February 2010 archive

But Not From Your Own!!

And how like, for lack of any other description, political robots they are as to what some consider their political ideologies and how to represent, and who, once hired to do so.

You thought I was not serious?

I’m dead serious.  The only way to effect change is through sacrifice (changing your habits) and protest (telling people what you think, publicly).

Plenty of other stuff out on the Hypnotoad.  Just look-

The Hypnotoad.

"Television is a vast wasteland"

Figure Skating Exhibition Repeats 3 & 4 Edition.

Open Thread

Crossposted at Daily Kos

Give me 30 minutes of Seinfeld, Mad About You, M.A.S.H., Fawlty Towers, All in the Family, Happy Days and watch out Healthcare Reform Summits, Reconciliation bills, filibuster, cloture, and politics in general.  I’ll abandon you in a second.

George, Jerry, Elaine, and Kramer in Seinfeld

What makes for a good television sitcom?  What elements combine to make a sitcom successful as well as popular?  The criteria are many, the judgments all too subjective.  

A few guidelines

Characters.

Acting.

Writing.

Plot.

Directing.

Timing.

Edginess Factor.

Cultural and social significance.

A world divided by nationalist struggles and vain fantasies  of dominating the earth’s resources is a world that grows increasingly  insane and self-destructive. Yet many decent and moral people accept the  current construction of politics as a ” given.” They end up  participating in this insanity and calling it “realistic.”

Today,  what people call realistic or common sense, is nothing more than  “inside-the-beltway” assumptions created and maintained by  corporate-dominated media. Only by throwing off those assumptions and  thinking outside the box, can people see the Strategy of Generosity for  what it is – a method to stop insane people who have power from  continuing their disastrous path of destruction.

It is a  delusion to imagine that only one political party or set of candidates  frames our foreign policy in terms of narrowly conceived American  interests. Instead, we must realize that this behavior is a shared  insanity that must be challenged in every part of our political  thinking.  It is just as likely to be articulated by people with whom we  agree, as by people who are overtly reactionary or  ultra-nationalistic.–Rabbi Michael Lerner Tikkun  Magazine Speaking about  the Global Marshal Plan

An ordinary beautiful San Francisco day in 1979.  Home from work, flicked on the tube, the announcer droned that the jury had just convicted ex-cop Dan White of manslaughter for the carefully planned murders of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.  People were gathering at the Civic Center.

I immediately hopped in my car and headed downtown, parking several safe blocks from the scene.  Thousands were gathered before the Civic Center steps, mostly silent in stunned vigil.  The prosecution had horribly botched a slam-dunk case.  Many thought deliberately botched.  A nervous line of cops surrounded the building, and 13 police cars were parked alongside the mall across the way.

Nothing happened.  The crowd swelled.  One man began tugging on a parking meter along the sidewalk.  Its moorings loosened, he kept rocking it until the meter came free.  He took the meter and smashed in the windshield of one of the cop cars, then ran for the cover of the crowd.  The crowd only watched.  The police only watched.

I’ve read some of the speculation about the politics of the Patriot Act renewal happening under all our noses while the HCR spectacle diverted our attention.

AndyS in Colorado hit the nail on the head on what’s very fishy about this political act:

The Patriot Act provisions were set to expire this year.  People who rallied the entire country to vote for Barack Obama, the entire liberal blogosphere was on fire for years at the unconstitutionality of this law and its depredations on the Fourth Amendment among others.

— snip–

Let me remind the reader that provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire this year.  To defeat those Patriot Act provisions required no action at all.

Yet here we are.

Ok.  I’m no political genius, but I would say that doing “nothing at all” politically on an issue all of us were passionate about appears to be an action in and of itself that goes against the latest political style of following the “path of least resistance.”

Are our representatives actually going to try to make us believe this was necessary for our national security?

‘Cause if they do that, I’d suggest buying a lot of stock in anti-indigestion medicine.  It’ll go sky high.