BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)

Subject: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: chazkratz
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:09 PM

Mark Morford is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, with the passion and anger of progressive talk host Mike Molloy, but with a really biting sense of humor. Here's his take on the election:

Mark Morford - Notes & Errata Archive
Evil: It's the new good!
Shut up and drink your high fructose corn syrup, sucker
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
                

The devil isn't evil, he just has lousy PR.

Examples? They are legion. Here's one the Powers That Be desperately hope you'll swallow, a nasty piece of marketing gall meant to stab at your intelligence and bitch-slap your intuition, but which is nevertheless being force-fed to you as happy environmental manna, a viciously deformed version of something called "progress."

Here is "clean coal." Isn't it beautiful? Truly, the hell-bound ad agency that coughed up that one even had the nerve to film a commercial featuring Kool and the Gang's "Celebrate" playing over perky scenes of manic Americans sucking down electricity like John McCain sucks down extra oxygen, claiming that coal is America's namesake resource and we should therefore kneel before it and worship it like apple pie and horrible sex-ed and Lindsay Lohan's nipples. Did I mention the coal industry's PR people are going to hell for this? Count on it.

There is, of course, no such thing as "clean coal." It's as impossible as a humanitarian Republican, as insulting as Homeland Security. Even Obama gets it wrong in his support of this lethal oxymoron. There are only two options: Brutally pollutive coal extraction and burning techniques, rapacious strip mining and millions of acres of destroyed forest and contaminated water tables and toxified air and one of the most environmentally destructive energy sources on the planet; or new and slightly less horribly pollutive coal extraction/burn techniques that attempt to rein in a few of the more toxic pollutants, but not including carbon dioxide or, you know, cancer and death. That's about it.

Translation: "clean coal" is not only one of the most insidious, repugnant oxymorons -- right up there with "friendly fire" and "conservative think tank" and "Alaskan teen virgin" -- it's also one of the deadliest.

Not good enough? Don't you worry.

Here is high-fructose corn syrup. It appears the corporate whiners down at the Corn Refiners Association, unhappy with the billions they've already made on the staggering rise of their dreadful product and apparently tired of their gunk getting such a bad rap from every doctor and health mag from here to the Mayo Clinic, have launched a sweet little counter-offensive aimed at proving their goop is, well, slightly less evil than you thought.

Here is their cute little commercial: Two generic moms, one pouring her kids a big, fat glass of bright red HFCS-laden pseudo-juice, as the other frowns and says gosh golly Susan, you feed your kids that crap? That has high fructose corn syrup in it!

And the first irresponsible mom just smiles an 'oh you stupid bitch' kind of robotic smile and says hey, HFCS is really no worse than sugar, it's natural because it's made from corn, and it's perfectly OK in moderation, so shut the hell up and drink your nauseating food-colored crap, Marjorie (please note: I might be paraphrasing slightly).

Isn't that lovely? To be fair, they have a meager point. Despite its highly processed nature, HFCS might very well be exactly as bad for you as plain ol' sugar (by the way, thanks to the wishy-washy FDA, "natural" is a completely bulls--t term that means nothing; calling HFCS "natural" is like calling Cindy McCain natural). But its manufacture is simply awful, from the tons of pesticides used to grow all that needless industrial corn to the ridiculous and devastating farm subsidies that force farmers to grow far more of it than our country can possibly use.

Which is why HFCS is everywhere and in everything, from soups to whole-grain bread, crackers to ketchup to pickles to tomato paste. Thanks in part to the violent ubiquity of HFCS, bloated Americans now consume a total of 100 pounds of sweetener a year, per capita. Go read your "Omnivore's Dilemma" or rent the "King Corn" DVD to see just how awful this stuff is. The Corn Refiners Association is praying you don't.

On it goes. Every major oil company has a pseudo-green, false-front "Let's take care of our planet" BS campaign underway, whitewashing their evils so insultingly it's like Dick Cheney wearing a PETA T-shirt to a canned pheasant hunt. Even the king of consumer mediocrity, Microsoft, launched a "Vista: It's not quite as awful as you've heard" campaign to help stifle the low-level groans of 20 million bug-addled users.

And recall, won't you, a couple of years back, when Wal-Mart launched its own ad campaign to counter all the negative press it was getting about its nasty labor policies, the lawsuits and infractions and claims of forced overtime, even lovely hints of sexism and racism and blurry photos of secret underground lairs where 10,000 paunchy middle managers met to skin live kittens and drink the blood of sweatshop workers and sacrifice their dreams as they chant Shania Twain lyrics in their underwear (again, paraphrasing).

Of course, Wal-Mart, rather than actually improve its policies, instead spent millions to make itself merely look friendlier, touting all the (low-paying, often part-time, generally miserable) jobs they bring in to a community, and gosh, just look how happy those cashiers seem to be, and never you mind the vague threats that if anyone tries to unionize, a pale army of sexless managers will follow you home and kill you in your sleep with this 20-pound tub of cheese-coated popcorn. Mmm, wholesome.

But perhaps none of these examples can top the scabrous GOP, suddenly being repackaged and resold to exhausted, Bush-ravaged Americans as "the maverick party," with John McCain desperately trying to distance himself from the worst and most abusive administration in a lifetime, all the torture and warmongering and pandering to the religious right, even as he so obviously plans to continue it all.

It's a rather sickening marketing ploy, made even more contemptible by McCain's choice of VP, not someone of sharp political acumen who will challenge his decisions and offer insight and inspire confidence, but Sarah Palin, former mayor of a piddling, eyeblink of a pee-stop town in rural Nowheresville, a shrill woman of zero political accomplishment clearly brought on board to lure both confused white women and the hard evangelical right, a minor state governor who thinks Creationism is dandy and who just got her first passport in 2007 and who would happily pass a law to force your daughter to have the baby if she'd been raped. Charming.

Truly, Palin is that most dangerous of self-aggrandizing right-wing politico, a potentially very powerful woman full of moxie and nerve and intensely intolerant, extremist views who actually hates women. Really, you can't get much more Republican than that.

And lo, in the spirit of Wal-Mart and the Corn Refiners Association and the clean-coal cretins trying to make their rampant evils seem slightly less, well, evil, we humbly offer to McPalin this new marketing slogan: "The Republicans: An entirely new kind of contemptible you hadn't even thought of yet."

Just trying to help, really.


Thoughts about this column? E-mail Mark.

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate.com. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. To get on Mark's personal (i.e.; non-Chronicle) mailing list (appearances, books, readings, blogs, yoga and more), please click here and remove two more.

Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive page, which includes another small photo of Mark potentially sufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts. He's also on Facebook, but isn't quite sure why.

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:14 PM

I love this guy. Platonically, you understand.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: chazkratz
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:33 PM

Amos, where do you read him? Is he syndicated down in SoCal?

Charles

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:35 PM

No--I get him from time to time on line. I think he's purely SFGate.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: CarolC
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:52 PM

This is a good line...

"The Republicans: An entirely new kind of contemptible you hadn't even thought of yet."

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: katlaughing
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:56 PM

Love it! Thanks Chas!


Truly, Palin is that most dangerous of self-aggrandizing right-wing politico, a potentially very powerful woman full of moxie and nerve and intensely intolerant, extremist views who actually hates women.

Best description I've read yet!

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 03:59 PM

When I told my wife, who is highly sensitive to HFCS, about the whining, full-page ad by the HFCS folks in yesterdays Wash. Post, she just rolled her eyes.

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: chazkratz
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 05:29 PM

Amos, SFGate is the online presence of the SF Chronicle--Morford is usually printed every Wednesday and Friday, although the Chron sends his column straight to the site if it deems it too controversial, as they did with this one.

Charles (and hi, Kat)

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Amos
Date: 10 Sep 08 - 06:29 PM

Yepper, Chas! Anyway he's delightfully sharp.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: pdq
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 10:06 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 10:16 AM

Wow!!!

Never heard of this guy until now... Yeah, he purdy muchj has it figured out...

Seems that are way too many people who will vote for anyone who feels strongly about one's views... I mean, lets get real... This is the atmospere in Germany in the 30's...

*Hey, Ralph, I'm voting for the guy who took off his shoe and pounded it one the table... Heck, if he believes that strongly then he must be right..."

This is what scares me about this election... The Repubs are providing one ***rationalization*** after another for people who, like the Germans in the 30'as are either angry or afraid, will have an excuse to not vote for a black man...

"Well, Ralph... He just doesn't seem to have any real policies..."

And the beat goes on...

B

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Amos
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 10:28 AM

Heck, if he believes that strongly then he must be right

It is very sad that conviction is more infectious than reason.

This is the way of the sheeple, not the humans. I guess some animals are just more equal than others, eh?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: pdq
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 10:41 AM

Actually, Mark Morford is Molly Ivins. She faked her death, moved to 'Frisco and went butch

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 11:18 AM

my column:

The War on Terror & the Destruction of Evil

A Jesuit teacher once told me that if your life or projects are without a strategy, you are merely a sailboat without a keel or rudder at the mercy of the wind and currents. Here we are 7 years later on the anniversery of 9-11 and at war longer than our campaign in WW 2, without one overall cohesive strategy. We have in fact completely ignored the clearly stated direct threats and strategy of our enemy.

What did our enemy say? Ossama bin Laden said as recently as 2004 that the United States would be defeated by driving them into bankruptcy. That is a single minded goal and focused strategy for victory. The rest of his rhetoric such as "the winds of Allah shall sweep our enemy from the land" is similar to our White House empty comments about victory.

If only someone in the US goverment had read Shakespeare or The Art of War we would have not merely vanquished our enemies but we could have brought them into the fold of the empire without fear, torture and killing.

We would have kept an eye on our treasury and financial Corporations, leaders and systems as the true target of enemy's invasion. We would have defended our stronghold.
We left it wide open to attack from within. The people and institutions that have attacked the United Staes and fullfilled Ossama bin Laden's strategy of bankrupting America are:
JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Maning Credt Associations charging 30% interest, Lehman Bros., Billionaire Hedge Funds and the Corrupt to the core Mortgage Companies that invented the sub prime mortgage that later got bundle and sold in the the single biggest global swindle in history.

Yes the enemy was partly us. The leaders were lost in their head full of profitable dreams of Iraq oil fields. Their surge was the most far thinking strategy they could think of.
The new good of more bank bail outs, more coal, more big oil, more nuclear energy/weapons and more tax cuts for the rich will all insure more victory for Ossama bin Laden.

Who do we destroy to defeat this evil?

Who sold it out?
Who were the terrorists?
Who profited from war more than victory?
WHo could not see the forest for the trees?
Who will continue to be the traitor to our cause?
When the target was our economy, who pretended to protect it?

The whims of the ruling class has gotton us to this point and we need to take it back.

Don Hakman

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Donuel
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 11:24 AM

Is it my fault no one listens, or is it theirs?

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Wesley S
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 11:31 AM

"Actually, Mark Morford is Molly Ivins. She faked her death, moved to 'Frisco and went butch"

The only unbelieveable part of that is that Molly Ivens would move from Texas.

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:37 PM

Laughing to keep from crying.

I'd subscribe to this guy's email list if the "click here and remove clothing" link were actually clickable...

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: chazkratz
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 03:09 PM

Here's the URL for the column--if a Joe-clone is handy to blue clickify it:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/09/10/notes091008.DTL&nl=fix

And for more Morford--here's the URL for his archived column:

http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/a/

Charles

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Amos
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 03:22 PM

Chas' Blue Clicky to Mark Morford's Sept 10th column.

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: chazkratz
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 02:59 AM

Refresh.

--seed

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: chazkratz
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 03:05 AM

Link to Mark Morford's column archive--read 'em and weep, shriek with laughter, gag with disgust.

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: meself
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 06:14 PM

"Heck, if he believes that strongly then he must be right

It is very sad that conviction is more infectious than reason."


The worst are full of passionate intensity;
The best lack all conviction.

- Yeats

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: chazkratz
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 01:06 PM

Like most of Shakespeare's plays, Yeats' "The Second Coming" is written in blank verse, i.e., unrhymed iambic pentameter. The lines you get backwards, Meself, are as follows:


The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.


In a sense, that's true: The best and the brightest are aware of nuance, shading--to them the world is not all black and white. The worst, on the other hand, see only absolutes--good and evil, with us or against us. Yeats, when he wrote the poem, was drawn to fascism--the "rough beast, slouching towards Bethlehem," was fascism, reacting to the decadent society
he describes in the first half of the poem; before he died, he had begun to recognize the horror that fascism is in reality.

Charles

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: Stringsinger
Date: 14 Sep 08 - 12:39 PM

Molly Ivins and Jim Hightower may be two of the good things in Texas.

Subject: RE: BS: Evil--The New Good (Mark Morford)
From: pdq
Date: 14 Sep 08 - 12:43 PM

Molly Ivins may not be in Texas anymore. Depends what the meaning of "is" is.