..but no philosophical underpinnings.

There is only one thing in common with all people who are dissatisfied with the disenchantment with and criticism of the President.

That is, they think “liberals” criticize the President too much.  Not “conservatives”, no, they are to deal make with and make sweet bipartisan music.

There is only one general agenda item on the list for people who want greater support of Barack Obama and viscerally attack his liberal detractors, and that is to somehow gain greater support for Barack Obama (though, how one gets more support for the President by slapping around those who have doubts, or even attack him, is a mystery) among liberals, or to silence their voiced criticism.

There is no want, no need, no emergency, no evinced specific desire for change or improvement, that is universally and uniformly evinced by the Support Obama Genre.

Except, possibly, compromise as a first principle with any and everyone who wants to make hash out of turtle soup — those people we generally call “conservatives” when principles and not personalities are discussed.  And even that is not universal, since liberals are to be bashed, not compromised with.

That’s what it has become: a genre.  Like science fiction or drama.

And so now, we have a deliberate obfuscation of what the words liberal and conservative mean generally:  To disagree with and attack the President is to either be a radical right winger or a radical left winger, to believe in and support the President is to be a “moderate” or a “good liberal” or a “centrist”.

This is a destruction, a deconstruction, of what those words mean, so now we are disagreeing over the basic definition of words.  But, still, there is no principle that embodies these words.

There are many people who support Obama who otherwise have wants and desires.  It is not to say one cannot support Obama and also be a liberal by the old definition.  That is not the point.  The point is, it appears the sole universal complaint of people who lionize Obama and lash out at his critics — the sole defining thing they all seem to share — is not about principle, is appears to be that to not see Obama is Just and Wise, just as Tom Tomorrow would facetiously write about Bush supporters that Bush was Just and Wise, is unacceptable.

(To endlessly argue whether we agree that President Obama is Just and Wise is not the point of anything.  Or that Obama is a good and decent man, or that he believes in compromise and national reconciliation.  Whether he is or believes any of these things is not my point at all.

My point being, does it matter, in terms of principle of any kind, whether any of this is so?  Is it possible, to maintain moral authority in the absence or vacuousness of principle, and more importantly, what are the tangible results for the average working American in preference to political exigency of “elect Democrats or all is lost”?)

To be even vaguely liberal and to also have a want or desire that is at odds with what the President wants or does, and to criticize the President therby, even if it falls squarely into the reform column, is to put onesself at odds with the President’s supporters, professional or otherwise, and to be attacked, and called, collectively, “the professional left”.

There once was a man who tied me to a railroad track and chuckled, evilly as he departed, that there was nothing I could do to stop him, and that a train was going to run over me in a most gruesome way.

As I lie there, thinking of my own demise, another man came, and told me that he wanted in his heart of hearts to save me from that gruesome demise, but it would only be possible for him to save me if I supported his election with a donation, because he would have to be the Sheriff in order to be authorized to cut the Offical Handcuffs the bandit used to bind me to the tracks.

“There’s a $20 in my pocket, I gasped, desperately.  Take it, get elected, but for god’s sake, get back here and save me, please!

Some time passed, and it was a hot sunny day, and I realized that before the train was going to run over me and realize my intended gruesome demise, I would die of thirst and wouldn’t feel the pain of the railroad wheels cutting my frail body in three pieces.

As my vision blurred from thirst and hunger, and just as I was about to go under forever, the second man returned, with a shiny gold star on his shirt.

“Here,” he said, lowering a bottle to my face and splashing it with clear, cold water out of a canteen.  I slurped eagerly at the wet salvation.  “I also brought some food,” he said.  “Slowly, slowly,” he admonished me as my teeth gnashed at the sandwich he held up to my face, as my hands were tied to my sides and I could only move my fingers a millimeter or two.  “You are going to need your strength”.

“Thank God!” I yelled.  “Now, untie me, and we can both get out of here before the train arrives or the Evil Man returns!”

The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.

— Galadriel

President Obama is not alone.  Many people do not seem to understand that oppression of an entire people is not chronic.  It is systemic.  The infection grows.

When I was 12 or so, as boys that age do, I had somehow gotten ahold of a very old gay porn magazine that was almost as old as I was.  It must have been from the very early 70’s.

Anyway, I liked it because this magazine featured guys just a little older than me — 18 and 19 year olds.

This was not like any porn magazine, gay or otherwise, from the present day.  On one page it had two fully clothed young guys lying on a bed listening to music together, and there was a verbal spread around this picture, talking, in wistful terms, about how one day, in a future we possibly could not imagine, men could get married with other men.

This is the battle now, and as I think back on this magazine, I can imagine being ferocious, of roaring, rather than wistfully wondering if ever, and when.  We’ve come a long way, but part of that way is in not being wistful anymore, and not asking, but demanding.

Of, finally, roaring.

I am past my marrying days.  My lover died, I have no wish for the pain of another.  I had a husband, I wasn’t allowed to call him that name, and it doesn’t matter now.  I have been made a relic by time.  But a lion roars inside.  No, not a lion. A mouse.  But a mouse that can change the world.

That there should be no wistful boys, wondering about that which might never be, thinking something is wrong inside.

A fatal miscalculation has been made.  A nuclear bomb has been left sitting on the table.  

And what our political leaders don’t understand is, it’s ticking.

Note: the following questions, for the most part, are taken directly from the spouse DADT survey run by the Defense Department.  Most of the time, the wording (PDF) of the questions has not even been changed.  However, the author of the ALTERNATIVE SURVEY reserves the right to change the wording of the questions to more accurately reflect their intent.

In addition, some answers have also had their wording changed.  For the most part, this is additions to the wording in the official survey.

A final note, since this is, apparently, required:  None of this is intended to be actually disrespectful of military spouses or people who have sacrificed EVERYTHING, and more, to serve in the military or be in the military with their spouses, when they don’t actually have to.  Rather, the opposite.

I watched HER die.  I watched my lover, my boyfriend, and now, only lately, what I have come to understand that those words are a sham, my husband, die. in 1997.

I was denied access to his belongings by the hospital.  I was denied the final choice on the disposition of his remains, by the crematorium.

My mother was a homophobe.  In February, I watched him die.  I got called by the hospital, because I had to have rest.  I had no emotion, hearing the words, he had died.  I sobbed, great, wracking sobs, with no emotion of any kind, in them.  In February, February 23rd, he died.

My mother was a homophobe.  But a kind one.  On December 9th, 1997, she died.

She could not understand why I could not just try a woman.

She loved animals, and finches, and hamsters.  Killed them, too, with great wracking sobs, when they were in pain.

She died of cervical cancer.  She died in agony.  She died, with her last words to me, about how if I gave a shit about her, I would not get AIDS .. as if I was a prostitute, rather than trying to rebuild my life out of pain.  Her last words, about my brother, were about how neither of them gave a shit to visit her.

I watched her die.  I held my hand to her temple as she took her last breath.

This is how I feel now.

I am in pain.

I am lonely.  But I am strong, also.

I have recovered.  It has taken me 11 years.  But I am strong, again.

I am the Phoenix.  And the Phoenix is angry.

The Phoenix burns.  The Phoenix does not feel pity, or remorse, or fear.

It burns.

Do not speak to me of humor, or acceptance.  I have passed through those.  I have passed through the sun, and come out unburnt.

I have passed through my stage of humanistic acceptance of life and its vagaries.  I have passed through pain.

I had a husband, not a lover, not a boyfriend.

You took that away from me.  

I have no sense of humor about this, no.  I will never have.

You can mock me, but I will not be mocked.  I have a pain that will take my death to resolve.

I am death.  But I am also the Phoenix.

And the Phoenix will not be mocked.

On Daily Kos, a tempest in a teapot has erupted over the word “spitting”.  As in,

Obama: Stands up for Muslims, spits on gays? (5+ / 14-)

Quite a combination. If he was a courageous leader he’d come out for gay marriage, unless he really does think they should be second class citizens.

I am going to, in this essay, attack Daily Kos, and the denizens that inhabit it, because of this reasoning:

“Spits” is hyperbole. Not HR worthy, but if (2+ / 0-)

you want to make a point, you can do it without pissing off the people you are trying to convince.

Because you do have a real point…

No sir, it’s not that we have a real point, it’s that you have no point.

The spirit of resistance sometimes requires hard, accurate portrayals and words.  Even if it’s only arguably accurate.

It’s time to resist the President on gay rights.  Gently asking is not enough.  Humbly requesting is not enough.

Whatever language is used, the President’s heart has been hard on gay rights, and the human toll of suffering, based on what has happened to date, has not been enough to convince him to soften it.

I am not in this world to re-elect the President, or to support him, whatever that means.  When his re-election is imminent, I will evaluate his actions over the past four years, and decide what to do, not before.  But that is not and has nothing to do with resisting the President’s policies vis-a-vis gay rights.

What do you expect the LGBT community on this blog, or any other, to do?  We ought not have to convince you.  If you are allies, if you still believe in civil rights as a cornerstone of Democratic policies, you ought to be right there with us all — without us even asking you to be there.

At some point, we simply cannot sit back and hope and dream for the President to make success for us.  We have to make our own success, and if that involves, sometimes, saying bad things about the President, well, that is the least of it.

Saying we should not say bad things about the President?  Really?  Not saying we should have violence, but wars have been fought over less than the fundamental human liberties of an entire people.  The zeitgeist on places such as Daily Kos IS material in the sense that arguing over a trifle like the word “spitting” masks the dire nature of continuing to put our human rights in a box.

And now history itself is beginning to be masked.

I don’t care that certain liberal people wish to lionize the President.  But to do so in a manner that erases history — this I have a problem with.  There is a pattern of anti-gay actions on the part of the President.  That people are ignorant of this history is unacceptable, and, yes, let the chips fall where they may and let people draw their own conclusions.

If the President won’t veto a gay rights measure, that is not because he’s a good guy when it comes to gay rights — it’s because we put him in a box.  And it’s time to put him in that box, and the people who do not wish him put in that box are wrong, not the other way around.  His political career, and the political fortunes of all Democrats in America, are not worth the loss of one gay life due to bigotry and fear.  That certain people don’t say so, but act as if the opposite is true, this deserves to be confronted, finally, and confronted loudly, if other things don’t work.

I don’t have to resort to the word “spitting” to make my point — but my point is, the point has already been made, in action.  Making outrage over this kind of wording, frankly, is what is despicable — not the other way around.

The blogs are full of what GLBT people need to do for their own benefit.

So, you tell me.  What should we do?  

We have been insulted.  We have been denied.  We have been delayed.  We have had our feet stomped on.  We have been quite literally laughed at, not even an exaggeration, by the President of the United States.  We have had the murder of our people called odious while the President breakfasted with those who engineered what could very quickly become mass murder.

As if our lives are a joke.

Then the argument goes, you vote for and support that person, or candidates who support that person, or people who support them, on the grounds that the other person could be worse.

Setting aside the utter deliberate and cruel nastiness of this situation, I want to ask you, the Docudharma community, what we should do.  And I don’t ask this without asking you to exercise your empathetic muscles.  I want you to think, move, stretch.

Put yourself in our place.

It’s not the insult — it’s what flows from the insult.  You could live with it if you got the insult, but you got good things to compensate.  A victory is a victory, even if it accompanied by a jeer, like Obama’s Axelrod saying of the GLBT court victory that he still didn’t support gay marriage.

And this is not about taxes.  This is about lives.  People.  

And then we are urged to be rational, cold blooded, non-spiteful, and calculating about this state of affairs.

But, see, we are being laughed at, and we are not the only ones.

Something is rotten in Denmark.  And GLBT people are, have been, and were used as a field weapons test for this very tactic.  THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT US ANYMORE.  This is against not only us, but immigrants, environmentalists, women, anti-BP activists, black activists, rule of law advocates, economic justice advocates, energy advocates, and others.

Do not come to us and talk about the visceral, visceral hatred why you cannot vote or do X, if you advised us to do the very same thing.

They are learning how to treat you like fools by experiencing what it is like to treat us like fools.  And by blackmailing us, they are gauging the effectiveness of blackmailing you — not about the size of your 401K.  About your whole life.

And I think, you know, it might be livable to be blackmailed about taxes.  This kind of political blackmail, the kind that goes, vote for us, or the puppy gets it, is about a lifetime of discrimination.

In that kind of situation — please, think about yourself and put yourself in my and our place .. you don’t want to not vote for the people doing this to you, you want to kill them.  And they want you to vote for them.  I’m not advocating violence, I’m talking about feelings.

And we are being asked to vote for them, the people who ask for, nay, DEMAND, our votes, our money, and our support.  The people we want to, quite literally, and non-jokingly, strangle, with our bare hands.  And not only them.  Them and everyone with them, apologizing for them, knuckling under to them.  And there is no shame.  Not even embarrassment.  They can fail you and not advance you, then act like you are the guilty party for you not getting even modest progress when what you asked for what your basic human rights.

You should be forewarned, Mr. Politician.

If you accept the job, it should be rare, and valued as a precious jewel, when I reward you with one good word.  Even a tiny good word, as I inveigh against you, your culture, your ideas, your policies, and your mother, at a screaming volume, as a half-forgotten aside.

I will drag you through the mud.  On a daily basis.  On general principle.  And, moreover, I think my fellow Citizen Kings and Queens should do so was well, just because it’s good for you.

There is no fairness for you.  Nor should there be any.  Because you will take the first opportunity of fairness and use it as if you should be OUR Boss.

And you’re, uh, just not.

You have legions of supporters, just waiting to use the idea of fairness, of civility, of one ounce of mercy, to pounce.

To issue the idea that I should support you, vote for you, even give you the very money you cost me with your policies, and by not so doing I am a traitor to a political party for not treating you as my master, and you, my employee, should treat me as your slave.

Just by having the job, you have too much power already.

But, really, you’re a tool.  The constitution says so.  The constitution says you’re a servant.

Do you want to rule?  Do you want power?  Then you should not have the job.

Do you want to blackmail me with the idea that the employee I must replace you with, should you get out of line, will be worse than you ever were?

No one is indispensable and if you or your supporters even suggest that your replacement would be worse, you should be fired, just for being an uppity underling and even suggesting such a thing.  YOU SHOULD BE FIRED for having the disrespect to try to hold your bosses hostage, to the extent you do.  So don’t, just don’t.  Shut up, keep your head down, and work your work, and don’t get uppity.

Because, you see, Mr. Politician, you are a tool.  By running for the job you admitted you wanted to be a tool.  You wanted to find the Honor of Service.

And if you do not want to find Honor in Service, then you have too big a head to have a job being a politician.  And your supporters are dangerous.  Why do you not disavow them?  Why do you not tell your supporters, who browbeat and attack others who question you, to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up, because the Citizen is King?

I am beginning to get suspicious, Mr. Politician.  While you do not reign in your supporters, and tell them to shut up and that you know you have a job to do, it sounds, really, like you want to rule us Citizens, by the Constitution, your lords and masters, whom your supporters don’t respect.

Respect for your bosses is a given until you are OUT OF OFFICE.  Don’t come looking to me, during the term of your job, for laurels.  You don’t deserve any, and you won’t get any.  I will bite your hand if you offer me a chocolate bon-bon on your palm.  That is what you signed up for.  It’s only after, when you have served, and not betrayed, that you will get glory.

And, really, that glory, that immortality, is for you, if you can only be humble enough to serve, with all of democracy’s slings and arrows, for the brief time you are allotted.

Those are your rewards, for two years, four years, or six, of unending shit, that you deserve to get, just because of what you chose to be.  Remember, you chose the job, not me.

One more thing — don’t you or your slavish servants, whom you keep around you like a coterie, tell me what a hard job it is, being a politician.  And you might work diligently to get rid of any slavish servants you may have.  It doesn’t make you look good, rather the opposite.

You wanted the job.  If you don’t want it, I, your boss, will find someone who does.  And for the right reasons.

You argue that American workers, and the American People, who have not yet lost their jobs, who have not yet lost their uttermost ablility to buy cheap plastic trinkets from China, that they are somehow at fault for somehow undermining the American Economy.

If you argue this, you are guilty of TREASON.

People are responsible, for the productivity and thus the wealth of the RICH, to pay their electric bills, their home and office power, their initernet, their heat .. that they should instead, buy trinkets from Corporations.

If you argue this, you are a TRAITOR.

I’m sorry if this is a difficult pill to swallow.  Really, I’m not.

The fact is, corporations have run wild with their profits and their banks of money.

The making of a false equivalency is non-operative.

You cannot want to scrape the bottom of the barrel from an American female worker with two kids, without being a TRAITOR.

And if being a TRAITOR is what you are, and what you want to do is send American ingenuity, products, and all of our futures to China is what you must do, why not be proud of it?

I am DONE with being DIPLOMATIC.

I am DONE with CUSHIONING MY WORDS so that those that argue for the stealing of even more of our money can feel good and righteous and just about themselves.

I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

Stop both outsourcing American Jobs and American Ingenuity and playing both ends against the middle as if this is a CIVIL ARGUMENT and admit what you want.

If you want to enrich the Communist Chinese as per your Republican Wont is, admit you want to Enrich the Communist Chinese, and let the American Public make their own decisions.

For me, you called Martin Luther King a TRAITOR.  You called anyone who didn’t want more war a TRAITOR.

If you want to argue that we should send money to our foreign benefators, then you are a TRAITOR.

What’s good for the goose, is good for the gander.

Shut the fuck up and admit what you are.

TRAITOR.