I want to take a walk with FuzzyBear!

I need a break.  Things are starting to feel like the dark days of February before we learned “Bitch is the new black.”  And I’m having a hard time hanging on to that famous katiebird optimism.  Well, it’s pouring outside so I can’t take a walk (it’s a good thing we took a longish :NOT 5 miles: walk this morning.) — what else can a girl do when the weather is bad?

Rico?  May I have a glass of that fine boxed Merlot?  Does anyone want to join me?

To Masslib: We do not bow to peer pressure

Somehow, Masslib, one of our own, has decided that we are supporters of John McCain.  She also seems to think that she needs to convert us for our own good.  I would like to disabuse Masslib of these two notions.

1.) My candidate is no longer in this race.  Therefore, I am confronted by two equally unacceptable alternatives.  But there is no rule that says I MUST vote for a name on the top of the ticket.  I can skip that section if I choose.  OR, I can do a protest vote.  I could choose John McCain because I do not wish to reward bad behavior.  This is my right.  I am quite at ease with ambiguity.  What will be will be but I will not contribute to my own demise by throwing my lot in with a corrupt politician even if he is a member of my own party.

2.) I grew up with a religiously fanatical mother.  I have seen every form of emotional manipulation there is to get me to crack and become her kind of Christian.  It is impossible for me to substitute my own judgment with yours, masslib.  I suspect there are a lot of other people on this board who are immune to conversion as well.  When our hearts and minds tell us that Obama is bad news, we have to pay attention to them. My heart and mind tell me it would be as wrong to vote for Obama as it is to vote for George W. Bush.  I can’t do it to make you happy.  I won’t do it just because a Republican will be in office for 4 more years.

There is a certain kind of peer pressure that is annoying to the point of being harrassment.  That is where we are now.  We have heard every argument for voting for Obama and none of them have proven to be very convincing except that he is not a Republican.  And lo and behold, the *Republican* in this case seems to be more amenable to Democratic ideas than the actual Democrat.  With Obama, I get a corrupt politician who will scream “RACISM” everytime the media or others criticize something they don’t like.  We will be held hostage to accusations of racism used as weapons against us.  Obama doesn’t represent the average Democrat.  He represents whoever is bankrolling him, emphasis on bank.  And if he gets elected, Hillary may never have a crack at the office she deserved.

John McCain is not a saint and he is a Republican but he strikes me as a guy who tries to do the right thing, even if it makes him unpopular.  He stuck with his committment to campaign finance reform, he took public campaign funds and he seems to be receptive to ideas that are outside his comfort level.  Do I want to vote for him?  Heck no.  I wanted Hillary and I am profoundly disappointed that she isn’t running.  But this is where we are.  And I am not voting for Obama to please other people.  I have to please myself.  I have to live with myself.

Many of us PUMAs are perfectly comfortable in our own skin with our own decisions.  We don’t want others pestering us about Obama anymore.  We aren’t interested in poll results.  Obama supporters who come here to try to depress turnout or convert us are wasting their time.  We simply do not care what you think of us.  We have been called stupid, old, uneducated, ridiculous females, a shrieking horde of paranoid holdouts, racists, traitors and Republicans.  Oddly enough, this has not made us want to vote for Obama.

The world will go on, no matter what we’re called.  And if Obama loses on Nov. 4, I will be the first to say, “Good!”  You can blame me, scream at me, jump up and down throw a fit, ostracize me, I really don’t give a flying fig.  I will live through it and so will the others on the many dozens of blogs like this one.

It is regrettable that we have grown apart but I’m sure we will both survive.  And the next time the party tries to pull this $#%^, I hope they will think twice as to whether it was worth it.

Now, masslib and people who gave in to peer pressure can say that Obama is going to win but I have enough emails from the party that suggest that plans to launch a full out attack to pressure us into voting for Obama.  If he were doing that well, the upcoming psychological warfare would be unneccesary.  So, please stop the annoying pro-Obama blather.  We aren’t buying it and we don’t care.

We’re not trying to be mean.  We are just being firm.

America

I’ve been kind of depressed for the past few days. I think it is just the weight of the ugliness I have experienced during this endless presidential campaign. I’m sure a lot of you feel the same way. I love America with all my heart. I’ve lived in a number of places in this great country and have traveled to many others. Since I was a child, I have loved to travel by car. Now as an adult, I always drive everywhere–even if I’m going a long distance. I love to look at the countryside and to interact with other Americans along the way. I’ve driven from Boston to Albuquerque, to LA and San Francisco. I’ve driven all over the Midwest, up to North Dakota, Minnesota, across Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, New York, and Pennsylvania. I’ve driven down south to Florida, and made stops in Georgia, North Carolina. And of course I’ve driven all over the Northeast, from Maine down to NYC. America is a beautiful country.

Today while I was driving home and listening to NPR, a story came on about Jose Feliciano and his performance of the national anthem at the 1968 world series in Detroit. It was an amazing rendition of the anthem–probably the first time many heard it sung in a more informal, idiosyncratic style. It was beautiful, but many people thought that Feliciano was trying to make some kind of political statement. He wasn’t. He was just singing for his beloved country. When I heard him sing, I started to sob. His voice and the words struck a cord in me. I felt the deep love for America and Americans that has always been there. I also remembered another rendition of the National Anthem that affected me similarly.

Defined By A Vote?

Are We All Racists Now?

For me, this election season has been a continuous cycle of smacks in the face. The Democrats have compounded their disastrously poor performance (no impeachment, no ending of the war) in Congress by selecting, not electing, a Chicago machine nominee who is as corrupt as any Bush Republican and as authoritarian and narcissistic as Bush himself. In a year when any Dem candidate should be winning in a landslide, November looks like it will be another nail-biter, with possible election fraud on both sides. 

But the worst thing, by far, that has come out of this election has been the race-baiting and sexism by Obama’s campaign, his media enablers and his mindless followers. Even a civil rights luminary like John Lewis has started perpetrating the same myths – that it is McCain who is dividing this country and inciting people to violence because ZOMG They’re All Racists!

Oh really? What does Representative Lewis think Barack Obama meant when he told his supporters to “get in peoples’ faces?” Does he think this type of violence and misogyny is fine, because it comes from people who support Obama? If Obama himself does not approve of the behavior of his supporters, which has been out of control for quite some time, then why does he not say so?

Look, there is a lot of ignorance in this country. We all know that. But can we really judge all people by the way they vote? Can we really call them racists because of the way they pull the lever on Election Day?

In that case, how do we describe the 97% of African Americans who plan to vote for Barack Obama? If they are defined by their votes, then they must be voting for Obama because he is black. Right? And because of that, they must be racist. After all, if it’s racist to vote for a white person because of skin color, it’s also racist to vote for a black person because of skin color. (Note: I don’t blame AA’s for voting for Obama. Part of the reason I still support Hillary is because she’s a woman, and I’m not ashamed to admit it.)

Or perhaps a person’s vote doesn’t define him or her. Is that possible for anyone to acknowledge this year? Or has everyone in the fauxgressive Obamasphere gone stark raving nuts?

“The Shrill One” wins Nobel in Economics. Congratulations, Paul!

From the NYTimes:

Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton University and an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times, was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences on Monday….

Mr. Krugman received the award for his work on international trade and economic geography. In particular, the prize committee lauded his work for “having shown the effects of economies of scale on trade patterns and on the location of economic activity.” He has developed models that explain observed patterns of trade between countries, as well as what goods are produced where and why. Traditional trade theory assumes that countries are different and will exchange different kinds of goods with each other; Mr. Krugman’s theories have explained why worldwide trade is dominated by a few countries that are similar to each other, and why some countries might import the same kinds of goods that it exports.

Well. I’m going to have to read his dissertation now.  Or not.  They don’t call Economics the “Dismal Science” for nothing. Can we assume the Nobel Committee is signaling that Uncle Miltie Friedman and his Chigago style economics aren’t as popular as they used to be?

We’ve had our differences with Paul lately but they have been relatively minor.  On the other hand, Princeton is fully in the grips of Obamamania.  Signs are littering too many yards.  Still, I think Paul only tepidly supports him.  (maybe)

Anyway, it’s a time to celebrate.  This calls for beers all around at The Triumph Brewery on Nassau Street.  Just let me know when, Paul.

Not too shabby for a Liberal.

Monday: Hey, Republicans, wanna know a secret?

We know why you’re angry.  You probably haven’t figured it out yet.  To be honest, we’ve always felt you were a little clueless about what was going on.  We’re not being elite.

Oh, Hell, yes we were.  We thought we were smarter than you.  Actually, some of us *are* smarter than you.  Some of us are smarter than our Democratic brether, er, siblings.  Well, maybe smarter isn’t exactly the word.  Let’s just say we know when people are trying to sell us something.  We’re not impluse buyers.  We listen to the pitch and can actually be quite entertained by it but at the end, we recognize the script and the elements and decide we really don’t need the combination dessert topping/floor wax after all.

So, here’s the thing.  You know something’s wrong with the election this year but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is.  We wish you had been this skeptical back in 2000 and 2004 but no use crying over spilled milk now.  What’s done is done.  George Bush was your president for eight of the longest years of our lives.  Many of us have been marking down the days in anticipation of his leaving the White House to be replaced with one of our guys.  That was before the primary season heated up and Barack Obama turned out to be one of the most corrupt politicians since Richard Nixon and George Bush.

And we sense that you guys are really angry.  But you’re angry for the wrong reasons.  You’re angry at some lower income people getting in over their heads with bad mortgages.  You’re angry because they weren’t responsible.  You’re angry because you think Barack Obama cares for “those people”.  Jeez, this has been the problem all along.  You’re always looking in the wrong direction.  While your propaganda unit was getting you all stirred up over resentment towards the people who were worse off than you, the rich bad boys were stealing your wallet.  We knew you were easy marks and tried to warn you but did you listen?  {{sigh}}

So, anyway, where was I?  Oh, yeah.  We just wanted you to know that even if Obama had any intention of helping “those people”, which he doesn’t, there’s no money in the Treasury.  So, you can stop worrying about it.  No, no, don’t let it trouble your beautiful minds.  We’ll take care of it like we always do.  Obama is not really one of us bleeding heart liberal types.  He’s a political opportunist.  Obama does what is good for Obama.  There’s no *there* there where his conscience should be.  That is what makes corruption so easy for him.  He might look tired but I guarantee you that he doesn’t stay awake nights worrying about your well being.  Hillary does that.  Obama thinks Hillary types are suckers.

Anyway, here’s the secret.  The real enemy is not Obama.  No, if you didn’t want Obama, all you would have to do is not vote for him.  Poof!  He would go back to being one of the most ineffectual senators in the Senate, right after Liddy Dole.  The REAL enemy is relentless media fueled peer pressure.  Yep, that media who brought us 8 years of George Bush and the Iraq War.  See, if you had listened to us back then, we would have told you to avoid Bush like the plague and it was obvious that there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction.  (45 minutes from Iraq to North American with a missile?  Are you kidding me?  And don’t even go there with “WMD’s were trucked off to Syria” stuff.  The Army would have made a newsreel out of the satellite images if that were true.  Have you been to Google maps lately?)

Look, if you don’t want Obama as your president, and believe me, we are right there with you, you’ve got to listen to us for a change.  It’s time to put aside the fact that we are from the opposite side of the aisle and that you guys are wrong on just about everything.  Yeah, I know my elite slip is showing but I’m telling you that we’re not like the Obamaphile Democrats.  We’re the FDR type.  Oh, nevermind, we know you don’t like him either.  Well, we never cared for Reagan, so there, we’re even.

Here’s the thing: the media is engaging in a haka against you.  A haka is the word for a Maori war dance.  It is big, brash, ugly, noisy and aggressive.  It is intended to make the enemy feel like they have lost the battle before the first spear is thrown.  It’s like Muhammad Ali trash talking Joe Frasier.  It’s designed to make you despair and give up.  And that’s what’s making you mad.  You think that Obama is going to win and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Bullhockeys.

All you have to do is turn the damn TV off.  Watch the last debate on C-Span.  Read only the sports sections and the stuff about the economy in the paper.  I’m pretty sure that if a haka happens in a forest and no one is around to hear it, it doesn’t bloody well work.  Just put the media on mute and go about your business.  They’ll try to get louder of course.  And we know that the Obama campaign is about to launch a new initiative to get people to vote for him.  It will be based on the same nasty techniques that were used in high school to make you vote for that girl for the Homecoming Queen that you didn’t really like but for some reason everyone around you did.  Take it from us, the geeky Clintonistas who have been sitting this out since August, we’ve seen it all before.  We’re happy sitting together at our own lunchtable.  There’s plenty of room here.  And if we all stick together, we can bring that popular clique in the media down.

‘Cos, I don’t know about you, but I’m sick and tired of the media picking my president.

Oh, and one other thing.  Sarah Palin isn’t stupid.  They just make her look that way on TV.

Other observations from my fevered (literally) imagination:

• Don Draper on Mad Men is Peer Gynt.  Sorry, Matt Weiner.  I’ve given it all away.  “A man is whatever room he’s in.”?  Ayn Rand?  Pretty Clever.  I hope I’m right because Peer Gynt is one of the only Ibsen plays I never actually read.  Discuss.
• For the BFF, the name of the song you thought you heard at the Buddhist wedding was After the Gold Rush.  There are two well known versions.  One was by Neil Young with his high twangy falsetto and one by a group called Prelude.  Here’s a video I found of Prelude’s acapella version.  It’s too early in the morning for Young.  The pictures in the video are a just as fantastical and a bit Arthur C. Clarke.

Ok, I’m going to take some cold medicine and make some hot tea.

Hail to the Thief

Suppose, hypothetically, that our nation has just awakened from a collective nightmare, which went as follows.

A certain candidate won the nomination of a major party in a close race. Fraud in
certain key caucuses may well have made the difference.

This candidate worked with an organization notorious for making up false voter registrations, funneled money into it, and included it among groups that would “shape the agenda” for his presidency.

Supporters of this candidate stole votes, made death threats against political opponents and in some cases
vandalized their property. The bad guy won.

What do you do after you’ve had that nightmare?
If you’re a poet, you might write a poem.
At least that’s what I did.

I think the words will be familiar enough that you’ll know that
the idea was borrowed from a mighty familiar song.

Hail to the Thief

Hail to the Thief who the presidency’s taken,
Days so historic we cannot fail to note,
Now the republic’s foundations have been shaken
Down to the notion of one person one vote

With a bang and a boom and the clanging of a drum
And a cash contribution from the lord of a slum,
You too can have the White House and your own band
Serenading you while you proceed to plunder the land.

Hail to the Thief and his caucus goons so hellish
Those who by fraud made his voting tallies swell,
In some primaries where they could not embellish
He either lost or didn’t do quite as well.

With a bang and a boom and the clanging of a drum
And a cash contribution from the lord of a slum,
You too can have the White House and your own band
Serenading you while you proceed to plunder the land.

Hail to the Thief by whom we were all enlightened
Hail to the man with such wisdom to impart,
If Grandma in certain neighborhoods was frightened
She’s just a typical white person at heart.

With a bang and a boom and the clanging of a drum
And a cash contribution from the lord of a slum,
You too can have the White House and your own band
Serenading you while you proceed to plunder the land.

Hail to the Thief and the treasury’s new drainer,
Hail to the Thief who the presidency’s reached,
Was he with vote stealers or was he their trainer
Maybe we’ll find out when the man is impeached.

With a bang and a boom and the clanging of a drum
And a cash contribution from the lord of a slum,
You too can have the White House and your own band
Serenading you while you proceed to plunder the land.