Terrorist - schmerrorist: Who's the biggest threat to America?

Don't you think the McCain campaign's fear and smear shtick has gone beyond being a little absurd? Trying to link Obama to yesteryear's "terrorists" (or were they "freedom fighters" - I always forget these things without a scorecard) just smacks of desperation to me. But then, listening to the news reports, talk shows and campaign rallies, obviously someone is buying this crock of shit. Exactly how far could we push the whole McCarthyesque guilt by association colloquy? After all . . .

One of McCain’s closest associates is a known kingpin in the organized distribution of addictive and dangerous substances in Arizona. In fact, she has been said to have made millions from her involvement in “the family business.” Lax enforcement of state and federal regulations governing the sale, distribution and use of these “controlled substances” has led to an epidemic of substance-abuse related deaths and injuries, estimated to number in the range of 16,000 deaths per year throughout the United States.

The end-users of these products are targeted by ubiquitous advertising campaigns so that they are easily victimized financially and soon become addicted both physically and emotionally. The dealers who sell and distribute such products, including frequent illicit sales to minors, further abuse their “customers” by referring to them by demeaning and dehumanizing names, like “Joe Six-Pack,” thereby mocking the daily habits of these addicts.

Treatment programs for such addiction are notoriously underfunded by state and federal agencies. Instead, the addicts, including many veterans of the armed services, are denied access to disability benefits and health care and are left to fend for themselves on the street.

How does Mr. McCain explain his continuing association with such parasites?

A Modest Proposal

George W. Bush (remember him?) wants 700 bazillion dollars to rescue the country's "economy" (read - the country's millionaires). Unfortunately, those of us poor schmucks who bought into the whole "invest in the stock and bond markets for your retirement" instead of buying and hoarding gold and bullets get to go along for the ride.



Here's the proposal: Let the greedsters who made a killing by bleeding us dry foot the bill for the bailout. You know Obama's proposal to let the Bush tax cuts expire, thereby allowing taxes to increase (sometime, eventually, maybe) for the wealthy in this country? It doesn't go nearly far enough. It's time for the neo-con river-boat gambling capitalists to make a little "sacrifice" for the good of the country, and I don't mean the few virgins they have locked in their various walk-in closets (or safes).

It's time to enact a universal (well maybe a "countrywide") salary cap on all Americans - I say a million dollars is enough. Hell, most of us won't accrue a million dollars over the course of an entire lifetime - despite the bill of goods I was sold when I set up my little retirement account during an inflationary period that was going to make impoverished millionaires of all of us. Actually, I think a net worth of a million total is enough, but for the sake of argument, let's just propose an income cap of a million dollars per year for every man, woman and trust-fund-baby in the US and tax the rest of their income at a mere 100%. That's right, enough is enough and a million bucks a year should be enough for anybody (we can write in an exemption for Paris Hilton).

Anything less would just allow the economic vampires to pass the burden on to their employees, or their customers, or their fans - whoever it may be that they're ripping off to pad their expense accounts and off-shore investments to a stupefying degree. Isn't a million dollars enough to pay the rent and put food on the table? If these clowns want to reinvest in salaries, factories, infrastructure, health insurance and whatever it takes to put American workers back to work, I think it's safe to assume there will be tax deductions aplenty to accommodate their long overdue "trickling down" so that we will no longer get golden showers while they get golden parachutes.

What Next?

The Party of Fear and Hate brings you another four years of Greed and Arrogance!



As Abraham Lincoln may have observed:
You can fool some of the people all of the time (2004?), and all of the people some of the time (2000?), but you can not fool all of the people all of the time (2008?). ~Attributed to Abraham Lincoln

We have nothing to fear but fear itself
And terror
And panic
And horror
And dread
And shock
And alarm
And trepidation
And apprehension

And family values





How the hell do you take the high road when the bullshit's rising faster than the flood waters in Louisiana?

McCain Campaign Stumbles Through the Looking Glass

Just as the Walrus and the Carpenter would have impressionable young oysters believe that day was night and night was day, the McCain campaign has found itself with a crisis of credibility on their finger-licking paws.

Or have they?

(Yes, it's another Sarah Palin think-piece, but one without gratuitous cheap-shots and with a healthy dose of conspiracy theory thrown in)















"The eyes are up here, John."
"This one's too hard."

It's been said that John McCain wanted to pick Joe Lieberman as his running mate but that the powers behind His Maverickness would have nothing to do with that. Could it be that poor little Sarah Palin is being set up to take a fall just so she can withdraw her nomination from consideration in a minute and a huff of righteous indignation - blaming the liberal media and (horror of horrors!) the lefty blogs for badgering her poor innocent daughter into a melt-down of epic proportions?

Wouldn't this have the effect of blunting any future criticism of ANY substitute VP pick that McCain may make - including his (right) wing-man, Joe "I know what you meant to say, but here's what you said" Lieberman.

Think about it:

The Palin announcement bumped Obama's acceptance speech right off the news, thereby displacing the anticipated post-convention bump with a three card Monte game of "where's the baby bump - and who's the daddy - for that matter, who's the mommy?" A ruse so clever only Karl Rove could have conceived it (OK, so it's Rosemary's baby, after all).

Hurricane Gustav gave the GOP an excuse to stall their own convention, thereby buying more time to respond to the Dems' convention of the century while keeping W off the mainstage and behind the scenes. Rove, again? (Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. . .)

By acting modest and compassionate with regard to both the hurricane victims and survivors and the now-embattled Palin family, the Repubs play the "compassionate conservative" card in real life, simultaneously demonizing the lefty bloggers and the rabid liberal media and, by association, the Democrats who just blew millions on an unnecessary extravaganza.

This carefully choreographed disaster results in an opportunity for McCain to monopolize the media for another post-convention week by picking a new Veep, whether it be Romney, Pawlenty, or Lieberman.

Which brings us back to the question of whether John McCain really wants to win this election - or does he want to go out in a blaze of glory separate and distinct from the taint that is the Bush Administration's second-hand perfidy and persecution, which, in turn leads to the inevitable comedy of errors that will be a Democratic sweep of the Presidential and Congressional elections?


















"This one's too weird."

And just to further complicate things, is he really a maverick among sheep who would pick Lieberman just to piss off Rove and his buddies, or is he merely a pawn in the "This one's lost, so let's create some fodder for 2012!" scheme.


















"This one's just right."

We'll see what the Magic 8-ball has to say about this one:















I tried listening to some McCain spokespeople spin the Palin stories about executive experience tonight. I swear down is up and up is down.

McCain concedes defeat! Pundits fail to notice, . . . again

Is it possible that John McCain doesn't really want to be President? Oh, sure, maybe he had aspirations in 2000, before he was pummeled into submission by the Bush-Rove machine, but now, he seems to be doing everything in his power to lose the election.



Has the man who entered the primary contest by endorsing a 100 years war in Iraq, hoping to attract a little more media attention before retiring, pulled the coup of the nascent 21st century?

The Republicans knew they couldn't win a Presidential election post-Bush - how else do you explain the shallowness of the electoral pool this year. Come on - Romney? Giuliani? Huckabee? Fred Thompson?

McCain's been enjoying the occasional foray into late night talk shows, even showing a glimmer of humor and intelligence on John Stewart's The Daily Show. He'd be thrilled to ride into the Arizona sunset and become the next Viagra spokesman. Do you think he really thought he had a chance to win this thing? Hell, this presidenting gig sounds like hard work.

Yet now, in the Bizarro world of American politics, media pundits and blogging miscreants everywhere are bemoaning the fact that McCain's latest absurd choice may be just what he needs to win an election that he's doing his best to lose.

In a move transparently intended to pander to the self righteous, gun-toting, abortion hating, every sperm is sacred crowd, McCain has chosen a running mate in Sarah Palin who couldn't be less qualified to be president of the United States. Did every other registered Republican in the country turn him down?

On the other hand, maybe this is just what the world wouldn't be expecting - does this decision have the hand, or brain, of Karl Rove all over it? If only she had a coke habit and was old enough to have dodged the draft, she'd be perfect!

Not since Fritz Mondale threw Geri Ferraro under the bus has a doomed campaign committed such a meaningless symbolic act in a futile attempt to appear "relevant."

Let's just cancel the Republican convention and let John McCain toddle off into obscurity. But then, what would our media buddies have to bicker about while glomming on to all the glam they can get?

Of course, no one ever went broke under-estimating the collective intelligence of the American electorate or over-estimating the collaboratively self-destructive ability of the Democrats to shoot themselves in the foot.

(It's been a while since I've tried this whole exposing myself in public thing - be kind.)

All's fair in love and a war that ends well

Originally posted as a comment to Gore/Obama 2008: Have yer Cake and Eat It Too at MyLeftWing

Thanks, Durrati! Now that's drawing hope and inspiration out of the impending bloodbath in Denver.

"Rules? In a knife fight?" ~ Harvey Logan, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

According to Merriam-Webster online, a "convention" is defined as:

2 a: the summoning or convening of an assembly b: an assembly of persons met for a common purpose; especially : a meeting of the delegates of a political party for the purpose of formulating a platform and selecting candidates for office.

It's a convention, not a coronation, damnit! Haven't we seen enough of Emperors and their new clothes? Is it too much to ask OUR delegates to do their jobs? After all, OUR representatives in Congress have set such a stellar example over the last 14 months, it should be a piece of cake (or death).

I watched Chuck Schumer on Face the Meat, or Eat the Press, or Stop Making Sense, or whatever talking head fluff it was this morning, desperately trying not to say that the Convention is already hopelessly deadlocked and there is no solution that will not irreparably rend the Party asunder. He didn't convince me.

However, I have some proposals of my own for solutions to the following conundrums (conundra? sounds a little like something sexual - like electorile dysfunction?):
1. what about the Super-Delegates?
2. what about the absence of delegates from Michigan and Florida?
3. wherefore art thou Al, and John, and Ralph?
4. where is Vince Lombardi when we need him?

It's a Byrd, it's a Plame, it's Super-Waffle!

Bill Press on his morning talk show this past week, repeatedly framed the super-delegate question in terms of a quote attributed to Obama - calling for the designation of super-delegates to the candidate who wins "the most states, the most delegates, the most votes." Unfortunately, even that definition fails to identify a single individual candidate, since different candidates could obtain strikingly different victories as measured by each of those measures. And WE don't even have a reliable measure of the votes that are really going to count - who's most capable of carrying enough states to win enough electoral votes to actually win the general election? WE could easily see Obama arrive in Denver with "the most states" while Clinton could have "the most delegates" and no one would have the gall to claim that a January vote in New Hampshire is the same as an April vote in Pennsylvania when the mindset of the electorate seems to be as mercurial as the temperature. If there's one thing WE should have learned by now, it's that people can change their minds - from one day to the next, from one issue to another, from sea to shining sea. A huge shadow has been cast over the Convention - should WE have Punxsatawny Phil cast the deciding vote?

A simple proposal - disallow voting by super-delegates on the first ballot. Make them do their jobs. They represent US. They should arrange a convention where delegates actually have a chance to meet with the candidates, rather than waiting for some anti-climactic rigged beauty-pageant coronation orchestrated by the mechanical application of some vote-allocating formula concocted by some DNC algebraically-challenged "steering" committee. Meet, talk, shout, and have a real discussion of all the issues that seem to concern the Party elite as well as the newly-inspired, presumably easily discouraged new-wave-voters. Then talk to US, the poor peons at home who get to actually vote for or against these clowns in sheep's clothing. Then, after full and open discussion (remember Chicago in '68) of the issues that SHOULD shape the platform and the choice of a candidate who could actually WIN the election, maybe WE will feel that OUR voices have been heard, that WE the people have a role to play, and that THEY will be held accountable to US. If a single, unifying, inspirational candidate fails to emerge under those circumstances, maybe WE could see a "Draft Gore" movement arise from the ashes of self-immolation.

From Lansing to Tallahassee -

If the old guard hopes to retain any semblance of a single, united Democratic Party, they had better come up with a plan that is actually democratic. Much as I would like to see the end of the two-party vice-grip on US politics, I don't think this is the right year to look for wholesale liquidations (Christian-Democrats for sale at 3 for a dollar; day-old Greens reduced for quick sale before self-composting, Social-Democrats veering off to the left of the blue-light special, Labor-ites struggling to raise the minimum wage while still finding sub-minimum jobs for illegal immigrants - to say nothing of the Christo-Fascist Republicons wooing Ann Coulter away from their kinder, gentler side, the Spanish Inquisition). I do understand that it's strikingly unfair to disenfranchise the voters (or non-voters) of Florida and Michigan, but the same good ol' boys who knowingly broke the rules are the ones who stand to assume positions as super-delegates if and when their states' delegations are recognized, and they stacked the deck against Obama and others in both states. I'd allow them to attend the convention, to participate in discussions, to help formulate a platform, and maybe even allow them to vote, but ONLY AFTER a deciding vote has been tallied and ONLY IF their votes won't make any difference. After all is said and done, let them join in the revelry of selecting a candidate who may well become the next President, but let them learn that rules are rules, and if you choose to bring your sister to the prom, you don't get a good-night kiss (I was sorely tempted to make this metaphor a lot more graphic - feel free to fill in your own details - but I decided that when you're coining a phrase that may last for all posterity, and may decide the fate of the world as we know it, it should probably be G-rated and avoid any reference to the State of Arkansas).

Would you buy a used car from this man?



Remember the anti-Nixon campaign poster from the 60's? Why should we care who gets which endorsement deal? The truth is that we SHOULDN'T, but we do read the gossip rags, and the blogs, and then we make up our own and we hope someone out there cares what WE say - and then there are the voters who are not quite as well read, or informed, or opinionated, or self-righteous, or deluded, or as intelligent as we are. As I said in an earlier unread diary, the masses are awakening, and they're ready for change, but their attachment to this particular political process may be quite tenuous. Maybe Durrati's right, and this is Al's moment to "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World." Or maybe just help steer it in the right, or rather left, direction. Maybe Al Gore and John Edwards, and Ralph Nader, and Oprah Winfrey, and Caroline Kennedy can work together to bring the Party together under the big tent (or maybe we're all bozos on this bus). On the other hand, if the Dems self-destruct, is it too late to field a Gore/Edwards team on the Green Party line in all 50 states?

Put me in, Coach; I'm ready to play!

We've survived another Super Bowl; we've puzzled over a Super Tuesday; we're baffled by the Super-Delegates - can we somehow manage to de-throne the Republicons before we descend into madness and the Democratic Party becomes a Super-fluous footnote in American History?

"Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." ~ Vince Lombardi

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. ~Kurt Vonnegut

A Quiet Revolution?

Maybe there's hope after all. The Will.i.am video for Obama is pretty cool. Apologies for duplicating the posting thereof, but if you haven't seen it yet, check this out:



I'm afraid the cynic in me is tempted to think this is all another example of style over substance. But, then again, imagery can be visceral and inspiring. And the smallest moments can remind us that there may still be a reason to vote, and to hope.


As I walked into the firehouse in my small, rural, upstate NY home town to cast my vote, I encountered a rare and wondrous sight. Twenty registered Democrats of all ages waiting in line to cast their votes in a primary election in an overwhelmingly Republican, predominantly white, working-class town. As we joked and chatted in line, wondering how the hell anyone was supposed to understand the fact that the delegate names on the ballot had nothing to do with the candidates whose names they appeared next to, a few Republicans sauntered in and sheepishly wandered over to their vacant sign-in table. Then, even though I found myself in a situation where my vote may have helped send a delegate one way or another in a year when that might actually make a difference, I still felt that my right to choose a candidate had been squelched by an unfair and undemocratic process – the names Kucinich and Edwards remained on the ballot, but I was a pragmatist for a day. By the time I had cast my vote, the queue had grown to forty in length and strength, with a line trailing out into the parking lot. I couldn't help feeling that the two-party system is an archaic charade that still forces me to choose the lesser of two evils, but I saw, and felt, a glimmer of hope for my neighbors and, dare I say, for the country.

Perhaps the most perspicacious Quotes of the Day from the local paper the day after:

Illinois Sen. Obama got 6,585 votes in the Democratic primary, while New York Sen. Hillary Clinton earned 4,631 in the county.

Forty-six percent of Democrats turned out for their primary while 28 percent of eligible Republicans voted.

A 46% turnout in a primary election? Maybe people care about this stuff, after all. I’m going out on a limb here and concluding that, based on a careful survey of absolutely no one, the sleeping giant that is the silent majority in this country has been awakened.

And the electorate is looking pretty good at the moment. They may still prefer to stay at home and watch reruns of Everybody Loves Seinfeld’s Friends than to actually get out, get involved, or write a letter to the editor, but they are, in fact, ready for change.

Maybe not as much change as I’d like to see – maybe they’re willing to waste another year or two in Iraq in the name of “safe transition” instead of going directly to “give peace a chance” or to continue to subsidize the health care and pharmaceutical conglomerates instead of reining in soaring health costs by nationalizing the insurance industry. But maybe, just maybe, this is part of an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, change.


Maybe we will come out to vote. Maybe we’ll stay interested in the issues, maybe we’ll exert some influence over whichever of the two evil choices we’re stuck with. Yes, we can, indeed.

Disenfranchised, disillusioned, disconsolate

I tried to care about the primary results. But they scare me. And they mostly come at night. Mostly.

I live in upstate New York, surrounded by third, fourth, and fifth generation Republicans, and my primary vote, whenever it happens to come around, isn't going to mean squat in the nominating process because by then, the media will have anointed a champion based on some questionable results from some arcane procedures in a few small states far, far away from where I live, both literally and figuratively. What's the point of even having a convention? So now I'm just baffled. WTF?

It seems like the Clinton campaign was universally declared dead yesterday, but now those rumors seem to have been grossly exaggerated, or premature, or results were misinterpreted, or the margin of error is now 100%. At least some of the voters seem to be ignoring the media hype, the millions of dollars in advertising, the polls, the pundits, and the Vegas odds-makers to vote for their favorites in this bizarre beauty pageant! Why isn't anyone reporting on the woeful performance of the media and the polls, to say nothing of the pols? Hell, if we judged the media and the pollsters as harshly as the media judges the campaigns (not the candidates, mind you, just the campaigns), we wouldn't have anything to read tomorrow. Thousands of telephone operators and media hacks would be out of work and we'd be stuck reading about issues like Iraq, Iran, healthcare, and Britney Spears' extended entourage.

Just how broken can the electoral process in this so-called democracy of ours be? I don't want the presidential nominee for my precious default, lesser-of-two-evils party to be chosen by the caucusoids of Iowa or the voters of New Hampshire (including, of course, independents who are not party members at all). I sure as hell don't want the media to choose for me, or the pollsters, or the media who only cover the pollster beat, or the pollsters who cover the media beat. Now, if we could have a gladiator-like contest wherein the candidates get to beat the media rats with poles, that'd be entertainment!

Is it too late to put together a viable third party ticket? Gore and Bloomberg? Nader and Lieberman? Gary Hart and whoever he can get his hands on?

I'd like to propose campaign finance reforms that would include a complete ban on campaign contributions and electronic advertising, and a blackout on any electronic media coverage of the campaigns at all. Let's give intelligence tests to would-be voters - something simple like "Do you support the policies of George W. Bush?" - with an immediate disqualification for the 30% of the public who might say yes, of course. I'll bet that billboards, campaign buttons and bumper stickers can do as good a job of educating the electorate as the crap that fills the airwaves now.

What this country needs is a good five-cent campaign slogan. Here's my free suggestion for the day:

"Vote your conscience - vote Kucinich"

Succinct, pithy, fits on a bumper sticker, and what the hell else rhymes with Kucinich?

The Bully's Pulpit - Divide and Conquer

First, a caveat: ALL generalizations are flawed.

Having said that, I can unequivocally state that there are two kinds of people: People who divide things into two groups and those who don't. Too many of us are too sure that there are only two sides to every debate, just as there are two sides to a coin. Heads/Tails; Right/Left; Liberal/Conservative; White/Black; Male/Female. Why, if my opinion is Right, must yours be Wrong?>


Spin a coin on its edge.

Quickly, how many sides does the coin have?

Which side is light?

Which side is dark?

Which side is up?

Which side is down?



What if the coin rolls off the table and onto the floor?

What if it rolls under the fridge?

Who wins?

Us Vs. Them

As progressives, and liberals, and conservatives, and libertarians, and neo-cons continue to redefine themselves in terms of hot-button issues having little, if anything, to do with political philosophy, we each find ourselves on opposite sides of incendiary issues without realizing that we have more in common with each other than with those who wield power and influence. How can "we" target "them" when the target keeps moving?



It's natural for people, as for most animals, to seek companionship and community, whether based on genetic or philosophical commonalities. We all belong to families, or tribes, or churches, or homelands, some of which we are born into and some which we choose, consciously or otherwise. At the same time, we all have that inner Garbo that wants to be left alone - we want to feel safe and secure in our own homes. Add to this conundrum an axis of selfishness and its no wonder we all feel conflicted about doing what's best (or safest, or most profitable, or most spiritually rewarding) for ourselves versus doing the right thing for our people (whoever they may be - our family members, or tribesmen, or whatever flock we happen to gather together as defined by whatever feather we happen to have in common).



It's easy to exploit the "us versus them" mentality. It's something we've been taught since birth. For example, we need look no further than Jena, Louisiana to find the institutional racism that envelops us as effectively as the Force. As Obi-Wan said, "It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together." Or, in the case of the dark side revealed in this incident, it threatens to tear us apart. I think that, in this forum anyway, we all recognize that we carry some unfortunate and inadvertent racial stereotypes around in our heads, but I don't believe that this distortion of the "self versus others" paradigm is "human nature." This kind of bias - racism, bigotry, and the fear and hatred cultivated by generations of our forebears - is not genetic, it's learned. (I note here that some terminology I may use borrows from the socio-biologists in the crowd who claim that even the simplest organisms can experience "kinship" and "altruism" in a manner that favors "us" versus "them" when it comes to survival of the species, even on a cellular level - see, for example, what you can Google about kinship and altruism among bees, ants, and even single cell critters. They define "altruism" as behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to itself but that benefits others of its species. In other words, how closely related to another being do you have to be in order to sacrifice your life for his/hers, if your sacrifice furthers the perpetuation of your common family or species. That's a topic for further discussion elsewhere - except in the State of New Hampshire, where kinship is mandated by state motto).



Once we understand that we all carry within us a certain propensity for selfishness relative to a natural inclination to gravitate toward a common community, it's easy to see that well-meaning people can do really stupid things in the name of "what's right" without regard to truth, or justice. It's the American Way! It's all about defining your community. There are some obvious identification tags - family, race, ethnicity, or gender - as well as some more esoteric ones - sexual orientation, political philosophy, favorite band, or blog color. We, the vast majority of whom are followers, are but lemmings when a charismatic or powerful leader asserts authority.



To paraphrase Thom Hartmann, whether you can be characterized as a liberal or a conservative depends on how narrowly or broadly you define your community. The closer you are to the selfish egoist end of the spectrum, the more likely you are to be paranoid - you've defined "us" so narrowly that there's nothing but "them" out there - and they hate you. If, however, you're on the selfless, altruistic end of that axis, you can define your community so broadly, and in terms of love instead of hate, that we are all "us" and there are very few of "them" - it's just a little frustrating that "they" have all the money, and the power, and masses of deaf, dumb and blind followers. It's all a matter of perspective and circumstance - whom do you fear when you wake up in the morning, or go to work, or walk home at night, or go to bed alone - who's your boogeyman?

As other writers have recently pointed out, the strategies of Leo Strauss, Milton Friedman, Paul Wolfowitz, and even The Administration That Couldn't Shoot Straight rely on classic "divide and conquer" ploys that pit people against each other on the basis of race, religion, nationality, or socio-economic status, or with regard to matters of individual choice so convoluted that they defy political solution or definition, like abortion rights, gun control, gay marriage, the death penalty, affirmative action, global warming, and universal health care. The fact that human beings are an irrational bunch subject to manipulation and delusion disguised as faith yields the unfortunate conflation of "family values" and "creation science" into a mythology of neo-conservatism that becomes the brand identifier for the 30% of the population that still support President Bush (and terrify the Senate). These are the flock that the disaster capitalists so aptly described by Naomi Klein have learned to herd as easily as sheep. Liberals, on the other hand, shift allegiances like changes in the wind, and therefore serve as the proverbial herd of cats. We live in a world run by autocrats who have assumed control of virtually every government, every corporation, every media outlet, and every advertising agency. And we like it! Why not? Part of that little lizard brain lurking in our heads wants to have someone in authority tell us what to do, what to think and to reassure us that everything will be all right. What happens when such an authoritarian figure attains a position of real power and throws in the element of fear, or shock? Look around.



Each Government's interest is wrapped in nationalism, religion, jingoism, and ethno-centrism to masquerade as the people's self interest. The various "democracies," monarchies, corporatocracies, oligarchies, and (in the case of Iraq) anarchies compete for survival at the expense of their own constituents. When the petty tyrants get into the act, the warlords, gang leaders, and crime bosses assume the guise of freedom-fighters, terrorists, islamo-fascists or saviors, depending on your perspective. Define your community; it's "us" versus "them": Christians/heathens; Sox/Yankees; white/black (or brown). "They" hate us for our freedom, so we'll declare war on terror. We fought terror with terror and terror won; so much for freedoms. Now everybody hates us; it's us versus THEM!



Just as tyranny by majority rule based on common ethnicity or religious belief has proven to be an unworkable political methodology (see e.g., Northern Ireland, Uganda, Darfur, and South Africa or look up the definition of "balkanization" and "ethnic cleansing"), so has the nation-state itself become an anachronism. Can we point to any government on earth and proclaim that it is the best we could come up with? We desperately need a new vision for the future of the species.

If we don't realize that WE the people of earth are hurtling through space alone together on a big blue starship pretty soon, I fear that we will all succumb to the disaster capitalists. Here's an idea. Think before you speak. Listen. Learn. Treat those who would do you harm as human beings.

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? - Abraham Lincoln



It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business. - Mohandas Gandhi



If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. - Moshe Dayan



They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. - Isaiah 2:4

It's time to spin the coin again - it has no head, it has no tail, it has an edge with an infinite number of sides. It's starting a new revolution. I'm gonna call it secular altruism. I hope it's not too late.


True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. ~Kurt Vonnegut

A New American Revolution?

It seems to me that W and his mini Axis (or is that Excess?) of Evil, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove, have betrayed the trust of even the most die-hard conservatives, libertarians, and honest republicans and have managed to lead the once nearly-respectable Republican Party to the brink of extinction (remember when Republicans actually stood for something other than "the best politicians money can buy?" Does the name Abraham Lincoln ring a bell? Wendell Wilkie?).

W's approval rating drops to an all time low of 32% and no one asks, "Who are those 32% and why aren't they being committed to mental institutions?" We the people seem to have surrendered our role in self-government to the corporate lobbyists and political machines. Remember those Founding Fathers the neo-cons are so fond of summoning up for endorsements of everything from corporate welfare to undeclared war? Those guys were not exactly conservative in their time. If they had modeled our government based on what the best thinkers of 250 years prior had done, we'd be living in a 1526 era feudal system where moneyed oligarchs treat indentured servants as property - a two class system where rich landowners control everything and working people tithe their hard-earned income to the overlords. Oh, wait a minute, have we come full-circle already? Let's remember Jefferson's response to the madness of an earlier King George:

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

Such was the text of my very first blog-post in May 2006. I needed to vent and there was an election coming up - an election that could have changed the course of American history. How far have we come? How far have we fallen? Where do we go from here?

Thanks in no small part to the self-destructive tendencies of Republicans (they are only human, after all), the Democrats won an election (personally, I don't think their limp non-campaign would have resulted in winning even the House if it hadn't been for Mark Foley's timely scandal - was it a mandate to end the war, or just a blip in the EKG of public sentiment toward the heartless, soulless bastards who occupy the left side of the aisle instead of the ruthless, arrogant sons-o'-bitches on the right?). But what did the American people win? Another chorus of "Wait 'til next time!" from an apparently well-meaning (so they keep telling us) but toothless, gutless, political machine more invested in self-perpetuation than the actual welfare of the general public.

Well on the way to election fatigue a full 16 months before the actual election, we the people are bored, disillusioned, apathetic, and betrayed again and again. But who cares? A few of us spill our bile in vitriolic rants full of sound and fury signifying, well, you know the rest - a few of us actually campaign for the less than perfect candidates of our choice, warts and all - a few try to open the window of apathy enough to allow in a draft for the potential candidate of our dreams - most of us, however, flip past the news to get to the latest rerun of Seinfeld or Jeopardy.

We need a new American revolution. We aren't likely to see an impeachment. We won't see the birth of an effective third party. We can't claim a fair and balanced media, much less a liberal-bias therein. Can we place our fates in the hands of the American public, sure as they are to educate themselves, to raise their consciences and consciousness out of the gutter long enough to usher in a new Renaissance in environmentalism, universal health care, a living wage, civil rights here and abroad, tax reform, fair and equitable foreign relations, and just plain honest government? As far as educating the public goes, I'm afraid that, in the immortal words of Alice Cooper, "School's out, for-ever":

Well we got no class

And we got no principles

And we got no innocence

We can't even think of a word that rhymes

At least Keith Olbermann’s mad as hell, and he doesn't plan to take it any more! All we have to do is come up with a way to translate Keith's 700,000 viewers into 70,000,000 voters!

Have we forgotten how to stick it to the man? Now that our collective memories have all been stimulated, simulated, synthesized, anesthetized, homogenized, polarized and synchronized, do you remember when we were all at Woodstock and Grace Slick and Jefferson Airplane sang:

We can be together

Ah you and me

We should be together

We are all outlaws in the eyes of america

In order to survive we steal cheat lie forge fuck hide and deal

We are obscene lawless hideous dangerous dirty violent and young

But we should be together

Come on all you people standing around

Our lifes too fine to let it die and

We can be together

All your private property is

Target for your enemy

And your enemy is

We

We are forces of chaos and anarchy

Everything they say we are we are

And we are very

Proud of ourselves

Up against the wall

Up against the wall (motherfucker)

Tear down the walls (motherfucker)

Tear down the walls (motherfucker)

Come on now together

Get it on together

Everybody together

We should be together

We should be together my friends

We can be together

We will be

We must begin here and now

A new continent of earth and fire

Come on now gettin higher and higher

Tear down the walls

Tear down the walls

Tear down the walls

Wont you try

And do you remember when Dick Cavett tried his best to interview the Airplane the next day. . .

and the censors didn't know what to do about it?



Now that was a revolution worth singing about!

We won't need a failed impeachment proceeding if we can win a pie fight of the magnitude of 1973's shaming and shunning spectacular that led to Nixon's resignation. Let the circus of meaningless Congressional hearings begin! (And let's hope there's another smoking gun in the Republicans' closet - preferably one related to sex).

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. ~Kurt Vonnegut

The Post Yardwork and Barbecue Thoughtful Memorial Day Edition

Kurt Vonnegut had much to say about war and soldiers in Slaughterhouse-Five, but I was particularly struck by the following exchange in Happy Birthday, Wanda June between the long-presumed-dead Harold Ryan and his sidekick Colonel Looseleaf Harper (who is described in the play as the man who dropped the atom bomb on Nagasaki):

LOOSELEAF: Anybody who'd drop an atom bomb on a city has to be pretty dumb.

HAROLD: The one direct, decisive, intelligent act of your life!

LOOSELEAF: [Shaking his head] I don't think so.

[Pause}

It could have been.

HAROLD: If what?

LOOSELEAF: If I hadn't done it. If I'd said to myself, "Screw it. I'm going to let all those people down there live."

We ask our soldiers to make life and death decisions every day, and we ask them to sacrifice themselves to safeguard our "freedom" and "democracy." How can we expect them to know when and how to do what's right? How can we ask them to trust their commanders in the field when we can't trust our leaders at home? And how can we expect them to live with the consequences of their actions? How can we live with ourselves?

This one's dedicated to my father and my father-in-law, both veterans of World War II who chose not to talk about their experiences during their lifetimes. I regret that I didn't challenge their decisions. I have a lot of questions.