In Dubious Battle: The Legacy Campaign

Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
That durst dislike his reign...
His utmost power with adverse power opposed
In dubious battle...
What though the field be lost?
All is not lost---John Milton, Paradise Lost

As Pat Benatar once passionately exclaimed about love----mainly: that it's a battlefield----so too is History. Now, nevermind the administration's public relations-parallel-universe-account of its own contribution to the subject (We've seen a lot of that recently). Just look at these conservatives---at it again, as previously noted, blaming do-gooder government programs for the housing crisis. Incorrigible minds like Charles "The Hammer" Krauthammer and Fred "The Shred" Barnes are pointing at The Community Reinvestment Act, which sought to expand home-ownership to minorities, as part of the reason for the foreclosure crisis. As Media Matters explains using actual, expert opinion:

approximately 80 percent of subprime loans were offered by financial institutions that are not subject to the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions like banks and savings and loans, and also pointed out that lenders subject to the CRA face stricter regulations than do other lenders.

Umm, this is a clear-cut example of what Edwin Glikes, currently-deceased former reactionary publisher at Free Press, told his ex-right-wing hatchetman protégé, David Brock, about "the price of media credibility, of being taken seriously as a journalist": That is, in a nutshell, "to call black 'white,'" and "to deny that [one has] a political agenda." This is the sturdy maxim the administration dutifully appropriated to craft its very very very own ethos of governance. Maybe those at Fox "News" should coordinate, and find common cause with the Bush regime? It's not too late.



Stephen Crane said it best, commenting on newspapers in the much-ignored, "other" section of the poem,"War is Kind":

A newspaper is a collection of half-injustices
Which, bawled by boys from mile to mile
Spreads its curious opinion
To a million merciful and sneering men...
A newspaper is a court
Where every one is kindly and unfairly tried
By a squalor of honest men.
A newspaper is a market
Where wisdom sells its freedom
And melons are crowned by the crowd.
A newspaper is a game
Where his error scores the player victory
While another's skill wins death.
A newspaper is a symbol;
It is feckless life's chronicle,
A collection of loud tales
Concentrating eternal stupidities,
That in remote ages lived unhaltered,
Roaming through a fenceless world.



'Sblood! Would that Barnes' and Krauthammer's voices were like the effervescent "stupidities" of "remote ages," dissipating "through a fenceless world," 'stead of the "concentrating" commodity of vulgar disinformation they so irremediably are today----for all the hapless chaps who know no better!

It's Legacy Time
True to form and right on schedule, the President is taking to the media on his final "Victory Lap." But alas, unlike war, history ain't gonna be so kind. This particular discipline is not the same as a public relations campaign for the Department of Education, where you can just pay columnists to promote your policies to the tune of $240,000. Nor is it a campaign to start, and then maintain, an illegal war, where you can simply "embed" pro-war, conflict-of-interest-ridden "analysts" into the Media Estate. If only The Decider could send a memo directly to all future historians too dispassionate to comprehend his greatness; the regular folk just don't seem to be listening (69.8% disapproval rating). What? They don't appreciate his interview with Charlie Gibson?

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

End Times Countdown - Bush Exit Interviews

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

Now this is clever
Tim DeChristopher deserves some serious activist props here. Not only did he use the gross forum of an auction for lands that should be/really are public against itself, he artificially inflated the price oil companies paid for lands they plan to spoil in the future (Ironic, no? Artificially inflating the prices they pay for something they normally buy cheap---- because it's owned by the public----and then turn around and spoil it in order to sell back a crude product to the public at a ridiculously inflated price). Better yet, by "purchasing" some of the best lands available, he polluted the integrity of the auction to such an extent that it is now forced into postponement until after Obama takes office. Take that, Bush Administration and your last-minute wish list! Nonetheless, Obama does have his work cut out for him.

What a City...

Ahhhh...so beautiful... Even though it may be difficult getting around the city right now (there hasn't been weather like this in Seattle for 10 years), you can walk outside and find snowboarders and sledders shredding it up on Queen Anne hill. Today was our first sunny day in a week, although I'm hoping the snow doesn't let up until my winter vacation starts on Christmas Eve.

Well, looking at the latest administration squabble with the press, it's a good thing politicians don't value irony. In an official statement to the NY Times whining of "gross negligence," they accuse them thusly:

The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view.

If any should be able to recognize that technique, it would be the Bush administration. Aftere all it is standard procedure for this crew. This presidency surpasses all others in the level of contempt and all-out animosity it has demonstrated for the role of the press. Eric Alterman and George Zornick have a four-part series on this here, here, here, and here.

To the bailout of the banks: With Paulson begging for the next $350 billion, it has become clear that Congress wasn't serious about oversight, despite all of their assurances to the contrary: In over 100 hundred pages dealing with oversight in the bailout bill, there is nothing that forces recipients of federal money to report back to the federal government on how they spent the money. Seriously? ANP interviews David Vladeck of Georgetown University about this:

Also, let's keep in mind that out of the 116 banks that have received government funds, $1.6 billion accounted for executive bonuses and payouts to those very people responsible for tanking their companies. All right: Increased productivity doesn't mean higher wages for working people, and hasn't for many years, and yet, the financial class gets away with millions in bonuses----not for stagnant performances, but for actually running their respective institutions into the ground. Incidentally, it's often this breed of saprophytic corporate shill that is most prone to crying "class warfare," that age-old demagogic rhetorical device used by liberals to unfairly bring economic reality to the public mind. And for them, one must be a "Marxist" to have the temerity to even mention economic injustice. Redistribution be damned...

The AP really nails the "thinking" of these "private tyrannies" (as Chomsky labels them). When questioned about what they were doing with the money the taxpayers provided them:

Others, such as Morgan Stanley spokeswoman Carissa Ramirez, offered to discuss the matter with reporters on condition of anonymity. When AP refused, Ramirez sent an e-mail saying: "We are going to decline to comment on your story."

Most banks wouldn't say why they were keeping the details secret.

"We're not sharing any other details. We're just not at this time," said Wendy Walker, a spokeswoman for Dallas-based Comerica Inc., which received $2.25 billion from the government.

Oh boy, this is just too much...From this very minute on: I'm promising myself not to give matters of the economy (such as it is) any attention whatsoever; but instead, my focus shall be the hearty winter ale served at our local pub until the next issue of Harper's comes out with Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes' article, "The $10 trillion hangover: Paying the price for eight years of Bush."

Beer me, please...

Just some quick, funny stuff minus the weather...

Like the greatest Simpsons episode ever, "E Pluribus Wiggum," in which Ralph Wiggum is the write-in candidate after Homer accidently burns down the entire fast food section of town. I love this clip:




Also Czechs buy real estate on the moon. What a deal, only 4047 square meters of moon for 999 kc ($50).

And I was happy to have two consecutive snow days this week, but while I was building a snowman, this happened right near our house:






Also...If you ever wanted to know how Gorbachev would respond to killer zombies attacking beautiful Russian peasant women, the band ANJ has answers:





And finally, The Daily Show does the Best of John McCain; and Tom Tomorrow gets it right as usual.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Best John McCain Moments

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

What Pastor Warren May Portend for War Crimes Accountability

Apropos of the last post, there are Glen Greenwald's comments regarding the recent bipartisan Senate report on detainee abuse and torture that found Rumsfeld et al. culpable ("Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns"). Even McCain signed the thing (although curiously, he "told George Stephanopoulos that it was 'not his job' to opine on whether criminal prosecutions were warranted for the Bush officials whose policies led to these crimes"). Greenwald also cites some concrete examples of detainee "homicides" or "murders" or perhaps just "deaths," if you think this kind of stuff is cool:

Among the services that U.S. taxpayers unwittingly paid for were medieval-like dungeons, including a reviled former brick factory outside of Kabul known as "The Salt Pit." In 2004, a still-unidentified prisoner froze to death there after a young CIA supervisor ordered guards to strip him naked and chain him overnight to the concrete floor. The CIA has never accounted for the death, nor publicly reprimanded the supervisor. Instead, the Agency reportedly promoted him.

Most importantly, the report "directly assigns culpability for these war crimes to the President and his policies." Greenwald highlights its scope:

The executive summary also traces the erosion of detainee treatment standards to a Feb,. 7, 2002, memorandum signed by President George W. Bush stating that the Geneva Convention did not apply to the U.S. war with al Qaeda and that Taliban detainees were not entitled to prisoner of war status or legal protections.

"The president's order closed off application of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which would have afforded minimum standards for humane treatment," the summary said.

Members of Bush's Cabinet and other senior officials participated in meetings inside the White House in 2002 and 2003 where specific interrogation techniques were discussed, according to the report.

The policies which the Senate Armed Services Committee unanimously concludes were authorized by Bush, Rumsfeld and several other top Bush officials did not merely lead to "abuse" and humiliating treatment, but are directly---and unquestionably----responsible for numerous detainee murders.

And that just scratches the surface. He lists just a few cases in the post, but there are more out there in various other human rights reports, and both Jane Mayer's and, I believe, Ron Suskind's books as well. Like the former U.S. General and eponymous author of the Taguba Report said: "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

And voilà (here) Cheney brazenly acknowledges "playing a central role in clearing the CIA's use of an array of controversial interrogation tactics, including a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding": "I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared," he said to ABC News. Carl Levin, on the Rachael Maddow show, responded to this by underscoring the illegality of waterboarding and that the administration wrote legal opinions aiming to essentially rewrite the laws (This "technique" is meticulously covered in The Dark Side):

You can't just suddenly change something that's illegal into something that is legal by having a lawyer write an opinion saying that it's legal. Things can't work that way or else someone could get a lawyer to say a crime is not a crime and then that would be a defense.

Again, no previous presidents, not even during a civil war in which over half a million Americans died, made such grand assertions of arbitrary power as this. Lincoln and Roosevelt, the two most commonly cited examples, exercised temporary emergency powers, but they never drafted legal opinions that ran contrary to any feasible interpretation of the law (Mayer goes into these comparisons, as do other scholars I've blanked on).

Adding to the chorus of whistle-blowers and dissenting voices against the government's "harsh interrogation methods," this courageous former special intelligence officer and interrogator admits that torture was widespread here, and has written a book on how interrogations should be conducted:

Amid the chaos, four other Air Force criminal investigators and I joined an elite team of interrogators attempting to locate Zarqawi. What I soon discovered about our methods astonished me. The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules -- and often break them. I don't have to belabor the point; dozens of newspaper articles and books have been written about the misconduct that resulted. These interrogations were based on fear and control; they often resulted in torture and abuse.

Notwithstanding the many well-known tactical and ethical reasons to be against torture, this former interrogator provides more direct, experiential evidence as a professional in the field. He also makes the striking pronouncement that torturing our enemies directly leads to more American deaths:

It's no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse. The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me ---unless you don't count American soldiers as Americans.

There really is too much pussy-footing around on this issue, when it should be quite clear: In order to protect the Constitution, and restore international confidence that we are a nation of laws and not men, there must be justice on this issue. However, there will be the apologists, obfuscators, and dissemblers for various reasons; and----shock!----it's not surprising that Democrats would find prosecution for war crimes inconvenient: Some of their own, like Nancy Pelosi, were informed about these programs and are complicit in these abuses. So it is time to acknowledge the "weapons" they will use to prevent prosecution, and thereby the general notion of accountability in republican government as well:

The weapons used to prevent such accountability are quite familiar and will still be potent. Those who demand accountability will be derided as past-obsessed partisans who want to impede all the Glorious, Transcendent Gifts about to be bestowed on us by our new leaders. The manipulative claim will be endlessly advanced that our problems are too grand and pressing to permit the luxury of living under the rule of law. When all else fails in the stonewalling arsenal, impotent "fact-finding" commissions will be proposed to placate the demand for accountability but which will, in fact, be designed and empowered to achieve only one goal: to render actual prosecutions impossible.

Because most thinking people who pay attention to this issue and have respect for the facts know that culpability lies with the chain of command, Greenwald lays down our options:

(1) treat these crimes as the serious war crimes they are by having a Prosecutor investigate and, if warranted, prosecute them, or (2) openly acknowledge----to ourselves and the world----that we believe that our leaders are literally entitled to commit war crimes at will, and that we----but not the rest of the world----should be exempt from the consequences.

Odds are we'll be proceeding with #2, Republican administration or not (unless we all heed advice from the great Network newcaster and let 'em all know we're mad as hell!)

Oh My Lord, Rick Warren?
The selection of Pastor Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation is truly despicable and utterly offensive. Obama's penchant for the symbolic is quickly becoming distressing. Why not just make a new position for Pastor Douche? Morality and Science Czar, anyone? Here's his thoughts on how "homosexuality disproves evolution" (Kill two birds with one stone, right?):

If Darwin was right, which is survival of the fittest, then homosexuality would be a recessive gene because it doesn't reproduce and you would think that over thousands of years that homosexuality would work itself out of the gene pool.

Brilliant! It reminds me of a snapshot taken in rural Illinois that my scientist soon-to-be-brother-in-law posted on his refrigerator for laughs: A church bulletin board reading, "If man evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" Holy shit! That kind of logic is unimpeachable (if you don't understand, nor ever read actual science books about evolution)! I do agree with Warren on one point though: That it is only "tone" that distinguishes him from James Dobson. Good work, Barack!

Out of all the pastors to choose from, he "shrewdly" (cynically) chose one who comes from a church that deserves to be taxed for its political advocacy, particularly against two huge constituencies of Obama's, the pro-choice and gay rights movements. Frankly, I'm sick to soul-excruciating death of genuflections to the evangelical right; I thought we voted against them this last election. Maybe we should have Douglas Feith for White House Legal Counsel, and David Frum to write all of the President Elect's speeches? The Axis of Change, perhaps?

According to this Warren asshole, you're a "Marxist" if you're more interested in "good works than salvation." That means doctrinally that Catholics are the evil Marxist boogie-men so commonly alluded to by conservatives as of late. In addition, this man considers pro-choicers "Holocaust deniers," homosexual marriages equal to incest, child rape, and polygamy (although Mr. Morality does admit he has "many gay friends...So they can't accuse me of homophobia"); and lastly, Pastor Douche maintains that stopping evil “is the legitimate role of government" because the "Bible says that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers.” In that same interview with Sean Hannity, he agreed that "we need to take him [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] out.” That's as bad as holy-christer, Pat Robertson, who, on live TV, famously advocated assassinating Hugo Chavez.

How's that for the symbolism of unity, and the new visage of global cooperation? If Obama will make gross gestures like this in the name of supposed bipartisanship, what are the chances he'll hold anyone accountable for actual war crimes and other constitutional violations? Gross, gross, gross...

So long and thanks for all the shoes...
It's just too much to see the uber-grateful Iraqi journalist greet the great Liberator, W., with a gesture that translates roughly to: "Good-riddance, so long, and thanks for all the competent nation-building and internecine war." Even though this is no doubt on every TV screen, I'd personally like to pay homage to the poor ole' Iraqi journalist who clearly doesn't "get" freedom, and evidently, the polite and obsequious ethics of reportage. They've got a lot to learn about democracy, apparently. Hopefully, it's not our press corps that teaches them.





Why all the hate?

Continuing on the Bush legacy, there are three "first rough drafts of history" (below) that one must become familiar with in order to begin comprehending just how radical this administration's break with the "rule of law" actually is, notwithstanding the so-called "war-time considerations" argument (i.e.-In a time of war strong measures have been taken in the past, and must be taken now too). Sadly, no one will most likely be held accountable for any of this because many, by their inaction, appear to accept the notion that constitutional democracy is not antithetical to the "prerogative" of the Executive to "protect"---- read: extend----it's own power. Others feel more sympathy for incoming Presidents who don't enforce the law on their predecessors out of fear of the imminent retribution they might suffer when their administration leaves office, or the relatively trivial, inconvenient "stress" it may cause our democracy----or, frankly, some feel that their Prez or team should receive a Free Get Out of Jail Card too when it comes their turn: a sad cycle of impunity.

This is a shame because even high school Civics students understand that once government, namely the Executive since the beginning of the imperial 20th Century, oversteps its authority without meeting any legal sanctions or penalties, we are then left with, at best, the benevolent discretion of a de-facto king regarding the constitution and the conduct of the state (This is only slight hyperbole, and only if one doesn't take the assertions of the "unitary executive" at face---or any other---value). Why even teach students about Paine and Jefferson at all if checking Executive power is just a theoretical exercise we go through as teenagers in order to be nostalgic about our revolutionary republican past? We lie to them if we tell them it's supposed to be relevant today and then choose political expediency over justice.

Hopefully, Obama holds true to his promise to at least re-evaluate the legal "interpretations" (They actually legislated from Cheney's office, to the amazement of the NSA, CIA, and FBI) and executive orders of the Bush administration's, David Addington-led Office of Legal Council that unilaterally, and arbitrarily rescinded 60 years of international humanitarian law to which the U.S. is CONSTITUTIONALLY BOUND. Ironically, the U.S. was the main author of the very laws it has chosen to render "quaint." But really, if a government can't----for reasons of political expediency (among other comparatively trivial excuses)----or won't hold those who violate the Constitution accountable, which would mean we are relegated to, at best, our future presidents' mere "enlightened" consideration or highly subjective understanding of the Constitution----then liberal (constitutional) democracy ceases (by definition) to exist here. Being honest about this is the first step in redressing any prior or stemming any future transgressions. The gentleman's club of incoming President's excusing or ignoring their predecessors' crimes damages the integrity and purpose of our laws. Obama must be radical enough to bring the culprits to justice. Deep breath...don't hold...exhale...Oh yeah, "first rough drafts of history":

1. Angler, by Barton Gellman


2. Torturing Democracy


3. The Dark Side: How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals, Jane Mayer

Mayer's book really is not only revelatory (to the point that it is hard to admit that this is our American government), but it is the solid foundation from which future historians will be building. More of her work is here, here, and here (I recommend her Afterwards C-Span interview even if you read the book).

From The Center for Media and Democracy

Meanwhile, Public Relations Watch presents the Falsie Awards, which go to "those responsible for polluting the information environment over the past year." Search the site for its section on corporate spying! Hooray!!! It, along with the many others, are a testament to how well the Fourth Estate has been serving this country. Where are my shoes?

"Message Force Multipliers" and a "Shadow Government"

Just a couple interesting stories that shouldn't be missed...
Remember when the Defense Department unleashed its technocratically-dubbed "message force multipliers" and "surrogates" onto the conflict-of-interest-ridden corporate media right before the invasion of a sovereign nation so that it could have "information domination" on the public (though privately-run) airwaves? You know, those former military officers who were deployed as "military analysts" in the battlefield of public relations and had financial ties to companies that would profit tremendously from such an invasion and occupation (Interestingly, some still mistake it for a "war.")? Remember these"surrogates" and "message force multipliers" that invaded our tvs as part of a concerted DOD strategy to essentially sell their military-industrial wares and a "war" against the "imminent threat" posed by Iraq?

Victoria Clarke
Col. Ken Allard
Lt. General Tom McInerney
Maj. General Bob Scales
General Montgomery Meigs
Maj. General Don Sheppard
General Joe Ralston
Col. Jeff McCausland
General Barry McCaffrey
Lt. General Tim Eads
Maj. Bob Bevelacqua
Lt. Colonel Bill Cowan
Captain Chuck Nash
Brig. General James Marks
General William Nash
General Richard Myers
General Peter Pace
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Probably not, unless you followed the story in spite of the near MSM blackout. The issue was first raised by The Nation back in '03, but the corporate media predictably, and self-servingly, refused to discuss their reliance on these "surrogates," and have even shown outright contempt for journalists who have investigated this illegal, domestic program of government propaganda and psy-ops.

The Times' David Barstow published a piece last April exposing the depth of the Pentagon program, and followed up again on the story this last week, but NBC is still not addressing it. Apparently, NBC---the daughter of the well-known arms manufacturer, General Electric----and Brian Williams don't think it's important to inform their audience that their "military analyst," Gen. Barry McCaffrey, has a consulting contract with the military contractor, Defense Solutions, before they allow him to opine on the needs and selfish desires of our perpetual "war on terror." For example, we learn pertinent facts like this:

General McCaffrey criticized a Pentagon plan to supply Iraq with several hundred armored vehicles made in the United States by a competitor of Defense Solutions.

So, this is journalistically acceptable? Williams says it's fine (on his freeekin' blog, of course, because the network itself has said NOTHING), there needn't be full disclosure for the people to make up their own minds because these "analysts" are "passionate patriots" and "honest brokers." Glenn Greenwald is following this story closely and has updates like this one: "NBC and McCaffrey's coordinated responses to the NYT story." Read the culprits' emails to each other first hand.

Who Advocates a "Shadow Government"?

And here, Jeb Bush advises the G.O.P to form a "shadow government." Of course, there's no "vast right-wing conspiracy." (On this topic, David Brock, the former right-wing hatchet man, has a juicy, revelatory book called Blinded by the Right that sheds some light on the well-funded infrastructure of institutions, papers, journals, and organizations to which J. Bush is alluding. Read all about their idiosyncratic, "paranoid style"! I hope to write some highlights from this book in the future, but not until I reboot my brain after all the hard work pretending to study for the GRE.)

A Single Fact and The Great Lie

Welcome to the Machine
I'm waiting for the machines to take over, really, and for the robots to be standing over our dead human asses, explaining in a monotone that their "programming determined that the most efficient answer was to shut [our] motherfucking systems down." How to really get our brains around what I heard on NPR a few weeks back...

The symbolism of this one fact perplexes me in exponential ways that only a supercomputer could calculate apparently: MIT physicists are responsible for creating the 14 year-old, "dark matter"-wealth-creating, financial instrument par excellence that sunk our economy (with the assistance of stupid, greedy, and credulous politicians): Namely----the credit default swap (CDS).

That physicists are toying now with our economy in addition to designing literal weapons of mass destruction should make us stop and admire the wonderfully self-spawned complexities we see all around us. How little we understand the power and force we unleash, not The Virgin and The Dynamo, but The Ignorance and The Financial Instruments. This should sound like the beginning of a dumb science-fiction plot, heavily laden with allegory----the sages of the material universe applying their labors and wisdom to the laws of men and the social sciences in hopes of a more prosperous society. It should only be limited to that cliche kind of awesomeness we get from that (mostly) escapist genre of entertainment. Yet, all in one, these CDSs----abstractions----are instrument, scheme, metaphor, and artifice, weighted down with various dire social consequences simply because they were foolishly injected into reality. Where the hell can we escape to when The Masters of the Universe impose their economic metaphors on the whole system? It makes paranoid geniuses like this guy sound entirely reasonable (in a descriptive, not prescriptive way):

But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. ... Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.

The Humans Are Dead! For god's sake, this is-----THEODORE KACZINSKI!----quoted in the amusing op-ed, "The Rise of the Machines." Help...If anyone can explain the poignancy of physicists intruding into our flippin' economics, I can definitely use some serious counseling on what apparently is manifesting as a nightmarishly full-blooded, living metaphor.

A Tenuous Speculation
As V. will teach us, metaphor "cloaks that innate mindlessness" "so that the 'practical' half of humanity may continue in the Great Lie," lessening the impression that we're "alone with the task of living in a universe of things which simply are." That is the sad reality that our hapless postmodern poets protect us from. If physicists continue their brilliant metaphorical contributions to our economy, people will be forced to meet life-nullifying truths. These might be on par with losing all the equity in one's house, facing foreclosure, loss of work and retirement savings for the narrow class interests of the lazy and avaricious. No one wants to succumb to those kinds of delusions and economic circumstances, do they? Leave the heavy lifting to the poets; let them discover the right metaphors for us to be culled into living so that our economy will function properly. We've seen what the credit default swap metaphor/artifice has done for the proper redistribution of wealth.

If the "practical half" begin connecting the viral CDS metaphor to this broader, integral Great Lie, we're fucked because in V., as in life, the only useful purpose poets serve (to "cloak" that "innate" and inanimate "mindlessness") goes down the tubes; and then "society would live no longer than the quick memories and dead books of their poetry." These frackin' dorks from the 4th dimension have threatened the utilitarian necessity of our Great Lie: that our "machines, dwellings, streets, and weather share the same human motives, personal traits and fits of contrariness" as we do. How to live without this Lie where people are deceived into believing that our economic circumstances and realities function as laws of nature, sometimes a storm, other times prudent investments in our collective success, but always as scientific as the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? If we disabused ourselves of these kindly falsehoods, modern conservative economic and political philosophy would be dooooooooomed, their metaphor exposed as mere contrivance.

01010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101010101...
Either way, deception or not, I'm thinking Henry Adams' Education was right----we don't have the right kinds of knowledge for the forces we've unleashed in the 20th Century----entropy, entropy, entropy we go! So in that case, it's more the grim phoenix of Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow than any "rationality of the market," or even universe for that matter.

The Banks Were Too Generous to Minorities Great Lie
What is great is that conservatives are pushing this line that it's mainly the sub-prime mortgage housing crisis to blame for all our economic woes, when it is only an infinitesimal part of it. They bring all the old canards to the table, but the most notable and insidious: That the government went too gushy for minorities and the poor (for them they're synonymous) in the 90's because of their liberal, do-gooder philosophy that forced banks to loan to people who couldn't pay. Matt Taibbi schooled Byron York on this a month ago; and yet the media still offer it as credible. (The latter embarrassingly cuts it short during the live on-line discussion because Taibbi demonstrates that York doesn't understand anything about CDS or derivatives, but "he sure knows what a minority homeowner looks like.")

Funny how conservatives these days also don't seem to acknowledge the motivation of banks wanting to "get their credit risk off their books and into non-financial institutions like insurance companies and pension funds." This from a Newsweek piece on credit default swaps that also pointed out that CDSs created a $62 trillion dollar market----"nearly four times the value of all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange"-----wealth that is not well understood (by even the "professionals"), not government regulated, and oh yeah----nothing fuckin' backs it! "Since credit default swaps are privately negotiated contracts between two parties and aren't regulated by the government, there's no central reporting mechanism to determine their value."

So when conservatives, like York and the MSM, push the Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac narrative, Taibbi reminds them:

What we're talking about here is the difference between one homeowner defaulting and forty, four hundred, four thousand traders betting back and forth on the viability of his loan. Which do you think has a bigger effect on the economy?

Not to mention the fact that since McCain's ex-economic advisor, Phil "Mental Recession, Nation of Whiners" Gramm got his pet project, the Commodities Future Modernization Act passed in 2000, CDSs went from $100 billion, to $6.4 trillion in '04, up to the unfathomable $62 trillion in '08. Again, Taibbi argues:

...these massive companies [Fannie, Freddie, AIG] aren't going under because of individual homeowner defaults. They're going under because of the myriad derivatives trades that go on in connection with each piece of debt, whether it be a homeowner loan or a corporate bond.

Conservative motives are brazenly obvious. But what about those fracked up physicists? Maybe its the relative value of the dollar to the speed at which its propelled around the earth cyber-optically that attracts their misplaced attention. Shouldn't they be dorking out on "string theories" and "Battlestar Gallactica"? "If we know its speed, we can't know its location; if we know its location...watch out Commander Adama!"----So says "The Rise of the Machines":

Making money, it seems, is all about the velocity of moving it around, so that it can exist in Hong Kong one moment and Wall Street a split second later. “The unlimited replication of information is generally a public good,” George Dyson writes. “The problem starts, as the current crisis demonstrates, when unregulated replication is applied to money itself. Highly complex computer-generated financial instruments (known as derivatives) are being produced, not from natural factors of production or other goods, but purely from other financial instruments.”

Wealth created by instruments not in any way connected to the "natural factors of production or other goods"----otherwise known as reality. These financial instruments represent something real in the sense that they may be possible academically, but injecting them into economic relations that signify, not a thought experiment, but peoples' survival and livelihoods smacks of a war against objective reality best suited to postmodernists (whose valuable services don't reconfigure material existence, but consciousness). These financial instruments, being like metaphors to our postmodern poets, have "no value apart from [their] function...a device, an artifice... cloaking that innate mindlessness." Better to see it as "emptiness" instead; there's more hope in that.
___________
My friend, Milan, sent the funniest and smartest explanation of the logic of Wall Street and the crisis we see today, this BBC clip.

And Truthdig's financial crisis timeline project, here.

And lastly, the poor guy who predicted the crisis, and got derided for it, over and over, at the time. The prophetic Ben Stein and Fox News' "expert" advice: "The financials are great, invest in Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual."

Celebrating Obama

After eight years of a "Decider" who's managed to simultaneously lower the expectations of the presidency while expanding its prerogative to violate the "rule of law" (ingenious really!), and more importantly----the sanctity of the English language itself,* Bush the Younger couldn't have been wished out of office any sooner if he'd congratulated Obama by abdicating his debased throne on the spot.

Personally, there's a lot here to celebrate, especially considering the amount of feigned impartiality I had to exhibit with every, single, student I have (They'd look at me like, "Come on, it's Obama, right?" Torture!). But in understanding my own reaction to that fantastic night, I feel conflicted.

Fifty-one percent (a slight majority) of the reason I found my maudlin self tearing up during Obama's victory speech had more to do with the cathartic purging of a mixed sense of collective embarrassment, shame, and guilt (though I voted against W twice), than a beneficent solidarity with African-Americans on this momentous occasion of electing a veritable product of the Civil Rights movements' (yeah, plural) hard-fought (and continuing) struggle. Indeed, the new President is perfectly fluent in his only language, and won't speak to the nation as if he were reading My Pet Goat aloud to a room full of impressionable children. But maybe it was watching enlightened, and racially-sensitive "analyst"/commentators like Pat Buchanan**preface ad nauseum everything they said with, "Senator Obama's victory is truly a landmark event, but...," that threw a bit of color into my perspective lenses and tipped the scales of my emotional register.

Maybe, like the chimerical temptation to cleanse ourselves of Bush's sins (verbal, legal, ethical), there is something vainly self-congratulatory in white Americans, and especially the So-Called-(Though-Not-So)-Liberal-Media, overly pronouncing just how truly special an occasion the election of Barack Obama is: a moment where many older whites, my parents included, shed tears. Everywhere we heard, and still do, the implicit refrain, "All right, no prolonged contrition necessary, the long dark period has ended, we're gonna turn the page, and give ourselves a lot of credit for acknowledging the obvious and inevitable." (In Bush's case, the 22nd Amendment; in Obama's: that a charismatic, intelligent, and meritorious person, who happens to be black, would one day achieve the highest office). Like Bush leaving said office, it is better late than never, though let's not blow too much smoke up our collective asses just yet, I guess...though I'm not entirely sure...

So here's Alice Walker, who is the most eloquent on this salient moment in our history. Her open letter to the President Elect:

Nov. 5, 2008

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,

Alice Walker

Little did I know that not a week later, I would discover that I shouldn't have voted for Obama. Yes, according to the politically astute Rush Limbaugh and Co., the Prez Elect has caused----and is causing----the economic recession we're experiencing this very minute. My fiance, with "executive experience" running an international school abroad and an M.A. to boot, who's now relegated to working at a grocery store for near minimum wage, might also want to re-think her vote too, I guess. But where does such audacious and trenchant analysis come from, and who would believe it? I believe Chris Hedges has an article that convincingly articulates the wider phenomenon that really explains the kinds of people who would swallow this kind of stinky excrement (You don't have to teach Language Arts and deal with it daily to see his point).

Finally...During last week's excitement, a friend and former colleague of mine succinctly summed it all up after refuting, point by point, the basic G.O.P. party-line as argued by a tragically mis/under-informed friend:

As a citizen of this great country I am happy to see in the White House:

1) An intelligent and reasonable man.
2) A great speaker who can inspire us.
3) A man who is not afraid to lead.
4) A man that surrounds himself with capable people.
5) A man that is not so afraid of the other side that he won't even listen to them.
6) A man that understands the gravity of the situation we are currently in.
7) A man that makes energy policy his first priority.
8) A man that believes in each and every one of us.
9) A man that understands how important education is to our future.
10) A man that respects the Constitution of then United States of America.

I feel that George W. Bush lacked every single one of these qualities. That is why he is a failure as a President, and that is why we find ourselves in this crisis.

I feel that Barack Obama possesses each and every one of these qualities. That is why I voted for him. That is why I support him as President.

Apparently the majority of Americans out there agree with me and thank God for it.

Amen.

*Note: The abuse of language from this administration in particular is so severe that (re-)reading Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" in order to take a proper measurement of it is advised:

All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer...if a thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought...one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language...Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

Let's make sure we limit the recycling of this particularly noxious kind of wind.

**Note Dva: One of my favorites from the many classic Buchananisms on race, a relatively recent article of his, "Obama's Cure: Same Old Con":

Barack's prognosis and Barack's cure [to heal racism and discrimination]...is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, "everybody but the rioters themselves"...

Also:

America has been the best country on Earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation [thank god, to die a savage would be unconscionable], and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known...

Please continue Pat:

...no people anywhere have done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the black community into the mainstream.

And the clincher:

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude? Barack talks about new "ladders of opportunity" for blacks. Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for "deserving" white kids.

PBS's Torturing Democracy

Two important documentaries that should not be missed this weekend: Torturing Democracy and Soldiers of Conscience. If there's only time for one, Torturing is much more pressing, and brilliantly done (Journalistically impeccable, it was produced by the National Security Archive). It's amazing that in a video like this, which illustrates, definitively, that torture as an official policy was instituted by high-ranking members of the Bush Administration, Reagan Era foreign policy machinators like Richard Armitage are some of the good guys. It's equally amazing that if the supposed "War on Terror" is really about finding actionable intelligence that the government might use to prevent further attacks, this in-depth documentary becomes even more frightening.



Yes, it is getting harder to believe that the goal really is purely about intelligence-gathering, considering that specialists dispassionately agree that torture yields no dependable, actionable intelligence whatsoever (In fact, it's generous to only say it impedes intelligence efforts, notwithstanding the loss of moral leadership and suasion, international cooperation, founding principles, etc.). However, from our current political dystopic* reality we have learned that a few scalps are needed from time-to-time for short-term, politically expedient reasons. The long-term aim and effect of this is perpetuating the arbitrary, secretive and unaccountable power for power's sake ethos that has become standard operating procedure for the purveyors of the unitary executive. Be afraid, be very afraid, indeed.



As a long aside: There was what appears to be an attempt to bury the documentary's airing until the day after Bush leaves office. Democrats like Sen Jay Rockefeller and others of "The Gang of Eight"-----Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, etc.----have a lot to be embarrassed about as well, since they acquiesced to these "enhanced" methods. But Rockefeller, in particular, appears highly suspect in blocking the documentary from airing at PBS's Washington affiliate, WETA, in notable contradistinction to 65% of other affiliates, and every other major market like New York and L.A. Why, keeping in mind they approached PBS over a year ago with this documentary? From the Daily Beast:

The program manager for WETA also told the producers that the station simply had “no free time" until early next year [“no time slot could be found for the documentary before January 21, 2009”—the day after Bush leaves office]. It’s worth noting that WETA’s CEO is Sharon Percy Rockefeller. She is the daughter of one senator and the wife of another—Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Jay Rockefeller. While neither Rockefeller nor Congressional oversight play any role in the documentary, there can be little doubt but that it raises painful questions for him. As public demands for accountability over torture policy rise, both Administration critics and defenders point to the role of the “Gang of Eight”—of which Rockefeller was one of the most prominent members. According to the Administration, they were briefed in detail about torture policies and acquiesced. Rockefeller handwrote a letter of protest after one briefing concerning the Administration’s broad-based surveillance program and locked a copy in his safe—but there is no suggestion he did anything comparable when torture was the issue. If the next Administration opts to fully air the dark secrets surrounding the Bush Administration torture policies—as many now anticipate—Rockefeller may well have reason to be concerned about what will come out.

In addition, documents only alluded to by Jane Meyer of New Yorker Magazine in her ground-breaking book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, are laid out for us in this indicting documentary.



The politicization of PBS is nothing new, like last year when the administration "proposed to cut it 50% for 2009, 56% for 2010" and "eliminate public funding for PBS altogether in 2011" in response to the rather even-handed program, Bush's War. But, if one is interested more in this latest manifestation of government politicization of the public airwaves, international human rights lawyer and writer, Scott Horton, is interviewed about it here.



*The first use of the word "dystopia" as John Stuart Mill meant it when addressing Parliament in 1863 is more apt for our current dilemma than a mere Huxley or Orwellian antonym for "utopia." About Utopians, he said:

It is, perhaps, too complimentary to call them Utopians, they ought rather to be called dystopians, or caco-topians. What is commonly called Utopian is something too good to be practicable; but what they appear to favor is too bad to be practicable.

That what our leadership appears "to favor is too bad to be practicable" is at this point a possibly fatal understatement.



Update: Here WETA caves.

ACORN soiling "the fabric of democracy"?

ACORN "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."----John McCain

The attack on ACORN is obviously part of the GOP's strategy to create cover for removing voters from the rolls again, like in '00 and '04. The topic is huge and deserves a lot of attention, but first just a couple quick facts on the latest Republican ploy that many conscious Americans are still missing from the mainstream media's coverage:

1) By law ACORN has to turn in a list of ALL new registrants for obvious reasons. They cannot arbitrarily remove names, only report those they think suspicious to election officials.

2) They themselves have alerted election officials about questionable people on their lists.

3) There is not a single case of these "Mickey Mouse" registrants coming to the polls and committing voter fraud. The difference between voter registration lists and actual voter fraud is lost upon the well-paid can't-think-their-way-out-of- a-paper-bag punditocracy.

Eric Alterman and George Zornick have an excellent piece that links to the important work the Brennan Center has done on the issue. There are some very frightening figures on recent voter purges that were not just arbitrary, but secret as well. Also, Mark Crispin Miller has really nailed down this complex, and well organized effort. His Bill Moyers interview is a must see, but he really gets to the nuts and bolts of modern day election rigging, voter purging, and all out disfranchisement on Bob McChesney's Media Matters.

And let's not forget the connection between the U.S. Attorney scandal and the conservative voter fraud agenda. Interestingly, the GOP recently made very publicized allegations that 28 people voted illegally in the New Mexico Democratic primary. ACORN disputed the allegations, and then so did election officials. So Republicans tried to change the subject, even refusing to address these previous allegations when asked. The point isn't about proving any such fraud: It's how the allegations themselves can play into their media strategy, knowing fully well that media "objectivity" will demand two versions of the "truth," plenty of misinformation, and confusion amongst the electorate.

This is all good and well for those devoted to democratic authoritarianism, but much like McCain's desperate and reckless Obama-is-a-terrorist rhetoric, it is causing some easily predictable responses. Are threats on peoples' lives and vandalism surprising when you claim that a terrorist sympathizer running for the office of the president is in league with an organization that "is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country," and "maybe destroying the fabric of democracy"? Why might the people in these interviews respond to a possible Obama presidency thusly: "the black[s] will take over"; "he's not a christian"; "When you got a nigger running for president, he ain't a first stringer"; "he must support terrorists," etc. etc? It couldn't be tactics like those the GOP in Virginia is carrying out to a whole new standard of imbecilic nefariousness.

Note to the McCain camp: Why are deployed military troops giving money to Obama 4 to 1 over John McShame? Aren't they part of the "real-America"?

To My Fellow Prisoners...

Licence they mean when they cry Liberty.---John Milton

Most people believe that when McCain referred to those in his audience as "my fellow prisoners" it was a gaffe. I disagree. Seeing that the McCain campaign said he made no mistake in implicitly questioning Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain's commitment to "human rights, democracy, and freedom"(He wasn't confused; he meant that!), I can imagine how they might explain the prisoner comment should they be so pressed...



They might say something like...
The senator here is only expressing his profound philosophical respect and preference for the concept of "positive liberty"(the possibility of acting — or the fact of acting — in such a way as to take control of one's life and realize one's fundamental purposes") over "negative liberty" ("the absence of obstacles, barriers or constraints").

Yes, it is true----like most perspicacious conservatives obsessively observe, with their indefatigable employment of the words "freedom" and "liberty"* and constant elucidation of the subtle definitions and fine distinctions inherent in such highly elusive American concepts: It's true that we are not bound in chains, we do not practice "chattel slavery," nor exploit child labor (in the U.S. at least), nor any longer condone the king's prima nocta right of "christening" our bedchambers on our wedding night by deflowering our new brides, etc. etc.

McCain was simply taking a philosophical maverickian stance against his own party's adherence to this "negative liberty" understanding (i.e.---big gov, taxes, educated elitists in the way). By putting us all in a metaphorical prison of sorts, he was implicitly drawing attention to the collective dearth of our rights to self-determination, self-mastery, and self-realization, within the iniquitous circumstances of our meager and debilitating economic means and relations, the interminable struggle to reclaim our time, space, and personal autonomy from the social and economic norms imposed upon us by institutions unresponsive to political democracy.

*In Bush's Second Inaugural he used the words "freedom, free, and liberty" no less than 49 times.

The Inner Hierarchy of the Metaphorical Prison

Since McCain has suggested that we are all not unlike mere prisoners on an allegorical island of theatrical deceit and coercion, this detailed list of its hierarchy of command has come to light:


Who Is...

#1. Unknown. Maybe Big Oil. Maybe the shadowy consortium of the Federalist and John Birch Societies? Or possibly The Prisoner Appreciation Society?

#2. The GOP

#3. Karl Rove (too ugly to picture)

#4. Current occupant un-newsworthy until he steps down, but John McCain and Sarah Palin both aspire to this position (undeserving of picture).

#5. Chuck Norris (too intelligent to picture here)

#6. Patrick McGoohan (and metaphorically, ALL OF US!)

Liberty and Licence
Remembering one of the most important of Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, freedom from fear (today, an unpopular notion for McCain crowds that boo at "not having to be scared"), we have this recent admission by the Maryland Police Department to consider:

new details have been released on the state police spying on peace groups and anti death penalty activists. In July, Maryland was forced to admit its agents infiltrated meetings and events of the Baltimore Pledge of Resistance and the Baltimore Coalition Against the Death Penalty. On Tuesday, Maryland’s top police chief admitted fifty-three nonviolent activists, as well as several protest groups, were classified as terrorists and entered onto a federal database that tracks terrorism suspects. Activists are now being invited to review their files before they are deleted.

This, of course, isn't just an isolated incident. Here are just a few examples here, here, here, and here. Not to mention corporate and inter-advocacy group spying. I don't know, maybe a fifth freedom is in order: freedom from infiltration into our personal and civic lives?

Modern day surveillance coupled with the restrictions on the right to demonstrate by designating "zones" for protest away from the actual event itself gives new poignancy to Milton's notion that we can confuse permission and also permissiveness ("licence") with actual liberty:

...hogs/That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,

And still revolt when Truth would set them free.

Licence they mean when they cry Liberty;

"They," the numbered hierarchy on our island of coercion and oppression, along with their enablers, appear to see it this way: The "hogs," by demanding liberty, are actually demanding permissiveness, which is just another word for anarchy and immorality. Well, we've seen a lot recently of how "They" impose order; and it ain't pretty.

Remember this gem from Mike Van Winkle California Anti-Terrorism Information Center (CATIC)?

You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that's being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that [protest]. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act.

Those Are My Dogs

Favorite Quote of the Day:

"I know them well and I can assure you that no pit bull, no dog, nor any other animal for that matter is as dangerous as you are."

Can't guess who wrote that, and to whom? One of the most beautiful women to have ever lived, Brigitte Bardot, to the self-proclaimed lipstick-wearing pit-bull, Sarah Palin. Her movies have long been on my queue, but now her entire filmography I'll digest with even more relish. "You are a disgrace to women" she attacked. Bardot must hate feminism.

However, I disagree with Bardot's point that Palin shouldn't compare herself to a dog though (As a man, it's fair for me to agree with her apt description of herself as a feisty breed of dog so long as I don't agree that she is a female dog). Anyways, they're salivating for Obama over there. Rile up the rabble and get out your knives.

Stuff that is so important to the election that McCain Won't Say it to Obama's Face

Notwithstanding the funding-for-kindergarten-sexual-instruction assertion, here's Palin commenting on Obama's link to domestic terrorism: "an association that has been known but hasn't been talked about...it’s fair to talk about where Barack Obama kicked off his political career, in the guy's living room.”

Then there is the guilt by association we see here, which is no less than McCarthyite, if not subtextually Stalinist----so much so that his supporters start shouting "terrorist" at the rallies (McCain hears them and looks uncomfortable, but he still continues saying it over and over. What doggedness!). Yeah McCain, "Who is the REAL Barack Obama?" As a result of this modern day version of red-baiting, the secret service is investigating the case, and a number of others.

Finally, here is an awesomely deplorable introduction at a McCain rally where Obama is repeatedly referred to as Barack HUSSEIN Obama and called a socialist (And its no aberration)!



TPM puts it all together for us:



That's the really civilized campaign over in McVanityland. Keep stoking that fire, you pit-bulls.

In the spirit of the debate tonight

In the spirit of the debate tonight, I almost forgot what we're leavin' behind. Or are we? McCain/Palin could be just as...





Try and imagine McCain's political protege in the "town hall meeting" format trying to read her notes to the audience (Watch her read below). If you think McCain was ridiculous tonight, just imagine the train wreck.




Foreign Policy Expert, Geographical Maverick
And this is one of my favs that Obama alluded to in the first debate: where McLame takes a hardcore line against Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain apparently thinking he's a strong-arm Latin American dictator or something, saying "we'll stand up to tinpot dictators." The interviewer had to inform him politely that she was talking about Spain. Keep in mind that afterwards foreign policy advisor and super-lobbyist Randy Scheunemann insisted that McCain wasn't confused at all, in fact his comments were intentional. What's really odd is that back in April McCain had mentioned that Zapatero should be invited to the White House (On CNN, the Spanish reaction : you get to see the anchor read headlines aloud in Spanish while translating for us!).


(Spain mentioned at 2:30)

Alright: Arguably risk a diplomatic incident with Spain equating their duly elected prime minister to a "tinpot dictator" instead of simply admitting you were confused? How about making a political spectacle and interrupting the bailout crisis negotiations? Better yet, maybe starting a cold war with Russia for domestic political gain during the crisis in Georgia (for McCain the "first...serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War."?

Remember, he's made many stupid mistakes like this before demonstrating a pattern of profound ignorance: calling the Czech Republic, Czechoslovakia (more than once! How dare he!), and stating that Iraq shares a border with Pakistan, not to mention his absurd claim that Al-Qaeda (sunni) goes into Iran (shia) for military training (and also more than once!). If you keep saying this shit, they aren't gaffes.

And what about his infamous temper and obvious contempt when asked anything resembling a serious question (Come on, blowin' off the WSJ?)? And telling jokes about rape and killing Iranians, among other unsavory topics (We're talkin' personality now, right?)? Can't imagine Obama getting away with rape jokes. Somehow it'd become an issue about his "character," I think. One set of rules for Dems and another for Republicans. Wouldn't they call that "moral relativism." I don't know, I'm beginning to think that being shot down in Vietnam ain't good enough. Basta!