How Obama Stole It

He loves to smell his own farts

Newsweek has published the first chapter of “Barack Obama: How He Did It” which is a multi-part series explaining how an empty-suit got elected to the most powerful job in the world.  The article is long and full of nuggets to mine and blog about.  While I’m only covering part of Chapter 1 here, I recommend you read the entire thing. 

The article begins with:

Barack Obama had a gift, and he knew it. He had a way of making very smart, very accomplished people feel virtuous just by wanting to help Barack Obama.

If that doesn’t describe what happened to the lefty blogosphere I don’t know what does.  Many very smart, accomplished bloggers felt so virtuous about supporting Barack they thought that anything they did was justified; they believed they could do no wrong. 

The article is filled with inconsistencies like this:

On the eve of his speech to the Democratic convention in 2004, the speech that effectively launched him as the party’s hope of the future, he took a walk down a street in Boston with his friend Marty Nesbitt. A growing crowd followed them. “Man, you’re like a rock star,” Nesbitt said to Obama. “He looked at me,” Nesbitt recalled in a story he liked to tell reporters, “and said, ‘Marty, you think it’s bad today, wait until tomorrow.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘My speech is pretty good’.”

If the speech was Obama’s first big moment in the national spotlight, why were crowds in Boston already following a state senator from Illinois (and little-known author of one memoir) who was still just a candidate for the U.S. Senate?  Are the residents of Beantown extreme political junkies?  Or are they Oprah fans?

Chew the fat with Ophelia

Amy Siskind of The New Agenda has an invitation for you:

we’ve been “Chewing the Fat with Ophelia” for three weeks now, and we’re prepared to declare the show a success!  Have you been listening in?

Chewing the Fat with Ophelia

Last week, we talked about the misogyny we’d seen during the election, and about the change that we see as necessary if the Feminist movement is to survive. Violet gave a quick tutorial on the Three Feminist Waves and we had some good laughs.

This week we’ve been talking with members and readers on the blog about what The New Agenda will be pursuing during our next phase.

We’ll talk some more about that tomorrow night (Monday), on  Chewing the Fat with Ophelia  – the show, and we’ll also talk about women’s issues that come to the forefront as a result of the recession.

Please join us on Monday, November 11th, from 10-11 p.m. EST to talk about the issues that need our attention.

If you’re a new member (membership is up 25% since the election), you might be tuning in for the first time. Don’t be shy! We’d be delighted to hear from you.

Hmmmm, membership is up by 25%, eh??  I can’t imagine why…

Tune in tonight at 10PM EST to Chewing the Fat with Ophelia on Blogtalkradio.

The Way Forward: Learning From the Conservatives

What Now?

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from this historic election, it’s that, to paraphrase George Orwell’s famous quote from Animal Farm, “All people are created equal, but some people are more equal than others.”

We found out that Hillary’s historic candidacy was not nearly as important as Obama’s historic candidacy. We found that it was all right to browbeat women into voting for Obama by threatening to take away their reproductive rights; that it was all right to perpetrate outright election fraud during the primaries; that it was all right to call any woman who dared to oppose this symbolic candidate a racist; to call her too old or too young, too smart or too stupid, too unattractive or too attractive; and just to make the salt in the wounds sting a little more, that it was all right and expected for women themselves to gleefully participate in their own humiliation.

So, congratulations, ObamaNation. The wimminz have been thrown under the bus in order to make way for the currently-favored group of disenfranchised second-class citizens, African-Americans. Um, yay?

But this type of vindictive, nasty, zero-sum approach was not just for those with scary ladyparts. Oh no, Obama voters in California had to prove they’re more important than the LGBT community as well. They had to vote “yes” on Proposition 8, which (for now) has stripped the newly-bestowed rights of same-sex couples to marry in that state. And true to form, they are blaming the victims for their own actions.

The developing meme coming from Obamanation is that gay people got what they deserved when prop 8 was passed in CA, primarily due to overwhelming support from African American supporters who also supported Obama. They are saying that if only we had done our part to help the AA community, or reached out to them, maybe they would have stood with us. That is a lie.

Yes, yes, of course. It’s all the fault of teh gayz! And it’s the fault of teh wimminz, I suppose, because no woman ever participated in the Civil Rights Movement. Golly gee whiz, if only we Vaginal Americans had reached out to the AA community…For gawd’s sake, how can anyone take this self-serving bullshit seriously?

Trolls and other internet vermin

Here’s a handy field guide to spotting and dealing with trolls.  I’m not talking about the kind that live under bridges or appear in Tolkien novels, I’m talking about the sub-human vermin that infest blogs and corrupt discussion threads.  Scientists have not yet determined when they mutated into their present form or how they were first introduced into cyberspace, but these parasites are now as ubiquitous as cockroaches.

Trolls feed on two things:  attention and disruption.  When you hear the expression “Do not feed the trolls” it means do not engage the trolls in discussion or argument and do not allow the troll to hijack threads.  If you feed a troll it will never leave and may bring friends.  Site monitors can delete the troll’s comments and block its IP address, but if it knows there is food to be had it will find a new IP address and return.

Several sub-species of troll have been identified but they mutate quickly so there are always new types appearing.  Here are some of the more common types:

Monday: Picking up the pieces

This is my basement.  600 sq ft of wasted space.  Yes, it looks dark and dreary.  But I’m about to do something about that.  The plans are at the township planning board right now.  While Ed the Inspector makes sure my contractor has planned for enough fireblocking, it is my job to get this huge, wasted space ready for framing.  That’s what I’ve been doing all weekend.  The room looks pretty empty now, except for a few stray cans of paint and some wood scraps.  But up until Friday, it was full of the same stuff as most everyone’s unfinished basement: boxes of old stuffed animals, saw tables, chairs in need of repair, old clothes, obsolete computer equipment and lots and lots of junk.  I filled the dumpster to overflowing and took 5 boxes of clothing to the bins at the local big box store parking lot. And the fun is just getting started.  In the next week, I have to drylock this whole thing.  Fun, fun.  Any PUMAs who have time on their hands want to learn how to wield a masonry brush?

So, if you don’t find me hanging around here much in the next couple of weeks, it’s not because I don’t care anymore.  It’s because I am trying to pick up the pieces of the life I once had before the blog took over.  I’ve been blogging for 11 straight months and my house is in need of some urgent TLC.  I’m still here and I’m still paying attention.  It’s just that it’s hard to spread drylock when you’re tied to a laptop.

I’ve seen a lot of mischief on the threads and there have been some temper tantrums.  My email box is overflowing with “She hit me! Make her say she’s sorry or I’m taking my ball and going home.”  Seriously, guys, let’s dial it back a notch.  The election is over.  We always knew that we were going to be disappointed no matter who won.  Let’s focus our efforts on constructive things.  Like doing something about the passage of Prop 8 or making sure that Harry Reid knows that we’re still interested in Hillary Clinton’s healthcare proposals.  Or making sure the media understands that we do not identify with Michelle Obama’s Mom-In-Chief role.  We want to be in charge of something.  That’s what we’ve been raised to do.  That’s what we’ve fought all our lives for.  We aren’t interested in taking a subordinate role to any man and we don’t want to hear about Michelle hosting the PTA meetings or having cookies and milk ready for Sasha and Malia when they get home from school while she gives up her career.  She is NOT our role model and we will not be dragged back to powerless domesticity.

Whew!  That article really ticked me off.  We may need another vent thread.  In fact, we may need one each night for 4 years.  In the meantime, let’s get our lives back on track too.  Tell us what Do-it-Yourself or home maintenance problem you’re tackling this fall. By the way, does anyone know how to keep tree volunteers away from the foundation of the house, permanently??