Supercitizens

Michael Brown was a thug who was caught on video doing some thuggish things in a deli.  He was also shot 6 times by a cop.

I don’t like the way the internet is taking over from the justice system.  Regardless of what Michael Brown may have done or what the police officer might have done, this story is starting to resemble a mediathon event a la Nancy Grace.  And I really don’t like Nancy Grace.

You know what would be great?  It would be great if we let the justice system do the work here.  And yet, after I read Matt Taibbi’s recent book, The Divide, before it devolved into yet another obligatory polemic against Bill Clinton who seems to have been the only politician in the last twenty years with any agency, I realized that there really isn’t justice in this country anymore.  Once you have committed a crime, even a small one or one you didn’t know existed, you’re pretty much screwed.  The system is set up to find you guilty if you don’t have a small fortune to prove your innocence.  It’s prepared to throw you in jail and deprive you of all you own at the slightest provocation.

On the other hand, if you’re wealthy and well connected, you can ruin people’s lives with impunity, risk other people’s retirement funds without consequence, and practice the equivalent of global and domestic economic terrorism and get away with it.  No one shows up at your door to arrest you for loitering where you shouldn’t or threatens your livelihood or keeps putting you back on the Start square in a real life game of Sorry!  Once you reach a certain level of wealth, you are untouchable.  (Well, at least until some clever vigilante individuals figure out how to circumvent the neo-feudal curtain walls.  It’ll happen eventually.)

But if you are a person of color or a woman or just poor, your life and belongings are inconsequential.  You’re not entitled to anything.  You’re lucky if you escape with your life.  And if you complain, the system will bring out a militarized police force and technology that will make you sick, to put you back in your place.  I saw it in Denver in 2008 (where was Claire McCaskill during the convention?) and at Zucotti Park in 2011.  And now we are watching it happen in Ferguson.

That’s because Americans have been allowed to indulge themselves in thinking that some people “deserve” better treatment than others.  But to the Supercitizen, no one below them is deserving of anything.  The dehumanization of the average American starts with race and women and poor people but sooner or later if things keep devolving at this pace, everyone but the supercitizen will be affected.

Internet coverage is not the same as due process, evidence, trials and justice.  And a justice department that has settled for weregild when it comes to global economic catastrophes and corruption, while bringing down the hammer on ordinary people has lost all credibility. It’s part of the problem.

When you’re deep in a hole, stop digging.

Violet’s take on female self-defense mechanisms

She totally wants it.

Violet Socks at Reclusive Leftist comments on Todd Akin’s assertion that womens’ bodies can deal with unwanted intercourse. Akin said, “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down”

Violet speculates on the ideal rape self-defense mechanisms women might have developed:

So, presumably, he thinks that God Himself specifically equipped women with the magical, hitherto unknown superpower ability to “shut that whole thing down” so as not to get pregnant from rape. But why only that? Why didn’t God go further, and give us the superpower ability to, I don’t know, secrete a toxin that would instantly dissolve the human penis that’s being forced into our bodies? Or maybe the superpower ability to cause the owner of said penis to keel over and die? Or even better, perhaps we could have the superpower ability to detect a potential rapist before he even gets started, and then emit a fantastically noxious pheromone that would knock the fucker over and render him senseless.

Funny what you can come up with when you let your imagination and righteous indignation roam without supervision.  Violet’s talents are wasted on a blog.  I’d read any science fiction she wants to write.

I don’t know whether the absence of these built in self-defense mechanisms is more evidence that God doesn’t exist or that rape is evolutionally favorable.  Depressing.

Still, Akin might have saved himself a lot of ridicule and consternation if he had just taken the trouble of reading up on the women who were systematically raped in Bosnia and Sudan in the recent past.  Akin just felt the truthiness in his gut.  Either that or there is no such thing as rape.  All women secretly want it.  That’s why they let their shields down and get knocked up.

What’s really amusing is that Claire McCaskill was trailing this braintrust.  Well, it *would* be funny if there weren’t so few women in Congress and McCaskill wasn’t such a craven Obama fangirl who doesn’t want anyone to know she’s a Democrat.  It makes me feel sorry for Missouri’s children.  They didn’t choose to be raised and educated in Missouri.

Senator Richard Lugar to Be Honorary Co-Chair of Inauguration

It’s 28 days and counting till Barack’s big day, and the hopey-changey-unityness is just so thrilling! Today President-elect Obama announced the lucky honorary co-chairs of his post-partisan, post democracy celebration. They will be with him when he is annnointed as Unitary Executive with almost complete control of the American Empire. And he has invited a Republican to play a role in this unprecedented, even earthshaking event. According to the Indianapolis Star

President-elect Barack Obama tapped Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to serve as one of 15 honorary co-chairs of his inaugural committee.

The position carries no responsibilities, according to Lugar’s office.

That’s nice. I don’t know that Obama is planning for his position to carry any responsibilities either. I think he’s expecting Hillary to do most of the foreign policy work; and of course he’ll have plenty of advisers and aides from his Chicago gang to run domestic affairs. But maybe he’ll see his way clear to take charge of redecorating the White House Exercise room so he can keep his pecs inflated (See Huffpo, if you dare). Better do a little work on those skinny legs though, Obie!

If we’re PUMAs, then Obamaphiles are…

CHEATahs!

(Insert British narrotor voice): "The Obama CHEATah is a malignant predator on Democracy. Like its predeccesor, the DITTOHEAD and Republicans 2000-2008, the CHEATah cheats and steals votes in order to win elections. They also are experts in creating false narratives to hide the flaws of their incompetent, inexperienced and ineligible candidate. CHEATahs roam the blogosphere, DNC and mainstream media.

CHEATahs even have their own teeny-bopper girl group!

The CHEATah Girls, comprised of Senator Claire McCaskill, MADAME Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and DNC Committee Chair Donna Brazile are a triple-threat to Democracy.

UPDATE:  H/T to Delphyne for informing me that the CHEATah boy band sensation driving the O-borg astroturfing, “The CHEAT-o Boyz,” recently made an appearance at Netroots Nation:

Dear Claire, save your breath

After all, you didn’t use it when it would actually, you know, count. From the NYTimes this am we have Clinton Bloc Becomes the Prize for Election Day:

The Obama campaign will fight back, after waiting a respectful beat or two. In conversations with Mr. Obama and his aides, “I’ve tried to make sure that everyone understood that these women have a right to feel frustrated and angry,” said Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, an important ally who is one of his leading emissaries to women. “To try to make that less than real is a huge mistake.”

As he declared himself the nominee on Tuesday, Mr. Obama cut a particularly woman-friendly figure on stage, dedicating his speech to his grandmother and affectionately bumping fists with his wife, Michelle.

Indeed, descriptions of those women, along with his mother and daughters, will be regular features of Mr. Obama’s speeches, Ms. Sebelius said. Women will ultimately choose Mr. Obama not because of symbolic overtures, she added, but because of his stances on health care, the economy and education, areas where his positions closely resemble Mrs. Clinton’s.

The key, Ms. McCaskill said, is approaching Mrs. Clinton’s supporters with utmost humility. And, Ms. Backus added, that is not always the strongest suit of the young people who are some of Mr. Obama’s most enthusiastic supporters.

“Not nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh,” Ms. McCaskill said, making a taunting sound. “We need them very, very badly, and we shouldn’t be able to be afraid to say that we need them.”

What is the Obama campaign saying here, Claire? It’s going to gives us a few days to get over it before it launches a new offensive at us? That we’re just another enemy that needs to be subdued? Do you think we don’t have the sweeties psychological warfare all figured out?

Jeez, Claire, where were you before now? I guess it was Ok to let all of the intimidation and caucus manipulation and voter suppression and misogyny go on while your guy was winning. You have allied yourself with a man whose enablers sat on Hillary Clinton’s delegates in Florida and Michigan. You are with the man who cut the voters’ voices in half in those two states and stole four of her delegates. The RBC gave him HER delegates using the most ridiculous rationale imaginable. We saw it. The whole country was watching this travesty that was played out like the antics of a high school student council handing the election over to the popular BMOC.

This isn’t high school, Claire. This is the most powerful nation in the world. The time to speak out, to get your forces under control, to listen to us was before it all went down. That was when it was important to behave responsibly, to act ethically with all voters in mind, to not piss off your biggest voting bloc.

You and the other Obama superdelegates have zero credibility with us. ZERO. We won’t listen to you. We can’t be “reasoned” with. We aren’t stupid people who need to now be soothed. We’re adults. You had your chance to make your case to us and you blew it. You and your media can have a summer long lovefest for all I care. I’m not listening to you. I have more important things to do that make sure your hollow prop of a candidate gets enough votes to push him over the finish line in November.

It’s my vote. You are not entitled to it and I am not giving it up to anyone I can not respect. And I don’t have to listen to you.

PUMAs, I’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating: Turn off the media. Watch only CSPAN. Be careful what you read. If it feels like guilt, it’s probably David Axelrod upping the Haka. We have to stick together and not let anyone or anything get under our skin. Remember, this is the guy who wouldn’t campaign in Kentucky because he thought the Applacahian vote wasn’t worth his time of day. This is the guy who took delegates away from his opponent in order to “win”. This is the guy whose enablers have been screaming for Clinton to quit since Iowa. And most of all, this is the guy who LOST CA, NJ, NY, MA, PA, OH, TX, FL and MI. He LOST them. No other Democratic nominee has ever been allowed to fail so spectacularly. We do not reward failure. We do not reward sexism. We do not reward cheating. We do not reward disrespect.
Turn off the media. Turn off Claire McCaskill. Turn off Barack Obama.