why i haven't been blogging much lately

since barack obama was elected, there has been a lot of debate among progressives about whether he is a sellout who isn’t really a progressive at all but a centrist like hillary clinton and many of the other people he has surrounded himself with since the election. some contend that he is a true progressive who is going to use these people to gain more credibility with the centrists and even some conservatives, and then use that to push through a truly progressive agenda. others say that now he is showing his true colors. a few of his choices have been genuine progressives (like his choice for secretary of labor) and his defense and transportation secretaries are actual republicans. the latest move by barack obama that has people more upset than ever is his choice of anti-gay crusader rick warren to give the opening prayer at his inauguration, which seems kind of odd for someone like barack obama to do, given that obama is supposedly a staunch supporter of gay rights. besides this obama-is-a-sellout stuff, there has been the scandal over the governor of illinois, rod blagojevich, and all sorts of people trying to connect that scandal to barack obama and other people on obama’s team like rahm emmanuel. i think all of this effort to tie barack obama into the scandal of that insane idiot rod blagojevich is pretty much bullshit, but i also think that since so many of the people in team obama are from chicago and illinois politics, there is bound to be at least one person among the bunch who is close to gov. blagojevich. i mean it would be ridiculous to expect every single person among the thousands working for obama to be completely ethical and not have any problems, but hopefully nobody important or high-ranking in the obama organization is involved in the blagojevich mess. right-wingers keep claiming rahm emmanuel is guilty of something regarding rod blagojevich, since their initial attempts at directly attacking barack obama on this have failed. since i do not actually know who is involved in this scandal, since i have absolutely nothing to do with it, i really do not know who is guilty and who is not, but it seems to me like people are going around jumping to conclusions. as for the obama-is-a-sellout thing, i really have not made up my mind on what i think about this. as a staunch progressive who cares about the issues, i really hope obama is one of us progressives, and i do have some amount of loyalty to him, having voted for him twice (once in the democratic primary and once in the general election). i am kind of taking a wait-and-see approach to see if barack obama really is a progressive or not, and i do not want to jump to any conclusions or take sides in this debate. the next time barack obama’s name will be on the ballot is in 4 years (assuming he runs for re-election), so there is plenty of time for me to watch him closely and make a determination as to whether i should continue to support him the next time around. for now, i still consider myself an obama supporter, and still have an obama bumper sticker on my car. i never considered him the “messiah” (something the right-wingers made up as a straw-man argument against obama), and i certainly don’t think he could magically solve all of our problems and give everyone a free pet unicorn (outdoing those who would give everyone a free pony). anyway, there is little point to blogging about how i am not sure about things and don’t exactly know what to think anymore. i am certainly glad the obama-biden ticket beat the mccain-palin ticket, since the mccain-palin team would have continued the policies of george w. bush and probably been even more incompetent. and i am still staunchly opposed to the republicans and everything they stand for. but as for barack obama, i still don’t know exactly what part of the democratic party he belongs to. i was hopeful when i heard the right-wingers call him the most liberal member of the senate and accuse him of being a socialist. but unfortunately, it seems he is probably not as left-wing as i had hoped. in a country that has been brought to ruin by right-wing policies, ruining our economy through deregulation and endless tax cuts while wasting innocent lives and hundreds of billions of dollars on an unjustified and poorly executed war, where the government has epically failed responding to disasters like hurricane katrina through the idiocy of unqualified political hacks in charge of important government agencies, we need a radical change in how government is run. we need a government that is actually run by competent people who know what the hell they are doing, and who will actually make things better instead of worse. and i, for one, think that progressives are the ones with the right ideas to fix everything, and if obama governs as a centrist, halfway between progressives and conservatives, i doubt it would be anywhere near as successful as an actual progressive government. the administration of george w. bush and the 12-year-long control of congress by republicans (between the 1994 election and the 2006 election) both proved that conservative ideas do not work in practice and that conservatives are morally bankrupt. they think that hating people who are different from them demonstrates their moral righteousness. just consider all their hatred towards homosexuals, illegal immigrants, liberals, atheists, muslims, french people, mexicans, the chinese, the people of india, and pretty much the rest of humanity other than people exactly like them. note that i left black people, hispanics, asians, native americans, and other racial minorities off the list of people conservatives hate, and i also left off women; i am being charitable by not accusing them of racism and sexism, which i could easily have done, since there is a lot less overt racism and sexism than hatred towards the groups of people i actually did mention. i also left off hatred of jews... hating jews is very politically incorrect in the united states and nobody in politics does it anymore, at least not openly, so there is little evidence of it other than from right-wing fundamentalist preachers. anyway, there is no way in hell i am voting for any republican for any office at all for quite some time, unless the republicans completely shape up. i only once voted for a republican who was not running unopposed, and that was for the new york state comptroller in 2006 because i thought alan hevesi was a crook; that same year i voted for eliot spitzer for governor, hillary clinton for senator, michael arcuri for congress, and everyone else i voted for that year was a democrat too except for the state comptroller. there have been a few times i actually voted for green party candidates, actually. when h. carl mccall was running for governor against george pataki, i voted for the green party candidate for governor... that is the only time i voted for a green party candidate when there was also a democrat running for the same office. that was the 2002 election, and it was at a time i was completely disgusted with the democratic party for being a bunch of inept nitwits who went along with whatever president bush said instead of acting like a real opposition party. howard dean’s presidential campaign is what brought me back to the democratic party, since out of all the 2004 presidential candidates, only howard dean, dennis kucinich, and al sharpton were willing to vocally criticize president george w. bush and the war in iraq, and the rest of the candidates were a bunch of centrist losers. i did vote for john kerry (as the lesser of 2 evils basically), but he lost because he was a centrist loser who had failed to staunchly oppose president bush and the war in iraq consistently. the 2004 election is when i became involved volunteering for the broome county democratic party, since i thought it was so important that george w. bush be defeated that i had to become involved. but i have always been somewhat to the left of the democratic party in general, and i am basically someone with the politics of dennis kucinich, who was my initial choice for the 2008 presidential election. i actually voted for kucinich in the 2004 democratic primary since howard dean was already out of the race, and the “dean scream” had made me embarrassed for howard dean, plus my politics were always closer to kucinich than dean; i just had been a howard dean supporter because i thought howard dean was a hell of a lot more electable than dennis kucinich. anyway, this time around, i switched from kucinich to obama in early january, but i am still someone much to the left of obama, a staunch progressive who wants real change and not just people with d’s after their names instead of r’s who are indeed quite a bit different from the r’s but not anywhere near as much as i would want. and barack obama is definitely to the left of hillary clinton, which he proved time and time again throughout the debates and the primaries and caucuses when they were campaigning against each other. i am definitely glad hillary clinton is not the president-elect, since the clintons are pretty much just bush lite. certainly she would be better than john mccain, and all those wacky republicans like mitt romney and mike huckabee would be even worse than john mccain. the only republican candidate who was better than john mccain was ron paul, although i do disagree with him on many issues. ron paul agrees with me on many issues that no mainstream politician like barack obama would ever agree with me on. we both agree on legalizing victimless crimes, which would help downsize the prison-industrial complex. but ron paul has economic views and views on the size of government that i am diametrically opposed to; he wants to deregulate everything, have completely free-market economics, and eliminate the vast majority of government programs, including social security. personally, i don’t like social security either, because it is paid for by a regressive tax and people who had higher incomes when they worked collect higher benefits than people who had lower incomes. social security is far too regressive and needs to be replaced with a progressive system, one that gives more money to the poor and less to the rich, one that taxes the rich more and the poor less. the gap between the rich and poor has been steadily increasing for decades in our country because of right-wing economic policies, and the middle class is being destroyed and most people are gradually becoming poor (not necessarily beggars on the street or homeless, but rather not making much money, or unemployed). until recently, the lack of money by a large portion of our population and the negative savings rate was not hurting the economy too much because those people easily got credit and could borrow lots of money to buy things they could not afford. but now, the credit markets have collapsed and there is less money to go around (money put in banks gets lent out and this has a multiplier effect on the money supply, so the actual amount of money in the economy greatly exceeds the amount of money that physically exists as paper currency or coins, but the recent banking and lending collapse has led to a sharp decline in this multiplier of the money supply). ultimately, the problem was that americans spent more money than they had, because real incomes adjusted for inflation have been decreasing for the average person since the start of the george w. bush administration, while things like college, gasoline, and houses had their prices skyrocket. now gasoline and houses have gotten cheaper than they were a few months or a year ago, but college is more expensive than ever. without good education, people will not be able to make much money unless they become very skilled in particular trades. with the collapse of the auto industry and domestic manufacturing, jobs that do not require education are being lost at an alarming rate at the same time that education is becoming ridiculously unaffordable. we have a lot of problems and barack obama and the enlarged democratic majorities in the house of representatives and the senate need to work together to fix everything, and we need to prevent the republicans from any obstructionism. the republicans have already done their best in the past month to try to destroy our domestic automobile industry, especially with the vote in the u.s. senate on the auto bailout bill. this is shamefully unpatriotic of them, since the republicans are now promoting the idea of just having foreign companies make cars, since the foreign companies employ non-union workers and the american companies employ unionized workers. the republicans are being downright evil with regard to their attempts to destroy our domestic auto industry in order to score some cheap political points against the labor union movement. so, while i have somewhat mixed feelings towards barack obama but still support him, i completely oppose all of the republicans in the federal government. the republicans want to make a horrible economic situation much worse; that is now their stated agenda, since they have openly said that they want to destroy our nation’s automobile industry because of their hatred for labor unions. i think we need more labor unions and we need to save our domestic industries from destruction. labor unions bring employees higher wages and better benefits; even republicans acknowledge that fact. that is exactly what our economy needs right now: higher wages and better benefits for the people who do have jobs, so people will have enough money to spend it and keep the economy going. i hope barack obama is on the same page with me, and that the change he brings will actually be in the right direction and go far enough to fix things. but i cannot be sure about anything, or trust any politician completely. i am somewhat of a fan of new york state governor david paterson, but i do not completely trust him either. i am not naive enough to put complete trust in anyone. that would be utterly foolish. i don’t even trust myself. in fact, i probably trust myself less than i trust most other people, because i know firsthand how unreliable i am and how often i fail to come through on things that i want to do or promise to do. and while i do have higher standards for other people than i have for myself, this is mainly because i consider myself to be worthless scum and i have very low self-esteem. i have always been quite thin-skinned when it comes to insults from other people, since my own opinion of myself is much more negative than the opinions of my harshest critics other than myself. but lately i have become more thick-skinned regarding insults, mainly because i think very little of the people insulting me and think that they are even worse scum of the earth than me, and that everything they say is complete bullshit. it is kind of strange how someone like barack obama can bring out the latent positivity in me and actually make me feel good about stuff. my dog fluffems has the same ability to cheer me up. i actually like fluffems better than anyone, including barack obama, although i do know that fluffems is just a stupid dog and is pretty much clueless about everything. that is part of the appeal of a dog like fluffems: the dog is friendly and very loving and kind towards you, showing you a hell of a lot more love and affection than any human ever does, while at the same time being dependent on you, much dumber than you, and generally inferior to you. so you can feel all warm and fuzzy and loved while at the same time feeling superior and like you are better than someone else. and it just makes you want to show that little dog as much love as you can, and keep them safe from danger because the little doggie is too stupid to know how to avoid danger on its own (things like going out in roads full of cars). if another living creature like my dog fluffems shows me some love, i am the most loving person in the world, but this does not happen very often, which is what makes it all the more special when it does happen. i know that some humans like my parents love me, but they do it in this annoying human way that i can’t stand, and it just pisses me off. i don’t like being constantly lectured, bossed around, talked down to like i am a retard despite the fact that i am smarter than 99% of people on standardized tests, and then being expected to feel gratitude for this “display of love”. sure, i have heard of “tough love”; it is what my parents give me every day. i find it quite annoying, and while i am sure they love me a great deal, i wish they would find a better way to show it, one that is more like how the dog shows it. when my dog displays love for me, it is pure unadulterated love and affection, without any criticism, lecturing, or crap like that to piss me off. my dog worships me like a god, which makes sense because dog spelled backwards is god. when i am at my job and my boss tells me to do something, i do it, and i am not annoyed at my boss or anything. my boss has to put up with me being lazy, unreliable, and inefficient, and still likes me and i still make money. and my boss does not go around lecturing me all the time. when my boss tells me i am doing something wrong, it is very short and to the point. with my parents, sometimes when they tell me i am doing something wrong, the argument lasts an hour or two and is very bitter, and i end up quite upset and completely unwilling to cooperate with them because i feel so alienated from them. but if my boss at work tells me to do something, i do it, because my boss is not going to lecture me for hours about what a failure i am at life and how i need to completely change how i do everything, and tell me a huge long list of things to do and expect me to memorize them, all while constantly criticizing and insulting me but claiming it is “love”. look, i love my parents, my sister, my extended family, all of them... but not in the same way i love the dog. the love between a human and a dog is the love between a superior person who is dominant and an inferior beast who is submissive. but the submissive beast that adores its master is, in a way, the better of the two, because the dog’s affection is pure, untainted by a brain capable of thinking or speaking in words. words are the weapons which destroy human relationships and corrupt our society, but animals do not understand words and are still innocent and pure from the malevolent influence of human language. a dog may be able to obey simple commands, but that does not mean the dog can combine words together to understand abstract concepts. every evil dictator came to power using words and ideas (unless they inherited the throne like in monarchy, but monarchy is also based on words and ideas). every evil dictator throughout history has given out commands to kill people and/or do other human rights abuses through words and ideas, communicating with human language. these evils are not found among animals, who only kill when they need food to eat to survive, or if they feel they need to defend themselves from another animal that they think is going to kill them. among the animals, there are no adolf hitlers or josef stalins or pol pots. there are no terrorist animals. there are no animals who start pre-emptive wars based on lies and then mismanage them. animals do not mismanage the economy or defraud investors or get golden parachutes after making their companies bankrupt. and animals do not have pointless arguments that go on for hours. animals do not use words as weapons to attack your self-esteem. animals cannot lie because they can’t even speak or write in the first place. so i like my dog better than people. can you imagine an animal like my dog voting or even having an opinion on politics or religion or any issue at all? it is ridiculous. animals do not have opinions on stuff like that because none of it makes sense to their simple brains. because they are uncorrupted by all of the propaganda we humans put out, animals are innocent and pure from all of the ideology and spin and biased news coverage. so no matter what your politics are or what your religious beliefs are, you can still find a dog who will love you unconditionally and show you nothing but adoration and affection. in this way, a dog is all things to all people. this is what politicians like barack obama try to achieve, but they can never do it better than a dog. a dog has zero ideas, so it is impossible to disagree with a dog on anything. barack obama is trying to be inclusive and have people from all sides of the political spectrum in his administration, and a lot of people like me are getting somewhat ticked off about that. but if my dog went around being friendly to republicans and jumping up on them and wagging his tail and licking their faces, i would be happy about his behavior, because i know that he is too stupid to understand any of their ideas and he is just a friendly animal who loves everyone. that is why my dog is a role model for me, because i have found that all of my intelligence is oftentimes more of a curse than a blessing. intelligence certainly does not help that much in getting along with other people, because it just helps you think up lots of reasons why you are right and they are wrong, so you can get in an argument with them and you both end up pissed off at each other. the people i get along best with nowadays are attractive female co-workers and my boss, since i am extremely careful not to say anything to those people that might get them even slightly upset with me, and i am very careful to completely avoid anything even remotely close to a conflict with any of them. unfortunately, this means i avoid asking girls out, because i know asking girls out sometimes leads to negative reactions, and i do everything possible to avoid negative reactions from girls i like. with other people, i am not as careful with what i say, and so i end up not getting along with them as well. this problem is worst with my parents, since if you have an argument that is over an hour and this happens on a regular basis, not everything you say is nice, by any means. i do not know how to relate to my parents, since all we ever do is argue, and it is so tiresome. i think it is a bad idea for adults to live with their parents under any circumstances. i have found it to be very bad, since parents cannot avoid being parents and treating their offspring like little kids, even if their offspring are graduates of ivy league universities. yes, i may have asperger’s syndrome and panic disorder, but i have a very high iq and i do not appreciate being treated like some kind of retard who has no clue how to do anything. i know for a fact that i am smarter than 99% of people, because i have taken many standardized tests over the years and almost gotten that result. being treated like i am an idiot pisses me off immensely, especially since i know that the people who are treating me like an idiot are dumber than i am. i only know one person who is smarter than me, this really fat guy i went to college with who has an iq that is probably around 10 points higher than mine. and, like me, he has a few mental health problems and has not been able to find a good job either. so intelligence is not really that great of an asset to have, unless you are actually able to use it to become successful somehow. but i just hate the way i am treated like an idiot, like i am a little kid and not 26 years old, and it is completely disrespectful towards me, so i feel no need to show respect towards those who disrespect me, and that just leads to more long arguments. when i am not at work, i mostly stay in my bedroom to avoid other people, when i am not playing with my dog or watching tv. i have good reason to avoid other people: i can’t stand being around them if they keep disrespecting me. i just want to get the hell away from them and have them leave me alone. my life and my problems are none of their damned business, especially if all they have to offer is criticism and insults. the worst thing is when my parents bother me when i am in my bedroom, because i like to think my bedroom is a safe place where i can avoid other people and not have them bug me with their stupid bullshit. i would really like to live on my own but i am dirt poor. there have been a few times i tried to get a good job, although i have not done it in quite awhile. for quite some time, i have not felt like searching for a new job, because it is so depressing and i hate doing it so much. i do not like being bossed around and told how to live my life by people who think they are better than me, and if they tell me to do something like apply for a better job, i sure as hell don’t want to give them the satisfaction of winning by doing what they told me to do. i cannot afford to live on my own, and my parents sometimes threaten to kick me out, and my response is always, good, i want to leave, i hate living here, but i can’t afford to live on my own. and as for getting a better job, i am just hopeless. i hate applying for jobs, i hate job interviews, i hate waiting for a response from the company and then always either getting a letter of rejection or not getting any response at all. it has happened so many times. the only jobs i have ever gotten are bad ones that i can’t stand that pay next to nothing and do not look good on a résumé. my current job is not entirely bad, though, because there are some nice people at work. i guess one of my problems is i just don’t have any friends i ever hang out with or regularly keep in contact with anymore. and another problem is my constant insomnia and sleep deprivation despite being alone in my bedroom most of the day. i have heard that exercise is good (my parents only tell me to do it all the friggen time) but i absolutely hate exercise, and the weather outside here is practically as cold as an antarctic winter, or at least it seems that way to me, and i hate cold weather even more than exercise. there are many things i can’t stand that i have to put up with on a daily basis, but some (like exercise or applying for jobs or doing my laundry) i can usually avoid, so i do. this is what my parents always argue with me about. but i think if i did more things that i hate and that make me miserable, i would be even more miserable than i am now, and what would be the point of living if instead of pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain, i were pursuing pain and avoiding pleasure? i do not think a life of pursuing pain and avoiding pleasure is worth living, so i pursue pleasure and avoid pain, since that is the only way to have any chance at happiness. the last time i tried really hard to get a good job, i ended up in the psychiatric ward of a hospital for being suicidal. i do not want to repeat the same mistakes again. barack obama talks about hope a lot, and it is something i like to hear, because i have not had any hope for years, and despite all my cynicism and pessimism, he has given me some hope. but not hope for my own life, just hope for my country and the world. my own life, for the time being, seems to be a lost cause, so i try to avoid ever thinking about it because it is too depressing, and instead i think about things that make me happy, like fun video games or my wonderful dog or how attractive certain girls are or how the democrats finally won everything this time around. i worked in a laundromat a few years back (summer of 2002 i think)... worst job i ever had, the place was like a sweatshop, i completely hated it, and ever since then i have hated laundry more than ever (although i even hated laundry prior to that job). exercise... it is painful and exhausting and often it has triggered panic attacks because of unpleasant or unusual physical sensations it has made me feel in my body, which make me a hypochondriac thinking i have some weird disease and am going to die. anything that leads to panic attacks is something i try to avoid. asking out girls... i have almost always been rejected and it is very emotionally painful for me, and there was only one time i had sex and it was absolutely horrible since i was not attracted to that specific girl and i completely failed at sex, and then for a week or two i was not even attracted to females anymore because i was so disgusted and ashamed. i had sex 3 years ago i think, in november 2005 if i remember correctly. absolutely horrible. i hope to have sex in the future, but not the worst sex ever. only time i ever had it, it went completely wrong. that is just my luck. honestly, i have good reason to hate all the things i hate. i have reasons for everything. but some of my reasons are just stupid. and i hate people who are big enough assholes to point that out. i hate how, regardless of successes like being high school valedictorian and graduating cornell, pretty much everything else in life has seemed to never ever go my way, and everything always seems to go wrong for me. i know for damn sure barack obama can’t fix any of that shit. well, if he does an awesome job on the economy, maybe that would help me find a job, but it would probably only have a slight impact on me personally, because it would still be almost as hard to find a job, only very very slightly easier. it is a lot easier for me to care about issues affecting this country than to care about how awful everything in my life is going, because at least the united states of america is not a lost cause. maybe if i were not a pessimist i would not be a lost cause. but that is like asking a cat to be a dog, or asking the sun to be the moon. being a pessimist is part of who i am, the absolute core of my horrible identity and why i hate myself. without that, what do i have? i don’t know. being a self-hating pessimist is the only life i have ever known, ever since i was a little kid. how am i supposed to “change” or have “hope”? “yes we can”? no i can’t. sorry. i never bought into those silly slogans, because they just do not resonate with pessimists like me. goddammit i need to sleep. i hate this stupid blog. everything i have ever written for this stupid blog is complete crap. i hate blogs, they are nothing but stupid bullshit nobody cares about. now go away and leave me alone. i am in a mood most foul, as is often the case, only this time, i cannot hide it any longer. sorry, maybe i will write a better blog post next time. i am leaving on a vacation to florida on sunday (and i get to take my dog along)! i am both looking forward to it with hope and dread, because i suck at getting ready for things or packing for trips. i can’t wait for the vacation, but i have to get ready for it, and there is nothing to do in florida, at least not the part i am going to with my parents. and will i be able to get along with them? it is so hard!!! i guess i had fun on the vacation to europe i went on with my parents this summer. you see, my parents are not that bad. i am the bad one. oh well. whatever. my dog will be along to cheer me up. sometimes i wish i were in an insane asylum, but i am told whenever i ask a psychologist or psychiatrist that i am in fact “sane”. quite a disappointment, not what i wanted to hear. like is like that sometimes 100% of the time. if it weren’t for my dog... well, i would probably just spend more time on the internet or playing video games. i have to go to a stupid pointless appointment this afternoon with a guy who is trying to help me find a job when i don’t really want to apply for any or go though any more of those awful job interviews. i don’t like having to see him, or my psychologist, or any other sorts of appointments. i don’t like going to the support group for my asperger’s syndrome. i just want to stay in my room and be by myself and only come out when i need to eat or go to the bathroom. i need to pack for my stupid trip. once i get there i will be bored the whole time. at least i won’t have to go to my job while i am on vacation, and the weather won’t be as cold. but i will have those 2 annoyances to come back to once vacation ends after 3 weeks. dammit, i am so annoyed about everything. i would even say that perhaps i am stressed out, except my anti-anxiety medication seems to be preventing me from stressing out. that is a good thing, because at least i am not a nervous wreck with panic attacks like i was earlier this year. i don’t feel like going to my appointment today, or going to work today, or going to the support group tomorrow. i have to do all my laundry before i can pack my clothes and leave for florida on sunday. writing this blog is boring. i am going to try to sleep now. it will not work, i will just lie in bed awake, and then i will have to go to a stupid pointless appointment, and then my stupid pointless job. and maybe i can have a stupid pointless argument or two in between. yeah, i guess i am stressed out. if only i had more sleep... then i would feel better emotionally. constant insomnia takes its toll on the emotions. i need to pack. go away. i am going to try to sleep now and completely fail and just lie in bed motionless with my eyes closed and not accomplish anything except making myself miserable. this happens all the time. try living a day of my life, see if you like it. fuck.