Mentally sunning myself by my infinity edge pool on the terrace on Santorini. Wake me when it’s over.
According to Katiebird, there’s a bit of a circular firing squad going on in Twitter. Democrats are realizing they’ve gotten themselves into another fine mess with Obama. And you can always measure the discontent by the appearance of anti-Hillary posts popping up here and there. Apparently, she is now a neo-con, carrying out their secret agenda as crafted back in the Bush years. Bwahahahahahaaaaah!
Of course, that’s not what the people promoting the neocon agenda conspiracy theory are saying. Because that would be wrong without explicit proof. It’s the classic, “I didn’t say it was your fault, I said we’re going to blame you” strategy. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria. Without the US and the most prominent Secretary of State leading them, the people of North Africa and the middle east would live contentedly, like dumb animals, having absolutely no idea that they are being politically and economically oppressed, satisfied with their lot in life. They would never have a “Hey, we’re eating grass!” moment on their own.
I’m always amused by the Democrats who are dissatisfied with any kind of policy in the middle east. No matter what it is, it’s *always* they wrong one. Aggressive intervention against Iran is justifiably horrifying. But so are sanctions to them. What are we left with? Sternly worded letters? Maybe we should just ignore Iran and hope it goes away. That’s fine with me except when kids are too quiet, I start to wonder what they’re up to. Keeping an eye on them might be a good idea. Is that OK with the Democrats? Can we peer over our shoulders once in awhile and tell them to stop that and stay on their side of the car? Or is this too, none of our business?
But why not blame Hillary for all foreign policy problems that she most likely had an enigmatic part in? Bay of Pigs? Hillary. Vietnam? Hillary. Bikini Atoll nuclear tests? Hillary, Hillary, Hillary. In fact, anyone who has gotten a radiation induced cancer since the Manhattan Project, that was probably Hillary’s doing. Just call her Hiroshima Hillary. She’s always secretly been a neocon.
And she’s married to the Big Dawg, who never gets tired of wheeling and dealing. He’s interested in reforming Medicare because it’s going to start eating up our money at an accelerated pace soon. Better get a grip on it before some Randy young Republican decides it would be easier on the wealthy to just abolish it altogether. You know, rein in medical costs, maybe open it up to everyone and expand the pool with healthier individuals? Stuff like that, stuff we haven’t tried yet. I could see Bill Clinton doing a Mary Poppins, cheerfully conscripting some nitwit into doing something he wouldn’t do otherwise. Or he could be entirely evil.
Hillary probably put him up to it.
Whatever.
People are going to believe what they want to believe. Some Democrats have said that the result of the last four years wouldn’t have been different with Hillary in charge. I beg to differ. It’s surprising that the Obama fans can’t see the truth about Hillary. It is this: The Bankers Didn’t Support Hillary. No. They supported Obama. And Obama has been nothing if not attentive to their needs.
So, you know, you can blame the Clintons because they are convenient targets. I have no doubt that the people who have taken over the Democratic party have analyzed what makes Democrats tick and can manipulate the message to make sure the Clintons look really, really bad. And they’re not perfect, not by a long shot. What humans are? So, this is made somewhat easier.
But it still doesn’t solve the problem of Obama. He’s the one who’s been at the helm for 4 years. Somehow, I can’t even in my wildest imagination come up with a scenario where Hillary is as indulgent towards the wealthy and well connected as Obama has been. I’ve tried making her out to be out of touch, neglectful of the unemployed, callous towards the hapless homeowner, solicitous towards the health insurance industry, indifferent to the rights of women and permissive towards the banking industry. I’ve tried but I just can’t.
I’ve lost interest in this campaign. Maybe that’s by design. Maybe both parties would prefer that the some of us sit it out this year. You know and I know and Paul Krugman knows that regardless of who gets the office in November, we’re screwed.
Of course, there is a better candidate available. But the Democratic loyalists keep getting played into scurrying away from her like she’s Kryptonite. There’s still time, you know. If you want to change the dynamic, you have to go bold.
In the meantime, I’ve got better things to do than watch the Democratic loyalists get played like a bunch of low information Fox News viewers, continually going against their own best interests.
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Occupy wants to OccupytheDNC in Charlotte, NC. Hmmm, if it’s anythng like Denver in 2008, expect for the city to be on lockdown with thousands and thousands of riot geared cops and the national guard ready to throw your ass into jail the minute you step off the curb.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. In fact, if I were the DNC, I’d go easy on Occupy for PR purposes. At this point, it needs all the good PR it can get. But what I anticipate is a lot of bloody heads, brutality and marginalization of people who are determined to give the 99% a voice.
The bloody heads and brutality I’ve come to expect. It’s the marginalization by the Obama administration that I find indefensible.
Filed under: General | Tagged: Clinton, foreign policy, medicare, neocons, Obama, paul ryan |
The Confluence 
“If you want to change the dynamic, you have to go bold.”
Sincerely,
That Israeli PM whose still on life-support somewhere.
That would be Ariel Sharon. What point are you trying to make?
Any organized/sentient life-form or political party would have primaried him. Get it?
Ha-ha! You are way too subtle for me.
Agreed.
The DemParty Vealpenner Leadership conspired against that very hard, apparently. On some other blog I remember reading David Atkins bragging about how he and other people like him credibly threatened to deParty deCertify the California Progressive Democratic Caucus unless they “disavowed” their stated intention to call for a primary challenge. And then of course lying about it further down the very same blog thread. I gather that’s typical for low-morality scum like David Atkins.
The thing that frustrates ME is that the Dem convention is still almost a month away — nothing is set yet.
But, somehow looking at Obama’s speeches and record on ANY issue is totally inappropriate. Well, if we aren’t going to hold Obama to any of the traditional Democratic standards then why pretend that anyone else’s position on these issues matters?
What? We’re not supposed to discuss anything anymore? Who says this?
Just something I’m projecting from various FB statuses. Many people seem OUTRAGED about Romney/Ryan where Obama/Biden is not significantly different.
I should probably correct what I said and replace inappropriate with not going to happen: “But, somehow looking at Obama’s speeches and record on ANY issue is totally not going to happen”
Except among a pretty small group.
k, you speaketh some truth there. The thing is that peeps don’t have to give an account of WHY they vote. Imagine if the voting machine wouldn’t even turn on unless you explain why you are going to vote for “Not Romney” or “the Thin Sliver” or “SS is still on the table” or “Reagan was a Transformative Figure” ad naseum.
When voting day comes around there will be some effort to give.
The Facebook/Twitter stuff is all pom-pom pep-rally go team stuff. Feh.
“I’ve lost interest in this campaign. Maybe that’s by design. Maybe both parties would prefer that the some of us sit it out this year”
No the Dems don’t want you to sit it out, they want you to vote for Obama because Democrats will beat you less than Republicans whom you are supposed to fear. Dems plan to push the Reproductive Rights button and activate your vote for Obama. Of course the Dems had both houses of Congress and the Presidency for two years and did nothing during that time but that was Bush’s fault.
I’m not getting the sensation that they’re trying all that hard
The candidate most feared by the banks/corporations was John Edwards. You know what happened to him. The next most feared candidate was Hillary Clinton. Hmmmm. If Clinton had been president during the two-year Dem majority, the Democrats would still be in the majority, the economy would be healed, and the right wing pigs would be squealing for mercy, and all the left-wing assholes would be doing the same thing– moaning endlessly but offering no productive ideas.
The world should have been a better place.
Jeez, I thought we had all concluded that John Edwards was a phony from the beginning. Do we need to keep holding on to the fantasy that he meant *anything* he said?? He must have known there was no way for him to carry out any of it.
I saw him in Chicago when I was still and Edwards fan. !0 minutes in his presence convinced me that he was all talk.
Maybe you had to be there.
Y’know I can see a character being all-talk or a smooth-talker.. but lets say this person really will stand up for what he says he/she believes in. That is what the big disapointment with bam is, the big talk-then-cave-in. So to me it’s a win-win for repubos this year.
Have you ever seen some footage of Harry Truman giving a speech or presser? The guy could barely talk. But he would die before caving in to a wingnut. What’s not to understand?
First thing that comes to mind here, I’ve never could envision a real democrat talking up Reagan. The reason there is Reagan is because of Nixon, I would explain to the sliver.
Truman is a very underestimated President. He was dead serious about the buck stopping with him. We could use another guy like him. ( Yes, I know, the bomb. Prove that another President in his position wouldn’t have dropped it. )
Paul Fussell, WWII serviceman in the Pacific, once wrote a book called Thank God For The Atom Bomb (and other Essays). Bits and parts of that essay have been used in this review to air some of those issues.
Click to access Fussell_Thank_God_AB.pdf
Because of savage time limits I have only barely skimmed it before deciding to risk linking to it.
My father was a Pacific Serviceman. There is every chance I would not exist if we had not dropped the Atom Bomb. Several million other Baby Boomer age people could say the same.
But what about the Japanese Civilians? Well . . . their government made the choice for them at Pearl Harbor.
Paul Fussell… heh. I always had an idea for an antiwar movie that would be the counterfactual invasion of Japan if that had come to pass. Antiwar as in “Cross of Iron” (Peckinpah) on steroids. For myself, the two important books in understanding that period/situation are:
1. The Pacific War, 1931-1945 by Saburo Ienaga
2. War without Mercy by John Dower
The first is an incredible page-turner. Crystal-clear explainations of the events and mindset. Entirely simple and humble.
The military’s idea of ending the war…a massive offensive would smash enemy forces as they came ashore on the beaches. The military were asked what they would do if the Allies did not attempt a landing but “stuck to bombing and burned the whole country to the ground.” They could only reply, “We’ll really be in a fix then.”
I was not there, but I still remember Edwards 2004 who was 180 degree from Edwards 2008…So, phony from the get go.
Whether or not he meant it, I think we dodged a bullet with that guy. It’s axiomatic that in US politics you gotta keep it zipped, and there’s no excuse for John not knowing that. Hell, Dominique Strauss-Kahn shipwrecked his career on the same rocks and he’s not even American. (DSK once said that his enemies would get him for one of two things: his Jewishness or the women. Well, you can do something about one of those things, Dom.)
I always thought Edwards was too pat and too one dimensional. Same speech about his mill working father, but from what I’ve read, he did have the guts to want to contest the Ohio election fraud in 2004. Kerry would not. The Green Party challenged and counted and found lots of vote manipulation for Bush.
I remember that. It made me very bitter. It made me suspect that Kerry took a pre-planned dive on purpose.
I remember Kerry taking the dive after I sent his campaign $100.
I have not sent one cent to ANY candidate since then. 👿
Seems to me you can distill the coming Dem loss down to one action taken in the last couple of years. That Boner guy as Speaker of the House had the Sargent at Arms office converted into a Women’s rest room. Something Nancy Pelosi never even thought about since she had her own porcelain throne as Speaker.
Wow. Says it all doesn’t it?
Boehner never does anything unless he gets something for it. In this case, Boehner pretended to care whether or not women have a closer restroom, even though the existing one was one minute’s walk away, because it justified his plan to grab much better office space and a balcony for himself. You’ll note that Pelosi did consider installing the restroom and concluded that it would be too expensive.
The second bill that Boehner offered as Speaker was a radical assault on women and girls that narrowed the definition of rape to exclude anyone who was not physically assaulted during the rape. That means that children who are sexually assaulted by parents, teachers, ministers, etc., are not rape victims unless they are punched or threatened with a weapon at the time of the rape. Women and girls who are drugged and then raped would not be rape vicitms. Women who are compelled to submit under threat of death to themselves or their chlldren would not be rape victims. Mentally disabled women and girls (or boys, for that matter) who submit to sexual conduct because they’re unable to make informed decisions on such matters would not be rape victims. Furthermore, victims of sexual assault, domestic violence or stalking would no longer be described legally as “victims”. They would be “accusers” because, of course, women lie about this stuff all the time according to far too many men. Of course, men whose golf clubs were stolen out of their cars would still be referred to as victims.
Boehner has never done a damn thing for women. Don’t confuse a land grab for anything other than what it is.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/john-boehner-womens-bathroom-office-grab_n_816488.html
I forgot to add the link.
Off topic: Is there some curse on Welcome Back, Kotter alumni? Robert Hegyes died earlier this year, 😦 now Ron Palillo just died. 😦
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/08/14/158772045/actor-ron-palillo-dies-he-was-horshack-on-welcome-back-kotter?ft=1&f=103943429
How about the curse of not being able to afford the exorbitant prices of our for-profit health care system thanks to Obama?
And the source of his inspiration, the Heritage Foundation as channeled by MassGov Mitt Romney?
All hail B-O Romneycare! ( That’s Baucus-Obama Romnecare).
If the Ds use their convention to swap out Obama and swap in HClinton, I’ll vote for the Dticket. If the Ds use their convention to swap out Obama for some OTHer choice, I MAY vote for it if that OTHer choice is acceptable.
I expect the styrofoam classic columns are already being reconstructed for the sequel. Does Obama still have the same speech writer? He must be approaching 27 now.
And for what reason should the US stop Iran from pursuing a civilian nuclear program? Even if Iran builds a nuclear weapon or two, so what? It won’t use them except when it’s ready for its own destruction anyhow.
Dems are bad at foreign policy because half of them are basically Republicans on foreign policy; the Democratic leadership has long had a fancy for wars of choice and covert actions (all the way back to JFK and his nonexistent missile gap, starting the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, and Vietnam); and because the Dem rank and file are easy pickings for humanitarian interventions.
It’s not the nuke in Iran that the US fears and hates, it’s the possibility of dealing oil and gas in other than dollars. Our economy is completely dependent on dollars being the only currency for oil transactions. It’s what allows us to borrow and spend without the constraints that others face. Iran is headlong into a program to use other than dollars (the sanctions actually help that) and that’s the real threat.