A Letter to Bill Maher

10/13/2010

Dear Bill Maher,

I’ll start by sucking up and saying what a big fan I am, blah, blah, blah.  Sometimes you screw up or are shockingly ignorant on a subject but you’re fighting the good fight and unlike your counterparts on basic cable channels, you admit to mistakes.  A tiny mistake from last Friday’s show was the pronunciation of the county with the asshole firemen.  It’s oh-buy-un (phonetically obaiyun).  I think you said ohbeeon or something.

Just so you know, I grew up in Western Kentucky just north of there and it is a bigger shithole than you can possibly imagine.  You’ve heard of the Bible Belt?  This is the puss leaking from the penis just behind the belt.  It is a horrible place full of mean, hateful people that are truly the worst on earth.  You haven’t seen hate until you’ve lived amongst the Church of Christ and Baptist motherfuckers that make up the population there.  Horrible, evil, haters to the core, most of them were delighted to hear about this man’s house burning to the ground and would’ve been delighted if his children had been killed as well.  They would have felt it was just.

But that’s not what I’m writing about.  I was really disappointed that you let P.J. O’Rourke and S.E. Cupp get away with one of the stupidest Republican tropes out there:  “The government can’t create jobs.”  This is utter and complete horseshit.  Here’s how you counter that statement: 

1.  During the New Deal the government put most of America to work.  Those weren’t jobs?

2.  The people that are re-building all our roads and bridges aren’t working at jobs?

3.  When the government gives people jobs they spend money because they have money.

4.  That money being spent means people sell things meaning they have to buy things to sell meaning they have to hire people to sell the things and make the things and that stimulates the economy and creates more jobs.

5.  The best way to make sure that government money moves straight into the economy is to give it to the poorest first because they’re going to spend it immediately.  I’m poor.  I assure you this is true.

Republicans’ problem with this is the money is going to the bottom instead of the top, and they prefer to be trickled on than raised up.  That’s why they vote against their best interests (mention What’s the Matter with Kansas next time they disagree with you on that one), it’s because they believe they are better than everyone else even though they are dirt poor and getting poorer.  We live in a country of idiots that function according to belief rather than reality. 

There’s also the simple fact that what pulled us out of the Great Depression more than any other thing is that our government took complete and absolute control of the entire economy for four years and put everybody to work with good paying jobs with great benefits while forcing conservation and economy.  When our boys came home from war they came home to fat bank accounts, free education, and health care for life and that combined with the New Deal is why we had the greatest economy, best educated citizenry, and best health in the world up until the Republicans managed to end it all. 

“You can’t raise taxes during a recession” is bullshit.  “Tax cuts create jobs” is bullshit.  “Democratic spending caused the recession” is bullshit.  “The government can’t do it better (or cheaper)” is bullshit.  We have proof in recent history against all these but the Republicans keep on stating them as if they were laws of nature and they need to be called on it every time.  Maybe next time you have two conservatives on, haul out that little list and point out to them how each and every one has no basis in fact.  The Republican economic world view is just as H.W. Bush called it:  Voodoo economics.  In other words it is a religion, a belief system, not a science.  It is pure fantasy and history proves it again and again and again.

I watched Overtime as well and here’s a thing that occurred to me years ago about President Carter’s time in office.  The GOP hated Carter with a loathing that may exceed that which they have for Obama and were almost as obstructionist as today’s Congress.  The oil supply was cut off right after he got elected (probably with strong encouragement from GOP leaders).  The real nail in his coffin was the failed rescue mission in Iran.  Who planned this operation?  The CIA.  Who gave the intel that it was safe to fly those helicopters?  The CIA.  Who was the head of the CIA?  George H.W. Bush.  What did Nixon say about Bush?  “He’ll do anything we tell him.”  Worth thinking about.

Thanks for your time.  Please quit fucking up.

Love,

Alan Miller