Short takes from the morning after:
1.) We won 4/5 primaries last night. I’m really excited now. Wait, I’m a Hillary supporter. Am I even *allowed* to be excited?? How can it be that a non-young, uncool, “uneducated” person can be enthusiastic about Hillary Clinton? Doesn’t that violate the laws of nature or something? The “journalists” will get all confused. They’ll have to start complaining and write grudging news stories about something else they don’t like about her.
Anyway, I have 6 months to train and do the stair climber for canvassing in October and November in Pittsburgh. She wore me out this past weekend.
2.) People I don’t want to see on the TV anymore: David Axelrod. I really loathe this guy. I hate the way he mansplains to Hillary, as if she needs any advice from him, and he looks like a rat.
S. E. Cupp. Enough said.
3.) Just a plea to everyone here to let the Bernie supporters alone. Srsly. We know that some have been assholes but no one I met canvassing was anything less than nice and earnest. There are still primaries to go. Everyone should vote for who they want. I think Hillary understands what her own supporters went through in 2008 and doesn’t want Bernie’s people to be treated like that. So, let’s exercise some self-discipline and not pile on. There’s nothing weird about the primaries this year, the votes are not being manipulated, no one is cheating. It’s a clean primary.
4.) Some Bernie bloggers should knock it off with the “olds” vs “youngs” narrative. No one I met this week who supported Bernie was younger than 30. Also, the middles, such as myself, got royally screwed by this recession, and lack of vigorous response, too. Our needs are no less critical. What’s really insane is that even the activist left is forcing different factions to fight against each other for the shrinking piece of pie that the hoarders of great wealth have left us. This is stupid. We should be working with each other, not figuring out which one of us has to be tossed from the lifeboat.
Just stop.
5.) Hillary the Hawk is another stupid mantra. That would imply that you are either a Hawk or a Dove. If you are a dove, you are goodness and light and peace personified. If you are a hawk, you are a warmongering, torturing tool of the military industrial complex. No, no, don’t deny what it is you are really saying.
Here’s a fact that you can’t deny: The continents are not moving any time soon. Humans have been fighting over the same places on earth since we took to the sea in ships. Look at all of the potential flash points on the map. They’re the same ones we fought over in World War II. That’s why China is building up islands in the South China Sea. It’s why the middle east is such a sensitive area around the Suez canal and Libya. It’s why we have NATO, fergawdssakes. Hitler realized that if he controlled the North Atlantic, he could bring Europe to its knees. And he almost succeeded.
Hillary didn’t single handedly start the war in Iraq. She didn’t precipitously pull troops out, destabilizing Iraq to give ISIS a fighting chance. But she’s not the kind of person who’s going to sit back and do nothing either. She’s no Dick Cheney and she’s not the Dalai Lama.
The left used to be better at shades of gray. Now, it’s just looking like it has its own Walking Dead faction.
Running out of time. Gotta jump in the shower. Well, not literally jump…
Filed under: General | Tagged: acela primary, Bernie Sanders, David Axelrod, hawks and doves |
The Confluence 
As I recall, the New Left in the ’60s and ’70s was fratricidal; isn’t that where the allegation “politically incorrect” emerged? At every demonstration or rally there were tables of factions fractionally different from and intolerant of one another. As a woman who chose to be in a heterosexual relationship and have babies I was not welcomed as a feminist. The anti-Hillary fervor reminds me of this — and how we lost to the “silent majority.”
Hillary, or Bernie or Trump. Who should I vote for?
It doesn’t matter. Let’s assume it’s Hillary. On day one, when they sit the new POTUS down behind the Big Boy Desk (and Big Boy would apply to Hillary because she has more, bigger balls than all gops combined), the new POTUS get ‘the talk’: what POTUS can and can’t do. ‘The Talk’ is given to POTUS by the owners of the planet. ‘The Talk’ is something akin to the Ned Beatty talk in the movie Network.
Now, let’s break ‘The Talk’ on down for all you plebs, so that you can disabuse yourselves, once and for all, of this silly, romantic notion of democracy. The Ned Beatty version is for Platinum Members only, and also for noob POTUSes – although Hillary has been around long enough to know the drill. I could explain it, but never do it justice the way the late, great philosopher and social critic George Carlin did.
So here it is. When you are done watching the talk, you can all just STFU and close down this sad little circle jerk, mkaaaaay…
Oh, and before the wise one clues you the F in, let me just add that even if somehow ‘Murican democracy were to magically transform and we all get everything we ever wanted, the earth is going to become a toxic, industrial wasteland shithole with the climate of Jupiter. And it is going to happen so fast that… well, you’ll see. Let’s just say that the climate scientists have been just a leeeeetle conservative in their predictions and warnings – because, gops.
So, listen up…
Jeez, who peed in your Post Toasties this morning??
1.) Clinton knows better than all of the other candidates what the POTUS can or cannot do.
3.) I take the fricking bus to work every morning and do what I can to reduce my carbon footprint.
Oh yeah, I skipped 2:
I grew up with a constant 24/7/365 stream of “the world’s going to end in 1975! We’re all going to die unless we kiss the ass of some capricious and sadistic sky God”. Guess what, the world didn’t end. It continues to not end. And the time we wasted freaking out could have been spent doing more useful things, like finding alternative energy sources, some of which would undoubtably set your teeth on edge.
Please don’t sling that shit around here.
We’re not climate deniers, we’re realists and we’ve had enough with the panic attacks. Do it again and we’ll all line up to take a smack at you to snap you out of it.
Just walk away from this, RD, and let Dashie handle it.
It does appear that we will be blessed to live in interesting times.
I have never been a purist from the Leftist perspective. I have never paddled my plastic boat to protest oil rigs. I’ve never chained myself to a tree. I am not old or young and I did have children. I worked in corporate America long enough to have been sexually harassed and held back while men were promoted. I led the teams of men who were paid more. A lot more. Because reasons.
I want Hillary Clinton to win because she is a woman who is more qualified than anyone else running. As pundits grudgingly point out, she is more qualified than anyone in recent history.
Frankly, I am sick of electing presidents who are not ready for the job. The first 2 years are wasted on the learning curve and we don’t have time for that.
Ramen
Elect Hillary because the one least likely to make a rookie mistake.
Clinton 2016. Because our country needs a grown-up in the White House.
congrats to everyone and let’s hope for similar results in November.
I agree with you regarding the Berns. If nothing else just to follow Hillary’s example when she bleeded passionately with the nation from New hampshire in 2008; politics isn’t a game.
The middle east, the birthplace of civilization and all major religions, will continue to be a hot spot forever. I don’t think anyone can accomplish anything major or earth shattering there.
As for the Irag war
1- The authorization of war. Although I understand her position as a senator from NY, still I think she should have argued more on the details to make it harder for them to actually go ahead and do it. So she was wrong there.
2- The decision to go to war which was an illegal war was out of the hand of congress
3- The execution of the war and how it was conducted was downright criminal. The Bush government should have been tried in an international court for what they did in that country. Because from the way they conducted the war the whole purpose of it was to profit certain corporations and individuals at the expense of the taxpayers and the Iragies. What happened and still happening is a result of an act of immoral gangs of thieves let loose on people. Hillary cannot be responsible for that or in fact anyone who voted for the irag war. But they should have exposed what the Bush government did and demand some actions against them.
The Middle East was A birthplace of civilization and the birthplace of SOME religions . . . . Buddhism and Hinduism (among others) being NOT among them.
>The Talk’ is given to POTUS by the owners of the planet. ‘The Talk’ is something akin to the Ned Beatty talk in the movie Network.
Sorry, no-the world doesn’t actually work that way. There are limits on what any leader can do, and these vary with the times and the qualities of the leader,and there are people with more money and power than others, but there are no puppet-masters pulling all the strings. This is the Leftist version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and if not as evil, is still pernicious, encouraging people to bet on long-shot revolutions or give up, rather than the hard work of actual sane change.
Put down the polemics and comedians, and try reading some history. Say on FDR or LBJ.
It’s the lefty trilateral commission.
Want to take a number to slap him into sensibility?
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any weirder …
Cruz slaps down his woman card by picking (and zings The Donald) by picking Fiorina as his running mate.
Wait. What? Is Cruz running?
And Sanders begins referring to himself using the royal we: “If we do not win this nomination, we are going to make certain that we do everything we can … [including] many of the ideas that we have been fighting for throughout this campaign …”
Silly season is upon us. Must be something in the water.
Something in the water? 😉
Sanders is talking about everyone in his movement. There is nothing “royal” about that “we”.
So Cruz announced Fiorina for his VP choice. Interesting. Isn’t she the CEO who burned Hewlet-Compaqard halfway down to the ground?
Whoever thinks the Axis had a chance in Areinnye does not understand the Grim Economic Realities of that war.
The three unconquered major Allied Powers had 65.9% of the planet’s war-making potential. The three major Axis Powers (OK, two-and-a-half, since Italy was always half-@$$ed) had 20.4% of it.
They tried it anyway, because the poor saps really, truly believed their own propaganda. They thought they were sporting The Biggest Genitals Ever To Swing From Primate Crotches, and the sheer power of their testosterone would overcome any merely material disadvantages.
Dopes.
Feel The Math, Adolf!
We’d all like to think so but that’s not actually true. If Hitler hadn’t decided to take on Russia, we might all be speaking German or Japanese.
Go read that biography on Winston Churchill. Just because we had the capacity to take on the axis powers doesn’t mean we had the ready means or the will. And timing was everything.
We came very, very close to losing everything because our country was firmly in the grip of isolationists.
But don’t take my word for it. There are plenty of books on the subject. Like a lot of Americans, I grew up thinking that we were just waiting for our moment to answer the call to go kick hitler’s ass. Not even close. It was touch and go until D-day and we lost a LOT of battles.
The British and French generals had more and better tanks in 1940, but didn’t know how to use them properly.
Stalin foolishly crowded his forces near the border in 1941, in blitzkrieg reach.
Our bigwigs thought Pearl Harbor was too shallow for air-dropped torpedoes to work in it. They forgot to tell that to the Japanese, who found a way around the problem.
The Allies made major blunders often.
They. Still. Won.
What does that say about the material disadvantages of the Axis Powers, and their leaders’ folly in ignoring those disadvantages?
The Malefactors of Great Wealth want you to think what you think, so you’ll support a massive “defense” establishment to make the world safe for plunder by the Malefactors, which has been the primary purpose of our “defense” establishment since 1946 or so.
I’m supporting Hillary despite my disagreements with her on foreign policy, because I recognize that no one who agreed with me on foreign policy would be allowed to become President, and she’s good on other things.
Lol! I think we’re in good hands.
The tanks were completely unsuited for battles in Belgium.
The Brits were buying the battleships we had mothballed after WWI. If they hadn’t destroyed the French navy after hitler captured France, it would have been all over much earlier.
There were so many disasters before we got in that the ANZACs decided they didn’t want to fight anymore.
And we almost didn’t get in. After Pearl Harbor, it was another string of disasters.
We waited way too long and prevailed by the skin of our teeth.
We were saved by hitler’s megalomania over Russia.
Let’s get real. WWII almost reshape the world. It wasn’t won because we got into it. It was won because hitler overreached-and we got into it.
If he had saved all of his strength for Britain, it would have been a much more serious outcome. The Brits would have been in Germany’s hands long before we would have been able to get our shit together.
We came to the party late and act like we were the guests of honor. That’s the common view but it’s not correct.
Yes, if the Germans had knocked out Britain, the result would have been that Europe would have fallen into the hands of a ruthless dictator and his totalitarian state.
Only, the dictator and the state would have been Stalin, and his state, the USSR.
Lend-lease did help, but the Commies built most of their own equipment, in factories beyond Luftwaffe range. They could have fought and won alone, if they had needed to do that.
In the real war, Stalin screwed up royally, crowding his troops within range of blitzkrieg, and still prevailed.
Sure, it would have taken longer. The T-34s would have rolled into Berlin in 1947 or 1948 instead of 1945–but they would have rolled into Berlin.
As for Japan prevailing in the Pacific, how could they do that when they could never have taken Hawaii?
Again, the Allies screwed up six ways from Sunday and suffered strings of disasters, and still prevailed. That shows what a hopeless mismatch it was from Day One.
The Malefactors of Great Wealth want you scared, so you’ll support their Warfare State’s vampire-squidding of your bank account to pay for the muscle for the MOGW’s Mob-like activities in what used to be called “the Third World”.
I would suspect the MOGW of allowing the 9-11 attacks to happen because too many people were starting to think like I think, if not for Hanlon’s Razor: “Never assume malice if stupidity provides an adequate explanation for the situation.”
I make my living on military history, and the idea that the Axis couldn’t win (while popular in certain quarters) doesn’t hold up. In fact, it took all three of the UK, the USSR, and the US to defeat the Axis-no two of them could have managed it, and but for Churchill and FDR that coalition might never have been formed, never mind held together. As for making mistakes, the Axis made far bigger blunders than the Allies, but came close to winning anyway.
And if one could just compare GDPs to determine the outcome of wars, we;d have won easily in Vietnam.
You gotta admit, Hollywood turned out some awesome war movies.
If I hadn’t read churchill’s biography, I’d probably see it the same way ivory bill does.
Scary to think about it though. That landler guy who wrote Hillary the Hawk for the NYT says she has a very WWII view of the world, which I find interesting given that she was born after the war was over. She would more likely have a Cold War view of the world. In comparison, Obama is different because he lived all over the world as a kid. Well, I am a contemporary of Obama and I definitely do think Vietnam and the Cold War had an effect on our perspectives. As for him living in Indonesia as a kid having an effect on his foreign policy, I think this is one of the reasons we don’t let kids run for president. Or foreign born people, not that Obama is foreign born. But being a kid in a foreign country doesn’t mean you’re necessarily going to get the truth about America. You might get “A Truth” but I suspect that if I had spent my wonder years in the Soviet Union, i might have quite a different view of Americans.
Anyway, despite the fact that Hillary came of age is the Cold War and during the unrest of the 60s, she sees the world in World War II terms. I think that is more of an indication of how the world actually operates than it is a reflection of her age.
In Vietnam, we were restricted by the quite rational fear that if we went all-out, China might come in directly as in the Korean War–or worse, it might escalate to a full nuclear exchange with the USSR. Except for a few of the more fanatical hawks, we knew neither our survival or our liberty was at stake in Vietnam, and so it wasn’t worth risking either of those events.
The Allies (or the Axis, for that matter) didn’t have the fear of the end of civilization in a nuclear exchange to inhibit them in WW2.
Who wrote that Churchill biography?
Does that individual have connections (investments in “defense” corporations, for example) to the Warfare State, so that he gets his share of the greatest gravy train in human history, and so benefits from the maintenance of a siege mentality among impressionable USAmericans?
The biography is called The Last Lion by William Manchester. It’s about 80 billion hours long in audible format. The biographer seems to have had unique access to just about everything Churchill ever wrote, the good, the bad and the ugly. He did thorough research into government resources as well. Churchill wrote many, many letters to his mother Jenny, which she completely ignored. You get to hear the narrator read every one of these childish plaintive wails from Winston when he was in boarding school. You may want to skip those chapters and go straight to the part where Winston saves the day during the Boer war in South Africa when he was on a train covering events as a journalist.
The war years are gobstopping. He tried to warn people but no one would listen until it was almost too late.
It will open your eyes and scare the shit out of you how close we came to losing it all.
At this point in my life, not bloody likely. Maybe when I was younger and more impressionable…
But thanx for telling me. I might bestir myself to look up the author’s political proclivities, as I pretty much no longer believe in the existence of objectivity outside of the natural sciences and their practical applications.
Now that I think about it, when I was younger, my views were much closer to yours and tdr’s.
Over on Scalzi’s blog a commenter said everything that needs saying about this election season:
It’s ENTIRELY bananapants.
Sorry, already forgot your name guy-upthread who thinks that The Talk will do something to Clinton.
You are aware that she’s female, right? Do you have any idea how many Talks women get telling them what they will do, how they will behave, what they will think, and what the awful lethal terrible horrific consequences will be if they don’t toe the line? Sorry again. Rhetorical question. Obviously you don’t.
She’s not only a woman. She’s the strongest and smartest one around, in a field with plenty of good competition. She’ll laugh (oh so politely) at The Talk. She’s been ignoring The Talk her whole life. She’s got this.
Too funny! I forgot about that – the talks.
Heard this afternoon that Sanders is laying off hundreds of campaign staffers across the country…
I have to tiptoe around a friend who is an avid Bernie girl so I can resist bugging them here. Is it OK to comment on what a poor loser Bernie is? He can not bring himself to even say her name when asked if he will support her. All he says is he will “do everything I can to prevent a Republican president.” What does that even mean? The only way to do that is to support HRC. He won’t even commit to encouraging his supporters to even consider Hillary. Plus, he is continuing to campaign to the convention to make it even harder for her to get on with the pres campaign. On TV it said she could win only one third of remaining delegates and still get all she needs. It will be interesting, if frustrating, to see what he does over the next months.
Second, can you believe that it is fine for Trump to play the man card and beat his chest about his strength and power but Hillary is not allowed to admit to being a woman??!! [the good part: Mary Pat Christie’s eye roll at Trumps ‘woman card’ comment. That was cool.
But, generally, I feel like I have slipped down a sand hole into the weirdest world that no one could have imagined a year ago. We should be able to feel great and celebrate the idea of a woman president but instead Hillary supporters are still having to tiptoe and be 4x as pc as anyone else.