Like Rachel Maddow, I am frequently disgusted beyond belief at congressional Democrats' seeming perennial willingness to cravenly cave on issues that cause them electoral fear.
However, though it appears yet another of those cowardly Democratic crumbles in the face of political intimidation, today's vote on offshore drilling is actually one of the most brilliant pieces of political jujitsu I've ever seen from a Democratic House of Representatives.
No, it ain't perfect, being often (justly) derided as the vehicle by which a latent aristocracy tried to hold onto its privileges while muting the cries of the people for liberty.
But it's as good as we're gonna get.
There's no point in trying to write a new one, or rewriting this one, even. I would NEVER entrust the construction of such a document to the "tender mercies" or presumptive "good offices" of the vast public relations/propaganda machineries of the CorpoRat State--which is, of course, where the event would occur.
None of the protections provided to individuals against the intrusion of the State into their private lives could possibly survive that assault from CorpoRat Murka, or either of the two parties.
The 1st Amendment is already moribund, smothered and barely breathing inside a cocoon of so-called Faith-based initiatives. The 4th is effectively deceased with the murder and burial in 2007 of the principle of habeas corpus; the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 14th are in IC, on life-support. None of those would survive a CorpoRat rewrite.
And, if somebody'd stop the fascists from destroying it, piecemeal, that would not be necessary (I have little hope for this actually happening).
So, bend an elbow, tip a flask, spill a libation to the spirit of Enlightenment Liberality embodied in this document.
(As of now...1:50 PM EDT, 9/17/08...the referenced video is back up on YouTube. It is embedded it in one of Cheryl's comments below. Viralize it, por favor. Gracia.)
There has not been enough noise made about the following video. It was chased off of YouTube soon after it went up and its tenure on Vimeo is doubtful as it seems that Vimeo's servers cannot adequately handle the traffic that it is attracting. Here is a link to its website. I cannot get it to embed. Go there. Please, please go there. It is worth the trip.
THIS VIDEO SHOULD BE WATCHED AND UNDERSTOOD BY EVERY AMERICAN WHO IS NOT A CRAZED FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN TALIBAN MEMBER.
We CANNOT allow this movement to be within a breath of the nuke button. It must not happen!!! We are only an old man's fragile health away away from another Inquisition if McCain wins. Bet on it.
When I read devilishadvocate's post yesterday in which he explained he had no material for a Question of the Day, I sympathized deeply with his plight.
I have been so involved with phone calls, canvassing and voter registration lately that when I'm not talking to people for a purpose, I find myself essentially mute. I don't know if I'm burned out, frightened of the possibility of a McCain/Palin victory, or whatever. I just don't have anything to say, here or in real life.
I'd like to write something about the financial crisis, but I can't seem to get my head above water long enough to get some perspective on it.
Last night, I decided to take a break and treat myself to the season premiere of House. As I was waiting for the show to come on, I wandered aimlessly around the Internet. And I learned something I didn't know before. Olivia Wilde, the actress who plays the lovely, bisexual Thirteen on the show is the daughter of Alexander Cockburn of CounterPunch.
Like myself, you're probably wondering what we can do to counter the religious fundies who claim that we are opposed to religion. (Andy Rooney from "60 Minutes" once wrote that - if he was a candidate for office - that in his stump speech he would ask, "Do you know that my opponent is in favor of crime? Whereas ever since the age of eighteen, I have been against crime".
Perhaps this fellow just might have the answer. Say .... wouldn't he look great outside a Bubba Gump Shrimp franchise? .....
OK, maybe they wouldn't have such a good sense of humor as us.
Meanwhile: astronomers have revealed what could be a historic first picture of a planet outside our solar system orbiting a sun-like star.
So while you're at it: stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
Big businesses try to silence them, and these influential institutions succeed. Brazen persons, abundantly affluent, and government officials, content with the status quo also wish to secure the stillness. The hush from the hordes of those who do not vote does not disturb those who are well off. Undeniably, the quiet of millions calms those who want only the few and proud to vote. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are seemingly apathetic. Many of those who actively participate in elections are grateful.
Richard Wright of Pink Floyd finally lost his battle with cancer today. He was only 65. Perhaps the greatest conceptual rock band of our modern age, Pink Floyd mirrored the nihilism that plagued my generation. Like that of the roaring 20's, 70's youth blossomed after a debilitating war - one that challenged humanities moral fiber. It affected how my generation viewed their world. Simply put - we didn't give a flying fuck. Neither did the members of Pink Floyd (or so it seemed). They'd been through the mill and come out the other side broken. All of us were like that - some more than others.....me, for instance.
Now is a time for economic populist specifics -- let's see if we hear any of that from Obama -- but, even more so, 'radical' economic thinking. One thing that needs to take place is a re-examination of the basic thrust of an at-present failed profession, economics ('the pro-deregulation ideology'), and its result, present-day economic policy. Here's some, from a couple of discussions last year at tpmcafe (and no, imho, the upside-down and 'one-side of a phone conversation' aspects don't compromise the understandability):
Neo-classical engineering would believe that the perfect bridge is one built under gravity-free conditions. Engineers would strive, always and foremost, to persuade policymakers to move the real world closer to that perfect, gravity-free world.
And what's wrong with that?! (snark)
Posted at June 1, 2007 10:07 AM in response to The Methodology or The People
Or we need to accept -- based on the overwhelming predominance of an oligopolistic economic real world -- that everyone will not play fair, and then regulate the resultant oligopolies intelligently.
To "make sure everyone plays fair" should not be the purpose of government. Instead, governments should regulate the economy in order to produce the best economic outcomes based on the values expressed by the people who elect those governments.
For example, economic security is often associated with economies that are predominantly oligopolies/oligopsonies well-regulated to ameliorate some of the counter-productive features of such economic arrangements. If economic security is a high priority for the citizenry, and I think it is, then economic policy should favor less competitively 'cut-throat' economic arrangements, i.e., smartly regulated oligopolies/oligopsonies.
Posted at June 1, 2007 9:59 AM in response to The Methodology or The People
The recent rash of institutional failures plaguing Wall St. has made big headlines and will only serve to reinforce the dominance of economic issues on the campaign trail. But these high-profile financial diasasters actually obscure a more dramatic development in the economy that is leaving Republicans panicked and speechless with nowhere to turn. The Republicans would be in deep, existential trouble on the economy even if the major lending institutions were still doing just fine.
The bigger problem for Republicans is that the very way they measure the health of an economy is going the way of the dodo. What terrifies them (and what should terrify you) is that the economy we live in today (minus recent spectacular failures) is the economy they created by design, partially to win votes. No, I'm not kidding.
The Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund asks each of us to consider our values and the ethics of Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Environmental experts also join these protectors of the natural world when they inquire, would we rather have science survive or the ideology of a singular prominent person, Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin. A woman who could potentially be a heartbeat away from the presidency holds dear a practice that might cause some to cry or cry out. Governor Palin, as an elected official, a churchgoer, and as a citizen promotes her personal fondness for aerial wolf and bear hunts.
The Lincoln Assassination was a conspiracy. Booth wasn't a lone nut. The Rothschilds killed Lincoln because he refused to borrow their usurious money to finance the War Between the States. Everyone knows that.
If that mischievous financial policy (the Greenback system), which had its origins in the North American Republic, should be indurated (hardened) down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.
(A piece I wrote for my local bird cage liner. Hope they publish it!)
Mark Twain attributed the observation that there are three kinds of lies in politics -Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics to England's Conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Were Disreli alive today he might change that phrase to Lies, McCain's Lies and Gallup's Statistics.
On the subject of white lies or exaggerations of truth, we all know all politicians employ them, whether it is Barack Obama's confusing exactly which Concentration Camp his great uncle helped liberate or John McCain's "cross in the sand" story which he appropriated for his own from another prisoner's experience. It is easy to forgive such gildings of one's lily - for all politicians do this from time to time. And while unfortunate, it has become expected practice. I'll even be generous here and accept the morphing of Sarah Palin's image from lobbyist hiring pork procurer to numbers crunching defender of the public purse strings... each candidate desires to produce their own biopic and it is up to us, the voters, to decide which ticket to buy.
"Watch what you watchin'
Fox keeps feeding us toxins
Stop sleeping
Start thinking
Outside of the box and
Unplug from The Matrix doctrine
But watch what you say
Big Brother is watchin'"
A little over a decade ago, I wrote and directed an indie film -- a romantic comedy called Breathing Room. The lead actress was Maryscott O'Connor. The lead actor was JD Walsh.
A short film called Les Misbarack directed by JD has gone viral and here I am passing it along on MSOC's site. Funny how things work out, isn't it?
Democrats sought on Saturday to drum up support for compromise legislation on offshore drilling, challenging Republicans to break from Bush administration policies that neglect development of alternative energy sources.
(...)
The Senate next week will consider at least three proposals that call for an expansion of offshore drilling - one being developed by Democrats, another by Republicans and a third by a bipartisan group. All are expected to have some expansion of offshore drilling, but doubts remains as whether any of the proposals being considered will garner the needed 60 votes required to overcome a certain filibuster (threat)...
On the eve of September 11, I was haunted by the heartache I have felt for seven very long years. On the night, before the anniversary of the horrendous attacks, I was reminded of the people gone and not forgotten. I also thought of those who survived. Time has not healed the wound inflicted on that infamous day, now commonly called 9/11. Indeed, with each passing minute and hour the hurt I feel intensifies.
I watched a couple of programs chronicling 9/11 last night. Two things struck me (and they were in diametrical opposition): one, that after the 1993 truck bombing, it was a given in the security community that the Twin Towers would definitely be hit again - and two, that Americans, when confronted with what now seems undeniable (that it was a terrorist attack), found that concept hard to accept (initially at least). We were all shocked - shocked to the core. There is no criticism meant here - real or implied. It's just the way things were back then. Remember? I do. When the first plane hit, all I could think was 'how on earth could that pilot not have seen such a huge building?' Terrorism never entered my mind; not at first, anyway.
It wasn't that I'd forgotten the '93 attack, exactly - nor the one on the Cole, nor Oklahoma (not exactly). But those attacks weren't on anyone's mind back then - not leading up to 9/11 at least. If you remember, the whole nation was fixated on the disappearance of a Congressional intern (Chandra Levy). The press hammered it. It was a chance to go after another Democrat (the murder of Joe Scarborough's secretary Lori Klausutis happened at the exact same time and was completely ignored). Levy opened the door for constant mentions of Clinton and Lewinski (as if we'd all forgotten). But then lot's of things were ignored back then: Bush's nearly seven month vacation (golf, his ranch, more golf), Al Qaeda's co-option of the most reviled terrorist group label. Even Enron and its devastating economic aftermath had been shunted aside in favor of the Levy addiction. The visual media had found another Laci Peterson - and it was entranced.
Two weeks ago Saturday I was out canvassing with a young woman, well, I say young - I thought she was 24, turns out she is 31 - attempting to find our support in my neighborhood.
Elaine (I will call her) is telling me her story, (we in the campaign are big on telling "our stories"), of her Republican family and a husband on his second tour of IraqiWorld.
They have been married for 30 months and he has spent a solid 19 of them in-country and will not return until next May....if then.
"Thanks to stop-loss." She says with anger in her voice.
(In the interest of full disclosure I fell in love a little with Elaine as we walked, she was tall and lithe and lovely with one of those quirky smiles that turns down a bit at the corners and hazel eyes that sparkled when amused.)
I try my best to be amusing...
"Bobby's kind of a pushover," she continues, "he joined the army the first time a recruiter talked to him. Signed up for the infantry cause the jerk said that was all they had open..."
"A push over, huh, that how you roped him?" I say, grinning.
As I write this, my hands shake. Truly, I don't know if I will be able to even write a diary. I am so, well, freaked out, I don't know if I can even put it into words.
Let me start with a link, so you know where I'm coming from. It is an AOL Poll. The question?
What's your reaction to Palin's comments leaving open the option of war with Russia?
Generally speaking, Sarah Palin takes a good picture. A really good picture. She's got the gift... good bones, not too much flesh... and she's got the chops. She knows makeup, knows how to dress and how to fix her hair. Yeah, I know, the hairdo is "outdated." So's her constituency. Nevertheless, she looks good.
In still pictures.
Mostly.
But up close and personal? Under pressure? Live? Her insecurites become as plain as day. Visually as plain as day.
You can see it in an occasional candid shot as well. Like this one.
And this one as well.
She's got a mean streak. Look at the mouth. A barracuda/vampire-level mean streak. Especially when she's in over her head. And she is in WAY over her head today.
This tendency could be really plainly seen in her ABC interview with Charlie Gibson from which the above stills were taken:
With roughly 50 days to go, we find ourselves more or less tied in the Presidential election, if the national polls are to be believed.
We have succeeded in motivating our base, and Republicans have, as of today, done the same.
What we are not doing very well is bridging that gap and effectively spreading the discussion to the other side...which is the point of today's conversation.
Where can our conservative friends be found?
What do we need to know about the culture to be found there?
What should we say when we get there?
Your friendly fake consultant has been on a mission...and I have some answers.
"Puritanism: The haunting fear that
someone, somewhere, may be happy."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "The aim of public education is not to spread
enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce
as many individuals as possible to the same
safe level, to breed a standard citizenry,
to put down dissent and originality."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "Religion is fundamentally opposed to
everything I hold in veneration -
courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness,
and above all, love of the truth."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ "It is Hell, of course, that makes priests
powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands
of years of so-called civilization fear remains
the one common denominator of mankind."
Mencken -- just too many gorgeous quotes to give you just one...
To call a spade a bloody shovel means more than speaking plainly; rather, it means saying something that is true but unpalatable -- or impolitic.
During an otherwise stellar appearance on David Letterman's show last night, Barack Obama missed an opportunity to deliver a kidney punch to John McCain. In my view, this missed opportunity vividly exemplifies a weakness in the election style Democrats have used over the past three decades.
(I'm not saying Obama's campaign exemplifies this style; to the contrary, despite a few missteps -- and who among us could do better? -- I submit that, given the fact that Barack Obama has steamrolled over every obstacle thus far, this man just might know better than anyone how to correct the Democratic Party's mistakes of the past and finally, FINALLY beat these bastards in this rigged game. But I'm making a point here, so... bear with me.)
In the wake of John McCain's 'pig' ploy scandal, I wanted to draw attention to a new frame that is taking shape at break neck speed in the debate.
I call this the 'Solve Real Problems' frame and it has the potential to set the stage for Democrats to win the election.
Sometimes, people think of framing in Presidential elections as a tug of war. We set our frame, they set theirs--whichever side pulls the hardest wins.
In fact, the more accurate metaphor is that of a chess game. Each side sets out to establish a broad, opening frame, but through a series of middle ground debates, the election ultimately arrives at an end frame--a final, compelling way to re-establish one side's opening frame, and which ultimately captures enough people's imagination to win the most votes.
In 2004, we saw this when Bush's 'Ownership Society' emerged as the 'It's Your Money' frame.
'Solve Real Problems' is a pragmatic end frame emerging right now (for a full discussion of 'pragmatism' see the conclusion of Outright Barbarous). If activists recognize it and push it hard, we have the potential to turn the gains in this campaign into an election victory in November.
One of the most absurd statements made in this (or any election campaign in recent history) came from Cindy McCain, in touting the foreign policy expertise of Sarah Palin:
"You know, the experience that she comes from is, what she has done in government -- and remember that Alaska is the closest part of our continent to Russia."
Close to Russia. Riiiiight.
Well, we've got our first taste of that extensive and valuable experience, if you'll step this way...
"Patriot Day?" What the FUCK? "Patriot Day?" How about "PNAC/Pearl Harbor Day?" Why not "PATRIOT ACT Day"? Why not skip to the chase and call it "Jingoism Day"? Or "Bomb-A-Brown-Person" Day. Or, at it's gentlest, "Americans Suffer Most Exceptionally Day"? Cuz, for one thing, there are already at least four OTHER commemorative/holidays on which Americans (exceptionally) celebrate their exceptionally patriotic 'patriotism': Independence Day, Memorial Day, Veteran's day, and Flag Day. That's GOT to be plenty, doesn't it? Exceptional, right?
Whose "patriotism" do we celebrate? Not the dead in those planes or the Towers. They had no intention or expectation of dying for "America" that day, or any day. They did not "die for their Country." They went to work. The died, if truth were told, for their salaries. Nor the selfless and heroic 'first responders,' many of whom also died that day, but for whom "the Fatherland" could scarcely have been a consideration as they went about their desperate, doomed work.
(Welcome to MLW, Keef. - promoted by Maryscott O'Connor)
Pitbulls. Take away the pits, and what you got left is the bull.
-- “Special Comment,” by Keef Olderman, September 10, 2008
I hated Hillary’s pantsuits. I wonder how many millions in pantsuit sales were lost to her attempt to “run like a man” while conducting her campaign like a Beltline version of the Vagina Monologues—I’ll certainly never wear one again! I had to suppress my inner feminist in shamefaced amusement when they started calling her a “pitbull in a pantsuit.” Pitbull on the pantleg of missed opportunity is more like it. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, I suppose, but with all the brouhaha about pitbulls, pigs, lipstick and lies, visions of pantsuits and pantlegs past have been racing through my mind these last few days. I guess I don’t quite understand why everyone’s seized on the lipstick and left the pitbull out of the equation. The lipstick was just the dog whistle, the real punchline was the pitbull.
The issue of Sarah Palin's religion has become the topic of the week in the mainstream media. To their credit they have uncovered a host of facts, both interesting, and frankly a bit scary. But as is often is the case with the mainstream media as well as the blogs that increasingly seem to parrot them rather than serve as truly independent voices, all the ink spent on Palin's religion seems to have yielded more questions than answers
Those questions boil down to several issues that appear more troubling than Palin's role in the so-called state trooper scandal or the Bridge to Nowhere, for they go to the very heart of Sarah Palin's beliefs. What are her beliefs and values? More pointedly what IS her moral compass and what is its true north?
That these remain questions without answers should have all Americans wondering what kind of leader she will be. If we are wondering about that, then we should seriously ask whether this woman belongs a heart beat from becoming President of the United States.
On September 10th, 2008, CBS's The Late Late Show producers perhaps did not anticipate their host, newly minted citizen Craig Ferguson, using his monologue slot in quite the manner he did.
Ferguson, clearly fed up with what he rightly perceives as the abominable circus the news media have made of the presidential campaign up till now, decided to forgo his usual lighthearted comedy stylings -- and instead treated his audience to a blessedly welcome, full-throated RANT on the state of media coverage of the campaign and on the duties of citizenship in America.
As promised, a Special Comment about our sad anniversary tomorrow.
Or, more correctly, what our sad anniversary tomorrow has been turned into by the presidential administration, and the current Republican candidates for President and Vice President.
This is supposed to be a day of remembrance. Remembrance of the attack, remembrance of the national unity which followed it.
Most important of all, remembrance of the dead.
But 9/11 has become a brand name. A Republican campaign slogan. Propaganda of the lowest form. 9/11 has become 9/11 with a trademark logo.
9/11 (TM) has sustained a president who long ago should have been dismissed, or impeached. It has kept him and his gang of financial and constitutional crooks in office without - literally - any visible means of support.
9/11 (TM) has made possible the greatest sleight-of-hand in our nation's history.
The political party in office at the time of the attacks, at the local, state and national levels, the party which uniformly ignored the warnings and the presidential administration already through twenty percent of its first term and no longer wet behind the ears, have not only thus far escaped any blame for the malfeasance and criminal neglect that allowed the attacks to occur, but that presidency and that party, have managed to make it seem as if the other political party would be solely and irredeemably responsible for any similar catastrophe in the future.
Thus, Sen. McCain, were you able to accomplish a further inversion of reality at your party's nominating convention last week.
There was the former Mayor of the City of New York, the one who took no counter-terrorism measure in his seven years in office between the first attack on the World Trade Center, and the second attack.
Nothing, except to insist, despite all advice and warning, that his Emergency Command Center be moved directly into the World Trade Center.
Yet there was this man, Sir, Rudolph Giuliani, quite succinctly dismissed as "A Noun, a Verb, and 9/11," and repudiated even by Republican voters, transformed into the keynote speaker, Sen. McCain at your convention.
And his childish, squealing, braying, Tourette's-like repetition of 9/11 (TM), was greeted not as conclusive evidence that he is consumed by massive guilt - hard-earned guilt, in fact but rather as some kind of political tour-de-force, an endorsement of your Vice Presidential nominee, a rookie governor , a facile and slick con artist.
The blind endorsing the bland, to a chorus of 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM), 9/11 (TM.)
Your ringing mindless cheer of "We've Kept You Safe Since Then."While nobody asks "doesn't then count?"
All of this, sadistically disrespecting the dead of New York, and Washington, and Shanksville. Endorsed, Sen. McCain. Exploited, Sen. McCain. Trademarked, Sen. McCain by you.
And yet of course the exact moment in which Sen. McCain's Republicans showed the nation exactly how far they have fallen from the Better Angels of Mr. Lincoln's Nature, came the next night.
The television networks were told that the Convention would pause, early in the evening, when children could still be watching, for a 9/11 Tribute, and they were encouraged to broadcast it.
What we got was not a tribute to the dead of 9/11, nor even a tribute to the responders, or the singularity of purpose we all felt. The Republicans gave us sociological pornography, a virtual snuff film....
Barack Obama's
BRILLIANT COMMENTS
on the
Faux Outrage
over
"Lipstick on a Pig"
Pertinent quotes:
"I love this country too much to let them take over with lies, misdirection, and swift boating. These are serious times and they call for serious debate".
"So spare me the phony outrage, spare me the phony talk about change. We have real problems, we need real answers; not distractions, diversions and manipulations. That is what you deserve and that is what you're gonna get for the next 55 days."
STRAIGHT out of The American President -- and it's fucking PERFECT.
Mother of five Sarah Palin ignites the race for the White House. Like an arsonist, this female is the flame, and every moth is drawn to her. Men and women alike, crowd into community events just to gaze upon this combustible personality. Since the Republican Convention ended, everywhere Sarah Palin travels, throngs of voters follow. The constituents wish to catch a glimpse of this Hockey Mom. "Sarah" as she is called, is thought to be one of them. She is the average American.
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