December 2009 archive

Make sure those words don’t come back to haunt you, President Obama

“Make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies.”

Oh really?

Our armies have been looking like Hitler’s for quite a while now, and I’m starting to feel more and more inclined to do something violent about it by the day. What do you suggest that I should do about that, President Obama? Light a stick of patchouli and meditate? Have a nice cup of tea? Put on some plinking new age harps and look at the calm blue ocean? GO SHOPPING, maybe?

Maybe you’ll get all nervy like John Conyers did in the “Not Really An Impeachment Hearing” and tell me to sit down and shut up because “you’ve got this”? Oh yeah. Conyers really got a lot done THAT day, didn’t he?

Torture. Uninvestigated “suicides”, abductions, executions and murders carried out by Cheney’s death squads. Blocked investigations and coverups. Intimidation of Congress when outright bribery doesn’t work. Corruption. Theft of billions of dollars. No accountability for the war crimes of your predecessor.

My great-uncle – an American warrior, loyal to the bone, a slayer of right wing racist fascists, the man who had to endure the Nazis releasing the dogs on him and other prisoners of war in a concentration camp – is rolling in his grave.

You call this a democracy? I call it a totalitarian regime. Why the fuck are you protecting John Yoo, the man who architected this sick echo of the Nazi past as implemented by AMERICAN troops? How DARE you protect the likes of him, of Rove, of Cheney, of Bush, and pretend to us that this is somehow still a democracy?

Warrantless wiretapping implemented here and overseas. Corporate monopolies running rampant. War profiteers looting our treasury while our people suffer from hunger and cold, losing their jobs, their homes, and their health.

The American people are angry, President Obama. If you don’t listen now, you’re going to have to listen later.

There’s evil a lot closer to home than you would like to have to face. I got to see it up close and personal on 9/11/01, and guess what? I don’t think 19 guys with box cutters were the ones responsible. The fact that the US government stonewalls those inquiries and refuses to answer so many of the remaining questions about 9/11/01 is one of the reasons why.

I suggest you start by knocking on Cheney’s door. There are some people at the Hague who need to see him. He doesn’t need any more rope – there’s plenty. If the American people – assisted by people all over the world who have suffered and who CONTINUE to suffer at the hands of that monster – end up having to carry that rope to his door, Mr. President, it will be because YOU DIDN’T DO YOUR JOB.

LCD: The FAQ Lawyers, part N of an unending series

This is a Lazy Comment Diary, with reference to some points that have recently been discussed here on this site.

As I previously [ noted], I’m essayed out at the moment, but coming home after evening class on a day that I get up around 6am to be in school sometime 7:30am to 8am before 8:30am-12:30pm class, then come home to hang out before going to school around 5pm for the 6pm to 10pm class, I was groggy enough to be easily provoke-able, so firing up the Twitter machine and seeing someone with a link to the same dKos meta controversy that has fired up here, yeah, I got provoked.

Especially when its a fracking rhetorical question. God rhetorical question cheese me off sometimes. Why is that? I dunno, they just do.

Daily Kos has been taken over by the other side provoked, of course, the usual fight between Administration critics and Obama loyalists, including this steaming pile of organic fertilizer (NB: note that what is contained in the blockquote is an ASSERTION that I have just insulted – any kossack that believes they are immune to the general human tendency to say bullshit now and again and are therefore insulted to learn that someone thinks something they said was bullshit is, of course, welcome to feel insulted, because they are in the very best case too naive to be allowed at in the Internets without supervision):

Actually, this website was founded under the (36+ / 0-)

NB:Recommended by: Ray Radlein, askew, burrow owl, TLS66, walthamricke49, Iberian, Urizen, jaywillie, GN1927, blueyedace2, leftynyc, SocioSam, xanthippe2, edwardssl, Triscula, happy camper, GoldnI, lordcopper, Patricia Bruner, luckylizard, A Man Called Gloom, MKSinSA, Bull Schmitt, Otherday, stegro, iRobert, nickrud, indubitably, Reetz, Jane Lew, soothsayer99, notwisconsin, I said GOOD DAY sir, randomfacts, James Robinson, wolfie1818

the distinct banner of all Democrats, whether we agree with it or not, let’s not fudge the truth with your distortion. This is specifically re iterated currently as NOT a progressive site.

… and I will pull one strand of the follow-up to where I jumped in.

Fucking Meta

This is a very long somewhat meta essay and I am not happy to post it.  I have become less and less interested in what does not work.  But I invested a lot of years at Daily Kos and at blogs, and I can’t simply walk away and turn to embrace something better without getting these feelings out of me.

I have been reading and thinking about the many comments and essays on the Obamabot controversy and the ideas on how to deal with it.

Meteor Blades has given the green light to hide rate anyone who uses the word “Obamabot” or “Obama hater.”

I think this is a big mistake.

I also think Turkana is mistaken when he makes equivalencies between the two groups by saying there’s many diaries on the rec list which are critical of Obama, so in effect no one is being censored, etc., etc., etc.

This is not about STFU or literal censorship.  This is also not about who is driven off the site or burned out by the dynamic going on at the site.

This isn’t even about Daily Kos, imo.  I don’t for one minute believe Docudharma or any other website is somehow superior or that we are smarter or more honest, prettier, have better taste, or all of the other ego hedges we build to avoid our interdependence, our knowledge that no one is superior or inferior to anyone else, that we are all important, necessary and equal in our existence.

The dynamic we are all grappling with did not begin with the election of Barack Obama.

Tiger Woods and the Thorny Matter of Racial Identity

I thought I’d never be the next person to write about Tiger Woods.   That is, until today, when the sensationalist aspects of this incredibly bizarre story gave way to more substantive critiques.  In a different time, where concerns about the economy, the passage of health care reform, the uncertainty of a war in Afghanistan, and a variety of matters that collectively form the winter of our discontent, following glorious summer, this would have been endlessly digested and discussed.   Woods is at least fortunate that his great fall happened when the rest of the country and the news media was too distracted with other things.   If only in future we could give soft news its rightful place in a profoundly subordinate role behind serious matters, but this may be asking too much.    

As for Tiger Woods, when a revealing racial dynamic begins to enter the picture after an interested public and tabloid media, desperately churn up wild rumor after wild rumor regarding the scandal, then I have something to work with after all.   The New York Daily News, itself at times a scandal sheet, does at least outline something very interesting.    

When three white women were said to be romantically involved with Woods in addition to his blonde, Swedish wife, blogs, airwaves and barbershops started humming, and Woods’ already tenuous standing among many blacks took a beating.

On the nationally syndicated Tom Joyner radio show, Woods was the butt of jokes all week.

“Thankfully, Tiger, you didn’t marry a black woman. Because if a sister caught you running around with a bunch of white hoochie-mamas,” one parody suggests in song, she would have castrated him.

In addition to re-emphasizing a stereotypical portrayal of the sassy, no-nonsense Black woman, offensive in and of itself, the unveiled implication behind it as plain as the eye on one’s face.  Within the Black community, dating or marrying a white woman was seen as a form of social mobility.   Or, if you prefer, moving on up to the East Side.   Indeed, it still is.   Though the comparison may be a bit of a stretch, do also contemplate that both of Michael Jackson’s wives were white, as was the mother of his children.   The early Twentieth Century boxer Jack Johnson, an undisputed heavyweight titan of his time, broached social mores with abandon, and in so doing surrounded himself with white women.  That many of these women were considered of low moral standard, low social class, and often inclined to toil in the service of the world’s oldest profession did nothing to decrease the ire of both Whites and Blacks during his career.

Another figure who was very much front and center in the public eye in his day and also had a particular fondness for white women was Richard Pryor, who addressed the matter in his classic 1974 comedy album, That Ni**er’s Crazy.

Sisters look at you like you killed your mother when they see you with white women.

A sense of sticking to one’s place and staying with one’s own kind,  though it has decreased with the passage of time, still lives within the minds of many.  If it were merely a one-sided assumption, then it could be more easily fixed, but issues this large rarely are.  

As one blogger, Robert Paul Reyes, wrote: “If Tiger Woods had cheated on his gorgeous white wife with black women, the golfing great’s accident would have been barely a blip in the blogosphere.”

The darts reflect blacks’ resistance to interracial romance. They also are a reflection of discomfort with a man who has smashed barriers in one of America’s whitest sports and assumed the mantle of the world’s most famous athlete, once worn by Muhammad Ali and Michael Jordan.

Regarding the highlighted sentence above, I take some liberty with the author of this column.  It’s just not that simple, though the AP seems to always wish that it were.   Blacks aren’t so much resistant to interracial romance, but they are frequently disappointed and dismayed when African-Americans who attain some degree of fame make a concerted effort to exclusively date and then marry Caucasian women, particularly those who are the epitome and definition of what this society deems beautiful.   Our culture still pushes the blonde-haired, thin-waisted, Barbie doll look in almost every conceivable fashion, which relegates attractiveness and desirability to a very specific and very discriminatory standard, leaving out a good 90% of the rest of womanhood in the process.   This is particular true for women of color.  For any minority group, assimilation with the majority has been the quickest way to achieve “respectability”, though the resentment it creates in those left behind never subsides.        

Regarding a desire for African-Americans to date and marry other African-Americans, the column deems it “loyalty”, but this is an inexact qualifier at best.   It is a sort of racial pride, but comedian Sheryl Underwood advances the notion a bit farther.

“Would we question when a Jewish person wants to marry other Jewish people?” she said in an interview. “It’s not racist. It’s not bigotry. It’s cultural pride.”

“The issue comes in when you choose something white because you think it’s better,” Underwood said. “And then you never date a black woman or a woman of color or you never sample the greatness of the international buffet of human beings. If you never do that, we got a problem.”

Years after Loving v. Virginia, the shock of interracial relationships has subsided.   The film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?, deeply controversial in its time, produces smiles when viewed in our age because of how dated its subject matter appears to today’s audience.  Perceiving matters through a strictly racial prism, particularly one with only two settings can only take us so far towards understanding.   The irony is that while everyone seems to find no fault in interracial relationships, many are still reluctant to push past their own discomfort or date outside of their own racial group.   And I must admit, in all fairness, that I myself am guilty of that as much as anyone else.    

So to conclude, we should not summarily assume that with Tiger Woods being proven to be utterly human and wholly flawed that some part of our trusting innocence needs to perish alongside his indiscretions.   One of the deepest hypocrisies we continue to advance is holding our heroes to a moral and ethical standard that we feel incapable of achieving ourselves.   In a way, it’s a bit of a cop-out when we transpose this crusade for perfection felt deep within ourselves onto those whom we idolize.   They end up having to do the heavy lifting for our sins and when they fail, pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.   Even so, shelving this instinctive impulse that assumes any being will reach some Nirvana-like state before our very eyes based on accomplishment alone might be the best thing we, as a body of people, can do for ourselves.   This doesn’t mean anything goes or that extramarital affairs should be permissible or that mistakes should always be rationalized away, but it does mean that we ought to consider keeping our indignation at a responsible volume and tempered by responsible expectations.    

As it stands, USA Today posits,

So it won’t matter that Woods won’t be getting that Congressional gold medal and we won’t care that the future of his business empire remains steady.

Columnist Christine Brennan writes about it being a long road back but it is a road back.

Still, Woods was an athlete we trusted. We feel a bit foolish with all those claims that he was the one athlete whose only interest was winning. That while others were pursuing outside interests, Woods was beating golf balls and figuring out ways to win.

Former president Ronald Reagan used to say “trust but verify.”

Sometimes we are more angry and the bitterness lingers when we didn’t see it coming.

So, has Woods spoiled it for other guys?

Does the fact that we got fooled by this guy now make us less trusting of all athletes?

Ronald Reagan quote aside, I don’t think trust is the matter at hand here.   Or if it is, trust ought to be applied to ourselves first before we place it in the hands of some arbitrarily appointed industry, entity, or agency who has based its entire focus and revenue around a single person who happens to be notable based on a high degree of achievement.   This is true in sports, it is true in politics, and it is true in life.   Be the change.  Above all, be the change.  Don’t lay the change on someone else’s shoulders, no matter how broad you think them to be.   That road leads to ruin.    

Afghanistan Transparent

Paul Jay of The Real News interviews F. William Engdahl, economist and author of the best selling book “A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order” who explains US Geopolitical objectives in Afghanistan, in terms clear and simple enough even for US mainstream network television audiences – which is probably why you never see him on television.

Based in Germany, Engdahl has written on issues of energy, politics and economics for more than 30 years, beginning with the first oil shock in the early 1970s, and is a regular contributor to a number of publications including Asia Times Online, Asia, Inc, Japan’s Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Foresight magazine, and Freitag and ZeitFragen newspapers in Germany and Switzerland.



Real News Network – December 9, 2009 – 14 min 35 sec

Why is the USA in Afghanistan?

Engdahl: Key objective is a permanent military presence in Asia


These fuck-ups on CNN have walked all over the Nobel Prize.

The bloviators walked all over the ceremony, the king’s speech, world class entertainent, etc.

Christiane Amapour, David Gergen, and Craphole Crowley’s opinions exceed world opinion.

Regardless, Obama is going balls to the wall “War is Peace!”

Fuck you, Bro’.

Docudharma Times Thursday December 10




Thursday’s Headlines:

Pakistan Detains Five Americans in Raid Tied to Militants

A street vendor pleads the First

For conservatives, a political surge

Obama’s jobs package draws fire from left and right

Abuse and show trials – Amnesty reports on Iran

Jailed Fatah chief emerges as Palestinian presidential contender

A matter of life and death – Irish abortion law in dock

Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy attempt a reconciliation

Afghanistan: UK and US seek to cancel 2010 parliamentary election

Philippines gunmen abduct dozens of students

Kenyan courts on legal front line in battle to stop Somali pirates

Zelaya is negotiating departure to Mexico

He’s Not Your Boyfriend

I am utterly sick of all this carrying on here about how people are not allowed to criticize Barack Obama.

He’s not your boyfriend.

(crossposted from naranja)

The Swiss Minaret Vote – Now that some of the dust has settled…

As probably everyone has heard by now, the Swiss sovereign voted by about 57% of the popular vote and the assent of 22 of the 26 full and half-cantons (States) to write into our Constitution that the construction of new minarets is banned, and this despite opposition to this People’s Party-supported initiative from the government, from parliament, from all parties (except the People’s Party and the fringe Protestant Democratic Party), the unions, the churches, industry, banking – pretty much every establishmentarian institution.

I’m not happy about the ban – it was a pointless affront to a section of our population.  Swiss zoning laws are arbitrary and byzantine enough to stop virtually anything if the local population put their mind to it, so the ban was not necessary.  True, a minaret is not essential for a mosque, but it’s only the conservative fringe like the Wahhabis who are actually opposed to it.  The call of the muezzin is banned anyway (not consistent with noise regulations- and it would be drowned out by church bells).

The vote was in some elements misdirected, but in others it spoke to legitimate concerns.  Popular votes are a rum thing, and you’re only given the option of voting “yes” or “no”, there is no possibility of a nuanced response.  But I certainly don’t think it is any “crisis of democracy”, or “failure” of anything except the failure of the political elites to deal with the issues that led to the “yes” vote.  

Late Night Karaoke

Open Thread

broken windows and empty hallways

I’m still fucked up about this shit. I know it will come back.

Tonight I rock, tonight I get out of it, into y’all.

But tomorrow it will come back. teh pain.

In all fairness

look at this

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