They did, and now they are our trading partner and ally.

All those lives ruined, for nothing. How sad. The question now is this: Have we learned anything?

I doubt it. Sometimes I think the real heroes are those who refuse to fight.

Here is a link to a movie listing:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0277434/

And to the movie:
http://www.solarmovie.eu/watch-we-were-soldiers-2002.html

And to some info about Daniel Ellsberg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg

As Plato said, "It is only the dead who have seen the end of war."

There are still war mongers in this country, in 2012. Beware them. Especially those who have never been to war themselves.

-- Roger

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

'PURPLE CANE ROAD' - YES

I have been re-reading James Lee Burke's novel "Purple Cane Road" and I do love it. My buddy Adam asked me why I like it so much. Here is my answer:

I love "Purple Cane Road" for everything: mostly the incredible richness and complexity of it. It would take me years to write a novel like that, with several through-lines (which seem obscure at times); with so many weird, quirky, unforgettable characters; with a single narrative voice, but with multiple points of view, including first, third and omniscient, all in one unified story; lush descriptions of a fascinating place; wild, driven, original action scenes; ambiguous concepts of good and evil.

Whew. It is a big mother of a crime novel. If you like to get lost in a novel and live in that world, this will do it, at least for me.

-- Roger