Will America Elect Yet Another Overtly Racist President?

America is far from perfect. We have achieved many great things in our history, but it has been despite our flaws, not because of them. And among the worst of our flaws is this country’s history of racism and white supremacy. Yes, not just the racism but the white supremacy, too. We on the Left post many words decrying white supremacists, but we rarely admit our country has elected many white supremacists POTUS, and they weren’t all Conservatives and/or Republicans and at least a few were Progressives and/or Democrats. As a Liberal, that bothers me. I want what’s best for everyone, and the color of one’s skin does not determine whether one is a human being or not. But there are many people, white people in particular, who feel this is not so; they feel that one’s skin color DOES determine how human one is. And sadly, these people often get elected to public office, where they are able to put their racist viewpoints into law. A President Donald J. Trump would be such a racist president.

It’s bad enough that Trump lies, and lies, and lies, and

Pitchin’ a Lie

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Mitt Romney is a no-good goddamn fucking liar. There, I said it and I’m glad.

Okay, I'll say it. Mitt Romney is a no-good goddamn fucking liar! There, I said it and I'm glad. #p2 #ctl #Obama2012

— Wayne A Schneider (@WayneASchneider) October 9, 2012

Okay, it appears I have said it before. But it’s true. You can see a quick list compiled by Politifact (for what it’s worth), but he’s has told literally hundreds of lies on the campaign trail. And in the famous 47% video, he based an entire answer to a question on a lie. He claimed that all 47% of the people who did not pay any federal income taxes, for whatever reason, were not being responsible for their own lives. That includes the elderly who are retired and living on Social Security, the military who are overseas and putting their lives at risk every day, and the young people just starting out at their first jobs and, like the elderly and the military, not earning enough to owe federal income taxes. It’s not like he said that twelve years ago, it was just this past summer. And it’s not like nobody ever figured out until now why some people don’t pay federal income tax, any competent economist could have explained it in less than five minutes. But there he is lying, again. It seems that’s all Mitt Romney has for a stump speech – lies. Every day, he’s out there pitchin’ a lie.

Pitchin’ a Lie
Original Words and Music by Peter Callender and Mitch Murray
Additional Lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider

The dumb goes up when I go by
It’s nearly over now but here am I
Pitchin’ a lie, pitchin’ a lie
Gotta drive it home, make ’em see the light

It’s not so fair, but why complain?

David Barton, Bearer of False Witness

Conservative evangelist David Barton, who likes to go around the country telling people he’s an historian, suffered a major setback this week when Thomas Nelson, the Christian publisher of his book, “The Jefferson Lies,” pulled the book from publication because it contained too many lies. And who could blame him them? Readers at the History News Network voted the book the “least credible history book in print.” But try not to weep too much for this Right-Wing Nut Job. He will publish the book under his own publishing company, Wall Builders, and is already selling the book at a discount.

What happened was that two conservative Christian professors, Warren Throckmorton and Michael Coulter, did some fact-checking

Against the Universe

It’s getting bad at Fox News Channel. (Okay, maybe I should say “worse.”) It’s like they live in their own little universe and rant and rail against ours, the real one. Actual facts mean nothing to them. Take the recent blizzard in the Northeast. Those of us who understand how climate change (of which global warming is but one part) affects the climate could have told you this would happen, and that it will happen again. The people at Fox (in particular, Tucker Carlson, who may possibly be the stupidest man on television in addition to being the biggest dick), on the other hand, said the blizzard “proved” that global warming didn’t exist. As Strother Martin said in Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is failure to communicate. Some men just can’t be reached.” But then they went ahead and created Fox News Channel anyway.

UPDATE: For a sampling of the kind of lies Fox News Channel has told over the years, check out this compilation of the lies they told in 2010. (Source: MediaMatters.org)

Against the Universe
Original words and music by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1968
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2010

Words are spewing out of mindless brains into a microphone
They differ while they pass, they spin away against the universe
Fools of sorrow they destroy the shifting few with open minds
Dissenting and resenting me

Yearn to Groan

This one is about how I feel now whenever I see one of those right-wingers on the TV machine, saying the same line of crap that’s been disproven so many times before (or would be by the next morning.)

And I have to give a big Thank You to my beautiful honey, Jane, for a great suggestion for the title. Thank you, honey. I love you.

Enjoy the song. I included two videos on this one. The first is a version with the band singing it live, many years after it was a hit. Note the reaction of Jeff Lynne when they do the fast talking part. The second video below the lyrics appears to be a produced video, lip-synched, with some of the band members dancing around the set while playing their violins and bass fiddles. Kind of cool. I just hope they don’t get blocked two seconds after I post this. 🙂

Yearn to Groan
Original Words and Music "Turn to Stone" by Jeff Lynne
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider

The talking heads are empty now
          The lies don’t work no more
And so the thoughts are way down low
          Churning, churning, churning
A crowd that knows it lost the fight 
          The a-holes of the hard right
Says anything that is a lie 
          To my Blue world

I yearn to groan when you are on, I yearn to groan
Yearn to groan, when you going off, I can’t look on

 

Too Many Sheeple

Too Many Sheeple
Original words and music “Too Many People” by Paul McCartney, 1971
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2009

Too many sheeple tuning into Fox
Too many teaching that a Peace can wait
Too many sheeple fooled into a box
Too many waiting for that Judgment Day

That was your first mistake
You took a lie they made and spoke it as true

Conservative

Conservatives. What are you gonna do? You can’t reason with them, and you can’t take away their guns and shoot them with them. Not that I would want to. Shoot them with them. But you can’t reason with them. They just don’t operate from the same set of facts that we do. We liberals tend to believe that something is true because it can be proven to be true. But listening to today’s conservatives (of all stripes), it’s as if they believe something is true because enough people believe it to be true, regardless of whether or not it actually is true. And it is from this point of view that they debate things. Not from facts, but from beliefs. And it simply does not matter to them if whatever they believe is not actually true, as long as it supports the rest of their argument, they believe that their argument has merit. I admit that you can sometimes give them credit for following a proper chain of logic based on the propositions they put forth, but even then they sometimes veer from the strict discipline of logic and try to use their conclusion as their proof. But since their propositions are often wrong from the start, it makes no difference how reasonable they sound, they’re still wrong! (Or, if they’re right, it’s for the wrong reasons.) And so I wrote this song to them. I hope you like it.

Conservative
Original words and music “Conquistador” by Procol Harum, 1967
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2009

Conservative, your argument’s in need of scrutiny
And with some devil’s talking points you speak of certainty
I see your litmus paper test
Has long since come to mean

Once In My Lifetime

As they used to say on the classic TV series “I Love Lucy”, “George Bush got some ‘splainin’ to do!” (Those were the funniest episodes because everyone thought Ricky was crazy. Who the hell was George Bush? But I digress.) It just seems that so often, the truth doesn’t match what he claims it to be. (George Bush, that is, not Ricky Ricardo.) And though this isn’t true in every instance where his words contradict the facts, it is often because he has been lying (or misleading, or deliberately trying to make you believe something diametrically opposed to known facts, or whatever you want to call it. I like “lying”.)

Well, many who follow his exploits have noticed that some of these lies have resulted in violations of International Law (as well as Constitutional Law, but let’s leave that for another parody). Something about invading a country in a war of choice. No, for violations of International Law, it’s the World Court. So I wondered what would he think about all his lying once it put him on trial in the Hague.

And, as you sing this one to yourself, I think it would help a great deal if during the chorus, you hold your arms above your head and wave them and then bend at the waist and wave your arms downward, back and forth with each line. And when you get to the “Same as it ever was” part, hold your left arm out in front of you, bent at the elbow, and run your right hand from the crook of your elbow to the fingertips in a downward chopping motion. Get into the “feel” of the song. And if anyone catches you doing that, make sure you’re singing out loud and they’ll be sure to understand. Don’t be afraid to look foolish; it’s how we entertain each other. Admit it, it’s hard to resist doing that when you hear the original song, “Once In A Lifetime”.

Thank you, Jane. And, for the record, I have no idea what the political views or personal feelings toward our president are of Mr. Byrne, Mr. Eno, or the members of Talking Heads, who collaborated on the original 1980 song “Once in a Lifetime.” If this in any way offends them then two things: 1) I apologize; and, 2) How the hell did you ever find out about my blog?

Once In My Lifetime
Original Words and Music “Once in a Lifetime” by David Byrne, Brian Eno, and Talking Heads ©1980
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider ©2007

And he may find himself sitting in a witness chair
And he may find himself in another part of the world
And he may find himself before a judge in a large courtroom setting
And he may find himself in a horrible cell, with a horrible life
And he may ask himself, “Well…how did I get here?”

Living a life of lies, Sure was bound to bring me down

Good News Olbermann

Now we find out that Dick Cheney was fighting hard to have the military go into an American city (in this case, Buffalo, NY) and arrest the group later known as the Lackawanna Six. Luckily for us he lost that fight. But one question remains: Why is Dick Cheney still walking free?

Good News Olbermann
Original words and music “Sunshine Superman” by Donovan
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2009

Good news came slowly a-through my
a-inbox today
Could’ve skipped it easy a-but it
It changed my day
It’s a big crime, I know it
but in a while
You’re gonna do time, I know it,
Despite your denial

‘Cause I made my mind up you’re going to do time
I’ll tell you right now

Lying Man

I decided to move all my old song parodies from my original blog to this one. (Don’t bother going there to look, most of them are not visible now.) This was the very first one I posted. Since I also have a new Bill O’Reilly parody which will post a few minutes after I post this, I thought I’d post them together.

I dislike Bill O’Reilly a lot. I mean a whole lot. I believe the psychiatric measure of my dislike for him would be classified as “shitloads.” Why? Because he’s a liar. Plain and simple. He’s a liar, and not only is he a liar, he lies about his lying. I’m not the only one who feels that way. There are other websites devoted to a hatred of him and others devoted to pointing out all his lies. So it’s not just me. Instead, I show my dislike of him with this song parody, based on the song “Piano Man”, original words and music by Billy Joel. I hope you enjoy it.

UPDATE: I have a confession to make. There’s a line I wrote way back when that I was never really satisfied with. So I’ve finally decided to change it. Actually it’s just three little words, but it takes away a slight innacuracy that, for me, made the whole thing just a little less truthful than it otherwise would be. I have decided to change “best-selling novelist” to “real insane columnist”. Obviously, the line was referring to “Ann” who, if you’re trying to equate this to real life, was never really a novelist at all, but a columnist. And a crazy one at that. So, I hope that you’ll agree that this minor change, at the very least, does not take away from the song as a the whole, and maybe, just a little, makes it better. Thank you for your understanding, and please continue to enjoy “Lying Man”.

“Lying Man”
Original words and music “Piano man” by Billy Joel
New lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider 2006

It’s eight o’clock on a weekday
The regular viewers tune in
There’s a young man sitting next to me
Saying, “No war in Afghanistan.”

He said, “My father died nine-eleven,
But I don’t think that’s reason for war.
Yes, I’d rather have peace so let’s let the police
Be the ones who will settle the score.”

La-la-da-dee-dee-da
La-la-dee-dee-da-da-dumb

Spin us a lie, you’re the Lying Man
Spin us a lie tonight
Well we’re all in the mood for mendacity
And we know you work for the right

Now Paul at the Times is no friend of mine

The Right-Wing Label

The Right-Wing in this country uses fear and hate to win public support for their ideas. This cannot be disputed, and was even studied by Associate Professor Jonathan Haidt (“What Makes People Vote Republican?). In a nutshell, when our fears and emotions are tapped, we tend to react first and rationalize what we did later, even if our “rationale” is in conflict with the facts. Rather than appeal to our intellect and ability to reason our way to a solution, the Right-Wing stokes fear and hate and then tells you who to fear and who to hate. The reason why you should fear and hate becomes completely irrelevant once they have tapped into your emotions, for any kind of “reasoning” will make sense if it makes you feel justified in doing what you did, even if you normally would have thought that what you were doing was wrong. Without this tactic, they could not win support for their arguments on the facts alone. (And when I talk about “facts”, I’m talking about things that are actually true, not what many people might believe to be the truth.)

Whether they want to admit it or not, this attribute in humans to have our sense of fear and hate be easily tapped comes from our evolutionary survival skills.

The Devil Went Into Cable

The Devil Went Into Cable

Original words and music, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” by Willian Joel Digregorio, Charles Fred Hayward, John Thomas Crain, Jr., Fred Leroy Edwards, James Wainwrigh Marshall, Charlie Daniels, 1992 – Give ’em a big hand, folks, the Charlie Daniels Band!
Additional lyrics by Wayne A. Schneider, 2008

The Devil went into cable. He was lookin’ for a buck to steal.
He was in a bind ’cause he was like his kind, and he was shillin’ his right-wing spiel,
When he came across this old guy sittin’ in a studio doing but squat.
And the Devil jumped up on the manager’s desk and said, “Boy, let me tell you what.