Saturday, August 30, 2008

It's a joke, right?

I must have misplaced my calendar. I could have sworn yesterday was August 29th, not April first.

I have to admit the word palin' has come to mind many times when looking at John McCain, but it has always been in reference to his skin tone. Who would have guessed he could actually find someone with that adjective for a name? Palin isn't so much a running mate as it is a dermatological condition.

But the joke gets better. Remember when the Pugs were asleep at the wheel and Dubya nominated his personal attorney, Harriet Meyers, to the Supreme Court? That took days (or maybe it was weeks - I don't remember any more) to settle. Bush got his dick slapped (although it was Dick who did the slapping), and Harriet managed to crawl away with a modicum of her dignity in tact.

Do you think that might just possibly be happening again? McCain was at the Miss Buffalo Chip competition a couple of weeks back. With adolescent excitement making his voice quiver, he offered up Cindy (not in a million years can I imagine somebody named Cindy as First Lady) for contention in the topless bikers' pageant. The man clearly likes a pretty face (even it you need to remove an inch of spackle just to find it).

So in sharper definition of his sallow character, McCain, in a effort to avoid Mittens as his in-house handler, finds an ex- beauty queen cum podunksville governor for a running, er, um, mate. Well at least we already know she's for world peace. I bet McCain is giddy imagining Cindy and Sarah in high heels and bathing suits on either side of him at his inauguration. Sarah could wax philosophical about how Americans don't have maps and such as.

So did Rove blink? Is Neocon Death Star Control in panic mode, with all those mindless minions scurrying about, hair on fire as their wiring short-circuits? I can see it now. Mittens actually has several hairs out of place and his mask is half torn off, revealing Cheney's sneer beneath. Shouts of "damage control" echoing about the underground chambers; the wails of torture victims in the dungeons below drowned out by the louder wails of a machine for which the wheels have just fallen off.

We back off from this picture to a distance several miles above, and watch and listen as a loud whump is followed by the colossal collapse of megatons of earth. Clouds of dust rise into the atmosphere. And slowly settle. Into silence.

Sarah and Cindy. It just doesn't get any better than this.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Happy Birthday Grampy McCain

Today is John McCain's 72nd birthday. Do you remember where he was three years ago today, on his 69th birthday? He was at an airforce base in Arizona, eating cake with Dubya. I have to imaging that was one expensive cake as tax paid for cakes go.

But do you remember what else was happening three years ago today, as Bush and McBush were eating cake?








Hurricane Katrina was drowning the city of New Orleans. That's what was happening. Rome was burning and Nero and McNero were fiddling.

Now guess what? Hurricane Gustav is bearing down on the gulf coast once again. It's scheduled for landfall, very possibly in New Orleans, on Monday, the day McSame's convention is slated to begin in Minneapolis-St Paul (Larry Craig's home away from home).

Well, Larry, you may need to wait a bit longer to get your fill of, well you know. It seems the Repugnant-Cons may delay their Con-vention. It would be awfully embarassing if a whole convention center full of these pig-faced slimeballs were eating cake as another hurricane makes landfall in Louisiana.

If they delay their orgy of oligarcy, do you suppose they will all be in New Orleans filling sandbags instead? I think more likely they'll be busy securing options to buy ocean front property on the Gulf Coast.

Monday, August 25, 2008

PUMA's My Ass!

Something is becoming clearer to me. The results of a poll I heard about today list 45% of Hillary supporters as currently being avid Obama supporters. An additional 25% say they will vote for Obama regardless of mixed feelings. And a whopping 30% say they will vote for McCain.

Wow!

How do you explain that? Are people so willing to cut off their noses to spite their faces? Or are they that racist that they will vote against their own interests rather than bring themselves to vote for a black man? I used to think it had to be one of these two answers.

I don’t believe it any more. The answer is simple. This 30% of Hillary supporters never did support Hillary. They registered as Democrats. I’ll agree with that. And they did so for the following reasons: 1) They wanted to lend legitimacy to their supposed support for Hillary, and 2) They really wanted to do their best to defeat Obama in the primaries.

This explains a lot:

Obama started out in Iowa beating Hillary handily. He followed that with a Super Tuesday sweep. And then things started turning. All sorts of reasons for this shift were touted at the time. Folks started asking why Obama couldn’t close the deal.

Now supposed Democrats say they will vote for a candidate who has made very clear the platform that he will espouse. McCain favors everything Bush has stood for. McCain has added not a single progressive move to Bush’s platform of the past seven and a half years. What Democrat would possibly vote for that platform?

No Democrat would vote for that platform. That’s the answer. These 30% factions of “Hillary supporters” are not Democrats. They are Republicans. They were always Republicans. All you need to do is to listen to some of their rhetoric (I’ve heard many of them). They don’t sound even the tiniest bit like Democrats. They utter their allegiance to all things Hillary, but those utterances ring hollow. Everything else they say clearly screams Republican.

So to all those who have felt Barack should have done better against Hillary than he did, take heart; he did! And to anyone who is listening to this 30% faction and wondering if their own support of Obama might be the result of flawed thinking, relax. And to anyone who is upset that we might be missing 30% of 18 million Hillary votes (that’s 5.4 million votes), forget it. Those were never Hillary votes. They were never Democrat votes. They were always McCain votes.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

McPander

I'm only going to say this once: Wake up Republicans! And especially, wake up religious right!

When are you going to see that McCain and the party you hold dear are using you as patsies? Look, McCampaign is testing the waters on fielding a pro-choice Veep. Just what the hell does that tell you? When McCain tells you he has faith in JC, etc, blah, blah, ad nauseum, yada, yada, he's also been telling you that he's not like the "baby killing" Barack Obama, and that he believes in the sanctity of all life (read: all American [preferably white] life). In short, he's confirming his pro-life stance.

Clean the wax out of your friggin' ears! McCain is pandering to you! He doesn't give a damn about fetuses, born or unborn. He just wants your votes. Otherwise, why the hell would he even consider a pro-choice running mate? Hmmmm????? Think about it now!

Now Mr. Obama admits to being pro-choice. You may not like that. You may not agree with it. But he's telling you the truth! And he is no baby killer. Not all the crap Hannity and Rush and O'Reilly tell you is true (come to think of it, I'd be shocked if any if it were true). Isn't honesty worth a whole lot more than someone who is using your beliefs and sentimentalities and convictions for the cynical purpose of garnering votes? And unlike McCain, Barack had the guts to tell the truth in front of a pro-life crowd. I kind of like the idea of a President with guts. Don't you?

I know a lot of people are telling you a different story, but we folks on "the left" are really concerned about the rights of regular folks. That's folks like us, and that's folks like you. No kidding. Really, we want your rights to think and act the way you want to, to be as valued and cherished and protected as all of ours. Look really hard at McCain. Look really hard at what the Republican party has been doing now for years. They don't care about you.

In fact, if I were you, I'd be really pissed off at being used. I'd be so pissed that I would never vote for any of them again.

Folks, if you can't bring yourself to vote for Obama, then at least don't vote for McCain. Stay home on election day. Or better yet, vote for Bob Barr. I don't agree with Bob Barr on everything, but I think he's honest. I don't think he's just using you. Don't be used. You're worth a whole lot more than that.

Please wake up.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Are you out there? Do you live near me?

I feel pretty lame writing this, but I am losing my mind. I need help. I don't know where to turn.

This litany of insanity ought to drive any sane person mad:

Drivers are sent to prison. Crime families and their cronies in the highest offices in the land are not. Sore-loser candidates threaten to be spoilers for us all. A nation founded on freedom cannot find it in its soul to see a black candidate as anything other than black. Anthrax almost certainly directed toward its deadly conclusion by the crime family noted above, is ascribed to a man so harassed by law officials that he kills himself; and the case is closed. We are destroying our planet and my well-educated boss sits across from me at lunch and tells me that global warming is a hoax perpetrated on us by those wanting to make money off a brainwashed public. The candidate I most respect as our next potential president seems to have lost - at least temporarily - his passion for dispensing with business as usual, and his passion for change. The state of Texas steps up its passion for executing people of color and Latin accent. Proof upon proof upon proof of criminality in our White House is swept under the rug of jurisprudential and journalistic indifference. Americans worry about the awkward re-induction of Brett Favre into professional football and beg for offshore drilling, content that oil spills will not destroy their back yards.

Then there is my profound sense of futility as I smash my head against the walls of these imponderables, only to see them multiply as if mocking me and the handful of sane persons on this planet-in-peril. I spend and send my money to campaigns that mirror, in some fleeting fashion, my preponderance for not wishing to be a witness to humankind's final, and far from finest, hour as we slip into the cesspool of extinction. Will the cockroaches' decedents ponder our civilization as they pick through our fossils a million years from now? Or will only shreds of plastic endure, and will Earth's future owners wonder what flesh could have fossilized in such an odd manner?

I observe slack-jawed co-denizens of our world shuffle like zombies in The Night of the Living Dead to stand before a Best Buy storefront in anticipation of its doors unfolding to reveal electronically bedazzling wonders to their fried cortices. I notice last night as I wander a parking lot that I am embarrassed to admit I was in, that my car is the only one of several hundred that sports a political sticker of any sort at all. Radio stations and sports teams are resplendently represented.

And this is maybe the crux of the deal: I have no idea how to contact those with whom I can share my fears, angst, and very meager hope. I know these people exist. I hear them call in to progressive radio shows. I read their blogs and I see their comments left behind like breadcrumbs amidst the noxious thorns that surround them.

But I cannot find anyone at the end of the breadcrumbs. Oh, don't misunderstand me; I do find e-people. But I need to find people of flesh and blood. I have a hole in my gut that is as big as Jupiter that needs to be filled by conversation across a coffee table, not across a cyber-port. I want to shake the hand of the man and or woman who understands and shares this sense of dread. I want to feel my hand hurt as it is bruised by knuckles and fingers that have forgotten the physical act, and are an expression of a sense of friends-well-met. Or a sense of shared hurt and worry. Or a sense of revolution.

Are you out there? Do you live near me?

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Pool it!

In the past two or three weeks I have received "emergency" requests for donations from perhaps half a dozen candidates. The candidates range from Congressman, to Senator, to President. I have given to each of them in the past (or at least I have blogged or in other ways opined on their behalf), and I am not a constituent (or potential constituent) of half of them.

The candidates include Tom Udall, Martin Heinrich, Dennis Kucinich, Robert Wexler, and Barack Obama. I don't remember for sure who all I've actually contributed money to in the past, but clearly they all consider me a donor for their current and future needs.

And if I had sufficient resources I would give more often and more freely (I discovered just a few days ago that I had inadvertently signed up for a monthly give-a-thon to the ACLU when I thought I was just donating once - I believe very strongly in the ACLU, so I didn't cancel this "generosity," but it cramps my style all that much more).

So I decided (at first) when I received this deluge of requests, that I would only give to actual candidates who would (if elected) represent me. That list includes Tom Udall, Martin Heinrich and of course, Barack Obama (sorry Dennis and Robert). But now I realize that I can only afford so much and even a continued commitment to these three is difficult. They're like a hungry baby! I understand the constant need to feed the campaign, but I just can't do it all.

We're house-hosting a gal working Obama's campaign in Albuquerque, and as of tonight, we've signed up to host yet another (a guy this time, I believe). That is a continued commitment, and I have no qualms claiming "campaign equity" for that generosity. But I do realize the realities here.

The realities are:

1) the smear ads being launched against all five of the candidates I listed above are in fact essentially the same. The claims made are untrue, or at best, a mockery of the truth. If you read/listen to the ads you get the idea really quickly that you can pretty much exchange the names of the candidate and state for different Democratic candidates, and end up with advertisements that are equally "effective," and

2) Democratic responses to these smear tactics spend probably too much time on the defensive. They obsess, as do the smear campaigns themselves, with the personal aspects of the candidates. And they treat these Rovian tactics as if each is an isolated incident.

So here is my idea: Pool your money. Let's make our Democratic responses count. A) Quit spending so much just trying to make essentially the same point over and over, only for different candidates and in different venues; B) find a common message about the health and common good of our candidates and spread it across the board; and C) find a common message about the depravity and common destruction embodied in the Republican party.

Hammer these messages home. Leave no stone unturned, but shout the same cohesive (and brutally honest) message as each stone is upended. Let's get a mantra going. You know, one of the brilliant strategies of Karl Rove is that mantra politics works, and that it's cheap! I wouldn't want to lie like these bastards do, but I want to shout the truth in ways that scare the bejeezus out of their party faithful.

Let's save our money and hit a home run! What do you say Tom and Martin? What do you think Barack? And how about you Dennis and Robert? We can make this an inclusive club if we all pool our resources.

All of you espouse changing our system. Let's start here.

Friday, August 1, 2008

Anthrax

When I heard this morning that somebody, after seven years of law enforcement going absolutely nowhere, had finally emerged as a credible suspect for the 2001 DC anthrax attacks (that left half a dozen dead), I knew I was about to smell the stench of bullshit.

Sure enough, that familiar smell wafted into my awareness shortly thereafter.

Vince Foster is the poster child for the anti-suicide defamation league of conservative conspiracy theorists. Frankly, I find Foster's suicide a bit suspicious myself. In fact, whenever I become aware of an all-too-convenient death, officially slated as a suicide, I cannot help but sit up and take notice. Like the death of Deborah Jeane Palfrey (rest easy, David Vitter).

This most recent convenience was just such a death. As of this evening, the spin on Bruce Ivins is becoming more and more fleshed out. What began early today as a ironic story of dogged investigation, betrayal and suicide, is now becoming this administration's latest snow job. Randi Rhodes suggested today that Bush had a loose end or two to clean up. One of her callers expanded on that suggestion with the observation that Ivins may have been seen as a liability.

The 2001 anthrax murders and terrorist tactics were most certainly the acts of folks incited (and paid) by Karl Rove at Dick Cheney's behest. They are the real terrorists. They are the murderers. And today, we have seen one final sweeping under the rug of a murder case about as close to the Executive as makes no never mind. And we have been provided with a false list of accusations. And better yet, we have been provided with a corpse. And a corpse cannot testify as to their innocence. Or to the complicity of others.

And speaking of complicity, Nancy Pelosi remains adamant that the protection of the Constitution is off the table. We will not see prosecution of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated against this republic. We will have to suck it all up and accept that "winning" this fall trumps all else. Oh yeah, we're talking about a party winning. That matters. The public doesn't get to win. We get to watch as the winners ascend the dias' and claim their glory. And we are supposed to count that as winning.