Tag: Political

When the Personal and the Political Don’t Mix

An internet advice column responded to the question of a man who was uncomfortable with the idea that, assuming the two of them would marry, his girlfriend would not agree to take his last name.  The columnist deftly turns his original question around in her reply, suggesting that perhaps he should agree to take her name or that the two of them could form a new surname unique to the both of them.  Inherent in the whole of the reply is the assertion that the soon-to-be husband in question isn’t nearly as open and accepting of a woman’s right to individual choice as he thinks he is.  The major issues expressed in the column are an articulation that men who place demands upon women, especially in situations like these are speaking from a place of privilege and in so doing need to rethink their attitudes.  When politically problematic and personal choice butt heads, the two almost always clash.  

A particularly popular line of thinking states that, should a woman make a conscious decision to participate in what would at its face be a restrictive, oppressive custom, she should be allowed to do so without being criticized as somehow violating the aims of women’s rights.  Up to a point, I think this statement is justified but if one expands the application, it becomes more and more problematic.  It should be noted that not all oppressions are the same, but in an earlier post this week, I tried to draw a parallel between all systematic injustices.  If, for example, an African-American chooses consciously to dress in blackface and to participate a minstrel show, offensive and demeaning though it is, is the practice any less evil and reprehensible if it is justified by deliberate personal choice?

For Your Consideration: Up Date x 2

Holding Government Hostage

Report: Shelby Blocks All Obama Nominations In The Senate Over AL Earmarks

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary “blanket hold” on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, CongressDaily (sub. req.) reports. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold.

“While holds are frequent,” CongressDaily reports, “Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal.”

Shelby has been tight-lipped about the holds, offering only an unnamed spokesperson to reporters today to explain them. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid broke the news of the blanket hold this afternoon after Shelby announced it to him in a letter sent today. Reid aides told CongressDaily the hold extends to “all executive nominations on the Senate calendar.”

According to the report, Shelby is holding Obama’s nominees hostage until a pair of lucrative programs that would send billions in taxpayer dollars to his home state get back on track. CongressDaily laid out the programs Shelby wants to move forward or else:

h/t Evan McMorris-Santoro  @ TPMDC

Welcome back, Joe the Senator.

Remember when?

Joe, you risked your political career to reach across the aisle.  You went so far as to allude to universal health care at the Publican Convention, a gusty thing to do after the warm and fuzzy welcome you received from the delegates.  And your opening comments on George Washington’s concern about party partisanship and what it could do to the smooth running of our government were so eloquent and so appropriate, too.  (In Washington’s day, white, male landowners really believed that they alone held the best interests of the country at heart and were, therefore, capable of designing a government for everyone.  You were certainly speaking to the right group.)

Even though you are an Independent, you were the Democrat’s representative at the Publican Convention, and the Publicans responded very well to you and to your reminder that the well-being of the country is more important than alignment with a political party.  Red, white, and blue hats off to you.  

War on Terror? Criminal Terrorism!! The Rand Report

On the 29th of July an extremely important think tank report, paid for by the government, came forth from the Rand Corporation, a favorite of the Pentagon on National Security matters.

I heard the report early that morning on a news blip on NPR and went over to the Rand Site and found the report. I than posted about it on a number of sites as well as sent it out, all with back links.

There was also a link for a Congressional Briefing to be held on that day on the report.

At first I was shocked that very few picked up on the importance of this report, that day and the next, as well as the hearing. Than thinking about it later maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised that few political boards saw the need to report and most certainly fewer MSM outlets as well. There’s an Awful Lot of sheepish guilty consciouses that supported this criminal administration, and criminal it is, in the direction it started selling this ‘War on Terrorism’, and the MSM, purely for commercial profit, would love to see what their advertisers were paying for ads than, happily went along, War Sells Big Time! Hell these political people, the boards, the MSM, the majority of the voters even fear bringing charges and accountability, fear of what that may mean on the political front, to hell with the Constitution the Politics are more important!

“How Terrorist Groups End”

The title above comes from a new Rand Corporation Report

After 7 years of conflict and occupations, with 893 coalition deaths — 556 Americans, in Afghanistan and increasing, and 4,438 coalition deaths — 4,124 Americans in Iraq and increasing, with tens of thousands of injured and maimed, physically and mentally, and millions of innocents in both countries killed, maimed, living as refugee’s, fighting each other in sectarian civil wars, living in ethnically cleansed neighborhoods and area’s in Iraq behind huge concrete blast walls, this “Think Tank?” comes out and says:

U.S. Should Rethink “War On Terrorism” Strategy to Deal with Resurgent Al Qaida

Current U.S. strategy against terrorist organization al Qaida has not been successful at limiting the group’s capabilities. Since Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaida has been involved in more terrorist attacks than ever before and over an increasingly broader range of targets.

understanding the McCain campaign

cross post from the GOS

Just got done listening Rachel Maddow [humorously] tear into John McCain for his apparent inability to distinguish between Shiite and Sunni, Baathists, criminal gangs and the ever nebulous ‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq’. McCain’s continued need to ensure Iranians are somehow implicated in every action – even if it’s Baathists or common criminals committing them is yet another part of the narrative, echoed by Petraeus and Crocker today in Senate testimony.

Even with public prompting from Lieberman aside, these ‘errors’ being made by McCain are being buried by the traditional media in the US at every turn. The links to show ‘Iranian influence’ are tenuous at best, but yet continue to be offered for everything that has gone wrong in Iraq.

McCain [and the Bush administration] need the traditional media to keep burying these supposed “gaffes”. I say supposed, because I think McCain and these administration shills are doing these ridiculous conflations quite on purpose.

‘The American President Americans have been waiting for’

This new ad by McCain seems to imply that the other candidates are not American, somehow.

The voice-over is very dark, insistent and nearly foreboding in tone.

A quick dive into it, the implied contrasts here give a clue to the tone of this campaign.

“That she [America] is worth protecting, it’s people, honorable”

The implied smears against Barack Obama are loaded up, and ready to go. If we think we’ve seen nasty so far, just wait “my friends”. We’ll be swimming in innuendo up to our eyeballs.

But it’s that tone, the announcer’s voice that drives home the implications that ‘there’s something not right with the other candidates’.

The announcer in this ad, Powers Boothe played Jim Jones in the story about Guyana, in the made for TeeVee movie in 1980.  

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00…

Yes, there are degrees of separation here, but somehow it seems fitting in a way this guy who made his mark in Hollywood portraying an insane cult leader who led over 900 people to kill themselves should be doing voice overs for McCain.

One other thing about the announcer; he seems to think that getting an Emmy is more important than honoring a SAG union strike line

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S…

Fascinating, what’s behind the scenes at these ads at times, ain’t it?