Segarini – Another Monday Filler (Which Started Out as Last Friday’s Column, Then Became Last Monday’s Filler, Which is Now This Friday’s Column), which is about Politics. Don’t Ask….

Once again, I spring to the aid of an abandoned Monday…also…to atone for missing my deadline for Friday because, Bob. With Doug Thompson, Gary Pig Gold, and Darrell Vickers wrapped up for the month of July, it has again fallen to me to provide read-y things for the last Monday of the month. I endeavor to do so with another Monday Filler. …and what, exactly, is a Monday Filler? Well, this month, it is this…

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News

An Ungodly Amount of Republicans Want to Be President

If Darwin Awards were given to the most deserving instead of just the dumbest of the dumb whose claim to fame is a single (and generally fatal) random act of stupidity, (which exist in abundance), the vast majority of them would be hurled at almost all of those who wish to be the High (and Mighty) Mucky-Muck of a Nation.

Think about it.

…and while you do, I shall share with you the tell-tale signs exhibited by the men and women who actually want the job because they honestly believe they can make our lives at least a little better than they are now, and maybe, you know, score some chicks, (or free shoes for the Lady candidates…or chicks).

Before we get to those signs, be aware that they are informed by the fact that the people on both sides of the line that separates the worthy from the absolutely horrifying bags of dicks that don’t give a fuck about the Average Joes and Jills, are all victims of fans and foes alike, who, driven by a deep-seated love or hate for people they do not know, know anything about, have never met and probably never will, and base their love or hate on God Only Knows, take it upon themselves to spread any and all rumours, create rumours if none exist, spread falsified facts and figures, and heap praise on the unpraisables, and shovel shit on the un-deserving-of-shit-ables.

Those of us who watch these always escalating tennis matches being played out for a year or more before an election, are stuck with having to spend every waking hour Googling multiple sources to either verify or dismiss the information we are being inundated with in order to make a decision based on truth instead of the wishful thinking of tree huggers and tree destroyers alike. …and yeah, I know…too many commas, run-on sentences, my syntax sucks, and I make up words to make my point, and a bunch of other stuff I’m not even aware of. Just pretend I’m talking instead of writing. That will help. …and lighten up, I’m just a guy, not a fucking English Professor. Please remember I am just another descendant of the Apes…and you Fundamentalist/Creationists can bite me. If the Earth is only 5000 years old, and the Chinese have been whipping up sweet, delicious food for 5000 years, where the fuck did they go to culinary school?

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No one has the time to Google every stupid, mean, crime against humanity or untrue act of compassion and kindness attributed to the herd of hopeful candidates praying to the Deity of their choice to get elected and save us from ourselves, except the homeless…and, according to simple logic even a 2 year old Vulcan knows, the homeless don’t HAVE Google…or anything else…maybe a shopping cart, but that’s about it.

So we don’t check stuff out. We can’t. Not unless we want to destroy our relationships, lose our jobs or become ill because we have no time for our families or jobs, or even time to eat…and even if we took the time to eat, we would have to wear Adult Diapers all the time because THEN we wouldn’t have time to go to the bathroom. …and then we would lose everything. What then? A shopping cart?

No one wants to hear his children say, “Mommy, who is that smelly bearded man hunched over Daddy’s Apple making grunt-y sounds and leaking all over the rug”?

No one.

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So we pretend we ‘know the issues’ and ‘understand the way things work’, and have a Ways and Means Committee of our own comprised of Ed down at work, Bill’s next door neighbor, what’s-his-name, who met Bush Senior one time (“He smelled nice”), Kevin, who reads the news, sports, and weather at the local community radio station and also sweeps up, and Elbert, who just knows things…like that time he picked the guy that won Survivor weeks before that guy won Survivor.

That would be Uncanny Elbert, and we all know one of him. Or fancy ourselves to be one of him.

Elbert

(He’s Uncanny!)

No wonder that 9 times out of 10, we nominate and vote for someone who takes our lives and not only makes them worse than they were, but the little hot-air spewing loudmouths actually reward the people who spend a gazillion dollars to help get them elected, and use their influence to sway others and “suggest” to the Jacks and Jills they employ to vote for a “strong America/Canada/Chad/Pottsylvania“, to insure their paycheques don’t decrease any more than they already will. …and then, (thanks to several back room promises we don’t know squat about). once the Puppet…er…President is in his geometrically described office, become the ONLY people who benefit from our uninformed decision, and use the favours bestowed upon them for their help, to swoop down on us like a squadron of flying elephants and just shit all over everything, which through some sort of insane magic known only to them, gives them even MORE money and power.

Maybe I’m being too harsh, but fuck it…that’s what it feels like.

Seriously…forgive me…but you know that Meme that says “Stop Making Stupid People Famous”? Well, a GREAT many of us are the Stupid People who are responsible for all the Famous Stupid People. Sorry.

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Now then….

The Telltale Signs of a Good Candidate

There aren’t any.

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Wait…What? 

Oh relax, I’m kidding. Here they are….

The Telltale Signs of a Good Candidate

God, you are soooo gullible. There aren’t any. Sorry.

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Okay, okay…that wasn’t very nice. I am truly, truly, sorry. On behalf of my party and my loving wife and family, I swear to you that I will not deceive you again. I will do everything I can to better myself as a person, and continue to make every effort to make your life, everyone’s life, better in every way. You have my word. God bless you, God bless your families, God Bless America!

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All right, I give up. There really is NO way of knowing who is telling the truth, let alone what the candidate actually thinks. There is no way to tell if a Lie is benign and used because people would take the truth personally, (i.e; “I have every faith in the American People’s ability to make an informed and thoughtful decision regarding this matter” because the Truth; “Dear God, I am terrified you are going to choose my insane opponent’s self-serving and potentially disastrous agenda which he is keeping from you by telling you what you want to hear“), and elect another Bush, Reagan, or Bush, whose contributions while in office are still being felt in a negative fashion across the globe as well as at home.

So, a lot of what comes out of politician’s mouths these days is written for them by a media-savvy professional whose job it is to sell the candidate to the public using phrases and touchstones that research has shown to be of concern to the voting public, and it is crucial to the candidate’s public acceptance that he (or she) at least sounds informed on these subjects and can convince the public that he too, shares their concern and has a plan to address them and solve the problems at hand. In the easy to understand parlance of the hard working farmers of America and other countries whose politicians pretend the public’s opinion is important by appearing to acknowledge them until they are elected, these speeches, soundbites, and platform statements are called what they are by a tragically small segment of the populace who do listen, analyze, research, and seek out the facts…but no one listens to them because no one is interested in anyone’s opinion but their own.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present The Word That Best Describes Most of What is Said by Political Candidates.

Drum roll, please, Mr. Costanza….

Bullshit

…the word is Bullshit.

There are two sources of Bullshit.

1. Bulls

2. People who want something (money, sex, attention, etc) really, really…realllllly badly.

…and what, exactly, is Bullshit, you ask? Let’s use our Google skills to unleash our ability to access every piece of information known to man through the miracle of technology, and track down as accurate a definition and researched answer as is humanly possible.

Google…ah! Here we go….

After just one click, we are on a page with 100s…no, 1000s of choices, and after consulting several reliable suggested sources (5 more clicks and a couple of scrolls), decide that these three brief excerpts will suffice in our quest to retrieve valuable, informative, facts. To quote FBI Agent and well hung Bon-Vivant, Fox “Spooky” Mulder,

“The Truth is Out There“…along with kittens playing with puppies, inappropriate selfies, Angry Memes, Angry Birds, Angry Righties, Angry Lefties, and tits. To wit….

“Bullshit (also bullcrap) is a common English expletive which may be shortened to the euphemism bull or the initialism BS.”

And to further clarify….

“Bullshit is commonly used to describe statements made by people more concerned with the response of the audience than in truth and accuracy, such as goal-oriented statements made in the field of politics or advertising”.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, here’s Princeton University’s resident Philosopher, Professor Harry Frankfurt to explain….

“In his essay On Bullshit (originally written in 1986, and published as a monograph in 2005), philosopher Harry Frankfurt of Princeton University characterizes bullshit as a form of falsehood distinct from lying. The liar, Frankfurt holds, knows and cares about the truth, but deliberately sets out to mislead instead of telling the truth. The “bullshitter”, on the other hand, does not care about the truth and is only seeking to impress:

It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”

Thank you, Professor…and you too, Google. I love you.

Handy Tip!

Here’s an example of the art of bullshit as practiced by those who need to impress the lazy people needed to achieve his (or her) goal.

“This country needs new highways, new bridges, and safer, updated public  means of getting where they are going, to replace our aging and potentially dangerous infrastructure.” …and 2 minutes later in the same speech, “…and I promise I will NOT be raising your taxes one single dime!” (Insanely stupid applause, little flags being waved frantically, thereby cooling off the load of hot air just released.)

Ummmm….

Group Photo of the Republican Candidates for President 2015

Meanwhile, in Canada….

Attention to Detail is a Big Part of Stephen Harper’s Campaign. Canada’s Bestest Prime Minster EVER!

,,,and always remember….

Next: Stopping the Stupid….

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Segarini’s regular column appears here every Friday or so

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

Bob “The Iceman” Segarini was in the bands The Family Tree, Roxy, The Wackers, The Dudes, and The Segarini Band and nominated for a Juno for production in 1978. He also hosted “Late Great Movies” on CITY TV, was a producer of Much Music, and an on-air personality on CHUM FM, Q107, SIRIUS Sat/Rad’s Iceberg 95, (now 85), and now publishes, edits, and writes for DBAWIS, osts The Bobcast every Monday night at Cherry Cola’s, and continues to write music, make music, and record.