Bill Ayers Speaks

Good old Bill Ayers. Now that Barack Obama is President Elect, Ayers has decided to tell his sad story of victimization. Oh, he is so tortured and put upon. Poor Bill. Back in the 1960s, he and a bunch of his wealthy, entitled friends managed to destroy Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in no time at all by creating the Weatherman group and advocating the violent overthrow of the federal government. They ruined the reputation of the peace movement too with their bombs and threatening communiques. Lots of people back then assumed the Weathermen were CIA infiltrators. They certainly weren’t helping the cause of peace. Bill Ayers never spent a day in jail for the violence he perpetrated, and now he’s an author and a tenured professor of education. In fact lots of the ex-weathermen are professors, and they’re all pretty wealthy. They aren’t exactly living up to their socialist ideals, are they?

Missiles, Schmissles – Obama will deflect Russian missles with his mega-watt smile!

THIS IS NOT GOOD:

Obama denies Poland missile vow

US President-elect Barack Obama has not given a commitment to go ahead with plans to build part of a US missile defence system in Poland, an aide says.

He was speaking after Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s office said a pledge had been made during a phone conversation between the two men.

But Mr Obama’s foreign policy adviser, Denis McDonough, denied this.

The Architect Digests

Burp.

Oh, excuse me.

Bwaaaa-hahahahaha!!!!! —Karl Rove

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

H/t to V

cross-posted at Lady Boomer NYC

Change You Can’t Believe!

Change

Oy, such changety-hopety-change! You shouldn’t know from it!

So, Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel is going to be Barack Obama’s Chief Of Staff, eh? I’m sure he is a Washington outsider who has no connection to the same old politics of the past (like Joe Biden, that fresh-faced newcomer!). I’m also certain that he reflects all of Obama’s “liberal” views on the war, and since the “centrist” DLC is the most eeeeevilll organization EVAH according to our fauxgressive brethren, I’m positive that he would never touch such an organization with a ten-foot pole!

Whoops.

Looks like Emanuel has been working in Democratic politics since 1984. He was with Bill Clinton from 1991 (when he was the campaign’s finance director) to 1998. He is a member of the DLC, and here is his record on the war:

Emanuel supported the October 2002 joint Congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq War, differentiating himself from all nine other Democratic members of the Illinois Congressional delegation (Sen. Richard Durbin, Reps. Bobby Rush, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Bill Lipinski, Luis Gutiérrez, Danny K. Davis, Jan Schakowsky, Jerry Costello and Evans) elected in 2002.^[14] .

Oh, and remember when Jesse Jackson promised that the Zionists’s hold on American politics would be loosened? If you thought he meant AIPAC and was not being a wacked-out anti-Semite, get used to disappointment. Emanuel has already introduced Obama to AIPAC and is extremely pro-Israel. Ain’t nothin’ gonna change there either.

Misogyny: A Juxtaposition of Different but Eerily Analogous Events

Reported without further comment:

Nov. 3 (Bloomberg)— A 13-year-old rape victim in Somalia was stoned to death last week after being accused of adultery in breach of Islamic law, Amnesty International said, citing her father and other unidentified people.

Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was killed by a group of 50 men in a stadium in the southern port of Kismayo on Oct. 27 in front of 1,000 spectators, the London-based human rights group said in an e-mailed statement on Oct. 31. Yusuf Abdi Mohamed, who witnessed the execution, told Bloomberg News on Oct. 28 that Duhulow was a 23-year-old woman who had confessed to adultery.

“She had in fact been raped by three men and had attempted to report this rape to the al-Shabaab militia, which controls Kismayo,” Amnesty said. “It was this act that resulted in her being accused of adultery and detained. None of the men she accused of rape was arrested.”

Friday: “His whole life is narrative”

Charlie Rose had a fascinating post-election wrap up with John Meacham and Evan Thomas of Newsweek that suggests why Americans make the decisions they make based on the jounralism they get.  Meacham and Thomas had the evidence in front of their faces and even admit that Obama’s cult of personality is “slightly creepy” but they are stuck in a frame of their profession and their social circle so they can’t make sense of the pieces of the puzzle they hold.

See if you agree.  The really interesting stuff starts at about the 6:00 minute mark:

There are a couple of moments that make me want to slap both of them.  First, they have reporters covering the campaign since the convention with all kinds of interesting information that would have been swell to know *before* the election, but they are saving it for the post-election issue.  This has been a tradition since the 80’s.  Well, that certainly explains Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.  I’m not sure how we dodged the bullet with Bill Clinton.  They also have a tape of Obama’s debate prep where he tries to figure out why he is completely failing as a debater while he flatters himself as being a great writer.  This is a moment of introspection that we should have all had the privilege of seeing.

Secondly, they have some really warped perceptions about the election.  They think that Obama went out of his way to make sure the election was not about race.  Actually, the election had *everything* to do with race.  Obama bludgeoned people with it.  No one was to forget for one moment that Obama was black and he went out of his way to remind people of it on a daily basis.

He’s compared to Reagan.  To many of us out here who were right about how destructive Reagan really was, that is not a compliment.  They speculate that Reagan was a teflon president because his supporters made him that way and the same would hold true of Obama.  The truth is that CLINTON was the teflon president.  The difference is the way the press treated these presidencies.  Reagan did really bad stuff and there were a lot of us who despised the reactionary idiot but the press gave him a pass so the voters let it slide.  Clinton had some minor pecadillos that were blown completely out of proportion but the electorate liked him anyway.  Bush also got away with murder.  Probably literally.  How many times have you heard some older relative say something like, “Well, Bush *can’t* be that bad, otherwise the press would be covering it.”  The coverage of the press matters a great deal and they are already signalling here that they are about to give Obama a reach around.

The other thing that is baffling is their analysis of what voters were rejecting.  Their conversation is typical of the Villager mindset.  They are convinced that voters were rejecting “the 60’s”.  I’m always really puzzled by that statement.  There is a huge swath of voters today who were little children during the 60’s (moi), who only remember the 60’s vaguely.  We remember things like assassinations and the walk on the moon and in the corner of our minds, we understand a little bit about the social stuff. But for us, the 60’s ushered in what was more or less the status quo.  There wasn’t a huge shredding of culture.  The culture was pre-shredded and settled into its present form by the time we came of age.  I’m not sure what it is we are supposed to be rejecting.  Are we rejecting the fact that women made enormous progress during the 60’s and 70’s?  Are we supposed to be upset that African-Americans shattered their own glass ceilings with the civil rights era?  I’ve always thought statements about rejecting the 60’s are “out of joint” statements made by baby boomers who know they pushed the envelope back then and then blamed themselves for the Reagan backlash.  Fine, blame yourselves, guys, but what does that have to do with us?

Then there is this bizarre notion that we are a center right country.  You know, I don’t really think that’s true.  I think a lot of people voted for the Democrat because he wasn’t a Republican.  They didn’t really like Republicans this year.  Of the sane, non-Obamaphiles I talked to, they just planned to vote for the Democrat.  It was a complete and utter rejection of everything that has to do with movement conservatism.  In fact, they were pretty convinced that nothing could be worse than a Republican in office.  I’m not sure that’s true but we shall see.  Voters wanted something other than the nasty, brutish and short lifestyle that the Bushies ushered in.  They want a stronger economy, better jobs, better healthcare.  It remains to be seen whether they want equality for all people.  I think they do but leaders have to lead and Obama shows no inclination for doing that.

They did get the “risk averse” nature of Obama right.  He is going to be a very cautious, non-transformative president.  They acknowledge that he owes the people who gave him the $600,000,000 to run his campaign.  Meacham and Thomas are onto something here if they just bothered to step outside their box and followed up on some of what their intuition is telling them.  All of the pieces are there to see Obama for what he is: a clever, manipulative person who constructed and sold his own story.  He’s a man who was in control of his campaign from the beginning, so he is also responsible for its corruption.  He is a cipher and doesn’t even know what he is.  He is a screen onto which we project our own desires, a tofu president.  And he uses his ability to appeal to many people at once to get what he wants.  The question is, what does he want now that he has it all?

Meacham and Thomas do not have an answer to that question because they never bothered to ask it.  And besides, Sarah Palin asked for more clothes!

I’d like to congratulate Barack Obama

   

I really would like to, but I would be completely insincere and dishonest if I did.  There can only be one winner in every race, and this time the media and the corporatists that pay their huge salaries picked Obama.  I am not happy about it, nor will I forget nor forgive the things he did to “win.”  I sincerely and honestly believe he will be a bad leader in a time of crisis.

But starting next January Barack Obama will be the only president we have, so I hope to Koresh I am wrong, and I will take no pleasure in being right.  (Well, maybe a little pleasure, but only when I get to scream “I TOLD YOU SO!” in the faces of disillusioned sippy-kup kidz)  If the Obama administration turns out to be a liberal wet-dream, I will happily kiss the unity pony’s ass on the White House lawn.  But I ain’t buying any chapstick just yet.

There were a few positive developments that came out of the campaign, and I intend to work on those.  One encouraging thing was we were able to reach out to rank & file Republicans and engage with them in civil discourse.  In fact, they treated PUMAs far nicer than our alleged fellow lefties did.  I’m still a flaming liberal, but never again will I fall into the partisan trap.

This petulant clown won’t be drinking the Kool-aid, not even to experiment.  I’ll keep being rude, obnoxious and occasionally inappropriate.  As far as I’m concerned there won’t be any honeymoons or benefit of the doubt.  And since it’s obvious that neither the media nor the big blogger boyz will be doing it, I’ll keep telling people that the clothes have no emperor.  If that bothers people, too bad, but I don’t do this to be popular.

Laid Back Thursday

I’m taking the evening off to watch some TV and just veg a bit.  But I found this hillarious video over at Cannonfire that I couldn’t pass up:

Yes, Obamaphiles, this is really the way the world sees you.  It was that bad.  Time for rehab.

This is an open thread.  What’s on your mind?

Voting Clusterf_ck of mass proportions in Tampa

FIRST, this is what the Board of Elections reports for Hillsborough County, FL – 87% counted so far:

PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT	Vote type summary	Precinct detail map
384 of 384 Precincts Reporting
Percent Votes John McCain (REP) 46.60% 228,323 Barack Obama (DEM) 52.40% 256,753

NOW, read this fromTBO.com and notice where they decided to skew the story and do the math:

A Tale of Two Parties: Myths, Realities and Strategies in the General Election

What Happened?

Now that the shock and disbelief of Election Night have passed (and I must admit, I feel no small relief to finally have the matter decided), I find myself more able to analyze what happened on Tuesday. And unsurprisingly, it isn’t the tale the media told us.

We are all supposed to believe that the Democratic turnout was enormous and unprecedented. The youths and the AA’s came out in droves. It was an outpouring never seen before for the most Unifying and Post-Partisan Candidate Ever! We are also supposed to believe that Obama’s electoral strategy of expanding the map into the South and West through that turnout was successful, and that his Holy Awesomeness was recognized throughout the land. Yea, verily, he is the President of All The People! (Yes, I heard a pundit on MSNObama actually say words to that effect on Election Night.)

Yet, in fact, none of these things are actually true. All the assumptions above are based on nothing but pretty stories – indeed, I might say, with a hat tip to Bill Clinton, “fairy tales.”

Commenter Cognitive Dissonance mentioned this yesterday, but I had already seen bloggers State of Disbelief and Edgeoforever mentioning it on PUMA sites during the day. From EOF’s site, let’s take a look at the actual turnout numbers this year, compared to the numbers in 2004, the election between the Worst President Ever and Senator John Kerry, a man for whom I gladly voted.

2004
62,040,606-Bush
59,028,109-Kerry
411,304 Nader

2008
63,507,800 – Obama
56,151,859 – McCain

Youth voters only ^ 1%
AA voters ^ 2%

So, this enormous and unprecedented turnout for Obama was only unprecedented for a Democrat. It amounted to 4.5 million more votes than John Kerry, and only 1.5 million more than Bush. The PUMA factor is being estimated at between 2.7 million and 2.9 million, and we must not forget the role of the much-investigated ACORN in registering all those new voters, some as many as 72 times each. As usual, stories of election fraud will be suppressed by the corporate media, since their favored candidate has won once again; but I suspect that ACORN contributed greatly to those surprising numbers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. In any case, the PUMA numbers were very close to matching the “massive turnout” numbers for Obama.

One myth down.

The second myth is that Obama could win without PUMAs because he was going to “expand the electoral map.” He felt he even had a chance in deep red states like Kansas, but counted on states like North Carolina, Iowa, Colorado and Virginia to make up for his possible losses in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. Obama’s map held up, and even improved in the General Election (although many of the red states Obama thought he would win stayed red).

However, in the primaries Hillary Clinton disputed that map, and so did we. The numbers were simply not there for Obama. But we didn’t realize that he would have a lot of help – not just from ACORN, but from…Republicans.

As we know, Barack Obama is the most scandal-ridden Democratic Party nominee in recent memory. He is our Rudy Giuliani, whose mob ties, failures of judgment on 9/11 (putting the emergency response center in the World Trade Center so he could see it from his bachelor pad) and inveterate and classless womanizing caused him to self-destruct in the primaries. Yet where were the 527 ads against Barack Obama this year? They wouldn’t even have had to lie this time, the way they shamefully did in 2004 about John Kerry’s military service.  Obama repeatedly insulted working-class voters, cementing his elitist creds in a way Al Gore and John Kerry never did or could. Obama really DOES hang out with domestic terrorists. Obama’s pastor, mentor and friend of 20 years is an unrepentant, America-hating misogynist and racist, who is close friends with renowned anti-Semite and whackjob Louis Farrakhan. Obama’s associates in Illinois are being investigated and indicted. His birth, his education and most of his life are shrouded in mystery. The slightest bit of investigation uncovers a mountain of dirt and doubt. In addition, his choice for Vice President made Dubya look well-spoken. So why did the Republicans not do what they do best, and destroy the opposition?

There is nothing else to conclude other than this: the Party hung McCain and Palin out to dry. They threw the election. Influential conservative commentators pulled their punches, and some even backed Obama openly. KKKarl Rove was on the teevee saying that an Obama win was inevitable. The media leaked stories of chaos within the campaign regarding McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. The Republican Party allowed Governor Palin to be savaged in the press (and it is still happening), despite the brave statements of a few Republican women when she was first introduced to the public. Senior Republicans snarled that she was not ready, inexperienced, an embarrassment. Key Bush figures like Colin Powell and Scott McClellan endorsed Obama. The evangelical base never supported McCain, despite the addition of a Christian conservative to the ticket. This behavior was a shocking departure from the Party of the past, which had always followed Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment.

The effect of all of this undermining was undeniable: 56 million voters came out for McCain, and 62 million voters came out for Bush.

We don’t know what the PUMA factor was, since a lot of PUMAs voted third party, left the top of the ticket blank, or wrote in Hillary. Some even stayed home in protest. Those PUMA votes would neither have gone to McCain nor Obama. However, if we assume for theoretical purposes that about a third of PUMAs voted McCain, that means that at least 7 million fewer Republicans voted for McCain than Bush.

The short-sightedness of these voters astonishes me, for John McCain and Sarah Palin were the only shot the Party had at redemption. They were rebranding the Party as the Party of feminism, tolerance, government oversight and responsible spending. That brand is now lost to the Republicans. The Democrats will never regain that brand either, because they trashed the person who exemplified it, Bill Clinton, in order to gain Barack Obama. The Republican Party Leaders found themselves a Democratic George Bush, and they did everything in their power to help him win.

Some well-meaning Republicans think they can rebuild the Party by going “back” to conservative principles. Sorry, but wow! Get a clue, guys: Republicans never govern the way they say they will. George W. Bush was beloved by the base, and he was completely anti-conservative. The government grew huge under his Administration; spending was out of control; and he all but destroyed the Constitution with his faith-based initiatives and unprecedented seizing of executive power in the name of “National Security.” Of course, he “kept us safe” too; that is, if you forget that 9/11 happened on his watch and so did the anthrax attacks, and that he created thousands of NEW terrorists by instigating two invasions and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Well, if Bush is what you love, oh Republican voters, have no fear: Barack Obama seems poised to continue smoothly in the tracks laid so deeply by George W. Bush. There will be no oversight of anything, with a one-Party government in power; out-of-control spending will certainly continue; and faith-based initiatives and warrantless wiretapping are both enthusiastically supported by the Senator from Illinois. Oh, and Joe Biden promises us death and destruction within six months, so you may get your terrorist attack too. Well-done, folks! And I feel so lucky, living in New York! Golly gee, I sure hope I live through Obama’s first term, unlike 3,000 of my compatriots in Bush’s first term, and so many, many thousands more in his second. But hey, what does it matter as long as you all get what you want?

Poor John McCain and Sarah Palin. Poor Bill and Hillary Clinton. They are career politicians without a Party. Both Democratic and Republican Party Leaders teamed up with the media to elect Barack Obama this year. No one else ever had a chance.

I am sure that within a few months of Barack Obama’s inauguration, we will know a lot more about what he intends to do to, er, for, America. One thing we know for certain is that the media never, EVER likes the candidate that is good for our country. They liked Reagan. They liked Bush. How’d those guys work out for us?

As I said before, I understand the joy that so many Americans are feeling. But if you look at the reality of what happened on Tuesday, you will see that it was a very ominous sign. Yesterday, Russia felt emboldened to announce a very aggressive move that they had been threatening to make for months. The stock market fluctuated wildly yesterday, but ended up down 145.44 points – an extremely unusual event on the day after an election – and today, it is plummeting further. I fear that things are going to get worse for Americans before they get better.

I do have faith that our democracy will survive, however; but only if enough of us are willing to discard our party loyalty and work together to make it happen. I invite everyone of all political stripes to join us in the effort to become more than hopeless pawns of the corporations that run our media and our political parties. I will have an updated blogroll soon, which will provide more information about things you can do to help.

In the meantime, while we organize and focus, stay strong, my fellow Americans, and remember this quote:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead
US anthropologist & popularizer of anthropology (1901 – 1978)

PUMA POWER!!!