Sunday, October 19, 2008

Lost Causes on SNL

Sarah Palin, who has yet to Meet the Press or Face the Nation, showed up on Saturday Night Live tonight minutes before Oliver Stone rose from the audience to plug his lost cause, the movie, "W."

The juxtaposition was no more bizarre, or funnier, than Alec Baldwin mistaking Palin for Tina Fey, badmouthing her to her face and, when set straight, ogling the VP candidate and telling her, “You are way hotter in person.”.

There must be something profound to be said about all this confusion of reality and fantasy in today's world, but life hasn't been the same since Richard Nixon appeared on "Laugh-In" endlessly mouthing the show's punch line, "Sock it to me?"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lost cause is right. And the lostness of Palin's cause is evident in the desperation the McCain/Palin campaign. In his ignorance, John McCain has recently implied that Barack Obama is promoting a socialist agenda. I see a few signs in my neighborhood which say “Vote Against Socialism. Vote McCain/Palin.” The ‘big lie’ strategy of the McCain campaign is, sadly, working on some people. McCain, and the few who believe him, don’t even know what socialism is, and they obviously have not read Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”. Smith understood that capital accrues to the wealthy in a capitalistic system. In other words, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. He pointed out that the wealthy should pay proportionally more taxes in order to “cycle” the nation’s capital to bottom end of the economy. And this was long before the emergence of our Middle Class in the late 19th century. McCain and the Republican Party’s economic solutions, which give proportionally greater tax benefits to the upper income sector, including large corporations, ignore Smith’s warning that an expanding lower income segment, or “have nots”, can lead to a caste system and widespread political discontent, not to mention a radical deterioration of the nation’s infrastructure. What John McCain and his intellectually disadvantaged running mate have been saying in the last few days is nothing more than another despicable scare tactic which preys on the ignorance and lack of understanding in the most economically vulnerable members of our society. Palin can feel safe going SNL and being humiliated because it supposed to be just comic relief, but she is incapable of contributing anything to the campaign but smears and distortions of fact.

Joel said...

Frankly, Obama's ideas about capitalist enterprise, individual rights, taxation, and statism are nothing short of socialism. In point of fact, modern "liberals" or "progressives" as they sometimes fancy themselves have viewpoints that fall more in line with socialism than any other political ideaology. Classical liberalism used to represent what is now considered libertarianism, but no longer.

If you want to vote Obama, fine, but at least be honest about your political motivations.

This johnrj08 fellow throws around Adam Smith's name, then ignorantly misrepresents his economic understandings in a grotesque display of wilful partisan defraudment. Listen to this quote:

"Smith understood that capital accrues to the wealthy in a capitalistic system. In other words, the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. He pointed out that the wealthy should pay proportionally more taxes in order to “cycle” the nation’s capital to bottom end of the economy."

Oh no!! The rich getting RICHER? Robin Hood, er, Obama to the rescue! Somehow, apparently, rich folks (corporations, small business owners) paying less rich folks (wage earners, laborers) is not "cycling" capital, but taxing wealthier people is? You have to be sipping the kool-aid to believe that!

Currently 5% of our wealthiest citizens foot over 60% of the total national tax bill. The word is DISPROPORTIONATE. Disproportionate enough for you? The United States has the second highest rate of corporate taxation of ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD. Obama and his hoodwinked lemming followers want you to believe we should be number 1, all the while professing how "ridiculous" it is to call them socialists. Fight the smears, my ass.

Adam Smith understood that the wealth of a nation was NOT the same thing as the wealth of its citizenry. Even a PERIPHERAL reading of his book would impart that knowledge. What he understood was that while taxation was necessary, it should be constrained to an absolute minimum. "Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State."

This will NOT be the case under Obama the socialist (65% tax ceiling!) who has planned new government programs for every special interest group under the sun.

The implication, by johnrj08, is that not only do wealthy people presently not pay "enough" taxes in his eyes, but that the inevitable outcome of a capitalist system is undesirable: "Poor getting poorer". Of course, an obvious socialist replete with wealth envy and a bitter sense of entitlement. Nevermind the fact that when you tax the hell out of "Joe the plumber" (or "Fred the car salesman" if you prefer), IE the "RICH", he may have to let some employees go. Oops! So much for middle class Bob. But at the end of the day, at least Bob can count on universal healthcare if he loses an arm - just like the Canadians! I hear they're very happy with their socialist healthcare system!

If there were a full bucket of water, Obama promises to tax the "rich" half. Sorry folks, doesn't work that way.

Johnrj08: You neither understand the writings of Adam Smith nor would you agree with him if you did. Go ahead and vote for your socialist hero - you may have the "audacity to hope", but I have the "wisdom to expect disappointment".

America: Where the rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting richer for 232 years.

Anonymous said...

Let's endeavor not to accuse anybody of "wilful partisan defraudment." That, in itself, is a partisan remark. Adam Smith understood that wealth accrues to the wealthy in a free market, not the poor, and our tax system has always recognized this. The top 5% pay over half the taxes, because a majority of the country's wealth is concentrated in that group. I don't think anybody is suggesting that the rich should be taxed out of existence, but the reality is that in the absence of a healthy middle class economy, lowering taxes for the wealthy is a recipe for economic disaster. A millionaire has numerous options to shelter or defer income, while the lower income household is living on a budget. The bottom line is that the middle class is the engine that drives our economy and, right now, that group is perniciously anemic in terms of liquidity. While it would be preferable for capital to come from jobs, that isn't going to help the middle class in the short term. Conversely, there's no guarantee that giving tax breaks to the wealthy will translate to more jobs. Certainly, that has not been the case in the last eight years. Adam Smith wrote his book from the perspective of a Europe on the verge of the Industrial Revolution, well before there was any emerging middle class. What Smith learned during his European travels was that the inverted delta of an expanding poor class and an excessive concentration of wealth in the aristocracy was a ticking bomb. (His book was published on the eve of the French Revolution). He believed that greed, a natural human quality, in a free market would somehow be moderated by competitive forces. We now know that that is not entirely true and that some sort of common-sense regulation is essential. If the economy was growing every quarter, there was no $10 billion monthly drain in Iraq, and oil was selling for less than $20 a barrel, it is doubtful we would be looking at the necessity of higher taxes for anybody. But this is no longer a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too economy.

Polilla said...

Here's the news, but what do you think about?: 'Saturday Night Live' Political Skits Make Real Impact on Voters