| Author | Message | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave to continue the discussion. Up to a point what I want to say about Nader is only based on the point of view of what the papers say over here in the UK: a series of generalisations that are based on those reports. I am interested by the way you respond, since I have very little detail and don't know how things look on the ground. This is what yesterday's Guardian reports for example: "Mike Huckabee, who is clinging on in the contest for the Republican nomination despite John McCain's unassailable lead, said Nader pulled votes from the Democratic nominee. 'So naturally Republicans would welcome his entry into the race,' he told CNN." ... If Republicans see an advantage in Nader being in the field, because it would help them get the Presidency, the conclusion is that Nader being a candidate - strategically - is to their advantage, whatever the responsibilities of the main Democratic candidate might be in facing down the corporations. That is what I am arguing from. Obama seems an idealistic candidate and would be America's first black President. Wouldn't that be a good thing? | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Hi MJP, Glad to talk about this stuff. I'd caution against placing too much credence in anything that the Main Stream Media (MSM) says given the truly frightening degree of media consolidation that influences the quality of information provided therein. Especially as it pertains to non main stream figures like Ralph Nader. I'm not sure what their UK equivalents would be, but I can suggest a few alternative news sources if you'd like to read different perspectives on US politics. Just let me know. I'd also caution (even more emphatically) against placing any value whatsoever on anything that comes out of Mike Huckabee's mouth. He's still in the race purely because staying in has allowed him to increase his standing and power among Republican voters whose primary concern is religion. After the race is over, he'll be in a position to (a) procure himself more money than before the race and (b) perform acts of power brokering with McCain based on the support of his religious wingnutters. This is a man, after all, who advocates modifying the constitution such that it better reflects the teachings of Jesus. His comments on Nader stem from a very over simplified logic. Well, that and self serving lies. Nader has never pulled voters away from the democrats, because to do so presupposes that the democrats had some sort of entitled claim to his voters and that the two party system's constricted field of choices is somehow righteously untouchable no matter how poorly it meshes with the desires of its voting citizenry. It's much more logical to conclude that Huckabee and the republicans in general deceitfully characterize Nader in this manner because he provides a convenient scapegoat. When the (largely republican funded) MSM attributes causality for the Democrat's loss to Nader, people stop digging and fail to notice the criminal methods that the party employs to *steal* elections. The republicans understand that creating an oversimplified narrative of this sort serves their interests. The public is, unfortunately, all to willing to accept this received wisdom. It would be much better, in my opinion, if the US adopted a system similar to many Western European social democracies and Canada wherein, if Nader and the Green party get X amount of the popular vote, they are awarded X amount of seats and representation in the government. But politics is a twisted zero sum game here and the system is easily manipulated such that, not only do elected officials not represent the values of their citizenry, but they are no longer held accountable for not doing so or for criminally seizing power. In response to the last couple lines of your post, I'd also caution you against believing that the Democratic party is in any way substantively less corporatist than the Republican party. That notion is just black hat/white hat fairy tale poison. I just don't care what color skin a candidate has or what dangles between their legs. That shit is just a distraction. Behavior is the bottom line. What have they done for America so far? What is their platform, what do they intend to do? Who do they take money from in order to gain office? To that end, yes, Obama has gone to great lengths to create an idealistic air about himself, but their is nothing in his past service as a public servant that makes me believe that he has any chance at all of fulfilling the empty hope rhetoric that he's spewing. There's just nothing he can actually *do* to effect change by taking the reins of a broken system. He and Hillary are virtually identical at the substantive level. The primary is now down to choosing what fasad voters respond better to. And that's a bad thing, a very, very, very bad thing. Nader, on the other hand, has an indisputable track record of successfully taking on corporate interests in Washington. The allegations of egotism and vanity that the Democrats are so fond of are wholly unfounded. But his behavior speaks for itself. The man has dedicated his life to *real* public service and the sum of actions speak louder and more clearly than any MSM allegations to the contrary. He has stayed true to his ideals despite the fact that doing so has nearly destroyed his political career. He just will not sell out no matter what and he's not afraid to be the last man standing in the country's most important fight. For that, I respect him tremendously and I'll confidently give him my vote. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Nader's blog has a relevant post today: http://www.votenader.org/blog/2008/02/27/let-the-c hips-fall/ If a Democrat fails to behave like a Democrat, is he still a Democrat? If a Democrat fails to run on a Democratic platform and loses an election, is it not his own fault? | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Here's a better one: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucru/20080227/cm_ucru/hope youcantvotefor | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Some interesting stats here, look at how many other 3rd party candidates got over 500 votes in Florida in the 2000 elections: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=63125288 | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave, just had a look at the second article by Nader linked to above. I am not convinced by Nader as a politician however. As I say in another post, he acts as a pressure group, represents consumer interests very effectively. But I don't see anything in him that suggests political intelligence. We also in this country have had figures who have righteously stood up for this or that cause but failed - utterly - to give any kind of account of how this cause is supposed to fit into the rest of the world. Tony Benn for example: stood up for the workers; but didn't explain how to curb their greed and oppressive work practices: such as was found in the print unions. End result, it took the greater prevailling force of capitalism to stop them (in the form of Thatcher and Rupert Murdoch). You could argue something similar for 'corporatism'. As with anything else, it doesn't have a monopoly on greed or stupidity. It is not a case of "stamp out corporatism and things will be set to rights". In the end it doesn't matter what you call it (human nature; communism; corporatism; capitalism) what you have is a world ruled by greed, vanity and stupidity - and absolutely no-one is an exception to that circumstance. It seems to me that people like Benn and Nader work on the principle of exceptionalising themselves; and eke out a power base on the back of feeding others this fantasy. But they are no different; they are just the same as us all. The systemic ultimately has its roots in the personal; you can't set the systemic and the personal in opposition to each other; or you can, but only up to a point (such as - to adumbrate - with the issue of seat belts). In the general arena of politics where endless issues of self interest have to be set against each other, ad hoc pro tem nihil dicit, the whole idea of personal versus system is an illusion. As I say what I think is that Nader wants you to buy into this illusion. Out of vanity. Nothing I see suggests that this can be otherwise. A generally held view is that politics is the art of the possible. That is true. It seems to me that Nader does not even begin to understand this. ... But on the other hand ... What you are arguing for is a kind of counter world. One that acts intelligently *from the first*. Fire the starting gun and a plan is launched. The guys, the girls, hunker down and take a reading, that is to say Penelope Pitstop, allied to Topcat, smokes a cigar and works out the practicalities from a sound understanding of human nature; and human nature is good. No, no, I just can't believe it. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline, eh MJP? I can empathize with the sentiment - it is easy to get ground down. But, ultimately, stating that "politics is the art of the possible" strikes me as being a semantic slight of hand that translates into "I am a nihilist". In that light, I begin to understand why Nader seems so exceptional to you, to the point of deeming him an illusion and fantasy even. His actions and their effects are no fantasy however. Nor is it fantasy to suggest that stamping out the current culture of corporatism would open the door to the possibility of a culture in which greed, vanity and stupidity are much lessened rather than exacerbated. It seems to me that Nader understands this perfectly. Saying that you don't see anything resembling political intelligence in Ralph Nader indicates to me that you're more interested in finding someone to commiserate with and share in your pessimistic view of the human condition, not that you're making educated statements about the man's political worth or engaging in substantive political discourse. Lastly, I'd suggest that perhaps your entrenched view that all causality in politics runs in the direction of the personal to the political contributes significantly to many of your defeatist opinoins. I don't fault you for this though, especially if all you see in the individuals around you is greed, vanity and stupidity. I just hope that you try to remain open to other possibilities as nothing I have seen or experienced in my life leads me to believe that defeatism and nihilism are the only conclusions to be drawn from the world. I'm not singing Kumbaya or offering anyone any Kool-Aid and I don't believe in some sort of delusional, rose-colored altruism, but I do beleive that base self interest can become enlightened self interest through personal development and engaged citizenship. I also believe that the type of leadership that Nader exemplifies fosters personal development and tends to engender this sort of change in the public, moving the public toward enlightened self interest. In this respect, I think that causality in politics also runs in the direction of the political-to-personal. Everything I see suggests likewise. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
MJP, I've been thinking about this more, and I'd say that we might do well to move this conversation towards political theory and civics. Consider this: If economic libertarianism-socialism is viewed as continuous independent variable, there appears to be an inverted U-shaped function of quality of life (economic robustness and stability, socioeconomic inequality, pollution, oppression, healthcare access). At the Gilded Age extreme of libertarianism, people live in servitude in company towns, smokestacks spew toxins, sweatshop labor in awful conditions, women are forced into prostitution and so on. (Examples of this would include late 19th-early 20th Century US and UK as well as contemporary Russia.) At the opposite end, the state socialism extreme of socialism, ecological disaster zones are regularly created, the Nomenclatura live in dachas while the rest live in slave-like drudgery and squalor, ordinary citizens give birth in miserable conditions and rely on abortion for birth control, women are forced into prostitution etc. (Examples of this would include the USSR, Cuba, North Korea.) Some would argue that the northern European social democracies are near the "sweet spot" of the function, with the proper blend of socialism and market forces, as well as distribution of power. In my opinion, the major lesson to be learned from this is that this "sweet spot" is produced by the power & innovation of relatively independent states acting in cooperative competition. In other words, it could be produced in America by enacting the political reforms suggested by Ralph Nader. I maintain that it is the cooperative competition and flexibility of independent states that creates an otherwise absent national boom of progress at both the political and personal level. This is what catapaulted America to superpower status, and, alternatively, its corruption and subsequent absence has led to the increasingly totalitarian top-down system that will take us down in much the same manner as the Soviet Union fell. Even if this is getting a little too Poly Sci for you, I think it's worth noting that America has always known that corporatism would degrade our nation and drag us away from the sweet spot noted above, but, being too busy shopping at the mall and whatnot, we've forgotten this at some collective level. Thomas Jefferson clearly understood the effects that privatization and corporatization would have on American democracy, and argued strongly that combining political power with the economic power of great wealth was to be banned, primarily via amending the Constitution to "ban monopolies in commerce." As Jefferson pointed out in a December 26, 1825 letter to William Giles, economic powers will always seek to gain political power and thus threaten to create "a single and splendid government of an aristocracy, founded on banking institutions, and moneyed incorporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures, commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry [i.e the working calss]." John Dewey, nutter that he was, was still articulate enough to add to this sentiment inas much that he noted in his 1939 book "Freedom and Cluture" that once corporatization has taken root and Jefferson's government of the aristocracy is established, that it would be possible for the aristocracy to easily cow and manipulate its public: "History shows that more than once social unity has been promoted by the presence, real or alleged, of some hostile group. It has long been a part of the technique of politicians who wish to maintain themselves in power to foster the idea that the alternative is the danger of being conquered by an enemy." "As Huey Long is reported to have said, Fascists would come in this country under the name of protecting democracy from it's enemies." I just wanted to demonstrate that current political theory *and* basic civics reading both lend themselves to accurately and immediately identifying the rot that is ruining America. Nader's politics proceed from an understanding of the problem and offer plausible reforms. I don't think this warrants nihilism. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave, you have made me ponder what the nature is of my peculiar self-devised brand of nihilism, if that is what it is, which normally I take for granted. I think something like the following: I think we are probably witnessing the end of the world; nothing is sustainable. Maybe some things will slow it down; but maybe not; since on the other hand maybe other things will speed it up. Military robots for example. This policy or that will or might make things better but maybe it wont. Call me a pessimist more than a nihilist: it is an absolute pessimism. The reason for this pessimism is that I think we - as a species - have fallen into a peculiar circumstance where we no longer know what we are and are unable to take the measure of anything proportionately. I think that that circumstance is categorical and that reason has very little influence on it. It is a circumstance that is total, body and soul. Human life has been - for thousands of years - inordinate; but we are now reaching a level where self-annihilation is more than just a promise but definitely on the cards: total wipe-out. How do I square this view with my soft-hearted view of day to day politics? Hm. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
... I think that I coincide with many politicians in their view that self-interest is the engine of politics and that unless you factor that in you are not being real. Here I am talking about the totality of political life. Wilberforce for instance brought about the abolition of slavery; Peel on the other hand ... well he wheeled and dealed. You couldn't have the one without the other. You couldn't have Wilberforce running the country because that wasn't his strength. He was a single minded eccentric idealist. I would suggest that Nader is or might be similar. But let's get back to the concrete. What is the matter with Obama? Why doesn't he ring your bell? | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
For what it's worth, Springsteen gives Obama the thumbs-up - but this may be exactly the kind of rhetoric that sets your teeth on edge: http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2008-02-27 -springsteen_N.htm | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Hello MJP, For what it's worth, I really appreciate your response to my last few posts. With a lot of people that would have been point at which things degenerated into bickering. It's good to talk to someone with an open mind who is willing to sincerely consider his personal values. Thanks. And don't get me wrong, I understand your pessimism. It's a part of me too. Sometimes it all just looks so very Night of the Living Dead out there, that I just get terribly upset. I can be something of a pessimist myself, but in a less absolute way. I wasn't always like this: I just got fed up with being perpetually angry and decided to learn more about the situations that seemed so intractable and depressing. It's interesting that you say this: >>The reason for this pessimism is that I think we - as a species - have fallen into a peculiar circumstance where we no longer know what we are and are unable to take the measure of anything proportionately. I feel very strongly that, whatever else we are, it's clear that we're the most destructive species on the planet and that we're at the top of the food chain. This is, of course, a recipe for apocalypse and is in no way sustainable. The measures and indeces of this are all around us though. But the go largely unheeded. Certainly they go unspoken in politics unless you're listening to Nader or the Greens. I don't think total wipe out is certain though. Nature, as a complex and dynamic system, is self regulating. She takes care of herself. In that sense, once you realize that overpopulation is the macrolevel variable contributing to our unsustainability, I can't help but think a little bird flu would go a long way. All sarcasm aside, all things have a function and pandemics and ice ages can legitimately be thought of as population control mechanisms. In the book that I recommended to Al ("The World Without Us"), the authour cites research suggesting that if, from here on out, if family's voluntarily opted to have one and only one child, we'd see very, very substantial improvement in the planet's ability to sustain us and our use of its resources. Voluntarily or not though, this problem will get resolved. And soon. But the resolution seems unlikely to be the end of things to me. In fact, in a way, I welcome it as I'm sure it will make life a real thing again. So I guess, in some respects, I get off easier than you MJP: I don't have to square much of this away with my politics. My politics just state that, in order to be taken seriously at a political level, one must acknowledge and identify the problems related to these issues and suggest the best interventions and reforms possible. Anyway, back to the concrete. This article is one of the best I've read on Obama (and the election cycle in general) and does a very good job of summarizing why he doesn't ring my bell. It's really an excellent read: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?Sectio nID=90&ItemID=14670 Along similar lines, here are two more pieces that detail why Democrats in general just don't ring my bell: http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2007/11/barre n-deadly-wasteland-that-is-now-our.html http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/1834919 7/the_chicken_doves The last paragraphs of the Rolling Stone article are right on the money I think. And the Wasteland blogpost, well, when you're right you're right... | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Oh, and *fuck* Bruce Springsteen. That shit doesn't set my teeth on edge so much as it makes me want to sink my teeth into his neck. To talk about "shortening the distance between the American promise and the American reality" and then go on just sentences later to state that he spends $500 on CDs in one visit to the record store... Oh my god. What a fucking douche bag. That isn't a "view on politics". It isn't even a valid opinion. It's an expression of deeply rooted pathology, personal and cultural. And he's a shitty musician on top of that. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
"History shows that more than once social unity has been promoted by the presence, real or alleged, of some hostile group. It has long been a part of the technique of politicians who wish to maintain themselves in power to foster the idea that the alternative is the danger of being conquered by an enemy." "As Huey Long is reported to have said, Fascists would come in this country under the name of protecting democracy from it's enemies." http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/clin tons-national-security-ad/index.html?hp I don't care what anybody else says, that bitch is a republican. And a fascist. This is some real Karl Rove stuff right here. The best part is this: "If one candidate is trying to scare you and the other one is try get you to think, if one candidate is appealing to your fears and the other one is appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope." Any guesses as to who said that? It was Bill Clinton. In 2004. These fuckers will say and do anything to get elected, eh? Contemptable... | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
If Obama wins, he'll be laughing alllllll the way to the bank: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.asp?id=N 00009638&cycle=2008 | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
"National Amusements, Inc." - oh, how we laughed. But the lady bounced back in Texas and Iowa, so on it all goes. Sordid times, no? | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
And this is a joke. I think. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWK7i1fcWpA | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
And a great joke at that, Martin. The bitch did bounce back yeah. And no. She didn't improve her delegate count *at all* and she went nuclear on Obama with some real scorhed eath politics in the past weeks. She's ripping the party apart to serve her personal ambitions. If the Dean and the Dem. leaders allow this to continue, get ready for President McCain and his all war all the time platform. On the other hand, if she continues to shred her own party, a lot of disenchanted Dems will turn to Nader, underscoring the need for viable third parties. So, maybe things will be looking up come 2012. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Also, what a shady, morally impoverished coule the Clintons are: http://thememlingindex.com/hillary_clinton_net_wor th-wealth.html I mean, what the hell is that all about and why is nobody talking about it? | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
"Huckabee cites personal victories in conceding race to McCain" http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/05/america/05h uck.php | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
>>What a shady ... Absolutely. And I'm bewildered/sickened as anyone else by the lack of any decent critical scrutiny about their political presence. I'm not a US citizen: I just have opinions about all this, not a vote. So far as I know, Elvis Costello is in just the same position. But his playing at a fund-raising event on Hillary's birthday has pushed me (and a lot of other former members of his audience) to make a small political gesture, and refuse to buy any of his music, ever again. This used to be exactly the kind of principle Costello would endorse. Today, I think he'd term it "hopelessly idealistic." But then, in rather different ways, both of us have stopped caring. http://blog.2008president.net/2007/10/elvis-costel lo-sings-happy-birthday-to.html | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Huck's concession speech was *absurd*. Toward the end, he started talking about 'victory or death'. I was hoping for some self immolation action, but I was denied. So... Fuck Huck. Wingnut Jesus-freak. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Oh, Elvis... I didn't know about that. How terrible. I'm going to have to burn his albums when I go home. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Elvis. Yes, well ... I could rant. He gave a disgusting interview to MOJO magazine about 4 months ago, which should have ended his career but doesn't seem to have done. One could excuse him saying he wouldn't play Britain again, as he hated the place and its people (everyone's got their opinion) - but more nauseatingly, he then moaned on about how hard it was for him to make ends meet these days. Anyone could sponsor the next tour, he joked: he didn't mind. This was from someone who'd signed an "eight figure" deal with Universal six months previously (which means a minimum pay-out of roughly $10m/£5m), and who - as part of that deal - was now licensing songs like "Shipbuilding" as ringtones. You don't have to be Walter Benjamin to see the cellar-deep black humour in that. You don't have to be an old rocker to smell "sell-out," either. And this is an "artist" who - probably - already earns enough each year from the publishing of a single song like "Oliver's Army" or "Alison" to have an income that would make most senior managers smile with delight. We need various things in public life at present, but a rich man's self-pity and greed aren't among them. Perhaps Halliburton will pay for him to go out on the road again. It's nothing to me: I won't be watching. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Dude, we should organize a cage match: Bruce Springsteen vs. Elvis Costello. It'd be a fight to the death of course. The winner would be allowed to live, but would have all of his fingers broken and his vocal cords severed. That'd be entertaining. And it'd be justice. These guys are lucky we all have bigger fish to fry. Musicians are scum. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Dude, I would *sell* tickets for that!  Sly Stone put it best, all those years ago: Dying young is hard to take - selling out is harder. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
While Obamania swept the nation and Hillary was answering the phone at 3am: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/ todays_must_read_289.php Sometimes it's easy to forget that we have 10 more months of this asshole before the next asshole takes office. In Iraq until 2018... I am *so* moving to the Netherlands as soon as Gillian is done with her PhD. If this keeps up and I don't leave, I'll have a rage induced heart attack by the time I'm 30. | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Do it! Quite apart from general Dave preservation, I suspect the Empty Space Amsterdam away weekend would be a blast... tho' some sort of odd critical mass would probably be achieved by everyone getting together at once, and so we'd all have to go and sit in different internet cafes for a couple of days and chat that way. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
>>Musicians are scum. C'mon! We already *knew* that, Dave. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Yeah, I'm into it Al. My biggest hang-up with the Nethlands is that most of it ranges in elevation from actually being below sea level to being about 3 feet above sea level. This simply will not do when the ice caps melt, and then what? I'm serious too. In 10 or 20 years, there might not be a Netherlands. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
>>C'mon! We already *knew* that, Dave. I was slow to pick up on that one, Io. I'm still reeling to be honest. ;) | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Good point - tho' on one level, all the more reason to enjoy it for a couple of years just now! Certainly what James Lovelock would do. I favour more unpredictable apocalypses myself. My money is on half of us vanishing into the 57th dimension (where hedgehogs rule the spaceways) and everyone else turning into several pairs of rather well tailored trousers when they turn on the Cern Hadron Collider, or similar. Been powerpointing all day so not in a particularly serious mood. I would in fact welcome the apocalypse - any apocalypse! - at this point. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
>>I'm serious too. In 10 or 20 years, there might not be a Netherlands. So really it's now or never as a holiday destination. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
You're right, both of you. I don't need to set up a home base in the Netherlands. Just get my PhD. And chill with you guys. So let's plan on a 2010 meeting. Pray the dams and levees hold until then... Where should I go after the Netherlands? It should be well above see level with a social democracy...it also needs to have a workforce that can use a trainied psychometrician/quantitative psychologist and his shrink/yoga instructor girlfriend. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Always fancied Prague meself. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Prague, eh? I'll put it on the list. Getting back to Nader though, watch this clip from An Unreasonable Man if you have a few minutes to spare: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VRd3YzOXpI&NR=1 My question is: How can people watch this and not become indignant and enraged? Why do they continue to vote for major party candidates? I have no answer. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Should James Lovelock be right, the smart ticket would be Canada or Iceland: but then, if we're already past the tipping point and 80% of us really are going perish in a mass extinction very soon, you'll be spoilt for choice. *Ponders beach umbrella in Murmansk* | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Surely there's going to be much previously unused real estate available in the Arctic? I for one look forward to the re-emergence of Unknown R'yleh as a habitable environment. Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Oh, and on that Nader thing - can't remember if it was on here or elsewhere, but saw a very pertinent quote a little while ago - 'political parties are really businesses with a monopoly on elections' | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Read these three articles in this order for a gnarly cummulative effect: 'A recessionary job market' http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/07/a_ recessionary_job_market/ "U.S. Multinationals Have Been Decoupling from the U.S. Economy," says BusinessWeek http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16 795 'Campaign Blues' http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck _nation/2008/03/campaign-blues.html Happy weekend! | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
But has Costello really sold out? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0G4uRVJpJ8 "Nice car to drive. After a war." | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Politics has changed since War II in the following way. The social structures of honour and expectation that underpin the factual reporting of political events have become tangibly vaguer and next to impossible to define, resulting in the effect that the morass of behavioural aberration that politics inevitably sinks into in democracies is not being overseen. The discontinuities in and fragmentation of our perception of the world is being accelerated, I think, by the sheer power of the mass media - which being itself ruled monolithically, pathologically, by its need for an audience vanishes into its own weird solipsisms: a voice talking to a series of human expectations that no longer connect with real human beings - if it ever did connect with them, what it now connects with is a homunculous clown but that bizarrely enough we want to imitate back. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave I can't see what the point of heaping abuse on the head of Bruce Springsteen for buying records is. Likewise, Elvis Costello, whom I have never liked - but I don't understand what he has done that's so wrong. Springsteen's The Devil's Arcade is a pretty good song about Bush politics. The whole of Magic is pretty good in that respect if political comment is what you want. I think that a little more detachment is in order. Politics is the art of the possible. If what you want is impossible therefore, given present conditions, it is no good piously announcing that you want it nonetheless and that some sort of leader should produce it - impossibly, out of a hat presumably: all that it amounts to is a form of refusal to take real decisions. Maybe voting Nader can be viewed as a decision: but not on the basis of getting rid of Corporate America, an objective that in these circumstances is delusional. I suppose that is a polite way of saying that most of what is being said here is hot air: I sympathise but having myself been here before I have no real time for it. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
My beef with Costello is simply that he's followed the usual sad trajectory of being a sharp, non-conformist writer who's turned into a bland, greedy huckster. I'm sure there's a grand political subtext, but - who cares? | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Seems to me that a politician like Blair, who was caught lying, or one guilty, in a democracy, of ordering torture, and one - despite everything - still planning war with Iran - clearly they are beyond the pale so how do they get away with it? | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
One set of sobering answers to that question here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Mass-Apocalyptic-Rel igion-Utopia/dp/0713999152 "I only know what I believe." - Tony Blair. | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Hmm - well, either we don't live in a democracy (ie there's no democratic accountability) or the electorate feels that Blair's 'it's the intent not the outcome that counts' position is entirely acceptable, not to say laudable. Perhaps Blair really is the spirit of the age? Or alternatively, nobody cares about a few hundred thousand dead Iraqis as long as house prices are going up. Blair was allowed his little hobby on the side as long as he kept us all financially sorted... | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Gray argues the other way. Blair is a neo-con with a messianic view of the social and psychological power of the market. Consequently, you can lie and lie and lie, provided your *intention* is true to promise of free market economics: it's only fidelity to that big picture which counts, because that paradaiscial model will "redeem" us all. Since Blair has neither the concern nor the intelligence to analyse events beyond his own political horizon (if that), he's blind to innumerable examples that would disprove his assumptions - and prone to ally himself with a figure like Bush who shares his wildly misguided view of political limitation and human nature. It's nothing to do withj democracy, and everyhtign to do with Not surprisingly, Blair failed to convince the Pope that Iraq was a "just" war: the Vatican knows far too much about St. Augustine and original sin to be swayed by a politician with a redemptive military agenda and a half-witted scheme for "modernisation," aimed at bringing about some ill-defined golden age. Or maybe they'd just learnt their lesson after dealing with Hitler, and told him to f*ck off. "Apes in the gasoline crack of history." - William S. Burroughs | ||
| al Username: al Registered: 11-2006 |
Ho yes, I've read it - both very good and very depressing. Politics is spilt religion, as they say. Is our culture sustainable if it can endorse such fantasies in its leaders? I think we're finding out... | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
- Sorry, incomplete posting there, a bit like the ending of "Dagon." I meant to say : "...everything to do with debased Christian thought." But, hey - you knew that. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
“Today we are at a crossroads. One road leads to hopelessness and despair; the other, to total extinction. Let us pray we choose wisely.” - Woody Allen. I've always hated Woody Allen, but something tells me you're a fan, MJP. Personally, I prefer common sense and prudence etc. to defeatism. But there are certain types of people who do seem to need to advocate for misery in the hopes of finding company. MJP, your first post from yesterday seems a carefully crafted abstraction that functions to frame circumstance as beyond hope for...well, some reason I guess. I'm a little unclear. As for your boy Bruce, I don't know what to tell you. If you're so detached that you don't notice that he's a cultural caricature coming at you through the *cough* media *cough* in the hopes of getting you to buy into some fictional socio-political narrative that his own buying habits remove him from, I don't know what to tell you. How people don't see through stuff like his hypocrisy is beyond me: he puts on a jean jacket, pumps his fist, and proclaims a few hackneyed political fairy tales for the "common man" then hops off stage and spends more money in one trip to the record store than the common man could with 12 months worth of his disposable income, but nobody calls him a lying douche bag. Instead they engage with his honed, false exterior and think they're executing a political behavior by identifying with him. Not that most Americans would have any idea what a real political act looks like, but he's obviously a parasite and very worthy of abuse. By the way, Nader donates the bulk of his yearly income to charity. If this all seems like hot air and naive idealism, then don't post about it any more. You certainly don’t have to engage with me about it. Just don't complain about it either though. Maybe it'd be more appropriate to sit there on your hands and take it and take it and take it. And pontificate occasionally, formulating higher order explanations for problems such that you leave yourself no avenue of intervention. God forbid you endorse the efficacy of third parties in American politics or any other damn thing that might make things a little less shitty. As to how the rest of this - politicians seeming beyond the pale, democratic accountability, corporatism, church & state and so on - continues to roll on down the road... It seems to me that the US and, to an extent, the west in general has been guided away from its foundational notion that "there can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship. A deep democracy...holds up for future generations the principle that the pursuit of justice is the condition for the pursuit of happiness.” I sincerely believe that a culture that remembers this and acts accordingly is, not only possible, but within reach and certainly sustainable. And it only requires an accumulation of relatively simple acts. But John Gray, former marketeer himself, is unlikely to tell you that because it doesn’t sell books. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave, what I am puzzled about - utterly surprised by really - is your heartfelt support for Ralph Nader: who intervened so unwisely in those elections that brought us George Bush and thence to the Iraq war: that is not just my opinion, as I have said; but a consensus held by those who identify themselves as Democrats. But it is not just this; in addition to this you seem vociferously against Obama. Something that I find very odd. I really can't fathom your standpoint. I thought at first you were joking; and joking about Nader. I don't think this is a waste of time talking about this by the way. There are things to wonder at: how people of apparent like minds can be so at odds in their basic opinions of the same sets of people and events. For example, with Springsteen: you traduce him which is fair enough. But why are you defending that? What is there to defend? Do you think that - in your own case for example - if your music or whatever became hugely popular to the extent that you became a national institution, it would have no effect on you? Are you saying that you are like Ralph Nader so that if you had huge earnings you would give it all away? That would be admirable of course; but on the other hand one has to think about why one would want to think that without ambiguity. Spitzer for example raged against corruption and exposed prostitution rings and so on. Look what happened to him. These are commonplace issues. That is why I argue for detachment; too much emotional involvement can fool one into thinking something that is utterly false about oneself or others; which I have noticed with smokers for example. When I first tried giving up smoking some time ago I used to notice and be angry with smokers. Needless to say I failed to actually give the habit up. I was only when I didn't notice whether people smoked or not that I could effectively kill the habit. So let me reveal a secret: I am trying to get into that same sort of state with the discussion of politics. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Ah, well...then we're really at crossed purposes I believe. I really think that, given the stakes, a white hot, engaged sense of indignation at a grass roots level is the only thing that can improve the current American political situation. Mind you that I'm not advocating for irrationalism in any way - I think what we currently have is plenty irrational. So, my support of Nader is heartfelt, yes. I feel that it's a mistake of near epic proportions to attribute any cause and effect relationship between his presidential campaigns and Bush/Iraq. I sincerely think that the Democrats are only slightly less repugnant than the Republicans (see Spitzer for e.g.) and that neither party presents a viable option for a sustainable future. I think the cult that has sprung up around Obama is a joke. And I think that corpratism is on track to kill the planet. Also at a personal level, it's worth noting that I quit music some time ago. Now, in addition to researching suicide in American jails, I also work as a therapist for adolescent sex offenders. It's safe to say that I've prioritized social justice over being stroked by the music industry. Also, despite considerable student debt, I still donated to Nader's campaign. That said, if you want an example of musicians who are politically relevant and who never allowed the industry to make them into cliches, I'd encourage you to look up bands such as Fugazi. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Good debate Dave. To take my own case, I know I am timid about change. I go for the least worst option, who will seem to make least trouble. That particular strategy came unglued with Tony Blair, a planet wide disaster all by himself. So I can't say that timidity and conservatism are the best option always. Good luck. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
"Hillary Clinton has issued a stark warning to Iran, as Democrats in the state of Pennsylvania vote between her and Barack Obama to run for president. "She said the US would attack, and could "obliterate" Iran, if it launched a nuclear strike on Israel." - Vote for me, and I could blow up the whole f***ing world! You're reassured? Well I'm reassured, too. We're all of us reassured! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7359957. stm | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Hillary's Downfall: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=B6Lstkiexhc | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Obama gets the nomination. A good piece of news makes the headlines! It looks like he stands a good chance against the dreary and mediocre McCain . | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Paging Mr. Dave: you're in the thick of it - reaction? | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Meh. The social scientist in me knows better than to allow myself to care. All we're seeing here is the diversification of the American elite. The uber-upper class is opening its arms to women and African Americans so it can continue to push the class divide along economic lines. The fantasy that race and gender are actual lines of division is a farce. They're categorical proxies for $$$ and power. But most Americans are clueless and buy into the fantasy and allow themselves to get trampled down a bit more with each election. Here's a good quote: "If what you want is a more diverse elite, electing a black president is about as good as it gets. Electing a woman president would be a close second. But if you want to address the inequalities we have, instead of the inequalities we like to think we have (inequalities produced by inherited wealth and poverty); if you want a political programme designed to address the inequalities produced not by racism and sexism, which are only sorting devices, but by neo-liberalism, which is doing the sorting, neither the black man nor the white woman have much to offer." Did any of you catch Obama's speech to AIPAC conference yesterday? He's totally reversed his position on Isreal since just deciding to run (much less being nominated). He's a lobbyist puppet just like every major party candidate. We're in a lot of trouble over here. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
>>>The uber-upper class is opening its arms to women and African Americans so it can continue to push the class divide along economic lines. Barack Obama's father was a Kenyan goat herd. Seems they are spreading the net a bit thin there in their pursuit of expanding the base of the uber-elite power brokers: the sons of Kenyan goat herds can join in too! Dave, Obama stands to beat McCain. It is crazy to not give that possibility a chance at least. Whatever noises Obama makes in pacifying this or that lobby there is more to him than greed and power lust. America wants a change and they can get it in Obama. He is in the process of deposing its current dynasties: The Bush dynasty which McCain would be a continuation of and the Clinton dynasty, where the frantically over-controlling Hilary and Bill frantically trying to re-live past triumphs in some sort of West Wing soap opera will be demoted to background static. It seems to me there is luck involved here: good luck for a change! | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
I could be wrong. But behavior is the bottom line here and, no matter how many goats Obama's dad herded, Obama himself has not done anything substantively differnt in politics such that he can talk meaningfully about change. Just look at who is funding his campaign. Same old same old. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
"Modern politics is a chapter in the history of religion." So begins John Gray's fascinating book Black Mass. It is helping me to understand alot of things. One of them is the other side of what I regard as our postmodern condition, which can be summed up as modern life's utter lack of sensible context, a condition that many politicians or pundits appear to absorb unreflectingly, as a simple matter of our Enlightnement human inheritance, with the result that they see their view of the world's meaning as if in some sort of airless history-free 'rational debating chamber': where things that 'make sense' (like getting rid of ruthless 'terrorist' dictators) have to be argued down if they are not to be followed through to the bitter end by the free-thinking decent 'folk' sitting in this a-historical debating chamber. The paralysis that one sees in many politicians in their inability to know what to do in such a weird situation is expressed finally by the way that they take up 'big defining issues'; such as in the way Gordon Brown has taken up the issue of 42 day detentions. Beyond that, he really seems to have little idea of how to lead us. We will see if those same postmodern toxins take hold in Obama's case. Probably they will; the context-free issues of saving the planet; disarmament; and so on; will probably get only the worst decisions out of him. We will have to see if he is light-footed enough to be able to think for himself. He seems to have been able to do that but actual power can be very different. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
(As Gray rightly points out, the Blair and Bush sense of history covers only the last two decades. Apparently in a radio interview a few years ago it became clear that Blair had never heard of Mossadeq.) | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Gray's interpretation of the current political scene do interest me, but they seem a little too close to defeatism to me. And they explain things at such a macro level that no room is left for grass roots level intervention. What about grass roots movements in which the actions of the relatively small number of individuals who have rightly assessed the political scene begin to add up to something meaningful? What boggles my mind is that so many people can't see that their own political actions as citizens - especially their voting and buying habits - serve to harm them. If we could just begin to change that, I could be optimistic. Check this out: "How do you get people to vote against their own self interest? That's the trick. One way is to make people believe in a dream. That's what all of the mainstream politicians are doing - feeding that dream. Obama is feeding a dream - a dream of change and renewal. He's feeding a dream that the conditions that surround us - Iraq, the economy, the racial divide, the class divide in this country - that they are magically going to go away by voting for this centrist Democrat. That is nonsense, of course. Obama is not proposing any structural changes. McCain is feeding us the dream, the fantasy of power and control. That somehow the military might of the U.S. will prevail across the globe. These are fantasies that are being fed by the politicians. They are not so much lies, as delusions. But we will have brought it on ourselves by supporting these politicians. By ignoring any candidate or any ideas that might conflict with those dreams. The Obama moment is a feel good moment. It makes us feel good. But the programs Obama is proposing - up and down and all around - are the same centrist Democratic positions. The same people are going to be running the show. All of the corporations are rapidly switching their contributions to the Democrats." -- Russell Banks Does Gray speak to this sort of dynamic? If so, I should really read his stuff. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Just thinking about it, the acid test for Obama will be whether or not he reinstates habeous corpus and whether he dismantles Guantanamo, Abu Graid, the so called 'B Team' (a paranoid institutional counter CIA construct whereby - literally - "the team [views] the absence of evidence as evidence in favour of its view" cf anything you like) - whether he gets to grips with this, especially in the form of governmental sanctioning of torture: if he ever actually gets into power of course. Black Mass is full of very useful information and argument, by the way. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
I don't think any candidate has used phrase "repeal the Patriot Act": I could be wrong. Personally, Obama seems to be playing the ever-popular "new dawn" card, much as every would-be incumbent I can remember. But if it's the same party machine, and the same financial structure underpinning that machine, then he's not going to amount to anything more than a fresh smile on the corpse. Speaking of which, whoever gets in is still going to have to consider the forthcoming "intervention" on Iran: and how to weather the great slump. To paraphrase one of Bette Midler's best lines - who'd want to be President at a time like this? | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
I like the list of acid tests, guys. For me though, I'm most concerned with repealing the atrocious exective orders that have been put in place during the last 7 years. You know, the ones that allow the president to be a tyrant and obliterate anything resembling checks and balances.Have any of the candidates even mentioned putting that genie back in its bottle? Also, I want Bush and Cheney to be impeached. Taking action to avoid turning the planet into a toxic shit hole would be appreciated too. The only candidate I know that has a platform that addresses these issues in a transparent manner is...wait for it...Ralph Nader. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Is this shit gonna stop if Obama takes office: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080610/ap_on_go_co/co ngress_oil_profits Can someone please explain to me why oil isn't a public utility? We're at over $4 a gallon over here. I can barely afford to pay for gas to get to the mountains and go hiking. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Well, I hate to rain on the Obama parade, but it's more or less official: he's a totally unmitigated piece of corporate shit. He's backing retroactive immunity for the telecoms and the FISA bill which allows for warrantless wiretapping. It'll soon pass the senate and become law. More on the systematic self-pussification of Obama: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/20 08/06/obama_backing_fisa_compromise.php http://www.votenader.org/blog/2008/06/20/old-obama -new-obama/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2008/06/19/AR2008061903027.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/us/politics/20ob amacnd.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17 924 http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/17 862 http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/ 06/8701_obamas_new_chie.html I assume that by "change" Obama means "exactly the same" but worse. All hail (soon to be) Emperor Obama. Isn't it a bitch when life imitates Star Wars...Senator is given unchecked power and creates Empire, yadda yadda yadda. We. Are. So. Fucked. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
But, hey - some KKK nut will most likely assassinate him. Then we can turn him into a saint. The wise guys are investing in black armband futures, right now! | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Nice, Martin. Got to remember to laugh a little. I find that it's easy for me to take myself too seriously these days. That said, this article is really right on for any of you that are still interested in my rant by link: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/19/975 7/ | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave, I'm doing my best to keep smiling, too. We all are. Hey: why not let's get away from it all, and everyone on this board book a group vacation in the Middle East, mid-September time? Say what, dude? "CBS consultant Michael Oren says Israel doesn't want to wait for a new administration. " 'The Israelis have been assured by the Bush administration that the Bush administration will not allow Iran to nuclearize,' " Oren said. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/06/24/eveningn ews/main4206201.shtml No doubt John and Obama have already been informally briefed on the likeliest strike date. Midsummer would be too hot for a follow-up ground offensive; much later than September would probably make the issue "unmanageable" during the election. Added bonus: September this year is Ramadan. That'll show 'em, etc.  | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
But wait - there's still time to learn from other people, folks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dVgNroeafo | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave, how's it looking? Over here we're just getting Obama surfing the MLK vibe and going Richter - what's it for you? | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Hey Martin. Oi... To be honest, I've not been watching things too closely recently. Partly because I was backpacking in Montana for a few weeks & and partly because Obama's drifted so far to the right that I just don't give a fuck any more. He's pro FISA, he's adopted most of Clinton's foreign policy advisors, he shafted Carter at the convention due to his stance on Israel, he picked Biden as VP despite the fact that Biden voted for the war and has some just absolutely odious ties to credit card companies. MLK would probably like to skull fuck Obama were he still around. Meanwhile, the GOP grows even more terrifying. Obama was down in the poles before his convention, then he picked up a bounce. That's been negated now that Palin has been announced as the GOP VP pick. We should all be absolutely terrified of this woman. Every apolitical woman voter who had been supporting Clinton will now be voting for her. And Big Oil works her like a puppet to the extent that W. looks positively autonomous by contrast. He husband (the "First Dude" of Alaska) works for BP for Christ's sake! She was a brilliant pick though. For a while I thought the GOP wouldn't really run McCain. Now I think they're counting on him to win and kick the bucket. Probabilistically speaking he's unlikely to have two terms left in him. Maybe not even one. The guy is old. But Palin will step right up, the pro-life feminist, Christian Conservative, power abusing, cronyism loving freak that she is. It ain't looking good and it's getting worse by the day. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Palin had a melt down today. The press is ripping into her. This is McCain's running mate...and "soul mate": http://www.secretsofsarahpalin.com/wp-content/uplo ads/2008/09/sarah-palin-bikini-rifle.jpg My. God. It's like we're trying to be extinct. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Jesus. I don't which is worse - the crazed toon face, the cellulite wrapped in Old Glory, the irresponsibility (rule 1, Sarah: the gun is *always* loaded) - or Cool Dude behind her, looking for something to kill. It's a picture straight out of "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas."And that's without her Snowville politics. From what I see over here, McCain looks like he can't wait to drop back in the oxygen tent, while Obama will simply promise anyone anything to grab that golden ring: unless the snipers get him first. One journalist remarked that Bill Clinton still has "political musk," though - which just about sums up the whole smelly circus. Desperate times, my friend. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Okay. Actually, that photo is fake. However, the photos of her firing automatic weapons and gloating over the corpse of an elk are not. Things are still pretty desperate. News this morning is that she underwent about a day of vetting before the announced her. Guess everyone else said no when McCain asked. I wouldn't trust those media characaturizations though Martin. That's just the rest of the world projecting. McCain is very much in the running. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Fake or not, I now have at least two friends who are fixated on it. But is it true the Democrats have posters that say "Obama is the New Black"? I mean, a man could get seriously depressed here! | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
I haven't heard of the posters. I just saw that the political futures market opened up a contract on whether or not Palin will get pulled from the ticket before November. So far, they've got her at 15% odds. When this sort of stuff happens I think it means you're out of the land of conspiracy theory and gossip. Political insiders are beginning to suspect that she's gonna pull an Eagleton. Oh, it is to laugh. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
The grin goes thin: that's all I can say. Or as Terry-Thomas used to put it: "What an absolute *shower* ..." | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
McCain's campaign manager: "This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/mc cain_manager_this_election_i.html Politics as the Cult of Personality Disorder. What a gem. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
And another Dubya classic, endorsing him: "To protect America, we must stay on the offense." Well, he's offened everyone I can think of ... | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Don't misunderestimate him (Dubya). I thoroughly approve of McCain's choice of running mate by the way. She wants an independent Alaska and I agree. Alaska first! | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
http://www.panopticist.com/2008/09/sarah_palin_mak es_the_cover_of_foreign_affairs.php | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
"A real gun." Anyone else thinks McCain looks like Warren Beatty at 90? | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Her teenage daughter, Bristol, is knocked up, but: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09 /02/palin_slashed_funding_to_help.html | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
And the rest of it is just the most appalling sentimental crap, isn't it? "It's a long way from the fear and pain and squalor of a six-by-four cell in Hanoi to the Oval Office. But if Senator McCain is elected president, that is the journey he will have made." She sounds like an eight year-old with a plate of cookies at show-and-tell. But, hey - the kids just love it! | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
She sounds like she was recruited from Fargo too. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
*Just* what I was thinking, my friend. How she must fantasise about putting Obama through that chipper ... | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
I just found this on a blog. Good for a laugh: Cindy McCain's $300,000 Outfit -- Elitist? Vanity Fair tallied up the cost of Cindy McCain's outfit on her night at the GOP convention: Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000 Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500 Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000 Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000-$25,000 Shoes, designer unknown: $600 Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100 Vanity Fair knows about these things, so we trust 'em. Of course, when it comes to measuring elitism, what's a $300,000 outfit compared to ... whatever it is that's supposed to be elitist about the Obamas? And besides, POW POW POW. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
After you with the Uzi. Actually, Sarah on John's arm looks exactly like a fille de nuit who's just got the ageing billionaire to propose to her - but I'm sure the resemblance to a senile Warbucks and a grasping whore is pure coincidence. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselect ion2008/johnmccain/2705087/Sarah-Palin-dolls-go-on -sale-as-John-McCains-running-mates-popularity-soa rs.html - Just super. I love the way they've grafted her head onto what seem to be Arnie's knee-caps. | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
Jill Greenberg's in trouble, not for the first time: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/15/atlantic-m onthly-editor-to-offer-apology-to-mccain-for-photo gs-doctored-pics/ Photos are here: http://www.manipulator.com/ (click "enter manipulator", then "names", then scroll through to "john mccain"). | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Busweiser decides who debates: http://www.publicintegrity.org/blog/entry/713/#Whe n:12:01:55Z | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
Via Boing Boing: http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1831461 | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Still, whoever wins, they won't be presiding over doom and gloom. Or rather, they will. "Daily Telegraph" carries this from Wall St. today: >One Republican said that the message from government officials is that “the economy is dropping into the john.” He added: “We could see falls of 3,000 or 4,000 points on the Dow [the New York market that currently trades at around 11,000]. That could happen in just a couple of days. >“What’s being put around behind the scenes is that we’re looking at 1930s stuff. We’re looking at catastrophe, huge, amazing catastrophe. Everybody is extraordinarily scared. It’s going to be really, really nasty.” A DocMart (TM) piece of advice - stay well clear of streets outside high buildings this week. | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
I spotted a piece in this morning's Metro about some new LSD-like drug. Apparently lots of people have been posting clips to Youtube of themselves under the influence. The article warned menacingly that the people in many of these clips started out "laughing and smiling" but ended up looking "serious and concerned". Reminded me of GWB's presidency for some reason. Running for president? Kids, JUST SAY NO! | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
...Is it called "city finance"? | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Savage. Unnatural. Weird thrills for the faithful. http://700wlw.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarti cle.html?feed=104673&article=4298613 | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Here we have Murtha being a tool, but an honest tool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlMGmA7yWw4 Here McCain makes an appearance as the poster boy for unconscious conflict, shooting himself in the foot and looking like a confused old man while doing so: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnE-YJ---GI In all fairness, it can't be easy knowing that your only remaining shot at the Whitehouse is a bunch of backwater fundy Christian proto-fascist fuckups from my home state. Unless, of course, he's actually able to commit voter fraud on an unprecedented scale, but that's another story. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Time for some laughs, hollow or not: make sure your sound's on, and search out the embedded clips - http://www.palinaspresident.us/ | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
And ... "The book drops in November!!!" http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_cf9NqaZ4fw | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
I'll have to check those links out when I get home Martin. My work PC doesn't ahve a sound card. In the meantime, just so you know that I was being serious: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPg0VCg4AEQ Pennsylvania really is just brimming with woodchucks. What's worse is that McCain has recently stopped campaigning in several key battleground states (e.g. Colorado) in order to focus *entirely* on Pennsylvania. Videos like that need a chaser, eh? Try this: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/20-0 | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Here's something we can laugh about though, happening in my current neighborhood no less: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/nyregion/22slope .html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin "None of the McCain sign-bearers said they felt threatened by anything approaching vandalism in this polite neighborhood." Oh really... | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Christ - it's like day-release at Bellevue Psychiatric! You wonder how they'd like that label at commondreams, too - "low-hanging fruit." But, hey - let's not find out, right? | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
And those Olsons - must be the autumn air, or something. I read " ... helps out with her husband's business" as "... her husband's illness." Oh, well ... | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
We wait and wonder. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/11/03/ob ama/ | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
"Hope" some say springs eternal. But not when "reality" consumes it daily. I wish I felt like there was more to wonder about, Martin. Last one of these posts I guess... http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081103_only_ nader_is_right_on_the_issues | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
You're worried? Well I'm worried too. We're all of us worried! http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/04/us-ele ctions-brooklyn-texas-voters | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Ha! Nice article Martin. I live in Park Slope. Well, South Slope really. But close enough. Rents are cheaper in my hood though 'cause we have to deal with the occasional rabid racoon wandering out of the cemetary. And shootings and drugs and B&Es and unsightly homeless folks... Here's the thing about Park Slope that The Guardian doesn't mention: it's where aging hipsters go to breed. Seriously, if you're seen pushing a stroller that cost less than a grand, other Park Slope parents wont' even talk to you. And that fucking Co-op. Don't even get me started. Out of season organic shit shipped from Peru so the yuppies can feel like they're environmentally conscious. The farmer's market in Grand Army Plaza on the other hand is all local - and there's a miniature Arch de Triumph there to boot. All of this is to say: what do Park Slopers know about politics anyway? I think that they know about as much as that retard from Texas who thinks Obama is a socialist. So don't let 'em worry you Martin. ;) | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Ah! So - this is you? http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fCd5n1GH8ig Nice trees, if so! I'm mailing from Oxford, which looks pretty much as you'd expect: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bXJUVSSmj9I&feature= related But anyway: onward,and to heck with the hanging chads ... | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Close Martin. That's 12th St and 8th Ave. I live on 18th at 5th Ave., so I'm furhter away from the park by a bit. In general, the nearer to Prospect Park you are, the older the buildings. Park Slope proper is full of pre-war brownstones and has those nice trees. Although I'm not too far away, the difference can be stark. Newer brick buildings, ethnic neighborhoods, etc. This mural is on the corner of my block (http://tinyurl.com/5wqbcd). Can't find any other pictures online though. It's an interesting place. I've been to Oxford before, but i was probably too young to appreciate it. I remember that it seemed very old and green but manicured. And I remember the shark in the roof. Not much else, shame on me. If you're looking for a good site to use to check in on election results, this one seems to have its act together: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/ | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Miracles happen. I find myself very moved by what they have done in America. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Yo, Dave - come again and look me up! That result: well, the world's been spared Zombie John and the Vacancy in the Red Dress - and as Jesse Jackson movingly said, a lot of people have died so we could see this day. But Obama's speech was hardly something I'd put beside Lincoln or Dr. King, and I'm far too old to be convinced by amen corner call-and-response. Let's hope it's the end of Neo Con madness - but personally, the champagne stays on ice until the rhetoric's given way to legislation and I hear that the Patriot Act has been repealed. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Yes, a historical moment but still to early to say whether it's a significant one. Thinking back to when Blair got in after so many years of the Tories, the widespread jubilation and Cool Britannia jingoism lasted a few years and we all know where it ended. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Good that people have hope. But sad to see a once-sharp mind reduced to this: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=k2L8iUHZ2sY | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
I'm sentimental, if you know what I mean I love the country but I can't stand the scene. And I'm neither left or right I'm just staying home tonight, getting lost in that hopeless little screen. But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that Time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&si d=avLP1rN.j8q4&refer=home | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
I find it astonishing. Given America's turmoil over race I have always firmly believed it incapable of electing a black President in my lifetime. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
I find it astonishing that he's already appointed Clinton's old Treasury Secretary as his Treasury Secretary and Clinton's old Chief of Staff as his Chief of Staff. Same World Order, baby. God, I hate this shit. I have some other thoughts on the election that I'll post if I get a chance. (Yo Martin, if I'm ever Oxford-bound again, I'll definitely let you know.) | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/11/obamas-pic k-for-chief-of-staff.html My head might explode. Even I expected better. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Amid all the hooplah, Bob Dylan seems one of the few public figures who's still seeing straight. On election night, he played one concert, and spoke before the encore. This from a fan site: >What seemed to prompt him to talk to the crowd more than anything was [bassist] Tony Garnier’s donning of an Obama button. It was Tony’s turn to be introduced and Bob started to chuckle a bit and said something like, “Tony Garnier over there wearing his Obama button (raises his eyebrows)…..Tony thinks it’s gonna be an Age of Light (chuckling)…..Well I was born in 1941, the year they bombed Pearl Harbor. Been living in darkness ever since……Looks like that’s all gonna change now (chuckling a bit).” Then he broke into “Blowin’ In The Wind.” The next night he played again, when Obama had won and (it's fair to say) most of his audience was still in ecstasy over what had happened. Anyone else might have started with "Times They Are a-Changin' " or "Blowing in the Wind," and brought the house down. But Dylan is far too astute for that. Ignoring the Bono option, he stepped into the spotlight - and began to sing this: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=bxV0U6E0vzc | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
I can't agree with this negativity. It seems - not rational but pathological. It isn't exceptional but seems the opinion of a number of people I know: quite general to a certain sort of educated person. A Black President of America and they can't think of anything nice to say. Hey ho. Since when was Billionaire Bob Dylan a moral guide? | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Not a moral guide at all - just a quiet voice that this isn't the Millennium, and that some other-worldly expectations are going to have to come down to earth with a bump. Like Sheryl Crow's, on her blog: >As we watch the 70,000 euphoric Obama supporters in Grant Park in Chicago waiting for the appearance of our future president, our first black president, but more importantly, our deeply inspired and conscious leader, it is my hope that we will heed his call to find forgiveness, acceptance, and compassion for each other and that we will bless this nation and ourselves by putting the divisiveness that has been nurtured throughout this campaign and the past eight years to once again become a nation of one people under God indivisible. Time to celebrate America at her very best.< - This isn't the language of political reality, but of inspirational, redemptive Christianity. It's a narrative few non-US residents read from the election, and a promise which no secular leader can ever deliver. I think the truth of the situation is closer to 'Life of Brian': "There's a mess in here, all right - but no messiah!" | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
"In other words, the Obama problem is his extreme popularity in Europe, which is based both on his skin colour and on his “image”. Because people don’t understand how much race relations in the United States have actually changed, they see Obama’s election as a sort of absolute miracle and, since the media present him as a strong alternative to Bush, and hardly report, for example, his plans to send more troops to Afghanistan, they think that he is far more progressive than he actually is. Of course, given the disastrous state of the Left worldwide, people desperately want to believe in something positive happening somewhere, and that only reinforces the illusions about Obama." http://www.counterpunch.org/bricmont11072008.html | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
I'm with MJP on this. Although there are reasons to be concerned, and the Obama presidency can't possibly live up to all that's expected of it, I think there are more reasons for optimism than for pessimism. I too keep looking back to the 1997 Labour landslide (to the tune of "Won't get fooled again") but I think there are important differences. Obama seems more intellectually curious than Blair, and more of a pragmatic realist than Mr. "no reverse gear" (though of course it's hard to gauge these things until the policy-making gets underway). Crucially, Obama has been elected at a time when America is at its lowest point in over 50 years, whereas Blair came to power when the economy was already climbing and everyone was talking about "cool Brittania" ruling the waves. Blair squandered opportunities because he was too scared of upsetting the gravy train, too worried about losing his grip on power. Obama has a far greater opportunity for making radical changes, if only because he has less to lose. It'd be foolish to expect overnight miracles (and certainly Sheryl Crow will be a bit disappointed) but there have been some very interesting and positive signs since the election result. The most obvious thing to me was the return of loud American accents to London - signs of a people coming out of hiding, no longer ashamed. But I also detected a new sense of pride in black people I saw, whether friends & colleagues, strangers serving me in shops, or just kids hanging out around the housing estates of White City (now there's an ironic name). There also (though I could be imagining it) seemed to be a greater two-way respect, and a greater willingness to communicate between white & black. And I think this is echoed throughout the world, with countries from France to Iran happy to praise Americans for their choice of president. I'm not someone who believes in seismic overnight changes in public opinion and behaviour. Generally, I think that the mood of society changes at atomic level, and it's only over years, decades, even centuries that we can spot big changes. For example, same-sex relationships have become increasing accepted over the last 20 years, but it's hard to think of any particular day when everyone woke up and said "you know what? Gay people are OK really". In science, it's said that you have to wait for a generation of scientists to die before any radical new theory can take hold. I don't think that Obama's election suddently makes the world an OK place, but I do think that it's accelerated the changes which are very gradually breaking down racial prejudices across much of the world, and it bodes well for future generations (should we manage to keep the world in one piece for them...) | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
We'll see. Auspicious beginnings: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/10/obama- white-house-barack | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
But - wait. Oh. My. Gawwwd. http://tinyurl.com/6kqn55 | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
And if anyone would like to add a message: http://www.avaaz.org/en/million_messages_to_obama/ | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
I would like to add to what Dan says. I deliberately ignored much of the election in its later stages, partly out of a fatalistic sense that the more I looked the more it was likely to go wrong (I mean from my point of view); that sense of fearing the worst as a consequence of my own habitual incompetencies. Obama won it and I got the Independent to read about it and I surprised myself, I felt very emotional. Something inconceivable to my world view had happened: there actually was going to be a black President of the USA in my life time, in just a few weeks, heaven preserve him. What I felt, unexpectedly, was a lifting of a sense of shame; that I would now not be on a culturally different wavelength from black people, that we were confirmed in occupying the same world after all. I found that shattering. These things work at a symbolic level rather than just in simple semantic referential terms. I mean, we were not just looking at the difference of a colour, of black as contrasted with white, which is rationally trivial, but at the transformation of a vast range of signifiers, cultural, political and economic, aesthetic and emotional, these things suddenly found their place in the world shifted overnight. That is what that lifting of a sense of shame told me: a feeling that until this point I hadn't even recognised I'd had. Whatever happens now, we have come to this moment. This moment has happened. I hated living in that old world where a black person could not conceivably lead the world's most symbolic nation. Yabadabadoo! as Barney Rubble would say. In my view, what people are concerned about stands in addition to this. But then I think that many of those concerns are misplaced, that America has had a massive stroke of luck and found itself a leader who is way beyond anything seen for many decades - someone very articulate, who is thoughtful and measured in his judgements, who is intelligent, and who above all in political terms is strategically brilliant, very very brilliant, someone akin to a genius at this level. It required something of that quality for this kind of a man to get to where he did so quickly and directly. He is black or a man of colour or a "mutt" as he called himself at his press conference. And what a contrast with Bush! It is absolutely amazing. What a relief! Suddenly measured intelligent tones instead of a muffled quacking. It is precisely the business of his strategic thinking that is the most interesting thing of all, in my view. In his conference he set out some of his objectives: fuel-efficient cars and clean energy for example; this was stated explicitly: again what a contrast, what a contrast. (But what an opposition and what a task that presents him with ...) And so on and so forth. Nothing that wasn't intelligent and needed. Now we come to Iran - the letter from the Iranian President, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, congratulating Obama on his victory. This is a very tricky sort of nice thing to have been given. Obama is not in office yet. As he says, America only has one President at a time. Strategically, he cannot interpose any major changes in foreign policy in any substantive way until the end of the lame duck period. We will have to wait until January 2009. He can only do one thing or relations with the current administration will be exacerbated (possibly giving them advantages over the incoming one). It is like a general in charge of his troops. How does he march them overland and get them there on the correct day without forwarning the enemy? In this case, Dick Cheney? We shall have to see what he really intends and how things actually pan out when he gets the reins of power, until then - just as with the whole of his campaign for the Presidency itself - there will be a lot of disguise and a degree of misdirection. I think President Obama will shock and surprise a great many people. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
I laughed, anyway: especially "fact" 6. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml= /opinion/2008/11/11/do1105.xml | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
And some seriously better news: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/o bama-to-fulfil-promise-and-shut-guantanamo-1009585 .html | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
The funny side: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7721764.stm | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
I am so thrilled by the new American President that I am certainly not objective. Thank you to all those Americans who worked to get him elected and who voted for him. I never thought I'd see the day that I actually positively liked a politician, so another first: I love him to pieces. I am going to need to remind myself that he is just a human being, and this is politics after all, which is a dirty business. Yet still I think big change is imminent. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Let's hope so, MJP: let's hope so. Meanwhile, this winsome li'l critter just *won't* lie down: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2008/n ov/11/sarah-palin | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Martin. Strange how at the same time as something ideal-seeming happens the promise of a blow-back from it emerges simultaneously. Just as a black president is a silver lining of the awful Bush years, we have that threat of an even more ignorant individual reclaiming Republican power and visiting no end of stupidities on us again. Whether that pattern will repeat itself right through to the new election in four years and secure Palin some sort of eminence we will have to see. I need to follow a specified rule to suppose a naivete in myself (having voted for Blair just that once) but looking ahead it is probable that race will become a sub-text in any unhappiness with Obama's decisions and will work to influence an electorate no longer overjoyed. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
I have to think that Palin, who shot to notoriety as a cynical gambit on McCain's part, will lapse into irrelevance in the near future. She's in such a hole that she has to talk about clothes for five-plus minutes on Faux News. She's toast. And likely the rest of the current Republican infrastructure in Alaska too. Stevens & Young are both in deep shit and, should Palin make a play for Steven's seat, she'll get railroaded with Trooper Gate dirt etc. and not have the McCain machine to help her fend it off. On another note, MJP, I thought you might be interested in today's Democracy Now! broadcast - specifically the segment with Alice Walker's open letter to Obama. Even I have to admit to feeling a twinge of something like pride when she read it. http://www.democracynow.org/2008/11/11/pulitzer_wi nning_author_alice_walker_on | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Bullshit alert: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/ 2008/11/12/obama_softens_ban_on_hiring_lobbyists/? page=full | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Hi, Dave - what's the feeling in Park Slope? Over here, one week on, we still get the buzz of it all, but little or none of the almost Pentecostal spirit that's coming out of commentators like Alice Walker. Are folk still in rapture - or (as your last post hints) beginning to sense that at least some of the next presidency might just be business as usual? Meanwhile, I quite like the idea that this Midwestern paper didn't report Obama's win because "it wasn't local news": http://www.kjrh.com/mostpopular/story.aspx?content _id=7a12f9bd-67c3-416d-83bd-a63e96959fae | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Well Martin, near as I can tell the buzz continues unabated here in NYC. But it's a bliss born of ignorance by people who can take easy pride in having voted for Obama because they feel that they can take him at his word when he says that he doesn't take money from lobbyists etc. Folks with a perhaps more progressive inclination are more skeptical I'd say. As for myself, I'm trying to remain open minded...sort of skeptical without being cynical. I'd like to be wrong, but I don't feel as though a big victory has been won. Stuff like the news from lobbyist-related link above really gets me pissed off because I'd hoped that the one thing that we can realistically expect from the Obama administration is a government that can be pressured to do right by civic forces (if they can be aroused). The news on closing Gitmo and reversing a bunch of Bush's executive orders doesn't really excite me. Repealing barbaric neocon policies is necessary for Obama if he wants to avoid becoming a war criminal himself. This includes ending the wars though. Distinguishing between lesser and greater degrees of overt barbarism perpetuated by empire seems kind of silly. Personally, I'm most interested to see where this goes: http://www.november5.org/ | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Your third paragraph pretty much sums up my feelings, too - skeptical but not cynical. I'd love to be as thrilled as MJP or Dan: I'm not. But let's hope I'm proved horribly, embarrassingly wrong. november5: I think "the founders of these United States" would be most surprised to have their names attached to this - and Jefferson in particular (as a slave owner) would have been utterly appalled by Obama's victory. As you say, though, this *will* be interesting! | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Bullshit alert: You'll all be relieved to hear that Obama is sending Madeleine "we think the price is worth it" Albright to the G-20 summit. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Mr. Change is going all mid '90s on us: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/11/obam a_announces_transition_lea.php http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2008/11/obam a-biden_transition_team_an.php I just don't get this at a fundamental level. But it feels a bit like he's giving his voters the finger. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Dave, she can do 400lbs on leg presses (Wikipedia) That achievement's far more important than a chance rmark about a few thousand dead children. Iraqi children, too. They really don't matter. *Sighs* Honestly, folks' cyncisim these days ... | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
... Not to mention their atrocious spelling. This is all getting to be a bit "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." Is there anyone in the Democrats who's not a ravaged old Clinton-ite? | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Yet more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15569.ht ml Just demoralizing. One new name or fresh face would be enough to make me smile at this point. I don't claim to understand a lot of what goes into selecting a transition team, but I can't help but believe that, when you win an election after receiving more corporate campaign donations than any candidate in history, you hire who the corporations tell you. And Clinton-ites have a track record of Republican-lite style of governing, so they must seem like an attractive corporate B Team to stand in while the neocons are off sharpening their claws, waiting for Obama to slip up. | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Don't Let Barack Obama Break Your Heart http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/12 | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Defense lobbyists in government - well, I never. The attack on the wedding party nauseates me still further. It would be a gesture (and sadly, it can't be any more) if we could learn their names and post them on Obama's wall in Washington. Meanwhile, our winsome li'l critter has decided to have another word with Big Guy in the Sky: shucks, ain't life just a bowl of peaches? http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/13/palin.o bama/ | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
Martin, did you see the footage of Palin back home making moose stew for the kids? I wonder, is she still news, or has she been shifted to the human interest category? Morbid interest at that... | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
"And, hey, our kids use the antlers as tooth-picks - that's environmentalism in action, gang!" No, mercifully I've been spared that particular fresh hell. And she must surely be human interest now. The Republicans are going to go for deep, deep rebranding, and an outback Jesus freak waving a hockey stick won't be any part of that. Can they find a black(ish) candidate who can lie fluntly to camera? The search is on. Watch this space. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
In other shock news, it emerges we've got Renegade and Renaissance, but were spared Phoenix and Parasol. Crossword freaks might note that Palin's code-name, "Denali," is an anagram of "Denial": coincidentally, the state she's livng in right now. It's the way I tell 'em ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elect ions_2008/7726453.stm | ||
| dave Username: dave Registered: 10-2006 |
While we post on message boards about Clintonistas and Palin, the real world marches on: http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/provider article.aspx?feed=AP&date=20081113&id=9377594 The thing that seems to be driving me toward an increasingly inevitable anxiety disorder is that, despite the ease with which these global problems (whether sociopolitical or environmental) can be identified, I can't think of one realisitc mechanism for addressing any of them. | ||
| arturo Username: arturo Registered: 10-2006 |
Hi Dave, I think that the only reasonable aproach to those problems rigth now is management - not to say damage control- rather than solving. I suspect that a solution to say global warming would take as much time as it took to create a problem in the first place. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Don't worry - the headline must appear soon: "Rich Hawaiian Gets Elected to Save World." Oh, god - my skepticism is giving way to cynicism again. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Arturo. Talking about the environment. It is a bit like being in a hail storm itself, this thread. I keep wondering when I am going to get knocked out by a golf ball sized missive travelling at god speed when all I've got is my rather worn umbrella of flim flam. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Come on, MJP - we all love you! This is just the ping-pong of opinion, nothing more. Some people out there really *do* deserve our sympathy in these hard times, though. Two of them have just hired 6 pet psychics to find their dog: http://cbs13.com/pets/benecia.dog.yorkie.2.863057. html Common sense vs. fairyland: the fight goes on, my brothers. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
>> I keep wondering when I am going to get knocked out by a golf ball sized missive travelling at god speed when all I've got is my rather worn umbrella of flim flam. I was going to get out my slide rule and try to work out the velocities and masses involved. Reading too much James Blish at the moment. Hard SF can severely impair one's sense of the ridiculous. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Now here is the start of a reggea number. Slide rules and tatty flim flam golf balls through a wig wam big rain on a bigger sham white world with a black man a lot of worms in a plastic can dum dum dum de dum damn ... Who can make sense of it? | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
dum dum dum de dum damn ... Do you like green eggs and ham(n)? Dr Seuss, he can make sense of it. | ||
| arturo Username: arturo Registered: 10-2006 |
Make sense? Not me... For I am a strager here myself. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Yo, Arturo - it's really good to hear from you again! How are you? What's happening? | ||
| arturo Username: arturo Registered: 10-2006 |
For the last year I´ve kept a blog. The daily grind leaves little time to browse. close to 28000 hits in a year. Weirdly enough the posts with the more reades is one about Flaubert. Anothe one about the real Cyrano is a close second. | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
Whenever we mention Yoko Ono over on fadwebsite.com our hits go through the roof. She seems to be more popular than Banksy, Warhol & Jeff Koons added together. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Well I keep a blog and if I get a hit a week I consider that a triumph of form over content. Possibly. Whatever that might mean. I have been reading Obama's The Audacity of Hope. He seems an intellectual who is still very much an idealist barely marked by his political experiences, as far as one can tell. He is very clever, very adroit and able to see in multi-dimensioned terms and there is real depth to his thinking. And his style of personality has one great advantage over mine, which forms part of my admiration for him. He is able to be detached - he is unflappable - in his dealings with people. That is a great strength in a politician. It would also make him a good novelist. In looks he reminds me of a black Salinger. | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
Very interesting piece in today's Guardian, on why Obama's Clintonesque cabinet choices don't necessarily imply another term of Clintonesque government: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/2 6/barack-obama-cabinet-hillary-clinton | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Read what's underneath, if you can bear to. Self-righteous know it alls impoverished in every dimension of their strategic thinking. We are going to have to wait until Obama actually gets into office before they shut up. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
Can't remember my Guardian sign-in name. (Otherwise you might have been spared this; oh dear.) What I would say to those people who have already condemned Obama for apparently putting in train a series of unforgivable wrongdoings is this - that we have just had however many years of Bush-certainty. They want to replace that with their own home-brewed certainties. What happened to debate, give and take, complexity, strategy? All the intelligent things Obama stands for? What about thinking outside the box of certainty? We have had enough of certainty. Quiet down! | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
I read that as "box of celery": it's been a long, long day here, and my eyes feel poached. But, yes: let's see what Obama *does* (or can do, all things considered). | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
I'm certainly thinking outside the box of celery. Never touch the filthy stuff. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
One friend of mind tells me it costs you more calories to chew than it contains - the dieter's friend. Great if you chop it finely and mix it up with beetroot, too. Maybe this will be Obama's first act in office: fixing a tasty salad with the kids on the Daily Show. Let's wait and see. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
I think the basic requirement is a greek salad but it should include radishes. Man is a thinking radish. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
In that case wasabi is post-human. | ||
| mjp Username: mjp Registered: 10-2006 |
- Post human but nice with prawns in batter. | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
Long and tall and lank and limbless, It's the Man from Egg Tempura, innit? Apologies to Antonio Carlos Jobim, Vinícius de Moraes and Norman Gimbel. | ||
| martin Username: martin Registered: 10-2006 |
Against our "endemic facetiousness," though: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/21/i-have-a-mas ters-degree-i-shouldnt-have-to-do-this/ | ||
| dan Username: dan Registered: 10-2006 |
Anyone see the joke in today's Guardian? It's mid-January. A guy walks up to the White House, sees a Marine guard, and tells the guard "I'd like to speak to President Bush". The Marine says "I'm sorry, President Bush no longer lives here". The guy thanks him and walks away. Next day, same guy, same guard, same question. The Marine says "I'm sorry, Mr. Bush is no longer the president, so he's no longer in the White House". Third day, the guy goes to the same Marine, asks the same question. Exasperated, the Marine shouts "Don`t you get it? Bush lost the election! He's no longer president! He`s not here anymore!!" The guy says "Yes, I know. I just like hearing it!" The Marine smiles, salutes him, and says "See you tomorrow!" (although a web-search reveals that the same joke, with changed names, did the rounds when Clinton was on his way out) | ||
| iotar Username: iotar Registered: 6-2006 |
" 'Obama too British' case rejected " http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7771937.stm |