Jon Swift Roundup 2012

Updated I just emailed my submission to the Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2012. For those of you who don't know what that is, back in 2007 Al Weisel, who blogged under the name Jon Swift with such brilliant satirical skill that people unfamiliar with him often did not get the joke, had an idea of how lesser-known bloggers could help each other out: He asked them to submit what they thought was their best post of the year. He then posted links to those posts - with the result that a lot of us got to know of each other for the first time.

He did it again in 2008 - but sadly, he died early in 2010 and left a hole which is still unfilled: I have not come across anyone who did satire as well as he did.

In 2010, Batocchio at Vagabond Scholar took up the task of doing the round-up, dubbing it the Jon Swift Roundup. This is the third year. The post with all the links is not up and won't be for a few more days anyway; I will update this post with the link when it is. In the meantime, you can keep checking out Vagabond Scholar.

Just to self-promote here a little, I thought I'd put up a list of what I think were my Top 10 posts of 2012. The one from December 21, just below, was the one I chose to submit. But here's the whole list:

March 8: Eric Holder says Obama can order you to be killed
Holder manufactures a legal justification for the authority of the president to unilaterally order the murder of an American citizen abroad. My apologies to John Yoo, who only justified torture, not murder.

March 17: Afghanistan: Time to get out - now.
Not another couple of years from now, now. Every day of delay is a new crime.

April 28: The usual phony doom and gloom about Social Security
Claims that Social Security is about to "go under" or "go bankrupt" are lies intended to stampede us into accepting drastic cuts in the program.

May 19: The attack on The Commons, our sense of being in a shared society
The Commons, as used here, is the idea that everyone in a society is connected to and has obligations to (and a commitment from) everyone else. Unsatisfied with their gains in riches and influence over the past decades, the 1% are now attacking the very idea of the commonweal, of having to contribute to "the general welfare."

August 30: Voting rights under attack
Voter ID laws are a means of attacking the right to vote - but they are not the only way

September 13: First anniversary of Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street created a threat to the power of the elites. It had to be stopped.

October 4: Elections 2012: Why I am not voting for Barack Obama
Top 10 reasons I will not vote for Obama and why I am voting for someone else. (This was first runner-up in my consideration of what to submit.)

October 18: Clown of the Week: Antonin Scalia
Why in heaven's name does anyone think this bigoted twit is a great legal thinker?

November 2: Classism
The elites don't just think they are richer than the rest of us or more powerful than the rest of us, they honestly believe they are inherently superior to, better than, the rest of us. Worse, too many of the rest of us believe it, too.

December 21: Guns, gun nuts, gun violence, Second Amendment nonsense, and the bloody results
The Newtown massacre was hardly the first mass shooting and if we don't face down the gun nuts, realize how limited the reach of the Second Amendment is, and act on the knowledge, it won't be the last - or the worst.

If you think some other post was better or any of these suck, feel free to say so.

Updated to note that the Roundup is now up at this link at Vagabond Scholar.