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STATE OF THE UNION ANALYSIS

Barack Obama's Speech:

He said Facebook and Google are like Edison and the Wright brothers.

This is fucking stupid.

According to Wikipedia Facebook has 1700 employees.

Which is nothing.

Darden Restaurants(Owners of Olive Garden and Red Lobster) has 180,000 employees which probably doesn't include all the people running the fish farms and truck drivers, napkin factories, silverware companies, plumbers that repair things, dishwasher companies, broom companies, condiment companies, etc that employ thousands more.

It would seriously be better to create another restaurant chain than open up another Facebook.

Google has 24,000 employees though, I guess we can give Google some credit.

Then he said we would make America into Japan, a big techno wifi gadget internet obsessed culture.

I don't want to be Japan.

I don't think other Americans want to be Japan. (This is not against the Japanese, they are great at being Japenese)

Maybe they do.

We are probably turning our children into gadget obsessed tards who don't know how to light a fire or grow a tomato.

Obama said we don't have any money.

This seems factual.

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The Republican responded and said we don't have any money and that we need to repeal Obamacare.

Only 18% of America wants to repeal Obamacare.

Which means the Republicans are only representing health care companies.

The CBO said Obamacare will reduce the deficit, here is what it says, "On March 20, 2010, CBO released its final cost estimate for the reconciliation act, which encompassed the effects of both pieces of legislation. Table 1 (on page 5) provides a broad summary and Table 2 offers a detailed breakdown of the budgetary effects of the two pieces of legislation. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation will produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010-2019 period. About $124 billion of that savings stems from provisions dealing with health care and federal revenues; the other $19 billion results from the education provisions. Those figures do not include potential costs that would be funded through future appropriations (those are discussed on pages 10-11 of the cost estimate)."

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Michele Bachmann for the Tea Party said that America has no money. The Tea Party has no plan but to not spend money.

Then she said we need to like wage war on our debt.

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Conclusion

America has no money.

They are lagging behind in innovation

Our politicians still believe in Manifest Destiny

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Noah Cicero's Response

America, we need to start gardening. Everyone needs a garden and to grow some kind of fruit tree suited to your climate.

The government will provide you with hoes, trowels, and seeds.

No more stupid suburbs will be built. Everyone is going to learn to walk like the Indians.

No more large gas guzzling piles of shit will be sold in America. We can do that because we own stock in the car companies.

We will reduce medical costs by purchasing the copyrights to medical equipment and medication which we are allowed to in the Takings Clause.

We will follow the rules of Machiavelli and colonize Iraq and Afghanistan to insure we rule there peacefully.

We will send our unemployed and our rich kid drug addicts there to colonize.

We are going to pass an Amendment concerning campaign finance so democracy is restored.

We are going to be able to vote for three days one of those days your employee must completely close so people can vote.

Information about the candidates will be free to read at the high school gym where you vote.

Small windmills will be given to citizens to get electricity from.

This is the plan.

Get to it.

TO MAKE SURE: I AM NOT AN ACTUAL STRAUSSIAN

I am not an actual Straussian.

I'm reading the History of Political Philosophy edited by Strauss.

And I've read Natural Right, some of What is Political Philosophy and I'm going to read a couple more just to see what he has to say.

But I am not obsessed with Strauss.

To give a few reasons why:

I believe in a Jared Diamond version of history

which basically means

resources create situations

and these situations bring about events

Like for me

when the Europeans found the Americas

the world was able to combine

wheat, rice, potatoes and corn in their diet

which created a super amount of caloric intake for the humans

we had the renaissance which created Reason and Empiricalism

which as far as I can tell was created

because Europe took an interest in Aristotle in the 1200s

then the Black Death created a decline in religious belief

then the popes of the Renaissance sucked really bad

which led to Luther which killed off religion and replaced it with a social club.

Then the renaissance happened which was led by the fact that Europe was reading Aristotle and not Plato. Aristotle led to science.

Then for many reasons the populations grew

which demanded large scale production

which created wage labor capitalism

capitalism leads to people living for MONEY

not for God or a life in the after-life

this also all led to democracy

democracy uses the separation of powers to make sure Great Men do not arise

for men must always compromise in a democracy

this is called the separation of powers

Then we found coal, oil and natural gas

God dies because we don't need to go to heaven anymore because we have Taco Bell and cable television.

I believe these things not to be determined but very much situational

This is not in tune with Strauss who never considered the impact of resources on man's morality.

And to me morality often leads to racism, sexism, and murder.

The Muslims of Saudi Arabia have morality, they believe in things, which lead to women getting murdered and obeying princes.

Americans probably believe in justice and freedom and some believe in hard work.

Why they believe in them, most have never thought about it, probably the main belief of Americans I hate is their love of gas guzzling cars and suburban sprawl. Which isn't part of their core beliefs, but the fact they do not believe in duty to their fellow citizens and nature.

ALSO

Strauss has this thing concering secret meaning in political philosophy

I don't care about that

Political philosophy has gotten a lot of people killed

and it has made a lot of lives better

if someone was adult they would be looking at what kills and what brings food and justice to people.

ALSO

Strauss thought that relativism made fascism and Communism.

The Christians killed each other and Muslims constantly from the Fall of Rome to the Renaissance. Sometimes you really wish that a philosopher had to show at least one graph or some empirical data.

I think he was just hoping his readers didn't know history.

I can be a Straussian now

According to my political thought professor I can be a Straussian

someone can be a Straussian if they are in the genealogy of students of Leo Strauss

Basically it works like this

Strauss directly taught someone named Carey/Karrie/Carrie Williams at Rutgers who taught my professor.

And I guess it has to be a political thought class too. You are not allowed to be a real Straussian if you were like taught intro to american politics by the same professor. It must be a political thought class.

So I guess I can be a Straussian now.

But the cool thing is:

Heidegger taught Strauss

which means i have four degrees of separation from Heidegger.

Which is really cool.

An Interview and The Human War has made it into a festival

The interview was done by The Chaz for the zine Underground.

Here it is

The Human War will be in the Appalachian Film Festival in Huntington West Virginia

If Sarah Palin was president

The conservatives have lost

this is the problem

they have no new ideas

the new world of energy depletion and global warming and the failure of capitalism to properly deal with globalism scares them.

What I mean by, "The failure of capitalism to properly deal with globalism" is that capitalism isn't really bad in terms of local things. You have a local business, you hire some people, give them an hourly wage. The reason it isn't bad is because globalism causes workers in China, India, France, Bolivia and America all to compete for the same job.

If you are wealthy capitalist you can put your business anywhere on planet earth.

Capitalism doesn't have the ability to deal with that. Actually nothing does. It is a bad idea. It isn't feasible and everyone is finding that out.

The liberals are scared too. But they are trying to find empirical solutions to the problems.

But there is a portion of the population that are in a state of anomie.

They are lost and scared.

The republicans don't have a conspiracy.

there is no conspiracy here by the capitalists and bankers and health care companies.

The Republicans are for real terrified of the present reality.

They are scared and this fear is leading to a loss of power, which is leading to violence.

They have nothing to say but violence.

Violence is always the last resort.

They are at their last resort.

They are like that person you argue with, and the person can't fight back anymore because they lost and instead scream "shut up".

71 percent of america was for the public option.

Neither republicans nor democrats listened.

something is wrong.

This kid at work said he was going to the marines and several people said, normal people, not college educated people said, "Why do you want fight someone else's war?"

I think after 9-11 this is what happened.

America, The Will of The People thought that we were going to go to Afghanistan and get revenge. We were going to kill like 20,000 thousand Afghan humans, and then come back.

Then we went to Iraq and we thought, "Oh good, more revenge."

We were going to go to Iraq and kill like 20,000 and come back.

The average American did not expect that we would have to rebuild their entire countries.

Everything got way to complicated

Then gas pries got higher

then the banks collapsed

then we started losing our jobs to workers in other countries.

the bush tax cuts for the wealthy passed with a democratic house, senate and president

we have a huge debt and deficit

everything is so complicated now

Tomorrow I'll write the greatest blog post ever written, but tonight I'm going to write this one

I told her, "To die when you are sleeping is considered to be the best way to die."

She agreed.

causes of death in america

•Heart disease: 616,067
•Cancer: 562,875
•Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 135,952
•Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 127,924
•Accidents (unintentional injuries): 123,706
•Alzheimer's disease: 74,632
•Diabetes: 71,382
•Influenza and Pneumonia: 52,717
•Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 46,448
•Septicemia: 34,828

all of these sound really fucking painful.

I think death is generally supposed to be painful.

it is the earth saying, i'm not going to let you go without kicking you in the junk one last time.

it is strange to think, in the middle of the night, that someday a painful death is waiting for you.

I like that we say, "waiting"

what a protestant thing to say.

the sentence implies predestination.

that god has actually already set my future in stone and that my death is already known by other worldly beings.

death isn't waiting for me.

one day i will just die.

and the people around me will have to go on without me.

perhaps i could die knowing they will say nice things about me after i'm dead.

but perhaps i'll die, in an accident and not have to think any focused thoughts about how good my life was.

people always worry about dying.

But they never worry about before they were born.

You weren't here then either.

I wasn't around in 1979

and it doesn't bother me at all.

if i die in 2049, what should 2050 matter?



This is my favorite painting.

I like the boy in it, sitting there.

I look at it and think, "That's me."

I imagine that the boy has his feet in the water feeling pretty good and then suddenly thinks, "This is good, but I will die one day."

But now I'm looking at it again.

There's the boy with his hands over his mouth.

A boy, who is just having fun.

then there's the sexually charged teenager worried about his sexuality and what is to come.

Then the middle aged man laying there, with no more anxiety, he knows what will come, it came, he got it and dealt with it, he has learned that sitting next to rivers are important because you don't get to do it everyday, so he enjoys.

The boy and the teenager don't know that but they will learn.

I've been alone for several hours and I'm starting to feel okay again

I'm sitting here

listening to In my Life by the beatles over and over again.

I've been alone since I left work.

I just keep doing what I want like a selfish little boy.

I keep walking around my house really slowly.

letting the bottom of my bare feet feel the ground with each step.

I looked at a spoon in my kitchen for five minutes.

I wondered about the spoon.

Enjoyed holding the spoon.

I used the spoon to stir my theraflu.

Aristotle(The Philosopher) said, "Perhaps we may say that there is an element of good even in mere living, provided that life is not excessively beset with troubles. Certainly most men, in their desire to keep alive, are prepared to face a great deal of suffering, as if finding in life itself a certain well-being and a natural sweetness."

This phase, "Natural Sweetness."

I'm blown away by it.

today i walked out of work with the 52 year old dishwasher.

The mall parking lot was covered with fresh snow, the sky was pitch black and little white snow flakes were coming down. I said, "It looks pretty." He said, "yeah." I suppose that is the natural sweetness of life.

When people you know kill themselves.

You think about them.

On a random day you might think, "Did they forget the natural sweetness of life?"

Was not the wind hitting the trees before a storm not good enough.

Sometimes you meet a person and you say, "What are hobbies?"

And they respond, "Soap Operas."

Yesterday I learned how to play The Past is a grotesque animal, it taught me this strange G minor chord. I've been playing that chord over and over again, just listening to the sound of it.

I think literature is about the "natural sweetness."

The book Roots has this strange character in it that takes care of chickens, I haven't read it since high school. This slave, this creature that should do nothing but suffer finds happiness in his chickens.

Sometimes i like to imagine Aristotle walking around his yard and sees a slave feeding a horse. The slave says to Aristotle, "Nice day isn't it?" And Aristotle stops thinking for a second and lets the sun hit his face, and feels it on his skin, and says, "yes."

MuuMuu House DVD

There is a Muumuu House DVD. Go to this blog and watch the trailer. Then order it.

I think my new years resolution is to have a stronger internet presence. I think I would like to show up on two things a month. I have been bookslut and my existence has to do with the muumuu house thing this month. I'm going to try to write some thought catalog articles to increase my internet presence.

I feel like two things a month is a good internet presence.

Interview with Kendra Grant Malone on Bookslut

Here's an interview with Kendra Grant Malone I did with her on bookslut.

Stay Classy America: A rapist v. a dog killer

Ben Roethlisberger and Michael Vick are about to enter the playoffs with pretty good teams.

I hope they verse each other in the superbowl.

a rapist v. a dog killer.

it will be great.

Sometimes I think about Barack Obama.

I wonder if he ever looks at the television and sees like Jersey Shore and thinks, "Do these people deserve justice?"

He probably thinks, "I'm so famous and powerful, I'm so cool. My dick is like a thousand feet tall and several miles wide."