BACHMAN AND PALIN DISCUSSING STUFF

In 1962, a philosopher (and world-famous beekeeper) named Richard Taylor published a soon-to-be-notorious essay called "Fatalism" in the Philosophical Review. As the title indicates, it concerned a subject that, as a matter of human intellectual concern, surely dates back to the minute Homo became sapiens. That is the subject of the future and how it is determined: by the gods or God; solely by the past and the present; or (in circumstances that appear to be within our control), by our own agency — free will. Taylor's argument, which he himself found distasteful, was that certain logical and seemingly unarguable premises lead to the conclusion that even in matters of human choice, the future is as set in stone as the past. We may think we can affect it, but we can't. When we try to change it, we simply put ourselves deeper into its stony hands. To quote Doris Day, "Que sera, sera" and that's all there is to…  http://www.salon.com/books/writing/index.html

Oh and check out this from the NYT: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/stoned/?ref=opinion

This is an interesting read as a book review at Salon.

One example in this argument discussing the issue of fate vs. free-will surrounds Oedipus Rex. The Greek Tragedians seemed to relish the idea of fate as the individual fighting against his individual fate; hoping to find freedom from a predestined finale.

It is pointed out that Oedipus had fair warning of his fate through the rantings and the ravings of an Oracle.

You would have thought that upon receiving this information, Sexy Rexy would have refrained from killing men who were his seniors and from marrying older women. But some guy comes at you with a spear in the middle of a road and:

WHAT IS A MOTHER TO DO?

And you are clever enough to solve the riddle of the Sphinx so that you are immediately elected king by acclamation. Except of course, you must marry the widowed Queen in order to wear the crown.

Besides, his mama was probably only 12 or 13 years older than him. And as long as she kept a proper exercise regimen and ate her vegetables…

And this King-Elect would have rationalized the warnings he had received. I mean the Oracles were all drug crazed weirdoes anyway and they probably were speaking in metaphors anyhow and…

So Oedipus might have concluded that it was his fate to kill someone like his father and marry someone like his mother. I mean he never figured he would actually be the most renowned mofo of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg8cDmi7-U8 

The books discussed in the review are complicated. This newer age of philosophy brings a new mathematical logic and we poor amateurs are not going to have an easy time scanning the arguments contained therein with any meaningful understanding.

But I see fate in a totally different light. I see fate in terms of role playing.

I recall hearing of the grand speech of the evening given at the Democratic Convention in 2004 given by some upstart running for the open U. S. Senate seat in Illinois. And the guy was Black and MSM could not refrain from talking about the speech and the young man.

Then I heard that he had this strange name and that he was not just African-American in descent. I mean he was really AFRICAN-AMERICAN, meaning that daddy was from Kenya and Mama was from Kansas. I remember thinking: Oh this is great. The Democratic Party is going to blow another election; this time by choosing a guy who is half un-American with a strange name and with the wrong color to be elected in any election. Hahahahaha

But by 2007 I was really getting into the spirit. I mean, America just hated Bush and we had a chance, we had a real chance of electing the first Black Man as President of the United States.

Now here is how fate comes into play.

The Dems were bound to nominate a Black Man as Vice-President of the United States if not President of the United States.

It was fated.

First, such a nomination would be the culmination of a long and hard road for liberals from the old Abolitionist movement through the desegregation movement and into the modern era.

Second, such a nomination would be proof that we liberals were not just giving race neutrality lip service. We were going to follow through on our beliefs.

Third, some of the greatest speakers in this country, in my humble opinion, are Black.

Fourth, a Black candidate would surely be a good, solid liberal.

Fifth, it would be an opportunity to really, and I mean really, stick it to the Old South as well as to the modern day candidates who constantly use phrases like Affirmative Action or Real Americans as code for their real hatred against minorities in this country.

So I believe that it was fated for us to see a Black Man nominated as President or Vice-President within a decade or so into this new century.

That does not mean that the nominee would be elected. Elections are not fated except for the fact that Bush was sooooooooo very bad, so very incompetent and so very despised by most of Americans, that the odds were a Dem would get elected on the National Ticket. There is some concept of fate present there; pendulums swing you know! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWB1Sqsx1jo

And this does not mean that fate determined that Barack Hussein Obama would be nominated and subsequently elected as President of the United States.

I would have predicted a Martin Luther King V, or the son of Jesse Jackson, or the grandson of Mr. Abernathy or the grand niece of Mr. Young filling that role for a new century.

But somebody had heard Barry speak from time to time.

Someone noted a certain style.

Someone noted an ability of this young man to get along in the state legislature with others in his party as well as others in the opposing party.

And Barry ended up being like Roy Hobbs and then Wilford Brimley commanded:

Come on Hobbs, you’re up!!

And Barry just went to the plate and hit the cover off the ball.

We just love that. Americans love it when some rookie comes to the plate and knocks the cover off of the ball.

If individual achievement is not always fated, I believe roles are fated; that is certain roles in American Politics and in the American Media are fated. The individual is just reading lines; even though some of those individuals feel they are being so so creative and so so original.

For instance, Representative Issa was not fated to become head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He might have been hit by a car while on his bike as a kid. He might have been caught handing out Playboys in the boy’s room as an undergrad and subsequently expelled. He might have just missed being admitted to University Law School.

But somebody would be head of that committee of reform and that person was bound to be a repub following midterm elections when the opposing party usually wins.

California Rep. Darrell Issa (EYE'-suh) says Holder is hurting the Obama administration because the Justice Department isn't doing more to investigate several issues.

Issa -- who's set to lead the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee -- says the department hasn't done enough concerning the activities of the now-defunct community group ACORN, as well as a 2008 incident of alleged voter intimidation in Philadelphia involving the New Black Panther Party and those behind the WikiLeaks releases.

Issa tells "Fox News Sunday" that Holder should either stop hurting the administration or leave it.

This prick has promised to hold 208 committee hearings primarily focused upon the actions of the Single most Corrupt Administration in the history of the United States.

Those are Issa’s words.

Them’s fighting words: Laying out his agenda for the new Congress under a GOP-controlled House, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the congressman who is the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called the Obama government “one of the most corrupt administrations” and predicted that the series of investigations he’s planning could potentially save U.S. taxpayers $200 billion. “It's more of an accounting function than legal function,” said Issa on Fox News Sunday. “And the sooner the administration figures out that the enemy is the bureaucracy and the wasteful spending, not the other party, the better off we'll be.” Issa plans to lead bipartisan investigations on food and drug safety and Medicare fraud

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/?cid=hp:cheatsheet7#cheatrow_22849

But this is where I need to cool my heels; because this guy just enrages me.

Issa, in his role, must say these things. Issa must call Obama corrupt. Issa must threaten the use of subpoenas against everyone who ever spoke to a Democrat. Just as Issa will underline as proof of Obama’s corruption the claim of Executive Privilege that shall cloak our POTUS as the POSTUS before him.

This is all foreshadowed by oracles much more talented than I.

And Issa will find corruption. Some clerk will be prosecuted for stealing paper clips and Issa will brag about what a fine fellow Issa is and how he knew there were paper clip thieves in the White House all along.

It is fated that some conservative would have a list of grievances.

Some assistant to a Department Head shall be caught hiring a nephew in some subordinate position. And Issa will declare: I TOLD YOU SO!!

And all of this has been written in stone by the Oracles of yesteryear.

On Fox News Sunday, Bill Kristol advanced the claim that "the more government takes over health care, the more rationing there will be." In fact, rationing exists under the current private insurance system.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201101020006

Bill Kristol has to say these things. Bill Kristol has to rant and rave against the fascistic communists in the Democratic Party daily. He gets paid to do this. His role demands that he speaks in these terms. Bill Kristol must rant and rave about governmental death panels and how Obama wishes to take away your guns and tax you upon your death.

Billy Kristol could have been caught in the 8^th grade wacking off in a telephone booth and labeled a sexual predator and he could very well have ended up filling orders for French fries and Cokes. But there is a Bill Kristol role that had to have been filled and the lines for that role spoken and written.

Glenn Beck has to lie every day. That is his role. Mr. Beck has to posit grand conspiracies funded by one billionaire who is working for the Muslim Terrorists. He has to call the President of the United States a racist. He has to talk about the wonders of the Grover Cleveland Administration and the Calvin Coolidge Administration. He has to talk about the evil of liberal ministries.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201012300001

Now a younger Glenn might have been held in that Mental Institution that he found himself in decades ago. A younger Glenn might have continued to use drugs and alcohol. A younger Glenn might have continued to abandon his family and be constrained in some padded cell dressed in a straight jacket.

But the role of Glenn Beck has been written in stone. There is no way around it. And it is fated that tens of millions of Americans would be uplifted every single day by the performances of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and hundreds of others.

And we were bound to be confronted with The_Furies.

I knew that the Furies, those goddesses whose sole purpose in life is to drive us all insane, were bound to find themselves reincarnated as Tea Party Republicans.

There had to come to the fore conservative women to misrepresent historical events, to claim the fairness of an unfair economic system and to offer chickens as a cure for The  Pox.

Even in the face of the truth that women have no constitutional rights anyway.

Just remember that certain things have been written in stone long ago and there is not one damn thing anyone can do about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxr-fbtV1-8