For the love of humanity...Noooooooooooo

I heard Nader on Amy Goodman's show this morning saying he "is exploring" a possible run at the Whitehouse, and it really made me cringe. It would be a damn shame if we fuck this up again, and Nader could really do that. But is he a willing Republican tool? I don't know about that.

Of Snubs and Essentialism: The Non Critical Thought of American Feminism

What snub?

This is a reasonable question, actually, though the title here is certainly provocative, and meant to be. From a certain ideological vantage point , it could look like a snub, but from the same spatial vantage point, Hillary Clinton is looking at Senator Kennedy, and shaking his hand, and Senator Obama is looking at Governor McCaskill. Neither are looking at each other. Big deal.

However, the photograph in the ABC piece can and has been spun as a spun[snub], and that Kennedy and Obama are, once again, ganging up on "poor" Hillary. Certainly, the meme firmly established during the New Hampshire Primary, where Hillary produced some crocodile tears and thus was the victim of male bulliess (who, of course, were running for president as well).

Wonder if this has anything to do with a certain prominent endorsement:
"Women have just experienced the ultimate betrayal. Senator Kennedy’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton’s opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard..."

The National Office is only slightly more nuanced in their horror that the heir apparent isn't everybody's choice.


Underlying this is the old essentialist dodge that underpins the core of "American" Feminism: That people are defined, a priori, by their genitals because these genitals produce a kind of metaphysical and transcendent reality in which women are nurturers, and thus, less warlike, than men. This ignores the kind of social and economic conditioning that actually creates and perpetuates gender roles and stereotypes.

Lest I be mistaken for a neanderthal, let me say what should go without saying: I support women's equal rights. I support women's right to total bodily control. I support, in fact, all people's struggle for equal rights and bodily control. What I do not support, however, is shoddy philosophic thinking. Let's be clear: Essentialism is the the root of both the patriarchy and the WASP capitalist hegemon, because it assumes a metaphysical and transcendent superiority over other genders, sexualities, and ethnic groups by virtue of its possession of a penis(see Frank Zappa's "Penis Dimension"). But I shouldn't have to say this.

At the end of the day, if we understand that feminism is about smashing the capitalist underpinnings of the racist/sexist patriarchy, and working for human rights, then the genitals of the candidates have nothing to do with this. After all, who voted iniatially for that ultimate expression of the patriarchal death trip to fire up the war machine. I'll give you a hint: It was the one who was a mother...

via Nathan Singer:

"‘Reality Is Totally Different’
Iraqis on ‘Success’ and ‘Progress’ in Their Country
By: Dahr Jamail

This March 19 will be the fifth anniversary of the shock-and-awe air assault on Baghdad that signaled the opening of the invasion of Iraq, and when it comes to the American occupation of that country, no end is yet in sight. If Republican presidential candidate John McCain has anything to say about it, the occupation may never end. On January 7th, he assured reporters that he was more than fine with the idea of the U.S. military remaining in Iraq for 100 years. ‘We've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea 50 years or so… As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. That's fine with me.’

He said nothing, of course, about Iraqis ‘injured or harmed or wounded or killed.’ In fact, amid the flurries of words, accusations, and ‘debates’ which have filled the airways and add up to the primary-season presidential campaign, there has been a near thunderous silence on Iraq lately -- and especially on Iraqis.

A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll indicated that 64% of Americans now feel the war in Iraq was not worth fighting. American opinion on the war and occupation, in fact, seems remarkably unaffected by the positive spin -- all those ‘success’ stories in the mainstream media -- of these post-surge months. The media now tells us that Iraq is going to be taking a distinct backseat to domestic economic issues, that Americans are no longer as concerned about it.

Once again, with rare exceptions, that media has had a hand in erasing the catastrophe of Iraq from the American landscape, if not the collective consciousness of the public. What, it occurred to me recently, do my friends and acquaintances back in Iraq (where I covered the occupation for eight months during the years 2003-2005) think not just about their lives and the fate of their country, but about our attitudes toward them? What do they think about the ‘success’ -- and the silence -- in America?

On October 6, 2004, George W. Bush proclaimed: ‘Iraq is no diversion; it is the place where civilization is taking a decisive stand against chaos and terror -- and we must not waver.’

Iraqis, of course, continue to witness firsthand this ‘decisive stand against chaos and terror.’ In our world, however, they are largely mute witnesses. Americans may argue among themselves about just how much ‘success’ or ‘progress’ there really is in post-surge Iraq, but it is almost invariably an argument in which Iraqis are but stick figures -- or dead bodies. Of late, I have been asking Iraqis I know by email what they make of the American version (or versions) of the unseemly reality that is their country, that they live and suffer with. What does it mean to become a ‘secondary issue’ for your occupier?

In response, Professor S. Abdul Majeed Hassan, an Iraqi university faculty member wrote me the following:
‘The year of 2007 was the bloodiest among the occupation years, and no matter how successful the situation looks to Mr. Bush, reality is totally different. What kind of normal life are he and the media referring to where four and a half million highly educated Iraqis are still dislocated or still being forcefully driven out of their homes for being anti-occupation? How can the people live a normal life in a cage of concrete walls [she is referring to concrete walls being erected by the Americans around entire Baghdad neighborhoods], guarded by their kidnappers, killers, and occupation forces? What kind of normal life can you live where tens of your relatives and your beloved ones are either missing or in jail and you don't even know if they are still alive or, after being tortured, have been thrown unidentified in the dumpsters?

‘What kind of normal life can you live when you have to bid farewell to your family each time you go out to buy bread because you don't know if you are going to see them again? What is a normal life to Mr. Bush? If we're lucky, we get a few hours of electricity a day, barely enough drinking water, no health care, no jobs to feed our kids…

‘Little teenage girls are given away in marriage because their families can't protect them from militias and troops during raids. Women cannot move unescorted anymore. What kind of educations are our children getting at universities where 60% of the prominent faculty members have been driven out of their jobs -- killed or forced to leave the country by government militias? Is it normal that areas [on the outskirts of Baghdad] like Saidiya and Arab Jubour are bombed because the occupation forces are afraid to enter the areas for fear of the resistance? It is always easier to control ghost cities. It becomes very peaceful without the people.’

On January 8th, President Bush held video teleconferences with General David Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, as well as with the U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, and with members of U.S. Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Iraq. Afterwards, he told reporters at a press conference, ‘It was clear from my discussions that there's great hope in Iraq, that the Iraqis are beginning to see political progress that is matching the dramatic security gains for the past year.’ Members of the PRTs, he claimed, had told him that’[l]ife is returning to normal in communities across Iraq, with children back in school and shops reopening and markets bustling with commerce.’ Bush thanked members of those teams for ‘making 2007, particularly the end of 2007, become incredibly successful beyond anybody's expectations.’

Mohammad Mahri'i, an Iraqi journalist, has a rather different take on the situation: ‘The problem with Bush is that his people believe him every time he lies to them,’ he writes me. ‘His reconstruction teams are invisible and I wish they could show me one inch above the ground that they built.’

Maki al-Nazzal, an Iraqi political analyst from Fallujah who has been forced to live abroad with his family, thanks to ongoing violence and the lack of jobs or significant reconstruction activity in his city, which was three-quarters destroyed in a U.S. assault in November 2004, offered me his thoughts on the Western mainstream coverage of Iraq.

‘The media should not follow the warlords' and politicians' propaganda. It is our duty to search for the truth and not repeat lies like parrots. The U.S. occupation is bad and no amount of media propaganda can camouflage the mess inside occupied Iraq. We are ashamed of the local and Western media [for] marketing the naked lies told by generals and politicians. Comparing two halves of 2007 is ridiculous.

‘Bush and his heroes, [head of the Coalition Provisional Authority L. Paul] Bremer, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld and now Petraeus always lied to their people and the world about Iraq. U.S. soldiers are getting killed on a daily basis and so are Iraqi army and police officers. Infrastructure is destroyed. In a country that used to feed much of the Arab world, starvation is now the norm. It is ironic that Iraq was not half as bad during the 12 years of sanctions. Our liberation has pushed us into a state of unprecedented corruption.’

General David Petraeus, U.S. surge commander in Iraq, insists that ‘we and our Iraqi partners will… continue to look beyond the security realm to help the Iraqis improve basic services, revitalize local markets, repair damaged infrastructure and create conditions that allow displaced families to return to their homes.’
Iraqis know differently. Al-Nazzal is realistic:
‘Petraeus wants us to celebrate the return [to Baghdad] of 50,000 Iraqis who were starving in Syria, when five million remain in exile and internally displaced. What he conveniently forgets to mention is that those who returned found their houses either destroyed or occupied by others. He also wants to be praised for handing over the nation's security to militias he allowed to form rather than to academics and technocrats. Iraq has no medicines in its hospitals, no electricity, no potable water, no real security, and no well-guarded borders. Nevertheless, some people say they are happy for what is going on in Iraq!’

Much as they would like to believe the claims of success and progress from American officials, Iraqis -- surrounded by disaster -- cannot do so.
37-year-old Sammy Tahir, a Kurdish education advisor living in Baghdad, offers the following assessment of the cautious but upbeat claims being made by Petraeus and others:
‘No improvement in any service can be found in Iraq. On the contrary, we are much worse now and we are back to painting old buildings to make them look better. Kurdistan is still full of displaced Iraqis from southern and mid-Iraq.’
About this Mari'i writes:
‘It was the generals who destroyed Iraq in the first place and I do not see any improvement in basic services. For example, most of Baghdad has been without electricity for about two weeks at the time of writing!’
Professor Hassan shares a similar view:
‘What the Americans hadn't destroyed by the end of the military operations of 2003, they have finished off over the past four years, and I don't think that the occupation forces and their assigned government would like to do anything about the displacement of Iraqi families, simply because they are the ones who created that situation.

‘The sectarian violence, which led to this mass displacement, was initiated by the U.S. and its allies to divide the Iraqi community in accordance with American plans and the published 'new' Iraqi constitution, which emphasizes sectarian issues. The occupation would like to divide Iraq into small sectarian and ethnic regions to be able to easily command, control, and conquer them. The major objective of the occupation is to control oil production and reserves in Iraq and the Middle East region. Displacing families is, to them, acceptable collateral damage.’
According to Tahir:
‘Children always went to school before the late 2007 crackdown and it was mainly the military operations that stopped them from doing so in some areas where the Americans attacked towns and villages. Bush has been saying the same words since 2003, but things have always gotten progressively worse in Iraq. He and his generals are destroying both Iraq and the U.S. by continuing this war. The U.S. economy will never hold against the expenses of war and Iraq is totally destroyed.’

During a surprise visit to Baghdad on January 15th, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, said that last year's ‘surge’ of American forces was paying dividends and suggested that she could ‘help push the momentum by her very presence’ in Iraq.
Mahri'i's offers a lament for the American presence and those ‘dividends’:
‘It seems that Americans do not care about what has been done to Iraq. They decorated Bremer, who is a war criminal, with top medals. [In December 2004, Bush bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on him.] Why not honor another criminal like Petraeus and other Bush administration officials with the same medals for lying to them while their soldiers and our people are getting killed?’

Tahir, on the other hand, has a warning: ‘It seems that all U.S. politicians and the majority of Americans think the way [Sen.] McCain does. But they should not think Iraq is Japan or South Korea.’

Mahri'i agrees: ‘Such leaders will write the final page of history for their country. If Americans keep electing such adventurers, then I can see the end of their country approaching fast.’

Professor Hassan states what is clearly on the minds of many Iraqis as the occupation grinds on and the American presidential race revs up, though she may be more charitable than many of her compatriots:
‘Most Americans figured out the real reasons behind the invasion of Iraq and the terrible consequences of that war for them, currently and in the future. The American people I know are kind, considerate, and understanding. I am sure they will do what it will take to end this occupation. They know by now that this is not a war of the American people; it is the oil companies' war, so why should they sacrifice their young men and women for oil companies' greed?’

Last October, speaking of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation at Stanford University, where he is now a visiting fellow of the Hoover Institute, former CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid told the audience, ‘Of course it's about oil, we can't really deny that.’ General Abizaid's comment came roughly a month after former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan wrote in his memoir, ‘I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.’

While many in the U.S., along with Bush administration officials and leading presidential candidates (both Democratic and Republican) continue to refuse to grasp the magnitude of the catastrophe that is the occupation of Iraq, Iraqis don't have the same luxury.

Early on in my time in Iraq, during the first year of the occupation, the Iraqis I met were generally quick to differentiate between the policies of the U.S. government and the desires of the American people.

Over time, after brutal U.S. military operations against cities like Najaf, Fallujah, Al-Qa'im, Samarra, and Ramadi, after Abu Ghraib, after Haditha, after the near-total collapse of their country's infrastructure and the shredding of its social fabric, I began to witness occupation-weary Iraqis ceasing to draw that same critical line.

Recently, a resident of Baquba (who asked not to be identified by name for fear of retribution for talking to the media), told my Iraqi colleague Ahmed Ali, ‘The lack of security is a direct result of the occupation. The Americans crossed thousands of miles to destroy our home and kill our men. They are the reason for all our disasters.’

Abu Tariq, a merchant from Baquba, believes the U.S. military intentionally destroyed Iraq's infrastructure. He told Ali,
‘The Americans destroyed the electricity, water-pumping stations, factories, bridges, highways, hospitals, schools, burnt the buildings, and opened the borders for the strangers and terrorists to get easily into the country. The one who does all these things is void of humanity. I hate America and Americans.’

Abu Taiseer, another resident of Baquba, summed up Iraqi bitterness this way:
‘At the very beginning of the occupation, the people of Iraq did not realize the U.S. strategy in the area. Their strategy is based on destruction and massacres. They do anything to have their agenda fulfilled. Now, Iraqis know that behind the U.S. smile is hatred and violence. They call others violent and terrorists while what they are doing in Iraq and in other countries is the origin and essence of terror.’

Jalal al-Taee, a retired teacher, told Ali what more Iraqis than ever likely believe: ‘In Baquba, people have severe hatred towards the Americans and a large number of residents have become enemies of the U.S. army. The people of Diyala province have been oppressed and treated unjustly by the U.S. army and the [Baghdad] government. In order to improve the situation, the U.S. army should let the people of this city rule it by themselves.’

Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of the recently published Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (Haymarket Books, 2007). Over the last four years, Jamail has reported from occupied Iraq as well as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Turkey.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174886/dahr_jamail_missing_voices_in_the_iraq_debate"

"Spark of Hope"

...The thing is, everytime Hillary and one of her proxies tries to dig at him, everytime Billous Clinton not only places the race card, but drop a whole bicycle deck odious wink wink nod nod racist code words, it puts in stark relief how inspiring, and different, a candidate Barack Obama is.

What is more: The rhetoric of change rings truer in his words than the Clintons, who are business as usual, down to their cold, triangulating hearts.

What is more: The party fathers are leaving them twisting in the breeze, with both Kerry and Kennedy endorsing Obama.

NYT endorses Clinton and McCain

This isn't exactly earth-shattering news, but I love the way they drill Giulliani who, despite campaigning obsessively in Fla, is now a distant third in the polls. Check this out from the Times Editorial Board. Ouch.

Why, as a New York-based paper, are we not backing Rudolph Giuliani? Why not choose the man we endorsed for re-election in 1997 after a first term in which he showed that a dirty, dangerous, supposedly ungovernable city could become clean, safe and orderly? What about the man who stood fast on Sept. 11, when others, including President Bush, went AWOL?
That man is not running for president.
The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.
Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton, the architect of the drop in crime, because he couldn’t share the limelight. He later gave the job to Bernard Kerik, who has now been indicted on fraud and corruption charges.

Haaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!

A Dark Day for Local Lore

Goin home, late last night

Suddenly I got a fright

Yeah I looked through the window

and surprised what I saw

Fairy boots were dancing with a dwarf...

ALL RIGHT NOW!

"Buffalo Ridge, a winding road in Miami Township, once had a crematorium or maybe an observatory rumored to now be a church for devil worshipers, where little kitties and little kiddies were sacrificed on an altar to firelight. The ghosts of those whose remains were burned there haunted the hillside. "

It goes without saying that, for those of us on the West West Side of Cincinnati, this was the destination of many a Friday night for those of use with an interest in both the macabre and the chemical. Black Sabbath, of course, when taken with cough syrup and the occult imagings of a "fevered" teenage brain (hey, how many Fridays were you getting laid between the ages of 15-18?), not to mention, Cop-fear (thus, the soundtrack for these adventures) led to, well, strange goings on. The danger was palpable: I'm out at night, listening to satanic rock music, fucked up, seeing shit, feeling shit-it was all freedom to be evil, all fuck you mom and dad.

On those dark fall nights, blasting the Mighty Sabb, the dash lights and the anticipation, anything was possible, nothing true. It could really be that goddamded elves dwarves brownies gnome kobalds and goblins, GOBLINS, really exist. A Black Magician could be conducting weird rites, and we could see it. Why not: Things certainly looked like the cover of Paranoid...

I'm a little sad, because this is another piece of Old Weird America that will be unavailable to the next generation, a piece of lore lost. I'm not one to generally get all misty about things like this, but I can't help but feel this way, especially when the kind of weird mysteries like this, myths constructed, have to give way for the half lives of chicken mcnuggets and pampers. The glories of human imaginations manifested in its ability to imbue the mundane with the bizarre, the commonplace with the sinister, a local Stonehenge lost to utility and ostentatious consumption. A magic land turned landfill. Where will the next generation of young seekers go?

I mean, really, any asshole can smoke a jay at the mall. But it take the heroically weird to drink cough syrup at the Gates of Hell?

YEAH!!!

Cut Off: The Continued Adventures of the Fatter Drunker and More British William F Buckley

via Hunter at the Daily Kos: The Mind Boggles...


" ' Here again, the problem is that Sen. Obama wants us to transcend something at the same time he implicitly asks us to give that same something as a reason to vote for him. I must say that the lyricism with which he does this has double and triple the charm of Mrs. Clinton's heavily-scripted trudge through the landscape, but the irony is still the same.

What are we trying to 'get over' here? We are trying to get over the hideous legacy of slavery and segregation. But Mr. Obama is not a part of this legacy. His father was a citizen of Kenya, an independent African country, and his mother was a 'white' American. He is as distant from the real "plantation" as I am. How -- unless one thinks obsessively about color while affecting not to do so -- does this make him 'black'? ' ".

To all my Grad School people out there: See...this is what happens when you don't read theory closely...

The Stakes (in stark relief):The Past and the Future

via the Tavern Wench,from the Daily Dish

Welcome to 1954

Christ...can you believe this shit-in 2008:

"The Nationalists were led by founder Richard Barrett as they walked through town. They did not wear robes like their white power brethren in the Ku Klux Klan, but some wore Klan patches.

Jena, a town of about 3,000, has become a flashpoint for U.S. racial issues since the black teenagers were charged with attempted murder for beating up their white schoolmate when a noose was hung at Jena High School..."

The fact that these deluded idiots still walk around, impedes the progress of this great republic. It's this shit, the wicked old America, that kills all our great leaders, that killed Martin Luther King, that makes me fear, on some level, that Barack Obama does become President.

Which one of these turds will try the unthinkable?

Theocracy

via Crooks and Liars...

Looks like Emperor Palpatine is at it again:

Affirming the rich spiritual and religious history of our Nation's founding and subsequent history and expressing support for designation of the first week in May as `American Religious History Week' for the appreciation of and education on America's history of religious faith.

Whereas religious faith was not only important in official American life during the periods of discovery, exploration, colonization, and growth but has also been acknowledged and incorporated into all 3 branches of American Federal government from their very beginning;

Whereas the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed this self-evident fact in a unanimous ruling declaring `This is a religious people ... From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation';

Whereas political scientists have documented that the most frequently-cited source in the political period known as The Founding Era was the Bible;

[Whereas most citizens of this Republic recognize that religion belongs in the house of worship, and in the heart, and has no place in the houses of government, vis a vis, 'Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's';

And Whereas most citizens of this Republic recognize that the sponsers of this bill are awful jackasses...]

Fine. Let's have a National Reason Week, where we see that this country is the result of the Enlightment :

"The language of natural law, of inherent freedoms, of self-determination which seeped so deeply into the American grain was the language of the Enlightenment, though often coated with a light glaze of traditional religion, what has been called our "civil religion."

This is one reason that Americans should study the Enlightenment. It is in their bones. It has defined part of what they have dreamed of, what they aim to become."

The Zipless Fuckhead

I really liked Fear of Flying, but Erica Jong's attempt make Obama another Bush is as specious as her argument for another President Clinton:

"Nor is [The Presidency] a place for on the job training. It is not one job but many. It takes passion, ideas, vision, eloquence, but it also takes experience, administration and seasoned judgment. Hillary has these things. Obama is as untested and untried as George W. Bush was (and Gore was not).

Do we need another president learning on the job? I think not -- even if his heart, unlike Dubya's, is in the right place. Give Hillary a break. She has always come through for her constituents. Isn't that what we need to know more than eloquence, promises and hope?"

I always find it interesting when people talk about the experience gap between Clinton and Obama, but cannot be specific. I dare say it has to do with more to do with a certain brand of feminism more than an actual criticism of Obama's lack of experience-or Clinton's wealth, for that matter.

Update: Typically, you like to assume that published authors know something about nuance and context. Typically....

The Stakes

via Comrade Kevin: The Generational Divide.

and

via The ZaiusNation: The Republican Field, rendered as infants.

No Shit

Older baby boomers caught all the breaks

Tell me about the fucking golf shoes!

It's been a while since my last platonic twice removed reportage of a "debate" -the quotations meant to indicate the disappointment of Kucinich's being locked out at the behest of NBC, which, suprise suprise, they've managed to convince the Nevada Supreme Court to uphold. The liberal media, indeed.

What do you expect? Vegas is a city of surfaces, no, of simulations, if you like. Simulated Paris, simulated Venice, simulated American Dream-everything is surface. Thus, simulated news media, which is ostensibly serving the interest of the people.

Surfaces are tethered to tangible things, whereas simulacra are only tethered to the ideas of things, and where as Vegas, like Disney World, would be perfectly content to let well enough alone, which means, being content with nutrasweet instead of sugar, decaf instead of coffee, reality TV instead of reality. Why go to Venice, when you can go to Vegas, after all?

The question that will be posed tonight is whether these candidates are surfaces tethered to things, or simulacra tethered to the ideas of things.

The realest thing here, at stake, are the people of Nevada, the people of Vegas, those who's work to keep the simulation going, keeping Venice, Vegas, so to speak.

It is interesting then that Hillary Clinton, fresh from duping New Hampshire into thinking she is a real person and fresh from the kind of racial politics that shows how little the Clintons really care about anything aside from propagating their own power, that we find that she is willing to disenfranchise voters in order to win.

So...who's the iceberg? Who's the empty suit?

The Next Morning...

Okay, so I didn't blog it, -I'm blogging it now.

At this point, I feel myself duly impressed with the candidates, even as one of them makes me puke blood. Hillary knew her shit, that's for sure, though her attempts to catch John Edwards on Yucca mountain looked extremely hamfisted, especially after Edwards lit her up with a well qualified answer.

Barack Obama was at times dry-ly funny, and I was suprised how he was received, how people reacted and laughed at him. I felt he did a excellent job articulating his positions on Nuclear Energy and our lagging economy. However, from where I was sitting (which was behind two beers), Hillary's attack on what Obama identified as a his personal weakness-his clutter, not being a "executive officer", his personal disorganization, was spun into Bush's corporatocracy. There is something to that point, perhaps, but whatever footing she gained was lost when Edwards asked whether her and Obama whether they believed that the Big Pharma and the HMO's gave her money because they "care about the government", or some such thing.

The thing that I found most odeous is Hillary pulling a Cheney (yet again) about anyone but her (Obama) not being ready for the hellfire and destruction that will rain down on January 21st. It is this sort of thing, coupled with her surrogates heralding the worst kind divisive race baiting we've seen in many years, that make Hillary unlikable: If you are saying that you, and only you, can protect the country, then you are consciously making the connection that you are in and of the line of George Bush, and the fact to are willing to stoop as low as you have confirms this fact. Maybe you should run Lieberman as your VP. Hell, maybe you are Lieberman???

Obama, thankfully, lit her up on this point. Good.

For the most part, as Chuck Todd et al. noted, there wasn't a whole lot of fireworks, which is good. We need less fireworks. We need more clear ideas.

In Parting...

One thing that emerged, in my mind, is the commitment and the resonance of John(Boy) Edwards. Wow, he looks like a politician, but man, his Union work, his talk of Poor and the disenfranchised really hit home. I thought his answers were thoughtful and committed. If there is an alliance between Obama and Edwards, in whatever form the ticket takes, we might get something done yet...

The question is: How do I vote on May 20th? And will it be an afterthought?

Democracy should never be an afterthought.


And....


Ah yes, the empty suit vs. iceberg. Which is which?

The Democratic field, unlike the GOP, are all icebergs. However, what is underneath is the question. Edward (who I liked in 2004) and Obama are both icebergs, cool and collected, with a lot underneath that we are beginning to see emerge.

Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, is also an iceberg, but what may be her undoing (or her winning spirit, as it were) is the vicious careerist underneath, the entitled rich kid, the yuppie snob...possibly, Cheney with a snorkle-who will win at all costs.

Can we afford it? Anymore?

"Dangerous Unselfishness"

Martin Luther King's Last Speech:

"Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy in his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It's always good to have your closest friend and associate say something good about you. And Ralph is the best friend that I have in the world.
I'm delighted to see each of you here tonight in spite of a storm warning. You reveal that you are determined to go on anyhow. Something is happening in Memphis, something is happening in our world.

As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, ‘Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?’-- I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land.

And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I would move on by Greece, and take my mind to Mount Olympus. And I would see Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Euripides and Aristophanes assembled around the Parthenon as they discussed the great and eternal issues of reality.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would go on, even to the great heyday of the Roman Empire. And I would see developments around there, through various emperors and leaders.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up to the day of the Renaissance, and get a quick picture of all that the Renaissance did for the cultural and esthetic life of man. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even go by the way that the man for whom I'm named had his habitat. And I would watch Martin Luther as he tacked his ninety-five theses on the door at the church in Wittenberg.

But I wouldn't stop there. I would come on up even to 1863, and watch a vacillating president by the name of Abraham Lincoln finally come to the conclusion that he had to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. But I wouldn't stop there. I would even come up the early thirties, and see a man grappling with the problems of the bankruptcy of his nation. And come with an eloquent cry that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

But I wouldn't stop there. Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty, and say, ‘If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy.’

Now that's a strange statement to make, because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around. That's a strange statement. But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding--something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya: Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee--the cry is always the same--’We want to be free.’

And another reason that I'm happy to live in this period is that we have been forced to a point where we're going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.

That is where we are today. And also in the human rights revolution, if something isn't done, and in a hurry, to bring the colored peoples of the world out of their long years of poverty, their long years of hurt and neglect, the whole world is doomed. Now, I'm just happy that God has allowed me to live in this period, to see what is unfolding. And I'm happy that he's allowed me to be in Memphis.

I can remember, I can remember when Negroes were just going around as Ralph has said, so often, scratching where they didn't itch, and laughing when they were not tickled. But that day is all over. We mean business now, and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.

And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and in any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And that we don't have to live like we are forced to live.

Now, what does all of this mean in this great period of history? It means that we've got to stay together. We've got to stay together and maintain unity. You know, whenever Pharaoh wanted to prolong the period of slavery in Egypt, he had a favorite, favorite formula for doing it. What was that? He kept the slaves fighting among themselves. But whenever the slaves get together, something happens in Pharaoh's court, and he cannot hold the slaves in slavery. When the slaves get together, that's the beginning of getting out of slavery. Now let us maintain unity.

Secondly, let us keep the issues where they are. The issue is injustice. The issue is the refusal of Memphis to be fair and honest in its dealings with its public servants, who happen to be sanitation workers. Now, we've got to keep attention on that. That's always the problem with a little violence. You know what happened the other day, and the press dealt only with the window-breaking. I read the articles. They very seldom got around to mentioning the fact that one thousand, three hundred sanitation workers were on strike, and that Memphis is not being fair to them, and that Mayor Loeb is in dire need of a doctor. They didn't get around to that.

Now we're going to march again, and we've got to march again, in order to put the issue where it is supposed to be. And force everybody to see that there are thirteen hundred of God's children here suffering, sometimes going hungry, going through dark and dreary nights wondering how this thing is going to come out. That's the issue. And we've got to say to the nation: we know it's coming out. For when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.

We aren't going to let any mace stop us. We are masters in our nonviolent movement in disarming police forces; they don't know what to do. I've seen them so often. I remember in Birmingham, Alabama, when we were in that majestic struggle there we would move out of the 16th Street Baptist Church day after day; by the hundreds we would move out. And Bull Connor would tell them to send the dogs forth and they did come; but we just went before the dogs singing, ‘Ain't gonna let nobody turn me round.’ Bull Connor next would say, ‘Turn the fire hoses on.’ And as I said to you the other night, Bull Connor didn't know history. He knew a kind of physics that somehow didn't relate to the transphysics that we knew about. And that was the fact that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out. And we went before the fire hoses; we had known water. If we were Baptist or some other denomination, we had been immersed. If we were Methodist, and some others, we had been sprinkled, but we knew water.

That couldn't stop us. And we just went on before the dogs and we would look at them; and we'd go on before the water hoses and we would look at it, and we'd just go on singing. ‘Over my head I see freedom in the air.’ And then we would be thrown in the paddy wagons, and sometimes we were stacked in there like sardines in a can. And they would throw us in, and old Bull would say, ‘Take them off,’ and they did; and we would just go in the paddy wagon singing, ‘We Shall Overcome.’ And every now and then we'd get in the jail, and we'd see the jailers looking through the windows being moved by our prayers, and being moved by our words and our songs. And there was a power there which Bull Connor couldn't adjust to; and so we ended up transforming Bull into a steer, and we won our struggle in Birmingham.

Now we've got to go on to Memphis just like that. I call upon you to be with us Monday. Now about injunctions: We have an injunction and we're going into court tomorrow morning to fight this illegal, unconstitutional injunction. All we say to America is, ‘Be true to what you said on paper.’ If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there. But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of the press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right. And so just as I say, we aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.

We need all of you. And you know what's beautiful to me, is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and say, ‘Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.’ Somehow, the preacher must say with Jesus, ‘The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor.’

And I want to commend the preachers, under the leadership of these noble men: James Lawson, one who has been in this struggle for many years; he's been to jail for struggling; but he's still going on, fighting for the rights of his people. Rev. Ralph Jackson, Billy Kiles; I could just go right on down the list, but time will not permit. But I want to thank them all. And I want you to thank them, because so often, preachers aren't concerned about anything but themselves. And I'm always happy to see a relevant ministry.

It's alright to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It's alright to talk about ‘streets flowing with milk and honey,’ but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can't eat three square meals a day. It's alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God's preacher must talk about the New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.

Now the other thing we'll have to do is this: Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people, individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor. Never stop and forget that collectively, that means all of us together, collectively we are richer than all the nation in the world, with the exception of nine.

Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, Soviet Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I could name the others, the Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than thirty billion dollars a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States, and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right there, if we know how to pool it.

We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles, we don't need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, ‘God sent us by here, to say to you that you're not treating his children right. And we've come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda--fair treatment, where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.’

And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy--what is the other bread?--Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart's bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven't been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.

But not only that, we've got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take you money out of the banks downtown and deposit you money in Tri-State Bank--we want a ‘bank-in’ movement in Memphis. So go by the savings and loan association. I'm not asking you something that we don't do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We're just telling you to follow what we're doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an ‘insurance-in.’
Now there are some practical things we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here.

Now, let me say as I move to my conclusion that we've got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end. Nothing would be more tragic than to stop at this point, in Memphis. We've got to see it through. And when we have our march, you need to be there. Be concerned about your brother. You may not be on strike. But either we go up together, or we go down together.

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.

One day a man came to Jesus; and he wanted to raise some questions about some vital matters in life. At points, he wanted to trick Jesus, and show him that he knew a little more than Jesus knew, and through this, throw him off base.

Now that question could have easily ended up in a philosophical and theological debate. But Jesus immediately pulled that question from mid-air, and placed it on a dangerous curve between Jerusalem and Jericho. And he talked about a certain man, who fell among thieves. You remember that a Levite and a priest passed by on the other side. They didn't stop to help him. And finally a man of another race came by. He got down from his beast, decided not to be compassionate by proxy. But with him, administered first aid, and helped the man in need.

Jesus ended up saying, this was the good man, because he had the capacity to project the ‘I’ into the ‘thou,’ and to be concerned about his brother.
Now you know, we use our imagination a great deal to try to determine why the priest and the Levite didn't stop.

At times we say they were busy going to church meetings--an ecclesiastical gathering--and they had to get on down to Jerusalem so they wouldn't be late for their meeting. At other times we would speculate that there was a religious law that ‘One who was engaged in religious ceremonials was not to touch a human body twenty-four hours before the ceremony.’ And every now and then we begin to wonder whether maybe they were not going down to Jerusalem, or down to Jericho, rather to organize a ‘Jericho Road Improvement Association.’ That's a possibility. Maybe they felt that it was better to deal with the problem from the casual root, rather than to get bogged down with an individual effort.

But I'm going to tell you what my imagination tells me. It's possible that these men were afraid. You see, the Jericho road is a dangerous road. I remember when Mrs. King and I were first in Jerusalem. We rented a car and drove from Jerusalem down to Jericho. And as soon as we got on that road, I said to my wife, ‘I can see why Jesus used this as a setting for his parable.’ It's a winding, meandering road. It's really conducive for ambushing. You start out in Jerusalem, which is about 1200 miles, or rather 1200 feet above sea level. And by the time you get down to Jericho, fifteen or twenty minutes later, you're about 2200 feet below sea level. That's a dangerous road. In the day of Jesus it came to be known as the ‘Bloody Pass.’
And you know, it's possible that the priest and the Levite looked over that man on the ground and wondered if the robbers were still around. Or it's possible that they felt that the man on the ground was merely faking. And he was acting like he had been robbed and hurt, in order to seize them over there, lure them there for quick and easy seizure. And so the first question that the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But then the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’.

That's the question before you tonight. Not, ‘If I stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to all of the hours that I usually spend in my office every day and every week as a pastor?’ The question is not, ‘If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?’ ‘If I do no stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?’ That's the question.

Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation. And I want to thank God, once more, for allowing me to be here with you.
You know, several years ago, I was in New York City autographing the first book that I had written. And while sitting there autographing books, a demented black woman came up. The only question I heard from her was, ‘Are you Martin Luther King?’
And I was looking down writing, and I said yes. And the next minute I felt something beating on my chest. Before I knew it I had been stabbed by this demented woman. I was rushed to Harlem Hospital. It was a dark Saturday afternoon. And that blade had gone through, and the X-rays revealed that the tip of the blade was on the edge of my aorta, the main artery. And once that's punctured, you drown in your own blood--that's the end of you.

It came out in the New York Times the next morning, that if I had sneezed, I would have died. Well, about four days later, they allowed me, after the operation, after my chest had been opened, and the blade had been taken out, to move around in the wheel chair in the hospital. They allowed me to read some of the mail that came in, and from all over the states, and the world, kind letters came in. I read a few, but one of them I will never forget. I had received one from the President and the Vice-President. I've forgotten what those telegrams said.

I'd received a visit and a letter from the Governor of New York, but I've forgotten what the letter said. But there was another letter that came from a little girl, a young girl who was a student at the White Plains High School. And I looked at that letter, and I'll never forget it. It said simply, ‘Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the Whites Plains High School.’ She said, ‘While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I'm simply writing you to say that I'm so happy that you didn't sneeze.’

And I want to say tonight, I want to say that I am happy that I didn't sneeze.
Because if I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around here in 1960, when students all over the South started sitting-in at lunch counters. And I knew that as they were sitting in, they were really standing up for the best in the American dream. And taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been around in 1962, when Negroes in Albany, Georgia, decided to straighten their backs up. And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can't ride your back unless it is bent.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been here in 1963, when the black people of Birmingham, Alabama, aroused the conscience of this nation, and brought into being the Civil Rights Bill.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have had a chance later that year, in August, to try to tell America about a dream that I had had. If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been down in Selma, Alabama, to see the great movement there.

If I had sneezed, I wouldn't have been in Memphis to see a community rally around those brothers and sisters who are suffering. I'm so happy that I didn't sneeze.
And they were telling me, now it doesn't matter now. It really doesn't matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, ‘We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we've had the plane protected and guarded all night.’

And then I got into Memphis. And some began to say that threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. "

Right Wingers are insane

What the hell?

Liberal Media

Just Let Dennis Debate.

Oh yeah...

While Hillary and Barack duke it out over race, and Huckleberry is looking to convert the Ten Commandments (King James, please) into the new Bill of Rights, something is happening abroad...

Oh yeah, Bush is selling weapons to the Saudis. That's right: Dumbfuck is still in charge. And the surge still isn't working, because its the occupation everybody feared. Psyche!

Ah, the stakes are clear.

This Week's Republican Scandal

Man I love to see these corrupt Republicans go down in flames all over the front page.
From NYT:
Republican officeholders and party leaders are calling for Mr. Rosenthal, a Republican, to resign after the release of hundreds of his e-mail messages, including love notes to his secretary, racist jokes and videos of men sneaking up to women and tearing their clothes off in public.
He also used the county e-mail account to plan his now-aborted re-election campaign.
Message to Chuck Rosenthal: Next time, use your Yahoo account genius.

Idiots Rule

Is it possible that we have lived through the synergy of repressive and stupid? Is it possible that the kind of paranoid, imperial ambition of these right wingers, who have pretended at omniscence, could be undone by the mere fact that one of these geniuses forgot to pay the fucking phone bill?

See, if you hadn't had such a hard on for de-regulation...

Via Rintrah Roars

Actually, here's further proof: Jonah Goldberg hocking a book called Liberal Fascism. No, no...wait for it, wait for it...

"I'm not saying that today's liberalism is the son of Nazism or the son of Italian fascism. I'm saying it's sort of like the great-grandniece once removed."

???

I Love The 90's: The Empire Strikes Back/Stop Your Sobbin'

Christ, that was quick: That feeling of elation, the giddiness at the possibility of a new dawn is now bathed in a cold cup of coffee.

I suppose the lesson that we can glean from this bitter taste is manifold;

1. New Hampshire Democrats are shit for brains. Thus, the head full of granite state.
2. Never underestimate the power of yuppies with a sense of historical entitlement.
3. Somehow, someway, with the stakes so high and the precipice of something newwithin our grasp, people will always look back to a "golden age," particularly one directed by the by the folks who brought you Designing Women-or, shit is has been so wrong for so long, people want a Bill Clinton by proxy and will nail their own coffin.
4. See 1-3-The Dennis Hopper Tyranny/ I spending my kid's inheritance/rich white sisterhood/"in the sixties, man..."/ "Liberals".

If I sound bitter and pissed off, you would be correct in that. Hillary Clinton is the wrong direction, and for all her boo-hooing about the country going the wrong way, she is the candidate of inertia.

But whatever. We aren't done here. I hope.

Update: "...and I never learned TO READ!!!"

Today's cable news has been nothing more than a chorus of what happened with the polling, and the phony mea culpa of "We screwed up, folks".

What's worse is the suggestion that the people of New Hampshire were exercising some sort of backlash against the media concerning the inevitability of Obama's victory.

I would think this a joke, really, considering that the coronation of Hillary Clinton began the day she set foot in the Senate, and the inevitability of her nomination has been the media narrative for sometime now.

So Hillary quivers the voice, about "America", only to later pulls a Cheney, and tells her throng of lemmings that only she can stop the "terrorists", and we have geniuses like Tweety Matthews who declare her " human," and people say "Stop picking on Hillary! I'll show you!", and vote for her, as if SHE IS THE UNDERDOG?!?!?!?!?! Incidentally, it is this kind of shit that got us in this mess in the first place-"Gosh...I'd have Bush over for a beer and a hamburger"...

Remember, friends, that Big Media are corporate entities, and thus, will have a vested interests in appearing all knowing, all powerful, and construct narratives to suit their own ends. The fact that some in the primary may have actually bought this simulacra of emotion and wrote a subtext that had something to do with Hillary Clinton the eternal feminine America who cares about us all and not about Hillary Clinton, careerists who's ambition was coming unglued speaks volumes about the power of the media narrative. This is the media who were using words like "inevitable" about her not to long ago.

Are we just living a narrative arc? Is the Obama thing not unlike a bizarro world version of Wrestlemania II, with Hillary as Hulk Hogan, and Obama as King Kong Bundy, and Hulk reaches down, Hulks-out, and beats the bad guy again for God and Country, just as all Hope (AR) is lost.

It's one of those moments that, in your heart, you see it coming, and still, you hope it doesn't. I am getting the sinking feeling that, maybe, we are looking at a split here, a 1968 style split. Why not: Dennis Hopper is shilling for capitalists now, so fuck it.

Semiotics can make you crazy...and so, as I said over at Wes's...

"We now return you back to the same old bleak future, already in progress".

Cut Off

Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, anybody who knows me knows that, from time to time, I like to put the sauce away, so I'm not saying anything like that.

However, Christopher Hitchens is "elevating" drunkening ranting to a new level of incoherence . Not as incoherent as his attempt to explain away the Iraq War and his tubthumping for it-no, this is sadder, more pathetic. Imagine if William F. Buckley had a child with Dean Martin's stage persona...

You Son of a Bitch!

Everybody has probably seen this by now, but in case you haven't...Here's O'Reilly at the Obama Rally-misbehaving.

What a bad ass.

Happy Birthday, King.

The Blog as Historical Testimony

This has to be the number one reason that I continue to blog. It is important to bear witness-then and now, for all to read..

via Jim.

Super Duper Tuesday

It occured to me that we should hunker down and watch this somewhere. That is, if we can find somewhere that will let us! Suggestions?

Obamarama!: The fallout

And out come the knives...

First up: The fun loving fuckers at the ironically named Free Republic. You know, the four people who think Fred Thompson is a good candidate.

Second: The Hillary folks and head scratching. Recriminations..."My Divine Right, damn you!"

However, something that has to be lingering around our unconscious is that Old Hand of God America is status quo to its hard hearted core, and, as such, tends to exert its reactionary tendencies by killing everybody who threatens its continued hegenomy. Judging by some of these freaky Freepers, its something we need to remember. Dinosaurs tend to not go quietly.

Defenders of the Faith

The media seem a bit discombobulated about the recent turn of events. This isn't what we scripted. It's amazing: The writers go on strike, and the Hillary narrative goes to shit. Wink Romney's perfect hair is a little ratty, his ambitions are looking unreachable. So we cast ourselves as being the defenders of bipartisan America. Driftglass has a good illustration of some of these the embedded meme in this ideological pose: We are defending America's center against the polarizing ideological extremists. This could have been ripped from Andrew Sullivan's excellent piece on Obama, and how and why he has resonated.: He is a rejection of the binary paradigm of the sixties. The Boomers, as with so much of their inherent selfishness, are not inclined to give up their ideological enemies list, their pet peeves, and we are further burdened with an phony "us and them"-A real Hopper Tyranny. Let it go. Nixon's dead. The Eagles suck.

Can we please move on? Let's rebel against these folks. They are the establishment. They are "the man."

The Good News

Way to go, Hawkeyes.

You didn't believe the hype and let the media annoint Hillary.

Obama wins in Iowa, and gives one hell of a speech in the process. I feel like history maybe in the making.

Update: Nathan tells us true (and with a Bloom County reference to boot!).

"I am at once very pleased and freaked the fuck out right now.

I personally don’t buy the whole 'As Iowa goes, so goes the nation' meme, but assuming I’m wrong tonight’s Iowa caucus results say some mighty interesting things about the state of the union and where it might be going. Obama’s my man, and has been pretty much from the get-go. Although Kucinich far more represents me on the issues, both Dennis and I knew in our heart of hearts that he’s not likely to be president any time this decade. He threw his support behind Barack and so did I. Likely for similar reasons. "

Given the last seven nightmare bizarro world years, its easy to be pensive about the future: Bush has done everything to make sure there is no future. Indeed, he is very much like those idiots who used to hang on Short Vine, who thought that Johnny Rotten's warning/lament about "No Future" was a mission statement. So hope is in short supply, but there is a light over at the Obama-stein place.

Now, I'm not gonna go all gooey yet, especially because there still so many ways for Hillary to fuck this up, but I have to tell you: I woke up today feeling great. Election day 2004 was waiting on a miracle, because this is George Bush we're talking about, and like his father, I won't and didn't trust him as far as I can throw him, and I knew some shit was going to go down and -lo and behold-a terror alert in OHIO?!!?

No, I feel great. Like a new dawn is coming. Really, not just a choice between the lesser of two evils, but like something else is going down.

I'm stoked.

Oh, and Huckleberry can suck it. I don't care how much he likes The Ox.

The Big Lebowski as Political Prophecy

Now this is an interesting take on the Coen bros.

The Caucus: Dogs and Cats, Living Together Edition

This is a little weird, but Kucinich is evidentally backing Obama, and Nader is backing Edwards.

As noted in the C & L post, it's almost counter intuitive: Obama is arguably more center than Kucinich, and Nader, according to some, is the fucking anti christ (a specious argument at best), yet here we are.

This doesn't help me out one bit, except that there are others coming above ground with the assertion that Hillary is a Neo Con in Liberal Clothing.

Update: Including Michael Moore, given his revelations about Hillary's HMO graft. If we can get Hillary to go down in flames, I would be a pretty happy SOB.