The Awesomizer

Man, talk about starting your day off right … this morning, in the car, I was skimming radio stations and came across a radio show I forgot existed. The “Bob Dutko Show” on 103.5 WMUZ “The Light”. Quite the misnomer … “The Light” …

Okay, this guy is the biggest jackass amongst jackasses. The only reason that Rush Limbaugh beats him on the jackass front is because Limbaugh has a national audience. But Mr. Dutko is at the forefront of the Conservative Right’s campaign of hate breeding about anything and everything, using his “religion” as a platform to fill people’s ears with hate and intolerance.

This particular day’s rant was about Obama’s healthcare plan and how Obama was backing down from the public option … and this is where we can observe the trickery of the Right, and how dumb-ass Americans fall for it every time:

1.) Obama announced that there would be a public healthcare option

2.) The Right screamed “Socialism”, which was akin to saying, “Hey Castro, why don’t you just kill Jesus and flee back to Mother Russia you Maoist.”

3.) Obama “backs down” from the public option.

4.) The Right screams, “You wussy! You flip-flopper! You pantywaist!!!”

5.) Dumbass Americans think, “Oh yeah, he sure does suck. He’s a Commie and a pantywaist.”

Now, I might be wrong, but isn’t one of the main parts of any politician’s job to listen to and act upon the wishes, desires, and opinions of his or her constituency? For example, a state Senator needs to listen to his or her state’s concerns and try to push legislation through congress that will help alleviate those concerns … or maybe I’m just a stupid F$%&ING a$$hole, which is quite possible.

But if that IS true, then isn’t the President’s constituency the entire nation? And if THAT is true, then if the loudest jackasses are screaming at the tops of their lungs, “Hey you Commie, we DON’T WANT a public healthcare option because it’ll be like living in Russia and China and Cuba and France!” shouldn’t he back down from it? I mean, is that flip-flopping or good governance? If the people don’t want it, then don’t give it to them, right?

So good Mr. Dutko and his cohorts on the Right play this card each and every day of the week. Anything the Left does is bad, and the way they make that point is to make up a bunch of $h!t and use words that the general public is afraid of.

Like “Death Panels” …

Seriously? The most bizarre thing about this little nugget is that people are actually still listening to Sarah Palin. For real. Like actually giving her the time of day. Like she’s not a gigantic idiot.

Death panels? How does this even happen? How does an insurance-paid, end-of-life consultation with your doctor become a death panel? How does information about things such as living wills and other end-of-life decisions become a F#$%ING death panel? How does discussing your imminent death with your doctor and having your insurance pay for it become a M^&*ERF%^&ING DEATH PANEL that sentences your baby with Down Syndrome to death?!?!?!?!

How the F%^K does trying to fix a broken healthcare system and trying to establish a system in which more people have health care equate to a panel of bureaucrats that decides who lives and who dies? 

I mean, when you think about it, the fact that insurance would pay for anything dealing with the elderly, the disabled, and the terminally ill is pretty amazing. Even if that is euthanasia …

… but the truth doesn’t matter, because now Grannie is scared that you’re going to send her to the euthanasia clinic.

And then the jackholes on the right start kicking around Nazi references like the Aktion T4 program in which “children and adults with disabilities, and anyone anywhere in the Third Reich was subject to execution who was blind, deaf, senile, retarded, or had any significant neurological condition.”

Seriously, who would anyone think that the government is trying to design a healthcare system that executes the elderly and disabled? Why on Earth would the US be trying to follow in the footsteps of Nazi Germany? 

What’s F$%^ING amazing is that if there is anyone in the US that would be trying to follow in the footsteps of the Third Reich, it would be the very same people who are trying to scare everyone into thinking the US is following in the footsteps of the Third Reich … like Dutko, and Palin, and Limbaugh, etc., etc.

Think about it … the Conservative Right … the people who are against immigration and homosexuality and non-Christians and who want so very badly to have our first Black president to fail … the ones who are trying so very hard to breed discontent, blind nationalism in the name of “patriotism”, and intolerance. These are the people who might follow in the footsteps of Hitler and Co. 

So why are they name-dropping AktionT4?

Because nobody but the Nazis like Nazis. And good, God-fearing Americans HATE Nazis … as they should. So if Obama’s White House is full of Nazis who want to kill the elderly and the mentally disabled, etc., etc., then good, God-fearing Americans need to go to Town Hall meetings and yell at the top of their lungs about how they don’t want Death Panels and Nazi Germany.

Are you beginning to see how these guys operate? 

Spread the fear, spread the hate, and the rest takes care of itself. And us idiot Americans eat it up with a spoon. We should just ignore it, but we don’t … because although Tom Daschle says he was “occasionally confronted with the ‘forced euthanasia’ accusation at forums on the plans, [he] came to see it as an advantage. ‘Almost automatically you have most of the audience on your side … Any rational normal person isn’t going to believe that assertion.’” The problem is that we are not dealing with “rational” or “normal” people here … take a trip across the Midwest for a few days, and I think you’ll see what I am talking about.

We will believe anything you tell us. We WANT to believe everything you tell us … everything we read in magazines or see on TV or in the movies … for most of us, the tabloid reading we do in the checkout line at the grocery store IS NEWS. So when you start kicking around words like Socialism and Nazi and Death Panels, we believe what you are telling us.

And the Right knows that.

What they want to do is blur the real information that is out there. They want you to have misinformation instead. 

Real information is boring. Real information is not sensational. Which one of these screams more from the page and grabs your attention?

1.) “A pending House bill has language authorizing Medicare to finance beneficiaries’ consultations with professionals on whether to authorize aggressive and potentially life-saving interventions later in life.”

or

2.) “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

So you have words like “Language” and “Pending” and “Beneficiaries’ Consultations” versus “Death Panel” and “Bureaucrats” and “Death Panel”.

Spread the misinformation, spread the fear, spread the hate, and the rest will take care of itself.

Here’s a neat little thing the Catholic Church is doing nowadays … conducting “quiet” investigations of American nuns.

And why? 

Because *gasp* they have become shockingly secular!!! You know, like NOT wearing habits, and NOT living in convents, and NOT just giving up and letting the men rule the church without trying to say something about it … like this SHOCKING discovery about the organization the Leadership Conference of Women Religious: ”it appeared that the organization had done little since it was warned eight years ago that it had failed to “promote” the church’s teachings on three issues: the male-only priesthood, homosexuality and the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church as the means to salvation.”

How DARE they. 

Number One: everyone knows that MEN are the only people who have the God-given authority to be CLERGY! For heaven’s sake ladies, you should know that by now. Silly women can’t actually LEAD a church, can they? 

No way, dude … only pederasts in clerical collars should be allowed to do that.

Number Two: You’re not gay bashing enough … Sisters, come on. The church is not built on equality and service to the community. Silly gooses. Focus on making sure that there are people who are NOT allowed salvation. Make sure that those sick bastards know exactly how much God hates them.

Number Three: I think the first two points are an effective enough argument as to what needs to be done next regarding the primacy of the Church, don’t you think?

On a side note, with all of the other strife going on in the world, it’s comforting to know that the Church is spending time worrying about this one: The bishops said that Catholics should stop practicing Reiki, a healing therapy that is used in some Catholic hospitals and retreat centers, and which was enthusiastically adopted by many nuns. The bishops said Reiki is both unscientific and non-Christian. 

Since when is Catholicism worried about science anyway?

F^&*ING Reiki … what a bunch of heathens those nuns are … not to mention adopting anything “enthusiastically” … uppity women.

What it really comes down to is that women need to accept their role in the Church, which basically boils down to this: ”Shut up and take it. Let the Men handle it. Your job is to be quiet and make babies, and if you can’t handle that, become a nun.” Cut the  $h!t, and stop trying to take power and make decisions.

With that said, here comes the Truth with a capital “T” and the Science with a capital “S”.

Ladies … I think it’s high time for a revolt. Bring the Church down to its knees. There are enough of you out there, and it is time for you to stop taking the Vatican’s $h!t. 

Think about this … When the scandals came out that the priesthood was chock full of kid touchers, the Vatican initiated a giant cover-up. But when nuns get too uppity and start making decisions that go “against” the church, they get a “quiet investigation.”

And that, my dear friends, is a crock of horse shit.

I think that what needs to happen is the women of the Catholic Church need to rise against the Vatican boy’s club and bring the entire organization to the ground. Because what it has become is nothing more than a fag hatin’, holocaust denyin’, sexually repressive juggernaut, and that does no one any good … especially those who claim to believe in what the Catholic faith says it believes in.

When pederasts are allowed to be priests, and when it comes out that they’re pederasts, the Church helps cover it up, then HOW THE F%^K IS LETTING WOMEN AND MARRIED MEN BE PRIESTS POSSIBLY A BAD THING!?!?!?!?!? 

So stop taking the $h!t, ladies, and let the Men at the top know your full outrage and dissatisfaction … unless you like the way the Vatican treats you … and then never mind. Or unless you truly believe that birth control is Satan, and that women and gays are second-class citizens. If so, then get yourself to church on Sunday.

Otherwise, rise up … bring the Church down.

Stop attending mass … bring the Church down.

And for God’s sake stop tithing to fund the madness … and bring the Church down.

The nice thing about it being a boy’s club at the top is that the soft and sensitive parts are on the outside … one well placed kick should do it.

So, as usual, this post comes from an experience I had while driving. Seems like that’s how I spend most of my time these days. Or at home with a baby. The stuff that pisses me off happens mostly during the former …

… during the latter, I just usually get pissed on.

Anyway, I was stopped at an intersection, and an ungodly behemoth of a vehicle pulled up next to me. I looked over and saw a Cadillac Escalade.

Big … Dumb … Expensive …

But there was something a little different about this one. I saw a little badge near the front fender … I looked, rubbed my eyes, looked again, rubbed my eyes again, and looked  third time … nope, my eyes weren’t deceiving me …

There actually exists … are you ready for this?

A F%^&ING Cadillac Escalade HYBRID!!!

Maybe everyone else already knew about this, but I didn’t … I laughed out loud.

What the F$%K is the point  of wasting time, energy, and money in the design, manufacture, and distribution of a F$%&ING Cadillac Escalade Hybrid?

Seriously … check out the specs on this thing …

A “best-in-class 20 MPG in the city and 21 MPG on the highway.”

Reading $h!t like this makes my face want to explode .

Is this the best we can do? Global warming, economic crises, issues with foreign oil … and we make a stupid F$%^ING automobile that “seamlessly combines the highest levels of performance and luxury” and only gets 21 MILES PER GALLON!?!?!?!

And the thing retails for somewhere between $73,000 and $87,000. I know people whose houses are valued for less than that right now. Mine included.

And this is what the US automakers are spending their R&D time and money on?

Come on people, we are making regular, gas-powered vehicles that get in the ball park of 35 MPG. Some hybrids get up to 40-something. Of course Honda makes two hybrids that get 43-45.

Ford does make the Fusion, which gets some pretty good mileage, but it also makes the Escape Hybrid, which really doesn’t.

Have our expectations gone so low that we are impressed by ANY improvement in gas mileage, even if that improvement means that the “best-in-class” still wouldn’t qualify for the Cash for Clunkers deal?

“For passenger automobiles, the new vehicle must have a combined fuel economy value of at least 22 miles per gallon.”

And this F%&*ING Hybrid vehicle wouldn’t qualify.

Am I the only one whose head is about to explode? Let’s look at the facts again:

1.) Hybrid automobile gets 21 MPG

2.) Cash for Clunkers requires 22 MPG

3.) A F%^&ING Hybrid — the “future” of automobile technology — doesn’t meet the bare minimum fuel efficiency for a program that is designed to take “clunkers” off the road.

If this is the kind of decision-making that is going on behind closed doors, it’s a wonder the geniuses at the Big Three can’t turn a profit.

Think about this … the Aveo gets MPG in the mid 30s. The Focus gets up to 37 MPG. If you made these cars into Hybrids, imagine how far they’d go on a gallon of gasoline.

SO WHY ARE WE WASTING OUR F$%^ING TIME MAKING SUV HYBRIDS THAT GET WORSE GAS MILEAGE THAN REGULAR F^&*ING GAS-POWERED AUTOMOBILES!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Because we here in America are F^&*ING stupid, that’s why.

That Escalade was not transporting a family of eight, it was transporting one passenger. I would bet you anything that she doesn’t have eight kids at home.

But her Escalade only rapes the environment a little bit now … good for her.

Maybe when she’s done with it, she can sell it a family who lost their home, and they can live in it. If they can get a mortgage big enough to cover it, that is.

I came to a shocking realization this weekend. The F-Bomb is not a bomb anymore … it’s not even a firecracker, or one of those things you throw on the ground that makes a tiny little “pop” noise. The F-Bomb has degraded to one of those sampler packs of “fireworks” you can buy from the grocery store on the 4th of July that has a few smoke bombs, a package of sparklers, a box of charcoal “snakes” and one volcano that shoots a few sparks when lit. As anyone who has seen one of these fireworks packages in use, it fails to make an impression on even the most impressionable. Even three-year-olds get bored with charcoal snakes.

The issue here is overuse. It used to be than an exquisitely placed F-Bomb could make a point more sharp, or make a message stand out more, or even make a joke funnier. But when it is placed in a sentence as frequently as an article or a vocalized pause, it tends to lose its effect after a while. I mean, how shocking is “um” or “er”?

This realization came while I was at a concert with my 14-year-old niece. Every band that graced the stage was F%^&ING this and F%^&ING that and is everyF&*^INGone having a F$%^ING good F%^&ING time toF$%^INGnight? I wanna F#$%ING see everyone F#$%ING jumping up and F$%^ING down with this F#$%ING song Oh-F#$%ING-kay?

And my niece didn’t even blink. All of the other kids around us were doing the same thing … I swear I actually heard someone say “F%^KING F^&K those F%^&ING F#$%ERS”.

Which I think successfully uses F%&K as an adverb, verb, adjective, and noun and as both the subject and the predicate. Which is marks it as possibly one of the most versatile words ever.

Be that as it may, the meat of this realization is now that the word has lost its power as a way to shock, draw attention, or emphasize, and has replaced pretty much all of the other words in the English language, it just sounds kind of dumb … and makes the user sound kind of dumb. When you have to rely on just one word to convey emotion or emphasis or a sense of urgency, it kind of marks you as not very creative …

The worst part is, I am one of those people. I use the F-Bomb all of the time. I use it as an adjective and a verb and a noun and an adverb and as a vocalized pause and on and on and on.

I realized not only how dumb we all sound by overusing this once-powerful word, I realized how dumb I sound overusing this word.

And because I use it so very, very frequently, I am sure that my infant daughter will pick up on it and incorporate it into her vocabulary, and overuse it possibly more than those teenagers at the concert, and that is something that I cannot let happen.

The only recourse we have is to remove the F-Bomb from daily use. It will be hard, and it will hurt, but we have to do it. Otherwise this once majestic word that had the ability to make people blush and gasp whenever it reared its ugly head, the word that was an instant grounding if ever heard within the confines of home, the word that was the cause of much adolescent giggling on the playground and elevated the one brave enough to use it to instant rebel status … the word that functioned as the doorway to adulthood and was the harbinger of lost youth … this F$%^ING word that used to embody, in its one syllable, the very essence of standing against the establishment … will become (if it has not already become) as ho-hum as the words that we used to use to repace it in decent conversation, like “fudge” or “fricking” or “freaking”.

We cannot stand by and let this happen.

So I call out to all of you good and patriotic Americans to save this word by ceasing to use it in every day conversation unless the severity of the situation or the need for emphasis or the hilarity of the punchline absolutely call for it.

If we band together, we can F%&*ING put the F$%^ING explosiveness back in the F#$%ING F-F#$%ING-Bomb.

So let’s F#$%ING do it people … who is with me?