Masopher's Mind

I love women and I especially love strong women. My mother was a strong woman who sacrificed to put her kids through school with a less than helpful husband. My partner is a strong woman who has to put up with un-re-tell-able horrors at the office and somehow manages to forgive me despite my being an occasional “cochon”.

 Now here is where Mom and sweetheart need to stop reading.

People who fly the flag of Rosie the Riveter need to take a reality check with the upmost rapidity. Rosie was a propaganda piece just like Uncle Sam, Lord Kitchener Che Guevara and all the other “mindfucks” created in the early 20^th Century. It was telling men and women to do what was, at the end of the day, un-natural but useful for politicians and profiteers. Communist propaganda convinced hard working Russian and Ukranian people that laziness was rewarded and that the middleclass was the enemy. UK and US farm boys were taught that killing “the other” was necessary and US farm girls were taught that building weapons of war was “empowering”.

Rosie wasn’t riveting another woman, nor was she riveting a dildo or a podium, Rosie was riveting a weapon so that the real leaders and fighters would be free to do what they do best, lead and fight. Rosie was strong all right, but Rosie’s man was risking life and limb for his country not just clocking in 9 to 5 for a blue plate dinner. While Rosie riveted and Johnnie died, Masopher was getting rich and powerful. There is no empowerment in dying. There is no empowerment in working in a factory. Empowerment is getting people to do what you want them to do and making them feel like they are on top of the world for doing it.

It all culminates with what Masopher sees as a redneck from the wilderness of America believing that swinging on Rosie the riveters balls will somehow make her vice-president. Propoganda piece or no Rosie stands for hard working Americans pitching in when times were tough, not some Spicegirl concert memento. Rosie ended a day dirty and sweaty hair filled with metal filings, she didn’t spend thousands of contributor dollars on hair and makeup in 2 weeks. If Rosie was Allah, I would have to invoke a jihad on those who profiteer off her image and blaspheme against hard working strong women everywhere.

I dont love Obama but I have to agree with him that a pig in makeup, even 22K of makeup is still a pig.

Economists foresee the dawning of an “era” of bigger government in the United States. With an all but inevitable Democratic Whitehouse and an accompanying Democratic Senate/house of representatives the influence of government will become gargantuan. With events like Katrina, and the 2008 financial crash, the existing government sees the opportunity to shore up their numbers and regulate every possible thing they can. The logic behind a big government is to intervene and save people from themselves and from each other: “Bankers were too greedy”, “homebuyers were too dumb”, “laws were too lax”. George W. Bush the President who presided over the 3 biggest disasters in recent American History (perhaps in all American history) spent most of his time vacationing before 9/11. After that he was doomed to 8 years of a gaffe filled existence being hated, fighting losing wars and watching his country fall apart. George was hoping that the country would run itself; the White House would have been an extension of his carefree, privileged, National Guard-Arbusto-Governor life.

As amazing as that might sound the concept of an oligarchy is not alien or ancient, unfortunately for G.W. lazing around in Texas taking kickbacks from his rich supporters was not to be his fate. With the competence of a tourist being thrust into a warzone Bush waddled lamely through his 8 years as the world advanced in complexity and perceived threat. Russian relationships cooled as Franco-German Europe surged for dominance, and Oil revenue gave the Russians hope. NATO Europe also became more ambitious greedily eyeing former Soviet states while fearing Russian reprisal and “rollback”. African Nations mismanaged and misappropriated billions of donated money while OPEC countries manipulated oil prices. Even in the East, China prepared to unveil itself with India not too far behind. Large companies and groups took advantage of these factors manipulating greed and base emotion to their advantage.

Regions and companies have all grown but America has grown comparatively smaller. It has shrunk in good will, power, influence and finance. The George Bush era has pilfered all of that good will, military power, diplomatic influence and money to further the ends of  an Oligarchic class of families barely different from the Gazprom, Chinese Communist Party and BP oligarchs living on the other side of the world; barely discernable from the clans in Pakistan and chieftains in Africa.

Democrats now promise a big fat government, children of these Oligarchs and long working administrators filling up newly created job titles and dusty government offices. Papers to stamp, forms to fill, red tape to create, committees to show up for and people to ‘monitor’. Checks and balances, guardians for the guardians, “i” dotters and “t” crossers a lot of people to blame so that when things go wrong (as they must) there will be a lot of papers to stamp, forms to fill out and red tape to cut through and committees to convene before they blame it on the previous administration.

The 700 billion bailout is the beginning of the coddling of the nation that the Democrats are so used to. Murdering indigenous people falls onto page three and self indulgence, self pity and self praise become a priority. Even as I write both Democrats and Republicans squawk that “we need to do more”, we need to validate our jobs by worrying about you, because you are too dumb to take care of yourself. “We need to get paid – not for producing, inventing, leading or even thinking – we need to get paid for administrating.”

I stand by this thought; it was not the lack of regulation that brought about this stock market crash but the circumvention and breaking of laws, the buying off of government and private sector individuals that were being paid to administrate. I saw this first hand I heard this being done and I do not believe that these were isolated or special cases.

Liberal and libertarian voices have been drowned out by:

a)      fearful and mislead people

b)      misleading and corrupt people.

It was a free market that brought prosperity to the USA and to Europe a free market that brought prosperity to China and Russia and it will be a free market that would correct any financial woes. The strongest survive and their genes and habits perpetuate, supporting the weak breeds weakness. Thats what big Government is all about, weak people who dont do anything constructive coddling equally weak people who dont want to do anything constructive all riding on the backs of those who are strong.

 Without spending too much time nerding over the undelivered promises of Windows Vista and the “rushed out the door” feel of Windows 6.1 (Alias Windows 7) I will say that Windows 7 is undeserving of the moniker implying wholeness and completion. Vista has been out for a while and has had next to zero uptake in the business sector. Windows XP through all of its iterations was a sorry inheritor to the only real revolution since Windows 95, Windows 2000. Windows 95 had wow factor back in the day because….it was Windows…Windows 2000 had wow factor because it was stable and quite secure….Windows XP and Windows Vista are aesthetic upgrades and incremental improvements on Windows 2000 just as windows 98 and 98SE  were upgrades to windows 95. Windows ME was a disastrous rushed out the door evolutionary dead-end and I can’t imagine windows 7 being anything but that as well.

As a Windows user who has on occasion used Apple and Linux products, I appreciate Microsoft as the everyman’s Operating System. It supports games and hardware something that neither of the aforementioned operating systems do. Using Apple Macintosh and despite them moving over to an Intel platform, requires that you pay ridiculous prices and visit their uber-ghey store for everything you need just to have know-it-little nerds speak condescending down to you. Linux while doing everything from imitation to far reaches of the OS imagination (something that I do appreciate when I have nothing else to do) is a community of warring tribes who will never sit down together to build an operating system for regular folk. Even the Vanilla Ubuntu requires many a kick up the ass to support my wireless card and I won’t even mention games that require occasional updates.

Like every empire before it Microsoft is appreciated for bringing peace and stability for commoners. Nothing fancy, nothing that takes up your day, just a place where you can sit in front of everyday churning through spreadsheets and word processors and every night browsing porn, downloading music and reading Wikipedia.

An Operating Systems like life isn’t perfect. Some people may want to geek out over a bit of software or feel in their hearts that they are privileged to own it, but some people like me have other interests. I feel that Microsoft feels pressured to maintain its market share, to combat the whiney bitching of people who love OS X and Linux. But the truth is that OS X and Linux people love these operating systems not because the operating systems are superior but because the operating systems make the people feel superior. If Microsoft was to vanish today and everyone was to start having to pay through their nose for a Mac they there would still be Linux baying at its heels and other “alternatives” would rise to challenge the leader and those same linux and Apple loving elitists would find something else to wave around in the eternal phallic waving exercise of life.

I know that Microsoft can put out revolutionary products; I have seen it twice in their commercial Operating Systems and also in their productivity tools. Windows 6.1 needs to be called for what it is, a less unwieldy version of Vista still waiting on hardware to catch up. My unheard advice to Microsoft is stop listening to peer pressure. You don’t make music players; you don’t have a community of antisocial but brilliant nerds making your applications and viruses that attack other OS’. You do have money, you do have time, and you do have intelligent professionals and the people’s trust to put out another innovative and timely improvement.

Don’t do it perfect, do it properly.