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But tell them what’s behind the curtain Johnny.

^{(I’m traveling tomorrow, overseas.  I’ll be out of touch all day, and that’ll be a damn shame, as I love this place.  So I decided to post this now, and see if anyone liked it.  I wrote this exactly 2 years ago tomorrow, just after the midterms, because I felt we were going to win big in 08.  We had to win.  And I needed to be prepared, or something like that.  I’d forgotten about it until today when I heard Rove the pundit blathering nonsense to the ‘faithful’.  Neocons for some odd reason still believe they have relevance, still believe they hold power.  This is how I envision dealing with them.  Their mouthpieces, their valued pundits…well, they’re another story.)}

Hi.

My name is ___.

I know you.  

You know me.

The passage of time and our mutual close proximity to each other on the job is what makes that possible.

That and nothing more than that.

(This is an intervention)

I think we can agree that we have known each other for quite some time now.

For your part I know what you think of me, and have actually, many times, brought yourself to speak out loud the “L” word and send it my way.  It has been your highest insult, and I’ve always thanked you for the sentiment.

Because it’s true.

We have a few hours to wait for change, to wait for the mandate to be declared by the majority.  So, until we get to that point, and before the Republican Spin Machine starts flooding the airwaves with the names and numbers of all those to blame for such a turn of events, I thought I’d start a little thread of inspirational music.  Not religious music, unless that’s what inspires you, but music that helps to get one through the day.

I have a few to start with, and feel free to add yours in the comments.  I’m interested to see what we find inspirational on this great day.

Sly and the Family Stone – Everyday People

More below *****************

I turned thirty-two years old today.  And one week from today, I will do something I have never done before: cast my vote for the winning candidate for President of the United States, Senator Barack Obama.  It will be an interesting change to have a President who has my actual endorsement.

It has been an interesting political season, as well.  The prospective election of a multi-racial man to the Presidency has brought out much of the worst of Americans.  All of us are familiar with the reprehensible public statements, the shouted epithets at crowds and rallies, the slanderous emails which many of us have received.  A loud, angry minority perceives that they have lost their grip on the country, and fear what it means for the “Real America”, which they define as excluding me, you and pretty much everyone we know.

All of this has offended many of you; it has offended me as well.  It offends me to hear believers in other political principles than I describe where my friend Summer and her husband and daughter as not being the “real Virginia”, although I imagine that Summer herself was fairly enthusiastic to hear it.  It offends me to hear that my friends and I in New York City are not among the “best of America” because we don’t live in small towns in Republican states.  I may have spent the bulk of my life on the East Coast of the US, but that has not diminished my appreciation for Texas, where my aunt lives, or Louisiana, where my father is from.  Indeed, my political representatives have shared that view as well.  There was no diminished distress when Louisiana, among the “reddest” of states, was drowning from government apathy while the President took time out to celebrate John McCain’s birthday.

Many notable voices have deplored these offensive and divisive remarks.  But I am glad for them, both because sunlight truly is the best disinfectant and because that these voices are so willing to speak openly is proof that they know they are losing, and are desperate because of it.

And in this moment, I want to take a minute to thank all of you.

* updated 1x to add another word added to title

** updated 2x to point out typo in first update.  free music video dedicated to whoever spots the typo, which isn’t really a classic typo, more along the lines of a mistake in grammar.

And yet it only stood to reason that if you believed your opponent was neither sensible nor sober and would do anything to win, and his victory would destroy civilization, a certain insobriety was permissable to beat him.

Thus a more inclusive definition of Nixonland: it is the America where two separate and irreconcilable sets of apocalyptic fears coexist in the minds of two separate and irreconcilable groups of Americans.  The first groups, enemies of Richard Nixon, are the spiritual heirs of Stevenson and Galbraith.  They take it as an axiom that if Richard Nixon and the values associated with him triumph, America itself might end.  The second group are the people who wrote those telegrams begging Dwight D. Eisenhower to keep their hero on the 1952 Republican ticket.  They believe, as did Nixon, that if the enemies of Richard Nixon triumph = the Alger Hisses and Helen Gahagan Douglasses, the Herblocks and the hippies, the George McGoverns and all the rest – America might end.

~Rick Perlstein, Nixonland

“While you are 100 percent certain that your preferred candidate’s stance on issues such as foreign policy and the economy would appeal to any human being with half a brain, there is, in this very same country, an equally large voting bloc which believes that you and your candidate of choice are absolutely insane,” the report’s co-author Dr. Mark Grier said during a press conference. “Every single thing you love about your candidate’s personality, vice presidential pick, and family, 60 million other registered voters absolutely deplore.”

“What you consider to be this country’s ruin,” Grier added, “these other people actually consider to be this country’s savior.”

~The Onion, 60 Million People You’d Never Talk To Voting For Other Guy

With the second Presidential debate behind us, the outcome of the election is essentially clear: Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States.

you don’t tell me anything

that’s not a dream

that’s not a big lie

you’re not going anywhere

you don’t care

you think that’s fine

you don’t owe me anything

you’re offering

it’s already mine

your best friend is everywhere

they don’t care

they think you’re slime

you don’t even know

what it means to take your own advice

and then

expect me to look surprised

after awhile you know their style and that’s enough to know they suck

and when you know they’ll stop the show because they know you know

I know it’s sad but don’t feel bad they knew they had it coming

after awhile it hurts to smile and if you laugh it’s just a typical miracle

~Built to Spill, “Stop the Show”

Last Friday, I skipped watching the debate between Obama and McCain to see Built to Spill perform their seminal album “Perfect From Now On” in its entirety at Terminal 5 in Manhattan.  I could hardly have made a better choice.

This diary will muse upon the events of the last week or so, with especial reference to recent DKos diaries which I’ve been reading, putting them in the context of the real conditions in which we live…  the end result will be to characterize the political economy of the present as “late, late capitalism” while reflecting upon DailyKos.com as a site of lively discussion about current events.

(crossposted at Big Orange)

It’s war for sure, and it’s being waged upon us, the People of the United States.

It’s being waged for reasons we’ll never fully understand.

It’s being waged for reasons not openly explained.

It’s being waged for guesswork-reasons that make little sense.

War waged as a shot in the dark making little sense to any free-thinking person.

Wed Sep 12, 2007 at 07:00:00 PDT

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