Brutally Honest Rant - 06/27/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Step Two?
Audio Transcripts
06/27/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

You know what’s really frustrating for me? When you build something and you forget a certain step in the instructions, and then you realize that you screwed up and at that point it’s too late to do anything about it.

Back when I was building model spaceships, I got really frustrated because I spent all of this time and effort getting the pieces together, shaving off the extra plastic junk, then putting it all together according to the instructions, only to find out that I skipped step four, and then step ten makes reference to it and that’s after all the parts are full of glue and decals and some of it is already hardening. So now I have to either try to make do without it or else find some way to backtrack enough to get that step done, and either way it really doesn’t come out right.

It reminds me of an episode of “South Park”, where the boys are trying to figure out about corporations. In the process of finding out, they come across these gnomes who steal underwear from people’s dressers. They follow the gnomes to their hideout and discover that they have a whole cavern full of stolen underwear.

You see, what the gnomes were doing was following their business plan. This was all an orchestrated plan for them to get rich.

Step one was to steal underwear.

Step two was… well it was step two.

And then step three was PROFIT!

But when the boys asked what step two was, nobody had an answer for that… although they DID know that it came AFTER step one, which was to steal the underwear… and it came BEFORE step three, which was profit. They didn’t know why they had to steal the underwear, or what to do with it, except that it was the integral part of step one, which would lead to step two, and then to step three, which was profit.

That joke carried on for about five minutes, but I think you get the point. They had a poor plan, and because of that poor plan, they just had a huge cavern full of underwear and no profit.

Unfortunately, that pretty much parallels both foreign and domestic policies for the past few years. Certainly it is the case in recent years, and quite possibly goes back through much of the Cold War.

You see, for many years now we’ve been promoting this idea that DEMOCRACY is the cure to the world’s problems. Religious extremism? Bring in DEMOCRACY! Mideast thugs? Bring in DEMOCRACY? South American thugs? Bring in DEMOCRACY! You do that, and you create FREE SOCIETY and all of these other problems just go away.

The Bush Imperium certainly adheres to this mindset! This is what they continually preach to the dwindling choir. They continually preach that DEMOCRACY will bring about a free society. They point to Iraq and they point to the Palestinian territories as proof.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really WORK that way!

Here is the plan as laid out by our White House…

Step one… set up a democracy.

And then step three is a free society!

You see, here’s the problem: democracy in and of itself is NOT ENOUGH to bring a free society. It is not enough because democracy by its very nature CANNOT bring a free society!

Democracy is nothing more than a formalized version of mob rule! It is whatever the MAJORITY wants to do. If the majority says that you should be forced to give up your house for them, then the majority wins. Israel was doing that all through the West Bank for many years. Democratic government… majority rules… majority wants to expand, so it sucked to be a Palestinian in those areas.

Look at Venezuela. Free elections? Sure… and the people elected Hugo Chavez, and now they’re losing their choices. They lost their choice of TV stations. They’re taking over the oil companies and chasing out businesses that don’t adhere to Chavez’s socialist standards. You have plenty of people over there who are pissed and there’s nothing they can do about it. And remember: he was elected in a DEMOCRACY!

Look at Iraq. One of the biggest problems with Iraq is that you have three factions… two of them are Shiites, and one of them is Sunni. Two-to-one… it sucks to be Sunni. And of course under Saddam Hussein, it was the other way around… the Sunnis got everything and the Shiites got screwed over. Obviously they can’t have Saddam back in power… THANKFULLY… so the only thing left to do is to rebel against the democracy that is simply screwing them over.

Look at the Palestinian areas. They had elections, and guess who they elected? The terrorist group Hamas! Hey, Democracy rules, right? Especially after “the majority” decided that it was best to not just put Hamas in power, but then to exterminate the minority Fatah party. And I mean exterminate as in KILL them!

Hey, that’s DEMOCRACY for you right there! It is majority rule. If the leaders elected by the majority say that you should be dead, then you’re dead. It sucks to be a Fatah supporter in the Gaza strip right now.

Obviously, democracy DOES NOT instantly lead to a free society. So what does? What is that missing Step Two?

Let’s get brutally honest here… that missing step to a free society is to PROMOTE and to ADVANCE FREEDOM!

Democracy in and of itself cannot bring a free society because it enslaves you, the individual, the ultimate of minority groups, to the will of the masses. That’s something that America’s founding fathers knew way back when they were rebelling against the British Empire and they were looking to come up with a better way.

They realized that democracy, in and of itself, would not work, so they restrained it with something else. And contrary to the babblings of conservatives and neo-conservatives and everyone else in the Christian Coalition, that “something else” WAS NOT CHRISTIANITY! It was FREEDOM! They restrained democracy with a framework that said that FREEDOM was more important than majority rule! And to make sure that it STAYS that way, they knew that we would have to actively exercise it and to defend it… and to PROMOTE it!

THAT, my friends, is what is missing in the equation in Iraq! They just have a government and they have a constitution and they have elections… they have democracy, but they don’t have FREEDOM. They just have majority rule. And if majority rule decides to change in five years… well then they may be back to square one.

The real problem, though, is not that we are forgetting this step when we encourage other countries to adopt democracy-style governments… the real problem is that we as Americans are forgetting this step ourselves!

We have various levels of government full of people who are not only full of themselves and full of crap, but also believe that just because they were elected into office by “the majority” that they can pretty much do whatever they want to! They can tax the crap out of the masses. They can stifle certain businesses just on their PERSONAL likes and dislikes. They can steal private property and turn it over to developers at any time, and for any reason whatsoever. They can do all this because THEY WERE ELECTED by “the majority”!

You want a law passed? Crank out a poll that says that “the majority” supports it and they’ll get it passed! Even if the poll is rigged worse than professional wrestling, it doesn’t matter! You grease enough palms and spread that poll around enough and your law will be made real. It doesn’t matter how many freedoms it infringes on! It doesn’t matter if it violates either the spirit or the letter of the US Constitution! There are plenty of politicians out there today who will tell you with a straight face and with an arrogance that has not been seen since Napoleon Bonaparte that their law is Constitutional simply because THEY HAVE SAID SO!

We have a judicial system that is suffering from Constitutional amnesia. They have FORGOTTEN about freedom and have instead defaulted to protecting the government, saying through various rulings that anything the government does is good because they were “elected by the majority”.

Don’t like a law? Tough! You’ll get no satisfaction from the courts now! They’ll tell you to simply vote the bastards out, and then HOPE… desperately HOPE… sometimes hope in VAIN… that the next batch of bastards you bring in will actually care one whit about freedom! You look at the Democrats in Congress now… after replacing years of GOP kelptocracy… and you have to wonder if they really learned from the lessons of this past November.

We are forgetting about that second step. We are forgetting about FREEDOM! We are giving lip-service to it, but most of us have absolutely NO IDEA WHATSOEVER what freedom REALLY is or REALLY means!

Freedom is more than just a bumper sticker. It is more than just a political buzzword for politicians to banter about. It is a concept, it is an idea, and it is the guiding FOUNDATION for a FREE SOCIETY.

If we do not practice it, then we have no idea what it really means.

If we do not practice it, then we cannot teach others about it.

If we do not practice it, then we cannot expect other nations to know what it is.

If we do not practice it, then we cannot encourage other nations to do the same.

And if we do not practice freedom ourselves, not only do we NOT have a free society, but all of our efforts to encourage one in other nations will be for NOTHING! And we will have nobody to blame for that but ourselves, because these other nations will just be following our lead.

(Computer – some stuff, but you’re probably too busy to care)
(Fade Music In – “Mythodea” by Vangelis)

Okay, three things really quick…

First, this Friday… I want you to go to www.shocknetradio.com around 9:15pm Eastern Time and listen to the debut of my weekly segment about news and politics. This will be a regular ongoing series, and, no, there WILL NOT be any transcripts for this. Also this is the online radio station that we are working with to bring back the full Brutally Honest show, so once we get that kicked off, you’re going to see a some serious changes here.

Second… there’s someplace else that I want you folks to check out. It’s called SaveNetRadio.org, and it involves Internet Radio and the orchestrated shakedown being carried out by the federal government on behalf of the recording oligarchy. There’s a bill that’s in the works to fix this problem, but it needs your support. So please go to SaveNetRadio.org and find out what needs to be done.

And third, next week will be the Fourth of July. And since it does fall on a Wednesday this year, I DO have something planned for next week’s rant, but it will be something very special and I’m planning on spending all of my time on that day to do it. So I hope you will check it out next week and let me know what you think about it.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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Blog Against Theocracy - Round 2!

You may remember my quick impromptu plug for Blog Against Theocracy during the Easter weekend, right?

Well if you didn't don't worry, we'll have another blogswarm next week.

Stay tuned...

David 2 returns to Internet Radio on FRIDAY!

I am pleased to announce that this Friday, June 29th, I will be returning to Internet Radio!

I will be hosting the new "News Pundit Report" as part of the weekly "American Heathen" show on Shocknet Radio. This will be a regular segment for Fridays, and eventually Saturdays as well. This will be a segment approximately ten minutes long that will discuss news and political subjects. Of course being the commentator that I am, I will be interjecting my own take on many of the stories that I'll be covering in each segment, so it's not just me reading the news.

"American Heathen" is a four-hour show that airs on Shocknet Radio. Although the show has a somewhat secular/atheist slant to it, host RJ Evans welcomes all views and beliefs, and many of his discussions involve a variety of social issues. He is accompanied by an unusual cast of characters, co-hosts, and diehard listeners who call in and actively participate in the online real-time chat.

"American Heathen" airs on Fridays and Saturdays from 7pm-11pm EST (6-10pm CST). The "News Pundit Report" will air at 9:15pm EST.

Shocknet Radio is a 24/7 online radio network that broadcasts a variety of programs, including "American Heathen", "High Instability" with veteran meteorologist Gene Rhoden, and "Freak Forum" with Henrique Couto.

For more information about the show and to listen to Shocknet Radio and take part in their online discussions, go to http://www.shocknetradio.com

Imigration issue, condensed...

You can't win either way...

Brutally Honest Rant - 06/20/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: The Cult Mindset of the Status Quo
Audio Transcripts
06/20/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

I want to talk about a very dangerous and ultimately destructive cult mentality tonight.

Now note that I said cult MENTALITY and not a cult itself. A cult is a religion, and what I’ll be talking about is certainly NOT a religion. It has many of the elements of a cult, but without the religious overtones.

I’m talking about a very corruptive force in politics, one that manifests itself in governments large and small. And it is one that is next to impossible to remove once it does manifest itself.

I’m talking about the status quo. I’m talking about the irresistible force that exists in politics to keep things pretty much as they are.

Now I’m sure some of you are wondering what I’m talking about and why I’m trying to personify what can easily be explained as nothing more than just political apathy, and that of course is part of the reason WHY the forces behind the status quo are allowed to get away with what they do. But once you look at the bigger picture, then it all makes sense.

For starters, we need to separate the political process from the politicians, because they really are two separate entities. The people whom we elect or whom are appointed to positions of power are a key factor to the political process, but they’re not the only ones, and they certainly are not the only ones with any kind of pull in the system. In addition to the politicians, you have staff members, employees, union officials, consultants, and of course you have special interest groups, lobbyists, research organizations, and, yes, even certain members of the media who are also tied into the political process. And they ALL have a say in the overall process. They have more of a say that you or I ever will have! Some of them actually have more political power than the politicians themselves.

THESE are the real people behind the status quo. THESE are the people who hold a cult-like mentality that says that you will NOT be allowed to shake things up in the system.

Now, much like the rules in the movie “Fight Club”, the first rule of the status quo is that you do not talk about the status quo. And the second rule of the status quo is that you DO NOT TALK about the status quo. As a political movement, it is simply not supposed to exist.

One of the ways that the status quo gets concealed is through the “Law of Unintended Consequence”. That’s when you try to resolve a problem and end up creating a much bigger problem. Prohibition is the best example of this. The failing “War on Drugs” is another. It presupposes that politicians are incompetent morons that enact mindless legislation without so much as a single consideration as to how that legislation applies to the real world.

And I suppose that kind of simplistic explanation works for those mind-numbed demographics who can’t fathom anything beyond the ten-second soundbyte that serves as political pabulum. But the truth of the matter is that what goes on in passing legislation – both on a state and on a federal level – is less of a knee-jerk situation and more along the lines of political puppetry.

You see, I DO NOT subscribe to the concept of “Unintended Consequence” when it comes to the legislative process. I don’t accept it because I know that many of the laws and regulations passed by the legislature are not only supported by special interest groups, in many cases they are actually WRITTEN by them as well! So any time you have a situation where some group actually prospers from a law, it’s really not “unintended”. In pretty much every situation of late it’s done by design. If you see some “reform” measure enacted where a certain company ends up making off like a bandit because of it, it’s not by accident, and it is certainly not by coincidence.

Now the third rule of the status quo is obviously the most important of them all. You can promise reform. You can promise to shake things up, but if you’re part of the status quo, then you must do everything in your power to make sure that any kind of “reform” measure DOES NOT change the status quo!

You want to “reform” the tax system? Well you’re allowed to tweak the numbers a bit, add a few more exemptions, issue tax “credits” and tax “cuts”, but you are not allowed to make fundamental changes to the system. You can’t mess up their “perfect” system which keeps endless accountants, tax preparers, and financial institutions employed for life.

THESE are the people who oppose any kind of SERIOUS tax reform! And they’re not above committing all-out SLANDER to demonize those reform plans. They will openly lie and exaggerate and re-write the plans so as to make them unappealing for the masses because they know that if it passes, then something like the FairTax plan will fundamentally change the government’s revenue-collection system and destroy the status quo.

Look at the previous attempts as “reform”. They were supposed to make the tax system simpler for Americans, and they only made things worse. THAT is the only kind of “reform” that is ALLOWED by the status quo!

Even Bush Junior’s tax cuts are affected by the status quo. Why do you think that it got an expiration date? Why do you think that the GOP, which controlled BOTH houses of Congress for several years, systematically REFUSED to make those cuts a permanent part of the tax system? It is because the status quo said that they will ALLOW the cuts for a brief period of time, and then it’s back to business as usual.

Political reform is also next to impossible when left to the politicians to resolve. Democrats and Republicans have been in power for so damned long now that they have essentially become permanent fixtures in Washington… or at least the status quo certainly believes it to be so. That’s why they sound alike and behave alike. All the zero-sum “Mad Cleric” rhetoric aside, the Dems and the Reps literally ARE interchangeable! And they damned well KNOW IT!

This is also why they work so damned hard to make life miserable for any third-party or independent movement. They know that if the Libertarians or the Greens win any kind of political power that it will change the status quo, and obviously they cannot allow that!

Even WAR itself can become part of the status quo! You can have a war, but you can’t have a draft. You can’t disrupt the business world like we did in World War II. The people who serve can fight and die, because that’s what they’re there for in the eyes of the status quo, but the rest of the day-to-day operations need to go on as usual. You can’t show funerals. You can’t publicize all the names of those who died. Casualties are just numbers. You can hype the war, but only as long as it is something that is going on “over there”.

Look at the recent Iraq spending “compromise”! The Democrats had PROMISED when they took over the Congress that they would enact timetables to get our people home. Then they caved after the first veto. They passed a compromise bill that traded timetables for benchmarks, and even then the White House can actually NEGATE those benchmarks if they feel like it! So what the Democrats did was essentially gave the White House… ANOTHER BLANK CHECK!

Score yet another one for the status quo.

Then there is the immigration “compromise”. A so-called “omnibus reform program” that has more holes in it than the US/Mexican border! And yet both Republicans and Democrats are going to the mat for this and are actually BLAMING talk radio for interfering in their “done deal”! Yes, it is quid pro quo for the new Iraqi blank check, but the reason why it is flawed in the first place is because it is the only kind of “reform” program that is ALLOWED by the status quo! They will only ALLOW a reform program that really doesn’t reform a damned thing!

Now here’s the thing that separates the cult-mentality of the status quo from being an actual cult: cults usually have charismatic leaders. The status quo in our political system wants nothing at all to do with those kinds of people!

Why do you think that Tom DeLay was able to be forced out of power and out of office by a local prosecutor… and by a Democrat prosecutor from the GOP stronghold of TEXAS no less… for just ONE of the many things that he was accused of doing? It was because he and his ego personified the status quo. This was a party that CLAIMED to end politics as usual, and when DeLay came to power he went to K-Street and told the lobbyists that HE was calling the shots now. He became a liability to the system, and unfortunately for the GOP, they moved to purge him just a little too late.

Same thing with Jack Abramoff. Why was HE singled out from of all of these other lobbyists? Because somewhere along the line, he pissed off someone else in the status quo. He assumed power that was not his, and it started to catch up to him. He became a threat to the status quo, and the status quo cut him loose.

That’s the thing with the status quo in government… it is a delicate balance of various forces. You step on the wrong toes, or you piss off the wrong special interest groups and they WILL retaliate. Granted, it’s done with OUR money and with OUR resources, but that’s the whole point of it all. They wouldn’t care one bit about government if they were forced to rely on THEIR OWN resources to get things done.

And that of course brings us to the last part of this rant… the true SCOPE of the status quo. You heard me go over this list of people who are committed to keeping things as they are, but what some of you don’t realize is just how extensive this group is in the halls of government.

I want you to think about this for a minute: special interest groups will actually PEN the legislation that they want passed. They will come up with the RESEARCH from their friends in the research organizations to back it up. They will call their friends on the staff of a congressman or senator and schedule an appointment for a meeting. They will tell the politician that they have this bill that they want him or her to sponsor. It’s already written up and has all of the research for it, including their own polling results to convince the other legislators that this bill is needed and popular. All he or she needs to do is to put their name on the bill and submit it as their own. The politician’s staff will go over the whole bill and come up with a brief summary of what it does so it can go before the committees and subcommittees.

The other politicians WILL NOT read a single word of what that bill entails! They will instead defer to their staff members, who will read the bill and determine what is in it and whether or not it is politically expedient for them to support it.

Other special interest groups will step in and ask for their amendments to be inserted, which the politicians will eagerly do, and again they will often do this without even bothering to read what they are supporting. Earmarks… pork spending… get inserted. The bill can often get completely gutted and re-written without the politicians even knowing what is going on. You want to know why bills are sponsored that will make encyclopedias look like a Tijuana comic book in comparison? This is how it happens!

And the special interest groups that actually WROTE the bill will then do all of the politicking for that bill; twisting arms and cashing in favors to make sure they have the actual votes to get the bill passed. The politicians who support the bill get rewarded with campaign support for their next re-election.

And IF by some chance the bill is passed and signed into law and then is challenged in the courts, I want you to think about this: whether or not a court appeal even MAKES it to the US Supreme Court is in most instances dependant not on the justices themselves, but on their law clerks! They will also be the ones who will actually WRITE the decisions that their bosses will take the credit or the blame for. These are also the people who eventually become judges themselves, so they also have a vested interest in keeping the status quo going.

Oh, and for those of you who think that my “goodbye and good riddance” rant for Jerry Falwell that was posted in my blog was giving that waste of oxygen just a little too much credit, I should point out that the lion’s share of law clerks in the US Supreme Court come from Liberty University… which was set up and run by Falwell for the purpose of bringing in people who will support and advance his theo-political agenda in the halls of government. Jerry Falwell was many things, and not all of them nice, but the one thing that he was not was an idiot.

NOW do you understand the scope of the people behind the status quo? Do you understand now how these people can have more influence over how laws get passed than you or I could EVER have on our own?

Now let’s get brutally honest here… the reason why I bring all these things up is NOT to discourage you from getting involved in politics. Quite the contrary; I believe that we need A LOT MORE people being politically active!

But I want you to see what we are up against! When we talk about reforms and shaking things up and bringing REAL changes to government, you need to understand who your REAL adversaries are! It’s not just the politicians. It’s not just the special interest groups. It’s not just the media. It is literally the men and women who make up the very INFRASTRUCTURE of our government that you also have to deal with!

If you REALLY want change, you have to pay close attention to it. You have to pay close attention to the bills being sponsored and to what they say and what gets added to them. You have to pay close attention to the people whom you elect, and to whom they support, and to whom they employ. You have to be JUST as politically active as the people inside the status quo. And you have to be FORCEFUL in making sure that your reforms get through. You CANNOT let the political system handle it, because if it affects them, then they will do everything in their power to BURY IT!

And as I just pointed out… they can do that quite well.

(Computer – some appropriate stuff that you refuse to listen to)
(Fade Music In – “Session” by Linkin Park)

Changing our political system isn’t easy. It didn’t get messed up overnight. It got this way through literally GENERATIONS of manipulation and deal-making and gerrymandering. It’s not going to be resolved overnight. Nor can it be resolved simply by changing out the politicians or trying to enact some sort of lobbying reform. It takes time, it takes determination, and it takes being thorough in making sure that the system doesn’t try to force itself back to the status quo.

Remember: when you’re out there trying to change the system, you’re missing with these peoples’ bread and butter. They’re going to be just as sensitive and adversarial to any kind of changes as you would be in similar changes to your job.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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Quick review: Fantastic Four – Rise of the Silver Surfer

I think this is the first time in a while that I’ve actually seen a movie ON a weekend when it opened! Well the timing was right, and I got there with plenty of time to spare, so I managed to get some good seats to see “Fantastic Four – Rise of the Silver Surfer”.

As an old school comic book fan, I have to say I was impressed with the story and the special effects. The Fantastic Four have always been something of a dysfunctional family of sorts to begin with, so it’s really no stretch to see it manifest itself on the big screen. Mr. Fantastic over-thinks and multitasks too much, Sue Storm flakes out, Johnny Storm gets too reckless with everything, and the Thing… well he grumbles. Then add a celebrity-style wedding and it is the media that becomes the real Bridezilla in this story. (Oh, and FF co-creator Stan Lee does make an appearance in this movie too… and for once he shows up AS himself.)

Obviously the big story here is the Silver Surfer. He ruins the big media circus that was supposed to be the “wedding of the century” by causing weird astronomical events all around the world. He also scrambles Johnny’s molecules so he changes powers with anyone else on the team just by touching them. Watching Sue catch fire and float around naked is done just for laughs and not for ogling (unlike the previous FF movie). The Thing fares much better in his exchange as we get to see Michael Chiklis’ real mug for a minute as Johnny “Things” out. (Hey, how come Johnny got EARS and Ben Grimm didn’t?) His new power-swapping trick plays an important role near the end of the movie, though, so it’s not just done for comic relief.

Of course as comic book fans know, the Surfer is really just an errand boy for the REALLY big guy, Galactus. And the big question was how the film would show the all-powerful “Devourer of Worlds”. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed when Galactus made his/its appearance. I know it’s not easy to stay true to the comics, especially when you’re dealing with one that is forty years old and has been remade at least twice, but I did expect something more ominous and intelligent than what was seen. How the REALLY big crisis is handled is also unrealistic even for comic book standards, if not anti-climactic.

Some of the scenes do appear to be a bit long, even when they are needed for the storyline, but overall it’s a good movie to see.

Brutally Honest Rant - 06/13/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: How to be a Jerk
Audio Transcripts
06/13/107

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

Well my friends tonight I have another one of those unusual subjects on my mind.

Tonight I want to talk about JERKS.

Not knee-jerks, not beef jerky, but JERKS. Incredibly offensive people who by their words or actions really make your skin crawl every time you see them or hear their names. You know the kind. Can’t live with them, and… as much as we all want to… you can’t shoot them.

Now some people are naturally-born jerks. They instinctively know what to say or what to do that will guarantee pissing people off, or at least rubbing them the wrong way. Bill O’Reilly quickly comes to mind, but there are pretty of people who also qualify, and some of them are real journalists and not pretend ones like O’Reilly.

The rest, though, have to actually WORK at being a jerk. It’s not in their better nature. They try to be a jerk, but they’re not really good at it because they don’t know how to do it.

So for those people, they need a little help. That’s where I come in. I’m here to show you what it takes to be a REAL jerk.

You’re probably wondering WHY anyone would consciously want to be a jerk, right? Well, I’ll get into that in a bit. Sufficient to say, though, once I do explain it, you’ll understand why being a jerk is so prevalent in our society.

Now before we go any further, a little disclaimer: despite what some people may think, I’m really not a jerk. I’m willing to play one on TV if the price is right, but being a jerk is just not in my nature. It’s one of those rare times where being a nice guy has its advantages. But I’ve been in this horror show that I call a life for forty years now, and I think at this point I’ve picked up enough observational tips from other people about how to be a REAL jerk that I can pass along to those of you who need a little help.

First of all, being a jerk is all about self-importance. This is more than just being self-centered or selfish. Being self-important means promoting yourself through your words and especially by deeds as being the end-all-be-all in society. You’re not just in your own world… you’re forcing everyone else to live in it too.

Paris Hilton and the rest of the “celebutantes” are the best examples of this. What do they do? Seriously, what the hell do they do with their lives? Apparently their whole day revolves around being seen and being photographed by the media. Why the hell do you think that Paris Hilton flipped out when she went to jail? It was because it was the first time in her life that she wasn’t the center of attention. Her world essentially ENDED behind bars.

Now obviously Paris Hilton is the most extreme case, but hers is also the best example of this idea of self-importance.

Okay, some of you are well on your way to being a jerk if you have either a truck or an urban assault vehicle. Once upon a time the sports car was a guaranteed sign of jerkiness, but today’s jerks are more turned on by POWER and SIZE than with speed. They learned that you can be an even bigger jerk inside a bigger vehicle.

But it’s not enough to simply have the vehicle. Anyone can get a jerk-mobile. It is how you USE that jerk-mobile that makes it one. You have to actually use that vehicle’s size to your advantage. Be intimidating. Start edging up behind smaller vehicles as a way to get them to move faster. You don’t have to actually hit them. Just scare them a bit. Rev up the engine while waiting for that light to change. Let them know that they have a MONSTER on their ass!

Add in the ear-shattering sound system and crank it up until everyone in a five-block radius can hear what kind of music you like. And then roll up the windows so that there is only the vibration from the beat. Guaranteed they’ll notice you then!

Be quick on the horn! If the light is green and the people in front of you haven’t moved yet, they certainly will afterwards. That is what the horn was meant for, right? To piss people off so they will get the hell out of your way!

Be an aggressive driver. Go dodging and weaving through those lanes like you’re in NASCAR. Don’t get into the appropriate lane to make your turn until the very last moment. Oh, and be sure to take full advantage of all of the technological goodies while driving. You have to show people that you’re important by doing multiple things while driving! Sure it causes other people around you to have accidents, but, hey, they’re not important. You are! Besides, you have the bigger and safer vehicle! You’ll survive the wreck. And isn’t that what INSURANCE is for anyway?

The other reason why you need the larger vehicle is to take full advantage of its size when you go looking for a parking space! Why worry about other people dinging your doors when you can have TWO spaces all to yourself? That’s not hard to pull off either as today’s pickup trucks and urban assault vehicles are as wide as or wider than most parking spaces.

Here’s the trick: when you find two adjacent empty parking spaces, don’t pull FORWARD into one of them. Go past it and then BACK into it! And be sure to straddle both spaces when you do. But don’t pull it right over the middle of the stripe. Make it look like you “tried” but just couldn’t do it. That way you have all the space in the world to open those doors and climb out of your large vehicle. Oh, and extra credit if you can do all this while chugging a Frappuccino and chatting on your cellphone.

I’m sure you’ve caught the natural-born jerks in the supermarket. They’re the ones who will treat the free samples as an all-you-can-eat buffet. They’ll hit up the fresh fruit section and “sample” the grapes and cherries, putting some of them in their hands so they can make their way over to the next isle. They will also be the ones to let their kids roam around with their little “heelie” skates. They’ll show up at the express lane with a full cart of groceries AND will want to pay by a third-party check when the sign clearly says “CASH ONLY”.

As I mentioned earlier, jerks love playing with techno-toys. Cellphones, blackberries, Bluetooth headsets, GPA devices… if it looks cool, they want it. They really don’t know how it all works, and they usually don’t bother to read the instructions that come with the toys. That means they usually call on someone like me to help them… and then I have to tell them to read that frigging manual of theirs! But when it does work, they are pretty much oblivious to everything else around them. They’ll carry on with cellphone calls like the rest of us are just annoyances to their lives. I’ve seen one jerk carry on a full-blown screaming and cursing argument with his family through his cellphone in the middle of a crowded restaurant, and then he acted like WE were the ones intruding on HIS life! Now THAT is some serious jerkiness!

Now, a lot of really good ways of being a jerk exist at work. Again, I’ll explain why in a bit.

The best way of being a jerk at work is to do there what you do on the roads… OWN the passageways! Make sure as you’re walking down the corridors with your friends and coworkers that you take up ALL the available space in that passageway. Don’t move into a single file just because some peon is coming up the opposite way. Let THEM move out of the way for you!

Hey, if you and your buddies can saunter down the hallway like the Magnificent Seven and force someone coming the other way to duck into a nearby cubicle or into the nearest office or bathroom, then you’ve clearly attained jerkiness! And bonus points for you if you can force them into the bathroom of the opposite gender!

Oh, and speaking of roads, real jerks know that the best parking spaces at work are the ones that say “Visitors only”. Well, unless you can forge a handicap permit. Real jerks don’t park out in the boonies when there are plenty of open visitor’s parking spaces just waiting for them to use.

Jerks, of course, love to talk about family achievements to anyone who is nearby. Their children’s causes are THEIR causes, and thus they become the #1 cause at work. Girl Scout cookies sales, magazine subscriptions, hey, you’re going to make sure that your child gets that pizza party if you have to browbeat every employee in the building three times to do it!

Jerks are ever the office diplomat. They can share and confide in every secret they get their hands on. If they hear something about you, then guaranteed they will not only make sure that YOU know about it, but they’ll make sure that everyone else knows it too. Oh, but it wouldn’t come “from them”!

Jerks are also very frugal. They know a really great way to save some extra cash. Instead of spending money on lunch, they just raid the little refrigerator that always seems to be full of food. Granted, the food has other people’s names on them, but, hey, if they REALLY wanted to make sure that nobody else would eat their food, then they should get their own little refrigerator for their cubicle or office! Communal refrigerator, communal food; how hard is that?

I hope you guys are taking notes on all these things…

Oh, and when dealing with support people, such as technical support, ALWAYS impress upon them the absolute URGENCY of your problem, no matter how slight the problem really is. You see… in world of a real jerk, EVERY problem is a priority one problem! That’s the only way that things get done. And NEVER let them downgrade your priority one problem! Take it up the executive ladder if you have to but make sure that your problem is resolved before anything else is.

Be sure to ask a lot of really simple and really stupid questions too. Make sure that your support people have a COMPLETE understanding of every nuance of the item in question, what it does, and how it works, so they can explain it to you as they’re busy trying to fix that priority one problem of yours.

And be sure to demand an immediate ETA of getting your priority one problem finished! You don’t want to hear vague terms like “as soon as we can”. No, you want a SPECIFIC time. Say, for instance, by 1pm, and not a second later! And you don’t want to hear about variables, such as when other people can do certain portions of the task. Real jerks don’t believe in middlemen… unless, of course, they’re middlemen themselves. As soon as you hear about middlemen, you should talk openly about how if you were in charge of things that you would FIRE all of the middlemen and have people work directly for other people… well, unless you are a middleman yourself, in which case YOUR job would still be intact, but the OTHER middlemen would be out of a job.

Now there’s one other crucial element with being a real jerk in the workplace. You have to make sure that you are not a jerk in front of your boss. This is what separates the posers from the real thing. It’s one thing to be a jerk in front of coworkers and subordinates. It’s another to do so in front of the people who are responsible for signing your paychecks and who hold your future promotions in their hands.

Okay, so you’re probably wondering at this point WHY someone would actually WANT to be a jerk, right?

Well let’s get brutally honest here… the reason why people are jerks is because jerkiness is REWARDED in our society!

We actually promote jerks for their diligence. Executives mistakenly equate the aggressive tendencies of jerks as sound management skills. Heck, many of them are jerks themselves! Jerks get promotions. Nice guys get layoffs.

Jerks get reality TV shows. Nice guys just watch as the jerks get transformed into superstar status and keep on hoping that those jerks will someday get their “just deserts”… and then wonder why that never happens.

Despite the endless complaints made about them, jerks have no problem whatsoever getting into relationships. The jerks get laid, and the nice guys just get screwed over.

Look at all the primadonna jerks in entertainment that make unrealistic demands for their brief appearance. Singers and starlets alike. Some of them request enough food, flowers, and electronic equipment to start their own hotel chain, and that’s all for a lousy thirty-minute appearance at best, and 99% of the stuff will go unused. But they’ll get all of that and then some, and then we will fawn over their appearances and still buy their albums, watch their movies, and pay obscene amounts of money for their concerts without even a second thought about it.

We tolerate jerks. We have to… we can’t shoot them on sight. We’d call it justice, but the law would call it murder. Plus we can’t really shoot the jerks that sign our paychecks and keep our jobs intact.

And then, of course, there is the ultimate of twists… the only way that you can really BEAT a jerk is to become an even BIGGER jerk! Talk about hypocrisy. And even then you can’t really win, because the only jerk that ends up getting punished at that point is you… because you’re not used to being a jerk, and the other guy probably has YEARS of experience at it.

But the truth of the matter is that we NEED jerks for a few things. We need jerks to be our investigators and our consumer reporters. They’re the ones who cut through the crap and see through the lies. We need jerks to fight for us when we are screwed over… usually by other jerks. We need them to represent us in our screwed-up legal system and to fight for us against the bureaucracy created by other jerks. Whether we like it or not, jerks ARE a necessary evil in our society…

… We just never established when they are no longer “necessary”.

(Computer – some stuff… if you never heard it, you might as well start now…)
(Fade Music In – “In Amber Clad” by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

The purpose of this rant, of course, was not to glorify jerks, but rather to remind us all of how the little things we do turn us into jerks. It happens to us all at some point, and while most of us eventually back away from the edge, there are a few who relish role and make it a habit in their daily lives to be annoying and abrasive.

We are the ones who foster the idea that jerkiness is okay when we condone their actions instead of confronting them when they happen. The problem, of course, is that being nice guys we are, we naturally expect the system to correct these things. We don’t realize that the system can’t correct these things when jerkiness is considered the norm. And it gets that way when we condone and even reward their actions.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.” Or so said a certain carpenter’s kid.

Unfortunately for us, that same man was later taken away, whipped like a company mule, stripped to his skivvies, and then nailed to a huge wooded “T” until he died. And all of it was done at the hands of and the specific request by a bunch of real Grade-A JERKS!

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

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Brutally Honest Rant - 06/06/07

Brutally Honest Audio Rant: Bush Junior and the McCarthy Moment
Audio Transcripts
06/06/07

[Start Program]

(Computer – Introduction)
(Music intro – “American Idiot Remix” – by Green Day and David Matthews 2)

Good evening and welcome to this week’s Brutally Honest Rant. I’m David Matthews 2, writer of the weekly online column Brutally Honest.

In every crusade and in every cause, no matter the subject or scope, there comes a time when those in power finally go too far. It’s a moment that every crusade leader promises would NEVER happen, but it inevitably does.

I call this point in time the “McCarthy Moment”, named after one of America’s most blatant abusers of political power.

Senator Joe McCarthy’s claim to fame was that he supposedly “knew” where the communist spies were in America during the Cold War. When his personal crusade began, he claimed to have a list of 205 “known communist agents” in the U.S. State Department. That number would change, though, from 205 to 57 and then to 81. And then the Tydings Committee concluded that McCarthy’s actual number was ZERO.

But as crusaders have demonstrated time and time again, they refuse to let little things as FACTS and TRUTH to stand in the way of their cause! McCarthy continued his crusade, attacking anyone he deemed to be a communist supporter. How he managed to get even a modicum of government power after the Tydings Committee’s report in 1950 is nothing short of a sickening display of Congressional corruption; but it happened nonetheless, and McCarthy used it to usher in America’s Cold War version of the Spanish Inquisition.

McCarthy had a zero-sum zealous perspective to his crusade. If you challenged his accusations, you were a communist. If you questioned his logic, you were a communist. If you objected to his statements, you were a communist. If you spoke out against him, you were a communist. If you tried to mount a defense of anyone he accused of being a communist, you were a communist. There was no room for dissent in McCarthy’s fanatical extremist mind. You were either with him, or you were a communist… period. And McCarthy had the power of GOVERNMENT behind him, which he used with impunity.

But finally there was that point when he went too far… when the public simply had enough of his abuses and enough of his zealotry and enough of his zero-sum fanaticism. And it happened through the eyes of a new electronic medium called TELEVISION. When McCarthy tried to rebut the request made by Joseph Welch that McCarthy should produce his ever-changing list of “known communist agents” by claiming that Welch had a supposed “known communist agent” in his private law firm, the legal representative of the U.S. Army finally had enough and said the following:

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never gauged your cruelty or your recklessness... Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

THAT, my friends, is the McCarthy Moment! It wasn’t very long after that point when McCarthy lost any kind of respect or dignity, even amongst his fellow members of Congress. He died a couple of years later in a matter befitting evil bastards… he died a miserable drunk, still rambling on about his pet crusade to anyone who would listen and wondering why nobody was.

A rare moment indeed, since most crusaders don’t end up this way. Most usually live long lives, praised to the end by their few remaining supporters.

But since then there have been few such moments. That fat bloated waste of oxygen Jerry Falwell certainly had his McCarthy Moment when he went on Pat Robertson’s show after 9/11 and went down his laundry list of ideological opponents and personally accused them of causing the 9/11 tragedy. I’d like to think that neo-con pit bull Ann Coulter had her McCarthy Moment when she called presidential candidate John Edwards a “faggot”, but only time will tell if that is really the last straw for her. Dan Rather certainly had his McCarthy Moment when his story on George W. Bush’s National Guard service started to fall apart. He never accepted my open challenge, but his job was forfeited nonetheless.

And now it could very well be that George W. Bush may have experienced his own “McCarthy Moment”.

For years now, George W. Bush has attacked his critics and accused them of helping terrorists. His State of the Union speech made it quite clear that in his simplistic mind, you were wither with him, or you were with the terrorists.

And conservatives and neo-conservatives were quick to back him up on that. People like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly were quick to play Squealer to Bush Junior’s Napoleon, attacking Junior’s critics at every opportunity, questioning their patriotism and accusing them of treason. This has given Junior the leeway of backing away from his own words and saying that he wasn’t REALLY questioning the patriotism of his critics, even though by his own words he most certainly was.

And that has allowed the Bush Imperium to browbeat and intimidate their way into getting whatever they want for the past six years. Unlimited funding for the Iraq War, unlimited power to investigate and incarcerate people, being able to re-write laws on a whim… and if you ask why, then you’re supporting terrorists.

But now the subject has turned to immigration reform, and here our simplistic president has placed his bet on a compromise bill that was reached with the new Democratic majority in Congress. It’s a hard sell, especially to the conservatives, because there IS an amnesty program in there, even if they call anything but.

And how IS our president selling this message to his loyal conservative and neo-conservative followers? Is he reasoning with them? Is he giving them the same devil’s deal that he swallowed?

No, my friends, our president has resorted to his tried-and-true method of salesmanship… by questioning the patriotism of anyone who criticizes this bill! He is going around on speaking engagements and accusing anyone who questions or criticizes the compromise bill of not supporting America!

Mind you, his personal Foxnuze media personality is having to go around claiming that the President didn’t REALLY question the patriotism of his critics, but after all this time even a person without a nose can smell the horsecrap coming from Tony Snow’s office.

And that has the cons and neo-cons in a bind. Poor little Squealers! Who would have thought that their best friend, buddy, idol, icon, and savior would turn on them like that? Sure, question the patriotism of the liberals, but go after the cons and neo-cons in the same way? Say it ain’t so!

Well… I would say that I’m surprised, but I’m really not.

Let’s get brutally honest here… at long last George W. Bush has reached his McCarthy Moment. He has reached that inevitable point when his zealotry has finally turned on the very people who supported his efforts and who had turned a blind eye to his abuses. At long last they get a taste of the very venom that they have been busy spewing on others since 2001, and it turns out that they don’t like it.

Mind you, they’re only getting a FRACTION of the venom their liberal and moderate counterparts have been receiving over the years. They’re not getting the endless calls for their forced deportation out of the country. They’re not getting branded traitors and having their religious and moral beliefs called into question. They’re not getting the endless email jokes about getting physically assaulted or being used to describe some sort of great mechanical failure. That’s because the White House has relied on these same cons and neo-cons to be their personal attack dogs. It’s a little hard to chew your own arm off on command.

I can understand WHY Junior had to turn on his con and neo-con friends over this immigration bill, even if nobody else will say it out loud. This is nothing more than quid pro quo for getting the Democrats to roll on their liberal supporters over the endless Iraq funding compromise. Am I the only one who sees these two horrendous compromise bills and is able to connect the dots between them? Probably not, but you won’t find too many people willing to mention the connection.

And much like Joe McCarthy, Bush Junior really doesn’t know any better when it comes to dealing with people who don’t kiss his ass. McCarthy knew that he wasn’t liked in the Congress, and the only way that he could get anything done was to be abrasive and abusive. That was just his style. Likewise, Junior has spent the past seven years wrapping himself around the American flag and coming off like William Jennings Bryant. It’s a little hard to go back on that just because the people questioning him are on the same side of the outdated two-dimensional political spectrum.

It also explains why you have Republicans coming out of the woodwork now to question past Imperium decisions. Some of them are trying to run for President, while others are simply trying to wash the Imperium stain off their hands before they get voted out in the next election. They know that Bush doesn’t have to worry about what the voters think. He doesn’t have to worry about running for re-election so he has absolutely no reason in the world to change his game.

It’s sad when you think about it. Here’s a guy who ran for the White House under the banner of “compassionate conservativism”, promising that things would not be business-as-usual, and in the six-plus years that he’s had the job, he has become pretty much the same kind of toxic politician that his younger self would have campaigned hard to replace. I guess that was just another “casualty of war”.

(Computer – some stuff, but you probably don’t care about it or else you would have heard it)
(Fade Music In – “Heretic, Hero” by Martin O’Donnell and Michael Salvatori)

Funny thing about McCarthy Moments… people don’t realize that they’ve reached theirs until afterwards. And by then it’s usually too late to change things; the line has already been crossed and the damage has already been done.

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” So warned the philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche back in 1886.

Don’t worry about Junior, though. The same political system that he crusaded against in 2000 will also not let him leave anytime earlier than January of 2009. As long as he has even a few supporters, he will continue his remaining months in office doing what he’s always been doing. Curse him or praise him as you wish… at least he’s proven that he is consistent.

(Pause)

Brutally Honest is a Get Brutal production; all opinions expressed are those of the commentator, and may or may not be shared by the online provider. This is David Matthews 2 saying good night, and I’ll speak with you soon!

(Fade out)
(Computer – Ending/“End of Recording”)

[End of program]
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