White people have been given the cue to reject a black man with code words like "hockey mom" and "pit bull with lipstick." Gender has been pitted against race to allow white people to talk about "working class" to mean white people got to keep what's theirs against the onslaught of effete wine-drinking law professor black men. Huh? Cavalcade of distractions, Swift Boats in all ports, blatant mendacious fabrications, and over-ripe baloney piled to even higher levels than the first 8 years of Rove.
New terms have been added to the twisted cynical fascist lexicon, "lipstick" joining "honor" and "service" and "homeland." Two colonial frontiers go head to head: Alaska of desperate last-chance white folks versus Hawaii of mellow mix-mix. America no mo' bettah mix-mix. Alaska crude wins.
What do you expect?
Bush has locked American logic into endless occupation of Iraq, which the Happy Fighter Pilot embraces with joy. The attack on Iran is now cleared for take-off. Pakistan is on the "to pulp" list. The solution to war is more war, wider war. The solution to occupation is more occupation, wider occupation. Israeli leaders can barely contain themselves; they decide to extend The Wall to Jupiter. America looks the other way.
Crazed victims of America get even crazier, and even more Americans still can't figure out why they hate us. Good people all over the world set up "Committees in Solidarity with the People of the United States" (CISPUS). In El Salvador and Germany and Vietnam they argue and agonize over what the true meaning of solidarity is all about – Sending money to besieged truth-tellers in New Jersey? Singing songs of the Spanish Civil War? Should they campaign for Boycott and Divestment? CISPUS reaches out to underground Americans waiting for the decades-long Alaska winter night to end, but they know that only the oppressed Americans are the ones who can defeat the Four Budweiser Delivery Trucks of the Apocalypse.
What do you expect?
Oh, I forgot. Russia now bad, them big bad Russians. Surround them with missiles, goad them with NATO, provoke them – and we can have a Cold War again. Good for arms business, happiness for missile guidance systems. The first Cold War turns out to have had little to do with ideology – something a lot of people suspected all along – so we can go back to square one – ah, containment and confrontation – all wrapped in the warm blanket of familiar fear, along with lust for oil. And then there's China . . .
What do you expect?
A thousand miles off the coast of San Francisco a mass of plastic bags two times the size of Texas floats in the Pacific – this is fact, check it out. Soon the continent of crap drifts toward the coast, and Americans strangle in their own garbage. Dead zones at the mouth of the Mississippi expand in all directions. Bees die off, fruit trees wither, frogs disappear – and perky Sarah hunts down polar bears from helicopters as they swim in Arctic Jacuzzis. Do you miss honey? Do you miss apples? Do you miss the North Pole?
What do you expect?
Americans are told they don't want a "Washington Bureaucrat" to make their health-care decisions. They are happy to have a bureaucrat in Connecticut or Wall Street to decide instead. Actually, once again Americans are left waiting in the Emergency Room – which is about to be shut down.
This is freedom of choice. Women have no choice, even if they die, to carry babies to the maws of death in Kabul or Baghdad or Texas Death Row, which is "pro life." Sex is bad, abstain from touching yourself in those goofy places, abstain from joy, avoid all candor, avoid all knowledge, keep your secret places to yourself – and, above all, do not touch anyone's private parts that look like your own.
Capitalism continues to eat its own. No regulation means constant regurgitation. Banks kill themselves off like bees. Putrid carcass free market burgers kill off entire cities like bees, no need for hurricanes. No one checks the meat, no one checks the drugs, no one checks the ads on TV to buy the drugs, no one checks the drug companies who are put in charge of saving the planet in sacred trust with oil companies. More poor, more pain, more jails, more crank, less school, no science, more God, less compassion, less jobs, more shopping days before Christmas, less reality, more reality TV, more stupidity, less art, more dead brain.
Hilton Obenzinger is the author of "American Palestine: Melville, Twain and the Holy Land Mania," among many other books of criticism, poetry and fiction, and the recipient of the American Book Award. He is a long-time Jewish American advocate of Israeli-Palestinian peace. Hilton Obenzinger teaches writing and American literature at Stanford University.
I had no idea there was such a contrast between the 2 choices. You make it sound like the end of the world, LITERALLY! Maybe things aren't quite as bad as you paint them, and maybe things wouldn't be quite so Rosy either. My guess is that 4.5 years from now, whomever was the president, things will be very very similar.
by
sbaker (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 137 comments)
on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 12:34:48 PM
Neither of the major parties have put forth outstanding candidates.. In fact both candidates at the top of the ticket SUCK...
The fact that so many people are worried about Palin means that she will give McCain a shot at winning... (otherwise she would be ignored..)
I agree.. We will have the same USA in 4 years no matter who is elected... We will continue to limp along with a government that spends entirely too much of our money, and it is truly going to suck...
HOWEVER.. since there are so many people who actually believe that choosing the "lesser of two evils" is a good thing, we will continue to limp along as a nation with a corrupt government that has no interest in representing "THE PEOPLE"
I predict a McCain victory... This does not mean it will be good for the US... It means McCain will win, and it will be by a pretty large margin.
Only way to stop this, is to generate excitement about a third party, because Obama already lost the race against McCain.
Ciao, CZ
by
steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 693 comments)
on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 7:46:27 PM
'The defination of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.' ---------------------------------------------------
Just some reminders: The dems did not pull out of all of the world treaties that have taken 55 years (longer on some) to agree and ratify by bi-party congresses.
The dems did not take the labor and environmental regulations out of the 'free trade' deals.
The dems did not stop regulations of corporate labor, safety and environmental laws.
The dems did not lock (literally) the minority out of their own conferences.
The dems did not allow torture, openly and fight the passing of law against it.
The dems did not expose covert CIA agents and then lie about it.
The dems did not corrupt the Justice system.
The dems didn't start preemptive perpetual wars based on lies.
The dems did not sit back and watch thousands of Americans drown, starve, and become homeless without trying to save them, until it was too late.
At the ethics hearings, representatives of repub and dem 'think tanks', stated that they had never in their 20-30 years in public life had they ever seen such corruption.
People from both sides of the aisle are going public with the law breaking of this regime.
It will take all of us, united to fix this. Both sides will have to fight for our fairness in media laws. Both sides will have to fight for paper trail voting.
If we don't do this. Then decent repubs will not be elected either. It will be fixed for the same corrupt neo-cons that are in now.
So, if you want a complete fascist government, just sit back and let the neo-con repubs take back the congress.
As long as the dems had complete control, the EPA was doing it's job and improving many aspects of the environment, FEMA was doing their job and helping victims not corporations, regulations were in place to make corporations accountable for environment, work safety, public safety, and anti-trust, Social Security was in tact, the deficit was less than half of what it is now, the trade deficit was less than half of what it is now and we were on our way to a balanced budget, there were no wars, bleeding life and funds at a steady flow, we were respected by most of the world, and were working on education, medical, and infrastructure not world empire.
That alone, will keep me voting Dem and holding their 'feet to the fire'.
It's time to think of our constitution and our country and do whatever we can to get them back.
Our progressive congressmen will not stand a chance against Mc Cains'veto pen. If you think it won't be worse (maybe unrepairable) with another 4-8 years, how easily you have forgotten where these bastards have taken us and the world in the last 8. Say hello to fascism!!!!
by
LYNNE KRINGLER (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 67 comments)
on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 10:51:27 PM
I think it matters not which party wins, that the country was hijacked long ago, that corporate and banking interests will continue to rape each one of us in various ways and in a variety of positions which we never even dreamed of and certainly couldn't have read about beforehand.
I think the only weapon left to us exists in our wallets and that peaceful civil disobedience in the form of the closure of bank accounts and the withholding of taxes is the only method available towards changing a system that is specifically designed to prevent change from within, stifle questioning and arrest dissenters.
I think George H.W. Bushes description of Americans as Budsters is accurate and intelligent. He said, "as long as we keep food on the table, a roof over their heads and gas in the tank so they can get to work and back we can keep them at bay." He referred to us as the "broke, useless and depressed."
He was right, and to use my own favorite phrase, "Americans are asleep at the wheel."
by
jeff prager (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 185 comments)
on Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 1:01:12 AM
I think it matters not which party wins, that the country was hijacked long ago, that corporate and banking interests will continue to rape each one of us in various ways and in a variety of positions which we never even dreamed of and certainly couldn't have read about beforehand.
I think the only weapon left to us exists in our wallets and that peaceful civil disobedience in the form of the closure of bank accounts and the withholding of taxes is the only method available towards changing a system that is specifically designed to prevent change from within, stifle questioning and arrest dissenters.
I think George H.W. Bushes description of Americans as Budsters is accurate and intelligent. He said, "as long as we keep food on the table, a roof over their heads and gas in the tank so they can get to work and back we can keep them at bay." He referred to us as the "broke, useless and depressed."
He was right, and to use my own favorite phrase, "Americans are asleep at the wheel."
by
jeff prager (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 185 comments)
on Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 1:01:33 AM
To all of you who think it does NOT matter who wins:
To those who think that the Democrats are NO different than the Rethuglicans
Let me be CLEAR: IT DOES MATTER!!!!
The Religious Right was very close to getting EVERYTHING they wanted with dumb ass "W".
If you give in to the meme that it "doesn't matter" then there is a very good chance that not only does McSame and Bloody Sarah (The appaling photos of her with dead moose and the support of her GUNNING down wolves from Plane/helicopters is horrifying to me - see the video her of absolute brutality - click here ) gain the White House, the Rethugs could possibly even gain back enough seats to take back congress. And with the certainty that at least one and probably two moderate SCOTUS judges will retire - well we will have handed the country to the Radical Reich wing in totoal - and be sure there is more at stake here than ROe v. Wade - The seperation between Church and State will be DEMOLISHED! That is THE ULTIMATE goal of these fanatics.
Don't beleive me? Go to www.theocracywatch.org for a little bit of eye opening education.
Then go to www.talk2action.org to learn some more.
I would think these two site alone would scare you enough to do EVERYTHING possible to make sure Democrats control both the WH an congress.
by
aaronbav (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 15 comments)
on Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 12:13:06 PM
Of course, I agree. But I should be clear: I don't have great expectations from the Democrats. If there were a mass movement with a third party, that would be wonderful. But the mass movement right now is the one for Obama. And the bottom-up community organizing strategy is very much not the typical Democratic party operation. So, there are possibilities, and that's important. The McCain-Palin ticket is now a total front for the neo-Cons. If you read Frank Rich in the NY Time today (Sunday), he gives a good analysis of how Palin would be even more powerful (as a front person) than Cheney. Judges, more war, anti-democratic policies -- this is a choice between another step toward fascism and democracy. No one's cyncism about the Democratic party should cloud this reality.
by
Hilton Obenzinger (18 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Sunday, September 14, 2008 at 1:00:31 PM
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